Trump, Donald J

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      Trump and Newsom Skewer Each Other After National Guard Deployment to LA Protests

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      President Trump said that Gov. Gavin Newsom should be arrested for his governance of California, while Mr. Newsom issued a barrage of retorts online.A war of words erupted Monday between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the White House, punctuated by President Trump saying that the governor should be arrested because “he’s done such a bad job” leading California.The latest feud came after a weekend of clashes in Los Angeles as residents protested federal immigration raids and President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops without support from Mr. Newsom.Mr. Trump has criticized Mr. Newsom on various issues for months, including his handling of the Los Angeles fires and California’s transgender athlete policy. Mr. Newsom had, for the most part, sparingly struck back while still trying to show deference to the president.But that ended this weekend. And by Monday, the governor was firing back with a barrage of social media posts, emails and news interviews, in a tone that ranged from snarky to serious.All of it was suited for an era of politics that rewards jousting by online gladiators.The latest skirmish began when Mr. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told NBC News on Saturday that he would arrest anybody, including Mr. Newsom, who interfered with immigration enforcement.The governor responded with a dare for Mr. Homan.“Come after me,” Mr. Newsom said in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday. “Arrest me, tough guy. Let’s just get it over with.”Reporters then asked Mr. Trump on Monday if he thought Mr. Homan should arrest Mr. Newsom.“I would do it if I were Tom,” Mr. Trump said. “Look, I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent.”Mr. Newsom responded by sharing on X a video of the president’s comments— and pinned it to the top of his feed to give it extra prominence.“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America,” he wrote, calling it an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”Later Monday, a reporter asked Mr. Trump what crime Mr. Newsom should be charged with if he were to be arrested.“His primary crime is running for governor, because he’s done such a bad job,” Mr. Trump said. “What he’s done to that state is like what Biden did to this country.”Mr. Newsom posted that video, too. He added social media posts that needled Mr. Trump’s Republican supporters, including Vice President JD Vance, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio.Mr. Jordan posted a comment on X saying, “We fly the American flag in America” — an apparent reference to the many Latin American flags that demonstrators carried at the protests in Los Angeles. Mr. Newsom shot back with a photo of Jan. 6 protesters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, one of them attacking police officers with an American flag.“Like this?” Mr. Newsom wrote. More

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      Francis Fukuyama: The Nightmare of Revisionist History

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      This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.I’ve been having a recurring nightmare lately.It begins sometime in the 2050s. My grandchildren are in college taking a survey course on contemporary American history. In the textbook, they read that a critical turning point for the United States was the 2020 presidential election, which Joseph R. Biden, Jr. successfully stole from Donald J. Trump. This injustice was corrected only in 2024 when the country returned Mr. Trump to office and began to undo some of the terrible damage that had been done, not just by Mr. Biden, but by a whole series of Democratic and Republican presidents.The U.S. economy has not been all that strong in the past few decades, but Americans are much more self-reliant than in the past. They have realized they do not need all the products, food, movies and people that had once been allowed to pour into the country. Travel outside the country is considered highly overrated.Americans had to adjust, in any case, to the Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere in Asia, which encompasses Japan, Korea and Taiwan (finally returned to its rightful home in the People’s Republic of China). Wise American presidents had recognized that the people of Asia could make their own decisions without American help and thereby avoided World War III.President Donald J. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, arrive at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., following Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesA similar peace prevails on the western side of the Eurasian continent. Russia had righted the wrong brought about by the breakup of the Soviet Union by reincorporating Ukraine, the three Baltic countries, Georgia, Moldova and eastern Poland into its sphere of influence. Again, the world had been spared a nuclear war when Washington realized it had no business telling Moscow how it should behave toward its neighbors.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 Calling Troops Into Los Angeles Is the Real Emergency

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      The National Guard is typically brought into American cities during emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances or to provide support during public health crises — when local authorities require additional resources or manpower. There was no indication that was needed or wanted in Los Angeles this weekend, where local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control.Guard members also almost always arrive at the request of state leaders, but in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment of troops “purposefully inflammatory” and likely to escalate tensions. It had been more than 60 years since a president sent in the National Guard on his own volition.Which made President Trump’s order on Saturday to do so both ahistoric and based on false pretenses and is already creating the very chaos it was purportedly designed to prevent.Mr. Trump invoked a rarely used provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows for the federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” No such rebellion is underway. As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.The last time this presidential authority was used over a governor’s objections was when John F. Kennedy overruled the governor of Alabama and sent troops to desegregate the University of Alabama in 1963. Supporters of states’ rights and segregation howled at the time and, in the usual corners, are still howling about it.“To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” Mr. Trump wrote in an executive order, which is not a law but rather a memo to the executive branch. Yet the closest this nation has come to such a definition of rebellion was when Mr. Trump’s own supporters (whom he incited, then mostly pardoned) sacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021.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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      The President Is Playing With Fire, Which Is Just How He Likes It

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      It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump administration is spoiling for a fight on America’s streets. On Saturday, after a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests degenerated into violence, the administration reacted as if the country were on the brink of war.The violence was unacceptable. Civil disobedience is honorable; violence is beyond the pale. But so far, thankfully, the violence has been localized and, crucially, well within the capacity of state and city officials to manage.But don’t tell that to the Trump administration. Its language was out of control.Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s closest advisers and the single most important architect (aside from Trump himself) of the administration’s immigration policies, posted one word: “Insurrection.”Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, “One of the main technical issues in the immigration judicial battles is whether Biden’s border crisis counted as an ‘invasion.’” That statement set the stage. He wants courts to believe we’re facing an invasion, and any disturbance will do to make his point. “So now,” Vance continued, “we have foreign nationals with no legal right to be in the country waving foreign flags and assaulting law enforcement. If only we had a good word for that …”Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, posted his own screed on X, declaring that the Department of Defense “is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert.”Trump posted on Truth Social, “If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”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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      Why TV Meteorologist John Morales’s Hurricane Plea Went Viral

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      A TV forecaster said he was not confident he could predict the paths of storms this year, touching a nerve amid concerns about how federal cuts could affect hurricane season.A meteorologist who has spent his career warning South Florida about hurricanes had a new warning for viewers last week: He’s not sure he can do it this year.John Morales of WTVJ in Miami said the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the National Weather Service could leave television forecasters like him “flying blind” this hurricane season. “We may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline,” he warned.Clips of Mr. Morales’s comments have spread widely: one posted on MSNBC’s TikTok account has nearly 4,500 comments, and news outlets around the world have written articles about what he said. (This isn’t the first time Mr. Morales has been the subject of viral attention: In the fall, his emotional reaction to Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification also hit a nerve.)Here’s what Mr. Morales had to say and more about what is going on with the Weather Service.He warned of less accurate forecasts.Mr. Morales’s presentation on Monday began with a clip of himself following the Category 5 Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as it moved over the Bahamas. He reassured his Florida viewers that the powerful storm would turn north before it reached their coastline. And it did, exactly when Mr. Morales assured anxious viewers it would.The clip cuts to him in present day, slightly older and now wearing glasses. He recalled the confidence he used to have in delivering an accurate forecast to his viewers.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 Turned the Oval Office Into “Watch What Happens Live”

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      On Thursday, right around the time of the online breakout of a feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump that resembled a “Real Housewives” reunion show, we were treated to another episode of what has become the president’s favorite reality TV reboot. Call it “The Apprentice: World Leaders,” and in this latest installment, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, appeared alongside Mr. Trump, displaying a sophisticated instinct to hold his ground and emerge unscathed during his visit to the gilded zoo of the Oval Office.We’re becoming all too used to watching this new kind of presidential meet-and-greet. What traditionally had been a low-stakes and highly choreographed government function has this year been reinvented by Mr. Trump as “Watch What Happens Live” set in the Oval Office (with JD Vance on hand to play the supporting role of the bartender).For many of us, watching these affairs offers the same queasy experience as the most car-crash-reminiscent reality shows, but with geopolitical consequences. We brace ourselves for the inevitable moments of skirmish and bluster, of braying rudeness and the possible surprise reveal straight out of “Punk’d” or “Jerry Springer.” We grimace in preparation for the next big cringe moment before the show goes to commercial. We watch — often through eyes shielded in dismay — as the president falls just short of resorting to his favorite catchphrase: “You’re fired!”It’s natural to conflate these moments with the worst — and most addictive — elements of reality TV. Maybe it’s a remnant of my early career writing public-television program guide listings, or perhaps my childhood spent within reach of the Bronx Zoo, but I have come to understand, or at least to tolerate, these diplomacy-shattering displays of ginned-up drama as more like episodes of classic nature programs.For me, they often recall “The Living Planet,” that grand adventure in BBC travel-budget largess, narrated by David Attenborough, from the 1980s — right around the time a self-styled real estate developer from Queens was buying up New Jersey casinos that would go bankrupt.Admittedly, I might be overly influenced by the news that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a recent most-favored autocracy, will be sending two rare Arabian leopards to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington. Brandie Smith, the director of the zoo, said that Mr. Trump was most interested in learning about the leopards’ “personality.”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 Is Deploying National Guard Troops Under a Rarely Used Power

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      President Trump bypassed the authority of Gov. Gavin Newsom by sending 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protesters.President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protesters in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But according to legal scholars, the president has the authority under Title 10 of the United States Code to federalize the National Guard units of states to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”In a presidential memo, Mr. Trump said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday night that President Trump was deploying soldiers in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.Protests have occurred Friday and Saturday in California to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces in California. The latest incident was at a Home Depot in Paramount, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action, indicating that Mr. Trump had usurped his own state authority.“That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”California Democrats have braced for months for the possibility that President Trump would seek to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in this way, particularly in Democratic-run jurisdictions.Mr. Trump suggested deploying U.S. forces in the same manner during his first term to suppress outbreaks of violence during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.He opted against doing so at the time, but he has repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure border states.“Federalizing a state’s National Guard is a huge expansion of presidential power,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It allows use of the military in domestic matters. It would be stunning to see this done here.”Trump and his aides have often lamented that not enough was done by Minnesota’s governor to quell protests that followed the death of Mr. Floyd in 2020.During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump made clear he was not going to hold back in a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” Mr. Trump said.Jonathan Swan More

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      Macron Will Visit Greenland This Month, Defying Trump

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      President Emmanuel Macron of France plans to travel to the island nation, which President Trump has vowed to take control of, on the way to Canada for a Group of 7 meeting.In a challenge to President’s Trump’s vow to take control of Greenland, President Emmanuel Macron of France will visit the enormous Arctic island on June 15 with the aim of “contributing to the reinforcement of European sovereignty.”The French presidency announced the visit on Saturday, saying that Mr. Macron had accepted an invitation from Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, and Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, with whom it said Mr. Macron would discuss “security in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.”Greenland, a semiautonomous island that is a territory of Denmark, a NATO ally, has been thrust in recent months from a remote, uneventful existence to the center of a geostrategic storm by Mr. Trump’s repeated demands that it become part of the United States, one way or another.“I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force,” Mr. Trump told NBC in March, but added that he would not “take anything off the table.”Mr. Macron, who has seen in the various provocations directed at Europe by the Trump administration an opportunity for European assertion of its power, will be the first foreign head of state to go to Greenland since Mr. Trump embarked on his annexation campaign this year.JD Vance, the American vice president, visited Greenland in March. The trip was drastically scaled back and confined to a remote military base after the threat of local protests.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