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Tag: U.S. Presidential Election

  • Trump joined by Musk on campaign trail in return to scene of July assassination attempt

    Trump joined by Musk on campaign trail in return to scene of July assassination attempt

    Donald Trump picked up where he left off back in July when a gunman tried to assassinate him but only struck his ear before he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” and was whisked away with blood across his face.

    “Tonight I return to Butler in the aftermath of tragedy and heartache to deliver a simple message to the people of Pennsylvania and to the people of America,” said the Republican presidential nominee. “Our movement to make America great again, stand stronger, prouder, more united, more determined, and nearer to victory than ever before.”

    The Trump campaign wanted to maximize the event’s headline-grabbing potential with just 30 days to go in his race against his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump said the assassin tried to silence him, calling him “a vicious monster” and saying he did not succeed by “by the hand of providence and the grace of God.”

    Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, got on stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds to speak before the former president and reflected on the events that day while severely criticizing Democrats for calling Trump “a threat to democracy,” saying that kind of language is “inflammatory.”

    “You heard the shots. You saw the blood. We all feared the worst. But you knew everything would be OK when President Trump raised his fist high in the air and shouted, ‘fight, fight!’” said Vance, who was chosen as his vice presidential nominee less than two days later. “Now I believe it as sure as I’m standing here today that what happened was a true miracle.”

    Billionaire Elon Musk is also expected to speak as the campaign elevates the headline-generating potential of his return in its tight race against Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. A billboard on the way into the rally said, “IN MUSK WE TRUST,” and showed his photo.

    A massive crowd stood shoulder to shoulder from the stage to the press stand several hundred yards away at the event billed as a “tribute to the American spirit.” Area hotels, motels and inns were said to be full and some rallygoers arrived Friday.

    Crowds were lined up as the sun rose Saturday. A memorial for firefighter Corey Comperatore, who died as he shielded family members from gunfire, was set up in the bleachers, his fireman’s jacket set up on display surrounded by flowers. His sisters were crying as speakers mentioned him. There was a very visible heightened security presence, with armed law enforcers in camouflage uniforms on roofs.

    Trump’s plane did flybys over the venue before his arrival, drawing cheers from those gathered on the field below. As spectators spotted Trump’s plane overhead, cellphones popped into the air.

    Trump planned to use the event to remember Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter struck and killed at the July 13 rally, and to recognize the two other rallygoers injured, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. They and Trump were struck when 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, opened fire from an unsecured rooftop nearby before he was fatally shot by sharpshooters.

    The building from which Crooks fired was completely obscured by tractor trailers, a large grassy perimeter and a fence. Most bleachers were now at the sides, rather than behind Trump.

    How Crooks managed to outmaneuver law enforcement that day and scramble on top of a building within easy shooting distance of the ex-president is among many questions that remain unanswered about the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. Another is his motive.

    Butler County District Attorney Rich Goldinger told WPXI-TV this week that “everyone is doubling down on their efforts to make sure this is done safely and correctly.”

    Mike Slupe, the county sheriff, told the station he estimates the Secret Service, was deploying ”quadruple the assets” it did in July. The agency has undergone a painful reckoning over its handling of two attempts on Trump’s life.

    Butler County, on the western edge of a coveted presidential swing state, is a Trump stronghold. He won the county with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. About 57% of the county’s 139,000 registered voters are Republicans, compared with about 29% who are Democrats and 14% something else.

    Chris Harpster, 30, of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, was accompanied by his girlfriend on Saturday as he returned to the scene. Of July 13, he said, “I was afraid” — as were his parents, watching at home, who texted him immediately after the shots rang out.

    Heightened security measures were making him feel better now, as well as the presence of his girlfriend, a first-time rallygoer. Harpster said he will be a third-time Trump voter in November, based on the Republican nominee’s stances on immigration, guns, abortion and energy. Harpster said he hopes Pennsylvania will go Republican, particularly out of concern over gas and oil industry jobs.

    Other townspeople were divided over the value of Trump’s return. Heidi Priest, a Butler resident who started a Facebook group supporting Harris, said Trump’s last visit fanned political tensions in the city.

    “Whenever you see people supporting him and getting excited about him being here, it scares the people who don’t want to see him reelected,” she said.

    Terri Palmquist came from Bakersfield, California, and said her 18-year old daughter tried to dissuade her. “I just figure we need to not let fear control us. That’s what the other side wants is fear. If fear controls us, we lose,” she said.

    She said she was not worried about her own safety.

    “Honesty, I believe God’s got Trump, for some reason. I do. So we’re rooting for him.”

    But Trump needs to drive up voter turnout in conservative strongholds like Butler County, an overwhelmingly white, rural-suburban community, if he wants to win Pennsylvania in November. Harris, too, has targeted her campaign efforts at Pennsylvania, rallying there repeatedly as part of her aggressive outreach in critical swing states.

    Julie Carr Smyth, Jill Colvin, Adriana Gomez Licon, The Associated Press

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  • Trump Media stock is up 19% over the last 5 days

    Trump Media stock is up 19% over the last 5 days

    The rise comes after the stock price for former President Donald Trump’s media company—officially known as the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG)—hit a record low last Tuesday, Sept. 24. 

    Since then the stock has rebounded, rising 33% from its low of $12.15 to the current price of $15.48. The strong performance was headed by a rally when the market opened on Monday, Sept. 30. TMTG stock, which trades under the ticker DJT, rose 5.5% in the first hour of trading that day, according to Bloomberg data. 

    The stock had another big trading day yesterday, when a burst of shares hit the market. As soon as the stock market opened at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 1.68 million shares traded, according to Bloomberg data. That pronounced trading activity was good for a 3.6% increase when the market opened. Since Tuesday morning the stock has fallen 6%, though it remains above its late-September lows. 

    TMTG stock has fallen precipitously since going public in March via SPAC, dropping 72% since its debut. 

    The rising stock price matters greatly to the personal fortune of former President Trump, who owns roughly 58% of the company. TMTG also boasts a larger than usual base of retail investors—620,000 as of June by the company’s count—that bought the stock as a show of political support for Trump. As the stock falls, so does the value of their investment, independent of their individual support for their preferred candidate.  

    A huge amount of shares hit the market in September, when two of TMTG’s cofounders sold their equity stake in the company. The two co-founders, Adam Litinsky and Wesley Moss, had a 5.5% stake in the company, consisting of roughly 11 million shares, which they sold for about $160 million, according to SEC filings. 

    Litinsky and Moss first approached Trump to start the company in 2021 shortly after he was banned from most major social media platforms in the aftermath of Jan. 6. The three agreed to start a company, with Trump as its majority shareholder and primary pitchman. However, the relationship later soured and ended up in court. Litinsky and Moss, via their holding company United Atlantic Ventures, contended that TMTG unfairly tried to withhold their shares from them. On the other hand, TMTG alleged the two had botched the process to take the company public, delaying the process by almost two years. A judge eventually sided with Litinsky and Moss, granting them their shares—which they promptly sold. 

    Trump himself has said that he does not intend to sell his roughly 114 million shares. There had been speculation that Trump would, once a standard six month lockup period he was subject to ended in September. On the back of the announcement, the stock shot up temporarily.

    On Tuesday, TMTG stock was flat.

    Paolo Confino

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  • Trump rejects CNN debate against Harris, citing start of early voting

    Trump rejects CNN debate against Harris, citing start of early voting

    Donald Trump on Saturday rejected a second debate against Kamala Harris before the November 5 election, saying it was “too late” with early voting already underway in some states.

    Earlier in the day, Harris’s campaign said she had accepted an invitation from broadcaster CNN to participate in a debate on October 23. It would have been the candidates’ second debate, after a September 10 encounter that most pundits said she had won.

    “The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their ballots,” her campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.

    “I hope (Trump) will join me,” Harris posted on X.

    Trump claimed during a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina that he would like to debate — calling it “good entertainment value” — but the start of early voting in some states had taken the air out of the idea.

    “It’s just too late, voting has already started,” he said.

    He added, to a large and enthusiastic crowd of supporters, that while CNN had been “very fair” when he debated President Joe Biden in June, “they won’t be fair again.”

    Vice President Harris replaced her boss at the top of the Democratic ticket after the 81-year-old Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump.

    His exit from the race left Trump, 78, now the oldest ever presidential nominee, against a much younger Harris, 59.

    Voting underway

    Saturday’s announcement came as some states have already begun early voting in what is an agonizingly close race.

    The result is expected to hinge on seven battleground states, including North Carolina.

    Trump addressed the crowd in the port city of Wilmington from behind bulletproof glass, following an apparent second assassination attempt against him.

    A gunman was discovered on his golf course in Florida last Sunday, with security agents foiling any plan to harm the former president.

    In July, Trump was struck on the ear by a bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop. The US Secret Service — tasked with protecting the candidate — on Friday admitted to “deficiencies” and “complacency” in the shocking security breach.

    Anti-immigrant rhetoric

    Trump won North Carolina in the 2020 election against Biden.

    But Harris is aiming to flip the southeastern state for Democrats, on the strength of her support from African Americans and young voters.

    Trump’s speech on Saturday reinforced the hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become a centerpiece of his campaign, falsely claiming migrants were “attacking villages and cities all throughout the Midwest.”

    He also promised the crowd that the United States would “reach Mars before the end of my term.”

    The former president was facing a new challenge in North Carolina after a bombshell report on Thursday revealed that Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor whom Trump has endorsed, had called himself a “Black Nazi” and made other incendiary comments on a porn website message board more than a decade ago.

    Robinson has denounced the CNN report as “salacious tabloid lies.”

    The presidential race remains neck-and-neck and every vote will count in the election, whose result Trump has once again refused to say he will accept if he loses.

    Trump faces criminal charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 result, after which his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    AFP

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  • Treasury Secretary Yellen says ending Biden IRA tax incentives would be ‘historic mistake’ for states like North Carolina

    Treasury Secretary Yellen says ending Biden IRA tax incentives would be ‘historic mistake’ for states like North Carolina

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning voters in the battleground state of North Carolina that they could lose jobs if Republicans weaken a signature Biden administration law that encourages investments in manufacturing and clean energy.

    Yellen says that Republican-dominated states like North Carolina are greatly benefiting from tax incentives under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and that eliminating them would be a “historic mistake,” according to a draft of a speech she will give Thursday at a community college in Raleigh. The Treasury Department released the remarks ahead of the address.

    North Carolina has emerged as a key battleground this election cycle between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, where Trump ultimately won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election.

    Yellen says Treasury data shows that 90,000 North Carolina households claimed more than $100 million in residential clean energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits.

    “Rolling them back could raise costs for working families at a moment when it’s imperative that we continue to take action to lower prices,” Yellen says in her speech. “It could jeopardize the significant investments in manufacturing we’re seeing here and across the country, along with the jobs that come with them, many of which don’t require a college degree. And it could give a leg-up to China and other countries that are also investing to compete in these critical industries.”

    “As we see clearly here in North Carolina, this would be a historic mistake,” she says.

    Some Republicans have called on their leaders to reconsider repealing IRA energy tax incentives.

    A group of 18 House Republicans in August called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconsider efforts to eliminate them.

    “Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the letter reads. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”

    But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on social media site X that the lawmakers who signed the letter want to “preserve so-called ‘green’ handouts to Democrats’ corporate cronies.”

    “The GOP must ignore K-Street lobbyists and refuse to fund the climate corporate cronies destroying our country,” he said.

    The Republican case against the Inflation Reduction Act hinges on the argument that the spending is wasteful and benefits China.

    IRS data released in August states that 3.4 million American families have claimed $8.4 billion in residential clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits in 2023 — mostly towards solar panels and battery storage.

    Recommended reading:
    In our new special issue, a Wall Street legend gets a radical makeover, a tale of crypto iniquity, misbehaving poultry royalty, and more.
    Read the stories.

    Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press

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  • Kamala Harris has now raised $540 million since Joe Biden dropped out

    Kamala Harris has now raised $540 million since Joe Biden dropped out

    Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign says it has now raised $540 million for its election battle against Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.

    The campaign has had no problems getting supporters to open their wallets since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 he was ending his campaign and quickly endorsed Harris. The campaign said it saw a surge of donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, accepted their nominations.

    “Just before Vice President Harris’ acceptance speech Thursday night, we officially crossed the $500 million mark,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a memo released by the campaign on Sunday. “Immediately after her speech, we saw our best fundraising hour since launch day.”

    Trump has also proven to be a formidable fundraiser, but appears to be outpaced in her month-old campaign. Trump’s campaign and its related affiliates announced earlier this month that they had raised $138.7 million in July — less than what Harris took in during her White House bid’s opening week. Trump’s campaign reported $327 million in cash on hand at the start of August.

    The Harris fundraising totals were raised by Harris for President, the Democratic National Committee, and joint fundraising committees.

    O’Malley Dillon said that nearly a third of contributions during convention week came from first-time contributors. About one-fifth of those first-time contributors were young voters and two-thirds were women, groups that the campaign sees as critical constituencies that Harris needs to turn out to win in November.

    The Harris campaign says it has also seen a surge in volunteer support for the vice president. During convention week, supporters signed up for nearly 200,000 volunteer shifts to help the campaign.

    Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press

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  • Trump injured but ‘fine’ after assassination attempt; FBI identifies gunman as 20-year-old Pennsylvania man

    Trump injured but ‘fine’ after assassination attempt; FBI identifies gunman as 20-year-old Pennsylvania man

    Former President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, days before he was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time. A barrage of gunfire set off panic, and a bloodied Trump, who said he was shot in the ear, was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance.

    Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his right ear.

    “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote on his social media site.

    The FBI early Sunday named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the subject involved in the assassination attempt. The agency said the investigation remains active and ongoing.

    One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. All were identified as men. The Secret Service said it killed the suspected shooter — who it said attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue, a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania — and said Trump was safe.

    The FBI said during a press conference late Saturday that they were not prepared to release the identity of the shooter and had not yet identified a motive for the assassination attempt.

    The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee.

    Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned.

    Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team — an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.

    President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said.

    “There’s no place in America for this type of violence,” the president said in public remarks. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”

    Biden planned to return to Washington early, cutting short a weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

    Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

    In the coming days, much of the focus will shift to the shooter and security lapses. The shooter was not an attendee at the rally and was killed by U.S. Secret Service agents, according to two officials who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

    The officials said the shooter was engaged by members of the U.S. Secret Service counterassault team. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any active threats while other agents focus on safeguarding and evacuating the person at the center of protection.

    Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to a third person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

    An AP analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the scene of the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows the body of a person wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held.

    The roof where the person lay was less than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M-16.

    Asked at the press conference whether law enforcement did not know the shooter was on the roof until he began firing, Kevin Rojek, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, responded that “that is our assessment at this time”

    “It is surprising” that the gunman was able to open fire on the stage before the Secret Service killed him, he added.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees the Secret Service, said officials were engaged with the Biden and Trump campaigns and “taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security.”

    A rally disrupted by gunfire

    Trump was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers when the gunfire began after 6:10 p.m.

    As the first pop rang out, Trump said, “Oh,” and the raised his hand to his right ear and looked at it, before quickly crouching to the ground behind his lectern. The people in the stands behind him also crouched down as screams rang through the crowd.

    Someone could be heard near the microphone saying, “Get down, get down, get down, get down!” as agents rushed to the stage. They piled atop the former president to shield him with their bodies, as is their training protocol, as other agents took up positions on stage to search for the threat.

    Screams were heard in the crowd of several thousand people. A woman screamed louder than the rest. Afterward, voices were heard saying “shooter’s down” several times, before someone asked “are we good to move?” and “are we clear?” Then, someone ordered, “Let’s move.”

    Trump could be heard on the video saying at least twice, “Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes,” with another voice heard saying, “I’ve got you sir.”

    Trump got to his feet moments later and could be seen reaching with his right hand toward his face, which was smeared with blood on his face. He then pumped his fist in the air and appeared to mouth the word “Fight” twice his crowd of supporters, prompting loud cheers and then chants of “USA. USA. USA.”

    The crowd cheered as he got back up and pumped his fist.

    His motorcade left the venue moments later. Video showed Trump turning back to the crowd and raising a fist right before he was put into a vehicle.

    Witnesses heard multiple gunshots and ducked for cover

    “Everybody went to their knees or their prone position, because we all knew, everyone becoming aware of the fact this was gunfire,” said Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, who was sitting to Trump’s right on stage.

    As he saw Trump raise his fist, McCormick said, he looked over his shoulder and noticed someone had been hit while sitting in the bleachers behind the stage.

    Eventually, first responders were able to carry the injured person out of a large crowd so he could get medical care, McCormick said.

    Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. An AP reporter at the scene reported the noise sounded like firecrackers at first or perhaps a car backfiring.

    When it was clear the situation had been contained and that Trump would not be returning to speak, attendees started filing out of the venue. One man in an electric wheelchair got stuck on the field when his chair’s battery died. Others tried to help him move.

    Police soon told the people remaining to leave the venue and Secret Service agents told reporters to get “out now. This is a live crime scene.”

    Two firefighters from nearby Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally told the AP that they helped people who appeared injured and heard bullets hitting broadcast speakers.

    “The bullets rattled around the grandstand, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke. We hit the ground and then the police converged into the grandstands, said Chris Takach.

    “The first thing I heard is a couple of cracks,” Dave Sullivan said.

    Sullivan said he saw one of the speakers get hit and bullets rattling and, “we hit the deck.”

    He said once Secret Service and other authorities converged on Trump, he and Takach assisted two people who may have been shot in the grandstand and cleared a path to get them out of the way.

    “Just a sad day for America,” Sullivan said.

    “After we heard the shots got fired, then the hydraulic line was spraying all around, you could see the hydraulic fluid coming out of it. And then the speaker tower started to fall down,” Sullivan said. “Then we heard another shot that, you could hear, you knew something was, it was bullets. It wasn’t firecrackers.”

    Political violence again shakes America

    The perils of campaigning took on a new urgency after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California in 1968, and again in 1972 when Arthur Bremer shot and seriously hurt George Wallace, who was running as an independent on a campaign platform that has sometimes been compared to Trump’s. That led to increased protection of candidates, even as the threats persisted, notably against Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.

    Presidents, particularly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, have even greater layers of security. Trump is a rarity as both a former president and a current candidate.

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the three men on Trump’s shortlist for vice president, all quickly sent out statements expressing concern for the former president, with Rubio sharing an image taken as Trump was escorted off stage with his fist in the air and a streak of blood on his face along with the words “God protected President Trump.”

    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement on X that he had been briefed on the situation and Pennsylvania state police were on hand at the rally site.

    “Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States,” he said.

    Jill Colvin, Julie Carr Smyth, Eric Tucker, Michelle L. Price, Colleen Long, Michael Balsamo, The Associated Press

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  • Billionaire investor Ray Dalio refuses to endorse Biden or Trump

    Billionaire investor Ray Dalio refuses to endorse Biden or Trump

    If you’re one of the millions of Americans wondering how the country wound up stuck between a twice-impeached convicted felon and an increasingly frail incumbent for its next President, Ray Dalio can sympathize. 

    The billionaire founder of Bridgewater, the world’s fourth largest hedge fund, said the unfortunate reality is that he, along with about half of the country, wished there was a realistic alternative to Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

    “I feel like I am faced with the choice between a strong, unethical, almost fascist Republican Party and a frail, untruthful and enigmatic Democratic Party,” he wrote in a column for Time he simultaneously posted on LinkedIn. “As things now stand, there is no good presidential contender and no good party for me to choose from.”

    The speculator, who handed over the reins at Bridgewater in 2022, had told Fortune CEO Alan Murray prior to the first primary contest in Iowa that he was already dreading a potential rematch of Trump vs Biden. 

    Since Dalio wrote that he respected and liked Biden, he turned his crosshairs instead towards leading Democrats who sought to hide the President’s “weak and rapidly declining condition” from the American public.

    By pretending the 82-year-old had the constitution to face another four years of the most demanding and important job around when it was clear the emperor had no clothes, the party undermined trust. 

    “That is obviously ridiculous and an insult to people’s intelligence,” Dalio wrote, adding claims that Biden could still function most hours of the day only lead to a “terrible loss of confidence in its honesty and judgement”.

    Major Democratic donors, including the Disney heiress Abigail Disney, have signaled their unwillingness to fund his re-election campaign any further, comparing Biden to an elderly parent whose car keys need to be taken away from them.

    ‘Four months left’ to prevent a sweep in November

    On Tuesday, Michael Bennet emerged as the first Senate Democrat to state publicly that Biden faced losing to his opponent in November.

    Speaking to CNN, the Colorado legislator even went a step further, arguing the President’s continued candidacy could spark a landslide victory for Trump’s party and a clean sweep of the House, Senate and Presidency.

    “We have four months to figure out how we’re going to save the country from Donald Trump,” he told the cable news network. “The stakes could not be higher.” 

    In a sign of how conflicted the party is, Bennet acknowledged he only came forward after his comments—made privately to his peers—had been leaked to the press.

    In Dalio’s column, the Bridgewater founder concluded the Democrats now had only three options left going forward, none of which were particularly appealing. 

    They could either unite behind Biden in the hopes of white-knuckling it to a re-election victory and then tackling the problem afterward (“bait and switch”), hand Vice President Kamala Harris the nomination on a silver platter and drop her into the race (“coronation”), or organize a shortened contest among leading contenders to take Biden’s stead (“mini-primary”).

    While the latter was Dalio’s preferred option, since it would offer Americans a choice as to who should lead the ticket, he acknowledged it would likely harm their chances of winning in November.

    “I am still hoping for honest, smart, strong and ideally moderate-bipartisan Democrats (or Republicans) to step forward,” he wrote.

    Until then, it looks as if neither Trump nor Biden will earn his vote—or his donation checks.

    Christiaan Hetzner

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  • ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ or ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’——Anthony Scaramucci breaks down Trump vs. Biden in 2024

    ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ or ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’——Anthony Scaramucci breaks down Trump vs. Biden in 2024

    Ex-White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang were guests at the Fortune Future of Finance conference on Thursday. The subject of the 2024 election came up. When asked about the impact that a return of former President Donald Trump would have on the business landscape if he were reelected, Scaramucci was blunt: “terrible.”

    “He would be terrible for the economy and terrible for business,” said the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital. The economy has been predictable, and favorable for businesses, because of constitutional separation of powers, Scaramucci explained. Trump wants to obliterate those separations and embrace people and functions that would allow him to have total control. So-called “unitary executive power” would give the president totalitarian powers over the executive branch of government with exclusive rights to shape and enforce laws. It would make Trump “uber powerful,” said Scaramucci, and throughout history, he said, that has been catastrophic for the economy wherever it has happened.

    “It’s a disaster for the economy, a disaster for the world, and a disaster for your business,” he said, adding that Trump would be “an orange wrecking ball for this society.”

    Similarly, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said Trump would “be a catastrophe” for businesses if he were elected president a second time.

    “He’s learned from his mistakes last time, which was hiring responsible adults” who tamped down Trump’s policy instincts, said Yang, co-chair of the Forward Party, a centrist political party he founded in 2021. Yet, Yang warned that if the election were held today, Trump would certainly win. The only question in his mind is whether something changes in the next six months in swing states, where Yang said Biden is underperforming relative to Trump, despite spending Biden’s considerable war chest.

    Scaramucci noted that there are currently 40 Republicans who are publicly against Trump’s reelection bid, including former Vice President Mike Pence. If dozens of people who worked at a company came together and said a product or company was awful and could kill you, he said, people would listen. Yet in this case it’s a mystery that Trump has garnered such steadfast support, he said.

    Scaramucci only worked at the White House for 11 days, from July 21 to July 31 in 2017, but related one tale about his time in the Oval Office. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan and Trump were arguing and Trump was pointing his finger at Ryan saying, “You work for me. You work for me,” Scaramucci recalled. Ryan told Trump, “I don’t work for you.” Trump then looked to Scaramucci to confirm as if asking, “Is that right? He doesn’t work for me?” Scaramucci remembered. “And Trump doesn’t like that,” Scaramucci added, making a point about Trump’s interest in autocratic control.

    Scaramucci joked about how his short tenure at the White House has evolved into its own indicator of time. For instance, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, Liz Truss, lasted 45 days from Sept. 6, 2022 to Oct. 20, 2022. Or, she lasted the equivalent of “4.1 Scaramuccis,” he said. “People are very sensitive,” Scaramucci said; Truss “got very upset.” 

    Joking aside, Scaramucci warned that there will be two films playing at your local cinema on Election Day. Those films are: Weekend at Bernie’s or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he said.

    “You can either have an elderly guy that is somewhat forgetful, or a lunatic who needs a lobotomy.”

    Amanda Gerut

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  • Chinese-backed crypto firm must sell Wyoming land plot and get rid of equipment possibly capable of ‘espionage activities,’ says President Biden

    Chinese-backed crypto firm must sell Wyoming land plot and get rid of equipment possibly capable of ‘espionage activities,’ says President Biden

    President Joe Biden on Monday issued an order blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, calling its proximity to the base a “national security risk.”

    The order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. MineOne Partners Ltd., a firm partly backed by Chinese nationals, and its affiliates are also required to remove certain equipment on the site.

    This comes as the U.S. is slated on Tuesday to issue major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies imported from China, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the plan.

    And with election season in full swing, both Biden and his presumptive Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, have told voters that they’ll be tough on China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States and an emerging geopolitical rival.

    The Monday divestment order was made in coordination with the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — a little-known but powerful government committee tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns that holds power to force companies to change ownership structures or divest completely from the U.S.

    A 2018 law granted CFIUS the authority to review real estate transactions near sensitive sites across the U.S., including F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

    MineOne purchased the land that is within one mile of the Air Force base in Cheyenne in 2022, and according to CFIUS, the purchase was not reported to the committee as required until after the panel received a public tip.

    The order was vague about the specific national security concerns, with the Treasury Department saying only that there were issues with “specialized and foreign-sourced equipment potentially capable of facilitating surveillance and espionage activities” that “presented a significant national security risk.”

    A representative from the firm did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who serves as the chairperson of CFIUS, said the role of the committee is “to ensure that foreign investment does not undermine our national security, particularly as it relates to transactions that present risk to sensitive U.S. military installations as well as those involving specialized equipment and technologies.”

    The committee is made up of members from the State, Justice, Energy and Commerce Departments among others, which investigates national security risks from foreign investments in American firms.

    CFIUS directed the sale of the property within 120 days, and that within 90 days the company remove all structures and equipment on the site.

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    Fatima Hussein, Zeke Miller, The Associated Press

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  • Trump’s social media company rises 16% in first day trading gains, but the stock could fall 95%, says an IPO expert

    Trump’s social media company rises 16% in first day trading gains, but the stock could fall 95%, says an IPO expert

    Shares of Donald Trump’s social media company rose about 16% in the first day of trading on the Nasdaq, boosting the value of Trump’s large stake in the company as well as the smaller holdings of fans who purchased shares as a show of support for the former president.

    Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. merged Monday with a blank–check company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, has now taken Digital World’s place on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

    Shares closed at $57.99, up 16.1%, giving the company a market value of $7.85 billion. At one point the stock was up about 59%. Trump holds a nearly 60% ownership stake in the company, now worth about $4.6 billion.

    Many of those investing in Trump Media are small-time investors either trying to support Trump or aiming to cash in on the mania, instead of big institutional and professional investors. Those shareholders helped the stock of Digital World more than double this year in anticipation of the merger going through.

    Truth Social launched in February 2022, one year after Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He’s since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social.

    On Truth Social Tuesday, users were posting about being shareholders or seeking tips on how to buy shares.

    One user urged conservatives to “get behind the DJT stock and sent it over $100 per share” to “drive the liberals insane!” Another declared: “Get yourself a piece of #DJT stock if your a true MAGA supporter.”

    A day earlier, Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, a former House Republican, said, “As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors.”

    Despite the enthusiasm, investors could experience a bumpy ride. For one, they’re betting on a company with uncertain prospects of turning a profit. Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses.

    In a recent regulatory filing, the company cited the high rate of failure for new social media platforms, as well as its expectation that its operations will lose “for the foreseeable future” as risks for investors.

    Research firm Similarweb estimates that Truth Social had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok’s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion — but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals like Parler.

    However, Trump Media has said it doesn’t keep track of some numbers that rivals use as key measures of their performance, such as average revenue per user or active user accounts. It says it wants to focus on the long-term instead of “short-term decision-making.”

    For that long term, though, skeptics see struggles ahead for a company that’s estimated to have far fewer users than rivals in a business where gaining a critical mass is key.

    “I think there is a possibility of, sooner or later, the stock price falling by 95%,” said Jay Ritter, a professor and expert on initial public offerings of stock at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.

    Brian Dunn, director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University, compared the fervor for Trump Media shares to the meme stock craze that boosted shares of companies such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment to exorbitant heights in 2021.

    “Like any meme stock or fad, as long as there’s a greater fool to buy you out for what you paid for it, than you can continue to prosper,” Dunn said, warning that small investors “could end up holding the bag when the music stops.”

    On Monday, Trump told reporters that “Truth Social is doing very well. It’s hot as a pistol and doing great.” On Tuesday, he posted “I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL, I LOVE THE TRUTH!,” on the platform.

    The company, which is based in Florida, said in a recent regulatory filing that it “is highly dependent on the popularity and presence of President Trump.” Trump Media has acknowledged that there are risks associated with Trump’s outsized influence.

    If the former president were to limit or discontinue his relationship with the company for any reason, including due to his campaign to regain the presidency, the company “would be significantly disadvantaged,” it said in a filing ahead of the merger with Digital World.

    Acknowledging Trump’s involvement in numerous legal proceedings, the company noted that “an adverse outcome in one or more” of the cases could negatively affect Trump Media and Truth Social.

    Another risk, the company said, was that as a controlling stockholder, Trump would be entitled to vote his shares in his own interest, which may not always be in the interests of all the shareholders generally.

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    The Associated Press

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  • Biden-related meme coin surges 4,700% amid Super Tuesday results

    Biden-related meme coin surges 4,700% amid Super Tuesday results

    The meme coin market reacted with growth after Super Tuesday in the United States, which saw Joe Biden and Donald Trump named presidential candidates.

    Meme coins based on the Solana blockchain lead the market amid the overall rise. Based on Biden’s name, the jeo boden (BODEN) token is up more than 4,700%, according to CoinMarketCap. At the time of writing, the asset is trading at $0.04. At launch, the token price fluctuated around $0.002.

    BODEN token price | Source: CoinMarketCap

    Against rising asset prices, the Donald Trump-related cryptocurrency TRUMP fell to $8.08. However, the cost of the token is still significantly higher than its value at the end of last year.

    Biden-related meme coin surges 4,700% amid Super Tuesday results - 2
    TRUMP coin price | Source: CoinMarketCap

    Both BODEN and TRUMP are not directly associated with politicians. However, Trump previously received 579,281 TRUMP from the project team. In January 2024, the asset went up sharply. In comparison, in November 2023, it traded between $0.01 and $0.08. At the end of February, the value of the TRUMP meme coin portfolio in Trump’s wallet increased to $4.05 million.

    The price jump is likely due to Biden and Trump’s political victories in the Super Tuesday contests. Trump won the election as the Republican candidate in 14 out of 15 states, while Biden only lost the primary in American Samoa.


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    Anna Kharton

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  • JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon wants Americans on both sides of the political fence to unite to keep Trump out of office—but warns against sneering at MAGA supporters

    JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon wants Americans on both sides of the political fence to unite to keep Trump out of office—but warns against sneering at MAGA supporters

    America has failed its least wealthy citizens—and “insulting” those with opposing political views isn’t going to make things better, according to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

    Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday, the Wall Street veteran called on people of all ideological views to do what they can to prevent another Donald Trump presidency.

    “If you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you: help Nikki Haley,” he said. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”

    Asked whether he believed the best outcome for the election was “anyone but Trump,” Dimon responded: “I would never say that.”

    “He might be the president, I have to deal with that too,” he joked—but he noted that he didn’t mind criticizing whoever ends up in the Oval Office.

    Stop slamming MAGA movement, Dimon says

    While he made it clear he wasn’t the biggest fan of Trump returning to office, Dimon urged Americans on Wednesday to put aside some of their ideological differences and look for the nuance in others’ political beliefs.

    “We should stop talking about ultra-MAGA,” he insisted. “I think you’re insulting a large group of people, and making this assumption, scapegoating—which the press is pretty good at too—that these people believe in Trump’s family values and are supporting the personal person. I don’t think that’s true.”

    A lot of the support for Trump’s so-called MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) campaign, Dimon argued, came from specific things he had called out or achieved during his presidency.

    “I think what [supporters are] looking at is the economy was pretty good—the Black community had the lowest unemployment rate ever in his last year,” he said. “He wasn’t wrong about China. He wasn’t wrong about NATO. He was wrong about the misuse of the military. So that’s why—they’re looking at that.”

    He called on people to do what they can to consider why people take opposing views. For Democrats, he suggested reading the work of conservative columnist George Will, while he said Republicans ought to look up the work of Pulitzer winning columnist Thomas Friedman.

    “We should get out of this [idea that] it’s one way or the other,” he said. “I’m not mad at people who are anti-abortion. If you believe in God and that conception starts at the moment of birth, you are not a bad person. I think people need to stop denigrating each other all the time because people take a point of view that is slightly different than yours. We’re a democracy—people should vote and solve some of these issues, and they won’t always be what you want.”

    ‘What the hell have we done?’

    While there has been some speculation that Dimon himself may some day run for office, he’s denied having any political ambitions for now.

    However, he made it clear on Wednesday what he would have done differently to former president Trump or incumbent candidate Joe Biden.

    “We’ve done a terrible job taking care of our bottom 30% of earners,” he said, telling the audience: “You all are wealthy and have money, but their average, their average wages are [low].”

    “They’re the ones who lost their job in COVID,” he added. “They’re the ones who are dying five or six years younger than the rest of us. They’re the ones who don’t have medical insurance. They’re the ones whose schools don’t work, and they’re the ones dealing with crime. What the hell have we done as a nation?”

    Insisting that “we need to fix it,” the JPMorgan chief said the U.S. needed better immigration, education and infrastructure policies—and he pledged to do what he could to help make that a reality.

    “Whoever’s president, I’m going to try to help do the best job possible,” he said, before sharing an anecdote about his wife and daughters criticizing him for going to the White House years ago to meet with then-president Trump.

    “I will walk into that oval office trying to help whoever is the president of the United States to do a better job for our people,” he added. “I don’t agree with a lot of things [Trump] does… [but] I couldn’t imagine saying ‘I’m not going to go into the White House because of who’s there.’”

    Tax the rich, help the poor

    During the DealBook Summit talks, Business Insider reported that Dimon was also asked by audience member and billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman—who once urged the JPMorgan CEO to run for president—what he would hypothetically do if he were to be elected president of the United States.

    He said he would start by building a cabinet of “really smart, talented brainy people” that included both Republicans and Democrats, before tackling education, immigration and “doubling down on diplomacy.”

    Dimon—who has a personal net worth of $1.8 billion, according to Forbes—also said presidents should have an economic growth strategy that included “proper taxation” policies, adding that he would double the earned income tax credit for low earners “tomorrow.”

    “I’d make people like you pay a little bit more,” he also told Ackman. “This carried interest stuff would be gone the day I got in office because it is unfair.”

    The carried interest loophole—which Ackman has previously slammed as a “stain on the tax code”—allows private equity and hedge fund managers to lower their tax bill on profits from fund investments.

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    Chloe Taylor

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  • Billionaire Ray Dalio on the most important vote of our lifetime: ‘I pray that we do not have another Trump-Biden election’

    Billionaire Ray Dalio on the most important vote of our lifetime: ‘I pray that we do not have another Trump-Biden election’

    Bridgewater Associates founder and legendary investor Ray Dalio sounded the alarm on the perilous state of American politics, admitting he’s dreading a rerun of the fractious 2020 Trump-Biden election which scarred the country.

    That deeply divisive contest for the White House, which resulted in a Biden win, eventually led to an insurrection on January 6, 2021, where Trump engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful election results and failed to act to stop Republican supporters from attacking the Capitol.

    Dalio has already called the 2024 election the most important one of our lifetimes, as Fortune CEO Alan Murray reminded him in conversation at Fortune’s Global Forum in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Dalio responded that he was praying.

    “I pray that we do not have another Trump-Biden election because that will produce a lot of problems,” Dalio said.

    “What we need is a very strong middle,” Dalio urged, advocating for a return to a more centrist approach that could bridge the divide between ideological extremes. Then he laid out how he sees that playing out—or not.

    ‘Irreconcilable differences’

    “We have irreconcilable differences by sides that will not accept losing,” Dalio declared, pointing to the festering extremism that threatened to tear the fabric of the nation apart in 2021, while also framing the polarization issue as a far-left versus a far-right in America, with a shrinking middle, or moderate, political center.

    The outspoken investor minced no words, asserting that “no good government, no good society exists with this kind of fighting.” Dalio expressed deep concern over the dire implications of such political skirmishes, emphasizing their potential economic and tax ramifications.

    “This is not good governance; it has big implications and can have a big economic and tax impact,” he warned. The big question, he continued, is whether an alternative candidate will emerge on the Republican side, and he sees two scenarios for how that will play out.

    “Nikki Haley is the leading candidate from my point of view. She’s smart, can work across party lines, has the quality of the character and she’s been through the system.”

    “If Haley did get the nomination (from Republicans), she would be the probable winner in a presidential election,” Dalio said. “Almost everybody would say that.”

    Dalio added that if Haley gets the nomination, he strongly believes the Democrats would have to reconsider running Biden against her. “The question is whether Biden runs. The combination of his age issue, his popularity and so on is a problem.”

    This all means that the real race has not yet begun, the billionaire said. “The interesting election” will be the South Carolina primary between whatever alternative candidate emerges and Trump.

    Regardless of who wins, Dalio concluded, “We’re also going to need reforms” to ensure the system is working for most people.

    He highlighted that his family office has three branches: in the U.S., in Singapore and in Abu Dhabi, and as he told Murray, “In the world today there are bright spots.” These places “have a culture in which there’s excellent education for most people, in which there’s civility,” and in which the economy is thriving.

    And he is praying—but he isn’t exactly hopeful—that the U.S. will remain one of these places.

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    Massimo Marioni

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