Mail-in suspicions. Mr. Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal this week’s California primary elections and said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles will investigate the surge of late mail-in ballots and the slow vote count.
The probe is to focus on the primaries for California governor and Los Angeles mayor, where Republican candidates had a strong performance in early results. The final results may not be known for weeks because of a deluge of late-arriving mail-in ballots.
Mr. Trump said Democrats are “trying to steal” both elections.
“The Dumocrats are at it again,” Mr. Trump said. “They are trying to steal the governor of California primary and the mayor of Los Angeles primary away from two great Republican candidates. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of mail-in ballots.”
The state’s nonpartisan primaries will decide which candidates are on the general election ballot in November.
State election officials notoriously begin processing ballots postmarked after Election Day, once in-person voting ends. It might take weeks to know the final results, officials have said.
Under California law, election officials have up to 30 days after an election to count every ballot and perform accuracy checks.
“California elections officials prioritize the right to vote and election security over rushing the vote count,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said. “We have a process that by law ensures both voting rights and the integrity of elections, so I would call on all Californians to be patient.”
Two days after Election Day, Steve Hilton, a Republican and former Fox News commentator, was leading Xavier Becerra, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services under President Biden, by 2 percentage points.
Mr. Hilton has 27.6% of the vote; Mr. Becerra has 25.6%. Tom Steyer, a Democratic billionaire climate activist, was in third place with 19.6%.
In the Los Angeles mayor’s race, incumbent Karen Bass, a Democrat, will be on the ballot in November, having qualified for a runoff vote later this year. Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has 29% of the vote, which is good enough for second place. Democrat Nithya Raman is third with 22.8% of the vote.
The Justice Department is abandoning its plan to set up a $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress.
“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” he said.
The department had announced a day earlier that it would adhere to a temporary injunction blocking further action on the fund while a federal court case in the Eastern District of Virginia is pending. Mr. Blanche, whom Mr. Trump intends to nominate for the permanent post, suggested the department will continue to fight that lawsuit and similar complaints despite its decision not to launch the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
The fund was intended as part of a settlement the Justice Department reached with Mr. Trump to end his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for leaking his tax returns.
The president declined to commit to scrapping plans for the $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated his allies and Jan. 6 rioters. But he did talk about it in the past tense.
“The weaponization fund, as far as I’m concerned, was a beautiful thing,” he said.
Mr. Trump has reignited his trade war with a plan to impose tariffs on 60 U.S. trading partners more than three months after the Supreme Court struck down his IEEPA tariffs.
In its most sweeping action since the high court ruling, the Trump administration will impose tariffs of 10% on imports from Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Taiwan and Britain, among other places, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Imports from other major economies, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland, will face a 12.5% levy.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it has the authority to impose the tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which empowers the U.S. to take action against unfair foreign trade practices. In this case, the administration is targeting countries that permit or fail to prohibit goods made with forced labor.
“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement. “We will no longer tolerate this disparity.”
William J. Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was appointed by Mr. Trump to serve as acting director of National Intelligence after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure.
Mr. Trump’s decision installs one of his staunchest supporters and attack dogs in a key role overseeing national secrets amid tense foreign relationships and overseas conflicts. Even Senate Republican leaders say his background in real estate and investments makes him a strange choice for the high-level national security post.
“We don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican. “If he’s somebody we want in that position permanently, he’s got a lengthy road ahead of him.”
The president clarified that Mr. Pulte won’t get the job permanently.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer dubbed him a “Trump puppet.”
Turnover of Mr. Trump’s senior White House staff is remarkably stable compared with Mr. Trump’s first term and puts him on par with other modern presidents.
Nearly a year and a half into Mr. Trump’s second term, senior staff departures, excluding Cabinet secretaries, stand at 34%, according to data compiled by the Brookings Institution.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, his turnover rate reached 68% after two years.
But Mr. Trump is losing Cabinet secretaries at a record pace. In the past three months, Mr. Trump has fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Ms. Gabbard resigned, citing her husband’s illness. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid ongoing investigations and allegations of misconduct.
During the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump lost two Cabinet secretaries. No other president, dating back to Reagan, had a Cabinet member leave during his first year.
