BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Islamic State released a video on Monday of a man it said was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s mysterious and reclusive leader, which would mark the first time he has showed his face while addressing his followers since the early days of the terrorist group’s rampage through Iraq and Syria.
In an 18-minute video released by an Islamic State media group and distributed by the SITE Intelligence Group, the man identified as Mr. al-Baghdadi sits on the ground in an Arab-style sitting room, speaking calmly to a group of unidentified followers with an assault rifle at his side.
He acknowledges that the group has lost its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, a territory the size of Britain that it ruled as an extremist proto-state. But he said that the group’s battle with the West and its allies was far from over.
“Truthfully, the battle of Islam and its people with the crusader and his people is a long battle, and the battle of Baghuz finished and manifested in it was the brutality and savagery of the nation of the cross toward the nation of Islam,” the man said, his beard grayer than when he addressed his followers from a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul when the group was near the summit of its power. “At the same time, it showed and manifested the courage, fortitude and persistence of the nation of Islam.”
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg announced at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Monday that he would be on the first flights of the Boeing 737 Max when it returns to service.
“We will have Boeing teammates deployed with our customers as we bring the [737 Max] fleet back up, and that will include first flights for many of our customers,” Muilenburg said in response to a question the meeting. “So it will include me and many others, and we are going to be doing this in partnership with many of our airlines.”
The Boeing CEO added: “This is a really important part of showing our confidence in the product, and I can tell you our Boeing employees are very supportive of doing that as well.”
Muilenburg told shareholders that he would also participate on two test flights aboard 737 Max airliners equipped with the updated control software.
“I’ve been on two Max test flights already during the last three weeks,” he said. “One, so I can get some hands-on experience with the new software and listen to our pilots while they are flying it. Two, to demonstrate our confidence in the software.”
The Boeing 737 Max has been grounded globally since March 13 following the crashes of Lion Air Flight JT610 in October and Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 last month. In total, 346 passengers and crew were killed in the two crashes.
Both incidents involved nearly brand-new Boeing 737 Max 8 airliners that crashed after suffering from control problems shortly after takeoff.
Oscar Stewart of Rancho Bernardo, was the one who screamed at the suspect, 19-year-old John Earnest, and ran him out. Nick Oza (ozan), Arizona Republic
When Jonathan Morales and Oscar Stewart heard the gunshots, they ran toward them.
The off-duty agent hit the car, but the gunman drove away, police said. Authorities later arrested John T. Earnest, 19, along Interstate 15. A rifle was found in the front passenger seat, police said.
“Mr. Stewart risked his life to stop the shooter and saved lives in the process,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
Stewart’s heroics didn’t stop there. The man said he rushed back into the synagogue where he saw Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein bleeding from his hand and congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye on the ground.
“I immediately went to the lady on the floor and started doing CPR on her. She didn’t make it,” Stewart said.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Stewart said he served in Iraq from March 2003 to April 2004. He had also been a bomb disposal tech in the Navy, and joined the Army after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“I never thought I’d hear gunfire again,” he told the Union-Tribune.
Goldstein said Morales recently discovered his Jewish roots and traveled more than three hours from El Centro to pray with the congregation. The rabbi recalled telling Morales, “Please arm yourself when you are here. We never know when we’ll need it.”
“I don’t think I’m a hero,” Stewart said. “I just did what I did,”
Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Chris Woodyard, Doyle Rice and Joel Shannon.
President Donald Trump lashed out against the International Association of Fire Fighters on Twitter Monday morning, claiming the organization will unfairly “always support Democrats.”
“The Dues Sucking firefighters leadership will always support Democrats, even though the membership wants me,” he tweeted. “Some things never change!”
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The tweet came hours after Democratic 2020 hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden secured an endorsement from the IAFF.
“I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune,” Trump wrote in an earlier tweet. “But the members love Trump. They look at our record economy, tax & reg cuts, military etc. WIN!”
It wasn’t the first time Trump has taken aim at unions. In March, Trump took to Twitter to chastise General Motors CEO Mary Barra and the UAW over the closure of a GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio. In September of last year, he tweeted that remarks from Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States, were “against the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself,” and that it was “easy to see why unions are doing so poorly.”
In 2016, he also called out Indiana union leader Chuck Jones of United Steelworkers 1999 on Twitter after Jones accused the president-elect of lying about how many jobs he was saving at Carrier Air Conditioning’s Indiana plants.
Noya Dahan, 8, and her uncle, Almog Peretz, 34, were injured by shrapnel and are recovering after being released from the hospital, said Israel Dahan, the girl’s father.
Did Barr distort the findings of the Mueller report to favor President Trump? Reaction from Guy Lewis, former U.S. attorney who served with William Barr at the Justice Department under President George H.W. Bush.
A series of battles between Trump administration officials and congressional Democrats escalated over the weekend as one high-profile Cabinet member threatened to boycott a scheduled hearing and another official was facing the threat of contempt proceedings.
Attorney General Bill Barr has been slated to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to testify on the process behind the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, but it is unclear at this point if he will attend. Fox News learned over the weekend that Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., wanted to have committee staff question Barr on his handling of the report.
But Barr wants lawmakers to do the questioning and, according to a source close to the committee, has said he will not come in to testify based on where things currently stand.
“The Attorney General agreed to appear before Congress. Therefore, Members of Congress should be the ones doing the questioning,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News. “He remains happy to engage with Members on their questions regarding the Mueller report.”
Discussions are ongoing, and it’s unclear if they might reach a resolution. A spokesperson for committee Republicans called Democrats’ demands “abusive and illogical.”
“Attorney General Barr wasn’t asked to testify before the committee—he offered. He provided the Mueller report voluntarily. He invited Democrat leaders to view the less redacted report in person. Yet the only thing, apparently, that will satisfy Democrats, who refuse to read the less redacted report, is to have staff pinch hit when a cabinet-level official appears before us,” the spokesperson said.
Is it unusual for committee counsels to question a witness, but committees generally can make their own rules. Other panels have made similar exceptions.
Barr has faced heated criticism since last month when he released an initial four-page summary of Mueller’s findings. Barr stated that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Mueller also led an inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice in the investigation, but ultimately did not come to a conclusion on the matter. Instead, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that the evidence found in the probe was not sufficient to charge the president with an obstruction of justice offense.
Democrats have questioned that conclusion, especially after Barr released the nearly 500-page report recounting numerous incidents of Trump allegedly trying to curtail the probe. Democrats also objected to the redactions made in the report issued to the public.
“He is attorney general of the United States of America, not the attorney general of Donald Trump,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said earlier this month.
Meanwhile, a separate battle has developed over the testimony of ex-White House security official Carl Kline. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., subpoenaed Kline earlier this month to appear before the panel as part of its investigation into the issuing of security clearances at the White House. But last week, the White House blocked Kline’s testimony.
The White House told Kline to defy the subpoena and said Kline could not testify unless a member from the White House counsel’s office was present. The White House made that request to Cummings, but was denied.
On Friday, committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, warned the White House that Cummings could initiate contempt proceedings against Kline should he not appear. Jordan requested that Kline come for a transcribed interview with committee staff. A source close to Jordan told Fox News Friday that the move was “in an attempt to get Kline’s testimony, not to head off contempt, but to de-escalate, respect the process, and get information.”
The White House has since opened the door to a limited interview. In a letter over the weekend, Cummings scheduled one for Wednesday morning but said the scope will not be limited — and reiterated his contempt threat in stark terms.
“Based on the record before us, I am confident that the Committee could move forward with contempt against you immediately, particularly since your defiance of the Committee’s subpoena was so flagrant,” Cummings wrote. “… You will be expected to answer all of the Committee’s questions, including questions about specific White House officials and allegations of retaliation against the whistleblower. If you answer all of these questions, there would be no need for the Committee to pursue contempt against you in the future. This burden rests squarely with you, with the advice of your personal counsel, and not with White House attorneys who may direct you to disregard the Committee’s questions without an assertion of privilege.”
The probe intensified after Tricia Newbold, an 18-year government employee who oversaw the issuance of clearances for some senior White House aides, revealed that she compiled a list of at least 25 officials who were initially denied security clearances last year, but had senior officials overrule those denials.
The clash between the White House and Congress is escalating on other fronts as well. The president, last week, vowed to fight all subpoenas for current and former Trump administration officials.
“We’re fighting all of the subpoenas,” Trump said last week. “Look, these aren’t like, impartial people. They are Democrats trying to win in 2020. …They’re not going to win against me.”
He added that “the only way they can luck out is by constantly going after me on nonsense.”
In a separate push, top Democrats on several House committees launched an investigation into the massive shakeup in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, citing allegations that the president removed top officials for refusing to carry out his desired immigration policies. The first witness the panels called was White House adviser Stephen Miller, but the White House blocked his testimony as well.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone notified Cummings that Miller would decline the invitation, and instead, offered cabinet secretaries and other agency officials to appear instead.
Also last week, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn, whose testimony, likely related to Mueller’s obstruction inquiry, was also blocked by the White House.
Trump, last week, called the McGahn subpoena “ridiculous,” and also touted his administration’s transparency.
“I let everybody testify. There’s never ever been transparency like this,” Trump said. “With all of this transparency, we finished. No collusion, no obstruction…But then I get out, the first day, they say, ‘let’s do it again.’ I say, that’s enough, we have to run a country. We have a very great country to run.”
Fox News’ Mike Emanuel, Gregg Re, and Kristin Brown and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This past weekend marks the third year in a row Donald Trump has refused to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (WHCAD), which honors the First Amendment, especially a free press, and typically includes a comedic roast of the president. Instead, Trump followed his own tradition of holding a rally where he took the opportunity to bash the press on the exact same night that our nation honors it. This year was different, though, because the WHCAD chose to feature a historian rather than a comedian as the main speaker, and because the administration announced days before the event it would completely boycott the celebration. There was reason to wonder whether these shifts might affect our longstanding tradition of roasting the president while celebrating the First Amendment.
Historically, making jokes about our sitting president while honoring our free press was an important reminder that our nation has one of the strongest free speech protections in the world. Not only did the event honor the way that the First Amendment protects journalists; but it also served to underscore the ways that it protects comedians. The fact that a comedian would roast the president to his face proved that our nation had an exceedingly strong commitment to free speech. So, the decision to remove a comedian from the event was cause for concern. Was Trump dismantling our ability to mock him without fear of reprisal? Had the Trump administration succeeded in chilling comedic free speech?
The decision to move away from having a comedian as a featured speaker came in the wake of fallout over Michelle Wolf’s appearance at it last year. While some of us found her roast to be sharp and ironic, for many in the mainstream media her comments targeting the appearance of Sarah Huckabee Sanders crossed a line. Chris Cillizza of CNN found this line about Sanders from Wolf’s speech to be an example of bullying: “I think she’s very resourceful, like she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies.” The crack led many to say that “going after [Sanders’] looks” was too much, even though it isn’t clear that reading of the joke even makes sense.
In any case, both the White House and the news media thought Wolf had gone too of far. Thus, this year The White House Correspondents’ Association caved to pressure and decided to plan the event without a comedic roast of the president, choosing to tap historian Ron Chernow to keynote instead.
Well before Trump took office, some speculated that the WHCAD, sometimes referred to as “nerd prom,” had morphed into a love fest between the Washington power elite, celebrities, and journalists. The chummy, glitzy event seemed more like a celebration of U.S. oligarchy than the First Amendment.
There is much truth to that view, but it would be a mistake not to remember the various times that the event helped make history and reinforced our free speech traditions. Despite its flaws, it was the one event that underlined the connection between a free press and the ability to mock those in power without penalty. And in the past there have been truly epic nights. Recall Stephen Colbert’s extraordinary roast of George W. Bush in 2006 and Seth Meyers powerful roast of Trump in 2011—a roast some still think caused Trump to run. And we shouldn’t forget Hasan Minhaj’s 2017 roast during the first WHCAD that Trump skipped, where he reminded the audience that
“Only in America can a first-generation, Indian American Muslim kid get on the stage and make fun of the president. The orange man behind the Muslim ban. And it’s a sign to the rest of the world. It’s this amazing tradition that shows the entire world that even the president is not beyond the reach of the First Amendment.”
The administration boycott, the flagrant ways the President mocks our free press, and the WHCA surrendering to pressure, canceling a comedic presence, and choosing an anodyne speaker instead were not good signs. But luckily, there was another event that aired night.
Starting in 2017, satirical comedian Samantha Bee, who regularly hosts “Full Frontal” for TBS, launched an alternative event called the “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” When it first launched, the same year Minhaj hosted the “main” event, it served as an important complement. This year, as the WHCAD became almost irrelevant, it proved that it may well take over the mantle of protecting free speech and making sure we can laugh at those in power.
When Bee announced the decision to host the event again she stated: “I vowed never to host a NWHCD ever again. But the White House Correspondents’ Association has left me no choice — it is now up to comedy journalists to take care of real journalists…. It’s bigger than just the Free Press this time around. This is about the non-sexy parts of the First Amendment too — and if the White House Correspondents’ Association won’t defend them, we will.”
Bee’s event offered the feisty, edgy, gloves-off comedy our nation needs in the Trump era. As Bee opened the event, she made her mission clear: “I really believe that once a year the current president should face someone who calls them out on their shit.” She then went on to say, “Tonight I want to focus on what a f**king coward he is. Imagine being the most powerful man in the world and you can’t listen to a comedian razz you for five minutes?”
She spared no words for Sarah Huckabee Sanders as well. Making it clear she would never make fun of her looks, an ironic nod to Michele Wolf from last year, Bee complemented Sanders on hair and skin to then say that on the inside, she is “as hideous as a pinworm in an anus. On the inside that woman is 90 percent taint. And I mean that medically.”
As Bee ended her opening monologue she explained that she wanted to put Trump at ease on the chance that he was watching “because Tucker Carlson had run out of racism.” She then turned to the camera and said, “Hey there champ. I know you are scared of being the butt of a joke, but we could try to fix that. …The next time you are feeling a little weak in the knees and aren’t sure how to face something scary. Maybe you can go down to the holding facility in Brownsville and ask a preschooler you’ve stolen from his parents for some pointers. You’ll be able to face big bullies like me in no time.”
In those few moments Bee did an excellent job of putting the hoopla over jokes into context. What exactly is the outrage over? A joke about Sanders’s eye makeup? Or an administration that separates young children refugees from their families?
In addition to performances from Bee, the “Not the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner” event included skits from professors and critics on the flaws to thinking that the news needs to be “fair and balanced.” Even Robert De Niro, a vocal Trump critic, appeared at the event to say that he looked forward to “the exquisite release” of voting the president out of office in 2020.
Bee’s show was scathing satire and it proved that, even if Trump succeeds in intimidating those in the press, the comedians are ready and willing to fight for the First Amendment. It also showed us that the comedians may be better at responding to Trump’s bullying than the press may be.
While the press responds to Trump’s accusations of bias, often accommodating to him more than they should, the comedians refuse to entertain Trump’s snowflake hysterics. If there is one thing a comedian knows how to handle, it is how to make fun of someone who can’t take a joke.
If you read through the many, many profiles written of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in the past several months, it’s hard not to notice just how many reporters happen to have had intimate personal encounters with the candidate, often months before he was in the headlines.
I should know: last October, I had my own intimate, off-the-record encounter with Mayor Pete. We met at the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca. I had a beer—he stuck to water—and we talked about his political ambitions and the state of the Democratic Party and why Trump won. He laid out his case for how a millennial municipal official from a town the size of a New York City Council district could somehow seize the Democratic nomination. It felt like we connected—we went over our allotted time, and I had another beer, and by the end I had shifted from veryskeptical to only moderately skeptical, just maybe seeing a lane for his candidacy.
When I stood up and left our table, Buttigieg stayed, and I recognized a woman sitting at the bar. It was a reporter from Buzzfeed News, waiting to take my place.
Our meeting was part of a strategy, one run with surprising sophistication and efficacy for a candidate whose highest-profile gig so far is a local office in the fourth-biggest city in Indiana. Buttigieg’s rise from unlikeliest of contenders to actual top-tier presidential candidate has been fueled in part, maybe in large part, by his astonishing success courting the press. And when I began asking around to figure out who was behind that strategy, the same name kept coming up: Lis Smith.
Smith is a fierce New York City-based Democratic operative who helped engineer the plan to get Buttigieg in front of not just national political reporters, but anybody with camera or a microphone. There may be nobody more central to Mayor Pete’s media success—besides the candidate himself, and arguably his social-media-savvy husband, Chasten Buttigieg—than Smith, who serves as a communications advisor and all-around aide. In the last several months, Buttigieg has been not just all over cable and in the newspapers, but in Our Daily Planet, an environmental morning newsletter with just over 5,000 Twitter followers; in a financial planning podcast called Pete the Planner; and on West Wing Weekly, the obsessive episode-by-episode podcast breakdown of The West Wing. He’s been a guest on Buzzfeed’s morning news show, got featured on Vice’s nightly news show and sat down with a couple of the guys from Barstool Sports.
Over-saturation? Not possible, Smith says.
“I want him on everything,” she told me.
The story of American presidential politics is in part the story of the consiglieres who steer the candidate along the path: the person who pushes them forward, comforts them when the campaign flails, plots long-term strategy and tactical short-term advantage, bends the ear of the press corps and makes the public case for a candidate in ways the candidate cannot. Obama had David Axelrod. George Bush had Karl Rove; Bill Clinton had James Carville. Each was the political id the candidate couldn’t, or wouldn’t, express.
But there may be no political couple odder than that of Buttigieg and Smith.
“Pete and I, you can probably tell are pretty laid-back, pretty low-key, I guess what you would call pretty midwestern,” said Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg’s campaign manager, who sounds like the host of a classical-music radio station who just returned from a yoga retreat. “We are humble and kind, to quote Tim McGraw. Chill.”
“Lis, I guess you could say, comes from a very different world than Northern Indiana.”
***
Lis Smith bursts through the doors of a marbled hotel bar in Brooklyn wearing oversized Anna Wintour sunglasses, a faux-fur lined coat and impossibly thin and tall high heels. She’s on her phone talking to another Buttigieg aide. She puts the word fuck through every part of speech the word can be bent into: noun, pronoun, gerund, verb, term of endearment, sobriquet, epithet, honorific. She is practically shaking with excess energy. I tell her that I have been calling around to former co-workers and associates, trying to get a sense of how she operates. “How badly, she asks me,“are you trying to fuck me over right now?”
She is operating on two and a half hours sleep, having just arrived back in New York on a charter jet from South Bend, IN, after Buttigieg announced he was running for president. She has a three-day-old copy of the New York Post in her bag. It is, she says, the only paper she subscribes to.
She orders a beer, downs it, and orders another. It is 5:15 on a Monday afternoon. Across the street, Brooklyn hipsters of all ages and manner of facial hair are lining up around the block at a bowling alley/music venue to catch Buttigieg at a fundraiser. A few weeks ago, a couple of hundred people expressed interest in this event. Eight hundred have showed up.
And so, she says, she can’t talk right now. Her phone is “literally exploding.” There is a top political reporter for a major national newspaper apologizing for blowing off a meeting with Buttigieg earlier and trying to get one now, asking Smith, “Will you ever forgive me?”
TV news executives are calling, she says, emailing, now complaining that Buttigieg isn’t doing their shows often enough. A text arrives from John Weaver, a top advisor to former Ohio governor John Kasich. When Smith opens up her laptop, there are saved tabs about Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, a YouTube video of a facial massage routine, kale recipes, a Time Out City Guide to Dubai and 2012 Huffington Post article about how the Obama and Romney campaigns used Twitter.
After the fundraiser, Buttigieg is going to rush off to 30 Rock to do Maddow, then in the morning New Day on CNN, and then fly to Iowa, then do “Morning Joe” when he’s back. He is in talks to do a Fox News town hall in the coming weeks, building off the surprise success of Bernie Sanders’s appearance on Fox, and in the past couple of weeks has also been on Ellen and The View, as well as Preet Bharara’s podcast, The Intercept’s podcast and The New Yorker’s podcast. At the newsstand around the corner, you could buy a New York magazine with Buttigieg’s beatifically smiling face splashed across the cover, and a New York Times with an A1 story about his time at Harvard.
“My observation,” said David Axelrod, who worked with Smith on President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, “is that she is the quiet hero of his emergence.”
The speed with which Buttegieg emerged has been astonishing, which happens to be the speed at which Smith works. Schmuhl, his campaign manager, says a typical scene from the trail for the three of them is arriving ten or fifteen minutes early to the airport gate, and while he and Buttegieg—who he’s known since 8th grade in Indiana—take a moment to relax for a minute before boarding, Smith will head to the airport bar with her laptop and phone and begins texting and emailing reporters and clapping back to critics on social media. The candidate and the campaign manager dutifully board the aircraft, and just when it seems the door is about to close, as they start looking around nervously, in comes Smith, sunglasses and coat still on, laptop and cords dangling from her arms, phone pressed against her ear.
“You’ve got this hard-nosed New York-style political operative and this friendly Hoosier mayor,” he said. “They have grown to like and trust each other. But it is kind of fascinating to watch.”
Smith met Buttigieg on the recommendation of Axelrod and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. He was thinking of running for chair of the Democratic National Committee. She had served as a senior aide on O’Malley’s 2016 bid and with the Maryland governor when he was head of the Democratic Governors Association. She knew Axelrod from 2012, when she worked as the director of rapid response for President Barack Obama’s re-election effort. (The rapid-response job, Smith says, was for her “like being a pig in shit. Are you kidding me? When they gave me the job I thought, first of all this job exists? And you are going to pay me to be really quick and really aggressive and to take on Mitt Romney? I would do that for free.”)
The way Smith tells it, she thought she was done with presidential politics after O’Malley’s campaign fizzled in2016. She advised a couple of governors still left in office, and started taking on more nonprofit clients. Axelrod told Buttigieg about Smith, and O’Malley told Smith about this young mayor from South Bend. She figured that Buttigieg’s sexuality and impossible-to-pronounce last name rendered him dead on arrival, but started researching the 35-year-old Indiana mayor and promptly fell down an eight-hour Google rabbithole. She became obsessed with the idea of working for him, then became further obsessed when she actually met him, and developed the notion that once people got to meet him they would start to like him.
It was by no means an obvious career move for Smith. She has advised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, people who on paper at least are far more likely top-tier presidential contenders, and served as a top aide for a number of senate and gubernatorial races. The obvious thing to do would have been to take on high-paying, quieter corporate gigs, or to re-enter politics with someone truly high profile.
“Lis has an insurgent mentality,” said David Axelrod, a top aide for both of President Obama’s campaigns. “She gravitates to candidates who are challenging and testing the status quo. You don’t reach out to the 35-year-old gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana because you think it will be an easy ride.”
She signed on as a consultant when he was laying the groundwork for a longshot campaign to become the chair of the Democratic National Committee. At that point, reporters she had developed relationships with began to reach out, wondering what she was doing wasting her credibility on a little-known character who seemed like a step down the ladder of political prospects. Smith ended up dropping most of her other clients, politicians and non-profits alike.
“Lis has absolutely no fear,” said Jeff Smith, a former Missouri lawmaker who dated Smith for four years and considers her one of his closest friends. “There is nothing too big for her. She doesn’t give a fuck. She is the most competitive person I have ever known.”
This includes with her own boss. She is 36, a year younger than Buttigieg, which, “Thank god. Otherwise I would kill myself.” Which is to say that Buttigieg may know seven languages and carry around Ulysses and sit in with the South Bend Orchestra on piano, but as far as his top aide is concerned, it is only because he has an extra year on her.
“I think I am impressive because I am a violinist and I went to Dartmouth and I speak French and have travelled all over the world and, I don’t know, I know a lot about great apes,” she says. “But there have been a few times when I’ve been around him when I knew something, a factoid or something he didn’t know, and let me tell you, I fucking lord it all over him. ‘Oh really, you didn’t know that? I can’t believe you didn’t know that! I thought everybody knew that.’”
***
That is not the typical relationship of advisor to political principal, but “typical” is not a word people use about Smith. If there is one thing that makes Smith unique, it’s not her knowledge of great apes or her particular skill eviscerating her opponents on Twitter; It’s that her skin was toughened by a stretch of time in the rawest, roughest media environment of all, the NYC tabloid scrum. And when it happened, the story was her. Smith had moved to New York in 2013 to work for Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor who’d stepped down in a prostitution scandal. He was attempting a comeback by running for the modest job of New York City comptroller, and when the vote came in, he pulled in a respectable 48 percent, even though the entire city’s political establishment was against him. After his loss in the primary, Smith went to work on the winning election campaign and then the transition of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.
That fall, Spitzer and Smith started dating, which led to the New York City tabloids staking out her apartment to watch the pair coming and going. “ELIOT AND DeBABE” blared the cover of the New York Post, which ran several photos of the pair together inside its pages and a column from the acid-tongued Andrea Peyser which called Smith “not just any ordinary bimbo” and called her “an ambitious, youngish cookie” who “presumably does not charge Eliot for any services rendered.”
The tabloids followed the pair to Christmas at Smith’s parents house in the upscale suburb of Bronxville. Smith’s mother is a descendent of a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a cousin of lead Watergate investigator Sam Ervin, and her father was a partner at the white-shoe law firm Sidley Austin. Just before he was sworn in, de Blasio yielded to Peyser’s prodding and cut Smith loose just before he moved into the mayor’s office.
“It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it taught me a lot,” Smith says now. “So many flacks lose their mind over inconsequential things, and have no sense of, ‘This is good press, this is mediocre press, and this is awful press.’ That is something you know once you have been through awful press.”
Spitzer and Smith stayed together for more than two years, with the tabloids following them pretty much the whole time. The saga gave Smith an insight that most campaign operatives lack: what it’s actually like to be that bug trapped under the magnifying glass.
“As a flack, you don’t always understand what it feels like to be a principal, what it feels like to be under scrutiny. And so when they feel like they are getting attacked, or their families are getting atttacked, they think staff can never talk to them on the level, and it is frustrating for principals, because they are like, ‘You are just a kid, you don’t know anything.’ But with me, I can tell them, This is what is going to happen, this is how we are going to deal with it. It may look like the sky is falling, but just ride this out.”
“Candidates and the people around them can get so spun up about things, and when you get spun up you make the worst mistakes,” she says.
The whole saga also taught her the rhythms of the New York tabloids, which have similarities to the national political press. “You get a sense of the news, what is going to get picked up,” she said, reaching into her bag for her copy of The Post, which she said she was saving for Buttigieg. “You know what people are going to react to, and you know that the tabloids, just like the political press, oftentimes just wants a little scalp and then they will move on.”
Buttigieg recently started getting savaged online when it surfaced that he had told an audience in 2015 that “all lives matter,” and as it happened, he was due to speak at Al Sharpton’s annual National Action Network convention. Smith marched him to the front of where the national and New York press were gathered, telling him, “Are you ready for your first gaggle?” He stayed until the matter was exhausted.
The New York tabs may have sharpened her game, but people who’ve known her for years say Smith came ready for the fight. Jeff Smith, her former boyfriend, recalls one time when he was running for office, his campaign manager’s phone rang. The guy didn’t have time to say hello before Smith could hear screaming coming over the line. “He looked white as a ghost, didn’t say anything, just nodding along. He hung up and looked at me in horror, and then my phone started ringing. It was Lis telling me I need to fire my campaign manager, that the guy is a fucking idiot. It went on like this, just cursing up a blue streak for like two minutes.”
The aide’s mistake, Smith recalls, had to do with email: He failed to BCC reporters on a press release he blasted out. “Keep in mind she was 22 at the time,” Smith said. “And also keep in mind she was wasn’t working on my campaign. She was my girlfriend.”
Later, says Smith, when he was a state lawmaker, “I would say to her, ‘I am going to talk to such-and-such group,’ and she would tell me, ‘This is what you should say.’ And I would say to her, ‘Lis, I am not going to say that, it’s not my style, it’s not going to work. Of course, then I would, I’d get a tepid reception and she would never let me hear the end of it. ‘God, you fucked that up. If you had any balls you would have said what I told you to say.’”
“Dating her was four years of that.”
***
When Smith signed on to help Mayor Pete run for DNC chair, it was a part-time gig—helping a candidate nobody had ever heard of run for an insider position, the kind of job decided not by the public, but in backrooms by the most hardcore party loyalists. That is not how she ran his race. She ran it like he was trying to be president, getting him in front of as many microphones as she could find. “This 35-Year-Old Mayor From Indiana Is Wowing National Democrats” The New Republic declared. “Pete Buttigieg emerges as Democratic ‘rock star’” proclaimed Business Insider during the race. “Meet the DNC dark horse: Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg is shaking up the race for Democratic chair,” added Salon.
“What we did is fucking ridiculous. I don’t know if that delegate from Oklahoma is going be reading the Elle.com profile, but a lot of people are and they should get to know Pete Buttigieg,” she says. “That was my philosophy. Let’s just blow it out. It might not get you the votes, but I am not the political director. I am here to get you clips. I figured he was special and it couldn’t hurt if everybody knows who he is.”
Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. She led Buttigieg on a series of one-on-one meetings over beer, coffee, lunch or cigars with what used to be known as the Gang of 500—those reporters, producers and pundits who shape much of the nation’s political coverage. Buttigieg has gotten a number of lavish longform features, so many that some have jokingly wondered if Smith is getting paid by the profile.
There were, Smith guesses, probably 150 such meetings with the national press corps, and when he travelled across the country, speaking to local county party dinners and fundraisers across the midwest and the Great Plains, they would make time for one-on-ones with the local political press there, too. “It wasn’t just the biggest names, people you know,” Smith says. “It was younger reporters, super-hungry reporters that really know how to use Twitter, people who can then go to a cocktail party and tell their friends they had a beer with this guy Pete Buttigieg three hours from now.
“It’s a super-aggressive thing to do. Other candidates, they don’t need to do it. They are already well-known.”
As a thirty-something mayor of a medium-sized city, Buttigieg faced a credibility threshold with the national press. But he is also the kind of person journalists tend to like: bookish, somehow both earnest and with a sense of irony, and willing to talk the way journalists like people to talk, playing the pundit and getting into the political process and discussing his own ambitions. And although Smith would never say it, it plays on political reporters’ narcissism, too. Well, of course someone running for president would need to talk about it with me first, right?
“It’s about getting to know people and them getting to know you,” Buttigieg says when I see him after the Brooklyn fundraiser, where he at least pretends to recall our earlier meeting and what we talked about. He’s on his way into a black car to do Maddow. “It’s a local-politics mentality to find the people that are going to be telling this story, and if nothing else making sure they have a real understanding of who you are. There is only so much you can do to bare your soul over a beer, but hopefully people get to know you on some level and more than they would one gaggle at a time.”
Before they get in the car, I ask Buttigieg if Smith is being helpful in his campaign. He shoots her a look and gives a mock shrug, as if it’s an inside joke between the three of us, now old chums: “I mean, a little….I guess.”
As voters look for someone who can beat Trump, the fact that the press corps appears to vouch for this curious character, a young liberal red-state mayor, means that voters can give him a second look too. And the fact that he’s everywhere, from cable TV to Ebony to your local NPR show to your favorite sports podcast, means that a guy with no name recognition is suddenly hard to avoid.
“Lis knew that she had to build wide to build up,” said Stephanie Cutter, who also worked on Obama’s 2012 effort. “Pete’s hitting at this moment in part because of the legwork they did. Regular voters and the media were primed for it.”
***
Now that they have achieved liftoff, as it were, Smith is preparing for the next part of the campaign. Her plan is to emulate maybe the best-known and most successful insurgent move of recent campaign history: John McCain’s 2000 Straight Talk Express. Smith has been exploring the idea of renting a bus, and just as McCain did, inviting reporters aboard to travel and fire away at Buttigieg with any question they want, all day, day after day. Smith has been studying the effort, reaching out to reporters who were there, and has been in regular contact with John Weaver, who helped engineer it.
“I am a liberal Democrat, but I was so into the McCain thing. I romanticize it. I have talked to all the guys who see in the shots. I fucking love John McCain. Why do I fucking love John McCain? Because he was a badass. He was out there. He was going up against George Bush, who had $50 million and he had $4 million, and so he just decides to tear up the playbook and put himself out there. And if people like it they like it, and if they don’t they were probably never going to vote for you anyway.”
Weaver says that recreating that atmosphere in the days of Twitter, and in the days when the national political press corps has metastasized into a constantly hungry and multi-headed beast equipped with cell phones, is ten times harder than when his team tried it in 1999. But it has a clear parallel to Smith’s relentless scheduling of meetings between Buttigieg and reporters—an audaciously direct way to connect with reporters that bouth the campaign pretty good press.
“It’s really hard to do a hit piece on a guy who you are going to see the next morning over coffee and donuts,” says Weaver. “It takes the edge off a bit. Maybe a story that would be 80-20 bad you can get down to 60-40 bad, and that little bit is worth it.”
Smith says that’s worth it. That even in the age of Twitter, that especially in the age of Twitter, people don’t really care about gaffes. They just get swallowed up by the next news cycle, and never reach the voters who matter anyway. “Politics has a bias toward the status quo,” she says. “People get stuck in a rut because something worked last cycle, and so they think it will work this cycle and it doesn’t. You have to know the social media ecosystem, how people are sharing and consuming their news. It’s why in one day we do CBS Sunday Morning, The View, Teen Vogue and the New Yorker. It’s about hustling for opportunities. Pete has no battle scars.
“It pisses me off,” she adds, “When candidates think they are too good for some of these outlets, or that it cheapens them to do TMZ or do a more entertainment focused thing. No, actually, it shows a fundamental disrespect for the people who consume their news on this platform if you aren’t willing to go where they are.”
After the fundraiser, Smith and Buttigieg climb into an SUV and headed to 30 Rock. Smith starts texting me, wanting to know if I’d seen the celebrities in the audience, including George Takei, Kal Penn and Kate McKinnon. She wants to know if I’d seen Buttigieg answer a question about the Notre Dame fire from a French TV station, in French.
“Can I tell you something very off the record,” she texts.
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(CNN)Any face covering that “hinders the identification of individuals in a way that threatens national security” is now banned in Sri Lanka, according to a statement from the country’s President.
Spain’s Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez gestures to supporters outside the party headquarters following the general election in Madrid on Sunday.
Bernat Armangue/AP
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Spain’s Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez gestures to supporters outside the party headquarters following the general election in Madrid on Sunday.
Bernat Armangue/AP
Spain’s center-left Socialist party, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, was victorious in Sunday’s general election. The party took 29% of the vote, winning 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies.
“We made it happen,” Sánchez told supporters in Madrid, according to The Guardian. “We’ve sent out the message that we don’t want to regress or reverse. We want a country that looks forward and advances.”
But in order to advance, the Socialists will have to work with smaller parties to reach the 176 seats required to form a coalition government. It’s unclear what such a coalition might look like; even if it partnered with the far-left United We Can party, which won 42 seats, that left-wing alliance wouldn’t have enough seats to control the government.
The main opposition party, the conservative People’s Party, fared poorly. It won only 66 seats — 17% of the vote — less than half the number of seats it secured during the last election in 2016. According to the New York Times, it was the worst performance in its history.
“I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate the scale of this debacle,” Cristina Ares, a professor of politics at the University of Santiago de Compostela, told the Times.
While the mainstream conservative People’s Party failed to thrive, the far-right Vox party picked up seats for the first time since Spain became a democracy just over 40 years ago. Vox took about 10% of the vote, or 24 seats.
Vox takes tough positions against immigration and feminism, and opposes the Catalonian push for independence. Its ideology — fringe until recently — will now have official representation in the country’s government.
The center-right Citizens party, which convinced some People’s Party candidates to join its party during the campaign, won 57 seats. If the Socialist and Citizens parties joined forces, they would have a majority — but according to El País, Citizens leader Albert Rivera said during the campaign that he wouldn’t make deals with Sánchez’s government.
First came Joe Biden’s campaign announcement video highlighting President Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comment about the 2017 white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville that left a counterprotester dead.
Then Trump dug in, arguing that he was referring not to the self-professed neo-Nazi marchers, but to those who had opposed the removal of a statue of the “great” Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Less than 24 hours later came another act of violence described by authorities as a hate crime: Saturday’s shooting at a synagogue in Poway, Calif., in which a gunman killed one person and injured three others.
Those events have pushed the rising tide of white nationalism to the forefront of the 2020 presidential campaign, putting Trump on the defensive and prompting even some Republicans to acknowledge that the president is taking a political risk by continuing to stand by his Charlottesville comments.
“The president’s handling of Charlottesville was not one of the finer moments of his time in office,” Republican strategist Ryan Williams said. “He shouldn’t take Joe Biden’s bait and re-litigate this controversy.”
In response to the Poway synagogue shooting, Trump delivered a full-throated denunciation of anti-Semitism and hate crimes at the start of his Saturday night rally in Green Bay, Wis. In a statement Sunday, White House spokesman Judd Deere reiterated that Trump and his entire administration “have and will continue to condemn racism, bigotry, and violence of any form.”
Deere said that Trump spoke on Sunday with Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was among those injured in the shooting, and expressed his condolences and support for the Poway community.
And Trump advisers maintain that the president’s comments about Charlottesville were — in the words of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday — “darn near perfection.”
“All white supremacy, all neo-Nazis, all anti-Christianity, all anti-Semitism, all anti-Muslim activity should be condemned,” Conway said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” arguing that Trump’s words were “twisted for many years for political purposes.”
Nonetheless, the rise of white-nationalist violence during Trump’s tenure is emerging as an issue as the president turns his attention toward his reelection campaign.
According to the most recent annual report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has long tracked extremist activity, 39 of the 50 extremist-related murders tallied by the group in 2018 were committed by white supremacists, up from 2017, when white supremacists were responsible for 18 of 34 such crimes.
President Trump speaks during a Make America Great Again rally Saturday in Green Bay, Wis. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump has previously played down the threat posed by white nationalism. After a gunman last month killed 49 Muslims in two consecutive mosque attacks in New Zealand, Trump was asked by a reporter whether he thought white nationalists were a growing threat around the world. “I don’t, really,” Trump replied. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
Trump also has a long history of anti-Muslim remarks, including saying in 2015 that he would “strongly consider” closing mosques in the United States, declining to rule out the creation of a national Muslim registry and saying during a 2016 CNN interview, “I think Islam hates us.”
Trump’s doubling down on his remarks in response to Biden’s video has prompted calls from the ADL and others for him to be clearer about condemning what actually happened in Charlottesville, where white supremacists brandished torches and chanted anti-Semitic slogans such as “Jews will not replace us.”
“We need our leaders to lead, to be clear and consistent in calling out hate when it happens and to recognize there is a through line between Charlottesville and Pittsburgh and Poway,” ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said. “We know the extremists are feeling emboldened because they’re saying so. They’re communicating a sense of energy and optimism in their message boards and in their subreddits, and it should be alarming to all of us.”
In its 2017 report, the ADL cited the murder of Heather Heyer, who was killed when a self-proclaimed white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during the Charlottesville rally that year, as having served for many in the country as “a wake-up call to the dangers posed by a re-energized white-supremacist movement.”
Trump addressed Charlottesville twice in recent days — once in an exchange with reporters outside the White House, and again in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin. Both times, he did not raise the issue until asked about it and responded to specific questions.
“Many of those people were from the University of Virginia; they were from all around the neighborhood and the area — they just wanted to protest the fact that they want to take down the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump told Levin. “Now, there were a lot of good people in that group. And they were protesting the taking down of statues. . . . And you had some very bad people in each group, too.”
A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking, said Trump is committed to combating white supremacy and violence in all forms — but is not eager to re-litigate his response to Charlottesville and is unlikely to give a speech tackling the issue.
Democrats on Sunday seized on Trump’s comments about Lee, with House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) noting wryly that Trump “always said that he hated losers.”
“The fact of the matter is, Robert E. Lee was a great tactician — was not a great person,” Clyburn said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and a brutal slave master. Thankfully, he lost that war. And I find it kind of interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser. He always said that he hated losers. Robert E. Lee was a loser.”
Asked whether Biden was right to focus on Charlottesville in his announcement video, Clyburn responded, “Absolutely.”
“I think that’s what the crux of this campaign is going to be about. It’s going to be about who can bring this country together,” he said.
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that Trump “doesn’t need to get into a tit-for-tat” with Biden on the issue and that his record demonstrates that he does not support white supremacists.
“So many people in this country think that anti-Semitism started in this country on January 21, 2017,” Brooks said, referring to Trump’s first full day in office.
“The reality is we have a very serious problem of anti-Semitism in the United States. It existed before Donald Trump. It will exist after Donald Trump. . . . To lay this somehow at the doorstep of this president is unfair and it’s offensive,” he said.
Not everyone heard condemnation in Trump’s explanation of his Charlottesville remarks, however.
Jonathan M. Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University, was holding a discussion on his recently published book, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland,” at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Northwest Washington on Saturday when a handful of self-proclaimed white nationalists entered and disrupted the event.
Metzl said that while “there are always going to be people with horrific, racist views,” usually those types of sentiments have been largely condemned — but Trump’s remarks on Charlottesville have muddied the waters.
“Part of what was frightening was this was happening and those usual checks and balances may or may not have been there, because the president was doubling down on his Charlottesville comments. . . . Historically, this is the role of government,” he said. “And we have a very different government right now.”
(CNN)Moments after a gunman opened fire in Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein’s synagogue, as his friend lay dying in the lobby, he wrapped his arm and bleeding fingers in a prayer shawl, stood on a chair and spoke to his congregation.
The Rabbi who was shot inside a Southern California synagogue on the last day of Passover said Sunday that it was nothing short of a miracle that the gunman’s semiautomatic rifle jammed and prevented what would have been a “bloodbath.”
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein appeared in bandages during a press conference outside Chabad of Poway on Sunday. He lost his index finger after being shot in a shooting spree that killed one and injured three. Two worshippers — 34-year-old Almog Peretz and 8-year-old Noya Dahan — suffered shrapnel wounds.
He said he looked up on Saturday and saw a young man wearing sunglasses standing in front of him with a rifle. He said he lifted his hands and was shot. He says he lost his index finger. And then, Goldstein said, “miraculously the gun jammed.”
There was a room nearby that was crowded with people and children.
“It could have been a blood bath,” he said. “I don’t want to think of it.”
A 19-year-old, John T. Earnest, was arrested after the attack is expected to be arraigned this week on charges including murder and attempted murder.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Goldstein recently asked a Border Patrol agent to attend the temple while armed and it apparently paid off. The agent gave chase to the suspect and fired as he sped off.
Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, died of injuries she sustained in the shooting near San Diego. Gilbert-Kaye is believed to have thrown herself in front of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, possibly saving his life. One witness tol the Los Angeles Times that Kaye’s husband began to do CPR on an injured person and was overcome when he realized it was his wife.
An online manifesto written by a person identifying himself as Earnest says he was inspired by the mass shooting at two New Zealand mosque that killed 50 Muslims last month.
Fox News’ Robert Gearty and The Associated Press contributed
Washington — Attorney General William Barr sparred with congressional Democrats on Sunday over the conditions for his highly anticipated testimony on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report before the House Judiciary Committee later this week.
Barr, who Democrats have accused of protecting the president by holding a press conference before releasing a redacted version of Mueller’s report and clearing Mr. Trump on obstruction of justice, wants to be questioned only by lawmakers on the committee — not staff.
“The attorney general agreed to appear before Congress. Therefore, members of Congress should be the ones doing the questioning,” Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in a statement Sunday. “He remains happy to engage with members on their questions regarding the Mueller report.”
But Democrats believe Barr, as the committee’s witness, should not dictate the parameters of the hearing, scheduled for Thursday morning. A spokesperson for the Democratic-controlled panel also said the Justice Department can’t prohibit members of Congress from asking about redacted sections of the Mueller report.
Disagreements between Mueller report and Attorney General’s statements scrutinized
A Justice Department official told CBS News negotiations between Barr’s office and the House Judiciary Committee are ongoing and will resume Monday.
While his investigative team did not find the Trump campaign coordinated the Russian government, Mueller described in his report multiple concerted efforts by the president to hinder a probe he believed would eventually lead to the end his presidency.
Breaking party leadership, some Democrats have cited the actions Mueller analyzed in his probe into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice — which he did not reach a conclusion on — to call for the president’s impeachment.
Richmond says impeachment is “the best way to get all of the facts out”
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Clinton read parts of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report aloud during a segment on Jordan Klepper’s Comedy Central show. “},{“title”:”Obama: I change my mind all the time based on facts”,”duration”:”01:04″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/28/barack-obama-nelson-mandela-sot-vpx-ndwknd.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/28/barack-obama-nelson-mandela-sot-vpx-ndwknd.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190428074319-obama-4-28-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/28/barack-obama-nelson-mandela-sot-vpx-ndwknd.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Former President Barack Obama participated in a discussion at the Museum of African American History and Culture in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday.”,”descriptionText”:”Former President Barack Obama participated in a discussion at the Museum of African American History and Culture in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday.”},{“title”:”Trump says US is sending migrants to sanctuary cities”,”duration”:”01:54″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/28/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities-wisconsin-rally-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/28/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities-wisconsin-rally-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190427204457-06-trump-wisconsin-0427-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/28/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities-wisconsin-rally-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump said that the \u003ca href=\”https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/27/politics/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>United States is now sending undocumented migrants to sanctuary cities.\u003c/a>”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump said that the \u003ca href=\”https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/27/politics/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>United States is now sending undocumented migrants to sanctuary cities.\u003c/a>”},{“title”:”Kellyanne Conway: Biden video was very dark and spooky”,”duration”:”01:07″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190427095125-kellyanne-conway-smerconish-4-27-2019-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responds to former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential announcement video in which he criticized President Trump’s comments following the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”,”descriptionText”:”White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responds to former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential announcement video in which he criticized President Trump’s comments following the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”},{“title”:”Trump responds to Poway synagogue shooting”,”duration”:”00:49″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190427174402-trump-reacts-to-synagogue-shooting-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Trump responds after a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, leaves at least one dead and three injured.”,”descriptionText”:”President Trump responds after a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, leaves at least one dead and three injured.”},{“title”:”WSJ: NRA chief says he was pressured to resign “,”duration”:”00:48″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426194622-wayne-lapierre-and-oliver-north-split-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Chief Executive of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board he is being extorted and pressured to resign by Oliver North, the organization’s president, the Wall Street Journal reported.”,”descriptionText”:”Chief Executive of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board he is being extorted and pressured to resign by Oliver North, the organization’s president, the Wall Street Journal reported.”},{“title”:”Descendant of Robert E. Lee criticizes Trump’s rhetoric”,”duration”:”01:34″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426234905-rev-robert-w-lee-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”In an interview with CNN’s\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/don-lemon-profile\” target=\”_blank\”> Don Lemon\u003c/a>, Rev. Robert W. Lee, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, denounced President Trump for calling Lee a \”great general\” and criticized his rhetoric about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”,”descriptionText”:”In an interview with CNN’s\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/don-lemon-profile\” target=\”_blank\”> Don Lemon\u003c/a>, Rev. Robert W. Lee, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, denounced President Trump for calling Lee a \”great general\” and criticized his rhetoric about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”},{“title”:”Oliver North will not be renominated as NRA president”,”duration”:”02:40″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/180513174659-oliver-north-2018-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”National Rifle Association president Oliver North announced he is stepping down from his role after a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed CEO Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board that North was trying to extort and pressure him to resign.”,”descriptionText”:”National Rifle Association president Oliver North announced he is stepping down from his role after a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed CEO Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board that North was trying to extort and pressure him to resign.”},{“title”:”Sam Donaldson slams Sarah Sanders’ lies”,”duration”:”02:50″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426210755-sam-donaldson-cooper-split-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump claims he’s the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a \”daily\” press briefing in a record-breaking number of days. Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson slams press secretary Sarah Sanders.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump claims he’s the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a \”daily\” press briefing in a record-breaking number of days. Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson slams press secretary Sarah Sanders.”},{“title”:”Kim vents to Putin about Trump at Vladivostok summit”,”duration”:”02:53″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190425004830-putin-kju-summit-15-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Sources say that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un expressed his anger and frustration with the US following his failed summit with President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a North Korea-Russia summit in Vladivostok, Russia. CNN’s Brian Todd reports.”,”descriptionText”:”Sources say that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un expressed his anger and frustration with the US following his failed summit with President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a North Korea-Russia summit in Vladivostok, Russia. CNN’s Brian Todd reports.”},{“title”:”Trump claims he gave ‘perfect answer’ on Charlottesville”,”duration”:”02:18″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190318121554-02-trump-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump, on his way to a National Rifle Association event, defended his comments on the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally after former Vice President Joe Biden blasted those comments in his official 2020 announcement. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/abby-phillip-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Abby Phillip\u003c/a> reports.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump, on his way to a National Rifle Association event, defended his comments on the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally after former Vice President Joe Biden blasted those comments in his official 2020 announcement. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/abby-phillip-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Abby Phillip\u003c/a> reports.”},{“title”:”Swing-state voter: I’ll probably vote for Trump again”,”duration”:”03:08″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426165032-pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx-00013703-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”The economy grew faster than expected, \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/economy/us-gdp-report-q1/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>putting GDP up 3.2% in the first quarter\u003c/a>. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/miguel-marquez-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Miguel Marquez\u003c/a> went to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see how much a good economy helps \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/economy-donald-trump-popularity/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>President Donald Trump’s chances for re-election\u003c/a>.”,”descriptionText”:”The economy grew faster than expected, \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/economy/us-gdp-report-q1/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>putting GDP up 3.2% in the first quarter\u003c/a>. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/miguel-marquez-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Miguel Marquez\u003c/a> went to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see how much a good economy helps \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/economy-donald-trump-popularity/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>President Donald Trump’s chances for re-election\u003c/a>.”},{“title”:”Trump jokes ‘I didn’t need a gun’ to stop ‘coup'”,”duration”:”01:12″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/?refresh=1″,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426123939-trump-at-nra-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Trump told the NRA that he, \”didn’t need a gun\” to stop what he called a \”coup.\””,”descriptionText”:”President Trump told the NRA that he, \”didn’t need a gun\” to stop what he called a \”coup.\””},{“title”:”Meghan McCain to Biden: What took so long? “,”duration”:”01:56″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426111434-biden-on-view-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Former President Joe Biden speaks to hosts of \”The View\” about his presidential bid for the 2020 election. “,”descriptionText”:”Former President Joe Biden speaks to hosts of \”The View\” about his presidential bid for the 2020 election. “}],currentVideoCollectionId = ”,isLivePlayer = false,mediaMetadataCallbacks,mobilePinnedView = null,moveToNextTimeout,mutePlayerEnabled = false,nextVideoId = ”,nextVideoUrl = ”,turnOnFlashMessaging = false,videoPinner,videoEndSlateImpl;if (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === false) {autoStartVideo = true;if (autoStartVideo === true) {if (turnOnFlashMessaging === true) {autoStartVideo = false;containerEl = jQuery(document.getElementById(configObj.markupId));CNN.VideoPlayer.showFlashSlate(containerEl);} else {CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = true;}}}configObj.autostart = CNN.Features.enableAutoplayBlock ? false : autoStartVideo;CNN.VideoPlayer.setPlayerProperties(configObj.markupId, autoStartVideo, isLivePlayer, isVideoReplayClicked, mutePlayerEnabled);CNN.VideoPlayer.setFirstVideoInCollection(currentVideoCollection, configObj.markupId);var videoHandler = {},isFeaturedVideoCollectionHandlerAvailable = (CNN !== undefined &&CNN.VIDEOCLIENT !== undefined &&CNN.VIDEOCLIENT.FeaturedVideoCollectionHandler !== undefined);if (!isFeaturedVideoCollectionHandlerAvailable) {CNN.INJECTOR.executeFeature(‘videx’).done(function () {jQuery.ajax({dataType: ‘script’,cache: true,url: ‘//www.i.cdn.cnn.com/.a/2.149.1/js/featured-video-collection-player.min.js’}).done(function () {initializeVideoAndCollection();}).fail(function () {throw ‘Unable to fetch /js/featured-video-collection-player.min.js’;});}).fail(function () {throw ‘Unable to fetch the videx bundle’;});}function initializeVideoAndCollection() {videoHandler = new CNN.VIDEOCLIENT.FeaturedVideoCollectionHandler(configObj.markupId,”cn-featured-1knb9hg”,’js-video_description-featured-1knb9hg’,[{“title”:”Breaking down Trump’s stonewall strategy against Dems”,”duration”:”03:08″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/reality-check-trump-stonewall-strategy-john-avlon-newday-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/reality-check-trump-stonewall-strategy-john-avlon-newday-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190418141709-01-trump-media-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/reality-check-trump-stonewall-strategy-john-avlon-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”In the week since the redacted Mueller report release, President Trump has sued to prevent the release of his financial records and has tried to stop the testimony of his former White House counsel Don McGahn. 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said that the \u003ca href=\”https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/27/politics/trump-migrants-sanctuary-cities/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>United States is now sending undocumented migrants to sanctuary cities.\u003c/a>”},{“title”:”Kellyanne Conway: Biden video was very dark and spooky”,”duration”:”01:07″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190427095125-kellyanne-conway-smerconish-4-27-2019-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/kellyanne-conway-trump-biden-charlottesville-video-smerconish-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responds to former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential announcement video in which he criticized President Trump’s comments following the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”,”descriptionText”:”White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responds to former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential announcement video in which he criticized President Trump’s comments following the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”},{“title”:”Trump responds to Poway synagogue shooting”,”duration”:”00:49″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190427174402-trump-reacts-to-synagogue-shooting-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/trump-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Trump responds after a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, leaves at least one dead and three injured.”,”descriptionText”:”President Trump responds after a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, leaves at least one dead and three injured.”},{“title”:”WSJ: NRA chief says he was pressured to resign “,”duration”:”00:48″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426194622-wayne-lapierre-and-oliver-north-split-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/nra-chief-pressure-to-resign-wsj-ndwknd-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Chief Executive of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board he is being extorted and pressured to resign by Oliver North, the organization’s president, the Wall Street Journal reported.”,”descriptionText”:”Chief Executive of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board he is being extorted and pressured to resign by Oliver North, the organization’s president, the Wall Street Journal reported.”},{“title”:”Descendant of Robert E. Lee criticizes Trump’s rhetoric”,”duration”:”01:34″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426234905-rev-robert-w-lee-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/descendant-of-robert-e-lee-criticizes-trump-don-lemon-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”In an interview with CNN’s\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/don-lemon-profile\” target=\”_blank\”> Don Lemon\u003c/a>, Rev. Robert W. Lee, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, denounced President Trump for calling Lee a \”great general\” and criticized his rhetoric about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”,”descriptionText”:”In an interview with CNN’s\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/don-lemon-profile\” target=\”_blank\”> Don Lemon\u003c/a>, Rev. Robert W. Lee, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, denounced President Trump for calling Lee a \”great general\” and criticized his rhetoric about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”},{“title”:”Oliver North will not be renominated as NRA president”,”duration”:”02:40″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/180513174659-oliver-north-2018-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/nra-president-oliver-north-wayne-lapierre-sandoval-nr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”National Rifle Association president Oliver North announced he is stepping down from his role after a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed CEO Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board that North was trying to extort and pressure him to resign.”,”descriptionText”:”National Rifle Association president Oliver North announced he is stepping down from his role after a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed CEO Wayne LaPierre told the group’s board that North was trying to extort and pressure him to resign.”},{“title”:”Sam Donaldson slams Sarah Sanders’ lies”,”duration”:”02:50″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426210755-sam-donaldson-cooper-split-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/27/white-house-press-briefings-sarah-sanders-lies-donaldson-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump claims he’s the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a \”daily\” press briefing in a record-breaking number of days. Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson slams press secretary Sarah Sanders.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump claims he’s the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a \”daily\” press briefing in a record-breaking number of days. Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson slams press secretary Sarah Sanders.”},{“title”:”Kim vents to Putin about Trump at Vladivostok summit”,”duration”:”02:53″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190425004830-putin-kju-summit-15-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/world/2019/04/26/kim-jong-un-venting-to-putin-vladivostok-summit-todd-dnt-tsr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Sources say that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un expressed his anger and frustration with the US following his failed summit with President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a North Korea-Russia summit in Vladivostok, Russia. CNN’s Brian Todd reports.”,”descriptionText”:”Sources say that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un expressed his anger and frustration with the US following his failed summit with President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a North Korea-Russia summit in Vladivostok, Russia. CNN’s Brian Todd reports.”},{“title”:”Trump claims he gave ‘perfect answer’ on Charlottesville”,”duration”:”02:18″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190318121554-02-trump-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-defends-charlottesville-comments-nra-phillip-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump, on his way to a National Rifle Association event, defended his comments on the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally after former Vice President Joe Biden blasted those comments in his official 2020 announcement. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/abby-phillip-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Abby Phillip\u003c/a> reports.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump, on his way to a National Rifle Association event, defended his comments on the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally after former Vice President Joe Biden blasted those comments in his official 2020 announcement. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/abby-phillip-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Abby Phillip\u003c/a> reports.”},{“title”:”Swing-state voter: I’ll probably vote for Trump again”,”duration”:”03:08″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426165032-pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx-00013703-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/pennsylvania-swing-voters-trump-economy-battleground-marquez-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”The economy grew faster than expected, \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/economy/us-gdp-report-q1/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>putting GDP up 3.2% in the first quarter\u003c/a>. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/miguel-marquez-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Miguel Marquez\u003c/a> went to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see how much a good economy helps \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/economy-donald-trump-popularity/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>President Donald Trump’s chances for re-election\u003c/a>.”,”descriptionText”:”The economy grew faster than expected, \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/economy/us-gdp-report-q1/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>putting GDP up 3.2% in the first quarter\u003c/a>. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/miguel-marquez-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Miguel Marquez\u003c/a> went to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see how much a good economy helps \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/economy-donald-trump-popularity/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”>President Donald Trump’s chances for re-election\u003c/a>.”},{“title”:”Trump jokes ‘I didn’t need a gun’ to stop ‘coup'”,”duration”:”01:12″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/?refresh=1″,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426123939-trump-at-nra-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/donald-trump-nra-speech-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Trump told the NRA that he, \”didn’t need a gun\” to stop what he called a \”coup.\””,”descriptionText”:”President Trump told the NRA that he, \”didn’t need a gun\” to stop what he called a \”coup.\””},{“title”:”Meghan McCain to Biden: What took so long? “,”duration”:”01:56″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190426111434-biden-on-view-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/26/joe-biden-meghan-mccain-view-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Former President Joe Biden speaks to hosts of \”The View\” about his presidential bid for the 2020 election. “,”descriptionText”:”Former President Joe Biden speaks to hosts of \”The View\” about his presidential bid for the 2020 election. “}],’js-video_headline-featured-1knb9hg’,”,”js-video_source-featured-1knb9hg”,true,true,’this-week-in-politics’);if (typeof configObj.context !== ‘string’ || configObj.context.length
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(CNN)President Donald Trump always ignores the rules — it’s the secret of his political success.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Jeremy Herb, Laura Jarrett, Ted Barrett and Sara Murray contributed to this report.
Muslim women have been banned from wearing face veils under an emergency law passed by Sri Lanka‘s president, days after more than 250 people were killed in series of bombings in the country’s capital Colombo.
Maithripala Sirisena‘s office said any garment or item which obstructs the identification of a persons face would be barred.
The move follows recent cabinet discussions on face coverings. The government had said it would delay a decision until talks with Islamic clerics could be held, on the advice of prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
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A week after the attack on Easter Sunday, the country’s Catholic churches remained closed because of security fears.
However, Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe attended a televised Mass at the residence of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo.
“This is a time our hearts are tested by the great destruction that took place last Sunday,” Mr Ranjith told those watching across the nation. “This is a time questions such as, does God truly love us, does he have compassion towards us, can arise in human hearts.”
Police said they had arrested 48 suspects over the last 24 hours as checkpoints were mounted by all of Sri Lanka’s security forces across the country.
Among those detained were two men whom authorities recently appealed to the public to locate.
Tensions have been running high on the island over the past week, with fears of further attacks as well as dread over possible retaliation against Sri Lanka’s Muslims.
Police entered the main mosque of National Towheed Jamaat (NTJ) in Kattankudy on Sunday afternoon, just a day after authorities declared that it was a terror group.
Authorities have banned NTJ over its ties to Mohammed Zahran, the alleged mastermind of the attacks which also left hundreds wounded.
Zahran and others wearing masks, had pledged their loyalty to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the attacks.
Later, an officer dispersed journalists waiting outside, saying authorities were conducting a “cordon and search operation.”
Police then left, locking up the mosque just before afternoon prayers were to start.
Earlier this week a Sri Lankan parliamentarian proposed a ban on women wearing the burqa.
Ashu Marasinghe submitted a motion to parliament stating that the garment, which covers the whole body and the face, was “not a traditional Muslim attire” and should be outlawed on security grounds.
On Friday night, a confrontation with police sparked a firefight with militants in Kalmunai. Sri Lanka’s military said the gunfire and later suicide blasts killed 15 people, including six children.
Isis clater laimed three of the militants who blew themselves up there, identifying the bombers by their noms du guerre as Abu Hammad, Abu Sufyan and Abu al-Qa’qa.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara confirmed a woman and a four-year-old child found wounded after the gunbattle have been identified as Zahran’s wife and daughter.
The Isis-aligned militants had created a bomb-making factory at the home. Bags of fertiliser, gunpowder and small ball bearings filled boxes. Police found fuels used to make the fire of the blast more lethal.
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