The Conclave begins Wednesday to choose a new pope has begun in Vatican City. Despite telling The Atlantic last week that “I run the country and I run the world” President Trump is not in the running … nor will he make Canada our 51st state.
WEDNESDAY 5/7/25
India and Pakistan Fight Over Kashmir – India attacked Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, killing at least 26 – including children – and injuring at least 46 people Wednesday in what The Guardian calls “the worst fighting between the two for decades.” Pakistan claims it shot down five Indian planes, not confirmed by Indian defense military officials.
In the wake of the late-April attack on the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindu, India claims it has nine targets defined as “terrorist infrastructure.” Two Indian military spokespersons told a New Delhi briefing that Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were the targets. Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Miski said “pre-emptive, precautionary” strikes were necessary when intelligence warned of further terrorist attacks.
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No Canada, Mr. President, Sir – Here’s the Art of the Deal: Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, became the latest Western leader to own President Trump in the Oval Office this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pleas not to trust Russia’s Vladimir Putin notwithstanding. Carney buttered up Trump, calling him a “transformational president” after Trump opened the Oval Office presser by suggesting Carney’s win last month was “one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics, maybe even greater than mine.”
Trump did not credit that great comeback to the fact that Carney overturned a 27-point poll deficit largely because his Conservative Party opponent, Pierre Poilievre was cast as a sort of Great White North Trump.
Trump did say this when asked about making Canada 51st state of the US: “I think that there are tremendous benefits to the Canadian citizens. Tremendously lower taxes, free military, which honestly we give you anyway, because we’re protecting Canada, if you ever had a problem. But I think you know it would really be a wonderful marriage because it’s two places that get along very well. They like each other a lot.”
Carney responded: “Well, if I may. As you know in real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.”
“It’s true,” Trump agreed.
“We’re sitting in one right now,” Carney continued. “Buckingham Palace that you visited as well, and having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it’s not for sale, won’t be for sale, ever, but the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together.”
Carney went on about how Canada along with NATO is stepping up security (though unsaid; As the US under Trump steps back), which Trump acknowledged.
As for certain real estate never being for sale, Trump concluded, “but never say never.”
--TL
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TUESDAY 5/6/25
Canada Day at the White House – Rather, it’s 51st State Day as far as President Trump is concerned when he meets with Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney. The Toronto Star warns that it will be a “perilous first few hours” for Carney, former central banker for Canada and the UK, as he faces a potential Volodymyr Zelenskyy-like cold reception, though likely without comments about owning a suit.
President Trump appears to be treating Carney’s visit like other world leaders he imagines want to visit the White House on bended knee to negotiate a trade deal in the wake of his Liberation Day tariffs. Carney, according to NPR’s Morning Edition had dispensed with the new Canadian PM tradition of visiting Washington first, and instead travelled to Europe after his parliamentary election victory last month.
Apparently unaware of this tradition Trump said; “I’m not sure what he wants to see me about, but I guess he wants to make a deal. Everybody does.”
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German Parliament in Crisis – Christian Democratic party leader Fredrich Merz failed to win enough votes to become Germany’s next chancellor Tuesday morning, The New York Times reports, setting up another vote to be held Tuesday afternoon. Merz has been the leader-in-waiting since his party won national elections in February.
Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, co-leaders of the far-right populist AfD (Alternative for Germany) party immediately after Tuesday morning’s vote demanded that Merz resign and call for fresh elections.
Context … After Germany’s domestic intelligence agency listed the AfD as a “right-wing extremist” party, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance last week blasted the intel agency.
“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition,” Rubio wrote on X-Twitter. “That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise.”
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2025 Pulitzer Prizes Include – ProPublica earned a public service Pulitzer for its reporting about pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care over worries of vague “life of the mother” exceptions in states that ban abortions. The staff of The Washington Post won a breaking news Pulitzer for its coverage of the July 13 assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The staff of Reuters won an investigative reporting Pulitzer for coverage of lax laws on fentanyl distribution in the US and Europe. The New York Times won Pulitzers for explanatory reporting, local reporting, and for photographer Doug Mills’ photos of the July 13 Trump assassination attempt. The staff of The Wall Street Journal won a national reporting Pulitzer for a series on Elon Musk. Esquire contributor Mark Warren won a feature writing Pulitzer, and Bloomberg CityLab contributor Alexandra Lange won a Pulitzer for criticism. The Houston Chronicle won a Pulitzer for editorial writing, and The New Yorker won Pulitzers for commentary, feature photography and for audio reporting for its podcast, In the Dark.
--TL
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MONDAY 5/5/25
The President v. the Constitution – President Trump will say he was joking when he posted this photoshop of himself on his Truth Social as the potential successor to Pope Francis I, though days earlier in a surprise interview published in The Atlantic he did indeed say, “I run the country and the world.” Apparently that includes Vatican City?
Trump extended this sudden magnanimity to the left-of-Fox News media by appearing on Sunday’s NBC News Meet the Press.
Highlights? We have got your highlights right here …
Host Kristen Walker asks Trump whether he has to “uphold the Constitution.” Trump replies; “I don’t know.”
Hint ... It's in his oath of office.
Context … Pressing on the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, Welker says; “Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens deserves due process. Do you agree?”
Trump: “I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”
Welker: “Well, the Fifth Amendment says as much.”
Trump: “It seems … it seems, it might say that, but if you’re talking about that then you have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people who are, some murderers, and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth. Some of the worst, dangerous people on Earth. And I was elected to get them the hell out of here. Courts are holding me from doing it.”
Welker: “Even given the numbers you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States, Mr. President?”
Trump: “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying again, I have brilliant lawyers that are working for me. And they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court said. That is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. I have a different interpretation.”
Whose economy? The “good parts” of the economy are Trump’s, the president said; “the bad parts are the Biden economy.”
When will he reach a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine? “Maybe it’s not possible.”
Do people have the right to criticize him without fear of retribution? “Absolutely.” Thanks, Mr. President.
On his call to Jeff Bezos over Amazon’s threat to post tariffs next to the price of imported goods: “I’ll always call people if I disagree with them.”
Expect more gold: Trump says he’ll build and self-fund a “world class” ballroom in the White House.
Sucession: Finally putting to rest the notion he would run for a third term in 2028, Trump instead names potential successors; Secretary of State (and now also national security advisor) Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
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Send Them to Alcatraz? – President Trump said on his Truth Social over the weekend he is ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reopen Alcatraz. Now a tourist trap, literally, on an island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz opened as a prison in 1934 to hold such notorious criminals as Al Capone, a favorite foil of Trump at campaign rallies last year, and it closed in 1963 because it was too expensive to operate, according to USA Today.
But as Trump posted on Truth Social; “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order and JUSTICE.”
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Israel Approves Gaza Plan – Israeli cabinet ministers approved a plan early Monday that involves “occupation of territory and sustain Israel’s presence,” Haaretz reports. The plan is to capture the entire Gaza strip and remain in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, the AP reports, adding that if implemented in the face of likely international opposition, would vastly expand Israel’s operations on Gaza.
The question of Israel’s endgame in Gaza has been an issue since shortly after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack.
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Hooray for Hollywood – Latest Trump Tariff ™ is a 100% tax on movies produced overseas, The Wall Street Journal reports, as the president has called use of incentives by countries to draw filmmakers away from the US a “national security threat.” According to NPR, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand have been particularly aggressive in using such incentives to bring productions to their neighborhoods.
No mention of how Georgia and other states east of the West Coast also has been aggressive in drawing movie and television production over from California, but Deadline notes that one of Trump’s special envoys to Hollywood, right-leaning actor Jon Voight, was said to be “devising a plan to save the entire industry.”
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa