Latest news with #AllIn
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Trump's 'big, beautiful' immigration door got a lot smaller
You don't hear much about the 'big, beautiful door' anymore. During Donald Trump's first presidential campaign, when some Republicans were queasy about building a 1954-mile border wall, he liked to add a caveat. There would be a wall, but it would have a door — big, beautiful, and sometimes even 'fat' — for the people 'coming in legally.' That never happened in Trump's first term. Running again in 2024, after the Biden-era backlash to millions of new asylum-seekers, Trump never mentioned the 'door.' The closest he came was an interview on the 'All In' podcast, when co-host Jason Calacanis asked if Trump would 'promise' to 'import the best and brightest around the world' once he closed the border. Trump agreed. 'You graduate from a college,' he said, 'I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country.' The campaign walked most of this promise back, limiting it to the 'most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America.' But that didn't happen, either. Right now, any aspiring foreign student who didn't already have a visa can't get one; the president, conducting an ad hoc war on Harvard, is spitballing potential caps for how many foreign students the private university should be allowed to take. Eventually. In the elite media, tech, and business conversations, this is an obvious outrage, totally self-defeating, a threat to an American advantage that everybody took for granted. In Republican politics, it just makes sense: There is no issue that doesn't cut their way if framed as a choice between American citizens and non-citizens. They're selling the 'big, beautiful bill' around its impact on immigration: Half a billion dollars in new immigration law enforcement, and cuts to Medicaid funding in states whose plans cover non-citizens. They're delighted to see Democrats defending Rep. LaMonica McIver after she was charged for allegedly assaulting ICE officers. Most of the DOGE cuts that the administration will ask Congress to approve next month were to foreign aid, another fight Republicans love having. To mass confusion from Democrats, Republicans are offering both zero-sum scarcity and endless abundance. In that story, Chuck Schumer's party wants to keep you poor. Every dollar, job, or university spot that doesn't go to a non-citizen can go to an American — and Democrats don't like that. Cryptocurrencies will create endless wealth for Americans with zero downsides or risk — and Democrats don't like that, either. This is all more popular than the wall-with-a-door compromise Trump used to run on. Democrats, unsure how to counter this, are waiting for it to stop being so politically effective.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Chris Hayes Runs Down Why Elon Musk's Trump Tenure Was an ‘Abject Failure': ‘No One Likes the Guy'
Chris Hayes seemed to enjoy himself on Thursday's episode of 'All In' when he kicked things off by recounting all the ways Elon Musk's tenure in the Donald Trump administration was 'an unmitigated, abject failure.' There were a lot of ways Musk failed, as Hayes ticked off during the opening segment, but ultimately it really came down to how unlikable he is. Even swing state voters 'would really much rather he just go away.' 'To put the news in the parlance of SpaceX, it seems, Elon Musk's career as Co-president to Donald Trump has had a bit of a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly,' Hayes began, referencing the face-saving euphemism Musk's company SpaceX uses for whenever one of its rocket launces fails. 'Technically, it was kind of scheduled,' the MSNBC host continued. 'His Doge campaign was always billed as temporary, but less than six months into this administration, the man who came in like some kind of MAGA rock star who was jumping around at Trump rallies, appeared in every Cabinet meeting — seemed to be running the cabinet meetings — spoke to adoring crowds at CPAC, is now unceremoniously slinking out the side door.' Hayes explained that 'Musk's stint in government has been an unmitigated abject failure, any way you look on it, on the substance, it's just been wildly destructive and also volatile.' He then ran down a fairly comprehensive list of said destruction, continuing, 'Musk did enormous substantive damage, both to our own country, to other people, some of the most vulnerable abroad, that's going to be hard to repair, but even by his own standards, because I don't think he cares about that, his so called cost saving efficiency program, DOGE, was a total failure as well.' Of course at this point Hayes explained how in addition to doing untold damage to the country, DOGE also didn't end up saving any money. And more than that, Musk himself became extremely unpopular. That unpopularity, Hayes noted, extended even into the Trump administration. Musk is now leaving in disgrace, because lots of people felt that way. When they around him, he was wholesale rejected by about everyone, we've seen report after report after report that everyone simply couldn't stand the guy. Doesn't matter how rich he is. Back in March, The New York Times reported on an explosive Cabinet meeting where Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, transportation secretary Sean Duffy and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, all toe into Musk for his haphazard cuts in their respective agencies. Earlier this month, the Atlantic reported on an expletive-laden screaming match between musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Benessent that spilled out from the Oval Office into more public areas of the West Wing. That same article also quotes the general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees as saying, quote, 'We kicked him out of town… no one likes the guy.' ''No one likes the guy' might be the best summation of Musk's forays into American politics I've encountered,' Hayes said, noting how this even had political effects, such as the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in which the Democratic-endorsed candidate beat Musk's chosen candidate by 10 points, after which it appears state voters were particularly put off by Musk himself. 'Voters everywhere don't like him,' Hayes continued, noting that 'Musk's intrusion into national politics has also had very real financial consequences for his companies, and he's lost billions of dollars, at least sort of on paper. Since he spent more than two $70 million to get Trump elected last year, Tesla sales, the sort of crown jewel company of his, are down huge, especially in Europe, with a crash nearly 50% year over year last month, because Musk has absolutely poisoned the brand with his own toxic reputation here in the States.' 'His tenure in Washington was a complete failure, substantively and politically, and to his own reputation and to his own companies. He got high in his own supply. He convinced himself, because he's worth a lot of money, that everyone loves him, that the American public would fall in love with his antics. And it turns out they would really much rather he just go away,' Hayes concluded. You can watch the whole segment, which also includes a guest discussion of the matter, below: The post Chris Hayes Runs Down Why Elon Musk's Trump Tenure Was an 'Abject Failure': 'No One Likes the Guy' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Chris Hayes: SCOTUS effectively pardoned Trump. Now he wants to extend that same immunity to others.
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 28 episode of 'All In with Chris Hayes.' Donald Trump is the first felon ever elected president of the United States, and now, months into his second term, he's handing out 'get out of jail free' cards. In recent days, the president has gone on something of a pardon spree: On Wednesday alone, Trump granted clemency to at least a half-dozen people, including a pardon for John Roland, the former Republican governor of Connecticut, who was convicted in two federal criminal cases; rapper NBA YoungBoy, who was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in a federal gun case; and former 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw, who was court-martialed for disobeying Covid rules. Last year, you may remember that Trump's handpicked Supreme Court ruled that almost anything the president does that could be construed as an official act cannot be criminally prosecuted. It was a wild ruling, based on invented doctrine. It was also effectively a pardon from the court. It appears Trump now wants to reorient the entire federal justice system to extend that same immunity to anyone he deems similarly above the law. Just consider Trump's pardon of Paul Walzak, a Florida nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes last year, less than two weeks after Trump was elected. According to The New York Times, Walzak started angling for a pardon from the incoming president almost immediately, submitting a pardon application to Trump right around Inauguration Day. 'The application focused not solely on [his] offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago,' the Times reports. The application noted that Fago had raised millions of dollars for Republican campaigns, including Trump's. 'It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage [Joe Biden's] 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny,' the Times reports. It would appear that was not enough to sway the president, however. So Walzak's mother tried a different approach. Last month, Fago was invited to a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago that promised face-to-face access to Trump. Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for her son. That pardon means Walzak avoided an 18-month prison sentence. He also no longer has to pay the government more than $4 million in restitution, which sounds like a pretty good return on an investment in a $1 million fundraiser. To be clear, we do not know that the pardon was connected to the fundraiser — maybe it was all a coincidence! — but the timing is awfully suspicious. The topic of selling pardons was certainly a concern for judges when Trump's immunity case was before a federal appeals court last year. After one of the judges asked Trump's attorney John Sauer if a president could sell pardons or military secrets, he replied that while the sale of military secrets 'might not be held to be an official act,' that 'the sale of pardons is something that has come up historically and was not prosecuted.' For Trump, it appears the law is not for seeking justice against wealthy tax cheats with well-connected mothers. Nor is it for locking up Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. No, those people — including the ones who assaulted police officers and the ones convicted of seditious conspiracy — got a full, unconditional pardon on Trump's very first day. On his second day, Trump pardoned a man named Ross Ulbricht, the so-called martyr of the Bitcoin movement, who ran the drug trafficking website known as the Silk Road, a marketplace where you could purchase, for instance, fentanyl — which this administration talks so much about wanting to keep outside our borders. Trump was clear that Ulbricht's pardon was to honor the Libertarian Movement, 'which supported me so strongly.' Incidentally, Ulbricht met with Trump's buddy Roger Stone earlier this month (another recipient of a presidential pardon). This week, Ulbricht also spoke at a Bitcoin conference, along with Vice President JD Vance and the president's sons Eric and Don Jr. It seems that, in Trump's view, when drug trafficking is facilitated by brown people from foreign countries, it's a crisis so severe that it requires the U.S. to effectively end due process. But when drug trafficking is facilitated by a clean-cut libertarian guy who looks like a peer of the vice president and his sons, it's something to be tolerated, if not commended. We are seeing this story play out over and over again, especially when it comes to what we used to call corruption, or white-collar crime. Especially when it involves the category of people who Trump might have as Mar-a-Lago members. Like Carlos Watson, the founder of Ozy media, who was sentenced to nearly a decade in prison after being convicted of fraud and aggravated identity theft. In March, Trump commuted his sentence. Also in March, Trump pardoned three co-founders of the crypto exchange BitMEX after they pleaded guilty last year to a bank secrecy violation. That same month, Trump pardoned Trevor Milton, founder of an electric vehicle startup, who was sentenced to four years in prison for securities fraud. Milton, along with his wife, also happened to donate nearly $2 million to a Trump re-election fund late last year. Also in March, Trump pardoned Brian Kelsey, a former Tennessee Republican state senator, who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a campaign finance scheme. In April, Trump pardoned former Nevada Republican lawmaker Michelle Fiore, a MAGA loyalist who was found guilty on wire fraud charges last year. At trial, prosecutors said she raised $70,000 to build a statue for a fallen police officer and then used some of the money on cosmetic surgery instead. This week, Trump announced he would pardon Todd and Julie Chrisley, the reality TV stars who were convicted on multiple counts of fraud and tax evasion. He also pardoned Michael Grimm, a former Republican congressman from New York and Newsmax commentator who spent seven months in prison a decade ago after pleading guilty to one count of tax fraud. But Trump wasn't done there. On Wednesday, the president said he was open to pardoning the right-wing extremists convicted of a plot to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer back in 2020. The power of presidential pardons and clemency can be a very good thing. In most presidencies in my lifetime, it's been woefully underused. But Trump is not acting in good faith. Instead, he has decided that the purpose of the pardon is to protect those who are loyal to him or who commit the kind of crimes he thinks are no big deal. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Chris Hayes: Trump's attacks on Harvard are part of the administration's wider war on knowledge
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 27 episode of 'All In with Chris Hayes.' The Trump administration is trying to put Harvard University, the nation's oldest college, out of business. On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the White House intends to order all government agencies to cut ties with the school, canceling federal contracts totaling an estimated $100 million. That is in addition to the billions of dollars in research funding that the administration has already frozen at the university. Last week, the White House also halted Harvard's ability to enroll international students, which The New York Times reports could affect more than a quarter of the student body. (A federal judge has since temporarily paused Trump's order.) People desperately want to come to the U.S. to study because we offer the gold standard in terms of higher education. It's one area of genuine American exceptionalism. International students are a huge boon to American universities. According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, during the 2023–2024 academic year, 1.1 million international students at American colleges and universities contributed more than $43 billion to the U.S. economy. For all the complaints about our trade deficit with other countries, one place where we have an enormous trade surplus with the rest of the world is in higher education. But no one in this administration actually cares about that. This is all just punishment for Harvard after it rejected the White House's demands, including an order to install a third party to audit 'programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.' To be clear, antisemitism is a real and pernicious problem in America, but by now, it is painfully obvious that it is just a convenient rhetorical weapon for Donald Trump and his allies to use to gain full control of universities. They want to rewrite the school's curriculum in a way that is favorable and deferential to Trump and his worldview, and the president wants the most powerful and legendary institution in higher education to bend the knee to his whims. It can be difficult to root for an elite institution like Harvard with a $53 billion endowment, but this attack on the university isn't happening in a vacuum. It is the latest escalation in the administration's battle to destroy all independent sources of knowledge and fact-finding in our free and open society. As the writer Adam Serwer put it in his latest piece for The Atlantic, 'By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that.' 'It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed,' Serwer wrote. 'Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.' To that end, we are seeing the administration run this playbook toward any independent source of authority. For example, the White House threatened to pull $400 million in federal grants for Columbia University. The university caved to the pressure, but last week the administration announced new trumped-up charges of civil rights violations against the school stemming from campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. In a new piece for the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, quotes one expert who taught at both Columbia and Harvard as saying, 'I've studied McCarthyism's impact on higher education for fifty years … What's happening now is worse.' Cobb adds, 'The biggest mistake that some universities have made in responding to the White House has been to presume that it is operating in good faith. It is not.' But it is not just attacks on higher education. Everywhere you look, this administration is targeting independent sources of authority that could challenge Trump. In addition to eviscerating the U.S.' best-in-the-world biomedical research, the administration is also undermining existing knowledge about public health. On Tuesday, without citing any new evidence or studies, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overrode typical procedure and announced that the government would no longer recommend annual Covid boosters for pregnant women and healthy children. In a podcast released on Tuesday, Kennedy also threatened to block government scientists from publishing their research in top medical journals, such as The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. In addition to the moves against public health and schools, we are also seeing an escalation of Trump's attacks on news media, probably best exemplified by the president's $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News over an interview '60 Minutes' held with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. First Amendment experts have called the lawsuit meritless, but Paramount, which owns CBS, is already appearing to prepare to settle. Earlier this month, the president and CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, resigned, telling staff in a memo that 'it's become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.' The executive producer of '60 Minutes,' Bill Owens, also resigned, citing a loss of independence at the network. During a recent commencement address at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, journalist Scott Pelley, who has been at '60 Minutes' for more than two decades, delivered a warning to graduating students: Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power. First, make the truth-seekers live in fear. Sue the journalists and their companies for nothing. Then send masked agents to abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights, and send her to a prison in Louisiana, charged with nothing. Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others. With that done, power can rewrite history. Not every outlet is capitulating to Trump. On Tuesday, National Public Radio announced it is suing Trump over his attempts to gut funding for the independent outlet through an executive order. We are seeing this type of resistance everywhere. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who was initially elevated to that job by Trump, is fighting the president's pressure campaign to remove him from his position. In a commencement speech at Princeton University on Sunday, Powell called on the next generation to preserve our democratic institutions. The most important thing for everyone to understand about the ongoing existential battle to preserve our American birthright of a free and open society is that all these institutions — and the vast sources of independent knowledge contained within them — are more powerful than one petty, addled man. That's the real silver lining here: Trump's attacks are so reckless and transparent that they've left our independent institutions with no choice but to fight back. This article was originally published on
Time of India
4 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
'Ready to kick this cancer out!': WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross undergoes successful colon cancer surgery
(WWE Hall of Famer and AEW commentator Jim Ross) WWE Hall of Famer and current AEW broadcaster Jim Ross has recently been diagnosed with colon cancer after a visit with his doctors earlier this month. The long-time "Voice of Wrestling" announced earlier this month that he was suffering from his second bout of cancer. However, recent reports suggest that the WWE Hall of Famer has undergone a major cancer removal surgery this morning on May 28. This is not the first time that the WWE Hall of Famer is battling with cancer, the AEW star also successfully fought skin cancer back in 2021. WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross' major health update after undergoing colon cancer surgery The iconic AEW announcer Jim Ross has recently shared that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. On May 26th, he informed fans that he was scheduled for surgery on May 27th. Ross made the initial announcement on May 15 and shared the news with his fans and admirers, taking to his X account. The Hall of Famer wrote, 'Diagnosed this week with colon cancer. Surgery is being scheduled in the next week or two. I appreciate your concern and support.' Following this, Jim Ross started his recovery process, and in a new post shared the morning of his procedure, the icon confirmed that he had checked in and was ready for surgery. Sharing the update, he wrote, 'Checked n and ready to kick this cancer out on its a**.' The 73-year-old star posted a selfie with one of his daughters from the hospital, offering a brief update as he prepares to begin treatment. While his fans and admirers were all waiting for an update throughout the morning, they received a positive update courtesy of JR's podcasting partner Conrad Thompson. His close friend and podcast co-host Conrad Thompson shared a positive update about his surgery today on social media, tweeting: 'Just heard from @rmorfnyc that JR's surgery went well and they hope to have successfully removed all of his cancer this morning! Please keep @JRsBBQ in your thoughts and prayers as he begins his recovery!' Thompson mentioned that the surgery was successful, and doctors claimed that they had been able to remove all his cancer this morning. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Greatest Enemy of Blood Sugar? Try This Tonight! Magazine Glyco Learn More Undo Also Read : WWE stars attend NBA playoffs: Triple H steals the spotlight courtside | WWE News - Times of India In a recent podcast, Ross revealed that the procedure has a recovery time of about one week, and the WWE Hall of Famer hopes to be able to return to work for AEW and do some autograph signings shortly. He also indicated that he will join the All In show in Texas. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
