He’s emboldened, he’s organized and he’s still Trump: Takeaways from the president’s opening days

Donald Trump takes his oath as president at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 26 January 2025
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He’s emboldened, he’s organized and he’s still Trump: Takeaways from the president’s opening days

  • Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters
  • In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government
  • He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s first week in office isn’t over yet, but already it offers signals about how his next four years in the White House may unfold.
Some takeaways from the earliest days of his second term:
He’s emboldened like never before
Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Those pardoned include people who attacked, bloodied and beat police officers that day. The Republican president’s decision was at odds with earlier comments by his incoming vice president, JD Vance, and other senior aides that Trump would only let off those who weren’t violent.
The pardons were the first of many moves he made in his first week to reward allies and punish critics, in both significant and subtle ways. It signaled that without the need to worry about reelection — the Constitution bars a third term — or legal consequences after the Supreme Court granted presidents expansive immunity, the new president, backed by a Republican Congress, has little to restrain him.
Trump ended protective security details for Dr. Anthony Fauci, his former COVID-19 adviser, along with former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his onetime deputy. The security protections had been regularly extended by the Biden administration over credible threats to the men’s lives.
Trump also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former government officials who had criticized him, including Bolton, and directed that the portrait of a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, retired Gen. Mark Milley be removed from the Pentagon walls.
He’s way more organized this time

In his first days in office, Trump demonstrated just how much he and his team had learned from four often-chaotic years in the White House and four more in political exile.
A president’s most valuable resource is time and Trump set out in his first hours to make his mark on the nation with executive orders, policy memoranda and government staffing shake-ups. It reflected a level of sophistication that eluded him in his first term and surpassed his Democratic predecessors in its scale and scope for their opening days in the Oval Office.
Feeling burned by the holdover of Obama administration appointees during his first go-around, Trump swiftly exiled Biden holdovers and moved to test new hires for their fealty to his agenda.
In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government, sent federal troops to the US-Mexico border and erased Biden’s guardrails on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency development.
In his first term, Trump’s early executive orders were more showpieces than substance and frequently were blocked by federal courts. This time, Trump is still confronting the limits of his constitutional authorities, but is also far more adept at controlling what is within them.
But Trump is still Trump
An hour after concluding a relatively sedate inaugural address in the Capitol Rotunda, Trump decided to let loose.
Speaking to an overflow crowd of governors, political supports and dignitaries in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall, Trump ripped in to Biden, the Justice Department and other perceived rivals. He followed it up with an even longer speech to supporters at a downtown arena and in more than 50 minutes of remarks and questions and answers with reporters in the Oval Office.
For all of Trump’s experience and organization, he is still very much the same Donald Trump, and just as intent as before on dominating the center of the national conversation. If not more.
Courts may rein Trump in or give him expansive new powers
He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship. Such moves have been a magnet for legal challenges. In the case of the birthright citizenship order, it met swift criticism from US District Judge John Coughenour, who put a temporary stay on Trump’s plans.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” Coughenour, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, told a Justice Department attorney. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
How those court cases play out will determine not only the fate of some of Trump’s most controversial actions, but just how far any president can go in pushing an agenda.
Trump is betting that oil can grease the economy’s wheels and fix everything
The president likes to call it “liquid gold.”
His main economic assumption is that more oil production by the United States, OPEC would bring down prices. That would reduce overall inflation and cut down on the oil revenues that Russia is using to fund its war in Ukraine.
For Trump, oil is the answer.
He’s betting that fossil fuels are the future, despite the climate change risks.
“The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we’re going to use it,” Trump said in a Thursday speech. “Not only will this reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services, it’ll make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto”
The problem with billionaires is they’re rivals, not super friends
Trump had the world’s wealthiest men behind him on the dais when he took the oath of office on Monday.
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault were all there. SoftBank billionaire Masayoshi Son was in the audience. Later in the week, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and OpenAI’s Sam Altman appeared with Son at the White House to announce an artificial intelligence investment of up to $500 billion.
Musk, the Trump backer who is leading the president’s Department of Government Efficiency effort, posted on X that SoftBank didn’t have the money. Altman, a rival to to Musk on AI, responded over X that the funding was there.
By surrounding himself with the wealthiest people in tech, Trump is also stuck in their drama.
“The people in the deal are very, very smart people,” Trump said Thursday. “But Elon, one of the people, he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too.”
Trump has a thing for William McKinley
America’s 25th president has a big fan in Trump. Trump likes the tariffs that were imposed during Republican William McKinley’s presidency and helped to fund the government. Trump has claimed the country was its wealthiest in the 1890s when McKinley was in office.
But McKinley might not be a great economic role model for the 21st century.
For starters, the Tax Foundation found that federal receipts were equal to just 3 percent of the overall economy in 1900, McKinley’s reelection year. Tax revenues are now equal to about 17 percent of the US economy and that’s still not enough to fund the government without running massive deficits. So it would be hard to go full McKinley without some chaos.
As Dartmouth College economist Douglas Irwin noted on X, the economic era defined by McKinley was not that great for many people.
“There was a little something called the Panic of 1893 and the unemployment rate was in double digits from 1894-98!!” Irwin wrote. “Not a great decade!”


Czech authorities detain 5 teens over online radicalization by Daesh and charge 2 with terror plot

Updated 25 June 2025
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Czech authorities detain 5 teens over online radicalization by Daesh and charge 2 with terror plot

  • The five were promoting hate content on social media against minorities, certain communities and Jews
  • The suspects were also involved in online groups recruiting fighters for Daesh militants in Syria

PRAGUE: Czech authorities have detained five teenagers for being radicalized online by the militant Daesh group and charged two of them with terror-related crimes over an attempt to set fire to a synagogue, officials said Wednesday.

Břetislav Brejcha, the director of the Czech counterterrorism, extremism and cybercrime department, said most of the suspects are under 18 years old.

They were detained between February and June as a result of an international investigation that started last year.

The five were promoting hate content on social media against minorities, certain communities and Jews, Brejcha said. During seven raids in the Czech Republic and Austria, police seized some weapons, such as knives, machetes, axes and gas pistols.

On Jan. 29, 2024, two of the five tried to set a synagogue in the second largest Czech city of Brno on fire, Brejcha said without offering details.

The following month, Czech media reported an arson attempt and said police were looking for witnesses. The reports said two suspects placed a firebomb in front of the synagogue but it did not explode and no damage was reported.

The charges against them include hate-related crimes, promotion and support of terrorism and a terror attack attempt.

The suspects were also involved in online groups recruiting fighters for Daesh militants in Syria, Brejcha said. The Czech authorities cooperated with their counterparts in Austria, Britain, Slovakia and with the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol in this case, he added.

Michal Koudelka, the head of the Czech counterintelligence agency known as BIS, said the five shared a fascination with violence and hatred against Jews, and others.

They were approached online by Daesh members and became radicalized, Koudelka said.

“We consider online radicalization of the youth a very dangerous trend,” Koudelka said, adding that the suspects had not been in touch with the local Muslim community.


Armenia PM says foiled ‘sinister’ coup plot by senior cleric

Updated 25 June 2025
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Armenia PM says foiled ‘sinister’ coup plot by senior cleric

  • Pashinyan has been at loggerheads with the Church since its head, Catholicos Garegin II, began calling for his resignation
  • “Law enforcement officers have foiled a large-scale and sinister plan by the ‘criminal-oligarchic clergy’ to destabilize the situation,” Pashinyan wrote

YEREVAN: Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday that the security forces had foiled a coup plot involving a senior cleric, the latest twist in his escalating conflict with the powerful Apostolic Church.

Pashinyan has been at loggerheads with the Church since its head, Catholicos Garegin II, began calling for his resignation following Armenia’s disastrous 2020 military defeat to arch-foe Azerbaijan over the then-disputed Karabakh region.

The dispute escalated after Baku seized full control of the region in 2023. Pashinyan started pushing an unpopular peace deal with Azerbaijan that would essentially renounce Yerevan’s claims to a region many Armenians see as their ancestral homeland.

“Law enforcement officers have foiled a large-scale and sinister plan by the ‘criminal-oligarchic clergy’ to destabilize the situation in the Republic of Armenia and seize power,” Pashinyan wrote on his Telegram channel early Wednesday.

The authorities arrested Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a charismatic senior church figure trying to rally opposition to Pashinyan, accusing him of trying to mastermind the attempted coup.

“Since November 2024 (he) set himself the goal of changing power by means not permitted by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia,” said the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes.

The Apostolic Church wields considerable influence in Armenia, which in the fourth century became the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion.

Galstanyan, who leads the opposition movement Sacred Struggle, last year accused Pashinyan of ceding territory to Azerbaijan and led mass protests that ultimately failed to topple the prime minister.

His lawyer, Ruben Melikyan, condemned the case as politically motivated.

He told reporters the archbishop “acts independently” and said case materials showed no connection to the Church.

The Investigative Committee said it had arrested 14 people and launched criminal proceedings against 16 suspects after raids of more than 90 premises in a case related to Galstanyan’s Sacred Struggle movement.

Publishing photos of guns and ammunition found during a series of raids, it alleged that Galstanyan had “acquired the necessary means and tools to carry out terrorist acts and seize power.”

It also released covert recordings suggesting Galstanyan and his allies had called to execute officials, imprison opponents, and suppress any resistance by force.

“We either kill, or we die,” said a man, whose voice was said to resemble that of Galstanyan, in one of the clips.

Galstanyan’s legal team said it expected he would be “charged with terrorism and attempted seizure of power.”

The News.am website published footage showing Galstanyan leaving his house accompanied by masked police officers, who escorted him into a car and drove him away.

“Evil, listen carefully — whatever you do, you have very little time left. Hold on, we are coming,” he said, apparently addressing Pashinyan,

A crowd of supporters outside shouted, “Nikol is a traitor!“

The loss of Karabakh has divided Armenia, as Azerbaijan has demanded sweeping concessions in exchange for lasting peace.

Pashinyan earlier this month alleged Garegin II had an illegitimate child and, in an unprecedented challenge to the church, called on believers to remove him from office.

That triggered fierce opposition and calls for Pashinyan himself to be excommunicated.

Archbishop Galstanyan, a follower of Garegin II, catapulted to the forefront of Armenian politics in 2024 as he galvanized mass protests and sought to impeach Pashinyan.

The charismatic cleric temporarily stepped down from his religious post to challenge Pashinyan for prime minister — though as a dual Armenian-Canadian citizen, he is not eligible to hold the office.

Pashinyan’s grip on power, boosted by unpopular opposition parties and strong support in parliament, has so far remained unshaken.

A former journalist and opposition lawmaker, he came to power after leading street protests that escalated into a peaceful revolution in 2018.


French authorities raid SocGen offices for second day, source says

Updated 25 June 2025
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French authorities raid SocGen offices for second day, source says

  • The raids are part of a preliminary investigation opened in 2024

PARIS: French authorities searched Societe Generale’s offices in Paris and Luxembourg for a second day, as part of a tax fraud investigation, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

SocGen declined to comment.

The raids are part of a preliminary investigation opened in 2024 into the French bank, led by the prosecution office, for “tax fraud laundering,” “organized or aggravated tax fraud laundering” and “criminal conspiracy,” the same source said on Tuesday.


German prosecutor seeks arrest on terror charges of a Syrian man who allegedly stabbed 4

Updated 25 June 2025
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German prosecutor seeks arrest on terror charges of a Syrian man who allegedly stabbed 4

  • Last month, the defendant attacked several people with a knife outside a restaurant in downtown Bielefeld in the early morning
  • Prosecutors allege that the suspect joined the Daesh group in Syria in December 2014 at the latest in the city of Raqqa in Syria

BERLIN: Germany’s top prosecutor on Wednesday submitted a new arrest warrant based on terrorism allegations for a Syrian man who stabbed and critically injured four men outside a restaurant in the western city of Bielefeld last month.
The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the accused, who has only been identified as Mahmoud M. in line with German privacy rules, “is urgently suspected of membership of a foreign terrorist organization, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.”
Last month, the defendant attacked several people with a knife outside a restaurant in downtown Bielefeld in the early morning. Four men were seriously injured.
Prosecutors allege that the suspect follows an Islamist-jihadist ideology. He joined the Daesh group in Syria in December 2014 at the latest in the city of Raqqa in Syria, they said.
After entering Germany, prosecutors said the accused decided to kill as many randomly selected people in Germany as possible. He did so ”in the name of a global ‘holy war’ and on behalf of Islamic State,” they added.
“To this end, in the early morning of May 18, 2025, he stabbed guests with knives in front of a restaurant in Bielefeld, critically injuring four people,” the prosecutors said.
The newly submitted arrest warrant replaces an arrest warrant issued by a Bielefeld local court on May 20, which had been obtained by the Bielefeld public prosecutor’s office. M. was arrested on May 19, and has been in custody since then. On May 20, the federal prosecutor’s office had taken over the investigation.
Among other things, the federal prosecutor’s office takes over terrorism-related cases from local prosecutors in Germany.


Eritrea seeks to end mandate of UN expert investigating abuses, document shows

Updated 25 June 2025
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Eritrea seeks to end mandate of UN expert investigating abuses, document shows

  • The Special Rapporteur is mandated to document violations in Eritrea
  • The UN expert position was set up in 2012 by a group of African states

GENEVA: Eritrea is trying to cancel the mandate of a UN expert investigating alleged abuses, a document sent to the UN Human Rights Council showed, in a rare move that Western diplomats fear may set a precedent for states looking to escape scrutiny.

The Special Rapporteur, a position currently held by Sudanese human rights lawyer Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, is mandated to document violations in Eritrea, where civil society groups such as Human Rights Watch say impunity is widespread.

In a May report he described the situation as “critical,” highlighting cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and the use of lengthy national and military service terms that are driving thousands to flee.

Eritrea’s information ministry and its diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Eritrea, which has long opposed the mandate, sent a large delegation to champion its proposal at a UN meeting in Geneva on Monday and voiced opposition to investigations targeting individual countries’ records.

States like Sudan, Russia and Iran backed it while the EU and Britain were among those who opposed it in a polarized debate, diplomats said.

The UN expert position was set up in 2012 by a group of African states and has been renewed annually by the Geneva-based council in an effort led recently by the European Union. But this year, Eritrea beat them to it and instead tabled a rival motion to discontinue the mandate, the document showed.

While states subject to UN investigations often lobby against them or try to dilute them, rights experts say there has never before been a proposal to end a mandate put before the council in its nearly 20-year history and worry it could embolden states looking to block accountability efforts. In 2023, Ethiopia tried to end a mandate early, before backing off.

“The EU recalls that the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in a state’s internal affairs do not free states from their obligations under international human rights law,” the EU delegate said in a statement shared with Reuters, arguing that Eritrea’s lack of consent “should not be used to escape international scrutiny.”

Many of the Geneva-based council’s other probes are typically brought by Western countries, such as those on Russia and Sudan. Sometimes the evidence they gather is used by international prosecutors.

A vote is expected next month.