Archives for Capitol Hillbillies

Trump, Ryan: A tortured alliance

by ERICA WERNER and JONATHAN LEMIRE | September 8, 2017 | No Comments

It started out cold as ice, and then turned warm and friendly. Now the tortured relationship between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan has gone cool again, with the Republican president making clear he has no qualms about bucking the GOP leader to cut deals with his Democratic foes. The two men dined at the White House Thursday night and discussed legislative challenges ahead for the fall, a get-together that was scheduled over Congress’ August recess, long before the head-spinning events of this week. In a moment that stunned Washington, Trump cut a debt and disaster aid deal
Read More

House heads for disaster aid, debt limit hike

by ANDREW TAYLOR | September 8, 2017 | No Comments

Conservative grumbling aside, the House is heading toward backing a $15.3 billion disaster aid package that President Donald Trump and Democrats have linked to a temporary increase in America’s borrowing authority and keeping the government funded through December. The House vote on Friday would send the massive package to Trump for his signature, replenishing rapidly dwindling emergency accounts as Florida braces for the impact of Hurricane Irma this weekend and Texas picks up the pieces after the devastation of the Harvey storm. The must-do legislation, backed 80-17 by the Senate on Thursday, would provide money to fund government agencies through
Read More

Trump cuts deal with Democrats

by ERICA WERNER | September 7, 2017 | Comments Off

President Donald Trump briskly overruled congressional Republicans and his own treasury secretary to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government operating and raise America’s debt limit. The immediate goal was ensuring money for hurricane relief, but in the process the president brazenly rolled his own party’s leaders. In deal-making mode, Trump sided Wednesday with the Democratic leaders — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he amiably referred later to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — as they pushed for the three-month deal. The deal had the effect of brushing aside the urgings of GOP
Read More

Trump leaves GOP in peril

by STEVE PEOPLES | September 7, 2017 | 1 Comment

On immigration, there were few easy answers for the Republican Party’s most vulnerable members. And President Donald Trump just made things harder. Endangered Republicans from California to Colorado and Nevada to New Jersey have struggled in recent days to defend their president’s decision to end the program that offered deportation protections for young people living here illegally who came to this country as children. The Trump administration gave Congress six months to agree on an alternative, yet it’s far from certain that a divided Congress can do so. And on the ground in key states and swing districts across America,
Read More

Trump talks tough, then waffles

by JULIE PACE | September 6, 2017 | 1 Comment

Since the day he launched his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has talked tough on immigration, promising to take the kind of decisive action he accused other politicians of avoiding. This week, he waffled. Trump passed off responsibility for the fate of the 800,000 young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children to a Congress that has shown little ability to tackle politically fraught issues. He gave lawmakers six months to act, then said in a Tuesday night tweet that he would “revisit this issue” if they didn’t. He sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions out to be the face
Read More

Trump, Congress prepare for battle

by JILL COLVIN | September 5, 2017 | Comments Off

A plan President Donald Trump is expected to announce to remove a shield from deportation for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children is being embraced by some top Republicans and denounced by others as the beginning of a “civil war” within the party. The response was an immediate illustration of the potential battles ahead if Trump follows through with a plan that would hand a political hot potato to Republicans on the Hill who have a long history of dropping it. Two people familiar with Trump’s decision making said Sunday that the president was preparing to announce
Read More

Congress faces storms in return

by ERICA WERNER | September 5, 2017 | Comments Off

Congress ends its five-week summer recess as storm-ravaged states clamor for Harvey aid, the Trump administration demands a swift increase in the nation’s borrowing authority, and President Donald Trump’s actions on immigration seem certain to upend the fall agenda. Lawmakers meeting Tuesday face a daunting workload and fast-approaching deadlines, including the need to fund the government and increase the United States’ $19.9 trillion debt ceiling by month’s end. A Republican-led Congress with no major legislative achievement in the first seven months of Trump’s presidency also is intent on overhauling the nation’s tax code, hoping for a political win after the
Read More

White House backs down on gov’t closure threat

by REUTERS | September 1, 2017 | 3 Comments

The White House has signaled to congressional Republican leaders that it has pulled back from U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the government if a border wall with Mexico is not funded, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing a senior Republican congressional aide. Trump promised to build a wall with Mexico on the campaign trail. He also threatened recently to shut down the government if Congress did not provide funding for the wall. But shortly after Trump made those comments, White House officials quietly notified Congress that the $1.6 billion would not need to be in a
Read More

GOP Congressman: Monster to his staff

by BRIAN SLODYSKO | September 1, 2017 | 1 Comment

Staffers in tears. Pay cuts for small mistakes. Aides who walked out of the office — and never came back. Working for four-term Republican Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana is an exacting job with long hours, made more difficult by a boss known for micromanaging and yelling at his staff, according to 10 former aides who spoke to The Associated Press. All but one of the former staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern of retribution from the congressman, who is in a competitive GOP primary for the chance to challenge first-term Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in
Read More

Get ready for post-Harvey fraud

by STEPHEN BRAUN and MICHAEL BIESECKER | September 1, 2017 | Comments Off

As high water spreads from Houston through Texas and Louisiana, authorities are bracing for an inevitable wave of fraud and other criminal activity set into motion by Harvey’s punishing rains. In a warning to those who would seek to defraud the government and people wanting to help or seeking assistance, a dozen federal and state agencies were banding together to investigate and prosecute wrongdoers. Federal and state officials are warning residents, volunteers and officials in flood zones in Texas and Louisiana they could be targeted by storm-related scams, contract corruption, document fraud, identify theft and other crimes. They emphasize that
Read More