Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump tussles with Jerome Powell on rare visit to Federal Reserve

      by

      Donald Trump sparred with the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, on Thursday during a rare presidential visit to the central bank’s headquarters.Trump was continuing his campaign to pressure the Fed to cut interest rates and was visiting its Washington headquarters to view costly renovations he has suggested are tantamount to fraud.Having branded Powell a “numbskull” for the Fed’s recent decisions not to cut rates, Trump has turned up the pressure on Powell with criticism of the $2.5bn bill for renovating the Fed’s historical buildings.Powell and Trump stood in hard hats inside the Fed’s construction site. Urging the Fed chair to stand closer to him, Trump alleged that the bill for the renovations would now cost $3.1bn.“It looks like it’s about $3.1bn – it went up a little bit or a lot,” said Trump. The usually unflappable Powell looked visibly irritated, closed his eyes and shook his head. “I am not aware of that,” said Powell.Handed a piece of paper by Trump, Powell scanned it and said the new figure included the cost of renovations for the Martin Building, a different Fed office that was renovated five years ago. “It’s not new,” said Powell.Asked by a reporter what he would do if a project manager went over budget, Trump said: “I’d fire him.“Look, I would love to see it completed,” Trump said. “I don’t want to put that in this category.”The president backed away from earlier statements in which he had suggested he would fire Powell, a suggestion that has rattled stock markets. Trump said: “To do that is a big move, and I just don’t think it’s necessary, and I believe he’s going to do the right thing.”The visit to the Fed comes less than a week before the central bank’s 19 policymakers gather for a two-day rate-setting meeting, where they are widely expected to leave the central bank’s benchmark interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range.Trump has demanded that the Fed lower rates by three percentage points. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Powell slash US interest rates and has frequently raised the possibility of firing him.Ahead of Trump’s visit, Fed staff escorted a small group of reporters around the construction sites. They wove around cement mixers and construction machines, and spoke over the sound of drills, banging and saws.Fed staff pointed out security features, including blast-resistant windows, that they said were a significant driver of costs, in addition to tariffs and escalations in material and labor costs.Reuters contributed to this story More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump and Powell clash on camera over Federal Reserve renovation cost – US politics live

      by

      Donald Trump just attempted to ambush Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, during his site visit to inspect the renovation of the central bank’s historic headquarters in Washington.When Trump paused before reporters to make a statement, he beckoned Powell over to stand next to him on camera. The president then claimed that the total cost of the renovations to the Federal Reserve buildings was $3.1bn, a higher figure than had previously been reported.As Trump made this claim, Powell nodded his head no, to signal his disagreement.“I’m not aware of that,” Powell said. “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”Trump insisted that this new figure “just came out” and removed papers from his coat, as apparent proof, and handed them to Powell.“This came from us?” Powell asked.After Trump said that the new figures had come from his people, Powell discovered why the figure for the renovation was suddenly much larger. “You included a third building,” he said.Trump insisted that the third building was part of the total cost of the renovation he has accused Powell of mismanaging in an effort to find some cause to remove the independent Fed chairman who has refused to lower interest rates at the president’s request.The third building Trump suddenly claimed is part of the renovation, Powell explained, “was built five years ago. It’s not new.”Trump was flanked by his staunch ally, Republican senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who also suggested that the renovations had gone too far over budget.Powell, asked if they expected any further cost overruns, replied, “Don’t expect them” but said that the independent central bank was “ready for them” if necessary.Trump then called on a friendly reporter, who asked him what, as a builder, he “would do with a project manager who is over budget”.“Generally speaking, ”Trump said, “I’d fire him.”As Trump, Powell and Scott stepped away from the media to continue the tour, Trump said that there is something that Powell could do to assuage his concerns about the cost of the renovations. “I’d love him to lower interest rates,” he said.Powell has asserted, repeatedly, that the president does not have the power to fire him, as the head of an independent agency, and that decisions on interest rates must be immune to political pressure.The supreme court on Thursday blocked a lower-court ruling in a redistricting dispute in North Dakota that would gut a landmark federal civil rights law for millions of people.The justices indicated in an unsigned order that they are likely to take up a federal appeals court ruling that would eliminate the most common path people and civil rights groups use to sue under a key provision of the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act.The case could be argued as early as 2026 and decided by next summer.Three conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, would have rejected the appeal.The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Spirit Lake Tribe and individual Native American voters challenging new North Dakota legislative districts drawn after the 2020 census.The complaint alleged that the redrawn districts would dilute the voting strength of Native Americans in the state in violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, by giving them a chance to elect the candidate of their choice in just one district in northeastern North Dakota, instead of two.The Campaign Legal Center, which filed the suit with the Native American Rights Fund and other partners, welcomed the stay for “leaving in place fair maps for Native American voters while the cases progresses before the supreme court.”“To make this decision permanent, Campaign Legal Center will be filing a cert petition to formally request that the supreme court hear this case during their next term,” the nonpartisan, legal nonprofit wrote.Donald Trump, standing in a hard hat outside the headquarters of the Federal Reserve, just completed his tour of the renovations he has repeatedly claimed are too expensive, as he seeks an excuse to fire the head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell.Trump, accompanied by Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, met assembled reporters by a podium set up for his remarks. Powell, who has repeatedly asserted his independence and resisted Trump’s demands to lower interest rates, was not present.During the tour, Powell took issue with Trump’s claim that the renovation cost $3.1bn, a higher figure than had previously been claimed, and pointed out that the president had added in the cost of another building that was not part of the renovation and had been completed five years ago.“I see a very luxurious situation taking place,” Trump said.“Too expensive,” Scott chimed in. The senator and the president then said that Powell’s refusal to lower interest rates was making it difficult for Americans to afford mortgages on their homes, and suggested that the central banker’s renovation of the bank’s headquarters at the same time was inappropriate.Pressed by a reporter on why Trump does not speed up the lowering of interest rates on mortgages by firing Powell, Trump said he was not inclined to take that unprecedented step. “Because to do that is a big move and I just don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump said.“And I believe that he’s going do the right thing. I believe that the chairman is going to do the right thing,” Trump said.He then repeated his apparently false claim that, on his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, “the king of Saudi Arabia” told him that the United States is now “the hottest country anywhere in the world, and I thought you were dead one year ago”. Trump met the crown prince of Saudi Arabia on his visit in May. There are no published accounts that he met with the 89-year-old king, Salman, who has withdrawn from public life since last year following health concerns.Donald Trump just attempted to ambush Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, during his site visit to inspect the renovation of the central bank’s historic headquarters in Washington.When Trump paused before reporters to make a statement, he beckoned Powell over to stand next to him on camera. The president then claimed that the total cost of the renovations to the Federal Reserve buildings was $3.1bn, a higher figure than had previously been reported.As Trump made this claim, Powell nodded his head no, to signal his disagreement.“I’m not aware of that,” Powell said. “I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed.”Trump insisted that this new figure “just came out” and removed papers from his coat, as apparent proof, and handed them to Powell.“This came from us?” Powell asked.After Trump said that the new figures had come from his people, Powell discovered why the figure for the renovation was suddenly much larger. “You included a third building,” he said.Trump insisted that the third building was part of the total cost of the renovation he has accused Powell of mismanaging in an effort to find some cause to remove the independent Fed chairman who has refused to lower interest rates at the president’s request.The third building Trump suddenly claimed is part of the renovation, Powell explained, “was built five years ago. It’s not new.”Trump was flanked by his staunch ally, Republican senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who also suggested that the renovations had gone too far over budget.Powell, asked if they expected any further cost overruns, replied, “Don’t expect them” but said that the independent central bank was “ready for them” if necessary.Trump then called on a friendly reporter, who asked him what, as a builder, he “would do with a project manager who is over budget”.“Generally speaking, ”Trump said, “I’d fire him.”As Trump, Powell and Scott stepped away from the media to continue the tour, Trump said that there is something that Powell could do to assuage his concerns about the cost of the renovations. “I’d love him to lower interest rates,” he said.Powell has asserted, repeatedly, that the president does not have the power to fire him, as the head of an independent agency, and that decisions on interest rates must be immune to political pressure.Donald Trump has said that Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will be present when he and other officials tour the Fed’s headquarters in Washington this afternoon.“Getting ready to head over to the Fed to look at their, now, $3.1 Billion Dollar (PLUS!) construction project,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.The US government has sued New York City, seeking to block enforcement of several local laws its says are designed to impede its ability to enforce federal immigration laws, Reuters reports.In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, the Trump administration government said the city’s “sanctuary provisions” are unconstitutional, and preempted by laws giving it authority to regulate immigration.Donald Trump will today sign an executive order making it easier for cities and states to remove homeless people from the streets, USA Today reports.Under the executive order, the president will direct attorney general Pam Bondi to “reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees” that limit local and state governments’ ability to move homeless people from streets and encampments into treatment centers, according to a White House summary of the order reviewed by USA Today.Trump’s order, dubbed “Ending Vagrancy and Restoring Order”, will redirect federal funds to ensure the homeless people impacted are transferred to rehabilitation, treatment and other facilities, the White House said, though it was not immediately clear how much money would be allocated.It will require Bondi to work with the secretaries of health and human services, housing and urban development and transportation to prioritize federal grants to states and cities that “enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders”.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement that Trump is “delivering on his commitment to Make America Safe Again and end homelessness across America”.“By removing vagrant criminals from our streets and redirecting resources toward substance abuse programs, the Trump Administration will ensure that Americans feel safe in their own communities and that individuals suffering from addiction or mental health struggles are able to get the help they need,” she said.The White House does not support the request by Republican senators John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham for a special counsel to investigate what they call the “Russia collusion hoax,” NBC News is reporting, citing a source familiar with the matter.“While we appreciate the shared goal of transparency and accountability, the president is confident in the Department of Justice to handle the investigation,” the source told NBC.The Department of Justice announced last night that it was forming a “strike force” to to investigate (baseless) claims that the Obama administration carried out a “treasonous conspiracy” by using false intelligence to suggest Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump.A special counsel appointed during Trump’s first term already investigated the origins of the Russia probe.US district judge James Boasberg has said he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against justice department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit brought by Venezuelans challenging their removal to a Salvadoran prison in March.Boasberg, a prominent Washington DC, judge who has drawn Donald Trump’s ire, said during a court hearing that a recent whistleblower complaint had strengthened the argument that Trump administration officials engaged in criminal contempt of court by failing to turn around deportation flights.Boasberg also raised the prospect of referring DOJ lawyers to state bar associations, which have the authority to discipline unethical conduct by attorneys. He said:
      I will certainly be assessing whether government counsel’s conduct and veracity to the court warrant a referral to state bars or our grievance committee, which determines lawyers’ fitness to practice in our court.
      A justice department spokesperson declined to comment.Boasberg has been hearing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought on behalf of alleged Venezuelan gang members removed from the US under the rarely invoked 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. The detainees in the case were returned to Venezuela last week as part of a prisoner exchange, after spending four months in El Salvador’s Cecot prison.The migrants’ lawyers have disputed the gang membership claims and said their clients were not given a chance to contest the government’s assertions.Boasberg said in April that the Trump administration appeared to have acted “in bad faith” when it hurriedly assembled three deportation flights on 15 March at the same time that he was conducting emergency court proceedings to assess the legality of the effort.In court filings, justice department lawyers have disputed that they disobeyed a court order, saying remarks Boasberg made from the bench were not legally binding.In a 2-1 order, a federal appeals court in April temporarily paused Boasberg’s effort to further investigate whether the Trump administration engaged in criminal contempt.Boasberg said during today’s hearing that the delay from the appeals court was frustrating for the plaintiffs, and that a whistleblower complaint from Erez Reuveni, a former DOJ attorney who was fired in April, strengthened the case for contempt.Reuveni described three separate incidents when justice department leaders defied court orders related to the deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally.Attorney general Pam Bondi, in a post on X, called Reuveni a “disgruntled employee” and a “leaker”.The United States will not attend an upcoming UN conference on an Israel-Palestine two-state solution, state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters during a press briefing today.The conference, which has already been rescheduled once, is due to take place next week at the United Nations.The prospects for high-profile announcements on recognition of a Palestinian state had already been dealt a serious blow after it was reported that French president Emmanuel Macron was not expected to attend.Venezuelan men who were deported by the US to the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador without due process are speaking out about treatment they described as “hell” and like a “horror movie”, after arriving back home.A total of 252 Venezuelan nationals were repatriated in the last week in a prisoner swap deal between the US and Venezuelan governments, with many able to reunite with family after their ordeal in El Salvador.Carlos Uzcátegui tightly hugged his sobbing wife and stepdaughter on Wednesday morning in western Venezuela after he had been away for a year.He was among the migrants being reunited with loved ones after spending four months imprisoned in El Salvador, where the US government had transferred them without due process, sparking uproar over Donald Trump’s harsh anti-immigration agenda. The US had accused all the men, on sometimes apparently flimsy evidence, of being members of a foreign gang living in the US illegally.“Every day, we asked God for the blessing of freeing us from there so that we could be here with family, with my loved ones,” Uzcátegui, 33, said. “Every day, I woke up looking at the bars, wishing I wasn’t there.“They beat us, they kicked us. I even have quite a few bruises on my stomach,” he added before later showing a bruised left abdomen.Arturo Suárez, whose reggaeton songs surfaced on social media after he was sent to El Salvador, arrived at his family’s home in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Tuesday. His sister hugged him after he emerged from a vehicle belonging to the country’s intelligence service.“It is hell. We met a lot of innocent people,” Suárez told reporters, referring to the prison he was held in. “To all those who mistreated us, to all those who negotiated with our lives and our freedom, I have one thing to say, and scripture says it well: vengeance and justice is mine, and you are going to give an account to God [the] Father.”Former national security adviser (of Signalgate infamy) Mike Waltz’s nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations is back on track after a Democrat cut a deal to advance him out of committee, Politico reports, marking just the latest development in a rollercoaster day for Donald Trump’s nominee.Despite Republican senator Rand Paul voting no (derailing plans for a committee vote yesterday), ranking member Jeanne Shaheen sided with the other Republicans on the foreign relations committee to vote to advance Waltz, narrowly by 12-10. Having cleared that key hurdle, Waltz now goes to the Senate, where he will likely be confirmed.There was no immediate indication of when the full Senate might consider the nomination. A spokesperson for the chamber’s majority leader John Thune, said there were no scheduling updates.Thune has indicated he might delay the Senate’s annual August recess if Democrats do not allow Republicans to confirm Trump nominees more quickly. In a recent post on his Truth Social platform, Trump urged the Senate to stay in Washington for votes on his nominees.Politico notes: “The partisan swap reflected ideological divides around isolationism: Paul objected to Waltz’s vote to keep troops in Afghanistan, while Shaheen said in a statement that despite some concerns (including the aforementioned Signalgate, which in part cost him his job as national security adviser), she saw Waltz as a potential ‘moderating force’ against the likes of vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby. Some Democrats also worried about who might replace Waltz if his nomination failed.”Shaheen said she had worked out a deal with committee Republicans and the state department to unlock $75m in lifesaving foreign aid for Haiti and Nigeria, Axios reports.However, Shaheen said she may not necessarily vote for Waltz’s confirmation. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Outcry as US agriculture department to cut salaries and relocate staff

      by

      Thousands of employees at the US Department of Agriculture will be forced to take salary cuts and relocate out of the Washington DC area, as part of a major restructuring that experts warn will further weaken support for American farmers and complicate wildfire response.In a memorandum issued on Thursday, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, outlined the “key pillars” behind the department’s reorganization, focused on reducing its financial footprint, removing resources from the capital, eliminating management and consolidating workforces responsible for a range of functions, including freedom of information requests, tribal relations, grants and human resources.More than half of employees working in the Washington DC area will be relocated to five locations – Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Several key USDA offices will be shuttered in the capital region.The move follows wide-ranging and often chaotic cuts to staff and services being implemented under Trump 2.0, as the administration seeks to dismantle the federal government and fund tax cuts for the wealthy including the president’s billionaire donors.“President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the Beltway and into great American cities across the country,” Rollins said in the statement. “We will do so through a transparent and commonsense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on.”In a video call, Rollins informed USDA staff that they would be advised about new assignments – and homes – over the next few months.View image in fullscreenMore than 90% of the department’s almost 100,000 employees are already based in county and regional offices, including at regional research institutions, farm loan offices and conservation facilities. The reorganization will leave only 2,000 of the current 4,600 USDA staff in the Beltway.The department will also eliminate or scale down regional offices, combining them into “hub locations to the greatest extent possible”, according to the memo.Rollins said that the changes would help the USDA better serve its “core constituents” of farmers, ranchers and US producers, focus on the administration’s priorities and eliminate management layers and bureaucracy.But experts warned that the latest cuts and consolidation of key departments focused on civil rights and small and disadvantaged businesses will further hamstring the agency, which is already reelingThe latest upheaval follows widespread cuts to Biden era agricultural programs, research grants and staff across the country, which along with Trump’s tariff chaos and deepening climate chaos has caused panic among many farmers.In a written statement, Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic ranking member of the Senate agriculture, nutrition and forestry committee, condemned the plan as a “half-baked proposal” and called for USDA officials to appear before Congress.“A reorganization of this scale will impact USDA’s ability to provide critical services to Americans and undermine the agency’s trusted expertise that farmers and families count on … we must have an immediate hearing before more damage is done.”“Today’s move further guts the government’s ability to protect public health, the environment and food safety. The real-world consequences will be severe, directly affecting people’s lives,” said Rebecca Wolf, senior policy analyst at Food & Water Watch Senior Food, a non-profit research and advocacy group.The reorganization is at least partly a cost-cutting measure, according to Rollins, and the relocated staff could see significant salary reductions due to lower rates paid outside the capital due to difference in the cost of living.But details were scant on how the plan will unfold, especially when it comes to management and administration of firefighters at the US Forest Service, an agency housed within the USDA. The USFS, which employs the bulk of the nation’s largest firefighting force, is facing severe staffing shortages, a Guardian investigation found this week, as wildfires rage across the country.Rollins emphasized that the plan will ensure continued support for fire operations and other activities critical to the department’s mission, but there are concerns that further workforce cuts and administrative focus lost to the reorganization during the peak of fire season could have disastrous effects.As fire risks sharply rise, crews have already begun to feel the impacts from previous cuts to budgets and workers at the agency that support wildfire mitigation and response. The programs incentivized by the Trump administration to sharply shrink the federal government rely on voluntary resignations and early retirements, which undercut the agency’s potential to make strategic decisions about its workforce.Roughly 1,400 workers with fire qualifications signed on for the programs, leaving holes on teams that play crucial roles in emergency response, especially during the busiest times of the season. Acknowledging the need to backfill these positions, Rollins called for some to return to active duty through the end of the season – only 65 have been reinstated, according to a department spokesperson.The Forest Service will also see its nine regional offices phased out over the next year and all research stations will be consolidated into one, housed in Fort Collins, Colorado.Experts were struggling to make sense of the announcement, and shared concerns about how another layer of change could cause more chaos and disorganization as fire risks continue to surge.“Until we know more specifically about the fire program it’s hard to determine what some of the outcomes of this could be,” said Riva Duncan, a retired USFS fire officer and vice-president of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters advocacy group. Duncan added that the consolidation of USFS research stations could be problematic because each does fire research and has a focus specific to the landscapes where the station is housed.“This is another example of decisions being made by people who haven’t bothered to learn or understand the work,” she said.It is also unclear if the reorganization is designed to align with plans from the Trump administration to combine federal firefighters into a single agency, under the Department of the Interior. Those plans were left in limbo on Tuesday, after the House appropriations committee determined “changes in budgetary and management structure spark concerns about impacted agencies’ abilities to consistently meet critical performance benchmarks”.A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study was ordered to evaluate the feasibility of the plan, and the House of Representatives adjourned for its August recess on Wednesday, delaying any budget votes until at least September.More than 15,300 employees have already left the USDA since Trump took office, opting for buyouts and early retirement through the administration’s deferred resignation plan. Similar staff-cutting measures have been implemented across the federal government, overseen by the so-called department of government efficiency, the quasi-government agency created by the billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk.“This is less a reorganization and more a dismantling. This mass relocation will be costly. It will also result in the mass resignation of staff, which means a major loss of capacity at USDA,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).“Contrary to the secretary’s statement, the USDA is already understaffed. There was no effort to get input from Congress, the public or farmers about this reorganization.”A similar USDA relocation program during the first Trump term led to a smaller, less efficient, less experienced and less diverse workforce, according to the GAO, the bipartisan federal government watchdog.The USDA workforce grew 8% during the Biden administration, while salaries rose 15%, largely on temporary funding, the department said on Thursday, as Rollins confirmed that the cuts would continue.“This reorganization is another step of the department’s process of reducing its workforce,” Rollins wrote in the memo, noting that programs to incentivize early retirements and voluntary resignations will continue to reduce the staff numbers further. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Why Trump’s political playbook is failing in the Epstein case | Jan-Werner Müller

      by

      The problem with a successful playbook is that you eventually keep doing the same thing mechanically. Fresh from intimidating ABC and CBS with meritless lawsuits, Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the story of a lewd birthday message for Jeffrey Epstein. But, unlike with the frivolous allegations against the big broadcasters, there’s clearly a fact of the matter here: an authentic letter either exists or it does not; and there is plenty to be revealed in the process of finding out. Trump’s time-proven move – whatever happens, just counter-attack – is likely to keep the very story he wants to kill alive. Meanwhile, the other elements of his playbook – deny, deflect, distract – only work if journalists and Democrats play along. They, not the seemingly all-important Trump base, are the actors to watch.We still debate whether Trumpism is a substantial ideology or not; what we are missing is that Trumpism, for sure, is a set of tactics for exploiting weaknesses in the US political, legal and media systems. Some of these tactics were inherited from his mentor Roy Cohn and many are now being adopted by Trump’s followers – one must never admit guilt; one must always swing back; and one must reject, or ideally entirely bury, defeats (such as Trump’s case against Bob Woodward and Woodward’s publisher being dismissed recently).But there is also a less obvious element, and it has to do with managing political time (a challenge for all politicians, come to think of it). The point is not just seizing opportunities or exploiting opponents’ weaknesses in a timely manner; rather, it is about the art of speeding things up or slowing them down to one’s advantage. Think of how we appear to have become inured to Trump doing and saying things that would have ended previous presidencies (OK, previous presidents did not have AI-generated images of themselves as kings or popes available, but still).One reason is this: an administration that faces one or two big scandals in a four-year period may well be damaged beyond repair; one that produces three very big scandals a day seems to have nothing to worry about since no one can keep up. It is difficult to stick with one story, as the newest outrage already appears so much bigger (the Qatar plane scandal can feel like it happened years ago). To be sure, not all scandals are consciously produced, but there is little doubt that Trump’s posting an AI-generated clip of Barack Obama being arrested in the White House and identifying Obama as a “ringleader” of election fraud are meant to distract – which is not to deny that they would justify impeachment.While the frequency of scandals is maximized to game the news cycle, the legal system is used to slow things down. Releasing the grand jury testimonies in the Epstein case will take time, if the request is not rejected altogether by courts (as has already happened in Florida). Even if they are released, they are unlikely to contain anything relevant about Trump. The calculation is that, a few weeks from now, the files will be forgotten.None of this is to suggest Trump is a master Machiavellian who can manipulate Americans (or even just his base) at will. His approach partly works because institutional and cultural contexts have changed: news cycles are shorter, as are attention spans. His behavior has become progressively normalized – and generalized: shamelessness once unique to him is now in the manual of required GOP conduct (just think of blatant lies about Medicaid). Most important, a free press sticking relentlessly with scandals and ignoring intimidation can no longer be taken for granted; broadcasters in particular have become vulnerable to parent companies putting profits before everything else. Democrats, understandably not wanting to look like they mainly focus on the sordid details of the Epstein story, are tempted to move on and deal with the vaunted “kitchen-table issues”. But it should give them pause that the story is apparently so scary for the other side that Republicans would rather shut down the House than deal with it in any shape or form.Are they right to panic? For sure, Trump made a mistake with his social media post urging followers to move on, which was the equivalent of “don’t think of an elephant” (while also providing further evidence for the Streisand effect: censorship generates the very attention meant to be avoided). Trump lobbying Murdoch to kill the story will give pause to all still naive enough to think of Republicans as free speech defenders. By now, the fact that releasing only the grand jury testimony is relatively meaningless has sunk in and – never mind the base – what political scientists call “low-information voters” will be left with a lasting impression of a Trump-Epstein connection or at least a chaotic administration. In the lawsuit, Trump has to prove “actual malice” on the part of the newspaper – a difficult hurdle to jump. Unlike with the Russia investigation, Trump himself is the instigator of a lengthy process overshadowing his presidency; unlike with the many investigations between his presidential terms, when his lawyers outran the clock, time is not really on his side. In fact, he might be lucky if the case is dismissed on a technicality – he apparently failed to comply with a Florida law that requires giving defendants five days’ notice.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump push to ban birthright citizenship unconstitutional, US court rules

      by

      Donald Trump’s effort to repeal birthright citizenship has hit another a stumbling block, with a federal appeals court in San Francisco declaring the president’s attempt unconstitutional.The three-judge ruling panel in the 9th US circuit court of appeals echoed a district court in New Hampshire that blocked the executive order earlier this month.“The district court correctly concluded that the executive order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the verdict said.The case is now one stop further on the long road to the US supreme court.Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship was signed just hours after the president took office on 20 January and was immediately challenged in a spread of courts across the country. It has faced a tumultuous legal battle ever since. Birthright citizenship is a legal principle that allows nearly everyone born on US soil to become a US citizen.In under a month since the executive order’s filing, multiple judges across the country have filed injunctions blocking the order.Trump’s administration then took to the supreme court to fight the injunctions. In a major decision, the US supreme court ruled that injunctions by the lower courts were exceeding their given authority, effectively transforming the mechanics of the US justice system. The verdict did not address the legality of the birthright citizenship ban itself.A loophole was left, however, for those looking to fight the executive order – class action lawsuits. In opposition to the executive order, New Hampshire judge Joseph LaPlante recognized babies across the US as a class that would be affected by the lawsuit and said depriving them of citizenship constituted irreparable harm.Birthright citizenship was embedded in the US constitution’s 14th amendment in 1868, overturning the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision and giving citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans. It was strengthened in 1898 in the Wong Ark case, which upheld the citizenship of American-born Wong Kim Ark in the face of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Indigenous Americans were historically excluded from birthright citizenship, which changed with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.Long a fringe issue in rightwing circles, the effort to repeal birthright citizenship was brought back into Congress in 1991 and has appeared regularly since. Trump’s executive order, constitutional or not, marks its furthest foray into the mainstream.At time of writing the Trump administration was yet to comment on the ruling. More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: White House claims ‘fake news’ as president faces fresh Epstein claims

      by

      Donald Trump is facing a widening crisis amid a report claiming that his name appears in US justice department files about Jeffrey Epstein as Congress subpoenas testimony from Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.The White House sought to downplay the relationship between the US president and the disgraced financier while Trump’s spokesperson denied an account in the Wall Street Journal that the president was told in May by attorney general Pam Bondi that he is named in the Epstein files. The report says the president was told that many other high profile figures were also named and states that being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.“The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”A federal judge, meanwhile, denied a justice department request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein.Here’s more on these and the day’s other key Trump administration stories:Trump’s name reported to feature in Epstein filesAttorney general Pam Bondi has pushed back against a report claiming that Donald Trump’s name appears “multiple times” in US justice department files about Jeffrey Epstein, saying that “nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution”.“As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings,” Bondi and her deputy said in a statement.White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an emailed statement: “The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”Read the full storyJudge rejects Trump bid to unseal Epstein jury transcriptsA US federal judge has denied a justice department request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to a criminal investigation of Epstein, the late sex offender and financier, in south Florida from the mid-2000s.The move on Wednesday is the first ruling in the Trump administration’s series of attempts to release more information after the justice department announced it would not be releasing any additional files related to the Epstein case, despite earlier promises from Trump and Bondi.Read the full storyEU and US near trade dealThe European Union and the US are close to a trade deal that would place 15% tariffs on most imports from the bloc, it has emerged.The tariff rate would apply to most goods, with some exceptions for products including aircraft and medical devices, according to diplomats with knowledge of the talks.Read the full storyTrump signs three executive orders targeting ‘woke’ AI modelsDonald Trump on Wednesday signed a trio of executive orders that he vowed would turn the United States into an “AI export powerhouse”, including a directive targeting what the White House described as “woke” artificial intelligence models.A second order Trump signed on Wednesday calls for deregulating AI development, increasing the building of datacentres and removing environmental protections that could hamper their construction.Read the full storyColumbia to pay Trump administration more than $220mColumbia University announced a much-anticipated deal with the Trump administration to pay a fine worth more than $220m, in an agreement meant to bring a resolution to the threat of massive funding cuts to the school, but certain to rankle critics given the extraordinary concessions made by the Ivy League university.Read the full storyTrump administration investigating Harvard’s visa programThe state department is opening an investigation into Harvard University’s eligibility as a sponsor for the exchange visitor program, the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the university over alleged failures to combat campus antisemitism and inadequate support of Israel.Read the full storyExclusive: Advisers abandon effort to find Hegseth new chief of staffDonald Trump’s advisers have abandoned an effort to find a new chief of staff to the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, allowing senior adviser Ricky Buria to continue performing the duties in an acting role despite once viewing him as a liability, according to people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Robert F Kennedy Jr will formally require vaccine makers to remove thimerosal, an ingredient that has been the target of anti-vaccine campaigns, from vaccines.

      French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, are suing the rightwing commentator Candace Owens for defamation.

      The acting director of Fema defended his agency’s handling of recent deadly floods in Texas, claiming the response was a “model” for “how disasters should be handled”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 22 July 2025. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump signs executive orders targeting ‘woke’ AI models and regulation

      by

      Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a trio of executive orders that he vowed would turn the United States into an “AI export powerhouse”, including one targeting what the White House described as “woke” artificial intelligence models.During remarks at an AI summit in Washington, Trump decried “woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models”, before signing the orders on stage at the Mellon Auditorium.“Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?” Trump said, drawing loud applause from the audience of AI industry leaders. He then asserted that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had “established toxic diversity, equity and inclusion ideology as a guiding principle of American AI development”.“So you immediately knew that was the end of your development,” he said, eliciting laughter.The new order requires any artificial intelligence company receiving federal funding to maintain politically neutral AI models free of “ideological dogmas such as DEI” – putting pressure on an industry increasingly seeking to partner with government agencies. It is part of the Trump administration’s broader anti-diversity campaign that has also targeted federal agencies, academic institutions and the military.While the directive emphasizes that the federal government “should be hesitant to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace”, it asserts that public procurement carries “the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas”. The metrics of what make an AI model politically biased are contentious and open to interpretation, however, and therefore may allow the administration to use the order to target companies at its discretion.The other orders were aimed at expediting federal permitting for datacentre infrastructure and promoting the export of American AI models. The executive actions coincide with the Trump administration’s release of a broader, 24-page “AI action plan” that seeks to cement the US’s “global dominance” in artificial intelligence as well as expand the use of AI in the federal government.“Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,” Trump declared, adding: “We need US technology companies to be all-in for America. We want you to put America first.”Earlier on Wednesday, the White House unveiled its long-promised “action plan”, titled “Winning the Race”, that was announced shortly after Trump took office and repealed a Biden administration order on AI that mandated some safeguards and standards on the technology. It outlines the White House’s vision for governing artificial intelligence in the US, vowing to speed up the development of the fast-growing technology by removing “red tape and onerous regulation”.During his remarks, Trump also proposed a more nominal change. “I can’t stand it,” he said, referring to the use of the word “artificial”. “I don’t even like the name, you know? I don’t like anything that’s artificial. So could we straighten that out, please? We should change the name. I actually mean that.”“It’s not artificial. It’s genius,” he added.A second order Trump signed on Wednesday calls for deregulating AI development, increasing the building of datacentres and removing environmental protections that could hamper their construction.Datacentres that house the servers for AI models require immense amounts of water and energy to function, as well as produce greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental groups have warned about harmful increases to air and noise pollution as tech companies build more facilities, while a number of local communities have pushed back against their construction.In addition to easing permitting laws and emphasizing the need for more energy infrastructure, both measures that tech companies have lobbied for, Trump’s order also frames the AI race as a contest for geopolitical dominance. China has invested billions into the manufacturing of AI chips and datacentres to become a competitor in the industry, while Chinese companies such as Deepseek have released AI models that rival Silicon Valley’s output.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile Trump’s plan seeks to address fears of China as an AI superpower, the Trump administration’s move against “woke” AI echoes longstanding conservative grievances against tech companies, which Republicans have accused of possessing liberal biases and suppressing rightwing ideology. As generative AI has become more prominent in recent years, that criticism has shifted from concerns over internet search results or anti-misinformation policies into anger against AI chatbots and image generators.One of the biggest critics of perceived liberal bias in AI is Elon Musk, who has vowed to make his xAI company and its Grok chatbot “anti-woke”. Although Musk and Donald Trump are still locked in a feud after their public falling out last month, Musk may stand to benefit from Trump’s order given his emphasis on controlling AI’s political outputs.Musk has consistently criticized AI models, including his own, for failing to generate what he sees as sufficiently conservative views. He has claimed that xAI has reworked Grok to eliminate liberal bias, and the chatbot has occasionally posted white supremacist and antisemitic content. In May, Grok affirmed white supremacist conspiracies that a “white genocide” was taking place in South Africa and said it was “instructed by my creators” to do so. Earlier this month, Grok also posted pro-Nazi ideology and rape fantasies while identifying itself as “MechaHitler” until the company was forced to intervene.Despite Grok’s promotion of Nazism, xAI was among several AI companies that the Department of Defense awarded with up to $200m contracts this month to develop tools for the government. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, all of which have their own proprietary AI models, were the other recipients.Conservatives have singled out incidents such as Google’s Gemini image generator inaccurately producing racially diverse depictions of historical figures such as German second world war soldiers as proof of liberal bias. AI experts have meanwhile long warned about problems of racial and gender bias in the creation of artificial intelligence models, which are trained on content such as social media posts, news articles and other forms of media that may contain stereotypes or discriminatory material that gets incorporated into these tools. Researchers have found that these biases have persisted despite advancements in AI, with models often replicating existing social prejudices in their outputs.Conflict over biases in AI have also led to turmoil in the industry. In 2020, the co-lead of Google’s “ethical AI” team Timnit Gebru said she was fired after she expressed concerns of biases being built into the company’s AI models and a broader lack of diversity efforts at the company. Google said she resigned. More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Justice department reportedly told Trump in May that his name is in Epstein files – live

      by

      “When justice department officials reviewed what attorney general Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times,” the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing senior administration officials.I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.An independent Pentagon inspector general reportedly has evidence that the detailed attack plans for strikes on Yemen shared in at least two Signal group chats by defense secretary Pete Hegseth in March were, in fact, classified, contradicting repeated claims to the contrary from Trump administration officials.“The Pentagon’s independent watchdog has received evidence that messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal account previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen derived from a classified email labeled “SECRET/NOFORN”, the Washington Post reports.According to the Post, the Pentagon watchdog discovered that the 15 March strike plans Hegseth dropped in one Signal group that mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic, and a second chat that included his wife, had first been shared “in a classified email with more than a dozen defense officials” sent through a secure, government system by General Michael Erik Kurilla, the top commander overseeing US military operations in the Middle East.After the revelation that Hegseth had shared the secret attack plans on Signal with a journalist before the strikes, the defense secretary told reporters “nobody was texting war plans”. His chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, said at the time: “there were no classified materials or war plans shared”.Another participant in the Signal group, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, testified to congress in March that “there was no classified material that was shared” in the chat.A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Kilmar Ábrego García must be released from jail as he awaits trial on human smuggling charges.The decision from judge Waverly Crenshaw means that Donald Trump’s administration can potentially attempt to deport the Maryland father of two to his native El Salvador or a third country for a second time.Crenshaw, sitting in Nashville, agreed with an earlier decision by a magistrate judge, concluding that prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to show Ábrego is either a danger to the public or a flight risk.The judge said in his decision that the government “fails to show by a preponderance of the evidence – let alone clear and convincing evidence – that Ábrego is such a danger to others or the community that such concerns cannot be mitigated by conditions of release”.Despite the bail ruling, Ábrego is not expected to walk free. His legal team has requested a 30-day delay in implementing the decision, opting to keep him in criminal detention while they consider next steps.Meanwhile, in a separate courtroom in Maryland, US district judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing a civil case Ábrego filed, issued a 72-hour freeze on any further attempts by the Trump administration to deport him. Xinis ruled that Ábrego must be returned to Maryland on an order of supervision.The House oversight committee has officially subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell for a deposition to occur at the Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee on 11 August.“The facts and circumstances surrounding both your and Mr Epstein’s cases have received immense public interest and scrutiny,” Republican chairman James Comer, of Kentucky, wrote, addressing Maxwell.“While the justice department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to your and Mr Epstein’s cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of you and Mr Epstein.”An oversight subcommittee voted yesterday to subpoena Maxwell, the imprisoned sex trafficker who was a close associate of the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, to testify amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s decision not to release its remaining Epstein files.“This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by the Wall Street Journal,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement in response to the WSJ’s report that the justice department informed Donald Trump in May about his name being in the Epstein files.In the WSJ’s report (paywall), according to the officials, attorney general Pam Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House in May that his name was in the Epstein files, along with many other high-profile figures.“The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end,” the WSJ reports.The publication notes that being mentioned in the documents is not a sign of wrongdoing:
      The officials said it was a routine briefing that covered a number of topics and that Trump’s appearance in the documents wasn’t the focus.
      They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past, some of the officials said. One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names.
      They also told Trump that senior justice department officials didn’t plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information, the officials said. Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the justice department’s decision to not release any further files.
      Trump denied last week in response to a journalist’s question that Bondi had told him that his name was in the files.“When justice department officials reviewed what attorney general Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times,” the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing senior administration officials.I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.US district judge Robin Rosenberg wrote that the court’s “hands are tied” and said the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding, pointing out that district courts in the US are largely prohibited from unsealing grand jury testimony except in very narrow circumstances.The ruling mentioned in my last post stems from federal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida in 2005 and 2007, according to court documents.It doesn’t affect two other pending requests by the Department of Justice that seek to obtain transcripts of grand jury proceedings related to later federal investigations of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in New York, both of which led to separate criminal indictments.Yesterday, the New York federal court said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions.The Trump administration filed the petitions to unseal transcripts of the grand jury proceedings last week. It followed days of mounting pressure and criticism across the political spectrum over the DoJ’s decision not to release any further investigative evidence about Epstein despite many earlier promises that it would be released.A US judge has denied a justice department bid to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in South Florida, the first ruling in a series of attempts by Donald Trump’s administration to release more information on the case.Reuters reports that US district judge Robin Rosenberg found that the justice department’s request in Florida did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret.The new photos and videos published by CNN have emerged today in a context of ever-rising frustration in Trump’s White House over its inability to make the Epstein story go away. Per Politico:
      Donald Trump is angry. His team is exasperated. The Republican-controlled House is in near rebellion.
      Trump and his closest allies thought they’d spend the summer taking a victory lap, having coaxed Congress into passing the megabill, bullied foreign governments into a slew of new trade arrangements, convinced Nato allies to spend billions more on collective defense and pressed world leaders to bow to various other demands from Doha to The Hague.
      Instead, questions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who was found dead in his jail cell by suicide nearly six years ago, are overshadowing almost everything else.”
      “POTUS is clearly furious,” a person close to the White House told Politico. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.”
      A senior White House official said the president is frustrated with his staff’s inability to tamp down conspiracy theories they once spread and by the wall of media coverage that started when attorney general Pam Bondi released information from the Epstein case that was already in the public domain.
      “He feels there are way bigger stories that deserve attention,” the senior White House official said.
      The frustration stems, in part, from an understanding that this is “a vulnerability,” said a White House ally. Trump has famously had his finger on the pulse of the Republican base for more than a decade but has, for now, lost the ability to dominate the narrative. That threatens to undermine the momentum and sense of invincibility the GOP felt at the beginning of the month when they were getting ready to boast about a slew of new tax cuts and border funding as their opening pitch to voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.
      Newly uncovered photos and video footage published by CNN show more links between the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, including Epstein’s attendance at Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples at the Plaza hotel in New York in 1993.The media organization said on Wednesday that Epstein’s attendance at the wedding ceremony was not widely known.CNN also published footage from 1999 of Trump and Epstein attending a Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York, where they are seen talking and laughing alongside Trump’s future wife, Melania Trump.The outlet noted that the newly published material pre-dates any of Epstein’s known legal troubles.CNN also published photos of Trump and Epstein at the 1993 opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in New York, where Trump is seen with his arm around two of his children, Eric and Ivanka, while Epstein stands beside them.When asked for comment by CNN on the newly unearthed videos and photos, Trump reportedly responded: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He then reportedly called CNN “fake news” and hung up the phone.Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement to CNN that the videos and photos were “nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious”.“The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep,” Cheung added. “This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”The Trump administration’s Department of Education announced on Wednesday that it has opened national-origin discrimination investigations into five US universities over what it described as “alleged exclusionary scholarships referencing foreign-born students”.According to the announcement, the department’s office for civil rights has opened investigations into the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University.The department said that the investigations will determine whether these universities are granting scholarships exclusively to students who are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, who came to the US as children, or who are undocumented “in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s (Title VI) prohibition against national origin discrimination”.The investigation stems from complaints submitted by the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, a conservative legal group.The group alleges in the complaints that certain scholarships at these schools are limited to students with Daca status or who are undocumented, which they argue is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “and its implementing regulations by illegally discriminating against students based on their national origin”.For the full story, click here: More