US President Donald Trump is moving too fast, alienating allies, making Americans poorer, and tarnishing the sterling reputation of US assets, Citadel CEO and founder Ken Griffin said Wednesday.
Though the president may have identified real problems, his methods to solve them don’t appear to be working, and are unlikely to revive American manufacturing, Griffin told Semafor’s Gina Chon at the World Economy Summit in Washington, DC.
Previously, Griffin said, “no brand compared” to US Treasurys, the strength of the US dollar, or the nation’s creditworthiness. But Trump’s tactics have “eroded” that reputation. “We put that brand at risk,” the billionaire hedge fund manager said. “It can be a lifetime to repair the damage that has been done.”
Investors have dumped US stocks and Treasurys in recent weeks in response to Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs on imports to the US. While most countries have been granted a 90-day reprieve, Trump has increased duties on China and suggested he might fire Jerome Powell, the respected governor of the US Federal Reserve. (Trump walked back those comments, saying he has no plans to remove Powell.)
Using the euro as a reference, the US “has become 20% poorer in four weeks,” Griffin said, an environment that produces no winners or bright spots. “There’s no great opportunity when the pie is rapidly shrinking,” Griffin said. “All you’re trying to do is tread water and not drown.”
Griffin said his “gravest concern” is whether officials can conduct themselves so that they don’t “diminish the stature” of the US. “How does Canada feel about our country today versus two months ago? How does Europe feel about the United States today versus two months ago?” Griffin said.
He was signaling that he was going to get his revenge on his enemies, which included Canada and Europe, all during the campaign. I know I was expecting it and anyone who watched him carefully should have expected it too.
Griffin spent over $100 million on Republicans including Donald Trump[ in the last campaign. And now he’s whining because he’s getting exactly what he paid for. It’s maddening.
Griffin is one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors and has previously downplayed the threat of trade duties.
Still, the tariffs have been a major focus for Citadel, at a time when Griffin had expected a breather from the pressures of new regulations under the Biden administration.
Griffin had been relishing “the idea that I have four years to focus on my business.” But thanks to tariff turmoil, the country “has devolved into a nonsensical place” where business leaders are distracted by concerns such as supply chain disruptions.
Pete Buttigieg is comfortable in his own skin. Unlike Democrats who walk into a public space on the defensive or ready to do battle (fewer), Buttigieg’s affect is, “This is who I am. Take it or leave it.” It’s not only refreshing, but his openness allows some potential adversaries to lower their guards and listen.
On Wednesday, Buttigieg appeared on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast. “A Democrat has entered the manosphere,” declared The Verge:
According to co-host Akaash Singh, Flagrant, which has drawn controversy for its hosts’ willingness to engage with racist content, was unable to get Democrats to agree to come on the show, prompting Buttigieg to call them out for turning down the invitation. “We have to be encountering people who don’t think like us and who don’t view the world the way we do, both in order to become smarter and better and make better choices and take better positions, and also to persuade,” he said.
Piercing the bubbles
Coverage of the appearance is more about the novelty of it than the substance. Daily Beast presented a couple of quotes and described it as “the latest in a string of media hits for the former transportation secretary, popular Democratic surrogate, and potential 2028 presidential nominee who has urged the party to improve its anti-Trump attacks.”
In a nearly three-hour appearance on Flagrant—the bro-y, wildly popular podcast hosted by comedians Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, and crew—Buttigieg showed that a Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar, former mayor, and former presidential candidate can chop it up with some of YouTube’s biggest comedy bros without sounding rehearsed, robotic, or condescending.
Amid rising concern within the Democratic Party about its growing disconnect with male voters — particularly younger men — the conversation doubled as a political case study: What does it look like when a high-profile Democrat engages the “manosphere” not with disdain, but on its own turf, and its own terms?
Buttigieg described the learning curve he’s climbing in how to care for his Black daughter’s hair. He spoke to the threat posed by growing economic inequality, competition with China, and the risks of unchecked corporate consolidation. And about coming out to his parents.
Openness breeds trust
Hillary Clinton in 2016 was perhaps the most qualified candidate Democrats had ever run for president. Except after decades of relentless right-wing attacks, her public affect was a woman looking at you over the top of a shield. Even if it was Wonder Woman’s, it didn’t make her feel open and approachable to many voters. She was a highly skilled public servant. Not so skilled as a candidate. Buttigieg has skills.
The conversation turned to Democrat’s ability to speak to voters’ concerns. Or lack of it. Republicans know better how to reach voters on an emotional level, Schulz noted (Daily Beast):
“If you want to help them, say the thing that you think they need help with out loud directly and say that you’re going to do it and then endeavor to do it,” Schulz said. “We already expect you guys not to do it so the least you could do is f—ing lie to me. You don’t even lie to me!”
In the clip above, Buttigieg replies by laying out the kind of country he wants, Democrats want, even if they are ineffective at expressing it. [start at timestamp 1:38:55]
“I want you to have good public transit to get to where you’re going, and then when you get to that job, I want you to be paid well,” Buttigieg said. “If you’re about to have a kid, I want you to know that you’re going to have parental leave when you have that kid and if you don’t want to have a kid I want you to have the the right to choose whether to have a kid.”
Schulz said he agreed with Buttigieg’s ideals, but he felt that Democrats’ lack of action plans and emotional appeals contributed more to a Trump victory than Trump himself.
“Give me the solution to the feeling that I have,” Schulz continued. “I think that there’s a lot of Americans who are at the end of their hope.”
“It seems you know exactly what we’re feeling because that was beautiful,” Schulz added. “But I need the statements that are going to satisfy those feelings because that’s what gets people to sway over and that’s what [Republicans are] f—ing good at.
All of us should be so comfortable in our own skins and beliefs. The left is fighting an asymmetrical messaging war funded by right-wing billionaires. We need to turn their weapons to our advantage.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R) missed a chance to show up for his constituents. So the sponsors added a new twist to old “empty chair” routine.
So sponsors asked “ChatGOP” AI to improvise answers based on Davidson’s public statements.
And even though he wasn’t there, we asked AI—as we called it, “ChatGOP”—to draw from Warren Davidson’s public statements to approximate the answer he might provide if he’d bothered to show up here, or at any town hall.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered modifications to a room next to the Pentagon press briefing room to retrofit it with a makeup studio that can be used to prepare for television appearances, multiple sources told CBS News.
The price tag for the project was several thousand dollars, according to two of the sources, at a time when the administration is searching for cost-cutting measures.
“Changes and upgrades to the Pentagon Briefing Room are nothing new and routinely happen during changes in an administration,” a Defense Department spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
The renovation that was initially planned was estimated to cost more than $40,000, but the ideas were scaled back, sources said.
Every one of these Trumpers, starting with the man himself, really wants to be a drag queen. It’s obviously why they are so obsessed with transgender people. Their presence in the world makes them feel all confused down there.
*None of this is to say there’s anything wrong with wearing make-up or being transgender, of course. I’m just pointing out that these allegedly manly, pussy grabbing rapist types who love to insult everyone else’s looks and degrade LGBTQ people as deviant seem to have an unusual affinity for traditionally feminine grooming habits.
Philip Bump has a fascinating look today at American public opinion. It starts with this:
Perhaps the best analogy for the first three months of Donald Trump’s second presidentialterm comes not from American history but from Looney Tunes.
“We’re in the Wile E. Coyote Moment where actually all the key changes have already happened,” writer Julian Sanchez offered this month, “and we’re just waiting for folks to look down.”
That seems right. Trump and his allies have ripped through any number of systems that constitute and bolster the United States, but the full extent of damage hasn’t yet become apparent to most Americans — and may not for years. We’re still jogging straight ahead, unaware that there’s no more cliff underneath us.
Yowza. He notes that there is one group that seems to see that we’ve gone over: the markets. It’s a wild ride as they try to grab on to something on the way down, screaming for a lifeline. But Americans are only now beginning to see just how bad it really is. Bump does graphs and charts and they’re all interesting so I’ve included a gift link for you to look at all of them. They’re not good if you are a person who participates in the economy — which means all of us.
I’ll just highlight this one that shows maybe people are starting to understand what’s happening:
That slide may be in part because the discussion about Trump and immigration is no longer about his reversal ofBiden’s immigration approach (an approach that the Biden administration itself had to some extent revised before the 2024 election). Instead, it’s about Trump’s worrisome overreach.
Trump’s election last year was heavily centered on the idea that he would be a better steward for the economy than his opponent. His approval on jobs and the economy, though, has dropped quickly.
Has reality finally bitten? Time will tell. But those of us who have been running around with our hair on fire were sadly under-reacting. Hopefully, people are finally catching up but all that means is that they now realize what’s happening as we all go down together.
Officials from Nevada to New Jersey to Utah and beyond are scrambling to take stock of President Donald Trump’s cuts to the U.S. Forest Service — and deciding how to respond as the summer wildfire season looms. “Forest fires aren’t going to take four years off just because of who’s in the White House,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview following the announcement of $7 million in state wildfire mitigation grants. “So it’s really important that states up the bar on preparation.”
Trump has cut 10 percent of workers at the Forest Service, an agency that manages 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands, with more firings and a steep reorganization likely coming. About 75 percent of agency staff are trained in wildland firefighting. That means there are fewer workers around the country clearing brush and thinning trees to reduce the risk and intensity of wildfires. And when fires do break out, there will be fewer workers available to stop the spread.
The cuts have prompted alarm bells in state capitals as attention on wildfires and forestry policy has arguably never been higher in the wake of devastating fires that ripped through Los Angeles earlier this year. Record drought, heat waves and sluggish prevention work have exacerbated fires in recent decades: An average of 3 million acres burned nationwide each year in the 1990s, but the average is now nearly 7 million, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center.
Now, with that critical prevention work at risk of slowing, states and cities are weighing drastic actions to safeguard against the threat of potentially more fire-prone national lands.
I suppose he figures that since he’s allowing clear cutting of the national forests it won’t be a problem much longer. There won’t be anything to burn.
I would normally point out that this will ravage red states too. South Carolina just had a terrible wildfire. But now that Trump has pretty much claimed a dictatorship what does he care? Elections no longer matter to him. He’s getting revenge against his enemies and on a crusade to prove that he has always been right about everything. Except, of course, he’s always been wrong.
Vance: "The Ukrainians and the Russians are both gonna have to give up some of the territory they currently own. There's gonna have to be some territorial swaps." pic.twitter.com/eL0tbrNOAX
Except according to the plan Russia ends up with the huge chunks of Ukraine it obtained through invasion. It doesn’t “own” any of it.
Back in the Reagan years, neocon Jeanne Kirkpatrick famously insulted liberals being the “blame America first crowd.” Trump has turned that on its head by being the most “blame America first” leader in history, blaming all of his predecessors for allegedly destroying America. (He does this mostly because he doesn’t understand the issues so he simply does the opposite of them.)
He also has the habit of blaming Ukraine for Russia’s actions such as when he eagerly embraced the nonsensical conspiracy theory (told to him by his friend Vlad, of course) that it was Ukraine that did the election interference in 2016 on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
And he continues to blame Ukraine for the war with Russia and he doesn’t seem to be backing off on that:
The one-page document the U.S. presented Ukrainian officials in Paris last week describes this as President Trump’s “final offer.” The White House insists it’s ready to walk away if the parties don’t make a deal soon.
Trump’s proposal would require major concessions from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who previously ruled out accepting Russia’s occupation of Crimea and parts of four regions in eastern Ukraine.
And while Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly offered to freeze the current front lines in order to reach a deal, he has previously rejected other elements of the U.S. framework, such as a European peacekeeping force on Ukrainian territory.
A source close to the Ukrainian government said Kyiv sees the proposal as highly biased towards Russia: “The proposal says very clearly what tangible gains Russia gets, but only vaguely and generally says what Ukraine is going to get.”
What Russia gets under Trump’s proposal
“De jure” U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea.
“De-facto recognition” of the Russia’s occupation of nearly all of Luhansk oblast and the occupied portions of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
A promise that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. The text notes that Ukraine could become part of the European Union.
The lifting of sanctions imposed since 2014.
Enhanced economic cooperation with the U.S., particularly in the energy and industrial sectors.
There’s no surprise there. Trump thought he could just threaten Ukraine with U.S. withdrawal on the day after the election and Zelensky would immediately drop to the floor and begin licking his boots while his good pal Vlad agreed to a phony “ceasefire” in order for him to win the Nobel peace prize. He was mistaken. But he’s still intent upon punishing Ukraine which he believes screwed him over in his first term (he hates Zelensky) and help out his buddy so the U.S. can do some bad “deals” he can pretend will benefit the United States.
I’m not sure what will happen now but it appears that we’re finally at the moment we knew was coming: the abandonment of Ukraine. It’s possible that Europe can fill the void but it will be difficult especially with the U.S. likely lifting sanctions against Russia and essentially coming in on its side economically. It was always going to happen.
The Trump administration’s disturbing trend of ensnaring American citizens with its immigration crackdown has shown no signs of stopping, with the latest incident involving a 19-year-old whose family says he was held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility for 10 days.
The White House is trying to beat back allegations surrounding its April arrest and detention of Jose Hermosillo of Albuquerque, New Mexico. As NBC News reported:
Immigration agents detained a U.S. citizen for 10 days after he was accused of illegally entering the United States while reportedly visiting Arizona this month, his family said.
But the Department of Homeland Security said Jose Hermosillo’s arrest “was the direct result of Hermosillo’s own actions and statements.” Hermosillo, 19, who lives in Albuquerque, was detained near Nogales, Arizona, on April 8, court documents say.
They allege that he illegally entered the country from Mexico and was found “without the proper immigration documents.”
There’s dispute over some of the basic facts in the case. The Trump administration said the arrest occurred after Hermosillo approachedBorder Patrol agents in Arizona and identified himself as a Mexican citizen who had entered the U.S. illegally, and the Department of Homeland Security posted what it says is a signed affidavit from Hermosillo that support its claims.
But according to Arizona Public Media, Hermosillo’s girlfriend’s aunt said that he did, in fact, say he was a U.S. citizen “but they didn’t believe him” and that he probably would’ve been deported to Mexico if his family hadn’t provided officials with his birth certificate and Social Security card. The Trump administration didn’t immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment.
I never understood why they voted for him in the first place. It’s obvious that he has no respect for them, their culture or their countries. Stephen Miller is an outright Nazi. They were always going to go after law-abiding tax-paying people who are just trying to feed their families.
In shelters across New York, migrant children sit in front of computer and TV screens, appearing virtually in real court proceedings. They swivel in chairs, walk in circles and play with their hair — while immigration judges address them on the screens in front of them.
“The reason we’re here is because the government of the United States wants you to leave the United States,” Judge Ubaid ul-Haq, presiding from a courtroom on Varick Street, told a group of about a dozen children on a recent morning on Webex.
“It’s my job to figure out if you have to leave,” ul-Haq continued. “It’s also my job to figure out if you should stay.”
The parties included a 7-year-old boy, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a pizza cartoon, who spun a toy windmill while the judge spoke. There was an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sister, in a tie-dye shirt, who squeezed a pink plushy toy and stuffed it into her sleeve. None of the children were accompanied by parents or attorneys, only shelter workers who helped them log on to the hearing.
Immigrant advocates and lawyers say an increasing number of migrant children are making immigration court appearances without the assistance of attorneys, which they say will lead to more children getting deported.
The Trump administration on March 21 terminated part of a $200 million contract that funds attorneys and other legal services for unaccompanied children. Those are children who arrive without parents or legal guardians — and typically instead come with aunts, uncles or older siblings, according to immigration attorneys.
While the contract termination is being challenged in court, immigrant advocates say the impact is already being felt, as lawyer groups pull back on services – leaving some children on their own.
“How is a child supposed to navigate this?” said Beth Krause, supervising attorney of the Immigrant Youth Project at the Legal Aid Society. She noted many adults find themselves confused and disadvantaged in immigration court proceedings.
He did this before. Why would anyone think he wouldn’t do it again?
I’m glad to see some recognition that maybe the price of eggs wasn’t worth it. I wish people would realize that the authoritarian right will always come for them too eventually. Always.
If there’s one thing the Trump administration has in common with previous Republican presidencies it’s a bone-deep hostility to the State Department. This goes back decades to the anti-communist fervor after WWII and the case of Alger Hiss, a high ranking diplomat and Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt which began with his famous “list” of supposedly 205 communists employed in the department. (The number changed daily and McCarthy never produced the names but he managed to keep half the nation in a state of full-blown hysteria for years.)
Even after the Red Scare died down the right wing never gave up their suspicion of the State Department. Even if it wasn’t crawling with commies, it was considered weak and useless in the fight against the Soviets with its diplomacy and treaties and whatnot. That belief lasted long after the Evil Empire was defeated, with the likes of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lambasting the “Rogue State Department” in an essay for Foreign Policy back in 2003, writing, “anti-American sentiment is rising unabated around the globe because the U.S. State Department has abdicated values and principles in favor of accommodation and passivity.”
That was the muscular foreign policy promoted by the cold warriors and neoconservatives. They hated State because they believed it wasn’t confrontational enough and cared too much about such secondary issues as human rights. Gingrich wrote that the State Department was failing in its mission and needed to “experience culture shock, a top-to-bottom transformation that will make it a more effective communicator of U.S. values around the world, place it more directly under the control of the president, and enable it to promote freedom and combat tyranny.”
Gingrich wrote that during the height of the Iraq war, shortly after President George W. Bush donned a flight suit and gave his premature “Mission Accomplished” speech on an aircraft carrier. The Republicans were triumphant and saw themselves as the world’s saviors, ending terrorism and building a new world in America’s image, whether the world wanted it or not.
Donald Trump could not care less about “promoting freedom and combatting tyranny.” In fact, he’s more interested in the opposite: promoting tyranny and combatting freedom. But that is no impediment to the right wing once again attacking the State Department and arguing for its disembowelment.
Last week the Washington Post reported that according to a proposal from the Office of Management and Budget, the administration was planning to cut the department by 50%:
Under the proposed budget described in the memo, which remains subject to deliberations within the administration and, crucially, on Capitol Hill, USAID is assumed to have become fully a part of the State Department. Humanitarian assistance would face cuts of 54 percent, while global health funding would fall by 55 percent, the memo says.
There would be particularly steep cuts to support for international organizations, with just under 90 percent of this funding eliminated in the proposal. Funding for the United Nations, NATO and 20 other organizations would be ended.
A few others like the Atomic Energy Agency and the International Civil Aviation Authority would be allowed to remain which is awfully generous. All educational and cultural programs including the Fulbright Program will no longer be funded.
Two days ago the New York Times reported on a different draft Executive Order that would radically restructure the department which included “eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent, according to American officials and a copy of the document.” It also cut the offices that “address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns” and in the interest of eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” the anticipates laying off career diplomats and civil service employees and ending the foreign service exam for new criteria that includes “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”
And, of course, there’s this:
[I]t says the department will end its contract with Howard University, a historically Black institution, to recruit candidates for the Rangel and Pickering fellowships, which are to be terminated. The goal of those fellowships has been to help students from underrepresented groups get a chance at entering the Foreign Service soon after graduation.
Who needs diversity in a global institution?
The Times was unable to ascertain who wrote this draft order or how seriously it was being considered but it was obviously something that was under consideration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the report fake news like a good little Trumper, but it does reflect the thinking of plenty of people in the Trump administration who mistakenly believe that the United States’ interest in the world is solely one of economic and military dominance. “Soft power” is for losers.
Finally, last night Rubio himself unveiled his own restructuring plan which, at this point, seems like an attempt to assert authority that may or may not exist. It’s obvious that these other plans were being circulated in order to pre-empt his. He announced it on “X”:
Today is the day. Under @POTUS’ leadership and at my direction, we are reversing decades of bloat and bureaucracy at the State Department.
These sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats to put America and Americans first. pic.twitter.com/CGWz3JrYwu
No one knows at this point what plan is going to be adopted by the president. He will no doubt issue some kind of Executive Order soon enough and we’ll find out. But despite his belief that his word is law, these plans to drastically shrink the State Department will have to be dealt with by the U.S Congress and as we’ve seen, the GOP has long wanted to diminish if not completely eradicate it. They believe in domination not diplomacy (or as Rubio puts it, “great power competition”.) Trump may be the first president to actually get that done.
The stark consequences of Mr. Trump’s slashing of U.S. aid are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has set off a staggering humanitarian catastrophe and left 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — acutely hungry.
The administration says they haven’t completely cut off the aid but with the USAID work force of about 10,000 being reduced to about 15 positions, the whole operation is nothing but chaos, ineptitude and failure. Nothing is getting through. This is just the beginning of massive, unimaginable suffering that’s going to happen over the next year as America betrays its values and abandons the most vulnerable people in the world. Soft power is finally dead. It’s a Republican dream come true.
In North Carolina, the Republican candidate for a State Supreme Court seat has refused to concede to the Democratic incumbent, even though two recounts by a state elections board confirmed that he lost the November election by a few hundred votes.
The Republican challenger, Judge Jefferson Griffin, who currently sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, has instead embarked on an extraordinary monthslong effort to toss out scores of ballots. The race is the last in the nation to be uncertified.
News broke last night that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted incumbent Justice Allison Riggs’s “Emergency Motion for Injunction and Motion for Status Conference” in the federal district court:
Recognizing that the district court has not yet had the opportunity to exercise its jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1443 and address Riggs’ motion for preliminary injunction based on her federal constitutional claims, we grant her motion for a stay. In furtherance of federal jurisdiction, we enjoin the North Carolina State Board of Elections from mailing any notice to any potentially affected voter pending the district court’s resolution of Riggs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
Even though Riggs leads in the uncertified 2024 vote count by 734 votes, “Judge Griffin’s challenge has ping-ponged through federal and state courts,” the Times adds. Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen calls Griffin’s effort “likely an unconstitutional attempt approved by North Carolina state courts to overturn the results an election,” writing:
The Fourth Circuit panel explained that its stay order was necessary “[in] furtherance of federal jurisdiction.” It did not offer a detailed analysis. The dissent argued that the court had no jurisdiction to issue this order as it was an unappealable temporary restraining order, and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the cure process to go forward.
The North Carolina Democratic Party has its activists on standby to contact remaining challenged voters that need to supply additional information to their Boards of Elections for their votes to count in this race. That effort looks to be on hold.
Hasen adds:
What happens now is that things will slow down. The trial court will decide if Justice Riggs has a good constitutional case on the merits. Whoever loses that will likely appeal to the Fourth Circuit (likely before a different panel, if today’s order was from a motion’s panel), with the case potentially ending up at the Supreme Court. I expect things will continue to be expedited, but it will take months more to fully resolve.
Toast
The longer-term Republican strategy is to further pack North Carolina’s Supreme Court and institute retention elections that incumbents win 98 percent of the time. Meaning they’d have a permanant Republican court majority to go with their gerrymandered federal and state districts.
Griffin is fighting for his party’s goal at the risk to his political life. Likely at the instigation of shadowy Republican strategists, he’s spent months trying to overturn his election loss by throwing out tens of thousands of constituents’ votes from all parties. The effort has raised his statewide name recognition, and not in a good way. If he loses here, Griffin would need voters he’s pissed off to vote for him when he’s up for reelection to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2028. Meaning, if he loses this case he’s toast.
