Observations from the first days of Trump 2.0: Accessible, a slippery relationship with the truth, and shades of a president
It’s Donald Trump’s second full day as president.
It feels like rather longer. Plenty has happened. This is the future.
He promised he would get down to business and so he did. It’s been hard to know which way to look; what to focus on.
Latest on Trump’s new presidency
President Biden preferred short days. President Trump chooses unpredictable days. He thrives on them; he thrives on surprise.
So here are a few observations from this whirlwind week, three days in.
Accessible
First, accessibility.
For all his seeming hatred and vilification of the media, President Trump has given the press far more access and opportunities to question him than his predecessor ever did.
That doesn’t mean the answers he gives to the many questions thrown at him are always particularly meaningful, satisfactory or honest but we’ve already had two free-flowing news conferences.
There’s been no aide selecting reporters to ask their questions.
It’s just been Trump fielding the rowdy reporters’ quickfire queries.
Last night, inside the White House, he responded to plenty of issues.
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Inside Trump’s White House
On the Ukraine question – he’s talking to Zelenskyy he said and will meet with Putin “anytime he wants”. Still, he offered no further detail on how he’d end the war.
On tariffs – he hinted how China and Mexico could avoid 25% levies on their goods.
He said the tariffs are “because they are allowing fentanyl into our country”.
Stop the fentanyl and the tariffs go?
On the release of the January 6 convicts including the leader of the far-right Proud Boys – he suggested they could have a place in the political conversation.
On Elon Musk buying TikTok – “If he wanted to buy it, yeah.”
He looked like he was enjoying the back and forth. He was providing an open forum to probe him and, maybe, expose him.
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Fact-checking
Second observation – fact-checking is still very much required for Trump.
On Monday he claimed that American warships must pay double tariffs to travel through the Panama Canal – not true, and that Chinese soldiers are ‘operating’ the canal – also not true.
In defending his decision to pardon the January 6 protesters, he claimed that murderers in America don’t go to jail.
“They should not have served, and they’ve served years in jail. And murderers don’t even go to jail in this country,” he said.
This is a wildly misleading sidestep designed to distract from his decision to pardon 1,500 people.
Different shades
Third observation – we are already seeing the different shades of Trump.
Deeply controversial announcements have come, with dizzying speed, but mixed with policy decisions many will see as pragmatic and sensible.
The investment in AI, combined no doubt with minimal regulation, could help scientists in healthcare research make America much more competitive and boost the American energy sector.
Positives and negatives there.
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His intentionally unpredictable foreign policy is already yielding results, like the Gaza ceasefire, but his red lines are obscure to adversaries making miscalculations a risk.
And his domestic agenda is proving already to be deeply controversial and perhaps even constitution-defying, setting a dangerous precedent.
American dominance
Final observation. Trump’s unpredictability, volatility and transactional instincts are having immediate profound consequences.
Far from being an increasingly irrelevant, declining nation, America feels – in just a few (long) days – to have become more powerful and more dominant than it has been for a very long time.
The necessity to dance to America’s tune has never been greater.
Donald Trump would have it no other way.
We must watch now for when someone chooses to test him.
US
America will not put up with it for much longer!’: Donald Trump hits out at Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy once again
A state of emergency has been declared in South Carolina as wildfires caused by dry and gusty conditions have forced people to evacuate some areas.
More than 175 fires covered 6.6 square miles in the state on Sunday as the National Weather Service warned of an increased risk of blazes in the region.
The number of fires was down to 163 by early Monday, the state’s forestry commission said.
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Sunday to support the wildfire response effort and a state-wide burning ban is in effect.
People in eight neighbourhoods were forced to evacuate as several fires raged in the state’s Horry County, officials said.
Soldiers used two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water 600 gallons at a time on the blazes, the South Carolina National Guard said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, firefighters made progress containing a fire in Carolina Forest, where people had been ordered to evacuate several neighbourhoods, according to Horry County Fire Rescue.
Footage showed some people running down the street as smoke filled the sky.
However, Horry County Fire Rescue announced by late Sunday that Carolina Forest evacuees could return home.
The Red Cross of South Carolina said approximately 135 Carolina Forest residents had taken shelter in a county recreation centre.
Smoke is seen rising from fires in Horry County. Pic: AP/Horry County Fire Rescue
The fire in the area had burned 2.5 square miles as of Sunday evening, the South Carolina Forestry Commission estimated.
No structures had succumbed to the blaze and no injuries had been reported as of Sunday morning, officials said.
It came as fire crews were working to contain multiple wildfires burning in four forests across North Carolina.
The largest covered around 0.6 square miles and burned in Uwharrie National Forest – about 50 miles east of Charlotte.
The North Carolina Forest Service said on Sunday that it had been made progress on the fire, reaching about one-third containment.
People flee an area in Myrtle Beach. Pic: AP
The small southwestern town of Tryon in Polk County, North Carolina, had urged some residents to evacuate on Saturday as a fire spread rapidly there.
The evacuations remained in effect on Sunday.
A decision on whether to lift the evacuation orders was expected to be made on Monday after intentional burns are set to try to stop the fire from spreading.
That fire had burned about 0.8 square miles as of Sunday evening, with 0% containment, according to the Polk County Emergency Management and Fire Marshal’s office.
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A helicopter drops water to help contain a fire in the Carolina Forest area. Pic: AP
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The North Carolina Forest Service was conducting water drops and back-burning operations on the ground and residents should expect a lot of smoke during those operations, officials said.
It comes as at least six active fires were burning in Georgia on Sunday, with nearly 5.8 miles burned in a seven-day span that brought the region gusty winds and low humidity, according to a Georgia Forestry Commission fire summary.
Officials have not said what caused any of the fires.
The dry and gusty conditions fuelling the fires are expected to fade as a cold front pushes out the dry air mass over the southeast of the US and brings rain by Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
The convergence of warmth, dry air and gusty winds is not inconsistent with the season’s La Niña weather phenomenon, which is associated with warmer, drier winters in the Carolinas, according to North Carolina State University.
The blazes come after two wildfires in Los Angeles killed 29 people and scorched thousands of acres across 24 days.
More than 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the deadly Eaton and Palisades blazes, which swept across California in January.
Cryptocurrency prices have jumped after Donald Trump revealed he would like Bitcoin and other lesser-traded tokens to be in a new US strategic crypto reserve.
He said his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano (ADA).
The names had not previously been announced.
The American president said in a post on Truth Social: “A US Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration, which is why my Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.”
“I will make sure the US is the Crypto Capital of the World.”
“And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve,” he said in a follow-up post. “I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose over 11% to $94,164 after Sunday’s announcement.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up around 13% at $2,516.
XRP surged 33% while the token tied to Solana jumped 25%. Cardano’s coin soared more than 60%.
Bitcoin was trading up around 20% from last week’s lows.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on cryptocurrencies in January. Pic: Reuters
The total cryptocurrency market rose about 10%, or more than $300bn (£238bn), in the hours since the announcement, according to cryptocurrency data and analysis company CoinGecko.
This is the first time Mr Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” rather than a “stockpile”. While the former assumes actively buying crypto in regular installments, a stockpile would not sell any of the crypto currently held by the US government.
Mr Trump is hosting the first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, and investors will be watching closely for more clues about the direction of the reserve plans.
His family have also launched their own coins, including his wife Melania.
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Mr Trump first introduced the idea of a Bitcoin stockpile, which would “keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future” last summer at major industry conference Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville.
After his re-election to the White House in November, there were more calls for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, helping to send the price of the flagship cryptocurrency to new all-time highs.
Under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, regulators cracked down on the industry in an attempt to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering.
Under Mr Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn investigations into several crypto companies and dropped a lawsuit against Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US.
But in recent weeks, crypto prices have fallen sharply, with some of the biggest digital currencies erasing nearly all of the gains made after Mr Trump’s election win triggered excitement across the industry.
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