Trump, Donald J

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      A Chaotic Start

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      We cover the people who will surround Donald Trump in his second term. Donald Trump has named most of the advisers and cabinet officials whom he wants to surround him in a second term. To make sense of the team, I asked for help from three of my colleagues who cover Trump: Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan. Our exchange follows.David: I’ve talked with you three in the past about the likelihood that Trump’s second term would be more consequential than his first because his team would have more experience and more detailed plans. But does his list of cabinet selections make you wonder whether the second term may end up being almost as chaotic as the first? Pete Hegseth (the Fox News host Trump wants to run the Pentagon) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (the pick for Health and Human Services) don’t have much experience operating a bureaucracy.Maggie: There are some people with minimal government experience running large organizations in positions of power, so there will be a basic question about their preparation to oversee complex departments. But cabinet secretaries aren’t the only people who matter.The team that Trump is putting in place, as deputies or chiefs of staff or senior advisers at agencies, are people who’ve proved some form of loyalty to him in other situations. All administrations do that to some degree. This version is much more sweeping.Charlie: For all the chaos of Trump’s first term, he was occasionally constrained — by traditional Republicans in Congress and inside his own administration, by a federal judiciary he had not yet transformed and by career officials. All those constraints will be weaker this time.An important thing is that Trump is planning to reinstate a change from the end of the first administration, one that the Biden administration rolled back. This change, known as Schedule F, would make it easier for cabinet officials to fire career civil servants and replace them with loyalists. So there is reason to believe that the second Trump administration will be more chaotic — but also that it will implement more of his agenda.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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      Don’t Cut an Agency So Vital to Our Health

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      More from our inbox:Needed: More Maternity WardsRacial Inequities in the Overdose CrisisVet the Presidential CandidatesTech Tycoons in ChargeA building on the N.I.H. campus in Bethesda, Md. The agency comprises 27 institutes and has a budget of $48 billion.Hailey Sadler for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Long Government’s ‘Crown Jewel,’ Health Institute Is Becoming a Target” (news article, Dec. 3):Your article describes the National Institutes of Health as a “crown jewel” of the federal government based on its track record of success in driving medical and health research and innovation. The article also captures the longstanding bipartisan support for the agency and its work.When asked in a national survey we commissioned this year, Americans of all political persuasions expressed their support for federally funded research:Eighty-eight percent of Americans agree that basic scientific research is necessary and should be supported by the federal government.Some 62 percent would be willing to pay $1 per week more in taxes to support additional medical and health research.And 89 percent say it is important that the U.S. is a global leader in research to improve health.Continuing to treat the N.I.H. as a top national priority is a strategy that will spur new treatments and cures for the health threats facing our population. It will also drive U.S. business and job growth across the life science, technology, manufacturing and service sectors that in the end will keep us globally competitive.Mary WoolleyNew YorkThe writer is the president and C.E.O. of Research!America.To the Editor:The suggestion to cut infectious disease funding displays dangerous historical amnesia. Just as the 1918-20 flu pandemic killed millions of people globally, Covid-19’s emergence in 2020 demonstrated how quickly a novel pathogen can upend society. While vaccines helped curb Covid-19’s impact, we face an equally urgent crisis: antibiotic resistance.Currently, drug-resistant bacteria infect over two million Americans annually, causing more than 20,000 deaths. Without sustained funding and research, projections show antimicrobial resistance could cause 10 million annual deaths globally by 2050.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 Trouble Began Where #MeToo Became #ChurchToo

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      When did we know that the #MeToo moment was truly over?At its most compelling, #MeToo tried to change a culture that both concealed and enabled the illegal abuse of women and imposed hypocritical double standards, holding women to one standard of behavior while celebrating and elevating unscrupulous men.But events in 2024 have told us loudly and clearly that the moment has passed.Perhaps it was when reports emerged that Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of defense, had paid an accuser to settle a sexual assault claim. He denies wrongdoing, but his defense — that he had consensual sex with a married woman — was still dreadful. His philandering and mistreatment of women have been so egregious that his mother called him an “abuser of women,” in an email to him (she has since disavowed her statement) — and yet somehow his chances of being confirmed by the Senate appear to be increasing.Perhaps it was when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is married to the actress Cheryl Hines, allegedly had an improper “personal relationship” via smartphone with Olivia Nuzzi, a political reporter who is much younger, and she lost her job while he was picked to run the Department of Health and Human Services.But I think it happened earlier, when a jury found Donald Trump responsible for sexual abuse, and he was ultimately re-elected to the presidency. After years of rightfully arguing that combating sexual assault and sexual abuse can’t override due process, many conservatives not only disregarded the jury verdict, they actually reveled in how little his voters cared about the scandal, or just dismissed it as another instance of “lawfare” against Trump.I distinctly remember the mood on the right when the #MeToo movement got going. There was a sense of schadenfreude. The morally bankrupt, sexualized culture of Hollywood and the liberal media had finally been exposed. For all their talk about feminism and respecting women, many famous liberals proved to be dangerous hypocrites — or much, much worse.Yes, there was leakage into right-wing media. Roger Ailes was pushed out at Fox News in 2016, and Bill O’Reilly suffered the same fate after my Times colleagues Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt reported that O’Reilly or Fox had paid $13 million to settle claims of sexual misconduct made by five different women against him.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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      Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board

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      As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congress who had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.Some members of the advisory board also serve on a presidential Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created in the 1970s after a congressional investigation into abuses by national security agencies and which tries to ferret out illegal spying activities. That group typically includes the larger board’s chair, so it is likely that Mr. Nunes will participate in it as well.The work products of the two boards are usually kept secret. A rare exception came in 2023, when the Biden administration publicly released a report in which the two panels urged Congress to extend an expiring law that authorizes a warrantless surveillance program, but also called for new limits on the F.B.I.’s ability to use information gathered under the program.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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      ABC to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Defamation Suit Brought by Trump

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      The outcome of the lawsuit marks an unusual victory for President-elect Donald J. Trump in his ongoing legal campaign against national news organizations.ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.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 He Supports an End to Daylight Savings Time

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump said on social media that the time change is “inconvenient” and that the Republican Party would try to put an end to it.President-elect Donald J. Trump called daylight saving time “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation” in a social media post on Friday and said the Republican Party would try to “eliminate” it, in the latest effort to end the twice-yearly time change.Most states change their time by one hour — in March, when clocks spring forward, and in November, when clocks fall back.Over the years, many elected officials, including Mr. Trump, have expressed support for ending the changes.“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!” Mr. Trump posted on social media in March 2019.He reiterated his support to end the time switches on Friday, posting on X, “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”On social media, there was support for Mr. Trump’s post.Many people called the time changes antiquated. Some noted that daylight saving time would most likely not be eliminated, as his post suggested, but rather would be made permanent, and the time changes would be eliminated.Ending the clock change would require the approval of Congress. There have been many bipartisan efforts to pass such a bill, but all have failed. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but it died in the House. An effort to pass a similar bill in 2023 also failed.The idea behind daylight saving time is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning to the evening, so that people can make more use of daylight.William Willet, an English builder, is credited with popularizing daylight saving time in the early 1900s, when he urged British lawmakers to shift the clocks to benefit the economy. Parliament rejected the proposal in 1909, but then embraced it a few years later under the pressures of World War I.Other countries followed suit in an effort to cut energy costs, including the United States starting in March 1918. But there is no consensus on whether daylight saving time actually does reduce energy use.Small-business owners say that when it stays light after work, people are more likely to go out and spend money. But many Americans consider the time switch a nuisance.Parents say it throws off bedtimes for their children. And no one likes losing an hour of sleep when clocks move forward in March.In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine called for an end to daylight saving time, saying that the change disrupts the body’s natural clock and can cause health issues. More

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      Trump Brings Hegseth to Watch Army-Navy Game

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump made a public show of support for his choice to lead the Defense Department.President-elect Donald J. Trump attended the annual Army-Navy football game in Maryland on Saturday with Pete Hegseth, his embattled choice for defense secretary, sending a message of support ahead of Senate confirmation hearings that are likely to take place next month.Allies and aides of Mr. Trump’s posted video of the president-elect and Mr. Hegseth on the social media site X. In one video, the two men, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, can be seen standing for the national anthem.In another video, Mr. Trump can be seen arriving in a suite at the stadium, pumping his fist into the air as fans cheer and applaud his presence at the game.The Army-Navy game pits the football teams of the two military services against each other in one of the highlights of the college football season. Saturday’s game was the 125th meeting of the rivals — the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen. They played at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., the home of the Washington Commanders football team.National politicians rarely take sides in the rivalry. The service academy team with the best record at the end of the season wins the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.But the game is often a good place for a president to be seen looking patriotic. President Barack Obama attended the 112th game between the two teams in 2011, and performed the coin toss at the beginning of the game to determine who had the first possession of the ball. The next year, in 2012, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. attended the game.Mr. Trump has spent most of his time since Election Day out of the spotlight as he assembles the personnel he wants to fill his new government and plans actions he will take when he assumes office next month.Mr. Trump was also accompanied at the game by Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car. Other allies of Mr. Trump’s, including Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson, were also at the game.Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and military veteran, faces numerous questions about his qualifications to head the Defense Department, allegations of personal misconduct toward women and reports that he has abused alcohol while on the job. He has called the accusations baseless and has vowed not to withdraw from consideration.Mr. Trump initially appeared willing to consider an alternative choice for defense secretary if Mr. Hegseth proved too controversial. But even as several senators voiced concern about Mr. Hegseth, the president-elect issued a statement forcefully backing Mr. Hegseth for the job.The appearance of the two men at the football game appeared calculated to put to rest any questions about whether Mr. Trump still supports Mr. Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. More

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      U.S. Will Allow California to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars, Officials Say

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      California and 11 other states want to halt the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to stop them.The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission soon after taking office, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era climate policies. “California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Mr. Trump has said. “I will terminate that.”The state is expected to fight any revocation, setting up a consequential legal battle with the new administration.“California has long led the nation in pioneering climate policies and innovation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, earlier this year. “Those efforts will continue for years to come.”He has described the ban as the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine.Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has for decades allowed California, which has historically had the most polluted air in the nation, to enact tougher clean air standards than those set by the federal government. Federal law also allows other states under certain circumstances to adopt California’s standards as their own.The waiver can be used to rein in toxic, smog-causing pollutants like soot, nitrogen dioxide and ozone that lead to asthma and lung disease. But California officials have also been using the waiver to curb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, a chief cause of global warming. Gas-powered cars and other forms of transportation are the biggest source of carbon dioxide generated by the United States.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