President Donald Trump is lashing out at current and former aides who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, insisting the deeply unflattering picture they painted of him and the White House was “total bullshit.”

In a series of angry tweets from Palm Beach, Florida, Trump laced into those who, under oath, had shared with Mueller their accounts of how Trump tried numerous times to squash or influence the investigation and portrayed the White House as infected by a culture of lies, deceit and deception.

“Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,” Trump wrote Friday, adding that some were “total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good [or me to look bad].”

The attacks were a dramatic departure from the upbeat public face the White House had put on it just 24 hours earlier, when Trump celebrated the report’s findings as full exoneration and his counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “the best day” for Trump’s team since his election. While the president, according to people close to him, did feel vindicated by the report, he also felt betrayed by those who had painted him in an unflattering light — even though they were speaking under oath and had been directed by the White House to cooperate fully with Mueller’s team.

The reaction was not entirely surprising and had been something staffers feared in the days ahead of the report’s release as they wondered how Mueller might portray their testimony and whether the report might damage their relationships with Trump.

While Mueller found no criminal evidence that Trump or his campaign aides colluded in Russian election meddling and did not recommend obstruction charges against the president, the 448-page report released Thursday nonetheless paints a damaging picture of the president, describing numerous cases where he discouraged witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodded aides to mislead the public on his behalf to hamper the Russia probe he feared would cripple his presidency.

The accounts prompted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, to release a statement saying he was “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President.”

“Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,” he said.

The report concluded that one reason Trump managed to stay out of trouble was that his “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful… largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

That didn’t spare those who defied Trump’s wishes from his wrath.

Trump appeared to be especially angry with former White House counsel Don McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, and is referenced numerous times in the report.

In one particularly vivid passage, Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set in motion Mueller’s firing. McGahn recoiled, packed up his office and threatened to resign, fearing the move would trigger a potential crisis akin to the Saturday Night Massacre of firings during the Watergate era.

In another section, Mueller details how Trump questioned McGahn’s note-taking, telling the White House counsel that, “Lawyers don `t take notes” and that he’d “never had a lawyer who took notes.”

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump said in one of his tweets Friday. Others whose contemporaneous notes were referenced in the report include former staff secretary Rob Porter and Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff.

Trump ended his tweet with the word, “a…” suggesting more was coming. More than eight hours later, he finally completed his thought, calling the probe a “big, fat, waste of time, energy and money” and threatening investigators by saying, “It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.” There is no evidence of either.

Trump, who is in Florida for the Easter weekend, headed to his West Palm Beach golf club Friday after some early morning rain had cleared. There he played golf with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh “and a couple friends,” according to the White House.

He’ll spend the rest of the weekend with family, friends and paying members of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

As Trump hopped off the steps from Air Force One on Thursday evening, he was greeted by a throng of supporters, who clamored for autographs and selfies. He repeatedly told the crowd “thank you everybody” as they yelled encouragement.

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said in an appearance on Fox News that he didn’t understand why Trump decided to send his tweets lashing out at former aides.

“I think it’s over,” he said. “If I were the president, I would have basically declared victory with the Mueller report and everything that came out and move beyond it.”

Still, he said he hoped the White House had learned some lessons.

“The president and his entire team needs to realize how close they came to being charged with obstruction,” Fleischer said. “Asking your staff to lie and engaging in some of the activities that the Mueller report stated the president engaged in is too close to obstruction. And that’s a lesson I hope everybody at the White House takes with them going forward.”

 
…

President Donald Trump is lashing out at current and former aides who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, insisting the deeply unflattering picture they painted of him and the White House was “total bullshit.”

In a series of angry tweets from Palm Beach, Florida, Trump laced into those who, under oath, had shared with Mueller their accounts of how Trump tried numerous times to squash or influence the investigation and portrayed the White House as infected by a culture of lies, deceit and deception.

“Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,” Trump wrote Friday, adding that some were “total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good [or me to look bad].”

The attacks were a dramatic departure from the upbeat public face the White House had put on it just 24 hours earlier, when Trump celebrated the report’s findings as full exoneration and his counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “the best day” for Trump’s team since his election. While the president, according to people close to him, did feel vindicated by the report, he also felt betrayed by those who had painted him in an unflattering light — even though they were speaking under oath and had been directed by the White House to cooperate fully with Mueller’s team.

The reaction was not entirely surprising and had been something staffers feared in the days ahead of the report’s release as they wondered how Mueller might portray their testimony and whether the report might damage their relationships with Trump.

While Mueller found no criminal evidence that Trump or his campaign aides colluded in Russian election meddling and did not recommend obstruction charges against the president, the 448-page report released Thursday nonetheless paints a damaging picture of the president, describing numerous cases where he discouraged witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodded aides to mislead the public on his behalf to hamper the Russia probe he feared would cripple his presidency.

The accounts prompted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, to release a statement saying he was “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President.”

“Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,” he said.

The report concluded that one reason Trump managed to stay out of trouble was that his “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful… largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

That didn’t spare those who defied Trump’s wishes from his wrath.

Trump appeared to be especially angry with former White House counsel Don McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, and is referenced numerous times in the report.

In one particularly vivid passage, Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set in motion Mueller’s firing. McGahn recoiled, packed up his office and threatened to resign, fearing the move would trigger a potential crisis akin to the Saturday Night Massacre of firings during the Watergate era.

In another section, Mueller details how Trump questioned McGahn’s note-taking, telling the White House counsel that, “Lawyers don `t take notes” and that he’d “never had a lawyer who took notes.”

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump said in one of his tweets Friday. Others whose contemporaneous notes were referenced in the report include former staff secretary Rob Porter and Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff.

Trump ended his tweet with the word, “a…” suggesting more was coming. More than eight hours later, he finally completed his thought, calling the probe a “big, fat, waste of time, energy and money” and threatening investigators by saying, “It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.” There is no evidence of either.

Trump, who is in Florida for the Easter weekend, headed to his West Palm Beach golf club Friday after some early morning rain had cleared. There he played golf with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh “and a couple friends,” according to the White House.

He’ll spend the rest of the weekend with family, friends and paying members of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

As Trump hopped off the steps from Air Force One on Thursday evening, he was greeted by a throng of supporters, who clamored for autographs and selfies. He repeatedly told the crowd “thank you everybody” as they yelled encouragement.

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said in an appearance on Fox News that he didn’t understand why Trump decided to send his tweets lashing out at former aides.

“I think it’s over,” he said. “If I were the president, I would have basically declared victory with the Mueller report and everything that came out and move beyond it.”

Still, he said he hoped the White House had learned some lessons.

“The president and his entire team needs to realize how close they came to being charged with obstruction,” Fleischer said. “Asking your staff to lie and engaging in some of the activities that the Mueller report stated the president engaged in is too close to obstruction. And that’s a lesson I hope everybody at the White House takes with them going forward.”

 
…

North Korea has criticized U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s “nonsense” call for Pyongyang to show that it’s serious about giving up its nuclear weapons, the second time it has criticized a leading U.S. official in less than a week.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is open to a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Bolton told Bloomberg News on Wednesday there first needed to be “a real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons.”

“Bolton, national security adviser of the White House, in an interview with Bloomberg, showed above himself by saying such a nonsense,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters when asked about his recent comments, the Korean Central News Agency said Saturday.

“Bolton’s remarks make me wonder whether they sprang out of incomprehension of the intentions of the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. or whether he was just trying to talk with a certain sense of humor for his part, with its own deviation,” she said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name. “All things considered, his word has no charm in it and he looks dim-sighted to me.”

The North Korean vice minister also warned that there would be no good if the United States continued “to throw away such remarks devoid of discretion and reason.”

North Korea said Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.
…

North Korea has criticized U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s “nonsense” call for Pyongyang to show that it’s serious about giving up its nuclear weapons, the second time it has criticized a leading U.S. official in less than a week.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is open to a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Bolton told Bloomberg News on Wednesday there first needed to be “a real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons.”

“Bolton, national security adviser of the White House, in an interview with Bloomberg, showed above himself by saying such a nonsense,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters when asked about his recent comments, the Korean Central News Agency said Saturday.

“Bolton’s remarks make me wonder whether they sprang out of incomprehension of the intentions of the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. or whether he was just trying to talk with a certain sense of humor for his part, with its own deviation,” she said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name. “All things considered, his word has no charm in it and he looks dim-sighted to me.”

The North Korean vice minister also warned that there would be no good if the United States continued “to throw away such remarks devoid of discretion and reason.”

North Korea said Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.
…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed a statement from a senior North Korean foreign ministry official saying they no longer want him involved if talks with the U.S. resume. Pompeo said he is still in charge of the U.S. negotiating team and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promised to denuclearize “half a dozen times.” The exchange comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed a statement from a senior North Korean foreign ministry official saying they no longer want him involved if talks with the U.S. resume. Pompeo said he is still in charge of the U.S. negotiating team and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promised to denuclearize “half a dozen times.” The exchange comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
…

President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at current and former aides who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, insisting the deeply unflattering picture they painted of him and the White House was “total bullsh**.” 

In a series of angry tweets from rainy Palm Beach, Fla., Trump laced into those who, under oath, had shared with Mueller their accounts of how Trump tried numerous times to squash or influence the investigation and portrayed the White House as infected by a culture of lies, deceit and deception.

Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,'' Trump wrote, adding that some weretotal bullsh** & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad).” 

The attacks were a dramatic departure from the upbeat public face the White House had shown just 24 hours earlier, when Trump celebrated the report’s findings as full exoneration and counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “the best day” for Trump’s team since his election.

While the president, according to people close to him, did feel vindicated by the report, he also felt betrayed by those who had painted him in an unflattering light — even though they were speaking under oath and had been directed by the White House to cooperate fully with Mueller’s team. 

The reaction was not entirely surprising and had been something staffers feared in the days ahead of the report’s release as they wondered how Mueller might portray their testimony and whether the report might damage their relationships with Trump. 

While Mueller found no criminal evidence that Trump or his campaign aides colluded in Russian election meddling, nor did the special counsel recommend obstruction charges against the president, the 448-page report released Thursday nonetheless paints a damaging picture of the president, describing numerous cases where he discouraged witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodded aides to mislead the public on his behalf to hamper the Russia probe he feared would cripple his presidency. 

The accounts prompted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, to release a statement saying he was “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the president.” 

“Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,” he said. 

The report concluded that one reason Trump managed to stay out of trouble was that his “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful … largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.” 

That didn’t spare those who defied Trump’s wishes from his wrath.  

Trump appeared to be especially angry with former White House counsel Don McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, and is referenced numerous times in the report. 

In one particularly vivid passage, Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set in motion Mueller’s firing. McGahn recoiled, packed up his office and threatened to resign, fearing the move would trigger a potential crisis akin to the “Saturday Night Massacre” of firings during the Watergate era. 

In another section, Mueller details how Trump questioned McGahn’s note-taking, telling the White House counsel that lawyers don't take notes'' and that he'dnever had a lawyer who took notes.”

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump said in one of his tweets Friday. Others whose contemporaneous notes were referenced in the report include former staff secretary Rob Porter and Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff. 

Trump ended his tweet with a ... ,'' suggesting more was coming. More than eight hours later, he finally completed his thought, calling the probe abig, fat, waste of time, energy and money” and threatening investigators by saying, “It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.” There is no evidence of either.  

Trump, who is in Florida for the Easter weekend, headed to his West Palm Beach golf club Friday after some early-morning rain had cleared. There he played golf with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh “and a couple friends,” according to the White House. 

He’ll spend the rest of the weekend with family, friends and paying members of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. 

As Trump hopped off the steps from Air Force One on Thursday evening, he was greeted by a throng of supporters, who clamored for autographs and selfies. He repeatedly told the crowd “thank you, everybody” as they yelled encouragement. 

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said in an appearance on Fox News that he didn’t understand why Trump decided to send his tweets lashing out at former aides. 

I think it's over,'' he said.If I were the president, I would have basically declared victory with the Mueller report and everything that came out and move beyond it.” 

Still, he said he hoped the White House had learned some lessons. 

The president and his entire team needs to realize how close they came to being charged with obstruction,'' Fleischer said.Asking your staff to lie and engaging in some of the activities that the Mueller report stated the president engaged in is too close to obstruction. And that’s a lesson I hope everybody at the White House takes with them going forward.” 
…

President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at current and former aides who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, insisting the deeply unflattering picture they painted of him and the White House was “total bullsh**.” 

In a series of angry tweets from rainy Palm Beach, Fla., Trump laced into those who, under oath, had shared with Mueller their accounts of how Trump tried numerous times to squash or influence the investigation and portrayed the White House as infected by a culture of lies, deceit and deception.

Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,'' Trump wrote, adding that some weretotal bullsh** & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad).” 

The attacks were a dramatic departure from the upbeat public face the White House had shown just 24 hours earlier, when Trump celebrated the report’s findings as full exoneration and counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “the best day” for Trump’s team since his election.

While the president, according to people close to him, did feel vindicated by the report, he also felt betrayed by those who had painted him in an unflattering light — even though they were speaking under oath and had been directed by the White House to cooperate fully with Mueller’s team. 

The reaction was not entirely surprising and had been something staffers feared in the days ahead of the report’s release as they wondered how Mueller might portray their testimony and whether the report might damage their relationships with Trump. 

While Mueller found no criminal evidence that Trump or his campaign aides colluded in Russian election meddling, nor did the special counsel recommend obstruction charges against the president, the 448-page report released Thursday nonetheless paints a damaging picture of the president, describing numerous cases where he discouraged witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodded aides to mislead the public on his behalf to hamper the Russia probe he feared would cripple his presidency. 

The accounts prompted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, to release a statement saying he was “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the president.” 

“Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,” he said. 

The report concluded that one reason Trump managed to stay out of trouble was that his “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful … largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.” 

That didn’t spare those who defied Trump’s wishes from his wrath.  

Trump appeared to be especially angry with former White House counsel Don McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, and is referenced numerous times in the report. 

In one particularly vivid passage, Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set in motion Mueller’s firing. McGahn recoiled, packed up his office and threatened to resign, fearing the move would trigger a potential crisis akin to the “Saturday Night Massacre” of firings during the Watergate era. 

In another section, Mueller details how Trump questioned McGahn’s note-taking, telling the White House counsel that lawyers don't take notes'' and that he'dnever had a lawyer who took notes.”

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump said in one of his tweets Friday. Others whose contemporaneous notes were referenced in the report include former staff secretary Rob Porter and Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff. 

Trump ended his tweet with a ... ,'' suggesting more was coming. More than eight hours later, he finally completed his thought, calling the probe abig, fat, waste of time, energy and money” and threatening investigators by saying, “It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.” There is no evidence of either.  

Trump, who is in Florida for the Easter weekend, headed to his West Palm Beach golf club Friday after some early-morning rain had cleared. There he played golf with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh “and a couple friends,” according to the White House. 

He’ll spend the rest of the weekend with family, friends and paying members of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. 

As Trump hopped off the steps from Air Force One on Thursday evening, he was greeted by a throng of supporters, who clamored for autographs and selfies. He repeatedly told the crowd “thank you, everybody” as they yelled encouragement. 

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said in an appearance on Fox News that he didn’t understand why Trump decided to send his tweets lashing out at former aides. 

I think it's over,'' he said.If I were the president, I would have basically declared victory with the Mueller report and everything that came out and move beyond it.” 

Still, he said he hoped the White House had learned some lessons. 

The president and his entire team needs to realize how close they came to being charged with obstruction,'' Fleischer said.Asking your staff to lie and engaging in some of the activities that the Mueller report stated the president engaged in is too close to obstruction. And that’s a lesson I hope everybody at the White House takes with them going forward.” 
…

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday became the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to make a full-throated call for the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report. 

Mueller, who investigated whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election and whether the president tried to interfere with the inquiry, found no evidence of a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and offered no verdict on obstruction of justice. Mueller did find, however, that Trump made numerous attempts to interfere with the investigation but was largely foiled by those around him. 

In a series of tweets, Warren said it would be damaging to “ignore a president’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior” and would give license to future presidents to act in the same way. 

‘Constitutional duty’

“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States,” Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, tweeted. 

Other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, while supportive of the idea of impeachment, were more circumspect in their responses.  

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said Friday on CNN that it would be “perfectly reasonable for Congress to open up those proceedings.” 

Both Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and Rep. Eric Swalwell of California said the question of impeachment should not be taken off the table.  Other Democratic candidates, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, indicated it was too soon to initiate impeachment proceedings. 

“We don’t have an unredacted version of the report. We don’t have the underlying materials that that report was written upon. We haven’t had yet an opportunity to have hearings where we interview Mueller,” Booker said during a campaign stop in Reno, Nevada. 

Harris was asked Thursday night on MSNBC to comment on House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s remarks that impeachment hearings against Trump would not be “worthwhile” because the 2020 election is coming up and voters can decide if they want to keep Trump in office.    

I think that's there definitely a conversation to be had on that subject,'' Harris said, referring to impeachment,but first I want to hear from Bob Mueller and really understand what exactly is the evidence that supports the summary that we’ve been given.” 

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., said the best recourse for Trump’s actions as president would be to vote him out.  

“If we really want to send Trumpism into the history books, the best thing we can do is defeat it decisively at the ballot box in 2020,” Buttigieg said on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers.
…

Russian officials Friday continued to deny that Moscow tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election, brushing aside hundreds of pages of evidence released in special counsel Robert Muller’s report by saying it contained no proof.

“We still do not accept accusations of that sort,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in a conference call.  He said Russia has insisted from the very beginning of the two-year probe that “whatever investigators did, they would find no [Russian] meddling, because there was no meddling.” 

In the United States, there is consensus among the nation’s intelligence community, and details published in the Mueller report, on how Moscow used a variety of tactics and people to try to influence Americans’ political opinions, hurt political enemies and help Donald Trump’s campaign. U.S. prosecutors announced indictments against 25 Russian nationals, mostly military officers and “internet trolls,” as well as three Russian entities for their roles in the meddling. 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that [Mueller’s conclusions] “actually confirm the absence of any argument that Russia supposedly meddled in the American elections.”  

Last month, Russian officials reacted in a similar fashion after U.S. Attorney General William Barr released a summary of Mueller’s investigation. In their euphoric reactions, however, they commented only on the news that the U.S. probe had found no evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow, ignoring the fact that Mueller’s team had also backed the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia in fact meddled in the 2016 election campaign.

Observers believe there is little hope that Russia will change its position on the conclusions of Mueller’s investigation. 

“I don’t think there will be new statements made on the matter [by Russian officials], unless new facts are presented against Russia,” said Leonid Gusev of the Moscow-based Institute of International Research. 

Consistent stance

Pavel Sharikov, a senior fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, agreed with his countryman, saying that “Russia’s position on the matter has been consistent” throughout the course of Mueller’s investigation and that at this point nothing will change it. 

Experts are also doubtful about the ability of Washington and Moscow to build a constructive relationship in the near future. For that to happen, they say, a new administration will have to come to the White House.  

Even though the special counsel and his team could not find evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 campaign, some analysts say the cloud of collusion will linger over Trump’s presidency. 

“There is no action that Russia can take that would change this [negative] narrative both in U.S. domestic politics and U.S. policies towards Russia,” Sharikov said. 
…

After 22 months of investigation, the public and Congress Thursday got to see the report of special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The report found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Mueller and his team could not make a judgment on whether the president had sought to obstruct justice. Opposition Democrats are pushing for further investigation in Congress. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…

After 22 months of investigation, the public and Congress Thursday got to see the report of special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The report found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Mueller and his team could not make a judgment on whether the president had sought to obstruct justice. Opposition Democrats are pushing for further investigation in Congress. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Thursday announced endorsements from seven black lawmakers in the critical early voting state of South Carolina, a show of force in the first place where African American voters feature prominently in next year’s primary elections.

Sanders’ 2020 campaign made the announcement just ahead of a Spartanburg town hall meeting with members of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus. The backing represents the biggest number of black lawmakers to back a 2020 hopeful to date in this state, which holds the first primary in the South.

The support is part of Sanders’ attempt to turn things around in South Carolina, where his 47-point loss to Hillary Clinton in 2016 blunted the momentum generated in opening primary contests and exposed his weakness with black voters. Sensing the coming defeat, Sanders left South Carolina in the days leading up to the state’s 2016 vote, campaigning instead in Midwestern states where he hoped to perform better.

​Different approach

Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has taken a different approach this time, working to deepen ties with the black voters who comprise most of the Democratic primary electorate in the state and pledging to visit South Carolina much more frequently. Our Revolution, the organizing offshoot of Sanders’ 2016 campaign, has an active branch in the state, holding regular meetings and conferences throughout the state. Sanders addressed the group last year.

The campaign recently hired a state director and, according to adviser Jeff Weaver, is putting together a “much stronger team on the ground, much earlier in the process.”

Last month, Sanders made his first official 2020 campaign stop in this state, holding a rally at a black church in North Charleston. Attracting a mostly white crowd of more than 1,500 that night, Sanders recounted many of the efforts of his previous presidential campaign, noting that some of his ideas had since been adopted by the Democratic Party and supported by other candidates vying for the party’s nomination.

Diverse crowd

On Thursday, the pews of Mount Moriah Baptist Church were filled with a diverse crowd of several hundred as Sanders took to a lectern and addressed his ideas for criminal justice reform, issues that he said disproportionately affect the African American community.

“We understand that we are just denting the surface,” Sanders said, going on to discuss racial discrepancies in arrests for traffic violations and marijuana possession. “I think a new day is coming.”

Applauding Sanders’ attention to the needs of the black community, Spartanburg Councilman Michael Brown reminded the crowd of Sanders’ participation in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and encouraged him to stay the course in terms of his efforts to reach out to the black voters here.

“Thank you, sir. Keep the conversation going,” Brown said. “Remain unapologetic in what you have to say because your message is resonating in our community and throughout this land.”

The South Carolina lawmakers endorsing Sanders are state Reps. Wendell Gilliard, Cezar McKnight, Krystle Simmons, Ivory Thigpen and Shedron Williams. He’s also being backed by state Reps. Terry Alexander and Justin Bamberg, both of whom backed Sanders in 2016 and served as national surrogates for his campaign.
…

The National Enquirer is being sold to the former head of the airport newsstand company Hudson News following a rocky year in which the tabloid was accused of burying stories that could have hurt Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

Tabloid owner American Media said Thursday that it plans to sell the supermarket weekly to James Cohen. Financial terms were not immediately disclosed for the deal, which included two other American Media tabloids, the Globe and National Examiner.  

American Media said last week that it wanted to get out of the tabloid business to focus on its other operations, which includes its teen brand and broadcast platforms.

Non-prosecution agreement

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan agreed last year not to prosecute American Media in exchange for the company’s cooperation in a campaign finance investigation. That probe eventually led to a three-year prison term for Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen for campaign violations among other charges.

American Media admitted it had paid $150,000 to keep former Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about an alleged affair with Trump to help his campaign. Trump has denied an affair.  

The sale would end a longtime relationship between the Enquirer and Trump. Under the aegis of American Media CEO David Pecker, the tabloid has for years buried potentially embarrassing stories about Trump and other favored celebrities by buying the rights to them and never publishing in a practice called “catch and kill.” 

The Associated Press reported last year that Pecker kept a safe in the Enquirer’s office that held documents on buried stories, including those involving Trump. 

Whether James Cohen has any allegiances to Trump is not clear. While he was a registered Republican as late as 2017, according to Nexis records, he has given to both Republicans and Democrats. That included $17,300 in 2016 to an arm of the Democratic National Committee and $2,500 to the Republican National Committee in 2012.

News of the sale comes two months after Amazon chief Jeff Bezos publicly accused the Enquirer of trying to blackmail him by threatening to publish explicit photos of him. 

An American Media attorney denied the charge, but it threatened potentially big legal costs by upending American Media’s non-prosecution agreement in the hush money case. The AP reported that federal prosecutors were looking into whether the publisher violated terms of the deal, which included a promise not to break any laws in the future.

Heavy debt load

The Bezos accusation comes at a difficult time for American Media. It has financed several recent acquisitions with borrowed money and has been struggling under a heavy debt load. American Media said the Cohen deal would help reduce the amount it needs to pay back, leaving it with $355 million in debt. 

The Washington Post, which earlier reported the sale, said Cohen will pay $100 million in the deal.

Cohen’s family had run a magazine and newspaper distributor for decades before his father branched into newsstand stores in 1980s, starting with a single one at LaGuardia Airport. Before he died in 2012, the father had opened more than 600 stores. 

After the death, James Cohen’s niece alleged her uncle had cheated her out of her inheritance. She lost the case. 

The family sold a majority stake in the chain about a decade ago. The business is now owned by Dufry, an operator of duty-free stores in which James Cohen is a major shareholder. 

Cohen still owns a magazine and newspaper distributor called Hudson News Distributors. In addition, he runs a real estate developer and a publishing company, which owns Gallerie, an art and design magazine. 

Cohen has reportedly been involved in American Media deals before. The New York Times reports that, in 2011, Cohen invested in the company’s American edition of OK!, a British tabloid. 
…

The National Enquirer is being sold to the former head of the airport newsstand company Hudson News following a rocky year in which the tabloid was accused of burying stories that could have hurt Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

Tabloid owner American Media said Thursday that it plans to sell the supermarket weekly to James Cohen. Financial terms were not immediately disclosed for the deal, which included two other American Media tabloids, the Globe and National Examiner.  

American Media said last week that it wanted to get out of the tabloid business to focus on its other operations, which includes its teen brand and broadcast platforms.

Non-prosecution agreement

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan agreed last year not to prosecute American Media in exchange for the company’s cooperation in a campaign finance investigation. That probe eventually led to a three-year prison term for Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen for campaign violations among other charges.

American Media admitted it had paid $150,000 to keep former Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about an alleged affair with Trump to help his campaign. Trump has denied an affair.  

The sale would end a longtime relationship between the Enquirer and Trump. Under the aegis of American Media CEO David Pecker, the tabloid has for years buried potentially embarrassing stories about Trump and other favored celebrities by buying the rights to them and never publishing in a practice called “catch and kill.” 

The Associated Press reported last year that Pecker kept a safe in the Enquirer’s office that held documents on buried stories, including those involving Trump. 

Whether James Cohen has any allegiances to Trump is not clear. While he was a registered Republican as late as 2017, according to Nexis records, he has given to both Republicans and Democrats. That included $17,300 in 2016 to an arm of the Democratic National Committee and $2,500 to the Republican National Committee in 2012.

News of the sale comes two months after Amazon chief Jeff Bezos publicly accused the Enquirer of trying to blackmail him by threatening to publish explicit photos of him. 

An American Media attorney denied the charge, but it threatened potentially big legal costs by upending American Media’s non-prosecution agreement in the hush money case. The AP reported that federal prosecutors were looking into whether the publisher violated terms of the deal, which included a promise not to break any laws in the future.

Heavy debt load

The Bezos accusation comes at a difficult time for American Media. It has financed several recent acquisitions with borrowed money and has been struggling under a heavy debt load. American Media said the Cohen deal would help reduce the amount it needs to pay back, leaving it with $355 million in debt. 

The Washington Post, which earlier reported the sale, said Cohen will pay $100 million in the deal.

Cohen’s family had run a magazine and newspaper distributor for decades before his father branched into newsstand stores in 1980s, starting with a single one at LaGuardia Airport. Before he died in 2012, the father had opened more than 600 stores. 

After the death, James Cohen’s niece alleged her uncle had cheated her out of her inheritance. She lost the case. 

The family sold a majority stake in the chain about a decade ago. The business is now owned by Dufry, an operator of duty-free stores in which James Cohen is a major shareholder. 

Cohen still owns a magazine and newspaper distributor called Hudson News Distributors. In addition, he runs a real estate developer and a publishing company, which owns Gallerie, an art and design magazine. 

Cohen has reportedly been involved in American Media deals before. The New York Times reports that, in 2011, Cohen invested in the company’s American edition of OK!, a British tabloid. 
…

Several key figures associated with President Donald Trump have pleaded guilty or were convicted of a range of offenses as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe:

Paul Manafort: Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman is in the early stages of a 7 1/2-year prison term after being convicted and pleading guilty in two cases linked to financial corruption from his years of lobbying for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine.

Michael Flynn: Trump’s first national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, just before Trump assumed power, and is awaiting sentencing.

George Papadopoulos: The  low-level foreign affairs adviser was jailed for 12 days after he pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his Russia contacts.

Rick Gates:  A business associate of Manafort’s and his deputy on the Trump campaign, Gates was a key witness against Manafort at his trial, after pleading guilty to conspiring with him in financial wrongdoing from their years as lobbyists for Ukraine. He is awaiting sentencing.

Michael Cohen: Trump’s one-time personal attorney pleaded guilty to helping Trump make $280,000 in hush money payments to two women, an adult film actress and a Playboy model, to keep them quiet before the 2016 election about alleged decade-old sexual encounters they claimed to have had with Trump. Cohen, headed soon to prison for a three-year term, also admitted lying to Congress about the extent of Trump’s efforts during the 2016 campaign to build a Trump skyscraper in Moscow, a time when candidate Trump was telling voters he had ended his Russian business ventures.

Roger Stone: The long-time Trump adviser and friend is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to Congress about his contacts with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks in conjunction with the release of emails hacked by Russian operatives from the computers of Democratic officials that were damaging to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

 
…

Several key figures associated with President Donald Trump have pleaded guilty or were convicted of a range of offenses as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe:

Paul Manafort: Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman is in the early stages of a 7 1/2-year prison term after being convicted and pleading guilty in two cases linked to financial corruption from his years of lobbying for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine.

Michael Flynn: Trump’s first national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, just before Trump assumed power, and is awaiting sentencing.

George Papadopoulos: The  low-level foreign affairs adviser was jailed for 12 days after he pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his Russia contacts.

Rick Gates:  A business associate of Manafort’s and his deputy on the Trump campaign, Gates was a key witness against Manafort at his trial, after pleading guilty to conspiring with him in financial wrongdoing from their years as lobbyists for Ukraine. He is awaiting sentencing.

Michael Cohen: Trump’s one-time personal attorney pleaded guilty to helping Trump make $280,000 in hush money payments to two women, an adult film actress and a Playboy model, to keep them quiet before the 2016 election about alleged decade-old sexual encounters they claimed to have had with Trump. Cohen, headed soon to prison for a three-year term, also admitted lying to Congress about the extent of Trump’s efforts during the 2016 campaign to build a Trump skyscraper in Moscow, a time when candidate Trump was telling voters he had ended his Russian business ventures.

Roger Stone: The long-time Trump adviser and friend is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to Congress about his contacts with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks in conjunction with the release of emails hacked by Russian operatives from the computers of Democratic officials that were damaging to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

 
…

A large group of Democratic presidential contenders is off to an early and intensive start in 2019, even though the first caucus and primary votes will not come until next February.

But some experts are already predicting that the race for the party nomination could be one of the longest and nastiest in years. Nearly 20 Democrats have jumped into the 2020 election battle so far, and many face the daunting task of trying to boost their name recognition and raise money.

Among the latest Democrats to officially announce a presidential bid was South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

“The forces changing our country today are tectonic, forces that helped to explain what made this current presidency even possible,” Buttigieg told supporters at his kickoff event this week in South Bend. “That is why this time it is not just about winning an election. It is about winning an era.”

Buttigieg has risen from relative obscurity to being a contender in recent polls in the early contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Biden leads the pack

The latest Morning Consult survey has former Vice President Joe Biden leading the Democratic pack at 31 percent support, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 23 percent, California Sen. Kamala Harris at 9 percent and Buttigieg tied at 7 percent with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Biden has yet to officially announce and is expected to do so in the coming weeks.

Like many of the Democratic contenders already in the race, Harris has focused much of her attention on President Donald Trump.

“We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who stokes the hate and the division. We can’t,” Harris told supporters this month at a rally in Iowa.

​Struggling to get noticed

Among those working to gain visibility in the crowded Democratic field are New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who officially launched his campaign with a rally in his home state in early April.

“I am running for president to first and foremost try to bring this country back together!” Ryan told supporters.

In addition to Biden, others who may enter the race soon include Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton. Eventually, the number of Democratic contenders could go to 20 or beyond.

Even though Democratic voters have lots of choices, they seem most eager to find someone who can beat Trump, according to pollster John Zogby.

“Whom do they do it with? Do they do it with a progressive candidate or a mainstream candidate? That is one question. Do they do it with an older traditional candidate or a young face?” he asked.

One dynamic expected to play out in the race ahead is the ideological divide within the Democratic Party. A Gallup survey in January found that most Democrats see themselves as liberal. Fifty-one percent in that Gallup Poll chose the liberal label, while 34 percent called themselves moderate and 13 percent said they were conservative.

WATCH: Long, Ugly Battle Likely Ahead for Democratic Candidates

​It could get rough

Some experts predict that a large field lacking a clear front-runner is a recipe for a long and potentially nasty campaign.

“I think it will be one of the most negative campaigns we have ever seen in a Democratic primary. We are already seeing this,” said Jim Kessler of Third Way, a center-left public policy group. “Because you have got 15 or 16 candidates out there who feel like, ‘Unless two or three of them [other contenders] are really dragged down, I have absolutely no chance.’ ”

In order to set themselves apart, some of the Democratic contenders are less focused on Trump and more interested in bringing lasting change to the country. It’s a theme often sounded by Booker, Warren and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, among others.

“I think Democrats are going to run on inequality and economic growth, and that is what they should be running on because those are the issues really facing the country that have not been dealt with,” said Brookings Institution expert Elaine Kamarck.

The familiar and the new

For the moment, the Democratic primary battle seems to be between some familiar and experienced contenders like Biden and Sanders and a group of younger, dynamic candidates that includes Harris, Buttigieg, O’Rourke and Booker.

Sanders appears to be having some success building on his failed White House bid in 2016, when he lost out to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after a long and difficult campaign.

Sanders led the Democratic pack in fundraising for the first quarter of 2019, drawing $18 million. Harris was in second place, raising $12 million, followed by O’Rourke, $9.3 million; Buttigieg, $7 million; and Warren, $6 million.

Fundraising numbers are often seen by strategists and analysts as an important indication of a candidate’s strength, especially in a crowded field like the one shaping up for Democrats in 2020.

View from Trump world

Trump’s re-election campaign has also been busy collecting donations, raising $30 million in the first quarter, a notably large sum for an incumbent president this early in an election cycle.

Trump and his Republican allies have already signaled they will try to brand the Democrats as “socialists” and will focus on sweeping plans to expand government health care and tackle climate change that some Democratic candidates have endorsed. 

Trump does face a Republican primary challenge from former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld.

Weld told CNN on Wednesday that he has a strategy “to win, not just to weaken anybody.” Weld, who has a long record as a moderate in a party that now leans solidly to the right, said his focus will be to defeat Trump in New Hampshire, the state that will hold the first primary next February. Trump won the New Hampshire primary in 2016, a significant moment in his march to the nomination.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump predicted that he would likely face either Biden or Sanders as the Democratic nominee in 2020:

“It will be Crazy Bernie Sanders vs. Sleepy Joe Biden as the two finalists to run against maybe the best Economy in the history of our Country (and MANY other great things)!”
…

A large group of Democratic presidential contenders is off to an early and intensive start in 2019, and some experts are predicting that the race for the party’s nomination could be one of the longest and nastiest in years. Nearly 20 Democrats have jumped into the 2020 election battle so far, and many face the daunting task of trying to boost their name recognition and raise money. VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…

Many Americans aren’t ready to clear President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation, with a new poll showing slightly more want Congress to keep investigating than to set aside its probes after a special counsel’s report left open the question of whether he broke the law.

About 6 in 10 continue to believe the president obstructed justice.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds greater GOP confidence in the investigation after Attorney General William Barr in late March released his letter saying special counsel Robert Mueller found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but didn’t make a judgment on the obstruction question.

At the same time, the poll indicates that Americans are mostly unhappy with the amount of information that has been released so far. They’ll get more Thursday, when Barr is expected to release a redacted version of the nearly 400-page report.

Trump has repeatedly claimed “total exoneration,” after Barr asserted in his memo that there was insufficient evidence for an obstruction prosecution.

“It’s a total phony,” Trump said of all allegations to Minneapolis TV station KSTP this week. “Any aspect of that report, I hope it does come out because there was no collusion, whatsoever, no collusion. There was no obstruction, because that was ruled by the attorney general.”

Overall, 39 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, roughly unchanged from mid-March, before Mueller completed his two-year investigation.

But many Americans still have questions.

“It’s kind of hard to believe what the president says as far as exoneration,” said James Brown, 77, of Philadelphia, who doesn’t affiliate with either party but says his political views lean conservative. “And in my mind the attorney general is a Trump person, so he’s not going to do anything against Trump.”

The poll shows 35 percent of Americans think that Trump did something illegal related to Russia — largely unchanged since the earlier poll. An additional 34 percent think he’s done something unethical.

Brown says he remains extremely concerned about possible inappropriate contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, citing Trump’s past interest in building a Trump Tower in Moscow, and believes the president committed crimes of obstruction to cover up financial interests. “He’s not going to jeopardize his pocketbook for anything,” he said.

Still, the poll suggests Barr’s summary helped allay some lingering doubts within the GOP. Among Republicans, more now say Trump did nothing wrong at all (65 percent vs. 55 percent a month ago) and fewer say he did something unethical (27 percent, down from 37 percent).

Glen Sebring, 56, of Chico, California, says he thinks the nation should put the Russia investigations to rest after reading Barr’s four-page summary of the Mueller report. The moderate Republican credits Trump with helping to “double the money” he’s now earning due to an improving economy and says Congress should spend more time on issues such as lowering health care costs.

“It’s like beating a dead horse,” Sebring said. “We’ve got a lot more important things to worry about.”

Even as Trump blasts the Mueller probe as a Democratic witch hunt, poll respondents expressed more confidence that the investigation was impartial. The growing confidence since March was driven by Republicans: Three-quarters now say they are at least moderately confident in the probe, and 38 percent are very or extremely confident, up from 46 percent and 18 percent, respectively, in March. Among Democrats, about 70 percent are at least moderately confident, down slightly from a month ago, and 45 percent are very or extremely confident.

Still, majorities of Americans say they believe the Justice Department has shared too few details so far with both the public (61 percent) and Congress (55 percent). About a third think the department has shared too little with the White House, which has argued that portions of the report should be kept confidential if they involve private conversations of the president subject to executive privilege.

Democrats have been calling for Mueller himself to testify before Congress and have expressed concern that Barr will order unnecessary censoring of the report to protect Trump. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, is poised to try to compel Barr to turn over an unredacted copy as well as the report’s underlying investigative files.

The poll shows that even with the Mueller probe complete, 53 percent say Congress should continue to investigate Trump’s ties with Russia, while 45 percent say Congress should not. A similar percentage, 53 percent, say Congress should take steps to impeach Trump if he is found to have obstructed justice, even if he did not have inappropriate contacts with Russia.

“We don’t even know what we found yet in the probe. Until we do, Congress should definitely continue to push this issue,” said Tina Perales, a 35-year-old small business owner in Norton, Ohio, who describes herself as Republican. “That little letter Barr sent out summarizing the report I think was completely BS. This Mueller thing is hundreds of pages, and he just sums it up like this? These things just don’t add up.”

Deep partisan divisions remain.

Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to believe Trump had done something improper and to support continued investigations that could lead to his removal from office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has downplayed the likelihood of impeachment proceedings but isn’t closing the door entirely if there are significant findings of Trump misconduct.

On investigations, 84 percent of Democrats believe lawmakers shouldn’t let up in scrutinizing Trump’s ties to Russia, but the same share of Republicans disagrees. Similarly, 83 percent of Democrats say Congress should take steps to impeach Trump if he is found to have obstructed justice, even if he did not have inappropriate contacts with Russia, while 82 percent of Republicans say Congress should not.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,108 adults was conducted April 11-14 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

 
…

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump is “kind of like a Chinese finger trap — you know, the harder you pull, the more you get stuck” and warns that Democrats shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to “knock him flat with some zinger.” 

In Iowa for the first time since officially launching his campaign, Buttigieg discussed how to defeat Trump after drawing an audience of more than 1,600 people at a Des Moines rally Tuesday night.

“We’ve got to acknowledge — without giving an inch on the racism or xenophobia that played a role in that campaign — we’ve got to also pay attention to the things that make people susceptible to that message and make sure we’re addressing them,” said the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The rally was one of the biggest campaign events yet for a 2020 contender in the Des Moines area, a particularly notable feat for a candidate who just over a month ago was barely registering in the polls. Buttigieg’s main task now is turning grass-roots energy into a real, sustainable movement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Buttigieg said Iowa — its caucuses produce the first votes of the presidential nominating season — “will be really central to our strategy.”

“There’s a political style here that rhymes a lot with my home territory in Indiana,” he said. “I think that the mechanics of a caucus really favor a style that involves a lot of engagement, which is how I like to practice politics … of course there’s a simple logistical advantage of it being the one early state that’s within driving distance of my home.”

Asked whether Trump leaned on racial animus to win the White House, Buttigieg called the president out for playing “white guy identity politics.”

“By far the political movement that is most based on identity politics is Trumpism. It’s based on white guy identity politics. It uses race to divide the working and middle class,” he told the AP. “There are a lot of strategies to blame problems on people who look different or are of a different faith or even of a different sexuality or gender identity. … It’s a cynical political strategy that works in the short term but winds up weakening the whole country in the long term.”

White privilege

Buttigieg has argued that he’s uniquely positioned to take on Trump because he can appeal to the white working-class voters who left the Democratic Party for the Republican. But in recent days, he’s acknowledged he needs to address the lack of racial diversity among supporters at his events.

In the AP interview, Buttigieg said he plans to make sure that “our organization and our substance reflect our commitment to diversity.” He said he’ll do that by hiring a diverse staff and by addressing a range of policies that affect minorities, including but not limited to criminal justice reform, education, homeownership and entrepreneurship.

“I think any white candidate needs to show a level of consciousness around issues like white privilege,” he said. But when asked whether he had experienced white privilege, he said that “part of privilege is not being very conscious of it, right?” 

He added: “You’re much more conscious when you’re at a disadvantage than … when you are on the beneficial side of a bias. But there’s no question that that’s a factor that has impacted people in many different ways. And we need to be as alive to it as possible.”

Buttigieg said that to be able to create a diverse coalition without alienating white working-class voters, issues of racial justice need to be discussed in a unifying way. 

“I mean being pro-racial justice should not be skin off the back of any white voter,” he said. “I think there’s certainly an environment where sometimes these ideas are pitted against each other, where it’s suggested, for example, that connecting with white working-class voters somehow means that you have to walk away somehow from our commitment to racial justice — but our commitment to racial justice is part of the bedrock of the moral authority of the Democratic Party.”

Marriage equality

The South Bend mayor has surged from a relatively unknown candidate in the field to a media darling who’s gained support in nationwide polling and posted a stronger-than-expected fundraising number in the first quarter. He’s drawn attention for his plainspoken style, and the historic nature of his candidacy, as the first openly gay contender in a same-sex marriage.

During the Des Moines rally, an audience member asked what he should tell his friends who say America isn’t ready for a gay president. Buttigieg replied, “Tell your friends I said ‘hi.”‘

The impact of his personal life on the campaign was on striking display at both of his Iowa events Tuesday. During a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, after Buttigieg spoke about the need for marriage equality, a protester stood up and shouted, “You betray your baptism!” He was escorted out.

Buttigieg joked to the crowd, “Coffee after church gets a little rowdy sometimes,” then added: “We’re so dug-in, in such passionate ways, and I respect that, too. That gentleman believes that what he is doing is in line with the will of the creator. I’d do it differently. We ought to be able to do it differently.”

In Des Moines, another protester shouted “Sodom and Gomorrah!” The crowd drowned him out with chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

Asked by the AP how he would win over a protester like the one in Fort Dodge if he could sit down with him, Buttigieg said, “I’m not sure he would want to sit down with me,” but that he hoped others who have concerns about his candidacy would come to his events and ask a question, “so we could have a respectful exchange.”

“There are a lot of positions, there’s a wide range, with fringes, in our politics. That’s part of how politics works, and you shouldn’t be in this if you aren’t prepared to deal with that,” he said.

The turnout at the Des Moines event was unexpected, according to Polk County Democratic Party Chair Sean Bagniewski, who said Buttigieg’s team had predicted at most 200 people would show up. The campaign didn’t have any volunteers to take down information for enthusiastic supporters who wanted to be a part of the campaign.

“It’s a very narrow window to capture momentum and energy and attention, and if you miss the opportunity to match your staff and energy with the moment, you can miss your chance,” Bagniewski said.
…

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump is “kind of like a Chinese finger trap — you know, the harder you pull, the more you get stuck” and warns that Democrats shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to “knock him flat with some zinger.” 

In Iowa for the first time since officially launching his campaign, Buttigieg discussed how to defeat Trump after drawing an audience of more than 1,600 people at a Des Moines rally Tuesday night.

“We’ve got to acknowledge — without giving an inch on the racism or xenophobia that played a role in that campaign — we’ve got to also pay attention to the things that make people susceptible to that message and make sure we’re addressing them,” said the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The rally was one of the biggest campaign events yet for a 2020 contender in the Des Moines area, a particularly notable feat for a candidate who just over a month ago was barely registering in the polls. Buttigieg’s main task now is turning grass-roots energy into a real, sustainable movement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Buttigieg said Iowa — its caucuses produce the first votes of the presidential nominating season — “will be really central to our strategy.”

“There’s a political style here that rhymes a lot with my home territory in Indiana,” he said. “I think that the mechanics of a caucus really favor a style that involves a lot of engagement, which is how I like to practice politics … of course there’s a simple logistical advantage of it being the one early state that’s within driving distance of my home.”

Asked whether Trump leaned on racial animus to win the White House, Buttigieg called the president out for playing “white guy identity politics.”

“By far the political movement that is most based on identity politics is Trumpism. It’s based on white guy identity politics. It uses race to divide the working and middle class,” he told the AP. “There are a lot of strategies to blame problems on people who look different or are of a different faith or even of a different sexuality or gender identity. … It’s a cynical political strategy that works in the short term but winds up weakening the whole country in the long term.”

White privilege

Buttigieg has argued that he’s uniquely positioned to take on Trump because he can appeal to the white working-class voters who left the Democratic Party for the Republican. But in recent days, he’s acknowledged he needs to address the lack of racial diversity among supporters at his events.

In the AP interview, Buttigieg said he plans to make sure that “our organization and our substance reflect our commitment to diversity.” He said he’ll do that by hiring a diverse staff and by addressing a range of policies that affect minorities, including but not limited to criminal justice reform, education, homeownership and entrepreneurship.

“I think any white candidate needs to show a level of consciousness around issues like white privilege,” he said. But when asked whether he had experienced white privilege, he said that “part of privilege is not being very conscious of it, right?” 

He added: “You’re much more conscious when you’re at a disadvantage than … when you are on the beneficial side of a bias. But there’s no question that that’s a factor that has impacted people in many different ways. And we need to be as alive to it as possible.”

Buttigieg said that to be able to create a diverse coalition without alienating white working-class voters, issues of racial justice need to be discussed in a unifying way. 

“I mean being pro-racial justice should not be skin off the back of any white voter,” he said. “I think there’s certainly an environment where sometimes these ideas are pitted against each other, where it’s suggested, for example, that connecting with white working-class voters somehow means that you have to walk away somehow from our commitment to racial justice — but our commitment to racial justice is part of the bedrock of the moral authority of the Democratic Party.”

Marriage equality

The South Bend mayor has surged from a relatively unknown candidate in the field to a media darling who’s gained support in nationwide polling and posted a stronger-than-expected fundraising number in the first quarter. He’s drawn attention for his plainspoken style, and the historic nature of his candidacy, as the first openly gay contender in a same-sex marriage.

During the Des Moines rally, an audience member asked what he should tell his friends who say America isn’t ready for a gay president. Buttigieg replied, “Tell your friends I said ‘hi.”‘

The impact of his personal life on the campaign was on striking display at both of his Iowa events Tuesday. During a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, after Buttigieg spoke about the need for marriage equality, a protester stood up and shouted, “You betray your baptism!” He was escorted out.

Buttigieg joked to the crowd, “Coffee after church gets a little rowdy sometimes,” then added: “We’re so dug-in, in such passionate ways, and I respect that, too. That gentleman believes that what he is doing is in line with the will of the creator. I’d do it differently. We ought to be able to do it differently.”

In Des Moines, another protester shouted “Sodom and Gomorrah!” The crowd drowned him out with chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

Asked by the AP how he would win over a protester like the one in Fort Dodge if he could sit down with him, Buttigieg said, “I’m not sure he would want to sit down with me,” but that he hoped others who have concerns about his candidacy would come to his events and ask a question, “so we could have a respectful exchange.”

“There are a lot of positions, there’s a wide range, with fringes, in our politics. That’s part of how politics works, and you shouldn’t be in this if you aren’t prepared to deal with that,” he said.

The turnout at the Des Moines event was unexpected, according to Polk County Democratic Party Chair Sean Bagniewski, who said Buttigieg’s team had predicted at most 200 people would show up. The campaign didn’t have any volunteers to take down information for enthusiastic supporters who wanted to be a part of the campaign.

“It’s a very narrow window to capture momentum and energy and attention, and if you miss the opportunity to match your staff and energy with the moment, you can miss your chance,” Bagniewski said.
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From Ben Affleck and Susan Sarandon to Anna Wintour and Willie Nelson, celebrities lined up to give money — and a dash of star power — to their favorite Democratic presidential candidates ahead of this week’s first quarter fundraising deadline.

For months, candidates in the crowded field of more than a dozen contenders have aggressively courted key figures in music, television, publishing and film, who are one of the party’s most reliable sources of campaign cash. Although many donors remain on the sidelines, contributing to lackluster fundraising hauls, an early snapshot included in the campaign finance reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission this week offers a glimpse of who is drawing attention from entertainment industry in the early stages of the race.

“When you talk about Hollywood, yes, we are talking about movie stars and writers and directors, but we are also talking about people with decades of experience with presidential campaigns,” said Yusef Robb, a longtime California political strategist. “Earning support from somebody with a lot of connections in the political world couples with their star power, which people in the chattering classes notice.”

California Sen. Kamala Harris has long-standing relationships with major entertainment industry figures in her home state. But former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke , Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg are also among the candidates who count celebrities as donors.

So far, few donors are bundling large sums of money for candidates by asking their friends, family and colleagues to give, too. But many have given individually, which is limited under campaign finance law to a $2,800 contribution during the primary election, followed by another $2,800 earmarked for the general election campaign.

Last month, Harris was feted at the Pacific Palisades home of director J.J. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath, in a gathering attended by Hollywood powerbrokers, including TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes. Harris also has received money from Affleck, who gave $2,800; actress Eva Longoria, who gave $5,400; composer Quincy Jones, who gave $2,800; and former “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm, who gave $1,000.

O’Rourke, a former punk rocker, received $2,800 from a fellow Texan, country music icon Nelson, as well as $1,850 from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and $2,800 from Dave Matthews Band violinist Boyd Tinsley. He also took in $5,600 from Vogue editor-in-chief Wintour, $1,500 from comedian and “Breaking Bad” actor Bob Odenkirk, $2,500 from Texas film director Richard Linklater and $350 from “Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong.

Sanders received $2,700 from actor and comedian Danny DeVito, $2,800 from actress Susan Sarandon, $2,500 from piano player Norah Jones and $1,000 from Foo Fighters guitarist Christopher Shiflett. Jonathan Fishman, drummer for the jam band Phish, which was formed in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, gave $1,000, while Thomas Middleditch from HBO’s “Silicon Valley” gave $500, records show.

Buttigieg, whose campaign raked in $7 million after emerging as an unexpected hit, has also started to draw celebrity attention. “West Wing” star Bradley Whitford gave $2,000, actor Ryan Reynolds donated $250, NFL network broadcaster Rich Eisen gave $500 and “Game of Thrones” executive producer Carolyn Strauss chipped in $250.

Buttigieg also drew at least one contribution from an unusual source. James Murdoch, the son of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News is closely allied with President Donald Trump, cut Buttigieg a $2,800 donation, records show.
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed a bill passed by Congress to end U.S. military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

In a break with the president, Congress voted for the first time earlier this month to invoke the War Powers Resolution to try to stop U.S. involvement in a foreign conflict.

The veto — the second in Trump’s presidency — was expected. Congress lacks the votes to override him.

“This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump wrote in explaining his veto.

Congress has grown uneasy with Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia as he tries to further isolate Iran, a regional rival.

Many lawmakers also criticized the president for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi who lived in the United States and had written critically about the kingdom. Khashoggi went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October and never came out. Intelligence agencies said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the killing.

The U.S. provides billions of dollars of arms to the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. Members of Congress have expressed concern about the thousands of civilians killed in coalition airstrikes since the conflict began in 2014. The fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country also has left millions suffering from food and medical care shortages and has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

House approval of the resolution came earlier this month on a 247-175 vote. The Senate vote last month was 54-46.

Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, voted to end U.S. military assistance to the war, saying the humanitarian crisis in Yemen triggered “demands moral leadership.”

The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, acknowledged the dire situation in Yemen for civilians, but spoke out in opposition to the bill. McCaul said it was an abuse of the War Powers Resolution and predicted it could disrupt U.S. security cooperation agreements with more than 100 countries.

Trump issued his first veto last month on legislation related to immigration. Trump had declared a national emergency so he could use more money to construct a border wall. Congress voted to block the emergency declaration and Trump vetoed that measure.
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