WSJ What’s News - Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Riles Nuclear-Armed Rivals

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

P.M. Edition for May 27. China, Russia and North Korea claim the missile-defense project is driving a dangerous new arms race. WSJ reporter Thomas Grove says an impenetrable shield—though difficult to accomplish—would upend the paradigm of mutually assured destruction. And the GOP tax bill includes a much higher levy on schools’ endowment income. WSJ reporter Juliet Chung discusses how universities are rethinking their investment strategies. Plus, Salesforce strikes a roughly $8 billion deal to buy the data-management software firm Informatica to enhance its AI capabilities. Pierre Bienaimé hosts.  Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S. stocks rise sharply after the European Union agrees to fast-track trade talks with Washington. And President Trump says Vladimir Putin is playing with fire. Plus, how universities are rethinking their investment strategies to deal with Trump's planned tax hike on endowments. The reason this proposed tax plan is such a seismic change is because it shifts the endowments. It's Tuesday, May 27th. I'm Pierre Bienemé for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osala.

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that moved the world today. President Trump expressed renewed frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin today, writing on social media, quote, What Vladimir Putin doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia. And I mean really bad. He's playing with fire. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the US president's Golden Dome plan for a missile shield protecting American territory has riled the three countries whose weapons pose the greatest threat to it. China, Russia, and North Korea claim the project fuels a dangerous new arms race. All three countries have also denounced Trump's call for space-based interceptors, saying they risk turning space into a battlefield. The Golden Dome would combine ground-based interceptors with satellites to guard against high-tech threats, including hypersonic missiles.

Wall Street Journal reporter Thomas Grove has more on this. Thomas, how would this Golden Dome fit within the U.S.'s overall nuclear posture? What we're looking at here is a system that is going to basically change the way that we understand nuclear weapons as one of the biggest nuclear powers on Earth, Russia being slightly bigger with more warheads. But all through the Cold War, we were looking at mutually assured destruction was the cornerstone of deterrence. We weren't going to attack our opponent because we knew that we would be hit in retaliation. And so basically, this shifts that entire paradigm and creates a defensive shield

that is going to number one, potentially not protect us 100%, but number two, also likely drive our rivals and adversaries to create more missiles in order to penetrate that shield. How does President Trump envision this defense system working? So he's looking at ground-based, space-based interceptors, and he's very much put it as a shield against rogue states. And quite honestly, whenever previous administrations that have looked at missile defense shields and things like that, it's very much against rogue states, because quite honestly, it would

be very difficult to protect against peer missiles. The logic is basically that what North Korea or Iran potentially would send our way would possibly be less technologically advanced than say what Russia would, for example. Trump wants the Golden Dome in place by the end of his term as president. Is that doable? Most military experts believe that just even getting such a system in place would be tremendous effort in terms of getting the number of satellites that you need in terms of getting the interceptors in place. They would say that getting it all in place before the end of Trump's term would be an even more difficult ask.

That was Wall Street Journal reporter Thomas Grove joining from Poland. Thanks so much, Thomas. Thank you. Thanks so much, Thomas. Thank you. US stocks rose sharply today after President Trump walked back tariff threats against the European Union. The two trading partners indicated that talks were back on track. The Nasdaq led stock indexes higher with a 2.5% gain.

The Dow added 741 points, while the S&P rose more than 2%. Its biggest jump since May 12th, when news of a rollback on tariffs between the US and China sent the index 3.3% higher. Salesforce has struck a roughly $8 billion deal for the data management software firm Informatica. The deal is a move to bolster artificial intelligence capabilities at Salesforce. Informatica helps companies manage their data across systems both in the cloud and on site, allowing organizations to better analyze the data they collect.

The San Francisco-based Salesforce specializes in cloud-based software that helps sales staff manage customer relationships. The tax bill passed by the House of Representatives last week effectively muzzles some of the dozens of local and statewide efforts to outlaw algorithmic pricing systems for landlords. Federal, state, and local regulators accuse rental data algorithms such as RealPage and Yardi Systems of collecting and crunching confidential data to help landlords illegally collude on pricing.

WSJ reporter Rebecca Pichotto told our tech news briefing podcast that state and local governments have plans in the works to fight back against what the bill may do. The House provision specifically will make unenforceable the local ordinances banning real page, but the provision likely will not affect ongoing lawsuits based on antitrust and consumer protection violations that are against RealPage. So RealPage is facing up to $73 billion in monetary damages across those lawsuits and that will still be fair game even if the provision is passed. That said, local and state officials first line of defense would be to sue the federal

government if this tax provision is passed. And another consequence might be that if officials can't regulate rent setting algorithms like RealPage, they'll turn to other tenant protection laws like upping rent control and leaning harder into other means of tenant protection. For more on this story, check out tomorrow's episode of Tech News Briefing. Coming up, how President Trump's tax bill could force universities to change their investment strategies. That's after the break. The Trump administration is seeking to end remaining federal contracts with Harvard University.

That's according to a letter sent to federal agencies today, and it represents the latest escalation of the president's campaign against what he calls woke ideology on college campuses. The administration says Harvard engaged in anti-Semitism and race discrimination in its admissions process. The school didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Separately, President Trump's big, beautiful bill, which passed the House last week and now moves to the Senate, includes much higher taxes on universities' investment income. The Journal exclusively reports that that could drive a huge shift to their endowment's investment strategies at Harvard and other schools.

Juliet Chung covered this story for the Wall Street Journal, and she joins me now. Juliet, what are the details of this bill's tax hike on schools and how many of them would be affected? We're looking at a really seismic shift in how universities and their endowments are taxed. Currently, there's a group of private colleges and universities that are subject to a 1.4% endowment tax. And now we're looking at a tiered proposal where schools would be subject to 21% taxes

or 14% taxes or a 7% tax rate, depending on how big their endowment is per US student. You've got some of the biggest schools that would likely be affected, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. But then you've also got a smaller school like Caltech that could potentially be impacted because of the way the endowment dollars per US student works. Aaron Ross Powell So what are schools, are their endowments doing in response to this possible tax hike? Amy Quinton The reason this proposed tax plan is such a seismic change is because it shifts the

perspective of endowment chiefs to go from being effectively a tax-exempt investor, you suddenly need to don this hat of being a taxable investor. So that really impacts how you think about things like liquidity and realized gains. So on the one hand, they'll need to pay a greater degree of attention to their portfolio's liquidity. On the other hand, if you're thinking about this from the lens of a taxable investor, one thing you might want to do is try to defer realizing gains for as long as possible. So a school might shift more of its money to private equity or to real

estate or to other things where they're better able to manage the timing of the realization of gains. That was Wall Street Journal reporter, Juliet Chung. Juliet, thanks so much. Of course. King Charles III addressed Canada's parliament today, during a visit intended to reaffirm his support for the country. And though he didn't call out President Trump directly, Charles rebuked his repeated suggestion that Canada become part of the United States.

Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear and ones which the government is determined to protect. The British monarch is under strict instruction from the British government to make nice with Trump and avoid worsening trade tensions. And Charles' Canadian subjects were frustrated by the King's decision to invite Trump to a state visit to the UK, expected this fall. National Public Radio has filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order

to end federal funding of public media. NPR says the effort violates the First Amendment and federal law. In the suit filed today, NPR said Trump's order runs counter to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which prohibits federal agencies from controlling the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's the umbrella organization that oversees government funding for NPR and PBS. NPR stations get 10% of their funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have previously said they would also fight the executive order. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Pierre Bienemé for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.