Voters in North Carolina’s 9th district will head to the polls Tuesday for a special election primary that will decide which Republican will face off against Democrat Dan McCready for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

McCready lost to Republican Mark Harris by just 905 votes in the general election held in September 2018. But the results were never certified because of allegations of absentee ballot fraud.

North Carolina’s elections board ordered new elections after allegations surfaced that Harris political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless may have tampered with mail-in absentee ballots.

According to testimony presented to the board, Dowless conducted an illegal “ballot harvesting” operation while working for Harris. Dowless and his assistants helped voters obtain absentee ballots and then gathered up the filled-in ballots from them by offering to put them in the mail.

Dowless’ workers in rural Bladen County testified that they were directed to collect blank or incomplete ballots from voters, forge signatures on them and even fill in votes for local candidates. It is generally against the law in North Carolina for anyone other than the voter or a family member to handle someone’s completed ballot.

Harris has refused to run in the special election.

There are 10 Republicans running in the primary. If none of them gets 30% of the vote or more, a runoff primary will be held on September 10 and the general election will be moved to November 5.

However, if a clear winner does emerge, the candidate will take on McCready in a general election on September 10.

 
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More tug-of-war is expected in Washington this week between congressional Democrats, who seek further information and material pertaining to the Russia probe, and the Trump administration, which is eager to turn the page and move on from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports.
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President Donald Trump’s combative approach to trade has been one of the constants among his often-shifting political views. And he’s showing no signs of backing off now, even as the stakes intensify with the threat of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.  

  

The president went after China on Day 1 of his presidential bid, promising to “bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.” 

 

Trump’s views on trade helped forge his path to victory in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, where he linked the loss of manufacturing jobs to the North America Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals. He warned the worst was yet to come with President Barack Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.  

  

His trashing of existing and proposed trade agreements grabbed the headlines, but he also made clear his view that globalization had been bad for America and that he would use tariffs to protect national security and domestic producers. He cited the nation’s Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as leaders whose footsteps he was following when it came to trade and tariffs. 

 

Our original Constitution did not even have an income tax,'' Trump told voters in Monessen, Pa., four months before the 2016 presidential election.Instead, it had tariffs, emphasizing taxation of foreign, not domestic production.” 

​Taking on China

 

No. 7 on his list of trade promises in that speech: taking on China for “its theft of American trade secrets.” 

 

“This is so easy. I love saying this. I will use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes, including the application of tariffs consistent” with existing trade laws, Trump said. 

 

Those laws include Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which Trump cited to enact tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere. 

 

They also include Section 301 of the Trade Act, which Trump used last year to apply 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods. That 10 percent was increased to 25 percent on Friday. Trump is laying the groundwork to extend the 25 percent tariff to all of China’s exports to the U.S. 

 

“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!” Trump tweeted on Saturday. 

 

Of course, America’s trading partners haven’t let Trump’s tariffs stand without taking similar action themselves. Farmers, boat makers, and whiskey and wine producers are just some of the U.S. industries caught in the middle. 

 

Farming is a very small-margin, small-profit business. We rely on lots of volume and lots of sales to generate a profit,'' said Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Ind., who has seen prices for both commodities drop in the past year.We are operating at a loss now.” 

 

Trump’s philosophy on some issues has evolved over the years. 

 

He once described himself regarding the abortion issue as very pro-choice.'' Now, his administration promotes him as the mostpro-life president in American history.” 

​Complaint about Japan

 

On trade, not so much. In Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump complained of the Japanese that “what’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.” 

 

Fast-forward nearly three decades, and Trump declared in his 2015 announcement for the presidency that other nations were prospering at America’s expense. “When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time,” Trump said. 

 

Trump’s approach on trade is a dramatic departure for the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have declined to take action that would block his tariffs. They credit his tactics for getting improvements to a trade deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, and for getting China to the negotiating table. 

 

President Trump is the first president to take China head-on,'' said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. He saideveryone knows I’m not a fan of tariffs, but I think everyone knows as well that China has been cheating for far too long.” 

 

Trump has received some encouragement from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted to Trump: “Don’t back down. Strength is the only way to win with China.” 

 

Current and former officials in the administration believe that voters will give the president credit for standing up to China, and not blame him for any pain that may result from the tariffs war. 

 

Overall, AP VoteCast found Americans critical in their assessments of Trump on trade. But that’s not the case with his supporters. According to the survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, 45% approved of Trump on trade, while 53% disapproved. Among voters who approved of Trump’s job overall, fully 88% approved of his handling of trade. 

​Who pays?

 

While Trump casts his tariffs as being paid for by China, they actually are paid by the American companies that bring a product into the U.S. This can help some U.S. producers, though, because it makes their goods more competitive pricewise. Still, the burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University. 

 

Republican-leaning business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have warned that the tariffs threaten to derail the economy raise unemployment, but with economic growth at 3.2 percent last quarter and the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, Trump isn’t changing strategy now. 

 

“Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!” Trump tweeted on Friday. 
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Donald Trump campaigned on an image of master negotiator and ultimate dealmaker. But two years into his presidency, major foreign policy successes remain elusive. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara updates us on President Trump’s proliferating confrontations abroad.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he did not not consider North Korea’s recent launch of short-range ballistic missiles “a breach of trust.”

In an interview with Politico, Trump downplayed the missile tests by North Korea, calling them “very standard stuff.” 

“They’re short-range and I don’t consider that a breach of trust at all. And, you know, at some point I may. But at this point, no,” Trump said. 

North Korea fired two short-range missiles on Thursday, its second such test in less than a week. 

The Pentagon said the launches consisted of ballistic missiles that flew in excess of 300 km (185 miles) and landed in the ocean. 

Trump said he might eventually lose faith in his friendly relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which he has previously described as “very strong.” 

“I mean, it’s possible that at some point I will, but right now, not at all,” Trump said. 

On Thursday, Trump appeared to hold the door open for more talks with North Korea. 

“The relationship continues … I know they want to negotiate, they’re talking about negotiating. But I don’t think they’re ready to negotiate,” he told reporters. 
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A top House Democrat on Friday issued subpoenas for six years of President Donald Trump’s tax returns, giving Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig a deadline of next Friday to deliver them. 

 

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., issued the subpoenas days after Mnuchin refused to comply with demands to turn over Trump’s returns. Mnuchin told the panel he wouldn’t provide Trump’s tax records because the panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose,” as Supreme Court precedent requires.  

  

Neal reminded the two Trump appointees in a Friday letter that federal law states that the Internal Revenue Service shall furnish'' the tax returns of any individual upon the request of the chairmen of Congress' tax-writing committees and that Ways and Meanshas never been denied” a request. 

Refusals to comply

 

The White House and the Democratic-controlled House are waging a multifront battle over investigations into Trump, and the administration has been refusing to comply across the board — refusing to comply with subpoenas for the unredacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller and documents related to the testimony by former White House  counsel Donald McGahn. 

 

Neal originally demanded access to Trump’s tax returns in early April. He maintains that the committee is looking into the effectiveness of IRS mandatory audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents, a way to justify his claim that the panel has a potential legislative purpose. Democrats are confident in their legal justification and say Trump is stalling in an attempt to punt the issue past the 2020 election.    

In rejecting the request earlier, Mnuchin said he relied on the advice of the Justice Department. He concluded that the Treasury Department is “not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.” Mnuchin has also said that Neal’s request would potentially weaponize private tax returns for political purposes.  

  

“While I do not take this step lightly, I believe this action gives us the best opportunity to succeed and obtain the requested material,” Neal said in a statement.  

President won’t budge

  

Trump has privately made clear he has no intention of turning over the records. He is the first president since Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon’s presidency to decline to make his tax returns public, often claiming that he would release them if he were not under audit. The IRS’s Rettig has told House lawmakers that no rule bars release of a tax return because it’s under audit.

What's unprecedented is this secretary refusing to comply with our lawful ... request. What's unprecedented is a Justice Department that again sees its role as being bodyguard to the executive and not the rule of law,'' said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.What’s unprecedented is an entire federal government working in concert to shield a corrupt president from legal accountability.”  

  

But the president has told those close to him that the attempt to get his returns was an invasion of his privacy and a further example of what he calls the Democrat-led “witch hunt” — like Mueller’s Russia probe — meant to damage him.
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The White House says President Donald Trump will nominate Pat Shanahan as the next secretary of defense.

Shanahan, who has served as acting secretary of defense since January, “has proven over the last several months that he is beyond qualified to lead the Department of Defense, and he will continue to do an excellent job,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted Thursday.

“I am honored,” Shanahan poster on Twitter. “If confirmed by the Senate … I remain committed to modernizing the force so our remarkable Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have everything they need to keep our military lethal and our country safe.”

Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon that he first heard of the president’s intent to nominate him while he was at the White House earlier Thursday.

Unlike his predecessor, retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who served more than 40 years in the military before taking the Pentagon’s top civilian post, Shanahan spent more than 30 years in private industry working for the Boeing aircraft manufacturing company.

Critics have raised concern about his lack of military experience and about the potential bias toward his old company, which wins many Pentagon contracts to build military technologies.

If confirmed, he would not be the first to lead the department without having served in the military. The most recent example is Ash Carter, who served as defense secretary under former President Barack Obama.

And an ethics investigation into potential bias earlier this year concluded that Shanahan did not violate ethics agreements or promote his longtime employer, according to the Defense Department inspector general.

Pentagon officials told VOA they felt that the probe’s findings had cleared the way for Shanahan’s nomination.
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The number of Americans who said President Donald Trump should be impeached rose 5 percentage points since mid-April, to 45 percent, while more than half said that continued congressional probes of Trump would interfere with key government business, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.

The opinion poll, conducted Monday, did not make clear whether investigation-fatigued Americans wanted House of Representatives Democrats to pull back on their probes or press forward aggressively and just get impeachment over with. 

The question is an urgent one for senior Democrats in the House, who are wrestling with whether to launch impeachment proceedings despite likely insurmountable opposition to it in the Republican-controlled Senate. 

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi re-emphasized that leaders of the investigative committees in the House were taking a step-by-step approach. 

​Following facts

“This is very methodical. It’s very Constitution-based,” the California Democrat said. “We won’t go any faster than the facts take us, or any slower than the facts take us.”

In addition to the 45 percent pro-impeachment figure, the Monday poll found that 42 percent of Americans said Trump should not be impeached. The rest said they had no opinion. 

In comparison, an April 18-19 survey found that 40 percent of all Americans wanted Trump impeached. 

The latest poll showed stronger support for impeachment among Democrats and independents. 

It also showed that 57 percent of adults agreed that continued investigations into Trump would interfere with important government business. That included about half of all Democrats and three-quarters of all Republicans. 

After a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller of Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, House Democrats are pursuing multiple inquiries into Trump’s presidency, his family and his business interests. 

Trump is declining to cooperate with at least a half-dozen such inquiries, refusing to disclose his tax returns, invoking executive privilege to keep the unredacted Mueller report under wraps and filing unprecedented lawsuits to block House investigators. 

‘A circus’

“It’s becoming a circus over there” in Washington, said Fatima Alsrogy, 36, a T-shirt designer from Dallas who took the poll. “There are so many more important things the country needs to pay attention to right now.”

Alsrogy, an independent, thinks Trump should be impeached. Yet she also wishes lawmakers would do more to improve the health care system for self-employed people like her. 

“I bought my own [health] insurance on an Obamacare exchange,” she said. “It’s a huge expense, and I don’t know if Obamacare is going to be amended or taken away. It’s stressful.” 

The poll also found that 32 percent said Congress treated the Mueller report fairly, while 47 percent disagreed. 

Trump’s popularity was unchanged from a similar poll that ran last week — 39 percent of adults said they approved of Trump, while 55 percent said they disapproved. 

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,006 adults and had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points. 
…

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused President Donald Trump and his administration of “every day … advertising their obstruction of justice by ignoring subpoenas” issued by opposition Democratic lawmakers for oversight of him, the White House and government agencies.

Pelosi, the leader of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, unleashed her verbal attack a day after the House Judiciary Committee overrode Republican opposition and voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Lawmakers cited Barr for refusing to turn over an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his 22-month investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and allegations that Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

Pelosi said she agreed with Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the Judiciary panel’s chairman, that the U.S. is in “a constitutional crisis,” as the stalemate continues between House Democrats and Trump, a Republican who has vowed to fight all Democratic subpoenas demanding testimony from his administration’s top officials and key documents.

Earlier in the week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rebuffed a request by the House Ways and Means Committee for six years of Trump’s federal tax returns to examine whether he has hidden overseas investments, particularly in Russia. The committee’s chairman, Congressman Richard Neal, said he would decide by week’s end whether to subpoena the returns or file a court challenge to try to force Mnuchin to turn over the secret annual documents.

Pelosi said at a news conference that the House Democrats’ investigations “will give us the facts and the truth. This is not about Congress or any committee of Congress. It’s about the American people and their right to know, and their election that is at stake, and that a foreign government intervened in our election, and the president thinks it is a laughing matter.”

Pelosi said, “It’s appalling that this administration would not even pretend to want to protect our elections, and in fact, be an obstacle to our finding out more about how it happened, so we can prevent it from happening again.”

‘Self-impeachable’

Pelosi, however, has resisted calls by some Democrats to start impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Earlier in the week, Pelosi said, “Every single day the president is making the case. He’s becoming self-impeachable.”

But she told reporters Thursday, “Impeachment is one of the most divisive things that you can do, dividing a country, unless you really have your case with great clarity for the American people.”

With the Judiciary Committee voting to hold Barr in contempt of Congress, the full House must now consider the contempt citation. But Pelosi said she is not rushing toward a vote.

Mueller testimony

Pelosi said she is waiting to see whether Mueller testifies before Nadler’s committee about his handling of the Russia investigation.

Trump has said he does not think Mueller should testify, considering it a “redo” of the investigation. But Trump said Thursday he would leave it up to Barr.

The Trump-appointed attorney general, the country’s top law enforcement official, has said he has no objection to Mueller testifying before congressional panels.
…

Reporting from The New York Times shows that between 1985 and 1994, President Donald Trump reported $1.2 billion in losses, allowing him not to pay income taxes during most of that period. While Democrats demand Trump’s tax returns, other battles are heating up. The White House is asserting executive privilege over special counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report, and Democrats are preparing to hold Trump’s attorney general in contempt. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
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U.S. lawmakers used an event at the Capitol Wednesday afternoon to praise Taiwan as an ally and a healthy alternative to China.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have been strained because of a growing trade dispute, China’s unwillingness to democratize and the threat of the spread of its illiberal influence as it reaches more regions of the world.

Wednesday’s event marked the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, which provides a framework for continuing bilateral ties after Washington established official diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979.

​In praise of Taiwan

Some lawmakers used the occasion to praise relations between Washington and Taipei.

“We have to stick with the folks that are most like us and that we are most like, that is just how it has to be, and we should be unafraid to say it,” Congressman Scott Perry, a Republican who represents Pennsylvania, said.

“If we want to be leaders in the world and we do, we have to stick with our friends and our allies very closely and show the world who we believe in and where our allegiances lie,” Perry said. “We still want to trade with China, we still want to be good partners, however, we have a better partner.”

Perry told VOA that Taiwan is a natural partner and ally “especially compared to the government of China.” He quickly added that it is important to clarify that there’s a difference between the government of China and the people of China, “because there are many Chinese people who also agree with our values.”

Bipartisan, bicameral gathering

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also attended the event, which she described as a “celebration of the relationship” between the United States and Taiwan.

Pelosi pointed to the congressional members who were present at the event as evidence of “bipartisan, bicameral expression and manifestation of support and recognition of the importance of the Taiwan Relations Act,” which she described as having fostered an “unshakable bond between the United States and Taiwan.”

She also spoke about how impressed she was with the “vitality of the country” on her visit to the island, adding, “I can’t wait to go back again … my understanding is, the best Chinese food in the world is in Taiwan!”

The event, co-hosted by Taiwan Causes in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, drew more than two dozen senators and congressmen.

Humbled by US support

As the event concluded, Stanley Kao, Taiwan’s representative to the United States, told VOA that he was humbled by the broad show of support for Taiwan among U.S. lawmakers.

Kao said Taiwan will continue to uphold the values that endear it to the United States and other democracies around the world.

“We ourselves must zheng-qi,” he said, invoking the traditional Chinese phrase meaning “fight for and be worthy of one’s own breath.”
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President Donald Trump brought his enduring fiction about hurricane aid for Puerto Rico to a rally crowd in Florida Wednesday.

Pledging unstinting support for more hurricane recovery money for Floridians, he vastly exaggerated how much Puerto Rico has received.

Trump laced his speech in Panama City Beach with a recitation of falsehoods that never quit, touching on veterans’ health care, the economy, visas and more. 

A sampling:

Puerto Rico hurricane aid

TRUMP: “We gave to Puerto Rico $91 billion” — and that’s more, he said, than any U.S. state or entity has received for hurricane aid.

THE FACTS: His number is wrong, as is his assertion that the U.S. territory has set some record for federal disaster aid. Congress has so far distributed only about $11 billion for Puerto Rico, not $91 billion.

He’s stuck to his figure for some time. The White House has said the estimate includes about $50 billion in expected future disaster disbursements that could span decades, along with $41 billion approved.

That $50 billion in additional money is speculative. It is based on Puerto Rico’s eligibility for federal emergency disaster funds for years ahead, involving calamities that haven’t happened.

That money would require future appropriations by Congress.

Even if correct, $91 billion would not be the most ever provided for hurricane rebuilding efforts. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 cost the U.S government more than $120 billion, the bulk of it going to Louisiana.

​Economy and income levels

TRUMP, boasting that his economic record has delivered the “highest income ever in history for the different groups — highest income.”

THE FACTS: Not so. He did not achieve the best income numbers for all the racial groups. Both African Americans and Asian Americans had higher income before the Trump administration.

The median income last year for a black household was $40,258, according to the Census Bureau. That’s below a 2000 peak of $42,348 and also statistically no better than 2016, President Barack Obama’s last year in office.

Many economists view the continued economic growth since the middle of 2009, in Obama’s first term, as the primary explanation for recent hiring and income gains. More important, there are multiple signs that the racial wealth gap is now worsening even as unemployment rates have come down.

As for Asian Americans, the median income for a typical household last year was $81,331. It was $83,182 in 2016.

Visa lottery and ‘rough people’

TRUMP, claiming countries are taking advantage of the U.S. diversity visa lottery program: “They’re giving us some rough people.”

THE FACTS: A perpetual falsehood from the president. Countries don’t nominate their citizens for the program. They don’t get to select people they’d like to get rid of.

Foreigners apply for the visas on their own. Under the program, citizens of countries named by the U.S. can bid for visas if they have enough education or work experience in desired fields. Out of that pool of qualified applicants, the State Department randomly selects a much smaller pool of tentative winners. Not all winners will have visas approved because they still must compete for a smaller number of slots by getting their applications in quickly.

Those who are ultimately offered visas still need to go through background checks, like other immigrants.

​VA Choice

TRUMP, describing how veterans used to wait weeks and months for a VA appointment: “For the veterans, we passed VA Choice. … (Now) they immediately go outside, find a good local doctor, get themselves fixed up and we pay the bill.”

THE FACTS: No, veterans still must wait for weeks for a medical appointment.

While it’s true the VA recently announced plans to expand eligibility for veterans in the Veterans Choice program, it remains limited in part because of uncertain money and longer waits.

The program currently allows veterans to see doctors outside the VA system if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility. Under new rules to take effect in June, veterans will have that option for a private doctor if their VA wait is only 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.

But the expanded Choice eligibility may do little to provide immediate help.

That’s because veterans often must wait even longer for an appointment in the private sector. In 2018, 34 percent of all VA appointments were with outside physicians, down from 36 percent in 2017. Then-Secretary David Shulkin said VA care was “often 40 percent better in terms of wait times” compared with the private sector.

Choice came into effect after some veterans died while waiting months for appointments at the Phoenix VA medical center.

When VA Choice passed

TRUMP, on the Choice program: “That’s a great thing for our veterans. They’ve been trying to get it passed for 44 years. We got it passed.”

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect. Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and President Barack Obama signed it into law. Trump is expanding it.

Crowd sizes

TRUMP, on Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s crowd size at a Texas rally before he launched his presidential campaign: “He had like 502 people.”

THE FACTS: Trump sells short O’Rourke’s crowd, though it has grown in his mind since he claimed the Democrat only got 200-300 at his El Paso gathering in February. Trump had a rally there the same day.

O’Rourke’s march and rally drew thousands. Police did not give an estimate, but his crowd filled nearly all of a baseball field from the stage at the infield to the edge of outfield and was tightly packed.
…

In the U.S., there’s an old saying that there are only two things that are certain in life: death and taxes.

But as it turns out, death is way more certain than taxes in the United States.

Corporations and some wealthy individuals, including President Donald Trump, are able to legally avoid any federal taxation in some years by deducting business expenses such as capital investments, charitable donations, interest on their home loans, health care costs and numerous other write-offs from their corporate or personal income.

In a report late Tuesday, The New York Times said from 1985 to 1994, Trump lost more than $1 billion in his real estate business operations and paid no federal income taxes in eight of those 10 years.

Trump called the report inaccurate but did not dispute any specific facts. He said it was “sport” for developers to game the U.S. tax code so they did not have to pay taxes.

Unlike U.S. presidents for the past four decades, Trump has balked at releasing his tax returns, although opposition Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives are seeking, so far unsuccessfully, to get him to divulge his returns for the last six years. A court fight over the dispute is possible.

The independent Tax Policy Center estimates that in 2018, 44% of Americans paid no federal income tax under the country’s progressive sliding scale of taxation, where those making the most money, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, pay a higher percentage tax than those with way less annual income.

Various provisions of the U.S. tax code, such as the standard deduction to reduce taxable income or such allowable itemized deductions as for making donations to charities or for expenses to operate a business from home, can sharply reduce income subject to federal taxation.

But even those individuals not subject to any federal taxation, however, likely have paid payroll taxes, payments to cover mandatory withholding from their paychecks to fund the government’s pension plan for older and retired workers, and health insurance for Americans over 65. About three-quarters of American households pay federal income taxes, the payroll taxes or both.

The median annual U.S. household income is $56,516, meaning half earn more, half less.

According to one recent survey of nearly 130,000 American consumers, the average American spends $10,489 each year in federal, state, and local income taxes, about 14% of the average survey respondent’s gross income.

In the corporate world, however, with the tax overhaul pushed to passage by Trump and Republican lawmakers in 2017 that cut the basic federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, 60 of the biggest U.S. corporations avoided paying any taxes last year, according to the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The research group said these companies should have paid a collective $16.4 billion in federal income taxes, but instead, with various legal deductions from their income, received a net tax rebate of $4.3 billion.

It reported that among the 60 profitable U.S. corporations paying no federal income taxes last year were some of the country’s best known businesses, including General Motors, Amazon, Chevron, Netflix, Delta Air Lines, IBM, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, and Eli Lilly.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday belittled a report that he lost more than $1 billion as a New York real estate mogul between 1985 and 1994, claiming it was “sport” for developers to write off such losses to legally avoid paying federal taxes.

In a pair of tweets, the president called the report in The New York Times “very old information … a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!” but did not dispute that he avoided paying federal income taxes in eight of the 10 years in question.

“Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases,” Trump said. “Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered “tax shelter,…” you would get it by building, or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes….almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport.”

As he ran for the presidency in 2016 and since assuming power, Trump has often portrayed himself as a successful entrepreneur worth billions of dollars. But unlike U.S. presidents for the last four decades, he has balked at voluntarily disclosing his personal federal income tax returns.

He wrote a best-selling book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” but the newspaper called his financial dealings three decades ago a “Decade in the Red,” and “The Art of Losing Money.”

The Times said that in the 10-year period in question Trump lost more money year after year than any other U.S. taxpayer. The newspaper did not use the actual returns for its report but instead used information provided by someone who had access to the documents.

The bulk of Trump’s losses during that period came from his core businesses, including hotels, casinos and retail space inside apartment buildings.

They also include failed investments in an airline, a professional football team and unfinished plans for real estate developments.

According to the Times, Trump was able to maintain a life of luxury all those years because most of his money came from banks and bond holders who invested in the Trump empire. Trump also relied on his father’s wealth, according to the report.

But it appears Trump did not break any federal laws because the U.S. tax code allows people to deduct substantial business losses from their income, cutting their tax bills to little or nothing.

One of the president’s lawyers, Charles Harder, told the newspaper that the tax information it used was “demonstrably false.”

“IRS (Internal Revenue Service) transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate … would not be able to provide a reasonable picture of any taxpayer’s return,” he told the Times.

Opposition Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives are trying to get their hands on Trump’s tax returns from 2013 to 2018 as part of their investigation into the president’s foreign business deals.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has so far declined, saying the request has no “legitimate legislative purpose.”

Disclosure of Trump’s tax returns is one of several current legislative oversight disputes the majority bloc of House Democrats is waging with Trump and his administration. Several panels are seeking background information uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump campaign links to Russia in 2016 and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart Mueller’s probe.

House Democrats are threatening to hold key Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over information or to testify about their actions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
…

VOA’s White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee was due to vote Wednesday on holding hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over the Justice Department’s refusal to provide an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation of Russian election interference.

Before the vote was held, the White House said President Donald Trump has “no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege” over the materials the committee asked for in its subpoena, due to what Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called a “blatant abuse of power” by committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler.

“The American people see through Chairman Nadler’s desperate ploy to distract from the President’s historically successful agenda and our booming economy. Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands,” Sanders said in a statement.

Committee leaders and Justice Department officials had met Tuesday to try to resolve their dispute, but the two sides each issued statements late in the day indicating they remained far apart.

The Justice Department’s positions came in the form of a letter to Nadler from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd who accused Nadler’s committee of making “unreasonable demands” and provoking “an unnecessary conflict between our respective branches of government.”

Boyd said the Justice Department had acted within the law and regulations by offering a copy of the Mueller report “with as few redactions as possible,” but said committee leaders escalated the dispute by demanding all committee members be allowed to review that version, something he said would “risk violating court orders” in some ongoing cases.

Nadler in his statement said the White House had long ago waived its executive privilege over the materials requested in the subpoena, which include not only the full Mueller report but also the underlying documents from the investigation of Russia’s interference with the 2016 election, whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, and whether the president obstructed justice.

If the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee approves the contempt citation for the attorney general, it would be taken up by the full House of Representatives. In theory, someone held in contempt could eventually be tried and, if convicted, face up to a year in prison. The Justice Department rarely pursues such referrals from Congress.

Nadler’s committee is also considering whether to hold Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel, in contempt of Congress if he refuses to testify before the committee later this month about the Mueller probe.

McGahn on Tuesday refused to comply with a subpoena for documents related to the investigation.  The White House had demanded he ignore the subpoena, and his lawyer said the documents were property of the White House and as such McGahn had no right to them.

Barr last month released a redacted copy of the Mueller report, with the prosecutor concluding neither Trump nor his campaign colluded with Russia, but reached no conclusion whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice during the 22-month investigation.  Barr decided the findings did not warrant obstruction charges against the president.

In an online statement under the name DOJ Alumni, more than 700 former federal prosecutors, so far, who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations said evidence Mueller uncovered would have resulted in obstruction charges against Trump, were it not for the long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be charged with a criminal offense.

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says it is time for lawmakers to move on from the Russia investigation.

But top Democratic leaders immediately disputed McConnell. Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer called McConnell’s remarks “an astounding bit of whitewashing,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “That’s just not a fact. The case is not closed.”
…

The U.S. has recalled career diplomat Marie (Masha) Yovanovitch from her post as ambassador to Ukraine, timing the State Department says was aligned with the coming presidential transition in Kyiv.

But two key Democratic lawmakers claim the move was “a political hit job” with roots in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The State Department said the 60-year-old Yovanovitch, appointed by former President Barack Obama, is completing her three-year tenure in Ukraine “as planned,” although her term actually extended to Aug. 20.

The State Department said her return coincides with the planned June inauguration of comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the Ukrainian leader after his resounding defeat of President Petro Poroshenko in last month’s election.

​Democrats cry foul

Congressman Steny Hoyer, the majority leader in the House of Representatives, and Congressman Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disputed the State Department explanation for Yovanovitch’s early recall, saying she was a “dedicated public servant and a diplomat of the highest caliber who has represented the United States under both Republican and Democratic administrations.”

The lawmakers contended that “the White House’s outrageous decision to recall her is a political hit job and the latest in this administration’s campaign against career State Department personnel. It’s clear that this decision was politically motivated, as allies of President Trump had joined foreign actors in lobbying for the ambassador’s dismissal.”

Hoyer and Engel said that by recalling Yovanovitch “just mere months before her tenure in Ukraine was set to end, the administration is harming American interests and undermining American diplomacy.”

​Trump accusations

Yovanovitch’s time in Kyiv coincided with U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. One of the key figures in that probe was President Donald Trump’s one-time campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was paid millions of dollars as a lobbyist for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine linked to deposed President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014.

Manafort has now been convicted of several financial crimes tied to his lobbying and has been sentenced to 71/2 years in prison.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has alleged that information about payments to Manafort was revealed in an effort to help Democrat Hillary Clinton in her campaign against Trump, a contention that Trump adopted in recent months in an effort to disparage claims that it was Russia that was helping him.

“As Russia Collusion fades,” Trump said on Twitter in March, “Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges.”

The same month, Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted that the U.S. needed more ambassadors like conservative Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed American envoy to Germany, and “less of these jokers as ambassadors” like Yovanovitch. “Calls Grow to Remove Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.”

Hoyer and Engel called on the State Department to reverse Yovanovitch’s dismissal.

“In this period of transition, Ukraine needs gifted professionals like Ambassador Yovanovitch more than ever,” they said.
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A second Rhode Island town declared itself a so-called Second Amendment sanctuary Monday to oppose the governor’s push for stricter gun control laws.

The Hopkinton Town Council passed a resolution, 3 to 2. The Burrillville Town Council passed a similar resolution last month. The towns say they won’t enforce new laws they feel infringe on their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Four more towns are considering doing the same thing, and other jurisdictions nationwide have also adopted the term “Second Amendment sanctuary” in opposition to various new gun laws.

Hopkinton Town Council President Frank Landolfi said he doesn’t trust the state legislature and the governor to ensure the safety of residents and he doesn’t want new restrictions on where he can carry a gun, The Westerly Sun reported.

Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo wants a ban on guns in schools and a statewide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The legislature is considering several gun-related proposals. Raimondo has said if the stricter gun laws pass, she expects every single city and town to follow them, “period.”

Republican state Sen. Elaine Morgan asked the five towns in her district, including Hopkinton, to declare themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. Another Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Justin Price, praised towns for “standing up against the state’s infringement on their rights.” His district also includes part of Hopkinton.

The towns of Glocester, Richmond, Foster and West Greenwich are all considering similar measures, The Providence Journal reported.
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The head of the top law enforcement agency in the United States told lawmakers Tuesday he would not use the term “spying” to describe the agency’s court-approved surveillance work.

“Well, it’s not the term I would use, “FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Appropriations Committee “Lots of people have different colloquial phrases.”

Wray’s comments are a departure from remarks made by his boss, Attorney General William Barr. Barr told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in April, “I think spying did occur” on the Trump campaign and said, “Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

Barr’s language closely resembled that of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly accused the FBI of spying during the election season.

While Wray acknowledged that people use different terms, he said his priority is ensuring the agency’s work is “done by the book.” Wray added he “personally” did not have any evidence the FBI conducted any illegal surveillance into any campaigns or into people associated with them.

The FBI director declined to further discuss the agency’s probe into the Trump campaign because it is part of an investigation conducted by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

 

 
…

Almost 500 former U.S. Justice Department officials said on Monday in a joint statement that the Mueller report’s findings would justify obstruction charges against President Donald Trump if he were not currently occupying the White House.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has said he found insufficient evidence in Mueller’s report to conclude that Trump obstructed justice. Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself made no formal finding one way or the other on that question.

“To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice … runs counter to logic and our experience,” said the statement, signed by Justice Department lawyers who served Republican and Democratic presidents stretching back to the 1950s.

As of late Monday, 467 officials had signed the letter.

Mueller’s report unearthed numerous links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and various Russians, but it concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish that the campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow.

It also described attempts by Trump to impede Mueller’s probe, but stopped short of declaring Trump committed a crime.

Under a long-standing Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel policy, a sitting president cannot be charged with criminal activity.

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy … result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the statement said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman referred to prior statements by Barr, in which he said Mueller had not provided enough evidence to bring a successful obstruction case.

A Mueller spokesman declined to comment.

Among signers of the statement were Donald Ayer, who was the Justice Department’s No. 2 official under Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Bill Weld, a former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under Republican President Ronald Reagan. Weld is making a bid to challenge Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

Weld’s presidential campaign confirmed he signed the statement and Ayer said he also signed it.

The statement was coordinated by a non-profit, non-partisan group called Protect Democracy, which says it was formed “to prevent our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The statement comes as House of Representatives Democrats are threatening to hold Barr in contempt for not giving them a full, unredacted version of the Mueller report.
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has made it official: The administration won’t be turning President Donald Trump’s tax returns over to the Democratic-controlled House.

 

Mnuchin told Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., in a Monday letter that the panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” as Supreme Court precedent requires.

 

In making that determination, Mnuchin said he relied on the advice of the Justice Department. He concluded that the Treasury Department is “not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.” He said the Justice Department will provide a more detailed legal justification soon.

 

The move, which was expected, is sure to set in motion a legal battle over Trump’s tax returns. The chief options available to Democrats are to subpoena the IRS for the returns or to file a lawsuit. Last week, Neal promised “we’ll be ready” to act soon after Monday’s deadline.

Treasury’s denial came the same day that the House Judiciary panel scheduled a vote for Wednesday on whether to find Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena for a full, unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Fights with other House panels are ongoing.

 

“I will consult with counsel and determine the appropriate response,” Neal said in a statement Monday.

 

Neal originally demanded access to Trump’s tax returns in early April under a law that says the IRS “shall furnish” the returns of any taxpayer to a handful of top lawmakers, including the chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. He maintains that the committee is looking into the effectiveness of IRS mandatory audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents, a way to justify his claim that the panel has a potential legislative purpose. Democrats are confident in their legal justification and say Trump is stalling in an attempt to punt the issue past the 2020 election.

 

The White House and the president’s attorneys declined to comment on the deadline to turn over Trump’s returns.

 

Mnuchin has said Neal’s request would potentially weaponize private tax returns for political purposes.

Trump has privately made clear he has no intention of turning over the much-coveted records. He is the first president since Watergate to decline to make his tax returns public, often claiming that he would release them if he was not under audit.

 

“What’s unprecedented is this secretary refusing to comply with our lawful … request. What’s unprecedented is a Justice Department that again sees its role as being bodyguard to the executive and not the rule of law,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. “What’s unprecedented is an entire federal government working in concert to shield a corrupt president from legal accountability.”

 

But the president has told those close to him that the attempt to get his returns was an invasion of his privacy and a further example of what he calls the Democrat-led “witch hunt” — like Mueller’s Russia probe — meant to damage him.

 

Trump has repeatedly asked aides as to the status of the House request and has not signaled a willing to cooperate with Democrats, according to a White House official and two Republicans close to the White House.

 

He has linked the effort to the myriad House probes into his administration and has urged his team to stonewall all requests. He also has inquired about the “loyalty” of the top officials at the IRS, according to one of his advisers.

 

Trump has long told confidants that he was under audit and therefore could not release his taxes. But in recent weeks, he has added to the argument, telling advisers that the American people elected him once without seeing his taxes and would do so again, according to the three White House officials and Republicans, who were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
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U.S. Attorney General William Barr faces the prospect Wednesday of a vote by a U.S. House committee to hold him in “contempt of Congress.” What does that mean? 

Congress has significant, if time-consuming, powers to demand witnesses and documents. One of these is the contempt citation.

Democrats in the House of Representatives are threatening to use it on multiple fronts, including against Barr for ignoring a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee seeking an unredacted version of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and President Donald Trump.

Trump and his administration are stonewalling several inquiries being led by House Democrats into his administration, his family and his business interests. Here is how the congressional subpoena, contempt and enforcement process works.

What is a subpoena?

A subpoena is a legally enforceable demand for documents, data, or witness testimony. Subpoenas are typically used by litigants in court cases.

The Supreme Court has recognized Congress’ power to issue subpoenas, saying in order to write laws it also needs to be able to investigate.

Congress’ power to issue subpoenas, while broad, is not unlimited. The high court has said Congress is not a law enforcement agency, and cannot investigate someone purely to expose wrongdoing or damaging information about them for political gain. A subpoena must potentially further some “legitimate legislative purpose,” the court has said.

What can Congress do to a government official who ignores a subpoena? 

If lawmakers want to punish someone who ignores a congressional subpoena, they typically first hold the offender “in contempt of Congress,” legal experts said.

The contempt process can start in either the House or the Senate. Unlike with legislation, it only takes one of the chambers to make and enforce a contempt citation.

Typically, the members of the congressional committee that issued the subpoena will vote on whether to move forward with a contempt finding. If a majority supports the resolution, then another vote will be held by the entire chamber.

The Democrats have majority control of the House; Trump’s Republican Party holds the Senate.

Only a majority of the 435-member House needs to support a contempt finding for one to be reached. After a contempt vote, Congress has powers to enforce a subpoena.

How is a contempt finding enforced?

The Supreme Court said in 1821 that Congress has “inherent authority” to arrest and detain recalcitrant witnesses. 

In 1927, the high court said the Senate acted lawfully in sending its deputy sergeant-at-arms to Ohio to arrest and detain the brother of the then-attorney general, who had refused to testify about a bribery scheme known as the Teapot Dome scandal.

It has been almost a century since Congress exercised this arrest-and-detain authority, and the practice is unlikely to make a comeback, legal experts said.

Alternatively, Congress can ask the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a federal prosecutor, to bring criminal charges against a witness who refuses to appear. There is a criminal law that specifically prohibits flouting a congressional subpoena.

But this option is also unlikely to be pursued, at least when it comes to subpoenas against executive branch officials, given that federal prosecutors are part of the branch’s Justice Department. 

“It would be odd, structurally, because it would mean the Trump administration would be acting to enforce subpoenas against the Trump administration,” said Lisa Kern Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Duke University. 

For this reason, in modern times Congress has opted for a third and final approach to enforcing a contempt finding: getting its lawyers to bring a civil lawsuit asking a judge to rule that compliance is required. 

Failure to comply with such an order can trigger a “contempt of court” finding, enforced through daily fines and even imprisonment, Griffin said.
…

Capping a week in which her testy exchange with Attorney General William Barr went viral, Sen. Kamala Harris on Sunday told a crowd of thousands gathered at a dinner hosted by the country’s oldest NAACP chapter that Barr “lied to Congress” and ” clearly more interested in representing the president than the American people.”

 

The Democratic presidential candidate was the keynote speaker Sunday at the Detroit NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner, attended by a mostly black audience of nearly 10,000.

 

As of Sunday, 4.8 million people had watched the C-SPAN video circulating on Twitter of Harris questioning Barr, catapulting her into the spotlight amid the crowded field of more than 20 Democrats and hammering a campaign theme that she is the candidate to “prosecute the case against Trump.”

During her remarks, Harris also said her approach to the 2020 race is about challenging notions of electability and who can speak to Midwesterners.

 

“They usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative,” Harris said. “The conversation too often suggests certain voters will only vote for certain candidates regardless of whether their ideas will lift up all of our families. It’s short sighted. It’s wrong. And voters deserve better.”

 

Harris’s appearance in Detroit highlights an underappreciated variable in Democrats’ 2016 losses across the Great Lakes region: declining support from black voters.

 

Michigan gave President Donald Trump his closest winning margin of any state, with the Republican finishing 10,704 votes ahead of Hillary Clinton. Much of the narrative focused on Clinton losing ground from Barack Obama’s 2012 marks in many small-town and rural counties dominated by middle-class whites.

 

Biden has been leading the polls, with a majority saying he has the best chance to defeat Trump. A Quinnipiac poll from last week showed Biden leading among Democratic candidates with 38 percent, while Harris was fourth with eight percent.

Yet it was heavily African American Wayne County, home to Detroit, where Clinton saw her single largest and most consequential dropoff. She got 78,004 fewer votes in the county — the anchor of Democrats’ statewide coalition — than Obama received in 2012, meaning that her Wayne County deficit from Obama was more than seven times the statewide gap separating her from Trump and Michigan’s 16 electoral votes.

 

Harris told the largely African-American audience that as president, she plans to double the Justice Department’s civil rights division, hold accountable social media platforms disseminating misinformation and cyberwarfare and address economic inequality for families and teachers.

Called “the largest sit-down dinner in the country,” boasting 10,000 attendees, this year’s dinner comes amid an already busy primary season, as Democrats are eyeing the battleground state of Michigan. Fellow 2020 Democratic contender Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey was last year’s keynote.

 

The Detroit NAACP chapter is the civil rights organization’s largest, and the city will host their national convention in July, where most 2020 Democrats are expected to appear. The Rev. Wendell Anthony, Detroit chapter president, said Sunday that “our very lives, our freedom” are riding on the 2020 election.

 

“This is about the soul of America,” Anthony said. “There’s some people that want to take us back 50 years. We ain’t going. They win when we don’t show up.”

 

Anthony said that while Harris’ appearance was not an endorsement, the energy at the dinner was “a signal to the nation that we are concerned about what’s happening in the country” and warned that “the stakes are too great for anybody to sit this out.”
…

Her first shot landed short and her teammate’s bounced away. But Kirsten Gillibrand’s second ping pong ball splashed home and she threw both arms skyward while her opponents chugged, celebrating a beer pong victory in the most presidential way possible.

 

The scene on a rainy Friday night in a bar in Nashua, New Hampshire’s second-largest city, follows a pattern for the 52-year-old New York senator. She’s trailed better-known rivals in the packed Democratic 2020 presidential field in polling and fundraising, but she’s making a case for being the coolest candidate in the race.

 

Driving between New Hampshire events in February, she stopped to go sledding. She’s played foosball and baked cookies, arm wrestled and hung out with drag queens at an Iowa bar some call “Gay Cheers.”

 

Other candidates have also sought humanizing moments. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker played Pac Man at a New Hampshire video arcade, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren danced her way through the 2017 gay pride parade in Boston and, while visiting South Carolina in February, Sen. Kamala Harris of California was goaded into trying on, and eventually buying, a multicolored, sequined jacket.

 

“I’m aware it probably comes across as a gimmick, but in real life it came across as genuine,” said Shaye Weldon, Gillibrand’s beer pong teammate.

 

As state director of engagement for the New Hampshire Young Democrats, Weldon meets a lot of presidential candidates — but had never played beer pong with any.

 

“It’s a moment when I see she’s a real person,” she said of Gillibrand, who sipped most of the night from a glass of a craft, imperial ale called Imp IPA.

Such scenes can feature that most-valued political commodity: authenticity — at least to a point.

 

Gillibrand’s campaign turned the beer pong game into an online ad, freeze framing the candidate mid-toss and seeking donations:”If Kirsten makes this shot” before letting the scene roll to reveal that she does. And an Associated Press analysis of financial disclosures each candidate filed through March showed that Gillibrand spent nearly $840,000 on “communications consulting” services — more than any other Democratic 2020 presidential candidate who listed similar expenditures.

 

Spokesman Evan Lukaske said doing things presidential candidates don’t typically do comes naturally to Gillibrand — not as a result of paid advice. He noted that many of the non-traditional campaign moments came with little or no press around and got noticed organically via social media.

 

That’s been the case for other candidates as well. Beto O’Rourke first solidified his national standing in Democratic circles last summer, after a video of him defending NFL players’ national anthem protests was viewed by millions. But he also spent hundreds of previous hours livestreaming more mundane moments to minuscule audiences, which watched him getting his haircut, doing laundry and driving seemingly endless hours to campaign events as he ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Texas.

O’Rourke has shunned political consultants, but also had unscripted-moment missteps, like when he was mocked for posting part of his teeth cleaning online.

 

With 20-plus Democrats vying for the White House, getting noticed is difficult. Still, Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said trying to catch fire doing non-presidential-candidate things isn’t as important as building support in the first two states that vote in the primary, Iowa and New Hampshire, because most voters elsewhere won’t really begin noticing until those races are over.

 

“There’s no point trying to run a media campaign now,” Murray said. “One, no one’s paying attention. And, two, if you bomb in Iowa and New Hampshire, everything you spent trying to build up a national image is worthless.”

 

As valuable as appearing effortlessly authentic can be, trying too hard to achieve it can backfire.

 

A rap song backing Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential bid tried rhyming his last name with “awesome,” Hillary Clinton’s 2015 Saturday Night Live appearance as Val the bartender fizzled and President Gerald Ford, while visiting San Antonio in 1976, took a bite out of a tamale without knowing to remove the corn husk first.

 

More recently, Warren faced criticism for attempting to seem overly down-homey when she declared on Instagram from her kitchen on New Years Eve, “I’m gonna get me a beer” before grabbing a Michelob Ultra.

 

“There’s always a risk … that the effort to show the candidate acting like a real person shows them not to be a real person because they’ve spent their entire life in politics,” said Adam Sheingate, author of “Building a Business of Politics: The Rise of Political Consulting and the Transformation of American Democracy.”

 

Sheingate, chairman of the political science department at Johns Hopkins University, said that U.S. elections are now heavily tied to candidate personality and “a lot of voters kind of know this, and so, as a result, these kinds of efforts that are overly crafted images can fall flat because it’s like, ‘Whatever. We know why they’re doing this.'”

 

“But candidates will do it anyway,” he added, “because they have to get their name out there.”
…

Twenty of his rivals have lined up to run for president, believing the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination was wide open. But one week after launching his campaign, former Vice President Joe Biden is threatening to prove them wrong.

 

His liabilities may be glaring, but the 76-year-old lifelong politician has quickly emerged as the front-runner in the crowded contest by dominating the debate that matters most to many voters: electability.

 

Biden’s chief opponents privately concede that, for now at least, he has successfully cast himself as the candidate who can take down President Donald Trump. He may be out of step with the heart of the party on key issues, but Biden opens the race backed by a broad coalition of voters attracted to his personality, his governing experience and his working-class background — all elements that help convince voters he is better positioned than any other Democrat to deny Trump a second term.

One after another, voters who filled a community center in South Carolina’s capital to see Biden this weekend described him as a safe, comforting and competent counterpoint to the turbulent Trump presidency.

 

“With him you feel whole, and the country would be whole again,” said 62-year-old Barbara Pearson, who is African American and has long worked for county government. “I think he meets this moment.”

 

“I like Biden,” said 21-year-old University of South Carolina senior Justin Walker, who is white. “We know him. We know where he’s been. We don’t know that about the others.”

 

Biden’s strong start, evidenced by strong fundraising and polling, has caught the attention of his opponents. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have already begun to turn on Biden, at least subtly, highlighting his reliance on rich donors and his record on trade, foreign policy and health care that is out of step with the party’s more liberal wing.

 

“Obviously the vice president has had a very good first week,” Sanders’ chief strategist Jeff Weaver said. “This is an incredibly long campaign. And I think as voters see the contrasts between the candidates on both a policy level and an electability level, you’re going to see wild swings in these numbers.”

 

In the midst of his inaugural national tour as a 2020 presidential contender, Biden is largely ignoring his Democratic opponents and focusing on Trump.

 

“Another four years of Trump,” Biden told South Carolina voters, would “fundamentally change the character of this nation.”

 

“Above all else, we must defeat Donald Trump,” he declared.

 

So far, at least, the message appears to be resonating.

John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster who has advised Biden, highlighted the breadth of his early support, which touches on virtually every key Democratic voting bloc.

 

“People don’t understand the foundation of his support,” he said. “He leads with every demographic.”

 

Polls by CNN and Quinnipiac University over the last week show Biden with significant advantages among whites and nonwhites, those over and under 50 years old, non-college graduates and college graduates, those who make more and those who make less than $50,000 each year, and both moderate and liberal Democrats.

 

Biden’s fast start comes amid vocal concerns from energized liberal activists, who believe he’s not aligned with the Democratic base.

 

He has refused to endorse “Medicare for All,” a national program that would guarantee health insurance for every American, preferring to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s health care law, and allow people to select a “public option” featuring Medicare-style coverage. He has also refused to back away from his support for trade deals, none more significant than the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has become unpopular among liberals and conservatives alike.

 

Rival campaigns suggest Biden’s record on trade could undermine his popularity with working-class voters in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Should his perceived strength in the Midwest fade, his electability argument could fade as well.

 

Biden’s skeptics in both parties believe that above all, his performance while campaigning will determine whether he maintains his early strength. Few have confidence it will last.

 

Biden has a well-known propensity for verbal gaffes. And being closer to 80 than 70, he shows his age at times. He rambled through parts of his Saturday address, losing his train of thought and the audience more than once.

 

In just the last week, he has been mocked for downplaying the threat from China. He also muddled his initial effort to apologize to Anita Hill, whom he forced through aggressive questioning from an all-male Senate panel after she accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment nearly three decades ago.

 

“I think he’s the front-runner, but it would be a mistake to think that is going to last,” said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a South Carolina Democratic state representative and president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

 

For one thing, she said, the African American vote will be fractured in 2020 given the presence of several candidates of color. At the Columbia rally on Saturday, many voters cited California Sen. Kamala Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, as a top choice behind Biden.

 

While skeptical of his staying power, Cobb-Hunter acknowledged Biden’s early advantage on the electability argument.

 

“What he does have going for him is a real solid belief he can take out Trump,” she said. “Biden so far has that aura.”

 

A big part of the aura comes from stronger-than-expected fundraising.

 

In the weeks before his announcement, Biden’s team aggressively fretted about his ability to raise money. So when he bested his rivals by raising $6.3 million in his first 24 hours as a candidate, the political class was impressed.

 

Supporters say it was a textbook example of managing expectations, belied by the fact that aides were building a professional campaign with a deep fundraising network drawing on his connection to Obama.

 

“The way he launched his campaign was exactly the way you would have historically launched: Managing expectations and then blowing them out of the water,” said Rufus Gifford, Obama’s former finance director.

 

Yet his supporters, like his rivals, are acutely aware that the campaign has barely begun.

 

“Joe Biden is currently the front-runner. Obviously, if you are in that position you become more of a target,” said Biden donor Jon Cooper of New York. “We all realize that the hard work is ahead of us.”
…