Trump, Donald J

Subterms

    More stories

    • 75 Shares42 Views

      in Elections

      How Crypto Lobbying Won Over Trump

      by

      Just over a year ago, while sitting around a table in an ornate meeting room at Mar-a-Lago, David Bailey and a group of top Bitcoin executives made a pitch to Donald J. Trump.They were looking for a savior.For years, cryptocurrency companies had endured a sweeping crackdown in Washington — a cascade of lawsuits, regulatory attacks and prosecutions that threatened the industry’s survival.Mr. Trump wasn’t an obvious sympathizer. He had once dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam.” But he welcomed the executives into his private club in Florida because the industry had suddenly gotten his attention. Mr. Bailey was mobilizing crypto investors to vote for Mr. Trump and had called on his colleagues to raise $100 million for the election effort.At Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Bailey brought along representatives of several large Bitcoin mining firms — an energy-guzzling sector that has drawn noise complaints and environmental concerns. They pitched Mr. Trump on the economic benefits of Bitcoin, before pivoting to a bold request: Could Mr. Trump write a supportive post on his social media site?The proposed language was included at the bottom of a bullet-pointed meeting agenda, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Trump said he would “consider it,” Mr. Bailey, who runs the digital currency firm BTC Inc., recalled in an interview. “We had no idea if that was going to happen.”That night, Mr. Trump fired off a Truth Social post containing the exact message proposed by the executives: “We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”

      .css-m0b4as{max-width:600px;margin:0 auto;display:block;}.css-m0b4as:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none !important;text-decoration:none !important;}.nytapp-vi-homepage .container-margin-none .css-m0b4as,.NYTApp #programming-list .container-margin-none .css-m0b4as{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-m0b4as,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-m0b4as{margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}}.css-1eu3oi1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;padding-bottom:20px;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-npk1al{padding-left:10px;}.css-61i2mm{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.75rem;font-weight:700;text-transform:uppercase;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03rem;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03rem;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03rem;letter-spacing:0.03rem;display:block;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-4z4bzs > :last-child{margin-bottom:20px;}.css-4z4bzs > :not(:first-child){margin-top:0.25rem;}.container-margin .css-4z4bzs{margin-top:20px;}.css-4z4bzs > :last-child{margin-bottom:10px;}.css-10r0njy{width:70px;height:70px;background-color:#d9e1e3;border-radius:4px;width:81px;height:81px;}.css-wwq616{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1rem;margin-bottom:2px;font-size:1rem;line-height:1rem;margin-bottom:5px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-wwq616{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;}}.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-wwq616,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-wwq616{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;margin-bottom:0;display:block;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-wwq616,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-wwq616{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.1875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-wwq616{font-size:1rem;line-height:1rem;}}.css-1qudybh{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;line-height:1rem;font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-tertiary,#5A5A5A);font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1qudybh{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;}}.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-1qudybh,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-1qudybh{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.1875rem;display:block;margin-top:2px;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-1qudybh,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-1qudybh{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.1875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1qudybh{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-89khpe{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;padding-bottom:20px;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);padding-bottom:10px;}.css-m0b4as{max-width:600px;margin:0 auto;display:block;}.css-m0b4as:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none !important;text-decoration:none !important;}.nytapp-vi-homepage .container-margin-none .css-m0b4as,.NYTApp #programming-list .container-margin-none .css-m0b4as{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-m0b4as,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-m0b4as{margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}}.css-1eu3oi1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;padding-bottom:20px;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-npk1al{padding-left:10px;}.css-61i2mm{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.75rem;font-weight:700;text-transform:uppercase;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03rem;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03rem;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03rem;letter-spacing:0.03rem;display:block;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-4z4bzs > :last-child{margin-bottom:20px;}.css-4z4bzs > :not(:first-child){margin-top:0.25rem;}.container-margin .css-4z4bzs{margin-top:20px;}.css-4z4bzs > :last-child{margin-bottom:10px;}.css-10r0njy{width:70px;height:70px;background-color:#d9e1e3;border-radius:4px;width:81px;height:81px;}.css-wwq616{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1rem;margin-bottom:2px;font-size:1rem;line-height:1rem;margin-bottom:5px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-wwq616{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;}}.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-wwq616,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-wwq616{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;margin-bottom:0;display:block;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-wwq616,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-wwq616{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.1875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-wwq616{font-size:1rem;line-height:1rem;}}.css-1qudybh{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;line-height:1rem;font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-tertiary,#5A5A5A);font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1qudybh{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;}}.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-1qudybh,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-1qudybh{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.1875rem;display:block;margin-top:2px;}@media (min-width:740px){.nytapp-vi-homepage .css-1qudybh,.NYTApp #programming-list .css-1qudybh{font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.1875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1qudybh{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-89khpe{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;padding-bottom:20px;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);padding-bottom:10px;}Key Players Trying to Sway Trump on CryptoDavid BaileyChief executive of BTC Inc.David SacksSilicon Valley venture capitalist and White House crypto czarBrad GarlinghouseChief executive of RippleStuart AlderotyChief legal officer of RippleCharles HoskinsonFounder of Input OutputPaul ManafortFormer Trump campaign chairmanBill ZankerLongtime Trump business partnerTracy Hoyos-LópezBitcoin advocate and former prosecutorBrian BallardMajor Trump-fundraiser and lobbyistReince PriebusFormer White House chief of staffEric TrumpThe president’s middle sonWe 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

    • 100 Shares39 Views

      in Elections

      Musk’s Third Party Starts With a Good Idea

      by

      Elon Musk has finally done something predictable (for a gazillionaire with a political itch, that is): He says he’s launching a third party devoted to the cause of deficit reduction. Instead of the quadrennial dream of No Labels, in which high-minded donors put up the money for an imaginary white knight who never materializes, we may get the “America Party,” in which the world’s richest man puts his fortune behind, he says, “extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield.”If you parse Musk’s postings and re-postings, that seems to mean a third party strategy that targets a handful of close Senate and House seats, trying to create a legislative faction that exerts control over both bodies by preventing anything from passing without their crucial votes.Credit where due: This is a somewhat better plan than just backing a doomed third-party presidential bid in 2028. The most compelling suggestion for would-be third partyers during Joe Biden’s presidency was that they should persuade a clutch of discontented senators to caucus as independents, creating a potent Joe Manchin-Mitt Romney-Lisa Murkowski-Susan Collins-Kyrsten Sinema bloc. Musk’s concentrated-force idea, presumably, would be an attempt to create this kind of bloc from scratch, discovering the next Murkowskis and Manchins and making it possible for them to fund and win a race without an R or D beside their name.Before the travails of DOGE, I would have said that it was a mistake to automatically bet against Musk; now it seems safer to just acknowledge up front that this plan is unlikely to work out, and that Musk will probably find it too difficult to seriously pursue.But in the spirit of possibility, and because the House-and-Senate plan is an advance on most third-party fantasias, let’s consider the things that would need to happen for Musk to succeed.First, the America Party couldn’t just target the tightest swing states. You’ll notice that of the independent-minded senators and former senators listed above, only Sinema comes from a hotly contested state. That’s because under polarized conditions, a true swing state is usually the place where both parties make the strongest efforts at persuasion, where the stakes of each election seem highest and the fear of the other party’s rule is sharpest among partisans on either side.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

    • 125 Shares36 Views

      in Elections

      What Happened in Trade Talks Between Japan and the U.S.

      by

      Tokyo had expected smooth tariff negotiations but is experiencing whiplash, becoming a central target of President Trump’s trade frustrations.Earlier this year, Japan’s relationship with the United States seemed to be on solid footing.Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met with President Trump at the White House in February and pledged to significantly boost investment in the United States. The two leaders talked about their “unwavering commitment” to what some U.S. diplomats have called the most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none.Those ties appeared to count for something when the Trump administration announced so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of trading partners on April 2. Sure, the 24 percent rate handed to Japan from the top buyer of its goods was a blow. But Japan was the first major trade partner invited to Washington to negotiate those tariffs away.Now, Japan is dealing with diplomatic whiplash.On Monday, Mr. Trump delayed until Aug. 1 tariffs that were supposed to take effect on Wednesday for dozens of countries. Japan was among a subset of countries, along with a neighbor, South Korea, that received letters directing them to change what the White House called unfair trade policies.The announcement that Japan would be targeted with a new 25 percent tariff came after a week in which Mr. Trump repeatedly lashed out at the country, an ally, for its unwillingness to buy American cars and rice. He characterized Japan as “spoiled” and indicated that a trade deal was unlikely.On Tuesday, Mr. Ishiba said Japanese government officials had engaged in “earnest and sincere discussions” with counterparts in the United States. He called the U.S. announcement “deeply regrettable.”The international cargo terminal at the port in Tokyo.Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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

    • 125 Shares49 Views

      in Elections

      The Grip That Race and Identity Have on My Students

      by

      In the spring of 2023, in a cramped classroom in the Hudson Valley, I taught an undergraduate seminar on the courage to think about race in unconventional ways. It revolved around reading books by Frederick Douglass, James Weldon Johnson and Albert Murray. These minds had shaped and refined my thinking about the idea of America, the fundamentally mongrel populations that inhabit it, as well as the yet-to-be-perfected flesh-and-blood nation of the future we might one day bring forth in unison.Early in the semester, as I waxed exuberant about the unifying possibilities of the 2008 election, I was met by a conference table ringed with blank stares. For my clever and earnest students, I realized, the earth-shattering political achievements of the beleaguered but still unfolding present were nothing but the vaguest rumor of an abstract history.“Professor,” a diligent young woman from Queens who described herself as Latina and applied a no-nonsense activist lens and corresponding vocabulary to most engagements with the world, voiced what all her classmates must have been thinking. “I was 4 years old in 2008. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”Their experience of this country, and themselves, couldn’t have differed more from my own, or from many of the 19th- and 20th-century authors on our syllabus. I assigned these writers because they had so courageously laid the intellectual and moral framework that a figure like Barack Obama would one day harness.I am old enough now to appreciate that there can be only one politician in your lifetime who can truly move you to dream. I feel lucky to have had that experience through Mr. Obama. My students that semester — white, Latino and Asian teens and 20-somethings whose political views had been forged in relation to the reactionary populism of Donald Trump and through a certain skepticism of the American idea itself — had yet to encounter such an inspirational figure. Race pessimism, even a kind of mass learned helplessness, was instead the weather that enveloped them.When my friend Coleman Hughes guest-lectured on his case for colorblindness, several of them were visibly unnerved, suggesting that the idea itself was a form of anti-Blackness. Most maintained that one could no more “retire” from race, as Adrian Piper — another of the authors we wrestled with — aspired to do, than one could teleport up from the classroom.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

    • 138 Shares56 Views

      in Elections

      Book Review: ‘2024,’ by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf

      by

      “2024,” a campaign book by three seasoned political journalists, immerses readers in the chaos and ironies of the race for the White House.2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac ArnsdorfIn “2024,” the latest 400-page dispatch from last year’s presidential contest, the authors, a trio of veteran journalists from different august papers — Josh Dawsey (The Wall Street Journal), Tyler Pager (The New York Times) and Isaac Arnsdorf (The Washington Post) — write that “there was a view popular among some political insiders that this election had been over before it was started.”The authors end up arguing that things were not so fated, but reading what they have to report, I couldn’t help feeling those political insiders had a point. In this account, Biden’s operation resembles its candidate: listless, semi-coherent, sleepwalking toward calamity. It exists for its own sake, impervious to outside input, pushed along by inertia alone. The Trump campaign — at least after his first indictment provides a burst of energy and purpose — appears driven, disciplined, capable of evaluating trade-offs and making tough decisions. Trump seems to want to win; Biden just wants to survive.Things do change when Kamala Harris enters the fray. She gives Trump a run for his money, but her campaign is held back from the start by the slow-moving disaster that made it necessary in the first place.“2024” is a well-paced, thorough and often (darkly) humorous account of the two-year campaign season that began when Donald Trump announced he was running for president again — at a Mar-a-Lago launch so disorganized and halfhearted, the authors write, that even sycophantic Trump allies admitted it was “a dud.”It is also perhaps the smelliest campaign book I can recall. Trump reflects on his future over fried shrimp and tartar sauce. A Biden aide picks at eggs and bacon in a lonely hotel restaurant. At a desultory Trump news conference in the summer of 2024, packages of sausage and gallons of milk are laid out as props to highlight rising food prices; flies circle the meat “spoiling in the August sun.”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

    • 113 Shares32 Views

      in Elections

      Von der Leyen Faces No-Confidence Vote in Far-Right Challenge

      by

      Ahead of the vote on Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, appeared before the European Parliament to defend herself against complaints about transparency.Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, is expected to face a no-confidence vote in the European Parliament this week. While the measure is likely to fail, it will be a symbolic challenge to the European Union’s top official at a time of high tension.Ms. von der Leyen appeared before Parliament on Monday for a debate to address the complaints against her ahead of the vote, which is scheduled for Thursday.The challenge originated from Europe’s far right: Gheorghe Piperea, a parliamentary newcomer from Romania who belongs to a political group that is often critical of the European Union, accused Ms. von der Leyen’s commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, of “failures to ensure transparency.”The complaint referred to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times over the commission’s denial of a request for records of text messages between Ms. von der Leyen and Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, when she was trying to procure coronavirus vaccines.The General Court in Luxembourg sided with The Times, ruling in May that Ms. von der Leyen’s commission did not provide enough of an explanation in refusing the request for her text messages with the Pfizer executive.Mr. Piperea’s complaint also referred to the commission’s push to ramp up joint defense procurement and to carry out digital laws. He asserted in a filing that the commission’s behavior had been repeatedly opaque and “undermines trust.”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

    • 88 Shares71 Views

      in Elections

      Israel Is Fast Alienating the Democratic Base

      by

      To grasp the significance of Zohran Mamdani’s shocking victory in last month’s Democratic primary for mayor of New York, it’s worth recalling another upset, which took place 11 years ago and some 300 miles to the south, in a Republican congressional primary near Richmond, Va. In 2014 Dave Brat, a little-known economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, challenged Eric Cantor, who was then the House majority leader. Mr. Brat was outspent by a margin of more than 10 to one. Despite that, he won by 11 percentage points, thus becoming the first primary challenger to oust a House majority leader in American history.Ideologically, Mr. Brat and Mr. Mamdani have little in common. But they won their primaries for similar reasons: Each exploited the chasm between his party’s grass roots and its elites. In 2014 many Republican voters loathed the G.O.P. establishment. Today, many Democrats feel a similar fury toward the politicians who claim to represent them. In 2014 Mr. Brat used one issue in particular to illustrate that divide: immigration. Democratic alienation today is more nebulous. No single topic seems to loom as large as immigration did among Republicans a decade ago. Still, Mr. Mamdani’s victory illustrates the huge gulf between many ordinary Democrats and the Democratic establishment on one subject in particular: Israel.Mr. Mamdani focused his message on making New York City affordable. The campaign of the race’s presumed front-runner, Andrew Cuomo, in addition to attacking Mr. Mamdani as inexperienced and soft on crime, focused intensely on his opponent’s unapologetic commitment to Palestinian rights. That commitment was one reason that many political commentators and operatives assumed Mr. Mamdani, a young state assemblyman, could not win. They didn’t appreciate how broadly public opinion on this issue has changed.The shift has been national. In 2013, according to Gallup, Democrats sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians by a margin of 36 percentage points. Those numbers have now flipped, after more than a decade of nearly uninterrupted right-wing rule by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the rise to power of crude bigots like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and Israel’s mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: This February, Gallup found that Democrats sympathize with Palestinians over Israel by a margin of 38 percentage points. According to a February survey by The Economist and YouGov, 46 percent of Democrats want the United States to reduce military aid to the Jewish state. Only 6 percent want to increase it, and 24 percent want it to remain at the level it is.These opinions aren’t restricted to young progressives. Older Democrats’ views have swung even more sharply than young ones against Israel in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, according to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Democrats age 50 and over with an unfavorable view of the Jewish state jumped a remarkable 23 percentage points. This shift has largely erased the party’s generation gap on the subject.Only one in three Democrats now views Israel favorably, according to Gallup. That makes Israel significantly less popular than Cuba, and only slightly more popular than China. Despite this, the party’s most powerful figures — from the minority leaders Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries to many of the Democrats likely to run for president in 2028 — oppose conditioning U.S. military support on Israel’s willingness to uphold human rights. This places them in clear conflict with their party’s base.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

    • 88 Shares50 Views

      in Elections

      Can Democrats Find Their Way on Immigration?

      by

      The Democrats onstage saw themselves as morally courageous. American voters, it turned out, saw a group of politicians hopelessly out of touch.Standing side by side at a primary debate in June 2019, nine of the party’s candidates for president were asked to raise their hand if they wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Only one of them held still.Six years later, the party remains haunted by that tableau. It stands both as a vivid demonstration of a leftward policy shift on immigration that many prominent Democratic lawmakers and strategists now say they deeply regret, and as a marker of how sharply the country was moving in the other direction.Last year, 55 percent of Americans told Gallup that they supported a decrease in immigration, nearly twice as many as in 2020, and the first time since 2005 that a majority had said so. The embrace of a more punitive approach to illegal immigration includes not only white voters but also working-class Latinos, whose support Democrats had long courted with liberal border policies.“When you have the most Latino district in the country outside of Puerto Rico vote for Trump, that should be a wake-up call for the Democratic Party,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who saw Mr. Trump win every county in his district along the border with Mexico. “This is a Democratic district that’s been blue for over a century.”The Trump administration is pursuing the harshest crackdown on immigrants since World War II, an effort many Democrats see as a national crisis.Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York TimesWe 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