Mike Waltz's demotion threatens grave consequences for America's allies
The reassignment of Mike Waltz from his post as Donald Trump's national security adviser to the job of ambassador to the United Nations could signal a shift in Trump's foreign policy – or it may just show that infighting among the rival factions is only getting worse.
A highly decorated former Army Special Forces veteran of Afghanistan and adviser to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Robert Gates, before succeeding Ron DeSantis in Congress, Waltz has long staked out hawkish views of the threats posed by China and Iran. That put him at odds with the increasingly vocal dovish faction in the administration, which includes vice-president JD Vance and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, as well as close Vance ally Donald Trump Jr.
Waltz's demotion leaves the more hawkish Secretary of State Marco Rubio largely isolated in Trump's national security team; Rubio will now serve as interim national security adviser as well as Secretary of State, acting national archivist, and interim head of the United States Agency for International Development.
Waltz wasn't necessarily demoted over his ideas. He has been on shaky ground ever since accidentally adding Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat in which details of an upcoming strike on the Houthis were discussed. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth, also under fire for sharing sensitive combat plans in that chat and another, has survived thus far, but over a dozen members of his inner circle have already lost their jobs amid controversies over press leaks. Although more broadly aligned with the doves, Hegseth is increasingly mistrusted by both factions.
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Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
AOC breaks silence on yearbook photo that destroyed her tough girl from the Bronx image
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her supposed 'Bronx girl' upbringing after a Republican lawmaker exposed her yearbook photo from a top-ranked, suburban public school. On Tuesday, State Assemblyman Matt Slater jumped into the online clash between AOC and President Donald Trump, after the liberal progressive called for Trump's impeachment over his approval of airstrikes on Iran without congressional authorization. After the discourse led users to show off her alleged old home in Yorktown Heights - supposedly now valued at over a half a million dollars - Ocasio-Cortez responded to allegations she grew up 'privileged.' 'I'm proud of how I grew up and talk about it all the time! My mom cleaned houses and I helped. We cleaned tutors' homes in exchange for SAT prep,' she wrote to social media. 'Growing up between the Bronx and Yorktown deeply shaped my views of inequality & it's a big reason I believe the things I do today!' Slater told The New York Post the left-wing congresswoman was just continuing to double down on her inconsistent story. 'She's embarrassing herself for doing everything possible to avoid saying she grew up in the suburbs instead of the Bronx.' 'She has said she visited extended family, she has said she commuted,' Slater said. 'Now she's in between. It's clearly desperate attempts to protect the lie that she is from the Bronx.' After the discourse led someone to show off her alleged old home in Yorktown Heights - supposedly now valued at over a half a million dollars - Ocasio-Cortez responded to allegations she grew up 'privileged' Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, though she moved to Yorktown at the age of five, eventually graduating from Yorktown High School before attending Boston University. The original clash earlier this week ignited a fiery exchange between AOC and Trump, during which the congresswoman appeared to invoke her Bronx roots as a source of her toughness. 'Also, I'm a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully,' AOC wrote to X in regards to the president's Queens upbringing. But Slater escalated the debate by unveiling a yearbook photo of her as a high school freshman in the affluent suburb of Yorktown, Westchester County - a 40-minute drive from the Bronx. 'If you're a BX girl then why are you in my Yorktown yearbook?' Slater wrote on X. 'Give it up already.' Alongside his tweet, the Republican lawmaker posted two images: a black-and-white throwback of a young, smiling AOC, and the 2004 yearbook cover from Yorktown High School. In a statement to The New York Post, he dismissed the 'AOC-Bronx mythology' as 'laughable,' adding that the claim is just as laughable to the 36,000 residents of the Westchester community. 'The truth is AOC is Sandy Cortez who went to Yorktown High School and lived at the corner of Friends Road and Longvue Street,' Slater told the outlet. 'She may think it makes her look tough or like some kind of champion for the radical left who voted for Zohran Mamdani, but she really needs to come clean and drop the act,' he added. The takedown came shortly after AOC - who represents parts of both the Bronx and Queens - called for Trump's impeachment following his order to deploy a dozen 30,000-pound 'bunker buster' bombs that reportedly 'obliterated' Iran's three largest nuclear facilities. 'The president's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,' she said on Saturday. 'He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.' Trump swiftly fired back, challenging her to 'go ahead and try impeaching me, again.' 'Stupid AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the 'dumbest' people in Congress, is now calling for my Impeachment, despite the fact that the Crooked and Corrupt Democrats have already done that twice before,' he wrote in retaliation. Trump then noted that the liberal firebrand 'can't stand the concept of our country being successful again,' because members of her party 'aren't used to winning.' After that came the personal attacks on the congresswoman's intelligence, as Trump added 'when we examine her test scores, we will find out that she is not qualified for office.' Less than an hour later, AOC replied to Trump's jab, writing: 'Mr. President, don't take your anger out on me - I'm just a silly girl.' 'Take it out on whoever convinced you to betray the American people and our Constitution by illegally bombing Iran and dragging us into war,' she added. 'It only took you five months to break almost every promise you made.' But Slater - representing parts of both Putnam and Westchester counties - quickly jumped in, posting the two photos with the caption beneath one: 'Here's the Yorktown High School '04 yearbook pic. Friends Road looks nothing like the Bronx.' The 35-year-old Democratic socialist congresswoman has faced scrutiny over her suburban upbringing since her unexpected triumph in 2018 catapulted her onto the national stage. During her campaign, AOC highlighted her deep personal ties to the borough by sharing stories of her childhood and neighborhood life, aiming to authentically connect with Bronx voters and present herself as 'one of their own.' Even during a segment with late-night host Stephen Colbert during Trump's first term, she reaffirmed her Bronx identity, telling him, 'I don't think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.' However, at just five years old, AOC moved with her family to a modest two-bedroom house on a quiet street in Yorktown Heights - a suburban relocation driven by the search for better schools, according to a 2018 article by The New York Times. In 2007, the congresswoman graduated from Yorktown High School before attending Boston University, where she studied economics and international relations—and briefly engaged with establishment politics - before returning to the Bronx. Once back in the borough, she began advocating for improved childhood education and literacy - and even launched a children's book publishing company aimed at portraying the Bronx in a more positive light. Despite criticism of her suburban roots, AOC has continued to lean into and defend her Bronx narrative, arguing that her time in Yorktown highlighted the stark disparities people face based on where they're born. 'It is nice. Growing up, it was a good town for working people,' she said in reference to Yorktown in a 2018 tweet. 'My mom scrubbed toilets so I could live here & I grew up seeing how the zip code one is born in determines much of their opportunity.' AOC's biography notes that she was born in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx before her family moved north to Yorktown. 'Alexandria's mother was born and raised in Puerto Rico and worked throughout her childhood as a domestic worker,' her biography reads. 'Alexandria's father was a second-generation Bronxite, who ran a small business in The Bronx.' Throughout her childhood, Representative Ocasio-Cortez traveled regularly to The Bronx to spend time with her extended family,' it adds.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Senate megabill would explode debt and kick 11.8 million off Medicaid: ‘Our fiscal house is basically on fire'
New estimates from the Congressional Budget Office have revealed that Senate Republicans' version of Donald Trump's spending package would lead to more Americans losing health coverage than the version of the president's flagship legislation that passed the House last month. The legislation would push 11.8 million Americans off insurance by 2034, according to the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Over the same period, federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare would be cut by $1.1 trillion. More than $1 trillion of the cuts would be made to Medicaid. The estimates confirm the concerns of some Republicans who are worried about cuts to Medicaid, which amount to the steepest cuts to the federal healthcare program in history. Some Republicans, worried about the deficit and national debt, have pressed for further cuts, while others fear what deep cuts mean for their constituents. The estimates also clash with Trump's promise not to cut Medicaid apart from removing what he describes as fraud and waste. Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray slammed the bill in a speech on the Senate floor on Sunday,. 'If you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them we have to bring down the debt after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history, if you think you can do that and then be taken seriously, you know what, if you believe that, maybe you are foolish enough to think that zero and a trillion are the same,' she said. 'I can tell you right now, if this happens, we will all laugh you out of the room because we have never seen anything like this, not in my time here in the Senate, not in my time on this planet,' she added. 'We are not going to let anyone forget that you're trashing the rules in order to pass this egregious bill.' Over a decade, the bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the national debt, according to the CBO. The version passed by the House would have added $2.4 trillion. The public currently holds about $29 trillion in debt, with the CBO expecting the government to borrow a further $21 trillion over the next 10 years, leading to the assessment that the Republican legislation would worsen an already bad fiscal forecast. The $3.3 trillion estimate is also an undercount, as it doesn't include further borrowing costs, which would push the legislation's full addition to the debt closer to $4 trillion. 'Our fiscal house is basically on fire,' Democratic Senator Gary Peters said in remarks on the Senate floor on Sunday. 'But if our Republican colleagues jam through this bill, it's not going to pour water on that fire. It's going to pour gasoline on those flames.' Trump's 2017 tax cuts are also driving the costs. The president's 2017 tax cuts are set to expire this year, but Republicans want to extend them — amounting to another $3.8 trillion hit to the budget. Republicans have also added further tax cuts, including Trump's pledge not to tax tips and overtime, resulting in an overall Senate tax cut of about $4.5 trillion. Steep cuts to Medicaid and other parts of the social safety net are intended to offset those tax reductions. 'The national debt is at an all-time high, $36.2 trillion. Just in the last 16 years, it has tripled,' Peters noted in his remarks. 'Our annual deficits frequently exceed $1.5 trillion, including a record $3.1 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2020,' he said. 'Within the next decade, our country will spend more on servicing the debt than we do on any other federal account outside of Social Security,' Peters added.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Senate opens debate on Trump's bill estimated to add $3.3tn to US debt
The US Senate opened debate on Donald Trump's sprawling domestic policy legislation on Sunday, the package of tax cuts, increased spending on immigration enforcement, and drastic reductions in funding for healthcare and nutrition assistance that the president calls his 'big beautiful bill'. Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package Trump branded 'beautiful' actually contains, and to delay a final vote until Monday. After the debate, amendments could be brought up for consideration in a marathon session colloquially known as a vote-a-rama. The changes made to the bill in the Senate would pile trillions on to the nation's debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new analysis, adding to the challenges for Republicans as they try to muscle the bill to passage. The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3tn from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1tn increase over the House-passed bill, which CBO has projected would add $2.4tn to the debt over a decade. The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage. The stark numbers are yet another obstacle for Republican leaders as they labor to pass Trump's bill by his self-imposed 4 July deadline. After the new cost of the bill was released, Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, to cajole and threaten lawmakers from his own party. In a Sunday evening post, the president urged Republicans concerned about adding to the debt not to 'go too crazy', and reminded them that elected officials who cross him tend not to stay in office long. 'REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected', the president wrote. Wavering Republicans probably understood Trump's comment loud and clear, coming just hours after one of their number, Thom Tillis, a North Carolina senator, voted against advancing the bill on Saturday and was subjected to a torrent of threats and attacks from the president. Tillis announced on Sunday that he would not stand for re-election in the 2026 midterms. Even before the CBO's estimate, Republicans were at odds over the contours of the legislation, with some resisting the cost-saving proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid and food aid programs, even as other Republicans say those proposals don't go far enough. Republicans are slashing the programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn in Trump tax breaks put in place during his first term. The push-pull was on vivid display on Saturday night as a routine procedural vote to take up the legislation in the Senate was held open for hours as Vice-President JD Vance and Republican leaders met with several holdouts. The bill ultimately advanced in a 51-49 vote, but the path ahead is fraught, with voting on amendments still to come. Still, many Republicans are disputing the CBO estimates and the reliability of the office's work. To hoist the bill to passage, they are using a different budget baseline that assumes the Trump tax cuts expiring in December have already been extended, essentially making them cost-free in the budget. The CBO on Saturday released a separate analysis of the GOP's preferred approach that found the Senate bill would reduce deficits by about $500bn. Democrats and economists decry the GOP's approach as 'magic math' that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks. In addition, Democrats note that under the traditional scoring system, the Republican bill would violate the Senate's Byrd Rule that forbids the legislation from increasing deficits after 10 years. In a Sunday letter to Jeff Merkley, an Oregon senator and the top Democrat on the Senate budget committee, CBO director Phillip Swagel said the office estimates that the finance committee's portion of the bill, also known as Title VII, 'increases the deficits in years after 2034' under traditional scoring.
