House Democrats are girding for a fight over President Donald Trump’s tax returns, one that will likely lead all the way to the Supreme Court.
A team of four attorneys has been guiding the House Ways and Means Committee, which has the authority to request the IRS documents from the Treasury Department. They have been actively crafting what they hope will be an “air-tight” legal strategy to compel the president to hand over 10 years of his personal tax returns, working on the assumption their request will be challenged by the courts, according to a senior Democratic aide.
“It will be fought out in the courts, and then possibly the Supreme Court,” committee member Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., told ABC News.
“We knew this would eventually happen. They weren’t going to simply take the letter and agree to it.”
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., leaves the House Democrats’ caucus meeting in the Capitol, Jan. 4, 2019.
Trump’s refusal to make his tax returns public -– a move that broke with decades of tradition — was a Democratic rallying cry during the 2016 campaign. Since the 1970s, most presidential candidates have made their tax returns public.
Trump’s returns have remained a persistent fixation during his presidency, with his critics viewing the filings as a potential road map to possible conflicts of interest and tax evasion.
During recent testimony, the president’s one-time personal attorney Michael Cohen alleged that Trump regularly bragged that he did not pay taxes. There are also questions over whether the president inflated his personal wealth.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., March 2, 2019.
Cohen’s bombshell testimony last week also accelerated the timeline for requesting the president’s personal tax returns from the past 10 years, according to three Democratic aides. During Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee, he suggested that Trump’s tax returns would show if he committed tax evasion or inflated his income for insurance purposes.
Trump has resisted releasing his returns, saying they are under audit. One of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, has said the president will fight any effort by Congress to obtain copies.
Prior to the midterm elections, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., enjoyed a good personal relationship, according to aides to both men. Shortly after the midterms, the two met for a breakfast where they talked tax policy, but towards the end of the meal, the issue of President Trump’s tax returns came up.
After Democrats took control of the House during the 2018 midterm elections, there was wide speculation that the party would use its new majority to pursue Trump’s returns, but during the breakfast meeting neither side laid out a clear position, according to the aides. As Neal has moved forward, aides have said the Treasury Department has given no clear indication of how it will respond to a committee request for Trump’s returns.
“Secretary Mnuchin will review any request with Treasury’s attorneys for legality,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin speaks during a TV interview at the White House, May 21, 2018.
The committee has not acted yet but is already anticipating resistance. The senior committee aide suggested to ABC News that Neal will likely have to submit one letter and then a follow-up letter if the Department of Treasury does not respond. Their third request will be a subpoena. This would initiate a court battle in District Court, and then if the ruling is appealed, it could end up in the Supreme Court.
The upcoming request is likely to be a one-page two-paragraph memo, according to two Democratic committee aides. The committee aims to submit the letter in the coming weeks, with a self-imposed deadline of April 15, according to one aide. But if the Mueller report is made public before the letter is submitted, they will move to immediately make the request.
“If we’re going to court we need to lay out things that are very specific to indicate that the law is on our side, we want to make sure the facts are,” Pascrell said.
“This is why it’s going to be very methodical.”
Through a 1924 provision in the tax code, the Treasury Secretary “shall furnish” any individuals’ tax return information “upon written request” from the chairmen of certain congressional committees. Once provided, the tax information can only be reviewed in a closed session by certain members unless lawmakers vote to make it public.
In the opening days of the new congressional term, the committee sought tax returns directly from the Trump organization and Trump Foundation in addition to Trump’s personal tax returns, according to two committee aides. But now, they are considering a direct request to Treasury for his personal returns from the past 10 years. If the committee wins that legal battle, they assume it will pave the way for Trump Organization and Trump Foundation returns.
House Democrats are aware that the president’s personal tax returns won’t likely provide a roadmap to Russian relationships, if any exist, since the origin of the money is not stated. There’s also a concern that the Trump Organization records could be overwhelming for the committee to analyze since it’s entities are split into numerous limited liability corporations.
Neal has been cautious about how aggressively to pursue the tax returns. He initially told reporters that he planned to wait for the special counsel’s report to be made public before submitting the request. But there’s been new pressure since Cohen’s testimony from within the panel and from outside committees to make the request.
By declaring a national emergency to build his promised wall at the southern border, President Trump has pitted his presidency against the Constitution’s principles of separation of powers, legislative control of funds, and limited government among others. And, as congressional Republicans have increasingly made clear, they’re not so willing to throw those principles out the window. That leaves the Senate poised to rebuke the president and, in the process, highlight divisions within the party. That’s a spectacle that Trump should avoid.
And there’s a way to do it.
Already, four Republican senators — enough for the bill to pass with a slim 51-49 majority — have joined Democrats in rejecting Trump’s national emergency. On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. joined Sens. Thom Tills R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, and Susan Collins R-Maine, all but ensuring that the bill will pass the Senate.
With Paul taking a decisive stand against the president, more senators are likely to come out against the national emergency declaration as well. That leaves Trump in need of an escape route from an embarrassing floor vote and the prospect of using his first veto to further the untoward and saga of getting money for his wall by circumventing Congress.
Luckily, there’s another option. In 2005, former President George W. Bush faced a somewhat similar situation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he had issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon, allowing government contractors to pay workers at lower wages because the devastation constituted “national emergency.” Lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate saw things differently. And so, facing criticism and the prospect that a vote on the joint resolution introduced against the proclamation might result in a rebuke, Bush revoked his own proclamation entirely, avoiding a fight within his own party.
Trump needs a similar solution to avoid conflict within his party. And for Trump, the consequences are coming from opposition within his own party upping the stakes. Although likely to stir significant anger among his base, Trump should, like Bush, recognize that danger of congressional rebuke and opt to avoid it by pulling his controversial declaration.
Indeed, GOP lawmakers have already floated this as a possibility. On Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn. implied that rethinking the declaration was the preferable solution, explaining, “There is time for the president’s lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the president has requested and avoid this dangerous precedent.”
Alexander is right. A fight among Republicans forcing a choice between the president and the Constitution does not end well for either Republican control of the Oval Office or the future of the party. If Trump wins, the party loses its credibility. If the Constitution wins, as it ought to, the White House faces a clear challenge from allies it desperately needs on the Hill as Democrats embark on ambition investigations.
That’s not a fight that Trump should be looking to pick within his own party, especially as Republicans have made clear that he does not have their backing. His best option is to revoke his own emergency declaration.
Moderate Democrats are fuming over New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s closed-door warning last week that Democrats who vote with Republicans are “putting themselves on a list” – a comment interpreted as a primary challenge threat.
Ocasio-Cortez has since downplayed her comments, made in the wake of 26 Democrats joining Republicans to vote for a provision requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be notified if illegal immigrants attempt to purchase guns.
“Being unified means ensuring that Democrats aren’t primary-ing other sitting Democrats,” Gottheimer told The Washington Post. “Since when is it okay to put you on a Nixonian list? We need to have a big tent in our party or we won’t keep the House or win the White House.”
The brouhaha began last week when two-dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party’s progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment having to do with illegal immigrants and guns.
In a closed-door meeting afterward, according to The Washington Post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded her wayward center-leaning colleagues, telling them: “We are either a team or we’re not.”
Ocasio-Cortez then told fellow Democrats that those who voted with Republicans were “putting themselves on a list.” Ocasio-Cortez later claimed she wasn’t talking about a list for primary challenges.
“I didn’t say that they were putting themselves on a list for primaries,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “I said that by Dems distinguishing themselves by breaking off on procedural…votes, they were inadvertently making a list of targets for the GOP and for progressive advocates on their pro-ICE vote.”
Reacting to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments, one party strategist who works for moderate Democrats argued Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t “respect” the views of other Democrats who don’t embrace her progressive politics.
“My main gripe about AOC is that while I respect her voice in the party, I don’t think she respects mine or anyone else’s who differs with her on policy or comes from a different political electoral reality,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster in Alabama.
There’s been speculation since she was elected to Congress that Ocasio-Cortez could get involved in Democratic primary fights in 2020, especially with the group Justice Democrats signaling plans to primary incumbent Democrats they see as insufficiently progressive. Ocasio-Cortez has been aligned with that group.
It’s a tactic that has been embraced by some conservative groups and politicians on the right, especially during the 2010 and 2012 elections, when incumbent lawmakers in the House and Senate were ousted in primaries by conservative challengers.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
Tapper, who interviewed Ocasio-Cortez in September on CNN’s “The Lead,” asked Ocasio-Cortez what she would have supported following the 9/11 attacks.
“Congresswoman, could you please explain more about what you think the US should have done post-9/11 regarding Afghanistan? Should there not have been any NATO/US action versus AQ/Taliban in your view? A limited one? What would you have supported?” he asked.
Congresswoman, could you please explain more about what you think the US should have done post-9/11 regarding Afghanistan? Should there not have been any NATO/US action versus AQ/Taliban in your view? A limited one? What would you have supported?
The news anchor was responding to a series of tweets from Ocasio-Cortez in which the lawmaker said she remembers a time when it was “unacceptable” to question war, specifying that she meant Afghanistan.
“I remember a time when it was ‘unacceptable’ to question the Iraq War,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote before correcting herself that she meant the war in Afghanistan that began in October 2001.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Tapper’s tweet later on Tuesday, saying that she thinks that the decision to “enter unlimited engagement in Afghanistan … was a mistake.”
“I think that our decision to enter unlimited engagement in Afghanistan, particularly through the AUMF + Congress’ abdication of power + decision-making w/ passage of the AUMF, was a mistake. Other options: targeting the network itself, limited engagement, non-intervention,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
I think that our decision to enter unlimited engagement in Afghanistan, particularly through the AUMF + Congress’ abdication of power + decision-making w/ passage of the AUMF, was a mistake.
Other options: targeting the network itself, limited engagement, non-intervention.
The AUMF was passed three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. It gives the president the authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”
It passed the Senate unanimously by a 98-0 and by a 420-1 vote in the House on Sept. 14, 2001. Lee was the only member of Congress to cast a dissenting vote.
The AUMF has since been used 37 times by Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump in 14 different countries combined.
The throngs of new families are also affecting communities on the American side of the border. In El Paso, for example, where most of the families are being processed after submitting their asylum applications, a volunteer network that temporarily houses the migrants after they are released from custody has had to expand to 20 facilities, compared with only three during the same period last year. Migrants are now being housed in churches, a converted nursing home and about 125 hotel rooms that are being paid for with donations.
“We had never seen these kinds of numbers,” said Ruben Garcia, the director of the organization, called Annunciation House. He said that during one week in February, immigration authorities had released more than 3,600 migrants to his organization, the highest number in any single week since the group’s founding in 1978.
For the most part, Mr. Garcia said that his staff and volunteer workers had been able to keep up with the surge, often making frantic calls to churches to request access to more space for housing families on short notice. But sometimes their best efforts were upended, he said, including on one day last week, when the authorities dropped off 150 more migrants than originally planned.
“We just didn’t have the space,” Mr. Garcia said.
Border Patrol officials said that the biggest “pull factors” encouraging migrant families to make their way to the United States were federal laws and court settlements that prohibit the authorities from deporting Central Americans without lengthy processing, and from detaining migrant families for more than 20 days, after which they must be released into the country while they await immigration court proceedings. Others at the agency pointed to severe poverty and food insecurity in the Western highlands of Guatemala, where many of the families are from, as a primary motivation.
As of March 3, 237,327 migrants had been apprehended along the southwest border since the fiscal year began in October, a 97 percent increase from the previous year, according to government figures.
The larger numbers and the surge into more remote areas of the border have drawn new attention to longstanding problems with medical services provided by Customs and Border Protection. Migrant families, in particular, tend to arrive in urgent need of medical attention, the agency said, which has strained resources and drawn agents away from their law enforcement duties.
Amid the many autopsies of of the failed summit in Hanoi, there’s been plenty of speculation about what’s next for U.S. efforts to pursue denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. Almost all of those reports focus exclusively on limiting nuclear arms. There’s good reason for that. Nuclear arms are by far the most dangerous threat Kim Jong Un’s regime poses. But looking at North Korea’s other capacities, specifically cyberattacks, yields important lessons for the future of U.S.-North Korea relations.
Since U.S. negotiations with North Korea began after the June 2018 Summit between President Trump and Kim in Singapore, North Korea has relentlessly kept up its cyberattacks against U.S. companies and those of our allies, even as it limited nuclear testing. Indeed, even as Trump met with Kim in Hanoi, North Korea continued to bombard U.S. firms with attacks.
So what can we learn from this?
First, North Korea may be interested in denuclearization and the economic benefits of sanctions relief because it has other weapons — including cyber and chemical weapons — that serve the regime’s interests, including raising funds, domestic propaganda, and limiting the influence of other states over its domestic affairs.
That reality also means any deal that Washington might eventually reach with Pyongyang is likely not going to eliminate all of North Korea’s capacity to launch attacks or threaten the U.S. and its allies. Although that forecloses the idea of a grand bargain of the sort that Trump and his advisers might be holding out for, it doesn’t mean the U.S. cannot make real progress on limiting North Korea’s capacity to launch a nuclear attack.
Second, the continued cyberattacks mean that for all of the good optics of handshakes and smiles, North Korea is still clearly an enemy. Washington must be careful not to promise close diplomatic ties as a reward in talks with Kim’s negotiators or in its presentation of talks to voters in the U.S.
Finally, the persistent use of cyberattacks, despite pursuit of a nuclear deal, means any deal on nuclear arms control must be seen as a stepping stone to future deals. That means Trump must not build a deal with Kim on personal agreements alone. The work he begins as president will necessarily extend well beyond his years in office.
Moving forward after a failed summit that hopefully served as a reset of expectations and a reality check, the Trump administration must not be blinded by an attempt to reach a deal on nuclear arms such that it overlooks the threats from North Korea’s other weapons, such as cyberwarfare or even conventional attacks. Unfortunately, it seems this is already the case, as Trump canceled planned military exercises with South Korea over the weekend.
A nuclear deal with North Korea would be great, and it ought to remain a priority for Trump, but it must be clear that it would be no panacea to U.S. difficulties with the country and should not be talked about as such. After all, a deal on denuclearization was never meant to bring wholesale change to North Korea. It was simply meant to eliminate the most serious threat posed by the country.
Raw video: The storms have left 23 dead, three of which were reported to be children.
Search and rescue teams in Alabama are using dogs and heat-detecting drones to search for victims of the deadly tornado that tore through the southeastern part of the state, as new drone video and photos show the scale of the devastation.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said Monday at least 23 people were killed and 90 were injured when the giant EF4 twister with 170 mph winds hit the rural community of Beauregard, and dozens are still missing.
The tornado impacted what the sheriff described as a rural area that had a lot of mobile homes and manufactured-type housing. The twister created a debris field that spread over hundreds of yards, according to Jones, with some debris being thrown a half-mile away.
Authorities were expected to give an update on search and rescue efforts at 11 a.m. ET, but said earlier that crews were “basically using everything we can get our hands on” to comb through what was left of homes.
Debris litters a yard the day after a deadly tornado damaged a home in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jones said dogs were being brought in from across the state, in addition to dogs equipped with “infrared capability to detect heat signatures.”
Debris from a home litters a yard the day after a tornado blew it off its foundation, lower right, in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Photos taken in the area on Monday show what was previously mobile homes tucked among tall pine trees now smashed into unrecognizable piles of rubble.
Friends in eastern Alabama are helping tornado survivors retrieve the scattered pieces of their lives after devastating winds destroyed their homes and killed at least 23 people. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
Toys, clothes, insulation, water heaters and pieces of metal were scattered across the hillsides where once towering pines were snapped in half.
Tornado damage near Beauregard, Ala., on Monday March 4, 2019. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
As residents began picking through the debris on Monday, some made gruesome discoveries.
Beauregard resident Carol Dean told the Associated Press that the body of her husband, 53-year-old David Wayne Dean, was discovered on the side of an embankment in the neighbor’s yard.
Carol Dean, right, cries while embraced by Megan Anderson and her 18-month-old daughter Madilyn, as Dean sifts through the debris of the home she shared with her husband, David Wayne Dean, who died when a tornado destroyed the house in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
“Our son found him. He was done and gone before we got to him,” an emotional Dean told the AP. “My life is gone. He was the reason I lived, the reason that I got up.”
Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said at an afternoon news conference that three children, ages 6, 9 and 10 were among the dead in Sunday’s tornado.
Debris from a home litters a yard the day after a tornado blew it off its foundation, at right, in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Harris said all but six of the people killed in the storm have been identified, and his office soon will begin contacting families about funeral homes and arrangements. He also warned that the overall death toll could still increase as searches continue.
Chris Darden, meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS’ Birmingham office said at a news conference it was the deadliest tornado in the United States since the twister that hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013. The storm had a track of at least 24 miles.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said the tornado ravaged a “tight-knit” community of people.
“We lost children, mothers, fathers, neighbors, and friends,” she said.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said she is not running for president in the 2020 election.
“I’m not running, but I’m going to keep working, and speaking, and standing up for what I believe,” Clinton said in an interview with News 12, last week in New York.
“I want to be sure that people understand: I’m going to keep speaking out,” Clinton said to News 12 reporter Tara Rosenblum. “I’m not going anywhere. What’s at stake in our country, the kinds of things that are happening right now are deeply troubling to me.”
REUTERS/Mike Blake
So far, five women who are Democratic lawmakers have decided to run or have shown interest in the presidency, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Kamala Harris of California, along with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.
Clinton scheduled meetings with presidential hopefuls, according to an Axios report earlier in January. She reportedly met with Harris, Warren, and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, in addition to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (who announced he was not running).
Clinton said she advised all of the candidates not to let their guard down during the campaign.
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“I’ve told every one of them, don’t take anything for granted, even though we have a long list of real problems and broken promises from this administration,” Clinton said in the interview.
Asked if she considered the possibility of running in another election, Clinton said “I don’t think so.”
“I’m so grateful that I had the chance to be a senator for eight years, and to work with people across our state,” Clinton said of her term in New York.
Despite winning the popular vote in the 2016 presidential race, Clinton — the first woman to receive a major political party’s nomination — lost to then-candidate Donald Trump. Her campaign dealt with scandals stemming from her use of a personal email server while secretary of state and the hacking of a campaign official and the DNC, in addition to attacks from Trump.
In October 2018, Philippe Reines, Clinton’s former senior adviser and deputy secretary of state for strategic communications, told Politico that Clinton shouldn’t be counted out of 2020 just because she lost in 2016. However, earlier this year, former 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta signaled she would not run.
Clinton, 71, served as a senator for New York, secretary of state, and first lady during President Bill Clinton’s two terms in office from 1993 to 2001.
BEIJING—“Made in China 2025,” a government-led industrial program at the center of the contentious U.S.-China trade dispute, is officially gone—but in name only.
During a nearly 100-minute speech to China’s legislature Tuesday, Premier Li Keqiang dropped any reference to the plan that the Trump administration has criticized as a subsidy-stuffed program to make China a global technology leader at the expense of the U.S. The policy had been a highlight of Mr. Li’s State-of-the-Nation-like address for three years running.
By declaring a national emergency to build his promised wall at the southern border, President Trump has pitted his presidency against the Constitution’s principles of separation of powers, legislative control of funds, and limited government among others. And, as congressional Republicans have increasingly made clear, they’re not so willing to throw those principles out the window. That leaves the Senate poised to rebuke the president and, in the process, highlight divisions within the party. That’s a spectacle that Trump should avoid.
And there’s a way to do it.
Already, four Republican senators — enough for the bill to pass with a slim 51-49 majority — have joined Democrats in rejecting Trump’s national emergency. On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. joined Sens. Thom Tills R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, and Susan Collins R-Maine, all but ensuring that the bill will pass the Senate.
With Paul taking a decisive stand against the president, more senators are likely to come out against the national emergency declaration as well. That leaves Trump in need of an escape route from an embarrassing floor vote and the prospect of using his first veto to further the untoward and saga of getting money for his wall by circumventing Congress.
Luckily, there’s another option. In 2005, former President George W. Bush faced a somewhat similar situation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he had issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon, allowing government contractors to pay workers at lower wages because the devastation constituted “national emergency.” Lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate saw things differently. And so, facing criticism and the prospect that a vote on the joint resolution introduced against the proclamation might result in a rebuke, Bush revoked his own proclamation entirely, avoiding a fight within his own party.
Trump needs a similar solution to avoid conflict within his party. And for Trump, the consequences are coming from opposition within his own party upping the stakes. Although likely to stir significant anger among his base, Trump should, like Bush, recognize that danger of congressional rebuke and opt to avoid it by pulling his controversial declaration.
Indeed, GOP lawmakers have already floated this as a possibility. On Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn. implied that rethinking the declaration was the preferable solution, explaining, “There is time for the president’s lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the president has requested and avoid this dangerous precedent.”
Alexander is right. A fight among Republicans forcing a choice between the president and the Constitution does not end well for either Republican control of the Oval Office or the future of the party. If Trump wins, the party loses its credibility. If the Constitution wins, as it ought to, the White House faces a clear challenge from allies it desperately needs on the Hill as Democrats embark on ambition investigations.
That’s not a fight that Trump should be looking to pick within his own party, especially as Republicans have made clear that he does not have their backing. His best option is to revoke his own emergency declaration.
By declaring a national emergency to build his promised wall at the southern border, President Trump has pitted his presidency against the Constitution’s principles of separation of powers, legislative control of funds, and limited government among others. And, as congressional Republicans have increasingly made clear, they’re not so willing to throw those principles out the window. That leaves the Senate poised to rebuke the president and, in the process, highlight divisions within the party. That’s a spectacle that Trump should avoid.
And there’s a way to do it.
Already, four Republican senators — enough for the bill to pass with a slim 51-49 majority — have joined Democrats in rejecting Trump’s national emergency. On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. joined Sens. Thom Tills R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, and Susan Collins R-Maine, all but ensuring that the bill will pass the Senate.
With Paul taking a decisive stand against the president, more senators are likely to come out against the national emergency declaration as well. That leaves Trump in need of an escape route from an embarrassing floor vote and the prospect of using his first veto to further the untoward and saga of getting money for his wall by circumventing Congress.
Luckily, there’s another option. In 2005, former President George W. Bush faced a somewhat similar situation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he had issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon, allowing government contractors to pay workers at lower wages because the devastation constituted “national emergency.” Lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate saw things differently. And so, facing criticism and the prospect that a vote on the joint resolution introduced against the proclamation might result in a rebuke, Bush revoked his own proclamation entirely, avoiding a fight within his own party.
Trump needs a similar solution to avoid conflict within his party. And for Trump, the consequences are coming from opposition within his own party upping the stakes. Although likely to stir significant anger among his base, Trump should, like Bush, recognize that danger of congressional rebuke and opt to avoid it by pulling his controversial declaration.
Indeed, GOP lawmakers have already floated this as a possibility. On Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn. implied that rethinking the declaration was the preferable solution, explaining, “There is time for the president’s lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the president has requested and avoid this dangerous precedent.”
Alexander is right. A fight among Republicans forcing a choice between the president and the Constitution does not end well for either Republican control of the Oval Office or the future of the party. If Trump wins, the party loses its credibility. If the Constitution wins, as it ought to, the White House faces a clear challenge from allies it desperately needs on the Hill as Democrats embark on ambition investigations.
That’s not a fight that Trump should be looking to pick within his own party, especially as Republicans have made clear that he does not have their backing. His best option is to revoke his own emergency declaration.
Cyclone leaves a path of destruction a half a mile wide and a mile long; Jonathan Serrie reports from the scene.
Rescuers are scouring through what remains of destroyed homes as part of an intense ground search in southeast Alabama on Monday after a deadly tornado tore through the region, killing least 23 and leaving a number in the “double digits” of people who are missing.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said at a morning news conference that most of the destruction was focused in an area along Alabama Highway 51 in Beauregard that is about a half-mile wide.
“It looks almost as like someone took a giant knife and just scraped the ground. There are slabs where homes formerly stood,” he told reporters. “Whole forested areas, trees are just snapped and lying on the ground.”
Jones said the death toll remained at 23 people as of 2 p.m. but may rise as the day goes on. Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said at an afternoon news conference that three children, ages 6, 9, and 10 were among the dead in Sunday’s tornado.
People walk amid debris in Lee County, Ala., after a tornado struck in the area Sunday, March 3, 2019. (WKRG-TV via AP)
“I have not seen this level of destruction ever in my experience here in Lee County,” the sheriff said. “We have not had anything of this nature before.”
A vehicle is caught under downed trees along Lee Road 11 in Beauregard, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2019, after a powerful storm system passed through the area. (Kara Coleman Fields/Opelika-Auburn News via AP)
The tornado impacted what the sheriff described as a rural area that had a lot of mobile homes and manufactured-type housing. The twister created a debris field that spread over hundreds of yards, according to Jones, with some debris being thrown a half-mile away.
“In some locations, complete residences are gone,” he said.
A group of “well over” 100 rescuers were out Monday morning searching through the storm’s path, and Jones expected nearly 200 people will fully be involved as the day goes on. Also assisting are canine teams that are coming from all over Alabama.
“We’re just going to focus with all our teams on the ground, specific assigned sectors that these teams are going to,” Jones told “America’s Newsroom.” “A lot of volunteers have come forward. We have the assets in place. It’s all about being able to cover the affected area.”
An untold number of people were also transported to area hospitals with “very serious injuries,” according to Jones, who did not have an exact number but told reporters they were being treated for a “range of injuries.”
The National Weather Service said that preliminary damage shows a tornado with at least an EF-4 rating caused the destruction in Alabama with winds estimated at 170 mph.
Chris Darden, meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS’ Birmingham office said at a news conference it was the deadliest tornado in the United States since the twister that hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013. The storm had a track of at least 24 miles.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said the tornado ravaged a “tight-knit” community of people.
“We lost children, mothers, fathers, neighbors, and friends,” she said.
Scott Fillmer told the Associated Press was at home in the rural community of Beauregard when the storm hit in Lee County.
“I looked out the window and it was nothing but black, but you could hear that freight train noise,” Fillmer said.
Another woman told Fox News how she escaped injured.
“So I grabbed my dog and went and got in the closet and I’m sitting there holding the door just in case because it didn’t close all the way. And a few minutes later, that’s when I could hear all the wind and the house moving,” she said.
Emergency responders work in the scene amid debris in Lee County, Ala., after a tornado struck in the area Sunday, March 3, 2019. (WKRG-TV via AP)
Describing rescue efforts Sunday night, a local mayor told Fox News: “We had to cut our way in with chainsaws and tractors to get to these people and make sure everyone was okay. We had some elderly people that were trapped in their houses.
“Words cannot describe it. Trailer homes turned upside down, the damage is unbelievable,” he added.
In a tweet late Sunday, President Trump said: “To the great people of Alabama and surrounding areas: Please be careful and safe. Tornadoes and storms were truly violent and more could be coming. To the families and friends of the victims, and to the injured, God bless you all!”
The president said Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been told to give the “A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama” in the wake of the deadly storms.
No deaths had been reported Sunday evening from storm-damaged Alabama counties other than Lee County, said Gregory Robinson, spokesman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. But he said crews were still surveying damage in several counties in the southwestern part of the state.
Numerous tornado warnings were posted across parts of Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina on Sunday afternoon as the storm system raced across the region. Weather officials said they confirmed other tornadoes around the region by radar alone and would send teams out Monday to assess those and other storms.
Fox News’ Frank Miles and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By declaring a national emergency to build his promised wall at the southern border, President Trump has pitted his presidency against the Constitution’s principles of separation of powers, legislative control of funds, and limited government among others. And, as congressional Republicans have increasingly made clear, they’re not so willing to throw those principles out the window. That leaves the Senate poised to rebuke the president and, in the process, highlight divisions within the party. That’s a spectacle that Trump should avoid.
And there’s a way to do it.
Already, four Republican senators — enough for the bill to pass with a slim 51-49 majority — have joined Democrats in rejecting Trump’s national emergency. On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. joined Sens. Thom Tills R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, and Susan Collins R-Maine, all but ensuring that the bill will pass the Senate.
With Paul taking a decisive stand against the president, more senators are likely to come out against the national emergency declaration as well. That leaves Trump in need of an escape route from an embarrassing floor vote and the prospect of using his first veto to further the untoward and saga of getting money for his wall by circumventing Congress.
Luckily, there’s another option. In 2005, former President George W. Bush faced a somewhat similar situation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he had issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon, allowing government contractors to pay workers at lower wages because the devastation constituted “national emergency.” Lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate saw things differently. And so, facing criticism and the prospect that a vote on the joint resolution introduced against the proclamation might result in a rebuke, Bush revoked his own proclamation entirely, avoiding a fight within his own party.
Trump needs a similar solution to avoid conflict within his party. And for Trump, the consequences are coming from opposition within his own party upping the stakes. Although likely to stir significant anger among his base, Trump should, like Bush, recognize that danger of congressional rebuke and opt to avoid it by pulling his controversial declaration.
Indeed, GOP lawmakers have already floated this as a possibility. On Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn. implied that rethinking the declaration was the preferable solution, explaining, “There is time for the president’s lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the president has requested and avoid this dangerous precedent.”
Alexander is right. A fight among Republicans forcing a choice between the president and the Constitution does not end well for either Republican control of the Oval Office or the future of the party. If Trump wins, the party loses its credibility. If the Constitution wins, as it ought to, the White House faces a clear challenge from allies it desperately needs on the Hill as Democrats embark on ambition investigations.
That’s not a fight that Trump should be looking to pick within his own party, especially as Republicans have made clear that he does not have their backing. His best option is to revoke his own emergency declaration.
“It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice,” Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler told ABC Sunday. “It’s very clear — 1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a witch hunt, he tried to — he fired — he tried to protect Flynn from being investigated by the FBI. He fired Comey in order to stop the Russian thing, as he told NBC News. He — he’s dangled part — he’s threat — he’s intimidated witnesses. In public.”
Think what you will about the reasons — calling an investigation a “witch hunt” is obstruction of justice? — but Nadler sounded less like a man weighing the evidence than a man who has has made up his mind. Given that, Nadler’s ABC interview led to a question: President Nixon was threatened with impeachment for obstruction of justice. President Clinton was impeached for obstruction of justice. Why is Nadler, who heads the committee in the House that originates articles of impeachment, not moving forward with impeaching President Trump right now?
“We don’t have the facts yet,” Nadler said — a perplexing admission for a man who had just confidently enumerated the president’s crimes. “Impeachment is a long way down the road.”
As National Review’s Rich Lowry pointed out a short time later, no one should believe Nadler’s caution. “Don’t be fooled,” Lowry tweeted. “Being a ‘long way’ from impeachment is their first step to impeaching [Trump].”
Indeed, in that revealing ABC interview, Nadler went on to explain why Democrats have not yet moved to impeach the president. Essentially, Nadler explained, the party doesn’t yet have its ducks in a row. There is preparatory work, such as evidence gathering and a creating a communications strategy, to be done before going forward.
“We have to — we have to do the investigations and get all this,” Nadler said. “We do not now have the evidence all sorted out and everything to do — to do an impeachment. Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the — of the opposition party voters, Trump voters, that you’re not just trying to … that you’re not just trying to steal the last — to reverse the results of the last election.”
Nadler’s talk with ABC was the clearest indication yet that Democrats have decided to impeach Trump and are now simply doing the legwork involved in making that happen. And that means the debate among House Democrats will be a tactical one — what is the best time and way to go forward — rather than a more fundamental discussion of whether the president should be impeached.
On Monday morning Nadler released a list of 81 names of Trump associates from whom the Judiciary Committee is requesting documents in what Nadler called “the first steps of an investigation into the alleged corruption, obstruction, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates and members of his administration.”
Other House Democrats are sending similar messages. “There is abundant evidence of collusion,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on CBS Sunday. Schiff has launched a new Trump-Russia investigation to re-cover the territory covered in the probes done by his own committee, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and by Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I have said that I think we should await the evidence from Bob Mueller as well as our own work,” Schiff said. That could mean almost anything; Schiff’s committee can, and most certainly will, investigate Trump for the rest of the president’s term. What Schiff did not say is at what point House Democrats will decide to pull the trigger.
There will be other House leaders involved, too. A few days ago, NBC reported that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., has told his staff to prepare a request to the Internal Revenue Service for the president’s tax returns. It will in fact be a demand, “We will take all necessary steps, including litigation, if necessary to obtain them,” a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told NBC. The administration will likely resist the unprecedented House “request” and the process could take time, but Democrats believe, as Pelosi’s spokesman said, that “all roads lead[] back to President Trump’s finances.”
So now the Democratic plan is coming into sharper relief. The impeachment decision has been made. Various committee chairs are moving forward in gathering and organizing the formal justification for removing the president. The timing decision is still up in the air, as is an overarching communications plan — selling impeachment to the American public, or more specifically those Americans who don’t already support impeachment.
The sales campaign will most certainly be high minded. “It’s our job to protect the rule of law,” Nadler said Sunday, echoing the Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton in the 1990s. But whatever the stated rationale, impeachment is on.
The search resumed Monday for victims of a vicious tornado outbreak that ripped across the South on Sunday killing at least 23 people in Alabama.
“I’m still thanking God I’m among the living,” said John Jones, who has lived most of his life in Beauregard, the southern Alabama community that was devastated by a tornado.
The violent storms left debris strewn across southern Alabama and Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and into parts of South Carolina. More than 10,000 homes and businesses still had no electricity as of 8 a.m. Monday, according to poweroutage.us. That had dropped to less than 3,000 by 11:30 a.m.
“Much colder air is pushing into the South from the Midwest, and that will make conditions even worse for those without power into midweek,” weather.com meteorologist Christopher Dolce said. Parts of Alabama and Georgia will see low temperatures in the 20s and low 30s each morning Tuesday through Thursday.”
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office told local media that no fewer than 23 people were killed and more than 50 people were hurt when a tornado roared through Beauregard, a community of about 10,000 people some 60 miles east of Montgomery, shortly after 2 p.m. CST.
Sheriff Jay Jones said at a news conference Monday morning that the number of missing people was in double digits. He added, however, that some of those may be people who left the area and haven’t contacted family members.
“It’s extremely upsetting to me to see these people hurting like this and the families who have lost loved ones,” Jones said. “This is a very tight-knit community. These people are tough. They’re resilient people, and it’s knocked them down. But they’ll be back.”
“It hurts my heart to see this,” he said.
Jones said the devastation is shocking.
“It looks almost as if someone took a giant knife and just scraped the ground,” he said. “There are slabs where homes formerly stood, debris everywhere, trees snapped, whole forested areas where trees are snapped and lying on the ground.”
Kathy Carson, Lee County’s EMA director said, “This is the worst natural disaster that has ever occurred in Lee County.”
The East Alabama Medical Center in nearby Opelika, where many of the injured were taken, canceled elective surgeries so it could focus on the injured people, Dave Malkoff of The Weather Channel reported.
The National Weather Service said Monday that two tornadoes hit southern Lee County. The damage from one of them indicated it was an EF4 tornado with winds of 170 mph.
Sunday was the deadliest day for tornadoes in the United States since May 20, 2013.
A makeshift morgue was set up in a parking lot and medical examiners from other locations were coming to assist in identifying the victims.
Lee County coroner Bill Harris said three children are among the dead: a 6-year-old, a 9-year-old who died at the hospital and a 10-year-old, the New York Times reported.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said she would extend the current state of emergency to provide state resources for areas damaged by the storms.
“Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives in the storms that hit Lee County today,” Ivey said in a tweet. “Praying for their families & everyone whose homes or businesses were affected.”
President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday, “FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes.” He added that Gov. Ivey is working closely with FEMA.
About 3:20 p.m. CST, the NWS issued a tornado emergency after a large and destructive tornado was confirmed near Smiths Station, also in Lee County.
Smiths Station Mayor Bubba Copeland told The Weather Channel that at least 12 houses were flattened.
“We have a lot of mobile homes turned upside down,” Copeland said.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Smiths Station.
Copeland said Lee County schools are canceled Monday because “several huge holes are on top of the (elementary) school.” Schools will also be closed again on Tuesday.
The storm also destroyed the Buck Wild Saloon, damaged a gas station and toppled a cell phone tower across U.S. 280.
Jonathan Clardy told the Associated Press he and his family hunkered down in their Beauregard trailer as the tornado ripped the roof off.
“All we could do is just hold on for life and pray. It’s a blessing from God that me and my young’uns are alive.”
Julie Morrison and her husband sought shelter in their bathtub as the storm lifted the house and tossed into nearby woods, AP reported.
“We knew we were flying because it picked the house up,” Morrison said. She credited their survival on the shower’s fiberglass enclosure and added that her son-in-law later dug them out.
The Lee County storm warnings were two of several tornado warnings issued for Alabama and Georgia on Sunday afternoon.
Reports said multiple homes were damaged in Dupree, Alabama, south of Dothan. Other reports said the airport and a fire station were damaged in Eufaula, Alabama.
Georgia
Some 30 miles north of Tallahassee, the town of Cairo and its 9,500 residents suffered a direct hit from a tornado. Shortly after, authorities reported widespread damage in the town, but no injuries or deaths were reported.
Speaking with Cairo Mayor Booker Gainor, Tallahassee Democrat reporter Jeffrey Burlew tweeted that dozens of structures were damaged or destroyed and some residents were trapped in their homes after the storm struck the town Sunday night.
“It’s pretty bad,” Gainor told the Democrat. “We have a lot of trees down, debris and power lines. We have trees completely through houses. You would think a hurricane came after this, the way it looks.”
The National Weather Service on Monday confirmed that a tornado struck the town. A 102-mph wind gust was recorded on the tornado’s path, the NWS said.
Grady County EMA Director Richard Phillips told WCTV it appeared 500 to 1000 homes and businesses were affected by the tornado.
Several towns in Georgia reported damage earlier Sunday from several tornadoes that were confirmed on radar by the NWS.
In the town of Talbotton, located some 35 miles northeast of Columbus, several people were injured when a damaging storm rolled through the area, Talbot County Emergency Management Agency director Leigh Ann Erenheim told the Associated Press.
“The last check I had was between six and eight injuries,” Erenheim said in a phone interview with the AP. “From what I understand it was minor injuries, though one fellow did say his leg might be broken.”
The NWS said the Talbotton tornado has been given a preliminary rating of high-end EF2.
Social media was also sharing reports of damage in Perry, Georgia.
Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese said trees were down and some houses were damaged, the Macon Telegraph reported.
While following the storm, Peach County Sheriff’s Sgt. Shane Brooks told the Macon Telegraph he was nearly hit directly by the tornado as he drove down Duke Road in Byron.
“It was moving so fast I didn’t have time do anything but just sit there and hold on,” he told the Telegraph. “It was not something I would want to experience again.”
Crawford County Fire Chief Randall Pate said a tornado destroyed four homes. Pate also reported one injury: a woman whose ankle was broken when her home was damaged.
Following the storms, Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency for Talbot, Grady and Harris counties.
Florida
The NWS confirmed that an EF2 tornado struck the area of Baum in Leon County on Sunday.
The Leon County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that at least 10 homes in the community have substantial damage, and five of those were completely destroyed. At least two people were taken to a hospital.
The NWS also confirmed an EF1 tornado touched down in the Jackson County town of Alford, about 70 miles northwest of Tallahassee.
Jackson County Emergency Management Director Rodney Andreasen told WCTV the tornado damaged three homes, including ripping the side off one of the houses.
The storm also caused a tree to crash into a home in Gadsden County where a family of four was. Two rooms were destroyed but no one was injured, WCTV reported.
A radar-confirmed tornado spread debris across Interstate 10 in Walton County, the AP reported. The eastbound lanes of the interstate had to be closed for cleanup.
South Carolina
Storms caused numerous reports of damage in and around Columbia Sunday night. The NWS said Monday that damage surveys indicated three tornadoes struck the Midlands area of the state.
The storm caused damage to a church in Lexington, South Carolina, and ripped a roof off a home and blew recreational vehicles onto their sides near Lexington. The damage was consistent with a tornado, the NWS said.
The front of the Red Bank Baptist Church in Lexington was damaged by the storm.
Around 150 adults and children were at the church for Sunday night services when the storm hit, the State reports. Children sang “Jesus Loves Me” as they huddled with adults in a long hallway.
The Columbia Police Department tweeted a photo of a tree that had fallen on a house north of downtown. Trees also fell on cars downtown, the State reported.
The NWS confirmed that an EF1 tornado struck north of downtown. It also said
In Edgefield County, seven people were injured when the storm hit a gas station in Merriwether, north of Augusta, Georgia, WRDW reported. The NWS said the damage here was also consistent with a tornado.
Trees were knocked down in North Augusta, South Carolina, and Aiken, South Carolina.
The White House told Senate Republicans on Monday to “keep their powder dry” ahead of a vote to nullify President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the administration worked to limit defections on a measure rebuking the president.
The message was delivered by Zach Parkinson, White House deputy director of government communications, in a meeting Monday morning with Senate Republican communications staffers, according to two people who attended the meeting.
It came as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) predicted that the resolution to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration would pass in the Republican-led Senate — but ultimately not survive a veto. Over the weekend, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) became the fourth Republican to announce he would vote for the disapproval resolution, ensuring its passage with unified Democratic support.
But the White House is eager to contain further defections from members of Trump’s own party on his signature issue of building a wall along the southern border. The emergency declaration is aimed at getting additional money for border barriers after Congress refused to grant Trump’s funding request.
At Monday’s meeting, Parkinson cautioned GOP Senate communications aides against public criticism from their bosses over the emergency declaration, saying that if senators are planning to vote to overturn it they should contact the White House to get further information on Trump’s rationale, according to the two people who attended the meeting.
And if GOP senators don’t have anything good to say, Parkinson said, they should “keep their powder dry,” according to the two people, who requested anonymity to detail the private discussion.
White House spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the account or offer a comment.
At an event in Kentucky on Monday, McConnell told reporters: “I think what is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then, in all likelihood, the veto will be upheld in the House.”
The Senate vote is expected next week. The House previously passed the measure to block Trump’s declaration, but Democrats in the chamber fell well short of securing the two-thirds vote that would be necessary to overturn a threatened veto from Trump.
While Trump appears to have the votes to withstand a veto in the Republican-led Senate as well, passage of the measure would still serve as rebuke of the president’s policy — and large-scale defections by GOP senators could prove embarrassing for Trump.
In addition to the four Republican senators who have announced support for the disapproval resolution, numerous others have expressed serious reservations about Trump’s move, pointing to concerns about constitutional separation of powers, and the potential for future Democratic senators to declare national emergencies on other issues.
Paul joined GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) in opposing Trump’s move. Paul announced his opposition to the emergency declaration at an event in Kentucky over the weekend, and elaborated in an opinion piece for Fox News Channel, writing: “I would literally lose my political soul if I decided to treat President Trump different than President Obama.”
“Every single Republican I know decried President Obama’s use of executive power to legislate. We were right then. But the only way to be an honest officeholder is to stand up for the same principles no matter who is in power,” Paul wrote.
Fifty-three senators caucus with Republicans and 47 with Democrats, meaning that four Republican defections are enough to ensure passage.
McConnell told reporters that he had hoped Trump “wouldn’t take that particular path” of declaring a national emergency.
McConnell said he agreed with Republicans who have argued that the declaration could set a precedent for future Democratic presidents to declare emergencies on issues on which they cannot have their way in Congress.
“That’s one reason I argued, obviously without success, to the president that he not take this route,” McConnell said.
The president’s national emergency declaration, issued Feb. 15 after Congress failed to produce the border-wall money he wants, allows him to access $3.6 billion in funds allocated for military construction projects.
That money would be tapped after the administration exhausts funding from other sources, including $1.375 billion provided by Congress; $2.5 billion from a Pentagon counter-drug account that the administration can access without an emergency declaration; and $601 million from a forfeiture fund in the Treasury Department.
Trump himself has warned about negative political consequences for senators who go against him, telling Sean Hannity of Fox News last week: “I really think that Republicans that vote against border security and the wall, I think you know, I’ve been okay at predicting things, I think they put themselves at great jeopardy.”
President Trump on Monday announced that he had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide “A Plus treatment” to the state of Alabama and its governor after tornadoes ripped across the state, killing at least 23 people.
“FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes,” Trump tweeted. “@GovernorKayIvey, one of the best in our Country, has been so informed. She is working closely with FEMA (and me!).”
According to the National Weather Service, a tornado with at least an F3 rating (carrying winds of at least 158 mph) and a track at least half a mile wide caused catastrophic damage in Beauregard, Ala., on Sunday. Officials in Lee County warned that the death toll could rise.
“To the great people of Alabama and surrounding areas: Please be careful and safe,” the president tweeted late Sunday. “To the families and friends of the victims, and to the injured, God bless you all!”
Trump has come under fire for his response to past natural disasters, including last year’s wildfires in California and, most notably, Hurricane Maria, which left thousands of people dead in Puerto Rico.
The federal response to the storm — in contrast to the better-coordinated relief effort in Texas following Hurricane Harvey — received widespread criticism in the press and from Puerto Rican officials.
Trump denied responsibility for the slow response, blaming Puerto Rico’s inadequate electrical distribution system and the difficulty of bringing in relief supplies by ship.
Weeks after the hurricane hit, Trump said the administration’s response deserved a grade of 10 out of 10, even as most of the U.S. territory remained without power.
“I think we did a fantastic job,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in October 2017. “We have done a really great job.”
Yet Trump also reportedly tried to deny Puerto Rico federal relief money. According to the Washington Post, the president told then-White House chief of staff John Kelly and and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney that “he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico, because he thought the island was misusing the money.”
Trump has also disputed the death toll from Hurricane Maria, which was revised upward from less than two dozen in the immediate aftermath to several thousand, blaming Democrats, without evidence, for inflating the figure.
Last May, a Harvard study estimated the death toll from Maria to be 4,645. In August, the official death toll from Puerto Rico officials, calculated by researchers with the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, was put at 2,975. Either number would make Maria the deadliest natural disaster in the United States in over a century.
“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico,” Trump tweeted in September. “When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”
NAIROBI, Kenya — Four Americans and their pilot were killed when a helicopter crashed on a remote island in northwest Kenya, police said on Monday.
The aircraft came down in Central Island National Park at around 8 p.m. on Sunday, police said.
Central Island National Park is located in Lake Turkana.Bing Maps
The cause of the crash had yet to be determined.
The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi identified three of the American victims as Anders Asher Jesiah Burke, Brandon Howe Stapper and Kyle John Forti, but released no other details.
A coalition of 20 states and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) separately announced lawsuits Monday seeking to block changes to the Title X family planning program that would shift tens of millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood toward faith-based pregnancy clinics.
The lawsuits seek a court injunction to stop the rule from taking effect in 60 days. The filings are the first of what is expected to be a flurry of challenges to the new rule that would affect more than 4 million low-income women who receive services including cancer screenings and pregnancy tests through the Department of Health and Human Services program.
The California suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday. The multistate lawsuit, brought mostly by Democratic-controlled states, is expected to be filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore.
“Everyone deserves the ability make their own decisions about their health care,” Kate Brown, governor of Oregon, which is leading the 21-state effort, said in a statement. “It is appalling that the federal government wants to rob individuals of the right to complete medical information and full access to the critical health care services they rely on.”
The rule imposes what administration officials have referred to as a “bright line” of physical and financial separation between the provision of family planning and abortion services, effectively requiring Planned Parenthood to drastically alter its operations, or else cease to receive an estimated $60 million in annual funding.
Opponents have called it a “gag” rule that compromises medical ethics and endangers the lives of patients because it explicitly bars doctors, nurses or other care personnel from referring a woman for an abortion.
In a statement, Becerra said the rule would deny “patients access to critical health care services and prevents doctors from providing comprehensive and accurate information about medical care.”
The 21 states are just some of the parties — including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights — that have vowed to sue over the rule, which was published Monday in the Federal Register.
Supporters of the rule, which include numerous religious and antiabortion organizations, have pointed to how the Supreme Court upheld similar regulations in 1991′s Rust v. Sullivan in a 5-to 4 decision. But those regulations, introduced under President Ronald Reagan and tied up in legal challenges, were in effect only several weeks before the arrival of the Bill Clinton administration, which promptly eliminated them.
One of the main legal arguments in both lawsuits is a provision of the Affordable Care Act, which wasn’t in place 28 years ago, that forbids regulations that create “unreasonable barriers to the ability of individuals to obtain appropriate medical care.”
The multistate lawsuit also described the requirement of physical and financial separation as onerous. In a news statement, Oregon officials explained, for example, that “it would require health clinics to open another location, or create a separate entrance for patients, have separate examination rooms, hire separate personnel to work at separate workstations, maintain a separate phone number and website, and have separate electronic medical systems in order to continue to accept Title X funds.”
That lawsuit also takes issue with the rule’s mandate that every pregnant patient get a referral for prenatal care “regardless of the needs or the wishes of the patient.”
In addition to Oregon, the states participating in the lawsuit are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia is also a party to the lawsuit.
Becerra said that California is home to the largest Title X provider network in the nation, serving about 1 million women, and contends that the rule places its clinics “in an untenable situation.”
The nation’s Democratic attorneys general have repeatedly challenged initiatives of the Trump administration, weighing in on everything from the president’s immigration policy to efforts to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border through an emergency declaration.
At least 23 people are known dead and more are injured after a tornado struck southeastern Alabama on Sunday. Crews are still searching for more dead and wounded. (March 4) AP
First responders in Lee County, Alabama, were picking through the rubble Monday of a devastating tornado that killed at least 23 people and injured dozens more.
The tornado smashed homes and toppled power lines and a massive steel cell tower. The twister was part of a brutal system packing strong winds that also roared through parts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
“The devastation is incredible,” Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said. Jones said several people were missing, but that it was not clear whether they actually had fled the area without telling all of their concerned friends and family members.
The National Weather Service in Birmingham said the initial tornado to hit Lee County was “at least” an EF-3, considered a “severe” tornado with winds 158 to 206 mph. The storm cut a path at least a half-mile wide, the weather service said. The information was pending further investigation in coming days, the weather service added.
Are people injured or missing?
The numbers were not firm, but East Alabama Medical Center said it had received more than 40 patients as a result of the tornado. Some patients have also been sent to surrounding hospitals, the medical center said. Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said two people were in critical condition. Harris also said he knew of at least six people who were not accounted for, but that he had heard that the number could be as high as 20.
A warning had been issued for the deadly tornado in Lee County about 20 minutes before it hit, said Bryan Wood, a meteorologist at Assurant. And for tornadoes in general in that area, the Storm Prediction Center had given a head’s-up about 90 minutes prior to touchdown.
How severe is the property damage?
Rita Smith, spokeswoman for the Lee County Emergency Management Agency, said numerous homes were destroyed or damaged in Beauregard, about 60 miles east of Montgomery. A massive cell tower collapsed. Smith said about 150 first responders are aiding the rescue effort and assessing damage.
Was this the deadliest tornado in years?
It was the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in six years, since May 20, 2013, when a tornado killed 24 people in Oklahoma, the Storm Prediction Center said.
Were there other tornadoes Sunday?
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee confirmed the system spawned tornadoes in Cairo, Georgia, and Leon County, Florida. Cairo Mayor Booker Gainor said the tornado struck just off the downtown area, damaging dozens of homes and businesses. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but Gainor said several residents had been trapped in their damaged homes. In Florida, the Leon County Sheriff’s Office said at least 10 homes were damaged.
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