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U.S. President Donald Trump showed no signs Sunday of backing down on his demand for taxpayer funding for a wall along the southern border with Mexico, saying there is “not going to be any bend” on his part.

“We have to build a wall, a barrier. It can be steel,” Trump told reporters at the White House before heading to his Maryland retreat at Camp David for discussions with key administration officials about border security and policies they plan to pursue this year.

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

In the meantime, Trump is engaged in a dispute with opposition Democratic lawmakers over his demand for more than $5 billion in funding for the barrier, a stalemate that has shut down about a quarter of U.S. government operations for 16 days, already one of the longest government closures in U.S. history.

“This shutdown could end tomorrow, or it could go on a long time,” Trump said, noting that Democrats refusing his demand for wall funding have voted for barriers at the U.S.-Mexican border in the past. “Democrats agree, you need border security.”

Trump said he does not expect anything to come out of a second day of negotiations Sunday between top White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, and key congressional aides on how to bridge differences over border security and Trump’s demand for wall funding. But he said progress could be made in talks over the next few days.

The U.S. leader said, “If we don’t have border security, we’ll be crime ridden,” with people crossing into the U.S. illegally “killing our citizens.” He said supporters, who often cheered his call for a wall during his successful 2016 run for the White House, are telling him, “Make sure you win this battle.”

He said, “People that didn’t vote for Donald Trump also want border security.”

Democrats have offered Trump $1.3 billion in new funding for border security, but not for a wall, which they say is an immoral, ineffective way of controlling border access to thwart illegal immigration. They have called for heightened use of technology to catch immigrants trying to cross into the U.S. along the 3,200-kilometer border with Mexico.

Trump declared, as he first did on Friday, “I may declare a national emergency, depending on what happens in the next few days,” to build the wall without congressional approval by using money that had been designated for military construction projects.

The shutdown has forced the closure of museums in Washington, with trash going uncollected at understaffed national parks. If the shutdown extends to February, food assistance for poorer Americans would be curtailed, as would tax refunds at the height of the annual period when Americans file tax returns on their income from the previous year.

About 800,000 federal government workers have been furloughed or are continuing to work without pay during the shutdown. In recent days, Trump voiced little concern about any inconvenience they may have in meeting their household bills, saying that “most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats.”

On Sunday, he said, “I can relate,” but added, “I’m sure people will make adjustments.” In past shutdowns, furloughed government workers have been paid retroactively when government funding has resumed and most officials in Washington assume the same will happen this time as well.

Trump officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to support his position on border wall funding and refusal to reopen the shuttered government agencies that are unrelated to the wall while continuing to debate a budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which controls border operations, for another month.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Fox News that Democrats are “just unwilling to let this president win” on the wall dispute. She said that “at some point, we have to say ‘enough is enough,'” to extend the shutdown in order to secure wall funding.

“This president is prepared to do what is necessary to protect our borders,” she said.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believes Democrats “think they’re winning the PR battle and they’re willing to drag this out because they think it hurts the president.”

Democrats have vowed they will not give Trump taxpayer money for the wall, especially since he said repeatedly during his 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for it, which Mexican officials have often said they will not do.

 

 

 
…

The race to challenge U.S. President Donald Trump in November 2020 kicked off in earnest Saturday, when the first major Democratic Party hopeful to announce her candidacy visited with voters across Iowa.

Bounding onto stage in a packed building in Des Moines’s trendy East Village, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts waved to the crowd before speaking in a strained voice. The evening appearance came at the end of a four-city tour across the Midwestern state.

“Nevertheless, I persisted,” she said, referencing both her marathon day and a favorite rallying cry that brought cheers.

Field of candidates

In launching her campaign more than a year before both the primary season and the general election, the 69-year-old Warren hopes to gain an edge with Iowa’s roughly 3 million residents before the field of candidates becomes too crowded.

A larger-than-usual deluge of candidates — possibly up to two dozen — are expected to hit the state within the coming year, including an unprecedented number of women and minorities.

Top contenders include Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris — both of whom visited last fall — Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar.

Former U.S. Representative and businessman John Delaney announced in mid-2017 and has been actively working to raise his name recognition in the state.

“It’s definitely much sooner this time,” Pat Rynard said of candidates who have already declared their intention to run. Rynard is a former Democratic campaign staffer who runs the political news site Iowa Starting Line.

During the run-up to the 2016 election, for example, the first Republican and Democrat hopefuls formally announced their bids in March and April of 2015.

“I think it’s a reflection of how big the field is, and the fact that there aren’t any front-runners,” Rynard said.

He expects recent poll results indicating voter preferences for former Vice President Joe Biden and former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders to change as other candidates gain name recognition.

“I think an actual accurate poll would show that well over half of potential caucusgoers are completely undecided,” Rynard said.

Standing in line

That’s certainly the case for Iowans Ed Hotchkin and Ryan Barcus, who stood in line in unusually warm weather to see the senator speak.

Hotchkin, a Des Moines resident who wore a pink 2020 Feel The Bern! hat and voted for Hillary Clinton in the last election, said he was now considering Warren and Sanders. He’ll be attending rallies like this one in order to catch the “nuance” between the two candidates.

Barcus, a school teacher in the Des Moines area, hasn’t made his mind up, but the success of Democrats in the most recent midterm elections has got him energized.

“A lot of people think it’s too early for candidates to be here in Iowa, but I think they need to be here right now. The people of Iowa want to talk to these candidates,” Barcus said.

With its shrinking, but still significant rural base, Iowa and its caucuses mark the start of the multimonth nominating process. Different from a primary, in which voters simply mark a ballot, the process of caucusing gathers voters together in almost 1,700 separate simultaneous meetings across the state to discuss party platform issues.

In the 2020 caucuses, due to pressure from national party leaders, voters should also have the option to submit an absentee vote.

“[Campaigning in Iowa] really helps get the candidates focused and their messages honed down for the general election,” said Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.

‘Retail politics’

While Iowa is often criticized for being a poor representation of the entire U.S., and for receiving outsized attention as just one in dozens of contests across the country, Price disagreed.

He highlighted the often-overlooked diversity within the predominantly white state, as well as its “good mix of urban and rural areas.” Price also pointed to the fact that Iowa’s smaller population lends itself to “retail politics,” meaning voters get a chance to meet candidates in church basements, coffee shops and school auditoriums.

“When it’s a state like Iowa, folks get a chance to actually get to know the candidates and be vetted in a way that may not be possible in a bigger state,” Price said.

As for whether the state will field any serious Republican challengers to Trump, analysts say it’s unlikely. The president enjoys a very high approval rating among Iowa Republicans,  with Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann saying in an emailed statement to VOA that rural Americans are “thriving under President Trump’s pro-growth economy.”

He added, “The Republican Party of Iowa welcomes Republicans from across the country to come and visit our state and talk to our grassroots voters, but we are 100 percent behind President Donald Trump and will work tirelessly to re-elect him in 2020.”

While most voters VOA interviewed said they will likely remain undecided for awhile, Rynard anticipates that moderate Democratic candidates won’t fare well. That could be good news for Senator Warren, who some accuse of being too liberal.

“I think Iowa caucusgoers will be going for a candidate who is more progressive than they’ve ever nominated,” he said.
…

White House officials and congressional aides will meet again Sunday to continue discussions about how to end the partial government shutdown that has affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers and caused delays and inconvenience for Americans.

The shutdown has entered its third week.

The crux of the discussions is border security. President Donald Trump is adamant that he wants $5.6 billion to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to block undocumented migrants trying to enter the U.S.

Congressional Democrats have vowed not to give the U.S. leader any money for the wall. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the wall “immoral.”

Trump tweeted late Saturday that he is going to Camp David Sunday to discuss border security and other topics with senior staff.

About the same time he tweeted this photo:

U.S. congressional leaders and White House officials held talks Saturday in Washington in an effort to end the partial shutdown. Discussions ended a few hours later without any progress.

Senior White House adviser, and Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were involved in the meeting Saturday, with Nielsen briefing those in attendance on border security. Democrats asked DHS for written details about the agency’s budget needs, which the White House said it would provide.

Vice President Mike Pence, who also participated in Saturday’s meeting, described the discussions as “productive” in a tweet.

Trump, however, tweeted shortly after Pence, saying, “Not much headway made today. Second meeting set for tomorrow. After so many decades, must finally and permanently fix the problems on the Southern Border!”

Pelosi said in a statement released Saturday, “The senseless uncertainty and chaos of the Trump Shutdown must end, now.”

Her statement said Democrats would “begin passing individual appropriations bills to re-open all government agencies, starting with the appropriations bill that covers the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. This action is necessary so that the American people can receive their tax refunds on schedule.”

Trump has threatened to bypass Congress and declare a national emergency in order to get the wall built.

About 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay. This is the fourth-longest government shutdown — partial or full — in the past 40 years. The president has said he is willing to continue the shutdown “for years” until there is funding for the wall that he promised Mexico would pay for during his successful presidential campaign.

The shutdown has affected government services around the country and if it continues there could be dire consequences. Money for the food stamp program, which helps millions of low-income Americans buy food, will expire in March.

Federal income tax refunds and tax return processing will also be delayed.

Transportation Security Administration agents who screen travelers at the nation’s airports have begun calling in sick in apparent protest at being required to work without pay.

Federal courts will run out of money Jan. 11, according to the administrative office of the U.S. courts. That could delay trials. The shutdown has already resulted in the suspension of issuing marriage licenses in Washington.

The Smithsonian museums in Washington, including the National Zoo, are closed.

Late Thursday, the Democrat-controlled House passed legislation to reopen the federal government and fund the Department of Homeland Security until early February. The measure did not include the $5.6 billion the president has demanded for the border wall.

The Senate passed an identical bill last month, while Republicans still controlled both chambers of Congress.

However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week he would not put any legislation to a vote in the Senate unless Trump supported it. He called the House plan to end the shutdown “political theater.”

Democrats have said they will only discuss border security once the government is reopened.

Trump, who was not part of the negotiations, spent Saturday morning tweeting about the partial shutdown and border wall.

He also tweeted, without evidence, “I don’t care that most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats.”

Trump said, again without evidence, the 800,000 federal workers affected by the shutdown want him to “keep going” for border security.

When asked Friday about how unpaid workers are expected to manage without a financial safety net, the president replied: “The safety net is going to be having a strong border because we’re going to be safe.”
…

President Donald Trump held forth on all manner of things this past week as he emerged from a “lonely” spell over the holidays. He opined for more than 90 minutes to the press, at the top of a Cabinet meeting, on the shutdown, immigration, drug prices, the Soviet history in Afghanistan, his approval ratings, Syria, oil prices, the nature of walls, the attractiveness of his generals (“better looking than Tom Cruise”), and much more.  

 

He capped the week with a Rose Garden news conference that stretched for an hour. And he’s been tweeting a lot. 

 

Trump’s accounts did not show tremendous fealty to the facts. Here’s a sampling of what he said:  

​The wall 

 

Trump: “We’ve already built a lot of the wall.” — Rose Garden news conference Friday.

The facts: He hasn’t. 

 

Trump’s claim is only supported when counting work done under past presidents and ignoring the fact that fences from prior administrations are not the towering walls he promised. The 2006 Secure Fence Act has resulted in about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) of border barrier. Money approved by Congress in March 2018 is to pay for 84 miles (135 km), but that work is not done. Trump has achieved some renovation of existing barrier. 

 

Trump: “The drugs are pouring into this country. They don’t go through the ports of entry. When they do, they sometimes get caught.” — Rose Garden news conference. 

 

The facts: He’s wrong in saying drug smugglers don’t or only rarely use official border crossings for their trafficking. Land ports of entry are their primary means for getting drugs into the country, not stretches of the border without barriers, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says. 

 

The agency said in a November report that the most common trafficking technique by transnational criminal organizations is to hide drugs in passenger vehicles or tractor-trailers as they drive into the U.S. though entry ports, where they are stopped and subject to inspection. They also employ buses, cargo trains and tunnels, the report says, citing smuggling methods that would not be choked off by a border wall. 

 

Trump: “The new trade deal we have with Mexico and Canada — what we save on that, just with Mexico, will pay for the wall many times over, just in a period of a year, two years or three years. So I view that as absolutely Mexico is paying for the wall.” — Rose Garden news conference. 

 

The facts: Mexico is not paying for the wall and nothing in the trade agreement would cover or refund the construction cost. 

 

Trump is assuming a wide variety of economic benefits will come from the agreement, but they can’t be quantified or counted on. For example, he said the deal will dissuade some U.S. companies from moving operations to Mexico and he credits that possibility as a payment by Mexico for his wall.  

The deal updates the North American Free Trade Agreement, in the main preserving NAFTA’s liberalized environment of low or no tariffs among the U.S., Mexico and Canada, while making certain improvements for each country. Trump stated inaccurately that it’s “brand-new. It’s totally different.” 

 

Moreover, it’s not in effect. The deal has yet to be ratified in any member country and its chances of winning legislative approval are not assured. 

 

Trump has argued repeatedly that Mexico is footing the bill even while insisting on $5.6 billion from the U.S. Treasury to go toward wall construction. His demand and the refusal of Democrats to satisfy it are behind the budget standoff that has closed parts of the government. 

 

Syria 

 

Trump: “We had a fantastic meeting with the generals and the Syria situation. I mean, I’m the only person in the history of our country that could really decimate ISIS, say we’re bringing the troops back home over a period of time. I never said so quickly, but over a period of time.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday.  

 

The facts: He’s wrong about his past statements regarding the pace of withdrawal. In a video posted to his Twitter account on Dec. 19, for instance, Trump said of the roughly 2,000 troops in Syria: “They’re all coming back, and they’re coming back now.” 

 

Trump: “I read, when we pull out, ‘Oh, Russia is thrilled.’ Russia is not happy. You know why they’re not happy? Because they like it when we’re killing ISIS [Islamic State fighters], because we’re killing them for them, and we’re killing them for [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad, and we’re killing ISIS also for Iran.” — Cabinet meeting. 

 

The facts: Russia says it’s happy. A U.S. withdrawal opens opportunities for Moscow and Tehran to increase their influence and may help the Syrian government survive as a Kurdish-led opposition force loses its military ally on the ground. 

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the U.S. “has done the right thing” in planning to pull out.  

 

Afghanistan 

 

Trump: “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They [the Soviets] were right to be there.” — Cabinet meeting.  

​The facts: His assertion that the Soviet Union was experiencing a terrorist influx from Afghanistan when it invaded in 1979 is out of step with history. And his belief that the Soviets were right to invade is a stark departure from U.S. and world opinion. 

 

The Soviets were trying to bolster communists in Afghanistan and possibly expand their influence against the United States and the West.  

 

World condemnation was swift: The U.N. General Assembly voted 104-18 to deplore the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The U.S. supported the anti-communist rebels, giving them shoulder-fired rockets to down Soviet aircraft. The Soviets withdrew in 1989. 

 

Trump: “Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.” — Cabinet meeting. 

 

The facts: Afghanistan was far from the sole reason for the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The dissolution occurred in a time of ethnic and political troubles, economic woes and a series of revolutions that led Soviet republics to seek their independence. The Soviet demise was accelerated by the heavy cost of competing with the West to wield influence around the world, including in Afghanistan.  

​Oil prices 

 

Trump: “Do you think it’s just luck that gas prices are so low, and falling? Low gas prices are like another Tax Cut!” — tweet Tuesday. 

Trump: “It’s not luck. It’s not luck. I called up certain people, and I said, ‘Let that damn oil and gasoline — you let it flow — the oil.’ It was going up to $125. If that would’ve happened, then you would’ve had a recession, depression.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

 

The facts: It’s not all about him, or even mostly about him.  

 

While Americans may end up paying somewhat less for gasoline this year, Trump’s suggestion that he deserves all the credit and averted a U.S. economic depression is an exaggeration. Oil prices, which peaked Oct. 3, have been generally falling on the realization that U.S. sanctions against Iran would not create a shortage and on fear that a global oversupply of oil will spill into 2019 if slower international economic growth depresses energy demand.  

 

The president’s supposed “let it flow” edict did not stop OPEC and its Russia-led allies from agreeing last month to cut oil production. That initially failed to stop oil prices from sliding further; they have since rebounded a few dollars in the past week. Continued OPEC production cuts would push prices higher.  

 

Trump has pointed to his positive relations with oil exporter Saudi Arabia. As a so-called swing producer with the ability to adjust production up or down relatively quickly, it can indeed influence the price of crude. But the market is complex: Canada, for example, is actually the top source of U.S. oil imports, with Saudi Arabia second.  

 

Tariffs 

 

Trump: “The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly. In the meantime we are doing well in various Trade Negotiations currently going on.” — tweet Thursday.  

​The facts: Trump is off on two major issues. First, tariffs are taxes paid largely by U.S. business and consumers, not foreign countries. And while Trump’s “MANY billions” might sound like a lot, it’s doing little to nothing to improve the federal balance sheet. The U.S. government spent $4.1 trillion last fiscal year and the budget deficit shot up, according to Trump’s own Treasury Department. 

 

Customs and duties generated $41.3 billion in revenues last year, up from $34.6 billion in 2017. 

 

That $6.7 billion increase occurred in part because of the president’s tariffs. But it amounted to just 0.16 percent of federal spending. 

 

Mattis 

 

Trump, on Jim Mattis: “I wish him well. I hope he does well. But, as you know, President [Barack] Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

 

The facts: Actually, Mattis resigned as defense secretary in protest over Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria. 

 

The retired Marine general announced on Dec. 20 in a resignation letter that he was stepping down after Trump’s decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis said he would stay on the job until the end of February. Three days later, Trump said he was replacing Mattis with the second-ranking defense official, Pat Shanahan, on Jan. 1. 

 

As to the tenure under Obama, Mattis served as commander of the military’s Central Command. He departed a few months earlier than expected in 2013, in part because of disagreements over Iran. 

 

Drug prices 

 

Trump: “I think you’re going to see a tremendous reduction in drug prices.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

 

The facts: Prices continue to rise. Administration policies announced last year and currently being completed don’t seem to have shifted that trend.  

Figures on U.S. prescription drug price changes compiled by health data company Elsevier show that from Dec. 20 through Jan. 2, there were 1,179 product price changes. Of those, 30 were price cuts and the remaining 1,149 were price increases, with 328 of them between 9 percent and 10 percent. All but one of the rest were by lower percentages. Elsevier spokesman Chris Capot said more companies will be announcing price increases this month. 

 

Separately, a data firm whose software can help patients find the most cost-effective medications says its information shows price increases on many commonly used drugs for conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. 

 

“In the first two days of January, prices have increased on more than 250 different products,” said Michael Rea, CEO of Rx Savings Solutions. The average increase is about 6 percent, he added. 

 

Immigration 

 

Trump, on the number of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally: “I used to hear 11 million all the time. It would always stay right at 11. I said, ‘Does it ever increase or go down?’ ‘No, it’s 11.’ Nobody knows. It’s probably 30, 35 million people. They would flow in, mostly from the southern border, they’d come in and nobody would talk about it, nobody would do anything about it.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

 

The facts: It’s nowhere close to 30 million to 35 million, according to his own Homeland Security secretary as well as independent estimates.  

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates there were 10.7 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally in 2016, the most recent data available. Advocacy groups on both sides of the immigration issue have similar estimates. 

 

At a House hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen acknowledged the number was “somewhere” between 11 million and 22 million, significantly lower than Trump’s claim of 35 million. 

 

According to Pew, the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally reached a height of 12.2 million in 2007, representing about 4 percent of the U.S. population, before declining in part because of a weakening U.S. economy. 

 

Trump: “The coyotes are using children to gain access into this country. They’re using these children. They’re not with families. They’re using the children. They’re taking the children. And then they dispose of the children after they’re done. This has been going on for years. This isn’t unique to us. But we want to stop it.” — Cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

 

The facts: This does happen, though it’s not as common as Trump suggests by talking about it so often. 

 

He is referring to adults who come with children they falsely claim to be theirs, so that they won’t be detained under a no-child-separation policy. 

 

But such cases of fraud are rare. According to the Homeland Security Department, about 500 immigrants were found to be not a “legitimate family unit” and thus separated upon detention from April 19 to Sept. 30 of last year. That’s a small fraction of the 107,000 families apprehended in the last budget year, which ended Sept. 30.
…

The education of the star-studded class of House freshmen has begun.

Lesson one: Speaking with the bluntness of a candidate can produce swift and uncomfortable results.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib learned that before lunch Friday, when her profane remarks the night before vowing to impeach President Donald Trump drew almost no support, and plenty of pushback, from members of her party.

“It’s been pretty intense,” Tlaib, D-Mich., told The Associated Press in a brief hallway interview Friday as she reported to the House to face her colleagues.

Hours after Tlaib was sworn in as part of the history-making class of freshmen that helped flip the House to Democratic control, she ran afoul of the widespread sense among her colleagues that they should focus for now on health care and other policies rather than impeachment — at least until special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation concludes.

“We’re gonna impeach the motherf—er,” Tlaib exclaimed during a party Thursday night hosted by the liberal activist group MoveOn, according to video and comments on Twitter.

It was a striking coda to the Democrats’ heady ascendance to the House majority Thursday, sparking unusually public corrections from House veterans.

“I disagree with what she said,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., during a CNN interview. His committee would be the one to begin impeachment proceedings.

“It is too early to talk about that intelligently,” Nadler said. “We have to follow the facts.”

Newcomers routinely stumble as they learn how things are done on Capitol Hill. But Tlaib and her classmates have been celebrated in magazine profiles for their independence and their promises to stand up to the powers that be. By rebuking one, the more seasoned Democrats were effectively warning the others.

“I think some of our new members probably don’t realize that you are always on, that when you are a member of Congress, there’s always someone listening,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. She said she hopes Tlaib’s remarks aren’t news for long.

More than Tlaib’s profanity, it was her vow to impeach Trump that drew her colleagues’ disapproval.

Tlaib’s defiance flew in the face of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s warning to focus on policies the candidates had promised ahead of the Nov. 6 elections. The timing also chafed, just hours before congressional leaders were headed to the White House to try to resolve the standoff over the border wall Trump is demanding in exchange for reopening the government. Republicans pounced, using the occasion to question the Democrats’ true priorities and Pelosi’s leadership.

With a tight smile, Pelosi rejected Tlaib’s profanity and her impeachment vow.

“That is not the position of the House Democratic caucus,” Pelosi said on MSNBC of Tlaib’s comments. “I don’t think we should make a big deal of it.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., served up a reminder to the new members that seniority rules in Congress.

“She’s a freshman. It’s her first day here,” Connolly said of Tlaib. “She went in front of an enthusiastic crowd of her supporters and it was red meat for them. She yielded to that temptation.”

“I’m sure upon reflection,” Connolly suggested, “she might choose other words to describe her feelings.”

Talk of impeachment remains in the air, fueled by a handful of Democrats on Pelosi’s left flank who are pressuring her to more aggressively pursue the issue. But such proceedings appear unlikely for now. Even if the House advances any articles of impeachment, a two-thirds-majority vote to convict Trump in the Republican-controlled Senate and remove him from office would seem out of the question, barring astonishing new revelations.

Tlaib wasn’t the only freshman who got a lesson in how one comment can upend Capitol Hill.

Some of Tlaib’s classmates were pursued for reaction — standard results when a political ally says something that raises eyebrows.

“I am not talking about those things,” laughed Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., when asked Friday to respond to Tlaib’s remarks.

She said she was elected because she talked about preserving health care. “I’m not going to tell anyone else what to do, but certainly, I think, it would behoove all of us to really be working for the people who need” Congress’ help.
…

White House senior staff will be gathering over the weekend at the Camp David presidential compound for a “staff retreat” to discuss the administration’s priorities for 2019. And White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says President Trump will be joining them and leading meetings Sunday.

The gathering comes as Mick Mulavney assumes his new role as acting chief of staff following John Kelly’s departure earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Trump has tasked Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Jared Kushner and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with meeting with House and Senate leadership staff to continue trying to hash out a deal to end the partial government shutdown.

It is now in its 14th day.
…

President Trump and congressional leaders failed again to reach a deal to end the partial government shutdown, with both sides signaling a deadlock over their positions on funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The president has assigned a working group to negotiate with lawmakers over the weekend, but said that he is prepared to continue the shutdown for months, even years. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
…

The National Park Service says parts of Death Valley National Park closed Friday, the latest park to suffer the effects of the partial government shutdown.

Officials say several campsites in the park had to be closed because of health and safety concerns, including human waste, trash and vandalism.

Park officials say donations are keeping several other campsites in Death Valley National Park open as well as some restrooms. Visitors are still being asked to try to use restrooms before entering the park and to pack up all waste when they leave.

Three visitor deaths

The shutdown has affected most national parks, which have been left without many of the rangers and other park officials who usually keep the parks running.

Park officials say three people have died in national parks since the shutdown began: a 14-year-old girl who fell in Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona, a man who suffered a head injury from a fall in Yosemite National Park, and a woman who was killed by a falling tree at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee.

Park officials say that accidental deaths are not unusual at national parks, with an average of six people dying each week in the park system.

While it is not clear if any of those deaths could have been prevented by more park staff on site, The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the investigation into at least one of the deaths, the accident in Yosemite, has been delayed because of the shutdown.

Parks left open, unsupervised

Unlike some previous shutdowns, the Trump administration has left most parks open to visitors despite staff furloughs.

The move has allowed people vacationing in parks to continue with their plans, but has led to cases of overflowing trash cans and park bathrooms not being cleaned frequently enough.

Reports of illegal camping and vandalism at some parks have led to some restrictions.

Campgrounds at Joshua Tree closed earlier this week because of health concerns that vault toilets were near their capacity.

In the southern Sierra Nevada in Central California, some areas of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks have also been closed.

About 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay. As of Friday, the partial shutdown had been in effect for 14 days. This is the fourth-longest government shutdown — partial or full — in the past 40 years.
…

The Supreme Court is plunging back into the issue of whether electoral districts can be too partisan.

Disputes have arisen in cases involving North Carolina’s heavily Republican congressional map and a Democratic congressional district in Maryland, and the justices said Friday they will hear arguments in March.

The high court could come out with the first limits on partisan politics in the drawing of electoral districts, but also could ultimately decide that federal judges have no role in trying to police political mapmaking.

The court took up the issue of partisan gerrymandering last term in cases from Wisconsin and the same Maryland district, but the justices failed to reach a decision on limiting political line-drawing for political gain.

No history for Kavanaugh

Justice Anthony Kennedy had said he was open to limits. He has since retired, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has taken Kennedy’s seat. He has no judicial record on the issue.

The court again has taken one case in which Democrats are accused of unfairly limiting Republicans’ political power and one in which Republicans are the alleged culprits. The court also has the entire North Carolina congressional map before it, but only the one Maryland district.

In both cases, however, lower courts have found that the party in charge of redistricting — Republicans in North Carolina, Democrats in Maryland — egregiously violated the rights of voters in the other party.

The North Carolina map was redrawn in 2016 because federal courts determined two districts originally drawn in 2011 were illegal because of excessive racial bias.

In November, Republicans won at least nine of the 13 seats in North Carolina’s congressional delegation and appeared to have won a 10th seat, in keeping with how many they held before the 2016 remapping. But state election officials have so far declined to certify the results in the 9th District in south-central North Carolina because of allegations of absentee ballot fraud.

A key Republican in the North Carolina redistricting process, state Rep. David Lewis, has said that he drew 10 Republican districts because he did not “believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

Three-judge panel reviews decision

In January, a three-judge court found that the map violated the Constitution and ordered the state to come up with a new plan quickly, in time for the 2018 elections. But the Supreme Court delayed enforcement of the court order, mainly because the justices already were considering the partisan districting cases from Maryland and Wisconsin.

When those cases did not settle the issue, the high court ordered the three judges to take a new look at their earlier decision. They reaffirmed the ruling in August, but also concluded there wasn’t enough time to put new districts in place for 2018.

Common Cause, the watchdog group that supports limits on partisan line-drawing, is leading the challenge to the North Carolina districts. “Whether it is Democrats or Republicans manipulating the election maps, gerrymanders cheat voters out of true representation,” Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has the opportunity to set a clear standard that will restore a meaningful vote to millions of Americans disenfranchised by gerrymanders in Maryland, North Carolina and across the country.”

Bill D’Elia, a spokesman for North Carolina Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger, said Friday that Democrats have been looking for much of this decade to find judges who will redraw maps that will boost their candidates. “We hope the Supreme Court finally puts this nonsense to rest and that Democrats go back to the old-fashioned way of winning elections: convincing people to vote for them,” D’Elia said in an email. 

In Maryland, Democratic Rep. David Trone was sworn into office Thursday to represent a district that runs from the Washington suburbs to the rural northwest corner of the state. Democrats who controlled the redistricting process overhauled the district in 2011, turning what had been a reliably Republican stronghold into a Democratic district.

Republicans files suit

Several Republican voters sued over the new district’s boundaries, claiming it unfairly favored Democrats.

A day after the November elections, a three-judge panel agreed with the Republicans who sued and ordered Maryland officials to draw a new congressional redistricting plan that isn’t tainted by partisan gerrymandering.

Judge Paul Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said in his opinion for the panel that the Maryland congressional map removed roughly 66,000 Republican voters from the district and added around 24,000 Democratic voters, “bringing about the single greatest alteration of voter makeup in any district in the Nation following the 2010 census.”

Trone is not a party to the case, but he filed a legal brief in which he said he “is no fan of partisan gerrymandering, but that does not mean it is a terminal disease, much less one that the judiciary can or should cure.”   
…

A new U.S. Congress opened in Washington Thursday with a historic class of new legislators, many without political experience. The racially diverse class has set some records, including the most women elected to Congress, the first Native American and Muslim women, the first U.S. Army Green Beret. Voice of America is following the challenges these lawmakers will face in their first year. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to two new U.S. representatives who are “Climbing the Hill.”
…

Nancy Pelosi, who is again the U.S. House speaker, called for mutual respect and transparency in the work of the new Congress. The Democrat from California, addressed lawmakers during a swearing-in ceremony Thursday. As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, Pelosi called for a Congress that works for all Americans.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are scheduled to meet late Friday morning at the White House to discuss how to end the government shutdown that has entered its third week.

The meeting comes a day after a new group of lawmakers was sworn into office in what is now a Democratically led House of Representatives.

Thursday night, the House passed a plan to reopen the federal government.

The measure did not include the $5 billion the president has demanded to build a wall at the U.S. border with Mexico.

“We’re not doing a wall,” Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said after she was sworn in Thursday as the new speaker of the House of Representatives. She suggested that the money could better be used for border security technology and hiring more border agents.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called the House plan to end the shutdown “political theater,” even though the Republican-led Senate passed an identical bill last month.

The legislation passed in the House Thursday called for the reopening of the federal government and the funding of the Department of Homeland Security until early February.

While Trump himself has not used the word “veto,” other White House officials have. One official said the president told Democratic leaders he would “look foolish” if he ended the shutdown.

 

Trump is blaming Democrats for the current situation.

“The shutdown is only because of the 2020 presidential election,” he tweeted Thursday. “The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of the achievements of Trump, so they are going all out on the desperately needed wall and border security and presidential harassment. For them, strictly politics.”

Trump said the country needs protection, and warned that crime, drugs and gangs were pouring into the United States from Mexico.

He also claimed there are as many as 35 million illegal immigrants in the United States, contradicting experts who say the number is far lower.

Meanwhile, 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay.
…

They’ve got the keys to the offices, new paint inside and parties to attend. But on Thursday, the work was beginning when 534 members of the 116th Congress solemnly swear to govern the divided nation.

The new Congress will make history for seating a record number of women and becoming the most racially and ethnically diverse. Republicans will take more seats in the Senate; Democrats will grab control of the House.

“It’s a new day in America,” tweeted incoming Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress.

Lawmakers will be confronted by a standoff over money and immigration that has shut much of the government and vexed their predecessors.

What to watch on the first day of divided government under President Donald Trump:

HOW CAN I WATCH?

C-SPAN and various broadcast networks are expected to stream or televise the events. Both the House and Senate convene at noon EST.

THE ORDER OF THINGS

There will be prayers and pledges of allegiance.

In the 435-member House, a roll call will begin on the election of speaker. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is poised to reprise her role in that post, second in line to the presidency. Once the vote is over, Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is expected to speak, followed by an address by Pelosi.

The longest-serving member of the House and its dean, 24-term Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, will swear in Pelosi. She is then expected administer the oath to House members and delegates at the same time.

In the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the oath-taking of the 34 members who stood for election on Nov. 6. Republicans gained two seats in that chamber.

THE OATH

Lawmakers will take this oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

PELOSI

She is, some say, feared. And Pelosi is still giving nothing for the U.S. border wall Trump is demanding in exchange for re-opening the government.

Pelosi, 78, seems to have sewn up her return as House speaker, but her comeback depended on her promise to limit her tenure to a maximum of four years. Doing so quelled a rebellion by a stubborn faction of Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders.

She prevailed, wielding skills she will need to manage the roughly 235 Democrats who will comprise the House majority in the new Congress.

Her ascension sets up a clash with Trump.

But where Trump has Twitter and status among his base as a Washington outsider, Pelosi has a network of allies inside and outside Congress — not to mention three decades in the House.

She’s been speaker before, the only woman to hold the post, from 2007 into January 2011.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT?

Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., will take the oath on a Quran, and not just anyone’s. She’ll use a 1734 English translation that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

Tlaib and Omar are the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. And they’re just a few of the signs of change that spring from the Nov. 6 elections. For the first time, two Native American women are headed to the House. Massachusetts and Connecticut will also send black women to Congress as firsts for their states, while Arizona and Tennessee are getting their first female senators.

In all, 127 women — 106 Democrats 21 Republicans — will serve in the 116th Congress, holding nearly 24 percent of all seats, according to the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University. In the Senate, 25 women will serve, with 17 of them Democrats and eight Republicans.

The number of House seats held by Republican women will decline by 10, from 23 to 13.

WHAT’S THE SAME?

Being a freshmen is, well, not as glamorous as winning elections. Governing takes different skills than campaigning. And in Congress, seniority matters, a lot.

“I was kind of the mountain where I was,” recalled veteran Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., a former chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. “You come here and it’s a humbling experience. Get in line. It’s fascinating that you have an opinion about that, get over there.”

Asked in a brief interview about first-term lawmakers having to temper their expectations, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said, “That’s right. We’ll see.”

CAN’T THE NEW CONGRESS REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT?

Not without Trump’s agreement, and he isn’t budging. He wants billions of dollars for a U.S. border wall. Democrats are refusing. Pelosi said outside the White House that there would be rapid passage Thursday of legislation to re-open the government — without funds for the border wall. But the White House has rejected that package, and it’s going nowhere in the Senate.
…

Divided government returned to the United States Thursday with the swearing-in of a new Congress. After two years during which Republicans controlled the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives, Democrats now hold the majority in the House.
…

The Republican in the nation’s last undecided congressional race is asking a North Carolina court to require that he be declared the winner because the now-defunct state elections board didn’t act.

A lawsuit Mark Harris filed Thursday claims the disbanded elections board had been declared unconstitutional, so its investigation into alleged ballot fraud by an operative hired by the Harris campaign was invalid.

The elections board was dissolved on Friday by state judges who in October declared its form unconstitutional but allowed investigations to continue. A revamped board takes effect Jan. 31.

Harris asks a trial-court judge to order the state elections director to certify the Republican as the winner.

 

Harris was being interviewed by state investigators Thursday, as all other U.S. House winners are sworn into office in Washington.
…

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said on Wednesday it would hold confirmation hearings on Jan. 15 and 16 for Attorney General nominee William Barr, who has come under fire from Democrats for his criticism of the special counsel’s Russia probe.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Barr would take over from Matthew Whitaker, who has been serving as acting attorney general since President Donald Trump forced out Jeff Sessions in November.

The committee’s statement did not give details on the planned hearings.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said last month that a memo Barr wrote criticizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Russian interference in U.S. elections should disqualify him from serving as attorney general.

Barr wrote in the June 2018 memo to senior Justice Department officials that Mueller “should not be able to demand that the President submit to an interrogation about alleged obstruction,” CNN has reported.

As attorney general, Barr would oversee the Russia investigation.

Trump has called the probe, which is examining any possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, a witch hunt.

Barr previously served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under late President George H.W. Bush.

 
…

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan’s first full day at the Pentagon’s helm was overshadowed Wednesday when President Donald Trump attacked his predecessor Jim Mattis.

Shanahan, who took the Pentagon’s top spot January 1 after serving as deputy defense secretary, was thrust onto the world stage when Mattis quit last month amid long-running disagreements with President Donald Trump.

During televised remarks ahead of his first cabinet meeting of 2019, Trump claimed he had “essentially fired” Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements.

“I’m not happy with what [Mattis has] done in Afghanistan and I shouldn’t be happy,” Trump said, as Shanahan sat by his side.

“I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President [Barack] Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results.”

Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of U.S. Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran.

While it is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they’ve left their post, the Mattis criticism is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called “Mad Dog Mattis.”

The drama came after Shanahan sought to lay out his priorities for America’s massive defense department and how he intends to deal with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the U.S. withdrawal from Syria.

Soon after arriving at the Pentagon, Shanahan told colleagues to focus on the National Defense Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights “Great Power competition” with Russia and China.

“In 2019, the National Defense Strategy remains our guide. America’s military strength remains our focus,” Shanahan said in a New Year’s message on Twitter.

China as focus

A defense official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China.

“While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China,” the official said.

The U.S. accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China’s ambitious “Belt and Road” trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion.

Shanahan must oversee the pace at which the U.S. pulls some 2,200 troops out of Syria, following the president’s decision to exit the war-torn country.

Last month, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claimed the jihadists had been beaten “badly,” even though they still number in the thousands.

He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal.

“We’re withdrawing,” Trump said, adding it would happen “over a period of time.”

At another point, Trump told Shanahan he wanted him to classify various reports, presumably including those detailing the security crisis in Afghanistan.

“For these reports to be given out and essentially given out to the enemy, that’s insane,” Trump told Shanahan.

“I don’t want it to happen anymore. Mr. Secretary, you understand that.”

According to U.S. officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 percent drawdown in Afghanistan — another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next.

Largely unknown

Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump.

Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military and before serving as deputy defense secretary he spent more than 30 years at Boeing.

While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling.

Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan’s executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon’s number two position, which focuses more on the Defense Department’s business side.

But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon.

At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan’s foreign policy answers was “almost insulting,” and he expressed concerns that putting a former defense executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox “back in to the henhouse.”

Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, Shanahan’s spokesman, said he had recused himself from any matters involving Boeing.

Also Wednesday, Shanahan announced that the Pentagon’s comptroller, David Norquist, will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defense.

 

 
…

A shutdown of about a quarter of the U.S. government rolled into its 12th day on Wednesday, with lawmakers and President Donald Trump divided over his demand for money for a border wall. 

 

The shutdown, which began Dec. 22, is the 19th to occur since the mid-1970s. Most have been brief. Trump’s latest is the third on the Republican president’s watch and already ranks among the longest ever. 

 

There were several very short shutdowns under Republican President Ronald Reagan. Under Democratic President Bill Clinton, there were two shutdowns, including the longest on record: 21 days in 1996. 

 

A 16-day shutdown happened under Democratic President Barack Obama in 2013 in a fight with Republicans over his health care law. 

 

The current shutdown has not affected three-quarters of the government, including the Department of Defense and the Postal Service, which have secure funding. But 800,000 employees from the departments of Homeland Security and Transportation and other agencies have been furloughed or are working without pay. 

 

Here is what is happening around the federal government: 

 

Smithsonian 

 

The Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington are closed because of the shutdown, according to the Smithsonian website. Among these is the popular National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. “The museum is closed due to the federal government shutdown. Timed entry pass holders will be emailed instructions on how to reschedule their visit,” the museum posted on Instagram.

​Homeland Security 

 

The department that oversees Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service is affected. But most employees are “essential,” so they are working without pay until a funding bill is passed. 

 

Of 245,000 agency employees, nearly 213,000 have been deemed “essential,” according to the department’s contingency plan. 

 

Housing and Urban Development 

 

Most of this department’s 7,500 employees are “non-essential”; only about 340 are working. Nearly 1,000 others may be called in for specific tasks, without pay. 

 

Public housing authorities and Native American tribal housing entities are not part of the federal government and so are not required to shut down. But the federal government provides some of their funding, so they may need to reduce or change operating hours.  

HUD, which oversees some housing loan and low-income housing payment programs, warned in its contingency plan that “a protracted shutdown could see a decline in home sales, reversing the trend toward a strengthening market that we’ve been experiencing.” 

 

Commerce 

 

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau are not publishing economic data, including key figures on gross domestic product, inflation, personal income, spending, trade and new home sales, during the shutdown. 

 

Office of Personnel Management 

 

The agency that oversees the federal workforce has given advice to workers on dealing with landlords, mortgage lenders and other creditors, including sample letters explaining lost income because of the lack of federal funding. 

Federal Communications Commission

The FCC, which regulates radio and television broadcast and cable systems, said it would suspend most operations at midday on Thursday if the shutdown was still in effect. Work for “the protection of life and property” will continue. So will operations at the agency’s Office of Inspector General, the FCC’s internal watchdog. 

 

Coast Guard 

 

Members of the Coast Guard were due to get their final 2018 paychecks on Monday, their last until the government reopens. 

 

FEMA 

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was to resume issuing new flood insurance policies during the shutdown, reversing an earlier decision. 

​Interior

 

The National Park Service, under the umbrella of the Interior Department, is operating with a skeleton staff. Under its contingency plan, some parks may be accessible, with others closed completely. The National Park Service is providing no visitor services such as restrooms, facility and road maintenance, and trash collection. 

 

Transportation

Of its 55,000 employees, 20,400 have been put on leave. This excludes most of the Federal Aviation Administration, where 24,200 are working, and the Federal Highway Administration, where all 2,700 employees are funded through other sources. 

 

Air traffic control, hazardous material safety inspections and accident investigations continue, but some rulemaking, inspections and audits have been paused. 

 

Executive Office of the President 

 

An estimated 1,100 of the office’s 1,800 employees are on leave. This includes most of the Office of Management and Budget, which helps implement budget and policy goals.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress to what the White House is calling a “border security briefing” Wednesday, while a partial government shutdown hits its 12th day.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to attend the session. It is not clear if Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or fellow Democrat and House speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi will be there, or whether the two sides will use the meeting to negotiate plans to reopen the government.

Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives when the new Congress opens Thursday, and Pelosi plans to hold votes on a pair of bills that would fund most of the shuttered agencies through the end of September and the Department of Homeland Security through February 8.

The proposed legislation does not include the $5 billion in funding for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump is demanding in any spending measure he signs. Democrats have previously offered $1.3 billion in funding for other border security measures instead.

​

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement late Tuesday that the Democratic plan is a “non-starter” and “fails to secure the border and puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens.”

Pelosi and Schumer have rejected Trump’s wall plan as “expensive and ineffective” and say Trump has yet to put forth a plan that has a chance to pass in both the House and Senate. 

Ahead of their potential meeting, Trump and Pelosi traded comments Tuesday on Twitter.

“Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?” Trump said.

Pelosi responded that Trump “has given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly to pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown.”

Before the shutdown went into effect, the Senate passed a stopgap funding bill that would have funded the now-closed government operations through February 8 without the wall funding. The House passed its own bill that did have funding for the wall.

Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that lawmakers in the Senate should now support the new Democratic plan after their earlier action, and that if they reject it, then they would be “fully complicit in chaos and destruction” caused by the ongoing shutdown.

About 800,000 government workers have either been told to stay home or continue working without pay until the shutdown is resolved.

Tourists in Washington are seeing new effects of the impasse Wednesday as the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo close until a deal is reached. The National Gallery of Art will be closed starting Thursday.
…

Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate and incoming U.S. senator from Utah, sharply criticized President Donald Trump and suggested the U.S. leader had caused dismay around the world.

In a Washington Post essay published on Tuesday evening, Romney criticized a number of Trump’s actions in December.

“The appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a ‘sucker’ in world affairs all defined his presidency down,” he wrote.

He added that “Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world.”

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

Romney suggested that “on balance, (Trump’s) conduct over the past two years … is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Romney is staking out an independent position two days before he takes office on Thursday. It is unclear whether Trump will face a serious challenge in 2020 to securing the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Trump last February endorsed Romney’s run for a Senate seat in Utah.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Romney excoriated Trump as a “fraud” who was “playing the American public for suckers.” Trump responded that Romney had “choked like a dog” in his unsuccessful 2012 campaign against Democratic President Barack Obama.

Despite Romney’s prior criticism, after Trump won the presidency in November 2016, he briefly considered tapping Romney as secretary of state.

In his essay on Tuesday, Romney said he “will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.”

Romney has strongly defended press freedom and challenged Trump’s repeated attacks on some news outlets as an “enemy of the people.”

“The media is essential to our Republic, to our freedom, to the cause of freedom abroad, and to our national security. It is very much our friend,” Romney wrote in an essay in November.
…

The partial U.S. government shutdown is in its 11th day at the dawn of 2019, with lawmakers and President Donald Trump still at odds over his demand for money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Democrats in the House of Representatives say that when they assume control of the chamber on Thursday, they plan to quickly approve legislation to reopen the quarter of government operations that have been closed since Dec. 22, although passage in the Senate is uncertain.

The Democrats’ spending plan includes no money for Trump’s border wall, which the U.S. leader derided in a New Year’s Day Twitter comment.

Later in the day, Trump invited top congressional leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, to the White House on Wednesday for a briefing on border security. But it was unclear whether that could lead to breaking the stalemate over his wall proposal he contends would thwart illegal immigration.

As the calendar turned to the new year, Trump said in an all-caps tweet that Americans would have a good year, if they weren’t obsessed with opposing him.

The House Democrats’ budget plan would fund most shuttered agencies through the end of September, while approving funding for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8.

In Twitter comments, Trump has continued to push for wall funding, $5 billion as a down payment on the barrier that could cost more than $20 billion, while Democrats have offered to approve $1.3 billion for other border security efforts, but not the wall.

In one tweet Monday, Trump said, “Without the Wall there can be no Border Security.”

House speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a joint statement Monday calling for Republican support for the new funding legislation.

“It would be the height of irresponsibility and political cynicism for Senate Republicans to now reject the same legislation they have already supported,” the statement said.

Trump and Democratic lawmakers have not held any negotiations for days over the dispute.  The ongoing shutdown of a quarter of U.S. government operations means 380,000 government workers are furloughed while another 420,000 are still working, but will not be paid until the funding dispute is resolved.​
…

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan said Tuesday the department “remains focused on safeguarding our nation,” as he officially took over the post left by the resignation of Jim Mattis.

“I now look forward to working with President Trump to carry out his vision alongside strong leaders including the service secretaries, the Joints Chiefs of Staff, the combatant commanders, and senior personnel in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” Shanahan said in a statement.

Unlike Mattis, who came to the Pentagon as a revered former Marine general who served in Afghanistan, Shanahan does not have any military experience. Shanahan came to the Defense Department in 2017 from aviation giant Boeing, where he spent more than 30 years overseeing both civilian and military related programs.

Mattis resigned on December 20 following a White House meeting with Trump during which the two men disagreed over the president’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria, where they have been helping in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.

“Our Department’s leadership, civilian and military, remains in the best possible hands,” Mattis wrote in his official farewell message Monday, his last day on the job.

“I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while protecting our way of life,” he continued. “So keep the faith in our country and hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes.”

While it was not the first time the two men disagreed on policy, for Mattis the Syria decision represented a breaking point.

“You have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects,” Mattis wrote at the time, adding he would stay on until the end of February 2019 to allow time for a successor to be found and so that he could represent the U.S. at a NATO Defense Ministerial meeting.

Mattis also warned the president that the United States “must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,” naming both China and Russia.

And he further warned that the United States could not afford to alienate allies.

“Our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnership.”

Three days later, Trump announced via Twitter that Mattis would be leaving at the end of the year.

According to Pentagon officials, Mattis’ departure, at his own request, would not be marked by any of the fanfare normally seen to pay respect to an outgoing defense secretary.

Instead, the handover of authority from Mattis to Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan was to be carried out through a phone call, alerting all relevant government agencies to the change in command.

Shortly after the Pentagon released Mattis’ farewell message, the Trump took to Twitter Monday.

“I am the only person in America who could say that, “I’m bringing our great troops back home, with victory,” and get BAD press,” he wrote.

Mattis began his last message as secretary of defense by quoting from a telegram U.S. President Abraham Lincoln sent to Gen. Ulysses Grant in 1865, a little more than two months before the end of the U.S. Civil War.

“Let nothing which is transpiring, change, hinder or delay your military movements, or plans,” it read.
…

U.S. leaders remain at an impasse as House Democrats plan to pass legislation Thursday that would fund many of the government agencies currently shut down, but without money for a border wall that President Donald Trump insists is necessary for security.

The legislative effort, which is set to take place when the new Congress goes into session with Democrats holding a majority in the House, has two pieces.  One would fund most shuttered agencies through the end of September, while the other would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) its funding through Feb 8.

As with previous Democratic proposals, the DHS funding would not include money for the wall.

Trump has taken to Twitter several times to express his viewpoint, including fresh posts Monday saying “without the Wall there can be no Border Security.”

“The Democrats will probably submit a Bill, being cute as always, which gives everything away but gives NOTHING to Border Security, namely the Wall,” Trump wrote.

House speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a joint statement Monday calling for Republican support for the legislation.

“It would be the height of irresponsibility and political cynicism for Senate Republicans to now reject the same legislation they have already supported,” the statement said.

Trump wants $5 billion as a down payment on the barrier that could cost more than $20 billion to build, while Democrats have offered to approve $1.3 billion for other border security efforts.

Trump and Democratic lawmakers have not held any negotiations for days over the dispute.  The ongoing shutdown of a quarter of U.S. government operations means 380,000 government workers are furloughed while another 420,000 are still working, but will not be paid until the funding dispute is resolved.
…

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for a presidential bid in the 2020 election. Warren told reporters Monday that she wants to make America a land of opportunity for all its citizens and not just for the wealthy. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the senator from Massachusetts is the first major Democrat to make a formal step toward entering the contest for the party’s presidential nomination.
…