President Joe Biden made a plea for unity after former President Donald Trump was wounded at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Biden has long sought to paint Trump as a figure who would threaten democracy and the rule of law.
After Saturday's shooting in Pennsylvania, the democracy issue is coming further into focus.
The incident could lead to the Biden campaign leaning into the issue or tweaking its message.
After former President Donald Trump was wounded during an assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, the 2024 campaign took a backseat as President Joe Biden sought to reassure Americans of their shared values.
The Biden campaign quickly paused "outbound communications" and took down television advertisements in the wake of the shooting.
Biden during his Oval Office address on Sunday repeatedly stressed the virtues of the US as he sought to guide Americans from a place of fear and anxiety to a unifying message.
"I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate, to pursue justice, to make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution," the president said. "We stand for an America not of extremism and fury but of decency and grace."
As Americans remain stunned by the assassination attempt on one of the country's major-party presidential candidates, the Biden campaign now faces a more uncertain political landscape than the one they faced after the June debate.
Here's a look at where things stand regarding the Biden campaign's most daunting challenges in the coming days and weeks:
Calls for Biden to step aside are on ice
After Biden's poor debate performance, there was a growing divide among Democrats between members who thought the president should remain the party's standard-bearer and those who felt he needed to step aside to facilitate the selection of a new nominee.
Biden insists he's staying in the race. And last week, the president sought to highlight his mettle as he hosted NATO leaders in Washington, met with a range of Democrats in making a continued case for his campaign, and stumped in must-win Michigan.
But Saturday's shooting has upended the political landscape in ways that will have important reverberations — with the incident so far grinding to a halt the movement to replace Biden.
As Biden aims to console the nation, Democratic leaders have also condemned political violence, and many in Washington are surely eyeing how Biden's leadership on the issue might define the remainder of his campaign — should he continue in the race.
Will 'defense of democracy' remain a core campaign issue?
One of the core tenets of Biden's reelection campaign has been the defense of democracy, as he has long argued that a second Trump term would threaten longstanding American institutions.
It's an issue that Democrats ran on with a considerable amount of success in 2022, as they held the Senate, lost fewer seats than expected in the House, and won key governorships in the Midwest and Southwest.
But after the Butler shooting, many are wondering how Biden will campaign on the issue moving forward.
Several Republicans — including shooting survivor and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana — accused Biden and Democrats of hyping up the threat to democracy message in a way that has created a volatile political environmental.
As the fallout from the shooting endures, Biden is set to resume his campaign after a high-touted Monday interview with NBC's Lester Holt.
In a statement, a Biden campaign official said that after the interview, "the DNC and the campaign will continue drawing the contrast between our positive vision for the future and Trump and Republicans' backwards-looking agenda over the course of the week."
Democrats aren't going to easily give up their depiction of Trump as a threat to democracy. But at least for the next few days — with the Republican National Convention taking center stage in Milwaukee — the party faces a tough balancing act as they weigh their unity message with the need to change the dynamics of a race that remains close.
Business Insider reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
Dimon joined the list of CEOs who spoke out against the shooting with a companywide email to employees sent Sunday, which BI confirmed.
Dimon wrote his message on behalf of the "entire leadership team" at the company and said his thoughts were with former President Trump and his family, along with the families of the victims of the attack.
He also took a moment to send a message about unity and taking a strong stance "against any acts of hate, intimidation or violence" that undermine democracy or cause harm to others.
"It is only through constructive dialogue that we can tackle our nation's toughest challenges," Dimon wrote in the memo.
Dimon, who has donated to Democratic candidates in the past, praised Trump's policy record earlier this year in an interview. He credited the former president for growing the economy and being "kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration" as well as China. He also said that he wishes "the Democrats would think a little more carefully when they talk about MAGA."
Dimon's Sunday message about constructive dialogue and unity against political violence was echoed by several other business and tech leaders, as well as big names on Wall Street.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in an earnings call Monday that "we cannot afford division and distrust to get the better of us." Sundar Pichai wrote on X that political violence is "intolerable" and everyone should come together against it. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Monday on CNBC that the shooting was a tragedy and Americans need to discuss divisions and bring "our community together."
Citibank CEO Jane Fraser also sent a letter to employees Monday saying she hoped the events would cause everyone to rethink their words and "tone down the rhetoric so we can have a more civil discourse," according to a Yahoo Finance report.
Read Dimon's full memo sent to employees below:
We are deeply saddened by the political violence and the assassination attempt on former President Trump last evening. On behalf of our entire leadership team, our thoughts today are with the former President, his family and the families of those who were tragically injured and killed.
We must all stand firmly together against any acts of hate, intimidation or violence that seek to undermine our democracy or inflict harm. It is only through constructive dialogue that we can tackle our nation's toughest challenges.
Jasmin Roth is pregnant with her second child at age 40.
Courtesy of Michael Radford
Jasmine Roth is the host of HGTV's "HELP! I Wrecked My House."
She's pregnant with her second baby, who is due just after Roth turns 40.
She was with her husband 15 years before having kids.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jasmine Roth. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I'm pregnant with my second child, who is due in October, just after my 40th birthday. I'll be the same age when my baby arrives as my grandmother was when I was born. I could be a grandmother now if I stuck to my family's schedule. Breaking that cycle was a very intentional choice.
Growing up, the generations in my family were about 20 years apart. Everyone was young parents, and we were able to do lots of fun activities. But there were also challenges: financial worries and emotional immaturity.
I met my husband when we were 20. We moved in together as college roommates and never moved out. When I looked at his family, which had larger generational gaps, I saw what I wanted: greater financial security and very intentional choices about parenthood. That's what I was looking for.
I thought I was ready for a baby, but then I traveled for three years
My husband and I both studied entrepreneurship at college, and we focused on building our separate companies after graduation. We had very optimistic goals. Children, for us, fit in later in life.
Our first daughter was born when my husband and I were 36. About three years before that we hit a point where we were happy with our careers. We owned a home and had a level of career and financial success we were comfortable with.
But instead of having a baby then, we decided to travel. We went all-in, taking our vacation time and then some. We snowboarded on four continents that year. It was so much fun that we did it again the next year, and then the next. After that, my biological clock was really ticking. It wasn't the perfect time, but I knew it was the right time.
Having a baby during COVID lockdown was traumatic
I was very confident in our decision to delay having a baby. You can't be together with someone for 15 years and not have a child without a lot of intentionality. Despite that, there were some times when I questioned waiting. Still, I had the confidence to know it was the right choice for us.
After all that waiting, I thought we were prepared for parenthood. We had been through so much together, but nothing could have prepared us for having a baby.
The month before my daughter Hazel was born, COVID lockdown started. When I was in labor we packed a cooler of food, because we knew if my husband left the hospital he might not be able to get back in. Afterward, we drove by my mother's house and showed her new grandchild through the car window.
No one knew about the impact of COVID on pregnant people or infants. Even getting to the pediatrician was difficult. It was truly traumatic.
I'm building my own happiness
After that, it took us years to feel ready for another baby. Then, we spent another year trying to get pregnant. I had to address health issues I didn't know I had, like high cholesterol. We conceived after intrauterine insemination (IUI).
This pregnancy has its own challenges. During the first trimester I had a lot of restrictions. Amid that, we decided to relocate from Huntington Beach, California to Park City, Utah, where a lot of my business is based. Our house is being built and we plan to move by the end of July.
Getting the new house ready is difficult, because you're designing for something you haven't experienced. As soon as we bought the house while it was under construction I had them add another room so the kids didn't have to share. I've never been a mom of two but even I knew that didn't seem like a good idea.
This time, I'm really excited to be able to have our village — our friends and family — around to help. I'm all about building your own happiness. That doesn't mean you have it all figured out or do everything right. Instead it's about celebrating whatever phase or season of life you're in, and leaning into that.
Cody Berman (left), Jubilee Bosch (center), and Amber Smith (right) have all followed many principles of the FIRE — financial independence, retire early — movement.
Cody Berman/Jubilee Bosch/Amber Smith
Many Gen Z Americans are prioritizing financial savviness, aiming for early retirement.
Young Americans invest more than previous generations; two-thirds save for retirement early.
Four Gen Zers said they're embracing FIRE principles like cutting spending and diversifying income.
Gen Z is becoming more financially savvy — and many are doing whatever they can to retire early.
Many more young Americans are investing compared to their parents in their early- and mid-20s, and two-thirds of Gen Z has already started saving for retirement, according to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.
Some said they don't intend on following the "retire early" part of the acronym and instead want to pursue their passions while making money doing so.
Their stories vary widely, from a serial entrepreneur, to a Boeing engineer, to an enlisted sailor in the Navy. But all four emphasized that their sacrifices and risks earlier in life may be the key to their financial stability down the road.
Cody Berman, entrepreneur and "passive income expert"
Cody Berman hit financial independence at 25 but continues to help others achieve their financial goals.
Courtesy of Cody Berman
Cody Berman, 28, hit financial freedom at 25 but has no plans to retire early. He started a handful of businesses in college, some of which failed. He achieved success with his disc golf manufacturing company.
"I had always thought of 'rich' people being people who made a really high dollars per hour — doctors, lawyers who make $200, $300 an hour," Berman said. "Then I realized that you didn't actually have to trade your time for money on a linear basis. You could trade your time, your energy, your money, for things were going to pay you perpetually, whether or not you're working on them."
He got a corporate job as a commercial real estate lender but worked on side hustles each morning and night, sometimes working 15-hour days. He left his job after seven months and went all in on freelancing, digital products, blogging, and podcasting.
At 25, he made about $400,000 in a year from side hustles, which is when he considered himself financially independent. He saved about 90% of his income, investing most of his money into index funds and his portfolio of 11 rental properties.
"I'm not in the FIRE movement for the RE part," Berman said. "I love building businesses."
His net worth is about $2.8 million, but he drives a 2015 Nissan truck approaching 100,000 miles. He and his wife live in a one-bedroom property and rent out a four-bedroom property next door. Cutting back on housing costs allowed him to spend almost $10,000 a month in travel, dining, and concerts.
Berman co-founded Gold City Ventures, which helps others launch Etsy businesses selling printables through workshops and courses. Berman said they've seen people quit their corporate jobs and make much more through online selling.
Jubilee Bosch, engineer taking a sabbatical
Jubilee Bosch is an engineer who is planning to take a sabbatical.
Jubilee Bosch
Jubilee Bosch, 26, has worked as an engineer in St. Louis since graduating from college, though with over $190,000 in net worth, she's taking a sabbatical.
Bosch was raised in a lower-middle-class family in California by a stay-at-home mom and military father who worked three jobs until starting a house-cleaning business. Though raised to be frugal, she never learned how to invest.
After attending community college and a four-year college, she got a mechanical engineering degree and graduated debt-free due to merit scholarships, college jobs, and some assistance from her parents.
After an internship, she was hired full-time by Boeing, making $64,000. She struggled to transition to the corporate world and burned out quickly, but she kept rising up the ranks, negotiating a promotion and a salary increase to $95,000 a year. Around this time, she read about strategies for reaching financial independence, and increased her investments while helping her friends open Roth IRAs.
She kept expenses to about $22,000 a year and put most of her savings into the market. She moved into a smaller space with her partner, strategically meal-prepped, and got travel credit cards to lower out-of-pocket flight expenses.
"I was starting to realize I probably didn't want a traditional career, and I'm sure I'll probably have gaps in my life where I don't have a regular job, so I can roll those over and be tax efficient," Bosch said.
She had enough investments and savings to take a year off from work, so she eased up on investing to build a cash cushion. She realized she didn't need to be "hyper-frugal" anymore and could spend on things that mattered to her. She now anticipates retiring between 45 and 55, as she wants to try different career paths.
"I started to spend more in areas that brought me a lot of joy and realized that some lifestyle creep is worth it and changes the bottom line very little," Bosch said.
Amber Smith, tech worker-turned-online reseller and content creator
Amber Smith quit her insurance position and does side hustles full time.
Amber Smith
Amber Smith, 27, has a net worth of about $250,000 and quit her tech job earlier this year to pursue her side hustles full-time.
Smith, who lives in West Des Moines, said her parents sold things on eBay for extra money and stressed the importance of side hustles. She got a full scholarship at college and stumbled into a financial planning internship. She read finance blogs and received training from her manager on how to help others — and herself — best prepare for the future.
"Here I was in my first real office job, and I thought I could do this for another 40 years of my life, or I could save aggressively now and cut that timeline much shorter," Smith said.
After graduating, she did contract work with her local government and a bank. She landed at a startup making $78,000 two years out of college, then transitioned to a financial tech company making about $100,000. However, she was laid off from two jobs back to back, and when she landed in an insurance role, she felt stressed and directionless.
She quit her insurance job to grow her side hustles, as she had a large enough nest egg to avoid the office for a few years. She turned down recruiter interviews and focused on monetized content creation and reselling secondhand clothing.
She made $30,000 to $50,000 a year reselling part-time while at her previous companies. She brought in more from brand deals and influencing in the first five months of 2024 than in all of 2023. Content creation hasn't been as consistent, though she made $2,800 once for a brand deal and accepted others paying over $1,000.
Though her savings are down this year because of the drop in income after leaving her corporate job, she said she's been smart about her investments and isn't too worried since her net worth continues to grow.
"I want a way to pay my bills and afford my life, and I want to do that in a way where I'm not stressed out," Smith said. "The peace of it is such a big part, even if I am making less than I was in my insurance job."
Cory Sarkisian, enlisted sailor in the Navy pursuing a financial planning role
Cory Sarkisian, 27, has been an enlisted sailor in the Navy for eight years, saving and investing $375,000 in the process. He and his wife, who have two kids, have been a single-income household for the last six years, moving between San Diego, Hawaii, and Connecticut.
Sarkisian had $10,000 saved by the time he joined the Navy, and for his first three years, he didn't have to worry about food or housing, allowing him to save most of his earnings. In 2016, he bought a four-year-old Honda Civic in cash and still drives it.
In 2018, he moved out of government quarters and got married. He was given a housing stipend of $2,700 a month, the set amount for someone of his rank, and he and his wife found an apartment for $1,700 a month and kept the rest. He has also never had to pay for healthcare, which is free through the military.
In 2020, he began investing in index funds through his Roth IRA and Thrift Savings plan, and he and his wife put 10% down on a condo with a 15-year loan and 1.75% interest rate. He was forced to move to Connecticut two years later, though they sold the condo for $70,000 more than they paid, which they used to start funding their kids' 529 plans, purchase a used car, and put more into brokerage accounts.
They've put $180,000 into their Roth accounts, $125,000 in after-tax brokerage accounts, $45,000 in savings, and $21,000 in 529s. With their savings, they traveled to four Hawaiian islands and New Zealand. Sarkisian said he's looking to pursue financial planning after his time in the Navy.
"We don't feel like we are depriving ourselves," Sarkisian said. "Maybe early on, we endured some deprivation, but we think we have found a pretty good balance."
Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.
Sales in its latest fiscal year hit nearly $8 billion in the country, Bloomberg reported.
Apple execs have made it a point to grow in Asian markets in the past year as rivals push forward.
Apple scored a win in its fight to gain a foothold in Asia.
Bloomberg reported Monday that the tech giant's sales in the year through March in India hit nearly $8 billion, setting a record. It's a 33% jump from the $6 billion a year prior.
CEO Tim Cook has led an effort to strengthen Apple's presence in Asian markets. In the fiscal second-quarter earnings call, Cook said he felt "very optimistic" about his visit to Shanghai in March.
But India is also a key part of Apple's plans in the region, helping it diversify. CFO Luca Maestri named it among the countries that could help Apple offset declines in the Chinese market thanks to government bans and competition from rivals.
Although India's revenue represents only about 2% of Apple's $383 billion annual sales, it does show that the company's bet on an expanding Indian middle class is paying off. According to Bloomberg, iPhones accounted for over half of sales in the country, even though the Indian smartphone market is still dominated by cheaper handsets.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
I love grilled cheese, so I wanted to try out a few popular recipes.
Meredith Schneider
I tried grilled-cheese recipes from Roy Choi, Ree Drummond, and Ina Garten to try to find the best.
Garten's sandwich melted beautifully, and the smoky bacon added a nice contrasting flavor.
Drummond's grilled cheese had pizzazz, but Choi's is the perfect basic recipe.
Grilled cheese is the ultimate comfort food. It can be made with almost anything in your kitchen (vegetables, fruit, herbs) as long as cheese and bread are involved.
Plus, a well-made grilled cheese can keep a person on a budget fed like a king — which is great when most grocery prices are still so high.
On a mission to find the best grilled cheese out there, I tried recipes from celebrity chefs Roy Choi, Ree Drummond, and Ina Garten.
Here's how it went.
Choi's grilled cheese had the shortest ingredient list.
Roy Choi keeps things basic with bread, cheese, and butter.
Meredith Schneider
I've seen Choi's recipe circulate online in the past, so I was excited to try it. It was also the quickest and easiest of the three.
I procured a loaf of sourdough bread, unsalted butter, yellow cheddar, white cheddar, and Gruyère.
I'd also need a block of Parmesan and a cheese grater to finish things off.
Building the sandwich was simple.
I layered the cheeses one on top of the other.
Meredith Schneider
I buttered one side of two pieces of sourdough bread and flipped them so the non-buttered side was facing up.
Then I added three slices of yellow cheddar, three slices of white cheddar, 1 ounce of grated Gruyère, and 1 ounce of grated Parmesan.
Once it was built, all I had to do was transfer the grilled cheese to my pan and wait for it to get toasty on both sides.
The finished sandwich was so cheesy and not at all stringy.
I prefer a little bit of a cheese pull.
Meredith Schneider
I could taste each layer of cheese in this sandwich, and they were all incredibly flavorful in their own right.
Whether due to the selection of cheeses or the lack of other ingredients, this sandwich was the least stringy of the three.
This definitely made it a little cleaner to eat, but I thought it lacked a little bit of the quintessential charm of a cheese pull.
Garten adds protein to her recipe.
Ina Garten uses bacon and a special sauce to jazz up her grilled cheese.
Meredith Schneider
Garten's ultimate grilled-cheese recipe called for thick-cut bacon, mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip), Dijon mustard, Parmesan, kosher salt, black pepper, Gruyére (or Comte), extra-sharp cheddar, and sourdough bread.
It also called for salted butter, but I substituted it with unsalted because that's what I keep in my house.
I started by whipping up a sauce to spread across the bread.
The sauce was mostly mustard and mayo.
Meredith Schneider
To make Garten's sauce, I mixed mustard, mayonnaise, Parmesan, pepper, and salt in a bowl. Then I took two pieces of sourdough and spread butter on one side and the sauce mixture on the other.
I placed the prepped bread sauce-side-up on my plate.
Before building the sandwich, I cooked the bacon according to the instructions on the package.
With my bread prepped and my bacon cooked, I got to building my sandwich.
Bacon went on one slice of bread, and cheese went on the other.
Meredith Schneider
I started by adding three slices of cooked bacon to the sauce side of one piece of bread. Then, I layered 1 ounce of extra-sharp cheddar and 1 ounce of Gruyère on the other slice.
The closed sandwich went into the pan to get toasty and melty.
Garten’s sandwich had stringy cheese and a smoky flavor.
I was pleased by the added flavor of the smoky bacon.
Meredith Schneider
Garten's grilled cheese was the stringiest of the three. The cheese oozed out of the sides, and the ingredients melded together perfectly.
There was a pleasing, savory, smoky kick from the bacon and the Gruyère, and every few bites, I got a kick of salt. I don't think I needed the salted butter at all.
Drummond’s grilled cheese called for extra produce.
Ree Drummond adds veggies to her sandwich.
Meredith Schneider
Drummond's recipe is definitely cheese-heavy, but it's also colorful.
It called for poblano or Anaheim chiles, white vinegar, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, red onion, tomatoes, provolone, cheddar, and butter.
To make things easier for me, I decided to swap the red onion for a yellow one.
I usually prefer sourdough for grilled cheese, but Drummond's recipe called for softer rye.
Toasting the pepper gave it a great texture.
I only needed one chile for my grilled cheese.
Meredith Schneider
I popped one chile pepper into a pan on the stove and cooked it until the skin blackened.
The recipe recommended toasting the peppers over an open flame, but I have an electric stove, so the pan worked fine.
I soaked my sliced onions in some vinegar to mellow out the flavor.
I didn't want the onions to overpower the sandwich.
Meredith Schneider
To reduce any overbearing onion taste and bring out a little sweetness, I cut the onion into thin slices and submerged them in a small bowl of white vinegar.
Drummond's sauce was similar to Garten's.
Ree Drummond also adds a sauce to her grilled cheese.
Meredith Schneider
Drummond's sauce was made with equal parts Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. I quickly blended it up in a bowl before prepping my bread.
There were more layers in this sandwich.
I started with the sauce and then piled on the cheese and veggies.
Meredith Schneider
I slathered sauce across two pieces of rye bread and added butter to the other sides.
With the sauce side up, I added two slices of provolone, two thin slices of tomato, two slices of cheddar cheese, and the onions.
Before cutting up and adding the chiles, I removed the blackened skin and seeds.
Because the rye bread was softer than the sourdough, I cooked the sandwich over a lower heat. I wanted to sufficiently melt and bind the cheese without burning the bread.
The texture was the star of Drummond's sandwich.
I liked the extra bite from the veggies.
Meredith Schneider
The onions added a crisp snap, but thanks to the vinegar bath, they weren't overbearing. The standout flavor was actually the mustard in the sauce.
It's certainly a different take on grilled cheese, but I'm definitely going to keep this recipe around.
You can't go wrong with a basic recipe, and Choi nailed it.
From left to right: Ree Drummond's, Roy Choi's, and Ina Garten's grilled cheeses.
Meredith Schneider
All three of these recipes were so tasty. But I was most impressed by Choi's perfect blend of cheesy flavors. It's my new staple grilled-cheese recipe.
I'm still memorizing Drummond's recipe to impress my friends at a barbecue or cute night in. It's a sneaky way to eat more produce and was lighter overall.
The rye also surprised me and opened my mind to other bread possibilities.
Garten's recipe wasn't bad by any means — in fact, I think it had the best melt. But I don't think I'll reach for it that often when I want a grilled cheese.
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump's classified documents case Monday.
She wrote the Special Counsel failed to brief her on other remedies beyond dismissal.
"Startlingly, the Special Counsel submitted nothing" during a "lengthy hearing," Cannon wrote.
Judge Aileen Cannon didn't just throw out the criminal charges alleging Donald Trump mishandled classified documents — she also suggested Special Counsel Jack Smith didn't take her seriously enough.
In her shocking 93-page ruling on Monday, Cannon concluded the appointment of Smith as a special prosecutor in the case was unconstitutional.
The legality of special counsels has been debated for years, and Cannon wrote Monday that Congress needs to bestow such legal powers.
Cannon also wrote the Special Counsel had a "full and fair opportunity" to brief her on other remedies besides dismissing the case.
"Yet startlingly, the Special Counsel submitted nothing on the topic of the proper remedy for the Appointments Clause issue, despite challenging dismissal as a remedy," Cannon wrote.
Cannon said Smith's team instead asked for "some additional briefing" on the issue, but it was too late.
"This last-minute reference to conditional supplemental briefing … in no way signals a lack of a full and fair opportunity given to all parties to brief their positions," Cannon concluded.
Before issuing the decision, Cannon took the step of allowing amicus briefs — arguments from third parties unrelated to the case — over the legality of special counsels, something that's rarely done in criminal cases on a district court level. Several right-leaning groups, along with two former US Attorneys General who served in Republican presidential administrations — argued against the special counsel appointments.
Some legal groups and allies of Trump urged the Supreme Court to weigh in on the legality of special counsels when it heard arguments related to presidential immunity earlier this year. The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision granting presidents broad criminal immunity powers, ultimately didn't take it up. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said he believed most special counsels were unconstitutional, but none of the other eight justices joined his opinion.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Ukraine has made monumental efforts to scale-up its defense industry since Russia's invasion began.
Kyiv barely made any weapons at the start, but now it's producing drones, artillery, and more.
Despite the country's successes, a senior official said Ukraine still needs more energetics.
Ukraine is rapidly producing a variety of homemade weapons as its defense industry aims to meet the needs and demands of soldiers fighting on the front lines. But a senior official says Kyiv still needs more of a key ingredient to keep the arms flowing.
Before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine was barely producing any weaponry for its armed forces and was relying heavily on pre-existing stocks of Soviet-era supplies and support from international partners. Now, the country is cranking out its own drones, artillery, missiles, and more at a breakneck pace to supplement this inventory.
"I don't focus much on thinking how we made it, but we made it," Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine's minister of strategic industries, told Business Insider last week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
"We've got a few challenges, just a few. One is energetics — explosives and propellants — and probably that's it," Kmayshin explained, reflecting on Ukraine's efforts to boost its defense output. "No one is making enough," he said, and that is a global challenge. "So the more you get, the more ammunition you produce."
Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars in security assistance from NATO since the onset of the war, including more than $53 billion from the US alone. But as the conflict has progressed, the local defense industry has steadily contributed more and more of its own military hardware to Kyiv's front-line forces.
A homemade prototype drone is tested with a fake grenade in a field outside Kyiv in November 2022.
Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
These domestic efforts supplement the provision of foreign weapons. Kamyshin said Ukraine will always be reliant on Western support because there's no one country that can outproduce Russia right now.
Russia also has weapons flowing in from abroad — most publicly from North Korea and Iran. But Moscow has also invested a significant share of its GDP into military spending and placed the economy on what experts say is a Soviet-style war footing.
The rapid production of weapons inside Russia has triggered alarm bells among some NATO allies, and it has underscored the need for Ukraine to prioritize local manufacturing, which is helping to grow the domestic economy.\
From breadbasket to arsenal
"We are putting in the war everything we have," Kamyshin said, noting that most of the budget goes into the war. He said that Ukraine can't beat Russia when it comes to funding and manpower, so it is focused on quality over quantity.
"That's why we have to outperform in the quality of weapons, in the quality of people, and that's the only way we can withstand," he said.
One notable area of success in this war has been Ukraine's local drone development program. Kyiv has used long-range attack drones to target military and energy facilities deep inside Russian territory and has relied on naval drones packed with explosives to hammer Moscow's warships in the Black Sea.
A Ukrainian multi-purpose naval drone called "Magura V5" during a demonstration in April.
Photo by Pavlo Bahmut/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
And drones are not its only innovations. Ukraine also developed a homemade anti-ship missile, the Neptune missile, and used it to sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, early in the war. Kyiv later modified the missile for land attack.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is taking greater steps to further integrate its domestic defense industry with those of NATO and the European Union. Kyiv recently opened an office in Washington to achieve that goal and has encouraged deeper collaboration with Western arms manufacturers.
"They called us the 'breadbasket' of [the] Soviet Union. Then they called us the 'breadbasket' of Europe," Kamyshin said. "We've been always a good, a peaceful, nice agricultural country. I was farming myself."
"At some point, they came and started killing us. We had to learn how to fight" again, he said. "It was not our decision to switch from being a breadbasket to being the arsenal."
The role of chief marketing officer has never been more complex than it is today.
Digital transformation, economic upheaval, societal change, and a fragmented media landscape are just some of the intricacies marketing leaders are confronting.
CMO Insider presents profiles, case studies, research, and personal perspectives, to inspire and inform CMOs and their teams as they build and grow their brands.
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Credits
<!– Here are two example credits lines. If you need more, just copy and paste more. Be sure to keep the tag at the end of each one. –> Series editors: Julia Hood Reporters: Lauren Johnson, Lara O'Reilly, Michael Kaminer Events programming: Katrin Wright Design and development: Alyssa Powell, Chay Thawaranont, Kazi Awal, Will Varner
The former president's rallying cry that he is a victim of political persecution is only growing louder since a 20-year-old shooter tried to kill him at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
"As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts," Trump wrote in his post, listing out all the cases he thinks should be dropped.
"The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Joe Biden's Political Opponent, ME. Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System, and Make America Great Again!" he continued on Truth Social.
Trump also suggested to the The New York Post on Sunday that, in light of Saturday's violence, things could be more civil now between his and Joe Biden's presidential campaigns.
Without providing any details, Trump told the Post "we hear" that Biden will order the Department of Justice to drop its criminal cases against Trump.
One of those cases, the Florida classified documents case, was dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge on Monday, though Biden wouldn't have played any role in the federal judge's ruling.
The DOJ has historically operated independently from the executive branch; there's also no indication that Biden has orchestrated the charges against Trump, or that he'd order them to be dropped.
The Biden campaign declined to comment. The White House, the Trump campaign, and the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Trump's comments reinforce his frequent message that Biden has been personally directing the criminal cases against him, even the ones in state court.
Trump and the GOP have repeatedly alleged, long before Saturday's shooting, that Biden is behind the charges against Trump.
And Trump isn't the only one suggesting he should now be spared from criminal prosecution for the good of the country.
Trump's former national security advisor Robert O'Brien posted a joint statement with Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, urging the charges be dropped.
"We've got to take the political temperature down, as evidenced by what happened in PA today," O'Brien wrote in a post on X. "We call on President Biden to immediately order that all federal criminal charges against President Trump be dropped, and to ask the governors of New York and Georgia to do the same."
"Such a gesture would help heal wounds and allow all Americans to take a deep breath and reflect on how we got here," the statement on X continued. "Our prayers are with the victims of the shooting, President Trump and our country."
Politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Biden, have been calling for peace and unity as Americans are increasingly worried about political violence breaking out.
In an address from the Oval Office on Sunday, Biden urged Americans to remain calm and resolve their political disputes peacefully.
"The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin," the president said. "The path forward, through competing visions of the campaign, should always be resolved peacefully, not through acts of violence."