President Trump on Thursday chimed in on the second Democratic presidential primary debate during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Group of 20 summit in Japan.
“They definitely have plenty of candidates, that’s about it,” Trump said of the debate while seated next to Merkel. “I look forward to spending time with you, rather than watching.
The previous night’s debate, he added, “wasn’t very exciting.”
The president told reporters that he happened to pass a television in Osaka that had the debate on when he saw the 10 candidates on stage indicate their health care plans would cover undocumented immigrants.
Merkel maintained a neutral expression and did not comment on the debates, according to reporters traveling with the president in Japan.
Trump tweeted moments before the press entered his meeting with Merkel about the Democratic health care pledge to undocumented immigrants.
“How about taking care of American Citizens first!?” he tweeted. “That’s the end of that race!”
All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!
Trump has been a more prominent fixture during Thursday night’s debate than the night before, with candidates regularly criticizing the president’s character and policies.
In general, though, the moderation was competent. Todd kept things moving and managed the glitch with a certain amount of grace, but he talked way too much. In fairness, Todd talked so much partly because he had to repeat that question three times and explain the glitch. According to a tally by FiveThirtyEight, he talked more than almost all the candidates, coming in fourth in word count behind Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke and Elizabeth Warren, in that order.
The former Housing and Urban Development secretary chose the correct topic to concentrate on during the first of two debates this week, Williams claimed Thursday on “The Daily Briefing.”
“I would agree that Julian Castro was the breakout star of the night,” he said, responding to similar comments from Republican strategist Colin Reed.
“It was because immigration is such an important topic at this moment, given the photo we have all seen, and the debate in the House,” the “Five” co-host continued, referencing a photo of a migrant father and daughter who drowned.
“It was stage center and Julian Castro was ready for it.”
However, Williams claimed some of Castro’s positions on immigration may or may not play well in a general election setting.
“Now the difficulty would be… when Castro says I want to have it not be a crime, but simply a civil infraction to cross the border, does that play into the general election audience?” he asked.
“Remember, this wasn’t intended for a general election audience.”
The first primary debate of the 2020 season saw cracks of daylight emerge in a Democratic field that has largely played to the progressive base, with the candidates clashing sharply over controversial policies like “Medicare-for-all” and calls to decriminalize illegal border crossings — while taking ample shots at President Trump in the process.
Staking out the left flank of the party on stage Wednesday night in Miami were Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — the highest-polling candidate in the first debate batch, with Round 2 coming Thursday — and long-shot Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor.
Castro was among those landing blows as he sought to distinguish himself from the field on the issue of immigration, perhaps gaining traction by targeting fellow Texan – former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
An animated Bernie Sanders caused Joe Biden to jump as the Vermont senator’s reach extended into the personal space of the former vice president.
During a discussion on climate change, Biden was reminding the audience of what the Obama administration had done for green energy, and also delivered his plan for cutting carbon emissions and addressing climate if he were elected president.
Sanders, who was obviously itching to speak, motioned with his hand moderator Rachel Maddow, who then offered Sanders the opportunity to follow-up for 30 seconds.
Sanders’ arm-swinging apparently got too close for Biden’s comfort, who widened his eyes and backed away.
In 5-4 decisions on federal rules and citizenship question, chief justice joins court liberals and frustrates the right.
Chief Justice John Roberts just keeps on breaking conservatives’ hearts.
On two consecutive days this week, Roberts sided with the court’s liberal wing to deliver 5-4 rulings that deeply disappointed right-leaning lawyers and pundits who had been counting on near-certain victory from a court now stocked with a pair of Trump-appointed justices handpicked by conservative legal activists.
Adding to the sting is the fact that the chief justice wasn’t just along for the ride on the closely watched ruling: He penned the majority opinion, which essentially accused Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross of lying about his reasons for seeking to add the question on citizenship.
“Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the Secretary gave for his decision,” Roberts wrote, backed by the court’s four liberals. He goes on to rip the government’s claims in the case as apparently “contrived” and “a distraction.”
A day earlier, Roberts was the sole GOP appointee to side with the liberal wing in a case many legal conservatives were hoping would deal a major blow to the much-loathed administrative state by overturning decades of precedent allowing federal agencies wide leeway to interpret their own regulations.
Among some conservatives close to Trump, the sense of anger and betrayal was palpable, with some on the right suffering painful flashbacks to Roberts’ 2012 decision to join with the court’s Democratic appointees and uphold Obamacare’s individual mandate even as all of his Republican-appointed colleagues dissented. The anger seemed especially acute with possible abortion-related cases on the horizon for the next term.
“I’m for impeaching the Chief Justice for lying to all of us about his support of the Constitution. He is responsible for Robertscare and now he is angling for vast numbers of illegal residents to help Dems hold Congress. Enough Deception from GOP judges on the Constitution,” American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp tweeted shortly after the Thursday ruling.
“I want to Impeach Roberts and Trump would get another pick. Sounds good to me,”’ Schlapp added. “Chief Justice John Roberts ‘fixed’ Obamacare and now he found an I significant [sic] excuse to allow those here illegally to help Dems keep the house majority. He lied to all of us and under oath in the Senate. It’s perfectly legal to ask citizenship ? on census.”
Former White House aide Sebastian Gorka also weighed in to express his disgust. “Chief Justice Roberts of the #SCOTUS betrays the US Constitution again,” Gorka said on Twitter.
Conservative pundit and former GOP Senate candidate Dan Bongino echoed recurring conservative complaints that Roberts is looking to curry favor on the Washington dinner party circuit.
“John Roberts is terrified of the liberal op-ed columnists. They know they hold him captive. They can easily sway his opinions by issuing their ‘warnings’ to him through their columns,” Bongino wrote. “He’s not a judge anymore, he’s a politician.”
Not all conservatives were up in arms about Roberts’ perceived defection Thursday on the census case.
Former Reagan White House lawyer and radio host Hugh Hewitt noted that on the same day the census case came down, Roberts joined with the court’s conservatives in a 5-4 decision that decisively rejected any role for courts in remedying political gerrymandering. The chief justice also took the pen for the majority in that fight, flatly dismissing the idea of courts resolving such disputes.
Hewitt declared the gerrymandering decision to be far more consequential. “Conservatives coiled to condemn Chief Justice over citizenship question need to focus on this incredibly important, far reaching and absolutely correct decision,” Hewitt tweeted. “Would anyone preferring that #SCOTUS clearly uphold census question and at same time continue the decades of absurd ambiguity about the clearly-delegated-to-political-bodies re-districting power please raise their hands? I know you’d like both, but if you had to choose either?”
There is a degree of selective outrage at Roberts. Trump’s newest nominee to the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, sided with liberals in a series of 5-4, late-term decisions this year, but they were less high-profile. As Gorsuch ruled in favor of criminal defendants — including a child pornography convict — in a pair of cases related to sentencing, there was no outcry from the right that Trump’s pick was abandoning his backers.
Still, Roberts’ tendency to side with liberals in some cases embraced by many Republican activists seems to grate on many conservative lawyers, including some who helped lead the fight to confirm him.
“I still haven’t fully psychologically accepted the truth about Roberts,” said Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice in an interview.
“He may in his heart think he’s a conservative, but he’s not going to be what conservatives want and liberals fear. … With each passing year — maybe this doesn’t happen every year, but we’ve seen enough of it, we kind of have to accept he’s roughly another Kennedy,” Levey said, referring to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Reagan appointee who dismayed conservatives by upholding abortion rights and leading the court to declare a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Levey said the political polarization in the country may be prodding Roberts to go further than he otherwise would in trying to ensure that the court is viewed as moderate and not being buffeted by the political winds. Last November, when President Donald Trump made derisive comments about “Obama judges,” Roberts shot back with a statement declaring “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. … What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
“At the end of the day, Roberts wants the court to be well-respected,” Levey said, calling the chief justice “a compromiser and people pleaser.”
“I think the hysteria on the left about an ‘arch conservative’ court is having an effect,” the legal activist said. “At the end of the day, [Roberts] wants the court to be well respected and a highly divided nation is a threat to the legitimacy of the court because with every decision the half the public is convinced the court is acting for political reasons.”
Beto O’Rourke was asked a straightforward question by MSNBC host Savannah Guthrie during the Democratic debate about what top marginal tax rate he would support. Naturally, O’Rourke ignored it entirely.
In his usual pretentious and hand-wavy style, the former Texas congressman sidestepped the question, instead launching into a long monologue about wealth inequality and an “economy that is rigged for corporations and the very wealthy.” Yet he knew he couldn’t get away with avoiding the question entirely and offering zero specifics so he … switched to Spanish?
He completed his answer half in Spanish, offering similar sentiments.
Almost everyone tuning into the debate, along with most Hispanic Americans, understands English. It was just Beto being Beto, useless pandering by a mediocre candidate desperate to stand out from the crowd.
Remember: “Beto” O’Rourke is a fake Hispanic. He is a Caucasian man, with no Hispanic background. O’Rourke chose to emphasize his nickname Beto and his bilingual fluency during his Senate campaign against Ted Cruz, who is actually partially Cuban, all so Beto could pander to Hispanics.
Just switching into Spanish any time you don’t want to answer the question is a pretty solid tactic.
Even liberal Vox writer Matthew Iglesias agrees. When even left-wing activists aren’t buying your identity politics pandering, you know you’ve messed up.
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The Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) attacked New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter on Thursday, saying the 2020 candidate is “full of sh–” after he tweeted his condolences over the death of an officer on Long Island, and calling him out for comments made during Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
An off-duty Bronx police officer committed suicide in his home Thursday, the fourth to do so this month. De Blasio had this to say via Twitter following the news: “We’re devastated by the news out of the NYPD this morning. An officer took his own life — one of four in recent weeks. The job of protecting this city demands so much from the officers who serve. Our city is here for them.”
The SBA responded to the tweet with its own: “Your full of sh–! You bashed every cop in the country last night in the DNC debate. You use cops for your own gain. Truth is you could care less about cops, so save the sympathy card for the clowns who believe your cr–.”
“I’ve had to have very, very serious talks with my son, Dante, about how to protect himself in the streets of our city … including the fact that he has to take special caution because there have been too many tragedies between young men and our police,” de Blasio said during the debate.
The president of the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), Patrick Lynch, released a statement condemning the mayor’s remarks.
“Mayor de Blasio has apparently learned nothing over the past six years about the extremely damaging impact of anti-police rhetoric on both cops and the communities we serve,” Lynch said.“The hostile and dangerous environment we now face on the street is a direct result of the demonization of cops by de Blasio and other elected officials.”
Lynch added, “By rolling out that rhetoric again on a national stage, it’s clear he wants to take the country down the same path.”
De Blasio has drawn the ire of law enforcement throughout his tenure in office, facing the allegation that he doesn’t have officers’ backs.
In 2017, hundreds of officers turned their backs on the mayor as he delivered a eulogy at a slain officer’s funeral.
Donald Trump Jr. seized on de Blasio’s lack of popularity in his state as he tweeting during the debate, “Deblasio using anything that he has done in NYC as a model for the country isn’t a winning plan … just ask anyone in NYC.”
According to Pete Buttigieg, the Republican Party has no right to use religious language.
During the second Democratic primary debate on Thursday night, the presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana mayor said Republicans’ rhetoric on immigration has cost them the right to invoke God.
“The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now, our party doesn’t talk about that as much, largely for a very good reason, which was we are committed to the separation of church and state and we stand for people of any religion and people of no religion,” Buttigieg said.
Never mind that regardless of “separation of church and state,” politicians have been invoking religion since time immemorial. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who shared the stage with him, recently said that Christians should support the “free will” of a woman choosing to have an abortion — and “separation of church and state” means abortion should be legal. Yet somehow, Republicans are the only ones who abuse religion for their own political gain?
Buttigieg himself has used faith as a “cudgel” against the other side, despite professing disdain for the tactic. God doesn’t have a political party, he said last month, but if the good Lord did, “I can’t imagine it would be the one that sent the current president into the White House.”
Pulling the religion card on Thursday night, Buttigieg continued: “But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.”
It’s not clear which Republicans are running around supporting that straw man. Both parties should reconsider the way they use (or abuse) religion for their rhetoric, and the problem certainly isn’t just on one side.
Ever since Congress extended permanent normal trade relations to China nearly 20 years ago, pro-China pundits have argued that increased trade and engagement with Beijing would cause the communist regime to open up and embrace Democratic values.
But China’s behavior hasn’t changed at all. To the contrary, Beijing has become more authoritarian and more adversarial. In fact, doing business with China has changed us more than it’s changed them.
The communists who control China’s government are not our friends. And yet, many American CEOs sound like lobbyists for the Chinese Communist Party. I see these corporate chieftains on the financial networks every day, attacking President Trump nonstop and taking China’s side in the current trade dispute.
On CNBC recently, a spokesman for the national Chamber of Commerce criticized Trump’s efforts to confront China over its unfair trade practices.
The national Chamber of Commerce effectively supports open borders to get cheap labor, while at the same time advocating policies that have resulted in the closure of thousands of American factories and the hollowing out of America’s middle class.
Many of these companies closed their American plants years ago and rebuilt them in China using cheap Chinese labor. Other U.S. companies are dreaming of great riches by selling into China.
The pundits and the talking heads are terrified that we are offending our Chinese trading partner. They are fretting about a “trade war.” But China has been at war economically with us for many years. Only now, finally, are we fighting back.
Unlike the last four presidents, Trump is engaged in a major effort to confront the rising threat of communist China.
It’s a very difficult battle, with two major fronts. The first is economic. China has been ripping off American intellectual property and manipulating their currency for decades. Trump is fighting to stop this rip off of American workers and consumers, and to revive the American economy, particularly in the Heartland.
But there’s another front in this battle that involves our national security.
China is challenging us militarily all over the world. China has announced a 20-year plan to control the world’s trade routes. They’ve been relentlessly launching devastating cyberattacks against the U.S. for years.
During the Obama administration, they hacked into our government databases and stole information on more than 20 million government employees. Our Navy worries they may have hacked our Naval computers.
China has also placed scores of propaganda centers on U.S. colleges known as Confucius Institutes that are funded by the Chinese Communist Party. The government is so concerned about spying that the Pentagon is cutting funding to universities that host these Confucius Institutes.
These financial and national security crimes come on top of the communist regime’s long record of human rights abuses, including its stifling of religious freedom. China is in a class by itself as a violator of human rights.
As I have written before, Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping is in the midst of an increasingly brutal campaign to exert control over religious life in China. Christian churches are being shuttered, pastors are being jailed, and the Bible itself is even being rewritten to make it more communist friendly. Meanwhile, Beijing has effectively been at war with Chinese Uighur Muslims. An estimated 1 million Uighurs have been imprisoned in “re-education” camps and subjected to prolonged physical and psychological abuse.
Unbelievingly, many American politicians insist that China is not our adversary, but our partner. You have to be in deep denial of reality to think that the communist Chinese government is our friend.
Interestingly, the financial and national security battlefronts are converging around a Chinese telecom company called Huawei. Its tentacles are all over the world. Its products are embedded in your cell phone, computer, and other electronic devices.
One reason Huawei has been so successful is that it can sell its products more cheaply than American companies can because China refuses to play by the trade rules that every other country must comply with.
The Trump administration understands that in a future showdown with China, Huawei’s technology and software can be used as a modern day Trojan Horse to thwart our military in a way that causes us to lose a future conflict.
When it comes to taking on China, every American politician ought to be standing with the president, and so should Wall Street. Sadly, they’re not.
China is not just a trading partner. China is also our adversary. Make no mistake about that. More American businesses and political leaders should start recognizing that, and they should start putting our workers and America’s interests first.
Maybe the corporate CEOs and financial titans who praise China and attack the U.S. should put the following quote on their mirrors to read every morning: “The capitalist will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
That’s a quote from Vladimir Lenin, one of communism’s founders.
America’s CEOs should feel a debt of gratitude to the country that has allowed them to flourish. They should remember that they will not succeed unless America succeeds.
Gary Bauer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of American Values and chairman of Campaign for Working Families. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.
“The secretary,” he wrote, “was determined to reinstate a citizenship question from the time he entered office; instructed his staff to make it happen; waited while commerce officials explored whether another agency would request census-based citizenship data; subsequently contacted the attorney general himself to ask if D.O.J. would make the request; and adopted the Voting Rights Act rationale late in the process.”
“Altogether,” the chief justice wrote, “the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the secretary gave for his decision.”
The trial judge in the case had given the administration another chance to provide an explanation, and the Supreme Court affirmed that ruling.
“In these unusual circumstances,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “the district court was warranted in remanding to the agency, and we affirm that disposition.”
Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan joined the key part of the chief justice’s opinion.
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the majority had done something extraordinary. “For the first time ever,” he wrote, “the court invalidates an agency action solely because it questions the sincerity of the agency’s otherwise adequate rationale.”
Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined Justice Thomas’s partial dissent.
Justice Thomas said the consequences of the majority decision would be far-reaching. “Now that the court has opened up this avenue of attack,” he wrote, “opponents of executive actions have strong incentives to craft narratives that would derail them.”
Justice Alito filed his own partial dissent.
“To put the point bluntly,” he wrote, “the federal judiciary has no authority to stick its nose into the question whether it is good policy to include a citizenship question on the census or whether the reasons given by Secretary Ross for that decision were his only reasons or his real reasons.”
Progressives said they felt stung by the stunning course-reversal by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where she swiftly bowed to pressure from moderates. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
The four-day whiplash battle proved Pelosi, who often describes herself as a ‘master negotiator,’ is not invincible.
Democrats broke into open warfare Thursday over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s surrender to the Senate’s emergency border aid package, with the caucus’s long-simmering divide between progressives and centrists playing out in dramatic fashion on the House floor.
Some lawmakers even resorted to public name-calling, with progressive leader Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) accusing moderate Democrats of favoring child abuse — an exchange on Twitter that prompted a pair of freshmen centrists to confront him directly on the floor, with other lawmakers looking on in shock.
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Pelosi has spent months deftly navigating a diverse caucus brimming with political novices, deeply split on ideological lines and itching to throw the president out of office. But this week’s fiasco exposed fissures in Pelosi’s rank-and-file, in her leadership and in her relationship with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“She is a very experienced legislator, but I think this is a very rough patch,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“We can’t say that we have a lawless administration or a president who should be in prison, or whatever people want to say about him, but then cave,” she added. “You have to fight for what you believe.”
And the conclusion of the four-day whiplash battle within the caucus proved Pelosi, who often describes herself as a “master negotiator,” is not invincible. The battle further illustrates the hurdles Pelosi faces in the fall as she tries to keep her caucus united while negotiating with Republicans to avoid a fiscal cliff and debt default.
Just before the vote, Pocan, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, inflamed tensions further when he called the Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of moderates that pushed Pelosi to take up the Senate bill — the “Child Abuse Caucus.”
The stinging attack was a reference to the Senate bill’s lack of additional language to protect migrant children that House progressives had fought aggressively for.
“Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” Pocan wrote on Twitter.
Reps. Max Rose (D-N.Y.), and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), both members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, confronted Pocan on the House floor over his tweet. According to sources familiar with the conversation, Rose used expletives, and Pocan said he did not apologize.
“I said, how come you can’t stay 24 hours to do your job?” Pocan said of his retort to Rose on the floor. “He said, ‘My mother thinks I’m a child abuser.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell your mother you’re not a child abuser.’”
Rose, whom his party considers to be vulnerable in 2020, vented his frustration Thursday shortly after the exchange, calling Pocan’s tweet “crazy, crazy language.”
“Mark’s tweet just speaks to why everyone hates this place. He’s just trying to get retweets. That’s all he cares about,” Rose told POLITICO.
Their spat continued on Twitter, with Pocan responding: “Maybe the REAL problem is someone who thinks this is about retweets and not about bad contractors, awful conditions and kids.”
More than 90 Democrats voted against the Senate bill, including members of leadership like Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.) — a sign of the deep discontent simmering within the caucus. In a shocking move, Pelosi’s entire team of negotiators on the border aid bill, including House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) also voted no.
Progressives, including Pocan, said they felt stung by the stunning course-reversal by Pelosi, where she swiftly bowed to pressure from moderates who had threatened to tank the House version of the bill — which contained hard-fought wins for the liberal Democrats. And Pocan warned that it could fire up the 90-member Congressional Progressive Caucus to take more hardline stances on key bills in the coming months.
“I just think it’s hard to ask our caucus to help deliver votes to pass things,” Pocan said. “It’s just going to be a lot harder for us to care to help deliver votes.”
Multiple other liberal Democrats were also publicly seething at their centrist colleagues for forcing Pelosi to abandon her initial plan to vote on an amended version of the Senate bill that contained additional protections for migrant children.
House centrists, meanwhile, took a victory lap for their earlier efforts to pressure Pelosi into taking up the Senate bill.
“You have to understand, you’re not going to get everything you want,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, said in an interview after the bill passed. “We just wanted to make sure that none of us went home without getting something done for children and families at the border.”
Hours earlier, Gottheimer and other Democratic moderates began privately lobbying their colleagues to threaten to oppose their own caucus’s version of the border bill, arguing that Pelosi should simply take up the Senate version. Those members, who belonged to both the Problem Solvers Caucus and the Blue Dog Coalition, ultimately totaled 18 — enough to tank the bill.
Pelosi went back to the negotiating table, speaking with Vice President Mike Pence for an hour before huddling with her leadership team. Pence agreed to some “administrative fixes” that addressed some Democratic concerns — and Pelosi announced her House would vote on the clean Senate bill as a result — but it wasn’t enough to calm furious liberals.
“I think the Problem Solvers Caucus is emerging to be this tea party within our own Democratic Party,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO. “I find their tactics to be extremely concerning. It’s horrifying. It’s horrifying.”
The New York Democrat said she blames the centrist group for the House getting stuck with the Senate’s funding package.
But other members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, who pride themselves on being bipartisan and largely staying out of the headlines, were privately livid.
Facing an uprising from both the right and left wings of the caucus, Pelosi struggled to contain members’ outrage on Thursday over being forced to concede to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who refused to entertain Democratic demands that he amend the Senate bill.
The end result also left House Democrats fuming at Schumer and Senate Democrats, who voted overwhelmingly for the Senate’s border aid package, weakening the House majority’s negotiating position, they said.
“It obviously significantly undermined our leverage and our ability to keep these important protections in the bill,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), a member of House leadership who voted against the bill Thursday.
Pelosi expressed her own unhappiness with Schumer at a Democratic leadership meeting Thursday, complaining that he couldn’t corral his members to support the House bill, according to a source in the room.
Progressive lawmakers were much sharper — and public — in their criticism. Jayapal said Senate Democrats should have grown a “spine” and not voted with Senate Republicans on Wednesday.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a progressive firebrand, declined to fault House leaders, placing the blame instead squarely on the shoulders of Senate Democrats, most of whom backed the Senate bill.
“Let’s focus on the fact that Senate Democrats joined the leadership behind McConnell in support of something that had no safeguards, no basic human rights for these children,” she said. “What are you doing? You’re just throwing money and saying, ‘continue what you’re doing President Trump, you’re doing a fine job.’”
Senate Democratic sources privately blamed House Democrats, saying they pulled out of bipartisan border aid negotiations in May after the Congressional Hispanic Caucus objected. Some House Democrats also privately blamed Jayapal, who they say inflamed the CHC, urging them to pressure leadership to pull out of the negotiations in May. Others argued that some of the demands from both progressives and Hispanic members came too late in negotiations.
That resulted in the Senate moving forward on its own, with the Senate Appropriations Committee approving its bipartisan package 30-1 before it overwhelmingly passed on the floor.
“Senate Democrats were with the House Dems all the way, but their bill couldn’t pass the Senate,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. “By refusing to participate in a four-corner negotiation for weeks, House Dems never allowed themselves the chance to have a say in a bill that could actually become law, so they only have themselves to blame for that.”
House Democratic leaders sought to tamp down the controversy but acknowledged they weren’t able to get the job done, refusing to blame their Senate colleagues.
“It’s done. It’s not time for blame,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. “We would have hoped that we would have had the opportunity to get the vision that we think should have been supported by the Senate. We were disappointed we weren’t able to get that in there.”
John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman, Melanie Zanona and Laura Barrón-López contributed to this report.
A sample of the new warning notices that Twitter users will see before clicking to see tweets by government officials and political figures that violate Twitter’s rules.
Twitter is creating a warning label to flag and suppress political tweets that break the platform’s rules on acceptable speech. It’s a bold step for the company, which has come under sharp criticism for its handling of tweets by major political figures including President Trump.
The company will not delete the offensive, bullying or hateful tweets of politicians. But, it announced in a blog post Thursday, it will begin marking them up. When a politician’s tweet breaks the rules, it will get hidden under a warning label that says:
“The Twitter Rules about abusive behavior apply to this Tweet. However, Twitter has determined it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain available.”
A user will have to click or tap to view.
The new measure applies to verified political leaders and candidates who have more than 100,000 followers. The abusive tweets will be ranked down by algorithms as well, thereby getting fewer views.
Those days are long gone. Following the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, which was livestreamed on Facebook, Twitter entered a compact with other social media giants to more aggressively track down violent or extremist content. Meanwhile, Republican leaders have repeatedly accused Twitter and others of having an anti-conservative bias.
Last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in congressional testimony: “Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.”
Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio talks to ‘Fox News @ Night.’
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was forced to apologize for citing Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara Thursday after he quoted the guerrilla leader to pump up a crowd of union members in Miami.
De Blasio was captured on video yelling the phrase, “Hasta la victoria, siempre!” which translates to mean “Until victory, always!”
“We will be with you every step of the way,” he added as he spoke to a crowd of striking airport workers.
De Blasio tweeted out an apology less than one hour after CBS4 Miami posted the video, and said he did not mean to offend anyone “who heard it that way.” He also admitted to not knowing the history behind Guevara and offered up a mea culpa for his ignorance.
De Blasio also apologized on camera for his remarks in the debate spin room and said he was only trying to encourage the embattled workers. He said he takes “full responsibility” for his mistake but predicted most voters would move on and not hold it against him.
“It was an honest mistake. I apologized for it. I understood it just to be a Spanish-language phrase,” he said. “I used it not knowing that was the origin. When I heard it was the origin I apologized immediately. Did not mean to offend anybody. I was telling those airport workers — I thought they were going to win their strike in the end. They responded energetically because it was simply a matter of encouraging them.”
But look as a leader you have to be able to apologize when you make a mistake. And even though I didn’t know the origin I still have to take responsibility and I say I apologize to anyone offended — didn’t get it. I won’t — not make that mistake again for sure.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., didn’t seem sold on the explanation. He tweeted: “De Blasio studied Latin American politics in college, was a very active supporter of the Sandinistas in #Nicaragua & even honeymooned in #Cuba in violation of U.S. law. But he had NO IDEA he was quoting Che Guevara today. It was all just an incredible coincidence.”
De Blasio also grabbed headlines at Wednesday night’s debate among Democratic presidential candidates when he was one of only two who said they’d be willing to sacrifice their own private health insurance in favor of a government plan. The only candidate to join him was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
A detention facility in Clint, Texas opens their doors to the media; Casey Stegall reports on what he saw.
CLINT, Texas — Members of the press were given a private tour inside the U.S. Border Patrol Operations Center here on Wednesday.
This is the same location where immigration attorneys, last week, made some disturbing accusations about inhumane conditions at the makeshift juvenile holding center: cramped space, scarce food, little supervision and sickness running rampant.
No cameras or phones were allowed inside (border patrol says it’s to protect the security and identity of those in their custody, especially kids.)
The El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief, Aaron Hull, said the recent headlines accusing guards at the facility of being callous were upsetting because of the agents are risking their lives to enforce the law in a way that’s humane.
“It’s hurtful,” Hull told the group of reporters about the recent headlines. “Most of us are parents ourselves and we genuinely care about the welfare of these kids.”
He said agents are trying to do with right thing with “what we’ve got.” But he admits limited resources is making it difficult for them to do their job – so he’s imploring lawmakers to come up with a solution.
But he denied the headlines that the facilities are inhumane and lacking basic hygiene. He said lawyers who made the accusation did not physically enter the building and were instead basing it on interviews with children detained there.
The Clint facility was originally designed to house 106 migrants at a time, for only about eight to 10 hours. But the alarming number of migrants crossing the border has overwhelmed facilities. The feds say with apprehension numbers at record highs, virtually every corner of the system is swamped and local sectors, like El Paso, are feeling the domino effect.
When the lawyers visited last week, there were about 250 kids on-site. Right now, there are currently 117, who range in age from one month to nearly 18. At its peak, almost two months ago, agents said roughly 700 were being housed at the compound.
When Fox News toured the facility Wednesday night, there children sitting on cots and bunk beds. There were lots of flies buzzing around since the doors were constantly being swung open. There were seven port-potties outside and military-style showers.
There were pallets of food. Each day, the children eat Oatmeal for breakfast and ramen noodles for lunch. For dinner, they have a burrito.
But critics said the government offered the tour because of the backlash and had time to improve conditions inside. They also questioned why the government did not allow reporters to film the inside of the facility.
Hull said agents are trying to process migrants quickly – but there is a major backlog because of the record number of migrants illegally entering the country.
“When we catch more than they can turn and process, migrants start to build up, here at the station,” he said.
On Thursday, a group of about 60 protesters gathered outside the Clint facility holding various signs reading “Free the Children” and “Families Belong “Together.”
They also organized a line of vehicles to drive down the road, honking horns. Some wrote messages of support to the migrants on their car windows in both English and Spanish.
President Donald Trump suggested that he wants to delay the 2020 census following a Supreme Court ruling that its form cannot include a question about citizenship.
“Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020,” the president tweeted after the decision.
“I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter,” Trump wrote in two tweets Thursday afternoon.
“Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!”
Phil Stark, a statistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a census expert, said he can’t recall any time the White House has asked for a delay in the decennial count.
“Months delay wouldn’t be super bad, I suppose, but a year’s delay would be unheard of,” he told NBC News.
Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant and leading census authority, said Trump’s call for a delay threatens the count being carried out on time in 2020, as constitutionally mandated.
“We are in uncharted territory,” she said. “I believe if the Census Bureau cannot proceed with printing the forms as scheduled, there is a risk we will not have census next year.”
The execution of the process to take count of America is far more complex than simply mailing out forms and counting the responses, experts said. Simply, the logistics of printing and the U.S. Postal Service’s timeline for delivery have been in the planning since the last census was taken a decade ago.
“This is the nation’s most complex peacetime operation. It is carried out on an unforgiving and unamenable schedule,” Lowenthal said.
“There are so many moving parts here, it cannot be redone on a dime.”
Despite Trump’s call to delay the count, the calendar itself might make that impossible, according to Joshua Geltzer, founding executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and a visiting law professor at Georgetown University.
In a videotaped statement, Geltzer called the high court’s ruling Thursday a “last major word” on whether Trump can ask 2020 census respondents if they are citizens.
“Given the court’s holding and given the timeline for the 2020 census, this seems likely to be the last major word on the citizenship question,” Geltzer said.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices in the 5-4 ruling.
Roberts, who has increasingly become the court’s swing vote, strongly hinted that he believed the Trump administration’s stated intention for the citizenship question “seems to have been contrived” and was “more of a distraction.”
“We are presented, in other words, with an explanation for agency action that is incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency’s priorities and decision-making process,” Roberts wrote.
Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, said, “We are really, truly creating a whole generation of children that won’t forget what we did.”
But the House Democrats’ left flank was defeated by the party’s moderates. Opposition from the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and several lawmakers from Republican-leaning districts had forced House Democrats to delay a vote to bring up their measure in an embarrassing display of disarray. Moderate Democrats had threatened to vote against the rule for debate on the modified bill, a show of disloyalty to the leadership that is almost unheard-of under Ms. Pelosi.
“They are melting down, in disarray, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to do,” crowed Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican. “There’s a bipartisan bill to solve a crisis. Everybody in this town knows the Senate bill is going to pass. Everybody knows how it’s going to end.”
Moderate Democrats privately told House Democratic leaders that they were wary of supporting a bill that provided less money for ICE that could later be used against them in their re-election campaigns to portray them as weak on immigration enforcement, according to two lawmakers and several aides familiar with the discussions who described them on the condition of anonymity.
The squabbling grew intense on the House floor on Thursday afternoon, as a scrum of the moderate members huddled in tense discussion about how to proceed. At least one, Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, grew visibly emotional and at one point stormed out red-faced, barking at a reporter who tried to interview her: “I do not want to talk!”
The legislation has posed a tricky political test for Ms. Pelosi, whose caucus has been deeply divided by it. Liberals, including some Hispanic lawmakers, balked at the bill this week because they feared it would only enable Mr. Trump’s harsh immigration tactics by funding the very agencies that have carried them out. They threatened to withhold their votes, insisting on adding new restrictions and stiffer standards for facilities that house migrant children, as well as more conditions on how the funding would be spent. In the end, almost every Democrat supported the resulting House bill.
But on Thursday, another proposed change, an $81 million cut for ICE, set off a brush fire on the right of the caucus.
In a six-hour conversation with Capitol Hill aides, Rex Tillerson recounted his rocky tenure at the State Department.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was having dinner at a local restaurant when the owner came over to tell him that Mexico’s foreign secretary happened to be eating at the same place. Would he like to say hello?
Tillerson was surprised, he recently recounted to congressional aides, because he hadn’t been informed that his Mexican counterpart, Luis Videgaray Caso, was in Washington, D.C. He walked over to find that Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, was dining with the foreign diplomat.
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“I could see the color go out of the face of the foreign secretary of Mexico as I very — I smiled big, and I said: ‘Welcome to Washington,’” Tillerson told the staffers. “And I said: ‘I don’t want to interrupt what y’all are doing.’ I said: ‘Give me a call next time you’re coming to town.’ And I left it at that.”
According to Tillerson, the Mexican diplomat had thought that the secretary of State was fully aware that he was meeting with Kushner. Apparently, however, Kushner hadn’t looped in the State Department.
The anecdote was one of the most vivid that Tillerson shared with bipartisan representatives of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 21, according to a partially redacted transcript of the private conversation released Thursday.
The former secretary of State, whom Trump fired in March 2018 after just 14 months on the job, painted a portrait of a presidential administration lacking in internal coordination and cohesion. The discussion touched on everything from Tillerson’s struggle to convince the White House to let him hire people, to his “realist” view of human rights. Tillerson frequently answered questions by saying he couldn’t recall, but overall it was his most extensive personal account to date of his time spent as America’s chief diplomat.
The conversation — which lasted more than six hours, including breaks — occurred with committee staffers. Tillerson also met for about 90 minutes with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel and ranking member Rep. Mike McCaul. That conversation was not included in the transcript.
Some snippets of the conversation already have been reported, such as Tillerson’s comments that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had out-prepared Trump for meetings, and whether the Russians had manipulated Trump and Tillerson in such sessions. Those earlier reports infuriated Trump, who lashed out on Twitter, calling Tillerson “dumb as a rock.”
Tillerson spoke very cautiously about Trump himself, avoiding direct criticism. But he effectively confirmed past reports of his tensions with Kushner. He expressed disdain, even anger, toward Kushner and his peripatetic role in crafting U.S. foreign policy, especially when he wouldn’t coordinate with the State Department.
From the start, it was unclear what role Kushner as well his wife, Ivanka — Trump’s daughter — would play in policy making, Tillerson said. That “made it challenging for everyone, I think, in terms of how to deal with any activities that might be undertaken by others that were not defined within the national security process itself,” he said.
Kushner, who has pitched in on everything from U.S. trade policy with Mexico to trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would sometimes travel abroad and not coordinate with the U.S. Embassy where he was going. Tillerson said he raised such issues with Kushner, who promised to “do better.”
“Not much changed,” Tillerson said.
Kushner’s relationship with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at times hampered Tillerson’s ability to calm tensions in the Middle East, the former diplomat indicated. That was especially the case in June 2017, when those and other Arab countries decided to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar, a tiny, wealthy Arab state home to a key U.S. military facility.
The moves against Qatar, which eventually bloomed into a full-on economic blockade, surprised Tillerson and other top U.S. officials. But committee staffers told Tillerson they’d been informed that the Saudis and the Emiratis had laid out their plans for Qatar to Kushner and another Trump aide, Steve Bannon, at a dinner weeks earlier, on May 20, 2017.
Tillerson said he’d not heard about that dinner until the committee staffers told him. When asked how that felt, he said: “It makes me angry … because I didn’t have a say. The State Department’s views were never expressed.”
On Russia, Tillerson said he agreed with Trump’s general view that the U.S. needed to improve its relationship with Moscow, and that he tried to convey the need for Moscow and Washington to find some common ground when he met with Putin and other Russian officials.
Although he avoided delving into details about those conversations, and often said he didn’t remember much of what happened, Tillerson insisted that he was up front with Putin about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, which he said he stated as a fact.
“There were a list of obstacles we went through; but, yes, the election interference was specifically mentioned as creating huge challenges for us here in Washington,” he said, adding later: “I said it just has to stop.”
Putin denied the interference had occurred, Tillerson said.
Tillerson said the White House did not tell him in advance how to frame that issue. Asked about Trump’s general knowledge of Russia, Tillerson said “he was having to learn along the way.”
The former secretary of State also said he did not remember an incident recounted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
While Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia, his lengthy report said Kushner gave Tillerson a copy of a plan for U.S.-Russian reconciliation that had been authored in part by Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
“I don’t recall ever receiving any such report as described in the Mueller report or any other,” Tillerson said.
Tillerson stood by his past description of Trump as “a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read things, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of lots of things.” Trump also often had a pre-set stance on issues, and he indicated to aides that they would have to convince him he was wrong but that they were not likely to succeed, Tillerson said.
The former diplomat said he wasn’t speaking pejoratively of Trump when he described him in such a manner, but that he realized he had to adjust to the president’s “style.”
That meant being extremely concise in presenting information to Trump. Still, it “never deterred me or anyone at the State Department, to my knowledge, from putting forth the best view we thought we could put together,” he said.
Tillerson also clarified earlier public comments he’d made about how Trump would often seek solutions to policy problems that were legally problematic.
“The president never asked me to violate the law,” he told the committee representatives, adding that Trump was simply on a steep learning curve. “He was very action oriented: Get it done, get it done, get it done. And so just sometimes you had to say: ‘We can’t do that.’”
Trump never referred to his personal or family business in relation to foreign policy, nor did he give indications that those were factors in his thinking on such matters, Tillerson said. He answered several questions about other characters in the Trump orbit whose business activities and overseas links have raised suspicions, such as Elliott Broidy, by saying he didn’t know them.
The former secretary repeatedly sidestepped questions about Trump’s apparent affinity for authoritarian leaders such as Putin. He also declined to discuss reports that he’d once called Trump a “moron” behind his back. He’s never denied doing so, however.
Pressed on why the Trump administration seemed often absent on promoting human rights and democracy, Tillerson argued that it really acted no differently that previous presidential administration. He described himself as a “realist” on human rights — he believes in their importance but doesn’t think harping on the topic always advances the cause long-term.
“Sometimes going in and just pounding the table over that issue, [other countries] just shut down. They just ignore you. They say ‘Just go away. You are of no use to me,’” he said.
Asked if he could describe Trump’s value system, Tillerson said “No, I can’t.” One of his lawyers then shifted the conversation away from further questioning on that point.
A State Department lawyer was present during the interview with the House committee staffers — the department requested a presence and Tillerson said he was amenable to the idea. Tillerson brought at least two attorneys of his own. The committee’s lawyers noted that he was required by law to answer the questions truthfully. The redacted portions of the transcript were done so at either State or Tillerson’s request.
Engel, the committee chairman, has previously described Tillerson’s meeting with him and McCaul as “heartening” given Trump’s efforts to prevent other aides and former aides from talking to lawmakers trying to investigate the president.
Tillerson told the committee representatives that he had been looking forward to retiring from ExxonMobil and spending time with his grandchildren when Trump offered him the chance to serve as secretary of State. He met with Trump about the role after initially ignoring calls from the then-president-elect’s transition staffers in the weeks after the 2016 election.
He agreed to see Trump only hearing from Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect. “I said: ‘Well, I will take that call,’” Tillerson told the committee. Pence told him that, because of his relationships with many heads of state due to his role at ExxonMobil, Trump wanted to talk to him about global affairs.
Tillerson, who had met with past presidents to talk about such issues, agreed to meet Trump if he could do so discreetly. He refused to go “through the gold-gilded lobby of the Trump Tower because that was the revolving door of everybody that was interviewing for a job. … So I went up through a residential entrance.”
Kushner and two other Trump aides, Bannon and Reince Priebus, sat in on Tillerson’s meeting with Trump, which he recalled as being in early December 2016. During the session, Tillerson walked Trump through major world regions and spoke about U.S. challenges in each.
One example he mentioned raising with Trump was the effect international sanctions on Russia — he appeared to be alluding to penalties imposed after Moscow invaded Ukraine — were having on other countries who did business there.
“We talked about the challenges that had been created by the Russian sanctions for the Europeans because it was — it had had a greater effect on them than it had on most American businesses,” he said.
Neither Trump nor the president-elect’s aides asked many questions during the meeting, Tillerson said. But in the latter stages, Trump “went into a bit of a sales pitch and asked me to be the secretary of State, and I was stunned.”
Tillerson indicated that he had thought Trump had other people in mind for the role. He asked Trump for a few days to talk to ExxonMobil and his family, and before agreeing to take the job, he met with Trump again in person to ask three questions. He declined to tell the committee representatives what those questions or Trump’s answers were, however.
Tillerson had a rocky tenure at State. He disagreed with Trump on major issues, such as how to deal with Iran. Tillerson also alienated many U.S. diplomats by shutting them out of the decision-making process, imposing a hiring freeze and trying to push through a redesign of the department.
Tillerson said he grew frustrated with the White House for blocking him from naming certain people to top spots at State for reasons he felt were not satisfactory. He had thought he’d had more freedom to pick his aides. But months went on and numerous positions were left open.
“If people signed the ‘Never Trump’ letter, that would oftentimes disqualify them,” he recalled. “If they had tweeted something or retweeted something that the White House office thought was inappropriate, then that might disqualify them. If they had a spouse that might have supported the other candidate, that would disqualify them.”
The process “never did work smoothly,” he said.
He also said he tried to prevent the White House from proposing massive cuts to the State Department’s budget, although he said that he would have liked to see some significant budget reductions because he thought the existing spending was too bloated.
Asked about his attempt to redesign the State Department, Tillerson said the biggest obstacle to the largely unsuccessful effort were older, senior-level staffers who “don’t want anybody moving their cheese.” Tillerson also said it was his decision to dramatically reduce media access to the department, including cutting down the number of press briefings.
Tillerson told his interviewers that he was grateful to Trump for the opportunity to serve as secretary of State, and he repeatedly praised the career diplomats who work at State. He also sounded a note of modesty.
“In retrospect, the experience was both humbling and inspiring, and it will always be the great honor of my life,” he said.
Twitter will begin flagging tweets from public officials that violate the social media platform’s rules as the social media giant attempts to be more transparent about its terms of service.
Twitter announced the new policy on Thursday in a blog post. Twitter’s post does not mention President Trump by name, but others in tech and related industries immediately connected it with him.
“Twitter doesn’t call out Trump by name, but this is clearly a new Trump rule — labeling tweets that violate rules,” CNBC tech editor Steve Kovach tweeted.
“This policy change could face its most prominent test in President Trump, who has repeatedly tested Twitter’s community standards,” CNN Business tweeted.
A disconnect between Twitter’s stated rules and how it chooses to enforce those rules on the platform has confused many users and led to accusations of bias and favoritism, the company said. Effective Thursday, the company will flag and limit the reach of tweets that violate the platform’s policies but that Twitter executives have decided to leave up as a matter of public interest.
“We’ll place a notice – a screen you have to click or tap through before you see the Tweet – to provide additional context and clarity,” the blog post says. “We’ll also take steps to make sure the Tweet is not algorithmically elevated on our service, to strike the right balance between enabling free expression, fostering accountability, and reducing the potential harm caused by these Tweets.”
The new policy will apply to government officials, people running for public office, and those being considered for a public position. The user must be verified with more than 100,000 followers.
Flagged tweets will be restricted in reach and will not appear in a variety of search and interactive functions of the platform, such as in a safe search or in a recommended tweet notification.
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