Time is running out for U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional lawmakers to compromise on a border security deal that would prevent another partial government shutdown next Friday. Just days after Trump repeated his call for $5.7 billion in funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, a bipartisan committee is expected to present a compromise proposal. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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Can the presidential retreat that produced the landmark Camp David Mideast peace accord do anything to help bridge the divides in polarized Washington? 

White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney isn’t setting any lofty goals, but he’s invited a bipartisan mix of legislators to the rustic Maryland campus for an informal get-together this weekend as he tries to build relationships across the aisle.

WATCH: Time Running Out for Border Security Solution

While President Donald Trump hasn’t shown much interest in spending time at Camp David, it’s at least the third time Mulvaney has used the remote complex in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain Park as neutral ground for Washington political figures. He huddled there with Republicans last month after Trump agreed to the short-term budget deal that re-opened the government, and he held a White House staff retreat at the property not long after taking charge.

White House officials stressed the latest gathering had “no agenda,” even as it comes in the midst of the ongoing budget stalemate over Trump’s long-promised border wall. Instead, Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, sees the sleepover as an opportunity to build bipartisan relationships at the quiet retreat.

“Camp David is a perfect setting for the chief of staff to rekindle some old friendships, forge new ones, and have a free exchange of thoughts and ideas between America’s policy makers, regardless of political party,”  White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in statement. 

He added in a Fox News interview that, “There’s no agenda, there’s no set conversation about border security,” although the issue was sure to come up.

Among those confirmed to attend are several members of the committee working to negotiate a border deal, including Reps. Tom Graves, R-Ga., Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., and border state Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas.

Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee, will also be attending the get-together, as will the panel’s top Republican, Steve Womack of Arkansas. Others attending include Republican Reps. Rob Woodall of Georgia and Roger Williams of Texas.

Yarmuth said the getaway was pitched as “a bipartisan group to see if there were bipartisan opportunities moving forward.” He didn’t know the agenda, but said Mulvaney did call him Thursday “to see if I had any dietary restrictions.”

Yarmuth said he and Mulvaney “get along really well. We don’t agree on anything, except we both love golf.” Back when Mulvaney was being tapped as Trump’s budget director, Yarmuth said he was asked to write a letter of recommendation.

“I wrote short and sweet,” he recalled. “I wrote: `Mick Mulvaney and I agree on nothing, but he is a man of principle and character and intelligence.”‘ He said the note continued, “I know we would have an amicable working relationship.”

A few weeks after Mulvaney got the job, Yarmuth texted him and said: “Mick, I guess you owe me big time. Oh, that’s right, you don’t believe in debt. Seriously, congratulations, I’m happy for you.”

Mulvaney texted back: “Actually I do owe you. I’ve been told your comments made a difference. I’ll be repaying you with rounds of golf at Doral. Apparently, I now know the owner.”

Mulvaney extended some of the Camp David invitations as he mingled with his former colleagues on the House floor during Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday. Members’ spouses have also been invited to the get-together, which was set to kick off Friday evening. Several of those attending said they weren’t sure what would be on the agenda, but welcomed the visit.

“My response is, look, there’ve been a lot of peace accords at Camp David — we worked on a lot of different things there,” said Fleischmann, who has known Mulvaney for years. “It’s a great opportunity.” 

Fleischmann, who was part of the same 2011 Tea Party class that took control of the House as Mulvaney, and played with him on the congressional baseball team, expressed hope the get-together would be fruitful.

“Dialogue — and maybe talking about some of the things that are out there,” said Fleischmann, who is the top Republican on the Appropriation Committee’s subcommittee on Homeland Security, and a member of the panel trying to negotiate the border wall deal. “I think the group that they’re picking are people who are generally peace makers, if you will.”

Yarmuth was more skeptical about the potential.

“I’m not sure in this environment,” he said, “it matters what the members do.”

And, yes, while Camp David did produce the landmark 1978 peace accord between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, 40 years later there is still plenty of work to be done to achieve Mideast peace.  
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Lawmakers in the U.S. Northwestern state of Washington, which is battling a measles outbreak, are considering a bill that would prohibit parents from claiming a personal or philosophical exemption to their children receiving vaccinations.

Hundreds of people opposed to the bill lined up early Friday to attend a hearing in Olympia, the state capital, where lawmakers heard testimony from both supporters and opponents of the proposed bill.

The measure came after health officials reported at least 52 known cases of the measles in the state and four cases in the neighboring state of Oregon.

Current law

Washington state law requires children to be vaccinated for nearly a dozen diseases, including measles, before they can attend schools or child care centers. However, exemptions are allowed for parents based on personal beliefs, including medical, religious and philosophical views.

The proposed bill would eliminate that personal exemption, meaning all children would have to be vaccinated for a range of diseases before enrolling in schools or child care facilities.

The bill has the support of the state medical association as well as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who declared a state of emergency last month because of the measles outbreak. 

Opponents testifying against the bill Friday included environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned vaccine safety standards.

The Associated Press cited state Department of Health records that showed 4 percent of Washington secondary school students had nonmedical vaccine exemptions. The records showed that 3.7 percent of those exemptions were personal, while the remainder were religious exemptions.

Arguments for, against

Proponents of eliminating the personal exemption argue that schools must be safe and protect vulnerable children. Opponents of the eliminating the exemption argue that the vaccines come with a medical risk and that therefore people must have a choice about whether to use them. 

Both California and Vermont have removed personal belief vaccine exemptions for schoolchildren.  
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President Donald Trump threw his weight behind his daughter’s latest White House effort Thursday, backing her initiative to provide an economic boost to women in the developing world.

The president on Thursday launched the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, a governmentwide project led by senior adviser Ivanka Trump. The initiative involves the State Department, the National Security Council and other agencies. It aims to coordinate current programs and develop new ones to assist women in areas such as job training, financial support, and legal or regulatory reforms.

Calling it a “historic step,” he signed a national security memorandum to officially launch the effort, framing it as a way to promote stability around the world. He was joined in the Oval Office by Ivanka Trump, elected officials, Cabinet members, business leaders and women who have benefited from such programs.

The initiative aims to help 50 million women in the developing world get ahead economically over the next six years. It will draw on public and private resources, with the U.S. Agency for International Development initially setting up a $50 million fund, using already-budgeted dollars.

Trump has twice tried unsuccessfully to slash USAID’s budget by a third, and his “America first” foreign policy has sought to limit the United States’ role as an international leader. But his daughter told The Associated Press that the women’s initiative was in keeping with administration goals, arguing it was a strategic investment that promoted security.

“We’re proud of our legacy of being a generous nation, looking to uplift others around the world. But we want to do so in a fiscally responsible way,” she said, promising “rigorous” efforts to track progress. Among those she has consulted for the project is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Ivanka Trump, who will attend the Munich Security Conference next week to promote the project, stressed that she sees this as a national security priority. “We think women are arguably the most under-tapped resource in the developing world for accelerating economic growth and prosperity,” she said.

As part of the launch, USAID and Pepsi Co. announced a partnership aimed at women in India, and USAID and UPS an agreement designed to help female entrepreneurs export goods.

The initiative builds on previous White House efforts to help women internationally. The Obama administration established an Office of Global Women’s Issues at the State Department and established an ambassador-at-large for global women’s Issues. That position has been vacant since Trump took office — drawing criticism from some advocates — but the White House said it now has a candidate lined up for the job.

Since she joined the administration in early 2017, Ivanka Trump has focused on women’s economic issues. She previously led an effort to launch a World Bank fund to help drive women’s entrepreneurship. And she recently advocated for the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act, which bolsters efforts focused on women by USAID.

Ivanka Trump said her hope is that this effort has staying power beyond the current administration. Past global initiatives she has studied include the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started under President George W. Bush in 2003.

“This is not an initiative that we think should stop at the culmination of the administration,” she said. “We think it’s something that should sustain itself over time, and we’re going to work really hard to show that this is a great use of foreign development assistance.”

 
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The U.S. Capitol is the most recognizable workplace in the country, and for an estimated 80 to 100 lawmakers, it’s also the place they literally call home while in Washington, D.C.

For three to four nights each week — 30 to 40 weeks a year — these lawmakers don’t leave Capitol Hill at the end of a long day of legislating. Instead, a couch in an office or sometimes even a mattress in a closet  serves as their bedrooms. Many wake up and go through the morning routine of dressing and freshening up, even as some of their staff members may be arriving to get an early start on work for the day.

The long-term practice has saved scores of penny-pinching lawmakers the cost of renting an apartment or a house while Congress is in session, but it has mostly benefited men who don’t mind padding around their offices in their pajamas or underwear.

But it’s a practice the new House Democratic majority wants to end in the #MeToo era, as awareness of the need for protecting women against sexual harassment increases on Capitol Hill.

The push is part of changes being considered by a new select committee on the modernization of Congress. The House Administration Committee is also expected to take up this issue later in the year.

“It’s one of those bizarre things you talk about with people back home, and they think you’re from another planet,” Congressman Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin and a member of the modernization committee, said recently.

“Sleeping on your couch is not the best way to go to a hearing and then be at 100 percent,” he said, adding that he hopes the matter can be addressed quickly.

During the Republican majority in the U.S. House, many lawmakers openly cited the practice as proof of their frugality. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, slept in his office at a time when he was the second in line to the presidency.

Former Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, used to talk directly to his constituents in what he called “cot-side chats.”

Critics say the practice is essentially allowing lawmakers free living space and utilities at the expense of taxpayers who pay to run the Capitol as a place of work and a showcase of the nation’s legislative history.

“There are serious implications for how you do business, how effective you are and the strain on the Capitol workforce that has to clean up — essentially be a housekeeper — for someone who is staying in their office,” said Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state.  

She said the practice may be offensive for staffers — both  men and women — who arrive early in the morning for a head start on work.

Cost of living concerns

For lawmakers required to maintain a residence in their home district, finding a place to stay while in Washington can be a severe economic hardship.

Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Capitol Hill area of the city starts at $2,100 a month. Overall, the Washington, D.C., area is among the top 10 most expensive rental markets in the entire nation, according to Kiplinger, a personal finance advice publisher.

It can be hard for many members to justify spending so much money when they will only be in town for a portion of the year.  Rank-and-file members of Congress receive an annual salary of $174,000, while members in leadership make about $20,000 a year more.  

U.S. representatives are among the highest paid lawmakers in the world, ranking near the top in salary along with representatives from Australia and Italy. But unlike some other countries, U.S. lawmakers do not receive a living stipend.

The new Democratic House majority tried to make the legislative schedule for 2019 friendlier to members of Congress with young families. The House is in session just 130 days this year. The balance allows representatives more time to spend with constituents in their districts but makes an outlay on rent in Washington seem even more excessive.

“There’s a lot of folks, including sitting members,  who have had to change houses and make different arrangements as the cost of the neighborhoods right around the Capitol have become more expensive in recent years,” said freshman Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat from California who is a single mother.

Porter said of her D.C.  living situation: “It’s a studio. It’s one room. It has a tiny, tiny little bathroom, and a tiny, tiny little kitchen. It does have a couch to sleep, so when my kids come, (the couch) touches the bed. So, we’ll just have kind of one big place to sleep.”

Congressional living situations are becoming even more complicated as Congress evolves to being more representative of different economic and family backgrounds, said Jayapal.

“You have single moms now. A lot of younger families who are trying to save to send their kids to college,” she said. “There are so many issues you have to deal with as you have a more diverse, more representative Congress.”

Freshman Congressman Pete Stauber, a Republican from Minnesota, chose a common cost-saving route for many lawmakers by sharing a townhouse with three other legislators.

“My room is about 10 feet by 12 feet,” he told VOA. When his children fly into Washington,  they share a bunk bed.

The Capitol is an often stressful workplace. Quality-of-life and cost-of-living issues should not be on the minds of the legislators and their aides as they tackle the problems of the nation, lawmakers said — although why lawmakers should be exempt from the day-to-day pressures of Americans isn’t clear.  

“Congress should not be a place where you live in your office because you can’t afford to send your kids to school, and have day care, and have a second home, and you have to deal with all the harassment issues,” Jayapal said.

Carolyn Presutti contributed to this report.

 
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Who killed Jamal Khashoggi? The U.S. Senate has given the Trump administration until Friday to answer that question. Some in Congress suspect Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the October killing of the Washington Post columnist. The case could indicate how Congress and the administration will deal with contentious foreign policy issues, and if Trump will accept his intelligence agencies’ findings on the killing. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine explains.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged his administration’s commitment to religious liberties and to protect the sanctity of life. Trump made the pledge to religious leaders gathered in Washington, as VOA’s Jeff Custer reports.
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The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved President Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee, William Barr, and sent his nomination on to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote.

The committee voted along party lines. Republicans praised Barr as well qualified, while Democrats who voted against him said they were concerned he might not make public the findings from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

A corporate lawyer who previously served as attorney general under Republican President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, Barr has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as someone who is deeply familiar with the workings of the Justice Department and does not owe his career to Trump.

He is expected to win confirmation in the Republican-controlled chamber.

If he wins the job, Barr’s independence could be put to the test when Mueller wraps up his investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia during the 2016 election.

The Republican president has repeatedly criticized the investigation as a “witch hunt” and denies any collusion with Moscow.

Barr criticized the investigation last year in a memo to the Justice Department, but he told the committee in confirmation hearings three weeks ago that he would allow Mueller to conclude his work and said he would make as much of his findings public as possible.

But Barr has refused to promise that he will release the report in its entirety, citing Justice Department regulations that encourage prosecutors not to
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A judge has agreed to unseal part of the search warrant that authorized last year’s FBI raids on the home and office of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

But Judge William H. Pauley III ruled Thursday that some parts of the documents should stay secret because making them public could jeopardize ongoing investigations, “including those pertaining to or arising from Cohen’s campaign finance crimes.”

Pauley sentenced Cohen to prison in December for crimes including paying two women to stay silent about affairs they claimed to have had with Trump.

Media organizations had asked for the release of the records.

The judge gave prosecutors until the end of the month to identify portions of the documents that should stay secret.
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HEAD:

TEASER: The House heard testimony from gun violence survivors and community activists for the first time in eight years

The Democratic House majority has put gun violence back on the agenda for the first time in eight years, hearing testimony Wednesday on Capitol Hill from victims and gun-safety activists.

“Despite the obvious need to address the scourge of gun violence, Congress, for too long, has done virtually nothing,” said Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary committee. “But now, we begin a new chapter.”

The gun safety debate escalated after a shooter killed 17 people with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle on Feb. 14 last year in Parkland, Florida. Survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school organized the “March for Our Lives” protest in Washington, D.C. to demand gun safety. Hundreds of thousands of people around the country attended this and similar marches.

In the months following the shooting, March for Our Lives activists worked with gun safety organizations in communities plagued by gun violence. 

“I’ve just been working tirelessly to share my platform … with those marginalized communities because their voices are just as important as mine and my colleagues from Parkland,” Aalayah Eastmond, a former Stoneman Douglas student, told the committee.

“With all the different shootings and the Parkland teens, focus has become on gun violence. And I’m really happy about that,” Diane Latiker, who started Kids off the Block to help vulnerable youth in Chicago stay out of gun violence, told VOA.

“But what I really want to do is focus it on those who deal with it every day in their communities across this country. Don’t forget about the people in communities like mine who suffer with gun violence every day,” Latiker said.

Advocates for gun safety are hopeful that stricter gun control legislation will be passed now that the Democrats control the House of Representatives.

“We have the power to make a change now that Democrats have the house,” said Alexis Jade Ferguson, a student at Georgetown attending Wednesday’s hearing. “As much as I want to say that there’s hope that there’s going to change, I think this is one step in the direction,” she said.

Gun safety advocates are pushing for House Resolution 8, sometimes known as the Universal Background Checks bill, to be passed. Less than one week into taking control of the House, Democrats introduced the bill, which would require background checks on those purchasing nearly all firearms, with limited exceptions.

Nearly all — 97 percent — of Americans support universal background checks on firearm purchases, according to a 2018 Quinnipiac University poll. [[link:https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2521 ]]

“The majority of Americans favor these common-sense gun-violence prevention measures, and we’re hopeful that that will happen this session,” said Chris Stauffer, a member of the D.C. chapter of March for Our Lives who attended Wednesday’s hearing.

“I mean that’s why we all voted in November to get a gun-sense majority into Congress,” he said.

Though the measure is likely to pass the House, it may face opposition in the Republican-majority Senate.

“We are hopeful but … nothing’s guaranteed,” said Rachel Usdan, the leader of the D.C. chapter of Moms Demand Action.

“Things are promising in the house but the Senate is another story.”

Republicans, who generally support the right of U.S. citizens to own firearms, hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats. Gun rights advocates like the National Rifle Association argue that universal background checks don’t reduce gun violence but do violate citizens’ rights.
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U.S. President Donald Trump says there is no basis for a powerful legislative committee to investigate his personal finances.

“No other politician has to go through that. It’s called presidential harassment. And it’s unfortunate and it really does hurt our country,” Trump responded Wednesday when asked by a reporter about the House Intelligence Committee’s decision to examine his finances.

Trump took aim at the committee’s chairman, Adam Schiff, a Democrat and prominent critic of the president.

“Under what basis would he do that? He has no basis to do that. He’s just a political hack. He’s trying to build a name for himself,” Trump said of Schiff at the conclusion of a brief event in the White House Roosevelt Room to announce David Malpass as the U.S. nominee to run the World Bank.

Hours earlier, Schiff declared that the committee, in the hands of opposition Democrats following last November’s midterm congressional election, would broaden its investigation to go “beyond Russia” and examine whether Trump’s concern for his financial interests are driving his policy decisions and other actions as president.

The committee’s wider mandate will “allow us to investigate any credible allegation that financial interests or other interests are driving decision-making of the president or anyone in the administration,” Schiff told reporters. “That pertains to any credible allegations of leverage by the Russians or the Saudis or anyone else.”

In a statement, the California congressman and former federal prosecutor said the committee would continue examining Russia’s actions during the 2016 presidential election as well as contacts between Moscow and Trump’s campaign team, but now would also scrutinize “whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage, financial or otherwise, over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates.”

The committee voted earlier Wednesday to send more than 50 transcripts of interviews from its Russia investigation to special counsel Robert Mueller.

When the panel was under Republican control last year, lawmakers of the then-majority party in the House of Representatives sought to bring their investigation to an end, despite protests from Democrats that it was premature to reach any conclusions.

Trump, during his State of the Union address Tuesday to lawmakers of both chambers, termed such inquiries by congressional committees “ridiculous partisan investigations.”

In his speech, Trump stated, “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.”
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U.S. lawmakers working to avert another partial government shutdown emerged from a closed-door meeting Wednesday asserting that an agreement on border security could be reached in the coming days, but indicated that partisan differences remained on specific elements of a potential deal. 

The bipartisan joint committee, tasked with crafting a plan to boost U.S. border security before federal funding expires Feb. 15, conferred privately with career officials of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The briefing occurred one day after President Donald Trump restated his funding demand for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The clock is ticking away,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, told reporters. “We’re hopeful. The tone is good between the various conferees. We’re dealing in substance now.”

“All of us feel pressure to get it [a deal] done, and I believe we should,” said the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois. 

Tennessean ‘optimistic’

“I continue to be very optimistic,” Tennessee Republican Rep. Chuck Fleischmann said. “We have a lot of good minds in that room. We have a lot of good hearts in that room.”

At the same time, U.S. lawmakers acknowledged that disagreements have yet to be resolved.

Durbin said Wednesday’s meeting reinforced his belief that extending walls and fencing on America’s southern border would be ineffective and wasteful. He said border officials confirmed that the vast majority of illegal narcotics entering the United States pass through legal points of entry, not over open border territory.

“It turns out that fewer than one out of five trucks are actually inspected as they come across that border, and only 1.5 percent of cars are inspected,” Durbin said, adding that the funding priority should be to provide Customs and Border Protection agents with more technology and manpower at points of entry. 

‘Three-legged stool’

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven had a different take on the briefing. 

“One size does not fit all,” he said. “It’s a three-legged stool. Yes, you need technology. Yes, you need personnel. But you also have to have a border barrier.”

In his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump said walls are needed “to secure vast areas between our ports of entry,” adding, “Where walls go up, illegal crossings go down.”

For now, conference committee members aren’t predicting whether a border security agreement will contain even a portion of the $5.7 billion in wall funding Trump has sought, spawning doubts as to whether the president would support any bill a politically divided Congress might pass.

“Obviously, it would be great if the president decided to sign the bill,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Tuesday. “I think the conferees ought to reach an agreement. And then we’ll hope that the president finds it worth signing.”

Stopgap bill

A 35-day partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, ended in late January when Congress passed a stopgap bill to reopen federal agencies for three weeks. 

The shutdown began last December, when, at Trump’s behest, the then-Republican-led House refused to consider a Senate funding bill that omitted wall funding — and Senate Democrats rejected a House-passed bill that contained wall funding.

The three-week funding period was designed to give Congress time to forge a bipartisan border security package and fully fund federal operations for the remainder of the fiscal year.

“We’re on the right track,” Texas Rep. Kay Granger, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “I think if we have enough time, we can get it done.” 
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