Trump, crypto, energy: Glued at the hip
The Trump family's fortune and the nation's energy future became more deeply entangled this week when the president's sons announced they plan to take their cryptocurrency company public.
American Bitcoin's move marks the family's latest foray into the same energy-guzzling digital mining sector that Donald Trump has worked to boost, writes Jason Plautz. The move not only raises conflict-of-interest concerns — a near-daily feature of the Trump administration — but also expands the family's stake in the U.S. electricity business.
The success of data centers that mine crypto and power artificial intelligence is wholly dependent on their operators' ability to secure a gargantuan amount of electricity to run them. Whether that power comes from clean sources or fossil fuels could significantly shape the nation's output of planet-warming pollution.
Trump has pursued policies to burn more fossil fuels. But keeping ancient coal-fired power plants online is not enough to meet the expected boom in energy demand. For months, electric grid operators have frantically planned for a future where too little power exists to run these data centers while keeping the lights on in homes, hospitals and office buildings.
'Energy and technology are only growing to be more hand in glove and whoever has the access to energy is going to be the leader in technology,' Tom Mapes with the Digital Energy Council told Jason.
American Bitcoin — backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — will operate out of sites already outfitted with ample electricity. They are run by Hut 8, a bitcoin mining company that specializes in energy infrastructure. That's a major coup when you're competing with tech giants whose operations can consume as much power as a medium-sized city.
Also helping is the Trump administration. While the Biden administration took a hesitant approach to crypto mining, Trump has done 'a complete 180,' Erran Carmel, a technology professor at American University, told Jason.
The president has pushed to speed permitting and bypass environmental rules to build data centers and fossil fuel power plants to run them. The Energy Department has a plan to help private companies build such centers on public lands.
'If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,' Trump said at an industry conference in July.
American Bitcoin isn't the Trump family's only investment in crypto. Trump and his sons launched a crypto firm called World Liberty Financial, which offers its own digital coin and poses huge conflict of interest risks. The family also has a $TRUMP meme coin.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the notion that Trump's family stake in crypto could pose a conflict of interest, saying Trump 'acts in the best interests of the American public.'
It's Tuesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.
Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Thomas Frank breaks down the leadership shake-up at the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its acting chief was fired and replaced by an official with no disaster response experience.
Power Centers
'Shock and awe': Trump's mining blitzTrump is driving a 21st-century gold rush that's supercharging conservation battles on public lands across the West, write Hannah Northey and Michael Doyle.
While individual conflicts grab day-to-day attention, it's the rapidly growing cumulative total that's astonishing even longtime environmental activists concerned about the effect of mining coal and critical minerals on wildlife and federal land.
Republicans' gambit to kill climate programsHouse Republicans want to use their sprawling budget reconciliation bill not only to zero out climate programs, but also to make it harder for subsequent Congresses to restore them, writes Jean Chemnick.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee's budget bill claws back Biden-era clean energy funding — and seeks to repeal the authorizing language for the 17 programs that it targets.
'I have never seen in my career any reconciliation language that would strike authorization language for a discretionary program,' said Bill Hoagland, who served as director of budget and appropriations for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
Macron to Russia: Expect more sanctionsFrench President Emmanuel Macron said that the European Commission is readying a new package of sanctions against Russia 'in the coming days' in cooperation with the United States, writes Clea Caulcutt.
Macron said if Russia does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, the next package of sanctions would target 'financial services, and oil, on secondary sellers.'
In Other News
Hurricane fallout: Insurance adjusters will testify before Congress that they were pressured to cut payouts after hurricanes.
Un-deleted: Facing a lawsuit, the U.S. Agriculture Department says it will restore climate-change-related webpages.
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Trump has unveiled a plan for Saudi Arabia to invest $600 billion in U.S. industries — including critical minerals, artificial intelligence and energy — after touching down in Riyadh as part of a broader Middle Eastern tour.
Natural disasters and human conflict forced a record 66 million people to flee within their own countries last year, and the United States led all nations with 11 million of these internal displacements.
The Interior Department will shorten the time it takes to review land parcels for potential oil and gas leases to six months.
That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
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Politico
14 minutes ago
- Politico
Mike Crapo's megabill Mission: Impossible
Presented by IN TODAY'S EDITION:— What we expect on tax policy this week— Johnson's rescissions problem— The impact of Graham's Russia sanctions It's shaping up to be an enormously consequential week for President Donald Trump's legislative agenda, and there's one lawmaker at the center of it all: Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo. This morning we're going to zoom in on the Idaho Republican and his mammoth to-do list, which includes resolving make-or-break fights over tax policy, Medicaid cuts and clean-energy credits. (Benjamin is out with an even deeper dive that our POLITICO Pro readers got first on Sunday.) The soft-spoken Crapo has been stealthily working to coordinate changes to the 'big, beautiful' bill. It's looking like he won't release his committee's piece of the package until next week, with several outstanding policy issues unresolved. Senate Finance is expected to begin going through bill text with members and staff beginning today, and Crapo is expected to brief the broader Senate Republican conference mid-week. 'We're working as aggressively as we can to move as fast as we can,' Crapo says. Crapo's leaning on a cadre of trusted advisers. Finance staff director Gregg Richard, chief tax counsel Courtney Connell and deputy chief tax counsel Randy Herndon are among his critical staff on the bill. Crapo is known for his spare words — trust us, we've tried to get more out of him — but also for his history of landing deals. One of his biggest wins was the 2018 law that eased the Dodd-Frank banking law — an effort that required bringing along Democrats to help serve up a Trump administration victory. He also flexed as a deal-killer last year, blocking a tax revamp negotiated by House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith and then-Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden. Last year's clash soured the relationship between Crapo and Smith, yet the two have found a way to work together to deliver Trump's latest round of tax cuts. 'We've been communicating very closely so we each know what the other is thinking,' Crapo says. Now Crapo faces his biggest test yet as he tries to resolve Senate clashes over razor's edge deals that Smith and other top House Republicans struck to pass their version of the bill. Some of those conflicts are within Senate Finance itself, with Sen. Thom Tillis pushing for changes to 'no tax on tips' and Sen. James Lankford wanting to scale back planned endowment taxes on private universities. Crapo's personal priority? He is the leading advocate for using a legislative accounting method known as current policy baseline that would treat the extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts as costing nothing. This is a big flash point between him and fiscal hardliners. If he succeeds in the Senate, Crapo's compromise will have to survive the House. Some top House Republicans are urging him to go easy on them. 'Mike Crapo is a brilliant senator and he's instrumental on the tax stuff and everything else. You got to respect his opinion,' Majority Whip Tom Emmer tells Mia. 'But at the end of the day, I hope they leave it right where it's at.' Look for other Senate committees to release their megabill text this week: HELP and Energy on Tuesday; Agriculture on Wednesday; and Homeland Security and Judiciary on Thursday, according to our latest intel. Agriculture text though may slide to later this week or possibly into next week as several governors are now raising concerns about plans for federal food aid. GOOD MONDAY MORNING. Follow our live coverage at the Inside Congress blog at and email your Inside Congress scribes at bguggenheim@ mmccarthy@ lkashinsky@ and bleonard@ THE SKED The House is in session. Members are set to vote on resolutions denouncing the Boulder, Colo. terrorist attack and renaming the House Press Gallery the 'Frederick Douglass Press Gallery' at 6:30 p.m. — Rules will have a hearing on the HALT Fentanyl Act and a bill that would prohibit non-citizens from voting in Washington at 4 p.m. — Appropriations will hold a subcommittee markup for the fiscal 2026 DHS funding bill at 6 p.m. Bill text released Sunday night would provide DHS with $66.4 billion but doesn't have big increases for the department's immigration agencies as Republicans pursue billions for border security in the budget reconciliation bill. — House Republican and Democratic leadership will hold private meetings shortly before evening votes. The Senate is in session and voting on Brett Shumate's nomination to be an assistant attorney general and to end debate on David Fotouhi's nomination to be deputy administrator of the EPA at 5:30 p.m. — Senate Republican and Democratic leadership will hold private meetings shortly before evening votes. The rest of the week: The House will take up the rescissions package, HALT Fentanyl Act and immigration legislation targeting D.C. The Senate will work through Trump's nominations, including Stephen Vaden to be deputy secretary of Agriculture and Andrew Hughes to be deputy secretary of HUD. THE LEADERSHIP SUITE Johnson's rescissions problem House GOP leaders are planning a vote Thursday on a rescissions bill that would claw back $9.4 billion in funds Congress has approved for foreign aid and public broadcasting. But there's a new problem for Speaker Mike Johnson — at least 10 moderate Republicans have privately said they currently oppose the legislation, four people with direct knowledge tell Meredith Lee Hill. The holdouts have raised concerns about the impact of the cuts and questioned whether it's appropriate to let the White House slash funding that lawmakers approved. Johnson's leadership circle thinks they can flip the no votes and muscle the package through the floor this week. The first stop is the Rules Committee Tuesday. LA immigration clashes hit the Hill's agenda Escalating confrontations between law enforcement and protesters in Los Angeles over federal immigration policy are quickly being felt on Capitol Hill after Trump mobilized the National Guard to respond. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, are among the GOP lawmakers and Trump administration officials using the clashes to call for passing the megabill to bolster immigration enforcement. Congressional Hispanic Caucus members talked through the situation in an emergency meeting late Sunday, our Nicholas Wu reports. And look for the issue to come up at tonight's House Appropriations subcommittee on DHS funding, which includes immigration enforcement. Johnson doubts Musk's megabill sway Johnson told ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday that he has texted with Elon Musk but not spoken with him since last Monday. But the speaker didn't appear worried about Musk's meltdown over the 'big, beautiful' bill. He said Republicans haven't received many constituent calls urging votes against the bill over Musk's complaints. Trump is warning Musk to back off of Congress, telling NBC News that he would face 'serious consequences' if he funds Democrats to run against Republicans who support the megabill. Sen. Cory Booker told NBC that he won't accept campaign contributions from Musk, but that the billionaire should 'get involved … in a more substantive way' against the budget reconciliation bill. ICYMI: House Republicans are making clear that they're sticking with Trump over Musk, Meredith reports with Hailey Fuchs and Ben Jacobs. 'Frankly, it's united Republicans even more to go and defend the great things that are in this bill — and once it's passed and signed into law by August, September, you're going to see this economy turning around like nothing we've ever seen,' House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in an interview Friday. Stefanik returns to Intel Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of House Republican Leadership, is back on House Intelligence, where she served since 2017 before losing the assignment when she was tapped to be UN ambassador. To make the move work, the House is adding Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen to the panel rather than removing another Republican. POLICY RUNDOWN BANKING'S BYRD TEST — Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott is out with his panel's contribution to the GOP's megabill, amid concerns from his own Republican members that several provisions won't be allowed under Senate budget reconciliation rules, our Katherine Hapgood reports. A plan to zero out CFPB funding could run into problems with the so-called Byrd, which restricts proposals that have a negligible budget impact. ANOTHER CRAPO PROBLEM — Thirteen House Republicans led by Rep. Jen Kiggans are urging Senate leaders to rescue clean energy tax credits that the House-passed version of the GOP megabill would phase down, Kelsey Brugger reports. Most of the lawmakers supported the bill on the House floor. 'We believe the Senate now has a critical opportunity to restore common sense and deliver a truly pro-energy growth final bill that protects taxpayers while also unleashing the potential of U.S. energy producers, manufacturers, and workers,' they wrote to Crapo and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. THE IMPACT OF GRAHAM'S RUSSIA SANCTIONS — Graham's bipartisan bill to impose 'crushing' sanctions on Russia would cut the U.S. off from some of the world's largest economies with 500 percent tariffs on any country that buys Russian energy our Amy Mackinnon reports. Graham is proposing new carve-outs for countries that provide aid to Ukraine — a big help to the European Union — but some experts remain skeptical. The Trump administration is trying to get Graham to weaken the legislation, The Wall Street Journal reports. In the House, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is holding off pursuing a discharge petition to force action on similar legislation, preferring to wait for the Senate to pass the bill, three people with direct knowledge of the plans told Meredith. Best of POLITICO Pro and E&E: CAMPAIGN STOP MEDICAID ADS FLOOD SWING DISTRICTS — TV spots mentioning Medicaid have already run in more Republican-held districts this year than they did all of last cycle as Democrats look to use GOP's proposed cuts to the program as a campaign cudgel, according to a new analysis from our Jessica Piper, Elena Schneider and Holly Otterbein. STOP US IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE — Texas Republicans' messy Senate primary between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton is giving Democrats hope of finally flipping the Lone Star State, Nicholas and Liz Crampton report. Their logic: Paxton is leading Cornyn in polls, including, as Ben reports, among those who identify themselves as part of the 'Trump movement.' Democrats believe a Paxton general-election candidacy could divide Republicans and potentially even sway some to support a Democrat. But first Democrats need a viable candidate. Former Reps. Colin Allred and Beto O'Rourke have signaled interest in another bid, but some Democrats want the party to look elsewhere. Rep. Joaquin Castro is looking at the race, while Rep. Marc Veasey ruled out a run. TUNNEL TALK BABBITT SETTLEMENT — The Trump administration will pay a nearly $5 million settlement in the lawsuit over the wrongful death of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by a U.S. Capitol Police officer after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, our Ali Bianco reports. Lawyers reached an agreement last month for a settlement, but no final deal was publicly disclosed until Friday. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MOVES — Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen is making personnel moves while the institution's leadership remains in limbo after Trump's attempted takeover last month, our Katherine Tully-McManus writes in. Edward Jablonski will serve as senior adviser to the acting librarian and was previously the library's chief operating officer. The COO role will be filled by Roberto A. Salazar, who's been serving in an acting capacity since March 3. Jablonski is a Navy veteran who has been at the Library since 2006. Salazar was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as national administrator of the USDA Food and Nutrition Services — but before that he was a Senate Page. Former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden spoke to CBS over the weekend about her firing by Trump. She said no one from the White House has talked to her directly, besides the brief email she received about her termination. THE BEST OF THE REST Breaking With Trump, Bacon Says He Won't Follow His Party 'Off the Cliff', from Annie Karni at The New York Times MTG flirts with Georgia governor bid, from Greg Bluestein at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Republicans and Economists at Odds Over Whether Megabill Will Spur Growth Boom, from Richard Rubin at The Wall Street Journal CAPITOL HILL INFLUENCE Jason McMahon will join Valinor Enterprises to build out its federal strategy and government relations efforts. He previously was a professional staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee. JOB BOARD Kevin Orellana will be a legislative assistant for Rep. Vince Fong, handling his financial services portfolio. He previously was a legislative aide for Rep. Young Kim. Gavin Proffitt is now a health policy adviser for Sen. Ron Johnson. He previously was a health policy adviser for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Julianne Heberlein is now a speechwriter and press adviser for Sen. Deb Fischer. She previously was comms director for Rep. Rob Wittman and is a Larry Hogan alum. Chelsea Blink is now legislative director for Rep. Lauren Underwood. She previously was director of farm animal legislation at the ASPCA. Reedy Newton is now director of operations for Rep. Russell Fry. She previously was scheduler for Sen. Tim Scott and is a NRSC alum. Martina McLennan is now director of policy comms for economic and health policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She previously was comms director for Sen. Jeff Merkley. Emily Druckman is now comms director and senior adviser for Rep. Kim Schrier. She most recently was communications director for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and formerly led comms for Rep. Marc Veasey. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Former Rep. Kendra Horn … Ray Salazar of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark's office … Joe Curl … Susannah Luthi … Margaret Talev … Liz Mair … Yonathan Teclu of Rep. Ilhan Omar's office … DSCC's Laura Matthews … Jess O'Connell of NEWCO Strategies … Dante Atkins … Candi Wolff of Citi … Ria Strasser-Galvis … Alexandra Toma … Lori Lodes of Climate Power … Democracy Forward's Skye Perryman … Daniel Rankin of Rep. Don Bacon's office … Aryele Bradford of Rep. Shomari Figures' office … Zac Petkanas … Semafor's Sara Amin TRIVIA FRIDAY'S ANSWER: Albert Wolf correctly answered that Rep. Laura Gillen was a scuba instructor in Thailand before she came to Congress. TODAY'S QUESTION, from Mia: The Declaration of Independence painting in the Capitol Rotunda is painted by which American painter? How many paintings does this painter have on display in the Rotunda? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@
Politico
15 minutes ago
- Politico
How Trump broke the politics of Medicaid
Republicans used to cheer the possibility of Medicaid cuts. Now, as the GOP advances President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' that would reduce Medicaid spending, they're rebranding it as making the program stronger. The shift reflects the striking new politics of Medicaid — and how dramatically the GOP's coalition has changed under Trump. Now Democrats are hoping Medicaid could be the issue that exposes the cracks in the Trump coalition. They have seized on a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate that the bill would cause 7.8 million people to lose access to the low-income health insurance program. At stake is whether Democrats can start to win back working-class voters who have shifted toward the GOP over the past decade. Medicaid provides health insurance for nearly 80 million people but was long the electoral forgotten sibling of Social Security and Medicare. It's clear in the ads: TV ads for House and Senate races last election cycle were 26 times as likely to mention Medicare, the health care program for seniors, as Medicaid, according to a POLITICO analysis of transcripts from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. But that's already changing. 'I saw elections 16 years ago where people ran on cutting Medicaid, and there were folks who were on Medicaid who were in the crowd cheering them on,' said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028. 'That's not the case of where we are today.' The Medicaid provisions in the GOP's budget bill have prompted new debate even among Republicans. To Beshear and others, that provides an opening. Democrats, he said, should stand in front of hospitals and 'talk about how important Medicaid is,' he said, while emphasizing 'the impact on specific communities.' Congressional Democrats have seized on the issue, with moderates and progressives alike speaking in defense of the program. The party's House campaign arm is prioritizing Medicaid in swing-district messaging. And TV ads mentioning Medicaid have already run in more Republican-held districts this year than they did all of last cycle. Republicans are cautious, with an ideologically diverse group of senators wary of cuts and poised to exert significant influence over the bill. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who warned that cutting the program would be 'both morally wrong and politically suicidal,' said last week that Trump had promised him no cuts to benefits. GOP lawmakers have largely rallied around Trump's bill by arguing the House legislation protects Medicaid by only removing people who do not deserve it in the first place. That careful messaging is a stark difference from a decade ago, when congressional Republicans explicitly prioritized cutting Medicaid and governors blocked its expansion. One reason for the turnaround: A series of red states expanded Medicaid by ballot initiative between 2017 and 2020 — largely with backing of Democratic-aligned groups — and GOP voters defied their state and local political leaders in large numbers to support the program. Nationwide, enrollment for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program rose from just shy of 70 million in 2014 to nearly 79 million at the end of 2024. And at the same time more people were entering the program, including Republican voters in red states, an electoral realignment was shifting working-class voters toward Trump. 'Medicaid has a broader and broader appeal the more people that are on it, and the more people who know someone who's on it. That's incredibly powerful politically,' said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which backed state Medicaid referendums. The makeup of Medicaid users was changing — and so were its politics. For a long time, the program has been relatively absent from federal races. Even in the 2018 midterms, when defending the Affordable Care Act was central to Democrats' midterm messaging, only 30 TV ads across all congressional elections mentioned Medicaid, while nearly 500 mentioned Medicare, POLITICO's analysis found. But Medicaid expansion was a major issue in many gubernatorial and state legislative races in the 2010s. The success of ballot measures proved the program had a strong constituency, even in red states. And Trump's popularity with working-class voters also reshaped the GOP's coalition. Compared to Republican candidates before him, Trump's 2024 gains were strongest in counties with high Medicaid enrollment, a POLITICO analysis found. In the 2024 election, 49 percent of Medicaid recipients voted for Trump compared to 47 percent for Kamala Harris, according to Morning Consult polling. That means cuts to Medicaid or reductions in eligibility could now pose a political risk for Republicans. People who could lose benefits would not just be Democratic voters in blue states, but Republicans in red states and swing districts who supported Trump last year. Drew Kent, a GOP strategist whose firm recently polled Pennsylvania's voters, found a slight majority, including 30 percent of Republicans, disapproved of work requirements for Medicaid. 'These results are definitely a bit surprising to me,' Kent said. 'It clearly shows the challenges and importance, particularly in a political swing state like Pennsylvania, of getting the policy, messaging, and communications right on an issue of this magnitude.' Republicans are aware of the potential political liability: The GOP's argument about the bill, which could still face changes in the Senate, is that the changes to the program do not amount to cuts for voters. 'The President wants to preserve and protect Medicaid for the Americans who this program was intended for,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing last month. 'We want to see able-bodied Americans at least working 20 hours per week, whether that's part-time or full-time, whether that's even looking for work or volunteering for 20 hours a week, if they are receiving Medicaid.' A memo from the National Republican Campaign Committee last month advised the party to go on offense, saying the bill protects Medicaid by 'removing illegal immigrants and eliminating fraud.' Among its provisions, the bill would penalize states such as California that use state dollars to extend Medicaid benefits to undocumented immigrants. According to CBO estimates, of the nearly 11 million people who would lose Medicaid or other health insurance due to the bill, about 1.4 million are immigrants. GOP strategist Josh Novotney argued that approach is in line with what Trump's working-class base wants. 'Most blue-collar Trump supporters I have met or spoken with in large groups do not want their hard-earned taxes going to other people, whether that is student debt forgiveness or Medicaid abuse,' he said. 'That is not at odds with his supporters.' A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Friday found a plurality of Republicans, 42 percent, believed the Trump administration's policies would strengthen Medicaid, with only 22 percent believing the program would be weakened. But Republican Medicaid enrollees were more split, with 35 believing Trump would strengthen the program and 34 percent saying he would weaken it. That is where Democrats see an opening. A nonprofit affiliated with Democrats' House campaign arm is already targeting swing-district Republicans with digital ads accusing members of cutting Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for the rich. And a flurry of other liberal groups have purchased TV or digital ads and planned billboards and other activist campaigns. 'To the extent that this is becoming a bigger political issue, it's simply because their efforts to destroy Medicaid are fundamentally more dangerous and more real than ever before,' said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), whose PAC is helping fund a group that opposes Medicaid cuts. As the bill currently stands, the Medicaid work requirements would not go into effect until the end of 2026. That means Democrats largely won't be able to point during their midterm campaigns to people who have already lost access to Medicaid. Instead, they may rely on voter trust on an issue that has historically worked for them. While polls have found voters consistently prefer the GOP more on issues such as the economy and immigration — which helped propel Trump's win last year — health care has remained a rare bright spot for Democrats. 'If there is a debate or chaos or uncertainty about Medicaid cuts, then I think Democrats stand to benefit from that because of the brand advantage on health care,' said Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. 'One of the few places where we have maintained an edge.'
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's White House Redirects Thousands Of Missiles Meant For Ukraine's Use, Zelenskyy Says
Donald Trump's administration has redirected 20,000 anti-drone missiles away from Ukraine, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president told ABC News' This Week that the missiles are needed to deter Russia's ongoing strikes using Iranian-design Shahed drones. Moscow has been ruthlessly attacking Ukraine from the skies throughout the war, but it has elevated its strikes recently. On June 1, it launched its largest drone assault of the war with 472 strikes just in one night. According to Zelenskyy, the Biden administration had already agreed to send Ukraine anti-drone technology before Trump's second term began. Zelenskyy explained: 'We have a big problem with Shaheds... we will find all the tools to destroy them. 'We counted on this project – 20,000 missiles. Anti-Shahed missiles. It was not expensive, but it's a special technology.' The Wall Street Journal first reported the diversion on June 4, after US defence secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly alerted Congress to the 'urgent' re-allocation of weaponry. That report also came out the same day Trump spoke extensively to Vladimir Putin over the phone. The weapons were instead sent to the American forces in the Middle East amid brewing fears of a possible US-Iran clash over their delayed nuclear deal and concerns over the Houthi rebels in Yemen. But there are also Russia has not finished retaliating against Ukraine after its surprise 'Operation Spiderweb' attack on Russian airbases last week. Reports say Russia is looking to launch more than 500 long-range drones per night in future attacks. Under Trump, the White House has been far less consistent in its backing of Ukraine and often expressed sympathy with Putin over his ongoing land grab. The US president has halted the approval of new military aid packages for Ukraine ever since he returned to office in January. Hegseth also became the first US defence chief not to attend a Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting on June 4 since Putin's invasion began in February 2022. In his bid to secure a quick resolution to the war, Trump briefly stopped military shipments going to Ukraine and refused to share intelligence with the beleaguered country until it agreed to a ceasefire framework in March. Meanwhile, Trump has refused to impose sanctions on Russia, claiming it could disrupt its attempts to get a peace deal. But Zelenskyy remains publicly optimistic that the American president is the only way for the war to end. He said 'hard pressure' from Washington and its European allies would force Putin to be 'pragmatic'. The Ukrainian president added: 'Then they will stop the war. I am convinced that the president of the United States has all the powers and enough leverage to step up.' Trump Claims Ukraine Gave Putin A Reason To 'Bomb The Hell Out Of Them' – Forgetting 1 Obvious Detail Putin Ambassador Accuses UK Of Helping Ukraine Attack Russia – And Comes Up With A Bizarre British Motive Trump Mocked For Latest 'Disgraceful' Chat With Putin About Ending Ukraine War
