The Dictatorship
Takeaways from Trump’s trip to China
BEIJING (AP) — For three days in China, President Donald Trump was unusually quiet, not speaking to reporters much and even mostly staying off social media. Then he got on his plane home and unloaded.
Trump’s trip was unexpectedly dominated by discussions about Taiwan and the notion that Washington and Beijing could adopt a new framework for managing their complicated relationship.
Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off the whirlwind visit with a warning: If Washington mishandles its relations with the self-governing island of Taiwan, the U.S. and China could end up clashing or even in open conflict.
Trump did not respond publicly, refraining from mentioning Taiwan while in Beijing. But he suggested aboard Air Force One on his way home that Xi’s staunch opposition might make him rethink a planned U.S. arms sale to Taipei.
Among the other topics of discussion were trade and the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iranwhich had been expected to take up most of the attention. Trump spent the trip overtly flattering China’s leader, despite Xi not reciprocating.
And the president did not push back publicly on China’s characterization that he and Xi had agreed to a “constructive” new vision for dealing with their relationship issues.
Here are key takeaways from Trump’s trip:
Trump held his tongue on Taiwan — until he was headed home
Before the trip, Trump demonstrated greater ambivalence toward Taiwan in his second term, raising questions about whether he might be open to dialing back support for the island democracy that Beijing views as its breakaway province.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted there was no change in the U.S. approach to Taiwan. But there was always a risk that Trump — not known for diplomatic nuance — might make an off-the-cuff remark that could have mammoth ramifications for Taiwan.
In the end, Trump said nothing publicly about Taiwan, even as his Chinese counterpart suggested the island was the most important aspect of U.S.-China relations.
But then, pressed by reporters after leaving China, Trump said he had not yet made a decision on whether to carry through with a major arms package sale he previously approved for Taiwan after hearing Xi’s objections.
Trump’s Republican administration in December authorized an $11 billion weapons package for Taipei, but it has yet to move forward. Lawmakers also approved a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan in January, but the sale cannot advance until Trump formally sends it to Congress.
“President Xi and I talked a lot about Taiwan,” Trump told reporters on the presidential plane. He said China’s leader “does not want to see a fight for independence because that would be a very strong confrontation.”
“I heard him out,” Trump said. But “I didn’t make a comment.”
Trump appeared to struggle to recall the name of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and noted of Washington’s policy toward the island, “The last thing we need right now is a war that’s 9,500 miles away.”
Asked if he would consider intervening militarily if China were to attack Taiwan, Trump said he did not want to say — a nonanswer that is consistent with long-standing U.S. policy that has become known as strategic ambiguity.
The policy says the U.S. has agreed to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself if China attempts to force a unilateral change, but it does not expressly say how far Washington will go militarily to counter Beijing, should it come to that.
Trump and Xi still talked about Iran
It appears the leaders had substantive talks about the U.S.-spurred conflict in Iran that has led to a surge in global oil prices and that — if extended — could push the world toward recession.
Trump said Xi agrees with him that a nuclear-armed Iran is a bad idea and that the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened. He said Xi even offered to help find an endgame to the war.
Xi and Chinese officials have not confirmed that such an offer was made. China has publicly said the solution should “take into account the concerns of all parties on the Iran nuclear issue.”
In Trump’s view, China should be more involved in the resolution to the conflictgiven its dependence on oil and liquefied natural gas coming from the Middle East.
If Trump successfully persuaded Xi to get more engaged, that could be significant for the U.S. effort to find a credible exit from the Iran war.
Xi hailed a new relationship status: strategic stability
China, meanwhile, said the two leaders agreed to a new vision for “a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the framework would shape ties for at least three years — the rest of Trump’s term — and focus on cooperation, competition within limits and managing differences.
The idea is “to keep the relationship on an even keel,” said Helena Legarda of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.
George Chen, a partner at The Asia Group consultancy, said the approach can be seen as progress following the era of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, when the relationship was framed as a strategic competition.
Trump says big trade deals are coming but offers few details
Trump brought a large group of top CEOs with him to China, including the head of aircraft maker Boeing; Jensen Huang, chief of semiconductor giant Nvidia; and Elon Muskthe SpaceX boss who once led Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce.
Trump said major deals had been struck and that China could buy some 200 planes from Boeingbut he left Beijing without announcing anything concrete. Previous suggestions that Xi would commit to big orders of U.S. soybeans and beef were also pending.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump suggested that China could eventually buy as many as 750 planes from Boeing if the initial order goes well, and that 450 engines produced by General Electric would be included in such a future purchase if it happens.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two sides had agreed to establish boards on trade and on investments, to address each other’s concerns on agricultural goods’ market access and to promote expanded trade under a framework of reciprocal tariff reductions.
More details on trade agreements might emerge eventually, but as with all major bilateral accords, the fine print is what matters.
During his first term, Trump used an elaborate signing ceremony before leaving Beijing to cement dozens of deals worth around $250 billion. But not all of what was pledged came to fruition.
Trump repeatedly praised Xi
From the moment Trump opened his mouth in Beijing, he offered nothing but praise for Xi. And it sometimes felt a bit over the top, considering that Xi said nothing similar in return.
Trump called Xi a “great leader” and said they were going to have a “fantastic future together.”
It was an “honor” to be with Xi and to be his friend, Trump said, describing his counterpart as “warm.”
China’s president isn’t known for effusiveness. Trump himself said in a Fox News interview that Xi is “all business.”
Xi did say Trump’s “landmark visit” had deepened mutual trust. But he found more subtle ways to charm Trump. He promised to send seeds to grow roses at the White House like the ones in the garden at Xi’s residence where Trump had tea on Friday.
Xi said he hosted Trump there to reciprocate the hospitality Trump showed him when he visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2017.
___
Leung reported from Hong Kong, Mistreanu and Wu from Bangkok, and Superville from Washington.
The Dictatorship
Maricopa County official fears Stephen Miller’s group has taken over election office
Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.
That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.
Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.
The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.
According to The Arizona Republic:
In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”
“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.
America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reportedthe dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”
The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:
Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.
Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.
Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)
The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.
Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.
Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.
Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.
The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”
Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.
Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”
Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.
A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
‘Incredibly dangerous’: Capitol officer badly beaten by Jan. 6 rioters says Trump pardons absolved them
When FBI agents confronted Daniel Rodriguez about using a stun gun on a Washington police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he wept, seeming to express remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he said through tears in a recorded interview after he was arrested in March 2021. “He’s a human being with children, and he’s not a bad guy. He sounds like he’s just doing his job and he’s — I’m an asshole.”
Two years later, as he was being led away after a judge sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, Rodriguez raised his fist and screamed, “Trump won!”
Rodriguez is now a free man. The hefty prison sentences imposed on him and four other people convicted of assaulting police officer Michael Fanone — who was dragged into the crowd and severely beaten — were all wiped away in one of Donald Trump’s first acts as president in January 2025: He pardoned almost 1,600 people charged or convicted for their involvement in the riot.
Trump has used the clemency power like no president in history, freeing fraudsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians.
But his pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, more than 170 of whom pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers, stands apart. MS NOW is spotlighting the clemency granted to Jan. 6 defendants as part of a series on Trump’s pardons, “Justice Interrupted.”
“It’s incredibly dangerous,” Fanone told MS NOW in an interview. “You have individuals who were inspired by Donald Trump’s lies to storm and assault the Capitol and try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election. Donald Trump then absolved them of all of their criminal culpability.”
Trump’s first attorney general and his FBI director each told Congress they opposed pardons for people who hurt police officers, but the president did it anyway. Afterward, even some of his biggest backers balked.
“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently, I think, was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after the pardons in 2025.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said on the Senate floor this past January, “People that harm police officers and destroy federal buildings should go to prison, and it’s a damn shame they’re out.”
Trump has never explained why he freed those rioters who violently assaulted police officers. When correspondent Peter Alexander confronted the president about his pardon of the man who shocked Fanone in the neck, Trump brushed aside the question.
“Among those you pardoned, D.J. Rodriguez,” Alexander said to Trump. “He drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?”
Trump replied, “Well, I don’t know. Is it a pardon? Because we’re looking at commutes and we’re looking at pardons.” Told it was a pardon, he responded, “OK, well, we’ll take a look at everything. But I can say this: Murderers today are not even charged.”
But there was nothing, as Trump commented, to “look at.” Pardons are not reversible.
Fanone believes Trump knew exactly what he was doing: rewarding people who committed violence on his behalf.
“I know that he knows that it was violent. I know that he knows that, and I think that that was intentional,” he said.
In addition to Rodriguez, three others who attacked him were spared most or all of their prison terms:
- Albuquerque Cosper Head got 7 1/2 years for dragging Fanone into the mob while yelling, “I got one!”
- Kyle Young was sentenced to seven years, and Lewis Wayne Snoots to six, for helping to restrain Fanone during the attack.
- Thomas Sibick was sentenced to just over four years for assaulting Fanone and stealing his badge and radio.
Liz Oyer, a former Justice Department pardon attorney, said Trump has disregarded the normal tradition of presidential clemency.
“The things that the Justice Department traditionally looks for are acceptance of responsibility, remorse, rehabilitation, a significant track record of good conduct in the community before we would recommend someone for consideration of a presidential pardon,” she said, adding that few, if any, of the Jan. 6 defendants met that qualification.
“This president’s use of the pardon system is really undermining the legitimacy of our justice system,” she said.
In fact, a Lawfare analysis found that at least 97 of the roughly 1,600 people charged in the Capitol attack have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021. At least 19 were accused after being pardoned.
One of the first rioters to breach police barricades, Christopher Moynihanpleaded guilty in February in New York to a harassment charge over threats to kill House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Moynihan was later sentenced to three years’ probation.
Zachary Alama man a judge called “one of the most violent and aggressive rioters,” was sentenced in May to seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of committing a home invasion burglary in Virginia.
Andrew Paul Johnsonconvicted of illegally entering the Capitol, was pardoned despite having been accused of molesting children. In May, he was sentenced to life in prison for the sex crimes.
Fanone wasn’t supposed to be at the Capitol that day, but he rushed there when he heard the distress calls.
He was pulled into a crowd of attackers as he was trying to keep them out of the building. He was holding on to his service weapon to keep it from being taken from him. But once he felt the excruciating, debilitating shock from Rodriguez’s weapon, he knew he was in a dire situation; in fact, he thought he might be killed.
“I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to fight my way out of this,” Fanone remembered. “I wasn’t even going to be able to maintain control of my weapon. The only solution here was that people in the crowd helped me, and when I yelled out that I have kids, it worked.”
His doctors say Fanone suffered a heart attack.
Trump supporters have wrongly called Fanone a “crisis actor,” disputing that he really was attacked. Ed Martin, who once represented Jan. 6 defendants and is now the Justice Department’s pardons attorney, called him a “fake cop.”
Fanone says his life, and the lives of his loved ones, has never been the same.
“My mother’s been the target of swatting events eight times. She had a credible bomb threat called into her home,” he said.
“She had an individual pull up to her house in a pickup truck, approach her in her front yard while she was raking leaves, and throw a bag of dog feces at her.”
In an apparent attempt to wipe the charges, convictions or sentences of Jan. 6 offenders from public knowledge, the Justice Department recently took down press releases naming them from its website, calling it “partisan propaganda.”
Anyone who tries to find the official DOJ announcements of the convictions or sentencing of the men who attacked Fanone will see only broken links.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
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