Trump

California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom recently convened a meeting that might rank among the top sweat-inducing nightmare scenarios for Silicon Valley’s tech bros — a group of the Golden State’s smartest, most powerful women brainstorming ways to regulate artificial intelligence.

Regulation is the last thing this particular California-dominated industry wants, and it’s spent a lot of cash at both the state and federal capitols to avoid it — including funding President Trump’s new ballroom. Regulation by a bunch of ladies, many mothers, with profit a distant second to our kids when it comes to concerns?

I’ll let you figure out how popular that is likely be with the Elon Musks, Peter Thiels and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world.

But as Siebel Newsom said, “If a platform reaches a child, it carries a responsibility to protect that child. Period. Our children’s safety can never be second to the bottom line.”

Agreed.

Siebel Newsom’s push for California to do more to regulate AI comes at the same time that Trump is threatening to stop states from overseeing the technology — and is ramping up a national effort that will open America’s coffers to AI moguls for decades to come.

Right now, the U.S. is facing its own nightmare scenario: the most powerful and world-changing technology we have seen in our lifetimes being developed and unleashed under almost no rules or restraints other than those chosen by the men who seek personal benefit from the outcome.

To put it simply, the plan right now seems to be that these tech barons will change the world as they see fit to make money for themselves, and we as taxpayers will pay them to do it.

“When decisions are mainly driven by power and profit instead of care and responsibility, we completely lose our way, and given the current alignment between tech titans and the federal administration, I believe we have lost our way,” Siebel Newsom said.

To recap what the way has been so far, Trump recently tried to sneak a 10-year ban on the ability of states to oversee the industry into his ridiculously named “Big Beautiful Bill,” but it was pulled out by a bipartisan group in the Senate — an early indicator of how inflammatory this issue is.

Faced with that unexpected blockade, Trump has threatened to sign a mysterious executive order crippling states’ ability to regulate AI and attempting to withhold funds from those that try.

Simultaneously, the most craven and cowardly among Republican congresspeople have suggested adding a 10-year ban to the upcoming defense policy bill that will almost certainly pass. Of course, Congress has also declined to move forward on any meaningful federal regulations itself, while technology CEOs including Trump frenemy Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Zuckerberg and many others chum it up at fancy events inside the White House.

Which may be why this week, Trump announced the “Genesis Mission,” an executive order that seemingly will take the unimaginable vastness of government research efforts across disciplines and dump them into some kind of AI model that will “revolutionize the way scientific research is conducted.”

While I am sure that nothing could possibly go wrong in that scenario, that’s not actually the part that is immediately alarming. This is: The project will be overseen by Trump science and technology policy advisor Michael Kratsios, who holds no science or engineering degrees but was formerly a top executive for Thiel and former head of another AI company that works on warfare-related projects with the Pentagon.

Kratsios is considered one of the main reasons Trump has embraced the tech bros with such adoration in his second term. Genesis will almost certainly mean huge government contracts for these private-sector “partners,” fueling the AI boom (or bubble) with taxpayer dollars.

Siebel Newsom’s message in the face of all this is that we are not helpless — and California, as the home of many of these companies and the world’s fourth-largest economy in its own right, should have a say in how this technology advances, and make sure it does so in a way that benefits and protects us all.

“California is uniquely positioned to lead the effort in showing innovation and responsibility and how they can go hand in hand,” she said. “I’ve always believed that stronger guardrails are actually good for business over the long term. Safer tech means better outcomes for consumers and greater consumer trust and loyalty.”

But the pressure to cave under the might of these companies is intense, as Siebel Newsom’s husband knows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent the last few years trying to thread the needle on state legislation that offers some sort of oversight while allowing for the innovation that rightly keeps California and the United States competitive on the global front. The tech industry has spent millions in lobbying, legal fights and pressure campaigns to water down even the most benign of efforts, even threatening to leave the state if rules are enacted.

Last year, the industry unsuccessfully tried to stop Senate Bill 53, landmark legislation signed by Newsom. It’s a basic transparency measure on “frontier” AI models that requires companies to have safety and security protocols and report known “catastrophic” risks, such as when these models show tendencies toward behavior that could kill more than 50 people — which they have, believe it or not.

But the industry was able to stop other efforts. Newsom vetoed both Senate Bill 7, which would have required employers to notify workers when using AI in hiring and promotions; and Assembly Bill 1064, which would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors if they couldn’t prove they wouldn’t do things like encourage kids to self-harm, which again, these chatbots have done.

Still, California (along with New York and a few other states) has pushed forward, and speaking at Siebel Newsom’s event, the governor said that last session, “we took a number of at-bats at this and we made tremendous progress.”

He promised more.

“We have agency. We can shape the future,” he said. “We have a unique responsibility as it relates to these tools of technology, because, well, this is the center of that universe.”

If Newsom does keep pushing forward, it will be in no small part because of Siebel Newsom, and women like her, who keep the counter-pressure on.

In fact, it was another powerful mom, First Lady Melania Trump, who forced the federal government into a tiny bit of action this year when she championed the “Take It Down Act”, which requires tech companies to quickly remove nonconsensual explicit images. I sincerely doubt her husband would have signed that particular bill without her urging.

So, if we are lucky, the efforts of women like Siebel Newsom may turn out to be the bit of powerful sanity needed to put a check on the world-domination fantasies of the broligarchy.

Because tech bros are not yet all-powerful, despite their best efforts, and certainly not yet immune to the power of moms.

California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines over the Trump administration’s immigration raids this year in Los Angeles and across the nation, according to a new poll.

Just over half of the state’s registered voters oppose federal efforts to reduce undocumented immigration, and 61% are against deporting everyone in the nation who doesn’t have legal status, according to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab released to The Times on Wednesday.

But there is an acute difference in opinions based on political leanings.

Nearly 80% of Democrats oppose reducing the number of people entering the United States illegally, and 90% are against deporting everyone in the country who is undocumented, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 5% are against reducing the entries and 10% don’t believe all undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave.

“The big thing that we find, not surprisingly, is that Democrats and Republicans look really different,” said political scientist Amy Lerman, director of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, who studies race, public opinion and political behavior. “On these perspectives, they fall pretty clearly along party lines. While there’s some variation within the parties by things like age and race, really, the big divide is between Democrats and Republicans.”

While there were some differences based on gender, age, income, geography and race, the results largely mirrored the partisan divide in the state, Lerman said.

One remarkable finding was that nearly a quarter of survey respondents personally knew or were acquainted with someone in their family or friend groups directly affected by the deportation efforts, Lerman said.

“That’s a really substantial proportion,” she said. “Similarly, the extent to which we see people reporting that people in their communities are concerned enough about deportation efforts that they’re not sending their kids to school, not shopping in local stores, not going to work,” not seeking medical care or attending church services.

The poll surveyed a sample of the state’s registered voters and did not include the sentiments of the most affected communities — unregistered voters or those who are ineligible to cast ballots because they are not citizens.

A little more than 23 million of California’s 39.5 million residents were registered to vote as of late October, according to the secretary of state’s office.

“So if we think about the California population generally, this is a really significant underestimate of the effects, even though we’re seeing really substantial effects on communities,” she said.

Earlier this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a series of raids in Los Angeles and surrounding communities that spiked in June, creating both fear and outrage in Latino communities. Despite opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other elected Democrats, the Trump administration also deployed the National Guard to the streets of the nation’s second-largest city to, federal officials said, protect federal immigration officials.

The months since have been chaotic, with masked, armed agents randomly pulling people — most of whom are Latino — off the streets and out of their workplaces and sending many to detention facilities, where some have died. Some deportees were flown to an El Salvador prison. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by state officials and civil rights groups.

In one notable local case, a federal district judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area. The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal and lifted that order, while the case moves forward.

More than 7,100 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area by federal authorities since June 6, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

On Monday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Bass and other elected officials hosted a congressional hearing on the impact of immigration raids that have taken place across the country. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House’s oversight committee, also announced the creation of a tracker to document misconduct and abuse during ICE raids.

While Republican voters largely aligned with Trump’s actions on deportations, 16% said that they believed that the deportations will worsen the state’s economy.

Lerman said the university planned to study whether these numbers changed as the impacts on the economy are felt more greatly.

“If it continues to affect people, particularly, as we see really high rates of effects on the workforce, so construction, agriculture, all of the places where we’re as an economy really reliant [on immigrant labor], I can imagine some of these starting to shift even among Republicans,” she said.

Among Latinos, whose support of Trump grew in the 2024 election, there are multiple indications of growing dissatisfaction with the president, according to separate national polls.

Nearly eight in 10 Latinos said Trump’s policies have harmed their community, compared to 69% in 2019 during his first term, according to a national poll of adults in the United States released by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center on Monday. About 71% said the administration’s deportation efforts had gone too far, an increase from 56% in March. And it was the first time in the two decades that Pew has conducted its survey of Latino voters that the number of Latinos who said their standing in the United States had worsened increased, with more than two-thirds expressing the sentiment.

Another poll released earlier this month by Somos Votantes, a liberal group that urges Latino voters to support Democratic candidates, found that one-third of Latino voters who previously supported Trump rue their decision, according to a national poll.

Small business owner Brian Gavidia is among the Latino voters who supported Trump in November because of financial struggles.

“I was tired of struggling, I was tired of seeing my friends closing businesses,” the 30-year-old said. “When [President] Biden ran again I’m like, ‘I’m not going to vote for the same four years we just had’ … I was sad and I was heartbroken that our economy was failing and that’s the reason why I went that way.”

The East L.A. native, the son of immigrants from Colombia and El Salvador, said he wasn’t concerned about Trump’s immigration policies because the president promised to deport the “worst of the worst.”

He grew disgusted watching the raids that unfolded in Los Angeles earlier this year.

“They’re taking fruit vendors, day laborers, that’s the worst of the worst to you?” he remembered thinking.

Over a lunch of asada tortas and horchata in East L.A., Gavidia recounted being detained by Border Patrol agents in June while working at a Montebello tow yard. Agents shoved him against a metal gate, demanding to know what hospital he was born at after he said he was an American citizen, according to video of the incident.

After reviewing his ID, the agents eventually let Gavidia go. The Department of Homeland Security later claimed that Gavidia was detained for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants. He is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups alleging racial profiling during immigration raids.

“At that moment, I was the criminal, at that moment I was the worst of the worst, which is crazy because I went to go see who they were getting — the worst of the worst like they said they were going to get,” Gavidia said. “But turns out when I got there, I was the worst of the worst.”

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency says strict air quality standards were introduced without sufficient review.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to roll back tougher limits on deadly soot pollution, prompting condemnation from environmental groups.

The Trump administration’s latest bid to weaken environmental standards comes after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a court motion arguing that former President Joe Biden’s administration exceeded its authority when it tightened air quality standards in 2024.

In a motion filed on Monday, lawyers for Trump’s EPA asked a Washington, DC, appeals court to throw out the tougher standard, arguing it was introduced without the “rigorous, stepwise process” required under the 1963 Clean Air Act.

The EPA initially defended the tougher standard amid a flurry of legal challenges from Republican-led states and business groups, which argued the rule would raise costs, before reversing course under Trump appointee Lee Zeldin.

“EPA has concluded that the position it advanced earlier is erroneous,” lawyers for the EPA said in the filing, arguing that the agency should complete a “thorough review of the underlying criteria and corresponding standards” before revising the limit.

Under Biden appointee Michael S Regan, the EPA last year substantially lowered acceptable soot levels, from 12 micrograms per cubic metre of air to 9 micrograms per cubic metre of air.

The agency said at the time that the tougher standard would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays by 2032.

Upon taking office earlier this year, Zeldin, a former Republican lawmaker, pledged to roll back dozens of environmental regulations as part of what he dubbed the “largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States”.

Patrice Simms, an environmental lawyer at the nonprofit organisation Earthjustice, said lowering air quality standards would harm public health.

“Trump has made it clear that his agenda is all about saving corporations money, and this administration’s EPA has nothing to do with protecting people’s health, saving lives, or serving children, families or communities,” Simms said in a statement.

“We will continue to defend this life-saving standard.”

Patrick Drupp, the director of climate policy at the Sierra Club, also condemned the EPA’s move, calling it “reckless” and “a complete betrayal” of the agency’s mission.

“While this administration continues to strip away access to affordable healthcare, they are simultaneously allowing fossil fuel companies to cut corners and make Americans sicker,” Drupp said.

US President Donald Trump is sending senior negotiators to meet Vladimir Putin to push for a deal to end Russia’s war with Ukraine. Special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week, with Jared Kushner also involved in the process.

Immigration rights advocates says the new policy aims to ‘bully some of the most vulnerable’ people in US society.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has confirmed that it will retroactively vet refugees who have already been admitted into the country, prompting concern from immigrant rights groups.

“Corrective action is now being taken to ensure those who are present in the United States deserve to be here,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies had reported on Monday that they obtained a government memorandum ordering a review of more than 230,000 refugees who were legally resettled in the country under former President Joe Biden.

The memo, signed by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow, said that refugees who are found to have failed to meet the standards for resettlement would have their legal status revoked.

“Given these concerns, USCIS has determined that a comprehensive review and a re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025, is warranted,” the memo stated.

“When appropriate, USCIS will also review and re-interview refugees admitted outside this timeframe.”

In 2024, the US admitted more than 100,000 refugees. The leading countries of origin for refugees were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria.

Unlike asylum seekers who apply for protections once they arrive in the US, refugees apply for legal status while they are outside of the country.

They are allowed to enter the US with the presumption that they will be longterm residents, safe from persecution in their home countries.

Refugee admission also offers a path to US citizenship, with newcomers able to apply for a legal permanent residency one year after arrival in the country.

Applicants for refugee admission undergo multiple levels of screening and interviews. That process often starts with a third party – usually the United Nations – referring them to the US refugee admissions programme.

Then, US immigration authorities rigorously vet the applicants, who must show they faced persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a particular social group.

Sharif Aly, the president of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), said refugees are the most highly vetted immigrants in the country.

“This order is one more in a long line of efforts to bully some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, by threatening their lawful status, rendering them vulnerable to the egregious conduct of immigration enforcement agencies, and putting them through an onerous and potentially re-traumatizing process,” Aly said in a statement.

Mark Hetfield, president of the humanitarian organisation HIAS, called the Trump administration’s move “unnecessary, cruel and wasteful”. His group assists new refugees in the US.

“Refugees have already been more vetted than any other group of immigrants,” Hetfield told Reuters.

Trump drastically reduced refugee admission during his first term and all but gutted the programme after his return to the White House in January.

The second Trump administration set a historic low of ​7,500 as the refugee admission cap for next year.

The president also ordered the programme to “primarily” resettle white South Africans, whom he says are facing discrimination by their government.

Overall, Trump has pushed to restrict new arrivals to the US and crack down on noncitizens in the country.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Trump initiated call with Xi Jinping and that communication was crucial for developing stable US-China relations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has “more or less agreed” to increase purchases of goods from the United States, President Donald Trump said, a day after a phone call between the two leaders was described by Beijing as “positive, friendly and constructive”.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Tuesday evening, Trump said he asked the Chinese leader during the call to accelerate purchases from the US.

“I think we will be pleasantly surprised by the actions of President Xi,” Trump said.

“I asked him, I’d like you to buy it a little faster. I’d like you to buy more. And he’s more or less agreed to do that,” he said.

Trump’s upbeat forecast on trade with China comes after Beijing announced last month that it would resume purchases of US soya beans and would halt expanded curbs on rare earths exports to the US amid detente in the tariff war with Washington.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that China had pledged to buy 12 million metric tonnes of soya beans from US farmers this year, but the Reuters news agency reports that the pace of Chinese purchases had been less than initially expected.

China has so far ordered nearly two million metric tonnes of US soya beans, according to data by the US Department of Agriculture, Reuters reports.

The call on Monday between Trump and Xi comes just weeks after the two leaders met in South Korea, where they agreed to a framework for a trade deal that has yet to be finalised.

“China and the United States once fought side by side against fascism and militarism, and should now work together to safeguard the outcomes of World War II,” Xi was quoted as telling Trump in the call, China’s official Xinhua news agency reports.

Xi also told Trump that “Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the post-war international order”.

China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to unite the self-ruled, democratic island with the Chinese mainland.

The US has been traditionally opposed to China’s potential use of force to seize Taiwan and is obligated by a domestic law to provide sufficient military hardware to Taipei to deter any armed attack.

But Trump has maintained strategic ambiguity about whether he would commit US troops in case of a war in the Taiwan Strait, while his administration has urged Taiwan to increase its defence budget.

Trump made no mention of Xi’s comments on Taiwan in a later post on Truth Social, where he spoke of a “very good” call with the Chinese leader, which he said covered many topics, including Ukraine, Fentanyl and US farm products.

“Our relationship with China is extremely strong! This call was a follow up to our highly successful meeting in South Korea, three weeks ago. Since then, there has been significant progress on both sides in keeping our agreements current and accurate,” Trump said.

“Now we can set our sights on the big picture,” he said.

The US leader also said that he had accepted Xi’s invitation to visit Beijing in April, and had invited Xi for a state visit to the US later in the year.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that Washington had initiated the call between Trump and Xi, which spokesperson Mao Ning called “positive, friendly and constructive”.

Mao also said that “communication between the two heads of state on issues of common concern is crucial for the stable development of China-US relations”.

Additional reporting by Bonnie Liao.

McALLEN, Texas — Yaakub Vijandre was preparing to go to work as a mechanic when six vehicles appeared outside his Dallas-area home. Federal agents jumped out, one pointed a weapon at him, and they took him into custody.

Vijandre is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of people from deportation since 2012 if they were brought to the United States as children and generally stayed out of trouble. The Trump administration said it targeted Vijandre over social media posts. The freelance videographer and pro-Palestinian activist described his early October arrest to his attorneys, who relayed the information to reporters.

His arrest and several others this year signal a change in how the U.S. is handling DACA recipients as President Trump’s administration reshapes immigration policy more broadly. The change comes as immigrants have face increased vetting, including of their social media, when they apply for visas, green cards, citizenship, or to request the release of their children from federal custody. The administration also has sought to deport foreign students for participating in pro-Palestinian activism.

DACA was created to shield recipients, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” from immigration arrests and deportation. It also allows them to legally work in the U.S. Recipients reapply every two years. Previously if their status was in jeopardy, they would receive a warning and would still have a chance to fight it before immigration officers detained them and began efforts to deport them.

In response to questions about any changes, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement saying that people “who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations. DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.” DACA recipients can lose status “for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime,” she said.

McLaughlin also claimed in a statement that Vijandre made social media posts “glorifying terrorism,” including one she said celebrated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. strike in 2006.

An attorney for Vijandre, Chris Godshall-Bennett, said Vijandre’s social media activity is “clearly” protected speech. He also said the government has not provided details about the specific posts in court documents.

Vijandre is among about 20 DACA recipients who have been arrested or detained by immigration authorities since Trump took office in January, according to Home is Here, a campaign created by pro-DACA advocacy groups. The administration is seeking to end his DACA status, which could result in his being deported to the Philippines, a home he has not visited since his family came to the U.S. in 2001, when he was 14.

DACA has faced legal challenges

DACA survived the first Trump administration’s attempt to rescind the program when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the administration did not take the proper steps to end it.

There have been other attempts to end the program or place restrictions on recipients.

This year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would deny work permits for DACA recipients who live in Texas. The Trump administration recently presented its plans to a federal judge who is determining how it will work.

The administration also has issued new restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses that would prevent DACA recipients and some other immigrants from getting them. Last year, 19 Republican states stripped DACA recipients’ access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. And the number of states where immigrant students can qualify for in-state tuition has dwindled since the Justice Department began suing states this year.

“This administration might not be trying to end DACA altogether the way that they did the first time around, but they are chipping away at it,” said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, spokesperson for United We Dream, which is part of Home is Here, the coalition keeping track of public cases of DACA recipients who have been detained.

Detained DACA recipients question their arrests

Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago Santiago, a 28-year-old activist from El Paso, was arrested in August despite showing immigration officers a valid work permit obtained through DACA.

Days later, federal officers arrested Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira as the 28-year-old father was arriving at his El Paso home with his children following a doctor’s appointment. Agents dislocated his shoulder, according to his attorneys.

Both Santiago and Gamez Lira were held for over a month while their attorneys petitioned for their release.

Marisa Ong, an attorney for Santiago and Gamez Lira, said the government failed to notify either of her clients of any intention to terminate their DACA status.

“DACA recipients have a constitutionally protected interest in their continued liberty,” Ong said, adding that “the government cannot take away that liberty without providing some valid reason.”

DACA recipients can lose their status if they are convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanors like those involving harming others, driving under the influence or drug distribution, or three or more misdemeanors. They can also lose their status if they pose a threat to national security or public safety.

DHS claimed in a statement that Santiago was previously charged with trespassing, possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia and that Gamez Lira was previously arrested for marijuana possession.

Ong said that when attorneys sought their release “the government presented no evidence of any past misconduct by either individual.”

Vijandre, the Dallas-area man who was arrested in October, remains in a Georgia detention facility. His attorneys say he received notice two weeks before his arrest that the government planned to terminate his DACA status but that he wasn’t given a chance to fight it.

“I think that the administration has drawn a very clear line and at least for right now, between citizen and noncitizens, and their goal is to remove as many noncitizens from the country as possible and to make it as difficult as possible for noncitizens to enter the country,” Godshall-Bennett, Vijandre’s attorney, said.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday President Donald Trump is likely to select the next chair of the Federal Reserve before Christmas.

Bessent made the remarks in an interview on CNBC, where he offered an update on his work overseeing the search for a successor to Jerome Powell, the current chair whose term ends in May 2026. Trump has pressured Powell to lower interest rates, raising questions about the independence of the nation’s central bank.

In the interview, Bessent said he was seeking a simpler and more subtle role for the Fed, which plays a pivotal role in financial markets and the economy.

“I think we’ve got to kind of simplify things,” he said. “I think it’s time for the Fed just to move back into the background, like, it used to do, calm things down and work for the American people.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has lobbed criticisms at Powell over his cautious approach to lowering interest rates after a period of high inflation. Trump, who first appointed Powell, has called him a “clown” and openly talked about wanting to fire him.

Inflation is currently at 3%, just shy of the Fed’s 2% target. But members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the bank’s primary monetary policy-setting body, were divided on whether to support rate cuts at its December meeting.

Further complicating the Fed’s work is news that the ​​Consumer Price Index report for October will not be available for its upcoming meeting. The monthly report presents a snapshot of consumer prices, but the recent government shutdown delayed its release.

Bessent said the list of candidates for Fed chair has been narrowed to five and work was progressing well. But he noted the final pick is up to Trump “whether it’s before the Christmas holidays or in the new year.”

Ukraine says it supports the “essence” of a United States plan to end its war with Russia, as US President Donald Trump said “progress” is being made on securing a deal and that he would dispatch his special envoy to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Tuesday saw a flurry of diplomatic activity after US and Ukrainian negotiators met two days earlier in Geneva to discuss Trump’s initial peace plan, which had been seen in Ukraine as a Russian wish list calling on Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow, limit its military and give up on joining NATO.

The plan has since been modified, with the emerging proposal reportedly accomodating concerns of Ukraine and its European allies.

Speaking at a video conference of the so-called coalition of the willing – a group of 30 countries supporting Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to “move forward” with the as-yet-unpublished “framework”, though he still needed to address “sensitive points”.

Earlier, a Ukrainian official had told the Reuters news agency that Kyiv supported “the framework’s essence”. Building on that sense of momentum, Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, who led negotiations in Geneva, told US news website Axios that the security guarantees Ukraine was seeking looked “very solid”.

Speaking at the White House, Trump conceded that resolving the Ukraine war was “not easy”, but added, “We’re getting close to a deal.”

“I thought that would be an easier [deal], but I think we’re making progress,” he said.

Taking to his Truth Social platform later on, he said that he would send envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to iron out “a few” remaining differences over the deal.

He said he hoped to meet “soon” with Putin and Zelenskyy, “but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages”.

Russia, which had hammered Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with a deadly barrage of missiles the previous night, seemed unconvinced of progress.

Russia has not yet seen the modified plan, which remains unpublished, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined that it should reflect the “spirit and letter” of an understanding reached between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at their Alaska summit earlier this year.

“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage is erased in terms of the key understandings we have established, then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation [for Russia],” Lavrov warned.

Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said there was a lot of “uncertainty” at the Kremlin, though there had allegedly been “behind-the-scenes interactions” between Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev and US counterpart Steve Witkoff, “who reportedly worked on the initial stage” of Trump’s plan.

The Russian side, she said, was not happy about revisions to the peace plan.

“Unlike the initial American plan presented by Donald Trump, which consisted of 28 points, the so-called European version doesn’t include withdrawing the Ukrainian armed forces from Donbas, it allows Kyiv to join NATO, and it doesn’t limit the size of its armed forces,” Shapovalova said.

Still, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll had earlier emerged upbeat from meeting with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, with his spokesman saying: “The talks are going well and we remain optimistic.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that there were “a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States”.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said it was “unclear when those talks will happen, who will be involved, and what they will look like”. But, she added, it was clear they would not be imminent, given the upcoming American Thanksgiving holiday on November 27.

Macron urges ‘pressure’ on Putin

As the US strained to bridge the gap between Ukraine and Russia, leaders in the coalition of the willing, who have pledged to underwrite and guarantee any ceasefire, moved fast on security guarantees and a reconstruction plan for Ukraine.

In the video meeting, co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with Zelenskyy and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in attendance, the leaders decided to set up a task force between the US and coalition countries to “solidify” security guarantees.

Trump has not committed to providing back-up for a post-ceasefire “reassurance force” for Ukraine. The plan for the force involves European allies training Ukrainian troops and providing sea and air support, but would be reliant on US military muscle to work.

Speaking after the video call, Macron said discussions in Geneva had shown that there should be no limitations to the Ukrainian army, contrary to what had been outlined in the initial draft of the US plan.

He also said a decision on using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction, at the heart of a political and legal impasse in a Europe seeking funding for Ukraine, would be “finalised in the coming days” with the European Commission.

Western countries froze approximately $300bn in Russian assets in 2022, mostly in Belgium, but there has been no consensus on how to proceed. Some support seizing the assets, while others, like Belgium, remain cautious owing to legal concerns.

According to reports, Trump’s plan would split the assets between reconstruction and US-Russia investments.

Macron hit out at Russia, saying “continued pressure” should be put on Moscow to negotiate. “On the ground, the reality is quite the opposite of a willingness for peace,” he said, alluding to Russia’s overnight attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, which left seven dead and disrupted power and heating systems.

In his daily evening address, Zelenskyy said: “What is especially cynical is that Russia carried out such strikes while talks are under way on how to end the war”.

President Donald Trump pardoned Thanksgiving turkeys Gobble and Waddle — joking he nearly named them after Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer — while also taking swipes at Joe Biden, stating last year’s turkey pardons were “invalid” because Biden used an autopen to sign them.

A new transparency feature on X has unwittingly revealed that many of the site’s top MAGA influencers are foreign actors sowing division in the US. It’s caused a storm on social media, as Soraya Lennie explains.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has directed his departments of Treasury and State to consider designating chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations as he seeks to sanction the transnational Sunni Islamist group.

The executive order, signed by Trump on Monday, gives Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio 30 days to submit a joint report evaluating whether any chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization and as a specially designated global terrorist entity.

The chapters in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt were specifically named in the order.

“The order’s ultimate aim is to eliminate the designated chapters’ capabilities and operatives, deprive them of resources and end any threat such chapters pose to U.S. nationals and the national security of the United States,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in the 1920s, renounced violence in the 1970s and now provides a mixture of religious teaching with political activism and social support, such as operating pharmacies, hospitals and schools, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Trump administration has accused the Muslim Brotherhood of fueling terrorism in the Middle East, highlighting actions by alleged members following Hamas‘ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

It said members in Lebanon launched rockets at Israel alongside Hezbollah. A leader of the group in Egypt “encouraged violence against U.S. partners and equities in the Middle East.” And the order cites reports that state leaders in Jordan “have long provided material support to the military wing of Hamas.”

If designated as both a foreign terrorist organization and specially designated global terrorists, the Muslim Brotherhood would be subjected to significant financial penalties, including sanctions, blocking them from the U.S. financial system and barring U.S. persons from doing business with them.

The Trump administration has used repeatedly taken action against individuals and organizations, both foreign and domestic, that have criticized Israel over its war in Gaza, including revoking visas from students studying in the United States and fining universities over alleged failures to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestine protests that erupted on their campuses.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he supported Trump’s executive order, saying “this battle has been over a decade in the making.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood and its branches encourage, facilitate and provide resources for conducting jihadist terrorism across the world,” he said in a statement.

Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and a Trump ally, designated the Muslim Brotherhood, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations, banning them from purchasing or acquiring land in the Lone Star State.

“HUGE step,” Abbott said in a statement late Monday in response to Trump’s executive order.

“Pres. Trump is right to make this federal designation.”

Trump signs order to integrate supercomputers and data assets in order to create ‘AI experimentation platform”.

United States President Donald Trump has unveiled a national initiative to mobilise artificial intelligence (AI) for accelerating scientific breakthroughs.

Trump signed an executive order on Monday to establish “The Genesis Mission”, the latest iteration of his administration’s aggressive strategy for spurring AI development through deregulation, infrastructure investment and public-private collaboration.

Trump’s order directs US Energy Secretary Chris Wright to unite scientists and technologies at the country’s 17 national laboratories into “one cooperative system for research”.

Under the initiative, US supercomputers and data resources will be integrated to create a “closed-loop AI experimentation platform”, according to the order.

The White House, which likened the initiative to the Apollo programme that put the first man on the moon, said priority areas of focus would include the “greatest scientific challenges of our time,” such as nuclear fusion, semiconductors, critical materials and space exploration.

Michael Kratsios, the White House’s top science adviser, said the initiative took a “revolutionary approach” to scientific research.

“The Genesis Mission connects world-class scientific data with the most advanced American AI to unlock breakthroughs in medicine, energy, materials science, and beyond,” Kratsios said.

Chipmaker Nvidia and AI startup Anthropic said on Monday that they were partnering with the Trump administration on the initiative.

“Uniting the National Labs, USG, industry, and academia, this effort will connect America’s leading supercomputers, AI systems, and next-generation quantum machines into the most complex scientific instrument ever built – accelerating breakthroughs in energy, discovery, and national security,” Nvidia said in a social media post, referring to the US government (USG).

Since re-entering the White House, Trump has made cutting red tape to fast-track the development of AI a key plank of his economic agenda.

Last week, Trump called on the US Congress to pass legislation to create a national standard for AI, while criticising state governments over their laws regulating the emerging technology.

“Overregulation by the States is threatening to undermine this Growth Engine,” Trump said on his platform, Truth Social.

“We MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.”

Benjamin H Bratton, an AI expert at the University of California, San Diego, welcomed the initiative as a move towards the “diffusion” of the technology.

“It is less important ‘whose’ AI people have access to than they have universal access at all,” Bratton told Al Jazeera.

“Most attempts to throttle AI in the USA and EU [European Union] come from cultural, economic and political incumbents protecting their turf.”

“Those locked out of positions of artificially scarce social agency have the most to gain,” Bratton added. “I support diffusion, not any particular administration.”

WASHINGTON — On Saturday, after 19 years of war, the United States and the Taliban began what both sides delicately called a seven-day “reduction of violence” in Afghanistan, a trial attempt at a partial truce. If the experiment works, they have set Feb. 29 for a ceremony to sign an agreement that would launch broader peace negotiations.

The Taliban has a good reason to keep its promise to pause offensive operations for a week: Under the proposed deal, the U.S. will withdraw about one-fourth of its roughly 12,000 troops from Afghanistan by this summer. It’s one goal the Taliban shares with President Trump, who wants to run for reelection claiming he is ending the United States’ longest war.

But the larger peace process that is supposed to follow will be far more difficult — and the Taliban is not the only complicating factor.

There’s also Trump’s impatience and his penchant for disrupting slow-moving diplomatic efforts at whim.

As early as 2012, Trump declared the U.S. war in Afghanistan “a complete waste” and said it was time to pull out. If something goes wrong in the Afghan peace process — and something surely will — will he check his impulse to declare victory and leave?

The plan negotiated by Trump’s special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has plenty of moving parts. Its text hasn’t been released, but officials and others say it is almost identical to a draft deal Khalilzad reached in September.

According to their accounts, the deal calls for the United States to trim its troop presence from about 12,000 to 8,600 by July — and later, if all goes well, to zero. Or as the Taliban put it in a statement Friday, the deal would lead to “the withdrawal of all foreign forces … so that our people can live a peaceful and prosperous life under the shade of an Islamic system.”

The Taliban must agree not to harbor Islamic State, Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups that seek to attack the West. The plan even provides for U.S. forces and the Taliban to cooperate on counterterrorism.

Peace negotiations among all Afghan factions are supposed to begin within 10 days after the plan is signed. But the government in Kabul led by President Ashraf Ghani is mired in an internal power struggle and could prove incapable of acting as an effective player.

Those talks could lead to a new constitution and give the Taliban a major role in a future Afghan government.

Keeping that complex process on track will require Washington to stay involved in Afghanistan with both diplomatic muscle and continued financial aid — which means Congress will have to buy in.

That hasn’t happened. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and other Republican hawks are already grumbling about trusting the Taliban and the folly, in their view, of reducing troops below 8,600.

One question is practical: U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy Al Qaeda, which launched the 9/11 attacks from its sanctuary there, and to push the Taliban out of power. Can U.S. counterterrorism needs be met without troops in Afghanistan?

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who helped run the war under two presidents, says the answer is yes.

“The threat is not what it was in 2001. Al Qaeda is much diminished,” he told me. “And we’re much better at counterterrorism than we were back when we were simply launching cruise missiles into the desert.”

Other questions could be difficult in a different way.

Most Americans have concluded that the U.S. war in Afghanistan turned into a tragic, expensive failure once it expanded beyond unseating Al Qaeda. The explicit U.S. recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political force makes that verdict official.

And allowing the Taliban to win a share of power — or potentially dominate the government in Kabul — will diminish whatever hope remains of helping Afghanistan become a recognizable democracy.

Americans once congratulated themselves for freeing Afghanistan’s women from Islamic extremism. Taliban leaders have said they intend to protect women’s rights to education and employment, but their track record — closing schools, barring women from public life, and worse — inspires little confidence.

Many, including Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, are pessimistic.

“We encouraged women to step forward,” Crocker told me. “Now it appears they’re expendable.”

Trump has disrupted his own diplomacy more than once. When the U.S. and Taliban reached a tentative deal last September, Trump impulsively decided that he wanted Taliban leaders to fly to Camp David for a splashy ceremony three days before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The Taliban, which isn’t big on photo ops, refused. Republicans in Congress also denounced the idea of honoring the leaders of a guerrilla force who had killed 1,800 Americans by bringing them to the presidential retreat in Maryland. Trump announced that he was canceling the deal entirely, blamed the Taliban for an attack that killed a U.S. serviceman in Kabul, and pronounced the peace talks “dead.”

Khalilzad needed almost six months to bring the deal back to life.

If the Feb. 29 deal holds, Trump will claim credit for cutting U.S. troops in Afghanistan down to 8,600 — the same number deployed when President Obama left office.

But what Trump really wants is to announce —in an election year, no less — that those troops are on their way home, too.

Given the complexities of Afghan politics, that’s probably impossible. Diplomats warn that putting pressure on the Afghans to conclude a peace agreement could scuttle the process.

If Trump wants to withdraw troops as part of a comprehensive deal — one that avoids chaos, meets U.S. counterterrorism needs and gives Afghanistan a chance at peace — he’ll need to exercise unwonted self-restraint.

After three years as president, he doesn’t have many diplomatic achievements to his name. He’s staged disruptive events, including summit meetings with Kim Jong Un, trade wars and withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, but produced few tangible accomplishments.

Launching a peace process for Afghanistan, if it succeeds, could be his most substantive achievement — but only if he gets out of his own way.

White House cites groups’ alleged support for Hamas, accusing them of waging campaign against US interests and allies.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has ordered his aides to start a process to label the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as “terrorist” organisations, citing their alleged support for the Palestinian group Hamas.

Trump issued the decree on Monday as Washington intensified its crackdown on Israel’s foes in the region.

The decree accused Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Jordan of providing “material support” to Hamas and the Lebanese branch of the group – known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya – of siding with Hamas and Hezbollah in their war with Israel.

It also claimed that an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader “called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests” during Israel’s war on Gaza. But it was not clear what the White House was referring to. The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Egypt and mostly driven underground.

“President Trump is confronting the Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational network, which fuels terrorism and destabilization campaigns against US interests and allies in the Middle East,” the White House said.

Trump’s order directs the secretary of state and the treasury secretary to consult with the US intelligence chief and produce a report on the designation within 30 days.

A formal “foreign terrorist organisation” label would then officially apply to the Muslim Brotherhood branches within 45 days after the report.

The process is usually a formality, and the designation may come sooner. The decree also opens the door to blacklisting other Muslim Brotherhood branches.

The White House is also pushing to label the groups as “designated global terrorists”.

The designations would make it illegal to provide material support to the group. It would also mostly ban their current and former members from entering the US, and enable economic sanctions to choke their revenue streams.

Longstanding demand of right-wing activists

Established in 1928 by Egyptian Muslim scholar Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood has offshoots and branches across the Middle East in the shape of political parties and social organisations.

Across the Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties take part in elections and say they are committed to peaceful political participation.

But the group has been outlawed by several countries across the region.

Blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood has been a longstanding demand for right-wing activists in the US.

But critics say that the move could further enable authoritarianism and the crackdown on free political expression in the Middle East.

The decree could also be used to target Muslim American activists on allegations of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or contributions to charities affiliated with the group.

Right-wing groups have long pushed to outlaw Muslim American groups with unfounded accusations of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the designation should not have an impact on Muslim American advocacy groups and charities.

“The American Muslim organisations are solid,” Awad told Al Jazeera. “They are based in the US. The relief organisations serve millions of people abroad. I hope that this will not impact their work.”

But he noted that anti-Muslim activists have been trying to promote “the conspiracy theory that every Muslim organisation in the US is a front to the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Recently, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated both the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as “foreign terrorist organisations and transnational criminal organisations”.

CAIR has sued the governor’s office in response.

Nov. 24 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation granting two years of regulatory relief from a stringent, existing Environmental Protection Agency on coke over facilities.

rump inked a proclamation Friday that exempts manufacturing facilities from Biden-era regulatory updates to the Clean Air Act that affect coal in steelmaking plants known as coke ovens.

The Coke Oven Rule, according to the White House, “places severe burdens on the coke production industry and, through its indirect effects, on the viability of our nation’s critical infrastructure, defense, and national security.”

A coke oven is a chamber in which coal is flamed to produce coke, which then fuels steelmaking. The Biden EPA estimated compliance cost would cost companies about$500,000 in additional fees.

The Trump administration’s new policy switch will absolve at least 11 U.S. coke oven plants from a need to cut back on release of toxic pollutants, including mercury, formaldehyde, soot and dioxins for two years.

“Specifically, the Coke Oven Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially demonstrated or cost-effective form,” Trump’s proclamation said.

A number of companies eligible for the exemptions include ABC Coke, EES Coke, SunCoke Energy, Cleveland Cliffs and U.S. Steel.

The previous administration under then-President Joe Biden argued the rule was critical to cut back on pollution and could curtail an increase in dirty air.

In March, the EPA set the stage for the coke oven proclamation by announcing it would allow Clean Air Act exemptions to be processed online.

Prominent environmental groups, meanwhile, say the exemptions will likely harm local communities.

It followed a slew of other Trump administration rollbacks on environmental regulations, most recently on wetland protection and other greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles and engines.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems.…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) ORG XMIT: IANH116

(Nati Harnik / Associated Press)

Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

A memorial to the San Bernardino shooting victims near the Inland Regional Center on Dec. 8, 2015.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

After disavowing the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Trump equivocated when he was asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would say flatly that he did not want the vote of Duke or other white supremacists.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know.”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

(Burt Steel / Associated Press)

“Look at my African American over here. Look at him.”

At a campaign rally in Redding, Donald Trump referred to a man in the crowd as “my African American.”

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Trump said the Mexican ancestry of a federal judge born in Indiana should disqualify him from presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump because of his proposed border wall.

After he called U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel “a member of a club or society very strongly pro-Mexican,” a reporter asked Trump whether he would also feel that a Muslim could not treat him fairly because of his proposed Muslim ban. “It’s possible, yes,” Trump said.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

(John Gastaldo / TNS)

Trump defended his posting on Twitter of a six-pointed star, a pile of cash and an image of Hillary Clinton with the caption, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” Widespread denunciations of the tweet as anti-Semitic led an aide to delete it, but Trump said it should have stayed up.

“Just leave it up and say, no, that’s not a star of David, that’s just a star,” he said. It “could have been a sheriff’s star,” he said.

“Our inner cities, African Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot.”

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton listens as Donald Trump makes his argument during their first debate at Hofstra University on Sept. 26, 2016.

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS” and Nigerian immigrants will never “go back to their huts” in Africa.

President Donald Trump.

(Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images)

“I think there is blame on both sides.…You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.…Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

Members of the Ku Klux Klan arrive at a rally in Charlottesville, Va. on July 8, 2017.

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP/Getty Images)

“They’re trying to take away our culture. They’re trying to take away our history. And our weak leaders, they do it overnight. These things have been there for 150 years, for a hundred years. You go back to a university and it’s gone. Weak, weak people.”

A monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va.

(Steve Helber / Associated Press)

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’”

San Francisco 49ers safety Eric Reid and quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneel during the national anthem before their game against the Los Angeles Rams on Sept. 12, 2016.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

“You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”

President Trump with Navajo Code Talkers in the Oval Office on Nov. 27, 2017.

(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

Trump drew condemnation from British Prime Minister Theresa May for sharing three anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British nationalist who was recently arrested for inciting hatred and violence against Muslims. The videos purported to show Muslims engaged in violent or anti-Christian acts. One of them, titled “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” did not actually show a migrant beating the boy; the attacker was born and raised in the Netherlands.

President Trump retweeted videos from a far-right group on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017.

(Los Angeles Times)

[email protected] | Twitter: @markzbarabak

[email protected] | Twitter: ​​​​​​​@finneganLAT

UPDATES:

Jan. 12, 2:25 p.m.: This article was updated with additional instances of President Trump’s racially charged language.

This article was originally published 6:30 p.m. Jan. 11.

Reporting from DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump gave his salesman’s pitch for America on Friday before an international crowd of corporate and political titans, and took credit for its economic success, even as he was shadowed by fresh clouds from home about his heightened jeopardy in the Russia investigation and opposition to his immigration plan.

Contrary to predictions that Trump might use his keynote address to the World Economic Forum in Davos to bash multilateral trade deals and international alliances, as he did during his campaign, he appeared to soften the edges of his “America First” policy in his speech to the elites who gather in this glitzy Alpine resort each winter to champion free trade and global cooperation.

“America is open for business and we are competitive once again,” Trump told several hundred attendees, reading his speech from teleprompters. “Now is the perfect time to bring your business, your jobs and your investments to the United States.”

Given the complaints here about Trump’s aggressive trade policies and worries that America is withdrawing from its global leadership role, Trump received general credit for showing up and hobnobbing with fellow world leaders and moguls at an event that has not seen a U.S. president since Bill Clinton in 2000.

Some in the crowd booed and hissed when Trump, during a question-and-answer session that followed his speech, said it “wasn’t until I became a politician that I realize how nasty, how mean, how vicious, and how fake the press can be.”

While Trump’s anti-media remarks are familiar to Americans, they struck a dissonant note on the international stage since U.S. presidents historically have been global clarions for a free press.

Although the evidence was scant, Trump dropped at least one hint he might be moderating other views.

Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau announced here that his country would join 10 others that have agreed to move forward on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact without the United States. Trump withdrew from the proposed accord shortly after taking office, calling it a “horrible deal.”

In his comments here, Trump cracked the door slightly to reentering the TPP in some way, saying he was open to negotiating trade deals with the 11 countries “either individually, or perhaps as a group.”

That sparked a buzz of comment here and on social media. Trump vowed to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement during the campaign, but his administration is seeking to renegotiate it with Mexico and Canada. In contrast, the White House has shown no sign it is reconsidering its decision on TPP.

And while global challenges like climate change and poverty dominate the agenda here, the CEOs and other top executives Trump met in his 36-hour visit publicly applauded the corporate tax cuts he signed into law last month.

All that put Trump in a good mood.

“I’ve been a cheerleader for our country,” Trump said in his speech, which largely echoed familiar White House talking points. “And everybody representing a company or a country has to be a cheerleader, or no matter what you do, it’s just not going to work.”

Trump said he will put America first just as other leaders should put their countries first, a line he used in a harder-edged address he delivered at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam in November.

Trump accused “some countries” of exploiting the international trading system at the expense of others. He said he supports free trade, but it “needs to be fair and it needs to be reciprocal.”

“The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair economic practices, including massive intellectual property theft, industrial subsidies, and pervasive state-led economic planning,” he said, probably a reference to China.

At his raucous political rallies back home, that sentiment often generates loud cheers. The crowd at Davos stayed silent, saving polite applause for the end of his remarks.

As he often does, Trump claimed credit for the booming U.S. economy, citing growth numbers and the removal business regulations. That message was partly diluted by news Friday that U.S. growth slowed slightly in the fourth quarter to 2.6%, which was short of Trump’s projections.

The Davos conference is considered the premier event for the world’s wealthy glitterati, a familiar group to the billionaire owner of Mar-a-Lago and other high-end hotels and resorts. In his speech, Trump nodded to his working-class supporters, saying that “when people are forgotten, the world becomes fractured.”

Trump also couldn’t resist taking a jab at Hillary Clinton despite the American tradition of steering clear of partisan politics while on foreign soil. In the question-and-answer session, Trump said the stock market would have dropped 50% if “the opposing party” had won instead of him.

The audience scored the tone of Trump’s speech carefully, given his antagonism to international organizations and pacts, such as the Paris climate accord, trade agreements and the Iran nuclear deal that are generally celebrated at the conference.

It was partly overshadowed at home after the New York Times reported late Thursday that Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III last June, halting the effort only after White House Counsel Donald McGahn threatened to resign.

Nor could Trump escape fallout here from reports that he had labeled African nations “shithole countries” during a recent Oval Office meeting with several members of Congress. The comments sparked widespread condemnation around the globe.

Trump ignored reporters’ questions about the crude language when he met early Friday with Paul Kagame, longtime president of Rwanda and incoming chairman of the African Union. Kagame is the first African leader Trump has met since his comments were reported on Jan. 11.

The African Union had called on Trump to apologize for the remarks, which he has denied making. It is not known whether the dispute came up in Trump’s private discussion with Kagame. A subsequent statement from the White House summarizing the meeting did not mention the issue.

“It’s a great honor to be with President Kagame,” Trump told reporters as he sat beside Kagame and several aides, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “We have had tremendous discussions.”

Kagame also tried to smooth over the dispute, thanking Trump “for the support we have received from you … and your administration.”

Trump also dismissed a shouted question about the Mueller development as “fake news.” Instead, he boasted of how his appearance had swelled the crowd at Davos this year.

“We have a tremendous crowd, and a crowd like they’ve never had before. It’s a crowd like they’ve never had before at Davos,” Trump bragged as he entered the hall with Klaus Schwab, the Germany founder of the forum.

Then, in a rare burst of modesty, he quipped, “I assume they’re here because of Klaus.”

[email protected]

Twitter: @noahbierman

UPDATES:

1:20 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details from Trump’s meetings in Davos.

6 a.m.: This article was updated with Trump’s comments.

This article was originally published at 2:10 a.m.