El portavoz de Asuntos Exteriores del Partido Conservador británico, Tom Tugendhat, le respondió a Donald Trump por sus declaraciones sobre las Islas Malvinas y la reunificación de Irlanda. El dirigente sostuvo que el presidente de Estados Unidos busca atraer votos con sus dichos y lanzó una frase directa: “Vamos, amigo, no seas tonto”.

Tugendhat, diputado conservador por Tonbridge, en Kent, ocupa desde principios de septiembre el cargo de portavoz de Asuntos Exteriores de su partido. En una entrevista con el programa Political Thinking, de la BBC, cuestionó que Trump haya puesto en duda la posición histórica de Estados Unidos sobre las Malvinas. “Esta es su política, no la nuestra”, afirmó.

Trump había dicho que la postura de Estados Unidos sobre la soberanía del Reino Unido en las islas es “una de las muchas” que su gobierno está revisando. También dejó abierta la posibilidad de que Washington no apoyara a Londres ante un eventual conflicto futuro con la Argentina. Sus declaraciones generaron preocupación en sectores políticos británicos.

La postura británica sobre las islas

La posición británica sobre las islas volvió a quedar en el centro de la discusión después de los dichos del presidente estadounidense. Reino Unido y la Argentina mantienen un reclamo de soberanía sobre las Malvinas, décadas después de la guerra de 1982.

En las últimas semanas también hubo cruces entre Londres y Buenos Aires. El presidente argentino sostuvo que existen “vientos de cambio” que favorecen el reclamo argentino y advirtió que aplicará sanciones económicas a empresas que exploten petróleo cerca de las islas.

El canciller británico, Ed Miliband, respondió que la posición de su país sobre las Malvinas es “inquebrantable”. Además, afirmó que las islas seguirán bajo control británico porque esa es, según Londres, la posición de la mayoría de sus habitantes.

La líder del Partido Conservador, Kemi Badenoch, también defendió esa postura. “Las Islas Malvinas son británicas”, sostuvo, y remarcó la importancia de mantener el vínculo del Reino Unido con el territorio. Además, afirmó: “Gran Bretaña no se rinde ante matones”.

Tugendhat vinculó los dichos de Trump con las elecciones de Estados Unidos

El dirigente conservador interpretó que las declaraciones del presidente estadounidense responden a su estrategia política interna. Según explicó, Trump tiene elecciones de mitad de mandato en noviembre y busca mantener el respaldo de distintos sectores del electorado.

“Tiene elecciones en noviembre, sabe que tiene votos que ganar”, dijo Tugendhat. Para el legislador británico, los comentarios sobre las Malvinas forman parte de una serie de temas que Trump utiliza porque considera que pueden favorecerlo ante los votantes estadounidenses.

Unido

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who recently lost her Senate bid, is facing online backlash after she honored music artist Chris Brown by entering him into the congressional record this past weekend.

«Now, y’all know, I tend to get in trouble every once in a while. I’m a make this real quick. I need to know who run it! So is Dallas in the building?» Crockett said as she took the stage alongside Brown on Saturday evening.

«Let’s give it up for Chris Brown,» she added to applause from the audience.

The moment drew scrutiny from viewers online, raising questions about Crockett’s status as a lawmaker and whether it should be used to celebrate Brown, someone with a history of domestic violence.

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Among other instances of misconduct, Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault after he attacked his then-girlfriend and famous singer, Rihanna. Many images of her injuries were made public, sparking intense condemnation from the music industry. His violence, however, wouldn’t stop there. He was involved in a 2013 altercation with Frank Ocean, another singer, and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge that same year. In 2017, another ex-girlfriend was granted a domestic violence restraining order against him after she alleged physical abuse.

Most recently, Brown pleaded guilty to charges of striking producer Abe Diaw twice in the head with a glass tequila bottle in July 2023. He is expected to receive a sentence in October for a separate charge for affray, a criminal charge in English law for unlawfully threatening violence against another person.

Andrew Kerr, an investigative reporter with the Washington Free Beacon, quickly noted Brown’s past in a post to X after news of Crockett’s tribute began to spread online.  

«Kamala Harris-endorsed Rep. Jasmine Crockett uses her congressional authority to honor Chris Brown, the rapper best known for beating ever-living s— out of Rihanna in 2009,» Kerr wrote.

Shannon Watts, a Democratic activist and political commentator, also pointed out Brown’s storied past.

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«Chris Brown pled guilty to felony assault after brutally attacking Rihanna. Another ex, Karrueche Tran, later obtained a five-year restraining order after testifying that he abused and threatened her. He has also faced multiple allegations of violence and sexual assault against other women,» Watts wrote.

Crockett’s member statement, a form of recognition that lawmakers can have entered into the congressional record without any vote, recognizes «the artistry of Chris Brown and Usher Raymond.»

On stage on Saturday, Crockett framed her member statement as a way to recognize two key artists who had helped shape contemporary R&B and pop music, especially for the Black community.

«I know it’s almost Sunday, so I wanna be clear. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. And right now, we are experiencing Black joy to the highest level, and I wanted to make sure we document that in the Congressional Record,» Crockett said.

But Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross believes that the moment was a political miscalculation, coming across as ignorant of the challenges in the Black community.

«Chris Brown has a problem, and several folks beyond Rihanna have met his violent rage. It’s well-documented. This was a ridiculous move by Crockett,» she wrote on X.

«Also, when Black women suffer [domestic violence] at the highest rates and often fatally, this was tone deaf as hell,» she added.

Eric Michael Garcia, the D.C. bureau chief of the Independent, echoed Cross’ thinking.

«Absolutely disgusting to see Jasmine Crockett platform and honor an abuser of women. Just completely vile,» Garcia wrote in a post of his own.

Dan Winslow, a New York Times bestselling author, hinted that the moment had changed his view of her.

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«CHRIS BROWN plead guilty to beating Rihanna. It was a horrific and savage beating. Crockett thought he deserved to be honored. Absolutely disgusting behavior. I am glad she lost. I will never support her again,» Winslow wrote.

In response to the public backlash, Brown posted a response to his Instagram account, pleading to be left alone and expressing displeasure at Crockett having put him in the spotlight.

«Funny thing is… YALL CAME TO ME WITH THIS! NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. I was minding my own d-mn business. My shows in Dallas were already sold out. I ain’t asked to be honored because I knew some sh-t like this would happen… I have an idea how about y’all leave me the f— alone and let me focus on the fans that spent their money to actually see and support me,» Brown wrote.

Having decided to give up her seat to pursue a Senate bid, Crockett will not be returning to the U.S. House of Representatives at the start of the next congress after she lost to James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the Lone Star State.

politics, arrest, rihanna, kamala harris

Federal judges in Minnesota tasked with deciding a flood of habeas petitions challenging the detention of immigrants swept up during President Donald Trump’s Operation Metro Surge weren’t working entirely on their own — behind the scenes, they were regularly consulting one another through running email threads and developing tools to quickly handle recurring legal questions.

The behind-the-scenes coordination among Minnesota’s federal bench, revealed in a New York Times report Thursday, included regular meetings, running email threads, an informal spreadsheet created by court clerks showing which judges to turn to with particular legal questions, and templates some judges developed to quickly issue orders when similar detention disputes repeatedly came before the court.

The disclosures are fueling questions over whether the judges were colluding on separate cases involving the same Trump administration immigration policies, or simply sharing expertise to manage an extraordinary caseload.

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«The idea of a running email chain involving a variety of cases — it strikes me as very weird and frankly unprecedented,» Robert Luther III, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School whose work includes federal courts and judicial ethics, told Digital. Federal judges can and routinely do consult colleagues, Luther said, particularly about procedural or evidentiary questions. But each judge is ultimately responsible for independently deciding the cases assigned to them — a distinction Luther said makes the coordination significant.

The disclosures have also drawn criticism from the Trump administration on two fronts. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival accused the former chief judge who led the district during Metro Surge of «essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues» to thwart federal immigration enforcement. The Justice Department (DOJ), meanwhile, questioned the decision by sitting judges to give extensive on-the-record interviews about their experience with the administration’s immigration operation.

Seven of the district’s judges spoke to the Times for Thursday’s report, including former Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who sat for a 90-minute interview about the court’s experience during Metro Surge. Schiltz declined to discuss ongoing cases, according to the Times, but described what happened in Minnesota’s federal court as having «created a grave threat to the rule of law.»

«It is remarkable that sitting federal judges are giving on-the-record interviews attacking this Administration’s policies rather than ruling from the bench,» a Justice Department spokesperson told Digital. «If judges followed the law in adjudicating cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload. Judges who have made public comments on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is warranted going forward.»

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But Chief Judge Eric Tostrud, who was himself among the Minnesota judges interviewed by the Times, rejected suggestions that the coordination described in the report compromised individual decision-making. He told Digital that every member of the bench independently decided the merits of each petition assigned to them, while pointing to an extraordinary surge in litigation — from 12 alien-detainee habeas petitions during all of 2024 to 1,427 through August of this year — and noting that many involved similar or identical, often novel, legal questions.

«The bottom line is that each of us made an independent decision with respect to the merits of each and every petition we were assigned,» Tostrud told Digital.

Tostrud stressed that the judges did not uniformly reach the same conclusions, saying that while some reached the same result on certain legal questions, they «reached different outcomes regarding other legal questions.» He said the judges’ ability to communicate helped them resolve the cases quickly and thoughtfully, regardless of whether individual petitions were granted.

What exactly the judges were sharing behind the scenes, however, remains unclear. Tostrud declined to disclose the contents of the court’s internal working materials, saying documents created by judges and court staff «are not public.»

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That distinction could be significant, according to Luther, who said administrative templates are commonplace in federal courts, but drew a line between those and templates touching the substance of a case.

«Templates that deal with administrative matters strike me as entirely appropriate and commonplace in federal courts,» Luther said. «Templates for substantive matters — that seems like something altogether different.»

The coordination unfolded amid a broader clash between Minnesota’s federal bench and the Trump administration over Operation Metro Surge. The dispute came as immigration litigation inundated the district. During the first three months of 2026, Minnesota’s federal court received 1,116 habeas petitions, compared with just two during the same period the previous year, according to the Times. Court staff worked 16-hour days, seven days a week to process the incoming cases.

Patrick Schiltz, who served as the district’s chief judge during Metro Surge before taking senior status — a form of semi-retirement — this summer, emerged as a prominent judicial critic of the administration’s handling of the operation. In a Jan. 28 order, Schiltz accused ICE of violating nearly 100 court orders during that month and warned that «ICE is not a law unto itself.»

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The cases cited in Schiltz’s January list of alleged violations have largely concluded, according to the Times, which reported that the administration ultimately corrected the issues flagged by the court in many of them.

DOJ said its review of the cases found that in the «large majority» of them, detainees were released on time and no violation occurred, while in most of the remaining cases the department said it ultimately did what the court ordered despite missing an additional deadline.

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Federal judicial ethics rules generally prohibit judges from publicly commenting on the merits of pending or impending cases, but permit judges to explain court procedures and engage in broader speaking and teaching about the law, legal system and administration of justice.

The DOJ argued that judges who publicly commented on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is warranted. The Times reported, however, that Schiltz declined to discuss ongoing cases, while Judge Nancy Brasel, a Trump appointee who also participated in the interviews, defended judges’ ability to speak publicly about judicial independence.

«We are allowed to speak out about judicial independence,» Brasel told the Times. «And so we should, in order to keep it.»

Luther, however, took a different view of the judges’ decision to participate in the interviews.

«Judges should be speaking through their judicial orders, not through their surrogates at The New York Times,» he told Digital.

federal courts, federal judges, immigration, immigrant rights, illegal immigrants, politics, justice department, homeland security