America

Ron DeSantis’ political action committee is called ‘Never Back Down.’ Well, he just did. A week ago, he said of Trump: ‘You can be the most worthless Republican in America, but if you kiss the ring he’ll say you’re wonderful.’ Well, he just endorsed Trump for the presidency in 2024. This morning, DeSantis campaign staff batted away speculation that he would imminently quit, saying ‘with 100 per cent certainty’ that DeSantis would fight on to the South Carolina primary next month and beyond. Hours later, Ron proved them wrong. ‘While this campaign has ended, the mission continues,’ he said in a video. Bowing to the seemingly inevitable, he endorsed Donald Trump

The theory that Donald Trump will pick Nikki Haley as his vice president refuses to die – in spite of the growing evidence that he won’t.  Haley, for one, is adamant that it will not happen. Today, at a meet-and-greet with voters in Mary Ann’s diner in Amherst, New Hampshire, a voter floated the idea. She grimaced and said: ‘I’ve never said that. That’s my opponent saying that… I don’t want to be anyone’s vice president. That’s off the table.’  She could change her mind, of course. Politicians do, and analysts will keep saying that Haley would help Trump appeal to aspirational suburban women and so on. But Trumpworld loathes

‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself,’ said Franklin D. Roosevelt, famously. The Democrats of 2024 have a rather different message for the world: Be Very Afraid! ‘I’m scared as heck,’ said vice president, Kamala Harris, yesterday, as she discussed the ‘crazies’ who might put Donald Trump back in the Oval Office. Not for the first time, Harris was echoing the sentiments of Michelle Obama, the former First Lady: ‘I am terrified,’ Michelle told a podcast last week. ‘We cannot take this democracy for granted.’ We’re a long way from 2008, when Michelle’s husband won the White House by appealing to the opposite emotion. ‘We choose hope over fear,’

Iranian airstrikes on ‘militant bases’ in neighbouring Pakistan signal a dangerous and worrying escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. Details of what unfolded remain sketchy, but Iranian media reported that the strikes were aimed at the bases of a Sunni militant group, Jaish al-Adl. The missiles and drones landed in the Balochistan province, which lies along the 600-mile border between the two countries. Both countries have long bickered over the activities of Baloch separatists and other militant groups in the border region. All it would take is one misunderstanding or false move to spark all-out war Pakistan’s foreign ministry said two children were killed and three others were injured. The Pakistani

Over the past few days it has become clear that Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency has gone from being an outlier to an increasing likelihood. His landslide in the Iowa caucus yesterday only confirms this further. As the first term of Joe Biden’s presidency comes to a close, one of his achievements is no doubt the increased coordination amongst leading democracies when it comes to dealing with the challenge that China presents. Under Biden’s tenure the G7 has agreed to collectively fund an alternative to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and work on de-risking their supply chains away from the country. Meanwhile, in the past year, the US and

The bitterly cold conditions in Iowa today have at least given journalists something to talk about. There’s a distinct lack of political drama, given everyone expects today’s Republican caucuses to be a blowout win for Donald Trump. The main questions of interest are: will Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis finish second? And will Trump break Republican records and win more than 50 per cent of the vote? Given that polls suggest Trump voters are far more enthusiastic than the supporters of his rivals, the arctic temperatures may only give him a further advantage. The weather is also a handy metaphor for the frozen state of Republican politics: Haley and DeSantis’s

The world has changed since Kamala Harris ran for president in 2019. The US has withdrawn from Afghanistan (a decision she supported), war rages in Ukraine (as western funding and materiel commitments face domestic opposition in the United States and the EU), and tensions remain high in the Middle East as conflict continues in Israel/Palestine, catalysed by Hamas’ attack on 7 October.  But for all the attention paid to the US presidential contest (set to have its first caucus vote next week in Iowa), and its implications for American foreign policy, little has been paid to vice-president Harris’ foreign policy ambitions. Given how much power the White House has to

Donald Trump has dominated Republican politics for so long that it can be hard to remember the time when he did not. It’s easy to forget that at the beginning of 2016 he started the Republican primary process by losing the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, his more conservative rival. ‘He stole it,’ Trump tweeted afterwards, graceful as ever in defeat. ‘The State of Iowa should disqualify Ted Cruz from the most recent election on the basis that he cheated – a total fraud!’ Trump went on to stun the world, of course, by winning the Republican nomination, then the White House. American politics would never be the same again.

Emmanuel Macron is facing something of a crisis at home: his prime minister has resigned and his party is trailing that of his fierce rival Marine Le Pen by up to ten points in the run-up to crunch European elections. But Macron’s troubles don’t stop there: his ‘friend’ Donald Trump has been busy on the campaign trail in the United States, mocking his old ally and imitating the French leader’s accent. During a rally in Iowa, Trump told the crowd what happened when he threatened to slap tariffs on French wine and champagne if France imposed duties on US tech giants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyrHqJdgU7w&t=60s Trump told the crowd: ‘I said, ‘Emmanuel, how

Does anybody actually watch televised Hollywood award shows anymore unless, like me, they’re being paid to? Until ‘The Incident’ at the 2022 Oscars between Will Smith and Chris Rock, the answer was clear; between 2014 and 2020, even the Academy Awards lost almost half their audience, which fell to 23 million. But in 2023, figures were up by a whopping 18 million as eager punters tuned in, perhaps hoping to see a spot of ‘bitch-slapping’ between Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh. The Golden Globes, lacking the iconic oomph of the Oscars, has fared even worse, despite being a broader church in that they cover the year’s top televisual as well