Trump's Trade School Idea Is a $3 Billion Winner

The president recently expressed his support for a great idea: investing an additional $3 billion in trade schools. That he suggested taking the money from scientific and medical research grants allocated to Harvard University — a counterproductive move unlikely to survive a court challenge — should not detract from the idea's merit. Nor should it obscure the issue's strong bipartisan appeal.
To be clear, the administration's fight with Harvard and its Ivy League peers is a bad idea. One can criticize those schools for many things — in particular, their thoroughgoing failure to combat anti-Semitism in recent years — without obliterating research budgets at some of America's most important academic institutions. One hopes the provocation was the point.

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Fox News

26 minutes ago

• Fox News

Despite two assassination attempts, NY Times blames Trump for 'angry culture' that can lead to violence

The New York Times editorial board pointed the finger at President Donald Trump on Friday following another incident of deadly political violence. In a new editorial, the board said Trump is the chief individual to blame for America sliding into an era marked by political violence. "Although Mr. Trump has been a personal victim of this violence, he also deserves particular responsibility for our angry culture," the board declared. The headline read, "The Nation Encourages Political Violence by Allowing It to Seem Normal." The Times published the piece days after the deadly shootings that claimed the lives of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and resulted in the wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, last weekend. The suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, was arrested on Sunday following a two-day manhunt in Minnesota after he allegedly posed as a police officer and killed the Hortmans. The previous day, he carried out a related attack against Hoffman and his wife. Boelter was found with a cache of weapons, including at least three AK-47 assault rifles and a 9mm handgun, along with a manifesto that listed 70 names and addresses, some of which belonged to other public officials. The Friday editorial argued that this latest politically motivated attack represents a "surge in political violence during the Trump years" that has imperiled not only American lives but also our country's collective memory." The board recounted several high-profile instances of political violence that have occurred in America in the last decade, listing the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., in 2017, the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's, D-Calif., husband, and the two assassination attempts on Trump, as part of the "grim catalog of political violence in recent years." It declared that "Fear has become a fact of life for politicians," elsewhere noting that "Democrats and Republicans alike have been the victims" of attacks driven by "demonizing comments" that people "on both the firth and the left engage in." The board then blamed Trump for this, justifying the point in stating, "He uses threatening language in ways that no other modern president has. He praises people who commit violence in his name, such as the Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom he has pardoned, despite their attacks on police officers and others. He sometimes seems incapable of extending basic decency to Democrats." "Instead of calling Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota to express condolences about the killings of two of his friends, Mr. Trump insulted Mr. Walz," the piece stated, adding, "It is no coincidence that hate crimes have surged, according to the F.B.I., during Mr. Trump's decade as a dominant political figure." Other Democratic Party leaders have made the same argument about Trump in the days since the Minnesota lawmaker shooting. Figures like former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., pointed to the president when asked this week what has led to more violent incidents that seem to be politically motivated. The Trump administration has rejected these statements, with White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson telling Fox News Digital earlier this week, "Democrats are wrong to exploit this tragedy and blame President Trump… President Trump – the survivor of two assassination attempts – is uniting the country through patriotism, prosperity, and success. Radical Democrats must stop with their divisive, violent rhetoric."

CNN

30 minutes ago

• CNN

Trump says America has ‘too many' national holidays and they're hurting the economy. Is he right?

President Donald Trump on Thursday called for fewer federal holidays, saying the days off cost America billions of dollars in losses. 'Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed,' Trump said in a Truth Social post on Juneteenth, a newly designated federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged during a Thursday briefing with reporters that it was a federal holiday and thanked reporters for showing up, but declined to answer whether Trump was doing anything to mark it. 'The workers don't want it either!' Trump said of federal holidays in his post. 'Soon we'll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' Is there any truth to his comments? Yes and no. Most research around the economic impact of federal holidays deals with how worker productivity is impacted. Worker productivity measures how much workers are able to achieve over a given period of time. A day off work, therefore, would put worker productivity at zero. But research suggests that it's not just, say, July 4 itself that causes productivity to slump. It's the days before and after, since workers tend to schedule time off around them, leaving employees who opted not to take those days off with heavier workloads, thus reducing their productivity. A 2022 study by two economists found that when a federal holiday falls on a weekend and isn't rescheduled for a weekday, the nation's total output, or gross domestic product, increases by 0.08% to 0.2% relative to when it is rescheduled. Among the sectors that can take the biggest hit from federal holidays is manufacturing, the study found. But that's just in the short term. Over the longer term, paid time off, including over federal holidays, increases worker morale and can make them more productive over time. That's because people who work more aren't necessarily more productive, since they are more likely to get burnt out. Case in point: Fresh research from Microsoft found workers are struggling to cope with a 'seemingly infinite workday,' involving an increasing load of meetings occurring outside traditional working hours. One outcome is that one-third of workers feel it has been 'impossible to keep up' with the pace of work over the past five years, according to a Microsoft-commissioned survey of 31,000 employees around the world, cited a Tuesday report. Meanwhile, an older internal survey Ernst & Young conducted found that for every 10 additional hours of vacation employees took, their performance reviews increased by 8%. Furthermore, those who took time off more frequently were less likely to leave the firm. Contrary to Trump's comments, businesses across the economy don't shut down entirely on federal holidays: Plenty of workers, including emergency responders, retail and transportation workers, continue to work on such days. On the spending front, consumers tend to make more purchases on holidays, especially as businesses schedule sales around them. Specifically, the tourism, hospitality and retail sectors tend to benefit the most. But it's not just big businesses — small businesses can benefit, too. A 2018 study found that bank holidays in the United Kingdom give small shops an average of an additional £253 (about $340) in profit. CNN's Anna Cooban contributed reporting.

CNN

31 minutes ago

• CNN

Rep. Gottheimer on the hero's welcome for returned U.S. hostage

Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer talks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown about the hero's welcome newly released American hostage Edan Alexander received when he returned to New Jersey after being held by Hamas for 584 days, and explains whether he thinks the U.S. should join Israel's military campaign against Iran.