Latest news with #deepstate
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Parenting is not just for pronatalists: the progressive case for raising kids
A few months ago, I was at a playground just a couple of blocks from our home in Washington DC, when a mom I barely knew turned to me mid-conversation and said: 'I think I might be the deep state.' The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. It was mid-March. Doge was tearing through the city, dismantling federal agencies at dizzying speed. Donald Trump, re-elected on a promise to 'shatter the deep state', had fired thousands of longtime civil servants in his first weeks back in office. The job cuts have been top of mind in Washington. Most of my kids' playdates these days begin with nap schedule updates and end in quiet dread. It isn't just jobs. International students are being deported. Measles outbreaks are creeping closer. The climate crisis is at our doorstep: blizzards one week, wildfires the next. Every day brings fresh threats to public safety, democracy and the planet itself. 'It makes you wonder,' she said as we pushed our daughters on the swings, 'what kind of world did we bring our kids into?' It's a question I can't stop thinking about. I've lived in and reported on parenting across five continents, and what continues to astonish me is how uniquely punishing early parenthood is in the west, especially for those most committed to building a fairer world. Progressives are rightly vocal about how hard it is to raise kids, but too often, we forget to make the case for why it's still worth it. In the face of so many overlapping crises, the decision to have children can feel reckless, or worse, like an act of denial. But parenting can also be something else entirely: a stubborn act of hope. Raising children offers a crash course in progressive values. It's a way of tying ourselves more deeply to the future, of feeling the stakes of climate change, inequality and injustice – not as distant headlines, but as urgent matters affecting someone whose lunch you just packed. By failing to make a case for children and families, the left has surrendered these issues to the pronatalist right. We've handed over the 'family values' agenda, allowing it to be defined by a rigid, exclusionary vision of parenthood. Project 2025, the policy blueprint shaping much of Trump's current agenda, pledges to 'restore' a Christian nationalist view of the family unit as 'the centerpiece of American life'. Figures such as JD Vance and Elon Musk, as well as the conservative Heritage Foundation, have declared childbearing a moral and civic duty. Some have even proposed medals and cash for mothers. At this year's March for Life, Vance called for 'more babies in the United States of America' and more 'beautiful young men and women' to raise them. When we see child rearing as a private project, we forget that many of the movements that shaped the left – civil rights, labour, climate justice – were powered by people who looked at the next generation and decided they were worth fighting for. In his most well-known speech, Martin Luther King Jr didn't just dream of a better world for himself, he dreamed that his four little children would grow up in a nation where they would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. His vision was rooted in legacy. That's what parenting does. It gives shape to our politics. It puts flesh on our ideals. It forces us to ask: what are we building and who is it for? Raising children doesn't distract from that work; it clarifies it. Of course, parenthood isn't the only path to caring about the future – but it makes it harder to look away. It compels us to feel the weight of policy decisions in our bones. It blows open our empathy and softens the edges of individualism. Suddenly, every child becomes your child. Every policy becomes personal. You start noticing the stroller-unfriendly sidewalks, the unaffordable summer camps, the lack of paid leave – not just for yourself, but for all parents. There's science behind this shift. Researchers have found that becoming a parent activates a 'parental caregiving network' in the brain, lighting up areas tied to empathy, emotional processing and social understanding. It happens in both mothers and fathers. For dads especially, the extent of this neurological change is closely tied to how much hands-on caregiving they do. In other words, caregiving rewires our brains to connect more, care more and notice the needs of others. At its best, parenting strengthens the very instincts progressives say they want to build society around. I've seen this empathy in action. Before I had kids, I was reporting on the Rio Olympics and walking the beach one night with a colleague, a mother of two, when we were approached by a group of children begging for money. I clutched my purse and walked faster. But my co-worker slowed down, took off her blazer and wrapped it around a shivering child about her son's age. 'Get home,' she said gently. 'Your mom is probably looking for you.' I could tell right away we were operating on different levels of empathy. She saw that child as an extension of her own kids. I wasn't there yet. But eventually, I got there, too. When I finally became a mother, I began to see stories I covered differently. Now, when I interview parents who've lost children to gun violence in Brazil's favelas, I understand their grief in a new way. I report with deeper urgency and deeper care, seeing myself in their shoes, and my children in theirs. This rewiring of the brain creates a political opening. It expands our sense of who counts as 'us'. It softens the boundary between self and other. In doing so, it changes how we interpret harm, not as something happening 'out there', but as something personal, urgent and unacceptable. Yet, the demands of caregiving can pull us away from political life. A 2022 UK study found that parenthood temporarily reduces political participation among mothers. The reason is obvious: we're exhausted. Calling your representatives between diaper changes feels impossible. I get it. Some days, I fantasize about deleting all my news apps, retreating into a cozy, apocalypse-adjacent bubble with my kids, and calling it a day. 'Generally, I think parents are the worst at advocating for themselves because they are just too damn tired. It's one more thing in the lives of people who already have too much expected of them,' Jennifer Glass, professor at the University of Texas's department of sociology and Population Research Center and an expert on parental happiness, told me. But parenting doesn't have to distract from political work. It can fuel it. When we do organize, our sharpened parental empathy can translate into political power. Around the world, it's progressive movements, often driven by the demands of parents, that have expanded what family support can look like. In Sweden, it was working mothers who pushed for what became the world's most generous parental leave system, eventually adding incentives for men to take their fair share. In Singapore, multigenerational bonds are built into policy: the government gives housing grants to families who live near grandparents and tax breaks to elders who help with childcare. In France, parents helped lead the 1968 protests that birthed a cooperative childcare system. But when progressives step back from family values, conservatives fill the void. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon. According to the United Nations, the share of countries with explicit pronatalist policies has nearly tripled since 1976. But these visions often center on traditional gender roles and narrow definitions of family, excluding anyone who doesn't fit the mold. We shouldn't let the only cultural narrative around parenting come from those who see it as a tool for enforcing hierarchy and control. Progressives must also fight for a say in the values shaping the next generation. A 2023 Pew survey found that 89% of teenagers raised by Democratic parents identify with or lean toward the Democratic party. For Republican parents, the number is nearly as high, at 81%. That suggests political identity is often passed down through environment and lived experience: what kids hear at the dinner table, what they see modeled at home and which communities shape their worldview. From there, each new generation brings fresh ideas about justice. Social progress doesn't only happen by changing the minds of the old; it happens through generational renewal. Throughout the country, youth raised in the shadow of mass shootings are leading the charge for gun reform. In Montana, young people took the government to court over climate change and won. In Sweden, Greta Thunberg sparked a global climate movement at 15. These movements exist because someone raised those children to believe they had not just the right, but the responsibility, to shape the world around them. But if we step back from parenting, or treat it as apolitical, we leave that space wide open. The right is more than ready to fill it. That's why they're fighting so hard to control what children are taught, which books they read, whose families are visible in their classrooms and which identities are allowed to exist. This is the moment for the left to reclaim family as a public good. Progressives shouldn't just defend the right to abortion, we must fight for people's ability to have families and raise them with dignity. That means paid leave, universal childcare, affordable healthcare and a livable planet. It also means rejecting the caricature that progressives are a party of 'childless cat ladies' while conservatives corner the market on family values. We are, and always have been, the natural home of pro-family policy. After all, children tether us to the future, but also to each other. Progressive values thrive in that space of interdependence, where no one is expected to go it alone. Caring for kids – whether as parents, educators, neighbors or policymakers – demands a communal ethic of care. I've seen this ethic in action across the world. While writing my book, Please Yell at My Kids, I spent years studying how families around the world raise children in community. In the Netherlands, children as young as eight walk themselves to school. Parents trust that if they need help, a community member will step in. In Denmark, babies nap unattended in strollers outside cafes – not because parents are careless, but because they trust the society around them. In Mozambique, where formal support systems often fail, mothers rely on each other for food, childcare and safety, transforming neighborhoods into extended families. These cultures aren't perfect, but they understand that raising a child isn't a private endeavor. It's a collective one. Some understandably hesitate to bring children into a world on fire. Others worry that parenting means stepping back from activism or ambition. But for many, becoming a parent doesn't dilute that drive; it crystallizes it. Climate change isn't just a policy failure – it's the air your child will breathe. Gun violence isn't abstract – it's a possibility you carry every time you drop them off at school. The broken systems you tolerated suddenly become intolerable when your child has to navigate them, too. This isn't about idealizing parenthood. It's about refusing to surrender this human experience to those who would use it to divide us. So yes, the world is on fire. But refusing to bring children into it won't put the flames out. What may, perhaps, is raising a generation bold enough to rebuild it. Marina Lopes is the author of Please Yell at My Kids: What Cultures Around the World Can Teach You About Parenting in Community, Raising Independent Kids, and Not Losing Your Mind, out now
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Parenting is not just for pronatalists: the progressive case for raising kids
A few months ago, I was at a playground just a couple of blocks from our home in Washington DC, when a mom I barely knew turned to me mid-conversation and said: 'I think I might be the deep state.' The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. It was mid-March. Doge was tearing through the city, dismantling federal agencies at dizzying speed. Donald Trump, re-elected on a promise to 'shatter the deep state', had fired thousands of longtime civil servants in his first weeks back in office. The job cuts have been top of mind in Washington. Most of my kids' playdates these days begin with nap schedule updates and end in quiet dread. It isn't just jobs. International students are being deported. Measles outbreaks are creeping closer. The climate crisis is at our doorstep: blizzards one week, wildfires the next. Every day brings fresh threats to public safety, democracy and the planet itself. 'It makes you wonder,' she said as we pushed our daughters on the swings, 'what kind of world did we bring our kids into?' It's a question I can't stop thinking about. I've lived in and reported on parenting across five continents, and what continues to astonish me is how uniquely punishing early parenthood is in the west, especially for those most committed to building a fairer world. Progressives are rightly vocal about how hard it is to raise kids, but too often, we forget to make the case for why it's still worth it. In the face of so many overlapping crises, the decision to have children can feel reckless, or worse, like an act of denial. But parenting can also be something else entirely: a stubborn act of hope. Raising children offers a crash course in progressive values. It's a way of tying ourselves more deeply to the future, of feeling the stakes of climate change, inequality and injustice – not as distant headlines, but as urgent matters affecting someone whose lunch you just packed. By failing to make a case for children and families, the left has surrendered these issues to the pronatalist right. We've handed over the 'family values' agenda, allowing it to be defined by a rigid, exclusionary vision of parenthood. Project 2025, the policy blueprint shaping much of Trump's current agenda, pledges to 'restore' a Christian nationalist view of the family unit as 'the centerpiece of American life'. Figures such as JD Vance and Elon Musk, as well as the conservative Heritage Foundation, have declared childbearing a moral and civic duty. Some have even proposed medals and cash for mothers. At this year's March for Life, Vance called for 'more babies in the United States of America' and more 'beautiful young men and women' to raise them. When we see child rearing as a private project, we forget that many of the movements that shaped the left – civil rights, labour, climate justice – were powered by people who looked at the next generation and decided they were worth fighting for. In his most well-known speech, Martin Luther King Jr didn't just dream of a better world for himself, he dreamed that his four little children would grow up in a nation where they would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. His vision was rooted in legacy. That's what parenting does. It gives shape to our politics. It puts flesh on our ideals. It forces us to ask: what are we building and who is it for? Raising children doesn't distract from that work; it clarifies it. Of course, parenthood isn't the only path to caring about the future – but it makes it harder to look away. It compels us to feel the weight of policy decisions in our bones. It blows open our empathy and softens the edges of individualism. Suddenly, every child becomes your child. Every policy becomes personal. You start noticing the stroller-unfriendly sidewalks, the unaffordable summer camps, the lack of paid leave – not just for yourself, but for all parents. There's science behind this shift. Researchers have found that becoming a parent activates a 'parental caregiving network' in the brain, lighting up areas tied to empathy, emotional processing and social understanding. It happens in both mothers and fathers. For dads especially, the extent of this neurological change is closely tied to how much hands-on caregiving they do. In other words, caregiving rewires our brains to connect more, care more and notice the needs of others. At its best, parenting strengthens the very instincts progressives say they want to build society around. I've seen this empathy in action. Before I had kids, I was reporting on the Rio Olympics and walking the beach one night with a colleague, a mother of two, when we were approached by a group of children begging for money. I clutched my purse and walked faster. But my co-worker slowed down, took off her blazer and wrapped it around a shivering child about her son's age. 'Get home,' she said gently. 'Your mom is probably looking for you.' I could tell right away we were operating on different levels of empathy. She saw that child as an extension of her own kids. I wasn't there yet. But eventually, I got there, too. When I finally became a mother, I began to see stories I covered differently. Now, when I interview parents who've lost children to gun violence in Brazil's favelas, I understand their grief in a new way. I report with deeper urgency and deeper care, seeing myself in their shoes, and my children in theirs. This rewiring of the brain creates a political opening. It expands our sense of who counts as 'us'. It softens the boundary between self and other. In doing so, it changes how we interpret harm, not as something happening 'out there', but as something personal, urgent and unacceptable. Yet, the demands of caregiving can pull us away from political life. A 2022 UK study found that parenthood temporarily reduces political participation among mothers. The reason is obvious: we're exhausted. Calling your representatives between diaper changes feels impossible. I get it. Some days, I fantasize about deleting all my news apps, retreating into a cozy, apocalypse-adjacent bubble with my kids, and calling it a day. 'Generally, I think parents are the worst at advocating for themselves because they are just too damn tired. It's one more thing in the lives of people who already have too much expected of them,' Jennifer Glass, professor at the University of Texas's department of sociology and Population Research Center and an expert on parental happiness, told me. But parenting doesn't have to distract from political work. It can fuel it. When we do organize, our sharpened parental empathy can translate into political power. Around the world, it's progressive movements, often driven by the demands of parents, that have expanded what family support can look like. In Sweden, it was working mothers who pushed for what became the world's most generous parental leave system, eventually adding incentives for men to take their fair share. In Singapore, multigenerational bonds are built into policy: the government gives housing grants to families who live near grandparents and tax breaks to elders who help with childcare. In France, parents helped lead the 1968 protests that birthed a cooperative childcare system. But when progressives step back from family values, conservatives fill the void. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon. According to the United Nations, the share of countries with explicit pronatalist policies has nearly tripled since 1976. But these visions often center on traditional gender roles and narrow definitions of family, excluding anyone who doesn't fit the mold. We shouldn't let the only cultural narrative around parenting come from those who see it as a tool for enforcing hierarchy and control. Progressives must also fight for a say in the values shaping the next generation. A 2023 Pew survey found that 89% of teenagers raised by Democratic parents identify with or lean toward the Democratic party. For Republican parents, the number is nearly as high, at 81%. That suggests political identity is often passed down through environment and lived experience: what kids hear at the dinner table, what they see modeled at home and which communities shape their worldview. From there, each new generation brings fresh ideas about justice. Social progress doesn't only happen by changing the minds of the old; it happens through generational renewal. Throughout the country, youth raised in the shadow of mass shootings are leading the charge for gun reform. In Montana, young people took the government to court over climate change and won. In Sweden, Greta Thunberg sparked a global climate movement at 15. These movements exist because someone raised those children to believe they had not just the right, but the responsibility, to shape the world around them. But if we step back from parenting, or treat it as apolitical, we leave that space wide open. The right is more than ready to fill it. That's why they're fighting so hard to control what children are taught, which books they read, whose families are visible in their classrooms and which identities are allowed to exist. This is the moment for the left to reclaim family as a public good. Progressives shouldn't just defend the right to abortion, we must fight for people's ability to have families and raise them with dignity. That means paid leave, universal childcare, affordable healthcare and a livable planet. It also means rejecting the caricature that progressives are a party of 'childless cat ladies' while conservatives corner the market on family values. We are, and always have been, the natural home of pro-family policy. After all, children tether us to the future, but also to each other. Progressive values thrive in that space of interdependence, where no one is expected to go it alone. Caring for kids – whether as parents, educators, neighbors or policymakers – demands a communal ethic of care. I've seen this ethic in action across the world. While writing my book, Please Yell at My Kids, I spent years studying how families around the world raise children in community. In the Netherlands, children as young as eight walk themselves to school. Parents trust that if they need help, a community member will step in. In Denmark, babies nap unattended in strollers outside cafes – not because parents are careless, but because they trust the society around them. In Mozambique, where formal support systems often fail, mothers rely on each other for food, childcare and safety, transforming neighborhoods into extended families. These cultures aren't perfect, but they understand that raising a child isn't a private endeavor. It's a collective one. Some understandably hesitate to bring children into a world on fire. Others worry that parenting means stepping back from activism or ambition. But for many, becoming a parent doesn't dilute that drive; it crystallizes it. Climate change isn't just a policy failure – it's the air your child will breathe. Gun violence isn't abstract – it's a possibility you carry every time you drop them off at school. The broken systems you tolerated suddenly become intolerable when your child has to navigate them, too. This isn't about idealizing parenthood. It's about refusing to surrender this human experience to those who would use it to divide us. So yes, the world is on fire. But refusing to bring children into it won't put the flames out. What may, perhaps, is raising a generation bold enough to rebuild it. Marina Lopes is the author of Please Yell at My Kids: What Cultures Around the World Can Teach You About Parenting in Community, Raising Independent Kids, and Not Losing Your Mind, out now
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
White House official and self-described 'misogynist' says Iran nuclear strikes were 'pointless'
A White House official who once described himself as a 'raging misogynist' slammed Donald Trump 's strikes on Iran as 'pointless' and only serving the 'deep state.' Andrew Kloster is a general counsel for the Office of Personnel Management which manages the civil service for the administration. Kloster - who worked for Trump during his first term and most recently served in the same role for Matt Gaetz - posted a string of criticisms of the U.S. giving 'handouts' to Israel and suggesting fears of Iran getting a nuclear weapon were far-fetched. An X user posted that 'Iran's nuclear sites being crushed seems a long-term benefit for the US.' He responded from his now locked account: 'I just think it was kind of pointless.' The lawyer also retweeted Vish Burra, the former spokesperson for George Santos, who wrote: 'Can we please ignore this god-forsaken region of Earth and their tribal squabbles?' Kloster - who's social media bio once included 'Suicide bomber in the Butlerian jihad' in a reference to the 'Dune' novels - eventually deleted the posts, including one writing: 'I apologize and will never again doubt the power of the deep state.' It's not the first time Kloster has set off controversy, as the liberal Project on Government Oversight claimed he called himself 'a raging misogynist.' He did tweet in 2023: 'I'm 100% women respecter precisely because I'm a raging misogynist. I'm so kind you'll want to kill yourself and die, which is the goal.' Kloster has almost made comments regarding consent - calling it 'probably modern society's most pernicious fetish' - and race - joking that 'Slaves owe us reparations.' The New York Post reported that Kloster is believed to be an ally of Sergio Gor, the head of the Presidential Personnel Office who was said to be against Elon Musk. reached out to the Office of Personnel and Management for comment. A White House spokesperson declined comment. Trump himself appeared to be showing frustration with both Israel and Iran on Monday. The president went on a foul-mouthed tirade saying that both Israel and Iran violated the ceasefire deal that he announced Monday evening. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f*** they're doing,' Trump said before boarding Marine One en route to the NATO Summit early Tuesday morning. The president said Monday evening that he had brokered a ceasefire between Iran and Israel after ordering his own strike on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. Kloster - who worked for Trump during his first term and most recently served in the same role for Matt Gaetz - posted a string of criticisms of the U.S. giving 'handouts' to Israel and suggesting fears of Iran getting a nuclear weapon were far-fetched Kloster - who's social media bio once included 'Suicide bomber in the Butlerian jihad' in a reference to the 'Dune' novels - eventually deleted the posts, including one writing: 'I apologize and will never again doubt the power of the deep state Earlier Monday, Iran had retaliated by sending missiles toward the U.S.'s largest military base in the Middle East, located just outside of Doha in Qatar, which didn't prompt a response from Trump. Instead he announced the ceasefire. On Tuesday morning Trump was fired up after Israel decided to launch another massive assault on Iran just as the deal was to take hold. 'Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before, the biggest load that we've seen,' an incredulous said. 'I'm not happy with Israel,' he added. 'I'm not happy with Iran either. But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. I'm not happy about that.' Later Tuesday, a leaked intelligence assessment claiming Donald Trump 's strikes on Iran did not destroy Tehran's nuclear program was deemed 'flat-out wrong' by the White House. The report, conducted by the Defense Intelligence Agency and leaked by CNN, claims Saturday's airstrike on three Iranian nuclear sites only set the country's program back by months instead of completely destroying it. Trump claimed the strikes 'completely and totally obliterated', a statement echoed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt who dismissed the assessment as a 'clear attempt to demean President Trump'. 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,' Leavitt said. Trump faced calls for his impeachment on a sole charge of abuse of power over his launch of military strikes on Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress - but the House today overwhelmingly voted to block the resolution.
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE 'He's calling her': Tulsi Gabbard allies say 'Deep State' hit job designed to torpedo her with Trump as he ponders war
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been the target of a smear campaign from 'deep state' intelligence officials seeking to undermine her influence through strategic leaks as President Trump ponders whether to join Israel's war against Iran, those close to her tell the Daily Mail. Multiple intelligence officials spoke with the Daily Mail about Trump's spy chief's schedule and work since Israel launched an attack on Iran last week, shedding light on a normally clandestine affair. Gabbard is in the room, helping the president and his team determine an informed path forward, these officials stressed, pushing back against multiple reports indicating that she's been sidelined. In fact, the president is calling on her, the sources claim. 'All the National Security Council meetings she's in on, and then, I mean, there's lots of impromptu ones where he's calling her into the office,' one senior intelligence official shared. 'She's in there at all the key junctures,' the source added. 'She's been in every meeting,' a White House official told the Daily Mail, adding the DNI 'has not been sidelined whatsoever.' Reports have suggested that Trump has been advised by a smaller cohort, including VP J.D. Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. They say Gabbard and Pentagon Sec. Pete Hegseth are on the outside looking in. But these Gabbard allies told the Daily Mail the DNI has attended practically every crucial meeting at the White House and Situation Room since the conflict began. VP J.D. Vance also threw his weight behind Gabbard with a glowing social media post: 'She's an essential member of our national security team, and we're grateful for her tireless work to keep America safe from foreign threats.' The White House official added that Hegseth has also been an integral member of ongoing military discussions regarding the Middle East. As the war between Iran and Israel waged for a seventh day, President Trump said Thursday he will give himself two weeks to decide whether the U.S. will go into the conflict, but a strike could still come at any moment. Israeli officials and some U.S. lawmakers have suggested that Trump drop bunker-busting bombs on the remaining functional Iranian nuclear sites, like Fordow, which is built hundreds of feet under a mountain range. Though one military official told the Daily Mail that conventional GB-57s, the most powerful bunker busters in the U.S. arsenal, may not be enough and that a tactical nuclear weapon may be needed instead to ensure the destruction of the Uranium enrichment labs. A former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard is a noted anti-interventionist, a perspective informed by her time in the military. Others in the administration have suggested the U.S. take more direct action, putting the DNI at odds with Iran hawks urging Trump to bomb Iran. 'She's doing everything she can to find inefficiencies within the intelligence community, but also to clean up a lot of places that have been problematic in the past,' the source told the Daily Mail. 'That's why you're seeing so many, you know, hit pieces and attacks against her.' Another intel official described the campaign as 'a wedge to get her out' because she's a 'disruptive influence.' 'The IC and a lot of the DC community wants to see her removed because the traditional role of the DNI has been a willfully blind tool of the Intelligence Community; DNI Gabbard is not that.' Gabbard caught flak for missing a retreat with the president at Camp David earlier this month before the conflict broke out, but she had prior commitments to train with her National Guard unit the same weekend, the White House official said. She also took heat for a video she posted warning of 'nuclear annihilation' that reportedly upset the president. But multiple administration officials claim that while Trump was not 'thrilled' with the clip, he was not 'engaged' as some articles claim. 'There's a lot of exaggeration and mischaracterization of the nature of all this,' a White House official said. Critics have also gone after Gabbard for the DNI's testimony in March that Iran was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. But the spy chief herself told reporters that she and Trump are 'on the same page' about Iran's nuclear weapon production timeline. Meanwhile, at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), several longtime staffers expressed concern over Gabbard's priorities. Sources inside the ODNI accuse Trump's spy chief of focusing on her appearance rather than her intelligence work, CNN reports. These staffers pointed to her polished Instagram making her appear more like a fitness influencer than a Cabinet member. During her tenure, Gabbard has overseen the release of the JFK, RFK and MLK files, a directive ordered by the president in his early days in office. In May, she fired two high-ranking intelligence for their opposition to her leadership, and she has also revoked over 60 clearances and referred at least three individuals to the DOJ for prosecution over leaking.
Russia Today
03-06-2025
- General
- Russia Today
Trump still uses personal phone
US President Donald Trump continues to rely on his personal cellphone, despite repeated warnings from aides and security experts about foreign surveillance risks, The Atlantic reported on Monday. The phone remains Trump's main link to the outside world, connecting him with friends, family, lawmakers, corporate leaders, celebrities, world leaders, and journalists, sources close to the president told the outlet. He also often answers calls from unknown numbers, reportedly viewing them as opportunities for spontaneous conversations, they claim. 'He likes to call people. He likes to be called,' one adviser reportedly said. Another noted that 'probably a ton' of people have Trump's personal number, while a third estimated the figure at 'well over 100.' President Trump at Mar-a-Lago on the phone working. An absolute machine 🔥 Trump reportedly uses multiple devices, with at least one dedicated to social media. Several sources claim Trump often leaves lengthy voicemails and inquires if recipients have shared his messages with relatives and friends. They also claim Trump distrusts White House landlines, fearing eavesdropping by what he sees as the 'deep state.' 'His perspective was, 'I can't trust anyone on the White House staff, so I have to use my cellphone,'' a former adviser told the outlet. Security officials have long warned Trump that personal phones are vulnerable to hacking and wiretapping. In late 2024, the FBI claimed Chinese hackers had breached US telecom networks, allowing them to eavesdrop on calls involving Trump and other political figures. Despite the concerns, the president reportedly dismissed the warnings. 'He'd just reject it and say, 'It's not true,'' a former adviser said. 'He'd say, 'My phone is the best on the market.'' Advisers eventually gave up trying to limit his phone use, the sources claimed, although one said the devices had been upgraded with additional security features. The White House declined to confirm those details. 'We will not discuss or disclose security measures regarding the President, especially to The Atlantic,' Communications Director Steven Cheung told the outlet in an emailed statement. The White House recently had issues with the magazine after an Atlantic editor gained access to an internal chat involving senior Trump officials discussing a strike against the Houthi militants and then writing a story about it. Cheung defended Trump's approach, saying his use of a personal phone makes him 'the most transparent and accessible President in American history.'
