Category World News

United States President Donald Trump spoke to US news outlet Politico in an interview at the White House on Monday, during which he made several strong claims about the state of the economy, the threat he claims is posed by drug gangs in Venezuela, and his popularity among Black Americans.

Then, a day later, Trump spoke about immigration and affordability at a rally-style speech, which lasted for 90 minutes in Pennsylvania, during which he launched a scathing attack on Ilhan Omar, the US’s first Muslim congresswoman, who he claims is in the country illegally.

We fact-check some of the claims Trump made during the interview and the speech.

Claim: Trump inherited the ‘worst inflation in history’, the economy is thriving now

During the Pennsylvania rally, Trump claimed that he had inherited the “worst inflation in the history of our country” from former president, Democrat Joe Biden.

In the Politico interview, Trump said: “I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess. Prices were at an all-time high when I came in.”

He also told Politico: “If you think of gasoline a gallon, they had it at $4.50, almost $5.00. You go to some of the states, you had it at $6.00. We hit, uh, three states two days ago, $1.99 a gallon.”

The facts

Philadelphia-based nonprofit Factcheck.org wrote in January this year that while inflation did rise under Biden, Trump did not, in fact, inherit the “worst inflation” in history.

The annualised inflation rate was below 3 percent during the six months before Trump took office in his second term.

The organisation explained the rise in inflation under Biden was partly down to the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Factcheck.org, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose from 5.4 percent to 9.1 percent in the 12-month period ending in June 2022. But this was far from the worst the US has experienced. That was in the aftermath of World War I, when inflation hit 23.7 percent in June 1920.

In March 1980, inflation hit 14.8 percent, marking one of the most severe spikes in consumer prices in modern US history.

Trump’s statements about petrol prices are also slightly misleading.

In the US, the average price of petrol – called “gas” in the US – was $3.05 per gallon (3.8 litres) in November this year, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). According to online marketplace Choose Energy, the cost per gallon ranged from $2.41 in Oklahoma to $4.53 in California as of December 3.

The $1.99 price cited by Trump applies to isolated low-price stations in certain states and does not reflect a general statewide average.

Claim: Ilhan Omar is in the US illegally

During the Pennsylvania rally, Trump launched an attack on Ilhan Omar, the Democrat who has served as a Minnesota representative in Congress since 2019.

While bemoaning immigration to the US by people from Somalia and other countries, he claimed that Omar is in the US illegally.

“I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is. With her little turban. I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch. She’s always complaining. She comes from her country, where, I mean, it’s considered about the worst country in the world,” Trump said to a crowd of supporters, who roared with applause.

“We gotta get her the hell out,” he said. “She married her brother in order to get in, right … she married her brother to get in, therefore she’s here illegally.”

The crowd of supporters at the rally started chanting “Send her back!”

Trump also claimed that Somalia has no military, parliament or police. “They police themselves, they kill each other all the time.”

The facts

First, Somalia does have a military, a parliament and a police force.

While Omar was born in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in 1982, her family fled the Somali Civil War and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before seeking asylum in the US in 1995, when she was 12.

Once asylum is granted – as it was to Omar’s family – the US Refugee Admissions Program grants lawful permanent resident (LPR) status to refugees, who can then apply for citizenship five years later.

Omar became eligible for citizenship five years after she entered the US, and finally became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17 years old.

Doubts about Omar’s legal status in the US and claims that she married her brother have circulated among the US right wing since 2018, shortly before she was elected to Congress. In 2018, Omar dismissed these claims as “disgusting lies” in a statement to The Associated Press (AP). She provided AP with detailed marriage and divorce records.

Ilhan Omar first married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2002 in a Muslim faith ceremony, had two children, and later separated. In 2009, she married British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in a civil marriage, separating in 2011; she reunited with Hirsi in 2012, and after legally divorcing Elmi in 2017, remarried Hirsi legally in 2018.

There is no verifiable evidence to back up allegations that either Hirsi or Elmi is Omar’s brother. She has strongly denied these allegations.

Claim: The Venezuela boat strikes save 25,000 American lives each time

During Trump’s Politico interview, he repeated the claim that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “sends in a lot of drugs” to the US.

Since September, US military strikes on at least 21 Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed more than 80 people.

In September, a top US Navy commander ordered a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, despite almost completely destroying it in the first attack. According to witnesses, there were only two survivors clinging to debris in the water after the first strike, and both were killed in the second.

When Trump was asked about that second strike, he said: “It looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat, but I don’t get involved in that. That’s up to them. Uh, the admiral that did is a highly respected man. And we save 25,000 people every time we knock out a boat.”

During the rally in Pennsylvania, Trump again made the claim that for every US strike on alleged Venezuelan drug boats, “we save 25,000 American lives”.

The facts

The Trump administration has not provided any evidence that strikes on Venezuelan boats each save 25,000 American lives by preventing drug trafficking into the US. Indeed, it has not provided evidence that any of the boats it has struck were carrying drugs or were affiliated with drug cartels, as it claims.

Furthermore, there is little evidence that drugs are trafficked from Venezuela on a large scale. The 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report said global cocaine production had hit a record 3,708 tonnes, up nearly one‑third from 2022, with most coca cultivation taking place in Colombia, followed by Peru and Bolivia.

Trafficking routes into the US in 2023-2024 primarily passed through Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, not Venezuela, although it does serve as a minor transit corridor for Colombian cocaine moving into the eastern Caribbean.

The dominant US-bound maritime route remains through the eastern Pacific, then into Mexico and Central America, where most large seizures occur before drugs can pass overland into the US. The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s own 2024 report similarly identified Colombia as the source for about 84 percent of cocaine seized in the US, and made no mention of Venezuela.

Claims about transgender people and Black people

During the Pennsylvania rally, Trump claimed the Democrats want “transgender for every member in your family”.

He added: “If they’re not feeling well that night, let’s just change their sex.”

Trump also said: “Black people love Trump. I got the biggest vote with Black people.”

The facts

In the US, access to medical transition or “gender‑affirming” treatments, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy or surgeries, is not a uniform process nationwide. It varies significantly from state to state depending on local laws, medical practices and insurance coverage provisions.

However, while some European countries have placed restrictions on access to such treatments – especially for children, for whom there are concerns that puberty blockers, which are largely untrialled, might cause lasting developmental harm – these can be more readily available in parts of the US.

There is certainly no evidence that the Democratic Party believes all families should have a transgender member.

When it comes to Black voters, it is true that Trump made significant inroads in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Overall, he secured 20 percent of the Black vote in November 2024 – a big rise from the 12 percent he won in 2020.

When New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani moves into Gracie Mansion, the elegant 18th-century house long associated with New York’s political elite on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in January, he will leave behind the rather more modest, rent-controlled Queens apartment he has lived in for several years.

For a democratic socialist who has been elected by New Yorkers on a housing justice ticket, the contrast may seem striking to observers.

Mamdani won last month’s New York mayoral election, in part because the city is facing a severe housing crisis, with record-high rents and one of the lowest property vacancy rates in the country. Mamdani built his campaign around freezing rents and expanding affordable housing.

So what exactly is Gracie Mansion, and why does it matter in a city where housing has become a key political issue?

What is Gracie Mansion?

Gracie Mansion has been the official residence of the mayor of New York City since 1942. A yellow-painted, Federal-style wooden house built in 1799, it is located inside Carl Schurz Park on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

According to the Historic House Trust, which oversees the city’s historic homes, it was originally designed as a two-storey country villa overlooking the East River.

The main house reportedly has five bedrooms and five bathrooms, with period fireplaces and high ceilings.

The residence today includes the original two-storey structure plus an events wing, which was added in the 1960s. According to the New York City Parks and Recreation Department, the combined complex now measures roughly 12,000 to 13,000 square feet (1,200 square metres), accommodating formal sitting rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and spaces for official functions.

The building is maintained as a city-owned asset and is made available to each incoming mayor as their official home.

Why is it called Gracie Mansion?

The house takes its name from Archibald Gracie, a Scottish-American shipping merchant who constructed it in 1799 within an estate to be his family’s country seat. At the time, it was some distance outside the city limits.

Although Gracie later lost the property due to financial hardship, his name remained attached to the estate in subsequent decades, and the city retained it when it took ownership at the end of the 19th century.

New York City acquired the property in 1896, incorporating the surrounding estate into what would become Carl Schurz Park. According to the Historic House Trust and the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, the building served a series of public uses during the following few decades, including as temporary quarters for the Museum of the City of New York.

In 1942, New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses urged Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to designate the house as the city’s official mayoral residence. At the time, the city lacked any formal mayoral home.

Moses saw this as an opportunity to create a dignified civic residence that would mirror the executive mansions used in other major American cities.

In 1966, the city added the Susan E Wagner Wing, a modernist extension designed to accommodate receptions and large meetings.

Since 1981, the house has been maintained by a public-private partnership, which funds its conservation and oversees public tours.

In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg updated the interior and exterior of the building and increased accessibility to the public.

It has since been known as the “People’s House”.

Have mayors always lived at Gracie Mansion?

Gracie Mansion did not become the official mayoral residence until 1942, when La Guardia moved in following the city’s decision to assign the house to the mayor’s office.

Since 1942, most mayors have lived there, including Ed Koch, David Dinkins, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.

The most notable exception was Michael Bloomberg, who chose to remain in his private townhouse on the Upper East Side for the duration of his three terms as mayor. Bloomberg used Gracie Mansion only for events, according to US media reports.

Some mayors have divided their time between Gracie Mansion and their private residences, including Ed Koch, who kept his Greenwich Village apartment, and Rudy Giuliani’s family, who remained partly based in their East Side home.

When is Zohran Mamdani moving in?

Mamdani, 34, will take office in January. He has said he and his wife, the illustrator Rama Duwaji, will leave the rent-stabilised Astoria, Queens apartment he has lived in since 2018 and move into Gracie Mansion. The couple do not have children.

In a statement, Mamdani said his decision to move into the mansion – described by US media as being worth $100m – had been driven by safety considerations for his family and the need to focus fully on implementing the “affordability agenda” that shaped his campaign.

He also described the move as using the residence in the way it was intended – a civic resource provided so the mayor can perform official duties more effectively.

The move has raised questions about how this aligns with his tenants’ rights and affordability agenda, however, as he had previously tied the fact that he lived in a rent-controlled apartment to his campaign agenda of more affordable housing for New Yorkers.

“To Astoria: thank you for showing us the best of New York City,” Mamdani said in a statement on Wednesday. “While I may no longer live in Astoria, Astoria will always live inside me and the work I do.”

Why else is Gracie Mansion significant?

The mansion has been the site of many protests – many of them revolving around housing rights, particularly for asylum seekers and migrants. In August 2023, for example, an anti-immigration rally clashed with migrants’ rights counterprotesters on the doorstep.

People marching in the rally shouted slogans such as, “No migrants on Long Island! We pay a lot of property taxes!”

When the current New York mayor, Eric Adams, sought to remove New York City’s “right to shelter” law, which guarantees shelter with basic standards for homeless people, that year, a major protest and “sleep-in” took place outside Gracie Mansion in November.

In March 2024, Adams reached a legal agreement with homeless rights advocates allowing homeless migrants and asylum seekers to stay for only a maximum of 30 days in a shelter.

How severe is New York City’s housing crisis?

Housing policy was the centrepiece of Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.

He has pushed for a multi-year rent freeze on the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilised apartments, along with stronger tenant protections, more social housing and limits on speculative buying by landlords.

The city’s Housing and Vacancy Survey, cited in the city’s Rent Guidelines Board’s 2025 report, put the rental vacancy rate at just 1.41 percent, far below the 5 percent level that triggers rent-regulation powers in New York State.

“This translates into the availability of just 33,000 vacant units out of almost 2.4 million rental units Citywide,” the report reads.

Separately, market data shows how high New York rents have become.

Realtor.com’s 2025 quarterly report put the citywide median asking rent at about $3,600 a month. Meanwhile, Douglas Elliman’s August 2025 rental market report shows that two-bedroom units routinely list for $5,000 to more than $5,500 in Manhattan and $3,200 to $4,000 in many Brooklyn and Queens neighbourhoods.

In each of the five boroughs of New York City, average rents make up a high proportion of average incomes.

In Manhattan, where the average income is about $5,100 per month, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $4,200. In Brooklyn, the average income is about $3,400, compared with the average rent on a one-bedroom apartment of $2,800.

In contrast, cities which prioritise affordable housing, like Vienna, Austria, take a very different approach. The city owns and manages hundreds of thousands of apartments and keeps rents far below market levels.

A severe winter storm is creating more hardship for Gaza’s forcibly displaced population, flooding tents as families try to cope without proper shelter, heat, or basic supplies due to Israel’s continued restrictions.

A Brazilian lawmaker was removed from Congress by police on Tuesday as he staged a protest against a bill which could drastically reduce ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s 27-year prison sentence.

The military gains made by forces of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in southern Yemen mark a significant turning point in the country’s political and military conflicts.

The latest fighting is between the STC and internationally recognised Yemeni government, known as the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), and led by Rashad al-Alimi. The irony here is that the STC, led by Aidarus al-Zubaidi, is also a member of the Yemeni PLC. But the relationship between the two groups is shaky and at times, turbulent.

Yemen’s government condemned the STC’s latest military advance and land grab across the south and labelled the group separatists – calling their action a “unilateral and a blatant violation of the transitional phase’s framework”.

On the ground, STC forces have completed their control over the remaining southern governorates, furthering the group’s efforts to revive its decades-old aspiration of establishing an independent state in the south of Yemen.

The battle of Hadramout

The latest and rapid developments are redrawing the map of control in Yemen, and it could have further implications on the future of a strong, coherent and unified country.

The fall of Hadramout last week was sudden, and it was seen as a shocking development – although it came after a long period of tension in the oil-rich province. The Yemeni government remained more of a bystander – maintaining some military brigades stationed in its camps in the governorates of Hadramout and al-Mahra. While local and tribal proxies affiliated with regional countries, they were competing for control and influence.

Taking advantage of its superior military equipment and massive forces, the STC advanced nearly unchallenged to overtake Hadramout and al-Mahra.

The government forces lacked modern weapons, sufficient manpower and perhaps the willingness to fight.

The fall of Hadramout was pivotal and posed greater importance in the eyes of many Yemeni politicians, given the special status of this governorate locally and regionally. It dealt a final blow to what remained of the components of Yemeni unity and the government’s legitimacy, and it thwarted all the bets that considered Hadramout to be immune from falling to STC forces.

Both the incoming STC forces and government and local tribal fighters had their own alliances and allegiances to competing regional powers – with connections and loyalties with tribal leaders, politicians and local actors in Hadramout.

Why does Hadramout matter?

Hadramout is a crucial and essential governorate in Yemen, occupying more than a third of the country’s area, approximately 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 square miles), with a population of nearly two million.

It is home to the largest share of Yemen’s oil wealth, containing the most important oil fields and export terminals. Furthermore, it is a stronghold of Yemeni and Arab Gulf businessmen and a cradle of cultural and historical wealth. In short, Hadramout is the Yemeni governorate that possesses the elements of a fully fledged state, and its inhabitants had hoped to establish a Hadrami state that would restore their past glories, far removed from the political and military conflict that engulfed the rest of Yemen’s governorates.

Hadramout governorate has always had a unique political and administrative character throughout all eras and political systems, especially during the socialist regime that ruled the South from the early 1970s until 1990, when the two Yemeni parts, North and South, unified.

This unique character continued under the unified state, as Hadramout remained governed by its own people and refused to accept officials from outside its geographical boundaries. Consequently, the people of Hadramout consider the STC’s control over it an unprecedented occupation, given that most of the STC’s leaders come from the Lahj and Dhale governorates, which are marginal areas – and that would be unacceptable for them. Therefore, the stability and continuity of the STC’s authority in the governorate are doubtful because the group lacks local and popular support.

‘Divorce without return’

These repercussions will undoubtedly cast a shadow over the eight-member PLC in Yemen, headed by Rashad al-Alimi, who, along with his cabinet members and his guards, was expelled from the presidential palace in the al-Maashiq district of Aden.

Many considered this a “divorce without return” and a disastrous end to all previous understandings and agreements aimed at maintaining a political order based on shared principles that would not harm any party.

In light of these developments, the legitimate government now only controls modest areas of land in the governorates of Taiz and Marib.

But Marib is already besieged by Houthi forces from the north, and by the STC forces from the south. The Houthis are a group backed by Iran and control the capital and the north and northwestern parts of Yemen. Taiz is besieged by the Houthis from the north and from the east by the forces of Brigadier General Tariq Saleh, the son of the ousted Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

It is not unlikely that these areas will fall into the hands of either of these two powerful parties at any moment. If that happens, the legitimate Yemeni government will become just a piece of paper, even though it practically lacks any influence on the ground since the rise of the STC forces and the growing power of the Houthis.

The unattainable southern aspiration for secession

As political sociology researcher Fayrouz al-Wali says, the STC does not have the authority to declare southern independence, despite its military control on the ground, because this decision rests not with it but with external regional powers that have deep interests in southern Yemen.

She noted that the path to statehood in the south does not lead through the gates of the Ma’ashiq Palace in Aden, but rather through the United Nations Security Council, where regional powers could play a pivotal role.

There is also a realisation that it would be difficult for the STC to declare independence in the foreseeable future, at least, because of the lack of essential resources to fund the budget of a nascent state without even the most basic elements of sustainability. Such a state would inherit an empty treasury from a country exhausted by more than a decade of war.