The United States and China have been here before.
After threatening to impose potentially devastating tariffs, President Donald Trump pulled back in the wake of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Japan on Saturday.
Trump and Xi, who both tout their strong personal relationship, reached a similar agreement at the previous G-20 summit in Argentina at the end of the last year.
And if history is any guide to the future, the gentlemen’s agreement struck between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies over the weekend in Osaka offers no clear path to rolling back tariffs and ending a trade war that threatens to tip the global economy into recession.
“It’s a temporary timeout,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, told CNBC. “I don’t see any path to a deal and we’re stuck with 25% tariffs on $250 billion of goods.”
In a Fox Business News interview before the G-20, the president he was “very happy with where we are now, ” claiming that the U.S. is “taking in a fortune, and frankly [it’s] not a very good thing for China, but it is a good thing for us. “
The business community by and large disagrees.
More than 600 U.S. companies, including Target and Walmart, had urged Trump not to impose additional tariffs, warning that such a move could cost 2 million American jobs.
And while business groups Saturday welcomed the renewed talks, they made clear they’re still anxiously waiting for a final deal. According to Boockvar, there’s little reason to celebrate.
“If I’m a CEO, waiting on how this weekend was going to go, do I feel any better? If I’m in manufacturing, maybe I feel a touch better it’s not worse in the short term, but I still have to deal with this 25% tariff and the threat of more tariffs hanging over,” he said.
House Democrats vote to approve the Senate version of a humanitarian aid bill for migrants along the southern border; chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel reports from Capitol Hill.
The musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic rarely offer clarity about the state of legislation in Congress.
But Weird Al’s 1984 hit “Eat it” (a parody on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) was inadvertently invoked this past week to crystallize the conundrum facing House Democrats after the Senate approved a crucial border spending bill 84-8.
House liberals were either going to hold out against the Senate measure in favor of their own – or accept the Senate bill.
Amid these deliberations, former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, a veteran of such impasses, ambled by the Speaker’s Office late Wednesday afternoon as a coterie of reporters stood watch in the hallway. Lott advised that if he were still running the Senate – where the overwhelming 84-8 vote spoke volumes – there would be only one clear path.
“I’d say ‘Eat it, House,’” Lott said with a laugh.
It’s exactly what they did.
But not without a fiery fight first within the House Democratic Caucus – and one that threatens to keep burning for weeks and months to come.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced a huge challenge as she sought to both assuage the concerns from her left flank and engineer a bill that could actually pass.
The House had approved its own version of the border legislation Tuesday night, 230-195. But the Senate devised a different, more bipartisan piece of legislation. Not as many controls and consequences for those charged with caring for children. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., wrote the measure alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the panel. The committee approved the bill 30-1. The Senate then followed suit with a staggering roll call tally of 84-8.
“The administration opposes what the House is going to do,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We believe they support what we’re going to do.”
The House and Senate were out of alignment, approving competing bills. The front-runner for final passage, though, was fairly evident: The Senate bill secured more than 60 yeas, making it filibuster-proof, while the White House threatened to veto the House measure.
The House still held out hope, engineering a revised bill on Thursday as the plan came back across the Capitol from the Senate.
But the administration wouldn’t budge. McConnell wouldn’t budge. Things looked bleak for the House bill, even as it was apparent the House could approve the Senate version with most Republicans and many Democrats.
But Democrats faced a more immediate problem as the House began a pre-debate on the revamped measure Thursday afternoon. House rules allow members to vote on something called “adopting the previous question.” In short, it’s known as a “PQ.” If the House approves the PQ, things continue as normal. However, if the House defeats the PQ, the minority seizes control of the floor for an hour and gets to call up whatever legislation it wants. The majority rarely loses a PQ vote. The House hasn’t defeated a PQ (thus, turning over the floor to the other side) since 2010. If Republicans defeated the PQ, they would bring up the Senate bill. Losing control of the floor in such a fashion would be a major embarrassment for Democrats. But this was a distinct possibility. There was near unanimity on the GOP side for the Senate plan and dozens of Democrats were prepared to join them.
So, the House Democratic brain trust changed course. Pelosi dashed off a letter to her colleagues.
“The children come first,” wrote Pelosi. “We have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities. In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill.”
So, the Senate jammed the House. And Pelosi relented because the math simply wasn’t on her side.
The House ultimately moved the Senate package 305-102. Pelosi lost 95 Democrats. But there were 129 Democratic yeas. So, despite the sniping from the liberal wing of the Democratic caucus, Pelosi still marshaled a majority of the majority. But Pelosi couldn’t get to 217 yeas (the magic number in the House right now to pass bills) exclusively on the Democratic side.
That’s the same issue that tormented former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan. They couldn’t quite move some bills with only GOP support when Republicans were in the majority. This was mostly due to protestations from the House Freedom Caucus. So, Boehner and Ryan often turned to the other side for assistance to pass major legislation. Pelosi did the same Thursday.
In a statement, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said “what happened today is unacceptable and we will not forget this betrayal.”
A number of moderate Democrats privately vented their frustrations about the internecine warfare among Democrats. One Democrat said it would be “shameful” and “immoral” not to do “something.” Another moderate Democrat groused about liberals placing a premium on “ideological purity.” One Democrat noted that a yes vote on the more tempered Senate bill was a good vote for moderate and conservative Democrats who face tough races in 2020. After all, members from swing districts are why Democrats won the House.
One senior House Democratic leadership source told Fox News that some liberals will understand why Pelosi did what she did. But the source noted that many far-left Democrats “won’t get it. They’ll keep pushing.” The source said some Democrats will take notice of Pelosi fighting for the original House bill and only losing four Democrats. But the leadership source also suggested that Pelosi should have taken one more run at the issue. Perhaps pass the re-retooled bill, forcing McConnell to flush it back to the House and then accepted the Senate package.
This could be a seminal moment for Democrats. Is their tent big enough to accept both liberals and moderates? This is a distillation of what’s going on nationally in the presidential sweepstakes. Democrats may control the House. But they don’t have the Senate, or the White House. And while the bill may not be perfect, it was the right measure for most Democratic districts. By the same token, a no vote was likely the proper disposition for lawmakers representing the most liberal of districts.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., was asked if the “perfect was the enemy of the good” in the border bill negotiations.
“I hate that expression,” said Cardenas. “You don’t want to settle for less than what you’re capable of.”
Many liberal Democrats may agree with Cardenas’s assessment. Otto von Bismarck famously compared passing law to making sausage. And as both Weird Al, Trent Lott and many House Democrats now know, you sometimes just have to eat it.
SALEM, Ore. — Some Republican lawmakers returned to the Oregon Senate on Saturday, ending a walkout over a carbon-emissions bill they said would harm their rural constituents.
Nine of the 12 minority Republicans returned after Senate President Peter Courtney said the majority Democrats lacked the votes to pass the legislation aimed at countering climate change. The House had previously passed the bill, one of the centerpieces of Oregon’s 2019 legislative session, which is scheduled to end on Sunday.
Democrats have an 18 to 12 majority in the Senate but need at least 20 members — and therefore at least two Republicans — to vote on legislation.
Democrats had said the climate legislation was critical to make Oregon a leader in the fight against climate change and will ultimately create jobs and transform the economy. They made dozens of concessions to respond to concerns from conservatives and industry leaders, but they didn’t go as far as Republicans hoped.
The GOP senator walkout began June 20. Many left the state after Gov. Kate Brown ordered the state police to bring them to the Capitol.
“Our mission in walking out was to kill cap and trade,” Senate Minority Leader Herman Baertschiger told reporters Friday. “And that’s what we did.”
The bill, if passed, would have been the second in the nation to cap and trade pollution credits among companies. It aimed to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases by 2050 by capping carbon emissions and requiring businesses to buy or trade for an ever-dwindling pool of pollution “allowances.” California has a similar program.
Baertschiger said he received assurances from the Democratic Senate president and the governor that the climate bill won’t move forward this session. More than 100 bills remain to be addressed. Baertschiger said he’s confident the Senate can work through dozens of measures before the legislative session ends.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, who chairs the committee in charge of funding decisions, said she felt “relief” that Republicans agreed to return to get through the rest of the legislative agenda, including added funding for critical services such as child welfare and public safety.
Steiner Hayward said a climate change bill will likely come up again in the future.
“Nobody’s giving up,” she said.
Brown could call a special session to handle outstanding bills.
Democrats have a supermajority in both the House and Senate, enabling them to pass bills — including ones to raise revenue — if they vote as a bloc. But if Republicans stay away, the Democrats lack a quorum to convene.
The Republicans wielded power disproportionate to their numbers this session. They walked out of the Senate last month to block a school funding tax package. They returned only after Brown brokered a deal in which Democrats dropped legislation on gun control and children’s vaccination requirements, upsetting backers of those measures and leaving gun-control proponents and those concerned about disease outbreaks feeling betrayed. The Senate, with a quorum established, passed the school funding measure.
In the House, Republicans in May forced a clerk in the Oregon Legislature to read aloud every word in nearly every piece of legislation, giving granular details about farm loans, motor vehicle taxes and other government minutiae as the minority party used the stalling tactic.
“This is not how our democracy is supposed to work,” said Tara Hurst, executive director of the lobbying group Renew Oregon, which helped craft the climate proposal. “Continuing to capitulate to demands of a small minority, which has taken our Legislature hostage, will only lead to more of the same because there are no consequences.”
Rep. Rachel Prusak, a freshman Democrat from a Portland suburb, said she is “heartbroken over the state of our Legislature.”
President Trump says Kim Jong Un responded to his offer to shake hands at the Korean demilitarized zone — but he isn’t saying if the North Korean leader accepted.
Trump told reporters in Seoul, South Korea, that officials received a response to the tweeted offer.
“We have, yes,” Trump said, regarding whether he heard from Kim.
“It will be very interesting,” Trump said Saturday night local time, divulging no details, but indicating the Sunday trip will happen. Asked if there would be a three-nation summit including South Korea, Trump said, “Well, we’re going to see.”
After trading letters this month, Trump tweeted, “if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!”
After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!
Trump has sought to build a relationship with the 35-year-old dictator, meeting first in June 2018 in Singapore, and then in February in Vietnam. The second summit collapsed when Trump walked out over Kim demanding sanctions relief before dismantling his country’s nuclear weapon program.
Since the second round of talks collapsed, North Korea has used at times harsh rhetoric. Last month, the state-run Korean Central News Agency called National Security Adviser John Bolton a “defective human product.”
Trump added the brief stop in South Korea in mid-May, and journalists long suspected he would seek to meet Kim at the border.
Libya’s internationally recognized government says it seized four pricey U.S.-made weapons from troops loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar.
The Javelin antitank missiles cost more than $170,000 each. Markings indicate they were sold by the U.S. to the United Arab Emirates in 2008, the New York Times reports.
If the Emirati government voluntarily transferred the missiles, the Times reports that may have violated the sales agreement.
Haftar, who has controlled most of eastern Libya since 2014, seeks to end a long-running civil war by conquering the national capital Tripoli. The cache of American-made missiles and Chinese-made weapons were discovered by Tripoli’s forces in Gharyan, which is south of Tripoli and was used by forces loyal to Haftar as a base, following a surprise attack.
Critics see Haftar — a former member of Muammar Gaddafi’s government, an ex-CIA asset, and a naturalized U.S. citizen — as a would-be dictator. But supporters see him as a crucial bulwark against Islamism in the region.
Haftar has been supported by Egypt, France, and the UAE. His original rivals were Islamists who refused to accept defeat in a parliamentary election. That side was backed by Qatar and Turkey.
In a statement, the State Department said, “We are aware of these reports and are seeking additional information. We expect all recipients of U.S. origin defense equipment to abide by their end-use obligations.”
Although the U.S. and the United Nations recognize the Tripoli government, President Trump and Haftar spoke on the phone in April, with Trump praising the general’s work “fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources,” according to the White House.
Last month, the Trump administration declared a national emergency citing tensions with Iran to bypass congressional review of more than $8 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE.
President Donald Trump tentatively de-escalated the ongoing trade war with China on Saturday when he announced he will cancel a planned 25 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods.
“We’re holding on tariffs, and they’re going to buy farm product,” Trump told reporters at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Neither Trump nor Xi offered details on which farm products China would buy while talking to reporters, and an earlier 25 percent duty will remain in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods.
US farmers have been been squeezed by the trade war; China’s retaliatory tariffs cover a range of farm goods, including soybeans, almonds, pork, and apples. Chinese buyers once accounted for roughly 60 percent of the US’ agricultural exports, but that number has declined since the tariffs began, with Minnesota’s exports to the country dropping about about 25 percent since 2018.
Xi hoped to make easing restrictions on Huawei a pre-condition for a new trade deal. Since 2018 — when the Trump administration first introduced Chinese tariffs — the US has used a ban on the company as a bargaining chip in negotiations between the two countries as Vox’s Alex Ward reported:
The US has led a global effort to stop allied nations from using technologies made by Huawei, arguing that the Chinese government — which exerts significant control over domestic companies — could use those technologies to spy on citizens of other countries. The US has already banned Huawei from doing any work with the federal government, a major move meant as an example for other countries to follow.
There’s also a financial motivation behind the US push to stop countries from using Huawei products: US and Chinese firms are both vying to lead the world in providing 5G technology, which offers lightning-fast internet connectivity that will allow billions more devices — from cellphones to self-driving cars to even robots performing surgery — to operate better.
Trump also promised further easing of restrictions on Huawei, but was not specific about what this would entail.
In a second concession, the president expressed his desire to reform US visa policy, saying he’d like to investigate ways to grant Chinese students who obtain American diplomas green cards in what he called a “smart person’s waiver.”
Immigration is a key issue for Trump; at a rally in late May, he told supporters “our country is full” and said, “We don’t want people coming here.” He also recently announced — then cancelled — a massive ICE operation that would have targeted roughly 2,000 families.
At the G20 summit, however, the president signaled he sees Chinese immigrants as different than other types of immigrants and asylum seekers, telling the press, “We want to keep them here.”
The trade war has hurt all sides
Over the year the Trump administration has escalated its trade war with China, American farm exports to China have gone from $26 billion (under President Obama) to $6 billion this year. China has met every duty on its goods with tariffs of their own, including a 25 percent tariff on 5,000 goods in June.
Although both Democrats and Republicans believe China has taken advantage of the US economy, critics say that Trump’s scorched earth strategy does more harm than good. The resulting trade war has not only hurt Chinese and American consumers but could also stunt the global economy, as Ward reported:
Trump’s misguided views about how tariffs work are also likely playing a big role in the administration’s hardline approach. Trump insists that tariffs force China to pay money to the US Treasury — which just isn’t true. When a tariff is placed on a Chinese good, it is the company importing that product or a consumer buying it who pays a higher price — not China. In other words, these tariffs are effectively a tax on Americans.
But for whatever reason, Trump continues to proclaim that tariffs are “paid to the United States by China” and that they result in “billions” of dollars pouring into the US Treasury.
And experts worry that his misguided strategic and personal views on tariffs may end up seriously damaging the world economy. “Trump is dragging a dangerous misconception into a critical moment in his standoff with the Chinese,” Chad Bown, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said last week. “And American businesses and consumers stand to pay the price.”
Negotiations to end the trade war between the US and China reached a dead end last May after Trump said China “broke the deal.” In Osaka, Trump proclaimed: “We’re right back on track.”
Both China and the US have incentive to make a deal; for instance, China wants to continue to grow firms like Huawei (which pulled in $27 billion in revenue in the first quarter of this year despite its use as a trade war pawn) and US companies and farmers want to again reap the benefits of their former relationships with buyers in the country.
However, there is no timeline for the next round of negotiation’s conclusion, and major impediments to progress, including differing views on intellectual property protections and technology sharing. And despite making plans to resume talks, even President Trump remained cautious.
“This doesn’t mean there will be a deal,” Trump said. “They would like to make a deal. I can tell you that. If we can make a deal it would be historic.”
House Democrats vote to approve the Senate version of a humanitarian aid bill for migrants along the southern border; chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel reports from Capitol Hill.
The musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic rarely offer clarity about the state of legislation in Congress.
But Weird Al’s 1984 hit “Eat it” (a parody on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) was inadvertently invoked this past week to crystallize the conundrum facing House Democrats after the Senate approved a crucial border spending bill 84-8.
House liberals were either going to hold out against the Senate measure in favor of their own – or accept the Senate bill.
Amid these deliberations, former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, a veteran of such impasses, ambled by the Speaker’s Office late Wednesday afternoon as a coterie of reporters stood watch in the hallway. Lott advised that if he were still running the Senate – where the overwhelming 84-8 vote spoke volumes – there would be only one clear path.
“I’d say ‘Eat it, House,’” Lott said with a laugh.
It’s exactly what they did.
But not without a fiery fight first within the House Democratic Caucus – and one that threatens to keep burning for weeks and months to come.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced a huge challenge as she sought to both assuage the concerns from her left flank and engineer a bill that could actually pass.
The House had approved its own version of the border legislation Tuesday night, 230-195. But the Senate devised a different, more bipartisan piece of legislation. Not as many controls and consequences for those charged with caring for children. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., wrote the measure alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the panel. The committee approved the bill 30-1. The Senate then followed suit with a staggering roll call tally of 84-8.
“The administration opposes what the House is going to do,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We believe they support what we’re going to do.”
The House and Senate were out of alignment, approving competing bills. The front-runner for final passage, though, was fairly evident: The Senate bill secured more than 60 yeas, making it filibuster-proof, while the White House threatened to veto the House measure.
The House still held out hope, engineering a revised bill on Thursday as the plan came back across the Capitol from the Senate.
But the administration wouldn’t budge. McConnell wouldn’t budge. Things looked bleak for the House bill, even as it was apparent the House could approve the Senate version with most Republicans and many Democrats.
But Democrats faced a more immediate problem as the House began a pre-debate on the revamped measure Thursday afternoon. House rules allow members to vote on something called “adopting the previous question.” In short, it’s known as a “PQ.” If the House approves the PQ, things continue as normal. However, if the House defeats the PQ, the minority seizes control of the floor for an hour and gets to call up whatever legislation it wants. The majority rarely loses a PQ vote. The House hasn’t defeated a PQ (thus, turning over the floor to the other side) since 2010. If Republicans defeated the PQ, they would bring up the Senate bill. Losing control of the floor in such a fashion would be a major embarrassment for Democrats. But this was a distinct possibility. There was near unanimity on the GOP side for the Senate plan and dozens of Democrats were prepared to join them.
So, the House Democratic brain trust changed course. Pelosi dashed off a letter to her colleagues.
“The children come first,” wrote Pelosi. “We have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities. In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill.”
So, the Senate jammed the House. And Pelosi relented because the math simply wasn’t on her side.
The House ultimately moved the Senate package 305-102. Pelosi lost 95 Democrats. But there were 129 Democratic yeas. So, despite the sniping from the liberal wing of the Democratic caucus, Pelosi still marshaled a majority of the majority. But Pelosi couldn’t get to 217 yeas (the magic number in the House right now to pass bills) exclusively on the Democratic side.
That’s the same issue that tormented former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan. They couldn’t quite move some bills with only GOP support when Republicans were in the majority. This was mostly due to protestations from the House Freedom Caucus. So, Boehner and Ryan often turned to the other side for assistance to pass major legislation. Pelosi did the same Thursday.
In a statement, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said “what happened today is unacceptable and we will not forget this betrayal.”
A number of moderate Democrats privately vented their frustrations about the internecine warfare among Democrats. One Democrat said it would be “shameful” and “immoral” not to do “something.” Another moderate Democrat groused about liberals placing a premium on “ideological purity.” One Democrat noted that a yes vote on the more tempered Senate bill was a good vote for moderate and conservative Democrats who face tough races in 2020. After all, members from swing districts are why Democrats won the House.
One senior House Democratic leadership source told Fox News that some liberals will understand why Pelosi did what she did. But the source noted that many far-left Democrats “won’t get it. They’ll keep pushing.” The source said some Democrats will take notice of Pelosi fighting for the original House bill and only losing four Democrats. But the leadership source also suggested that Pelosi should have taken one more run at the issue. Perhaps pass the re-retooled bill, forcing McConnell to flush it back to the House and then accepted the Senate package.
This could be a seminal moment for Democrats. Is their tent big enough to accept both liberals and moderates? This is a distillation of what’s going on nationally in the presidential sweepstakes. Democrats may control the House. But they don’t have the Senate, or the White House. And while the bill may not be perfect, it was the right measure for most Democratic districts. By the same token, a no vote was likely the proper disposition for lawmakers representing the most liberal of districts.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., was asked if the “perfect was the enemy of the good” in the border bill negotiations.
“I hate that expression,” said Cardenas. “You don’t want to settle for less than what you’re capable of.”
Many liberal Democrats may agree with Cardenas’s assessment. Otto von Bismarck famously compared passing law to making sausage. And as both Weird Al, Trent Lott and many House Democrats now know, you sometimes just have to eat it.
President Donald Trump pushed back against former President Jimmy Carter’s claim that the Trump presidency was illegitimate because of Russian election interference, calling it a typical Democrat talking point.
Trump was responding to remarks made Friday by Carter, in which the former president said there was “no doubt” that Russia had interfered with the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton but won a majority of electoral votes. Carter claimed that if the interference was fully investigated, it would “show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016.”
“He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” he stated.
The former president was then asked if he thought Trump was an illegitimate president, to which he responded, “based on what I said, which I can’t retract.”
During a press conference Saturday following a meeting of world leaders at the G-20 Summit in Japan, Trump called the former president’s statement a “typical talking point” among Democrats. He added that Carter is loyal to the Democrats, who he said, haven’t treated him well.
“He’s been trashed within his own party, he’s been badly trashed. I feel bad for him,” Trump said. “He’s like the forgotten president and I understand why they say that, he was not a good president.”
Trump added that Carter was a “nice man” but reiterated that he was a “terrible president.” The president also defended his victory, saying that the reason for his win was because of his work ethic, not because of Russia.
“I went out, I campaigned better smarter, harder than Hillary Clinton. I went to Wisconsin, I went to Michigan,” noted Trump. “I won states that haven’t traditionally been won by a Republican. This had nothing to do with anybody but the fact that I worked much harder and much smarter than Hillary Clinton.”
On Saturday, Trump also told reporters during a news conference with Russian President Vladamir Putin that he discussed election meddling with Putin the day before. He also turned to the Russian president and told him not to meddle in the election, which elicited a chuckle from Putin.
During a recent interview with the Financial Times, Putin called Trump a “talented person” and said he knows what voters expect of him. He acknowledged that Russia was accused of meddling in the election, but said in reality, Trump “saw changes in American society and took advantage of this.”
“I did mention it to him very strongly,” Trump told reporters when asked about the murder. “That was a bad event.”
“I asked him what was happening,” he added.
Trump’s comments came during a press conference at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Japan. The president told reporters Friday that he was “extremely angry and very unhappy” about Khashoggi’s killing, but claimed that “nobody has directly pointed a finger” at bin Salman, CNN reported.
The CIA and a United Nations report implicated bin Salman in Khashoggi’s murder, accusing him of authorizing the killing.
Asked about the CIA’s determination that bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder, Trump said he “cannot comment on intelligence.”
“We can declassify,” Trump said. “The truth is, I don’t want to talk about intelligence.”
Trump defended his relationships with world leaders broadly, saying of the Saudi Crown Prince, “I get along with Mohammed.”
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was critical of bin Salman and the Saudi government, was killed by Saudi operatives in October after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
While Riyadh initially claimed ignorance of the killing, the country’s attorney general later backtracked, acknowledging that Khashoggi was murdered and the killing was premeditated.
An independent investigation by a United Nations (UN) human rights expert recommended a probe into bin Salman in connection with the murder, citing “credible evidence” supporting Saudi Arabia’s responsibility for the “deliberate, premeditated execution” of Khashoggi.
Bin Salman has continued to deny any role in the killing.
While several lawmakers believe it is certain that bin Salman is behind Khashoggi’s murder, Trump has instead underscored the benefits of the U.S.’s relationship with the Saudi kingdom, praising the prince Friday as “a friend of mine.”
The explosive exchange between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden is what the June debates will be remembered for, and it may even help determine whether either candidate wins the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. But the two-night debate, the first of the 2020 presidential campaign, also sharpened an intraparty divide that is far more important for how the next Democratic president governs.
The 2020 Democratic primary has become a war between two visions of American politics. There’s the view that any compromise with Republicans is a fool’s game, and then there’s the Joe Biden view, that bipartisanship and civility are necessary because that’s how Washington works.
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On Wednesday night, Elizabeth Warren took one side, shrugging off the prospect of a Republican-led Senate with a pledge to give no quarter and “fight” on. The next night, Biden cited his ability to work with Mitch McConnell, the Republican obstructionist-in-chief during the Obama presidency, to raise taxes, only to hear Sen. Michael Bennet trash Biden’s work on the 2012 tax deal as an abject surrender to the Republican Party.
Biden has been attacked, understandably, for naming segregationists among the people he’s practiced “civility” with. The brutal rejoinder he suffered at the hands of Harris during Thursday night’s debate may even unravel his presidential bid. But should that happen, his political case for bipartisanship should not go down with his candidacy. Progressives ignore the case for bipartisanship at their peril: During the Obama administration, bipartisanship actually worked.
You don’t hear this much these days. A foundational myth has set in, among moderate Democrats as well as progressive activists, that Mitch McConnell’s relentless obstructionism throttled the Obama administration completely and enabled the rise of Donald Trump. But this potted history leaves out a lot of chapters—the actual bipartisan accomplishments that Biden can rightly point to from his service under President Barack Obama.
“The Obama administration?!” most Democrats will splutter. “Those exasperating eight years of relentless Republican obstructionism? When the debt ceiling was taken hostage, when the government was shut down in hopes of destroying the Affordable Care Act, when Merrick Garland’s seat was stolen?” Yes.
The paradoxical truth of the Obama presidency is that even though McConnell was engaged in extreme obstructionism, nearly every one of Obama’s legislative achievements passed with Republican votes. Conversely, the Trump administration’s general disdain for bipartisanship has left it with a wispy legislative record and a shaky argument for reelection. As Democrats debate how their party should govern, they should get their own recent history right.
***
Beyond his misguided callback to the 1970s, on the campaign trail, Biden has pointed to his successful effort to win the support of three Republicans for Obama’s first major act: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an enormous blast of Keynesian stimulus that arrested the 2008 stock market crash and began the economy’s slow but steady recovery. But this example does not impress the post-Obama skeptics of bipartisanship.
New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, a moderate known for scrapping with left-wingers, sees the Recovery Act as evidence of bipartisanship’s futility: “Those three Republicans faced such intense backlash from the right that one of them, Arlen Specter, was driven out of the party altogether, and the other two, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, subsequently refused to support any health care bill on any terms. The aftermath of the success was such that it could never be repeated.” Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler, a reliable progressive voice, argues that if a Biden-like Democratic president who campaigned on bipartisanship actually tried to follow through, the president’s supporters would be “demoralized” and his or her presidency would “stagnate.”
Yet Biden actually undersells the case for bipartisanship, as experienced by the Obama administration he served in. Wall Street reform, the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” criminal justice reform, food safety regulations, and ratification of an arms control treatywith Russia all cleared Congress in the first two years of the Obama presidency with Republican votes—and could not have passed the Senate without those votes. (The Affordable Care Act was the one big exception, clearing Congress during a brief window when Democrats had 60 Senate votes.) Despite Chait’s assertion, the post-stimulus backlash against Republican moderates didn’t prevent future GOP cooperation with Obama.
Most of these bills required compromises to win Republican votes, and those compromises have long chafed the left. The three Republicans who backed the stimulus forced Democrats to shave about $100 billion off the estimated cost, prompting cries from progressives that the final bill was too small because it fell short of $1 trillion, leading to a longer, weaker economic recovery that could have been avoided with a larger stimulus. Specter, who had long battled cancer, also insisted that $10 billion in stimulus money go toward the National Institutes of Health. Likewise, when progressive populist Sen. Russ Feingold rejected the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill because it failed to break up big banks, Obama and Senate Democrats were forced to appease Republican Sen. Scott Brown and secure the bill’s 60th vote by stripping out $19 billion in proposed fees on financial institutions that would have affected some firms, and donors, from his home state of Massachusetts.
Such sausage-making might be unseemly. But this is the kind of transactional bipartisanship that can still be pursued in Washington, even in polarized times, because it hinges on self-interest, which never goes out of style.
Besides, what was the alternative? To refuse a compromise over the stimulus risked not having a stimulus at all, which would have led to a deep economic depression that, beyond creating widespread and unnecessary suffering, would have likely sidelined the rest of Obama’s domestic agenda and destroyed any chance of a second term. And while the conservative backlash to the stimulus was intense, to give up on further bipartisanship in the name of uncompromising progressivism would have meant giving up on additional progressive reforms, and the entire Obama presidency.
The antibipartisan contingent among Democrats also views the two tax deals of Obama’s first term, orchestrated by Biden and McConnell, as evidence of weak-kneed capitulation. In Thursday’s debate, Bennet deemed the final tax compromise as “a complete victory for the Tea Party” and a “great deal for Mitch McConnell” because it “extended almost all those Bush tax cuts permanently.” That’s a misleading characterization that ignores how those tax deals helped the economy and saved Obama’s then-uncertain presidency.
The 2010 deal, forged the month after Republicans took the House in the Tea Party-powered midterm elections, featured a two-year extension of the George W. Bush tax cuts that were due to expire, in exchange for a 13-month extension of long-term unemployment insurance in the aftermath of the 2008 crash. The only reason the Bush tax cuts were on a timer is that the bipartisan coalition that enacted them ignored Bush’s repeated pleas to make them permanent, out of fear of exploding the long-term deficit. But to let them expire at the end of 2010 meant an abrupt increase in taxes—on the wealthy and the middle class—when the economic recovery was fragile.
Nevertheless, keeping the Bush tax cuts in place was treated as a betrayal. Bernie Sanders elevated his profile with an eight-hour Senate floor speech lambasting the deal. (“His Twitter account picked up 4,000 new followers,” marveled POLITICO at the time.) New York Times columnist Paul Krugman feared the deal meant the Bush tax cuts would keep getting extended in perpetuity, and counseled Democrats to let the Bush tax cuts expire and try to affix blame on the Republican “blackmailers.”
Yet the Biden-McConnell deal proved both economically and politically wise for Obama. More tax cuts and unemployment insurance amounted to a second stimulus, of approximately $300 billion, to the still-weak economy. During the first two quarters of 2012, Obama’s reelection year, the annualized rate of growth in gross domestic product (the only GDP growth numbers known before Election Day) didn’t crack 2 percent. Swap that extra shot of Keynes with a dose of austerity—in the form of a tax hike—and there could have been a double-dip recession right before the election. Presidents typically get the blame for recessions, so trying to finger Republicans for recalcitrance probably would have backfired.
Instead, Obama won a second term, and he strengthened his hand for the next round of tax talks. At the end of 2012, the negotiations centered on how rich you had to be to keep benefiting from Bush’s reduced tax rates; Obama campaigned on extending the tax cuts only for married couples earning less than $250,000 and individuals less than $200,000. McConnell’s initial counter was an income threshold of $750,000. With Biden leading the negotiation, they met roughly halfway, making the tax cuts permanent for the first $450,000 of income for couples and $400,000 for individuals.
Biden’s dealing once again attracted complaints, fed by disgruntled aides of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had been negotiating with McConnell until Biden swooped in. According to a New Republic account soon after the deal was struck, Reid’s offer to McConnell, a $450,000 threshold for couples and $360,000 for individuals, wasn’t all that different than Biden’s.
A recent account by Ryan Grim in the Intercept differs somewhat, saying that in his negotiations with Reid, McConnell preliminarily “agreed to let rates on people making more than $250,000 per year go back up, if to slightly lower levels to pre-Bush,” McConnell aides push back slightly, saying in Grim’s words that “McConnell had not firmly conceded anything, and that negotiations weren’t finalized.”
What’s consistent in both accounts, and confirmed by Reid himself in Grim’s story, is that Reid didn’t want a quick deal. He wanted to go over the “fiscal cliff,” letting the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone, in hopes that would shift the dialogue from whose taxes should be raised to whose taxes should be cut.
Maybe that would have produced a more progressive result. But that’s a big if. It also could have led to no deal at all, meaning the Bush tax cuts would have expired for everyone, violating Obama’s campaign pledge to prevent a middle-class tax hike during what was still a tenuous economic recovery and likely leaving Democrats to shoulder the blame.
Ever since that 2012 deal, the left and right have grabbed the statistic that 82 percent of the original Bush tax cuts remained in place—the left to grouse, the right to crow. In Grim’s report, so did an anonymous Republican operative. Just as Bennet has claimed McConnell got everything he wanted out of the deal, so did an anonymous Republican operative in Grim’s report.
That’s nonsense. Much of what remained from the Bush tax package after the compromise was geared to the middle class. In 2001, President George W. Bush stated as his key principle of his tax cut, “No one should pay more than a third of the money they earn in federal income taxes”—a goal designed to benefit the rich, since the middle-class already paid a rate lower than that. Bush settled for a top rate of 35 percent. The Biden-McConnell deal bumped that up to almost 40 percent, a rate that doesn’t include the Medicare tax surcharges targeting the wealthy that were part of the Affordable Care Act. After the deal, a New York Times headline reported that the tax code “May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979.” That’s not what McConnell or any Republican wanted, and that’s why tax reform favoring the wealthy was a top priority of the highly partisan Republican agenda after Trump’s 2016 victory.
Trump’s record of bipartisanship is horrible, but it’s not quite nonexistent. The “First Step” criminal justice reform bill, for example, was passed in December on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. That was after Democrats, including now-presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker, worked with the Trump administration to find common ground, proving that bipartisanship is still possible even in Trump’s Washington.
It’s true that bipartisanship has been more the exception than the rule in both the Obama and Trump presidencies. But string enough exceptions together, and you have yourself a successful presidency. Obama did that, and so far at least, Trump hasn’t.
The next president, if it is a Democrat, of course won’t face the exact same Congress as Obama did, but Washington will almost certainly still be a polarized place. A Democratic supermajority reaching or even approaching 60 votes in the next Senate is essentially impossible. Democrats now hold 47 Senate seats and need to net three more to claim a majority under a Democratic president. But only three Republican-held Senate seats on the ballot in 2020 are considered competitive right now. A few more states may be put into play, but almost surely not 10 more. In all likelihood, the next president will face a closely divided Senate.
The solution proposed by Warren and other Democratic “hyperpartisans” is to abolish the legislative filibuster and grease the path for ambitious progressive legislation. However, a closely divided Senate complicates that strategy. A narrow Democratic majority may retain enough institutionalists who won’t readily join an effort to use extraordinary parliamentary procedures for scuttling senatorial minority rights, even under pressure from a president with a mandate for drastic reforms. One such potential institutionalist: Bennet, who, despite his disparagement of McConnell, says that his greatest political regret is voting to abolish the filibuster for executive-branch nominees.
And junking the legislative filibuster is a nonstarter if a Democratic president faces a Republican-led Senate. The next president would either have to try to find some common ground with McConnell, or fight him nonstop and hope for a good midterm election. Warren, asked during Wednesday night’s debate how she would handle a Senate Majority Leader McConnell, suggested her plan would be the latter. “Short of a Democratic majority in the Senate, you better understand the fight still goes on,” she said. But a two-year fight without much significant legislation is not a great record to run on for your first midterm. Ask Trump about that.
Obama did turn to executive action in his second term, when the fruits of bipartisanship dwindled because Republicans took control of the House. Obama’s second-term achievements are therefore more partisan than the legislation passed in his first term—and they’ve been less enduring. Much of what Obama tried to accomplish through the executive branch, such as his climate protection plan and his legalization of more than 3 million undocumented immigrant parents, was blocked by the courts or repealed by the subsequent Congress. One notable exception is the “DACA” program that allows children of the undocumented to legally stay and work, a program that has stuck around only by the grace of temporary judicial orders. Without a bipartisan consensus that can sustain support through multiple presidencies, such programs will remain on tenuous ground.
Yes, Republicans have been extremely difficult for Democrats to work with. No, Biden can’t count on Republicans having a change of heart after a Trump defeat (though we should not assume that Republicans wouldn’t change at all after an electoral thrashing). But bipartisanship has happened—however infrequently, begrudgingly, and painstakingly—even during two of the most polarizing presidencies in modern American history, because the legislative math required it.
Biden is not the only presidential candidate who can argue she or he can be effective at practicing bipartisanship, and because two-thirds of Democrats say they prefer politicians who “make compromises with people they disagree with” over those who “stick to their positions,” more candidates may want to tout their compromising skills. Booker, during the Wednesday debate, took pride in his bipartisan triumph of criminal justice reform. The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranked Sen. Amy Klobuchar the most effective Democratic senator of the 115th Congress, in part because of her bipartisan outreach. Gov. Steve Bullock and former Gov. John Hickenlooper regularly cite their home state experiences constructively working with Republicans. But as a member of the Obama administration, Biden is the candidate best-positioned to counter the flawed notion that the pursuit of bipartisanship was Obama’s greatest weakness.
Even so, Biden might not be best positioned for anything if he can’t recover from the debate drubbing he took from Harris. But Harris appeared to recognize she shouldn’t attack Biden’s belief in bipartisanship when she said, “I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.” And she has been reluctant to join Warren’s push for abolishing the legislative filibuster, calling herself “conflicted” on the subject. If her debate performance catapults her into the top tier, she should consider further distinguishing herself from Warren and Sanders by stressing the importance of common ground to effectively govern in the Obama mold.
Democrats should not separate their love of Obama from how Obama governed. Obama may not have succeeded in ending our corrosive political polarization, but neither he did surrender to it. That’s a legacy all Democrats should be proud of defending, even if they never served as Obama’s vice president.
OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday prohibited President Donald Trump from tapping $2.5 billion in military funding to build high-priority segments of his prized border wall in California, Arizona and New Mexico.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. in Oakland acted in two lawsuits filed by California and by activists who contended that the money transfer was unlawful and that building the wall would pose environmental threats.
“All President Trump has succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening immediate harm to our state,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led a 20-state coalition of attorneys general in one lawsuit.
Speaking Saturday at a press conference marking the end of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump called the decision “a disgrace.”
“So we’re immediately appealing it and we think we’ll win the appeal,” he went on to say. “There was no reason that that should have happened. And a lot of wall is being built.”
The decisions are in line with Gilliam’s ruling last month that blocked work from beginning on two of the highest-priority projects — one spanning 46 miles (74 kilometers) in New Mexico and another covering 5 miles (8 kilometers) in Yuma, Arizona.
But the fight is far from over. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to take up the same issue of using military money next week.
At issue is President Donald Trump’s February declaration of a national emergency so that he could divert $6.7 billion from military and other sources to begin construction of the wall, which could have begun as early as Monday.
Trump declared the emergency after losing a fight with the Democratic-led House that led to a 35-day government shutdown.
The president identified $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counterdrug activities and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund.
The judge Friday didn’t rule on funding from the military construction and Treasury budgets.
In the second suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the judge determined that the use of the $2.5 billion for two sectors of the wall was unlawful, although he rejected environmental arguments that wall construction would threaten species such as bighorn sheep.
Osaka, Japan — President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping agreed to restart trade talks on Saturday, averting an escalation feared by financial markets, businesses and farmers. “We’re going to work with China where we left off,” he said.
Mr. Trump said existing U.S. tariffs would remain in place against Chinese imports while negotiations continue, but additional tariffs he’s threatened to slap on other Chinese goods will not go forward for the “time being.”
Mr. Trump spoke after a lengthy meeting with Xi on the margins of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka. The U.S. president pronounced relations with China “right back on track,” but doubts persist about the two nations’ willingness to compromise on a long-term solution.
The apparent truce continues a pattern for talks between Mr. Trump and Xi, who have more than once professed their friendship and hit pause on protectionist measures, only to see negotiations later break down over contentious details.
Eleven rounds of talks have so far failed to end the standoff. The U.S. has imposed 25% import taxes on $250 billion in Chinese products and is threatening to target another $300 billion — a move that would extend the tariffs to virtually everything China ships to the U.S.
China has lashed back with tariffs on $110 billion in American goods, focusing on agricultural products in a direct and painful shot at Mr. Trump supporters in the U.S. farm belt.
Saturday’s meeting between the two leaders was the centerpiece of four days of diplomacy in Asia for Mr. Trump, whose re-election chances have been put at risk by the trade war that has hurt American farmers and battered global markets. Tensions rose after negotiations collapsed last month.
Mr. Trump said the talks with Xi went “probably even better than expected.”
Seated across a lengthy table flanked by top aides, both leaders struck a cautiously optimistic tone after they posed for photographs.
“We’ve had an excellent relationship,” Mr. Trump told Xi as the meeting opened, “but we want to do something that will even it up with respect to trade.”
Xi, for his part, recounted the era of “ping-pong diplomacy” that helped jump-start U.S.-China relations two generations ago. Since then, he said, “one basic fact remains unchanged: China and the United States both benefit from cooperation and lose in confrontation.”
“Cooperation and dialogue are better than friction and confrontation,” he added.
China and the U.S. are sparring over the Trump administration’s allegations that Beijing steals technology and coerces foreign companies into handing over trade secrets. China denies it engages in such practices. The U.S. has also tried to rally other nations to block Chinese telecom firm Huawei from their upcoming 5G systems, branding the company a national security threat and barring it from buying American technology.
Mr. Trump said Saturday he would allow U.S. companies to sell their products to Huawei, but he was not yet willing to remove the company from a trade blacklist. The move could draw pushback from Democrats and congressional leadership.
OSAKA, Japan — President Donald Trump made an extraordinary public offer Saturday to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, inviting him to shake hands “and say hello” in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
Trump issued the invitation to the North Korean leader on Twitter as he started his final day in Japan before flying to Seoul, where Trump planned to meet with the South Korean president.
“While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello (?)!” the president tweeted.
The White House declined to comment about any potential meeting beyond the president’s tweet.
If the meeting were to transpire, it would be the first time a U.S. and North Korean leader have met in the DMZ, which despite its name is the most heavily fortified border in the world. It would also mark the third face-to-face meeting between Kim Jong Un and Trump, who made history in 2018 as the first U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader while in office.
Trump’s last summit with Kim Jong Un — in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February — collapsed abruptly, with a planned signing ceremony scrapped and Trump explaining to reporters that “sometimes you have to walk.” At the center of that failure, U.S. officials have said, was Kim’s insistence that all nuclear sanctions be lifted in exchange for only some concessions sought by the U.S. from Pyongyang related to its nuclear program.
President Donald Trump, right, listens to a reporter’s question during a bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Friday, June 28, 2019. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, left, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, second from left, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, third from left, listen. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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In the run-up to Trump’s trip to Japan for the Group of 20 summit and his subsequent stop in Seoul, there were signs that a potential tete-a-tete with Kim could be in the works. South Koreas president said publicly that U.S. and North Korean officials were holding “behind-the-scenes talks” to arrange a third summit between their leaders, although North Korea’s foreign ministry later seemed to distance itself from that notion by saying that South Korea should cease trying to mediate with Washington.
It’s unclear how much if any progress has been made between the U.S. and North Korea since the Hanoi summit in bridging the serious divides that led to its collapse. Still, the White House has acknowledged that Trump and Kim have continued to exchange correspondence since — messages that Trump has described as “beautiful letters” from the authoritarian leader of the nuclear-armed nation.
U.S. presidents and vice presidents occasionally visit the DMZ, a no-man’s land that includes a designated area where North and South Korean officials periodically have met. High-level U.S. visits are typically shrouded in secrecy and accompanied by significant security arrangements, with American leaders often holding photo-ops from a vista where they can peer through binoculars at North Korean soldiers not far away.
A stage full of Democratic presidential hopefuls in Miami. The two nights of debates underscored the changes within the party.
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A stage full of Democratic presidential hopefuls in Miami. The two nights of debates underscored the changes within the party.
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When history looks back on the first round of debates among Democrats in the 2020 presidential cycle, it will see a generational milestone.
Both nights of the twin bill in Miami put the spotlight on a national party in transition, loosening the bonds of its past and looking ahead to new personalities to propel its future.
Parties are about people, and also about ideas. The ideas openly discussed this week included free tuition at public colleges, new taxes on wealth and radical action to address climate change. They also included universal health care, medical coverage for undocumented immigrants and the phasing out of private health insurance.
All these would have been regarded as outside the mainstream not too long ago, and Republicans will surely argue they are still outside the mainstream today.
But we all tend to remember candidate debates for their emblematic moments. And this time around, viewers may remember best the Thursday night confrontation between former Vice President Joe Biden, the best-known political commodity on stage, and Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who’s still a newbie at the national level.
In the matter of Harris v Biden
TV coverage featured Harris’ challenge to Biden’s posture on busing for integration — when he was a senator and Harris was a school girl at a bus stop.
Harris was among the first black students in her cohort bused to mostly white schools in an attempt to grant equal opportunities for education, a policy that Harris said helped her and which was bitterly controversial for millions of Americans.
Surely Biden had expected someone to raise his history of co-existence with Dixie-flavored Democrats in this debate. Yet he seemed thrown off balance by the onrush of Harris’ personal emotion. The prospective nominee of 2020 was clumsily enmeshed in an issue from the 1970s.
In fact, through much of the evening, Biden’s famous ebullience seemed to have deserted him, leaving a pale shadow of the personality he showed in previous presidential runs.
Many faces of a party moving left
That was the takeaway video from the second night. But both nights emphasized the Democratic Party’s commitment to change — progressive and even radical change – as well as its deep investment in the enfranchisement of women, the young and people of color.
The new faces on stage personified the change. Three were in their 30s, four in their 40s, with six women, five people of color and an Indiana mayor whose first answer included a mention of his husband.
The contrast could scarcely be starker with the party of President Trump, who has said his e-election campaign theme will be “Keep America Great.” And it is not just the president who sounds the theme and hearkens back to the America of earlier generations. The crowds at his rallies and the ranks of Republicans in Congress also continue to be dominated by older white males.
Given the inevitable and natural force of that contrast, the urgency of the new pulsed through all four hours of these candidate showcases, which brought together 10 candidates on each night and subjected them to promptings from a tag team of five NBC News personalities.
But while some of the journalists’ questions were pointed, the most memorable moments came largely at the initiative of the candidates. So it was when Harris sailed into Biden on the second night.
But if Biden is not the juggernaut some thought he’d be, who benefits?
The older candidates
Democratic presidential candidates former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speak at the same time during the Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News.
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Democratic presidential candidates former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speak at the same time during the Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News.
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Standing between Biden and Harris on stage was the man who has run a strong second in the polls – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. At 77, Sanders is a year old than Biden and four years older than when he was when he took on Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Sanders benefited in that bid from his differences with Clinton and from the lack of any other competition after the first few debates in 2015. Sanders attracted many young people at the time who were disillusioned with Clinton or eager for something different.
The difference Sanders brought this week was not only reminiscent of his anti-capitalist rhetoric from four years ago – it was a near perfect reprise of it in style and substance. Nothing requires any candidate to evolve on a second go-round, but Sanders was notable for his lack of interest in doing so.
Running third in many polls has been Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who at 70 is also third oldest among the candidates.
But Warren exudes physical and intellectual energy, often seeming to literally vibrate with ideas on a wide range of subjects. Her age notwithstanding, Warren has her gender and personal resume to identify her with change. So she came through the week among those seen as gaining ground.
The younger candidates
But this time around, younger voters can find plenty of candidates who offer freshness far closer to their own age.
First and foremost among them is South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who at 37 is barely over the Constitutional requirement for the presidency. Buttigieg is the openly gay Indiana Democrat who came to Miami battered by racial confrontations and storm damage back home.
But in his direct and low-key way, he tried to use these travails to illustrate his candid approach to problems. His brief remarks on the subject had overtones of then-candidate Barack Obama’s race speech in March 2008 in the midst of the controversy over his outspoken pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Although not especially prominent in the Thursday night debate, Buttigieg made his mark – as he has been doing throughout the year. In this he clearly stands above the other 30-somethings in the pack, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, both members of Congress seen as building name recognition for later career moves.
Another member who got on stage this week was Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who is 45.
The senators
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., answers a question during a Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News.
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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., answers a question during a Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News.
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Some of the candidates in their 50s on stage this week could also be seen as newcomers in a more typical presidential field.
They include four U.S. senators: – Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
The first three of these had been seen as potential threats to the frontrunners. Each made an effort to be noticed this week, with Booker logging more minutes than any other contestant on Wednesday night and Klobuchar scoring points on women’s issues.
Gillibrand stood out on Thursday night by interrupting repeatedly in an effort to break through – a tactic also used by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on the previous night, to mixed reviews.
In the end, Booker may have gained the most traction of this group, although the emergence of Harris on Thursday night might dilute some of his appeal to minority voters.
The Texans
Also worth noting as generational players are the two Texans, both in their mid-40s, whose trajectories seemed to cross while headed in opposite directions this week.
On the rise is Julian Castro, 44, former mayor of San Antonio and secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Castro had been seen as a prospect for vice president, but he attracted more notice Wednesday night than in all the campaign to date.
Going the other direction is Beto O’Rourke, 46, a former member of Congress best known for a strong but unsuccessful Senate run against Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas. O’Rourke has thus far been missing the magic appeal he had in his home state last year, and his rather lackluster appearance this week did little to alter that.
The governors
Two once or current Western governors in their late 60s also joined the crowd.
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington stressed climate change on Wednesday night and former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado defended business and bipartisanship on Thursday.
One curiosity of the 2020 field is the inclusion of rather obscure candidates who might not have made the stage in another era but who bring something off-beat to the discussion.
John Delaney is a former congressman from Maryland who touts his business credentials and stands to the right of the pack on most issues. Delaney has been campaigning steadily since 2017 but has yet to make much headway in the polls, although he did qualify for this round of debates and may continue to do so.
Also in the caboose category are other “brand builders” such as author Marianne Williamson, a self-help guru who talks about love as a force in politics, and Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur who favors creating a base annual income of $12,000 for all adults.
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OSAKA, Japan — President Donald Trump on Saturday defended former Vice President Joe Biden’s performance in the first Democratic presidential debate and said Sen. Kamala Harris got “too much credit” for her searing attack on Biden over his history on race and busing to desegregate schools.
Although he conceded that Biden “didn’t do well, certainly,” Trump said the facts might not have been on Biden’s side and that had he “answered the question a little bit differently, it would have been a different result.”
Speaking to reporters at a news conference after the G-20 summit in Japan, Trump said that the line of attack by Harris was “so out of the can,” suggesting it was rehearsed ahead of time.
“It wasn’t that outstanding, and I think probably he was hit harder than he should have been hit,” Trump said.
The president’s unexpected defense of Biden, the front-runner in the Democratic race to face him in 2020, came as Harris is receiving a fresh look from primary voters following her debate performance in Miami on Thursday.
Trump in the past has seemed to focus the bulk of his political ire on opponents he perceives as posing the biggest threat.
I am in Japan at the G-20, representing our Country well, but I heard it was not a good day for Sleepy Joe or Crazy Bernie. One is exhausted, the other is nuts – so what’s the big deal?
“You never know who’s going to be tough,” Trump said of his potential competitors. “One who you think is going to be tough turns out to be not so much.”
The president also announced that his administration would be releasing a new policy related to the issue of school busing that he said would be “very interesting” and “very surprising,” although he did not give any details.
Questioned about the policy, Trump told NBC News it would be released in the coming months.
In Thursday’s debate, Biden was put on the defensive when Harris challenged his record on desegregation and busing.
Biden decades ago led a bloc of senators who opposed using federal funds to desegregate schools by bussing students. He has faced mounting criticism in recent weeks for his comments about working with lawmakers who supported segregation and opposed civil rights during his early years as a senator.
Harris punctuated her fiery attack with an emotional story of her own experience as a young black girl growing up in California.
She told the story of a little girl who was part of a wave of children bused to integrate California schools, ending with, “That little girl was me.”
Biden’s defensive and meandering reaction led some analysts to conclude he had lost political ground during the debate.
“This was not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with, ok?” Trump said of Biden. “But it wasn’t — I don’t think — nearly as bad as they portended it to be.”
Biden tried to clarify his position on the issue Friday, telling an audience at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention in Chicago that “we all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange cannot do justice to a lifetime committed to civil rights.”
President Trump on Saturday tweeted an invitation to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to come to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in. “While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Later, Mr. Trump told reporters that “I put out a feeler because I don’t know where he is right now, he may not even be in North Korea.”
“He sent me a very beautiful birthday card and I just–what I did is–and I guess he got my return letter, because it’s in the newspaper, it’s him reading the return letter,” Mr. Trump said. “But I just put out–I just thought of it this morning. We’ll be at the area, we may go to the DMZ, or the border as they call it.”
North Korea’s government released a statement calling Mr. Trump’s invitation a “very interesting suggestion” but said they hadn’t received a official proposal.
At a press conference after the conclusion of the G20 summit, Mr. Trump said he knew the Kim “follows me on Twitter” because “we got an answer very quickly.” He said he considered that the media would report he got “stood up” if Kim didn’t show up, but Mr. Trump said he decided to do it anyway.
“We’re not talking about an extended meeting — we’re just talking about a quick hello,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump will be traveling to South Korea on Saturday. Mr. Trump said he would have “no problem” crossing over the DMZ into North Korea if asked.
Mr. Trump’s summit with Kim in Vietnam earlier this year collapsed without an agreement for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. South Korea’s government said earlier Friday that North Korea is ready for talks with the U.S.
Earlier Friday, the U.S. Special Representative on North Korea, Stephen Biegun, would not answer a question from CBS News’ Weijia Jiang about whether there would be a third summit with North Korea.
As he left the White House for Asia earlier this week, Mr. Trump was asked whether he’d meet with Kim while he is in the region.
“I’ll be meeting with a lot of other people … but I may be speaking to him in a different form,” Mr. Trump said.
Such trips to the demilitarized zone, the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea, are usually undertaken under heavy security and the utmost secrecy. Mr. Trump tried to visit the DMZ when he was in Seoul in November 2017, but his helicopter was grounded by heavy fog. Mr. Trump called it a “real border” to reporters on Saturday.
Mr. Trump has met twice with Kim: in 2018 in Singapore and in February in Vietnam.
Mr. Trump repeatedly boasts of how well he gets along with Kim, who displays authoritarian tendencies.
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