But the White House, led by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, wants to deport everyone here illegally. This means millions of people who arrived illegally but have since led law-abiding, productive lives. They have formed families and taken jobs that employers say they struggle to fill—in construction, hospitality, agriculture, healthcare, and much more.
Mr. Miller and the restrictionists want to deport everyone to send a message never to come again. But the lost contributions to the U.S. labor force will be great, especially since neither Mr. Miller nor Big Labor will tolerate more legal immigration. The labor-market impact is already showing up in the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
There is also the risk of unrest, as we’ve seen in California. It’s fanciful to think that raiding restaurants to snatch busboys, or Home Depot to grab stock clerks, won’t inspire a backlash. All the more so when ICE acts in heavy-handed fashion, as its agents sometimes do. Some on the pro-migrant left will do the same, and that’s when things get ugly. The political risks for Mr. Trump will grow if families are broken up, legal migrants are deported by mistake, or tales of hardship proliferate.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-deportation-wars-begin-d3cb4f8d
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/22/trumps-plan-to-let-putin-keep-land-seized-from-ukraine/
Donald Trump will let Vladimir Putin keep almost all the territory he has seized from Ukraine under the terms of a proposed peace deal.
The condition is part of a seven-point plan to end the war that leaves Ukraine with no clear US security guarantee.
The Trump administration’s peace proposal involves the US offering formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and implies de facto recognition of other occupied territories.
A source with knowledge of the plan’s contents said that its points one and two cover an immediate ceasefire and direct talks between Ukraine and Russia, which Mr Zelensky has already accepted in principle.
Point three requires Ukraine to refrain from seeking membership of Nato, though the country would still be free to join the EU.
European countries could deploy an assurance force to deter Putin from invading again, but The Telegraph understands that the plan does not commit the US to guarantee the security of any such deployment.
Point four covers territory, with America offering de jure recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, the region of Ukraine which Putin illegally annexed in 2014.
Recognising Russian control of Crimea would violate a central principle of international law – and of the post-1945 world order – that no country can annex the territory of another. If land is seized then no nation is supposed to recognise this change.
As well as some territory switching hands to Ukraine, the nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Ukraine and currently held by Russian forces, would be transferred to American control.
Under point six, Ukraine would sign the minerals deal allowing US companies access to the country’s natural resources.
Point seven raises the possibility of a new relationship between America and Russia, saying that all US sanctions would be lifted and the two countries could begin to co-operate on energy.
The plan contradicts several of Britain’s stated policy objectives. As recently as Feb 14, the Prime Minister told Mr Zelensky that Britain was committed to “Ukraine being on an irreversible path to Nato” membership. This proposal would block that path indefinitely.
So that morning, when Navarro was scheduled to meet with economic adviser Kevin Hassett in a different part of the White House, Bessent and Lutnick made their move, according to multiple people familiar with the intervention.
They rushed to the Oval Office to see Trump and propose a pause on some of the tariffs—without Navarro there to argue or push back. They knew they had a tight window. The meeting with Bessent and Lutnick wasn’t on Trump’s schedule.
The two men convinced Trump of the strategy to pause some of the tariffs and to announce it immediately to calm the markets. They stayed until Trump tapped out a Truth Social post, which surprised Navarro, according to one of the people familiar with the episode. Bessent and press secretary Karoline Leavitt almost immediately went to the cameras outside the White House to make a public announcement.
“We needed everyone singing from the same song sheet,” a person familiar with the matter said.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navarro-bessent-lutnick-b9e864fb
When Trump blamed Ukraine for the Russian invasion, many people couldn’t understand how he could hold such a preposterous view. Some assumed he’d been hoodwinked by Russian propaganda. But there is a simpler explanation. According to the Trumpian worldview, considerations of justice, morality and international law are irrelevant, and the only thing that matters in international relations is power. Since Ukraine is weaker than Russia, it should have surrendered. In the Trumpian vision, peace means surrender, and since Ukraine refused to surrender, the war is its fault.
--- Yuval Harari.
https://www.ft.com/content/06cc7b0f-3e32-4164-b096-ff92a1532236
...part of Trump’s psychological abuse is wearing down opponents so they stop repeating themselves, and give in to the lies. I will not be worn down. Truth matters.
Here it is: We have a sociopathic president in total command of a cult-like party; a Congress that, as long as the GOP controls it, is a rubber-stamp version of the Russian Duma under Putin; a court balanced precariously between a modest defense of the unitary executive and an Alito wing bent on empowering an American Caesar; and a Justice Department openly planning persecution of the president’s political opponents.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-bully-in-his-pulpit-0e5
President Trump has ordered a pause to intelligence sharing with Ukraine, said Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, a move that deprives Kyiv of a key tool in fighting Russian forces.
The suspension of intelligence sharing to Ukraine is a major concession to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has said that U.S. involvement in weapons targeting has made Washington a virtual combatant of the war.
https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-suspends-intelligence-sharing-with-ukraine-147c7f2c
The nose dive began with an odd interjection from Vice President JD Vance, who appeared to be defending Mr. Trump’s diplomacy, which Mr. Zelensky hadn’t challenged. Mr. Zelensky rehearsed the many peace agreements Mr. Putin has shredded and essentially asked Mr. Vance what would be different this time.
Why did the Vice President try to provoke a public fight? Mr. Vance has been taking to his X.com account in what appears to be an effort to soften up the political ground for a Ukraine surrender, most recently writing off Mr. Putin’s brutal invasion as a mere ethnic rivalry. Mr. Vance dressed down Mr. Zelensky as if he were a child late for dinner. He claimed the Ukrainian hadn’t been grateful enough for U.S. aid, though he has thanked America countless times for its support. This was not the behavior of a wannabe statesman.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/putin-wins-the-trump-zelensky-oval-office-spectacle-e23e9b21
When President Trump met Russia’s Vladimir Putin for their first bilateral summit, in the Finnish capital of Helsinki in July 2018, the two men cloistered themselves for hours with no advisers present.
Once they emerged to a packed news conference, Trump tossed a gift from the Russian president—a soccer ball meant for Trump’s son Barron—to the front row where America’s senior-most officials sat. Trump then stunned his team by saying he believed Putin, and not America’s own intelligence services, about whether Russia interfered in the 2016 elections that brought him to power.
At the time, the public outcry in Washington—including by the Republican leadership in Congress and his own aides on Air Force One—forced Trump to change course within 24 hours. Soon, new sanctions against Russia went into effect.
Openly embracing Russia was still toxic at the time. After all, Trump’s first choice for national security adviser, Mike Flynn, had been forced to resign over discussing sanctions relief with the Russian ambassador before the inauguration, and Russia hawks assumed key positions in the new administration.
Those guardrails —in Congress or inside the administration— barely exist today.
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-relationship-4decfe96
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency touts cuts of $55 billion in federal spending, often citing canceled DEI and climate contracts. However, a Wall Street Journal analysis of government contract data showed a much different picture: “Woke” cuts were a tiny fraction of the total, and many claims of savings were overstated.
The Journal analysis projects the actual savings could be closer to $2.6 billion over the next year if spending levels remained constant—and about 2% of the funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI.
...
Research-focused agencies were among the top targets for cuts.
...
DOGE terminated more than 60 Health and Human Services contracts including a clinical evaluation of an Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury drug and a study of smokers with chronic lung disease. DOGE described these as “administrative expenses.”
...
Many of the Education Department’s canceled contracts funded research on college costs, student career paths and early childhood development. DOGE said one $1.4 million contract funded “mailing and clerical operations.” The contract was used to mail surveys to respondents participating in studies and was nearly complete when canceled, creating no savings for terminating it.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elon-musk-doge-federal-savings-claims-783b9507
Mr. Trump on Tuesday mimicked Russian propaganda by claiming Ukraine had started the war with Russia and that Kyiv is little better than the Kremlin because it hasn’t held a wartime election. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky replied on Wednesday that Mr. Trump was living in a “disinformation space,” which may have been imprudent but was accurate.
( Read more... )
Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.
The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved.
The agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. “This agreement shall be governed by New York law, without regard to conflict of laws principles,” it states.
The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.
It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.
If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty, later whittled down at the London Conference in 1921, and by the Dawes Plan in 1924. At the same time, he seems willing to let Russia off the hook entirely.
Ukraine cannot possibly meet his $500bn demand in any meaningful timeframe, leaving aside the larger matter of whether it is honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/17/revealed-trump-confidential-plan-ukraine-stranglehold/
So I asked HR [McMaster], I said, what is it about Trump? Tell me, I mean, you were there in the room with him all the time. What's the deal with Trump? And so HR said to me, contrarian. Yeah, contrarian. You tell him that Obama did this, Trump says, "All right, we're doing the opposite," even if Obama didn't do it.
https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/transcript-stephen-kotkin-back-ussr-or-back-tsarist-empire
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