Trump is going into his meeting with Putin without the help of experts: FT“It’s safe to say that Trump does not have a single policymaking person who knows Russia and Ukraine advising him,” Eric Rubin, who was U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria in Trump’s first term,
told the FT. More than 1,300 state department staff were laid off last month in Trump’s drive to reduce the federal workforce, and some of them were Russia and Ukraine analysts.
White House lowers expectations for Putin meeting“This is a listening exercise for the president. Look, only one party that’s involved in this war is going to be present,” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt
said.
Russia continues to make incremental gains in Eastern UkraineWhile the diplomats talk, Moscow
is altering the facts on the ground in Russia’s favor.
Russian hackers breach U.S. federal court systemHackers backed by Russia have found ways to view sealed court documents on PACER, the U.S. federal court system,
according to the NYT. That potentially gives Moscow access to litigation that affects national security.
The reviews of Trump’s BLS pick are brutalConservative economists don’t respect E.J. Antoni, the president’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to multiple reports. “Even the people who may be somewhat sympathetic to his economic policy views don’t think he’s qualified,”
said Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute. Antoni's “work at Heritage has frequently included elementary errors or nonsensical choices,”
Veuger told Axios. “There are a lot of competent conservative economists that could do this job,”
said Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute, “E.J. is not one of them.” “I’ve been on several programs with him at this point and have been impressed by two things: his inability to understand basic economics and the speed with which he’s gone MAGA,”
said Dave Hebert of the American Institute for Economic Research. Antoni did not respond to the attacks.
Trump v Goldman SachsThe president attacked the head of the venerable investment bank in
a Truth Social post yesterday, arguing that “David Solomon and Goldman Sachs refuse to give credit where credit is due. They made a bad prediction a long time ago on both the Market repercussion and the Tariffs themselves, and they were wrong, just like they are wrong about so much else. I think that David should go out and get himself a new Economist or, maybe, he ought to just focus on being a DJ, and not bother running a major Financial Institution.” Goldman did not respond.
Cava and Chipotle invest in automationFoodservice automation company Hyphen
announced a $25 million Series B investment on Tuesday, led by Chipotle and Cava. This investment signals the onset of robots in fast-casual chains. Cava CFO Tricia Tolivar told
Fortune that Hyphen’s technology will support human workers rather than replace them.
Perplexity makes a bid for ChromeAI company Perplexity
made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome. The offer comes as a federal judge considers what to do with Google following an antitrust ruling last year that found the company maintained an illegal monopoly in online search.
Ford’s newest EV moveAnalysts told Fortune that Ford’s $5 billion investment in EVs, announced on Monday, could bankrupt the company if it fails. The automaker’s previous failed EV projects have already cost it billions.
Financial markets are plagued by deepfakesTianyi Zhang, a general manager of risk management and cybersecurity at Singapore-based Ant International,
told Fortune, “In some markets, we have found that more than 70% of new enrolments may be deepfake attempts ... We’ve identified more than 150 types of deepfake attacks.”
