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Before becoming president, Donald Trump railed against US wars overseas, saying it was better to spend money at home than, in his words, “waste” it overseas. But as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, Trump has at times struggled to carry out what he calls his “America First” approach to the world during his first year as president.
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With the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide at an all-time high, press freedom groups are drawing a direct line between President Donald Trump’s verbal slugfest with some of America’s most venerable news institutions and the adoption of his “fake news” mantra by autocrats and dictators around the world.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented attack on both the institution of journalism and the media, as well as very personal attacks on individual journalists and individual media outlets,” says Courtney Radsch, advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists.  “And what this does is it creates an environment in which journalists operate less safely.”

 

The CPJ’s 2017 press freedom survey shows 262 journalists are behind bars worldwide, slightly higher than the number a year ago.  More than half the total are in Turkey, China, and Egypt.

 

“We saw the term ‘fake news’ being used in the Philippines, in Russia, in China, in Egypt to justify their own oppression of the media in attempts to delegitimize journalists” Radsch told VOA.  “We’ve also seen China saying, ‘Hey the U.S. is finally waking up to what we’ve been saying the whole time about the media being problematic,’ and that’s not what we want to see around the world.”

 

An opinion piece in China’s Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper this month said, “If the president of the United States calls leading media outlets a stain on America, then negative news about China and other countries should be taken with a grain of salt, since it is likely that bias and political agendas are distorting the real picture.”

 

British scholar Hisham Hellyer, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, says fallout from Trump’s “fake news” charges is serious and should not be underestimated.

 

“When Trump uses his own freedom of expression to denigrate the media’s ability to report the facts, and often puts forward his own ‘fake news’, it has the effect of empowering others who would like to do the same,” Hellyer said.

Trump has hammered at the “fake news” theme in hundreds of Twitter posts, public comments and speeches, singling out media powerhouses like CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times for special criticism.

 

He once called CNN, “the enemy of the people.”

The president’s tactics have fueled a polarizing national debate about what Trump defenders call persistent media bias, and critics describe as hard-nosed reporting.

Studies show coverage of Trump has tilted heavily negative.  An analysis by the nonprofit Pew Research Center showed reporting about the first months of the Trump presidency was 62 percent negative and 5 percent positive.

Coverage for the same period of President Barack Obama’s presidency was 42 percent positive and 20 percent negative, according to Pew.  The leader of the Pew Journalism Project cautioned the result is not evidence of media bias.

Trump’s critics see nothing exceptional in those figures given the volume of missteps and misstatements coming from the White House, but the president and his supporters cite them as evidence of the media’s malign intent.

Stung by Trump’s criticisms and polls showing low public trust in the media, CNN and the big newspapers have fought back with ad campaigns and fresh slogans emphasizing their accuracy and objectivity.

 

But a series of recent high-profile reporting blunders in stories about the White House has damaged the media’s reputation for trustworthiness, and given Trump fresh ammunition.

Earlier this month, CNN erroneously reported that the Trump campaign had been offered the contents of hacked emails from the campaign of his Democratic Party competitor, Hillary Clinton, before they were released by Wikileaks last year. The Washington Post later reported accurately that the offer came days after Wikileaks published the emails.

Now, some of the world’s worst violators of media freedom are using Trump’s “fake news” refrain to justify press restrictions.

 

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, asked about an Amnesty International report on systematic killings in Syrian prison, replied, “We’re living in a fake news era, as you know.  Everybody knows it.”

 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro complained international media are spreading lies about him, saying, “This is what we call fake news, isn’t it?”

Cambodia’s Hun Sen, who regularly quotes Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric, has ordered more than a dozen radio stations to close or stop broadcasting programming from the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, and shut down a leading independent newspaper.

Libyan media used the term in trying to discredit a CNN report on slavery among migrants, and Russia’s foreign ministry has begun posting stories it considers false on its website covered by the words “FAKE NEWS” in big red letters.

China’s top cyber security official cited “fake news” about a report ranking China last in the world in internet freedom.  

Trump has welcomed several known foes of free media to the White House.  He hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend, despite that country’s reputation as the world’s leading jailer of journalists.

 

With Trump at his side during a recent ASEAN summit, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte called reporters “spies.”

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak have raised the issue of “fake news.”

 

“It’s hard enough to be a journalist in dictatorships like Cambodia when the United States is setting a good example,” Tom Malinowski, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Labor, told VOA.

 

“Now every dictator who wants to ban media he doesn’t like can say, ‘Trump does it so why can’t I?'” said Malinowski, who served under President Obama.
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As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump promised a radically different approach to foreign intervention than that of his predecessors.

At campaign events, Trump railed against U.S. military intervention so frequently that it eventually became a part of his stump speech.

“We’ve spent $6 trillion in the Middle East,” Trump repeatedly lamented. “We could have rebuilt our country twice.”

In his first year as president, Pentagon data suggests Trump has struggled to carry out his “America First” approach to the world, at least when it comes to the use of force.

Instead, Trump has sent more U.S. troops to conflict zones in the Middle East and South Asia. He’s dropped more bombs on Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. And he’s expanded a global campaign of targeted drone killings.

Add it all up, and it’s hard to see how Trump’s foreign policy is any less interventionist than his predecessors. If anything, Trump’s policies are a little more hawkish than those of Barack Obama, says Christopher Preble, with the CATO Institute.

“He’s largely continued what he’s inherited, with some additional increment of the use of force,” says Preble.

Doubling down in Afghanistan

Perhaps no conflict exemplifies Trump’s approach more than Afghanistan, where the U.S. has been fighting Taliban insurgents for 16 years.

Before becoming president, Trump was a regular critic of the war, calling it a waste of lives and money and demanding an immediate withdrawal.

But six months into his presidency, Trump reversed his position, instead deciding to indefinitely extend the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.

Under Trump’s plan, 3,000 more U.S. troops will be sent to Afghanistan, backed by an expanded U.S.-led bombing campaign.

According to U.S. military figures, the NATO coalition is on pace to triple the number of bombs dropped on Afghanistan in 2017 compared to the previous year.

The bombing could continue to expand in 2018, in part because of the relaxed rules of engagement that allow the U.S. military to go after insurgent targets.

More bombs, more troops

It’s part of a larger pattern of a bigger Pentagon footprint across the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa.

Since Trump took office, there has been a 31 percent increase in the number of U.S. troops and civilians working for the Pentagon in the Middle East and North Africa, according to Pentagon data.

That includes increases not only in well-known conflict areas, such as Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, but also in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.

The U.S. military also recently acknowledged it has about 2,000 troops in Syria – four times as many as Pentagon officials previously said. According to a recent report, the U.S. forces will stay in Syria indefinitely.

Under Trump, the U.S. is also dropping more bombs.

The international coalition fighting the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria is on pace to drop 30 percent more bombs in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to official figures, though that campaign appears to be winding down as the Islamist group is forced out of its so-called caliphate.

Drone war expanded

Drone strikes have also continued in non-battlefield settings, including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya – a continuation of President Barack Obama’s global campaign of targeted killings.

“If Obama expanded the U.S. drone program, Trump has expanded it even more, both in terms of geography and frequency,” says Rachel Stohl, who specializes in drones at the Stimson Center, a research group.

In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes have tripled, and in Somalia they have doubled this year compared to last, according to Jessica Purkiss with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks U.S. drone and other airstrikes.

“The uptick in strikes in these countries is largely because parts of both these countries were declared areas of active hostilities, which effectively means the U.S. can launch strikes with fewer constraints,” Purkiss says.

The U.S. military could also soon conduct drone strikes in Niger, after the African country last month granted the U.S. permission to conduct armed drone flights.

Not surprising?

Trump’s hawkish tendencies aren’t surprising to some analysts, such as the CATO Institute’s Preble. “The totality of Donald Trump’s statements as a candidate, and even before, did tend to be fairly hawkish,” he says.

As a candidate, Trump did, after all, vow to “bomb the s**t” out of Islamic State. He also consistently threatened to “take the oil” as compensation for U.S. military intervention in countries such as Iraq and Libya. And he pledged to make the U.S. military more powerful than ever.

“That’s not exactly an argument for not fighting wars that he didn’t like,” concedes Preble.

Trump isn’t the only president who has struggled to fulfill his campaign promises on foreign policy. President Obama, for instance, campaigned on bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq. And he did, before eventually sending them back to fight Islamic State.

It’s perhaps a reminder that presidential candidates promise a lot when it comes to foreign policy. But they can’t always deliver.

 
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Doug Jones was a little speechless at first. Then he thanked the various voters who elected him the first Democratic senator from Alabama in 25 years.

“I have always believed that the people of Alabama have more in common than to divide us.” His stunning victory was a fallout from a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that shook the country in late 2017.

His Republican opponent, Roy Moore, campaigned while denying at least nine allegations of sexual misconduct, some involving women when they were teenagers. Accuser Beverly Young says she was terrified at the time.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” she said.

Despite an endorsement from President Donald Trump, and Moore’s insistence that the “allegations are completely false … malicious,” Moore lost.

​Opening the floodgates

By the end of 2017, more than 60 prominent men were suspended, fired or forced to resign from their highly visible jobs because of allegations of sexual harassment and even assault against women, some occurring years ago. More than 100 stand accused of sexual harassment or misconduct. The trend began in October when movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, was exposed as an alleged serial predator of young actresses who wanted to be stars.

Louisette Geiss says her heart raced as he told her “he could get me a three-picture deal, but that I had to watch him masturbate.” By December, more than 80 women had accused Weinstein of sexual harassment.

He admitted, “I got to get help, guys,” as he left for an Arizona rehabilitation facility. He stayed for a week. His business, the Weinstein Company, co-founded with his brother, is in jeopardy, plagued by lawsuits from women who claim the company knew about and hid his harassment.

WATCH: Dozens Shamed in Sexual Harassment Charges in 2017

The Weinstein effect

The public accusations against Harvey Weinstein emboldened other women to tell their stories. Suddenly, other high-profile men began to fall in what would be known as the “Weinstein Effect.”

Melissa Silverstein writes the blog “Women and Hollywood.” She says the outpouring of accusations proves that women are “reacting that our rights are being rolled back and we are tired of it.”

The “Weinstein Effect” hit others in Hollywood, including House of Cards star Kevin Spacey, accused of sexual harassment of a teenaged boy. Netflix suspended its filming of the show’s last season, then announced it would resume without Spacey as the main character.

In other media, NBC fired its Today show host of 20 years, Matt Lauer, after accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior on the job. CBS suspended its morning anchor, Charlie Rose, for similar allegations.

Comedian Louis C.K. is accused by five women of sexual misconduct for actions including stripping and masturbating in front of them. Louisiana Celebrity Chef John Besh, who’s known for the country’s southern food trend, stepped down after several dozen women claimed harassment and that his restaurant atmosphere allowed it to thrive.

In music, Russell Simmons, co-founder of the hip-hop music label Def Jam Recordings, and James Levine, the conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, face sexual assault allegations.

​More political fallout

Moore was not the only politician accused of improper behavior. A radio news anchor accused U.S. Senator Al Franken of groping her while she slept on a military plane headed home from a USO tour. Leeann Tweeden posted the photo as part of an essay she wrote about the 2006 incident. Tweeden also accused Franken of forcibly kissing her. 

“He just smashed his lips against my face,” she said in the news conference, “and he stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast.”

More complaints would come forward, and Franken announced in December he would step down: “I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.” Franken’s last day in office will be Jan. 2.

In late December, a group of Democratic senators used Franken’s resignation as a reason to demand President Donald Trump resign. They cited at least 15 women who have accused the president of improper conduct. Trump was elected U.S. president more than a year ago, despite the public accusations.

​#MeToo rally, Time award

The shift in attitudes against sexual harassment triggered a social media campaign. #MeToo became the rallying cry for women worldwide. Women posted the hashtag on Twitter and Facebook to acknowledge publicly their experiences and to demonstrate the extent of the problem.

Time magazine named “The Silence Breakers” as its “Person of the Year” for 2017. The issue is dedicated to those who have accused powerful figures of sexual misconduct, calling them the “voices that launched a movement.”

A Time magazine survey shows that 82 percent think women are more likely to speak out about harassment since the Weinstein allegations.

By the end of 2017, the movement changed the nation’s mores, as men and women better understood the definition of sexual harassment and no longer ignored it.
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Widespread allegations of sexual harassment rocked many American institutions in 2017, including Congress, the media and the film industry. By the end of the year, numerous prominent men were suspended, fired or forced to resign from their highly visible jobs because of allegations of sexual harassment and even assault against women that happened in many cases years ago. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti explains the change in social attitudes.
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With control of the White House and Congress, Republicans expected a historic opportunity to carry out an ambitious legislative agenda in 2017. But the party’s narrow margins in the Senate slowed progress on a range of priorities. VOA’s congressional reporter Katherine Gypson looks back on a consequential, and often unexpected, year for the U.S. Congress.
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Two recent incidents have bolstered the Trump administration’s stance against the United States’ family-based immigration system, which the president says threatens national security.

Tyler Houlton, acting press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement Saturday that his agency could “confirm the suspect involved in a terror attack in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and another suspect arrested on terror-related money-laundering charges were both beneficiaries of extended family chain migration.”

He said both cases “highlight the Trump administration’s concerns with extended family chain migration.”

Pennsylvania case

On Friday, a gunman in Harrisburg, who was an immigrant from Egypt, fired at police and state troopers in several locations before they shot and killed him.

Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty shot one state trooper, but officials say she is expected to make a full recovery.

A relative of El-Mofty said the family is perplexed by his actions. Ahmed Soweilam told the media that his sister had been married to El-Mofty, but they separated six years ago. He said his brother-in-law had worked as a security guard and had moved back to Egypt, but returned to the U.S. a few months ago.

“He’s not the perfect guy, but he’s not an aggressive person,” Soweilam said.

“The long chain of migration” that led to El-Mofty’s “admission into the United States was initiated years ago by a distant relative of the suspect,” said Homeland Security’s Houlton.

Pakistani woman charged

In a separate incident, a Pakistani woman who entered the U.S. through the family-based immigration system has been accused of laundering bitcoin and wiring money to Islamic State jihadists. Zoobia Shahnaz’s lawyer says her client was trying to help Syrian refugees.

Houlton said family-based migration has “been exploited by terrorists to attack our country.” He said the family-based system makes it “more difficult to keep dangerous people out of the United States and to protect the safety of every American.” He said a merit-based immigration system is “used by nearly all other countries.”

​Merit-based immigration

Proponents of merit-based immigration say the current system lowers wages and discourages assimilation.

Supporters say a merit-based system also would help lower immigration rates and ensure that the immigrants who do come are highly skilled and less likely to need public assistance.

Earlier this year, President Trump said, “For decades, the United States was operated and has operated a very low-skill immigration system, issuing record numbers of green cards to low-wage immigrants.”

“This (family-based) policy has placed substantial pressure on American workers, taxpayers and community resources,” Trump added.

Critics of merit-based system

But critics say the American economy also needs low-skilled workers and a merit-based system would hurt industries that rely on them.

A merit-based system would also cost the government more because the government would have to review the applications and pay resettlement costs that are currently covered by sponsoring families.

Critics also see the merit-based system as un-American.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has said the merit-based system “abandons the fundamental respect for family, at the heart of our faith, at the heart of who we are as Americans.” 
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The year has been a tough one for Puerto Ricans, Floridians, Texans and Californians, and recovery efforts continue for those three areas hit by hurricanes and one, California, struggling to contain wildfires. In a year of disasters, even the Federal Emergency Management Agency is struggling to cope.

At a hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee November 30, FEMA head Brock Long asked lawmakers for supplemental funding to handle its operations after a year studded with natural disasters.

Long told lawmakers that Hurricanes Harvey, which hit Texas, Irma, which targeted Florida, and Maria, which walloped the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, added to the ongoing California fires “have compelled FEMA to push its limits.”

Long noted that about 25.8 million people were affected by the three hurricanes, which took place in rapid succession in August and September. He said that as of November 13, more than 4½ million storm survivors had registered for FEMA assistance. He asked for $23.5 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund for fiscal 2018 to help with continuing recovery efforts. He said the agency is “committed to the long-term recovery of all impacted individuals as well as conducting this recovery in a fiscally responsible and prudent manner.”

​Puerto Rico response criticized

But FEMA has been criticized for its response to the crisis in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean islands that took a double hit from Irma and Maria within the space of a month. Three months after the second storm, only 65 percent of Puerto Rico has its power restored, thanks to an aging infrastructure and bungled reconstruction deals. The Army Corps of Engineers now estimates that power may not be fully restored to all communities until May.

Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia reported that protests broke out in the municipalities of Aguas Buenas and Trujillo Alto Thursday, among frustrated residents who want the lights back on.

Vox News, citing statistics by the research firm Rhodium Group, reports that Puerto Rico is now the site of the longest blackout in U.S. history in terms of lost customer-hours of service.

FEMA has reported that more than 450 people are still living in shelters in Puerto Rico, and it is still distributing tarps, food and water to some communities. More troubling, Florida officials say more than 269,000 people have arrived in Florida from Puerto Rico since the storm, and some 10,000 Puerto Rican children have enrolled in Florida schools.

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at City University of New York says the exodus is likely not over. It estimates that 470,335 Puerto Ricans will leave the island by the end of 2019, driven out by poor services and slow recovery. Experts fear that many of the displaced may not return to the island; as full U.S. citizens, they are legally able to move anywhere within the United States.

Virgin Islands overshadowed

In the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands, often overshadowed by its more populous neighbor, conditions are similar. The San Juan Daily Star reports about half of electrical customers remain without power, and about one quarter of the tourism-reliant island still lacks mobile phone service.

FEMA reported Thursday that more than $870 million in federal funds have been provided to survivors of Irma and Maria in U.S. territories, including grants, low-interest loans, and flood insurance claims.

But the tough times may get tougher before they ease: FEMA’s voucher program for displaced storm victims expires January 15.

Death toll

One more major point on which U.S. officials have been criticized is the storm-related death toll in Puerto Rico. The official total was placed at 64, but both Vox news and the New York Times published analyses in the past week comparing historic death rates from September and October with the death tolls from this year. They both found more than 1,000 more deaths occurred this year than in previous years, and both publications attributed the higher tolls to the stresses of storm recovery.
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A federal judge in Seattle on Saturday partly lifted a Trump administration ban on certain refugees after two groups argued that the policy prevented people from some mostly Muslim countries from reuniting with family living legally in the United States.

U.S. District Judge James Robart heard arguments Thursday in lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, which said the ban was causing irreparable harm and put some people at risk. Government lawyers argued that the ban was needed to protect national security.

Robart ordered the federal government to process certain refugee applications but said his directive did not apply to people without a “bona fide relationship” to a person or entity in the United States.

President Donald Trump restarted the refugee program in October “with enhanced vetting capabilities.”

Agency chiefs’ memo

The day before his executive order, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats sent a memo to Trump saying certain refugees had to be banned unless additional security measures were implemented.

It applied to the spouses and minor children of refugees who had already settled in the U.S. and suspended the refugee program for people coming from 11 countries, nine of which are mostly Muslim. 

In his decision, Robart wrote that “former officials detailed concretely how the agency memo will harm the United States’ national security and foreign policy interests.”

Robart said his order restored refugee procedures in programs to what they were before the memo and noted that this already included very thorough vetting of individuals.

The ACLU argued the memo provided no evidence for why additional security was needed and didn’t specify a time frame for implementing the changes. The groups said the process for imposing the policy violated a federal law.

August Flentje, a Justice Department attorney, told the judge that the ban was temporary and “was a reasonable and appropriate way for agency heads to tackle gaps” in the screening process.

Lawsuits consolidated

The lawsuits from the two groups were consolidated; they represent refugees who have been blocked from entering the country.

The ACLU represents a Somali man living in Washington state who is trying to bring his family to the U.S. They have gone through extensive vetting, have passed security and medical clearances, and just need travel papers, but those were denied after the ban.

Lisa Nowlin, staff attorney for the ACLU of Washington, said in a statement they were happy that their client, “who has not yet had the opportunity to celebrate a single birthday with his younger son in person, will soon have the opportunity to hold his children, hug his wife in the very near future, and be together again as a family for the first time in four years.” 

Two other refugees included in the Jewish Family Service lawsuit are former Iraqi interpreters for the U.S. Army whose lives are at risk because of their service.

Another is a transgender woman in Egypt “living in such extremely dangerous circumstances that the U.S. government itself had expedited her case until the ban came down,” said Mariko Hirose, a lawyer with the Jewish Family Service case.

Yet another is a single woman in Iraq, Hirose said. Her husband divorced her after she was kidnapped and raped by militants because she worked with an American company. Her family is in the U.S. but she’s stranded by the ban, Hirose said.
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FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the focus of criticism over the past year from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, plans to retire in 2018, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

McCabe, 49, is the No. 2 official in the FBI and had been acting director after Trump fired the former director, James Comey, in May. According to the Post, McCabe plans to retire once he becomes eligible for a full pension in March.

Shortly after the newspaper report was published, Trump retweeted his earlier contention that McCabe’s wife, Jill, who ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia Senate in 2015, had been given nearly $700,000 by allies of Hillary Clinton at a time when Andrew McCabe was involved in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

The FBI has said McCabe did not start overseeing the Clinton investigation until his wife’s state Senate campaign was over. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the two major donations that Jill McCabe received, totaling nearly $700,000, came from a political action committee of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and Clinton friend, and from the Virginia Democratic Party.

Trump, who is spending the holidays at his Florida resort, said in a second tweet Saturday, “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!” 

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment.

Under pressure

McCabe has come under fire from Republicans over the past year because of the bureau’s investigation into the Clinton email issue as well as the probe into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. intelligence community released a report that stated Russia had meddled in the 2016 election, showing a preference for Trump over Clinton, his opponent. Russia denies meddling in the election, and Trump has denied any collusion.

Shortly after Comey’s firing, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel of an investigation into whether any members of Trump’s campaign conspired with Russian agents during the campaign. 

McCabe faced questions about that probe as well as the email issue when he testified earlier this week before three congressional committees.

“Andy’s in a difficult position now … because of the hyperpartisan political environment,” John Pistole, who held the FBI’s No. 2 job for six years under Mueller, told the Post. He said McCabe was “weathering the storm.”

Republicans have said they want answers to why Comey publicly discussed the Clinton investigation and then announced that the bureau would not seek to bring charges. Critics say the Republicans’ focus on Clinton is merely a tactic to distract from Mueller’s investigation.
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The United States on Friday backed the re-election of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez despite widespread misgivings about the vote count, prompting the opposition candidate to bow out of the race.

The Honduran electoral tribunal declared Hernandez the winner of the Nov. 26 election last weekend amid strident opposition protests over the vote count in the impoverished Central American country, which is a major hub for drug trafficking.

The vote tally had initially clearly favored opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla, a center-leftist, but it swung in favor of the incumbent after a 36-hour delay.

Nasralla contested the vote count, but after the United States backed Hernandez, he declared his bid for the presidency a “lost cause.”

“The situation is practically decided,” he said in an interview with TV network France 24. “I no longer have anything to do in politics, but the people, which are 80 percent in my favor, will continue the fight.”

The United States followed Mexico and other Latin American countries in supporting Hernandez, who has been a reliable U.S. ally.

The U.S. State Department congratulated Hernandez and said Honduras should pursue a “long-term effort to heal the political divide in the country and enact much-needed electoral reforms,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Protest, calls for new vote

The Honduras election tribunal’s declaration in Hernandez’s favor last week sparked violent protests in Honduras, and the Organization of American States (OAS) called for new elections to resolve the dispute, a proposal that was rejected by the Honduran government.

Although he has proclaimed an end to his political career, Nasralla still maintains that he is the rightful winner of the election.

“The Organization of American States has made clear that there was a monumental fraud,” he said.

Nasralla had been backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist who was ousted in a 2009 coup after he proposed a referendum on his re-election, which was barred by the constitution at the time.

“He is no longer with the Alliance,” Zelaya said of Nasralla on Friday.

Streets calm

The streets of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa and other major cities were largely calm Friday with a few protests cleared by the armed forces. By midweek some 27 people had died in clashes, according to local human rights group COFADEH.

The State Department called for all sides to refrain from violence, for those who wish to challenge the result to use legal means, and for the government to ensure that security services respect the rights of peaceful protesters.

It also called for the electoral tribunal “to transparently and fully review any challenges filed by political parties.”

Hernandez has led a military crackdown against gangs in the Central American country, and Honduras’ notoriously high murder rate has slid since he took power in 2014.

Strategic concerns

Nasralla, a television host, traveled to Washington this week to urge the United States not to recognize the vote, but a senior State Department official said Wednesday the government had not seen any evidence that would alter the vote’s outcome.

Nasralla said the U.S. decision reflected Washington’s strategic concerns over a leftist government in Honduras.

“They’re afraid of losing Honduras,” he told local television.
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An immigrant teen who was denied an abortion by a U.S. government official, even though her pregnancy was caused by rape, had threatened to harm herself if she was forced to have the child, according to a government memo released Friday.

The memo is addressed to Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which shelters thousands of unaccompanied immigrant minors who are in the U.S. without legal permission. The American Civil Liberties Union posted the memo as part of its lawsuit over abortion access for immigrant minors in custody.

The document describes how the teen was raped in her home country and believed she had become pregnant as a result. According to the memo, written by the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s deputy director, she told a doctor during her first prenatal visit that she wanted an abortion. The teen “disclosed to the medical doctor that she preferred to harm herself rather than to continue with her pregnancy.”

In later visits, the teen reported the pressure her mother and a potential sponsor were putting on her to maintain the pregnancy. At one point, she reported facing “physical harm” if she had an abortion.

“She felt pressured by her mother and potential sponsor to continue the pregnancy, but she wants to terminate the pregnancy,” the memo said.

‘Disapproved’

While the recommendation of the deputy director is blacked out, Lloyd circled the word “disapproved” at the bottom of the memo and signed it.

The teen and another minor eventually received access to abortions after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled in their favor this week.

In a letter about the case that was disclosed in court filings Thursday, Lloyd argued he saw no obligation under the law or the U.S. Constitution to allow abortions for people in his office’s custody, even though government policy restricting abortion broadly has an exemption for women who were victims of rape.

He also said an abortion would not “cure the reality” of the woman’s rape. Both abortion and rape are forms of violence, he said in his letter.

“Implicit here are the dubious notions that it is possible to cure violence with further violence,” he said.

The ACLU accused Lloyd of implementing a “cruel and heartless policy,” and pledged to continue fighting it.
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U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that Congress would address immigration early next year, including a program that gives immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children the opportunity to become citizens. 

Democrats demanded, but were denied, a vote this week on a measure that would allow an estimated 1.2 million immigrants to remain legally in the U.S.

McConnell, of Kentucky, told reporters on Capitol Hill, “We have a commitment on a bipartisan basis to address the DACA issue. We’ll devote full time to that in January.”

DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, was instituted by former President Barack Obama, and it protected nearly 800,000 immigrants from deportation, allowing them to legally live and work in the United States.

Trump rescinded the program in September and has given Congress until March 5 to agree on legislation that would provide equivalent protections to those offered under DACA. 

“They embody the best in our nation: patriotism, hard work, perseverance,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Thursday of DACA beneficiaries. “We should not leave them to celebrate the holidays in fear.”

​Other changes

McConnell said a working group that includes Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois also must “do other things” to “improve the legal immigration system,” particularly with respect to what some call chain migration — a community- or extended-family-based process by which immigrants from a particular area follow others from that area to specific U.S. cities or neighborhoods.

Additionally, Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump are pushing for more border security.

Democratic lawmakers who support the protection of DACA beneficiaries enjoy broad public support. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found that 62 percent of those surveyed said Congress should approve protections for DACA immigrants, while 19 percent said Congress should allow DACA to lapse.
…

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday said a shifting landscape will lead him to work with Democrats on immigration and financial regulation early in the new year, following a year of acrimony and partisan legislation.

In an end-of-year news conference, McConnell touted a list of Republican accomplishments since President Donald Trump took office in January. It started with the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and ended with an overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

But in January, McConnell’s already razor-thin 52-48 Republican majority will shrink to 51-49 with the swearing in of Senator-elect Doug Jones, the Democrat who surprised the political world with a win in a special election in the deeply Republican state of Alabama.

Adding to McConnell’s difficulties, special Senate procedures are fading that allowed him to pass a tax bill and try to repeal the Affordable Care Act this year without any Democratic support.

That means that McConnell’s victories — if he has them — will require more collaboration and less confrontation. The pivot was the centerpiece of his news conference remarks.

“There are areas where I think we can get bipartisan agreement,” McConnell said. First on his list was legislation to change Dodd-Frank banking regulations that he said would help smaller financial institutions.

The Kentucky senator noted that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo has advanced legislation that is co-sponsored by several Democrats.

McConnell also pointed to bipartisan efforts to help undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who were brought into the United States when they were children.

If negotiators from both parties can come to a deal for the Dreamers that Trump’s administration can support, “we’ll spend floor time on that in January,” McConnell said.

On Thursday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer complained that throughout 2017 Republicans “have been hell-bent on pursuing a partisan agenda.”

When asked by a reporter of possible bipartisan successes in 2018, Schumer pointed to the need for infrastructure improvements but said that Trump has been “all over the lot” on how to accomplish road, airport and other construction projects.

With the November 2018 congressional elections approaching, Democrats might have less incentive to cooperate with Republicans, especially after Schumer’s party won decisive victories in special elections this month and last in Alabama and Virginia.

McConnell hinted it would be tougher to find agreement with Democrats on some other legislative issues, including welfare reform, which Trump says he wants to push ahead with in 2018.

McConnell said he would consult with Trump and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan in January over prospects for welfare reform.
…

In a remarkably strong show of consumer demand, nearly 9 million people signed up for “Obamacare” next year, as government numbers out Thursday proved predictions of its collapse wrong yet again.

 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said more than 8.8 million people have signed up in the 39 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website.

 

That compares to 9.2 million last year in the same states – or 96 percent of the previous total.

 

The level exceeds what experts thought was possible after another year of political battles over the Affordable Care Act, not to mention market problems like rising premiums and insurer exits. On top of that, the Trump administration cut enrollment season in half, slashed the ad budget, terminated major payments to insurers, and scaled back grants for consumer counselors.

 

“This level of enrollment is truly remarkable, especially given the headwinds faced by the program,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

 

President Donald Trump insistently predicted “Obamacare” would implode as he pursued unsuccessful efforts to repeal it in Congress. This week he incorrectly declared the GOP tax bill had essentially repealed it.

 

Despite all that, more than 1 million new customers signed up last week, ahead of a December 15 deadline for HealthCare.gov. That’s a sign of solid interest in the program, which offers subsidized private health insurance to people who don’t have access to job-based coverage.

 

It’s possible that final HealthCare.gov numbers could end up somewhat higher than reported Thursday, partly because late sign-ups in the Midwest and the West have yet to be added in.

 

The nationwide enrollment total won’t be known for weeks, since some states running their own health insurance markets – or exchanges – continue signing up customers through January.

 

Total national enrollment could wind up near last year’s final number of 12.2 million.

 

“We know anecdotally that many state exchanges are running ahead of last year, (and) we could actually make up the national enrollment deficit with higher state-run exchange enrollment,” said Chris Sloan of the consulting firm Avalere Health.

 

Among the HealthCare.gov states, Florida led in enrollments, with 1.7 million people so far. Texas was next, with 1.1 million. Sign-ups for those states could rise, since a deadline extension is available for people in hurricane-affected areas.

 

In Austin, Texas, a nonprofit group that helps low-income working people surpassed its enrollments for last year, and then some. Foundation Communities signed up 5,323 people this year, or about 20 percent more than last year.

 

‘Obamacare is working’

Health insurance program director Elizabeth Colvin credited squads of volunteers who helped steer consumers through a sign-up process that includes having to estimate their income for next year and other challenges.

 

“The number that came out today proves that Obamacare is working,” said Colvin.

 

Lori Lodes, a former Obama administration official who once helped direct the enrollment campaign, said it’s likely that last week saw the biggest number of sign-ups in the program’s history.

 

That’s certain to lead to more criticism of the Trump administration for shortening open enrollment and other actions that Democrats call “sabotage.”

 

“The American people surged to defend this historic law from the cruelty of Trumpcare, and they enrolled at a record pace in quality, affordable health coverage on HealthCare.gov,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

 

However, the administration also took other less noticed steps to facilitate enrollment, such as creating an easier path for insurers and brokers to sign up customers.

 

The strong numbers for HealthCare.gov came a day after Trump proclaimed that the GOP tax bill “essentially repealed Obamacare.”

 

But the tax overhaul only repealed the health law’s fines on people who don’t carry health insurance, starting in 2019. Other major elements of former president Barack Obama’s law remain in place, including its Medicaid expansion tailored to low-income adults, protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions, subsidies to help consumers pay their premiums, and requirements that insurers cover “essential” health benefits.

 

First word of the enrollment numbers came via Twitter from Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

 

She struck an upbeat tone:

 

“We take pride in providing great customer service,” she wrote, congratulating her agency on “the smoothest experience for consumers to date.”

 

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, indicated he’s skeptical at best about revisiting botched efforts to dismantle the health care law.

 

Bipartisan legislation to shore up insurance markets is pending before the Senate, but its fate is also uncertain.

 
…

A group of U.S. senators and a collection of more than 300 U.S. public health groups have sent letters to top U.S. public health officials asking for clarification on a controversy over “banned words” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Washington Post reported Thursday the letters to the Department of Health and Human Services asked that the agency lift any restrictions on the way HHS employees communicate in public documents.

“Words matter,” the letter reads.

Thursday’s letters follow a report last week that budget writers at the CDC were given a list of “words to avoid” in budget requests, including “diversity,” “entitlement” and “vulnerable.” 

At a CDC budget meeting last week, employees also were told to avoid the terms “fetus,” “transgender,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”  

Public outcry followed swiftly. On Saturday, a spokesman for Health and Human Services, Matt Lloyd, told the Post that agency officials did create a list of words to avoid but did not ban any words outright. 

In an email, Lloyd told the Post that employees “misconstrued guidelines provided during routine discussions on the annual budget process.” He added, “It was clearly stated to those involved in the discussions that the science should always drive the narrative.”

Representative Tom Cole, who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the HHS budget, told the Post he interpreted the agency’s guidelines as “more silly than sinister,” adding it was likely devised by bureaucrats who felt budget requests would be more successful if they included language choices with which the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress would agree.

Critics cite similarities with language guidances at other agencies, however, specifically at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the term “climate change” is seen as having fallen out of favor. The EPA has eliminated references to climate change on its website and prohibited its scientists from presenting scientific reports on the topic.
…

The Republican-led Congress narrowly passed a temporary spending bill to avert a government shutdown Thursday, doing the bare minimum in a sprint toward the holidays and punting disputes on immigration, health care and the budget to next year.

The measure passed the House on a 231-188 vote over Democratic opposition and then cleared the Senate, 66-32, with Democrats from Republican-leaning states providing just enough votes. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure.

The stopgap legislation would keep the government from closing down at midnight Friday. It has traversed a tortured path, encountering resistance from the GOP’s most ardent allies of the military, as well as opposition from Democrats who demanded but were denied a vote on giving immigrants brought to the country as children and in the country illegally an opportunity to become citizens.

The wrap-up measure allows Republicans controlling Washington to savor their win on this week’s $1.5 trillion tax package — even as they kick a full lineup of leftover work into the new year. Congress will return in January facing enormous challenges on immigration, the federal budget, health care and national security along with legislation to increase the government’s authority to borrow money.

Each of those items is sure to test the unity that Republicans are enjoying now.

“Now it gets down to some very difficult decisions on how we move forward in the first and second quarter of next year,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a leader of a powerful faction of hard-right Republicans. “There is a lot to do next month. I’m not worried today. I’ll wait until January to be worried, OK?”

Democrats had initially pressed for adding their priorities to the measure, but once rebuffed on immigration they worked to keep the bill mostly free of add-ons, figuring that they’ll hold greater leverage next month.

Among the items left behind was $81 billion worth of disaster aid, which passed the House on a bipartisan 251-169 tally but stalled in the Senate. The measure would have brought this year’s tally for aid to hurricane victims in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean, as well as fire-ravaged California, to more than $130 billion. But both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate want changes, and it was among the items Democrats sought to hold onto for leverage next year.

“Democrats want to make sure that we have equal bargaining, and we’re not going to allow things like disaster relief go forward without discussing some of the other issues we care about,” said powerful Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Immigration is among the most difficult issues confronting lawmakers in January.

President Donald Trump rescinded a Barack Obama order giving these so-called Dreamers protection against deportation, kicking the issue to Congress with a March deadline.

“They embody the best in our nation: patriotism, hard work, perseverance,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California told the chamber’s Rules Committee on Thursday. “We should not leave them to celebrate the holidays in fear.”

Trump and Republicans are pushing for additional border security and other immigration steps in exchange.

“The vast majority of Republicans want to see a DACA solution. They just want to see a DACA solution that’s balanced,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., referring to the program’s name, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

Also left unfinished were bipartisan efforts to smash budget limits that are imposing a freeze on the Pentagon and domestic agencies, a long-term extension of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program for 9 million low-income kids and Senate legislation aimed at stabilizing health insurance markets.

Instead, lawmakers struggled to achieve the must-do: a $2.1 billion fix for an expiring program that pays for veterans to seek care outside the Department of Veterans Affairs system; a temporary fix to ensure states facing shortfalls from the Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t have to purge children from the program; and a short-term extension for an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists.

Trump weighed in on Twitter on Thursday morning to offer a boost — and a slap at Democrats.

“House Democrats want a SHUTDOWN for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, Tax Cuts. House Republicans, don’t let this happen. Pass the C.R. TODAY and keep our Government OPEN!” Trump tweeted.

Among Republicans, opposition to the temporary measure came mostly from the party’s defense hawks, who had hoped to enact record increases for the military this year and force the Senate to debate a full-year, $658 billion defense spending measure. But that idea was a nonstarter with Senate Democrats, who will only agree to Pentagon increases if domestic programs get a comparable hike.

The short-term spending bill does contain about $5 billion to upgrade missile defenses to respond to the threat from North Korea and to repair two destroyers damaged in accidents this year in the Pacific.

The legislation also has a provision to turn off automatic cuts to many “mandatory” spending programs, including Medicare, that would otherwise be triggered by the tax cut bill. Democrats had sought to highlight the looming spending cuts in arguing against the tax measure.

“At some point we’ve got to make the hard decisions,” said Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is basking in his first major legislative victory, passage of a $1.5 trillion tax cut that he said “will soon be kicking in” to give American workers bigger paychecks and cut corporate tax bills.

In a Twitter comment Thursday, Trump said opposition Democrats, who uniformly voted against the legislation, “want to raise taxes” and “hate these big cuts.”

Two telecommunications firms, AT&T and Comcast, said they would pay a $1,000 bonus to most of their workers, about 300,000 people combined, when Trump signs the legislation. Two banks, Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bancorp, said they would raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour for their lowest paid workers, boosting their salaries to $31,200 a year.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing said it would move ahead with $300 million in investments in the company because of the new tax law.

Trump hosted a rally at the White House Wednesday to celebrate passage of the legislation, the biggest overhaul of the country’s complex tax laws in three decades. It cuts the corporate tax rate, now among the highest in the industrialized world, from 35 to 21 percent. It trims rates for millions of individual taxpayers as well, with the biggest cuts mostly benefiting the wealthiest earners, although some taxpayers will see bigger tax bills because of various changes in the tax regulations.

Democrats protest

Democrats protested the legislation, contending the tax cuts will not boost the U.S. economy, already the world’s biggest, and will mostly help rich taxpayers and corporations at the expense of the working class.

After losing the tax fight, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, said “Republican-controlled Washington has been an all-you-can-eat buffet for the privileged and the powerful, and the special interests.”

She said Republicans “know they are going to lose the Congress [in next November’s elections] so they’re just taking all the furniture, all the paintings off the wall, everything they can get to give away to corporate America. It’s just so obvious.”

Republicans heap praise

Republican leaders heaped praise on Trump for winning passage of the legislation after he had failed earlier in the year to overhaul national health care policies championed by former President Barack Obama. But the tax legislation did achieve a long-term Republican goal, repeal of the penalty against people who failed to buy health insurance, a key pillar of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Republican lawmakers also lauded Trump for his “exquisite presidential leadership” and as a “man of action” for passage of the tax law, which he plans to sign soon.

Government shutdown

In the meantime, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are scrambling to avert a partial shutdown of U.S. government operations when funding runs out at midnight Friday. Negotiators are working on a deal to mostly continue funding for government agencies at current levels until January 19, pushing off decisions on controversial spending and policy issues until after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Both the Senate and House of Representatives would have to agree to the temporary funding before sending it to Trump for his signature.

As the budget talks continued Thursday, Trump claimed House Democrats want a shutdown.
…

House Republicans early Thursday unveiled a new, stripped-down spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend and allow quarreling lawmakers to punt most of their unfinished business into the new year.

The bill would stave off a government shutdown through Jan. 19 and permit lawmakers to head home for the holidays. It would delay battles over the budget and immigration into January, denying Democrats wins that they had hoped to score this year.

Failure to pass the measure would trigger a government shutdown at midnight Friday, which would amount to a political pratfall just after the GOP scored a major win on a landmark tax bill. With Republicans controlling Washington, they would not have anyone else to blame for a shutdown debacle.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Thursday the “White House is committed to keeping the government open.” She added in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” that “it would be a shame if the Democrats force a shutdown of the government in the 11th hour of trying to negotiate something.”

Despite the perilous situation, GOP leaders are scrambling to rally some frustrated Republicans behind the measure, particularly defense hawks who had hoped to enact record budget increases for the Pentagon this year. The measure does contain about $5 billion dollars for missile defense upgrades to respond to the threat from North Korea and to repair two destroyers damaged in accidents this year in the Pacific.

A vote is likely Thursday and Senate passage is expected to quickly follow.

The House may also vote on an $81 billion disaster aid package that’s a priority of the Texas and Florida delegations, but its fate is uncertain. The Senate would likely add to the measure and pass it next year. Republicans may unveil changes to the measure Thursday morning.

It also would temporarily extend an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists. It has bipartisan backing, but stout conservatives and some liberals oppose it.

Thursday’s version is the third rewrite this week as GOP leaders have struggled to come up with a plan that would unite Republicans. Democratic leaders aren’t providing votes to pass the measure, saying Republicans are ignoring promises to protect so-called Dreamer immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. That issue, along with a hoped-for budget deal to undo a spending freeze on both the Pentagon and domestic agencies, would be put off until January.

An earlier plan favored by pro-Pentagon members of the influential Armed Services Committee would have combined the stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution, with a $658 billion Pentagon funding measure. But the idea is a nonstarter with the Senate, especially powerful Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

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

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

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

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

Hopes for a bipartisan budget deal to sharply increase spending for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies appeared dead for the year and Democrats were rebuffed in their demands for protections for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. There’s significant bipartisan sympathy for these immigrants, but battles over GOP demands for President Donald Trump’s border wall and additional funding for immigration agents are proving difficult to resolve.

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

Trying to combine the health measure with the spending bill was a demand of Collins when President Donald Trump and Senate GOP leaders secured her vote for the party’s tax cut measure. But House conservatives strongly opposed the move.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disaster aid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Programs for vets, children

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

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

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

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

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

Also in the mix is an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists. It has bipartisan backing, but stout conservatives and some liberals oppose it. McCarthy said the program might just be extended for a few weeks, but libertarian-minded lawmakers opposed a plan by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to add it to the stopgap measure.
…

The top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, responding to escalating Republican attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, said  Wednesday that if President Donald Trump fired Mueller, the action would have “the potential to provoke a constitutional crisis.”

WATCH: Virginia’s Warner on Potential Constitutional Crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WATCH: Warner on Consequences of Mueller Removal

“Congress must make clear to the president that firing the special counsel or interfering with his investigation by issuing pardons of essential witnesses is unacceptable and would have immediate and significant consequences.”
…

Democratic Senator Al Franken will leave office on Jan.  2, a spokesman for the Minnesota lawmaker said Wednesday. 

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

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

Replacement named

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

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

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

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

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

Defiant speech 

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

Trump, a Republican, says none of the accusations against him is true, but he is facing new calls from Democratic lawmakers to answer the specific allegations. Six senators, all Democrats, have called for his resignation.
…

White House staff members met with a group of senators Tuesday to talk about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has benefited hundreds of thousands of undocumented youths.

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

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

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

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

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

Also on Wednesday, Trump renewed his immigration priorities. 

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

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

No near-term DACA solution

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

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

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

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

A large-screen television at the site, which faces Capitol Hill, shows stories of young undocumented immigrants, known informally as Dreamers. The term is based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, that would have provided residence and employment protections for young immigrants similar to those in DACA.
…

The U.S. Senate voted late Tuesday to overhaul America’s tax system, putting President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans one perfunctory vote away from scoring a major legislative victory and fulfilling a campaign promise.

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

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

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

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

WATCH: Congress vote on tax bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republicans were unapologetic in anticipation of victory.

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

Public opinion polls consistently show more Americans oppose than back the bill. Several Republican lawmakers have blamed the news media, saying reporters misrepresented the tax bill and downplayed its potential benefits.
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