Trump, Donald J

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      Eric Trump Said Adams Treated the Trump Family Company Well

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      Eric Trump, a son of the president and the top family executive at the Trump Organization, which manages the family’s New York City office buildings, said Mayor Eric Adams of New York had always treated the family company well.His remarks came in a radio interview last week in which he discussed the criminal case against Mr. Adams and the debate over whether the criminal charges against him might be dropped or he would be pardoned by President Trump.“This guy just never, never got in the way,” Eric Trump said in a radio interview last week, referring to Mr. Adams. “He never tried to throw our company out in New York. He was always supportive of everything that we did. And I can appreciate that.”Instead, Eric Trump said in the interview with Sid Rosenberg, on Sid and Friends in the Morning on WABC, that Mr. Adams had been unfairly targeted by the Justice Department because he challenged the Biden administration on immigration issues. Eric Trump did not provide evidence to back up the assertion.“No one believes that they’re indicting somebody over getting an upgraded ticket on Turkish Airways,” Eric Trump said, referring incorrectly to Turkish Airlines. Mr. Adams is accused of receiving thousands of dollars’ worth of travel benefits over several years, including upgrades on Turkish Airlines. “And I can also appreciate somebody that had the guts to go against the Washington, D.C., machine.”Eric Trump participated in the meeting that President Trump had last month at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Adams. The mayor said after the meeting that the criminal case was not discussed, but people briefed on the meeting said Mr. Trump did speak generally about what he described as the “weaponized” Justice Department. More

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      Trump Pardons Rod Blagojevich, the Former Illinois Governor

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      President Trump signed a full pardon on Monday for Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted of corruption in 2011 in a scheme to sell a Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama.“It’s my honor to do it,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office of the pardon. “I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with.”Mr. Blagojevich, who served as Illinois governor from 2003 to 2009, did not immediately comment.The pardon was the latest overture between the president and the former governor, who is still known in Chicago simply as “Blago.” Just five years ago, Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence, allowing him to be released from a Colorado prison after eight years and return to his family home on the North Side of Chicago.“It’s been a long, long journey,” Mr. Blagojevich said in February 2020, speaking to reporters from his front door as he repeatedly dabbed his face with a handkerchief. “I’m bruised, I’m battered and I’m bloody.” (He had nicked himself shaving, unaccustomed to standard razors while in prison.)The former governor insisted then that he had broken no laws and that he was the victim of an overzealous Justice Department during the Obama administration. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Blagojevich’s conduct — trying to benefit from the appointment of a Senate seat, among other actions — was so abysmal that it “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”But he found a sympathetic audience in Mr. Trump. While Mr. Blagojevich was awaiting trial 15 years ago, he made appeals to Mr. Trump, appearing on “The Celebrity Apprentice” when Mr. Trump was the host. And Mr. Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, spoke on Fox News while her husband was in prison, a move that seemed calculated to grab Mr. Trump’s attention.Mr. Blagojevich was the fourth governor of Illinois in recent decades to serve time in prison, in a state that has seen its share of corruption charges levied against elected officials from the Chicago City Council to the Statehouse in Springfield.Michael J. Madigan, the former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, is currently on federal trial in Chicago, facing racketeering and bribery charges. A jury has been deliberating for nine days so far without a verdict. More

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      Trump Muses About a Third Term, Over and Over Again

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      The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.Standing inside the Capitol for the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Trump declared his plans to resurrect an idea he had in his first term: to create a national garden filled with statues of notable Americans.The choice of who would be included would be “the president’s sole opinion,” Mr. Trump said, chuckling. And he was giving himself “a 25-year period” to make the selections.A short time later, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Mr. Trump flicked again at the prospect that his time in office could extend beyond two four-year terms.“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he said. “Then somebody said, I don’t think you can. Oh.”At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Mr. Trump spoke of giving himself a “25-year period” to choose statues for a national garden.Eric Lee/The New York TimesJust eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.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 Argues That Courts Cannot Block Musk’s Team From Treasury Systems

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      Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp.The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful.Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.A U.S. district judge in Manhattan, Paul A. Engelmayer, on Saturday ordered any such officials who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”Judge Engelmayer said in an emergency order that the officials’ access heightened the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking. He set a hearing in the case for Friday.Federal lawyers defending Mr. Trump — as well as the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the Treasury Department — called the order “markedly overboard” and said the court should dismiss the injunction, or at least modify his order.They argued that the order violated the Constitution by ignoring the separation of powers and severing the executive branch’s right to appoint its own employees. The restriction, they wrote, “draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction” between civil servants and political appointees working in the Treasury Department.The filing followed warning shots over the weekend. Vice President JD Vance declared that the courts and judges aren’t allowed “to control the executive’s legitimate power,” although American courts have long engaged in the practice of judicial review.On Saturday, Mr. Trump called the ruling by Judge Engelmayer a “disgrace” and said that “No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Trump Calls Gaza a ‘Big Real Estate Site,’ Reiterating Plan for U.S. Takeover

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      President Trump again reiterated his proposal for the United States to take over Gaza, telling reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that the strip of land was “a big real estate site” that the United States was “going to own.”He also mentioned building “some beautiful sites for the people, the Palestinians, to live in.” The location of such sites was not clear. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that the two million Palestinians from the enclave be relocated.Mr. Trump’s comments added even more confusion around the proposal, which he first announced last week at a news conference at the White House alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The idea has drawn widespread international condemnation, with some critics likening it to ethnic cleansing. The forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is a violation of international law and a war crime, according to experts.Top officials in the Trump administration attempted to walk back the president’s comments on Wednesday, a day after he first announced the idea. They insisted President Trump had not committed to sending American troops to Gaza and that any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary.On Sunday, as Mr. Trump was traveling to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans, he raised the proposal again.“Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it,” he said of Gaza, according to an audio recording from Air Force One that was shared with reporters.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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      Markets Play Down the Hit From Trump’s Latest Trade Fight

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      Global markets are in a wait-and-see mode as President Trump vows to slap steel and aluminum tariffs, among other levies, on trading partners.President Trump has ramped up the tariff war. This time, the markets reaction has been muted.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesHope you enjoyed the Super Bowl on Sunday night, and congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles. The ads were better than the game. We’ve got a rundown below.I got into a substantive debate on Sunday with Joe Lonsdale, the venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir, and other investors, about how carried interest is taxed. President Trump has vowed to eliminate the tax exemption, which I’ve been writing about since 2007. You can read excerpts from the debate below.The new phase of the tariff fight Get ready for the latest round of President Trump’s trade wars.On Air Force One on Sunday, en route to the Super Bowl, the president said he would impose a 25 percent levy on all steel and aluminum imports and that reciprocal tariffs on trading partners were coming.China has already retaliated against new Trump tariffs that took effect on Monday, leaving the global economy to grapple with the reality of worldwide trade battles.The latest: Beyond the metals levy — which is aimed squarely at China — Trump is also eyeing broad tariffs on Europe, Taiwan and others, as well as on industries and key commodities like copper, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.Beijing has retaliated with $14 billion worth of tariffs against select American exports, including, coal, liquid natural gas and farm equipment, a sign that the trade war could expand quickly. “Trade and tariff wars have no winners,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said on Monday.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 Orders Treasury to Halt Minting New Pennies to Cut Waste

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      President Trump said on Sunday night that he had ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social. He characterized the production of pennies, which “literally cost us more than 2 cents” each, as wasteful.This is a developing story. Please check here for updates. More

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      Busy Presidential Day Ends at the Super Bowl

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      President Trump arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, with the wind in his sails.He started the day on the course with the golf legend Tiger Woods (they’ve both been working on a merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit). He issued a proclamation making it “Gulf of America Day” while on Air Force One, ceremoniously cementing his executive order last month to rename the Gulf of Mexico.Of greater significance, he announced that, starting Monday, he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all foreign steel and aluminum imports into the United States. He also said he still intended to move forward with taking over the Gaza Strip, which he described as a “big real estate site” that the United States was “going to own.”He criticized a judge’s ruling against efforts by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team to gain access to Treasury systems. And he defended his first three weeks in office, which have caused massive strife across the country and the globe.That was all before the game started.Mr. Trump was met with cheers and a mix of boos as he arrived at the Superdome for the game, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. Among his entourage were his son Eric Trump and Eric’s wife, Lara Trump; his daughter Ivanka Trump; and several Republican leaders.Also at the game is the former first lady Jill Biden, an avid Eagles fan, and her grandson, Beau Biden’s son Hunter. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose security clearance Mr. Trump revoked on Friday, was not in attendance.Mr. Trump and his courtiers were escorted to a suite at the Superdome, where he was seen standing for the national anthem and saluting.In excerpts from an interview that aired earlier Sunday, Mr. Trump told the Fox News anchor Bret Baier that he had chosen to attend the Super Bowl because he thought it would be a “good thing” for the spirit of the country, which he said has “taken on a whole new life.”Asked who he thought would win the game, Mr. Trump praised the quarterbacks of both teams, but he ultimately said he’d go with Kansas City based on the record of its star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes — who, he added, had “a phenomenal wife” (Brittany Mahomes) who happened to be a “Trump fan.”“It’s going to be just a great game,” Mr. Trump said.Mr. Trump’s team seemed to revel in a day in which Mr. Trump got what he perpetually craves: validation and a large audience.“Good, right?” Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said referring to his reception. More