Heather Cox Richardson
May 10
Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel, who did not have experience in law enforcement when he took the job, has drawn criticism from current and former officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, for reducing FBI briefings, traveling frequently on personal matters, and appearing repeatedly at pro sporting events.
Yesterday Patel showed up at a hearing for the Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee on the FBI’s spending plan for 2025, but he had not produced the plan, which by law was supposed to have been turned over more than a week ago. When Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) called the absence of the plan “absurd” and asked Patel when they could expect the plan, he answered he did not have a timeline.
Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who co-founded Justice Connection, which supports current and former DOJ employees under pressure from the administration, told NBC’s Ken Dilanian: “There’s a growing sense among the ranks that there’s a leadership void. And that the highest echelons of the bureau are more concerned about currying favor with the president, retribution, and leaks than the actual work.”
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) took Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even more fully to task. At a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security yesterday, Murphy told Noem: “[Y]our department is out of control. You are spending like you don’t have a budget,” he said. “You are on the verge of running out of money for the fiscal year…. You're on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency Act. That means you are going to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence, and it is wildly illegal. Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year.”
The obsession with the border, he continued, “has left the country unprotected elsewhere…. To fund the border, you have illegally gutted spending for cybersecurity. As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day attacking our nation. You have withdrawn funds for disaster prevention. Storms are going to kill more people in this country because of your illegal withholding of these funds.”
Showing posts with label TRUMP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TRUMP. Show all posts
May 10, 2025
Trump Revives Push for Higher Taxes on the Rich
The president is said to want to create a new top income bracket for people making more than $2.5 million per year and to tax income above that level at a rate of 39.6 percent.
President Trump was said to have raised the possibility of a new high-income tax bracket with House Speaker Mike Johnson in a call on Wednesday. Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
By Andrew Duehren
Washington-based tax policy reporter
May 8, 2025
President Trump has asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to include a tax hike on rich Americans in the sprawling fiscal package lawmakers are putting together, according to two people familiar with the request, reviving an idea that many Republicans have opposed.
Mr. Trump wants to create a new top income bracket for people making more than $2.5 million per year, the people said, and to tax income above that level at a rate of 39.6 percent. The president brought up the idea to Mr. Johnson in a call on Wednesday, one of the people said.
Such a change would roll back one of the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That measure reduced the rate on income earned in the top bracket to 37 percent from 39.6 percent. This year, the top income bracket starts at $626,350 for an individual. Mr. Trump is effectively seeking to restore the previous top rate, but at a much higher income level.
Mr. Trump has been flirting with some kind of tax hike on the rich for weeks, alarming Republicans who as a general matter like to cut taxes. Conservatives have aggressively lobbied against the idea.
But Republicans are, at the same time, facing tricky political and budgetary calculations in the fiscal legislation they are struggling to complete. To offset the huge cost of the tax cuts they want to include — much of it from continuing the 2017 cuts — Republicans are preparing to slash spending on Medicaid, a health care program for the poor.
The optics of cutting benefits for the poor to cover the cost of tax cuts that provide their largest benefits to the rich has worried Republicans hoping to cultivate working class support. One person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking said that the president believed a tax increase on the rich would help protect Medicaid.
President Trump was said to have raised the possibility of a new high-income tax bracket with House Speaker Mike Johnson in a call on Wednesday. Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York TimesBy Andrew Duehren
Washington-based tax policy reporter
May 8, 2025
President Trump has asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to include a tax hike on rich Americans in the sprawling fiscal package lawmakers are putting together, according to two people familiar with the request, reviving an idea that many Republicans have opposed.
Mr. Trump wants to create a new top income bracket for people making more than $2.5 million per year, the people said, and to tax income above that level at a rate of 39.6 percent. The president brought up the idea to Mr. Johnson in a call on Wednesday, one of the people said.
Such a change would roll back one of the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That measure reduced the rate on income earned in the top bracket to 37 percent from 39.6 percent. This year, the top income bracket starts at $626,350 for an individual. Mr. Trump is effectively seeking to restore the previous top rate, but at a much higher income level.
Mr. Trump has been flirting with some kind of tax hike on the rich for weeks, alarming Republicans who as a general matter like to cut taxes. Conservatives have aggressively lobbied against the idea.
But Republicans are, at the same time, facing tricky political and budgetary calculations in the fiscal legislation they are struggling to complete. To offset the huge cost of the tax cuts they want to include — much of it from continuing the 2017 cuts — Republicans are preparing to slash spending on Medicaid, a health care program for the poor.
The optics of cutting benefits for the poor to cover the cost of tax cuts that provide their largest benefits to the rich has worried Republicans hoping to cultivate working class support. One person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking said that the president believed a tax increase on the rich would help protect Medicaid.
April 30, 2025
TRUMP'S CHAOTIC & HISTORIC FIRST 100 DAYS
A furious start
The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been a study of extremes, especially when compared with the start of presidential terms over the last century. Today, The Upshot — a section of The Times focused on data and policy — published eight charts comparing Trump’s performance with that of his predecessors. Here are a few of them: He issued more executive orders than any other modern president …
On his first day in office, Trump signed a record 26 executive orders — and he didn’t stop there. The executive order has become something of a hallmark of his governing style, a way to express clear policy directives without the bureaucracy of regulation or the horse trading of legislation. Some orders direct federal agencies to develop policy in particular areas, like oil drilling, prescription drug prices or the water pressure delivered by shower heads. Some mostly express the president’s sentiment on an issue. Some function as warnings or punishments for political enemies. But many — in key areas like immigration and tariffs — effectively carry the force of law. Compare the president’s output with that of Congress, which has passed only a handful of laws since Trump’s inauguration. … and was sued in federal court more, too
Trump’s executive actions have already led to an explosion of lawsuits. In other recent administrations, the suits have come later, in response to laws and regulations that take months and years to develop. But Trump is moving quickly to cut funding, fire federal workers, impose tariffs, reshape immigration policy and more. Although the Supreme Court has begun considering aspects of a few cases, most of this litigation is in preliminary stages. Markets plunged
During his first term, Trump often referred to the stock market as a barometer of success for his presidency. This time, he seems less focused on it. And some of his proclamations — on tariffs or his views on the Federal Reserve and interest rates — have led to wild swings in recent weeks. The S&P 500 has fallen by more than 7 percent since Trump’s inauguration, on track for the worst performance for stocks in this period of a presidency since Gerald Ford in 1974. Trump’s popularity fell, too
When Trump entered office, voters said they trusted him to handle the economy and immigration. But 100 days into his second term, his approval is underwater. Partly it’s because he turned those long-term strengths on the economy and immigration into weaknesses. Read about how Trump fared in our recent poll here. Our charts also look at revenue from tariffs and the fate of the dollar. See them here. More on Trump’s first 100 days
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April 26, 2025
The ‘Never Surrender’ President Retreats
The White House tempered its position on key issues this week, as polling suggests voters are souring on Trump’s steering of the economy
By Molly Ball
April 25, 2025 9:00 pm ET
President Trump’s ebbing popularity might be pushing him to moderate some of his lofty goals. PHOTO: KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES
This week, President Trump said he had “no intention” of seeking the ouster of the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell—despite having called for his “termination” just a few days earlier. Hours later, he allowed that tariffs on China were “not going to be that high”—weeks after escalating them to 145%.
All in all, it was an unusual week for a president whose rallying cry has long been “never surrender.”
Those weren’t the only fronts on which the past week saw Trump backpedal. Having once pledged to broker peace in Ukraine immediately upon taking office, he now says the U.S. could walk away from the conflict entirely if the deal he’s put forward isn’t accepted. And having once boasted that DOGE would radically downsize the federal government, Elon Musk said this week he would step back from the effort, having reduced its top-line goal by 90%. “He was always going to ease out,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Taken together, the reversals were a startling pattern for a president who prides himself on never backing down, potentially denting his political brand as an unflinching fighter. As the 100-day mark of Trump’s tumultuous second term draws near, the climbdowns were a signal that his ebbing popularity may be forcing him to moderate some of his lofty goals.
White House officials disputed the idea that Trump had reversed himself. Any reduction in the China tariffs would only come as part of a deal and wouldn’t be a unilateral move, an official argued, while Trump’s pressure on Powell never took the form of an explicit vow to fire him. The threat to walk away from the Ukraine talks was clearly a negotiating tactic, the official said, while DOGE’s work has had a meaningful impact and will continue with or without Musk’s involvement.
“In his first 100 days, President Trump has delivered on hundreds of promises and already accomplished his two most important campaign goals—the border is secure and inflation is ending,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The next 100 days will consist of trade deals, peace deals, and tax cuts. More American greatness is on the way.”
Many of Trump’s maximalist promises are better understood as trial balloons, and he has a skill for spinning reversals to his advantage, said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence. But Short said he viewed the tariff climbdown as qualitatively different because it constituted Trump backtracking on one of his core beliefs in the face of adverse consequences. “He has a remarkable ability to pivot and present a new position as if it was always the old position. It’s one of his political talents,” Short said. “But he truly believes that we can bring a nostalgic manufacturing golden age back to America through tariffs, so that walkback is a little more stark.”
Trump insisted this week that negotiations are under way with China that could result in tariffs being reduced. But the Chinese government says that is not the case, and has taken to openly mocking Trump. Chinese state television has nicknamed him “10,000 Tariff Grandpa,” and the hashtag “Trump chickened out” was trending on the Weibo social media network Wednesday.
Meanwhile, with fighting continuing between Russia and Ukraine and Trump’s ultimatum to both parties meeting a chilly reception, the president pleaded with his Russian counterpart on social media, “Vladimir, STOP!”
And Musk, once an omnipresent force rampaging across government departments, told investors he planned to spend more time with his businesses as the effort he once claimed would slash $2 trillion now looks like it will barely achieve one-tenth of that aim. Tesla profits have plummeted by 71%, and Musk’s high-profile attempt to swing a Wisconsin supreme court election earlier this month appeared to backfire: the liberal candidate who cast Musk as the race’s central villain won by 10 points.
China denies Trump’s assertion that negotiations are under way with Beijing that could result in tariffs being reduced. PHOTO: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
To be sure, no president can be expected to fulfill all his campaign promises, which are rightly seen as aspirational, and voters have long accepted that Trump’s outlandish bluster isn’t necessarily meant to be taken literally. Where detractors see flip-flopping, Trump’s supporters see flexibility. Trump has acknowledged that unpredictability is a tactic he uses to his advantage: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last October, he said Chinese President Xi Jinping wouldn’t dare cross him, “because he respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.”
And while Trump may have dialed back here and there, plenty of active confrontations remain as he seeks to reshape longstanding institutions through aggressive executive action. His administration faces numerous court battles as critics contend his actions threaten the separation of powers and due process guaranteed by the Constitution.
In his first term, there were numerous instances in which he made bold promises and then pivoted. Mexico never paid for the border wall that Trump only partially completed. The administration ended its practice of separating migrant children from their parents under public pressure in 2018. Trump publicly pledged to take action on gun control in the wake of mass shootings in 2019, then reversed himself after discussions with the National Rifle Association. He wound down his first-term China trade war with a 2020 deal touted as “historic,” but some analyses found that China never fulfilled its promised U.S. export purchases. Some observers expect the current trade war to end in similar fashion, with an agreement that amounts to little in practice but allows the president and his supporters to claim he’s won the standoff.
To critics, the walkbacks are evidence that Trump was never as resolute or as deft a dealmaker as he claimed. “He talks a big game, but he doesn’t have a coherent strategy, so he has to backtrack and then try to spin it into a win,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House aide who broke with Trump after Jan. 6, 2021. Matthews, who now views Trump as dangerous, said the dynamic was familiar from her days trying to portray his whims as masterfully intentional in his first term. “They’ll say this is the art of the deal, but how is it the art of the deal when he hasn’t actually negotiated anything?”
Demonstrators gathered on the National Mall and then marched to the White House last weekend, during a ‘Hands Off!’ day of action, a protest against the policies of the Trump administration and Elon Musk. PHOTO: PROBAL RASHID/ZUMA PRESS
Polls show Trump’s approval rating has steadily declined since the beginning of his term, slipping by about seven points in the polling average maintained by analyst Nate Silver. The public’s loss of confidence in his ability to manage the economy, long perceived as his greatest strength, is particularly striking: in a Fox News poll released this week, just 38% approved of his handling of economic matters, while 56% disapproved.
Democrats see a political opening in the president’s inconstancy. Research by the center-left think tank Third Way has found that swing voters are perturbed by what they see as Trump’s “chaos,” particularly when it comes to the economy and government services. “In our focus groups and polling, this comes up organically,” said Jim Kessler, the organization’s executive vice president for policy.
“The Trump chaos right now means higher prices, a struggling economy, dwindling retirements, and uncertainty about people’s economic well being,” he added. “For a long time, people could say, ‘You may not like him, but the economy is good.’ They’re now having doubts about the impact of his chaos on their daily lives.”
Write to Molly Ball at molly.ball@wsj.com
By Molly Ball
April 25, 2025 9:00 pm ET
President Trump’s ebbing popularity might be pushing him to moderate some of his lofty goals. PHOTO: KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGESThis week, President Trump said he had “no intention” of seeking the ouster of the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell—despite having called for his “termination” just a few days earlier. Hours later, he allowed that tariffs on China were “not going to be that high”—weeks after escalating them to 145%.
All in all, it was an unusual week for a president whose rallying cry has long been “never surrender.”
Those weren’t the only fronts on which the past week saw Trump backpedal. Having once pledged to broker peace in Ukraine immediately upon taking office, he now says the U.S. could walk away from the conflict entirely if the deal he’s put forward isn’t accepted. And having once boasted that DOGE would radically downsize the federal government, Elon Musk said this week he would step back from the effort, having reduced its top-line goal by 90%. “He was always going to ease out,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Taken together, the reversals were a startling pattern for a president who prides himself on never backing down, potentially denting his political brand as an unflinching fighter. As the 100-day mark of Trump’s tumultuous second term draws near, the climbdowns were a signal that his ebbing popularity may be forcing him to moderate some of his lofty goals.
White House officials disputed the idea that Trump had reversed himself. Any reduction in the China tariffs would only come as part of a deal and wouldn’t be a unilateral move, an official argued, while Trump’s pressure on Powell never took the form of an explicit vow to fire him. The threat to walk away from the Ukraine talks was clearly a negotiating tactic, the official said, while DOGE’s work has had a meaningful impact and will continue with or without Musk’s involvement.
“In his first 100 days, President Trump has delivered on hundreds of promises and already accomplished his two most important campaign goals—the border is secure and inflation is ending,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The next 100 days will consist of trade deals, peace deals, and tax cuts. More American greatness is on the way.”
Many of Trump’s maximalist promises are better understood as trial balloons, and he has a skill for spinning reversals to his advantage, said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence. But Short said he viewed the tariff climbdown as qualitatively different because it constituted Trump backtracking on one of his core beliefs in the face of adverse consequences. “He has a remarkable ability to pivot and present a new position as if it was always the old position. It’s one of his political talents,” Short said. “But he truly believes that we can bring a nostalgic manufacturing golden age back to America through tariffs, so that walkback is a little more stark.”
Trump insisted this week that negotiations are under way with China that could result in tariffs being reduced. But the Chinese government says that is not the case, and has taken to openly mocking Trump. Chinese state television has nicknamed him “10,000 Tariff Grandpa,” and the hashtag “Trump chickened out” was trending on the Weibo social media network Wednesday.
Meanwhile, with fighting continuing between Russia and Ukraine and Trump’s ultimatum to both parties meeting a chilly reception, the president pleaded with his Russian counterpart on social media, “Vladimir, STOP!”
And Musk, once an omnipresent force rampaging across government departments, told investors he planned to spend more time with his businesses as the effort he once claimed would slash $2 trillion now looks like it will barely achieve one-tenth of that aim. Tesla profits have plummeted by 71%, and Musk’s high-profile attempt to swing a Wisconsin supreme court election earlier this month appeared to backfire: the liberal candidate who cast Musk as the race’s central villain won by 10 points.
China denies Trump’s assertion that negotiations are under way with Beijing that could result in tariffs being reduced. PHOTO: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGESTo be sure, no president can be expected to fulfill all his campaign promises, which are rightly seen as aspirational, and voters have long accepted that Trump’s outlandish bluster isn’t necessarily meant to be taken literally. Where detractors see flip-flopping, Trump’s supporters see flexibility. Trump has acknowledged that unpredictability is a tactic he uses to his advantage: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last October, he said Chinese President Xi Jinping wouldn’t dare cross him, “because he respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.”
And while Trump may have dialed back here and there, plenty of active confrontations remain as he seeks to reshape longstanding institutions through aggressive executive action. His administration faces numerous court battles as critics contend his actions threaten the separation of powers and due process guaranteed by the Constitution.
In his first term, there were numerous instances in which he made bold promises and then pivoted. Mexico never paid for the border wall that Trump only partially completed. The administration ended its practice of separating migrant children from their parents under public pressure in 2018. Trump publicly pledged to take action on gun control in the wake of mass shootings in 2019, then reversed himself after discussions with the National Rifle Association. He wound down his first-term China trade war with a 2020 deal touted as “historic,” but some analyses found that China never fulfilled its promised U.S. export purchases. Some observers expect the current trade war to end in similar fashion, with an agreement that amounts to little in practice but allows the president and his supporters to claim he’s won the standoff.
To critics, the walkbacks are evidence that Trump was never as resolute or as deft a dealmaker as he claimed. “He talks a big game, but he doesn’t have a coherent strategy, so he has to backtrack and then try to spin it into a win,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House aide who broke with Trump after Jan. 6, 2021. Matthews, who now views Trump as dangerous, said the dynamic was familiar from her days trying to portray his whims as masterfully intentional in his first term. “They’ll say this is the art of the deal, but how is it the art of the deal when he hasn’t actually negotiated anything?”
Demonstrators gathered on the National Mall and then marched to the White House last weekend, during a ‘Hands Off!’ day of action, a protest against the policies of the Trump administration and Elon Musk. PHOTO: PROBAL RASHID/ZUMA PRESSPolls show Trump’s approval rating has steadily declined since the beginning of his term, slipping by about seven points in the polling average maintained by analyst Nate Silver. The public’s loss of confidence in his ability to manage the economy, long perceived as his greatest strength, is particularly striking: in a Fox News poll released this week, just 38% approved of his handling of economic matters, while 56% disapproved.
Democrats see a political opening in the president’s inconstancy. Research by the center-left think tank Third Way has found that swing voters are perturbed by what they see as Trump’s “chaos,” particularly when it comes to the economy and government services. “In our focus groups and polling, this comes up organically,” said Jim Kessler, the organization’s executive vice president for policy.
“The Trump chaos right now means higher prices, a struggling economy, dwindling retirements, and uncertainty about people’s economic well being,” he added. “For a long time, people could say, ‘You may not like him, but the economy is good.’ They’re now having doubts about the impact of his chaos on their daily lives.”
Write to Molly Ball at molly.ball@wsj.com
Trump suffered at least 11 legal setbacks this week
As Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket wrote, Trump suffered at least 11 legal setbacks this week as judges blocked Trump from gutting the Voice of America media outlet, blocked the administration from removing people in Colorado and New York under the Alien Enemies Act, ordered the administration to comply with discovery requests from Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, told the Department of Education not to implement anti-DEI measures, blocked Trump’s executive order about elections, stopped the administration from impounding money from cities that don’t comply with its mass deportation orders, and blocked the administration from ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers.
Later today, news broke that the administration appears to have deported a U.S. citizen. Chris Geidner of Lawdork reports that the administration deported a two-year-old born in the United States and thus a U.S. citizen, along with her mother and her sister, to Honduras, her mother’s country of origin, even as the child’s father tried frantically to keep her in the U.S. Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Federal District Court in the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, said that “it is illegal and unconstitutional to deport” a U.S. citizen, and set a hearing for May 16 because he has a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
In an interview with Time magazine, published today, Trump did not seem at the top of his mental game. He reiterated that the country is about to become richer than ever and that the problems in his administration can all be blamed on his predecessor, President Joe Biden. He claimed that he has already made 200 trade deals, which could be possible if he is cutting private deals with corporations but not if he is talking to countries: there are only 195 countries in the world. He claimed China’s president Xi Jinping has called him to make a deal, although Chinese officials deny this.
In the interview, Trump repeatedly deferred to his lawyers to answer questions about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the administration says it sent to an infamous terrorist prison in El Salvador because of “administrative error.” He said that he did not personally approve payments to El Salvador to hold the men his administration sent there.
Later today, news broke that the administration appears to have deported a U.S. citizen. Chris Geidner of Lawdork reports that the administration deported a two-year-old born in the United States and thus a U.S. citizen, along with her mother and her sister, to Honduras, her mother’s country of origin, even as the child’s father tried frantically to keep her in the U.S. Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Federal District Court in the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, said that “it is illegal and unconstitutional to deport” a U.S. citizen, and set a hearing for May 16 because he has a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
In an interview with Time magazine, published today, Trump did not seem at the top of his mental game. He reiterated that the country is about to become richer than ever and that the problems in his administration can all be blamed on his predecessor, President Joe Biden. He claimed that he has already made 200 trade deals, which could be possible if he is cutting private deals with corporations but not if he is talking to countries: there are only 195 countries in the world. He claimed China’s president Xi Jinping has called him to make a deal, although Chinese officials deny this.
In the interview, Trump repeatedly deferred to his lawyers to answer questions about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the administration says it sent to an infamous terrorist prison in El Salvador because of “administrative error.” He said that he did not personally approve payments to El Salvador to hold the men his administration sent there.
April 13, 2025
Harry Siegel: A chaotic mayoral election with Trump looming
Barry Williams for New York Daily News Voter with her dog Tubi to vote at Riverside Church Tuesday Nov. 5, 2024 in New York, New York.(Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
By Harry Siegel | harrysiegel@gmail.com
An uninhibited and revenge-oriented President Trump is escalating his full-scale assault on his enemies, very much including New York City and State.
His administration is revoking student visas and even green cards with no due process to speak of — often without informing those students or their schools it’s done so.
He’s personally threatening to pull all federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities like ours that don’t always cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Big law firms based here are lining up to kiss the ring, with their chiefs pilgrimaging to the White House and Mar-a-Lago to pledge hundreds of millions each in pro bono services to causes favored by Trump in the hopes of purchasing or at least renting his indulgences as the president issues executive orders targeting individual firms and broadly demands lawyers stop working with or on behalf of his personal and ideological foes.
All this is prelude to a militarized mass-deportation agenda that, even before it’s fully operationalized, is already leading to dystopian arrests and manhunts of working moms and semi-random college students the government is flimsily tying to an expanding number of officially designated terror organizations.
Meantime, the White House is gleefully promoting torture-porn videos of people it’s shipping away seemingly almost at random to a hellhole El Salvadoran prison while pretty much mocking a federal judge’s order, affirmed by the Supreme Court, to try and return one of them after a Justice Department attorney conceded he’d been sent there due to an “administrative error.”
It’s a parade of horribles that’s just kicking off.
What’s the opposite of a spoiler alert? It turns out Trump wasn’t interested in ending “the weaponization of the federal government” but in wielding it as part of his full-on stress test of the United States Constitution.
That’s starting with the First Amendment’s protections against the government creating speech or religion winners and losers, the 14th Amendment’s race-blind promise that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” and Article I’s commitment that “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
A message to my “common-sense” friends fed up with rolling riots of not always peaceful protesters and the compliant experts, journalists and administrators making endless allowances for these supposedly spontaneous movements on behalf of an increasingly ridiculous Democratic establishment whose combined excesses helped Trump convincingly win a second term four years after Americans handily rejected him:
This avalanche isn’t ending with your enemies.
Back to New York, you won’t hear much about any of this from Mayor Adams.
He’s a prime beneficiary of Trump’s indulgences, having publicly pledged not to criticize the White House even before it dropped the federal corruption charges Hizzoner was scheduled to stand trial on later this month in a move that Judge Dale Ho wrote “smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Sure enough, Adams had his first deputy mayor sign an executive order allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement back onto Rikers Island for the first time in a decade.
Adams, who was elected as a Democrat and is still registered to vote as one, is running for reelection as an independent now — meaning the city is primed for what would be its first meaningful general election in 12 years.
It’s a boggling contest, with a ranked-choice Democratic primary open only to registered party members followed by a most-votes-win general election that could include five different candidates ranging from a democratic socialist to a Guardian Angel, with three centrists sandwiched between them potentially cannibalizing votes from one another.
That’s cracked open a window for an historically unpopular mayor to somehow win a second term. At the least, it’s buying Adams a few more months where he’s not a pathetically lame duck.
Trump is just starting his term, and the city is about to commit to its course for the remainder of it.
Registered Democrats, who continue to have outsized electoral say here, should rank their top five picks in June and in the order they actually want them no matter their chances of winning to get most out of their vote.
And every New Yorker who has the right to vote still has time to register and then show up in November to decide on a mayor who will represent the city as our shared values are determined and then pressure-tested.
Siegel (harrysiegel@gmail.com) is an editor at The City, a host of the FAQ NYC podcast and a columnist for the Daily News.
April 10, 2025
Trump’s retreat
Eric Lee/The New York Times
When it comes to tariffs, President Trump is a creature of habit.
He first rolls out new levies with bluster. He claims they will solve a major problem: They’ll help stop fentanyl trafficking across the Mexican and Canadian borders. They’ll bring back manufacturing. They’ll rebalance trade. They’ll collect trillions in revenue.
Soon, the markets panic. Investors worry about the higher prices and lower economic growth that tariffs will cause. Stocks tank. Business leaders call the White House to complain — or, worse, vent publicly about Trump and his methods.
Then, the president rolls back his plans. We reached that final stage yesterday. Trump paused his so-called reciprocal tariffs on every nation but China for 90 days. The move leaves a universal 10 percent tariff on all other countries except Canada and Mexico, which face separate duties. But it undoes some of the most shocking tolls — 20 percent on the European Union, 24 percent on Japan, 46 percent on Vietnam.
Markets rallied at the news. The S&P 500, which had flirted with bear-market territory, shot up almost 10 percent. But stocks haven’t fully recovered from the chaotic “Liberation Day” announcement last week, and the United States remains in an open trade war with China, which faces a 125 percent penalty on its goods. And what happens when the pause ends? Today’s newsletter looks at the fallout from this latest tariff episode.
Unclear goals
The Port of Los Angeles. Maggie Shannon for The New York Times
From the start, the president has faced one key question about his plan: What’s the point?
On the campaign trail, Trump spoke about the need for tariffs to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, and JD Vance fantasized about once again making toasters in America. Trump also said the tolls would bring in tax revenue.
But neither of these goals — manufacturing and revenue — is achievable unless the tariffs remain in place. Manufacturers won’t shift production back to the United States if they think the incentive to do so will soon disappear.
Some of Trump’s allies have built a different case for tariffs: that they are a negotiating tactic, one that gets other countries to remove their own trade barriers against the United States. But this implies that the tariffs are fleeting and will vanish when Trump lands new trade deals.
In other words, the stated goals contradict each other.
Trump’s announcement yesterday muddled things further. On one hand, Trump and his cabinet said that the pause would give them time to complete new trade deals, suggesting that they were a negotiating tactic. On the other hand, Trump is keeping the 10 percent universal tariffs. Are they now permanent? The administration hasn’t provided a clear answer.
If the intention was hard to parse, so were the methods. “Only an hour or so ago, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, stood in front of the White House and said that the reversal on tariffs was the president’s strategy ‘all along,’” my colleague Ben Casselman wrote yesterday. “Now Trump himself is saying that he made the decision in response to the market turmoil.”
One reason for the mixed message is disagreement within the administration. [Behind the scenes, senior members of Mr. Trump’s team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president’s team, including Vice President JD Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.]
Over the weekend, Bessent pressed Trump to use the tariffs to get concessions. (He said the president “is the most deft negotiator there is,” according to an inside look at White House deliberations that my colleagues published yesterday.) Trump refused, believing the market pain was “short-term.” He changed his mind after the bond market faltered.
What’s next
Once the pause ends in 90 days, we could go through another round of economic chaos. That kind of uncertainty has rattled markets throughout Trump’s second term, and it will likely continue as long as the tariff threat looms.
It’s easy to forget, but Trump’s original idea on the campaign trail — the one that alarmed economists to begin with — was a universal 10 percent tariff. Now he has it. That levy is still one of the largest tax hikes since World War II. It will lead to higher prices and slower growth, and poorer Americans will disproportionately pay for it. The United States will suffer more from the ensuing trade war than any other major economy besides Mexico, experts estimate.
Trump has undone some of the expected damage by abandoning his plan, for now. But America still taxes trade much more than it did before Trump’s presidency — and that will continue to roil the world’s economy.
More on tariffs
China makes lots of the clothing Americans buy, as well as toys and electronics. Here’s a guide to how the tariffs could affect prices.
Ratings at Fox Business and CNBC have soared.
Canada expects to raise billions from retaliatory tariffs, and it has promised to use the money to help companies under threat from the U.S.
Trump’s auto tariff hasn’t changed. People in the English town of Solihull, where Jaguar Land Rover employs thousands, are stressed.
Trump spared Russia from tariffs. But falling oil prices could hurt its economy even more. Plunge in Oil Prices Threatens Russia’s Vast Spending on Ukraine War The lower revenues, a result in part of President Trump’s trade war, could prove more damaging to the Russian economy than the penalties the United States and its allies have already imposed.
China makes lots of the clothing Americans buy, as well as toys and electronics. Here’s a guide to how the tariffs could affect prices.
Ratings at Fox Business and CNBC have soared.
Canada expects to raise billions from retaliatory tariffs, and it has promised to use the money to help companies under threat from the U.S.
Trump’s auto tariff hasn’t changed. People in the English town of Solihull, where Jaguar Land Rover employs thousands, are stressed.
Trump spared Russia from tariffs. But falling oil prices could hurt its economy even more. Plunge in Oil Prices Threatens Russia’s Vast Spending on Ukraine War The lower revenues, a result in part of President Trump’s trade war, could prove more damaging to the Russian economy than the penalties the United States and its allies have already imposed.
April 9, 2025
The Latest From Trump Land
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| The Supreme Court. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times |
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Markets Fall Again. Trump Imposes 104% Tariff on China. Even Billionaire Republicans incl Musk are Getting Restive
Stocks were up early today as traders put their hopes in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s suggestion that the Trump administration was open to negotiations for lowering Trump’s proposed tariffs. But then U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said there would not be exemptions from the tariffs for individual products or companies, and President Donald J. Trump said he was going forward with 104% tariffs on China, effective at 12:01 am on Wednesday.
Markets fell again. By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by another 320 points, or 0.8%, a 52-week low. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%.
Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell, and Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported today that over the weekend, Wall Street billionaires tried desperately and unsuccessfully to change Trump’s mind on tariffs. This week they have begun to go public, calling out what they call the “stupidity” of the new measures. These industry leaders, the reporters write, did not expect Trump to place such high tariffs on so many products and are shocked to find themselves outside the corridors of power where the tariff decisions have been made.
Elon Musk is one of the people Trump is ignoring to side with Peter Navarro, his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro went to prison for refusing to answer a congressional subpoena for information regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Since Musk poured $290 million into getting Trump elected in 2024 and then burst into the news with his “Department of Government Efficiency,” he has seemed to be in control of the administration. But he has stolen the limelight from Trump, and it appears Trump’s patience with him might be wearing thin.
Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Pranshu Verma, and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post reported today that Musk was among those who worked over the weekend to get Trump to end his new tariffs. When Musk failed to change the president’s mind, he took to social media to attack Navarro personally, saying the trade advisor is “truly a moron,” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Asked about the public fight between two of Trump’s advisors—two of the most powerful men in the world—White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Boys will be boys.”
Business interests hard hit by the proposed tariffs are less inclined to dismiss the men in the administration as madcap kids. They are certainly not letting Musk shift the blame for the economic crisis off Trump and onto Navarro. The right-wing New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is backed by billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump’s tariffs against China are not permitted under the law. It argues that the president’s claim that he can impose sweeping tariffs by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is misguided. It notes that the Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to levy tariffs.
With Trump’s extraordinary tariffs now threatening the global economy, some of those who once cheered on his dictatorial impulses are now recalling the checks and balances they were previously willing to undermine.
Today the editors of the right-wing National Review urged Congress to take back the power it has ceded to Trump, calling it “preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over…the global economy.” They decried the ”raw chaos” of the last week that has made it impossible for any business to plan for the future.
“What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom,” they write. “Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession.” While this should worry all Americans, they write, Republicans in particular should remember that in less than two years, they “will be judged in large part on whether the president who shares their brand has done a good job.”
“No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king,” they write.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Senate yesterday: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”
Adam Cancryn and Myah Ward reported in Politico today that Republican leaders are worried about Trump’s voters abandoning him as prices go up and their savings and jobs disappear. After all, voters elected Trump at least in part because he promised to lower inflation and spur the economy. “It’s a question of what the pain threshold is for the American people and the Republican voters,” one of Trump’s economic advisors told the reporters. “We’ve all lost a lot of money.”
MAGA influencers have begun to talk of the tariffs as a way to make the United States “manly” again, by bringing old-time manufacturing and mining back to the U.S. Writer Rotimi Adeoye today noted MAGA’s glorification of physical labor as a sort of moral purification. Adeoye points out how MAGA performs an identity that fetishizes “rural life, manual labor, and a kind of fake rugged masculinity.” That image—and the tradwife image that complements it—recalls an imagined American past. In reality, the 1960s manufacturing economy MAGA influencers appear to be celebrating depended on high rates of unionization and taxation, and on government investing heavily in infrastructure, including healthcare and education.
Adeoye notes that Trump is marketing the image of a world in which ordinary workers had a shot at prosperity, but his tariffs will not bring that world back.
Now Trump is demonstrating his power over the global economy, rejecting the conviction of past American leaders that true power and prosperity rest in cooperation. Trump has always seen power as a zero-sum game in which for one party to win, others must lose, so he appears incapable of understanding that global trade does not mean the U.S. is getting “ripped off.” Now he appears unconcerned that other countries could work together against the U.S. and seems to assume they will have to do what he says.
We’ll see.
For his part, Trump appears to be enjoying that he is now undoubtedly the center of attention. Asked to make “dinner remarks” at the National Republican Congressional Committee tonight, he spoke for close to two hours. Discussing the tariffs, he delivered a story with the “sir” marker that indicates the story is false: “These countries are calling us up. Kissing my ass,” he told the audience. “They are dying to make a deal. “Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir. And then I’ll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, saying: ‘I think that Congress should take over negotiations.’ Let me tell you: you don’t negotiate like I negotiate.”
Markets fell again. By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by another 320 points, or 0.8%, a 52-week low. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%.
Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell, and Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported today that over the weekend, Wall Street billionaires tried desperately and unsuccessfully to change Trump’s mind on tariffs. This week they have begun to go public, calling out what they call the “stupidity” of the new measures. These industry leaders, the reporters write, did not expect Trump to place such high tariffs on so many products and are shocked to find themselves outside the corridors of power where the tariff decisions have been made.
Elon Musk is one of the people Trump is ignoring to side with Peter Navarro, his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro went to prison for refusing to answer a congressional subpoena for information regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Since Musk poured $290 million into getting Trump elected in 2024 and then burst into the news with his “Department of Government Efficiency,” he has seemed to be in control of the administration. But he has stolen the limelight from Trump, and it appears Trump’s patience with him might be wearing thin.
Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Pranshu Verma, and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post reported today that Musk was among those who worked over the weekend to get Trump to end his new tariffs. When Musk failed to change the president’s mind, he took to social media to attack Navarro personally, saying the trade advisor is “truly a moron,” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Asked about the public fight between two of Trump’s advisors—two of the most powerful men in the world—White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Boys will be boys.”
Business interests hard hit by the proposed tariffs are less inclined to dismiss the men in the administration as madcap kids. They are certainly not letting Musk shift the blame for the economic crisis off Trump and onto Navarro. The right-wing New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is backed by billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump’s tariffs against China are not permitted under the law. It argues that the president’s claim that he can impose sweeping tariffs by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is misguided. It notes that the Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to levy tariffs.
With Trump’s extraordinary tariffs now threatening the global economy, some of those who once cheered on his dictatorial impulses are now recalling the checks and balances they were previously willing to undermine.
Today the editors of the right-wing National Review urged Congress to take back the power it has ceded to Trump, calling it “preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over…the global economy.” They decried the ”raw chaos” of the last week that has made it impossible for any business to plan for the future.
“What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom,” they write. “Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession.” While this should worry all Americans, they write, Republicans in particular should remember that in less than two years, they “will be judged in large part on whether the president who shares their brand has done a good job.”
“No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king,” they write.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Senate yesterday: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”
Adam Cancryn and Myah Ward reported in Politico today that Republican leaders are worried about Trump’s voters abandoning him as prices go up and their savings and jobs disappear. After all, voters elected Trump at least in part because he promised to lower inflation and spur the economy. “It’s a question of what the pain threshold is for the American people and the Republican voters,” one of Trump’s economic advisors told the reporters. “We’ve all lost a lot of money.”
MAGA influencers have begun to talk of the tariffs as a way to make the United States “manly” again, by bringing old-time manufacturing and mining back to the U.S. Writer Rotimi Adeoye today noted MAGA’s glorification of physical labor as a sort of moral purification. Adeoye points out how MAGA performs an identity that fetishizes “rural life, manual labor, and a kind of fake rugged masculinity.” That image—and the tradwife image that complements it—recalls an imagined American past. In reality, the 1960s manufacturing economy MAGA influencers appear to be celebrating depended on high rates of unionization and taxation, and on government investing heavily in infrastructure, including healthcare and education.
Adeoye notes that Trump is marketing the image of a world in which ordinary workers had a shot at prosperity, but his tariffs will not bring that world back.
Now Trump is demonstrating his power over the global economy, rejecting the conviction of past American leaders that true power and prosperity rest in cooperation. Trump has always seen power as a zero-sum game in which for one party to win, others must lose, so he appears incapable of understanding that global trade does not mean the U.S. is getting “ripped off.” Now he appears unconcerned that other countries could work together against the U.S. and seems to assume they will have to do what he says.
We’ll see.
For his part, Trump appears to be enjoying that he is now undoubtedly the center of attention. Asked to make “dinner remarks” at the National Republican Congressional Committee tonight, he spoke for close to two hours. Discussing the tariffs, he delivered a story with the “sir” marker that indicates the story is false: “These countries are calling us up. Kissing my ass,” he told the audience. “They are dying to make a deal. “Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir. And then I’ll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, saying: ‘I think that Congress should take over negotiations.’ Let me tell you: you don’t negotiate like I negotiate.”
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