president

WASHINGTON — When President Trump doesn’t like someone, he knows how to show it. In just the last few days, he’s described Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a traitor, mocked Rep. Thomas Massie’s second marriage after his first wife died and demanded that comedian Seth Meyers get fired from his late-night television show.

But he had nothing bad to say about two people roiling his party: white nationalist Nick Fuentes and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host recently hosted Fuentes for a friendly interview, where he declined to challenge his guest’s bigoted beliefs or a remark about problems with “organized Jewry in America.”

Asked about the controversy that has been rippling through Republican circles for weeks, Trump did not criticize Fuentes and praised Carlson for having “said good things about me over the years.”

The president’s answer echoes his longstanding reluctance to disavow — and sometimes, his willingness to embrace — right-wing figures who have inched their way from the political fringe to the Republican mainstream.

“We are disappointed in President Trump,” said Morton Klein, president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, adding that he should “rethink and retract” his comments.

The threat of antisemitism, which has percolated across the political spectrum, will likely be a recurring political issue in the coming year, as Democrats and Republicans battle for control of Congress in the midterms. Although Trump has targeted left-wing campus activism as a hive of anti-Jewish sentiment, Fuentes’ influence is a test of whether conservatives are willing to accommodate bigots as part of their political coalition.

A top conservative group faces antisemitism controversy

The turmoil has already engulfed the Heritage Foundation, a leading think tank whose president Kevin Roberts initially refused to distance himself from Carlson. A member of Heritage’s board of trustees, Robert George, announced his resignation Monday, which followed a recent decision by an antisemitism task force to sever its ties with the organization.

Although Roberts has apologized, George said “we reached an impasse” because he didn’t fully retract his original support for Carlson.

“I pray that Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,’” George wrote on Facebook, quoting the Declaration of Independence.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore, an evangelical conservative activist and film producer, joined Heritage’s antisemitism task force in June but stepped away when Roberts refused to resign.

“If we aren’t solid on condemning antisemitism, shame on us,” she said Monday.

Cardoza-Moore praised Trump’s record on supporting Israel but said he fell short on Sunday while talking about Carlson and Fuentes.

“We can all agree — and I wish — that he would have gone further,” she said.

It’s unclear what kind of pressure Trump will face despite his previous dalliance with Fuentes, who had dinner with the past-and-future president at his Mar-a-Lago club in between his two terms.

“I don’t think President Trump during his first or second term could be acting more strongly to prevent antisemitism,” said Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He noted Trump’s first-term relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and, more recently, the president’s handling of the war in Gaza.

This is not the first time Trump has shied away from criticizing fringe elements on the right. During his first campaign for president, Trump initially declined to disavow support from white nationalist David Duke, saying, “I just don’t know anything about him.”

He claimed there were “very fine people on both sides” during racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. While running for reelection, he told the extremist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

Trump’s unwillingness to condemn either Fuentes or Carlson has the potential to prolong a rift within the Republican Party. On Sunday, as he prepared to fly back to Washington from a weekend in Florida, Trump praised Carlson and said “you can’t tell him who to interview.”

“If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes — I don’t know much about him — but if he wants to do it, get the word out,” Trump said. “People have to decide.”

Fuentes liked what he heard, posting “Thank you Mr. President!” on social media.

Trump’s remarks run counter to a wave of objections that have flowed from key Republicans. The issue will be the focus of a planned gathering of pro-Israel conservative leaders on Tuesday in Washington called “Exposing and Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Political Right.”

The event features U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Klein, of the Zionist Organization of America.

Perkins said the event has been discussed for some time. “But with recent comments by folks like Tucker, there was an urgency to go ahead and hold the conference,” he said.

The recent annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas was similarly focused on condemning antisemitism within the party, a shift from the original plans to celebrate the ceasefire in Gaza and the return of Hamas-held hostages.

Brooks said at the time, “We are at this point in what I consider sort of the early stages of an undeclared civil war within the Republican Party, as it relates to Israel, and antisemitism and the Jewish community.”

“And it’s really going to be our challenge going forward to combat that before it has a chance to grow and metastasize in the Republican Party,” Brooks said.

During one part of the conference, college students waved red signs that read, “Tucker is not MAGA.”

Trump addressed the summit by prerecorded video, using his time to promote his administration’s support for Israel. He did not mention the controversy that had dominated the conference.

Megerian and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is set to fete Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday when the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia makes his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S. intelligence agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed the agents to carry out.

But seven years later, the dark clouds over the relationship have been cleared away. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old crown prince he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle East in the decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies involvement in the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia resident.

Khashoggi will likely be an afterthought as the two leaders unveil billions of dollars in deals and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky path ahead in a volatile Middle East. They’ll end their day with an evening White House soiree, organized by first lady Melania Trump, to honor the prince.

“They have been a great ally,” Trump said of the Saudis on the eve of the visit.

Rolling out the red carpet

Technically, it’s not a state visit, because the crown prince is not the head of state. But Prince Mohammed has taken charge of the day-to-day governing for his father, King Salman, 89, who has endured health problems in recent years.

Most foreign leaders who come to meet with Trump are driven up to the doors of the West Wing, where the president often greets them. But Prince Mohammed, accompanied by the Saudi prime minister, will be welcomed with an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn.

An Oval Office meeting and luncheon in the Cabinet Room will follow.

Trump will then see the crown prince off in the afternoon but he’s expected to return to the South Lawn, with the first lady, to welcome the crown prince when he returns for the evening East Room dinner.

In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.

Fighter jets and business deals

Ahead of Prince Mohammed’s arrival, Trump announced he has agreed to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the U.S. technology behind the advanced weapon system.

Trump’s announcement is also surprising because some in the Republican administration have been wary about upsetting Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is depending on Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.

But the unexpected move comes at a moment when Trump is trying to nudge the Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel.

The president in his first term had helped forge commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates through an effort dubbed the Abraham Accords.

Trump sees expansion of the accords as essential to his broader efforts to build stability in the Middle East after the two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

And getting Saudi Arabia — the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of Islam — to sign on would create an enormous domino effect, he argues. The president in recent weeks has even predicted that once Saudi Arabia signs on to the accords, “everybody” in the Arab world “goes in.”

But the Saudis have maintained that a clear path toward Palestinian statehood must first be established before normalizing relations with Israel can be considered. The Israelis, meanwhile, remain steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved a U.S. plan for Gaza that authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in the devastated territory and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Assurances on U.S. military support

The leaders certainly will have plenty to talk about including maintaining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about Iran’s malign behavior, and a brutal civil war in Sudan.

And the Saudis are looking to receive formal assurances from Trump defining the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even though anything not ratified by Congress can be undone by the next president.

Prince Mohammed, 40, who has stayed away from the West after the Khashoggi killing, is also looking to reestablish his position as a global player and a leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in sectors like mining, technology and tourism.

To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two countries will lay out details about new cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly ahead of the formal announcement.

A coalition of 11 human rights groups ahead of the crown prince’s visit called on the Trump administration to use its leverage to press Saudi authorities, who badly want to broaden its business and defense connections with the U.S., to make concrete commitments on human rights and press freedom during the visit.

The activists say Saudi authorities continue to harshly repress dissent, including by arresting human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents for criticism against the kingdom. Human rights organizations have also documented a surge in executions in Saudi Arabia that they connect to an effort to suppress internal dissent.

“Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is trying to rebrand himself as a global statesman, but the reality at home is mass repression, record numbers of executions, and zero tolerance for dissent,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at the group Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “U.S. officials should be pressing for change, not posing for photos.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Josh Boak and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — In political exile at his mansion in Florida, under investigation for possessing highly classified documents, Donald Trump summoned his lawyer in 2022 for a fateful conversation. A folder had been compiled with 38 documents that should have been returned to the federal government. But Trump had other ideas.

Making a plucking motion, Trump suggested his attorney, Evan Corcoran, remove the most incriminating material. “Why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out,” Corcoran memorialized in a series of notes that surfaced during criminal proceedings.

Trump’s purported willingness to conceal evidence from law enforcement as a private citizen is now fueling concern on Capitol Hill that his efforts to thwart the release of Justice Department files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation could lead to similar obstructive efforts — this time wielding the powers of the presidency.

Since resuming office in January, Trump has opposed releasing files from the federal probe into the conduct of his former friend, a convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker who is believed to have abused more than 200 women and girls. But bipartisan fervor has only grown over the case, with House lawmakers across party lines expected to unite behind a bill on Tuesday that would compel the release of the documents.

Last week, facing intensifying public pressure, the House Oversight Committee released over 20,000 files from Epstein’s estate that referenced Trump more than 1,000 times.

Those files, which included emails from Epstein himself, showed the notorious financier believed that Trump had intimate knowledge of his criminal conduct. “He knew about the girls,” Epstein wrote, referring to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”

Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), a member of the oversight committee, noted Trump could order the release of the Justice Department files without any action from Congress.

“The fact that he has not done so, coupled with his long and well documented history of lying and obstructing justice, raises serious concerns that he is still trying to stop this investigation,” Min said in an interview, “either by trying to persuade Senate Republicans to vote against the release or through other mechanisms.”

A spokesperson for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said that altering or destroying portions of the Epstein files “would violate a wide range of federal laws.”

“The senator is certainly concerned that Donald Trump, who was investigated and indicted for obstruction, will persist in trying to stonewall and otherwise prevent the full release of all the documents and information in the U.S. government’s possession,” the spokesperson said, “even if the law is passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.”

After the House votes on the bill, titled the Epstein Files Transparency Act, bipartisan support in the Senate would be required to pass the measure. Trump would then have to sign it into law.

Trump encouraged Republican House members to support it over the weekend after enough GOP lawmakers broke ranks last week to compel a vote, overriding opposition from the speaker of the House. Still, it is unclear whether the president will support the measure as it proceeds to his desk.

On Monday, Trump said he would sign the bill if it ultimately passes. “Let the Senate look at it,” he told reporters.

The bill prohibits the attorney general, Pam Bondi, from withholding, delaying or redacting the publication of “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

But caveats in the bill could provide Trump and Bondi with loopholes to keep records related to the president concealed.

“Because DOJ possesses and controls these files, it is far from certain that a vote to disclose ‘the Epstein files’ will include documents pertaining to Donald Trump,” said Barbara McQuade, who served as the United States attorney for the eastern district of Michigan from 2010 until 2017, when Trump requested a slew of resignations from U.S. attorneys.

Already, this past spring, FBI Director Kash Patel directed a Freedom of Information Act team to work with hundreds of agents to comb through the entire trove of files from the investigation, and directed them to redact references to Trump, citing his status as a private citizen with privacy protections when the probe first launched in 2006, Bloomberg reported at the time.

“It would be improper for Trump to order the documents destroyed, but Bondi could redact or remove some in the name of grand jury secrecy or privacy laws,” McQuade added. “As long as there’s a pending criminal investigation, I think she can either block disclosure of the entire file or block disclosure of individuals who are not being charged, including Trump.”

Destroying the documents would be a taller task, and “would need a loyal secretary or equivalent,” said Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus and FBI historian at the University of Edinburgh.

Jeffreys-Jones recalled J. Edgar Hoover’s assistant, Helen Gandy, spending weeks at his home destroying the famed FBI director’s personal file on the dirty secrets of America’s rich and powerful.

It would also be illegal, scholars say, pointing to the Federal Records Act that prohibits anyone — including presidents — from destroying government documents.

After President Nixon attempted to assert executive authority over a collection of incriminating tapes that would ultimately end his presidency, Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, asserting that government documents and presidential records are federal property. Courts have repeatedly upheld the law.

While presidents are immune from prosecution over their official conduct, ordering the destruction of documents from a criminal investigation would not fall under presidential duties, legal scholars said, exposing Trump to charges of obstructing justice if he were to do so.

“Multiple federal laws bar anyone, including the president or those around him, from destroying or altering material contained in the Epstein files, including various federal record-keeping laws and criminal statutes. But that doesn’t mean that Trump or his cronies won’t consider trying,” said Norm Eisen, who served as chief ethics lawyer for President Obama and counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

The Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Eisen, has sued the Trump administration for all records in the Epstein investigation related to Trump, warning that “court supervision is needed” to ensure Trump doesn’t attempt to subvert a lawful directive to release them.

“Perhaps the greatest danger is not altering documents but wrongly withholding them or producing and redacting them,” Eisen added. “Those are both issues that we can get at in our litigation, and where court supervision can be valuable.”

Jeffreys-Jones also said that Trump may attempt to order redactions based on claims of national security. But “this might be unconvincing for two reasons,” he said.

“Trump was not yet president at the time,” he said, and “it would raise ancillary questions if redactions did not operate in the case of President Clinton.”

Last week, Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to Democratic figures, including Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder and a major Democratic donor.

He made no request for the department to similarly investigate Republicans.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

Summers says he will be taking a step back from engagements after his emails discussing personal and political matters with Epstein made public.

Former Harvard president Larry Summers has apologised and says he will be stepping back from public life after his email exchanges with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were made public.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognise the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement published by CBS News on Monday.

“While continuing to fulfil my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” he said.

The emails were among the 20,000 pages of documents obtained from Epstein’s estate and released last week by the United States House Committee on Oversight amid ongoing questions about the ex-financier’s relationship with President Donald Trump.

Epstein died by suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He was previously convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor, but he served a light 13-month sentence. Before his downfall in 2019, Epstein was in constant contact with world leaders, celebrities, and high-profile figures like Summers.

The emails between Epstein and Summers span from at least 2017 to 2019 and cover a range of topics, including US foreign policy to Trump’s first presidency, as well as personal matters.

In one email from 2017, Summers advises Epstein that his “pal”, billionaire Thomas Barrack Jr, should stay out of the press following a Washington Post story about Barrack Jr’s relationship with both Trump and political lobbyist Paul Manafort.

“Public link to manafort will be a disaster,” he wrote. “This is a staggering [expletive] show.”

In another December 2018 email, Summers asks Epstein for help securing an invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which Epstein appears to turn down.

Summers previously served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and as an adviser to President Barack Obama. He also served as the president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006, when he was forced to resign over remarks suggesting that women were less adept at maths and science than men due to biological differences.

His recent posts include board member at OpenAI and distinguished senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress, according to NBC News. He remained a tenured professor at Harvard after stepping down.

In his emails with Epstein, Summers appears to have held on to his beliefs about women more than 10 years later. In one October 2017 email to Epstein about an event that included “lots of slathering to Saudis”, he wrote that he “yipped about inclusion”.

“I observed that half the IQ in world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the population …,” he wrote in the email to Epstein.

In another email the same month, written at the height of the #MeToo movement, Summers appeared disenchanted with the wave of resignations over sexual and personal misconduct by US public figures.

“I’m trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank,” he said in the email to Epstein.

In another email exchange between late November and early December 2018, he and Epstein discuss his relationship with a female colleague at length and how Summers – who was then in his mid-60s – should handle the situation.

“Think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor. I think I’m right now in the seen very warmly in rearview mirror category. She did not want to have a drink cuz she was ‘tired.’ I left the hotel lobby somewhat abruptly. When I’m reflective, I think I’m dodging a bullet,” Summers wrote to Epstein.

“Smart. Assertive and clear. Gorgeous. I’m [ expletive],” Summers wrote in a follow-up email describing the woman, before later concluding a “cooling off” period was needed.

The elections pit the governing leftist coalition against a conservative challenger, and will also redefine the country’s legislature.

Chileans are voting to pick a new president and Congress as more than 15 million registered voters will decide whether the country stays on its current centre-left course or, like its neighbour Argentina, makes a sharp turn to the right.

Polls opened at 8am (11:00 GMT) on Sunday and are expected to close at 6pm (21:00 GMT) as one of the Latin American country’s most divisive elections in recent times got under way.

A change from the previous elections is mandatory voting for registered voters.

The starkly divided frontrunners are Jeannette Jara, the 51-year-old governing coalition candidate from the Communist Party, and Jose Antonio Kast, 59, of the Republican Party who promises “drastic measures” to fight rising gang violence and deport undocumented immigrants.

Polls suggest that none of the eight candidates on the ballot will secure the majority of votes needed to avoid a run-off on December 14.

Left-wing President Gabriel Boric is constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term.

Security high on agenda

The election campaign was dominated by rising crime and immigration, leading to calls for an “iron fist” and United States President Donald Trump-style threats of mass deportations.

A sharp increase in murders, kidnappings and extortion over the past decade has awakened large security concerns in one of Latin America’s safest nations, a far cry from the wave of left-wing optimism and hopes of drafting a new constitution that brought Boric to power.

Boric has made some strides in fighting crime. Under his watch, the homicide rate has fallen 10 percent since 2022 to six per 100,000 people, slightly above that of the US.

But Chileans remain transfixed by the growing violence of criminals, which they blame on the arrival of gangs from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

Kast, called “Chile’s Trump”, has promised to end undocumented immigration by building walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s desert border with Bolivia, the main crossing point for arrivals from poorer countries.

Before the elections, he issued 337,000 undocumented immigrants with an ultimatum to sell up and self-deport or be thrown out and lose everything if he wins power.

The previous elections saw an abstention rate of 53 percent in the first-round voting, and the large amount of apathetic or undecided residents set to cast ballots this time adds a wild card to the race.

Most of Congress is up for grabs with the entirety of the 155-member Chamber of Deputies and 23 of the country’s 50 Senate seats up for grabs.

The governing leftist coalition currently has a minority in both chambers. If the right wing wins majorities in both, it could set the stage for Congress and the presidency to be controlled by the right for the first time since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1990.

WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was unapologetic about putting America first. He promised to secure the nation’s borders, strengthen the domestic workforce and be tough on countries he thought were taking advantage of the United States.

Now, 10 months into his second term, the president is facing backlash from some conservatives who say he is too focused on matters abroad, whether it’s seeking regime change in Venezuela, brokering peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza or extending a $20-billion currency swap for Argentina. The criticism has grown in recent days after Trump expressed support for granting more visas to foreign students and skilled immigrant workers.

The cracks in the MAGA movement, which have been more pronounced in recent weeks, underscore how Trump’s once impenetrable political base is wavering as the president appears to embrace a more global approach to governing.

“I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally,” Trump said this week when asked to address the criticism at an Oval Office event. “We could have a world that’s on fire where wars come to our shores very easily if you had a bad president.”

For backers of Trump’s MAGA movement, the conflict is forcing some to weigh loyalty to an “America first” ideology over a president they have long supported and who, in some cases, inspired them to get involved in the political process.

“I am against foreign aid, foreign wars, and sending a single dollar to foreign countries,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in recent weeks has become more critical of Trump’s policies, said in a social media post Wednesday. “I am America First and America Only. This is my way and there is no other way to be.”

Beyond America-first concerns, some Trump supporters are frustrated with him for resisting the disclosures about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network of powerful friends — including Trump. A group of Republicans in the House, for instance, helped lead an effort to force a vote to demand further disclosures on the Epstein files from the Justice Department.

“When they are protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I’m sorry, I can’t go along with that,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a CNN interview. “And back home, people agree with me. They understand, even the most ardent Trump supporters understand.”

When asked to respond to the criticism Trump has faced in recent weeks, the White House said the president was focused on implementing “economic policies that are cutting costs, raising real wages, and securing trillions in investments to make and hire in America.”

Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican consultant, believes the Epstein scandal has sped up a Republican backlash that has been brewing as a result of Trump deviating from his campaign promises.

“They are turning on him, and it’s a sign of the inviolable trust being gone,” Madrid said.

The MAGA movement was not led by a policy ideology, but rather “fealty to the leader,” Madrid said. Once the trust in Trump fades, “everything is gone.”

Criticism of Trump goes mainstream

The intraparty tension also has played out on conservative and mainstream news outlets, where the president has been challenged on his policies.

In a recent Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump was pressed on a plan to give student visas to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, a move that would mark a departure from actions taken by his administration this year to crack down on foreign students.

“I think it is good to have outside countries,” Trump said. “Look, I want to be able to get along with the world.”

In that same interview, Trump said he supports giving H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers because the U.S. doesn’t have workers with “certain talents.”

“You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles,’” Trump argued.

Trump in September imposed a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled workers, a move that led to confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and H-1B visa holders. Before Trump’s order, the visa program had exposed a rift between the president’s supporters in the technology industry, which relies on the program, and immigration hard-liners who want to see the U.S. invest in an American workforce.

A day after Trump expressed support for the visa program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added fuel to the immigration debate by saying the administration is fast-tracking immigrants’ pathway to citizenship.

“More people are becoming naturalized under this administration than ever before,” Noem told Fox News this week.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close ally of Trump, said the administration’s position was “disappointing.”

“How is that a good thing? We are supposed to be kicking foreigners out, not letting them stay,” Loomer said.

Polling adds on the heat

As polling shows Americans are growing frustrated with the economy, some conservatives increasingly blame Trump for not doing enough to create more jobs and lower the cost of living.

Greene, the Georgia Republican, said on “The Sean Spicer Show” Thursday that Trump and his administration are “gaslighting” people when they say prices are going down.

“It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store,” she said, while urging Republicans to “show we are in the trenches with them” rather than denying their experience.

While Trump has maintained that the economy is strong, administration officials have begun talking about pushing new economic policies. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said this week that the administration would be working to provide consumers with more purchasing power, saying that “we’re going to fix it right away.”

“We understand that people understand, as people look at their pocketbooks to go to the grocery store, that there’s still work to do,” Hassett said.

The acknowledgment comes after this month’s elections in key states — in which Republicans were soundly defeated — made clear that rising prices were top of mind for many Americans. The results also showed Latino voters were turning away from the GOP amid growing concerns about the economy.

As Republicans try to refocus on addressing affordability, Trump has continued to blame the economic problems on former President Biden.

“Cost, and INFLATION, were higher under the Sleepy Joe Biden administration, than they are now,” Trump said in a social media post Friday. He insisted that under his administration costs are “tumbling down.”

When millions of European immigrants came to the United States in the 19th century only to be scorned by mainstream society, it was the Catholic Church that embraced them, taught that keeping the customs of one’s native lands was not bad and created systems of mutual aid and education for the newcomers that didn’t rely on the government.

The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, an Irish American Catholic, showed that the U.S. was ready to expand its definition of who could become president. Labor organizers like Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day and Mother Jones pushed for the dignity of workers while frequently citing the woke words of Jesus — the Sermon of the Mount and the Beatitudes among the wokest — as the fuel for their spiritual fire.

Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that’s the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. My work desk covered with statues and devotional cards of Jesus, Mary and the saints is a physical testament to this.

But I’m also one of the 72% of U.S. Catholics that a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. found don’t attend weekly Mass, which we’re obligated to do.

I stopped going early on in my adulthood because the Church became something I didn’t recognize.

The bishops and cardinals who preached we should follow Jesus’ admonition we should tend to the least among us presided over a child sex abuse scandal in the 1990s and 2000s that cost parishioners billions of dollars in legal settlements and their ethical high ground. The obsession that too many of those same church leaders had over abortion and homosexuality — which Christ never talked about — over social justice matters during the Obama administration left me disappointed. Their continual condemnation of pro-choice Catholic Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for taking Communion while staying silent about Donald Trump’s constant violations of the Ten Commandments was rank hypocrisy.

The Pew Research Center found 55% of my fellow faithful voted for Trump. Key Catholics have blessed Trump’s uglier tendencies: A majority of them rules over our revanchist Supreme Court while the president’s team features a vice president who’s a convert and a rogue’s gallery of influential insiders that bear surnames from previous generations of Catholic diasporas — Kennedy, Rubio, Bovino, Homan among the worst of the worst.

Yet I remain a Catholic because you shouldn’t turn your back so easily on institutions that formed you and you don’t cede your identity to heretics. The election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American to head the Holy See, to succeed Pope Francis stirred in me the sense that things might change for the better as our country worsens.

Now, without naming him, the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has rebuked Trump on his signature issue and one close to my heart in a way that shows my hope hasn’t been in vain.

Clergy attend the 2021 Fall General Assembly meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, Md.

(Julio Cortez/Associated Press)

This week the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a so-called “special message” to blast Trump’s deportation Leviathan, decrying its “vilification of immigrants” “the, indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and how hundreds of thousands of residents have “arbitrarily lost their legal status.” Citing passages from across the Bible — the Gospel, the Old Testament, the Letters of Paul — to argue for the human worth of the undocumented and the holy mandate that we must care about them, it was the first time since 2013 that American bishops collectively authored such a statement.

Even as a majority of U.S. Catholics have gone MAGA, support for the special message was overwhelming: 216 bishops voted in favor, 5 against, and there were 3 abstentions. Their missive even concluded with a shout-out to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the brown, pregnant apparition of the Virgin Mary who’s the patroness of the Americas for Catholics.

Talk about someone who would get deported if la migra saw Her on the street.

The cruelty this administration has shown throughout its deportation campaign — families torn apart as easily as the Constitution; U.S. citizens detained; wanton federal violence that a federal judge in Chicago described as “shock[ing] the conscience” — has become one of the most pressing moral issues of our times. The call by Catholic bishops to oppose this wrong is important — so like a voice crying in the wilderness, the church must set an example for the rest of the country to follow.

This example already is being set in parishes across Southern California.

Priests and deacons have marched at rallies and prayed for those detained and deported from Orange County to downtown L.A. and beyond. Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights has let local activists stage know-your-rights workshops since Trump won last November. While L.A archbishop José H. Gomez and Diocese of Orange bishop Kevin Vann, the two most senior Catholic prelates in the region, have spoken out forcefully against immigration raids, some of their local brother bishops have pushed harder.

Diocese of San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas has allowed Catholics who are afraid of la migra to skip Mass since July after immigration agents detained migrants on church property, arguing “such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience” for his flock. In San Diego, Bishop Michael Pham — who’s been in his seat for only four months — helped launch a program encouraging religious leaders to accompany migrants to immigration court to bear witness to the injustices inside and has participated himself.

Expect to hear gnashing of the teeth from the conservative side of church pews about how everyone should respect the rule of law and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s as if there ever was a Pope Donald. Already, Trump border czar Tom Homan has cried that the bishops are “wrong” for issuing their pro-immigrant letter and suggested they focus on “fixing the Catholic Church.”

But Homan’s dismissal and that of his fellow travelers doesn’t make the bishop’s admonition against Trump’s policies any more prophetic. The president’s immigration dictates are out of Herod — no less an authority than Pope Leo described them in October as “inhuman,” told a delegation of American bishops that “the church cannot remain silent” on those outrages and stated in a separate speech that such abuse was “not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state.”

The Catholic Church never will be as progressive as some want it to be. Even as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released its message, the group elected as its next president Diocese of Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, whose public politics have so far mostly aligned with those of his deep-red state. But on the issue of dignity for immigrants during the Trump era, U.S. bishops have been on the right side of history — and God. They criticized Trump’s Muslim ban and his move to separate undocumented parents from their children during his first administration and have kept a watch on his attempt to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows some people who came to this country as children to legally remain in the U.S.

We’re about to enter the Christmas season, a holiday based on the story of a poor family seeking shelter in an era when their kind was rejected by the powers that be and ultimately had to flee home. It’s the story of the United States as well, one too many Americans have forsaken and that Trump wants all of us to forget.

May Catholics remind their fellow Americans anew of how powerful and righteous standing up for the stranger is.

We are being ruled by the “Epstein class,” and voters deserve to know the details of that particular scandal, and to be able to expect better of their leaders in the larger sense.

That’s the message we’ll be hearing a lot in the coming weeks and months now that Democrats have successfully moved forward their effort to release the full investigation into former President Trump buddy Jeffrey Epstein.

“When you take a step back, you have a country where an elite governing class has gotten away with impunity, and shafted the working class in this country, shafted factory towns, shafted rural communities,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) told me Wednesday.

He represents parts of Silicon Valley and is one of the authors of the House push to release the full government investigation into Epstein. But in the Epstein case, he also sees an opportunity to reach voters with a larger promise of change.

“What Epstein is about is saying, ‘we reject the Epstein class governing America today,’” Khanna said.

How appropriately strange for these days would it be if Epstein, who faced sex trafficking charges at the time of his death, provided the uniting message Democrats have been searching for?

“Epstein and economics” sounds like a stretch on the surface, but it is increasingly clear that Americans of all political stripes are tired of the rich getting richer, and bolder. The Epstein files are the bipartisan embodiment of that discontent.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), left, and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) have led Democrats’ push for release of the Epstein files.

(Sue Ogrocki and J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

Our collective frustration with what can appear only as a cover-up to benefit the wealthy and powerful is an unexpected bit of glue that binds regular Americans, because the corruption and hubris of our oligarchy is increasingly undeniable and galling.

Whether it’s our president’s obviously wrong contention that grocery prices are down; our vice president being willing to take on the pope about true Catholic doctrine; or our FBI chief flying his girlfriend around on the taxpayer dime, the arrogance is stunning.

But where each of those examples becomes buried and dismissed in partisan politics, sex trafficking girls turns out to be frowned upon by people from all walks of life.

“It’s universal,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and another Californian. “This is clearly a White House and a president that is the most corrupt person we’ve ever had in office serving as a chief executive, and this is just another piece of that corruption.”

Khanna, along with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, built the unlikely but unstoppable effort that brought together once-loyal Trumpers including Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene with Democrats.

Those staunch right-wingers are tied in to their voters, and probably understood just how unpopular sex trafficking is with a base that grew into maturity on QAnon-inspired fear mongering about kidnapped children.

“It’s the only thing since Trump walked down the escalator that’s been a truly bipartisan effort to expose corruption and where there’s been a break in his coalition,” Khanna said.

And by “exposing rich and powerful people who abuse the system and calling them out clearly, we start to rebuild trust with the American people,” Khanna argues, the trust required to make folks believe Democrats aren’t so terrible.

Long before he was a linchpin in the Epstein saga, Khanna built a name as a force on the progressive left for a positive and inclusive economic platform that resembles the New Deal, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to rebuild democracy in another era of hardship and discontent.

It’s all about real payoffs for average Americans — trade schools and affordable child care and jobs that actually pay the bills. That’s the message that he hopes will be the top line as Democrats push forward.

On Wednesday, the buildup of resentment that might make that possible came into full focus in Washington, as Congress opened up to anything but business as usual. Democrats, led by Garcia, released emails raising questions about Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

Trump “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls,” Epstein wrote, even as Trump’s press secretary argued this was all a “fake narrative to smear” her boss.

Republicans countered the emails with a massive information dump probably meant to obscure and confuse. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, out of excuses, finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who promptly provided the final signature on the discharge petition to call a House vote on releasing the entire Epstein files.

That happened just hours after Boebert, one of the key Republican backers of that effort, was called to the White House in a last-minute, heavy-handed bid to pressure her into dropping her name from the demand. She did not.

Enough to make your head spin, honestly. About 10 more dastardly, intriguing and unexpected things happened, but you get the gist: President Trump really, really does not want us to read the Epstein files. House Democrats are ready to fight the long fight.

Garcia said House Democrats aren’t caving, because the cover-up keeps growing.

“There’s a lot of folks now that are obsessed with hiding the truth from the public, and the American public needs to know,” he said. “The Oversight Committee is committed to fighting our way to the truth.”

But it will be a long fight, and one with only a slim chance of winning the release of the files. Any effort would have to clear the Republican-held Senate (and after the shutdown collapse, who knows if Senate Democrats have the stomach for resistance), then be signed by Trump.

Judging from his near-desperate social media posting about the whole thing being a “hoax,” it’s hard to imagine him putting his scrawl on that law.

But unlike the shutdown, the longer this goes, the more Democrats have to gain. People aren’t going to suddenly start liking pedophiles. And the more Trump pushes to hide whatever the truth is, the more Democrats have the high ground, to message on corruption, oligarchs and even a vision for a better way.

“Epstein and economics” — linking the concrete with the esoteric, the problem with the solution.

The bipartisan message Democrats didn’t know they needed, from the strangest of sources.

US President Donald Trump called the corruption trial against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘political, unjustified prosecution’ as he requested the country’s president pardon him. However, under Israeli law, such a request can only be made by the person accused of wrongdoing, a legal representative, or a family member.

Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls,” Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of orchestrating sex trafficking of young girls, wrote in private emails House Democrats released Wednesday.

“Of course he knew about the girls,” Epstein said of Trump in an email to author and journalist Michael Wolff in early 2019, when Trump was nearing the end of his first term as President.

After months of political bickering over the well-connected sex offender’s documents, dubbed “the Epstein files,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee publicly released some of Epstein’s emails to Wolff and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking after Epstein’s death.

The emails are just a small part of a collection of 23,000 documents Epstein’s estate released to the committee and are sure to revive questions about what the president knew about Epstein’s sexual misconduct with girls and young women.

Trump has denied knowing anything about Epstein’s crimes and no investigation has tied Trump to them.

“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” California Democrat Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said in a statement as he released the documents.

“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President,” Garcia added. “The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately. The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims.”

Epstein, 66, died by suicide in a New York jail in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested and federally charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. A watchdog report released last year found that negligence, misconduct and other failures at the jail contributed to his death.

More than a decade earlier, Epstein evaded federal criminal charges when he struck a plea deal in a south Florida case related to accusations that he molested dozens of girls.

As part of the agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges, including soliciting prostitution. He registered as a sex offender and served 13 months in jail but was allowed to leave six days a week to work at his office.

LONDON — President Trump’s threat to bring a billion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC has cast a shadow over the British broadcaster’s future, but it could also be a bluff with little legal merit.

The president’s lawyer sent the threat to the BBC over the way a documentary edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a mob of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s history of suing news media companies — sometimes winning multimillion-dollar settlements — is part of a long-running grievance against the industry he describes as “fake news” that has often focused a critical eye on his actions.

But Trump faces fundamental challenges to getting a case to court, never mind taking it to trial. He would also have to deal with the harsh glare of publicity around his provocative pep talk the day Congress was voting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.

“If he sues, he opens a Pandora’s box and inside is every damning quote he’s ever uttered about the ‘steal,’” said attorney Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer who practices in the U.S. and U.K.

The BBC documentary

The BBC’s “Panorama” series aired the hourlong documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the misleading edit that he said gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing.

From letter to lawsuit

A lawsuit in England is unlikely because the one-year deadline to bring one expired two weeks ago, experts said. If successful in overcoming that barrier, libel awards in the High Court rarely exceed 100,000 pounds ($132,000), experts said.

Trump could still bring a defamation claim in several U.S. states, and his lawyer cited Florida law in a letter to the BBC.

Filing a lawsuit and demanding money is one thing, but prevailing in court is much different. To succeed, Trump would have to clear many hurdles to get a case before a jury.

Before any of that could happen, Trump faces a more fundamental challenge: The BBC program was not aired in the U.S., and the BBC’s streaming service is also not available there. Americans could not have thought less of him because of a program they could not watch, Stephens said.

“The other ticklish problem for Trump’s lawyer was that Trump’s reputation was already pretty battered after Jan. 6,” he said. “Alleging ‘Panorama’ caused additional harm when your reputation is already in tatters … is a tough sell.”

Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by some of his supporters, though he was acquitted by the Senate.

The demands

Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito threatened the BBC with a defamation lawsuit for “no less than” $1 billion. The letter spelled out the figure and used all nine zeros in numeric form.

The letter demanded an apology to the president and a “full and fair” retraction of the documentary along with other “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading or inflammatory statements” about Trump.

It also said the president should be “appropriately” compensated for “overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”

The letter cites Florida’s defamation statute that requires a letter be sent to news organizations five days before any lawsuit can be filed.

If the BBC does not comply with the demands by 5 p.m. EST Friday, then Trump will enforce his legal rights, the letter said.

“The BBC is on notice,” it said.

While many legal experts have dismissed the president’s claims against the media as having little chance of success, he has won some lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies.

In July, Paramount, which owns CBS, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over a “ 60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump alleged that the interview was edited to enhance how Harris, the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, sounded.

That settlement came as the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation that threatened to complicate Paramount’s need for administration approval to merge with Skydance Media.

Last year, ABC News said it would pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos ’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A jury found that he was liable for sexually abusing her. Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out that jury’s finding.

Litigation threat could leverage payout

London lawyer David Allen Green dismissed the litigation letter for failing to spell out any actual harm Trump suffered. But he said Trump’s willingness to use lawsuits as a form of deal making could leverage a payout because the edit was indefensible.

“Putting aside the theatrics of a bombastic letter with its senseless $1 billion claim, there is a power play here which Trump has done many times before,” Green said on the Law and Policy Blog. “The real mistake of the BBC (and the production company) was opening itself up to such a play of power.”

Stephens said if Trump were somehow to win billions from the BBC, it could crush the news organization that is mostly funded through a fee charged to all television owners in the U.K.

But he said that outcome was unlikely and the broadcaster should stand its ground. He recommended Trump take the public relations win and avoid the damage from revisiting the Jan. 6 events that would be dredged up at trial.

He said Trump was due an apology, which Shah offered, for the BBC not upholding high journalistic standards.

“The question is, ‘Did it cause harm in people’s minds?’” he said. “Because he was elected afterwards, it doesn’t appear it did.”

Melley writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 11 (UPI) — In a new diplomatic escalation between Colombia and the United States, President Gustavo Petro again recalled Colombia’s ambassador to Washington, Daniel García-Peña, for consultations.

This time, the recall aims to clarify a situation reported by the Colombian magazine Cambio regarding a photo released by the White House on Oct. 21 as part of its official coverage of a meeting between senior officials and Republican senators.

On Sunday, the image drew renewed attention after Cambio published an analysis focusing on a folder held by Deputy Chief of Staff James Blairen. The photo shows Petro alongside Nicolás Maduro, both wearing orange jumpsuits similar to those used in U.S. prisons, as part of a document titled “Trump Doctrine.”

“If an ambassador is called for consultations, the representative of the other country returns to their own country while the necessary information is obtained,” Petro wrote on X, suggesting that while García-Peña is in Bogotá, U.S. chargé d’affaires John McNamara should return to the United States, El Colombiano reported.

“This is about understanding why the official White House page shows me as if I were a prisoner in a U.S. jail. It is a brutal disrespect to the people who elected me and to the Colombian nation and its history,” Petro added.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement confirming that Ambassador García-Peña “has been called for consultations” and “is already in Bogotá.”

At the same time, Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio ruled out the expulsion of U.S. chargé d’affaires John McNamara from Colombia, El Tiempo reported.

The Petro government’s decision comes amid a visible deterioration in diplomatic relations between the two countries and adds pressure to a bilateral agenda that includes sensitive issues such as counternarcotics cooperation, migration, trade and hemispheric relations.

According to Cambio, the first paragraph of the document held by Blairen outlines five steps against the Colombian president, three of which are already underway.

The five are designating additional cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, supporting pro-U.S. leaders in the Western Hemisphere, imposing targeted sanctions on Petro, his family and associates, countering corrupt and anti-U.S. criminal activities, and launching a comprehensive investigation into Petro’s campaigns and their foreign financing.

“People should not always rely on what they read in the newspapers,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said when askedwhether the United States had a plan underway to imprison Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

The diplomat addressed the issue during a telephone press briefing with several Latin American media outlets Monday morning.

Landau declined to comment further on the photo, which has since been removed from the U.S. government website, but expressed dissatisfaction with the Colombian president’s statements.

Nov. 10 (UPI) — Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will meet with President Donald Trump Monday in the White House.

Al-Sharaa, who was affiliated with al-Qaida, was labeled an international terrorist by the United States until Friday and had a $10 million bounty on his head.

On Friday, the State Department said that Sharaa and Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab would be removed from the list of terrorists.

“These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,” the State Department’s press release said.

“This new Syrian government, led by President al-Sharaa, is working hard to locate missing Americans, fulfill its commitments on countering terrorism and narcotics, eliminating any remnants of chemical weapons, and promoting regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.”

Sharaa was formerly known by an assumed name, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. He once led the militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which cut ties with al-Qaida in 2017.

Sharaa is likely to ask Trump to lift sanctions against the Assad government and to join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. Removing the sanctions will allow Syria to get international finance to rebuild after the devastating civil war.

The Syrian leader met Trump in Saudi Arabia in May, and Trump told him he would get the sanctions lifted.

“Tough guy,” Trump said of Sharaa after the meeting. “Very strong past. Fighter.”

Critics of Sharaa’s government have cited recent acts of violence in the country. In July, about 37 people were killed in sectarian violence. A few days later, Israel attacked Damacus and killed about three people and wounded 34 others. Israel claimed it attacked to protect the Druze, a Syrian Arab minority.

In June, a suicide bombing killed 20 people at a Damascus church.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it has registered 35,000 cases of people missing in Syria in the past 13 years. Syria’s Network for Human Rights put the number of Syrians “in forced disappearance” at 80,000 to 85,000 killed under torture in Assad’s detention centers.

Only 33,000 detainees have been found and freed from Syria’s prisons since Assad’s ouster, according to the human rights network. American journalist Austin Tice, who was detained by the Assad regime in 2012, has still not been found.

Nov. 10 (UPI) — Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto designated his father-in-law, former President Suharto, a national hero on Monday, according to reports, despite opposition from critics who accuse the late dictator of committing human rights abuses during his 33-year rule.

Prabowo designated Suharto along with nine others for the prestigious title during National Heroes Day commemorations at the State Palace in Jakarta, The Jakarta Post and Indonesian news agency Antara reported.

National Heroes Day falls on November 10 to mark the day that in 1945, when Indonesians fought the British and allied forces in pursuit of an independent Indonesia following the fall of Japan.

Suharto became president after Sukarno was stripped of his power in 1967 and was then formally elected in 1968. He remained president until his resignation amid mass protests in 1998, which were sparked by his re-election in an uncontested election.

Often called Indonesia’s strongman, Suharto’s anti-communist stance during the Cold War secured him support from Western nations, which helped shield him some of his regime’s alleged human rights abuses.

Critics have accused the authoritarian leader of overseeing the killings of an estimated 500,000 to 1 million alleged communists during 1965-66. He is also accused of being responsible for the so-called Petrus Killings of 1982-85 when thousands of state-ordered extrajudicial killings were carried out, as well as alleged genocide in East Timor, among many other allegations.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation criticized the Subianto administration Monday as “unethical, destructive to law and human rights, indifferent to anti-corruption efforts and demeaning to the true values of heroism” over Suharto’s designation.

“This title should only be bestowed upon those who truly fought for independence, justice humanity and the sovereignty of the people — not upon a leader whose rule was marked by authoritarianism and human rights violations,” the YLBHI said in a statement.

“YLBHI strongly condemns this conferral of the hero title, which further demonstrates that Prabowo’s regime has become a government that betrays the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, betrays and harms the people and has clearly engaged in disgraceful conduct.”

Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump is pictured in this photo provided by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta on August 24, 2023. Trump surrendered on a 13-count indictment for efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Photo courtesy of Fulton County Sheriff’s Office/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is pardoning Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and dozens of other allies who have been accused of trying to subvert the 2020 election, according to U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin.

The list of 77 people pardoned by Trump was published late Sunday on Martin’s personal X account.

“No MAGA left behind,” he said.

The proclamation signed by Trump was dated Friday.

“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 presidential election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” the document states.

Those pardoned were tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including participation in what has become known as the fake electors scheme. The strategy involved the creation of false slates of pro-Trump electors in every battleground state that he lost to Biden, including Georgia.

Among those pardoned were four of Trump’s 17 co-defendants in a case concerning the effort in Georgia, including Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the scheme. Powell, Scott Hall and Jenna Ellis were the other three.

Trump, who was among those charged in Georgia, was specifically not granted a pardon.

“This pardon does not apply to the president of the United States,” the document states.

Others granted pardons include Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff during his first term, and former Trump adviser John Eastman.

On his first day of his second term in office in January, Trump issued pardons and commutations of sentences for more than 1,500 people convicted for their participation in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, including those who injured police officers.

He has also issued pardons to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, convicted on corruption charges, former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer and former Las Vegas City Council member Michele Fiore.

A week before California’s special election, Gavin Newsom made news by doing something practically unheard of. He told donors to stop sending money to pass Proposition 50.

It was a man-bites-piranha moment — a politician turning away campaign cash?!? — and amounted to a victory lap by California’s governor even as the balloting was still underway.

On Wednesday, less than 12 hours after the polls closed, Newsom sent another email. This one thanked backers for helping push the gerrymander measure to landslide approval — and asked them to open their wallets back up.

“Please make a contribution,” he pleaded, “to help us continue to go on the offense and take the fight to Trump.”

One campaign ended. Another seamlessly continued.

Though he’s been publicly coy, Newsom has been effectively running for president for the better part of a year, something even the most nearsighted observer can see. One envisions the restless governor, facing the end of his term, sitting in the Capitol and crossing days off his official calendar as he longingly gazes toward 2028.

Setting aside its dubious merits, Proposition 50 was an unequivocal triumph for Newsom.

He took a risk that an esoteric subject — congressional map-making — could be turned into a heartfelt issue. He gambled that voters would overlook the cost of a special election — close to $300 million — and agree to hand back the line-drawing powers they seized from Sacramento insiders and politicians who put their own interests first. In doing so, he further raised his national profile and bulked up an already formidable fundraising base.

None of which makes Newsom’s quest for the White House much more likely to succeed.

His biggest problem — and there’s no way to fix it — is that he comes from California, which, to many around the country, reads as far left, nutty and badly off track. Or, less harshly, a place that’s more secular, permissive and tax-happy than some middle-of-the-roaders are really comfortable with.

Take it from a Republican strategist.

“He’s obviously a talented politician,” said Q. Whitfield Ayres, a GOP pollster with extensive campaign experience in Georgia and other presidential swing states. “But if I were trying to paint a Democratic nominee as too liberal for the country, having the governor of California be the nominee would be an easy task … Too coastal. Too dismissive of ‘flyover’ country. Too much like the elites on both coasts that [President] Trump has run so successfully against for years now.”

That’s not just a partisan perspective.

The Democratic desire to win in 2028 “is very, very strong,” said Charlie Cook, a campaign handicapper who has spent decades impartially analyzing state and national politics. The presidential contest “will be determined by winning in purple states and purple counties and purple precincts,” Cook said, in places such as central Pennsylvania, rural Wisconsin and Georgia, where issues play differently than within California’s deeply blue borders.

(Newsom’s support for free healthcare for undocumented immigrants — to name but one issue — is an attack ad just waiting to be written.)

For many primary voters, Cook suggested, ideology and purity testing will yield to a more cold-eyed and pragmatic calculation: a candidate’s perceived electability. He minimized Newsom’s smashing Proposition 50 victory. “He’s got to impress people on the road,” Cook said. “Not just a home game in a state that’s really tilted one way.”

For what it’s worth, Newsom should savor his Proposition 50 afterglow as long as he can. (On Saturday, the governor was in Texas, basking.) Because it won’t last.

As Democratic strategist David Axelrod noted, “the nature of presidential politics is the bar gets raised constantly.” Once the race truly begins, Newsom will be probed and prodded in ways he hasn’t experienced since his last physical exam, all in full public view.

“There is an army of opposition researchers, Republican and Democrat, who are going to scour every word he’s spoken as a public official in California since his days as San Francisco mayor and every official action he’s taken and not taken,” said Axelrod, who helped steer Barack Obama to the White House. “Who knows what they will yield and how he’ll respond to that.”

At the moment, Newsom is giving off a very strong Avenatti energy.

For those who’ve forgotten, celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti was seen for a time as the Democratic beau ideal, a brawler who could get under Trump’s skin and take the fight to the president like few others could or would. He traveled to Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and other states in a quasi-campaign before his extensive personal and financial troubles caught up with him. (Avenatti is currently residing in federal prison.)

Newsom, of course, is vastly more qualified than the Los Angeles attorney ever was. But the political vibe — and especially the governor’s self-styled role as Trump-troller-in-chief — is very similar.

Exit poll interviews in Virginia, New Jersey, New York and even California showed that economic concerns and, specifically, affordability were the main ingredient of Democrats’ success Tuesday. Not Trump’s egregious misconduct or fears for democracy, which was the grounding of the pro-Proposition 50 campaign.

“If you’re talking about democracy over the dinner table, it’s because you don’t have to worry about the cost of food on the table,” Axelrod said. “If you have to worry about the cost of food on the table or your rent or your mortgage, insurance, electricity and all these things, you’re thinking about that.”

To stand any shot at winning his party’s nomination, much less the White House, Newsom will have to build support beyond his fan base with a message showing he understands voters’ day-to-day concerns and offers ways to improve their lives. Success will require more than passing a Democratic ballot measure in a Democratic state, or cracking wise on social media.

Because all those snarky memes and cheeky presidential put-downs won’t seem so funny if JD Vance is inaugurated in January 2029.

Rodrigo Paz faces Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in 40 years, with high inflation and a shortage of fuel and dollars.

Rodrigo Paz has been sworn in as Bolivia’s president, ushering in a new era for the South American nation after nearly 20 years of governance by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.

Paz, the 58-year-old son of a former president, and a pro-business conservative, drew applause at the swearing-in ceremony on Saturday at the Bolivian seat of congress.

“God, family and country: yes, I take the oath of office,” said Paz, who won a run-off election last month.

In his inauguration speech, he later said Bolivia would now be open to the world after two decades of left-wing governance.

The Movement Toward Socialism party, founded by charismatic former President Evo Morales, had its heyday during the commodities boom of the early 2000s, but natural gas exports have sputtered, and its statist economic model of generous subsidies and a fixed exchange rate has collapsed.

Paz will have to address Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in 40 years, with year-on-year inflation at more than 20 percent and a chronic shortage of fuel and dollars.

The outgoing government of Luis Arce exhausted almost all of Bolivia’s hard currency reserves to prop up a policy of petrol and diesel subsidies.

On the campaign trail, the Christian Democrat Paz promised a “capitalism for all” approach to economic reform, with decentralisation, lower taxes and fiscal discipline mixed with continued social spending.

He also promised to maintain social programmes while stabilising the economy, but economists have said the two things are not possible at the same time.

Paz has promised to restore ties with the United States.

“Never again an isolated Bolivia, bound by failed ideologies, or a Bolivia with its back turned to the world,” Paz said during a ceremony attended by delegations from more than 70 countries and local VIPs.

Paz also announced after the election that his government will cooperate with all international organisations on security matters, including the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which Morales expelled from Bolivia at the end of 2008.

The uproar over Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes has sparked yet another round of MAGA civil war talk.

Full disclosure: I previously worked for Carlson at the Daily Caller, so I’ve had a front-row seat for this ongoing battle for a long time now.

In case you missed the latest: Carlson invited Fuentes onto his podcast. What followed wasn’t an interview so much as a warm bubble bath of mutual validation — the kind of “conversation” that helps launder extremist ideas.

Enter Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation — once the intellectual vanguard of conservatism, now something closer to an emotional support group for people who think President Reagan was too soft. Responding to whispers that Heritage might distance itself from Carlson, Roberts rushed out a video to reassure the faithful: Heritage will have no enemies to its right.

Roberts disagreed with Fuentes (good for him) but insisted Heritage didn’t become the top conservative think tank by “canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians.” He also called Carlson’s critics a “venomous coalition” who “serve someone else’s agenda” — which echoes one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book.

And then something surprising happened: People inside Heritage actually pushed back (a brave move, given Heritage’s Orwellian “one voice” policy). Some even resigned.

The broader right-wing commentariat weighed in, too. Ben Shapiro called Carlson an “intellectual coward.” Ted Cruz made some noise. The Wall Street Journal editorial board huffed. And talk radio host Mark Levin criticized Fuentes and Carlson during a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. For a brief moment, it looked like accountability was actually trending.

But … why this moment? Why now?

Keep in mind: Then-former President Trump dined with Fuentes in 2022 and wrongly claimed immigrants were eating pets in 2024. As president, he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in 2020. And of course he launched his political career by questioning President Obama’s birth certificate. I could go on.

Despite all of this, Trump’s grip on the conservative movement only grew firmer.

Meanwhile, right-wing antisemitism has metastasized on Trump’s watch — despite his support for Israel.

Charlottesville, anyone?

The “alt-right” has shed its “alt.” They’re just “right” now.

This is especially observable when it comes to young conservatives who came of age during the Trump era. Indeed, one Heritage staffer told the New York Post that “a growing number” of Heritage interns “actually agree” with Fuentes.

And here’s the irony: The same conservative media figures now sounding the alarm helped build the machine.

Take Levin. Fuentes recently admitted that it was Levin’s radio show that first radicalized him. “He planted the seed, at least,” Fuentes told Carlson.

Likewise, aside from endorsing Trump in 2024, Shapiro made conspiracy theorist Candace Owens famous when his Daily Wire hired her to host a podcast on its platform after she became buddies with Kanye West and after she suggested the only problem with Adolf Hitler was that “he had dreams outside of Germany.”

So if these more mainstream Trumpers are horrified now, it’s probably because they helped create monsters — and those monsters are now coming to devour their creators, as monsters always do.

Rest assured, though, this rot is not limited solely to antisemitism. In recent months, MAGA figures such as Vivek Ramaswamy, FBI Director Kash Patel and even Vice President JD Vance (who is married to an Indian American woman) have all been targets of racist abuse online.

It’s important to note that none of these folks are considered “Never Trump” or Reagan conservatives. They are Trump allies. The revolution devours itself. (First they came for the Never Trumpers.…)

Again, this is far from the first skirmish in the MAGA civil war. But all of these internecine fights obscure the root cause of the problem: Trump. And yet, the orange emperor himself? Off-limits.

The fever won’t break while Trump’s still around, serving as a magnet for the worst people and cultivating the toxic ecosystem that made all of this right-wing racism possible, if not inevitable.

So by all means, conservatives: Condemn Carlson, denounce Fuentes and scold Heritage for failing to police the right and only punching left.

But as long as you avert your eyes from Trumpism, your righteous outrage is just theater — the political equivalent of aggressively mopping the floor while the pipes keep bursting.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is barred from Peru after her government granted asylum to Peruvian ex-premier.

Peru has declared Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum a “persona non grata” who is unable to enter the country, days after severing ties with Mexico amid an escalating diplomatic dispute.

Peru’s Congress voted 63 to 34 on Thursday in favour of symbolically barring Sheinbaum from the country after her government granted asylum to former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chavez, after she fled to the Mexican embassy in Peru’s capital Lima.

The designation of “persona non grata” is typically reserved for foreign diplomats and compels them to leave a host country, and is seen as a rebuke to their government.

President of Peru’s Congress Fernando Rospigliosi said the move was a show of support for the government and its decision to break off relations with Mexico, according to Mexico’s El Pais newspaper.

During a debate on Thursday, Ernesto Bustamante, an MP who sits on Peru’s Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, also accused Sheinbaum of having ties to drug traffickers.

“We cannot allow someone like that, who is in cahoots with drug traffickers and who distracts her people from the real problems they should be addressing, to get involved in Peruvian affairs,” Bustamante said, according to El Pais.

Chavez, who is on trial for her participation in an alleged 2022 coup attempt, earlier this week fled to the Mexican embassy in Lima, where she was granted political asylum.

Peru’s Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela called the decision by Mexico City an “unfriendly act” that “interfered in the internal affairs of Peru”.

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has maintained that it was acting in accordance with international law, and the move in “no way constitutes an intervention in Peru’s internal affairs”.

Lima has yet to offer safe passage for Chavez to leave the embassy and travel to Mexico.

Chavez, a former culture minister, briefly served as prime minister to President Pedro Castillo from late November to December 2022.

Charges against the former minister stem from an attempt by President Castillo in December 2022 to dissolve the Peruvian Congress before he was quickly impeached and arrested.

Chavez, who faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty, has denied involvement in the scheme. She was detained from June 2023 until September of this year, and then released on bail while facing trial.