Trump says presidency is a very dangerous profession, riskier than bull riding
US President Donald Trump, during an unscheduled press briefing at the White House on Friday, reflected on the dangers of holding the nation's highest office. His remarks came as he celebrated a major US Supreme Court ruling that limits the authority of federal judges to block presidential policies with nationwide injunctions.Speaking to reporters, Trump mentioned he occasionally feels physical reminders of the July 13, 2024, incident when a bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. "I get that throbbing feeling every once in a while," he said. "But you know what? That's okay. This is a dangerous business."advertisementTrump compared the dangers of being president to other dangerous professions. "You have race car drivers as an example, 1/10 of 1 per cent die. Bull riders, 1/10 of 1 per cent . That's not a lot, but it's - people die. When you're president, it's about 5%. If somebody would have told me that, maybe I wouldn't have run. Okay? This is, this is a very dangerous profession."
Among the 45 US presidents, four have been assassinated, and some have endured severe threats or assaults. Trump is in his second term and has been targeted with numerous threats throughout and following his election campaigns.RECENT ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS In addition to the July incident, Trump allegedly evaded another assassination attempt on September 15, 2024, while golfing at his West Palm Beach resort. The perpetrator in that incident faces five federal charges and has pleaded not guilty. The July shooter, in turn, was killed by Secret Service agents after he opened fire during the Pennsylvania event when one of the attendees was killed and two others were injured.advertisementTENSIONS WITH IRAN Trump also cited past intelligence that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned to assassinate him, something Tehran denies. This is just days after US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.Trump's presidency has been characterised by vigorous rhetoric against political adversaries and a larger effort to increase executive power. On the basis of an investigation by Reuters, over 300 politically motivated acts of violence have happened in the U.S. since January 6, 2021, when a mob attacked the Capitol representing an intensely polarised and combustible period in American politics.- EndsWith inputs from ReutersMust Watch
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Indian Express
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Ram Madhav writes: India and the new world order
Eurasia is in turmoil. Three major conflicts — Russia-Ukraine, Israel's Gaza operations and the Israel-Iran-US conflict — are reshaping the geopolitics of the region. Wars don't just cause physical destruction, they profoundly impact international relations. Beyond Eurasia, US President Donald Trump is causing serious drift and disorder in the Western world. The US and Western Europe, powerhouses of the last century, appear to be decisively moving into a slow afternoon. At the same time, the world is witnessing the unmissable rise of China as a dominant economic and technological superpower. These developments, coupled with a few other important ones, will lead to the emergence of a new global order. Therein lies a major challenge for India. It developed institutions and initiatives based on the premises of the old world. But the emerging order calls for a new way of thinking about its geostrategic priorities. During the ill-fated Cultural Revolution years in China, Chairman Mao Zedong used to call for the abolition of the 'Four Olds' — old ideology, old culture, old habits and old customs. This might be a wrong analogy, but India, too, needs to come out of the mindset of the last century. India has built a strong partnership with Europe over the past few decades. In recent years, the Narendra Modi government has successfully enhanced engagement with Middle Eastern powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Out of those engagements emerged the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) initiative. IMEC is a promising initiative connecting South Asia with the GCC region and Europe. Signed in September 2023 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, IMEC became the flavour of the season for many strategic pundits and fodder for think tanks. However, given the changed geopolitical scenario in Eurasia, India needs to recalibrate IMEC carefully. Although a beneficial project, it faces daunting challenges, the cauldron in Eurasia being the major one. With stability eluding the region, IMEC's future, too, remains ambiguous. At a more fundamental level, the positioning of IMEC itself has been flawed. Most commentaries seek to pit it against China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Confusing the geo-economic with the geo-strategic is one of the old-school traits that many in India fail to overcome. It must be remembered that almost all the member countries of the GCC are partners in the BRI while at least 17 out of 27 EU member countries have closer trade ties with China. Only Italy decided to quit the BRI recently while the rest continue to enjoy Chinese largesse. There is IMEC-related romanticism too, with some scholars overemphasising the millennia-old history when India traded with Europe through ports in the Gulf. It is a fact that India traded in spices and textiles with Europe in return for gold in the good old days — so much so that scholars in Rome used to bitterly complain to their emperor that India was draining all the gold from their kingdom. But today's reality is different. Oman, whose ports were an important part of the route in ancient times, is not even part of IMEC. Then there is the logistics nightmare. In the IMEC scheme, goods from India will reach Middle Eastern ports like Jebel Ali (Dubai) by sea lines. From there, they will be transported through the land route to Haifa in Israel. Beyond Haifa, it will again be a journey through the sea lines to European ports like Marseille in France and Trieste in Italy. Some argue that it bypasses the Suez Canal and thus helps save time and money for the exports. This is contestable. Seventy-five ships pass through the Suez Canal every day in normal times. Each carries a minimum load of 1,00,000 tonnes. 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But it must also be kept in mind that the EU's GDP growth is sluggish at around 1 per cent, and China is already a big presence in the EU market with a more than 55 per cent share in the manufactured goods sector and a significantly growing share in other key sectors. That leaves less scope for India to penetrate. India has a history of such projects. Long before venturing into the IMEC initiative, in 2000, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government announced the North-South corridor project with much fanfare. It was duly signed by India, Russia and Iran in 2003. Two decades later, while the project remained on paper for India, China quickly entered and built formidable ties with the two countries. Similarly, we talked about a Look East policy in the 1990s, seeking to build strong ties with the roaring Asian Tigers. It became the Act East policy under PM Modi. 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