With a shutdown clock ticking toward a deadline Friday night at midnight, House Republican leaders struggled Wednesday to unite the GOP rank and file behind a must-pass spending bill.

Although a major obstacle evaporated after key GOP senators dropped a demand to add health insurance subsidies for the poor, a number of defense hawks offered resistance to a plan by GOP leaders to punt a guns-versus-butter battle with Democrats into the new year.

There’s still plenty of time to avert a politically debilitating government shutdown, which would detract from the party’s success this week in muscling through its landmark tax bill.

Some lawmakers from hurricane-hit states also worried that an $81 billion disaster aid bill was at risk of getting left behind in the rush to exit Washington for the holidays.

Lawmakers said the GOP vote-counting team would assess support for the plan and GOP leaders would set a course of action from there.

Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, said “there’s no specific direction right now” about the path forward. He spoke after an hourlong closed-door meeting of Republicans in the Capitol basement.

An earlier plan favored by pro-Pentagon members of the influential Armed Services Committee would have combined the stopgap funding bill with a $658 billion Pentagon funding measure. But the idea is a nonstarter with the Senate, especially Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Disaster aid

Meanwhile, an $81 billion disaster aid bill faced a potential separate vote of its own, but it was at risk of languishing because of opposition among some conservatives over its cost. Senate action on that bill, a priority of the Texas and Florida delegations, wouldn’t come until next year anyway.

Democrats oppose the GOP endgame agenda because their priorities on immigration and funding for domestic programs aren’t being addressed. Their opposition means Republicans need to find unity among themselves, which once again is proving difficult. In such situations, congressional leaders often turn to lowest common denominator solutions, which in this case would mean a stopgap measure that’s mostly free of add-ons.

“The number of options is collapsing down,” said Representative Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican. “I have faith that at the last possible moment, to paraphrase Churchill, when we have no other choice, we’ll do what we need to do.”

Regardless of how the crisis of the moment will be solved, most of the items on Capitol Hill’s list of unfinished business are going to be pushed into next year.

“I think it’s highly unlikely that there’s a government shutdown,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier on Wednesday. “I think that the right thing to do is let’s get a short-term funding [agreement] and we’ll deal with these issues in January.”

The upcoming short-term measure would fund the government through January 19, giving lawmakers time to work out their leftover business.

Hopes for a bipartisan budget deal to sharply increase spending for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies appeared dead for the year, and Democrats were rebuffed in their demands for protections for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Republican Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Susan Collins of Maine announced Wednesday that they would not seek to add the insurance subsidies, which are designed to stabilize the Affordable Care Act’s markets. The tax bill repeals requirement that individuals purchase insurance.

Trying to combine the health measure with the spending bill was a demand of Collins when President Donald Trump and Senate GOP leaders secured her vote for the tax bill.

House Republicans weren’t part of that deal, and with the tax vote over, it became plain that Senate leaders were not able to deliver for her.

Programs for vets, children

Lawmakers said a short-term, $2.1 billion fix for an expiring program that pays for veterans to seek care outside the Department of Veterans Affairs system would be added to the package. So would a short-term “patch” to make sure the states facing shortfalls from the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which pays for health care for 9 million children from low-income families, won’t have to purge children from the program.

The fate of the $81 billion House disaster aid measure, now likely to see a separate vote, appears unclear. Conservatives are upset with the price tag of the plan, which also contains billions of dollars for California wildfire recovery. Democrats are pressing for more help for Puerto Rico, and California Representative Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 Republican in the House, signaled a willingness for at least some accommodation to win Democratic votes.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California told fellow Democrats in an emailed update that GOP leaders aren’t yielding on a Democratic demand that nondefense spending increases match the budget boost for the Pentagon.

“Unless we see a respect for our values and priorities, we continue to urge a strong NO” on the temporary funding bill, Pelosi said.

Democrats such as Schumer pressed for a two- or three-week temporary spending bill that would send a number of unresolved issues — including disaster aid — into the new year. Schumer appears to believe that shifting as many issues as possible into next year will increase his leverage on immigration and the budget.

Also in the mix is an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists. It has bipartisan backing, but stout conservatives and some liberals oppose it. McCarthy said the program might just be extended for a few weeks, but libertarian-minded lawmakers opposed a plan by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to add it to the stopgap measure.
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The top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, responding to escalating Republican attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, said  Wednesday that if President Donald Trump fired Mueller, the action would have “the potential to provoke a constitutional crisis.”

WATCH: Virginia’s Warner on Potential Constitutional Crisis

Speaking on the Senate floor, Virginia Senator Mark Warner denounced attacks on Mueller’s impartiality and said the special counsel’s investigation of ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia must be “able to go on unimpeded.”

Russia denies that it meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Trump has denied any collusion.

While Trump’s political allies have increased their criticism of Mueller, the president said Sunday that he was not considering firing him.

Republican lawmakers have seized on anti-Trump texts by a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who was involved in the Russia investigation as evidence of bias in Mueller’s team.

Mueller removed the agent from his team after the texts came to light.

Republicans on several House of Representatives committees also have announced their own probes into long-standing political grievances, including the FBI’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

“Over the last several weeks, a growing chorus of irresponsible voices have called for President Trump to shut down special counsel Mueller’s investigation,” said Warner, who is vice chairman of the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Firing Mr. Mueller or any other of the top brass involved in this investigation would not only call into question this administration’s commitment to the truth, but also to our most basic concept of rule of law,” Warner said. “It also has the potential to provoke a constitutional crisis.”

“In the United States of America, no one, no one is above the law, not even the president,” the senator said.

WATCH: Warner on Consequences of Mueller Removal

“Congress must make clear to the president that firing the special counsel or interfering with his investigation by issuing pardons of essential witnesses is unacceptable and would have immediate and significant consequences.”
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Democratic Senator Al Franken will leave office on Jan.  2, a spokesman for the Minnesota lawmaker said Wednesday. 

Franken announced his plans to resign earlier this month in the wake of several sexual harassment allegations, but did not announce a date.

He said earlier Wednesday that he would deliver a series of speeches on the Senate floor before he leaves the chamber.

Replacement named

Franken will be replaced by Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith, also a Democrat.

The demise of Franken’s Washington tenure unfolded over the past few weeks. It was touched off by claims made by a Los Angeles radio host and former model, Leeann Tweeden. She accused Franken of forcibly kissing her when they both were on a 2006 tour to entertain U.S. troops in the Middle East.

Tweeden posted a picture of a smiling Franken holding his hands over her breasts while she was sleeping on a return flight to the United States.

Franken apologized to Tweeden, but soon after other women also accused the one-time television and film comedian of unwanted advances. 

He variously apologized, said the incidents did not occur or said he remembered the encounters differently. But as the allegations mounted, dozens of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate demanded that he resign.

Defiant speech 

Franken announced his resignation in a defiant speech on the Senate floor earlier this month, saying it was ironic that he was quitting even as President Donald Trump remains in office after more than a dozen women accused Trump during his 2016 campaign of unwanted sexual advances.

Trump, a Republican, says none of the accusations against him is true, but he is facing new calls from Democratic lawmakers to answer the specific allegations. Six senators, all Democrats, have called for his resignation.
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White House staff members met with a group of senators Tuesday to talk about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has benefited hundreds of thousands of undocumented youths.

The result of the private meeting, first reported by Politico, was a pledge by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to present a list of border security and immigration policy changes to be included in any legislative fix to help DACA recipients. Sources told Politico that Kelly could return with a new list of demands within days. 

According to people who attended the meeting, the new plan may come in January, and it would allow nearly 800,000 DACA immigrants, who were brought illegally to the United States as minors, to continue to work and study in the country.

Politico said a half-dozen senators have been working to come up with a bipartisan solution on DACA. They were prompted by President Donald Trump’s announcement in September that the DACA program would end. It is set to expire March 5, and work permits that have not been renewed will begin to be phased out at that time.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona said senators could not reach an agreement until they knew what the Trump administration was inclined to sign.

“We couldn’t finish this product, this bill, until we knew where the administration was. … And that’s why this meeting was so important,” Flake told Politico after the meeting with Kelly.

Also on Wednesday, Trump renewed his immigration priorities. 

At a Cabinet meeting, the president vowed to end the diversity visa program, known as the the green card lottery, and cut family-based immigration, which critics call chain migration. He also called on Congress to fund his proposed border wall.

“When we take people that are lottery — [other countries] are not putting their best people in the lottery. It’s common sense. … They put their worst people into the lottery. And that’s what we get, in many cases. So that’s not going to be happening anymore. We’re going to end it,” Trump said. 

No near-term DACA solution

Lawmakers in both parties said Tuesday that Congress was not expected to resolve the DACA issue before next year.

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, also attended the meeting and said the closer officials get to the March deadline “the more nervous I get, not to mention the way these young people feel. I’m sorry that it’s taken this long.

“Our belief is that if this matter is not resolved this week … that we have another chance to finally come up with a bipartisan package of things to include” by mid-January, Durbin said.

Meanwhile, DACA recipients opened Dream Act Central, a tent space on Washington’s National Mall that is serving as headquarters for a final push to urge Congress to pass legislation replacing the DACA program.

A large-screen television at the site, which faces Capitol Hill, shows stories of young undocumented immigrants, known informally as Dreamers. The term is based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, that would have provided residence and employment protections for young immigrants similar to those in DACA.
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The U.S. Senate voted late Tuesday to overhaul America’s tax system, putting President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans one perfunctory vote away from scoring a major legislative victory and fulfilling a campaign promise.

All 51 Senate Republicans present voted in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, while all 48 Democrats opposed it.

“We stand today on the precipice of the most sweeping change to our tax system in over 30 years,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican. “This is a historic moment.”

“Today the Republican Party officially turns its back on America’s middle class,” said the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon‘s Ron Wyden. “This vote will not be forgotten.”

The bill permanently slashes corporate taxes, temporarily cuts taxes paid by American wage and salary earners, caps popular tax deductions, and hikes the U.S. national debt by at least $1 trillion over a decade.

WATCH: Congress vote on tax bill

The Republican-led House of Representatives approved the bill earlier in the day on a party-line vote. It must go back to the House later Wednesday for one final vote to correct several technical matters before it can be sent to the White House for Trump’s signature.

Republicans argued tax cuts will rev up the U.S. economy and make American businesses more competitive at home and abroad.

“Countries around the globe are getting the message loud and clear that America is committed to leading in the 21st century,” South Dakota Senator John Thune said.” We’re committed to leading when it comes to innovation and growth. We’re committed to leading when it comes to ensuring that American companies can stay here and compete and keep jobs here against foreign competition.”

“Our tax code has hampered job creation, wage growth, investment in the United States, and has chased American companies to foreign shores. I don’t know how it could be more harmful,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah said. “The bill before us will address these problems and help us turn the ship around.”

Democrats slammed the bill as mortgaging America’s future at home and abroad in order to pad the pockets of the wealthy.

“There are going to be incentives for big multinational corporations to ship jobs overseas, and with that you get more factory towns going dark,” Wyden said.

“We are challenged by 16 years of war, which we have made no attempt to pay for, and [with this bill] we are putting our national security behind benefits for the wealthiest Americans,” the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded the bill would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans next year, but average cuts for top earners would greatly exceed reductions for people earning less.

The legislation also partially repeals former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, eliminating the requirement that Americans purchase health care insurance. As a result, some 13 million fewer Americans would be insured over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Some Democrats noted that the president, a real estate mogul, could benefit greatly from certain provisions in the bill. Trump has insisted the change in tax law would cost him money.

Before the Senate vote, some Democrats acknowledged they were all but powerless to stop majority Republicans.

“The majority has the votes and there is not much Democrats can do to stop it,” New York Representative Louise Slaughter said.

Republicans were unapologetic in anticipation of victory.

“We do come to Washington to cut taxes and let people keep more of their hard-earned money,” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said. “And we’re doing that today.”

Public opinion polls consistently show more Americans oppose than back the bill. Several Republican lawmakers have blamed the news media, saying reporters misrepresented the tax bill and downplayed its potential benefits.
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A sweeping overhaul of the U.S. federal tax code is on its way to becoming law. When it does it will be President Donald Trump’s first major legislative victory. VOA’s Congressional reporter Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill on the deeply divided partisan vote that will have a far-reaching impact on the U.S. and world economies.
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Laura Lopez is a Mexican immigrant living in Florida who has been racing against time to avoid deportation.

Lopez said she arrived at the post office just after the cutoff time and missed the deadline set by President Donald Trump to renew her paperwork for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that helps young immigrants brought into the country illegally.

Lopez, 30, blamed the chaos of Hurricane Irma while juggling a move from Miami to Daytona Beach as reasons why she missed the cutoff.

As a result, her status as a recipient of DACA ends Friday. Her driver’s license, car insurance and housing lease are all in jeopardy once the program goes away for her.

“Everywhere I go, everything and everyone reminds me I have an expiration date” said Lopez, who is still trying to show proof that she attempted to send her renewal package the day before the October 5 deadline. “The government is playing with the lives of families.”

Lopez is one of thousands of immigrants who are losing their protection from deportation under the administrative program established by President Barack Obama in 2012, including many who missed the deadline or saw their applications lost in the mail. The immigrants also are being provided a glimpse of what will happen if Congress is unable to come up with a permanent replacement. Thousands more will start seeing their protections end in March.

Here are some questions and answers about the process:

Why the rush?

In theory, DACA recipients should be protected until March.

Under the program, immigrants get two-year permits that let them work and remain in the country. Trump rescinded the program this year, but he let immigrants renew their papers if they were set to expire between September and March. Immigrants had to reapply by October 5 and pay a $495 fee.

The government said 132,000 of the 154,000 people eligible for DACA renewals applied in time, leaving more than 20,000 without protection from deportation.

There have been other problems.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said 900 requests were mistakenly rejected for being late, despite having arrived at the filing sites on time. Those applicants were told to reapply by December 2.

The agency said it was still working to determine how many requests were affected by U.S. Postal Service delays, following reports of late deliveries of documents from immigrants who sent their papers well in advance. These applicants are now waiting for instructions on how to resubmit their renewal requests.

Can these immigrants be deported?

Advocacy groups are highlighting the detention in Pennsylvania last week of a Guatemalan immigrant whose DACA renewal was reportedly among the ones delayed by the Postal Service. After Osman Aroche Enriquez, 26, was pulled over by police for what advocates said was an expired vehicle registration, he was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detained for three days.

The agency released him based on what ICE called an “exercise of discretion.”

“His case calls into question how many ‘Dreamers’ in similar situations are languishing in detention, and how many are living in fear of deportation due to expired status or post office delays,” Church World Service said in a statement. 

(“Dreamers” is a term commonly used to refer to DACA recipients. It comes from the DREAM Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — which offered protections similar to those in DACA but was never approved by Congress.)

The government does not turn over information about DACA recipients to deportation agents unless they are targeted for a criminal investigation. That means immigrants with expiring paperwork won’t be automatically deported, but they can be if they get stopped by police or arrested on criminal charges.

Officials say there are no plans to change how the government handles personal information of applicants.

However, Francis Cissna, USCIS director, said “the guidance has always said that that policy could change. It has always said that; it still says that.”

Where does Congress stand?

On Capitol Hill, the most promising avenue for legislation seems to be with a bipartisan group in the Senate, led by Senators Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.

They claim good progress on negotiations to give young immigrants protections through legislation that would be added to a sweeping spending package next month.

But the White House is adamant that other issues, including Trump’s long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and increased funding for immigration enforcement inside the country, be addressed in the package. The Trump administration is also planning to move to a merit-based immigration structure.

The path forward is assuredly tricky, but there is widespread bipartisan support for the young immigrants among lawmakers.

What could a solution look like?

Legislation would put the immigrants on a path to U.S. citizenship by granting permanent legal status to more than 1 million people who arrived before they turned 18 and pass background checks, among other criteria.

The bill proposes legalizing the status of those who were admitted to the DACA program. 

 

The head of the agency that runs the program rescinded by Trump says any legislative fix will require money and time to implement, depending on how many people end up benefiting from the solution.
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Congress will vote mostly along party lines this week to give President Donald Trump his first major legislative victory – a tax reform bill. Republican lawmakers say it will give the US economy a much needed kickstart. The bill raises standard deductions for most families and individuals, reducing the amount of the taxable income they would have to pay. But as Mil Arcega reports, the tax reform package carries a big price tag.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a notice that it wants public input for a possible replacement of Obama-era regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that the agency is repealing.

The agency’s advance notice kicks off a 60-day comment period on “specific topics for the Agency to consider in developing any subsequent proposed rule,” according to an EPA release.

The move comes after the agency proposed in October to repeal the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a collection of emissions standards for U.S. states intended to reduce pollution from power plants – the largest emitters of greenhouse gases – by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“The EPA sets out and requests comment on the roles, responsibilities, and limitations of the federal government, state governments, and regulated entities in developing and implementing such a rule, and the EPA solicits information regarding the appropriate scope of such a rule and associated technologies and approaches,” the notice says.

When EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt first announced he planned to repeal the Clean Power Plan, it was not clear whether the agency intended to replace it. At his first congressional hearing earlier this month, Pruitt said he planned to replace it.

The notice specifically asks for comment on measures to reduce carbon emissions directly at a power plant.

Obama’s Clean Power Plan allowed states to reduce power plant emissions by using a series of different measures across their plant fleets, which some industry groups said went beyond the scope of the federal Clean Air Act.

The EPA is also asking for comment on the role and responsibility of states in regulating power plants for greenhouse gas emissions.

The notice said EPA also wants to hear from states including California and New York, which already have programs to reduce emissions from power plants, to see how their programs could interact with a replacement rule.

Environmental groups, who plan to continue challenging the agency’s moves against the CPP in court, said on Monday the agency is not serious about offering a valid replacement to the Obama-era regulation.

“A weaker replacement of the Clean Power Plan is a non-starter. Americans – who depend on EPA to protect their health and climate – deserve real solutions, not scams,” said David Doniger, director of climate and clean air at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin, who has been fighting President Donald Trump’s travel ban and other policies over the past year, has announced he will run for U.S. Congress.

 

Chin, a Democrat, seeks to replace Hawaii U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who is running for governor. Hanabusa is also a Democrat.

 

Chin made the announcement Monday saying that the last year of legal battles over White House actions sparked him to run for the U.S. House seat.

 

Chin has been a vocal opponent to decisions by Trump’s administration.

 

Before Trump was sworn in, Chin and five other attorneys general asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general.

 

Chin told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday that he first considered running for office while listening to a Sessions speech.

 

“He actually made some speech to all 50 state AGs where he announced falsely that crime was at an all-time high in the United States and that the reason why it was at an all-time high was due to illegal immigrants being in the country,” Chin said. “I found that statement to be so troubling that it really woke me up in terms of the actions I think all of us need to take responsibility for in order to make a difference.”

 

A week after taking office, Trump issued an executive order aimed at temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.

 

On Feb. 3, the state of Hawaii sued to stop the ban.

 

Trump’s executive order keeps Hawaii families apart and keeps residents from traveling, Chin said.

 

“I think we live in very extraordinary times, I think Hawaii’s progressive values that it fought for the past decades has been under attack in a lot of different ways, and I’ve experienced it first hand, starting with the travel ban and then extending to attacks on transgender people in the military or the children of immigrants,” Chin said.

 

Chin has sued over every version of the travel ban, calling the measure discriminatory toward Muslims.

 

“I’ve ended up being in court over and over again to stop some of the different actions that have been taken by the Trump administration,” he said.

 

Hawaii argued that the ban discriminates on the basis of nationality and would prevent Hawaii residents from receiving visits from relatives in the mostly Muslim countries covered by the ban.

 

Chin said the state’s strategic military importance would also be a major issue for him in Congress.

 

“Words and tweets that have come from this administration have been exceptionally troublesome and has raised a lot of fear here in Hawaii,” Chin said of the tensions between North Korea and Washington. “I think that’s all the more reason to advocate for a strong military presence but also strong diplomatic relationships with all foreign countries.”

 

Chin is the son of Chinese immigrants who came to the U.S. in the 1950s. His father was an interpreter for the U.S. during the Korean War, he said. Chin is married with two children.

 

He was appointed Hawaii’s attorney general in 2015.

 

Several Democratic lawmakers have also announced they would run for the seat, including state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim and Rep. Kaniela Ing.

 

Ing told the AP on Monday that he is concerned about corporate funding of other candidates, including Chin, and said that his campaign is the only one in the state not accepting any corporate money.

 

“The biggest problem in Hawaii isn’t homelessness or housing, I know those are big problems, but the biggest problem is there is too much power in too few hands,” Ing said.

 

Ing is also an opponent of Chin’s views on the military in Hawaii, saying that the military presence in the islands not only makes the state a target from threats like North Korea, but also hurts housing affordability for locals.

 

Sen. Kim, who represents Kalihi and Moanalua, touted her 35 years of experience in state and city government.

 

“Someone with the tenacity to be able to make sure Hawaii’s agenda is first and foremost,” said Kim, a former state Senate president.

 

Her priorities in Congress would be health care, caring for the elderly, making higher education affordable, veterans’ care and women’s issues including access to contraception, she said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump offered some revisionist election recollections on Monday, while predicting that Republicans “will do well” in 2018 when all seats in the House of Representatives are at stake and a third of those in the Senate.

In a Twitter comment, Trump claimed that Republicans had gone 5-0 in congressional races this year and that “the media refuses to mention this.” Actually, Republicans won five of six House races in 2017 and lost a Senate seat. 

Trump claimed to have predicted that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore “would lose (for very different reasons) and they did.” Trump supported both candidates with numerous Twitter remarks through their respective election days, but after they lost, he said he knew they would.

“I also predicted ‘I’ would win” the 2016 presidential election, Trump said. “Republicans will do well in 2018, very well!”

Republicans, with Trump in the White House and majorities in both the Senate and House, control the U.S. government. But with Trump’s approval rating mired in the 30 to 40 percent range and Democrats winning two gubernatorial races and a Senate seat in the last six weeks, Republican control of Congress could be in play.

With the election of Democrat Doug Jones in last week’s Alabama race, the Republican majority in the Senate will shrink to 51-49 when Jones is sworn in in early January, leaving control of the chamber up for grabs in next November’s mid-presidential-term elections.

Democrats also are contending to take control of the House, where Republicans currently hold a 239-193 edge, with three vacancies. Democrats would need to win 25 more seats to control the chamber.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy will provide the country with a “clear and actionable playbook” to counter the most dangerous and persistent threats, according to senior administration officials.

 

The White House unveiled the strategic document Monday, almost 11 months after his administration began work on it.

President Trump explained how much of the strategy is already impacting U.S. policy during a speech Monday in Washington.

 

Senior administration officials say unlike recent, past strategies, it takes a “clear-eyed view” of the dangers and challenges facing the country, while prioritizing U.S. interests in line with the president’s calls to put “America First.”

 

“The global balance of power has shifted in unfavorable manners to American interests,” a senior administration official said Sunday. “This new strategy presents a plan of how America can regain momentum to reverse many of these trends.”

 

“[It] that will really serve as a foundation for subsequent strategies,” the official added, alluding to soon to be released defense and counterterrorism documents.

 

Administration officials say despite their concerns, the new national security strategy is not meant as a repudiation of the strategies laid out by former President Barack Obama or even former President George W. Bush.

 

Instead, they say the document is an “encapsulation” of the strategy President Trump has advocated, both while campaigning for the presidency and once in office.

 

“We do live in a global competition and how we advance our goals is more critical than ever,” the senior administration official said. “We must compete.”

 

To better compete on the global stage, Trump administration officials are focusing on what they describe as four, vital national interests: protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, preserving peace through strength, and advancing American influence.

 

“We have to work together harder than ever to ensure that nations uphold the rule of law, respect the sovereignty of their neighbors and support the post-World War II, post-Cold War order of peace, stability and collective security,” White House National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster said while previewing the new strategy last week in Washington.

 

The strategy identifies three groups of challengers to that order, officials say.

 

The first group includes nations like Russia and China, which are seeking to create a new global order, both militarily and economically, that officials believe will hurt or hamper U.S. interests.

 

The second group of challengers are rogue regimes, like North Korea and Iran, which are pursuing weapons of mass destruction while also supporting terrorism and other destabilizing activities.

 

The final group includes transnational terrorist groups and crime syndicates.

 

Administration officials say the new national security strategy will confront these different challengers on the global stage.

 

“We vacated a lot of competitive space in recent years and created opportunities,” McMaster said. “You’ll see a big emphasis on competitive engagement.”

 

But exactly how the U.S. will do that remains a bit of a question.

 

“This document is more high-level and over-arching,” said a second senior administration official. “It doesn’t move country-by-country.”

Still, some officials and analysts say elements of the new national security strategy are already evident in Washington’s approach to countries from Russia and China to North Korea, Iran and South Asia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis “I think, is going to take a different approach to military conflict,” said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former Naval military strategist.

At the same time, the new strategy seeks to push back against the notion that President Trump’s campaign rallying cry of “America first,” should be interpreted as “American alone.”

Yet some see this as an area in which the Trump administration could struggle, especially given the way the new strategy priorities and emphasizes U.S. economic interests.

“Focusing on protection of American economic interests in a global marketplace painted with rivals, rather than partners, will discourage the use of multilateral trade agreements in a global economy marked by partnership,” said Nicholas Glavin, formerly a researcher at the U.S. Naval War College’s Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups.

Glavin, who is currently studying at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, says  that could actually weaken U.S. attempt to compete against key rivals on the word stage.

“Where Washington won’t lead, others will, most notably Beijing,” he said. “In the long term, this hurts the U.S. much more than multilateralism in the global economy would.

 

But administration officials insist the strategy will reaffirm the United States’ commitment to its allies. They also say it affirms the U.S. commitment to NATO and the United Nations, though they are clear that Trump believes reforms at both organizations are long overdue.

 

Nor will the U.S. rule out working with countries like China and Russia.

 

“The nature of competition doesn’t mean you don’t also cooperate,” said another senior administration official. “We talk about cooperation, about cooperation with reciprocity.”

 

For example, officials said the U.S. sees China as a key partner in the effort to rein-in North Korea’s aggression and nuclear ambitions, despite what they described as Beijing’s economic aggression toward the U.S.

Already, there are some who doubt China will respond well.

“Trump’s words are always illogical,” said Shi Yinhong, the director of the U.S. Center at China People’s University in Beijing. “China doesn’t care much about what he says but what he does.”

“His flattering China visit is pleasing to Beijing, but what concerns Beijing the most is the U.S. doesn’t touch Taiwan,” Shi said.

Officials pointed to Sunday’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, when Putin thanked the U.S. and the CIA for sharing intelligence to thwart a terror plot, as a “great example where there’s a shared interest.”

 

“We’ve seen some of that also this year in Syria against ISIS in deconfliction in trying to set up safe zones,” the official said.

 

“We’re certainly better off right now than we were several months ago when both the secretary of state and the president remarked that the [U.S.-Russia] relationship seemed to be at a low point,” the official added.  “But we still see a lot of areas where our interests just don’t align or directly conflict.”

 

A prime area of conflict with Russia is over what McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, has called “sophisticated campaigns of subversion and disinformation.”

 

And an unclassified U.S. intelligence report released last January concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin waged what it described as an unprecedented “influence campaign” in an effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump.

 

Yet when asked, other senior administration officials would not say how the new National Security Strategy will address such concerns, saying other actors, including China and terror groups have also increasingly used such techniques.

 

There are also areas where the new national security strategy departs dramatically from the previous administration’s policies.

 

President Barack Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy placed an emphasis on promoting and defending democracy and human rights.

 

The new Trump doctrine takes a different tact.

 

“We mention all the components of making a democracy: tolerance, liberty, freedom of religion,” said one of the senior administration officials. “But building on what local partners want so we’re not imposing our way of life, so we’re not imposing democracy.”

 

Obama’s 2105 strategy also called on the U.S. to confront “the urgent crisis of climate change.”

 

The Trump national security strategy does not.

 

“Climate change is not identified as national security threat,” said one of the officials. “The importance of the environment and environmental stewardship are discussed.”

 

The new national security strategy has already gotten the approval of key officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, as well as Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

 
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