President Donald Trump has followed through on pledges to roll-back Obama-era rules that tightened restrictions on greenhouse gases, promising the moves would lead to more American jobs and economic growth. Trump’s proposal includes loosening restrictions to the American Clean Cars Standards and the Clean Power Plan. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
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The National Enquirer has long explained its support for Donald Trump as a business decision based on the president’s popularity among its readers. But private financial documents and circulation figures obtained by The Associated Press show that the tabloid’s business was declining even as it published stories attacking Trump’s political foes and, prosecutors claim, helped suppress stories about his alleged sexual affairs.

The Enquirer’s privately held parent company, American Media Inc., lost $72 million for the year ending in March, the records obtained by the AP show. And despite AMI chairman David Pecker’s claims that the Enquirer’s heavy focus on Trump sells papers, the documents show that the Enquirer’s average weekly circulation fell by 18 percent to 265,000 in its 2018 fiscal year from the same period the year before, the greatest percentage loss of any AMI-owned publication. The slide follows the Enquirer’s 15 percent circulation loss for the previous 12 months, a span that included the presidential election.

More broadly, the documents obtained by the AP show that American Media isn’t making enough money to cover the interest accruing on its $882 million in long-term debt and that the company expects “continued declines in circulation and advertising revenues” in the current year. That leaves AMI reliant on debt to keep its operations afloat and finance a string of recent acquisitions that are transforming the tabloid news industry.

New Jersey creditors

That creditor backstopping AMI is a New Jersey investment fund called Chatham Asset Management. Its top executive dined with Pecker and Trump at the White House last year, and the fund has both a history of Republican political donations and ties to the administration of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, which awarded it hundreds of millions of dollars in state retirement funds to manage.

AMI’s current debts stem from the declining fortunes of the magazine industry and a series of acquisitions. Chatham has kept this number from ballooning further by converting some of the debt it is owed into shares in the company.

Hush money allegations

The publisher’s precarious financials and reliance on Chatham are a backdrop to the publisher’s growing entanglement in a federal investigation of allegations of hush money payments and violations of campaign finance laws.

Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last week to criminal violations of campaign laws, accepting prosecutors’ claim that he, Trump and the National Enquirer were involved in buying the silence of an adult-film actress and a former Playboy model who claim to have had affairs with Trump. Pecker and his top editorial deputy, Dylan Howard, have received immunity in exchange for their cooperation. Along with Cohen, they are among the latest longtime Trump loyalists to be swept up in the federal investigations engulfing the president and his inner circle.

Neither AMI nor company officials have been charged in the case.

AMI did not provide an on-the-record response to detailed questions from the AP sent to Howard, Pecker and its outside spokesman. But a confidential financial document obtained by the AP argues that investors should focus on its current cash flows and not its profitability. Over the last two years, it has generated a combined $12 million cash flow from operations even as it has posted $160 million in overall losses.

AMI also recently announced efforts to refinance as much as $450 million in debt. Despite the company’s recent purchases of US Weekly and rival gossip publisher Bauer Media, revenue from AMI’s existing publications continues to drop, the financial report obtained by the AP shows.

Trump’s ‘a personal friend of mine’

Pecker has long maintained an aura of absolute control over the Enquirer and its sister publications, boasting of his willingness to spend AMI’s money to benefit Trump.

“The guy’s a personal friend of mine,” he told The New Yorker magazine last summer, explaining why AMI paid former Playmate Karen McDougal $150,000 in a deal that prevented her from going public with her claim that she’d had an affair with Trump.

Owned by management firm

But Pecker owns only a small fraction of AMI, around 8 percent, according to the company. More than 80 percent of AMI, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of its debt, belongs to Chatham Asset Management, with billionaire investor Leon Cooperman owning an additional 7 percent.

Chatham declined to address questions about the Enquirer’s relationship with Trump or the future of its investment in AMI. But the firm released a statement saying Chatham “has no involvement in the editorial process or the day-to-day business decisions of the company.”

Among Chatham’s largest investors, according to public records, is New Jersey’s public pension fund. Chatham manages investment decisions for more than $300 million in pension holdings for the state.

Asked about AMI’s alleged involvement with campaign finance law violations and hush money payments, state Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino told the AP that “we expect our investment partners to invest in good businesses with strong management teams that follow all applicable laws.” She declined to say whether New Jersey had discussed AMI with Chatham, but said, “We are in regular contact with our investment partners regarding underlying portfolio companies and we provide feedback when appropriate.”

The confidential financial document obtained by the AP states that AMI’s $882 million in long-term debt owed to creditors as of March is a competitive disadvantage that may compromise its ability to launch new projects, borrow additional money or even pay for “general corporate requirements.”

​Trump concern

While the details of AMI’s financial difficulties described in the confidential document haven’t been previously reported, the prospect that Pecker and AMI might not protect Trump’s secrets forever has long been a concern. Trump and Cohen even discussed the possibility that the ties between Trump and the National Enquirer might someday unravel.

In July, Cohen released an audio recording in which the men discussed plans to buy McDougal’s story of an affair with Trump from the National Enquirer. Such a purchase was necessary, they suggested, to prevent Trump from having to permanently rely on a tight relationship with the tabloid.

“You never know where that company — you never know what he’s gonna be,” Cohen says.

“David gets hit by a truck,” Trump says.

“Correct,” Cohen replies. “So, I’m all over that.”

According to the documents accompanying Cohen’s guilty plea last week, Trump’s purchase of McDougal’s story never occurred.
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White House counsel Don McGahn, criticized by allies of President Donald Trump for extensively cooperating with the special counsel, will soon leave his job after months of speculation that he was on his way out.

Trump announced the development on Twitter.

Trump said McGahn will oversee the inside Washington campaign to win Senate confirmation next month of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

McGahn has been shepherding Kavanaugh to senators’ offices in recent weeks for lengthy introductory meetings with the lawmakers ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that start next Tuesday. The White House is hopeful the Senate will confirm Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination in time for him to join the court when its new term starts October 1.

Wednesday’s announcement comes amid reported tension between Trump and McGahn, who is said to have been interviewed several times by investigators working for special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is seeking to determine whether the president obstructed justice in the probe of ties between Trump’s election campaign and Russia.

Reports said McGahn answered questions about many of the inside-the-White House events related to actions that Trump has taken, although McGahn’s lawyer said he did not implicate the president in wrongdoing.

Exasperation with Trump’s temper prompted McGahn to nickname the president “King Kong,” according to a recent article in The New York Times.

“McGahn’s relationship with the president has been strained for quite a while due to the ongoing Russia probe,” Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, told VOA.

“His likely successor, Emmet Flood, is far better suited experience-wise to lead the legal response” to the special counsel’s requests, said Moss, the deputy executive director of the James Madison Project.

McGahn has been viewed inside the White House and among conservatives as a critical member of Trump’s team, leading the successful effort to put like-minded judges on federal benches and cutting government regulation.

McGahn “has been very effective at implementing the president’s priority of appointing highly qualified judges who have a traditional, modest understanding of their role in our system of government,” according to Thomas Jipping, deputy director for legal and judicial studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“That process has a lot of moving parts and political volatility, but Don has stayed on target and kept it moving,” Jipping told VOA.

The White House counsel was asked by the president in June of 2017 to fire Mueller. According to media reports McGahn, who had been the Trump campaign and transition team top lawyer, refused and threatened to resign.

The 50-year-old former chair of the Federal Election Commission would become the latest in a long line of officials who have left Trump’s 19-month presidency, either officials who have been fired, pushed out or voluntarily departed.

His departure will come as the White House prepares for a likely onslaught of congressional investigations if the Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the November midterm election.

VOA’s Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
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A Florida congressman with strong backing from U.S. President Donald Trump and an African-American mayor who thinks Trump ought to be impeached are set to square off in the November election for the Florida governorship in the key political battleground state.

The coming political contest between Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis, who has Trump’s staunch support, and Democrat Andrew Gillum, now mayor of the state capital of Tallahassee, was set Tuesday when both won their parties’ primary elections.

DeSantis had been expected to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination, but Gillum pulled an upset, marshaling the support of minority voters to surge past better-financed Democratic opponents after trailing them in pre-election political surveys of voters. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, had endorsed Gillum’s candidacy.

The DeSantis-Gillum race is likely to be one of the most closely watched elections in the Nov. 6 voting for what it might portend about the 2020 presidential election when Trump seeks another term in the White House.

Trump won the southeastern state of Florida in 2016, but it is a politically divided state that both Republican and Democratic contenders have won in recent elections. The outcome of the governor’s race could give a hint whether Trump’s political fortunes have changed.

Trump wasted no time assailing Gillum, saying Wednesday on Twitter that he has “allowed crime & many other problems to flourish in his city.”

Even before the voting ended the night before, Trump said, “Such a fantastic win for Ron DeSantis and the people of the Great State of Florida. Ron will be a fantastic Governor. On to November!”

DeSantis paid tribute to Trump at his victory party, saying, “I’m not always the most popular guy in D.C., but I did have support from someone in Washington. If you walk down Pennsylvania, he lives in the white house with the pillars in front of it. I was able to talk to the president, and I want to thank him for his support.”

Gillum, who would become Florida’s first black governor, has criticized Trump as far back as last December.

“This president is wrong for Florida on almost every issue, and as governor, I will fight against each and every one of his wrong-headed, racist and sexist policies,” Gillum said in a video. “The Donald Trump presidency shouldn’t even make it through 2018. He should be impeached now.”

Arizona race

Trump also weighed in with strong support for Congresswoman Martha McSally, who won a three-way Republican primary for a Senate nomination in the southwestern state of Arizona. McSally aligned herself with Trump as she defeated two other conservatives who also voiced support for the president.

McSally now will face Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, who has been running a centrist campaign, to replace incumbent Republican Senator Jeff Flake. Flake declined to seek re-election after losing support, largely because many Arizona Republicans disapproved of his attacks on Trump.

Sinema has taken a small, early lead in voter surveys over McSally, but University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato told CNN that the Arizona contest will be “very, very competitive. It’ll go right down to the wire.”
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President Donald Trump has been accused of dishonesty, spreading falsehoods, misrepresenting facts, distorting news, passing on inaccuracies and being loose with the truth. But does he lie?

It’s a loaded word, and some Trump critics believe major news organizations are too timid to use it. The Washington Post, which has documented more than 4,000 false or misleading claims by the president, declared for the first time last week that a Trump misstatement was a “lie.”

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal provided “indisputable evidence that Trump and his allies have been deliberately dishonest” about hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote. The Post put Kessler’s assessment on its front page, and it was the newspaper’s most-read story online.

Not only was it the first time the Post said Trump had lied, it was the first time the newspaper used the word for any politician since Kessler began his fact-checking operation in 2011.

Many news organizations resist using the word because of the question of intent. Editors feel it’s important to establish whether someone is spreading false information knowingly, intending to deceive, and it’s hard to get inside a person’s head.

While Kessler’s team has found 98 instances where Trump falsely claimed responsibility for the largest tax cut in U.S. history, the president may sincerely believe it, Kessler said.

At The Associated Press, “we feel it’s better to say what the facts are, say what the person said and let the audience make the decision whether or not it’s an intentional lie,” said John Daniszewski, the news cooperative’s standards editor.

Several readers told Kessler, in effect, that it’s about time. One critic, Paul Blest of the website Splinter, wrote, “Can you imagine any other politician being held to this comically low standard?” The Post’s milestone represents an abject failure, he wrote.

“It’s sort of a cover-up for those in power when you don’t call it a lie,” said Jeff Cohen, a just-retired journalism professor and a producer of the documentary “All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F. Stone,” about the late journalist. He said journalists need to cut through the fog, and the word “lie” is an effective tool.

Yet one prominent editor wonders whether the whole discussion misses the point.

“I hate the fact that the debate and discussion over the word lie' has obscured a larger truth, if you will," Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, told CNN earlier this month. "Does it matter if The New York Times or The Washington Post uses the wordlie’ three times, seven times, 10 times, 20 times? Or does it matter more that the fact-checker has found 4,229 misleading statements?”

Trump’s birther movement questioning former President Barack Obama’s citizenship led both the Times and AP to use the word “lie.” In January 2017, the Times headlined a story “Trump repeats lie about popular vote in meeting with lawmakers,” to refer to his claim that immigrants illegally voting prevented him from receiving more of the popular vote than Hillary Clinton. While “lie” was in the headline, it wasn’t in the body of the story.

CNN’s “New Day” anchor John Berman said on the air that Trump had lied about his policy of separating families at the U.S. border. Stories surrounding the pre-election meeting between the president’s son and Russians about information damaging to the Clinton campaign were “a writhing hydra of dishonesty. You chop off one lie, and two emerge in its place,” Berman said.

Cohen said the Post’s decision to use the word last week could influence others in the media to do so more often. The night the story appeared, CNN’s Chris Cuomo pressed Trump aide Kellyanne Conway to admit the administration lied and that’s why people didn’t trust Trump. Not surprisingly, Conway demurred.

Kessler urged caution.

“It just seems like a moment,” he said. “It’s not something we plan to do on a regular basis. You can’t speak too soon, but I’d be surprised if it was more than a once-in-a-presidency case.”

Using “lie” casually or imprecisely could strike readers more as opinion than fact, said the AP’s Daniszewski.

That’s a major consideration when Trump rails against the “fake news” media. He has called fact-checkers “dishonest scum” and “crooked as hell” and this month referred to the Post’s “Pinocchio” scale measuring the egregiousness of misstatements. “If I’m right, or if I’m 97.3 percent right, they will say, He's got a Pinocchio' orHe’s lying,”‘ Trump said. “They are bad people.”

The result is fact-checkers are as concerned about an erosion of public trust in fact-checking as the media in general are about their coverage. The independent Politifact has tried to build trust among Trump voters by fact-checking politicians in West Virginia, Alabama and Oklahoma, said Aaron Sharockman, the organization’s executive editor.

Politifact avoids the use of “lie,” though it does proclaim a “lie of the year.” Trump “won” in 2015 and 2017. Its rating for the worse misstatements — “pants on fire” — certainly implies the word. Trump has been awarded a total of 85 “pants on fire” designations.

“It doesn’t benefit Politifact to call someone a liar,” Sharockman said, “because it’s not our aim to play `gotcha.”‘
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Conservative U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis easily won the Republican primary for governor in Florida on Tuesday after a campaign in which he highlighted his enthusiastic loyalty to President Donald Trump.

DeSantis, who was endorsed by Trump, beat state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam for the Republican nomination for governor, the Associated Press projected. He led by nearly 20 percentage points with about 85 percent of votes counted.

Trump, who captured the battleground state of Florida by just more than 1 percentage point in the 2016 White House race, tweeted his congratulations to DeSantis after the victory and said he would be “a fantastic governor.”

DeSantis made his allegiance to Trump the central theme of his race, airing a campaign ad in which he urged his toddler daughter to “build that wall” with toy blocks.

In the Democratic primary for Florida governor, progressive favorite Andrew Gillum narrowly led moderate former U.S. Representative Gwen Graham by nearly 2 percentage points with 85 percent of the vote counted.

Graham, the daughter of Bob Graham, a former Florida governor and U.S. senator, had led in polls heading into primary day, but Gillum surged in the late stages of the race.

Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, had been endorsed by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. He would be the first African-American governor of Florida.

Florida also will host one of the country’s top U.S. Senate races between term-limited Republican Governor Rick Scott, who won the Senate nomination against token opposition, and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Nelson ran unopposed for the nomination.

Voters in Arizona also picked candidates for the November elections, when Democrats will try to pick up 23 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities and slam the brakes on Trump’s legislative agenda.

Republican establishment favorite U.S. Representative Martha McSally has led consistently in opinion polls over former state Senator Kelli Ward and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a three-way battle to prove which candidate is most loyal to Trump, who won Arizona by 4 percentage points in 2016.

The contest could be critical to the balance of power in the Senate in November. The Arizona seat of retiring Republican Jeff Flake, a Trump critic, is considered one of the two top takeover targets for Democrats, along with Nevada.

McSally is seen as a stronger general election candidate than either Ward or Arpaio, both hard-line conservatives.

McSally has already launched advertising aimed at her likely Democratic opponent in November, U.S. Representative Kyrsten Sinema.

The primaries in Arizona and Florida on Tuesday are the last big day of state primaries before November’s elections. After Tuesday’s primaries, only five states remain to pick candidates before full attention turns to the November election, when all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be at stake.
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President Donald Trump’s administration backed off on Tuesday on plans to bypass Congress and roll back billions of dollars from the U.S. foreign aid budget after lawmakers pushed back, senators, congressional aides and U.S. officials said.

Reuters reported on Aug. 16 that the White House Office of Management and Budget had asked the State Department and Agency for International Development to submit information for a “rescission” package that would have led to sharp cuts in foreign assistance.

Rescissions cut money appropriated by Congress but not spent. The unusual plan from Mick Mulvaney, the former Republican congressman who heads the OMB, would have defied Congress by eliminating foreign assistance it had already approved.

Trump’s focus on his “America First” agenda has meant fewer funds for foreign aid. His administration has pushed repeatedly to cut the amount of money sent abroad since he took office in January 2017.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the administration at a meeting on Tuesday to abandon the plan in the face of congressional opposition, several sources with knowledge of the situation said. It was a rare pushback against a Trump policy by fellow Republicans, who control Congress.

An OMB spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said cutting a relatively small amount of foreign aid funding made no sense from an administration planning huge spending increases.

He speculated that the White House hoped the suggestion would “rev up” its base before November’s congressional elections but realized pushing the scheme would make it hard to work with angry lawmakers.

“I think they just kind of sat down and realized maybe that wasn’t so smart, and … they were right,” Corker told Reuters.

Loophole in law

Several administration officials had said the OMB was targeting some $3.5 billion in funds no longer needed for their original purpose, taking advantage of a loophole in the law to make cuts at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The cuts could have included more than $200 million Trump froze in March for recovery efforts in Syria.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, welcomed the decision.

“Rescinding funds that had been agreed to by Congress and signed into law by the President, in the waning days of the fiscal year, would have set a terrible precedent and harmed programs that further United States interests around the world,” Leahy said in a statement.

Trump sought to slash foreign aid in this year’s budget, but he ended up signing a budget without those cuts after Congress objected.

The administration then tried to use the rescission process to slash $15 billion in domestic spending, including $7 billion for  children’s health insurance. That plan did not pass Congress.
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The United States is ready for talks with North Korea when it’s clear it will follow through on its commitment to denuclearize, the State Department said Tuesday after a planned visit to Pyongyang by top diplomat Mike Pompeo was shelved.

On Friday, President Donald Trump directed Pompeo to delay his trip, which had been slated for early this week, citing insufficient progress on getting the authoritarian regime to abandon its nuclear weapons, as agreed upon with leader Kim Jong Un in June.

Pompeo’s spokeswoman Heather Nauert declined to comment on reports that a tough-worded letter from an aide to Kim had derailed what would have been Pompeo’s fourth visit to North Korea this year.

Nauert said the president and his national security team, including Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, had judged that “now is not the right time to travel.” However, she said diplomatic efforts are “ongoing” though she could not say whether there had been communications between the State Department and North Korea since Friday.

She cited a statement from Pompeo that despite the decision to delay the trip, “America stands ready to engage when it is clear that Chairman Kim stands ready to deliver on the commitments that he made at the Singapore summit with President Trump to completely denuclearize North Korea.”

“The world is united behind the need for Chairman Kim to fulfill that commitment,” Nauert said.

Trump, who views the reduction in tensions with North Korea this year as a major foreign policy achievement, still voiced respect for Kim on Friday and said he looked forward to seeing him “soon.” He laid unspecified blame on China, North Korea’s leading trade partner, for the lack of progress. China is currently embroiled in a trade dispute with the U.S.

But Trump’s tweet marked a shift in his relentlessly upbeat messaging since the Singapore summit, the first ever held between leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. There is growing skepticism in Washington and beyond that Kim intends to denuclearize without first winning concessions such as sanctions relief or a declaration on formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. might carry out military exercises with South Korea next spring after having canceled a major exercise this year as a gesture toward advancing diplomacy aimed at eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Mattis said no decision has been made on when to resume military exercises, but his statements suggested the recent cancellation might not be repeated.
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A group of current and former U.S. officials from across the political spectrum is set to take part in Saturday’s memorial service for Senator John McCain, one of the last in a string of services honoring the longtime lawmaker who died Saturday at the age of 81.

The service at the National Cathedral in Washington will feature eulogies by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Former Senator Joseph Lieberman will also speak.

Serving as pallbearers will be former Vice President Joe Biden, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Senators Gary Hart, Russ Feingold and Phil Gramm.

McCain will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

The tributes will start however in Arizona, the state he represented first in the House of Representatives for two terms beginning in 1983 before moving to the Senate in 1987. McCain will lie in state in the Arizona State Capitol on Wednesday.

Since his death, world leaders and McCain’s former colleagues in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, have shared their favorite memories of McCain, and extolled his status as a senior statesman on the world stage. They have remembered his military service as a naval aviator, especially his valor in enduring beatings and torture during 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war at the hands of North Vietnamese captors at the height of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

But U.S. President Donald Trump, who frequently engaged in political taunts with McCain and three years ago said McCain was only deemed a hero because he was captured as a POW, was criticized after his initial reactions to McCain’s death only expressed condolences to his family and didn’t mention his military service or political career.

The White House, according to a Washington Post report Monday, prepared a statement extolling McCain’s life and calling him a hero, but Trump rejected issuing it. 

Flags at the White House were lowered to half-staff over the weekend in McCain’s honor, but back at full-staff on Monday. Trump ignored reporters’ repeated questions about McCain at White House gatherings on Monday, but late Monday afternoon the flags were lowered again to half-staff.

At the same time, the White House released a statement from the president in which Trump said that, despite differences on policy and politics, he respects McCain’s service to the U.S. and ordered flags be flown at half-staff until his internment. 

The statement also said Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence to offer an address at a ceremony honoring McCain on Friday, and that three cabinet members represent the Trump administration at services for McCain later this week.

At a dinner Monday night, Trump included a brief mention of McCain in his remarks, saying “we very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country.”

As he prepared for the end of his life, McCain said he did not want Trump at his funeral, instead favoring attendance by Pence, with whom he served in Congress.

McCain, even as he neared death, disparaged Trump’s presidency, rebuking the U.S. leader for his seeming embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position at last month’s Helsinki summit that Russia had not meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump, when he returned to Washington, altered his stance, but almost daily assails the investigation into the election interference.

“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” McCain said at the time. “But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.” 

Previously, the White House posted tributes from numerous Trump officials praising McCain, who as the Republican nominee, lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama. The tributes singled out McCain’s military service and heroism as a POW and his independence as a political leader. 

All five living former U.S. presidents issued statements praising McCain.

Outside the United States, world leaders lauded McCain’s role and presence abroad.

“John McCain was a true American hero,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “He devoted his entire life to his country. His voice will be missed. Our respectful thoughts go to his beloved ones.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said McCain “embodied the idea of service over self.”

McCain for years has promoted closer ties between Vietnam, which imprisoned him, and the United States.

On Monday, Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh wrote in a condolence book at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, “It was he who took the lead in significantly healing the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting the comprehensive Vietnam-U.S. partnership.”

A monument to McCain on the shores of the Hanoi lake where was he was captured after his plane was shot down in 1967 has turned into a de facto shrine to him as news of his death reached Vietnam. Flowers, incense, flags and other tributes to McCain have been laid there.
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A federal court ruled on Monday that North Carolina Republicans illegally drew up U.S. congressional districts in the state to benefit their party, suggesting that new lines be crafted before November’s election.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina said in a 321-page opinion that Republican legislators responsible for the map conducted unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering to dilute the impact of Democratic votes.

“That is precisely what the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly sought to do here,” the opinion said.

The panel gave parties until Thursday to file their recommendations to fix the problem.

The decision could have national implications in this November’s battle for control of Congress. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to gain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that could thwart Republican President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

Among the suggestions from the judges were holding state nominating primaries in November with new district lines that remove illegal partisan bias and then holding a general election before the new U.S. Congress is seated in January 2019.

The North Carolina dispute centered on a congressional redistricting plan adopted by the Republican-led legislature in 2016 after a court found that Republican lawmakers improperly used race as a factor when redrawing certain U.S. House districts after the 2010 census.

The Republican lawmaker in charge of the plan said it was crafted to maintain Republican dominance because “electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.”

Party officials were not immediately available for comment on the court’s decision.

Republicans in 2016 won 10 of the 13 House districts – 77 percent of them – despite getting just 53 percent of the statewide vote, nearly the same result as in 2014.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling that Republicans drew the boundaries to ensure electoral victories for their party.

But the justices sent the case back to the federal three-judge panel to reconsider whether the plaintiffs, including a group of Democratic voters, had the necessary legal standing to sue in the case.

“If this opinion stands … the court may well order new districts be drawn in time for the 2018 elections,” Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, wrote on his election law blog.

“North Carolina’s gerrymandering was one of the most brazen in the nation, where state legislative leaders proudly pronounced it a partisan gerrymander,” he wrote.
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The United States and Mexico agreed on Monday to a sweeping trade deal that pressures Canada to accept new terms on autos trade, dispute settlement and agriculture to keep the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the White House was ready to notify the U.S. Congress by Friday of President Donald Trump’s intent to sign the bilateral document, but that it was open to Canada joining the pact.

The 24-year-old NAFTA is a trilateral deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico that underpins $1.2 trillion in North American Trade.

Here are some of the main issues at the heart of the negotiations:

Autos Dominate

The new deal requires 75 percent of the value of a vehicle to be produced in the United States or Mexico, up from the NAFTA threshold of 62.5 percent.

The higher threshold is aimed at keeping more parts from Asia out, boosting North American automotive manufacturing and jobs. Even if more plants are built in Mexico, jobs will grow in the United States due to high levels of integration, with studies showing that U.S. parts make up 40 percent of the value of every Mexican-built car exported to the United States.

The pact also requires greater use of U.S. and Mexican steel, aluminum, glass and plastics.

The provision started out as a U.S. demand for 85 percent regional content, with 50 percent coming from U.S. factories.

That plan was vehemently opposed by Mexico, Canada and the auto industry. It later morphed into the U.S.-Mexico deal’s requirement of 40 to 45 percent of a vehicle’s value to be made in high wage areas paying at least $16 an hour, requiring significant automotive production in the United States.

Although full automotive details have not yet been released, auto industry officials say it will allow Trump the ability to impose higher national security tariffs on vehicles that do not comply with the new thresholds.

Most Mexican auto exports are in a position to comply with the new limits, the country’s economy minister said.

No Sunset

Trump backed off from an initial U.S. demand for a “sunset” clause that would kill the pact unless it was renegotiated every five years and which businesses said would stymie long term investment in the region.

Canada and Mexico were strictly opposed to the clause.

Instead, the United States and Mexico agreed to a 16-year lifespan for NAFTA, with a review every six years that can extend the pact for 16 years more, providing more business certainty.

Dispute Settlement

Mexico agreed to eliminate a settlement system for anti-dumping disputes, NAFTA’s Chapter 19.

The move, sought by the United States, puts Canada in a difficult position because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had insisted on maintaining Chapter 19 as a way to fight U.S. duties on softwood lumber, paper and other products that it views as unfair. Ottawa now has less than a week to decide to accept a deal without that provision.

A settlement system for disputes between investors and states was scaled back, now only for expropriation, favoritism for local firms and state-dominated sectors such as oil, power and infrastructure.

Agriculture, Labor

The new deal will keep tariffs on agricultural products traded between the United States and Mexico at zero and seeks to support biotech and other innovations in agriculture. It lacks a previous U.S. demand to erect trade barriers to protect seasonal U.S. fruit and vegetable growers from Mexican competition.

It contains enforceable labor provisions that require Mexico to adhere to International Labor Organization labor rights standards in an effort to drive Mexican wages higher.

Now Canada

The U.S.-Mexico NAFTA deal opens the door for Canada to immediately rejoin the talks and is a major step forward in updating the accord.

Canada, which sat out the last leg of discussions while the United States and Mexico ironed out their bilateral differences, is now pressured to agree to the new terms on auto trade and other issues to remain part of the three-nation pact.

Trump has presented this as a bilateral deal and threatened Canada with car tariffs. Some lawmakers have said that a bilateral deal would face a higher vote threshold in Congress because the NAFTA fast-track negotiating authority law calls for a trilateral agreement.
…

Makeshift memorials are building in Arizona, Washington D.C. and Vietnam, in honor of Arizona Senator John McCain, who lost his battle with brain cancer on Saturday, August 25. He was 81.
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People in Vietnam are paying their respects to U.S. Sen. John McCain who was held as prisoner of war in Vietnam and later was instrumental in bringing the wartime foes together.

McCain died of brain cancer Saturday in his home state of Arizona, which he had served over six terms in the U.S. Senate. 

People paid tribute to McCain at the U.S Embassy in Hanoi on Monday and also at the monument built where he parachuted from his Navy Skyhawk dive bomber in October 1967 and was taken prisoner of war. He was held more than five years at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison.

McCain and former Sen. John Kerry played an important role in the bilateral normalization of relations in 1995.
…

Senator John McCain, who died Saturday after a yearlong battle with brain cancer, will be honored at ceremonies in Arizona and Washington.

McCain will first lie in state at the Arizona State Capitol, where a private ceremony will be held on Wednesday, which would have been McCain’s 82nd birthday. Members of the public will be able to pay their respects at the State Capitol. 

On Thursday, a private memorial service will take place at the North Phoenix Baptist Church. 

In Washington, D.C., McCain will lie in state at the United States Capitol on Friday. The public will be invited to pay their respects. 

McCain will become the 13th senator to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, an honor reserved for the nation’s “most eminent citizens,” according to the Architect of the Capitol.

A memorial service in Washington will be held at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush are expected to speak at the service.

McCain’s office said a livestream will be available for the services at the National Phoenix Baptist Church and the National Cathedral.

McCain will be buried at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland. His grave site will overlook the Severn River, and will be next his best friend from his Naval Academy days, Admiral Chuck Larson.

Remembrances, condolences pour in

The Vietnam War hero, Senator, and 2008 Republican presidential candidate was remembered for his courage, patriotism and service by fellow Americans and foreign dignitaries.

President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday, “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

His campaign later issued a statement offering condolences and “urging all Americans to take the opportunity to remember Senator McCain and his family in their prayers on this sad occasion.” The White House lowered the flag to half-staff in honor of McCain.

Former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama issued a statement sending their “heartfelt condolences” to McCain’s wife, Cindy and their family.

Obama, who ran against the Republican senator from the western state of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election and defeated him, noted how despite their different generations, backgrounds and politics, “we saw this country as a place where anything is possible.”

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served with McCain in the U.S. Senate, said in a statement that he “frequently put partisanship aside to do what he thought was best for the country and was never afraid to break the mold if it was the right thing to do.”

Former President George W. Bush called McCain a friend, he will “deeply miss.”

“Some lives are so vivid, it’s difficult to imagine them ended,” Bush said in a statement. “Some voices are so vibrant, it’s hard to think of them stilled.”

Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, called McCain “a patriot of the highest order, a public servant of rarest courage.”

“Few sacrificed more for, or contributed more to, the welfare of his fellow citizens – and indeed freedom-loving peoples around the world,” the elder Bush said in a statement.

Former President Jimmy Carter called McCain “a man of honor, a true patriot in the best sense of the word.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Vietnam POW “showed us that boundless patriotism and self-sacrifice are not outdated concepts or clichés, but the building blocks of an extraordinary life.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the McCain’s death marks a “sad day for the United States,” which has lost a “decorated war hero and statesman.”

“John put principle before politics. He put country before self,” Ryan said.  “He was one of the most courageous men of the century.”

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the “nation is in tears” and noted McCain’s “deep patriotism, outstanding bravery and undaunted spirit.”

“He never forgot the great duty he felt to care for our nation’s heroes, dedicating his spirit and energy to ensuring that no man or woman in uniform was left behind on the battlefield or once they returned home,” Pelosi said in a statement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called McCain “a tireless fighter for a strong trans-Atlantic alliance; his significance went well beyond his own country.” French President Emmanuel Macron called McCain “a true American hero.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called the U.S. lawmaker a great friend of the South Asian country.

“We will remember his dedication and support towards rebuilding AFG,” Ghani tweeted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also offered condolences.

“People of India join me in sincerely condoling the loss of a steadfast friend,” Modi tweeted. “His statesmanship, courage, conviction and understanding of global affairs will be missed.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called McCain “an American patriot and hero whose sacrifices for his country, and lifetime of public service, were an inspiration to millions.”

 
…

John McCain lived most of his life in the public eye, surviving war, torture, scandal, political stardom and failure, the enmity of some colleagues and the election of President Donald Trump.

Even brain cancer didn’t seem to scare McCain so much as it sobered and saddened him.

“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it,” McCain wrote in his memoir, referencing a line from his favorite book, the Ernest Hemingway war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. ″I hate to leave.”

A look at public moments that made McCain:

Prisoner of war, celebrity

McCain, became a public figure at age 31 when his bed-bound image was broadcast from North Vietnam in 1967. The North Vietnamese had figured out that he was the son and grandson of famous American military men — a “crown prince,” they called him. He was offered an early release, but refused. McCain’s captors beat him until he confessed, an episode that first led to shame — and then discovery. McCain has written that that’s when he learned to trust not just his legacy but his own judgment — and his resilience.

Less than a decade after his March 1973 release, McCain was elected to the House as a Republican from Arizona. In 1986, voters there sent him to the Senate.

The Keating Five

He called it “my asterisk” and the worst mistake of his life.

At issue was a pair of 1987 meetings between McCain, four other senators and regulators to get the government to back off a key campaign donor. Charles Keating Jr. wanted McCain and Democratic Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and Don Riegle of Michigan to get government auditors to stop pressing Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. All five denied improper conduct. McCain was cleared of all charges but found to have exercised “poor judgment.”

“His honor was being questioned and that’s nothing that he takes lightly,” said Mark Salter, McCain’s biographer and co-author of his new memoir, The Restless Wave.

The Senate

McCain became his party’s leading voice on matters of war, national security and veterans, and eventually became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He worked with a Democrat to rewrite the nation’s campaign finance laws. He voted for the Iraq War and supported the 2007 surge of forces there even as his own sons served or prepared to serve. But there was one thing that wasn’t as widely known about him: McCain, owner of a ranch in Arizona that is in the flight path of 500 species of migratory birds, became concerned about the environment.

“People associate John with defense and national security, as well they should. But he also had a great concern for and love of the environment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who traveled to the ends of the earth with McCain — to the Arctic Circle in 2004 and Antarctica two years later — on fact-finding missions related to climate change. Back on McCain’s Arizona ranch, the senator gave Collins an extensive nature tour of the property. “I particularly remember his love for the birds,” Collins said. “He loved the birds.”

Town halls, Straight Talk

McCain in the 2000 election did something new: He toured New Hampshire on a bus laden with doughnuts and reporters that stopped at “town hall” meetings where voters were invited to exchange views with the candidate. The bus was called the “Straight Talk Express,” and that’s what he promised to deliver at the town halls. The whole thing was messy, unscripted and often hilarious. And ultimately the events re-introduced McCain to voters as a candid and authentic, just a year after President Bill Clinton was acquitted of lying to Congress and obstruction.

In New Hampshire that year, McCain defeated George W. Bush in an 18-point blowout, only to be pushed out of the race in South Carolina. But the town halls remained a fond McCain memory.

“The town halls were festivals of politics,” Salter said. “They were so authentic and open and honest.”

‘No ma’am’

McCain, in 2008 making his second run for president, quickly intervened when a woman in Lakeville, Minnesota, stood at a town hall event and began to make disparaging remarks about Democratic presidential nominee and then-Sen. Barack Obama. “He’s an Arab,” she said, implying he was not an American.

“No ma’am,” McCain said, taking the microphone from her. “He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about. He’s not.”

It was a defining moment for McCain as a leader, a reflection of his thinking that partisans should disagree without demonizing each other. But it reflected McCain’s reckoning with the fear pervading his party of Obama, who would go on to become the nation’s first black president.

Cancer

McCain last year was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same aggressive cancer that had felled his friend, Sen. Edward Kennedy, on Aug. 25, 2009.

Friends and family say he understood the gravity of the diagnosis, but quickly turned to the speech he wanted to give on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to shed the partisanship that had produced gridlock. Face scarred and bruised from surgery, he pounded the lectern. Some of the sternest members of the Senate hugged him, tears in their eyes.

“Of all of the things that have happened in this man’s life, of all of the times that his life could have ended in the ways it could have ended, this (cancer) is by far one of the least threats to him and that’s kind of how he views it,” his son, Jack McCain, told the Arizona Republic in January.

Health care vote

Republicans, driven by Trump, were one vote away from advancing a repeal of Obama’s health care law. Then McCain, scarred from brain surgery, swooped into the Senate chamber and, facing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dramatically held up his hand.

The thumb flicked down. Gasps could be heard throughout the staid chamber. McConnell stood motionless, arms crossed.

Trump’s campaign promise — and the premiere item on his agenda — was dead.

Trump

McCain tangled with Trump, who never served in the military, for years.

As a candidate, Trump in 2016 claimed the decorated McCain is only considered a war hero because he had been captured. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at an event in Iowa. “I like people who weren’t captured.” Shortly before Election Day in 2016, McCain said he’s rather cast his vote for another Republican, someone who’s “qualified to be president.” Trump fumed, without using McCain’s name, that the senator is the only reason the Affordable Care Act stands.

McCain responded: “I have faced tougher adversaries.”
…

U.S. Senator John McCain is being remembered for his courage, patriotism and service to his country.

McCain died Saturday at age 81 after a battle with brain cancer.

President Donald Trump tweeted, “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

His campaign later issued a statement offering condolences and “urging all Americans to take the opportunity to remember Senator McCain and his family in their prayers on this sad occasion.”

The White House lowered the flag to half-staff in honor of McCain.

Leaders from around the world paid tribute to McCain . German Chancellor Angela Merkel called McCain “a tireless fighter for a strong trans-Atlantic alliance; his significance went well beyond his own country.” French President Emmanuel Macron called McCain “a true American hero.”

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, “Karen and I are praying for Senator John McCain, Cindy and their family this weekend. May God bless them all during this difficult time.”

​Former presidents

Former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama issued a statement sending their “heartfelt condolences” to McCain’s wife, Cindy and their family.

Obama, who ran against the Republican senator in the 2008 presidential election and won, noted how despite their different generations, backgrounds and politics, “we saw this country as a place where anything is possible.”

Former President Bill Clinton and former Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, who served with McCain in the U.S. Senate, said in a statement that he “frequently put partisanship aside to do what he thought was best for the country and was never afraid to break the mold if it was the right thing to do.”

Former President George W. Bush called McCain a friend he will “deeply miss.”

“Some lives are so vivid, it’s difficult to imagine them ended,” Bush said in a statement. “Some voices are so vibrant, it’s hard to think of them stilled.”

As he planned for the end of his life, McCain had requested Obama and Bush deliver eulogies at his funeral.

McCain’s body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington as well in the capital of his home state, Phoenix.  A full dress funeral is planned at the Washington National Cathedral and his burial will be in Annapolis, Maryland, where he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, called McCain “a patriot of the highest order, a public servant of rarest courage.”

“Few sacrificed more for, or contributed more to, the welfare of his fellow citizens — and indeed freedom-loving peoples around the world,” the elder Bush said in a statement.​

Former President Jimmy Carter called McCain “a man of honor, a true patriot in the best sense of the word.”

​Military career

The son of a U.S. admiral, McCain became a Navy aviator and flew bombing missions during the Vietnam War. Shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese in 1967, he endured more than five years of torture and depravation as a prisoner of war.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Vietnam POW “showed us that boundless patriotism and self-sacrifice are not outdated concepts or cliches, but the building blocks of an extraordinary life.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the McCain’s death marks a “sad day for the United States,” which has lost a “decorated war hero and statesman.”

“John put principle before politics. He put country before self,” Ryan said. “He was one of the most courageous men of the century.”

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the “nation is in tears” and noted McCain’s “deep patriotism, outstanding bravery and undaunted spirit.”

“He never forgot the great duty he felt to care for our nation’s heroes, dedicating his spirit and energy to ensuring that no man or woman in uniform was left behind on the battlefield or once they returned home,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who served with the senator in Congress and is a fellow Vietnam War veteran, noted their differing views of the war and recalled a trip back to Hanoi with McCain, where the two “found common ground.”

“If you ever needed to take the measure of John McCain, just count the days and years he spent in that tiny dank place and ask yourself whether you could make it there an hour,” Kerry said in a statement. “John always said ‘a fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed.’ He loved to debate and disagree. But one thing John always believed was that at some point, America’s got to come together.”

McCain’s death Saturday also drew condolences from foreign leaders, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani calling the U.S. lawmaker a great friend of the South Asian country.

“We will remember his dedication and support towards rebuilding AFG,” Ghani tweeted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also offered condolences.

“People of India join me in sincerely condoling the loss of a steadfast friend,” Modi tweeted. “His statesmanship, courage, conviction and understanding of global affairs will be missed.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called McCain “an American patriot and hero whose sacrifices for his country, and lifetime of public service, were an inspiration to millions.”

​VOA’s White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report.
…

Best known for having survived as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, John Sidney McCain remained an ardent and unapologetic believer in American exceptionalism. Michael Bowman has more.
…

For Michael Cohen and Donald Trump, it’s always been about money and loyalty.

Those were guiding principles for Cohen when he served as more than just a lawyer for Trump during the developer’s rise from celebrity to president-elect. Cohen brokered deals for the Trump Organization, profited handsomely from a side venture into New York City’s real estate and taxi industries and worked to make unflattering stories about Trump disappear.

Money and loyalty also drove Cohen to make guilty pleas this past week in a spinoff from the swirling investigations battering the Trump White House.

Feeling abandoned by Trump and in dire financial straits, the man who once famously declared that he would “take a bullet” for Trump now is pledging loyalty to his own family and actively seeking to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The unraveling of their relationship was laid bare Tuesday when Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges and said in federal court that he broke campaign finance laws as part of a cover-up operation that Trump had directed.

In the days after Cohen’s guilty plea, two close associates, the magazine boss who helped him squash bad stories and the top financial man at the president’s business, have been granted immunity for their cooperation. These moves could have a ripple effect on the legal fortunes of Cohen and, perhaps, Trump.

​A fixture in Trump’s orbit

Working alongside Trump and Trump’s three adult children — Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric — in Trump Tower, Cohen took on a number of roles for the developer, including emissary for projects in foreign capitals and enforcer of Trump’s will. At times a bully for a family-run business, Cohen was known for his hot temper as he strong-armed city workers, reluctant business partners and reporters.

He was there in the lobby of Trump Tower in June 2015 when his boss descended an escalator and changed history by declaring his candidacy for president. But Cohen’s place in Trump’s political life ended up being peripheral.

Cohen did become a reliable surrogate on cable TV — he created a viral moment by repeating “Says who?” when told Trump was down in the polls — and founded the candidate’s faith-based organization. But Cohen was never given a prominent spot in the campaign.

And despite telling confidants that he thought he had a shot at White House chief of staff after the election, Cohen was never given a West Wing job. He remained in New York when Trump moved to Washington.

Cohen found ways to profit from the arrangement, making millions from corporations by selling access to Trump, but felt adrift and isolated from Trump, according to two people familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.

Federal agents arrive

But early one April morning, more than three dozen federal agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.

A chief focus for investigators was Cohen’s role in making payments during Trump’s campaign to women who claimed they had sex with Trump, and whether campaign finance laws were violated. In the fall of 2016, weeks before the election, Cohen had set up a limited liability company in Delaware to hide the deal he made to silence the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels about an affair she said she had with Trump.

Worry grew within the White House about what had been seized. That April day, Trump berated the raid as “an attack on all we stand for.” But then, in a Fox & Friends interview, Trump began to dramatically play down his relationship with Cohen.

“I have nothing to do with his business,” Trump said, asserting that Cohen was just one of many lawyers and was responsible for “a tiny, tiny fraction” of Trump’s legal work.

Relationship frays

A dispute soon broke out between Cohen and Trump over who would pay the former fixer’s mounting legal bills. Holed up in a Park Avenue hotel after his apartment flooded, Cohen began to worry about his financial future, according to the two people.

By all appearances, Cohen’s lifestyle was lavish.

He bought a $6.7 million Manhattan apartment last fall, though the sale didn’t close until April and no one could move in until the summer. With bills piling up for his team of expensive lawyers, the suddenly unemployed Cohen began to tell confidants that he was worried about his job prospects and ability to support his family.

Meanwhile, the broadsides from the White House kept coming.

Trump and Cohen had long stopped speaking, but word would get back to the lawyer that the president was belittling him. The president’s attorney and frequent attack dog Rudy Giuliani went from calling Cohen “an honest, honorable lawyer” in May to deriding him as a “pathological liar” in July.

Cohen began wondering to friends whether loyalty with Trump had become a one-way street, the people said.

Cohen strikes back

Eager to hit back and attempt to regain some hold on the story, Cohen hired Lanny Davis, a former Bill Clinton attorney, to be his public relations lawyer. Davis began striking back at the White House and lobbed a clear warning shot at the president when he released a secret recording of a conversation in which Trump appears to have knowledge about hush-money payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also alleged an affair with the developer.

Cohen was embraced by the cable news networks as an irresistible foil to Trump. Some on the left styled him as a star of the resistance. Cohen’s camp made some effort to play into the role, reaching out to Watergate whistleblower John Dean and, after Cohen’s plea, establishing an online fundraising tool that seemed to predominantly receive backing from liberals.

Cohen, who could get about four years to five years in prison, is to be sentenced Dec. 12.

Davis has strongly telegraphed that Cohen is willing to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. But a deal has yet to be struck and there are doubts about what Cohen can prove or whether the special counsel would want to rely on an untrustworthy witness.

Cohen has stayed out of sight and has remained emotional since his plea, according to the people close to him.

The attacks from Trump have continued.

“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
…

Arizona Senator John McCain, an American war hero has died. He was 81. The Senator’s office says he died Saturday after a long battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer.
…

U.S. Senator John McCain died Saturday at age 81 after a battle with brain cancer that robbed America of a revered statesman, proud patriot, and self-sacrificing warrior.

His daughter, Meghan McCain, released a statement.

Shortly after McCain’s death was announced, President Donald Trump tweeted his condolences.

Best known for having survived as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, John Sidney McCain remained an ardent and unapologetic believer in American exceptionalism.

“We are blessed. We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible,” McCain said in October, months after his cancer diagnosis, at the National Constitution Center, where he received the Liberty Medal. “We are blessed, and we have been a blessing to humanity in turn.”

In the same speech, he also warned of the perils he saw in the era of President Donald Trump.

“To refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems, is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history,” the senator said.

“John McCain represented public service,” American University political historian Allan Lichtman said. “He was a genuine American hero, not a phony, hyped-up media hero.”

In Photos: John McCain

Military family

The son of a U.S. admiral, McCain became a Navy aviator and flew bombing missions during the Vietnam War. Shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese in 1967, he endured more than five years of torture and depravation as a prisoner of war.

Decades later, as a Republican senator, McCain would return to Vietnam and champion the restoration of ties between Washington and Hanoi and, as he told VOA, leave the past behind.

“Look, there are some individuals that mistreated me in prison, and I hope I never see them again,” he said. “But, that does not change my opinion that the Vietnamese people are wonderful and dear friends, and we need them and they need us.”

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain decried torture tactics against terror suspects while backing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“John McCain’s weakness over the years was [that] he was perhaps too willing to seek a military solution to problems,” political historian Lichtman said. “Some of his critics even called him a war monger. But it [military intervention] was something he genuinely believed in, not something he cooked up for political purposes.”

Gracious in political battle

On Capitol Hill, McCain was known for a short temper and a sharp tongue.

“Get out of here you low-life scum,” McCain once growled at anti-war protesters who were disrupting a Senate committee hearing.

The senator also displayed graciousness in the heat of political battle. McCain ran twice for president as an independent-minded Republican, securing his party’s nomination in 2008. On the campaign trail, he defended his democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

“He’s an Arab,” one woman declared of Obama at a McCain town hall campaign event one month before the election.

McCain took the microphone from her and said, “No, ma’am. He is a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with.”

Return to the Senate

McCain lost the presidential contest but returned to the Senate, where he continued to advocate robust U.S. engagement around the world and a strong U.S. military as chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee.

He did not respond when then-candidate Trump questioned his war hero status.

“He is a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said on national television in July 2015. “I like people that were not captured, OK? I hate to tell you.”

McCain did, however, become a persistent critic of Trump’s governing style and policies, as well as hyper-partisanship in Washington, culminating with a decisive vote scuttling a Republican health care plan President Trump had championed. In December, he was the lone senator not to cast a vote on final passage of the Republican tax overhaul, returning Arizona to rest after cancer treatment.

Liked on both sides of aisle

McCain was revered by Democrats and Republicans alike.

“Courage and loyalty,” former vice president Joe Biden said in introductory remarks at the National Constitution Center. “I can think of no better description of the man we are honoring tonight, my friend John McCain.”

“John McCain, perhaps above all other politicians of recent years, was willing to reach across the aisle to try to do things that were good for the country, like immigration reform, like campaign finance reform,” Lichtman said.

Many will mourn his passing, but McCain remained upbeat until the end.

“I am the luckiest guy on earth. I have served America’s cause,” he said.
…

The United States calls El Salvador’s decision to ditch diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China a “grave concern.” Washington warned that China’s economic inducements could come at a high price for its new friends. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
…

The prospect of a quick deal between Mexico and the United States retreated Friday as disagreements over energy flared up and conflict over autos persisted in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Since talks resumed last month, U.S. and Mexican negotiators have focused on reaching common ground, but in the past few days differing views on energy policy between the outgoing and incoming Mexican administrations have put up a fresh hurdle.

Oil and gas issues

Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s camp has doubts about enshrining the 2013-14 opening of the oil and gas sector enacted by current president Enrique Pena Nieto in the new pact, three sources close to the talks said.

“The energy issue is holding everything up,” said one of them Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Asked this week about the energy issue, Lopez Obrador’s designated trade negotiator, Jesus Seade, sought to downplay the matter, saying that while his team wanted to check the issue’s “consistency with the constitution,” it was not “substantive.”

Lopez Obrador, a leftist, opposed Pena Nieto’s energy reform, and the issue is divisive within his own camp.

Business-friendly aides back greater private investment in the oil and gas sector, while more nationalist allies are against it.

Elected July 1, Lopez Obrador takes office Dec. 1. Another sticking point at the talks has been new rules of origin for automobile manufacturing, which U.S. negotiators hope will bring more production to the region.

US budges little

U.S. President Donald Trump prompted the NAFTA revamp over a year ago, complaining the 24-year-old trade pact has benefited Mexico to the detriment of U.S. workers and manufacturing.

Trump has threatened to withdraw from if it is not reworked to the advantage of the United States.

Industry officials have said the U.S. team had barely moved from its demands last May of a 75 percent overall regional content threshold with 40-45 percent content from high-wage zones, effectively the United States and Canada, with the only substantial change a slightly longer phase-in time.

“It seems that the issues on autos are far from being resolved,” said the industry source.

Initial optimism over an imminent deal has gradually faded.

Mexico negotiators stay over

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who Wednesday said a bilateral breakthrough could be just hours away, said he and his team would stay in Washington over the weekend to keep negotiating with U.S. officials.

Asked about issues between the ingoing and outgoing governments on the energy chapter, Guajardo said: “We are working as one team, a team called Mexico, and we have to make sure that everybody feels comfortable with this agreement.”

Speaking outside the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Guajardo commented on the difficulty of securing a final deal: “as you know … there are always last moment things that can come between you and your goals.”

Canada waiting 

Canada has sat out the latest round of talks waiting for the Mexican and U.S. teams to work out their issues.

Asked if talks had made headway on a U.S. “sunset” proposal that could terminate NAFTA after five years, Guajardo said it was an issue that would be dealt with once Canada came back.

Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland dodged questions on when she would return to talks when speaking at a steel manufacturing facility in Vancouver, but said she had been encouraged by optimistic reports from Canada’s NAFTA partners.

“As I’ve said, it really depends on how quickly the U.S. and Mexico are able to resolve those bilateral issues,” she said. “The U.S. and Mexico issues inside NAFTA are really complicated.”
…

The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent “the wrong message at the wrong time,” and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability.

“Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime’s ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement.

“The Iranian people face very real economic pressures caused by their government’s corruption, mismanagement, and deep investment in terrorism and foreign conflicts,” he added. “The United States and the European Union should be working together instead to find lasting solutions that truly support Iran’s people and end the regime’s threats to regional and global stability.”

The EU decision on Thursday to provide 18 million euros ($20.7 million) in aid to Iran was aimed at offsetting the impact of U.S. sanctions as European countries try to salvage the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its nuclear ambitions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in May and is reimposing sanctions on Tehran, even as other parties to the accord are trying to find ways to save the agreement.

The EU funding is part of a wider package of 50 million euros earmarked in the EU budget for Iran, which has threatened to stop complying with the nuclear accord if it fails to see the economic benefit of relief from sanctions.

The United States is pressing other countries to comply with its sanctions.

“More money in the hands of the ayatollah means more money to conduct assassinations in those very European countries,” Hook said in his statement.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton told Reuters during a visit to Israel earlier this week that the return of U.S. sanctions was having a strong effect on Iran’s economy and popular opinion.

The U.S. sanctions dusted off this month targeted Iran’s car industry, trade in gold and other precious metals, and purchases of U.S. dollars crucial to international financing and investment and trade relations. Farther-reaching sanctions are to follow in November on Iran’s banking sector and oil exports.
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President Donald Trump escalated his long-running feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions Friday, calling on him to probe a litany of recurring complaints against those investigating his administration and Democrats.

Responding to Sessions’ declaration that he would not be influenced by politics, Trump tweeted that Sessions must “look into all of the corruption on the “other side,”” later adding:  “Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”

The president’s pushback marked the second day of highly public smack down between Trump and his beleaguered attorney general.

Earlier this week, Trump, concerned by the legal downfall of two former advisers, accused Sessions of failing to take control of the Justice Department. Sessions punched back Thursday, saying that he and his department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Trump’s anger with Sessions boiled over in an interview with Fox News in which the president also expressed frustration with the plea agreement his onetime legal “fixer” Michael Cohen cut with prosecutors, including implicating Trump in a crime that Cohen admitted. Trump said it might be better if “flipping” — cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for more favorable treatment— were illegal because people cooperating with the government “just make up lies” to get favorable treatment.

On Twitter Friday, Trump also complained about the five-year sentence given to a former government contractor convicted of mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization.

Trump said “this is “small potatoes” compared to what Hillary Clinton did.” Prosecutors are calling that sentence handed down to 26-year-old Reality Winner the longest sentence imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media.

In the wide-ranging Fox interview, Trump also defended himself against talk of impeachment — “the market would crash … everybody would be very poor” — tried to distance himself from Cohen — “I would see him sometimes” — and said anew that he hadn’t known in advance about Cohen’s hush money payments to silence women alleging sexual relationships with the celebrity businessman.

Trump’s latest shots against law enforcement came as he appeared increasingly vulnerable to long-running investigations after this week’s one-two punch of Cohen’s plea deal and the conviction of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Trump has spent more than a year publicly and privately venting over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the federal Russia-collusion investigation because he’d worked on Trump’s campaign. Trump, who blames that decision for the eventual appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, told “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt that Sessions “never took control of the Justice Department and it’s a sort of an incredible thing.”

“What kind of man is this?” Trump said.

“You know the only reason I gave him the job? Because I felt loyalty, he was an original supporter,” Trump said of Sessions, an Alabama Republican who was the first senator to endorse Trump’s bid.

Sessions has made clear to associates that he has no intention of leaving his job voluntarily despite Trump’s constant criticism. But his tone in his statement on Thursday made clear he is tired of the president’s attacks.

“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda.” Then he declared, that while he’s attorney general the actions of the department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.”

In New York, meanwhile, it was reported that federal prosecutors have granted immunity to David Pecker, the publisher of National Enquirer, which bought and killed the stories of two women. And people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that the publication kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Trump leading up to 2016 election.

Allies, including Republican members of Congress have long advised Trump that firing Sessions — especially before the upcoming midterm elections — would be deeply damaging to the party.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who in March said firing Sessions would “blow up” the Judiciary Committee, has been shifting his tone.

“I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” he told reporters on Thursday. “Clearly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions doesn’t have the confidence of the president.”

Others stood by Sessions.

Republican Ben Sasse of Nebraska told Senate colleagues, “Everybody in this body knows that Jeff Sessions is doing his job honorably, and the attorney general of the United States should not be fired for acting honorably and for being faithful to the rule of law.” He said it would be really difficult to confirm a successor “if he is fired because he is executing his job rather that choosing to act as a partisan hack.”

People close to the president said they were not aware of any immediate plans to dismiss Sessions, at least before the November congressional elections.

Cohen’s claims that Trump orchestrated a campaign cover-up to buy the silence of two women who claimed he had affairs with them has shaken the White House and the president, who has expressed worry and frustration behind closed doors that a man intimately familiar with his political, personal and business dealings for more than a decade had turned on him.

His anger was palpable overnight as he bellowed to the world in an all-caps tweet at 1:10 a.m.: “NO COLLUSION – RIGGED WITCH HUNT!”

In his interview with “Fox & Friends,” which was taped at the White House on Wednesday and aired Thursday, Trump railed against Cohen for “flipping.” That arrangement “almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair,” Trump said, adding that it creates an incentive to “say bad things about somebody … just make up lies.”

That drew immediate rebukes from the legal community.

Neal Katyal, Supreme Court lawyer and former acting solicitor general, compared Trump’s comments in a tweet to “what one expects from a mobster, not the President of the United States.” He later said it was outrageous that Trump had “decided to condemn the entire practice of flipping nationwide, which is essential to law enforcement operations.”

 
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