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22-01-2025
WASHINGTON: On the first full day of his presidency, Donald Trump defends his decision to release two high-profile prisoners jailed over the Capitol riot.
Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes were freed after the president issued nearly 1,600 pardons and commutations in connection with the attack.
It comes as he announces billions of dollars in private sector investment to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the US.
As part of a raft of rule changes, the new administration also issues guidelines paving the way for immigration raids on churches and schools.
After his inauguration on Monday, the new president signed a flurry of executive actions, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border, climate policy rollbacks and starting the process of a US withdrawal from the WHO.
Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully obstructing the certification of the 2020 presidential election, will likely be familiar to BBC audiences as the man who wore strange garb to storm the Capitol.
“I regret nothing,” the self-styled QAnon Shaman tells BBC Newsnight after being pardoned by Trump.
Chansley says that now that his conviction has been wiped clean, he plans to exercise his right to buy guns again, and he believes that the attack at the Capitol was staged by the “deep state”.
The details of this AI announcement remain pretty limited so far but let’s set some of these numbers in context.
Demand for data centres has been exploding. A McKinsey report last year estimated that global demand for data centre capacity could more than triple by 2030.
And though the numbers tossed out today sound big, other companies are investing at similar scale.
Microsoft said, external earlier this month it was on track to invest $80bn to build out AI-powered data centres this year. Amazon announced two, external projects, external worth about $10bn each just in the last two months.
OpenAI has also been calling for significant investments, and pushing the government to support the plans. It said today’s announcement was the culmination of more than a year’s worth of conversations.
The projected surge has raised concerns about the impact on energy supplies and the role of foreign investors.
In our last post we covered the key lines from Trump’s announcement of additional investment in AI infrastructure.
The president also answered a number of questions from reporters on a wide range of other issues. Here’s what he had to say; the president defended his pardons for around 1,500 involved in the Capitol riot, including some who assaulted police officers, and said “their lives have been ruined”
Trump said the NATO target of 2% of national spending on defence should be raised to 5%. Asked if he will continue sending weapons to Ukraine, Trump said he was “looking at that”, and said his administration was talking to Zelensky and would speak to Putin very soon. He added the EU should be paying more and equalize its spending on the war with the US.
He also said he would “probably” consider increasing sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t come to the table to negotiate a ceasefire.
Trump spoke about the potential for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China – he was not clear on whether tariffs would definitely be introduced but, asked when they would come into effect, said “probably 1 February is the date we’re looking at”. (Int’l News Desk)
