The Headlines - Trump’s Billion-Dollar Tech Deals, and a Military Buildup at the Border

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Plus, the world’s first personalized gene-editing treatment.On Today’s Episode:Outsourcer in Chief: Is Trump Trading Away America’s Tech Future?, by Tripp Mickle and Ana SwansonD.H.S. Requests 20,000 National Guard Members to Help With Immigration Crackdown, by Hamed Aleaziz and Eric SchmittTrump’s Military Buildup at the Border Expands, by Eric Schmitt and Helene CooperNewark’s Air Traffic Control Staffing Crisis Is Dire. It’s Also Not Unique. By Aaron Krolik, Elena Shao and Emily SteelBaby Is Healed With World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment, by Gina KolataTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, May 16th. Here's what we're covering. President Trump is wrapping up his tour of the Middle East today. He set out on the trip focused on deals, telling aides he wanted to come back with $1 trillion in agreements from the countries he visited, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. The Times has been looking at some of the deals his

administration struck this week, and a few of the most notable are on artificial intelligence. The administration announced that they'll deliver hundreds of thousands of coveted NVIDIA chips, the most advanced in the industry, to the UAE in order to build one of the world's largest data center hubs there. The US also struck multi-billion dollar agreements to sell advanced chips to Saudi Arabia. The scale of the deals and their potential implications have been controversial, even among Trump's own advisors.

They've been divided over a single question, which is, is the Trump administration outsourcing the industry of the future? Tripp Mickel covers the tech industry for The Times. We've talked to more than a dozen people on both sides of the divide on this. There are people who are former tech executives who are playing a leading role in negotiating these deals,

and they really believe it's important for the United States to bring the Middle East into the fold of American AI, so that they build on top of US technology and use US technology, which will then bring money back to US and American companies. And then there are people on the other side of the divide. They look at this and say, well, the true America first approach would be to concentrate as much of this technology in the United States and build the industry here,

and not repeat the mistakes of yesteryear when we outsource manufacturing abroad. They're wondering, because we're allowing giant data centers to be built in the UAE, are we sacrificing jobs for electricians and pipe fitters and to be built in the UAE? Are we sacrificing jobs for electricians and pipe fitters and other people here in the United States? And also paving the way to allow the Middle East

to develop its own AI companies that could rival and challenge leading American AI companies like OpenAI. Tripp says the planned shipments of advanced chips have also raised national security concerns. The U.S. has long tried to keep the chips out of the hands of China, but China's close ties to the Gulf states could allow the country to gain access to the technology. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is mobilizing new resources to try and crack down on immigration and carry out the president's promise of mass deportations.

In just the past few months, the administration has signed agreements with local police to let them make immigration arrests. They've also moved to enlist federal agents from the DEA and the U.S. Marshall Service to round up undocumented immigrants. And the Times has learned they're now trying to pull in 20,000 members of the National Guard, a request that's currently being evaluated by the Pentagon. At the same time, on the U.S.-Mexico border, the size, scope, and sophistication of the active-duty military presence has been growing.

The Pentagon has sent nearly 9,000 troops there to stop migrants from crossing, along with spy planes, surveillance drones, helicopters, and a fleet of armored combat vehicles. Times journalists recently traveled to the border to see the operation in progress, where the troops have primarily been supporting law enforcement agencies and acting as extra eyes and ears on the ground. Some lawmakers and independent analysts have raised concerns that the border missions will drain resources and distract combat units from training for potential overseas deployments. But several commanders and some troops along the border told the Times that their work

there has given them real-world practice and a sense of purpose. They've been using skills like surveillance that they'd otherwise just be trying out in exercises at their bases. And re-enlistment among younger soldiers, who never had the opportunity to serve in combat tours, has been surging. As for the mission itself, a general overseeing the operations claims that the increased military patrols have pushed Mexican cartels and smugglers into more remote areas, making it harder for them to operate. And border crossings, which were already dropping sharply at the end of the Biden

administration, have plunged even further. This April, about 8,000 people were arrested after crossing the border illegally. Last year, that number was 128,000. A Times analysis of air traffic control staffing shows just how much the shortages that have fed into the chaos at Newark International Airport in recent weeks are happening across the entire country. According to new data obtained by the Times, just two out of 313 facilities are operating at the government's own recommended staffing levels. That means 99 percent of the country's air traffic control centers are not. Beyond the staffing issues, which have been building for years,

there have been growing concerns about the aging technology behind air traffic control systems. In just the past month, there were two communications and radar outages that made it impossible for controllers to monitor planes at Newark. And this week, a second air traffic control facility in Colorado also experienced a 90-second communications outage. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is during those 90 seconds, was there a significantly heightened danger to the... On Capitol Hill this week, senators pressed federal aviation officials on the safety and staffing concerns.

From where I sit, we want to remove all risk to the flying public and that is what's concerning to me is how do we remove... But getting the country's air traffic control centers fully staffed will be a tall order. There aren't nearly enough people in the training pipeline to become new controllers and in the parts of the country with the busiest and most complex airspace, certifying new staff can take between two and four years. And finally, a baby boy in Pennsylvania born with a rare, often fatal disorder has been healed with the world's first ever personalized gene editing treatment. Shortly after KJ Muldoon was born, doctors diagnosed him with a CPS-1 deficiency that causes ammonia to build up in the body.

That can cause irreversible brain damage. Half of all babies with the disorder die in the first week. The conditions caused by a single gene mutation, one incorrect DNA letter among the three billion in the human genome. His doctors reached out to researchers asking for help and dozens of them put everything else aside for months to scramble to find a cure. At times, one doctor said they were really just shooting from the hip. But in a major medical breakthrough, they were able to create an injectable custom gene therapy for KJ that basically carried instructions to fix the mutation. The breakthrough built on decades of federally funded research and relies on a technology called CRISPR, basically a molecular GPS that can crawl along a person's DNA until it finds the spot that needs to be edited.

Now nine and a half months old, KJ is healthy enough that plans are underway to send him home from the hospital where he spent his whole short life. And the implications of his treatment go far beyond just him. Custom gene therapy could eventually be used to treat the tens of millions of other Americans with rare genetic disorders, or even common conditions like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis. Those are the headlines, but stick around, we have a Friday news quiz for you right after by Lucas, John Amargallati, Zoe Murphy, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schuman. Now for the quiz. This month we have been giving you the chance to test your news knowledge on Fridays. So we've got questions about three stories The Times has covered this week.

Can you answer them all? First up. The job you've done is second to none. You look at this is it's so beautiful. As a construction person, I'm seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfect job. President Trump toured the Middle East this week, including a stop at the Royal Court in Qatar, where he praised the marble ceilings and one particular component of the elaborate

cavalry parade that greeted him. What was it that caught his eye? I'll give you a hint. It's an animal, if that helps. Okay? The answer? Trump was excited about the camels. The welcome committee included men on camelback lining the road for the president's visit.

Up next, on Capitol Hill this week. You know, I don't want to be, it seems like I'm being evasive. But I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me. While facing questions from lawmakers, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told them that Americans should not look to him for medical advice. While facing questions from lawmakers, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told them that Americans should not look to him for medical advice. But in just the past few weeks, Kennedy has repeatedly used his position to weigh in on a range of health topics, including saying that one common ingredient in a lot of food

is poison. What ingredient was he talking about? I'm going to give you a second. The answer is sugar. Kennedy said, quote, sugar is poison and Americans need to know that it's poison. If you said food dyes, that is a very solid guess. Kennedy has said he's trying to ban petroleum based dyes from foods in a very solid guess. Kennedy has said he's trying to ban petroleum-based dyes from foods in the US, where they're used in everything from cereals to sports drinks. And last question. This weekend is the grand finale for Eurovision, the most watched cultural event in the world. Most of the competitors in this campy global singing contest don't go on to become superstars,

but two household names actually did get a boost from their Eurovision appearances back in the day. Let's see if you can name them based on a clip of their performance. First, from 1974, I'm just going to play the first few seconds. One more time. That is Abba, the Swedish pop legends with Waterloo. Second one, a little harder, the year is 1988. That is Celine Dion, almost 10 years before her heart went on and on and on. Notably this year, the organizers are really trying

to keep the focus on the music, not on politics, which have threatened to overshadow the performances in recent years. They've now actually banned performers from quote, causing controversies. The country of Georgia knows a little bit about that. They once tried to perform this disco hit. We don't wanna put in.

The negative mood is killing the crew. It was titled, We Don't Wanna Put In. Eurovision officials objected to the lyrics, saying it sounded a little too much like a not so subtle dig at Russia's leader. We don't wanna put in. That is it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, you can always email us at the headlines at

NYTimes.com. The show will be back on Monday and we'll try a few more questions next Friday.