Targeting current and former high-ranking U.S. government officials with explosive devices “is an attack on our democracy itself,” U.S. President Donald Trump told a political rally for Republican Party candidates Wednesday evening.

His remarks, in the state of Wisconsin, came after federal officials said they were seeking to find who has sent pipe bombs to former President Barack Obama and Trump’s 2016 presidential election opponent Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats.

Throughout the day, leaders from both the major parties called for a return to civility in the political arena, a theme Trump picked up on at the rally.

WATCH: Trump Calls for Unity, Blames Media Amid Bomb Threats

“No one should carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains, which is done often and all the time. It’s got to stop,” the president said. “We should not mob people in public spaces or destroy public property. There is one way to settle our disagreements — it’s called peacefully, at the ballot box. That’s what we want.”

Trump, known for his personal criticism of others in the public arena, also requested people “stop treating political opponents as being morally defective.”

WATCH: President Trump on Investigation, Political Violence

In an uncharacteristically muted tone for his political rallies, Trump who noted, “I’m trying to be nice” also blamed the media for the negative national tone.

“The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative, and, often times, false attacks,” he said.

CNN President Jeff Zucker issued a statement saying members of the Trump administration have a “complete lack of understanding” about the seriousness of their frequent attacks against the media.

“The president, and especially the White House press secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that,” Zucker said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded on Twitter, accusing Zucker of being divisive.

“[President Trump] asked Americans ‘to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the USA’ Yet you chose to attack and divide. America should unite against all political violence,” Sanders posted.

Pipe bombs ‘abhorrent’

Earlier, speaking at the White House, Trump said he was “extremely angry and unhappy” to learn about the packages containing pipe bombs, saying it was “abhorrent” and “despicable.”

Packages were also sent to a former attorney general, a Democratic Party member of Congress and a former director of the CIA, all of whom are prominent critics of his presidency.

“The safety of the American people is my highest priority,” Trump said during a White House event.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top two Democrats in Congress, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, accusing Trump of fanning the flames of political unrest.

“Time and time again, the president has condoned physical violence and divided Americans with his words and his actions,” they wrote, pointing to recent Trump campaign rallies where he has voiced support for a legislator who used physical violence against a reporter, and where he has branded the press as enemies of the people.

​Several packages

Within hours of the U.S. Secret Service announcing it had intercepted a package sent to Clinton in New York and one to Obama in Washington, the Time Warner Center in New York, where news network CNN has studios, was evacuated Wednesday morning after a suspicious package addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan was found in the mail room there.

A device that was contained in an envelope was safely transported from the site in a special truck by the city’s police department bomb squad. The addressee, Brennan, is a commentator on MSNBC, a rival cable news broadcaster.

‘An act to terrorize’

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray is terming the investigation the FBI’s highest priority.

“We have committed the full strength of the FBI’s resources and, together with our partners on our Joint Terrorism Task Forces, we will continue to work to identify and arrest whoever is responsible for sending these packages,” Wray said in a statement.

New York police officials said it appeared to be a live explosive device and the package it came in also contained a white powder.

“What we saw here today was clearly an act to terrorize,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, but stressed there were no other credible threats in New York City.

The police department in Sunrise, Florida, and the FBI are investigating a suspicious package found near a building containing the local office of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who formerly chaired the Democratic National Committee. News reports say the package was addressed to Eric Holder, the attorney general during the Obama administration but had a delivery issue and was returned to the listed sender, Wasserman Schultz.

All of the other suspicious packages also contained a printed label with the congresswoman’s name and address as the sender.

‘Troubling time’

The Secret Service says the package addressed to Clinton was discovered late Tuesday, intercepted at a mail screening facility near her home in a New York suburb where she lives with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Speaking on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton thanked the Secret Service for intercepting the package that was addressed to her.

“It is a troubling time, isn’t it? It’s a time of deep divisions and we have to do everything we can to bring our country together,” said the former secretary of state at an event in Florida.

​Packages intercepted

A separate package addressed to Obama, according to the Secret Service, was intercepted at a screening facility at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, a 365-hectare military facility in Washington.

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters was sent two suspect packages, one intended for her office in the nation’s capital and the other for her home district office. The first was intercepted at a congressional mail sorting center in the state of Maryland, and the second discovered by postal inspectors at the Los Angeles Central Mail Sorting Facility.

The first in the series of explosive devices was found Monday in a mailbox outside the home in the state of New York of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, a major donor to Democratic candidates.

The Secret Service said the packages addressed to Obama and Hillary Clinton “were immediately identified during routine mail screening procedures as potential explosive devices and were appropriately handled as such. The protectees [Obama and the Clintons] did not receive the packages nor were they at risk of receiving them.”

Officials say all of the explosive devices appear similar in construction.

VOA’s Masood Farivar and Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
…

President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to put an “extremely big dent” in the scourge of drug addiction in America as he signed legislation intended to help tackle the opioid crisis, the deadliest epidemic of overdoses in the country’s history. 

Nearly 48,000 people died last year from overdoses involving opioids. Overall, U.S. drug overdose deaths have started to level off, but Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says it’s too soon to declare victory. 

The legislation will add treatment options and get the U.S. Postal Service to screen overseas packages for a synthetic form of opioids called fentanyl that are being shipped largely from China. 

The measure mandates advance electronic data on all international packages, including those delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, and set deadlines for the screening to be put into place by the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection and the Postal Service. 

Past efforts

The Obama administration secured a commitment to expand treatment, and Congress provided $1 billion in grants to states. Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency and two major funding bills have passed under his watch. 

“My administration has also launched an unprecedented effort to target drug dealers, traffickers and smugglers,” Trump said. “We are shutting down online networks, cracking down on international shipments and going after foreign traffickers like never before.” 

The White House says the Justice Department has shuttered a large “Darknet” distributor of drugs, and in August indicted two Chinese nationals accused of manufacturing and shipping fentanyl and 250 other drugs to at least 25 countries and 37 states. 

Fentanyl is inexpensive but 50 times more powerful than heroin, according to Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who was recognized at the East Room event along with other lawmakers instrumental in getting the bill passed. 

Despite Trump’s calls for using the death penalty against major drug dealers, his administration has built on the treatment approach that Obama favored. 

The legislation covers not only opioids but also any kind of substance abuse. It expands Americans’ access to treatment and changes the law that prohibited Medicaid from reimbursing for residential treatment at certain facilities with more than 16 beds. 

Drug courts

It includes $60 million for babies born dependent on these drugs and authorizes a variety of programs, such as drug courts that work to get offenders into treatment instead of behind bars. 

“Together we are going to end the scourge of drug addiction in America,” Trump said. “We are going to end it, or we are going to at least put an extremely big dent in this terrible problem.” 

Trump also recognized more than 20 corporations for private sector commitments to fight the opioid crisis.
…

U.S. media reports say a suspected explosive device has been found near the home of Bill and Hillary Clinton in a New York suburb.

The New York Times is reporting the device found at the home of the former U.S. president and ex-secretary of state is similar to the one that was placed in a mail box outside the home of philanthropist George Soros earlier this week.

Details are still coming in.
…

While President Donald Trump repeatedly rails against a caravan of undocumented Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States, Democrats are sticking to poll-tested campaign issues like health care with fewer than two weeks to go before midterm elections that will determine which party controls both houses of Congress.

“The caravan — look, that is an assault on our country,” Trump said in Houston late Monday at a rally for Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “And in that caravan you have some very bad people. And we can’t let that happen to our country.”

In Virginia, Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart seized on the caravan to blast his opponent, Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine.

“Tim Kaine is inviting this invasion into our country,” Stewart tweeted. “@timkaine & his fellow socialists are openly calling for these invaders to violate our laws & smash through our borders.”

“The timing [of the caravan] works well for Republicans,” said Molly Reynolds, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “Republicans have been somewhat concerned about the level of enthusiasm among their base voters in 2018. So, in that sense, it [highlighting the migrant caravan] is really a tactic to motivate the base.”

‘Fear-mongering’

Many Democrats have not commented on the caravan other than to accuse Republicans of political games.

In a joint statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Trump “is desperate to change the subject from health care to immigration because he knows that health care is the number one issue Americans care about.”

The Democratic leaders added, “Democrats are focused like a laser on health care and will not be diverted.”

Asked about the caravan, California Democratic Senator Kamala Harris on Monday told reporters, “What the people of our country want is leaders who are focused on the challenges that they face every day … not vilifying some group for the sake of fear-mongering and politics.”

“What Democrats have decided to do in prosecuting the midterm campaign is focus on health care in particular and other issues that affect everyday Americans,” Reynolds said. “They have created a pretty sizable lead in generic ballot polls. So some Democrats ask, ‘Why change what’s been working so far?'”

Human rights groups dispute Trump’s assertions that the caravan includes criminals and Middle Easterners — claims for which he has provided no proof. Numerous migrants interviewed by reporters covering the caravan have maintained they seek a better and safer life in the United States.

The caravan and the election

Trump’s often stark and unsubstantiated pronouncements on illegal immigration helped propel him to the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and were credited with boosting Republican turnout in the general election, in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Reynolds said the president’s anti-caravan rhetoric may mobilize core Republican voters once again this year, but argued that images of the caravan blanketing American news channels call into question Trump’s warnings of a dire threat to U.S. security.

“It is worth noting that a lot of the images of the folks in the caravan are of women and young children who are fleeing violence. So it’s not entirely clear to me that people aren’t going to view them somewhat sympathetically, particularly after the crisis over the summer involving family separations at the [U.S.-Mexico] border.”

The caravan, and Trump’s statements about it, have received blanket coverage by some cable TV outlets and led many network news broadcasts in recent days, crowding out coverage of Democrats’ favorite themes ahead of the November elections. The trend has not gone unnoticed by some progressive and Democratically-aligned commentators.

“The saturation coverage of this caravan, based on Trump’s grotesque lies …is more grossly irresponsible than the panic-laced coverage of Ebola [cases in the United States] in 2014,” tweeted Brian Beutler, editor-in-chief of Crooked Media, a news and opinion website.

Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to highlight a drama-filled real-time event tied to America’s larger conversation about illegal immigration, an issue they believe puts Democrats on the defensive.

“You’re going to choose between Republicans who will secure the border, versus Democrats who want to open the border,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at the Cruz rally.
…

On a recent humid day in downtown Atlanta, dozens of voters gathered near the state capital to demand Brian Kemp step down as the state’s top election official. “No voter suppression in Georgia!” a middle-aged woman in sunglasses shouts to passing cars. “We will not have it!” 

Kemp serves as Georgia’s Secretary of State and is charged with overseeing the state’s elections. He’s also running to be the next governor of Georgia, and is being accused of blocking minority voters. “Brian Kemp has a really long history of suppressing the vote in Georgia, and it’s time that he needs to resign,” Maggie Chambers said. “Especially for an election when he is top of the ticket.” 

Chambers is a Democrat and works for Kemp’s opponent, Stacey Abrams. If elected, Abrams would be an historic choice: she would be the first black governor of Georgia, the first female governor of Georgia, and the first ever black, female governor to be elected in the United States. 

Abrams, a Yale Law School graduate, is one of three African-American gubernatorial candidates running to make history in their states. Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, is fighting to become the first black governor of Florida. And Ben Jealous, the former president and CEO of the NAACP, is running to become the first black governor of Maryland. 

“We have a chance to make history,” Abrams said to a cheering crowd when she won the Democratic nomination for governor in April. “To make sure no one is unseen, or unheard.”

Abrams formerly served in the Georgia legislature as a Democratic leader, and is running a campaign on issues such as expanding Medicaid and providing affordable education and earned income tax credits for low-income families. Kemp, however, calls Abrams “too extreme for Georgia” and is campaigning to cut state spending and crack down on crime and illegal immigration.

​”This is a fight for the soul of our state, a battle for our future,” has become Kemp’s campaign signature line. Kemp, a University of Georgia graduate, is a former small businessman who was involved in agriculture, financial services and real estate management.

Following an Associated Press report that revealed 53,000 Georgia voter registrations – most of them belonging to black voters – had been suspended under a controversial verification program, a coalition of civil rights groups sued Kemp in his official capacity as Secretary of State. Abram’s campaign called for Kemp to resign his position and do away with the “exact match” program, which voting rights advocates say places an unnecessary burden on primarily minority voters. 

“The Secretary of State’s office must do away with the discriminatory ‘exact match’ program and process all voter registrations immediately,” according to a statement from the Abrams campaign. “In addition, Brian Kemp needs to resign his position, so that Georgia voters can have confidence that their Secretary of State competently and impartially oversee this election.” 

Under the “exact match” program, residents wishing to vote must present identification that exactly matches that of their registration. The smallest mistake – a typo or a missing hyphen, for instance — means their registration is held up. 

They can, however, still vote. As a “pending voter” at the polls, they would have to provide a photo identification that “substantially” reflects the name on the voter registration form, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. 

“My opponent manufactured a ‘crisis’ to fire up her supporters and fundraise from left wing radicals throughout the country,” Kemp tweeted. “Her dark money voter registration group submitted sloppy forms. Now, they are faking outrage for political gain.”

Abrams is credited with registering tens of thousands of new minority voters through her non-profit, the New Georgia Project. She has previously declined to identify the donors funding her initiative, according to local media. 
…

The top Republican lawmaker on tax policy in the U.S. House of Representatives said Tuesday that he was working with the White House and Treasury to develop a new 10 percent middle-class tax cut plan that

President Donald Trump began touting over the weekend.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who chairs the tax-writing House

Ways and Means Committee, said the plan would be crafted in “coming weeks” and would advance in Congress if Republicans retained control of the House and Senate in midterm elections on Nov. 6.

“President Trump believes American families deserve to keep more of what they work so hard to earn. We agree,” Brady said in a statement.

In what is widely seen by lobbyists as the latest Republican campaign message on taxes, Trump told reporters on Tuesday at the White House that the plan would emerge soon.

“This will be on top of the tax reduction that the middle class has already gotten. And we’re putting in a resolution, probably this week,” the president said.

Surprised

Trump’s comments came a day after congressional and administrative staff appeared to be caught off guard by word of a new tax cut, which surfaced on Saturday.

The White House on Tuesday described the new tax cut as an agenda item for 2019 and suggested it could be offset by cuts in spending.

Republicans are in a pitched battle to retain control of the House and Senate against an energized Democratic voting base that has made contests competitive even in some Republican strongholds.

“What President Trump is doing on the [campaign] trail is he’s just describing what he wants to be in the tax bill that moves next year,” Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett told MSNBC on Tuesday. “You could expect in our budget, and also in our approach to legislation next year, that we’re going to be pursuing a big reduction in government spending.”

Trump signed steep tax cuts for businesses and individuals into law last December as part of a sprawling Republican tax overhaul. Stung by criticism that their tax plan shortchanged families by having individual tax cuts expire after 2025, House Republicans voted last month to make the individual cuts

permanent in a legislative package dubbed “Tax Reform 2.0.”

“Because of the fact that the economy is doing so well, we feel like we can give up some more. I couldn’t have gotten that extra 10 percent when we originally passed the [tax] plan. We maxed out,” Trump said.
…

The Trump administration appears determined to pull out of a key 1987 arms control agreement with Russia, in the wake of talks Tuesday between national security adviser John Bolton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by deploying missiles in Europe.

Bolton called Russian violations “long and deep.”

“The threat is is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed,” Bolton said. “The American position is that Russia is in violation. Russia’s position is that they are not in violation. So, one has to ask how to ask the Russians to come back into compliance with something that don’t think they are violating.”

Bolton told reporters after the talks that formal notice of a withdrawal would be filed “in due course.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

U.S. officials going back to the Obama administration have accused Russia of deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile to pose a threat to NATO.

Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF Treaty — did.

Bilateral treaties outdated?

Bolton hinted the INF deal with Russia might have run its course and that bilateral Cold War treaties might not apply to the current global security environment when other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, have also developed missiles.

Russia denies violating the INF pact and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe and other unprovoked steps that are in violation.

“On the coat of arms of the United States, there’s an eagle holding 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other,” Putin reminded Bolton. “My question is whether your eagle has gobbled up all the olives, leaving only the arrows.”

Bolton replied by saying he did not bring any more olives.

In more serious remarks, a Kremlin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF Treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

But both sides said Tuesday there was a need for dialogue and work on areas of mutual concern.

Bolton also said Tuesday that plans were being made for Trump and Putin to meet in Paris next month. Both leaders will be in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Previous summit

The last meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki in July turned out to be a bit of a domestic disaster for Trump. At a post-summit joint news conference, he appeared to accept Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contrary to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bolton said he also talked about Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He said such efforts do not affect the outcome of the vote and only create distrust between the U.S. and Russia. 

Bolton also laid three separate bouquets of flowers during his visit to Moscow — the traditional wreath at the World War II Memorial by the Kremlin wall; flowers to remember the victims of last week’s massacre of college students at the Black Sea port of Kerch; and flowers at the site near the Kremlin where Russian opposition leader and Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in 2015. 
…

Former President Barack Obama delivered a biting critique of Republicans in Washington and President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday but avoided mentioning his successor by name.

Obama, speaking at a rally in Las Vegas for Nevada Democrats, said Republicans had promised to “fight for the little guy” but instead helped corporations and sowed divisions in America.

Republicans in Congress “bend over backwards” instead of being “a check or a balance on this kind of corrupt politics,” the former president said.

Obama was in Nevada to drum up support for Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, who is in a tight race against incumbent Republican Sen. Dean Heller, and energize voters in the swing state who delivered big for Democrats in 2016 but stayed home during the midterm elections in 2014.

Obama, who won the state in 2008 and 2012, railed against the GOP tax law, efforts to repeal his Affordable Care Act, Trump’s attacks on the media, political pressure he’s put on U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Obama also criticized Heller, saying, “the current senator, he doesn’t seem to be willing to stand up to this. He just goes along, even when you get a sense he knows it’s not right.”

Rosen, a first-term congresswoman, is seen as one of Democrats’ best opportunities to flip control of a Senate seat, though the party faces slim chances of taking control of the Senate.

She narrowly won election to her Las Vegas-area district in 2014 and is taking on a politician who not only has already won a statewide election but has never lost an election despite serving nearly three decades in public offices.

Democrats are also in a close battle for the governor’s office, which will oversee state and federal redistricting occurring after the 2020 census.

Obama’s rally included specific appeals to young people and Latinos, key demographics who can boost Democrat numbers if they participate. The rally at a University of Nevada, Las Vegas arena included performances from hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa and Columbian reggaeton star J Balvin and a speech from actress America Ferrera.

Obama said not voting this November would be “profoundly dangerous to this country, to our democracy.” He also reminded the crowd that the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden occurred under his watch and that the economic recovery that Trump often takes credit for started during his administration.

“When you hear all this talk about economic miracles right now, remember who started it,” Obama said.

Obama also touted the campaigns of Nevada gubernatorial candidate Steve Sisolak and U.S. House candidates Susie Lee and Steven Horsford.

Though Obama used his speech to say Republicans are rolling back the progress his administration made, the GOP on Monday responded with an identical criticism of Obama and Democrats.

Keelie Broom, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said “Nevada saw some of its darkest days as a result of relentless government overreach advanced by the Obama administration.”

“We’ve made incredible strides thanks to President Trump and our GOP-led Congress, and it’s insulting for Barack Obama to come out here and try to rally support for candidates like Jacky Rosen, Steve Sisolak, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford who will work to systematically dismantle the policies generating all of this progress.”

The event followed visits over the weekend by his former Vice President Joe Biden, who rallied with Democrats outside a union hall in Las Vegas, and a rally in the rural town of Elko by President Donald Trump.

The former president has generally kept a low profile since leaving office and has been selective about campaigning for Democrats in this year’s midterm elections.

Obama endorsed candidates up and down the ballot around the country, but in September, he broke with the traditional deference that past presidents show successors and gave a sharp critique of Trump.

In subsequent appearances for Democrats in California, Ohio and Pennsylvania, he avoided a similar reproach and instead focused on urging people to vote.
…

A congressional race in one Illinois district pits two Indian Americans against each other. The Democrat incumbent was born in New Delhi before moving to the United States as an infant. His Republican opponent immigrated to America more than 20 years ago. But both men see the race as a battle between two Americans rather than Indian Americans. VOA’s Esha Sarai reports from Schaumburg, Illinois.
…

In an Illinois congressional district where just six percent of the constituency is Indian American, the incumbent Democrat Congressman is being challenged by another Indian American.

“I see it as American versus American,” Jitendra Diganvker, or “JD” — the Republican challenger for the Illinois 8th district, said.

“Yeah we happen to be Indian,” he added dismissively.

“It is a good thing that members of minorities are running as Democrats or as Republicans,” the incumbent Raja Krishnamoorthi said.

The Illinois 8th District is 51 percent Caucasian, 28 percent Hispanic,14 percent Asian, and four percent African-American, according to the most recent U.S. Census data. Of those Asians, about half are Indian, according to the campaigns’ estimates.

Views and policy

In this diverse district, voters care about issues more than identity.

“I don’t care about them being Indian American. I just hope that whichever one wins that they support and help the people,” said Michelle Sims, an employee at the DuPage Community College. “And if you’re Indian then, hey, that’s fine. Just help the people.”

A Jamaican-American university student, Amara Creighton, says she thinks it is great that two minority candidates are running and have support, regardless of their ethnicity.

“I think what’s more important is their views and their policies,” Creighton said. “I mean, it doesn’t really matter to me what their minority is as long as they’re standing up for us and doing good for us.”

This rare instance of two candidates of the same minority running against each other is reflective of a larger trend throughout the United States – record numbers of Indian Americans are running for office and winning their elections.

In 2016, four Indian Americans — one of them being Krishnamoorthi, were elected to the U.S. House and a fifth was elected to the Senate — outnumbering in just one election the total number of Indian Americans to serve as U.S. representatives.

Krishnamoorthi, a businessman and former deputy state treasurer, was elected to his first term in the House of Representatives in 2016. He succeeded Democrat Tammy Duckworth, who was elected that year to the U.S. Senate.

Diganvker is a small businessman, Uber driver, and ardent member of the local Republican party. As the underdog, he is running as a “day-to-day” guy, and says he decided to run because he feels his opponent is out of touch with middle-class, hardworking families in his community.

​But his opponent, who is completing his first term in Congress, says he is far from out of touch with his community. He visits each weekend to see his wife and children when Congress is in session.

Though both candidates are immigrants, their views on immigration policy differ. Krishnamoorthi, the Democrat, has been critical of Trump’s policies to decrease refugee allowances and speaks out against family separations at the border.

“We shouldn’t separate parents from children,” he told VOA. “That’s an abomination.”

Though Diganvker, too, opposes family separations at the border, he favors Trump’s promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico and supported the travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.

“I’m also an immigrant. I followed the legal process and I believe in merit-based immigration,” he said, adding that merit-based immigration “brings the right skill set of people into our country.”

Krishnamoorthi, however, said that his parents legal immigration to the United States has not hardened his immigration stance.

“The fact that my parents came here legally and someone [else] did not, doesn’t mean that we should be inhumane or disrespectful, doesn’t mean we should treat them with anything less than dignity,” he said.

Diverse constituency

Both Congressional candidates are Hindu, but have wooed members of various religions in the community.

“When you come to this country there is no race,” said Farrukh Khan, a Muslim halal-shop owner in Schaumburg. “We should not go for the race, we should go for the people who more care about you and your community. Hindu or Muslim doesn’t matter.”

​So as not to lose a customer, he did not indicate which man he will support in the November election.

Myrna Frankel has volunteered for Krishnamoorthi since his first campaign, an unsuccessful bid for Illinois comptroller in 2010. They know each other through the Jewish Beth Tikvah Congregation in Schaumburg where the congressman, who lives a few blocks away, sent his children for nursery school.

“He considers himself a JewDu – half Jewish, half Hindu,” she recounted with a laugh.

Myrna’s husband, Robert, said that this diversity and community relationships are typical of their community.

“Our state senator is from Mexico. Our state representative is from Puerto Rico. Our junior senator is of Thai background,” he said.

“We vote by the type of person and what that person can do and not by anything else,” he said.

When it comes to policy, voters in the Illinois 8th seem to heavily favor the incumbent. Early polling by Five Thirty Eight shows a “99% chance” that Krishnamoorthi will win. Rasmussen’s most recent poll shows a “Strong Dem” leaning in the midterm. As of June 30, Krishnamoorthi had raised more than $4 million compared to Diganvker’s $29,000.

But the challenger isn’t intimidated.

“People can give him $10 million and that’s not going to scare me,” he said, adding that despite recent polling, his campaign is “1,000 percent sure” that he will win in November.
…

To supporters of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, news of a caravan of Central American migrants heading to the U.S., just weeks before the U.S. mid-term elections, is a political gift.

“Politically speaking it’s probably going to be an election game changer, because nothing is more powerful, more potent than the idea of uncontrolled masses of people surging into your country,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for stricter enforcement policies to curb illegal immigration.

By Monday, the number of the migrants in the caravan had swelled to more than 7,000. Most are Hondurans. Many are hoping to seek asylum in the United States from the violence and poverty in their country. 

Over the weekend, thousands of migrants crossed Guatemala’s border into Mexico by breaking through fences, pushing by Mexican police in riot gear and refusing offers of aid and possible asylum in Mexico.

President Trump called the migrant caravan a “national emergency” in a tweet on Monday.

In other tweets he has threatened to cut off aid to the region, and to use the U.S. military to completely shut down the border with Mexico if the caravan is not stopped. And he implied that failing to prevent what he called an “assault on our country” could undermine his support for the recently renegotiated free trade agreement with Mexico. 

Election issue

Much of this rhetoric is political. The president is trying to make the migrant caravan a prominent election issue to underscore his tough immigration policies and his demand for building a wall along the U.S. Mexico border.

“The Democrats want caravans. They like the caravans,” said Trump at a political campaign rally in Nevada on Friday.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted over the weekend that the president is just trying to change the subject away from issues he sees as losing for Republicans.

Meanwhile, immigrant rights advocates are expressing concern for the safety and security of the migrant group, which includes women and children.

“I think the caravan becomes an excuse for the president to ratchet up his rhetoric that is quite hostile and demonizing of immigrants, and gets to take away their humanity,” said Royce Bernstein Murray, with the American Immigration Council.

Despite the rhetoric surrounding the migrant caravan, the American Immigration Council says illegal immigration levels into the U.S. are not increasing. It is just that now migrant groups are made up more of families fleeing violence in countries like Honduras, which has one of the world’s highest murder rate. And they tend to travel together for safety. During a caravan in April, the numbers of migrants decreased significantly as they got closer to the U.S. border.

​Unfortunate timing

There has also been speculation that caravan organizers may also be trying to gather large numbers of migrants to garner media coverage of the increasingly dangerous and impoverished situation in Central America, as well as for protection. 

Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke of the “apparent political motivation of some (caravan) organizers” without giving specifics.

By portraying the caravan as a looming illegal immigration onslaught, anti-immigrant activists hope to energize Republican voters who support tougher border security policies, and mitigate widespread criticism of Trump’s past policy of separating migrant families at the border.

“Trump is very successful at shifting blame, quite correctly, that the opposition to family detention to detaining minors, which created a short term public relations problem, in fact was the solution because of the deterrent value,” said Stein.

Immigrant advocates admit it is unfortunate the caravan may shift public focus away from the need to more fairly and humanely reform the immigration system and to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of poverty and violence. 

“The timing is tricky no doubt, and it does play into the rhetoric of “us versus them” scenario. My hope is that it also becomes an opportunity for us to focus on this issue,” said Bernstein Murray.
…

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says he told Russian officials that its meddling in the 2016 election did not affect the outcome but instead created distrust.

“The important thing is that the desire for interfering in our affairs itself arouses distrust in Russian people, in Russia. And I think it should not be tolerated. It should not be acceptable,” Bolton said Monday on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Bolton is in Moscow for talks with Russian leaders on President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of a 1987 arms control agreement.

Before joining the White House, Bolton called Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election an “act of war.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian election interference and allegations of collusion with the Trump campaign — allegations both Trump and Russia deny.

The U.S. has charged a number of Russian citizens and agents with election meddling.

Last week, the Justice Department charged a Russian woman with “information warfare” for managing the finances of an internet company looking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections.

The company is owned by a business executive with alleged ties to President Vladimir Putin.

The woman, Elena Khusyaynova, said Monday she is “shocked” by the charges against her. She calls herself a “simple Russian woman” who does not speak English.
…

President Donald Trump says the United States “will now begin cutting off or substantially reducing” the amount of foreign aid given to three Central American countries, saying they were “not able to do the job” of stopping migrants from leaving their countries and “coming illegally” to the U.S.

“Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador — they’re paid a lot of money,” Trump told reporters Monday afternoon. “Every year, we give them foreign aid. And they did nothing for us. Nothing. They did nothing for us. So, we give them tremendous amounts of money. You know what it is, you cover it all the time — hundreds of millions of dollars. They, like a lot of others, do nothing for our country.”

The president’s comments came as a group of several thousand migrants, mostly from Honduras, spent Sunday night in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula as they continued their trek toward the United States and away from what they say is unbearable violence and poverty at home.

Trump, in a tweet earlier in the day, claimed “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” the caravan.

Reporters traveling with the caravan say they have spotted no people from the Middle East in the group.

Asked by a reporter on the White House south lawn what evidence he had of Middle Easterners in the caravan, Trump replied, “I had reports, and they have a lot of everybody in the group. It’s a horrible thing, and it’s a lot bigger than 5,000 people, and we got to stop ’em at the border. And unfortunately, you look at the countries, they have not done their job.”

When pressed further about his assertion, Trump told journalists if they take their cameras into the caravan, “You’re going to find MS-13. You’re going to find Middle Eastern. You’re going to find everything. And guess what, we’re not allowing them in our country. We want safety.”

Two weeks ahead of U.S. congressional elections, Trump, a Republican, again laid the blame for the latest mass migration toward the southern U.S. border on opposition Democrats.

The United Nations refugee agency said it has 32 workers in Mexico to provide humanitarian assistance to the migrants and legal advice, with its local partners offering asylum information to those who want to stay.

The International Organization for Migration announced on Monday that large numbers of migrants arrived in Mexico, with many likely to remain for an extended period.

IOM estimates that more than 7,200 people are in the caravan, with many of them planning to continue their march northward.

Authorities in southern Mexico largely left the migrants alone Sunday as they walked toward the day’s destination in Chiapas state.

The Mexican government has pledged to process asylum requests for migrants who apply. The country’s interior ministry reported that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday a total 1,028 people had requested refugee status.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute said it reiterates its duty to safeguard the human rights of migrants who enter its territory.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an organization that helps the migrant caravans in Central America, said governments in the region have adopted “a policy of fear and racism imposed by the United States” and are not considering the reasons why people are seeking somewhere new to go.

“They are walking in mass exodus because they cannot live in their country anymore due to extreme violence, lack of opportunity, and the corruption and impunity that has expelled them from their homes,” the group said in a statement Sunday.

Mexico’s incoming president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told supporters at a rally Sunday in Chiapas he would be sending a letter to Trump proposing Mexico, the United States and Canada work together to invest in development in Central America to address poverty.

Lopez Obrador, who takes office December 1, said people who leave their home do so not because they want to, but out of necessity. He has pledged to offer migrants work visas, and said Sunday that Mexico has to guarantee human rights and that above all, the migrant families, women and children will have protection.

“Nothing bad will happen to the Central American migrants,” Lopez Obrador said.

Aid group Save the Children expressed concern Sunday about children who were sleeping outside in Tapachula and Suchiate either because places were full, or the children feared they would be detained once inside.

The group estimates one in four members of the caravan are children.
…

While domestic concerns dominate much of the political debate ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers say they are eager to assert themselves on foreign affairs and, when necessary, provide a check on the Trump administration if they win control of at least one chamber of Congress in November.

From trade to refugee quotas to regional concerns spanning the globe, a newly empowered Democratic majority would work energetically to hold the administration to account on its policies and potentially wield the power of the purse in areas of disagreement.

Republicans, who played a similar role for much of the previous Obama administration, are warning of a potential uptick in partisan discord on foreign policy, a realm that in past eras, such as the Cold War, often saw broad bipartisan consensus.

“The results of the election can create an opportunity to press issues in a way that, right now, can’t be done with Republican control of both the House and the Senate,” Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told VOA. 

“For example, our role in the world on refugees — this administration has dramatically cut back on refugees,” Menendez added. “And standing up for human rights and democracy — it doesn’t seem to be a significant priority, as it has been in other administrations, with the Trump administration.”

“We are the appropriators,” Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said of Democratic lawmakers. “So when the White House sends a budget up every year and they propose dramatically reduced funding for USAID [foreign assistance] or diplomacy, we will be able to continue to robustly fund those priorities.”

Power of the majority

Republicans don’t dispute that a new Democratic majority in either house of Congress would flex its muscles.

“The primary role of Congress is to fund the government, including the Department of Defense, and Democrats could have a direct impact,” the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said.

“The Democrats could do a great deal with power in Congress,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The president, by the Constitution, is granted diplomatic power. He’s also the commander-in-chief of the military, but only Congress can declare war. And also on many other issues, such as applying sanctions, Congress passes the laws.”

“You don’t need to worry about a dull period,” said national security expert Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I don’t know that control of both houses [of Congress] is the issue. I think it might well be the partisanship of both houses and how hard it may be to agree on anything, move things forward, and avoid turning every foreign policy issue into a partisan issue.”

Current polling suggests that Democrats are more likely to win a majority in the House of Representatives than the Senate.

Recent months provide examples of House bipartisanship on international matters as well as partisan divergence.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, and the panel’s top Democrat, Eliot Engel of New York, recently wrote a joint letter to President Donald Trump demanding “swift action” regarding the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Last month, however, Democrats took center stage in opposing the administration’s plan to provide $20 million to help Mexico deport Central American migrants passing through the country to reach the United States. In a statement, Engel labeled the plan “senseless” and an attempt “to use the State Department to force his [Trump’s] deportation crusade on other countries.”

Oversight role

A majority in either chamber of Congress would give Democrats broad power to scrutinize and draw attention to the administration’s decisions and initiatives on matters large and small.

“There are things I’d like to see done at the [Foreign Relations] committee that the Republican majority doesn’t have an interest in,” Menendez said. “For example, I get concerned about the allegations of political firings at the State Department. That is something I would press if we had a Democratic majority. I have a more robust view of oversight – we really don’t know, for the most part, what’s been happening in our engagement with North Korea.”

“A lot of Democrats are critical of President Trump on North Korea policy,” O’Hanlon said. “Certainly many Democrats think he’s been too friendly to Kim Jong Un or too unpredictable in his bluster and his tweets.”

O’Hanlon noted that Trump is constitutionally empowered to try to forge a nuclear treaty with North Korea, just as his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, pushed for an international nuclear accord with Iran. Ratification is another matter.

“Only the Senate can ratify treaties. Congress cannot write the treaty itself, only the executive can do that. But then the Congress has the power to say yea or nay,” O’Hanlon explained. “Ultimately it would be a question of whether Congress would bless any possible [North Korean nuclear] deal that required U.S. money or funds or a peace treaty.”

“Obviously the Democrats are going to pick at every possible weakness,” Cordesman said. “If the president is successful in dismantling the North Korean nuclear program, you might have some very loud Republican voices and some very silent Democratic ones. It’s going to depend on how people perceive the opportunity.”

A Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate could launch or reinvigorate investigations of the Trump administration, including its ties to Russia, an issue that is already the focus of a special counsel probe as well as bipartisan investigations by multiple committees on Capitol Hill. Republican and Democratic lawmakers also have joined forces to slap sanctions on Moscow for a variety of misdeeds.

Asked if a Democratic legislative majority would take an even tougher line with Russia, Kaine paused before answering.

“Certainly greater scrutiny,” the Virginia Democrat said. “You won’t see Congress turning a blind eye.”

“Russia is a place where it’s Donald Trump against the rest of the American foreign policy community, rather than President Trump against the Democrats,” O’Hanlon said. “Congress has been pretty adamant, both Democratic and Republican caucuses, against Russian behavior and anxious to apply punishment.”

Republican view

Regardless of the outcome of the elections, Republicans say lawmakers of both parties should work cooperatively with the administration on foreign affairs.

“There’s a lot going on in the world, so we need to try to be as unified as we can in working with the administration, rather than just joining the resistance,” Cornyn said. “There’s a lot of stake. I have not been encouraged by what we’ve seen of late. They [Democrats] seem more of the sand-in-the-gears mindset. This is a different political environment than any I’ve encountered during my adult life.”

Another Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, scoffed when asked about Democrats asserting themselves on global affairs.

“I don’t know what their foreign policy is,” Graham said. “I know what Trump’s is. But what is the Democratic view of foreign policy? I don’t think they have one. They don’t like Trump, but what are they for? Should we stay in Syria? Should we stay in Afghanistan? What should we do with Iran? These are things they never talk about.”

Military engagements

Kaine has long urged Congress to pass a new authorization for the use of military force in the war on terror, updating a law passed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“I hope, on matters like trade and declaration of war, Congress will haul back some of its [constitutional] power,” the senator said.

Cordesman said the next Congress will confront multiple questions about ongoing U.S. military engagements at a time when America’s fiscal situation is worsening.

“On defense policy, in terms of basic spending levels, things are now relatively non-partisan,” Cordesman said. “If it came to a major new commitment in Afghanistan, any dramatic action in Iraq or Syria, or humanitarian aid, a lot would be debated there. Government spending and money may be a much more sensitive issue. Republicans may favor defense spending, Democrats may have more support for foreign aid. But exactly what’s going to happen is pretty hard to tell.”

“My expectation is that in most foreign policy issues we would not see a Democratic House, even a Democratic Senate, making huge changes in U.S. foreign policy because, in some ways, they lack the means,” O’Hanlon said. “But even more importantly, as much as they complain about Mr. Trump’s style and worry about his overall steadiness, it’s not clear how many of his policies they fundamentally disagree with in a way that would create a consensus they could write into law and change the nation’s basic foreign policy course.”
…

When the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges detailing a yearslong effort by a Russian troll farm to “sow division and discord in the U.S. political system,” it was the first federal case alleging continued foreign interference in U.S. elections.

Earlier Friday, American intelligence officials released a rare public statement asserting that Russia, China, Iran and other countries are engaged in ongoing efforts to influence U.S. policy and voters in future elections.

The statement didn’t provide details on those efforts. That stood in contrast with the criminal charges, which provided a detailed narrative of Russian activities. Russian activities have also been outlined in previous criminal cases.

A look at what is known about foreign efforts to interfere in U.S. elections:

​What is the US worried about?

The U.S. has a lot of concerns: ballot tampering, hacking into campaigns, open and covert attempts to sway voters.

Friday’s announcement didn’t suggest that electoral campaigns or systems were compromised. Instead, it spelled out a focus on foreign campaigns aimed at undermining confidence in democratic institutions.

The criminal charges detailed how a Russian troll farm created thousands of false social media profiles and email accounts that appeared to be from people inside the United States. While social media companies are making an effort to combat fake accounts and bogus news stories ahead of the upcoming elections, there is a concern from advocates that it may not be enough to combat the foreign interference.

​Is Russia meddling in US elections?

The criminal complaint provided a clear picture that there is still a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on social issues such as immigration and gun control.

Prosecutors said a Russian woman, Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, worked for the same social media troll farm indicted earlier this year by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose office is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. The case largely mirrors the one brought by the special counsel’s office against three Russian companies, including the Internet Research Agency, and 13 Russians, including a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Court papers describe how the operatives in Friday’s case would analyze U.S. news articles and decide how they would draft social media messages about those stories.

They also show that Russian trolls have stepped up their efforts with a better understanding of the U.S. political climate and messages that are no longer riddled with misspellings.

In 2016, Russian trolls were trying to help elect Republican Donald Trump and harm the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton, while also sowing discord in America.

The latest charges show that Russia is continuing to focus on the latter, instead of helping a particular candidate. The case detailed how the operatives would often sent messages with diverging viewpoints about the same issue from different accounts.

​What about Iran?

The Trump administration has accused Iran of all kinds of misconduct, including sponsoring terrorism and posing a threat to Middle Eastern nations.

But it hasn’t released evidence to support its claim that Iran is trying to sway U.S. elections.

The U.S. has previously accused Iranians of cyberattacks that appear unrelated to politics.

In March, the Justice Department announced that nine Iranians carried out a yearslong cyberattack to steal secrets from American companies, universities and the government. Prosecutors said the hackers had worked at the behest of the Iranian government-sponsored Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Among the targets were employees at the Department of Labor, the Federal Regulatory Commission and the states of Indiana and Hawaii.

That case came about two years after the Justice Department indicted seven Iranian hackers for attacking dozens of banks and a small dam near New York City.

​What is the threat from China?

Earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence charged that Russia’s influence attempts pale in comparison to covert and overt activities taken by China to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections. He accused China of trying to counter the administration’s tough trade policies against Beijing.

While many details of Russia’s covert actions have been released, the accusations against China have been mostly about open activities such as advertising supplements and targeted tariffs. Unlike the accusations against Russia, no details about covert Chinese activities have been disclosed.

The vice president noted that a multipage advertising supplement was inserted several weeks ago in the Des Moines Register in Iowa, a pivotal state in this year’s elections and the 2020 presidential election. The supplement “designed to look like news articles, cast our trade policies as reckless and harmful to Iowans,” Pence said.

He also charged that China responded to Trump’s tough trade policies with tariffs of its own designed to inflict maximum political damage.

Tensions between the U.S. and China have been high because of trade disputes, and Trump frequently criticizes China.

​Are foreign threats having an impact?

That remains unclear.

Intelligence officials have stressed that Americans should take steps to verify the information they read on social media and have called on technology companies to boost protections.

The national security agencies said they currently do not have any evidence that voting systems have been disrupted or compromised in ways that could result in changing vote counts or hampering the ability to tally votes in the midterms, which are 2½ weeks away.

“Some state and local governments have reported attempts to access their networks, which often include online voter registration databases, using tactics that are available to state and nonstate cyber actors,” they said.

But so far, they said, state and local officials have been able to prevent access or quickly mitigate these attempts.
…

Campaigning on opposite sides of a pivotal Senate race, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden appealed to party loyalists in Nevada as early voting began Saturday in the state.

Wrapping up a three-day visit to Western states with midday rally in rural Elko, Trump lent support for Dean Heller, considered the most vulnerable GOP senator on the Nov. 6 ballot as Republicans hope to retain their Senate majority. The GOP-leaning region of the battleground state is crucial to Trump’s hopes of protecting or expanding Republicans’ 51-49 edge in the Senate.

“If you want to protect America’s laws, borders, sovereignty and even your dignity, you need to go out today and vote,” Trump said as he asked supporters to raise their right hands in a pledge to go to the polls.

​Biden: big election

A short time earlier and 400-plus miles south, Biden headlined a Las Vegas rally at a union local to promote Heller’s challenger, Rep. Jacky Rosen, and other Democratic candidates, as he encouraged Nevada residents to get out and vote.

“This election is literally bigger than politics. It’s bigger than politics,” Biden said. “No matter how old or young you are, you have never participated in an election that is as consequential as this election national and locally.”

Trump struck much the same theme throughout the week, as he has tried to frame the choices for voters in the upcoming election. He has sought to focus on immigration as one of the defining election issues and has falsely accused Democrats of wanting “open borders” and encouraging illegal immigration.

“They’ve gone loco,” Trump said.

Trump mocks 

Trump referenced Biden’s appearance in Las Vegas, mocking the smaller crowd drawn by his potential 2020 rival, compared with the thousands he gathered on an airport tarmac in the more sparsely populated part of the state.

Trump deployed a refrain he had fine-tuned during his Western swing, declaring that “Democrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs.”

“That’s called hashtag,” he said to the crowd. “That’s a new hashtag. That’s a hot one.”

Trump branded Heller’s opponent “Wacky Jacky,” as he sought to cast Rosen as beholden to Democratic coastal elites, including Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Biden talks American values

In Las Vegas, Biden criticized Trump for his approach to Russia and President Vladimir Putin, his equivocating on white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his immigration policies, including the separation of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border

American values, “are being shredded,” Biden said. “They’re being shredded by a president who is all about himself. It’s all about Donald.”

In a tweet before leaving Arizona, Trump called Heller “a man who has become a good friend” and said he needed the senator’s “Help and Talent in Washington.”

Trump and Heller

Trump praised Heller for his votes for conservative Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The later faced allegations of decades-old sexual assault during his confirmation hearings, prompting impassioned Senate hearings and fraught votes.

“We stuck with Justice Kavanaugh, because he was the right man,” Trump said.

But Heller himself once had rocky relations with Trump and had returned a campaign donation from then-candidate Trump over Trump’s immigration rhetoric. Last year, Trump threatened Heller’s re-election chances when the senator held up GOP efforts to repeal the Obama-era health law. But Heller has since become an ally of the president, who has made two fundraising stops for him in Nevada this year already.

Heller and Rosen held their first and only debate of the campaign Friday. Heller accused her of making a visit to see separated families at the U.S.-Mexico border in order to stage a “photo-op,” while she described Heller a “rubber-stamp” for Trump, whose tax plan she said benefits the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

In a further sign of the state’s importance in the midterms, former President Barack Obama scheduled a stop Monday in Las Vegas.

He won Nevada in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and Democrat Hillary Clinton carried the state by 2 percentage points over Trump in 2016. But during the last midterm elections in 2014, many Democrats stayed home and Republicans won key races across the state, which has a 29 percent Latino population.

Immigration

The country’s immigration system has long vexed politicians from both parties, and Republicans themselves have torpedoed near-compromises in recent years. Yet Trump tweeted Saturday that “we could write up and agree to new immigration laws in less than one hour” if Democrats “would stop being obstructionists and come together.”

“Call me,” he told the Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. It seemed reminiscent of the time last year when Trump cracked open the door of bipartisanship with those leaders, who emerged from a White House meeting to say Trump had agreed to work toward a deal on protection young immigrants. But no agreement came to pass.

The Biden-Trump circling of one another in the same state happened recently in Kentucky, where Biden campaigned for a Democratic congressional candidate on a Friday night and Trump held a rally the next evening.
…

Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

“It gives the people who are seeking agency a little bit of chance to have that back,” Madara said. The ritual was to be livestreamed on Facebook and Instagram at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday (1200 GMT Sunday).

Seated at a desk phone among bird skulls and crystal balls at Catland Books, the occult shop she co-owns, Madara said the Kavanaugh hex is expected to be the most popular event the store has hosted since its 2013 opening, including spells aimed at President Donald Trump. Madara declined to provide details of what the latest ritual will entail.

More than 15,000 people who have seen Catland Books promotions on Facebook have expressed interest in attending the event, vastly exceeding the shop’s 60-person capacity.

​Irate, threatening calls

Not everyone is a witchcraft fan. Madara said she had fielded numerous irate calls from critics, with at least one threatening violence. 

“Every time we host something like this there’s always people who like to call in with death threats or read us scripture,” she said.

As far as supporters go, some are sexual assault survivors still angry that the U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court despite accusations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations, and an FBI investigation failed to corroborate his accusers’ accounts.

Democrats hope lingering outrage over Kavanaugh, particularly among women, will translate into election gains for them Nov. 6. Republicans are likewise trying to seize on anger among conservatives at how they perceive Kavanaugh was mistreated.

Counter hexes and prayers

Believers in mysticism on both sides of the political divide are taking matters into their own hands.

Plans for the Catland Books event have sparked “counter hexes” around the country by those seeking to undo the spell that the Brooklyn witches cast against Kavanaugh, Madara said.

Even mainstream clergy was joining the fray. Rev. Gary Thomas of the Diocese of San Jose in California said Friday that he would include Kavanaugh in his prayers at Saturday mass.
…

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would pull the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia had violated the agreement, but he provided no details of the violations.

The 1987 pact, which helps protect the security of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Far East, prohibits the United States and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles.

“Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years,” Trump said after a rally in Elko, Nevada. “And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.”

The agreement has constrained the U.S. from developing new weapons, but America will begin developing them unless Russia and China agree not to possess or develop the weapons, Trump said. China is not currently party to the pact.

“We’ll have to develop those weapons, unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to us and say let’s really get smart and let’s none of us develop those weapons, but if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it, and we’re adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable,” he said.

National security adviser John Bolton was headed Saturday to Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. His first stop is Moscow to meet with senior Russian officials at a time when Moscow-Washington relations remain frosty over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race and upcoming U.S. midterm elections.

There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin or the Russian Foreign Ministry on Trump’s announcement.

​Back to cold war

“We are slowly slipping back to the situation of cold war as it was at the end of the Soviet Union, with quite similar consequences, but now it could be worse because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin belongs to a generation that had no war under its belt,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent Russian political analyst. “These people aren’t as much fearful of a war as people of [former Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev’s epoch. They think if they threaten the West properly, it gets scared.”

U.S. officials have previously alleged that Russia violated the treaty by deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile in order to pose a threat to NATO. Russia has claimed that U.S. missile defenses violate the pact.

The administration of former President Barack Obama worked to persuade Moscow to respect the INF treaty but made little progress.

“If they get smart and if others get smart and they say let’s not develop these horrible nuclear weapons, I would be extremely happy with that, but as long as somebody’s violating the agreement, we’re not going to be the only ones to adhere to it,” Trump said. 
…

Alaska Governor Bill Walker, a political independent, halted his re-election campaign Friday and endorsed his Democratic challenger, ending a three-way race in which the Republican candidate had appeared to possess an insurmountable lead.

With 18 days remaining before the Nov. 6 election, Walker, 67, said he concluded that he could not win a second term in a race against former U.S. Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat, and former state legislator Mike Dunleavy, a Republican.

Walker’s withdrawal came three days after his former running mate, Byron Mallott, abruptly resigned as lieutenant governor over admitted but unspecified “inappropriate comments” in a scandal that threw the governor’s campaign into disarray.

Republican well ahead in polls

But public opinion surveys were already showing Dunleavy well ahead of the two other men and indicated Begich had greater support than the incumbent governor.

Consulting for days on whether Walker or Begich had a better shot at running a competitive race against Dunleavy, the “determination was made that, at this point, Begich has the better odds,” the governor said in a statement posted on his campaign’s website.

Walker also said Begich’s positions on various key issues “more closely align with my priorities for Alaska,” including their support for Medicaid expansion in Alaska and state action on climate change. Dunleavy opposes both.

“Today’s developments leave Alaska voters with a clear choice,” Dunleavy’s campaign said after learning Walker halted his re-election campaign.

A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, Dunleavy has focused his campaign on criticizing Walker for reducing the annual oil-fund dividends all Alaska residents receive.

Walker has said limiting the payout was necessary to address big budget deficits. Dunleavy has advocated deeper spending cuts and more oil and mining development.

The latest announcement came at the annual convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives, a powerful constituency in the state, just before Walker, Begich and Dunleavy were all scheduled to participate in a gubernatorial debate.

Begich and Walker, whose name will remain on the ballot despite his withdrawal, were widely seen as likely to take votes away from each other in a three-way race.

Walker a former Republican

Walker changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent before launching his successful 2014 campaign for governor on a “unity” ticket with Mallot, a Democrat, as his running mate.

In his remarks at the Alaska Federation of Natives conference, Walker said his supporters would have to decide for themselves who they favored in a two-man race but said he planned to vote for Begich.

Walker’s campaign spokesman previously acknowledged that representatives for the governor and Begich had been in talks on a “path forward” even before Mallott stepped down from office.
…

Saudi Arabia has admitted that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is dead. Saudi state-run media says Khashoggi died after an altercation in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and it is promising a one-month investigation. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department on the dramatic developments in Riyadh.
…

A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of some 75,000 people, officials said Friday.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time agencies often use to release unfavorable developments.

Officials said the hacked system was shut down and technicians are working to restore it before sign-up season starts Nov. 1 for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

About 10 million people have private coverage under former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Consumers applying for subsidized coverage have to provide extensive personal information, including Social Security numbers, income, and citizenship or legal immigration status.

The system that was hacked is used by insurance agents and brokers to directly enroll customers. All other sign-up systems are working.

CMS spokesman Johnathan Monroe said “nothing happened” to the HealthCare.gov website used by the general public. “This concerns the agent and broker portal, which is not accessible to the general public,” he said.

Federal law enforcement has been alerted, and affected customers will be notified and offered credit protection.

President Donald Trump promised to repeal “Obamacare” but failed.
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A gleaming new $3.2 billion railway cuts in half the travel time from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, to the coast. Major investments in transportation, energy and maritime infrastructure are turning Pakistan into a major economic corridor. A new industrial zone in Thailand boasts solar, rubber and industrial manufacturing plants and is slated to host 500 companies by 2021.

All are parts of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, featuring billions of dollars in infrastructure investment across Asia, Africa and the Pacific. The global impact is forcing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to rethink elements of its plan to cut back on foreign assistance under an “America First” strategy.

When “very senior people” in the administration traveled abroad and “saw that China was eating our lunch, they thought to themselves, ‘We have to do something,’ ” said Daniel Runde, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

And in a number of quiet moves affecting private investment, humanitarian aid and women’s empowerment abroad, the administration and the U.S. Congress have been doing just that.

Major policy reversal

In what is being seen as a major policy reversal, Trump this month signed the so-called BUILD Act, described by the nonpartisan CSIS as “the most important piece of U.S. soft power legislation in more than a decade.”

The new law merges and boosts agencies and programs that had once been targeted for deep budget cuts, creating a new entity tasked with providing loans, political-risk insurance and equity stakes to U.S. firms investing in developing countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia.

The agency will be known as the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., or USIDFC, and have a $60 billion budget. It will absorb the existing Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) and more than double that agency’s current budget of $29 billion.

The USIDFC is “a much-needed instrument of commercial diplomacy that the U.S. has been sorely lacking,” said Witney Schneidman, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, in a recent blog post for the Brookings Institution.

In a follow-up phone interview, Schneidman said he thought the new agency would help “get U.S. companies interested in Africa on its own merit. … It does put the U.S. on level with the Chinese” by matching Beijing’s policy of making equity investments in companies seeking to do business overseas.

​Dwarfed by China

Even at $60 billion, the new U.S. program will be dwarfed by Chinese investments in Asia and Africa. But Brookings analyst George Ingram said its impact can be magnified by partnering with other international lending organizations.

“The French, the British, the Scandinavians – they all have similar organizations,” Ingram said. “And now that the [USIDFC] has equity authority, this new entity will be able to be a much more effective partner than OPIC could be.”

The BUILD Act has its critics, especially among free-market conservatives who believe the government should not get involved in private business decisions.

“The idea of equity participation was kind of sold politically that it was going to be the U.S. responding to China’s One Belt, One Road [initiative] and yet there was no mention of China in the legislation at all,” James M. Roberts, an editor for the Washington-based Heritage Foundation’s annual “Index of Economic Freedom,” told VOA in an interview.

By ensuring equity stakes, “that means the government is going to be a shareholder in foreign companies,” added Roberts, who has listed a potential for “cronyism and misallocation of capital” among his concerns.

Advocates of the plan include Mark Green, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose Development Credit Authority is being folded into the USIDFC. By encouraging U.S. private investment abroad, he has said, the new enterprise will “spur economic growth in less developed countries and advance the foreign policy interests of the United States.”

Interviewed last week for VOA’s “Plugged In With Greta Van Susteren,” Green, a former Republican congressman who later served as ambassador to Tanzania, said there’s a “fundamental difference” between U.S. and Chinese approaches to development abroad.

China favors loans that can include “unsustainable financing that mortgages a country’s future,” he said. In contrast, USAID expects recipients to implement reforms. 

“We ask them to respect certain rights and values. What we want for them is to become eventual trading partners, but equal partners,” Green added.

Other measures

The Trump administration has demonstrated a renewed openness to international aid in other ways as well, including a recent five-year extension to an anti-hunger measure known as the Global Food Security Act. It supports USAID programs such as Feed the Future initiative. It partners with governments, NGOs, private enterprise and others “to strengthen agricultural markets and then entire food systems,” said Beth Dunford, who oversees the initiative.

Pending in Congress, meanwhile, is the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act, aimed at improving women’s access “to economic participation and opportunity.”

It calls for supporting women’s property and inheritance rights and ending gender-based violence. It also requires that USAID integrate efforts to empower women in all of its programs, and it broadens support for women-run small- and medium-size businesses.

The bill, which enjoys bipartisan backing, is being promoted by first daughter Ivanka Trump. She tweeted her thanks this week to four members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for advancing the bill.

“Women’s economic empowerment doesn’t always get a lot of attention in Congress, so this bill is something we’re quite excited about,” said Nicole Ellis, who manages policy communications for the international relief agency CARE.

Gayatri Patel, CARE’s senior policy advocate, said the agency is working closely with legislators, noting they want “practical recommendations and approaches.”

That might include endorsing approaches such as the Village Savings and Loan program that CARE started in Niger in 1991. “You get women in a community to save, they give each other loans,” Patel said. “It’s really an entry point for women for more formal economic endeavors … to start businesses or pay for their children’s education, to connect with the market and mentor or be mentored by others in the community.”

The goal, she said, is to encourage aid that has “a catalytic effect on women, their families and their communities.”
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In the battle for Congress, Democrats are winning the money game. But will it be enough for them to overtake Republicans?

In what is shaping up to be the most expensive U.S. congressional election in history, Democrats have had a distinct advantage in fundraising over Republicans throughout the midterm election cycle as they seek to break the GOP’s stranglehold on Congress.

While Republicans are widely expected to preserve their slim 51-to-49-seat majority in the U.S. Senate and possibly expand it, polls show the Democrats poised to take back the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in seven years. Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to retake the House.

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On the ballot

All 435 House seats as well as 35 of 100 Senate seats will be on the ballot next month. Candidates vying for those coveted seats have raised a record $2.3 billion from individual donors and political action committees (PACs) through Sept. 30, according to the latest filings this week with the Federal Election Commission.

Overall, Democrats outraised Republicans by an unprecedented $411 million. In House races, Democratic candidates raised more than $850 million from individuals and PACs, compared with $576 million generated by Republicans. In Senate contests, Democrats hauled in nearly $490 million, compared with $337 million garnered by Republicans.

The average House campaign spends a little more than $1 million during a two-year election cycle, yet 30 Democrats have raised more than $2 million each so far this cycle.

In the most expensive non-special House race this cycle, a closely fought contest in Southern California between Republican Young Kim and Democrat Gil Cisneros has cost more than $20 million. Among Senate contests, the most expensive race is between incumbent Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who have raised a combined total of nearly $100 million.

Republicans fared as well or better than the Democrats in raising campaign cash from corporate PACs, those high-powered fundraising operations with minimal disclosure requirements or spending restrictions. But the Democrats crushed Republicans in raising individual contributions through the internet or campaign fundraising events. O’Rourke, a U.S. House member from El Paso, Texas, reported last week that he had raised a record $30 million during the third quarter from 800,000 contributors.

Federal campaign finance law prevents individuals from contributing more than $2,700 to a congressional campaign committee in any one election, while allowing traditional political action committees to donate up to $5,000. However, so-called independent-expenditure committees, or “super PACS,” can raise and spend unlimited amounts to advance their causes or political parties.

“There is a tremendous amount of small-dollar energy going on the Democratic side,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“Democratic House candidates are raising small-dollar donations from donors across the country, who are doing what they can trying to win the House back for Democrats. Republicans are trying to counteract that with third-party groups and outside spending.”

​Fundraising edge, cash on hand

Moreover, Democratic challengers have outraised Republican opponents in a majority of several dozen House races seen as highly competitive. And as the campaign enters its final two weeks, data show Democrats have more cash on hand than Republicans, something that will allow them to fund a last-minute push to mobilize voters.

Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization, said the Democrats’ enormous fundraising edge is “fairly significant and fairly unusual.”

“The trend with election spending is just almost always up due to a variety of factors,” Bryner said. “But this election cycle we have a huge crop of well-funded Democratic challengers and that’s going to increase spending across the board as the incumbents they’re facing try to counteract that spending.”

Money is the lifeblood of American campaigning. Candidates and their consultants use funds to buy expensive TV airtime, pay for personnel and other campaign expenses, and hold events to raise more funds. Advertising represents the single largest expense of a congressional campaign.

Money will continue to pour in throughout the last two weeks of the campaign, helped by some deep-pocketed benefactors seeking to tip the balance in key races.

Last week, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he was giving $20 million to the Democrats’ Senate super PAC. Most of the money will go toward buying TV airtime for embattled Democratic candidates. That brings to nearly $100 million the amount the billionaire businessman has contributed to the Democrats this cycle, making him one of the largest donors.

“Given the rise of super PACs in the post-Citizens United era, it’s possible for people to make those huge donations late in the game,” Bryner said, referring to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that found spending limits on outside organizations unconstitutional.

“Right now, this is the Wild West in the United States,” said Martin Frost, a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and now president of the bipartisan Association of Former Members of Congress. “People can put as much money as they want in politics. Some of that money is disclosed and some of it is not.”

With Republican incumbents struggling in several dozen key races, party leaders and groups have begun to cut their losses, pulling funding from races they think the Democrats will win and reallocating resources to more competitive contests.

In its first act of triage in late September, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, canceled a planned $3.1 million ad buy in two districts in Michigan and Colorado where the Republican incumbents are struggling, the Associated Press reported. That was followed by similar moves in several other congressional districts.

​Infusions of cash or pulling the plug

Parties perform spending triage all the time. But the infusion of cash, such as Bloomberg’s $20 million donation, has put added pressure on the Republicans to pull the plug on uncompetitive races.

“What happens is races that are at the margins, where it’s just going to be a tough slog regardless, they’ll pull out of those races … and they’ll reallocate those resources into races where that $20 million by Bloomberg now may make a difference,” said Michael Steele, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Just how much of a difference the Democrats’ money advantage will make remains to be seen. Money is not always a guarantor of electoral success.

In the 2016 presidential election, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suffered an upset despite spending $387 million more than billionaire businessman Donald Trump. In a special election for a congressional seat in Georgia last year, Democrat Jon Ossoff lost to Republican Karen Handel despite a $20 million fundraising advantage.

And O’Rourke’s massive fundraising advantage has failed to cut into Cruz’s substantial seven-point lead in the U.S. Senate race in Texas.

“A lot of people make a big deal about money and sort of think that’s the dark angel of American politics, but I can tell you there are … as many races there where the person with the most money loses as there are where that individual wins,” Steele said. “So at the end of the day, candidates still have to make a credible message, they still have to be credible themselves for the voters … to actually utilize the benefit of those dollars that are getting poured into that campaign.”
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With the US midterm elections weeks away, Democrats have gained the upper hand in fundraising. Analysts say anti-Trump sentiment may be fueling record election contributions as Democrats seek to break the GOP’s hold in Congress. As VOA’s Masood Farivar reports, the 2018 midterms are shaping up to be the most expensive U.S. congressional election in history. But some wonder if rising Democratic campaign contributions is enough to unseat enough Republicans and take majority control of Congress.
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