Trump begins firing air traffic control staff amid 7 plane crashes

David Edwards
February 17, 2025 

RAW STORY

An American Airlines airplane lands near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, outside Washington, U.S., January 31, 2025. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

President Donald Trump's administration, guided by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reportedly began firing staff responsible for air traffic control amid more than a half dozen recent airplane crashes.

The Associated Press reported that probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began receiving emails on Friday night saying they would be terminated.

"The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing, and navigational aid maintenance," the AP reported after talking to one anonymous air traffic controller.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association was "analyzing the effect of the reported federal employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system, and our members," the group said in a statement.

The firings come just days after a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet in Washington, D.C., killing over 60. Since then, at least six other plane crashes and wrecks have reportedly occurred

‘Stupid beyond belief’: Musk and Trump blasted as DOGE fires ‘hundreds’ from FAA

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
February 17, 2025 

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees, according to multiple reports and the FAA workers’ union, even as fatal plane crashes continue to mount under President Donald Trump’s administration — including one as recently as Saturday.

“The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told the Associated Press,” the AP reported. The firings also come as the FAA is without a Senate-confirmed administrator, after Musk called for him to resign. In 2023, Michael Whitaker had been confirmed unanimously, 98-0.

The terminations of what are called “probationary” employees can include not only employees hired within the past year, but also long-term employees who have been recently promoted. Air traffic controllers and other employees are a critical segment of the federal government. The FAA’s hiring practices are rigorous and require tremendous training, as a former Federal Aviation Administration official said recently after President Trump strongly suggested the deadly mid-air crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport might have been the result of “DEI” hiring.

CNN, which first reported DOGE’s mass firings had now hit the FAA, noted that the “exact number of firings is not yet known, but the head of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, said that ‘several hundred’ workers started getting firing notices on Friday — and that they could even be barred from FAA facilities Tuesday after the federal holiday.”

“The FAA’s system that distributes critical flight safety alerts to pilots failed just days after the crash and forced the agency to rely on a backup system.”

There have been at least six fatal aviation incidents since Donald Trump became president, according to news reports and a search of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) database:

January 25, 2025: Charlottesville, VA
January 29, 2025: Potomac River Mid-Air Collision
January 31, 2025: Med Jets Flight 056 Crash (Philadelphia)
February 6, 2025: Bering Air Flight 445 Crash (Alaska)
February 10, 2025: Private Jet Crash in Scottsdale, Arizona
February 15, 2025: Small Plane Crash Near Covington, Georgia


That last crash came “just hours after ‘hundreds’ of pink slips were reportedly handed out at the agency,” The Daily Beast reported.

“Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs,” said David Spero, national president of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) told CNN. “To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.”

Critics are blasting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

“No president has had more planes crash in their first month in office than Donald Trump,” charged U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on Monday.

President Trump, meanwhile, amid the firings, on Sunday took a “taxpayer-funded Daytona 500 joyride” at a rained-out NASCAR race “as he guts [the] federal workforce,” The Independent, a UK-based news site, reported.

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Monday morning asked: “The flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?”

U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, blasted the FAA firings:

“Mass firings of FAA workers – at a time when they already have serious staffing problems – would be dangerous at any time. Musk and Trump doing this weeks after the deadliest crash in years is stupid beyond belief.”

Professor of Public Policy Don Moynihan charged, “even after a bunch of accidents that highlighted FAA staffing shortages they still went ahead and fired FAA staff. They don’t know what they are doing.”

“You might have noticed that since Trump became President a number of aviation fatalities have occurred,” Moynihan wrote at “Can We Still Govern?”

“This happened after Musk pushed the head of the Federal Aviation Administration to resign, and Trump fired its safety advisory board. This likely had little direct effect on the crash at Reagan airport, but the crash highlighted staffing shortages, causing the Trump administration to tell FAA employees they could no longer apply for deferred resignation offer they had received days earlier. Safety first, it seemed,” he explained. “FAA employees therefore had some reason to believe that they would be exempt from the purge of probationary employees, but this is not the case.”

Jason King, a now-former FAA employee and disabled veteran who was laid off on Friday, told WUSA, “my unit directly with the FAA is directly involved with safety.”

Musk sends SpaceX team to visit key U.S. air traffic command center

Agence France-Presse
February 17, 2025 

Elon Musk, seen here in the Oval Office on February 11 (Jim WATSON/AFP)

by Sarah TITTERTON

A team from Elon Musk's SpaceX was set to visit the command center of the U.S. federal aviation regulator on Monday with a brief for suggesting safety improvements in the wake of a deadly crash in Washington last month.

The visit, announced on Sunday by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, has raised some eyebrows given the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has investigated and fined SpaceX on numerous occasions -– sometimes over safety issues.

US President Donald Trump, who has tapped top ally and donor Musk to slash the size of the federal government, has taken particular aim at the FAA over its hiring policies.

"America deserves safe, state-of-the-art air travel, and President Trump has ordered that I deliver a new, world-class air traffic control system that will be the envy of the world," Duffy said.

He added that SpaceX staff will take a "firsthand look" around when they visit the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, which works to balance demand for flights in the United States with the capacity to handle them.

It is also home to a team that tracks data about commercial space launches and re-entries and the status of various space missions, according to its website.

"The safety of air travel is a non-partisan matter," said Musk, whose federal cost-cutting drive has raised concerns about conflicts of interest with his companies, several of which -- such as SpaceX -- hold major government contracts.

"SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer," he wrote on social platform X, which he also owns.

An aviation safety specialists union said that the Trump administration had begun firing "hundreds" of FAA employees over the long holiday weekend.

- 'Draconian' -

Trump has tapped billionaire Musk to wage a scorched earth campaign on the federal government, slashing workers and cutting programs -- such as aid to the world's poorest countries -- that he says do not align with his America First policies.


The president has accused the FAA of prioritizing "diversity, equity and inclusion" hiring policies -- meant to combat racism and other forms of discrimination -- over safety and efficiency.

"Several hundred" FAA employees began receiving notices that they had been fired late Friday, according to David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union.

"This draconian action will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin," Spero warned in a statement.

"Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency's mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety."

He said the "hastily made" decision was "especially unconscionable" in the aftermath of the deadly crash last month.

The accident at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport saw 67 people killed as an army helicopter collided with a passenger jet coming in for landing.


It was the deadliest air disaster in the United States in two decades.

Trump has also, repeatedly and without evidence, blamed the Washington crash on DEI programs.

Flight safety experts investigating the crash have said that faulty instruments and communication problems may have been behind the disaster.


© Agence France-Presse

Quoting Napoleon, Trump Openly Declares He's Above the Law

"The single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president."


People protest U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on February 5, 2025.
(Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Common Dreams Staff
Feb 16, 2025

Fears that the United States is in the midst of a constitutional crisis—or something significantly worse—intensified Saturday after President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post that "he who saves his country does not violate any law," a variation of a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Trump's post on X—the platform owned by billionaire shadow government leader Elon Musk—came as his administration continued its sweeping and destructive assault on the federal government and workforce, running roughshod over the law in the process.

Trump's post Saturday was the latest brazen signal that the president doesn't recognize limits on his authority to impose his far-right agenda.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie called Trump's message "the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president."

Since taking office less than a month ago, Trump and Musk have moved aggressively to dismantle federal agencies and remove any officials who could shine light on or obstruct their efforts.

Trump, his handpicked Cabinet officials, and Musk have also disregarded or openly attacked the other two co-equal branches of government, accusing judges who have moved to halt or limit the new administration's actions of being Democratic partisans.

In some cases, the Trump administration has actively defied rulings from federal courts, an alarming indication of what's to come.

Yasmin Abusaif and Douglas Keith of the Brennan Center for Justice noted Friday that "the last time the United States saw widespread open defiance of court orders by elected officials was when governors in Southern states refused to integrate their schools after the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public education in Brown v. Board of Education."

"President Dwight Eisenhower—though he was no fan of the court's decision—ultimately dispatched troops to the South to help enforce the ruling, saying, 'The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional process in this country, and I will obey,'" Abusaif and Keith continued. "The governors' efforts to defy court orders are widely acknowledged as one of the most shameful periods in U.S. history."

Frank Bowman, a law professor and former federal and state prosecutor, wrote for Slate last week that "with each passing day, the practical ability of the courts to stop, or even materially hinder, the catastrophe diminishes."

"If Trump successfully defies the courts," Bowman added, "the only remaining obstacle to dictatorship will be public revulsion, national popular protest, and the hope that such a reaction would cause Trump to retreat and, at long last, recall some fraction of the Republican Party to its constitutional duty."

ICYMI

Thousands March to US Embassy in London With Message for Trump: 'Hands Off Gaza'

An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor called the U.S. president's plan to permanently force Palestinians out of Gaza "completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd."


Thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration expressing support for Palestinian rights in London on February 15, 2025.
(Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)



Jake Johnson
Feb 15, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Thousands of people marched to the United States Embassy in London on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump's ethnic cleansing plan for the Gaza Strip, a proposal that has been roundly condemned as unlawful and monstrous by the U.N., international human rights organizations, and Palestinians living in the enclave decimated by relentless Israeli bombing.

The march came after Trump doubled down on his proposal for the U.S. to "take over" Gaza after forcibly and permanently displacing Palestinians from the territory.

"Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we'll slowly—very slowly, we're in no rush—develop it," Trump told reporters last weekend.

Marchers carried signs Sunday expressing contempt for the president's proposal, which Amnesty International denounced as "inflammatory, outrageous, and shameful."



Protesters march to the U.S. Embassy in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)



Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, toldAFP on Saturday that Trump's proposal is "completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd."

"It's not going to happen," Kapos added, "but it does a lot of damage simply stating that as an endgame."

The mass demonstration in London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations, followed news that Hamas freed three additional Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for the release of more than 360 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons.

The exchange was part of a tenuous cease-fire deal reached in January after 15 months of incessant U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The assault's impact on Palestinians in Gaza was, and continues to be, catastrophic. According to an article published in The Lancet earlier this month, Israel's war on the Gaza Strip "generated a life expectancy loss of more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly halving prewar levels."

"Actual losses are likely to be higher," the researchers noted, stressing that their estimate was conservative and "did not account for the indirect effect of the war."

Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket firm to cut 10% of workforce

By AFP
February 13, 2025

Blue Origin, whose rockets include New Shepard, seen in March 2022, has been attempting to land large government contracts - Copyright AFP Patrick T. FALLON

Jeff Bezos’s rocket company Blue Origin is laying off around 10 percent of its workforce following a period of rapid expansion, the firm’s chief executive told staff on Thursday.

“We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years,” CEO Dave Limp wrote in an email — a copy of which was obtained by AFP — explaining the company’s “tough” decision.

“With that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed,” he continued, adding that the makeup of the company “must change.”

“Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management,” he said.

The decision will affect more than 1,000 people given the firm’s roughly 11,000 employees, according to a recent PitchBook estimate of staffing levels.

Blue Origin is one of the United States’ largest private space companies, and has in recent years been attempting to win lucrative government contracts in an industry still largely dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Its massive New Glenn rocket recently reached orbital space for the first time, marking a potential turning point in the commercial space race

Ecuador’s wild west shows limits of Noboa’s ‘iron fist’


By AFP
February 13, 2025


Members of the Ecuadoran armed forces patrol the Jambeli Archipelago in the province of El Oro - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

Andrew BEATTY

On Ecuador’s lawless southwest coast, drug gangs operate with impunity and terrified residents ask if their president’s “iron fist” security policies are just words.

In a darkened military command center near the Peruvian border, eight Ecuadoran marines armed with rusting M4 rifles prepare for a patrol.

For their safety, all are heavily masked. Name tags and rank insignia are removed.

They are about to enter cartel country, where the state has no monopoly on the use of force.

Like much of once-tranquil Ecuador, Puerto Bolivar has become a battleground for rival cartels fighting to bring record amounts of cocaine from Colombia and Peru to Europe, North America and Asia.

Last year, the marines found about 30 bodies in waters near the port, some decapitated, others otherwise mutilated.

A recent bomb targeting a local gang leader killed two people and levelled several homes.

“There is no security,” said one resident who asked not to be named for fear of being killed. “The country has been completely abandoned.”

The marines tear away from the quay in two boats, racing through a mud-brown maze of canals and estuaries flanked by mangroves, docks and fishing villages.

Most of their four-hour patrol is unremarkable. They search a few fishing boats and find nothing.

But when they enter Huayala — an estuary stuffed with ramshackle docks and cinder block buildings — the unit snaps into position, their rifles cocked and raised.

The marines nervously scan the jumble of boats and buildings, where hundreds of eyes peer back from the shadows.

“It’s not a good idea to stay here long,” confides one of the marines. “Someone could take a shot.”



– Paying for ‘vaccines’ –



Puerto Bolivar is one of the world’s most important banana-exporting ports and a key seafood trading post — strategically vital for Ecuador’s economy.

But today, the container cranes appear idle and the deepwater docks are mostly empty.

The boom businesses are extortion, kidnapping, assassination, illegal fishing, money laundering and cocaine trafficking.

Most locals are too scared to talk. “They might go as far as killing me or my family” said one old man, before his wife pulled him away.

But a handful of residents are angry enough to speak out and risk their lives.

One of them is a local fisherman who agreed to speak to AFP on condition of anonymity.

He arrives at a secure meeting point wearing a facemask and cap and determined to tell the world what is happening to his community, and to his country.

He admits paying a “vacuna” or vaccine, to the gangs — a monthly fee, plus 20 percent of his catch in return for his safety.

“If we ignore them, they sink our boats or steal our engines. Some fishermen have simply disappeared,” he said.

Others happily work for the cartels because they pay more.

The fisherman described the myriad ways the gangs make money, from gold mining to smuggling fuel into Peru.

Some schemes are simple — banana shipments loaded with cocaine and sent to Europe. Others are complex, involving the purchase of non-existent fish to launder money.

The names of the gangs and their leaders are well known to everyone — Los Lobos (The Wolves), Los Lobos Box and Los Choneros.

“Some of them I have known since they were kids running around without shoes,” said the fisherman.

Criminal influence is out in the open.

One of the area’s numerous brothels is called “Napoles,” in homage to the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s opulent estate of the same name.

The military admits that ranking figures in Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel are deeply engrained in the area. They visit and do business out in the open.



– ‘The judges don’t judge’ –



President Daniel Noboa has responded to Ecuador’s security crisis by declaring a state of emergency, making high-profile arrests and sending the military onto the streets and into gang-controlled prisons.

But in Puerto Bolivar locals see little impact.

Noboa lost the province by five points to his leftist rival in Sunday’s election and may not fare any better in April’s second-round runoff.

Evan Ellis, a Latin America security expert and former State Department advisor, said Noboa’s deployments have “caused (gangs) to ‘lay low’ to some degree”.

But they “did not address the fundamental problems of the flow of drugs through the country and the associated battles for control over routes.”

The deployments may also have left the military shorthanded and in a difficult position.

Navy Captain Carlos Carrera admits “the Armed Forces are not designed to combat organized crime or to directly provide internal security. We can help the police.”

But according to the fisherman from Puerto Bolivar, the police don’t always police, “the prosecutors don’t prosecute and the judges don’t judge.”

One official recalled a woman who approached the police for help escaping her gang member partner.

She was betrayed, loaded onto a boat in plain sight and taken to an island, where she was allegedly beaten, raped and murdered.

“There is no one in charge here,” said one resident of Pitahaya, a nearby fishing village.

“We live in fear that we will lose everything over some little thing”.

OpenAI board rejects Elon Musk-led buyout offer


By AFP
February 15, 2025


OpenAI was founded in 2015 and is led by Sam Altman. - © AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

OpenAI’s board chairman on Friday said it has unanimously rejected an Elon Musk-led offer to buy the hot artificial intelligence company for $97.4 billion.

“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” chairman of the board Bret Taylor said in a statement posted by the company on Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter.

“Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI (artificial general intelligence) benefits all of humanity,” the statement continued.

Musk filed court documents on Wednesday saying that he would withdraw the offer to buy OpenAI if its board returns the artificial intelligence pioneer to a non-profit “charity” model.

OpenAI currently operates a hybrid structure, as a non-profit with a money-making subsidiary.

The change to a for-profit model — one that Altman considers crucial for the company’s development — had exacerbated ongoing tensions with Musk.


Tension between super wealthy Elon Musk (l) and OpenAI chief Sam Altman has escalated with Musk’s rejected offer to buy the artificial intelligence firm – Copyright AFP/File JIM WATSON, JOEL SAGET

Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015, with the former providing initial funding of $45 million.

Three years later, Musk departed the company, with OpenAI citing “a potential future conflict for Elon… as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI.”

Musk established his own artificial intelligence company called xAI early in 2023 after OpenAI ignited global fervor over the technology.

The massive costs of designing, training, and deploying AI models have compelled OpenAI to seek a new corporate structure that would give investors equity and provide more stable governance.

The transition to a traditional for-profit company requires approval from California and Delaware authorities, who will scrutinize how the non-profit arm of OpenAI is valued when it becomes a shareholder in the new company.

Current investors prefer a lower valuation to maximize their share of the new company.

Musk’s bid, valuing the OpenAI non-profit at $97.4 billion — approximately $30 billion above the level in current negotiations, according to The Information — appears designed to disrupt the company’s fundraising efforts.

OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane has said Musk’s offer came from a competitor “who has struggled to keep up with the technology and compete with us in the marketplace”.

Facebook, TikTok harden EU commitment to tackle disinformation — but not X


By AFP
February 13, 2025


Image: — © Digital Journal

Digital titans including Facebook and TikTok formally pledged to ramp up the fight against disinformation in the EU, Brussels said on Thursday, just days after the new US administration condemned the bloc’s online content rules.

Missing from the list of 42 platforms — including those owned by Google, Meta and Microsoft — who committed to a strengthened code of conduct was tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

Musk withdrew his platform — then known as Twitter — from the original code in May 2023 and he has repeatedly railed against the European Union’s content moderation rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The DSA forces all digital firms to police content online and tackle the spread of mis- and disinformation. The EU has been probing X under the DSA since December 2023, including its efforts to combat disinformation on the platform.

The law is at the centre of growing tensions between American big tech and the new US administration on one side, and the EU on the other.

US Vice President JD Vance slammed the DSA during his speech on Tuesday at the AI summit in Paris, saying it was not up to national capitals to “prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation”.

The EU has refused to comment on Vance’s remarks.

But announcing the formalisation of the code of conduct under the DSA, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said “Europeans deserve a safe online space where they can navigate without being manipulated”.

This “is an important milestone in stepping up the EU’s regulatory framework in the fight against disinformation. I will engage with the signatories to ensure there are effective efforts to protect democratic processes”, she added in a statement.

The code will serve as a “meaningful benchmark for determining DSA compliance” when it applies from July, the European Commission said.

For example, the EU believes fact-checking is an effective form of content moderation and it is included in the code, but it does not force companies to do it.

Meta remains part of the code despite its CEO Mark Zuckerberg aligning himself with the new White House and slamming EU rules as “censorship” in January as he announced a halt to US fact-checking operations for its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

An EU official admitted that if Meta wanted to withdraw from its commitments under the code, “we cannot force them to stay”.

The official stressed that simply signing the code did not amount to a “presumption of innocence” and that platforms had to implement effective measures to fight disinformation.

The code was also signed by Adobe, LinkedIn, Twitch, Vimeo and YouTube.

Trump eyes summit with Xi-Putin, shaking up world order

By AFP
February 13, 2025


US President Donald Trump has cast himself in his second term as a global peacemaker - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

Danny KEMP

Donald Trump unveiled an extraordinary vision of a shake-up to the world order Thursday, eyeing a three-way summit with the Russian and Chinese leaders just a day after saying he had agreed with Vladimir Putin to start Ukraine peace talks.

With Kyiv and European capitals still stunned by Trump’s surprise call with Putin, the US president also said he would “love” to have Russia back in the G7, from which it was suspended in 2014 after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

“I think it was a mistake to throw him out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to Putin.

Trump — who has cast himself in his second term as a global peacemaker — also said he would consider a summit with Putin and China’s Xi Jinping “when things calm down.”

“When we straighten it all out, then I want one of the first meetings I have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, let’s cut our military budget in half.”

The US president, who was hosting India’s Prime Minister Nahendra Modi at the White House later Thursday, also called for the three powers to start cutting their nuclear arsenals.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons,” he added.

Trump meanwhile insisted the Russian leader wanted a ceasefire with Kyiv, despite President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday warning against trusting the Kremlin leader.

“I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t,” Trump said.

Trump made his comments after inking plans for sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” that could hit both allies and competitors.



– Seismic shift –



His remarks on Russia and China mark a seismic shift after more than a decade of US policy which had increasingly cast Moscow into the cold and largely viewed both it and Beijing as adversaries.

They will also be viewed with consternation by Ukraine and European allies, who will fear that if they are not at the table of international diplomacy, they could end up on the menu.

Trump’s overtures to Putin in particular have caused alarm in Europe, which has viewed its huge neighbor Russia as a major threat since the invasion of Ukraine.

Trump revealed Wednesday he expected to meet Putin separately in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine peace talks, in a sudden thaw in relations.

In their first confirmed contact since Trump’s return to the White House, the US president said he had held a “highly productive” conversation with his Russian counterpart who ordered the bloody 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Several European nations have questioned Trump’s strategy and warned Washington not to hatch a deal without them.

The Trump administration’s talking points on Ukraine have also at times echoed Moscow’s, particularly when it comes to Kyiv’s dream of NATO membership to protect it from Russia.

“I believe that’s the reason the war started, because (predecessor president Joe) Biden went out and said that they could join NATO,” said Trump of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

In 2014, Russia was suspended from what was then the G8 after it annexed Crimea and sanctions were imposed on Moscow.

In his first term, Trump also called for Russia to be readmitted, but he found little support among other Western countries.

Trump pushes Romanian government to ease up on accused MAGA-loving sex traffickers: report

Brad Reed
February 17, 2025
RAW STORY


Bucharest, Romania. 21st June, 2023: Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate, surrounded by bodyguards, leave the Bucharest Court/ (LCV - Shutterstock)

President Donald Trump's administration has been urging the Romanian government to ease travel restrictions on Andrew and Tristan Tate, two brothers who have been indicted on sex trafficking and other charges in that country.

The Financial Times reports that "the Tates’ case was first brought up by US officials in a phone call with the Romanian government last week and then followed up by Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell when he met the Romanian foreign minister at the Munich Security Conference."

Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist influencer, has long been supportive of Trump and his MAGA movement.

Sanders Urges Europe to 'Stand Tall' Against Far-Right Boosted by Trump and Musk

"European friends: Do not accept lectures on democracy and freedom of speech from an administration that denies the 2020 election results and is now suing and intimidating news outlets whose reporting they don't like," said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.


Tens of thousands protest the Germany far-right on February 16, 2025 in Berlin.
(Photo: Guy Smallman/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 16, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders urged Europeans on Saturday to "stand tall against right-wing extremism" after the American vice president scolded the continent's leaders for not accommodating parties like the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, which appears poised for a strong performance in the approaching general election.

"European friends: Do not accept lectures on democracy and freedom of speech from an administration that denies the 2020 election results and is now suing and intimidating news outlets whose reporting they don't like," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post after U.S. Vice President JD Vance used his address at the Munich Security Conference to blast Germany's "firewall" against Alternative for Germany, also known as AfD.

Vance's speech was praised by AfD leader Alice Weidel—with whom the vice president met on Friday—and U.S. President Donald Trump, who called his second-in-command's remarks "very brilliant" as they sparked revulsion and open condemnation from European leaders.

The Guardian's Patrick Wintour characterized Vance's speech as "a call to arms for the populist right to be able to seize power in Europe, and a promise that the 'new sheriff in town' would help them to do so."

"Right-wing extremism is not just an American phenomenon. It's worldwide."

On Sunday, around 30,000 people took to the streets of Berlin to condemn Germany's far-right and specifically AfD, which has also been embraced by U.S. billionaire Elon Musk. AFPreported that "many carried placards with slogans denouncing" AfD, "which is expected to become the second-biggest party in next Sunday's vote."

One demonstrator, identified as 71-year-old Hannelore Reiner, told AFP that in the current moment she sees "a lot of parallels to 1933, to the time before the war when Hitler's fascism came to power."

"I'm afraid history will repeat itself," she said.

Sunday's protests came a week after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Munich to protest the far-right—and a week ahead of Germany's closely watched general election on February 23.

The Associated Pressnoted Friday that AfD's rise in Germany "has coincided with that of far-right parties in many other European countries, including Austria's Freedom Party and the National Rally in France, with which it has plenty of common ground."

"Weidel was in Budapest to visit Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Wednesday," the AP added.

Following last weekend's demonstrations in Munich, Sanders emphasized that "right-wing extremism is not just an American phenomenon."


"It's worldwide," the senator wrote. "We're in solidarity with our friends in Germany who are standing tall against oligarchy, authoritarianism, and racism—and the AfD, the Musk-supported party."