The Daily T: Why has Trump changed his mind on Russia?
The President has announced that the US will resume the supply of weapons, via Nato, and also threatened 100pc tariffs on Russia if a deal isn't done. He also later told the BBC that he was 'disappointed' in Putin.
Camilla and Tim speak to former economic advisor to Donald Trump, Carla Sands, who blames 'weak and flabby militaries throughout Europe' and a 'feckless' Joe Biden for the current situation in Ukraine, and believes Trump will get a deal despite Putin not being an 'honest broker'.
Elsewhere, Camilla and Tim speak to Conservative MP James Cleverly, who was making a speech in Central London about countering the rise of Reform, and ask him if he's on manoeuvres for a leadership run.
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The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Republican leading inquiry into Biden's autopen use has digitally signed letters
A Kentucky Republican leading the Trump administration's investigation into Joe Biden's mental capacities during his time in office, including Biden's reliance, like many other presidents, on an automatic signature machine, has been shown to have used a digital signature himself in the course of the investigation. NBC reported that some letters and subpoena notices issued by James Comer, which were sent out in connection to his investigation into Biden's use of the so-called autopen, bore a digital signature. Comer has sent 16 letters to former Biden White House officials requesting transcribed interviews, NBC said. Metadata analysis showed that all appeared to be signed with a digitally inserted signature. Further letters requesting testimony from the White House physician Dr Kevin O'Connor and Anthony Bernal, a senior aide to former first lady Jill Biden, were also signed with digital images, NBC said. The actual subpoenas were not shared by the committee, which just released a photo of them instead. The findings are likely to intensify the political battle over Biden's use of the autopen. Donald Trump has claimed that his predecessor had little knowledge of what he was signing, including pardons, clemencies and executive orders, and that the autopen was controlled by 'radical left' actors in the White House. On Monday Biden ridiculed those accusations, telling the New York Times in his first on-the record interview with the paper since he was elected president in 2020 that he 'made every decision' on his own. 'We're talking about [granting clemency to] a whole lot of people,' he said, explaining why autopen was used on the thousands of pardons that were issued. Trump himself has admitted using the autopen on some documents. Nevertheless, he attacked Biden again in the Oval Office during a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, saying: 'I guarantee you he knew nothing about what he was signing, I guarantee you.' Trump has repeatedly pushed the autopen conspiracy theory to further the narrative that Biden was somehow not fully in command of his administration or its policies. Last month Trump ordered an investigation, calling it 'one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history'. Biden has maintained that the allegations are 'ridiculous and false'. Comer's apparent use of a digital signature now threatens to cloud Republicans' efforts. A spokesperson for the House committee on oversight and reform, the body Comer heads, said using a digital signature for correspondence was common practice. 'Chairman Comer has never hidden the fact that he uses a digital signature when appropriate, and he approves all official correspondence that is signed digitally,' a spokesperson for the committee told NBC News, but added that 'legally binding subpoenas issued by Chairman Comer always bear a wet signature and are never signed using an autopen or digital signature.'
Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump's Nvidia U-turn ‘will boost Chinese military'
Donald Trump's decision to let Nvidia sell powerful artificial intelligence (AI) microchips to China has sparked fears that the technology could be used to boost Beijing's military. Charles Parton, from the think tank Rusi, said there would 'inevitably' be sales of semiconductors 'which have the possibility of military use'. 'Once exports reach China, the Communist Party can direct their use,' he told The Telegraph. Luke de Pulford, of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: 'Given Beijing's stated policy of civil-military fusion, it has to be presumed these chips will be used for military applications, and is likely to facilitate the modernisation and expansion of the People's Liberation Army.' On Tuesday, Nvidia said it had begun filing new applications to sell its advanced chips in China again. 'The US government has assured Nvidia that licences will be granted, and [we] hope to start deliveries soon,' the company said. The decision to allow Nvidia's most advanced H20 chips to be sold to China reverses an earlier ban by Donald Trump. The US introduced new restrictions in April amid concerns the technology could be used to build cutting-edge supercomputers in China. However, a charm offensive by Jensen Huang, Nvidia's boss, appears to have prompted Mr Trump to change his position. This has included attending a $1m (£744k)-a-head dinner at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and promising to build new factories in the US. Mr de Pulford said: 'This is a regrettable decision which suggests the US now believes it can no longer prevent China from acquiring the technology.' Theo Zenou, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said it remained a 'definite possibility' that US chips could end up in Chinese military technology. 'The danger remains, and we should expect China to try and use the chips for military applications,' he added. Under the Biden administration, the US stepped up efforts to block the sale of advanced AI microchips to China. Nvidia's processors are used to power the most advanced AI products and are being installed in their thousands in vast new supercomputers. 'Well-established concern' US security officials have long warned China could use American-made AI technology for military purposes, while thousands of processors have already been smuggled into the country. Last week, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks wrote to Nvidia's Mr Huang ahead of his trip to China, warning him of 'well-established concern' that Nvidia's chips could be used to 'support Chinese military and intelligence activities'. Mr Huang this week downplayed concerns about the use of Nvidia chips by China's military. 'They don't need Nvidia's chips, certainly, or American tech stacks in order to build their military,' he told CNBC. He told reporters in Beijing: 'We believe that every civil model should run best on the US technology stack, encouraging nations worldwide to choose America.' Nvidia's H20 chips were designed to be used by Chinese customers and swerve export controls on its most advanced technology, such as its H200, which remained banned from export to China.
Times
35 minutes ago
- Times
‘We tried to free our children, Putin used them as poker chips'
Flanked by men in dark suits, Daria Zarivna was nervous. The stakes could hardly have been higher for her and the rest of the Ukrainian negotiating team as they sat down opposite their American counterparts. Their aim was to save an alliance, and, ultimately, the lives of their countrymen. While President Trump's shift from appearing to support President Putin to announcing additional weapons for Ukraine this week may seem abrupt, Zarivna can testify how the seeds were sown on a spring day in Jeddah four months ago. On March 11, days after President Zelensky was humiliated in an Oval Office shouting match with Trump, Zarivna, an adviser to Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian leader's chief of staff, joined the rest of the Kyiv delegation in Saudi Arabia. 'We were preparing hard, day and night. We were all focused. We had no idea how it would go,' she said. Somehow, the Ukrainians had to find common ground with a White House team that seemed to have started parroting Kremlin propaganda. There was one topic that Zarivna hoped it would be hard for them to disagree about — returning abducted children to their families. Nonetheless she was relieved when Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, started speaking: 'The conversation was constructive from the outset. When Secretary Rubio raised the issue, and when he shared facts from my message box, that was a great feeling, and I realised he was deeply across the details,' she recalled. The Kremlin has removed at least 19,546 Ukrainian children from their families for re-education as Russians according to Kyiv, a war crime that has prompted the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin. Of those taken, only 1,399 have been returned to Ukraine, through volunteers or relatives travelling vast distances, or in agreements brokered by third countries such as South Africa, Qatar or the Vatican.' The March US-Ukraine summit in Saudi Arabia concluded with a brief statement proposing an immediate 30-day ceasefire to Moscow. It also included a commitment to the 'return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children'. That commitment, the Ukrainian officials thought, could eventually become a test for Putin, and one way to prove to the Americans that Moscow had no interest in peace. • Ukraine hands Russia list of kidnapped children at peace talks During the Istanbul peace talks between the two warring sides last month, the Ukrainian delegation gave their Kremlin counterparts a list of 339 Ukrainian children being held in Russia, Zarivna said. 'It wasn't a full list. It was a test… a small first step,' she said. 'It was a way to see whether Russia is truly prepared to begin the process of returning Ukrainian children.' In public, Russia denied that any of the 339 children had been abducted. But privately, the Russian side 'suggested swapping [the children] like poker chips for Russian prisoners of war,' Zarivna idea of trading children was as abhorrent for the Americans as the Ukrainians, she said, and slowly the Trump administration began to understand the nature of Putin's regime. Following the failed talks in Istanbul, Zarivna visited Washington, taking the issue to Congress and persuading both the House and the Senate to introduce bipartisan resolutions calling for the unconditional return of Ukrainian children. 'Our position is clear: we will not trade children for territory, infrastructure or political concessions. Ever. To do so would only encourage more abductions,' Zarivna said. Zarivna insists she never meant to go into politics, but her clout has grown as Zelensky leans more on Yermak. The two men are accused by opposition figures of monopolising power under martial law at the expense of the country's democratic checks and balances, orchestrating the sacking, sanctioning and arrest of rivals. In a government dominated by the presidential office, Zarivna's influence now extends beyond the ear of Yermak to that of Olena Zelenska, the first lady, with whom she works closely on Bring Kids Back UA, a presidential initiative she runs with the aim of orchestrating the children's return. Over coffee in a Kyiv café, Zarivna batted back a playful suggestion made to The Times by Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's new prime minister, that it is Zarivna who is the most powerful woman in Ukraine. 'I'm not interested in power. I'm interested in creating and I'm interested in building,' the adviser said. 'As soon as you become a political player or political stakeholder, then you have all of these games which I don't want to spend my time on. I like to build a process, find the right people and go on to the next task. This is what drives me. ' Coming from a media and advertising background, Zarivna has been labelled the chief spin doctor, even a propagandist. She has been accused of running Vertikal, a Telegram channel that smears Zelensky's rivals, a charge she flatly denies. Yet it is clear Zarivna believes in the administration and its work. In November 2022, after the liberation of her home town, Kherson, she was filmed close to tears behind Zelensky as the Ukrainian flag was raised again in the city square. • No peace until you return our children, Ukraine tells Putin 'It was one of the best moments of my life. Like when you lost someone who mattered to you, then you managed to return them. I remember all these people came to this main area in Kherson, and they were all so happy and crying. Of course they didn't know then that the drone safari is coming,' she said, referring to Russian drone operators hunting civilians in the streets and posting the videos online, killing a year-old baby there last week. Neighbours 'just disappeared' during the occupation, she says, and Russian troops billeted themselves in her family home, burning mementos from her childhood for firewood. Her grandmother, who stayed behind, emerged from occupation traumatised. In the early days of the war, when Zelensky was pleading with parliaments around the world for support by invoking their own troubled times, Zarivna was involved in the team helping to write his speeches. The process is always driven by the president, she says, but the former comedian still needs an audience. 'He needs somebody to talk to because when he verbalises something, he generates all these great phrases and aphorisms,' she added. 'All the memorable quotes come from him. He's great at finding something in common with people, he's very empathetic.' Her immediate boss, Yermak, complements Zelensky because he prioritises progress over popularity, she said. 'Public image is always a challenge. It's the nature of that job. You can be effective and get things done, or you can be universally liked, but it's almost impossible to be both,' she said.
