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Tribune News Service on May 29, 2025

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Mich. Gov. Whitmer says Trump previously told her he'd 'drop' pardon considerations for kidnap conspirators

President Donald Trump told Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier this year that he would not pursue pardons for individuals convicted in a kidnapping plot against the governor, Whitmer told the Michigan Public Radio Network Thursday.

The second-term Democratic governor said she plans to contact the White House and remind Trump aides of that conversation after Trump on Wednesday said he would "take a look at" pardoning Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox.

"I'll be honest with you," Whitmer told Michigan Public Radio Network's Rick Pluta. "I talked to the president about a month ago, and he asked me how I'd feel about this, and I said, 'I think it would be the wrong decision, I would oppose it.' And he said, 'OK, I'll drop it.' Now we see this revelation. So, I'm not sure how to process it."

Whitmer noted she was one of the first officeholders to condemn the attempted assassination of Trump at an outdoor campaign rally last July in Butler, Pa.

—The Detroit News

Divide on gay marriage is biggest in 3 decades as GOP support craters, poll finds

The partisan divide on same-sex marriage has grown to an unprecedented degree — largely due to cratering GOP support, according to new polling.

In the latest Gallup survey, 88% of Democrats said they supported same-sex marriage, compared to just 41% of Republicans who said the same. This 47-point difference is the largest on record since Gallup first asked this question 29 years ago.

Still, though, 68% of overall respondents favor same-sex marriage — a figure that has held relatively steady over the past half-decade. Over the longer term, it has risen considerably, beginning at 27% in 1996 and passing the 50% threshold in 2011.

The unparalleled partisan gap comes as Republican backing for same-sex marriage has trended downward, falling 14 points in the past three years.

—The Charlotte Observer

Trump administration threat to revoke Chinese student visa roils California

LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration’s announcement this week that Chinese students’ visas would be “aggressively” revoked has inflamed the uncertainty among the nation’s international students — and in California has ignited anger among leaders in the Chinese American community who said such a targeted action is “xenophobic.”

Little has been disclosed about the administration’s plan, which represents yet another salvo in President Trump’s combative push to reshape higher education, which has roiled academia, disrupted campus life and spilled into courts across the country.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a social media post that the visa revocations will include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” without elaborating on what areas of study would be targeted or whether the move would apply solely to college students.

Rubio said in a statement that the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security would revoke the visas, while also revising “visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”

—Los Angeles Times

Trump sees Iran deal that allows US to destroy nuclear sites

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said he envisions a nuclear deal with Iran that would allow the destruction of “whatever we want” in the country including labs, a version of an inspections regime that is likely to be rejected by Tehran.

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Trump briefly outlined his vision of a deal that is “very strong, where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want. We can blow up whatever we want. But nobody getting killed,” he said.

Trump also said he believed a deal with Iran could be completed within “the next couple of weeks” and that talks had made “a lot of progress.” But his comments about destroying nuclear facilities highlight a major sticking point between the two over whether Iran should be allowed to produce its own enriched uranium.

An adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, dismissed Trump’s ideas.

—Bloomberg News