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Donald J. Trump White House 2nd Term Page 9
FIRED GUN
He has been replaced by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll after he reportedly did not show face in an ATF facility for weeks.
Josh Fiallo
Breaking News Reporter

FBI Director Kash Patel has been quietly removed as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives after he stopped showing up to facilities there, according to a report.

Patel, who remains in his FBI role, had not been “seen inside an ATF facility for weeks” and has been replaced by the U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, sources told NBC News. Driscoll will reportedly continue working in both roles.

Glenn Thrush, a New York Times reporter based in Washington, called the hush-hush swap of Patel for Driscoll “unusual.” He later reported the change was because Patel’s “plate was too full” at the FBI. A Department of Justice official confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday that the change occurred.
Zachary Basu

President Trump's epic tariff retreat shows there is no grand strategy for revolutionizing global trade, and that he's governing — as he always has — through gut instinct.

Why it matters: Trump's allies see a genius at work. His critics see a madman steering the economy toward crisis. And Wall Street sees, for the first time in weeks, a president who is receptive to external pain.

The big picture: Trump's stunning 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs — announced just one week after "Liberation Day" — caught virtually the entire world by surprise.

In one fell swoop, Trump shelved his maximalist tariff ambitions, intensified his trade war with China, and unleashed one of the biggest stock market rallies since World War II.
The tariff climbdown was vintage Trump: chaotic in execution, dramatic in tone, and instantly rebranded as a MAGA masterstroke.

What they're saying: "Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt scolded reporters.

"You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history," tweeted White House adviser Stephen Miller.
By Joe Cash and Yukun Zhang

BEIJING, April 11 (Reuters) - China hiked its levies on imports of U.S. goods to 125% on Friday, hitting back at Donald Trump's decision to single out the world's No.2 economy for higher duties, while dismissing the U.S. president's tariff strategy as "a joke."
By Nayera Abdallah

DUBAI, April 11 (Reuters) - Iran said on Friday it was giving high-level nuclear talks with the United States on Saturday "a genuine chance", after President Donald Trump threatened bombing if discussions failed.

Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that Washington and Tehran would begin talks in Oman, a Gulf state that has mediated between the West and the Islamic Republic before.

Investors had been waiting to see how Beijing would respond to Trump's move on Wednesday to effectively raise tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% while announcing a 90-day pause on duties on dozens of other countries' goods. The yuan slipped to levels last seen during the global financial crisis on Thursday but rebounded slightly on Friday.
By Stephen Fowler, Jude Joffe-Block

One of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency lieutenants working in the Social Security Administration has been pushing dubious claims about noncitizens voting, apparently using access to data that court records suggest DOGE isn't supposed to have.

The staffer, Antonio Gracias, made the claims as part of larger misleading statements about the SSA's enumeration-beyond-entry, or EBE program, which streamlines the process for granting Social Security cards to certain categories of eligible immigrants.

Gracias said in an April 2 appearance on Fox and Friends that "5-plus million" noncitizens who "came to the country as illegals" received Social Security numbers "through an automatic system" and proceeded to "get into our benefit systems."
Story by Owen Chase

Trump’s business record isn’t just real estate towers and licensing deals—it’s also littered with abandoned ventures that didn’t deliver on their promises. While some collapsed under market forces, others stumbled from mismanagement, bad timing, or branding that simply didn’t hold up. These failures are key to understanding how the Trump brand has operated over time.

Trump University
©Credit: Reddit
It was marketed as an insider education in real estate, but Trump University operated without accreditation and was staffed by instructors with little to no industry success. Legal scrutiny followed quickly, with lawsuits alleging fraud and deceptive practices. By 2017, the enterprise ended in a $25 million settlement and closed the chapter on a venture that left thousands disillusioned.

Trump Casinos
©Credit: flickr
From the Trump Taj Mahal to Trump Plaza, the current president’s casinos promised extravagance but hemorrhaged money. The Taj Mahal alone filed for bankruptcy multiple times before closing in 2016. Trump Castle and Trump World’s Fair didn’t fare much better. These ventures highlight a pattern: high-profile launches, overwhelming debt, and eventual fire-sale exits under new names.

Trump Mortgage
©Credit: X
Launched in 2006 as the housing market teetered on collapse, Trump Mortgage failed to secure credibility or sustainable revenue. Its CEO exaggerated his resume, and the company was derailed by the 2008 mortgage crisis. Less than 18 months after its debut, it folded—another example of bold branding colliding with an unforgiving market.
Story by Spencer Soper and Lily Meier

(Bloomberg) -- Companies are slapping “Trump tariff” surcharges on customers’ bills in a bid to signal where price hikes are coming from, a marketing gimmick that could help some niche brands cash in on the politically charged moment.

Such finger-pointing fees would inevitably alienate some customers, which is why the surcharges aren’t expected to be prominent features of post-tariff shopping. Still, some business owners say it’s better to tell shoppers directly why the cost of their goods are rising.

“We think transparency is the way to go here and I am giving Trump full credit for his decision to add this Tariff to all US consumers,” Ryan Babenzien said when he announced his plan for Jolie Skin Co., which makes filtered-water showerheads.

Jolie will impose a “Trump Liberation Tariff” surcharge starting next week, Babenzien said. His company is still calculating what the fee will be on top of the cost of a $150 showerhead. His team is building software in-house to add the fee to products purchased on its website, which runs on Shopify Inc.’s platform.

Online forums are already teeming with advice on how business owners logistically can add tariff fees to their websites, and even suggesting that Shopify, a platform that hosts more than 5 million online storefronts, should include such a tool in its basic package. Shopify doesn’t currently offer such a line-item tool, but its clients can still customize their websites by hiring programmers or purchasing separate applications.
Story by Jake Johnson

A video clip of U.S. President Donald Trump openly boasting about enriching his billionaire friends is drawing outrage as the administration faces growing scrutiny for possible market manipulation and insider trading in the aftermath of his partial tariff pause.

"He made two-and-a-half billion today," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday, just hours after announcing the pause, "and he made $900 million."

"That's not bad," the president added.

Trump was referring to wealth gains that investor Charles Schwab and businessman Roger Penske—both billionaires—notched during a historic stock market rally sparked by the president's decision to pump the brakes on massive tariffs he imposed on most countries across the globe. (Trump left in place a 10% universal tariff on imports.)

The market surge added over $300 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires in a matter of hours, according to Bloomberg. Shortly before announcing the tariff pause, Trump posted to his social media platform that it is a "great time to buy" stocks, prompting accusations of market manipulation.

Watch the Oval Office video:
A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found that government spending since the inauguration in January is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the Biden administration.
Story by Suhauna Hussain, Andrea Chang

On Tuesday, a trickle of visitors traversed the sidewalks of star-studded Hollywood Boulevard, which is usually bustling this time of year with families and students on spring break trips. Parked open-air tour buses and vans were largely empty.

But Jose Ayon, manager at La La Land, a souvenir and gift shop, was not surprised. Foot traffic has struggled to rebound after the pandemic shutdowns and now global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration could make matters worse.

That morning, Ayon said, several vendors that supply mugs, chocolates, plates, magnets and other knickknacks to the store told him that they would hike prices as much as 30%.

"It's pretty concerning," said Ayon, who has worked at the store for 10 years. "Everyone in the back is panicking."

In the face of market turmoil, Trump on Wednesday paused some of the tariffs he had imposed on most countries, while escalating duties on China.

But the twists and turns in the trade war have shaken Wall Street and deepened anxieties among business owners in Los Angeles and nationwide who fear a rise in prices and a disruption in their supply chains.

The fallout for tourism to L.A.
Among the casualties in the ongoing trade hostilities is tourism. Amid news of visa cancellations and deportations, state and local tourism officials are increasingly worried about the potential adverse effects on travel to Los Angeles and California.

“California’s message to all visitors remains the same: You’re welcomed and respected," Caroline Beteta, president of Visit California, the state's marketing agency, said in a statement.
Story by Tom Boggioni

According to a new report from the Washington Post, a senior official in the Social Security Administration was marched out of his office after he confronted one of Elon Musk's outside hires over a change in policy that he deemed illegal.

The report states that "well-regarded" official Greg Pearre raised objections when Scott Coulter, the newly installed chief information officer, detailed his plans to transfer the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, thereby halting their ability to make a living by working.

According to the report, Pearre told Coulter, "the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead, according to three people familiar with the event," which led to his being escorted out of his office and placed on leave.
By Alex Marquardt, Abbas Al Lawati and Kylie Atwood, CNN

CNN — Delegations from Iran and the United States will meet again next week after wrapping up “constructive” nuclear talks that included the first direct contact between a Trump administration and an Iranian official, according to Iran’s state news agency.

The talks, held in the Gulf Arab nation of Oman and mediated by its Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, were largely indirect, with the Omani minister relaying messages between the two delegations that were seated in separate rooms, Iranian media reported. The American side was represented by the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Iranian and Omani officials said.

The meetings were held “in a constructive atmosphere based on mutual respect.” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said.

“After more than two and a half hours of indirect negotiations, the heads of the Iranian and American delegations spoke for a few minutes in the presence of the Omani foreign minister as they left the talks,” the agency reported.

Speaking to state media after the meeting, Araghchi said the next round of talks will be held in Oman on April 19, adding that Saturday’s meeting “got very close” to reaching a framework for negotiations. Both sides said they are seeking an agreement in the shortest time possible, he said.
A simple math error has resulted in tariffs four times higher than they should be. Conservative economists claim the White House used the wrong elasticity value in their controversial formula.
Story by Katie Hawkinson

Companies across the country are adding a surcharge to customers’ bills in the wake of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

On April 2, Trump announced blanket tariffs of at least 10 percent on nearly every country, in what he called “Liberation Day” for the U.S. Then, on Wednesday he paused these tariffs for 90 days, citing Americans becoming “yippy” and “afraid.”

He only excluded China from the pause and is now engaged in a trade war with Xi Jinping as the U.S. levies 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods while Beijing has put a 125 percent retaliatory tariff in place.

Now, U.S. business owners say they’re passing along higher prices to customers as Trump’s trade war with China continues and they brace for the end of the 90-day pause.

Sexual wellness brand Dame has added a $5 “Trump tariff surcharge” to all purchases automatically, CBS News reports.

"Our whole industry is in China, so we've already seen the impact," Dame CEO Alexandra Fine told CBS.

"The intention of adding the Trump tariff surcharge as a line item at checkout was to remind people that this is an extra tax on us. I wanted people to understand why it's more expensive — that it's because of political decisions that were made," she added.
Story by Richard Ashmore, John O'Sullivan

Europe appears to be shifting its gaze from west to east, as leaders lean towards China for trade agreements rather than aligning with President Donald Trump of the United States, with the news coming just days after China's huge economic decision that was described as an 'act of hybrid warfare' and designed to 'punish Trump.'

Euronews has reported that following President Trump's infamous "reciprocal tariffs" - which China responded to with huge tariff hikes on certain goods - speech at the White House earlier this month, the first call made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was to China.

The European Commission, which had previously provided President Trump a stern warning over his tariffs, issued an official statement saying: "In response to the widespread disruption caused by the US tariffs, President von der Leyen stressed the responsibility of Europe and China, as two of the world's largest markets, to support a strong reformed trading system, free, fair and founded on a level playing field.
Story by Dave Michaels, Richard Vanderford, James Fanelli

Gordon Coburn and Steven Schwartz were on the verge of going to trial on charges of scheming to pay bribes in India when President Trump issued an executive order that put enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on hold.

It was a bolt of good luck for the former executives for Cognizant Technology Solutions, who had denied wrongdoing. The case had been dragging on for six years. Within two months, a new top prosecutor appointed by Trump dropped it.

“There was a tremendous sense of relief,” said Lawrence Lustberg, a lawyer for Schwartz.

The Trump administration is retreating from some types of white-collar law enforcement, including cases involving foreign bribery, public corruption, money laundering and crypto markets. In some cases, the administration is effectively redefining what business conduct constitutes a crime.

Trump’s executive order in February said bribery prosecutions hurt the ability of American companies to compete overseas, punishing them for practices that are routine in some parts of the world. That pronouncement could upend dozens of cases and investigations.

At the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to focus their anti-money-laundering and sanctions-evasion attention on drug cartels and international crime organizations.

A few themes are emerging: Prosecuting executives for wrongdoing that doesn’t have obvious victims is out. The Justice Department is open to arguments that a defendant has been targeted for political reasons, or that some prosecutions undermine economic competitiveness and national-security interests. And political connections within Trump’s world seem to matter.
Story by Janna Brancolini

President Donald Trump’s policies could cost the U.S. economy $90 billion this year in lost tourism and export revenue, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. Many foreign visitors are avoiding the U.S. over concerns about increased hostility at the border, including reports about European tourists being detained for weeks in U.S. immigration centers.
Story by Mary Papenfuss

Angry voters pelted Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley Tuesday with complaints and questions about the Trump administration’s apparent defiance of an order from the Supreme Court.

“If I get a court order to pay $1,200, can I just say no? Because he [Trump] just got an order from the Supreme Court and he just said NO!” said a very perturbed gentleman in the crowd of about 100 at a packed town hall meeting in Fort Madison, Iowa.

He was referring to the Supreme Court order that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return to the U.S. of Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in error.

Now the Trump administration claims it can’t get him back, and apparently hasn’t even tried, despite the order, and even though it’s paying El Salvador $6 million to imprison Abrego Garcia and others shipped out of the U.S.

“Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” another man shouted to applause from the crowd at the Grassley town hall.

“The president doesn’t care,” still another said. “He’s got an order from the Supreme Court and he’s just said: ‘No, screw it!’”

“Why won’t you do your job, Senator?” one voter shouted.

“We would like to know what you, as the people, the Congress, who are supposed to rein in this dictator, what are you going to do about it?” one man asked Grassley. “These people have been sentenced to life in prison in a foreign country with no due process.”
Federal Judge James Boasberg said he’d found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for showing “a willful disregard” toward his March 15 orders requiring it return to the U.S. the hundreds of Venezuelan migrants it sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador using an 18th-century wartime law. Marc Elias explains what happens now.
Story by Giulia Carbonaro

The deepening of President Donald Trump's trade war with China could push the country—the second-largest holder of U.S. debt—to dump its Treasury holdings, sending mortgage rates skyrocketing for millions of Americans.

While some experts believe that such an escalation is unlikely to happen, China's President Xi Jinping has promised to "fight" the Trump administration's escalation of tariffs "to the end"—and there is a chance he might do so through a very dangerous weapon the country has in its arsenal: more than $760 billion in holdings in U.S. Treasury securities.

Why It Matters
While backing away from other levies on individual countries beyond the 10 percent baseline tariff on all imports to the United States announced earlier this month, Trump has imposed 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods. China has retaliated with its own 125 percent tariffs on imported American goods.

As tensions grow between the two nations over a budding trade war that has no apparent easy way out, some experts have raised concerns that Beijing may be better equipped to withstand the negative economic shocks caused by the tariffs—and may even be willing to use its Treasury holdings to strike back at Washington and weaken its opponent.
Opinion by John Chrastka, Marilyn Jackson, and Celina Stewart

Imagine walking into your local library to check out a book and finding the shelves stripped bare. Imagine taking your child to a museum, only to find all programs have been cancelled and the doors are locked. Imagine living in a rural community where there is no high school and the only accessible education is provided by a local museum that is now closed, or your only access to the internet is a library that's now shuttered by political decree. Imagine trying to teach a classroom about civil rights, women's contributions to science, or the Holocaust—only to be told those stories are "divisive" and banned.

This is no longer hypothetical. It's the path we're on right now.

Recent executive orders issued by the Trump administration—one misleadingly titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" and another that guts the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) among other federal agencies—are not just orders on paper.

They are acts of erasure—coordinated, sneaky attempts to cherry-pick our shared stories and decide who matters, censor our classrooms, and strip our communities of the places we go to learn, to connect, and to remember. They are a direct attack on our democracy and our future. They are an insult to the American people who love their museums and libraries, and should decide for themselves what they want to learn.
Story by PRC

Beijing has responded tit for tat in Donald Trump's trade war. In reaction to the steep tariffs, numerous restrictions, and additional fees, China has halted imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.

The import of American LNG to China has been completely halted for over 10 weeks, according to shipping data reported on Friday by the "Financial Times."

Analytics firm Kpler, which monitors shipping data, has confirmed that no cargoes from the U.S. are currently being received in China. As assessed by "Bloomberg," this pause marks the longest break in five years.
Russian newspapers laud Trump for aligning US policy with Moscow, undermining NATO unity
Story by Conor Wilson, Hannah Broughton

According to a renowned Russian scholar, former President Donald Trump emerges as a "Soviet leaders' dream" due to his policies towards Ukraine since assuming office. As reported in the Russian weekly newspaper Argumenty I Fakty and translated by BBC Russia Editor Steven Rosenberg, the scholar compliments Trump for "driving a wedge" between the US and "the European part of NATO".

Following Vladimir Putin's unauthorized annexation of Ukraine in 2022, Russia found itself isolated internationally. Nonetheless, under Trump's lead, the US stance towards Russia has mellowed, highlighted by phone conversations between Trump and Putin and meetings of high-ranking officials from both nations in neutral territories.

Concurrently, America adopted a stringent approach toward Ukraine, briefly halting military support and intelligence sharing, while pushing the Ukrainian government to end the conflict, which implied potentially ceding land.

Moreover, Trump's rhetoric has often mirrored that of Moscow; he branded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" and blamed Ukraine for initiating the hostilities.
Story by Stephanie Gauthier

According to a complaint filed by the organization Whistleblower Aid, Daniel Berulis, a former computer specialist at the US government agency National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), recently raised the alarm about a potential serious security breach involving the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and his team.

EXCLUSIVE: A whistleblower tells Congress and NPR that DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data and hid its tracks. "None of that … information should ever leave the agency," said a former NLRB official.

— NPR (@npr.org) 2025-04-15T10:10:22.927Z

Berulis claims that he observed disturbing things in March 2025, when members of the DOGE team obtained extended access to the NLRB’s internal systems, allowing them to view, copy, and modify sensitive data.

According to the whistleblower, the data in question included files related to ongoing union cases, confidential testimonies, personal information about employees, and sensitive information about business owners.

According to the computer specialist, he immediately observed unusual activity on the NLRB’s computer network, including a significant increase in outgoing data volume, estimated by him to be around 10 gigabytes.
Story by Emell Derra Adolphus

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) foot soldiers paid another visit Wednesday to the federal agency where they were accused of causing a “significant cybersecurity breach.”

A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) made the accusation in an explosive NPR report Tuesday, offering evidence that DOGE took large amounts of data from the agency’s systems and risked a breach by foreign adversaries in the process.

Daniel Berulis, an IT staffer at the NLRB, said he first noticed the “breach” when large amounts of data left the agency’s systems after DOGE staffers—who insisted that their actions not be tracked—gained access. He also claimed to have observed suspicious log-in attempts from an IP address in Russia using DOGE’s new accounts.

A source told Forbes that representatives with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) arrived at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Wednesday for a two-hour meeting with leadership.

The topic of the meeting and the identities of the DOGE staffers involved remain unclear.
Story by Liam Archacki

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) goons at the Social Security Administration were forced to resurrect dozens of immigrants from the dead over the past week.

Elon Musk’s engineers had carried out a scheme to falsely list more than 6,000 immigrants as dead in a Social Security database known as the “death master file,” The Washington Post reported last week. Entry into the file cuts a person off from key financial services, such as receiving benefits and accessing a bank account.

As part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, the goal was to pressure the migrants to “self deport,” The New York Times reported.

Now, almost three dozen of the immigrants have protested the move, demonstrated that they are alive, and won a victory: They are no longer listed among the deceased, the Post reported Friday.

The immigrants, who include a Haitian refugee and a child, have shown up at Social Security offices with driver’s licenses, work orders, and letters from their states declaring them dead.
Story by thedailydigest.com

The denial
Prior to his election in November, Donald Trump categorically denied that he would be using the hard-right Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 as a blueprint for his presidency.

Not on Trump's reading list
“I have nothing to do with Project 25,” he said as Republicans maintained the blueprint was so extreme that it would jeopardize his chances at the polls. “I never read it and I never will. I’ve said 100 times, I know nothing about it.”

"Beyond my wildest dreams"
Yet the chief architect of the ultra-conservative vision for the US, Paul Dans, has told Politico that Trump’s adherence to it is “actually way beyond my wildest dreams.”

A sharp turn to the far right
Dans was pressured to resign from his post at the Heritage Foundation think tank in July last year but is still cock-a-hoop over the direction the country is taking under the Trump administration.
The court didn’t even wait to let Alito write his dissent.
By Mark Joseph Stern

Shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s reported efforts to fly Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison before they could challenge their deportation. The court’s late-night intervention is an extraordinary and highly unusual rebuke to the government, one that may well mark a turning point in the majority’s approach to this administration. For months, SCOTUS has given the government every benefit of the doubt, accepting the Justice Department’s dubious assertions and awarding Trump immense deference. On Saturday, however, a majority of justices signaled that they no longer trust the administration to comply with the law, including the court’s own rulings. If that is indeed the case, we are likely careening toward a head-on conflict between the president and the court, with foundational principles of constitutional democracy hanging in the balance.

SCOTUS’s emergency order in A.A.R.P. v. Trump arose out of the government’s unlawful efforts to ship Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. On Thursday, lawyers for these individuals told a federal court that the government was preparing to summarily deport them to El Salvador, where they would be indefinitely confined at a notorious detention center. A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas had already blocked their removal—but the government sought to evade this order by busing the migrants into the Northern District of Texas, where the restraining order would not apply. It then gave these migrants “notices,” in English only, declaring that they would be deported immediately, without stating that they could contest their deportations in court. (Officials refused to give these notices, or any other information, to the migrants’ lawyers.) The government intended to fly them out of the country within 24 hours, according to court filings.
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