The U.S. said Thursday that it has seized a North Korean cargo ship that was used to violate international sanctions, a first-of-its kind enforcement action that comes amid a tense moment in relations between the two countries. The “Wise Honest,” North Korea’s second largest cargo ship, was detained in April 2018 as it traveled toward Indonesia and is in the process of being moved to American Samoa, Justice Department officials said.
Officials made the announcement hours after the North Korea fired two suspected short-range missiles toward the sea, a second weapons launch in five days and a possible signal that stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program are in trouble. The public disclosure that the vessel is now in U.S. custody may further inflame tensions, though U.S. officials said the timing of their complaint was not a response to the missile launch.
Payments for maintenance and operation of the vessel were channeled, unwittingly, through three U.S. banks in violation of American law, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York said in a conference call with reporters. The case for confiscating the ship was filed in a civil forfeiture complaint in New York, CBS News’ Pamela Falk reported.
“This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official.
The 581-foot Wise Honest was used to transport North Korean coal to China, Russia and other countries, generating badly needed revenue to a country that is under U.N. sanctions because of its nuclear weapons program. It also delivered heavy machinery to North Korea. The coal trade itself is also believed to fund the isolated country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
The vessel was owned by a subsidiary of a North Korean shipping company that is controlled by the country’s military and is on a Treasury Department sanctions list.
This undated photo released by the U.S. Justice Dept, Thursday, May 9, 2019, shows the North Korean cargo ship Wise Honest.
AP
North Korea sought to disguise the ship’s operations by listing various other countries for its nationality and the origin of its cargo, according to the complaint. The ship, in what U.S. officials say was a clear act of concealment, also turned off an automatic signal system intended to alert other ships of its course and location.
Indonesian authorities intercepted and seized the Wise Honest in the East China Sea a month after it was photographed at the port of Nampo, North Korea, where it took on a load of coal. The captain of the ship was charged in Indonesia with violating that country’s maritime laws and convicted, the complaint says. It was not immediately clear what happened to the crew.
The U.S. has prosecuted people and businesses for violating sanctions but has never before seized a North Korean ship. The country will have an opportunity to contest the seizure in court. If the U.S. prevails, it will be able to sell the vessel.
“When nations who have stated an intent to do harm to the United States evade international sanctions, Americans become less safe,” said Geoffrey Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have held two summits focused on the North’s nuclear program but have made no discernible progress toward a deal that would eliminate its weapons.
A vigil held Wednesday evening to recognize the victims and heroes of the shooting earlier this week at a Colorado high school turned into a political protest after some students in attendance expressed frustration with the tone and focus of the speeches.
According to local news reports, a group of students walked out of the event, organized by a local chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, after hearing speeches from members of the community, including activists and elected officials like Senator Michael Bennet, a Democratic presidential candidate, and Rep. Jason Crow, who represents the district where Tuesday’s shooting took place.
Both Bennet and Crow were invited by the Brady Campaign to speak at the event, which took place at a nearby high school, and also attended another vigil Wednesday night at a nearby church.
Speakers at the event, which honored Kendrick Castillo, the 18-year-old who was killed protecting his fellow classmates at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, also talked about the need to take action in the wake of another tragic school shooting and reform the nation’s gun laws.
“I know our kids already have enough to do, they have a job to do when they come to school, you have a job to do when you come to school,” Bennet, the former Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, said before praising Castillo’s bravery. “Their job is not to fix America’s broken gun laws. Their job is not, as Kendrick so selflessly did yesterday, to give up their own life to save their classmates lives. Or the teachers’ lives. That’s not their job.”
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Sen. Michael Bennet speaks during a candlelight vigil at Highlands Ranch High School on May 8, 2019 in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
“You sent me to Washington to speak the truth. So here it is – we are failing. We are failing when this happens over and over and over and over again and nothing happens,” Crow, a gun owner and former Army Ranger elected to Congress last year, said. “You already have my thoughts and prayers, but you deserve and should demand more. Because to only send thoughts and prayers when you’re a member of Congress or when you’re in a position to take action and to affect change, it is empty, it is hollow, and you and your children deserve more.”
“It was a very emotional night, which I completely understand, these are students that had just gone through a horrific tragedy…And it became apparent halfway through the event that they weren’t being given an opportunity to speak,” Crow said.
“So they stood up, as they should have, and demanded an opportunity to speak, and I supported that. I stayed late until every student was heard and had their opportunity to tell us how they felt about this issue and just express that emotion. So it was really important that we keep the focus on the students,” he added.
David Zalubowski/AP
Young people console each other during a community vigil to honor the victims and survivors of a fatal shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch, late Wednesday, May 8, 2019, in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
The tenor of the vigil seemed to shift after some in the audience began to express frustration that the event was not solely focused on remembering the heroes and victims of the shooting.
“This can be an incredibly divisible or painful or awful time, or it can be a time when we come together,” another speaker at the event told the packed gymnasium.
After a number of speeches, one student in the audience shouted “Let STEM kids speak!” and video from the event from ABC News affiliate KMGH showed students chanting “Mental Health,” as they left the event and gathered in the parking lot outside the gym.
Students later re-entered the event and vented their frustration at the media and politicians.
“What happened at STEM is awful, but it’s not a statistic. We can’t be used for a reason for gun control. We are people, not a statement,” one student said after the event.
The Brady Campaign issued an apology Thursday afternoon, saying that all efforts should be focused on providing support to the students, faculty, and families affected by the tragic shooting.
“We are here to lift up the voices of victims and survivors…We are deeply sorry any part of this vigil did not provide the support, caring and sense of community we sought to foster and facilitate and which we know is so crucial to communities who suffer the trauma of gun violence,” the statement said.
In the days after the shooting, Castillo, who was killed three days before graduation, has been remembered for his kindness and bravery.
John Castillo, Kendrick Castillo’s father, called his son’s death “devastating, as you can imagine.”
“When I see the people that he saved, it made me happy,” John Castillo said. “I knew my son wouldn’t have it any other way. But as any parent would tell you, ‘It’s a heck of a trade-off.'”
It’s just three weeks since House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler subpoenaed the report without redactions, and all its underlying evidence, from special counsel Robert Mueller relating to his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Despite this, Nadler, D-N.Y., and fellow panel Democrats voted 24-16 Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to comply in the blink of an eye with their demand. Never mind that it would have been illegal for Barr to do so. It will be for the full House to decide whether to support the contempt vote, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she’ll follow the committee’s lead.
Democrats took turns grandstanding at the hearing, and simply ignored the fact that it would be against the law for Barr to disseminate some redacted material in Mueller’s report. Nor did they acknowledge the mammoth amount of work that would be required to organize and hand over Mueller’s mountains of evidence.
It’s, of course, not surprising that no Democrat objected to Nadler’s precipitous actions for, in 2019, congressional oversight consisting of forming up on one side of the committee room and barking at the other side.
Congress invokes official contempt charges rarely, indeed only three times in the past 35 years. It is meant to be a last resort. But in 2012, the last time it was used, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt for refusing to provide Congress with subpoenaed material, and Holder was a Democrat. So this is payback. But it should be noted that Holder had by then defied Congress for 203 days before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., first formally threatened him with contempt charges. Even then, Issa gave Holder an additional 48 days before his committee actually held a vote. And Issa was demanding answers about a Justice Department scandal that had actually resulted in the murder of at least one government official.
In shockingly sharp contrast, Nadler went from subpoena to contempt vote in 19 days, without evincing any desire to negotiate with the Justice Department over what could properly be shared by the committee. Nadler isn’t approaching this as one in which he should work out an agreement between two co-equal branches of government, which would be perfectly possible in this case if both sides were willing to be reasonable. Instead, he’s running a show trial to gin up enthusiasm among angry Democratic donors, both small and large.
What’s more, and worse, is that Nadler’s show trial is in pursuit of an end that is manifestly wrong. Barr’s efforts to protect privileged grand jury materials are not only justifiable but specifically mandated by law. Nadler has not a leg to stand on. Every single House Democrat on that committee knows and understands this. Yet not one objected to the circus in which they played the role of sundry clowns.
Contrast this again with Republican treatment of Holder. Unlike Barr, who is legally required to protect grand jury material, Holder was merely asserting an amorphous and constitutionally dubious privilege over internal Justice Department deliberations.
Nadler should explain why he is in such a rush. His timetable has nothing to do with justice or good government, and everything to do with the 2020 election calendar. Mueller couldn’t find any evidence of collusion by Trump’s campaign or any other American with Russia and its malefactors. So the clock is ticking for Democrats to use the fruits of Mueller’s investigation, which he so helpfully gave them, in defiance of precedent, to raise money and talking points for use in the Democrats’ pursuit of power.
Congress has a duty to sift through Mueller’s evidence. It has a duty to exercise oversight and provide checks on executive power, in the interest of justice and the good of the country. Nadler’s show trial has nothing to do with any of that.
Democrats don’t want to lose the energy from the far-left wing of the party but seek to emphasize a center-left agenda that will appeal to a broad cross-section of voters, says Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.
Progressives may be getting most of the media attention, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seems committed to keeping this small yet vocal group within the House Democratic caucus in check.
In a recent New York Times interview, Pelosi indicated she believes that Democrats’ road to success in 2020 will be paved down the middle, and not the far-left lane of political ideology.
Pelosi is a pragmatist, while still holding her firm onto her principles. She is clear in her criticism of President Trump and his administration.
Yet Pelosi stops short of giving in to the calls for impeachment. She knows impeachment is both a futile exercise and bad politics for many Democrats in competitive areas across the country.
The speaker has declined to support both the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all.” But she has presented more realistic policy alternatives that also aim to improve the environment and health care.
Yet Pelosi stops short of giving in to the calls for impeachment. She knows impeachment is both a futile exercise and bad politics for many Democrats in competitive areas across the country.
Pelosi’s leadership role was challenged twice by fellow Democrats who voiced concerns that the veteran lawmaker was too old, too out of touch and too much part of the coastal elite to lead House Democrats now.
At one point, I was part of that chorus of Democrats who raised concerns about Pelosi and advocated for a new generation to take over the reins.
But Pelosi has shown by her actions as speaker the second time around that she is one of the few Democrats skilled and savvy enough to take on President Trump. She understands that in order to hold onto the majority, House Democrats cannot be saddled by controversial votes that could alienate the electorate back home.
Pelosi’s approach is the right one to win both the House of Representatives and the White House. Democrats cannot win without bringing Trump supporters back into the fold.
It’s hard to convince a Trump voter to have an open mind if all that Democrats stand for is attacking or impeaching Trump. Independent voters are also key to any campaign’s success. Embracing far-left policies could also alienate this key voter block.
It is hard to tell if enough House members and candidates, or Democratic presidential hopefuls, will heed the sage advice Pelosi is giving. If they don’t, it could spell doom in 2020.
In her New York Times interview, Pelosi did not just say that Democrats need to “own the center-left” and the “mainstream” to win. She also said Democrats need to follow this formula to win big in the next election because she fears that President Trump will not accept the outcome if Democrats do not win decisively.
This is a striking statement, mostly because there are indications it is true. President Trump has a pattern of indicating that he is skeptical about election outcomes, especially if they are close.
In 2016, Trump remarkably said he would accept the results of the presidential election if he won. Over the last several years, Trump has made a variety of statements undermining the integrity of the electoral process and planting seeds about possible voter fraud in the minds of the American people.
For example, Trump tweeted about ballots supposedly being foraged in Florida after the gubernatorial and Senate races were too close to call. Even before Election Day, the president was tweeting about the possibility of illegal voting occurring in the midterms.
So it’s no wonder that Pelosi was concerned that Trump would have challenged a Democratic House majority if it were achieved by a slim margin.
I am both saddened and angered that our political system is so dysfunctional that the outcome of duly administered elections – the backbone of our representative democracy – can be so easily undermined or dismissed that winning an election is not enough.
We’re now told you have to win big to prove you deserve to be there. I wonder what George W. Bush and Al Gore would think.
The U.S. has seized a North Korean freighter that was caught shipping coal in violation of U.N. sanctions, the Justice Department revealed Thursday.
The 17,000-ton cargo ship, called the Wise Honest, was stopped in Indonesia last year after it was found to be carrying coal. The ship’s captain was charged with violating Indonesian law, and last July, the U.S. filed an action to seize the ship, according to court papers.
Federal prosecutors said the seizure marks the first time the U.S. has taken possession of a North Korean ship for violating international sanctions.
“This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
The North Korean ship, “Wise Honest.”Department of Justice
The Wise Honest, North Korea’s second-largest ship for carrying bulk cargo, was on its way to American Samoa, U.S. officials said.
On Thursday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to give the U.S. ownership of the vessel through a civil forfeiture action — the same thing prosecutors do when they seek to take ownership of planes or boats used by drug smugglers. The Justice Department says the U.S. is entitled to take this action because payments to maintain and equip the vessel were made through American banks.
“Our office uncovered North Korea’s scheme to export tons of high-grade coal to foreign buyers by concealing the origin of their ship, the Wise Honest,” said Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “This scheme not only allowed North Korea to evade sanctions, but the Wise Honest was also used to import heavy machinery to North Korea, helping expand North Korea’s capabilities and continuing the cycle of sanctions evasion.”
The announcement of the seizure came just hours after North Korea launched suspected short-range missiles — the second such weapons test in a week. But Berman said the effort to take control of the Wise Honest had been in the works for some time and was not spurred by North Korea’s overnight actions.
The Justice Department said the Korea Songi Shipping Company used the Wise Honest from at least November 2016 through April 2018 — and broke American law by paying U.S. dollars to “unwitting” banks for several improvements, equipment purchases and service expenditures for the vessel.
The March 2018 cargo shipment yielded payments totaling more than $750,000, the Justice Department said.
Berman declined comment when asked if the heavy machinery shipped back to North Korea was used in the country’s weapons program.
The seizure follows a report in March by a U.N. panel of experts that found North Korea is successfully evading United Nations sanctions through elaborate smuggling and deceptive tactics, allowing the regime to import oil and ship coal to China and other countries.
The sanctions are designed to deprive Pyongyang of cash for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and force the regime to abandon its arsenal. The Trump administration has led international efforts to tighten sanctions against North Korea, vowing to impose “maximum pressure” to persuade North Korea agree to relinquish its weapons in return for an end to sanctions.
“These violations render the latest United Nations sanctions ineffective by flouting the caps on the import of petroleum products and coal oil” by North Korea imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 2017, according to the U.N. report. “These transfers have increased in scope, scale and sophistication,” it said.
Despite U.S. warnings to keep up the economic pressure on North Korea, the regime has not suffered a spike in fuel prices in recent months, a sign that analysts say shows the country is able to secure enough fuel to keep its economy afloat.
North Korea has adapted to sanctions over the years and now employs increasingly sophisticated methods, the U.N. panel found in its March report. Pyongyang used to alter sections of shipping documents but now creates entirely fake registration and other papers that enable it to smuggle illicit cargo through ports around the world.
The regime also steals the identities of other ships and spoofs the location of vessels on the global electronic tracking system for ships, according to the U.N. panel.
Tom Winter
Tom Winter is a producer and reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit based in New York, covering crime, courts, terrorism, and financial fraud on the East Coast.
Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.
Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
China’s top trade negotiator, Liu He, will meet with President Donald Trump‘s trade team on Thursday without the title “special envoy” for President Xi Jinping, a role he has held in previous talks, suggesting the vice premier may have diminished authority to make concessions that could be key to striking a deal.
A source on the Chinese side told CNBC’s Eunice Yoon that Liu’s demotion suggests that he may not have much leeway to make compromises on his own.
That could leave negotiations to happen at a higher level. On Thursday afternoon, Trump said that Xi had written him a “beautiful letter” that he had “just received,” and said he will probably speak to Xi by phone.
The news of Liu’s title change comes as Washington and Beijing wrestle over the contours of a trade deal that has faced a number of setbacks in recent days.
Trump over the weekend set a Friday deadline to more than double the rate for existing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, a turnaround after weeks in which the administration signaled that negotiations were moving forward.
Stocks continued to tumble Thursday after Trump said at a rally the night before that China “broke the deal” and reiterated his tariff threats. Meanwhile, China has signaled it is unlikely to back down in the face of American pressure.
Part of the China’s calculus has involved the suspicion that Trump’s public pressuring of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower the central bank’s benchmark interest rate is motivated by the president’s belief that the U.S. economy is weaker than he has claimed, The Wall Street Journal reported.
China backtracked on nearly every commitment that it had made in previous negotiations in a diplomatic cable sent Friday, according to Reuters.
In response, on Sunday, Trump issued his threat to raise tariffs on the country in a post on Twitter.
“The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate,” Trump wrote. “No!”
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Thursday, Hughes laid out a scathing case for the government to crack down on Facebook and scale back Zuckerberg’s power. He argued that regulators should unwind the company’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, create space for more competition, and enact new privacy legislation that restricts what data Facebook can collect in the United States. Hughes said that while he doesn’t believe Zuckerberg has nefarious intentions, the power he’s amassed at the helm of Facebook is “unprecedented and un-American.”
“Facebook isn’t afraid of a few more rules,” Hughes wrote. “It’s afraid of an antitrust case and the kind of accountability that real government oversight would bring.”
Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny amid a cascade of scandals that at times can seem never-ending. Calls for the company to be broken up and face stricter regulation have increased, including some of the loudest from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a progressive firebrand and 2020 presidential candidate. Hughes joining the push to break up Facebook is huge: He was at the company at its infancy and helped set in motion many of the events that would ultimately make it so powerful. While he left Facebook in 2008 to work on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, his work is still a part of its DNA.
“It’s been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven’t worked at the company in a decade,” he wrote. “But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility.”
Hughes’s push goes beyond the pages of the Times — he also gave a long interview with NPR on Thursday morning. He knows that his calls to winnow Facebook are a big deal, and he wants to make sure his voice is heard.
Hughes lays out how Facebook has acquired, squashed, and copied competition
In the Times op-ed, Hughes makes the case that Facebook has devised a number of ways to lock out competition, whether by acquiring potential rivals, copying them, or blocking them.
He calls the Federal Trade Commission’s approval of Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp its “biggest mistake” and argues Facebook should immediately be forced to spin them off into two separate independent entities.
“Until recently, WhatsApp and Instagram were administered as independent platforms inside the parent company, so that should make the process easier,” Hughes wrote. “But time is of the essence: Facebook is working quickly to integrate the three, which would make it harder for the FTC to split them up.”
But not all of Facebook’s strategies when it comes to competitors entail acquisitions. It also blocks them or prioritizes its products over theirs. Hughes cites reports that Facebook’s News Feed algorithm favored videos created on its platform over videos from YouTube and Vimeo. It blocked Twitter’s Vine, a six-second video network, from hosting a tool that would let users search for their friends on Facebook. Vine eventually shuttered.
And in the case of Snapchat, which Facebook reportedly tried to buy in 2013, Facebook launched Stories, a blatant copy of Snapchat’s most popular and iconic feature. Hughes explains what this, in his mind, has meant for competition:
As a result of all this, would-be competitors can’t raise the money to take on Facebook. Investors realize that if a company gets traction, Facebook will copy its innovations, shut it down or acquire it for a relatively modest sum. So despite an extended economic expansion, increasing interest in high-tech start-ups, an explosion of venture capital and growing public distaste for Facebook, no major social networking company has been founded since the fall of 2011.
As markets become more concentrated, the number of new start-up businesses declines. This holds true in other high-tech areas dominated by single companies, like search (controlled by Google) and e-commerce (taken over by Amazon). Meanwhile, there has been plenty of innovation in areas where there is no monopolistic domination, such as in workplace productivity (Slack, Trello, Asana), urban transportation (Lyft, Uber, Lime, Bird) and cryptocurrency exchanges (Ripple, Coinbase, Circle).
Hughes sees government as the remedy
Hughes leans heavily into the idea that the US government should step in, not only with regulators upping antitrust enforcement but also with Congress laying out new ground rules for the internet, privacy, and even speech.
Zuckerberg himself has called for increased regulation, writing in a recent Washington Post op-ed that it’s time for the government to update the rules for the internet. Hughes says he doesn’t think Zuckerberg’s regulation proposals have been made in bad faith, but he does see them as an “attempt to head off the argument that regulators need to go further and break up the company.”
He argues that the FTC’s potential $3 billion to $5 billion fine over Facebook’s handling of user data and privacy violations is “not enough” and says that the FTC and Justice Department should just unwind the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions. He also says that regulators should ban future acquisitions by Facebook for several years.
“The F.T.C. should have blocked these mergers, but it’s not too late to act,” he wrote. “There is precedent for correcting bad decisions — as recently as 2009, Whole Foods settled antitrust complaints by selling off the Wild Oats brand and stores that it had bought a few years earlier.”
An aggressive case against Facebook could also have secondary effects on Google and Amazon and make them reconsider their practices with regard to acquisitions.
Hughes writes that the US should enact digital privacy legislation, along the lines what Europe did with the General Data Protection Regulation, in place since May 2018. Perhaps most interestingly, he proposes that the government create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media — given the place of free speech and the First Amendment in the US, that’s a big deal, which he acknowledges:
This idea may seem un-American — we would never stand for a government agency censoring speech. But we already have limits on yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, child pornography, speech intended to provoke violence and false statements to manipulate stock prices. We will have to create similar standards that tech companies can use. These standards should of course be subject to the review of the courts, just as any other limits on speech are. But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence.
Such a maneuver by the government could have big implications when it comes to free speech on the internet, platform responsibility for it, and the ongoing debate surrounding whether Facebook and others are platforms or publishers.
Hughes seems to put a lot of faith in the US government to be able to act in the right way on these measures, and whether it can is an open question. But the situation we’re in right now — where one man, Mark Zuckerberg, has so much control, rather than elected officials — has proven itself to be damaging, argues Hughes.
Why this? Why now? We don’t know.
Hughes has been out of Facebook for a while and taken on a number of projects since then, including working on the Obama campaign, buying (and then selling) the New Republic, and serving as co-chair of the Economic Security Project, a network dedicated to fostering discussions about guaranteed income. He liquidated his Facebook shares in 2012 and says he no longer invests directly in any social media companies. Forbes lists Hughes’s net worth as $430 million as of December 2016.
So why is he speaking out now? It’s unclear.
Pressure for the government to crack down on Facebook, or for the company to again attempt to take some action itself, is mounting, and Hughes certainly isn’t an outlier in his critique. Scrutiny on Zuckerberg is also growing, and it’s clear in the op-ed that Hughes views his former roommate as an enormous threat, whether he has ill intentions or not.
“The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power is Mark’s unilateral control over speech,” Hughes wrote. “There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize, and even censor the conversations of two billion people.”
He proposes a remedy, but it remains to be seen whether anyone will take him up on it.
Recode and Vox have joined forces to uncover and explain how our digital world is changing — and changing us. Subscribe to Recode podcasts to hear Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka lead the tough conversations the technology industry needs today.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Alabama Senate had voted to pass the nation’s strictest abortion bill.
After a shouting match broke out, the Alabama Senate on Thursday tabled an amendment to a controversial billthat would criminalize abortions by making performing the procedure a felony punishable by up to 99 years imprisonment.
The decision was made by voice vote, angering Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton and other Democrats who were seeking a roll-call vote on all issues related to the abortion bill.
They accused Alabama Lieut. Gov. Will Ainsworth, a Republican who presides over the senate, of being too quick on the gavel in moving forward with the voice vote and steamrolling over their concerns.
“At least treat us fairly and do it the right way,” Democratic Sen. Vivian Davis Figures said.
As the disagreement escalated, the vote was moved until next week.
The bill, which is expected to be passed by the conservative majority, would be the most restrictive in the country and would impose what is in effect a near-total abortion ban.
Alabama Rep. Terri Collins (R), who sponsored the bill, said its purpose is to spark litigation that would force the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guarantees a woman’s right to abortion.
Under the Alabama legislation, doctors would not be able to perform abortions once a fetus is “in utero.”
The version that passed in the statehouse allowed for only a single exception, in cases involving a serious health risk “to the unborn child’s mother.” An amendment added in the Senate would also provide for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That amendment was the subject of fierce debate Thursday.
Gov. Kay Ivey (R), who has described herself as antiabortion, is expected to sign the bill into law, although she has declined to comment directly on the legislation until it is finalized.
LAS VEGAS — Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks Republicans have been seduced by President Donald Trump and forgotten the whole point of the US Senate.
Sitting at his desk in his old Senate chair with his name engraved on the back, Reid complained that the Republican-led upper chamber has become too subservient to the president under current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“I can’t imagine how the Republicans are being so compliant on everything [Trump] wants,” Reid told me during a recent interview in his Las Vegas office. “What’s the Senate all about?”
It’s not because Trump is an aberration, he cautions: “Trump did not create the Republican Congress; the Republican Congress created Trump.”
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sits at his desk during an interview in his Las Vegas office. Krystal Ramirez for Vox
If Reid thinks the Senate is a shell of its former self, Republicans would likely tell the former Senate majority leader he helped hasten its demise. Reid was an effective but controversial leader, who will be remembered for “going nuclear” in 2013, blowing up the Senate filibuster that was long considered sacred.
Reid attributes that to a matter of practicality, saying he had “no choice” in the face of McConnell obstructing former President Barack Obama’s court and Cabinet picks.
“It was the right thing to do,” he told me bluntly.
Reid blames congressional Republicans for the fall of the Senate — pointing to their conduct on Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, who never got a vote. More recently, he watched as Senate Republicans allowed Trump to issue an emergency declaration in an attempt to fund his border wall. With that precedent now set, Reid warned Democrats could do something similar in the future on an issue like gun control.
The former leader, 79, is now three years retired and returning to work after undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer (which he recently said is in remission). Reid is largely confined to a wheelchair these days but seems on top of his game. With a steady stream of Democrats running for president seeking out his advice on policy, he’s certainly still an influential player in Nevada and national politics.
Reid has not endorsed a Democrat in the 2020 race. But he’s warning the entire party that winning the election is no given and Trump could very well succeed again. “We have to first approach this recognizing that he could be reelected,” Reid said. “We cannot let this man be elected again. I think he has to be taken on. You need to fight him, but not on his terms, on your terms.”
And he was clear: Democrats should try to beat Trump in 2020, not waste their time attempting to impeach the president. Even with the current “tribalism” on Capitol Hill, Reid told me it’s crucial for Congress to do their work rather than become mired in impeachment.
“We’ll get nothing done if there’s impeachment proceedings,” he said. “We’d spend all of our time on that; nothing else.”
In a lengthy interview, Reid reflected on the state of Congress and Democratic politics — complete with his signature burns.
Ella Nilsen
I wanted to ask you about the filibuster. Do you stand by your decision to get rid of the filibuster for most presidential nominations in 2013?
Harry Reid
Let’s go back and look where we were. Obama was president of the United States. We had the DC Circuit that was four, five members short. DC Circuit is the second most important court in the country, right below the Supreme Court. The Republicans don’t like organized labor, they couldn’t take them on directly, so what they did is defang the National Labor Relations Board. They couldn’t even get a quorum because they wouldn’t approve any new people coming on the board.
We had Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officers that Obama couldn’t get approved. So we had no choice; I had no choice. And that’s why the Democrats agreed to change the rules. Now, first of all, understand the rules have been changed in the Senate lots and lots of times. I did it; it was the right thing to do. We approved over 100 judges for Obama, we filled all his Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officers with rare exception, we took care of the National Labor Relations Board, we did a lot of good things. And it would not have happened otherwise. We had to do that or the White House, the president, would become a meaningless person.
Ella Nilsen
Some 2020 candidates including Elizabeth Warren have called for the elimination of the filibuster entirely. Do you agree?
Harry Reid
No, I don’t. I think it should be done gradually. I didn’t author, but I approved, an article written by one of my longtime staff members, Bill Dauster, in the NYU Law Journal. It was a good, good article, because what it said was unless things changed, the House of Representatives was just going to move across the Capitol and you would have two Houses of Representatives. Now, would that be the end of the world? No, because it would still be bicameral. But you would have a simple majority determine what happens in the Senate. As I said, it’s not the end of the world for the Senate, but it would be better if we didn’t do it.
In the past, the filibuster has been used very sparingly. However, the Republican Congress in the last many years have filibustered everything so that 60 votes became the vote. As we wrote in that article, unless it changed, the House of Representatives will move across the hall and we’ll just have two Houses of Representatives.
Ella Nilsen
With that question about obstruction, when you look at what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done, what is the mark you think he has left on the Senate?
Harry Reid
Well, I think the worst thing that was done by the Republicans has been what they’ve done with the Supreme Court. To think — now, first of all, the chairman of the Republican Judiciary Committee when they were in the majority, [Orrin] Hatch from Utah, said the most qualified person to be a Supreme Court Justice is Merrick Garland. He said that. I’m not making this up; that’s what he said. And so when Merrick Garland came up … we were all very happy, but Orrin Hatch walked away from it and this man never even got a vote. So that’s what the Republicans have caused to happen in the Senate. If they have a black mark against them, it is certainly what they’ve done with the Supreme Court.
Ella Nilsen
When you got rid of the filibuster in 2013, were you concerned that it would be taken a step further with the Supreme Court? And now, given what McConnell has done with the Supreme Court?
Harry Reid
Well, that’s possible. As I said, the rules in the Senate have been changed many, many times over the years. But what goes around comes around. Republicans, for example, voting to give — hard to mention his name as president — President Trump the authority to make an emergency declaration for this wall. If they do that, they’ve set a precedent to say, “Okay, seems to me if he can do that for a wall, then we can do something about guns.” 57,000 Americans are killed every year. So I repeat, what goes around comes around. They better be careful.
Ella Nilsen
If we did get to a point where the filibuster was eliminated, do you think it would be possible to govern in such a closely divided Senate?
Harry Reid
Oh, sure, of course. It would be easier probably to do that than what the Republicans are doing now, causing a filibuster on everything. You need 60 votes on everything — that isn’t the way it should be. The Congress would still work, [but] it wouldn’t work nearly as well as it has in the past because of the rules in the Senate. But if we changed them, the Senate would still have six-year terms; they would have to, as Jefferson said, pour the coffee in the saucer and let it cool off. It wouldn’t end the world of Congress.
Reid responds to questions during a Vox interview.Krystal Ramirez for Vox
Ella Nilsen
What do you think about McConnell tying himself so closely to Trump?
Harry Reid
Well, I know Mitch McConnell; I consider him a friend. I can’t imagine how the Republicans are being so compliant on everything he [Trump] wants. What’s the Senate all about?
As I always said, I didn’t work for the president, I worked with him. We are a separate branch of government — we’re the legislative branch of government. Let the White House, which is the executive branch of government, do what they want to do. But we should be a buttress to keep the White House from going crazy, as this one has done.
Ella Nilsen
So you don’t think that’s happening now — do you feel the Senate or McConnell is serving the president?
Harry Reid
I think the Senate has lost their way.
Ella Nilsen
Are McConnell and Trump matching your and Obama’s legacy on judicial nominations at this point?
Harry Reid
[long pause] Matching … if you just go by numbers, of course they’re fairly equal at this stage. But I think if you look at quality, they’re not close.
Ella Nilsen
Are you concerned, though, about the number of Trump/McConnell judges that are now going to serve lifetime appointments, given some of their track records?
Harry Reid
Yeah, but of course, they’re concerned about what we did too. But I hope that the judges who are put in the courts around the country will understand they’re a separate branch of government. Once they get to be a judge, they no longer have to please Donald Trump. They are lifetime appointments. And we find around the country that a lot of these judges who I think a lot of people thought would just roll over and play dead for this administration aren’t doing it.
Ella Nilsen
How do you think Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have handled President Trump so far, with the government shutdown and now all this talk about impeachment?
Harry Reid
Well, I served as leader when Pelosi was the speaker the first go-round, and I have such admiration for her, and the public feels about the same way I do. She has been one of the few people that took on Trump, and he had no answer to her questions and her pressure. Sen. Schumer and I have a longstanding relationship. Everyone knows that I brought him into Senate leadership. He did very well. As a leader, I hope I helped prepare him for that, but I’m not in any way [going] to second-guess him. I think the world of Chuck Schumer; we will always be friends. So I’m the wrong guy to ask, because I’m prejudiced.
Ella Nilsen
Well, looking at the challenges Trump has posed. The shutdown, when I was covering that, it felt like DC was gripped by this chaos.
Harry Reid
Well, I, during my political career, have heard people talk about the Constitution and the framework it has to protect our country. I never really felt that until Trump was elected president; I really feel that now. I think we’re going to overcome Trump because of our Constitution. We’re going to get through the next less-than-two years of him and then we’re going to have a new day. As Pete Seeger sings, “I can see a new day, soon to be, when the storm clouds will soon pass.” But I do believe that. I think that Trump will be gone because of our great Constitution. Our country will move on and get past that.
Ella Nilsen
There’s been a lot of discussion about impeachment since the Mueller report came out. Do you think Democrats should pursue that?
Harry Reid
There’s some who say the Mueller report is only an invitation for impeachment. Now, that would be a better view if it was a year ago. But it’s now; it’s not long until the 2020 election. I have no problem with there being hearings held based on the Mueller information. But I think to have impeachment now would eat up precious time we have before the general election, and I think even though there’s a lot of tribalism going on in Congress — some say, “Well, we’re not going to get anything done anyway.” I don’t believe that. We have to get a few things done, we can do that, and we’ll get nothing done if there’s impeachment proceedings. We’d spend all of our time on that, nothing else.
Ella Nilsen
Trump is talking with House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer about an infrastructure plan. Do you have any hope anything bipartisan is going to happen?
Harry Reid
We’re not going to get anything done unless it’s done on a bipartisan basis. That’s the way it is, no matter who’s president. And Trump, even though he hasn’t been good at most things … he’s a great starter but a lousy finisher. He starts a lot of stuff and rarely finishes anything. So I would think there’s hope for a good deal on the need for infrastructure. A trillion dollars — it’s more than that, but let’s start at $1 trillion. We have highways, roads, bridges, dams, waterways, sewer systems, just to name a few things that are deeply in trouble. We have water lines leaking all over America, and why aren’t they being fixed? Because people don’t have money to do it. Governments don’t have money to do it.
Now, we all agree there should be something done on infrastructure, so how are we going to pay for it? I don’t even think you can find a Republican writer, a journalist, that says anything good about the Trump tax cut. It just didn’t help; it didn’t help anyone. And I would hope we could use some of that money for infrastructure. We need to have money to pay for the infrastructure. It’s good to go to a meeting in the White House and say how much we need to improve our infrastructure system, it’s another thing to say we have problems with our infrastructure but we need to pay for it, and then outline how it’s going to be paid for.
Ella Nilsen
If Democrats can’t show a bipartisan achievement like infrastructure or another piece of legislation, could that hurt the party in 2020?
Harry Reid
I don’t think there’s any way to blame Democrats for the problems we have in Congress. Trump did not create the Republican Congress; the Republican Congress created Trump. It would be really a stretch to blame Democrats for things not getting done in this Congress.
Ella Nilsen
What do you think about the current push for Medicare-for-all in the House? They recently held hearings.
Harry Reid
Well, one of the things I’m very pleased that I worked hard on and we accomplished was Obamacare. That was very, very hard to get the votes to pass that. Pelosi and I were running the Congress at that time and we were able to get it done. A tremendous accomplishment for this country, and we know what it’s done: It’s improved the health care delivery system in America today. The Republicans have done what they could to chop it up and try to get rid of it; they haven’t been able to do that. They’re afraid to get rid of it.
But I think what we need to do is go back and restore Obamacare and keep progressing in that way. It’s easy to talk about Medicare-for-all and just eliminating everything and have it change tomorrow, but it’s much harder to do; it’s not that easy. And I think we would be better off going back and taking care of Obamacare, which did so many good things for so many different people. It allowed people who had prior disabilities who couldn’t get insurance [to get it]. Insurance companies ran roughshod over everybody. They couldn’t do that with Obamacare. But now they’ve weakened that a lot. So now what I say is let’s go back and restore Obamacare to make it better.
Ella Nilsen
How do Democrats defeat Trump in 2020?
Harry Reid
We have to first approach this recognizing that he could be reelected. We cannot let this man be elected again. I think he has to be taken on. I keep reminding the American people what’s in the Mueller report, what they see every day about his fabrications, about things people can’t believe he fabricates. This man who is president of the United States brags about what he can do to women, what he has done to women. I think he has to be taken on. You can’t take it lightly, but you can’t walk away from him, be afraid to fight him. You need to fight him, but not on his terms, on your terms.
Ella Nilsen
What do those terms look like?
Harry Reid
Take him head on. Let’s talk about an issue. Talk about health care delivery. Talk about what he’s done to foreign relations, what he’s done to our trade policy, what he’s done with renewable energy, which is nothing. What he’s done to destroy the environment, which is a lot. He ignores climate change — the most significant problem facing mankind today, or maybe ever. He doesn’t think it exists.
Ella Nilsen
Do you think Democrats are better off saying, “Look at these issues, here’s what he’s done on these issues,” rather than focusing on the Mueller report and Russia — this thing that’s consuming Washington?
Harry Reid
I think it’s a mix of both. I think that you can’t put your playbook and just have one play; you need to be able to adjust as time goes on.
Ella Nilsen
Looking at some of the candidates that are running, you see this left-wing populism coming from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Do you think that is an effective counter to the right-wing populism that Trump embodies?
Harry Reid
It’s a little more loud now than in the past. But ever since I’ve been involved in national politics, the Republicans are monitored and pushed by the far right. That’s the way it’s always been. Democrats have always been pushed by the left. That’s why we had the big flare-up in Chicago when [Hubert] Humphrey was running for president [in 1968]. So it’s always been there. It’s just louder than it’s been in the past.
Ella Nilsen
Even than in the ’60s?
Harry Reid
Oh, yeah, I think so.
Ella Nilsen
Why do you think it’s gotten so much louder?
Harry Reid
Because of Trump. I think he’s so outrageous in so many things he does that people are trying to find a way to respond to that. And as I said, I think that for example, on health care delivery, we’re not going to change the world in a day, but we can change it a few hours at a time and restore Obamacare to what it was and make it even better. On climate change, we’re not going to change it overnight, but we have these things we have to do. Renewable energy is something… we need to get rid of coal — get rid of it! Fossil fuels, do everything we can to get rid of it. America can supply all the energy it needs with wind and sun and geothermal and biomass, all kinds of things. We do not need fossil fuel.
I fought coal in Nevada; we don’t have one plant left in Nevada. It’s on its way out. People don’t want coal. We have Trump — he held out false hope for the coal industry. It’s gone, it’s just a question of how long it’s going to hang around, and we need to speed up its demise.
Ella Nilsen
What 2020 candidates are you keeping your eye on? There are so many of them now.
Harry Reid
Well, I had the good fortune of being able to visit with almost all of them. I have a meeting over the weekend with Beto [O’Rourke]. So we’re fortunate to have the good people running that we do. I of course served with Joe Biden in the Senate for 34 years; he’s a friend of mine. We’ve got our caucuses coming here next February, so I’m going to be very, very cautious and not endorse anyone. But everyone knows of my affection for Joe Biden.
Ella Nilsen
It seemed like Biden’s pitch when he announced was, first of all, taking Trump on very directly. And then also it seemed to me kind of a return to the Obama years, and I’m curious if you think that’s an effective pitch to the American people.
Harry Reid
Joe Biden’s rollout was very, very good, because it made a contrast to what we’re doing now under the Trump administration and what he has done. But he did it very, very subtly and very well, because remember he was eight years vice president for Obama. So I think everyone quickly realized that he’s not going to have Obama before the primary out waving banners for him, but everyone knows of their close relationship.
Ella Nilsen
What about Elizabeth Warren? There were reports you encouraged her to run for president for 2020. Why was that, and have you encouraged anyone else?
Harry Reid
Those reports are absolutely true. Her chief of staff and campaign manager was my former press secretary, so I have a longstanding relationship with Sen. Warren. I helped her get started and put her on that commission; she did a great job. To make a long story short, we wanted her after we passed Dodd-Frank to be in charge of consumer affairs in the White House and the Republicans stopped her from doing that, so she ran for the Senate. I wish they had given her that job. She’s done well. I think the world of her; she knows I can’t endorse her, I can’t endorse Joe or anybody else. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell everybody how good they are.
Ella Nilsen
What do you think she brings to the campaign?
Harry Reid
First of all, she brings a Harvard brain with her. Being a law professor at Harvard, she’s a very, very bright woman. She is someone who I think is respected for what she’s done, not what she plans to do but what she’s done. … She started with nothing, became a single mother, got out of school because she was smart, and has done well.
Reid sits in his old chair from the US Senate. Krystal Ramirez for Vox
Ella Nilsen
On the Nevada caucuses, what have Democrats in Nevada done in order to turn out the Latino/Hispanic vote that other states have struggled to do?
Harry Reid
There was an article that came out today that was so good. It talked about the reason that [Jacky] Rosen beat [then-Sen. Dean] Heller was the strong, strong Hispanic vote. I had been a fan of Hispanics and their organizations for a long, long time and people actually used to make fun of me. “Why are you going to do that? A lot of them are illegal; they never register to vote. If they are registered to vote, they don’t vote and turnout’s awful.”
When I ran last time, they thought they had me. The first ad they ran [was] “Harry Reid, the best friend illegal immigrants ever had,” and it had all these dark people look like they were coming across the water or something. And all it did was make Hispanics mad. So they joined together and reelected me. People said I couldn’t be reelected, leaders never do well in the state and it hurts to be a national leader. I did just fine and from that day forward — people around the country understood that Hispanics make a difference, and they do.
Ella Nilsen
Do you see that happening in 2020 with Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants?
Harry Reid
Oh, sure, yes, I think so. As I said two years ago here in Nevada, they make all the difference. [They] elected Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, who had only served one term in the House and became a senator.
Ella Nilsen
I feel like states like Texas have struggled to do this in the same way. Do you think there are other state parties who haven’t quite figured out how to do it?
Harry Reid
Texas has always been a difficult state. I’ve tried many times to elect a senator there. The problem we’ve had in Texas is there’s 22 separate media markets. It’s so expensive. But Beto did pretty well. I wish he had run against [John Cornyn], but he decided not to do that. But I just think that Texas is demographically a Democratic state; it’s only a question of time until they become one.
Ella Nilsen
How important are the Nevada caucuses in 2020?
Harry Reid
Well, I worked hard to get them established. It’s also been good for the country. The four early states — South Carolina, Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire’s the only direct vote; the rest are caucus states. Nevada is the only state that is representative of our country: 30 percent Hispanic, 9 percent African American. Our balance is so interesting. We have a heavy Filipino population here. So the caucuses are just remarkably good for the country. If you want to do well in the West, you have to come to Nevada because we educate people in public lands, we advise them on renewable energy, we educate on nuclear waste, how bad it is.
Ella Nilsen
When you look at the power that Iowa and New Hampshire have, do you see Western states like Nevada and California taking a chunk of that power and getting to decide the president?
Harry Reid
Oh, yeah, for sure. And look what’s happened in the last few years. Two Democratic senators in California, two in Washington, two in Oregon. The West Coast is pretty Democratic, and we even got a Democratic congressman out of Utah, can you believe that?
Liu He, China’s vice premier and top trade negotiator, will have dinner with President Donald Trump’s trade team Thursday evening in Washington, just hours before the U.S. will hike tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods.
Liu will dine with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other U.S. officials as the world’s two largest economies try to salvage a trade deal, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. Liu is not expected to meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday.
Investors have followed the talks closely as they hope the U.S. and China can avoid widening their trade conflict and damaging the global economy. Asked whether the White House — which closely watches financial markets — is prepared for the market reaction Friday if no deal takes shape, Sanders responded, “We’re always prepared.”
The U.S. has officially filed paperwork to raise duties on the Chinese products to 25% from 10% at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday. While the Trump administration said it could reverse its decision if the sides make progress during talks Thursday, it is unclear whether Washington and Beijing can move close enough to a deal.
Trump first announced the tariff increase on Sunday as the U.S. accused China of reneging on key parts of the developing trade deal. The Chinese side reportedly felt Trump may be willing to make concessions, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump has pushed for an agreement to address grievances with China such as intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and trade deficits. The Trump administration has already placed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods and has threatened to levy duties on more products as it tries to bring Beijing to the table.
North Korea on Thursday fired projectiles that are believed to be missiles from the country’s western area, South Korea’s military says. The same day in Seoul, people watch a TV showing footage of a previous missile launch by North Korea.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
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Ahn Young-joon/AP
North Korea on Thursday fired projectiles that are believed to be missiles from the country’s western area, South Korea’s military says. The same day in Seoul, people watch a TV showing footage of a previous missile launch by North Korea.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
North Korea launched two projectiles Thursday that are believed to have been short-range missiles, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, in what would be the second test of such missiles in the past five days.
The apparent missiles were launched from northwestern North Korea, far from the border that divides the Korean Peninsula, and they landed in the Sea of Japan/East Sea, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
Citing a statement from the joint chiefs, the Korean outlet says the first projectile was launched at 4:29 p.m. local time and flew about 260 miles. The second was fired 10 minutes later and flew about 168 miles.
South Korea’s military initially said Thursday’s launch took place in an area near Sino-ri, which South Korean media report as having a medium-range missile base. It later clarified that the projectiles were fired from the town of Kusong, north of Sino-ri.
The projectiles flew east, over populated land in North Korea and into the ocean. After the launch was announced, Japan’s Ministry of Defense said the apparent missiles did not reach its waters.
“The test comes as U.S. envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun is visiting Seoul,” NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reports from South Korea’s capital, “and defense officials from the U.S., Japan and South Korea are holding annual talks here, as well.”
On Saturday, North Korea’s military launched a flurry of rockets and what it calls a “tactical guided weapon,” in what was seen as proof that the country is still working on new weapons as de-escalation talks between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have stalled.
The missile tested Saturday bears a striking resemblance to Russia’s Iskander missile, which NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel describes as “a highly accurate short-range weapon capable of striking targets more than 150 miles away.”
North Korea’s missile test over the weekend took place along its east coast. U.S. officials had downplayed its importance, saying that the weapons North Korea is testing are far different from long-range ballistic missiles — and the tests that caused alarm in 2017.
President Donald Trump, at a rally in Panama City, Florida on Wednesday night, mocked some of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. His targets included Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. (May 9) AP, AP
President Donald Trump was tickled Wednesday when an audience member at a Florida rally suggested shooting migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump was bemoaning the legal protections afforded migrants and espousing the need for a border wall when he asked rhetorically, “How do you stop these people?”
“Shoot them!” someone shouted from the Panama City Beach crowd, according to multiple news media reports.
The remark drew a chuckle from the president, who then shook his head, pointed in the audience member’s direction and said, “Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement.”
“Only in the Panhandle,” he repeated to laughs and cheers from the crowd.
Prior to the interruption, Trump had mentioned “border security people” who he said are not permitted to use weapons on the migrants.
“I mean, when you have 15,000 people marching up, and you have hundreds and hundreds of people, and you have two or three border security people that are brave and great – and don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons. We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that,” he said.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity in March, Trump said the threat of deadly force is a “very effective” way to deter migrants, but said the U.S. “can’t do it.”
“We need to defend our country. You have people pouring in,” he told Hannity. “Now, we’re capturing these people, we’re getting them. But we don’t do like other countries. Other countries stand there with machine guns ready to fire. We can’t do that and I wouldn’t want to do that.”
A vigil for the victims of the recent shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch that was organized by Team ENOUGH, a student-led initiative that is part of pro-gun control group Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, did not go as planned as students walked out to protest the group’s politicization of the tragedy.
During the vigil, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America activists, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., each made remarks the students in attendance did not appreciate because, according to them, the adults were politicizing the event.
Moms Demand Action’s Laura Reeves heavily politicizes the STEM School Highlands Ranch vigil:
-Blames NRA -Demonizes pro-gun politicians -Advocates working to elect Democrats -Tells students to register voters, stage walkouts, raise $$$, & use social media to promote gun control pic.twitter.com/YlY3VaXWp8
The students walked out of the event and held their own vigil outside the school.
Students had also chanted “mental health” in response to the speakers pushing for more gun control.
9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark reports some students returned to the gym and to continue their vigil, saying they did not want to be used to push for more gun control.
The Brady Campaign issued an apology to the students for the politicization of the vigil.
“We are deeply sorry any part of this vigil did not provide the support, caring and sense of community we sought to foster and facilitate and which we know is crucial to communities who suffer the trauma of gun violence,” the group said.
Moms Demand Action did not provide a comment in time for publication.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy says former FBI Director James Comey didn’t think the American people were smart enough to pick a president in 2016 so he put his thumb on the scale.
In the two years since President Trump fired James Comey, the former director of the FBI has gone from the left’s folk hero – rewarded with a book deal for his supposed selfless public service – to someone at the epicenter of an FBI “spying” scandal that threatens to tarnish the bureau’s reputation.
Trump dismissed Comey on May 9, 2017, for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Following Comey’s ouster, his former boss Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel of the Russia investigation, which went on to find no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — and could not reach a conclusion on whether to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.
Initially, Comey enjoyed relative success after losing his job, getting showered with media attention for his anti-Trump talking points. This propped up his book — “A Higher Loyalty,” published last year — for which Comey reportedly received $2 million and which posted sales of 600,000 copies in just one week.
But Comey’s star has undoubtedly faded amid allegations that the FBI under his command not only used an unverified dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele to justify surveillance of Trump campaign official Carter Page, but also that the bureau sent an undercover investigator to meet with ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos in 2016.
Attorney General Bill Barr alleged, in the wake of the Mueller report, that the bureau engaged in spying against Trump associates during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“I think spying did occur,” Barr said during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. “The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”
“I think spying did occur … The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”
— Attorney General Bill Barr
Barr later clarified in the hearing: “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred; I’m saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it, that’s all.”
Comey dismissed Barr’s comments at the time, saying he “never thought of” electronic surveillance as “spying.”
“When I hear that kind of language used, it’s concerning because the FBI and the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance,” Comey added. “I have never thought of that as spying.”
But Comey was put on the defensive again following a recent bombshell New York Times report detailing the FBI efforts to investigate the Trump campaign.
The FBI reportedly sent a woman to meet with Papadopoulos at a bar in London during the campaign. The woman, who identified herself as Azra Turk, asked Papadopoulos point-blank if Trump was collaborating with Russians to swing the 2016 election.
Comey issued only a scant defense of the issue, telling Los Angeles radio station KNX 1070 AM that the practice was justified due to the ongoing threats from Russia.
“Really? What would you have the FBI do? We discover in the middle of June of 2016 that the Russians were engaged in a massive effort to mess with this democracy to interfere in the election,” Comey said.
“We’re focused on that and at the end of July we learn that a Trump campaign adviser — two months earlier, before any of this was public — had talked to a Russian representative about the fact that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton and wanted to arrange to share it with the Trump campaign.”
He added: “What should the FBI do when it gets that information? It should investigate to figure out whether any Americans are hooked up with this massive interference effort. And that’s what we did.”
But as Comey continues making the rounds to publicly defend his actions as FBI director — including plans to participate in a town hall event on CNN on Thursday night — he’s likely to face further questions and controversies amid Barr’s formation of a team to “investigate the investigators.”
A Trump administration official briefed on the matter told Fox News that Barr assembled a “team” to investigate the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.
Fox News also has been told the Justice Department’s inspector general (IG) was looking separately into whether Comey mishandled classified information by including a variety of sensitive matters in his private memos that include the name and code name of a confidential human source.
Fox News’ Gregg Re, Jake Gibson and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
North Korea fired unidentified projectiles on Thursday, according to the South Korean military, less than a week after leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of multiple rockets and missiles.
“We confirmed that North Korea fired two rounds of missiles towards (an) eastern direction from Northern Pyongan Province at 16:29 p.m. and 16:49 p.m. (local time). Estimated travel distances were 420 km, 270 km, respectively,” a South Korean military official told NBC News. The Northern Pyongan Province is an area located to the west of the country.
The South Korean and U.S. authorities are conducting analysis for more detailed information and NBC News also said that the chief national security advisor in South Korea is monitoring the situation.
“(The) South Korea military has reinforced surveillance and vigilance for any more North Korean missile launches, and is maintaining fully preparedness by cooperating with the U.S.,” the official added.
The suspected short-range missiles appear to have been launched from a location near a missile base in Sino-Ri, according to the Dow Jones news agency. This is about 130 miles north of the demilitarized zone.
The new launches come as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, travels to Seoul to meet with officials and discuss denuclearization efforts.
The two leaders met in Hanoi, Vietnam, to discuss the possibility of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but the talks ended abruptly without a deal. That summit had followed the historic meeting between Kim and Trump in Singapore last June. North Korea had pledged to cease its nuclear and long-range missile tests back in April 2018, but that promise was thrown into doubt when satellite images surfaced suggesting that a long-range missile test site was undergoing “rapid rebuilding.”
On Wednesday, North Korea’s foreign ministry commented on Saturday’s launch, saying the “strike drill” was “regular and self-defensive.”
“The recent drill conducted by our army is nothing more than part of the regular military training, and it has neither targeted anyone nor led to an aggravation of the situation in the region,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the state-run KCNA news agency.
The two launches in quick succession will likely accentuate tensions between Washington and Pyongyang and follow a meeting between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. The Russian leader told reporters that Kim wanted to denuclearize but needed “security guarantees” to do so.
—Reuters and CNBC’s Jeff Daniels contributed to this article.
The new hard line taken by China in trade talks—surprising the White House and threatening to derail negotiations—came after Beijing interpreted recent statements and actions by President Trump as a sign the U.S. was ready to make concessions, said people familiar with the thinking of the Chinese side.
High-level negotiations are scheduled to resume Thursday in Washington, but the expectations and the stakes have changed significantly. A week ago, the assumption was that negotiators would be closing the deal. Now, they are…
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