Trump, an avid consumer of cable news, said that he watched Dimon’s interview Wednesday morning with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. During the interview, Dimon said a recession was a “likely outcome” of the new tariff program, but also defended the idea of some tariffs as a way to improve trade. He urged the president to give Bessent time to make deals. “I’m taking a calm view, but it could get worse,” Dimon said.

Dimon hasn’t had a substantive conversation with Trump for years, people familiar with the matter said. While his appearance on the Fox Business show had been in place for some time, Dimon knew that Trump and his inner circle often watched Fox and that his message would likely get through to them, one of the people said.

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 conventional view of Mr. Trump is that he’s above all transactional. He wants deals, at home and abroad, that he can sell as great successes. But the way his second term is unfolding, this may undersell his ambition. Mr. Trump’s strategy seems to be moving toward that of Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, who view America as in decline and no longer able to lead or defend the West.

All of this would amount to an epochal return to the world of great power competition and balance of power that prevailed before World War II. It’s less a brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one.

Mr. Trump hasn’t articulated this, but some of the intellectuals surrounding him have. Elbridge Colby, nominated for the chief strategy post at the Pentagon, has argued that the U.S. must leave Europe and the Middle East to their own devices to focus on the Asia-Pacific. But Mr. Colby has also said that South Korea might have to fend for itself, and he said in a letter to us last year that “Taiwan isn’t itself of existential importance to America.”

Mr. Vance is the most vigorous promoter of the abandon Ukraine strategy, arguing that the war with Russia is little more than an ethnic dispute.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-brave-old-world-foreign-policy-ukraine-blow-up-china-russia-trade-allies-7e32b02a

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

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... )

Mr. Trump is treating Mr. Putin and Russia unlike any other negotiating counterpart. His usual method is to make maximalist demands and negotiate down: We’ll take back the Panama Canal! But here he’s making major concessions first.

He’s making concessions to Vladimir Putin without anything in return, and he’s informing Ukraine after the fact.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-negotiations-pete-hegseth-nato-europe-93fce205

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.

The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.

At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.
...
In October 2022, he asked his tens of millions of followers on X to vote on a pathway to peace that mirrored some aspects of the Kremlin’s offer to Ukraine at the time.

Those conditions included continued Russian occupation of Crimea and Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO. He also specified that Ukraine should continue allowing the supply of water to Crimea, an issue that had been an important concern of the Kremlin before the war.

Earlier this year, Musk gave airtime to Putin and his views on the U.S. and Ukraine when X carried Tucker Carlson’s two-hour interview with the Russian leader inside the Kremlin. In that interview, Putin said he was sure Musk “was a smart person.”

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-conversations-37e1c187

As soon as it rolls out the software update this fall, Apple will instantly make the AirPods Pro 2 into a medical device, essentially turning every pair of the company’s top-selling headphones into over-the-counter hearing aids.
...
75% of people with hearing loss let it go untreated, according to the Apple Hearing Study, a project run with the University of Michigan. In case you don’t trust medical statistics from a trillion-dollar company trying to sell you something, the audiologists I consulted told me that number sounded right.

FORT WASHINGTON, Md.—Billions in potential American aid to Ukraine is stuck in monthslong limbo on Capitol Hill , and to the Trump-loving partisans attending this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, that's exactly as it should be.
...
Many attendees argued that Putin was provoked by NATO's push to add Ukraine to the alliance. "Mitch McConnell is not a real Republican. He needs to go. He's too old, he's compromised, he does not represent the ideology of most Republicans," said Pat O'Brien of Fairfax, Va., a 67-year-old retiree. "The war is the fault of the U.S. We have no business encouraging Ukraine to join NATO. That's what triggered this whole thing."
...
In recent weeks, Trump has declined to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Feb. 16 death of Alexei Navalny, instead comparing his own multifarious legal issues to the plight of the imprisoned opposition leader. He has said he wouldn't defend NATO countries that don't meet their financial commitments to the alliance but would instead encourage Russia "to do whatever the hell they want." In a CNN town hall in May, he refused to say which side he hoped would win the war.
...
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has said the chamber won't take up the Senate bill, which he acknowledges would likely pass if put on the House floor because most Democrats and many Republicans support it. But opposition from Trump and a growing share of the grassroots GOP base has made the issue toxic and divisive within the party. House Democrats are working to force the bill to the floor through a rarely used procedural gambit called a discharge petition, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

A group called Republicans for Ukraine this week launched a six-figure digital ad campaign in the districts of 10 House Republicans it hopes would support such an effort. A 60-second ad features rank and file GOP voters who argue that not doing so puts American national security at risk. The group's executive director, the anti-Trump GOP consultant Sarah Longwell, said the ad aims to show that not all the party's voters are in Trump's camp on the issue.

"Trump's always been in love with Putin, but now a big chunk of the Republican Party is as well," Longwell lamented in an interview. "If you grew up with the Cold War as a backdrop, to watch what's happening to the Republican Party right now is absolutely staggering. Ronald Reagan would be spinning in his grave."

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/how-trump-turned-conservatives-against-helping-ukraine-d9f75b3b