Democrats hit back at Trump after president floats changing name of New Mexico to ‘New America’ – US politics live | US politics
Democrats hit back at Trump floating changing name of New Mexico
Democrats are starting to hit back against Donald Trump for his recent social media post suggesting that the state of New Mexico should be changed to “New America”.
The state’s senior senator, Martin Heinrich, shot back on X, blasting the president’s recent efforts to rename bodies of water via executive order.
“Three things I will always call by their actual names,” Heinrich wrote. “The Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, New Mexico.”
His colleague in the Senate, Ben Ray Luján, echoed the sentiment.
“It’s New Mexico, always has been and always will be,” he said, adding that Trump will “always be a sinvergüenza” – a spanish word for “scoundrel” and “corrupt”.
Similarly, Melanie Stansbury, one New Mexico’s Democratic US House representatives, was resolute. “WE ARE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME!” she said in a video, standing on the banks of the Rio Grande, which runs through the state. “New Mexico is New Mexico. We are fiercely proud of our name, our people, and our places, including this river.”
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Greg Hull, the Republican nominee running to replace New Mexico’s term-limited governon, Michelle Lujan Grisham, denounced the president’s suggestion to change the state’s name to “New America”.
“New Mexico does not need a new name,” Hull said in a statement to Santa Fe Public Radio. “This state carries the history of Native nations and Spanish explorers who named this land nearly five hundred years ago, and generations of families who built New Mexico into what it is today. That identity is not up for negotiation.”
Further down the ballot in New Hampshire, the Democratic primary for Chris Pappas’s House seat has drawn eight candidates, with Stefany Shaheen – daughter of the outgoing senator – and Maura Sullivan, a former Obama administration official, leading the field.
The district, long purple, has been reliably blue since 2017. Republicans now see it as flippable, and Donald Trump has endorsed Anthony DiLorenzo, a businessman who owns several car dealerships, in the GOP race.
As voters head to the polls for primary elections in New Hampshite, Some Democrats worry the Granite State could become a sleeper risk – a state where Republicans control the legislature but haven’t won a Senate race since 2010, when Kelly Ayotte, the now-governor, captured a seat.
Congressman Chris Pappas insists he’s not taking anything for granted in his bid for Senate, and is running like he’s “10 votes behind” at all times – especially in a midterm cycle where progressive challengers have scored surprise primary wins across the country. This, however, hasn’t fazed Pappas who says he is running as a “New Hampshire Democrat” who knows his state.
But Dr Karishma Manzur, Pappas’s main challenger, who supports Medicare for All and higher taxes on mega‑corporations and the ultra‑wealthy, has repeatedly highlighted the money Pappas has received from donors aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. She casts him as milquetoast and ineffective. “I was tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils and still seeing so much pain and suffering right here in my state,” she said, calling both Pappas and John E Sununu, the frontrunner in the Republican primary race, “corporate politicians”.
“One has a ‘D’ after their name. One has an ‘R’ after their name … neither of them have been able to address the real needs of the people,” Manzur added.
Pappas, for his part, has long backed US aid to Israel but told the Guardian that Benjamin Netanyahu was “not a trustworthy ally of the US” and said he hoped the Israeli prime minister is ousted in the country’s October election. Pappas noted he has rejected corporate Pac money in this race but did not directly address his support from pro‑Israel donors, instead pointing to a “broad‑based effort” of individual contributors that have supported his Senate bid.
Pappas says he would support the Democratic nominee if he loses. “We need a big tent and new voices in the party to win tough elections,” he said at last week’s Democratic debate.
Manzur declined to make the same commitment. “I’m focused on winning,” she told the Guardian. “I’m not going to get into these discussions – they’re intentionally distracting from the people’s movement.”
Democrats hit back at Trump floating changing name of New Mexico
Democrats are starting to hit back against Donald Trump for his recent social media post suggesting that the state of New Mexico should be changed to “New America”.
The state’s senior senator, Martin Heinrich, shot back on X, blasting the president’s recent efforts to rename bodies of water via executive order.
“Three things I will always call by their actual names,” Heinrich wrote. “The Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, New Mexico.”
His colleague in the Senate, Ben Ray Luján, echoed the sentiment.
“It’s New Mexico, always has been and always will be,” he said, adding that Trump will “always be a sinvergüenza” – a spanish word for “scoundrel” and “corrupt”.
Similarly, Melanie Stansbury, one New Mexico’s Democratic US House representatives, was resolute. “WE ARE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME!” she said in a video, standing on the banks of the Rio Grande, which runs through the state. “New Mexico is New Mexico. We are fiercely proud of our name, our people, and our places, including this river.”
Donald Trump is in Washington today. We’ll hear from the president at 10.35am ET, when he hosts an event on the Ellipse honoring first responders at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ahead of the 25th anniversary commemoration this week.
Trump is set to unveil a 21-foot steel beam that has been recovered from the World Trade Center that will be on display as part of a “Steel Across America” tour.
However, as we noted last week, the president is reportedly not going to be in New York for the anniversary event at Ground Zero, and instead will deliver remarks at the Pentagon. It has long been policy that there are no speeches from the president at the site of the attacks, in order to keep any memorials apolitical.
Trump will spend the rest of the day in closed-door meetings. At 1pm ET he’s set to sign executive orders, and we’ll let you know if that opens up to the press.
Trump promotes idea of changing name of New Mexico to ‘New America’
President Donald Trump spent Labor Day posting memes on social media in support of changing the name of the state of New Mexico to ‘New America’ as tense trade negotiations with Mexico ramp up.
Trump posted several maps of the US that relabelled the land area of New Mexico as New America on Monday.
The president on Sunday said he had received suggestions to change the name of the state and that he liked the idea. “So much more prestigious and beautiful for the people of that potentially incredible State. Wow, I Love It!!!“
Trump’s posts follow his decision to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America last month, after trade negotiations with Canada failed to produce a deal.
The US federal government, however, has no authority to change the name of a state. New Mexico is currently governed by Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat. She has been in the job since 1 January, 2019, and was reelected in 2022.
The governor said in a post on X that “New Mexico’s name isn’t up for debate – it’s been ours since before the United States existed.”
The Trump administration is seeking greater US access to Venezuela’s minerals, including gold, as it expands its push to gain control and influence over the South American country’s vast natural resources beyond oil, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.
The effort could open the Venezuelan mining sector to US investment and give U.S. companies access to not only oil, but supplies of minerals crucial for national security, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
It also would expand president Donald Trump’s push to more closely align Venezuela’s resources with Washington’s strategic and economic interests in the wake of the US military’s ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a raid in January.
Edward Helmore
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony.
In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
Mamdani confirmed on Monday, while attending a breakfast celebrating New York’s J’ouvert and West Indian Day Parade celebrations in Brooklyn, that he would attend the main ceremony and multiple 9/11 events on Friday, to stand with the families of those who died and first responders – as he did last year before taking office.
“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” he said. “What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.”
The mayor and his office have declined to respond to Giuliani’s remarks.
Giuliani, the former mayor and a close ally of Donald Trump, has said he will also attend this year’s ceremony to mark the attacks by terrorists representing al-Qaida, who flew hijacked passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on September 11 2001.
Reflecting pools with waterfalls constructed on the footprints of the towers and a 9/11 museum now mark the site that was dubbed Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks, and where each year the names of the almost 3,000 people who died are read out by survivors and loved ones, in a solemn ceremony attended by national and local leaders.
In the interview with Newsmax, Giuliani was asked if Mamdani should skip the ceremony. “Well, there’s no question he should,” he said.
Iceland summoned the US ambassador on Monday after president Donald Trump posted an image on social media showing the island and other countries covered by the American flag, local broadcaster RUV said.
The map showed the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean covered by the US flag, with the entire landmass labelled ‘United States of America’.
Trump posted the image on his Truth Social platform without explanation.
Iceland’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir, called in Billy Long, the US ambassador to Iceland, who only formally took up the post last month, RUV reported.
“The position was clearly expressed that the post was completely inappropriate,” the foreign ministry told RUV.
Trump says Canada’s Bombardier must build jets in US or lose market access
President Donald Trump said that Canadian private jet maker Bombardier would no longer be allowed to sell its planes in the United States unless it started manufacturing in the country.
“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank’,” he said.
Trump made the post as a trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa esclates, part of the near-global tariff wall in his second term that has drawn complaints from many US trading partners. Canada is set to introduce a wave of counter-tariffs against the US on Tuesday.
Bombardier, the Montreal-based rival of US business jet manufacturer Gulfstream Aerospace, has an American workforce of 3,500, and a US footprint of 2,800 suppliers, along with factories and service centers in the country.
The company is now adding its sixth US service center and produces wings for its flagship Global 8000 jet in Texas.
New Hampshire and Rhode Island electorate to vote in state primaries
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
New Hampshire and Rhode Island voters will choose candidates across a full slate of federal, state and local offices over the next two days, ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In New Hampshire, there are primaries that will set up a closely watched Senate contest – a vulnerable open seat Democrats must defend if they are to have any shot at reclaiming the upper chamber.
The race opened when Jeanne Shaheen, 79, the state’s three‑term incumbent Democratic senator, announced her retirement. Congressman Chris Pappas, who represents New Hampshire’s first district, is seeking the nomination and enters the final stretch with a clear financial edge: more than $4m cash on hand, according to his latest filings. But his main challenger, Dr Karishma Manzur – a scientist and progressive activist with no experience holding public office – has gained ground.
If he wins the primary, Pappas, 46, is likely to face the Donald Trump-endorsed former senator John E Sununu, who is seeking a return to the seat he once held and is part of a political dynasty that includes his father and brother, both former governors.
Sununu, 61, is the clear frontrunner in the GOP primary, though he faces Scott Brown – another former senator who represented Massachusetts, later moved to New Hampshire, and served as US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa during Donald Trump’s first term.
Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, governor Dan McKee faces a tough Democratic primary challenge on Wednesday in his bid for a second full term. Voters will also choose nominees for a full slate of federal, state and local offices.
McKee was elected governor by a wide margin in 2022 after first assuming the role in March 2021 when then-governor Gina Raimondo stepped down to become US commerce secretary. He now is at risk of becoming the nation’s first elected governor since 2014 to lose renomination and the first in Rhode Island since 1994.
His challenger is Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a former longtime executive with Rhode Island-based CVS. She placed a close second behind McKee in the five-way 2022 Democratic primary. She is the niece of former Democratic senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut.
In other developments:
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President Donald Trump said on Monday that Canadian private jet maker Bombardier would no longer be allowed to sell its planes in the United States unless it started manufacturing in the country. “NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ’piggybank’.”
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New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony. In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
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A cluster of advocacy groups that boast veteran lawyers, voting experts and ex-judges have expanded legal challenges to Donald Trump’s authoritarian executive orders on voting and other presidential actions they see as a “war” on the rule of law in the US. Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.
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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health. It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care.
