Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Is Trump preparing to sell out South Korea?

Maybe President Trump has finally given up on his cherished dream of Vladimir Putin as his new best friend. It seems that Kim Jong-un is supplanting him in his affections. Even as Trump tries to up the ante with Iran, his top officials are playing kissy-face with North Korea. Fears are swirling in Washington that … Read more

Trump is on a roll. But is it all artifice?

On June 12 Donald Trump will meet Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Trump is ebullient. “World Peace” is what he will seek, according his Twitter account. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is sounding a more cautious note: “We hope this meeting will advance prospects for peace in the Korean Peninsula.” Trump’s euphoric tone is more reminiscent … Read more

John McCain is right about Gina Haspel

John McCain is a victim of hypocrisy. His allies in Washington and admirers in the national media praise him as the conscience of the nation, even as they betray him in his last desperate battle against the normalisation of torture. After a White House communications staffer, Kelly Sadler, joked that McCain’s views don’t matter because … Read more

Europe’s leaders need Trump more than they wish to admit

America, meet your European allies in the effort to contain Iran: Emmanuel Macron of France, Theresa May of Britain, and Angela Merkel of Germany. Think of them as the Three M’s. Or perhaps the Three Wise Monkeys. Or even, as the Wise Monkeys are sometimes known, and would probably prefer to be called, the Three … Read more

Iran’s malevolent mullahs have been well and truly Trumped

The only time I met Donald Trump was at a small event for politically mature journalists at the White House last April. After milling about with my fellow scribes in the press room—it’s a lot smaller and shabbier than it looks on TV, like Jim Acosta—we were ushered into the Roosevelt Room near the Oval … Read more

Why the Democrats will lose their battle to stop Gina Haspel

Donald Trump is not known as a champion of women, but he thinks he should be.  The President wants the deputy director of CIA, Gina Haspel, to succeed Mike Pompeo in the top job, and the Democrats are raging against her appointment. Predictably enough, Trump is enjoying the irony, tweeting on Monday morning:  “My highly … Read more

What happened to honour in American public life?

‘Honour,’ the French poet Nicholas Boileau wrote in 1666, ‘is like a rocky island without a landing place; once we leave it, we can’t get back.’ Especially, Donald Trump might add, when the outlook is Stormy. But Trump’s concept of honour is perhaps closer to that of Stormy Daniels’ fellow artist and near-namesake, the Elizabethan … Read more

A storm’s a coming for Trump over the ‘dirty ops’ allegations

So aides to Donald Trump, the Observer reports, retained an Israeli intelligence organization to launch a ‘dirty ops’ campaign against two former national security officials in the Obama administration, Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes. Both happen to have been involved in the negotiations about the Iran deal and the idea seems to have been to … Read more

Robert Mueller is out of control. He should be shut down. Now.

Pop quiz: how many branches of government are there in the United States? If you said “Four,” go to the head of the class. As of May 17, 2017, the traditional three branches of  Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary, are joined by the Office of Robert S. Mueller III, Special Counsel in charge of destroying the … Read more

Peace in Korea doesn’t make war with Iran more likely

Readers of Spectator’s USA’s mothership, the venerable yet sprightly London Spectator, will know that one of the secrets of the Spectator’s endurance and popularity is the promiscuity—ideological, of course—of its columnists. Turn the page from Matthew Parris to Rod Liddle, and you undergo a whiplash of the most bracing kind. Parris is an ex-Conservative MP … Read more

Trump’s presidency is in for a long, difficult summer

So it’s true. Donald Trump is going bonkers. This morning he used the British term in a tweet slamming “phony Witch Hunts” and lauding the “great Energy and unending Stamina” of the White House. There is plenty to arouse Trump’s ire. Yesterday the press that Trump loves to decry revealed that White House chief of … Read more

It’s time to end the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

You have to give it to Donald Trump. Not for pushing North Korea towards negotiations, or for holding China to account over dumping low-grade steel onto the American market, or even for healing the diplomatic breach between France and the United States—but for missing the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night. People accuse … Read more