Trump admin faces key Endangered Species Act decisions
All three issues have prompted robust debate in fast-closing public comment periods. What comes next could be some consequential ESA reversals.
The Biden administration proposed keeping grizzly bears listed as threatened under the ESA. More than 200,000 individuals weighed in by the end of a comment period last Friday. Many supported continued ESA protections for the iconic species, but ranchers and Western states urged delisting.
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The Biden administration also proposed listing the monarch butterfly as threatened. More than 148,000 individuals and organizations have opined in the comment period that ends at midnight Monday. As with the grizzly bears, many support protecting the monarch, while some rancher organizations and others urge otherwise.
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Gizmodo
32 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Trump Tries to Bury Epstein Scandal, but Elon Musk Won't Let Him
Elon Musk seems convinced he's finally found Donald Trump's Achilles' heel, the one issue that could fracture the unshakable loyalty of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement: the infamous Epstein files and their handling by the Trump administration. For years, the unsealing of Jeffrey Epstein's records has been a holy grail for many on the right. The belief, fanned by influencers now in seats of power, was that the files contained a secret 'client list' that would expose widespread corruption and depravity among powerful Democrats and 'deep state' figures. It was seen as the ultimate political weapon. FBI Director Kash Patel, in his former life as a right-wing media personality, told Glenn Beck in 2023 that Trump should 'on Day 1, roll out the 'black book'.' This long-held anticipation is what made the administration's recent announcement so explosive. On July 7, the Department of Justice and the FBI released a joint memo concluding their review found no mythical client list and no new information that could lead to charges. The long-awaited bombshell was a dud, and the fallout has been swift, creating deep fissures within the administration itself. According to multiple reports, a major fracture has emerged between the leadership of the DOJ and the FBI over the handling of the case files. The infighting boiled over when conservative commentator Dan Bongino, now the Deputy Director of the FBI, reportedly criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the review in a White House meeting. Reports from Fox News and other outlets suggest Bongino distanced himself from the findings and is considering resigning in protest. Amid the chaos, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a carefully worded statement on X. 'The conspiracy theories just aren't true, never have been,' Patel wrote on July 12, without clarifying if he was denying reports about the feud or a potential Bongino resignation. 'It's an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.' The conspiracy theories just aren't true, never have been. It's an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me. — Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) July 12, 2025This internal revolt prompted President Trump to intervene. In a lengthy message on Truth Social, he attempted to shut down the controversy by framing the entire Epstein affair as a conspiracy orchestrated by his political enemies. 'They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier,' Trump wrote, urging his allies to stop 'playing right into their hands.' He ordered his team to refocus on his own political grievances and to 'not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.' 'LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE'S GREAT!' the president concluded. But where Trump saw a political inconvenience, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, saw a profound moral failure. In a direct reply on X, Musk ignored Trump's entire political narrative. Instead, he zeroed in on the core injustice of the scandal, amplifying the outrage that Trump sought to extinguish. 'This is a very big deal,' Musk posted to his hundreds of millions of followers. 'What the hell kind of system are we living in if thousands of kids were abused, the government has videos of the abusers and yet none of the abusers are even facing charges!?' This is a very big deal. What the hell kind of system are we living in if thousands of kids were abused, the government has videos of the abusers and yet none of the abusers are even facing charges!? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2025The rebuke was immediate and powerful. While Trump tried to control his political universe, Musk used his immense platform to declare that justice for abused children was more important than political games. The split highlights a fundamental difference between the two men: Trump views the world through the lens of political power, while Musk, in this instance, has positioned himself as a champion for basic justice. This public disagreement marks one of the most significant moments of dissent from within Trump's orbit and appears to be the latest flashpoint in a rapidly escalating political divorce. Their once-tight alliance, which saw Musk lead a government efficiency task force (DOGE), has fractured in recent weeks over fundamental disagreements on policy. The rift burst into public view over Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' a sweeping tax and spending package that Musk lambasted as a 'disgusting abomination.' I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025That policy disagreement quickly morphed into a direct political challenge. In early July, Musk announced the formation of 'America Party,' a third-party movement aimed at challenging the political establishment. The move was a clear signal that Musk was no longer content to be a Trump ally. While their previous fights were over fiscal policy and political strategy, this latest clash over Jeffrey Epstein is different. By refusing to let the Epstein story be swept under the rug, Musk is using his platform to force a conversation that Trump desperately wants to end, proving he is one of the few figures on the right willing and able to defy the president so directly.
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Opinion: How the Trump tax cut law will hurt the working class
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said it was 'agonizing' to vote for the tax cut bill President Trump signed on July 4. As details of the legislation come into focus, it's obvious why it might cause heartburn even for Republicans who passed it, with no Democratic votes. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as the law is clumsily known, will literally make the rich better off and the poor worse off. Some conservatives who want to pare the 'welfare state' may not care. But imposing austerity on millions of working-class voters is a stunning political risk for a party that is supposedly following President Trump's populist instincts. The law has two main elements. The first is a sweeping series of tax cuts and tax cut extensions that will generally benefit everybody but add trillions of dollars to the national debt. The second is a set of benefit cuts that are meant to reduce the overall cost of the bill. Those will hit working-class Americans and make the net effect of the bill punishing to them. The biggest part of the OBBBA is an extension of the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017. Those were due to expire at the end of this year. The OBBBA makes the current individual income tax rates permanent. Those are not 'tax cuts' per se, since tax rates will be the same in future years as they are in 2025. But the law does prevent what would have been a de facto tax hike if the 2017 rates expired and the higher 2016 rates went back into effect. The law also includes some new tax breaks, such as the elimination of tax on income from tips and overtime pay, up to certain limits. There's also a new tax break for some seniors and a much higher cap for deducting state and local taxes, which will mostly benefit wealthy homeowners who itemize deductions on their tax returns. The tax provisions generally benefit everybody, but the wealthy will gain the most. The average savings for all taxpayers will be about $2,900, compared with what the tax bill would have been if current rates expired, according to the Tax Policy Center. Those with incomes above $1 million would save nearly $60,000 on average. But the savings for workers with incomes below $30,000 would be less than $200 per year. Those provisions, at least, do no harm to most taxpayers. But the harm arrives when factoring in cuts to Medicaid, subsidies for people to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and food aid known as SNAP. The healthcare cutbacks will leave an additional 16 million people without coverage by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Cutbacks to the SNAP program could reduce or eliminate food aid going to 22 million families, according to the Urban Institute. Those changes will leave millions of Americans worse off. When accounting for the tax changes and benefit cuts combined, people in the lowest income quintile, with incomes below $13,500, will lose an average of $600 per year, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The next quintile will lose $65 per year. The healthcare and food aid cuts will have little impact on top earners, for obvious reasons. The top quintile will gain $6,500 in after-tax savings from all of the law's provisions, while the top 1% will net more than $30,000. This is what economists call a 'regressive' policy change because the economic burden falls more heavily on those with lower incomes. 'The bill has four overriding characteristics,' Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center wrote recently. 'It is regressive, expensive, complicated, and it treats people who make roughly the same amount of money in very different ways.'Tax cut defenders often point out that the wealthy typically get the biggest tax cuts because they pay the most taxes in the first place. That's generally true. But the wealthy are a distinct minority, which means a regressive law such as the OBBBA dis-serves millions of voters, and possibly a majority of them. The bottom two income quintiles, for instance, include roughly 92 million taxpaying units, whether singles, married couples, or other designations. There are only 26 million taxpaying units in the top quintile. Maybe that's what Murkowski found so agonizing. 'Do I like this bill? No,' she told a reporter on July 2. 'I know in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill.' Trump can point to working-class provisions such as the elimination of taxes on tip income and overtime pay, with limitations based on the type of work and the amount of income. Some workers will in fact benefit from those carve-outs. But tax analysts argue that favoring certain types of work in that manner violates the principle of 'horizontal equity,' the idea that similar incomes should be taxed in similar ways. To use the example of a restaurant, a waiter earning tip income would get a tax break that a cook paid hourly would not. That distorts the tax code, creates incentives to cheat, and generates legitimate grievances among the unlucky workers not gifted a tax break. The OBBBA is already unpopular, with 64% of Americans disapproving and just 35% approving, in one poll. The real vote will come in the 2026 midterm elections, when Americans will express whether they feel better off or worse off under unified Republican control of government. Getting Americans to like this law might be a more agonizing ideal than passing it. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. 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Fox News
33 minutes ago
- Fox News
Roger Stone, Charlie Kirk and more to address Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit
incoming update… Evangelist Daniel Kolenda, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, longtime Trump ally and GOP strategist Roger Stone, Savannah and Todd Chrisley and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk are among those scheduled to close out the third and final day of Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday. On Saturday, attendees heard from celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels, former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and border czar Tom Homan, among others. Click here for previous Fox News Digital live coverage. Live Coverage begins here
