Amid the threat of an unprecedented power outage in Northern California, a local police department posted a tongue-in-cheek instructional message on its Facebook page that has been shared nearly 40,000 times.
The Pleasanton Police Department in Alameda County shared a map of California on Tuesday indicating where power outages could occur. But instead of highlighting the 34 counties affected by Pacific Gas & Electric’s decision to shut off electricity in an effort to avoid possible wildfires sparked by power lines downed by high winds, in the Pleasanton police map, the entire state was marked out in red. Alongside the image were rather unique instructions on how to prepare.
“If you come home and everything is dark and nothing works, then yes, you are experiencing a power shutdown. Remain calm. Use your cell phone light to search frantically for the one flashlight you think you have in the house. It will be dead of course. Search for batteries. You will need four but only find three,” one tip read.
Thousands of users from both inside and outside the state have commented on the post. The majority seem to appreciate the break from what is a serious issue for many. Others criticized the local authority for stooping to such whimsy.
With strong winds yet to kick up as of Wednesday evening, Pacific Gas & Electric began to restore power to tens of thousands of customers who had been left in the dark since just after midnight.
The first phase of power shut-offs started after midnight early Wednesday morning, affecting 500,000 customers, many in the North Bay and Sierra foothills. PG&E was able to restore power to about 44,000 of those customers by 6 p.m., said Sumeet Singh, vice president of PG&E’s community wildfire safety program.
“We have identified limited areas where we could safely energize sections by reconfiguring our electrical system, because that part of our circuit and our system was not in the high fire threat area. As a result, we’ve been able to bring service back to approximately 44,000 of the 500,000 customers,” said Singh.
Singh had another bit of good news: PG&E was working to restore power to an additional 60,000 to 80,000 customers in the Humboldt area Wednesday evening. In order to do so, PG&E crews were inspecting “every inch” of a transmission line for any signs of damage.
Residents of the East Bay and South Bay were originally scheduled to lose power starting at noon Wednesday, but the timing got pushed back thanks to a shift in the weather forecast. Singh said the utility would be making a decision about if and when the rest of the Bay Area would lose power later Wednesday evening.
A third phase, which was set to affect about 40,000 customers in Kern County, has been greatly downsized. Now, PG&E expects only about 4,600 customers to lose power.
While the timing of the weather pattern has kept the electricity on for Bay Area residents longer than expected, Singh warned that the forecast is always subject to change.
California is banning a pesticide often used by growers of grapes, citrus, almonds and other crops. Sales of chlorpyrifos will be outlawed in the state as of Feb. 6.
Eric Risberg/AP
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Eric Risberg/AP
California is banning a pesticide often used by growers of grapes, citrus, almonds and other crops. Sales of chlorpyrifos will be outlawed in the state as of Feb. 6.
Eric Risberg/AP
Beginning in early 2020, California will ban the sale of the pesticide chlorpyrifos which state environmental officials say has been linked to brain damage and other health defects in children.
Under an agreement reached with Corteva Agriscience, the maker of chlorpyrifos, sales of the pesticide will end Feb. 6, 2020, and agricultural growers will not be allowed to possess or use it after Dec. 31, 2020.
“For years, environmental justice advocates have fought to get the harmful pesticide chlorpyrifos out of our communities,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Thanks to their tenacity and the work of countless others, this will now occur faster than originally envisioned. This is a big win for children, workers and public health in California.”
Chlorpyrifos is used primarily on crops such as alfalfa, almonds, citrus, cotton, grapes and walnuts.
California environmental regulators have targeted the pesticide for years. They have designated chlorpyrifos as “a toxic air contaminant” that poses health threats when inhaled or exposed to the skin of bystanders. The agreement includes a ban an aerial spraying.
“The swift end to the sale of chlorpyrifos protects vulnerable communities by taking a harmful pesticide off the market,” said California Secretary for Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld in a statement. “This agreement avoids a protracted legal process while providing a clear timeline for California farmers as we look toward developing alternative pest management practices.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama proposed a federal ban on chlorpyrifos in 2015. But the EPA reversed course within three months of the new Trump administration.
Last year the federal government’s top fisheries experts issued a report saying that the pesticide and two others — diazinon and malathion — were washing into streams and rivers and harming wildlife, such as endangered species of salmon.
Chlorpyrifos has already been banned in Hawaii, according to the Associated Press.
Pesticide manufacturer Corteva Agriscience did not respond to NPR’s emailed request for comment.
However, it told the Associated Press: “Through recent actions, the State of California has improvised and implemented several uniquely challenging regulatory requirements for chlorpyrifos. These new, novel requirements have made it virtually impossible for growers to use this important tool in their state.”
Syrian National Army forces are dispatched to the Manbij front line near Aleppo ahead of Turkey’s planned operation in northern Syria, on Tuesday.
Bekir Kasim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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Syrian National Army forces are dispatched to the Manbij front line near Aleppo ahead of Turkey’s planned operation in northern Syria, on Tuesday.
Bekir Kasim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Updated at 2:20 p.m. ET
Turkish forces began crossing the Syrian border on Wednesday, launching an operation in Kurdish-dominated areas of the country’s north, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced.
The Turkish offensive jeopardizes Kurdish-led forces who have been a key U.S. ally in the bloody fight against ISIS. Turkey says those same forces are linked to militant groups who stage attacks in a separatist movement against the Turkish government.
Late Sunday, the White House abruptly announced it was pulling troops away from the border and that Turkey planned to launched an offensive — a major shift in U.S. policy that followed a phone call between President Trump and Erdogan. Senior officials have said they were not consulted or informed about the change.
On Wednesday afternoon, Trump said in a White House statement, “The United States did not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea.” He added, “There are no American soldiers in the area.”
Airstrikes have reportedly hit in or near Kobane, just south of the Turkish-Syria border. A U.S. military official in Syria tells NPR’s Tom Bowman that U.S. troops are also near Kobane, but the airstrikes are to the west of where U.S. troops are located.
The official adds that they believe the offensive will both spread and intensify overnight into Thursday, likely encompassing the entire border.
Trump said that Turkey has promised to protect civilians and religious minorities, but his statement did not specifically mention the Kurds. And he said Turkey has also promised to hold the line on ISIS.
“Turkey is now responsible for ensuring all ISIS fighters being held captive remain in prison and that ISIS does not reconstitute in any way, shape or form,” Trump stated.
The European Union and other U.S. allies are warning that the incursion — and the displacement of Kurdish fighters — could provide fertile ground for the resurgence of ISIS. The EU said Wednesday that it “calls on Turkey to cease the unilateral military action.”
Just before Turkey launched its attack, there were reports of ISIS attacks against Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which was previously the de facto capital of ISIS’ so-called caliphate.
The Turkish military is working with the Syrian National Army, Erdogan said, adding that they are targeting Kurdish fighters as well as ISIS extremists.
“Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area,” Erdogan said.
Ahead of the operation, Turkish soldiers used heavy equipment to remove a section of concrete border wall so that troops could cross, an official told Reuters.
A U.S. military official in Syria tells Bowman that the Turkish airstrikes are “more expansive than shaping a limited incursion.”
The U.S. is tracking people who are being displaced from the Syrian cities of Ras al-Ayn, Tal Abyad, Qamishli and Ain Issa, the official says, reflecting a span of some 140 miles along the north and northeastern border. The official said that they are expecting possible Turkish ground movement.
On Tuesday, Turkey reportedly struck the Syrian-Iraqi border to keep Kurdish forces from using it as a conduit to reinforce their positions, the news agency said.
Earlier, Islamic State militants reportedly carried out an attack on the city of Raqqa in northern Syria, including a post manned by U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters.
More than 3 million Syrian refugees are registered in Turkey, having fled brutal conditions imposed by both ISIS and their country’s civil war. Erdogan said Wednesday that the long-anticipated offensive aims to establish “a safe zone, facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homes.”
The operation is causing fear among the U.S.’s Kurdish allies. Mustafa Bali, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led forces, said: “Turkish warplanes have started to carry out airstrikes on civilian areas. There is a huge panic among people of the region.”
The White House decision to abandon posts along the border and give Turkey a free hand in taking on Kurdish groups has sparked a sharp bipartisan backlash in Washington.
Brett McGurk, who was Trump’s special envoy for the fight against ISIS, also decried the decision in an interview with NPR.
“Presidents do a lot of things, but the most consequential are decisions of war and peace like this, and you can’t make decisions on a haphazard basis after a single call with a foreign leader,” McGurk said. “This is almost unprecedented.”
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary General, said via Twitter: “I count on Turkey to act with restraint & ensure that the gains we have made in the fight against ISIS are not jeopardised.”
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International are also urging Turkey’s military to act with restraint and ensure civilians’ safety.
“Turkey has an obligation under international humanitarian law to take all possible measures to protect civilians and to ensure they have access to humanitarian aid,” Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director Lynn Maalouf said in a statement. “Civilians wishing to flee the fighting must be given safe passage to do so.”
Earlier this week, Trump appeared to warn Turkey against doing anything “off limits.” He said, “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”
U.S. forces in this area of Syria have assisted Kurdish allies with keeping ISIS fighters detained. And there are concerns about what will happen to those ISIS fighters now that the U.S. is stepping back.
“The Kurdish forces have always been clear that their number one concern is not ISIS but is protecting their territory from Turkey,” NPR’s Hannah Allam reported. “So if they’re moving into a defensive position, who’s going to watch the ISIS prisoners guard the detention camp?”
President Trump delivers remarks and sign Executive Orders on Transparency in Federal Guidance and Enforcement. #FoxNews
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NAPA, Calif. (KGO) — The power outages planned by PG&E had a major impact on traffic in the North Bay Wednesday morning.
At the intersection of Highway 29 & Highway 229 in Napa County the power was out and a battery backup that is supposed to power traffic signals, didn’t work. The intersection was left in total darkness. California Highway Patrol officers came to direct traffic during the morning commute. Traffic was backed up for miles in every direction. As of 7:30 a.m. Caltrans crews were seen working to fix the problem.
The outages left many people in the North Bay upset because winds had not developed as expected by PG&E in Napa or Sonoma Counties. In fact, ABC7 News reporter Laura Anthony spotted a hot air balloon drifting above Napa County. Business as usual for the area, since the balloons are usually grounded when there are high winds. ABC7 News viewers in Santa Rosa also reported no wind and they questioned the need for the power outages.
ABC7 News Meteorologist Mike Nicco says there was a small wind peak Wednesday morning when the cold front came through but the most dangerous winds start around 3 a.m. Thursday, when most of us are sleeping.
Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old white supremacist charged with shooting dead 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, also recorded the attack on a head-mounted camera and live-streamed it.
Mr. Frese will make his initial appearance on Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., where his case is being prosecuted.
The F.B.I. said that it received court permission to wiretap Mr. Frese’s cellphone and intercept some of his text messages and phone calls. The government also received data from Twitter, where he often communicated with one of the reporters.
Mr. Frese shared information classified as top secret with reporters multiple times as far back as April 2018, when he gained access to an intelligence report about an unnamed foreign country’s weapons systems — a topic unrelated to his counterterrorism work, according to court papers.
Mr. Frese shared information from the report with Amanda Macias, a national security reporter at CNBC who was his girlfriend, according to court papers and social media posts. She published eight articles related to information from Mr. Frese and five intelligence reports, according to prosecutors, who identified her only as Journalist 1.
Details in court papers about their communications, their social media accounts and their shared residential address made clear that Ms. Macias was Journalist 1. She did not respond to an email request for comment.
In private messages sent over Twitter in late April 2018, Ms. Macias told Mr. Frese that an American military official knew nothing about the intelligence report he had shared with her. He called the denial “weird” and later searched a classified government computer system for related terms, and called Ms. Frese back.
Within days, Ms. Macias was the first journalist to report that China had installed missiles and missile systems in the South China Sea. When she posted a link to the article on Twitter, Mr. Frese shared her tweet as well.
U.S. stock market futures plunged after the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday evening that the U.S. and China made no progress in deputy-level trade talks this week.
The report added that higher-level talks including China’s Vice Premier Liu He would now be only one day, with the China delegation planning to leave Washington on Thursday instead of Friday as scheduled.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost more than 300 points at one point and were last down 256 points, or around 1%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were also down 1%. Shares of key stocks related to global trade declined in after hours, with Apple and Caterpillar both down more than 1%. Intel shares were down more than 2% in after-hours trading and Micron Technology lost nearly 2%.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The issue of forced technology transfers, which China refused to put on the table, was the reason talks were at a standstill, the report said.
Tom Block, Fundstrat Washington research strategist, said the latest affront to China was the U.S. imposition of visas on some officials believed to be involved in the detention and human rights abuses of Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups. China reportedly plans to follow the move by restricting visas for Americans it perceives to have ties with anti-China groups.
Block said the U.S. made two strategic missteps this week, with the blacklisting of companies and also the visas, and that will make a deal harder to achieve. “I think it looks less likely every time we take a unilateral action against China,” said Block.
U.S. stocks fell on Monday and Tuesday as investors lowered their expectations for a trade deal. Stocks rebounded on Wednesday, however, as traders grew more comfortable with the idea of a partial deal and the postponement of future tariffs, a scenario laid out in various media reports. Now even that seems out of reach, according to this report.
“The volley is now in the administration’s court,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. She noted, however, that the market is used to this back and forth on the trade front by now. “Had this been the first time something like this happened, the market reaction would have been far more strident.”
Tariffs on $250 billion worth of China imports are set to increase to 30% from 25% on Oct. 15 following a two-week delay seen as a goodwill gesture by President Donald Trump. The administration is also scheduled to add a 15% levy on an additional $160 billion worth of Chinese imports on Dec. 15.
On Monday, the Department of Commerce added 28 new Chinese companies and agencies to a “blacklist.” The move soured the tone of the lower-level talks, which were meant to set the table for an actual trade agreement later in the week.
The South China Morning Post had reported earlier in the week that optimism about the talks was dimming on China’s side. The paper is owned by Alibaba and is often criticized for reports seen as favoring the Chinese government.
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger and Patti Domm contributed to this report.
American Airlines said Wednesday it expects federal officials to sign off on software updates and other changes to Boeing’s 737 Max jets later this year and plans to resume passenger service on the aircraft on Jan. 16.
“American Airlines anticipates that the impending software updates to the Boeing 737 Max will lead to recertification of the aircraft later this year and resumption of commercial service in January 2020,” the airline said in a statement. “We are in continuous contact with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Transportation (DOT).”
Despite American’s announcement, FAA officials maintained that there is no set timeline for returning the planes to service, and said it has not given airlines a date for when the grounding will be lifted.
“The FAA is following a thorough process, not a prescribed timeline, for returning the Boeing 737 Max to passenger service,” the agency said in an email. “The FAA is continuing to evaluate Boeing’s software modification and is still developing necessary training requirements.”
However, executives at Boeing said they expect to submit their final certification package to the FAA later this year. Based on that, airlines have begun to lay the groundwork for returning the planes to service. For example, American is working closely with the Allied Pilots Association, which represents its pilots, on training and other issues.
American’s expected date for resuming service with the Max would make it the last of the major carriers to resume flying the plane under dates that have been announced. Southwest Airlines, which has the most Max jets of any U.S. carrier, has removed the plane from its schedule until Jan. 5, while United Airlines has removed the Max from its schedule until Dec. 19.
American’s announcement comes near nearly seven months after regulators around the world grounded the Max in the wake of two fatal crashes that killed 346 people.
This month marks the anniversary of the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air flight that plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers and crew aboard. A final report on that crash is expected later this year. Less than five months later, a 737 Max flying under the Ethiopian Airlines banner went down shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, killing all 157 passengers and crew members aboard.
In both instances, preliminary investigations pointed to issues with an anti-stall system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was designed to compensate for changes to the plane’s design.
The crashes have led to increased scrutiny of the process the FAA followed in certifying that the newest version of the popular 737 aircraft was safe to fly, as well as Boeing’s role in that process. Both the FAA and Boeing are now subjects of numerous inquiries by congressional committees, the Transportation Department’s Inspector General and the Justice Department’s criminal division.
Boeing has been working for months on software updates to the MCAS — an effort the company says has included hundreds of hours of software analysis, laboratory testing and simulator verification. In addition, it has conducted two test flights, including an in-flight certification test with the FAA, which must certify the changes before the planes can be cleared to fly.
American said it expects flights on the 737 Max to resume starting Jan. 16, and gradually increase throughout January and into February. The airline noted that because the number of flights on 737 Max jets will slowly increase over the course of a month, there may be additional schedule changes. Passengers affected by those changes will be contacted directly by the airline.
American said it is working on accommodations for travelers who do not wish to travel on the 737 Max once it resumes flying and will release details in coming weeks.
Flights scheduled on Max planes through Jan. 6 will not be canceled. Instead, in most instances American will substitute other aircraft in their place. Schedules for travelers with reservations Jan. 7-15 will be updated on Sunday.
The Trump White House’s letter on Tuesday informing House Democrats that it will not cooperate in any way with their impeachment inquiry is a serious escalation in the fight between the two branches of government.
Tensions between Congress and the White House have been high since Trump took office. It’s not unusual for a White House to work at cross-purposes with a hostile Congress, as we saw most recently in the Mueller probe, but to flatly ignore its requests in this way seems, well, different.
The Constitution is pretty clear that we have three separate but equal branches of government. The White House, in ignoring what is by any measure a lawful congressional inquiry, is challenging this principle head-on.
The big question now: Is it actually legal for the White House to ignore Congress in this way? And if the administration persists, does this leave us in a legitimate constitutional crisis?
President Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One, on October 4, 2019.Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images
To get some answers, I reached out to 13 legal experts. Their full responses, lightly edited for clarity and length, are below.
There’s no real consensus on the big question of whether we’re facing a genuine constitutional crisis. Some experts think we’ve already crossed that threshold; others say we’ll get there when and if the administration ignores a court order.
Nearly everyone agrees about one thing: We’re entering dangerous territory.
Yes, the crisis is here
Lisa Kern Griffin, law professor, Duke University
The letter from the White House is a political stunt that misinterprets the Constitution, ignores relevant precedents, and defies common sense. The Constitution does not say much about impeachment, but what it does state is clear, simple, and right there in Article I. The House “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and the Senate “shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
No particular process is specified or required. In other words, the House determines the procedures it will use to, in effect, issue an indictment of the president, and the Senate then conducts a trial. Even were this a criminal rather than a political mechanism, bringing an indictment does not require open proceedings and the cross-examination of witnesses. There is zero legal support for the White House’s demands, and the president has also made it clear that there is no procedure at all with which he will cooperate.
Yes, the long-feared constitutional crisis is here. For the White House and the entire administration to reject this constitutional process means open contempt for a coequal branch of the government. The president claims he cannot be indicted by prosecutors unless he has been impeached by Congress, and then he insists he will defy all congressional investigations as well.
The House subpoenas are of course legally valid, but seeking redress in the courts will cause delay, and the passage of time brings the 2020 election closer.
Jessica Levinson, law professor, Loyola Law School
What do you get when you mix a valid congressional impeachment inquiry with a recalcitrant president? A constitutional crisis. We have bandied about the term “constitutional crisis” for almost three years now. But here we are, watching a president flout Congress’ constitutional authority to initiate and proceed with an impeachment inquiry.
An impeachment inquiry is not a dinner invitation. It is not something one can decide whether or not to accept. The president, like other American citizens, is subject to Congress’ subpoena power. Let’s not confuse the president’s refusal to comply with a right to refusal.
The president’s recalcitrance will likely leave Congress adding one more thing to the impeachment inquiry: obstruction of justice.
The real crisis will come if the White House ignores the courts, too
Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia
The eight-page letter of the White House counsel may be described as legal-ish. At times it resembles a legal document, and it even cites a few Supreme Court cases. Overall, however, its arguments sound political. The White House has taken a political position that assumes almost unlimited executive power and pays little heed to the checks and balances upon which the US Constitution is founded.
The Constitution gives the House of Representatives “the sole power” to vote on articles of impeachment, following a process to be set by the House itself. There is no doubt that the House can subpoena testimony and documents from employees of the executive branch, and those employees must comply unless there exists a legally recognized privilege. Determining the presence or absence of such a privilege is not a decision solely within the power of the president.
So, no, the White House cannot just refuse across the board to cooperate with subpoenas. Persistence may result in a finding of contempt of Congress, a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison. If that occurs and that punishment is met with further resistance, surely then there will be an actual constitutional crisis.
Victoria Nourse, law professor, Georgetown University
Conventional wisdom holds that refusing to provide information means that you have something to hide. Congress has the authority to subpoena anyone in the private sphere or the administration for a legislative purpose. This is established law, reaching to 1927. If the president has a claim of executive privilege, that can be asserted, but the courts are its final arbitrators. What the president’s lawyers are, in the end, saying, is, “Take me to court.”
Now, are we in a constitutional crisis? In my own view, the problem has to do with a failure of a neutral mediator. The rules are clear, but the president is refusing to comply with the established rules. Pressure will grow for the judiciary to act, and to act quickly. The law is clear: The president should lose; his agents are subject to a legal subpoena. The true constitutional crisis would occur if the president refuses to follow a court order.
Jens David Ohlin, law professor, Cornell University
Refusing to cooperate represents a change in strategy for the White House. Initially, the White House cooperated (by releasing the transcript of the phone call, for example) in order to take the obstruction argument off the table and not give Democrats another argument in favor of impeachment. The White House has apparently abandoned that strategy.
I wouldn’t describe this as a constitutional crisis because I usually reserve that term for when one branch of government ignores a judicial order and refuses to submit to the rule of law. That being said, the Trump administration is required to submit to requests for congressional oversight and their refusal to cooperate with the congressional investigation brings us one step closer to impeachment.
Although Congress can go to federal court to ask a judge to enforce a subpoena that is being ignored, that move takes time, and in the end, the House may simply decide to use the White House refusal as another justification for impeachment. In this case, impeachment is the ultimate constitutional tool — a blunt tool but a tool nonetheless — for pushing back against a non-compliant executive branch. That’s where we are headed.
Michael Kang, law professor, Northwestern University
It is hard for the White House to convincingly maintain that its complete refusal to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry is “legal” in the usual sense, but the White House is operating with politics, rather than law, in mind.
Obviously the president isn’t authorized to judge for himself the legitimacy of the House’s impeachment inquiry over himself and then refuse to cooperate on that basis. However, I don’t think it’s quite yet what we should call a constitutional crisis. There’s still the matter of court involvement, which is a likely next step.
Courts are likely to side with the House on its subpoenas and access to grand jury evidence, at least over the arguments the White House has offered so far. If the White House continues its refusals in flat defiance of court rulings, then calling it a constitutional crisis starts to make sense.
Douglas Spencer, law professor, University of Connecticut
The Constitution is not clear about a lot of things. When it comes to impeachment, however, the language is clear: The House of Representatives “shall have the sole power of impeachment.” The Constitution is also clear that “each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.”
The Constitution is clear that the House can follow whatever rules it wants. Congress is engaged in an investigation, not a trial. If the president is impeached (a.k.a. indicted) then he would have the right to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses as part of his trial in the Senate. It is wrong to conflate an impeachment with a trial.
Finally, is there a legitimate basis for the current inquiry? The Supreme Court has held that congressional oversight is not unlimited. In Watkins v. United States (1957) the Court held that Congressional inquiries “must be related to, and in furtherance of, a legitimate task of the Congress.” As a result, the Court in 1957 threw out a conviction against union organizer John Watkins who had been held in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions by members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
The Constitution doesn’t explicitly grant the House of Representatives the sole power of rooting out Communism. On the other hand, the Constitution gives the House the sole power of impeachment. It’s hard to see how Watkins would apply in this case.
Because there is still a constitutionally prescribed path forward, I don’t think we are yet in a constitutional crisis, though yesterday’s events inched us closer. If the courts fail to enforce congressional subpoenas or if the courts enforce the subpoenas and the White House ignores the courts (something it has not done), then we’ll have a true constitutional crisis on our hands.
Trump’s refusal might be a crisis, but the bigger issue is the collapse of norms
Melissa Murray, law professor, New York University
It seems like we’ve been careening from constitutional crisis to constitutional crisis as this administration has repeatedly refused Congress’ oversight requests. The fact that this involves an impeachment inquiry — Congress’ ultimate check on the Executive — amplifies the sense that this is different from what preceded it.
So does this leave us in a constitutional crisis? Maybe. But to my mind, the thing that is most concerning about all of the administration’s frequent clashes with Congress is that they make clear how much we rely on norms, rather than rules (whether constitutional or not), for the government to operate effectively and efficiently.
In the past, when the administration and Congress disagreed over oversight requests, they negotiated a mutually agreeable outcome, and failing that, resorted to the courts to resolve the dispute. The norm of interbranch negotiation and resolution has fallen by the wayside with this administration. It’s unclear whether it can be resurrected going forward. The abrogation of the norms on which the exercise of constitutional powers depend might be the real constitutional crisis here.
Aziz Huq, law professor, University of Chicago
Under no theory of the Constitution does the White House have authority to block any and all (or even most) impeachment-related inquiries. I anticipate that the president’s defenders will generate ‘theories’ purporting to justify his move anon. Those theories (and the confusion they intentionally generate) merely constitute the collateral damage of this presidency on constitutional norms.
Congress has the legal tools to make the White House cooperate
Keith Whittington, politics professor, Princeton University
The letter signals that the White House will do its best to try to delegitimize the entire impeachment process. The House has no obligation to allow the subject of an impeachment inquiry to present a defense, though the House might find it useful to hear what defense might be offered.
The president, like any other impeached officer, would have an opportunity to present a defense, cross-examine witnesses, and the like at the Senate trial. In effect, the White House is declaring that it is unwilling to provide the House of Representatives with any substantial grounds to refrain from impeaching the president and that the White House will choose to present whatever defense it has to offer in the Senate, and perhaps in the 2020 presidential campaign.
Whether the president has appropriately or inappropriately refused to cooperate with a congressional investigation, if the subject matter of the investigation is serious enough and Congress thinks its stakes in pursuing the investigation are high enough, the legislature has the constitutional tools available to it to put pressure on the White House to cooperate.
Those tools ultimately include the power to impeach the president, or other executive officers, for abuse of office by refusing to comply with appropriate and valid congressional inquiries. It would then be up to the Senate to determine whether the position of the House or that of the president ought to be vindicated.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, law professor, Stetson University
Forget the Watergate scandal for a minute. If the Trump administration persists in defying Congressional requests for testimony and documents, then we’re really back at the Teapot Dome Scandal from the 1920s. At the heart of the Teapot Dome Scandal was why president Harding’s Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty had not investigated the Secretary of Interior Albert Fall’s shady dealings — including outright bribes — over oil rights in Teapot Dome, Wyoming.
Looking into the matter, Congress had reason to believe that Attorney General Harry’s brother Mally S. Daugherty, who was a banker, had relevant information to provide. When Mally was subpoenaed to appear before Congress, he refused. This led to the Sergeant at Arms’ deputizing a man to go arrest Mally in Ohio. Mally convinced a judge that he was wrongly imprisoned by Congress. This legal battle over whether Congress could make Mally talk eventually led to a Supreme Court case which recognizes the broad subpoena power of Congress.
Some of this legal precedent from McGrain v. Daugherty could be translated directly to current events. One of the questions that the House surely has is when the Inspector General referred the whistleblower’s complaint about President Trump’s call with the President of Ukraine to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution for a possible violation of campaign finance laws, why did the Barr DOJ drop the ball?
Then and now, Congress should have the full ability to investigate the DOJ and other parts of the administration, including the president, so that Congress can properly craft legislation, as well as execute their constitutional duties.
Ilya Somin, law professor, George Mason University
There is room for reasonable disagreement about many aspects of impeachment, including the fairness of the procedures used by the House. But Cipollone’s arguments simply don’t pass the laugh test.
The impeachment power belongs to the House. It applies in situations where there is reason to believe the president has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The founders drafted the impeachment clause to cover a wide range of abuses of power, including ones where there is no violation of criminal law. If Trump withheld aid from Ukraine in an attempt to pressure them into investigating a political opponent, he likely both violated the Constitution and committed a crime.
Article I of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the sole power to “determine the rules of its proceedings.” That includes rules governing impeachment. The House is not bound by the procedural requirements imposed on the criminal justice system. The constitutional requirement of “due process” cited by Cipollone applies to situations where an individual stands to lose her “life, liberty, or property,” none of which is at risk here.
Once the House has decided to conduct an impeachment inquiry, it must have the power to subpoena witnesses and compel submission of relevant evidence. If the president could conceal evidence and ignore subpoenas, Congress’ constitutional authority over impeachment would be seriously undermined. Indeed, failure to cooperate with a congressional impeachment process is itself likely an impeachable offense.
It is too early to tell whether Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry will lead to a constitutional crisis. I suspect not, especially since there is plenty of damning evidence that has already been made public. The White House’s refusal to cooperate may be an attempt to corral a horse that has already left the barn. Still, that refusal is a breach of the separation of powers.
Actually, the Constitution is the crisis
Sanford Levinson, law professor, University of Texas
My view, frequently articulated, is that the Constitution itself is the crisis. What we are seeing right now are the pathological implications of the separation of powers, checks-and-balances, system, which does not prevent an endless struggle unless one side actually concedes.
Without such forbearance, we simply have endless (and nasty) political warfare featuring lawyers shouting at one another and further delegitimizing the American political order in the eyes of a justifiably cynical public. It will be resolved if and only if Republican senators develop some sense of integrity and backbone. I have no confidence at all that will happen.
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Shutoffs for the second phase of counties, initially scheduled to start around noon on Wednesday, have been delayed by a few hours. The counties impacted are: Alameda, Alpine, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Mariposa, Mendocino, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Stanislaus and Tuolumne.
About 513,000 customers were part of the first phase of this PSPS in Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba counties.
About 21,000 in Calaveras and 800 customers in Mendocino were not part of the first phase and will be turned off during the second phase coming later Wednesday.
A third phase is being considered for the southernmost portions of PG&E’s service area, impacting approximately 42,000 customers. Specific locations are still to be determined.
PG&E says the decision to turn off the power was based on forecasts of dry, hot and windy weather including potential fire risk. However several residents have noticed little to no wind this morning in the region. That could change by this afternoon with gusts expected to pick up.
The strongest winds are forecasted to reach 60 to 70 mph at higher elevations, according to forecast models being used by PG&E.
NORTH BAY
There are 186,000 people without power in Marin, Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties according to PG&E.
Traffic has been a mess with backups at several intersections due to the outage.
PG&E shut off the power in Sonoma at midnight, causing problems for residents and bringing many to question why this was happening.
“There’s no wind. So I am a little confused with that. PG&E has a little problem with information, I think,” said Chris Lely around 6 a.m. outside the Safeway, where he was looking to get a cup of coffee.
The store had some lights on but was closed. Safeway had a generator to try and save some food but did not have enough power to open for business.
“This is the start of it. We will see how many days it runs. That will be the problem. It’s not fun. It’s better than a fire though,” Lely said.
As the morning progressed, a beautiful Fall day unfolded. But the power remained off.
“It’s a little ridiculous. It’s beautiful out… short sleeves… I don’t know what prompted the power outages,” said Josh Crozat, the general manager of G&C Auto Body
He says his office is closed but his garage workers pulled out their hand tools to try and work today. They don’t like it but say it’s better than not working at all.
“It’s exhausting. Normally you hit a button and it goes. Now you’re wrenching with your shoulder, your arm. I wouldn’t want to do it, I use a pen,” Crozat said.
Classes at Sonoma schools were cancelled because of the power outage. Gas stations were closed. People still pulled in to some stations in search of fuel….hoping for an escape.
“I thought I might want to drive to a hotel in a beautiful area that has power, but I don’t think so unless I can find some gas,” said Glen Delman.
Sonoma Market is open but with limited service. The grocery store has a generator to power its cash registers and lights but its ovens don’t work and the coffee is cold. The store is putting its meat and frozen goods in refrigerated trucks behind the store to try and save them. The manager says if the power outage lasts for days, though, they will lose a lot of it to expiration dates.
It’s all about timing for the people in Napa, fending for themselves with a PG&E power outage that started for them at midnight, some feeling very lucky that they arrived to the local Nob Hill Market just as a new load of ice was being unloaded.
“I think they jumped the gun in my opinion,” said Napa resident Chris Vannoy as he loaded four big bags of ice into his SUV. “There’s no breeze. There’s still due on my car. Turning it off is good, but wait till it’s dangerous.”
Beyond the coping, there is a bit of frustration as residents awakened to a power outage PG & E claims it had to do because of high winds, but here, there is barely any. At least not yet.
“The wind is two miles an hour right now,” said George Wesowitch, as he walked his two dogs in South Napa. “It was 11 miles an hour last night. No wind.” But high winds are still forecast, prompting a strike team of firefighters from all over the area to gather at a fire station near Silverado Country Club. The contingent includes firefighters from Napa County, St. Helena and American Canyon, as well as the City of Napa.
“We’re formed up as a task force,” said Captain Dan D’Angelo with the City of Napa Fire Department. “We’re pre-positioned, ready to go for a rapid response.”
At a busy intersection South of Napa, the failure of a battery backup system led to a huge backup of cars, where Highways 29 and 221 meet. It was so bad, the CHP had to step in and control traffic by flashlight.
At the Village Liquor on Monticello Road, in the heart of the outage area, the power outage is a little less dangerous, but still disruptive. The store is open, but all transactions are cash only. A portable generator is powered up at the rear of the store to keep the frozen case and the cash registers up and running, but otherwise the store is completely in the dark.
EAST BAY
Power outages could impact 32,680 residents Alameda County and 51,310 residents in Contra Costa County starting at noon.
Caltrans announced that the Caldecott Tunnel will remain open through the outage. Crews worked to provide backup generators so that it can remain open.
The Oakland Zoo has been closed today, but crews are working to prepare for the outages.
Joaquin Miller Park along with Dimond, East Oakland and Sheffield Village recreation centers in Oakland will also be closed.
In Hayward, city officials are increasing firefighter, police and emergency-dispatch staffing levels. A cooling and device-charging center at city hall.
“We believe in backups, and backups, and backups,” said Andrea Pook, a spokesperson for East Bay MUD.
Pook says EBMUD, rented 29 portable generators, to pump water to their customers since much of our water supply relies on electricity too.
“What we want to do is preserve that water supply, so what we’re asking people to do is conserve water, shut off their outdoor irrigation, when the PG&E power shut down occurs.”
“This is not a good contingency for their customers,” said Marilyn Varnado, who lives in the Oakland Hills. Like many people in the Bay Area, she checked into a hotel, when she found out her home was in an outage area.
“Most people don’t realize what an outage really means,” said Varnado, who added, “stoplights are not going to be working, there’s going to be a lot of crazy things going on and I just think there’s going to be some tragedies because of that.”
SOUTH BAY
As the line of cars inches toward a San Jose Chevron off of East Capitol Expressway, vehicles were also moving closer and closer to PG&E’s public safety power shutdown.
“This is insane,” Yaneth Miluitin, a San Jose resident said. “We are not a third world country.”
Although PG&E believes 38,000 customers in Santa Clara County could be impacted by the outage, that’s counting “customer accounts.” The city said about 200,000 people could be impacted in San Jose.
“They think by shutting off the power they’re going to resolve a problem, but the problem is a lot deeper than what we’re experiencing right now,” Milutin said.
“It’s very frustrating on our part to not know what’s going on in a large swath of our city and have their power taken away,” Kip Harkness, San Jose’s deputy city manager, said.
The city’s best advice right now is to be prepared for up to seven days without power. The empty water shelves inside a South San Jose Target show at least some residents are listening to the warnings.
If you don’t have the right supplies, San Jose has opened three community resource centers to help. PG&E has a community resource center operating inside Avaya auditorium.
PENINSULA
In San Mateo County, most of the areas in the PG&E fire zone are south of Highway 92, all the way to the Coast.
PG&E contractors worked near Highway 92 in San Mateo, trimming trees too close to power lines. PG&E appeared to have a new fire break around its Jefferson substation.
Upscale Emerald Hills, with its expensive homes, was in PG&E’s fire zone, a community with narrow winding roads where strong winds from the northwest sweep down in the afternoons.
The ACE Hassett Hardware Store was the most popular spot in Half Moon Bay, some of its shelves empty by noon. Generators were selling like hotcakes.
The Tom Lantos Tunnel at Devils Slide on Highway One is expected to remain open through the outage.
PG&E says power restoration will begin Thursday afternoon after the weather event. PG&E crews will then have to inspect every inch of their power lines and infrastructure, and depending on damage from the expected wind, power could be off in some areas until Monday or Tuesday.
PG&E says as the weather evolves, they will provide updates about the power shutoff and restoration timing.
Trump accused China of “gaming” the global trade system in a speech Tuesday at the United Nations as he defended tariffs that his critics say have put the U.S. economy at risk of a recession. USA TODAY
The biggest delinquent payer in the world? The United States.
Washington owes the U.N. $381 million in back payments and $674 million this year, according to the U.S. mission to the U.N. As the largest contributor to the 193-member organization, the U.S. has long sought to pressure the U.N. to rein in spending.
Trump, who has openly questioned the value of the U.N., has made skepticism of multinational organizations a central component of his foreign policy. Trump has demanded European countries contribute more to NATO and has pressed allies in Asia and the Middle East to rely less on U.S. military might and spend more on their own security.
Responding to reports of deep U.N. budget deficits, Trump returned to the theme.
“So make all Member Countries pay, not just the United States!” he wrote Wednesday.
U.N. officials say 129 countries have paid their 2019 dues, two-thirds of all members. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said that nearly $2 billion has been paid to the organization this year and that the outstanding balance for other countries amounts to another $1.3 billion.
Dujarric described the financial situation as “the worst cash crisis facing the United Nations in nearly a decade” and said it “runs the risk of depleting its liquidity reserves by the end of the month and defaulting on payments to staff and vendors.”
Created in 1945 on the heels of World War II, the United Nations charter tasked the organization with ending conflict and human rights abuses. Its real power lies in the 15-member Security Council, which can authorize sanctions and military action.
The U.S. has quarreled with the U.N. for decades over funding. A U.S. mission official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions, said the U.S. paid $600 million to peacekeeping efforts this year and will pay “the vast majority of what we owe to the regular budget this fall, as we have in past years.”
But the longstanding tension has received renewed attention because of Trump, who once described the U.N. as “not a friend of democracy” and has consistently questioned multinational efforts such as NATO and the annual G-7 and G-20 summits.
Trump spent three days in New York last month for the annual U.N. General Assembly, pressing his case for sovereignty while also seeking support from allies to address a suspected Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia. Despite the international audience, Trump has used his U.N. addresses to speak more to domestic audiences.
“The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots,” Trump told his counterparts on Sept. 24. “The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations.”
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American Airlines is pushing back the expected return of its Boeing 737 Max jets into next year and says the grounding of the planes cut its third-quarter pretax income by $140 million.
The airline said Wednesday that it expects to slowly bring the plane back into its schedule starting Jan. 16.
That is six weeks later than American planned just last month, and the sixth time the airline has pushed back the plane’s return.
Fort Worth-based American said it will drop about 140 flights per day until mid-January because of the grounding.
In an update for investors, the airline indicated that demand for tickets remains solid, with a key measure of revenue per seat rising about 2 percent in the third quarter. Some costs are rising, but jet fuel was cheaper than American had expected during the quarter, and it slightly raised its profit-margin estimate. Fuel is usually an airline’s second-highest cost after labor.
American has 24 Max jets in storage and expected to have 40 by the end of the year. American has about 950 jets, not counting smaller American Eagle planes.
The Max was grounded worldwide after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. Boeing is working on changes to flight-control software and computers.
A photo taken from Turkey’s Sanliurfa province shows smoke rising over the Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn.
It is absolute gridlock here in northern Syria, near the border with Turkey, as people try to flee to safety with little idea of what the Turkish military has in store for them.
For civilians living in this Kurdish stronghold, it’s their worst nightmare playing out before their eyes.
There was a hope up until the last minute that perhaps the US would stand in support of its Kurdish allies and prevent this incursion from happening.
But now there is widespread fear of what Turkey — which views the YPG-controlled zone as an existential threat — will do next.
So far, Turkish airstrikes have largely hit Kurdish military targets, but once you have mortars flying, there is always a potential for civilian casualties.
Chaotic scenes are unfolding now, with roads choked with fleeing families, motorcycles piled with five to six people, mattresses strapped to cars. Smoke can be seen rising from at least one area, which appears to be on fire.
People don’t know where they will go, where they will sleep tonight, or what they can expect from this Turkish operation.
Millions of people in California woke up in the dark Wednesday after Pacific Gas & Electric started shutting off power to prevent what the utility called an unprecedented wildfire danger.
PG&E said it cut power to more than 500,000 customers in Northern California and that it plans to gradually turn off electricity to nearly 800,000 customers to prevent its equipment from starting wildfires during hot, windy weather.
A second group of about 234,000 customers will lose power starting at noon, the utility said.
The utility plans to shut off power in parts of 34 northern, central and coastal California counties to reduce the chance of fierce winds knocking down or toppling trees into power lines during a siege of hot, dry, gusty weather.
Gusts of 35 mph to 45 mph (56-72 kph) were forecast to sweep a vast swath of the state, from the San Francisco Bay area to the agricultural Central Valley and especially in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where a November wildfire blamed on PG&E transmission lines killed 85 people and virtually incinerated the town of Paradise.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention said it increased staffing in preparation for extreme fire weather.
The winds will be the strongest and most widespread the region has seen in two years, and given the scope of the danger, there was no other choice but to stage the largest preventive blackout in state history, PG&E said.
“This is a last resort,” said Sumeet Singh, head of the utility’s Community Wildfire Safety Program.
However, people should be outraged by the move, Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “No one is satisfied with this, no one is happy with this,” he said.
The utility needs to upgrade and fix its equipment so massive outages aren’t the norm going forward, he said.
It could take as many as five days to restore power after the danger has passed because every inch of power line must be checked to make sure it isn’t damaged or in danger of sparking a blaze, PG&E said.
The news came as residents in the region’s wine country north of San Francisco marked the two-year anniversary of deadly wildfires that killed 44 and destroyed thousands of homes. San Francisco is the only county in the nine-county Bay Area where power will not be affected.
To the south, Southern California Edison said more than 106,000 of its customers in parts of eight counties could face power cuts as early as Thursday as Santa Ana winds loomed.
The cutbacks followed a plan instituted after deadly wildfires — some blamed on downed PG&E transmission lines — destroyed dozens of lives and thousands of homes in recent years and forced the utility into bankruptcy over an estimated $30 billion in potential damages from lawsuits.
The outages Wednesday weren’t limited to fire-prone areas because the utilities must turn off entire distribution and transmission lines to much wider areas to minimize the risk of wildfires.
Classes were cancelled for thousands of schoolchildren and at the University of California, Berkeley, Sonoma State University and Mills College.
The California Department of Transportation said it was installing generators to avoid closing the Caldecott Tunnel linking the East Bay to San Francisco and the Tom Lantos Tunnel on State Route 1 in Pacifica.
“The tunnels can’t operate without power,” Caltrans tweeted.
PG&E had warned of the possibility of a widespread shut-off Monday, prompting residents to flock to stores for supplies as they prepared for dying cellphone batteries, automatic garage doors that won’t work and lukewarm refrigerators.
Residents of the Sonoma County city of Cloverdale, population 9,300, were preparing for the possibility of zero power and downed internet and cellphone lines, as happened during the wine country fires. Cloverdale homes were not burned then, but residents were worried sick over family in burn zones and in the dark without communications, Mayor Melanie Bagby said.
She accused PG&E of failing to upgrade its equipment.
“It’s inexcusable that we’re in the situation that we’re in,” she said. “We pay our bills, and we gave PG&E a monopoly to guarantee we would have” reliable power.
But Santa Rosa Mayor Tom Schwedhelm said he was grateful PG&E was taking proactive action. His city lost 5% of its housing a 2017 fire that killed 22 and torched nearly 6,000 structures in Sonoma and Napa counties. State investigators determined the fire was sparked by a private electrical system, and was not the fault of PG&E.
Hospitals would operate on backup power, but other systems could see their generators fail after a few days. Outages even posed a threat that fire hydrants wouldn’t work at a time of extreme fire danger.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District serving Alameda and Contra Costa counties, recently spent $409,000 to rent 29 backup generators for use beginning at noon Wednesday.
“The backup generators that we have are stationed at the pumping plants, which pump water to the fire hydrants,” spokeswoman Andrea Pook told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Counties activated their emergency centers and authorities urged people to have supplies of water for several days, to keep sensitive medicines such as insulin in cool places, to drive carefully because traffic lights could be out, to have a full gas tank for emergencies and to check the food in freezers and refrigerators for spoilage after power is restored.
PG&E set up about 30 community centers offering air conditioning, restrooms, bottled water and electronic charging stations during daylight hours.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf asked residents Tuesday not to clog 911 lines with non-emergencies and urged people to be prepared. The city canceled all police officers’ days off in preparation for the outages.
PG&E said it was informing customers by text and email about where and when the power would be cut. But its website, where it directed people to check whether their addresses would be affected, was not working most of the day Tuesday after being overloaded with visitors.
WASHINGTON — There’s a frequent number in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and it’s not a good one for President Trump — 53 percent.
Fifty-three percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job.
Fifty-three percent hold a negative personal view of the president.
Fifty-three percent don’t believe the president has been honest and trustworthy when it comes to his actions regarding Ukraine.
And 53 percent is the average between the 51 percent who say the allegations against Trump are serious and should be fully investigated, and the combined 55 percent who want Trump either impeached/removed right now or who want an impeachment inquiry.
Oh, and if 53 percent sounds familiar, remember that 54 percent of the country voted for someone else in the 2016 presidential election
So two things can be true.
One, Americans have been pretty much locked in their partisan corners since November 2016.
“What’s powerful about this poll is what has not changed,” said Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who co-conducts the NBC/WSJ survey.
And two, Trump starts this impeachment battle — and looks ahead to re-election next year — with 53 percent of the country already against him.
“This is one poll at the beginning,” said Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the NBC/WSJ poll. “And it’s a different starting point than either [Richard] Nixon or [Bill] Clinton had” during their own impeachments.
Indeed, Bill Clinton had a 68 percent job rating in the NBC/WSJ poll when the GOP-led House began its impeachment inquiry against him in October 1998.
And Richard Nixon’s was at 25 percent when the House started its impeachment inquiry against him in May 1974, per Gallup.
So Trump is smack-dab in the middle — at 43 percent approval.
Independents’ Day
Given these numbers on Trump, it’s not surprising to see that independents, by and large, side with Democrats in the NBC/WSJ poll.
But there’s one exception — on whether to impeach and remove Trump.
Based on what they know today, 43 percent of all Americans say that Congress should impeach and remove the president from office, while 49 percent say that he shouldn’t be impeached and should remain in office.
Among independents, it 39 percent impeach/remove, versus 45 percent don’t impeach/remain.
Compare that with how independents break on the other questions in the poll:
On Trump’s job performance: 37 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove
On whether Trump has been honest and trustworthy: 28 percent yes, 58 percent no
On whether the allegations are serious and should be investigated: 51 percent yes, 42 percent no.
So independents are pretty much aligned with Democrats on every question regarding the Ukraine/whistleblower story, with the exception being a big one.
Whether to impeach and remove the president right now.
But also note that the overall impeach and remove number has the potential to grow.
Data Download: The number of the day is … 12 percent
That’s the share of adults in the latest NBC/WSJ poll who both disapprove of the job the president is doing but do not support his impeachment and removal from office based on what they know now.
According to the pollsters, this group is demographically more likely to lean Democratic, describe themselves as moderate, and have a college degree.
A majority of them say that the allegations against Trump are serious and that they are following the news about impeachment closely. Three-quarters say they think the charges should be fully investigated and that Trump has not been honest and truthful about the process.
2020 Vision: Biden’s numbers have barely budged
As for Joe Biden, the NBC/WSJ poll finds that his numbers have barely moved since the Ukraine story became news (and since he and his son have gotten caught up in it — without any evidence of wrongdoing).
Thirty-three percent of Americans say they have a positive view of the former vice president, while 34 percent have a negative view.
In August’s NBC/WSJ poll, Biden’s fav/unfav rating was 34 percent positive, 38 percent negative.
Oh, and by way of comparison, Trump’s fav/unfav rating in the new NBC/WSJ poll is 38 percent positive, 53 percent negative.
Yesterday’s national Quinnipiac poll also showed little movement in Biden’s numbers: In a hypothetical matchup, he leads Trump by 11 points, while Elizabeth Warren leads by 8 points and Bernie Sanders by 7 points.
On the campaign trail today
Joe Biden, in New Hampshire, holds town halls in Rochester and Manchester… Elizabeth Warren, in South Carolina, holds a town hall on student with Rep. James Clyburn… Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are in Iowa… And Michael Bennet is in the Granite State.
Dispatches from NBC’s embeds
After recovering from a heart attack, Bernie Sanders is going to “change the nature” of his campaign, NBC’s Gary Grumbach reports: “When asked by NBC News what he meant by ‘change the nature,’ Sanders said he plans to slow down his pace of campaigning. ‘Probably not doing four rallies a day. I’m not quite sure, I could be wrong on this, I don’t know if there is anybody who did more rallies than we have done all over the states and I, you know, probably not do three or four rallies a day, do two or do other things as well.’”
Cory Booker met with the Des Moines Register Editorial Board while in Iowa where, per NBC’s Priscilla Thompson, he wasn’t asked about “his history with charter schools or engagement with pharmaceutical companies, something he seems to get asked about often on the trail.” Booker did express concern about the judicial branch, and said President Trump has “surrendered his appointment power to right wing extremist groups that then made every judge that had federal aspirations try to go to the margins as far as they could to try out for them.” When the editorial board asked how he’d work to change the court, Thompson reports, “Booker said he had ideas that he would not foreshadow now because they’ll be part of negotiations.”
Tweet of the day
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama’s capital, a city once known as the cradle of the Confederacy and later the birthplace of the civil rights movement, elected its first African American mayor Tuesday.
— This Is A Dominique Devereaux Stan Account (@emarvelous) October 9, 2019
The Lid: Poll position
Don’t miss the pod from yesterday, when we summed up the NBC/WSJ poll results in 4 minutes.
ICYMI: News clips you shouldn’t miss
Grave warnings are coming from the Turkish-Syrian border.
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