Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares126 Views

      in Elections

      Eric Adams Highlights Coordination With Trump’s Border Czar on Fox News

      by

      If Mayor Eric Adams of New York City wanted to dispel fears that he was beholden to the Trump administration in exchange for its maneuvering to have his criminal case dropped, his appearance on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning seemed to have the opposite effect.In the joint appearance with President Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, the two described their newfound collaboration on Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. It led to some uncomfortable moments for Mr. Adams, a Democrat.The mayor, who is facing vigorous calls to resign, reiterated his support for working with Mr. Trump to detain and deport immigrants who are accused of crimes. Then Mr. Homan warned that he would make sure Mr. Adams complied.“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch — I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Mr. Homan said.Mr. Homan pressed for further cooperation from Mr. Adams and attacked Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is facing growing pressure to use her power to remove Mr. Adams from office.“Governor Hochul, she needs to be removed,” Mr. Homan said. “The one who needs to be removed is her. She supports sanctuary policies.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares128 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump’s Chicken-and-Egg Inflation Problem

      by

      A surge in egg prices underscores how persistent inflation is spooking the markets and could check the president’s boldest economic policies.Egg prices are on an epic run, part of an inflation surge that could but the brakes on President Trump’s economic plans.Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJust in: Lawyers for Elon Musk said he’d withdraw his $97.4 billion bid for control of OpenAI if the company halted its efforts to become a for-profit enterprise. More below.Separately: You might recall that several years ago I wrote a series of columns, following a raft of mass shootings, that inspired the creation of a “merchant category code” for gun retailers so credit card companies could better identify suspicious activity the way they already did to help prevent money laundering and sex trafficking.Well, this week Representative Riley Moore, Republican of West Virginia, introduced a bill to make it illegal for credit card companies to require “merchant category codes that distinguish a firearms retailer from general-merchandise retailer.” That means gun retailers would be able to mask what they sell. What do you think of what’s happening?Scrambling Trump’s economic plans President Trump inherited a strong economy with booming labor and stock markets. But one economic holdover could tie his hands: stubbornly strong inflation.Investors are already getting antsy, with stock markets briefly plunging and the bond market suffering its worst day of the year so far after unexpectedly worrying revelations in the latest Consumer Price Index report. It raises questions about what options the White House and Fed would have to maneuver if prices continued to rise.The latest: The C.P.I. data showed headline prices over the past three months running at an annualized pace of 4.5 percent — well above the central bank’s 2 percent target.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares188 Views

      in Elections

      Elon Musk’s DOGE Overhauls the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

      by

      The upheaval at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers a glimpse into the playbook that Elon Musk and other Trump allies seem to be writing in real time.At first, things at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seemed eerily calm.The Biden-appointed director of the agency, which was created after the 2009 financial crisis to regulate banks and other lenders, was not immediately fired by President Trump. The lawyers at the agency continued with their business. In late January, they said a remittance company was misleading customers about its fees and ordered it to pay a $2.5 million fine.And then the chaos began.On the morning of Feb. 1 — a Saturday — the director was dismissed, as my colleague Stacy Cowley, who has followed every twist and turn of this story, reported. By the next Friday, Feb. 7, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and a close Trump adviser, was installed as the C.F.P.B.’s acting director. Representatives from the new Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by Elon Musk and is not a formal executive-branch department, arrived and got access to the computer systems.Musk posted a message on his X account: “CFPB RIP.”Musk’s cost-cutting team has been operating with little transparency. Members don’t announce what they’re doing, who’s doing it or how. So it’s worth understanding what’s happening at the C.F.P.B., both because of the direct impact on the agency’s work and because it’s a glimpse into the playbook that Musk and his team, working with Trump officials like Vought, seem to be writing in real time.The panic strategyRussell Vought on Capitol Hill this week.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesLast Saturday, Vought ordered the nearly 1,700 people who work at the agency to stop much of their work. The edict prompted widespread fear and deep concern about the agency’s future. People worried that their work phones and computers were being tracked. One employee I spoke with, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation, felt panic, and then remembered that Vought had spoken in 2023 of his intent to demoralize workers in the civil service.“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought had said.Some employees tried to plug away at their jobs. Two of them told me that after they saw Musk’s post on X about his team’s preference for working on weekends, when federal offices are closed, they decided they would do the same. On Saturday, they saw three employees from Musk’s team in the bureau’s basement, working in conference rooms with the windows papered over.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Vance, in First Foreign Speech, Tells Europe That U.S. Will Dominate A.I.

      by

      Speaking in Paris at an artificial intelligence summit, the vice president gave an America First vision of the technology — with the U.S. dominating the chips, the software and the rules.Vice President JD Vance told European and Asian leaders in Paris on Tuesday that the Trump Administration was adopting an aggressive, America First approach to the race to dominate all the building blocks of artificial intelligence, and warned Europeans to dismantle regulations and get aboard with Washington.On his first foreign trip since taking office, Mr. Vance used his opening address at an A.I. summit meeting hosted by France and India to describe his vision of a coming era of American technological domination. Europe, he said, would be forced to chose between using American-designed and manufactured technology or siding with authoritarian competitors — a not-very-veiled reference to China — who would exploit the technology to their detriment.“The Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful A.I. systems are built in the U.S. with American design and manufactured chips,” he said, quickly adding that “just because we are the leader doesn’t mean we want to or need to go it alone.”But he said that for Europe to become what he clearly envisions as a junior partner, it must eliminate much of its digital regulatory structure — and much of its policing of the internet for what its governments define as disinformation.For Mr. Vance, who is on a weeklong tour that will take him next to the Munich Security Conference, Europe’s premier meeting of leaders, foreign and defense ministers and others, the speech was clearly intended as a warning shot. It largely silenced the hall in a wing of the Grand Palais in the center of Paris. Leaders accustomed to talking about “guardrails” for emerging artificial intelligence applications and “equity” to assure the technology is available and comfortable for underserved populations heard none of those phrases from Mr. Vance.He spoke only hours after President Trump put new 25 percent tariffs on foreign steel, essentially negating trade agreements with Europe and other regions. Mr. Vance’s speech, precisely composed and delivered with emphasis, seemed an indicator of the tone Mr. Trump’s national security leaders plan to take to Europe this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Muses About a Third Term, Over and Over Again

      by

      The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.Standing inside the Capitol for the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Trump declared his plans to resurrect an idea he had in his first term: to create a national garden filled with statues of notable Americans.The choice of who would be included would be “the president’s sole opinion,” Mr. Trump said, chuckling. And he was giving himself “a 25-year period” to make the selections.A short time later, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Mr. Trump flicked again at the prospect that his time in office could extend beyond two four-year terms.“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he said. “Then somebody said, I don’t think you can. Oh.”At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Mr. Trump spoke of giving himself a “25-year period” to choose statues for a national garden.Eric Lee/The New York TimesJust eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Markets Play Down the Hit From Trump’s Latest Trade Fight

      by

      Global markets are in a wait-and-see mode as President Trump vows to slap steel and aluminum tariffs, among other levies, on trading partners.President Trump has ramped up the tariff war. This time, the markets reaction has been muted.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesHope you enjoyed the Super Bowl on Sunday night, and congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles. The ads were better than the game. We’ve got a rundown below.I got into a substantive debate on Sunday with Joe Lonsdale, the venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir, and other investors, about how carried interest is taxed. President Trump has vowed to eliminate the tax exemption, which I’ve been writing about since 2007. You can read excerpts from the debate below.The new phase of the tariff fight Get ready for the latest round of President Trump’s trade wars.On Air Force One on Sunday, en route to the Super Bowl, the president said he would impose a 25 percent levy on all steel and aluminum imports and that reciprocal tariffs on trading partners were coming.China has already retaliated against new Trump tariffs that took effect on Monday, leaving the global economy to grapple with the reality of worldwide trade battles.The latest: Beyond the metals levy — which is aimed squarely at China — Trump is also eyeing broad tariffs on Europe, Taiwan and others, as well as on industries and key commodities like copper, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.Beijing has retaliated with $14 billion worth of tariffs against select American exports, including, coal, liquid natural gas and farm equipment, a sign that the trade war could expand quickly. “Trade and tariff wars have no winners,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Orders Treasury to Halt Minting New Pennies to Cut Waste

      by

      President Trump said on Sunday night that he had ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social. He characterized the production of pennies, which “literally cost us more than 2 cents” each, as wasteful.This is a developing story. Please check here for updates. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Protestas han paralizado Bolivia. Esta es la razón

      by

      La rivalidad entre el actual presidente Luis Arce y el expresidente Evo Morales ha ocasionado bloqueos que han afectado la circulación de productos de primera necesidad en el país.Las manifestaciones han sacudido Bolivia durante más de dos meses. Ha estallado una antigua rivalidad política, y los partidarios del presidente y de su principal oponente se han enfrentado en las calles. Las protestas han bloqueado la circulación de mercancías, agravando la escasez de combustible. Algunos bolivianos han hecho fila durante días para comprar gasolina.La agitación forma parte de un nivel amplio de malestar en toda la región andina de Latinoamérica. Ecuador, Perú y Colombia —vecinos de Bolivia por el oeste y el norte— se enfrentan a importantes niveles de agitación política, que provocan una intensa ira entre sus poblaciones.Detrás del descontento en Bolivia hay una ruptura en el seno del Movimiento al Socialismo, o MAS, un partido político de izquierda que ha dominado el panorama político del país durante dos décadas.El presidente de Bolivia, Luis Arce, y su antiguo mentor, el expresidente Evo Morales, se disputan el liderazgo del partido, y cada uno insiste que será el candidato del partido en las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año.El presidente Luis Arce participó en una ceremonia indígena el mes pasado en El Alto, Bolivia. Tanto él como Morales insisten en que serán el candidato de su partido en las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año.Aizar Raldes/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More