U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Sunday, without evidence, that the ongoing criminal investigation into his 2016 campaign’s links to Russia is “not allowed under the law.”

In a Twitter comment, the U.S. leader called the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller “illegal” and said it “continues in search of a crime.” But Mueller was appointed by the Department of Justice and judges have ruled that his investigation is being conducted legally.

As he often does, Trump denied there was collusion with Russia, except by his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He described Mueller’s legal team as “17 angry Democrats … looking at anything they can find. Very unfair and BAD for the country.”

But Trump did not comment on the latest development in Mueller’s 16-month investigation, Friday’s guilty plea by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to corruption charges and a declaration by prosecutors that Manafort is already cooperating with them about what he knows about the Trump campaign.

The 69-year-old Manafort, a longtime Washington lobbyist, has now been convicted in an August trial of eight tax and bank fraud charges in a Virginia court and pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges in nearby Washington.

In the most recent case, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges stemming from his lobbying efforts for one-time Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych that predated his five-month tenure working for Trump’s campaign in mid-2016 in exchange for him answering “fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly” questions about “any and all matters” Mueller’s team is investigating.

But what Manafort might have to offer Mueller about the Trump campaign is not publicly unknown, although prosecutors only dropped some charges against Manafort after hearing in advance what he had to say.

Manafort played a role in one key event Mueller is investigating, a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York, the then-candidate’s campaign headquarters. Manafort attended a meeting set up by Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with a lawyer said to be a Russian government attorney willing to provide incriminating information about Clinton. The younger Trump said no such information was provided and President Trump has said he was unaware of the meeting at the time it was scheduled.

After Manafort’s guilty plea, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a first statement, “Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign. The reason: The president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth.”

But minutes later, Giuliani issued a revised statement omitting the assessment that “Paul Manafort will tell the truth.”

After Manafort was convicted in the August case, Trump said he had “such respect for a brave man: because “he refused to ‘break’ — make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.'”

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family,” Trump said.

 
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Twenty-five years after Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Peace Accords that raise hopes for a comprehensive settlement, experts say peace in the Middle East is as elusive as ever. And as VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, some of those experts caution that the Trump administration has lost the trust of Palestinians to be an honest broker in the conflict through several recent actions.
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President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges Friday in connection with his past lobbying efforts on behalf of Ukraine. As part of the plea deal, Manafort has also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election led by special counsel Robert Mueller. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Friday denied a sexual misconduct allegation from when he was in high school.

In a statement released by the White House, Kavanaugh said: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Kavanaugh’s statement comes after Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she has notified federal investigators about information she received about the nominee but won’t disclose publicly.

The New Yorker reported the alleged incident took place at a party when Kavanaugh, now 53, was attending Georgetown Preparatory School. The woman making the allegation attended a nearby school.

The magazine says the woman sent a letter about the allegation to Democrats. A Democratic aide and another person familiar with the letter confirmed Friday to The Associated Press that the allegation is sexual in nature. Two other people familiar with the matter confirmed to the AP that the alleged incident happened in high school. They were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The AP has not confirmed the details of the alleged incident in The New Yorker’s account.

Other women back Kavanaugh

Rallying to Kavanaugh’s defense, 65 women who knew him in high school issued a letter, released by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he has “always treated women with decency and respect.”

“We are women who have known Brett Kavanaugh for more than 35 years and knew him while he attended high school between 1979 and 1983,” wrote the women, who said most of them had attended all-girl high schools in the area. “For the entire time we have known Brett Kavanaugh, he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”

The Judiciary Committee, which has finished confirmation hearings for Kavanagh, is scheduled to vote next Thursday on whether to recommend that he be confirmed by the full Senate.

The White House called Feinstein’s move an “11th hour attempt to delay his confirmation.”

The California Democrat said in a statement Thursday that she “received information from an individual concerning the nomination.” She said the person “strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision.”

The FBI confirmed that it received the information Wednesday evening and included it in Kavanaugh’s background file, which is maintained as part of his nomination. The agency said that is its standard process.

Feinstein’s statement that she has “referred the matter to federal investigative authorities” jolted Capitol Hill and threatened to disrupt what has been a steady path toward confirmation for Kavanaugh by Republicans eager to see the conservative judge on the court.

Lawmakers react

Feinstein has held the letter close. Democratic senators on the panel met privately Wednesday evening and discussed the information, according to Senate aides who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some senators, including the No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, learned about the information for the first time at the meeting, according to one of the aides.

A spokeswoman for Representative Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, declined to confirm reports that the congresswoman had forwarded a letter containing the allegations to Feinstein. She said her office has a confidentiality policy regarding casework for constituents.

A White House spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said the FBI has vetted Kavanaugh “thoroughly and repeatedly” during his career in government and the judiciary.

She said Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators — including with Feinstein — sat through over 30 hours of testimony and publicly addressed more than 2,000 questions. “Not until the eve of his confirmation has Senator Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new ‘information’ about him,” she said.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican and a member of the committee, was also skeptical.

“Let me get this straight: this is (sic) statement about secret letter regarding a secret matter and an unidentified person. Right,” he tweeted.

Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, was unaware of the information until it was made public, according to a GOP committee aide. Kavanaugh has undergone six federal background checks over time in government, including one most recently for the nomination, the aide said.

The new information on Kavanaugh was included Thursday in his confidential background file at the committee and is now available for senators to review, the aide said.

Democrats don’t have the votes to block Kavanaugh’s nomination if Republicans are unified in favor of it.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is nearing a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors to avoid a second criminal trial, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

It remains unclear if the deal will include Manafort cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

A move by Manafort to cooperate could be a blow to Trump, while an outright guilty plea with no cooperation would resolve a cloud over the president ahead of congressional elections in less than two months.

“It’s close but not there yet,” one of the sources said about negotiations over a deal.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., on Monday in Manafort’s second trial in federal court on charges including conspiring to launder money and defraud the United States, and failing to register as a foreign agent for the tens of millions of dollars he earned lobbying for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

Manafort was convicted in Virginia on eight counts of bank and tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts in the first trial that ended last month. Prosecutors said he evaded taxes on $16 million laundered through shell companies overseas.

The talks over a deal come ahead of a planned hearing in Washington on Friday where the judge, among other things, is scheduled to rule on evidence to be allowed at trial. Manafort could plead guilty at the hearing, one of the sources said.

Three members of Manafort’s defense team — Kevin Downing,Thomas Zehnle and Richard Westling — declined to comment as they entered their office on Thursday evening. Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on the possible deal, which was first reported by ABC News.

Manafort’s wife Kathleen also did not answer questions when she stopped by the lawyers’ office to drop off a navy men’s suit.

‘Bloodied up’

Joshua Dressler, a law professor at Ohio State University, said it made sense that Manafort, 69, was considering cutting his losses and avoiding the time and money needed to defend himself against a second trial.

Manafort is already facing 8 to 10 years in prison from the eight guilty counts in Virginia, terms that may not change significantly no matter the outcome of the second trial.

“With eight convictions already in place, and more possible convictions awaiting him, it seems that he has been bloodied up enough to see the light,” Dressler said.

Manafort worked for five months on Trump’s 2016 campaign, including three as chairman. He resigned in August 2016 following a news report linking him to covert payments from a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is representing Trump in the Russia probe, previously told the Politico news outlet that taking a plea deal to avoid a second trial would not crush Manafort’s chances of receiving an

eventual presidential pardon. Trump has not said whether he would pardon Manafort but he has not publicly ruled it out.

Manafort was at a controversial meeting at Trump Tower in 2016 where Russians were offering “dirt” on election opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump’s critics have pointed to the meeting as evidence of the collusion with Russia that Trump denies.

“I don’t think he has any information that would hurt the president,” Giuliani told Reuters.

Trump praised Manafort last month for not entering into a plea agreement, as the president’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had.”Unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’ — make up stories in order to get a ‘deal. Such respect for a brave man!,” Trump wrote on Twitter on August 22.

Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner and the campaign’s deputy chairman, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his cooperation, later testifying against Manafort in Virginia.

Gates could be called as a prosecution witness in his Washington trial as well, as could veteran political operative Samuel Patten, who pleaded guilty to unregistered lobbying for Ukrainian politicians two weeks ago.

A second trial could delve deeper into Manafort’s Russian connections including to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian-Russian political consultant who was indicted along with Manafort and who Mueller’s team has linked to Russian intelligence.

Prosecutors have said Manafort and Kilimnik conspired to tamper with witnesses, which prompted U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson to revoke his bail and order him jailed pending trial.
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The U.S. sanctioned a China-based firm Thursday and its Russian subsidiary connected to North Korea, the latest in the Trump administration’s attempts to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Lawmakers applauded the move as they received an update from administration officials on U.S. sanctions countering Russian aggression and Chinese human rights violations. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo overcame a primary challenge from activist and actress Cynthia Nixon on Thursday, thwarting her attempt to become the latest insurgent liberal to knock off an establishment Democrat.

Cuomo, who always led in the polls and outspent his rival more than 8 to 1, seldom mentioned Nixon by name during an often-nasty campaign, instead touting his experience, achievements in two terms as governor and his work to push back against President Donald Trump.

“You cannot be a progressive if you cannot deliver progress. And a New York progressive is not just a dreamer, but we are doers,” Cuomo said at a campaign rally the night before the vote. “We make things happen.”

With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans more than 2 to 1 in New York, Cuomo becomes the automatic front-runner in November’s matchup against Republican Marc Molinaro and independent Mayor Stephanie Miner.

Nixon thanks supporters

Nixon, a longtime education activist and actress best known for her Emmy-winning role as lawyer Miranda Hobbes on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” was counting on a boost from liberals looking to oust establishment politicians. She called herself a democratic socialist and pointed to recent congressional primary victories by New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley as evidence that underdog challengers can defy the odds.

Nixon thanked supporters Thursday in Brooklyn, saying that together they helped push Cuomo to the left and show that liberals have a shot at making big changes.

“Before we take our country back we have to take our party back,” she said. “This is an incredible moment for progressives but it’s not just a moment. It’s a movement.”

Attorney general

Elsewhere on the ballot, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James won a four-way Democratic primary for attorney general in a race that was a competition over who could best use the office to antagonize President Donald Trump.

James, 59, would become the first black woman to hold a statewide elected office in New York if she prevails in the general election, where she will be heavily favored. She defeated a deep field of fellow Democrats: U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout and former Hillary Clinton adviser Leecia Eve.

The winner in November will inherit several pending lawsuits filed by the state that challenge Trump’s policies and accuse his charitable foundation of breaking the law.

James faces little-known Republican attorney Keith Wofford in the general election in November.

If she wins in November, James would also become the first woman elected attorney general, though not the first to hold the job. New York’s current attorney general, Democrat Barbara Underwood, was appointed to replace Schneiderman. She declined to run for election.
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The fate of a Missouri nail manufacturer suffering under President Donald Trump’s steel tariffs has put Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley in a bind between his support for the president’s trade strategy and a local plant that says it could be forced to close.

Mid Continent Nail Corporation says it could shutter its Poplar Bluff plant, which employs about 335 workers, as early as this month without an exemption to tariffs, the site’s Operations General Manager Chris Pratt told reporters in early September. The company previously had said that it might not survive through Labor Day but stayed open.

After Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, the company in June cut 60 of 500 positions at the plant in rural Butler County, where the unemployment rate is above the national average and the company is the area’s second-largest employer. Pratt said many employees also have left because of the uncertainty, and the company is not replacing those workers.

“Right now we’re counting on Josh Hawley, who says he has a good relationship with President Trump, to save the 500 jobs in Poplar Bluff, Missouri,” Pratt said after Labor Day.

Trump imposed tariffs in March, saying a reliance on imported metals threatened national security. He initially exempted Canada, Mexico and the European Union to buy time for trade negotiations, but tariffs for those countries took effect in May after talks stalled.

Mid Continent is owned by Deacero, a private Mexican company, which supplies steel for the nails made in Missouri. Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Heaton said nails are sold throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean and used for industrial pallets, crating for transportation and residential construction.

Hawley, the state attorney general, and Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill are sparring in one of the most closely-watched Senate races in the nation, with Republicans’ 51-49 majority at stake on November 6. Both candidates visited the plant after tariffs began and both say they’re fighting for Mid Continent, but the issue is more delicate for Hawley.

Missouri is one of several Senate races including North Dakota, Indiana and Montana, where Republican candidates are on the defensive as trading partners retaliate against agricultural and manufacturing products from the U.S. in response to Trump’s tariffs.

In Missouri, Hawley says he supports Trump’s goal of getting tough with trading partners to get better deals for the U.S. and urges patience to see results from the negotiations. The Trump administration recently said it reached a deal with Mexico to update the North American Free Trade Agreement and is now negotiating with Canada to finalize it.

In an August letter to Deacero, Hawley says the company makes a strong case for an exemption and urges the Department of Commerce to grant it quickly.

But an exemption is unlikely to be granted quickly. The federal government has been deluged with requests for exemptions, the process is slow and some U.S. steel producers have objected to Mid Continent getting favorable treatment, saying the company could switch to U.S. suppliers.

Pratt said the plant also buys American steel, but he said there’s not enough to meet the company’s needs and noted that domestic prices rose steeply with the tariffs.

Hawley has also put pressure on the plant’s Mexican parent company to keep it open.

“As a company with a global presence and many locations, Deacero is clearly not struggling to make ends meet,” Hawley wrote in the letter. “The reality is that Deacero can afford to keep the factory open, and in turn, help keep men and women employed who simply want to do right by their families and earn a living.”

Democrat McCaskill has gone on the attack over the company’s plight, highlighting Mid Continent Nail during a June U.S. Senate hearing, pushing for the exemption and holding an August hearing in St. Louis to listen to concerns from Missouri businesses.

Instead of tariffs, McCaskill has advocated joining U.S. allies to take a stand against China’s unfair trade practices and spending more money to enforce current trade laws through the United States International Trade Commission.

In a recent Facebook post, she used the tariffs as an example to paint Hawley as a rubber stamp to Trump.

“All across the state, farmers and manufacturers are telling me how they’re being hurt by this trade war. That’s why I’m calling for it to end,” McCaskill wrote. “Hawley is supporting it because he doesn’t want an inch of daylight between him and President Trump.”
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The Latest on New York’s Democratic primary (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and activist actress Cynthia Nixon have cast their votes in New York’s Democratic primary election.

Nixon posed for photos with supporters in Manhattan’s Union Square before she voted Thursday at a community center. Cuomo appeared at a polling station in suburban Mount Kisco with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee.

Democrats across New York are also choosing their candidates for attorney general and the state Legislature in the nation’s last primary election of 2018.

The most-watched race is the fiercely fought contest between Cuomo and Nixon.

She’s a high-profile example of an insurgent left-wing trying to oust establishment incumbents.

11 a.m.

Democrats across New York are choosing their candidates for governor, attorney general and the state Legislature in the nation’s last primary election of 2018.

The most-watched race is a fiercely fought contest between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and activist actress Cynthia Nixon.

She’s a high-profile example of an insurgent left-wing trying to oust establishment incumbents.

President Donald Trump might want to keep an eye on the attorney general primary.

Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney and former Hillary Clinton adviser Leecia Eve have all vowed to be a legal thorn in the Republican president’s side.

Polls show that race very close going into election day.

Voting began in some cities early Thursday and starts in other places at noon.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is facing fresh, harsh criticism for disputing the official death toll in Puerto Rico from last year’s hurricanes and alleging, without evidence, that opposition Democratic Party members inflated the numbers to make him look bad.

Trump said on Twitter Thursday morning, “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico,” referring to hurricanes Maria and Irma.

An independent study concluded the death toll from Hurricane Maria was nearly 3,000.

The reaction to Trump’s tweets on the matter has been fast and fierce.

“With 3,000 people dead, for the president to say that Puerto Rico was a success, a triumph of his presidency, is simply delusional,” Congressman Luis Gutierrez said on the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday morning. “And now, he denies that they are even dead.”

Gutierrez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage and represents the state of Illinois, was involved in the island’s recovery effort. He also accused Trump of “making a tremendous and deadly mistake in caring for the American people.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican from a state where many of those who fled the island have relocated, said he disagreed with the president.

“An independent study said thousands were lost,” Scott said on Twitter, adding that he has been to the island seven times and had seen the devastation firsthand.

Congressman Steny Hoyer, who as the Democratic whip holds the opposition party’s second highest position in the chamber, called the president’s comment “beyond comprehension and deeply offensive to the thousands of American families who lost loved ones.”

Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (the top representative of the president’s party in the chamber), had a conditional defense of Trump’s comments when questioned by a reporter.

“There is no reason to dispute these numbers,” Ryan replied, adding, however, “it was no one’s fault” that so many had died from a devastating storm hitting an isolated island.

Power was out for several months for much of the island, and damage from the storm still hampers the recovery of the Caribbean territory that is located about 1,600 kilometers southeast of the state of Florida and is home to 3.3 million people, who are U.S. citizens. About a quarter of a million residents were displaced.

A report by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, issued on Aug. 29, said vast numbers of Puerto Ricans died as a direct result of Hurricane Maria last September, far beyond the initial estimate of 64 deaths.

The report said many of the deaths occurred weeks later because of devastating damage to the Caribbean island’s electrical grid that curbed treatment for those with life-threatening injuries or medical conditions.

The death toll issue is making fresh headlines, as Hurricane Florence targets the southeastern U.S. coastal state. As the new storm approached, Trump, for days, revisited the U.S. government’s performance in handling the aftermath of Maria’s stunning blow to Puerto Rico and other hurricanes that hit the U.S. mainland last year.

Trump went to Puerto Rico after Maria hit, saying, “When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”

The president added: “This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”

Some prominent Republicans are hesitating to criticize the president about the tweets. Sen. Orrin Hatch, who is the finance committee chairman, laughed when a reporter read excerpts to him on Thursday, responding: “I can’t really comment because I don’t know anything about it.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told reporters: “The death toll in Puerto Rico is abominable and abhorrent, and it’s a lesson in our need to do better for our fellow Americans, adding that “Puerto Rico is still a humanitarian crisis.”

The president views it differently.

“We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan),” Trump tweeted Wednesday.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz told CNN that the president’s words added “insult to injury,” saying he had no idea what is going on there. She said Trump has “no empathy” for anything that doesn’t make him look good.

Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rossello said, “Now is not the time to pass judgment. It is time to channel every effort to improve the lives of over 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico.”

Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report. Michael Bowman and Katherine Gypson contributed from Capitol Hill.

 
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The cyclist who flashed her middle finger at President Donald Trump’s motorcade says she’ll file paperwork to run for office in northern Virginia. 

Juli Briskman tells The Washington Post this week that she’ll file paperwork to challenge Suzanne M. Volpe, a Republican who represents the Algonkian District on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in 2019. Briskman says she will run on increasing transparency in local government, among other things. 

The 51-year-old marketing executive was on a bike ride in October 2017 and was photographed making the offensive gesture as Trump’s motorcade drove by.

Briskman told her bosses what happened after the photo went viral and was asked to leave her government contracting job or face termination. She sued and won her severance claim, but her wrongful-termination lawsuit was dismissed.   
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Two major Democratic political groups on Wednesday announced a combined $21 million digital ad buy targeting Senate races in November, a sign the party is trying to learn from 2016, when Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign was far more aggressive online.

Priorities USA and Senate Majority PAC announced $18 million in joint spending in Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and North Dakota. Senate Majority PAC also tacked on an additional $3 million in ads targeting Montana, Nevada, Tennessee and West Virginia.

“For the last, really, six years, the Democrats have had their hats handed to them when it comes to digital,” Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities USA, which is exclusively funding digital ads and outreach this election cycle, said in an interview. “We needed to close the gap.”

The move comes as Democrats and Republicans are fighting furiously over control of the Senate, where the GOP has a 51-49 edge. Although almost all competitive seats are in states Trump won in 2016, Republicans are increasingly alarmed about the strength of Democratic candidates in states including Tennessee, Texas and Arizona.

GOP edge on Google

The size of the campaign is significant. According to Priorities USA, $7 million has been spent on advertising for Senate races on Google since May 31, with Republicans outspending Democrats 60-40. Facebook did not have comparable data. And through the end of August, Senate Majority PAC, one of the biggest Democratic financial organizations in the battle over control of the upper chamber, spent $37 million in ads on television and radio, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

J.B. Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, said it’s important to maintain a mix of traditional television and radio ads along with digital. But for years, he said, “I don’t think we had digital at the adults’ table.”

The conventional wisdom in politics is that Democrats dominated in digital during much of the Obama years because they were more advanced in gathering online data and using it to target voters. But that changed in 2016, when the Trump campaign outspent Hillary Clinton’s Democratic campaign nearly 2-to-1 online, according to a Priorities USA presentation to donors obtained by The Associated Press. The outspending also stretched to various House races. Right-leaning groups, meanwhile, registered vastly more online domains through the beginning of 2017.

Since 2016, Democrats have increasingly focused on digital as a way to strike back against the GOP, with liberal Silicon Valley entrepreneurs holding trainings for Democratic campaigns and some liberal insurgent candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City and Ayanna Pressley in Boston, winning recent primaries with minimal television ads and instead relying mostly on digital ones.

In-house agency

The GOP continues to invest in both digital and traditional advertising, but no Republican organization of comparable prominence to Priorities has announced an all-digital strategy. Priorities has even formed its own in-house digital ad agency to build spots for its campaigns, including a previously announced $12 million buy targeting House races.

Damon McCoy, a New York University professor who analyzed Facebook political ad spending data earlier this summer, said Democratic and Republican groups spend at comparable rates on the platform with one significant exception: Trump. The president’s own re-election campaign was the biggest political ad spender in the analysis that McCoy and other academics conducted.

Minus the president’s campaign, “spending is fairly split between liberal and conservative candidates and political organizations,” McCoy said. 
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The United States is hoping to use the threat of calibrated sanctions to deter individuals, companies or countries from attempting to interfere with the midterm elections in November.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday authorizing automatic sanctions against actors or entities assessed to have meddled with elections, whether by attacking America’s election infrastructure or through the use of propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

“It’s a further effort, among several that the administration has made, to protect the United States against foreign interference in our elections and really our political process more broadly,” National Security Adviser John Bolton said Wednesday while briefing reporters.

“We felt it was important to demonstrate the president has taken command of this issue, that it’s something he cares deeply about,” Bolton added. “This order, I think, is a further demonstration of that.”

Russian meddling attempts

There have been ongoing concerns about possible attempts by Russia to meddle with the upcoming November vote as a follow-up to what intelligence officials have assessed to be a fairly successful effort to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

But Bolton and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said the new executive order is not country specific, citing evidence that China, Iran and North Korea may also be working to influence the midterm election in November.

“We see attempts,” Coats told reporters Wednesday, repeating previous assertions that the U.S. intelligence community has yet to see “the intensity of what happened back in 2016.”

“In terms of what the influence is and will be, we continue to analyze all that,” Coats added. “This is an ongoing effort here, and it has been for a significant amount of time, and will continue on a, literally, 24-hour-a-day basis until the election.”

The new executive order gives U.S. intelligence agencies 45 days after an election to report any efforts to meddle with the outcome.

The U.S. attorney general and the Department of Homeland Security will then have 45 days to review those findings. If they agree with the assessment, it would trigger automatic sanctions.

Those sanctions could include blocking access to property and interests, restricting access to the U.S. financial system, prohibiting investment in companies found to be involved, and even prohibiting individuals from entering the U.S.

Additionally, the order authorizes the State Department and the Treasury Department to impose further sanctions, if deemed necessary.

Bolton denied that recent criticism of Trump, and his interactions with President Vladimir Putin during their summit in Helsinki, played any role in issuing the executive order. In Helsinki, Trump told reporters he accepted Putin’s denial of Russian meddling in the 2016 election over the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment and later tried to clarify his statement in a tweet affirming support for the intelligence community.

“The president has said repeatedly that he is determined that there not be foreign interference in our political process,” Bolton said. “Today he signed this executive order, so I think his actions speak for themselves.”

Additional measures possible

Still, Bolton left open the possibility that the White House could work with U.S. lawmakers on additional measures.

Already, members of Congress have introduced various pieces of legislation aimed at setting out stiff penalties for Russia and other countries who seek to meddle with the U.S. electoral process.

And some lawmakers said Wednesday the Trump administration’s latest effort does not go far enough.

“An executive order that inevitably leaves the president broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions against those who attack our democracy is insufficient,” Mark Warner, the Democratic ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

“If we are going to actually deter Russia and others from interfering in our elections in the future, we need to spell out strong, clear consequences, without ambiguity,” Warner added.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio said that while the order is a step in the right direction, it is not enough.

“The @WhiteHouse & @POTUS deserve credit for taking this action. They did as much as they could do with an executive order but are limited from going further without legislation,” he tweeted.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been critical of Trump for failing to fully enact a sanctions law that they passed over a year ago, even though the U.S. Treasury Department did impose major sanctions against 24 Russians as a result.

But Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Republican Richard Burr expressed hope late Wednesday the new executive order will “send a clear message” to Russia, Iran and others.

“[The executive order] strengthens our ability to quickly and appropriately hold responsible anyone who interferes in our elections,” Burr said in a statement.
…

Former President Jimmy Carter sees little hope for the U.S. to change its human rights and environmental policies as long as Donald Trump is in the White House, but he has a warning for his fellow Democrats looking to oust the current administration: Don’t go too far to the left.

“Independents need to know they can invest their vote in the Democratic Party,” Carter said Tuesday during his annual report at his post-presidential center and library in Atlanta, where he offered caution about the political consequences should Democrats “move to a very liberal program, like universal health care.”

That’s delicate — and, Carter admitted, even contradictory — advice coming from the 93-year-old former president, and it underscores the complicated political calculations for Democrats as they prepare for the November midterms and look ahead to the 2020 presidential election.

“Rosie and I voted for Bernie Sanders in the past,” Carter noted.

He was referring to his wife, Rosalynn, and their support for the Vermont senator, an independent who identifies as a democratic socialist, over establishment favorite Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. At another point, he pointed to California’s environmental policies — limits on carbon emissions, stiffer fuel-efficiency standards — as the model for combating climate change.

Still, Carter stressed, Democrats nationally must “appeal to independents” who are souring on the current administration.

Trump’s job approval rating, according to Gallup, has dipped to 40 percent, mostly because of declining support among independents.

Carter alluded to arguments from self-identified progressives that Democrats will sacrifice votes on the left if they don’t embrace the liberal base: “I don’t think any Democrat is going to vote against a Democratic nominee,” and he insisted that he’s not asking the left to sacrifice its goals, only to see that winning elections is necessary to accomplish any of them.

There is some historical irony in Carter’s analysis. He came to the White House in 1976 from the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, and he clashed with party liberals, drawing a spirited primary challenge in 1980 from Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. Carter prevailed, but he was wounded, abandoned by Kennedy’s most liberal supporters and unable to win over independents who helped deliver a landslide for Republican Ronald Reagan.

Carter’s latest handicapping comes near the conclusion of a midterm primary season that has seen Democratic primary voters move the party to the left.

In some states and districts, that means nominating full-throated advocates of single-payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing or at least overhauling the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In other races, it means nominees who back more cautious moves to the left, such as background checks before certain gun purchases, a “public option” health insurance plan to compete alongside private insurance policies, step raises for the minimum wage and an immigration overhaul that offers legal status to some immigrants in the country illegally.

Carter did not delve into those distinctions, instead offering a sweeping condemnation of his latest successor to remind Democrats of the stakes.

He denounced the administration’s latest environmental policy proposal to make it easier for energy companies to release methane gas that contributes to climate change. He singled out Trump’s policy of separating immigrant families at the border, including those seeking asylum.

“America is inherently committed to human rights, and I think in the future we will let that prevail,” Carter said, “but for the next two years, I can’t predict the imprisoned children are going to be any better off — unfortunately.”

Carter has previously criticized Trump for his repeated falsehoods, and he’s chided Trump for his hardline support for Israel over Palestinians. Yet Carter has found common ground with Trump on other foreign policy fronts, and did so again Tuesday.

While avoiding any mention of the special counsel’s investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign coordinated with Russia in the 2016 U.S. election, Carter said he has engaged for years with Russian President Vladimir Putin concerning the ongoing Syrian civil war.

“I have his email address,” Carter said, adding that he and Putin share the same Russian river as their favorite spot for salmon fishing. That friendship, Carter said, means when Russia and other nations hold multilateral talks about the Syrian conflict, “Quite often they invite the Carter Center. … They do not invite the U.S. government.”

Carter also praised Trump for meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Carter repeated his frustrations with the last Democratic president, Barack Obama, for not engaging more directly with the insular Asian nation. Carter said he’s not sure Trump has made real progress yet with North Korea, but he endorsed calls for the U.S. to formally declare an end to the Korean War and normalize relations with Pyongyang.

“Let them be part of the community of nations,” he said. “I think that would be enough in itself to bring an end to the nuclear program in North Korea.”
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President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the White House was “as ready as anybody has ever been” as a killer hurricane moved closer to making a direct hit on the southeastern U.S. coast.

Hurricane Florence, an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, was producing top sustained winds of 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph).  Forecasters said they expected the storm to be at least that strong when it slams into the Carolinas late Thursday or early Friday.

There was a chance Florence could shift to the north, putting Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., in its direct path.

“Any amount of money, whatever it takes, we’re going to do it,” Trump said, as he talked about relief efforts with federal disaster officials.

The president signed declarations of emergency Tuesday for the Carolinas and Virginia, a move that freed up federal money and resources. And he had advice for coastal residents.

“I would say everybody should get out. It’s going to be really, really bad along the coast,” Trump said.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, more than 1 million people along the coasts of North and South Carolina and southern Virginia had fled. Gas stations were running out of fuel. Those who were defying mandatory evacuation orders were leaving store shelves bare of emergency supplies.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper had a direct message for residents who had  decided to stay put.

“This storm is a monster. It’s big, and it’s vicious,” he said. “The waves and wind this storm may bring are nothing like you’ve ever seen. Even if you’ve ridden out storms before, this one is different. Don’t bet your life on riding out a monster.”

Experts said this could be the strongest storm to hit the Carolina coast in more than 60 years.

Forecasters were particularly concerned that Florence was expected to be a slow-moving storm that could linger along the coast and inland for days, dumping massive amounts of rain on parts of the U.S. already saturated. 

As much as 114 centimeters (45 inches) of rain was expected to fall on parts of North Carolina. The soaked ground and fierce winds could bring down trees and power lines and knock out electricity for weeks.

Parts of the southeastern coast that were not under hurricane warnings were under tropical storm or storm surge warnings, meaning life-threatening floods were possible.
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U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s marathon testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week does not appear to have changed the basic math that continues to favor the eventual confirmation of President Donald Trump’s pick for the country’s highest court.

All but two of 51 Republican senators either have announced their backing for Kavanaugh or are widely expected to do so in the coming days or weeks. Kavanaugh’s testimony did not appear to have cost him any support among Republicans, nor has it prodded two moderates in the caucus to declare how they will vote.

“I look forward to voting for him,” Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander said in a statement late last week. “Judge Kavanaugh kept his cool this week and demonstrated the qualities that I look for in a judge or a Supreme Court justice — good character, good temperament, high intelligence and respect for the law.”

The vote tally also looks static among Senate Democrats, who number 49 in the chamber, including two independents who caucus with them.

Recent days have seen a flurry of Democrats formally announcing their opposition to Kavanaugh, from Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire to Virginia’s Mark Warner.

“I’ll be voting no on Judge Kavanaugh,” Warner wrote on Twitter early Tuesday, and then he explained why in further tweets, which began:

But the announcements came from Democrats who signaled skepticism about Kavanaugh when Trump nominated him in July and had been widely assumed to be “no” votes from the start.

Judiciary Committee Democrats repeatedly pressed Kavanaugh on abortion rights, gay rights, health care, executive authority and the ongoing Russia probe last week, but the often-contentious exchanges did not spur a critical group of centrist Democrats to commit to voting for or against the nominee.

Neither Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp nor Florida’s Bill Nelson posted any statements or tweets about the high court nominee during the confirmation hearings or in the days since.

All are running for re-election in states Trump won in 2016 and are caught between pressure from within their party to oppose Kavanaugh and a desire not to anger and mobilize conservative voters in their home states ahead of the November elections. Donnelly, Manchin and Heitkamp voted to confirm the president’s first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, last year.

Even if all Democrats voted against Kavanaugh, two Republicans would have to join them to defeat the nomination, now that the Republican caucus is at full strength, with Jon Kyl filling the seat of John McCain of Arizona, who died last month.

Susan Collins of Maine and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski back abortion rights, which could be threatened if a socially conservative five-seat majority were cemented on the Supreme Court. Both Collins and Murkowski voted to confirm Gorsuch but have given noncommittal statements about Kavanaugh.

Last year, the majority Republicans changed Senate rules to require only a simple majority, 51 votes in the 100-member chamber, to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. In the event of a 50-50 split, Vice President Mike Pence would cast the deciding vote.
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House Republican leaders have unveiled their proposal to expand the massive tax law they hustled through Congress last year. They’re aiming to make permanent the individual tax cuts and small-business income deductions now set to expire in 2026.

With midterm elections barely two months away, the second crack at tax cuts outlined Monday is portrayed as championing the middle class and small businesses. Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who heads the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, is looking toward a vote on the legislation by the House this month. The solid Republican majority in the House nearly ensures passage before the November elections.

But prospects for the legislation in the Senate are weak, given the slim Republican majority and concern over the potential for further blowing up the deficit with a new tax cut — without corresponding new revenue sources. And even some House Republicans oppose a new tax bill.

The proposal also calls for new tax incentives for savings by creating a “universal savings account” for families that could be used for a range of purposes and would allow the tax-free earnings to be more easily withdrawn than is the case with existing retirement accounts. In addition, the Republican plan would allow the popular, tax-free 529 college savings accounts to also be used to pay for apprenticeship fees and home schooling expenses, as well as paying off student debt. Also, workers would be able to tap their retirement savings accounts without tax penalty to cover expenses from the birth of a child or an adoption.

Startup businesses would be permitted to write off more of their initial costs.

“This legislation is our commitment to the American worker to ensure our tax code remains the most competitive in the world,” Brady said in a statement. Making the tax cuts permanent would build on the tax law’s economic boost by adding 1.5 million new jobs and increasing wages, he said.

As the elections loom, polls are showing only lukewarm support among voters for the $1.5 trillion package of individual and corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law in December as his signature legislative achievement.

Several Republican House members, facing tough re-election fights in high-tax, Democratic-leaning states like New York and New Jersey, voted against the tax legislation last year and would prefer to do without this new version as well.

The tax law that took effect Jan. 1, the most sweeping rewrite of the U.S. tax code in three decades, is estimated to add around $1.5 trillion to the ballooning deficit over 10 years. Deficit hawks as well as Democratic lawmakers — who were unanimous in opposing the tax legislation last year — are asking how the Republicans intend to pay for the extended tax cuts.

“After handing massive unpaid-for tax breaks to Big Pharma, Wall Street and the wealthiest 1 percent with the first GOP tax scam for the rich, House Republicans are here with more of the same,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday. “Republicans want to add even more to the deficit, and even more to the bank accounts of the wealthiest 1 percent.”

The new tax law enacted in December provides steep tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families.

While the law slashed the corporate tax rate permanently from 35 percent to 21 percent, its tax cuts for individuals and the millions of U.S. “pass-through” businesses expire in eight years. The “pass-through” businesses funnel their income to owners and other individuals, who then pay personal income tax on those earnings, not the corporate rate. They are allowed under the new law to deduct 20 percent of the first $315,000 of their earnings.

Also until 2026, the tax law ended the $4,050 personal exemption for individuals and capped at $10,000 the amount of property taxes or state or local taxes that consumers can deduct on their federal returns.

Early this year, millions of working Americans got a boost from the tax law as they saw increases in their paychecks with less tax withheld by employers. But as Trump’s populist attacks against free trade have erupted into trade wars with China and U.S. allies, trade tensions have overshadowed the tax cuts in economically vulnerable areas of the country that depend on exports.
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U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says risks to election security are now among the “principal security threats” facing the country.

Nielsen spoke Monday at a summit on election security in suburban St. Louis. The two-day summit is focused partly on halting threats to the nation’s election infrastructure. The event includes secretaries of state from around a dozen states and other election officials.

The U.S. intelligence community says Russia tried to influence the 2016 election to benefit President Donald Trump. Nielsen says that while no attempts have been detected so far that match the scale of the 2016 effort, threats against election systems are “real and evolving.”

Nielsen says Homeland Security can offer states cost-free assistance on technical matters and risk and vulnerability assessment.
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A top Trump administration official on Monday defended a plan to revamp the Endangered Species Act, saying the proposed changes would result in more effective, quicker decisions on species protection.

Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt dismissed criticism by environmental groups that the plan would “gut” crucial protections for threatened animals and plants.

“That’s laughable,” he said, adding that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and other officials “respect the law” and know the law.

While he disagrees with critics, Bernhardt said he recognizes that any plan to change the 45-year-old law was bound to create controversy.

“People are passionate about the Endangered Species Act, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

Bernhardt told an audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation that the Obama administration too often “strayed” from the law to focus solely on species protection without regard for costs to nearby land owners or businesses.

“The reality is there is a cost” to listing a species as endangered or threatened, Bernhardt said. “It’s not a free choice by society.”

The “true costs” of the species law “are often borne by folks who just happen to be in a certain geographical area” where an endangered animal lives, he added.

Conservatives have long complained that the law hinders drilling, logging and other activities while failing to restore endangered species to unprotected status.

The Trump administration proposed a regulatory overhaul in July that would end automatic protections for threatened animals and plants and limit habitat safeguards meant to shield recovering species from harm. The proposal also opens the possibility of including cost-benefit analysis in listing decisions and makes it easier to remove a species from endangered or threatened status.

Democrats and some wildlife advocates said the moves would speed extinctions in the name of furthering the administration’s anti-environment agenda. Species currently under consideration for protections are considered especially at risk, including the North American wolverine and the monarch butterfly, they said.

David Hayes, who served as deputy interior secretary in the Obama administration, said Zinke and Trump were “pandering to fringe elements of the extraction industry that consider any protection for wildlife an unacceptable constraint on profits.”

The proposal comes as Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation to enact broad changes to curtail the landmark law, saying it hinders economic activities while doing little to restore species.

While the administration is happy to work with lawmakers from both parties, Bernhardt called major changes to the law unlikely to pass a divided Congress.

“The Endangered Species Act pretty much as we know it is here and will be with us,” he said. “What we’re thinking about is how can we make the law work in a way that’s good for species and good for people.”

Comments on the proposed changes will be accepted through Sept. 24.
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Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Monday he is open to meeting U.S. leader Donald Trump at the United Nations later this month despite expressing concerns that the United States could launch a military intervention on his country.

More than 300 people have been killed and 2,000 injured in crackdowns by Nicaraguan police and armed groups in protests that began in April over an abortive plan by leftist Ortega’s government to reduce welfare benefits.

The United States on Sept. 5 declared Nicaragua’s civil unrest a threat to the region’s security, saying government repression of protests risked creating an overwhelming displacement of people akin to Venezuela or Syria.

“We are under threat,” Ortega told France 24 TV in an interview being broadcast on Monday. “We can’t rule out anything out as far as the U.S. is concerned. We can’t rule out a military intervention,” he said.

An advance copy of the interview was given to Reuters by the news TV channel.

U.S. government officials were not immediately available to respond to Ortega’s comments.

April’s protests escalated into broader opposition against Ortega, who has been in office since 2007. He also served as president in the 1980s when he was a notable Cold War antagonist of the United States during Nicaragua’s civil war.

Accusing the U.S. of training armed groups to stoke trouble in his country, Ortega reiterated that early elections would be detrimental to Nicaragua. The next presidential vote is due in late 2020.

Ortega said he would be prepared to meet Trump if it could be arranged.

“The idea of having a dialogue with a power like the U.S. is necessary,” said Ortega, interviewed in Spanish with English translation. “It could be an opportunity [to meet Trump] at the United Nations General Assembly [UNGA]. I’d like to go.”

The annual gathering of world leaders starts on Sept. 24 at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York.

Ortega said he was keen to restart dialogue with his opponents and had approached Spain and Germany to help play a role.

The current violence comes after years of calm in Nicaragua and is the worst since his Sandinista movement battled U.S.-backed “Contra” rebels in the 1980s.

Washington has blamed Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader, and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, for the situation. The U.S. has also imposed sanctions against three top Nicaraguan officials, citing human rights abuses.
…

Control of Congress and the future of Donald Trump’s presidency are on the line as the primary season closes this week, jump-starting a two-month sprint to Election Day that will test Democrats’ ability to harness opposition to Trump and determine whether the Republican president can get his supporters to the polls.

For both parties, the stakes are exceedingly high.

After crushing defeats in 2016, Democrats open the fall campaign brimming with confidence about their prospects for retaking the House, which would give them power to open a wide swath of investigations into Trump or even launch impeachment proceedings. The outcome of the election, which features a record number of Democratic female and minority candidates, will also help shape the party’s direction heading into the 2020 presidential race.

Republicans have spent the primary season anxiously watching suburban voters, particularly women, peel away because of their disdain for Trump. The shift seems likely to cost the party in several key congressional races. Still, party leaders are optimistic that Republicans can keep control of the Senate, which could help insulate Trump from a raft of Democratic investigations.

History is not on Trump’s side. The president’s party typically suffers big losses in the first midterm election after taking office. And despite a strong economy, Republicans must also contend with the president’s sagging approval rating and the constant swirl of controversy hanging over the White House, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Despite those headwinds, Trump is betting on himself this fall. He’s thrust himself into the center of the campaign and believes he can ramp up turnout among his ardent supporters and offset a wave of Democratic enthusiasm. Aides say he’ll spend much of the fall holding rallies in swing states.

“The great unknown is whether the president can mobilize his base to meet the enthusiasm gap that is clearly presented at this point,” said Josh Holmes, a longtime adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Because the middle won’t be there for Republicans.”

Indeed, Trump’s turbulent summer appears to have put many moderates and independents out of reach for Republican candidates, according to GOP officials. One internal GOP poll obtained by The Associated Press showed Trump’s approval rating among independents in congressional battleground districts dropped 10 points between June and August.

A GOP official who oversaw the survey attributed the drop to negative views of Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the White House’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The official was not authorized to discuss the internal polling publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Those declines put several incumbent GOP lawmakers at risk, including Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, who represents a district in the Washington suburbs, and Rep. Erik Paulsen, whose suburban Minneapolis district has been in Republican hands since 1961.

Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take control of the House. Operatives in both parties believe at least 40 seats will be competitive in November.

Corry Bliss, who runs a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan, acknowledged a “tough environment” for Republicans that could quickly become too difficult for some incumbents to overcome.

“Incumbents who wake up down in the beginning of October are not going to be able to fix it in this environment,” Bliss said. “But incumbents who go on the offense early can and will win.”

Democratic incumbents had a similar wakeup call during the primaries after New York Rep. Joe Crowley, who held a powerful leadership position in Congress, stunningly lost to 28-year-old first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s among several younger minority candidates who defeated older, more established opponents, signaling a desire among many Democratic voters for generational change.

The result is a Democratic field with more women and minorities on the general-election ballot than ever before, several of whom are poised to make history if elected. Ayanna Pressley, who defeated 10-term Rep. Michael Capuano in a primary last week and is unopposed in the general election, will be the first black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress. Rashida Talib of Michigan is on track to become the first Muslim woman in Congress. And Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida would be their states’ first black governors if elected this fall.

Crowley said the wave that led to his own defeat will have long-term benefits for the Democratic Party if it motivates more young people and minorities to vote.

“Look at the positives for the country in terms of engagement and the activity that it’s causing and fervor that is forming,” Crowley said.

Indeed, turnout for Democrats has been high in a series of special elections that preceded the November contest. Nearly 60 Democratic challengers outraised House Republicans in the second quarter of 2018. And of the 10 Senate Democrats running for re-election in states Trump carried two years ago, only Florida Sen. Bill Nelson has been outraised by his Republican opponent.

“We’ve got real wind at our back,” said Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “The breadth and depth of the map is remarkable.”

Despite Democrats’ optimism heading into the fall, party officials concede that taking back control of the Senate may not be realistic. Unlike the competitive House races, which are being fought in territory that is increasingly favorable to Democrats, the most competitive Senate contests are in states Trump won — often decisively.

Democratic operatives are increasingly worried about Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s ability to hang on in North Dakota, a state Trump won by 36 points and visited on Friday. Democratic incumbents also face more conservative electorates in Missouri, Indiana and Montana.

Still, Democrats believe that if momentum builds through the fall and Trump’s approval rating sinks further, the party could not only hold onto its current Senate seats but also add wins in territory that has long been out of reach, including Tennessee and Texas, where Rep. Beto O’Rourke is giving Republican Sen. Ted Cruz a surprising re-election fight.

“There’s engagement and momentum like I haven’t seen since the Ann Richards days,” said Texas Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, referring to the state’s Democratic governor in the early 1990s.

While most of the attention is on the battle for Congress, competition for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 is heating up. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is scheduled to headline the marquee fall banquet for Iowa Democrats next month.

For now, former President Barack Obama is emerging as the top Democrat making the case for the party this fall. He returned to the political fray last week imploring voters upset with Trump to show up in November.

“Just a glance at recent headlines should tell you this moment really is different,” Obama said in a speech Friday. “The stakes really are higher. The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is assailing a new best-selling book about him and his White House as “just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults.”

“The Woodward book is a Joke,” the U.S. leader said Monday about investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s highly critical look at Trump’s chaotic 20-month presidency, “Fear: Trump in the White House”, that is being published Tuesday.

The book has already risen to No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list, but Trump said the longtime Washington Post reporter and editor used “now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction. Dems can’t stand losing. I’ll write the real book!”

In one of a string of Twitter comments, Trump said, “Bob Woodward is a liar who is like a Dem operative prior to the Midterms,” claiming the author “was caught cold, even by NBC” in an interview on the network’s Today show about his use of unnamed sources to recreate behind-the-scenes events at the White House since Trump took office in January 2017.

Trump retweeted himself from last week, saying, “The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted . If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts – and our country is doing GREAT!”

Woodward gained journalistic fame nearly five decades ago as one of the Post reporters whose investigative stories about White House corruption helped drive President Richard Nixon from office and now has written books about eight U.S. presidents.

But he told NBC that until Trump he had “never seen an instance when the president is so detached from the reality of what’s going on.”

The 75-year-old Woodward said that at a National Security Council meeting a year into Trump’s presidency, when he was complaining about the cost of posting thousands of U.S. troops in foreign countries, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis had to explain the rationale to him.

“We’re doing this to prevent World War III,” Woodward quoted Mattis as telling Trump. “The idea that a secretary of defense has to tell the president that all of these actions are designed to prevent the ultimate catastrophe and then Mattis goes on and says, you know, that if we don’t keep these programs, which are very sensitive, the only deterrent option we have would be the nuclear option.”

Asked by NBC why readers should trust his account using anonymous sources, Woodward said, “The incidents are not anonymous. It gives a date, it gives a time, who participates, most often the president himself and what he says.”

The author quoted White House chief of staff John Kelly as calling Trump an “idiot” and telling a staff meeting in his office, “We’re in crazytown,” and Mattis as saying that Trump had an understanding of world affairs of something akin to a “fifth or sixth-grader,” quotes they both have denied.

“They’re not telling the truth,” Woodward said. He called their denials “political statements to protect their jobs, totally understandable.”

But he said his book “is as carefully done as you can do an excavation of the reality of what goes on” in the Trump White House.

He described the current and former Trump officials who talked to him as “people of conscience, people of courage who said, ‘Look, the world needs to know this.'”

Woodward said the officials believe, like former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn said, “Got to protect the country.”

 
…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called Sunday for the anonymous senior official carrying out inside resistance to the Trump administration to “do the honorable thing and resign.”

Pence told Fox News Sunday that the official, who wrote an op-ed opinion article in The New York Times last week that called Trump amoral, was “literally violating an oath, not to the president, but to the Constitution” by seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency.

Pence reiterated that he did not write the article even though it contained an unusual word — “lodestar,” meaning one who serves as an inspiration — that he has used in numerous speeches. The vice president said he would agree to take a lie detector test “in a heartbeat,” but said it was up to Trump to decide whether other White House officials should do the same to try to identify who wrote the article.

Pence said he does not know who wrote it. The official said he or she was part of an internal resistance “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” the official said, denouncing Trump’s “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” leadership style.

Trump has railed against the writer, telling a political rally in Montana last week, “Nobody knows who the hell he is, or she. Unidentified deep state operatives who defy voters to push their secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself.”

The article in the newspaper came a day after the first details were revealed from veteran investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” depicting chaotic White House operations under Trump, with his own key administration officials attacking him as dangerously ignorant of world affairs.

Woodward said Trump aides at times have plucked documents off the president’s Oval Office desk to keep him from signing documents the officials considered to be detrimental to U.S. national security interests. Woodward, a longtime Washington Post reporter and editor, quoted Trump chief of staff John Kelly as saying that the White House under Trump was “crazytown” and that the president was an “idiot,” remarks Kelly denied uttering.

Trump and other White House officials have attacked Woodward’s book as fiction. But the author told CBS on Sunday that the president’s claim he does not speak the way Woodward quoted him is “wrong,” saying his reporting was “meticulous and careful,” backed up by hundreds of hours of interviews with current and past Trump aides.

Woodward said he has no idea who was the writer of the New York Times article, but said its vague description of White House events did not meet his own standard reporting life behind the scenes in Trump’s administration.

Pence defended Trump’s performance, saying the president promotes “a vigorous debate” within the White House over public policy issues, and then “he makes the decision. He’s in command.” Pence called him “a president of almost boundless energy.”

In a Twitter remark last week, Trump assailed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for bringing criminal charges against “two very popular Republican congressmen,” Chris Collins in New York and Duncan Hunter in California, just as they face re-election contests in November. Trump said, “two easy wins now in doubt…. Good job Jeff.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike criticized Trump for saying that the charges should not have been brought because of the political ramifications affecting Republicans.

Pence said the serious charges against the two lawmakers “ought to be pursued,” but defended Trump’s criticism, saying it was aimed at not bringing charges too close to an election, so as to not impact the outcomes.

 
…

Former U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday told attendees at a Democratic rally that the United States government “is a government for everybody. It’s not for sale.”

Obama has maintained a low public profile since leaving office, but with midterm elections coming in November, he spoke Saturday at an Anaheim, California, rally in support of Democratic candidates in districts won by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“We are bound by the notion that this is a government of and by and for the people,” he said. “We don’t have a situation where some are more equal than others.”

“The stakes are high in this election,” Obama warned, referring to the congressional elections that will be seen as a referendum on the presidential administration of Donald Trump and Republican rule in Washington. “This is a consequential moment in our history. And the fact is that if we don’t step up, things can get worse. … But the good news is, in two months we have a chance to restore some sanity in our politics.”

Obama also said the biggest threat to U.S. democracy is not one individual, nor is it wealthy political supporters. 

“It’s apathy,” he said. “It’s indifference. It’s us not doing what we’re supposed to do.”

On Friday, Obama made his first appearance in the midterm election battle, in a speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he accepted an ethics in government award. He told the students in the audience: “You need to vote because our democracy depends on it.”

The former president said the current state of Washington politics “did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years — a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past but is also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”

Trump was dismissive of Obama’s speech. At a fundraiser in North Dakota, the U.S. president told a crowd of supporters: “I watched it, but I fell asleep.”
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