Four minors found working at Alabama poultry plant run by firm found responsible for teen’s death
Laura Strickler – May 18, 2024
Four minors as young as 16 were allegedly discovered working overnight at an Alabama slaughterhouse owned by the same firm that was found directly responsible for the death of a 16-year-old Mississippi worker last summer, the U.S. Labor Department said in federal court filings.
The company, Mar-Jac Poultry, has denied that it knowingly hired minors for its Jasper, Alabama, facility, saying the workers had verified IDs that gave ages older than 17, and has also argued that some of the workers were performing jobs that are not prohibited by federal regulations.
The Labor Department is seeking a temporary restraining order against Mar-Jac as part of the ongoing legal dispute. Agency officials declined to comment, citing their investigation.
The Labor Department has said that most slaughterhouse work is too dangerous for minors and is prohibited by federal regulations. Under the Biden administration, the department has taken action against companies for employing minors to clean, use or work near dangerous machinery. A chicken trade group to which Mar-Jac belongs says it has “zero tolerance” for employing minors, and a major meat industry trade group also stated recently that no minors should be working in slaughterhouses.
Mar-Jac’s attorney Larry Stine said the company has a policy of not hiring anyone under the age of 18. Federal law, however, does not categorically prohibit minors from working in slaughterhouses, listing a few narrow exceptions. Stine told NBC News that to defend against child labor allegations, he argued in court filings that the specific jobs were allowed under the law.
Mar-Jac Poultry in Jasper, Ala. (Google Maps)
Stine wrote in a brief that the job performed by two of the workers in the “rehang department,” which involves lifting and hanging chilled and eviscerated chicken carcasses, is not prohibited by federal regulations. He also wrote that the workers were not using power machinery, and that a job where one of the workers used a knife to cut wings from carcasses on a conveyor belt is also not prohibited.
The company said the workers were verified through the government’s E-Verify system and that once the Labor Department identified them as minors the workers were immediately fired. Stine said the alleged minors in Alabama were hired directly by Mar-Jac and not a third-party staffing company.
The Jasper plant was cited in December for a “serious violation” of worker safety by a different part of the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In November, according to OSHA, an employee “reached into [a] machine using an unguarded approach attempting to rectify the hanging placement of a chicken and was injured.”
According to the agency’s online enforcement database, Mar-Jac formally settled with OSHA on the injury citation earlier this week.
Court documents show the Labor Department’s child labor investigation into the Alabama facility began with a complaint in March of this year. In May, 20 Labor investigators went into the plant without prior notice in the early-morning hours and verified that at least four of the workers at the plant were minors, according to the department’s court filings.
The Jasper facility processes more than 1.6 million chickens per week, according to the company’s website.
In affidavits, Labor Department investigators said there were 18-year-old workers present who told investigators they were hired by Mar-Jac when they were 15.
At least some of the minors working at the plant were Guatemalan and attended a local high school, Labor investigators said. They said the minors started their shifts at 11 p.m. and worked from Sunday through Thursday.
Death in Mississippi
In January, OSHA found Mar-Jac to be directly responsible for the death of 16-year-old Duvan Perez at its Hattiesburg, Mississippi, facility. Perez’s body was sucked into a machine that he was cleaning on the night shift and he died instantly. Perez’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mar-Jac.https:
The company has contested OSHA’s conclusions, according to the agency’s enforcement database.
In a previous email about the incident, Stine said, “Mar-Jac thoroughly investigated the accident and has not found any errors committed by its safety or human resources employees. It has learned many lessons from the accident and has taken aggressive steps to prevent the occurrence of another accident or hiring underage workers.”
The NBC News documentary “Slaughterhouse Children” revealed that at least nine times in the past three years, American citizens have complained to the Hattiesburg Police Department and sometimes to Mar-Jac that their identities were stolen and being used by Mar-Jac workers, according to police reports obtained via public information requests.
The company maintained that it was duped by workers using false identities who were hired by an outside staffing firm.
Perez used the identity of a 32-year-old man to get his job at Mar-Jac in Mississippi, the company previously told NBC News. The company has also said Perez was a contract worker and that Mar-Jac relied on a staffing company to fill positions at the Hattiesburg facility and verify work eligibility.
As part of the company’s response to Perez’s death, Mar-Jac said it was applying additional scrutiny to any IDs presented for employment. Company representatives said they were also hanging up signs saying children could not be employed and the third-party hiring firm was required to provide a photo of applicants to Mar-Jac in addition to their photo ID.
Some of the steps Mar-Jac said it was taking in Mississippi are the same as those recommended in a new “best practices” document for meat processing companies released a few weeks ago by the nation’s largest meat industry trade group, the Meat Institute, which represents companies that sell beef, pork, lamb and poultry products.
The group’s best practices were published after a year of aggressive federal investigations and high-profile media coverage showing that the hiring of children to work in slaughterhouses was widespread across the industry.
But the trade group also said categorically that minors should not be working in slaughterhouses. In a press release accompanying the new best practices document, Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts wrote, “The members of the Meat Institute are universally aligned that meat and poultry production facilities are no place for children.”
Stine noted that Mar-Jac is not a member of the Meat Institute. Mar-Jac does belong to trade groups representing the poultry industry, including the National Chicken Council, which says it represents companies that provide about 95 percent of chicken meat products to U.S. consumers.
In a statement, Tom Super, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council, said, “The poultry industry has zero tolerance for the hiring of minors. Our members have recently come together to form a Task Force to Prevent Child Labor, to treat this issue as non-competitive and to foster collaboration through the sharing of best practices that aid in the prevention of minors from gaining employment.”
“Unfortunately, in most of these cases, minors are hired even when using all of the required government screening programs and the applicants appear to be of legal age. These challenges are not unique to the poultry industry but are systemic issues affecting many other sectors in the United States, as well.”
Asked about Mar-Jac’s assertion that minors are not barred from some jobs, however, Super said, “Some jobs are lawful, some aren’t. We oppose all unlawful hiring.”
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.
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.”
By Eric Cortellessa, Palm Beach FLA. – April 30 2024
The former President, at Mar-a-Lago on April 12, is rallying the right at home and seeking common cause with autocratic leaders abroad.Photograph by Philip Montgomery for TIME
Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.
We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?
As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”
Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.
Photograph by Philip Montgomery for TIME
What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”
The crowd at a Trump campaign rally in Schnecksville, Penn., on April 13.Victor J. Blue for TIME
The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present. If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term. Public opinion would also be a powerful check. Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.”
Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”
Trump steps onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago near dusk. The well-heeled crowd eating Wagyu steaks and grilled branzino pauses to applaud as he takes his seat. On this gorgeous evening, the club is a MAGA mecca. Billionaire donor Steve Wynn is here. So is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who is dining with the former President after a joint press conference proposing legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting. Their voting in federal elections is already illegal, and extremely rare, but remains a Trumpian fixation that the embattled Speaker appeared happy to co-sign in exchange for the political cover that standing with Trump provides.
At the moment, though, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. With an index finger, he swipes through an iPad on the table to curate the restaurant’s soundtrack. The playlist veers from Sinead O’Connor to James Brown to The Phantom of the Opera. And there’s a uniquely Trump choice: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a choir of defendants imprisoned for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, interspersed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This has become a staple of his rallies, converting the ultimate symbol of national unity into a weapon of factional devotion.
The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor.
The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is a profound stain on Trump’s legacy, one that he has sought to recast as an act of patriotism.Victor J. Blue
In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.
Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.
In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”
Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)
Such moves would be potentially catastrophic for the credibility of American law enforcement, scholars and former Justice Department leaders from both parties say. “If he ordered an improper prosecution, I would expect any respectable U.S. Attorney to say no,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush. “If the President fired the U.S. Attorney, it would be an enormous firestorm.” McConnell, now a Stanford law professor, says the dismissal could have a cascading effect similar to the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon ordered top DOJ officials to remove the special counsel investigating Watergate. Presidents have the constitutional right to fire U.S. Attorneys, and typically replace their predecessors’ appointees upon taking office. But discharging one specifically for refusing a President’s order would be all but unprecedented.
The U.S. border fence in Sunland Park, N.M..Victor J. Blue
Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”
For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”
As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.
Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”
Presidents typically have a narrow window to pass major legislation. Trump’s team is eyeing two bills to kick off a second term: a border-security and immigration package, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Many of the latter’s provisions expire early in 2025: the tax cuts on individual income brackets, 100% business expensing, the doubling of the estate-tax deduction. Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand. His advisers argue that the average yearly inflation rate in his first term—under 2%—is evidence that his tariffs won’t raise prices.
Since leaving office, Trump has tried to engineer a caucus of the compliant, clearing primary fields in Senate and House races. His hope is that GOP majorities replete with MAGA diehards could rubber-stamp his legislative agenda and nominees. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a former RSC chairman and the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, recalls an August 2022 RSC planning meeting with Trump at his residence in Bedminster, N.J. As the group arrived, Banks recalls, news broke that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI. Banks was sure the meeting would be canceled. Moments later, Trump walked through the doors, defiant and pledging to run again. “I need allies there when I’m elected,” Banks recalls Trump saying. The difference in a second Trump term, Banks says now, “is he’s going to have the backup in Congress that he didn’t have before.”
Haley, Scavino, Wiles: AP (3); Bannon, Conway, Homan, LaCivita, Lighthizer, J. Miller, S. Miller, Trump, Vought: Getty Images (9)
Trump’s intention to remake America’s relations abroad may be just as consequential. Since its founding, the U.S. has sought to build and sustain alliances based on the shared values of political and economic freedom. Trump takes a much more transactional approach to international relations than his predecessors, expressing disdain for what he views as free-riding friends and appreciation for authoritarian leaders like President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, or former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.
That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.
But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)
Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.”
America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense.
Trump is less cryptic on current U.S. troop deployments in Asia. If South Korea doesn’t pay more to support U.S. troops there to deter Kim Jong Un’s increasingly belligerent regime to the north, Trump suggests the U.S. could withdraw its forces. “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” he tells TIME. (The number is actually 28,500.) “Which doesn’t make any sense. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country.”
Transactional isolationism may be the main strain of Trump’s foreign policy, but there are limits. Trump says he would join Israel’s side in a confrontation with Iran. “If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there,” he tells me. He says he has come around to the now widespread belief in Israel that a Palestinian state existing side by side in peace is increasingly unlikely. “There was a time when I thought two-state could work,” he says. “Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough.”
Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.
On the second day of Trump’s New York trial on April 17, I stand behind the packed counter of the Sanaa Convenience Store on 139th Street and Broadway, waiting for Trump to drop in for a postcourt campaign stop. He chose the bodega for its history. In 2022, one of the store’s clerks fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him. Bragg, the Manhattan DA, charged the clerk with second-degree murder. (The charges were later dropped amid public outrage over video footage that appeared to show the clerk acting in self-defense.) A baseball bat behind the counter alludes to lingering security concerns. When Trump arrives, he asks the store’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, about safety. “You should be allowed to have a gun,” Trump tells Ahmed. “If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed.”
On the campaign trail, Trump uses crime as a cudgel, painting urban America as a savage hell-scape even though violent crime has declined in recent years, with homicides sinking 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023, according to the FBI. When I point this out, Trump tells me he thinks the data, which is collected by state and local police departments, is rigged. “It’s a lie,” he says. He has pledged to send the National Guard into cities struggling with crime in a second term—possibly without the request of governors—and plans to approve Justice Department grants only to cities that adopt his preferred policing methods like stop-and-frisk.
To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans. When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.
A protester confronts members of the Minnesota National Guard after the murder of George Floyd.Victor J. Blue
Trump’s ability to campaign for the White House in the midst of an unprecedented criminal trial is the product of a more professional campaign operation that has avoided the infighting that plagued past versions. “He has a very disciplined team around him,” says Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. “That is an indicator of how disciplined and focused a second term will be.” That control now extends to the party writ large. In 2016, the GOP establishment, having failed to derail Trump’s campaign, surrounded him with staff who sought to temper him. Today the party’s permanent class have either devoted themselves to the gospel of MAGA or given up. Trump has cleaned house at the Republican National Committee, installing handpicked leaders—including his daughter-in-law—who have reportedly imposed loyalty tests on prospective job applicants, asking whether they believe the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. (The RNC has denied there is a litmus test.) Trump tells me he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits Biden won: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”
Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration.
The goal of these groups is to put Trump’s vision into action on day one. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” says Vought. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.” That includes a litany of boundary-pushing right-wing policies, including slashing Department of Justice funding and cutting climate and environmental regulations.
Trump’s campaign says he would be the final decision-maker on which policies suggested by these organizations would get implemented. But at the least, these advisers could form the front lines of a planned march against what Trump dubs the Deep State, marrying bureaucratic savvy to their leader’s anti-bureaucratic zeal. One weapon in Trump’s second-term “War on Washington” is a wonky one: restoring the power of impoundment, which allowed Presidents to withhold congressionally appropriated funds. Impoundment was a favorite maneuver of Nixon, who used his authority to freeze funding for subsidized housing and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump and his allies plan to challenge a 1974 law that prohibits use of the measure, according to campaign policy advisers.
Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”
It can be hard at times to discern Trump’s true intentions. In his interviews with TIME, he often sidestepped questions or answered them in contradictory ways. There’s no telling how his ego and self-destructive behavior might hinder his objectives. And for all his norm-breaking, there are lines he says he won’t cross. When asked if he would comply with all orders upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump says he would.
But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”
Trump speaks at his last rally ahead of his criminal trial in Schnecksville, Penn., on April 13.Victor J. Blue for TIME
These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.
Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.
Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian
Trump Reveals Exactly Who He’d Go After in a Second Term
Hafiz Rashid – April 30, 2024
Donald Trump has made no secret of his plans to take revenge if he makes his way back to the White House.
In a new interview with Time magazine, Trump said he would consider firing U.S. attorneys who refuse to follow his orders on prosecution of others.
“It depends on the situation, honestly,” he said, undermining the idea of independent law enforcement.
When asked if he would prosecute Fani Willis or Alvin Bragg, the Atlanta-area and Manhattan district attorneys who are currently prosecuting him, he also wouldn’t outright reject the idea.
Well you said Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted. Would you instruct your attorney general to prosecute him?
Trump: When did I say Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted?
It was at a rally.
Trump: I don’t think I said that, no.
I can pull it up.
Trump: No.
And when it came to Biden, Trump again made clear he’s open to the idea of prosecution.
After initially saying he “wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” Trump seconds later said it all depends on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. “If they said that a president doesn’t get immunity,” said Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.”
Trump also revived the idea of enforcing Schedule F, which allows the president to fire nonpolitical government officials. This would allow him to fire civil servants who refuse to carry out his orders.
“You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he said.
It’s no secret that Trump and many of his far-right allies want to purge the government of civil servants who aren’t loyal to their agenda. Famously, Trump adviser Steven Bannon said he wanted to dismantle the administrative state. President Biden has taken steps to bolster and strengthen the administrative state, which would be in clear jeopardy if Trump is reelected.
In the rest of the Time interview, Trump was at times contradictory but also said that he would consider pardoning every single one of the January 6 rioters and take steps to deport millions of undocumented immigrants via detention camps and the U.S. military. In any case, if he wins reelection, it’s safe to say that the U.S. government would be upended, with Trump using all of the legal means at his disposal. Those who want to preserve democracy as we know it would have a tall order on their hands.
Trump on political violence in 2024: ‘If we don’t win, you know, it depends’
Jake Traylor and Scott Bland – April 30, 2024
Mark Peterson
Former President Donald Trumpsaid in a new interview with Time magazine that he doesn’t think there will be political violence around the 2024 election because he believes he’ll win — but that it “always depends on the fairness of an election.”
The comments came along with a statement that Trump would “consider” pardoning every person who has been charged or convicted for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after the then-president rallied his followers against what he has repeatedly and baselessly called a “rigged” election.
Trump also answered questions digging into his campaign position on abortion policy being left up to the states — and deflecting questions pressing him on any potential federal action, including his position on whether abortion medication should be available. And Trump reinforced past statements he has made on Russia doing “whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries who don’t pay their “fair share” and the extent of a military crackdown he plans to order on illegal immigration.
When Trump was asked in an initial interview about the prospect of more political violence in 2024, after the events following the 2020 election, he said no. “I think we’re gonna have a big victory. And I think there will be no violence,” Trump said.
But asked in a follow-up conversation about what will happen if he doesn’t win, Trump was equivocal.
“Well, I do think we’re gonna win,” Trump answered. “We’re way ahead. I don’t think they’ll be able to do the things that they did the last time, which were horrible. Absolutely horrible. So many, so many different things they did, which were in total violation of what was supposed to be happening. And you know that and everybody knows that. We can recite them, go down a list that would be an arm’s long. But I don’t think we’re going to have that. I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Trump also said that he’d be reluctant to hire people for a second administration who thought President Joe Biden won the 2020 election: “I wouldn’t feel good about it,” he said.
On the people charged and convicted of violent acts as Congress was preparing to certify the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump complained that they’ve faced a “two-tier system” but, when pressed, said, “I would consider that, yes,” when asked if he’d consider pardoning every single person prosecuted for their actions on Jan. 6.
‘The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me’
Trump’s rare long-form interview included him talking through his position on leaving abortion policy up to states. When asked directly if he was comfortable with states deciding to punish women who access abortions after the designated state-specific ban, Trump said: “I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
Then, asked if women’s pregnancies should be monitored by state governments to ensure they don’t get abortions after a certain timeline ban, Trump said: “I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.”
Trump also dodged on the question of whether women should have access to abortion pills. As the interviewer noted that Republican allies of Trump have called “for enforcement of the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of drugs used for abortions by mail,” Trump said he will be making a statement later but declined to outline his position.
“I will be making a statement on that over the next 14 days,” Trump said. In the follow-up interview on April 27, Time noted that Trump had not yet made the statement even though two weeks had passed.
“I’ll be doing it over the next week or two,” Trump said. “But I don’t think it will be shocking, frankly. But I’ll be doing it over the next week or two.”
Trump recently said that it should also be up to individual states to determine any penalty for doctors who perform abortions outside state law. He labeled a question about what he’d do on potential federal legislation on abortion a hypothetical “because it won’t happen. You’re never going to have 60 votes.”
‘I can see myself using the National Guard and, if necessary, I’d have to go a step further’
When asked about immigration, Trump reiterated a consistent campaign promise to use the U.S. military to remove undocumented immigrants from the country.
And Trump said he’d be willing to use other parts of the U.S. military besides the National Guard to address issues inland as well as the border, saying, “I can see myself using the National Guard and, if necessary, I’d have to go a step further.” When the interviewer noted the law preventing the deployment of the military against civilians, Trump claimed undocumented immigrants weren’t civilians and said: “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”
Trump has previously vowed to relocate thousands of overseas U.S troops to the southern border to crack down on border security as well as promising to terminate “every open border policy of the Biden administration.”
Trump also floated the idea of migrant detention camps, calling it a “possibility” but something he hopes “we shouldn’t have to do very much of.”
At the core of Trump’s immigration promises over the last year is the use of local law enforcement, though policy specifics surrounding the idea have been scarce.
When asked to clarify, Trump proposed “police immunity from prosecution” and left the door open to possible incentives from the federal government for state and local police departments.
‘If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own’
Trump told Time, “Yeah, when I said that, I said it with great meaning, because I want them to pay. I want them to pay up. That was said as a point of negotiation. I said, Look, if you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own. And I mean that.”
Trump also backed up comments that he wouldn’t “give a penny” to Ukraine unless other European countries started supporting Ukraine in “equalizing” amounts.
“I said I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump said. “They have to come. Europe has to pay. We are in for so much more than the European nations. It’s very unfair to us. And I said if Europe isn’t going to pay, who are gravely more affected than we are, if Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay?”
Trump also conceded that a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine looks “very, very tough,” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “rightfully” been criticized for the fact that Hamas was able to attack Israel on Oct. 7.
Farmers warn food aisles will soon be empty because of crushing conditions: ‘We are not in a good position’
Nick Paschal – April 28, 2024
The United Kingdom is facing dire food shortages, forcing prices to skyrocket, and experts predict this is only the beginning.
What’s happening?
According to a report by The Guardian, extreme weather is wreaking havoc on crops across the region. England experienced more rainfall during the past 18 months than it has over any 18-month period since record-keeping began in 1836.
Because the rain hasn’t stopped, many farmers have been unable to get crops such as potatoes, carrots, and wheat into the ground. “Usually, you get rain but there will be pockets of dry weather for two or three weeks at a time to do the planting. That simply hasn’t happened,” farmer Tom Allen-Stevens told The Guardian.
Farmers have also planted fewer potatoes, opting for less weather-dependent and financially secure crops. At the same time, many of the potatoes that have been planted are rotting in the ground.
“There is a concern that we won’t ever have the volumes [of potatoes] we had in the past in the future,” British Growers Association CEO Jack Ward told The Guardian. “We are not in a good position and it is 100% not sustainable,” Ward added.
Why is it important?
English farmers aren’t alone — people are struggling to grow crops worldwide because of extreme weather.
Dry weather in Brazil and heavy rain in Vietnam have farmers concerned about pepper production. Severe drought in Spain and record-breaking rain and snowfall in California have made it difficult for farmers to cultivate olives for olive oil. El Niño and rising temperatures cut Peru’s blueberry yield in half last year. Everyone’s favorite drinks — coffee, beer, and wine — have all been impacted by extreme weather.
According to an ABC News report, the strain on the agriculture industry will likely continue to cause food prices to soar.
If these were just isolated events, farmers could more easily adapt — bad growing seasons are nothing new. The problem is that rising temperatures are directly linked to the increasing amount of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have burned dirty energy sources such as coal, oil, and gas, which release a significant amount of those gases. Our climate is changing so drastically that the 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the last decade.
“As climate change worsens, the threat to our food supply chains — both at home and overseas — will grow,” Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit analyst Amber Sawyer told The Guardian.
What can we do about it?
“Fortunately, we know many ways we can make the food system more resilient while reducing food emissions. The biggest opportunity in high-income nations is a reduction in meat consumption and exploration of more plants in our diets,” said Dr. Paul Behrens, an associate professor of environmental change at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
If we replace a quarter of our meat consumption with vegetables, we could cut around 100 million tons of air pollution yearly. It may seem strange to suggest eating more vegetables with the decline in crop production. However, reducing the land and water used for animal agriculture and diverting those resources to growing more produce would drastically help the declining food supply.
Growing our own food is also a great way to reduce our reliance on store-bought produce, and it can save you hundreds of dollars a year at the grocery store.
Drought devastates crops in southern Africa: ‘The grain I have is only enough for the next two months’
Timothy McGill – April 27, 2024
The Africa hunger crisis, exacerbated by a climate change–amplified El Niño, is reaching a critical point. A recent Reuters report paints a grim picture, revealing that southern Africa is grappling with its most severe drought in several years.
What’s happening?
Earth saw a record $63 billion in damages from weather disasters in 2023. Many of those disasters were made worse by El Niño. Reuters cited a study from October last year that “even suggested that climate change may now be as significant a factor in triggering El Niño conditions as natural causes like sun rays.” An El Niño is an unusual warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean along and near the equator.
This year’s extreme drought has devastated crops, and now millions are hungry in southern Africa. World Vision calls it a “severe food crisis” that is “driving millions of people into a heightened risk of hunger and starvation.”
The peak of farming season in southern Africa is from October to March. Several weather disasters have struck the region since the end of 2023’s season. Tropical storm Freddy destroyed homes in Blantyre, the capital of Malawi, on March 14, 2023. This March, tropical storm Filipo brought devastating floods to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
Drought is impacting this part of the world, with increasing global temperatures exacerbating the problem. The lack of rainfall has decimated maize crops in southern Africa. An estimated 24 million people are impacted by hunger and malnutrition. The soil is normally suitable for maize farming.
Seventy percent of southern Africa’s maize comes from South Africa. The ongoing drought has led to a 15% drop in the country’s maize production for 2023-24 compared to 2022-23.
“The grain I have is only enough for the next two months. It is going to be hunger from here on,” farmer Mandisireyi Mbirinyu told Reuters.
What is being done?
African countries have been forced to come up with innovative ways to deal with drought. Some of these approaches include reusing rainwater, preserving humidity in fields, and promoting effective and inclusive consultation. The United Nations Sustainable Development Group suggests several ways that communities can end desertification, including “combatting soil erosion and restoring coastal ecosystems, leveraging innovation, technology, partnerships and private finance, and supporting the livelihoods of people displaced by drought.”
Trump is recreating his web of chaos at home and abroad in a preview of what a second term could look like
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN – April 10, 2024
Marco Bello/Reuters
Some top Democrats worry that Americans have forgotten the chaos that raged every day Donald Trump was president, and that voters’ faded recall of the uproar will end up handing him a second term.
The presumptive GOP nominee is, however, doing a good job of jogging memories as he blazes a trail of disruption through Congress, immigration and national security policy, reproductive health care and the nation’s top courts.
After storming to the Republican nomination, Trump is again the epicenter of controversy. His volatile personality, loyalty tests, rampant falsehoods, thirst to serve his political self-interest and the aftershocks of his first term are compromising attempts to govern the country. And the election is still seven months away.
Many of today’s most intractable conflicts in US politics can be traced to Trump and the turmoil that is an essential ingredient of his political appeal to base voters who want Washington and its rules ripped down – no matter the consequences.
Events this week – and over the first three months of this year – illustrate how much Trump has shaped the political tumult:
— On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson suffered another stunning defeat, further gutting his authority, after hard right GOP members blocked a bill to reauthorize a critical surveillance spying program at Trump’s behest.
— Another measure critical to America’s capacity to wield its global power and its international reputation – a $60 billion arms package for Ukraine – is still going nowhere. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is threatening to topple Johnson if he dares to pass it.
— Nationwide chaos is, meanwhile, spreading in the wake of the Trump-built Supreme Court conservative majority overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. In the latest stunning twist, Arizona is about to revert to a near total Civil War-era abortion ban.
— Bipartisan efforts to solve a border crisis are in tatters after Trump’s House followers in February killed the most sweeping and conservative bill in years. The ex-president appeared to want to deprive President Joe Biden of an election-year win and to continue his searing claims that America is being invaded by undocumented migrants he calls “animals.”
— Some of the nation’s top courts are being tied in knots by Trump’s incessant, and often frivolous, appeals as he desperately tries to postpone the shame of becoming the first ex-president to go on criminal trial. His unchained social media posts may be coming perilously close to infringing a gag order ahead of his hush money trial beginning Monday.
— The Supreme Court will later this month wrestle with Trump’s claims of almost unchecked presidential power – a constitutional conundrum that no other president in two-and-a-half centuries of American history ever raised. The suit is largely a ruse to delay his federal election interference trial – and it is working.
Trump’s entanglement in some of the most intense political storms rocking Washington, and reverberating even beyond US shores, offers fresh evidence of his power – expressed through his capacity to make key elements of the Republican Party bend to his will. It highlights his mercurial personality and a political style that relies on instinct rather than long-term strategy. And it is leaving no doubt that the mayhem that burst out of the Oval Office during his administration would return at an even more intense level if he gets back there in 2025.
Trump delivers a blow to Johnson – then invites him to Mar-a-Lago
Trump dispensed his orders to his acolytes in the House with the words “Kill FISA” on his Truth Social network.
The former president was referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which national security officials say is critical to allowing espionage agencies to listen to communications of suspected terrorists and US adversaries. Some of those key powers need to be reauthorized by Congress by the middle of the month.
Critics of the law, including some civil liberties groups and some conservatives, argue that Section 702 of the act, which allows the surveillance of foreigners outside the US, is unconstitutional because sometimes Americans in contact with those targets get swept up in the net. But Trump is bent on vengeance against the FBI over its investigation into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia. He claimed in a social media post that FISA was “ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”
On Wednesday, 19 Republicans – including some of Trump’s loudest backers in the House – bucked Johnson and voted with Democrats to block consideration of the bill, dealing yet another blow to the speaker’s fast-ebbing authority and provoking a potential national security crisis.
Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, told CNN’s Annie Grayer on Wednesday that the actions of his former boss and allies were “a travesty and reckless.” Barr argued that the ex-president was being driven by “personal pique rather than rationality and sound policy.” He said Trump’s complaints about the investigation into his 2016 campaign had nothing to do with the FISA section that needs to be reauthorized. And in a chilling warning, Barr accused the ex-president of putting US national security at risk. “We’re faced with probably the greatest threat to the homeland from terrorist attack and our means of defending against that is FISA. And to take that tool away, I think, is going to result in successful terrorist attacks and the loss of life,” he said.
Johnson’s latest humiliation came as he’s fighting for his job on another front. He held tense crisis talks on Wednesday with Greene, who is threatening to call a vote to oust him. The speaker may be the most conservative person to ever hold his job, but the Georgia lawmaker is accusing him of becoming a Democrat in all but name. Johnson’s crime was to keep the government open by passing budget bills and his consideration of the delayed Ukraine funding, which is also opposed by the former president.
“If he funds the deep state and the warrantless spying on Americans, he’s telling Republican voters all over the country that the continued behavior will happen more, spying on President Trump and spying on hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Greene told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday. She added: “The funding of Ukraine must end. We are not responsible for a war in Ukraine. We’re responsible for the war on our border, and I made that clear to Speaker Johnson.”
Trump’s role in these two issues that threaten to bring Johnson down make it all the more curious that the speaker plans to travel to Mar-a-Lago on Friday to hold a joint news conference with the Republican presumptive nominee.
Johnson badly needs Trump to wield his influence with the restive GOP majority if he is to survive. And his pilgrimage to the Florida resort will make a strong statement about who really runs the House majority. There is a clue to a potential quid pro quo in the announced topic of their press conference – “election integrity.” That’s the code in Trump’s world for false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Johnson was a prominent purveyor of falsehoods about a stolen election and his continued willingness to buy into them might be the price for securing Trump’s support now.
Ukraine’s future may depend on the speaker sacrificing his future
Trump’s transformation of the GOP from a party that used to laud President Ronald Reagan’s victory over the Kremlin in the Cold War to one that often seems to be fulfilling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy goals is striking.
The GOP’s blockade of more funding for Ukraine threatens America’s global authority and reputation as a nation that supports democracies and opposes tyrants like a Russian leader who is accused of war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the war will be lost if the US arms don’t arrive. He told CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen on Wednesday that “what we have now is not sufficient. If we want to truly prevail over Putin.”
A few hours later, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of US European Command, backed up Zelensky’s warnings. “If one side can shoot and the other side can’t shoot back, the side that can’t shoot back loses. So the stakes are very high,” Cavoli told the House Armed Services Committee.
Yet Trump has vowed to end the war in 24 hours if he wins a second term. That can only happen one way – by Zelensky giving territorial concessions to Putin, who launched an illegal invasion and to whom the former US president has often genuflected.
News that Johnson is heading to Mar-a-Lago is yet another reason for US supporters of Ukraine to worry.
Abortion chaos
One of Biden’s goals is trying to remind suburban, moderate and independent voters who may be alienated by Trump’s constant chaos how disorientating life could be when he was president.
That’s one reason why the Biden campaign has seized on the fallout of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade to highlight the pandemonium that can result from Trump’s leadership.
The overturning of the nationwide constitutional right to an abortion was based on the reasoning that state legislatures that are closer to the people than the judiciary are the appropriate place for such a divisive moral question. In an ideal world or a political vacuum, that might be the case. But the decision took little account of the corrosive polarization of America’s politics and the result has been a confusing patchwork of state laws and court decisions. Many patients are being deprived of vital health services – for instance after miscarriages. Some IVF fertility treatments have been stopped in Alabama, for example, and the Supreme Court has been forced to consider an attempt to halt nationwide access to a widely used abortion pill.
Anti-abortion campaigners are, meanwhile, pushing hard for total state and national bans on the procedure while abortion rights advocates are seeking to inject the issue into key election races — with significant recent success in even some red states.
Trump this week tried to defuse the growing threat to his campaign from his and the conservative Supreme Court majority’s handiwork, insisting he’d leave the issue to the states. His damage control effort didn’t even last 24 hours. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a 160-year-old ban triggered a backlash that went right back to the former president.
Trump had another go on Wednesday, pledging that he wouldn’t sign a federal ban on abortion as president – as many conservatives are pushing him to. But given how many times he’s shifted his position on the issue, it’s hard to know what he really thinks.
For once, Trump could end up being the chief victim of the chaos he wreaks.
US foreign-born population grew 15 percent in 12 years
Filip Timotija – April 9, 2024
The U.S. foreign-born population has grown by 15 percent in 12 years, per a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Tuesday.
The foreign-born population in the country was around 40 million in 2010, making up 12.9 percent of the total population. The number jumped to 46.2 million in 12 years, with now making up 13.9 percent of the total population.
People who are part of the foreign-born population are those living in the country who are not U.S. citizens at birth, lawful permanent residents, foreign students, refugees and unauthorized migrants.
The median age of the foreign-born population went up more than the native population from 2010 to 2022.
The foreign-born population went up by five years, going from a median age of 41.4 to 46.7 years old, while the native population increased slightly, from 35.9 to 36.9 years old.
North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Delaware saw their foreign-born populace increase by over 40 percent.
The percentage of foreign-born individuals went up by close to five points, going from 68.3 percent in 2010 to 75.1 percent in 2022, according to the report.
Half of the country’s foreign-born populace was from South America.
New Jersey, California, Florida and New York are four states where immigrants make up more than one-fifth of the state’s population. California led the way with 26.5 percent, New Jersey was second with 23.2 percent, New York had 22.6 percent and Florida was fourth with 21.1 percent.
Close to 50 percent of all immigrants came into the country before 2000.
The data was based on one-year estimates and came from The American Community Survey (ACS).
