Trump, Donald J

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      What 11 Black Voters Think About Trump’s Actions in His First Month

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      Many Black Americans were frustrated by the Trump administration’s targeting of D.E.I. programs. But others embraced the speed at which he moved.The first few weeks of President Trump’s frenetic second term, including sweeping actions to end federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, have mostly unfurled during the month of February, when the nation recognizes and celebrates Black history each year.For Black Americans around the country, the new administration’s actions to undo diversity programs — while vowing to celebrate Black history — have felt swift, if not entirely unexpected.Some Black voters interviewed on Thursday said they had anticipated that President Trump’s actions would be destabilizing. Those who supported him embraced his quick changes. Those who voted against him — and some who stayed home last November — were aghast. Most were paying close attention, though some said they felt the need to look away.Veronica McCloud in Burke High School’s library in Charleston, S.C.Nora Williams for The New York TimesVeronica McCloud, 63Retired English teacher in Charleston, S.C.“As a person who was born in the 1960s in the heart of the civil rights movement, what we are seeing feels like an attempt to return to a different era,” Ms. McCloud said. “I am talking about a time when Black Americans were without civil rights in their own country and women had to ask their husbands for permission to join the work force.”She was surprised by the speed with which Mr. Trump signed the sweeping executive order that upended diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government.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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      Elon Musk Is Focused on DOGE. What About Tesla?

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      Mr. Musk, one of President Trump’s main advisers, has not outlined a plan to reverse falling sales at the electric car company of which he is chief executive.Elon Musk’s role as President Trump’s cost-cutting czar and his immersion in right-wing politics appears to be diverting his attention from Tesla at a perilous moment for the electric car company.Tesla’s car sales fell 1 percent last year even as the global market for electric vehicles grew 25 percent. Mr. Musk has not addressed that underperformance, and he has offered no concrete plan to revive sales. He has also provided no details about a more affordable model Tesla says it will start producing this year. In the past, Mr. Musk spent months or years promoting vehicles before they appeared in showrooms.And he has spent much of his time since the election in Washington and at Mr. Trump’s home in Florida — far from Austin, Texas, where Tesla has its corporate headquarters and a factory, or the San Francisco Bay Area, where it has a factory and engineering offices.In the past decade or so, Tesla went from a struggling start-up to upending the global auto industry. The company sold millions of electric cars and generated huge profits, forcing established automakers to invest billions of dollars to catch up. Tesla’s success has been reflected in its soaring stock price, which helped make Mr. Musk the world’s richest person.But now, he seems to have lost interest in the grinding business of developing, producing and selling cars, investors and analysts say. That could have serious ramifications for his company and the auto industry, which employs millions of people worldwide.Even before he joined the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk’s running multiple companies had led investors and corporate governance experts to wonder whether he was spread too thin. Besides Tesla, Mr. Musk controls and runs SpaceX, whose rockets carry astronauts and satellites for NASA and others; X, the social media site; and xAI, which is developing artificial intelligence. And he wants to colonize Mars.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 to Know About the Saudi Crown Prince’s Role in Global Diplomacy

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      The kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was once shunned in diplomatic circles. Now he is playing an important role in negotiations over Gaza and Ukraine.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has long angled to play a leading role on the world stage, was at the diplomatic center this week of two of the globe’s most pressing crises.On Monday, Prince Mohammed met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss both the future of Gaza and the Ukraine war. The following day in Riyadh, there were friendly talks between Russia and the United States.And on Friday, the kingdom is expected to host Arab officials to plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.That Saudi Arabia is the setting for talks with such monumental stakes stands as further evidence that the crown prince — known by his initials M.B.S. — is well on his way to achieving his goal of becoming a global power player.The meetings represent a remarkable turnabout for Prince Mohammed, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom’s de facto leader who was shunned for a time in diplomatic circles. He was accused of severe human rights abuses that he has denied, including approving the killing in 2018 of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.Here is what to know about the crown prince’s past actions and his plans for Saudi Arabia.A new vision for the kingdomIn 2016, about a year after his father, King Salman, ascended the throne, Prince Mohammed, then a deputy crown prince, introduced Vision 2030. The bold plan aimed to diversify the kingdom’s economy and make it less reliant on oil. It included increasing the number of Saudis in private employment, including women; soliciting foreign investment; and selling shares of Saudi Aramco, the state oil monopoly, to raise capital to invest in other sectors, like tourism.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 Team Plans Cuts at HUD Office That Funds Disaster Recovery

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      The Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America’s recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities made worse by climate change.The Office of Community Planning and Development, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pays to rebuild homes and other recovery efforts after the country’s worst disasters, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida.The administration plans to cut the staff in that office by 84 percent, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The number of workers would be cut to 150, from 936 when Mr. Trump took office last month.Those cuts could slow the distribution of recovery money to North Carolina and other recent disasters, depending how quickly they happen.“HUD is carrying out President Trump’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to serve the American people at the highest standard,” a spokeswoman for the department, Kasey Lovett, said in a statement. The primary responsibility for rebuilding communities after major disasters falls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps state and local governments pay to repair or rebuild damaged roads, bridges, schools, water treatments plants and other public infrastructure. The agency also provides money to help repair damaged homes.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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      Can Trump Legally Transfer Migrants to Guantánamo Bay? Here’s What to Know

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      Lawsuits are challenging President Trump’s abrupt decision to send men awaiting deportation to the American military base in Cuba.The Trump administration has started sending migrants from the United States to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, raising a series of legal questions over the government’s authority to do so and the basic rights of detainees.More than 150 Venezuelans, so far, are believed to have been taken there. Already at least three lawsuits have been filed related to aspects of the policy, and rights groups are expected to mount a broader challenge. Here is a closer look at some of the major legal issues.Can migrants lawfully be transferred there?It is unclear whether the government has legal authority to transfer migrants from the United States to Guantánamo, which is an odd and ambiguous place for legal purposes.The base sits on Cuba’s sovereign territory, but the United States has exclusive jurisdiction and control over what happens there because of a perpetual lease and the rupture in relations between the United States and Cuba’s Communist government.Normally, transfer authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the government to detain migrants who have final removal orders and are awaiting deportation.There is no dispute that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can transfer them among its different holding facilities inside the United States while they await their removal from the country. But the act defines the geographic territory of the United States as the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. It does not include Guantánamo.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 Targets Agency Overseeing the Presidio, a Cherished San Francisco Park

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      President Trump moved to drastically shrink the Presidio Trust, the federal agency that oversees the Presidio of San Francisco, a national park at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and one of the city’s most cherished public spaces, in an executive order issued Wednesday evening.The order, which calls for “dramatically” reducing the size of the federal government, said the Presidio Trust was an “unnecessary governmental entity.” The order also targeted three other agencies — the Inter-American Foundation, the United States African Development Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace — by requiring them to reduce their work and personnel “to the minimum presence and function required by law.”The Presidio Trust was established by Congress in 1996 to help oversee the Presidio, a 1,500-acre former military base that today includes hiking trails, museums, schools, campgrounds, restaurants, a golf course and a hotel, according to its website. The National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit group, also help to oversee the park.The trust is led by a board of directors — six of whom are appointed by the president — and employs a staff of ecologists, building stewards, utility workers, tech professionals and others.It wasn’t immediately clear what effect the executive order would have on the park. The Presidio Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday.Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump’s, played a central role in the creation of the trust, and the park is in her district. Ms. Pelosi’s office told The San Francisco Standard that it was reviewing the order.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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      A Trump DOGE Dividend Could Raise Inflation

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      President Trump floated giving taxpayers a piece of any savings that Elon Musk’s cost-cutting generates, which could reignite inflation.President Trump’s speech at the FII Priority conference in Miami Beach was standing room only, with boldfaced names of the business world in attendance.Al Drago for The New York TimesDealBook’s Lauren Hirsch is in Miami Beach at the FII Priority conference, where President Trump floated the idea of sending Americans a dividend or refund check from money saved by DOGE rather than use all of it to pay down the debt. More below.Separately, since you may read about this elsewhere, I thought I’d share with you a secret I’ve been keeping: For the past eight years, I’ve been working on a follow-up to my book, “Too Big to Fail.” I’ve written what I think of as a prequel: a nonfiction, character-driven, behind-the-scenes account of 1929, the year of the most infamous market crash of all time. The book will be out in October. I’ll talk more about it then.Trump floats a new stimulus ideaPresident Trump swept into Miami Beach on Wednesday to speak at the FII Priority conference with yet another eyebrow-raising idea: using the savings he says Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is finding to send taxpayers checks and repay the national debt.It isn’t clear whether this would actually happen. But Trump’s potential move — described to a crowd that included Musk; Eric Schmidt, formerly of Google; and Michael Klein, the deal-maker mogul — raises questions about the president’s economic priorities.What Trump described: forking over 20 percent of the savings that Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative has cut from government spending “to American citizens” and 20 percent to paying down the national debt. (He didn’t say what would happen to the remaining 60 percent.)What is Trump actually trying to accomplish? He has promised to cut the national debt, though critics say his plans for sweeping tax cuts and more would aggravate the nation’s fiscal burden.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 Says DOGE Savings Could Be Returned to Taxpayers

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      President Trump said on Wednesday evening that the newly established Department of Government Efficiency might return a portion of the savings accrued through job cuts and other budget curbs to American taxpayers.The idea of giving back 20 percent of the money saved as a result of initiatives recommended by the new department, known as DOGE, is “under consideration,” said Mr. Trump. The potential initiative, he said, was “a new concept” under which his administration would give “20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens” and “20 percent goes to paying down debt.” (He didn’t mention what would be done with the other 60 percent of the money.)It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump was referring to paying off consumer debt or paying off the national debt, which currently stands at $36 trillion, but his comments suggested that he may have been talking about both. In January before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who is leading DOGE, set expectations for cost cutting at $1 trillion.Mr. Trump provided scant details on the potential taxpayer returns, including on whether the proposal was even feasible or if he would need congressional approval. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Trump made his remarks during an international investment conference in Miami Beach, Fla., hosted by the Future Investment Initiative, a Saudi Arabian foundation that promotes the kingdom’s economy and cultural priorities through a variety of annual events.The president spoke to a packed auditorium with an audience that featured Mr. Musk; Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabian sovereign-wealth fund; Princess Reema Bandar al-Saud, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States; and Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body.Mr. Trump praised the work that DOGE was doing, promising that the department would save “billions, hundreds of billions” of dollars in wasteful spending.And he stressed the importance of paying down debt.“If it were a real estate balance sheet, the debt is tiny, but we still want to pay it down,” he said.He added: “We don’t look at it as a piece of real estate. It’s America.” More