Trump calls in press for ‘major announcement’ in Oval Office - but just spent 5 minutes bragging about his ‘wins’

 

An Oval Office event the White House billed as a “major announcement on the economy” by President Donald Trump turned out to be nothing more than a sycophantic presentation by a partisan television commentator who’d brought charts to the White House touting the economic record of the president’s first term.

Reporters who were summoned to the president’s workspace around 4:15 p.m. and were told Trump would be making a “major announcement” ahead of his only scheduled public appearance of the day, an East Room ceremony to honor Purple Heart recipients.

Instead, they were greeted by Trump standing alongside Stephen Moore, a right-wing television commentator and economist who the president had tried — and failed — to put on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors during his first term.

Trump described Moore, whose nomination six years ago faced bipartisan opposition because economic experts — and senators — found him manifestly unqualified to serve on the Fed’s board, as “one of the most highly respected economists” and turned the floor over to him.

Moore told reporters he’d called Trump to buck him up after he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week by showing him data purporting to prove that BLS “overestimated job creation by 1.5 million jobs” during the final two years of former president Joe Biden’s term.

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Donald Trump gets new Nobel Peace Prize nomination

 

U.S. President Donald Trump has been formally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet for his role in halting the recent conflict at the Southeast Asian country's border with Thailand.

Newsweek contacted the White House and the Thai embassy in Cambodia for comment.

Why It Matters

The latest Nobel Peace Prize nomination is another indication of the role Trump has played in trying to step into global crises and follows nominations that have been made or promised from Israel and Pakistan.

In addition to recognizing Trump's role, such flattering nominations could also be seen as attempts to win favorable treatment from the leader of the world's biggest economy and most powerful military.

What To Know

Hun Manet's office released a copy of the nomination letter for Trump addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for the Peace Prize "in recognition of his historic contributions in advancing world peace."

"President Trump's extraordinary statesmanship-marked by his commitment to resolving conflicts and preventing catastrophic wars through visionary and innovative diplomacy-was most recently demonstrated in his decisive role in brokering an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand," the statement said.

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US offers $50m reward for arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro

 

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to $50m (£37.2m), accusing him of being "one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world".

US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. The results were widely rejected by the international community.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the US would double its already announced reward of $25m (£18.6m), and said Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was "pathetic" and labelled it "political propaganda".

"We're not surprised, coming from whom it comes from," Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a "desperate distraction" from headlines related to backlash over the handling of the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Read More

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Trump administration rolls back Elon Musk’s email telling federal employees to justify their jobs

 

Federal employees will no longer have to meet Elon Musk’s demand that they list their weekly accomplishments in an email or risk termination, the Trump administration said Tuesday.

“We communicated with agency HR leads that OPM was no longer going to manage the five things process nor utilize it internally,” Office of Personnel Management Scott Kupor said in a statement. “At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so.”

OPM, which is essentially the human resources department of the federal government, also said it “plans to support agencies as they transition to rigorous performance management to include regular check-ins.”

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Washington ambassador who quit after calling Trump ‘inept’ says he was proved right

 A former ambassador to the US who quit after calling Donald Trump’s administration “inept” in leaked private emails has said he was proved right.

Lord Darroch resigned in 2019 after confidential cables criticising the US president’s government were leaked to the media.

The long-serving diplomat described Mr Trump’s administration as “dysfunctional”, “inept” and “divided” in a series of emails from 2017.

Mr Trump responded by calling Lord Darroch “a very stupid guy” triggering a diplomatic row which eventually forced the British ambassador to step down from the post.

Lord Darroch doubled down on his comments at an Edinburgh Fringe show on Tuesday, arguing that the subsequent chaos of Mr Trump’s premiership proved he was “right”.

He told Ian Dale’s All Talk show: “If you’re going to crash and burn on the basis of one piece of reporting that you’ve done, leaking, please God, make it a piece of reporting where all the predictions are right.

“I would say, if you read back that letter that was leaked, that was written after six months of Donald Trump and had a number of predictions about how the rest of his term would run, then you’d struggle to find anything that didn’t turn out the way I had predicted it.

“So if that’s the way to go out, it’s better than the opposite.”

Lord Darroch added that he had “already” decided to retire when the row broke out.

“I was six months off finishing anyway and I had had an extraordinary, lucky career”, he said.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight in 2020, Lord Darroch said he knew his position was untenable when the emails became public but defended taking his plain-speaking approach.

“I never regret the terms in which I’d reported,” the former national security adviser said.

“I spent 40 years in the Foreign Office writing in these terms and people hitherto had thought it a strength and an asset. There is nothing unusual in reporting in clear and direct terms.”

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Trump on the hook for billions if Fed Chair fired

 

President Donald Trump could trigger a financial shockwave costing the U.S. government up to $60 billion if he follows through on threats to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

 According to analysts, removing the head of the U.S. central bank would likely spark a surge in Treasury yields, as investors react to fears of rising inflation. That jump could increase the government’s borrowing costs, adding to the national debt.

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Netanyahu to propose full reoccupation of Gaza, Israeli media report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to propose fully reoccupying the Gaza Strip when he meets his security cabinet, Israeli media say.

"The die has been cast. We're going for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip – and defeating Hamas," local journalists quote a senior official as saying.

Responding to reports that the army chief and other military leaders oppose the plan, the unnamed official said: "If that doesn't work for the chief of staff, he should resign."

The families of hostages fear such plans could endanger their loved ones, with 20 out of 50 believed to be alive in Gaza, while polls suggest three in four Israelis instead favour a ceasefire deal to return them.

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