Latest news with #Armstrong
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Special session of North Dakota Legislature unclear with legal research underway
North Dakota House lawmakers meet during the final hours of the session on May 3, 2025. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor) A special session of the North Dakota Legislature is still up in the air as the attorney general reviews options to fix an error with a line-item veto. Meanwhile, legislative leaders this week directed staff to do legal research on possible scenarios that would prompt the Legislature to come back into session, including a recent appeals court ruling that affects legislative districts. Gov. Kelly Armstrong's general counsel has asked for an attorney general's opinion on his line-item veto of Senate Bill 2014. Armstrong's veto message only indicated he objected to a $150,000 grant, but the message was accompanied by red lines crossing out a section of the bill that also included $35 million for the Housing Incentive Fund. North Dakota governor unintentionally vetoes $35 million for housing programs Attorney Chris Joseph wrote in his request for an opinion that the red marking 'merely serves as a color-coded visual aid.' He asked for an opinion on whether the governor's written veto message or the visual pen marks on the bill satisfy the constitutional requirements of a line-item veto. Mike Nowatzki, spokesman for the governor, said the opinion will determine the next steps. Armstrong previously said he would call lawmakers back for a special session if necessary to correct the mistake. Legislative Council estimates a special session would cost $65,000 per day. Senate Majority Leader David Hogue, R-Minot, said Wednesday during a meeting of Legislative Management that he asked Legislative Council staff to brief legislative leaders on scenarios that might prompt lawmakers to reconvene. One question Hogue raised is whether the Legislature has a duty to act in response to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned a 2023 district court ruling that found the state's 2021 redistricting plan unlawfully diluted the voting power of Native American voters. A federal judge had ordered the Legislature to change its district map, but if the appellate court's ruling stands, the state would revert back to the 2021 plan. The plaintiffs, which include the Spirit Lake Nation and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, have asked for a rehearing before the full 8th Circuit. Hogue also asked staff to provide a legal briefing related to the governor's vetoes and whether that would prompt legislators to reconvene. Armstrong issued seven line-item vetoes on six bills after the session adjourned. Previously, Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said a special session was the only obvious legal remedy to fix the error with the veto, but he said this week his staff continue to research the issue. Other situations that might prompt the Legislature to reconvene are a significant drop in the price of oil that changes the state's budget outlook or federal funding cuts that have major impacts to state or local subdivisions, Hogue said. If lawmakers call themselves back into session, they have six remaining days of their 80-day limit. If Armstrong calls a special session, that would not affect the 80-day limit. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Economic Times
8 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
This TACO gives Trump indigestion, so watch out
Donald Trump relished his favorite versions of tacos during his first presidential term. 'The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill,' he tweeted in early 2016, sharing a photo of himself chowing down on a large serving at his desk. 'I love Hispanics!' These days, tacos aren't Trump's thing. More precisely, the version cooked up by a Financial Times columnist, Robert Armstrong, isn't his thing. Armstrong, noting that Trump has repeatedly backed away from some of his fiercest tariff threats, dubbed this phenomenon 'TACO' — Trump Always Chickens Out. TACO-savvy traders were making money embracing that reality, Armstrong observed. It's not a reality Trump is ready to embrace himself, though. 'That's a nasty question,' he told a reporter who asked about the TACO moniker at a White House press briefing on Wednesday. 'Don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. … To me, that's the nastiest question.'Trump, who fashions himself a brilliant dealmaker and strategist despite ample evidence to the contrary, is, of course, always going to bristle at the notion that he is a chicken — and a predictable one at that. He also routinely peddles himself as an infallible winner, so the nastiest question is also one that speculates about whether he's mired in a losing streak. His tariff policy, unleashed on allies and competitors alike, has been rolled out on a seesaw and riddled with economically damaging will never acknowledge any of that, which is to be expected. But it also may be wise to consider this TACO-fueled moment as something other than a lighthearted interlude in an otherwise tragicomic policy miasma. Trump protects and prioritizes how his various audiences perceive him. A Trump eager to prove he's not a chicken is a Trump willing to inflict economic, social or political damage in the service of his ego and self-image (also a recurring feature of his earlier but less consequential passage as a real estate developer and casino operator). Dangers once told me that he admired John Gotti, the notorious mobster, because Gotti never backed down, never flinched or wept in a courtroom, and gave everyone who opposed him the evil eye. That's how Trump sees himself. Anything but a that Trump campaigned on imposing suffocating tariffs on countries such as China, which he described as a predator fleecing US manufacturers and workers. He has had much the same to say of indispensable trading partners like Canada and Mexico, which have jointly created vast storehouses of economic value for themselves and the US. Determined to keep a campaign promise that endeared him to his political base, he offered the world a Rose Garden tariffs spectacle in April that caused financial markets to chastened, Trump then set about offering carve-outs to various industries and playing down the scale of the tariffs he was considering. He eagerly courted countries to work out deals with him. Going too far down that path, though, would have been an obvious reversal of his reckless campaign pledges, and that might have cost him come next year's midterm elections. So he took to being a human yo-yo when discussing his tariff intentions; sometimes tough, sometimes willing to bend, but always up-and-down and always unpredictable (and uncertainty, mind you, can readily morph into chaos).A helpful escape from his predicament landed in Trump's lap on Thursday, when the US Court of International Trade ruled that he lacked the legal authority to unilaterally impose tariffs under the presidency's emergency powers provision. Trump could have acquiesced, rolled his tariff regime back into the Pandora's box from which it sprang and then blamed it all on the courts. The Deep State undermined my brave tariffs stance, he could have told his voters, not me. But I tried to keep my promises to you. I really may have had fresh images of cowardly fowl dancing in his head when he ignored that opportunity, though he has had decades of institutional defiance that preceded the clucking. Regardless, he is now certainly determined to prove he's not a chicken. His administration successfully appealed the trade ruling to a higher court on Thursday and won a temporary reprieve from its restrictions. While the US Court of Appeals provided only a stay and could ultimately affirm the trade court's ruling, the White House celebrated. It trotted out trade hardliner and former prison inmate Peter Navarro to take a victory lap on Trump's behalf on tariff dispute is likely to find its way to the Supreme Court, where nine justices will decide, yet again, what the proper powers of the presidency are in an era when the Oval Office's current occupant believes they are limitless. My colleagues Noah Feldman and Matt Levine have written thoughtful, and differing, analyses of the legal and constitutional principles being tested around the tariff the Supreme Court might land amid all of this is unlikely to end the mess, however. The White House said Trump would find other ways to impose trading levies if the courts stop him this time around. And he's newly incentivized to prove he's owning the opposition.'The sad thing is, now, when I make a deal with them — it's something much more reasonable — they'll say, 'Oh, he was chicken. He was chicken,' Trump said during Wednesday's press conference. 'That's unbelievable.'There's certainly one person who doesn't believe it, and he's now determined to convince the rest of the world not to believe it, either. Fasten your seat belts.
Powys County Times
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Powys County Times
Jesse Armstrong says new Mountainhead film is ‘not an Elon Musk hit job'
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has said his new film Mountainhead is 'not an Elon Musk hit job'. The film will be Armstrong's first new project since comedy-drama series Succession concluded in 2023, and will see a group of billionaire friends working in tech get together amid a series of international crises. Asked if he was able to avoid writing about the Tesla boss while making the movie by Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live, Armstrong said: 'Musk's obviously been really present, I've done this really quickly, I didn't start writing it until January. 'So it's not about Elon Musk, we have a sort of richest guy in the world character, but I think people would find some flavours of Mark Zuckerberg (Meta chief executive) and Sam Altman (OpenAI chief executive), and other less well known tech people in there as well. 'So it's not sort of a Musk hit job, it's trying to be a portrait of a group of people, who are so powerful, and maybe (have) a particular way of talking, and a particular way of thinking.' Armstrong was also asked about the similarities between the characters in his new film and Succession, and whether they were more about power than rich people. The 54-year-old British screenwriter and film producer replied: 'People have been saying why are you writing about these bloody rich people again? 'And maybe I've been seduced and I just like hanging around in… rooms that look like hotels, which is where most of the rich people, they seem to live. 'We did a lot of research and a lot of scouting locations, it's surprising how similar the spaces are. 'But I don't think I'm interested in the money as much as I am in the power of it, I didn't just want to write a rich people show in Succession. 'It was about about newspaper and news media, TV news power, and this is about tech power, about social media power, about AI power.' Mountainhead's cast includes Steve Carell as Randall, Jason Schwartzman as Souper (Hugo Van Yalk), Cory Michael Smith as Venis, and Ramy Youssef as Jeff. Succession was brought to an end in 2023 after four series of Scottish actor Brian Cox playing foul-mouthed global media tycoon and family patriarch Logan Roy, opposite Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong, Academy Award winner Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, and Alan Ruck as his children. It scooped 19 Emmys including outstanding drama series and nine Golden Globes during its run, along with drawing large audiences and being critically well received. Armstrong is also an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Thick Of It spin-off film In The Loop with Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, and has won TV Baftas for his work on Peep Show and Succession. Mountainhead will air for the first time on June 1, on Sky and streaming service Now.
South Wales Argus
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- South Wales Argus
Jesse Armstrong says new Mountainhead film is ‘not an Elon Musk hit job'
The film will be Armstrong's first new project since comedy-drama series Succession concluded in 2023, and will see a group of billionaire friends working in tech get together amid a series of international crises. Asked if he was able to avoid writing about the Tesla boss while making the movie by Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live, Armstrong said: 'Musk's obviously been really present, I've done this really quickly, I didn't start writing it until January. 'So it's not about Elon Musk, we have a sort of richest guy in the world character, but I think people would find some flavours of Mark Zuckerberg (Meta chief executive) and Sam Altman (OpenAI chief executive), and other less well known tech people in there as well. 'So it's not sort of a Musk hit job, it's trying to be a portrait of a group of people, who are so powerful, and maybe (have) a particular way of talking, and a particular way of thinking.' Armstrong was also asked about the similarities between the characters in his new film and Succession, and whether they were more about power than rich people. The 54-year-old British screenwriter and film producer replied: 'People have been saying why are you writing about these bloody rich people again? 'And maybe I've been seduced and I just like hanging around in… rooms that look like hotels, which is where most of the rich people, they seem to live. 'We did a lot of research and a lot of scouting locations, it's surprising how similar the spaces are. 'But I don't think I'm interested in the money as much as I am in the power of it, I didn't just want to write a rich people show in Succession. 'It was about about newspaper and news media, TV news power, and this is about tech power, about social media power, about AI power.' Mountainhead's cast includes Steve Carell as Randall, Jason Schwartzman as Souper (Hugo Van Yalk), Cory Michael Smith as Venis, and Ramy Youssef as Jeff. Succession was brought to an end in 2023 after four series of Scottish actor Brian Cox playing foul-mouthed global media tycoon and family patriarch Logan Roy, opposite Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong, Academy Award winner Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, and Alan Ruck as his children. It scooped 19 Emmys including outstanding drama series and nine Golden Globes during its run, along with drawing large audiences and being critically well received. Armstrong is also an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Thick Of It spin-off film In The Loop with Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, and has won TV Baftas for his work on Peep Show and Succession. Mountainhead will air for the first time on June 1, on Sky and streaming service Now.
Rhyl Journal
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Rhyl Journal
Jesse Armstrong says new Mountainhead film is ‘not an Elon Musk hit job'
The film will be Armstrong's first new project since comedy-drama series Succession concluded in 2023, and will see a group of billionaire friends working in tech get together amid a series of international crises. Asked if he was able to avoid writing about the Tesla boss while making the movie by Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live, Armstrong said: 'Musk's obviously been really present, I've done this really quickly, I didn't start writing it until January. 'So it's not about Elon Musk, we have a sort of richest guy in the world character, but I think people would find some flavours of Mark Zuckerberg (Meta chief executive) and Sam Altman (OpenAI chief executive), and other less well known tech people in there as well. 'So it's not sort of a Musk hit job, it's trying to be a portrait of a group of people, who are so powerful, and maybe (have) a particular way of talking, and a particular way of thinking.' Armstrong was also asked about the similarities between the characters in his new film and Succession, and whether they were more about power than rich people. The 54-year-old British screenwriter and film producer replied: 'People have been saying why are you writing about these bloody rich people again? 'And maybe I've been seduced and I just like hanging around in… rooms that look like hotels, which is where most of the rich people, they seem to live. 'We did a lot of research and a lot of scouting locations, it's surprising how similar the spaces are. 'But I don't think I'm interested in the money as much as I am in the power of it, I didn't just want to write a rich people show in Succession. 'It was about about newspaper and news media, TV news power, and this is about tech power, about social media power, about AI power.' Mountainhead's cast includes Steve Carell as Randall, Jason Schwartzman as Souper (Hugo Van Yalk), Cory Michael Smith as Venis, and Ramy Youssef as Jeff. Succession was brought to an end in 2023 after four series of Scottish actor Brian Cox playing foul-mouthed global media tycoon and family patriarch Logan Roy, opposite Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong, Academy Award winner Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, and Alan Ruck as his children. It scooped 19 Emmys including outstanding drama series and nine Golden Globes during its run, along with drawing large audiences and being critically well received. Armstrong is also an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Thick Of It spin-off film In The Loop with Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, and has won TV Baftas for his work on Peep Show and Succession. Mountainhead will air for the first time on June 1, on Sky and streaming service Now.
