Another Democrat has entered the 2020 race for the White House.

Retired Navy admiral and former Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak announced his candidacy Sunday on his website.

He introduced himself to voters by telling them “I wore the cloth of the nation for over 31 years in peace and war, from the Vietnam and Cold War eras to Afghanistan and Iran and the emergence of China.”

He said he postponed announcing his candidacy to care for a daughter ill with brain cancer.

Sestak was also part of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s national security team, holds a doctorate in government from Harvard, and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate twice.

He embraces many positions popular with liberals, including abortion rights, gun control, and backs the nuclear deal with Iran.

Sestak is the 24th Democrat to officially announce a challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020, with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren leading the polls so far.

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U.S. President Donald Trump won under the U.S. electoral college system but lost the popular vote. His approval ratings have consistently been below 50 percent. Yet in a recent interview with TIME Magazine, Trump said he doesn’t need to reach out to independent voters because his “base is so strong.”  Who makes up Trump’s base, what motivates them, and will their support be enough to deliver a second term for Trump? White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara traveled to Orlando, Florida for Trump’s re-election campaign launch and brings back this report.

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The White House on Saturday outlined a $50 billion Middle East economic plan that would create a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and fund a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza.

The “peace to prosperity” plan, set to be presented by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at an international conference in Bahrain next week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to details of the plan and interviews with U.S. officials. The approach toward reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process was criticized by the Palestinians Saturday.

No peace, no economic revival

The ambitious economic revival plan, the product of two years of work by Kushner and other aides, would take place only if a political solution to the region’s long-running problems is reached.

More than half of the $50 billion would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of the projects would be in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave.

The plan also proposes nearly a billion dollars to build up the Palestinians’ tourism sector, a seemingly impractical notion for now given the frequent flare-ups between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza, and the tenuous security in the occupied West Bank. 

The Trump administration hopes that wealthy Gulf states and nations in Europe and Asia, along with private investors, would foot much of the bill, Kushner told Reuters.

“The whole notion here is that we want people to agree on the plan and then we’ll have a discussion with people to see who is interested in potentially doing what,” Kushner told Reuters Television.

Palestinians boycott unveiling 

The unveiling of the economic blueprint follows two years of deliberations and delays in rolling out a broader peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians, who are boycotting the event, have refused to talk to the Trump administration since it recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in late 2017.

Veteran Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the proposals Saturday, saying: “These are all intentions, these are all abstract promises” and said only a political solution would solve the conflict.

Kushner made clear in two interviews with Reuters that he sees his detailed formula as a game-changer, despite the view of many Middle East experts that he has little chance of success where decades of U.S.-backed peace efforts have failed.

“I laugh when they attack this as the ‘Deal of the Century,’” Kushner said of Palestinian leaders who have dismissed his plan as an attempt to buy off their aspirations for statehood. “This is going to be the ‘Opportunity of the Century’ if they have the courage to pursue it.”

Kushner said some Palestinian business executives have confirmed their participation in the conference, but he declined to identify them. The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian business community will not attend, businessmen in the West Bank city of Ramallah told Reuters.

Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will also participate in the June 25-26 U.S.-led gathering in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, for Kushner’s rollout of the first phase of the Trump peace plan. Their presence, some U.S. officials say privately, appears intended in part to curry favor with Trump as he takes a hard line against Iran, those countries’ regional archfoe.

The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli government because the Palestinian Authority would not be there, making do instead with a small Israeli business delegation.

Political disputes remain

There are strong doubts whether potential donor governments would be willing to open their checkbooks anytime soon, as long as the thorny political disputes at the heart of the decades-old Palestinian conflict remain unresolved.

The 38-year-old Kushner, who like his father-in-law came to government steeped in the world of New York real estate deal-making, seems to be treating peacemaking in some ways like a business transaction, analysts and former U.S. officials say.

Palestinian officials reject the overall U.S.-led peace effort as heavily tilted in favor of Israel and likely to deny them a fully sovereign state of their own.

Kushner’s attempt to decide economic priorities first while initially sidestepping politics ignores the realities of the conflict, say many experts.

“This is completely out of sequence because the Israeli-Palestinian issue is primarily driven by historical wounds and overlapping claims to land and sacred space,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations.

Kushner acknowledges that “you can’t push the economic plan forward without resolving the political issues as well.” The administration, he said, will “address that at a later time,” referring to the second stage of the peace plan’s rollout now expected no earlier than November.

Kushner says his approach is aimed at laying out economic incentives to show the Palestinians the potential for a prosperous future if they return to the table to negotiate a peace deal.

Kushner stressed that governments would not be expected to make financial pledges on the spot.

“It is a small victory that they are all showing up to listen and partake. In the old days, the Palestinian leaders would have spoken and nobody would have disobeyed,” he said.

West Bank to Gaza travel corridor

Kushner’s proposed new investment fund for the Palestinians and neighboring states would be administered by a “multilateral development bank.” Global financial lenders including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank plan to be present at the meeting.

The fund would include “accountability, transparency, anti-corruption, and conditionality safeguards” to protect investments.

A signature project would be to construct a travel corridor for Palestinian use that would cross Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza. It could include a highway and possibly a rail line. The narrowest distance between the territories, whose populations have long been divided by Israeli travel restrictions, is about 40 km (25 miles).

Kushner said that if executed the plan would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza, reduce Palestinian poverty by half and double the Palestinians’ GDP.

But most foreign investors will likely stay clear for the moment, not only because of security and corruption concerns but also because of the drag on the Palestinian economy from Israel’s West Bank occupation that obstructs the flow of people, goods and services, experts say.

Marshall Plan approach

Kushner sees his economic approach as resembling the Marshall Plan, which Washington introduced in 1948 to rebuild Western Europe from the devastation of World War II. Unlike the U.S.-funded Marshall Plan, however, the latest initiative would put much of the financial burden on other countries.

President Donald Trump would “consider making a big investment in it” if there is a good governance mechanism, Kushner said. But he was non-committal about how much the president, who has often proved himself averse to foreign aid, might contribute.

Economic programs have been tried before in the long line of U.S.-led peace efforts, only to fail for lack of political progress. Kushner’s approach, however, may be the most detailed so far, presented in two pamphlets of 40 and 96 pages each that are filled with financial tables and economic projections.

In Manama, the yet-to-released political part of the plan will not be up for discussion, Kushner said.
 

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Amid increasingly tense China-U.S. relations, a U.S. official alluded to China but did not specifically name China regarding “risks” and “challenges” imposed by approaches to dam building and cross-border riverine practices in the Mekong region.

At a workshop in Phnom Penh by the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), the U.S. Embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Michael Newbill, said the actions of “a single nation” in the Mekong region are “worrisome” to both the riverine countries and the U.S.

“In the last two years, shifting geopolitical dynamics have begun to pose major new challenges,” Newbill said.

“We have seen the growth of debt dependency; disproportionate control over dozens of upstream dams by a single nation; plans to blast and dredge riverbeds,” he added in remarks later posted to the U.S. Embassy website.

The notion of debt dependency, or debt-trap, emerged in 2017. It refers to China’s practice of offering funding for projects that enable Beijing’s access to local resources rather than helping a local economy. Instead, the countries become “vulnerable to China’s influence.”

A senior embassy official, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, confirmed that Newbill was referring to China when he referenced “a single nation” last week.

The U.S. diplomat went on to say the “risks” of having one country dominate planning for the Mekong region include the erosion of existing governance, the presence of extraterritorial river patrols, trans-boundary crimes, and trafficking of drugs, wildlife and humans.

“All these trends pose risks to the autonomy, economic independence, and water, energy and food security across the Mekong region,” Newbill said.

He added that the region, which includes China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, is “strategically important” to the U.S. given that Washington treaty ally Thailand and increasingly important strategic partner Vietnam are in the region.

The same senior embassy official, who was one of the staffers involved in the preparation of Newbill’s speech, added that the chargé d’affaires also meant China is responsible for all of the risks he mentioned.

US Official Tells ASEAN Leaders to Choose Between China, US

Amid rising tensions between Beijing and Washington over trade war, Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs told southeast Asian nations the Indo-Pacific region is “our priority theater”

‘Potential area of power competition’

Separately, Sek Sophal, a researcher at Japan’s Ritsumeikan Center for Asia Pacific Studies, told VOA Khmer in an email, “Even though he [Newbill] did not name any specific country, it is obvious that China meets all of the points he raised.

“Personally, I believe he was talking about China,” Sophal continued.

The Cambodian scholar added that the Mekong region is a strategic gateway for the U.S. in confronting China, environmental sustainability and the rule of law.

The remarks by the American envoy suggest the Mekong region may become a new area for U.S.-China competition.

The world’s two biggest economies are already involved in a trade war and in security confrontations from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea.

The Mekong region “is certainly a potential area of power competition in Southeast Asia apart from the South China Sea,” said Pongphisoot Busbarat, a lecturer on the political science faculty at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

China is seeking to use this “backyard” region to project its international leadership through “foreign policy activism.” This is evidenced by investments in infrastructure and dams in the framework of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and its Belt and Road Initiative — drawing suspicion and skepticism from many countries, including the U.S., Busbarat wrote in an email exchange with VOA Khmer.

“Even though China has reiterated its sincerity, and we cannot deny that China’s role contributes and benefits the region in many ways, this policy activism inevitably receives criticisms and suspicion of the real intention,” he added.

The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh did not respond to request for comments.

Development concerns

Pou Sothirak, who runs the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), said “inappropriate” and “irresponsible” developments of dams are to blame for higher frequency of drought and floods along the Mekong River.

“These ill-conceived schemes of developments have the potential to cause destructive damages if suitable resolutions are not found satisfactorily,” Pou Sothirak said in a speech last week at the CICP workshop.

From headwaters in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the Mekong River flows 4,300 kilometers across mainland Southeast Asia before draining into the South China Sea. In Chinese, the river is known as the Lancang.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) was formed in 1995. All Mekong countries except for China and Myanmar are members with a common goal of better regulating what happens on and to the river.

According the MRC, the river is rich in its biodiversity, providing many of the necessities for the “natural resource-based rural livelihoods of a population of 60 million people living in the Lower Mekong Basin.”

As MRC outsiders, China and Myanmar could evade the commission’s jurisdiction requiring member states to present bids for dam building for studies and negotiation.

Since its creation, the MRC has been criticized for failing to stop dam building along the river.

According to the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, by 2030, there will be as many as 31 hydropower dams built along the Mekong mainstream, many of them in China or funded by Chinese investments.

The Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund has warned that damming the Mekong River would have diverse environmental implications on the fish stocks, wildlife habitats, farmlands, and natural ecosystem of the river, important to food security and traditional livelihoods of the people relying on the river.

Countries in the Mekong Region have been engaged in other international initiatives, including the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation with China and the Lower Mekong Initiative with the U.S.

Sim Vireak, an adviser with the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, said Mekong countries aim to find synergies from cooperation with external partners to benefit the river developments.

“The Mekong countries are mindful that the Mekong platform should not be politicized or become an arena for anti-China, anti-U.S., anti-Japan, anti-Korea, anti-India polarizations,” Sim Vireak said.

Turning the Mekong region into another place where China and the U.S. face off would have “geopolitical consequences reminiscent of the recent past,” he added in reference to Indochina wars of the last century.

Though the U.S. appears to be unwilling to outspend China’s multibillion-dollar injections into the region, the rivalry is here to stay, Sek Sophal said.

“The worst-case scenario is that small states are forced to take sides to survive,” he said in an online conversation with VOA Khmer. “No matter which side they will take, they have to pay the prices.”

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has received a personal letter from U.S. President Donald Trump and is contemplating its contents, North Korean state media reported Sunday.

The official Korean Central News Agency posted a picture of a pensive Kim holding a letter, apparently with White House letterhead. The report quoted Kim as praising its “excellent content.”

“Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” KCNA reported.

The report did not say anything else about the content of the letter.

Exchanging letters, photos

Trump said earlier this month he received a “beautiful,” “very personal” and “very warm” letter from the North Korean leader.

Though nuclear talks between U.S. and North Korean officials are stalled, Kim and Trump have been exchanging letters and pictures for the past year, and both men say their relationship remains warm.

Working-level talks broke down after a February summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, ended in no deal. Kim was unhappy with the pace of U.S. sanctions relief, while Trump was upset Kim would not commit to completely giving up his nuclear program.

Since then, North Korea has tested several short-range ballistic missiles and other weapons. Kim has said he will give Washington until the end of the year to become more flexible in the talks.

U.S. officials have shrugged off North Korea’s weapons tests and end-of-the-year ultimatum. Trump has said he is willing to hold a third summit with Kim if the conditions are right.

G-20 and beyond

Next week, Trump will visit South Korea following his meetings in Japan at the Group of 20 summit.

There has been speculation, though no evidence, that Trump could try to hold another high-profile summit at that time.

South Korean officials have also said they are working to hold a summit between the leaders of North and South Korea before Trump’s visit.

The letter comes a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a state visit to North Korea, where he promised to play an active role in the nuclear talks. 

“After months of an impasse in the negotiations and little contact between the U. S. and North Korea, it appears there is some diplomatic maneuvering underway,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“[It is] unclear yet whether Xi’s visit to Pyongyang played a role, or whether other factors are at play,” she added.

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President Donald Trump has a silent partner behind several of the accomplishments he likes to boast about: Barack Obama. 

Despite assailing his Democratic predecessor for waging a “cruel and heartless war on American energy,” for example, Trump can brag about U.S. energy supremacy thanks to the sector’s growth in the Obama years. 

And the Obama-Trump decade is soon to yield an economic record if things stay on track a little longer — the most sustained expansion in U.S. history. Though Trump claims all the credit, the expansion started in Obama’s first year, continued through his presidency and has been maintained under Trump. 

There are no fist bumps in the offing, however. 

The past week saw the kickoff of Trump’s 2020 campaign with a rally in Florida. That and other events provided Trump a platform that he used to exaggerate what he’s done, take some factually challenged swipes at Obama and Democrats at large, and make promises that will be hard to keep. Here are samples: 

Migrants 

TRUMP, in interview with Telemundo broadcast Thursday, talking about separating children from adults at the Mexican border: “When I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn’t have it. He had it. I brought the families together. I’m the one that brought `em together. Now, I said something when I did that. I’m the one that put people together. … They separated. I put `em together.” 

JOSE DIAZ-BALART, interviewer: “You did not.” 

THE FACTS: Trump is not telling the truth. The separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents resulted from his “zero tolerance” policy. Obama had no such policy. After a public uproar and under a court order, Trump ceased the separations. 

Zero tolerance meant that U.S. authorities would criminally prosecute all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. Doing so meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration, such family separations were the exception. They became the practice under Trump’s policy, which he suspended a year ago. 

Before Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns about the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns. 

TRUMP, in Telemundo interview, talking about detention centers at the border: “President Obama is the one that built those prison cells.” 

THE FACTS: He has a point. Whether they are called prison cells or something else, Obama held children in temporary, ill-equipped facilities and built a large center in McAllen, Texas, that is used now. 

Democrats routinely and inaccurately blame Trump for creating “cages” for children. They are referring to chain-link fencing inside the McAllen center — Obama’s creation. 

Conditions for detained migrants deteriorated sharply during a surge of Central American arrivals under Trump, particularly in El Paso, Texas. 

Trade 

TRUMP, in remarks Thursday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “This will be the largest trade deal ever made, and it won’t even be close.  If you take a look at the numbers, second is so far away, you don’t even call it second.  So it’s very exciting. And very exciting for Mexico; very exciting for Canada.” 

THE FACTS:  That’s wrong, simply by virtue of the number of trade partners involved. 

The proposed new agreement, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, covers the same three countries. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, included the three NAFTA partners — United States, Canada and Mexico — plus Japan and eight other Pacific Rim countries. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact on his third day in office. 

Even the Pacific deal pales in comparison with one that did go into effect with the U.S. on board, the Uruguay Round. Concluded in 1994, the round of negotiations created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output. 

TRUMP, on his tariffs, in a rally Tuesday in Orlando, Fla.: “We are taking in billions and billions of dollars into our Treasury. … We have never taken 10 cents from China.” 

THE FACTS: It’s false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. It’s also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the Treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically. 

Iran 

TRUMP, in a Friday tweet: “President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran – Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus 1.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled … Death to America. I terminated deal.” 

TRUMP, on his accomplishments, in Fox News interview Wednesday: “And then terminating one of the worst deals ever made, the Iran deal that was made by President Obama — paid $150 billion. Paid $1.8 billion in cash. I terminated that and Iran is a much different country.”  

THE FACTS: There was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. Treasury. The money he refers to represents Iranian assets held abroad that were frozen until the international deal was reached and Tehran was allowed to access its funds. 

The payout of about $1.8 billion is a separate matter. That dates to the 1970s, when Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured. 

That left people, businesses and governments in each country indebted to partners in the other, and these complex claims took decades to sort out in tribunals and arbitration. For its part, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses. 

The day after the nuclear deal was implemented, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the claim over the 1970s military equipment order, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest. The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers. 

Energy 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “We’ve ended the last administration’s cruel and heartless war on American energy. What they were doing to our energy should never be forgotten. The United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.” 

TRUMP, in Fox News interview Wednesday: “We’re now No. 1 in the world in energy.”  

THE FACTS: As he’s done many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under Obama. 

Here’s what the government’s U.S. Energy Information Administration says: “The United States has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s.” 

Jobs 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “Almost 160 million people are working. That’s more than ever before.” 

THE FACTS: True but that’s a tribute to Americans making babies and immigrants coming to the country. Population growth, in other words. 

Other than during recessions, employment growth has been trending upward since 1939, when the Labor Department started counting. The phenomenon is not a marker of leadership; it has spanned successful and failed presidents. 

More on point, the annual rate of job growth has been within the same range since roughly 2011. It was 1.6% through May. 

Another measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still below record highs. The Labor Department says 60.6 percent of people in the U.S. 16 years and older were working in May. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7 percent in April 2000 during Bill Clinton’s administration, though higher than the 59.9 percent when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “Women’s unemployment is now the lowest it’s been in 74 years.” 

THE FACTS: No, the jobless rate for women of 3.1% in April was the lowest in 66 years, not 74, and it ticked up in May to 3.2%. 

Economy 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “It’s soaring to incredible new heights. Perhaps the greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country.” 

THE FACTS: The economy is not one of the best in the country’s history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter. 

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984. 

The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates. 

Trump has legitimate claim to a good economy but when it comes to records, there’s one he will have to share with Obama. The economy is on track to achieve its longest expansion ever, in July. Much of that decade-long growth came during Obama’s presidency, an achievement that Trump so far has largely sustained.  Other than in its durability, the economy is far from the finest in history. 

The wall 

TRUMP, in Fox News interview Wednesday: “We’ll have over 400 miles built by the end of next year.” 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally:  “We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year. It’s moving very rapidly.” 

THE FACTS: That’s highly unlikely, and even if so, the great majority of the wall he’s talking about would be replacement barrier, not new miles of construction. Trump has added strikingly little length to barriers along the Mexico border despite his pre-eminent 2016 campaign promise to get a wall done. 

Even to reach 400 miles or 640 kilometers, he would have to prevail in legal challenges to his declaration of a national emergency or get Congress to find more money to get anywhere close. 

So far, the administration has awarded contracts for 247 miles (395 km) of wall construction, but that initiative has been constrained by court cases that are still playing out. 

In any event, all but 17 miles (27 km) of his awarded contracts so far would replace existing barriers. 

Taxes 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally:  “We’ve done so much … with the biggest tax cut in history.” 

THE FACTS: His tax cuts are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history. 

It’s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the biggest, followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II. 

Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and Obama’s renewal of them a decade later. 

Environment 

TRUMP, in Fox News interview Wednesday: “Our water and our air today is cleaner than it ever was. … Our air — it’s the best it ever was.” 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “Our air and water are the cleanest they’ve ever been by far.” 

THE FACTS: Not true about air quality, which hasn’t gotten better under the Trump administration. U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure. 

After decades of improvement, progress in air quality has stalled. Over the last two years the U.S. had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data show. 

There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the four years when America had its fewest number of those days since at least 1980. 

The Obama administration, in fact, set records for the fewest air-polluted days, in 2016. 

On water, Yale University’s global Environmental Performance Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1. 

Judges 

TRUMP, on the confirmation of federal judges, at Orlando rally: “President Obama was very nice to us. He didn’t fill the positions.”  

THE FACTS: Trump’s sarcasm aside, he does have a better success rate than Obama in filling judicial vacancies. The Republican-controlled Senate in Obama’s last two years avoided taking action on many of his nominees. Republicans still control the Senate and have been able to confirm about 120 of Trump’s picks despite their slim majority. That’s about 35 more than Obama had confirmed at this point in his presidency. 

Health care 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions. Always.” 

THE FACTS: His administration’s actions say otherwise. It is pressing in court for full repeal of Obama’s health law, which requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who had medical problems before or when they signed up. 

Trump and other Republicans say they’ll have a plan to preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but the White House has provided no details. 

Abortion 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “Leading Democrats have even opposed measures to prevent the execution of children after birth.” 

THE FACTS: Executing children is already a crime. 

Trump is offering here a somewhat toned down version of a distorted story he’s been telling for months that falsely suggests Democrats are OK with murder. 

His account arises from extremely rare instances when babies are born alive as a result of an attempted abortion. When these cases occur, “execution” is not an option. 

When a baby is born with anomalies so severe that he or she would die soon after birth, a family may choose what’s known as palliative care or comfort care. This might involve allowing the baby to die naturally without medical intervention. Providing comfort without life-extending treatment is not specific to newborns. It may happen with fatally ill patients of any age. 

Veterans 

TRUMP, at Orlando rally: “We passed VA Choice. …They’ve been trying to get that passed also for about 44 years.” 

THE FACTS: No, Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump signed an expansion of it. 

Russia investigation 

TRUMP, on Fox News interview Wednesday: “I’m the most transparent president in history. I let Mueller have everything they wanted.” 

THE FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation. 

Trump declined to sit for an interview with Robert Mueller’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire the special counsel or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry. 

In the end, the Mueller report found insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice. 

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents cannot be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter. 

…

President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The claim comes as the House Oversight Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents. A contempt vote by the committee would be an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.

In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and said the planned contempt vote was premature.

Democrats fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census and contend the Trump administration has declined to provide them despite repeated requests.

The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours. The Justice Department has said two senior officials also sat for interviews with committee staff members and it was working to produce tens of thousands of additional pages of relevant documents.

Cummings disputed the Justice Department’s account and said most of the documents turned over to the committee had already been made public.

“We must protect the integrity of the census and we must stand up for Congress’ authority under the Constitution to conduct meaningful oversight,” Cummings said.

‘Fight all the subpoenas’

The administration’s refusal to turn over requested documents “does not appear to be an effort to engage in good-faith negotiations or accommodations,” he added. “Instead, it appears to be another example of the administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’ constitutionally mandated responsibilities.”

Trump has vowed to “fight all the subpoenas” issued by Congress and says he won’t work on legislative priorities, such as infrastructure, until Congress halts investigations of his administration.

Cummings postponed a planned vote Wednesday morning to allow lawmakers time to read the Justice Department letters.

Ross told the committee the decision in March 2018 to add the question was based on a Justice Department request to help it enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Cummings disputed that, citing documents unearthed last week suggesting that the real reason the administration sought to add the citizenship question was to help officials gerrymander legislative districts in overtly partisan and racist ways.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is considering the citizenship question in a ruling expected by the end of the month.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Democrats were trying to use the committee’s oversight power to “pre-empt” the Supreme Court’s decision.

“Why don’t they want to know how many citizens — and non-citizens — are in the U.S.?” he asked.

Some of the documents the committee is seeking are protected by attorney-client privileges and other confidential processes, Boyd said, adding that the president has made a “protective assertion” of executive privilege so the administration can fully review all of the documents.

“The president, the Department of Justice, has every right to do that,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC. Democrats are “asking for documents that are privileged, and I would hope that they can continue to negotiate and speak about what is appropriate and what is not, but the world is watching. This country sees that they’d rather continue to investigate than legislate.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the Trump administration has repeatedly thwarted congressional efforts to obtain key documents and exercise legitimate oversight. “All we get from the administration is a middle finger” of defiance, Raskin said. “And that’s not appropriate for the power of Congress.”

…

Two U.S. senators asked the FBI on Wednesday to explain what it has done to investigate the suspected hack by Russian intelligence of a Florida-based voting software company before the 2016 election.

In a letter sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is the ranking member of the committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, asked for answers by July 12 regarding steps the agency has taken in response to the breach of VR Systems’ computer servers.

Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election describes how Kremlin-backed spies installed malware on the network of an unnamed company that “developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls.”

VR Systems has said it believes it is the company referred to in the report. The Tallahassee, Florida-based company has maintained, however, that its system was never penetrated. It told Wyden in a letter last month that the cybersecurity firm Fire Eye conducted a security audit and found no evidence of a breach. The audit was conducted more than seven months after the election.

The Department of Homeland Security said last week that its computer experts will examine North Carolina polling equipment supplied by VR Systems, at the state’s request. The forensic analysis will look at laptops and replicas of computer hard drives that were used in heavily Democratic Durham County to determine whether hacking was responsible for malfunctions on election day in 2016.

State and local officials said previously they found no indication that the software system, used for voter registration and check-in, had been targeted by hackers, but they never did a forensic examination. VR Systems has blamed the trouble on poorly trained poll workers and inadequate computer maintenance. A report by a security consultant hired by Durham County’s elections board supported that claim.

Wyden and Klobuchar asked whether the FBI has examined VR Systems’ servers and the equipment that malfunctioned in Durham County. They also asked if the agency has reviewed the conclusions of Fire Eye’s audit and for details on its key findings. VR Systems has refused to release even redacted versions of the report, citing client confidentiality.

Lastly, the senators want to know how the FBI planned to work with local and state election officials ahead of the 2020 election to ensure that they felt comfortable reporting cybersecurity incidents and had the information necessary to be aware of threats.

VR Systems, the Homeland Security Department and FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
 

…

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next U.S. envoy to the United Nations is defending her record on climate change, saying it is a “real risk to our planet” that must be addressed.
 
Kelly Knight Craft tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on  Wednesday she believes human behavior has contributed to climate change and she’ll push countries to deal with it. Democrats are expected to question her about comments she made doubting the cause and severity of climate change. Democrats are also concerned about possible conflicts of interest as she holds extensive investments in fossil fuels.
 
Craft is currently U.S. ambassador to Canada and would be first major political donor to occupy the U.N. post if confirmed.  Trump nominated her to replace Nikki Haley after his first choice withdrew from consideration.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign at a rally  in Orlando, Florida, one of the swing states that fueled his poll-defying victory in 2016.

The crowd greeted him with “USA” chants as he recalled the “movement” he started four years ago.

“It turned out to be more than just a great political campaign. It turned out to be a great political movement because of you,” the president said, echoing the same  message of his first presidential run. “It’s a movement made up of people… who believe that a nation must care for its own citizens first.”

While promoting issues like the economy and border security, the president also condemned his Democratic opponents as “socialists” and “left-wing” extremists who have tried to destroy him and his family, and have “looked down” on his supporters.

The president promoted issues like border security and trade tariffs, and chastised the media and the Democrats for spotlighting the Russian issue and other controversies surrounding his presidency.

“Nobody has done what we have done in two-and-a-half years,” he said.

Tim Murtaugh, Director of Communications of the Trump-Pence 2020 Campaign, stressed Trump’s record of “promises made, promises kept”.

“When he was a candidate in 2016. He promised a lot of things he was going to lead America back to world prominence. He was going to improve the economy. And he did exactly those things. The economy is booming. America is back to its rightful place as the leader of the free world. And the president is going to be running on keeping those promises,” Murtaugh said.

Supporters line up

From early afternoon, thousands of people have lined up to enter the 20,000-capacity venue. But many will have to watch outside on giant television screens under the downpour that has been drenching supporters and volunteers on and off all day.

Trump’s most loyal fans have camped outside the Amway Center since early Monday to claim their spot in line. Monday night, several hundred were gathered a block away from the rally venue, with the first ones in line saying they have been there since 4 a.m. They brought tents, lawn chairs and coolers full of snacks and beverages, and plenty of umbrellas to protect against the elements, including a thunderstorm that lasted about an hour in the early evening.

Many of them say they support Trump’s economic and immigration policies.

Nathan Gunn, who will be voting for the first time in 2020, said he supports Trump’s America First agenda and loves what the president is doing with “the big crisis we have in the border with people flooding in.” Gunn also likes the fact that Trump is “not politically correct.”

“People don’t really see what’s really true about him, and that’s why they hate him,” Gunn said. “They don’t really see what he’s capable of, what he’s actually doing for the country.”

Maureen Bailey from Volusia County and her twin sister Laureen arrived at 6 a.m. She said she is a lifelong Republican who prior to 2016 has always supported establishment candidates. Bailey used to think that Trump’s name-calling was “unnecessary” but now finds his controversial speech “refreshing.”

“He’s just a breath of fresh air,” Bailey said. “He just gets up there and he goes off script. You just never know what’s going to come out of his mouth.”

Tweeting supporters

Monday night Trump tweeted about those waiting. 

Thousands of people are already lined up in Orlando, some two days before tomorrow nights big Rally. Large Screens and food trucks will be there for those that can’t get into the 25,000 capacity arena. It will be a very exciting evening! Make America Great Again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019

Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said that Trump has truly energized the party.

“It’s night and day difference versus other cycles for the Republican Party,” he said, adding that it’s normally difficult to get volunteers. “When you look at McCain (in) 2008 and Romney (in) 2012, we couldn’t give away yard signs,” Ziegler said.

Not all who show up Tuesday will be supporters.

The Miami Chapter of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida and the Puerto Rican Democratic Club of Miami Dade have organized a “caravan” from Miami to Orlando to give the president the message that he is not welcomed.

The bus and the car caravan made stops in Palm Beach and Boca Raton, and eventually joined activists from various groups in an Orlando rally hours before the event. They say they are mobilizing to demand that Trump stop what they call “attacks on the Hispanic communities.”

Several of Trump’s former employees at his golf clubs in New York and New Jersey who were fired after revealing their undocumented status are also crashing his 2020 campaign kickoff.  

Trump Org. undocumented ex-employees traveling to Orlando to Trump rally. They have a message for America. “We are good people who love America and deserve better. Together we make this country the greatest in the world” Get to work Congress! pic.twitter.com/ok0cImEWSo

— Abogado Anibal NY/NJ (@AnibalRomeroLaw) June 17, 2019

Florida is key

With its 29 electoral college votes, Florida is one of the biggest swing states in the nation, and winning it is key. Republican pollster Whit Ayres called Florida “absolutely critical” for the president’s re-election prospects. “It’s very difficult to put together the pieces to get 270 electoral votes without Florida’s votes,” he said.

Trump won Florida by a margin on one percentage point in 2016, and his re-election launch specifically targets Central Florida, where Orlando is located. The region is strategic politically, given the fact that other parts of the state are either solidly Democrat or Republican. But Central Florida, where about half of the state’s registered voters live, is largely independent.

Orlando, the town most known as a tourist destination, home of Universal Studios and Sea World, is part of what is known as the I-4 corridor — the 214-kilometer-long interstate highway that goes from the eastern to the western part of Florida.

Linda Trocine, chairman of the Republican Party of Seminole County, one of the most densely populated suburbs of Orlando, leads a team of Trump volunteers in the area. She explained how the I-4 corridor is the swing part of the state and decides how the state will vote.
 
Trocine said that 2020 is different than 2016 because now there is “complete unity.”

“We have unity at the Republican National Committee level, at the Republican Party of Florida level, and here locally in Seminole County,” she said.

Luisana Perez, Hispanic spokesperson for the Democratic Party, acknowledged that Trump is eyeing independent voters.

“He’s trying to say that he cares about our communities when we know that’s not true,” she said, adding that Trump continues to focus on his base voters.

Perez said that the Democratic Party are talking to voters about core Democratic values, including more funds for public education, affordable health care, protection for immigrant communities and minorities, including LGBTQ.

While Florida’s state legislators and governorship have been controlled by Republicans since the mid-’90s, in presidential elections, the state has flipped back and forth and usually by a very narrow margin. This includes the 2000 presidential race when George W. Bush was declared the winner over Democrat Al Gore by about 500 votes.

In the past 50 years, with the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, the road to the White House has always included Florida.

…

VOA’s Jorge Agobian contributed to this report.

U.S. President Donald Trump is in Orlando, Florida, to officially kick off his re-election campaign with a rally at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Amway Center.

From early afternoon, thousands of people have lined up to enter the 20,000-capacity venue. But many will have to watch outside on giant television screens under the downpour that has been drenching supporters and volunteers on and off all day.

Trump’s most loyal fans have camped outside the Amway Center since early Monday to claim their spot in line. Monday night, several hundred were gathered a block away from the rally venue, with the first ones in line saying they have been there since 4 a.m. They brought tents, lawn chairs and coolers full of snacks and beverages, and plenty of umbrellas to protect against the elements, including a thunderstorm that lasted about an hour in the early evening.

Many of them say they support Trump’s economic and immigration policies.

Nathan Gunn, who will be voting for the first time in 2020, said he supports Trump’s America First agenda and loves what the president is doing with “the big crisis we have in the border with people flooding in.” Gunn also likes the fact that Trump is “not politically correct.”

“People don’t really see what’s really true about him, and that’s why they hate him,” Gunn said. “They don’t really see what he’s capable of, what he’s actually doing for the country.”

Maureen Bailey from Volusia County and her twin sister Laureen arrived at 6 a.m. She said she is a lifelong Republican who prior to 2016 has always supported establishment candidates. Bailey used to think that Trump’s name-calling was “unnecessary” but now finds his controversial speech “refreshing.”

“He’s just a breath of fresh air,” Bailey said. “He just gets up there and he goes off script. You just never know what’s going to come out of his mouth.”

Monday night Trump tweeted about those waiting.

Thousands of people are already lined up in Orlando, some two days before tomorrow nights big Rally. Large Screens and food trucks will be there for those that can’t get into the 25,000 capacity arena. It will be a very exciting evening! Make America Great Again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019

Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said that Trump has truly energized the party.

“It’s night and day difference versus other cycles for the Republican Party,” he said, adding that it’s normally difficult to get volunteers. “When you look at McCain [in] 2008 and Romney [in] 2012, we couldn’t give away yard signs,” Ziegler said.

‘Caravan’ of critics

Not all who show up Tuesday will be supporters. 

The Miami Chapter of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida and the Puerto Rican Democratic Club of Miami Dade have organized a “caravan” from Miami to Orlando to give the president the message that he is not welcomed.

The bus and the car caravan made stops in Palm Beach and Boca Raton, and eventually joined activists from various groups in an Orlando rally hours before the event. They say they are mobilizing to demand that Trump stop what they call “attacks on the Hispanic communities.” 

Several of Trump’s former employees at his golf clubs in New York and New Jersey who were fired after revealing their undocumented status are also crashing his 2020 campaign kickoff.  

Trump Org. undocumented ex-employees traveling to Orlando to Trump rally. They have a message for America. “We are good people who love America and deserve better. Together we make this country the greatest in the world” Get to work Congress! pic.twitter.com/ok0cImEWSo

— Abogado Anibal NY/NJ (@AnibalRomeroLaw) June 17, 2019

Florida is key

With its 29 electoral college votes, Florida is one of the biggest swing states in the nation, and winning it is key. Republican pollster Whit Ayres called Florida “absolutely critical” for the president’s re-election prospects. “It’s very difficult to put together the pieces to get 270 electoral votes without Florida’s votes,” he said.

Trump won Florida by a margin on one percentage point in 2016, and his re-election launch specifically targets Central Florida, where Orlando is located. The region is strategic politically, given the fact that other parts of the state are either solidly Democrat or Republican. But Central Florida, where about half of the state’s registered voters live, is largely independent.

Orlando, the town most known as a tourist destination, home of Universal Studios and Sea World, is part of what is known as the I-4 corridor — the 214-kilometer-long interstate highway that goes from the eastern to the western part of Florida.

Linda Trocine, chairman of the Republican Party of Seminole County, one of the most densely populated suburbs of Orlando, leads a team of Trump volunteers in the area. She explained how the I-4 corridor is the swing part of the state and decides how the state will vote.

Trocine said that 2020 is different than 2016 because now there is “complete unity.”

“We have unity at the Republican National Committee level, at the Republican Party of Florida level, and here locally in Seminole County,” she said.

Embed

Copy

Trump to Launch Re-Election Bid Tuesday in Florida video player.

Luisana Perez, Hispanic spokesperson for the Democratic Party, acknowledged that Trump is eyeing independent voters. 

“He’s trying to say that he cares about our communities when we know that’s not true,” she said, adding that Trump continues to focus on his base voters.

Perez said that the Democratic Party is talking to voters about core Democratic values, including more funds for public education, affordable health care, protection for immigrant communities and minorities, including LGBTQ.

While Florida’s state legislators and governorship have been controlled by Republicans since the mid-’90s, in presidential elections, the state has flipped back and forth and usually by a very narrow margin. This includes the 2000 presidential race when George W. Bush was declared the winner over Democrat Al Gore by about 500 votes. 
 
In the past 50 years, with the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, the road to the White House has always included Florida. 

…

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been transferred to a correctional facility in New York but will remain in federal custody while he faces state fraud charges, a Justice Department official said Tuesday.

Manafort, who is serving a federal prison sentence, is waiting to be arraigned after prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a 16-count indictment that accuses him of giving false information on mortgage loan applications. He was expected to be held at New York City’s notorious jail complex, Rikers Island, until the state case is resolved.

New York prosecutors had sought to take custody of Manafort under a law that provides for the transfer of prisoners indicted in another jurisdiction.

But Manafort’s lawyers reached out to the federal Bureau of Prisons and raised concerns that his health and safety could be threatened if he was transferred to Rikers Island, the Justice Department official said. They instead proposed that Manafort continue to be held in federal custody and made available to state officials when needed, the official said.

Lawyers for Ex-Trump Campaign Chief Manafort Argue for Leniency

Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort urged a judge Friday to impose a sentence “substantially below” the potential 19 to 24 years in prison he is facing for tax crimes and bank fraud.

Manafort, 69, is to be sentenced March 7 by Judge T.S.

The Justice Department contacted Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. about the proposal from Manafort’s lawyers. The state prosecutors didn’t object to the proposal and the Justice Department “determined to err on the side of caution” by keeping Manafort in federal custody while the state case plays out, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Manafort’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, wrote a letter to the warden of the federal prison in Pennsylvania where he had been held before the transfer to New York, and said it “would not serve anyone’s interest” for Manafort to be kept at Rikers Island while awaiting his state trial, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the AP.

Manafort had been in solitary confinement because of his high-profile status in a Virginia jail while his federal case continued. Moving him to New York would mean he would be farther from his family members, Blanche wrote. The attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rikers Island has been plagued by complaints of violence for years and city officials have come under scrutiny for the use of solitary confinement and the mistreatment of mentally ill inmates. Manafort likely would’ve been held in a facility on the island that houses inmates with high-profile cases who require protective custody.

Vance said in a letter to Rosen that his office never suggested Manafort be housed at Rikers Island and took no position about which correctional facility Manafort should be held in while awaiting trial in New York.

Manafort was sentenced in March to serve more than seven years in prison on federal charges in cases brought in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The charges related to Manafort’s years of Ukrainian political consulting work, including allegations he concealed his foreign government work from the United States and failed to pay taxes on it. The state charges in New York were announced just minutes after Manafort’s sentencing in Washington.

Bureau of Prisons records show Manafort was being held Tuesday at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal lockup in Manhattan.

…

Regular White House media briefings should “absolutely” return, according to the President Donald Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer.

“There is a utility in making sure people see the government in action,” Spicer tells VOA. “It is an opportunity for the White House to make sure that you’re getting your message out. And it gives you an opportunity, unlike anyone else, to sort of capture the media attention and therefore their audiences’ attention in a way that no other form does.”

The lectern in the Brady Briefing Room, just steps away from the press office, is literally gathering dust, having not been used for more than three months.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who was Spicer’s successor, announced last Friday she is departing by the end of this month.

Sanders has defended the atrophy of the scheduled briefings, noting she, the president, and other top administration officials are frequently available to answer reporters’ questions outside of the 49-seat briefing room.

Spicer, the subject of media criticism during his seven-month tenure for contentious exchanges from the podium and about his credibility, says it is not necessary to hold daily briefings nor do they all need to be televised.

“Figure out a way to mix them in,” says Spicer who characterizes the briefings in the Trump administration as devolving into “media circuses where it’s been a yell fest, where it’s been an opportunity for someone to get up and showboat.”

The drama-filled briefings conducted by Spicer and Sanders were frequently carried live in their entirety by cable TV networks.

Spicer explains that each briefing takes three to five hours of preparation for the White House press office, including gathering information from across government and officials need to determine whether it is the best use of their time.  

Trump has not announced who will succeed Sanders.

Spicer says whoever is chosen needs to be up to the minute on the president’s thinking – not just familiar with where Trump was on an issue hours ago.

“Making sure that you are as up to date as possible before you speak for the president is crucial,” says Spicer. “The president talks to folks all the time, his decision making can be in flux depending on the issue. And, so, making sure that you’re in the loop, as issues are evolving, is crucial.”

Spicer, who has written a book, The Briefing, that covers his time as press secretary – which saw him became a household name and a parodied figure on late night comedy and talk shows – acknowledges “there were unequivocally times I made mistakes.” But Spicer contends he never told a lie at the podium nor did Trump ever ask him not to tell the truth.

“But we would have discussions about whether or not we needed to discuss an issue or promote something that we didn’t think was going to get a good reaction,” says Spicer. “But there’s a big difference between wanting to do that and misleading anyone.”

Spicer does agree with the observation that the briefings he and Sanders conducted were, to a degree, primarily for an audience of one – the nearby occupant of the Oval Office.

“There’s no question that this particular president takes a much greater interest in how his views and thoughts are communicated” compared to previous presidents, says Spicer.

Another piece of advice Spicer offers to Sander’s successor, “Double, triple, in quadruple, check everything that you’re going to say and do because it’s going to go through that level of scrutiny.”

…

VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

As Democrats continue a year-long tussle to see who will get to challenge U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, the president and his supporters are laying the groundwork for a campaign that will try to sell voters on the idea that he is a man who does what he says he will do.

With the official kickoff rally for his re-election bid scheduled for Tuesday in Orlando, the president is using “Promises made. Promises Kept” as the slogan of the Trump campaign, raising the obvious question: Did Trump keep his promises?

As with any politician on the national stage, the answer is complicated. The president made any number of boasts, promises and predictions during his run for the White House. Whether he kept them all is a very different question.

Some can be checked fairly easily. Trump vowed to pump billions of dollars in new spending into the U.S. military, and there is no denying that he can claim “mission accomplished” on that score. The Pentagon’s budget has soared under his administration. He vowed to pull the United States out of the international nuclear agreement with Iran and made good on that pledge in May 2018.

For others, it’s more difficult to come to a conclusion. Trump had promised to end federal funding for programs in “sanctuary cities” that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents. In the end, he announced a limited ban on funding for programs in sanctuary cities, which was quickly blocked by a federal judge. 

When Trump and his surrogates hit the campaign trail in earnest later this year and on into 2020, they’ll be pushing the idea that the president delivered for the American people, although Democrats will strongly disagree. 

“From the perspective of his supporters, Donald Trump has done exactly what he promised he would do,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster from Alexandria, Va. “And where he has failed, it has been the result of obstruction, primarily from Democrats, who have not given him the money he wanted for his wall, and not given him some of the other things that he promised during the campaign.”

Trump, Ayres added, will be able to argue, “It’s somebody else’s fault that he wasn’t able to deliver on some of those promises.”

However, a rundown of some of the president’s biggest successes, and most obvious failures, suggests that in the 2020 election, there will be plenty of ammunition for both sides.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Monday he is leading a “motley crew” of Democratic presidential contenders seeking to oust him in the 2020 election, even as his campaign dismissed three pollsters after surveys leaked showing Trump badly trailing  the leading Democrat, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Only Fake Polls show us behind the Motley Crew,” Trump said on Twitter.

Only Fake Polls show us behind the Motley Crew. We are looking really good, but it is far too early to be focused on that. Much work to do! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2019

News accounts in the U.S. said Trump was incensed that leaked polls from his own campaign showed him losing to Biden in key battleground states that are likely to be crucial to the outcome of the Nov. 3, 2020, election. 

The internal polling in March showed Trump trailing Biden, who is currently leading 22 other Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination, by 16 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 10 in Wisconsin and seven percentage points in Florida. Trump won all three states in the 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton and would likely need to claim them again to win a second four-year term in the White House.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale confirmed the poll results, but said they were outdated, “ancient, in campaign terms.”

To shrink the possibility of future leaks, Trump’s campaign fired three of the five pollsters working for him.

Independent polling also shows the U.S. president trailing hypothetical opponents nearly 17 months ahead of the election.

A survey by Fox News, Trump’s favorite cable television news operation, showed Trump losing to Biden by 10 points, to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by nine, to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by two and by a single point to both California Sen. Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Polls this early in the contest are not necessarily predictive, but rather a snapshot of a moment in time.

Within hours of being inaugurated in 2017, Trump declared his candidacy for re-election. But he is officially starting his re-election campaign late Tuesday night in Orlando, Florida, with an expected crowd of 20,000 supporters filling a basketball arena and many more watching on television screens outside.  
 

…

A former North Carolina state senator is switching races, announcing Monday that he’s joined the Democratic effort to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, whose seat would be a major pickup for Democrats trying to win back a Senate majority.

Cal Cunningham, a familiar name in state Democratic circles, revealed to The Associated Press that he’s no longer running for lieutenant governor and has switched instead to the 2020 U.S. Senate race.

Cunningham has run for the U.S. Senate before, finishing second in the Democratic primary nearly ten years ago. A one-term state Senate stint is his only elected position to date, but the 45-year-old attorney and Iraq War veteran has remained well connected in state Democratic politics.

At least two other Democrats already are running in the March 2020 primary, but national Democrats have been looking hard for other candidates for the seat in the closely divided state. Other current and former elected officials have either ruled out running or haven’t decided yet. Cunningham filed Senate campaign paperwork late Sunday.

In an interview, Cunningham told the AP he changed races because Washington politicians have failed to solve the problems voters have talked to him about as he’s run for lieutenant governor, including health care, college affordability and gun violence. He also said people on the campaign trail asked him repeatedly if he was considering a Senate bid. The lieutenant governor’s field is crowded, with at least four other Democrats and four Republicans.

”There’s really a fundamental political corruption problem that put Washington completely out of touch with the people,” Cunningham said, citing corporate influence and big-money donors. “That fundamental problem is a Washington that is broken.” Cunningham said Tillis is part of that failure but that he would work in tandem with North Carolina to find solutions if elected.

Any successful challenge of Tillis, however, is likely to require raising tens of millions of dollars, whether through a candidate’s campaign or through super PACs. The 2014 U.S. Senate race between Tillis and Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan was the most expensive Senate campaign ever at that time, with more than $120 million in candidate and outside spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Tillis won that race by less than 2 percentage points. Two years later, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in North Carolina by nearly 4 percentage points in 2016.

The other Democrats in the race are State Sen. Erica Smith of Northampton County and Mecklenburg County Commissioner Trevor Fuller . Neither has run statewide in the past. Former state treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore said Friday that he’s spoken with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about a candidacy, but hasn’t decided.

Cunningham was elected to the state Senate in 2000 at age 27. Considered a conservative Democrat at the time, the Lexington native didn’t seek re-election the next year in part due to redistricting. He later served in Iraq as an Army prosecutor — a plus in military-friendly North Carolina.

He lost to Secretary of State Elaine Marshall in a runoff of the 2010 U.S. Senate primary, despite help from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Since then, the Army reserve major served a tour in Afghanistan and now works as an executive at an environmental services and waste reduction company. He is also vice chairman of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s crime commission.

”I grew up to believe in public service,” he told the AP. “It is in the core of who I am.”

Tillis also has a GOP primary challenger, retired Raleigh financier Garland Tucker , who says Tillis hasn’t been conservative enough when it comes to government financial austerity and immigration.

Tillis has been performing a political balancing act to receive favor from both likely Republican primary voters and unaffiliated voters who often determine North Carolina general election results. While Tillis emphasizes his support for Trump’s judicial nominees, he also introduced bipartisan legislation that would have prevented Trump from firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

Criticism also was heaped upon Tillis from both sides when he voted to support Trump’s emergency declaration for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, after initially opposing the declaration and writing an op-ed that explained why.

…

President Donald Trump’s latest anointment of an acting head of a major federal agency has prompted muttering, but no more than that, from Republican senators whose job description includes confirming top administration aides.
 
Their reluctance to confront Trump comes as veterans of the confirmation process and analysts say he’s placed acting officials in key posts in significantly higher numbers than his recent predecessors. The practice lets him quickly, if temporarily, install allies in important positions while circumventing the Senate confirmation process , which can be risky with Republicans running the chamber by a slim 53-47 margin.
 
The latest example is Ken Cuccinelli, who last week was named acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He is an outspoken supporter of hard-line immigration policies and his appointment was opposed by some key Senate Republicans.
 
Definitive listings of acting officials in Trump’s and other administrations are hard to come by because no agency keeps overall records. Yet Christina Kinane, an incoming political science professor at Yale, compiled data in her doctoral dissertation, “Control Without Confirmation: The Politics of Vacancies in Presidential Appointments.”
 
Kinane found that from 1977 through mid-April of this year — the administrations of President Jimmy Carter through the first half of Trump’s  — 266 individuals held Cabinet posts. Seventy-nine of them held their jobs on an acting basis, or 3 in 10.
 
Under Trump, 22 of the 42 people in top Cabinet jobs have been acting, or just over half.
 
And though Trump’s presidency has spanned only about 1 in 20 of the years covered, his administration accounts for more than 1 in 4 of the acting officials tallied. Kinane’s figures include holdovers from previous administrations, some of whom serve for just days.
 
“This is not a new thing,” Kinane said of presidents’ use of acting officials. “It is, however, a considerably higher number” under Trump, she said.
 
While Republicans widely blame Democratic opposition to Trump’s nominees for his use of acting officials to fill some posts — a characterization Democrats reject — many also say his reliance on that alternative is costly.
 
“It has the potential to spill over into other nominations that the president’s prioritized,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said of Cuccinelli’s appointment. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said acting officials have “tenuous footing” for overseeing their agencies, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she wants confirmed department chiefs because she “wants to know who’s on point” for the administration on issues.
 
Yet no Republicans said they had challenged Trump’s use of acting officials. Many of them complained openly when President Barack Obama named special White House advisers informally called czars. And a year after President Bill Clinton named civil rights lawyer Bill Lann Lee acting attorney general for civil rights in 1997, Congress passed a law limiting the time acting officials can serve, generally to no more than 210 days.
 
“I don’t know who spends their day worrying” that their acquiescence was fraying the Senate’s constitutional power to advise and consent on nominees, said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
 
 Democrats and experts disagree on the importance of the Senate’s role.
 
 “They’re almost like they’re willing to act as staff members [of the White House] rather than independent senators,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a senator since 1975.
 
 “They’re not standing up for their own institution,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident scholar at the Brookings Institution who has studied White House staffing.
 
 Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia, has taken hard-line positions on immigration, such as opposing citizenship for American-born children of parents living in the U.S. illegally. He once led a conservative group that considered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., too moderate, and many Republicans doubt Cuccinelli could win confirmation.
 
 “That’s probably the only way they could get him in there,” the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said of Trump’s naming Cuccinelli acting director.
 
Also in an acting position are two Cabinet secretaries, Kevin McAleenan of the Homeland Security Department and Patrick Shanahan at the Defense Department. Others in the acting roles are Director Russell Vought of the Office of Management and Budget, U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. All but Mulvaney would need Senate approval to become permanent, and Trump has sent the Senate a nominee for just one of those jobs: Kelly Craft to be the ambassador to the U.N.
 
A White House spokesman did not provide a list of acting officials or comment on why Trump was relying on them, despite requests over several days. Trump has said he likes naming acting officials, telling reporters in January, “It gives me more flexibility.”
 
But one explanation is that under Trump, the process of filling jobs has been slow and riddled with missteps.
 
Trump has withdrawn 63 nominees so far, doubling the 31 Obama retracted at this point in his first term, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which studies ways to improve government effectiveness. He’s also decided against nominating some candidates after realizing the GOP-led Senate would reject them, including two would-be picks for the Federal Reserve: businessman Herman Cain and conservative commentator Stephen Moore.
 
In addition, Trump’s 568 nominations during his first year in office were more than 100 fewer than Obama submitted during that period, partnership figures show.
 
Max Stier, the group’s president and CEO, said Trump’s use of acting officials is partly because his campaign’s preparations for its transition into power were “the worst of any recent president.”  But he said a desire to avoid difficult or rejected Senate confirmations “does appear to be one element, and the most obvious example of that is Ken Cuccinelli.”
 
  

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Later this week, the U.S. Senate is expected to mount an effort to block an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as many American lawmakers continue to seethe over Riyadh’s human rights record, the war in Yemen and last year’s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  The Trump administration sought to bypass congressional review of the weapons sale by tying it to a national emergency declaration to counter threats from Iran.

Passions over Saudi Arabia run high in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, says relations with the kingdom have deteriorated.

“The current relationship with Saudi Arabia is not working for America … I am never going to let this go until things change in Saudi Arabia.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat, says the kidnapping and murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last October in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, by Saudi special agents was a breaking point.
 
“What kind of ally kidnaps a resident of your country [Khashoggi] who was seeking our protection, brings him into a consulate, chops him up and makes him disappear?  The nature of this alliance [with Saudi Arabia] has been exposed.”

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US Senate Scrutinizes Saudi, UAE Arms Sales video player.

Months after the Senate narrowly approved a resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen’s bloody civil war, the chamber could vote against pending sales of U.S. bombs, guided munitions and military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  The Trump administration’s attempt to fast-track the arms deal under an emergency declaration irks lawmakers of both parties.

“I am glad to know I am not the only one in this body disturbed by the president’s willingness to bypass Congress and sell this weaponry without any consideration of the recent events that have strained our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat.

While simple majorities are believed to exist to pass resolutions of disapproval, it is doubtful that two-thirds super-majorities could be mustered to override likely presidential vetoes of the resolutions.  

Last week, the Senate declined to consider an effort to block arms sales to Bahrain and Qatar.  Floor debate demonstrated that arms sales to the Middle East remain popular among significant numbers of Republicans, especially given a spate of troubling incidents in the Persian Gulf region.

“As Iran’s economy staggers under the weight of new American sanctions, the ayatollahs are lashing out and raging against the world.  It is essential we support our Gulf partners during this dangerous time so they can defend themselves from Iranian aggression,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican.

Other Republicans argued that withholding arms sales will only serve to compel longstanding allies to purchase weaponry from America’s adversaries.

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U.S. President Donald Trump contended Sunday two of the country’s top newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, would go out of business when he leaves office.

Trump attacked both newspapers, both of which often publish articles that he labels as “fake news” — stories about his chaotic White House and administration policies that he does not like.

“A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post!” Trump said on Twitter, referring to the Post’s ownership by Jeff Bezos, the founder of the giant online retailer Amazon.

“The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!” Trump said. He was making an assumption that he is re-elected in 2020 and his White House tenure extends through 2024.

…..news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2019

Trump rarely misses an opportunity to attack the U.S. mainstream news media and its coverage of him, but it was not immediately clear what prompted his joint attack on the Times and Post, both of which were founded in the 19th century, and over the years have won dozens of Pulitzer Prizes, journalism’s top award for excellence.

Late Saturday, however, he unleashed a broadside on the Times for its story disclosing that the U.S. had secretly stepped up its online attacks on Russia’s power grid.

“This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country,” he tweeted.

…..ALSO, NOT TRUE! Anything goes with our Corrupt News Media today. They will do, or say, whatever it takes, with not even the slightest thought of consequence! These are true cowards and without doubt, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2019

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In President Donald Trump’s reckoning, an Iran tamed by him no longer cries “death to America,” the border wall with Mexico is proceeding apace, the estate tax has been lifted off the backs of farmers, the remains of U.S. soldiers from North Korea are coming home and China is opening its wallet to the U.S. treasury for the first time in history.

These statements range from flatly false to mostly so.

Here’s a week of political rhetoric in review:

IRAN:

TRUMP, speaking about Iranians “screaming ‘death to America’” when Barack Obama was in the White House: “They haven’t screamed ‘death to America’ lately.” — Fox News interview Friday.

THE FACTS: Yes they have. The death-to-America chant is heard routinely.

The chant, “marg bar Amreeka” in Farsi, dates back even before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Once used by communists, it was popularized by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution’s figurehead and Iran’s first supreme leader after the U.S. Embassy takeover by militants.

It remains a staple of hard-line demonstrations, meetings with current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, official ceremonies, parliamentary sessions and main Friday prayer services in Tehran and across the country. Some masters of ceremonies ask audiences to tone it down. But it was heard, for example, from the crowd this month when Khamenei exhorted thousands to stand up against U.S. “bullying.”

In one variation, a demonstrator at Tehran’s Quds rally last month held a sign with three versions of the slogan: “Death to America” in Farsi, “Death to America” in Arabic,” ″Down with U.S.A.” in English.

WAGES and TAXES

TRUMP: “Wages are growing, and they are growing at the fastest rate for — this is something so wonderful — for blue-collar workers. The biggest percentage increase — blue-collar workers.” — remarks Tuesday in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

THE FACTS: He’s claiming credit for a trend of rising wages for lower-income blue-collar workers that predates his presidency.

Some of the gains also reflect higher minimum wages passed at the state and local level; the Trump administration opposes an increase to the federal minimum wage.

With the unemployment rate at 3.6%, the lowest since December 1969, employers are struggling to fill jobs. Despite all the talk of robots and automation, thousands of restaurants, warehouses, and retail stores still need workers.

They are offering higher wages and have pushed up pay for the lowest-paid one-quarter of workers more quickly than for everyone else since 2015. In April, the poorest 25% saw their paychecks increase 4.4% from a year earlier, compared with 3.1% for the richest one-quarter.

Fact-Checking Site Supports Claim US Ranked as ‘Flawed Democracy’

A fact-checking site has verified claims circulating on the Internet that the United States has fallen in a ranking of world’s strongest democracies.

Snopes.com issued the verification Friday, supporting an internet claim by a group called The Christian Left that “the USA has dropped off the list of the 20 most democratic countries in the world.” It cited an annual ranking by The Economist magazine, which has been evaluating the world’s governments on type and strength since 2006.

The Economist‘s most recent Democracy Index, its 2017 evaluation issued in January 2018, showed that the United

Those gains are not necessarily flowing to the “blue collar” workers Trump cited. Instead, when measured by industry, wages are rising more quickly for lower-paid service workers. Hourly pay for retail workers has risen 4.1% in the past year and 3.8% for hotel and restaurant employees. Manufacturing workers — the blue collars — have seen pay rise just 2.2% and construction workers, 3.2%.

TRUMP: “And to keep your family farms and ranches in the family, we eliminated the estate tax, also known as the ‘death tax,’ on the small farms and ranches and other businesses. That was a big one. … People were having a farm, they loved their children, and they want to leave it to their children. … And the estate tax was so much, the children would have to go out and borrow a lot of money from unfriendly bankers, in many cases. And they’d end up losing the farm, and it was a horrible situation.” — remarks in Council Bluffs.

THE FACTS: There still is an estate tax. More small farms may be off the hook for it as a result of changes by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 but very few farms or small businesses were subject to the tax even before that happened.

Congress increased the tax exemption — temporarily — so fewer people will be subject to those taxes.

Facebook to Step Up Fact-checking in Fight Against Fake News

Facebook is to send more potential hoax articles to third-party fact checkers and show their findings below the original post, the world’s largest online social network said on Thursday as it tries to fight so-called fake news.

The company said in a statement on its website it will start using updated machine learning to detect possible hoaxes and send them to fact checkers, potentially showing fact-checking results under the original article.

Facebook has been criticized as being one of the main distribution points for so-called fake news, which many think influenced the 2016 U.S

Previously, any assets from estates valued at more than $5.49 million, or nearly $11 million for couples, were subject to the estate tax in 2017. The new law doubled that minimum for 2018 to $11.2 million, or $22.4 million for couples. For 2019, the minimums rose to $11.4 million, or $22.8 million for couples. Those increased minimums will expire at the end of 2025.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, only about 80 small farms and closely held businesses were subject to the estate tax in 2017. Those estates represent about 1 percent of all taxable estate tax returns.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP: “I think we’re going to do very well with North Korea over a period of time. I’m in no rush. … Our remains are coming back; you saw the beautiful ceremony in Hawaii with Mike Pence. We’re getting the remains back.” — joint news conference Wednesday with Poland’s president.

THE FACTS: The U.S. is not currently getting additional remains of American service members killed during the Korean War.

With U.S.-North Korea relations souring, the Pentagon said last month it had suspended its efforts to arrange negotiations this year on recovering additional remains of American service members. The Pentagon said it hoped to reach agreement for recovery operations in 2020.

The Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency said it has had no communication with North Korean authorities since the Vietnam summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February. That meeting focused on the North’s nuclear weapons and followed a June 2018 summit where Kim committed to permitting a resumption of U.S. remains recovery; that effort had been suspended by the U.S. in 2005.

The agency said it had “reached the point where we can no longer effectively plan, coordinate, and conduct field operations” with the North during this budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

Fact-Checking: Trump Takes Credit He Hasn’t Earned

President Donald Trump boasted Tuesday night about corporate job expansion and military cost-savings that actually took root under his predecessor and gave a one-sided account of the costs and benefits to the economy from immigration – ignoring the upside.

A look at some of his claims in his prime-time speech to Congress:

Protesters display placards during a rally called “We Will Persist” in Boston, Feb.

Last summer, in line with the first Trump-Kim summit in June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that about 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

BORDER WALL

TRUMP: “We’re building a wall … And by next year, at the end of the year, we’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall.” — remarks Tuesday at the Republican Party of Iowa annual dinner.

TRUMP: “We’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall built by the end of next year. That’s a lot. And we’re moving along very rapidly. We won the big court case, as you know, the other day. And that was a big victory for us.” — remarks Monday with Indianapolis 500 champions.

THE FACTS: He’s being overly optimistic. It’s unclear how Trump arrives at 500 miles (800 km), but he would have to prevail in legal challenges to his declaration of a national emergency or get Congress to cough up more money to get anywhere close. Those are big assumptions. And by far the majority of the wall he’s talking about is replacement barrier, not new miles of construction.

So far, the administration has awarded contracts for 247 miles (395 km) of wall construction, but more than half comes from Defense Department money available under Trump’s Feb. 15 emergency declaration. On May 24, a federal judge in California who was appointed by Obama blocked Trump from building key sections of the wall with that money. In a separate case, a federal judge in the nation’s capital who was appointed by Trump sided with the administration, but that ruling has no effect while the California injunction is in place.

Fact-checking Clinton and Trump on Terrrorism, Immigration, Economy

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced off Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Nevada for their third and final debate before the November 8 presidential election.

The two began the night debating their very different approaches to some of the country’s stickiest issues: gun rights, abortion and immigration.

It was a striking turnabout from how the previous two debates unfolded. The last time the two met, in St.

Even if Trump prevails in court, all but 17 miles (27 km) of his awarded contracts replace existing barriers.

The White House says it has identified up to $8.1 billion in potential money under the national emergency, mostly from the Defense Department.

Customs and Border Protection officials say the administration wants Congress to finance 206 miles (330 km) next year. The chances of the Democratic-controlled House backing that are between slim and none.

TRADE

TRUMP: “Right now, we’re getting 25% on $250 billion worth of goods. That’s a lot of money that’s pouring into our treasury. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China. Now we’re getting a lot of money from China.” — remarks Monday.

TRUMP: “We’re taking in, right now, billions and billions of dollars in tariffs, and they’re subsidizing product.” — remarks Tuesday in Council Bluffs.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect. The tariffs he’s raised on imports from China are primarily if not entirely a tax on U.S. consumers and businesses, not a source of significant revenue coming into the country.

A study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University, before the latest escalation, found that the public and U.S. companies were paying $3 billion a month in higher taxes from the trade dispute with China, suffering $1.4 billion a month in lost efficiency and absorbing the entire impact.

It’s also false that the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs before he took action. Tariffs on goods from China are not remotely new. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. Tariffs go back to the beginning of the U.S. and were once a leading source of revenue for the government. Not in modern times. They equate to less than 1% of federal spending.

TRUMP: “Look, without tariffs, we would be captive to every country, and we have been for many years. That’s why we have an $800 billion trading deficit for years. We lose a fortune with virtually every country. They take advantage of us in every way possible.” — CNBC interview Monday.

THE FACTS: Trump isn’t telling the whole story about trade deficits.

When he refers to $800 billion trade gaps, he’s only talking about the deficit in goods such as cars and aircraft. He leaves out services — such as banking, tourism and education — in which the U.S. runs substantial trade surpluses that partially offset persistent deficits in goods. The goods and services deficit peaked at $762 billion in 2006. Last year, the United States ran a record $887 billion deficit in goods and a $260 billion surplus in services, which added up to an overall deficit of more than $627 billion.

The U.S. does tend to run trade deficits with most other major economies. But there are exceptions, such as Canada (a nearly $4 billion surplus last year), Singapore ($18 billion) and Britain ($19 billion).

Fact-checking Clinton and Trump on Terrrorism, Immigration, Economy

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced off Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Nevada for their third and final debate before the November 8 presidential election.

The two began the night debating their very different approaches to some of the country’s stickiest issues: gun rights, abortion and immigration.

It was a striking turnabout from how the previous two debates unfolded. The last time the two met, in St.

Mainstream economists reject Trump’s argument that the deficits arise from other countries taking advantage of the United States. They see the trade gaps as the result of an economic reality that probably won’t bend to tariffs and other changes in trade policy: Americans buy more than they produce, and imports fill the gap.

U.S. exports are also hurt by the American dollar’s status as the world’s currency. The dollar is usually in high demand because it is used in so many global transactions. That means the dollar is persistently strong, raising prices of U.S. products and putting American companies at a disadvantage in foreign markets.

TRUMP: “You know, France charges us a lot for the wine and yet we charge them little for French wine. So the wineries come to me and they say — the California guys, they come to me: ‘Sir, we are paying a lot of money to put our products into France and you’re letting – meaning, this country is allowing this French wine which is great, we have great wine, too, allowing it to come in for nothing. It is not fair.’” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: Trump, who’s been in the wine business, is technically wrong about France applying tariffs. The European Union does.

He’s right about a disparity in wine duties.

Tariffs vary by alcohol content and other factors. A bottle of white American wine with 13 percent alcohol content imported into the EU carries a customs duty of 10 euro cents (just over 11 U.S. cents). A bottle of white wine from the EU exported to the United States has a customs duty of 5 U.S. cents.

The gap in duties is narrower for red wine with an alcohol content of 14.5 percent.

Bulk wines are another story. The U.S. tariff is double the EU one, a break for American producers because bulk wine represents 25% of the volume of U.S. wine coming into the EU, according to the French wine exporter federation.

The value of wine imported by France has jumped 200% over a decade. Americans are the top consumers of French wine exports.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP, on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report: “The Mueller report spoke. … It said, ‘No collusion and no obstruction and no nothing.’ And, in fact, it said we actually rebuffed your friends from Russia; that we actually pushed them back — we rebuffed them.” — remarks Wednesday in Oval Office.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to repeat the claim that the Mueller report found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign; it’s also false that his campaign in 2016 denied all access to Russians. Nor did the special counsel’s report exonerate Trump on the question of whether he obstructed justice.

Mueller’s two-year investigation and other scrutiny revealed a multitude of meetings with Russians. Among them: Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Clinton.

On collusion, Mueller said he did not assess whether that occurred because it is not a legal term.

He looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.

Mueller noted some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the Fifth Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility” that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday with ABC News, Trump said if a foreign power offered dirt on his 2020 opponent, he’d be open to accepting it and that he’d have no obligation to call in the FBI. “I think I’d want to hear it,” Trump said. “There’s nothing wrong with listening.”

REPUBLICAN SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, Judiciary Committee chairman, in response to Trump’s comments that he’d be open to accepting political dirt from foreign adversaries like Russia: “The outrage some of my Democratic colleagues are raising about President Trump’s comments will hopefully be met with equal outrage that their own party hired a foreign national to do opposition research on President Trump’s campaign.” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: Graham is making an unequal comparison.

He seeks to turn the tables on Democrats by pointing to their use of a dossier of anti-Trump research produced by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, that was financed by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Graham also insists on “equal outrage” over Democrats using that information from a former intelligence officer of Britain, an ally with a history of shared intelligence with the U.S. That’s a different story from a foreign adversary such as Russia, which the Mueller report concluded had engaged in “sweeping and systematic” interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Moreover, Steele was hired as a private citizen, though one with intelligence contacts.

The Mueller report found multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the report said it established that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

Trump and his GOP allies typically point to the Steele dossier as the basis for the Russia probe. But the FBI’s investigation began months before it received the dossier.

TRUMP: “The Democrats were very unhappy with the Mueller report. So now they’re trying to do a do-over or a redo. And we’re not doing that. We gave them everything. We were the most transparent presidency in history.” — Oval Office remarks Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It’s highly dubious to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with Mueller’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.

FEDERAL RESERVE

TRUMP: “We have people on the Fed that really weren’t, you know, they’re not my people, but they certainly didn’t listen to me because they made a big mistake.” — CNBC interview.

THE FACTS: Actually, most of the members on the Fed’s Board of Governors owe their jobs to Trump.

In addition to choosing Jerome Powell, a Republican whom Obama had named to the Fed board, to be chairman, Trump has filled three other vacancies on the board in his first two years in office. Lael Brainard is the only Democrat on the board.

There are still two vacancies on the seven-member board. Trump had earlier intended to nominate two political allies — Herman Cain and Stephen Moore — but both later withdrew in the face of sharp opposition from critics.

AUTOMAKERS

TRUMP: “Tariffs are a great negotiating tool, a great revenue producer and, most importantly, a powerful way to get … companies to come to the U.S.A., and to get companies that have left us for other lands to come back home. We stupidly lost 30% of our auto business to Mexico.” — tweets Tuesday.

TRUMP: “They took 30% of our automobile companies. They moved into Mexico. All of the people got fired.” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect that Mexico took 30% of the U.S. automobile business in the years since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994.

In 2017, 14% of the vehicles sold in the U.S. were imported from Mexico, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a think tank in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Parts imported from Mexico exceed 30%.

TRUMP: “If the Tariffs went on at the higher level, they would all come back.” — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “What will happen is the companies will move into the United States, back where they came from. … They would all move back if they had to pay a 25% tax or tariff.” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to assume that auto companies in Mexico would immediately move back to the U.S. if there were a 25% tariff on Mexican-made vehicles and parts.

It takes three years or four years minimum to plan, equip and build an auto assembly plant, so there would be little immediate impact on production or jobs. Auto and parts makers are global companies, and they would also look to countries without tariffs as a place to move their factories. The companies could also just wait until after the 2020 election, hoping that if Trump is defeated, the next president would get rid of the tariffs.

“They’re not going to invest in duplicative capacity in response to short-term policy incentives,” said Kristen Dziczek, a vice president at the Center for Automotive Research.

It is possible that some production could be shifted back to the United States. General Motors, for instance, makes about 39% of its full-size pickup trucks at a factory in Silao, Mexico, mainly light-duty versions, according to analysts at Morningstar. If the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on assembled automobiles, GM could shift some production to a factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that also makes light-duty pickups. But there are limits. That plant already is running on three shifts and is almost near its maximum capacity.

Tariffs on Mexico probably would cost auto jobs in the U.S., too, because Mexico would almost certainly retaliate with tariffs of its own. Tariffs on both sides would raise prices of vehicles, because automakers probably would pass the charges onto their customers.

Industry experts say higher prices would cause more buyers to shift into the used-vehicle market, cutting into new-vehicle sales. Tariffs could be higher than 25% because parts go back and forth across the border multiple times in a highly integrated supply chain.

Vehicles built in Mexico get 20% to 30% of their parts from the U.S., so the tariffs would drive up prices there. That would hit lower-income people hard because automakers produce many lower-priced new vehicles in Mexico to take advantage of cheaper labor. About 62% of U.S. vehicle and parts exports go to Canada and Mexico, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

Tariffs would add $1,300 to $4,500 to the price of vehicles based just on the cost of parts, the center estimated.

…

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner took in as much as $135 million in revenue during their second year as aides to President Donald Trump, generated from their vast real estate holdings, stocks and bonds and even a book deal, according to their financial disclosures released Friday.

Ivanka Trump’s stake in her family’s Washington hotel down the street from the Oval Office generated $3.95 million in revenue in 2018, barely changed from a year earlier. The hotel, a favorite gathering spot for foreign diplomats and lobbyists, is at the center of two federal lawsuits claiming Donald Trump is violating the Constitution’s ban on foreign government payments to the president.

Another big Ivanka Trump holding, a trust that includes her personal business selling handbags, shoes and accessories, generated at least $1 million in revenue in 2018, down from at least $5 million the year before. Ivanka Trump announced in July of last year that she planned to close her fashion company to focus on her work as a White House adviser for her father.

The disclosure for her husband, Jared Kushner, shows that he took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from his holdings of New York City apartments and that he owns a stake in the real estate investment firm Cadre worth at least $25 million.

Disclosure forms vague

The disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics shows minimum revenue for the couple of $28 million last year generated from assets valued at more than $180 million. The disclosures filed by federal government officials each year show revenue, assets and debts in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of business and financial holdings.

Among the dozens of sources of income for Ivanka Trump was a $263,500 book advance for “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success,” published in 2017. Trump has pledged to donate royalties to her charitable fund.

Kushner’s holdings of apartment buildings through his family real estate firm, Kushner Cos., were the source of much of his income. Westminster Management, the family business overseeing its rental buildings, generated $1.5 million. Separately, one of the family’s marquee holdings, the iconic Puck Building in the Soho section of Manhattan, generated as much as $6 million in rent.

Among other properties cited in the disclosure was a former warehouse-turned-luxury-condominium in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn that brought in more than $350,000 in sale proceeds and rent.

Legal, conflict of interest questions

Former and current tenants in the building have filed a suit against the Kushner Cos. alleging it used noisy, dusty construction to make living conditions unbearable in an effort to push them out so their apartments could be sold. The Kushner Cos. has said the suit is without merit.

Cadre has also drawn conflict-of-interest questions. It launched a fund to take advantage of massive tax breaks by investing in downtrodden areas designated “Opportunity Zones,” a Trump administration program pushed by both Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Also, this month the Guardian newspaper reported that Cadre received $90 million in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since Kushner entered the White House.

Kushner lawyer Abbe Lowell did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.

Less debt

Kushner appears to have cut his debt. He had loans and lines of credit worth at least $27 million at the end of last year, down from a minimum value of $40 million the previous year. His lenders include Bank of America, Citi Group and Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank is also a major lender to President Trump’s company and has been subpoenaed by congressional investigators looking into his finances.

Both Kushner and his wife took steps to distance themselves from their businesses before taking on their roles as unpaid White House advisers. Kushner stepped down as CEO of Kushner Cos. and sold stakes in many holdings, while Ivanka Trump similarly stepped away from executive roles at her companies.

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