Trump has expanded White House power. Will Democrats use it?
In today's edition … Will a Democrat use Trump's growing power? … The symbolic timing of an emerging American star … The ad war against Trump's budget bill has begun … but first …
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Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elizabeth Warren Says Elon Musk's SpaceX Is Paying Less Tax Than You But Getting 'Billions' From The Government: Trump And GOP 'Rigged' The Tax Code
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has accused Elon Musk's SpaceX of benefiting from billions in U.S. government contracts while paying little to no federal taxes. Warren Accuses Musk Of Dodging Taxes On Monday, Warren took to X, formerly Twitter, and said that "Elon Musk's SpaceX is worth over $350 BILLION – after receiving billions in government contracts – but could be paying LESS in taxes than you." She blamed Donald Trump's tax reforms, saying Republicans "rigged the tax code with loopholes for billionaire corporations" and demanded "no more corporate handouts." Trending: The same firms that backed Uber, Venmo and eBay are investing in this pre-IPO company disrupting a $1.8T market — Her remarks followed a New York Times report that SpaceX has avoided paying federal income tax on about $5 billion in taxable income since its founding in 2002 by using a legal tax strategy known as a net operating loss carryforward. The provision, expanded indefinitely under Trump in 2017, lets companies offset future income with earlier losses. Musk Previously Defended Tesla's Tax Strategy Musk currently has a net worth of $375 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, making him the wealthiest individual on Earth. In February earlier this year, Musk and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) VP of Finance Sendil Palani denied claims that Tesla evaded taxes, saying that the company legally carried forward past losses under IRS provisions. At the time, Musk acknowledged Tesla didn't pay U.S. federal income tax for several years, including 2024, since most profits come from overseas sales, but highlighted the need for comprehensive tax reform to address excessive Revenue Soars, Taxes Stay Low Documents reviewed by the publication show that more than 75% of SpaceX's revenue in 2020 and 2021 came from federal contracts. Despite that reliance on taxpayers, SpaceX paid only minimal taxes — including $483,000 to foreign governments and $78,000 in state taxes in 2021. SpaceX's business is also booming. Revenue is expected to reach $15.5 billion in 2025, double the $7.4 billion reported in 2023. Starlink, its satellite internet service, now generates more revenue than its rocket division, with 2.5 million users and $8 billion in 2023 sales. Warren Broadens Criticism Of Musk Warren has previously also targeted Musk over what she describes as conflicts of interest and misuse of government influence. In June, her office released a report titled "130 Days of Elon Musk," alleging more than 100 abuses of power during his time as a Trump administration adviser. She has also criticized the Pentagon for awarding Musk's AI startup xAI a $200 million contract just days after its chatbot Grok was caught making antisemitic remarks. Read Next: 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. You can invest today for just $0.30/share. Bezos' Favorite Real Estate Platform Launches A Way To Ride The Ongoing Private Credit Boom Photo Courtesy: Sheila Fitzgerald On UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Elizabeth Warren Says Elon Musk's SpaceX Is Paying Less Tax Than You But Getting 'Billions' From The Government: Trump And GOP 'Rigged' The Tax Code originally appeared on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bombshell texts reveal Jeanine Pirro is no fan of Sean Hannity, alleging he storms into the Oval Office ‘like he owns the place'
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro once labelled her fellow Fox News anchor Sean Hannity an 'egomaniac' and bragged about helping President Donald Trump, according to newly-released bombshell text messages. Pirro is at the center of a lawsuit brought by the voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic against Fox, in which the former is seeking $2.7 billion in damages for what it alleges do the network's anchors spread falsehoods and conspiracy theories about its products in the aftermath of Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Fox settled a similar defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 for $787.5 million but has insisted that Smartmatic's suit is without merit. 'The evidence shows that Smartmatic's business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump's lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech,' the network said in a statement. 'Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic's executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.' The texts gathered by the company concerning Pirro were released as part of an unredacted court filing on Tuesday and paint a fascinating picture of life behind the scenes at Fox. In one message sent by Pirro in September 2020 to Ronna McDaniel, the then-chair of the Republican National Committee, she bragged, 'I work so hard for the party across the country. I'm the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party.' In another message on October 27, she told a friend that Hannity had stormed into the Oval Office of the White House 'like he owns the place, throws his papers on the Pres desk and says, you don't mind if I use your private bathroom, and walks into bathroom within Oval and uses it.' She continued: '[He] Looks at me and says, I got to talk to him… It's all abt him, period. No one else matters.' Smartmatic also argues in its suit that Pirro served as an information conduit to Sidney Powell, the self-styled 'Kraken' attorney at the forefront of claims that Biden's victory at the polls was achieved by fraud, citing a message in which she encourages the lawyer to 'keep fighting.' The texts further reveal that Jerry Andrews, the producer of Pirro's show Justice with Judge Jeanine, warned her against making false claims about the election on air. 'You should be very careful with this stuff and protect yourself given the ongoing calls for evidence that has not materialized,' he told her. Pirro was then angered when Fox decided against running an episode on November 7 and wrote to Hannity: 'I'M TIRED OF THE CENSORSHIP AND I'M EMBARRASSED BY HOW THEY CALLED THIS ELECTION.' Hannity replied by observing: 'Fox News promoting u every 5 seconds. It's hilarious.' According to Smartmatic, Pirro otherwise acknowledged in a deposition that the 2020 election was not stolen, agreed that it had been 'fair and free' and that the company did nothing wrong. 'I believe that there's been no showing that Smartmatic engaged in any problems,' she said, according to the filing, which also quoted her as answering 'I do' when asked by the company's lawyers whether she believed Biden was 'legitimately elected.' Elsewhere, Pirro is seen complaining to the president's son Eric Trump that her ex-husband, Albert Pirro, was not initially granted a pardon by Trump over his tax evasion conviction and calling former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was granted clemency, 'a selfish bastard,' writing to Kerik's girlfriend: 'I DON'T CARE [ABOUT] ANYONE ELSE.' Other Fox anchors mentioned in the suit include Jesse Watters, who texted his fellow presenter Greg Gutfeld in December 2020: 'Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.' More cautious was Bret Baier, who, according to the filing, messaged executive Jay Wallace accusing Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business of airing falsehoods and declaring: 'None of that is true as far as we can tell. We need to fact-check this crap.'
Newsweek
2 minutes ago
- Newsweek
China Is the Big Winner of the Trump-Putin Summit
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The clear winner of the recent Anchorage summit was not the United States or Russia. Nor was it the European Union, NATO, or Ukraine, all directly affected by the war in Eastern Europe. The big winner, at least for the moment, is the People's Republic of China. And China's only military ally, North Korea, did not do too badly either. Both Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at their post-meeting press conference tried to create the impression of momentum toward ending the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine. Putin used the word "agreement" and Trump mentioned "great progress." Russian President Putin and President Donald Trump pose for a photo during the welcoming ceremony prior to the meeting on the war in Ukraine on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. Russian President Putin and President Donald Trump pose for a photo during the welcoming ceremony prior to the meeting on the war in Ukraine on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. Getty Images Nonetheless, it was clear that the summit was a disappointment for the American side. There was, for instance, no ceasefire, which Trump publicly said he wanted. "There's no deal until there's a deal," an uncharacteristically somber Trump said after the shorter-than-expected face-to-face with Putin. "We didn't get there." No, they didn't. And no deal is precisely what China was looking for. Beijing, from all indications, hopes that the war in Ukraine will continue indefinitely. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, on July 2 that China does not want Russia to lose because then the U.S. would focus on China. In addition to the continuation of the conflict, the Chinese leadership got something else on Friday. "For Beijing, the Alaska summit confirmed its core belief: The world is a stage for great-power bargains over spheres of influence," Charles Burton of the Prague-based Sinopsis think tank told Newsweek. China's regime, which has a top-down concept of the world, likes the idea of big countries, by themselves, settling the world's problems. "Now, there is a crucial precedent for a future summit between Trump and the Chinese leadership, where China would press for major concessions in East Asia," Burton said. One of those concessions would be American diplomatic recognition of North Korea, noted Burton, who was a Canadian diplomat in Beijing. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China's only formal military ally, also has an interest in the continuation of the war in Ukraine. "The Kim regime is likely content to see the United States diplomatically engaged on other fronts," Greg Scarlatoiu, president and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told Newsweek. "That will buy Kim Jong Un more time to continue his for-profit exportation of instability, violence, and tools of death." Kim has filled regime coffers via the sales of artillery shells and short-range ballistic missiles to Putin—28,000 containers of weapons according to one recent count. Kim also sent soldiers, up to 12,800 troops, to the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield late last year. Moreover, the North is dispatching perhaps 30,000 more of them now. That will be on top of combat engineers and miscellaneous workers. Russia, according to South Korean intelligence, is paying Kim $2,000 per month per trooper. Russia is reportedly transferring weapons tech to the North as well. Whatever Putin is paying or bartering, the Ukraine war has been a bonanza for the Kim regime. Yet a proverb from ancient China reminds us, "No feast lasts forever." Trump can end the Chinese banquet quickly if he imposes costs on Russia and its enablers. He will, for instance, have to hit China hard to cut off its flow of cash to Moscow. No cash for Putin means no war in Ukraine. On August 6, Trump by executive order imposed a 25 percent additional tariff on India for buying Russian oil, but he did not tariff China, which purchases even more of that commodity from Russia. Trump last Friday said he did not think he had to tariff China at this time. In a conversation with Fox News' Sean Hannity immediately after his meeting with Putin, the president said, "I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something. But we don't have to think about that right now. I think, you know, the meeting went very well." Whether the meeting with Putin went well or not—we will know only later—Trump cannot entice bad actors with reason alone; he needs to give them incentives to stop doing what they're doing. For the moment, Russia and supporters are trying Trump's patience, seeing how far they can push him. As a result, the American leader is taking heat for what looks like weak diplomacy. My sense is that Trump is trying to be generous. There is, however, only so much generosity in global politics. Trump could end his indulgent policies soon, especially if Putin continues to be intransigent. "Trump is losing patience," said Burton, the former diplomat. "The Russians, Chinese, and friends should watch out. When Trump decides it's time to hit them, he is going to hit them really hard." Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on X @GordonGChang. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
