Mr. Trump said his “go back” comments to the lawmakers was a suggestion that the leave the country if they disliked America so much.
Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Patrick Toomey, of Pennsylvania suggested the president steer clear from personal attacks and instead focus on policy.
“We all know that A.O.C. and this crowd are a bunch of communists,” Mr. Graham said on Fox News. “They hate Israel, they hate our own country.” But he also pushed back against the president’s suggestion that the women are not American.
“They are American citizens,” Mr. Graham said. “They won an election. Take on their policies. The bottom line here is this is a diverse country.”
He added, “Mr. President, you’re right about their policies. You’re right about where they will take the country. Just aim higher.”
For months there has been a rift between Ms. Pelosi and the four lawmakers, and last week tensions grew when Ms. Pelosi pointedly said they had no following in Congress. The four lawmakers, who call themselves “the squad,” opposed a $4.6 billion aid package for the border, approved by Congress, because they said it supported Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
The Trump administration announced Monday it will move to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in the government’s latest major attempt to restrict the influx of migrant families coming to the United States.
The new rule says asylum-seekers at the southern border who pass through another country and do not seek asylum there will not be eligible for the protection in the U.S., according to a statement from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
As a practical matter, it means that migrants coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador cannot seek asylum if they didn’t first do so in Mexico. The rule would also apply to many other asylum-seekers who come to the U.S. southern border from other countries.
“Until Congress can act, this interim rule will help reduce a major ‘pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable DHS and DOJ to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said in the statement.
Attorney General William Barr called the interim final rule a “lawful exercise of authority provided by Congress to restrict eligibility for asylum.”
The change is a unilateral move by the Trump administration and has not been agreed to by Mexico. American officials were negotiating a similar deal with Guatemala, which would have required immigrants from El Salvador and Honduras to apply for asylum there. But that deal, and a meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, was abruptly called off Sunday after the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against the proposal.
The new rule is subject to three exceptions, according to the statement. The exceptions were for migrants who did apply for protection in at least one of the countries and were denied, migrants who demonstrate they meet the definition of a “victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons,” or came to the U.S. through only a country or countries that were not parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, or the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The rule is set to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday and would be effective immediately, according to the statement.
It is likely to face a legal challenge from immigrant rights and civil liberties groups.In the past, federal judges have blocked other attempts by the administration to change the asylum policy, most notably the president’s effort to deny the protection to anyone who did not enter the U.S. through a legal port of entry.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Monday morning it would “sue swiftly” over the rule.
“The Trump administration is trying to unilaterally reverse our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the ACLU, said in a statement. “This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly.”
Under U.S. and international law, a person may seek asylum based on persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. As a signatory to an international asylum treaty, the U.S. has a legal obligation to provide protection and certain rights to people who arrive at the border seeking asylum.
Administration officials said the immigration system has been swamped by asylum-seekers, with cases in immigration courts tripling between 2013 and 2018. But the number of people actually granted asylum is a small fraction of the total applicant pool.
The rule said it “mitigates the strain on the country’s immigration system by more efficiently identifying aliens who are misusing the asylum system to enter and remain in the United States rather than legitimately seeking urgent protection from persecution or torture.”
The move represents an escalation of President Donald Trump’s attempt to deter Central American families from coming to the United States to seek asylum. Earlier this year, the administration also enacted a policy forcing some migrants to wait in Mexico for the duration of their asylum cases. The administration has since been expanding the policy to force migrants to wait in multiple cities in Mexico.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke acknowledged Sunday that his ancestors, as well as his wife Amy’s, had owned slaves. O’Rourke wrote in a post on Medium that his paternal great-great-great grandfather enslaved two women in the 1850s. His maternal great-great-great grandfather, he added, “most likely” also owned slaves.
“I benefit from a system that my ancestors built to favor themselves at the expense of others,” O’Rourke wrote in the post. “That only increases the urgency I feel to help change this country so that it works for those who have been locked-out of — or locked-up in — this system.”
O’Rourke’s disclosure was made shortly before the publication of a report in The Guardian that detailed the former Texas congressman’s slave-owning ancestry.
Genealogy website Ancestry.com has “abundant documentation” of O’Rourke’s and his wife’s ancestors’ slave-owning and their support for the Confederacy, The Guardian reported, noting that O’Rourke is listed as a member of the site.
RELATED: Beto O’Rourke throughout his political career
**ADVANCE FOR MONDAY, OCT 31** El Paso City Representatives Steve Ortega, left and Beto O’Rourke pose with a backdrop of Downtown El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005. The two and three other colleagues, all political newcomers under 35, were elected this year to the El Paso city council. The group of young up-and-comers say they took on their public roles to make El Paso the kind of city it should be, the kind it has long struggled to become. (AP Photo/El Paso Times, Victor Calzada)
US Rep. Beto O’Rourke (R), D-TX, speaks during a meeting with One Campaign volunteers including Jeseus Navarrete (L) on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGANWith the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
US Rep. Beto O’Rourke , D-TX, meets with One campaign volunteers on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. With the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. citizen Edgar Falcon, second from right, and Maricruz Valtierra of Mexico, second from left, laugh while El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, right, and Judge Bill Moody, left, congratulate them after the couple was married at U.S.-Mexico border, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013 in El Paso, Texas. Like many other couples made up of a US citizen and a foreigner, Falcon and Valtierra, who has been declared inadmissible after an immigration law violation, hope immigration reform will help them live together in the U.S. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
Congressman Beto O’Rourke, center, speaks at a new conference accompanied by Lillian D’Amico, left, mother of a deceased veteran, and Melinda Russel, a former Army chaplain, in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, June. 4, 2014. A survey of hundreds of West Texas veterans conducted by O’Rourke’s office has found that on average they wait more than two months to see a Veterans Affairs mental health professional and even longer to see a physician. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
Democratic candidate for the US Senate Beto ORourke addresses his last public event in Austin before election night at the Pan American Neighborhood Park on November 4, 2018 in Austin, Texas. – One of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races is in Texas, where incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is facing Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke, 46, whose given names are Robert Francis but who goes by Beto, is mounting a suprisingly strong challenge to the 47-year-old Cruz in the reliably Republican ‘Lone Star State.’ O’Rourke, a three-term congressman and former member of a punk band, is drawing enthusiastic support from many urban dwellers in Texas while Cruz does better in conservative rural areas.
Plucking the Senate seat from Cruz, who battled Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, would be a major victory for the Democratic Party. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo credit should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, left, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, right, take part in a debate for the Texas U.S. Senate, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in San Antonio. (Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
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Andrew Jasper, O’Rourke’s paternal great-great-great grandfather, enslaved two women named Eliza and Rose, both of whom were auctioned off in a “crying sale” after Jasper died, the report said.
Amy O’Rourke’s family had also owned several slaves, including ”‘one negro man called Peter,’ ‘a boy called Darsy,’ ‘a girl called Sally,’ a ‘negro man called Ned’ and ‘one other called Moses,’” the report added, citing a 1798 probate record.
O’Rourke told the outlet that he and his wife had known “nothing” about their families’ slave-owning past, and had been deeply troubled by the revelation.
“Amy and I sat down and talked through this,” O’Rourke said. “How Andrew was able, through his descendants, to pass on the benefits of owning other human beings. And ultimately I and my children are beneficiaries of that.”
O’Rourke, who has previously expressed support for reparations for descendants of slaves, reiterated this position on Sunday night.
“I will continue to support reparations, beginning with an important national conversation on slavery and racial injustice,” he wrote on Medium.
O’Rourke said it’s critical that Americans “know our own story as it relates to the national story.”
“It is only then, I believe, that we can take the necessary steps to repair the damage done and stop visiting this injustice on the generations that follow ours,” he said.
Last week, an NBC News report revealed that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s two great-great-great grandfathers had enslaved at least 14 people in Alabama in the 1800s.
“You know, I find myself once again in the same position” as Obama, McConnell said at a press conference when asked about the NBC report.
“We both oppose reparations, and we both are the descendants of slaveholders,” he said.
McConnell failed to clarify that while Obama is the descendant of slave owners, the former president also counts the first African slave in the American colonies as an ancestor, according to Ancestry.com; and while the Republican senator from Kentucky has dismissed reparations because, he said, “no one currently alive was responsible” for slavery, Obama has argued that it’s “hard to find a model” for reparations which could be effectively administered and would have political support.
President Trump Hosts the 3rd Annual Made in America Product Showcase on the South Lawn of the White House. #FoxNews
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PHILADELPHIA — Sen. Elizabeth Warren stole the show at Netroots Nation’s presidential forum, if only for the fact that she was the lone top-tier presidential candidate who showed up.
Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Gov. Jay Inslee, and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro attended the presidential forum at Netroots, an annual gathering of nearly 4,000 progressive activists. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, on the other hand, were noticeably absent.
“I don’t know why you’d cede that territory to a frontrunner,” Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas, a Netroots board member, told Vox. “Warren’s the one who made out like a bandit here. She gets the whole court, queen of the night.”
But to say the organized progressive activist community has decided on Warren as its nominee more than a year ahead of the 2020 presidential election would be premature. Netroots, usually a good litmus test of who the Democratic base is excited about in presidential cycles, was more muted and cautious than in past years.
Unsurprisingly, Warren was a clear favorite; she has been coming to Netroots since she was a Harvard Law School professor in charge of creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she was welcomed with chants of “Warren! Warren! Warren!” as she took the stage. But conversations with several of the most prominent activists groups and progressive think tanks during the weekend events revealed that Warren doesn’t have the progressive wing sewn up yet. And while Sanders and Harris were absent, their surrogates and fans certainly were not. The same couldn’t be said for others like South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), however.
“You had the Buttigieg boomlet earlier this year and you might have thought that might have continued into a place like this, but it really hasn’t,” Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for progressive political action committee Democracy For America, said. “What’s pretty clear is it’s Bernie, it’s Warren, and maybe it’s Kamala.”
“Frankly, I think a lot of the people here are going to be making strategic decisions on who they vote for in the primary,” he said. “At the end of the day everyone here is committed to electing an inclusive populist champion for president.”
While attendees have yet to identify which of those three candidates is their favorite, it was clear the conference’s progressives had identified their enemy: Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the 2020 field. The weekend even featured a pop-up podcast titled “Why Joe Biden is the least electable major Democrat for president in 2020.”
“Nobody’s excited about Biden,” Moulitsas said bluntly. “He’s old, tired, and elite.”
Three names that matter: Warren, Harris, and Sanders
Bernie Sanders’s campaign co-chair Sen. Nina Turner, joined by local politicians, hospital workers and union members, protests the imminent closure of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Seven months from when the first 2020 voters have a say in the Democratic primary in Iowa, progressives are winnowing down a deep field of candidates in a party that’s increasingly turned toward more left-wing ideals — from public health care to wealth taxes and free college proposals.
But at Netroots, only three names had any meaningful energy behind them: Sanders, Harris, and, of course, Warren.
Across the street from the Netroots convention on Thursday, Sanders’s campaign co-chair Nina Turner took the stage at a protest outside Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital, a local institution that’s set to shutter in coming weeks. Among the protest’s attendees were local activists, physicians, and Netroots attendees showing solidarity with the movement. Sanders himself wasn’t in attendance, but it was a show of the political revolution he’s been trying to build a campaign around.
“With these hands we will save Hahnemann hospital, and with these hands we will elect Sen. Bernie Sanders as the next president of the United States of America,” Turner said to a crowd with raised arms chanting “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.” Sanders is scheduled to rally at the hospital Monday.
Harris’s moment came through Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who has already endorsed the senator in the 2020 elections. Lee was honored as a voice to be listened to — a thought leader — as first-term Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Deb Haaland (NM) showered her with praise. Lee’s message: that the progressive movement must fight for their candidate, “whoever she may be.”
Grassroots activists are a constituency Warren has been cultivating for more than a decade, since she created the CFPB and garnered a reputation for taking on big banks and corporations. When she took the stage at Philadelphia’s convention center, the crowd went wild. Notably, she was also the only candidate with a sustained protest happening in the middle of her speech, with immigration activists demanding to know whether Warren would give 11 million undocumented immigrants citizenship and reunite families. Warren offered her immigration proposal, which would do that.
Progressives are thinking about who can win
Biden’s lead in the polls means progressive activists are approaching their choices in the primary with some caution.
“I like both of them — Bernie and Warren — I trust both of them. Ultimately, it will be where are they in January or February of next year?” Sroka said. “Who is up and who is down?”
Warren’s biggest challenge is still with black voters, whom she is struggling with compared to Sanders, Harris, and Biden. A recent Morning Consult poll showed Warren netting just 7 percent of black voters who said she was their first choice, compared to 21 percent for Sanders and 16 percent for Harris (and Biden in the lead with 38 percent).
But there’s reason to believe Warren could grow her support with voters of color, She the People president and founder Aimee Allison said at the conference.
“We look at the impact of her speaking our language, calling out our community specifically in her policy prescriptions,” Allison told Vox. “That’s a winning combo.”
She said Harris not shying away from her own experiences as a woman of color and claiming her identity in front of a national Democratic audience is also a very appealing message. She added that while Sanders’s policies help uplift people, she believes the senator from Vermont still struggles with finding the language to describe the community.
“In our presidential forum, I cringed when Bernie Sanders used the word ‘minority,’” Allison said. “When you say minority, you unsee people of color. We are the majority in many of the states you have to win — Florida, Georgia, California, Arizona, Nevada.”
Last year’s Netroots was full of chatter about the Warren/Sanders divide in the progressive wing, but Sanders’s dominance didn’t seem assured this year. It was clear that Warren has staked her claim to Sanders’s base.
“At the end of the day, someone is going to go against Biden or Kamala, and if the socialist left fully ends up lining behind Bernie against Kamala, that’s going to be a longer-term problem for the socialist left,” Sean McElwee, with the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said. “You don’t want socialism to be seen as white male identity politics, and Warren is able to build a coalition.”
And Harris has emerged as a potential compromise for progressives — a negotiation that could be had.
Progressives have a clear enemy, but they don’t have a leader
Progressives may not know exactly who they want to be the Democratic nominee in 2020, but they know who they don’t want: Joe Biden.
Some activists at Netroots conceded they would support Biden in a general election if they had no other choice. But as far as exciting the base at Netroots, Biden seemed to represent everything attendees disdain, particularly because, despite clearly trying to capitalize on his ties to Obama’s progressive brand, Biden hasn’t made an effort to cultivate a progressive base.
“Biden is using a strategy of running out the clock,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party. “There’s a number of forums and spaces he could place himself in, in order to be scrutinized by the grassroots. Our job is not to coronate the person that the Third Way and elite media decision-makers think is most electable.”
“Biden’s campaign headquarters is four blocks away, and the only person I have seen come here is his digital guy,” Sroka said. “The fact that they are not even working to try and make the argument to this community is the sign of a campaign that doesn’t get where the future of the party is.”
The Biden campaign would not comment on their presence at the conference.
Underscoring the theme of there being a top-tier group of three, some Netroots attendees were gifted a six-pack of craft beers by event organizers. Warren, Sanders, and Harris were the only presidential candidates with a beer named after them: There was the “Professor Warren Perfect Plan Pale Ale” (a “quasi-session beer”), the “Kamala’s California Common” (a lager), and the “Bernie’s Barleywine” (“Gritty’s favorite beer”).
Joe Biden and the group of other moderate white men running for president, however, were symbolized by the “Average Centrist White Guy Cream Ale” — “pale and not strong,” according to the beer guide handed out to attendees.
While progressives are only one segment of the Democratic electorate, Biden, and other candidates Netroots attendees were less than enthused about, could use their support. Particularly as it was progressives who helped energize the party’s base ahead of the 2018 midterm elections that saw Democrats retake the House of Representatives.
Washington (CNN)Immigrant rights advocates across the United States told CNN they saw few signs over the weekend of the ICE raids that Trump administration officials had warned would begin Sunday.
The raids are slated for Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco, a senior immigration official said. New Orleans is also on the list, but the city tweeted last week that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it would suspend operations through the weekend in areas hit by Tropical Storm Barry, which weakened to a tropical depression Sunday.
Accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is willing to post bail as high as $100 million, his lawyer said Monday, as a prosecutor argued that the case against the wealthy investor is “already significantly stronger and getting stronger every single day.”
Two accusers of Epstein also urged Judge Richard Berman at a detention hearing in Manhattan federal court to keep him locked up without bail, as prosecutors also are arguing.
Berman said he will wait until Thursday morning to decide whether to grant Epstein bail.
“Your honor, my name is Courtney Wild and I was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 14,” one of the accusers told Berman. “He is a scary person to have walking the street.” Wild said that she was abused by Epstein in Palm Beach, Florida.
The other accuser, Annie Farmer, told Berman, “I was 16 years old when I had the misfortune of meeting Mr. Epstein here in New York.”
“I want to voice my support” that Epstein not get bail, Farmer said. She said that Epstein “was inappropriate with me,” but declined to provide further details in court.
“We know they have found photos of young women in his home,” she noted, referring to what prosecutors have said was a “vast trove” of lewd photos of young women or girls that investigators discovered in Epstein’s New York residence.
Before the accusers spoke, assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said that a number of other witnesses contacted authorities after Epstein was recently indicted, and that prosecutors are trying to corroborate their allegations against him.
Rossmiller also revealed that investigators found in Epstein’s $77 million Manhattan townhouse a locked safe containing “piles of cash” and “dozens of diamonds,” as well as an expired passport dating to the 1980s from another country that has Epstein’s photograph on it — but with a different name and a stated residence of Saudi Arabia.
Rossmiller also said that “many, many photographs” of young-looking girls were found in the safe, and that the prosecutors have identified at least one person among them claims to be a victim of Epstein’s.
Epstein’s lawyer told a judge that he was authorized by Epstein to agree to whatever bail conditions the judge sets, even if he sets bail at a whopping $100 million.
The lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said that contrary to numerous media accounts, Epstein is not a billionaire.
Rossmiller fought back against a call by Epstein’s lawyers that he be released on bail and then confined, with few exceptions, to the Upper East Side townhouse, with round-the-clock monitoring by security paid for by Epstein, as well as an electronic tracking device.
“What the defendant is asking for here is special treatment, to build his own jail, to be limited in his own gilded cage,” Rossmiller said. “A person who needs these conditions should be detained.”
President Jimmy Morales has been under pressure from the US, but Guatemala’s constitutional court granted an injunction late on Sunday which effectively blocks him from signing the deal.
“Safe third country” agreements require migrants to seek asylum in the first country designated as “safe” they reach rather than proceed to a country of their choice.
Such a deal would affect the thousands of Hondurans and Salvadoreans who cross Guatemala on their way north to the US, who – under such a deal – would face being sent back to Guatemala, the first “safe” country they entered.
In its injunction, the court said that any such agreement would have to be approved by Guatemala’s Congress first, effectively tying President Morales’s hands.
Designating Guatemala as a “safe third country” has met with stiff opposition in the Central American nation with both of the candidates for president in the upcoming election rejecting it.
While Guatemalans say they fear becoming a “dumping ground” for migrants, human rights groups have pointed to Guatemala’s high levels of crime as a reason for it not qualifying as a suitable “safe third country”.
Media captionYazmin Juarez testifies about daughter’s death at US congressional hearing
On Sunday, the government issued a statement denying it had any plans to sign such a deal.
Only last month, Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart said Guatemalan officials were discussing such a “safe third country” agreement with the US – with US sources confirming such a deal was under discussion.
It is not clear whether the planned meeting between Mr Morales and President Donald Trump will take place anytime soon now that the deal is off the table.
Guatemala, as well as its southern neighbours, El Salvador and Honduras, have all been struggling to curb the flow of people leaving for the US.
The case of a Salvadorean migrant who drowned alongside his daughter trying to cross the Rio Grande prompted Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele to say his country had to do more to fix the problems forcing people to leave.
Media captionEl Salvador’s President Bukele: “It is our fault”
Democratic front-runner Joe Biden today will unveil a health plan that’s intended to preserve the most popular parts of Obamacare — from Medicaid expansion to protections for patients with pre-existing conditions — and build on them with a new government-run public insurance option.
Biden would also empower Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices, allow the importation of prescription drugs from abroad and extend tax credits to help tens of millions of Americans buy lower-priced health insurance.
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The plan — which the campaign says will cost $750 billion over a decade, to be paid for by reversing some of the Trump administration’s tax cuts — is less transformative than the “Medicare for All” proposal advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and supported by some other Democrats, which would effectively do away with private insurance and shift all Americans to government-run health care.
“I understand the appeal of Medicare for All,” Biden said in a video posted this morning. “But folks supporting it should be clear that it means getting rid of Obamacare. And I’m not for that.”
Progressives have argued that Democratic candidates should aim for Medicare for All because it protects the party from starting with — and settling for — a more incremental compromise. Democrats and former President Barack Obama previously supported a public option that could compete with private health plans before dropping it as part of negotiations around the Affordable Care Act.
On a call with reporters on Sunday, campaign staff stressed that Biden wouldn’t settle for a watered-down compromise as president and that his plan would help 97 percent of Americans get health coverage. Nearly 5 million Americans in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid would get premium-free access to Biden’s new public option, for instance.
“We’re starting with the Affordable Care Act as the base and going to insist on the elements that we sought last time,” said a senior Biden campaign official. “And we’ll get them this time.”
The Biden administration also would allow all shoppers on the individual insurance market to qualify for tax credits, which are currently capped at 400 percent of the federal poverty line.
Speaking with reporters, campaign staff slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to strike down the ACA in courtand also addressed Biden’s differences with rival candidates. Biden on Friday suggested that there would be “a hiatus of six months, a year, two, three” that would put patients at risk if Democrats pursued Medicare for All — a claim that Sanders swiftly attacked as “misinformation.”
In response to POLITICO’s questions, Biden’s campaign said the former vice president was emphasizing the need for immediate action.
“We can’t afford the years it will take in order to write and maybe pass Medicare for All,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “A stop in progress is unacceptable. That’s why the Biden Plan builds on Obamacare and works toward achieving universal coverage as soon as possible.”
Health policy experts said that Biden’s coverage plan appears to be more politically feasible than Sanders’ proposal.
“Building on the ACA is the quickest way to get more people insured and improve affordability, while not taking on any powerful health industry group or disrupting coverage for those who already have it,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. But incremental improvements to the ACA would leave “an inefficient and costly health care system in place,” Levitt added, preserving high prices and high deductibles for the roughly 160 million Americans with employer-based health coverage.
Biden also will announce new ideas to combat the nation’s high drug prices. Pointing to lessons learned from his signature cancer initiative, the former vice president says he’ll have the Department of Health and Human Services establish an independent review board that will link the price of new specialty drugs to the average price in other countries. His plan also calls for capping most drug price increases at the rate of inflation.
Meanwhile, Biden would seek to expand access to abortion and contraception, reiterating his recent calls — like those of other Democratic candidates — to enshrine Roe v. Wade in federal law and restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Biden’s plan also takes aim at health care providers, suggesting that he’ll try to tackle problems like unexpected large medical bills and health care market concentration, although the details released by the campaign are sparse. Biden also would double investment in community health centers, arguing that the centers help reach underserved populations.
Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke revealed Sunday he was recently given documents showing he and his wife, Amy, are descendants of slave owners.
O’Rourke, a former congressman from Texas, wrote in a Medium post that the legacy of slavery “now has a much more personal connection.”
O’Rourke said his paternal great-great-great grandfather owned two slaves, Rose and Eliza, in the 1850s, and someone who could be his maternal great-great-great grandfather owned slaves in the 1860s. Documents also show O’Rourke’s wife has an ancestor who owned slaves and another who was a member of the Confederate Army.
“I benefit from a system that my ancestors built to favor themselves at the expense of others. That only increases the urgency I feel to help change this country so that it works for those who have been locked-out of — or locked-up in — this system,” he wrote.
“As a person, as a candidate for the office of the Presidency, I will do everything I can to deliver on this responsibility,” he continued.
The disclosure comes after the Guardian contacted O’Rourke about his family’s ties to slave holders. O’Rourke told the news outlet that he and his wife had not previously known that part of their families’ histories.
O’Rourke said he continues to support reparations for the descendants of slaves, which has gained popularity among Democratic candidates.
“We all need to know our own story as it relates to the national story, much as I am learning mine. It is only then, I believe, that we can take the necessary steps to repair the damage done and stop visiting this injustice on the generations that follow ours,” O’Rourke wrote.
While Trump has previously expressed frustration with the 81-year-old Ross, in particular over failed trade negotiations, Ross’s long personal relationship with the president has allowed him to keep his job. And after the departure of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the Cabinet’s only Hispanic who resigned on Friday amid questions about his role in a controversial 2008 plea agreement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ross may yet receive another reprieve.
But some White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials.
Frustrated by Ross’ leadership of the Census Bureau, which is within the Commerce Department, Trump has been making calls to allies outside the White House musing about replacing Ross.
The White House declined comment.
Ross is one of the original members of a Cabinet that has seen historically high turnover, but his exit would mark the first departure of an agency head that Trump knew well before entering politics.
Trump and Ross met — and bonded — through Trump’s Atlantic City casino hotel bankruptcies in the 1990s, with Ross representing some of Trump’s creditors. For more than 25 years, the two socialized across marriages and states, with both owning nearby residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach. In June of 2016, Ross, a registered Democrat, endorsed Trump for president, saying, “We need a more radical, new approach to government.”
The president has suggested to allies he wants a more hard-charging leader as Commerce Secretary, despite having once talked up Ross as a “killer.” However, there’s no indication the president has reached out directly to potential replacements for Ross.
And while Trump has not hesitated to part ways with members of his Cabinet, he is often slow to replace them, leading to acting secretaries running the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and now Labor. Across the Cabinet and key agencies there are more than 20 officials with acting titles at top leadership positions.
Before the Supreme Court 5-4 decision barring the administration from including a citizenship question on the 2020 census last month, Trump stood by Ross through a string of controversies, including the wealthy Ross submitting a report on his investments to the Office of Government Ethics that was declared “not accurate.”
Trump initially thought that the Supreme Court’s decision offered him a legal path to add the citizenship question and publicly contradicted administration officials when he vowed to fight on. But then last week, he abruptly changed course and effectively conceded defeat, saying the administration would find other ways to determine the citizenship of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, the House was threatening to hold Ross and Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress.
Ross is no stranger to controversy and has frequently landed in hot water with the White House for negotiating deals with China perceived to be weak, eliciting ire from lawmakers in both parties after slapping tariffs on allies, and saying during a government shutdown that he didn’t understand the financial perils federal workers might face during the holidays.
Asked by NBC News on the White House South Lawn on Friday if Ross had disappointed him on the census, Trump responded, “No, he didn’t let me down.”
Ross’s future as the Commerce Secretary depends on several competing factors, including White House and presidential frustration with the Commerce Department, concern about the optics of dismissing a member of the Cabinet so soon after the resignation of Acosta, and Trump’s personal relationship with Ross, according to officials and advisers.
Late last year, when media reports suggested Trump would replace Ross by the end of the year, Ross insisted that his job was secure. “There is no truth to that whatsoever,” he said on CNBC.
Ross would be the 10th Senate-confirmed member of the Cabinet to leave the administration, in addition to dozens of senior officials, including five communications directors, two chiefs of staff, two national security advisers, two press secretaries, the Federal Bureau of Investigations director, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the National Economic Council director, the Small Business Administrator and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
But now that the Census Bureau has begun printing the forms without the citizenship question included, Trump is less reliant on Ross to conduct the census or defend the citizenship question in lawsuits, according to officials.
Another factor weighing on the decision to keep or discard Ross: Finding a suitable replacement.
One potential replacement is Ray Washburne, a Texas restaurateur and real estate developer whom Trump appointed to lead the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which helps American businesses invest in emerging markets.
Washburne was confirmed by the Senate to lead OPIC and currently sits on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. He splits his time between Washington and Dallas, where he recently purchased the former headquarters of the Dallas Morning News.
Kevin Manning, Commerce Department press secretary, said, “Currently, the Secretary is overseeing the Department’s response to Hurricane Barry, including NOAA’s extremely accurate track and intensity forecast. On Friday, the Secretary joined the President on his visit to Wisconsin and Ohio, and will continue to work on behalf of the American people and the President’s America First agenda. He has shepherded the Department of Commerce into a new era, where, under the President’s leadership and direction, we have better supported American businesses from unfair trading practices and have reinforced our national and economic security at long last.”
Trump has considered replacing Ross at least twice before during his two and a half year tenure, according to administration officials.
At those times, the shortlist for his replacement included former Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. An outside adviser to the White House said Lighthizer is not likely to leave his post any time soon because several ongoing trade disputes — most importantly with China — remain unresolved.
Dangerous flooding from Tropical Depression Barry is threatening 11 million people along the Gulf Coast. Flood warnings are up across eight states with some areas potentially facing another 5 inches of rain. Barry made landfall as a category one hurricane in Louisiana on Saturday, but was quickly downgraded to a tropical storm.
More than 90 people were rescued in several communities over the weekend, reports CBS News’ Omar Villafranca. All eyes were on Louisiana as the state braced for Barry’s impact, but they were mostly spared as the slow-moving system lost its strength.
Heavy rains, tornadoes and winds up to 65 mph uprooted trees, damaged houses and flooded roads. More than 90 people trapped in floodwaters had to be rescued but mostly there is relief. The hurricane-turned-tropical depression left many who feared the worst, unscathed.
Floodwaters forced Donz Bar in Mandeville to close. But when the waters receded, workers rushed to get the business back open — less than 24 hours after they had a foot of water inside the bar.
Levees that were overhauled after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 held up, but some back levees overtopped. As the rain continues to drench the region and the Mississippi River is at historic flood levels, officials are urging people to remain vigilant.
“We’re thankful that the worst case scenario did not happen, but we understand here in Louisiana if nowhere else that will not always be the case,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
Only about 300 people are using some of the 23 shelters open in Louisiana Monday morning. Another sure sign that things are getting back to normal? The bars on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street are back open.
The president and Democrats come to the defense of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses the leader of silencing her progressive squad.
Hillary Clinton on Sunday took President Trump to task over a criticized tweet where he called on progressive congresswomen to go back to the “crime infested” countries they came from, fix the problems there and “show us how it is done.”
Trump’s swipe did not mention anyone by name, but he was apparently referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn; Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D- Mich.; and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. All four are minorities. Trump’s tweet was condemned by Democratic lawmakers as racist.
Trump wrote that these congresswomen are from places with a barely functioning government and yet “viciously” tell Americans “how our government is to be run.”
Omar, who is from Somalia, is the only member of “The Squad” who was born outside the U.S.
Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, tweeted, “They’re from America, and you’re right about one thing: Currently their government is a complete and total catastrophe.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted that Trump’s comments “reaffirms his plan to “Make America Great Again” has always been about making America white again.”
Republicans remained largely tight-lipped about Trump’s tweet.
Trump’s tweet appeared to be an opportunity for Democrats to put recent tensions aside and come together to call out the president. Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have recently been mired in a public dispute after a column last week in The New York Times.
Pelosi, in the piece, downplayed the influence that the four freshmen actually have in Congress. The comment drew criticism that eventually led to Ocasio-Cortez saying she felt Pelosi was singling out “newly elected women of color.”
Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told The Wall Street Journal that the president is popular in his own party, hence the muted response by fellow Republicans.
“If you were a Republican member of Congress for 10 years and didn’t speak out on ‘birtherism,’ are you going to speak out now?” Heye said.
Hours after the tweet, and the subsequent uproar, Trump tweeted again, “If the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior, then we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!”
Hundreds of people march in New York in opposition to the Trump administration’s plans to continue with raids to catch immigrants in the country illegally in Queens on Sunday.
Julius Constantine Motal/AP
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Julius Constantine Motal/AP
Hundreds of people march in New York in opposition to the Trump administration’s plans to continue with raids to catch immigrants in the country illegally in Queens on Sunday.
Julius Constantine Motal/AP
President Trump’s threatened roundup of undocumented immigrant families this weekend that sent migrants in many communities on edge showed few signs of materializing on Sunday, the second time rumors of a large-scale immigration enforcement operation failed to come to fruition.
Instead, in the cities where rumors of mass raids swirled, many immigrants stayed inside their homes, as jitters turned typically vibrant migrant markets and commercial corridors eerily quiet.
Immigrant advocates across the country, meanwhile, took to the streets to demonstrate in protest of the promised roundup.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not confirm any arrests, nor would immigrant rights activists.
“The ACLU has not heard reports of any raids today,” Ruthie Epstein, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy director for immigration policy, told NPR.
Before Sunday, there were weekend reports of attempted arrests by ICE in New York, New Jersey and Chicago, where The New York Timesreported that a mother and her daughters were apprehended but the family was immediately released. But those actions appeared to be part of routine enforcement activity, not connected to a massive raid operation.
Still, fears of ICE catching migrants by surprise sent many into hiding on Sunday.
In Miami, one of the cities anticipating the crackdown on immigrants, a hush fell over a market usually buzzing with activity among immigrant merchants and shoppers.
“People are clearly hiding. If you look around, it’s the people who are working are basically the only people here. But the majority of our clients are immigrants. Some with papers, others with no papers, but they are all scared,” Yohanna Gomez, a Honduran immigrant who runs a Central American stall at the market, told WLRN.
A similar scene played out in in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, typically bustling with immigrants from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. But on Sunday, the streets were noticeably calmer and vendors seemed to have taken the day off due to the threatened raids.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Saturday that ICE had already attempted to make arrests in the city, but they were not successful.
Activists have been spreading the word to migrants to not open their doors if an immigration agents knocks, since they cannot use force to enter a residence.
In Chicago, another city where federal immigrants officials were expecting to conduct raids, streets in immigrant communities were scarcer than on a normal Sunday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot addressed the residents on the north side of Chicago before the raids were supposed to start.
“This is a community that has a diversity of people coming from all over the world,” she said. “There’s been a lot of rumors,” Lightfoot said. “Dangling this sword over peoples’ head is causing great harm and trauma to entire households, entire communities.”
The weekend operation was reportedly supposed to focus on immigrant families who have been sent final orders of removal after failing to appear in court. And top administration officials have argued that many of the estimated 2,000 migrants who fit this category have ignored requests to turn themselves in. President Trump originally set the nationwide raids for June before delaying the planned mass arrests in order to give Congress more time to hammer out changes to federal asylum law.
The American Civil Liberties Union, representing four immigration legal aid nonprofit groups, sued to blocks the raids on Thursday, arguing that while the Trump administration claims the migrants have been given an opportunity to appear in court, many never received the paperwork because of letters being sent to wrong addresses, or when they did arrive, the requests to appear did not contain specific dates and times.
And so, the lawsuit claimed, the families that were expected to be targeted have never received proper notice of removal and did not have their day in court before an immigration judge.
“Unless this Court enforces that requirement, thousands of individuals could be deported without ever receiving a fair opportunity to appear before a judge, as required by the Due Process Clause and the immigration laws,” wrote lawyer Melinda LeMoine in the suit, which is pending a judge’s ruling.
As the Democratic presidential candidate’s popularity shrinks faster than his own spine, Beto’s efforts to sew division only expand.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke revealed on Twitter Sunday that he and his wife Amy are both descended from slave owners.
“Something that we’ve been talking about in town hall meetings – the legacy of slavery in the United States – now has a much more personal connection,” O’Rourke said. “I was recently given documents showing that both Amy and I are descended from people who owned slaves.”
O’Rourke included a link to a medium.com article he wrote titled “Rose and Eliza,” in reference to two slaves one his distance relatives owned.
“A paternal great-great-great grandfather of mine, Andrew Cowan Jasper, owned these two women in the 1850s,” O’Rourke wrote.
Democratic presidential candidate, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke speaks at the Manchester Democrats annual Potluck Picnic at Oak Park in Manchester, N.H. (AP)
He added that records also showed that an ancestor of his wife, Amy, owned slaves while another was part of the Confederate Army.
O’Rourke noted that he’s spoken about the legacy of slavery in the U.S. while campaigning, but that such discussions now have “a much more personal connection.”
O’Rourke’s disclosure comes as discussions of reparations for slavery have become a hot-button issue among Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential election.
Last month House Democrats held a hearing on reparations for slavery for the first time in more than a decade. The panel’s aim was to “examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”
Fox News Gerren Keith Gaynor and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At a meeting of fellow foreign ministers on Monday, Mr Hunt will work with the European partners of the deal – France and Germany – to encourage Iran to stick to its pledges.
In a joint statement issued ahead of the meeting, Britain, France and Germany reiterated their support for the deal.
But said they were “deeply troubled” by recent events in the Gulf and “concerned” over US-Iran relations.
Analysis by BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins
Britain, France and Germany are making a strongly worded intervention to try to prevent the crisis in relations with Iran deteriorating into something far worse: armed conflict.
The focus of their joint statement is on the need to try to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal which President Trump abandoned in favour of increasing sanctions against Iran.
It’s a deal which Iran now says it is breaching because it is not delivering the promised economic benefits.
But Theresa May, Emanuel Macron and Angela Merkel say they are concerned by the risk that the nuclear agreement “further unravels” under the strain of US sanctions and Iran’s decision to no longer implement key parts of the deal.
They go on to urge all countries “to pause and consider the possible consequences of their actions.”
That’s likely to infuriate the White House, seeming to equate aspects of United States hard-line policies with those of Iran.
What is the Iran nuclear deal?
In 2015, Iran signed up to a long-term deal – called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – after the international community expressed concerns they were trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran, which insisted its nuclear programme was entirely peaceful, agreed to limit some nuclear activities and allow in international inspectors.
In return, the other signatories – UK, France, Germany, China and Russia – agreed to lift some of the crippling economic sanctions placed on Iran.
Speaking ahead of Monday’s meeting, Mr Hunt said: “The Middle East is already one of the most unstable regions in the world, but if the different parties were armed with nuclear weapons it would represent an existential threat to mankind.”
Iran said it was responding to sanctions reinstated by the US after Mr Trump abandoned the deal. Last week it confirmed it will break another of the limits imposed by the deal.
Deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran still wanted to salvage the deal but blamed European countries for failing to live up to their own commitments.
What about the tanker tensions?
Tensions between the UK and Iran flared up earlier this month when Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker which was suspected of breaking EU sanctions.
The UK suspected Grace 1, detained on 4 July near Gibraltar, was carrying oil bound for Syria.
Iran denied it was headed for Syria and claimed the seizure of the ship was “piracy”.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
The oil tanker was suspected of carrying crude oil to Syria
In a phone call with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday, Mr Hunt sought to reassure his counterpart that the detainment “was nothing to do with the oil being Iranian”.
Mr Zarif also wanted to resolve the issue and was “not seeking to escalate” the situation, Mr Hunt said.
Peter Thiel reportedly says the FBI, CIA should investigate…
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel spoke at the National Conservatism Conference, where he called Google’s work in China “seemingly treasonous,” Axios reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard said that a crew from Air Station New Orleans evacuated a number of people from flooded areas in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. USA TODAY
Barry slowly swept through Louisiana and into Arkansas on Sunday, producing thunderstorms and torrents of rain that may cause widespread flooding.
Reclassified from a tropical storm to a tropical depression late Sunday afternoon, Barry spared New Orleans and did not cause any major damage as it weakened from a Category 1 hurricane. No fatalities have been reported.
After making landfall Saturday, Barry moved toward Shreveport on Sunday. The National Hurricane Center warned of possible flooding from Louisiana northward through the lower Mississippi Valley.
Eight inches of rain fell Sunday in parts of the Mississippi counties of Jasper and Jones, with more possible into the night. As more rain pounded already devastated agricultural areas, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant called on the federal government to install pumps.
“The Mississippi River has been at flood stage for 150 days,” Bryant said at a press conference. “This is a historical, disastrous flood and this is just making it worse.”
Barry was expected to produce total rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches over south-central Louisiana. In some places, rainfall could total 20 inches, the hurricane center said.
The heavy rainfall could cause trees to topple.
“The roots are so saturated that if any wind, or any kind of shift happens, they’re easier to come up out of the ground. It’s not snapping limbs – it’s the whole entire tree,” said Carrie Cuchens, who lost power at her home southeast of Lafayette, Louisiana.
In Morgan City, Louisiana, Lois and Steve Bergeron said the storm stirred up a lot of havoc in the yard, but “at least it didn’t hit our house,” Lois said.
The hurricane center said tornadoes were possible across portions of southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, western Alabama, eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee. Preliminary reports from the Storm Prediction Center show four tornadoes hit Louisiana on Sunday.
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A police chief captured footage of flooding along a road in Golden Meadows, Louisiana as the Gulf Coast braces for Hurricane Barry. STORYFUL
The good news: New Orleans’ levees held. The lower Mississippi River was opened to shipping Sunday morning, the Port of New Orleans said. Cruise ship arrivals and departures were expected to stay on schedule.
Barry made landfall as a Category 1 Hurricane – the first hurricane of the season – near Intracoastal City, Louisiana, about 150 miles west of New Orleans. The storm entered the coast with sustained winds of up to 75 mph.
Winds reduced to 35 mph by Sunday afternoon. With Barry expected to reduce to a low pressure system by Monday night, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards gave an optimistic update Sunday evening.
“This was a storm that obviously could have played out very, very differently,” he said. “We’re thankful that the worst-case scenario did not happen.”
Contributing: Lici Beveridge, Hattiesburg (Miss.) American; Greg Hilburn, The (Monroe, La.) News-Star; Kristin Lam, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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Martha Young, center, Patricia Plishka, left, and her husband Glen, right, battle the wind and rain from Hurricane Barry as it nears landfall Saturday, July 13, 2019, in New Orleans. David J. Phillip, AP
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