Serious legal threat

How Screwed Is Trump?

The former president faces his most serious legal threat to date, but he is hard at work on his most potent defense — his reelection bid.

Opinion by ANKUSH KHARDORI

Two years from now, Donald Trump could be in prison or he could be president.

Those scenarios occupy the two ends of the spectrum of Trump’s legal exposure now that he has been indicted by the Justice Department over his deliberate retention of classified documents and his refusal to return them to the government. That remarkable duality also underscores an unavoidable element of the prosecution — that it is both a legal proceeding subject to established rules and procedures, and that it is also closely intertwined with the political process that is currently playing out in the Republican presidential primary and that will continue through next year’s general election.

There is little question that Trump’s federal indictment is much more serious than the criminal case brought against the former president in Manhattan. In the simplest terms, that case exposes him to a maximum four-year term of imprisonment, while the most serious charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith and his colleagues have a 20-year statutory maximum (or “stat max,” if you want to sound like you’re in the know).

That crude comparison can be highly misleading, however, because as any former prosecutor will tell you, the sentencing process that follows a criminal conviction is supposed to be both highly fact-specific and guided by sentencings in comparable cases, to the extent they exist. Many experienced lawyers and legal observers have been dubious that Trump would actually be sentenced to any prison time if he is convicted in Manhattan, owing to the unusual nature of the charges, Trump’s unique status as a defendant, and New York’s relatively lenient treatment of white-collar defendants.

That suggests that Trump should be much more concerned about the federal charges, and no doubt he is, but he has a potent tool available to him that he is currently working to secure: his reelection.

If Trump is reelected president, there is little question that he would pardon himself regardless of how far along the prosecution is at that point. He could also direct his attorney general to dismiss any pending criminal cases and close any open investigations that might ensnare him or his associates. This could conceivably be accomplished even if Trump does not have a Senate-confirmed attorney general in place, since he could fire any acting attorney general(s) until he finds someone who will do what he wants.

All of this means that Trump’s federal prosecution is inextricably intertwined with the national political process, and the text of the indictment makes clear that the special counsel and his team are acutely aware of the public significance of their work. That is no doubt why they chose to use what prosecutors call a “speaking indictment” — one that contains far more detail than is strictly necessary as a legal matter and that appears designed to send a message to the American public about the seriousness of Trump’s alleged conduct. During his brief public appearance on Friday afternoon, Smith said as much when he encouraged “everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”

For starters, the indictment contains a lengthy set of factual allegations that seem intended to demonstrate just how irresponsible Trump’s handling of the documents was — complete with pictures of boxes of classified documents being stored in a bathroom — and how elaborate his efforts to stonewall federal investigators were.

The lead charges are 31 counts concerning Trump’s alleged willful retention of national defense information, with each count tied to a specific document. That alone appears to reflect a charging strategy designed to place the significance of the material that Trump retained at the center of the case and public discourse. (There were likely simpler and frankly more lenient ways to charge the case, but Smith and his colleagues appear to have been uninterested in going easy on Trump.)

The description of those 31 documents in the indictment also includes the classification designations on the documents, which in almost every case were Secret or Top Secret. The lone exception is an eyebrow-raising item that is described as an unmarked and “[u]ndated document concerning military contingency planning of the United States.” The descriptions of other documents include references to material drawn from intelligence briefings and the military activities and capabilities of foreign countries. The purpose of all this detail seems, at least in part, to be to take direct aim at Trump and his allies’ efforts to downplay the sensitivity of the material that he kept and repeatedly refused to return to the government.

In short, the indictment is both a critical and historic legal document as well as a document with a conspicuous public message embedded in it — one designed to communicate to Americans how seriously prosecutors view the alleged conduct, and how different their view of the situation is from Trump and his political allies’ self-serving claims about Trump being the victim of persecution at the hands of his political opponents.

There is no way to fully separate the politics from the law as the case moves forward. Trump’s best and simplest defense is to continue running for reelection and to win. Even setting a trial date — a relatively straightforward matter in the typical criminal case — will be complicated by the political calendar as long as Trump remains in the race.

There is one more way that this prosecution is unlike any other, and this is that as a former president and current presidential candidate, Trump has a truly unique ability to affect the proceeding through his public comments (provided that the presiding judge or his lawyers do not prevail upon him to stop talking about the case, which seems unlikely). There is virtually no way to insulate a jury from those statements, and all Trump has to do is persuade one person who ends up on the jury that the case is illegitimate and that person can then hang the jury — which would result in a mistrial and a major political mess for the Justice Department.

The intense coverage of Trump’s legal difficulties in recent years may have made last week’s indictment feel inevitable to many people, but an indictment is just the start of the process of a criminal prosecution — one that can take many twists and turns in an unusual case. This one is about as unusual as it gets along pretty much every conceivable dimension. As damning as the allegations in the indictment appear, we are a long way off from the end of this process, which will now be a central issue in the 2024 campaign. Trump, in a very real sense, is running for his life.

No one is saying....

Trump allies and critics battle over impact of case, political narratives

No one is saying the former president didn’t retain some classified documents.

By KELLY GARRITY and ALEX ISENSTADT

Whether the 37 felony charges detailed in the federal indictment against Donald Trump are a blow or a boon for the former president’s political standing depends on who’s being asked.

According to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Trump is at his most powerful.

“I think Donald Trump is stronger today politically than he was before,” Graham said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Most Republicans, he added, “believe that the law is used as a weapon against Donald Trump. This double standard is real in the minds of most Republicans.”

But both New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former Attorney General Bill Barr said he could be in deep trouble politically.

“If even half of [the charges are] true, then he’s toast,” Barr, who was Trump’s final attorney general and at one time one his fierce defenders, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Sununu, a Trump critic who recently announced he wouldn’t run for the Republican nomination in 2024, made similar comments on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding: “It’s self-inflicted.”

The former president broke the news of his indictment Thursday evening on social media. The details of the charges, unveiled Friday, are the result of a months-long investigation that included an initial FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last August. Trump is expected to appear in court in Florida on Tuesday, but on Sunday his case was already being tried in the court of public opinion, with different narratives evolving for partisan and personal reasons.

What no one really wanted to discuss was the substance of the charges, which allege that the former president stored a massive collection of highly sensitive material — including intelligence about the “defense and weapons capabilities” of the United States and foreign countries — at his Florida estate. None of Trump’s prominent defenders on Sunday denied he possessed those files or even suggested that it seemed like a good idea for him to have them.

“I don’t like what President Trump did in certain aspects,” said Graham.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential candidate, said of Trump’s decision, “It is a very bad judgment, no doubt about it.” But he has promised to pardon Trump should he be elected.

Trump’s allies and critics were divided, however, about the move to store documents at Mar-a-Lago constituted a crime and whether the decision to prosecute him for having that material was politically motivated.

“I would not have taken the documents with me and I would have returned them on demand, because it would have set up for a much more constructive discussion,” Ramaswamy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But there is a difference between bad judgment and breaking the law.”

Graham, however, defended the former president — up to a point: “Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage. He did not disseminate, leak or provide information to a foreign power or to a news organization to damage this country. He is not a spy. He’s overcharged. Did he do things wrong? Yes, he may have.”

Many of his supporters said Trump is facing a double standard under the law.

“If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that. That is just what the law and the standard is,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on “State of the Union.”

Jordan called the decision to indict Trump “an affront to consistent application of the law.”

He and other supporters of the former president have accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department to tear down Trump, the current front-runner in the GOP primary race, and have claimed that the Justice Department has no intention of prosecuting Biden or members of his family for any misdeeds.

“What I have been hearing from Republicans that I’ve spoken to is frustration, a growing frustration,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The trust in our Justice Department has been eroded, as well. These are core institutions in a democracy that must have the people’s trust. When you see things like this that have political overtones, it’s very frustrating for people.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) suggested the indictment was strategically timed to cover up Biden’s own alleged misdeeds, and those of his son Hunter, a perennial Republican punching bag.

“Every time the Oversight Committee has evidence of corruption, bribery, money-laundering on the Biden family, they indict Donald Trump,” Mace said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “And whether you agree with Donald Trump politically or not, most of America sees this for what it is, as weaponizing the executive branch to take out your political enemies.”

Mace also described the indictment as a “death sentence” for the former president.

“Joe Biden wants to give Donald Trump a death sentence for documents. He’s facing hundreds of years for mishandling documents, and they want him to die in jail,” she told host Maria Bartiromo as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) nodded in agreement.

Barr, however, was less willing to cut Trump slack for what he’s accused of in this case.

“Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. Yes, his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims. I have been at his side defending against them when he is a victim. But this is much different. He is not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets the country has.”

Barr also said there was a tremendous difference between a former president retaining personal-use documents, such as notes taken at meetings, and material that has been “prepared by government agencies for the purpose of government action,” including military plans.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, another GOP presidential candidate, noted that Trump is innocent until proved guilty. But the indictment “is bad for our country, bad for the presidency, and it is a legitimate campaign issue,” he said on CNN’s “State of Union.” “We do not need to have our commander in chief of this country not protecting our nation’s secrets.”

Democrats, who were mostly absent from Sunday-morning shows this week, have largely maintained the evidence Trump committed a crime is clear.

“There is no question, based on his private recorded conversations, that he did not declassify these documents,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said on CNN, pointing to descriptions in the charging document. “Mr. Jordan and Donald Trump and his defense team can try to spin this any way they want. But the evidence based on his own recording, his own voice, says to the contrary.”

Trump himself has said that he will emerge politically stronger from the indictment and that his fundraising is already doing well off of it. On Saturday, he and his team appeared to be in good spirits. He spoke with a pair of reporters on his plane, both on and off the record. He ordered in Jimmy John’s sandwiches for lunch and McDonald’s quarter-pounders, chicken nuggets and French fries for dinner. He spent part of the ride home to New Jersey blasting songs from, among others, Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown.

He also appeared eager to engage in the political combat around his legal troubles. He said he believed congressional Republicans should bring special counsel Jack Smith before Congress to testify about the decision to charge him. “They should,” he said. “I think they should.”

Even Hutchinson, who has called on Trump to drop out of the GOP primary, acknowledged that the legal battle could be a boon for the front-runner.

“I suspect that he’s going to raise money on the indictment as he did before,” Hutchinson said, referencing a fundraising bump Trump’s team said he saw earlier this year when he was indicted in New York on different charges. “And obviously with a lot of Republican leaders saying that this is selective prosecution, and this is unfair, that there is a sympathy factor that is built in.”

That sentiment seems to be backed by a new CBS poll, which found that Republican primary voters are much more concerned about whether the indictment is politically motivated than whether his actions posed a national security risk.

If he is convicted, 80 percent of those surveyed said, he should still be able to be president, and 75 percent said the charges either did not change their view of Trump or changed them for the better. The poll included answers from 2,480 adults surveyed between June 7 and June 10. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.7 points for the sample overall and plus or minus 5.5 points for likely Republican primary voters

A second poll showed sharp divisions among Americans. Though nearly half of Americans — 48 percent — think Trump should have been charged in the case, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll out Sunday, 47 percent of Americans believe the charges are politically motivated, compared with 37 percent who do not.

The ABC poll, which surveyed 910 adults, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points and was conducted June 9-10.

Good!

Silvio Berlusconi: The man who seduced an entire country

If there’s one thing that defined Italy’s most memorable prime minister it was his overwhelming desire to be loved.

BY JACOPO BARIGAZZI AND STEPHAN FARIS

In the mid-1990s, Silvio Berlusconi started planning for the afterlife. On the grounds of his multi-million euro villa in Arcore, near Milan, he began building a giant underground mausoleum where he planned to be laid surrounded by more than 30 other tombs made ready for close friends, family members and romantic partners.

The project was typically Berlusconi — lavish, flamboyant, treading the line between the imperious and the absurd. Visitors were escorted past a 100-ton abstract sculpture representing the vault of heaven, down an imposing stairway modeled on pre-Roman burial sites, through a narrow corridor decorated with the things he might need in the afterlife — fruit, bread, keys, a mobile phone — and into an imposing burial chamber at whose center stood a pink marble and granite sarcophagus.

Asked by a journalist what instructions Berlusconi had given him, the Italian sculptor Pietro Cascella who built the mausoleum answered: “He told me not to make it look too sad.”

Nearly 30 years later, Berlusconi, who died Monday aged 86, will soon be making his last journey back to Arcore. His final resting place will serve as a monument to what was obvious to anyone who spent any time with him: his overwhelming desire to be loved.

Berlusconi was a lot of things. A real-estate developer whose right-hand man was sentenced to seven years in prison for his ties to the mafia. A media revolutionary who introduced commercial television to Italy, establishing a stranglehold on the country’s information ecosystem. The beaming owner of the Italian football club A.C. Milan. Post-war Italy’s longest-serving prime minister. A business tycoon convicted for tax fraud. A disgraced politician brought down by reports of “bunga bunga” orgies and sex with an underage prostitute.

Above all, Berlusconi was a seducer. From his early days as an occasional cruise ship crooner to his time as a real-estate salesman to his decades as a politician smiling at Italians from television shows running on the channels he owned, Berlusconi was unabashedly focused on one thing: winning over whoever was in front him. “Think of how many women there are out there who would like to go to bed with me, but don’t know it,” he was quoted as saying in a book about his rise to power. “Life is a problem of communication.”

One of the authors of this article attended a dinner in which Berlusconi regaled members of the foreign press for three and a half hours over a meal based on the colors of the Italian flag: a plate of mozzarella, tomatoes and basil; a pasta tris of pesto, tomato and cheese. Speaking in 2011, during his last months as prime minister and at the height of his sex scandals, Berlusconi didn’t deny organizing dinners with “pretty girls” but insisted they were “extraordinarily correct.”

Still, he didn’t shy away from lewd, sometimes self-deprecating humor. One description of the dinner party culminated prime minister holding up his pinky finger as he denied the possibility that a friend had engaged in any libidinous behavior. “To find [his] wiener at age 80, you’d have to have a treasure hunt,” he said. Supposedly off the record, news of the conversation was quickly leaked, most likely by Berlusconi or a member of his entourage.

In his pursuit of adoration, Berlusconi was ready to cross any number of legal and ethical lines. He built his television empire on a loophole in Italian law, circumventing a ban on the creation of a national network by buying up a collection of local television stations and running them all with the same shows. At a time when the state broadcaster RAI was serving up staid programming, Berlusconi burst through with licensed American TV blockbusters like Dallas and Dynasty and variety-show extravaganzas featuring half-naked soubrettes.

His break into politics came following the implosion of the Italian political system in the mani pulite corruption scandal. With the field wide open after the collapse of the country’s major political parties, voters swept Berlusconi into the prime minister’s office. Through the rest of his career, he would be dogged by accusations that he had gone into politics to avoid prosecution for corruption — allegations he would dismiss as part of a “communist” witch hunt.

He faced trial at least 36 times, on charges ranging from false accounting to bribing judges, slipping several convictions after his government shortened the statute of limitations or otherwise changed the law. (Similarly, his mausoleum, illegal at the time of its construction for being too “close to human habitation,” was made lawful by his government’s 2003 modification to a 200-year-old law.) Often accused in the press of having connections to the mafia, he just as often denied it. The only charge that stuck was a 2013 conviction for tax fraud, which saw him barred from holding office for six years. His conviction the same year for paying a 17-year-old girl for sex and abusing his office to cover it up was later overturned on appeal.

Though Berlusconi campaigned as a reformer and served three stints as prime minister, he didn’t leave a legacy of effective legislation. A relentless self-promoter who wasn’t above playing his campaign jingle on a loop in his office waiting room, his time in charge of Italy was spent in petty political fights and battles with the press and the judiciary. Ahead of his final ejection from power in 2011, the Economist magazine described him as “the man who screwed an entire country.” But as a political figure, there’s little denying he left his mark on Italy — and indeed the world. With his showman’s style, Berlusconi brazened through scandals that would have destroyed most politicians, pioneering a new form of media-buzz populism that would later spark comparisons to former U.S. President Donald Trump — a man he derided as “too arrogant.”

Internationally, Berlusconi joined hands with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. As recently as October, he was still describing Putin as a “friend,” having sent him a bottle of wine for his birthday, according to an audio recording published in Italian media. At home, he forged new political ground by governing in alliance with Italy’s rising right-wing, anti-immigrant populists — only to be ultimately eclipsed first by Matteo Salvini’s League party and then by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.

Berlusconi spent the decade following his fall from power in 2011 a diminished political figure, spending a period out of office because of his tax fraud conviction, followed by a few years as a member of the European Parliament before returning to the senate in 2022. Though he remained president of his Forza Italia party, which is currently in government, and made attempts at playing the kingmaker, he had become less a powerful political player than a subject of ridicule. At 86, Berlusconi was already a fragile man, often caught on camera being assisted to walk. Maurizio Crozza, one of Italy’s most famous comedians and a constant television presence, loved to portray him as suddenly falling asleep while he speaks.

As Italy prepares to bury one of its most memorable politicians, the jury is still out on whether he’ll be remembered with love. But there’s no doubting that he’ll be remembered.

He is not the fucking president, and NO he can't do any fucking thing his pee brain says.....

Jordan defends Trump: A president can control access to classified material ‘however he wants’

“If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that,” Rep. Jim Jordan said.

By KELLY GARRITY

The president of the United States, “can classify and he can control access to national security information however he wants,” Rep. Jim Jordan said Sunday in defense of former President Donald Trump.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,“ Jordan (R-Ohio) supported Trump, who faces 37 federal charges stemming from an investigation into a cache of classified documents he had stored at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.

The indictment alleges that Trump violated the Espionage Act through “willful retention” of classified records. Photos included in the 49-page charging document appear to show boxes of documents stored in a bathroom and a ballroom at Trump’s Florida property.

“If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that,” Jordan said.

On Sunday, Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary committee, contested that the documents the former president held onto were actually classified.

“He said time and time again he declassified all this,” Jordan told host Dana Bash.

When asked if he had any evidence that Trump had declassified the material, which prosecutors say included intelligence about defense and weapons capabilities, Jordan said: “I go on the president’s word, and he said he did.”

“He said he declassified this material,” Jordan added. “He can put it wherever he wants and handle it however he wants.”

Mayor teases

‘Stay tuned': Miami’s mayor teases possible presidential announcement

“I’m going to be making a big speech in the Reagan Library,” he said.

By DAVID COHEN

Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami on Sunday urged Americans to listen to his speech Thursday in California, fueling speculation that the Republican presidential field is about to grow by one.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” he told host Shannon Bream that America should “stay tuned.”

“Next week, like you said, I’m going to be making a big speech in the Reagan Library, and I think it’s one that Americans should tune into,” he told Bream. “It’s one where we talk about what the future of our country should be.”

Suarez is to speak Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, Calif., on Thursday, part of an ongoing “Time For Choosing” series.

“I have traveled across the country. I’ve been to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada,” Suarez said, “I can tell you when I take the message to people, they want to hear more.”

The GOP presidential field has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent weeks. Suarez’s home state of Florida is already well-represented in the field, with former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis both calling the state home these days.

Killed himself

‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski reportedly killed himself

Kaczynski was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber,” who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died by suicide, four people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday. Emergency responders performed CPR and revived him before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later Saturday morning, the people told the AP. They were not authorized to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Kaczynski’s death comes as the federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny in the last several years following the death of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who also died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.

Kaczynski had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.

A Harvard-educated mathematician, Kaczynski lived as a recluse in a dingy cabin in rural Montana, where he carried out a solitary bombing spree that changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded airplanes.

His targets included academics and airlines, the owner of a computer rental store, an advertising executive and a timer industry lobbyist. In 1993, a California geneticist and a Yale University computer expert were maimed by bombs within the span of two days.

Two years later, he used the threat of continued violence to convince The New York Times and The Washington Post to publish his manifesto, a 35,000 word screed against modern life and technology, as well as damages to the environment.

The tone of the treatise was recognized by his brother, David, and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, who tipped off the FBI, which had been searching for the Unabomber for years in the nation’s longest, costliest manhunt.

Authorities in April 1996 found him in a small plywood and tarpaper cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, that was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosive ingredients and two completed bombs.

While awaiting trial, in 1998, Kaczynski attempted to hang himself with a pair of underwear. Though he was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was adamant that he wasn’t mentally ill. He eventually pleaded guilty rather than allow his attorneys to present an insanity defense.

Growing up in Chicago, Kaczynski skipped two grades before attending Harvard at age 16, where he published papers in prestigious mathematics journals.

His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Later bombs bore the signature “FC” for “Freedom Club.”

The FBI called him the “Unabomber” because his early targets seemed to be universities and airlines. An altitude-triggered bomb he mailed in 1979 went off as planned aboard an American Airlines flight; a dozen people aboard suffered from smoke inhalation.

Cedes control

George Soros reportedly cedes control of empire to a younger son

Soros’ business holdings include his nonprofit Open Society Foundations

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Billionaire investor turned philanthropist George Soros is ceding control of his $25 billion empire to a younger son, Alexander Soros, according to an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal published online Sunday.

Soros’ business holdings include his nonprofit Open Society Foundations, which is active in more than 120 countries around the world and funnels about $1.5 billion annually to groups such as those that back human rights and promote the growth of democracies around the world, according to its website.

The 37-year-old, who goes by Alex, told the Wall Street Journal that he is “more political” than his 92-year-old father, who has been a right-wing target for his backing of liberal causes such as reducing racial bias in the justice system. But he noted that the two “think alike.”

Alex said he was broadening his father’s “liberal aims” and embracing different causes including voting and abortion rights, as well as gender equity. He said he aims to keep using the family’s wealth to back left-leaning U.S. politicians.

Alex told the Wall Street Journal that he recently met with Biden administration officials, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and heads of state, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to push for issues related to the family foundation.

In December, the board of Open Society Foundations, known as OSF, elected Alex as its chairman, succeeding his father. The newspaper also reported that Alex now directs political activity as president of Soros’ super PAC.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the younger Soros is the only family member on the investment committee overseeing Soros Fund Management, which manages money for the foundation and the family.

During the interview with the newspaper, Alex expressed concern that former President Donald Trump would return to the White House and hinted that the Soros organization would play a key financial role in the 2024 presidential race.

“As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it, too,” he said in the interview that took place at the fund manager’s New York offices.

Alex is the oldest of two sons from George Soros’ marriage with his second wife, Susan Weber, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The appointment passes over George Soros’ elder son Jonathan Soros, 52, a lawyer with a background in finance. He had been believed to be the clear successor until “a falling out and a change of heart,” according to the paper.

Insurance crisis

Climate-fueled insurance crisis hits California

By ARIANNA SKIBELL 

From massive wildfires to turbocharged hurricanes, disasters linked to climate change are racking up billions of dollars in damage across large swaths of the country, and insurance companies are struggling to keep up.

State Farm, the largest property insurer in California, announced on Friday that it would no longer write new policies for homeowners or businesses in the state due to the high wildfire risk, writes Thomas Frank.

The stunning decision is largely due to laws and policies in California that limit the ability of insurance companies to raise rates, industry officials say. Although State Farm has huge financial reserves, the company decided that the increase in wildfires — combined with the inability to increase premiums to profitable levels — was too risky for its shareholders, Tom told Power Switch.

Michael Wara, a climate and energy policy expert at Stanford University, told Tom that State Farm’s decision to shrink “in the most valuable real estate market in the country” could threaten the broader economic picture in California, compelling other insurers in the state to take similar action.

It’s not just California. Across the country, in states like Louisiana, Colorado, Florida and Texas, property insurance systems are collapsing under the weight of climate change — even without statewide limits on rate increases.

“Property insurers have insufficient financial capacity to pay claims,” Tom told Power Switch. “In the Gulf Coast, a dozen insurers have become insolvent in the past year because they couldn’t pay all of their claims.”

Hotter temperatures are creating drier, highly combustible conditions, fueling an increase in wildfires. And sea-level rise and increased wind and rainfall are fueling more destructive hurricanes and flooding.

Compounding the issue is an increase in populations in vulnerable areas like the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and areas in the West where people are building homes in once-pristine forested areas, Tom said.

It’s unlikely that a policyholder would be denied a claims payment because their insurer is broke, Tom said. States have developed backup systems to pay claims in the case of emergencies.

But costs are increasing, and those systems will continue to be tested as the rate and intensity of climate-fueled disasters grow.

Last-minute rebellion

McCarthy tries to hold off last-minute rebellion over work requirements in debt deal

Senior Republicans sprang into action after an 11th hour CBO projection threatened to collapse Wednesday’s vote.

By MEREDITH LEE HILL

House Republican leaders are trying to stave off another wave of GOP defections just hours before a final vote on a deal to avert a national default — this time over the work requirements for aid programs that Republican leaders have publicly touted as a win for their party.

The latest rebellion was spurred by a Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday night that estimates spending on the food aid program that Republicans attempted to cut during the debt ceiling negotiations would actually increase under the agreement reached by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden. That has set off a firestorm among conservative lawmakers — threatening a larger revolt within their fractious caucus hours before a final vote on the legislation to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default. With the help of Democratic votes, McCarthy still appeared poised to push the bill through the House later Wednesday — leaving an increasingly angry right flank of his caucus steaming over the GOP concessions.

In addition to expanding the age group of people on food aid subject to work requirements, the deal to raise the debt ceiling creates new exemptions from work requirements for veterans, homeless people and those aging out of the foster care system — something the White House pushed for in the negotiations. CBO analysts found that those series of work requirement changes will collectively increase spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program for low-income people, by $2.1 billion.

“This is going to hurt with fiscal conservatives,” one House Republican member who planned to vote “no” on the bill texted from the closed-door House GOP caucus meeting just after the CBO report hit Tuesday night.

As word spread about the CBO report’s findings, texts, emails and calls from already restless rank-and-file members surged. Senior Republicans directed anxious members to Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who has helped push the work requirements policy during the talks. “Dusty has the answers,” was one reply from a senior Republican lawmaker.

While House Republican leaders and McCarthy allies sought to immediately tamp down the furor, reaching out to members late into the night to argue the CBO projections were wrong, their arguments failed to quell some far-right lawmakers’ concerns. One of the debt deal’s most visible critics, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), blasted the bill’s “watered down work requirements that save $0” on Twitter Wednesday morning. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) meanwhile issued a series of scathing tweets about how she “won’t be voting to expand government welfare today.”

Two GOP lawmakers, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they worried the CBO projection could push members over the edge, or they could use it as cover to oppose a bill that’s deeply unpopular among several dozen GOP hardliners.

Realizing they needed to stanch the bleeding, GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and a lineup of more than half a dozen heavy-hitting senior Republicans quickly assembled a call with reporters to argue the CBO score used “weak information” and double-counted unhoused people, veterans and youth recently aged out of foster care who would be covered for the first time under the deal.

Stefanik argued the work requirements in the bill, including stricter measures for adults ages 50 to 54 without children, “will lift millions of Americans out of poverty and reenergize the workforce.”

House Agricultural Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), who oversees SNAP, said the CBO’s final funding estimate of the SNAP changes “should‘ve been a wash.”

Congressional Republicans have a longtime beef with CBO over the scoring of nutrition program spending and enrollment, but they knowingly rolled the dice with CBO analysts when they agreed to the exemptions sought by White House negotiators. Johnson also pushed back against Democratic arguments that work requirements don’t actually move people into the workforce, but only take away food aid. But, Johnson and other Republicans on the call did acknowledge that the push for stricter work requirements may cost more on “the front end,” by extending aid to certain groups before they can drop off the program and enter the workforce.

Some Republicans on the call defended the work requirements exemptions that the White House was able to insert during the negotiations — especially for former foster youth.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), one of the Republicans who helped negotiate the deal, told reporters Wednesday that he generally agreed with some of the exemptions Democrats fought for, saying that the U.S. needs “more thoughtful public policy for those who are emerging from foster care.”

“This is something those of us that know something about foster care are deeply concerned about and that’s what we baked into this agreement,” McHenry said.

McCarthy has touted the new work requirements and other restrictions for SNAP and an emergency cash assistance program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families as one of the major wins for Republicans in the debt negotiations with Biden — especially since a wide swath of Democrats fiercely oppose such measures. The TANF changes in particular would hit low-income families with children.

In a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday evening, McCarthy didn’t directly address the new CBO score, but he made clear to his members that the new work requirements for SNAP and TANF would have never passed through a Democratic-majority Senate on their own, and had to be forced through in the agreement with Biden, according to two lawmakers in the room, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

White House negotiators knew the work requirement exemptions they secured during the negotiations with Republicans, would likely mean the total number of people covered under SNAP would remain the same — with the new populations covered by the exemptions offsetting the estimated 275,000 adults in their 50s without children who are likely to lose food aid under the deal. White House officials have been aggressively pushing that point with Hill Democrats as they try to secure enough votes for the legislation.

But not all Democratic lawmakers have been comforted by the push.

“This is a food benefit. So moving the deck chairs around and saying, you get food, but you don’t — that’s not a very convincing argument to me,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the House’s leading anti-hunger advocate, said in an interview Tuesday. It’s also unclear to some lawmakers and anti-hunger advocates that the estimates on new SNAP beneficiaries, on paper, will actually bear out in reality, given the immense logistical challenge of signing up several hundred thousand new recipients, many unhoused and without documentation.

Democrats in the Senate are also still alarmed by the loss of food aid for hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans under the agreement, even if other vulnerable groups are successful in gaining new access.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in an interview called the bill “incredibly bad” and claimed Republicans were pushing the country to default unless they could take food away from children. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who chairs the subcommittee overseeing SNAP, has seemingly threatened to oppose any bill that hit the program.

A spokesperson for Fetterman said he “is still reviewing the debt limit legislation to understand SNAP and the Pennsylvania-related impacts, and he’s requested more information on both.”

And there’s no chance at this point for Democrats to strip the SNAP work requirements from the bill, something a group of House Democrats is still trying to push.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key swing vote, said in an interview Tuesday that he doesn’t support voting on any amendments in the Senate. (That also helps protect a key pipeline measure he’s included.) In the case that a SNAP amendment was to come up in the upper chamber. Manchin, who’s previously told POLITICO he supports welfare to work reform, would likely oppose it — killing its chances. Even if some Senate progressives ultimately vote “no,” the chamber is still likely to pass the legislation. If most Republicans vote in favor of the debt deal, they only need a dozen or so Senate Democrats to pass the bill.

VACATION!

 I will be on Vacation for a week, see you all on my return.. I am sure there will be lot's going on. See you later!