The 4 foreign policy issues Trump ignored in the State of the Union
Hint: America’s forever wars.
By Alex Ward
President Donald Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address focused mostly on domestic issues, leaving comparatively little time for matters of foreign policy.
When he did talk about the world, Trump mostly covered familiar ground. He boasted about America’s successful military campaign against ISIS. He highlighted his displeasure with the Iran nuclear deal. He outlined the brutality of the North Korean regime. He reaffirmed his desire to further fund the military. And he also discussed his new executive order to keep Guantanamo open, a point he’s raised in the past but never acted on until now.
But there’s a lot that Trump left out. He glossed over what is supposedly America’s top security priority: confronting great powers like China and Russia. He barely touched on America’s oldest and newest “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Syria, respectively. He also didn’t discuss Yemen, even though the president has escalated America’s involvement in the Saudi-led war.
Trump also failed to mention the growing US campaign in Somalia or increased US military presence in Africa, even though the US lost four troops there last year. And unlike previous presidents, he made no mention of America’s values and his plans to promote them throughout the world.
These omissions, and the likely motivations behind them, are important. What follows is a brief guide to the themes and issues Trump missed — and why he might’ve missed them.
Trump didn’t go in-depth on Russia and China
Trump’s decision not to discuss China and Russia in detail was arguably the most glaring foreign policy oversight of his address since the Trump administration has said that America’s top security concern is the threat from great powers.
“Though we will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we are engaged in today,” Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said when he unveiled the Trump administration’s official defense strategy earlier this month, “Great Power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security.”
And hours before Trump’s speech on Tuesday, Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Paul Selva — the nation’s second-highest ranking military official — emphasized the joint China and Russia threat during an interview with reporters.
So it’s puzzling that Trump only mentioned the two countries once during the whole speech, in a passing reference to world challenges, but there may be a few reasons why.
For one, Trump has said he needs China’s help to handle his tense relationship with North Korea. Trump may have thought that bad-mouthing Beijing during such a high-profile speech would put this assistance at risk.
As for Russia, there’s a criminal investigation underway into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to win the 2016 presidential election. Mentioning Russia prominently during the speech would have brought that contentious issue to the fore.
Still, the fact the president spent mere seconds on what his administration says is America’s top security concern is both odd and worrisome.
Trump didn’t talk about the US’s deepening involvement in Afghanistan and Syria
Trump escalated the US’s longest-ever war in Afghanistan and has now further embroiled the US in Syria with no withdrawal timeline — but you wouldn’t know it listening to the president’s speech.
Let’s start with Syria. Last April, Trump ordered the US Navy to fire 59 missiles at a base that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad had used to launch a chemical attack that killed more than 80 people. That was the first time the US intentionally bombed a Syrian regime target since the country’s civil war began in 2011.
Additionally, a September 2017 Pentagon report showed that the US had 1,720 troops in Syria. That’s up from the 94 troops — yes, 94 — that the US had in Syria at the same point in 2016.
And as recently as January 17, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the US would remain in Syria indefinitely in order to ensure ISIS’s defeat and counter Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.
It’s somewhat understandable that Trump didn’t want to highlight this — but it’s hard to comprehend why he spent so little time on Afghanistan.
“As of a few months ago, our warriors in Afghanistan have new rules of engagement,” Trump said during his State of the Union address. “Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.”
That’s it. He didn’t rationalize why he sent around 4,000 more troops into a 16-year war that the US couldn’t win with 100,000 fighters at one point. He also provided no strategy for how those new service members will help Afghan forces in their effort to defeat the nearly 20 terrorist groups in the country — especially the Taliban, ISIS, and al-Qaeda.
And he didn’t explain why he allowed the US to drop 4,361 bombs on Afghanistan, as compared to the 1,331 US bombs dropped in 2016 — more than triple the number of his predecessor.
As a candidate, Trump promised not to involve the US further in wars. As president, he did the opposite — and he chose not to acknowledge that obvious tension during his address.
Trump also never mentioned America’s involvement in growing, newer conflicts
Before Trump took office, the US helped Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen and assisted the Somali government in fighting off a dangerous terrorist group. But since he became president, Trump has increased America’s involvement in both of these conflicts — and made zero mention of them in his address.
Let’s start with Yemen. One of Trump’s first actions as president was to authorize a special operations raid in the country targeting an al-Qaeda leader on January 29, 2017. The SEALs killed 14 militants, but 23 civilians also died, including women and children. Senior Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, a US Navy SEAL, was also killed in the raid.
Trump also dramatically increased US support for Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen. Since March 2015, the conflict has claimed more than 13,500 civilian lives, with more than 900,000 suffering from the worst cholera outbreak in modern history. Roughly 20 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance to meet basic needs — including food and water.
In 2017, the Pentagon more than doubled US refueling support — providing about 480,000 gallons of aviation fuel — for Saudi planes that have hit schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets across the country. That alone cost the US more than $1 million in the fiscal year that ended last September, a 140 percent increase over the previous year.
As for Somalia, the Pentagon says the US military is in Somalia to help stabilize the country by supporting Somali and other African forces.
The US now has 500 troops in the country in 2017 — more than twice the amount it had in 2016. Some of the new troops are special operators who advise local forces in their fight against the terrorist group al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate. The US also added two new military headquarters in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
But that’s not all. The US conducted 34 airstrikes in the country during the last six months of 2017. That’s more than double the number of US airstrikes in Somalia for all of 2016, and a clear increase in America’s military involvement there.
The Somalia operation is just the biggest example of the US military’s expanding efforts in Africa. The US conducts around 10 missions per day on the continent, or around 3,500 per year. It’s not without risk: Four US troops died in Niger last October during a mission, leading to a political firestorm here at home.
So, to be clear, US troops died in Yemen and Africa last year — and Trump made no reference to these conflicts during the State of the Union address.
Trump didn’t say what America stands for in the world
Most presidents use the State of the Union to outline what they think the US’s role in the world should be.
“America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world,” President George W. Bush said in his 2006 address.
“I believe in a smarter kind of American leadership. We lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy, when we leverage our power with coalition building when we don’t let our fears blind us to the opportunities that this new century presents,” President Barack Obama stated during his 2015 speech.
We heard none of that from Trump in his speech on Tuesday night. There was no soaring rhetoric about working with allies to make the world a better place, no discussion about global priorities, and no discussion about the values the US wants to promote throughout the world, although he did claim that there’s a “yearning [in] every human soul to live in freedom.”
In a way, the State of the Union was the most “America First” speech Trump has ever given — it focused mostly on the homeland, with little mention of the US’s biggest foreign policy and national security issues.
That may be the message Trump wanted to convey — but he left a lot out in the process.
January 31, 2018
Big deal...
Why the Nunes memo is a very big deal
By Chris Cillizza
On Monday night, the House Intelligence Committee approved -- on a party line vote -- the public release of a memo alleging a litany of abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department. President Donald Trump now has five days to decide whether or not to allow the memo's release.
While no final "OK" has been given, Trump had made little secret of his desire to release the memo.
In expectation of that decision, I reached out to Carrie Cordero, a CNN contributor who has extensive background on the subject having served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Senior Associate General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.
Cillizza: Walk me through the process going forward. The memo is now at the White House. When does Trump need to make a decision? And when might we see the memo publicly released?
Cordero: According to the House Rules, the President has five days to object to the release of the memo on national security grounds. As long as he does not object, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) can release the document. Given that timeline, and the statements from the White House that the President thinks the memo should be released publicly, it is possible that it will be released as early as Saturday, or, perhaps Monday, if business days are used.
There is still a possibility, however, that intelligence community and Department of Justice leadership, or perhaps Trump's national security lawyers who work in the White House, will persuade the President that releasing the memo in its current form will harm national security, and that it should be properly reviewed for declassification purposes. Alternatively, a new memo could be written in an unclassified format that is prepared specifically for public release.
Cillizza: How normal (or not) is a memo like this one — produced by the majority on the House Intelligence Committee that lots of intelligence officials haven't even seen?
Cordero: Highly unusual. Unprecedented, in fact. In my 18 years of professional and academic involvement with the Intelligence Community I have not observed HPSCI release a document using this procedure, and I am not aware of its having been used in the past (although I expect intelligence community historians to be hard at work this week).
The context is that information that is provided to the intelligence oversight committees is information provided by the executive branch of government. And, in circumstances when the intelligence committees write reports based on information provided by the community, they work with the relevant intelligence community agencies to review the reports and declassify information. That's why sometimes the committees produce reports that include both an unclassified report for public consumption, and a separate, classified version.
It is also not unusual for members of the committees to want to discuss publicly information they receive on the committee. This can be for a variety of reasons, including, for example, circumstances where those members are concerned about the use of legal authorities or oppose certain activities being undertaken by an agency or intelligence element as a policy matter.
Normally, what happens in those situations is the member of Congress will send the information he or she wants declassified to the specific agency, and/or to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for review and approval. This is because the information belongs to the executive branch; not to the committees or the legislative branch. And it is officials in the Executive Branch -- the DNI and ultimately the President -- who have final classification or declassification decision-making authority.
When a member seeks that review, sometimes the intelligence community will approve the declassification, sometimes they will say "no," and sometimes they will declassify portions of the proposed statement or document. This is how members who respect the process and the national security equities at play, work.
Cillizza: What are the national security concerns — if any — to releasing this memo? And how should transparency be balanced with these concerns?
Cordero: I haven't seen the memo, so I can't speak to the precise national security risks that exist if it is released. At a general level, depending on the classification level of the document -- whether SECRET or TOP SECRET -- if released in an unauthorized fashion [it] could cause either "serious damage" or "exceptionally grave damage" to the national security of the United States.
If public reports are correct that the information in the memo is derived from applications that had been presented to and approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) then the information could include sensitive investigative information, and information about sources and methods; that is, how the intelligence community obtains its information. Release of such information without proper consideration of the harm that could result from the disclosure can jeopardize ongoing investigations, human sources, technical sources and important relationships with foreign intelligence services, as examples.
As a practical matter, it appears that the White House and the Chairman of the HPSCI have worked together in a way that bypassed the normal process of consultation and deference to the Intelligence Community.
Proponents of #releasethememo might bill this as a transparency "win," but I think that scholars and knowledgeable observers of the intelligence community transparency efforts will understand that what is transpiring this week is the exact opposite, because it is "transparency" that will cloud the public's understanding of the actual intelligence information involved. It is hard to see this proposed release as meaningful transparency versus a harmful politicization of intelligence.
Cillizza: Let's say this memo is released. How will it land at the FBI and the broader intelligence community? And what — if any — are the long-term implications of doing something like this?
Cordero: The release of this memo under the process that is unfolding this week may cause serious damage to the relationship between the operational and policy professionals who work in the national security space in the executive branch, and the political leadership at the White House and in the House of Representatives.
There is an entire system of classification that exists to protect national security information. There are laws, policies and procedures. While many involved in the classification system understand that it is far from perfect, and needs to be improved and modernized, it is the system currently in place. There are professionals throughout government who work every day to ensure that national security information is appropriately protected. Those who mishandle classified information -- whether intentionally or deliberately -- are subject to a range of serious consequences, from administrative to criminal prosecution.
Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "Releasing the memo publicly would be a _______ thing for the country." Now, explain.
Cordero: "Releasing the memo publicly would be a sad thing for the country."
Because it means that there is a real reason for Americans to have less faith that the components of their government are functioning in the American people's best interests. The committee vote that already took place last night was a major crack in the credibility of an important American institution: HPSCI. HPSCI is one of two intelligence committees created to provide an important check on intelligence community overreach. The vote last night, and if this document is released by the White House this week, means that an important component of intelligence oversight is broken.
By Chris Cillizza
On Monday night, the House Intelligence Committee approved -- on a party line vote -- the public release of a memo alleging a litany of abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department. President Donald Trump now has five days to decide whether or not to allow the memo's release.
While no final "OK" has been given, Trump had made little secret of his desire to release the memo.
In expectation of that decision, I reached out to Carrie Cordero, a CNN contributor who has extensive background on the subject having served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Senior Associate General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.
Cillizza: Walk me through the process going forward. The memo is now at the White House. When does Trump need to make a decision? And when might we see the memo publicly released?
Cordero: According to the House Rules, the President has five days to object to the release of the memo on national security grounds. As long as he does not object, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) can release the document. Given that timeline, and the statements from the White House that the President thinks the memo should be released publicly, it is possible that it will be released as early as Saturday, or, perhaps Monday, if business days are used.
There is still a possibility, however, that intelligence community and Department of Justice leadership, or perhaps Trump's national security lawyers who work in the White House, will persuade the President that releasing the memo in its current form will harm national security, and that it should be properly reviewed for declassification purposes. Alternatively, a new memo could be written in an unclassified format that is prepared specifically for public release.
Cillizza: How normal (or not) is a memo like this one — produced by the majority on the House Intelligence Committee that lots of intelligence officials haven't even seen?
Cordero: Highly unusual. Unprecedented, in fact. In my 18 years of professional and academic involvement with the Intelligence Community I have not observed HPSCI release a document using this procedure, and I am not aware of its having been used in the past (although I expect intelligence community historians to be hard at work this week).
The context is that information that is provided to the intelligence oversight committees is information provided by the executive branch of government. And, in circumstances when the intelligence committees write reports based on information provided by the community, they work with the relevant intelligence community agencies to review the reports and declassify information. That's why sometimes the committees produce reports that include both an unclassified report for public consumption, and a separate, classified version.
It is also not unusual for members of the committees to want to discuss publicly information they receive on the committee. This can be for a variety of reasons, including, for example, circumstances where those members are concerned about the use of legal authorities or oppose certain activities being undertaken by an agency or intelligence element as a policy matter.
Normally, what happens in those situations is the member of Congress will send the information he or she wants declassified to the specific agency, and/or to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for review and approval. This is because the information belongs to the executive branch; not to the committees or the legislative branch. And it is officials in the Executive Branch -- the DNI and ultimately the President -- who have final classification or declassification decision-making authority.
When a member seeks that review, sometimes the intelligence community will approve the declassification, sometimes they will say "no," and sometimes they will declassify portions of the proposed statement or document. This is how members who respect the process and the national security equities at play, work.
Cillizza: What are the national security concerns — if any — to releasing this memo? And how should transparency be balanced with these concerns?
Cordero: I haven't seen the memo, so I can't speak to the precise national security risks that exist if it is released. At a general level, depending on the classification level of the document -- whether SECRET or TOP SECRET -- if released in an unauthorized fashion [it] could cause either "serious damage" or "exceptionally grave damage" to the national security of the United States.
If public reports are correct that the information in the memo is derived from applications that had been presented to and approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) then the information could include sensitive investigative information, and information about sources and methods; that is, how the intelligence community obtains its information. Release of such information without proper consideration of the harm that could result from the disclosure can jeopardize ongoing investigations, human sources, technical sources and important relationships with foreign intelligence services, as examples.
As a practical matter, it appears that the White House and the Chairman of the HPSCI have worked together in a way that bypassed the normal process of consultation and deference to the Intelligence Community.
Proponents of #releasethememo might bill this as a transparency "win," but I think that scholars and knowledgeable observers of the intelligence community transparency efforts will understand that what is transpiring this week is the exact opposite, because it is "transparency" that will cloud the public's understanding of the actual intelligence information involved. It is hard to see this proposed release as meaningful transparency versus a harmful politicization of intelligence.
Cillizza: Let's say this memo is released. How will it land at the FBI and the broader intelligence community? And what — if any — are the long-term implications of doing something like this?
Cordero: The release of this memo under the process that is unfolding this week may cause serious damage to the relationship between the operational and policy professionals who work in the national security space in the executive branch, and the political leadership at the White House and in the House of Representatives.
There is an entire system of classification that exists to protect national security information. There are laws, policies and procedures. While many involved in the classification system understand that it is far from perfect, and needs to be improved and modernized, it is the system currently in place. There are professionals throughout government who work every day to ensure that national security information is appropriately protected. Those who mishandle classified information -- whether intentionally or deliberately -- are subject to a range of serious consequences, from administrative to criminal prosecution.
Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "Releasing the memo publicly would be a _______ thing for the country." Now, explain.
Cordero: "Releasing the memo publicly would be a sad thing for the country."
Because it means that there is a real reason for Americans to have less faith that the components of their government are functioning in the American people's best interests. The committee vote that already took place last night was a major crack in the credibility of an important American institution: HPSCI. HPSCI is one of two intelligence committees created to provide an important check on intelligence community overreach. The vote last night, and if this document is released by the White House this week, means that an important component of intelligence oversight is broken.
FBI has grave concerns...
FBI has 'grave concerns' about accuracy of GOP memo
By Shimon Prokupecz, Laura Jarrett, Jim Sciutto and Abby Phillip
The FBI issued a rare public warning on Wednesday that a controversial Republican memo omits key information that could impact its veracity.
"With regard to the House Intelligence Committee's memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it," the agency said in a statement. "As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."
Some Justice Department officials had concerns about publicly expressing continued opposition to releasing the memo, according multiple officials. The FBI went ahead and issued the statement anyway. President Donald Trump had already been angered by the letter that the Justice Department sent to the House Intelligence Committee warning the release would be "extraordinarily reckless."
The FBI warning was the latest evidence of law enforcement and intelligence agencies raising concerns about the potential public release of a memo composed by the staff of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California.
There is concern being expressed to the White House by the Justice Department and the FBI that the memo has inaccuracies and does not paint a full picture of how the process works, according to two law enforcement sources.
Officials from the Justice Department and FBI went to the White House on Tuesday to make a renewed effort to explain to the White House certain inaccuracies they see in the Nunes memo, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The effort came a day after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray made similar entreaties to White House chief of staff John Kelly to delay a House vote on releasing the memo.
The memo also faces deep opposition inside the intelligence agencies, multiple current and former intelligence officials tell CNN. The intelligence community's concern is that by revealing details of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant process, crucial elements of intel gathering will be revealed, potentially causing foreign intelligence targets to change behavior to avoid surveillance in the future.
Specifically, these intelligence officials are concerned that the memo will reveal what goes into a decision to monitor targets, including what kinds of communications are targeted, and how those communications are intercepted.
These intelligence officials emphasize that applications for FISA warrants would need to be based on law enforcement information as well as intelligence gathered independently by US intelligence agencies. That would include intercepted communications and would not meet the standard for approval if the applications were based largely or entirely on outside information, such as the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
Republican lawmakers allege that the FISA warrant obtained to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was based in large part on the dossier, and that the judge who approved the application was not made aware to what degree the dossier played a role in the FBI request.
Administration officials cautioned that despite President Donald Trump's comment that he will "100%" release the memo, the document will be reviewed to make sure that it does not compromise sources and methods.
Likely, whenever Trump sees the document, he won't see it in a vacuum. It will be accompanied by the relevant agencies weighing in on their interests and contextual underlying intelligence, if warranted.
But the details of how the review is being conducted are still unclear. Wray reviewed the memo over the weekend. Republican members have said that Wray did not raise any objections about inaccuracies at the time.
That said, the Nunes document, the source familiar with the discussion said, is subject to political considerations more so than a typical document that would be subject to this kind of interagency review.
By Shimon Prokupecz, Laura Jarrett, Jim Sciutto and Abby Phillip
The FBI issued a rare public warning on Wednesday that a controversial Republican memo omits key information that could impact its veracity.
"With regard to the House Intelligence Committee's memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it," the agency said in a statement. "As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."
Some Justice Department officials had concerns about publicly expressing continued opposition to releasing the memo, according multiple officials. The FBI went ahead and issued the statement anyway. President Donald Trump had already been angered by the letter that the Justice Department sent to the House Intelligence Committee warning the release would be "extraordinarily reckless."
The FBI warning was the latest evidence of law enforcement and intelligence agencies raising concerns about the potential public release of a memo composed by the staff of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California.
There is concern being expressed to the White House by the Justice Department and the FBI that the memo has inaccuracies and does not paint a full picture of how the process works, according to two law enforcement sources.
Officials from the Justice Department and FBI went to the White House on Tuesday to make a renewed effort to explain to the White House certain inaccuracies they see in the Nunes memo, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The effort came a day after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray made similar entreaties to White House chief of staff John Kelly to delay a House vote on releasing the memo.
The memo also faces deep opposition inside the intelligence agencies, multiple current and former intelligence officials tell CNN. The intelligence community's concern is that by revealing details of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant process, crucial elements of intel gathering will be revealed, potentially causing foreign intelligence targets to change behavior to avoid surveillance in the future.
Specifically, these intelligence officials are concerned that the memo will reveal what goes into a decision to monitor targets, including what kinds of communications are targeted, and how those communications are intercepted.
These intelligence officials emphasize that applications for FISA warrants would need to be based on law enforcement information as well as intelligence gathered independently by US intelligence agencies. That would include intercepted communications and would not meet the standard for approval if the applications were based largely or entirely on outside information, such as the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
Republican lawmakers allege that the FISA warrant obtained to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was based in large part on the dossier, and that the judge who approved the application was not made aware to what degree the dossier played a role in the FBI request.
Administration officials cautioned that despite President Donald Trump's comment that he will "100%" release the memo, the document will be reviewed to make sure that it does not compromise sources and methods.
Likely, whenever Trump sees the document, he won't see it in a vacuum. It will be accompanied by the relevant agencies weighing in on their interests and contextual underlying intelligence, if warranted.
But the details of how the review is being conducted are still unclear. Wray reviewed the memo over the weekend. Republican members have said that Wray did not raise any objections about inaccuracies at the time.
That said, the Nunes document, the source familiar with the discussion said, is subject to political considerations more so than a typical document that would be subject to this kind of interagency review.
Won't retry..
Justice Dept. won't retry Sen. Bob Menendez
By Laura Jarrett, Dan Berman and Sarah Jorgensen
The Justice Department Wednesday filed to dismiss its remaining charges against Sen. Bob Menendez, bringing the legal case that has hovered over the New Jersey Democrat for years to a close.
An 11-week trial last fall resulted in a hung jury. Prosecutors had accused the senator of accepting bribes from Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy ophthalmologist in Florida, in return for political favors. The charges against Melgen were also dropped.
Both men pleaded not guilty to all charges.
"Given the impact of the Court's Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges," DOJ spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said.
"From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail," Menendez said in a statement Wednesday. "I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion. I thank God for hearing my prayers and for giving me strength during this difficult time. I have devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey, and am forever thankful for all who have stood by me."
Melgen attorney Kirk Ogrosky called the case an "ill-fated adventure" by the FBI and Justice Department "that destroyed my client's life."
"Dr. Melgen is now and has always been innocent of the charges brought in New Jersey. He did not ever give anything to his best friend of over 20 years with an expectation that he would get something in return," Ogrosky said. "We take no pleasure in seeing justice done at this stage in a case that should never have been brought. All that said, justice today is better than continuing on to inevitable acquittals on the remaining counts. We hope that this type of meritless case is never again brought by DOJ."
After last fall's trial ended, one juror told reporters the jury was split 10-2 on all counts in favor of acquittal.
"In light of the results of a three month trial, all the jury said and the granting of our motion for acquittal on significant counts, we are pleased and grateful that the Justice Department made the right decision to end this case," Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell said Wednesday.
In November when the trial ended in a mistrial, Menendez criticized the Justice Department.
"The way this case started was wrong, the way it was investigated was wrong, the way it was prosecuted was wrong and the way it was tried was wrong as well," Menendez told reporters outside the courthouse. "Certain elements of the FBI and of our state cannot understand or, even worse, accept that the Latino kid from Union City and Hudson County can grow up and be a US senator and be honest."
Menendez faced charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud related to allegedly abusing the power of his office that could have carried decades in prison. Prosecutors said Menendez pressured high-level officials in the Obama administration and other career diplomats to help Melgen resolve his business disputes in exchange for political contributions, a luxurious hotel suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris and free rides on Melgen's private jet that Menendez failed to report on his Senate disclosure form.
Defense lawyers argued that Menendez and Melgen were longtime friends with no corrupt intent to commit a federal crime.
By Laura Jarrett, Dan Berman and Sarah Jorgensen
The Justice Department Wednesday filed to dismiss its remaining charges against Sen. Bob Menendez, bringing the legal case that has hovered over the New Jersey Democrat for years to a close.
An 11-week trial last fall resulted in a hung jury. Prosecutors had accused the senator of accepting bribes from Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy ophthalmologist in Florida, in return for political favors. The charges against Melgen were also dropped.
Both men pleaded not guilty to all charges.
"Given the impact of the Court's Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges," DOJ spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said.
"From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail," Menendez said in a statement Wednesday. "I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion. I thank God for hearing my prayers and for giving me strength during this difficult time. I have devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey, and am forever thankful for all who have stood by me."
Melgen attorney Kirk Ogrosky called the case an "ill-fated adventure" by the FBI and Justice Department "that destroyed my client's life."
"Dr. Melgen is now and has always been innocent of the charges brought in New Jersey. He did not ever give anything to his best friend of over 20 years with an expectation that he would get something in return," Ogrosky said. "We take no pleasure in seeing justice done at this stage in a case that should never have been brought. All that said, justice today is better than continuing on to inevitable acquittals on the remaining counts. We hope that this type of meritless case is never again brought by DOJ."
After last fall's trial ended, one juror told reporters the jury was split 10-2 on all counts in favor of acquittal.
"In light of the results of a three month trial, all the jury said and the granting of our motion for acquittal on significant counts, we are pleased and grateful that the Justice Department made the right decision to end this case," Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell said Wednesday.
In November when the trial ended in a mistrial, Menendez criticized the Justice Department.
"The way this case started was wrong, the way it was investigated was wrong, the way it was prosecuted was wrong and the way it was tried was wrong as well," Menendez told reporters outside the courthouse. "Certain elements of the FBI and of our state cannot understand or, even worse, accept that the Latino kid from Union City and Hudson County can grow up and be a US senator and be honest."
Menendez faced charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud related to allegedly abusing the power of his office that could have carried decades in prison. Prosecutors said Menendez pressured high-level officials in the Obama administration and other career diplomats to help Melgen resolve his business disputes in exchange for political contributions, a luxurious hotel suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris and free rides on Melgen's private jet that Menendez failed to report on his Senate disclosure form.
Defense lawyers argued that Menendez and Melgen were longtime friends with no corrupt intent to commit a federal crime.
Kind of says it all.. GOP lawmakers hit garbage truck
Train carrying GOP lawmakers to policy retreat hits truck
Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor
A chartered train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck south of Charlottesville, Virginia on Wednesday, lawmakers said.
No lawmakers were believed injured in the accident.
"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote on Twitter.
A GOP aide said the train is partially derailed.
Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole says a person on the truck may have been seriously injured..
Cole said he believes the accident occurred south of Charlottesville, Virginia. The train was en route to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs for a three-day issues retreat featuring appearances by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., tweeted: "The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries."
Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor
A chartered train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck south of Charlottesville, Virginia on Wednesday, lawmakers said.
No lawmakers were believed injured in the accident.
"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote on Twitter.
A GOP aide said the train is partially derailed.
Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole says a person on the truck may have been seriously injured..
Cole said he believes the accident occurred south of Charlottesville, Virginia. The train was en route to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs for a three-day issues retreat featuring appearances by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., tweeted: "The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries."
Won't get fooled again...
No, President Trump, we won't get fooled again
By Jen Psaki
He did it. President Donald Trump stood in front of a teleprompter and read a speech that at many times sounded like it was about the leadership, tolerance and moral compass -- of another President. Now that the pomp and circumstance of his first State of the Union speech is over, the most important question we should be asking ourselves is what is next?
In late February of last year, Trump also delivered a speech in front of a joint session that, like tonight, was by all accounts sane sounding. Pundits and editorial boards of all political stripes fell over themselves to applaud him. The country breathed a sigh of relief: maybe this guy can govern. Maybe it will be OK.
But his joint session speech had no relationship with the way he approached governing in the year since. As the old saying goes -- "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." So let's not be fooled.
Speeches don't happen in vacuums, even State of the Union speeches. They amplify and magnify any president's agenda and his message. And it only becomes more difficult to reset a widely held narrative -- that you are racist, sexist, a defender of the wealthy over those who need help the most -- when your audience has a year of data to evaluate.
Dreamers and immigrant families are not going to suddenly view Trump as their fighter in chief because he threw some pablum language into the beginning of the speech about how, "struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families"-- especially since just moments later in his remarks he doubled down on the mean-spirited proposal that harks back to the cruel immigration quota laws of the 1920's.
The African-American community is not going to simply forget this is the same guy who has embraced and validated white supremacists just because he decided to take credit for the African-American unemployment rate continuing to go down, a pattern that has been underway for many years.
Women are not going to suddenly believe Trump is a feminist just because tonight he refrained from fat shaming and threw in a mention of paid family leave.
The American people are smarter than that. A speech, even a State of the Union, can't take away that "nagging, sinking feeling, no matter your political beliefs: this is not right. This is not who we are" that Congressman Joe Kennedy spoke about during the Democratic response.
So where does that leave us? First, questioning whether the State of the Union even matters anymore under Trump -- and also waiting for the next tweet that will leave no doubt the moment of optimism and cooperation is officially over.
By Jen Psaki
He did it. President Donald Trump stood in front of a teleprompter and read a speech that at many times sounded like it was about the leadership, tolerance and moral compass -- of another President. Now that the pomp and circumstance of his first State of the Union speech is over, the most important question we should be asking ourselves is what is next?
In late February of last year, Trump also delivered a speech in front of a joint session that, like tonight, was by all accounts sane sounding. Pundits and editorial boards of all political stripes fell over themselves to applaud him. The country breathed a sigh of relief: maybe this guy can govern. Maybe it will be OK.
But his joint session speech had no relationship with the way he approached governing in the year since. As the old saying goes -- "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." So let's not be fooled.
Speeches don't happen in vacuums, even State of the Union speeches. They amplify and magnify any president's agenda and his message. And it only becomes more difficult to reset a widely held narrative -- that you are racist, sexist, a defender of the wealthy over those who need help the most -- when your audience has a year of data to evaluate.
Dreamers and immigrant families are not going to suddenly view Trump as their fighter in chief because he threw some pablum language into the beginning of the speech about how, "struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families"-- especially since just moments later in his remarks he doubled down on the mean-spirited proposal that harks back to the cruel immigration quota laws of the 1920's.
The African-American community is not going to simply forget this is the same guy who has embraced and validated white supremacists just because he decided to take credit for the African-American unemployment rate continuing to go down, a pattern that has been underway for many years.
Women are not going to suddenly believe Trump is a feminist just because tonight he refrained from fat shaming and threw in a mention of paid family leave.
The American people are smarter than that. A speech, even a State of the Union, can't take away that "nagging, sinking feeling, no matter your political beliefs: this is not right. This is not who we are" that Congressman Joe Kennedy spoke about during the Democratic response.
So where does that leave us? First, questioning whether the State of the Union even matters anymore under Trump -- and also waiting for the next tweet that will leave no doubt the moment of optimism and cooperation is officially over.
Shows Orangutan is paying back by no Russian Sanctions
Trump Blew a Deadline to Impose New Russian Sanctions and Democrats Are Furious
“I’m fed up waiting for this administration to protect our country and our elections.”
HANNAH LEVINTOVA AND DAN FRIEDMAN
On Monday, the Trump White House faced two key deadlines in connection with the new Russian sanctions law that the president grudgingly signed last August. The measure required the administration to impose new penalties on Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors and to draft a “black list” of Putin-linked Russian oligarchs. The deadlines were seen as a test of the administration’s willingness to get tough with Russia over its meddling in the 2016 election. The Trump team appears to have failed that test: No new sanctions were levied. Meanwhile, the “black list” that was compiled by the Treasury Department was reportedly cribbed partly from Forbes magazine’s annual rankings of billionaires.
Trump’s lack of follow-through on the sanctions law has angered congressional Democrats, who accuse the president of failing to stand up to Russia over its intervention in the presidential race. “The Trump Administration had a decision to make whether they would follow the law and crack down on those responsible for attacking American democracy in 2016,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “They chose instead to let Russia off the hook yet again. I’m fed up waiting for this Administration to protect our country and our elections.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Mother Jones, “We’ve got to be pretty tough about this. But with the president not imposing any sanctions, that’s hard to understand.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) questioned Trump’s motivation for blowing the sanctions deadline, pointing out that that the Trump administration had this week allowed Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, who is currently under sanctions, to visit the United States.
“We sanctioned the head of their intelligence and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door,” Schumer said. “This is an extreme dereliction of duty by President Trump, who seems more intent on undermining the rule of law in this country than standing up to Putin.”
The sanctions legislation signed by Trump in August, approved almost unanimously by Congress the previous month, required that the administration devise sanctions targeting companies and individuals that do business with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors. The law set the first deadline in this process for last fall, requiring the administration to compile a list of relevant entities and individuals that might merit sanctions. The administration blew this first deadline, issuing it almost a month late—and only after public scolding from lawmakers.
On Monday, after fumbling the second part of this process—implementing the sanctions—the State Department claimed that the mere threat of sanctions included in the law has been a sufficient deterrent, rendering moot the need to impose new sanctions.
“Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.
The sanctions law also required the Treasury Department by Monday to send Congress a report identifying the most influential Russian oligarchs, measuring their closeness to Putin and their net worth. The report carried no legal consequence but was seen as a harbinger of future sanctions among Russia’s business elite, who for months sought to stay off the list by trying to schedule meetings across Washington.
The Treasury Department met this deadline on Monday, releasing a list of 96 Russian oligarchs and 114 senior political figures about 15 minutes before midnight. But on Tuesday, a department spokesperson confirmed that the list was assembled after consulting Forbes‘ annual billionaires rankings. Russia has 96 billionaires on the Forbes list, and those are the 96 oligarchs listed in the Treasury report.
“That’s disappointing,” Cardin told Mother Jones. “That’s not the way it should have been done. It looked like a cut and paste.”
Cardin noted that the Trump administration is defying the sanctions law in other ways. For instance, the measure requires the administration to impose sanctions on Russian entities and individuals “undermining cybersecurity.” The senator said the administration has yet to do this, despite warnings from CIA Director Mike Pompeo that Russia will target the 2018 midterm elections.
Cardin told Mother Jones he still hopes the Trump administration will send a “clear message” that Russia’s interference is unacceptable. In the meantime, he said, Trump telegraphs weakness. “You can’t be soft on Russia,” he said, “because they’ll take you to the edge and beyond the edge, and right now the message is that there’s been very little penalty paid for what they’ve done.”
“I’m fed up waiting for this administration to protect our country and our elections.”
HANNAH LEVINTOVA AND DAN FRIEDMAN
On Monday, the Trump White House faced two key deadlines in connection with the new Russian sanctions law that the president grudgingly signed last August. The measure required the administration to impose new penalties on Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors and to draft a “black list” of Putin-linked Russian oligarchs. The deadlines were seen as a test of the administration’s willingness to get tough with Russia over its meddling in the 2016 election. The Trump team appears to have failed that test: No new sanctions were levied. Meanwhile, the “black list” that was compiled by the Treasury Department was reportedly cribbed partly from Forbes magazine’s annual rankings of billionaires.
Trump’s lack of follow-through on the sanctions law has angered congressional Democrats, who accuse the president of failing to stand up to Russia over its intervention in the presidential race. “The Trump Administration had a decision to make whether they would follow the law and crack down on those responsible for attacking American democracy in 2016,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “They chose instead to let Russia off the hook yet again. I’m fed up waiting for this Administration to protect our country and our elections.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Mother Jones, “We’ve got to be pretty tough about this. But with the president not imposing any sanctions, that’s hard to understand.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) questioned Trump’s motivation for blowing the sanctions deadline, pointing out that that the Trump administration had this week allowed Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, who is currently under sanctions, to visit the United States.
“We sanctioned the head of their intelligence and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door,” Schumer said. “This is an extreme dereliction of duty by President Trump, who seems more intent on undermining the rule of law in this country than standing up to Putin.”
The sanctions legislation signed by Trump in August, approved almost unanimously by Congress the previous month, required that the administration devise sanctions targeting companies and individuals that do business with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors. The law set the first deadline in this process for last fall, requiring the administration to compile a list of relevant entities and individuals that might merit sanctions. The administration blew this first deadline, issuing it almost a month late—and only after public scolding from lawmakers.
On Monday, after fumbling the second part of this process—implementing the sanctions—the State Department claimed that the mere threat of sanctions included in the law has been a sufficient deterrent, rendering moot the need to impose new sanctions.
“Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.
The sanctions law also required the Treasury Department by Monday to send Congress a report identifying the most influential Russian oligarchs, measuring their closeness to Putin and their net worth. The report carried no legal consequence but was seen as a harbinger of future sanctions among Russia’s business elite, who for months sought to stay off the list by trying to schedule meetings across Washington.
The Treasury Department met this deadline on Monday, releasing a list of 96 Russian oligarchs and 114 senior political figures about 15 minutes before midnight. But on Tuesday, a department spokesperson confirmed that the list was assembled after consulting Forbes‘ annual billionaires rankings. Russia has 96 billionaires on the Forbes list, and those are the 96 oligarchs listed in the Treasury report.
“That’s disappointing,” Cardin told Mother Jones. “That’s not the way it should have been done. It looked like a cut and paste.”
Cardin noted that the Trump administration is defying the sanctions law in other ways. For instance, the measure requires the administration to impose sanctions on Russian entities and individuals “undermining cybersecurity.” The senator said the administration has yet to do this, despite warnings from CIA Director Mike Pompeo that Russia will target the 2018 midterm elections.
Cardin told Mother Jones he still hopes the Trump administration will send a “clear message” that Russia’s interference is unacceptable. In the meantime, he said, Trump telegraphs weakness. “You can’t be soft on Russia,” he said, “because they’ll take you to the edge and beyond the edge, and right now the message is that there’s been very little penalty paid for what they’ve done.”
EPA’s Website Purge
New Emails Show Scott Pruitt Personally Directed the EPA’s Website Purge
More than 1,900 climate-related web pages and files were removed or modified.
MEGAN JULA
During his first few months as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt was personally involved in removing information about climate change from the agency’s website, according to EPA emails obtained by the advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund.
The EDF acquired the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request “for documents about changes to the EPA’s website pertaining to climate and air quality.” The files center on a website purge that took place at the agency in April 2017, according to a news release from the group.
In August, the EDF also received records of “more than 1,900 climate-related web pages and files that had been removed from or modified on the EPA’s website.” The changes included removing the EPA’s webpage about the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as pages about climate change and climate science. Archived versions of these pages are still accessible.
ThinkProgress, a project of the progressive public policy organization the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reports:
Among the documents released by EDF on Monday is an email which shows J.P. Freire, then serving as Pruitt’s associate administrator for public affairs, writing to colleagues on April 28, 2017: “We would like the content at the links below removed and archived as soon as possible.” The webpage titles included “Climate Change, “Climate Change Science,” “Climate Change Impacts,” and “Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change.” Each of these webpages still directs the user to a page that states “this page is being updated.”
In reviewing the cache of emails, the EDF also discovered that EPA’s public affairs office had been asked by Pruitt’s advisers to figure out “how quickly they could launch a website on Trump’s energy independence executive order,” according to Think Progress. The reason? Pruitt wanted the EPA’s Clean Power Plan website redirected “to the energy independence website.”
Think Progress reports that a senior adviser to Pruitt, Lincoln Ferguson, pressured the staff, asking in an email, “How close are we to launching this on the website? The Administrator would like it to go up ASAP. He also has several other changes that need to take place.” When told that they were close to completion, Ferguson responded: “Can it happen today?” He added in a subsequent email, “Just asking because he is asking.”
In a statement emailed to ThinkProgress on Monday, EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox wrote, “Of course the site will be reflective of the current administration’s priorities. With that said, all the content from the previous administration is still easily accessible and publicly available through the banner across the top of our website.”
More than 1,900 climate-related web pages and files were removed or modified.
MEGAN JULA
During his first few months as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt was personally involved in removing information about climate change from the agency’s website, according to EPA emails obtained by the advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund.
The EDF acquired the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request “for documents about changes to the EPA’s website pertaining to climate and air quality.” The files center on a website purge that took place at the agency in April 2017, according to a news release from the group.
In August, the EDF also received records of “more than 1,900 climate-related web pages and files that had been removed from or modified on the EPA’s website.” The changes included removing the EPA’s webpage about the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as pages about climate change and climate science. Archived versions of these pages are still accessible.
ThinkProgress, a project of the progressive public policy organization the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reports:
Among the documents released by EDF on Monday is an email which shows J.P. Freire, then serving as Pruitt’s associate administrator for public affairs, writing to colleagues on April 28, 2017: “We would like the content at the links below removed and archived as soon as possible.” The webpage titles included “Climate Change, “Climate Change Science,” “Climate Change Impacts,” and “Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change.” Each of these webpages still directs the user to a page that states “this page is being updated.”
In reviewing the cache of emails, the EDF also discovered that EPA’s public affairs office had been asked by Pruitt’s advisers to figure out “how quickly they could launch a website on Trump’s energy independence executive order,” according to Think Progress. The reason? Pruitt wanted the EPA’s Clean Power Plan website redirected “to the energy independence website.”
Think Progress reports that a senior adviser to Pruitt, Lincoln Ferguson, pressured the staff, asking in an email, “How close are we to launching this on the website? The Administrator would like it to go up ASAP. He also has several other changes that need to take place.” When told that they were close to completion, Ferguson responded: “Can it happen today?” He added in a subsequent email, “Just asking because he is asking.”
In a statement emailed to ThinkProgress on Monday, EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox wrote, “Of course the site will be reflective of the current administration’s priorities. With that said, all the content from the previous administration is still easily accessible and publicly available through the banner across the top of our website.”
Confusing and misleading
A Dictionary of the Immigration Codewords Trump Will Use in His State of the Union
The terms are confusing and misleading. Allow us to translate.
NOAH LANARD
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has boiled his immigration agenda down to four words: lottery, chain, merit, and wall. In his first State of the Union address, Trump is likely to argue that each of those four pillars should be part of any deal to protect young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. Below is a guide to what Trump actually means if he uses those buzzwords tonight.
Lottery
Every year, a diversity visa “lottery” offers people from countries that have low rates of immigration to the United States a chance to get a green card that provides a path to US citizenship. Millions of people apply each year, and fewer than 1 percent are selected. The beneficiaries are disproportionately from the African nations that Trump referred to as “shitholes” earlier this month.
Trump inaccurately describes the program as a conspiracy in which countries select their worst residents, throw them into the mix, and hope the United States is foolish enough to take them. Here’s how Trump talked about the program earlier this month:
Countries come in and they put names in a hopper. They’re not giving you their best names…They’re giving you people that they don’t want. And then we take them out of the lottery. And when they do it by hand—where they put the hand in a bowl—they’re probably—what’s in their hand are the worst of the worst.
In reality, countries don’t pick their lottery entrants; people apply on their own. The US incarceration rate for people from diversity visa countries is 68 percent lower than it is for those born in the United States, according to the libertarian Cato Institute.
Chain
In recent weeks, chain migration has become the country’s most hotly contested immigration term. Republicans say it with abandon, while Democrats and immigrant advocates push for using “family-based” immigration instead.
The debate around chain migration was wasn’t always so loaded. It began as an academic phrase to describe the higher likelihood that immigrants will move to places where they have relatives. US immigration law facilitates that process by allowing citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouses and children for green cards, and allowing citizens to sponsor their siblings. The process can take years, or decades, depending on the country of origin and the migrant’s relation to a US citizen or permanent resident.
Trump wants to end chain migration for adult children and siblings, a move his administration says will promote the “nuclear family.” His proposal would not affect family members who are already waiting for green cards.
Merit
The United States currently awards about two-thirds of green cards to relatives of American citizens and residents. Far fewer immigrants—14 percent in 2015—get employment-related green cards. Trump uses that imbalance to argue that we should move from “random chain migration” to a system that is “merit-based.”
Aside from the fact that chain migration isn’t random, Trump’s claim incorrectly implies that he wants to replace family-based immigrants with high-skilled workers. In August, Trump endorsed a right-wing immigration bill, known as the RAISE Act, that would cut legal immigration by more than 40 percent by drastically reducing family-based migration. Employment-based green cards would remain at roughly the same level.
Wall
During the presidential campaign, many people assumed that Trump wanted his “big, beautiful wall” to run along the entire 1,900-mile US-Mexico border. Republicans’ 2016 policy platform followed that approach, stating that the “wall must cover the entirety of the southern border.”
As president, Trump has argued that a wall isn’t needed for the whole border. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly made that clear earlier this month when he told Hispanic lawmakers that Trump was not “fully informed” when he promised a wall. The next morning, Trump insisted on Twitter: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.”
Regardless of Trump’s shifting positions, one thing is almost certain: Trump will call whatever he builds a wall.
The terms are confusing and misleading. Allow us to translate.
NOAH LANARD
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has boiled his immigration agenda down to four words: lottery, chain, merit, and wall. In his first State of the Union address, Trump is likely to argue that each of those four pillars should be part of any deal to protect young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. Below is a guide to what Trump actually means if he uses those buzzwords tonight.
Lottery
Every year, a diversity visa “lottery” offers people from countries that have low rates of immigration to the United States a chance to get a green card that provides a path to US citizenship. Millions of people apply each year, and fewer than 1 percent are selected. The beneficiaries are disproportionately from the African nations that Trump referred to as “shitholes” earlier this month.
Trump inaccurately describes the program as a conspiracy in which countries select their worst residents, throw them into the mix, and hope the United States is foolish enough to take them. Here’s how Trump talked about the program earlier this month:
Countries come in and they put names in a hopper. They’re not giving you their best names…They’re giving you people that they don’t want. And then we take them out of the lottery. And when they do it by hand—where they put the hand in a bowl—they’re probably—what’s in their hand are the worst of the worst.
In reality, countries don’t pick their lottery entrants; people apply on their own. The US incarceration rate for people from diversity visa countries is 68 percent lower than it is for those born in the United States, according to the libertarian Cato Institute.
Chain
In recent weeks, chain migration has become the country’s most hotly contested immigration term. Republicans say it with abandon, while Democrats and immigrant advocates push for using “family-based” immigration instead.
The debate around chain migration was wasn’t always so loaded. It began as an academic phrase to describe the higher likelihood that immigrants will move to places where they have relatives. US immigration law facilitates that process by allowing citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouses and children for green cards, and allowing citizens to sponsor their siblings. The process can take years, or decades, depending on the country of origin and the migrant’s relation to a US citizen or permanent resident.
Trump wants to end chain migration for adult children and siblings, a move his administration says will promote the “nuclear family.” His proposal would not affect family members who are already waiting for green cards.
Merit
The United States currently awards about two-thirds of green cards to relatives of American citizens and residents. Far fewer immigrants—14 percent in 2015—get employment-related green cards. Trump uses that imbalance to argue that we should move from “random chain migration” to a system that is “merit-based.”
Aside from the fact that chain migration isn’t random, Trump’s claim incorrectly implies that he wants to replace family-based immigrants with high-skilled workers. In August, Trump endorsed a right-wing immigration bill, known as the RAISE Act, that would cut legal immigration by more than 40 percent by drastically reducing family-based migration. Employment-based green cards would remain at roughly the same level.
Wall
During the presidential campaign, many people assumed that Trump wanted his “big, beautiful wall” to run along the entire 1,900-mile US-Mexico border. Republicans’ 2016 policy platform followed that approach, stating that the “wall must cover the entirety of the southern border.”
As president, Trump has argued that a wall isn’t needed for the whole border. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly made that clear earlier this month when he told Hispanic lawmakers that Trump was not “fully informed” when he promised a wall. The next morning, Trump insisted on Twitter: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.”
Regardless of Trump’s shifting positions, one thing is almost certain: Trump will call whatever he builds a wall.
White Nationalists love Orangutans..
White Nationalists Are Loving Trump’s “Americans Are Dreamers Too” Line
It was the president’s only reference to DACA recipients in his State of the Union address.
INAE OH
President Donald Trump’s only reference to the 700,000 DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers,” trapped in the crosshairs of the immigration debate—”Americans are dreamers too”—was met with effusive praise from prominent white nationalists, including former KKK grand wizard David Duke.
The line came at the end of a section in Trump’s speech that initially appeared to gesture at a spirit of bipartisanship, in what has otherwise been an intensely contentious debate in Congress over the fate of Dreamers—dozens of whom were sitting in the House gallery Tuesday night as guests of Democratic lawmakers.
“I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties—Democrats and Republicans—to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed,” the section began. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.”
He then continued, “Because Americans are dreamers too.”
Democrats and many on social media instantly condemned Trump for intentionally stoking the flames of the debate. “The tone was of a divider-in-chief,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Politico shortly after the speech. “It was a red-meat appeal to the anti-immigrant base of his party, not the unifying, coming-together appeal that we all know is necessary.”
But as with Trump’s previous highly charged remarks, including his notorious “many sides” condemnation in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, it’s the giddy praise from those with white nationalist ties that’s making Democrats’ argument for them.
It was the president’s only reference to DACA recipients in his State of the Union address.
INAE OH
President Donald Trump’s only reference to the 700,000 DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers,” trapped in the crosshairs of the immigration debate—”Americans are dreamers too”—was met with effusive praise from prominent white nationalists, including former KKK grand wizard David Duke.
The line came at the end of a section in Trump’s speech that initially appeared to gesture at a spirit of bipartisanship, in what has otherwise been an intensely contentious debate in Congress over the fate of Dreamers—dozens of whom were sitting in the House gallery Tuesday night as guests of Democratic lawmakers.
“I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties—Democrats and Republicans—to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed,” the section began. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.”
He then continued, “Because Americans are dreamers too.”
Democrats and many on social media instantly condemned Trump for intentionally stoking the flames of the debate. “The tone was of a divider-in-chief,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Politico shortly after the speech. “It was a red-meat appeal to the anti-immigrant base of his party, not the unifying, coming-together appeal that we all know is necessary.”
But as with Trump’s previous highly charged remarks, including his notorious “many sides” condemnation in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, it’s the giddy praise from those with white nationalist ties that’s making Democrats’ argument for them.
State of the Union didn't unify
Trump's State of the Union didn't unify Capitol Hill
By Lauren Fox and Ted Barrett
As he delivered his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump attempted to suspend the polarizing realities of his presidency and stick to a script -- at least for one night.
But as the Russia investigation grips Washington and contentious impasses over spending and immigration threaten to undercut Trump's legislative agenda and his party's electoral future in 2018, any unity Trump hoped to inject with his speech was quickly shattered.
Trump's bipartisan overtures on infrastructure and foreign policy were met rapidly with reality: Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided in Washington over everything from immigration to health care to budget negotiations. And there's little that Trump can say to undo the partisan rancor.
"It was long on platitudes and short on particulars," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who said she was particularly disappointed with the President's comments on opioids, which she said didn't even address the financial cost of solving the problem.
Trump's address -- which ran well over an hour -- was well received by his side of the aisle.
"I thought he was outstanding," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after the speech concluded.
"He nailed it," Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota said.
"He stayed on target. He stayed on message.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn quipped that he thought it was "a great speech" even if "it was a little long for me."
And, Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, told reporters Trump was "very presidential."
Trump's address, Republicans concluded, was tamer than the early morning Twitter president they've reckoned with, more subdued than the Trump they sometimes find or read about in closed-door meetings.
Instead, Republicans -- fighting to preserve their majorities in both the House and Senate this year -- viewed the State of the Union as at the very least constructing a positive vision of what a Republican majority could accomplish in the months ahead.
"I think this was one of the best speeches I've seen him give," Deputy House Whip Patrick McHenry told CNN. "He hit at the heart of a great legislative agenda for the year around infrastructure, fixing the broken immigration system and helping communities who've been left behind."
On no issue were Trump's comments more controversial than on immigration, the topic that befalls Congress and is dividing not only Republicans and Democrats but factions within each party.
Trump tried to walk a line between delivering for his base as he addressed gang violence of MS-13 and delivering for some Republican immigration negotiators on Capitol Hill.
But Democrats rebuffed some Trump's comments, which they viewed as divisive. As Trump discussed so-called "chain migration," or changes to the family-based immigration rules, Democrats could be heard groaning. And after the speech, the Democrats' Whip Sen. Dick Durbin called Trump's references to MS-13 "inflammatory."
Trump pledges to 'make America great again for all Americans'
"No one in the world defends them," Durbin said. "We are talking about DACA and the dreamers for goodness sake's. It's two different worlds and he just seems to conflate both."
Trump also reiterated his immigration framework the White House unveiled last week, which included a path to citizenship for 1.8 million people. But, Trump didn't signal openness to narrowing a plan to protect recipients of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Instead, Trump doubled down on his insistence that any DACA deal also include changes to the legal immigration system, something Democrats have warned could be a nonstarter.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he observed "tepid" response from some of his Republican colleagues when Trump began to talk about his framework and he described Trump's proposals as a "totally untenable approach."
"I mean, basically, it's our way or the highway. You know, here's the compromise, do it our way," Blumenthal said.
Cornyn defended Trump's talk on immigration "it's a compromise. I don't think he should back off on it."
Not everyone on the Democratic side of the aisle, however, was disappointed with Trump's address.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who is running in a ruby red state this fall, said he wished his Democratic colleagues would have shown a bit more deference to the President during the State of the Union.
"It's not the way I was raised," he told CNN when asked if Democrats showed respect by not applauding during much of Trump's speech. "I show civility and respect."
Michigan GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga described the mood in the chamber during the speech as partisan.
He said on the Democratic side there was "lots of hissing, frankly immature at times." He said that he thought the President did try to include a lot of "olive branches extended" in the speech.
And, independent Maine Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, said he believed Trump invoked a "presidential" tone.
"He was very measured ... I was pleased that it was relatively non-partisan," King said. "I wouldn't call it exactly non-partisan, but I thought it was less partisan then it might help otherwise been."
King added he was also pleased with discussion on trade and on infrastructure even as he added "the details were not really there" on the latter.
But overall, Democrats weren't willing to give Trump the tile of unifier-in-chief Tuesday night despite Trump's attempts.
"It was another example of why the American public frankly has so much distrust and cynicism about government and its leaders because the American public deserves to hear truth, and that was not reflected in the speech tonight," said Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California.
By Lauren Fox and Ted Barrett
As he delivered his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump attempted to suspend the polarizing realities of his presidency and stick to a script -- at least for one night.
But as the Russia investigation grips Washington and contentious impasses over spending and immigration threaten to undercut Trump's legislative agenda and his party's electoral future in 2018, any unity Trump hoped to inject with his speech was quickly shattered.
Trump's bipartisan overtures on infrastructure and foreign policy were met rapidly with reality: Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided in Washington over everything from immigration to health care to budget negotiations. And there's little that Trump can say to undo the partisan rancor.
"It was long on platitudes and short on particulars," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who said she was particularly disappointed with the President's comments on opioids, which she said didn't even address the financial cost of solving the problem.
Trump's address -- which ran well over an hour -- was well received by his side of the aisle.
"I thought he was outstanding," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after the speech concluded.
"He nailed it," Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota said.
"He stayed on target. He stayed on message.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn quipped that he thought it was "a great speech" even if "it was a little long for me."
And, Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, told reporters Trump was "very presidential."
Trump's address, Republicans concluded, was tamer than the early morning Twitter president they've reckoned with, more subdued than the Trump they sometimes find or read about in closed-door meetings.
Instead, Republicans -- fighting to preserve their majorities in both the House and Senate this year -- viewed the State of the Union as at the very least constructing a positive vision of what a Republican majority could accomplish in the months ahead.
"I think this was one of the best speeches I've seen him give," Deputy House Whip Patrick McHenry told CNN. "He hit at the heart of a great legislative agenda for the year around infrastructure, fixing the broken immigration system and helping communities who've been left behind."
On no issue were Trump's comments more controversial than on immigration, the topic that befalls Congress and is dividing not only Republicans and Democrats but factions within each party.
Trump tried to walk a line between delivering for his base as he addressed gang violence of MS-13 and delivering for some Republican immigration negotiators on Capitol Hill.
But Democrats rebuffed some Trump's comments, which they viewed as divisive. As Trump discussed so-called "chain migration," or changes to the family-based immigration rules, Democrats could be heard groaning. And after the speech, the Democrats' Whip Sen. Dick Durbin called Trump's references to MS-13 "inflammatory."
Trump pledges to 'make America great again for all Americans'
"No one in the world defends them," Durbin said. "We are talking about DACA and the dreamers for goodness sake's. It's two different worlds and he just seems to conflate both."
Trump also reiterated his immigration framework the White House unveiled last week, which included a path to citizenship for 1.8 million people. But, Trump didn't signal openness to narrowing a plan to protect recipients of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Instead, Trump doubled down on his insistence that any DACA deal also include changes to the legal immigration system, something Democrats have warned could be a nonstarter.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he observed "tepid" response from some of his Republican colleagues when Trump began to talk about his framework and he described Trump's proposals as a "totally untenable approach."
"I mean, basically, it's our way or the highway. You know, here's the compromise, do it our way," Blumenthal said.
Cornyn defended Trump's talk on immigration "it's a compromise. I don't think he should back off on it."
Not everyone on the Democratic side of the aisle, however, was disappointed with Trump's address.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who is running in a ruby red state this fall, said he wished his Democratic colleagues would have shown a bit more deference to the President during the State of the Union.
"It's not the way I was raised," he told CNN when asked if Democrats showed respect by not applauding during much of Trump's speech. "I show civility and respect."
Michigan GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga described the mood in the chamber during the speech as partisan.
He said on the Democratic side there was "lots of hissing, frankly immature at times." He said that he thought the President did try to include a lot of "olive branches extended" in the speech.
And, independent Maine Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, said he believed Trump invoked a "presidential" tone.
"He was very measured ... I was pleased that it was relatively non-partisan," King said. "I wouldn't call it exactly non-partisan, but I thought it was less partisan then it might help otherwise been."
King added he was also pleased with discussion on trade and on infrastructure even as he added "the details were not really there" on the latter.
But overall, Democrats weren't willing to give Trump the tile of unifier-in-chief Tuesday night despite Trump's attempts.
"It was another example of why the American public frankly has so much distrust and cynicism about government and its leaders because the American public deserves to hear truth, and that was not reflected in the speech tonight," said Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California.
Least positive reaction
CNN Instant poll: Trump gets least positive reaction in at least 20 years
By Ryan Struyk
Almost half of Americans who watched President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address -- 48% -- say they had a "very positive" impression of the speech, down from 57% of speech-watchers after his first address to match Barack Obama's rating after his first State of the Union address, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
It's the lowest net positive rating for a State of the Union address since at least 1998, when CNN first asked the question. There is no equivalent poll for addresses before 1998.
Some important caveats: This survey reflects the views of only those who watched the speech, not of all Americans. The poll was conducted among a group of Americans who said in prior interviews that they planned to watch the speech and were willing to be contacted after its conclusion.
People who choose to watch a political speech tend to be more supportive of the speaker than the general population; this sample was about 7 points more Republican than the entire American population.
A narrow majority of viewers, 54%, says it thinks Trump has the right priorities, down from 63% from a similar poll after his speech last year to a joint session of Congress. Not quite half, 45%, say he hasn't paid attention to the country's most important problems.
Still, more than 6 in 10 viewers, 62%, say they think his policies will move the country in the right direction. But more than 4 in 10 people who watched the address say they are not confident in his abilities to carry out his duties as President.
Only 56% of viewers say they think his policies are headed in the right direction on immigration -- down 6 points since his 2017 speech. His proposals on other issues are higher: Roughly 8 in 10 people who viewed Trump's address say he has the right direction on infrastructure and 7 in 10 say he's going the right direction on the economy.
A majority of Americans who watched Trump's speech to Congress last year, 57%, said they had a very positive reaction. Two-thirds or more said Trump had the right priorities for the nation, his policies were headed the right direction and the speech made them feel more optimistic.
Only 48% of viewers had a very positive view of Obama's first State of the Union address, though a larger portion had a somewhat positive reaction, giving him a net positive score of 78% in 2010. He also did better during his first address to Congress, just after being inaugurated in 2009. Then, 68% said they had a very positive view of his address.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS on January 30, 2018, among 549 Americans who watched Trump's address. Respondents were first interviewed as part of a random national samples conducted from January 14-18 and January 25-28. In those interviews, respondents indicated they planned to watch Tuesday night's speech and said they were willing to be re-interviewed. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
By Ryan Struyk
Almost half of Americans who watched President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address -- 48% -- say they had a "very positive" impression of the speech, down from 57% of speech-watchers after his first address to match Barack Obama's rating after his first State of the Union address, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
It's the lowest net positive rating for a State of the Union address since at least 1998, when CNN first asked the question. There is no equivalent poll for addresses before 1998.
Some important caveats: This survey reflects the views of only those who watched the speech, not of all Americans. The poll was conducted among a group of Americans who said in prior interviews that they planned to watch the speech and were willing to be contacted after its conclusion.
People who choose to watch a political speech tend to be more supportive of the speaker than the general population; this sample was about 7 points more Republican than the entire American population.
A narrow majority of viewers, 54%, says it thinks Trump has the right priorities, down from 63% from a similar poll after his speech last year to a joint session of Congress. Not quite half, 45%, say he hasn't paid attention to the country's most important problems.
Still, more than 6 in 10 viewers, 62%, say they think his policies will move the country in the right direction. But more than 4 in 10 people who watched the address say they are not confident in his abilities to carry out his duties as President.
Only 56% of viewers say they think his policies are headed in the right direction on immigration -- down 6 points since his 2017 speech. His proposals on other issues are higher: Roughly 8 in 10 people who viewed Trump's address say he has the right direction on infrastructure and 7 in 10 say he's going the right direction on the economy.
A majority of Americans who watched Trump's speech to Congress last year, 57%, said they had a very positive reaction. Two-thirds or more said Trump had the right priorities for the nation, his policies were headed the right direction and the speech made them feel more optimistic.
Only 48% of viewers had a very positive view of Obama's first State of the Union address, though a larger portion had a somewhat positive reaction, giving him a net positive score of 78% in 2010. He also did better during his first address to Congress, just after being inaugurated in 2009. Then, 68% said they had a very positive view of his address.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS on January 30, 2018, among 549 Americans who watched Trump's address. Respondents were first interviewed as part of a random national samples conducted from January 14-18 and January 25-28. In those interviews, respondents indicated they planned to watch Tuesday night's speech and said they were willing to be re-interviewed. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
To parade dozens of long-range missiles
North Korea to parade dozens of long-range missiles before Winter Olympics
By Will Ripley and Joshua Berlinger
North Korea is planning to show off dozens of long-range missiles at a February 8 parade, the day before the Winter Olympics is set to begin in South Korea, two diplomatic sources with deep knowledge of North Korea's intentions told CNN Wednesday.
The display of "hundreds" of missiles and rockets would be an attempt "to scare the hell out of the Americans," one of the sources said.
The parade is expected to include dozens of intercontinental-range Hwasong-15 missiles, which the North Koreans test-fired for the first time in late November, the sources said.
They also didn't rule out a missile test "in the near future" to send a strong message to American forces currently deployed in the region.
The news comes after US President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union speech, during which he criticized the Kim Jong Un regime's human rights abuses and "reckless pursuit" of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could soon threaten the US homeland.
In his address, Trump highlighted personal stories of victims of the Kim regime, inviting as guests North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho and the parents of Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after returning from North Korea where he spent 17 months in captivity.
Winter Olympics woes
The inter-Korean talks which led to the North's decision to participate in the Winter OIympics had been hailed as a breakthrough that could ease escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula. However, the process has not been smooth.
On Monday, North Korea said it canceled a joint cultural performance that was to be held in advance of the Olympics in response to unflattering coverage by South Korean media.
According to a statement from South Korea's Unification Ministry, the North Koreans pulled out because "South Korean media continue to insult North Korea's genuine measures regarding the PyeongChang Olympics and take issues with its domestic festival."
The sources that spoke to CNN said that other planned events could be canceled.
Cracks
Chad O'Carroll, managing director of the Korea Risk Group in Seoul, said the planned military parade could undermine Washington's support of dialogue between the two Koreas.
"The ongoing US support for inter-Korean rapprochement already appears to be showing cracks and will likely be seriously tested in the event of a major DPRK ICBM parade on the eve of the Olympics," he said.
Foreign media will be banned from covering the upcoming military parade, the sources said.
This is a dramatic change from last year, when many global news organizations were invited to cover a military parade in April that saw Pyongyang unveil new long-range missiles. A diplomatic source said this was due to the sensitivity of the weapons that will be on display, and to avoid questions about the deploy ability of the missiles. By banning foreign press, North Korea controls all of the imagery the world sees.
North Korean state media in recent days has been increasing its anti-US rhetoric, warning of grave consequences if postponed joint military exercises resume after the Olympics.
Policy divisions
Earlier Tuesday, sources told CNN that the Trump administration had decided not to nominate Victor Cha, its widely rumored selection as US ambassador to South Korea, apparently because of a difference over Korea policy, specifically over its consideration of a pre-emptive strike.
Cha, a widely respected former academic and former Bush administration official, said in a Washington Post op-ed Monday that the answer to the "real and unprecedented threats" North Korea presents is not, "as some Trump administration officials have suggested, a preventive military strike."
Instead, Cha laid out what he called "a forceful military option available that can address the threat without escalating into a war that would likely kill tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans."
By Will Ripley and Joshua Berlinger
North Korea is planning to show off dozens of long-range missiles at a February 8 parade, the day before the Winter Olympics is set to begin in South Korea, two diplomatic sources with deep knowledge of North Korea's intentions told CNN Wednesday.
The display of "hundreds" of missiles and rockets would be an attempt "to scare the hell out of the Americans," one of the sources said.
The parade is expected to include dozens of intercontinental-range Hwasong-15 missiles, which the North Koreans test-fired for the first time in late November, the sources said.
They also didn't rule out a missile test "in the near future" to send a strong message to American forces currently deployed in the region.
The news comes after US President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union speech, during which he criticized the Kim Jong Un regime's human rights abuses and "reckless pursuit" of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could soon threaten the US homeland.
In his address, Trump highlighted personal stories of victims of the Kim regime, inviting as guests North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho and the parents of Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after returning from North Korea where he spent 17 months in captivity.
Winter Olympics woes
The inter-Korean talks which led to the North's decision to participate in the Winter OIympics had been hailed as a breakthrough that could ease escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula. However, the process has not been smooth.
On Monday, North Korea said it canceled a joint cultural performance that was to be held in advance of the Olympics in response to unflattering coverage by South Korean media.
According to a statement from South Korea's Unification Ministry, the North Koreans pulled out because "South Korean media continue to insult North Korea's genuine measures regarding the PyeongChang Olympics and take issues with its domestic festival."
The sources that spoke to CNN said that other planned events could be canceled.
Cracks
Chad O'Carroll, managing director of the Korea Risk Group in Seoul, said the planned military parade could undermine Washington's support of dialogue between the two Koreas.
"The ongoing US support for inter-Korean rapprochement already appears to be showing cracks and will likely be seriously tested in the event of a major DPRK ICBM parade on the eve of the Olympics," he said.
Foreign media will be banned from covering the upcoming military parade, the sources said.
This is a dramatic change from last year, when many global news organizations were invited to cover a military parade in April that saw Pyongyang unveil new long-range missiles. A diplomatic source said this was due to the sensitivity of the weapons that will be on display, and to avoid questions about the deploy ability of the missiles. By banning foreign press, North Korea controls all of the imagery the world sees.
North Korean state media in recent days has been increasing its anti-US rhetoric, warning of grave consequences if postponed joint military exercises resume after the Olympics.
Policy divisions
Earlier Tuesday, sources told CNN that the Trump administration had decided not to nominate Victor Cha, its widely rumored selection as US ambassador to South Korea, apparently because of a difference over Korea policy, specifically over its consideration of a pre-emptive strike.
Cha, a widely respected former academic and former Bush administration official, said in a Washington Post op-ed Monday that the answer to the "real and unprecedented threats" North Korea presents is not, "as some Trump administration officials have suggested, a preventive military strike."
Instead, Cha laid out what he called "a forceful military option available that can address the threat without escalating into a war that would likely kill tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans."
Doesn't care about Puerto Rico
Lawmakers say speech proves Trump doesn't care about Puerto Rico crisis
By Nicole Chavez
Democratic lawmakers say President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech glossed over the grim reality that at least 3 million of Puerto Ricans are facing.
In his 80-minute speech, Trump acknowledged Puerto Ricans when he expressed solidarity toward those affected by the floods, fires and storms that hit the country in the past year.
"To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else -- we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together," Trump said.
But the lawmakers said he failed to give Puerto Ricans hope after FEMA said it was ending food and water shipments to the island.
"Not even a mention on PR and FEMA will stop providing food and water tomorrow. We are not in the Republican radar. We must double the fight," tweeted San Juan Mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz after attending Trump's speech.
The Democrat joined other lawmakers in calling out Trump for what they say is the President's failure to adequately address the crisis in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
"Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this President sees all Latinos and people of color: he does not see us as his equals and he does not see us as fellow human beings," said Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez in a statement following Trump's address.
Hours before Trump's speech, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had announced plans of halting new shipments of food and water to the island. The agency said in a statement that "FEMA-provided commodities are no longer needed."
FEMA has called the island's emergency operation the longest sustained distribution of food, fuel and water in agency history, including more than $1.6 billion worth of food and more than $361 million worth of water.
FEMA is cutting off shipments Wednesday. More than four months have passed since the hurricane battered Puerto Rico but nearly half a million power utility customers remain without electricity and some areas have no water or even supplies of milk, local officials said.
Gutierrez also said he "was hoping for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico."
"If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesn't care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another shithole country," he added.
But Puerto Rico's sole representative in Congress, Jenniffer González-Colón, did not complain about the President's focus during his speech, instead she suggested that Trump's long-awaited infrastructure plan should begin in the island.
"The rebuilding of infrastructure and the investment in job creation can start in Puerto Rico. We can be the place to launch programs to build back better infrastructure and to favor enterprise," she tweeted.
By Nicole Chavez
Democratic lawmakers say President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech glossed over the grim reality that at least 3 million of Puerto Ricans are facing.
In his 80-minute speech, Trump acknowledged Puerto Ricans when he expressed solidarity toward those affected by the floods, fires and storms that hit the country in the past year.
"To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else -- we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together," Trump said.
But the lawmakers said he failed to give Puerto Ricans hope after FEMA said it was ending food and water shipments to the island.
"Not even a mention on PR and FEMA will stop providing food and water tomorrow. We are not in the Republican radar. We must double the fight," tweeted San Juan Mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz after attending Trump's speech.
The Democrat joined other lawmakers in calling out Trump for what they say is the President's failure to adequately address the crisis in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
"Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this President sees all Latinos and people of color: he does not see us as his equals and he does not see us as fellow human beings," said Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez in a statement following Trump's address.
Hours before Trump's speech, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had announced plans of halting new shipments of food and water to the island. The agency said in a statement that "FEMA-provided commodities are no longer needed."
FEMA has called the island's emergency operation the longest sustained distribution of food, fuel and water in agency history, including more than $1.6 billion worth of food and more than $361 million worth of water.
FEMA is cutting off shipments Wednesday. More than four months have passed since the hurricane battered Puerto Rico but nearly half a million power utility customers remain without electricity and some areas have no water or even supplies of milk, local officials said.
Gutierrez also said he "was hoping for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico."
"If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesn't care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another shithole country," he added.
But Puerto Rico's sole representative in Congress, Jenniffer González-Colón, did not complain about the President's focus during his speech, instead she suggested that Trump's long-awaited infrastructure plan should begin in the island.
"The rebuilding of infrastructure and the investment in job creation can start in Puerto Rico. We can be the place to launch programs to build back better infrastructure and to favor enterprise," she tweeted.
Domestic spending??
GOP floats big boost in domestic spending, with a catch
A Democratic leadership aide said Republicans made the pitch over the weekend but that it is 'not a good-faith offer.'
By SARAH FERRIS, JENNIFER SCHOLTES and HEATHER CAYGLE
Key Republicans are warming to the idea of a large increase in nondefense spending limits, but with a major caveat Democrats are likely to reject.
GOP leaders have floated a proposal that would significantly raise caps on domestic spending during the next two years. Most of that boost would be set aside for funding President Donald Trump's infrastructure promise, according to lawmakers and sources familiar with the budget talks.
A Democratic leadership aide said Republicans made the pitch over the weekend but that it is “not a good-faith offer.”
“It was a step backward in the negotiations,” the aide said.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters Tuesday that the infrastructure proposal is among “three or four” options Republicans are currently weighing.
“One of the options is that, if we’re going to plus-up nondefense discretionary, is maybe putting most of that towards infrastructure so that actually goes to everybody’s district, it provides roads and bridges, it doesn’t grow the size of government,” Meadows said.
“And that would be in keeping with not only the president’s agenda but with what we know is going to be spent over the next 10 years, which is at least an additional $200 billion on infrastructure.”
Democrats are unlikely to embrace the plan, however, if Republicans also insist the transportation cash must be specifically authorized and directed to particular projects, or it would be sent back to the Treasury Department.
"It doesn't make sense to me," Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday.
Lowey argued that infrastructure money should be allocated through the regular appropriations process.
Republicans are "exploring" the idea of adding money devoted to infrastructure, Meadows said, adding that it hasn't "been socialized with everybody” yet.
"Ultimately what it does is acknowledges the fact that we have to have a bipartisan deal on the caps deal," he said.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), as well as Pennsylvania Republican Reps. Scott Perry and Charlie Dent, also acknowledged that the idea is under discussion.
“There was discussion: If we’re going to raise the caps on the nondefense side of the budget, could some of that be allocated to infrastructure?” Thune said.
Republican and Democratic leaders have locked horns for months on spending limits for domestic and defense programs. Multiple senior Republicans have said negotiators have largely agreed on defense funding levels but they can’t reach a final deal because talks on nondefense spending have stalled.
The latest consequence of that stalemate: Government funding will expire again Feb. 8, likely requiring Congress to pass another short-term spending patch in the absence of a grand compromise on defense and nondefense budget caps.
A Democratic leadership aide said Republicans made the pitch over the weekend but that it is 'not a good-faith offer.'
By SARAH FERRIS, JENNIFER SCHOLTES and HEATHER CAYGLE
Key Republicans are warming to the idea of a large increase in nondefense spending limits, but with a major caveat Democrats are likely to reject.
GOP leaders have floated a proposal that would significantly raise caps on domestic spending during the next two years. Most of that boost would be set aside for funding President Donald Trump's infrastructure promise, according to lawmakers and sources familiar with the budget talks.
A Democratic leadership aide said Republicans made the pitch over the weekend but that it is “not a good-faith offer.”
“It was a step backward in the negotiations,” the aide said.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters Tuesday that the infrastructure proposal is among “three or four” options Republicans are currently weighing.
“One of the options is that, if we’re going to plus-up nondefense discretionary, is maybe putting most of that towards infrastructure so that actually goes to everybody’s district, it provides roads and bridges, it doesn’t grow the size of government,” Meadows said.
“And that would be in keeping with not only the president’s agenda but with what we know is going to be spent over the next 10 years, which is at least an additional $200 billion on infrastructure.”
Democrats are unlikely to embrace the plan, however, if Republicans also insist the transportation cash must be specifically authorized and directed to particular projects, or it would be sent back to the Treasury Department.
"It doesn't make sense to me," Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday.
Lowey argued that infrastructure money should be allocated through the regular appropriations process.
Republicans are "exploring" the idea of adding money devoted to infrastructure, Meadows said, adding that it hasn't "been socialized with everybody” yet.
"Ultimately what it does is acknowledges the fact that we have to have a bipartisan deal on the caps deal," he said.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), as well as Pennsylvania Republican Reps. Scott Perry and Charlie Dent, also acknowledged that the idea is under discussion.
“There was discussion: If we’re going to raise the caps on the nondefense side of the budget, could some of that be allocated to infrastructure?” Thune said.
Republican and Democratic leaders have locked horns for months on spending limits for domestic and defense programs. Multiple senior Republicans have said negotiators have largely agreed on defense funding levels but they can’t reach a final deal because talks on nondefense spending have stalled.
The latest consequence of that stalemate: Government funding will expire again Feb. 8, likely requiring Congress to pass another short-term spending patch in the absence of a grand compromise on defense and nondefense budget caps.
Big Plans for little Syria...
Trump Has Big Plans for Syria. But He Has No Real Strategy.
By CHARLES LISTER and WILLIAM F. WECHSLER
Few noticed it amid the usual frenzy over something President Donald Trump did, but the United States is now committed to staying in Syria for the long haul—with unforeseen consequences for America’s role in a turbulent and dangerous Middle East.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a Jan. 18 speech that received shockingly little coverage given the stakes involved, laid out what he termed “the way forward for the United States in Syria.” Tillerson outlined five laudable goals that—assuming he speaks for the president—would secure substantial U.S. national security interests: (1) the lasting defeat of ISIS and al Qaeda and any terror threat to the U.S. at home or overseas; (2) the resolution of Syria’s broader conflict through a U.N.-led political process that secures the departure of President Bashar Assad; (3) the diminishment of Iranian influence; (4) the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced peoples; and (5) a Syria free of weapons of mass destruction. Broadly speaking, this mirrors how the Obama administration publicly framed its policy on Syria.
For many former Obama officials, their handling of Syria is a tale of tragedy and frustration—a story of opportunities missed, deals not done, disasters not averted. But could Trump’s approach end up differently? After all, Tillerson made clear that this time, even with ISIS near defeat, the U.S. “will maintain a military presence in Syria.” In comments that turned a few heads among Middle East watchers, he said “it is vital for the U.S. to remain engaged in Syria… a total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against his own people.”
The Trump administration should be praised for bringing clarity to an issue of significant strategic concern. It is encouraging to have America’s policy priorities now clearly laid out in public, and it’s reassuring that the administration has overcome its internal advocates for disengagement. That is the good news. The bad news is that the objectives set out by Tillerson are just that: objectives; and wildly unrealistic ones at that. As with Obama—who declared in 2011 that Assad must go yet consistently rejected calls for a more assertive approach—there is no indication that Trump’s team has developed or begun to implement a strategy to match its grand goals, nor that it plans to deploy the resources necessary to accomplish them.
For the U.S., counterterrorism will always be a priority and the effective defeats delivered to ISIS represent a significant achievement. Just as the Russian air campaign has been decisive for saving the Assad regime, the U.S. air campaign has been decisive in pushing back ISIS. Moreover, since September 2014, the U.S. military has been supporting a collection of groups on the ground now known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Dominated in both number and command by a Kurdish militia known as the YPG, the SDF control more than 50,000 fighters and now rule over 25 percent of Syrian territory. Maintaining a troop presence in northeastern Syria and continuing to train and equip the SDF could potentially help stabilize that region, a stretch of territory measuring some 45,000 square kilometers known for its agriculture and oil.
By seeking to stabilize Syria’s northeast, the U.S. is going some way towards minimizing the risk of an ISIS comeback. However, in doing so through the SDF, we continue to enrage nearly every other actor involved in Syria. Problem No. 1: Turkey, which perceives the YPG as a component of a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK, which Turkey views as an existential national security threat. Earlier this year, the CIA returned to labeling the YPG as the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the U.S. have considered a designated terrorist organization for over 20 years. Turkey’s understandable frustration has been realized in the form of two successive Turkish invasions of northern Syria, both of which have fundamentally challenged the viability of U.S. strategy in the country’s northeast and caused a crisis between two longtime allies. Today, U.S.-backed SDF forces are engaged in an all-out war with a fellow member of NATO.
In northwestern Syria, meanwhile, al Qaeda and likeminded groups are thriving – according to our latest estimates, the group’s members there now number more than 15,000 – largely on the other side of the country, far from the U.S forces in the east. Tillerson said the U.S. seeks to defeat this threat, but the administration has no strategy or means to do so. In fact, the Trump team’s decision in mid-2017 to cease all support to vetted opposition groups saw these jihadists exploit the resulting weakness to expand further. Other than making broad rhetorical statements, the administration has shown no inclination to meaningfully confront al Qaeda in Syria’s northwest.
Tillerson’s four other objectives speak to the broader realities of the nearly 7-year-old conflict in Syria. To his credit, the secretary clearly acknowledged that as long as Assad remains in power, Syria will remain an unstable environment producing troubling and dangerous effects. However, his suggestion that the withdrawal of America’s 1,500 troops from the northeast would “restore Assad” implied that America’s small anti-ISIS presence actually endangers the rump Syrian regime’s survival. It does not. Assad has not been more secure in Damascus since the conflict’s early days. Quite how 1,500 American troops in the rural northeast will “diminish Iranian influence” requires an even greater stretch of the imagination.
The Iranian issue is something the Trump administration appears to care about a great deal—and rightfully so. So too is the security of America’s closest ally in the region, Israel and our indispensable partner, Jordan. In Syria, Iran is arguably the most influential actor of all, exerting an iron grip over the future of the country thanks to a 150,000-strong militia force under its control and not of the regime in Damascus. Iran controls Syrian military bases and manages multiple ballistic missile factories, and its social and economic investments have secured it irreversible influence. Iran is following the playbook it originally wrote in Lebanon and is carrying forward in Iraq, and it will not willingly give up its new ability to project power from Syria.
The resulting threat to Israel may turn out to be greater than anything it has faced in decades. Thus, while the world’s attention focuses on the continued fighting in the northwest or the future of the Kurds in the northeast, the most dangerous area of Syria over the longer term may be its southwest, where Iran and Hezbollah’s menacing presence risk sparking a wider war with Israel down the road. The U.S. played a key role in negotiating a de-escalation deal along Israel’s border, which could have gone some way to minimizing some of that threat, but the terms as finally presented by Russia were far from sufficient and even they appear now to be eroding.
The Trump administration has repeatedly applauded the importance of de-escalation zones in creating conditions for a political settlement. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is that these zones are designed by Russia to allow a slower, more subtle rate of regime gains against the opposition. The State Department knew this from the outset, having designed its own in-house maps forecasting these regime gains as early as mid-2017. By lending its political support to a Russian-led initiative designed only to strengthen Assad’s position, the Trump administration has directly abetted Assad’s survival, Iran’s expansion and threat to Israel, and continued civilian displacement. And even after President Trump took welcome action to enforce Obama’s red line on chemical weapons use last year, the regime nevertheless has continued using often deadly chlorine gas, as recently as January 22.
“Assad or we burn the country” — the Syrian regime has long trumpeted this threat, and it has never failed to follow through. The U.S., on the other hand, has declared the need for Assad’s removal for nearly seven years, but it has never determinedly sought to realize it. Continuing to declare grand goals without deploying the necessary means will only further erode American credibility. When the cornerstone of U.S. influence in Syria – our relationship with the SDF in the northeast – has sparked a war with a NATO ally, we need to raise serious questions about our path forward. And when Iran emerges from the conflict with a newfound ability to project power against our allies Israel and Jordan, it is time to reassess the priorities of our Syrian strategy, or to ask whether we indeed even have a strategy at all.
By CHARLES LISTER and WILLIAM F. WECHSLER
Few noticed it amid the usual frenzy over something President Donald Trump did, but the United States is now committed to staying in Syria for the long haul—with unforeseen consequences for America’s role in a turbulent and dangerous Middle East.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a Jan. 18 speech that received shockingly little coverage given the stakes involved, laid out what he termed “the way forward for the United States in Syria.” Tillerson outlined five laudable goals that—assuming he speaks for the president—would secure substantial U.S. national security interests: (1) the lasting defeat of ISIS and al Qaeda and any terror threat to the U.S. at home or overseas; (2) the resolution of Syria’s broader conflict through a U.N.-led political process that secures the departure of President Bashar Assad; (3) the diminishment of Iranian influence; (4) the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced peoples; and (5) a Syria free of weapons of mass destruction. Broadly speaking, this mirrors how the Obama administration publicly framed its policy on Syria.
For many former Obama officials, their handling of Syria is a tale of tragedy and frustration—a story of opportunities missed, deals not done, disasters not averted. But could Trump’s approach end up differently? After all, Tillerson made clear that this time, even with ISIS near defeat, the U.S. “will maintain a military presence in Syria.” In comments that turned a few heads among Middle East watchers, he said “it is vital for the U.S. to remain engaged in Syria… a total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against his own people.”
The Trump administration should be praised for bringing clarity to an issue of significant strategic concern. It is encouraging to have America’s policy priorities now clearly laid out in public, and it’s reassuring that the administration has overcome its internal advocates for disengagement. That is the good news. The bad news is that the objectives set out by Tillerson are just that: objectives; and wildly unrealistic ones at that. As with Obama—who declared in 2011 that Assad must go yet consistently rejected calls for a more assertive approach—there is no indication that Trump’s team has developed or begun to implement a strategy to match its grand goals, nor that it plans to deploy the resources necessary to accomplish them.
For the U.S., counterterrorism will always be a priority and the effective defeats delivered to ISIS represent a significant achievement. Just as the Russian air campaign has been decisive for saving the Assad regime, the U.S. air campaign has been decisive in pushing back ISIS. Moreover, since September 2014, the U.S. military has been supporting a collection of groups on the ground now known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Dominated in both number and command by a Kurdish militia known as the YPG, the SDF control more than 50,000 fighters and now rule over 25 percent of Syrian territory. Maintaining a troop presence in northeastern Syria and continuing to train and equip the SDF could potentially help stabilize that region, a stretch of territory measuring some 45,000 square kilometers known for its agriculture and oil.
By seeking to stabilize Syria’s northeast, the U.S. is going some way towards minimizing the risk of an ISIS comeback. However, in doing so through the SDF, we continue to enrage nearly every other actor involved in Syria. Problem No. 1: Turkey, which perceives the YPG as a component of a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK, which Turkey views as an existential national security threat. Earlier this year, the CIA returned to labeling the YPG as the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the U.S. have considered a designated terrorist organization for over 20 years. Turkey’s understandable frustration has been realized in the form of two successive Turkish invasions of northern Syria, both of which have fundamentally challenged the viability of U.S. strategy in the country’s northeast and caused a crisis between two longtime allies. Today, U.S.-backed SDF forces are engaged in an all-out war with a fellow member of NATO.
In northwestern Syria, meanwhile, al Qaeda and likeminded groups are thriving – according to our latest estimates, the group’s members there now number more than 15,000 – largely on the other side of the country, far from the U.S forces in the east. Tillerson said the U.S. seeks to defeat this threat, but the administration has no strategy or means to do so. In fact, the Trump team’s decision in mid-2017 to cease all support to vetted opposition groups saw these jihadists exploit the resulting weakness to expand further. Other than making broad rhetorical statements, the administration has shown no inclination to meaningfully confront al Qaeda in Syria’s northwest.
Tillerson’s four other objectives speak to the broader realities of the nearly 7-year-old conflict in Syria. To his credit, the secretary clearly acknowledged that as long as Assad remains in power, Syria will remain an unstable environment producing troubling and dangerous effects. However, his suggestion that the withdrawal of America’s 1,500 troops from the northeast would “restore Assad” implied that America’s small anti-ISIS presence actually endangers the rump Syrian regime’s survival. It does not. Assad has not been more secure in Damascus since the conflict’s early days. Quite how 1,500 American troops in the rural northeast will “diminish Iranian influence” requires an even greater stretch of the imagination.
The Iranian issue is something the Trump administration appears to care about a great deal—and rightfully so. So too is the security of America’s closest ally in the region, Israel and our indispensable partner, Jordan. In Syria, Iran is arguably the most influential actor of all, exerting an iron grip over the future of the country thanks to a 150,000-strong militia force under its control and not of the regime in Damascus. Iran controls Syrian military bases and manages multiple ballistic missile factories, and its social and economic investments have secured it irreversible influence. Iran is following the playbook it originally wrote in Lebanon and is carrying forward in Iraq, and it will not willingly give up its new ability to project power from Syria.
The resulting threat to Israel may turn out to be greater than anything it has faced in decades. Thus, while the world’s attention focuses on the continued fighting in the northwest or the future of the Kurds in the northeast, the most dangerous area of Syria over the longer term may be its southwest, where Iran and Hezbollah’s menacing presence risk sparking a wider war with Israel down the road. The U.S. played a key role in negotiating a de-escalation deal along Israel’s border, which could have gone some way to minimizing some of that threat, but the terms as finally presented by Russia were far from sufficient and even they appear now to be eroding.
The Trump administration has repeatedly applauded the importance of de-escalation zones in creating conditions for a political settlement. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is that these zones are designed by Russia to allow a slower, more subtle rate of regime gains against the opposition. The State Department knew this from the outset, having designed its own in-house maps forecasting these regime gains as early as mid-2017. By lending its political support to a Russian-led initiative designed only to strengthen Assad’s position, the Trump administration has directly abetted Assad’s survival, Iran’s expansion and threat to Israel, and continued civilian displacement. And even after President Trump took welcome action to enforce Obama’s red line on chemical weapons use last year, the regime nevertheless has continued using often deadly chlorine gas, as recently as January 22.
“Assad or we burn the country” — the Syrian regime has long trumpeted this threat, and it has never failed to follow through. The U.S., on the other hand, has declared the need for Assad’s removal for nearly seven years, but it has never determinedly sought to realize it. Continuing to declare grand goals without deploying the necessary means will only further erode American credibility. When the cornerstone of U.S. influence in Syria – our relationship with the SDF in the northeast – has sparked a war with a NATO ally, we need to raise serious questions about our path forward. And when Iran emerges from the conflict with a newfound ability to project power against our allies Israel and Jordan, it is time to reassess the priorities of our Syrian strategy, or to ask whether we indeed even have a strategy at all.
Gaslighting America
I’m a Republican. Why Is My Party Gaslighting America?
By AMANDA CARPENTER
Riddle me this: If Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have smoking gun evidence of a deep-state conspiracy that threatens American democracy itself, wouldn’t they be doing more than playing silly hashtag games, such as #ReleasetheMemo?
Hint: The answer is yes. If this were a serious undertaking, congressional investigators would be collaborating with the Department of Justice, FBI and relevant Senate committees to save America from the threat within. But we’re no longer dealing in the realm of facts and reason when it comes to grave matters of security and justice. We are, at Donald Trump’s behest, fully engulfed in a narrative explicitly designed to impugn and destroy the credibility of the law enforcement agency tasked with investigating the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 election.
The memo in question is one written by the staff of Republican Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes—the same Nunes who recused himself from the Russia investigation last year amongst allegations that “he made unauthorized disclosures of classified information.” Now, Nunes is at it again. This time with a four-page classified memo that, if you believe what those who have read it say, shows an Obama-era FBI rife with corruption and engaging in eye-popping abuses of power. The details of what the memo says have been kept private, because they are classified. But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill and beyond from crowing about the allegedly shocking memo since mid-January, demanding it be released to the public and spawning a viral hashtag, now used by everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to Sean Hannity and Julian Assange. After the House voted on Monday to do so, House Speaker Paul Ryan made a statement in favor of the decision. Now, the matter is in the president’s hands.
But really, at this point, it doesn’t really matter what the memo says. Prompted by Trump, his allies on Capitol Hill and in the Trump-affirming media universe, millions of Americans have been led to brainstorm all the various ways faceless bureaucrats embedded in the government could be working to undermine Trump. The entire American political media complex is consumed with speculation about what may be in the memo’s contents. We’ve all been sucked into a story we know probably isn’t true. And, there’s not a thing we can do to stop it. The president has already claimed two scalps with his shameless bullying, rumor mongering and conspiracy peddling: Former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. And it’s happening all over again. With #Releasethememo, the FBI has already been accused of a multitude of various crimes without ever being given the chance to answer or explain.
The #ReleasetheMemo campaign bears all the classic hallmarks of a uniquely Trumpian ruse. Throughout his career as a New York real estate mogul and media star Trump has stumbled upon a foolproof way of trapping people into his web of lies. He always begins by casting vague aspersions about his target, in this case, the law enforcement networks investigating him. Recall how news reports of the now well-known and controversial dossier prompted him to ask, “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” Or how he compared the surveillance of campaign associates, such as Paul Manafort and Carter Page, to “McCarthyism” and “Nixon/Watergate.” Nevermind that his actions more closely resemble those of Nixon during Watergate than anything undertaken those investigating him. Trump wanted his followers to believe one thing and one thing only: A massive conspiracy was underfoot to undermine his presidency, and he’s been peddling this particular theory for well over a year now.
Next step: Rather than answer any questions directly about the matter, Trump advances his narrative, often while denying any responsibility for it. His statement to NBC’s Lester Holt about firing Comey is a classic example. “And, in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should have won,” he said. In other words, he fired Comey because of the Russian investigation, but denied there was any wrong doing with Russia. This tactic has similarly played out with #ReleasetheMemo. Republicans have widely advanced the narrative that various abuses were committed, but denied naming anything specific, citing security concerns with releasing the material.
Here’s another Trumpian tactic: suspense building. When Trump tweeted that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” people immediately started to question whether, a la Watergate, there was a secret taping system inside the Oval Office. They hoped there were tapes. Even Comey himself testified to Congress, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” Weeks later, Trump admitted there were no tapes. Oftentimes Trump will, whether he has it or not, promise information will come out “soon … perhaps in two weeks.” This is the precise stage we find ourselves upon now with #ReleasetheMemo. At this moment, Trump is waiting to make a final decision to release the contents. We all have our countdown clocks on; Trump is in control of this story. Whatever happens next, rest assured, Trump will use the self-manufactured controversy Nunes created to discredit the Russian investigators.
You may think this all sounds silly and misleading; that this nonsense could never work. But when people see what’s in the memo, it won’t settle the debate. More likely than not, another round of gaslighting will begin to tip the debate in Trump’s favor. Remember, Trump is the same guy who used the bogus birther theory to launch himself on the political stage. He is the same guy who used the National Enquirer to accuse Ted Cruz’s father of being involved in the assassination of JFK. Don’t laugh. The same week Trump started flacking the flabbergasting story, Cruz dropped out of the presidential election and Trump became the default GOP presidential nominee.
And this time, Trump has an eager crop of Republicans on Capitol Hill eager to assist him and an entire government apparatus at his disposal in the form of bobble-headed Cabinet secretaries, press teams and even a vice president. As a result, everyone is talking about what could possibly be in the mysterious memo. Republicans are running to TV cameras hyping claims about improper surveillance, FISA court abuse and partisan rancor inside the FBI.
We are being gaslit into believing that, supposedly, those investigating Trump’s ties to Russia are so biased and corrupt nothing they produce should be believed. Every once in a while, the true aims of this narrative are revealed. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the freshly-elected Republican congressman from Florida, let the truth slip. He told CNN’s Jake Tapper in between his hits on InfoWars with Alex Jones, that there was “tremendous bias that should stop this probe from going forward.”
“Stop this probe from going forward.” Alas, there is always a purpose to Trump’s gaslighting. Trump’s firemen on Capitol Hill know their mission. Whether they succeed or not depends on our ability to see through the smoke. At this point, the future seems hazy.
By AMANDA CARPENTER
Riddle me this: If Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have smoking gun evidence of a deep-state conspiracy that threatens American democracy itself, wouldn’t they be doing more than playing silly hashtag games, such as #ReleasetheMemo?
Hint: The answer is yes. If this were a serious undertaking, congressional investigators would be collaborating with the Department of Justice, FBI and relevant Senate committees to save America from the threat within. But we’re no longer dealing in the realm of facts and reason when it comes to grave matters of security and justice. We are, at Donald Trump’s behest, fully engulfed in a narrative explicitly designed to impugn and destroy the credibility of the law enforcement agency tasked with investigating the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 election.
The memo in question is one written by the staff of Republican Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes—the same Nunes who recused himself from the Russia investigation last year amongst allegations that “he made unauthorized disclosures of classified information.” Now, Nunes is at it again. This time with a four-page classified memo that, if you believe what those who have read it say, shows an Obama-era FBI rife with corruption and engaging in eye-popping abuses of power. The details of what the memo says have been kept private, because they are classified. But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill and beyond from crowing about the allegedly shocking memo since mid-January, demanding it be released to the public and spawning a viral hashtag, now used by everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to Sean Hannity and Julian Assange. After the House voted on Monday to do so, House Speaker Paul Ryan made a statement in favor of the decision. Now, the matter is in the president’s hands.
But really, at this point, it doesn’t really matter what the memo says. Prompted by Trump, his allies on Capitol Hill and in the Trump-affirming media universe, millions of Americans have been led to brainstorm all the various ways faceless bureaucrats embedded in the government could be working to undermine Trump. The entire American political media complex is consumed with speculation about what may be in the memo’s contents. We’ve all been sucked into a story we know probably isn’t true. And, there’s not a thing we can do to stop it. The president has already claimed two scalps with his shameless bullying, rumor mongering and conspiracy peddling: Former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. And it’s happening all over again. With #Releasethememo, the FBI has already been accused of a multitude of various crimes without ever being given the chance to answer or explain.
The #ReleasetheMemo campaign bears all the classic hallmarks of a uniquely Trumpian ruse. Throughout his career as a New York real estate mogul and media star Trump has stumbled upon a foolproof way of trapping people into his web of lies. He always begins by casting vague aspersions about his target, in this case, the law enforcement networks investigating him. Recall how news reports of the now well-known and controversial dossier prompted him to ask, “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” Or how he compared the surveillance of campaign associates, such as Paul Manafort and Carter Page, to “McCarthyism” and “Nixon/Watergate.” Nevermind that his actions more closely resemble those of Nixon during Watergate than anything undertaken those investigating him. Trump wanted his followers to believe one thing and one thing only: A massive conspiracy was underfoot to undermine his presidency, and he’s been peddling this particular theory for well over a year now.
Next step: Rather than answer any questions directly about the matter, Trump advances his narrative, often while denying any responsibility for it. His statement to NBC’s Lester Holt about firing Comey is a classic example. “And, in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should have won,” he said. In other words, he fired Comey because of the Russian investigation, but denied there was any wrong doing with Russia. This tactic has similarly played out with #ReleasetheMemo. Republicans have widely advanced the narrative that various abuses were committed, but denied naming anything specific, citing security concerns with releasing the material.
Here’s another Trumpian tactic: suspense building. When Trump tweeted that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” people immediately started to question whether, a la Watergate, there was a secret taping system inside the Oval Office. They hoped there were tapes. Even Comey himself testified to Congress, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” Weeks later, Trump admitted there were no tapes. Oftentimes Trump will, whether he has it or not, promise information will come out “soon … perhaps in two weeks.” This is the precise stage we find ourselves upon now with #ReleasetheMemo. At this moment, Trump is waiting to make a final decision to release the contents. We all have our countdown clocks on; Trump is in control of this story. Whatever happens next, rest assured, Trump will use the self-manufactured controversy Nunes created to discredit the Russian investigators.
You may think this all sounds silly and misleading; that this nonsense could never work. But when people see what’s in the memo, it won’t settle the debate. More likely than not, another round of gaslighting will begin to tip the debate in Trump’s favor. Remember, Trump is the same guy who used the bogus birther theory to launch himself on the political stage. He is the same guy who used the National Enquirer to accuse Ted Cruz’s father of being involved in the assassination of JFK. Don’t laugh. The same week Trump started flacking the flabbergasting story, Cruz dropped out of the presidential election and Trump became the default GOP presidential nominee.
And this time, Trump has an eager crop of Republicans on Capitol Hill eager to assist him and an entire government apparatus at his disposal in the form of bobble-headed Cabinet secretaries, press teams and even a vice president. As a result, everyone is talking about what could possibly be in the mysterious memo. Republicans are running to TV cameras hyping claims about improper surveillance, FISA court abuse and partisan rancor inside the FBI.
We are being gaslit into believing that, supposedly, those investigating Trump’s ties to Russia are so biased and corrupt nothing they produce should be believed. Every once in a while, the true aims of this narrative are revealed. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the freshly-elected Republican congressman from Florida, let the truth slip. He told CNN’s Jake Tapper in between his hits on InfoWars with Alex Jones, that there was “tremendous bias that should stop this probe from going forward.”
“Stop this probe from going forward.” Alas, there is always a purpose to Trump’s gaslighting. Trump’s firemen on Capitol Hill know their mission. Whether they succeed or not depends on our ability to see through the smoke. At this point, the future seems hazy.
Hitting the road
Hitting the road to sell the State of the Union: Where presidents have gone
Unlike his predecessors, Trump still hasn't said where he might head to amplify his message.
By AYANNA ALEXANDER
Where will he go?
That was the question early Wednesday, when President Donald Trump still hadn’t hinted where he might head to amplify his State of the Union message from the night before.
The president, who normally shares his every thought via social media, has been uncharacteristically mum about a post-speech tour — with the exception of a pre-planned speaking engagement on Thursday in West Virginia at congressional Republicans’ annual legislative planning conference.
Previous presidents have done multiple-day trips to promote initiatives and motivate voters. Even if Trump ends up continuing the pattern, he’ll do so without having mapped an agenda or a route days in advance, as Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama did. Here are a few places his two immediate predecessors went:
2002: Bush praises New York City’s finest, heads to Asia after “axis of evil” comment
Bush visited New York City firefighters and police officers in early February, praising them for their service during the terrorist attacks just months earlier.
“On the worst day this city has ever known, we saw some of the finest people New York has ever produced,” Bush said. “We mourn every loss. We remember every life. But they will not have died in vain.”
He then visited several cities in Asia, after introducing the world to the phrase “axis of evil” during his State of the Union address — labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea as a terrorist threat in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
2005: Bush talks Social Security in 60-day tour
Bush hit the trail for the two months following the first State of the Union of his second term. He set out to sell a plan for changing the Social Security system, but Democrats pushed back and voters didn’t respond favorably during the president’s tour. Congress shelved the project shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, in August 2005.
2006: Bush remembers Coretta Scott King
In between multiple stops to discuss his American Competitiveness Initiative, the president and first lady traveled to Atlanta on Feb. 7 to honor the civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. “We knew Mrs. King in all the seasons of her life — and there was grace and beauty in every season.”
2012: Obama wants all 4-year-olds in preschool
After praising teachers and calling for more school resources, Obama started his post-address tour in Georgia, advocating for all 4-year-olds to have access to preschool. “Education has to start at the earliest possible age,” Obama said.
He also ensured a “good bang for your buck,” as he highlighted a partnership between the federal government and states to share the cost for children in low-income and middle-income families to have access to preschool.
2016: Obama goes to Omaha and Baton Rouge
After his final State of the Union, Obama focused heavily on his health care policy agenda and its expansion in two cities he’d never visited before: Omaha, Nebraska, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Obama also highlighted the states for lowering their unemployment rates. Louisiana’s unemployment rate fell to roughly 6 percent, while Nebraska’s dropped to nearly 3 percent.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump still hasn't said where he might head to amplify his message.
By AYANNA ALEXANDER
Where will he go?
That was the question early Wednesday, when President Donald Trump still hadn’t hinted where he might head to amplify his State of the Union message from the night before.
The president, who normally shares his every thought via social media, has been uncharacteristically mum about a post-speech tour — with the exception of a pre-planned speaking engagement on Thursday in West Virginia at congressional Republicans’ annual legislative planning conference.
Previous presidents have done multiple-day trips to promote initiatives and motivate voters. Even if Trump ends up continuing the pattern, he’ll do so without having mapped an agenda or a route days in advance, as Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama did. Here are a few places his two immediate predecessors went:
2002: Bush praises New York City’s finest, heads to Asia after “axis of evil” comment
Bush visited New York City firefighters and police officers in early February, praising them for their service during the terrorist attacks just months earlier.
“On the worst day this city has ever known, we saw some of the finest people New York has ever produced,” Bush said. “We mourn every loss. We remember every life. But they will not have died in vain.”
He then visited several cities in Asia, after introducing the world to the phrase “axis of evil” during his State of the Union address — labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea as a terrorist threat in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
2005: Bush talks Social Security in 60-day tour
Bush hit the trail for the two months following the first State of the Union of his second term. He set out to sell a plan for changing the Social Security system, but Democrats pushed back and voters didn’t respond favorably during the president’s tour. Congress shelved the project shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, in August 2005.
2006: Bush remembers Coretta Scott King
In between multiple stops to discuss his American Competitiveness Initiative, the president and first lady traveled to Atlanta on Feb. 7 to honor the civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. “We knew Mrs. King in all the seasons of her life — and there was grace and beauty in every season.”
2012: Obama wants all 4-year-olds in preschool
After praising teachers and calling for more school resources, Obama started his post-address tour in Georgia, advocating for all 4-year-olds to have access to preschool. “Education has to start at the earliest possible age,” Obama said.
He also ensured a “good bang for your buck,” as he highlighted a partnership between the federal government and states to share the cost for children in low-income and middle-income families to have access to preschool.
2016: Obama goes to Omaha and Baton Rouge
After his final State of the Union, Obama focused heavily on his health care policy agenda and its expansion in two cities he’d never visited before: Omaha, Nebraska, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Obama also highlighted the states for lowering their unemployment rates. Louisiana’s unemployment rate fell to roughly 6 percent, while Nebraska’s dropped to nearly 3 percent.
Draws praise...
Trump's 'dreamers' line in State of the Union draws praise from David Duke
'Americans are dreamers too,' the president said.
By REBECCA MORIN
President Donald Trump's sole reference to "dreamers" during his State of the Union address drew praise from David Duke and other white nationalists, who approved of how the speech reclaimed a term that has become a flash point in the immigration debate.
Trump invoked the "dreamers" term — usually associated with undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — during the immigration policy piece of his speech. The president said he's "extending an open hand to work with members of both parties — Democrats and Republicans — to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed."
"My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream," the president continued. "Because Americans are dreamers too."
Democrats had used the speech to focus attention on "Dreamers," filling the balcony with recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, wrote on Twitter: "Thank you President Trump. Americans are 'Dreamers' too." The comment lit up social media, with commentators noting Duke's comments and similar sentiments from other white nationalists such as Richard Spencer.
Duke has previously expressed his support for Trump, though the president has distanced himself from the support.
'Americans are dreamers too,' the president said.
By REBECCA MORIN
President Donald Trump's sole reference to "dreamers" during his State of the Union address drew praise from David Duke and other white nationalists, who approved of how the speech reclaimed a term that has become a flash point in the immigration debate.
Trump invoked the "dreamers" term — usually associated with undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — during the immigration policy piece of his speech. The president said he's "extending an open hand to work with members of both parties — Democrats and Republicans — to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed."
"My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream," the president continued. "Because Americans are dreamers too."
Democrats had used the speech to focus attention on "Dreamers," filling the balcony with recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, wrote on Twitter: "Thank you President Trump. Americans are 'Dreamers' too." The comment lit up social media, with commentators noting Duke's comments and similar sentiments from other white nationalists such as Richard Spencer.
Duke has previously expressed his support for Trump, though the president has distanced himself from the support.
Off-the-record
Trump needles 'monster' Chuck Todd at off-the-record anchors' lunch
The president used his traditional pre-State of the Union sit-down to air his grievances with news coverage of his presidency, again.
By MICHAEL CALDERONE
Hours before his first formal State of the Union address, President Donald Trump gathered top news anchors at the White House and vented his spleen.
The president took a needling tone with Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” telling the group that Todd’s the nicest guy in the world until he gets on the show and then becomes “a monster.”
He had a more pointed exchange with NBC News anchor Lester Holt regarding a May 2017 interview in which the president said he considered the “Russia thing” when deciding to fire former FBI director James Comey. The president accused Holt of editing the interview to remove Trump comments the president claimed were almost “Shakespearean,” according to attendees. Holt responded that the entire interview ran online.
Trump, who starred in NBC’s “The Apprentice,” also commented during the lunch about how much money he made for the network and suggested the company’s brass, rather than the specific journalists, were to blame for coverage he doesn’t like.
The comments came at Tuesday’s traditional off-the-record lunch with top news anchors to preview the State of the Union address. While Trump spoke at length about issues like immigration, he also—as he often does—seemed to welcome the opportunity to express grievances.
The president’s gripes with NBC’s coverage come as the network is hosting Sunday’s Super Bowl. Trump has not committed to doing an interview with NBC, potentially breaking a recent tradition in which the president sits down with the host network prior to the game.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment. An NBC News spokesperson also declined to comment.
Trump didn’t scold the the anchors on Tuesday as he did in a Trump Tower meeting shortly after the 2016 election, according to attendees. The president was more blunt and boastful than angry in issuing other media critiques, such as claiming 95 percent of his coverage is bad and saying the networks have profited greatly because of his election. Trump was also said to be gracious with anchors during the hour-long lunch, like when he congratulated Jeff Glor on recently becoming anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”
During a private anchor lunch before last year’s speech to a joint session of Congress – an event that stands in for the State of the Union address in a president’s first year in office – Trump also expressed frustration with the news media. He told journalists at the time that he stopped watching some networks because they were treating him unfairly.
There were roughly two dozen people at this year’s lunch, including journalists George Stephanopoulos and David Muir (ABC News), Norah O’Donnell (CBS), Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum (Fox News), Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Roland Martin (TV One), José DÃaz-Balart (Telemundo), Steve Scully (C-SPAN), Judy Woodruff and Yamiche Alcindor (PBS). Both Sanders and communications director Hope Hicks were among the administration attendees, with Vice President Mike Pence and chief of staff John Kelly stopping by.
Todd and Woodruff were said to be two of Trump’s most persistent questioners on Tuesday afternoon and the exchanges throughout were largely tied to issues likely to come up that night, such as DACA, the Obama-era program protecting some undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Some journalists veered into other topics, with Martin pressing Trump on housing segregation and voter suppression.
The back-and-forths throughout were off the record, but Trump did go on the record at times and the White House later released some remarks.
“I want to see our country united,” Trump said, adding that he wants “to bring our country back from a tremendous divisiveness” stretching back through past administrations.
Trump also spoke about his experience in business and how it differs from being president, noting that “millions of people” are affected by immigration policy. “So having a business background and a successful business background is great,” he added, “but oftentimes you do things that you would never do in business because you have to also govern with heart.”
The president used his traditional pre-State of the Union sit-down to air his grievances with news coverage of his presidency, again.
By MICHAEL CALDERONE
Hours before his first formal State of the Union address, President Donald Trump gathered top news anchors at the White House and vented his spleen.
The president took a needling tone with Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” telling the group that Todd’s the nicest guy in the world until he gets on the show and then becomes “a monster.”
He had a more pointed exchange with NBC News anchor Lester Holt regarding a May 2017 interview in which the president said he considered the “Russia thing” when deciding to fire former FBI director James Comey. The president accused Holt of editing the interview to remove Trump comments the president claimed were almost “Shakespearean,” according to attendees. Holt responded that the entire interview ran online.
Trump, who starred in NBC’s “The Apprentice,” also commented during the lunch about how much money he made for the network and suggested the company’s brass, rather than the specific journalists, were to blame for coverage he doesn’t like.
The comments came at Tuesday’s traditional off-the-record lunch with top news anchors to preview the State of the Union address. While Trump spoke at length about issues like immigration, he also—as he often does—seemed to welcome the opportunity to express grievances.
The president’s gripes with NBC’s coverage come as the network is hosting Sunday’s Super Bowl. Trump has not committed to doing an interview with NBC, potentially breaking a recent tradition in which the president sits down with the host network prior to the game.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment. An NBC News spokesperson also declined to comment.
Trump didn’t scold the the anchors on Tuesday as he did in a Trump Tower meeting shortly after the 2016 election, according to attendees. The president was more blunt and boastful than angry in issuing other media critiques, such as claiming 95 percent of his coverage is bad and saying the networks have profited greatly because of his election. Trump was also said to be gracious with anchors during the hour-long lunch, like when he congratulated Jeff Glor on recently becoming anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”
During a private anchor lunch before last year’s speech to a joint session of Congress – an event that stands in for the State of the Union address in a president’s first year in office – Trump also expressed frustration with the news media. He told journalists at the time that he stopped watching some networks because they were treating him unfairly.
There were roughly two dozen people at this year’s lunch, including journalists George Stephanopoulos and David Muir (ABC News), Norah O’Donnell (CBS), Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum (Fox News), Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Roland Martin (TV One), José DÃaz-Balart (Telemundo), Steve Scully (C-SPAN), Judy Woodruff and Yamiche Alcindor (PBS). Both Sanders and communications director Hope Hicks were among the administration attendees, with Vice President Mike Pence and chief of staff John Kelly stopping by.
Todd and Woodruff were said to be two of Trump’s most persistent questioners on Tuesday afternoon and the exchanges throughout were largely tied to issues likely to come up that night, such as DACA, the Obama-era program protecting some undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Some journalists veered into other topics, with Martin pressing Trump on housing segregation and voter suppression.
The back-and-forths throughout were off the record, but Trump did go on the record at times and the White House later released some remarks.
“I want to see our country united,” Trump said, adding that he wants “to bring our country back from a tremendous divisiveness” stretching back through past administrations.
Trump also spoke about his experience in business and how it differs from being president, noting that “millions of people” are affected by immigration policy. “So having a business background and a successful business background is great,” he added, “but oftentimes you do things that you would never do in business because you have to also govern with heart.”
Best gigs in Congress
The demise of one of the best gigs in Congress
Being a committee chairman ain't what it used to be. Just ask Rodney Frelinghuysen and six other top Republicans who've called it quits.
By JOHN BRESNAHAN
Relinquishing the chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee once would have been an unthinkable surrender of congressional power. Rodney Frelinghuysen, with his decision this week to do exactly that, showed just how much cachet the role of committee chair has lost.
Hemmed in by term limits, a domineering party leadership, bitter partisan feuds and a GOP base that automatically loathes anyone in power, seven Republican committee chairs have decided to leave office at the end of this Congress, a remarkable level of turnover by any measure. Another committee chair, Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, is running for governor and will give up her gavel at the Budget Committee (the panel has had three chairs this Congress alone.) And Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who led the House oversight panel, quit Congress last year to become a regular on Fox News.
While term limits are behind most of the departures — Frelinghuysen, who had four years left in his chairmanship but faced a tough race for reelection, is the exception — it’s also true that being a committee chair has lost a lot of its allure.
“Times aren’t like they used to be,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said. “Yeah, leadership needs to give direction, but the committee chairmen aren’t what they used to be.”
The story of the decline of the committee chairmanship is two decades in the making. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the House in 1994 following four decades of Democratic control, one of the most important reforms they initiated was reining in the power of individual chairmen. Gingrich instituted a six-year term limit on chairmen, and he created a steering committee dominated by leadership to choose the nominees for those posts.
Contenders for the committee posts would have to lay out their legislative agendas before they were handed a gavel, and they were forced to toe the party line as never before.
The idea was designed to make the committees more accountable to leadership, and ultimately, to the American public. It was a concept that enjoyed wide support within the Republican-controlled House, even if it meant an end to the prized “seniority system” on committees, where chairmanships were awarded to members who successfully rose through the ranks.
"There was a huge nationwide hue and cry for term limits," former Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) told The Washington Post in 1998. "There was a sense that maybe by having [committee] term limits for chairmen, we could assuage the national appetite."
Yet Gingrich’s well-intentioned reform has contributed to the paralysis now gripping the House. Committee chairs are influential and they get on TV. But they have no real deal-making authority, especially on high-profile legislation.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other party leaders get involved even in minor policy fights that were handled in the past at the committee level by Republicans and Democrats who had served for years on the same panel and had valuable expertise on their issues. Now, every decision is evaluated in the never-ending struggle by party leaders to one-up the other side. Often bills are more about messaging and tribal warfare between the parties than addressing the country’s needs.
"I don't disagree with the concept of term limits," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who thinks the six-year limit is far too short. Hensarling is retiring after being forced to give up his post atop the Financial Services Committee. "I'm not sure that three terms is quite enough. I sense 20 terms is probably too many. There may be a happy medium there."
Hensarling added: "Are term limits playing a role in an exodus of chairmen, along with collective years of wisdom? Of course it is."
Another huge problem for Republicans is that the past two GOP speakers, Ryan and John Boehner, have been hobbled by deep ideological divides within their own party. The House Freedom Caucus and other hard-line conservatives, aided by right-wing media outlets whose raison d'etre seems to be hammering GOP leaders, give senior Republicans and committee chairmen far less room to maneuver on legislation than their predecessors enjoyed.
Before cutting any deal with Democrats, top Republicans must account for whether the Freedom Caucus or some other group will try to oust the speaker. Being ideologically pure is more important than being effective.
All of which leads to the worst possible outcome for the House: weak speakers overseeing weak committee chairmen. It’s a perfect prescription for inaction and dysfunction.
“I respect my management team — the leadership — but this model that was given to us in 1995 has not helped the institution,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), former chairman of the Agriculture Committee. “It has not helped the quality of the work product. If anything, it’s made it more difficult.”
Republicans argue that term limits for chairmen prevent individual lawmakers from exerting excessive control over legislation and give more junior members a chance to move up. Republicans point to the stagnation atop the committees among House Democrats — who don't impose term limits on top committee posts — as evidence that their system works better.
For instance, former Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) spent 28 years as chairman or ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee before being ousted by ex-Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) after the 2008 elections. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, who retired in December in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, was the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for more than a decade, despite the fact it was clear to party leaders and his colleagues that he was no longer capable of doing the job.
"Remember, a lot us wouldn't be committee chairs if there were not term limits to begin with," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who has been term limited out of the Judiciary and Science panels. "I believe in term limits. Yes, it was part of the reason not to run for reelection. But I think it's good to have turnover in the committees. And it's good not to have one person amass such power that they can throttle any legislation they want to for 30 years."
Another related problem for Republicans — one they will admit to only privately — is the ban on earmarks.
When Republicans won back the House in 2010 after four years in the minority, they eliminated earmarks from spending bills. The practice had become rife with abuse: Gingrich had expanded the use of earmarks as speaker, and the system eventually spun out of control as annual appropriations bills were larded up with thousands of legislative favors that never received any congressional or public review. The infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska and the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal helped bring an end to the practice, and it's highly unlikely it will ever come back as long as Republicans are in power.
But as with term limits on chairmen, there were unforeseen consequences from a needed reform. Lacking earmarks to smooth the passage of annual spending bills, the appropriations process has all but ground to a halt. Each year it seems to get worse. After a three-day shutdown earlier this month, the federal government is now operating on a short-term continuing resolution — the fourth enacted so far this fiscal year — that expires on Feb. 8. At least one more will be needed to get through September.
And a broader deal to raise budget caps still eludes House and Senate leaders, mixed up in a bitter partisan struggle over immigration.
House Republicans blame the Senate for much of the breakdown in the appropriations process, and there's some truth to that. It’s become all too common for the Senate to forgo an annual budget resolution — making it harder for the Appropriations Committee in either chamber to do its job — or to drag out the process of passing spending bills in order to put pressure on the other side to cut deals on unrelated legislation.
Funding the government has become a political weapon to batter political opponents, rather than a bipartisan exercise in governance.
The situation is similar in the Senate, where party leaders have also become far more powerful at the expense of committee chairmen, making life more difficult for individual senators.
All of which leads back to Frelinghuysen. In his statement announcing his retirement, the New Jersey Republican — the sixth Frelinghuysen to serve in Congress, including his father, a member for 22 years — vowed to finish up the annual spending bills in “regular order,” congressional parlance for abiding by the committee and subcommittee process.
But given the state of affairs in Congress when it comes to exercising its power of the purse, that vow looks like little more than a pipe dream.
“I think it’s fair to say the leadership exercises a lot more control on chairmen than they did in the bygone era,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a member of the Appropriations Committee who is retiring this year as well. Between the failure to pass a budget providing overall guidance to appropriators and the elimination of earmarks, Dent added, "That is all a recipe to weaken the committee."
Being a committee chairman ain't what it used to be. Just ask Rodney Frelinghuysen and six other top Republicans who've called it quits.
By JOHN BRESNAHAN
Relinquishing the chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee once would have been an unthinkable surrender of congressional power. Rodney Frelinghuysen, with his decision this week to do exactly that, showed just how much cachet the role of committee chair has lost.
Hemmed in by term limits, a domineering party leadership, bitter partisan feuds and a GOP base that automatically loathes anyone in power, seven Republican committee chairs have decided to leave office at the end of this Congress, a remarkable level of turnover by any measure. Another committee chair, Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, is running for governor and will give up her gavel at the Budget Committee (the panel has had three chairs this Congress alone.) And Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who led the House oversight panel, quit Congress last year to become a regular on Fox News.
While term limits are behind most of the departures — Frelinghuysen, who had four years left in his chairmanship but faced a tough race for reelection, is the exception — it’s also true that being a committee chair has lost a lot of its allure.
“Times aren’t like they used to be,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said. “Yeah, leadership needs to give direction, but the committee chairmen aren’t what they used to be.”
The story of the decline of the committee chairmanship is two decades in the making. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the House in 1994 following four decades of Democratic control, one of the most important reforms they initiated was reining in the power of individual chairmen. Gingrich instituted a six-year term limit on chairmen, and he created a steering committee dominated by leadership to choose the nominees for those posts.
Contenders for the committee posts would have to lay out their legislative agendas before they were handed a gavel, and they were forced to toe the party line as never before.
The idea was designed to make the committees more accountable to leadership, and ultimately, to the American public. It was a concept that enjoyed wide support within the Republican-controlled House, even if it meant an end to the prized “seniority system” on committees, where chairmanships were awarded to members who successfully rose through the ranks.
"There was a huge nationwide hue and cry for term limits," former Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) told The Washington Post in 1998. "There was a sense that maybe by having [committee] term limits for chairmen, we could assuage the national appetite."
Yet Gingrich’s well-intentioned reform has contributed to the paralysis now gripping the House. Committee chairs are influential and they get on TV. But they have no real deal-making authority, especially on high-profile legislation.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other party leaders get involved even in minor policy fights that were handled in the past at the committee level by Republicans and Democrats who had served for years on the same panel and had valuable expertise on their issues. Now, every decision is evaluated in the never-ending struggle by party leaders to one-up the other side. Often bills are more about messaging and tribal warfare between the parties than addressing the country’s needs.
"I don't disagree with the concept of term limits," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who thinks the six-year limit is far too short. Hensarling is retiring after being forced to give up his post atop the Financial Services Committee. "I'm not sure that three terms is quite enough. I sense 20 terms is probably too many. There may be a happy medium there."
Hensarling added: "Are term limits playing a role in an exodus of chairmen, along with collective years of wisdom? Of course it is."
Another huge problem for Republicans is that the past two GOP speakers, Ryan and John Boehner, have been hobbled by deep ideological divides within their own party. The House Freedom Caucus and other hard-line conservatives, aided by right-wing media outlets whose raison d'etre seems to be hammering GOP leaders, give senior Republicans and committee chairmen far less room to maneuver on legislation than their predecessors enjoyed.
Before cutting any deal with Democrats, top Republicans must account for whether the Freedom Caucus or some other group will try to oust the speaker. Being ideologically pure is more important than being effective.
All of which leads to the worst possible outcome for the House: weak speakers overseeing weak committee chairmen. It’s a perfect prescription for inaction and dysfunction.
“I respect my management team — the leadership — but this model that was given to us in 1995 has not helped the institution,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), former chairman of the Agriculture Committee. “It has not helped the quality of the work product. If anything, it’s made it more difficult.”
Republicans argue that term limits for chairmen prevent individual lawmakers from exerting excessive control over legislation and give more junior members a chance to move up. Republicans point to the stagnation atop the committees among House Democrats — who don't impose term limits on top committee posts — as evidence that their system works better.
For instance, former Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) spent 28 years as chairman or ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee before being ousted by ex-Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) after the 2008 elections. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, who retired in December in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, was the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for more than a decade, despite the fact it was clear to party leaders and his colleagues that he was no longer capable of doing the job.
"Remember, a lot us wouldn't be committee chairs if there were not term limits to begin with," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who has been term limited out of the Judiciary and Science panels. "I believe in term limits. Yes, it was part of the reason not to run for reelection. But I think it's good to have turnover in the committees. And it's good not to have one person amass such power that they can throttle any legislation they want to for 30 years."
Another related problem for Republicans — one they will admit to only privately — is the ban on earmarks.
When Republicans won back the House in 2010 after four years in the minority, they eliminated earmarks from spending bills. The practice had become rife with abuse: Gingrich had expanded the use of earmarks as speaker, and the system eventually spun out of control as annual appropriations bills were larded up with thousands of legislative favors that never received any congressional or public review. The infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska and the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal helped bring an end to the practice, and it's highly unlikely it will ever come back as long as Republicans are in power.
But as with term limits on chairmen, there were unforeseen consequences from a needed reform. Lacking earmarks to smooth the passage of annual spending bills, the appropriations process has all but ground to a halt. Each year it seems to get worse. After a three-day shutdown earlier this month, the federal government is now operating on a short-term continuing resolution — the fourth enacted so far this fiscal year — that expires on Feb. 8. At least one more will be needed to get through September.
And a broader deal to raise budget caps still eludes House and Senate leaders, mixed up in a bitter partisan struggle over immigration.
House Republicans blame the Senate for much of the breakdown in the appropriations process, and there's some truth to that. It’s become all too common for the Senate to forgo an annual budget resolution — making it harder for the Appropriations Committee in either chamber to do its job — or to drag out the process of passing spending bills in order to put pressure on the other side to cut deals on unrelated legislation.
Funding the government has become a political weapon to batter political opponents, rather than a bipartisan exercise in governance.
The situation is similar in the Senate, where party leaders have also become far more powerful at the expense of committee chairmen, making life more difficult for individual senators.
All of which leads back to Frelinghuysen. In his statement announcing his retirement, the New Jersey Republican — the sixth Frelinghuysen to serve in Congress, including his father, a member for 22 years — vowed to finish up the annual spending bills in “regular order,” congressional parlance for abiding by the committee and subcommittee process.
But given the state of affairs in Congress when it comes to exercising its power of the purse, that vow looks like little more than a pipe dream.
“I think it’s fair to say the leadership exercises a lot more control on chairmen than they did in the bygone era,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a member of the Appropriations Committee who is retiring this year as well. Between the failure to pass a budget providing overall guidance to appropriators and the elimination of earmarks, Dent added, "That is all a recipe to weaken the committee."
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