Putin says he is ready for Ukraine talks, echoes Trump’s 2020 election claims – National & International News – MON 27Jan2025
Trump fires 18 inspectors general in overnight purge.
Putin says he is ready for Ukraine talks.
Colombian President spars with Trump over deportation flights. How much do they cost?
NATIONAL NEWS
Trump fires 18 inspectors general in overnight purge. Is it illegal?
President Trump has fired 18 of the 73 inspectors general in the federal government. Inspectors general serve as internal watch dogs of federal agencies and offices. IGs monitor for waste, fraud, and abuse, something Trump has promised to tackle in federal agencies.
Trump has provided no rationale for terminating the IGs he fired. “I don’t know [the fired IGs],” he said, “but some people thought that some were unfair or were not doing the job”. This move predictably drew condemnation from Democrats. However, even conservative Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA) was taken aback by Trump’s abrupt and sweeping action with no notice or explanation to Congress.
Is this illegal?
In 2022, Congress passed the Securing Inspector General Independence Act, which requires the president to notify Congress 30 days before removing an inspector general. The notification must provide a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case specific reasons” for the IG’s removal.
However, there is some disagreement about whether this notification requirement is Constitutional. In any case, Trump’s failure to submit this notification is sure to invite legal challenges for all the terminations.
There is no dispute, however, about the constitutionality of the other part of the 2022 law, which places limitations on Trump’s power to replace the terminated IGs. Here, Congress has much more power to constrain Trump from, for example, simply appointing loyalists to fill these rolls. Replacements must either be confirmed by the Senate or come from the existing pool of approved officials working in inspector generals’ offices.
In the meantime, the “first assistants” to the fired IGs will take over as acting IGs. This may be awkward, as some of the IGs have said they will still be turning up for work, on the grounds that they were illegally fired.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Putin says he is ready for Ukraine talks
In a Truth Social post last week, President Trump threatened new sanctions and tariffs on Russian goods entering the United States to pressure Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. In 2024, trade between Russia and the US amounted to less than $4 billion, and Western sanctions so far have done nothing to hamper Russia’s war effort, so it seems unlikely further economic pressure would be effective.
Regardless, President Putin responded favorably and said that he was willing to meet with Trump and to negotiate an end to the war. Putin has stated many times publicly that he is open to negotiations along certain terms, including significant territorial concessions from Ukraine. Russia currently controls one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea which it has held since 2014.
Speaking to a reporter, Putin even echoed Trump’s oft repeated claim that the Ukraine war would never have happened if the 2020 election had not been “stolen” from Trump. Putin has never before suggested that he believed in the stolen election conspiracy. This comment was either meant to flatter Trump’s ego or possibly it was a bit of dry but good-natured ribbing in response to Trump’s bluster in his Truth Social post. It’s often difficult to tell when Putin is joking, and that seems to be the point.
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Colombian President spars with Trump over deportation flights
Over the weekend, Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to allow a military flight carrying Colombian deportees from the US to land in Colombia. This was after images circulated of deportees being transported on military planes in shackles, apparently with no access to food, water or toilet breaks.
Trump briefly threatened to impose a 50% tariff on all goods entering the US from Colombia. Petro responded with a lengthy, some might even say “Trumpian”, polemic on Twitter, and things seemed as if they were going to escalate.
It now appears that the matter is resolved and there will be no new tariffs. However, there are conflicting accounts of the terms of the resolution. The White House claims that Colombia agreed to accept deportation flights, even on military aircraft. According to Colombian officials, President Petro offered to have his presidential plane fly deportees back to Colombia instead.
Cost of deportation
Trump has moved to increase the involvement of the US military in border enforcement, including by transporting deportees to their various home countries on military aircraft. However, operating these military flights is many times more expensive than chartering commercial flights, as was the usual practice by the Department of Homeland Security.
The Pentagon is providing two C-17s and two C-130 aircraft to assist in repatriation flights. The C-17s cost about $21,000 per flight hour while the C-130s cost between $68,000 and $71,000 per flight hour. The chartered commercial flights cost about $8,577 per flight hour, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
