Tag: News

• Chinese electric vehicle makers hit record sales in June, challenging Tesla's dominance.
• BYD, Nio, and Zeekr saw significant year-over-year growth despite US and EU tariff concerns.
• Tesla faces pressure with declining sales but may rebound with China growth and Robotaxi unveiling.

Three Chinese electric vehicle makers hit record sales numbers at the end of June, which could spell trouble for Tesla.

China's biggest EV manufacturer, BYD, sold nearly 1 million electric and hybrid cars in the second quarter of the year, Bloomberg calculated. During the same period, Nio said it delivered over 57,000 vehicles — a 144% year-over-year rise.

Geely Automotive-owned Zeekr, which listed in the US in May, had a record June with over 20,000 deliveries — an 89% year-on-year increase.

Despite concerns about tariffs from the US and European Union, sales for the three producers were boosted by price cuts, the introduction of cheaper models, and Chinese EV demand from Russia, where Western competitors exited.

These numbers may make Tesla, and its once-dismissive-of-Chinese-companies CEO, nervous. The American EV giant announces its second-quarter deliveries on Tuesday. First-quarter numbers showed Tesla was hit by waning EV demand.

Analysts expect a 6% decline in Tesla's total deliveries from April through June, Reuters reported ahead of the official numbers.

Tesla has made big moves to lure back customers and reassure investors this year.

At the end of the first quarter, CEO Elon Musk entered the EV price war by slashing prices on select Tesla models. In the company's first-quarter earnings call, Tesla also announced a much-awaited cheaper EV. In late May, Tesla even offered Chinese customers a chance to tour its Fremont, California factory if they bought a car this summer.

"The fundamentals for Tesla are in a tricky position right now, and we generally expect negative revisions," Barclays analyst Dan Levy told CNBC last month. One of the company's biggest challenges is flat volume growth, he said.

Levy predicted an 11% drop in June-quarter deliveries, below analyst estimates.

The bullish case for Tesla

Despite Chinese EV companies' strength, one analyst is confident that Tesla is set for a rebound amid growth in China and the Robotaxi's unveiling, planned for August.

"We have seen some signs of stabilization in pricing for Tesla over the past few months as it appears the lion's share of the price cuts are now in the rear-view mirror," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Friday.

Ives, a Tesla bull, said that demand in key region China is showing signs of improving as customers realize that no more price cuts are coming.

Moreover, analysts have long said some American EV companies' real value isn't the cars themselves, but rather technology that could be sold to other customers.

"We continue to believe that Tesla is more of an AI and robotics play than a traditional car company," Ives wrote on Friday.

The same is true for American competitor Rivian, which recently announced a $5 billion investment from Volkswagen .

Software is one of Rivian's strengths, Goldman Sachs analysts noted in January — "a key part of the value proposition and monetization opportunity for Rivian."

• An Air Europa flight from Spain to Uruguay was diverted to Brazil after encountering severe turbulence.
• The New York Times reported that 36 passengers were injured, some with neck and skull fractures.
• This is the latest in a string of turbulence-linked plane emergencies of late.

An Air Europa flight from Spain to Uruguay was forced to divert to Brazil after severe turbulence hit the flight, injuring more than 30.

The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner traveling from Madrid to Montevideo on Monday made an emergency landing at 2:32 a.m. local time at Natal Airport in northeastern Brazil, per FlightRadar24.

The airline posted on X on Monday: "Our flight UX045 bound for Montevideo has been diverted to Natal airport (Brazil) due to strong turbulence."

It added: "The plane has landed normally, and the minor injuries that were reported are already being treated."

The New York Times reported that at least 36 passengers were treated for injuries, and 23 were taken to hospitals, citing the Brazilian public health authorities. Some passengers had neck and skull fractures, per The Times.

Local news outlet G1, citing medical personnel on the ground, reported that several passengers hit their heads during the turbulence and suffered fractures, facial injuries, and chest pains.

Speaking to Spanish-language media outlet Telemundo, passenger Evangelina Saravia from Uruguay described the scene inside the aircraft.

"A person was left hanging between the plastic ceiling and the metal roof behind it, and they had to be brought down," she said to Telemundo. "The same thing happened to a baby."

Another passenger, Romina Apai, told Telemundo she was sleeping when the incident occurred. She heard screaming, then "there was the smell of blood" in the cabin, she said.

The airline said in later updates on X that passengers stuck in Natal were being moved to the nearby city of Recife, where the airline could provide "better service" to them.

Air Europa added that they would be picked up by another plane from Madrid, which would bring them onward to Uruguay.

The turbulence-hit plane had a capacity of up to 339 passengers, per Air Europa's website. G1 reported that 325 passengers were on board Monday's flight.

The incident is the latest in a string of turbulence-related plane emergencies that have emerged recently.

The most severe one occurred in May when a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER airplane encountered turbulence so severe that the plane dropped 178 feet in four seconds.

The flight from London to Singapore was cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet over Myanmar when it was thrust up and down rapidly for 62 seconds, leading to one death and over 100 injuries.

Separately, on June 16, an Air New Zealand A320 flight ran into severe turbulence, which caused a crew member to hit the cabin ceiling and a passenger to be scalded by hot coffee.

Representatives for Air Europa didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Investor Whitney Tilson says he felt "deceived" after watching the Biden debate with Trump last week.
• Tilson said Biden should pull out "if the man I saw at the debate is the real Joe Biden right now."
• The Biden donor said it would be a "waste of my time and money" to continue backing him.

Investor Whitney Tilson, a longtime donor to President Joe Biden, says he's reconsidering his support for Biden after his stumbling performance at last week's presidential debate.

"I feel deceived. For months my Republican friends have been sending me videos from Twitter and Fox 'News' that appear to show Biden's dementia," Tilson wrote in an X post on Saturday.

"Though I was concerned, I was mostly able to dismiss these often deceptively-edited videos as the usual Republican attack machine idiocy because I remember how they tried to do the same to Hillary in 2016," he continued. "But the debate changed all that."

The former hedge fund manager said Biden must withdraw from the presidential race if his bad performance on Thursday's debate was not a one-off.

Biden's withdrawal, the longtime Democratic donor said, is now critical if the Democrats want to have any chance of beating former President Donald Trump in November.

"If it's as bad as what we all witnessed on Thursday night, then he needs to put his country first and step aside immediately," Tilson wrote.

"I will fight to my dying breath to stop Trump and his toxic Trumpism, but if the man I saw at the debate is the real Joe Biden right now, then it would be a waste of my time and money to support him because he has almost no chance of beating Trump," he continued.

Tilson added that he would still vote for Biden if he stays on but would instead "channel all of my energies into helping Democrats hold the Senate and retake the House."

Representatives for Biden and Tilson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

Remarks made by high-profile donors like Tilson are likely a source of concern for the Biden campaign, which has been working hard to assuage supporters of Biden's mental acuity following last week's debate.

Biden's performance on Thursday was riddled with gaffes and stumbles as he sought to make the case for his candidacy against his GOP rival, Trump.

The setback on the debate stage has only compounded fears and worries about Biden's cognitive decline and his fitness for the Oval Office. Some have even called for the 81-year-old to be replaced as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who once said that he'd still vote for Biden even if the president "was being given last rites," said on Friday that he was willing to consider swapping Biden out for another candidate.

"Trump is far better than Biden at soundbites and marketing. That's reality," Cuban said in an X post. "For that reason, I'm also open to the discussion to replace Biden and/or Harris.

"It's not like Trump's approval ratings are high. They aren't. It could be an open door to find someone immediately out-performing Trump," he continued. "But if that doesn't happen, I'm still voting for Biden.

• Dana Mayer moved back to the US after living in the UK for 25 years.
• She used to get frustrated by the British tendency to accept mediocrity.
• Now, she cringes when Americans demand a free meal because their drinks arrive five minutes late.

I wasn't prepared for how much the US had changed when I moved back. I'd been living in the UK for 25 years, but when the pandemic kicked off in March 2020, I decided it was time to go home.

It wasn't until returning that I realized how British I'd become and that "home" was more difficult to define. Now, after having lived almost half my life in each country, I feel equally in love with both, although for very different reasons.

I struggled with the lack of personal space in the UK — some of that stems from the UK's population density being almost eight times that of the US per square mile, per World Bank Open Data.

This translated into tiny homes with common walls even in the countryside and jostling for sidewalk space in the cities. It also seemed to result in a populace adverse to talking to or making eye contact with strangers in order to protect their perceived sanity.

Size and space struck me when I returned to the US

Fresh out of COVID quarantine, I was visiting a friend in a New York City suburb, looking around their giant kitchen with its oversized fridge. I didn't even have to go outside to their huge lawn or the wooded roads surrounding the property to feel my energy expand into what was simply more space per person.

This is also when I spotted an enormous orange pepper on the kitchen counter that looked like a mutant interloper. Was this actually food? Was it a pepper crossed with some kind of alien Godzilla? It was so big that I took a picture. I spent the rest of the day laughing at its size.

Although actually, the pepper was funny/not funny, just like when you first meet someone and what you initially find endearing turns out to be the most annoying thing about them.

In keeping with the American freewheeling mentality, expansive personal space, and a business mindset that allows for growth and experimentation, the pepper was massive due to the genetic engineering of crops. This is something that until last year was banned outright in the UK, per BBC.

In the UK, the small peppers fit into small houses, and the food was closer to its natural form due to strict food laws. Their relatively closed mindset of "we've always done it this way" actually kept their food closer to the source. However, we'll see how big their peppers get in the years ahead.

The pandemic gave me time to reflect on a lot of things I missed about the UK — the National Health Service, the intelligent level of public discourse, and the newscasters without plastic hair. There was also the quiet dignity of the seemingly closed people who would keep you out of their inner circle until, finally, they let you in in a grounded, loyal way.

In contrast, folks in the US often unravel their whole life story to me while standing in the Target checkout line.

But I never quite fit in while living in the UK

In the UK, I always felt like an outsider in some ways, especially when doing things like playing Trivial Pursuit. No matter how long I lived there, I never got most of the cultural references, because it's not where I'd grown up. I'm glad now that in the US I don't have to explain to anyone of my generation what candy corn is or who Magilla Gorilla, a 1960s cartoon, is.

Still, I'm torn between the American expectation of excellence which can be over-the-top and relentless, and the British tendency to accept mediocrity, brush problems under the carpet, and sometimes have a more peaceful life as a result.

When I first came to the UK, I waited tables at a tourist-trap restaurant where the food was overpriced and microwaved rubbish. When I went to the table and asked about the meal, almost every British customer replied, "It was lovely," in a shy, sheepish way.

Years later, my British ex-boyfriend, who held a high-level management position and told people what to do all day at work, used to get embarrassed when I asked restaurant staff to please wipe the table because it was dirty. As an American I'd grown up feeling entitled to a clean table when paying for service in a restaurant. Now, I cringe when I see Americans in restaurants demanding a free meal because their drinks arrive five minutes late.

Four years after moving back to the US, I'm grateful for the personal space, the "yes!" mentality, and the abundance of nature. But I do miss the cultivated hedgerows of the UK and the quiet, more reserved style of its people.

And no matter how much affinity I felt with the land there, there is also some knowing and grounding with the land here, which feels like it cannot be replicated anywhere else. Perhaps because this is where I was originally rooted.

Got a personal essay about relocating that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.

• Forest City, Malaysia was used as a set for a Netflix reality show, "The Mole."
• Planned as a $100 billion mega-complex, Forest City has become a ghost town with few residents.
• Developers face financial issues, because less than 15% of the project is completed.

Malaysia's $100 billion ghost city was meant to house 700,000 people. After few people moved in, developers tried in vain to make it into a tourist hub.

Now, the mega-development is serving as a set for a handful of reality shows and documentaries.

The empty city, just over Singapore's western border, was used for an episode on the second season of Netflix reality show "The Mole," which debuted last week.

The competition-style reality series follows 12 contestants completing challenges while one of them secretly sabotages the other players. They race to grow a money pot prize and uncover who the traitor is among them.

The show's 10-episode second season was filmed entirely in Malaysia and features Forest City, Kuala Lumpur, and Tioman Island. Filming started in July 2023 and lasted for six weeks, according to local media.

The contestants, who come from various professional backgrounds, complete treasure hunts, free dive, and abseil down a 38-story building in Forest City.

In the third episode of the season, show host and former NPR journalist Ari Shapiro introduced Forest City: "A perfect spot for a glamorous holiday home, for those who can afford it. And most of the year, they lie empty."

The city was also featured in recent shows.

South Korea's KBS filmed an episode of the travel reality series "Battle Trip," while German ProSieben TV filmed a short documentary about Forest City. An Austrian documentary titled "Hungry: Tipping the Scales" shot there.

Announced in 2006, the luxury housing project was meant to feature apartments, a waterpark, and hotels. The whole project cost its developers $100 billion.

But, eight years after construction began, only a few thousand people live there. The project has turned into a ghost town — and a major liability for its developer, Country Garden, which is facing sizable financial issues elsewhere.

As of last year, only about 15% of the planned property had been completed, while most finished apartments appear never to have been lived in.

Netflix and Forest City did not respond to requests for comment.

• Nadia Rose and her partner, Steve Willis, moved from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Bali in July 2022.
• The couple say that adjusting to their new lives on the island was more challenging than they had expected.
• Here are three things they've learned about life as expats in Bali.

Thanks to its beautiful beaches, lush rainforests, and rich heritage, Bali is a popular vacation destination that draws tourists from all around the world.

In recent years, the Indonesian island has even become a choice location for expats, especially digital nomads and those who want to escape the city.

Nadia Rose and her partner, Steve Willis, moved from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital, to Bali in July 2022.

It took them some time to adjust to their new lives on the island, and the experience was more challenging than they had expected. Here are three things they've learned as expats in Bali so far.

1. Things in Bali take time

Unlike in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia — and other bustling cities around the world — the pace of life in Bali is much slower.

Expect to wait for things to get done, especially for bureaucratic processes and even getting around in traffic, Rose told Business Insider.

"Because I was so used to living in a city, I was so used to efficiency," Rose said. "Here, you just have to lean back and allow things to unravel, and it will unravel in its own time."

2. Friendships can be hard to forge

It might be harder to form lasting friendships in Bali than you think. The island can feel like a very transient place, with all the people who come and go from Bali, especially within the expat community, Rose said.

"Many friends that I've made six months ago are no longer here, so you feel like you have to build new friendships over and over again," she said.

Because of that, she had to constantly put herself out there to meet new people, she added.

For almost a year after they arrived in Bali, Rose said they were so caught up in trying to settle down into their new lives that they weren't able to make any new friends.

"I was like, 'Oh, it's too hard. I tried three times, and it just didn't work out.' I could have given up on it, but I didn't. It takes time," Rose said. "Without being vulnerable and open, it's just going to be difficult."

The couple says that Facebook Groups have been a great way to meet new people.

"I sometimes put up a post saying 'Hey, if you have similar interests, I'd love to meet up at this restaurant.' People turn up, and we'll all have lunch together," Rose said.

The couple also attends events, which they find through Nomeo, an online platform that allows people to set up events for activities they're passionate about.

"It could be a meet-up for female entrepreneurs, or even for a day of fun at the beach. There are multiple events happening daily, and you just show up," Rose said.

3. Things in Bali can be as cheap or as expensive as you'd like

There's a common refrain that things in Bali are cheap — and that's not necessarily true, Rose said.

"Coming from Malaysia, it is extremely expensive," she said. "Especially for rent, if you haven't got a budget in mind, it can balloon, and you'll end up spending more than you think." The budget the couple had originally set had to be raised by a few hundred dollars after they realized it was too low.

Real estate prices have spiked in Bali ever since Bali's borders reopened after the pandemic. According to the latest April data from the Indonesian real-estate platform Rumah123, Denpasar — the capital city of Bali — saw a 17% increase in housing prices year-on-year.

While rent still forms the largest portion of their expenditures, Rose says that there are still many affordable food options, especially if they eat local fare.

A plate of nasi goreng — a traditional fried rice dish — can cost less than $2 at local shops. But with the influx of high-end restaurants, even the price of that dish has been spotted on a menu for over $150, per The Bali Sun.

"So, lifestyle-wise, depending on what you choose, the beauty of Bali is that you have options to meet every budget," she said.

Areas popular with tourists, such as Seminyak and Canggu tend to be pricier than other parts of the island.

"It depends on where you're living on the island and what you expect out of it, and this applies to gyms and even homes. You can get all the amenities you desire, but you have to be ready to pay for it," she said.

• Former President Donald Trump is trying to capitalize on the SCOTUS presidential immunity ruling.
• His lawyers asked a Manhattan judge if they can move to toss his recent criminal conviction.
• Trump's sentencing for the hush-money trial is set for July 11.

It took less than a day for former President Donald Trump's attorneys to test the Monday Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Trump's lawyers sent a letter to the judge who oversaw the New York hush-money trial in which the former president was found guilty of 34 felony counts, according to The New York Times, which obtained the letter. The Associated Press later confirmed The Times' reporting.

The attorneys asked the judge if they could move to have the former president's criminal conviction thrown out, citing the Supreme Court's decision issued Monday morning that found presidents are largely immune from prosecution over official actions taken while in office.

An attorney for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the hush-money trial, declined to comment.

The letter sent by Trump's lawyers was not set to be made public until Tuesday, The Times reported.

Trump's sentencing for his hush-money trial is set for July 11.

It's unclear how successful Trump's efforts to overturn his conviction will be. The Times reported that the deadline for filing motions after the trial passed in June.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Business Insider that Trump's attempt to overturn his conviction is "a long shot."

The Manhattan trial dealt primarily with actions Trump took before he was president, centering on hush-money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

"These were payments made from Trump's personal account, and the Trump Organization employees involved — Michael Cohen, was his personal attorney," Rahmani said.

Rahmani predicted that Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the hush-money case, would deny a motion to overturn Trump's conviction. Trump's attorneys would likely then ask for a pause on sentencing while the motion works its way through appeals. Merchan could stay the entire case while the motion is litigated or opt to move forward with sentencing regardless, Rahmani said.

"Even if he substantially doesn't have a good argument, Trump's approach has always been to delay," Rahmani said.

• A small Swedish town is trying to boost population numbers by selling cheap land.
• The lakeside town of Götene has received thousands of calls from prospectives buyers for 30 plots.
• Local authorities have paused the program until early August, when it will likely reopen as a bidding war.

An idyllic Swedish town may have gotten more than it bargained for after thousands of interested would-be residents responded to authorities' efforts to boost population numbers in the picturesque locale.

The town of Götene, located about 200 miles southwest of Stockholm, went viral last month after announcing it would sell plots of land at prices starting at less than 10 cents per square meter.

The promotion aims to lure new residents to the rural region amid a national housing crisis, mounting interest rates, and declining birth rates, Götene Mayor Johan Månsson told CNN.

Götene offers residents a quiet slice of rural Sweden, with about 5,000 full-time residents and 13,000 people living in the surrounding municipality. The lakeside locale sits beside the largest lake in the EU and is a stone's throw away from a nearby mountain town, as well as home to two UNESCO-rated sites.

The local government in Götene is selling 30 plots of land that have been on the market for "many, many years," Månsson told CNN.

The land comes as-is, and the only requirement as of last week was that the lucky buyers start building a home on the site within two years of purchase, according to the outlet. The current rules permit people to build a full-time residence or a dream vacation home on the land, though Månsson said that could change.

When the land first went on sale in May, Månsson told CNN that only about 30 interested buyers initially reached out. Within weeks, however, the program went viral, and "thousands and thousands" of prospective new buyers started ringing Götene city hall, the mayor said.

"We have two people in our phone exchange in city hall, and they have been very sweaty over the past few days," Månsson told the outlet. "We're basically in crisis mode."

The land program has quickly become a sensation, with calls coming in from around the world, Månsson said.

Local authorities ultimately decided to pause the program until early August in order to develop a plan to handle the incoming requests, the outlet reported.

Four buyers managed to snatch up four of the ultracheap plots before chaos broke out, Månsson said.

According to CNN, the program will most likely transition to a bidding process for the remaining land when applications reopen next month.

More and more Americans are turning to Europe in hopes of finding affordable homes.

• President Joe Biden on Monday evening weighed in on the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity. 
• With its decision, Biden said SCOTUS "fundamentally changed" the country.
• Biden quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, warning of the ruling's risk to democracy.

President Joe Biden on Monday warned that the Supreme Court's decision to grant presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for "official acts" will fundamentally change the country.

"This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America — each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States," Biden, speaking from the Cross Hall of the White House, said. "Today's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity — that fundamentally changed for all practical purposes. Today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do."

The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling was a partial but substantial victory for former President Donald Trump. It determined that courts are not permitted to inquire into the president's motives when deciding whether an act was official or unofficial, and all official acts are granted absolute immunity.

"This a fundamentally new principle, and it's a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States," Biden said several hours after the decision was handed down. "The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone."

Before leaving the stage, Biden quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor's scathing dissent, which read that the immunity ruling makes the president "a king above the law." He added solemnly: "May God help preserve our democracy."

Representatives for the Biden administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• SCOTUS immunity would've freed Richard Nixon to spy on opponents all he liked, experts said Monday.
• In a second term, Trump himself would enjoy immunity superpowers.
• SCOTUS immunized a range of "truly dangerous and nefarious actions by a president," one expert said.

As president, Richard Nixon used the FBI, the CIA, and White House "advisors" — the now notorious "plumbers" — to spy on and sabotage his political opponents.

Under Monday's Supreme Court decision — which confers the presumption of immunity on a president's "official" actions — Nixon could not have been charged for any of these abuses of power, one constitutional law expert told Business Insider.

"Most, if not all, of that conduct would fall on the 'presumptively-official' side of the line," said Michel Paradis, an attorney who teaches national security and constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"And it is not obvious to me how you would show that it was not if you are forbidden from any inquiry into the president's motives," Paradis added.

Under Monday's decision, "courts may not inquire into the President's motives" in deciding if a presidential act is official or unofficial.

Trump is now free during a potential second administration to direct others to stretch or break the law in any of the ways he's already signaled he hopes to, Paradis said.

He can dispatch the military to break up protests or deport migrants; he can fire civil servants who disagree with him; he can disband agencies he doesn't like — including the Department of Education or the Environmental Protection Agency — and he can then pardon anyone who gets in trouble for carrying out his orders, Paradis said.

And by calling these official actions, he can do all of the above without himself being prosecuted, Paradis said.

"Or take the subject matter of Trump's first impeachment," the law professor added.

With his new Supreme Court-protected immunity, "He could have much more explicitly directed Rudy Giuliani to convey a threat to the Ukrainians demanding that they come out with dirt on Biden or that he would withhold all aid," he said.

"And he can direct subordinates to not simply 'skirt' the law, but affirmatively break it with the promise of a pardon if they do," Paradis added. "And he can do so, knowing that it is extremely unlikely under the court's rule today that he could be successfully prosecuted."

It will give Trump even more license to push legal boundaries, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, the president and co-founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers.

"Trump will be more empowered to push the limits of the law and to go after his rivals if he thinks he can get away with it," Rahmani told Business Insider.

"Trump has always pushed the limits of the law, and if he has at least some immunity now, he will be even more willing to do so," Rahmani added.

"It's actually very striking that we're getting this opinion three days before the Fourth of July, where we recognized our Declaration of Independence from a king," said Cliff Sloan, Georgetown Law professor and constitutional law expert.

"And this opinion, more than any other in the Supreme Court's history, gives the president king-like powers," Sloan added.

"It's a sad day for the country," Sloan said. "It's a sad day for our constitutional democracy. It was a sad day for the Supreme Court."

Sloan said it was particularly disturbing that the majority decision made zero mention of the now-notorious Seal Team Six hypothetical — does a president enjoy official-act immunity if that official act is, as Commander in Chief, ordering Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival?

"Everybody was horrified" when Trump's lawyer first raised immunity in that circumstance as a possible consequence, Sloan said.

But when Justice Sonya Sotomayor, in Monday's dissent, complained anew that Trump and future presidents can now get away with ordering political assassinations — by arguing that doing so is an official act — "the majority does not dispute it, which is really remarkable," Sloan said.

"It's actually incredible that we now have an opinion that seems to confer immunity for a wide range of truly dangerous and nefarious actions by a president," he added.