ROME — President Trump’s attacks on Italy’s premier have had an unintended consequence.
After Trump questioned Italy’s reliability as a wartime ally and claimed Giorgia Meloni had groveled for his attention, European leaders rallied to Meloni’s side, thawing what had been a frosty relationship over her hard-right political roots.
It is the latest example of how the often divisive American president is helping to draw Europe closer together.
European leaders are finding more reasons to coordinate on defense, tariffs and foreign policy as they confront wars in Ukraine and Iran, a ballooning trade deficit with China, and threats from Russia. That leaves Trump, who has often preferred to negotiate with European countries individually, with less ability to do so, analysts say.
“Most of the mainstream leaders realize that Europe is getting squeezed between China and America, and so, if not now, then when?” said Sudha David-Wilp, vice president at the German Marshall Fund. “They need to act as a bloc in order to maintain Europe’s place in the world.”
This newfound European unity could be tested next week at a NATO summit in Turkey.
Meloni’s spat with Trump has helped her strengthen ties with European leaders once wary of her party’s post-fascist roots.
A pivotal moment came in March when she wouldn’t allow U.S. bombers headed to the Middle East to use a base in Sicily without parliamentary approval.
For years before then, France and Germany often kept Meloni outside the small-group talks that helped shape Europe’s response to major foreign policy crises. That persisted into 2026 amid disagreements over the Russian war on Ukraine, including Meloni’s rejection of a proposal by Britain and France to send European troops there following a possible ceasefire.
But Trump’s escalating attacks on Meloni — who called Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo “unacceptable” — helped shift the dynamic, prompting European leaders to rally around her.
After all, they, too, have been on the receiving end of Trump’s barbs.
Meloni was firmly in the fold at a late June meeting in Berlin with the leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Poland. And she met the next day with French President Emmanuel Macron in southern France — the first bilateral summit since the pandemic.
Even nationalist parties across the continent once aligned with Trump are recalibrating their stances because his trade policies and war with Iran are proving unpopular with voters.
In France, far-right leader Jordan Bardella recently blasted U.S. actions as “foreign interference” and described Trump as “erratic” and “extremely unsteady.” Bardella had previously welcomed Trump’s brand of nationalism as a “wind of freedom.”
In Germany, leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party have criticized the U.S. military campaign against Iran. The co-leader of the party, Tino Chrupalla, said in March he was “extremely disappointed” with Trump, whom he had viewed as a politician who would avoid new conflicts.
The changing rhetoric comes as elections approach, putting more focus on domestic issues.
“This pushes everyone to consider a European horizon more than an international one,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a political analyst and professor at Rome’s LUISS University,
These dynamics are playing out beyond the European Union, from the Arctic Ocean to the Balkans.
When Trump threatened to take Greenland by force, protests erupted in its capital, Nuuk, and in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. Leaders across the political spectrum bristled at the threatened infringement of European sovereignty and feared it could shatter the already stressed NATO military alliance.
In Albania, a luxury development being planned that is linked to Trump’s family business has become a major political issue, drawing protests in June.
The political risks of close alignment with Trump were perhaps most clearly illustrated in Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — long regarded as Trump’s closest ally in the European Union — was voted out of office in April despite support from the U.S. president and prominent figures in the MAGA movement.
An analysis by the consultancy Maplecroft suggested that negative perceptions of the Trump administration may have weighed on Orbán politically.
Though Meloni remains closely aligned with Trump on issues like immigration and security, she has long diverged from him on Ukraine. Her steadfast support for Kyiv made her more palatable for European leaders and has been a key factor in forging a more united European front toward the U.S.
During their public spat last month, Meloni said her friendship with Trump came with a heavy political cost.
In her response to his accusation that she had “begged” to be photographed with him while at the recent G7 summit in France, she wrote on social media: “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you.”
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that Trump is deeply unpopular in Italy. According to the survey, 83% of Italians have no confidence in Trump’s ability to do the right thing regarding foreign affairs. His handling of a range of issues — including Iran, tariffs, and U.S. immigration policies — received a low level of support.
With a national election due by 2027 — and possibly as early as next spring — Meloni faces mounting political pressures, including fallout from the unpopular Iran war and her former ties to Trump.
Voters across Europe could hold their own politicians accountable for the actions of an American president beyond their control, said Castellani, the political analyst.
“At a certain point, when voters see the price of gasoline rising because of a war perceived as distant, they ask Meloni for the bill, not Trump.”
Zampano and McNeil write for the Associated Press. McNeil reported from Brussels. AP writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has spent months waging an unusually aggressive campaign to reshape how states run elections, leveraging federal agencies in ways no previous president has attempted.
He has pushed the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of citizens in each state to help determine voter eligibility. He is seeking to give the Postal Service a role in deciding who can receive mail ballots. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from states unless they phase out electronic voting machines. And he is pressuring Republican lawmakers to overhaul voting laws, claiming without evidence that elections are being rigged.
The efforts have run into resistance in court and within his own party. They have also left postal workers and local election officials bracing for an election cycle marked by deepening doubts about election integrity, and uncertainty about how the federal government may challenge the post-election results.
“It’s an unprecedented power grab to reshape how our elections work so that he and his allies can maintain and expand power,” said Eric Kashdan, director of federal advocacy at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government ethics organization.
The White House defends the effort as fulfilling a campaign promise, and argues the administration is “lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact.”
One of Trump’s defining efforts to assert some federal control over state elections has been his insistence on passing the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register, require Americans to show identification when casting a ballot and require states to send voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.
His relentless push for the measure has prompted him to derail a bipartisan housing bill and threaten to forgo signing any piece of legislation unless the voting measure is approved. He says he considers the matter a “national emergency.” Despite the pressure campaign, Senate Republican leaders maintain there is not enough support to pass the measure.
The political stakes ahead of the midterms have been laid out more bluntly by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), whose chamber has approved the SAVE America Act. Last month, Johnson warned conservatives gathered at the Faith & Freedom Coalition that if Democrats win back control of the House, they will “go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends,” and supporters.
“I run the protection program,” Johnson said. “I will take care of you.”
The administration’s ambitions have hit numerous snags in court in the last month, with judges reaffirming in many cases that the Constitution gives states — not the federal government — primary authority over elections.
In one case, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who was appointed by President Biden, went further.
She said a federal immigration database the Department of Homeland Security was compiling to determine voter eligibility violated privacy laws. She added that the database has resulted in states actively removing U.S. citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.
“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
James Percival, the general counsel for Homeland Security, said the ruling was the latest example of “how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority this week also dealt a blow to the GOP and upheld state laws that allow for counting mail ballots that are postmarked by election day but arrive late.
The decision left Trump fuming. He said it was a “a little bit surprising” to see the court’s decision, claiming without evidence that the result will inevitably give “people more time to vote illegally.”
Democrats, in turn, saw the ruling as a necessary check on the Trump administration’s efforts.
“While we continue to see unprecedented efforts to interfere with elections from the Trump administration, it is a relief to see federal courts make clear that these attacks on mail and absentee voting are clearly illegal and unconstitutional,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement after the ruling.
Trump is still eyeing changes to voting by mail. In March, he issued an executive order that seeks to limit who can receive mail ballots. Under the proposed rule, the Postal Service would not deliver mail ballots to states that don’t turn over sensitive voter data to the federal government, Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate panel last month.
The admission drew immediate condemnation from Democratic lawmakers. They argued the regulation is an illegal attempt to coerce states into handing over their voter rolls.
“Please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told Steiner. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Don’t taint it with the obsession of this one man.”
A day after that back-and-forth, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by President Obama, blocked those plans — at least for now.
“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” the judge wrote, while adding that the Postal Service does not have the legal authority to determine who can vote by mail and how.
The White House said Wednesday that the administration remains confident the executive order will be in place by the November election.
Taken together, the administration’s efforts are unprecedented, UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said. That’s because the Constitution puts control over elections in the hands of the states and grants Congress the ability to pass laws, he said.
“The president really only has authority through federal statutes that have already been passed,” Hasen said. “It’s not surprising that many courts have struck down or stopped him from doing things to try to interfere with how elections are being run.”
The legal setback for the Postal Service proposed rule was welcome news to the union representing postal workers.
“We believe that what we’re being asked to do is in violation of the oath that we took,” said Jonathan Smith, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers.
Following the ruling, the union called on the agency to abandon the rule, arguing it “will crush mailers’ trust in the Postal Service” and undermine “one of the most important functions the Postal Service and postal workers perform in service of the United States and its remarkable democracy.”
In several states, the union has run ads promoting mail voting as safe and a needed option for Americans. The ads were planned before Trump signed his executive order in March seeking to limit who can receive mail ballots, Smith said.
Now, the ads are taking a different meaning. Smith argued that “sometimes God works in mysterious ways.”
“The ad was then and is now intended as a piece to educate America about how good vote by mail is, how much it has been working out,” Smith said. “It’s an educational piece, not a response to the White House.”
Ahead of the election, Smith said postal workers are waiting for clarity on how their duties may change. But right now, he says, there isn’t much.
Orange County Registrar Bob Page said his office is monitoring any changes to existing federal and state election laws to ensure any changes, if needed, are implemented without disruptions. But he acknowledged the timing crunch could create some hurdles the closer the election gets.
“In many ways, any change to how California voters cast their ballots made between now and election day would create a challenge and may even be disruptive,” Page said.
He said many counties have ordered outgoing and return ballot envelopes for the election to ensure envelopes for more than 23 million California voters are ready to use by the Oct. 5 mailing deadline. Any change to how ballots should be prepared or mailed could present an issue.
“Our office has received calls from voters asking about potential changes to vote-by-mail procedures usually tied to media coverage about proposed changes,” he said. “We inform these voters that our procedures have not changed because the law has not changed and that we will mail their 2026 General Election ballots by Oct. 5.”
In Los Angeles County, election officials are also in a battle to bring clarity to the process as the administration ushers in a series of proposed changes to the election.
Dean Logan, the head of the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, said his office is fighting to contain a wave of election misinformation, including some that is amplified by the White House.
“It’s not something that we’ve seen happen before, and certainly not at the level we’ve seen,” Logan said.
Rather than respond to every claim, Logan says his office picks its battles, intervening only when a falsehood appears likely to reach a wide audience. Even then, the office tries to avoid engagement with whoever is spreading it.
If the administration imposes a new rule closer to the election, Logan said his office is ready to follow the law.
“It’s really been about finding this balance of staying alert and prepared for the possibility [of change] but also not getting sucked into the political distraction,” he said.
Last month, Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats have cheated to win California’s primary elections, and boasted about federal prosecutors in Los Angeles investigating the matter.
Trump has also continued to claim Democrats are trying to rig or cheat in the upcoming election, remarks that have faced rebukes from members of his own party.
“I think it is ironic that we control the House, Senate, Supreme Court and the White House and we are yelling election fraud. I mean, we won all the damn elections,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told reporters last month.
At the national level, Senate Democrats have said they plan to send election observers to polling places on behalf of Congress in reaction to Trump’s efforts.
“We are not waiting for chaos to arrive,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month. “We are preparing now.”
Times staff writer Justine McDaniel contributed to this report from Washington.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that the country is facing a “certain shortage” of fuel following Ukrainian drone strikes targeting its energy infrastructure, but insisted that “it’s not critical.”
“We need to minimize the consequences of terrorist attacks on
The M49 junction near Bristol(Image: National Highway (formerly Highways England))
The opening of a £50m ‘dead-end’ motorway junction near Bristol that was built seven years ago and has never been used could face further delays, it has been announced.
National Highways completed the bulk of the work on the two-bridge junction off the M49 – a stretch of road between Avonmouth and Severnside – in 2019. But plans to link the junction with a nearby industrial estate used by companies such as Tesco and Amazon stalled after a dispute arose over who was responsible for building the connecting road.
Now “defects” have been identified at the junction, National Highways has revealed. The body responsible for England’s roads said it was looking at options for remedial work following an engineering survey carried out by independent specialists.
“Discussions with our contractor are ongoing,” National Highways said in a statement. “We expect this will impact the opening of the South Gloucestershire Council link road, which is in construction.
“We remain committed to opening the junction as this will benefit the regional economy and communities. For safety reasons these defects must be addressed before we can connect it to local authority roads.
“We realise how frustrating this news will be to communities and businesses and we are working with the council and other partners on next steps.”
A spokesperson for South Gloucestershire Council said the news was “incredibly frustrating”.
“We share the anger and disbelief felt by local residents and businesses,” they said. “The council has committed to deliver the link road to connect to the M49 junction, and we remain on track to do so by the end of 2026.
“However, the opening of the junction once the link road is complete is solely a matter for National Highways.”
Under plans by the local authority, work on the link road was expected to finish this year and open to traffic in early 2027 – eight years after the junction was originally built.
But, according to South Gloucestershire Council, National Highways has not confirmed a programme or timeline for resolving issues affecting the junction and does not expect to provide an update until the autumn of this year.
“This uncertainty is deeply concerning for residents in nearby communities, who are affected by significant numbers of large vehicles using local roads,” the council spokesperson said.
“The delay is also a problem for businesses in Severnside, an area we all want to see grow and which needs to be properly connected to the strategic road network as soon as possible, in order to attract the investment to create jobs.
“We are pressing National Highways to provide as much information as possible, as soon as possible, about how and when they will make the junction ready for traffic and when we can expect the link road to be connected to the motorway in the way we have long planned. We will continue to press for answers and share updates as soon as further information becomes available.”
When the M49 junction was first proposed, it was hoped it would create an economic boost for the region and ease congestion on local roads by connecting the Port of Avonmouth and the Avonmouth and Severnside Enterprise Area.
But the project, which secured another £7m from the Department for Transport last year, has been hampered by delays, much to the chagrin of local residents and businesses.
Landownership issues, disagreements over responsibilities and navigating ecological challenges have all contributed to slowing up the opening of the so-called “ghost junction”, reports BusinessLive.
The MP for Thornbury and Yate, Claire Young, has slammed National Highways for taking so long to disclose the issue.
“It is farcical that National Highways has waited until now to tell us there is a problem with the M49 junction they built,” she said.
Ms Young said National Highways was “unable” to reveal what the problem was.
“It means that the opening of this long awaited ‘ghost junction’ will almost certainly be delayed. My thoughts are with the long suffering local residents who will have to continue to deal with lorries thundering down their roads from massive warehouses that were located specifically to use this motorway junction.
“The surrounding roads are being ripped to shreds by lorries they were never designed to carry. Communication throughout has been poor; businesses and some local people are only now being told about the issue. I will continue to press National Highways and the government to sort out this mess as quickly as possible.”
Peter Tyzack, chair of Pilning and Severn Beach Parish Council, said it was “very disappointing and frustrating”. “Residents and businesses have waited a long time for the junction to open,” he said. “The parish council has made clear that, while safety must come first, the local community cannot simply be expected to absorb the impact of further delay without support.”
The land owner of the distribution park, Delta, has also been contacted for comment.
KATIE Price has made a cryptic post about the hardship couples who are meant to be together sometimes face.
The TV star, 48, took to Instagram to share a quote for her followers and left it standing alone with no extra input on her story.
The quote reads: “Sometimes the two people who are truly meant for each other will face the hardest battles.”
Upon clicking on the post the quote expands to share more detail, continuing to say: “Not because they are wrong for each other. But because the world will test everything real.
“Love like that doesn’t come easy. It’s built through pain. Distance. Misunderstandings. Growth.
“But if they can hold on through the chaos. If they choose each other over and over again. They’ll find something most people only dream of.
“A love that didn’t just survive the storm. But became unbreakable because of it.”
The post comes shortly after Katie’s husband Lee Andrews was released from Dubai’s Al Awir prison.
After being accused of spying Lee claimed he was captured at gunpoint and ‘slapped around’ before Katie managed to save him.
He then praised his wife for her help in getting British authorities involved in his release.
Posting a video of himself on social media, Lee said: “Hi everyone, this is Lee. I’ve been missing now for several weeks. I can tell you I’m now safe and healthy and with my wife.
“I was taken close to the Hatta-Oman border by men at gunpoint and then I was captured by men with assault rifles.
“They did slap me around a little bit, little s***s, and I was hand-tied, shackled and also had a hood over my head.
“From there I was taken to a black site and I had no use of my phone and from what I know it was an extended arm of the National Guard and that’s all I can reveal at the moment.
“I have signed disclaimers now with state security and from there I was put into the system.
“At no point have I faced anything to do with fraud allegations or any criminal activities such as that.
“So thank you to Katie for making such a noise where the UAE actually listened and let me go.”
However, UAE officials debunked his claims he was in jail for spying and confirmed he has spent the past four weeks behind bars on suspicion of fraud.
Katie appeared to accept his story, sharing Lee’s video on Instagram saying: “My husband is back. I love you.”
Ryanair’s practice of charging parents to sit with their kids on flights could break consumer law, says the competition watchdog(Image: Getty Images)
Budget airline Ryanair is being investigated over its practice of charging parents to sit with their children on flights.
Watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority said it will decide whether it is “in line with consumer law”. Ryanair responded by branding the probe “bogus” and a “failed effort by the Starmer Government to pretend it cares about consumers”.
The Irish carrier requires at least one parent to sit with their children aged between two and 11, according to the watchdog. But it does this through what the airline calls a mandatory family seat, which typically costs about £8 each way. Paying to reserve a seat is optional for other passengers.
The CMA is investigating whether Ryanair’s approach means “parents are being charged for the airline to meet its child safety and disability-related obligations as set out under aviation rules”. Ryanair is “the only major airline flying out of the UK to impose this charge”, according to the watchdog.
Other carriers offer to seat children flying with a parent without the need for a paid reservation, or automatically allocate seats together during booking, the CMA said.
The investigation will also examine whether Ryanair’s mandatory family seat fee is dripped in during the booking process, which is when a business does not initially present customers with all unavoidable charges. The CMA added it is at the beginning of its investigation and has “reached no conclusions about whether Ryanair has broken the law”.
Hayley Fletcher, senior director of consumer protection at the CMA, said: “Lots of families save up to afford a summer holiday and we know that extra charges can quickly bump up the price. Our investigation will consider Ryanair’s approach to family seat reservations and how the cost is presented to consumers, to determine whether they comply with consumer law.
“For the past year, we’ve told businesses to ensure their customers are shown the total price upfront – those who don’t face the very real possibility of action from the CMA.”
Ryanair said in a statement: “Ryanair’s family seating policy fully complies with all relevant laws and regulations, and saves families money when travelling on the UK’s lowest fare airline.”
It said it “does not charge any fee for children to sit beside their parent”, and “parents travelling with children pay for only one (adult) reserved seat”.
It added: “This bogus CMA investigation is a failed effort by the Starmer Government to pretend it cares about consumers when it has failed to abolish APD (air passenger duty) which would immediately deliver lower fares for all consumers and growth for the UK aviation, tourism and wider economy. Ryanair looks forward to disproving these false CMA claims.”
Two years ago, Bashir Muhammad received an invitation to attend a journalism summit in Niamey but declined. That decision, and the argument it provoked, told him everything he needed to know.
He runs one of the growing number of Hausa-language digital news platforms that have emerged across northern Nigeria in the past decade, serving local audiences that legacy English-language media have largely ignored. That profile made him a target. In 2024, Bashir was approached by Mariam Laouali – a woman known across West African Hausa media circles as Sarkin Abzin. She is a prominent Nigerien broadcaster and, as he would come to understand, a committed supporter of the military regime that had seized power in Niamey the previous year.
In July 2023, the military junta, led by General Abdurrahman Tchiani, overthrew the democratically elected President Muhammad Bazoum. The coup met with strong resistance from the international community, particularly the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), under the leadership of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. This led to severe diplomatic tensions between ECOWAS and the new military regime in Niger, culminating in threats of invasion from Nigerian leaders and ultimately the division of ECOWAS and the formation of the Alliance of the Sahel States (AES). While some diplomatic efforts have been restored, tensions remain, and the Niger Republic, supported by Russia and its AES allies, has been engaged in information efforts to attack ECOWAS countries, particularly Nigeria and Benin Republic. Bashir felt this approach could be part of the recruitment efforts.
The pitch sounded professional. Sarkin Abzin told him of a pan-African summit of Hausa-language journalists to be convened in Niamey. It was the first of its kind, according to her. She described it as an exercise in cross-border media cooperation and a chance for journalists from across the continent’s Hausa-speaking belt to build something together.
Bashir had questions, but he did not like the answers, so he declined.
Sarkin Abzin pushed back, insisting that he should consider it, but he became more suspicious. The conversation escalated. By the end, she was visibly frustrated. It ended there.
“She didn’t take it well,” Bashir told HumAngle, sitting in his home office while casually scrolling on his computer, searching for her Facebook page. “The way she reacted told you this wasn’t just about journalism.”
He was right. It was not all about journalism. The summit in Niamey was just bait. What Sarkin Abzin and her sponsors in the Niger Republic seemed to want was access to northern Nigeria’s forty million Hausa speakers and to exploit their grievances and distrust of Nigerian leaders.
Many Nigerians were consumed by anxiety and bitterness over the country’s dire economic pressures. Many also harboured deep anger toward their leaders – particularly President Bola Tinubu, against whom protests erupted in August 2024, during which some demonstrators raised Russian flags and called for a coup. For that reason, this was a country where recruiting the discontented would come easily, because the grievances were already there, waiting.
Pro-junta actors and AES-aligned influence networks have been weaponising TikTok’s virality to erode confidence in Nigerian democratic leadership, particularly targeting President Tinubu and the broader ECOWAS establishment.
Online influencers and sympathetic media outlets, including some based within Nigeria itself, have circulated claims accusing Nigerian politicians of backing insurgent networks and conspiring with foreign powers to destabilise the AES states.
Sarkin Abzin’s tour of northern Nigerian newsrooms and radio stations in 2024 was, in retrospect, the visible edge of something much larger. She moved through Kano, through the northwest, knocking on the doors of editors and station managers, carrying the same pitch: come to Niamey, meet your counterparts, and build solidarity. Several journalists, like Bashir, declined quietly. A general manager at a prominent radio station in Kano, who pleaded anonymity, told HumAngle that Sarkin Abzin had reached him, but that he had turned her down.
“Looking at the timing when there was a diplomatic rift between Nigeria and Niger, and the suspicion of foreign influence, I felt it was unwise to join,” he said.
However, not everyone had the luxury of that suspicion, or the will to act on it. Musa Abba (not real name), a journalist at a private radio station in Kebbi State, saw a conference invitation and a chance to connect with Hausa journalists beyond Nigeria’s borders. His station was invited and the managers nominated him. Accommodation and food were covered by the organisers. The journey, according to him, was arranged through the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), in a vehicle shared with other attendees and, notably, with some politicians and government officials who had also been invited.
What he found in Niamey, however, upended the premise of the invitation entirely.
He concluded that “it was a sophisticated plan to form Hausa journalists who will be promoting the Nigerien junta and anti-West sentiment across Hausa-speaking countries.”
On her TikTok page, Sarkin Abzin does not hide her bias. She promotes Sahel juntas and specifically asks her followers to promote Tchiani.
In a social media exchange with Fati Niger, a Kannywood musician originally from the Niger Republic who had called for a return to democratic rule, Sarkin Abzin’s response betrayed her sentiments. “We don’t care about entertainment,” she mentioned in a TikTok video. What mattered, she said, was building their country and confronting those she described as “hypocrites and oppressors within the West,” as well as “hypocrites among us here, those in exile in every country in the world, including Nigeria, and those Nigerians who support the old system [of democracy] and do not stand behind these soldiers under Abdourahamane Tchiani.”
The summit Sarkin Abzin organised had state backing, institutional cover, and a well-hosted programme. It had everything, in other words, that a genuine journalism conference would have – except genuine journalism at its centre.
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The irony is that the junta in Niger has been repressing and arresting journalists in the country. Moussa Ngom, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)’s Francophone Africa representative, explained that “arrest and detention have become tools of choice for Nigerien authorities to try to control information they find undesirable.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that in October 2025 six journalists were arrested in Niamey – Moussa Kaka and Abdoul Aziz of Saraounia TV; Ibro Chaibou and Souleymane Brah from the online publication Voice of the People; Youssouf Seriba of Les Échos du Niger; and Oumarou Kané, founder of the magazine Le Hérisson – over their alleged role in circulating a government press briefing invitation on social media, criticising the introduction of the mandatory payment for “Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland”, a form of security levy in Niger.
The organisation behind the summit, Kungiyar Yan Jarida Na Afrika Masu Magana Da Harshen Hausa or, in French, Résegu Africain des journalistes en langue Haoussa (Association of Hausa-speaking Journalists in Africa), was founded by Sarkin Abzin herself. She held a senior position at RTN, the Nigerien state broadcaster. Her organisation, she told prospective attendees, had the backing of the Nigerien government institutions.
Inside the hall at the Centre International de Conférences Mahatma Gandhi in Niamey, when the summit was opened on Aug. 24, 2024, the keynote speakers were not press freedom advocates, editors or media economists. They were politicians. Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine appeared as Tchiani’s representative, delivering a speech whose original French had been translated into Hausa. He spoke about Niger’s exit from ECOWAS as a show of sovereignty.
The junta had, by this point, accused ECOWAS countries, particularly Nigeria and Benin, of colluding with France to destabilise Niger and sabotage its economy- allegations that, according to independent fact-checkers, had no credible evidentiary basis but which had proven effective at consolidating domestic support by replacing accountability with external threat. The Niamey summit was the moment that the narrative was offered to Nigerian voices who could carry it home.
Among those who spoke was Hamza Almustafa, a Nigerian retired general and a politician who used the platform to denounce the West. Najaatu Muhammad, a prominent northern Nigerian political figure, delivered what several attendees described as the most incendiary address of the proceedings. She told her audience that the Nigerian federal government was conspiring to sever Niger from Nigeria – to cut through bonds of religion and culture that no colonial border had ever truly divided. Abuja, she suggested, served Paris and Washington before it served Kano or Sokoto.
“It was not really a journalists’ meeting,” Musa told HumAngle, “By the time the politicians started speaking, those of us who understood what was happening knew we had made a mistake.”
Sarkin Abzin’s organisation had achieved, in a single day, what overt propaganda rarely manages: it had placed legitimate reporters in a room and given the junta’s narratives the texture of a press conference. The journalists went to Niamey to cover something. They came back as part of it.
HumAngle reached out to Sarkin Abzin for comment. She did not respond.
The Niamey summit was not the opening move in this campaign.
On Christmas Day of 2024, General Tchiani sat before the cameras of Radio-Télévision du Niger and delivered what a casual viewer might have mistaken for a holiday address. Although French had been Niger’s official language, he spoke in Hausa – a lingua franca in both Niger and most of northern Nigeria, spoken by millions across West Africa.
His choice of language was deliberate. The message was not addressed to Niamey alone. It was addressed to Kano and other Hausa-speaking states, particularly in Northern Nigeria, where there is an already visible pro-Russian and anti-West sentiment, as reflected in 2024 when Russian flags were raised during a nationwide protest against insecurity and economic hardship.
The claims Tchiani made were engineered to sound verified. He alleged that France had paid Nigerian authorities to establish a military base in Borno State with the sole aim of destabilising Niger and its Sahel Alliance partners. He also accused France of supplying Boko Haram fighters in the Lake Chad basin with anti-aircraft weapons. He claimed that France and ISWAP had struck an agreement to establish a Lakurawa training camp in the Gaba forest near Sokoto, and that Nigerian leaders were aware. He named Nigerian security officials by name. He cited dates and operational specifics to express the grammar of verified intelligence, though deployed in the service of disinformation.
The hook embedded in the allegations was not entirely invented, which is precisely what made it effective. Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters had classified Lakurawa as a terrorist organisation with jihadist affiliations just weeks earlier, in November 2024. HumAngle’s own investigations had revealed the group had operated in the northwest for around six years, with local security authorities having previously and dangerously dismissed it as a harmless faction of herders from across the border. The name was already known. The fear was already settled. Tchiani simply attached a culprit to both.
In Sokoto and Zamafara, where communities had been facing terrorist violence for years, the allegation did not sound outlandish.
“People said, ‘We always knew France was behind this,’” a civil society worker in Kano who monitors social media, Muhammad Hamza, told HumAngle. “Tchiani just confirmed what they already believed.”
When BBC Hausa published testimonies refuting Tchiani’s claims, the reaction was contemptuous. “We know you won’t agree because you’re all on the same side,” one commenter wrote. “But we believe what he said. We have seen the signs.”
A survey conducted by HumAngle in Kano State found that 50 per cent of the respondents believed Tchiani’s claims, 30 per cent were undecided, and only 20 per cent rejected them outright. Many pointed to President Tinubu’s perceived closeness to France as a reason for suspicion.
One respondent, Abubakar Saidu, explained his reasoning, “President Tinubu has been close to France since he assumed power, and we all know that France can create terrorists to attack Niger due to their diplomatic fallout.”
Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s National Security Advisor, had attempted to refute the claim, but it was unsuccessful. According to him, “Nigeria has never given its land to any foreign troops—not even Britain. When the [United States] requested a military base, we denied them, but Niger gave them.”
In a country with an audience that receives official rebuttals as confirmation of the original charge, its psyche could easily be captured. Nigerians didn’t believe Ribadu.
“This is the new reality of information warfare. It is no longer just about truth versus falsehood. It is about who controls the language in which truth is told. It is about who defines the enemy—and, ultimately, who is believed,” Kano-based security analyst Balarabe Ismail told HumAngle in April 2025.
Tchiani returned to the theme in June 2025, this time in a three-hour televised address delivered in Hausa, Zarma, and French, in which he again accused Nigeria of conspiring with France and the United States to sponsor terrorism, alleging a covert meeting in Abuja in December 2024 attended by CIA agents and Nigerian security officials who discussed arming groups targeting Niger.
Analysts had already identified increased activity from disinformation networks affiliated with Russia in Niger following the coup in Niger.
According to a report by Al Jazeera, since the July 2023 coup, Niger had become the latest hotbed of disinformation in the Sahel, with social media inundated by false rumours, misleading videos, and manipulated audio clips. The template, according to the report, was borrowed from Mali and Burkina Faso, where Wagner-linked networks had deployed online assets, locally cultivated contacts, and Russian state media to produce a sustained information environment that preceded, accelerated, and then legitimised military takeovers. In Niger, the same playbook ran faster because the infrastructure was already warm.
Following the death of Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, these operations were absorbed into two successor structures: the Russian Africa Corps, which provides military presence on the ground, and the Africa Initiative news agency, connected to Russian intelligence services and overseen from Moscow. Africa Initiative is an upgrade and institutional legitimacy that Wagner never possessed. With press credentials, cultural programming, and regional language capacity, it successfully dressed influence as media development.
The three Alliance of Sahel States junta leaders — in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso — have converged around a shared political project. They launched a joint television channel to promote a unified narrative across their territories, a regional media infrastructure whose audience mandate extends explicitly beyond their borders — into the Hausa-speaking communities of northern Nigeria, who share language, faith, and enough legitimate frustration to make the narratives land without the need for fabrication in every detail.
Sarkin Abzin’s journalist recruitment initiative sits within this structure. The goal may not have been to turn Nigerian journalists into salaried agents but to create a class of northern Nigerian media voices who feel a degree of solidarity with the junta’s framing.
A security analyst who works on influence operations in West Africa and spoke to HumAngle on condition of anonymity offered some insight. “What Niger and Russia are doing is not complicated,” he said. “They are creating the conditions under which Nigerian citizens begin to see their own government as the enemy.”
The operation has not yet achieved its full objective. Bashir Muhammad’s refusal was one of the resistance points among others. Some journalists who attended the Niamey summit have since spoken, cautiously, about the gap between what they were promised and what they found. The WhatsApp group formed after the summit, according to Musa Abba, the journalist who attended, had almost collapsed.
“They promised to continue communicating via WhatsApp and to organise more summits in other countries, but more than a year later they said nothing and group members didn’t say anything either,” he said. Even Sarkin Abzin’s Facebook page is no longer active.
This article was produced by HumAngle with support from the African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI) and the African Digital Democracy Observatory (ADDO) as part of an initiative by Code for Africa (CfA). Visit https://disinfo.africa/ for more information.
NEW YORK — Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America” during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Donald Trump with sufficient “negative firepower,” according to a long-awaited post-election autopsy released on Thursday by the Democratic National Committee.
The committee’s chair, Ken Martin, shared the 192-page report only after facing intense internal pressure from frustrated Democratic operatives concerned with his leadership. Martin had originally promised to release the autopsy, only to keep it under wraps for months because he was concerned it would be a distraction ahead of the midterms as Democrats mobilize to take back control of Congress.
On Tuesday, Martin apologized for his handling of the situation and conceded that the report was withheld because it “was not ready for primetime.”
Although the autopsy criticizes Democrats’ focus on “identity politics,” it sidesteps some of the most controversial elements of the 2024 campaign. The report does not address former President Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection, the rushed selection of Harris to replace him on the ticket or the party’s acrimonious divide over the war in Gaza.
“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin wrote in an essay on Substack on Thursday. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it. But transparency is paramount.”
A spokesperson for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The initial reaction from Democratic operatives was a mix of bafflement and anger over Martin’s handling of the situation.
“Why not say this in 2024, or bring in more people to finish it, instead of turning this into the dumbest media cycle for 7-8 months?” Democratic strategist Steve Schale wrote on social media.
The postelection report, which was authored by Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, calls for “a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone.”
“Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party,” the report says.
The autopsy points to a reduction in support and training for Democratic state parties, voter registration shifts and “a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters.”
Thursday’s release comes as Martin confronts a crisis of confidence among party officials who are increasingly concerned about the health of their political machine barely a year into his term. Some Democratic operatives have had informal discussions about recruiting a new chair, even though most believe that Martin’s job wasn’t in serious jeopardy ahead of the midterm elections.
The report found that Harris and her allies failed to focus enough on Trump’s negatives, especially his felony convictions. This was part of a broader criticism that Democrats’ messaging is too focused on reason and winning arguments, “even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.”
“There was a decision in the 2024 Democratic leadership not to engage in negative advertising at the scale required,” the report states. “The Trump campaign and supportive Super PACs went full throttle against Vice President Harris, but there was not sufficient or similar negative firepower directed at Trump by Democrats.”
The report continues: “It was essential to prosecute a more effective case as to why Trump should have been disqualified from ever again taking office. The grounds were there, but the messaging did not make the case.”
Trump’s attack on Harris’ transgender policies were cited as a key contrast.
Specifically, the report suggested the Democratic nominee was “boxed” in by the Trump campaign’s “very effective” ad that highlighted Harris’ previous statement of support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates.
Democratic pollsters believed that “if the Vice President would not change her position – and she did not – then there was nothing which would have worked as a response,” the report said.
The report criticized Harris’ outreach to key segments of America while condemning the party’s focus on “identity politics.”
“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate. The math doesn’t work,” the report says. “You can’t lose rural areas by overwhelming margins and make it up elsewhere when rural voters are a significant share of the electorate. If Democrats are to reclaim leadership in the Heartland or the South, candidates must perform well in rural turf. Show up, listen, and then do it again.”
The report also references Democrats’ underperformance with male voters of color.
“Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed. Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns, and don’t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color,” it says.
Peoples writes for the Associated Press.
With domestic football in Iran suspended because of the ongoing conflict, Nazon is following an individual training programme to prepare for the World Cup.
The Haiti squad have become heroes for leading the nation back to football’s grandest stage, where they will make just their second appearance at the finals.
Nazon acknowledges that the players are now “part of the country’s history” but insists they will play without “extra pressure”, starting with their opener against Scotland.
“We are ambassadors of our country and we know we have a responsibility,” he says. “We know the young people also see us as examples.
“But we don’t have to put extra pressure on ourselves and, when we play for our country, it’s more a mission and we do it with passion and with love.”
On loan at St Mirren from Belgian club Sint-Truiden for the second half of the 2018-19 season, Nazon “had a story” in Scotland. It was short-lived, though.
The forward played 12 games, scoring twice, but said he was “not ready for this kind of aggression and fight” in Scottish football, while the weather also played a part.
“I remember one game we had sun, snow and rain,” he recalls. “After this, I was like, OK, I’m done.”
Weather is unlikely to be an issue for Nazon this summer in North America. The striker, a friend of Scotland defender Dominic Hyam – with whom he played at Coventry – did, however, voice concerns about inflated ticket prices for the upcoming World Cup matches.
“There is only one thing that starts to go in my brain – it’s the ticket prices,” he says. “Hopefully this is not going to affect the crowd and people coming to the stadium, because we want this atmosphere.
“We want this energy around us. I’m looking forward to seeing Scottish people and Haitian people in the stadiums. This is going to be important.”
April 24 (UPI) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday dismissed an alleged leak from the U.S. Department of Defense suggesting that Spain could face being suspended from NATO in retaliation for not supporting the United States in its war with Iran.
Arriving in Cyprus for a meeting of European Union leaders, Sanchez said he was not worried and that Spain was fully compliant with its treaty commitments to the collective defense pact.
“No worries. The Spanish government’s position is clear: absolute cooperation with our allies, but always within the framework of international law,” was his response to questions regarding a leaked Pentagon email setting out potential actions that could be taken against NATO allies who failed to adequately support the war or were otherwise seen as uncooperative.
However, Sanchez refused to be drawn directly on the alleged contents of the internal U.S. government communication leaked by a U.S. official to Reuters, which broke the story on Friday.
He said the Spanish government could talk about relevant official U.S. documents and policy positions but “does not comment on emails.”
An outspoken critic of the U.S. military offensive against Iran, Spain was highlighted as the prime candidate for being ejected from NATO, but the United Kingdom was also earmarked for retribution with a proposal pitching a rethink of Washington’s support for British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
In 1982, Britain fought and won a 74-day war with Argentina over the South Atlantic territory after its forces overran and seized islands.
President Donald Trump was incensed by Sanchez’s refusal to permit U.S. military aircraft to use U.S.-Spanish airbases or Spain’s airspace to launch strikes on Iran, culminating in him threatening to sever bilateral trade.
Britain initially denied permission for U.S. warplanes to use its airbases but relented two days or so after the start of the war on Feb. 28, allowing aircraft engaged in “defensive” missions to fly out of RAF bases in Britain and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
The Pentagon, which the Trump administration moved to rename to the Department of War, appeared to justify taking some type of punitive action.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said NATO allies “were not there for us” regardless of “everything” the United States had done for them.
“The War Department will ensure that the president has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part. We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect,” she added.
Calling NATO “a source of strength,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was also attending the EU summit, called for unity.
“We must work to strengthen Nato’s European pillar… which must clearly complement the American one,” she said.
Berlin dismissed the idea Spain’s position within NATO was under any threat.
“Spain is a member of NATO. And I see no reason why that should change,” a German government spokesman said at a regular news briefing on Friday.
The 1949 treaty under which NATO was formed by the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and Iceland as a response to the Cold War contains no process or means for the expulsion or suspension of a member country.
Former NATO spokesperson and senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, Oana Lungescu, also dismissed the idea Spain could be suspended.
“It’s hard to know how seriously we should take such emails beyond ideological trolling,” she said.
Rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of using third-country deportations to intimidate asylum seekers and migrants.
Published On 22 Apr 202622 Apr 2026
Fifteen South American migrants and asylum seekers recently deported from the United States to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) say they are facing pressure to return to their countries of origin, despite concerns for their safety.
Women from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador told the Reuters news agency that, since being deported to the Central African nation last week, they have been given no credible options other than going back to their home countries.
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“We feel pressured to agree to go back to our country, regardless of the risks,” a 29-year-old Colombian woman, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals, told Reuters.
The group arrived in the DRC last week as part of a controversial third-country agreement with the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Since returning to the presidency for a second term, Trump has implemented hardline measures to restrict immigration to the US and expel immigrants already in the country, some of whom have legal status.
Among the 15 South Americans who were deported to the DRC, some say they had sought asylum — a legal immigration process — in the US after fleeing persecution in their home countries.
The 29-year-old woman, for example, wrote in her asylum application in January 2024 that she left Colombia after being kidnapped and tortured by an armed group, as well as suffering abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, who was a police officer.
A US immigration judge ruled in May 2025 that she was more likely than not to be tortured if she was sent home, according to court records reviewed by Reuters.
The AFP news agency also reported that a 30-year-old Colombian woman named Gabriela only learned that she was being sent to the DRC a day before last week’s flight. During a 27-hour trip, the hands and feet of the deportees were shackled.
“I didn’t want to go to Congo,” she told AFP. “I’m scared; I don’t know the language.”
Immigration advocates have said that third-country deportations are an effort to intimidate migrants and asylum seekers into agreeing to leave the US.
Such removals involve sending immigrants to places with which they have no familiarity. Many, including the DRC, are known for human rights concerns or are sites of active conflict.
“The goal is clear: Put people in a place so unfamiliar that they give up and agree to return home, despite the immense risk they face there,” said Alma David, a US-based lawyer representing one of the asylum seekers in the DRC.
SACRAMENTO — Before it all came crashing down, Eric Swalwell appeared on the cusp of rising to the top of the Democratic field in the California governor’s race.
Swalwell had just announced a statewide tour and aired his first ad. The former prosecutor and Dublin city councilman launched his campaign on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in November, a comfortable setting for a politician who’d built a national reputation by appearing on cable news shows to attack President Trump.
Influential forces in Sacramento had begun coalescing behind the then-Bay Area congressman, including some consultants and advisors close to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom hasn’t endorsed, but his associates’ involvement lent credibility to Swalwell.
Swalwell’s campaign quickly collapsed with the explosive allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and had acted inappropriately with other women who were just beginning political careers. Swalwell denies the allegations but dropped out of the race for governor and resigned his seat in the House.
The whiplash over Swalwell’s rapid rise and fall has Democratic leaders facing questions about whether they had a blind spot about his alleged behavior.
His onetime allies in Congress are being asked whether they knew about his conduct, which has been described as an open secret on Capitol Hill. Unions who backed Swalwell have fled, and political consultants are returning donations.
Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, speaks to Kaiser Permanente nurses and healthcare workers at the Kaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center in San Diego on Jan. 26.
(K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez, whose group endorsed Swalwell and three others in the race, said she confronted Swalwell more than a month ago after hearing rumors about womanizing and illicit photos.
“He’s a liar,” Gonzalez said. “He’s just a very skillful politician who did not tell the truth even when asked directly.”
Though he was little known in much of California, Swalwell, 45, was a youthful and fresh face in a field of candidates, many of them veteran politicians, when he entered the contest.
A little more than a week ago, his campaign was on an upward trajectory. His first statewide ad emphasized his hometown roots and concerns faced by Californians, including rising costs at his favorite doughnut shop in his hometown of Dublin. He rolled out new endorsements from state and federal elected officials almost daily.
Former and current advisors close to Newsom were also helping Swalwell’s campaign, multiple sources told The Times. Others associated with the governor are also helping rival candidates.
“He’s a liar. He’s just a very skillful politician who did not tell the truth, even when asked directly.”
— California Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez
Other Democrats in the race said the warnings about Swalwell should have been investigated more thoroughly by the powerful California politicians and interest groups that backed him.
Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, called him a “flash in the pan” — someone who lacked substance.
“People thought just because he was popular on TV that maybe he had been vetted,” Villaraigosa said. “He had not been vetted.”
Gubernatorial candidates Katie Porter and Antonio Villaraigosa share a moment while participating in a candidate forum in Los Angeles on Jan. 10.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Swalwell’s entrance into the race last fall came at a time when elected officials and leaders of powerful interest groups in Sacramento were unimpressed by the field, particularly after big-name Democrats including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had passed on running.
Steven Maviglio, a Sacramento-based Democratic consultant, said there was pressure to find the “perfect candidate” for the state’s most powerful office.
“Democrats are looking for a fighter against Trump, and he fit the bill,” Maviglio said. “That was enough for most people.”
As with most members of California’s congressional delegation, Swalwell was an unfamiliar figure to many Californians living outside his Alameda County district, even though he had a lighthearted, robust presence on social media.
He’d never held statewide office when he was elected to Congress after a career that included serving on the Dublin City Council and working as a criminal prosecutor for Alameda County.
But he appeared to be close to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who selected him to be an impeachment manager for the case against President Trump in 2021.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addresses the crowd at the California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco on Feb. 21, 2026.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
At a forum in Washington this week, Rep. Pelosi rejected suggestions that Democrats looked past the accusations.
“None whatsoever,” she said, when asked what allegations she’d heard about.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who previously worked alongside Swalwell on the House Judiciary Committee and endorsed him, said on MS NOW that he felt betrayed and “sickened” by the allegations.
“My paramount feeling is that I’m grateful these women came forward,” Schiff said. “I’m grateful that they did so when they did — it prevented our state from making a potentially terrible mistake.”
Sara Azari, an attorney for Swalwell, said in a statement that he denies all of the allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and will pursue “every legal remedy” against those making the claims.
“These accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive — a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azari said.
Attorney Lisa Bloom reaches toward a photo at a news conference where Lonna Drewes, left, is seen with former Rep. Eric Swalwell, at a news briefing in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. Drewes detailed a 2018 encounter in which she claimed Swalwell drugged and sexually assaulted her after offering professional mentorship.
(Myung J Chun/Los Angeles Times)
On Tuesday, Lonna Drewes accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her in 2018 while she worked as a model, an allegation now being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Azari, in an interview on NewsNation, said of Drewes’ allegation: “Two adults consenting, which is our position is, is not against the law.”
California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks declined to answer questions this week about whether the scandal hurts the party’s credibility, saying only that the allegations are “clear for voters: [Swalwell] is not a suitable choice.”
In an interview with The Times, Hicks said the party relies on delegates to vet candidates before endorsement votes at the party convention. While no gubernatorial candidate reached the necessary level of support to earn the endorsement at the February gathering, Swalwell had the largest share with 24%.
Gonzalez, of the labor federation, said she called Swalwell in the first week of March after being contacted by several people about his sexually inappropriate behavior.
She described the awkward conversation — and his immediate denials. None of it was true, he said. If there was anything sordid to find in his past, it would have been dug up by Trump and conservatives who went after him when he was helping to try and impeach the president, he said.
At the union group’s endorsement meeting, members grilled Swalwell about several issues, including his claimed residency in Livermore, his involvement with a nonunion film production, and his ability to manage his own finances.
The issue of inappropriate sexual behavior never came up at the endorsement, Gonzalez said.
“We were in a position, like so many, of trying to figure out who this guy was with all these red flags, but being told by a lot of surrogates that they were his choice — whether it’s people in Congress or folks who knew him from home,” Gonzalez said.
Other institutional players also threw in their support. The California Medical Assn. endorsed Swalwell early in February. The group represents more than 50,000 physicians in the state and spends heavily in elections.
“It definitely was a nod that that’s where the establishment should head,” Maviglio said.
California Medical Assn. spokesperson Erin Mellon said the group met with candidates and backed Swalwell “based on the information available to us” at the time.
Behind the scenes, Swalwell was courting attention. He began hanging out at the Grange, a favorite hotel bar in Sacramento for state lawmakers and lobbyists, trying to make connections, according to a source who ran into him there.
Months earlier, he sent a text to a California political consultant with questions about who should help his campaign. He asked about the well-known firm of Bearstar Strategies, according to the text exchange, which was viewed by The Times.
Swalwell texted, “would you recommend having our IE go to them?” to the consultant, a reference to an “independent expenditure,” which is an outside committee that raises money in support of candidates but is barred from coordinating with their campaigns.
Bearstar Strategies ultimately launched an independent committee to support Swalwell, which in recent weeks raised more than $7 million from political action committees for the California Medical Assn., DaVita and other medical industry groups, as well as Uber.
Antonio Villaraigosa, left, shakes hands with Tom Steyer during a gubernatorial candidate forum in Sacramento on April 14, 2026.
(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
Bearstar Strategies, whose members have long advised Newsom, also provides media consultants for a committee running attack advertisements against environmentalist Tom Steyer, another candidate in the race. Swalwell would have benefited from the committee’s spending.
Jim DeBoo, a consultant and Newsom’s former chief of staff, is helping on the anti-Steyer committee, according to multiple sources, which has raised $14 million from real estate agents’ and utility industry groups. DeBoo didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a representative for Bearstar declined a request for an interview.
No one has claimed that any of those consultants or individuals knew about Swalwell’s alleged behavior. Bearstar Strategies said in a statement last week that it had suspended all activity on Swalwell’s independent expenditure.
Jamie Court, president of the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog, said institutional groups backed Swalwell because they thought he could win and they wanted to maintain the status quo in Sacramento.
“They picked the wrong guy,” Court said.
