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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Kate Andrews |Piers Morgan |Kevin Roberts |Martin Vander Weyer
Ex-Media Matters influencer Kat Abughazaleh announced a run for the US Congress today, telling Democrats, “It’s time to drop the excuses and grow a fucking spine.”Abughazaleh is fed up with the Democrats “cowering to Trump,” and says the party should be “standing up to authoritarians, not shrinking away when the fight gets tough.” So she decided to run herself. Mischief, mayhem and Washington gossip from The Spectator’s intrepid beat reporter.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Kate Andrews |Kevin Roberts |Martin Vander Weyer |Teresa Mull
The President can’t stop talking about his favorite word – tariffs – although this week his comments are having a new effect. Rather than plummeting, the stock market is showing signs of life – climbing by more than 1 percent – on the news that Donald Trump’s plans for “reciprocal” tariff seemed to have been scaled back significantly.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Martin Vander Weyer |Freddy Gray |Roger Kimball |Teresa Mull
“You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs” is a maxim attributed to leaders on both sides of the French Revolution. “Move fast and break things” is today’s equivalent, emanating from Silicon Valley and amply demonstrated by Donald Trump and Elon Musk in their approach to government and geopolitics. “You can’t make omelettes at all if you can’t afford eggs” might be the next variant: inflation and scarcity afflicting America’s favorite breakfast have become a major political issue.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Henry Jeffreys |Owen Matthews |Martin Vander Weyer |Paul Wood
Well, it looks like it’s going to be war between the European Union and the US. A trade war that is, before you start digging a shelter in the backyard.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Owen Matthews |Martin Vander Weyer |Paul Wood |Benedict Kiely
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have very different negotiating styles. Trump lines up his offer in advance, browbeating everyone on his side into compliance before slapping his bottom line on the table. Putin, by contrast, is a haggler. He loads his proposals with excess demands that he intends to discard during the negotiation process to get to a final deal. Put simply, what Putin says he wants and what he realistically expects to get are two different things.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Martin Vander Weyer |Benedict Kiely |Teresa Mull |Charles Lipson
“Don’t stress over short-term stock market swings” is a maxim on which Donald Trump and I might agree, even if he is keen to take credit for upward rallies. The shakedown of the past few days is a natural reaction to the wild six-week ride of Trump’s tariff and foreign policy gambits and the realization that if he keeps it up, he’s far more likely to harm the economy than boost it. But with a mad king surrounded by madder courtiers anything can happen, including ever more eccentric reversals.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Roger Kimball |Martin Vander Weyer |Teresa Mull |Freddy Gray
Bret Stephens has come a long way in his estimation of Donald Trump.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | John MacArthur |Max Jeffery |Martin Vander Weyer |Teresa Mull
For New York liberals of a certain age, the term “states’ rights” has long been synonymous with segregation in the South. It’s personified by Alabama governor George Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door,” in June 1963, to prevent desegregation of the state university.
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2 months ago | 
thespectator.com | Ido Vock |Martin Vander Weyer |Lisa Haseldine |Alexander Larman
Another day, another apparent attack by an asylum seeker in Germany. In Munich, a twenty-four-year-old Afghan is alleged to have driven a Mini Cooper into a trade union demonstration. At least twenty-eight people have been injured, eleven seriously, according to police.
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2 months ago | 
thespectator.com | Mark Galeotti |Klaus Dodds |Matt Purple |Martin Vander Weyer
For all the efforts on every side to manage expectations, there is a sense that some kind of Ukraine deal — even if more likely a ceasefire rather than some comprehensive settlement — is coming. With the risk that this is, as Vladimir Putin would prefer, a decision made between Moscow and Washington, over Kyiv’s head, the Ukrainians are scrambling to gain traction on the process.
