Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
Adam Goldman, Devlin Barrett, and Glenn Thrush at NYT:
Adam Goldman, Devlin Barrett, and Glenn Thrush at NYT:
The Trump administration plans to scrutinize thousands of F.B.I. agents involved in Jan. 6 investigations, setting the stage for a possible purge that goes far beyond the bureau’s leaders to target rank-and-file agents, according to internal documents and people familiar with the matter.
The proposal came on a day that more than a dozen prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington who had worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 riot were told that they were being terminated.
The moves were a powerful indication that Mr. Trump has few qualms deploying the colossal might of federal law enforcement to punish perceived political enemies, even as his cabinet nominees offered sober assurances they would abide by the rule of law. Forcing out both agents and prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases would amount to a wide-scale assault on the Justice Department.
On Friday, interim leaders at the department instructed the F.B.I. to notify more than a half-dozen high-ranking career officials that they faced termination, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The New York Times
The U.S. will impose tariffs on computer chips, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, copper, oil and gas imports as soon as mid-February, President Trump said Friday, opening a new front in his looming second-term trade wars.
“That’ll happen fairly soon,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding that he also wants to hike tariffs on the European Union, which has “treated us so horribly,” though he didn’t specify when or how high the duties would be. A representative for the European Union didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The announcement for those sector-based and EU tariffs appeared separate from the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 10% tariffs on China, which he had said would be implemented Saturday.
The duties previewed by Trump would come on top of existing tariffs on those products, he said, waving away any concern about the levies increasing inflation or snarling global supply chains.
Week one: Trump toured wildfire damage in California and visited burned-out homes. It was presidential.
Week two: Asked by reporters whether he would visit the collision site where 67 people died on the Potomac River, Trump responded: “What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?”
Week one: Trump literally embraced California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his longtime political foe, and, as Christopher Cadelago and Melanie Mason wrote, “refrained from his sharp-edged digs and instead pledged to help lead in the recovery effort.”
Week two: Trump foisted blame for the DCA crash onto Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (“He’s just got a good line of bullshit,” Trump said at his presser) and DEI policies.
Put succinctly: “In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together,” NYT’s Peter Baker writes this morning.
A quick reality check: The initial FAA report says that air traffic control staffing responsibilities at Reagan were “not normal” and that one person was doing two jobs, NYT’s Sydney Ember and Emily Steel report. … ABC News notes there isn’t any affirmative action in the hiring of air traffic controllers. … The disability hiring policies that Trump criticized were actually maintained and used by his own first administration, WaPo’s Glenn Kessler writes. … The executive action Trump signed yesterday to unwind diversity programs at the Department of Transportation and the FAA came even though, as Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner reports, there is “no evidence that diversity initiatives led to the crash, nor is there evidence that such practices result in poor operational outcomes.”
It wasn’t just his handling of the tragedy at DCA that marked the change. The other big story this week, Trump-wise, was the brouhaha over the now-blocked federal spending freeze. It lacked White House vetting. It galvanized Democratic opposition. It caused the Trump administration to walk it back — and then walk back the walkback. It amounts to a quick shift for the White House “from inaugural euphoria to the realities of governing,” WSJ’s Natalie Andrews and Meridith McGraw write this morning
