South Africa police minister says Trump ‘twisted’ facts to push baseless genocide claims.

South Africa’s top law enforcement official said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that a video he showed in the Oval Office was of burial sites for more than 1,000 white farmers and he “twisted” the facts to push a false narrative about mass killings of white people in his country.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was talking about a video clip that was played during the meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday that showed an aerial view of a rural road with lines of white crosses erected on either side.

“Now this is very bad,” Trump said as he referred to the clip that was part of a longer video that was played in the meeting. “These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning.”

Mchunu said the crosses did not mark graves or burial sites, but were a temporary memorial put up in 2020 to protest the killings of all farmers across South Africa. They were put up during a funeral procession for a white couple who were killed in a robbery on their farm, Mchunu said.

A son of the couple who were killed and a local community member who took part in the procession also said the crosses do not represent burial sites and were taken down after the protest.

South Africa struggles with extremely high levels of violent crime, although farm killings make up a small percentage of the country’s overall homicides. Both white and Black farmers are attacked, and sometimes killed, and the government has condemned the violence against both groups.

Whites make up around 7 per cent of South Africa’s 62 million people but generally still have a much better standard of living than the Black majority more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation. Whites make up the majority of the country’s wealthier commercial farmers.

Mchunu said Trump’s false claims that the crosses represented more than 1,000 burial sites was part of his “genocide story” — referring to the U.S. president’s baseless allegations in recent weeks that there is a widespread campaign in South Africa to kill white farmers and take their land that he has said amounts to a genocide.

“They are not graves. They don’t represent graves,” Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. “And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa.”

“We have respect for the president of the United States,” Mchunu added. “But we have no respect for his genocide story whatsoever.”

The White House, when asked about Mchunu’s remarks, pointed back to press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments a day earlier at her briefing, when she said that “the video showed crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government.”

Of the more than 5,700 homicides in South Africa from January through March, six occurred on farms and, of those, one victim was white, said Mchunu. “In principle, we do not categorize people by race, but in the context of claims of genocide of white people, we need to unpack the killings in this category,” he said.

Lourens Bosman, who is a former lawmaker in the national Parliament, said he took part in the procession shown in the video the Trump administration played. It happened near the town of Newcastle in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal in September 2020. The crosses were symbols to white and Black farmers and farmworkers who had been killed across South Africa over the previous 26 years, Bosman said.

Trump’s falsehoods that South Africa’s government is fueling the persecution and killing of its minority white farmers has been strongly denied by the country, which says the allegations are rooted in misinformation.

Ramaphosa pushed for this week’s meeting with Trump in what he said was an attempt to change Trump’s mind over South Africa and correct misconceptions about the country to rebuild ties.

Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 that cut all U.S. financial assistance to South Africa and accused it of mistreating white Afrikaner farmers and seizing their land. The order accused Ramaphosa’s government of “fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”

Trump’s executive order also accused South Africa of pursuing an anti-American foreign policy and specifically criticized its decision to launch a case at the International Court of Justice accusing U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The order accused South Africa of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas through that case.

Article by Gerald Imray And Michelle Gumede.

#Trump administration takes first steps in easing sanctions on Syria.

The Trump administration granted Syria sweeping exemptions from sanctions Friday in a big first step toward fulfilling the president’s pledge to lift a half-century of penalties on a country devastated by civil war.

The measures from the State and Treasury departments waived for six months a tough set of sanctions imposed by Congress in 2019 and expanded U.S. rules for what foreign businesses can do in Syria, now led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former militia commander who helped drive longtime leader Bashar Assad from power late last year.

It follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that the U.S. would roll back heavy financial penalties targeting Syria’s former autocratic rulers -- in a bid to give the new interim government a better chance of survival after the 13-year war.

The congressional sanctions, known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, aimed to isolate Syria’s previous ruling Assad family by effectively expelling those doing business with them from the global financial system.

“These waivers will facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water, and sanitation, and enable a more effective humanitarian response across Syria,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “The President has made clear his expectation that relief will be followed by prompt action by the Syrian government on important policy priorities.”

Syrians and their supporters have celebrated the sanctions relief but say they need them lifted permanently to secure the tens of billions of dollars in investment and business needed for reconstruction after a war that fragmented the country, displaced or killed millions of people, and left thousands of foreign fighters in the country.

The Trump administration said Friday’s announcements were “just one part of a broader U.S. government effort to remove the full architecture of sanctions.” Those were imposed on Syria’s former rulers over the decades because of their support for Iranian-backed militias, a chemical weapons program and abuses of civilians.
A welcome U.S. announcement in Syria

People danced in the streets of Damascus after Trump announced in Saudi Arabia last week that he would be ordering a “cessation” of sanctions against Syria.

“We’re taking them all off,” Trump said a day before meeting al-Sharaa. “Good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”

Rubio told lawmakers this week that sanctions relief must start quickly because Syria’s transition government could be weeks from “collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”

But asked what sanctions relief should look like overall, Rubio gave a one-word explanation: “Incremental.”

Syria’s interim leaders “didn’t pass their background check with the FBI,” Rubio told lawmakers. The group that al-Sharaa led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was originally affiliated with al-Qaida, although it later renounced ties and took a more moderate tone. It is still listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

But al-Sharaa’s government could be the best chance for rebuilding the country and avoiding a power vacuum that could allow a resurgence of the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

“If we engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we do not engage them, it was guaranteed to not work out,” Rubio said.
Debate within the Trump administration

While some sanctions can be quickly lifted or waived through executive actions like those taken Friday, Congress would have to permanently remove the penalties it imposed.

The congressional sanctions specifically block postwar reconstruction. Although they can be waived for 180 days by executive order, investors are likely to be wary of reconstruction projects when sanctions could be reinstated after six months.

Some Trump administration officials are pushing for relief as fast as possible without demanding tough conditions first. Others have proposed a phased approach, giving short-term waivers right away on some sanctions then tying extensions or a wider executive order to Syria meeting conditions. Doing so could substantially slow -- or even permanently prevent -- longer-term relief.

That would impede the interim government’s ability to attract investment and rebuild Syria after the war, critics say.

Proposals were circulating among administration officials, including one shared this week that broadly emphasized taking all the action possible, as fast as possible, to help Syria rebuild, according to a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Another proposal -- from State Department staff -- that circulated last week proposes a three-phase road map, starting with short-term waivers then laying out sweeping requirements for future phases of relief or permanent lifting of sanctions, the official said.

Removing “Palestinian terror groups” from Syria is first on the list of conditions to get to the second phase. Supporters of sanctions relief say that might be impossible, given the subjectivity of determining which groups meet that definition and at what point they can be declared removed.

Other conditions for moving to the second phase are for the new government to take custody of detention facilities housing Islamic State fighters and to move forward on absorbing a U.S.-backed Kurdish force into the Syrian army.

To get to phase three, Syria would be required to join the Abraham Accords -- normalized relations with Israel -- and to prove that it had destroyed the previous government’s chemical weapons.

Israel has been suspicious of the new government, although Syrian officials have said publicly that they do not want a conflict with Israel. Since Assad fell, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes and seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in Syria.

#Netanyahu accuses France, Britain and Canada of ‘emboldening’ #Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the leaders of France, Britain and Canada of wanting to help the Palestinian militant group Hamas after they threatened to take “concrete action” if Israel did not stop its latest offensive in Gaza.

The criticism, echoing similar remarks from Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday, was part of a fightback by the Israeli government against the increasingly heavy international pressure on it over the war in Gaza.

“You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history,” Netanyahu said.

The Israeli leader, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Gaza, has regularly criticized European countries as well as global institutions from the United Nations to the International Court of Justice over what he says is their bias against Israel.

But as the flow of images of destruction and hunger in Gaza has continued, fueling protests in countries around the world, Israel has struggled to turn international opinion, which has increasingly shifted against it.

“It’s hard to convince at least some people, definitely on the far left in the U.S. and in some countries in Europe, that what Israel is doing is a war of defense,” said former Israeli diplomat Yaki Dayan.

“But this is how it is perceived in Israel and bridging this gap is sometimes an impossible mission,” he said.

Israeli officials have been particularly concerned about growing calls for other countries in Europe to follow the example of Spain and Ireland in recognizing a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to resolve decades of conflict in the region.

Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian state would threaten Israel and he has framed the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington on Tuesday by a man who allegedly shouted “Free Palestine” as a clear example of that threat.

He said “exactly the same chant” was heard during the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct 7, 2023.

“They don’t want a Palestinian state. They want to destroy the Jewish state,” he said in a statement on the social media platform X.

“I could never understand how this simple truth evades the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and others,” he said, adding that any moves by Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state would “reward these murderers with the ultimate prize”.

Instead of advancing peace, the three leaders were “emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever”, he said.
Aid blockade

The Israeli leader, whose government depends on far-right support, said Hamas, which issued a statement welcoming the move, had thanked French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Mark Carney over what he said was their demand for an immediate end to the war.

The leaders’ statement on Monday did not demand an immediate end to the war, but a halt to Israel’s new military offensive on Gaza and a lifting of its restrictions on humanitarian aid. Israel had prevented aid from entering Gaza since March, before relaxing its blockade this week.

“By issuing their demand – replete with a threat of sanctions against Israel, against Israel, not Hamas – these three leaders effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power,” Netanyahu said.

“And they give them hope to establish a second Palestinian state from which Hamas will again seek to destroy the Jewish state.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said France, which like Britain and Canada designates Hamas as a terrorist organization, was “unwaveringly committed to Israel’s security” but he said it was “absurd and slanderous” to accuse supporters of a two-state solution of encouraging antisemitism or Hamas.

French government spokesperson Sophie Primas said France did not accept Netanyahu’s accusations, adding: “We need to de-escalate this rising tension between our two states and work to find lasting peace solutions, for Israel and for Palestine.”

Asked about Netanyahu’s remarks, Britain’s armed forces minister Luke Pollard said London stood with Israel in their right to self-defense. “But that self-defense must be conducted within the bounds of international humanitarian law,” he said.

“At this moment, we stand fast against terrorism, but we also want to make sure that the aid is getting into Gaza,” Pollard told Times Radio.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza was launched in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack, which killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken as hostage into Gaza. It has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians and devastated the enclave, where wide areas have been reduced to rubble.

At least 60 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza as Israel lets minimal aid in.

Gaza Strip -- At least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza in a 24-hour period, Gaza’s health ministry said Friday, as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive and let in minimal aid to the strip.

The dead included 10 people in the southern city of Khan Younis, four in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nine in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

Israel is facing mounting international criticism for its latest offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The strip has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, according to the United Nations. Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine.

Even the United States, a staunch ally, has voiced concerns over the hunger crisis.

The strikes that lasted into Friday morning came a day after Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing from wreckage.

Israel said it will continue to strike until Hamas releases all of the 58 remaining Israeli hostages and disarms. Fewer than half of the hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Suspect charged with murder over deaths of Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington

The strikes come a day after two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot while leaving a reception for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum, in Washington, D.C. The suspect told police he “did it for Palestine,” according to court documents filed Thursday as he was charged with murder. He didn’t enter a plea.

On Thursday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the killings in Washington horrific and blasted France, the U.K. and Canada for proposing to establish a Palestinian state.

“Because by issuing their demand, replete with a threat of sanctions against Israel -- against Israel, not Hamas -- these three leaders effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power,” he said.

Earlier this week the three leaders issued one of the most significant criticisms by close allies of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and its actions in the West Bank, threatening to take “concrete actions” if the government did not cease its renewed military offensive and significantly lift restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Aid starts entering, but agencies say nothing like enough

Amid pressure, Israel started letting in aid. Israeli officials said Friday they let in more than 100 trucks of aid, including flour, food, medical equipment and drugs. The trucks came in through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

But UN agencies say the amount is woefully insufficient, compared with around 600 trucks a day that entered during a recent ceasefire and that are necessary to meet basic needs. UN agencies say Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza make it difficult to retrieve and distribute the aid. As a result, little of it has so far reached those in need.

The World Food Program said on Friday said that 15 of its trucks were looted Thursday night in southern Gaza while going to WFP-supported bakeries.

It said that hunger and desperation about whether food was coming in is contributing to rising insecurity, and called on Israel to allow greater volumes of food to enter, faster and more efficiently.

Israel says the aid now is to bridge the gap until a U.S. backed initiative starts soon. A group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will take over aid distribution in Gaza, and armed private contractors will guard the distribution. Israel says the system is needed because Hamas siphons off significant amounts of aid. The UN denies that claim.

On Friday a Geneva-based advocacy group said it was taking legal action to urge Swiss authorities to monitor the foundation.

TRIAL International, which focuses on international justice, said it made legal submissions to make sure that the privately run foundation, which is listed in the Geneva commercial registry, abides by Swiss law, notably on the activities of private security groups.

A spokesman for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that it adheres by humanitarian principles and that its operations are free from Israeli control. It said the foundation was not a military operation and its decision to integrate armed security contractors allows it the ability to access and operate in Gaza.
No movement on ceasefire negotiations in Doha

Earlier this week, Netanyahu said he was recalling his high-level negotiating team from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said a “fundamental gap” remained between the two parties and that none of the proposals was able to bridge their differences.

Hamas said no real ceasefire talks have taken place since last week in Doha. The group accused Netanyahu of “falsely portraying participation” and attempting to “mislead global public opinion” by keeping Israel’s delegation there without engaging in serious negotiations.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Settler violence in the occupied West Bank

Palestinians in the village of Bruqin, in the northern West Bank, said Israeli settlers attacked them Thursday afternoon, burning cars and damaging houses.

“We’ve been suffering since Wednesday from settler attacks and assaults -- verbal abuse, stone throwing, and constant harassment at all times,” said Mustafa Khater, whose house was attacked. He said he had previously evacuated his wife and four children for fear of attacks, but had stayed behind to protect the house.

The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out large-scale operations targeting militants that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. That has coincided with a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

Trump’s administration has revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, and will force existing students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

Trump’s image of dead ‘white farmers’ came from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa.

JOHANNESBURG, May 22 - U.S. President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans.

“These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In fact, the video, published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the news agency’s fact check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

The blog post showed to Ramaphosa by Trump during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo.

The post did not caption the image but identified it as a “YouTube screen grab” with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote in reply to a Reuters query that Trump had “misidentified the image.”

She added, however, that the post, which referred to what it called Ramaphosa’s “dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist government,” had “pointed out the increasing pressure placed on white South Africans.”

The footage from which the picture was taken shows a mass burial following an M23 assault on Goma, filmed by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty.

“That day, it was extremely difficult for journalists to get in ... I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be allowed to film,” Al Katanty said. “Only Reuters has video.”

Al Katanty said seeing Trump holding the article with the screengrab of his video came as a shock.

“In view of all the world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, white people are being killed by Black people,” Al Katanty said.

Ramaphosa visited Washington this week to try to mend ties with the United States after persistent criticism from Trump in recent months over South Africa’s land laws, foreign policy, and alleged bad treatment of its white minority, which South Africa denies.

Trump interrupted the televised meeting with Ramaphosa to play a video, which he said showed evidence of genocide of white farmers in South Africa. This conspiracy theory, which has circulated in far-right chat rooms for years, is based on false claims.

Trump then proceeded to flip through printed copies of articles that he said detailed murders of white South Africans, saying “death, death, death, horrible death.”

Romanian court validates presidential election, rejecting defeated candidate’s challenge to results.

A top Romanian court on Thursday validated the results of Romania’s presidential election rerun, shortly after rejecting a request to annul the results by the hard-right candidate who decisively lost the race to his pro-European Union opponent.

After deliberations on Thursday, Romania’s Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the annulment request, filed on Tuesday by George Simion, in which he alleged that foreign interference and coordinated manipulation affected the vote.

The Court then validated the results and held a short ceremony attended by the elected President Nicusor Dan, the Bucharest mayor who won the tense runoff, beating Simion with 53.6% of the vote, a margin of more than 829,000 votes.

“I want to thank the Romanian people who turned out in great numbers for the May elections and, in doing so, gave legitimacy to the new president,” 55-year-old Dan, a mathematician and former civic activist, said at the court during the ceremony.

“A new chapter is beginning in Romania’s recent and contemporary history. I want to assure Romanian citizens that I understand the responsibility of the mandate they have entrusted to me,” he said. “There will be many challenges, and I hope that we will successfully overcome all of them.”

Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, had conceded defeat after losing in the runoff to Dan, but later contested the results. The court said its decision on Thursday is final.

In his request to annul the election, Simion claimed he had “irrefutable evidence” that France, Moldova and “other actors” meddled in the ballot, but did not present any evidence. He also alleged that “deceased people” had participated in the vote, and that he requested it be canceled on the same grounds as the court’s decision last year.

After the court rejected his annulment request, Simion said in a post on Facebook that the Court “has continued the coup!”

“We have no choice but to fight!,” his post read. “I call on you to stand with me, today and in the coming weeks!”
Election rerun held after previous vote annulled

Sunday’s tense vote was held months after the same court voided the previous election in which the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu led the first round, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.

The Court’s unprecedented decision last year to cancel the election plunged EU and NATO member Romania into its worst political crisis in decades, compounded by a string of crises such as the war in neighboring Ukraine and a significant budget deficit.

Dan is expected to be officially sworn in next week, after which he must also contend with deep societal divisions laid bare by the vote, revealing a country where endemic corruption, inequality and an erosion of trust in traditional institutions and parties have fueled a broad rejection of the political establishment.

“Romanian society has shown wisdom, and I am convinced that in the period ahead, it will continue to push for the positive change that Romania needs,” Dan added Thursday. “I will fight for the strengthening of state institutions ... I will also fight for the country’s economic prosperity, I will be a partner to the business environment, and I will be a guarantor of civil liberties.”

Dan will also face the challenge of nominating a prime minister who can garner the support necessary to form a government — a tall order in a country where strong anti-establishment sentiment led to the emergence of figures like Georgescu and Simion.

Simion capitalized on the furor over last year’s annulment and, after coming fourth in the canceled race, allied with Georgescu, who was banned in March from running in the election redo. In the first-round vote on May 4 in the rerun, Simion won a landslide in a field of 11 candidates to enter the runoff.
Allegations of election fraud in rerun

Hours after voting opened on Friday for Romanians abroad, Simion accused the government of neighboring Moldova of election fraud, which both Moldovan and Romanian authorities rejected.

In comment to The Associated Press on Sunday, he reiterated claims that people were being illegally transported to voting stations in Moldova, allegedly affecting 80,000 votes.

More than half a million Moldovans hold Romanian citizenship, and about 158,000 people voted at polling stations set up in Moldova in the second round. Many more dual citizens would also have cast ballots in other countries.

As a member of the EU and one of the easternmost members of the NATO military alliance, Romania plays a pivotal role in Western security infrastructure — especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

Many observers saw Sunday’s vote as crucial to maintaining Romania’s place within the network of Western alliances — especially amid fears that the Trump administration is reconsidering its security commitments to the United States’ European partners.

A video of an anti-farm murders protest in September 2020 in Normandien used by Donald Trump as “proof of persecution” against white farmers was posted by Sebastiaan Jooste.

U.S. Defense Department accepts Boeing 747 from Qatar for Trump’s use. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar for President Donald Trump to use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday, despite ongoing questions about the ethics and legality of taking the expensive gift from a foreign nation.

The Defense Department will “work to ensure proper security measures” on the plane to make it safe for use by the president, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. He added that the plane was accepted “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.”

Trump has defended the gift, which came up during his recent Middle East trip, as a way to save tax dollars.

“Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE,” Trump posted on his social media site during the trip.

Others, however, have said Trump’s acceptance of an aircraft that has been called a “palace in the sky” is a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition on foreign gifts. Democrats have been united in outrage, and even some of the Republican president’s GOP allies in Congress have expressed concerns.

“This unprecedented action is a stain on the office of the presidency and cannot go unanswered,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “Until Americans get transparency on this shady deal, which apparently includes a corrupt plot for Donald Trump to keep the plane at his library after leaving office, I’ll continue to hold all Department of Justice political nominees.”

Schumer has introduced legislation that would prohibit any foreign aircraft from being used as Air Force One and forbid use of taxpayer money to modify or restore the aircraft. But on Wednesday, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas objected when Schumer asked for a vote, thus blocking it. He did not offer an explanation for his objection.

Critics also have noted the need to retrofit the plane to meet security requirements, which would be costly and take time.

“Far from saving money, this unconstitutional action will not only cost our nation its dignity, but it will force taxpayers to waste over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to overhaul this particular aircraft when we currently have not one, but two fully operational and fully capable Air Force One aircraft,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

She said during a hearing Tuesday that it is a “dangerous course of action” for the U.S. to accept the aircraft from the Qatari ruling family.

Elon Musk’s pullback from politics comes after his last big investment was a flop ...

Wisconsin could go down as billionaire Elon Musk’s last big spend on a political campaign.

And it was a flop.

Musk, the richest person in the world, said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns. The announcement came as Musk is stepping back from his role in the Trump administration, saying he will spend more time focused on his businesses, and just seven weeks after the candidate he backed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race lost by 10 percentage points.

Democrats in the swing state said Musk’s comments show that a party-led effort in this spring’s election, dubbed “ People vs. Musk, ” succeeded in making Musk and his money “toxic.”

“The people have won,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler. “The biggest funder in Republican politics is taking his toys and going home.”

Brandon Scholz, a retired longtime Republican strategist in the state, said that at least in Wisconsin, “after that court race he deserves to be labeled as toxic.”

But that doesn’t mean Musk couldn’t spend money on races in the state and nationally again, especially if the stakes are high and his money could make a difference, Scholz said.

“Does he bring with him a lot of baggage? Possibly,” Scholz said. “But over time, maybe not as much.”

Musk’s spending in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race helped make it the most expensive court race in U.S. history. And it came just five months after Musk spent at least $250 million to help U.S. President Donald Trump win, reversing losses in Wisconsin and other battleground states four years earlier.

Musk was all-in on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, even making a personal appearance in Green Bay the weekend before the election wearing a cheesehead hat — popular with fans of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers — and personally handing out checks for $1 million to supporters. It was an extension of Musk’s high-profile role in the presidential race, where he campaigned alongside Trump and headlined some of his own rallies.

“It’s a super big deal,” he told the roughly 2,000-person crowd in the event center, where hundreds of protesters were rallying against his appearance outside. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”

But his appearance — and money — didn’t work.

The candidate Musk backed lost Brown County, the home of Green Bay, by 3 percentage points, going on to lose statewide by more than three times that margin.

After the defeat, Musk has said little publicly about the race and his involvement in it. His popularity has also plummeted.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll taken two weeks after the Wisconsin court election found that just 33 per cent of adults had a favorable view of the Tesla CEO, down from 41 per cent in December.

Musk’s involvement in the race came at the same time he was the chain-saw-wielding face of the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government.

His Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, has enacted deep cuts to the workforce and spending, in some cases seeking to shutter entire agencies, but it has fallen far short of its goals for reducing federal spending.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, of Wisconsin, is one of the most liberal members of Congress and a loud critic of both Trump and Musk.

Pocan is skeptical that Musk truly will back away.

“I don’t believe any of it, first of all,” Pocan said. “This just means they realize how toxic Elon Musk is and the work he did through DOGE.”

Kelda Roys, a Democratic state senator, was also tempered in her excitement over Musk saying he plans to do a “lot less” political spending in the future.

“There’s a ton of other billionaire bros, I’m sure, willing and happy to step up in his place,” Roys said.

Musk could also get involved with future races, but in a much more low-profile way, said Scholz, the Republican.

“In Wisconsin, he had such a huge, huge, huge profile,” Scholz said. “He became the campaign. He became the story.”

Musk spent at least $3 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself. Musk-backed groups America PAC and a Rebuilding America’s Future spent another $19 million in support of the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel. That was part of more than $100 million spent on both sides.

America PAC spent at least $6 million on vendors who sent door-to-door canvassers across the state, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. It was a reprise of what the group did last fall across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Trump.

In addition to his political contributions, Musk paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout. Musk also offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to every voter who signed the petition against “activist judges” and another $100 for every signer they referred.

Musk himself hosted Schimel on his podcast and cast what was at stake in stark terms.

“A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” Musk said in a social media post on the April 1 election day. “I think it matters for the future of the world.”

Democrats made the race a referendum on both Musk and Trump’s agenda, successfully electing a judge whose victory ensures the Wisconsin Supreme Court will remain under liberal control until at least 2028.

Coincidentally, Musk’s announcement about spending less on political races came just hours after a liberal judge announced her candidacy for the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor is challenging a conservative incumbent justice who sided with Trump in his unsuccessful lawsuit that attempted to overturn his 2020 loss in Wisconsin. The race will be decided in April, months before the midterms in which Democrats hope unease with Trump and Musk will help the party make gains.

Taylor appeared to be taking a similar approach to her campaign that the winning Democratic-backed candidate did this year.

“My campaign is going to be a campaign about the people of this state,” she told The Associated Press, “not about billionaires, not about the most powerful.”