As he has done with most things, however, Trump took a bad situation and made it worse. Killing Soleimani was the right move, for example, but the clumsiness and confusion that followed—including Trump threatening to engage in war crimes by destroying Iranian cultural sites—created a moral and political void in which Iran was able to take the initiative and retaliate against U.S. bases in Iraq without further consequences.And whatever the flaws of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—and I was one of the critics who had serious problems with the Iran deal—it at least temporarily stabilized the Iranian nuclear problem. The JCPOA was imperfect, but it was the only game in town, and Trump dumping it gave the Iranians the out they needed to go right back to their previous mischief.Now Trump’s defense officials are making noises—while Trump himself is silent—about deterrence. But repeated bomber flights and stories about strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, particularly when they’re coming from a claque of mostly unqualified officials in an acting capacity who will not be around to fulfill these vague threats, are not much of a deterrent in the waning days of an administration that refuses to cooperate on basic matters of national defense with its successor.Instead, Trump might be planning a final grand distraction before he is forced to relinquish his office.The question is not whether Trump has the power to do any of this. He holds the authority of Article II of the Constitution until noon on January 20. As unsettling as it may be to realize this, Trump—like any American president—can launch anything, from a reconnaissance mission to a nuclear strike, even as Biden is standing on the steps of the Capitol waiting to be sworn in. Whether U.S. military leaders, including the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, would promptly execute orders they thought unwise or possibly illegal is another matter, but the authority of the president of the United States is not limited by losing an election.Rather, the question is why Trump would ignite a war with Iran at the last minute, and what to look for if he has made such a decision.The obvious reason Donald Trump does anything is because he thinks it will benefit Donald Trump.At the least, it is one last chance for Trump to role-play the only part of the job he has ever liked: the strutting commander in chief. If Trump decides on war, he will issue orders, and there will be a great deal of saluting and generous use of the word sir, all of which (if we are to judge from his rants at rallies) he finds irresistible. From the border wall to the COVID-19 crisis, Trump’s fallback position when he is flummoxed by the complexity of governing is to call in the military and issue orders that cannot be countermanded by another branch of the government or by his own bureaucracy.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden introduced his one-time Democratic primary rival Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary Wednesday, saying the 38-year-old can be “a new voice” in the fight against economic inequality, institutional racism and climate change. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet position. Biden hailed that milestone while saying, by the time he’s done filling out his new administration’s top jobs, it will have more women and people of color than ever, including “a Cabinet that is opening doors and breaking down barriers, and accessing the full brains and talent we have so much of.”ADVERTISEMENTBiden said Buttigieg offers “a new voice with new ideas determined to move past old politics.”“We need someone who knows how to work with state, local and federal agencies,” Biden said, noting that highways are in disrepair and that some bridges “are on the verge of collapse.”Beyond standard transportation fixes, which are easier to promise than for administrations to get through Congress, Biden wants to rejuvenate the post-coronavirus pandemic economy and create thousands of green jobs by making environmentally friendly retrofits and public works improvements.The president-elect noted that much of the nation, including his home state of Delaware, face the risk of rising sea levels. A more immediate challenge, though, will be enforcing Biden’s promised mask-wearing mandate for airplanes and public transportation systems to slow the spread of the coronavirus.“At its best, transportation makes the American dream possible, getting people and goods to where they need to be, directly and indirectly creating good-paying jobs,” Buttigieg said. “At its worst, misguided policies and missed opportunities can reinforce racial, economic and environmental injustice, dividing or isolating neighborhoods, undermining government’s basic role to empower everyone to thrive.” Buttigieg mentioned his affinity for trains while acknowledging that he would be only the “second-biggest” Amtrak enthusiast in the administration, given that Biden rode the rails for years between Washington and Wilmington, Delaware, while serving in the Senate. Buttigieg also mentioned that he proposed to his husband, Chasten, at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Buttigieg was the only Cabinet choice, after Biden’s defense secretary nominee, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, to appear at a solo announcement ceremony rather than be introduced with other picks. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris joined via videoconference from Washington because of a snowstorm.ADVERTISEMENTSen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Buttigieg was “more than ready to finally address our nation’s infrastructure crisis.” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., applauded Biden for tapping someone with “plenty of intellect, vision and drive” to take a shot at modernizing America’s crumbling transportation infrastructure.Others weren’t as thrilled.“I don’t know him at all,” Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a pivotal Republican in the closely divided Senate, told reporters in Washington. She instead brought up Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and chief of staff to President Barack Obama. Emanuel was mentioned as a potential candidate for several Biden Cabinet posts but drew strong backlash from progressives.“I think Rahm Emanuel would have been a strong choice,” Collins said. As Biden, Harris and Buttigieg talked about how they got to know one another during the contested Democratic primary, it was easy to imagine the 2024 campaign beginning to take shape as the Cabinet introduction unfolded. Biden, 78, has said he sees himself as a bridge to a new generation of leaders such as Buttigieg.If Biden opts not to run again in 2024, Harris would be his political heir apparent. But that may not stop Buttigieg and other rising Democrats from launching primary challenges. Buttigieg praised Harris for her “trailblazing leadership and friendship,” and Harris used virtually the same language, calling Buttigieg a “trailblazing leader.” During the primary, Buttigieg was initially written off as the leader of a small town competing against far more established figures. But he zeroed in on a message of generational change to finish the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in a virtual tie with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.Buttigieg’s campaign stumbled, however, in appealing to Black voters who play a critical role in Democratic politics. As the primary moved into more diverse states such as South Carolina, Buttigieg faltered and quickly withdrew from the race. His relatively early backing of Biden ushered in a remarkably swift unification of the party around its ultimate nominee.In the primary, Biden took a shining to Buttigieg, who he said reminded him of his late son, Beau Biden, a former Delaware attorney general who had urged his father to make a third run for the White House. Beau Biden died in 2015.Biden’s selection of Buttigieg for transportation secretary drew praise from LGBTQ rights groups.“Its impact will reverberate well-beyond the department he will lead,” added Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Institute.But the South Bend chapter of Black Lives Matter denounced the nomination. The group had made its displeasure with Buttigieg known during his presidential campaign, following the 2019 South Bend shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.“We saw Black communities have their houses torn down by his administration,” BLM’s South Bend leader Jorden Giger said in a statement, referring to Buttigieg’s effort to tear down substandard housing. “We saw the machinery of his police turned against Black people.”

In July, Mr. Trump traveled to Florida to reaffirm his opposition to Mr. Maduro and other socialist governments in Latin America. He accused his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., of supporting “pro-Communist policies” across Latin America in what was seen as an effort to shore up his faltering support among Latinos in the state.One senior administration official said Mr. Grenell’s meeting with Mr. Rodriguez sidestepped established diplomatic channels to secure a foreign policy victory for the president before the election. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal discussions.In the closing months of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has sought to showcase his work on the international stage, including freeing American hostages in Yemen, sealing a landmark peace accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and promising to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also been seeking a new nuclear arms deal with Russia.Mr. Grenell, who had served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Germany and the acting director of national intelligence, was involved in another recent effort to broker a major international deal. He was named special envoy for peace talks between Serbia and Kosovo late last year, even though the State Department already had a special envoy to the region.His brash style and partisan background ruffled feathers among some of those he worked with in the roles.Mr. Grenell’s trip to Mexico City surprised senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At the State Department, officials scrambled to learn the details of the trip after being asked about it by reporters, with some worrying that it could confuse Mr. Guaidó about the American diplomacy and fuel concerns that the Trump administration was not forthcoming about its strategy.It also revealed a divide between the White House and the State Department, where officials have long denied that the Trump administration was growing frustrated with Mr. Guaidó and the stalemate in Venezuela as Washington issued blistering economic sanctions against Mr. Maduro’s government and its loyalists.

“There’s going to be a certain reluctance to harm these very successful companies, which have huge ecosystems that are responsible for thousands of employees,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of pulling hair, pulling teeth, trying to figure out, ‘OK, we have to do something. What’s it going to be?’”Beijing’s pushback against Big Tech erupted out into the open last month, when officials halted Ant’s long-awaited initial public offering just days before its shares had been expected to begin trading. Earlier, Mr. Ma, by some counts China’s richest man, had publicly accused Chinese regulators of being too obsessed with containing financial risk.Ant’s Alipay app has become an indispensable payment tool for hundreds of millions of people in China, but regulators have been wary of the company’s growing influence in small loans and credit products. The group’s I.P.O. had been on course to be the largest in history.The week after the listing was delayed, China’s market regulator released proposed rules aimed at combating anticompetitive behavior by internet companies. The regulations covered practices including using a platform’s power to collect unnecessary data on users and locking users into specific platforms by making it hard for them to switch to others.Today in BusinessLive Updates:Updated April 14, 2021, 3:30 p.m. ETABC News names Kimberly Godwin as its new president.The Fed chair says inequalities can hold the economy back.Televisa will sell its content and media business to Univision.Alibaba is a Goliath by any measure in China. More than 750 million people — equivalent to over half of the country’s population — shopped on its platforms in the 12 months that ended in September. The group’s main marketplaces are Taobao, where merchants set up electronic stands to sell to customers, and Tmall, which caters to larger Chinese and global brands.Unlike the United States, where antitrust laws are over a century old, China has had an antimonopoly law only since 2008. Before now, the most prominent antimonopoly cases in China had been brought against foreign companies such as the American chip maker Qualcomm, which paid a $975 million fine in 2015.China’s market regulator said this month that Alibaba and two other companies had violated the law by failing to report some recent acquisitions. The penalty was modest: a fine of around $75,000 for each company.

An attempt earlier this month to remove Nicolás Maduro from power ended in farcical failure as a seaborne invading force was captured easily following a series of mishaps. World affairs editor Julian Borger tells the bizarre story How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know It will go down as one of the least successful attempts to overthrow a government in modern history. The audacious plan by a former US army staff sergeant, Jordan Goudreau, to invade Venezuela by sea and capture Nicolás Maduro ended in a fiasco. The invading force, including two Americans, was quickly captured, with the deaths of eight men. The Associated Press had already published the plan for the invasion, the chief funders had withdrawn from the scheme and disowned it and the men were only lightly armed. Many were wearing shorts and T-shirts and suffering from seasickness. The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, tells Anushka Asthana how the plot began with a political fixer linked to the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, but ended in a spectacular failure that has emboldened Maduro. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Support The Guardian The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work. Support The Guardian

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro blasted United States sanctions in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, while avoiding any mention of a report accusing his government of crimes against humanity. In a lengthy, prerecorded speech that ran more than twice the allotted time, the socialist leader denounced what he called a “criminal, inhuman aggression” by the U.S. aimed at ousting him from power, and said Venezuela would resist.“The world must know that we are prepared to fight with the force of our history, our spirit, reason and international law,” he said, standing before a giant portrait of South American independence hero Simón Bolivar.ADVERTISEMENTThe speech marks Maduro’s return to the world stage after his absence last year as political tumult embroiled the country. The U.S., which doesn’t recognize him as Venezuela’s legitimate president, has indicted him on drug charges. Maduro likely would have skipped this year’s proceedings too, had the pandemic not forced the U.N. summit to go virtual. Even though he would have U.N. diplomatic immunity, Maduro would be taking a risk by traveling to the U.S., where there is a $15 million bounty for information leading to his arrest.The South American nation’s political feud pitting Maduro against U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó frequently spills into the international arena, where the world’s greatest powers have staked a claim in the country’s discord. This year’s online General Assembly offered Maduro a leg up, relegating opposition leaders who in 2019 held side events with powerful leaders further along the margins.Guaidó nonetheless tried to make his voice heard, releasing his own pre-recorded video in rebuttal to Maduro on social media platforms. Standing before four Venezuelan flags, he spoke as if addressing a room full of dignitaries, calling his statement “an act of democratic vindication” by the nation’s “true representatives.”“The dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro with its ties to drug trafficking and human rights violations is also usurping Venezuela’s right to speak,” he said.The online sphere, as it turns out, still offered both men a stage, but Maduro’s outsized image on giant screens broadcasting his speech in the green marbled U.N. General Assembly hall nonetheless served as a symbolic microcosm for the country’s ordeal.Though deeply unpopular, Maduro still controls every aspect of life in Venezuela. Guaidó, though backed by influential world leaders, is increasingly powerless within the beleaguered nation, his popularity dropping as he struggles to rally more than a small crowd of supporters at recent calls for protest.The United Nations has been providing humanitarian aid and shining a light on human rights abuses. The secretary general has pressed for dialogue. Though nearly 60 nations support Guaidó, many U.N. members back Maduro.“I do think the fact that Maduro is recognized by the majority of U.N. members highlights the difference between Guaidó’s democratic legitimacy and Maduro’s de facto control on the ground,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. “Over time Maduro has effectively demonstrated he is the one in charge.”Peppering his remarks with jabs at the U.S., Maduro strove to present himself as a diplomatic statesman, noting that he recently freed several dozen prisoners, including several high-profile opposition leaders. And, as he often does, he portrayed himself as a man of dialogue, looking to peacefully resolve the country’s ills.“It is through political, diplomatic and mutually agreed upon negotiation that we will reach the solution of this dispute inherited from imperial colonialism,” he said.At no point did Maduro mention a recent scathing, in-depth report commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council that accuses his government of grisly crimes including torture and killings allegedly carried out by security forces. The techniques they used included electric shocks, genital mutilation and asphyxiation.Heads of state from several neighboring nations have used their platform at the General Assembly to denounce Maduro as an autocrat whose poor handling of his country’s oil wealth has led to a humanitarian and economic collapse. Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra implored the U.N. to help find a political solution to Venezuela’s crisis “before it turns into a chronic situation which nobody desires, especially the Venezuelan people who suffer from it.”Guaidó, for his part, urged U.N. member nations who have been silent until now to join in pressuring the Maduro government to back down.“To those who at some point justified or supported Maduro: I want to reiterate the call to do what’s right, stop human rights violations that in this instant continue, to collaborate to put an end to the terror that the egregious dictatorship intends to impose,” he said.Venezuela is in the midst of a staggering economic decline that even before the COVID-19 pandemic was considered worse than the U.S. Great Depression. The Trump administration has hit the Maduro government with sanctions. Maduro characterized the punitive measures as an “illegal blockade” that have dealt a crippling blow but which his administration has managed to circumvent.“It is a battle for peace, for our homeland, for the region, for humanity,” he said standing along Venezuelan and U.N. flags in a towering, red-carpeted room.He also denounced the U.S. as “the most serious threat to peace in this world.”Online, neither Maduro nor Guaidó seemed to generate wide viewership, though Venezuelans on both sides of the feud weighed in with comments that seemed to reflect a mutual exhaustion from an ordeal that has brought them few solutions.“Give us a speech with concrete actions, please,” one man implored. “We are tired.”

closeVideoPete Buttigieg: What Biden wants for US is what most Americans believe is right for nationFormer Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg joins Chris Wallace on ‘Fox News Sunday.’President-elect Joe Biden tapped former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg to serve as transportation secretary in the new administration on Tuesday and the mainstream media quickly celebrated that he is the first openly gay Cabinet member, seemingly overlooking former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell in the process.Buttigieg emerged as a darling of the liberal media by becoming the first openly gay candidate to win delegates in a major party’s presidential primary. President-elect Joe Biden tapped Pete Buttigieg to serve as Transportation Secretary and the media quickly celebrated that he is the first openly gay cabinet member, completely overlooking ex-acting DNI Richard Grenell in the process. "Now the same people who fawned over Buttigieg’s historic candidacy are once again declaring another ‘first’ accomplished by the former Indiana mayor, praising the nomination for secretary of transportation as another triumphant milestone as the first openly gay Cabinet member. This time, however, such claims amount to whitewashing President Donald Trump’s promotion of his administration’s first ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell, to serve as director of national intelligence from February to May this year – a Cabinet-level position," The Federalist’s Tristan Justice wrote.CNN’s Jake Tapper was among the culprits, although he noted that Buttigieg would be the first "Senate-confirmed openly LGBTQ Cabinet secretary," as Grenell was not confirmed for the DNI position. He was confirmed in 2018 when he was nominated for ambassador to Germany.Others weren’t as careful when overlooking Grenell’s service.Headlines across the Internet included The Hill’s "Pete Buttigieg to become the first openly LGBTQ+ Cabinet nominee in US history," Sky News’ "Biden picks Pete Buttigieg for transport secretary – the first openly gay Cabinet member" and Gay Times’ "Buttigieg to make history as first openly gay Cabinet member in the US," while ABC News took a page from Tapper’s playbook."If confirmed, Buttigieg would bring new diversity to the administration Biden has promised will 'look like America,' as the first openly gay Cabinet secretary approved by the U.S. Senate to serve in U.S. history," ABC News reported.Other examples were prominent on Twitter, with many also using the "if confirmed" disclaimer to bypass Grenell:Grenell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.One outlet even reported that Buttigieg would be the first gay Cabinet official despite previously reporting the same thing about Grenell.Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

closeVideoFox News Flash top headlines for December 23Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.The incoming Biden administration’s nominee for transportation secretary will be busy producing emails for a conservative government watchdog group about his role in establishing a special residential ID card program for illegal immigrants.Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., agreed to search his personal emails for messages concerning the "Community Resident Card," also known as the SBID program for illegal immigrants in the city. By agreeing to produce email messages, Buttigieg will avoid being deposed in a public records lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch in Indiana state court.Judicial Watch made the agreement public the same day President-elect Joe Biden announced the nomination of his one-time Democratic primary rival to run the Department of Transportation.In December 2016, then-Mayor Buttigieg worked with the La Casa de Amistad Inc., a Latino nonprofit advocacy group in South Bend, to create the ID card program. The nonprofit produced and paid for the ID cards, meaning the program was not subject to government transparency laws.Buttigieg signed an executive order requiring local law enforcement, schools and other government services to accept the SBID cards as a valid form of identification. The cards cannot be used as driver's licenses. Former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to be transportation secretary reacts to his nomination as Biden looks on during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP) Judicial Watch made a public-records request to the city of South Bend on the card program in June 2019, when Buttigieg was a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. After an unsatisfactory response, Judicial Watch sued for the records that August in St. Joseph Circuit Court alleging the city violated Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act."This victory will help the public understand Mayor Buttigieg’s plan to create special ID cards to make it easier for illegal aliens to stay in the United States contrary to law," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "It is curious that the mayor fought us for so long on this simple request for information."Illegal immigration and local government policies granting benefits or shielding these residents from federal authorities have been a polarizing issue for years. The Biden transition team did not respond to an inquiry for this story.In 2019, Buttigieg's presidential campaign told NBC News the lawsuit was a "political stunt that is intended to scare immigrants."When La Casa de Amistad announced the South Bend Community Resident Cards in December 2016, then-Mayor Buttigieg posed for a picture to have his own SBID card and announced he would sign an executive order requiring city departments, such as police, fire, school, parks and libraries to recognize the ID cards."Something like a municipal ID or city ID, that allows you to be a card-carrying member of the city of South Bend, is an important thing that allows people to be better included and to be more empowered," Buttigieg said according to the South Bend Tribune. "We have got to make sure that the city is supporting everyone who lives here."The city’s common council had agreed to set aside $18,000 to fund the cards. However, La Casa was concerned city-issued the cards would be disclosable as public records, and increase exposure to federal immigration authorities, the South Bend Tribune reported. The nonprofit charged $25 for the cards. The price dropped to $10 for undocumented seniors and youth who wanted an ID card.More than 2,100 of South Bend’s undocumented population of 4,500 signed up for the cards, NBC News reported in 2019.While campaigning earlier this year for president ahead of the Nevada Caucuses, a state with a large Hispanic population, Buttigieg touted the ID program."One thing I realized very quickly as mayor is that I'm responsible for supporting every resident of our community regardless of citizenship status, and we saw a lot of people who were at risk because they didn't have a way to get ID," Buttigieg told Business Insider during the Nevada campaign.

It’s hard to remember exactly when in 2020 the world officially shattered. Ask anyone what moment solidified this year as a dystopian hellscape, and you’ll hear a number of instances: the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, the fear of an impending Third World War after the assassination of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani, the start of the pandemic, economic collapse, the continuation of a Trump presidency, and the near-constant pang of death.We experienced quite a few of these situations as global community, but many individuals have a point in their own personal lives when they knew this year would be like nothing they could have expected.We asked readers to tell us what that moment was for them. Below are their responses. They have been condensed and edited for clarity.‘Fox News, Trumpism, etc. Had Officially, Effectively Addled My Father-in-Law’s Mind’‘Our Dad Wasn’t Expected to Make It Through the Night’‘I Thought of How Much More Scared He Must Be Than I’‘When My Mother Passed Away’‘The Last Time I Saw Her Was in February’‘My Son Led Me Back to Him’‘I Had Lost the Need to Be Right’‘We Are Permanently Closed’‘I No Longer Enjoyed My Wife’s Company’‘Baby Won’

Here’s what’s happening Wednesday in Election 2020 and President-elect Joe Biden’s transition.TODAY’S TOP STORIES: ‘PRETTY MUCH OVER’: For weeks, President Donald Trump has been on a mission to convince his loyal base that his victory was stolen and the contest was rigged. Polls show he’s had considerable success. But now that the Electoral College has formalized Joe Biden’s win and Republican officials, including Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, are finally acknowledging Biden as president-elect, many Trump voters across the country seem to be doing the same.ADVERTISEMENTREALITY CHECK: More than a month after the election, some of the nation’s highest-profile Republican holdouts are beginning to embrace reality. They’re coming to terms with the fact that Biden will be soon be president. Biden spoke with McConnell, and the Senate majority leader publicly congratulated the Democrat on his victory. And Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, says he’s spoken with Biden and some of his Cabinet picks. BIDEN’S CHALLENGE: After months of being cautious about COVID-19, the president-elect’s prudence will be tested by technology and tradition when his new administration takes over on Jan. 20. White House computers don’t allow the popular video conference software Zoom. Government-issue cellphones only gained texting capabilities a few years ago. And many employees will need to be present at the White House to access classified information.BUTTIGIEG TAPPED: Biden nominated his former rival Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation and intends to choose former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as his energy secretary. Biden also plans to tap Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency chief, for the powerful new position of domestic climate chief to run his ambitious climate plans across the federal government. All three will be central to Biden’s plan to remake the country’s automobile and transportation systems to quickly cut climate-damaging petroleum emissions.ADVERTISEMENTPANDEMIC RELIEF HOPE: As Congress debates additional financial relief during the coronavirus pandemic, Georgia voters who say they’re suffering are calling for action. It’s a top issue on some voters’ minds as they cast their ballots in advance of the Jan. 5 runoffs that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. Democrats are emphasizing the issue. Republicans, meanwhile, are taking credit for an earlier massive relief package that included money to help struggling small businesses. QUOTABLE: “Many of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result. But our system of government has the processes to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20. The Electoral College has spoken.” — McConnell, who finally acknowledged Biden’s victory nearly six weeks after Election Day. ___Find AP’s full election coverage at APNews.com/Election2020.

Once lionized as innovators and job creators — and largely left alone by Washington for nearly two decades — Big Tech companies have seen their political fortunes plummet. Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple have come under scrutiny from Congress, federal regulators, state attorneys general and European authorities. Their once-considerable political support in Congress has eroded.Lawmakers of both major parties are championing stronger oversight of the industry, arguing that its massive market power is out of control, crushing smaller competitors and endangering consumer privacy.There’s little likelihood the pressure will ease up. President-elect Joe Biden has said the breakup of Big Tech giants should be seriously considered.The new lawsuits were announced by the FTC and New York Attorney General Letitia James, culminating separate investigations over the past year and a half.The FTC said Facebook has engaged in a “a systematic strategy” to eliminate its competition, including by purchasing smaller up-and-coming rivals like Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.At a news conference, James said “it’s really critically important that we block this predatory acquisition of companies and that we restore confidence to the market.”“For nearly a decade Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users,” said James, a Democrat. “They reduced choices for consumers. They stifled innovation, and they degraded privacy protections for millions of Americans.”Facebook called the government's claims “revisionist history” that punishes successful businesses and noted that the FTC cleared the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions years ago. “The government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final,” Facebook general counsel Jennifer Newstead said in a statement.Antitrust skeptics point to newer social media services such as TikTok and Snapchat as rivals that could “overtake” older platforms like Facebook.Facebook is the world’s biggest social network with 2.7 billion users and a company with a market value of nearly $800 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the world’s fifth-richest individual and the most public face of Big Tech swagger.James alleged that Facebook had a practice of opening its site to third-party app developers, then abruptly cutting off developers that it saw as a threat. The lawsuit — which includes 46 states, Guam and the District of Columbia — accuses Facebook of anti-competitive conduct and using its market dominance to harvest consumer data and reap a fortune in advertising revenues.Online ads make up the bulk of the company’s revenue, which reached over $70 billion last year.North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who was on the executive committee of attorneys general conducting the investigation, said the litigation could alter the communications landscape much the way the breakup of AT&T’s local phone service monopoly did in the early 1980s.“Our hope is to restructure the social networking marketplace in the United States, and right now there’s one player,” Stein told reporters.Antitrust expert Rebecca Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, said it is “hard to win any antitrust lawsuit and this one is not any different.” But as far as antitrust cases go, she added, the government has a strong one.“These lawsuits mark an important turning point in the battle to rein in Big Tech monopolies and to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement,” said Alex Harman, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.The Justice Department sued Google in October for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising — the government’s most significant attempt to buttress competition since its historic case against Microsoft two decades ago.That suit, announced just two weeks before Election Day, brought accusations of political motivation from some quarters. It was filed by a cabinet agency headed by an attorney general seen as a close ally of President Donald Trump, who has often publicly criticized Google.The FTC, by contrast, is an independent regulatory agency whose five commissioners currently include three Republicans and two Democrats. Two of the three Republicans, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, voted against the agency’s action against Facebook. And the coalition of 48 states and districts that sued Facebook is bipartisan.Instagram and WhatsApp are among some 70 companies that Facebook has acquired over the past 15 years. But they are the ones most frequently held up by Facebook critics as properties that should be split off.Facebook paid a mere $1 billion for Instagram — considered one of the cleverest deals ever in the industry — bolstering the social network’s business a month before its stock went public. At the time, the photo-sharing app had about 30 million users and wasn’t producing any revenue. A few years later, Facebook acquired WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service, for $19 billion.Zuckerberg vowed both companies would be run independently, but over the years the services have become increasingly integrated. Users are now able to link accounts and share content across the platforms. Instagram now has more than 1 billion users worldwide. Such integration could make it more difficult to break off the companies.——Sisak reported from New York. AP journalists Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California, and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

In July, Mr. Trump traveled to Florida to reaffirm his opposition to Mr. Maduro and other socialist governments in Latin America. He accused his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., of supporting “pro-Communist policies” across Latin America in what was seen as an effort to shore up his faltering support among Latinos in the state.One senior administration official said Mr. Grenell’s meeting with Mr. Rodriguez sidestepped established diplomatic channels to secure a foreign policy victory for the president before the election. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal discussions.In the closing months of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has sought to showcase his work on the international stage, including freeing American hostages in Yemen, sealing a landmark peace accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and promising to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also been seeking a new nuclear arms deal with Russia.Mr. Grenell, who had served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Germany and the acting director of national intelligence, was involved in another recent effort to broker a major international deal. He was named special envoy for peace talks between Serbia and Kosovo late last year, even though the State Department already had a special envoy to the region.His brash style and partisan background ruffled feathers among some of those he worked with in the roles.Mr. Grenell’s trip to Mexico City surprised senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At the State Department, officials scrambled to learn the details of the trip after being asked about it by reporters, with some worrying that it could confuse Mr. Guaidó about the American diplomacy and fuel concerns that the Trump administration was not forthcoming about its strategy.It also revealed a divide between the White House and the State Department, where officials have long denied that the Trump administration was growing frustrated with Mr. Guaidó and the stalemate in Venezuela as Washington issued blistering economic sanctions against Mr. Maduro’s government and its loyalists.

China is coming down hard on one of its biggest and most powerful business empires.On Thursday, Chinese regulators said they were taking action against billionaire Jack Ma’s two crown jewels, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and finance behemoth Ant Group, moves that followed the abrupt shutdown last month of Ant’s planned blockbuster public listing.In a terse statement Thursday, Beijing’s top market regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation, said it had launched an antitrust investigation into Alibaba. Separately, a joint statement issued by China’s central bank and regulatory agencies overseeing securities, banking and insurance said they would meet with Ant to urge the firm to implement financial regulations and other rules.Taken together, the actions mark Beijing’s strongest enforcement action against a technology empire that has come to embody China’s striking rise—and its founder Mr. Ma, a flamboyant celebrity businessman who has earned comparisons to Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos.The effort underscores Beijing’s resolve to rein in technology giants seen to be growing too quickly and, critics say, using their influence in ways that are reckless and disruptive to society.

Among those Mr. Claver-Carone contacted, according to the opposition leaders, was Mr. Gorrín.By then, he was technically a fugitive from American justice. The prior summer, U.S. prosecutors had charged him in an alleged money-laundering scheme. He dismissed the indictment as political persecution, but Mr. Ballard had dropped him as a client and Mr. Gorrín was added to the sanctions list.Now, American officials and the Venezuelan opposition needed back channels of their own. According to the opposition leaders, Mr. Gorrín and other intermediaries were asked to convey U.S. offers of leniency to cooperative regime figures.Mr. Gorrín had attended university with the chief justice of Venezuela’s supreme court; the Americans believed they had a deal with Mr. Gorrín to help deliver the judge and others to Mr. Guaidó's side. That March, the Trump administration quietly took Mr. Gorrín’s wife off the sanctions list.Mr. Gorrín, whose discussions with regime figures were reported by The Wall Street Journal last year, denied playing any role in the effort, and said he had no contact with Mr. Claver-Carone after their 2017 meeting.An attempted uprising failed. The promised supreme court ruling never materialized. Mass demonstrations led by Mr. Guaidó fizzled, and Mr. Maduro deployed paramilitaries to torture and kill protesters.Mr. Sargeant, whose oil deal had been scuttled by the new sanctions, saw an opening. That summer, he teamed up with Robert Stryk, a lobbyist who had earned millions representing foreign leaders in Washington. Mr. Stryk’s White House contacts told him that the president felt misled by his advisers on Venezuela. Eager to cut foreign policy deals that administration hawks opposed, Mr. Trump was clashing with Mr. Bolton. By September, he was gone.The next month, Mr. Sargeant and Mr. Stryk flew to Caracas to meet with Mr. Maduro. When they arrived in the presidential palace, there was another guest: Mr. Gorrín.

A second tanker dispatched by Iran was welcomed Monday by Venezuelan naval frigates and helicopters as it entered national waters, a lifeline for embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that reflects the closer ties being forged between Tehran and U.S. adversaries in Latin America.The first of five tankers carrying 1.5 million barrels of gasoline, the Fortune, arrived in the predawn hours at El Palito, a refinery near Puerto Cabello, in defiance of U.S. sanctions that largely prohibit oil trading with the fuel-starved country. The second vessel, the Forest, was also expected to dock at El Palito, where Venezuela is working to restart production, Venezuelan Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami said Monday in a speech. Three more tankers are set to arrive in the coming daysMr. Maduro and his Iranian counterparts say they are working together to outlast the Trump administration, which this spring offered sanctions relief in return for Maduro handing over power to a transitional government. Venezuela’s foreign minister rejected the plan.“We are two rebel revolutionary peoples that are never going to kneel before North American imperialism,” Mr. Maduro said in a televised address.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Sri Lanka Wednesday against its tightening ties with China, as his tour of South Asia this week put a spotlight on the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China for influence in the region.Mr. Pompeo arrived in Sri Lanka just as it is ratcheting up its relationship with China with new loans, multibillion-dollar construction projects and even new laws to cement that partnership.India has been moving closer to the United States after it got caught in deadly skirmishes with China earlier this year. In India Tuesday before leaving for Sri Lanka, Mr. Pompeo announced new agreements to help India cooperate with the U.S. military and buy its hardware.Sri Lanka, however, has demonstrated it is increasingly wary of being sucked into the U.S. orbit in the superpower’s struggle with China to gain an edge in the Indo-Pacific. The small country off the southern tip of India is in a strategically important location along important Indian Ocean shipping lanes. Mr. Pompeo warned Sri Lanka about the potential consequences.“The Chinese Communist Party is a predator,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters after a meeting with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena. “The United States comes in a different way—we come as a friend and a partner.”

How? Why? What the fuck?After four years of emboldened white supremacy, regressive policies, and a pandemic response failure that’s hit Black people especially hard, the race for the White House felt like a “nail-biter” on election night, and still isn’t finished.White voters showed up in big numbers for Trump again, according to exit polls, so that he actually improved on his 2016 results with white women. Perhaps that was to be expected, given how the president’s racist, fearmongering rhetoric is constantly promising to protect them from the rest of us.But Trump also improved on his 2016 results with Latino men and women, helping him take both Florida and Texas. Despite Trump’s immigration policies, stereotypes about Mexicans as rapists and killers, and lack of strong outreach, Biden fell short with Latino voters whom he consistently struggled to prioritize. As Black voters know, the Democratic Party too often assumes that voters of color will pull through for them, and then takes them for granted. Even within Black voters, Trump did a bit better with Black men this year than he did in 2016, according to exit polls.It’s time to retire the outdated stereotype that minorities inevitably go blue,—and to retire the “of color” myth of racial solidarity among minority voters. Black voters may remain committed to the Democratic party, given the alternative, but there’s a reason that the decades-old idea of an emerging Democratic majority of voters of color remains just an idea.This should be the last election in which pollsters, pundits and strategists lump Black voters in with every other minority group. Trump’s blatant racism towards people of color clearly didn’t disqualify him with many people of color who have the option not to think of themselves that way. Unlike Black voters, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, Latino voters have proven time and time again that they aren’t a voting monolith.With the exception of Arizona, Biden underperformed with Latino voters. In parts of Texas’s Starr County, where 96 percent of voters are Latino, Trump quadrupled his vote share from four years ago. In Georgia, Biden won Latino voters by 16 points—down from Hillary Clinton’s 4o-point margin. It was much the same story in Ohio.If Biden makes it over the top, as appears likely, it will have been Black voters in major cities in battleground states who make the difference.Once again, this nation has left it up to Black people to over-perform and deliver sanity to a country that has yet to give us the same. The sense of personal betrayal I feel right now is rage. Black voters kept our end of the bargain, and yet here we are, fighting to keep a white supremacist out of office in the middle of a pandemic that’s killing us disproportionately.

Everyone has a “Trump.” No one has a good one.Like Cher, De Niro, or Walken, there is something distinctive about the way Donald Trump speaks that begs for impersonation, but also, it turns out, something intangible that makes a decent approximation almost impossible.Trump impressions have become so widespread, we’ve become resigned to mediocrity to the extent that we even gave Alec Baldwin an Emmy Award for his wildly bad take on Saturday Night Live. But sketch comedy is one thing. Broadness is forgivable. What about in the context of real, legitimate acting?The Daily Beast’s ObsessedEverything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.By Clicking "Subscribe" you agree to have read theTerms of UseandPrivacy PolicyI’ll leave judgment as to whether whatever is going on in Showtime’s The Comey Rule counts as legitimate television to others, but the two-part series, which launches Sunday, features Irish actor Brendan Gleeson in a star turn as Donald Trump, waiting to be scrutinized.In The Comey Rule, Gleeson’s Trump looms silently in the shadows—a Jaws shark, a Big Bad—more conspicuous and menacing in his absence before becoming a consequential figure in the second half of the series’ action. It’s then that he’s finally unveiled as a comic-book villain, a horror-movie monster, which is more a matter of tone and direction than Gleeson’s performance. Still, his is one of the most naturalistic—and therefore most believable—Trump takes we’ve seen yet.The series is adapted from James Comey’s 2018 memoir A Higher Loyalty, centering on the period from July 2016, when the former FBI director broke standard protocol and held a press conference explaining the bureau’s recommendation that Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted in its email probe, to his firing in 2017.It airs in two parts, with Sunday night’s installment examining the circumstances around the infamous 2016 October surprise, in which, less than two weeks before Election Day, it became public that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server, only to exonerate her two days before the election—too late, critics say, to undo the damage that that possibly swung the vote in Trump’s favor.In that episode, Gleeson’s Trump only appears, never speaking. You first see him from behind about an hour in, as he walks on stage during Miss Universe rehearsals in a flashback sequence. He mimes as a FBI dossier is read aloud, narrating the ways in which Russia cultivated him as an asset five years before he was even a presidential candidate.The second episode, which airs Monday night, focuses on Comey facing the firing squad of an angry public as he navigates a precarious relationship with Trump, who attempts to secure his loyalty, have him squash the Russia investigation, and publicly dismiss the Steele dossier, specifically the notorious “golden showers” allegation.In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the series’ writer and director Billy Ray said he convinced Gleeson to take on the role by reassuring him that “our makeup is going to be more real-life than his, our hair is going to be more real-life than his and our suits are going to fit you better than his [fit him].” (Also, interestingly, by agreeing to Gleeson’s request that he not have to do any press around the series.)It’s a smart move to turn down the volume on the unmistakable visual cues we associate with Trump, at least so much as the Trump aesthetic possibly could be dimmed. You can’t see the blotchy orange skin and not assume you’re watching a sketch character, but there is a more palatable subtlety to the look here. The stringy yellow hair is still heinous and cartoonish, but how do you possibly replicate that look realistically?One of the reasons it’s so hard for performers to disappear into a Trump impression is because so much of his existence is theatrical, from his look to his manner of speaking to the ego.There’s been no shortage of takes on Trump in comedy sketches, where the idea is that here is this buffoonish bull of a man charging into a room and taking up all its energy. These are, in essence, pandering performances. If the goal in The Comey Rule is to show a more subdued interpretation of how Trump must exist in the mundanity of daily life, then Gleeson, in large measure, succeeds.Gleeson’s voice is a little softer than most impersonators try, usually resorting to bellowing every line. If you know that Gleeson is Irish, you convince yourself that you hear hints of his accent come through. But then you realize that some of the weird inflections and pronunciations that Trump employs that don’t conform to standard American English may actually be a little broguish.In the recreation of Trump’s first meeting with Comey about the Steele dossier, Gleeson makes a meal out of the “golden showers” exchange: “There were no prostitutes. There were never prostitutes. You’d have to be an idiot to believe in something like that.”There’s something about the way Gleeson says it that seems exactly right, adding the lisp to the last “s” sound in “prostitutes.” There’s a dramatic pause before he says “idiot,” a word that he then breaks into three staccato, separated syllables.He nails the way that everything Trump says is delivered through a wince. How, when barreling through those run-on, rambling sentences, he breathes in places where people don’t normally take breaths, and never where punctuation would suggest one. How those random sharp inhales are not a gasping for air so much as a pointed hoarding of it, like a vacuum. The forced underbite when he speaks, like he’s purposefully jutting his jaw so that it protrudes forward.“If the goal in The Comey Rule is to show a more subdued interpretation of how Trump must exist in the mundanity of daily life, then Gleeson, in large measure, succeeds.”There’s the inherent challenge of how to make anything that Trump says believable, but the saving grace of Gleeson’s performance is his refusal to make it showy. He’s manlier than you might imagine, but that doesn’t negate the whininess—just tempers it a little to keep scenes somewhat grounded in reality.Perhaps the most indelible thing about a Trump oration is the glaring fact that there is often no roadmap when he starts a sentence, a meandering train of thought that one would imagine would be quite difficult to replicate while reciting lines from a TV script. But it’s in capturing that cognitive, um, “spontaneity” that Gleeson is strongest.Then there’s what Gleeson as Trump is telegraphing, which is the most important element: that spite and petulance that everyone who has worked with him has described as his modus operandi. Still, Gleeson has to show that the wheels are turning, that there is calculation and thought process there somewhere; it can’t all be brashness.I wouldn’t say that Gleeson succeeds wholly at making Trump “human.” But that doesn’t seem to be the goal of the series either.The Comey Rule has had a dramatic road to airing, with the series developed for CBS with the goal of it airing before the election only for executives to get cold feet and instead announce that it wouldn’t premiere until late November, afraid of airing something so politically charged in the lead-up to voting day. (Given the subject matter of Comey’s own “October surprise,” you can’t help but laugh at the irony of this “politically charged” justification.)Ray wrote and circulated a letter to everyone involved in production, including the cast, explaining his disappointment. It leaked, generating a bit of a media firestorm, and CBSViacom relented and scheduled the series for this Sunday and Monday on Showtime.That Trump will publicly respond to the series is in some way an inevitability. Whether he will have anything to say about Gleeson’s performance should be interesting; one particularly meta moment of The Comey Rule sees Gleeson as Trump complaining about Alec Baldwin’s SNL impersonation.Considering how omnipresent Trump takes are on TV, it’s fascinating, at least to me, that the best Trump performance I’ve seen is by a British drag queen named The Vivien in an episode of the RuPaul’s Drag Race: U.K. spinoff. (That’s not shade on The Vivien, either. That’s just how good—and apparently singular—she was.)Equally so is that we consider lip-syncher extraordinaire Sarah Cooper to be the most adept at capturing the ethos of Trump in an impersonation. That by not attempting the voice or the look at all and instead letting his words and delivery speak for themselves, she exposes his true character better than anyone else.It’s in that latter element that Gleeson triumphs, attempting an approximation of the person rather than the persona. And he lands at just that: an approximation, though still the closest one yet.

Colin Powell endorsed Democratic former US vice-president Joe Biden on Sunday and said Donald Trump’s behaviour endangers democracy, becoming the first major Republican to publicly back Trump’s rival ahead of November’s election. Powell, who led the US military during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq under Republican former President George HW Bush and later led the Department of State under President George W Bush, said Trump has “drifted away” from the US Constitution and “lies about things”. “I was deeply troubled by the way in which he was going around insulting everybody,” Powell told CNN. “Insulting Gold Star mothers, insulting John McCain, insulting immigrants, and I’m a son of immigrants. Insulting anybody who dared to speak against him.”“And that is dangerous for our democracy, it is dangerous for our country. And I think what we’re seeing now, the most massive protest movement I have ever seen in my life, I think suggests the country is getting wise to this and we’re not going to put up with it any more.”“I cannot in any way support President Trump this year,” Powell, who did not vote for the Republican president in 2016, told CNN. Asked if he would vote for Biden, he added: “I will be voting for him.” Trump, who has been critical of the Iraq war, in a tweet called Powell “a real stiff”. The president later accused him of being “weak” and claimed the retired general “gave away everything to everybody – so bad for the USA”. Powell is the latest former top military officer to rebuke Trump in the wake of sweeping mass protests aimed at fighting racial injustice spurred by the 25 May death of an unarmed black man in Minnesota. Former defense secretary Jim Mattis and other retired officers have condemned Trump in recent days in a rare rebuke with few precedents in US history.A few Republican lawmakers have also spoken out against Trump’s handling of the outcry and have raised questions about their support for his re-election bid, though most have remained quiet or continued to voice support for the president. US Senator Lisa Murkowski last week told reporters she was struggling over whether she would back Trump in the 3 November election and praised Mattis’s strong words as did fellow Republican Mitt Romney. Powell, who is black, was one of the few prominent Republicans to denounce Trump during the former reality television star’s 2016 presidential run and publicly endorse Trump’s then-rival Hillary Clinton.

Colin Powell, former secretary of state under Republican President George W. Bush, said Sunday morning that President Donald Trump has “drifted away” from the Constitution and that he’ll be voting for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. While the 2020 election would not mark Powell’s first time backing a Democrat for the nation’s highest office (he supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016), his comments are remarkable given that they come as a number of other Republican leaders express hesitation or outright opposition to Trump’s candidacy. “I think he has been not an effective president. He lies all the time,” Powell told CNN’s Jake Tapper, adding that he’s “close” to Biden and plans to support him. “Every American citizen has to sit down, think it through, and make a decision on their own,” Powell said. “Use your common sense, say is this good for my country before you say this is good for me.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says he will be voting for former Vice President Joe Biden. “I certainly cannot, in any way, support President Trump this year.” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/jmiUfDPhl1— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) June 7, 2020 Powell also said Trump’s response to the anti-police brutality protests show that he has strayed from the principles enshrined in the US Constitution — and added he’s “deeply troubled” by the president’s willingness to attack those who oppose him. The president insults “anybody who dared to speak against him. That is dangerous for our democracy, it’s dangerous for our country,” Powell said. Trump reacted to Powell’s comments with insults Sunday morning, tweeting that Powell is “a real stiff” who led the country into war in the Middle East. He then retweeted JT Lewis, a Republican state Senate candidate in Connecticut, who wrote that “retired bureaucrats” hate Trump because he’s “ending the corruption that pads their retirement accounts!” Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden. Didn’t Powell say that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction?” They didn’t, but off we went to WAR!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020 Sunday is not the first time Powell has publicly criticized Trump — he said he voted for Clinton in 2016 and called Trump “a national disgrace and an international pariah” in emails leaked that year. But in speaking out now, he joins a number of other prominent Republicans who are reportedly unhappy with the leader of their party.Former President George W. Bush and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah won’t support Trump’s re-election campaign, the New York Times reported Saturday. People close to Jeb Bush told the Times he isn’t certain how he will vote, and Cindy McCain, widow of Sen. John McCain, is “almost certain” to support Biden. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reports an aide to former President Bush has pushed back on this reporting, calling it “completely made up.” The aide added, “President Bush is retired from presidential politics and hasn’t indicated how he will vote.”Regardless, it seems unlikely Bush would support Trump in his campaign: None of these figures supported Trump in 2016, but some of those who did — including former Speakers of the House Paul Ryan and John Boehner — have not actively endorsed the president’s re-election bid.The Biden campaign reportedly sees enough of an opportunity with these and grassroots Republicans that it even plans to launch a “Republicans for Biden” group later in the campaign, Democrats close to the campaign told the Times. And it is not only Republicans who are criticizing the president. A number of elite military officials — who usually work to remain nonpartisan — have also criticized Trump in recent days over his response to protests against racism and police brutality that have occurred in cities across the country. Some of his controversial moves include reportedly calling for 10,000 active duty service members to deploy to stop them, and using US Park Police and other law enforcement officials to tear-gas peaceful protesters to make way for Trump to take a photo in front of a nearby church. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned from his post in the Trump administration in 2018 over the president’s Syria policy and remains widely respected on both sides of the aisle, released an excoriating statement earlier this week. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis wrote. “We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”Former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Friday he agreed with Mattis. And Gen. John Allen, the former commander of US troops in Afghanistan, penned an op-ed in Foreign Policy, writing that Trump “has failed to show sympathy, empathy, compassion, or understanding (for those protesting racial injustice)—some of the traits the nation now needs from its highest office.”How widespread the sentiments of Powell, top Republicans, and some military leaders are will be revealed in the fall; polling, however, shows Biden has held a slight advantage over Trump for months, one that’s been rising in the weeks since nationwide anti-racism protests arose after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Vox turns 7 this month. 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