U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum has met criticism from his Republican allies in Congress, many of whom worry the measures could trigger a trade war that damages U.S. businesses. But the president does have supporters among some Senate Democrats from states where voters are concerned about the long-term loss of American manufacturing jobs.

“This welcome action is long overdue for shuttered steel plants across Ohio and steelworkers who live in fear that their jobs will be the next victims of Chinese cheating,” Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, said in a statement released after the plan was announced. “If we fail to stand up for steel jobs today, China will come after other jobs up and down the supply chain tomorrow.”

American labor unions have also broadly favored Trump’s proposed tariffs, saying they have been complaining for years that foreign countries frequently subsidize their own steel industries, putting American competitors at a disadvantage. 

Economists have been mostly critical of the plan, saying that overall it will hurt American manufacturers, some of whom may be targeted by trading partners for retaliatory sanction. They argue that the benefits to steel and aluminum workers are outweighed by job losses among Americans in other industries. 

Tariffs in focus in special election 

A test of how much the issue is resonating with American voters comes next week, when voters in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, vote in a special election to fill a vacated seat. 

Many voters are looking to the president to fulfill his campaign promise of protecting manufacturing jobs in America’s heartland.

The race for the seat left vacant by Rep. Tim Murphy’s sex scandal is coming down to the wire between Republican candidate Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb.

Saccone’s campaign endorsed Trump’s tariff plan in a statement, saying “If other countries aren’t playing by the rules and tariffs are needed to protect steel and aluminum jobs in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Rick would support those measures.”Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator Bob Casey also voiced his support for the president’s plan in a Facebook statement Thursday.

“I commend the President for announcing his intent to take action to protect our steelworkers from countries, like China, that cheat on trade. I have repeatedly called on this and previous Administrations to aggressively enforce our trade laws. For years, foreign countries have been dumping steel into our markets and costing our workers their jobs and suppressing their wages,” he wrote.

But Trump’s plan to impose the new tariffs prompted White House Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn to resign Tuesday.

McConnell, Ryan concerned

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan also expressed their concerns to the president, urging him to target the tariffs against specific countries to avoid a potential trade war.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told cable news network CNBC Wednesday the administration is not seeking a trade war. 

“We’re going to have very sensible relations with our allies,” said Ross. “We hope and we believe that at the end of the day, there will be a process of working with the other countries that are our friends.”

Trump dismissed concerns about a trade war during a joint press conference with the Swedish prime minister Tuesday.

“When we’re behind on every single country, trade wars aren’t so bad,” he told reporters. “In some cases we lose on trade plus we give them military where we’re subsidizing them tremendously. So, not only do we lose on trade, we lose on military.”

The administration is considering the new tariffs under a so-called “232 report.” It allows the president to impose trade quotes or tariffs if a probe finds imports threaten national security.

‘National security’

“It’s about our economy,” Vice President Mike Pence said of the need to enact tariffs, during a February meeting with lawmakers. “It’s about our national security.”

A March 7 Politico/Morning Consult poll of 2,000 registered voters, found that 65 percent of Republicans support the president’s plan.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday the administration was still on pace to fully roll-out the tariffs at the end of this week.
…

Democrats flexed their muscles in the first primary voting of the 2018 midterm congressional election cycle in Texas on Tuesday.  More than one million Democrats cast ballots in the Senate primary for U.S. Senate, the highest number since 1994, the last time Democrats were able to win a statewide race in a state that has remained firmly in the Republican column ever since.

Republicans also delivered a strong turnout showing on Tuesday.  More than 1.5 voters cast ballots in the Republican primaries, setting a new record for a non-presidential election.

The Texas primary voting marked the official beginning of the 2018 congressional election campaign when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about one-third of the 100 Senate seats will be on the ballot.  This year’s midterm election is fraught with huge political consequences for President Donald Trump, his Republican allies in Congress and opposition Democrats.

One trend already apparent from Texas is a huge jump in the number of women candidates, especially Democrats, who are running for Congress and state offices around the country this year.  “We feel like it is time for our voices to be heard and for us to have a seat at the table,” said Democratic congressional candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, who will now face a runoff election in May for her party’s nomination.

Trump is focus

Democrats have made opposition to Trump a central theme in their bid to win back control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

But Republican voters also turned out in force in the Texas primaries this week and many are standing by the president.  “He is doing a lot of good for this country and I hope they see that we have people of all ethnicities here supporting our president,” said Trump supporter Jennifer Drabbant.  She helped organize a pro-Trump rally this past weekend in Austin.

Trump is also warning his supporters not to be complacent this year.

“You know, you are sitting back, you’re watching television and saying, ‘Ah, maybe I don’t have to vote today.  We just won the presidency.’  And then we get clobbered and we can’t let that happen,” Trump told attendees at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington.

Despite a politically rocky first year in office, Trump seems to have solidified Republicans behind him.  “The more strongly a voter identifies with the Republican Party, the more strongly he or she tends to approve of Donald Trump,” said Brookings Institution analyst Bill Galston.  “And so in a very real sense, I think the Republican Party is now the party of Trump.”

But Trump’s success with his base may have come at the expense of his overall approval rating, which remains historically low.  And that is a worry for many Republican candidates.  “As the president goes down, the trust and desire to vote for Republicans goes down, and that is a trend that is just quietly building against the Republicans,” said Quinnipiac pollster Tim Malloy in a Skype interview.  “They have a very rough midterm ahead.”

Bucking history

Even veteran Republicans like Republican National Committeeman Morton Blackwell of Virginia has noticed the energy among Democrats.  “There are signs that the Democrats as a movement rather than as a party are doing, I think, more than Republicans are doing to generate grass roots support.”

In another sign of what could be a Democratic surge this year, several Republicans have already decided to retire from Congress.  “There are many members who are retiring because of what the political landscape looks like,” said John Hudak of Brookings.  “There are many more targets among Republican-held seats than Democratic-held seats.”

Democratic victories in November could stall Trump’s agenda in Congress, setting the stage for a difficult two years for the president leading up to the next presidential election in 2020.

Republicans are hoping to confound history in this year’s elections.  The president’s party loses an average of 30 seats in a midterm election, and that number can go higher if the president’s approval rating is below 50 percent.  Of late, Trump’s approval has averaged about 40 percent.

Democrats need a gain of 24 seats to retake control of the House, and a pickup of two Senate seats to reclaim a majority in that body.

 
…

Senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, will visit Mexico on Wednesday and meet President Enrique Pena Nieto, the Mexican foreign ministry said, after a ratcheting up of tensions over trade and plans for a border wall.

Late last month, Trump and Pena Nieto postponed plans for the Mexican leader’s first visit to the White House, after a testy phone call involving the U.S. leader’s push to make Mexico pay for a border wall.

Trump has repeatedly insisted Mexico must pay for the wall, a stance Mexican leaders have just as often rejected.

Kushner is a top foreign policy adviser as well as the president’s son-in-law but has recently lost access to the most valued U.S. intelligence report, U.S. officials told Reuters last week.

Accompanied on his visit by other U.S. diplomats and security officials, the foreign ministry statement said Kushner will also meet Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who has often visited him in the White House, most recently to try to broker a Trump-Pena Nieto meeting.

The bilateral relationship was again rocked last weekend as Trump announced steel and aluminum tariffs that he later described served as an incentive to reach a favorable re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The tariff announcement came during the latest round of talks to update NAFTA, which wrapped up in the Mexican capital on Monday.
…

Senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, will visit Mexico on Wednesday and meet President Enrique Pena Nieto, the Mexican foreign ministry said, after a ratcheting up of tensions over trade and plans for a border wall.

Late last month, Trump and Pena Nieto postponed plans for the Mexican leader’s first visit to the White House, after a testy phone call involving the U.S. leader’s push to make Mexico pay for a border wall.

Trump has repeatedly insisted Mexico must pay for the wall, a stance Mexican leaders have just as often rejected.

Kushner is a top foreign policy adviser as well as the president’s son-in-law but has recently lost access to the most valued U.S. intelligence report, U.S. officials told Reuters last week.

Accompanied on his visit by other U.S. diplomats and security officials, the foreign ministry statement said Kushner will also meet Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who has often visited him in the White House, most recently to try to broker a Trump-Pena Nieto meeting.

The bilateral relationship was again rocked last weekend as Trump announced steel and aluminum tariffs that he later described served as an incentive to reach a favorable re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The tariff announcement came during the latest round of talks to update NAFTA, which wrapped up in the Mexican capital on Monday.
…

A porn star who has said she had sex with President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement that she signed days before the 2016 presidential election, which prevented her from discussing the alleged sexual encounters.

 

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that the agreement is “null and void and of no consequence” because Trump didn’t personally sign it.

 

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she wanted to go public with the details of her alleged sexual relationship with Trump in the weeks leading up to the election, according to the lawsuit. Clifford and Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen signed the nondisclosure agreement on Oct. 28, 2016.

 

Clifford alleges that she began an “intimate relationship” with Trump in 2006 and that it continued “well into the year 2007,” according to the lawsuit. She said the relationship included encounters in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and Beverly Hills, California.

 

Trump married his current wife, Melania Trump, in 2005.

 

Clifford has claimed she had sex with Trump once and then carried on a subsequent yearslong platonic relationship. She has also, through a lawyer, denied the two had an affair. Cohen has denied there was ever an affair.

 

Cohen has said he paid the porn actress $130,000 out of his own pocket as part of the agreement. He has also said that “neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”

 

The lawsuit charges that the “hush agreement” is legally invalid because it was only signed by Clifford and Cohen. The agreement refers to Trump as David Dennison and Clifford as Peggy Peterson, but an attached exhibit details their true identities.

 

Clifford’s lawsuit also alleges that Trump and Cohen “aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford as part of an effort to avoid her telling the truth, thus helping to ensure he won the Presidential Election.”

 

“To be clear, the attempts to intimidate Ms. Clifford into silence and ‘shut her up’ in order to ‘protect Mr. Trump’ continue unabated,” the lawsuit said. Clifford alleges that as recently as last week, Trump’s attorney tried to initiate an arbitration proceeding against her.

 

Neither Cohen nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday evening.

 

NBC News first reported the existence of the lawsuit.
…

A porn star who has said she had sex with President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement that she signed days before the 2016 presidential election, which prevented her from discussing the alleged sexual encounters.

 

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that the agreement is “null and void and of no consequence” because Trump didn’t personally sign it.

 

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she wanted to go public with the details of her alleged sexual relationship with Trump in the weeks leading up to the election, according to the lawsuit. Clifford and Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen signed the nondisclosure agreement on Oct. 28, 2016.

 

Clifford alleges that she began an “intimate relationship” with Trump in 2006 and that it continued “well into the year 2007,” according to the lawsuit. She said the relationship included encounters in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and Beverly Hills, California.

 

Trump married his current wife, Melania Trump, in 2005.

 

Clifford has claimed she had sex with Trump once and then carried on a subsequent yearslong platonic relationship. She has also, through a lawyer, denied the two had an affair. Cohen has denied there was ever an affair.

 

Cohen has said he paid the porn actress $130,000 out of his own pocket as part of the agreement. He has also said that “neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”

 

The lawsuit charges that the “hush agreement” is legally invalid because it was only signed by Clifford and Cohen. The agreement refers to Trump as David Dennison and Clifford as Peggy Peterson, but an attached exhibit details their true identities.

 

Clifford’s lawsuit also alleges that Trump and Cohen “aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford as part of an effort to avoid her telling the truth, thus helping to ensure he won the Presidential Election.”

 

“To be clear, the attempts to intimidate Ms. Clifford into silence and ‘shut her up’ in order to ‘protect Mr. Trump’ continue unabated,” the lawsuit said. Clifford alleges that as recently as last week, Trump’s attorney tried to initiate an arbitration proceeding against her.

 

Neither Cohen nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday evening.

 

NBC News first reported the existence of the lawsuit.
…

The Trump administration Tuesday launched a new effort under the direction of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to overcome years of problems with electronic medical records and make them easier for patients to use.

 

Medicare will play a key role, eventually enabling nearly 60 million beneficiaries to securely access claims data and share that information with their doctors.

 

Electronic medical records were ushered in with great fanfare but it’s generally acknowledged they’ve fallen short. Different systems don’t communicate. Patient portals can be clunky to navigate. Some hospitals still provide records on compact discs that newer computers can’t read.

 

The government has already spent about $30 billion to subsidize the adoption of digital records by hospitals and doctors. It’s unclear how much difference the Trump effort will make. No timetables were announced Tuesday.

 

The government-wide MyHealthEData initiative will be overseen by the White House Office of American Innovation, which is headed by Kushner. His stewardship of a broad portfolio of domestic and foreign policy duties has recently been called into question due to his inability to obtain a permanent security clearance.

 

Medicare administrator Seema Verma said her agency is working on a program called Blue Button 2.0, with the goal of providing beneficiaries with secure access to their claims data, shareable with their doctors. Software developers are already working on apps, using mock patient data.

 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is also reviewing its requirements for insurers, so that government policy will encourage the companies to provide patients with access to their records.

 

“It’s our data, it’s our personal health information, and we should control it,” Verma said, making her announcement at a health care tech conference in Las Vegas.

 

The longstanding bipartisan goal of paying for health care value — not sheer volume of services — will not be achieved until patients are able to use their data to make informed decisions about their treatment, Verma added.

Independent experts said the administration has identified a key problem in the health care system.

 

“This is a good first step, but several key challenges need to be addressed,” said Ben Moscovitch, a health care technology expert with the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

For example, the claims data that Medicare wants to put in the hands of patients sometimes lacks key clinical details, said Moscovitch. If the patient had a hip replacement, claims data may not indicate what model of artificial hip the surgeon used.

 

“Claims data alone are insufficient,” said Moscovitch. “They are incomplete, and they lack key data.”

The administration could address that by adding needed information to the claims data, he explained.
…

The Trump administration Tuesday launched a new effort under the direction of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to overcome years of problems with electronic medical records and make them easier for patients to use.

 

Medicare will play a key role, eventually enabling nearly 60 million beneficiaries to securely access claims data and share that information with their doctors.

 

Electronic medical records were ushered in with great fanfare but it’s generally acknowledged they’ve fallen short. Different systems don’t communicate. Patient portals can be clunky to navigate. Some hospitals still provide records on compact discs that newer computers can’t read.

 

The government has already spent about $30 billion to subsidize the adoption of digital records by hospitals and doctors. It’s unclear how much difference the Trump effort will make. No timetables were announced Tuesday.

 

The government-wide MyHealthEData initiative will be overseen by the White House Office of American Innovation, which is headed by Kushner. His stewardship of a broad portfolio of domestic and foreign policy duties has recently been called into question due to his inability to obtain a permanent security clearance.

 

Medicare administrator Seema Verma said her agency is working on a program called Blue Button 2.0, with the goal of providing beneficiaries with secure access to their claims data, shareable with their doctors. Software developers are already working on apps, using mock patient data.

 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is also reviewing its requirements for insurers, so that government policy will encourage the companies to provide patients with access to their records.

 

“It’s our data, it’s our personal health information, and we should control it,” Verma said, making her announcement at a health care tech conference in Las Vegas.

 

The longstanding bipartisan goal of paying for health care value — not sheer volume of services — will not be achieved until patients are able to use their data to make informed decisions about their treatment, Verma added.

Independent experts said the administration has identified a key problem in the health care system.

 

“This is a good first step, but several key challenges need to be addressed,” said Ben Moscovitch, a health care technology expert with the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

For example, the claims data that Medicare wants to put in the hands of patients sometimes lacks key clinical details, said Moscovitch. If the patient had a hip replacement, claims data may not indicate what model of artificial hip the surgeon used.

 

“Claims data alone are insufficient,” said Moscovitch. “They are incomplete, and they lack key data.”

The administration could address that by adding needed information to the claims data, he explained.
…

A former Trump campaign aide spent much of the day promising to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller, even throwing down the challenge to “arrest me,” then backed off his defiance by saying he would probably cooperate in the end.

In an interview Monday night with The Associated Press, Sam Nunberg said he was angry over Mueller’s request to have him appear in front of a grand jury and turn over thousands of emails and other communications with other ex-officials, among them his mentor Roger Stone. But he predicted that, in the end, he’d find a way to comply.

 

“I’m going to end up cooperating with them,” he said.

 

It was a reversal from his tone throughout the day, when he lashed out at Trump and his campaign and threatened to defy Mueller in a series of interviews.

 

“Why do I have to do it?” Nunberg told CNN of the subpoena. “I’m not cooperating,” he said later as he challenged officials to charge him.

 

In the earlier interviews, Nunberg said he thought Mueller may already have incriminating evidence on Trump directly, although he would not say what that evidence might be.

 

“I think he may have done something during the election,” Nunberg told MSNBC of the president, “but I don’t know that for sure.” He later told CNN that Mueller “thinks Trump is the Manchurian candidate.” A reference drawn from a Cold War novel and film, a “Manchurian candidate” is an American brainwashed or otherwise compromised to work on behalf of an adversarial government.

 

Shortly after Nunberg lobbed the first allegation, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders rebuffed him during the White House press briefing.

 

“I definitely think he doesn’t know that for sure because he’s incorrect. As we’ve said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign,” Sanders said. “He hasn’t worked at the White House, so I certainly can’t speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has.”

 

Nunberg also said he thinks former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, a key figure in the Russia investigation, worked with the Kremlin. “I believe that Carter Page was colluding with the Russians,” Nunberg said on CNN. “That Carter Page is a weird dude.”

 

Page called Nunberg’s accusations “laughable” in a comment to The Associated Press.

 

The Justice Department and FBI obtained a secret warrant in October 2016 to monitor Page’s communications. His activities during the presidential campaign that raised concerns included a July 2016 trip to Moscow.

 

In the interviews, Nunberg said he believes the president probably knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his eldest son, top campaign staff and a team of Russians, which Trump has denied. And he blamed Trump for the investigation into Russia meddling, telling MSNBC that he was “responsible for this investigation … because he was so stupid.”

 

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

 

During his afternoon tirades, Nunberg detailed his interview with Mueller’s investigators, mocking them for asking such questions as if he had heard Russian being spoken in Trump Tower. He then said he would reject a sweeping demand from Mueller for communications between him and top Trump advisers.

 

“I think it would be funny if they arrested me,” Nunberg said on MSNBC.

 

He later added on CNN: “I’m not going to the grand jury. I’m not going to spend 30 hours going over my emails. I’m not doing it.”

 

Nunberg said he’d already blown a 3 p.m. Monday deadline to turn over the requested communications. He said he’d traded numerous emails a day with Stone and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and said spending 80 hours digging through his inbox to find them all was unreasonable.

 

But in his call with the AP, Nunberg said he might be more willing to comply if Mueller’s team limits the scope of its request.

 

“I’m happy if the scope changes and if they send me a subpoena that doesn’t include Carter Page” he said, insisting the two had never spoken.

 

He also said he believes the only reason he’s being asked to testify before the grand jury is to provide information that would be used against Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, which he says he won’t do.

 

Nunberg is the first witness in the ongoing federal Russia investigation to openly promise to defy a subpoena. But he’s not the first to challenge Mueller: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a lawsuit in January challenging Mueller’s authority to indict him.

 

It’s unclear how much Nunberg would know about the inner workings of the Trump campaign or the White House. He never worked at the White House and was jettisoned from the Trump campaign early on, in August 2015, after racist social media postings surfaced. Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit against Nunberg in July 2016, accusing him of violating a nondisclosure agreement, but they settled the suit one month later.

 

John Dean, a White House counsel to President Richard Nixon during Watergate, tweeted Monday that Nunberg can’t flatly refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena.

 

“This is not Mr. Nunberg’s decision, and he will be in criminal contempt for refusing to show up. He can take the Fifth Amendment. But he can’t tell the grand Jury to get lost. He’s going to lose this fight.”

 

Nunberg appeared pleased by his performance, telling the AP that he was “doing something I’ve never seen.”

 

“They don’t know what’s going on,'”he said, speculating that Mueller would not appreciate his comments and suggesting the authorities might send police to his apartment.

 

His usual cockiness, however, did appear, at times, to ebb. At the end of an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Nunberg asked whether the TV anchor thought he should instead cooperate with Mueller.

 

“If it were me, I would,” Tapper responded, telling Nunberg: “Sometimes life and special prosecutors are not fair, I guess.”

 

 

 
…

A former Trump campaign aide spent much of the day promising to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller, even throwing down the challenge to “arrest me,” then backed off his defiance by saying he would probably cooperate in the end.

In an interview Monday night with The Associated Press, Sam Nunberg said he was angry over Mueller’s request to have him appear in front of a grand jury and turn over thousands of emails and other communications with other ex-officials, among them his mentor Roger Stone. But he predicted that, in the end, he’d find a way to comply.

 

“I’m going to end up cooperating with them,” he said.

 

It was a reversal from his tone throughout the day, when he lashed out at Trump and his campaign and threatened to defy Mueller in a series of interviews.

 

“Why do I have to do it?” Nunberg told CNN of the subpoena. “I’m not cooperating,” he said later as he challenged officials to charge him.

 

In the earlier interviews, Nunberg said he thought Mueller may already have incriminating evidence on Trump directly, although he would not say what that evidence might be.

 

“I think he may have done something during the election,” Nunberg told MSNBC of the president, “but I don’t know that for sure.” He later told CNN that Mueller “thinks Trump is the Manchurian candidate.” A reference drawn from a Cold War novel and film, a “Manchurian candidate” is an American brainwashed or otherwise compromised to work on behalf of an adversarial government.

 

Shortly after Nunberg lobbed the first allegation, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders rebuffed him during the White House press briefing.

 

“I definitely think he doesn’t know that for sure because he’s incorrect. As we’ve said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign,” Sanders said. “He hasn’t worked at the White House, so I certainly can’t speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has.”

 

Nunberg also said he thinks former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, a key figure in the Russia investigation, worked with the Kremlin. “I believe that Carter Page was colluding with the Russians,” Nunberg said on CNN. “That Carter Page is a weird dude.”

 

Page called Nunberg’s accusations “laughable” in a comment to The Associated Press.

 

The Justice Department and FBI obtained a secret warrant in October 2016 to monitor Page’s communications. His activities during the presidential campaign that raised concerns included a July 2016 trip to Moscow.

 

In the interviews, Nunberg said he believes the president probably knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his eldest son, top campaign staff and a team of Russians, which Trump has denied. And he blamed Trump for the investigation into Russia meddling, telling MSNBC that he was “responsible for this investigation … because he was so stupid.”

 

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

 

During his afternoon tirades, Nunberg detailed his interview with Mueller’s investigators, mocking them for asking such questions as if he had heard Russian being spoken in Trump Tower. He then said he would reject a sweeping demand from Mueller for communications between him and top Trump advisers.

 

“I think it would be funny if they arrested me,” Nunberg said on MSNBC.

 

He later added on CNN: “I’m not going to the grand jury. I’m not going to spend 30 hours going over my emails. I’m not doing it.”

 

Nunberg said he’d already blown a 3 p.m. Monday deadline to turn over the requested communications. He said he’d traded numerous emails a day with Stone and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and said spending 80 hours digging through his inbox to find them all was unreasonable.

 

But in his call with the AP, Nunberg said he might be more willing to comply if Mueller’s team limits the scope of its request.

 

“I’m happy if the scope changes and if they send me a subpoena that doesn’t include Carter Page” he said, insisting the two had never spoken.

 

He also said he believes the only reason he’s being asked to testify before the grand jury is to provide information that would be used against Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, which he says he won’t do.

 

Nunberg is the first witness in the ongoing federal Russia investigation to openly promise to defy a subpoena. But he’s not the first to challenge Mueller: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a lawsuit in January challenging Mueller’s authority to indict him.

 

It’s unclear how much Nunberg would know about the inner workings of the Trump campaign or the White House. He never worked at the White House and was jettisoned from the Trump campaign early on, in August 2015, after racist social media postings surfaced. Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit against Nunberg in July 2016, accusing him of violating a nondisclosure agreement, but they settled the suit one month later.

 

John Dean, a White House counsel to President Richard Nixon during Watergate, tweeted Monday that Nunberg can’t flatly refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena.

 

“This is not Mr. Nunberg’s decision, and he will be in criminal contempt for refusing to show up. He can take the Fifth Amendment. But he can’t tell the grand Jury to get lost. He’s going to lose this fight.”

 

Nunberg appeared pleased by his performance, telling the AP that he was “doing something I’ve never seen.”

 

“They don’t know what’s going on,'”he said, speculating that Mueller would not appreciate his comments and suggesting the authorities might send police to his apartment.

 

His usual cockiness, however, did appear, at times, to ebb. At the end of an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Nunberg asked whether the TV anchor thought he should instead cooperate with Mueller.

 

“If it were me, I would,” Tapper responded, telling Nunberg: “Sometimes life and special prosecutors are not fair, I guess.”

 

 

 
…