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      Trump can’t withhold funds from sanctuary cities, says federal judge

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      The Trump administration cannot deny federal funds to cities and counties that have passed laws preventing or limiting cooperation with US immigration officials, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.The US district judge William Orrick issued a temporary injunction sought by San Francisco, Santa Clara county and and more than a dozen other municipalities with “sanctuary” policies, and declared that portions of Donald Trump’s executive orders were unconstitutional.“The cities and counties have also demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm,” Orrick wrote in his order. “The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the cities and counties and the communities they serve.”On his first day in office, the US president issued an order directing the attorney general and homeland security secretary to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions as part of his administration’s crackdown on immigration. In another order, he directed the federal government to ensure funds to state and local governments don’t “abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation”.Meanwhile, on Thursday the US transportation department threatened states with the loss of federal funding if they do not comply with US immigration enforcement efforts.Under the judge’s order, the federal government is prohibited “from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds”. The Trump administration must provide written notice of his order to all federal departments and agencies by Monday.The plaintiffs have argued the orders amounted to overreach and that the Trump administration was attempting to force cities to participate in its “reckless and illegal mass deportation efforts”.“The federal administration is illegally asserting power it does not have, as courts already determined during the first Trump Administration,” David Chiu, the San Francisco city attorney, said in a statement.“They want to commandeer local police officers as federal Ice agents, while strong-arming local officials with threats of withholding federal funds that support our police department, our efforts to address homelessness, and our public health system.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe federal government has not yet attempted to withhold specific amounts or lay out conditions on specific grants, and during a hearing on Wednesday attorneys for the justice department argued it was too soon for the judge to issue an injunction for that reason.Orrick, who was nominated by Barack Obama, said government lawyers made the same argument during Trump’s first term when the Republican issued a similar order.“Their well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017,” Orrick wrote. He pointed to the executive orders and directives from Pam Bondi, other federal agencies and justice department lawsuits filed against Chicago and New York.San Francisco successfully challenged the 2017 Trump order and the ninth US circuit court of appeals agreed with the lower court that Trump exceeded his authority when he signed an executive order threatening to cut funding for “sanctuary cities”.The cities and counties who sued to stop the administration’s most recent orders praised the judge’s decision.“At a time when we continue to see tremendous federal overreach, the court’s ruling affirms that local governments can serve their mission and maintain trust with the communities they care for,” said Tony LoPresti, counsel for Santa Clara county, in a statement.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      California’s economy surpasses Japan’s as it becomes fourth largest in world

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      California’s economy has surpassed Japan’s, making the Golden state the fourth largest economy in the world, governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday.The state’s nominal GDP reached $4.1tn, according to data from the International Monetary Fund and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn nominal GDP. California now ranks behind the US at $29.18tn, China at $18.74tn and Germany at $4.65tn.Along with the tech and entertainment industry capitals, the state, which has a population of nearly 40 million people, is the center for US manufacturing output and is the country’s largest agricultural producer.“California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace. Our economy is thriving because we invest in people, prioritize sustainability, and believe in the power of innovation,” Newsom said in a statement.The state has outperformed the world’s top economies with a growth rate in 2024 of 6% compared with the US’s 5.3%, China’s 2.6% and Germany’s 2.9%. This week’s new rankings come six years after California surpassed the United Kingdom and became the world’s fifth largest economy.Newsom noted, however, that the Trump administration’s agenda endangers California’s economic interests.“And, while we celebrate this success, we recognize that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration. California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCalifornia last week became the first state to sue the federal government over Donald Trump’s tariff policies, and has argued that the president’s actions are unlawful and that constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to impose tariffs.“No state is poised to lose more than the state of California,” Newsom said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “It’s a serious and sober moment, and I’d be … lying to you if I said it can be quickly undone.”California is a major contributor to economic growth nationally, with the money it sends to the federal government outpacing what it receives in federal funding by $83bn, according to a statement from Newsom’s office.Despite an enormous shortage of affordable housing that has fueled a homelessness crisis in the state, the population has grown in recent years. Meanwhile, last year the state reported its tourism spending had hit an all-time high – though California has seen a drop in some areas.Canadian tourism in California was down 12% in February compared with the same month last year amid Trump’s tariff war. In response, the state has announced a new campaign to draw Canadians back, while one city has put up pro-Canada signs across its downtown. More

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      US federal agency texts Barnard College employees to ask if they’re Jewish

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      Employees from Barnard College received text messages this week from the federally run Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on their personal phones linking to a voluntary survey asking recipients if they are Jewish or Israeli and whether they have been subjected to harassment or antisemitism.The text, which was reviewed by the Guardian, states that the civil rights agency is “currently reviewing the employment practices at Barnard College” and invites current and former employees to complete the linked survey. It is not clear how many college employees received the survey, but it appears to have been sent to a sizable portion of the faculty and other staff.The survey, which appeared to be part of the Trump administration’s aggressive investigations into American colleges and universities over antisemitism allegations stemming from pro-Palestinian protests, sparked anxiety among some recipients.View image in fullscreen“Regardless of the stated intent, this survey in effect creates a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students at Barnard,” said Elizabeth Bauer, a Barnard professor and chair of the college’s biology department, who said she was alarmed by the message.“The government is also now requiring undocumented immigrants, including children, to register with DHS. I’ve seen this movie before and I’m horrified.”The survey asked whether the respondent currently works at Barnard or has ever been employed there and prompted respondents to select all that apply of the choices: “I am Jewish”, “I am Israeli”, “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”, “I practice Judaism” and “Other”.Another question asked: “While working at Barnard College, were you subjected to any of the following because you practice Judaism, have Jewish ancestry, are Israeli, and/or are associated with an individual(s) who is Jewish and/or Israeli?”Respondents could select from options including, “unwelcome comments, jokes or discussions”, “harassment, intimidation”, “pressure to abandon, change or adopt a practice or religious belief” and “antisemitic or anti-Israeli protests, gatherings or demonstrations that made you feel threatened, harassed or were otherwise disruptive to your working environment”.Other questions asked the respondents’ employment details, supervisor name, date of hire and more.Elizabeth Hutchinson, an associate professor of American Art History at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, said when she received the message on her personal phone at 5.39pm ET on Monday, her initial reaction was: “This must be some kind of scam, because, how could the EEOC have my contact information.”The message addressed her by name and, initially, Hutchinson said, she didn’t open the links.“I was frightened, and wasn’t sure what it entailed,” she said.Celia Naylor, a professor in the Africana studies department at Barnard College, also received the message on Monday. She quickly discovered that “a lot of people I know – faculty and even some staff – also received it”.View image in fullscreenAs many faculty and staff tried to verify the message’s legitimacy in group chats on Monday evening, Barnard’s general counsel, Serena Longley, sent an email about the messages.Longley explained in the email, which was viewed by the Guardian, that the college had “received multiple reports that some employees have received text messages from the EEOC inviting them to complete a voluntary survey”. She also said Barnard, Longley “was not given advance notice of this outreach”.“Participation is entirely voluntary. If you choose to respond, please know that both federal law and Barnard policy strictly prohibit any form of retaliation,” she continued.Longley sent a follow-up email to Barnard employees on Wednesday, which was also reviewed by the Guardian, explaining that the EEOC launched an investigation last summer against Barnard “concerning whether or not the College discriminated against Jewish employees on the basis of their national origin, religion and/or race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”.“Barnard prides itself on being an inclusive and respectful workplace for all people, including our Jewish employees, and has been robustly defending the College against this EEOC inquiry,” Longley wrote, adding that the EEOC was “legally entitled to obtain the contact information of Barnard employees so that it could offer employees the option to voluntarily participate in their investigation”.“Barnard complied with this lawful request,” she said.The college heard from current and former employees in recent days who asked to be notified in advance before their contact information is shared, the email also noted.“Going forward,” she said, “if and when we are required to provide information about staff in connection with an investigation or litigation, we will provide you with advance notice unless we are subject to a court order that prohibits us from doing so.”Longley also emphasized that participation in the EEOC survey was voluntary.A spokesperson for the EEOC said: “Per federal law, we cannot comment on investigations, nor can we confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.” Barnard did not respond to a request for comment.After hearing others discuss its content, Hutchinson finally opened the survey on Wednesday and found it “utterly shocking”.“It’s very clearly a fishing expedition,” she said, before noting that the survey “is clearly presuming guilt and looking for very specific kinds of evidence for their case”.Hutchinson also said that while she was grateful for the information provided in Barnard’s emails this week, she felt that they did not “acknowledge the reality that the faculty are experiencing a heightened surveillance of our campus that is now intruding into our personal devices on our personal time”.To Hutchinson, the message on Monday was “unprecedented” has “really ramped up the unease on campus”, with faculty now feeling vulnerable both in their classrooms and now in their private spaces too.Naylor echoed that faculty, students and staff were concerned about how their personal information was being used by Barnard, and shared with federal agencies. They are unsure of what other personal details have been provided.Debbie Becher, a Barnard sociology professor who is Jewish, spoke to the New York Times this week about the text message and survey, saying that she found it “a bit terrifying” that the federal government “wants to know who the Jews are through some text message and Microsoft Office form”.Bauer said that not all of the Barnard faculty and staff received the message, adding that it was “unclear” why some did not receive it and others did.“It was obvious that the survey was a fishing expedition by the EEOC to find Title VII violations,” Bauer said.Colin Wayne Leach, a professor of psychology and Africana Studies at Barnard College, said that “as a dean focused on supporting our faculty”, he had been hearing from many colleagues this week who are upset about the messages.They were “surprised” that the EEOC “would choose this informal, unannounced, and intrusive way to ask employees to complete a survey on their experiences of such an important topic as anti-semitism at their place of work”.The Spectator, Columbia’s University paper, reported on Wednesday that several members of Columbia’s faculty also received the text message from EEOC.Rebecca Kobrin, co-director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies (IIJS), told the Spectator that she and other members of IIJS received the message. More

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      ‘Like a slap in the face’: Trump officials cut hundreds of millions to combat gun violence and opioid addiction

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      Hundreds of millions of federal grant dollars meant to prevent and respond to gun violence, opioid addiction and support victims of violent crimes were cut this week by the Trump administration. The US department of justice emailed more than 350 organizations on Tuesday to tell them that the promised funding was being terminated. According to a termination notice shared with the Guardian, the Department of Justice said the money was rescinded because it “no longer effectuates Department priorities”.Instead, the department intends to focus on “more directly supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and better coordinating law enforcement efforts at all levels of government”, the notice read.“It was a bit like a slap in the face,” said Renée Williams, CEO of the National Center for Victims of Crime, which lost three grants, including one for a victim’s hotline, that the justice department had been funding for 10 years. The hotline shut down this Friday.“We serve 16,000 people a year and there are other hotlines being shut down. When you see how many victims will be shut out from services, it’s terrifying.”The funding had come through the Office of justice programs (OJP), the justice department’s grant-making apparatus. Many of the grants were cut off in the middle of their funding cycles, throwing staffing and the survival of vital programs into jeopardy. The legality of these funding cuts is unclear and organizations across the country said they will be filing appeals and lawsuits to get the promised funds back.A spokesperson for the justice department said that the office would be focused on “prosecuting criminals, getting illegal drugs off of the streets, and protecting American institutions from toxic DEI and sanctuary city policies. Discretionary funds that are no longer aligned with the administration’s priorities are subject to review and reallocation”.The full tally of the rescinded funds is unclear, but the cuts come at a critical moment for community-based violence prevention, a field whose funding was super-charged during the Biden administration through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and whose work has been credited with the recent drop in homicides throughout the US.“We got that letter and couldn’t believe it at first. It’s frustrating, it’s disorienting and we know that this is a strategy that’s meant to keep us off balance,” said Joseph Griffin, executive director of Youth Alive, a more than 30-year-old Oakland-based violence prevention and intervention program.Youth Alive was more than one year into a three-year $2m grant from the justice department’s community based violence intervention and prevention initiative (CVIPI), which was formed in 2022 to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence.Youth Alive, which also gets financial support from philanthropic donors, was planning to use the $2m to find ways that the healthcare agencies can support victims of violence, and evaluate its hospital-based violence intervention program, which dispatches staff to the bedsides of people who’ve been shot, as well as its broader violence interruption strategy. The loss of federal support follows a decrease in homicides in Oakland in 2024.“What does violence prevention work look like without the federal government? These cuts are forcing us to come to terms with that,” Griffin said, noting that the cuts come just before summer, a season when gun violence tends to tick up. “How do we not get knocked off of our footing and figure out how to keep showing up in our community?”Since the creation of the CVIPI, more than $300m has been dispersed to groups such as Youth Alive that are led by people who live in areas with high concentrations of shootings, according to a former Biden administration official. Although it represents a small portion of the more than $4bn in grants the justice departmentawards annually, lawmakers and police partly attribute these programs this funding supports with the reduction in homicides in cities across the US.“There’s a seismic shift happening that’s going to result in [violence prevention workers] being unemployed and more people being shot and hurt,” said Adam Rosenberg, executive director of Center for hope, a Baltimore-based group that provides prevention and healing services for children who’ve been the witnesses or victims of gun violence.The group lost $1.2m of a $2m grant that will impact at least seven staff members who worked directly with people impacted by violence. The grant money was intended to train staff and prevent shootings that begin on social media and spill onto the streets.Center for Hope also runs six of the city’s 10 Safe Street sites, which operate in the pockets of Baltimore that see the most shootings. Between 2023 and 2024, four of the sites run by center for hope saw zero homicides, according to Rosenberg. In that same timeframe, the number of homicides in the city decreased by 34% between 2023 and 2024, mayor Brandon Scott said in a post on X on 3 February.“The biggest result of this: Victims not having resources,” Rosenberg said. “At its most catastrophic, we increase the risk of people dying, which is hard, especially when we turned the tide. We were winning.”The Department of Justice did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. More

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      USPS workers sound alarm over Trump efforts to dismantle service: ‘The hounds are at the door

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      US postal workers – and many who depend on them – may have sighed in relief when the Trump-appointed postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, resigned last month. Now, postal workers and others fear the worst is to come.Many feared DeJoy, a prolific Trump donor and trucking logistics executive who pushed a 10-year consolidation plan at the agency, would be the man who would finally dismantle the United States Postal Service (USPS). Now the service is facing off with an empowered Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire backer and chainsaw-wielding leader of his government job-cutting “department of government efficiency” (Doge).At stake, supporters argue, is the very existence of a service woven into US society, which can be traced back to 1775. “These are real threats. The hounds are at the door,” said Don Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the union representing more than 130,000 mail carriers in rural America.Workers and labor unions at the USPS are sounding the alarm and calling for public awareness of the threats of dismantling and privatizing the agency by the Trump administration.In March, the USPS reached an agreement with Doge to cut billions of dollars from its budget and finalize a voluntary retirement buyout program announced under the Biden administration to cut 10,000 employees. The Washington Post has reported industry executives are preparing for government efforts to outsource mail and package handling and long-haul trucking routes, and offload leases for unprofitable post offices.“There are other organizations on the chopping block right now, and it is just an amount of time before they get to us. So we just need to get the message out and get ahead of them to say ‘hands off the post office’,” said Tameka Brown, a rural letter carrier in Louisiana and president of the Louisiana Rural Letter Carriers’ Association. “We are the lifeline for a lot of American people, so to feel that your job is being threatened, it’s heart-wrenching.”View image in fullscreenDeJoy’s cuts are already affecting service, especially in rural areas and states. Wyoming, for example, looks set to lose all afternoon mail pickup.Brown warned that if the postal service is privatized, the services it provides would be eliminated or offered at much higher prices by private companies.“We touch American lives every day,” added Brown. “You’re linked to us throughout your whole life in one way or the other. They need to keep their hands off the post office. Through the rain, sleet, snow and through Covid, we were there. We didn’t miss a day.”Doge was even too much for DeJoy, who reportedly left after clashing with its staff over access to the agency.Last month, Musk voiced support for privatizing the USPS. The idea has been praised on the right, including by staff at the Heritage Foundation, which organized Project 2025, and by Trump: “It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at it,” he said last year.Maston of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association said Trump had been “floating balloons, seeing what he can get away with and what the reaction is going to be” over his interest in privatizing the USPS. But Trump also seems cautious. The postal service is popular with Americans, and especially rural Americans.“It’s not the US Postal Business, it’s the US Postal Service,” said Maston. “It’s owned by we, the people, you and I and every other American.“The postal service is the No 2 most trusted and loved government agency. The threats and the attacks by the current administration and Elon Musk, it’s all just for a bottom line and to make something that they can make a profit off of, another piece of the pie.”Marc Mancini, a letter carrier in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and shop steward with the National Association of Letter Carriers, said the USPS was already under intense strain. “The way I feel they’re going about it is they’re trying to save money by squeezing more and more out of workers. So you’re getting a lot more pressure from management, upper management, to have the carriers run faster and move quicker,” he said.He noted any changes to the independence of the USPS must be made by Congress, but he said he was worried that the Trump administration might try to skirt around the proper channels.“I think a lot of people cling to the hope that because of that, Trump and Doge cannot fully implement a full privatization of the post office, but I don’t think Trump really cares much for what the constitution says or what the laws are,” Mancini added. “He’s already making threats that if judges rule against them, he’s going to remove them. So I think the threat of privatization should be taken a lot more seriously.”No permanent replacement has yet been named for DeJoy. The Washington Post reported in February 2025 that Trump was considering dissolving the leadership of the USPS by executive order and absorbing the agency into the US Department of Commerce.The White House rejected the report of a planned executive order, though the president said it was being looked into it. Trump claimed during the swearing-in ceremony of US Department of Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, that the USPS was a“tremendous loser for this country”.View image in fullscreenThe merger proposal was characterized by unions representing USPS workers as an attack on the workers, postal services and the people who rely on them.Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said the USPS was far from being a “loser”. “It is a public service that does not operate on taxpayer dollars. It’s self-sustaining. It is paid for. It’s funded solely by revenue from people that mail things,” he said.The USPS lost $9.5bn in fiscal year 2024. Indisputably, it faces huge challenges, although 80% of its continued net losses are due to factors outside management’s control. Revenue losses by the agency are not entirely due to operation costs, but from liabilities for pensions and retirements that require policy changes to alleviate, such as enabling better pension investments.“It’s challenging during a period of modernization where they’re trying to change and improve their network, but you have to still provide service every day. It’s almost like rebuilding a ship while you’re crossing the ocean,” said Renfroe. “Maintaining that network and public service where everyone, no matter where they live, receives the same postal services for the same price is ultra important, and that is really where the problem comes in with privatization. That would be virtually impossible to maintain in a privatized model.”Postal workers have held rallies around the US in recent weeks, including those organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Postal Mailhandlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association. Of the 640,000 workers at the USPS, about 91% are union members.Legislation has also recently been introduced in the House and Senate with Democratic and Republican support to oppose privatization of the USPS.Tim Thomason, vice-president of the West Virginia chapter of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association and a retired mail carrier of 33 years who served out of the Princeton, West Virginia, post office, argued that rural communities rely on the postal service even more as many private mail services do not serve them because doing so is not profitable.“Those folks rely on us. I took medicine to disabled people. I pulled cars out of ditches. I changed flat tires. It wasn’t just about being the mailman. I felt like I was part of our community,” he said. “If it is torn apart, then we lose the universal service and and I think that the people that I delivered mail to are the ones that are hurt.”The USPS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A senior White House official claimed “the Trump administration is not considering privatization of the USPS”.The official added in an email: “Doge is actively assessing ways to cut waste, fraud and abuse while eliminating the presence of DEI in the USPS. The president is committed to ensuring no disruptions to the critical mission of the USPS.” More

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      The Republican anti-tax coalition is beginning to disintegrate | David Sirota, Arjun Singh, Ariella Markowitz and Natalie Bettendorf

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      “I am a gay woman who is moderately pro-choice – I know that there are some people in this room who don’t believe that my marriage should have been legal,” the rightwing impresario Bari Weiss told a Federalist Society gathering in 2023. “And that’s OK. Because we’re all Americans who want lower taxes.”The assembled conservatives guffawed at hearing the quiet part out loud: in this case, the admission that tax cuts for the rich have been the glue holding the US conservative movement together.And yet, less than two years after Weiss’s speech, the epoxy seems to be less sticky.In recent weeks, polls have shown Republican voters becoming far more skeptical of across-the-board tax reduction proposals. Reflecting that shift, GOP lawmakers are now trial-ballooning a proposal to increase some taxes on the wealthy. Some Maga voices are attempting to articulate a Republican-leaning, tax-cut version of Democrats’ traditional redistributionist rhetoric, arguing that higher taxes on millionaires should finance bigger tax cuts for the working class.All of this has the Washington swamp’s old-guard Republicans in a panic; one longtime anti-tax leader insisted that “there are traitors inside the Trump White House,” and another declared: “This is a potential crisis in the party – it sounds like Bernie Sanders economics.”So what happened? Why is the anti-tax argument losing its unifying power among Republicans?As the Lever’s new investigative audio series Tax Revolt details, the answer may lie in that movement’s key revelation a half-century ago.The Santa Claus theory of tax cutsIn the mid-1970s, the Republican party was adrift, demoralized and divided amid both the post-Watergate backlash and the Republican president Gerald Ford’s attempt to raise taxes in pursuit of halting inflation and plugging federal budget holes. A young journalist named Jude Wanniski had an epiphany when at a lunch meeting, he watched the economist Arthur Laffer draw a curve on a napkin to argue to the Ford staffers Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld that cutting taxes could raise companies’ revenues.Two years later, Wanniski penned a grand unifying “Santa Claus Theory”, arguing that Republicans had “continued to play Scrooge, carping against increased spending without ever offering the obvious alternative”: tax reduction.He concluded: “Republicans, traditionally the party of income growth, should be the Santa Claus of tax reduction,” offering it as a supposed gift to Americans – and understand that “the first rule of successful politics is Never Shoot Santa Claus.”It was a revelation for a new generation of conservatives seeking to create a sunnier, more optimistic image for the GOP in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s cranky campaign and Richard Nixon’s downfall. Younger, more telegenic Republican leaders such as Representative Jack Kemp passed the essay around to colleagues, urging them to reimagine tax cuts not solely as a means to demonize government, but also as a way to court the working class with promises of life-bettering benefits.The dual message of so-called “supply-side economics” soon found its Santa Claus in the anti-tax governor turned anti-tax president Ronald Reagan.“As government’s hunger for ever more revenues expanded, families saw taxes cut deeper and deeper into their paychecks,” Reagan said before signing federal legislation to cut the top marginal tax rate. “This tax bill is less a reform than a revolution. Millions of working poor will be dropped from the tax rolls altogether, and families will get a long-overdue break with lower rates.”High-income tax cuts became the Republican party’s economic policy priority – and depicting such gifts to the wealthy as a boon to the working class became the GOP’s political strategy. Indeed, Reagan, George W Bush and Donald Trump each championed tax cut legislation that delivered disproportionate benefits to the rich, and fueled an explosion of economic inequality – all while presenting their agenda as fight-for-the-little-guy populism.“I promised we would pass a massive tax cut for the everyday, working American families who are the backbone and the heartbeat of our country,” Trump said on the eve of signing his $1.9tn tax cut bill in 2017. “We’re just days away [from] keeping that promise and delivering a truly amazing victory for American families. We want to give you, the American people, a giant tax cut for Christmas.”This sales pitch became ubiquitous, and most political prognosticators assumed it would always be effective. But survey data suggests that most Americans have come to realize that while Tax Cut Santa Claus has been stashing big gifts under billionaires’ Christmas trees, he’s been leaving everyone else’s stockings empty.Whereas more than half of Americans approved of Reagan’s first major high-income tax cut proposal, only about a third of Americans approved of Bush’s similar tax proposal at the same time in his presidency. By the time Trump assumed office for his first term, less than a third of Americans supported his high-income tax cut initiative, knowing that such policies have failed to benefit them personally and failed to boost the macroeconomy.‘The times are totally different’Fast forward to Trump’s second term. In previous eras, a new Republican president delivering more tax cuts for the wealthy would be a foregone conclusion under Wanniski’s Santa Claus theory. But that political hypothesis is now buckling under the weight of Trump’s new $4.5tn proposal to extend his 2017 tax cuts.In its current form, the White House’s initiative would deliver more than half its benefits to the richest 10% of the country. Coupled with spending cuts and tariffs, Trump’s agenda would deliver a big income boost to the top 1%, while reducing the income of the bottom 80%, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.As Trump’s legislative agenda hits Congress, opposition to more high-income tax cuts is strong not just among Democrats and independents, but also among Republicans. Morning Consult reports that 70% of GOP voters believe “the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes” – a whopping eight-point jump from six years ago. Moreover, “roughly 7 in 10 voters, including 2 in 3 Republicans, support proposals to raise taxes on earners making more than $400,000.”Republican leaders are responding with the previously unthinkable: proposals to raise some taxes on the rich. Indeed, Trump reportedly floated the idea and some GOP lawmakers are considering creating a new top tax bracket.This has touched off an intraparty civil war. On one side are those who came of age in the Reagan and George W Bush epochs – Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, the former vice-president Mike Pence, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist, the hedge-funder-turned-GOP senator Dave McCormick, and the Club for Growth’s Stephen Moore. This old guard believes Republicans can still get away with depicting billionaire giveaways as populism, and vilifying tax hikes on the rich.“It’s vicious and full of envy. It’s a dumb idea. It’s bad for the economy,” said Norquist, who spent the last quarter-century pressing Republicans to sign pledges to oppose all tax increases. “What happened when George Herbert Walker Bush raised the top rate? Let’s see, he lost the next election. We lost House and Senate seats and taxes went up and we had a recession.”On the other side are newfangled Maga voices – the former Mitt Romney staffer Oren Cass, Vice-President JD Vance, the former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, and reportedly Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought. They sense political peril in Republicans presenting themselves as populists while their party enriches billionaires and corporations.“We have to increase taxes on the wealthy,” Bannon said in December. This month he added that conservatives must prove “Republicans are not the country club Republicans”, which is “why it’s so important to not extend the tax cuts for the wealthy”.Of the old anti-tax crowd, Bannon added: “They’re arrogant and they refuse to look at the reality of the situation we’re in … The times are totally different.”‘Didn’t we already give them a break at the top?’Of course, we’ve been at these junctures before – moments when Republicans seemed to sense political vulnerability on taxes.In 1985, Reagan tried to deflect Democrats’ criticism of his tax policy by insisting: “There is one group of losers in our tax plan – those individuals and corporations who are not paying their fair share or, for that matter, any share. These abuses cannot be tolerated.”Similarly, George W Bush momentarily pushed back against conservative aides pressing him to champion yet another tax cut for the rich. “Didn’t we already give them a break at the top?” he reportedly asked.But the powerful anti-tax movement of those eras convinced both Republican presidents to plow forward. Reagan followed up his first tax cut by further reducing the top tax rate, and Bush’s sequel to his first tax cut was slashing taxes on corporate dividends.Trump could end up doing much the same. After all, ramming more tax cuts for the rich through Congress is the surest way for Trump to enrich himself, his family and the entire front row of his inauguration.But this time around, the long-term politics of taxes are in flux. Running the same tax play would show a Republican president siding with oligarchs against the preferences of his own party’s rank and file that no longer buys the Santa Claus theory.That’s a new and unpredictable dynamic – one that may finally begin weakening the anti-tax movement’s grip on power in the years ahead.

      David Sirota is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Lever, an investigative news outlet. Arjun Singh, Ariella Markowitz and Natalie Bettendorf are producers of the outlet’s weekly podcast Lever Time, which is releasing a new miniseries Tax Revolt, on the 50-year history of the anti-tax movement now culminating in the Trump tax cuts. More

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      Donald Trump threat to reimpose reciprocal tariffs within weeks reopens economic uncertainty – US politics live

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      Donald Trump again caused economic uncertainty as he declared that his administration would reimpose tariffs it paused on 9 April within “the next two, three weeks” where countries had not struck a deal with the US.Speaking at the White House, the US president said “In the end, I think what’s going to happen is, we’re going to have a great deals, and by the way, if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff. I’d say over the next couple of weeks, wouldn’t you say? I think so. Over the next two, three weeks.”On 9 April Trump had “paused” the majority of tariffs he had set sweepingly on nearly every international US trade partner. His most recent pronouncement leaves importers and exporters unclear whether by the end of the next month they will be paying Trump’s new baseline 10% tariff, the tariff that was set on 9 April, or an entirely new figure.So far, several key parts of the global economic have resisted the pressure from the Trump administration to, as JD Vance put it while speaking in India earlier this week, “rebalance” international trade.The European Union has said it has no intentions of changing its rules on value added tax – a tax imposed on specific goods at the point of sale in EU countries – or on agricultural subsidies. China has shown no sign of bucking under the Trump decision to attempt to impose a 145% tariff on most goods originating there.On Wednesday a Chinese official said the US “should stop threatening and blackmailing China, and seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit. To keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work.”South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he talked about the war in Ukraine and the need to foster good bilateral relations with the US in his phone call with Donald Trump.“We both agreed that the war should be brought to an end as soon as possible to stop further unnecessary deaths… to meet soon to address various matters regarding US-South Africa relations,” Ramaphosa wrote in a post on X.Relations between the two countries are at a low point for many reasons. One of them is South Africa’s genocide case against Israel – Trump’s close ally – for its military conduct in the war on Gaza, which is being heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).Another is Trump’s belief that the white-minority Afrikaner community are being unjustly discriminated against in South Africa.Ramaphosa is meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Pretoria today as he tries to position himself as a peacemaker in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.Donald Trump is planning to spare carmakers from some of his most onerous tariffs following intense lobbying by industry executives over recent weeks, according to a report in the Financial Times.Sources told the paper that the US president could exempt tariffs on car parts coming from China while also levying duties on imported steel and aluminum.The exemptions, however, would leave in place the 25% tariff Trump imposed on all imports of foreign-made cars.The 25% duty on foreign-imported car parts, which is due to take effect on 3 May, is also expected to continue, according to the FT.Trump’s move follows criticism of the levies by car industry executives who have echoed warnings that the tariffs would raise car prices in the US, dent profits of carmakers and parts suppliers, and disrupt the intertwined manufacturing operations across countries.John Elkann, the chair of Stellantis, the carmaker that owns the Fiat and Chrysler brands, warned that “American and European car industries are being put at risk” by Trump’s trade policy.Lauren Almeida is a Guardian business reporterThe value of Donald Trump’s meme coin jumped by more than 50% on Wednesday after its official website said the coin’s top 220 holders would be invited to a private gala dinner with the president on 22 May.The top 25 holders of the coin will also get “an ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president”, as well as a “special tour”, the website said.Despite the sharp rise, the price of the president’s coin is still far below the peak it hit shortly before his inauguration in January, when it soared from about $6 to as high as $75. The launch of coins for Trump and his wife, Melania, have prompted experts to accuse the pair of “shameful” conflicts of interest.As Donald Trump’s 100 days in office approach, Human Rights Watch has issued a list of what it describes as 100 harmful actions taken by the administration, in what it calls “a relentless barrage of actions that violate, threaten, or undermine the human rights of people in the US and abroad”Tanya Greene, US program director, said “In just 100 days, the Trump administration has inflicted enormous damage to human rights in the US and around the world. We are deeply concerned that these attacks on fundamental freedoms will continue unabated.”Human Rights Watch said its compilation of harm from the first 100 days of the Trump administration included “attacks on free speech, the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants, health, environmental, and social protections, education, foreign aid and humanitarian assistance, and the rule of law.”Human Rights Watch is a New York-based international NGO that conducts research and advocacy on human rights.Donald Trump will mark his first 100 days in office next week with a rally in Michigan, his first since returning to the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on social media.The rally will take place in Macomb County one day before Trump’s 100th day in office.Minnesota governor Tim Walz has accused US president Donald Trump of throwing the US economy into turmoil, and vowed to try to protect people in the state from the worst of the consequences.Delivering his annual state of the state speech, Associated Press reports that the man who had hoped to be vice-president in a Kamala Harris administration said:
      The president of the United States has chosen – chosen! – to throw our economy into turmoil. Global markets are teetering on the brink of collapse. Businesses across this country and here in Minnesota are already laying off employees by the thousands. Working people are paying more for basic goods. And if you haven’t checked your 401(k) lately, don’t do it. As governor, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Minnesotans from getting hurt and continue to provide shelter from the storm for Minnesotans.
      Reuters reports that, in its regular daily briefing, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said China and the US have not held consultations or negotiations on tariffs.US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday it could take between two and three years to restore normal trade with China, following reports that on Tuesday he told a private investment conference that a trade war with China was “unsustainable”.Bessent has been credited in some quarters with forcing Donald Trump to backtrack in the face of market reaction. In an analysis piece for the Wall Street Journal overnight, Meridith McGraw and Brian Schwartz wrote that “so far, the only force that has reliably prompted [Trump] to back down is Wall Street. They said:
      Both the president and White House officials argue that the sharp U-turns are all part of a long-term plan to force allies and adversaries alike to strike trade deals with the US. And they stress that Trump remains determined to follow through on his pledge to reset global trade.
      Trump’s current and former advisers said he watches the markets closely, and as an avid media consumer can’t avoid the dramatic ups and downs that have been displayed across television screens and on front pages for weeks.
      But Trump’s dual goals of driving market gains and reshoring American manufacturing through stiff tariffs are sometimes at odds.
      Donald Trump again caused economic uncertainty as he declared that his administration would reimpose tariffs it paused on 9 April within “the next two, three weeks” where countries had not struck a deal with the US.Speaking at the White House, the US president said “In the end, I think what’s going to happen is, we’re going to have a great deals, and by the way, if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff. I’d say over the next couple of weeks, wouldn’t you say? I think so. Over the next two, three weeks.”On 9 April Trump had “paused” the majority of tariffs he had set sweepingly on nearly every international US trade partner. His most recent pronouncement leaves importers and exporters unclear whether by the end of the next month they will be paying Trump’s new baseline 10% tariff, the tariff that was set on 9 April, or an entirely new figure.So far, several key parts of the global economic have resisted the pressure from the Trump administration to, as JD Vance put it while speaking in India earlier this week, “rebalance” international trade.The European Union has said it has no intentions of changing its rules on value added tax – a tax imposed on specific goods at the point of sale in EU countries – or on agricultural subsidies. China has shown no sign of bucking under the Trump decision to attempt to impose a 145% tariff on most goods originating there.On Wednesday a Chinese official said the US “should stop threatening and blackmailing China, and seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit. To keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work.”Welcome to the Guardian’s ongoing rolling coverage of US politics and the second Donald Trump administration. Here are the headlines …

      Trump again spooked businesses with his yo-yoing tariff plans, saying at the White House that “if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff … over the next two, three weeks”

      A dozen US states have sued the Trump administration in the US court of international trade in New York on Wednesday to stop its tariff policy, saying it is unlawful and has brought chaos to the American economy

      Trump signed executive orders on Wednesday targeting universities as his administration seeks to reshape higher-education institutions and continues to crack down on diversity and inclusion efforts

      Trump once again attacked Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to agree to peace terms that Ukraine says amount to a surrender to Russia. Trump said Zelenskyy’s stance, refusing to permanently concede Crimea to its nuclear-armed neighbour Russia, who had invaded it in 2014, was “very harmful to the peace negotiations” More

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      Trump’s meme coin soars after he asks top 220 holders to dinner

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      The value of Donald Trump’s meme coin jumped by more than 50% on Wednesday after its official website said the coin’s top 220 holders would be invited to a private gala dinner with the president on 22 May.The top 25 holders of the coin would also get “an ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president”, as well as a special tour, the website said.The coin, called $TRUMP, rose by more than 50% after the announcement to trade at about $14.70. It fell back slightly to $12.30 in early trading on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.Despite the sharp rise, the price of the president’s coin is far below the peak it hit shortly before his inauguration in January, when it soared from about $6 to $75. The launch of coins for Trump and his wife, Melania, have prompted experts to accuse the pair of “shameful” conflicts of interest.The sudden jump in Trump’s meme coin on Wednesday came as investors had been expecting the start of a process that allows more original investors and insiders to cash out their holdings. This “unlock” usually leads to a price fall but the coin’s X account said this would be delayed by 90 days.Meme coins are digital tokens inspired by trends such as viral moments and have no inherent utility. They typically fall in value after an initial strong rally.Last year, the “hawk tuah girl” Haliey Welch, made famous online by a viral video, launched a meme coin that was worth $490m in December but it quickly plummeted in value and is now worth just $2.9m.While Trump was sceptical of cryptocurrency in his first administration, he has since called himself the “crypto president” and promised to support growth in the sector.In March, he hired the venture capitalist David Sacks to act as an artificial intelligence and crypto tsar, as well as establishing a national stockpile of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.The Trumps have become actively involved in the cryptocurrency sector. The first lady also launched a meme coin in January, and last year the president and his three sons started a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial.Meanwhile, Trump Media and Technology Group, where the president is a majority shareholder, announced plans last month to work with the trading operation Crypto.com to provide investment products linked to crypto.This month the US justice department said it would disband a unit dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency-related fraud, as oversight in the digital assets sector began to loosen.The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said the department would no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that had “the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump’s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework”.The deregulation has prompted influential congressional Democrats and watchdogs to warn about the growing risks to investors and the economy posed by multiple deregulatory crypto actions at federal agencies. More