President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The White House is preparing to formally object to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as soon as Friday, saying it won’t cooperate with the probe because it was initiated without a vote of the House.
The White House Counsel’s Office was preparing to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objecting to the form of the impeachment investigation, a person familiar with the matter said late Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the letter before its dissemination.
Pelosi last week announced that the House was beginning the formal inquiry but didn’t seek the consent of the full chamber, as was done for impeachment investigations into former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, confirmed that the letter was forthcoming.
Trump allies have suggested for days that without a formal vote, the House is merely conducting standard oversight, entitling lawmakers to a lesser level of disclosure from the administration. The Justice Department raised similar arguments last month, though that was before Pelosi announced the impeachment investigation.
In a letter Thursday to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Pelosi argued, “There is no requirement under the Constitution, under House Rules, or House precedent that the whole House vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry.”
There’s no clear-cut procedure in the Constitution for launching an impeachment inquiry, leaving many of these questions about obstruction untested in court, said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University.
“There’s no specification in the Constitution in what does and does not constitute a more formal impeachment inquiry or investigation,” he said. “One can argue if they’re in an impeachment investigation, they’re in an impeachment.”
Giuliani dismissed the entire premise of the impeachment inquiry, which is centered on Trump asking Ukraine to investigate his possible political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The president was not tasking Ukraine to investigate a political opponent,” Giuliani told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He wanted an investigation into a seriously conflicted former vice president of the United States who damaged the reputation of the United States in Ukraine.”
Democrats have sought to use their declared impeachment investigation to bolster their case to access all sorts of documents from the administration, most recently secret grand jury information that underpinned special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. They have also threatened to use the administration’s refusal to turn over documents and make witnesses available to potentially form an article of impeachment over “obstruction” of the congressional inquiry.
Where courts have generally required congressional oversight requests to demonstrate a legitimate legislative purpose, impeachment requests could be wide-ranging.
It is unclear if Democrats would wade into a lengthy legal fight with the administration over documents and testimony or if they would just move straight to considering articles of impeachment.
Pelosi has sought to avoid a vote on the impeachment probe for the same reason she resisted, for months, liberal calls to try to remove the president: It would force moderate House Democrats to make a politically risky vote.
The White House, meanwhile, is trying to force the question on Democrats, as it seeks to raise the political cost for their impeachment investigation and to animate the president’s supporters ahead of the 2020 election.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., joins Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., right, at a news conference as House Democrats move on depositions in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, at the Capitol Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump is rapidly confronting a decision at the core of House Democrats’ nascent impeachment inquiry: Should he comply with congressional demands and risk disclosure of embarrassing information? Or should he delay and possibly deepen his legal and political predicament?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee chairman, issued a blunt warning to the president Wednesday, threatening to make White House defiance of a congressional request for testimony and documents potential grounds for an article of impeachment.
With the prospect of new subpoenas coming as soon as Friday, Trump’s official policy of deliberate non-cooperation, and his view of executive power, could be tested quickly.
“We want to make it abundantly clear that any effort by (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), by the president or anyone else to interfere with the Congress’ ability to call before it relevant witnesses will be considered as evidence of obstruction of the lawful functions of Congress,” Schiff said in a Wednesday news conference.
For his part, Trump maintained, “Well, I always cooperate,” without explicitly saying he would comply with the request. He then derided Pelosi, saying she “hands out subpoenas like they’re cookies.”
The White House strategy toward congressional oversight has often been open scorn. The Republican president’s aides have ignored document requests and subpoenas, invoked executive privilege _ so far as to argue that executive privilege extends to informal presidential advisers who’ve never held White House roles _ and all but dared Democrats to hold them in contempt.
As the impeachment inquiry accelerates, the White House’s stonewalling appears likely to continue.
“This is a hoax,” Trump said, immediately after professing his commitment to cooperation. He then launched into a diatribe on the impeachment inquiry, which has centered on his request for Ukraine’s president to assist in digging up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. “This is the greatest hoax. This is just a continuation of what’s been playing out since my election.”
In public and private, Trump has angrily dismissed the impeachment investigation as an illegitimate, purely partisan effort to topple him, according to three White House officials not authorized to speak about private conversations. And he praised Pompeo’s initial combative response to the Democrats’ requests this week, one of the officials said.
It’s part of an emerging political and legal strategy informed by Trump’s time in the two-year crucible of the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
The president’s first team of lawyers was inclined to cooperate with Robert Mueller, believing it would help bring the investigation to a swift conclusion. But once Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani took over, they largely ceased cooperation, attacked Mueller’s integrity and shielded Trump from testifying in person. They believe the moves inoculated the president legally and solidified his standing politically. Giuliani and Sekulow remain part of the president’s outside counsel.
Trump’s legal team privately cheered as the Mueller investigation bled into its third year in 2019 _ in part because of their stall tactics on whether Trump would consent to the Mueller interview. Now they are bent on ensuring the current probe is anything but the quick process desired by Democrats, who are wary of its impact on the 2020 presidential campaign.
“We’re not fooling around here,” Schiff said. “We don’t want this to drag on for months and months, which appears to be the administration’s strategy.”
White House allies argue that the Democratic demands are overly broad and raise issues of executive privilege and immunity, jeopardizing the longstanding interests of the co-equal branch of government. But Democrats are making the precise counter-argument, that Trump is claiming superiority of the executive branch over the legislative in a manner that defies the Constitution.
It’s a foot-dragging response that also serves Trump’s political interests _ he has hoped to use impeachment as a rallying cry for his supporter base in the election year.
Democrats have sought to use their declared impeachment investigation to bolster their case to access all sorts of documents from the administration, most recently secret grand jury information that underpinned Mueller’s report. And where courts have generally required congressional oversight requests to demonstrate a legitimate legislative purpose, impeachment requests could be wide-ranging.
Some Republicans have raised doubts that the unilateral declaration of impeachment would grant the House those powers. Trump allies have questioned the form of the impeachment investigation, which, unlike those into Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, was begun without a formal vote of the House.
They suggest that without a formal vote, the House is merely conducting oversight. The Justice Department raised similar arguments last month, though it was before Pelosi announced the impeachment investigation.
There’s no clear-cut procedure in the Constitution for launching an impeachment inquiry, leaving many of these questions about obstruction untested in court, said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University.
“There’s no specification in the Constitution in what does and does not constitute a more formal impeachment inquiry or investigation,” he said. “One can argue if they’re in an impeachment investigation, they’re in an impeachment.”
It is unclear if Democrats would wade into a lengthy legal fight with the administration over documents and testimony _ or if they would just move straight to considering articles of impeachment.
Schiff said Democrats will “have to decide whether to litigate, or how to litigate.”
Democrats might have a marginally stronger case in court fights over documents they want from the administration now that they’ve initiated an impeachment inquiry. But more important is the prospect of incorporating into impeachment itself the White House’s refusal to cooperate, said Elliot Mincberg, senior counsel for the liberal People for the American Way.
If the White House won’t provide fuller transcripts of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president, for example, that could serve “both as evidence to support other allegations and itself impeachable conduct. That’s leverage the Democrats did not previously claim that they have now quite explicitly claimed,” said Mincberg, who previously served as a lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee.
Jennifer Victor, a political science professor at George Mason University, said the impeachment inquiry “ups the ante in a checks-and-balances political game with the executive branch. The heightened public spotlight makes it more difficult for the executive branch to skirt requests to appear or deliver documents.”
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, participate in an Armed Forces welcome ceremony for the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, Monday, Sept. 30, 2019, at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $125 million in the third quarter of the year, a presidential fundraising record.
The pro-Trump effort said Tuesday that it has raised more than $308 million in 2019 and has more than $156 million in the bank. Republicans aim to use the fundraising haul to fight off Democrats’ impeachment effort.
Former President Barack Obama and the DNC raised just over $70 million in the third quarter of 2011.
“President Trump has built a juggernaut of a campaign, raising record amounts of money at a record pace,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel credited Democratic attacks on Trump for motivating supporters to donate in record numbers.
“We are investing millions on the airwaves and on the ground to hold House Democrats accountable, highlight their obstruction, and take back the House and reelect President Trump in 2020,” she said.
The fundraising announcement comes as the pro-Trump efforts launched their first major advertising campaign of the cycle. Trump’s team aims to devote $1 billion to his reelection.
Last week, as House Democrats launched their impeachment effort, the Trump campaign announced it would spend $8 million to air an ad attacking Democrats for trying to “steal” the 2020 campaign. The RNC said it would spend $2 million attacking Democrats for their support of impeachment.
President Donald Trump is pouring cold water on prospects for a bipartisan compromise on gun legislation, even as his aides circulate a draft plan on Capitol Hill.
Trump tells Fox News in an interview aired Thursday no deal is imminent. Six weeks after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, Trump says, “We’re going very slowly.”
Trump says he doesn’t want “bad people” to have weapons, but won’t allow any plan to move forward that takes guns away from law-abiding people.
Trump says Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s call last week to confiscate AR-15-style rifles has made it more difficult for Republicans to make an agreement. Trump says: “A lot of people think this is just a way of taking away guns.” He adds he won’t let that happen.
Protesters display placards and chant slogans, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019, while gathered outside federal court, in Boston. The demonstration was held to protest the Trump administration’s campaign to end temporary protected status, or TPS, for tens of thousands of immigrants nationwide. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
The Trump administration is on a course to remake the face of immigration in America in ways that would turn it whiter and wealthier.
It is a dramatic editing of the American catechism welcoming “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses , yearning to breathe free,” inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, to “your tired and your poor who can stand on their on their own two feet and will not become a public charge.”
The administration official who offered that rewrite, Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, affirmed on Wednesday that his words were intentional, including his added notion that the poem was written for Europeans. He said in a statement that his agency “is tasked with enforcing the law, not a poem.”
It’s another defiant step in President Donald Trump’s long march to change the way the nation thinks about immigrants, an approach he hopes will win over enough voters to earn him a second term. He’s added another layer of certainty that the 2020 campaign will be deeply rooted in a cultural battle over national identity.
But he faces an accompanying danger that his hard line will further energize Democrats, alienate suburban women and prompt a swell of newly registered Latino voters. Democrats have been quick to charge that the enforcement pivot the administration announced on Monday — to block many legal immigrants who receive public benefits from being granted green cards — was rooted in sowing racial animus.
“This administration finally admitted what we’ve known all along: They think the Statue of Liberty only applies to white people,” tweeted former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic presidential candidate.
Statue of Liberty stands in New York harbor. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
The president and his aides “have further stained this country’s tradition as a beacon of hope for immigrants,” said Hispanic Federation President José Calderón. “Shame on them.”
Depending on how the new “public charge” rules are applied, experts say that changes intended to predict whether applicants are likely to use public benefits could dramatically alter the makeup of immigrants eligible for green cards or permanent residency in the U.S. by taking into account their incomes, ages and employment histories.
According to a study by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, the rules would likely reduce immigration from Mexico and Central America, while increasing it from other regions, especially Europe. The income standards, in particular, could lead to reduced rates for Mexican, Central American, Caribbean, African and Asian applicants. Canadian and Austrian applicants could likely benefit, as could applicants from non-white countries like India and Japan.
The study also found the new rules would have put most recent legal permanent residents at risk of denial, with 69 percent of the past five years’ green card recipients displaying at least one of the “negative factors” identified by the government. The rules are also likely to make it harder for the parents of U.S. citizens to join their children in the country because they’re more likely to be older, not working and facing health challenges.
“America’s always been a path to success for millions of people and now America wants to make it so that it’s a path only for those who have already succeeded,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council.
Trump rose to the White House fanning unease about an increasingly diverse nation, where demographic and immigration trends are projected to make whites a minority in less than two decades. As Trump told it, immigrants were stealing his supporters’ jobs and driving down their wages, denying working class whites opportunities for success.
Immigrants were effective scapegoats, especially in towns in the industrial heartland and other economically depressed areas of the country still reeling from job losses as the rest of the country was experiencing an economic recovery. And Trump has continued to push that message.
His administration has tried to severely limit the number of migrants claiming asylum in the U.S. and has dramatically reduced refugee admissions — with further reductions possible next month when refugee limits for next year are unveiled. He has also endorsed legislation that would slash legal immigration rates, while at the same time pushing for a wholesale overhaul of the kinds of immigrants who should be permitted, favoring those with certain skills and high-wage job offers over those with family ties to the U.S.
Blunted by Democrats in Congress, he has turned to administrative action, with mixed results withstanding legal challenges.
In addition to the changes he’s made and proposed, Trump has spoken disparagingly about immigration from majority black and Hispanic countries, including calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals when he launched his 2016 campaign. Last year, he privately branded Central American and African nations as “shithole” countries and he suggested the U.S. take in more immigrants from European countries like predominantly white Norway.
Immigration official Cuccinelli seemed to limit the reach of the Statue of Liberty poem in an interview with CNN on Tuesday night. He said it was referring to “people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class.”
His own agency seems to like the original. In its “citizen almanac” for distribution to new Americans, the agency applauds the poem as a beacon for “the millions of immigrants who came to America in search of freedom and opportunity.”
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Follow Colvin and Miller on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@ZekeJMiller and http://twitter.com/@ColvinJ
Acting Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, speaks during a briefing at the White House, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A top Trump administration official says that the famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants into the country is about “people coming from Europe” and that America is looking to receive migrants “who can stand on their own two feet.”
The comments on Tuesday from Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, came a day after the Trump administration announced it would seek to deny green cards to migrants who seek Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance. The move, and Cuccinelli’s defense, prompted an outcry from Democrats and immigration advocates who said the policy would favor wealthier immigrants and disadvantage those from poorer countries in Latin America and Africa.
“This administration finally admitted what we’ve known all along: They think the Statue of Liberty only applies to white people,” tweeted former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic presidential candidate.
The administration’s proposed policy shift comes as President Donald Trump is leaning more heavily into the restrictive immigration policies that have energized his core supporters and were central to his 2016 victory. He has also spoken disparagingly about immigration from majority black and Hispanic countries, including calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals when he launched his 2016 campaign. Last year, he privately branded Central American and African nations as “shithole” countries and he suggested the U.S. take in more immigrants from European countries like predominantly white Norway.
Cuccinelli said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday night that the Emma Lazarus poem emblazoned on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty referred to “people coming from Europe where they had class based societies where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class.”
Lazarus’ poem, written in 1883 to raise money to construct the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal and cast in bronze beneath the monument in 1903, served as a beacon to millions of immigrants who crossed past as they first entered the U.S. in New York Harbor. It reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
Cuccinelli was asked earlier Tuesday on NPR whether the words “give me your tired, your poor” were part of the American ethos. Cuccinelli responded: “They certainly are. Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”
A hard-line conservative from Virginia, Cuccinelli was a failed Republican candidate for governor in 2013 after serving as the state’s attorney general. He backed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president in 2016 and for a time was a harsh critic of Trump.
He is one of a slew of immigration hardliners brought in by Trump to implement the president’s policies. He was appointed to the post in June in a temporary capacity, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
Trump, asked Tuesday about Cuccinelli’s comments on NPR, appeared to back him up.
“I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer paying for people to come into the United States,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One for Pennsylvania. “I think we’re doing it right.”
Immigrant rights groups strongly criticized the Trump administration’s new rules for immigrants receiving public assistance, warning that the changes would scare immigrants away from asking for needed help. And they voiced concern that officials were being given too much authority to decide whether someone is likely to need public assistance in the future.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also condemned Cuccinelli’s comments.
Demonstrators hold a sign as the motorcade carrying President Donald Trump arrives to visit a joint operations center to meet with first responders after the El Paso mass shooting. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Aiming to play the traditional role of healer during national tragedy, President Donald Trump paid visits Wednesday to cities reeling from mass shootings that left 31 dead and dozens more wounded. But his divisive words preceded him, large protests greeted him and biting political attacks soon followed.
The president and first lady Melania Trump flew to El Paso late in the day after visiting the Dayton, Ohio, hospital where many of the victims of Sunday’s attack in that city were treated. For most of the day, the president was kept out of view of the reporters traveling with him, but the White House said the couple met with hospital staff and first responders and spent time with wounded survivors and their families.
Trump told them he was “with them,” said press secretary Stephanie Grisham. “Everybody received him very warmly. Everybody was very, very excited to see him.” Trump said the same about his reception in the few moments he spoke with the media at a 911 call center in El Paso.
But outside Dayton’s Miami Valley Hospital, at least 200 protesters gathered, blaming Trump’s incendiary rhetoric for inflaming political and racial tensions in the country and demanding action on gun control. Some said Trump was not welcome in their city. There were Trump supporters, as well.
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In El Paso, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke spoke to several hundred people at a separate gathering. O’Rourke, a potential Democratic 2020 presidential rival, has blistered Trump as a racist instigator, but he also told those in his audience the open way the people of his hometown treat each other could be “the example to the United States of America.”
Emotions are still raw in both cities in the aftermath of the weekend shootings. Critics contend Trump’s own words have contributed to a combustible climate that has spawned death and other violence.
The vitriol continued Wednesday.
Trump’s motorcade passed El Paso protesters holding “Racist Go Home” signs. And Trump spent part of his flight between Ohio and Texas airing his grievances on Twitter, berating Democratic lawmakers, O’Rourke and the press. It was a remarkable split-screen appearance for TV viewers, with White House images of handshakes and selfies juxtaposed with angry tweets.
Trump and the White House have forcefully disputed the idea that he bears some responsibility for the nation’s divisions. And he continued to do so Wednesday.
“My critics are political people,” Trump said as he left the White House, noting the apparent political leanings of the shooter in the Dayton killings. He also defended his rhetoric on issues including immigration, claiming instead that he “brings people together.”
Some 85% of U.S. adults believe the tone and nature of political debate has become more negative, with a majority saying Trump has changed things for the worse, according to recent Pew Research Center polling. And more than three quarters, 78%, say that elected officials who use heated or aggressive language to talk about certain people or groups make violence against those people more likely.
In Dayton, raw anger and pain were on display as protesters chanted “Ban those guns” and “Do something!” during Trump’s visit.
Holding a sign that said “Not Welcome Here,” Lynnell Graham said she thinks Trump’s response to the shootings has been insincere.
“To me he comes off as fake,” she said.
Dorothee Bouquet, stood in the bright sun with her 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, tucked in a stroller. She told them they were going to a protest “to tell grownups to make better rules.”
But in El Paso, where more protests awaited, Raul Melendez, whose father-in-law, David Johnson, was killed in Saturday’s shooting, said the most appropriate thing Trump could do was to meet with relatives of the victims.
“It shows that he actually cares, if he talks to individual families,” said Melendez, who credits Johnson with helping his 9-year-old daughter survive the attack by pushing her under a counter. Melendez, an Army veteran and the son of Mexican immigrants, said he holds only the shooter responsible for the attack.
“That person had the intent to hurt people, he already had it,” he said. “No one’s words would have triggered that.”
Local Democratic lawmakers who’d expressed concern about the visit said Trump had nonetheless hit the right notes Wednesday.
“He was comforting. He did the right things and Melania did the right things. It’s his job to comfort people,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, who nonetheless said he was “very concerned about a president that divides in his rhetoric and plays to race in his rhetoric.”
“I think the victims and the first responders were grateful that the president of the United States came to Dayton,” added Mayor Nan Whaley, who said she was glad Trump had not stopped at the site of the shooting.
“A lot of the time his talk can be very divisive, and that’s the last thing we need in Dayton,” she said.
Grisham, responding on Twitter from aboard Air Force One, said it was “genuinely sad” to see the lawmakers “immediately hold such a dishonest press conference in the name of partisan politics.”
Despite protests in both cities, the White House insisted Trump had received positive receptions. One aide tweeted that Trump was a “rock star” at the Dayton hospital.
The White House did not allow reporters and photographers to watch as he talked with wounded victims, medical staff and law enforcement officers there, but then quickly published its own photos on social media and released a video of his visit.
There was discord in El Paso, too. Rep. Veronica Escobar, the Democratic congresswoman who represents the city, declined to meet with Trump. “I refuse to be a prop,” she said in an interview on CNN.
Visits to the sites of mass shootings have become a regular pilgrimage for recent presidents, but Trump, who has sometimes struggled to project empathy during moments of national tragedy, has stirred unusual backlash.
Though he has been able to summon soothing words and connect one-on-one with victims, he often quickly lapses into divisive tweets and statements — just recently painting immigrants as “invaders,” suggesting four Democratic congresswoman of color should “go back” to their home countries even though they’re U.S. citizens and deriding majority-black Baltimore as a rat-infested hell-hole.
As the presidential motorcade rolled up to a 911 center in El Paso, it passed a sign aimed at Trump that said “Racist go home.”
Elsewhere in the city, O’Rourke told several hundred people that his hometown “bore the brunt” of hatred from the shooting but could also hold an answer to the strife.
On the eve of his trip, Trump lashed out at O’Rourke, saying he “should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!”
On his flight between one scene of tragedy and the second, Trump said he tuned in as another 2020 rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, excoriated him in a speech that slammed him as incapable of offering the moral leadership that has defined the presidency for generations and “fueling a literal carnage” in America.
Trump declared the speech “Sooo Boring!” and warned that “The LameStream Media will die in the ratings and clicks” if Biden wins.
Trump seemed focused on politics through the day. He mentioned the crowd at his earlier rally in El Paso. When a reporter asked what he saw during the day, he answered with claims about how he was received respectfully in both cities. Then on the flight home he unleashed another political tweet:
“The Dems new weapon is actually their old weapon, one which they never cease to use when they are down, or run out of facts, RACISM! They are truly disgusting!”
President Donald Trump speaks about the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump on Monday condemned weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio as barbaric crimes “against all humanity” and called for bipartisan cooperation to respond to an epidemic of gun violence. He blamed mental illness and video games but made no mention of more limits on sales of firearms.
Trump said he wanted legislation providing “strong background checks” for gun users, though he has reneged on previous promises after mass attacks. He offered few details.
“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said, speaking from the White House about shootings that left 31 dead as the count rose on Monday. His scripted remarks came after two days of muted response to the shootings, and included a solitary denunciation of white supremacy, which he has been reluctant to criticize.
“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said, adding that he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” he said.
Trump suggested earlier Monday on Twitter that a background check bill could be paired with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system. But he didn’t say how or why he was connecting the issues. Both shooting suspects were U.S. citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive for the El Paso, Texas, massacre.
He did not elaborate on that proposal during his 10-minute address from the Diplomatic Reception Room. But Trump has frequently sought to tie his immigration priorities — a border wall and transforming the legal immigration system to one that prioritizes merit over familial ties — to legislation around which he perceives momentum to be building.
Trump’s proposed responses attempt to shift blame away from the heated rhetoric coming from the White House and his own campaign rallies and mostly leave it to Congress, which is on recess, to sort out his solutions.
He signaled he would oppose large-scale gun control efforts pushed by Democrats, saying, “hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”
Trump called for law enforcement and social media companies to do more to combat extremism and spot warning signs of violence online. He also called for a reduction in the “glorification” of violence in American culture, laws to make it easier to commit those with mental illness and “red flag laws” to separate such individuals from firearms.
He directed the Department of Justice to seek and prioritize the enforcement of the death penalty in cases of hate crimes and mass shootings.
Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation this session, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate.
And Trump himself has reneged on previous pledges to strengthen gun laws.
After other mass shootings he called for strengthening the federal background check system, and in 2018 he signed legislation to increase federal agency data sharing into the system. But he has resisted Democratic calls to toughen other gun control laws.
In February, the House approved bipartisan legislation to require federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers and legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearm purchases. The White House threatened a presidential veto if those measures passed Congress.
At a February meeting with survivors and family members of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting in which 17 people died, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks.”
Trump claimed he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results in quelling gun violence. But he later retreated, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump should push the GOP-controlled Senate to take up the House’s background check bills.
“It took less than three hours for the president to back off his call for stronger background check legislation,” they said in a joint statement. “When he can’t mention guns while talking about gun violence, it shows the president remains prisoner to the gun lobby and the NRA.”
With his Monday proposals, Trump is providing a response to the shootings with ideas that many Republicans in Congress can embrace — without confronting the gun lobby and tackling the problems with firearm accessibility that many view as a driver of gun violence.
Trump ally Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has raised concerns about violence in video games, while another Trump confidant, Sen. Lindsey Graham, tweeted his support over the weekend for his own red flag mental health bill. At the same time, many Democrats oppose the death penalty.
In the El Paso attack, investigators are focusing on whether it was a hate crime after the emergence of an anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested.
On Twitter Monday, Trump seemed to deflect from scrutiny over the manifesto, which had language mirroring some of his own. As Democrats have called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric, Trump blamed the news media for the nation’s woes.
“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he claimed.
As Trump weighs trips to the affected communities — the Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — some local lawmakers signaled opposition to his presence.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said Trump is “not welcome” to visit the city.
In recent weeks, the president has issued critical tweets about four women of color who serve in Congress, and in rallies has spoken of an “invasion” at the southern border. His reelection strategy has placed racial animus at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters.
Trump also has been widely criticized for offering a false equivalency when discussing racial violence, notably when he said there were “very fine people on both sides,” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of an anti-racism demonstrator.
On gun control, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support stronger laws, but proposals have stalled repeatedly in Congress, a marked contrast to some countries that have acted swiftly after a mass shooting.
In March, a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws. The survey was conducted both before and after a mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand. It found that 67 percent of Americans support making US gun laws stricter, while 22 percent say they should be left as they are and 10 percent think they should be made less strict.
Less than a week after the mosque shootings, New Zealand moved to ban “military-style” semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines; similarly, after a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted sweeping gun bans within two weeks.
The poll suggested many Americans would support similar measures, but there’s a wide gulf between Democrats and Republicans on banning specific types of guns. Overall, 6 in 10 Americans support a ban on AR-15 rifles and similar semi-automatic weapons. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats, but just about 4 in 10 Republicans, support that policy.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats listens during a daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, will leave his job next month, President Trump announced Sunday, after a turbulent two years in which Coats and the president were often at odds over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump announced Coats’ departure as Aug. 15 in a tweet that thanked Coats for his service. He said he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to the post and that he will name an acting official in the coming days. Ratcliffe is a frequent Trump defender who fiercely questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller last week during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Coats often appeared out of step with Trump and disclosed to prosecutors how he was urged by the president to publicly deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign. The frayed relationship reflected broader divisions between the president and the government’s intelligence agencies.
Coats’ public, and sometimes personal, disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence included Russian election interference and North Korean nuclear capabilities. Trump had long been skeptical of the nation’s intelligence agencies, which provoked his ire by concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of getting him elected.
In a letter of resignation released Sunday night, Coats said serving as the nation’s top intelligence official has been a “distinct privilege” but that it was time for him to “move on” to the next chapter of his life. He cited his work to strengthen the intelligence community’s effort to prevent harm to the U.S. from adversaries and to reform the security clearance process.
A former Republican senator from Indiana, Coats was appointed director of national intelligence in March 2017, becoming the fifth person to hold the post since it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to oversee and coordinate the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies.
Coats had been among the last of the seasoned foreign policy hands brought to surround the president after his 2016 victory, of whom the president steadily grew tired as he gained more personal confidence in Oval Office, officials said. That roster included Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and later national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
Coats developed a reputation inside the administration for sober presentations to the president of intelligence conclusions that occasionally contradicted Trump’s policy aims.
His departure had been rumored for months, and intelligence officials had been expecting him to leave before the 2020 presidential campaign season reached its peak.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence committee, tweeted Sunday: “The mission of the intelligence community is to speak truth to power. As DNI, Dan Coats stayed true to that mission.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was sorry to see Coats leave and praised him, saying he had been reassured knowing that such a man as his former Senate colleague who “took such a deliberate, thoughtful, and unbiased approach was at the helm of our intelligence community.”
Trump’s announcement that Coats would be leaving came days after Mueller’s public testimony on his two-year investigation into Russian election interference and potential obstruction of justice by Trump, which officials said both emboldened and infuriated the president.
Coats had been among the least visible of the president’s senior administration officials but, in his limited public appearances, repeatedly seemed at odds with the administration, including about Russia.
For instance, he revealed to Mueller’s investigators how Trump, angry over investigations into links between his campaign and Russia, tried unsuccessfully in March 2017 to get him to make a public statement refuting any connection.
“Coats responded that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has nothing to do with investigations and it was not his role to make a public statement on the Russia investigation,” Mueller’s report said.
Trump later called Coats to complain about the investigation and how it was affecting the government’s foreign policy. Coats told prosecutors he responded that the best thing to do was to let the investigation take its course.
In February, he publicly cast doubt on the prospects of persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program despite the diplomatic efforts of the administration, which has touted its outreach to the isolated country as one of its most important foreign policy achievements.
Coats, in testimony to Congress as part of annual national intelligence assessment, said North Korea would be “unlikely” to give up its nuclear weapons or its ability to produce them because “its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
Trump publicly bristled at the testimony of Coats, the head of the CIA and other officials who contradicted his own positions on Iran, Afghanistan and the Islamic State group as well as North Korea. The intelligence officials were “passive and naive,” he said in a tweet.
Last July, Coats and the president appeared at odds following Trump’s widely panned news conference in Helsinki alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump said he saw no reason to believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, drawing bipartisan criticism and a rebuttal from his intelligence chief.
“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security,” Coats said.
The president later said he misspoke in Helsinki.
That same month, Coats appeared to scoff when told in an interview that Trump had invited Putin to Washington.
“Say that again,” Coats said, cupping his hand over his ear on live television. He took a deep breath and continued: “OK. That’s going to be special.”
He later said his comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado were “in no way meant to be disrespectful or criticize the actions of the president.”
In December, Coats said he was “deeply saddened” when Mattis resigned in protest of Trump’s foreign policy, including the decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. Coats called Mattis a “national treasure” who “will be sorely missed.”
Coats, 76, served in Congress from 1981 to 1999 as a member of the House and in the Senate. He served as ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005 and returned to the Senate in 2011. He decided not to seek re-election and retired from Congress in January 2017.
In a tweet, Trump praised Ratcliffe: “A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves.”
Ratcliffe, in his third term, is a relatively newer member of Congress and perhaps not as widely known as Coats was when he took the job. Confirmation takes a simple 51-vote majority, under new rules in the Senate, but that leaves slim room for error with Republicans holding a 53-seat majority.
Ratcliffe appeared Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” and made a number of points that were in sync with Trump’s rhetoric. He said it was time to move on from talk of impeachment, questioned the legitimacy of the Mueller report into Russian election interference and urged investigation into potential wrongdoing during the Obama administration.
His remarks echoed his questioning of Mueller last week, in which the Texas Republican challenged the legal basis for the report’s conclusions.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Ratcliffe was heavily involved in a House GOP-led investigation last year about decisions “made and not made” by the Justice Department during the 2016 election. That probe questioned whether the department was biased against then-candidate Donald Trump and whether it abused surveillance powers as it began the Russia investigation. A former federal prosecutor, Ratcliffe was often one of the most aggressive questioners in closed-door depositions.
In early 2019, he was picked by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to sit on the House intelligence committee, as well. On Sunday, McCarthy called Trump’s decision an “excellent nomination” and Ratcliffe “a man of character.”
Oher Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House’s intelligence committee, also cheered the president’s plan to nominate Ratcliffe. The California Republican tweeted that Ratcliffe “understands the intricacies of the intelligence community as well as civil liberties.”
Democrats were cautious if not outright skeptical. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: “It’s clear Rep. Ratcliffe was selected because he exhibited blind loyalty to @realDonaldTrump with his demagogic questioning of Mueller. If Senate Republicans elevate such a partisan player to a position requiring intelligence expertise & non-partisanship, it’d be a big mistake.”
President Donald Trump points while boarding Air Force One as he departs General Mitchell International Airport, Friday, July 12, 2019, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump was defiant and declarative, with all the hammer-on-anvil subtlety that has charted a now-familiar pattern of his presidency: create a crisis, retreat, declare victory, move on.
“Not only didn’t I back down, I backed up,” Trump insisted Friday. However he may phrase it, though, Trump walked away from his earlier vow to include a contentious question about citizenship on the 2020 census.
The president shifted his bulldozer of an administration into reverse, announcing that he would drop his push to seek the citizenship status of all American residents on the census, instead ordering other agencies to share data with the Department of Commerce, which oversees the decennial survey.
The face-saving measure, announced to fanfare in the Rose Garden on Thursday, underscored the president’s obsession with projecting a “win” even in the face of defeat. He’s demonstrated a reluctance to acknowledge even the minor missteps that have plagued his administration from its start.
After fighting in court and in the press for nearly two years to include the citizenship question, Trump this week insisted it was unnecessary because federal data-sharing would lead to more accurate results.
“We’re already finding out who the citizens are and who they’re not,” Trump said without evidence, barely 12 hours after signing the executive order. “And I think more accurately.”
Critics, including the ACLU, which successfully sued the administration to block the citizenship question, disagreed.
“Trump may claim victory today, but this is nothing short of a total, humiliating defeat for him and his administration,” said Dale Ho, director of the organization’s Voting Rights Project.
And there were indications that Trump supporters, who were clamoring for the president to keep up the fight, also were unsatisfied with the outcome.
Trump’s announcement was met with silence from most of his allies, rather than the usual cacophony of supportive statements for presidential actions.
The scene was reminiscent of one six months earlier in the same spot. In that case, Trump declared he was “very proud” to announce an agreement to end a debilitating government shutdown that had been sparked by his own insistence that Congress fund his long-sought border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Despite Trump’s bravado, no such funding materialized from lawmakers, as the president backed down in the face of mounting criticism and claimed victory anyway.
Weeks later, after lawmakers again rebuffed Trump’s request for wall funding, he boasted that a wall “is being built as we speak.”
“You are going to have to be in extremely good shape to get over this one,” he added. “They would be able to climb Mount Everest a lot easier, I think.”
In fact, Trump has added strikingly little length to barriers along the Mexico border despite his pre-eminent 2016 campaign promise to get a wall done.
Trump followed a similar pattern the day after his party lost the House in the midterm elections, bringing about divided government and a flood of Democratic oversight investigations. The president was unbowed, telling reporters, “I thought it was a very close to complete victory.”
It’s no surprise that Trump has difficulty conceding defeat, even when it’s plain as day.
He rose to celebrity, and then the White House, with relentless self-promotion and touting the “Art of the Deal.” In Trump’s view, admitting defeat would pose an existential political risk to the candidate who famously rallied his supporters with promises that “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.”
Overseas, too, Trump rushes to claim victory when the facts paint a very different picture.
After his inaugural meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Trump flatly declared on Twitter that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea” — despite no change to its established stockpile. And last month, he embraced Kim at the demilitarized zone and insisted their second summit in Vietnam earlier this year had been a success, despite his own highly publicized walkout.
Trump also postponed steep tariffs he had announced on Mexico last month in an effort to push that country to curtail a surge in illegal border crossings. Even as he backed off, though, the president found reason to declare a win on a central campaign promise that has been largely unfulfilled as he prepared to formally launch his 2020 campaign.
After Trump claimed the deal would “greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States,” he drew mockery from Democrats, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who sarcastically declared in response that it was “an historic night!”
