3 things to know about Trump’s budget plan for Medicare, Medicaid – ABC News
3 things to know about Trump’s budget plan for Medicare, Medicaid – ABC News

President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t touch Medicare before pitching a budget plan that would do exactly that, along with steep cuts to Medicaid. Democrats are calling it “savage” and “heartless,” while administration officials are insisting they are only slowing explosive growth in future years and that current Medicare benefits would remain untouched.

Here are three things to know about the election-year fight on health care spending:

Trump proposed spending $1.6 trillion less on future health care spending, including $451 billion less for Medicare.

On Twitter, two days before releasing his budget, the president said, “we will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare.” It was a promise he also made in his State of the Union address.

Whether he broke that promise depends upon how you look at it.

There’s no doubt the president’s budget plan would whack away at federal spending on health care over the next 10 years, with an estimated $1.6 trillion reduction, including $451 billion less spent on Medicare and $920 billion less for Medicaid.

The Trump administration is loath to call it a “cut” though because it applies to future spending plans only and budgets wouldn’t decline compared to current spending. When asked for details, the Health and Human Services Department declined to talk in terms of dollar figures for Medicare and Medicaid, offering only that the plan “slows the average growth rate” on Medicare by a small percentage over the 10-year period.

Overall, HHS stated, “funding levels will be no lower each year than they are today.”

(The dollar figures were provided by a senior administration official who spoke to ABC News on condition of anonymity; the estimates were also confirmed by independent budget analysts.)

Democrats were unmoved.

“Don’t get in front of an audience and say I’m here to protect Medicare and Social Security … and put a budget like this forward,” Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday.

The plan won’t impact Medicare benefits though

Trump’s health policy experts also argue that the plan for slowing “growth” in Medicare won’t impact benefits, but rather how providers like hospitals are paid.

Tricia Neuman, a policy expert at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said the administration is right that the plan cuts the growth in Medicare spending without actually cutting benefits for current enrollees. But she also notes that it includes a proposal that would make it harder for some seniors to qualify for long-term care services, for an estimated $34 billion in Medicaid savings.

Separately, the plan also proposes $135 billion in savings from drug pricing reforms “with few details,” she notes.

But those specifics aside, there’s another reason that Trump’s budget plan is unlikely to have an impact on Medicare recipients – it has almost no chance of becoming reality. Democrats control the House, and an election is on the horizon.

What the budget provides is a blueprint for what Trump would try to accomplish if given the opportunity. It’s essentially a starting off point for budget discussions – and the campaign debate. But it’s unlikely that lawmakers on either side of the aisle would have the appetite – especially in an election year – to chip away at health care spending.

If reelected, Trump clearly has Medicaid cuts in his sights

Medicaid is the government-run health care insurance for people with low incomes and disabilities and covers one in five Americans. And according to Kaiser Family Foundation, it finances nearly half of all births in the U.S.

Under Trump’s 10-year plan, $920 billion in future spending would be cut, according to the senior administration official and analysts.

Like Medicare figures, HHS declined to confirm that figure, saying only that the plan “slows average annual growth” from 5.4 percent to 3.1 percent “to ensure a more sustainable program for the truly needy and gives state flexibility to reform and innovate.”

The plan factors in savings by imposing work requirements as a condition of accepting Medicaid coverage for people who aren’t exempt.

Democrats clearly planned to use the proposal as a talking point ahead of the election, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday calling it a “blueprint for destroying America.”

“Now the American people can clearly see that he is a fraud who is not fighting for them,” he said.

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/things-trumps-budget-plan-medicare-medicaid/story?id=68913201

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Lara Trump: The New Hampshire primary has made the Democratic Party ‘very nervous’ – Fox News
Lara Trump: The New Hampshire primary has made the Democratic Party ‘very nervous’ – Fox News
Video

Lara Trump says Democrats should be nervous about New Hampshire results

Trump 2020 campaign senior adviser Lara Trump reacts to primary results for 2020 Democrats.

Trump 2020 campaign adviser Lara Trump said the results from Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary should make the Democrats very nervous ahead of their November showdown with President Trump.

Ms. Trump told “Hannity” that former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid has taken a massive hit as he has now failed to reach the top three in both New Hampshire and Iowa.

Meanwhile, the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., goes from strength to strength, drawing massive crowds and recording top-two finishes in the early-state contests.

She noted Sanders is a “self-declared socialist” and that fact alone frightens the party establishment who are looking for a candidate with more crossover appeal.

Video

“This is who was at the top of the Democratic Party right now. And I think it is probably making the establishment folks in the Democratic Party very, very nervous,” she added.

“They know the only energy behind Bernie Sanders is on the very, very far radical end of their base there.”

Trump said Sanders’ campaign is a hard “sell” to moderates who do not want radical change to the American system — and contrasted that with the GOP unity around her father-in-law.

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She went on to cite figures from the president’s Monday rally in the Granite State, for which 52,000 people RSVP’d. She said one-quarter of those people were registered Democrats and just about one-sixth did not vote in 2016.

“So, I think the Democrats are probably getting really nervous seeing these results come in,” she told host Sean Hannity. “I think the Democrats are probably very, very worried about the base of their party and their future going forward. I sure would be.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/lara-trump-the-new-hampshire-primary-has-made-the-democratic-party-very-nervous

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Britain finally admits that Brexit means the death of frictionless trade with Europe – CNN
Britain finally admits that Brexit means the death of frictionless trade with Europe – CNN

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/11/business/brexit-frictionless-trade/index.html

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How Amy Klobuchar Pulled Off the Big Surprise of the New Hampshire Primary – The New York Times
How Amy Klobuchar Pulled Off the Big Surprise of the New Hampshire Primary – The New York Times

“We first saw her in July, and we liked her very much, and around September, we were heavily leaning that way,” said Mark Hodgdon, 60, who lives in Epsom, N.H., but drove a half-hour to attend an afternoon event at state headquarters in Manchester on Tuesday. “She cares about all the liberal issues that I care about, including campaign finance reform, but her approaches are more practical.”

In her closing message as she barnstormed the state, Ms. Klobuchar began to make more direct appeals to moderates, and even some Republicans. Her campaign began targeting towns in New Hampshire that flipped from President Barack Obama to Donald J. Trump. She sat for an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News on Monday night after speaking to a luncheon of Nashua Rotary Club members earlier in the day.

“I’ve also seen a lot of anger, from people who stayed home in 2016, or independents, or Republicans that maybe voted for the president and are now stepping back and thinking, I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Ms. Klobuchar said at the luncheon, more often a campaign trail stop for Republican candidates than Democrats. “My campaign has always been about reaching out and not shutting people out, but bringing them with me.”

Ms. Klobuchar’s distinct and deliberate appeal to the centrist spirit caught fire with some late-breaking activists.

JoAnne St. John, an influential Democratic activist in Nashua who had long backed Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, was still adrift and without a candidate heading into the final weekend.

“I went to a Buttigieg rally, and at the end of that, I said, ‘I think I’m going to support him,’” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “But I had almost begrudgingly promised some of my very proficient Democrats here in Nashua that I would go see Amy at 3 o’clock. And I did, and I’m glad I did. I saw a woman with power. I’ve seen her many times before, but she has developed her style. I just looked at that woman onstage and I thought, ‘She can do this.’” (Ms. St. John voted for Ms. Klobuchar on Tuesday, and spent most of her day encouraging others to do the same.)

On the campaign trail, Ms. Klobuchar credited signs of growing support in New Hampshire to the fact that she actually had a chance to talk to voters here, rather than be stuck in the Senate for an impeachment trial, which kept her away from Iowa for weeks.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-new-hampshire.html

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Trump attacks federal judge, prosecutors in Twitter tirade defending Roger Stone – The Washington Post
Trump attacks federal judge, prosecutors in Twitter tirade defending Roger Stone – The Washington Post

Over the course of about two hours, Trump cranked out six blasts about the handling of Stone’s sentencing, including one that targeted U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over the case, by name.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/12/trump-stone-judge/

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Coronavirus and cruises: Holland America ship to disembark in Cambodia after three denials – USA TODAY
Coronavirus and cruises: Holland America ship to disembark in Cambodia after three denials – USA TODAY

Cambodia came to the rescue of passengers aboard Holland America’s MS Westerdam on Wednesday, granting the ship permission to disembark at Sihanoukville on Thursday. 

“All approvals have been received and we are extremely grateful to the Cambodian authorities for their support,” the line said in a release provided by public relations director Erik Elvejord to USA TODAY. 

Their ship departed Hong Kong Feb. 1 and was originally scheduled to disembark in Shanghai on Saturday before coronavirus gripped mainland China and forced itinerary changes. It was turned away from multiple other disembarkation points, despite the cruise line’s assertion that there are no known cases among MS Westerdam’s 1,455 passengers and 802 crew. 

First, it moved to Yokohama, Japan, only for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to bar the vessel from entering his country. Next, Guam, a U.S. territory, turned it away, rejecting a request from the State Department to let the ship in.

And on Tuesday – one day after Holland America announced it had gotten permission for the ship to disembark at Bangkok’s Laem Chabang port – Thailand’s public health minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, said he issued orders denying the ship permission to disembark there. 

The Philippines also barred the ship from making a scheduled port call earlier in the sailing. 

Passengers will be able to go ashore when they arrive in Cambodia The ship will remain in port at Sihanoukville for several days post-disembarkation. Guests will make their way home from Sihanoukville over the following few days and then transfer on charter flights to Phnom Penh before continuing on their way home. Holland America will arrange and pay for all flights home. All passengers will receive a full refund and a future cruise credit. 

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/02/12/coronavirus-and-cruises-cambodia-allows-holland-america-ship-dock/4728403002/

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MSNBC’s Chuck Todd uses ‘journalistic sleights of hand’ to insult Trump, Sanders voters, critics say – Fox News
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd uses ‘journalistic sleights of hand’ to insult Trump, Sanders voters, critics say – Fox News
Video

Sanders takes early lead as New Hampshire results trickle in

Sanders in the lead as 3 percent of precincts reporting; panel reaction and analysis.

Critics are lambasting MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd over his apparent pattern of using “journalistic sleights of hand” to insult supporters of President Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

On Monday, “#FireChuckTodd” dominated Twitter after he read an excerpt from a column slamming the fiery online presence of Sanders voters when discussing the progressive frontrunner’s recent surge in the polls.

“I want to bring up something that Jonathan Last put in The Bulwark today,” Todd began. “Here’s what he says: ‘No other candidate has anything like this digital brownshirt brigade. I mean, except for Donald Trump. The question that no one is asking is this; what if you can’t win the presidency without an online mob? What if we now live in a world having a bullying, agro-social media running around, hobbling everyone who sticks their head up is either an important ingredient for or a critical marker of success?'”

NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER TELLS MSNBC SHE VOTED FOR SANDERS BECAUSE NETWORK’S UNFAIR COVERAGE OF HIM MADE HER ‘ANGRY’

That sparked major backlash on social media, most notably from the Sanders campaign.

“‘Digital brown shirt brigade.’ That’s how our Jewish candidate’s supporters are being described on the MSM. The contempt shown for ordinary people is really something,” Sanders’ national press secretary Briahna Gray tweeted.

Tom Elliott, founder and news editor of Grabien, a media company, told Fox News that because Todd is “one of NBC’s ostensibly straight news guys,” the “Meet The Press” moderator has to be more crafty in order to express is own opinions.

“Chuck Todd has to resort to these kinds of journalistic sleights of hand to get his own views across,” Elliott said. “He doesn’t have to personally express any opinions, he can just approvingly quote other people likening Sanders supporters to Nazis, or Trump fans to Bible-thumping rubes.”

Elliott referenced commentary Todd make in December, where he read a letter to the editor of a Kentucky newspaper from January 2019, something Todd thought was a “fascinating attempt” to explain why so many Americans support President Trump.

MSNBC’S CHUCK TODD UNDER FIRE FOR SUGGESTING SANDERS SUPPORTERS ARE ‘DIGITAL BROWNSHIRT BRIGADE’

The letter read, “[W]hy do people support Trump? It’s because people have been trained from childhood to believe in fairy tales… This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good… The more fairy tales and lies he tells the better they feel… Show me a person who believes in Noah’s ark and I will show you a Trump voter.”

“This gets at something, Dean, that my executive producer likes to say, ‘Hey, voters want to be lied to sometimes.’ They don’t always love being told hard truths,” Todd told New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet.

“I’m not quite sure I buy that,” Baquet immediately responded. “I’m not convinced that people want to be lied to. I think people want to be comforted, and I think bad politicians sometimes say comforting things to them.”

Similarly to the commentary Todd echoed about Sanders supporters, the liberal anchor was blasted by the Trump campaign for insulting Trump supporters.

“If Chuck Todd’s wondering why Trump voters don’t trust the mainstream media, one reason might be they don’t like supposedly impartial reporters insinuating the real reason they support the President is because they ‘want to be lied to’ and comparing the Bible to ‘fairy tales,'” Trump campaign deputy director of communications Zach Parkinson wrote.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Dan Gainor, of the conservative nonprofit Media Research Center, declared that Todd “is the personification of media bias” and took notice how the MSNBC anchor knocked Trump supporters while he was insulting Sanders supporters when he said, ‘No other candidate has anything like this sort of digital brownshirt brigade, I mean, except for Donald Trump.'”

“So he thinks we believe in fairy tales like the Bible and we are brownshirts or Nazis? I’d get furious about this except he’s not an outlier. This is how the major media look at the right and have for years,” Gainor told Fox News.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-chuck-todd-trump-bernie-sanders-voters-critics

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Trump camp mocks Democratic ‘dumpster fire’ as president claims easy NH win – NBC News
Trump camp mocks Democratic ‘dumpster fire’ as president claims easy NH win – NBC News

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Four years ago, Donald Trump’s victory here shocked the GOP and set him on the path to winning his party’s presidential nomination. On Tuesday, he was on the ballot again — this time, the undisputed standard-bearer of the GOP in a state where he’ll face a far tougher contest this fall.

Trump was the projected winner of the New Hampshire Republican primary early in the evening, pulling in 86 percent of the vote with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The president was handily beating William Weld, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, although Weld had 9 percent of the vote — a much better performance than he had in Iowa’s caucuses last week, when he got just 1 percent.

While Trump’s victory here was widely expected, the results from early NBC News exit polls opened a window into the hold Trump has on the Republican Party — at least, among those who showed up for Tuesday’s contest — and the Democratic determination to defeat him.

In more evidence that Trump, once the insurgency candidate, is now the face of the Republican Party, the majority of its primary voters here aligned their loyalties with Trump over the GOP, with 54 percent saying they feel more allegiance to Trump than to the party, compared to 39 percent who said the reverse in early exit poll results.

The lack of suspense surrounding the likely Republican result appeared to depress turnout: Trump’s 86 percent showing translated to just over 112,000 votes — compared to the 100,000 he claimed with a 35 percent showing four years ago.

Full coverage of the New Hampshire primary

By overwhelming numbers, Republican voters in the early exit polls gave Trump a resounding vote of approval, with 9 in 10 saying they were either “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” with his performance in office.

Emotion swung about as strongly in the other direction, as well, with more than 4 in 5 Democratic primary voters saying they were “angry” about the conduct of the Trump administration. Beating Trump was overwhelmingly the top priority for Democratic primary voters, with 62 percent saying they would rather the party nominate a candidate who can beat Trump in November than one who shares their views.

Trump was following the results from the White House, live-tweeting his reactions as the numbers rolled in. He commented on the single-digit numbers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — saying she was “having a really bad night” and “sending signals that she wants out” — and businessman Tom Steyer, whom he dubbed “Impeachment King Steyer.”

“A lot of Democrat dropouts tonight, very low political I.Q.,” he tweeted after Andrew Yang and Michael Bennet said they were ending their campaigns. And a “very bad night for Mini Mike!” he declared of results for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire.

Trump also commented that former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s strong performance was “Giving Crazy Bernie [Sanders] a run for his money” — but he was silent on former Vice President Joe Biden’s disappointing results and primary night speech, delivered from South Carolina.

The president’s campaign did weigh in on Biden, sending an email to supporters and journalists saying Biden “Got Beat Like a Drum—Again” and another mocking the Democrats’ “months-long dumpster fire of a primary process.”

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

While New Hampshire residents have prided themselves on independence, moderate Republicans were in short supply Tuesday, the NBC News Exit Poll found, with just 19 percent of GOP voters identifying themselves as moderate or liberal.

That’s down sharply from four years ago, when 29 percent fell into these categories, and a dramatic decline from 2012, when nearly half of those voting in the Republican primary self-identified as moderate and liberal. It was unclear whether those voters had changed their identifications, sat out this primary or opted to vote in the Democratic primary, instead.

About a third of GOP primary voters were college graduates, compared to 55 percent on the Democratic side. Women made up 44 percent of those voting in the Republican primary, compared to 55 percent of those voting in the Democratic primary. Compared to Democrats, Republican voters are more than twice as likely, 22 percent to 10 percent, to be military veterans.

While Trump won the New Hampshire primary in 2016, it was with only 35 percent of the vote; he narrowly lost the state to Hillary Clinton in the general election. Recent head-to-head polls have shown him trailing Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, and Buttigieg, who emerged at the top of the pack in the Democratic field.

Trump has held two campaign rallies in New Hampshire in the past year — including one on Monday, just hours before voters headed to the polls — and he blanketed the state with surrogates Tuesday, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and several congressional allies.

Republicans have 14 full-time staffers on the ground here, nine months ahead of the general election. By comparison, at this point last cycle, the Trump campaign had just one staffer in New Hampshire.

Source Article from http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-camp-mocks-democratic-dumpster-fire-president-claims-easy-nh-n1135471

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He moved into his daughter’s dorm and targeted her roommates for sex trafficking, prosecutors say – The Washington Post
He moved into his daughter’s dorm and targeted her roommates for sex trafficking, prosecutors say – The Washington Post

First while living in on-campus housing and then in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment where some of the victims later also lived, Ray compelled some of them to participate in “therapy” sessions, per the indictment. During these sessions, the indictment continued, he squeezed out intimate details of their personal lives and lectured them on his own philosophies. He convinced several individuals they were “broken,” drawing out details of mental health struggles and saying he would help them, according to the indictment, which did not include the alleged victims’ names or ages. He also led interrogation sessions with multiple alleged victims present.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/02/12/he-moved-into-his-daughters-dorm-targeted-her-roommates-sex-trafficking-prosecutors-say/

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3 things to know about Trump’s budget plan for Medicare, Medicaid – ABC News
3 things to know about Trump’s budget plan for Medicare, Medicaid – ABC News

President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t touch Medicare before pitching a budget plan that would do exactly that, along with steep cuts to Medicaid. Democrats are calling it “savage” and “heartless,” while administration officials are insisting they are only slowing explosive growth in future years and that current Medicare benefits would remain untouched.

Here are three things to know about the election-year fight on health care spending:

Trump proposed spending $1.6 trillion less on future health care spending, including $451 billion less for Medicare.

On Twitter, two days before releasing his budget, the president said, “we will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare.” It was a promise he also made in his State of the Union address.

Whether he broke that promise depends upon how you look at it.

There’s no doubt the president’s budget plan would whack away at federal spending on health care over the next 10 years, with an estimated $1.6 trillion reduction, including $451 billion less spent on Medicare and $920 billion less for Medicaid.

The Trump administration is loath to call it a “cut” though because it applies to future spending plans only and budgets wouldn’t decline compared to current spending. When asked for details, the Health and Human Services Department declined to talk in terms of dollar figures for Medicare and Medicaid, offering only that the plan “slows the average growth rate” on Medicare by a small percentage over the 10-year period.

Overall, HHS stated, “funding levels will be no lower each year than they are today.”

(The dollar figures were provided by a senior administration official who spoke to ABC News on condition of anonymity; the estimates were also confirmed by independent budget analysts.)

Democrats were unmoved.

“Don’t get in front of an audience and say I’m here to protect Medicare and Social Security … and put a budget like this forward,” Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday.

The plan won’t impact Medicare benefits though

Trump’s health policy experts also argue that the plan for slowing “growth” in Medicare won’t impact benefits, but rather how providers like hospitals are paid.

Tricia Neuman, a policy expert at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said the administration is right that the plan cuts the growth in Medicare spending without actually cutting benefits for current enrollees. But she also notes that it includes a proposal that would make it harder for some seniors to qualify for long-term care services, for an estimated $34 billion in Medicaid savings.

Separately, the plan also proposes $135 billion in savings from drug pricing reforms “with few details,” she notes.

But those specifics aside, there’s another reason that Trump’s budget plan is unlikely to have an impact on Medicare recipients – it has almost no chance of becoming reality. Democrats control the House, and an election is on the horizon.

What the budget provides is a blueprint for what Trump would try to accomplish if given the opportunity. It’s essentially a starting off point for budget discussions – and the campaign debate. But it’s unlikely that lawmakers on either side of the aisle would have the appetite – especially in an election year – to chip away at health care spending.

If reelected, Trump clearly has Medicaid cuts in his sights

Medicaid is the government-run health care insurance for people with low incomes and disabilities and covers one in five Americans. And according to Kaiser Family Foundation, it finances nearly half of all births in the U.S.

Under Trump’s 10-year plan, $920 billion in future spending would be cut, according to the senior administration official and analysts.

Like Medicare figures, HHS declined to confirm that figure, saying only that the plan “slows average annual growth” from 5.4 percent to 3.1 percent “to ensure a more sustainable program for the truly needy and gives state flexibility to reform and innovate.”

The plan factors in savings by imposing work requirements as a condition of accepting Medicaid coverage for people who aren’t exempt.

Democrats clearly planned to use the proposal as a talking point ahead of the election, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday calling it a “blueprint for destroying America.”

“Now the American people can clearly see that he is a fraud who is not fighting for them,” he said.

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/things-trumps-budget-plan-medicare-medicaid/story?id=68913201

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Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New Hampshire Primary – The New York Times
Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New Hampshire Primary – The New York Times

Mr. Sanders’s victory leveraged his own reliable strengths as a liberal champion against a moment of turmoil in the party’s more moderate wing: With Mr. Biden tumbling and Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar striving to take his place, Mr. Sanders’s grip on progressives carried him to the top of the field in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

But in both states he captured less than 30 percent of the vote, and his vote share was the lowest total ever for a winner in the primary here. Coupled with the abrupt rise of Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar, his modest success only underscored the churning uncertainty of the race and raised the prospect of a drawn-out nominating process that could last through the spring.

“This victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Mr. Sanders told jubilant supporters in Manchester, N.H., claiming “a great victory” even before the final results were in. And looking toward Nevada and South Carolina, the next two states to vote, he vowed he would “win those states, as well.”

The rise of Mr. Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont who remains a political independent, has distressed many centrists and traditional liberals at a time when Democratic voters are united by a ravenous desire to defeat President Trump. Mr. Trump’s impeachment acquittal, the chaotic vote-counting in Iowa and the fractured Democratic field have many in the party worried that they are endangering their opportunity to win back the White House.

Yet for Mr. Sanders, 78, winning here and cementing his status as a front-runner represented a moment of redemption just four months after he had a heart attack that threatened his candidacy, and four years after he lost the Democratic nomination after a long and often bitter primary race.

While he has not demonstrated a capacity to appeal much beyond his left-wing base, Mr. Sanders is benefiting from something he lacked in 2016: a field of opponents who are dividing moderate voters. The centrist candidates, so far, have been unable to consolidate support.

Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar asserted themselves on Tuesday, and their rivalry may only intensify; Mr. Biden is fading but staying in the race; and the self-funding Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is gaining strength in advance of the Super Tuesday contests next month.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/bernie-sanders-new-hampshire-primary.html

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Andrew Yang drops out of presidential race – The – The Washington Post
Andrew Yang drops out of presidential race – The – The Washington Post

New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary is today; follow live updates here. Last night, President Trump came to town and inserted himself into the Democrats’ nominating contest, as the candidates vying to face him sought to position themselves as his chief antagonist. Get a breakdown of New Hampshire’s political geography, and come back tonight for results here.

The candidates: The field stands at 11: former vice president Joe Biden; former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); billionaire activist Tom Steyer; entrepreneur Andrew Yang; Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.); Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii); and former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.

Candidates have laid out where they stand on a number of issues. Answer some of the questions yourself and see who agrees with you.

Sign up: Want to understand what’s happening in the campaign? Sign up for The Trailer and get insights and news from across the country in your inbox every day through the New Hampshire primary and three days a week after that.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/andrew-yang-drops-out-of-presidential-race/2020/02/11/4fe2c97c-4c2c-11ea-9b5c-eac5b16dafaa_story.html

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Michael Bennet Drops Out Of 2020 Presidential Race – NPR
Michael Bennet Drops Out Of 2020 Presidential Race – NPR

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, has dropped out of the 2020 presidential race.

Alex Edelman/Getty Images


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Alex Edelman/Getty Images

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, has dropped out of the 2020 presidential race.

Alex Edelman/Getty Images

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet has ended his bid for the White House after failing to catch fire in a crowded Democratic field.

Bennet got a late start in the race, not joining the already-ballooning field until May 2019. His plans to seek the Democratic nomination were delayed after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April. However, following a successful surgery he was declared cancer-free and he continued with his plans to join the presidential fray.

But by then, front-runners had already begun to emerge and there seemed little place for Bennet, despite the fact he had won two races in Colorado, once a swing state that has trended toward Democrats in recent cycles. For a while, he was competing against former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, too; Hickenlooper ended his campaign in mid-August to run for the U.S. Senate.

Bennet was on stage for the first two Democratic debates, in June and July of 2019, but failed to qualify for any subsequent debates.

He was one of four senator-candidates whose time on the campaign trail was interrupted by the Senate impeachment trial of Trump.

Bennet pitched himself as a low-key alternative to Trump, writing: “If you elect me president, I promise you won’t have to think about me for 2 weeks at a time.”

But Bennet showed little upward momentum throughout his run, overshadowed by several of his other Senate colleagues.

With reporting by NPR deputy political editor Benjamin Swasey

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/02/11/756126032/colorado-sen-michael-bennet-ends-2020-democratic-presidential-campaign

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Sanders leads with Buttigieg and Klobuchar vying for second in early results from New Hampshire primary – CNN
Sanders leads with Buttigieg and Klobuchar vying for second in early results from New Hampshire primary – CNN

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/11/politics/democratic-primary-new-hampshire/index.html

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Prosecutors Quit Roger Stone Case After Justice Dept. Intervenes on Sentencing – The New York Times
Prosecutors Quit Roger Stone Case After Justice Dept. Intervenes on Sentencing – The New York Times

In their initial sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors said that Mr. Stone should serve up to nine years because he threatened a witness with bodily harm, deceived congressional investigators and carried out an extensive, deliberate, illegal scheme that included repeatedly lying under oath and forging documents.

Even after he was charged in a felony indictment, the prosecutors said, Mr. Stone continued to try to manipulate the administration of justice by threatening Judge Jackson in a social media post and violating her gag orders.

The combination of those factors contributed to significantly increasing the range of punishment recommended under federal sentencing guidelines to up to nine years, from 15 to 21 months, they said. While the guidelines are advisory, federal judges typically consider them carefully.

Defense lawyers characterized the prosecutors’ arguments as overblown. Mr. Stone not only never intended to harm the witness, they said, but he also never created any real obstacle for investigators. While the witness, a New York radio host named Randy Credico, refused to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, they pointed out, he was later repeatedly interviewed by the F.B.I., appeared before the federal grand jury and testified against Mr. Stone during his trial.

In a letter asking Judge Jackson to spare Mr. Stone a prison term, Mr. Credico said that while he stood by his testimony, he never believed Mr. Stone would carry out his threat to injure him or his beloved dog. “I chalked up his bellicose tirades to ‘Stone being Stone.’ All bark and no bite,” Mr. Credico wrote.

Mr. Stone’s defense team also said that his violations of Judge Jackson’s gag orders should not count against him because the criminal proceedings had exacerbated his “longstanding battle with anxiety” and that he had corrected that problem through therapy.

The decision to seek a more lenient punishment for Mr. Stone came less than two weeks after prosecutors backed off on their sentencing recommendation for Mr. Flynn. Prosecutors had initially sought up to six months in prison, then said they would not oppose probation instead of prison time.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/roger-stone-sentencing.html

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Voter Whom Biden Called ‘Dog-Faced Pony Soldier’ Criticizes Ex-VP – Newsweek
Voter Whom Biden Called ‘Dog-Faced Pony Soldier’ Criticizes Ex-VP – Newsweek

A New Hampshire Democratic voter whom former Vice President Joe Biden called a “lying dog-faced pony soldier,” has responded by criticizing the presidential hopeful’s message and questioning his electability.

Biden made the bizarre remark during a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday. After the young woman, Madison Moore, asked the former vice president about his Iowa failure and why voters should have faith that he can win in the national election, Biden asked her if she’d ever been to a caucus.

While Moore suggested that she had, Biden pushed back. “No, you haven’t. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier,” he said. The candidate then went on to argue that Iowa’s “confusing” results are not a good indication of a candidate’s viability.

Speaking to Fox News following the encounter, Moore criticized Biden and his campaign message.

“A lot of what he’s saying, it seems to be really pathos-based and very sad,” the 21-year-old college student said, according to a clip of her comments that aired Monday morning on Fox & Friends. “We’ve heard a lot about deaths and cancer and people losing their jobs. And to me, he doesn’t seem very solution-oriented.”

She added, “I don’t think he has the momentum to carry this to a national election.”

Although many were confused by Biden’s unusual choice of words, a spokeswoman for his campaign tweeted out an explanation.

“It’s from a John Wayne movie, and he’s made it plenty of times before. Sorry to ruin the fun twitter!” Remi Yamamoto wrote. Wayne is probably best known for his roles in Western films.

Biden previously used the line at a November 2018 rally for former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat from North Dakota, USA Today reported. The former vice president explained at the time that the line was used “in a John Wayne movie where the Indian chief turns to John Wayne and says, ‘This is a lying dog-faced pony soldier.'”

As Moore noted in her question to Biden, he performed poorly in last week’s Iowa caucuses. Although the results have not been finalized, Biden came in a distant fourth after former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Amy Klobuchar was close behind Biden in fifth place.

Polls in New Hampshire have shown that support for Biden has tanked ahead of the state’s Tuesday primary. A new Emerson College poll showed him in fifth place, with only 10 percent support while Warren is in fourth place with 11 percent. Sanders is in the lead with 30 percent, followed by Buttigieg at 23 percent and then Klobuchar at 14 percent.

A separate Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll shows Biden tied for fourth place with Warren, at just 12 percent each.

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Source Article from https://www.newsweek.com/new-hampshire-voter-whom-biden-called-dog-faced-pony-soldier-says-candidates-message-very-sad-1486567

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Seth Meyers Disgusted by Jeanine Pirro’s ‘Insane Screed’ Against Mitt – The Daily Beast
Seth Meyers Disgusted by Jeanine Pirro’s ‘Insane Screed’ Against Mitt – The Daily Beast
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Coronavirus live updates: Outbreak could affect US-China phase one trade deal, official says – CNBC
Coronavirus live updates: Outbreak could affect US-China phase one trade deal, official says – CNBC

The disease outbreak in China looks like it could have an impact on Beijing’s commitments to buying U.S. agricultural produce this year, White House national security advisor Robert O’Brien said at an Atlantic Council event.

U.S. agricultural purchases by China are part of a phase one trade deal both countries signed last month to ease trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. “We expect the phase one deal will allow China to import more food and open those markets to American farmers,” O’Brien said. “As we watch this coronavirus outbreak unfold in China it could have an impact on how big, at least in this current year, the purchases are.”

He also said that the United States has offered China the “opportunity” to have American doctors and health experts on the ground to help contain the virus’ spread. “That offer has not been accepted at this point, but that’s an outstanding offer,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/coronavirus-live-updates-covid-19.html

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Prosecutors quit amid escalating Justice Dept. fight over Roger Stone’s prison term – The Washington Post
Prosecutors quit amid escalating Justice Dept. fight over Roger Stone’s prison term – The Washington Post

Jonathan Kravis, one of the prosecutors, wrote in a court filing he had resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney, leaving government entirely. Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, a former member of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team, said he was quitting his special assignment to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute Stone, though a spokeswoman said he will remain an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-to-reduce-sentencing-recommendation-for-trump-associate-roger-stone-official-says-after-president-calls-it-unfair/2020/02/11/ad81fd36-4cf0-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html

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Joe Biden can beat Trump — but he won’t win the Democratic nomination, Paul Ryan says – CNBC
Joe Biden can beat Trump — but he won’t win the Democratic nomination, Paul Ryan says – CNBC

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Former house speaker and staunch Republican Paul Ryan sees only one Democrat capable of beating President Donald Trump in the 2020 election — but that candidate won’t actually make it to the nomination, he argued at a panel event on Tuesday.

“I’d say he’s probably the most likely one to have a chance at beating Donald Trump, but I don’t see Joe getting the nomination, I just don’t see him getting there. I think it’s going be one of these progressives, which I think will be much easier to beat,” he told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the annual Milken Conference in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking as a former Congressman for Wisconsin, the one-time vice presidential hopeful outlined three key states the parties will have to fight over to win in 2020: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In those states, particularly Ryan’s home state, “I think Joe is probably the hardest to beat, because it’s going to come down to the suburban (voter), it’s going to be the suburbanite that’ll basically be the difference-maker,” he said.

Ryan, who is on the board of Fox News parent Fox Corp., described that voter as typically a right-of-center, first-generation college-educated white collar worker. “A first-generation Republican and they like Trump the idea, they like Trump the disruption — they don’t necessarily like the personality and the noise and the tweets that come with it,” he said. 

“So they’ll be tempted to vote for what they think is a safe moderate — and I think Joe Biden, it’s all relative, will fall into that category, and is the likeliest to be able to win that voter,” Ryan said. But that’s only if Biden, former vice president and senator from Delaware, wins his party’s nomination.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/11/paul-ryan-joe-biden-can-beat-trump-but-he-wont-win-the-democratic-nomination.html

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Trump and Bloomberg call each other racist as 2020 election fight heats up – Reuters
Trump and Bloomberg call each other racist as 2020 election fight heats up – Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday accused each other of being racist, escalating a war of words between the two wealthy businessmen.

Trump fired the first volley, posting a 2015 audio clip via Twitter of Bloomberg defending his use of a controversial policing strategy from his time as New York’s mayor between 2002 and 2013 known as “stop and frisk.”

“WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” Trump wrote in the since-deleted tweet.

Trump has also backed the policy.

Bloomberg, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination to challenge the Republican Trump in the Nov. 3 election, apologized for his use of the policing strategy last November a few days before announcing his candidacy.

In a statement on Tuesday, Bloomberg cited what he called his commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity, adding: “In contrast, President Trump inherited a country marching toward greater equality and divided us with racist appeals and hateful rhetoric.”

The two men – Trump earned his fortune in real estate and Bloomberg earned his billions selling financial information – have been locked in a war of words, with Trump lobbing insults at Bloomberg in a sign of how seriously he appears to take the former mayor’s candidacy.

Bloomberg is not competing in the first four Democratic nomination contests but is mounting an expensive nationwide campaign ahead of the March primaries. He has risen in public opinion polls while spending hundreds of millions of dollars on television advertisements.

STOP AND FRISK

In the recording attached to Trump’s tweet, Bloomberg is heard saying that the way to keep guns out of kids’ hands is to “throw them up against the walls and frisk them.”

The stop-and-frisk policy encouraged police to stop and search pedestrians and ensnared disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos.

Bloomberg had long defended stop and frisk as an effective police tactic that saved lives, even after a federal judge in 2013 found it violated the rights of ethnic minorities.

In his statement on Tuesday, Bloomberg said: “I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on black and Latino communities.”

Trump backed stop-and-frisk before and after he became president in 2017. In October 2018, then-President Trump called on Chicago to implement stop-and-frisk to fight crime. “It works, and it was meant for problems like Chicago,” he said at the time.

A spokesman for Trump’s election campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the president’s support for stop-and-frisk and why Trump deleted the tweet. The White House declined comment on why Trump deleted the tweet.

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But in an emailed statement, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said of Bloomberg’s recorded remarks: “These are clearly racist comments and are unacceptable.”

“His apology for ‘stop and frisk’ was fake,” Murtaugh said.

Trump caused controversy in 2017 when he said there were “fine people” on both sides of a deadly conflict at a white nationalist rally in Virginia that was disrupted by counter-protesters.

Reporting by Jason Lange; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Howard Goller

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-bloomberg-idUSKBN2052DC

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