Suspicious Frying Oil From China Is Hurting US Biofuels Business
Kim Chipman, Tarso Veloso and Michael Hirtzer – May 7, 2024
(Bloomberg) — China is flooding the US with used cooking oil that the biofuel industry says may be tainted, hurting American farmers and President Joe Biden’s push to promote climate-friendly energy.
US imports of used cooking oil, an ingredient to make renewable diesel, more than tripled in 2023 from a year earlier, with more than 50% coming from China, according to the US International Trade Commission. American industry groups and biofuel executives are becoming increasingly worried that a significant amount of those supplies are fraudulent, and are urging the government to tighten scrutiny on the imports.
The heightened suspicions come after the European biofuel industry expressed similar concerns about cooking oil from China last year. Used cooking oil has a better carbon intensity score than feedstocks widely produced in the US like fresh soybean oil, so any potentially tainted imports are benefiting from Biden’s renewables incentives at the expense of American farmers.
Read More: Asia Floods Europe with Green Fuel Suspected to Be Fraudulent
“We’re putting more pressure on the US government to say what are we really importing,” said Todd Becker, chief executive officer of Green Plains Inc., which through its production of ethanol sells distillers corn oil, also a green diesel ingredient. “Somebody’s got to figure out that that’s not all Chinese used cooking oil.”
Tainted used cooking oil would exacerbate a challenging situation for farmers and agriculture companies. Companies including Bunge Global SA and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. have been counting on soaring demand for crop-based green diesel feedstocks, but competition from foreign imports is eating into profits and jeopardizing ambitious expansion plans. More broadly, there is a risk that illegal shipments could worsen trade tensions between China and the US.
Imports of used cooking oil, or UCO, amounted to 1.4 million metric tons (3.1 billion pounds) in 2023 — equivalent to the oil squeezed from more than 6% of US soybeans crushed to make soyoil last season. In addition to having a more favorable carbon intensity score, UCO is also priced about a third cheaper than refined soyoil.
Read More: Soaring Imports of Green Diesel Feedstocks Disrupt US Soy Market
One of the biggest concerns is that China shippers are adding UCO to fresh palm oil. Palm, the world’s most widely used vegetable oil, is a bane to environmentalists and many countries because the industry is a key driver of deforestation in places like Indonesia as well as tied to labor abuses.
China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment.
The Environmental Protection Agency has had discussions with industry stakeholders, including the National Oilseed Processors Association, about concerns over increased imports of UCO and other food wastes, according to agency spokesman Nick Conger. He said the EPA is aware of the increased imports and that will be a factor in establishing volumes for and implementing the Renewable Fuel Standard Program, a law that mandates how much biofuel must be blended into the country’s fuel supply each year.
Under RFS, producers using UCO or animal waste such as beef tallow are required to keep records that vow the ingredients meet the legal definition of “renewable biomass” as well as describe the ingredient and identify the process used to obtain it.
“We are concerned that unless EPA and other agencies get a handle on this pretty quickly, it could potentially undermine the integrity of the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Geoff Cooper, chief executive officer of Renewable Fuels Association, said in an interview.
The surge in UCO imports is a top issue for NOPA, the trade group representing US seed processing industries for soybeans, canola and other crops. CEO Kailee Tkacz Buller said the group has had talks with federal lawmakers and agencies including the EPA and US Department of Agriculture.
Asia is by far the world’s biggest UCO supplier, led by China. The European Union initiated a probe into Asian imports last year at the request of European biodiesel producers, but the request was dropped. While the producers didn’t explicitly provide a reason for the change, they noted that biodiesel shipments to the EU from China’s Hainan Island — a green-fuel hot spot — immediately stopped after the start of the investigation.
“There is plenty of suspicion and lots of stories and anecdotes floating around,” said Cooper. “It appears to be one of the worst kept secrets out there that this is happening.”
–With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Gerson Freitas Jr..
Scientists sound alarm as growing threat looms over coastal states: ‘We are preparing for the wrong disaster’
Doric Sam – May 7, 2024
Scientists have issued a stern warning over the ongoing threat of rising sea levels caused by the ever-changing climate.
What’s happening?
A detailed report by The Washington Post revealed that coastal communities across eight states in the U.S. are facing “one of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth.” Since 2010, satellite data shows that the Gulf of Mexico has experienced twice the global average rate of rising sea levels, with more than a dozen tide gauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina registering sea levels that are at least six inches higher than they were 14 years ago.
While many understandably assume that extreme weather events like hurricanes are the source of these changes, experts revealed that rising water levels face a “newer, more insidious challenge” of accumulation caused by smaller-scale weather events.
“To me, here’s the story: We are preparing for the wrong disaster almost everywhere,” said Rob Young, a professor at Western Carolina University and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines. “These smaller changes will be a greater threat over time than the next hurricane, no question about it.”
Charleston, South Carolina recorded its fourth-highest water level since measurements began in 1899, with the city’s average rising by seven inches since 2010. Jacksonville, Florida has seen an increase of six inches during that period, but Galveston, Texas experienced a whopping eight-inch increase in 14 years.
Why is this concerning?
These rapidly increasing water levels are uncommon, and to make matters worse, experts believe they are here to stay even if the rate of the rise tapers off eventually.
“Since 2010, it’s very abnormal and unprecedented,” said Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who has studied the changes. “It’s irreversible.”
Rising global temperatures have caused warmer currents that cause water to expand. However, human-induced climate change caused by harmful gases and a lack of care for the environment have also contributed to these concerning issues.
The rising levels have particularly impacted the state of Louisiana, where wetlands that are meant to act as a natural barrier to catastrophic storms are now in a state of “drowning.” This issue would make the state more vulnerable to future major weather events.
Across the rest of the American South, failing septic systems can lead to contaminated water sources. During big storms, roads can fall below the highest tides and leave residents in the community cut off from essential services like medical care. Also, the future value of homes in flood-prone areas is being impacted by rising rates and limited policies from insurance companies.
What can be done about it?
Officials are trying to figure out ways to combat these issues. In Galveston, for example, there is a plan to install several pump stations over the next few years using funding provided through federal grants. However, it was noted that each pump is expected to cost over $60 million, which is likely to exceed the city’s annual tax revenue.
We can help by taking steps to reduce our own carbon footprint, like switching to electric vehicles, supporting local food sources, choosing native species when planting or volunteering for local cleanup projects in areas where rising sea levels pose a threat.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
Oldest living Japanese American, 110, shares her longevity tips and the 1 food she eats every day
Aryelle Siclait,TODAY – May 7, 2024
With 110 years of life behind her, Yoshiko Miwa isn’t going to wallow in the negative, and she doesn’t want you to either.
The oldest living person of Japanese descent in the United States, according to the Gerontology Research Group, Miwa prefers to focus on the times when she was happiest. She’s lived through the Spanish flu, prohibition, Black Tuesday, World War II, and the losses of her parents, siblings and friends, and still the supercentenarian’s go-to piece of longevity advice is: Don’t dwell.
Miwa is part of the nisei — the second-generation Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II — who often say “gaman,” which translates to “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity,” Alan Miwa, her son, tells TODAY.com. It’s often loosely translated to “perseverance,” “patience,” or “tolerance.”
These feelings, Alan Miwa suspects, are born from the resilience of many from his mother’s generation — who had much to endure. Shikata ga nai (仕方がない), a Japanese phrase meaning, “It cannot be helped,” or, “Nothing can be done about it,” is a common saying among them, too, he adds.
Yoshiko Miwa was born Yoshiko Tanaka on Feb. 28, 1914, in Guadalupe, California, to Japanese immigrants. She was the fifth of seven children. When her mother and infant brother died in 1919, her father struggled to care for his family and tend to the farm he owned. So Yoshiko Miwa and her siblings were sent to live at the children’s home founded by their parish, Guadalupe Buddhist Church.
She went on to graduate from Santa Maria High School in 1932, and she studied business at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1936. She married Henry Miwa in 1939.
During the Second World War, the pair and their families were sent to Poston Internment Camp in Arizona before relocating to Hawthorne, California, after the war. When they, along with many other Japanese people, had difficulty finding work upon their release in 1945, her husband founded a plant nursery business, and in 1963, Yoshiko Miwa got her nursing license.
Yoshiko Miwa has three sons, 10 grandchildren, 20 great-grand children and one great-great-grandchild.
Yoshiko Miwa (Alan Y. Miwa)
These days, Alan Miwa says she’s in good health and lives in a care facility, where she gets her hair done weekly and attends church services on Sundays.
In addition to a positive spirit, keeping your mind and body active is the key to a long life, Yoshiko Miwa has said in the past. Ahead she shares a few other aspects of her life that she believes have led to her longevity.
She keeps an ever-expanding roster of hobbies
When Yoshiko Miwa retired, she’d walk 4 miles each morning. In 1990, at 76, she walked a 20K as part of the March of Dimes Walkathon. She’s an avid reader, she practices ikebana (flower arranging), sumi-e (Japanese ink art), sashiko (Japanese stitching), sewing, furniture refinishing and reupholstery.
These days, though, her favorite activity is sleeping, she tells TODAY.com via email.
She wrote an autobiography
After taking a writing course, Yoshiko Miwa penned an autobiography. In it, she recalls her travels to Rome, Japan, Paris and Niagara Falls. She describes life in the children’s home and the long walks to school, her siblings and her childhood with her parents.
“We had a big pasture for the horses and cows to graze on,” she wrote of her family’s farm her in autobiography. “Some days, my sister and I would wander around the pasture to pick wild violets that grew there.”
She loves to eat noodles
Yoshiko Miwa’s a fan of any kind of noodles, eating them every day. “When I was in the children’s home, the cook used to make noodles and I used to love them,” she says. “Today, I like spaghetti, udon, ramen, soba and any other kind of noodles.”
Her faith energizes her
Yoshiko Miwa is grateful to Rev. and Mrs. Issei Matsuura of the Guadalupe Buddhist Church, who took her in when her mother died of the Spanish flu.
Family and friends of Yoshiko Miwa at her 110th birthday celebration at the Gardena Buddhist Church. (Courtesy Alan Y. Miwa)
Yoshiko Miwa was 4 years old when her father turned to the church for help. “The church then started a children’s home and taught us Buddhism, Japanese language, Japanese culture and responsibility,” she recalls. “I’ve always been indebted to Rev. and Mrs. Matsuura.”
… And her family does, too
The Miwa family travels together and hosts reunions. “I’ve been fortunate that my sons, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and relatives have always been there for me,” says Yoshiko Miwa.
“Because my mother died so young, I have never enjoyed the warmth and love of a family unit,” she wrote in her autobiography. “Later, when I had my children, I keenly felt the wholesomeness of a complete family.”
New EV tax credit rules mean cars with Chinese materials won’t qualify — but there’s a catch
‘Impracticable-to-trace’ elements like Chinese graphite will be temporarily excluded from EV tax credit rules, a boon for US automakers.
Pras Subramanian, Senior Reporter May 6, 2024
New rules from the Treasury Department will make it harder for vehicles to qualify for the full federal electric vehicle tax credit of $7,500 if key components are sourced from China.
But the rules also offered a two-year reprieve on some materials that are mostly sourced from China.
Late last week Treasury released new rules mandating that manufacturers not use critical materials that originate from a Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) — including China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran — by 2025 if they want to receive the full EV tax credit.
The federal government, however, is giving automakers some important leeway in sourcing some rarer materials, like graphite.
“The final regulations also identify certain impracticable-to-trace battery materials,” the Treasury said, adding that “qualified manufacturers may temporarily exclude these battery materials from FEOC due diligence and FEOC compliance determinations until 2027.”
Currently, the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) federal EV credit requires that manufacturers ramp up sourcing of battery “critical materials” such as nickel and cobalt from the US and its trade partners and ensure that battery components are increasingly built in North America.
The White House’s goal with the mandates was to reduce the industry’s reliance on battery materials and components from China.
China’s chokehold over battery mineral production is the main concern for automakers who need to diversify supply chains and for the federal government as it looks to boost domestic production of these minerals. Morgan Stanley estimated that 90% of the EV battery supply chain originates from China, with Chinese companies like CATL and BYD dominating the space.
The “impracticable-to-trace” exemption is a boon for automakers in sourcing low-value and hard-to-trace elements like graphite, which is a critical component of a battery’s anode and comes mainly from China.
The automakers and their main trade group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), cheered the 2027 exemption for non-traceable elements.
“This updated guidance from the Treasury Department is something we recommended. It makes good sense for investment, job creation and consumer EV adoption,” said John Bozzella, AAI president and CEO.
This photo taken on Dec. 8, 2022, shows the graphitization process of cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries at a workshop of a company in Hegang City, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. (Photo by Xie Jianfei/Xinhua via Getty Images) (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)
Bozzella also noted that the EV tax credit was hard enough to qualify for; only 20% of EVs received the credit, and on top of that, requirements will get harder next year. Currently, only 22 vehicles sold in the US qualify for the tax credit, and only 13 of them qualify for the full $7,500.
A restriction on trace or low-value minerals would have meant even fewer (if not all EVs) would no longer qualify for the credit.
“Imagine an EV that complied with all IRA eligibility requirements but is kicked out of the program because of a trace amount of a critical mineral from an FEOC,” Bozzella said. “That makes no sense — especially when you consider the massive investments automakers and suppliers are making in domestic EV manufacturing.”
Sen. Joe Manchin questions Education Secretary Miguel Cardona during a hearing in Washington, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
“President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed an investment and manufacturing boom in the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
“I’ve seen firsthand in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky how ecosystems have developed in communities nationwide to onshore the entire clean vehicle supply chain so the United States can lead in the field of green energy.”
The White House also noted that 15 battery gigafactories have been commissioned in the US since the start of Biden’s term in office.
But critics, like Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who helped push IRA legislation through the Senate back in 2022, see this loophole as the White House “breaking the law.”
“With this final rule for the consumer credit, their creation of loopholes in the commercial vehicle credit, and their EPA tailpipe rules, the Administration is effectively endorsing ‘Made in China,'” the Democratic senator from West Virginia said in a statement, adding that the White House is “blatantly breaking the law by implementing a bill that they did not pass.”
Manchin has vowed to lead a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval for the IRA’s tax credit implementation, which could lead to the repeal of Treasury’s guidance for untraceable elements.
Donald Trump puts America on notice again: If he loses, he won’t go quietly
Doyle McManus – May 6, 2024
Insurrectionists storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after then-President Trump urged them to march to the building where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s election win. (Associated Press)
Donald Trump has put America on notice: If he loses the presidential election, he reserves the right to encourage his followers to fight.
When Time magazine asked Trump whether the election would end in political violence if he loses, the former president replied: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” he later told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
When Trump says “it depends,” here’s the problem: He has never competed in an election that he acknowledged as fair.
Even when he won the presidential election of 2016, he claimed that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats rigged the count to deny him a popular-vote landslide, contending without evidence that millions of noncitizens had voted in California. The official inquiry he ordered up found no significant irregularities.
In 2020, when he lost to President Biden by 7 million votes, Trump not only claimed the result was illegitimate; he worked for months to overturn it, demanding that state officials “find” thousands of new votes in his favor. When his court challenges failed, he summoned supporters to Washington and urged them to march on the Capitol.
He returned to that apocalyptic theme last week, when he told supporters in Wisconsin that if Biden wins a second term, “we won’t have a country left.”
“Joe Biden is destroying our country,” Trump said at a rally. “The enemy from within is more dangerous than China and Russia. … I actually think our country is not going to survive.”
It was as if he was priming his followers for extreme measures if he doesn’t prevail.
And it was part of a long pattern. In January, he warned that if his four criminal indictments prevent him from winning, the result will be “bedlam in the country.”
“It’s the opening of a Pandora’s box,” he warned.
In March, he posted a video on his social media account showing an image of Biden hog-tied like a prisoner.
“He’s telling us what his intentions are, as he did before Jan. 6,” Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert at Harvard University, said recently on PBS. “The language is the language of incitement. … If he loses, we certainly know from what Trump has said — and we also know from what the FBI is telling us — that there are large groups and organizations that are preparing to continue the fight.”
As matters stand in the presidential campaign, that kind of 2020-style crisis may not recur, since Trump stands a good chance of winning.
The average of public opinion polls published by fivethirtyeight.com shows a dead heat in the national popular vote — but it shows Trump winning in all six of the most important swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump used a day off from his New York criminal trial Wednesday to campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin, where he returned to his warnings about an unfair election process.
“The radical-left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020,” he claimed untruthfully yet again. “We’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. We won’t have a country left … 2024 is our final battle.”
For months, Biden has sought to remind voters that Trump, if reelected, would run roughshod over the norms of American government and politics.
By reminding voters that he doesn’t accept the duty to recognize the result of an election he loses, Trump has paradoxically bolstered Biden’s case.
For some voters, this election may come down to a choice between preserving democracy and hoping for a return of the low inflation of the Trump years. They may not find it an easy choice.
A survey last year by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 38% of Americans believe the country needs “a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right.” That substantial minority included 48% of Republicans.
When Time’s reporter asked Trump whether his rhetoric about overriding the Constitution and ruling as a “dictator for a day” might alienate voters, the former president disagreed.
In an op-ed Monday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan’s remarks read like a clarion call, urging sane conservatives not to align themselves with a self-centered wannabe authoritarian. But they go further than some Republican Trump critics — such as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — by urging fellow Republicans to back Biden.
“I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Duncan wrote.
As Georgia’s No. 2 executive in 2020, Duncan pushed back against Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the state, before declining to run for re-election in 2022. In the op-ed, he pointed to Trump’s “cockamamie schemes” to stay in power as one of the reasons he’d be leaps and bounds worse than Biden if he were to regain the presidency. He wrote:
Duncan lists several reasons for conservatives with a conscience to defy the former president, including Trump’s recent Time interview previewing his illiberal policies if he were to win a second term.
It would be naive to think Duncan represents most Republicans with his stance. But it’s entirely possible he’s speaking on behalf of a sizable share of Georgia Republicans — perhaps one large enough to help swing the battleground state in Biden’s favor in November. So Trump has reason to worry.
Biden won Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. Nikki Haley won almost 80,000 votes in Georgia’s presidential primary in March, with about 20,000 of those votes being cast on Election Day — a week after she dropped out of the race. In addition, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are two staunch conservatives who have won re-election in recent years despite criticizing Trump’s false claims of election fraud, suggesting that there’s a potent strain of Republicanism in Georgia that’s averse to Trump.
And for the former president’s sake, he better hope the others aren’t as sober-minded as Geoff Duncan when it comes to voting this fall.
Former Republican Official Finds a Spine, Endorses Joe Biden
Ben Metzner – May 6, 2024
Georgia’s former Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan announced Monday that he is endorsing Joe Biden in the 2024 election, a stunning defection that puts him at odds with other leaders in his party.
Countless Republicans who have been personally slighted by Donald Trump, from William Barr to Ted Cruz, have nonetheless pledged their support to him in the upcoming election. But Duncan has drawn a line in the sand. The former Georgia official faced pressure from the Trump campaign to stop the certification of 2020 election results in the crucial swing state.
“The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country),” Duncan wrote in an op-ed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”
Despite conservatives’ insistence to the contrary, Trump’s legal troubles are convincing some Republican voters to jump ship ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Duncan, for his part, cited Trump’s criminal case directly: “The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star,” he wrote.
Duncan, who also refers to Trump’s chillingTime magazine interview as a reason for his defection, was once considered as a potential challenger to Trump in 2024. In March, Duncan considered and then turned down overtures from No Labels to mount a third-party campaign.
Now Duncan is throwing his support behind Biden, in the hope that it may convince other lifelong conservatives to break with the man who threatened Duncan’s colleague, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes.”
Duncan is the second high-profile Republican to express support for Biden in recent days. Last week, Trump’s former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews announced she will vote for Biden because Trump “will not uphold the Constitution.”
At a private donor event, Trump likens the Biden administration to the ‘Gestapo’
Dasha Burns and Abigail Brooks and Olympia Sonnier and Henry J. Gomez and Amanda Terkel and Alec Hernández and Nnamdi Egwuonwu and Jonathan Allen and Lindsey Pipia May 5, 2024
Curtis Means
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Donald Trump compared President Joe Biden’s administration to the secret police force of Nazi Germany in remarks at a private, closed-door donor retreat on Saturday afternoon.
The former president’s comments came as he was talking about his legal troubles, attacking the prosecutors in the cases and bemoaning the recent indictments in Arizona of several of his former top aides, along with 11 so-called fake electors from the 2020 election.
“These people are running a Gestapo administration,” Trump said, according to audio of the luncheon provided to NBC News. “And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they’re going to win in their opinion.”
“Once I got indicted, I said well, now the gloves have to come off,” Trump added, saying Biden is “the worst president in the history of our country. He’s grossly incompetent. He’s crooked as hell. He’s the Manchurian candidate.”
The former president added that he doesn’t let his legal troubles bother him too much.
“If you care too much, you tend to choke. And in a way, I don’t care. It’s just you know, life is life,” he said.
He did admit, however, that he was surprised when he was indicted.
“Once I got indicted, I said, ‘Holy s—, I just got indicted. Me. I got indicted,’” Trump said.
He also called Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting two federal cases against Trump, an “evil thug” and “deranged.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump made his remarks at his Mar-a-Lago Club on Saturday afternoon, as hundreds of donors are gathered down here for the Republican National Committee’s spring retreat.
The former president has had limited time to campaign as he’s had to spend four days a week sitting in a Manhattan courtroom for his criminal trial there, related to hush money payments to an adult film star around the 2016 election.
Among the featured guests at the retreat this weekend are a number of potential vice presidential candidates, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Trump has yet to move past the early stages of vetting a running mate, as NBC News has reported. Top contenders have not yet received detailed questionnaires or other requests for information to help finalize a shortlist.
At the luncheon, Trump brought all these guests onstage — except Noem, who left early, according to two people in attendance — along with a number of other elected officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
“By the end of it, there were a lot of people onstage,” one Republican source who attended the luncheon told NBC News.
Trump, according to the audio recording, praised Stefanik for her role in challenging former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who resigned after facing scrutiny for testimony she gave at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism and after allegations of plagiarism in her academic work.
“You destroyed her,” Trump said. “She did so well, everyone said … she’s going to be the vice presidential candidate.”
Vance, who had been a prominent Trump critic in 2016 while promoting his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir, “turned out to be incredible,” the former president said. The senator is scheduled to hold a fundraiser with Trump this month in Ohio.
“You know he wasn’t a supporter of mine,” Trump said of Vance. “He was saying things like, ‘The guy’s a total disaster!’”
Scott, whose campaign for the GOP presidential nomination fizzled before the Iowa caucuses, “did a good job,” Trump said. “But as a surrogate He’s unbelievable.”
“And you know what he said to me? He said, ‘I never felt comfortable talking about myself.’ There’s something nice about that. It never bothered me to talk about me. I’m the opposite.”
Trump also acknowledged Rubio and Donalds, his potential VP picks from Florida, where he also resides. The Constitution prohibits electors from voting for both a president and a vice president from their own states.
Rubio, Trump said, is “a talented guy” and “absolutely” being considered, “even though we do have a little problem. It’s a minor Florida problem with these Florida guys, I have to be honest with you — including that guy right there, Byron.”
Burgum, a former software entrepreneur who became the first of Trump’s high-profile rivals to endorse him, drew raves for his personal wealth.
“He’s a very rich man, he’s made a lot of money,” Trump said. “I would always say, ‘That guy’s really impressive.’”
Trump also offered a shoutout to Noem, though she did not make it to the stage, calling the South Dakota governor — who has been under fire since revealing in a forthcoming book that she shot and killed a family dog — “somebody that I love.”
“She’s been with me, and a supporter, and I’ve been a supporter of hers for a long time,” Trump added.
Trump also said he’d allow anyone who donated $1 million on the spot to come up to the stage. Two people took him up on the offer, including one woman who declared: “Donald J. Trump is the person that God has chosen.”
Dasha Burns, Abigail Brooks and Olympia Sonnier are reporting from Palm Beach, Florida; Henry J. Gomez from Cleveland; and Amanda Terkel from Washington, D.C.
Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden
Dr. Thomas K. Lew – May 5, 2024
I’m afraid I have some bad news.
As a hospital doctor, I’ve gotten pretty good at delivering bad news. Still, it never gets any easier. It certainly was not easy the day I told my 53-year-old patient, a devoted father of two, that his stomach pains were not from gallstones as everyone had assumed. Whenever a doctor says “bad news,” our minds often jump to that terrible “C”-word we fear: cancer. Unfortunately for my patient, I diagnosed him with a deadly form of cancer: cholangiocarcinoma. Over the next year, I would watch him deteriorate as he was readmitted with complication after complication.
Cancer affects everyone in some way, shape or form. Whether personally or through a family member or friend, the stress and heartbreak of a cancer diagnosis is immeasurable. Which is why I was so surprised when I read that Congress would not be renewing investments in the “Cancer Moonshot” initiative dedicated to curing cancer.
While there are many different forms of cancer and likely as many different research endeavors to treat them, the Moonshot program was the largest, organized effort by the U.S. government to find cures. Formed in 2016 by then-Vice President Joe Biden, after his own son was killed by brain cancer, the program has enjoyed bipartisan support and praise.
Initially funded in 2016 at $1.8 billion for seven years, with the aim to reduce cancer deaths by half by 2047, the program has made strides in expanding access to cancer detection screenings, especially to veterans, increased support for programs aimed at preventing cancer in the first place and provided funding to groundbreaking cancer cure research.
Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative is Congress’ latest partisan casualty
However, with the ever-present dysfunction of Congress, maybe predictably, the program has been stalled. Some Republicans, refusing to give Biden a “win,” voted against the renewal of funding.
Even though this would be a win for all Americans – and humanity – it apparently did not outweigh the politics of making a Democrat look good. This is the definition of party over country.
Republicans have stated budget cuts need to be made with an ever-growing debt. But where was this attitude when tax cuts for the wealthy were on the table in 2017? They don’t have to look at patients in the eye and break the devastating news that they have cancer. They don’t have to treat cancers that block intestines or drown a patient’s lungs in fluid.
If throwing some government money at this will expedite a cure, then it’s still a bargain.
I cared for my patient with cholangiocarcinoma through crises of pain, bowel obstructions, chemotherapy, kidney injury and, unfortunately, when he could no longer continue the fight of his cancer, his death. Besides the nurses and doctors supporting him, our patient had his family by his side.
Until recently, one could have argued that the government was also on his side, but Republicans and those who voted against funding the Moonshot Cancer initiative have made it clear that he, and other cancer patients like him, are not their priority.
Dr. Thomas K. Lew
But we, as voters, need to keep our priorities straight and focus on the health of our fellow Americans. Keep in mind who voted against the Moonshot Cancer initiative in the upcoming elections. Keep in mind those who continually vote against scientific progress, against funding for cancer research, against pandemic vaccines roll-outs or even against climate change, which is not just an existential crisis in the future but today exacerbates chronic health conditions such as asthma.
Keep this in mind and vote for those who do not politicize Americans’ health. Otherwise, the country’s prognosis is bad news for all of us.
Dr. Thomas K. Lew is an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and an attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley. All expressed opinions are his own.
No issue in U.S. politics is more contentious right now than the situation at America’s southern border.
Since President Biden took office in 2021 and reversed some of former President Donald Trump’s hard-line restrictions, illegal crossings have surged to a record high of more than 2 million per year, on average.
Democrats and other defenders of Biden’s record say the causes are complicated and predate his presidency: foreign violence, economic hardship and cartels that profit from crossings.
Republicans and other Biden critics argue that the president has effectively encouraged migrants to try their luck by using immigration parole at a historic scale and ordering a pause on most U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests and deportations.
But how could the differences between Biden and Trump reshape U.S. border policy going forward?
November’s election will be the first since 1892 to feature two presidents — one former, one current — competing as the major-party nominees. As a result, this year’s candidates already have extensive White House records to compare and contrast.
Here’s what Biden and Trump have done so far about the border — and what they plan to do next.
Part two in an ongoing series. Read part one: Abortion.
Where they’re coming from
Trump: More than anything else, Trump built his political following on a hard-line approach to immigration.
Starting in 2011, Trump boosted his profile on the right by positioning himself as the leading proponent of the false conspiracy theory that then-President Barack Obama — whose father was from Kenya — wasn’t born in Hawaii as stated on his birth certificate. In 2016, Trump finally admitted that so-called birthers (those who believe Obama isn’t a native-born citizen) were wrong and that “Obama was born in the United States.”
Trump spent much of 2016 vowing to build a physical wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico — possibly fortified with spikes, electricity and an alligator moat — and make Mexico pay for it.
According to the New York Times, “the idea [of a border wall] was initially suggested by a Trump campaign aide … as a memory aid to prompt the candidate to remember to talk about immigration in his speeches. But it soon became a rallying cry at his events.”
“You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving,” Trump told the Times editorial board, “I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ And they go nuts.”
Mexican immigrants weren’t the only ones in Trump’s crosshairs. In late 2015, after domestic terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook (a U.S. citizen born in Chicago) and his wife, Tashfeen Malik (a native of Pakistan who’d lived in the U.S. for years), killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Around the same time, Trump said he would create a “deportation force” that would expel millions of unauthorized immigrants. “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally,” he claimed during one primary debate. “They will go out.”
Biden: Biden entered the 2020 Democratic presidential primary under pressure from the left on immigration.
As Obama’s vice president, Biden could claim partial credit for 2012’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shielded from deportation about 700,000 immigrants (known as Dreamers) who were brought to the country as children.
“[Obama’s] title of deporter in chief was earned,” Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said at the time.
As a result, Biden sought to mend ties to Latino voters by calling Obama’s deportation approach a “big mistake” and pledging to reverse Trump’s border policies — while making DACA permanent and providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
“We’re going to immediately end Trump’s assault on the dignity of immigrant communities,” Biden said in his acceptance speech at 2020’s “virtual” Democratic National Convention. “We’re going to restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers.”
What they’ve done as president
Trump: During his four years in office, Trump issued more than 400 executive actions on immigration.
The changes started almost immediately. On Jan. 27, 2017, Trump signed an order seeking to block travelers from seven majority Muslim countries for 90 days while suspending refugee resettlement and prohibiting Syrian refugees indefinitely. Challenged in court, the administration issued revised travel bans as time went on, removing or adding certain countries.
Trump quickly zeroed in on his signature border wall as well. But Congress refused to meet his funding demands, sparking a lengthy government shutdown. Ultimately, Trump managed to build just 458 miles of barrier along the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border — nearly all of them in areas where older barriers already stood.
Mexico did not pay for any of Trump’s border wall.
Frustrated with the continued crush of illegal border crossings, Trump green-lit a plan in 2018 to separate migrant children from their parents or caregivers at the border and then criminally prosecute the adults. Trump eventually ended his “family separation” policy — but only after images of crying, traumatized kids detained in crowded facilities sparked a national outcry.
Despite Trump’s vow to expel “millions” of immigrants, deportations by ICE officers — who were given broad latitude to go after anyone without legal status — averaged just 80,000 per year during his presidency (significantly lower than the annual rate under Obama).
Why? Trump supporters and critics largely agree that the former president’s strict policies — including narrowing who is eligible for asylum; making it more difficult to qualify for permanent residency or citizenship; rolling back DACA; and forcing Central American asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed — “deterred” some migrants from even trying to cross the border.
But while Trump’s supporters described this as deterrence through strength, Trump’s critics called it deterrence through cruelty.
In March 2020, Trump implemented the emergency health authority known as Title 42, which allowed border officials to rapidly turn away asylum seekers on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 — without giving them a chance to appeal for U.S. protection.
Biden: Biden vowed to reverse Trump’s immigration policies on “day one” of his administration — and it’s a promise he largely kept.
In early 2021, the new president halted construction of the border wall; ended his predecessor’s travel bans; created a task force to reunify migrant families separated under Trump; reinstated DACA; ended Title 42 expulsions for unaccompanied minors; and ordered a pause on most ICE arrests and deportations, issuing new guidelines directing officers to prioritize national security threats, serious criminals and recent border crossers.
At the same time, Biden warned that without more funding and stronger “guardrails,” such as additional asylum judges, the U.S. could “end up with 2 million people on our border” and “a crisis on our hands that complicates what we’re trying to do.”
“Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on day one,” said Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser. “It will not.”
Initially, Biden kept Title 42 in place (until May 2023), expelling five times more border crossers than Trump did (in large part because more migrants were trying to cross the border illegally).
As a result, national surveys show that voters are unhappy about the border situation and prefer Republicans to handle it. A February Gallup survey found that nearly 20% of those who disapproved of Biden’s job performance cited “illegal immigration/open borders” as the biggest reason — more than any other issue.
What they want to do next
Trump: More of the same — with the emphasis on more.ADVERTISEMENT
Among the ramped-up policies Trump is reportedly planning, according to the New York Times:
“round[ing] up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain[ing] them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled”
reviving his Muslim travel ban and his COVID-era Title 42 restrictions on the basis “that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis”
and “scour[ing] the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport[ing] people by the millions per year” by redirecting military funds and deploying federal agents, local police officers and National Guard soldiers to help ICE.
In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump confirmed that he is plotting “a massive deportation of people” using “local law enforcement” and the National Guard — and “if they weren’t able to,” he added, “then I’d use [other parts of] the military.”
He also refused to “rule out” detention camps, saying “it’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent.”
His inspiration, he has said, is the “Eisenhower model” — a reference to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1954 campaign, known by the ethnic slur “Operation Wetback,” to round up and expel Mexican immigrants in what amounted to a nationwide “show me your papers” rule.
Trump has also said he would suspend refugee resettlement, revive his “Remain in Mexico” policy and end DACA. He has even left the door open to resuming “zero tolerance” family separations.
Biden: Most Democrats spent 2023 avoiding border politics while privately fretting about how the issue might affect the 2024 election. But the president finally bowed to GOP pressure last fall, agreeing to bipartisan border talks; the hope was that “a deal might take the issue off the table for his reelection campaign,” according to the New York Times.
In January, Senate negotiators actually struck a $20 billion bipartisan deal — a deal that gave the GOP much of what it had asked for, including provisions that would restrict claims for parole, raise the bar for asylum, speed the expulsion of migrants and automatically shutter the border if attempted illegal crossings reach a certain average daily threshold.
But Trump balked — and following his lead, Republicans on Capitol Hill effectively doomed the legislation.
“We can fight about the border — or we can fix it,” Biden said during his State of the Union address. “I’m ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now.”
In lieu of legislation, Biden is also considering using the same section of the federal code behind Trump’s most controversial actions, known as 212(f), to issue a “nuclear” executive order that would unilaterally crack down on migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the border after crossing illegally — but that would also risk legal challenges and left-wing backlash.
“Some are suggesting that I should just go ahead and try it,” Biden said in a recent interview with Univision. “And if I get shut down by the court, I get shut down by the court.”
