Lutnick: EU Trade Representatives Wouldn't Talk Until Trump Threatened 50% Tariff

 Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spoke about how President Trump's tariff threats brought EU negotiators to the table during an interview with Charlie Kirk on Tuesday.

CHARLIE KIRK: Even the mainstream media, who hates us, is bragging on this trade deal.

CNN: The early reviews are in on the new trade deal announced with the European Union... The Financial Times says the deal marks a victory for Trump... Is this a fantastic deal then, struck by Donald Trump? Absolutely a victory on behalf of the Trump administration... The bottom line is, this is the biggest trade deal in President Trump's effort to effectively reshape the global trading order... On this deal with the European Union, this is a big win for the US... The bigger picture is that Trump is still very much pursuing his longer-term goal of achieving what he perceives to be fairness for America... It's a triumph of a lot of things... Certainly, the president ought to take a victory lap, BUT I think it ends up being good for the European Union.

KIRK: I mean, Secretary Lutnick, they’re doing my job for me. Your reaction?

SECRETARY LUTNICK: I mean, that's why I have the most fun job in the cabinet. You know, I get to set the table.

I mean, I met with European Union representatives 40 times, and in the beginning, they were basically giving me the middle finger. We were nowhere. They wouldn't even respond to us.

And they didn’t respond until Donald Trump sent them a letter saying, you know, if you're not going to respond—pay 50%. And then all of a sudden, that changed, right? They started responding.

And then he sent them another letter saying, "Look, you guys are doing a little bit—so 30%." And then, boom, off we went until they offered to open their markets completely, pay us 15%.

But the key to why they did that is the sectoral tariffs—the tariffs on autos, the tariffs that are coming on pharmaceuticals, the tariffs that are coming on semiconductors—because Donald Trump is the biggest, the US is the biggest customer in the world.

We were going to take all those industries back to America. And basically, what he told Europe was, "If you want to keep half, you better do a deal with me."

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/07/30/lutnick_eu_trade_representatives_wouldnt_talk_until_trump_threatened_50_tariff.html

The end of the homeless industrial complex

 “The purpose of a system is what it does,” British theorist Stafford Beer once observed. For decades, federal and state governments poured tens of billions of dollars into programs to reduce homelessness, providing free housing and treatment later. Thousands of jobs were created at nonprofit organizations in cities across the country, and millions of dollars in campaign donations were recycled back to the Democratic Party, but instead of falling, the homeless population rose to a record high of 771,480 last year.

The Supreme Court took the first step in restoring sanity to streets and parks last year when it overturned a 9th Circuit decision holding that homeless people had an Eighth Amendment right to vagrancy. Under Grants Pass v. Johnson, local governments may now arrest people who camp in public spaces without authorization. More than 100 cities have taken the resulting opportunity to crack down on homeless encampments, which are usually drug markets that befoul their communities with crime, disease, and stench.

President Donald Trump has now taken the next logical and welcome step to eliminate the homeless industrial complex. Last week, he issued an executive order, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” The federal government does not have direct control over state laws governing public spaces, drug treatment, or involuntary incarceration. But the departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money every year on grant programs for which states must apply to receive money. Trump’s executive order directs federal agencies to change grant criteria so that states sticking with the old, failed, housing-first faith are denied federal funds. 

Under the new standards, states and cities will have to show they enforce prohibitions on public drug use, enforce bans on urban camping and squatting, and create systems in which people who are a danger to themselves are removed from the streets and placed in institutions to get the substance abuse or mental health treatment they need.

“Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” the order explains. “Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.”

Trump’s order also calls for a ban on federal funding of all “harm reduction” programs, in which nonprofit groups give drug abusers kits including clean needles, condoms, and other drug paraphernalia that foster and perpetuate addiction. The assembly and distribution of such kits have always been a staple of the homeless industrial complex. 

The era of throwing taxpayer dollars at homelessness without accountability is coming to an end. For too long, entrenched interests, including nonprofit organizations, bureaucrats, and the Democratic Party, have profited from failure. They have built an industry on managing homelessness rather than solving it. Trump’s executive order rightly demands results, not rhetoric. 

Cities and states will now have to choose: continue enabling open-air drug markets and encampments, or take meaningful steps to restore public safety and human dignity by enforcing laws, removing addicts and the severely mentally ill from the streets, and offering real treatment in secure facilities. Compassion means not allowing people to die on sidewalks. Compassion is having the courage to intervene. 

The homelessness crisis has grown under a model that prioritized ideology over evidence. With more than three-quarters of a million people suffering without shelter, and communities buckling under the weight of disorder, the federal government must reward policies that work. Grants Pass v. Johnson opened the door. Trump’s action walks through it. 

Now it’s up to governors and mayors to decide whether they want to keep propping up a failed system or end the homeless industrial complex once and for all. The public and the homeless themselves deserve better.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3482359/end-of-homeless-industrial-complex/

With Harris Out, X Factor Looms in ’26 CA Governor’s Race

 With Kamala Harris opting out of the 2026 race for governor of California, attention now turns to the remaining announced Democratic candidates in the field in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.

There are six significant and arguably viable Democrats running, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis; Tony Thurmond, the incumbent state superintendent of public instruction; former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra (also a former attorney general of California and member of Congress); former member of Congress Katie Porter; Toni Atkins, a former president pro tem of the state Senate and former speaker of the Assembly; former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (also a former Assembly speaker); and Betty Yee, current vice chair of the California Democratic Party and a two-term state controller.

There are also two or three other unproven Democrats who have announced, none of whom have ever held public office. And there might be other Democrats who jump in, too, spying an opportunity now that Harris is out.

For the time being, there will likely be no obvious frontrunner among the current field, with all currently polling in the single digits, and none of them comes with significant statewide name identification or political base. In a recent poll conducted by the University of California Irvine, released in early July, every one of the Democratic candidates other than Harris were in single digits – and the leader after Harris, with only 9%, was someone who isn’t even a candidate at the moment: Los Angeles businessman Rick Caruso, who ran for mayor there in 2022.

Kounalakis, despite being the incumbent lieutenant governor and having been elected to the office twice, came in at a measly 2%. Porter, who ran for the U.S. Senate in last year’s statewide primary election, showed up at just 6%. Sitting Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond, also a state officeholder in his second term, didn’t even register.

But there is a big X factor hanging out there for all of the candidates not named Eleni Kounalakis: the prospect of her super-rich father, Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, starting to throw millions of dollars into a putative independent expenditure to buy her name ID and try to move her into position as a leader in the polls. Word on the street for quite some time – spread by Kounalakis’ supporters themselves, apparently to make the rest of the field think twice – is that Tsakopoulos has parked $50 million he is willing to spend to try to buy her the governorship.

And lest anyone write this off as an idle threat, let’s not forget that he outright bought Kounalakis her current job in 2018. He poured more money into a so-called independent expenditure on her behalf than was raised and spent in total by her Democratic run-off opponent in the race for lieutenant governor, Sen. Ed Hernandez, who was 10 times more qualified than she was.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s political campaign-spending watchdog and regulator, has made crystal clear that any attempt by an immediate family member to fund a putative independent expenditure is presumed to be “at the behest of,” and coordinated with, the candidate it’s intended to benefit – and thus a violation of the California Political Reform Act.

And, come on, one’s own father would be one of the most immediate family members. It defies reason and common sense that a candidate’s own parent, who lives in the same city, who’s the grandparent of her kids, whose company she ran for years, and which is still paying her, could conduct a truly independent expenditure without any communication or coordination with his own daughter – which is the determinant of whether an expenditure is actually independent of the candidate.

They got away with it in 2018 because Kounalakis’ Democratic run-off opponent declined to file a complaint or raise hell about it, which he was fervently urged to do by those of us who understand the law and knew it didn’t pass the smell test as a truly independent expenditure.

And lest we Democrats forget, Kounalakis and her father already stuck us with one terrible nominee for governor, their business crony Phil Angelides in 2006. He was on the ropes in the Democratic primary, out of money and off the air, way behind a far better candidate. Then the two of them came in overnight with a $10 million so-called independent expenditure that saved Angelides, got him back on TV, and won him the nomination. After running an atrocious campaign, he got creamed that November by 17 points, in an otherwise great year for Democrats, in which they took back both the U.S. Senate and House, and won a majority of governorships.

Democrats should expect and demand that the remaining candidates for governor fight it out fairly and squarely, making their best case to the voters, using their fundraising success as one measure of their appeal to the Democratic electorate, and ultimately to the state of California.

The governorship of the largest state, with more people than the continent of Australia, and an economy that is the fourth largest in the world, should not be determined by a filthy rich sugar daddy – quite literally – putting his moneyed thumb on the scale.

Garry South is a veteran Democratic strategist who has run four campaigns for governor of California, including both of Gray Davis’ winning races, Steve Westly’s primary campaign in 2006, and Gavin Newsom’s first race for governor in 2008-09, before he withdrew from the race. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/01/with_harris_out_x_factor_looms_in_26_ca_governors_race_153124.html

What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?

 

By M. Walter

This May 16, 2016, quote from Nancy Pelosi has haunted me:

“Donald Trump is not going to be President of the United States. Take it to the bank, I guarantee it.”

All these years, I’ve wondered, how could she be so certain?  This wasn’t just the usual campaign hyperbole. Her phrasing was a simple noun-verb construction, nakedly declarative, and absolutely certain. She left herself absolutely no wiggle room for later, just in case. Seasoned politicians don’t do that sort of thing typically, and Nancy Pelosi is most definitely seasoned. So why??  Why do it?

We may have gotten our answer.

The long-classified annex from the Durham report was declassified this Thursday. What it tells us is that the clock, as it were, on when the organizational malfeasance -- the coup -- against Donald Trump began may have to be ratcheted back months.

Down at the bottom of the now-declassified page in this X post is a paragraph from hacked emails the Russians had exfiltrated in March of 2016:

…The Clinton staff, with support from special services is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and ‘The Russian Mafia.’  Currently, they are studying his connections…

Ironically, these are the first actual Russian-hacked emails we have proof of after all these years! As you may recall, the DNC “hack” has never been proven, as the FBI has never examined the hard drives.

The internet is now speculating what “special services” means, but I know what I read it to mean, in the context (you’ll see it in a moment) of the entire document:  the FBI. 

Now, where did this information come from? Whose hacked email are we talking about?

According to Fox: Soros's alleged ties to Russiagate exposed in declassified annex of Durham report.

No, it was not ​one of Soros's emails, but that of one of his suits: A Mr. Leonard Benardo, Regional Director for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations.

This was March of 2016, two months before Pelosi’s statement. (And fully four months before the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, which, officially, was July 31, 2016.) So let’s think about the great Resistance food chain:  who is higher up? Leonard Bernardo? Or Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives?

Durham’s appendix states that the Clinton campaign "might have wanted or expected the FBI or other agencies to aid that effort (‘put more gasoline onto the fire’) by commencing a formal investigation of the DNC hack.”

Obviously, this was a wide-ranging conspiracy. There were many, many people involved, all with admirable (such as it is) discipline to have kept the secret for so long. Only now, due to documents, are we finally, at long last, seeing the dots connect, and it appears one connects right through the Democrat doyenne of San Francisco, one Nancy Pelosi.

“Donald Trump is not going to be President of the United States. Take it to the bank, I guarantee it.”

No wonder she was so certain. With George Soros on the outside and the FBI on the inside, how could she lose?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/what_did_nancy_pelosi_know_and_when_did_she_know_it.html

Russia collusion hoax: Soros rears his ugly head

 

By Monica Showalter

Given the penchant for creating chaos that is the hallmark of George Soros and his minions, it ought not surprise anyone that the Soros organization, known as the Open Society Foundation, has turned up in a new trove of documents indicating how the Russian collusion hoax against President Trump dogged his first term.

According to this declassified memo, found in a 'burn bag' at the FBI:

Soros operative Benardo proposed the Russia collusion hoax and Hillary Clinton approved it. Assuming the memo is true, from there on out, it set off a course of events that hobbled Trump's first term, ruined the lives of many people who were close to him, and demonstrated the level of corruption found in the FBI, of the kind that no one would have suspected, such as altering documents to win FISA approvals from judges.

Soros, of course, loathes Republicans, and has been close to the Clintons or years. But the bigger question is how much this Russia collusion hoax, smearing Russia, too, for things it didn't do, was connected to the war in Ukaine, which somehow Putin launched, in response to something he considered a provocation. Was Soros behind that, too? He has clashed with Putin for years?

If so, it signals an unspeakable trail of destruction, all for a lie, and all for the hatred of President Trump and the Americans who elected him.

It's time for an investigation as to how legal and deep and destructive this really was.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/russia_collusion_hoax_soros_rears_his_ugly_head.html

Court allows Trump to end union bargaining for federal workers

A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a judge's order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump's administration from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to engage in union bargaining with U.S. agencies.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold an injunction issued by a lower court judge that had been obtained by six unions including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco in June had issued the injunction blocking 21 agencies from implementing Trump's March executive order exempting many federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions.

Donato concluded Trump's order retaliated against unions deemed critical of the president and that had sued over his efforts to overhaul the government, including the mass firings of agency employees, violating their right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

But the 9th Circuit panel said Trump's order on its face "does not express any retaliatory animus," and it agreed with the Trump administration that the president "would have taken the same action even in the absence of the protected conduct."

The 9th Circuit panel included U.S. Circuit Judge John Owens, an Obama appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judges Bridget Bade and Daniel Bress, two Trump appointees. Another federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., had in May paused a similar order that had also blocked Trump's order.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley in a statement called the Friday ruling "a setback for First Amendment rights in America." The 9th Circuit put the injunction on hold pending a further appeal, and Kelley said the union is "confident in our ability to ultimately prevail."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's order exempted more than a dozen federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions. They include the Departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.

Eliminating collective bargaining would allow agencies to alter working conditions and fire or discipline workers more easily, and it could prevent unions from challenging Trump administration initiatives in court.

Trump's executive order exempted agencies that he said "have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work," from collective bargaining obligations, significantly expanding an existing exception for workers with duties implicating national security.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/court-allows-trump-end-union-234002927.html

‘Make America Healthy Again’ is winning young voters — Democrats should worry

 Could RFK Jr. prove to be the Trump administration’s secret weapon?

Recent polling shows Americans trust Republicans over Democrats on nearly every major issue confronting our country: the economy, immigration, foreign policy and inflation. The two areas where Democrats hold the upper hand is health care and vaccines.

RFK Jr. has a shot of undermining that advantage, especially with young voters.  

Although the Health and Human Services secretary has been relentlessly blasted by the liberal media for being “anti-vaccine” (which Kennedy denies), a great many Americans like Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda and agree that corporate interests are helping to make Americans sick and overly reliant on pharmaceuticals.  

A poll conducted by NBC News last month (in which Trump earned only a 45 percent job approval) showed that a majority of the country (51 percent) liked what RFK is doing, whereas only 48 percent disapproved. Interestingly, when asked who was to blame for America’s chronic health problems, including obesity and heart disease, a plurality of respondents blamed the food industry.

Much of RFK’s agenda makes sense. A New York Times author last fall set out to debunk five of Kennedy’s main claims about the nation’s health, but ended up supporting three of them. For example, she concluded that “many public health and nutrition experts agree” with his assertion that “Ultraprocessed foods are driving the obesity epidemic, and they should be removed from school lunches.”   

On the subject of food dyes, which the HHS secretary says “cause cancer, and ADHD in children,” she wrote, “some small clinical trials have suggested that certain synthetic food dyes may increase hyperactivity in children.” “Many experts agree,” she continued, “it wouldn’t hurt to avoid them.”

How about his suggestion “that consuming too many added sugars, especially from high fructose corn syrup, contributes to childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease?” Answer: “Correct.” 

RFK Jr. is shaking up the food industry. In April, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would move to eliminate several petroleum-based dyes, which Kennedy claims can cause cancer and ADHD in kids, by the end of next year. Already, a large number of top brands, including General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Hershey, J.M. Smucker, McCormick, Pepsico and Sam’s Club, have taken steps to replace the artificial dyes used in candy, ice cream and other products with natural ingredients, despite the costs of doing so.   

The changes are likely to be popular, despite the less alluring colors of mint chip ice cream or Froot Loops. In Canada and Europe, foods colored with artificial dyes are required to carry a warning label. Consequently, manufacturers generally use natural products instead.   

Call me crazy, but the fact that so many food companies are making the switch, despite the expense and possibility of lost sales, suggests they know something they’re not publicizing about these dyes and that Kennedy is on the right track.    

In May, Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” commission targeted ultra-processed foods in a 69-page report. Ultraprocessed foods, which make up 70-plus percent of Americans’ diet, are made with manufactured rather than natural ingredients and formulated to encourage people to eat more, which adds to our obesity problems.    

A study last year of the dietary habits of nearly 10 million people published in the British Medical Journal revealed that exposure to ultra-processed food “was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorder, and mortality outcomes.” In particular, the study linked ultraprocessed foods to increased incidents of some 30 health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers and mental health disorders.

Is Kennedy right to take them on? Absolutely. The wonder is that no one has investigated the industry before this.   

It is actually not a puzzle. According to Open Secrets, agribusiness PACs donated nearly $31 million to politicians last year, while food sales and processing firms threw in another $3 million. Moreover, the food industry spilled $16 million on lobbying. That buys a lot of protection.   

Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s concerns over widely prescribed vaccines has been harshly criticized by the medical establishment. The left has accused him of downplaying a measles outbreak in Texas, and talking up cures rather than advocating for increased vaccinations.

But Kennedy has acknowledged that public trust in U.S. vaccine mandates and indeed in our health industries need to be rebuilt. He is right.  

That has led to a complete overhaul of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, citing “persistent conflicts of interest” among members of the former board which, he wrote in a recent op-ed, “has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons.” Having new, independent researchers take a fresh look at Americans’ vaccine regimen should be welcomed. 

Kennedy’s willingness to gore sacred cows and ask tough questions make him popular with young people, and is likely contributing to Republican gains with young male and female Gen-Zers.    

A recent Fox News interviewer asked a young influencer why young voters are “flocking to MAHA.” Lexi Vrachalus answered that she and others were alarmed by the rise chronic diseases in their peers — diseases that are preventable with diet and lifestyle choices. Asked about her focus on the gut, she explained, “if we eat bad, we are going to feel bad mentally and physically, so I think it’s crucial that we fuel our bodies with real, whole, single ingredient, unprocessed foods.”  

In May, The New York Times published a piece about “The Rise of the ‘Crunchy Teen’ Wellness Influencer” writing, “High schoolers are appealing to other health-conscious kids online, sometimes by expressing views in line with the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement.” The skeptical Times writer found plenty of reason to find the trend concerning, as teens may, for instance, over-emphasize one diet component or another.  

But Democrats should find the trend concerning as well, especially as Kennedy’s MAHA program continues to win over young voters.  

 Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5429654-rfk-jr-trump-secret-weapon/