Why has Trump just called his own supporters 'stupid'?
Trump scrambles to try and fire the chair of America's central bank - despite being constitutionally barred from sacking him without just cause.
All of this feels like distraction and obfuscation from the Epstein files debacle - a political crisis that is eating MAGA alive.
Plus: tensions are flaring in the Middle East once again. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is urging de-escalation between Israel and Syria.
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Daily Mail
16 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
How Trump's groundbreaking crypto bill will affect Americans
Advertisement After a frantic back-and-forth over the nation's most significant crypto legislation to-date President Donald Trump got Republicans in line to pass a first-of-its-kind law. The House OK'd the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act and the The Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act on Thursday, both with bipartisan support. The GENIUS Act will create a regulatory framework for stablecoin payments. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are backed 1:1 with an asset, like a U.S. dollar or European euro. The global stablecoin industry has exploded in recent years, reaching a total market size of roughly $250 billion, up from $130 billion just two years ago. The measure provides rules for stablecoin issuers, including mandates that require audits and that the firm can back the assets they give to customers. Stablecoins have become a major player in the world of digital finance, but, until now, the rules have been unclear. The GENIUS Act aims to bring more trust and stability to the industry, ensuring that companies behind these 'digital dollars' are held accountable for managing people's money safely and transparently. 'This piece of legislation is going to make America the crypto capital of the world, and that's what the president promised,' Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Thursday's briefing. The 79-year-old president has been a loud advocate for the budding industry, he even spoke at the Bitcoin Conference 2024 and named an ' AI Czar,' David Sacks, to lead a White House team focused on the digital asset class. President Trump is expected to sign the GENIUS Act during a White House ceremony on Friday. These reforms are thought to improve trust in the stablecoin market. For example, Tether, an El Salvador-based crypto firm that is the largest stablecoin issuer globally, has been accused of not backing up its assets 1:1. The GENIUS Act would mean that stablecoins in U.S. markets need to show receipts. Last year the president co-founded his own digital asset company, World Liberty Financial, with his sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric and Barron. The firm is directly involved in various projects, and notably issues its own stablecoin called 'USD1,' according to the company's site. The CLARITY Act passed on Thursday is a market structure bill which aims to provide clear rules for crypto markets by giving oversight to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Under Biden, crypto companies that were subject to SEC enforcement actions complained that former SEC Chair Gary Gensler did not create clear industry guidelines. The CLARITY Act will be taken up by the Senate later this year. In addition to the landmark crypto legislation, the president is also interested in cutting taxes for crypto. The White House indicated Thursday the president supports exempting small cryptocurrency purchases from taxes, aiming to make using cypto for everyday payments - like buying a cup of coffee - more practical. 'Of course, right now, that cannot happen, but with the de minimis exemption, perhaps it could in the future,' Leavitt said. Senator Cynthia Lummis (pictured) is leading an effort to pass a bill that would set a $300 threshold for untaxed crypto transactions, allowing purchases under $300, up to $5,000 per year, to be made without triggering taxes. The bill also aims to eliminate double taxation for crypto miners and stakers, provide equal tax treatment for digital assets compared with traditional investments, and clarify how lending digital assets is taxed.
The Independent
18 minutes ago
- The Independent
Louisiana scraps $3 billion coastal restoration funded by oil spill settlement
Louisiana on Thursday scrapped a $3 billion project to repair its disappearing Gulf coastline, an initiative funded by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement. Conservationists called it an urgent response to c limate change, though Governor Jeff Landry viewed it as a threat to the state's way of life. Despite years of studies and reviews, the project, central to Louisiana's coastal protection plans, grew increasingly imperilled after Mr Landry, a Republican, assumed office last year. Its abrupt collapse means the state risks forfeiting more than $618 million already utilised for construction and losing more than $1.5 billion in unspent funds. The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group, a mix of federal agencies overseeing the settlement funds, stated that "unused project funds will be available for future Deepwater Horizon restoration activities" but would require review and approval. A plan to rebuild disappearing land The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project aimed to rebuild upward of 20 square miles (32 kilometers) of land over a 50-year period in southeast Louisiana to combat sea level rise and erosion on the Gulf Coast. When construction stalled last year because of lawsuits, trustees warned that the state would have to return the hundreds of millions of dollars it had already spent if the project did not move forward. Former Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, a Republican who once led the state's coastal restoration agency, said that killing the project was 'a boneheaded decision' not rooted in science. 'It is going to result in one of the largest setbacks for our coast and the protection of our communities in decades,' Graves said. 'I don't know what chiropractor or palm reader they got advice from on this, but — baffling that someone thought this was a good idea.' Project supporters stressed that it would have provided a data-driven, large-scale solution to mitigate the worst effects of an eroding coastline in a state where a football field of land is lost every 100 minutes and more than 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers) of land have vanished over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The project, which broke ground in 2023, would have diverted sediment-laden water from the Mississippi River to restore wetlands disappearing because of a range of factors including climate-change-induced sea level rise and a vast river levee system that choked off natural land regeneration from sediment deposits. 'The science has not changed, nor has the need for urgent action,' said Kim Reyher, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. 'What has changed is the political landscape.' The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group last year had noted that 'no other single restoration project has been planned and studied as extensively over the past decades.' A perceived threat to Louisiana culture While the project had largely received bipartisan support and was championed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, his successor has been a vocal opponent. Landry recoiled at the rising price tag and amplified concerns that the massive influx of freshwater would devastate local fisheries. Landry has said the project would 'break' Louisiana's culture of shrimp and oyster harvesting and compared it to government efforts a century ago to punish schoolchildren for speaking Cajun French. 'We fought this battle a long time, but Gov. Landry is the reason we won this battle,' said Mitch Jurisich, who chairs the Louisiana Oyster Task Force and sued the state over the project's environmental impacts, including likely killing thousands of bottlenose dolphins due to the onslaught of freshwater. Landry said in a statement that the project is 'no longer financially or practically viable,' noting that the cost has doubled since 2016. 'This level of spending is unsustainable,' Landry said. The project also 'threatens Louisiana's seafood industry, our coastal culture, and the livelihoods of our fishermen — people who have sustained our state for generations.' The project's budget had included more than $400 million for mitigating the costs to local communities, including to help the oyster industry build new oyster beds. Project proponents said that the rapid loss of coast meant communities would be displaced anyway if the state failed to take action to protect them. 'You either move oysters or move people, and there's only one answer to that question,' Graves said. State seeks a smaller, cheaper solution Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, the lead agency overseeing the project, said in a statement that the project was 'no longer viable at this time based on a totality of the circumstances' including costs, litigation and a federal permit suspended earlier this year after the state halted work on the project. Chairman Gordon 'Gordy' Dove said that 'our commitment to coastal restoration has not wavered' and that the state plans to pursue a smaller-scale diversion nearby. Dove told lawmakers earlier this year that the state could save at least $1 billion with a different plan to channel river water into the Gulf Coast at a rate 5 to 30 times less than the Mid-Barataria project's 75,000 cubic feet per second. Conservation groups bristled at the change in plans. The Mid-Barataria project's termination marked 'a complete abandonment of science-driven decision-making and public transparency,' Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of environmental groups, said in a statement, adding that the state was 'throwing away' money intended to protect its coastal residents and economy. The coalition said alternative measures proposed by the state, such as the smaller-scale diversion or rebuilding land by dredging, were insufficient to meaningfully combat land loss and did not undergo the same level of scientific vetting as the Mid-Barataria project. 'A stopgap project with no data is not a solution,' the coalition said. 'We need diversion designs backed by science — not politics.'
Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Former US prosecutor, who jailed Epstein, responds to Trump
A career prosecutor who helped put both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars has fired a parting shot at the Trump administration after she was dismissed from her job without warning. Maurene Comey (pictured), the daughter of former FBI chief James Comey, received a letter on Wednesday informing her of her sudden termination - weeks after she was involved in the botched case against Sean 'Diddy' Combs. Maurene Comey worked on the cases against both Epstein and Maxwell, helping to send Maxwell to prison for 20 years after the billionaire financier killed himself in his cell while awaiting trial. However, more recently, she suffered a catastrophic loss in the trial of the music mogul. Comey said in her email to staff that she was not given a reason for her termination. It is understood in the letter she received on Wednesday, she was told she was being fired under Article II of the Constitution, which cites powers granted to the president. Trump has been desperate to shift attention away from the Epstein fiasco as MAGA loyalists demand Attorney General Pam Bondi's resignation a fter she failed to deliver on a campaign promise to reveal the billionaire financier's client list and true cause of death inside a jail cell awaiting trial on child trafficking charges. MAGA loyalists have theorized that Epstein was murdered, rather than killed himself, and that a purported client list would unravel a web of crime at the very top of high society. Bondi, after initially claiming the client list was 'on her desk for review,' now insists there is no list, and maintains that he did kill himself. Trump on Wednesday lashed out at his own supporters and accused them of being duped by Democrats over the Epstein saga as he looks to shield himself and Bondi from backlash. 'Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bull[expletive],' hook, line, and sinker,' Trump wrote Wednesday. 'They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore!' There is no evidence former Democratic officials tampered with the documents or played any role in promoting conspiracies about the files, which members of Trump's administration stoked for years. But it is unclear why Maurene Comey was axed after nearly a decade of service. The has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment. She had been leading the violent and organized crime unit in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the same position her father once held. Comey's name was referenced in every US attorney pronouncement about the Combs's trial. She delivered the closing arguments on the final day of Diddy's trial, and faced criticism when the mogul was ultimately cleared of the three most serious offenses. Legal experts questioned whether he was 'overcharged' and how the case went so wrong for Comey and her team. Trump has long disliked Comey's father James, but tensions reached a fever pitch in May when he shared a picture to Instagram of seashells spelling out 86 47. Donald Trump Jr. claimed was the former FBI director 'casually calling for my dad to be murdered.' James Comey said they were just seashells. Many other Trump administration officials soon also asserted that James Comey was advocating for the 47th president's assassination. James Comey has since denied that he ever intended to harm Trump, and even told Secret Service officials that when they questioned him over the phone that night.
