Politics
Israel's religious right has a clear plan for Gaza: 'We are occupying, deporting and settling'
Carrying planks of plywood, a group of Israeli settlers pushed past soldiers guarding the barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip and quickly got to work. Within minutes, the young men had erected two small buildings — outposts, they said, of a future Jewish settlement in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Their movement had hungered for this moment for years, but now, after Oct. 7, they felt it was just a matter of time before Jews would be living in Gaza again. “It is ours,” said David Remer, 18. “[God] said it is ours.”
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1. Protesters march to a border checkpoint in Kerem Shalom, Israel, hoping to block aid shipments into war-torn Gaza. 2. Israeli troops stand by at Erez Crossing as activists try to enter the military buffer zone into Gaza. 3. Israeli troops remove a protester from a sit-in intended to block shipments of aid into the Gaza Strip.
Religious Zionists, who believe the Jewish people have divine authority to rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, make up only around 14% of Israel’s population. But in recent years they have greatly expanded their influence in the military, the government and society at large, and their often extremist ideology is helping shape Israel’s war against Hamas.
Although they are not politically homogeneous, most religious Zionists embrace far-right views. They loudly oppose a cease-fire deal to bring home Israeli hostages, and have repeatedly blocked humanitarian assistance from entering Gaza by standing in front of aid trucks.
They see the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel as proof of their longtime assertion that peace cannot be made with the Palestinians, and view Gaza as a territory that they have a religious obligation to conquer. Increasingly, they have called for the expulsion of the 2.3 million Palestinians living there.
Jewish settler activists hastily erect outposts inside the Israeli military’s buffer zone for the Gaza Strip at the Erez crossing.
First, they dream of reestablishing Gush Katif, a bloc of Jewish settlements that existed in Gaza until Israel withdrew from the enclave in 2005.
It’s a goal embraced by some of the top leaders in Israel’s far-right government, many of whom appeared at a recent Jerusalem rally pushing for Gaza’s resettlement. While videos played showing Israel’s brutal military assault on the enclave and organizers shared brochures promising new houses with views of the Mediterranean Sea, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sang religious songs alongside participants and told them: “Now is the time to return home.”
On the battlefield, some religious soldiers have recorded themselves dancing with Torah scrolls and waving the orange flags of Gush Katif. Other combatants travel with mezuzahs, small boxes containing biblical Scriptures meant to be hung outside Jewish residences, to affix to Palestinian homes.
Reuven Gal, former chief psychologist for the military and a researcher at the Israel Institute of Technology, says that for many soldiers, the Gaza conflict that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians is “not just a military operation.”
“For them,” he said, “it’s a holy war.”
Top, Settler Avraham Sheinman, overlooking Nablus in the West Bank from Mt. Gerizim, points out passages in his Torah that he says show Jews have a religious obligation to conquer Palestinian territories. Bottom, Yishai Sheinman, left, and father Avraham Sheinman uncover the Torah in a synagogue in Yitzhar, West Bank. Yishai, 27, belongs to a violent extremist group devoted to expanding Israeli control of the region.
Yair Margolis, an army reservist who was called up from his yeshiva studies last year to fight in Gaza, said during a recent break from battle that the war had a clear spiritual dimension.
“Going back to that land is returning home,” he said. “This is where we are from, and this is what we are fighting for.”
It’s a vision starkly at odds with Israel’s mainstream, even as the country’s political center has shifted discernibly to the right in recent years. A January poll by Israel’s Channel 12 broadcaster found that 51% of Israelis oppose building Jewish settlements in Gaza, compared with 38% who support doing so.
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1. Israel’s national security chief and leader of the far-right Jewish Power Party, Itamar Ben-Gvir, center, called at a recent convention for rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza and expanding those in the occupied West Bank. 2. The crowd celebrates at the Jerusalem convention, organized by far-right activists seeking expansion onto more Palestinian land.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-wing populist, has called settling Gaza “unrealistic.” But in 2022, as his ongoing corruption trials left him isolated, Netanyahu made a deal with several religious Zionist parties to form a coalition government, and his political future is now closely tied to theirs.
Beyond a pledge to maintain indefinite military control over Gaza and eventually turn over administrative duties to Palestinians, Netanyahu’s postwar strategy remains murky, leaving a vacuum, political analysts say, that the religious right is eager to fill.
Israeli forces arrive at the Erez border crossing next to the northern Gaza Strip.
In a recent video from Gaza circulated on social media, an Israeli soldier dressed in camouflage stands smiling with a machine gun in front of a bombed-out building. He directly addresses Netanyahu, who is widely known by his nickname “Bibi.”
“We are occupying, deporting and settling,” the soldier says. “Do you hear that, Bibi?”
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During the war in 1967, Israel captured a wide swath of Palestinian land that included the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Almost immediately, Jewish settlers began establishing communities in each of them, displacing Palestinians who lived there.
Tuvia Levy, far right, and Marom Harel, center, look over Palestinian towns from a security outpost in Yitzhar, West Bank. Both men live in West Bank settlements and were called up for reserve duty after Oct. 7.
While the settler movement isn’t composed just of religious people, and over the years it has received backing from both right- and left-wing Israeli governments, it is ideologically driven by practitioners of Orthodox Judaism who believe God gave what they call the Land of Israel exclusively to the Jews.
Unlike the ultra-Orthodox, some of whom oppose the Zionist project and decline to serve in the military, religious Zionists embrace the teachings of rabbis who say believers have a spiritual imperative to expand Israel’s borders.
By 2005, around 8,000 mostly religious Zionists were living in Gaza, often in neighborhoods that resembled Southern California subdivisions, with their orderly rows of red-tile-roofed homes. The settlements were heavily guarded by the military, and residents frequently clashed with their Palestinian neighbors.
Amid growing concerns about high casualties among the troops tasked with protecting the settlements, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered a complete Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. Sharon, who was a supporter of settlers in the West Bank, now instructed soldiers to forcibly remove them from Gaza.
The “disengagement” from Gaza, with its scenes of screaming settlers being pulled from their homes and synagogues, was transformative for religious Zionists. Many vowed to gain more influence in the traditionally secular institutions they felt had betrayed them.
“For them it was a traumatic event,” said Yagil Levy, a professor of political sociology at the Open University of Israel. “They want to erase this trauma by any means.”
Palestinians take in the rubble left by an Israeli airstrike on residential buildings and a mosque in Rafah, Gaza Strip.
(Fatima Shbair / Associated Press)
That meant building a political movement that has sought “to push the government as far right as it can go” and “completely demolish any talk of a Palestinian state,” said political scientist Dahlia Scheindlin. Over time, she said, ideas that once seemed extreme — like expanding settlements in the West Bank — became normalized.
Helping their cause were the country’s changing demographics: Religious Zionists, like the ultra-Orthodox, were having children at a much higher rate than their secular peers.
At the same time, they were making new inroads in the army.
The military academy that has become the West Point for the religious right is built atop a wind-swept hill in the West Bank settlement of Eli. Here, young men wearing yarmulkes spend their days studying both the Torah and military strategy.
For many years, religious Zionist families were hesitant for their sons to fulfill Israel’s mandatory three-year army service, worried that exposure to secular peers would erode their faith. This school, Bnei David, promised to minimize that risk, offering teenage boys a chance to fortify their religious beliefs before entering the military. Its website boasts of starting a “quiet revolution in the Israel Defense Forces.”
Students are taught that God “wants a people of Israel, and there is no state of Israel if there isn’t a strong army,” said Rabbi Eli Sadan, the school’s founder. They’re also taught by instructors who oppose the presence of women in the military and who have described gay people as “sick and perverted.”
Speaking from behind a large desk strewn with rabbinical texts, Sadan said he supports a scorched-earth military strategy in Gaza, “so Israel’s enemies will see the ruins and think: ‘I don’t want to mess with the Jews.’”
He is against the rebuilding of Palestinian society in Gaza, where at least half of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed during Israel’s fierce bombing campaign. “We must eliminate the possibility of Gazans returning,” he said, arguing that displaced civilians should be forced to live in tents for many years until they decide “to emigrate willingly.”
Top, Rabbi Eli Sadan, the founder of the Bnei David military academy, said he supports a scorched-earth strategy in Gaza. Bottom, Students attend a class in a room at Bnei David that honors alumni who died serving in the Israeli military. The school has lost 18 former students in the Gaza war.
Sadan said his school, which recently hosted events with both Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, has produced 3,000 soldiers, more than 50% of whom have risen to the rank of officer or higher. Since the conflict broke out, 18 alumni have died in Gaza.
The rise of religious military academies like this one has dramatically changed the makeup of the army, said Levy, the sociologist. Religious Zionists made up about 3% of officer school graduates in 1990, Levy’s research shows; in 2018, they accounted for over a third.
Levy, who has written about what he calls the “theocratization of the Israeli military,” said the trend has caused conflicts, with some religious soldiers refusing to serve alongside women.
A student does push-ups at the religious and military academy for religious Zionists.
A pressing question, he said, is whether religious soldiers would comply with orders to forcibly remove Jewish residents from a settlement — a scenario that could play out under the creation of a Palestinian state.
Sadan said he teaches his students to always heed commands from military superiors. But during the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, other rabbis called on soldiers to refuse orders, and some did.
“What we see is growing resistance in the ranks,” Levy said. “They’re trying to challenge the formal codes of the military.”
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Those hoping to establish Jewish settlements in Gaza say they will model their strategy on the West Bank, where today 500,000 settlers live among 3 million Palestinians.
Since Oct. 7, tensions here have been simmering as the line between settlers and soldiers has become increasingly blurred.
Reservist Yosef Shalom Sheinman, 30, was called up after Oct. 7 to help protect Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where he lives.
After the Hamas attack in southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists were called up for duty. Many reservists in the West Bank were instructed to don uniforms and guard their own communities.
Among them were Yosef Shalom Sheinman, 30, who is from Har Bracha, a mountain settlement overlooking the Palestinian city of Nablus.
Sheinman’s parents helped found Har Bracha in 1987 amid protests from Jewish leftists and the Palestinians who once grazed sheep here. His younger brother, 27-year-old Yishai, belongs to a famously violent extremist group known as the Hilltop Youth, which is devoted to expanding Israeli control of the region. “These are kids who would eat Arabs for breakfast,” their father says proudly.
For decades, Israeli soldiers have been deployed throughout the West Bank to protect existing settlements, which most of the world considers illegal under international law. But the soldiers are also often instructed to stop the building of illegal settlement outposts. In the past, they sometimes clashed with Yishai Sheinman, tearing down new outposts he and his friends had erected.
Like many religious Zionists, Yishai Sheinman, his wife, Rashid, and their children live in a settlement on Palestinian territory despite the disapproval of Washington and international law.
Now many of the soldiers in the region are his friends — or, in the case of his older brother, his family.
The reservists are not curtailing settlement expansion, the older brother said. Instead, they’re focused on patrolling nearby Palestinian villages — and making sure they aren’t growing. His unit recently cut a new road through a stretch of hillside between a Palestinian hamlet and Har Bracha, in effect claiming the area for the settlement.
“This is our land,” he said. “And God is with us.”
On a recent afternoon, Sheinman stood with his father, Avraham, taking in views sweeping from the peaks of Jordan to the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. Avraham Sheinman clutched a well-worn Torah, which he consulted frequently to highlight passages that he says show Jews have a religious obligation to be here. “We have a commandment to conquer it,” he said.
He spoke of a war with Palestinians, but also of “an inner war” within Israel.
“Who are we? What direction are we going?” he asked. “Are we going in the direction of our destiny as a chosen people in the Land of Israel — as a Jewish state according to Jewish law? Or are we a secular leftist copy of Europe or America?”
Israeli troops try to to stop one of many far-right activists from entering the Erez Crossing military buffer zone into Gaza.
Many on the other side of the political divide view that question with the same urgency.
In an interview with Sky News this month, writer and historian Yuval Noah Harari said the biggest threat to Israel is not Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran, but Jewish extremism: “There is really a battle for the soul of the Israeli nation between patriotism on the one side and ideals of Jewish supremacy on the other.”
It is too early to say exactly how the Hamas attack and the Gaza war will shape that debate. But early indications suggest they have awakened new support for the right.
Protests near the Egyptian border to halt aid delivery into Gaza were first organized by religious Zionists, but now draw secular participants. And while much of the international community holds out hope that the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza will one day be recognized as a Palestinian country, faith among Israelis in a two-state solution has dimmed.
A Tel Aviv University poll found that support for peace negotiations among Israeli Jews had fallen from 48% just before the Hamas attacks to 25% a few weeks after.
Supporters of Jewish settlements talk with Israeli troops in an effort to enter war-ravaged Gaza.
Leaders of the religious right, meanwhile, are using the war as an opportunity to push through extreme policies.
Ben-Gvir, the national security chief, leads the Jewish Power party and has helped arm thousands of Israeli civilians by relaxing restrictions on gun ownership. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party, recently announced plans to expand settlements in the West Bank by more than 3,000 homes. Both Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted of inciting racism and supporting terrorism, live in the West Bank.
Life for Palestinians there has gotten markedly worse since Oct. 7, with more than 600 settler attacks against Palestinians recorded since the war broke out, according to the United Nations, and more than 1,200 Palestinians displaced from their homes.
Palestinian activist Issa Amro lives in the historic center of Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, in the midst of a heavily guarded Jewish settlement.
On the day of the Hamas attack, he was returning from work when several neighbors surprised him in an olive grove and began assaulting him. Some, he said, wore army uniforms probably left over from their military service.
Palestinian Issa Amro says he has lived in fear since he was assaulted by settlers, then detained and beaten at a military base. He’s surrounded in Hebron, West Bank, by a heavily guarded settlement.
Amro was then taken to a military base, where he says he was detained for 10 hours and beaten.
He said he lives in fear. Every day he passes former Palestinian businesses shuttered by settlers, as well as a sign that says: “We’re occupying Gaza now.”
“Every meter I walk, I think I may be shot,” he said.
Amro said he doesn’t blame the settlers so much as the political leaders who have allowed the settlements to flourish. He pointed to Netanyahu, who allied with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and to Donald Trump, who as president abandoned Washington’s long-held position that West Bank settlements violate international law. “Netanyahu made them mainstream,” Amro said. “The Trump administration made them mainstream.”
An Israeli soldier orders Palestinian children in the West Bank city of Hebron to go back inside, barring them from playing on the street.
President Biden has since reversed the U.S. stance on West Bank settlements — and recently imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers for carrying out violence against Palestinians. And Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken says Washington opposes the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel and any reduction of the Palestinian territory’s size.
Joel Carmel, a former Israeli soldier who is now a peace activist, said the future of Jewish settlements in Gaza may depend on who wins the U.S. election in November.
“Probably the only thing holding back the resettlement of Gaza is the Biden administration,” he said. “And who knows how long that’s going to last.”
Many Palestinians in the West Bank think it’s only matter of time before Israeli settlers move permanently into Gaza.
Areej Al Jaabari, who lives in Hebron, West Bank, points toward the settlement where Israel’s national security minister lives.
Areej Al Jaabari, a mother in Hebron, has watched as settlements have crept ever closer to her family home. Ben-Gvir lives in a sprawling suburban community she can see from her living room window.
“They’re gradually accomplishing their goals,” she said of the settlers. “Eventually they will control everything in Gaza too.”
Linthicum reported from Jerusalem and from Yitzhar, Har Bracha and Hebron in the West Bank. Times staff photojournalist Marcus Yam contributed to this report from Erez Crossing, Israel.
During his first administration, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s global business empire created an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest for a sitting president. Ethics experts worried that opportunists could try to curry favor by booking stays at Mr. Trump’s network of hotels, golf clubs and other properties.
Their predictions bore out: Foreign governments and lobbyists spent lavishly at his Washington hotel, which has since been sold, as well as at his Mar-a-Lago resort and other properties. The federal government itself also became an awkward customer by renting millions of dollars’ worth of rooms at his hotels and clubs.
Those concerns now seem almost quaint in light of some of Mr. Trump’s more recent business ventures. They include a publicly traded company, a cryptocurrency venture, new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities and numerous branding and licensing deals.
The new additions to Mr. Trump’s portfolio could provide more direct avenues for those wishing to influence a sitting president or even to try to extort him, according to some outside ethics lawyers.
Some of the new international real estate deals are among the most potentially worrisome.
Several of Mr. Trump’s recent real estate projects have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East, raising concerns that Mr. Trump’s financial interests could influence foreign policy.
Many of the contracts that the Trump family has negotiated overseas since Mr. Trump left office are so-called branding deals. The Trump family sells its name to international developers that build residential and resort complexes and sell luxury units at a premium, they hope, based on Mr. Trump’s perceived star power.
One of the developments, a luxury hotel and golf course complex in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman, is being built on land owned by the country’s government. That project and three others are proceeding in partnership with a subsidiary of a Saudi-based real estate company, Dar Al Arkan, which has close ties with the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia has a long list of pressing matters before the United States, including requests to buy F-35 fighter jets and gain access to nuclear power technology.
Oman also plays an important role in the Middle East, often serving as a middleman between the United States and Iran.
It is extremely unusual, historians say, for any U.S. president to be involved in family business deals with a foreign government nexus at the same time as he is managing foreign policy matters that affect that same nation.
A new cryptocurrency business introduces an entirely different set of ethics concerns.
Last fall, the Trump family helped launch World Liberty Financial, a platform for investors to borrow and lend using cryptocurrencies. The Trump family members are not owners or officers in the company, but they have an agreement to be paid for helping promote it.
After getting off to a rocky start, the company got a boost in the form of a $30 million token purchase by Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency executive who has been targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on fraud claims unrelated to World Liberty Financial. Mr. Sun has moved to dismiss the case.
As of November, World Liberty claimed to have at least 20,000 token holders who have bought a stake in what the company calls a “platform inspired by Donald J. Trump.” These purchases were made even though the tokens — at least for now — cannot be resold, meaning they have no immediate value to the buyers.
But the purchases, made by individuals whose names are not public, should generate tens of millions of dollars in payments to the Trump family, according to company filings.
Mr. Trump has already seen the effect he can have on the cryptocurrency market. When he announced his pick for S.E.C. chairman, the crypto advocate and lawyer Paul Atkins, Bitcoin value surged above $100,000 for the first time in its history. Mr. Trump immediately moved to claim credit for the milestone. “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU’RE WELCOME!!! Together, we will Make America Great Again!,” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Mr. Trump himself, according to his 2024 financial disclosure, owned as much as $5 million worth of Ethereum, a token second only to Bitcoin in popularity. That cryptocurrency has also surged in value since the election.
The new leadership at the S.E.C. is likely to decide on rules that could significantly increase the value of Ethereum, Bitcoin and tokens at World Liberty Financial. They could also pave the way for the company to market its coins to a wider swath of the public,, which would potentially generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional payouts to Mr. Trump and his family.
A publicly traded company presents another avenue for persuasion.
Last spring, Trump Media & Technology Group, which is the parent company of Truth Social and the president-elect’s single greatest source of wealth, went public. Buying company shares is another new way special interests could try to sway Mr. Trump, its largest shareholder.
For instance, corporations and others could buy shares in the company or advertise on Truth Social. And while foreigners are not allowed by law to make campaign contributions to Mr. Trump, there is no limit on their ability to buy large chunks of stock in his company, perhaps in an effort to intentionally push up the stock’s value and further enrich the Trump family. Mr. Trump did recently transfer his ownership stake in Trump Media to a trust controlled by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
As president, Mr. Trump will also be in a unique position to drive traffic — and ultimately revenue — to Truth Social, whose parent company has been struggling to make money.
He has an agreement with Truth Social to post certain types of content on Truth Social first, before posting to other platforms, like Elon Musk’s X.
Most news releases about cabinet picks and other appointments during the Trump-Vance transition have provided links to a corresponding Truth Social post.
Mr. Trump’s name is on an array of new items, some quite expensive.
Then there are the numerous new merchandise licensing deals, which may not give purchasers a direct line to attempt to influence geopolitics but certainly line Mr. Trump’s own pockets. Since leaving the White House, Mr. Trump has lent his name and image to dozens of products.
- Bibles and other books. A version of the Bible with Mr. Trump’s signature is available for $1,000.
- fragrances. Several of these licensed perfumes and colognes bear golden likenesses of Mr. Trump.
- Trump digital trading cards. Mr. Trump reported making more than $7 million for these “nonfungible tokens,” or NFTs, which depict Trump as a superhero, an astronaut and other characters
- sneakers. “Trump 47 Crypto President Low Tops” and “Inauguration High-Tops” are among the dozens of styles for sale
- watches. One model of watch bearing Mr. Trump’s name costs $100,000.
- guitars. Prices start at $1,000 and go as high as $11,500 for an autographed guitar
The list of such products seems to be growing. It includes three recent books, the first of which relied largely on photos taken by White House photographers, which Mr. Trump repackaged and is now selling for as much as $500 a copy. Mr. Trump more recently has moved to selling Trump Digital Trading Cards, which brought in more than $7 million, according to his latest financial disclosure. He also has helped sell Bibles, earning a cut of the profits. It remains unclear if these merchandise sales benefiting Mr. Trump will continue while he is president.
Almost all of the real estate holdings and deals from Mr. Trump’s first term remain active.
Mr. Trump has an extensive network of assets that he held during his previous term and is carrying into his second, excluding several properties that have been sold since 2017.
In the United States, there are golf clubs and resorts …
- Mar-a-Lago. A membership at Mar-a-Lago currently costs $1 million, triple the price from 2017
- Trump International West Palm Beach
- Trump National Bedminster
- Trump National Charlotte
- Trump National Colts Neck
- Trump National Doral. During his last term, Mr. Trump proposed hosting the Group of 7 summit at Doral.
- Trump National Hudson Valley
- Trump National Jupiter
- Trump National Los Angeles
- Trump National Washington, D.C.
- Trump National Westchester
- Trump National Philadelphia
… and hotels and residential and commercial properties. Mr. Trump owns some in full or part; others use his name in exchange for a fee.
- 40 Wall Street
- Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago
- 6 East 57th Street
- Trump Park Residences
- Trump Tower. A three-story penthouse in Trump Tower was Mr. Trump’s primary residence for decades.
- Trump Palace
- Albemarle Estate
- Estates at Trump National
- 555 California Street
- Trump International Hotel & Tower Las Vegas. Trump International Hotel & Tower, New York City
- Trump Grande
- 1290 Avenue of the Americas
- Trump Towers Sunny Isles
- Trump Park Avenue
- Trump Plaza, New Rochelle, N.Y.
- Park Tower Stamford
- 610 Park Ave.
- Trump Parc
- Trump Parc East.
Overseas, Mr. Trump owns or has branding deals with more than a dozen properties that were also in play during his first administration.
- Trump Tower Philippines
- Trump Tower Kolkata
- Several properties in South Korea
- Trump Turnberry
- Château des Palmiers
- Trump International Golf Links & Hotel
- Trump International Scotland
- Trump Tower Punte Del Este
- Trump International Golf Club & Resort, Lido, Indonesia
- Trump International Golf Club & Resort, Bali, Indonesia
- Trump World Golf Club
- Trump International Golf Club Dubai
- Trump Tower Mumbai
- Trump Towers Delhi NCR
- Trump Towers Pune
- Trump Towers
And he continues to hold a stake in about half a dozen other assets.
- Online store. The official retail website of the Trump Organization sells hundreds of Trump-branded products, from hats to wine glasses.
- Retail store. The store is located in Trump Tower.
- Aviation: private aircraft
- Royalties. Mr. Trump still pulls in royalties from “The Apprentice” and books like “The Art of the Deal”
- Trump International Realty
- a real estate company.
Before the start of his first term, Mr. Trump made some attempts to distance himself from his businesses.
He said he would place his business holdings in a trust, but the trust was controlled by his two oldest sons instead of an independent entity, which is more the norm. He pledged that there would be “no new deals” by his company involving international real estate projects while he was in the White House.
This month, the Trump family issued an updated ethics pledge that revived many of the earlier promises with one key distinction: The Trump family intends to continue to do new international real estate deals, as long as the counterparties are not foreign governments themselves.
Eric Trump, the family member most responsible for overseeing the Trump Organization and its new deals, said the family is committed to avoiding any transactions that exploit connections to the White House. The company has appointed a well-known outside ethics lawyer, a former federal prosecutor and corporate lawyer named William A. Burck, to review any new contracts worth more than $10 million. “The Trump Organization is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s presidency,” Eric Trump said in a statement.
Legal questions loom.
Certain ethics lawyers have argued that some of Mr. Trump’s conflicts of interest are not only a problem, but that they also represent a violation of the so-called emoluments clause in the Constitution, which prohibits a president from certain payments from any foreign government. The president and vice president are not exempt from this provision, as they are from conflict of interest laws that require other senior federal officials to divest from companies that might benefit from their official actions.
Several lawsuits filed against Mr. Trump during his first term argued that he had violated the emoluments clause by accepting payments at the Trump hotel he then owned in Washington, among other business operations.
His first term ended before the federal court system could definitively rule on questions related to emoluments, although the courts did ultimately allow the cases to proceed, suggesting that it remained possible that the outcome could have been against Mr. Trump.
But the clock ran out and the Supreme Court ruled that the cases were moot as soon as he left office. The legal fight would have to start all over again, but there is likely to be an allegation that the Trump Organization’s continued business deals through some of its subsidiaries with foreign governments is unconstitutional or illegal, these ethics lawyers said.
In the past 50 years, incoming U.S. presidents have voluntarily taken steps to disentangle themselves from any activities that could be perceived as a conflict of interest or moneymaking venture during their time in office.
Jimmy Carter turned over his peanut farm to a trust, which he learned after he left the White House was deeply in debt. Ronald Reagan announced within two weeks of his inauguration that he had sold off all of his investments, other than his ranch and another home, converting these holdings to cash that was then managed by an independent trustee. Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife put her Texas radio and television holdings in a trust.
But these issues have created questions before — a point Mr. Trump’s family and lawyer raised this month when they laid out Mr. Trump’s own ethics plan. When George Washington was president, the Trump lawyers noted, he continued to own a business that exported flour and cornmeal to Europe and the Caribbean. In the 1970s, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller maintained a stake in Standard Oil, which his grandfather founded.
In Mr. Trump’s case, questions about real or potential conflicts extend beyond the president-elect.
His oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., announced recently that he is joining the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, which focuses on investing in conservative companies and could see its business boosted as a result of its ties to the first family. Mr. Trump’s son Barron is playing a role in World Liberty Financial, as are Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, according to disclosure documents.
And Jared Kushner, the president-elect’s son-in-law, runs a private equity firm called Affinity Partners that has raised $4.5 billion, mostly from sovereign wealth funds of the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, based on relationships he built while in the White House during Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Kushner does not plan to return to the White House. But his ties to Mr. Trump will create new ethics concerns as he continues to make investments over the next four years, including luxury hotel deals in Albania and Serbia, where the governments there are his partners.
Most of these potential conflicts did not exist the first time Mr. Trump was in office. It all means these kinds of questions are only going to be more intense this White House term.
Debates over President-elect Trump’s inaugural crowd size notably generated controversy back in 2017, with the White House insisting the media underreported Trump’s numbers.
With his swearing-in now being moved indoors because of harsh winter weather, Trump is likely to avoid any questions about attendance this time around.
Fox News on Friday learned that Trump’s inauguration would be moved indoors because of icy temperatures forecast for Washington, D.C. on Monday. Trump announced that he had ordered his inaugural address and other ceremonial prayers and speeches be held in the United States Capitol Rotunda to protect people from harm.
“The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
TRUMP TO BE INAUGURATED INSIDE: LAST CEREMONY HELD INDOORS WAS REAGAN’S IN 1985
The U.S. Capitol Building is surrounded by fencing and bollards in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Preparations are being made for President-elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday. (Fox News Digital)
“There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!),” he continued.
Trump also said the Capital One Arena will be open Monday for live viewing of his inauguration “and to host the Presidential Parade.”
“I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing in,” Trump wrote.
RNC CHAIR WHATLEY VOWS TO BE ‘TIP OF THE SPEAR’ TO PROTECT TRUMP AFTER COASTING TO RE-ELECTION VICTORY
The Inaugural Committee confirmed Trump’s statements, saying the ceremony would be moved inside the U.S. Capitol to the Rotunda, a committee spokesperson said.
With attendees no longer being able to gather outside in the cold, any photo op for Trump and a record crowd is likely out of the picture, and so is any chance for people to dispute Trump’s claimed crowd size like in 2017.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer lambasted the press shortly after President-elect Trump’s first inauguration following inaccurate reporting about the crowd size. (The Associated Press)
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer lambasted the press shortly after Trump’s first inauguration, accusing media outlets of inaccurate reporting on the crowd size.
The day after the inauguration, Spicer said “photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall.”
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He also said at the time that “Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out.”
“These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong,” Spicer said.
The Washington Post reported at the time that Trump had called the acting director of the National Park Service on his first day in office to dispute the photos circulating online of his inaugural crowd size.
President Biden also faced crowd-size barriers during his inauguration in 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions in place. (Getty Images)
President Biden also faced crowd-size barriers during his inauguration in 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions in place. His ceremony was sparsely attended and included former presidents and first ladies. Attendees wore face masks and many failed to abide by social distancing guidelines, with several seen high-fiving and hugging.
The last inauguration ceremony to be moved indoors was President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in January 1985. Reagan took the oath of office at the White House the day before the ceremony, while public events the following day were held inside due to temperatures hitting 7 degrees with a windchill of -40.
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo, Peter Doocy, Chad Pergram and Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.
The Supreme Court has paved the way for TikTok to be banned in the U.S. on Sunday.
The high court on Friday upheld a new law that requires the social media app’s Chinese owner to sell off TikTok’s U.S. business or face a nationwide ban.
“Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote. “All I can say is that, at this time and under these constraints, the problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional.”
The future of the popular short-form video app has been precarious since 2020, when then-President Trump moved to shut it down because of national security concerns. Trump and others raised the prospect that TikTok owner ByteDance could assist the Chinese government by sharing the data it collects from its roughly 170 million American users, embedding malicious software in the app or helping to spread disinformation.
After President Biden signed the law in April, which set a Jan. 19 deadline for the ban to take effect, TikTok responded by suing the U.S. government. The company said a ban would violate 1st Amendment rights and argued that there was “no support for the idea” that its Chinese ownership posed national security risks.
What will happen over the next few days is unclear. On Thursday the Associated Press, citing an unnamed government official, reported that Biden won’t enforce the ban and would leave the app’s fate to Trump, who takes office Monday.
Was the decision expected?
Pretty much. The Supreme Court justices sounded highly skeptical of TikTok’s free-speech defense during oral arguments on Jan. 10, signaling they were not likely to strike down the law.
The justices, both conservative and liberal, said Congress was concerned about the threat to national security because TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is headquartered in China. They said the law in question was not an effort to restrict freedom of speech.
“Congress doesn’t care about what’s on TikTok,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said. “Congress is not fine with a foreign adversary gathering all this data on 170 million Americans.”
Can I still download the app?
No, as of Sunday, it will be illegal for app stores such as Apple and Google Play to distribute TikTok or issue updates to the social media app. Companies that don’t abide face civil penalties of $5,000 per user.
You won’t be able to access TikTok from your browser, either.
What if I already have TikTok?
You’ll still have the app on your mobile device, but ByteDance might immediately shut it down in the U.S. on Sunday. Even if it doesn’t go dark right away, TikTok is expected to lose utility over time as users leave and updates aren’t rolled out.
What is Trump’s position now?
Trump has reversed course on TikTok since his first term, joining the social media app in June during his presidential election and posting, “Those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump.”
In recent weeks, the president-elect has been trying to prevent the app from being banned in the U.S., submitting an amicus brief to the Supreme Court and asking it to delay the Jan. 19 deadline. He also met with TikTok Chief Executive Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago last month.
Shortly after the Supreme Court decision was released, Trump posted on his Truth Social account: “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”
In a TikTok video posted Friday morning, Chew said: “I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States. This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
Could Trump stop the ban from going into effect?
The timing of the ban — the day before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 — makes things tricky. Only the sitting president can issue a 90-day stay on the ban and can do so only if a buyer has taken concrete steps toward a purchase.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Chew is planning to attend Trump’s inauguration and will be seated on the dais.
Is a last-minute sale of TikTok possible?
It could happen, but ByteDance’s priority had been to get the law struck down and maintain ownership of the app. The company has signaled that it does not want to sell.
Are there any serious bidders out there for TikTok’s U.S. business?
On Jan. 8, an investor group spearheaded by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt submitted an offer to ByteDance, the group said. The group is calling itself the People’s Bid for TikTok and includes Kevin O’Leary, one of the investors from the reality television show “Shark Tank.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
What is the People’s Bid for TikTok pledging to do with the app?
If its offer is successful, the group would rebuild the platform in a way that prioritizes the privacy of TikTok users, said Tomicah Tillemann, president of Project Liberty, a New York-based organization that assembled the bid.
“What we are focused on is providing a clear path forward that will allow for the preservation of the dynamic, vibrant community that is TikTok under American ownership,” he said.
“Our vision for TikTok is grounded in the idea that people should have a choice in how their data is used, a voice in the way platforms operate and a stake in the economic value that they create online.”
Anyone else?
On Monday, social media personality MrBeast wrote on X: “Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned.” He later followed up and said he’d had “so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off.”
The same day, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese government was considering selling the U.S. arm of TikTok to Elon Musk. But in a statement to The Times, a spokesperson for TikTok called the report “pure fiction.”
How are TikTok influencers feeling?
Los Angeles is a major hub for content creators, who say they’ve been preparing for this moment for years.
Nathan Kehn, 35, joined TikTok about four years ago, posting cat videos and other funny content. He said he was disappointed that the government could “just come through and wipe out people’s livelihoods like that.”
“It’s super unfair,” he said of the ban. “A lot of my friends are all TikTok and this is about to ruin a lot of people’s lives.”
Kehn, who lives in Sherman Oaks and has about 800,000 TikTok followers, started planning ahead by growing his Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat accounts just in case TikTok was forced to shut down.
“Part of being a social media content creator is I’ve never put my eggs in one basket because I don’t know how long any of it’s ever going to last,” he said. “I learned a long time ago, you can’t trust one platform.”
What would happen to TikTok’s employees locally?
TikTok has a significant presence in Culver City, employing roughly 440 people there, according to city estimates. The company has been an important tool for video creators, small businesses, music artists and Hollywood studios.
In an internal memo obtained by The Verge this week, employees were told that TikTok’s offices would stay open regardless.
“The bill is not written in a way that impacts the entities through which you are employed, only the US user experience [of TikTok],” the memo said.
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