From 'obsolete' to the 'opposite of that': Trump changes tune on NATO
Trump gave the interview after an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. The pair announced a plan for Europe to pay the United States for weapons that the alliance ships to Ukraine. Trump issued an ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the meeting, saying he has 50 days to make peace with Ukraine or he'll face economic punishment.
NATO latest: Trump to send Ukraine weapons through NATO, threatens secondary tariffs on Russia
Trump told the BBC later that he was disappointed with Putin but not done negotiating with the Russian leader, whom he suggested he does not trust.
He told the British network he thought he had a deal with Putin to end the war four times. "And then you go home, and you see, just attacked a nursing home or something in Kyiv. I said: 'What the hell was that all about?'"
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
9 minutes ago
- Reuters
US set to deport permanent residents over alleged support to Haitian gang leaders
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday paved the way for the United States to deport certain lawful permanent residents, saying Washington determined some had supported Haitian gang leaders connected to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Rubio in a statement said certain U.S. lawful permanent residents had supported and collaborated with gang leaders tied to Viv Ansanm, the armed alliance that controls most of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, which President Donald Trump's administration labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organization in May. Following the determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the deportation of the lawful permanent residents, Rubio added. It was unclear how many people could be targeted for deportation and no individuals were named in the statement. The move comes as the Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations as part of its wide-ranging efforts to fulfill the president's hardline immigration agenda, with Rubio making unprecedented use of his power to try to revoke the visas and green cards of pro-Palestinian protesters. "The United States will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organizations or supporting criminal terrorist organizations," Rubio said on Monday. Haiti's transitional government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Almost 5,000 people have been killed in Haiti between October 2024 and June 2025 amid worsening gang violence nationwide, according to a U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights report. The surge in violence is deepening Haiti's humanitarian crisis, destabilizing the country and raising concerns of spillover effects in the region. The gang conflict in Haiti has been met with little international response, while neighboring countries, including the U.S., have continued to deport migrants back to the Caribbean nation despite pleas by the United Nations to stop the practice, citing humanitarian concerns. As part of Trump's crackdown, he has taken steps to end protections that have allowed hundreds of thousands of people to live and work in the U.S. legally. The administration moved to end Temporary Protected Status that granted deportation relief and work permits to more than half a million Haitians already in the U.S. but was blocked by a federal judge earlier this month. Separately, the administration revoked deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans enrolled in a parole program launched by former President Joe Biden. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump falsely said during a debate that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's pets. Washington's designation of Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as terrorist groups followed similar measures made recently for Latin American drug cartels and was intended to isolate the groups, denying them access to financing from U.S. people or companies. "The Department of State has determined that certain individuals with U.S. lawful permanent resident status have supported and collaborated with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm, a Haitian Foreign Terrorist Organization," Rubio said on Monday. "With this determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the removal of these individuals under ... the Immigration and Nationality Act."
NBC News
11 minutes ago
- NBC News
Trump administration released FBI records on MLK Jr. despite his family's opposition
The Trump administration has released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination. The release involves more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration. King's family, including his two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, were given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records ahead of the public disclosure. Those efforts continued even as the government unveiled the digital trove. In a lengthy statement released Monday, the King children called their father's assassination a 'captivating public curiosity for decades.' But the pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter and urged that 'these files must be viewed within their full historical context.' It was not immediately clear Monday whether the release would shed any new light on King's life, the Civil Rights Movement or his murder. 'As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief — a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met -- an absence our family has endured for over 57 years,' they wrote wrote. 'We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief.' They also repeated the family's long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all. Bernice King was five years old when her father was killed. Martin III was 10. President Donald Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with Robert F. Kennedy's and King's 1968 assassinations. The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April. Besides fulfilling the intent of his January executive order, the latest release serves as another alternative headline for Trump as he tries to mollify supporters angry over his administration's handling of records concerning the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself behind bars while awaiting trial in 2019, during Trump's first presidency. Trump last Friday ordered the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony but stopped short of unsealing the entire case file. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday. As of late Monday afternoon, the administration had not commented on the release. The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until Justice Department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order ahead of its expiration date. Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents to find new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the Civil Rights Movement blossomed, opposed the release. They, along with King's family, argued that the FBI illegally surveilled King and other civil rights figures, tapping their offices and phone lines with the aim of discrediting them and their movement. It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested if not obsessed with King and others that he considered radicals. FBI records released previously show how Hoover's bureau wiretapped King's telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to get information against him. 'He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),' the King children said in their statement. 'The intent of the government's COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King's reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement,' they continued. 'These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth — undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo.' The Kings said they 'support transparency and historical accountability' but 'object to any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods.' Opposition to King intensified even after the Civil Rights Movement compelled Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Civil Right Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965. After those landmark victories, King turned much of his attention to economic justice and international peace. He was an outspoken critic of rapacious capitalism and the Vietnam War. King argued that political rights alone were not enough in an uneven economy. Many establishment figures like Hoover viewed King as a communist threat. King was assassinated as he was aiding striking sanitation workers in Memphis, part of his explicit turn toward economic justice. Ray plead guilty to assassinating King. He later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998. Members of King's family, and others, have long questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved. Coretta Scott King for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno directed the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department to take a new look. The Justice Department said it 'found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.' In their latest statement, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III repeated their assertions that Ray was set up, pointing to a 1999 civil case in which a Memphis jury in a wrongful death case concluded that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the target of a conspiracy. 'As we review these newly released files,' the Kings said, 'we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted.'
The Guardian
11 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Hundreds of Nasa workers rebuke ‘arbitrary' Trump cuts in scathing letter
Almost 300 current and former US Nasa employees, including at least four astronauts, have issued a scathing dissent opposing the Trump administration's sweeping and indiscriminate cuts to the agency, which they say threaten safety, innovation and national security. The formal letter, titled The Voyager Declaration, is addressed to the acting Nasa administrator, Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist appointed on 7 July who is also his transportation secretary. The declaration, which is dedicated to 17 astronauts who have died in past spaceflight incidents, warns of catastrophic consequences if the proposed cuts to science grants, staffing and international missions are implemented. 'Major programmatic shifts at Nasa must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' the letter said. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on Nasa's workforce. 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources. These cuts are arbitrary and have been enacted in defiance of congressional appropriations law. The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire.' The letter sounds the alarm over suggested changes to Nasa's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts. 'The culture of organizational silence promoted at Nasa over the last six months already represents a dangerous turn away from the lessons learned after the Columbia disaster,' the declaration states. The declaration has 131 named signatures – including at least 55 current Nasa employees – and 156 anonymous signatories. Interim administrator Duffy, a former television host who was appointed after the ousting of a longtime Nasa employee, Janet Petro, is the final step in the chain of Technical Authority command. Trump's billionaire donor and former ally Elon Musk oversaw the loss of at least 2,600 of Nasa's 17,000-plus employees, according to Politico, before the billionaire businessman stepped back from the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge). So far, at least $120m in Nasa grants have been terminated, and the White House has proposed slashing a quarter of the agency's total budget for next year. International missions have been cancelled, and almost half the agency's science budget could be cut in 2026. The signatories said they dissent from the indiscriminate cuts to Nasa research which supports national security by ensuring the US role as a global leader in science and technology. 'Basic research in space science, aeronautics, and the stewardship of the Earth are inherently governmental functions that cannot and will not be taken up by the private sector,' the letter says. The Voyager Declaration, named after the twin Nasa spacecraft that are exploring interstellar space, is only the latest formal dissent against Trump's unprecedented assault on science and federal agencies. In June, at least 300 employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a declaration calling for the restoration of grants into life-saving treatments that the Trump administration had 'delayed or terminated for political reasons'. Earlier in July, 140 workers at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were placed on administrative leave after signing a letter highlighting key concerns including a culture of fear at the agency, the cancellation of environmental justice programs and grants, undermining public trust and 'ignoring scientific consensus to protect polluters'.
