Latest news with #Plouffe
The Hill
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Hill
California hits back at Trump EV move
The Big Story California officials on Thursday filed their 26th lawsuit against the Trump administration, after the president signed resolutions overturning the Golden State's landmark electric vehicle (EV) mandate. © Noah Berger, Associated Press 'We made a promise that if the president attempted to illegally interfere with our clean air standards, we'd hold him accountable in court,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. 'Today, we are making good on that promise,' he added. Bonta submitted the complaint in the Northern District of California together with his colleagues in Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. He said he filed the lawsuit moments after Trump signed three congressional resolutions, which California regulations that had aimed to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035 — and then prompted 11 other states to follow suit. Rather than directly overturning the rules, the resolutions revoked the Biden administration's authorization of the Golden State's policy. This action occurred via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which enables the repeal of recently approved regulations with a simple majority. 'We refuse to let this unprecedented and illegal use of the CRA undermine the Clean Air Act waivers that give California the authority to enforce our own mission standards,' Bonta said. The attorney general was referring to California's unique ability to set stronger-than-federal standards through a 1970 Clean Air Act clause, written amid historic smog conditions in the Los Angeles area. To do so, however, the Golden State must first apply to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a waiver for each proposed rule — and only following that approval can other states adopt similar such thresholds. The Hill's Sharon Udasin reports for Welcome to The Hill's Technology newsletter, we're Miranda Nazzaro and Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. Crypto Corner Coinbase expands political reach with Plouffe hire © Photo byDavid Plouffe, a senior adviser to former Vice President Harris's 2024 presidential campaign, is joining Coinbase's global advisory council, signaling an expansion of the cryptocurrency exchange's political reach. Plouffe, who was also a top aide to former President Obama, joins a group of political figures from both sides of the aisle on the exchange's global advisory council. Recent hires include Chris LaCivita, co-campaign manager for President Trumps' 2024 campaign, and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Upon Plouffe's departure from government, he joined Uber, where he led global policy and strategy. He also built the advocacy team at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Plouffe said Thursday cryptocurrency 'speaks directly to how people want to live their financial lives.' 'Faster and cheaper, with fewer gatekeepers,' Plouffe said. 'It reflects the desires of today's customers and voters alike. Policymakers who understand that shift will be positioned to lead; those who ignore it risk being left behind.' Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase's chief policy officer, said Plouffe joins during 'one of the biggest legislative moments for crypto in U.S. history.' The move to add a Democratic veteran comes as the Trump administration pushes a pro-crypto agenda and faces some backlash from Democrats concerned about the president's personal crypto ventures. Conservative provocateur Laura Loomer slammed Coinbase for the move, arguing it shows 'Coinbase has no interest in actually working with conservatives.' 'Instead they want to hire and work with the most radical Democrats and Trump haters,' she wrote in a lengthy post on X. She took specific aim at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who posted earlier Thursday to thank Trump for 'ushering a new era for crypto.' Loomer called him 'a real piece of work.' ICYMI: The Senate voted to wrap up debate on the GENIUS Act, which would establish regulatory rules of the road for stablecoins. A final vote on the bill is expected early next week. Essential Reads How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future: Senate votes to end debate on stablecoin bill, teeing up final vote The Senate voted Thursday to wrap up debate on a stablecoin bill, teeing up a final vote on the legislation that would establish regulatory rules of the road for the dollar-backed cryptocurrencies. Keeping in line with earlier votes on the GENIUS Act, a small contingent of Democrats voted with most Republicans to tee up a final vote on the crypto bill, which will likely occur early next week. The legislation had to clear … China could be accessing browsing data on VPNs: Watchdog More than a dozen private browsing apps on Apple and Google's app stores have undisclosed ties to Chinese companies, leaving user data at risk of exposure to the Chinese government, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project. Thirteen virtual private network (VPN) apps on Apple's App Store and 11 apps on Google's Play Store have ties to Chinese companies, the tech watchdog group said in the report released … Meta sues developer of 'nudify' app CrushAI Meta filed a lawsuit against a developer for allegedly running advertisements to promote its 'nudify' apps, which use artificial intelligence to create nonconsensual nude or sexually explicit images. The suit accuses Joy Timeline HK Limited, the developer behind CrushAI apps, of violating Meta's rules against nonconsensual intimate imagery. Meta noted its policies were updated more than a year ago to further … The Refresh News we've flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics: In Other News Branch out with other reads on The Hill: Kevin O'Leary on 'little' Trump-Musk fight: 'So what?' 'Shark Tank' investor Kevin O'Leary brushed off the significance of the public feud between President Trump and Elon Musk, saying the two men 'really need each other' and will find a way to move forward. In an interview on Fox News's 'Jesse Watters Primetime,' O'Leary said 'it's a good thing' that the tension between Trump and Musk seems to be subsiding. 'I'm pretty happy that these two have started to reconcile … What Others are Reading Two key stories on The Hill right now: Johnson, heckled by Democrats, backs censure for Padilla Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) should be censured after he tried to approach and question Homeland Security … Read more Republicans lay groundwork for 'total tax cliff' at end of Trump's term Congressional Republicans are laying the groundwork for a tax cliff at the end of President Trump's term in office. While the conference is pushing … Read more You're all caught up. See you tomorrow! Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here
Politico
12-06-2025
- Business
- Politico
Democratic strategist David Plouffe to become Coinbase's newest adviser
SAN FRANCISCO — David Plouffe, the veteran Democratic strategist who in recent years has worked extensively in tech, is joining the global advisory council of Coinbase. Plouffe, who recently helped guide Kamala Harris' presidential campaign and was a top aide to Barack Obama, is the latest political heavy-hitter to join the advisory body, telling POLITICO he'll bring his skills as a storyteller to an industry whose regulatory struggles have turned into a fight for credibility and stability. Among Plouffe's charges will be outreach to tech-savvy voters who flocked to Democrats during the Obama era, but have shifted to the right in recent years. It's another move meant to reinforce the bipartisan credentials of the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange as it pushes for broader buy-in after Republicans and President Donald Trump opened their arms to the industry and many of its policy goals. 'A lot of the debate is 'are you pro-crypto or anti-crypto, pro-ride sharing or not, pro-home-sharing or not,'' Plouffe said in an interview, referencing the emerging industries that have grown around companies like Uber and Airbnb. 'And I think this next stage is really deepening the benefits, whether that's the unbanked, whether that's security, whether that's opening up new forms of commerce.' Plouffe arrives a few months after the advisory council added former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — a Democrat turned independent — and Chris LaCivita, who served as Trump's co-campaign manager in 2024. Others on the board include the Democratic pollster John Anzalone; former Democratic Reps. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Stephanie Murphy of Florida; former Republican Sen. Pat Toomey; as well as longtime Republican strategist and lobbyist David Urban, among others. Plouffe and LaCivita are appearing on a panel this morning with Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase's chief policy officer at the exchange's third annual State of Crypto Summit in Manhattan. Plouffe has worked in a number of prominent tech roles before, including at Uber, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and rival crypto exchange Binance in a similar advisory post. He was a top adviser to Obama's first campaign and then served in the White House. He joined Harris' unsuccessful bid last fall, blending with a team of Harris loyalists and leftover aides and advisers to former President Joe Biden. Plouffe joins the exchange's council during a crucial week for the crypto industry in Washington, where both the Senate and the House advanced key pieces of legislation. The Senate could vote as soon as Monday on a bill that would create a new regulatory structure for stablecoins, which are tied to real-world assets, and is seen as an important step toward legitimizing crypto. Two committees in the House approved another bill that would lay down the first U.S. regulatory framework for crypto assets — but not without exposing deep Democratic divisions over how to police a sector that Trump has so blatantly embraced and profited off of through his family ventures. Plouffe conceded that 'there were elements of the Biden administration clearly not very friendly to the industry' and he has since seen remarkable progress in Democrats' attitude toward crypto. The digital asset industry found itself in the crosshairs of Biden's regulators after a series of high-profile scandals. Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler wielded the agency's enforcement powers to file lawsuits and actions against companies like Coinbase, which it dropped after Trump came into power. 'In some of the votes in the Senate, in the House, and some of the comments made from people who might end up being presidential candidates in '28, I think there's an understanding,' Plouffe told POLITICO. They may have learned from last campaign cycle, when Coinbase's influence operation quietly thrust the once-niche digital asset world into the heart of the 2024 elections. It outspent every other business in the sector on lobbying, poured millions into the industry's leading super PAC and helped launch a grassroots arm. Crypto has made a concerted push to keep a bipartisan reputation, though. The super PAC, Fairshake, also heavily backed the races of friendly Democrats like Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. Industry lobbyists have worried that the Trump family's fast-growing interests in crypto could distract from getting the legislation it wants from Capitol Hill and undermine the president's own desire to make the U.S. 'the crypto capital of the world.' 'We don't try to solve for one particular political circumstance or another,' Shirzad told POLITICO. 'That's been our model for the last two and a half years that we did our political efforts. And so far it's, I think, paid off for us.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can Democrats blame their problems all on Biden?
Party leaders who long tiptoed around Joe Biden's health and questions around senility now seem to be settling on a new tack in explaining the 2024 loss to Donald Trump: It's all Biden's fault. At least that was the chief reason put forward by Kamala Harris' campaign manager, David Plouffe, in explaining what led to the November to the forthcoming book "Original Sin," which NBC News obtained on Tuesday, Plouffe called the efforts to defeat Trump on a truncated timeline a 'f---ing nightmare' 'And it's all Biden. He totally f---ed us,' Plouffe told the book's authors, according to the excerpt. 'We got so screwed by Biden as a party.' Plouffe did not respond to a request for comment. A Biden spokesperson said they had not reviewed every part of the book and would not comment on specific revelations. 'We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president,' the spokesperson said. Plouffe's comments in the book followed those from a series of Democrats — from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on down — who have placed much of the blame for the 2024 loss to Trump on Biden, his decision to run for a second term and his subsequent late exit from the race. But that thinking is opening a new tension in the party, where some on the left say that to just blame Biden is papering over a more substantive issue of failures by the campaign and the party, and that leaders should share blame and reflect. Not doing so, they warn, may lead to further losses in the next presidential election and even possibly the midterms next year. In response to Plouffe's remarks in the book, longtime Democratic National Committee Finance Chair Chris Korge delivered his own stern words in an interview with NBC News. 'To blame Biden now is to shift the accountability from the people who lost the race: the consultants, the so-called gurus,' Korge said. Korge said Democrats are better served if they looked forward but noted that they still needed to review what went wrong. He said the party had a 'perfect convention, including a huge contingency of influencers and podcasts.' Harris also, he added, had a tremendous debate, and they raised a record amount of money — more than $1.4 billion. 'We had all the money we needed and we found a way to not use our money wisely,' Korge said of the campaign. 'I find it rich that consultants who lost that election are now trying to blame Joe Biden.' Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, went further in saying that Harris was a flawed candidate and that Plouffe was attempting to 'whitewash' a bad campaign. 'All the things being said about Biden — he should have dropped out earlier, and there's likely a cover-up — is probably true,' Green said. 'But that's too easy an excuse to distract Democrats from solving a very real problem, which is that the party is seen as clubby political insiders who are defending a broken economic system when we need anti-establishment candidates who stand for political and economic change.' The discussion around Biden is accelerating as a series of deeply reported books examining the Democrats' 2024 loss have been released. 'Original Sin,' by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson, to be publicly released later this month, purports to lay out aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment. 'Fight,' a book by Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amy Parnes of The Hill, gives anecdotes of Biden not recognizing high-profile party leaders and of the former first lady and others in his inner circle cocooning the then-president to obscure infirmities from the public. The new revelations seemed to prompt an offensive by Biden, who went on ABC's "The View" last week to declare he was not in cognitive decline in office. Biden also hired Chris Meagher, a former White House aide, to handle his communications. Meagher did not respond to a request for comment, but last week he criticized one of the books on X: 'Yes, Biden was old, but that's a lot different than an allegation of mental decline that kept him from being able to do the job, which there is no evidence of." Biden had long rebuffed attempts to stop him from seeking a second term, though he had implied that his presidency would serve as a bridge to a new generation of Democrats. When he announced his intention to seek re-election, he picked up support from party leaders and some White House officials who then moved to his campaign. Once Biden had a cataclysmic debate performance against Trump in late June of last year, the tide turned for him to leave the race. Biden stepped aside and backed Harris, but by then there was just 107 days for her to mount a campaign against Trump. 'In a 107-day race, it is very difficult to do all the things you would normally do in a year and a half, two years,' Jen O'Malley Dillon said on "Pod Save America" last November. Left unasked, however, was what role O'Malley Dillon — and others who were on Biden's White House team before moving to the campaign — played in helping create the very predicament they were complaining about. That included not putting Harris out in front early enough in the administration so she would be prepared to lead if necessary, as well as how much those running Biden's White House and then campaign efforts pushed for answers on his mental health. Many Democrats today express some regret over how the process turned out. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who made a bid for the White House in 2020, also recently said that the party could be in a different place today if it had held a real primary. 'You know, everything we look at in a rearview mirror after you lose an election. Yes, we would have been better served by a primary. But we are where we are,' Klobuchar told NBC News' 'Meet the Press' on Sunday. Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the party would be well served to evaluate its mistakes but also quickly adjust to the new political landscape before them. 'There are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2024 beyond just whether Biden should have run, and it's important that we continue to have a spirited conversation inside the family about what went wrong and what we can learn from it,' Rosenberg said. 'But the real next chapter for us is going to be the 20 or 30 political leaders in our party charting a new course, having a big debate, and we're having a big debate and charting a new course for our party over the next few years.' Rosenberg added that the playing field is quickly changing with Trump in the White House. 'That's where the real action is going to be, because Trump has already created a whole new dynamic, and the politics that generated 2024 are no longer with us,' Rosenberg said. 'We now have a new set of realities that we have to respond to and build from, and so what's going to be more important.' This article was originally published on
Global News
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Global News
Senior golfer scores double hole-in-1 in a single round
An 89-year-old Winnipeg golfer is proving that age is no reason to slow down. Hank Plouffe, who will be turning 90 in July, hits up Bel Acres Golf & Country Club, just north of Winnipeg, five days a week, from Monday to Friday. 'It's the enjoyment of the friendship of the people that you play with,' Plouffe said. 'It's a game; there's fun to it.' And it was friendship that drew Plouffe, who averages about 70 games a season, to the game of golf 57 years ago. 'I had a very good friend who was a very good golfer, and he passed away on the golf course in Pinawa,' Plouffe said. 'He was my best friend and he started me into golfing, and from then on, it kept on going.' Story continues below advertisement View image in full screen Frank Plouffe has been golfing for 57 years. Michael Draven / Global News Despite decades on the course, Plouffe is still experiencing firsts. In his lifetime, he's got eight holes in one. The two most recent ones were shot just the other weekend at the Netley Creek Golf Course. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'I hit the ball and I didn't look up, and he says, 'Gosh, that looks like it's going in the hole.' I said, 'Yeah right,'' said Plouffe, who was golfing with family at the time. 'I took a club and I was looking around the edge of the green for the ball and they all stood around the hole and said, 'It's in the hole! We told you that!'' Then came the unthinkable — a second hole-in-one in the same round. 'We get up to number 12, and it's a short hole, and I took my nine iron out and I hit the ball and this time I looked up, and sure enough, it hit the green and curved right into the hole,' he said Story continues below advertisement 'And I said, 'I can't believe this is happening'. Two holes in run in one round … It's unbelievable.' The odds of it happening are about 67 million to one. 'Well, I wasn't that surprised, he's a good golfer,' said Brian Kaluznick, who has been golfing with Plouffe at Bel Acres for about 40 years. 'It's an amazing feat… and especially for a guy that's only 89 years old.' View image in full screen Plouffe hits up Bel Acres Golf & Country Club about five times a week. Michael Draven / Global News But Plouffe credits it to a stroke of luck. 'Usually attention like this is for heroes,' Plouffe laughed. 'I'm not a hero, I'm just an everyday golfer.' But some things — like Plouffe's mindset and staying active — can't be credited to luck. Story continues below advertisement 'Everybody is going to have a bad shot, everybody is going to have a decent shot. Just remember the good ones,' he said. 'The bad ones, well, put up with them and forget it. (Just) keep yourself active, that's great.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden ‘totally f***ed' Kamala's chances of winning the Presidency by waiting too long to drop out, top campaign aide says
A top campaign aide during former Vice President Kamala Harris's failed 2024 presidential run has placed the blame for her loss solely at the feet of President Joe Biden, according to a new book. David Plouffe, who was drafted into Harris's campaign after Biden stepped away from the race last summer, didn't parse words, saying the then-president "totally f***ed us" by not dropping out of the race sooner. Before working with Harris, Plouffe managed former President Barack Obama's winning 2008 campaign and served as a senior adviser in his White House. He gave his unfiltered opinions in Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, a new book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Plouffe is quoted as calling Harris's 107-day campaign "a f***ing nightmare," which he said was "all Biden." In the book, Plouffe says he received calls from several donors worried about what they saw as Biden's declining health and cognitive skills, and his ability to deliver speeches. He said he pushed the White House and the Democratic Party on whether or not they really felt hitching their electoral hopes to Biden again in 2024 was the best course of action. In addition to Plouffe, authors Tapper and Thompson spoke to approximately 200 people, including members of Congress, the White House, and campaign insiders about the campaign. Plouffe wasn't the only one sounding the alarm about Biden, according to their reporting. A senior aide, who quit the White House because they did not believe Biden should be running, told the authors that "we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn't realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023." The staffer said that they "love Joe Biden," but also felt that it was " a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.' Another prominent Democratic strategist accused Biden of "stealing" a 2024 victory from the American public. 'It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people," the strategist reportedly said. The book also reveals that Biden's aides had discussed his potential use of a wheelchair if he were re-elected. 'Biden's physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk — had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so until after the election,' Tapper and Thompson write. Aides at the time believed that putting Biden in a chair during the election would hurt his chances of beating Donald Trump. But Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, reportedly 'privately said that if [Biden] had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery.' The book further claims that Biden did not recognize actor George Clooney — who eventually called for the president to step away from the race, despite his admiration for him — during a 2024 fundraiser. While questions of Biden's apparent decline were circulating behind closed doors in the White House and Democratic movers and shakers, the public focus on his cognitive abilities came to a head following his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June of 2024. According to the book, Senator Chuck Schumer confronted Biden after the debate at his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, and tried to convince him to step aside to preserve his legacy. He reportedly warned that if he continued and lost to Trump, half a century of "amazing, beautiful work goes out the window." "But it's worse than that – you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures," Schumer reportedly said. Biden reportedly replied to Schumer by telling him he had "bigger balls than anyone I've ever met." The former president did eventually heed the calls to step aside, but many of the book's subjects argue it was too late to salvage an effective campaign.
