However, the GOP lawmaker said he will hold off on making his final decision until after Democratic impeachment managers and the president’s defense lawyers conclude their opening arguments.
“I think it’s very likely I’ll be in favor of witnesses, but I haven’t made a decision finally yet and I won’t until the testimony is completed,” the Utah Republican said Saturday after the first day of the Trump team’s opening arguments, CNN reported.
Romney declined to say whether he thought the president’s defense team was effective in the opening hours of their arguments, saying, “I just don’t have any comments on the process or the evidence until the trial is over,” CNN reported.
Romney told reporters at the Capitol that he wants to find out “what he knows” about Trump’s contacts with Ukraine, the central issue in the impeachment effort against the president.
“I would like to be able to hear from John Bolton. What the process is to make that happen, I don’t have an answer for you,” Romney said.
Bolton has yet to be subpoenaed by lawmakers in the trial, and Democrats will need four Republicans to support their efforts if they are going to call the former Trump administration officials or other witnesses.
Bolton has said he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate.
However, the GOP lawmaker said he will hold off on making his final decision until after Democratic impeachment managers and the president’s defense lawyers conclude their opening arguments.
“I think it’s very likely I’ll be in favor of witnesses, but I haven’t made a decision finally yet and I won’t until the testimony is completed,” the Utah Republican said Saturday after the first day of the Trump team’s opening arguments, CNN reported.
Romney declined to say whether he thought the president’s defense team was effective in the opening hours of their arguments, saying, “I just don’t have any comments on the process or the evidence until the trial is over,” CNN reported.
Romney told reporters at the Capitol that he wants to find out “what he knows” about Trump’s contacts with Ukraine, the central issue in the impeachment effort against the president.
“I would like to be able to hear from John Bolton. What the process is to make that happen, I don’t have an answer for you,” Romney said.
Bolton has yet to be subpoenaed by lawmakers in the trial, and Democrats will need four Republicans to support their efforts if they are going to call the former Trump administration officials or other witnesses.
Bolton has said he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate.
Mr. Trump responds, “How’s Ukraine doing?” then quickly adds, “Don’t answer,” prompting laughter in the room.
After some conversation about Ukraine’s war with its hostile neighbor, Russia, and its efforts to establish energy security, Mr. Trump asked, “How long would they last in a fight with Russia?”
“I don’t think very long,” Mr. Parnas responded. “Without us, not very long,” adding “they feel they’re going to be O.K. if you support them.”
Mr. Parnas continued by saying that “the biggest problem is corruption there,” and later added Ms. Yovanovitch, though not by name, to a list of issues Mr. Trump should address in Ukraine.
“The biggest problem there, I think, where we, where you, need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador,” he said. “She’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s going to get impeached, just wait.’”
The remark prompted laughter in the room.
Mr. Trump asked for the ambassador’s name. Mr. Fruman said, “I don’t remember.” Mr. Trump, sounding stern, then said: “Get rid of her. Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. O.K.? Do it.”
In making its decision, The Register’s editorial board interviewed nine current Democratic candidates who have spent considerable time campaigning in Iowa, several candidates who have since left the race, and two Republicans who are challenging Mr. Trump. The Register is not endorsing in the Republican race.
The newspaper made clear that the endorsement was the product of its editorial board, and that its news staff, including the editors and reporters who cover the presidential race, had no involvement in the process.
The Register’s endorsements, which began in 1988, are not predictions and have had a mixed record of swaying the caucuses. In 2016, the paper backed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in the Republican primary, and Hillary Clinton in the Democratic one, when she was in a tight race against Mr. Sanders.
Nevertheless, the endorsements make national news. The paper also sponsors a closely watched poll of Iowa caucusgoers — the last of which is set to be released on Feb. 1, two days before the caucuses.
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A retired Illinois state trooper was killed and two others were injured when a woman opened fire at a cigar lounge and then fatally shot herself, police said.
The shooting Friday night at Humidor Cigar Lounge in Lisle, about 26 miles west of Chicago, was caught on camera and shows several people watching television in the lounge’s media room, the Lisle Police Department said in a press release.
“Without apparent provocation,” the suspect, who was seated behind the officers, stands up and shoots one of the troopers in the back of the head, the department said.
The video then shows the suspect firing several more shots at the other troopers, before turning the gun on herself.
Retired Illinois State Trooper Gregory Rieves.Illinois State Police
During a news conference on Saturday, Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly identified the three officers as retired troopers Greg Rieves and Lloyd Graham and current trooper Kaiton Bullock.
The Lisle Police Department identified the suspect as 51-year-old Lisa V. McMullan, and said she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kelly said Rieves, 51, died from his injuries at a hospital. Graham, 55, and Bullock, 48, were seriously injured in the shooting and are hospitalized in stable condition, Kelly said. They are expected to recover.
Rieves had been with the Illinois State Police for over 20 years and retired about a year ago, Kelly said at the news conference.
“He’s someone who was well-loved by all those who worked with him,” he said.
Graham was a special agent with the department and Bullock has been a trooper for 22 years. He was off-duty at the time of the shooting.
“The Illinois State Police family have heavy hearts this morning,” Kelly said in a statement posted on the department’s Facebook page. “We are mourning the loss of a retired Trooper, and praying for a full recovery of both our active and retired officers.”
The cigar lounge said in a Facebook post that it would be closed Saturday.
“We look at all our customers as family and we ask you to pray for the victim and the speedy healing of the injured,” the lounge posted.
“It is my profound honor to be the first president in history to attend the March for Life,” Trump told the crowd in Washington. “Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House … every life brings love into this world. Every child brings joy to a family. Every person is worth protecting.”
Trump became the first sitting president to address the pro-life event, but CNN didn’t air Trump’s remarks, instead continuing its ongoing analysis of impeachment with a variety of pundits, previewing the remainder of arguments in the process. The network also aired Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, talking to reporters.
CNN mentioned the March for Life rally when Trump was finished speaking. Anchor Jake Tapper said Trump was “making history” by attending the event before tossing it to national correspondent Kristen Holmes to say the president’s remarks were polarizing.
“Trump, by speaking here today, has really become the face of the anti-abortion movement,” CNN’s Holmes said. “There is a reason that no other president in the last 47 years has come here.”
MSNBC also skipped the president’s speech, choosing to discuss impeachment and air Schiff’s remarks instead. MSNBC didn’t immediately mention to its viewers that Trump had spoken.
During the speech, Trump also panned Democrats’ stances on abortion as “extreme” and went out of his way to thank the “tens of thousands of high school and college students who took long bus rides to be here in our nation’s capital.”
“When it comes to abortion, Democrats … have embraced the most radical and extreme positions taken and seen in this country for years and decades and you could even say for centuries,” Trump said, accusing many of supporting “taxpayer-funded abortion all the way up until the moment of birth.”
Trump also touted his judicial appointments at the March for Life rally. The president’s largely conservative appointments to federal courts have led many to believe Roe v. Wade — the landmark Supreme Court decision that prohibited states from banning the procedure at certain points during pregnancy — may be in danger of falling if a challenge to it reaches the Supreme Court.
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Image caption
Constuction on the site in Wuhan has already begun with staff hoping it will be completed within six days
The Chinese city of Wuhan is set to build a hospital in six days in order to treat patients suspected of contracting the coronavirus.
There are currently 830 confirmed cases in China, 41 of whom have died.
The outbreak began in Wuhan, home to around 11 million people. Hospitals in the city have been flooded with concerned residents and pharmacies are running out of medicine.
According to state media, the new hospital will contain about 1,000 beds.
Video footage posted online by Chinese state media shows diggers already at the site, which has an area of 25,000 square metres (269,000 square feet).
It is based on a similar hospital set up in Beijing to help tackle the Sars virus in 2003.
“It’s basically a quarantined hospital where they send people with infectious diseases so it has the safety and protective gear in place,” said Joan Kaufman, lecturer in global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School.
How is China able to build a hospital in six days?
“China has a record of getting things done fast even for monumental projects like this,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He points out that the hospital in Beijing in 2003 was built in seven days so the construction team is probably attempting to beat that record. Just like the hospital in Beijing, the Wuhan centre will be made out of prefabricated buildings.
“This authoritarian country relies on this top down mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.”
Mr Huang said that engineers would be brought in from across the country in order to complete construction in time.
“The engineering work is what China is good at. They have records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to imagine. It can be done,” he added.
In terms of medical supplies, Wuhan can either take supplies from other hospitals or can easily order them from factories.
On Friday, the Global Times confirmed 150 medical personnel from the People’s Liberation Army had arrived in Wuhan. However it did not confirm if they would be working in the new hospital once it has been built.
What happened during the Sars outbreak?
In 2003, the Xiaotangshan Hospital was built in Beijing in order to accommodate the number of patients showing symptoms of Sars. It was constructed in seven days, allegedly breaking the world record for the fastest construction of a hospital.
Inside, it had an X-ray room, CT room, intensive-care unit and laboratory. Each ward was equipped with its own bathrooms.
Within two months, it admitted one-seventh of the Sars patients in the country and was hailed as a “miracle in the history of medicine” by the country’s media.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
A woman becomes one of the last patients to leave Xiaotangshan hospital after being treated for Sars
Ms Kaufman explained: “It was ordered by the ministry of health and seconded nurses and other doctors from existing health facilities to man the hospitals. They had protocols from the ministry of health that talked about how to handle infectious diseases and the critical path of identification and isolation that was specific for Sars.”
She added that during the Sars epidemic, the organisation and costs were covered by local areas but there were a lot of subsidies from the state that flowed down through the system from the costs of staff salaries to building.
“I can’t imagine that the burden of this is going to be on the Wuhan government because it’s high priority,” said Ms Kaufman.
According to Mr Huang, the hospital was “quietly abandoned after the epidemic ended”.
Media captionWhat’s life like in quarantined Wuhan?
In a Saturday statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused an NPR host and veteran reporter of lying, being an example of the “unhinged” media, and misidentifying Bangladesh as Ukraine on a map.
On Friday, NPR’s “All Things Considered” host Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Pompeo, and asked him questions about the United States’ support for Ukraine and the ouster of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
But Kelly said that after the interview, Pompeo yelled at her for asking the questions on Ukraine in his office, cursed her out, and asked her if she could identify the country of Ukraine on a map.
In his Saturday statement, Pompeo said that Kelly “lied to me, twice” last month and on Friday in “agreeing to have the post-interview conversation off the record,” but did not deny that he cursed and yelled at her.
In a Saturday statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused an NPR host and veteran reporter of lying, being an example of the “unhinged” media, and misidentifying Bangladesh as Ukraine on a map.
But Kelly said that after the interview, Pompeo yelled at her for asking the questions on Ukraine in his office, cursed her out, and asked her if she could identify the country of Ukraine on a map.
“I was taken to the Secretary’s private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself,” Kelly recounted after the interview. “He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine.”
“He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?'” she added. “He used the F-word in that sentence and many others.”
Kelly added that Pompeo asked his aides to bring a blank map into his office and told her to point to Ukraine, saying, “people will hear about this.”
In his Saturday statement, Pompeo said that Kelly “lied to me, twice” last month and on Friday in “agreeing to have the post-interview conversation off the record,” but did not deny that he cursed and yelled at her and said that Americans didn’t care about Ukraine, which he is set to visit on January 30.
His statement continued, “it is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this administration.”
As NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik noted, however, the State Department’s own transcript of the interview both shows that Pompeo “did not contradict” Kelly when she confirmed that she would ask him about Ukraine.
And while he asked to talk to her without a recorder on after the interview, he did not specify that their conversation would be off the record and thus un-reportable, a key distinction from simply asking her not to record it.
Pompeo ended his statement by saying: “It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine,” seemingly implying that Kelly misidentified Bangladesh as Ukraine on the map he brought into the office.
Kelly, a highly-respected veteran foreign correspondent and national security reporter who has reported from Russia, Iraq, and North Korea, additionally holds a master’s degree in European studies from Cambridge University, making it highly unlikely that she would confuse Ukraine and Bangladesh, located in southeast Asia.
Folkenflik added: “if he wants to accuse distinguished NPR host and correspondent of lying, he should produce additional evidence. This administration often has estranged relationship with fact and truth.”
In a statement to Insider, NPR’s senior vice president for news Nancy Barnes defended Kelly, saying, “Mary Louise Kelly has always conducted herself with the utmost integrity, and we stand behind this report.”
Authorities have identified a retired Illinois State trooper who was killed when a Hyde Park woman opened fire in a cigar lounge in west suburban Lisle Friday, wounding two other troopers before fatally shooting herself.
The shooting happened at 10:12 p.m. at The Humidor, 1600 Ogden Ave. in Lisle, and was captured on surveillance video, according to Lisle police.
Multiple people were sitting in a media room watching a big-screen TV when 51-year-old Lisa V. McMullan, of the 1400 block of East 55th Place in Chicago, stood up, drew a gun and shot the three troopers — two retired and one off-duty — before shooting herself in the head, police said.
She first shot Gregory Rieves, a 51-year-old retired state trooper with 25 years of experience who was seated in front of her, in the back of the head, police and the DuPage County coroner’s office said. Rieves had retired on March 31, 2019.
McMullan then fired at the two other men, who were identified Saturday as 55-year-old Lloyd Graham, a retired special agent, and 48-year-old Kaiton Bullock, an active trooper who was off-duty at the time of the shooting, authorities said.
McMullan died at the scene, police said. Rieves was taken to a hospital, where he was also pronounced dead.
Graham and Bullock were also taken to hospitals, according to police. They are expected to recover.
Police said McMullan and the men knew each other, but the extent of their relationship is still under investigation.
“The Illinois State Police family have heavy hearts this morning. We are mourning the loss of a retired Trooper, and praying for a full recovery of both our active and retired officers. Please keep all our officers and families in your prayers in the dark and painful moment,” ISP Director Brendan F. Kelly said.
The incident remains under investigation by Lisle police, the DuPage MERIT Major Crimes Task Force and the DuPage County coroner’s and state’s attorney’s offices.
“CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that GOP senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president — and your head will be on a pike,’” he said. “Now, I don’t know if that’s true.”
He added, “I hope it’s not true,” before arguing that this is the sort of statement a president who believes himself to be a king would make.
The outrage was swift — even inside the chamber.
Sen. Susan Collins shook her head, according to Politico, and loudly said, “Not true.” Others appeared similarly dismayed. And the tone in the room apparently changed.
After lawmakers left the trial, several continued to voice their concerns. “I thought he was doing fine with moral courage until he got to the head on a pike. That’s where he lost me,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “Nothing like going through three days of frustration and then cap it off with an insult,” said Sen. James Lankford. “He has basically offended every Republican senator in there tonight,” added Sen. John Barrasso.
While Republicans didn’t indicate how these comments would affect any potential vote on witnesses next week, they did latch onto them as a new way to criticize the Democrats’ otherwise painstakingly thorough case for removal. And in doing so, they obscured much of the context around them.
For one, Schiff was citing a news report and not making the assertion himself. Additionally, while the specific quote itself has spurred strong reactions for obvious reasons — the point it’s trying to make is one that’s an apparent political reality: If lawmakers break with Trump on impeachment, there will likely be backlash — whether that’s from the administration or the Republican base.
The pushback on Schiff echoed some of the attacks Republicans had levied against Rep. Jerry Nadler earlier in the week for violating Senate decorum: It felt like Republicans were simply looking for a reason to discredit the Democratic arguments that had very little to do with the actual substance at all.
Republicans are under significant pressure to stick with the president
House Democrats’ reference to the CBS News report were in line with points that the impeachment managers made on Friday about the need for Congress to check the President, so he doesn’t act like a “king” or “dictator.”
“I was struck by the irony of the idea, when we’re talking about a president who would make himself a monarch, that whoever that was would use the terminology of a penalty that was imposed by a monarch, a head on a pike,” Schiff said.
When lawmakers have opposed him in the past, Trump has, in fact, not exactly taken it too kindly. Most recently, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a staunch Trump ally, voted in favor of checking presidential war powers when it comes to military action in Iran, a position that went against the White House’s.
Trump’s tendency to quash such opposition is well-known in Washington, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) emphasized to reporters. “Well, that’s one of the worst kept secrets in Washington is what this White House and this president will do to someone who crosses him, and he’s made that clear from day one.”
Members of the Republican base, with whom Trump has an 88 percent approval rating, according to Gallup, have often rejected breaks with the president as well.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a vulnerable Republican who initially refused to support Trump declaring a national emergency to fund the border wall, is among the lawmakers to experience the consequences of going against the president firsthand. While Tillis ultimately reversed his position, he dealt with the threat of a potential primary challenger after announcing his opposition.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has said that any Republican that does not vote in favor of calling Hunter Biden as a witness, if that question emerges, would be in electoral danger. “If you vote against Hunter Biden, you’re voting to lose your election, basically. Seriously. That’s what it is,” he previously told Politico.
So while Schiff’s specific reference to the CBS report might be in dispute, even Republicans would seem to agree with the premise of its central metaphor. Which makes the outrage over the lawmaker’s decision to include it in his arguments seem less about whether the report was true, and more about finding something to distract focus from the charges Trump faces.
As the U.S. closed its consulate in Wuhan and prepared to extract all its diplomats, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Saturday of a “grave situation” in the rapid spread of the coronavirus that has claimed 41 lives.
The virus, which broke out in Wuhan last month, has infected more than 1,200 people in 29 provinces and cities and killed 41 people in China, according to the National Health Commission.
Among the latest victims is Liang Wudong, a 62-year-old doctor at Hubei Xinhua Hospital who died Saturday after treating patients in Wuhan, according to the state-run Global Television Network.
The U.S. State Department arranged a charter flight for Sunday to bring out all its diplomats and other U.S. citizens — about 230 people — after temporarily closing the Wuhan consulate, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported, quoting an individual familiar with the operation.
The reports followed a State Department notice on its website that all essential personnel had been ordered to leave the city of 11 million.
Xi addressed the issue crisis Saturday at a special Communist party meeting where he called for stepped up moves to tackle the accelerating crisis.
“Confronted with the grave situation of this accelerating spread of pneumonia from infections with the novel coronavirus, we must step up the centralized and united leadership under the party central” leadership, Xi said.
A report issued from the meeting said that Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, “must make containment and control of the epidemic its top most priority, adopting even stricter measures to prevent it expanding within and spreading outward.”
China has already halted all train, plane and other transportation links to the city, which has ordered a ban on all downtown vehicle traffic beginning at midnight Saturday, state media reported.
Only authorized vehicles to carry supplies and for other needs would be permitted after that, the reports said.
The city said it will assign 6,000 taxis to different neighborhoods, under the management of local resident committees, to help people get around if they need to, the state-owned English-language China Daily newspaper said.
Elsewhere, the latest U.S. victim, a Chicago woman, returned Jan. 13 from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and began experiencing symptoms a few days after arriving home, said Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
The 60-year-old woman called her doctor after symptoms arose and she was admitted to a hospital and placed in isolation, health officials said. Further testing confirmed the virus.
Arwady said the woman is “clinically doing well and in stable condition.” She did not have extended contact with anyone outside of her home, attend a large public gathering or use public transportation, Arwady said.
The woman was not symptomatic while flying, and Arwady told reporters at a Chicago news conference on Friday, “The CDC does not believe that, in the time before symptoms develop, the patients are able to be contagious.”
In Paris, the lead doctor treating two hospital patients for the new virus said Saturday that the illness appears less serious than comparable outbreaks of the past and that the chance of a European epidemic appears weak at this stage.
French officials on Friday reported three confirmed cases of the newly identified coronavirus in France, the first ones in Europe. The third patient is at a hospital in Bordeaux.
Dr. Yazdan Yazdanpaneh, a leading French expert who heads Bichat’s infectious diseases unit, said that cases imported from China were “not a surprise” and that France had prepared, including by developing a test that provides rapid results for suspected cases.
While most cases have centered in China, an increasing number of cases have been confirmed in other places, including South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Australia and Malaysia reported their first cases Saturday and Japan reported its third.
As the crisis increased, local Chinese authorities rushed to build a 1,000-bed hospital in six days to treat the growing number of patients. Authorities announced Saturday that 658 patients were being treated for the virus and 57 were critically ill, Reuters reports.
The state-run Global Television Network reported Saturday that the health commission was sending six groups of 1,230 medical staff to Wuhan, In addition, 450 military doctors, some with experience fighting the SARS and Ebola viruses, were sent to the city Friday.
The Xinhua news agency reported that additional medical supplies were being rushed to the city, including 14,000 protective suits and 110,000 pairs of gloves from the central medical reserves as well as masks and goggles.
The virus has caused major public upheaval, with the government shutting down public transportation for roughly 36 million people in 13 cities in central China and major cities canceling events tied to the Lunar New Year celebration, a busy time for travel.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said all direct flights and trains form Wuhan would be blocked and that all schools would be closed in the city until Feb. 17.
Beijing’s Forbidden City, Shanghai Disneyland and sections of the Great Wall have also closed.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to pneumonia. Common signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and death.
Health officials said the virus, which probably spreads through tiny droplets when a person coughs or sneezes, is low-risk. Officials urged people to take the usual cold and flu season precaution: frequent hand washing, covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing and staying home when you don’t feel well.
“These illnesses can pop up anywhere,” said Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “This is a dynamic situation that can dramatically change from day to day.”
Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Many of the initial cases were linked to a seafood and meat market in Wuhan. Chinese health officials, which first reported the cases last month, said human-to-human transmission has been confirmed.
Contributing: Ryan Miller, Grace Hauck, Nicholas Wu, John Bacon, Ken Alltucker and Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY; The Associated Press.
Kelly recounted what happened next in a report that accompanied her interview. She said a staffer brought her to Pompeo’s private sitting room, where he was waiting for her. Even though she was not allowed to bring her recording equipment into the room, she said there was no request that she keep the exchange off the record, and she would not have agreed to a conversation if it was off the record.
Watch President Trump’s complete interview on ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ Friday, January 24 at 10 p.m. ET
President Trump told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” in an exclusive interview Friday that he did not instruct indicted Rudy Giuliani business associate Lev Parnas to engineer the removal of Marie Yovanovitch from the post of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, but added: “I have a right to hire and fire ambassadors.”
“Were you relying on Lev Parnas to get rid of your Ambassador [Yovanovitch?” Raymond Arroyo asked Trump.
“No, no, but I have a lot of people and he’s somebody that I guess, based on pictures that I see, goes to fundraisers,” the president said of Parnas, before adding: “But I am not a fan of that ambassador.”
The president was responding to an ABC report which claimed Trump told a group that included Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman in April 2018 that he wanted Yovanovitch removed “tomorrow.”
“Get rid of her!” Trump purportedly told the group during a recorded dinner conversation. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”
“But were you telling Parnas to get rid of her?” Arroyo asked. “I mean, you have a State Department.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been saying that,” Trump responded. “I probably would have said if it was Rudy there or somebody. But I make no bones about it. I won’t have ambassadors — I have every right. I want ambassadors that are chosen by me.”
A source familiar with the recording told Fox News that the ABC report did not reflect the context of the conversation and added that Trump did not make the remark in a “serious” fashion. In response to the report, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said: “Every President in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his Administration.”
Yovanovitch was formally recalled in May 2019. Parnas and Fruman were arrested in October of that year and are charged with making illegal campaign contributions in order to further their business interests and political goals. Both have pleaded not guilty.
LISLE (CBS) — Two retired state troopers and one active state police officer were shot by a woman at Humidor Cigar Lounge on Friday night. The scene was captured on video, before the woman took her own life.
Illinois state police say one of the retired troopers, Gregory Rieves, was killed, shot in the head. The current trooper, Kaiton Bullock, 48, and the third man, who is also a retired special agent trooper, Lloyd Graham, 55, were hurt after a woman fired shots inside a lounge and then killed herself.
Police identified the woman as Lisa V. McMullan of Chicago.
NEW INFORMATION: The 51-year-old woman has been identified as Lisa V. McMullan of Chicago. @cbschicago
The shooting was captured on video, which shows several people sitting in the lounge’s media room watching television. Then a woman in the room got up and fired several shots before turning the gun on herself.
Gregory Rieves
Bullock is a 22-year veteran of the force assigned to the Chicago District and was off duty at the time.
Last night Lisle police arrived with their shields and guns drawn outside the Humidor Lounge near Ogden Avenue and River Drive.
Officers got there around 10:15 p.m. and found four people shot, including McMullan, who was 51 years old.
Police say surveillance video shows the woman sitting in a chair behind the victims when, without provocation, she stands up, pulls out a gun and shoots Rieves, 51, in the head. He died at the hospital.
Fatal shooting inside Humidor Lougne in Lisle. (CBS)
Police say the woman knew the victims, but the details of their relationship wasn’t not immediately known.
She then fired several rounds at two more victims.
Graham and Bullock are both hospitalized in serious condition.
Police say after the woman shot them, she then shot herself in the head.
Police say right now there is no danger to the public.
The DuPage County Coroner has not released the names of the victims.
“The Illinois State Police family have heavy hearts this morning,” said ISP Director Brendan F. Kelly. “We are mourning the loss of a retired Trooper, and praying for a full recovery of both our active and retired officers.”
Rieves, who attened Indiana State University, retired in March, 2019 after serving for 25 years.
Image caption
Sajid Javid and Steve Mnuchin had breakfast on Saturday morning
The US wants to agree a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK this year, the country’s treasury secretary has said.
After meeting Chancellor Sajid Javid in London, Steve Mnuchin said he believed the UK could negotiate trade deals with the US and EU at the same time.
“I’m quite optimistic,” he told a Chatham House think tank event.
After Brexit happens on 31 January, the UK will be free to negotiate and sign new trade deals with countries with no existing EU deals – like the US.
At the same time, the UK will also be negotiating a free trade deal with the EU to ensure that UK goods are not subject to tariffs and other trade barriers once the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December.
Mr Mnuchin, who met Mr Javid for breakfast on Saturday morning and posted an image of them on Instagram, said the US was “prepared to dedicate a lot of resources” to securing a trade deal with the UK this year.
He said: “We’ve said that our goal – your goal – is trying to get both of these trade agreements done this year. And I think from a US standpoint we are prepared to dedicate a lot of resources.
“If the UK and US have very similar economies with a big focus on services, and I think this will be a very important relationship.”
Mr Mnuchin added President Donald Trump had previously said the UK would “be at the top of the list” for a deal.
‘Discriminatory’ tech tax
He also reiterated the US’s objections to a new tax on the revenues of big tech firms, calling it “discriminatory”.
He told the audience at Chatham House it was “not appropriate” and has “violations to our tax treaties and other issues”.
“So, we’re working through that and I think we have a good outcome of trying to give some room now in 2020 to continue these discussions.”
Mr Javid intends to introduce a 2% levy on the revenues of search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces which derive value from UK users.
He has said the digital services tax will only be a temporary measure until an international agreement is in place on how to deal with online giants such as Google and Facebook.
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