Shrinking the US trade deficit has been a key goal of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
But the US Census Bureau announced Thursday that the US trade deficit grew to $55.5 billion in the month of October, the highest in exactly 10 years. That was a 1.7% jump from September, as imports rose by 0.2% and exports fell by 0.1%.
Trump has long been focused on the trade deficit as a signal that his administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods and metals are working, despite the fact that most economists discount the measure as a sign of effective trade policy.
Looking at the main target of the trade war, China, the trade deficit was similarly dismal. The unadjusted goods trade deficit hit $43.1 billion in October, the highest level ever.
The US economy is stronger, and US consumers’ appetite is outpacing the country’s ability to produce the goods they want.
This means the US needs goods from other countries to satisfy consumer demand, leading to import growth.
The increase in demand is in part because of the significant amount of fiscal stimulus injected into the economy by Trump’s tax cuts and the massive bipartisan budget deal.
Goosing the economy, while helping Trump claim victories on things like a stronger GDP, also means the president’s trade report card looks worse.
At the same time, exports are cooling because of retaliatory tariffs on US products:
The trade policy exacerbates the existing issues that were already causing weak export growth, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote Thursday.
“The stronger dollar and slower growth in China and Europe are hurting exports, and the tariffs are a real problem too; exports of soybeans fell by $0.8 billion to a four-year low, down 43% year-over-year,” Shepherson said.
Those existing drags on exports — the strong US dollar and slowing economic growth in foreign countries — and the tariffs combine to make the perfect recipe for weakness on that side of the deficit ledger.
“Moderating global momentum, the stronger dollar, and protectionist trade policies will keep weighing on exports in the near-term, while sturdy domestic demand and limited spare capacity keep import growth healthy — further widening the deficit,” said Jack McRobie and Gregory Daco, economists at Oxford Economics.
A few things could turn around the deficit situation. If the US economy were to cool off, as many economists expect, it could slow the pace of import growth. At the same time, if Trump is able to strike a trade deal with China, a prospect of which economists and experts are more skeptical, export growth could rebound and close the gap.
While making a series of major personnel announcements on the White House lawn, including new picks for attorney general and United Nations ambassador, Trump cryptically told reporters that “I have another one for tomorrow.”
“I’m going to be announcing at the Army-Navy game. I can give you a little hint: It will have to do with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and succession,” he said.
Trump is set to attend the coin toss at the annual game between the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.
The comment set off speculation over who could be named to what position, as all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are set reach the end of their terms in quick succession starting next summer.
Administration officials told The New York Times that Trump is expected to name Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley as Joint Chiefs chairman.
Current Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford’s second term will end in the summer of 2019, as will Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva’s.
Former President Obama nominated Dunford and Selva to the two-year term positions in 2015, and Trump re-upped them for their second terms last year.
Milley, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller and Naval Chief of Operations Adm. John Richardson will all reach the end of their terms next year.
Predictably, however, some are scornfully attacking Nauert, a former journalist, as unqualified for the position. These critics are driven far more by their hatred for Fox News, where Nauert used to work, than their honest assessments of reality, and they are wrong.
First off, in her time as the State Department’s chief spokeswoman, Nauert has learned the ins and outs of the State Department bureaucracy. She’s also learned the three keys to being a successful U.N. ambassador: being a team player, understanding U.S. foreign policy interests, and understanding the interests and nuances of other international actors. In order to get the State Department operating effectively with united purpose, a senior leader must command the respect of State Department’s foreign and civil service officers and other employees. Standing up for her department, Nauert has earned that respect.
Moreover, in standing up for American foreign policy interests and allies, Nauert is ready to deliver that message at the U.N. And the the ambassador she replaces also had little foreign policy experience but was quite successful.
Nauert has shown another important facet of readiness: a willingness push back against U.S. adversaries. Here, Nauert stands out for her strong understanding of the Russian propaganda machine. In numerous exchanges at the State Department, Nauert has aggressively rebuked Russian agents from RT and other truly fake-news outlets. As shown in the video below, Nauert has even done so under pressure from U.S. journalists who lack the understanding of what RT actually is: which is to say, a de facto intelligence influencing operation.
This confidence will be absolutely critical at the U.N., where Russian diplomats spend every day attempting to deceive the international community and undercut U.S. policy interests. Outgoing ambassador Nikki Haley has excelled in defeating these Russian efforts. Nauert has shown she has the temperament, intellect, and eloquence to do the same.
I’ve long believed Nauert is an excellent choice for this job.
“His chief promises were that he would build the wall, de-fund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things,” said Carlson, per The Washington Post.
Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt…
“Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton Foundation be listed at the top of the Report?” he wrote.
….Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies, only to be……..
…..overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton….
….Foundation be listed at the top of the Report? Will the scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey, by the man in charge of the case, Rod Rosenstein (who also signed the FISA Warrant), be a big part of the Report? Isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted? Will all of….
The tweets come on what is expected to be a momentous day in Mueller’s long-running investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Trump’s tweets break a relatively brief period of silence on the Mueller probe during memorial services for former President George H.W. Bush.
For the second time in recent weeks, the president turned his fire on Rosenstein. He asked if the No. 2 Justice Department official’s “scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey” will be included in Mueller’s final report on the probe.
Referring to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant signed by Rosenstein against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, Trump asked, “isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted?”
The debate over whether Rosenstein should recuse himself has long hung over the Russia probe, but the deputy attorney general said he has consulted with appropriate officials and that his position did not present a conflict.
The president last week retweeted a photoshopped image showing several Trump opponents in jail, including Rosenstein, suggesting they should be locked up for treason.
The president also took aim at top Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman, calling him a “horrible and vicious” prosecutor who “wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies.”
HOUSTON — George Herbert Walker Bush was laid to rest Thursday beneath the rich soil of Texas, where he arrived 70 years ago as a young New Englander looking to make a new life and ended up rising to the pinnacle of American political power.
After a formal funeral in Washington on Wednesday and a folksier one in Houston on Thursday, the 41st president’s body was taken by train to his presidential library in College Station, where he was buried on a cool and rainy afternoon.
Texans turned out all along the 70-mile route as the train rolled through the towns of Spring, Pinehurst, Magnolia and Navasota, paying tribute to Bush, whose flag-draped casket was borne in a glass-sided train car pulled by Union Pacific locomotive 4141, painted in the baby-blue and white of Air Force One.
For nearly three hours, crowds waved U.S. and Texas flags, placed their hands on their hearts, saluted and took photographs and video, while firetrucks hoisted large flags on bridges over the tracks.
A young spectator waves an American flag Thursday in Navasota, Tex., a town on the route that the casket of former president George H.W. Bush traveled aboard a Union Pacific funeral train on its way to College Station, Tex. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)
“He served his country in the military and led an honorable life,” said Laurie Gavik, a school nurse who is married to a Marine and has one son in the Navy and another in Marine boot camp. She joined a crowd in a light drizzle outside the Track Shack Express bar and restaurant to pay her respects to a “noble man” in the passing train.
“He was the last president to serve,” Gavik said. “I think he’s the last of a kind in many ways, that’s for sure.”
Late in the afternoon at the presidential library on the campus of Texas A&M University, with Bush’s family, now led by his son, former president George W. Bush, looking on, his casket was lowered into the ground alongside his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush, who died in April, and their daughter Robin, who died of leukemia in 1953 at age 3.
The casket of former president George H.W. Bush is carried from St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston on Thursday by a joint services honor guard. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
Thursday’s church service in Houston was a country-tinged bookend to Wednesday’s massive and formal state funeral in Washington, reflecting Bush’s blended identity from the East Coast of his birth and the Texas oil fields of his choice.
Unlike Wednesday, when President Trump and all four living former U.S. presidents watched from the front row, the only living former president in the church on Thursday was George W. Bush, who sat a few feet from his father’s casket at the altar where the elder Bush had worshiped for half a century.
Whereas tenor Ronan Tynan rattled the cavernous Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday with his powerful Irish pipes, the Oak Ridge Boys stirred the more intimate sanctuary of St. Martin’s with their rich Tennessee a cappella harmonies on “Amazing Grace.”
Country superstar Reba McEntire, who, like the Oak Ridge Boys, was a close friend of the 41st president’s, sang a moving version of the Lord’s Prayer, accompanied by just a piano. The 1,000 guests — including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — applauded the performances.
There were poised and clear-voiced readings by several Bush granddaughters, and beautiful renditions of patriotic and inspirational music: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
It was all in very personal tribute to a man whom the Rev. Russell Levenson Jr., who was with Bush at his death and with Barbara Bush when she died in April, described simply as “a man that we all adored.”
“We’re here today in the house of the Lord to say goodbye to a man of great faith and great integrity, a truly beautiful human being,” said former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, one of Bush’s closest friends, who was with him, holding his hand and massaging his feet, in the moments leading up to his death last Friday.
Baker spoke of Bush’s “noble character, his life of service and the sweet memories he leaves for his friends, his family, and for our grateful nation.”
At the end of his remarks, Baker became choked with emotion as he paraphrased the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, saying, “Our glory, George, was to have had you as our president and as such a friend.”
People line the road as the hearse carrying the casket of former president George H.W. Bush heads to the Union Pacific train facility in Houston on Thursday for Bush’s final journey, to College Station. (David J. Phillip/AP)
On Wednesday in Washington, George W. Bush delivered a stirring eulogy on behalf of a family he now leads as patriarch. On Thursday in Texas, the duty of eulogist fell to George Prescott Bush, 42, the late president’s oldest grandson, who represents the next generation of the Bush political dynasty.
It began in the 1950s, with U.S. Sen. Prescott Bush, continuing with his son, the late president, then to two of his grandsons, President George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and now his great-grandson.
George P. Bush, son of Jeb, was born in Texas and grew up mainly in Florida, but he earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Texas universities. He built a successful career in real estate and oil and gas investment, and was elected Texas land commissioner, taking office in 2015.
Of 17 Bush grandchildren, he is the only one serving in public office.
While Baker, 88, spoke of his longtime friendship and political association with Bush, it was left to the youngest George Bush to speak of the grandfather he knew as “Gampy.”
He spoke of how his grandfather loved to spend time with his family, catching bluefish, tossing horseshoes, eating barbecue, tacos and tamales, and motivating his young grandchildren to go to bed each night by offering “the coveted ‘first to sleep award.’ ”
But he said he instilled his credo of “duty, honor, country” in all of them.
“He left a simple yet profound legacy to his children, his grandchildren and to this country: service,” George P. Bush said.
“George Herbert Walker Bush is the most gracious, most decent, most humble man that I will ever know,” he said. “It’s the honor of a lifetime to share his name.”
The casket of former president George H.W. Bush is carried by an honor guard for burial at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday in College Station, Tex. (David J. Phillip/AP)
Kuzydym is a freelance journalist based in Texas. Hoffman, a freelance journalist, reported from Spring, Tex., and Sullivan reported from Washington. Brittney Martin in College Station, Tex., and Mark Berman and Lindsey Bever in Washington contributed to this report.
White House sources told CNN on Friday that Kelly’s relationship with the president, often reported as tumultuous, is no longer seen as “sustainable” and will likely lead to Kelly’s ouster in the near future.
Nick Ayers, a longtime aide to Vice President Pence currently serving as Pence’s chief of staff, is being mentioned as a potential replacement, according to CNN.
Rumors of Kelly’s departure have been frequent, yet he has held on to his position.
Seeking to quell similar reports, the White House over the summer said tensions between Trump and Kelly has cleared and that the chief of staff had agreed to stay on through the 2020 presidential cycle.
In April, Kelly issued a public statement denying reports from NBC News that he referred to the president as an “idiot” during conversations with colleagues and mocked Trump’s lack of policy knowledge.
“I spend more time with the president than anyone else and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” Kelly said at the time.
Ayers, who joined Pence’s White House team last year, has long been considered a potential successor to Kelly and previously served as Pence’s chief political strategist when Pence was governor of Indiana.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing on Aug. 9, 2017. President Trump is expected to announce Friday his nomination of Nauert as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
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Alex Brandon/AP
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing on Aug. 9, 2017. President Trump is expected to announce Friday his nomination of Nauert as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
Alex Brandon/AP
From Fox & Friends to the State Department, and now likely to the United Nations.
President Trump is expected to announce Friday that he has chosen Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman and a former Fox News host, to become the next ambassador to the U.N., a senior administration official tells NPR’s Tamara Keith.
If confirmed, Nauert would replace Nikki Haley, who is leaving the post at the end of the year.
Nauert was camera-ready when she came to the State Department in April 2017, having worked at ABC and Fox. She never traveled with and was not close to her first boss at the department, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. With Mike Pompeo in charge of State, Nauert has been on the road much more.
Yetshe faced some criticism for a tourist-like Instagram post from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a trip that was meant to focus on the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Nauert (left) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak with reporters while flying from Panama to Mexico on Oct. 18.
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Nauert (left) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak with reporters while flying from Panama to Mexico on Oct. 18.
Brendan Smialowski/Pool/AP
There have been other missteps, including the time when she cited D-Day — the Allied invasion of Normandy against the Nazis — as an example of America’s strong relationship with Germany.
She’s been a strong defender of Trump’s at the podium, something he has clearly noticed.
“She’s excellent, she’s been with us a long time, she’s been a supporter for a long time,” Trump told reporters on Nov. 1.
The State Department used to hold daily briefings. That has been scaled backto two a week, at most.
Nauert, 48, has been back and forth between her husband and two sons in New York and her job in Washington, D.C.
Before joining the Trump administration, she had no government or foreign policy experience, though she did work on some overseas assignments for ABC, including in Baghdad.
Donald Trump comes out and says, “Well, if you say something wrong about the weather you’re going to be charged with perjury.” That’s not true. It has to be a material fact, number one. Number two, often prosecutors will give you opportunities to give full, complete and honest testimony. It is not the first recourse of any federal prosecutor to charge someone with perjury. You are only trying to charge someone who has deliberately, repeatedly given up any chance to correct themselves in regard to lying about a material fact. In doing so, by the way, they usually have hindered some federal criminal prosecution that is of great importance.
Now, in this case, you have Donald Trump through the media and apparently through his attorneys, dangling a pardon to Paul Manafort and getting that communicated to through Manafort’s attorney. That in and of itself is an act of obstruction. Even if we say that Donald Trump, under the Constitution, can pardon Paul Manafort, Trump could still be charged with an impeachable offense for a pardon that was an act of obstruction of justice.
Manafort’s behavior is also what one would see in the mafia, where the underlings are willing to do anything to protect the boss.
Absolutely. The former director of the FBI, Jim Comey — someone who knows the patterns of organized crime quite well — said that in his very first conversations with Donald Trump, the ethos, the philosophy of living and working in the world that he sensed in the man, was that of someone in the mafia.
We need to trust Comey’s opinion based on his experience. But frankly, any of us who have worked in the legal field can see the criminal bent that Donald Trump has. Trump attempts to infuse and inject those values into those who are his lackeys so they will be willing to commit crimes for him.
The total number of lies that Michael Cohen appears to have told to protect Donald Trump cannot be counted on one hand. Each one is prosecutable as an offense that could put Cohen in prison.
What I am amazed at is that Trump somehow manages to raise up this level of loyalty among his cronies, but it’s obvious that he would never show that loyalty to them. Again, we see that same pattern in the mafia.
Manafort seems willing to take the fall because Trump will pardon him. But could it also be that given the parties involved, such as Vladimir Putin, Russia oligarchs and the Russian intelligence agencies, Manafort may be afraid of what could happen to him and his family if he were to tell the truth?
That is certainly something that people have speculated on. There’s no question that Paul Manafort was in bed, business-wise with some of the most dangerous people on earth. There’s no question, based upon how Vladimir Putin and some of his chief allies among the Russian oligarchs have conducted themselves, that these are individuals who are not above harming innocents. Paul Manafort could be concerned about that.
Unfortunately, it all becomes speculation at this point. I’d say this: None of the possibilities are anything that one can feel sanguine about. Either Paul Manafort is absolutely sure of an obstruction-of-justice-enabled pardon by Donald Trump or he was in bed with some of the most dangerous people in the world or he is of such a criminal bent that he somehow believes that he can get away with virtually anything, commit as many crimes as he wants and never be caught. In which case it’s really terrifying, because he ran a presidential campaign.
What would you tell Donald Trump if you were his attorney?
First of all, that’s a position I would never want to be in. As I mentioned before, this is the first case I’ve really ever come across where I can’t find any exculpatory evidence. Keep in mind, as a defense attorney, that’s what you’re trained to look for. I’m not coming from the prosecution end of this. I’ve represented thousands of people, read thousands of police reports, was trained both in law school and thereafter in practice to look for exculpatory evidence, and I can’t find it. That is why you see Donald Trump’s attorneys doing the most they can with what they have.
They have two particular things they have to think about. One is that Trump’s attorneys will never have what you call client control, and they know that. They will never be able to tell their client what to do, stop him from hurting himself, stop him from committing crimes, stop him from making his situation worse, no matter what they say. It’s clear that they don’t even try. I should tell you that client control is a must in any course of criminal representation and if you don’t have any of it, you try to find a way to withdraw from the case because you can’t adequately represent that client. Clearly, his attorneys have given up on that altogether.
The second consideration that Trump’s attorneys clearly committed to is that because you can’t indict and try Donald Trump while he’s a sitting president — and Rudy Giuliani has said this before — their attitude is that this is a purely political case. They’re going to represent Donald Trump as though this is simply a political matter of whether there are 67 votes for conviction in the U.S. Senate.
So many of the decisions Trump’s attorneys are making, so many of the things that they are saying publicly, are things no attorney would ever do or say who has any self-respect and doesn’t want to face professional discipline from the American Bar Association.
There is another dimension to consider as well. People say to me, “Well, sometimes you seem to present Trump as a criminal mastermind. Other times you seem to be presenting him as someone who’s stupid.”
There is a very particular type of intelligence that someone who is pathologically criminal possesses. That is that they have an incredible instinct for their own self-preservation. They have an incredible instinct for their own gain that overwhelms everything else and can make them seem smart in certain respects because they’re able to nose out whatever is in their best interest in terms of making money or benefiting in some other way.
Donald Trump clearly has lived his whole life with that particular type of intelligence. I don’t think he’s a very sophisticated or smart man. I don’t even think he knows very much about business, even though he’s been in business for 30 years. He is smart in the same way, and I’ll only use this analogy because I have dogs that are hounds. Hounds are particularly good at understanding their own self-interest when they want to get food, for instance. They can become the smartest dogs you’ve ever seen in your life if there is food in the offing.
Otherwise, and I say this regrettably regarding my own dogs, they’re not that smart necessarily. They become smart in the right circumstance. That’s Donald Trump in a nutshell.
Why doesn’t Trump just resign, take all his money, go somewhere that he can’t be extradited from, and walk away from it all?
Look at it this way. While this is not going to end well for President Trump, he did become president of the United States. Up until a certain point, he would have been able to make the case to someone that he had, for all his past crimes and malfeasance, lived life in a way that allowed him to at least appear successful, have a certain amount of wealth, win the first-ever election that he ran in and become essentially the most powerful man on Earth.
That’s a lot of positive reinforcement for Donald Trump to get. It likewise encouraged his feeling that he will get away with everything he’s been doing for years and everything he did during the campaign. As the old saying goes, “Pride goeth before the fall.” That’s exactly the situation here. He has flown far too high for his skills. He is now exposed in the international sphere for what he is. Again, the end of Donald Trump’s story will be that he will be a new paradigm for treachery to the United States.
As a defense attorney, at what point do you sit down with your client and say, “They’ve got you dead to rights and now it’s damage control time.” Will somebody ever sit down with Trump and tell him, “Hey, they got you. Now we’ve got to figure out how to get out of this.”
If you’re a good attorney, those conversations do happen. This is something a lot of people don’t understand about being a criminal defense attorney. You can only adequately represent someone if you know the truth about everything. You can’t conduct a competent direct examination or cross-examination at trial. You can’t give competent advice about whether someone should plead guilty or go to trial. You can’t give them advice on anything if you are working off lies.
There are some attorneys, who I consider to be less skilled, who believe that the less they know, the more they are not drawn into whatever is going on. They can perhaps go out and give public statements that they would know were false if they had more information. That “hear no evil, see no evil” attitude seems to be what all of Trump’s attorneys are doing.
None of Trump’s attorneys, I would say, seem to be very skilled. I don’t know whether they know the truth or simply suspect the truth, but I will tell you this is the advice Trump’s attorneys are likely giving him: “You need to stay in the Oval Office for as long as you possibly can, because the moment you leave the Oval Office, you are going to be indicted. If you can find a way to hold on to 2020 and stay in office another four years after that, then that is what you need to do, because once you leave office you’ll be indicted.”
That case can be stretched out to a number of years with appeals and so on and so forth. The hope is for Donald Trump to simply — and I’m going to try to say this as delicately as I can — he is advanced in years and just in terms of his natural lifespan, there are only so many years that he has left. As his attorney, you would say, “Let’s try to run out the clock essentially on your natural lifespan without you ever having to go inside a prison cell.” That’s the advice you’d be giving Donald Trump right now.
Some observers have suggested that Mueller knew that Manafort was lying, and basically used those lies as a way of later proving Trump’s guilt. Is that a viable scenario?
It’s possible. But one thing that I am always wary of is turning anyone in any case into either a superhero or a supervillain, a mastermind for good or a mastermind for evil. Most of the people involved in this case are quite good at what they do. Robert Mueller is a very good prosecutor. The investigators are good investigators. Donald Trump is a very good criminal, or at least he has been up until this point.
Suggesting that each side is hatching these plots to stay six steps ahead is a dangerous game to get into. Yes, it’s possible that Robert Mueller knew that Paul Manafort was lying to him, at least after a certain point following his cooperation plea deal, and made a strategic decision to try to get answers from Donald Trump that would put him in legal jeopardy.
Here’s why I’m not so enamored with that particular plot line. It is very clear to Robert Mueller that he can indict Donald Trump right now for a host of offenses that would put him in prison for the rest of his natural life. I don’t think he’s desperate to get answers from Donald Trump that will add a few additional charges to what he previously had. Mueller probably knew that no matter what happened, Paul Manafort or not, Donald Trump was going to lie in his answers.
Therefore, just getting those answers in writing — and if they are lies, leading to criminal liability for Donald Trump — was what Mueller was after.
Thinking about Robert Mueller and his team: You’re going down this rabbit hole, you have a set of tasks, you have to get the evidence, you’re going to follow it where it may lead. What is that moment like when you start to see the connections and what is revealed is truly horrible?
My book “Proof of Collusion” establishes that it’s far worse than we previously imagined. There have been so many moments during the course of this investigation that I, even as someone who has seen a lot from when I practiced law, was deeply surprised by the level of graft and corruption and criminality and just the sheer scope of it.
Frankly, in some cases, just the sheer scope of the stupidity of some of those involved.
I’m sure that each time Mueller and his team discovered something new, there was a realization that they were involved in a case that will be talked about hundreds of years from now and will absolutely go down in American history as one of the most infamous scandals in any sphere of American life since the founding of the country.
There are a good number of Americans who feel that Mueller is taking too long, and this is all a big controversy over nothing. Others may feel like all politicians are crooks, so who cares? How would you explain the seriousness of the situation to them?
This situation is scary because the president of the United States is fully compromised by multiple hostile foreign nations. What that means is that, at this point, the foreign policy of the United States, at least as it comes out of the executive branch, is effectively an ideological vassal state of our enemies. There is no reason for us to be confident that any decision made by Donald Trump on the question of foreign policy is being made with the best interest of you and your family in mind.
Moreover, I would say that many of his decisions on the domestic front, for instance, his refusal to protect our elections, are being made for the benefit of himself in a corrupt way and those to whom he is clearly beholden overseas. Every American, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, it does not matter to him.
You want to be safe. You want your kids to be safe. You want America to have a rule of law. You want us to be a democracy. You want our foreign policy and our values to mean something. Right now, our foreign policy is entirely phony. It was written by people overseas. It was paid for through corruption and graft and payments to the Trump family. That is terrifying to any American. It doesn’t matter what your position is on a climate change or on abortion, you have to think of the country first. This is a national emergency and people should act that way.
I have a theory about how this all plays out. At the end of this scandal Donald Trump may very well end up saying, “Yeah, I did it. I’m a patriot and I did it to stop Hillary Clinton. I dare you to do anything about it.” Do you think that’s far-fetched?
You’re half right, because at least as far as Donald Trump is concerned, this isn’t so much a legal case or a legal investigation as it is a political situation. If Trump can stay in office, keep his base and build on it slightly in 2020 — should he make it that far — he would be able to save himself from indictment and prosecution until at least 2025. Thus there could be a time when Donald Trump admits, and maybe even is forced to admit, because of all the cooperation deals and all the public evidence that comes out from Robert Mueller and his report, “Yes, I did everything.”
I don’t think his justification would be Hillary Clinton. If you look very carefully at some of these internal communications involving the Russians and Middle Eastern nations, what is consistently referred to is the concept of peace. Donald Trump will attempt to justify his actions by saying that he wanted peace with the Russians, he wanted peace in the Middle East. He took these actions and, sure, they may have benefited him in some way or another because he happens to be a businessman, but ultimately, these were the right foreign policy decisions for him to make. He might make that claim. Hatred of Hillary Clinton is only going to bring along 40 or so percent of the American voting public who hate her.
To survive this, Trump is going to need something much closer to 50 percent of people saying, “Yes, I see now that this is the most treacherous course of conduct any of us have ever heard of in our lifetimes, but he was justified because he was ‘promoting peace.'” There are letters in which Felix Sater, Trump’s business associate, explicitly tells him to make that case.
What did you miss or underestimate in “Proof of Collusion,” given what we’re now learning about the investigation, that could come into play later on with indictments or impeachment?
There’s a section in Chapter 11 of “Proof of Collusion” that lays out what I’ve called the “grand bargain.” I expect that some of Mueller’s forthcoming indictments — or perhaps other, less dire law enforcement encounters and entanglements — will include Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince, Elliott Broidy, Thomas Barrack, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., all of whom would feature prominently in any future book on Donald Trump’s multi-state pre-election collusion.
Given all that we have discussed, is there anything that gives you hope?
As an attorney, as someone who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, I believe in the rule of law and I believe in American democracy. I am confident that nothing Mr. Trump does or any of his allies, in Congress or in business, in politics or his voters, can stop this federal criminal investigation from reaching a just result.
It might take longer than it should. It will certainly be messier than it should be. But everything I see from the Mueller investigation is that it does not leak, it is thoroughly professional. It will be studied, I can tell you, for decades as one of the most effective and professional federal investigative operations anyone has ever seen. Robert Mueller and his team will ultimately be victorious in upholding our rule of law and holding to account those who violated our federal statutes.
What we’re witnessing in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere is undemocratic and clearly at odds with the will the public. Why do we allow it?
Lame-duck legislative sessions—when outgoing lawmakers convene to enact new policy after an election but before their replacements have been sworn in—are a horse-and-buggy political arrangement that somehow survived into the 21st century. Designed for a time when new elected officials had to travel long distances to make it to the capitol, they are mostly harmless, like an antique shotgun hanging on the wall—at least until recently. Today, Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina are weaponizing lame duck sessions to thwart the will of the public as newly elected officials sit on the sidelines, watching their predecessors straitjacket their mandates to govern.
What is the case against lame-duck legislatures? In essence, policymakers are acting without the traditional backdrop of public accountability—a looming election—to govern their behavior. Freed of that pressure, legislators may behave differently. In some cases, we might welcome legislators feeling freer to follow their instincts, and there is some evidence that congressional lame duck sessions are more productive than at other times of the year.
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But the soon-to-be-exiting politicians may also adopt policy positions that are clearly at odds with the will of the people. Sore losers make for bad lame ducks.
Such is the case now in Wisconsin and Michigan, where Republicans are using the window before the new legislature arrives to kneecap their successors. Gerrymandered legislatures are pushing through a hodgepodge of policies they have no mandate for, and which have, in some cases, been expressly rejected by the public.
Let’s take Wisconsin, where I lived and worked as a professor of public affairs in Madison for 13 years. Incumbent Republican Governor Scott Walker lost to Democrat Tony Evers in the 2018 election, breaking up the unified control of government that the GOP has enjoyed since 2010. In aggregate, Republicans had fewer votes for their State Assembly candidates than Democrats in 2018,but thanks to the magic of extreme gerrymandering, retain comfortable majorities. Now, having lost the governorship, they set out to win the lame duck session.
Republicans responded to their losses by rejecting both the choice of the public and restricting its input. Having decided that early voting helped more people to vote in liberal cities, they’ve cut it down so that it can occur a maximum of only two weeks before an election, instead of the six weeks previously allowed. On Tuesday, they confirmed 82 new appointees made by Walker to various positions in the state government. They’ve voted to restrict the powers of the new governor in sweeping changes that apply not only to whom he can appoint, but also to his ability to negotiate directly with the federal government on intergovernmental policies. What this means in practice is that Evers will be shackled to the policies of his Republican predecessor, such as maintaining work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
Michigan Republicans have similar plans. The state Legislature is currently considering bills that would eliminate the ability of newly elected Governor Gretchen Whitmer to appoint key officials in the state government and make it more difficult for her to shut down a controversial oil pipeline that figured heavily in the November election. Likewise, the Michigan Senate is moving forward with a plan to strip the incoming Democratic secretary of state of the ability to enforce campaign finance laws. Before the election, under the threat of a statewide ballot initiative that would’ve raised the minimum wage and required paid sick leave—and likely would’ve increased Democratic turnout in the election—legislators pre-emptively passed a bill to do those two things and get the proposal off the ballot; now that the election is over, the Legislature is gutting the wage and sick leave law it passed mere months ago. They’re even going so far as to try and override a ballot measure that won in November with more than 60 percent of the vote: Whereas Michigan voters passed a referendum that created a new nonpartisan redistricting commission, the Legislature now aims to neuter the influence of that commission so that Republicans can control Michigan’s redistricting process for the fourth consecutive time.
In both states, Republicans seek to significantly weaken the discretion of elected attorneys general, making them creatures of the Legislature when it comes to representing the state in court. Both Republican legislatures want to force their states’ new Democratic attorneys general to defend positions they actually campaigned against. Even as Democrats in Wisconsin won an election while pledging to withdraw from a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, Republicans will force the new administration to abandon that promise.
The model for all of this is North Carolina. Two years ago, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate won, breaking up the GOP’s unilateral control of the state government. The Republican Legislature then set about removing some of the governor’s crucial powers, giving him only one-fifth of the appointments of his predecessor, including restrictions on Cabinet appointments. Now they are at it again, planning to use a lame-duck session to control election oversight, amid growing evidence of GOP election fraud in the state.
Lame-duck sessions make for bad policymaking. In general, good policy involves incorporating the insights of experts and stakeholders, consulting and listening with the public, and at least trying to find some middle ground with the opposing party to ensure the longevity of the policy. By contrast, the Wisconsin Legislature released hundreds of pages of proposed legislation late on a Friday evening and was voting on it by the following Tuesday night. No meaningful consultation or hearings took place. Legislative leaders then rewrote the bills in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and told their members to vote for them without a chance to closely scrutinize the text. This was no accident; it reflects the rushed nature of lame-duck policymaking.
Policies passed in the dark of night, with little to no debate, are rarely good for the public. Expect the usual outcomes of sloppily written legislation: unanticipated consequences, unclear directives—and lawsuits, lots of lawsuits.
What are some alternatives to lame-duck sessions? One option is the parliamentary model: Once the election is over, the old parliament is disbanded and cannot execute new policies. If there is a delay in seating the new parliament, a caretaker government maintains existing policy. If a state still wants its legislature to be in session in November and December, that state could change the timing that a new legislature takes over to, say, mid-November, rather than waiting until January. We don’t even have to look overseas to pursue this option. Alabama, Indiana and Nevada all swear in their new legislators on the day after the general election. And in Florida, state law requires that “the term of office of each member of the Legislature shall begin upon election,” meaning new legislators take office immediately once the votes are tallied.
Another option is the supermajority approach: Any new legislation passed in a lame-duck session would have to be passed by a large enough majority to prevent one party from adopting changes that don’t have widespread support. The transition period would stay the same, but only issues that have broad consensus—for instance, responding to some sort of emergency—would survive.
Of course, such changes may be difficult to achieve, since they will require changes to state constitutions. But that they are needed is telling of a deeper problem.
We run our democracies based on a mixture of rules and norms. Rules are often unwieldy and overly constrictive, but they become necessary when norms of good behavior collapse. This is what is happening now within the Republican Party, as its members thumb their noses at the most fundamental norm for elected officials: to honor the will of the people. There appears to be a growing belief within the GOP that elections are advisory, and subservient to elected officials’ wishes. Nationally, Republican Party leaders have been notably silent on what is happening in Michigan and Wisconsin, effectively communicating to party members that such tactics will be accepted.
Unless rules or norms change, it is only a matter of time until such undemocratic practices become standard.
President Trump speaks to reporters before departing the White House for California in November.
Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
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Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
President Trump speaks to reporters before departing the White House for California in November.
Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
President Trump continues to rail against special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Trump has, for example, used the words “witch hunt” in tweets nearly a dozen times in the month since Election Day.
The phrase appears to have stuck with his base, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, but not with others beyond that. Seven in 10 Republicans agree with him, while a majority of independents and 4 in 5 Democrats see the investigation as “fair.”
“The base is solidified, but that doesn’t get you more than that,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll.
The polarized views on the special counsel persist amid a recent flurry of developments in the Russia probe, following relative quiet around the midterms. In federal courts on Friday, Mueller’s team is expected to detail how former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly breached his plea deal and to provide sentencing recommendations for ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who admitted last week to lying to Congress.
In the poll, for the first time, more Americans said they view Mueller more negatively than positively, 29 percent favorable, 33 percent unfavorable. That’s a net 7-point decline from the summer, when Mueller was 33 percent positive and 30 percent negative.
Mueller’s decline is fueled by Republicans — 58 percent have an unfavorable view of him in the most recent polling, up from 46 percent in July. (Just 8 percent have a favorable opinion of him, down from 15 percent in July.)
(The slight bump in March 2018 in the chart above followed several developments in late February in the Mueller investigation timeline. They included financial charges against Manafort and a guilty plea from Manafort’s former business partner Rick Gates.)
The overall movement on views of Mueller, however, is within the poll’s margin of error, and — perhaps more remarkably — the former FBI director remains not very well known or defined. Despite withering attacks from Trump, the plurality of Americans (39 percent) continue to say they are unsure of their feelings toward Mueller or have never heard of him.
That’s very different from views of Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Back then, almost 6 in 10 Americans (56 percent) had an unfavorable view of Starr, according to a Time/CNN Poll in September 1998. Only 13 percent said they were either not familiar or not sure.
“Trump does very well when he has a target that he can put characteristics on, that he can make it clear in terms of why they should like or dislike someone,” Miringoff said. “When it comes to Mueller, that’s not occurring. [Mueller is] largely unknown, but the investigation is known. … That stymies the president and his handlers in terms of how they like to deal with an opponent.”
The investigation is also insulated to a degree — 67 percent said they think Mueller should be allowed to finish, including 51 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents; and three-quarters (76 percent) believe that Mueller’s final report should be made public in its entirety. That includes 68 percent of Republicans.
“The issue of transparency is big,” Miringoff said. “The only thing that’s stuck with the base is the notion of the ‘witch hunt,’ but people are supportive of letting the investigation go to its conclusion. … And they want to see the results. If you don’t get to see the sausage at the end, people are not going to be very happy about that.”
Trump’s approval rating in the poll remains essentially unchanged at 42 percent, and fewer — just 36 percent — think the country is headed in the right direction.
The poll was conducted from Nov. 28-Dec. 4, includes interviews with 1,075 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
(FOX Carolina) – Clear and chilly weather will remain in place until Saturday, followed by a winter storm. Heavy snow with high totals are expected for western North Carolina, while the Upstate will see a wintry mix with some light snow accumulations throughout the weekend into Monday.
*A winter storm WATCH has been issued for all of western NC, starting Saturday afternoon through Noon Monday.*
It’s another cold morning in the 20s and 30s with some clouds starting to build in. Those clouds thicken up through the day as highs reach the upper 40s to around 50 degrees. Conditions should remain dry.
More clouds roll in early Saturday, with the big winter storm event beginning. Here is the current storm forecast:
SATURDAY MORNING – Clouds become overcast, drizzle possible across the area, starting south and moving northward.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON – Rain for the Upstate, while the mountains will see a wintry mix of rain to sleet, and then to snow.
SATURDAY NIGHT – Rain continues for the Upstate, but after midnight a wintry mix develops. Mountains will see heavy snow, with several inches possible overnight.
SUNDAY – Heavy mountain snow between 6-11AM, with some wet snow possible in the Upstate during that time as well. Best chance will be north of I-85. All rain south of I-85 as it looks now. Some freezing rain will be possible at times, especially along I-85, so a glaze of ice could develop on road surfaces, trees, etc. While precipitation intensity decreases Sunday afternoon, freezing drizzle, light rain, or light snow remains possible in the Upstate while light snow continues in WNC.
SUNDAY NIGHT – Lingering showers in the Upstate and snow in the mountains will be possible.
MONDAY – One final burst of snow possible, even in the Upstate, as the back edge of the storm moves through. Only light accumulations add to what’s on the ground in the Upstate, but a couple more inches of snow are possible in WNC.
** All is subject to change depending on model trends! We will keep you posted!
REST OF WEEK – sunshine returns Tuesday with cool air sticking around. Temperatures climb into the 50s later in the week with widespread rain returning Friday.
The arrest and possible extradition of a Chinese business executive highlights ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China that national security adviser John Bolton says will be a major focus of negotiations over the next three months.
Those tensions contributed to another roller coaster day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 700 points on Thursday, but recovered to close down less than 80 points.That followed a 799 point drop in the Dow on Tuesday.
Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer at China’s Huawei Technologies, was arrested in Canada Saturday at the request of U.S. authorities and faces possible extradition to the United States. In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Bolton declined to address the reasons for her arrest, but said the U.S. has long been concerned with what it views as her company’s theft of technological know-how.
“You should not turn a blind eye when states, as a matter of national policy, are stealing intellectual property from their competitors,” Bolton told NPR’s Morning Edition. “Huawei is one company we’ve been concerned about. There are others as well.”
Huawei is one of the world’s leading producers of smartphones and telecommunications equipment. Meng is the daughter of the company’s founder. She’s expected to appear for a bail hearing in Vancouver on Friday. The Justice Department also declined to comment on the reason for Meng’s arrest.
Cease-fire?
She was detained the same day President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a working dinner in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The two leaders emerged from that meeting signaling a cease-fire in their trade war. Trump agreed to hold off on additional tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days while negotiations continued over China’s trade practices.
“The main thing is to protect American jobs and American companies from the unfair treatment that they’ve received at the hands of the Chinese government,” Bolton said. “They’re not beating other countries in fair competition. They’re stealing from them.”
Vice President Pence also sounded a warning about China’s growing assertiveness in a speech this fall to the Hudson Institute.
“America had hoped that economic liberalization would bring China into a greater partnership with us and with the world,” Pence said. “Instead, China has chosen economic aggression, which has in turn emboldened its growing military.”
Bolton generally shares those hawkish views. But he stressed the U.S. is not trying to limit China’s economic growth.
“I don’t think national security requires that at all,” Bolton said. “What I think national security does require is that whatever economic growth China is blessed with, it gets by playing by the rules.”
He reiterated the vice president’s skepticism that prosperity would automatically lead to political change in China.
“I’ve heard going back years: ‘Just let the Chinese economy grow a little bit and you’ll see democracy spread all through the country,’ ” Bolton said. “We know today that connection is far from certain.”
“I am a Tariff Man”
Financial markets initially welcomed the Trump-Xi cease-fire, with stocks rallying on Monday. But doubts soon crept in that it would last, especially after Trump tweeted his support for tariffs on Tuesday.
“I am a Tariff Man,” Trump wrote. “When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs.”
….I am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN
Indeed, Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports cost American businesses and consumers $2.2 billion in October, the first month in which those tariffs were fully in effect, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Trade Partnership, an economic research firm.
“Americans are paying these taxes and they’re paying more than ever before,” said former Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., who serves as spokesman for an advocacy group, Tariffs Hurt the Heartland.
Boustany notes tariffs directed at China tariffs did little to discourage imports or encourage domestic production, but retaliatory tariffs imposed by China have reduced U.S. exports. Imports from China subject to tariffs increased 2 percent in October, while exports subject to China’s retaliatory tariffs plummeted 42 percent.
When combined with levies on steel, aluminum and other imports, the total price tag for Trump administration tariffs was $2.8 billion in October. That pushed the federal government’s monthly tariff revenue to a record $6.2 billion.
Rules of engagement
Tariffs could go even higher if the U.S. and China fail to reach agreement on the sticky issues surrounding intellectual property and forced technology transfer. Bolton said business people are right to be worried.
“What prudent people should do is look at the way China functions and ask themselves whether trade and investment with an economy that takes advantage of its trading partners and puts their intellectual property at risk is something they want to engage in,” he said.
Bolton also expressed skepticism about North Korea’s willingness to abandon its outlawed nuclear program, even as he advocates for a second face-to-face meeting between the president and Kim Jong Un.
“President Trump is trying to give the North Koreans a chance to live up to the commitments they made at the Singapore summit,” Bolton said. “He’s held the door open for them. They need to walk through it.”
McCready’s decision, first announced in an interview with Charlotte television station WSOC, comes as North Carolina is dealing with an unfolding scandal over absentee ballots. Election officials are trying to determine why many were never mailed in in certain counties that likely would have favored the Democrats in the election, and three people have told BuzzFeed News and WSOC that they were hired to collect such absentee votes, which would be a violation of state law.
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Republicans, following the tactics of conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin, moved on Thursday to start limiting the power of the incoming Democratic secretary of state and set the stage for additional curbs on the Democrats who will take over as governor and attorney general in January.
The G.O.P.-led State Senate in Michigan, voting largely along party lines, passed a bill that strips the incoming secretary of state of the authority to oversee campaign finance issues and hands it to a new bipartisan commission. Other bills, which are likely to be approved next week, include proposals that would weaken the ability of the governor and attorney general to control the state’s position in court cases.
Using a similar political playbook as their counterparts in Wisconsin this week, Michigan Republicans are responding to their Election Day chastening in top statewide races by trying to curb the power of leaders from the opposing party. The move has alarmed ethics watchdogs, who have called it a power grab, and has fueled protests among Democrats. But it is unclear if Republicans would pay a political price, given that many are in safe districts.
A major difference between Wisconsin and Michigan, however, may be their Republican governors.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, who was denied a third term in November, is now weighing the bills to limit his successor, Tony Evers; Mr. Walker has not indicated how he will act, but he has worked in concert for years with Republican legislative leaders there.
The Time Warner Center in Manhattan, which houses CNN, was evacuated after someone called in a bomb threat late Thursday, New York ABC station WABC reported.
After a sweep of the building, police did not find any explosives and employees were allowed back inside the building just after 11 p.m. CNN security also searched and found nothing.
Several CNN employees were tweeting about the incident. Host Don Lemon said he was evacuated while his show was on-air.
Chris Cuomo also tweeted about the incident, but said employees expected to be allowed back into the building “ASAP.”
CNN was also evacuated just two months ago after a pipe bomb was sent to the building and intercepted in the mail room. That package was addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan, who was a contributor to the network for a time. Cesar Sayoc, a Florida resident, was arrested for allegedly sending that bomb, as well as a number of others, to prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker and Maxine Waters. Sayoc was indicted last month.
WABC
NYPD units wait outside the Time Warner Center in Manhattan on Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018, after a bomb threat was called into CNN. No explosives were found.
The building is located in Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park. It also includes residences, a Whole Foods store and a number of high-end stores, such as Michael Kors, Swarovski, Cole Haan and Coach.
President Donald Trump, who has made a political career of attacking CNN, had actually just tweeted about “fake news” the same hour of the bomb threat. He has repeatedly referred to CNN by that moniker.
President Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Chattanooga, TennesseeGetty Images
On the day Donald Trump became president of the United States, while inauguration festivities were still in full swing, he officially launched his 2020 reelection campaign. Donations poured in from more than 50,000 people across the country. But according to the latest federal filings, Trump still has not donated a penny of his own, while his businesses continued to charge the campaign for hotels, food, rent and legal consulting. That means the richest president in American history has turned $1.1 million from donors across the country into revenue for himself.
It wasn’t always this way. From April 2015 to June 2016, Trump put $50 million of his own money into his campaign, while running a famously frugal operation. When outsiders started paying the vast majority of his expenses in July 2016, he loosened the purse strings a bit, funneling more money to his own companies and stemming his personal losses. Now that he is apparently not donating anything to the 2020 effort, Trump seems to be getting a small payback on his investment.
Trump Tower Commercial LLC, an entity owned 100% by the president, has charged the reelection campaign $665,000 in rent, according to federal filings. The Republican National Committee also coordinated with the campaign to pay an additional $225,000 in rent. Campaign representatives did not respond to requests for comment, and an RNC official declined to answer questions about the payments, leaving it unclear exactly how much space they leased inside Trump Tower.
But it appears to be plenty. Leading up to the 2016 election, the president’s campaign paid an average of $2,700 in monthly Trump Tower rent for every person listed in campaign filings as receiving a “payroll” payment. The 2020 operation, by contrast, is shelling out an average of $6,300 in monthly rent for every such person.
Then there are the payments flowing into Trump Plaza LLC, a Trump-owned entity that has taken in $42,000 of campaign money since November 2017. Although federal filings list the purpose of those payments as “rent,” it is difficult to tell what the campaign is actually renting. Trump Plaza LLC controls a retail space, garage and two brownstones near Third Avenue in New York City. The retail space at Trump Plaza shows no signs of campaign activity, and a non-Trump company seems to sub-lease the garage from Trump Plaza LLC—leaving just the two brownstones. But they are not open to the public, making it difficult to see who the tenants are, and whether they include the president’s campaign.
So Forbes staked out the buildings, arriving at 7:15 a.m. one November morning and staying for the next 14 hours, with the exception of an 18-minute break around 3 p.m. By our count, seven people went in and out of the twin, four-story brownstones over the course of the day. One refused to talk, and six said they had not seen any sign of the campaign in the buildings. Nor had a man behind the front desk at Trump Plaza. “I’ve been here since the beginning,” he said. “If there was any kind of office rented out for campaigning or whatever, I would know about it.”
Is the Trump campaign simply funneling money into the president’s business and getting nothing in return? That seems unlikely. One person who worked on the 2016 campaign saidstaffers sometimes crashed at Trump Plaza when they were in town. If that’s the reason for the payments, it would be an unconventional arrangement. The campaign could, of course, pay for hotel rooms—although that would not guarantee a steady stream of rent for the president.
From November 2017 to August 2018, the Trump campaign paid Trump Plaza LLC an average of $4,200 per month. The real estate website StreetEasy lists recent rentals in the building for $3,700 to $3,850 per month. Candidates are permitted to do business with their own companies only if they pay fair-market prices.
There are other campaign payments that raise suspicions. One month after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, the campaign paid the Trump Corporation, another one of the president’s companies, $90,000 in “legal consulting” expenses, according to federal records. It is not clear what legal services Trump’s company provided the campaign, or what rate it charged for the work. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s 2020 campaign also spent about $120,000 at the president’s hotel in Washington, D.C. And the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas got $15,000 of campaign money in February 2017.
“This is extremely unusual,” says Ann Ravel, a Democrat who left her post as a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission shortly after Trump’s inauguration. “There is always a concern when you’re looking at expenditures as to whether those expenditures are being used for personal use, for personal purposes, because that’s illegal. And there is, in my opinion, a fine line here with so much money being utilized for economic benefit for the candidate himself.”
A winter storm watch has been issued by the National Weather Service for much of northern Arkansas in a wintry blast that could span multiple days, meteorologists said.
The weather service said on Thursday that the watch will begin late Friday and last through early Sunday. The storm could bring 4 to 6 inches of snow along with significant ice accumulation across portions of northern Arkansas.
Sean Clarke, a meteorologist in the agency’s North Little Rock office, said the bulk of the storm will likely hit Saturday morning.
Travel impacts are expected and power outages are possible, the weather service said in a statement.
Clarke said there is also a chance the wintry weather could also impact central Arkansas, although that region is not included in the watch area.
“[Central Arkansas] won’t receive near the amount that northern Arkansas is facing,” Clarke said. “Worst-case scenario, the central Arkansas area could get two to three inches, but officially we aren’t predicting more than an inch.”
Minor snow, sleet, and ice accumulations are possible in the central region, generally along and north of the Interstate 30/Interstate 40 corridor, the weather service said.
The storm’s path can be hard to predict because it hasn’t even made landfall yet.
“We use upper air ballon launches to track weather patterns,” Clarke said. “It should hit the coast of California sometime in the next 12 to 24 hours and then the balloons will actually sample the storm and we will have a better gauge at what we are looking at.”
The weather service said much of the forecast hinges on how quickly cold air moves in from the northeast.
If cold air moves in more quickly than forecasted, snow and ice accumulations will increase and there will be more widespread winter weather in central Arkansas. If cold air moves in slowly, the total accumulations will be less significant.
The storm will also bring along the possibility of several inches of rain across southern Arkansas as well. While widespread flooding is not expected, localized flooding will be possible.
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