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There's a royal reason Trump won't escape Jeffrey Epstein fallout on trip to his Scotland golf courses — Prince Andrew
There's a royal reason Trump won't escape Jeffrey Epstein fallout on trip to his Scotland golf courses — Prince Andrew

The Independent

time6 days ago

  • Politics
  • The Independent

There's a royal reason Trump won't escape Jeffrey Epstein fallout on trip to his Scotland golf courses — Prince Andrew

The Republican-led House of Representatives shut down early for its summer break to avoid Jeffrey Epstein motions. The Senate GOP has been in see-no-evil mode the past week over the controversy swirling around the seemingly vanished 'client list' of the high-flying financier and convicted pedophile who once palled around with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton among many other power players. So it makes perfect sense that President Trump is hoping for five days away from the Epstein fallout firestorm that has landed him in hot water not just with Democrats but his own MAGA base over the Justice Department's stonewalling on the release of all the Epstein files, as Trump and AG Pam Bondi had promised. Well, Scotland may not be far enough for that. Sure, Trump will meet with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer early next week, but the vast majority of his known itinerary consists of visits to his Scottish golf resorts. One, Trump Turnberry and the other Trump International in Aberdeen, where he is set to open a brand new course that will be named for his late mother, Mary Anne McLeod Trump, who was born in Scotland. And that's the problem for Trump, thanks to a particular member of the Royal family who happens to be a golf-loving frequenter of his courses, is Scotland's Earl of Inverness — and who also happens to be tainted by his past close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein... Prince Andrew. Trump Turnberry, in fact, still boasts of its visits from Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who was forced to stand down from royal duties in 2020 over his links to Epstein. The former Royal Navy officer — currently eighth in line to the British throne — had a long and controversial relationship with with the late sex offender that predated Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting a teenage prostitute but also which continued long after the financier became a pariah in most respectable circles. Andrew's habit of staying at Epstein's residences during travel to the U.S. became fodder for controversy even as the royal claimed there was nothing untoward about the relationship and has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. But the whispers and rumors took on a more urgent character after Andrew became the defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that the Duke once had sexual relations with her after she was trafficked to him as a minor by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Although Buckingham Palace asserted in a 2015 statement that Giuffre's allegations — which included claims that she'd had sexual relations with the Duke on three separate occasions — were 'categorically untrue,' the Duke and Giuffre ended up settling the lawsuit, with no admission of liability, in February 2022, one month after Andrew's royal patronages and honorary military titles were revoked by his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Andrew has always strongly denied the allegations leveled against him by Giuffre. Giuffre, perhaps the most outspoken survivor of Epstein's sexual abuse, died by suicide at the age of 41 in April. 'It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,' Giuffre's family said in a statement to The Independent after she died. 'She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.' Since then, Andrew has largely remained out of the spotlight with his reputation tarred by his association with the late sex offender. But that disgrace doesn't appear to bother Trump or his eponymous real estate and resort company, which as of this week still lists Andrew as one of the 'famous visitors' who have enjoyed the 'refined hospitality' at Trump Turnberry. His Aberdeenshire golf resort has even deeper connections to the prince, who played a major role in convincing Trump to build it in 2006, less than a decade before his entry onto the American political scene. According to Agence France-Presse, Andrew met with Trump at the his eponymous New York skyscraper in September of that year to cajole the developer into moving forward with the Aberdeen golf project. He later said the Prince was a 'great guy' who'd made a 'terrific impression' on him. 'He gave a presentation here to make sure I spend one billion pounds in your country, and that's what I'm going to be doing,' Trump added, according to the report. The relationship between the prince and the future president continued for the intervening decade, and when Trump visited Scotland during his second year in the White House, Andrew joined him for a round of golf at Turnberry — a round Trump later claimed to have won. The pair remained cordial enough that when President Trump visited the U.K. for a state visit in his first term in 2019, Andrew was his designated royal escort. The president's escape to his ancestral homeland comes as there continues to be bipartisan furor around Department of Justice records about Epstein, a one-time power-player financier and convicted pedophile who was arrested for alleged sex trafficking by federal authorities in 2019 and was found to have died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial. The years-old prosecution has been a longtime fixation for many of Trump's MAGA supporters who believe they contain damaging information on prominent Democrats and other liberal celebrities. For years, the president's supporters have pushed for release of what they believe was a list of powerful people to whom Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls, as well as other information they believe would reflect negatively on members of the Democratic Party, various Hollywood celebrities, and other purported elites who they believe to be part of a sinister cabal controlling world events. Trump has winked and nodded at such beliefs and had indicated during his 2024 campaign that his administration would release the documents in question if he were victorious in last year's presidential election. But many of his most prominent supporters have been crying foul in recent weeks after the Department of Justice announced it would not be releasing the so-called Epstein Files. And Democrats are now joining the chorus of calls for transparency, citing Trump's likely presence in the documents on account of his long-term friendship with Epstein. Trump socialized with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, but reportedly cut ties before Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. While Trump has not been accused of any formal wrongdoing or charged with any crime, his proximity to Epstein, someone he once called a friend, has heightened conspiracy theories that the government is withholding documents that could reveal embarrassing information about high-profile individuals. Still, being named in the so-called Epstein list of contacts or case files is not an indication of any wrongdoing and Trump has denied having any knowledge of Epstein's crimes before he ended their friendship as has Bill Clinton. Trump has also sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation over its reporting that he sent a bawdy 50th birthday message to Epstein. Clinton, likewise, was reportedly one of many who sent messages to the financier on that occasion. On Thursday, Trump made yet another effort to dissuade his base from caring about the Epstein matter by lashing out on Truth Social, calling the entire affair a 'scam' and a 'hoax' and stating that he hopes the release of grand jury testimony about the late sex offender will quell the entire thing. But if the president is hoping to gain some distance from the scandal with some time on the links, he's gone to the wrong golf courses.

Senate Approves Trump's Demand To Claw Back Foreign Aid And Public Broadcast Funding
Senate Approves Trump's Demand To Claw Back Foreign Aid And Public Broadcast Funding

Forbes

time17-07-2025

  • Business
  • Forbes

Senate Approves Trump's Demand To Claw Back Foreign Aid And Public Broadcast Funding

The Senate voted to approve a White House request to cancel $9 billion in previously approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting early on Thursday, handing President Donald Trump and his administration a significant win in their push to gain more control over federal spending. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to the press outside his office at the US Capitol ... More in Washington D.C. AFP via Getty Images The rescissions package, which will claw back the $9 billion in funding, was approved with a 51-48 vote. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, were the only two GOP senators who voted against the bill while Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., was unable to vote as she had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day after she 'started to not feel well.' The bill now moves to the GOP-controlled House, which is expected to pass it later this week. The legislation agrees to claw back $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which helps fund public broadcasters like PBS and NPR—and around $8 billion from foreign aid programs. This is a developing story.

Trump's $9 billion clawback passes first Senate test, while more hurdles await
Trump's $9 billion clawback passes first Senate test, while more hurdles await

Fox News

time16-07-2025

  • Business
  • Fox News

Trump's $9 billion clawback passes first Senate test, while more hurdles await

President Donald Trump's clawback of billions in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting narrowly passed through its first hurdle in the Senate, but it still faces a rocky road ahead with dissent among the Senate GOP ranks. Senate GOP leaders hoped that an agreement to carve out $400 million in global HIV and AIDS prevention funding will get some of the holdouts on board. However, doing so shrank the expected cuts from $9.4 billion to $9 billion. But a trio of Senate Republicans joined with all Senate Democrats to vote against advancing the bill from the Senate Appropriations Committee, which required Vice President JD Vance to cast the deciding vote. Trump's rescissions package would yank bank congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting. But some Senate Republicans have sounded the alarm and want changes made to the bill before it reaches the finish line. The bill that advanced out of committee Tuesday includes just shy of $8 billion in cuts from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS. Republicans' successful test vote comes after huddling with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who worked to shore up support and apply pressure from the White House to get the ball rolling on the bill. "We're fine with adjustments," Vought said. "This is still a great package, $9 billion, [it's] substantially the same package, and the Senate has to work its will." While concerns were still raised about other aspects of the spending cuts package during the closed-door meeting, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., believed that carving out the cuts to Bush-era President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) helped ease concerns among lawmakers. But the changes didn't sway all Senate Republicans. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, bluntly said "no" when asked if the PEPFAR carveout helped gain her support and argued, "I'd like to do some legislating." "What a crazy thing, what a crazy thing," she said. "What have we been doing around here? We did a reconciliation bill. We're doing a rescissions bill. We're doing nominations. Nominations are important, but let's, like, legislate." And Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she liked the changes but ultimately decided to vote against advancing the bill through its first hurdle. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also joined in to vote against the bill. It now moves to yet another procedural vote, which, if successful, will open up 10 hours of total debate time on the bill and eventually set the stage for a vote-a-rama, where lawmakers on either side of the aisle can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the package. But, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made clear that he would prefer the Senate not make any changes to the bill. However, that request already fell on deaf ears — as it did during the budget reconciliation process that unfolded in the upper chamber last month. Those demands already have fiscal hawks in the House grumbling, but like the budget reconciliation process before it, an amended rescissions package will likely glide through the House GOP and onto Trump's desk.

'Bait and switch': Schumer warns of bitter funding fight over GOP cuts plan
'Bait and switch': Schumer warns of bitter funding fight over GOP cuts plan

Fox News

time08-07-2025

  • Business
  • Fox News

'Bait and switch': Schumer warns of bitter funding fight over GOP cuts plan

Senate Republicans are set to consider a multibillion-dollar package of cuts from the White House, but the top Senate Democrat warned that doing so could have consequences for a later government funding showdown. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned on Tuesday that the Senate GOP's plan to move forward with a $9.4 billion rescissions package would have "grave implications" on Congress, particularly the forthcoming government funding fight in September. "Republicans' passage of this purely partisan proposal would be an affront to the bipartisan appropriations process," Schumer wrote in a letter to fellow Senate Democrats. "That's why a number of Senate Republicans know it is absurd for them to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," he continued. The rescissions package, proposed by the Impoundment Control Act, allows the White House to request that Congress roll back congressionally appropriated funding. Such proposed cuts must be approved by both chambers within 45 days. This package in particular, which narrowly squeaked through the House by a two-vote margin last month, would claw back $8.3 billion in funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS. The package, informed heavily by the cuts proposed by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, formerly helmed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, would only need to pass a simple majority in the upper chamber to pass. Musk and DOGE made USAID a primary target of their hunt for waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government, dismantling much of the long-standing organization ahead of the rescission request. The impending deadline to fund the government in September will either require the passage of a dozen appropriations bills – something Congress has not done in years – or the need to work with Democrats to crest the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. And the rescissions package is not wildly popular among Republicans. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said during a hearing on the package late last month that she was concerned about proposed cuts to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the CPB, and warned that cuts to the AIDS and HIV prevention program would be "extraordinarily ill-advised and shortsighted." Schumer is no stranger to trying to leverage government funding fights to his advantage. Earlier this year, he withheld support for the House GOP-authored government funding extension before ultimately agreeing to the deal. That same scenario could play out once more come September. "This is beyond a bait-and-switch – it is a bait-and-poison-to-kill," Schumer said. "Senate Republicans must reject this partisan path and instead work with Democrats on a bipartisan appropriations process."

Gamblers Raise Alarm Over $1.1 Billion Tax Hike in Trump's Bill
Gamblers Raise Alarm Over $1.1 Billion Tax Hike in Trump's Bill

Yahoo

time03-07-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Gamblers Raise Alarm Over $1.1 Billion Tax Hike in Trump's Bill

(Bloomberg) -- Gamblers are raising the alarm about a $1.1 billion tax hike buried in the Senate GOP's tax bill that would slash their net winnings and potentially charge income tax when they break even or lose money. NYC Commutes Resume After Midtown Bus Terminal Crash Chaos Struggling Downtowns Are Looking to Lure New Crowds What Gothenburg Got Out of Congestion Pricing Massachusetts to Follow NYC in Making Landlords Pay Broker Fees California Exempts Building Projects From Environmental Law In the Senate's roughly 900-page version of President Donald Trump's multitrillion-dollar tax bill, gamblers would only be able to deduct 90% of their losses when calculating their net income. Under current law, a bettor can deduct the entirety of their losses, up until the amount of their gambling winnings. 'I've spoken to many clients and they're very concerned,' Zachary Zimbile, an accountant with experience in gambling regulations, said in an interview. 'If you add a 10% penalty, it's going to eat into a lot of their profit.' Professional gamblers recently took to social media to rail against the measure, which would take effect next year, and urged Republicans to change it. Congressional scorekeepers have calculated it will net the government $1.1 billion through 2034. Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat who represents the Las Vegas area, said she is seeking a fix. 'It will have a big impact on gaming,' Titus said. 'They thought it was just a handful of professional poker players, but a lot of amateurs have come out of the woodwork to oppose it too.' Betting has become increasingly popular in the US in recent years with the rise of online firms like FanDuel Inc., DraftKings Inc. and Kalshi Inc. The industry brought close to $72 billion in US commercial gaming revenue in 2024, marking a fourth-straight record revenue year, according to the American Gaming Association. It has also been boosted by the Trump administration, with Donald Trump Jr. serving as a strategic adviser for Kalshi. A spokesperson for Kalshi declined to comment. FanDuel and DraftKings didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The American Gaming Association declined to comment. Still, casinos and gaming firms are set to benefit from the extension of corporate tax cuts for interest, research and development, and expensing. The measure is now headed to the House after the Senate passed it Tuesday. SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House China's Homegrown Jewelry Superstar Pistachios Are Everywhere Right Now, Not Just in Dubai Chocolate ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data

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