Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, Brazil earlier this week.
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
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Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, Brazil earlier this week.
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on world leaders to place the massive fires destroying Brazil’s Amazon rainforest at the top of their agenda as they gather in France’s southwest for the G7 Summit.
“Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire,” Macron wrote in a tweet Thursday. “It is an international crisis. Members of the G7 Summit, let’s discuss this emergency first order in two days!”
France is hosting the summit in the city of Biarritz, on the Atlantic coast, which begins on Saturday. President Trump and leaders from Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom will also attend.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres echoed Macron, saying in a tweet that “we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected.”
I’m deeply concerned by the fires in the Amazon rainforest. In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity.
An estimated 2,500 active fires in the Amazon have caused international concern, prompting a backlash against Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has described measures to protect the rainforest as “obstacles” to economic growth. Bolsonaro, who took office in January, has said repeatedly that he wants to open the Amazon to development.
Many of the fires are believed to have been set by farmers clearing land. Environmentalists claim Bolsonaro’s attitude about the Amazon has encouraged them, as well as cattle ranchers, loggers and miners.
Bolsonaro has said without evidence that there is a “very strong” indication that some non-governmental organizations were setting the fires in retaliation for losing funding from his administration.
Besides France, both Germany and Norway have also weighed in on the fires, criticizing Bolsonaro’s lack of action and saying they would withhold $60 million in funds for sustainability projects in Brazil’s forests.
Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, on Thursday accused European countries of exaggerating environmental problems in an effort to stifle rainforest development.
“There is deforestation in Brazil, yes, but not at the rate and level that they say,” he said, according to the Brazilian news website globo.com.
In a tweet later on Thursday, Bolsonaro responded to Macron: “I regret that Macron seeks to make personal political gains in an internal matter for Brazil and other Amazonian countries. The sensationalist tone he used does nothing to solve the problem.”
Bolsonaro has also accused the media of hyping the fires to undermine him. “Most of the media wants Brazil to end up like Venezuela,” he said.
In an announcement this week by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, the agency said there have been 74,155 fires in the country so far this year – about half in the last month and most of them in the Amazon. That represents an 84% increase from the previous year.
Federal prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Para – one of the worst hit areas – have announced an investigation into why there has been such a huge rise in wild fires this year.
Neighboring Bolivia has also struggled to contain the fires.
CIUDAD DE MÉXICO, 19 de mayo.- El pastor Daniel Gloria pidió por oportunidades laborales, salud, felicidad… Sí, lo hizo, pero para que llegaran esos mensajes a través de WhatsApp.
Gloria realizó una oración en la que pidió a los fieles colocar sus celulares en una mesa central.
Ahora es tiempo de oración por los teléfonos, para que sólo reciban noticias de victoria, noticias dulces y agradables”, les dijo a los reunidos en el culto.
Tras la oración, afirmó, que los celulares que estaban sobre la mesa serían portadores de buenas noticias.
Reprendo toda mala noticia y mensajes contrarios”.
Wilbur Scoville ganhou um Doodle do Google com direito a um jogo que simula o ‘teste da escala quente’ de pimentas. Hoje, o Google celebra o nascimento do químico há 151 anos (1865-1942). Scoville, além de receber a homenagem desta sexta-feira (22), é conhecido por ter inventado um método de avaliação do nível de ardência de vários tipos de pimenta, a famosa Escala de Scoville, disponível abaixo em app.
O Doodle foi produzido pela artista e doodler do Google Olivia Huynh. Para a designer, a melhor parte do trabalho foi desenhar as pimentas e as reações de Scoville. “O conceito de picante é universal, cômico, e foi o que tentei usar para criar esse jogo de luta”, explica Huynh, em post do Google.
“Fiz storyboards de como poderia ser, rascunhos e testamos um protótipo. Depois vieram os cenários e animações. Desenhar as pimentas e as reações de Scoville foram minhas partes favoritas”, conta.
Doodle também é informativo, detalhando tipos de pimentas (Foto: Reprodução/Google)
Escala de Scoville
Wilbur Lincoln Scoville nasceu em Bridgeport, nos Estados Unidos, em 22 de janeiro de 1865 e morreu em 10 de março de 1942. O trabalho do americano como farmacêutico é reconhecido mundialmente: criou o Teste Organoléptico de Scoville, que gerou a já conhecida Escala de Scoville.
Com este método, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville definiu o grau de pungência de vários tipos de pimenta, através da detecção da concentração de capsaicina, substância responsável pela ardência da pimenta.
O teste é um Procedimento de Diluição e Prova. Scoville misturava as pimentas puras com uma solução de água com açúcar, e quanto mais solução fosse necessária para diluir a pimenta, mais alta seria sua picância. Depois disso, o método foi melhorado e foram criadas as unidades de calor Scoville (Scoville Heat Units, ou SHU).
Doodle Wilbur Scoville (Foto: Reprodução/Google)
Uma xícara de pimenta que equivale a 1.000 xícaras de água é uma unidade na escala de Scoville. A substância Capsaicina, que gera a ardência nas pimentas, equivale a 15 milhões de unidades Scoville.
A pimenta mexicana Habanero chega a 300 mil, uma “Red Savina Habanero”, modificada, tem 577 mil, e a Tezpur indiana, 877 mil.
Entretanto, este não foi o único trabalho de Scoville. “The Art of Compounding” (A Arte dos Compostos), de 1895, é um de seus livros, que foi usado como referência na farmacologia até os anos 60.
Scoville também publicou um livro com centenas de fórmulas de perfumes e outras essências, que foi chamado de “Extract and Perfumes” (Extratos e perfumes).
Em 1922, Scoville recebeu o Prêmio Ebert, e em 1929 ganhou a sua Medalha de Honra Remington e o título de Doutor honoris causa em Ciências pela Universidade de Columbia. O pesquisador morreu no dia 10 de março de 1942, deixando mulher e dois filhos.
Parece que la idea de estrellar un módulo científico sobre la superficie de Marte no ha ido tan bien como esperaban en la Agencia Espacial Europea. El módulo Schiaparelli dejó de transmitir segundos antes de tocar la superficie de Marte y todavía no han logrado recuperar la señal.
En la rueda de prensa que la ESA acaba de ofrecer, sus científicos reconocen que no tienen ni idea de lo que le ha ocurrido al pequeño módulo que formaba parte de la misión ExoMars. La sonda Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), que era el otro 50% de la misión, sí que ha logrado acoplarse con éxito a la órbita de Marte y comenzó a transmitir con normalidad a las 20:30 horas del día 19.
Con Schiaparelli no ha habido tanta suerte. Algo ha fallado en los últimos segundos del aterrizaje. La ESA aún está estudiando los datos de telemetría enviados antes de perder el contacto. Un análisis preliminar de esos datos y de las observaciones realizadas mediante el telescopio GMRT de la India revelan que el escudo térmico funcionó bien y que el paracaídas también se desplegó como estaba previsto.
Región dónde se supone que debía haber aterrizado el módulo.
Los datos se pierden poco después de desprenderse del escudo térmico. El problema podría estar en los impulsores que debían frenar el descenso. Al parecer, no se mantuvieron encendidos el tiempo suficiente. Otra versión apunta a que quizá lo hicieron a demasiada altura. Hasta que no lleguen a la Tierra el resto de datos (y con suerte alguna foto tomada por el módulo) no sabremos más.
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Pese al fracaso de esa parte de la misión, la ESA ha recalcado que el aterrizaje era solo una parte relativamente pequeña de ExoMars y que este tipo de pruebas se realizan precisamente para pulir los sistemas de cara a misiones futuras. [vía ESA]
A federal appeals court decided Tuesday to uphold California’s ban on large-scale ammunition magazines in a ruling that is likely to lead to the court’s approval of the state’s ban on assault weapons.
In an en banc decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 that a state law that limits the size of magazines that may be used with firearms does not significantly interfere with the right to self defense. The court noted that there was no evidence that a person has been unable to defend a home because of a lack of large-capacity magazines.
During the past 50 years, the court said, large-capacity magazines have been used in about three-quarters of mass shootings that resulted in 10 or more deaths, and in 100% of massacres with 20 or more deaths.
“The ban on legal possession of large-capacity magazines reasonably supports California’s effort to reduce the devastating damage wrought by mass shootings,” Judge Susan P. Graber, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the court.
The legal fight could continue for months and may be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two other gun control cases have been put on hold pending a decision in the magazine case. Tuesday’s decision indicates that California’s ban on assault weapons, which a lower court had struck down, is also likely to be ruled constitutional.
U.S. District Judge Judge Roger T. Benitez overturned both the magazine ban and the bar on assault weapons. In the assault weapons case, Benitez likened an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to a Swiss Army knife and called it “good for both home and battle.”
Benitez, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said the assault weapons ban unconstitutionally infringed on the rights of California gun owners and “has had no effect” on curtailing mass shootings.
California’s ban on large-capacity magazines affects those that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez, who has been critical of retributive justice used by the prison system, tweeted that “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.” | Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday took up an unlikely cause — the plight of convicted fraudster Paul Manafort.
The progressive lawmaker expressed alarm at reports that President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman would likely be held in isolation after his expected transfer to Rikers Island — the New York City jail complex is in her congressional district — to face additional state fraud charges.
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“A prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations. That’s what solitary confinement is,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.”
The freshman lawmaker doubled down on her comments when told that Manafort may technically be placed in protective custody. She tweeted that protective custody is a separate method, but “does not necessarily exclude solitary. If he is in fact not being held in solitary, great. Release everyone else from it, too.”
Oscasio-Cortez has been critical of retributive justice used by the prison system. When news broke that Chelsea Manning was being held in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury, Oscasio-Cortez tweeted that the United States should “ban extended solitary confinement” and that the practice is a form of torture.
However, Manafort’s possible isolation at Rikers may be partly because of his and his lawyers’ concerns about his safety.
Manafort’s lawyers complained about his confinement from the start after a federal judge ordered him to jail in June 2018 over allegations that he was trying to tamper with the testimony of two potential witnesses in the federal case against him brought by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, and Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani later lamented that the longtime GOP operative was being nearly “tortured” in his conditions.
But legal experts say that Manafort got special arrangements away from the general prison population because of his high-profile status. At his first jail in Warsaw, Va., Manafort told friends he was being treated like a “VIP” and federal prosecutors explained in court briefs that the GOP operative had a private cell with a bathroom and shower, a personal telephone and access to work space to meet with his lawyers. Manafort’s situation changed in July 2018 when he was moved to Alexandria, Va., in a transfer that his own attorneys had requested to help them be closer to their client as they prepared for his first trial.
Manafort was relocated in April to a minimum-security prison in Waymart, Pa., where he’s serving a 7 ½-year sentence for a series of lobbying, money laundering, financial fraud and witness tampering crimes.
Manafort was also indicted this past March by the Manhattan district attorney as part of an effort to make sure the former Trump ally would still face prison time even if the president pardoned him. The DA wrote in a report following the indictment that Manafort was arrested for a “yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme” through which Manafort and others “illegally obtained millions of dollars.” His final list of indictments included 16 counts of fraud and one of conspiracy.
Todd Blanche, Manafort’s New York-based lawyer handling the state case, said in an interview he’d make a request to the state judge presiding over the new charges to have his client returned to the Pennsylvania federal facility after his arraignment, rather than have Manafort kept at a city jail.
Blanche said he did not know when that arraignment would take place — he expected about 24-hours notice. He also said he remained in the dark as to whether Manafort would even be brought to Rikers but said he expected state jail supervisors would need to take into account Manafort’s high-profile status when considering whether to put him in a protected area or added to the general population.
“Safety is a big concern,” he told POLITICO.
Manafort’s defense attorneys who worked on his federal case did not respond to a request for comment.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday said at a news conference that Manafort will not be given special treatment at Rikers beyond measures needed for security.
President Trump sent his first tweet a little more than half an hour into the Democratic presidential primary debate on Wednesday, and made clear what he thought of the proceeding.
“BORING!” Trump tweeted at 9:35 p.m. as Democratic hopefuls — including Mayor Bill de Blasio, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke — debated immigration, wealth inequality and other topics in Miami.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump was contemplating live tweeting the debate tonight and the follow-up tomorrow, which will feature front-runner Joe Biden.
Trump stayed mostly quiet on Twitter during the first hour of the debate Wednesday, sending only the one-word message.
Joseph Maguire, acting director of national intelligence, spent more than three hours Thursday morning before the House Intelligence Committee, where lawmakers questioned him about the complaint, which revealed that Trump had pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son. A redacted version of the complaint was made public Thursday morning.
● Whistleblower claimed Trump abused his office and that White House officials tried to cover it up
5:50 p.m.: Schiff says he’s ‘deeply concerned’ about whistleblower’s safety
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said he is concerned about the safety of the whistleblower who raised the alarm about Trump’s call with Zelensky, citing “repugnant threats” made by the president earlier Thursday.
“I’m deeply concerned about it,” Schiff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when asked about the whistleblower’s safety. “And obviously, we’re going to do everything we can … to protect the whistleblower’s identity. But given those real, repugnant threats coming from the president, I have a real concern about this.”
Hours earlier, in a meeting with U.S. diplomats in New York, Trump had likened the whistleblower to a spy and suggested that the person should be punished for his or her actions.
Schiff also dismissed criticism from Republicans who have seized on his opening statement at Thursday’s hearing, in which he offered what he has described as a “parody” of Trump’s call with Zelensky.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s making light of the situation,” Schiff said on CNN. “And I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that there’s anything comical about this.”
He added that it was accurate to say, as he did in the hearing, that Trump was “speaking like an organized crime boss.”
5:30 p.m.: Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden ‘did not violate anything’
A former top Ukrainian prosecutor, whose allegations were at the heart of the dirt-digging effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Thursday he believed that Hunter Biden did not run afoul of any laws in Ukraine.
“From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,” former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko told The Washington Post in his first interview since the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint alleging pressure by Trump on Zelensky.
Lutsenko’s comments about Hunter Biden — which echo what he told Bloomberg News in May — were significant, because Trump and his personal attorney Giuliani have sought to stir up suspicions about both Hunter and Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in recent weeks.
— Michael Birnbaum, David L. Stern and Natalie Gryvnyak
4:30 p.m.: American Academy of Diplomacy says Trump’s statements about Yovanovich are cause for ‘great concern’
The American Academy of Diplomacy, a nonprofit that supports the work of U.S. diplomats, put out a strongly worded statement condemning the disparaging comments Trump made about Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, during his call with the Ukrainian president.
According to the rough transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky provided by the White House, Trump said, “The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.”
Then Trump added, “She’s going to go through some things.”
The nonprofit’s chairman, Thomas Pickering, and its president, Ronald Neumann, said Trump’s comments causes them “great concern.”
Pickering worked in the State Department and as an ambassador under every president from Richard M. Nixon to Bill Clinton, while Neumann served as ambassador to Afghanistan and Bahrain under President George W. Bush and Algeria under Clinton.
“The threatening tone of this statement is deeply troubling,” they said in a joint statement. “It suggests actions outside of and contrary to the procedures and standards of a professional service whose officers, like their military counterparts, take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Whatever views the Administration has of Ambassador Yovanovitch’s performance, we call on the Administration to make clear that retaliation for political reasons will not be tolerated.
Yovanovitch was called back from her post in Ukraine in May, a move that Democrats have called a “political hit job.”
4:10 p.m.: Pompeo declines to say whether State Department told Giuliani to reach out to Ukraine
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to say Thursday whether the State Department directed Giuliani to contact Zelensky and his aides.
Giuliani said in a Fox News Channel interview earlier this week that he was “operating at the request of the State Department” when he reached out to Ukrainian officials about investigating Biden.
But in a news conference in New York, Pompeo dodged a question on Giuliani’s claim. He said he had yet to read the whistleblower’s complaint, telling reporters that he “read the first couple of paragraphs and then got busy today.” And he maintained that “to the best of my knowledge,” the behavior of State Department officials was “entirely appropriate.”
“We have tried to use this opportunity to create a better relationship between the United States and Ukraine, to build on the opportunities, to tighten our relationship, to help end corruption in Ukraine,” Pompeo said. “This was what President Zelensky ran on. We’re hopeful that we can help him execute and achieve that.”
4 p.m.: Clinton says Trump’s efforts to undercut Biden mirror his attacks against her in 2016
In an interview taped before Pelosi officially announced her support for an impeachment inquiry into Trump, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton described the latest developments regarding Trump’s alleged actions as “incredibly troubling.” She said Trump’s attempts to damage Biden’s 2020 chances are similar to his efforts to undercut her in 2016.
“The most outrageously false things were said about me,” Clinton said in an interview with CBS’s “Sunday Morning.” “And unfortunately, enough people believed them. So this is an effort to sow these falsehoods against Biden. And I don’t care if you’re for the [Democrats] or you’re a Republican, when the president of the United States — who has taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution — uses his position to, in effect, extort a foreign government for his political purposes, I think that is very much what the founders worried about in high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Later in the interview, Clinton called Trump “a clear and present danger.”
The interview will air in its entirety on Sunday.
3:50 p.m.: Biden campaign says Trump’s actions extend from ‘fear’ that the former vice president will beat him in 2020
The Biden campaign responded to the latest revelations in Trump’s alleged efforts to seek incriminating information from Ukraine about the former vice president, claiming that Trump’s alleged actions are “all borne from his deep, fully substantiated fear that Joe Biden will beat him in November 2020.”
“An intelligence community whistleblower said, ‘I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,’” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in a statement.
“An hour after the report was made public, the Acting Director of National Intelligence called this report ‘urgent and important’ and ‘totally unprecedented.’ And now we know that President Trump’s response to all of this was to privately issue a thinly veiled threat this morning to execute the national security professionals who followed their oath to uphold the Constitution by bringing this to light.”
Bedingfield added that Trump’s “abuse of power makes him one of the most divisive, unfit individuals to occupy the Oval Office in our nation’s history.”
3:30 p.m.: Trump compares whistleblower to a ‘spy’
In remarks at a meeting with staffers for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations on Thursday, Trump likened the whistleblower to a spy and suggested that the person should be punished for his or her actions.
He told staffers that “basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call — heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw — they’re almost a spy.”
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said, according to audio of his remarks posted by the Los Angeles Times and confirmed to The Washington Post by a person in the room. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
At a separate event with campaign donors at New York City’s Cipriani restaurant on Thursday, Trump waved a copy of the rough transcript of his call with Zelensky and boasted that it was good news for the GOP because it had prompted a flood of donations.
“This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to the Republican Party,” Trump said, according to an attendee.
When the crowd chanted “four more years,” the president responded by joking that they shouldn’t stop there.
“If you really want their heads to explode, you should chant eight more years,” Trump said.
— Josh Dawsey
2:30 p.m.: Timeline: The alarming pattern of actions by Trump included in whistleblower allegations
Six weeks after it was submitted, a complaint from an intelligence community whistleblower has been declassified and released publicly. Part of the complaint centers on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky. The whistleblower complaint, filed more than a month earlier, accurately captures the content of that call, lending validity to the rest of the assertions in the complaint.
With that in mind, we’ve pulled out the significant dates mentioned in the whistleblower complaint to give a sense of how the effort by Trump and Giuliani to elicit an investigation in Ukraine unfolded.
1:30 p.m.: Number of House members supportive of impeachment inquiry stands at 220
The number of House members who support an impeachment inquiry into Trump has grown slightly to 220, according to a Washington Post tally.
The figure includes 219 Democrats and one independent member.
Of those, 27 have gone a step further and said they support impeaching the president.
The ranks of Democrats calling for an impeachment inquiry swelled in the past week, culminating Tuesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal inquiry.
President Trump landed in Washington Thursday afternoon — and immediately lashed out at Democrats over their continued scrutiny of his phone call with Zelensky.
It was an “absolutely perfect phone call,” Trump told reporters shortly after getting off the plane.
He argued that Pelosi has been “hijacked by the radical left,” renewing his attacks on the speaker of the House after she announced her support for an impeachment inquiry.
1 p.m.: Schiff says Democrats are ‘determined to get to the bottom of this’
Schiff said his committee would work through an upcoming two-week recess as it continues to probe Trump’s interactions with Zelensky.
“We are determined to get to the bottom of this,” Schiff said, suggesting the committee would interview multiple witnesses, including the whistleblower.
The committee also wants to learn more about the roles of Attorney General William P. Barr and Giuliani among others, Schiff said.
Schiff spoke to reporters shortly after his panel adjourned after hearing from Maguire for more than three hours.
12:50 p.m.: Trump lashes out at Schiff after hearing wraps up
Trump took to Twitter shortly after the House Intelligence Committee hearing wrapped up, taking aim at its chairman and dismissing the whistleblower report as “second hand information.”
“Adam Schiff has zero credibility. Another fantasy to hurt the Republican Party!” Trump tweeted.
Adam Schiff has zero credibility. Another fantasy to hurt the Republican Party!
The tweet came as Schiff (D-Calif.) was fielding questions following the hearing from reporters, one of whom asked about Trump’s tweet.
“I’m always flattered when I’m attacked by someone of the president’s character,” Schiff responded.
In a separate tweet, Trump sought to play down the seriousness of the allegations of the whistleblower, who acknowledged no firsthand knowledge of Trump’s actions but said the complaint was informed by “more than half a dozen U.S. officials.”
“A whistleblower with second hand information? Another Fake News Story! See what was said on the very nice, no pressure, call. Another Witch Hunt!” Trump wrote.
A whistleblower with second hand information? Another Fake News Story! See what was said on the very nice, no pressure, call. Another Witch Hunt!
Later, Trump targeted Schiff again on Twitter, writing: “Liddle’ Adam Schiff, who has worked unsuccessfully for 3 years to hurt the Republican Party and President, has just said that the Whistleblower, even though he or she only had second hand information, “is credible.” How can that be with zero info and a known bias. Democrat Scam!”
12:40 p.m.: Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, voices support for impeachment inquiry
Phil Scott on Thursday became the nation’s first Republican governor to voice support for the House’s impeachment inquiry against Trump.
“I believe we need to figure out what exactly did happen, establish the facts, and let the facts drive us from there to where we go,” Scott, who has been a frequent Trump critic, said at a news conference in Vermont.
12:30 p.m.: Lewandowski denies having conversations with White House about leading impeachment team
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, denied a CNN report that he has had discussions with the White House about potentially leading the president’s impeachment team.
“For the last five years, I have done my best to help this president in any capacity that he has asked me,” Lewandowski said in a phone interview with The Washington Post. “But I have had no conversation with anyone at the White House regarding this.”
Lewandowski signaled, however, that he is open to helping Trump fight back against impeachment in whatever way the president requests.
“If the president asks me to push back on the fake impeachment narrative, I will do that in any way I can,” Lewandowski said.
CNN reported earlier Thursday that Lewandowski, who is mulling a U.S. Senate bid, representing his home state of New Hampshire, has had recent conversations with White House officials about taking an administration position as the impeachment battle ramps up.
— Robert Costa
12:20 p.m.: Maguire hearing wraps up
The House Intelligence Committee hearing concluded Thursday afternoon after more than three hours of heated questioning of Maguire by lawmakers.
Maguire is expected to go behind closed doors later Thursday to address the Senate Intelligence Committee.
12:10 p.m.: Republicans plan another House vote on impeachment authorization
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he will force another House vote on authorizing an impeachment investigation, in a move designed to put pressure on Democrats on the issue.
“Every member owes it to their constituents — their constituents are the ones who lend their voice to the members for two years,” McCarthy said at his weekly news conference. “And they should be very clear on where they stand.”
On Thursday morning, the number of House members backing an impeachment inquiry had passed the halfway mark, with 218 House Democrats and one independent member supporting at least opening an inquiry into whether Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
But some Democrats are still holding out, including several in Republican-leaning districts.
— Mike DeBonis
12 p.m.: Senate panel debates withholding State Department funds
The Senate Appropriations Committee spent some time Thursday morning debating an amendment that would have withheld some State Department funds until $448 million in security assistance is released for Ukraine.
Ultimately, the committee didn’t vote on the amendment after its author — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) — withdrew it. Murphy said he didn’t want to set a bad precedent and wanted to retain bipartisan agreement on the committee. He also said he trusted a commitment from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) to ensure funding for Ukraine. Graham chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.
“I accept Senator Graham’s commitment to continue to work on this,” Murphy said. “I would rather have us stay together united, Republicans and Democrats, speaking for the importance of continuing to fund aid to Ukraine, and I agree with him that even without this language, when we spend money, when we appropriate it, the president is legally obligated to spend it.”
Underlying the discussion was Trump’s decision to hold up security assistance for Ukraine until recently, as revelations emerged about his phone call with the president of Ukraine in which Trump suggested that Biden should be investigated by authorities in that country.
Graham insisted that Trump was withholding funds as a means to get other countries to pay more. Murphy raised questions about that explanation.
Several Democrats said that under the circumstances, there was a need for statutory language requiring money appropriated for Ukraine to be spent.
“The plot has thickened dramatically,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).
But the discussion ended without specific resolution.
“I just want to find a way to tell the Ukraine we’re with them and not screw up everything else,” Graham said.
— Erica Werner
11:45 a.m.: Trump’s other Ukraine problem: New concern about his business
Buried in the controversy over Trump’s phone call with Zelensky was an effort by the Ukrainian leader at currying favor with Trump through his business.
“Actually, last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park, and I stayed at the Trump Tower,” Zelensky told Trump, according to a rough transcript of the July 25 call released Wednesday.
Zelensky’s comments mark the first known example of the kind of interaction Democrats and government ethics experts had warned about when Trump took office: that foreign leaders would try to influence Trump by spending money at his properties and telling him about it.
Other Ukrainian officials have also patronized Trump properties. A top Zelensky aide met at Trump’s D.C. hotel in July with Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, a frequent patron of the hotel himself, according to the New York Times. A lobbyist who registered as an agent of Zelensky’s with the U.S. government hosted a $1,900 event at the D.C. hotel in April, according to a federal filing.
11:40 a.m.: Lawmakers urge Congress not to go on recess
The House is scheduled to leave town on Friday for a two-week recess. But several Democrats are arguing that lawmakers should remain in Washington amid the intensifying focus on Trump’s conduct and the whistleblower complaint.
“Trump clearly sees the Oval Office as his campaign office,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said in a tweet. “We cannot let the occupant make a mockery of our Constitution any longer. Congress must cancel the upcoming recess so we can finally impeach this president.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) also said that “Congress must not leave for recess tomorrow.”
“If we are committed to holding Trump accountable and passing something on gun violence, we have to keep working here in DC,” he said in a tweet. “The stakes are too high.”
The liberal group Indivisible said in a statement earlier this week that Pelosi should cancel recess “and get to a vote on articles of impeachment as soon as humanly possible.”
11:15 a.m.: Pelosi accuses the White House of a “coverup”
Pointing to the whistleblower’s report during remarks to reporters late Thursday morning, Pelosi repeatedly accused the White House of having engaged in a “coverup.”
She was responding to claims by the whistleblower from the U.S. intelligence community that not only did Trump misuse his office for personal gain and endanger national security, but that unidentified White House officials had tried to hide that conduct.
According to the complaint, White House officials were so alarmed by Trump’s call with Zelensky that they sought to limit access to its written record.
“Their actions are a coverup,” Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing. “It’s not only happened that one time. My understanding is it may have happened before.”
Pelosi also said that there was no timeline on the impeachment inquiry announced earlier this week and that Trump would have an opportunity to present exculpatory information.
“There is no rush to judgment,” Pelosi said.
She said the episode involving Ukraine would take precedence in the impeachment inquiry.
“We are at a different level of lawlessness that is self-evident to the American people,” Pelosi said.
11 a.m.: Schumer says Senate will serve as ‘solemn jurors of our democracy’ if House impeaches Trump
In remarks as the Senate opened Thursday morning, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for lawmakers to place the best interests of the country, not their political parties, front and center as they weigh their next steps following the release of the whistleblower’s complaint.
“We have a responsibility to consider the facts that emerge squarely and with the best interest of our country — not our party — in our hearts,” Schumer said. “We have a responsibility not to rush to final judgment or overstate the case — not to let ourselves be ruled by passion, but by reason.”
He added that “if the House at the end of its inquiry sees fit to accuse the president of impeachable offenses, we in the Senate will act as jury.”
“And our role as the solemn jurors of democracy demands that we place fidelity to the country and fidelity to the Constitution above all else,” he said.
10:30 a.m.: Trump campaign says Democrats are the ones interfering in the 2020 election
A spokesman for Trump’s reelection campaign said Thursday morning that it wasn’t Trump who sought to interfere in the 2020 elections — but Democrats.
“All of this amounts to Democrats interfering in the 2020 election by attempting to block @realDonaldTrump from running for re-election,” Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for Trump’s campaign, wrote on Twitter. “They want to deny Americans the opportunity to vote to re-elect the President. They know they can’t beat him, so they have to try to impeach.”
All of this amounts to Democrats interfering in the 2020 election by attempting to block @realDonaldTrump from running for re-election.
They want to deny Americans the opportunity to vote to re-elect the President.
They know they can’t beat him, so they have to try to impeach.
10:15 a.m.: House Republicans highlight 20-year-old clips of Democrats opposing President Bill Clinton’s impeachment
As House Democrats sought to build a case for impeachment against Trump, House Republicans were using their Twitter account to share two-decade-old video clips of Democrats taking issue with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
The House Republican conference account shared clips of more than a half-dozen lawmakers speaking out against Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, with some of them complaining about a partisan process seeking to undo the will of voters.
One video depicted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), currently the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, speaking on the House floor.
“I am greatly disappointed in the raw, unmasked, unbridled hatred and meanness that drives this impeachment coup d’etat. The unapologetic disregard for the voice of the people,” she said.
Others Democrats highlighted in the clips included Pelosi, now-House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), now-Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.) and Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.).
9:45 a.m.: Democratic White House hopefuls start weighing in on whistleblower complaint
Democratic White House contenders have started weighing in on the whistleblower complaint, with one — former congressman Beto O’Rourke (Tex.) — calling on the House to cancel its upcoming two-week recess.
“The House should cancel its break and start impeachment proceedings now,” O’Rourke said in a tweet. “As the whistleblower made clear: Every day Trump is in office, our democracy is less safe. We can’t wait to act.”
Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio) shared on Twitter that he had read the report.
“It’s as straightforward as can be,” Ryan said, alleging it detailed “third-rate, banana republic behavior.”
“I can’t believe my Republican colleagues are going to ignore this,” Ryan said in another tweet. “Would they if our President was an Democrat?”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) also weighed in, writing on Twitter: “Donald Trump solicited foreign interference in our elections from the Oval Office. He attempted to cover up his actions. And his appointees intervened, against the law, to attempt to suppress this whistleblower complaint.”
Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), meanwhile, highlighted a paragraph in the report and offered her assessment: “This is a coverup.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) later asserted in a statement that the whistleblower complaint was “only the tip of an iceberg of corrupt, illegal and immoral behavior by this president.”
“What the House must do is thoroughly investigate Trump’s cover-up of this call and his other attempts to use government resources to help his re-election campaign,” he said.
9:20 a.m.: White House dismisses whistleblower complaint as ‘third-hand accounts’
Shortly after the whistleblower complaint was made public, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement.
“Nothing has changed with the release of this complaint, which is nothing more than a collection of third-hand accounts of events and cobbled-together press clippings — all of which shows nothing improper,” she said.
9:15 a.m.: Whistleblower claimed Trump abused his office and that White House officials tried to cover it up
The House Intelligence Committee has released the whistleblower complaint at the heart of the burgeoning controversy over Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president — an explosive document that claims not only that Trump misused his office for personal gain, but that unidentified White House officials tried to hide that fact.
“In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” the whistleblower wrote in the complaint dated Aug. 12. “This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals. The President’s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph W. Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General (William P.) Barr appears to be involved as well.”
8:45 a.m.: Trump lashes out at Democrats as whistleblower complaint is released
Minutes after a whistleblower complaint was made public, Trump lashed out at Democrats in a tweet written in all capital letters in which he accused them of trying to destroy the Republican Party “AND ALL THAT IT STANDS FOR.”
“STICK TOGETHER, PLAY THEIR GAME, AND FIGHT HARD REPUBLICANS. OUR COUNTRY IS AT STAKE!” he counseled members of his party.
The tweet was in response to a whistleblower from the U.S. intelligence community who alleged that Trump had improperly pressed Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son.
8:10 a.m.: Sarah Sanders argues impeachment drive helps Trump politically
Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued Thursday that House Democrats have given Trump a political boost by launching a formal impeachment inquiry.
“I think that it’s one of the dumbest and most ridiculous political moves that we’ve seen in history, how they have forced impeachment over this issue,” Sanders said during an appearance on Fox News, where she is now a contributor.
“All this is doing is helping fuel his campaign,” Sanders said of the Democrats’ move. “They’re raising more money, they’re rallying his base, and they’re unifying the Republican Party in a way that only they can by attacking this president the way they do time and time again.”
7:30 a.m.: Trump unleashes spate of morning tweets
The president asserted Thursday that the stock market would crash if Democrats followed through with impeaching him, a warning sent in the midst of a morning spate of tweets and retweets about the inquiry announced this week by Pelosi.
In one tweet, Trump highlighted a Fox Business Network report with the headline: “Stocks hit session lows after Pelosi calls for impeachment inquiry.”
“If they actually did this the markets would crash,” Trump wrote in response. “Do you think it was luck that got us to the best Stock Market and Economy in our history. It wasn’t!”
Trump also highlighted a tweet by his daughter Ivanka, a White House adviser, in which she thanked him for his work and included a photo of her father pumping his fist.
“So cute! Her father is under siege, for no reason, since his first day in office!” Trump wrote.
In another, he wrote: “THE GREATEST SCAM IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS!”
6:30 a.m.: Biden suggests a motive for Trump reaching out to Ukraine
Speaking at a fundraiser Wednesday night in Los Angeles, Biden said there was no proof of Trump’s allegation that he and his son Hunter Biden had conflicts of interest while he served as vice president.
“This is not about me, and it really isn’t because not a single publication said anything he has ever said about me or my son is true,” Biden said. “Everyone has gone and researched it and said it’s not true.”
Biden suggested that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate him and his son because “70-something polls show that I’ll kick his … toes.” The audience burst into laughter.
6:15 a.m.: Some House Democrats fret as Pelosi forges ahead with impeachment
As his fellow House Democrats moved en masse toward impeaching Trump after months of hesitation, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey could only watch in bewilderment.
“I don’t get surprised often,” the freshman moderate said Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Pelosi dropped her own qualms and launched the House’s official impeachment inquiry targeting Trump. “But really, truly, I just was like, ‘Wow.’ It happened so quickly.”
As other Democrats proclaimed unity and resolve after Pelosi described the “dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office,” pledging to move quickly toward impeachment articles, Van Drew stood with a group of Democrats who say they continue to have reservations and fear a rash impeachment could obliterate the rest of the party’s governing agenda, improve Trump’s chances of reelection and imperil their own.
6 a.m.: Biden edges closer to calling for impeachment on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
Biden edged closer to calling for impeachment on Wednesday night, pointing to a rough transcript of a conversation between Trump and Ukraine’s president as evidence that Trump is likely to have committed “an impeachable offense.”
Biden, who had stopped short of calling for the president to be ousted earlier this week, adjusted his stance after the White House shared the details of a 30-minute phone call Trump made to Zelensky in July. According to the 2,000-word rough transcript, Trump repeatedly suggested that Zelensky investigate Biden, offering help from the Justice Department and raising the possibility of inviting the foreign leader to the White House.
“Based on the material that they acknowledged today, it seems to me it’s awful hard to avoid the conclusion that it is an impeachable offense and a violation of constitutional responsibility,” Biden said during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
5 a.m.: 218 House Democrats support impeachment inquiry
As of Wednesday evening, there were now 217 House Democrats and Independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) who support launching an impeachment inquiry, giving 218 votes to impeach Trump — the threshold number of votes needed to pass anything in the House.
In the past two days, 78 Democrats said they wanted the House to go through with an impeachment process. Before the whistleblower complaint news broke last week, there were 95 members total who supported doing so.
“Today, for the world to see, we learned in his own words that the President of the United States used the full weight of the most sacred office in the land to coerce a foreign leader in a way that undermines our democracy and threatens our national security,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), who came out for an impeachment inquiry Wednesday night.
But just because 218 lawmakers want the House to go through with the impeachment process, there’s no guarantee that they would vote to impeach Trump at the end of it. Of the 218, only 25 have said they’d vote to impeach the president right now.
However, Sporting are reportedly not interested in any deal including the maverick Italy international.
Mario made 45 appearances for Sporting last season, scoring seven goals and providing 12 assists, and was also part of Fernando Santos’ Euro 2016-winning side.
Read the full transcript of President Joe Biden’s exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thank you for doing this.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Thank you for doin’ it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s get right to it. Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong, or did you downplay it?
BIDEN: I think — there was no consensus. If you go back and look at the intelligence reports, they said that it’s more likely to be sometime by the end of the year. The idea that the tal — and then it goes further on, even as late as August. I think you’re gonna see — the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others speaking about this later today.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you didn’t put a timeline on it when you said it was highly unlikely. You just said flat out, “It’s highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.”
BIDEN: Yeah. Well, the question was whether or not it w– the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — that somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was gonna just collapse, they were gonna give up. I don’t think anybody anticipated that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know that Senator McConnell, others say this was not only predictable, it was predicted, including by him, based on intelligence briefings he was getting.
BIDEN: What — what did he say was predicted?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator McConnell said it was predictable that the Taliban was gonna take over.
BIDEN: Well, by the end of the year, I said that’s that was — that was a real possibility. But no one said it was gonna take over then when it was bein’ asked.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So when you look at what’s happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution or judgment?
BIDEN: Look, I don’t think it was a fa– look, it was a simple choice, George. When the– when the Taliban — let me back — put it another way. When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government get in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the ta– of the– Afghan troops we had trained — up to 300,000 of them just leaving their equipment and taking off, that was — you know, I’m not– this — that — that’s what happened.
That’s simply what happened. So the question was in the beginning the– the threshold question was, do we commit to leave within the timeframe we’ve set? We extended it to September 1st. Or do we put significantly more troops in? I hear people say, “Well, you had 2,500 folks in there and nothin’ was happening. You know, there wasn’t any war.”
But guess what? The fact was that the reason it wasn’t happening is the last president negotiated a year earlier that he’d be out by May 1st and that– in return, there’d be no attack on American forces. That’s what was done. That’s why nothing was happening. But the idea if I had said — I had a simple choice. If I had said, “We’re gonna stay,” then we’d better prepare to put a whole hell of a lot more troops in —
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your top military advisors warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.
BIDEN: No, they didn’t. It was split. Tha– that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?
BIDEN: No. Not at — not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops. They didn’t argue against that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no one told — your military advisors did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?
BIDEN: No. No one said that to me that I can recall. Look, George, the reason why it’s been stable for a year is because the last president said, “We’re leaving. And here’s the deal I wanna make with you, Taliban. We’re agreeing to leave if you agree not to attack us between now and the time we leave on May the 1st.”
I got into office, George. Less than two months after I elected to office, I was sworn in, all of a sudden, I have a May 1 deadline. I have a May 1 deadline. I got one of two choices. Do I say we’re staying? And do you think we would not have to put a hell of a lot more troops? B– you know, we had hundreds– we had tens of thousands of troops there before. Tens of thousands.
Do you think we woulda — that we would’ve just said, “No problem. Don’t worry about it, we’re not gonna attack anybody. We’re okay”? In the meantime, the Taliban was takin’ territory all throughout the country in the north and down in the south, in the Pasthtun area.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So would you have withdrawn troops like this even if President Trump had not made that deal with the Taliban?
BIDEN: I would’ve tried to figure out how to withdraw those troops, yes, because look, George. There is no good time to leave Afghanistan. Fifteen years ago would’ve been a problem, 15 years from now. The basic choice is am I gonna send your sons and your daughters to war in Afghanistan in perpetuity?
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s–
BIDEN: No one can name for me a time when this would end. And what– wha– wha– what– what constitutes defeat of the Taliban? What constitutes defeat? Would we have left then? Let’s say they surrender like before. OK. Do we leave then? Do you think anybody– the same people who think we should stay would’ve said, “No, good time to go”? We spent over $1 trillion, George, 20 years. There was no good time to leave.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if there’s no good time, if you know you’re gonna have to leave eventually, why not have th– everything in place to make sure Americans could get out, to make sure our Afghan allies get out, so we don’t have these chaotic scenes in Kabul?
BIDEN: Number one, as you know, the intelligence community did not say back in June or July that, in fact, this was gonna collapse like it did. Number one.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They thought the Taliban would take over, but not this quickly?
BIDEN: But not this quickly. Not even close. We had already issued several thousand passports to the– the SIVs, the people– the– the– the translators when I came into office before we had negotiated getting out at the end of s– August.
Secondly, we’re in a position where what we did was took precautions. That’s why I authorized that there be 6,000 American troops to flow in to accommodate this exit, number one. And number two, provided all that aircraft in the Gulf to get people out. We pre-positioned all that, anticipated that. Now, granted, it took two days to take control of the airport. We have control of the airport now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Still a lotta pandemonium outside the airport.
BIDEN: Oh, there is. But, look, b– but no one’s being killed right now, God forgive me if I’m wrong about that, but no one’s being killed right now. People are– we got 1,000-somewhat, 1,200 out, yesterday, a couple thousand today. And it’s increasing. We’re gonna get those people out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But we’ve all seen the pictures. We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. You’ve seen Afghans falling–
BIDEN: That was four days ago, five days ago.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
BIDEN: What I thought was we ha– we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I– I think a lot of– a lot of Americans, and a l– even a lot of veterans who served in Afghanistan agree with you on the big, strategic picture. They believe we had to get out. But I wonder how you respond to an Army Special Forces officer, Javier McKay (PH). He did seven tours. He was shot twice. He agrees with you. He says, “We have to cut our losses in Afghanistan.” But he adds, “I just wish we could’ve left with honor.”
BIDEN: Look, that’s like askin’ my deceased son Beau, who spent six months in Kosovo and a year in Iraq as a Navy captain and then major– I mean, as an Army major. And, you know, I’m sure h– he had regrets comin’ out of Afganista– I mean, out of Iraq.
He had regrets to what’s– how– how it’s going. But the idea– what’s the alternative? The alternative is why are we staying in Afghanistan? Why are we there? Don’t you think that the one– you know who’s most disappointed in us getting out? Russia and China. They’d love us to continue to have to–
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t think this could’ve been handled, this exit could’ve been handled better in any way? No mistakes?
BIDEN: No. I– I don’t think it could’ve been handled in a way that there– we– we’re gonna go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know how that happened.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So for you, that was always priced into the decision?
BIDEN: Yes. Now, exactly what happened– is not priced in. But I knew that they’re gonna have an enormous, enorm– look, one of the things we didn’t know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out, what they would do.What are they doing now? They’re cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, et cetera. But they’re having– we’re having some more difficulty in having those who helped us when we were in there–
STEPHANOPOULOS: And we don’t really know what’s happening outside of Kabul.
BIDEN: Pardon me?
STEPHANOPOULOS: We don’t really know what’s happening outside of Kabul.
BIDEN: Well– we do know generically and in some specificity what’s happening outside of Kabul. We don’t know it in great detail. But we do know. And guess what? The Taliban knows if they take on American citizens or American military, we will strike them back like hell won’t have it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: All troops are supposed to be out by August 31st. Even if Americans and our Afghan allies are still trying to get out, they’re gonna leave?
BIDEN: We’re gonna do everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean troops will stay beyond August 31st if necessary?
BIDEN: It depends on where we are and whether we can get– ramp these numbers up to 5,000 to 7,000 a day coming out. If that’s the case, we’ll be– they’ll all be out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: ‘Cause we’ve got, like, 10,000 to 15,000 Americans in the country right now, right? And are you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to be out–
BIDEN: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: — is out?
BIDEN: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How about our Afghan allies? We have about 80,000 people–
BIDEN: Well, that’s not the s–
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that too high?
BIDEN: That’s too high.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How many–
BIDEN: The estimate we’re giving is somewhere between 50,000 and 65,000 folks total, counting their families.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Does the commitment hold for them as well?
BIDEN: The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone that should come out. And that’s the objective. That’s what we’re doing now, that’s the path we’re on. And I think we’ll get there.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So Americans should understand that troops might have to be there beyond August 31st?
BIDEN: No. Americans should understand that we’re gonna try to get it done before August 31st.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if we don’t, the troops will stay–
BIDEN: If — if we don’t, we’ll determine at the time who’s left.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And?
BIDEN: And if you’re American force — if there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You talked about our adversaries, China and Russia. You already see China telling Taiwan, “See? You can’t count on the Americans.” (LAUGH)
BIDEN: Sh– why wouldn’t China say that? Look, George, the idea that w– there’s a fundamental difference between– between Taiwan, South Korea, NATO. We are in a situation where they are in– entities we’ve made agreements with based on not a civil war they’re having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doin’ bad things to them.
We have made– kept every commitment. We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with– Taiwan. It’s not even comparable to talk about that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, but those–
BIDEN: It’s not comparable to t–
STEPHANOPOULOS: –who say, “Look, America cannot be trusted now, America does not keep its promises–“
BIDEN: Who– who’s gonna say that? Look, before I made this decision, I met with all our allies, our NATO allies in Europe. They agreed. We should be getting out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did they have a choice?
BIDEN: Sure, they had a choice. Look, the one thing I promise you in private, NATO allies are not quiet. You remember from your old days. They’re not gonna be quiet. And so– and by the way, you know, what we’re gonna be doing is we’re gonna be putting together a group of the G-7, the folks that we work with the most– to– I was on the phone with– with Angela Merkel today. I was on the phone with the British prime minister. I’m gonna be talking to Macron in France to make sure we have a coherent view of how we’re gonna deal from this point on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What happens now in Afghanistan? Do you believe the Taliban have changed?
BIDEN: No. I think– let me put it this way. I think they’re going through sort of an existential crisis about do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government. I’m not sure they do. But look, they have–
STEPHANOPOULOS: They care about their beliefs more?
BIDEN: Well, they do. But they also care about whether they have food to eat, whether they have an income that they can provide for their f– that they can make any money and run an economy. They care about whether or not they can hold together the society that they in fact say they care so much about.
I’m not counting on any of that. I’m not cou– but that is part of what I think is going on right now in terms of I– I’m not sure I would’ve predicted, George, nor would you or anyone else, that when we decided to leave, that they’d provide safe passage for Americans to get out.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Beyond Americans, what do we owe the Afghans who are left behind, particularly Afghan women who are facing the prospect of subjugation again?
BIDEN: As many as we can get out, we should. For example, I had a meeting today for a couple hours in the Situation Room just below here. There are Afghan women outside the gate. I told ’em, “Get ’em on the planes. Get them out. Get them out. Get their families out if you can.”
But here’s the deal, George. The idea that we’re able to deal with the rights of women around the world by military force is not rational. Not rational. Look what’s happened to the Uighurs in western China. Look what’s happening in other parts of the world.
Look what’s happenin’ in, you know, in– in the Congo. I mean, there are a lotta places where women are being subjugated. The way to deal with that is not with a military invasion. The way to deal with that is putting economic, diplomatic, and national pre– international pressure on them to change their behavior.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the threat to the United States? Most intelligence analysis has predicted that Al Qaeda would come back 18 to 24 months after a withdrawal of American troops. Is that analysis now being revised? Could it be sooner?
BIDEN: It could be. But George, look, here’s the deal. Al Qaeda, ISIS, they metastasize. There’s a significantly greater threat to the United States from Syria. There’s a significantly greater threat from East Africa. There’s significant greater threat to other places in the world than it is from the mountains of Afghanistan. And we have maintained the ability to have an over-the-horizon capability to take them out. We’re– we don’t have military in Syria to make sure that we’re gonna be protected–
STEPHANOPOULOS: And you’re confident we’re gonna have that in Afghanistan?
BIDEN: Yeah. I’m confident we’re gonna have the overriding capability, yes. Look, George, it’s like asking me, you know, am I confident that people are gonna act even remotely rationally. Here’s the deal. The deal is the threat from Al Qaeda and their associate organizations is greater in other parts of the world to the United States than it is from Afghanistan.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And th– that tells you that you’re– it’s safe to leave?
BIDEN: No. That tells me that– my dad used to have an expression, George. If everything’s equally important to you, nothing’s important to you. We should be focusing on where the threat is the greatest. And the threat– the idea– we can continue to spend $1 trillion and have tens of thousands of American forces in Afghanistan when we have what’s going on around the world, in the Middle East and North Africa and west– I mean, excuse me– yeah, North Africa and Western Africa. The idea we can do that and ignore those– those looming problems, growing problems, is not– not rational.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Final question on this. You know, in a couple weeks, we’re all gonna commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The Taliban are gonna be ruling Afghanistan, just l– like they were when our country was attacked. How do you explain that to the American people?
BIDEN: Not true. It’s not true. They’re not gonna look just like they were we were attacked. There was a guy named Osama bin Laden that was still alive and well. They were organized in a big way, that they had significant help from arou– from other parts of the world.
We went there for two reasons, George. Two reasons. One, to get Bin Laden, and two, to wipe out as best we could, and we did, the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did it. Then what happened? Began to morph into the notion that, instead of having a counterterrorism capability to have small forces there in– or in the region to be able to take on Al Qaeda if it tried to reconstitute, we decided to engage in nation building. In nation building. That never made any sense to me.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It sounds like you think we shoulda gotten out a long time ago–
BIDEN: We should’ve.
STEPHANOPOULOS: –and– and accept the idea that it was gonna be messy no matter what.
BIDEN: Well, by the– what would be messy?
STEPHANOPOULOS: The exit–
BIDEN: If we had gotten out a long time ago– getting out would be messy no matter when it occurred. I ask you, you want me to stay, you want us to stay and send your kids back to Afghanistan? How about it? Are you g– if you had a son or daughter, would you send them in Afghanistan now? Or later?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Would be hard, but a lot of families have done it.
BIDEN: They’ve done it because, in fact, there was a circumstance that was different when we started. We were there for two reasons, George. And we accomplished both ten years ago. We got Osama bin Laden. As I said and got criticized for saying at the time, we’re gonna follow him to the gates of hell. Hell, we did–
STEPHANOPOULOS: How will history judge the United States’ experience in Afghanistan?
BIDEN: One that we overextended what we needed to do to deal with our national interest. That’s like my sayin’ they– they’re– they– they b– b– the border of Tajikistan– and– other– what– does it matter? Are we gonna go to war because of what’s goin’ on in Tajikistan? What do you think?
Tell me what– where in that isolated country that has never, never, never in all of history been united, all the way back to Alexander the Great, straight through the British Empire and the Russians, what is the idea? Are we gonna s– continue to lose thousands of Americans to injury and death to try to unite that country? What do you think? I think not.
I think the American people are with me. And when you unite that country, what do you have? They’re surrounded by Russia in the north or the Stans in the north. You have– to the west, they have Iran. To the south, they have Pakistan, who’s supporting them. And to the– and– actually, the east, they have Pakistan and China. Tell me. Tell me. Is that worth our national interest to continue to spend another $1 trillion and lose thousands more American lives? For what?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I know we’re outta time. I have two quick questions on COVID. I know you’re gonna make– be makin’ an announcement on booster shots today. Have you and the first lady gotten your booster shots yet?
BIDEN: We’re gonna get the booster shots. And– it’s somethin’ that I think– you know, because we g– w– we got our shots all the way back in I think December. So it’s– it’s– it’s past time. And so the idea (NOISE) that the recommendation– that’s my wife calling. (LAUGH) No. (LAUGH) But all kiddin’ aside, yes, we will get the booster shots.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And– and finally– are you comfortable with Americans getting a third shot when so many millions around the world haven’t had their first?
BIDEN: Absolutely because we’re providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined. We got enough for everybody American, plus before this year is– before we get to the middle of next year, we’re gonna provide a half a billion shots to the rest of the world. We’re keepin’ our part of the bargain. We’re doin’ more than anybody.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thanks for your time.
Top government leaders told NPR that federal agencies are years behind where they could have been if Chinese cybertheft had been openly addressed earlier.
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Top government leaders told NPR that federal agencies are years behind where they could have been if Chinese cybertheft had been openly addressed earlier.
Bill Hinton Photography/Getty Images
Technology theft and other unfair business practices originating from China are costing the American economy more than $57 billion a year, White House officials believe, and they expect that figure to grow.
Yet an investigation by NPR and the PBS television show Frontline into why three successive administrations failed to stop cyberhacking from China found an unlikely obstacle for the government — the victims themselves.
About This Story
This story is part of a joint investigation with the PBS series Frontline, which includes an upcoming documentary, Trump’s Trade War, scheduled to air May 7, 2019, on PBS.
In dozens of interviews with U.S. government and business representatives, officials involved in commerce with China said hacking and theft were an open secret for almost two decades, allowed to quietly continue because U.S. companies had too much money at stake to make waves.
Wendy Cutler, who was a veteran negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, says it wasn’t just that U.S. businesses were hesitant to come forward in specific cases. She says businesses didn’t want the trade office to take “any strong action.”
“We are not as effective if we don’t have the U.S. business community supporting us,” she says. “Looking back on it, in retrospect, I think we probably should have been more active and more responsive. We kind of lost the big picture of what was really happening.”
None of the dozens of companies or organizations that NPR reached out to that have been victims of theft or corporate espionage originating from China would go on the record.
And for its part, the Chinese government officially denied to NPR and Frontline that it has been involved in such practices.
Wendy Cutler, a former diplomat and negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, delivers a 2015 speech at the Asia Society in Hong Kong. Cutler told NPR that U.S. businesses wouldn’t let the trade office take direct action on their behalf in Chinese cybertheft cases.
Bruce Yan/South China Morning Post via Getty Images
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Bruce Yan/South China Morning Post via Getty Images
Wendy Cutler, a former diplomat and negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, delivers a 2015 speech at the Asia Society in Hong Kong. Cutler told NPR that U.S. businesses wouldn’t let the trade office take direct action on their behalf in Chinese cybertheft cases.
Bruce Yan/South China Morning Post via Getty Images
But that’s not what former U.S. Attorney David Hickton found. When he took over in the Western District of Pennsylvania in 2010, he says, he was inundated with calls from companies saying they suspected China might be inside their computer systems.
“I literally received an avalanche of concern and complaints from companies and organizations who said, ‘We are losing our technology — drip, drip, drip,’ ” he says.
Hickton opened an investigation and quickly set his sights on a special unit of the Chinese military — a secretive group known as Unit 61398. Investigators were able to watch as the unit’s officers, sitting in an office building in Shanghai, broke into the computer systems of American companies at night, stopped for an hour break at China’s lunchtime and then continued in the Chinese afternoon.
“They were really using a large rake — think of a rake [like] you rake leaves in the fall,” he says. “They were taking everything … personal information, strategic plans, organizational charts. Then they just figured out later how they were going to use it.”
But when Hickton went to the companies, eager for them to become plaintiffs, he ran into a problem. None of the companies wanted any part of it. Hickton says they had too much money on the line in China.
“What we were tone-deaf to is [that] we seemed to think we could just walk in and wave the flag of the USA,” Hickton says, “and it just didn’t work.”
Even today, five years later, Hickton still won’t name most of the companies involved — and they have never come forward.
Eventually he was able to convince five largely local companies and the steelworkers union to come forward, mostly, he says, because he grew up in Pittsburgh and went to school with a lot of the managers.
David Hickton, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, speaks during a 2014 announcement of indictments against Chinese military hackers, with former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin.
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David Hickton, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, speaks during a 2014 announcement of indictments against Chinese military hackers, with former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
“I knew these people,” Hickton says. “They trusted me. … We couldn’t ask them to be patriotic at the expense of engendering a shareholder case.”
But, he says, he could have included hundreds — or even thousands — more.
“We’ve made a terrible mistake by being so secretive about our cyberwork,” he says. “We have not fairly told the people we represent what the threats are.”
Government and business leaders interviewed by NPR and Frontline said individual companies were making millions of dollars in China over the past decade and a half and didn’t want to hurt short-term profits by coming forward. They demanded secrecy, even in the face of outright theft.
But now the impact of that secrecy is coming to light, they say. Companies are facing hundreds of millions of dollars in future losses from the theft, and U.S. officials say they are years behind trying to tackle the problem.
Michael Wessel, commissioner on the U.S. government’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, says it wasn’t supposed to be this way. U.S. officials had high hopes when China officially joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
“There was a honeymoon period in the first six or seven years, a desire to try [to] make things work,” Wessel says.
But, he says, starting around 2006, businesses began coming to him saying that China had stolen their designs or ideas or had pressured them into partnerships and taken their technology.
Just like with Hickton, Wessel says, they wouldn’t come forward publicly.
“The business community wanted the administration to come in hard without anyone’s fingerprints being on the reasoning behind it,” he says. “They wanted the profits, but they also didn’t want the possible retribution.”
Wessel says that was never going to work. While nothing in the original trade agreements specifically mentions cybertheft, the U.S. could have brought criminal cases forward, enacted sanctions or opened investigations under rules set up by the World Trade Organization — if a company would let it.
Court cases and documents from recent years offer a clue into what experts believe has really been going on. The Chinese government has been accused of stealing everything from vacuum cleaner designs to solar panel technology to the blueprints of Boeing’s C-17 aircraft.
Hackers from China, often with ties to the government, have been accused of breaking into gas companies, steel companies and chemical companies. Not long ago, Chinese government companies were indicted for stealing the secret chemical makeup of the color white from DuPont. China developed its J-20 fighter plane, a plane similar to Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, shortly after a Chinese national was indicted for stealing technical data from Lockheed Martin, including the plans for the Raptor.
Chinese hacking made occasional headlines, but none really grabbed Americans’ attention. There was one exception.
In 2010, Google went public in announcing that it had been hacked by the Chinese government. Thirty-four other American companies that were also part of the hack stayed silent. Most have kept it a secret to this day.
A man places flowers outside Google’s Chinese headquarters in Beijing, on Jan. 15, 2010. The tech giant’s accusation that year that it had been hacked by China cast light on a problem few companies discuss: the pervasive threat from China-based cybertheft.
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A man places flowers outside Google’s Chinese headquarters in Beijing, on Jan. 15, 2010. The tech giant’s accusation that year that it had been hacked by China cast light on a problem few companies discuss: the pervasive threat from China-based cybertheft.
Vincent Thian/AP
NPR tracked down 11 of the total 35 companies. All of them either did not respond to NPR’s request or declined to comment.
A former top Google official who was closely involved in managing the hack told NPR that Google was “infuriated” that no other company would come forward, leaving Google to challenge China alone.
“[We] wanted to out all of the companies by name,” said the official, who spoke on the condition their name not be used because they did not have permission from Google to speak about the incident. “One of the companies we called, said ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve been tracking this for months.’ It was unbelievable. The legal department talked us out of it.”
“We felt like we stood up and did the right thing,” the former official said. “It felt like Helm’s Deep, the battle from The Lord of the Rings in which you’re impossibly surrounded and severely outnumbered.”
James McGregor, a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, who was there at the time, says the companies kept even business organizations like his from speaking out.
“What they should have done is held a press conference and say, ‘We 35 businesses have been hacked,’ and you would have put it right back on China,” says McGregor. “Instead, they just all hid under a rock and pretended it didn’t happen.”
McGregor says their silence left little room for punishment, and worse, he says, it hid the extent of the problem.
Across the ocean, cybersleuth Dmitri Alperovitch was sitting at his desk at a security company in Atlanta when Google called looking for backup. He says when he took a look, he was stunned.
“I knew pretty much right away this is something very different,” says Alperovitch, who is co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “For the first time we were facing a nation-state and intelligence service that was breaking into companies — not governments, not militaries, but private sector organizations.”
But, he says, U.S. government officials were nowhere to be seen.
“They did not even publicly concur with the attributions that Google had made at the time,” he says.
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on May 1, 2017. Alperovitch said he was stunned after Google announced it was hacked by China.
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Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on May 1, 2017. Alperovitch said he was stunned after Google announced it was hacked by China.
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Obama administration officials say they did not turn a blind eye to the Google hack or cybertheft from China.
The administration was struggling with other important priorities, such as North Korea, Iran, the economy and climate change, says Evan Medeiros, Obama’s top China specialist and then a staffer at the National Security Council.
“Direct confrontation with China does not usually result in lasting solutions,” Medeiros says, noting that President Obama secured an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to halt the attacks and put together a regional trade agreement — the Trans-Pacific Partnership — to add pressure.
But neither measure lasted.
“Hindsight is always 20/20,” he says. “I wish that we had spent more time … finding creative ways to punish them for creating a nonlevel playing field.”
Without those punishments, the attacks continued.
In the year after the Google hack, Alperovitch uncovered two more serious intrusions that, he says, involved thousands of American companies.
In the fall of 2011, he went to the White House to warn officials about what he had found. He sat down in the Situation Room with a half-dozen top administration leaders.
“The most surprising thing to me was the lack of surprise,” Alperovitch says. “I got the distinct impression that none of this was news. When I pressed them on why they were not taking stronger action against China, their response was, ‘We have a multifaceted relationship with China.’ ”
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama following a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 25, 2015. During the visit, the two leaders announced an agreement to halt cyberattacks.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama following a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 25, 2015. During the visit, the two leaders announced an agreement to halt cyberattacks.
Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Alperovitch says White House officials told him that some of the same companies that were being victimized by China also wanted to continue doing business in China.
“They didn’t want to take any action that would jeopardize that billions of dollars of trade we were doing at the time,” he says.
Ask McGregor, the American business representative, how companies can complain about China’s behavior to the U.S. government while simultaneously preventing the government from taking strong action, and his answer is blunt.
“Companies were afraid of China,” he says. “American business companies’ incentives are to make money.”
McGregor today advises dozens of American companies in China, and he says they are confronting a new reality. China is no longer an up-and-comer — it’s a true competitor and quickly closing in on America’s high-tech sector. McGregor says company leaders are beginning to ask whether years of theft and hacking have given China an edge that the United States will no longer be able to stay in front of.
And U.S. government officials are asking whether federal agencies will be able to catch up on enforcement.
Top government leaders told NPR that federal agencies are years behind where they could have been if the theft had been openly addressed.
Even at the Defense Department, as late as 2014, cybertheft from China was not one of the Pentagon’s top priorities.
“Our intelligence agencies were looking at the Middle East, at the Russians,” says Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, a China expert who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council.
He says he had never given the issue of Chinese cybertheft much thought. But then, in the fall of 2014, he loaded a confidential briefing into his computer. It was case after case in which the Chinese government had stolen the product designs from almost a dozen high-tech American companies, in a couple of cases almost putting them out of business.
“It immediately changed my conception, my view of the world,” he says. “I realized I did not know how the world worked.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping leave an event in Beijing on November 9, 2017. The Trump administration, and the Obama administration before that, have brought concerns regarding cybertheft to the Chinese directly.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping leave an event in Beijing on November 9, 2017. The Trump administration, and the Obama administration before that, have brought concerns regarding cybertheft to the Chinese directly.
Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images
Spalding says he made it his mission to get the word out to other government agencies. But even in 2015, he says, he was met mostly with a shrug.
He says he went to the departments of Commerce and the Treasury, as well as the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. State Department.
“The two responses we got were, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really, really bad.’ And the second one is, ‘That’s not my job,'” Spalding says. “That was almost the universal answer we got every time we went to a senior leader. Bad problem but not my problem.”
Spalding, who retired from the Air Force last year, says in the final years under Obama and now under President Trump, agencies are finally starting to take some action. The Justice Department is bringing criminal cases, the trade representative’s office is investigating China’s dealings and both administrations have brought concerns to the Chinese directly.
But, Spalding says, it may have come 10 years too late.
“We all missed it,” he says. “We have to understand the problem and get to work on it.”
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of this northern Indiana city who in just weeks has vaulted from being a near-unknown to a breakout star in the Democratic Party, officially started his presidential bid here on Sunday, presenting himself as a transformational figure who is well positioned to beat President Trump, despite being young and facing off against many seasoned rivals.
“I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern, millennial mayor, but we live in a moment that compels us each to act,” Buttigieg said in front of thousands of supporters, jacket-free with his sleeves rolled up. “It calls for a new generation of leadership.”
Buttigieg added, “It’s time to walk away from the politics of the past and toward something totally different.”
The scene for Buttigieg’s rally was a hulking former Studebaker assembly plant, whose closure decades ago rocked this region’s economy. The site has since become a data and education hub pushed by his administration — and central to his technocratic, hopeful pitch that he is ready to help communities still struggling with the effects of globalization.
“Change is coming, ready or not,” Buttigieg told the crowd. “There is a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back,” and he touted his attempts in the city to assist the workforce with training and skills programs.
Some attendees drove from around the country after being inspired by Buttigieg’s message and the historic nature of his campaign as a gay presidential candidate.
For Buttigieg, Sunday’s upbeat gathering on a dreary, snowy mid-April afternoon was an important political juncture: a reintroduction to a party that has only begun to pay attention to this mayor with a hard-to-pronounce name, but is now certainly listening closely as it searches for a standard-bearer.
Following a string of buzzy podcast and television appearances, increasingly crowded stops in early voting states, and the release of a best-selling memoir, Buttigieg is suddenly a contender in a crowded Democratic field, with a $7 million fundraising haul in the first quarter of the year and a rapid rise in the polls.
Meanwhile, his husband, Chasten, has become a favorite of Democrats on social media, and Buttigieg has landed on the cover of national magazines, including New York magazine this week, with the headline “How about Pete?”
As rain fell on this city of roughly 100,000 on Sunday morning, thousands lined up under umbrellas and bundled up in jackets, waiting to enter the facility, holding homemade signs and carrying coffee cups and copies of his book, “Shortest Way Home.”
One of them was Ashley Pawlowski, 34, a self-described independent from South Bend who works at a local nonprofit. “The South Bend we all grew up in was very different. He changed this city and brought a new attitude,” she said. “He’s got this ability to help people deep down in his bones.”
Buttigieg’s challenge in the coming months: translating this meteoric momentum and goodwill among Democrats who are eager to cheer a confident, youthful voice from the Midwest into a sustained national campaign that can outpace candidates whose careers have made them popular with activists and donors.
Buttigieg has worked to rub off the heavy sheen of implausibility from his upstart candidacy, insisting that being a two-term mayor of a city in the middle of the country gives him more governing experience than Trump and that he is the face of a new generation that wants to bypass the partisanship and rancor that has gripped Trump’s Washington.
“My face is my message,” Buttigieg often tells voters on the campaign trail, a catchall way of referring to a calm persona that has drawn comparisons to President Barack Obama and to his own political profile: a gay Midwestern mayor, a retired Navy officer who served in Afghanistan and a Rhodes scholar who, if elected, would be the youngest president in U.S. history.
Buttigieg’s path will be anything but a glide. While some once-unknown outsiders, such as Jimmy Carter in 1976, have captured the Democratic nomination, others with electric starts have seen their bids fade.
Buttigieg has generated a swell of enthusiasm among several top Democrats and Obama allies, such as veteran strategist David Axelrod — and Buttigieg has met privately with Obama, who has praised him. Other Democrats remain muted about the mayor.
In recent days, Buttigieg’s record in South Bend has come under scrutiny. His administration’s efforts to knock down blighted houses in the city have been criticized by some Democrats as a policy that was overly aggressive in revamping lower-income areas that are home to many minority voters. South Bend also continues to grapple with a quarter of the city hovering on the poverty line.
Buttigieg’s record on race has drawn criticism from Democrats as well, particularly his demotion of South Bend’s first black police chief, Darryl Boykins, in 2012. Buttigieg has cited a federal investigation of Boykins as his rationale for the ouster, but Boykins went on to sue the city for racial discrimination.
Solomon Anderson, a 57-year-old banker from South Bend, said some in the city’s black community remain unsettled by Buttigieg’s handling of that incident, even as he and others cheered on the mayor’s campaign at the rally on Sunday.
“Not everyone is over it,” Anderson said. “He has tried to be a healer, to be inclusive, but it hasn’t always been easy.”
Axelrod, watching Buttigieg’s crowd from afar, noted on Twitter that the crowd “seems very large, very impressive but also very white — an obstacle he will have to overcome.”
And Buttigieg’s 2015 comment that “all lives matter,” which has been called insensitive by those in the Black Lives Matter movement that seeks to address issues facing black Americans with law enforcement, prompted him to reassure a civil rights group this month that he understands their concerns and stands in solidarity with their cause.
Buttigieg’s campaign is aware of the growing spotlight on his mayoral decisions and is determined to showcase his record and make the case that running a city like South Bend enables him to understand vexing national issues from a ground-level perspective. Sunday’s rally featured introductory speeches from mayors from other states who have become allies, following Buttigieg’s work in mayoral groups and his unsuccessful run for Democratic National Committee chairman in 2016.
“The horror show in Washington is mesmerizing. It’s all-consuming. But starting today, we’re going to change the channel,” Buttigieg said.
Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, called Buttigieg “the polar opposite in every way to Donald Trump.” Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin, endorsed him and said it seemed as though “the world is arriving in South Bend.”
“5 years ago I came out to my family,” tweeted one supporter, Matthew Miller. “I never thought 5 years ago I’d be driving 8 hours through the night with my Republican father right by my side to go see the first openly gay man announce he’s running for president.”
Buttigieg’s policy proposals have been relatively broad compared to others in the field and so far tethered to his belief that American democracy needs to undergo a systemic renewal that includes a debate over possible changes to the U.S. Constitution, including expanding the Supreme Court and making the confirmation process less partisan and eliminating the electoral college.
On Sunday, he spoke out against the rise of white nationalism, voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering and the influence of corporate money in campaigns.
“Sometimes a dark moment brings out the best in us,” Buttigieg said.
Pete Hegseth hosts highly-decorated veterans on Fox Nation’s ‘Modern Warriors: Reflections,’ who share their war stories, combat moments, thoughts on military morale today, and why they served.
This Memorial Day, Fox Nation treats subscribers to fresh, new, exclusive content inspired by America’s heroes — and an even sweeter surprise for them: a one-year free membership to the streaming service.
Fox Nation is thrilled to thank soldiers currently serving in active duty – as well as our nation’s veterans – for their service to our country with its new ‘Grateful Nation’ promotion. For one whole year, military personnel will get to enjoy a wide variety of Memorial Day-inspired content free of charge — like Pete Hegseth’s ‘Modern Warriors,’ Johnny Joey Jones’ ‘USA Ink,’ Shannon Bream’s ‘Hero Dogs,’ and ‘America’s Top Ranger,’ a look at the 2021 “Best Ranger” competition in Fort Benning, Georgia.
From decorated dogs to the history of war-time tattoos, Fox Nation has no shortage of patriotic content this holiday.
“Here in America, we conflate what Veterans Day is with what Memorial Day is,” said former U.S. Army Pilot Wesley Hunt, who joined host Pete Hegseth alongside other veterans for the series, ‘Modern Warriors: Reflections.’
“Memorial Day is for those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for us to wake up in the morning and put our feet on free sovereign American soil, and breathe free sovereign American air.”
“And people died for it,” Hunt continued. “They died for all Americans.”
Former U.S. Marine Richard Casper, who is also featured in ‘Reflections,’ further explained why it’s necessary for Americans to recognize Memorial Day.
“They always say you die twice — the moment you pass, and the moment that someone speaks your name for the last time,” noted Casper. “And so to memorialize them [veterans who’ve died in battle] is so important… because we have to keep saying their name.”
While Memorial Day serves to honor the many men and women who’ve sacrificed their lives for our American freedoms, Fox Nation explores how a man and woman’s best friend often exemplifies a similar sense of bravery.
From the battlefield to the home front, Season 3 of Fox Nation’s ‘Hero Dogs’ features first-hand accounts of courageous canines saving lives. The series, hosted by Fox News’ Shannon Bream, profiles three news dogs whose brave efforts have ranged from their work during drug raids, to protecting American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Though tattoos have become a widely accepted form of memorialization and self-expression, tattooing in American history dates back to markings on soldiers during the Civil War. Many who fought in early-on battles were branded in order to be identified, in the event they were injured or killed in the line of duty.
Fox Nation’s new series ‘USA Ink,’ illustrates the history and significance of tattooing’s pervasive spread throughout culture in America, and how it’s progressed over time alongside it.
Host and combat veteran Johnny Joey Jones explores its inky origins — true experts and enthusiasts track the first known tattoo back to an iceman — and takes a deeper look at how tattoos have been used to celebrate our patriots and U.S. soldiers, who marked themselves during our most impactful wars.
The series also sees Jones getting new ink by fellow Army vet, Will XX of the Blaque Salt Studio. His piece, inspired by the United States Second Amendment, debuts on Fox Nation.
The three-part documentary series records the three-day-long physical battle between soldiers. Two-man teams compete for 62 hours straight while carrying 75 pounds on their backs and maneuvering 70 miles of obstacles with 38 total events.
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