Trump’s New $1.8 Billion Pot of Money, and a Deadly Mosque Attack in California

0:00I'm Jonathan Knight, and I'm the general manager of New York Times Games. Our puzzles are human-made, every day, with the standards you'd expect from the New York Times. And this matters because when you choose to spend time with our games, it should be time well spent solving puzzles handcrafted for you. We think that's something worth investing in and something worth paying for. If you think so too, download New York Times games from your favorite app store or go to nytimes.com slash playgames.

0:32From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis, in for Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, May 19th. Here's what we're covering.

0:44Donald Trump is setting up a$1.7 billion political slush fund for the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and his other political lieutenants and hangers-on. In Washington, critics are blasting a highly unusual fund that was announced yesterday by the Trump administration. The White House said the nearly$2 billion pot of money will be used to compensate people who claim they were persecuted during the Biden administration. The fund creates a pipeline that could be used to funnel taxpayer money to President Trump's allies and was quickly criticized by Democrats and others as a presidential slush fund.

1:19The head of a nonprofit legal watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the fund's creation, quote, one of the single most corrupt acts in American history. This is reimbursing people that were horribly treated, horribly treated. It's anti-weaponization. The Justice Department will oversee the fund and hear claims from people who, quote, suffered weaponization and lawfare. But neither the department nor President Trump have said what exactly weaponization means or who might be eligible to be paid. Do you believe that people who committed violence against Capitol Hill police officers on January 6th should be eligible for compensation from this DOJ fund?

1:59It'll all be dependent on a committee. A committee is being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people. The fund will be controlled by a board of five people appointed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche. President Trump will be able to fire any of those members at will. Shortly before the administration announced the new fund, President Trump walked back several legal efforts he had been making to collect money from the federal government. He had sued the IRS for$10 billion over a leak of his tax returns, and he had demanded the government pay him millions as restitution for a federal investigation into his 2016 campaign.

2:39Despite the timing, administration officials said the president, two of his sons, and his family business, who sued the IRS together, will not get money from the new fund.

2:54At the White House on Monday. We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow. I've put it off for a little while, hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while. President Trump threatened to launch a new wave of strikes against Iran and backed down from that threat at the very same time. It was the latest head-spinning twist from Trump nearly three months into the conflict. He appears torn between trying to force Iran into submission and just declaring victory and moving on. According to U.S. officials, the Pentagon had drawn up a list of potential targets in Iran. And some officials said Trump's about-face could be a form of misdirection and that he still might order the strikes.

3:37But Trump said he was holding off because of what he called serious negotiations that are underway to end the war. We've had periods of time where we thought pretty much getting close to making a deal and it didn't work out. But this is a little bit different. Trump said the leaders of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar had asked him to postpone the strikes because they believe they can make a deal with Iran that would both satisfy the president and potentially reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile. I spent the past week reporting from Qatar, which has long been one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but has been massively impacted by the war with Iran.

4:19River Akira Davis covers the global economy for The Times. She says that ever since the strait was effectively shut down, Qatar has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day in revenue. That's largely because it can't export natural gas or gas-related products, which are the backbone of its economy. Beyond that, the country's been effectively cut off from all shipping trade. And fears about potential attacks have hit the tourism sector hard, too. You can really see the impact wherever you go. In Doha, the capital, everything was really silent from the sort of traditional markets to the boutiques to the hotels.

4:56In the south, we actually drove down to a port at one point, which is one of the region's most busy ports on a typical day. But it was completely silent. So there was no cranes moving. There was no ships going in and out. I went to some grocery stores and I saw that they were actually having to airlift in avocados from places like Tanzania, where they would normally just, you know, cart them in by ship. But what is really strange in Qatar is that you don't really see this massive spike in prices that you would assume there would be. And that's because the state is using this massive sovereign wealth fund to essentially subsidize prices and keep everything in a kind of created sense of calm.

5:37Not only do they not want Qatari residents to panic about this lack of imports, but also 90 % of the population in Qatar are actually foreign residents. And so if there's a dry up in business or a huge spike in inflation, there's a fear that these sort of foreign workers will move to other countries. And that could lead to an entire collapse, really, of the Qatari economy.

6:05Let me start off by extending heartfelt condolences to the Muslim community. In California yesterday, two suspects carried out a deadly shooting rampage, opening fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego. This is a city's and a community's absolute worst nightmare as a free society. The San Diego police chief said that three people were killed, including a security guard by the alleged attackers, who were 17 and 18 years old. The suspects were found dead in a car nearby with what appeared to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds. In the hours leading up to the shooting, there had been a frantic effort to find the pair after the 17-year-old's mother called the police.

6:49She said her son was suicidal and had left the house, taking several weapons with him. According to law enforcement, investigators found a suicide note and anti-Islamic writings in the car. They said the phrase hate speech was written on one of the firearms used in the attack. This is something that we have never expected to take place. But at the same time, the religious intolerance and the hate, unfortunately, that exists in our nation is unprecedented. At a press conference, the director of the Islamic Center said his community was in mourning. and pointed to concerns about rising Islamophobia in the U.S.

7:28The Council on American-Islamic Relations says that last year it received nearly 9 ,000 complaints of bias against Muslims, the most it's recorded in almost 30 years.

7:47Mr. Musk can bring his claims and he can tell his stories. But what the nine members of this jury found is that his stories were just that, stories, not facts. Outside a federal courthouse yesterday, lawyers for Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, celebrated a ruling that threw out a$150 billion lawsuit from Elon Musk. Musk had accused OpenAI of, quote, stealing a charity and effectively turning what was founded as a nonprofit into a multi-billion dollar company. Altman called the whole lawsuit frivolous and said Musk was just trying to take down one of his competitors. But in the end, the jury didn't rule on any of that.

8:30Instead, after deliberating for less than two hours, it found that Musk had brought the lawsuit too late beyond the time frame required by law. Musk's lawyers have vowed to appeal that decision. They could also go back to court over antitrust claims Musk has made against OpenAI that weren't resolved in this trial. For now, Musk's failure to deal a major blow to open AI solidifies the company's place near the pinnacle of the AI industry, and it clears the way for a potential initial public offering, as soon as this year, that could be one of the biggest in history.

9:07And finally, in South Korea, women's soccer games usually draw sparse crowds, but tickets to a rare match that's scheduled for tomorrow sold out fast. It's a top-tier semifinal game in an international tournament that has a South Korean club team facing off against a North Korean team. For decades, sports have been a way for Koreans on both sides of the DMZ to come together. Athletes from the North and South have even marched side-by-side at the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games. But recently, as political tensions have flared, those efforts have hit a rocky patch. No North Korean players have set foot in the South in almost eight years.

9:48And in a sign of just how tense things are, the North Korean players had to travel through China to get to South Korea, since direct flights from the North are banned. As for the match itself, the North Korean team has a real shot at winning. The country actually boasts a ton of talent in women's soccer, and the team's roster includes players who've won major world tournaments with the country's national teams. If they do pull off a victory, they'll stay in South Korea until the championship game on Saturday. But it might be a little harder for them to go out and celebrate than your average team.

10:21All North Koreans traveling abroad, including the soccer players, are accompanied by secret police agents who monitor them at all times. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a closer look at today's primary election in Kentucky, where one of President Trump's top Republican critics is fighting to keep his seat. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Will Jarvis. The show will be back tomorrow.