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If Trump Wins

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If Trump Wins

Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Donald Trump and his closest allies are preparing a radical reshaping of American government if he regains the White House. Here are some of his plans for cracking down on immigration, directing the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries, increasing presidential power, upending America’s trade policies, retreating militarily from Europe and unilaterally deploying troops to Democratic-run cities.

Crack down on illegal immigration to an extreme degree

Mr. Trump is planning a massive expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025. Among other things, he would:

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1. Carry out mass deportations

Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the volume of deportations — to more than a million per year.

2. Increase the number of agents for ICE raids

He plans to reassign federal agents and the National Guard to immigration control. He would also enable the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants.

3. Build camps to detain immigrants

The Trump team plans to use military funds to build “vast holding facilities” to detain immigrants while their deportation cases progress.

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4. Push for other countries to take would-be asylum seekers from the United States

He plans to revive “safe third country” agreements with Central American countries and expand them to Africa and elsewhere. The aim is to send people seeking asylum to other countries.

5. Once again ban entry into the United States by people from certain Muslim-majority nations

He plans to suspend the nation’s refugee program and once again bar visitors from mostly Muslim countries, reinstating a version of the travel ban that President Biden revoked in 2021.

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6. Try to end “birthright citizenship”

His administration would declare that children born to undocumented parents were not entitled to citizenship and would cease issuing documents like Social Security cards and passports to them.

Use the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries

Mr. Trump has declared that he would use the powers of the presidency to seek vengeance on his perceived foes. His allies have developed a legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the president. Mr. Trump has suggested that he would:

1. Direct a criminal investigation into Mr. Biden and his family

As president, Mr. Trump pressed the Justice Department to investigate his foes. If re-elected, he has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor “to go after” Mr. Biden and his family.

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2. Have foes indicted for challenging him politically

He has cited the precedent of his own indictments to declare that if he became president again and someone challenged him politically, he could say, “Go down and indict them.”

3. Target journalists for prosecution

Kash Patel, a Trump confidant, has threatened to target journalists for prosecution if Mr. Trump returns to power. The campaign later distanced Mr. Trump from the remarks.

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Increase presidential power

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broad goal to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that currently operates independently of the White House. Mr. Trump has said that he will:

1. Bring independent agencies under presidential control

Congress has set up various regulatory agencies to operate independently from the White House. Mr. Trump has vowed to bring them under presidential control, setting up a potential court fight.

2. Revive the practice of “impounding” funds

He has vowed to return to a system under which the president has the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated for programs the president doesn’t like.

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3. Strip employment protections from tens of thousands of longtime civil servants

During Mr. Trump’s presidency, he issued an executive order making it easier to fire career officials and replace them with loyalists. Mr. Biden rescinded it, but Mr. Trump has said that he would reissue it in a second term.

4. Purge officials from intelligence agencies, law enforcement, the State Department and the Pentagon

Mr. Trump has disparaged the career work force at agencies involved in national security and foreign policy as an evil “deep state” he intends to destroy.

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5. Appoint lawyers who would bless his agenda as lawful

Politically appointed lawyers in the first Trump administration sometimes raised objections to White House proposals. Several of his closest advisers are now vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.

Aggressively expand his first-term efforts to upend America’s trade policies

Mr. Trump plans to sharply expand his use of tariffs in an effort to steer the country away from integration with the global economy and to increase American manufacturing jobs and wages. He has said that he will:

1. Impose a “universal baseline tariff,” a new tax on most imported goods

Mr. Trump has said that he plans to impose a tariff on most goods manufactured abroad, floating a figure of 10 percent for the new import tax. On top of raising prices for consumers, such a policy would risk a global trade war.

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2. Implement steep new trade restrictions on China to wrench apart the world’s two largest economies.

He has said that he will “phase out all Chinese imports” of electronics and other essential goods, and impose new rules to stop U.S. companies from making investments in China.

Retreat from military engagement with Europe

Mr. Trump has long made clear that he sees NATO, the country’s most important military alliance, not as a force multiplier with allies but as a drain on American resources by freeloaders. He has said he will:

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1. Potentially undercut NATO or withdraw the United States from the alliance

While in office, he threatened to withdraw from NATO. On his campaign website, he says he plans to fundamentally re-evaluate NATO’s purpose, fueling anxiety that he could gut or end the alliance.

2. Settle the Russia-Ukraine war “in 24 hours”

He has claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine in a day. He has not said how, but he has suggested that he would have made a deal to prevent the war by letting Russia simply take Ukrainian lands.

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Use military force in Mexico and on American soil

Mr. Trump has been more clear about his plans for using U.S. military force closer to home. He has said that he would:

1. Declare war on drug cartels in Mexico

He has released a plan to fight Mexican drug cartels with military force. It would violate international law if the United States used armed forces on Mexico’s soil without its consent.

2. Use federal troops at the border

While it’s generally illegal to use the military for domestic law enforcement, the Insurrection Act creates an exception. The Trump team would invoke it to use soldiers as immigration agents.

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3. Use federal troops in Democratic-controlled cities

He came close to unleashing the active-duty military on racial justice protests that sometimes descended into riots in 2020 and remains attracted to the idea. Next time, he has said, he will unilaterally send federal forces to bring order to Democratic-run cities.

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Army Secretary Replaces Patel as Head of A.T.F.

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Army Secretary Replaces Patel as Head of A.T.F.

Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, has been removed as the interim head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and replaced by Daniel Driscoll, the Army secretary, four people with knowledge of the switch said on Wednesday. The highly unusual move places a civilian military leader in charge of a domestic law enforcement entity.

White House officials decided to make the switch in late February, just after Mr. Patel was named the A.T.F.’s director, because the responsibilities of running two agencies was seen as too time-consuming, according to an official briefed on the situation. Mr. Driscoll was selected because he was one of the few Senate-confirmed Trump appointees available to take over, the person said.

Mr. Driscoll, an Iraq war veteran who is close to Vice President JD Vance, learned over the past week that he was being handed the reins of the small, embattled federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, officials said.

Mr. Driscoll was traveling in Germany on Wednesday and was not immediately available for comment. But a Defense Department official confirmed that Mr. Driscoll had assumed interim leadership of the A.T.F. with very little notice in recent days. The official did not know exactly when Mr. Driscoll had assumed his additional duties.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The decision was announced to the A.T.F.’s supervisors on Wednesday morning. It left many of the agency’s staff members stunned and concerned that the switch would mean a significant recalibration of their mission at a time when hundreds of firearms investigators have been diverted to support immigration enforcement efforts.

While the appointment of Mr. Patel, a former Trump campaign surrogate, to run the A.T.F. was viewed with skepticism, the offloading of a component agency of the Justice Department to a Pentagon official is something entirely new.

The move comes at a moment of chaos at the largely leaderless and rudderless A.T.F.

Mr. Patel has spent most of his time running the F.B.I. and the Justice Department has proposed merging the A.T.F. with the Drug Enforcement Administration, a plan that has left the gun agency’s career leadership demoralized. That move, however, is unlikely to take place anytime soon.

Some fear that the plan to merge the D.E.A. and the A.T.F. might be a pretext for gutting both agencies, two of the smallest and most underfunded entities in the Justice Department. The replacement of Mr. Patel is unlikely to improve morale.

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This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi, under pressure from gun rights groups, announced plans to eliminate the A.T.F.’s “zero tolerance” policy, put in place four years ago, that strips the federal licenses of firearms dealers found to have repeatedly violated federal laws and regulations, people briefed on the move said.

Ms. Bondi also ordered Mr. Patel to review two other major policies enacted under the Biden administration, with an eye toward scrapping both. One is a ban on so-called pistol braces used to convert handguns into rifle-like weapons, and the second is a rule requiring background checks on private gun sales.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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Left-wing lawmaker calls Trump a 'mofo,' says some voters 'disqualified' Kamala Harris for 'her race & or sex'

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Left-wing lawmaker calls Trump a 'mofo,' says some voters 'disqualified' Kamala Harris for 'her race & or sex'

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, a vociferous critic of President Donald Trump, referred to America’s sitting commander in chief as a “mofo” in a Wednesday morning post on X.

The term stands for the profanity “motherf—er.”

“Sooo… I’ve said this before. This election was the best example of why (Diversity Equity & Inclusion) matter,” the progressive lawmaker declared, apparently referring to the 2024 presidential contest between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

REP. JASMINE CROCKETT SUGGESTS THE UNITED STATES NEEDS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BECAUSE ‘WE DONE PICKING COTTON’

Rep. Jasmine Crockett and President Donald Trump. (Joy Malone/Getty Images | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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“For some, they just disqualified her simply due to her race & or sex… they never listened to what she had to say & were dismissive & disrespectful, while giving the benefit of the doubt to a mofo who literally said he had ‘concepts’ of a plan & flat out lied about project 2025,” she declared, adding, “He was & still is UNQUALIFIED & UNFIT to lead OUR Country.”

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields has said the congresswoman’s constituents should vote her out of office.

“Crockett and her followers in the Democratic Party are simply all hammer and no nail. When she’s leading the Democrats in ‘oversight,’ that’s when you know the party is in shambles. Her constituents should DOGE her in the next election,” Fields said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital by the White House in response to a comment request on Wednesday. The Dallas Morning News had previously reported Fields’ statement on Tuesday.

ROLLING CONTROVERSY: FAR-LEFT DEM JASMINE CROCKETT FACES WEEK OF BACKLASH AMID ‘UNHINGED’ COMMENTS

Crockett is the vice ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to her government website.

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Trump mentioned Crockett during his Tuesday night speech at a National Republican Congressional Committee event, saying if she is the Democrats’ “new star,” the party is in “serious trouble.”

The left-wing lawmaker declared in a post last week that “Hate won the election!”

JASMINE CROCKETT SETS OFF SOCIAL MEDIA AFTER TOUTING BEING BLACK AS QUALIFICATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENDER JOB

“The hate, for frankly groups of people you’ve probably never met, allowed someone who is trying to hurt us all, even his supporters, ascend and make us less safe domestically, economically, and frankly mentally. WHAT WILL IT TAKE to get his supporters to see that this was wrong and that we, collectively, need to right the ship?!” Crockett asked.

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Commentary: Can Trump's billionaire backers pull him back from the tariff cliff?

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Commentary: Can Trump's billionaire backers pull him back from the tariff cliff?

Many of America’s billionaires and millionaires thought they knew how they would profit from a second Trump term: There would be tax cuts and deregulation and an end to bothersome government investigations.

In other words, a White House sedulously attuned to their interests.

What they didn’t count on, however, was a chaotic and nonsensical tariff policy that threatens to plunge their investment holdings into a bear market — or in some cases, has already done so — and to unravel the global economy in which they made all their money.

What Trump unveiled Wednesday is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools.

— Investment manager Ken Fisher

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Now, many of his erstwhile supporters among America’s plutocrats are screaming for mercy. In interviews and social media postings, and in one case even via a federal lawsuit, they’ve been calling on him to roll back his tariff plans or at least to pause them for several months.

Is he listening? So far, he hasn’t indicated a change in strategy. Whether Trump is open to persuasion or his White House sits behind a figurative barrier against criticism, like the Coulomb barrier that repels protons from an atomic nucleus until they reach a high energy level, isn’t known.

Criticism of the tariffs by Trump’s wealthier supporters has emerged as the investment markets continue to reel over Trump’s tariff plans and his apparent resistance to moderating the levies or his anti-free-trade rhetoric.

One can’t pretend that Trump’s backers haven’t been speaking clearly. Let’s listen in on the backlash from billionaires and the billionaire-adjacent.

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Among the most vociferous is Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot. Langone, whose net worth is estimated at about $9.5 billion by Forbes, is a Trump backer whose political contributions have gone mostly to Republicans, including a $500,000 donation last year to the GOP’s Senate Leadership Fund.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, Langone decried Trump’s tariffs as too large, imposed too hastily, and based on an incoherent mathematical formula.

Langone told the FT that he thought Trump was “poorly advised.” He questioned the math used by the White House to calculate the “reciprocal tariffs” Trump announced on April 2. “I don’t understand the goddamn formula,” he said. “I believe he’s been poorly advised by his advisors about this trade situation — and the formula they’re applying.”

Focusing on how the formula produced a 42% tariff on goods from Vietnam, he called that figure “bulls—. … Forty-six percent on Vietnam? Come on! You might as well tell them, ‘Don’t even bother calling.’” He also called the 34% tariff on China “too aggressive, too soon.” He spoke before Trump threatened to add another 50% to tariffs on goods from China if it pursued plans to retaliate with higher tariffs on U.S. goods.

Langone is not alone in questioning the April 2 formula. Because of a definitional error, according to economists Kevin Corinth and Stan Veuger of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the formula yielded tariffs that are roughly four times too high. The proper rate for Vietnam, they calculated, should be 12.2%, not 46%.

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“The formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law,” Corinth and Veuger wrote. “But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully.”

Among others weighing in on the tariffs was Stanley Druckenmiller, a revered investment manager who once worked for progressive philanthropist George Soros, and was once the mentor and boss of Scott Bessant, Trump’s treasury secretary. In the 2020 election, Druckenmiller contributed $250,000 to the GOP’s Senate Leadership Fund.

In an interview Sunday with CNBC that he later cited in a tweet on X, Druckenmiller said tariffs shouldn’t exceed 10% to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs by targeted countries. Trump’s tariffs start at 10% and go higher from there.

“What Trump unveiled Wednesday,” tweeted billionaire investment manager Ken Fisher, who has contributed to Republicans and Democrats, “is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools. … On tariffs Trump is beyond the pale by a long shot.”

Fisher called the tariff formula “ridiculous” and predicted that “if GOP congress members don’t get Trump’s tariffs reigned in pretty quickly, the midterms … will be a blood bath for them big time.”

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Among the most vociferous critics of the tariffs has been billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who was one of Trump’s most steadfast supporters during the presidential campaign and since the election. But he drew the line at the tariff announcement.

Referring to the plan to begin imposing reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, Ackman tweeted that if “on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.”

He added, “What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don’t know of one who will do so.” He urged Trump to “call a time out.”

Business leaders have also begun speaking out. As I reported earlier, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who earlier this year counseled Americans that Trump’s plans for relatively modest tariff increases were no big deal — “Get over it,” he advised — changed his tune in a his annual letter to JPM shareholders published Monday. There he observed that “the recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.”

Wilbur Ross, an investment banker who served as Commerce Secretary during Trump’s first term, indicated that he was unnerved by the magnitude of the planned tariff hike.

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“It’s more severe than I would have expected,” he told the Financial Times. “Particularly the way it is impacting Vietnam, China and Cambodia is more extreme than I would have thought.” He added, “It’s hard to deal with uncertainty. Fear of the unknown is the worst for people and we are in a period of extreme fear of the unknown.”

Trump’s tariff policy has exposed a serious rift within his inner circle, with conflict between his advisor Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, Trump’s hard-line trade counselor, breaking into the open.

Speaking on CNBC Monday — after Musk called for “a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America” — the opposite of Trump’s approach — Navarro called Musk “not a car manufacturer” but a “car assembler,” referring to Tesla, the electric vehicle maker Musk controls. Navarro’s goal was to imply that Tesla is dependent on imported parts that would be subject to the new tariffs.

Musk responded with tweets in which he called Navarro “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.” The assertion that Tesla relies on imported parts, he wrote, is “demonstrably false.”

The Trump White House downplayed the conflict as a minor spat. “Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

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Another path of attack on Trump’s tariffs was opened last week by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative legal group that has been funded by right-wing sources including the Koch network, the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

The Alliance filed a lawsuit last week asserting that the law Trump cited as giving him power to set tariffs — a power the constitution reserves for Congress — does not, in fact, provide that authority.

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