WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s celebration of U.S. Independence Day, which included bringing tanks and equipment to Washington, cost the military at least $1.2 million.
Two Bradley fighting vehicles flanked Trump during his July Fourth speech last week, in which he praised American military might despite having himself avoided the draft during the Vietnam War with bone spurs in his feet.
Trump told stories about each military branch before separate, dramatic flyovers of their respective military aircraft.
Trump, a Republican who was inspired to stage the flashy affair after seeing a similar display in France, dismissed concerns ahead of the ceremony about the expense and militaristic overtones of the event outside the 97-year-old Lincoln Memorial, a symbol of national unity.
“The total cost of the Department’s support to the ‘Salute to America’ event was $1.2 million,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
In addition to the cost to the military, the Washington Post reported last week that the U.S. National Park Service had diverted $2.5 million in park entrance fees to help pay for the event.
The actual cost for the Pentagon is likely higher, since the Pentagon said funding for the aircraft demonstrations came from the military services’ training budgets.
It was not immediately clear if all of the $1.2 million was for the cost of transporting equipment like two Abrams tanks and two Bradley fighting vehicles from Fort Stewart in Georgia for the celebration.
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The military did not immediately provide a breakdown of the cost. Simply flying the B-2 bomber for an hour costs about $122,000, according to the Air Force.
On Monday, Trump said such an event would take place in the future.
“Based on its tremendous success, we’re just making the decision – and I can think we can say we’ve made the decision – to do it again next year, and, maybe we can say, for the foreseeable future,” Trump told reporters.
The July Fourth holiday celebrates the U.S. founders’ declaring independence from Britain in 1776. (Reporting by Idrees Ali. Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu. Editing by Bill Berkrot)
The Economist-YouGov poll is the latest showing some shuffling in the Democratic field.
Sanders has held the second-place spot behind Biden in most public surveys for months, but some recent polls have shown Warren and Harris nudging past him.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls still has Sanders in second place, trailing Biden by nearly 12 points.
Harris saw a significant bump in the Economist-YouGov survey following her confrontation with Biden during the first Democratic primary debate late last month, jumping from 7 percent in the poll to 15 percent in the week that followed.
That confrontation centered on the former vice president’s opposition to school “busing” during his early years as a senator in the 1970s.
The most recent Economist-YouGov poll suggests, however, that Harris’s post-debate surge may be slowing down as attention shifts to the next round of primary debates set for later this month.
The poll surveyed 1,500 people, including 1,140 registered voters, in web-based interviews from July 7-9. It has a margin of error of 2.6 percent for the entire sample and 3 percent for registered voters.
Last night, President Donald Trump chose to side with Georgia Democrats who have spent the last 72 hours trying to tamp down talk of a boycott of Atlanta-based Home Depot.
No, really. That’s what happened.
The episode started with an AJC report that Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus had decided to give away most of his fortune — and that some of that cash would go to Trump’s re-election effort.
Offended liberals began spreading an ominous hashtag: #boycotthomedepot.
But anyone who knows anything about Georgia politics knows that Home Depot philanthropy is quite bipartisan.
Late Monday night, state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, countered with her own Twitter message, pointing out that the company’s other co-founder, Arthur Blank, is a Democrat who donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and other down-ticket races.
“It’s not all so cut and dried. So do your research before you #BoycottHomeDepot,” she wrote.
On Tuesday morning, Stacey Evans, a 2018 gubernatorial contender, offered an amen. Evans’ Twitter message:
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“Not everything is about politics. 1000s of Georgians put food on the table bc of jobs at@HomeDepot and many cmmy orgs benefit from the the co’s generosity. Knee jerk reactions are out of control, y’all!”
A truly great, patriotic & charitable man, Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot who, at the age of 90, is coming under attack by the Radical Left Democrats with one of their often used weapons. They don’t want people to shop at those GREAT stores because he contributed….
….to your favorite President, me! These people are vicious and totally crazed, but remember, there are far more great people (“Deplorables”) in this country, than bad. Do to them what they do to you. Fight for Bernie Marcus and Home Depot!
Trump made no mention of Blank.
Clearly, it won’t do for both Republicans and Democrats to defend Home Depot from a boycott. That wouldn’t make sense. So here’s what we’ll do: Bernie Marcus supporters will patronize everything from the nuts-and-bolts aisle to pressure-treated lumber.
Support for Arthur Blank will be confined to the power tool aisle west to the home-and-garden section. Everyone agree?
***
Our AJC colleague Mark Niesse reports that two federal lawsuits over the 2018 election have been quietly resolved after changes to state law governing absentee ballots. State law now prohibits election officials from disqualifying absentee ballots because of a signature mismatch or a missing birth year and address.
***
Now there are two:Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry, who has pushed his city to embrace pioneering liberal policies, launched a campaign Wednesday against Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue with a promise to “bring courage back to Washington.” The other Democrat in the contest is Teresa Tomlinson, the former mayor of Columbus.
Our WSB Radio colleague Jamie Dupree has latched onto this eyebrow-raising nugget from Monday’s hearing before a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act:
During over 90 minutes of arguments, the two Republican judges openly struggled with whether to send the case back to a lower court for more work, puzzled by a new brief from the Trump Administration, which suggested that the Obama health law basically be repealed only in the 18 GOP-led states involved in this legal challenge.
“I think we would have to evaluate whether we’ve been the victim of a bait and switch,” said Kyle Hawkins, the Solicitor General in the state of Texas, about that idea.
Georgia, of course, is one of those 18 red states pressing the case.
***
Hillary Rodham Clinton is coming to Atlanta, reports our AJC colleague Ernie Suggs. The former secretary of state, first lady and Democratic party presidential candidate will be honored during a three-day gathering of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that starts July 18.
***
We told you Tuesday that three Republican candidates had announced their candidacies for the state House District 71 seat vacated recently by David Stover of Newnan.
Now there’s a fourth: Marcy Westmoreland Sakrison, also of Newnan.
That middle name is there for a reason. She doesn’t say so in the press release, but Sakrison is the daughter of former Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland – who served as leader of the GOP caucus in the state House before going to Washington.
***
Since losing the Republican runoff for governor to Brian Kemp last year, former lieutenant governor Casey Cagle has nearly disappeared from view. But a GOP candidate in the Sixth District congressional race is bringing Cagle back – as something of a villain.
A fundraising email sent by businesswoman Marjorie Greene on Tuesday contains this attack on Brandon Beach, a state senator from Alpharetta:
[Beach] voted along with Casey Cagle for the LARGEST tax hike in Georgia state history — more than a billion dollars a year! He even gave Casey Cagle $3,900 last year in opposition to Brian Kemp in the governor run off.
The email contains no specifics. We’re guessing that the “tax hike” is a reference to recent legislation that subjected Internet purchases to the same sales tax that brick-and-mortar stores pay. But Cagle, as the presiding officer of the Senate, casts votes only to break a tie. That occurred only rarely during his tenure, if at all.
No, the more interesting aspect of Greene’s note is that someone thinks the fault line created by last year’s GOP race for governor is still there – and worth exploiting.
***
Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux raised about $280,000 over the last three months and has about $500,000 on hand for her Seventh District congressional campaign.
She said her second-quarter haul includes nearly 2,000 contributions from donors – and nothing from corporate PACs. After a narrow loss in 2018, she’s facing a crowded field for another shot at the Gwinnett- and Forsyth-based seat.
***
Over at Project Q, Patrick Saunders brings us an interesting tidbit about a Gwinnett County race: Former state Sen. Curt Thompson is vying to become the first openly LGBTQ chair of the commission.
Thompson’s sexual orientation was little known until now, with no apparent mention of it in previous media reports during his two years as a state representative and his ensuing 14 years as a state senator.
Thompson chalked that up to bisexual erasure.
“You can be out as bisexual and no one notices,” he told Project Q Atlanta. “I certainly didn’t hide that from anybody and certainly told folks that.”
Thompson, a Democrat, said he assumed his former Senate colleagues were aware of his sexual orientation.
***
Georgia attorney-turned-ambassador Randy Evans had a busy year in Luxembourg. He sent over a snapshot of his diplomatic doings that included visits from the U.S. Commerce secretary, 19 members of Congress, the U.S. Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and more than 250 meetings and events with Luxembourg officials.
We are still waiting for our invite. We know it’s in the mail.
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Another woman stepped forward Wednesday with allegations against accused sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, saying the billionaire financier raped her when she was 15 after his associates “recruited” her with the promise of career help.
Araoz said that in 2001, when she was 14, she met by a “recruiter” outside of her New York City performing arts high school who said Epstein could help her with her aspiration to become an actress.
“I was 14 years old,” she said. “What the hell do you know?”
Araoz said Epstein immediately struck her as such as “very odd.” For example, she said, he had “prosthetic breasts that he could play with while he was taking a bath.”
The first visits to his home just involved conversations, she said. But they later escalated to physical contact, including massaging him and rubbing his nipples. Araoz said she was afraid to resist his requests out of fear.
“I was scared because I didn’t know if he would get angry,” she said.
Araoz believes that Epstein knew that she was underage.
“He knew very well my age,” she said. “He knew exactly who he was hanging out with.”
In 2002, when she was 15, Epstein raped her, Araoz said.
“After that day, I never went back,” she said.
She said she didn’t know at the time that what happened constituted rape. She now regrets not telling the police or speaking out earlier because “then maybe he wouldn’t have done it to other girls,” she said.
“I was so young that I was worried that somehow I would get in trouble,” Araoz said, explaining why she didn’t contact authorities at the time. “I was really frightened of Epstein. He knew a lot of powerful people and I didn’t know what he could do to me, and I wasn’t sure that anyone could protect me.”
Epstein’s attorneys did not respond to multiple requests for comment, the “Today” show said.
Epstein’s arrest has renewed scrutiny of his ties to powerful men, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, and a lenient 2008 plea deal that allowed Epstein to escape harsh punishment for sex crimes.
Trump’s labor secretary Alex Acosta faces growing pressure to resign over his role in brokering the plea deal as the U.S. attorney in Miami.
LONDON — The British ambassador to the United States resigned Wednesday following leaked memos that showed he had called President Donald Trump “insecure” and “incompetent.”
Sir Kim Darroch said in a statement that the fallout from the leaked communications — which sparked a series of broadsides from Trump — was “making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.”
After the secret diplomatic communications were published this weekend, the president responded with a series of unprecedented attacks on the British ambassador and the prime minister, historically among Washington’s closest allies.
Trump called Darroch “wacky,” “very stupid” and a “pompous fool,” and suggested he would not be able to do his job in Washington because “we will no longer deal with him.” The ambassador was uninvited from a dinner Trump was hosting for the emir of Qatar.
Sir Simon McDonald, the most senior official at the Foreign Office, told British lawmakers later Wednesday it was the first time he knew in which a foreign government had refused to deal with one of their envoys.
“The last time I know that we had difficulty with the United States was 1856,” McDonald told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Back then, he said, the ambassador “was accused of recruiting Americans to fight on the British side in the Crimean War. President Franklin Pierce was in the White House.”
Trump’s targets following the leak included Prime Minister Theresa May. He tweeted that he had been “very critical” of May and the “mess” she had made of her Brexit negotiations.
However, May will stand down in two weeks. Far more attention has been paid to her likely successor, former London mayor Boris Johnson, who repeatedly avoided the question when invited to support the ambassador during a televised debate Tuesday night.
Nigel Sheinwald, a former British ambassador to the United States between 2007 and 2012, said the episode showed that the values of public service were “under siege.”
Lawmakers need to respect the boundaries between public servants and ministers, he said.
It was key that diplomats were appointed impartially and not according to political convictions because they were there to serve the government of the day — whoever is elected, he added.
“You need someone who can analyze that administration dispassionately and who has the experience and the courage to take up British positions,” he said. “I don’t think President Trump should be allowed to pick the next British ambassador to the United States.”
Sheinwald said he thought it was “highly likely” that Johnson’s evasive performance in Tuesday night’s leadership debate would have influenced Darroch’s decision.
“He should have given much clearer backing to the civil service and to Kim Darroch, he’s tried to do a bit of a repair job today but the damage frankly was already done,” he said.
Following Darroch’s resignation, Johnson called him a “superb diplomat.”
Jeremy Hunt, Johnson’s rival for the Conservative leadership, called Darroch one of the best diplomats in the world.
Deeply saddened to hear of the resignation of Sir Kim Darroch. Standing up for Britain means standing up for the finest diplomats on the world. It should never have come to this.
The ambassador was due to stand down at the end of this year, but he said in the statement issued through the U.K. Foreign Office that the leak had made his position untenable.
He said the support offered on both sides of the Atlantic had “brought home to me the depth of friendship and close ties between our two countries.”
He added that “the professionalism and integrity of the British civil service is the envy of the world. I will leave it full of confidence that its values remain in safe hands.”
May said that “it is a matter of great regret that he has felt it necessary to leave his position.” In a statement to the House of Commons, she stressed it was important for diplomats to be able to speak their minds and to “defend our values and principles, particularly when they are under pressure”
McDonald, the most senior official at the Foreign Office, spoke on behalf of many experienced officials in Britain who believe that Darroch did nothing wrong in expressing his sincerely held belief about Trump’s White House.
“You were the target of a malicious leak, you were simply doing your job,” he wrote Wednesday.
Lord Peter Ricketts, the former British ambassador to France, said Darroch was the victim of “political sabotage.”
And Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador in Washington, said Darroch was “blameless” and had been brought down by a “disgraceful leak and the vindictive reaction of the U.S. president.”
The leak presented a dilemma for Britain. Some acknowledged that the messages, and Trump’s reaction, would make Darroch’s last few months near impossible. But many were also cautious of the U.K. being seen to allow other countries to veto the diplomats posted to their embassies.
“We should never allow any country to dictate who we send as ambassador,” Charles Parton, who served as a British diplomat for almost four decades, told NBC News before Darroch’s resignation. “It would give enormous power to other countries, so you just can’t do it.”
A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with President Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington.
The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the attorneys general lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution when his business accepts payments from state and foreign governments. The decision — from Judges Paul V. Niemeyer, Dennis W. Shedd and A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. — also stops dozens of subpoenas to federal government agencies and Trump’s private business entities for financial records related to the D.C. hotel.
“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties,” Niemeyer wrote in the 36-page opinion.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow called the dismissal a “complete victory.”
“The decision states that there was no legal standing to bring this lawsuit in the first place,” he said after the ruling. “This latest effort at Presidential harassment has been dismissed with prejudice.”
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine, both Democrats, have said they would consider appealing for a rehearing by a full panel of the 4th Circuit and would not be surprised to see the case reach the Supreme Court.
The president is facing series of legal challenges related to his private business, including a separate lawsuit from Congressional Democrats. The emoluments clauses at issue in the 4th Circuit case were designed to prevent undue influence on government officials but have never been applied in court to a sitting president.
Despite the legal challenges his company faces, to this point Trump has been able to prevent the release of any private business information to the courts, leaving Democrats to wonder if Trump will be affected by any of the inquiries before he goes up for re-election next year.
President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the 66-year-old hedge fund manager charged this week with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, were once the only other attendees at a party with roughly two dozen women at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, a former Trump associate told The New York Times.
In 1992, the women were flown in for a “calendar girl” competition that Trump had requested, the former Trump associate, George Houraney, told The Times.
“At the very first party, I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming,'” Houraney said. “It was him and Epstein.”
He added: “I said: ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?'”
Houraney also apparently once warned Trump about Epstein.
“Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can’t have him going after younger girls,” Houraney recalled telling Trump. “He said: ‘Look I’m putting my name on this. I wouldn’t put my name on it and have a scandal.'”
Houraney had a falling out with Trump after his girlfriend accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances in the early 1990s.
A quote Trump gave about a decade after that reported 1992 party in which Trump spoke highly of Epstein has been circulating widely amid the new charges.
“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Trump has since distanced himself from Epstein, who faces sex-trafficking charges from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. The charging document alleges Epstein “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations.”
On Monday, Epstein appeared in court and pleaded not guilty.
The White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, said Trump had not had contact with Epstein “in years and years and years.”
“And he, like everyone else, sees these charges, the description of these charges against Epstein, as completely unconscionable and obviously criminal,” Conway added. “Disgusting, really.”
Trump on Tuesday told reporters Epstein was unavoidable as a prominent figure in the Palm Beach community: “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
SHREVEPORT, La. – If you’re not already, now’s the time to keep an eye on developments in the Gulf of Mexico. As a trough of low pressure has moved into the eastern Gulf, strengthening is forecast by nearly all models.
Reconnaissance aircraft are expected to investigate the area later Wednesday. If a tropical depression or tropical storm has formed, watches and warnings will go up immediately for much of the northern Gulf Coast.
The National Hurricane Center is now giving the system a 90% chance of developing into Tropical Storm Barry by Thursday morning.
It’s easy to be weather-wise. Keep up with all of the very latest weather developments with the MEGA 3 StormTeam. Joe Haynes, Brian Fowler and Neil Shaw are always on stand-by to help you ride out the storm and keep you and your family safe. You’ll also want to arm yourself with the MEGA 3 StormTeam app available for Apple and Android devices.When necessary, look for LIVE coverage on all of your KTBS Everywhere devices including KTBS 3.2 and ktbs.com.
Also, use #ktbswx on social media to report damage, flooding or post images and video. Please remember, SAFETY FIRST.
Biden makes another eyebrow-raising campaign promise to cut prison incarceration by ‘more than’ 50 percent.
Former Vice President Joe Biden made another stunning campaign promise, this time to cut prison incarceration by “more than” 50 percent.
Speaking with an ACLU member at a campaign event on in South Carolina over the weekend, Biden was asked about the initiative being headed by the organization to develop a “roadmap for cutting incarceration by 50 percent.”
“Do you commit to cutting incarceration by 50 percent?” the man, who identified himself as an ACLU member, asked.
“More than that,” Biden responded. “We can do it more than that.”
When pressed by the man for a “yes or no” answer, Biden exclaimed: “The answer’s yes, and I’ve got a better plan than you guys have.”
The Democratic frontrunner has had a turbulent few weeks on the campaign trail. At last month’s Democratic debate, he was confronted by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. He was also criticized by other Democratic candidates for his remarks about working with segregationist Democratic colleagues in the Senate. Biden issued an apology to a South Carolina audience on Saturday.
“Was I wrong a few weeks ago to somehow give the impression to people that I was praising those men who I successfully opposed time and again? Yes, I was. I regret it,” Biden said. “I’m sorry for any of the pain or misconception they may have caused anybody.”
Biden still has a commanding lead in the Democratic field, but some of his contenders have surged since the debate, with a burst of new polls suggests the first round of Democratic presidential nomination debates has reshaped the race.
As Democrats continue to decry the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies, calling for agencies like the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be disbanded, freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going one step further, suggesting that the Department of Homeland Security should be broken up.
During an interview with The New Yorker Radio Hour’s David Remnick, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to blame the Bush administration for initially forming the agency back in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11th.
“I feel like we are, at a very, it’s a very qualified and supported position, at least in terms of evidence, and in terms of being able to make the argument that we never should’ve created DHS in the early 2000s,” said Ocasio-Cortez. She went on to say that she supported abolishing ICE, a common rallying cry among House Democrats.
“Would you get rid of the Department of Homeland Security, too?” Remnick asked.
“I think so,” she replied. “I think we need to undo a lot of the egregious mistakes that the Bush administration did.”
Ocasio-Cortez cited her recent visit to a border detention facility in El Paso, Texas as grounds for disbanding the agency. She described the conditions in the facility as “horrible” and said she witnessed “some of the most inhumane behavior.”
“It’s not even living…it was the physical manifestation of Trump’s rhetoric and calling migrants animals because that’s how these women were being treated, their hair was falling out, they had sores in their mouths due to the lack of nutrition..the cruelty is the point,” she said.
“This whole crisis and the treatment of migrants at our border has been this low-grade static background noise, torture that has been happening in our country and it’s getting worse and worse and worse,” she said.
It was during that trip to the border that Ocasio-Cortez confronted Customs and Border Patrol agents about a secret Facebook group where officers made light of migrant deaths and suggested violent and sexually explicit acts toward the congresswoman.
Ocasio-Cortez said that CBP management claimed during the confrontation that they had “no idea” about the group.
“If you did not know that there are 10,000 members in a violent Facebook group, you’re either being dishonest or your management is terrible that you don’t know about this. It’s one of the two,” she said. CBP has since said it has opened an internal investigation and informed the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general of the group.
Asked what a “sane immigration policy” looked like, Ocasio-Cortez said “we should not be using detention for people who have harmed no one.”
“The United States has completely abdicated its responsibility and role in Latin America…we are not acting like an equal partner or neighbor in the western hemisphere,” she added.
(CNN)America may soon have yet another acting Cabinet official, as Labor Secretary Alex Acosta hangs by a thread over his links to a 2008 plea agreement for Jeffrey Epstein.
With the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that Epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender and put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator.
— Secretary Acosta (@SecretaryAcosta) July 9, 2019
CNN’s Manu Raju, Ted Barrett and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this story.
Ross Perot was a maverick, a billionaire businessman and the most successful third party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.
In his last documented political act, self-made billionaire and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot wrote out two checks to President Trump’s re-election campaign before succumbing to his battle with leukemia at the age of 89, according to a report.
Perot, who ran for president as a third-party candidate in 1992 and 1996, is largely credited with providing a road map for Trump’s presidential campaign.
FILE: Ross Perot is shown on a screen in a paid 30-minute television commercial, during a media preview in Dallas. (AP)
Like Trump, Perot ran as a billionaire populist against the Republican establishment. His focus on the North American Free Trade Agreement – rather than the national debt – and his use of cable news for laying out his agenda were both familiar elements of Trump’s campaign.
As Democratic strategist James Carville put it in a 2016 podcast: “If Donald Trump is the Jesus of the disenchanted, displaced non-college white voter, then Perot was the John the Baptist of that sort of movement.”
In 2000, Trump briefly considered running for president in Perot’s Reform Party before scrapping the idea. Perot’s model, of running as a third-party candidate in a two-party political system, taught Trump that he needed to run as a Republican in 2016 – a lesson that ultimately led to his victory.
In March, Perot wrote two checks of the maximum legal limit to Trump’s re-election campaign, including next year’s general election, the Boston Globe reported.
Saladino announced in a press release that he had filed suit in the Southern District of New York, while Hikind told Fox News that he had filed his claim in the state’s Eastern District.
“I have officially filed my lawsuit against AOC for blocking me on twitter,” Saladino tweeted. “Trump is not allowed to block people, will the standards apply equally? Stay tuned to find out!”
I have officially filed my lawsuit against AOC for blocking me on twitter. Trump is not allowed to block people, will the standards apply equally? Stay tuned to find out! pic.twitter.com/0RmHI7x9Qc
— Saladino for Congress (@JoeySalads) July 9, 2019
“If we can’t talk to one another, the whole system breaks down,” Saladino added in his press release. “Look what is happening in my district when entrenched NeverTrumpers are confronted by America First ideas. Like it or not we live in the same city and we need to be professional.”
“Just today the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling that elected officials cannot block individuals from their Twitter accounts, thereby setting a precedent that Ocasio-Cortez must follow,” Hikind told the network. “Twitter is a public space, and all should have access to the government officials on it.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not immediately return a request from The Hill for a comment on the pending lawsuits.
Republicans learned this the hard way in 2016, when Americans propelled Donald Trump to the GOP nomination in an attempt to oust the out-of-touch establishment. Now, it’s the Democrats’ turn to learn from an upheaval within their own party.
The Democratic Party was reanimated in 2018 when a wave of younger candidates, who lean much further left than their predecessors, entered the House. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took social media by storm, becoming an overnight phenomenon that gave new energy to socialist policies once considered taboo. Rather than try to fight it, establishment Democrats endorsed her Green New Deal (much to their regret later) because they felt if they didn’t, they would lose the moral high ground on environmental policy.
Some career Democrats even defended freshman Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib when they came under fire for fervent anti-Israel rhetoric. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of them. But now Pelosi is being forced to face what these new faces and ideas mean for the Democratic Party she’s known and led for decades.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said, after being asked why Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley opposed the bipartisan border funding bill. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
Ocasio-Cortez quickly responded: “That public ‘whatever’ is called public sentiment,” she wrote on Twitter. “And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country.”
Ocasio-Cortez will refuse to admit it, but Pelosi is right. AOC ran for Congress in a district Democrats can’t lose. And she won her primary in part because New York’s 14th District experienced a record-low voter turnout, and her opponent was shockingly tone-deaf and arrogant. Joe Crowley took his re-nomination for granted. But Ocasio-Cortez’s win was not a fluke, either. She won on the votes of the white gentrifiers who are taking over the Democratic nominating process all over America, moving in from a position far to the Left of the Democrats’ traditional poorer, nonwhite, and working-class voter bases.
Congress, however, is no Democratic primary. Pelosi, the wily veteran who knows how to make things actually happen, spends her waking nights thinking about how to preserve her majority so that it’s still there to legislate when the next Democratic president is elected. That takes more than a large Twitter presence: It takes political prowess. Sometimes that means compromise with the other side of the aisle. Sometimes it means pushing policies that the majority of the Democratic Party can get behind and act on. A majority of congressional Democrats might have voiced their support for Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, but when it came time to act, not a single Democrat voted for it in the Senate.
There’s a reason Pelosi is one of the most successful congressional Democrats in recent history. But the future of the Democratic Party doesn’t look like Pelosi, it looks like Ocasio-Cortez, and “Medicare for All,” decriminalized illegal immigration, and student loan debt forgiveness. It is a future of impractical ideological fanaticism. These are the policies the new Democrats reintroduced, and they’re the same ones prominent politicians on the presidential primary debate stage have endorsed.
Pelosi, once viewed as a fixture of her party’s Left wing, has suddenly become the out-of-touch establishment. She is now the bogeyman who stands in the way of impeachment while the majority of Democratic presidential candidates openly call for it; the backroom-dealing old-timer still willing to meet with Trump and even deal with him. Just a few years ago she was considered a far-left foe. But now, she comes across as a stabling force holding the Democratic Party in somewhat of a central position. This can’t last for long. And it won’t. Just like Republicans did in 2016, Democrats will face a reckoning.
In its race to the Left, Pelosi’s party is moving on without her. Of course, Pelosi will occupy a position of power among Democrats as long as she wants to. There’s a reason former Vice President Joe Biden is still leading in the polls among the other Democratic candidates, and why career Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continue to get reelected. But they’re no longer the ones leading the ideological charge. Ocasio-Cortez is.
A federal judge late Tuesday refused to let Justice Department lawyers withdraw from a dispute over the citizenship question on the 2020 census form, in a case that continues after the Supreme Court’s ruling in late June.
Eleven lawyers from the DOJ asked Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York on Monday for permission to step down from representing the government in the dispute. Attorney General William Barr has said that given the department’s decision to press ahead on the issue, “I can understand if they’re not interested in participating in this phase.”
DOJ officials said privately that Barr acted before the lawyers could officially object to further work on the matter.
But Furman said that before lawyers can get off a case, court rules require them to explain why they wish to withdraw and that the DOJ request was “patently deficient.” That’s especially true, he said, given that legal briefs are due in a few days on whether the judge should issue an order preventing any action by the government to put the question on the form.
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The case has been litigated on the premise, at the government’s insistence, that a speedy resolution “is a matter of great private and public importance,” Furman said.
His order allowed the government lawyers to resubmit their request to withdraw, provided that they offer satisfactory reasons and agree to make themselves available if needed at any future hearings.
The judge allowed two of the 11 lawyers to withdraw. One has left the DOJ, the other is no longer in the Civil Division, which handles lawsuits of this type.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been fighting to keep the question off the form, praised the judge’s order. “The Justice Department owes the public and the courts an explanation for its unprecedented substitution of the entire legal team that has been working on this case. The Trump administration is acting like it has something to hide, and we won’t rest until we know the truth,” Dale Ho, director of the group’s Voting Rights Project, said.
The Trump administration continues to print the census forms without the citizenship question. But both President Donald Trump and Barr have said that an announcement is coming in the next few days of how the administration intends to try a new approach to have the question be part of the census process.
Tuesday night, the president addressed the judge’s decision on Twitter, writing: “So now the Obama appointed judge on the Census case (Are you a Citizen of the United States?) won’t let the Justice Department use the lawyers that it wants to use. Could this be a first?”
Reports that British Ambassador Kim Darroch privately dissed the president’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Kim Darroch is known as a garrulous and popular figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public at his famously lavish parties.
When British Ambassador Kim Darroch went to the White House days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, the new U.S. president greeted him warmly, noting that he’d watched Darroch being interviewed on Fox News.
“You’re going to be a TV star!” Trump told Darroch.
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It was a jovial moment, according to two people Darroch told about the encounter, and it was one reason that the British envoy — in public and private — has described Trump as “charming.”
But new reports that Darroch privately dissed Trump’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat and soured Trump on the diplomat. The president has spent two days obsessively tweeting about Darroch, claiming he doesn’t even know him, that the Brit is a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool” and — most astoundingly — insisting the U.S. will no longer deal with Darroch.
Yet in Washington, Darroch is widely liked and well-connected in U.S. government circles, having cultivated close ties to some of the president’s top aides, whom he regularly has seen in business and social settings. The ambassador to the U.S. since early 2016, he is a garrulous figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public. He also throws famously lavish parties in his stately residence next to the massive British Embassy and always has a fun toast to make.
Trump aides and confidants who have attended his soirees include White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Darroch and his embassy even hosted a September 2017 engagement party for Katie Walsh, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, and her beau Mike Shields, which several Trump aides, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, attended. Matthew Whitaker celebrated the new year during his brief stint as acting attorney general at the British Embassy, where Darroch oversaw the festivities.
Now, almost overnight, the ambassador risks going from bipartisan Washington convener to ostracized foreigner at Trump’s direction. The fallout reflects how quickly Trump can turn on a top ally’s envoy — and insist that Washington turn with him. It’s also another example of Trump’s willingness to shatter diplomatic norms with the United Kingdom, which claims a “special relationship” with the United States.
“It drags one of the most important U.S. relationships internationally through the mud at the very highest levels,” said Jeff Rathke, a former Foreign Service officer and Europe analyst who has served in multiple administrations. “Even if it is temporarily satisfying for President Trump in some way, it is bad for the relationship because it undermines confidence and trust.”
The irony, said one person close to the Trump administration who’s been to Darroch’s parties, is that “a lot of folks from the White House actually say the exact same things” about the internal dynamics there. “They were probably saying those things to him.”
The fracas started Sunday, when the Daily Mail published a story detailing the contents of secret cables that Darroch had sent to London offering his analysis and views on the Trump administration starting in 2017. According to the British news outlet, Darroch described internal divisions in the White House as “knife fights,” warned Trump could lead the U.S. to war with Iran and described the administration overall as “chaotic,” predicting it would not become “less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”
Darroch wrote that Trump “radiates insecurity” and has “no filter.” But he also warned officials in London: “Do not write him off.”
On Monday, Trump lashed out: “I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him.” By Tuesday, Trump seemed even more angry, tweeting: “The wacky Ambassador that the U.K. foisted upon the United States is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy…. I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool.”
On both occasions, Trump also used his tweets to attack outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who he said had failed to take his advice on how to negotiate Brexit with the EU. “She went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done,” Trump wrote.
So far, the British government has stood up for Darroch, noting that it’s his duty as a diplomat to offer “honest, unvarnished” analysis to his superiors back home. “Sir Kim Darroch continues to have the Prime Minister’s full support,” a U.K. spokesman said.
And the State Department has said it will still work with Darroch — for now.
“We will continue to deal with all accredited individuals until we get any further guidance from the White House or the president, which we will, of course, abide by the president’s direction,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said during a news conference, describing the U.S.-U.K. relationship as “bigger than any individual” and “bigger than any government.”
For his part, Darroch worked as usual on Tuesday from his embassy office on Massachusetts Avenue,. He also went to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.). However, he did not join a meeting between Liam Fox, a top British trade official, and Ivanka Trump, the president’s adviser and daughter. Fox had said he would apologize for the leak during the meeting.
Darroch, who did not respond to a request for comment, has spent decades as a diplomat, holding top positions such as national security adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron before coming to Washington. He’s done tours in Tokyo and Rome, and dealt with Middle Eastern and Adriatic issues, according to his embassy biography.
His appointment to the ambassador post in Washington is something of a career capstone — the position is considered the most prestigious ambassadorship in the U.K. foreign service and often goes to senior diplomats in the final years of their career.
The 65-year-old was born in Northern England and attended Durham University. He studied zoology but joined the U.K.’s diplomatic ranks in 1977. He is referred to as “Sir Kim” because of his appointment as a “Knight Commander” in 2008.
Some former officials and analysts believe what made Darroch a target for whoever leaked his critical memos is the ambassador’s extensive experience with European Union issues. He spent many years dealing with U.K.-EU relations, including having served as Britain’s representative to the regional bloc in Brussels. During a party in Washington months after the British voted to leave the EU, Darroch remarked wryly that his EU experience was “obviously time well spent.”
The belief in some corners is that the leaks of the cables were orchestrated by supporters of Brexit who want to make sure that the next British ambassador in the United States is on their side. Others suspect Russia may be behind the leaks similar to the way Moscow is accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails.
Sally Quinn, a journalist who’s attended parties at the British Embassy, said what Darroch wrote in the cables reflects what most foreign ambassadors in Washington also privately think.
“What Kim Darroch said is what all the ambassadors or most of them think, even the ones who particularly cozy up to the Trump people” like ambassadors from Middle Eastern countries, Quinn said. “They’re just lucky that their reports have not been hacked.”
Darroch has always been respectful to Trump administration officials in private, according to people who know him. At parties he has hosted, he would note how honored he was to have senior officials from the Trump administration attending, and they would return the bonhomie.
“Oh, we love the British — go Brexit!” one senior Trump administration official told Darroch at a small private dinner last year, prompting the British ambassador to laugh.
Darroch’s dilemma has now become an issue in the British Conservative Party’s internal race to replace May as prime minister. That contest is down to front-runner Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and a Brexit advocate, and Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary who supported remaining in the EU during the 2016 referendum.
Hunt on Tuesday tweeted support for Darroch, whom he said was simply doing his job by sending honest analysis to London.
“Allies need to treat each other with respect as @theresa_may has always done with you,” he wrote, addressing Trump. “Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays.”
Johnson has stressed that he has a “good relationship” with the White House, avoiding addressing Trump’s comments directly. But Nigel Farage, a fellow Brexiteer whom Trump has suggested should be the British ambassador in Washington, bulldozed into the controversy. “Kim Darroch is totally unsuitable for the job and the sooner he is gone the better,” Farage tweeted.
Despite Darroch’s positive reputation in the foreign policy establishment, some observers pointed out that the insights he offered in his memos weren’t all that original.
“You could have pulled it from pages of The New York Times,” said a senior Conservative British lawmaker, who asked not to be named. In fact, Trump’s “overreaction” arguably proved correct Darroch’s assessment about the volatility of his administration, the lawmaker added.
Robin Niblett, director of the London-based Chatham House think tank, said Trump’s assault may be an opportunistic attempt to gain “leverage” over the next British prime minister.
“In essence, it’s, ‘You will need to buy back my love,’” Niblett said. “There’s plenty of issues on which the U.S. wants to influence U.K. foreign policy going forward: Iran sanctions, [the Chinese tech firm] Huawei and a U.S.-U.K. trade deal.”
Darroch was expected to leave his post, and possibly retire, in January 2020. The fortuitous timing could give the next prime minister a chance to possibly sit tight and quietly move him on without appearing to have caved to Trump.
If Johnson wins the prime minister’s slot, he might recall the envoy. But if for whatever reason Darroch is allowed to stay and Trump follows through on his threat to bar U.S. officials from dealing with him, Darroch could find his final days as a diplomat rather lonely.
The dust up is already affecting his ability to socialize. On Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter confirmed the White House had disinvited Darroch from a dinner on Monday night in honor of the visiting emir of Qatar.
Charlie Cooper contributed to this report from London.
The threat from Steyer is simple: His wealth means he can run a well-funded campaign for almost as long as he likes. A Steyer spokesman told The New York Times that he was willing to spend “at least $100 million” on his presidential bid.
“Anybody with $100 million to spend will have an impact,” said Jonathan Tasini, a well-known progressive writer and activist in New York. “I just think it is a massive case of ego run amok. There is absolutely nothing that Steyer is saying that other candidates, especially Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are not saying.”
“He typifies the kind of candidate that Democrats hate the most, which is somebody who thinks they can buy the primary or buy support,” said a party strategist who is unaligned with any current presidential candidate and requested anonymity to speak candidly blasted the Democratic mega-donor.
Still, the criticisms of Steyer bump up against the fact that he has espoused causes that are popular with the liberal grass roots.
After making his fortune, he first came to political prominence as a vigorous advocate for action on climate change.
Some progressives acknowledge Steyer’s commitment to their causes even as they are skeptical of his 2020 chances.
Charles Chamberlain, chairman of progressive group Democracy for America, emphasized Steyer’s record on climate change as one potential upside to his candidacy.
On that topic, he said, “What is exciting about Tom getting into the race is, with the kind of money he has, he may be able to drive forward solutions in a way that could be positive for America.”
Even so, Chamberlain noted that overall, “It’s a little difficult to see what Tom Steyer has to offer, other than bringing a billionaire’s finances into it.”
In an emailed statement, Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has endorsed Warren, said of Steyer’s choice to enter the race this late: “Especially for a rich white male, this decision should be gut checked in a major way.”
But Green also noted that “Steyer will likely add attention to two issues he and Warren have led on: impeachment and addressing the climate crisis. Those issues deserve attention.”
Sanders and Warren seem less than thrilled to have Steyer in the race.
Sanders and Warren already face a challenge in trying to get progressive voters to coalesce behind one or the other.
That will be an even steeper climb now that a candidate with a presumptive $100 million in his campaign coffers has joined the race.
In the second quarter of this year, Warren and Sanders raised $19.1 million and $18 million respectively.
On Tuesday, Warren tweeted, “The Democratic primary should not be decided by billionaires, whether they’re funding Super PACs or funding themselves” — a clear shot at Steyer.
Sanders, in an MSNBC interview, said he was personally fond of Steyer but was “a bit tired of seeing billionaires trying to buy political power.”
Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist and admaker in Steyer’s home state of California, told The Hill that Sanders and Warren have cause to be concerned: “The candidates who are running to the more progressive, left side — they just got another candidate doing that as well, and one with unlimited resources. That may complicate things for those candidates.”
Carrick noted that Steyer’s pro-impeachment ads have boosted his name recognition among the public and that his access to the email addresses of the people who signed up to that effort could help him enormously.
Elsewhere in the progressive world, however, there is carping that Steyer — if genuinely concerned about the issues rather than self-promotion — could have put his wealth to use in more effective ways.
Jamelle Bouie, a liberal columnist with The New York Times, tweeted, “if i were a liberal billionaire with a $100 millions to burn i’d spend it on a nationwide voter registration drive instead of a vanity presidential campaign.”
Tasini, the progressive activist in New York, argued Steyer could have made more of a substantive difference if he had been prepared to use his money to buttress Democratic hopes of taking back control of the Senate next November.
Tasini poured cold water on the suggestion that Steyer would have a real impact in terms of taking votes away from the top progressive candidates.
“That’s unlikely because I think his status as a white man billionaire does not chip in to the base of either Warren or Sanders,” Tasini said. “Would he win five of their votes? Maybe. But not 5 percent of them.”
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.
When Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, publicly supported President Trump in 2016, no one seemed to care.
In “Why I Stand With Donald Trump,” published by RealClearPolitics, he wrote that the Republican nominee was the only chance to win the White House.
Marcus listed reasons many Republicans had for voting for Trump: blocking Hillary Clinton, seeking balanced Supreme Court appointees, and curbing government regulation. “As a GOP donor who stood steadfastly behind Jeb Bush — and who has contributed to candidates for a generation — I urge all Republicans to stand up and be counted in support for Donald Trump,” he wrote.
In 2015, before Trump won the nomination, Marcus donated not to Trump, but to Bush and Scott Walker. Again, none of this is news. But people who didn’t care about all of this before have suddenly decided it matters.
#HomeDepotBoycott is suddenly trending on Twitter. The world now remembers that Marcus is a Trump supporter after features in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Washington Post revealed that the billionaire plans to give most of his money away to charity.
He signed The Giving Pledge, whose goal is to encourage wealthy philanthropists to donate at least half of their net worth. He’s donated to Autism Speaks and the Georgia Aquarium, and he emphasized to the Atlanta Journal Constitution that his philanthropic giving is much greater than his political giving.
But for 2020, Marcus is still on the Trump train. He told the AJC that while Trump “sucks” at communication, he’s succeeded with jobs and trade with China. He has pretty standard right-wing reasons for supporting the president. And let’s not forget, he’s been talking about those reasons for years.
Now, the lynch mob on social media has suddenly changed its mind about the nation’s most popular home improvement store.
My local HomeDepot was 2nd on my list of most visited stores behind Target. Third was IKEA (still suffering flashbacks from that)
I’ve refurbished several homes (fixer-uppers)&have spent ridiculous amounts in HD. I regret it now. Lowe’s, here I come.#BoycottHomeDepot
By the way, good luck finding a better hardware store. In 2017, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison, who was running J.C. Penney at the time, joined other retail leaders to meet with Trump in the White House.
A boycott of Home Depot will do Marcus no harm. The 90-year-old has been retired since 2002. So not only is the #HomeDepotBoycott based on information that’s been public for years, it’s also a useless and outdated form of virtue signaling that, if it has any effect, will only harm Home Depot employees. Pity there’s no good way to punish everyone with incorrect beliefs, eh?
The two were photographed together there in the 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Trump always in a tie, Mr. Epstein always without. And in Manhattan, they attended many of the same dinner parties, like the one that Mr. Epstein hosted for Prince Andrew, where the guest list also included Ron Perelman and Mort Zuckerman, among others.
But longtime Trump associates played down their closeness, saying that was simply how Mr. Trump treated any guest at his club — checking on their steaks, bragging about his meatloaf, scanning the room for a better table so guests felt like they were getting special treatment.
Since Mr. Trump’s decision to enter the presidential race in 2015, his aides and allies have been eager to minimize any connection to Mr. Epstein, knowing that Mr. Epstein’s relationship with Mr. Clinton would be investigated at a time Hillary Clinton was likely to be his opponent.
Roger J. Stone Jr., the former Trump adviser, wrote in his book “The Clintons’ War on Women,” which was published during the campaign, that Mr. Trump “turned down many invitations to Epstein’s hedonistic private island and his Palm Beach home.” Once when Mr. Trump visited Mr. Epstein at his Palm Beach home, Mr. Stone wrote, he later seemed to joke about the scene of underage girls he witnessed there.
“The swimming pool was filled with beautiful young girls,” Mr. Trump later told a Mar-a-Lago member, according to Mr. Stone. “‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’”
Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide to Mr. Trump, said he raised concerns about the candidate’s involvement with Mr. Epstein before Mr. Trump officially began his presidential campaign. But Mr. Trump assured Mr. Nunberg that he had barred Mr. Epstein from entering his clubs after Mr. Epstein had tried to recruit a woman who worked at Mar-a-Lago.
“Trump said, ‘I kicked him out of the clubs when this stuff became public, and I made sure NBC knew,’” Mr. Nunberg recalled.
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