Category Archives: Donald Trump

President Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, agree that American troops should leave Afghanistan. Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

President Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, agree that American troops should leave Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan the world is witnessing disastrous consequences associated with a rare area of agreement between President Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Both presidents saw the 20-year war in the remote and rugged country as an unwelcome inheritance and an albatross. For Trump it was the prime example of the "forever wars" he promised to end, a salient promise of his "America First" campaign. Frustrated in his initial efforts to truncate the U.S. mission, Trump finally bypassed the Afghan government to negotiate directly with the Taliban. The deal with them that he signed on Feb. 29, 2020 promised to pull all U.S. troops out by May 1, 2021.

Biden did not reverse this course when he took office, although he did push back the pull-out to September. He wanted more time to remove U.S. forces and, if necessary, evacuate U.S. civilians as well as Afghan interpreters and others who helped the U.S. war effort. He was advised he would have a period of weeks or months to do this after September.

It turned out, the Taliban had a schedule of their own.

It also turned out that the Afghan army the U.S. built, trained and equipped had been largely abandoned by its own government. Reportedly left without food and other supplies, much of the army simply ceded the battlefield to the Taliban, first in the hinterlands, then in the towns, then in the cities. There seemed to be little loyalty to the elected Afghan government, whose leader Ashraf Ghani fled the country before the Taliban entered the capital and took over his palace.

So when we thought we had months to get out, we had weeks. When we thought we had weeks, we had days. When we thought we still had a few days, we had hours.

The Taliban did not fight their way into Kabul; they drove in. There were commuters in American cities who found it harder driving in to work the next day.

It seems no one foresaw all this happening this fast.

But someone has to deal with the general failure. Someone has to cope with the hundreds of Americans and international workers still in Afghanistan who want to go their home countries and untold thousands of Afghans who want to leave theirs.

Taliban fighters stand guard at an entrance gate outside the Interior Ministry in Kabul on Tuesday. Javed Tanveer/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Biden stood up on Monday and said "the buck stops here." But he made clear he thought that buck had been passed to him by plenty of other people. He acknowledged that the U.S. footprint was now confined to the Hamid Karzai International Airport. He seemed stunned by the scenes of chaos there, the tarmac awash with would-be refugees, some so desperate they clung to an aircraft as it took off.

Yet Biden remained adamant about getting out of Afghanistan, even given the catastrophe on view on screens the world over.

Four presidents over two decades have found themselves mired in Afghanistan, wondering when they might get out. Biden grasped the nettle like no other. And he may well face the political consequences each of his predecessors managed to sidestep.

President George W. Bush first sent troops to overthrow the Taliban then in power after they had harbored al-Qaida prior to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Thereafter, his attention turned to invading Iraq and a larger struggle there. But he kept enough troops in Afghanistan to keep the lid on and move toward building an indigenous army and democracy (while denying it was "nation building").

Elected in 2008, Barack Obama surged the U.S. fighting force to more than 90,000 in his first term, then drew it down aggressively after winning his second. Biden, his vice president, was opposed to the build-up and favored the drawdown.

Neither Bush nor Obama wanted "Who lost Afghanistan?" questions to haunt their own reelection prospects. And indeed, they did not.

Trump, by contrast, seemed more anxious about voters asking why the U.S. had not left Afghanistan.

In his 2020 book The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser in 2018 and 2019, depicts Trump as determined to deal with the Taliban. He recalls Trump trying to bring Taliban leaders to Camp David for negotiations in September 2019, eventually dropping that plan, and then reviving its outline in what became the Feb. 29, 2020 agreement.

"This deal is entirely Trump's," Bolton wrote of that agreement. "Time will tell who is right, and the full effects of the deal may not become apparent until after Trump leaves office. But there should be no mistaking this reality: Trump will be responsible for the consequences, politically and militarily."

Bolton, long known as a hardliner in previous Republican administrations, has since expressed his scorn for Biden's policy and Trump's, in the wake of events in Kabul.

H.R. McMaster, a retired Army general who preceded Bolton as national security adviser, has also linked the Trump and Biden approaches to Afghanistan. He told a Wilson Center interviewer on Aug. 12 that a "sound strategy" he helped devise for Afghanistan in 2017 had been "abandoned" in "capitulation negotiations conducted under Ambassador [Zalmay] Khalilzad" Trump's special envoy to Afghanistan who was retained in that role by the Biden administration.

So intense was Trump's intention to withdraw that he persisted even after the 2020 election. According to a report published by Axios in May, Trump signed a memo in November that would have withdrawn all U.S. troops by mid-January (just five days before his term was to end). His top national security team, civilian and military, persuaded him not to issue the order but to leave the withdrawal date at May 1.

Trump has since said none of the current mayhem in Kabul would be happening if he were still president. Researchers will need to ascertain how many exit visas for Afghans had already been arranged before Trump left office, or what sort of procedures he might have had in place for Americans and Afghans wishing to leave. But lacking such evidence, and given Trump's timetable and concessions made to the Taliban, it is easier to imagine the current situation happening that much sooner.

Trump in fact had complained at his June 26 rally in Ohio that the Biden administration was dragging its feet and ought to get out faster.

There is a case to be made that Biden is less responsible for this fiasco than any of the previous three presidents. But he is the one who fumbled at the goal line, as it were, at the crucial moment of the game from the perspective of media and politics.

While an Economist/YouGov poll this June found only 1 American in 5 opposed to the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan, a Morning Consult survey that followed the fall of Kabul found a plurality of 45% opposed to withdrawal if it meant a Taliban takeover.

It can also be said that by the time Biden was carrying the ball, it was more like being left holding the bag.

"I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth," he said. "It is time for American troops to come home."

Biden made that statement on April 14, with Trump's May 1 deadline looming. He repeated the vow about passing the responsibility in his speech on Monday.

There was in that "time to come home" phrase a faint, distant echo of "come home, America" the campaign theme of presidential nominee George McGovern, who ran against the Vietnam War in 1972 and lost 49 states.

It was not a good year for Democrats on the ballot, but one who won was a 29-year-old Senate candidate in Delaware who did not make a major issue of the war. The young Joe Biden had not been a campus activist in his years at the University of Delaware or at Syracuse Law School. "I didn't march," he would recall later. "I ran for office."

Just two years later, still in his first Senate term, Biden watched with the nation as the long war in Vietnam ended in debacle. Helicopters plucked the last U.S. military and civilians from a rooftop in Saigon as the city fell, ending a civil war in which the U.S. had backed the South Vietnamese government against the communist regime of North Vietnam and its guerilla allies, the Viet Cong.

Vietnamese people scale the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, trying to get to the helicopter pickup zone, just before the end of the Vietnam War on April 29, 1975. Neal Ulevich/AP hide caption

American support for Saigon had been waning for years, with the U.S. ending the draft after 1972 and leaving the fighting to the Vietnamese. When left on its own, the South Vietnamese army was routed in a matter of months. Many thousands of Vietnamese who had helped the U.S. were left behind, with some escaping in desperately overloaded ships. Many of these "boat people" were picked up by U.S. Navy vessels; others made it to port in surrounding countries. Eventually, many came to the U.S. where they and their descendants now number well over a million.

When Saigon fell, none of the U.S. presidents who had made commitments to Vietnam was on hand to bear the consequences. Dwight Eisenhower, who sided with the French colonialists against the Vietnamese in the 1950s, was long dead. So was John F. Kennedy, who inherited the war but felt he had to extend it and expand the U.S. commitment, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who had escalated the war far beyond his predecessors. Richard Nixon, still alive, had resigned on the brink of impeachment over the Watergate scandal.

President Gerald Ford had been in office less than nine months when Saigon fell in April of 1975. He had been preoccupied with domestic matters and been assured the Saigon government could hold on a while longer. He was misinformed. But relatively few blamed him, even in the wake of a disastrous end to the long struggle and a humiliating exit for the U.S. His approval in the Gallup Poll did not seem to suffer, and a military rescue of U.S. seamen captured off Cambodia's coast two weeks later helped boost him to more than 50% approval at the end of May.

The other factor that may have influenced Biden on Afghanistan is more personal. Some who heard Biden speak on Monday were surprised he did not mention his son, Beau Biden, who was deployed to the Iraq War in 2008.

"I don't want him going," his father said at the time, "But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference."

Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, and his father has speculated at times about the effects of toxic chemicals his son encountered while in the war theater.

As vice president, Biden was reported to have told a colleague that he did not want his son going to Afghanistan if the mission was to make sure it was safe for girls to go to school. (The Taliban is notorious for denying women the most basic rights.)

The president has often made mention of the impact his son's life and death have had on him. And while such things as personal loss or the Vietnam era experience cannot be measured precisely, neither can they be counted out.

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Joe Biden And Donald Trump Have Rare Consensus On Afghanistan - NPR

In April 2020, as the coronavirus was engulfing the U.S., then president Donald Trump declared at his then daily coronavirus briefing, This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, its a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic cant keep up with it. And theyre constantly trying to come up with a newpeople go to a hospital and they catchthey go for a heart operationthats no problem, but they end up dying from, from problems.You know the problems Im talking about. Theres a whole genius to it. The remarks were bizarre not just because, as the name suggests, the coronavirus is not a bacterial infection but a virus, and therefore immune to antibiotics, but because Trump was describing a disease that had by then killed more than 20,000 people in the U.S. in the sort of glowing terms he typically only reserved for himself. Brilliant! Genius! Sure, it was highly contagious and extremely lethal but damn if Trump didnt admire it for those very reasons because, as youd probably figured out by that point, there is something very wrong with him.

Anyway, we were reminded of the ex-presidents high regard of COVID-19 on Tuesday night when he appeared on Fox News to talk about how great the Taliban is.

Per Insider:

Former President Donald Trump praised the Taliban on Tuesday, calling the group smart and good fighters.

The Taliban, good fighters, I will tell you, good fighters. You have to give them credit for that. Theyve been fighting for a thousand years. What they do is they fight, Trump said on Fox News [Hannity] on August 17. The Taliban has circled the airport, and who knows if theyre going to treat us right? All of a sudden, theyll saywell, frankly, if they were smart, theyd reallyand they are smart. They are smart. They should let the Americans out, Trump said to Hannity.

The Taliban, of course, have not been fighting for 1,000 years, as the organization was founded in the early 1990s, though thats the least problematic thing that came out of Trumps mouth during the interview.

Composed of fighters called the mujahideen, the group took control of the capital, Kabul, in 1996, but it lost power in 2001 after American forces invaded. Trumps praise of the Taliban is alarming, considering that the group is known for its brutal, violent tactics. Just this year, the militant group beheaded an Afghan interpreter for the U.S. Army. The Taliban has also been accused of multiple bombings and assassinations. Afghan women are also fearful that they may be barred from working, stoned for breaking the rules, or even killed if the Taliban imposes its strict form of Sharia.

Elsewhere in Trumps chat with Hannity, the former president attempted to rewrite his own Afghanistan history, as he is wont to do. Claiming he never had a lot of confidence, frankly in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country for the UAE, Trump insisted that he believed Ghani was a total crook who he never liked.Which differs slightly from his previous comments about the guy:

And, of course, it wouldnt be a Trump hit without him going off on a bizarre tangent about how dictators the world over love him and think Joe Biden sucks:

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Surprise: Fox News has some predictably terrible medical advice for its viewers

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Good Fighters and Great Negotiators: Donald Trump Is Weirdly Full of Praise for the Taliban - Vanity Fair

Former President Donald Trump has once again suggested he could run for president in 2024 but has still not officially confirmed his intention to mount another campaign.

Trump gave a phone interview to Newsmax' Greg Kelly on Wednesday and discussed issues like the situation in Afghanistan and the COVID-19 vaccine before touching on the next presidential election.

The former president remains popular among Republican voters and is widely seen as the favorite for the party's 2024 nomination, but Trump has so far just teased the possibility.

Towards the end of the Newsmax interview, Kelly asked Trump about the 2024 election.

"As we say goodnight, sir, thoughts on 2024 and you. What are you thinking right now?" Kelly asked.

Trump replied: "So, look, I love this country. I hate what's happening to it. I hate it."

"And we're not gonna have a country anymore if it keeps going like this week," he said. "We're a laughing stock all over the world and I think a lot of people are going to be very happy."

Trump has used similar phrasing regarding a potential 2024 run in the past. In May, he appeared by phone on Candace Owen's show for the Daily Wire and said: "I think people are going to be very, very happy when I make a certain announcement."

On Tuesday, the former president reiterated that phrasing in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Trump told Hannity that he was not able to reveal whether he was running in 2024, citing campaign finance laws. He is not barred from revealing whether he's running but an announcement would affect his ability to fundraise through his current super PAC.

"As the campaign finance laws are extremely complicated and unbelievably stupid, I'm actually not allowed to answer that question, can you believe it?" Trump said.

"I'd love to answer it. But let me put it this way, I think you'll be happy and I think a lot of our friends will be very happy. But I'm not actually allowed answer it, it makes things very difficult if I do," he said.

During his Newsmax interview on Wednesday, Trump discussed the COVID-19 vaccine and told Kelly that the vaccines had prevented a death toll from the virus similar to that of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

"I'm very proud of the vaccine," Trump said. "I've taken it, you've... probably taken it. But I'm very proud of it. I think we could have another situation with the Spanish Flu, 1917 [sic], where up to 100 million people were killed."

Polls have consistently shown that Trump is the most popular candidate among Republican voters to win the party's nomination in 2024 but he has yet to formally announce his intentions, instead dropping hints during various media appearances.

No defeated president has gone on to run for another term since Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland lost the 1888 election to Republican Benjamin Harrison and then defeated Harrison four years later.

Newsweek has asked former President Trump's office for comment.

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Donald Trump Hints at 2024 Run: 'A Lot of People Are Going to Be Very Happy' - Newsweek

Coming off a sweep through the Midwest that included stops at the Iowa State Fair and a rally in Des Moines with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz got married. In a quiet ceremony on Catalina Island off the coast of California, Gaetz and Ginger Luckey tied the knot. For a guy who craves the spotlight, the event was uncharacteristically understated. Aside from former Rand Paul staffer Sergio Gor, who took up the dual role of officiant and DJ, and war room hosts Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters, few political personas were in attendance. Luckeys brother, Palmer, and his partner, Nicolewho arrived on the formers decommissioned naval vesseland Nestor Galban, Gaetzs adopted son, represented the family. About 30 other friends from normal liferounded out the party. Gaetz cooked for the group, serving up a menu of BBQ chicken legs, grilled vegetables, and a watermelon salad.

The elopement was something of a surprise. The couple had previously planned to get married next Augustor so they told me on a sticky summer afternoon late last month, when I met the two in the lobby bar of New York Citys Ace Hotel. Amidst a tornado of scandal for the congressman the behavior hes been accused of ranges from gross to potentially illegal and includes, but is not limited to, sex trafficking of a minor; sharing nude photos of women with his colleagues on the House floor; taking a sex-fueled jaunt to the Bahamas; and drug use I was there to meet Luckey and, their hope was, to expand the public understanding of her beyond that poor girl marrying Matt Gaetz.

New York City isnt known as the friendliest territory for Republicans with Gaetzs level of opprobrium, and he dressed the part when we met. Clad in a casual cotton T-shirt and a baseball cap pulled low, Gaetz hardly fit the part of the bombastic firebrand who rode Donald Trumps coattails to the upper echelon of MAGAworldno Fox News bronze or overly coiffed bouffant in sight. But its clear that Washington, D.C., is no longer friendly territory either. Just days after our meeting, Gaetz was hounded off during a press conference. Are you a pedophile? a woman could be heard repeatedly shouting in videos of the incident. For years Gaetz enjoyed the shelter afforded to a lawmaker who spent most of his time brownnosing the president, but the Biden era has seen him fall under federal investigation.

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. He will tell you, emphatically, as he sits at a high-top table at the Ace Hotel, I have fewer on-record accusers than Joe Biden. As the investigation continues, hes taking cues from the former president. I have seen so much in politics: people distracted, dismayed, disoriented by bad coverage, he said. In a way Trump was an inspiration for me because despite whatever they were saying about himwith foreign intelligence services, with the DOJhe had a determination to say what he was gonna say and share his vision for the country.

Along for the ride is Luckey, then dressed in bright white jeans and pristine sneakers that have no business on the city streets. A longboard was tucked conspicuously behind her at the table. You see, she grew up in Long Beach, California, a hypercompetitive tomboy who enjoyed sailing with Palmer, the wunderkind founder of virtual reality company Oculus VR and famous Facebook exile. She studied economics at U.C. Santa Barbara and captained the schools sailing team. After graduation she worked for accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers before jumping to a smaller outfit. She now works for a 35-person start-up called Apeel, which focuses on extending the longevity of produce using only plant-based materials. The image she projects, like Gaetzs, comes close to caricature. She was, she said, a teen mom kind of figure to younger students on the sailing team: I was like, Theres nothing more important than getting these kids home at night.

Luckey was carefully apolitical. She touched on feminism in a way that recalled the former first daughter: When I found out that the first lady doesnt...get a paycheck, even when she coordinates a whole team, I was like, Wait a minute. Youre telling me she isnt valued at all? she said at one point. I was flabbergasted. I was like, Were America. Were supposed to set the standard for this, and this is what were doing?

She presented her own form of bipartisanship, one minute noting that the Trump she is closest with is Tiffany (who told Luckey where to get her hair done in D.C.), the next saying she respects Jill Biden because she continues to teach writing at Northern Virginia Community College, even as first lady. Asked whether shes become more political since slipping a ring on that all-important finger, Luckey responded, I admire AOC as well as Lauren Boebert. They both speak their mind. Theyre both effective in things they want to drive forward. And I think too often, [theres] so much of this red team, blue team. Theres just gotta be so much more common middle ground.

Her mother, she said, does sometimes show her off, which is how she ended up at Mar-a-Lago one night in March 2020, at Kimberly Guilfoyles 51st birthday party, wearing a backless white dress. Thats where she met Gaetz, who, she said, was one of few men present who didnt touch her lower back: I remember thinking we had such a good conversation. Guilfoyle conspired with Gaetz, who was smitten, to seat Luckey next to him at a table dominated by Trump-era celebrities. This was the final year of a presidency whose bit players were inescapable for anyone but a Tibetan monk, yet Luckey insisted she had no idea who her dining companions were. She remembers asking Eric Trump to take a photo of her and Gaetz seated next to each other. She said she asked Tucker Carlson what kind of show he had. When she saw Don Jr., she asked Gaetz, Who is that man dressed like someone from Duck Dynasty?

Gaetz has always worked hard to manage his image. Now that hes under investigation for potential sex trafficking, he wants to discuss his engagement. His description of his meet-cute with Luckey sounded like Cinderella fanfic for the MAGA worldwhat they referred to multiple times as their COVID love story. For me it was love at first sight, he said. For her it took six dates. Gaetz continued to court Luckey after Guilfoyles birthday party, inviting her to the Kentucky Derby as a pretense to continue talking. Keep in mind I had no tickets, no hotel, no plan. I just thought this was a way to get her back to the East Coast, he said. Then the Kentucky Derby gets canceled by COVID, and I am totally off the hook.

They started seeing each other, and on December 30, after less than a year, Gaetz proposedat Mar-a-Lago. Before popping the question, Gaetz, cognizant that you never want to upstage the big guy, asked Trump for his approval. According to Gaetz, doing a passable Trump impression, the former president said, You two are a dynamic duo. When Luckey said yes, Trump sent a bottle of his eponymous Champagne to their table.

As the allegations against Gaetz started piling up, there was speculation that Luckey would break things off. By the time of the engagement, federal agents had already confiscated the congressmans phone and were digging, particularly into his association with Joel Greenberg, a fellow Florida man and the former Seminole County tax collector who pleaded guilty to a number of crimes, including sex trafficking a 17-year-old, whom he accused Gaetz of having sex with. But now theyre married. Never Left. Never Leaving, Luckey posted last month on Twitter with a photo of the couple on a sunset beach walk.

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Trump Was an Inspiration for Me: Matt Gaetz Tries to Shift the Narrative With a MAGA Romance - Vanity Fair

When Ruby Wax Met9pm, BBC Two

Trump scared the shit out of me, recalls Ruby Wax. And I think its my fault that he kept a career going. Its a striking opening gambit but the footage of their 1996 joust is undeniably squirm-inducing in places. This series in which Wax now with the perspective supplied by a masters degree in cognitive therapy looks back on her previous career as a celebrity interviewer is funny, sometimes revelatory viewing. Other, marginally less stressful featured encounters include OJ Simpson and Carrie Fisher. Phil Harrison

The world of biscuit retail is a surprisingly competitive, even brutal place. Dawn French narrates this brief history of the fierce territorial battles that have taken place for control of prized teatime snack territory. Its an entertaining tale of copycats, cost-cutting and high court battles. PH

Julien Baptiste (Tchky Karyo) just has an affinity with the bereaved parents of Europe, doesnt he? In this second season finale (fourth, if you count The Missing), he and Emma (Fiona Shaw) are as one in their desperate effort to prevent another attack. But can she hold her nerve against her only surviving child? Ellen E Jones

Surgical gloves at the ready for this season finale of the eccentric detective series. Parent-child relationships have been a regular theme, with Professor Ts (Ben Miller) own mother always hovering in the background. So when an attempt is made on a businessmans life, he pursues a familiar line of investigation. EEJ

A cathartic conclusion to season four of the dystopian drama. June risks everything to ensure that justice is served. But what will that justice look like? The journey towards it doesnt always make for easy viewing, and theres no sign of things easing up the show is preparing to go out with a bang in season five. PH

With bad-faith actors intent on establishing a link between the Chinese state and Covid-19, this doc will need to tread carefully. Boasting testimony from Biden insider Professor David Relman and the University of Oxfords Sir John Bell, it wonders how much we know about the origins of the virus. PH

The Straight Story 11am, Film4

Whimsical, slow and unfailingly gentle, this is exactly what you wouldnt expect from David Lynch. Richard Farnsworth exudes charm and dignity as Iowa farmer Alvin Straight, who hops on to his motorised lawnmower to visit his dying brother. Its a long road, rich with Lynchs sly vision of American life. Paul Howlett

Scottish Premier League Football: Dundee v Hibernian, 11am, Sky Sports Main Event The Scottish top-flight game from Kilmac Stadium.

Premier League Football: Southampton v Manchester United, 2pm, Sky Sports Main Event With Arsenal v Chelsea to follow.

Cycling: Vuelta a Espaa, 3.30pm, Eurosport 1Stage nine of the Grand Tour race.

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TV tonight: Ruby Wax revisits her time with Donald Trump - The Guardian

Former President Donald Trump Sunday called on President Biden to resign in disgrace over his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and other issues.

It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy, the former president wrote in a statement.

The Taliban have rapidly taken control of most of the country as insurgent forces enter the capital city of Kabul, where US troops have been sent to evacuate the embassy.

Mobs of panicked people can be seen at the Kabul airport frantically trying to flee the city on Sunday.

Trumps administration had negotiated the terms of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by May 1. Trump even considered withdrawing troops from the region before leaving office.

When Biden announced that he planned to fully withdraw troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he was slammed by Trump, who insisted Biden keep as close as possible to his own goal of getting the troops out on May 1.

I made early withdraw possible by already pulling much of our billions of dollars of equipment out and, more importantly, reducing our military presence to less than 2,000 troops from the 16,000 level that was there (likewise in Iraq, and zero troops in Syria except for the area where we KEPT THE OIL), he said in an email to supporters in April.

Republicans have blasted Biden for the current crisis in the country, where the US had maintained a presence for 20 years.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the US troop pullout has been an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions on Sunday.

Biden was also criticized by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who told Fox News on Thursday the situation would not have happened if Trump were still in office.

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Trump calls on Biden to 'resign in disgrace' over crisis in Afghanistan - New York Post

The coronavirus pandemic, a fraught election, an attempted insurrection, more of the coronavirus pandemic the United States is suffering from the mental version of long COVID, says Mary Trump.

The psychologist and niece of former President Donald Trump joins The New Abnormal to talk about it this week.

Mary Trump speaks with co-host Molly Jong-Fast about how her uncle Donald politicized the COVID-19 pandemic, demanding that his supporters endanger their lives to demonstrate their loyalty to him. He said Wednesday that the CDCs recommendation for booster shots was simply a money-making operation for Pfizer.

He will do anything to feel that hes still the center of attention. Unfortunately, he has nothing good to offer us. Hes incapable of, you know, doing a PSA to have people get vaccinated, she says.

Did you know you can listen to The New Abnormal bonus episodes in your member dashboard or a podcast app? Click here to get set up and sign up for new episode email alerts here.

Mary Trump argues in her new book, The Reckoning: Our Nations Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal, that the intersecting crises have left the nation reeling. Americans have experienced profound whiplash and decline over the past two years, she says.

What will happen to this nations mental health after months more of chaos and fear? Plus, of course, that it was worsened by Donalds need to keep people at each others throats, she tells Molly.

Also on the episode, Margaret Sullivan, media critic for The Washington Post, joins to discuss shortcomings in the coverage of the U.S. militarys withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ensuing Taliban takeover.

Its impossible to Just give me the facts because everything is framed. You know, everything is a choice. Quoting Karl Rove is a choice. Voting Leon Panetta is a choice, she says. I think its been not great at all.

I feel like when you have John Bolton on, you may have lost some of your credibility, Molly says.

You can quote people like that. But when you do, you owe it to your readership or your audience to say what their role was when the decisions were being made, Sullivan replies. The government has lied to the American people for years about this. Lets not forget that as were quoting the exact same people who lied.

Molly also interviews Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state who was deployed to Afghanistan as a U.S. Army intelligence officer. They talk about the disaster unfolding in Kabul and beyond.

One of the problems that were having right now as a country is were really used to having somebody to blame, and this is a 20-year war, Kander says.

Like Sullivan, Kander says one of the most bitter disappointments of recent weeks has been Americans ahistorical perceptions of the war.

I am mad that the American public seems to have figured out this week that weve been fighting a war in Afghanistan for 20 years and theyre not happy about it, he says.

Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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Why Uncle Don Is 'Incapable' of Convincing the Unvaccinated - The Daily Beast

In Showtimes new docuseries Gossip a recording of Donald Trump pretending to be his own publicist is played; a story about Tom Cruises front teeth falling out during a dinner with former New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allen is told; and 91-year-old Cindy Adams defends her past and present friendships with Roy Cohn, Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Gen. Manuel Noriega and, of course, Trump.

But beyond salacious Page Six stories and Adams questionable friendships, Gossip, is at its core an examination of power and how Rupert Murdoch fundamentally shifted the foundation of the news industry via the New York Post and its tabloid journalism.

The four-part docuseries explores how New York Citys most prominent gossip columnists Liz Smith, George Rush, Richard Johnson and Adams built their careers and used their power.

Gossip director-producer Jenny Carchman is no stranger to covering media outlets, having received an Emmy nomination for her work on The Fourth Estate. She and Liz Garbus co-directed the 2018 docuseries, which follows New York Times reporters as they cover the Trump presidency. In Gossip, Carchman tracks the rise of The New York Post and how the newspapers gossip section created celebutantes like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian while also allowing lies to become reality.

Imagines Brian Grazer and Ron Howard serve as executive producers on the project along with Imagine Entertainments Michael Rosenberg, Imagine Documentaries Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes, and Troy Searer from New York Post Entertainment.

Variety spoke with Carchman about Adams candidness, what scandals to include in the series, and what it means to own gossip.

What drew you to this project?

The whole series looks through the lens of the New York Post, so that interested me because of the journalism piece of it. But when I was told that Id have access to Cindy Adams, I was like, Okay, this is amazing. Because then it became about a person and this persons history and this persons story. Thats what excited me.

Adams is very candid in the series. How did you convince her to take part in the doc?

Ron Howard met with Cindy and he was like Oh my God. What a character. They hit it off and I think Cindy felt like, Why not do the series?

In one interview you did with Adams she also describes how she went after Leona Helmsley when the hotel empress supervillain, and Adams former friend, betrayed her. She then warns you about how you chose to portray her in the film, saying with a smile, I will find you. Were you ever intimidated by Adams or afraid to ask her anything?

Yes. I also know that in that interview when she said that, I couldnt tell if it was a joke or if she was serious. I wasnt sure, so I just decided to go with it.

The series explores Adams friendships with controversial figures such as the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Roy Cohn, Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Mario Cuomo and of course Donald Trump. At one point a colleague says Cindys one of those people who views everybody through the prism of how they treat her. So if Adolf Hitler had been nice to her, well Has Adams seen the film, and does she like it?

Yes. She liked the film. Listen, shes unapologetic. Shes absolutely clear about her feelings and about her relationships. These are her friends. She is very loyal to her friends. Theyve done nothing wrong to her. She doesnt feel the need to apologize for them or for their behavior. In fact, she was able to further her career by having access to these people. I think she feels like shes telling it, like it is from their point of view. Shes a reporter from their point of view.

Page Six has covered many celebrities and scandals. How did you decide what items to include in the series?

I laid out a timeline. I put all the big stories that Cindy had covered, and the not so big stories. What were the stories that were going to give us insight into Cindy as a person, reporter, and friend? Then I looked for the stories that would help us understand the world were in today, which is Trump and how did we get here? So, that was the deciding trajectory of it. As we get later into the decades, theres stories you cant ignore like Harvey Weinstein. You cant tell a story about gossip and not tell his story because he was a master of it. And you cant tell the story of Page Six and not tell the story of Paris Hilton, because she was created by Page Six.

What I found surprising is that the series is less about celebrity gossip and more about how much power tabloid journalists have. Was that intentional?

Yes. Its all about how to manipulate the media. In the series we learn about befriending gossip columnists; giving people stories; trading stories with people; having information that you can barter for more self-interested publicity. We see how celebrities of all types from Donald Trump to Kim Kardashian to Harvey Weinstein use the media. Its about, using this form of gossip as a form of journalism for ones self-interest.

Why make this series now?

I thought that this would be a fascinating look back at where the idea of a transactional relationship with the media formed. I mean, thats been going on forever so, I dont want to say that it was born in 1976 when the Post was bought by Murdoch, but thats where we start our story. I do think Murdoch, along with the internet and television all of these pieces came together in this perfect storm of combining news with entertainment and the entertainment is salacious and gratuitous, stuff that you see mainly in gossip. Then (that combination) became part of our everyday life.

The series is called Gossip, but its about so much more. Was the title chosen as a way to appeal to viewers that wouldnt normally watch a doc about the evolution of the New York Post and how it shifted journalism?

Everybody gossips, right? Everybody loves to do it. It feels good. Its information that you have, and it gives you power. The point of this series is how to use that power with the information. It would be great if we appeal to a (really broad) audience and they watch it and learn about the history of the New York Post and Cindy Adams and Donald Trump. But either way, the series is trying to take that word gossip and unpack it. Like, what is it actually? And I think where we come to is that the word is enormous power.

Gossip debuts Aug. 22 on Showtime

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Gossip Director Jenny Carchman on Cindy Adams, the NY Post and Donald Trump - Variety

Trump's webmasters didn't appear to be the only ones who were busy trying to clean up their sites. Insider points out that the Republican National Committee has taken down a page that considered Trump's deal with the Taliban as a foreign-policy achievement. It trumpeted what it called a "preliminary peace deal " with the Taliban that would put an end to military action there. According to the now-defunct GOP page, the U.S. would pull out its troops within 135 days of the agreement, which was signed on February 2, in exchange for a promise that Afghanistan wouldn't be used as a base for terrorism.The RNC has since told Insider that the removal was part of a "scheduled transfer" of old posts from an old site to a new one.

Even if the page had stayed up, what the GOP's site does not mention is that the Trump administration backed the Taliban's call for the release of 5,000 of its insurgents who had been imprisoned by the Afghan government. The insurgents were singled out using a list provided by the Taliban. Of the names on the list, 400 had been linked to or convicted of serious crimes. Those prisoners were eventually released, thanks to the efforts of then secretary of state Mike Pompeo (via The New York Times).

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Why Donald Trump's Position On Afghanistan Is Coming Back To Haunt Him - The List

A COVID drug used to treat former US president Donald Trump has been approved for UK coronavirus patients.

Ronapreve will be the NHSs first tailor-made Covid treatment, and is proven to cut deaths and hospital admissions.

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Trump described it as a cure for the virus when he was struck down with it in October last year.

It works by injecting virus-fighting antibodies into the blood, where they latch on to the coronavirus and stop it getting into cells.

Scientists said the drug was another weapon in the UKs arsenal and said it could slash the risk of someone going into hospital by 70 per cent.

An Oxford University study found the pricey drug costing up to 2,000 per patient could cut the risk of death by up to a fifth in those who do not have natural antibodies. And it can also stop people getting Covid in the first place, so could be given to family members of those who test positive.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: We are now working at pace to ensure this treatment can be rolled out to NHS patients as soon as possible.

Ronapreve, made by the US-based firms Regeneron and Roche, is made from antibodies harvested from those who have already recovered.

Other drugs used to treat seriously ill Covid sufferers were designed for other illnesses years ago.

Although most people have natural antibodies thanks to jabs, it could be used for those who have not had a vaccine or whose immune systems are weak.

After being released from hospital last year, Trump said: I want everybody to be given the same treatment as your president, because I feel great. I feel perfect.

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Covid drug used to treat Donald Trump approved for UK patients... - The Sun