Joe Rogan and Dave Portnoy are among the Trump backers now questioning his tariff policies

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By MEG KINNARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump’s tariffs roil global markets, some of the thought leaders and influential podcasters who backed the Republican’s campaign are voicing doubts.

Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and even Elon Musk are adding their voices to a number of congressional Republicans who have weighed in against the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday.

Here’s a look at some of what they’ve said:

Dave Portnoy

“Welcome to Orange Monday,” Portnoy said on his “Davey Day Trader” financial livestream, just before markets opened this week, saying there’s “no political agenda” to his commentary, other than to make money.

After last week’s market plunge, Portnoy said he had lost $7 million “in stocks and crypto,” a figure he estimated on Monday was likely closer to $20 million, or up to 15% of his net worth.

But, Portnoy has said, he plans to stick with Trump, whom he has called “a smart guy.”

“I think they’re smarter than me when it comes to these tariffs. I also think he’s playing a high-stakes game here,” Portnoy said last week on his livestream. “I’m gonna roll with him for a couple days, a couple weeks, see how this pans out.”

Founded by Portnoy in 2003 as a free sports and gambling newspaper, Barstool has grown into a digital platform covering sports, lifestyle, and entertainment, with hundreds of millions of followers. Portnoy has been a loyal Trump supporter since first endorsing him in 2016, interviewing the president at the White House in 2020.

Joe Rogan

Rogan, one of the nation’s most influential podcasters who endorsed Trump on the eve of last year’s election, said in March that Trump’s feud with Canada was “stupid” and bemoaned the fact that Canadians “booed us over tariffs” during professional sporting events featuring teams from both countries.

Rogan has recently broken with Trump in other areas, including over wide-ranging deportations, referring to a recent operation to detain immigrants as “horrific.”

Just weeks before Election Day, Rogan taped a nearly three-hour podcast interview with Trump, an opportunity for the Republican nominee to highlight the hypermasculine tone that defined much of his 2024 White House bid.

Bill Ackman

The pro-Trump hedge fund manager warned Sunday on X that “we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter” unless Trump took a more deliberate approach, likening the full tariff activation “economic nuclear war.”

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In another post later Sunday, Ackman assailed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as “indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing.” The next day, Ackman apologized for his criticism claiming that Lutnick — previously the head of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald — could benefit from the tariffs because of its bond investments.

But the hedge fund manager also reiterated his concerns about Trump’s tariffs.

“I am just frustrated watching what I believe to be a major policy error occur after our country and the president have been making huge economic progress that is now at risk due to the tariffs,” he wrote on X.

Elon Musk

Even the billionaire top adviser to Trump on overhauling the federal government is expressing skepticism about tariffs, which he has said would drive up costs for Tesla, his electric automaker.

“I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk said in a video conference with Italian politicians.

On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said that Musk “doesn’t understand” the situation.

Musk fired back on Tuesday, calling Navarro “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

National Park Service restores original Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad webpage

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By ASHRAF KHALIL

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service has reversed edits and restored content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the wake of news reports and public backlash over the changes.

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“Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership,” NPS spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz said late Monday in an email. “The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”

She did not say who ordered the changes or for what reason. The changes — first reported by The Washington Post — included removing Tubman’s picture from the top of the page and making multiple edits to the text. A side-by-side analysis of the pages, using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, revealed changes that removed references to slavery and changed descriptions about the issue and its brutal realities.

For example, the original opening sentence referenced the railroad’s core role in “the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.” The edited version called the railroad “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement” and described how it “bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences, and nationality.”

The issue comes amid sweeping government changes to comply with President Donald Trump’s campaign against so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government. In some cases, officials have scrambled to remove and then restore online content as changes came to light.

Trump has also targeted the Smithsonian network of museums, which includes the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He has tasked Vice President JD Vance with heading up the effort to purge what Trump termed “improper ideology” in the Smithsonian’s depictions of American history.

Among the public controversies has been the Pentagon’s wholesale deletions of pages related to the Navajo Code Talkers’ contributions in World War I and baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s military career. Both of those pages were quickly restored when the deletions drew public outcry.

When the Harriet Tubman edits first came to light, NPS officials acknowledged the changes but denied any intention to downplay her role or soften the realities of America’s history with slavery.

“We celebrate her as a deeply spiritual woman who lived her ideals and dedicated her life to freedom,” Pawlitz said, citing dozens of pages about her, as well as two parks named for her. “The idea that a couple web edits somehow invalidate the National Park Service’s commitment to telling complex and challenging historical narratives is completely false.”

The revelation of the NPS edits drew an immediate backlash from civil rights figures. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., posted on Instagram Monday that the changes constitute “an attack on truth, an attempt to erase history that would help us improve society today, a refusal to be uncomfortable.”

California man arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s home with a gun pleads guilty to attempted murder

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By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A California man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to trying to kill U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home in a suburb of Washington, D.C., nearly three years ago.

Nicholas John Roske was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, in June 2022. Roske was armed with a gun and a knife, was carrying zip ties and was dressed in black when he arrived in the neighborhood by taxi just after 1 a.m., authorities said.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman is scheduled to sentence Roske on Oct. 3. Prosecutors say federal sentencing guidelines call for a term of 30 years to life in prison

Roske, 29, of Simi Valley, California, pleaded guilty to attempting to murder a justice of the United States without reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

A trial for Roske had been scheduled to start on June 9.

After his arrest, Roske told a police detective that he was upset about a leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court intended to overrule Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Killing one judge could change the decisions of the nine-member court “for decades to come,” Roske wrote over an encrypted messaging platform to another user in May 2022. Roske added, “I am shooting for 3.”

The leaked opinion draft led to protests at several of the justices’ homes. Roske’s arrest spurred the House to approve a bill expanding around-the-clock security protection to the justices’ families.

Roske also said he was upset over the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and believed that Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun control laws, the affidavit said.

Roske was apprehended after he called 911 and told a police dispatcher that he was near Kavanaugh’s home and was having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. He was spotted by two U.S. marshals who were part of 24-hour security provided to the justices.

During his plea hearing, Roske told the judge that he was being treated in jail for an unspecified mental illness.

“Are you thinking clearly?” the judge asked him.

“I believe so,” he said.

In a court filing last Thursday, Justice Department prosecutors laid out Roske’s planning for his trip to Kavanaugh’s neighborhood:

Roske searched the internet for justices’ home addresses and other information, including techniques for breaking into homes and quietly killing somebody. He also wrote about killing judges in encrypted messages sent to another user, who isn’t named in the filing.

“The thought of Roe v Wade and gay marriage both being repealed has me furious,” Roske wrote.

In late May 2022, Roske purchased tactical gear, a lock pick, black face paint, a glass cutter, a suction cup and other items that he took to Maryland.

On June 2, 2022, Roske bought a Glock 9 mm pistol from a gun store in Camarillo, California. The following day, he practiced firing the pistol at a Simi Valley shooting range, where he also purchased pepper spray.

Two days later, Roske booked a one-way flight from Los Angeles to Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.

“Roske also saved a map on his Google account that contained location pins marking the residential addresses of Associate Justices in Maryland and northern Virginia,” prosecutors wrote.

After arriving at Dulles on June 7, 2022, he took a taxi directly to Kavanaugh’s home. He texted his sister on the way, telling her that he loved her.

Roske was still on the phone with the police dispatcher when officers arrested him and seized his backpack and suitcase. He later told investigators that he was thinking about how to give his life “a purpose” when he decided to kill Kavanaugh.

As a future of US foreign aid cuts comes into focus, so do efforts to respond

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By THALIA BEATY

With most programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development cut and the agency’s remaining staff told their jobs will end by September, the reality of the Trump administration’s sudden halt to more than 60 years of international development work has sunk in.

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Billionaire presidential advisor Elon Musk, who led the charge to dismantle USAID, has called the agency criminal and corrupt. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said many programs did not advance American interests. The administration continues to cancel programs, including humanitarian and food aid, and has said it will roll any remaining programs into the State Department.

Two months into the cuts, some workers and organizations, who once carried out those programs, are developing a variety of initiatives to stand in the breach left by the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid.

Direct cash to laid off workers

Laura Meissner had worked as a contractor for USAID since 2010 and specialized in humanitarian assistance, specifically programs that give cash directly to people in need.

In early February, a friend approached her to help start a fundraiser to benefit other USAID workers who, like her, had lost their jobs. USAID employed 10,550 people in Washington and at offices around the world, with about half coming from other countries.

Meissner along with a small group of organizers eventually set up The Solidarity Fund with the Greater Washington Community Foundation, which will actually make grants directly to former workers. The grants will start at $650 and increase depending on the size of the household.

“We want to make it a meaningful enough sum that it’ll make a real difference in their ability to buy groceries, pay medical bills, pay the rent or mortgage, or keep the lights on,” Meissner said.

So far, the fund has raised about $16,000 from 140 donors and has already recommend 10 applicants to receive funds.

“It’s so easy to feel like nothing that you do matters because there’s so many big problems and it feels like they’re happening all at once. But everything does matter, even if it’s just to somebody,” she said.

Research to help foundations and funders with more money

Even for people who study international development, it’s been hard to understand all the ways U.S. cuts have impacted the field. The think tank Rethink Priorities, which prioritizes cost-effectiveness in charitable interventions, studied the gaps created by the cuts to help donors respond.

They provide a chart showing how big of a share U.S. funding was in any given area and encourage funders to consider how urgently the impacts of the cuts will be felt. They also suggest donors consider if others might fill the gap.

Tom Vargas, a senior researcher at the think tank, said he hopes the research helps to, “spread the money around in a way that makes sense. We’re funding things that other people will not fund.”

They hope their research influences donors, big and small, while also recommending giving to emergency funds.

Bridge funds to get money to programs that could still operate

Within a month of the pause on USAID programs, a number of nonprofits started emergency funds to get money to life-saving programs or to stabilize organizations that would otherwise close. Even the World Food Program, the United Nations agency that responds to conflicts and famines, has started a fundraiser, hoping to bring in $25 million from U.S. donors.

So far, emergency funds have raised between several hundred thousand dollars to over $3 million, mostly from individual donors, and some have already granted out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The funds have gone to a Yemeni organization that provides emergency food supplies, to send cash directly to people fleeing violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, to a Kenyan organization that supports people living with HIV, and to a program combatting malnutrition in Ethiopia.

Support for organizations to close or merge

The amount raised by the bridge funds does not come close to replacing the tens of billions lost in the U.S. aid cuts.

Many international development organizations, even those who did not directly receive funds from USAID, face existential funding shortages, said Blair Glencorse, founder and co-CEO of Accountability Lab, whose organization has been tracking the impact of the U.S. cuts.

More than a third of nonprofits who responded to their survey said they had less than three months of funding.

“The data from the beginning indicated that it would be around now that organizations are going to fall off a cliff,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we’re beginning to see.”

His organization has heard from more than 70 nonprofits, mostly in the Global South, who want to explore merging, spinning off programs, winding down or otherwise partnering to try to prevent their most valuable assets from being lost. Those assets could include employees, property, systems, contacts or intellectual property.

Glencorse said they estimate it will cost between $30,000 and $50,000 for each transaction or merger and have assembled a team of experts, who can help organizations. They have gotten some funding from foundations for the “ partnership matching service,” and estimate that they have between 6 to 9 months to help nonprofits make these big organizational changes.

“The snowball effect is really beginning to pick up at this point,” he said of the cascading impacts of the U.S. foreign aid cuts.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.