Tag: donald trump

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Trump’s Kennedy Center ally hits musician with $1M demand over Christmas Eve cancelation

The president of the Kennedy Center’s board is once again lashing out at critics of President Donald Trump this time targeting a veteran jazz musician who abruptly canceled a Christmas Eve performance following the center’s MAGA-style renaming to the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”Richard Grenell, a Trump ally who has led the board since February, blasted musician Chuck Redd after the drummer and vibraphonist withdrew from his long-running holiday “Jazz Jams” performance at the venue, a tradition he has overseen since 2006, Politico reported Friday. In a sharply worded letter shared with The Associated Press, Grenell accused Redd of engaging in “classic intolerance” and called the cancellation a “political stunt” that he claimed would cause significant financial harm to the nonprofit arts institution.“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” Grenell wrote in the letter, adding that he intends to seek $1 million in damages over the last-minute withdrawal. Redd told the AP on the day of his scheduled performance that he canceled the performance after seeing Trump’s name added to the building and website. “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd said, as reported by Politico. Redd’s pullout this week is the latest fallout from the Trump administration’s rebrand of the storied institution, a move that is continuing to spark backlash and legal scrutiny. Scholars and historians argue the move violates federal law, which designates the Kennedy Center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and prohibits honoring any other individual, Politico noted Friday. Kennedy’s niece, lawyer and human rights activist Kerry Kennedy, has vowed to remove Trump’s name once he leaves office, while Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) filed a lawsuit Monday seeking its immediate removal, claiming the board acted unlawfully.

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‘I would not be happy!’ Trump bashes new FCC plan in Truth Social rant

President Donald Trump, in a new Truth Social rant, bashed a report of a new plan by the Federal Communications Commission that would allow alleged anti-Trump television networks to mergeNewsmax reported on Sunday that FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a staunch Trump ally, is “pushing through a mega-merger of the anti-Trump group Nextstar.” Nexstar owns several local NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliate stations nationwide. The company is currently in the process of acquiring TEGNA for roughly $6. 2 billion, a move that would put Nexstar above the “network ownership cap,” a federal law from the Reagan administration that prohibits TV stations from reaching more than 39% of U. S. households. “If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “ABC & NBC, in particular, are a disaster A VIRTUAL ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. They should be viewed as an illegal campaign to the Radical Left. NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS. If anything, make them SMALLER.”.

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Foreign leaders fume as Trump scores lavish gifts from Swiss billionaires — then cuts their tariffs

When Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N. J.) had his home raided over an alleged bribery scheme, investigators found gold bars. Now, a gold bar has been handed to President Donald Trump by Swiss billionaires visiting the White House. Not long after, tariffs on Switzerland were cut. The engraved gold bar, coupled with a $130,000 Rolex desk clock, may not be the reason Trump “decided to slash 39 percent tariffs on Swiss imports to 15 percent,” but it is raising questions. The Guardian reported Friday that Pasquale Tridico, an Italian MEP, was “disgusted” by the move.“This is really awful,” he said. It seems to be a case of “making foreign policy the policy of individuals.”Swiss Green Party president, Lisa Mazzone, called out “the Swiss elite” for being “poisoned” by Trump’s “corrupt logic.”“It is unacceptable that the federal council is relying on the help of an economic elite that represents private interests and lacks democratic legitimacy in its negotiations with the US president,” she added. None of the items were reported until “internet sleuths” began tracing the origins of the new clock on Trump’s Oval Office desk, the report said. They pored over photos and ultimately found the one showing seven Swiss billionaires. The billionaires called it “a modest, refined expression of traditional Swiss watchmaking,” said The Guardian. “Trump loves being fawned over by billionaires. It’s terrible that one has to shower the US president with gold to get Switzerland back on his agenda,” deputy editor-in-chief of CH Media, Doris Kleck, told radio station “bz Basel.”The White House claimed that the gold bar and Rolex had nothing to do with the tariff cuts. Instead, Trump’s staff said that the deal came about after the Swiss pledged “$200 billion to make and hire in America.”Under U. S. rules, such gifts become the property of the government and are placed in the National Archives unless the president buys them or has them displayed in a museum or presidential library. Read the full report here.

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Trump’s wind-down of the Education Department leaves schools fearing disruption

The Trump administration is steaming forward on its plan to dismantle the Education Department. Many state and local education leaders say they are bracing for disruption and new bureaucratic hurdles. Education Secretary Linda McMahon insists there will be no disruption as she begins offloading some of her agency’s biggest functions to four other federal departments. She has promised to keep federal money flowing. She says students will benefit as the government reduces its bureaucratic footprint and gives more power to state and local communities. But the plan has drawn pushback from some state and district leaders, who see no benefit and no hope for a seamless transition.

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