Trump plans to skip first 2024 Republican primary debate
CBSN
Former President Donald Trump now plans to skip the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate, which will take place next week in Milwaukee, according to sources familiar with the planning.
The former president, who has been hinting that he would leave the debate stage to his opponents this time around, has instead sat for a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that could run during the debate, according to sources familiar with the planning. The timing for the airing of the Trump-Carlson interview has not been finalized yet, according to the sources.
There are ongoing discussions between the Trump campaign and Tucker Carlson on when and where the pre-recorded interview with the GOP frontrunner would run, according to other sources familiar with the discussions. Carlson's social media account on X is one of the main options, but the social media platform has not confirmed.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.
The quick-fire volley of tariffs between the U.S. and China in recent days has heightened global fears of a new trade war between the world's two largest economies. Yet while experts think the battle is likely to escalate, they also say the early skirmishes offer hope for an agreement on trade and other key issues that could head off a larger conflict.