Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed President Donald Trump’s plan to deny green cards to immigrants who even occasionally use public benefits after the Supreme Court voted Monday to alllow it.
“This is shameful,” the freshman lawmaker commented on a tweet about the 5-4 decision. “America shouldn’t have a wealth test for admission. It’s a place where millions of people are descendants of immigrants who came w nothing & made a life.
“The American Dream isn’t a private club with a cover charge – it’s the possibility of remaking your future.”
Trump wants to tighten a rule allowing the government to deny permanent legal status to immigrants considered to be at risk of becoming “public charges.” Previously, fewer than 1% of green-card applicants were disqualified on public-charge grounds, according to The New York Times.
The president intends to withhold green cards from those who use benefits such as food stamps, housing vouchers, and Medicaid in any 12 months within a 36-month period, The Times reported.
The program isn’t a done deal, however. Opponents have filed challenges in courts across the country.
GAZA CITY/JERUSALEMGAZA CITY/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated against U.S. President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on Tuesday hours before its scheduled release at a ceremony in Washington.
Israeli troops meanwhile reinforced positions near a flashpoint site between the Palestinian city of Ramallah and the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
While Israeli leaders have welcomed Trump’s long-delayed plan, Palestinian leaders rejected it even before its official release. They say his administration is biased toward Israel.
The Palestinians fear Trump’s blueprint will dash their hopes for an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War – by permitting Israel to annex large chunks of occupied territory including blocs of Jewish settlements.
Diab Al-Louh, the Palestinians’ ambassador to Egypt, said on Tuesday they had requested an urgent meeting of the Arab League council at ministerial level – which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would attend.
GAZA PROTESTS
In Gaza City on Tuesday, protesters waved Palestinian flags and held aloft posters of Abbas. “Trump is a fool, Palestine is not for sale!” an activist shouted through a loudspeaker.
Others chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” as they burned tires and posters of Trump. More protests were expected after Trump announces details of his plan later in the day.
An Israeli military spokesman said troops had been sent to reinforce the West Bank’s Jordan Valley – an area which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to partially annex.
Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian mission to Britain, told Reuters in London that Trump’s peace plan was merely “political theater”.
“It is not a peace deal. It is the ‘bantustan-isation’ of the people of Palestine and the land of Palestine. We will be turned into bantustans,” he said, referring to the nominally independent black enclaves in apartheid-era South Africa.
“Jan. 28, 2020 will mark the official legal stamp of approval of the United States for Israel to implement a full-fledged apartheid system,” he said.
Israel vehemently rejects any comparison to the former South African regime.
GOOD DEAL?
Trump will deliver joint remarks with Netanyahu at the White House later on Tuesday to outline his plan, the result of three years work by his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
He met with Netanyahu and the Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz ahead of the announcement. Both were briefed on its contents.
Netanyahu said it was “the opportunity of a century and we’re not going to pass it by.” Gantz called it a “significant and historic milestone.”
A Netanyahu spokesman said he would fly to Moscow on Wednesday to brief Russian President Vladimir Putin on the proposals.
But Israeli-Palestinian talks broke down in 2014, and it is far from clear that the Trump plan will resuscitate them.
Palestinian and Arab sources who were briefed on a draft of the plan fear that it will seek to bribe Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation, in what could be a prelude to Israel annexing about half of the West Bank.
Further obstacles include the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied land and the rise to power in Gaza of the Islamist movement Hamas, which is formally committed to Israel’s destruction.
Palestinian leaders say they were not invited to Washington, and that no plan can work without them. An Abbas spokesman urged any Arab or Muslim officials invited to the ceremony to boycott it.
Addressing their fears, Trump said on Monday: “They probably won’t want it initially…but I think in the end they will. It’s very good for them. In fact it’s overly good to them.”
But on Monday Abbas said he would not agree to any deal that did not secure a two-state solution. That formula, the basis for many years of frustrated international peace efforts, envisages Israel co-existing with a Palestinian state.
Palestinians have refused to deal with the Trump administration in protest at such pro-Israeli policies as its moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, whose eastern half the Palestinians seek for a future capital.
The Trump administration in November reversed decades of U.S. policy when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington no longer regarded the settlements on West Bank land as a breach of international law. Palestinians and most countries view the settlements as illegal, which Israel disputes.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said both Trump and Netanyahu were looking to change the subject from their own domestic troubles.
“The problem is it doesn’t feel like this is the beginning of an important initiative,” Alterman said.
Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives last month and is on trial in the Senate on abuse of power charges.
On Tuesday Netanyahu was formally indicted in court on corruption charges, after he withdrew his bid for parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
Both men deny any wrongdoing.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Dan Williams and Steven Holland in Washington; Editing by Angus Macswan and Mark Heinrich)
Baghdad, Iraq – Anti-government protesters in Iraq have struck a defiant tone at their main sit-in encampment in the capital, Baghdad, as continuing clashes with security forces continued for a third day.
The central Tahrir Square was a bustle of activity on Monday. Protesters took advantage of the warm sun to air out blankets and mattresses soaked from days of rain.
Street vendors selling battery packs, mobile chargers and assorted knickknacks crowded the square, where various nationalistic songs blared from the speakers.
A few hundred metres away, at Khilani Square, one of the front line battle spots of the protest movement, security forces fired tear gas and live bullets on protesters in an attempt to force them back to Tahrir.
On Saturday, riot police briefly managed to push those protesters back by shooting at them and setting tents on fire.
In the southern cities of Nasiriya, Basra and Diwaniyeh, clashes erupted as security forces attempted to overrun the main protest squares and barricades set up by the demonstrators.
At least two protesters were killed overnight on Monday in Nasiriya after unknown gunmen in pick-up trucks shot at them.
The crackdowns on Saturday came shortly after influential Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who also heads the largest bloc in Parliament, announced he is withdrawing his support to the protests.
Al-Sadr’s decision came a day after tens of thousands of his supporters crowded Baghdad’s Jadriya neighbourhood on Friday, calling for the removal of US and Iranian forces from the Iraqi soil.
Sadr took a ‘wrong decision’
Al-Sadr, whose Sairoon bloc opposes foreign interference, had initially joined the anti-government protests a few weeks after they took off last October, as Iraqis from different backgrounds and ages banded together to call for a complete overhaul of what they considered a corrupt ruling elite.
The Shia leader’s support bolstered the movement with numbers, supplies and protection from the powerful pro-Iranian armed groups.
But al-Sadr’s withdrawal has prompted his supporters to pack up their tents and leave, which the anti-government protesters said led to the recent attacks by security forces on their sit-ins.
“Al-Sadr’s decision was wrong in my opinion and hurt us because it opened the doors for those who are against us and the Sadrists to attack us,” said Umm Aqeel, a protester who has been a permanent fixture at Tahrir Square since October 25.
“We acknowledge the sacrifices the Sadr bloc has made and the support they have given us, but they should be standing here with us on the side of the oppressed people,” she added.
Umm Aqeel, who leaves her house every morning and spends the entire day and most evening hours at Tahrir, says she supports the protesters in any way she can, “by giving them food, blankets, mattresses and medicine”.
“On Saturday, our tents were burned. So we decided to set up tents made from metal,” she said. “In Nasiriya, they are replacing tents with brick structures.”
“I respect Sayyid Muqtada, but unfortunately there are infiltrators within parties who are trying to create a rift between us and the Sadrists, who we can’t deny have held some sway in the protest movement,” she added.
‘Under umbrella of independent Iraq’
According to Ali al-Abadi, a surgeon who has been going to Tahrir Square since October 1, at least 430 people have been wounded since the latest escalation began on Saturday.
“When we began protesting, it was under the umbrella of an independent Iraq, not a specific political party or group,” he told Al Jazeera. “Therefore, any bloc that decides to leave the protest site does not affect us. We are capable of protecting ourselves, as the last few days have shown.”
Al-Abadi said the Sadrists leaving the protest sites has not affected the mood of the anti-government protesters. He insisted he bore no ill will towards them, who he described as “brothers” to the movement.
“We are both calling for an end to corruption but we have different paths to achieve that,” he said.
“Personally speaking, I have no issues with them and if they come back to the sit-in, we will welcome them with open arms.”
But other protesters were not so forgiving, casting doubts on the intentions of Sadr’s supporters.
Abu Siwar, a 22-year-old protester who has been camping inside a Turkish restaurant overlooking the square, told Al Jazeera that Sadrists leaving had done the protest movement a favour as it reverted back to its non-partisan nature.
“When we first took to the streets to protest in October, we did so out of our own convictions and need for a new political system and a better future for us,” he said.
“We did not go to the streets in response to a call from any political party or minister or religious figure. As activists, as a society, we protested together and our ideas evolved from there. We are a popular youth-led movement.”
Abu Siwar saw the Sadrists’ involvement in protests as one based on following orders of their leaders rather than conviction.
“Their withdrawal has achieved the opposite effect of breaking up the movement,” he said. “We have had more protesters joining in. On the day Sadr declared his decision, the entire area from Tahrir Square to Tayaran Square was full of people, waving only the Iraqi flag.”
US embassy attack
Meanwhile, overnight on Monday, at least five katyusha rockets targeted the US embassy inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, the US military said in a statement.
It was the third attack on the embassy this month since the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi head of Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces or PMF) on January 3.
There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the attacks. But the US has accused Iran-backed militias of targeting its interests by attacking military bases housing Americans and diplomatic missions.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the attack in a statement, asserting Iraq’s commitment to protecting diplomatic missions in the country.
But according to political analyst Hashem al-Hashemi, the US is losing patience with Abdul Mahdi’s failure to curb the influence of pro-Iranian armed groups.
“It is certain the US will not renew its confidence in Abdul Mahdi and trust him to form a new government,” al-Hashemi told Al Jazeera. “The US wants him to restrain the PMF, but that is complicated by the fact that they are his last allies.”
Mr. Trump declared himself “a big fan” of Mr. Erdogan as they sat side by side in the Oval Office last fall after Mr. Trump cleared the way for Turkish forces to invade Syria, though he warned Mr. Erdogan behind the scenes against the offensive.
Of Mr. Xi, Mr. Trump has been similarly effusive. When the Chinese Communist Party eliminated term limits, allowing Mr. Xi to keep his tenure open-ended, Mr. Trump extolled the outcome.
Mr. Xi had personally asked Mr. Trump to intervene to save ZTE, which was on the brink of collapse because of tough American penalties for sanctions violations.
Lifting the sanctions on ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications giant that also serves as a geopolitical pawn for its government, most likely helped Mr. Trump negotiate with Mr. Xi in the trade war between the two countries. But Republican lawmakers and others objected to helping a Chinese company that broke the law and has been accused of posing a national security threat.
Mr. Bolton’s reputation for muscular foreign policy was always an odd fit with Mr. Trump, who often threatens excessive force but rarely reacts with it. Mr. Bolton was pleased when Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, that the Obama administration had entered into. Other Trump advisers had urged him against it.
But Mr. Trump’s lack of action after Iranian aggression against the United States rankled Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Bolton’s book has already netted significant sales. Shortly after the disclosure of its contents on Sunday night, Amazon listed the book for purchase. By Monday evening, it was No. 17 on Amazon’s best-seller list.
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Afghan service members head toward the site of the plane crash Monday in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni.
Mustafa Andalib/Reuters
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Mustafa Andalib/Reuters
Afghan service members head toward the site of the plane crash Monday in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni.
Mustafa Andalib/Reuters
Updated at 1:49 p.m. ET
A plane crashed Monday in Afghanistan’s eastern Ghazni province, and within hours, a swarm of conflicting reports had coalesced around the wreckage.
According to a U.S. official, the plane — a U.S. Bombardier E-11A — had two people on board, both of whom died in the crash. The official told NPR that the plane went down because of mechanical problems.
But that’s not the only account of the incident.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, told NPR that insurgents with the group shot down the plane and that it had CIA officials on board. Earlier Monday, Mujahid referred to the plane on Twitter as an “enemy intelligence aircraft” and said the bodies of the intelligence officials were still lying near the crash site in the Sado Khelo region of Ghazni.
The militant group frequently exaggerates battlefield actions, and the claims could not be confirmed. Col. William “Sonny” Leggett, spokesman for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said that “Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false.”
“While the cause of crash is under investigation,” Leggett said in a tweeted statement, “there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire. We will provide additional information as it becomes available.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, Ruhallah Ahmadzai, told NPR that the aircraft was not Afghan — neither civilian nor military. Ahmadzai said Afghan special forces have been deployed to the crash site.
Journalists in the area posted purported images of the charred, smoldering wreck, which NPR has not independently verified. The plane shown in several different videos bears markings that appear to be a version of U.S. Air Force insignia.
Confusion around the crash has swirled since virtually the moment it occurred. Initial reports, citing local government officials, said the plane was operated by the state-owned Ariana Afghan Airlines — only to be rebutted quickly by the company’s acting chief executive, Mirwais Mirzakwal.
“It does not belong to Ariana because the two flights managed by Ariana today from Herat to Kabul and Herat to Delhi are safe,” Mirzakwal told Reuters. And the airline itself, in a Facebook post, also pushed back on suggestions that its plane was involved.
For the past couple of years, Ghazni province has stood at the epicenter of friction between the Afghan military and the Taliban.
The militant organization recaptured control of much of the region after launching a series of attacks that left hundreds dead in 2018. And just last month, a Taliban infiltrator killed roughly two dozen Afghan soldiers at a military base in the province.
U.S. troops also remain a principal target for the Taliban. Earlier this month, an improvised explosive device, or IED, set by the Taliban killed a pair of service members in the southern province of Kandahar.
Proposed peace talks with the group have largely stagnated, with occasional suggestions of progress punctuated by high-profile protests and cancellations in recent months. After months of preliminary negotiations, President Trump called off talks last September following the death of a U.S. service member — only to announce their resumption during a surprise Thanksgiving visit to troops outside Kabul.
The current status of that proposal is unclear.
Some 12,000 to 13,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan, though Trump has said he intends to bring that total down to 8,600 or less.
Producer Khwaga Ghani in Kabul and NPR’s Diaa Hadid and Tom Bowman contributed to this report.
Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to make it more difficult for low-income immigrants seeking to come to or trying to remain legally in the United States.
A senior Iraqi officer investigating the attack said that using coordinates for the flight path, he and his team had located the launchers. The use of mortars and the area from which they were fired, he said, led him to think that the attack could have been carried out by the Islamic State.
Still, the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to journalists, said the weapons were common enough that he could not rule out a Shiite militia faction close to Iran as being responsible.
During the height of Iraq’s civil strife, between roughly 2005 and 2009, both Al Qaeda in Iraq and anti-American Shiite armed groups lobbed mortars at the Green Zone in an effort to hit the American Embassy.
The prime minister’s statement, released within hours of the mortars landing in the embassy compound, appeared aimed at reassuring the Americans that the Iraqis were taking the attack seriously and would mount a vigorous response. The comments stand in stark contrast to the response both to the attack on a military base in Kirkuk, Iraq, at the end of December, which resulted in the death of an American contractor, and to the siege of the United States Embassy on Jan. 1.
In those cases the government said relatively little, especially after the Kirkuk attack.
By contrast, Mr. Abdul Mahdi used his statement on the mortar attack as a way to remind the public, which is divided about whether to have United States troops stay in the country, that using force now against the Americans would risk “dangerous consequences” that could damage Iraqi interests and “drag Iraq into a war.”
The strikes come less than a month after the attack in Kirkuk, which set off a series of retaliatory responses that pushed the United States and Iran to the brink of war. The Americans accused Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia with close links to Iran, of responsibility in the Kirkuk attack.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order Monday allowing the Trump administration to begin enforcing new limits on immigrants who are considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefit programs.
The court acted on a vote of 5-4. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said they would have left a lower court ruling in place that blocked enforcement while a legal challenge works its way through the courts.
The Department of Homeland Security announced in August that it would expand the definition of “public charge,” to be applied to people whose immigration to the U.S. could be denied because of a concern that they would primarily depend on the government for their income.
In the past, that was largely based on an assessment that an immigrant would be dependent upon cash benefits. But the Trump administration proposed to broaden the definition to include non-cash benefits, such as Medicaid, supplemental nutrition, and federal housing assistance.
Anyone who would be likely to require that broader range of help for more than 12 months in any three-year period would be swept into the expanded definition.
But in response to a lawsuit filed by New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New York City and immigrant aid groups, a federal judge in New York imposed a nationwide injunction, blocking the government from enforcing the broader rule. Congress never meant to consider the kind of time limit the government proposed, the judge said, and the test has always been whether an immigrant would become primarily dependent on cash benefits.
The government has long had authority to block immigrants who were likely to become public charges, but the term has never been formally defined. DHS proposed to fill that void, adding non-cash benefits and such factors as age, financial resources, employment history, education, and health.
DHS official Ken Cuccinelli said the proposed rules would reinforce “the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, ensuring that immigrants are able to support themselves and become successful here in America.”
Two federal appeals courts — the 9th Circuit in the West and the 4th Circuit in the Mid-Atlantic — declined to block the new rule. They noted that the law allows designating someone as inadmissible if “in the opinion of” the secretary of Homeland Security, that person would be “likely at any time to become a public charge,” which the courts said give the government broad authority.
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to lift the nationwide injunction imposed by the New York trial judge, given that two appeals courts have come to the opposite conclusion. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said Monday that district court judges have been issuing nationwide injunctions much more often.
They called on their colleagues to review the practice, which said they has spread “chaos for the litigants, the government, the courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.”
But the challengers of the public charge rule urged the justices to keep the stay in place.
They said lifting it now, while the legal battle is still being waged “would inject confusion and uncertainty” in to the immigration system and could deter millions of non-citizens from applying for public benefits.
Taliban social media accounts have posted unverified footage showing a burnt-out plane with US Air Force markings.
The video shows a Bombardier E-11A – the type of jet used by the US Air Force for electronic surveillance over Afghanistan.
Afghan authorities had initially said the crash plane belonged to state-owned airline Ariana, but the company quickly said all its planes were accounted for.
While helicopters have proven vulnerable and accident-prone in Afghanistan, the loss of a US fixed-wing aircraft is relatively rare.
But the Taliban are not believed to have the sorts of anti-aircraft missiles needed to bring down a high-flying aircraft.
The plane involved is an E-11A, one of only four in the whole US Air Force.
Essentially it is an adapted Bombardier executive jet, chosen for its ability to fly at high altitude and with extended range. It is packed with electronics: its job is to enable better communications between air and ground forces, and between different types of aircraft operating in difficult terrain or using incompatible data links.
It is a bit like the wi-fi range extender that you install in a room with a poor signal. The aircraft – along with similar electronics mounted on unmanned systems – have played an important role in the Afghan conflict, where the mountainous landscape is a major problem for modern military communications.
The Pentagon wants to prevent another missile strike after Iran’s attack on Al-Assad air base in early January; Lucas Tomlinson reports.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was struck by at least one rocket Sunday evening in the latest attack on American targets in Iraq, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News.
The official said all Pentagon officials are safe and accounted for. There were no reported deaths or injuries.
“The security situation remains tense and Iranian-backed armed groups remain a threat. So, we remain vigilant,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Hoshyar Zebari blamed the rocket attack on an “unruly militia.”
“The Embassy restaurant or canteen was damaged and burned. This is a very dangerous game by #PMF uncontrolled factions to galvanize the tense situation. It must stop,” he tweeted, referring to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.
Separately, five Katyusha rockets crashed into a riverbank in the city’s Green Zone without causing any injuries or serious damages, a statement from U.S. Joint Operations Command said.
Iraq Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the rocket attack that targeted the U.S. Embassy. In a statement, he asserted Iraq’s commitment to “protecting all diplomatic missions.”
The city has been on edge after hundreds of anti-government protesters flooded the streets on Sunday, defying a powerful religious leader who recently withdrew his support from the popular movement.
Anti-government protesters gather in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020. (AP)
Security forces fired tear gas and live rounds to disperse the crowds from Baghdad’s Khilani Square, medical and security officials said. One protester was killed and six wounded after security forces fired live rounds in nearby Wathba Square later in the evening.
Iraqi security forces reportedly wounded at least 28 demonstrators in the first hours of Sunday’s street rallies.
Sunday’s rocket attack came after Iran launched ballistic missiles on two military bases in Iraq where U.S. troops have been stationed, in retaliation for a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top military general. Dozens of troops were said to have been diagnosed with brain injuries, but no one was killed in the attacks.
Fox News’ Nick Kalman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adam Schiff said that he did not regret embellishing a transcript of the call between President Trump and Ukrainian leaders during the early days of the impeachment investigation.
Schiff, 49, previously admitted to making up a dramatized version of the call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump that he claimed was “meant to be at least part in parody.” Trump and his attorneys have ripped Schiff for spinning the transcript and for his handling of impeachment in general. The president’s legal team spent a significant portion of its two-hour defense on Saturday picking apart Schiff’s credibility.
During an interview on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Schiff if he had “any regrets” about dramatizing Trump’s phone call or for claiming that Trump colluded with the Russians in 2016, despite the Mueller report not finding evidence of criminal conspiracy.
The California Democrat said he did not have regrets about either and pivoted to focus on the findings of the Mueller report. He replied: “I’m glad you asked the question about collusion because, again, [Trump’s attorneys] may be perpetuating the president’s talking points, but they’ve got it exactly wrong. Bob Mueller did not find that there was no collusion. In fact, in the first couple pages of the report, he said we don’t address that issue.”
As Schiff noted, Mueller did not investigate collusion. Mueller’s team instead looked for criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia and found no evidence that would warrant a conviction.
Schiff added: “The relevance of the Mueller report to all this, because we’re not trying the Mueller report, is that this isn’t the first time that [Trump] invited foreign interference. That is the background of the current effort to get a foreign nation to help him cheat in an election.”
The congressman claimed that impeachment managers provided “overwhelming evidence” that Trump tried to force Ukraine to “help him cheat” by withholding military aid and a White House meeting for information on Joe Biden, but Trump’s defense team argued that couldn’t be true because Ukraine did not know the aid was ever delayed.
MAGGIE HABERMAN and MIKE SCHMIDT’S monster scoop in the NYT on Sunday night — that JOHN BOLTON has written in a draft of his book that President DONALD TRUMP ordered aid to Ukraine held until it investigated the Bidens — reminds the United States Senate and the American people of a reality that was, until now, easy to forget: BOLTON is going to tell his story, it’s just a question of what medium it appears in first — a book, a television segment or a sworn testimony. His lawyer’s letter to the White House, noting officials there have had the book since Dec. 30
IN SOME WAYS, THERE’S NOTHING NEW here. The revelation confirms what nearly two dozen associates and employees of TRUMP told House investigators. The only people who say the opposite are the president and his associates.
BUT LET’S BE PERFECTLY CLEAR HERE: MAGGIE and MIKE’S storyis as bad as can be for TRUMP.BOLTON is now contradicting the president’s claim that he did not tie the aid to investigating JOE BIDEN, and he is a direct eyewitness.It comes at the absolute worst time for this White House: as the Senate is days away from deciding whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial.
BOLTON IS DANGEROUS because he’s unmoored from TRUMP. He clearly does not care what the president’s orbit thinks of him. His 528-page book is titled, “The Room Where It Happened,” with the words contained inside an oval (hint, hint). It is scheduled for release March 17 and, conveniently enough, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
REPUBLICANS have done a good job during this process projecting confidence in their mastery of the situation, and their ability to deliver for the president.
BUT AS OF LATE SUNDAY, our GOP sources said they could not predict what was going to happen now with witnesses, and the Republican Conference lunch today will be key in determining the state of play. In other words, these top-level sources were allowing that things may have changed. We have yet to see if Republicans will brush off this new development, or whether it will push enough of them to vote for witnesses.
BOLTON IS NOT LEV PARNAS or one of these other characters who has sprouted up in the Trump era. He’s a through-and-through conservative who was so far to the right that George W. Bush had to wait for recess to make him his U.N. envoy. He’s known to members of the Senate. Not calling him to speak would be spurning one of their own in favor of TRUMP, whom many of them see as an interloper.
HERE’S THE DILEMMA FOR REPUBLICANS NOW: If you’re one of the Republicans who were already uncomfortable with this president, how do you vote to not call Bolton after seeing this? Remember: BOLTON is publishing an entire book, and so far we know only what he’s said on Ukraine — not everything else he’s seen.
A REMINDER OF THE TIMELINE: TRUMP’S attorneys are in the middle of their defense of the president. SENATORS then will have a chance to question both sides for a few days — Democrats are sure to use this opportunity to force the president’s team to address BOLTON. And after that, at some point later this week, we anticipate a vote on whether to allow witnesses and new documents.
THE TWEETS … TRUMP responded at 12:18 a.m.: “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the… …transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed, in addition to the fact that President Zelensky & the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said there was no pressure and no problems. Additionally, I met with President Zelensky at the United Nations… …(Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations – and far ahead of schedule. I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration.”
THE HOUSE MANAGERS’STATEMENT: “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President’s defense and therefore must be called as a witness at the impeachment trial of President Trump.
“SENATORS SHOULD INSIST that Mr. Bolton be called as a witness, and provide his notes and other relevant documents. The Senate trial must seek the full truth and Mr. Bolton has vital information to provide. There is no defensible reason to wait until his book is published, when the information he has to offer is critical to the most important decision Senators must now make — whether to convict the President of impeachable offenses.”
MEANWHILE … NANCY COOK: “President Donald Trump is already itching to broadcast the series finale of his impeachment. In recent days, he and top White House aides have been considering how he should celebrate his presumed acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate and whether he should deliver a rare Oval Office address to mark the occasion, according to three senior administration officials.” POLITICO
SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO is going to Ukraine this week, Nahal Toosi reminds in this story, just days after reportedly saying, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?”
NEW … MUCH INK WAS SPILLED — in this newsletter, and elsewhere — about the massive fundraising by the CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP FUND and AMERICAN ACTION NETWORK last cycle when the GOP was in the majority. But here’s a bit of a shock: The combined groups — the main House GOP outside orgs — pulled in a combined $68 million in 2019, their largest haul ever in an off year. This is so unexpected because House Republicans are in the minority, and conventional wisdom holds that they don’t have a pathway out.
— NOTABLY: CLF has $28 million on hand — the most it has ever had going into an election year and twice as much as ever before. They raised $32.6 million last year. The combined groups have raised $2 million more than their previous record.
— CONSIDER THIS: CLF/AAN had tax reform to raise off last cycle. That they are raising more money now, during a presidential cycle, is notable, and illustrates that donors believe Republicans have a decent chance of putting up a fight to win back the House. With the DCCC and Dem candidates mopping the floors with the NRCC and GOP candidates, CLF and AAN’s cash will be critical for the party.
Good Monday morning. CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS turns 65 today.
L.A. TIMES’ BILL PLASCHKE ON KOBE: “Kobe Bryant is gone, and those are the hardest words I’ve ever had to write for this newspaper, and I still don’t believe them as I’m writing them. I’m still crying, and go ahead, let it out. Don’t be embarrassed, cry with me, weep and wail and shout into the streets, fill a suddenly empty Los Angeles with your pain. …
“Kobe does not die. Not now. Kobe lives into his golden years, lives long enough to see his statues erected outside Staples Center and his jerseys inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He lives long enough to sit courtside at Staples when he’s stooped and gray, keeping alive the memories of two decades of greatness with a wink, maybe even fooling everyone one last time by retiring in a community next to Shaq.”
JARED’S BIG MOMENT! … NETANYAHU TO THE W.H. … NYT’S MARK LANDLER: “Trump’s Mideast Plan Is Seen Mainly as an Election Lift for Netanyahu”: “The Israeli leader will return to the White House for meetings Monday and Tuesday, and Mr. Trump is expected at last to lay out the details of that long-awaited plan. Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday he hoped to ‘make history’ on the visit. …
“‘For him to do this in the middle of an Israeli election, without any Palestinian participation and with no intention to follow up with any of the participants, shows this is not a peace plan at all,’ said Martin S. Indyk, who served as special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama. ‘It is a farce from start to finish.’” NYT
WAPO: “Bernie Sanders faces barrage of attacks from rivals as polls point to surge in early-voting states,”by Chelsea Janes and Sean Sullivan in West Des Moines: “Sen. Bernie Sanders faced a sudden barrage of attacks from his rivals Sunday amid signs that he was surging in the critical early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire and closing the gap nationally with the race’s longtime polling leader, Joe Biden.
“Sanders’s rise, with only days left before the Feb. 3 caucuses here, prompted urgent warnings from competing campaigns that the party is in jeopardy of nominating a self-identified democratic socialist whose far-left views would turn off the broad swath of voters required to defeat President Trump in the November general election.
“‘Bernie Sanders could be the nominee,’ the campaign of Pete Buttigieg declared in an ominous-sounding fundraising message to supporters Saturday. A pointed text message followed on Sunday: ‘We risk nominating a candidate who cannot beat Donald Trump in November. And that’s a risk we can’t take.’”
— FOR THE RECORD: Here’s a private plane that landed at DCA from Sioux City, Iowa, at 1 a.m.
ELENA SCHNEIDER in Des Moines:“Buttigieg takes his case to Fox News before Iowa”: “Pete Buttigieg shot into 2020 contention with a viral town hall last March. On Sunday, he turned back to that setting for one final pre-Iowa caucuses boost — this time on Fox News, seeking an audience of disaffected moderates and ‘future former Republicans’ to pitch on electability.
“Buttigieg, who is vying with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for a win in the caucuses, isn’t expecting to draw in many Iowa Republicans with his appearance on Fox News Sunday night. But the platform jibed with Buttigieg’s closing message in the state: that the 38-year-old ex-mayor is best positioned to bring the party together to defeat President Donald Trump in November.
“‘This network is known for having a lot more conservative viewers, but I don’t think you have to be a Democrat to see what is wrong with this president,’ Buttigieg said, when asked about how he would appeal to Republican voters in the general election. ‘If you’re having trouble looking your kids in the eye and explaining this presidency to them, you have a choice.’”
THE PRESIDENT’S MONDAY — At 11 a.m., TRUMP is scheduled to welcome Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU to the White House. They will meet at 11:10 a.m. At 12:30 p.m., TRUMP will meet separately with Netanyahu’s chief political rival, Benny Gantz. At 1:15 p.m, TRUMP will have lunch with the VP. At 3:30 p.m., THE PRESIDENT will participate in the swearing-in of Jovita Carranza as administrator of the SBA.
PLAYBOOK READS
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE … AP/BEIJING: “China on Monday expanded sweeping efforts to contain a viral disease by extending the Lunar New Year holiday to keep the public at home and avoid spreading infection as the death toll rose to 80.
“Hong Kong announced it would bar entry to visitors from the province at the center of the outbreak following a warning the virus’s ability to spread was growing. Travel agencies were ordered to cancel group tours nationwide, adding to the rising economic cost.
“Increasingly drastic anti-disease efforts began with the Jan. 22 suspension of plane, train and bus links to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China where the virus was first detected last month. That lockdown has expanded to a total of 17 cities with more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease-control measures ever imposed.” AP
BEZOS VS. MBS — “Saudi Prince Courted Amazon’s Bezos Before Bitter Split,” by WSJ’s Justin Scheck in New York, Bradley Hope in London and Summer Said in Dubai: “Through much of 2018, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and tech-savvy Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seemed to be hitting it off.
“Texting over WhatsApp about a plan for Amazon to build a huge data center in Saudi Arabia, the men forged a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship. ‘It is very important for me, my friend, that you come to Saudi during the future investment Forum and we announce this $2.8B Vision 2030 partnership,’ the prince messaged Mr. Bezos on Sept. 9, 2018, according to a review of texts by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the situation.
“Amazon stood to gain broader access to the Middle Eastern market. Prince Mohammed could be aided in his efforts to reform the Saudi economy as well as burnish his personal brand. Now, one of the world’s richest men and one of the most powerful princes are archenemies, each accusing the other of betrayal.” WSJ
WATCH THIS SPACE … AP/BAGHDAD: “Nighttime rocket attack on U.S. Embassy in Baghdad injured 1”: “A nighttime rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad injured at least one embassy personnel member, staffers there said Monday. The two staff members, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, did not specify the injured person’s nationality or the severity of their wounds. They said the rocket slammed into a restaurant inside the embassy compound.” AP
MEDIAWATCH …HAPPENING THIS MORNING … POLITICO founder and publisher Robert Allbritton will announce the launch of “AgencyIQ,” a significant new POLITICO business line and product focused on tracking and interpreting federal regulatory agencies through research, technology and news.
NEW … THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA is launching a 50-state Election Cybersecurity Initiative, supported by Google. The goal is to educate campaigns, election workers, elected officials and the public about how to secure U.S. elections. Their events will focus on how to prevent cyberattacks, identify disinformation and misinformation, and respond to crises when they arise. The initiative is being run by executive director Adam Clayton Powell III, and Charlie Baker alum Justin P. Griffin serves as managing director. More details
SPOTTED: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) on Sunday at the Works Cafe in downtown Concord, N.H., and later on an American Airlines flight from Manchester to DCA. … Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) grocery shopping at the H Street NE Giant on Sunday afternoon.
TRANSITIONS — Eve Tahmincioglu is now communications director at the Economic Policy Institute. She previously was executive editor and digital director for Directors & Boards, Private Company Director and Family Business, and is an NBC alum. … Brennan Murray is now a public policy senior associate at VIPKid. He previously was a senior associate at McLarty Associates China.
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Heather Nauert, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former State Department spokesperson and acting undersecretary for public affairs. A trend she thinks doesn’t get enough attention: “College students buying fake IDs from China that look exactly like real IDs, but what’s shocking is that some copies are so good that they can even fool police scanner technology! (Just ask your teenager!)” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: WaPo’s Holly Bailey … Meredith Kelly, partner at Sena Kozar Strategies … Howard Mortman, C-SPAN’s comms director, is 53 … Ben Kramer … Raul Juste Lores … Jess Wood … Chelsea Patterson Sobolik … Jessica Fink, VP at Groundswell Communications … Kitty Bartels Di Martino … Circle’s Jared Favole is 37 … Keith Olbermann is 61 … Erin Lindsay of Precision Strategies … Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy (h/t Leigh Claffey) … CFR’s Kayla Ermanni … Jamal Ware … Nomiki Konst … CAP’s Matt Lee-Ashley … Connie Partoyan, president of Targeted Victory (h/t Blake Waggoner) … Matthew Simon, COS for Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) … Ben Owens, legislative assistant for Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), is 25 (h/ts Henry Marcel and dad Steve) … Heath Clayton …
… Jay Hein, president of Sagamore Institute … Akin Gump’s Josh Teitelbaum (h/t wife Emily) … John Miyasato … Carter Wood … former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) is 71 … former Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) is 59 … former Rep. Dick Ottinger (D-N.Y.) is 91 … former Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) is 77 … Jake Goldman … Morry Cater … Jessica DiRocco … Nick Swezey … Jennifer Bogdan, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo’s communications director, is 34 … Julia Kimani Burnham … Brian Harvey Hogue … Seth Green is 4-0 … Swetha Ramakrishnan … Peter Long … Kurt Hauptman … Scott Backer … Judy Shapleigh … Christina Ciammaichelli … Nathaniel DiRenzo … Rick Ridder (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Kendall Bianchi … Roxane Philson, ONE Campaign’s chief marketing officer … Saul Carlin … Will Rusche, COS at Vigilant
Mr. Kushner and Mr. Greenblatt, who has since left the administration, predicted in March 2018 that the Israelis and the Palestinians would each find things in the plan to embrace and oppose. But it was already clear that it would be tilted heavily in Israel’s favor — or more precisely, in the favor of their embattled ally, Mr. Netanyahu.
Facing indictment on multiple corruption charges in early 2019, the prime minister was fighting for his political life. With Mr. Netanyahu facing a closely fought election that April, Mr. Trump gave him an election-eve gift, announcing in March that the United States would reverse decades of policy and recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which was seized by Israeli troops in 1967.
With the release of his plan stymied by the instability in Israel, Mr. Kushner turned his attention to economics. In June, he announced the United States would raise more than $50 billion to improve the lives of the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. His 38-page plan, titled “Peace to Prosperity,” had slick graphics and the promotional tone of a real estate prospectus.
Mr. Kushner followed up with a two-day workshop in Bahrain, which was boycotted by the Palestinians and shrugged off by other Arab leaders, for whom the peace project had faded into irrelevance.
Even after Mr. Trump’s shift on the Golan Heights, Mr. Netanyahu was unable to cobble together a majority to form a government. After a second election, in September, he found himself again short of a majority.
If Mr. Trump releases his plan this week, analysts said, it will be less about delivering the “deal of the century” than giving Mr. Netanyahu one last electoral lift.
A fifth person in the US has been confirmed to have the Wuhan coronavirus.
A member of the Arizona State University community who does not live in university housing was diagnosed after returning from travel in Wuhan, China, ABC 15 reported on Sunday, citing state and local health departments.
Two people in California, a man in his 30s in Washington, and a woman in her 60s in Chicago have also been confirmed to have the coronavirus. All the people had recently traveled to Wuhan.
Officials in Orange County, California, said they believe there was no person-to-person transmission in the county. Arizona officials said they were investigating the person’s close contacts.
A case of the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed in Maricopa County, Arizona, bringing the total number of people confirmed to be infected with the deadly virus in the United States to five.
The person with the virus in Arizona is a member of the Arizona State University community but does not live in university housing, ABC 15 reported, citing state and local health departments. The person recently returned from travel in Wuhan, China, the center of the outbreak.
Arizona officials said they were investigating the person’s close contacts to determine whether the virus spread while they were infectious, but Dr. Cara Christ, the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, told ABC 15 that the immediate risk to the public “is believed to be low at this time.”
The person had been in contact with the Orange County Health Care Agency and “was provided guidance in order to reduce exposure to the public while awaiting laboratory confirmation” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency said in a statement to the newspaper. “The individual has now been transported to a local hospital and is in isolation in good condition.”
The agency said that it did not believe that person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus had occurred within the county and that it was working with the CDC and the California Department of Public Health to reach out to all people who had been in contact with the infected person.
Cases of the virus have been confirmed in several countries around the world, including in Canada on Saturday. The majority of the impact has been felt in China, where at least 56 people have died and more than 2,000 have reported infections.
Nancy Messonnier, a CDC director, said in a press conference on Sunday that the CDC had 100 people under investigation across 26 states and that a quarter of those 100 had been cleared. She said most people were expected to be cleared.
The CDC said it planned to release a map of the states with investigations in the coming week.
A U.S. military plane crashed in the central Afghanistan province of Ghazni on Monday, according to images of the site analyzed by NBC News.
Photos and video from the scene showed what appeared to be a U.S. E-11A military aircraft and what looked like a U.S. military insignia on the plane.
The number of people on board was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.
U.S. officials did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. military told the Associated Press that it is investigating and that it remained unclear whose aircraft was involved in the crash.
Site of the plane crash in Deh Yak, in Ghazni province, AfghanistanGoogle
Arif Noori, a spokesperson for the province’s governor, earlier said damage was so extensive it was difficult to identify bodies in the wreckage.
Earlier, Noori had also said that around 100 people were killed in the crash, but it later emerged that an E-11A was involved, which typically has a two-person crew. NBC News has reached out to Noori for clarification on his earlier comments but did not receive a response.
The plane went down in Deh Yak in Ghazni, around 100 miles south of Kabul.
Noori told the Associated Press separately that the crash site is in territory controlled by the Taliban. He said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time (3:40 a.m. ET.)
Much of Afghanistan is inaccessible to journalists and NBC News was not able to confirm the reports.
Afghanistan’s state-owned airline Ariana Afghan Airlines denied that the plane was one of theirs.
The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005, when a Kam Air flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul crashed into mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.
The war, however, has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that large military vehicles were inadequately secured and had shifted during flight, causing damage to the control systems that “rendered the airplane uncontrollable.”
At least seven people are unaccounted and multiple others injured Monday morning as a massive fire swept through a dock at an Alabama lake and destroyed 35 boats, authorities said.
At least seven others were injured and taken to area hospitals, Scottsboro Fire Chief Gene Nicklaus told ABC News.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
Nicklaus said that 17 different agencies, including the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and neighboring fire departments, responded to the scene.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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