Tag: United States Politics and Government

What We Know About Dr. Fauci Pleading the Fifth in Senate Hearing on Covid Origins

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After Dr. Anthony S. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself at the start of a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Republicans spent the next three hours battering him with questions and allegations as he sat in silence. Citing thousands of pages of government records, they held Dr. Fauci, the government’s top Covid adviser during the pandemic, responsible for school closures and lockdowns; accused him of enriching himself as people died; and even mocked his interactions with celebrities. Most significantly, they accused him of funding research that led…

Fauci, in Private Diary, Reflected on Covid’s Origins and His Own Fame

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The world was just awakening to the novel coronavirus, and a full-fledged pandemic was still in the future, when Dr. Anthony S. Fauci jotted a note in his diary on Jan. 26, 2020, musing about whether the virus might have originated in an open-air “wet market,” where live animals were sold, in Wuhan, China. “Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” Dr. Fauci, then the government’s top infectious disease expert, wrote. “Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” Those private…

Trump Prepares Yet Another Strategy to Resurrect Global Tariffs

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The Trump administration has cycled through trade law after trade law as it tries to find a sound legal basis to impose the steep tariffs on foreign products that President Trump wants. It is poised to try yet another approach. A global 10 percent tariff that Mr. Trump imposed in February after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier global tariffs is set to lapse at 12:01 a.m. on Friday. The administration has a new batch of tariffs ready to go to replace it, which could be announced as soon…

Nuclear Energy Revival Puts Westinghouse in Prime Position

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A large investment firm and a Canadian uranium mining and enrichment company made a big bet three years ago on nuclear power by acquiring Westinghouse, an energy company that had fallen on hard times. Now, that wager is proving prescient. Soaring demand for electricity, driven by data centers, and renewed bipartisan and global interest in nuclear power have made Westinghouse a go-to source for nuclear power technology. The prominence of Westinghouse in the development of new nuclear power plants gained international attention Wednesday after the Trump administration announced a broad…

Iran, China, Canada? A Defense of Trump’s Grand Strategy

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Is President Trump’s grand strategy unraveling? The United States is at war with Iran, China is ascendant, Russia and Ukraine are stalemated and American allies are openly questioning our commitment to them. Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, joins me to discuss the state of America’s foreign policy and he makes the case that Trump’s approach to our allies and adversaries is making us stronger. Below is an edited transcript of an episode of “Interesting Times.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the…

Tariffs Will Long Outlive Trump

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Donald Trump’s most consequential construction project may not be a ballroom or an arch, but his tariff wall. His latest threat to raise tariffs to 50 percent on some Canadian goods, as drastic as it is, is not nearly as significant as what’s coming next. By the end of this month, the administration is expected to introduce major tariffs on dozens of countries intended to ensure what once was a temporary regime lasts well beyond this presidency. Unlike most previous rounds of tariffs, including the ones just threatened on Canada,…

Trump Pushes Chinese Election Threat, but Files Show Russia’s Heavy Hand

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President Trump’s prime-time speech last Thursday was intended to shore up his tenacious lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him and leaned heavily on recycled claims that the Chinese government tried to tip the scales against him. But a trove of intelligence documents that Mr. Trump declassified in hopes that they would bolster his assertions arguably made a stronger case that a different country — Russia — had meddled in the race. Mr. Trump, nonetheless, barely mentioned Russia during his 25-minute address, in keeping with his longstanding aversion…

Russia Bill Broadens Sanctions but Could Fuel Fears Over the Dollar

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A Russia sanctions bill is posing a dilemma for the Trump administration: Lawmakers are pushing to wage further financial warfare just as the administration worries that heavy use of sanctions may erode the U.S. dollar’s supremacy. The bill, which was the brainchild of Senator Lindsey Graham before his death, aims to impose mandatory sanctions on Russia and its allies and potentially broaden the reach of penalties to include tariffs on buyers of Russian energy. The White House has said that the scope of the sanctions could broaden to include Iran…

What Americans Need to Understand About China

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This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts. Since 2012, Xi Jinping has been the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. He has consolidated power to a level very few people ever expected, and under his rule, China has strengthened technologically, diplomatically and militarily. It is now widely understood to be an industrial juggernaut on a scale the world has never seen, in a way the world does not quite know how to respond to. But Xi’s…

Trump Paid $2 Million by South Korean Company Facing Trade Investigation

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The lead investor in a South Korean aluminum company that has challenged Commerce Department penalties on certain exports from South Korea to the United States made a $2 million payment last year to President Trump’s holding company. The payment by the parent company, Base Group, was revealed for the first time in Mr. Trump’s annual financial disclosure form released in late June. The document offered only a cryptic explanation for the payment, stating that it was part of a “letter of intent” and a “nonrefundable development fee.” In statements to…