Trump Financial Disclosures and Business Conflicts

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, july first, here's what we're covering The Supreme Court closed out its term yesterday with a major blow to President Trump's agenda blocking his administration's efforts to limit birthright citizenship Trump issued an executive order on his very first day back in office that would have prevented babies born to undocumented immigrants from automatically becoming citizens But in a six three decision The Justices reaffirmed the long held principle that nearly all children born on U. S. soil are Americans. After the ruling, Trump took to social media to call the decision, quote too bad for our country and tried to punt it to Congress, falsely claiming they could reverse it with legislation In all, this Supreme Court term involved decisions in nearly sixty cases And my colleague, Anne Merimmo, who's been tracking the rulings, said there were some clear moments where Trump did not get what he wanted. but also some major expansions of presidential power So the term showed the court willing to check President Trump's boundary pushing agenda. They rejected his sweeping tariffs back in February. And just this week, we saw them reject his efforts to limit birthright citizenship and also his attempt to fire a leader of the influential Federal Reserve Notably, it was some of Trump's own nominees who made those losses possible. At various times, justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined with the Chief Justice and the three liberal justices to reject major parts of the president's agenda That said, the court's consonservative majority delivered long lasting conservative wins that will have an impact for many years to come The court expanded the ability of presidents, including mister Trump to fire leaders of independent agencies. In doing so, they overturned a ninety year old precedident. They significantly weakened the Voting rights Act, and they made it easier for presidents to strip migrants of deportation protections and to turn away asylum seekers at the border These are long lasting conservative victories that have been sought for many decades by conservatives and they've delivered on those this term You can find a full recap of the major cases this term at nytimes. com That includes two others of note from yesterday. court's decision to allow states to bar transgender athletes from girls sports and a decision to lift some spending limits for elections which could help Republicans ahead of the midterms. Yesterday, President Trump's mandatory financial disclosure report was released details just how much money his business operations made last year. The form shows that in his first year back in office, he brought in at least two point two billion dollars It only shows revenue, so it doesn't reveal whether his businesses turned a profit or a loss. That amount is nearly four times higher than he made the year before, twenty twenty four It includes, for example, tens of millions of dollars the Trump family pulled in from real estate branding deals in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia President's properties like Mar Lago and his golf clubs also brought in tens of millions The biggest source of money revealed in the report, though, was Trump's cryptocurrency businesses. He used to be a big skeptic of crypto, but moved aggressively into the industry right before retaking office And last year, Trump's crypto ventures brought in well over a billion dollars thingsings like the sale of his meme coin and the sale of a huge stake of his family's crypto business to a firm tied to the UAE government Those crypto businesses highlight a major source of conflict is both a significant player in the industry and its top policymaker president, Trump has undertaken actions that directly benefited his family's crypto interests Overall, presidential historians said they could identify no other president in American history who entered into new business enterprises right before moving into the White House, and then continued to personally profit from them while in office While there have been past scandals around the business ventures of presidents, family members, presidents have taken pains to avoid potential conflicts George W. Bush, for example, sold his stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team before his election while Jimmy Carter turned over operation of his peanut farm to an independent trustee The White House did not respond to a request for comment from the Times But a White House spokeswoman said in a recent statement that Trump acts in the best interest of Americans and that there are, quote No conflicts of interest. It has been nearly a week since Venezuela was hit by devastating earthquakes And while rescue efforts continue The disaster's official death toll has now passed nineteen hundred people The Venezuelan government believes thousands more are still trapped under literal tons of concrete. And The Times has learned that one group of victims from the quakes included migrants who were deported from the U S just hours before the disaster. Last Wednesday, a plane carrying almost one hundred and fifty Venezuelan deportees landed at the country's main airport They were then brought to a state run holding facility where the Venezuelan government planned to process and release them the next day But the building they were being held in was crushed in the quakes trapping and killing people who just returned to their home country. two survivors said the walls and ceilings fell around them as people scrambled to escape The Venezuelan government has not said how many people were in the building. or how many died and family members say they've been given little to no information One survivor told The Times that Venezuela intelligence officers showed up after the earthquake did little to search for survivors And he said they threatened him to remain quiet about what had happened The U. S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about whether deportation flights to Venezuela would continue According to online flight trackers, there have been no deportation flights to the country since last Wednesday. as many countries, including the US., have been increasingly cracking down on immigration Spain has been bucking that trend Earlier this year, it announced it was launching a program offering undocumented immigrants a legal way to stay in the country As much, do meyond the solitud to presresentalers. The Mteran Astakpun toanesario Earonent And as of yesterday, Spain's prrime Minister announced that more than one million people have applied roughly twenty five percent more than they'd expected exclusion, Loate is much Bbia Jera. Imagine if you feel that are Spanish officials have described the program as both a humane gesture to immigrants and an essential move for Spain's economy country has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe And foreign born workers fill gaps in critical economic sectors like tourism and agriculture Economists and government officials say Spain's influx of immigrants has helped turn its economy into one of the fastest growing on the continent The program has drawn a lot of criticism from the conservative opposition, though who say it could strain the country's infrastructure and exacerbate housing shortages It's also heightened a standoff between Spain and the US Spain's prrime Minister called the program an antidote to policies pushed by, quote, MAGa style leaders And finally, imagine, if you will, that something has gone terribly wrong In the late nineteen seventies, George Romero, the creator of the zombie genre, as we know it to the mall. What are they doing? Why do they come here? Some kind of instinct, memory. they used to do in his film Dawn of the Dead Survivors of the zombie apocalypse hole up in a shopping center To film it, Romero took over the Monroeville Mall, about twenty minutes outside downtown Pittsburgh He said it was the perfect backdrop for a gory allegory about consumerism, runun amuck And as the movie became a classic, the mall became a sacred place for horror fans who made pilgrimages there They hosted an annual liiving deead weeekend. One woman even told The Times it was her honeymoon destination The mall's end now seems near. Walmart and a developer have bought the building and have plans to demolish it In response, many fans are bidding their final farewells Last month, the mall hosted its last living deead weekend, with some three thousand people showing up. Many dressed as the undead themselves Even with the crowds, it had a slightly abandoned feeling as many stores there have closed over the years Like in a lot of malls around the country One Romero fan told The Times, quote It looks like a zombie apocalypse happened here, which is kind of spot on Those are the headlines Today on the Daily, a look at how new federal limits on student loans could shut some Americans out of higher education You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow