Senate Democrats want answers on Trump federal employee buyout offer
Senator Gary Peters, top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Richard Blumenthal, lead Democrat on an investigations subcommittee, said the "promises made to federal workers in this program contravene existing law" and "will contribute untold amounts to government waste and inefficiency."
They want detailed weekly data on how many workers have sought to take part by agency and how agencies will function without those workers.
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Times
39 minutes ago
- Times
Vance tells Europe to step up in Ukraine, even though it lacks the strength
Europe needs to 'step up and take a bigger role' in funding Ukraine in its war against Russia, JD Vance, the US vice-president, said on Sunday. Speaking to Fox News, he claimed Americans were 'sick' of spending their tax dollars abroad and Washington was 'done funding' Kyiv. 'If you care so much about this conflict, you should be willing to play a more direct and a more substantial way in funding this war yourself,' he said. He spoke as European leaders again scrambled to build a united defence behind Ukraine, after President Trump suggested he may cut a deal with President Putin that could mean Ukraine has to concede territory. It is clear, however, that even if it remains unwavering in its diplomatic stance, Europe lacks the strength to back Kyiv in negotiating favourable terms in a future peace agreement or to enforce a ceasefire. The so-called 'coalition of the willing' — a multinational force led by the UK and France intended to support Ukraine and potentially monitor a ceasefire — looks highly unlikely to meet Sir Keir Starmer's original hopes of 64,000 troops on the ground. The Kremlin has also said it will not accept western troops in Ukraine, warning that their presence could trigger a new world war. Even if Putin were to agree, European defence ministers have said there is 'no chance' they could reach the 10,000 troops floated by the UK. Even 25,000 as a joint effort would 'be a push', The Times reported in April. 'Russia has 800,000 [troops],' Dovile Sakaliene, Lithuania's defence minister, told European counterparts. 'If we can't even raise 64,000 that doesn't look weak — it is weak.' It falls far short of the 200,000 troops that President Zelensky estimated in January were needed to credibly enforce peace across Ukraine's extensive front line and to prevent a new Russian attack after any ceasefire deal. Experts put the figure at closer to 600,000. The group consists largely of European and Commonwealth countries. So far, the UK and France are the only countries to have committed a specific number of troops. Finland is reportedly concerned that any deployment would 'dilute' its own border defences, while Poland, Spain and Italy have made clear they will not commit any soldiers. Estonia has said it may only be willing to send a company-sized combat unit of ground troops. Proposals have so far been hampered by shortages of manpower, political reluctance and logistical hurdles around the rules of engagement should Russia attack. Financially, Europe overtook the US as the biggest supplier of aid to Ukraine in June, with about €72 billion in military aid compared with the US's €65 billion, according to the Kiel Institute's Ukraine Support Tracker. The US has supplied the most sophisticated and lethal equipment, however, including advanced air-defence systems and precision munitions. Much of Europe's aid finances the purchase of US-made weapons, underscoring its dependence on the country. Zelensky said in January that about 40 per cent of Ukraine's weapons came from the US, about 33 per cent were produced domestically and less than 30 per cent came from Europe. Russia relies largely on its own resources, bolstered by partnerships with China and Iran. North Korea has also supplied between nine and 12 million artillery shells and rockets since 2023. Pyongyang allocates nearly 16 per cent of its government budget to defence, a proportion unmatched by any European state. Last year, EU members spent €326 billion on defence, about 1.9 per cent of GDP — a 30 per cent rise since 2021 — but the US spent nearly $1 trillion, or 3.4 per cent of GDP. JORGE SILVA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES To close the gap, the EU launched an €800 billion readiness plan aiming to modernise and integrate military capabilities. But progress is slow, hindered by fragmented industries, political divisions and lack of a shared strategy. The EU has imposed 14 rounds of economic sanctions on Russia since 2022, freezing more than €200 billion of Russian central bank assets and cutting energy imports. But Russia has adapted by deepening trade ties with China, India and other non-western partners, while Trump's promise to impose crippling secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil have largely failed to materialise. Europe could offer incentives, such as unfreezing Russian assets, as bargaining chips in any settlement. However, that relies on Putin seeing negotiation as preferable to continued war, something that is far from certain. Following an emergency summit on Saturday hosted by David Lammy, the foreign secretary, with Vance and senior European and Ukrainian officials, Kaja Kallas, the EU's policy chief, said she planned to convene an extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday. 'The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,' she said, and any deal 'must have Ukraine and the EU included'. Kallas framed the talks as a matter for not just Ukraine's security, but the whole of Europe's. European diplomatic efforts are significant but, without military backing, risk being symbolic. The ability to uphold Ukraine's territorial integrity depends on sustained US commitment of weapons, troops and political will.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
JD Vance's attempt to blame Democrats
Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor. In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, the vice-president tried to deflect criticism of the administration's refusal to release the Epstein files by blaming Democrats. He accused Joe Biden of doing 'absolutely nothing' about the scandal when he was in the White House. 'And now President Trump has demanded full transparency from this. And yet somehow the Democrats are attacking him and not the Biden administration, which did nothing for four years,' he said. Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse multiple minor girls and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison during the Biden administration. If Vance's attempt to switch public blame onto Democrats was the big idea to emerge from his strategy meeting with attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel, which according to CNN he convened at the White House last week, then their labours appear to have backfired. (Vance denied to Fox that they had discussed Epstein at all, though he did acknowledge the meeting took place.) Within minutes of the Fox News interview being broadcast, social media began to hum with renewed cries of 'release the files!' Clips of Vanc smearing Democrats quickly began to circulate on X. 'We know that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of connections with leftwing politicians and leftwing billionaires … Democrat billionaires and Democrat political leaders went to Epstein island all the time. Who knows what they did,' he said. Vance also repeated Trump's previously debunked claim that Bill Clinton had visited Epstein's private island dozens of times. Clinton has acknowledged using Epstein's jet, but denied ever visiting his island. 'Fine. Release all the files,' was the riposte from Bill Kristol, the prominent conservative Never Trumper who urged the documents to be made public with 'no redactions of clients, enablers, and see-no-evil associates'. Jon Favreau, Barack Obama's former head speechwriter, replied: 'Release the names! Democrats, Republicans, billionaires, or not. What are you afraid of, JD Vance?' Favreau added that Trump's name 'is in the Epstein files'. That was an apparent reference to a report in the Wall Street Journal last month that a justice department review of the documents conducted under Bondi had found that the president's name did appear 'multiple times'. Other social media users used the Fox News interview as an excuse to re-run video of Trump in the hosting Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago. Epstein died in August 2019, during Trump's first presidency, while the financier and socialite was awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail; the death was ruled a suicide. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion The White House has been caught in a bind over the Epstein affair which spawned conspiracy theories among many of Trump's supporters, which now senior figures in the administration had actively encouraged during the 2024 campaign. In July the justice department announced that there was no Epstein client list and that no more files would be made public, a decision that clashed with earlier statements from top Trump officials, including Bondi's statement in February that a client list was 'sitting on my desk right now to review'. The decision triggered an immediate and ongoing uproar that crossed the partisan political divide. Among the most viral clips in the aftermath of that reversal was video of Vance himself telling the podcaster Theo Von, two weeks before the election: 'Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list, that is an important thing.' In his Fox News interview Vance also warned that 'you're going to see a lot of people get indicted' after Trump accused Obama of 'treason' and called for his predecessor to be prosecuted. The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has passed documents to the justice department that she claims show that the Obama administration maliciously tried to hurt Trump by linking Russian interference in the 2016 election to him. Obama has dismissed Trump's call for his prosecution as weak and ridiculous.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Jimmy Kimmel floats move to Europe to 'escape Trump' as liberal late night hosts face harsh rebuke
has revealed he has obtained Italian citizenship as a backup plan to escape Donald Trump 's presidency, after Trump said he was next to be canceled. The 57-year-old late night host made the revelation while appearing on the Sarah Silverman Podcast earlier this week. He said: 'I did get Italian citizenship, I do have that. What's going on is as bad as you thought it was gonna be. 'It's so much worse, it's just unbelievable - I feel like it's probably even worse than he would like it to be.' The news from Kimmel comes after Trump said on Wednesday that he and his fellow late-night host Jimmy Fallon were next to be canceled. The commander-in-chief was asked about rumors that Howard Stern is to part way with Sirius XM, before giving his two cents on both Jimmy Fallon and Kimmel. Inside the Oval Office, he said: 'Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They're next. They're going to be going, I hear they're going to be going.' During the same podcast appearance, Kimmel also slammed what he called the 'loud' left for woke cancel culture. The news from Kimmel comes after Trump said on Wednesday that Kimmel and his fellow late-night host Jimmy Fallon were next to be canceled The comedian added: ''It's not the party. It's not the majority. It's the loud voices that scare people from saying what they believe and make you think twice about a joke. 'You know, a lot of their points are valid, but a lot of them are also just repulsive, in that they repel people. 'They go like, "Oh, you're no fun. I don't want to be around you." And I think if you had to boil it down to one thing, that's kind of what it is.' Kimmel and Silverman discussed how Trump supporters who expressed their regret for casting their vote for the president have faced backlash from the left online. Silverman noted the hate that famed podcaster Joe Rogan received after criticizing the president's second term. 'Now you see like these clips of Rogan saying, "Why is he doing this? He shouldn't be deporting people," and people go, "Fuck you, you support him, whatever." 'I don't buy into that. I don't believe the "f*** you, you supported him",' Kimmel added. 'If you wanna change your mind, that's so hard to do. If you want to admit you were wrong, that's hard and so rare to do, you are welcome,' he said. His remarks comes after he found an unlikely ally in Fox News host Greg Gutfeld who lauded him with glowing praise for not being afraid of the left's cancel culture. Gutfeld, who appeared on Fallon's show Thursday night, joked that the pairing was 'the biggest crossover since the Harlem Globetrotters visited "The Golden Girls."' The Fox host dubbed Fallon 'a great, genuine guy who wants to make people laugh instead of putting them to bed angrier than 'The View at a salad bar.' But it was his praise of Fallon's late-night show that grabbed everyone's attention, as he applauded Fallon's ability to break from the typical liberal late-night mold. 'Unlike the other guys, Jimmy doesn't reside in a liberal echo chamber,' Gutfeld said. The industry has been left grappling with uncertainty after Colbert announced last month that his show was being brought to an end next year. CBS said the move to axe Colbert was due to low viewership and a decline in profits, but critics believe the network crumbled under pressure from President Trump. Paramount, which owns CBS, decided to settle for $16 million on a suit over deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris filed by Trump. Colbert then used the term 'big fat bribe' to describe the settlement.
