Trump, Donald J

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      Trump Picks Strident Supporter for Civil Rights Post at Justice Dept.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Monday that he would nominate Harmeet K. Dhillon, a California lawyer who has long championed Mr. Trump in public, in court cases and on social media, to run the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.In declaring his choice on social media, Mr. Trump said Ms. Dhillon “has stood up consistently to protect our cherished civil liberties.” He praised her legal work targeting social media companies, restrictions on religious gatherings during the pandemic and “corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers.”Ms. Dhillon has been a conservative activist so devoted to Mr. Trump that she was willing to attack not only Democrats but also fellow Republicans, including her ultimately unsuccessful challenge last year to the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee at the time.She was also the co-chairwoman in 2020 of a group, Lawyers for Trump, that challenged the results of that year’s presidential election.It is not unusual for Republican administrations to significantly scale back the work in the Civil Rights Division. In Ms. Dhillon, however, Mr. Trump has chosen a lawyer active in the culture wars whose firm specializes in championing the right’s causes.“I’m extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda,” Ms. Dhillon posted on social media. “It has been my dream to be able to serve our great country, and I am so excited to be part of an incredible team of lawyers led by” Pam Bondi, Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general.The division, which enforces voting rights laws, investigates police departments and brings charges for violations of people’s civil rights, is spending the final days of the Biden administration finishing as much work as possible on cases involving patterns or practices of police misconduct.Earlier on Monday, the division announced findings highly critical of the police department in Worcester, Mass. Such findings, however, may not amount to much, given that those investigations will soon be handed over to the Trump administration.During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department walked away from several high-profile cases involving misconduct by major city police departments, and lawyers who specialize in such cases have said they expect the second Trump administration to do much the same. More

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      Trump elige a un ex embajador en México como subsecretario de Estado

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      Christopher Landau es un abogado de larga trayectoria e hijo de un diplomático veterano que se desempeñó como embajador en tres naciones de América Latina.El presidente electo Donald Trump anunció el domingo que había elegido a Christopher Landau, abogado y otrora embajador en México, para ser subsecretario de Estado.De ser ratificado por el Senado, Landau trabajaría con el secretario de Estado para llevar a cabo la política exterior de Trump, que tiene varios componentes básicos: frenar la inmigración ilegal, imponer aranceles para tratar de impulsar la industria manufacturera estadounidense, mantener a Estados Unidos fuera de las guerras y conseguir que los aliados paguen una mayor parte de los acuerdos de defensa militar.Trump ha dicho que entablará conversaciones con autócratas para intentar llegar a acuerdos, entre ellos Vladimir Putin de Rusia, Xi Jinping de China y Kim Jong-un de Corea del Norte.Trump ha elegido al senador Marco Rubio, de Florida, como secretario de Estado. Rubio está pendiente de ratificación por el Senado, al igual que Landau.Trump hizo el anuncio sobre Landau en una publicación en las redes sociales el domingo por la noche, al indicar que Landau trabajaría con Rubio “para promover la seguridad y prosperidad de nuestra Nación a través de una Política Exterior de Estados Unidos Primero”.Debido a su experiencia en el trato con México, Landau podría recibir el encargo de gestionar la migración y los aranceles, lo que implicaría la coordinación con otras agencias estadounidenses. Trump ha prometido deportar a un gran número de inmigrantes indocumentados. En el anuncio, Trump dijo que Landau había ayudado a reducir la inmigración ilegal cuando era embajador.Landau fungió como embajador de Trump en México de 2019 a 2021, año en el que dejó el país después de que Trump perdiera su intento de reelección ante el presidente Joe Biden. Landau trabaja en la oficina de Washington del despacho legal Ellis George y tuvo una carrera de tres décadas como abogado antes de convertirse en embajador. Graduado por la Facultad de Derecho de Harvard, Landau trabajó como secretario de los jueces de la Corte Suprema Antonin Scalia y Clarence Thomas.Landau estuvo vinculado al Departamento de Estado antes de ser nombrado embajador por Trump. Nació en Madrid, de padre diplomático estadounidense. Su padre, George Landau, sería más tarde embajador en Paraguay, Chile y Venezuela. En su vida adulta, el Landau más joven llegó a ser director de la Fundación Diplomacy Center, un grupo sin ánimo de lucro que sostiene un museo sobre la diplomacia estadounidense dentro del Departamento de Estado.Al igual que Landau, Rubio, el elegido de Trump para secretario de Estado, tiene un gran interés por América Latina. Es hijo de inmigrantes cubanos y, como miembro del Comité de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado, desempeñó un papel influyente en la política sobre Venezuela en el primer gobierno de Trump.Landau fue ratificado por el Senado para ser embajador en México, y se espera que no tenga muchos problemas para ser aprobado de nuevo para el nombramiento.Edward Wong cubre asuntos globales, la política exterior estadounidense y el Departamento de Estado. Más de Edward Wong More

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      Trump Picks Former Ambassador to Mexico for Deputy Secretary of State

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      Christopher Landau is a longtime lawyer and the son of a veteran U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to three nations in Latin America.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Sunday that he had picked Christopher Landau, a lawyer and former ambassador to Mexico, to be the deputy secretary of state.If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Landau would work with the secretary of state to carry out Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, which has several core components: stemming illegal immigration, imposing tariffs to try to jump-start American manufacturing, keeping the United States out of wars and getting allies to pay for a greater share of military defense arrangements.Mr. Trump has said he will talk with autocrats to try to reach deals, including Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong-un of North Korea.Mr. Trump has picked Senator Marco Rubio of Florida to be secretary of state. Mr. Rubio is awaiting Senate confirmation, as is Mr. Landau.Mr. Trump made the announcement about Mr. Landau in a social media post on Sunday night, saying Mr. Landau would work with Mr. Rubio “to promote our Nation’s security and prosperity through an America First Foreign Policy.”Because of his background in dealing with Mexico, Mr. Landau could be tasked with handling migration and tariffs, which would involve coordinating with other U.S. agencies. Mr. Trump has promised to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants. In the announcement, Mr. Trump said Mr. Landau had helped reduce illegal immigration when he was ambassador.Mr. Landau served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Mexico from 2019 to 2021, when he left after Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid to President Biden. Mr. Landau works in the Washington office of the law firm Ellis George and had a three-decade career as a lawyer before becoming ambassador. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Landau worked as a clerk for the Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.Mr. Landau had ties to the State Department before he was appointed ambassador by Mr. Trump. He was born in Madrid, to a father who was a U.S. diplomat. His father, George Landau, later became ambassador to Paraguay, Chile and Venezuela. In his adult life, the younger Mr. Landau became a director of the Diplomacy Center Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports a museum about American diplomacy inside the State Department.Like Mr. Landau, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, has a keen interest in Latin America. He is the son of Cuban immigrants, and, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he played an influential role on Venezuela policy in the first Trump administration.Mr. Landau was confirmed by the Senate to be ambassador to Mexico, and he is expected to have little problem being confirmed again for the new position. More

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      Commerce Dept. Is on the Front Lines of China Policy

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      The department has confronted the challenge of China by restricting key exports, a policy that is likely to continue in the Trump administration.The Commerce Department has traditionally focused on promoting the interests of American business and increasing U.S. exports abroad. But in recent years, it has taken on a national security role, working to defend the country by restricting exports of America’s most powerful computer chips.While the Trump administration is likely to remake much of the Biden administration’s economic policy, with a renewed focus on broad tariffs, it is unlikely to roll back the Commerce Department’s evolution.“I’m truthfully not terribly worried that the Trump administration will undo all the great work we’ve done,” Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, said in an interview. “Number one, it’s at its core national security, which I hope we can all agree on. But two, it is the direction that they were going in.”It was the first Trump administration that took the initial steps toward the Commerce Department’s evolution, Ms. Raimondo noted, with its decision to put the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei on the “entity list.” Companies on the list are deemed a national security concern, and transfers of technology to them are restricted.Ms. Raimondo came into the commerce job focused on confronting the challenge of China by building upon the Trump administration’s actions.She has overseen a significant expansion of U.S. economic and technology restrictions against China. The Biden administration transformed the tough but sometimes erratic actions the Trump administration had taken toward Beijing into more sweeping and systematic limits on shipping advanced technology to China.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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      Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.

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      Applicants for government posts, including inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, say they have been asked about their thoughts on Jan. 6 and who they believe won the 2020 election.At the Trump transition offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., prospective occupants of high posts inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies typically run through a gamut of three to four interviews, conducted in recent weeks by a mix of Silicon Valley investors and innovators and a team of the MAGA faithful.The applicants report that they have been asked about how to overhaul the Pentagon, or what technologies could make the intelligence agencies more effective, or how they feel about the use of the military to enforce immigration policy. But before they leave, some of them have been asked a final set of questions that seemed designed to assess their loyalty to President-elect Donald J. Trump.The questions went further than just affirming allegiance to the incoming administration. The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question.This account is based on interviews with nine people who either interviewed for jobs in the administration or were directly involved in the process. Among those were applicants who said they gave what they intuited to be the wrong answer — either decrying the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 or saying that President Biden won in 2020. Their answers were met with silence and the taking of notes. They didn’t get the jobs.Three of the people interviewed are close to the transition team and confirmed that loyalty questions were part of some interviews across multiple agencies, and that the Trump team researched what candidates had said about Mr. Trump on the day of the Capitol riot and in the days following. Candidates are also rated on a scale of one to four in more than a half-dozen categories, including competence.Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to address specific questions about the topics being raised in job interviews. Instead, she said: “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to make America great again.”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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      With Pageantry and Dignitaries, France Unveils a Reborn Notre-Dame

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      Five years after a ruinous fire, the reopening of the cathedral restored it in full glory to the Paris skyline and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France.Five years after a fire that devoured its roof and nearly collapsed its walls, a renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors on Saturday, its centuries-old bell clanging, its 8,000-pipe organ first groaning — and then roaring back to life.It was an emotional rebirth for one of the world’s most recognized monuments, a Gothic medieval masterpiece and cornerstone of European culture and faith.“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, said before poking three times on the cathedral doors with the point of his staff, made with a beam of the roof that survived the fire.As he pushed open the door, the sounds of brass instruments and the melodic voices of dozens of children singing in the cathedral choir filled the nave.The ceremony restored the cathedral to the Parisian skyline in its full glory and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France at a time of political dysfunction, a stagnating economy and a bitter budget standoff that this week resulted in the toppling of the center-right government.With the successful reopening of Notre-Dame, on a schedule that many had derided as too ambitious, France showed off its ability to execute major projects, as it did with the Summer Olympics, and exhibited its artistic and artisanal expertise.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 Attends Notre-Dame Ceremony in First Foreign Trip Since Election

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump made a splashy re-entry onto the global stage on Saturday as he attended the reopening ceremony of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, sitting in the front row between President Emmanuel Macron of France and the French first lady, Brigitte Macron.Mr. Trump was joined by Elon Musk, who is helping run Mr. Trump’s new government-efficiency panel. President Biden, whose international relevance wanes at the close of his term, was not present. Jill Biden, his wife and first lady, took her spot next to Mrs. Macron.Mr. Trump’s first foreign trip since winning the presidential election in November provided a diplomatic undercurrent to the celebration of the cathedral, renovated since a 2019 fire. Before the ceremony, Mr. Trump arrived at Mr. Macron’s office at Élysée Palace, where the men shook hands and briefly hugged. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, also met with Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump there, where he lobbied for Mr. Trump’s support in the war against Russia.Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump last met in late September, when Mr. Trump was still a presidential candidate. Mr. Zelensky stood beside Mr. Trump silently that day as Mr. Trump told reporters that both sides wanted the Russia-Ukraine war to end, including its instigator, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Trump was among the last major leaders to arrive at Notre-Dame on Saturday, and when he did, he was greeted with muted applause. Mr. Zelensky had received a louder ovation.What came next was more akin to a scene on the campaign trail: Mr. Trump walked down a rope line of world leaders, shaking their hands one by one, as the largely seated audience behind them watched. Some clutched their phones to record the moment. Afterward, Mr. Trump took a seat by himself, until the Macrons sat on either side of him.Mr. Macron was eager to use the world stage to celebrate his government’s success in restoring the cathedral with a speed that critics had not expected. But the reopening arrived at an untimely moment for the government: Michel Barnier, France’s prime minister, lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, leaving it rudderless. Mr. Barnier was forced to resign, while Mr. Macron must pick his successor.Mr. Trump also met on Saturday with Prince William in Paris. Many nations are bracing for a second Trump administration, and some foreign leaders have already made clear their interest in working with the president-elect. Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Macron by phone at least once as he planned his trip to Paris.In the past, Mr. Macron has showered Mr. Trump with flattery, and he invited him to attend Bastille Day ceremonies in 2017. But their relationship deteriorated in 2018 when Mr. Macron supported the idea of a true European military defense, one that could counter rivals like Russia but also the United States. More

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      JD Vance, Elon Musk and the Future of America

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      Beneath all the furor around Donald Trump’s appointments — Matt Gaetz down and out, Pete Hegseth down but maybe coming back, the Kash Patel drama waiting the wings — the most important figures in this administration’s orbit have not changed since Election Day: Besides the president himself, the future of Trumpism is still most likely to be shaped and stamped by two men, JD Vance and Elon Musk.Not just because of their talent and achievements, and not just because Vance is the political heir apparent and Musk would be one of the world’s most influential men even if he didn’t have the ear of the president-elect. It’s also because they represent, more clearly than any other appointee, two potent visions for a 21st century right, and their interaction is likely to shape conservatism for the next four years and beyond.Musk is the dynamist, the believer in growth and innovation and exploration as the lodestars of American civilization. His dynamism was not always especially ideological: The Tesla and SpaceX mogul was once a Barack Obama Democrat, happy to support an active and sometimes spendthrift government so long as it spent freely on his projects. But as Musk has moved right, he has adopted a more libertarian pose, insisting on the profound wastefulness of government spending and the tyranny of the administrative state.Vance meanwhile is the populist, committed to protect and uplift those parts of America neglected or left behind in an age of globalization. Along with his support for the Trumpian causes of tariffs and immigration restriction, this worldview has made him more sympathetic than the average Republican senator to certain forms of government investment — from longstanding programs like Social Security to new ideas about industrial policy and family policy.Despite this contrast, the Musk and Vance worldviews overlap in important ways. Musk has moved in a populist direction on immigration, while Vance has been a venture capitalist and clearly has a strong sympathy for parts of the dynamist worldview, especially its critique of the regulatory state. Both men share a farsighted interest in the collapsing birthrate, a heretofore-fringe issue that’s likely to dominate the later parts of the 21st century. And there is modest-but-real convergence between the Muskian “tech” worldview and Vance’s more “neo-trad” style of religious conservatism, based on not just a shared antipathy toward wokeness but also similar views about the intelligibility of the cosmos and the providential place of humankind in history.So you can imagine a scenario, in Trump’s second term and beyond, where these convergences yield a dynamist-populist fusionism — a conservatism that manages to simultaneously aim for the stars and uplift and protect the working class, in which economic growth and technological progress help renew the heartland (as Musk’s own companies have brought jobs and optimism to South Texas) while also preserving our creaking social compact.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