Trump, Donald J

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      Millions Could Lose Food Stamp Benefits Under Trump Tax Bill, Analysis Finds

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      Others could see their monthly benefits reduced if the bill were to become law, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.Millions of low-income Americans could lose access to food stamps or see reductions in their monthly benefits as a result of House Republicans’ newly adopted tax bill, according to an analysis released Thursday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.The findings underscore the significant trade-offs in the party’s signature legislative package, which seeks to save money by cutting federal anti-poverty programs in a move that may leave some of the poorest Americans in worse financial shape.To save nearly $300 billion over the next decade, Republicans proposed a series of new rules that would tighten eligibility under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Under their bill, a wider range of aid recipients would be required to obtain work to qualify for federal help.Republicans say the change aims to reduce waste and ensure that the federal government provides food stamps only to the truly needy. They have similarly looked to expand work requirements to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Americans.Still, the work mandate could reduce participation in SNAP by more than three million people in an average month over the next decade, according to the budget office, which studied a version of the party’s recently approved legislative package.Republicans also proposed to have states assume some of the costs for the federal food stamp program, an idea that has troubled some governors, who say their budgets cannot afford to shoulder the responsibility.As a result, congressional budget scorekeepers estimated the shift could result in an average of 1.3 million people losing access to SNAP. They attributed the reduction to the fact that some states may opt to “modify benefits or eligibility or possibly leave the program altogether because of the increased costs.”Issuing its analysis, the budget office cautioned it could not produce one total, concise estimate of the number of people who could lose anti-hunger aid, given the possibility of overlap and the potential interactions with changes to other federal programs.Still, the budget office estimated that many of Republicans’ proposed changes would reduce eligibility while cutting benefit amounts for those who do remain on the program. A small percentage of households could even see a roughly $100 reduction in their monthly allowance because of a provision that would change how some benefits are computed, according to the analysis. More

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      Senate Republicans Kill California’s Ban on Gas-Powered Cars

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      In 50 years, California’s authority to set environmental rules that are tougher than national standards had never been challenged by Congress. Until now.The Senate on Thursday blocked California’s landmark plan to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, setting up a legal battle that could shape the electric car market in the United States.The 51-44 vote was a victory for the oil and gas industry and for Republicans who muscled through the vote by deploying an unusual legislative tactic that Democrats denounced as a “nuclear” option that would affect the way the Senate operates way beyond climate policy.The repeal deals a blow to California’s ambition of accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles. But the consequences will ripple across the country. That’s because 11 other states intended to follow California’s plan and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Together, they account for about 40 percent of the U.S. auto market.The resolution, which had already been approved by the House, now goes to President Trump’s desk. Mr. Trump, who opposes clean energy and has taken particular umbrage at California’s efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, is expected to sign it into law.California leaders have promised to challenge the Senate vote and try to restore the ban.“This Senate vote is illegal,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California. “Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again — undoing work that goes back to the days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — all while ceding our economic future to China.“California’s auto policy was allowed under permission granted by the Biden administration. The 1970 Clean Air Act specifies that California can receive waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to enact clean air standards that are tougher than federal limits because the state has historically had the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California’s standards under certain circumstances.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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      Mahmoud Khalil Meets Infant Son Before Immigration Hearing

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      The activist, who has been detained in Louisiana for two months, was allowed to meet privately with his wife and baby. He is fighting deportation.Mahmoud Khalil met his month-old son for the first time on Thursday morning, hours before an immigration court hearing in which his lawyers will seek to convince a judge that he would be in mortal danger if deported.Trump administration officials were initially reluctant to allow Mr. Khalil, who has been detained in Louisiana for two months, to meet privately with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, and the baby, Deen. They said that other detainees were not allowed such visits, and that it would be unsafe to allow Dr. Abdalla and the baby into a secured part of the facility.But after hours of negotiation Wednesday evening the officials relented, paving the way for a family meeting before Mr. Khalil’s immigration hearing Thursday morning.Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and one of the leading figures in pro-Palestinian protests at the school, was arrested in March and quickly transported to Jena, La. Though he is a legal permanent resident, the Trump administration is seeking to deport him, arguing that his presence in the United States helps spread antisemitism.Students at a Columbia University graduation held photos of Mahmoud Khalil, who had been a student there.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMr. Khalil’s lawyers have cited instances in which their client has spoken out explicitly against antisemitism; they say his monthslong detention is retaliation for pro-Palestinian speech.Mr. Khalil’s case is playing out in two courtrooms thousands of miles from each other, in Louisiana and Newark.The hearing on Thursday is taking place in immigration court in Jena. The judge there, Jamee Comans, has found that the government has met its burden to deport Mr. Khalil. But Mr. Khalil’s lawyers on Thursday will have a chance to argue that she should nonetheless let him stay, given the danger he might face were he to be deported, likely to Syria or Algeria.“Given the government’s false claims that Mahmoud is antisemitic, and that he is pro-Hamas and that he is a ‘terrorist,’ he is at risk of harm anywhere in the world,” said a lawyer for Mr. Khalil, Johnny Sinodis, at a news conference before the hearing.The lawyers are also seeking to end the proceeding altogether, arguing that Mr. Khalil was arrested without a warrant. In response, administration officials have argued that in March, when Mr. Khalil was arrested, he was attempting to flee, justifying a warrantless arrest. Video footage of the encounter shows no such attempt.Mr. Khalil was the first of several pro-Palestinian protesters to be arrested, setting off concerns about free speech and due process during the second Trump administration.Those concerns are being considered in New Jersey by a federal district judge, Michael E. Farbiarz. While other protesters have been released on bail, Judge Farbiarz has not yet decided whether Mr. Khalil can go free. More

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      Winners of an ‘Exclusive Invitation’ to Dine With Trump Will Gather Tonight

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      The sale of access to the president to investors in his memecoin has been assailed by Democrats and even some Republicans as unethical.A group of 220 cryptocurrency enthusiasts who won a dinner with President Trump by investing in his memecoin will gather tonight at his golf club in Virginia, an event that has sparked outrage from critics who call it an unethical sale of access to the presidency.Mr. Trump and his business partners in the venture announced the event last month, calling it the “most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION” in the world. They framed it as a contest: The top 220 buyers of the coin would dine with the president at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., while the top 25 would join him at a more intimate cocktail reception and go on a tour of the White House the next day.A leaderboard on the website of Mr. Trump’s memecoin, called $TRUMP, allowed crypto investors to see how much they needed to purchase to move up the rankings and win a spot.In effect, Mr. Trump was offering access to himself in exchange for an investment in his cryptocurrency, which he started selling just days before his inauguration in January. Democrats in Congress and even some Republicans have assailed the contest as an inappropriate use of presidential power. A protest outside the golf club is scheduled for Thursday afternoon.A memecoin is a type of cryptocurrency tied to an online joke or mascot; it typically has no function beyond speculation. But Mr. Trump’s coins have become a vehicle for investors, including some based overseas, to funnel money to his family.A business entity tied to the Trumps sits on a large stash of the $TRUMP cryptocurrency and collects fees every time the coins change hands. So far, the coin has generated at least $320 million in fees, which the Trumps share with their business partners, according to Chainalysis, a crypto analytics firm.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 Casts Himself as a Protector of Persecuted White People

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      President Trump publicly dressed down the president of South Africa based on a fringe conspiracy theory, providing a vivid distillation of his views on race.In the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump positioned himself as the savior of white South Africans.Sitting alongside Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, Mr. Trump said white people were “being executed.” He referred over and over again to “dead white people.” He dressed down Mr. Ramaphosa, who helped his country cast off the racist policies of apartheid, and questioned why he was not doing more when white people were being killed.“I don’t know how you explain that,” Mr. Trump said. “How do you explain that?”The American president was not much interested in the answer, which is that police statistics do not show that white people are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people in South Africa.The confrontation provided a vivid demonstration of Mr. Trump’s views on race, which have animated his political life going back years. After rising to power in part by framing himself as a protector of white America, Mr. Trump has used his platform, in this case the Oval Office, to elevate claims of white grievance.For Mr. Trump, white people are the true victims; Black people and minorities have received an unfair advantage in the United States. And when Mr. Trump looks to South Africa, a majority-Black country emerging from a legacy of apartheid and colonialism, he sees white people who need sanctuary in the United States.Invoking the teachings of his old mentor, Nelson Mandela, Mr. Ramaphosa pleaded for civility in the dialogue between the two leaders.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 Claimed a Video Showed ‘Burial Sites’ of White Farmers. It Didn’t.

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      During a meeting with South Africa’s president, President Trump played the video as evidence of racial persecution. A Times analysis found he misrepresented the contents of the video.In a White House meeting on Wednesday, President Trump showed President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa a social media video of a rural road lined with white crosses and hundreds of vehicles.Mr. Trump told Mr. Ramaphosa that the footage showed “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa.A New York Times analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept. 5, 2020, near Newcastle, South Africa. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year.The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event and were later removed.The misrepresentation of the footage took place during a stunning meeting in which Mr. Trump made false claims about a genocide against white farmers. Mr. Trump dimmed the lights to play the footage, presenting it as evidence of racial persecution against white South Africans.As the clip played, Mr. Trump said: “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”Contrary to Mr. Trump’s statements, the crosses are not gravesites for farmers and were not permanently placed along the road. Footage posted to social media before the remembrance event, in early September 2020, shows people setting up the white crosses, and Google Street View images from 2023 indicate they have since been taken down.There have been a number of protests against the killing of white farmers in South Africa. White crosses are known to be used at these events to represent slain farmers. Videos and photos at the Sept. 5 event also showed tractors adorned with flags condemning farm murders and a large banner reading, “President Ramaphosa, how many more must die???” stretched between two vehicles above the roadway. South Africa has an exceptionally high murder rate, but police statistics do not show that white South Africans or farmers are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people.A White House official told The Times each cross represented a white farmer who had been killed but did not comment on why Mr. Trump had characterized the video as showing burial sites.It’s unclear where Mr. Trump got the video from, or who, if anyone, characterized to him what the video showed. Elon Musk — who is originally from South Africa and is one of Mr. Trump’s advisers — had posted the video on the social media site X at least twice before today’s meeting.In Wednesday’s meeting, when Mr. Ramaphosa asked where the video was from, Mr. Trump said, “I mean, it’s in South Africa.” More

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      Trump Administration Pulls Back From Local Police Oversight Across U.S.

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      The Justice Department said that it would abandon efforts to overhaul local policing in Minneapolis and other cities with histories of civil rights violations.The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to scrap proposed agreements for federal oversight of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., as part of a broader abandonment of efforts by previous administrations to overhaul local law enforcement across the United States.Justice Department officials said they planned to drop cases filed after incidents of police violence against Black people in Minneapolis and Louisville, and to close investigations into departments in Memphis; Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Trenton, N.J.; and Mount Vernon, N.Y., as well as a case against the Louisiana State Police.In those cities and states, Justice Department officials said, they were retracting Biden-era findings that police departments had violated the constitutional rights of residents and were declaring those findings to be misguided.The announcement came four days before the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died at the hands of the Minneapolis police. That act of violence, caught on video, inspired national outrage and worldwide protests against police violence targeting Black Americans.It also resulted in a withering federal report that found that the Minneapolis Police Department had routinely discriminated against Black and Native American people and had used deadly force without justification. After nearly two years of negotiations, the Justice Department and the city submitted an agreement to the court in January calling for federal oversight of the Police Department’s efforts to address the issues.That arrangement, known as a consent decree, was similar to court-approved agreements between the federal government and at least 13 other cities whose police forces have been accused of widespread civil rights abuses, including Los Angeles, Newark and Ferguson, Mo.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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      E.U. Offers Emergency Funding for Radio Free Europe After Trump Cuts

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      The European Union said it would provide short-term financing for Radio Free Europe, but the amount falls short of what the news outlet says it needs to stay afloat.The European Union said Tuesday that it was stepping in to provide emergency funding to Radio Free Europe, though the promised amount fell far short of what the news organization said it needed to stay afloat after the Trump administration froze federal support.Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, announced that the bloc would provide 5.5 million euros ($6.2 million) to support Radio Free Europe, which provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedoms.“In a time of growing, unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” Ms. Kallas said. But she added that the funding would be for the short term and that the European Union could not make up the news outlet’s entire shortfall.Since taking office in January, President Trump has ordered the dismantling of Radio Free Europe’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which provides the broadcaster with $12 million in congressional funding each month. A U.S. District Court judge initially paused Mr. Trump’s termination of the congressional grants, but this month a federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration could continue to withhold the funds.Stephen Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said on Tuesday that he was grateful for the emergency E.U. funding to keep the operation running “for a short while longer.” He said that the news organization was continuing to fight in court for the release of congressionally appropriated funds.“RFE/RL’s survival remains at risk as long as those funds are withheld,” he said in a statement.The news organization on Tuesday filed an emergency petition in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking its May funding. Radio Free Europe said last week that it had received its April funding from Congress, though it came six weeks later than scheduled, forcing the news organization to reduce programming and staff.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been funded by Congress since it began broadcasting during the Cold War, reports on human rights and corruption in several countries run by authoritarian governments. In the 1980s, it reported on the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, details of which the Soviet authorities had obscured.Today, it broadcasts in 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus. More