Joe Biden is under fire from his Democratic presidential rivals and women’s rights advocates for his defense of a decades-old prohibition on federal money paying for abortions.

Most Democratic White House hopefuls reflect their party’s latest platform calling for the outright repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which traces back to a compromise made when Biden was a young Delaware senator in the years after the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling legalized abortion nationwide.

But a Biden campaign spokesman said Wednesday that the former vice president supports the measure, though he “would be open to repealing it” if abortion access is further threatened by restrictive state laws, like those recently passed in Georgia and Alabama.

The hedging prompted intraparty outcry, with top Democrats reaffirming their commitment to abortion rights and scrapping the Hyde Amendment. They generally avoided mentioning Biden by name, but the pushback marked the first significant instance in which virtually the entire crowded 2020 field united to critique Biden, who has emerged as an early Democratic front-runner .

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has campaigned as an unapologetic feminist, tweeted “reproductive rights are human rights, period. They should be nonnegotiable for all Democrats.” On Capitol Hill, California Sen. Kamala Harris told The Associated Press she was “absolutely opposed to the idea that a woman is not going to have an ability to exercise her choice based on how much money she’s got.”

Campaigning in Indiana, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said, “This isn’t about the politics, this is about what’s right. The Hyde Amendment should not be the law.”

Other presidential candidates, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, also voiced support for ending the Hyde Amendment.

Biden’s abortion views came under scrutiny recently after video emerged of a conversation between him and a South Carolina activist that appeared to suggest he backed the Hyde Amendment’s repeal. His campaign said Biden thought the activist was asking about the so-called Mexico City rule, which prohibits U.S. foreign aid to non-American organizations that provide abortion services.

The campaign said Biden supports ending the Mexico City rule but backs the Hyde Amendment for now. That would change, it said, “if avenues for women to access their protected rights under Roe v. Wade are closed.”

Biden, a Roman Catholic, has long been a supporter of the once-bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It bars the use of federal funds for abortion other than in cases of incest, rape or to save the life of the mother.

That position aligns the former vice president with the man he’s trying to unseat next year, President Donald Trump. Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Wednesday that “President Trump opposes taxpayer funding of abortions and supports the Hyde Amendment.”

Biden has said in the past he agrees with his church’s opposition to abortion personally but doesn’t think the government should impose his views on others. After the Supreme Court decided the Roe v. Wade case, Biden originally worried the decision “went too far,” though he later became a staunch defender of it.

“I’ve stuck to my middle-of-the-road position on abortion for more than 30 years,” he wrote in his 2007 book “Promises to Keep.” `’I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding, and I’d like to make it easier for scared young mothers to choose not to have an abortion, but I will also vote against a constitutional amendment that strips a woman of her right to make her own choice.”

As a party, Democrats didn’t expressly state opposition to the Hyde Amendment until 2016. The Democratic platform that year also introduced a specific mention of Planned Parenthood, as it was adopted amid a rash of Republican-run state legislatures trying to strip Medicaid financing for the women’s health giant whose services include abortion and abortion referrals.

Abortion rights supporters also condemned the Hyde Amendment on Wednesday.

“As abortion access is being restricted and pushed out of reach in states around the country, it is unacceptable for a candidate to support policies that further restrict abortion,” Kelley Robinson, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Biden’s position “further endangers women and families already facing enormous hurdles and creates two classes of rights for people in this country, which is inherently undemocratic.”

Biden ally and California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in an interview, “I respect Joe. I just disagree.” She said it wouldn’t affect her support, but she planned to raise the issue with him: “Oh, yeah. We’ll talk about it. No question.”

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono went further, saying she was “very disappointed” in Biden’s position and urged Democratic presidential candidates to “come together” in full support of abortion rights.

“This is why there are going to be a lot of women and others who are going to be asking Biden, `Where exactly are you on the issue of a woman’s right to choose?”’ Hirono said.

 
…

Beto (BET’-oh) O’Rourke has unveiled a voting rights proposal he says can increase voter registration by 50 million and raise nationwide voter turnout to 65%.

He’s seeking to ensure 35 million new voters cast ballots in 2024’s presidential race.

The former Texas congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate announced Wednesday he’d champion legislation ensuring automatic voter registration, including preregistration starting at age 16 and same-day registration. He’d make Election Day a holiday, extend early voting and strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

O’Rourke promises to direct the Justice Department to combat strict voter ID laws around the country and keep some state officials from “purging” voter rolls. He’d back a constitutional amendment imposing 12-year House and Senate term limits and 18-year limits for Supreme Court justices.

The Pew Research Center says voter turnout was 61% in 2016.
…

In a courtroom packed with environmental activists, federal judges wrestled Tuesday with whether climate change violates the constitutional rights of young people who have sued the U.S. government over the use of fossil fuels.

A Justice Department attorney warned three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowing the case to go to trial would be unprecedented and open the doors to more lawsuits.

“This case would have earth-shattering consequences,” Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark said. 

He called the lawsuit “a direct attack on the separation of powers” and said the 21 young people who filed it want the courts to direct U.S. energy policy, instead of government officials.

The young people are pressing the government to stop promoting the use of fossil fuels, saying sources like coal and oil cause climate change and violate their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty and property. 

The judges seemed to feel the enormity of the case, which the plaintiffs’ lawyer compared in scope to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling that mandated desegregation of schools in the 1950s.

If the case moves forward, the judiciary would be “dealing with different branches of government and telling them what to do,” said Judge Andrew Hurwitz, instead of issuing court orders telling officials to stop doing something deemed unconstitutional.

The dire threat to people, particularly the young, demands such action, said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, which is representing the plaintiffs. 

“When our great-grandchildren look back on the 21st century, they will see that government-sanctioned climate destruction was the constitutional issue of this century,” Olson told the judges.

​The lawsuit asks the courts to declare federal energy policy that contributes to climate change unconstitutional, order the government to quickly phase out carbon dioxide emissions to a certain level by 2100 and mandate a national climate recovery plan. 

The Obama and Trump administrations have tried to get the case dismissed since it was filed in Oregon in 2015.

“It’s just really disappointing to see the lengths that they go to – to not only not let us get the remedy that we’re seeking, but not even let us have the chance to prove our facts or present our case at trial,” said Nathan Baring, a 19-year-old from Fairbanks, Alaska, who joined the lawsuit when he was 15.

Baring said a social media campaign in the early days featured the hashtag #KidsvsGov, which was changed to #YouthvsGov as they got older.

“I think eventually it’s just going to have to be #AdultsvsGov,’’ Baring said, laughing.

As the case drags on, sea ice that protects coastal Alaska communities from fierce storms is forming later in the year, leaving those villages vulnerable, he said. 

The young people argue that government officials have known for more than 50 years that carbon pollution from fossil fuels causes climate change and that policies promoting oil and gas deprive them of their constitutional rights.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s administration say the young people didn’t find any “historical basis for a fundamental right to a stable climate system or any other constitutional right related to the environment.”

The lawsuit says the young are more vulnerable to serious effects from climate change in the future. The American Academy of Pediatrics, 14 other health organizations and nearly 80 scientists and doctors agreed in a brief filed with the appeals court.

They pointed out that the World Health Organization estimates 88% of the global health burden of climate change falls on children younger than 5.

The case has become a focal point for many youth activists, and the courtroom in Portland was packed. 

If the 9th Circuit judges decide the lawsuit can move forward, it would go before the U.S. District Court in Eugene, where the case was filed. The appeals court judges will rule later.
…

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is pitching a $5 trillion-plus climate proposal that he says would lead the U.S. to net zero emission of carbon pollution by 2050.

The former vice president calls for $1.7 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, with the rest of the investments coming from the private sector. Biden proposes covering the taxpayer costs by repealing the corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed in 2017, while eliminating existing subsidies to the fossil fuel companies.

Biden’s plan — a mix of tax incentives, federal spending, new regulation and more aggressive foreign policy on climate issues — comes as he pushes back on rivals’ assertions that his environmental agenda isn’t bold enough. Climate activists largely praised his pitch Tuesday, although some said the Democrats’ 2020 front-runner still hasn’t gone far enough to challenge the fossil fuel industry.

His proposal calls the Green New Deal pushed by some Democrats on Capitol Hill “a crucial outline” but stops short of some of its timelines for weaning the U.S. economy off power from fossil fuels, even as he promises a “clean energy revolution” nationwide and internationally.

“I will lead America and the world, not only to confront the crisis in front us but to seize the opportunity it presents,” Biden says in a campaign video posted online, warning that failure to act threatens “the livability of our planet” and will accelerate natural disasters that are “already happening.”

Biden also joined many of his Democratic primary opponents in pledging not to accept campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and promising to keep the U.S. in the United Nations climate agreement signed in 2015 while he was vice president under President Barack Obama. Trump, who calls climate science a “hoax,” has pledged to withdraw from that accord.

Reaction to plan

But the release of Biden’s plan was not without controversy. The campaign was forced to amend the proposal because a handful of passages did not credit some of its sources. The Biden campaign said “several citations” had been “inadvertently left out.”

Biden’s plan is similar in size and scope to what former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke has proposed. Its total price tag falls short of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s pitch for $3 trillion in federal spending over a decade and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s $2 trillion green manufacturing plan, also unveiled Tuesday.

Inslee took advantage of the contrasts, saying at a Michigan campaign stop that Biden’s “proposals really lack teeth and they lack ambition that is necessary to defeat the climate crisis.” He added, “We don’t have 30 years to get this job done. We’ve got to start acting now.”

League of Conservation Voters lobbying executive Tiernan Sittenfeld was more complimentary, applauding Biden for “committing to ambitious goals.” Greenpeace, which recently released a scorecard ranking Biden second to last among Democratic candidates, called the outline “a critical step forward,” but spokesman John Noel added that if Biden “wants to become a leader on climate, he needs to outline a plan to phase out fossil fuels.”

At the pro-Green New Deal Sunrise Movement, executive director Varshini Prakash called Biden’s plan “a good start.” Prakash also gave climate activists credit for pushing Biden to the left following their outcry after a recent news report asserted Biden was looking for a “middle ground” on climate. Biden disputed the report at the time.

As president, Biden says he’d start by reversing many actions of the Trump administration, then turn to necessary congressional action and executive branch regulation, while using U.S. political and economic muscle to limit emissions from other nations.

Lost jobs

He acknowledges that such an overhaul would affect existing U.S. energy workers — coal miners and power plant operators especially. He calls first for pension and benefit protections for all such workers and promises an “unprecedented investment” in retraining and redevelopment in those communities.

Biden recognizes the “environmental justice” movement that highlights how pollution disproportionately affects poorer, mostly nonwhite communities. He pledges a more aggressive Environmental Protection Agency, clean drinking water for all Americans and a focus on minority communities for initial rounds of federal clean energy spending.

He doesn’t offer specific spending amounts for those priorities.

Still, Biden’s dual focus on coal towns and nonwhite communities reflects political lessons from 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s loss. Clinton drew ire in coal country when she said as part of a more sweeping statement on energy development that “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” 

Transportation, construction

Biden also envisions expanding the nation’s railways, theoretically reducing demand for car and airline travel.

Among his ideas for automobiles, Biden calls for fuel economy standards “beyond” the Obama administration’s goal of about 54 miles (87 kilometers) per gallon (3.8 liters). The Trump administration has rolled that back, saying the regulation would increase auto prices. Biden also pitches expanded tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles, along with 500,000 more public charging stations nationwide by the end of 2030.

He calls for reducing carbon output from the nation’s buildings by more than 50 percent by 2035, through new construction and tax breaks for retrofitting existing commercial and residential properties. The Energy Department would be tasked with tightening efficiency standards for household appliances and equipment.

Like O’Rourke, Biden mentions nuclear energy as a source the federal government should boost with tax incentives. That could put him at odds with some activists on the left who cast nuclear energy as too dangerous.

On the international front, Biden calls out China as the world’s biggest coal polluter and says he’d hinge all future bilateral deals with Beijing on carbon reductions. Biden also urges an international alliance that would help other nations afford low-carbon development and pitches a global moratorium on Arctic offshore drilling.
…

Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren proposed on Tuesday spending $2 trillion on a new “green manufacturing” program to address climate change that would invest in research and exporting American clean energy technology.

The manufacturing program is the first in a new series of “economic patriotism” proposals Warren is unveiling intended to create American jobs and help U.S. industry.

“This is going to be a big plan for bold structural changes,” Warren said at a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan.

Warren told the crowd of about 500 in a facility that teaches manufacturing skills that her proposal would be paid for by cutting subsidies in the oil and gas industry. Additionally, by all companies paying more taxes, she said, singling out Amazon.com.

Among the more than 20 Democrats in the field hoping to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November 2020, Warren has distinguished herself as the most prolific proposer of new policy positions.

Several candidates have offered climate-related policy proposals, including Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who has made it the singular focus of his campaign, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who also announced a climate plan on Tuesday.

Warren said she had not read Biden’s proposal when asked by reporters after her campaign event.

The newest proposal from Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, lays out how she would carry out some of the policy goals outlined in the Green New Deal, which has the backing of liberal members of her party.

Warren began touting the proposal in a campaign trip to Michigan, a Midwestern state with a large manufacturing sector that shocked political observers in 2016 when voters backed Trump and helped propel him to the White House.

“When we’re talking about manufacturing, when we’re talking about real expertise, we’re talking about Detroit,” Warren said.

The plan is likely to draw criticism from opponents who will argue the price tag is too high and that trying to quickly overhaul the U.S. energy sector would have crippling economic effects.

But Warren also released an evaluation of her three-part proposal conducted by Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, who argued the plan would help the economy on a large scale.

“There is no free lunch, and big businesses, oil and gas companies, and multinationals pay for the cost of this plan,” Zandi wrote. “The economy benefits, although it would take more than a decade for this benefit to be fully realized.”

The first part of Warren’s plan calls for spending $400 billion over 10 years on clean energy research and development.

Warren said she believes the United States could one day use no fossil fuels. “It’s part of our technological bandwidth,” she said in a brief news conference after the Detroit rally.

Next, Warren proposed increasing the amount the United States spends on “American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy products for federal, state, and local use, and for export.”

Warren said the United States currently spends $1.5 trillion on defense procurement, which she called “bloated,” and argued that an equal amount should be spent on clean energy.

As part of this proposal, Warren would require companies that sell to the federal government pay their employees at least $15 an hour, that employees receive 12 weeks paid family and medical leave and be able to form unions. Labor practices were included in Green New Deal proposals.

Finally, Warren called for creating a new federal office responsible for trying to get foreign countries to purchase U.S. clean energy technology.

Likening it to programs that help foreign countries buy U.S.-made weapons, Warren would allocate $100 billion to assist countries buying U.S. energy technologies.

While acknowledging ambitious goals that liberal advocates have supported to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050, Warren said it was important that other countries cut emissions as well.

“We need other countries to slash their emissions, and that means we need to supply the world with clean energy products (at low enough prices to displace dirty alternatives) to put us on the right path,” Warren wrote on Medium.
…

The White House on Tuesday directed two more former aides, including top presidential adviser Hope Hicks, to defy subpoenas from Democratic lawmakers investigating whether U.S. President Donald Trump obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Hicks and Annie Donaldson, the former chief of staff for ex-White House counsel Donald McGahn, were told to not comply with his panel’s subpoenas for documents from their time working in the White House. Trump had earlier blocked McGahn’s cooperation with the committee, where an impeachment inquiry would begin against Trump if Democrats decide to pursue it.

Hicks worked for the Trump Organization, the president’s business empire, before he entered politics. She served as his campaign press secretary and later became White House communications director, before resigning in early 2018. She once testified to Congress that she told “white lies” on Trump’s behalf.

Nadler said Hicks has turned over some documents from her time working on Trump’s campaign. The Nadler committee is trying to arrange public testimony from Hicks, McGahn and Donaldson.

Trump has vowed to fight all Democratic subpoenas. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is voting next week on whether to hold McGahn and Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for their defiance of Judiciary Committee subpoenas, with Nadler saying that he expects Hicks and Donaldson also will eventually be held in contempt.

Donaldson was a key witness for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice. Mueller’s team of lawyers relied on copious notes she took about McGahn’s interactions with Trump, with McGahn telling investigators that Trump directed him to seek Mueller’s dismissal. McGahn ignored the president’s request, then later left his White House job last year to return to private legal practice in Washington.

Mueller outlined several instances of alleged obstruction by Trump in the 448-page report released in April, but said he could not bring any charges against the president because of Justice Department restrictions prohibiting filing of charges against a sitting president. Barr and then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein subsequently decided that no criminal charges were warranted against Trump.

Nadler protested the White House stance blocking cooperation from Hicks and Donaldson, saying, “The president has no lawful basis for preventing these witnesses from complying with our request.”

 
…

Congress is finally shipping President Donald Trump a $19.1 billion disaster aid bill, a measure stalled for months by infighting, misjudgment, and a presidential feud with Democrats.

The House is approving the measure in its first significant action as it returns from a 10-day recess. It is slated for a Monday evening vote in which Republicans whose home districts have been hit by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and fires are set to join with majority Democrats to deliver a big vote for the measure.

Conservative Republicans had held up the bill during the recess, objecting on three occasions to efforts by Democratic leaders to pass the bill by a voice vote requiring unanimity. They say the legislation — which reflects an increasingly permissive attitude in Washington on spending to address disasters that sooner or later hit every region of the country — shouldn’t be rushed through without a recorded vote.

Along the way, House and Senate old-timers have seemed to outmaneuver the White House, though Trump personally prevailed upon Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., to drop a bid to free up billions of dollars for dredging and other harbor projects. The Senate passed the bill by a sweeping 85-8 vote on its way out of Washington May 23, a margin that reflected a consensus that the bill is long overdue.

The measure was initially held up over a fight between Trump and Democrats over aid to Puerto Rico that seems long settled. 

“Some in our government refused to assist our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico who are still recovering from a 2017 hurricane. I’m pleased we’ve moved past that,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. “Because when disaster strikes, we shouldn’t let a ZIP code dictate our response.” 

​Migrant issue

The measure also faced delays amid failed talks on Trump’s $4 billion-plus request to care for thousands of mostly Central American migrants being held at the southern border. The sides narrowed their differences but couldn’t reach agreement in the rush to go on recess but everyone agrees that another bill will be needed almost immediately to refill nearly empty agency accounts to care for migrants.

The measure is largely the same as a version that passed the House last month that Republicans opposed for leaving out the border funding.

“We must work together quickly to pass a bill that addresses the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the border and provides law enforcement agencies with the funding they need,” said top Appropriations Committee Republican Kay Granger of Texas. “The stakes are high. There are serious — life or death — repercussions if the Congress does not act.” 

Among the reasons was a demand by House liberals to block the Homeland Security Department from getting information from federal social welfare authorities to help track immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally who take migrant refugee children into their homes.

​Floods, tornadoes

As the measure languished, disasters kept coming — with failed levees in Arkansas, Iowa and Missouri and tornadoes across Ohio just the most recent examples. The measure is supported by the bipartisan party leadership in both House and Senate.

The legislation is also being driven by Florida and Georgia lawmakers steaming with frustration over delays in delivering help to farmers, towns, and military bases slammed by hurricanes last fall. Flooding in Iowa and Nebraska this spring added to the coalition behind the measure, which delivers much of its help to regions where Trump supporters dominate.

The bill started out as a modest $7.8 billion measure passed in the last days of House GOP control. A $14 billion version advanced in the Pelosi-led chamber in January and ballooned to $19.1 billion by the time it emerged from the floor last month, fed by new funding for community rehabilitation projects, Army Corps of Engineers water and flood protection projects, and rebuilding funds for several military bases, including Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

Many Republicans opposed funding to mitigate future disasters as part of rebuilding projects when Superstorm Sandy funding passed in 2013 only to embrace it now that areas such as suburban Houston need it. Democrats, for their part, held firm for what ended up as roughly $1.4 billion for Puerto Rico, letting Trump feud with the U.S. territory’s Democratic officials for weeks and deflecting political blame for stalling the bill.
…

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on June 10 on Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to Donald Trump’s campaign.

The committee will hear testimony from former U.S. attorneys and legal experts, including John Dean, a Trump critic and former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon who served a year in prison in connection with the Watergate scandal.

“We have learned so much even from the redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report,” Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement.

“These hearings will allow us to examine the findings laid out in Mueller’s report so that we can work to protect the rule of law and protect future elections through consideration of legislative and other remedies,” Nadler said. 

In a 448-page, redacted report released in April, Mueller documented numerous occasions in which Trump sought to quash the probe, including by firing former FBI Director James Comey. Mueller ultimately did not reach a decision as to whether Trump had obstructed justice, however.

The special counsel said last week that even if he had been willing to conclude Trump had committed a crime, he could not have indicted him because of a Justice Department policy that prohibits indicting a sitting president.

” … Our first hearing will focus on President Trump’s most overt acts of obstruction. In the coming weeks, other hearings will focus on other important aspects of the Mueller report,” Nadler said.

The House Judiciary Committee has already held many hearings and sought materials and testimony related to its investigation into whether Trump tried to obstruct Mueller’s probe.

Last month, Attorney General William Barr refused to appear for a scheduled committee hearing before the committee and the White House blocked former White House Counsel Don McGahn from appearing at another hearing.
…

Democratic White House hopeful Cory Booker is rolling out his Iowa steering committee, a team of activists and operatives that features party powerbroker Jerry Crawford, who played a key role in each of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns in the state.

Crawford, a Des Moines-area attorney who also played leading roles on Al Gore and John Kerry’s campaigns, said he’s been courted by multiple campaigns but told The Associated Press in an interview he’s backing Booker because of the New Jersey U.S. senator’s positive message.

“I’m very much drawn to his passion for civility and his determination to pursue healing,” Crawford said.

Crawford is among 10 Iowa activists, operatives and elected officials who plan to provide strategic advice and operational support to Booker’s campaign as part of his Iowa steering committee, being rolled out Monday. The group includes four other previously unannounced endorsers: former Iowa state House minority leader Rep. Mark Smith and city councilmembers Dale Todd, of Cedar Rapids, and Mazahir Salih and Bruce Teague, both of Iowa City. Booker’s campaign said it hopes all three will help organize African American support for him in their respective cities.

The other five steering committee members are state Reps. Amy Nielsen and Jennifer Konfrst; Iowa Democratic Party central committee members Landra Jo Reece and Melinda Jones; and former American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees political director Marcia Nichols, all of whom previously expressed their support for Booker.

“From local activists to council members and state representatives, these individuals have been on the forefront of standing up for their communities,” Booker said in a statement.

Crawford, whose weekend conversation with the AP was interrupted by a call from Booker, said he plans to be in touch with the Booker campaign multiple times a week and has already begun efforts to convince other major Iowa political players to get on board with the campaign. Besides gathering support for the candidate over the next nine months, Booker’s team sees the members of his steering committee as key forces on caucus night, the kind of voices who could win over persuadable caucus-goers in key precincts.

With at least 50 staffers on the ground, Booker’s Iowa team is widely seen inside the state as one of the strongest and most seasoned, behind only Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s in numbers. But thus far, Booker’s staffing strength hasn’t translated to support in the polls: Booker still draws only low single-digit support in nationwide and state surveys.

Booker’s staff and advisers dismiss the polls as too early to be predictive and argue that the senator is running more of a slow burn-style campaign that will ensure he has the operation in place to harness any momentum in the fall if he does catch fire — and enough resources to sustain it through the caucuses and beyond.

“This is a horrible time to be one of the front-runners,” Crawford said, noting that early Iowa front-runners “don’t do very well, historically speaking.”

Crawford said he expects to see Booker surge around Thanksgiving, but right now, “Cory’s exactly where you want to be.”

 
…

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday called on California Democrats to unite against Donald Trump, kicking the 2020 presidential campaign into high gear with jabs against the Republican president and a veiled swipe at Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Sanders called Trump “a racist, a sexist, a homophobe and a religious bigot” in a speech capping off a state Democratic convention that drew fourteen of the 24 candidates to make their case before 5,000 delegates, guests and press in the most populous – and most heavily Democratic – U.S. state.

“Together we are going to defeat a president who has the most corrupt administration in history,” Sanders said, “and a president who knows nothing about real American values.”

The San Francisco convention became a window into the forces at work in the Democratic Party as it seeks to recover from Trump’s populist-fueled victory in 2016.

The party’s left-leaning delegates greeted Sanders and liberal U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren like rock stars.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper drew boos when he said socialist policies would not propel the party to victory, and other moderates were booed for rejecting the idea of a universal public health care system, or Medicare for All.

Former vice president Joe Biden, who leads Sanders in polls for the Democratic nomination in California and nationwide, did not attend the convention, drawing barely veiled criticism from Sanders.

Sanders noted that the fourteen candidates who addressed the convention, as well as some who had “chosen for whatever reason not to be in this room,” offer a variety of ways to approach a campaign against Trump. But Sanders rejected the centrist approach favored by Biden and some other candidates.

On issues like health care, pharmaceutical prices and climate change wracking the country, “there is no middle ground,” Sanders said.

Addressing concerns among some Democrats that a moderate would be more electable than a fiery progressive, Sanders said such an approach would not generate the enthusiasm needed to defeat Trump.

“We will not defeat Donald Trump unless we bring excitement and energy into the campaign and unless we give millions of working people and young people a reason to vote and a reason to believe that politics is relevant to their lives,” Sanders said.

California, which will send nearly 500 delegates to the party’s nominating convention next year, took on new heft for the 2020 campaign after moving its nominating election to March from June. Democrats hold all statewide elective offices in the state, and dominate both houses of the legislature.

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, a native daughter who has been eclipsed in early polling in California by Biden and Sanders, made clear she was not taking her home state for granted.

On Saturday, supporters with signs bearing her name and shouting “Kamala! Kamala!” formed a gauntlet that Sanders was forced to walk through on his way into a labor union breakfast.

“I am here to earn everyone’s support, and I’m going to fight to earn it,” Harris said at a breakfast held by the party’s women’s caucus.

 
…

President Donald Trump said Sunday that “America has had enough with Mexico,” contending that it is an “abuser” of the United States by not stopping the surge of Central American migrants headed north to seek asylum in the U.S.

Trump, who is threatening to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican exports sent to the U.S. unless it blocks the migrants short of the U.S. border, accused Mexico of “taking but never giving. It has been this way for decades.”

On Twitter, Trump said, “Either they stop the invasion of our Country by Drug Dealers, Cartels, Human Traffickers, Coyotes and Illegal Immigrants, which they can do very easily, or our many companies and jobs that have been foolishly allowed to move South of the Border, will be brought back into the United States through taxation (Tariffs).”

Trump’s attacks on Mexico came a day after Mexican President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador suggested his country could clamp down on migration. He said he thinks the United States is ready to discuss its threat to impose the tariff, effective June 10, as a means to combat illegal migration from Central America.

“There is willingness on the part of U.S. government officials to establish dialogue and reach agreement and compromises,” the Mexican leader said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by phone and said face-to-face talks between the two would take place on Wednesday in Washington.

“We will be firm and defend the dignity of Mexico,” Ebrard said.

Lopez Obrador called for “dialogue” rather than “coercive measures” and said he expects “good results” from the Washington talks.

Trump set off the dispute last week, posting a policy statement on Twitter.

“On June 10, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” Trump tweeted. Until “the illegal immigration problem is remedied” tariffs will continue to rise monthly, going as high as 25% by October 1.

U.S. border agents have apprehended an increasing number of people, largely from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who crossed the southern U.S. border in recent months, many of them hoping to win asylum to stay in the U.S.

In contrast to previous spikes in arrivals, recent groups have included a large number of children, prompting U.S. officials to scramble to support families and children traveling without parents.

The tariff dispute is occurring as Trump is seeking congressional approval for a new U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade deal. Some Washington analysts have suggested that if Trump imposes the tariff on imports from Mexico, it would imperil passage of the trade pact, but acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney dismissed such concerns, saying the two issues are not connected.

“This is an immigration matter, not a trade issue,” Mulvaney told Fox News Sunday.

He said Trump threatened to impose the tariff “to put pressure on Mexico. Congress will not help us fix the border, so we turned to Mexico.”
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The Pentagon has told the White House to keep the military out of politics, after someone from the White House directed the Navy to keep the warship USS John S. McCain “out of sight” when President Donald Trump visited Japan.

“On Friday, May 31, Secretary Shanahan directed his Chief of Staff to speak with the White House Military Office and reaffirm his mandate that the Department of Defense will not be politicized,”  Shanahan’s spokesman Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino said Sunday.

Eric Chewning, Shanahan’s chief of staff, told the defense secretary that he had reinforced this message to the White House, according to Buccino.

“There’s no room for politicizing the military,” Shanahan told reporters aboard a U.S. military aircraft en route to Seoul. “We take these things seriously, and my office and others will deal with it directly.”

The directive to hide the USS John S. McCain from Trump was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

An email seen by VOA showed discussions about the warship between the White House Military Office and an officer with the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet ahead of Trump’s trip.

“USS John McCain needs to be out of sight,” reads the email’s third bullet-pointed request.

“Please confirm #3 will be satisfied,” the email emphasized.

Shanahan confirmed Sunday that the White House Military Office gave the directive that the warship should be hidden from view “directly” to the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which manages naval operations in the Western Pacific.

“The directive was not carried out,” Shanahan added.

According to Shanahan, officials have told him that a white tarp was placed over the ship’s stern on the days preceding the visit, but the tarp was for “hull preservation” and was removed prior to the president’s visit.

A paint barge was moved the day prior to Trump’s visit “to support ongoing maintenance,” but the barge “did not obscure the view of the ship during the visit,” said Shanahan.

Sailors with the USS John S. McCain and the USS Stethem were on a 96-hour Memorial Day weekend liberty unrelated to the visit and did not participate in the Trump event, he confirmed.

VOA had previously reported these details provided by a U.S. Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shanahan said he had called the late Senator John McCain’s wife “a couple days ago” after news of the incident broke, but declined to discuss the “private conversation.

On Thursday, Shanahan said he did not authorize and was not aware of the White House directive to hide the USS John S. McCain from Trump.

“I would never dishonor the memory of a great American patriot like Senator [John] McCain,” Shanahan told reporters traveling with him. “I’d never disrespect the young men and women who crew that ship.”

Trump tweeted Thursday that he was not informed about the controversy surrounding the USS John S. McCain during his visit to Japan.

The president later told reporters outside the White House that whoever was involved in the move was “well meaning” but that he was unaware of the decision to hide the warship.

“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t involved. I would not have done that,” he said, adding, “I was not a big fan of John McCain in any way, shape or form.”

Trump frequently feuded with longtime Republican senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who died last year.

The USS McCain was originally named for the senator’s father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, and now honors all three men.
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