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      Yes, the media’s Biden coverage was flawed. But its reporting on Trump was far worse | Margaret Sullivan

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      With a new book out about Joe Biden’s failed re-election campaign, a media reckoning is in full swing.It goes something like this: mainstream journalism failed the voters. Reporters were complicit; they didn’t tell us how much the elderly president had declined. They didn’t dig beneath the surface of what Biden aides were doing as they covered up the physical and cognitive decline of the leader of the free world.And some of that is valid, no doubt. Under fire in recent days, CNN’s Jake Tapper, co-author of Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, has even nodded to his own role in downplaying Biden’s increasing frailty.There’s plenty of blame to go around for Biden’s ultimate loss – and the horrors that it brought the whole world in the election of Donald Trump to a second term. Bruce Springsteen laid it out to a concert audience last week as he opened his European tour: “My home, the America I love, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”As a media critic, I’m always happy to see a good reckoning for the mainstream press.But this one makes me wonder. When is the reckoning coming for the failures to cover Trump effectively?At what point will there be a general acknowledgment and some serious self-scrutiny about the way big media failed to adequately convey what would happen if Trump were elected again?“I have a hard time watching journalists high-five each other over books on [the White House] covering up for Biden,” wrote the political scientist and scholar Norman Ornstein, one of the sanest commentators about politics in recent years.It’s “a diversion from their own deep culpability in Trump’s election”.What would be the elements of this reckoning?Here’s Ornstein again on what the mainstream press wrought with their hubris and their failures.“False equivalence, normalizing the abnormal, treating Trump as no real danger were the norm, not the exception.”From 2015 – when Trump first declared his candidacy for president – right through the 2024 election, the press in general didn’t get across the reality.When the New York Times infamously set the tone in 2016 by vastly overplaying the supposedly shocking scandal of Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server, that was only the beginning. But it was a consequential beginning since, even in our fragmented and polarized media system, the Times was then, and is now, still extremely influential.I’ve long believed that Times editors were so dedicated to proving that they could be tough on Candidate Clinton – convinced she would be the president and that Trump was no real threat – that they went way overboard.Was the fault for electing Trump entirely theirs or even the fault of the mainstream media in general led by them? Of course not. But they played a destructive role, one that has never been adequately acknowledged.Then, during Trump’s first term – and especially during the 2024 campaign – the mainstream press constantly normalized the would-be autocrat.The ever-so-apt term “sanewashing” was born to describe what was going on, and the media’s role. Talk about a cover-up. Trump’s rallies were exercises in lunacy, as he spun tales about sharks and Hannibal Lecter, rambling for hours.But the coverage seldom came close to getting across the reality. Instead, we’d hear descriptions about his “freewheeling” style or “brash” approach.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs for the autocracy in waiting, there were excellent stories about the blueprint for his second term known as Project 2025, but it was far from obvious whether news leaders stopped to ask if voters really understood the stakes. Now we see the Trump administration quite literally enacting that same Project 2025 that he claimed he barely knew anything about.Horserace coverage prevailed, day after day. And then, when Biden’s decline became impossible to ignore – after that earth-shattering presidential debate last June – news organizations changed their tune.For weeks, there was nothing but “hey, Biden is old” coverage, once again failing to put the emphasis where it belonged: on the dangers of a Trump presidency.Heads of news organizations and reporters themselves are fond of distancing themselves from their real mission at times like these: to communicate the reality of an election’s actual stakes. Instead, they talk in lofty terms of merely covering the news, as if their daily decisions about the volume, choice and tone of coverage didn’t matter.It certainly mattered just before the 2016 election, when the entire top of a front page – and many an evening newscast – were given over to the reigniting of the justice department’s investigation of Clinton’s emails.It certainly mattered when influential opinion sections were ceaselessly baying about Biden’s cognitive decline last summer in order to force him out of the race.Despite wishful thinking, there’s no such thing as “just the facts” or complete neutrality, because editorial decisions and reporting choices always matter.What do you investigate? What is the precise wording of that news alert? How prominently do you display that story? Whom do you quote and to whom do you grant anonymity? What photo do you choose? Do you use terms like “straining the bounds of propriety” to describe what looks more like a bribe?So if the media were going to put their thumb on the scale – as they inevitably do – they ought to have done so in defense of democracy, the rule of law and human decency.The failure to do so is playing out in our shattered world, and at a frightening pace.That’s a reckoning we ought to have, but I doubt we ever will.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      US House Republicans propose fees on immigrants to fund Trump’s crackdown

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      Congressional Republicans are proposing an array of new fees on immigrants seeking to remain in the United States in a move that advocates warn will create insurmountable financial barriers.Legislation moving through the GOP-controlled House of Representatives could require immigrants to pay potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars to seek asylum, care for a minor in the government’s custody, or apply for humanitarian parole.Republican lawmakers have described the fees as necessary to offset the costs of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. But experts who work with immigrants say putting more economic pressure on people attempting to navigate US immigration laws could drain what little money they have, force them into exploitative work arrangements, or push them to leave the country altogether.“These are essentially a mask for targeted attacks towards some of the most vulnerable immigrants that we currently have going through our legal system right now: asylum seekers, children, survivors of crimes,” said Victoria Maqueda Feldman, director of legal programs at Ayuda, which assists low-income immigrants in Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland.Trump has made it a priority of his administration to not only rid the country of undocumented immigrants, but also to stop many new immigrants from entering the country. The GOP-controlled Congress is negotiating what he has dubbed “one big, beautiful bill”, a huge spending and taxation package that includes provisions to turn his hardline immigration proposals into reality.Republicans are limited in what they can accomplish in Congress due to the Senate’s filibuster, which the Democratic minority can use to block legislation it does not support. The GOP is seeking to enact Trump’s legislative agenda through the budget reconciliation procedure, under which bills can pass with simple majorities in both chambers but must affect only spending and revenues – like fees.“This system has left these agencies with funding shortfalls paid for by American taxpayers,” said Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House judiciary committee. “The fees included in this bill will … allow us to make the necessary investments in immigration enforcement in a fiscally responsible manner.”Heidi Altman, vice-president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said the new fees appeared targeted at the sorts of immigrants that the Trump administration has prioritized keeping out, such as asylum seekers, who arrived in large numbers during Joe Biden’s term.“It’s part of the administration’s assault on humanitarian protections for immigrant communities,” Altman said. “This is an entire new way of thinking about fees as a penalty, essentially, for an immigrant status.”Under the bill, immigrants would have to pay $1,000 to apply for asylum, $100 to keep an application active each year as it makes it through the overburdened immigration system, and $550 for a work permit. People requesting humanitarian parole to enter the United States would have to pay $1,000, and abused or neglected children who qualify for a program called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status would have to pay $500. Immigration cases can take a long time to resolve in court, but if a defendant asks a judge for a continuance, they would have to pay $100 each time.These fees do not exist under current law, and the bill specifies they cannot be waived in almost all circumstances.The new fees are targeted at people, often relatives, who seek to sponsor children who crossed the border without a parent or guardian and wind up in the government’s care. In order to take custody of an unaccompanied minor, adults would have to pay $3,500 to partially pay back the government for the minor’s care, along with another $5,000 to ensure the child attends their court hearings, though that money can be reimbursed if they do.“In some cases, that would be placing $3,500 between a mother or a father being able to get their child out of government custody and back into their own home,” Altman said.The fees were proposed as the Trump administration looks for novel ways to push immigrants out, including by offering them cash to leave. The bill gives a preview of what more will come, should the president receive the tens of billions of dollars he has requested from Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than $50bn is allocated in the legislation to construct a wall along the border with Mexico, as well as fortifications elsewhere. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will receive $45bn for detention facilities, $14bn for its deportation operations and billions of dollars more to hire 10,000 new agents by 2029.For the low-income clients Ayuda serves, Feldman predicted that the fees “could amount to a complete barrier to forms of relief”.Some might be able to pull together the money, but “through means that could put them in greater danger. So, having to work under the table, putting them at risk for labor trafficking. They might have to take out loans that have very high interest rates, putting them at risk for having to pay off something that is very expensive.”The bill is a top priority of congressional Republicans, but its pathway to enactment is unclear. On Friday, rightwing Republican lawmakers blocked its progress through a key House committee, arguing it did not cut government spending deeply enough.Last month, when the judiciary committee met to approve the portion of the bill that included the fee increases, GOP lawmakers approved it quickly, with little signs of dissent. More

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      Judges thwart Trump effort to deport pro-Palestinian students – but their fight isn’t over

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      The Trump administration suffered yet another blow this past week to its efforts to deport international students over their pro-Palestinian speech, when a third federal judge threw a wrench into a government campaign widely criticized as a political witch hunt with little historical precedent.On Wednesday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered immigration authorities to release Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri from custody. The Indian scholar’s release followed that of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian permanent resident and Columbia University student. The administration is seeking to deport all of them on the grounds that their presence in the US is harmful to the country’s foreign policy, part of a crackdown on political dissent that has sent shockwaves through US campuses.Only the first foreign student to be detained by the administration over his activism, Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident of Palestinian descent, remains in detention more than two months after being taken from his Columbia University residential building. Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student and green card holder, went into hiding and sued the administration in March before authorities could detain her; others have left the country rather than risk detention.A federal judge in New Jersey is expected to rule soon on a request to release Khalil pending further resolution of his case – but his attorneys are hopeful the other releases are a good sign. The green card holder, who is married to a US citizen, was known on Columbia’s campus as a steady mediator between the university administration and student protesters. He was recently denied a request to attend the birth of his son.“These decisions reflect a simple truth – the constitution forbids the government from locking up anyone, including noncitizens, just because it doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Brian Hauss, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups representing Khalil and the others. “We will not rest until Mahmoud Khalil is free, along with everyone else in detention for their political beliefs.”Diala Shamas, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is also involved in Khalil’s defense, said that “we’re seeing wins in all of these cases”, but added that “every single day that Mahmoud Khalil spends in detention is a day too long and adds to the chilling effect that his continued detention has on other people”.The arrests have prompted widespread anxiety among international students and scholars and significantly contributed to a climate of fear and repression on US campuses. Despite occasional efforts to revive it, last year’s mass campus protest movement has been significantly dampened, even as Israel’s war in Gaza – the focus of the protests – is only escalating.But while the Trump administration seems to be getting clobbered in court, the fundamental question at the heart of the cases – whether the government has the authority to detain and deport noncitizens over their political speech – is far from settled.‘Times of excess’Khan Suri, Öztürk and Mahdawi have all been released pending a resolution to federal court cases over the government’s authority to detain them. Separately, the government’s effort to deport them is moving through the immigration court system, a different process.Advocates warn of a long legal battle that is likely to end up before the US supreme court. But they are hopeful. The releases, which required clearing substantial legal thresholds, are a welcome sign, they say, that the courts are skeptical of the government’s broader case: that it has the authority to use an obscure immigration provision to deport anyone the secretary of state deems a foreign policy problem.The government hasn’t clearly defended its position. In an appeal hearing this month in Öztürk and Mahdawi’s cases, one of the judges on the panel asked the government’s lawyers whether the administration believed the students’ speech to be protected by the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech and expression“We have not taken a position on that,” one of the attorneys, Drew Ensign, responded. “I don’t have the authority to take a position on that.”Instead, the legal proceedings thus far have largely focused on jurisdictional and other technical arguments. In Khalil’s case, for example, a New Jersey judge recently issued a 108-page decision dealing exclusively with his authority to hear the case. The judge hasn’t yet signaled his position on the constitutional questions.US district court judge Geoffrey Crawford, who ordered Mahdawi’s release, compared the current political moment with the red scare and Palmer raids of the early 20th century, when US officials detained and deported hundreds of foreign nationals suspected of holding leftist views, as well as the McCarthyism of the 1950s.“The wheel of history has come around again,” Crawford wrote, “but as before these times of excess will pass.”In her ruling in Khan Suri’s case this week, US district judge Patricia Giles said that his release was “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech”, and that she believed the broader challenge against the government had a substantial likelihood of success.Chip Gibbons, the policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, a civil rights group, noted that while challenging immigration detention is often an “uphill battle” given the deference typically shown by judges to the government, the rulings might suggest otherwise.“Three separate federal judges, in three separate cases, have found that victims of the Trump-Rubio campaign of politically motivated immigration enforcement raise substantial constitutional claims challenging their detention,” he added. “Even a federal judiciary all too often deferential to executive claims of national security or foreign policy powers has clearly seen that the administration’s actions are likely retaliatory against political speech.”But even if the government ultimately loses its bid to deport students whose views it does not like, the free speech climate in the US has changed. The administration continues to pursue coercive investigations into universities under the guise of fighting antisemitism, dangling billions of dollars in funding as a threat, and universities have been surprisingly compliant in order to prevent a revival of last year’s protests.But some voices remain defiant. “We will not fear anyone because our fight is a fight for love, is a fight for democracy, is a fight for humanity,” Mahdawi said at a press conference upon his release. “This system of democracy [has] checks and balances, and discord is part of it.” More

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      ‘Very disturbing’: Trump receipt of overseas gifts unprecedented, experts warn

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      Former White House lawyers, diplomatic protocol officers and foreign affairs experts have told the Guardian that Donald Trump’s receipt of overseas gifts and targeted investments are “unprecedented”, as the White House remakes US foreign policy under a pay-for-access code that eclipses past administrations with characteristic Trumpian excess.The openness to foreign largesse was on full display this week as the US president was feted in the Gulf states during his first major diplomatic trip abroad this term, inking deals he claimed were worth trillions of dollars and pumping local leaders for investments as he says he remakes US foreign policy to prioritise “America first” – putting aside concerns of human rights or international law for the bottom line of American businesses and taxpayers.But quite often, the bottom line also has benefited Trump himself. His family’s wealth has ballooned by more than $3bn, according to press estimates, and the reported benefits from cryptocurrencies and other investment deals such as plans for new Trump-branded family properties may be far larger. Deals for billions more have been inked by business associates close to Trump, meaning that their political support for the White House can translate into lucrative contracts abroad.“When we’re negotiating with other countries, the concern is that our negotiating position will change if someone does a favor or delivers a gift to the president of the United States,” Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the administration of George W Bush, said.“Whether it’s trying to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war, or the Middle East or anything else. You know the the impression is given that the position of the United States can be swayed and even bought.”Others argue that the message being sent by the White House is that American foreign policy is being sold to the highest bidder.View image in fullscreen“Trump has put a for-sale sign out front of the White House,” said Norm Eisen, the executive director of the legal advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Fund and a White House “ethics czar” and ambassador to the Czech Republic under Barack Obama. “Of course you’re going to see Qatar and UAE as like a bidding war. Qatar says: ‘I’ll give you a $400m plane,’ and the UAE says: ‘Hold my beer, I’ll give your crypto company $2bn.’”In a particularly eye-catching incident this week, Qatar offered to give the US Department of Defense a $400m Boeing 747-8 that Trump had suggested could be used as Air Force One and then passed on to his presidential library after he leaves office.The plane has become a lightning rod among US Democrats, and critics have argued it violates the emoluments clause of the constitution that prohibits the president from receiving gifts from foreign entities.Trump had called the plane a “great gesture” from Qatar and said that it would be “stupid” for him not to accept the gift. A Democratic lawmaker had called the plane a “flying palace”, and even diehard Maga supporters such as the commentators Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro have criticised it publicly.Painter suggested that it would be similar to King George III gifting George Washington a copy of the royal stagecoach for his use in office. “You think the founders wouldn’t have considered that a bribe?” he said.But Gulf states have offered other incentives, including a $2bn investment from a UAE-controlled funds into a Trump-linked stablecoin that could incentivise the president to shape foreign policy in favour of Abu Dhabi.An advisory sent to congressional Democrats this week and seen by the Guardian said: “President Trump and the Trump family have moved at breakneck speed to profit from a massive crypto scam on the American people.”The gifts, and in particular the potential gift of a jet, have led to a series of denunciations on Capitol Hill as they seek to build momentum for a legislative push.“This isn’t America first. This is not what he promised the American people. This is Trump first,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut. “He is willing to put our nation’s security at risk, take unconstitutional bribes, just so he can fly himself and his Mar-a-Lago golf buddies around the world in gold-plated luxury planes gifted to him by foreign governments.”But is it illegal? As Qatar would give the jet to the Department of Defense, some experts have said that it may not directly violate the emoluments clause or other laws, even if Trump were to make use of the plane while in office.“Never seen it before,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight, a non-profit government watchdog group based in Washington. “Is it allowed? I’m still uncertain.”Past administrations would have run from the perceived conflicts of interest being welcomed by Trump. The former White House ethics advisers described crises such as when a Gulf state tried to present a Rolex to a national security adviser, or when the Boston Red Sox tried to gift the White House chief of staff a baseball bat signed by all the players (the addressee was forced to pay its estimated market value, said Painter). Eisen said that he forbade Obama from even refinancing the mortgage on his house in Chicago because of his capacities to influence the market.“The status quo has been saying no, because it’s an actual and apparent conflict of interest, and it could jeopardize our domestic and foreign policies,” said Amey. ”It certainly doesn’t pass the sniff test for a lot of Americans.”The lavish gifts and other investments come as Trump is reshaping America’s policy in the Middle East, skipping Israel and turning toward the Gulf states in a flurry of deal-making that could benefit both sides handsomely. And Trump’s family and other advisers, such as Steve Witkoff, with interests in the Gulf states are closely involved.View image in fullscreen“When the first Trump administration came in, I saw that people in the Gulf said, ‘Finally, an American administration we understand. He sends us his son-in-law to talk to us,’” said Dr F Gregory Gause III of the Middle East Institute, a former professor of international affairs at the Bush School. “It’s a startling change in American norms … the notion that Trump family private business and US government business walk hand in hand is remarkable.”While potential gifts like a jet cannot be hidden, the potential to move billions of dollars in cryptocurrency secretly has watchdogs, the political opposition and other foreign observers deeply concerned. “We’re talking about billions of dollars, almost infinite money, that can be paid by anyone,” said one senior European diplomat. One little-known China-linked firm with no revenue last year bought $300m of a Trump meme coin this week, raising further concerns of dark foreign money moving into US politics.Senate Democrats have called for rewriting the Genius Act, Trump-backed legislation that they say would provide for far-too-lax regulation of so-called stablecoins, in order to ban him from benefiting. “If Congress is going to supercharge the use of stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, it must include safeguards that make it harder for criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries to exploit the financial system and put our national security at risk,” said the memo.The flood of foreign money has left former officials who used to carefully track the giving of gifts and other goods from foreign government infuriated.The rules can be “annoying and sort of stupid, but it is what separates the good guys from the bad guys, as it relates to corruption and good governance”, said Rufus Gifford, a former head of protocol for the state department, which also tracks gifts to US officials from foreign governments. “And I think that Trump just has no respect for those institutions that have been set up for a very specific purpose, which is to root out corruption.“It is very, very disturbing that a president of the United States could be in a position to profit off the office in which he holds,” he continued. “And that is, again, something that is never supposed to be able to happen. And it’s really quite extraordinary.” More

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      Gone in 40 days: how Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariff assault unraveled

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      Donald Trump hailed a new chapter in the US’s economic history on 2 April, dubbed “liberation day” by his administration, as he announced plans for an extraordinary barrage of US tariffs on the world. The chapter lasted 40 days.The page has already been turned. But the impact of those six chaotic weeks, from higher prices to slowing growth, is still unfolding – and the US president is already threatening further adjustments. The story continues.Trump had been steered away from his aggressive instincts on trade during his first term, and persuaded to walk back several tariff threats in the opening months of his second. But back in early April, he was determined to plough ahead.“April 2nd, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” Trump declared at an event in the White House Rose Garden, before an audience of his top officials and supporters.The measures were blunt and severe: a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods, and higher individualized rates, of up to 50%, on dozens of markets – those of economic allies and rivals alike – deemed to have treated the US poorly on trade.‘Be cool’First came the questions. How exactly did the Trump administration come up with such an array of specific duties to impose upon goods from so many countries and territories? And why was a group of barren, uninhabited islands near Antarctica among them?Then came the panic. Global stock markets tanked, with Wall Street enduring its steepest falls since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago, as the president repeatedly insisted he was serious this time.Trump’s officials were sent out to hold the line. “The announcement today is the most significant action on global trade policy that has taken place in our lifetimes,” said Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff for policy. “We’re just going to have to wait and see” what happens, the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told Bloomberg. One thing’s for sure, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told CNN: “The president is not going to back off.”On day five of the new chapter, the 10% baseline tariffs came into force. On day seven, the higher, individualized rates followed. Beijing vowed to retaliate. Business leaders, including some who had backed Trump’s run for the White House, urged him to reconsider.A sell-off in treasury bonds, typically deemed a safe haven during periods of economic volatility, took hold. “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding a few minutes later: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”This advice seemed prescient four hours later. Seven days into the new chapter, with his individualized tariffs imposed for all of 13 hours, Trump announced a 90-day pause – in effect reducing the universal duty on all US imports from almost all countries to 10% – and markets surged higher.Almost all countries, that is, except China. Beijing’s pledge to hit back infuriated the president, who blamed its “lack of respect” as he announced a new US tariff of 125% (in effect, once other duties were included, 145%) on Chinese goods. It retaliated in kind.Getting yippyThe same officials who had been dispatched to defend Trump’s initial plan were sent out again, to explain his latest climbdown.“You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history,” Miller claimed on X.“Many of you in the media clearly missed The Art of the Deal,” the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, scolded reporters, referring to the president’s 1987 bestseller, in which the real estate tycoon presented himself as a consummate dealmaker.While his aides claimed that more than 75 countries had been in touch following his initial tariff announcement, even the president struggled to present the reversal as part of a carefully orchestrated negotiating strategy. Asked what had prompted it, Trump told reporters people had been “getting a little bit yippy” about his plan.But some of the US’s largest companies were still feeling pretty yippy. Apple, for example, relies on factories in China to churn out the iPhone, which is responsible for almost half its business.Late on day 10, away from the noisy press gaggles and all-caps social media posts, US Customs and Border Protection posted a list of products that would be exempt from the Chinese tariffs – including smartphones, computers and semiconductor chips.While the administration had walked back much of Trump’s initial plan, concern lingered over what remained. Trump maintained that high tariffs were the way forward, but fears of widespread shortages and dramatic price increases loomed large. Polling made clear consumers were increasingly concerned.On day 28, at the end of a cabinet meeting, the president tried to play down the risks of his assault on China. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know,” he said. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”Blame gameEarlier that morning, dismal economic figures for the first quarter had underlined how – as the last chapter drew to a close – the mere threat of Trump’s economic assault appeared to dent growth. US gross domestic product (GDP) shrank for the first time in three years, abruptly turning negative after a spell of robust growth as imports surged 41% while companies scrambled to pre-empt tariffs.Trump raced to pin the blame on his predecessor. “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press.Many economists said the growth decline in the first quarter, as firms braced for Trump’s new chapter, raised troubling questions about the second, when the president finally launched it at his “liberation day” event.Aside from dolls, the administration started to indicate it might be willing to adjust tariffs on China that were hitting goods – like baby car seats and cribs – that the US almost entirely imports from the country. Such exemptions were “under consideration”, Bessent told Congress, potentially averting a spike in prices for young families.But as the weeks drew on, after promising his trade strategy would prompt countries around the world to trip over themselves to strike deals with the US, Trump was finding it harder to explain why none had materialized.On day 34, as questions mounted, he complained the media had become fixated. “You keep writing about deals, deals,” he said, adding that he wished journalists would stop asking. “Some deals” would be signed, the president said, but tariffs were a “much bigger” focus.On day 36, the first deal was declared done. Trump summoned back reporters to unveil what he called a “maxed-out deal that we’re going to make bigger” with the UK. In reality, there was still work to do: both he and Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, conceded certain details had yet to be finalized.By the next morning, Trump’s focus had returned to China. Bessent was preparing for talks with the country’s officials in Geneva, fueling hopes that the world’s two largest economies might lower their eye-watering tariffs. “80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B,” the president wrote on social media.‘This is going to crush us’Trump was also watching the liberal MSNBC network, where the business commentator Stephanie Ruhle argued his strategy on tariffs was not working. “You’re seeing day in, day out, more business leaders – whether it’s Warren Buffett, or Jamie Dimon, or Ken Griffin, on big global stages – saying this is going to crush us economically,” she said. “And then you’ve got congressmen, senators, from every state saying to this White House: our small businesses are … dying here.“I’m not saying Donald Trump has changed what he thinks in his heart. But he’s backed into a corner, and he needs to get off this crazy tariff train, and he knows it.”Trump punched back. “Few people know Stephanie Ruhle, but I do, and she doesn’t have what it takes,” he wrote on Truth Social, accusing her of lies. “We’re going to make a fortune with Tariffs, only smart people understand that, and Stephanie was never known as a ‘High IQ’ person.”If only smart people understood the US stood to make a fortune from tariffs, they might have been surprised by what happened next.Away from TV studios, some of the most senior people in the White House, including the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, reportedly started to warn the president of risks not unlike those laid out by Ruhle. “The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters – Trump’s people,” one person briefed on internal conversations told the Washington Post. “It gave Susie a key window.”On day 40, after discussions in Geneva, Bessent confirmed that US and Chinese officials would drastically reduce the tariffs they had aggressively ratcheted up just a few weeks before. With US tariffs on Chinese goods falling to 30%, Trump hailed a “total reset” in relations between Washington and Beijing.The reversal, although far from a total reset, confined the latest “liberation day” measure to history.2 April 2025, is not yet remembered as the day American industry was reborn. Much of what was announced that afternoon has already died.The page has been turned. On Friday, Trump claimed about 150 countries would soon receive letters “essentially telling” them of new US duty rates on their exports. Many learned of similar rates last month, only for the plan to change in a matter of days.A new chapter, without pomp or ceremony, is now under way. What this one will entail – or how long it lasts – is anyone’s guess. More

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      Trump accuses former FBI director of calling for his killing through coded picture

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      Donald Trump accused the former FBI director James Comey on Friday of calling for his assassination in a coded social media post written in seashells.Comey’s Instagram post – a photograph of seashells on a beach arranged to spell the numbers 8647, which he captioned “Cool shell formation on my beach walk” – was used by rightwing supporters of Trump to claim that it was a call to assassinate the US president. The Secret Service said it has launched an investigation.Comey has said it “never occurred to me” that the numbers represented a coded threat. The number 86 is common slang for stopping or getting rid of something, typically old equipment, or being ejected from an establishment such as a bar, and is often a synonym for “nix”. The number 47 could be understood to indicate Trump, the 47th president.The Secret Service, which is in charge of presidential security and is part of the Department of Homeland Security, interviewed Comey later on Friday as part of an “ongoing investigation”, DHS secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on social media.“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant? That meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News from Abu Dhabi, where he is wrapping up a four-day Middle East trip.Trump claimed Comey “was hit so hard because people like me and they like what’s happening with our country”, adding: “And he’s calling for the assassination of the president.”Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017 during an investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 election, removed the post hours after it began to draw attention from Trump administration officials and supporters.After taking down the post, Comey said he thought it was a political message but said it did not occur to him that it could have been associated with a call to violence.The exchanges are the latest in an ongoing war over inflamed political rhetoric. Two assassination attempts were made against the president last year, both from people without any clear partisan ideology.The number 86 has also been used by Republicans calling for the impeachment of Joe Biden: for example, T-shirts sold on Amazon read “8646”, indicating a call to impeach Biden (the 46th president).Overheated political rhetoric has long been a subject of controversy. Biden said last July it had been a mistake for him to say “time to put Trump in a bullseye”, days before Saturday’s assassination attempt on his election rival, while Trump has repeatedly used similar language, including suggesting that the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney might not be such a “warhawk” if she had rifles “shooting at her” to see how she felt.A spokesperson for the Secret Service confirmed the agency was “aware of the incident” and said it would “vigorously investigate” any potential threat, but did not offer further details.In a statement, Comey said: “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message.“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”The post ignited a firestorm on the right.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Disgraced former FBI director James Comey just called for the assassination of POTUS Trump,” the homeland security director, Kristi Noem, wrote on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, said his agency would “provide all necessary support” as part of an investigation headed by the Secret Service.Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the presidential security agency, said on social media that the agency investigates anything that could be taken as a threat. “We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director & we take rhetoric like this very seriously,” he added.Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, said she didn’t buy Comey’s explanation that the message carried no greater meaning. Gabbard said Comey had “just issued a call to action to murder the president of the United States”.“As a former FBI director and someone who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable under the full force of the law,” Gabbard posted on X.Gabbard later told Fox News that Comey was “issuing a hit” on the president and that “the dangerousness of this cannot be underestimated.”The post comes as the former FBI director is about to publish FDR Drive, the third installment of a crime series about a fictional New York lawyer, Nora Carleton. Publisher’s Weekly outlined the plot as centering on a US attorney who tries to bring to justice “a far-right media personality with a popular podcast vilifying those he thinks are destroying America: intellectuals, immigrants, and people of color”. More

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      Trump officials reportedly consider TV gameshow with US citizenship as prize

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      The US Department of Homeland Security is reportedly considering an “out-of-the-box” pitch to participate in a television gameshow that would have immigrants compete to obtain US citizenship.Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described the pitch to the New York Times as a “celebration of being an American” and said the show would include challenges based on American traditions.In a statement, McLaughlin said: “We need to revive patriotism and civic duty in this country, and we’re happy to review out-of-the-box pitches. This pitch has not received approval or rejection by staff.”News of the project surfaced as Donald Trump, himself a former reality TV star, carries out a sprawling immigration crackdown that has ensnared undocumented immigrants as well as lawful permanent residents, refugees and those with temporary status and pending court cases. In some cases, US citizen children have been deported alongside an undocumented parent.Overseeing the deportation effort as homeland security secretary is Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota who has drawn sharp criticism for her “made-for-TV”-style approach to immigration enforcement. Shortly after she was sworn in, Noem appeared in tactical gear for a ride-along with immigration agents.She also traveled to El Salvador, where, well-coiffed and wearing a $50,000 Rolex watch, she posed in a notorious prison housing hundreds of men deported by the Trump administration without due process.The idea for the reality show was pitched by Rob Worsoff, the Canadian-born producer and writer who worked on Duck Dynasty, a reality TV show about a Louisiana hunting family popular with Trump supporters.In an interview, Worsoff told the New York Times that the proposal originated from his own experience with the naturalization process to become a US citizen. Describing the project, he said one of the challenges might center on Nasa to see which participant could assemble and launch a rocket first.The Wall Street Journal reviewed a 36-page slide deck laying out Worsoff’s idea, which he said he pitched to the department during the Obama administration and again during the Biden administration.According to the Journal, his proposal includes one-hour episodes and begins with immigrants sailing to Ellis Island, once a key point of entry for millions of people arriving in the US. Other challenges entail a gold-rush competition set in San Francisco and an auto-assembly-line contest in Detroit.The show would conclude with the winner being sworn in as a US citizen.“This isn’t The Hunger Games for immigrants,” Worsoff told the Journal, stressing that losing contestants would not face deportation. “This is not: ‘Hey, if you lose, we are shipping you out on a boat out of the country.’”The idea was first reported by the Daily Mail, though the department in its statement strongly refuted that Noem was aware of the pitch.McLaughlin said the department receives hundreds of pitches a year for potential television shows, including for documentaries about immigration and border-security enforcement operations as well as white-collar investigations.“Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval,” she said. More

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      Trump news at a glance: President sees setbacks in the courts and Congress as controversial Gulf tour ends

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      Donald Trump faced setbacks in the courts and Congress on Friday, as the president finished a visit to the Middle East that included stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel.Trump posted on social media: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!”, after the court rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove a temporary block on deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law.Meanwhile, rightwing lawmakers derailed Trump’s signature legislation in the House of Representatives, preventing its passage through a key committee and throwing into question whether Republicans can coalesce around the massive bill that would extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term.Supreme court blocks Trump bid to resume deportationsThe supreme court on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s appeal to quickly resume deportations of Venezuelans under a 227-year-old law. Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the US under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.Read the full storyVenezuelans deported by Trump are victims of ‘torture’, lawyers allegeLawyers for 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador for two months have alleged that the migrants are victims of physical and emotional “torture”.A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up and are seeking “proof of life”, but have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.Read the full storyHouse Republicans block Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ in major setbackAt a House budget committee hearing on Friday intended to advance Donald Trump’s signature legislation, four Republican members of the far-right Freedom Caucus joined with the Democrats to block it from proceeding, arguing the legislation does not make deep enough cuts to federal spending and to programs they dislike.The party has spent weeks negotiating a measure dubbed the “one big, beautiful bill” that would extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term, fund mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and temporarily make good on his campaign promise to end the taxation of tips and overtime. To offset its costs, Republicans have proposed cuts to the federal safety net, including Medicaid and the supplemental nutrition assistance program.Read the full storyTrump acknowledges starvation in GazaDonald Trump has said people are starving in Gaza and the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of” as it suffered a further wave of intense Israeli airstrikes.On Friday, Israel announced a major new offensive in the territory just as Trump wrapped up his tour of the Gulf region. On the final day of trip, the US president told reporters in Abu Dhabi: “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”Read the full storyTrump accuses Comey of calling for his killingDonald Trump accused the former FBI director James Comey on Friday of calling for his assassination in a coded social media post written in seashells.Comey has said it did not occur to him that the numbers 8647 – which he spotted spelled out in seashells on a beach, and posted on social media – could be interpreted as a call to assassinate the president, as many Trump supporters have claimed.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Trump angrily insulted Bruce Springsteen after the veteran musician said the president was heading a “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration”.

      A major military parade – which also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday – could cost up to $45m and involve thousands of soldiers, hundreds of vehicles and dozens of warplanes and tanks.

      Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) effectively misled a judge in order to gain access to the homes of students it sought to arrest for their pro-Palestinian activism, attorneys say.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 15 May 2025. More