State Department fires remaining employees who worked on climate change
Most of the staff in the Office of Global Change had left voluntarily after President Donald Trump took office and moved rapidly to pull the United States out of international climate talks. Nearly a dozen people who remained on staff were fired Friday, and the office will be shuttered as part of the wider downsizing of the department, the people familiar with the firings said.
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Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
"Your President, Indeed, Is Very Confident": Emmanuel Macron Just Reacted To Trump's Shocking Hot Mic Comment On Vladimir Putin
French President Emmanuel Macron shared his reaction to Donald Trump's declaration that Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to strike a deal to end his war in Ukraine because of him, during a conversation between the two men caught on a hot mic Monday. European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, descended on Washington, D.C., a few days after the Trump-Putin meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, to present a united front in support of Ukraine and make sure Kyiv does not get pressured into an unfavorable agreement that rewards Putin's aggression. Related: During the impromptu defense summit at the White House, Trump was caught on a hot mic, telling Macron: 'I think [Putin] wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand? As crazy as it sounds.' @atrupar/X / Via In an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, Macron said it was 'great' hearing Trump be optimistic about his ability to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv. 'Your president, indeed, is very confident about the capacity he has to get this deal done, which is a good news for all of us,' Macron said. Related: Still, Macron said he was not convinced that Putin is ready to end the conflict prompted by his full-scale invasion of Ukraine over three years ago, expressing skepticism about the Russian president's intentions. 'As far as I'm concerned, when I look at the situation and the facts, I don't see President Putin really willing to get peace now, but perhaps I'm, I'm too pessimistic,' Macron said. Related: 'I think at a point of time, probably we will have to increase the pressure on Russia to be sure they want peace, because as long as President Putin and his people will consider they can win this war and get a better result by force, they will not negotiate,' he continued. Trump, though, does not seem to share Macron's reservations about Putin, even though the Russian dictator has made no concrete concessions indicating his commitment to peace. 'This gentleman wants it to end, and Vladimir Putin wants it to end,' Trump said speaking alongside Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Related: 'I think the whole world is tired of it, and we're going to get it ended,' Trump added. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
San Francisco Chronicle
22 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
This conversation is being recorded: Trump's hot mic moment is the latest in a long global list
LONDON (AP) — Behold the power of the humble hot mic. The magnifier of sound, a descendant of 150-year-old technology, on Monday added to its long history of cutting through the most scripted political spectacles when it captured more than two minutes of U.S. President Donald Trump and eight European leaders chit-chatting around a White House news conference on their talks to end Russia's war in Ukraine. The standout quote came from Trump himself to French President Emmanuel Macron even before anyone sat down. The American president, reflecting his comments after meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin: 'I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand, as crazy as it sounds.' How politics and diplomacy sound when the principals think no one is listening can reveal much about the character, humor and humanity of our leaders — for better and sometimes for worse. As public figures, they've long known what the rest of us are increasingly learning in the age of CCTV, Coldplay kiss cams and social media: In public, no one can realistically expect privacy. 'Whenever I hear about a hot mic moment, my first reaction is that this is what they really think, that it's not gone through the external communications filter,' said Bill McGowan, founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group in New York. 'That's why people love it so much: There is nothing more authentic than what people say on a hot mic.' Always assume the microphone — or camera — is turned on Hot mics, often leavened with video, have bedeviled aspiring and actual leaders long before social media. During a sound check for his weekly radio address in 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously joked about attacking the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. 'My fellow Americans," Reagan quipped, not realizing the practice run was being recorded. "I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.' The Soviet Union didn't find it funny and condemned it given the consequential subject at hand. Putin, too, has fallen prey to the perils of a live mic. In 2006, he was quoted in Russian media joking about Israel's president, who had been charged with and later was convicted of rape. The Kremlin said Putin was not joking about rape and his meaning had been lost in translation. Sometimes a hot mic moment involves no words at all. Presidential candidate Al Gore was widely parodied for issuing exasperated and very audible sighs during his debate with George W. Bush in 2000. In others, the words uttered for all to hear are profane. Bush was caught telling running mate Dick Cheney that a reporter for The New York Times was a 'major-league a--hole.' 'This is a big f———- deal,' then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden famously said, loudly enough to be picked up on a microphone, as President Barack Obama prepared to sign his signature Affordable Care Act in 2010. Obama was caught on camera in South Korea telling Dmitri Medvedev, then the Russian president, that he'll have 'more flexibility' to resolve sensitive issues — 'particularly with missile defense' — after the 2012 presidential election, his last. Republican Mitt Romney, Obama's rival that year, called the exchange 'bowing to the Kremlin.' 'Sometimes it's the unguarded moments that are the most revealing of all,' Romney said in a statement, dubbing the incident 'hot mic diplomacy.' Live mics have picked up name-calling and gossip aplenty even in the most mannerly circles. In 2022, Jacinda Ardern, then New Zealand's prime minister, known for her skill at debating and calm, measured responses, was caught on a hot mic tossing an aside in which she referred to a rival politician as 'such an arrogant pr—-' during Parliament Question Time. In 2005, Jacques Chirac, then president of France, was recorded airing his distaste for British food during a visit to Russia. Speaking to Putin and Gerhard Schroder, he was heard saying that worse food could only be found in Finland, according to widely reported accounts. Britain's King Charles III chose to deal with his hot mic moment with humor. In 2022, shortly after his coronation, Charles lost his patience with a leaky pen while signing a document on a live feed. He can be heard grousing: "Oh, God, I hate this!' and muttering, 'I can't bear this bloody thing … every stinking time.' It wasn't the first pen that had troubled him. The British ability to poke fun at oneself, he said in a speech the next year, is well known: 'Just as well, you may say, given some of the vicissitudes I have faced with frustratingly failing fountain pens this past year.' Trump owns perhaps the ultimate hot mic moment The American president is famously uncontrolled in public with a penchant for 'saying it like it is,' sometimes with profanity. That makes him popular among some supporters. But even he had trouble putting a lid on comments he made before he was a candidate to "Access Hollywood' in tapes that jeopardized his campaign in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race. Trump did not appear to know the microphone was recording. Trump bragged about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women who were not his wife on recordings obtained by The Washington Post and NBC News and aired just two days before his debate with Hillary Clinton. The celebrity businessman boasted 'when you're a star, they let you do it,' in a conversation with Billy Bush, then a host of the television show. On Monday, though, the chatter on both ends of the East Room press conference gave observers a glimpse of the diplomatic game. Dismissed unceremoniously from the White House in March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now sat at the table with Trump and seven of his European peers: Macron, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finland's President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Trump complimented Macron's tan. He said Stubb is a good golfer. He asked if anyone wanted to ask the press questions when the White House pool was admitted to the room — before it galloped inside. The European leaders smiled at the shouting and shuffling. Stubb asked Trump if he's 'been through this every day?' 'He loves it. He loves it, eh?" she said.
CNN
23 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: Did Trump really end six wars?
President Donald Trump is not just trying to end the vicious war in Ukraine. He's claiming he's already ended almost one war for each month of his second term — spanning the Middle East; Africa; and Central, South and Southeast Asia. 'I've done six wars — I've ended six wars,' Trump said in his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday. 'Look, India-Pakistan, we're talking about big places, you just take a look at some of these wars. You go to Africa and take a look at them.' The White House proclaimed in a statement this month that 'President Trump is the President of Peace,' listing claimed diplomatic agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan; Cambodia and Thailand; Israel and Iran; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Serbia and Kosovo, as well as the Abraham Accords, a normalization pact signed in Trump's first term between Israel and some Arab states. Some of this is classic Trumpian hyperbole. And the president's team is scanning the globe looking for fires to extinguish to claim quick wins for his transparent campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump hasn't suddenly reinvented American foreign policy. Every administration works to halt wars and to advance US interests. Most don't take constant victory laps — indeed, such triumphalism can often destroy quiet diplomacy. Yet Trump has saved lives. In some cases, he's used presidential power in novel ways to stop sudden conflicts from escalating into full-scale wars. But his success raises new questions that also apply to Ukraine. Is Trump in it for the long haul or just for deals he can hype, much as he licensed products as a businessman and stamped his name on them? And will Trump's evisceration of the US Agency for International Development and downsizing of the State Department deprive him of the tools the US needs to turn breakthroughs into lasting peace agreements that solve underlying causes of wars? Trump kept insisting Monday — as he tried finesse his adoption of Russia's opposition to an immediate Ukraine ceasefire — that he was more interested in final deals. Ironically however, some of his 'six wars' deals are closer to ceasefires than peace agreements that permanently end generational disputes. And in the case of Iran and Israel, Trump's claims to have made peace after their 12-day conflict are complicated by US involvement in strikes against Tehran's nuclear program. While an informal truce is in place, there's no sign a slow-boiling state of war involving all three nations since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 will end. Trump is also conveniently forgetting his failed attempt to end the war between Israel and Hamas. And global outrage over reports of widespread starvation in Gaza and the president's staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could thwart his hopes for a Nobel Prize — whatever happens with Ukraine. His record is also blotted by the failure of his first-term peace efforts with North Korea. Leader Kim Jong Un now has more nuclear weapons than before Trump offered him fruitless, photo-op summits. Some of Trump's biggest successes have been behind the scenes. 'I'm struck by the fact that the ones that were helpful, especially India-Pakistan, were conducted in a professional way, quietly, diplomatically … laying the ground and finding common ground between the parties,' said Celeste Wallander, a former assistant secretary of defense who is now with the Center for a New American Security. The most recent triumph was a joint peace declaration signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan on their long-running conflict in the Caucasus. The agreement, inked at a lavish White House ceremony, commits the two former Soviet republics to recognizing each other's borders and to renouncing violence against the other. But complex negotiations loom on knotty constitutional and territorial issues before a full peace agreement. This deal is notable for two things — the way foreign states flatter Trump to get what they want, and an imperialistic streak in much of his peacemaking. The rivals, for instance, agreed to open a transportation corridor to which the US will have full development rights and to call it the 'Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity.' Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev declared, 'President Trump, in six months, did a miracle.' This is smart deal for the US as it counters the influence of rival powers Russia and Iran in the region. But it will need Trump's constant attention. 'Wishes and verbal declarations are not enough,' two former US ambassadors to Azerbaijan, Robert Cekuta and Richard Morningstar, wrote in a recent Atlantic Council commentary. They called on Trump to deploy officials from the State Department, the Commerce Department and other agencies to lock in the agreement. Another of Trump's recent triumphs came in Southeast Asia, where he threatened to shelve trade deals with both Thailand and Cambodia to halt a border war last month that killed at least 38 people. The leverage pressed home in calls to leaders of each country was effective, and it might not have occurred to another president. But Trump didn't work alone. The agreement was brokered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knew the drill, however. He nominated Trump for the Nobel Prize for 'extraordinary statesmanship.' Pakistan took a similar step, as part of a successful diplomatic offensive to win over Trump and to disadvantage its nuclear-armed rival India after the president intervened in a border clash in May. But the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an erstwhile Trump buddy, dismissed Washington's claims of a pivotal role. And other states, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Britain, were also involved. Trump's claims to have ended a war are selective. The agreement is fragile and doesn't solve the territorial dispute that sparked the fighting — over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which has caused three full-scale wars. Trump has proclaimed a 'glorious triumph for the cause of peace' in a deal brokered between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This contains important first steps on recognizing borders, renouncing war and disarming militia groups. However, no one expects the conflict to end soon, since the main Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group has rejected the agreement. Some analysts see the initiative, also brokered by Qatar, as a US attempt to secure mineral rights as part of an African 'great game' against China. Trump's claim to have brokered peace between Egypt and Ethiopia is a stretch. He's referring to a dispute over a Nile dam in the latter nation that Egypt fears will reduce the flow in its share of the key strategic waterway. He has called for a deal over the dam, but no binding agreement has been reached. The White House claims on Serbia and Kosovo originate in Trump's first term, when the rivals agreed to economic normalization steps. But they still don't have diplomatic relations, 17 years after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. And recent normalization efforts have involved the EU more than the Trump team. In many ways, Trump's claims to have ended six wars are typical of a presidency that claims massive wins that often add up to less than what they seem. But there are real achievements in his record, and the possibility of genuine long-term breakthroughs if Trump can maintain application and patience. That's a good lesson for his nascent Ukraine peace drive.
