Business
Trump won't confirm he talked with Putin, and says there was 'love and peace' on Jan. 6
Former President Trump said that any telephone conversations he may have had with Vladimir Putin since leaving office were a “smart thing,” though he declined to confirm the recently reported calls during an appearance at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday.
“I don’t comment on that,” Trump said. “But I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country. [Putin’s] got 2,000 nuclear weapons, and so do we.”
The comments were the latest in a long line of remarks in which Trump has praised the president of Russia, whom Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris recently called a “murderous dictator.”
Citing an unnamed source, a new book by veteran political journalist Bob Woodward reportedly says that Trump and Putin have spoken as many as seven times since Trump left office more than three years ago. Released Tuesday, the book, “War,” also reveals that Trump, while president, sent the Russian leader COVID-19 testing equipment for his own use.
When pressed on the topic by Q&A moderator John Micklethwait, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, Trump added, “I don’t talk about that. I don’t ever say it. But I can tell you what, Russia has never had a president that they respect so much.”
Speaking in front of a friendly audience over the course of roughly an hour, Trump shared his views on tariffs, monetary policy and the Federal Reserve. But he also went on meandering digressions, such as one that covered the safe return of a SpaceX Super Heavy-Starship rocket on Sunday (“I said, ‘What the hell … !’”), and even tried out a French accent while relating a squabble he’d had with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, over a threatened import tax on wine (“He’s a wise guy”).
On the subject of tariffs, Trump championed his plan to put them on various imported items.
Tariffs, Trump said, are “for protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in, because we’re going to have thousands of companies coming into this country. … We’re going to protect them when they come in, because we’re not going to have somebody undercut them.”
The nonpartisan Tax Foundation has reported that tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 and 2019 amounted to “nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans.”
“I’m a believer in tariffs,” Trump said. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff.’ It’s my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm.”
Later, Micklethwait invoked the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to ask Trump if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the November election.
But Trump never directly answered the question, and falsely said there had been a peaceful transfer after the 2020 election, despite the storming of the Capitol, which saw more than 100 people injured and one attendee, Ashli Babbitt, fatally shot by a law enforcement officer. “It was love and peace. And some people went to the Capitol, and a lot of strange things happened there,” said Trump, who shared other falsehoods about Jan. 6.
When Micklethwait asked the question again, Trump said of the journalist, “This is a man that has not been a big Trump fan over the years.”
Trump’s discursive appearance also saw him squabble with Micklethwait over a pejorative nickname for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and ridicule the moderator for his fiscal views. “You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” Trump said, eliciting laughter from the crowd.
A Harris campaign spokesperson said the interview “was yet another reminder that a second Trump term is a risk Americans simply cannot take.”
“An angry, rambling Donald Trump couldn’t focus, had to be repeatedly reminded of the topic at hand, and whenever he did stake out a position, it was so extreme that no Americans would want it,” spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement.
The former president’s campaign moved quickly to position the appearance in Chicago as a win, sending out an email that said the former president “was in his element as he spoke passionately about restoring economic growth, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.”
“Kamala could NEVER,” the message said.
Micklethwait said that the Chicago club had invited Harris — whom Trump mentioned only fleetingly — to participate in a similar conversation, but she had “declined so far.”
On Tuesday, Trump also planned to rally voters in Atlanta and spoke with conservative media host Glenn Beck for his BlazeTV online program. He argued that immigration is voters’ greatest priority.
“The biggest thing that people are going to be looking at and voting on is what’s happening at our border where murderers are allowed to come in and where drug dealers are allowed to come in and just destroy our country. Literally destroy it,” he told Beck.
Harris frequently argues that Trump killed a bipartisan immigration bill that would have increased the number of agents at the border and reduced the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. because he was more concerned about keeping the issue alive to boost his election prospects than in solving the problem.
Trump also said he was serious about tasking billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk with reeling in federal spending.
“He feels there’s tremendous fraud, waste and abuse,” Trump said. “He could save a lot of money and make lives better.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Business
Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
Business
Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
Business
How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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