Trump doubts U.S. intel report on Iran nuclear program
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Indianapolis Star
a few seconds ago
- Indianapolis Star
Braun: A Trump marijuana reclassification could add 'fuel to the fire' on Indiana legalization
President Donald Trump may change how dangerously the federal government views marijuana. Gov. Mike Braun said this could add "a little more fuel to the fire" of the marijuana legalization movement in Indiana, which remains on a cannabis prohibition island. At a news conference Aug. 11, Trump said his administration will make a decision in the next few weeks on whether to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug ― alongside non-medical, addictive narcotics and synthetic opioids ― to a Schedule III, along with codeine and anabolic steroids that are found in licensed pharmacies. This wouldn't legalize recreational marijauana federally, but it would be the most significant policy change since marijuana was outlawed in 1970 with the Controlled Substances Act and make it easier to research. Indiana's four neighboring states have all legalized some form of cannabis, while all forms remain illegal in Indiana. Braun has consistently said, and reiterated at a news conference Aug. 12, that his views on the subject would be dictated by the views of law enforcement, who would have to enforce any laws. But he also acknowledged that some winds have shifted in the last few years. The legalization movement has gained steam within the Indiana GOP, and some even propped up a lobbying effort last year, encouraged by Braun's expressed openness to medical marijuana. It remains a divisive issue: though several Republicans filed decriminalization or legalization bills last session, several others filed bills banning marijuana billboards. "I think you can kind of extrapolate what's happened over the last five to seven years if you're going to want to try to guage what may happen over the next few years," Braun said on Aug. 12. "So I think (Trump's comment) probably adds a little more fuel to the fire in terms of the speed with which it might occur." Leaders in the legislature have been opposed to full marijuana legalization, with Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray expressing a litany of safety concerns and House Speaker Todd Huston long saying that the opportunity to draw in more revenue should not be a reason to make such a substantial policy decision. Bray has said, however, that he is open to discussing decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. Former President Joe Biden's Department of Health and Human Services first made the recommendation to reclassify the drug in 2023. In 2024, the Drug Enforcement Agency proposed a rule change, which has been on hold until now. More: With a new governor and Republican-backed marijuana lobbying effort, will anything change?
CNN
27 minutes ago
- CNN
Capitol Crime Busters - Inside Politics with Dana Bash and Manu Raju - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
CNN Inside Politics 40 mins First: President Trump says his unprecedented takeover of the Washington, DC police could extend to other cities across the country. But is the new White House push. about public protection or political posturing? Or maybe both? Plus: The Texas House just failed to meet a quorum for the fifth time in a row as the Republican governor warns redistricting is inevitable. And: The president picks a MAGA loyalist to run the nation's most important economic statistics agency, leaving Wall Street questioning whether crucial data can still be taken at face value.
Los Angeles Times
29 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Tariff ‘Mission Accomplished' hype is just that
On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush announced, 'Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.' He was standing below a giant banner that read, 'Mission Accomplished.' At the risk of inviting charges of understatement, subsequent events didn't cooperate. But it took a while for that to be widely accepted. We're in a similar place when it comes to President Trump's experiment with a new global trading order. 'Tariffs are making our country Strong and Rich!!!' proclaims Trump, making him not only the first Republican president in living memory to brag about raising taxes on Americans, but also the first to insist that raising taxes on Americans makes us richer. MAGA's mission-accomplished groupthink relies primarily on three arguments. The first is that Trump has successfully concluded a slew of beneficial trade deals. The truth is that some of those deals are simply 'frameworks' that will take a long time to be ironed out. But Trump got the headlines he wanted. The second argument is a kind of populism-infused sleight of hand. The 'experts' — their scare quotes, not mine — are wrong once again. The White House social media account crows, 'In April, 'experts' called tariffs 'the biggest policy mistake in 95 years.' By July, they generated OVER $100 BILLION in revenue. Facts expose the haters: tariffs WORK. Trust in Trump.' But the high-fivers are leaving things out. The most-dire predictions of economic catastrophe were based on the scheme Trump announced on April 2, a.k.a. 'Liberation Day.' Trump quickly backed off that plan ('chickened out' in Wall Street parlance) in response to a bond and stock market implosion. Saying the experts were wrong under those circumstances is like saying experts opposed to defenestration were wrong when they successfully convinced a man not to jump out a window. The third argument, made by the White House and many others — that tariffs are working because they're raising money — is a response to a claim no one made. To my knowledge, no expert claimed tariffs wouldn't raise money. The estimates of these revenues from Trump world are stratospheric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expects somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion per year. Last month, the government collected $29 billion. It's likely this number will significantly increase as more tariffs come online and businesses run down the inventory they stockpiled earlier this year in anticipation of more tariffs to come. Normally, Republicans don't exult over massive revenues from tax hikes. But Trump's defenders get around this problem by insisting that money is 'pouring' and 'flowing' into America from someplace else. It's true that tariff revenue is pouring into the Treasury, but that money is coming out of American bank accounts, because American importers pay the tariff. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cannot deny this when pressed. So yes, tariffs are 'working' the way they're supposed to; the problem is Trump thinks tariffs work differently than they do. It's possible some foreign exporters might lower prices to maintain market share, and some American businesses might absorb the costs — for now — to avoid sticker shock for inflation-beleaguered consumers, but what revenue is generated still comes from Americans. Ultimately it means higher prices paid here, reduced profits for businesses here or reduced U.S. trade overall. Sometimes, when pressed, defenders of the administration will concede the true source of the revenues, but then they say the pain is necessary to force manufacturers and other businesses to build and produce in the United States. It's backdoor industrial policy masquerading as trade policy. That, too, might 'work.' But all of this will take time, no matter what. And, if it works, that will have costs, too. Manufacturing in America is more expensive — that's why we manufacture so much stuff abroad in the first place. If this 'reshoring' happens, our goods will be more expensive, and less money will 'pour in' from tariffs. It's difficult to exaggerate how well-understood all of this was on the American right until very recently. But the need to grab any argument available to declare Trump's experiment a success has a lot of people not only abandoning their previous dogma but leaping to the conclusion that the dogma was wrong all along. Maybe it was, though I don't think so. The evidence so far suggests that problems are looming. The dollar is weakening. Prices continue to rise. The job market is reeling. The stock market (an unreliable metric, according to MAGA, when it plummeted after Liberation Day) is holding on, thanks to tech stocks. The truth is we won't have real evidence for a while. It's worth remembering that Americans don't live by headlines and press releases and they don't live in the macro economy either. Declaring 'Mission Accomplished' for the macro economy won't convince people they're better off in their own micro-economies when they're not. @JonahDispatch
