News — Trump

Tiffany Trump, the last daughter of Donald Trump, has announced her engagement to longtime boyfriend Michael Boulos, a Lebanese-Nigerian multimillionaire heir. She made this known a day before her father’s presidency officially ended.

“It has been an honor to celebrate many milestones, historic occasions and create memories with my family here at the White House, none more special than my engagement to my amazing fiancé Michael! Feeling blessed and excited for the next chapter! ❤️”, she wrote on Instagram.

It is unclear if Trump consented to the engagement, though a White House source told Page Six the family is delighted about the news.

Tiffany’s mom, Marla Maples, sent in a congratulatory message on Instagram. “Celebrating God’s endless blessing of love…May God’s blessings & love always light your path. Love you so much, mom.”

Tiffany, 27, and Boulos, 23, were first photographed together in 2018. After, he met the entire Trump family at Thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Florida that same year.

Now many have asked, who is Michael Boulos?

Boulos was born in Kfaraakka, a village in northern Lebanon. His family lived in Houston, Texas for a while before moving to Nigeria when he was a toddler. He had his basic education at the American International School and then went on to pursue his Bachelor’s in Global Business Management from London’s Regents University in 2018. He holds a Master’s in Project Management, Finance, and Risk from City University also in London. He graduated in 2019.

The Boulos family own a multibillion-dollar conglomerate and a large portfolio of companies actively operating in more than 10 West African countries. Boulos’ father, Dr. Massad Boulos, is the head of all the businesses.

Boulos’ mother, Sarah, who always calls Nigeria her home, is the founder of the Society for the Performing Arts (SPAN) in Nigeria. SPAN prides itself as a “one-stop destination for performance art, dance, theater, music, and visual arts.”

Sarah’s father bought SCOA Nigeria Plc, a Nigerian-based company which engages in the distribution, maintenance and leasing of motor vehicles. After the purchase, Sarah’s entire family including her nuclear family relocated to Nigeria. Boulos is currently the Associate Director of SCOA Nigeria Plc, the director of Fadoul Group since 2019, and the business development manager of Royalton Investment, also since 2019.

Boulos has three other siblings — two sisters, Oriane and Sophie, and a brother, Fares. His brother, with whom he has a striking resemblance, is an actor and underground rapper with the stage name, Farastafari on YouTube.

There have been reports that Tiffany and Boulos both love the nightlife and party scene but evidently, they also have a knack for business. Tiffany recently graduated from Georgetown Law School in D.C.

A source told Town and Country mag, “They are both dedicated to their studies and are really supportive of each other’s career aspirations.” The two are at the moment “enjoying each other’s company,” the source added.

One Capitol Police officer is being hailed as the man who saved America’s democracy on Wednesday, January 6 after diverting an angry mob from the Senate floor. Viral videos of his confrontation with a leader of the rioters showed how the officer, identified by CNN as Eugene Goodman, blocked the hallway and led the riots away from the room that would later confirm Joe Biden as President of the United States of America.

“His name is USCP Officer Eugene Goodman. Remember his name. He almost certainly saved lives on Wednesday,” tweeted CNN reporter Kristin Wilson. “My thanks, Officer Goodman. THANK YOU.”

In the video, Goodman glances to his left and realizes the throughway to the Senate as the angry group of MAGA supporters stormed the Capitol. Realizing he was only armed with a baton and alone, he pushed back the supposed leader of the group, Doug Jensen from Des Moines, wearing a black QAnon shirt.

Goodman is then seen shoving Jensen in his direction away from the Senate chambers, tricking the angry, all-white lads to pursue him in the opposite direction into a group of police waiting at the corridors outside the Senate. This gave the police ample time to properly secure the chamber.

U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell wrote in a Twitter message on Sunday, “As trump’s fascist mob ransacked the US Capitol, this brave USCP officer kept murderous rioters away from the Senate chamber and saved the lives of those inside. God bless him for his courage.” 

Jensen, 41, on his now-deleted Facebook page, openly supports President Donald Trump and QAnon. According to USA Today, QAnon is a conspiracy movement that “falsely alleges the existence of a satanic ‘deep state’ apparatus that supports a child sex trafficking ring shirt.” Jensen has since been fired from his job and was arrested later by the FBI on five federal charges in his home in Des Moines. The unprecedented incident left five people – including a Capitol officer – dead.

Prior to the rioting, the pro-Trump supporters gathered at the nation’s capital to protest against allegations of voter fraud during the November 3 presidential election – allegations which had been labeled as baseless – and to call on the Senate and the House of Representatives to reject the certification of the results.

The rioting was also spurred by a speech Trump gave while addressing them as he reiterated the election was fraudulent and called on the protesters to “walk down to the Capitol.”

The Chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, has since resigned after the attack. Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman has been designated by the U.S. Capitol Police as its new Acting Chief.

Pittman’s January 8 appointment makes her the first woman and the first African American to serve as chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, according to a statement.

The Pentagon said Friday it is pulling most U.S. troops out of Somalia on President Donald Trump's orders, continuing a post-election push by Trump to shrink U.S. involvement in counter terrorism missions abroad.

Without providing details, the Pentagon said in a short statement that "a majority" of U.S. troops and assets in Somalia will be withdrawn in early 2021. There are about 700 troops in that Horn of Africa nation, training and advising local forces in an extended fight against the extremist group Al-Shabab, an affiliate of Al-Qaida.

Trump recently ordered troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was expected to withdraw some or all troops from Somalia. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said on Wednesday that the future structure of the U.S. military presence in Somalia was still in debate.

The adjusted U.S. presence, Milley said, would amount to "a relatively small footprint, relatively low cost in terms of number of personnel and in terms of money." He provided no specifics but stressed that the U.S. remained concerned about the threat posed by Al-Shabab, which he called "an extension of al-Qaida," the extremist group that planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States from Afghanistan.

"They do have some reach and they could if left unattended conduct operations against not only U.S. interests in the region but also against the homeland," he said. "So they require attention." Noting that Somalia remains a dangerous place for Americans, he said that a CIA officer was killed there recently.

The acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, made a brief visit to Somalia last week and met with U.S. troops.

Depending on what remains of the U.S. presence in Somalia when he takes office Jan. 20, President-elect Joe Biden could reverse Trump's draw-down or make other adjustments to reflect his counter terrorism priorities. The U.S. military also has a presence in neighboring Djibouti on the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, criticized the Trump pullback in Somalia as a "surrender to al-Qaida and a gift of China." Langevin is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.

"When U.S. forces leave Somalia in response to today's order, it becomes harder for diplomats and aid workers to help people resolve conflicts without violence and loss of life," Langevin said. "With upcoming elections in Somalia and conflict raging in neighboring Ethiopia, abandoning our partners could not come at a worse time."

Langevin said China will use the opportunity to build its influence in the Horn of Africa.

The Pentagon said the draw down in Somalia does not mark the end of U.S. counter terrorism efforts there.

"As a result of this decision, some forces may be reassigned outside of East Africa," it said. "However, the remaining forces will be re-positioned from Somalia into neighboring countries in order to allow cross-border operations by both U.S. and partner forces to maintain pressure against violent extremist organizations operating in Somalia."

It added: "The U.S. will retain the capability to conduct targeted counter terrorism operations in Somalia, and collect early warnings and indicators regarding threats to the homeland."

The nature of the threat posed by al-Shabab and the appropriate U.S. response has been a matter of increasing debate in the Pentagon, which has been looking for opportunities to shift its focus toward China as a greater long-term challenge.

A Defense Department watchdog report last week said U.S. Africa Command has seen a "definitive shift" this year in al-Shabab's focus to attack U.S. interests in the region. Africa Command says al-Shabab is Africa's most "dangerous" and "imminent" threat.

President Donald Trump continues to refuse to concede defeat in the US presidential election even though major independent media outlets have called the race for Democratic presidential nominee and former vice-president Joe Biden.

Instead, Trump has ranted and raved, in a somewhat predictable fashion, and at one time thrown aspersions on the culture of the American public trusting the media’s tabulations after elections. Mind you, the Associated Press (AP) has been calling elections before the Civil War.

Since it became clear his victory speech a day after November 3 was both severely premature and prophetically-challenged, the president has been raging on about electoral fraud, a charge that is constantly challenged on Jack Dorsey’s Twitter and trashed in America’s courts. So far, Republican attorneys have failed to persuade state justices to treat with seriousness any of the innumerable Hail Mary suits filed to injure the integrity of the election.

At the moment, American institutional democracy is being challenged. But whether or not the system is fortified against a coup d’état is a pronouncement we can make with more confidence after December 14 when all states have ratified their results. For now, we need to caution against alarmism and on the other hand, fight against the good poisoning Trump and his Republican enablers are undertaking.

However, what has become an unfortunate casualty in this political drama is the lack of headlines on how once again, America’s Black people have forced the nation to retake the path to a more perfect union. In the news right now, the dark clouds of a president’s tantrums have overshadowed the meaning of his defeat and the valor of his defeaters.

More than any other racial group, Black people voted overwhelmingly for Biden, a rate that currently stands at more than 87%. From Atlanta to Detroit, historic victories were sealed thanks to mass Black support for the Democratic candidate.

When the dust settles, 2020 will be the biggest utilitarian exercise in American democracy by the number of votes that were cast and by volume of the electorate that participated in the process. We have the president to thank for causing the biggest referendum on an American politician in 120 years. Even though he lost, Trump will have more votes than have ever been cast for an American politician except for Biden.

Across the racial spectrum, there were upticks among all groups as we have never seen before. Soon, we will make a better sense of how things turned out among the racial demographics but we already know that there was a surge in the number from 2016 among Hispanics, who make up 32 million of the US electorate.

The story was no different among Asian-Americans as well as among other minorities including African-Americans. Among white people, the numbers in the south were prominent and as Vox notes, there was an increment from 2016 of white voters in the Rust Belt.

We assume Trump – and we are according to many indications, right – was the reason for the boost in all these demographics. Nevertheless, in analyzing trends, it is better to err on the side of scientific caution. For instance, we are not expected to conflate the value-laden concept of identity and the science of demography.

Identity carries the burdens of values, aspirations, and fears while demographics is the statistical distribution of a given population. A change there does not necessarily cause a change here, nor the other way round. Therefore Trump or better still, the facts of his person and presidency, may have driven people to the polls but these voters were voting in their own self-interest.

Hence, the question is necessary: what was on the ballot for these demographics? In the lead up to the election, various surveys proved quite resourceful in this vein but for me, Pew Research’s partisan breakdown of what and how much matters to Americans stands incomparable as a definer of the times Americans live in.

More than the economy, gender politics, climate change, and the macabre headache of the coronavirus, opinions on race divided Red and Blue voters than anything else in 2020. To reiterate, while one-in-ten among Trump supporters said Black people have it a “lot more difficult” than whites, about 74% of Biden voters believed that was the case.

We were more likely than in 2016, to predict correctly who an American was voting for if we knew how that American felt on race. All the noise about polarization happens to be true, sadly.

The tendency to pretend that race does not animate political sensibilities has paid off majorly for Republicans and in part for a Democratic establishment that is not interested in muddying the waters. This is not even entirely about tipping hats to overt racism among the white electorate. Democratic Majority Whip and the South Carolina congressman, Jim Clyburn, the man credited with winning the southern Black vote for Biden during the primaries, blamed Democratic losses in Congress on calls to defund the police even though those calls come from a Black Lives Matter movement Clyburn would on any day support.

Clyburn even told CBS News that the late John Lewis had reservations about calls to defund the police because of what it’d cost the fortunes of the Democratic Party.

Far be it from anyone to challenge the commitments of Lewis and Clyburn to social justice but the two men’s position represents a strategy with the feelings of white conservative voters in mind. Somehow, calling for the demilitarization and the de-escalation of overbearing police authority and reinvesting funds into other social goods necessary to racial minorities is a line too far.

The entire plot of American politics is an unfolding Hegelian history of white people’s sentiments on how much economic and political control they are willing to cede to racial minorities. Embedded in every issue and their deliberations are the facts of racial identity. If there is an end to this Hegelian unfolding, people of goodwill can only believe it is the destination of the constitutional ideal of a more perfect union.

The fullness of the American promise is the perfect union. It is a collective must, a goal meaningful for its own sake. Certainly, one’s race should not stand in the way of their participation.

But race matters in the sacred democratic practice of elections. Between the election of 1932 and that of 1980, three elections stood out for their exceptionally high rates of turnout – 1960, 1964, and 1968. It is certainly not coincidental that the 60s was a watershed decade for African-American civil rights amidst wider counterculture politics.

The only other time Americans trooped to the polls in mammoth volumes were the decades following the Civil War fought over the south’s determination to keep slaves. There too, we can theorize a reaction to whatever racial progress had perceivably been made.

The democratic ambition of a more perfect union has always been on the ballot since Black men could vote. Detractors of this ambition have equally been around, planting impediments anywhere they can.

What we witness with Trump is certainly not an American aberration yet he is unique in what Bernie Sanders calls “the most dangerous American president in our lifetime”. Since the turn of the 20th century, no president has given more fodder to the detractors of the perfect union.

Thankfully, he can now only unleash two months’ worth of loser’s wrath from the highest office. But it is important to remember that in the last four years, Trump has tested America’s democratic resoluteness with every rally, most tweets, and many executive decisions.

When the election came this year, the American president had come to represent a verifiable antithesis of the perfect union. A lifeline was necessary. Something positively different was non-negotiable.

For those who were watching and listening, not because they wanted to “piss off the libs” or hold a middle finger to polite America, Trump left the electorate with no doubt about who he was and no grey patches in his field of black.

It has seemed a trick question for me whenever people have asked if all Trump voters are racists. It is as if one is being dared to see others in the worst light possible. But as journalist Paola Ramos told Christiane Amanpour in the aftermath of the election, 2020 was simply a question of what America chose to be in light of changing demographics.

Biden and Trump, separated only by three years in age, are both white men of when white was unchallenged. But the former was the candidate open to the incoming multicolored American future. He bet on a better for all who do not look like the America in which he grew up.

The US Census Bureau believes in 25 years, non-Hispanic white people will be in the minority in America. This country cannot continue to rely on lifelines and cannot phone a friend.

Whenever Black people have committed to the path of the more perfect union, which is a lifeline for America. But there is no good reason to keep counting on these lifelines. To do so would be out of ingratitude.

In Detroit, Trump’s supporters, mainly white people, descended on ballot-counting centers in the city chanting “Stop the count!” for the very specific reason that the candidate of their choice was on his way out of the White House. Throughout this year, armed militias of white men have brazenly provoked hostilities in support of the man they believe is their savior.

Those are two ways to waste a lifeline but America has been at this in various ways for decades. But could someone remind this beloved country that lifelines are not eternal?