Trump, Donald J

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      In a Year of Working Dangerously, Fear of Trump Marks Public Service Awards

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      The Trump administration’s large cuts to the federal work force turned an annual celebration of federal workers into a reminder of loss.Every year in Washington, hundreds of federal workers put on gowns and tuxedos to honor colleagues who battle disease, pursue criminals and invent new technology, in what is billed as the Oscars of public service. Tearful honorees call co-workers and families onstage, and cabinet secretaries and the president offer thanks in person or by video.Things looked different this year.These are difficult times to be a nonpartisan federal expert, as the Trump administration has cast civil servants as villains and forced out a quarter-million of them. For the first time in the two-decade history of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, the federal employee of the year — the biggest honor — was no longer a federal employee.David Lebryk, a former top Treasury Department official, was forced out of his career position for refusing to grant Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency what he considered unlawful access to the government’s payment system.In accepting his award on Tuesday night, Mr. Lebryk noted that “most of my career was spent trying to be unnoticed.” But he referred to the circumstances that led to his resignation, and offered a credo for public service.“It is important to exercise principled leadership, make difficult decisions, have the courage and conviction to stand behind those decisions and be accountable and ultimately prepared to accept the consequences of those decisions,” he said.There were no other acceptance speeches for awards given at the event — a departure from previous years — because some honorees said they were fearful of even inadvertently irking the administration. At least one winner turned down the award because the worker’s boss, a Trump appointee, forbade the worker to accept 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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      NAACP Won’t Invite Trump to Its National Convention, Breaking 116-Year Tradition

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      The move by the N.A.A.C.P., the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, marked a new low in its relationship with the Trump administration.The N.A.A.C.P. will not invite President Trump to its national convention, breaking from a 116-year tradition of inviting the president to the marquee event of the largest and oldest U.S. civil rights organization.Derrick Johnson, the organization’s president, said in a statement that the decision was motivated by Mr. Trump’s policies, which he said had set back civil rights.“Donald Trump is attacking our democracy and our civil rights,” Mr. Johnson said. He added: “The president has signed unconstitutional executive orders to oppress voters and undo federal civil rights protections; he has illegally turned the military on our communities, and he continually undermines every pillar of our democracy.”The move marked a new low in the relationship between the N.A.A.C.P., which advocates for the rights of African Americans and other minority groups, and Mr. Trump. He has never attended the convention while serving as president, and the organization has vigorously confronted him in high-profile legal battles and symbolic statements.The acrimony has intensified in the second Trump administration, as Mr. Trump has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government. The N.A.A.C.P. and affiliated organizations have been heavily involved in lawsuits seeking to undo Mr. Trump’s executive orders banning D.E.I. practices.In a statement, Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said that “the N.A.A.C.P. isn’t advancing anything but hate and division, while the President is focused on uniting our country.”Mr. Johnson noted in his statement that there is a long history of both Democratic and Republican presidents attending the convention: President Harry S. Truman spoke at the event in 1947 — a year before he signed an executive order desegregating the military. President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended in 1954 and praised the landmark Supreme Court decision banning public school racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. President Ronald Reagan received a cool reception when he spoke at the convention in 1981, vowing in his speech that “we will not retreat on the nation’s commitment to equal treatment of all citizens.” More

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      Trump’s Choice on Israel-Iran: Help Destroy Nuclear Facility or Continue to Negotiate

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      Iranian officials have warned that U.S. participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any chance of the nuclear disarmament deal the president insists he is still interested in pursuing.President Trump is weighing a critical decision in the four-day-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy the deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which only America’s biggest “bunker buster,” dropped by American B-2 bombers, can reach.If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Mr. Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have already warned that U.S. participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Mr. Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing.Mr. Trump had at one point encouraged his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and possibly Vice President JD Vance, to offer to meet the Iranians, according to a U.S. official. But on Monday Mr. Trump posted on social media that “everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran,” hardly a sign of diplomatic progress.Mr. Trump also said on Monday that “I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.” The urgency appeared to be rising. The White House announced late on Monday that Mr. Trump was leaving the Group of 7 summit early because of the situation in the Middle East.“As soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something,” Mr. Trump said. “But I have to leave here.”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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      At G7, Trump Renews Embrace of Putin Amid Rift With Allies

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      President Trump opened his remarks at the Group of 7 gathering of industrialized nations by criticizing the decision to expel Russia from the bloc after Moscow’s 2014 “annexation” of Crimea.President Trump could have opened by talking about trade. He could have discussed the wars in the Middle East or the long-running, brutal war in Ukraine.But there was something else that appeared to be top of mind for Mr. Trump during Monday’s meeting in Canada of the leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized nations: President Vladimir Putin of Russia.“The G7 used to be the G8,” Mr. Trump told reporters, referring to the group’s decision to eject Russia in 2014, after it attacked Ukraine and “annexed” Crimea, a prelude to its full-scale invasion.He went on to blame former President Barack Obama and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada for kicking Russia out, and argued that its inclusion in the group would have averted the war in Ukraine. (Mr. Trump was wrong — it was not Mr. Trudeau, but rather Stephen Harper, who was the Canadian prime minister at the time of Russia’s expulsion.)“I would say that was a mistake,” Mr. Trump said, “because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now.”And with that, Mr. Trump’s troubled history with the alliance repeated itself. When he attended the summit the last time it was held in Canada, in 2018, he called for Russia to be readmitted to alliance. The suggestion angered and appalled allies, setting of a rift that before Mr. Trump left the summit early, telling reporters on his way out: “They should let Russia come back in. Because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”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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      Flattery or Discipline? The Difficult Task of Managing Trump.

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      Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney deployed both methods on the first day of the Group of 7 summit in Alberta to keep Mr. Trump focused and avoid drama.Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada began by wishing President Trump a happy birthday. He emphasized the importance of U.S. leadership in the Group of 7 alliance, which is meeting in Alberta, Canada.But after seven minutes of questioning by journalists during which Mr. Trump complained about Russia’s absence at the summit and attacked Democrats over immigration policies, the host of the summit had heard enough.He took a step forward and into the center of the frame and effectively stopped the questioning, preventing the American president from saying more.With war raging in the Middle East and U.S. tariffs hammering his own country’s economy as well as global trade, Mr. Carney was intent on limiting the chances of a Trump-related derailment of the gathering.“If you don’t mind, I’m going to exercise my role, if you will, as G7 chair, since we have a few more minutes with the president and his team and then we actually have to start the meeting to address some of these big issues,” Mr. Carney said. “So, merci beaucoup.”With that, the press was rapidly escorted out of the room.The brief moment at the start of the gathering provided a window into a daunting challenge for world leaders entering the summit: Just what is the best way to manage Mr. Trump on the global stage?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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      Trumps Promote American Bitcoin, a New Crypto Mining Venture

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      The debut of American Bitcoin, a mining firm backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., has heightened the ethical concerns swirling around the Trump presidency.On a Wall Street conference call in April, Eric Trump made a pitch for the newest venture in his family’s rapidly expanding cryptocurrency empire.Mr. Trump, the president’s second son, said he was joining forces with the crypto firm Hut 8 to start a company focused on Bitcoin mining, the business of running energy-guzzling machines to generate new coins.Bitcoin mining is a notoriously difficult industry. But in the pitch, Mr. Trump made clear that the policies of his father’s administration would give the new company, American Bitcoin, a “competitive advantage.”“We’re doing it in America with a government that’s dedicated to low-cost energy,” he said, later adding, “We’ve got the best energy policy in this country. That policy is only getting better.”Virtually every aspect of the Trump family’s business portfolio is fraught with conflicts of interest that have blurred the boundary between government and industry. The debut of American Bitcoin, which is set to merge with a publicly traded company later this year, has heightened those concerns, introducing new ethical questions and pulling the Trumps even deeper into crypto, a business the White House has aggressively championed.President Trump is already financially intertwined with two other crypto ventures — a so-called meme coin created by a longtime business partner, and a separate company, World Liberty Financial, that he and his sons founded before the election. At the same time, he has ended a yearslong enforcement campaign against crypto companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission and vowed to sign legislation that would advance the industry’s priorities.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’s Trade and Tax Policies Start to Stall U.S. Battery Boom

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      Battery companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in the United States because of tariffs on China and the proposed rollback of tax credits.Battery manufacturing began to take off in the United States in recent years after Congress and the Biden administration offered the industry generous incentives.But that boom now appears to be stalling as the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers try to restrict China’s access to the American market.From South Carolina to Washington State, companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in factories for producing rechargeable batteries and the ingredients needed to make them.A big reason for that is higher trade barriers between the United States and China are fracturing relationships between suppliers and customers in the two countries. At the same time, Republicans are seeking to block battery makers with ties to China, as well as those that rely on any Chinese technology or materials, from taking advantage of federal tax credits. The industry is also dealing with a softening market for electric vehicles, which Republicans and Mr. Trump have targeted. The China-related restrictions — included in the version of Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill passed by the House — would be very difficult for many companies to operate under. China is the world’s top battery manufacturer and makes nearly all of certain components.The Trump policy bill highlights a difficult dilemma. The United States wants to create a homegrown battery industry and greatly reduce its dependence on China — and many Republican lawmakers want to end it altogether. But China is already so dominant in this industry that it will be incredibly hard for the United States to become a meaningful player without working with Chinese companies.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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      Terry Moran Says He Doesn’t Regret Posts Criticizing Trump Administration

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      In his first interview since losing his job at ABC News, the longtime TV correspondent, newly popular on Substack, says he does not regret his social media post criticizing the Trump administration.Terry Moran wasted no time ending the speculation.“It wasn’t a drunk tweet,” he said, flashing a lopsided grin on Sunday as he chatted on Zoom.Mr. Moran, a longtime ABC News correspondent, was ousted from his network last week over a post on X that castigated the Trump administration in searing, personal terms. In his first interview since then, he offered no apologies. He sounded chipper — at least, as chipper as a journalist could be after losing a job in spectacularly public fashion.Recounting how he came to write his fateful post, Mr. Moran, 65, said it was “a normal family night” that began with a meditative walk with his dog in the woods: “I was thinking about our country, and what’s happening, and just turning it over in my mind.” He returned home for family dinner and a movie, “Ocean’s Eleven.” He and his wife put their children to bed.And then: “I wrote it, and I said, ‘That’s true.’”“That” was a provocative post, published after midnight on June 8, tearing into Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, as “richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.” Mr. Moran wrote that Mr. Miller “eats his hate” as “spiritual nourishment” and assigned the term “world-class hater” to both Mr. Miller and President Trump, whom the correspondent had interviewed in the Oval Office weeks earlier.The since-deleted post stunned Mr. Moran’s colleagues and prompted a furious riposte from Vice President JD Vance, who labeled it an “absolutely vile smear” and demanded an apology from ABC. Two days later, the network said it would not renew Mr. Moran’s contract, citing “a clear violation of ABC News policies.”Some veteran journalists said that his comments crossed the line of impartiality, and provided a gift to right-wing politicians seeking to depict the mainstream media as biased against Mr. Trump. Supporters on the left cheered Mr. Moran for issuing what they considered a candid assessment.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