Politics

The Spectator and Douglas Murray have today won a defamation claim brought by Mohammed Hegab, who "lied on significant issues" in court and gave evidence that "overall, is worthless." The judge rejected Hegab’s claim because the videos he publishes are ‘at least as reputationally damaging to him as the article’ Hegab, a YouTuber who posts under the name Mohammed Hijab, claimed that an article published in September 2022 about the riots in Leicester, England, had caused serious harm to his reputation and loss of earnings as a result.

El Salvador’s young and telegenic president, Nayib Bukele, has rewritten the rules. Term limits? Scrapped. Presidential terms? Extended. Runoff elections? Abolished. If all goes according to the script – penned and passed by his party in the legislature – Bukele will remain in power well into the 2030s, if not beyond. A decade ago, such a move might have sparked bipartisan alarm in Washington. Today, reactions are mixed – with many in the growing MAGA wing cheering El Salvador’s constitutional shake-up as a win of their own. This shift is a window into a deeper realignment in conservative foreign policy: one that moves closer to the unapologetic defense of national interest and drifts further from the spread-democracy-everywhere consensus.

The second coming of President Trump has brought an invigorated commander-in-chief asserting broad authority over the executive branch, reigniting debate over how much power the president has over his own subordinates, including US Attorneys. At present, the battle has focused on one US Attorney in particular. On March 24, 2025, the President named Alina Habba, his former personal attorney, the Interim US Attorney for the District of New Jersey. There’s a catch: Interim US Attorneys may serve only 120 days. On July 1, the President nominated Habba for Senate confirmation as New Jersey’s US Attorney; if confirmed, Habba could have served permanently at the pleasure of the President. Neither of her home state’s senators (both Democrats) supported Habba.

On Monday night, New York City golden boy Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, tweeted, after the terrifying gun attack on Park Avenue, “I’m heartbroken to learn of the horrific shooting in midtown and I am holding the victims, their families, and the [New York Police Department] officer in critical condition in my thoughts. Grateful for all of our first responders on the ground.” He also sent special condolences to the families of Didarul Islam, the Bangladeshi immigrant and NYPD officer who died in the attack. But there’s a reason Mamdani was holding NYC in his thoughts and not giving a press conference on the ground: He’s at his family’s luxury compound in Uganda, where he’s summering after getting married there a couple of weeks ago.

The Trump administration issued a memo Monday saying that federal workers are openly allowed to express religious beliefs in the workplace “to the greatest extent possible unless such expression would impose an undue hardship on business operations.” This means that they can display Bibles, religious artwork and items “such as crosses, crucifixes and mezuzah,” among other religious symbols. But that’s not all. Workers are also allowed to talk about how their own faith is “correct” and how others should “re-think” their beliefs. “During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the nonadherent should re-think his religious beliefs.