Trump, Donald J

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    When It Comes to Undermining America, We Have a Winner

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    Capitalizing on Democrats’ weakness, President Trump is winning his battle to undermine democracy in this country.But he has not won the war.A host of factors could blunt his aggression: recession, debt, corruption, inflation, epidemics, the Epstein files, anger over cuts in Medicaid and food stamps, to name just a few. Much of what Trump has done could be undone if a Democrat is elected president in 2028.But for federal workers, medical and scientific researchers, lawyers in politically active firms, prominent critics of Trump — thousands of whom have felt the sting of arbitrary firings, vanished paychecks and retracted grants, criminal inquiries and threatened bankruptcies — the 2028 election may prove too late to repair the damage.And that’s before we even begin to talk about the anti-immigration crackdown.Trump’s assaults are aimed at targets large and small, some based on personal resentments, others guided by a more coherent ideological agenda.The brutality of Trump’s anti-democratic policies is part of a larger goal, a reflection of an administration determined to transfer trillions of dollars to the wealthy by imposing immense costs on the poor and the working class in lost access to medical care and food support, an administration that treats hungry children with the same disdain that it treats core principles of democracy.Trump has succeeded in devastating due-process protections for universities, immigrants and law firms. He has cowed the Supreme Court, which has largely failed to block his violations of the Constitution. He has bypassed Congress, ruling by executive order and emergency declaration. He is using the regulatory power of government to force the media to make humiliating concessions. He has ordered criminal investigations of political adversaries. He has fired innumerable government employees who pursued past investigations — and on and on.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

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      Are the Courts Checking Trump — or Enabling Him?

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      A former federal judge weighs in.In this episode of “The Opinions,” the editorial director David Leonhardt talks to a conservative former federal judge, Michael McConnell, about the role of the courts in President Trump’s second term.Are the Courts Checking Trump — or Enabling Him?A former federal judge weighs in.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.David Leonhardt: I’m David Leonhardt, the director of the New York Times editorial board. Every week I’m having conversations to help shape the board’s opinions.One thing that I find useful right now is talking with President Trump’s conservative critics. They tend to be alarmed by the president’s behavior, but they also tend to be more optimistic than many progressives about whether American democracy is surviving the Trump presidency. And that combination helps me and my colleagues think about where the biggest risks to our country really are.One area I’ve been wrestling with is the federal court system. I want to understand the extent to which the courts are acting as a check on President Trump as he tries to amass more power, or whether the courts are actually helping him amass that power.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

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      How Does Trump Silence the Epstein Conspiracy Theories?

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      President Trump is finding it hard to put the Epstein files behind him.As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump loved a conspiracy theory.He started his political career by stoking the lie that President Obama was not born in the United States. By 2024, he complained, falsely, that noncitizens would vote in the November election and throw the result to Democrats. He declared on a debate stage that immigrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets. He promised to release government files on Sept. 11 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and told Fox News that “I guess I would” release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, too.As president, though, he’s finding that it’s a whole lot easier to start a conspiracy theory than it is to put one to rest.That is the challenge facing Trump now, as his political supporters stage an open revolt over his administration’s decision not to release further materials about Epstein, the convicted sex offender who hobnobbed with the global elite before he died by suicide in prison in 2019.Putting the genie back in the bottleThey could be forgiven for expecting more details. Trump installed two vocal Epstein conspiracy theorists and right-wing media personalities, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, to run the F.B.I. after both men spent years telling their audiences there really was a there there. This spring, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised big revelations about the case that have come to nothing.It turns out, though, it is a whole lot easier to be a conspiracy theorist when you’re not president, you don’t control both houses of Congress, and you haven’t handpicked the leaders of the nation’s premier investigative agencies.Trump has tried to put the genie back in the bottle. He admonished a reporter for asking about the matter at a cabinet meeting last week — “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” — and then, over the weekend, told off his followers, in a lengthy social media post.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

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      Senate Approves First Judge of Trump’s Second Term

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      The pace of judicial confirmations is lagging compared with the president’s first stint in office, but more are in the pipeline.The Senate on Monday confirmed the first federal judge of President Trump’s second term, putting the administration on a much slower pace for filling federal court vacancies than in his first term, when a rush to install conservatives on the courts was an overarching priority.Senators voted 46 to 42 along party lines to confirm Whitney D. Hermandorfer of Tennessee to a seat on the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Her approval came more than six weeks later than the first appellate judge confirmed after Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The Senate had also confirmed a new Supreme Court justice by this point in his last term, placing Neil M. Gorsuch on the court.This time around, Mr. Trump has put more emphasis on other aspects of his administration, aggressively pushing ambassadorial nominations and devoting much of the energy of the Senate to pushing through the sweeping tax and policy legislation enacted this month.In addition, significantly fewer judicial vacancies exist today compared with 2017, when Mr. Trump inherited more than 100 court openings after Senate Republicans stalled President Barack Obama’s judicial selections when they took Senate control in 2014.“We’re not facing the number of judicial vacancies this Congress we did during Trump’s first term,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader. “There are around 50 vacancies on the federal bench. Our job is to fill those vacancies with more judges who understand the proper role of a judge, and that starts with confirming Ms. Hermandorfer.”Ms. Hermandorfer served as director of the strategic litigation unit in the Tennessee attorney general’s office, where she has argued high-profile cases, including defending the state’s abortion ban and challenging a Biden administration prohibition on discrimination against transgender students.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

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      Ex-Secret Service Director Denies She Failed to Send Agents to Protect Trump

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      Kimberly A. Cheatle, who resigned after Donald J. Trump was grazed by a bullet as a candidate a year ago, pushed back against findings in a Senate report released on Sunday.For the first time since she resigned in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump a year ago, Kimberly A. Cheatle, the former Secret Service director, pushed back publicly on Sunday against congressional criticism that she had denied additional security requests for a campaign event that day in Butler, Pa.“For the Butler rally, I actually did direct additional assets to be provided, particularly in the form of agency countersnipers,” Ms. Cheatle said in a statement. One of those was the sniper who shot and killed Mr. Trump’s would-be assassin. But that came after the man, Thomas Crooks, successfully evaded a search to find him, climbed onto a roof of a nearby building and fired eight shots at Mr. Trump while he was speaking. One of the bullets grazed Mr. Trump before he was moved to safety by his security detail.Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a final report early Sunday on the Senate panel’s finding that “stunning failures” by the Secret Service led to the near assassination of Mr. Trump. Several other investigations into the security failures came to the same conclusion last year.The report revealed little new information about the failures that led to a 20-year-old gunman’s ability to fire shots from a roof of a building with a direct line of sight to where Mr. Trump was speaking at a fairground.Ms. Cheatle disputed the report’s claim that she lied during congressional testimony about having denied additional security measures for the July 13, 2024, rally.“Any assertion that I provided misleading testimony is patently false and does a disservice to those men and women on the front lines who have been unfairly disciplined for a team, rather than an individual, failure,” Ms. Cheatle said.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

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      Trump Administration Fires More DOJ Employees Who Worked for Special Counsel

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      The latest round of firings targets not just prosecutors but also support staff members who played a smaller role.The Trump administration fired another batch of nearly 10 Justice Department employees who once worked for the special counsel’s office that twice indicted President Trump, some in relatively minor roles, according to two people familiar with the matter.The dismissals on Friday were the latest sign that the administration was reaching deep into the inner workings of the Justice Department to find and expel not just people who had a direct part in investigating and prosecuting Mr. Trump during his four years out of office but also those who had played secondary roles in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.The latest firings, which include at least two federal prosecutors, appeared to once again ignore traditional civil service protections and were said to be based on a broad assertion of presidential authority, according to two people who spoke about the moves on condition of anonymity to avoid discussing a politically sensitive subject.At least seven others who were fired had served as support staff to Mr. Smith’s office, the two people said. They helped manage the office, handling tasks like overseeing financial records, performing paralegal services or conducting information security.Since the early days of Mr. Trump’s second term, the president’s aides have repeatedly sought to fire, punish or demote the people who worked on the cases against him as well on cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.The purging from government ranks of anyone associated with these cases has been sporadic, with fresh batches of firings coming at different intervals and often without much explanation, other than the citing of Article II of the Constitution, which defines the powers of a president.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

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      What the ‘Exhausted Majority’ Really Wants

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      It’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.It’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.The New York TimesThe New York Times columnists Michelle Cottle and David French discuss whether the moment might be right for a third party. And French tells the story of the time he briefly considered a run for president as a third-party candidate.What the ‘Exhausted Majority’ Really WantsIt’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.Michelle Cottle: I’m Michelle Cottle, and I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion, and I am here with the Opinion columnist David French today. David, hello.David French: Michelle, it’s great to be with you. And it’s just the two of us.Cottle: I know, which means we get to get extra juicy digging into Elon Musk. This week he announced he wants to launch a new national political party.Now, there is a long history of — how do I put this gently? — underwhelming third-party attempts in this country. Does anybody even remember that there is a Forward Party at this point?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

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      Aware of Trump’s Desire for Retribution, Experts Appear Shy to Speak Up

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      A New York Times investigative reporter explains how a problem he encountered while reporting reveals something important about the second Trump era.This week, my colleague Eileen Sullivan and I reported that the Secret Service took the extraordinary step in May of surveilling the former F.B.I. director James Comey, a day after he posted a photo that President Trump’s allies claimed contained an assassination threat.The story raised questions about whether Comey was tailed not because he was a legitimate threat but as part of a retribution campaign Trump has promised to wage against those he sees as his enemies.To nail down the story, we had to do one of the most challenging tasks we face as reporters: pry loose details from the inside of a federal investigation.But there was also something unexpectedly difficult about that story, compared with similar stories I’ve reported over 20 years at The New York Times. Some of the people we’ve previously called on to provide outside expertise refused to speak with us this time.Tonight, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of our reporting, and explain why the speed bump we hit may be a sign of something more significant.A chill in WashingtonWhen we write a story like this, we reach out to experts who can put what we are writing about in context. Drawing on their work experience or academic expertise, they can help us — and our readers — understand whether and why an incident we are covering is unusual, or which laws might apply to it.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

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      Secret Service Suspends Six Agents Over Trump Assassination Attempt

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      The announcement comes near the anniversary of the shooting at Donald J. Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa.The Secret Service said on Thursday that it was suspending six agents involved in securing the site of a campaign rally where a gunman tried to assassinate Donald J. Trump last summer.The suspensions range from 10 to 42 days, without pay, the agency said in a statement just days before the first anniversary of the shooting. It did not give a sense of timing for the suspensions or name the agents, citing privacy law. All six had been placed on restricted duty after the rally while the agency conducted an internal review.The Secret Service came under intense scrutiny after a 20-year-old gunman was able to fire several shots at Mr. Trump while he spoke onstage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. A volunteer firefighter in the crowd that day, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two other attendees were injured. The gunman was killed by the Secret Service.It was the first assassination attempt since 1981 to wound a current or former president — a bullet grazed Mr. Trump’s ear. There were immediate demands for changes at the Secret Service, and the agency’s competency was called into question.Multiple inquiries into the failures, including from Congress, came to similar conclusions and led to dozens of recommendations to change systemic problems. In the midst of the scrutiny, there was a second attempt on Mr. Trump’s life. While Mr. Trump golfed in Florida in September, agents shot at a suspect who was hiding near the outer edge of the course.But the sense of urgency to address the issues at the Secret Service dissipated after Election Day. The lawmakers who demanded accountability and changes have said very little publicly about the agency since Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office.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