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President Donald Trump said Saturday “we want to make everything here” as he promoted his “America First” agenda during an appearance in Cleveland, days before the state’s primary election. 

Trump spent several hours in Ohio meeting with supporters and participating in a roundtable designed to highlight the benefits of the new Republican tax law. Striking a celebratory tone, Trump listed his poll numbers and recounted the successes of his first year in office. He also looked ahead to his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Trump criticized U.S. immigration policy, saying people entering the U.S. illegally are taking advantage of “catch-and-release” practices and don’t show up for their immigration court dates. He said: “We may have to close up our country to get this straight.” 

He also said U.S. protectionist trade policies and his more isolationist policies would benefit Americans. Trump pledged a strong stand on trade to achieve “a level playing field,” saying that “other countries, they put themselves first. … The fact is we want to be first.” 

“We’ll be taking care of our people,” he added.

Fundraisers

Trump also attended a fundraiser for Trump Victory, the joint committee funding his campaign and the Republican National Committee, meeting first with high-dollar givers and then addressing a larger group of about 250 donors. The RNC said Trump raised $3 million during the events.

Trump sought to boost Republican lawmaker Jim Renacci in his bid for the Senate, saying “we need his vote very badly.”

Renacci, a member of the House, is running for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown. Trump predicted: “He’ll be fantastic.”

At the official taxpayer-funded event, Trump also criticized Brown, saying he shares Democrats’ “deep-seated” support for what he claims are looser immigration policies. Renacci greeted Trump on the tarmac in Cleveland and was seated next to the president at the event.

Midterm challenges

Trump’s visit comes as Republicans are facing an increasingly challenging midterm election environment.

Ohio has several competitive races this November. The GOP is placing its election hopes on convincing Americans that the tax law is improving their lives, as the party seeks to skirt political headwinds emanating from the White House.
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President Donald Trump appears to be increasingly frustrated that his growing legal challenges are overshadowing his economic and foreign policy accomplishments. Trump complained to reporters Friday that questions about a payment to an adult film star and the ongoing Russia probe are a distraction from an improving U.S. economy and a possible breakthrough on relations with North Korea. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Rudy Giuliani, who last month joined President Donald Trump’s legal team in the Russia probe, lacks a security clearance and may find it hard to get one to see classified documents because of his work with foreign clients, legal experts said.

Former New York mayor Giuliani told Reuters in an interview Thursday that he would apply for top secret clearance, along with another Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow. Trump’s outgoing White House lawyer Ty Cobb has a security clearance, but no one on his outside legal team has had one since lawyer John Dowd resigned in March.

“They said they would get it right away,” Giuliani said.

Red flags

Giuliani’s work as a lawyer and security and business consultant during the past 16 years has included assignments on behalf of the government of Mexico City and the Qatari state oil company.

Many of his clients have not been publicly disclosed.

The contacts could raise red flags during his background check about his susceptibility to foreign influence, according to some legal experts. The security clearances are typically issued by the U.S. Department of Justice after FBI review.

The contacts could “cause a significant delay, if not outright denial,” of clearance, said Virginia lawyer John V. Berry, who specializes in the area.

Berry said a slow clearance may be an issue if Giuliani negotiates with U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into the conclusions of intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

“It’s hard to represent someone without knowing what’s in the files,” Berry said.

Too much trouble?

Washington national security lawyer Bradley Moss said he thought Trump’s team might ultimately decide it was too much trouble to get Giuliani a security clearance and “just keep him in the big picture.” Moss pointed out Giuliani has acted as the public face of the Trump team since coming aboard.

Both Berry and Moss said Trump has the power to grant a clearance, despite any concerns.

Given the involvement of intelligence agencies and issues of contact with Russia, some of the materials relevant to the investigation would be classified as top secret or higher. 

The Kremlin denies interference in the election, and Trump denies any collusion with Moscow officials.

Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday on whether he would have difficulty securing a clearance. On Thursday, he played down the importance of a clearance for his role.

“There are only a few excerpted portions that we have to see,” he said. “I know what’s in them from the newspapers but, to make sure, they’re getting me a security clearance.”

127-page form

Sekulow said he started the process after Dowd left the legal team. He said other lawyers on the team would seek clearance as well.

Giuliani took a leave of absence, rather than resigning, from law firm Greenberg Traurig to join Trump’s legal team.

Virginia Canter, an ethics lawyer with watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that is a potential problem because he is still tied to a firm that represents foreign governments.

Berry said investigators conducting background checks for security clearances look at how close a person’s ties are, what kind of money they receive from the contacts, and whether the country has interests adverse to the United States.

To get a clearance, candidates must fill out Standard Form 86, a 127-page document that Berry said “goes into every part of your life” and requires listing foreign contacts.

Moss said interim security clearances could be issued but only after the form is reviewed and there are no immediate red flags.

Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner received a temporary clearance but lost access to highly classified information in February 2018. Kushner had not received his full security clearance because of his extensive business and financial connections.
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As U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s, Rudy Giuliani earned a reputation as a tough prosecutor in going after white-collar crime and members of the American mafia. Today, Giuliani finds himself in an opposite role, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The former New York mayor was an informal adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, and he was a frequent spokesman. Giuliani was the first person to be mentioned by Trump in the latter’s election acceptance speech. “He’s unbelievable,” Trump said. “He’s traveled with us and he went through meetings, and Rudy never changes.”

Giuliani, an attorney, was considered for secretary of state in Trump’s administration and often was mentioned as a possible attorney general. Giuliani’s past legal and consulting work, which raised concerns about his overseas business relationships, thwarted his efforts to become America’s top diplomat.

Giuliani and Trump have known each other for decades and share an aggressive rhetorical style and similar policy beliefs — including support for law enforcement in ways that have marginalized minorities, and adopting forceful positions on immigration enforcement. 

In the early 1990s, Giuliani became the first Republican elected mayor of New York City in two decades. Giuliani served two terms as mayor and during his tenure, which ended in 2001, crime in the city fell significantly. Later, he became known as “America’s Mayor” for his efforts to unite the city following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which destroyed the World Trade Center towers.

Giuliani’s political ambitions included running for the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by then retiring four-term Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. After medical, marital and other personal issues, Giuliani withdrew from the race in 2000.

In 2002, the former mayor founded Giuliani Partners, a security consulting firm that had Qatar’s Ministry of the Interior on its roster of clients. The contracts with the ministry were managed by Minister Abdullah bin Khalifah Al Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal family. Abdullah bin Khalifah Al Thani was said to have hosted Osama bin Laden on two visits to the royal family member’s farm, a charge that was repeated in a 2007 Congressional Research Service study.

In 2016, Giuliani began working for the influential law firm Greenberg Traurig, where he led the firm’s global cybersecurity and crisis management team, and served as a senior adviser to executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum announced in April that Giuliani would take a leave of absence “to handle matters unrelated to the law firm or its clients.” Giuliani’s work with the firm involved the Turkish government and a Turkish-Iranian businessman who was convicted in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

Giuliani is a one-time presidential hopeful who sought the Republican candidacy for the White House in 2008, but lost the nomination to Arizona Senator John McCain.

Giuliani has been married three times and reports say his current wife, Judith Nathan, filed for divorce in April. The couple have been married for 15 years. 

Giuliani is a Brooklyn, New York, native. He turns 74 later this month.
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Google said Friday in a blog post that it would do a better job of verifying the identity of political ad buyers in the U.S. by requiring a government-issued ID and other key information.

Google will also require ad buyers to disclose who is paying for the ad. Google executive Kent Walker repeated a pledge he made in November to create a library of such ads that will be searchable by anyone. The goal is to have this ready this summer.

Google’s blog post comes short of declaring support for the Honest Ads Act, a bill that would impose disclosure requirements on online ads, similar to what’s required for television and other media. Facebook and Twitter support that bill.

Google didn’t immediately provide details on how the ID verification would work for online ad buys.
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Another top appointee is leaving his job at Scott Pruitt’s Environmental Protection Agency.

John Konkus’ announcement Friday makes him the fourth senior aide in two weeks to announce departure plans.

Konkus served as the EPA’s deputy associate administrator for public affairs. He had worked as a Republican political consultant and helped on the Trump campaign before his EPA appointment.

Pruitt faces a series of federal investigations and audits over high administrative spending and other issues. Pruitt has blamed subordinates for the problems.

Pruitt’s top spokesperson, his security chief and his Superfund administrator earlier announced their departures.

Konkus will take a communications job at the Small Business Administration. EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson says Konkus was a valuable member of the EPA.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday new legal team member Rudy Giuliani needs to “get his facts straight” about the hush money paid to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, and maintained “we’re not changing any stories” after a series of revised explanations that have clouded the settlement.

Trump told reporters Friday at the White House that Giuliani, who joined Trump’s team of personal attorneys, is “a great guy but he just started a day ago” and was still “learning the subject matter.”

Giuliani upended the previous White House defense of the settlement by saying on Wednesday that Trump was aware of personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s payments to Daniels.

In a statement issued later Friday, Giuliani said the payment did not violate U.S. campaign laws, and he added it would have been made even if Trump was not running for president.

“The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family,” he said. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders acknowledged on Thursday she first learned Wednesday night, along with the rest of America, that Trump compensated Cohen for the payoff to Daniels just before the 2016 election when Giuliani made the comment on a Fox News Channel program Wednesday night.

Sanders was pressed on whether she lied or was kept in the dark when she had previously told reporters that the president was not aware of the payments.

“I’ve given the best information that I had at the time,” she replied.

Trump confirmed earlier Thursday on Twitter what Giuliani said on the television program: that Cohen was reimbursed by the president for the payment made to Daniels.

This directly contradicted Trump’s earlier comments.

On Air Force One a month ago, the president responded “no” after a reporter asked if he knew about the payment Cohen had made to Daniels, and Trump also said he did not know why his attorney had made the payment.

The pornographic actress and director, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford, has alleged a one-night affair in 2006 in a Nevada hotel with Trump. The president, and his attorneys, maintained Thursday there was no such sexual encounter and that no campaign funds were involved in the payments made to Daniels.

Trump maintains the non-disclosure agreement reached with Daniels was “very common among celebrities and people of wealth” and said it “will be used in arbitration for damages” against Daniels since in recent weeks she has given interviews about the purported affair.

Daniels has claimed the no-talk agreement is not valid because Trump never signed it.

Trump said the non-disclosure agreement “was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair,” a statement Daniels said she signed under duress and subsequently has disavowed.

Giuliani, who is a former mayor of New York City, first disclosed the monthly reimbursements by Trump to Cohen in a Fox News interview Wednesday with program host Sean Hannity. Hannity is a strong on-air defender of the president and frequently speaks with him.

Giuliani told Hannity that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics of [the payments], as far as I know, but he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. Like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along.”

On Thursday, in another interview on Fox, Giuliani said the payment to quiet Daniels came at a sensitive time in Trump’s campaign, just before the Nov. 8, 2016, election against his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani told the Fox & Friends show Thursday. “Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”

Giuliani, who also is a former federal prosecutor, said the president did not know full details about the payments until about 10 days ago.

After Giuliani’s disclosure of the payment to Daniels, her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said Americans “should be outraged.”

Cohen, under federal investigation for business deals said to be unrelated to his legal work for the president, acknowledges he received a personal loan to make the payment to Daniels through a corporation he created.

The ultimate source of the funds is an important legal distinction. The $130,000 payment far exceeds the allowable size of personal campaign donations that Cohen could have made, although Trump could make sizable donations to his own campaign. Daniels-related expenses have not been reported as campaign donations.

Trump “appears to have violated federal law” by failing to disclose he owed Cohen for the hush money payment, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which has filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics about the matter.

“There is now more than enough evidence for the DOJ to investigate whether President Trump intentionally omitted the Stormy Daniels liability from his personal financial disclosures,” CREW Board Chairman Norman Eisen said. “This is a very serious matter, including because there can be criminal penalties for false statements.”
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Former Massachusetts Senate President Stan Rosenberg announced Thursday he would end his long political career after a scathing ethics report concluded he failed to protect the Senate from his husband, who has been charged with sexual misconduct.

In a one-sentence letter delivered to the Senate, Rosenberg said his resignation would be effective at 5 p.m. Friday.

The decision came amid mounting calls, including several from his Democratic colleagues, for the Amherst Democrat to resign. He stepped down from the presidency in December when allegations first surfaced against his husband, Bryon Hefner. The couple has since separated.

In a statement, Rosenberg said he was leaving the Senate because he no longer had the authority to fully represent the interests of his constituents.

He noted that the report found no evidence that he violated any Senate rules, no evidence he was aware of any alleged sexual assaults by Hefner, nor that Hefner asserted any influence over his actions while Senate leader.

Failure in judgment found

But Rosenberg acknowledged findings in the report, prepared by investigators hired by the Senate Ethics Committee, faulting him for not doing more to control Hefner’s access to information and access to people who worked for or had business with the Senate.

“Although, as the report states, I was unaware of many of the events attributed to Bryon, and took steps to address those incidents that came to my attention, that does not diminish my sorrow at what reportedly transpired or my sense of responsibility for what the ethics committee concludes was a failure on my part in not doing more to protect the Senate,” Rosenberg wrote.

He also conveyed his “sincere apology” to anyone who’d been affected by events detailed in the report.

Investigators concluded that Rosenberg showed “significant failure of judgment and leadership,” and knew or should have known that Hefner was “disruptive, volatile and abusive,” and had racially or sexually harassed Senate employees.

Rosenberg also violated Senate policy by allowing Hefner access to his Senate email and to his cellphone, which Hefner on at least two occasions used to send messages to Senate staffers while pretending to be Rosenberg, the report found.

The committee had recommended Rosenberg be barred from serving in any leadership posts or from chairing any committees through 2020, and the full Senate could have imposed further punishment.

Calls for resignation

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey and at least six Democratic senators had publicly called for Rosenberg to quit after the report was released.

“I think the report made very clear that there was damage done … to the Senate and I think it was appropriate for him to step down and I’m glad he did,” Baker told reporters Thursday.

The governor said he was especially troubled that Rosenberg appeared not to keep a promise he made to Senate colleagues in 2014 to build a “firewall” between his personal and professional life.

Baker added that he had appreciated his long working relationship with Rosenberg, dating back to the 1990s when Baker was state Secretary of Administration and Finance and Rosenberg chaired the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The first openly gay person to lead a legislative chamber in Massachusetts, Rosenberg, 68, has served in the Senate for more than a quarter century and helped craft numerous state laws.

He also played a key role in convincing the Legislature not to overturn a 2003 ruling by the state’s highest court that made Massachusetts the first U.S. state to legalize gay marriage.

Hefner, 30, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment last month on charges of sexual assault, criminal lewdness and distributing nude photos without consent. The allegations involve four men.
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The White House press secretary acknowledged Thursday that she’d first learned the night before, along with the rest of America, that President Donald Trump repaid his lawyer for a payoff to an adult movie performer made just before the 2016 election.

“The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,” Sarah Sanders said during a regular televised press briefing. “The White House press office wouldn’t coordinate with the president’s outside legal team on legal strategy.”

Sanders was pressed about whether she had lied or had been kept in the dark when she previously told reporters that the president was not aware of the payments.

“I’ve given the best information that I had at the time,” she replied.

Giuliani remarks confirmed

Trump confirmed earlier in the day on Twitter what one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, said on a Fox News Channel program the prior evening: The president reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for the payments made to Stormy Daniels.

This directly contradicted Trump’s earlier comments.

On Air Force One a month ago, the president responded “no” after a reporter asked whether he knew about the payment Cohen had made to Daniels, and Trump also said he did not know why his attorney had made the payment.

The actress and director, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford, has alleged that she had a one-night affair in 2006 in a Nevada hotel with Trump. The president and his attorneys maintained Thursday there was no such sexual encounter and that no campaign funds were involved in the payments made to Daniels.

Daniels has claimed the no-talk agreement is not valid because Trump never signed it. The president’s mention of arbitration for damages refers to the fact that Daniels has given interviews about the purported tryst in recent weeks.

Daniels has also said that the letter of admission that there was no tryst was signed under duress and that she has since disavowed it.

Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, spoke about Trump’s reimbursement to Cohen with Fox host Sean Hannity, a strong on-air defender of the president’s who frequently speaks with him. 

Giuliani told Hannity that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics of [the payment], as far as I know, but he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. Like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along.”

On Thursday, in another interview on Fox, Giuliani said the payment to quiet Daniels came at a sensitive time in Trump’s campaign, just before the November 8, 2016, election against his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Imagine if that came out on October 15th, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani said on the Fox & Friends show. “Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”

Giuliani, who also is a former federal prosecutor, said the president did not know full details about the payments until about 10 days ago.

After Giuliani’s disclosure about the payment to Daniels, her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said Americans “should be outraged.”

Cohen, under federal investigation for business deals said to be unrelated to his legal work for the president, acknowledges he received a personal loan to make the payment to Daniels through a corporation he created.

The ultimate source of the funds is an important legal distinction. The $130,000 payment far exceeds the allowable size of personal campaign donations that Cohen could have made, although Trump could make sizable donations to his own campaign. Daniels-related expenses have not been reported as campaign donations. 

Trump “appears to have violated federal law” by failing to disclose he owed Cohen for the hush money payment, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which has filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics about the matter.

“There is now more than enough evidence for the DOJ [Department of Justice] to investigate whether President Trump intentionally omitted the Stormy Daniels liability from his personal financial disclosures,” CREW Board Chairman Norman Eisen said. “This is a very serious matter, including because there can be criminal penalties for false statements.”

VOA’s Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
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With the observation of World Press Freedom Day on Thursday, a group of press freedom organizations is calling attention to challenges faced by journalists in the United States.

The report cites a number of threats to the work of journalists, including a rise in whistleblower prosecutions, government restrictions on public information, stigmatization by politicians, physical attacks and arbitrary arrests.

“The alarming rise in threats to press freedom in the U.S. over recent years must be challenged,” said Thomas Hughes, executive director of Article 19. “Not only do these threats impact on freedom of expression in the U.S., but they have repercussions around the world.”

WATCH: Rights Groups Highlight New Threats on World Press Freedom Day

Article 19 joined with the Committee to Protect Journalists, International Freedom of Expression Exchange, International Press Institute, Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders to interview U.S. journalists.

American media under threat

Their report said despite current threats, protections in the U.S. Constitution make media in the United States among the most free in the world. But it noted some of President Donald Trump’s statements, most notably his rejection of what he calls “fake news,” being echoed by leaders in other countries, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“The pressures that journalists are facing in the U.S. are reflective of the toxic atmosphere toward journalism being stoked by global leaders,” said Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive officer of Index on Censorship. “Animosity toward the press is undermining the public’s right to information.”

The report notes a rise in whistleblower prosecutions began under former President Barack Obama, and expresses concern about the Trump administration’s positions on reporters’ abilities to protect their sources. It also faults Trump for verbal attacks on the media, saying those have helped embolden other politicians to do the same.

“By openly and aggressively targeting journalists and media outlets, the current U.S. administration risks undermining media freedom and creates a culture where journalists find themselves unprotected,” the report says.

Reporters Without Borders cited those concerns in its own annual press freedom rankings last week as it dropped the United States down two spots.

The White House rejected criticisms, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters she thinks the Trump administration is “one of the most accessible” in decades.

“We support a free press, but we also support a fair press,” Sanders said. “And I think that those things should go hand in hand, and there’s a certain responsibility by the press to report accurate information.”

In a statement commemorating the day, new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. “values freedom of press as a key component of democratic governance. By fostering a free press, citizens are more informed, active and engaged in political decision-making, and can better hold their governments accountable.”

He said the U.S. honors “the many journalists and media actors who have dedicated their lives, often at great risk, to promote transparency and accountability throughout the world.”

Global challenges to press freedom

The United Nations launched World Press Freedom Day in 1993 as a way to encourage the development of further freedom of the press, and to highlight the ways in which media organizations are “censored, fined, suspended and closed down,” while journalists face harassment, attacks, detentions and murder.

Reporters Without Borders reports that so far in 2018, 23 journalists have been killed and 176 imprisoned across the world.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged countries to adopt and implement laws that protect independent journalism, freedom of expression and the right to information.

“Journalists and media workers shine a light on local and global challenges and tell the stories that need to be told,” he told a U.N. gathering via video message. “Their service to the public is invaluable.”

But a side-event about the “fake news” phenomenon organized by the nonprofit News Literacy Project and the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations was abruptly canceled. The Alliance of Civilizations said it was due to a scheduling conflict, but the News Literacy Project said it was because their organization refused the Alliance’s request to remove references to several countries in which press freedom is limited.

According to the News Literacy Project’s website, they planned to discuss “severe restrictions on press freedom in Turkey, Mexico and Egypt and comments by Russian and Pakistani journalists describing the challenges they face.”

VOA’s Margaret Besheer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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U.S. President Donald Trump met with teachers of the year from several states Wednesday at the White House. Trump conferred the 2018 National Teacher of the Year award, as public teachers in many states protest low pay and criticize the administration for what they see as siphoning education funds from public schools into private alternatives. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says President Donald Trump’s plan to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides “an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of history on the Korean Peninsula.” Pompeo was formally sworn in as the 70th U.S. secretary of state in a ceremony attended by Trump. As VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department, the secretary has been preparing for the summit and dealing with Iran and other foreign policy challenges.
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At least 88 Central American asylum seekers from a caravan through Mexico had crossed into the United States by Wednesday, a movement that prompted U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to beef up legal resources on the border.

Dozens more remain just outside the entrance to the port of entry in a makeshift camp, waiting to plead their case.

Women, children and transgender people were among those who waited for hours inside the walkway to the U.S. gate before being allowed to pass through to begin the asylum process.

Those remaining wandered among boxes of cereal and diapers in a labyrinth of giant tents, near-luxury conditions for the bedraggled migrants, compared with the scarcity they had endured for weeks on their journey through Mexico to the U.S. border.

​Dramatic uptick

On Wednesday, U.S. officials let in three groups totaling 63 migrants, a dramatic uptick from the trickle permitted since Monday.

Border officials had allowed through only a few at a time, saying the busy San Ysidro crossing to San Diego was saturated and the rest must wait their turn.

In response, the Justice Department was sending 35 additional assistant U.S. attorneys and 18 immigration judges to the border, Sessions said, linking the decision to the caravan.

“We are sending a message worldwide: Don’t come illegally. Make your claim to enter America in the lawful way and wait your turn,” he said, adding that he would not let the country be “overwhelmed.”

Despite unusual attention on the annual, awareness-raising caravan after President Donald Trump took issue with it last month, the most recent data through December does not show a dramatic change in the number of Central Americans seeking asylum.

Apprehensions of people crossing to the United States illegally from Mexico were at their highest in March since December 2016, before Trump took office.

More than 100 members of the caravan, most from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, have been camped in the square near the entrance of the San Ysidro pedestrian bridge from Mexico to the United States, waiting for their turn to enter the checkpoint.

Pleading their case

At least 28 migrants who made it into the United States Wednesday had anxiously filed through the walkway to the U.S. gate the night before. Two by two, they walked up to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer standing in the gate to ask if they might pass through.

First to try was a man and his small nephew, a football under his arm; then a mother and child; then a woman with her grandsons.

Throughout the caravan’s 2,000-mile (3,220-km) odyssey from southern Mexico, its members maintained hope they would ultimately get the chance to plead their case for asylum in the United States, all the while knowing that U.S. officials might reject them.

The Trump administration cites a more than tenfold rise in asylum claims versus 2011 and growing numbers of families and children, who are more likely to be allowed to remain while their cases await hearing, as signs that people are fraudulently taking advantage of the system.

Trump wants to tighten laws to make it harder for people to claim asylum. For now, though, despite his orders to keep such migrant caravans out of the country, international and U.S. law obliges the government to listen to people’s stories and decide whether they deserve shelter.

The U.S. Department of Justice said on Monday it had launched prosecutions against 11 “suspected” caravan members on charges of crossing the border illegally.

Nicole Ramos, an attorney advising caravan members in Mexico, said she did not believe the individuals facing U.S. criminal charges were part of the caravan group.

“Quite a few people have claimed to be part of the caravan, including a sizeable contingent of Guatemalan men who were never part,” Ramos said.

 
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President Donald Trump makes his first visit to the State Department Wednesday for a ceremonial swearing in of his new secretary of state.

“It’s an important day for the president’s first trip to this important place,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday while speaking to personnel who gathered as he arrived for his first full day at the State Department.

Pompeo, the former CIA director, has vowed to bring back the “swagger” to the State Department.

“The United States diplomatic corps need to be in every corner, every stretch of the world, executing missions on behalf of this country, and it is my humble, noble undertaking to help you achieve that,” said Pompeo on Tuesday.

Pompeo takes the helm of the State Department after Trump fired then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in March, hours after Tillerson had returned from a trip to Africa.

Unlike with Tillerson, Trump is said to have a close working relationship with Pompeo. The president and several Cabinet members will be on-hand on Wednesday for Pompeo’s ceremonial swearing-in, a clear sign that Pompeo enjoys the trust and backing of the president.

“Mike Pompeo is someone who I think has the close ear of the president,” said Nile Gardiner of the conservative-leaning Washington-based think-tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Tuesday, Pompeo took selfies with several State Department employees, vowing to reach out to as many staff members as he could.

“I’ll spend as little time on the 7th floor” and meet people in “many parts of this organization,” said the new secretary of state.

A U.S. foreign service officer, who did not want to be named, told VOA he hopes Pompeo’s experiences in Congress, the U.S. military, and the intelligence community “highlight that the United States faces real adversaries abroad, and that the [State] Department’s career employees are resources — not the enemy.”

Tillerson was under fire at the State Department for leaving many senior vacancies unfilled and proposing dramatic budget cuts, lowering the morale of the diplomatic workforce.

Pompeo, who was confirmed last week, boarded a plane just hours after being sworn in Thursday, traveling to the NATO foreign ministerial in Brussels. He continued on to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan.

“I do think he is going to be a far bigger presence on the world stage than Rex Tillerson was,” said The Heritage Foundation’s Gardiner.

And while former Secretary of State Tillerson brought just one reporter on his first foreign trip to Asia, Pompeo left Washington with six journalists on his plane last week. He picked up two more reporters as he continued his overseas trip to the Middle East, before returning to Washington on Monday.

“I think I have the record for the longest trip on the first day of work,” Pompeo joked on Tuesday.
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New Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has promised to boost U.S. diplomacy and help the State Department get its “swagger back.” Hundred of employees at the agency in Washington greeted him enthusiastically Tuesday. Morale at State had plummeted under the threat of sharp budget cuts, with dozens of key posts and ambassadorships left unfilled under his predecessor, former secretary Rex Tillerson. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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A letter from Donald Trump’s New York physician released by his campaign in 2015 declaring he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” was composed by the candidate himself, the doctor said Tuesday.

“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Harold Bornstein told CNN.

Bornstein was not immediately available to comment, but in a subsequent interview with NBC News he confirmed the account.

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

“Mr. Trump has had a recent complete medical examination that showed only positive results,” said the letter signed by Bornstein, who said he had treated Trump since 1980.

“Actually, his blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory results were astonishingly excellent. His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” the letter said. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

Bornstein told NBC News the characterization of “healthiest” was “black humor.”

Dictation in Central Park

Trump read out the language as Bornstein and his wife were driving across Central Park, the doctor told CNN. The campaign released the letter in December 2015.

“[Trump] dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” he said.

Bornstein had previously said he had written the letter in a rush while seeing other patients.

His latest version of the letter’s origins follows his accusation that Trump’s ex-bodyguard, Keith Schiller, raided his office while retrieving Trump’s medical records after he was elected president.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday that the records were retrieved as part of “standard operating procedure.”

“As is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House Medical Unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” she told a regular news briefing.

Asked whether the operation was a raid, she said: “No, that is not my understanding.”
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U.S. Senator John McCain, in a farewell memoir as he battles brain cancer, lashes out at President Donald Trump as failing to uphold American values.

“He has declined to distinguish the actions of our government from the crimes of despotic ones,” the 81-year-old McCain said of Trump in an excerpt from his new book, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations.

“The appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values,” McCain wrote.

McCain, a one-time prisoner of war in North Vietnam in the 1960s, the losing Republican candidate for the presidency in 2008 and six times elected as a senator from Arizona, says he has no regrets as he serves what his illness has forced him to admit, that it is his last term in the Senate.

“‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it,’ spoke my hero, Robert Jordan, in For Whom the Bell Tolls,” McCain says in his book.

“And I do, too,” he continued “I hate to leave it. But I don’t have a complaint. Not one.I t’s been quite a ride. I’ve known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make a peace.I made a small place for myself in the story of America and the history of my times.”

He wrote, “I’m freer than colleagues who will face the voters again. I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much. And I can vote my conscience without worry.”

“I don’t think I’m free to disregard my constituents’ wishes, far from it,” he said.” I don’t feel excused from keeping pledges I made. Nor do I wish to harm my party’s prospects. But I do feel a pressing responsibility to give Americans my best judgment.”

He decried the “decline in civility and cooperation, and increased obstructionism” he has witnessed in Congress and politically fractious Washington. He said there are government officials and lawmakers who are “committed to meeting the challenges of the hour. They might not be the most colorful politicians in town, but they’re usually the ones who get the most done.”

“Before I leave I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations,” he wrote. “I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.”

“We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one,” McCain said. “Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it.”

The outspoken McCain has had a contentious relationship with the Republican Trump. During Trump’s long run to the presidency, he belittled McCain’s 5 1/2 years in captivity in North Vietnam after the naval fighter pilot was shot down in a bombing run over Hanoi.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Last year, McCain defied Trump and cast the deciding vote against the Republican plan supported by the president to repeal national health care policies that had been championed by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

Since December, McCain has undergone treatment in Arizona, occasionally offering his commentary on national and international issues, but staying away from Washington.
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U.S. President Donald Trump fired new broadsides Tuesday at the criminal investigation into his 2016 election campaign’s links to Russia and his White House actions.

The U.S. leader derided special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, said it was “disgraceful” that more than four dozen questions investigators want to ask Trump were leaked in a The New York Times story and contended that it would be “very hard” to obstruct the probe if, as he says, there was no collusion with Russia to help him win the election.

The Times report said Mueller’s team wants to probe Trump’s thinking about issues that occurred during the campaign, in the nearly three months between the election and his assuming power in January 2017 and during his 15 months in office.

The questions include ones about Trump’s motivation behind some of his most incendiary comments on Twitter, where he often attacks the investigation and political opponents, but most more broadly focus on allegations Trump has obstructed justice by trying to thwart Mueller’s probe.

Firing of James Comey

The investigators want to explore Trump’s thinking in firing former FBI director James Comey a year ago while he was leading the Russia probe. Mueller’s team also has questions about Comey’s claim that Trump asked him to end his probe of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom Trump had also ousted and has since pleaded guilty to lying to Mueller’s investigators about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to Washington.

The questions show that Mueller also wants to know when Trump knew about a middle-of-the-campaign meeting at his Trump Tower headquarters in New York arranged by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with a Russian lawyer on the pretense that she would offer the campaign incriminating material on Trump’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. The younger Trump says the attorney had no such political dirt on Clinton. But news accounts charge when news of the meeting surfaced months later, President Trump played a role in writing a misleading characterization of the June 2016 meeting.

Business affairs

In addition, Mueller has questions about Trump’s business affairs, especially possible deals linked to Russia, and what happened on Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant he owned at the time. A former British intelligence official, Christopher Steele, compiled a dossier on the trip, with uncorroborated, anonymous allegations Trump cavorted with prostitutes in a hotel room, which Trump has denied.

Whether Mueller and his team will actually get to ask Trump any questions is an open question. The president at various times has said he wants to answer Mueller’s inquiries, but some of his defense lawyers have advised against it, fearing that Trump, who is often prone to exaggerations or outright falsehoods, could get trapped by the questioning.

Trump’s attorneys have discussed the possibility of an interview with the prosecutors, but no agreement has been reached.

In one of his Tuesday tweets, Trump said, “So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were “leaked” to the media. No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see… you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!”

Later, he contended, “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened! Witch Hunt!”

 
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New Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made his debut on the world stage, emphasizing close U.S. ties with NATO, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan – the stops on his first trip. While expressing strong support for U.S. allies, Pompeo took a tough stance against Iran, saying Tehran’s ambition to dominate the Middle East remains. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed a decision on imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, the European Union and Mexico until June 1, and has reached an agreement in principle with Argentina, Australia and Brazil, a source familiar with the decision said on Monday.

The decision came just hours before temporary exemptions were set to expire at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Tuesday.

“The administration has reached agreements in principle with Argentina, Australia, and Brazil, details of which will be finalized in the next 30 days. The administration is also extending negotiations with Canada, Mexico, and the European Union for a final 30 days,” the source said.

Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum in March, but granted temporary exemptions to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the European Union, Australia and Argentina. He also granted a permanent exemption on steel tariffs to South Korea.

Trump administration officials have said that in lieu of tariffs, steel and aluminum exporting countries would have to agree to quotas designed to achieve similar protections for U.S. producers. South Korea’s permanent exemption is in exchange for having agreed to cut its steel exports to the United States by about 30 percent.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that any move by the United States to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be a “very bad idea” guaranteed to disrupt trade between the two countries.

Canada is the largest source of steel imports into the United States, with a steel industry that is highly integrated with its southern neighbor.

Trump has invoked a 1962 trade law to erect protections for U.S. steel and aluminum producers on national security grounds, amid a worldwide glut of both metals that is largely blamed on excess production in China.

If the EU is subject to tariffs on the 6.4 billion euros ($7.7 billion) of the metals it exports annually to the United States, it has said it will set its own duties on 2.8 billion euros of U.S. exports of products ranging from makeup to motorcycles.
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White House chief of staff John Kelly is denying a report from NBC News that he called U.S. President Donald Trump an “idiot.”

“I spend more time with the president than anyone else, and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” Kelly said Monday in a statement issued by the White House.

“He always knows where I stand, and he and I both know this story is total BS,” he said. “I am committed to the president, his agenda and our country.”

NBC reported Monday that Kelly has on multiple occasions criticized Trump’s knowledge on issues such as immigration and has cast himself as protecting the country from Trump’s impulses. The report added that Trump was growing tired of Kelly’s attitude.

NBC quoted unnamed sources as saying Kelly was known to “make fun” more generally at what the chief of staff saw as the president’s “lack of knowledge about policy and government.”

The chief of staff, who oversaw immigration enforcement as Homeland Security secretary, believed that Trump was prepared to make too many concessions to Democrats because he did not understand the issue.

“He doesn’t even understand what DACA is. He’s an idiot,” Kelly said in one meeting, two officials who said they were present told NBC News. “We’ve got to save him from himself.”

The report, despite Kelly’s denial, is likely to renew questions about Kelly’s future in the White House. The retired Marine Corps general, who was brought on board last summer to instill order and discipline in the West Wing, has been losing clout as Trump has tired of his style.

David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron in Ohio appeared to give credence to the concerns over Kelly’s future in the White House.

 “The knives are out for Kelly — many of them. #POTUS soured on Kelly several weeks ago. He won’t survive in job much longer. Probably days, maybe weeks. Kelly is dead man walking,” Cohen tweeted Monday.
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Sen. Marco Rubio says big businesses aren’t investing much of their windfall from President Donald Trump’s tax cuts into their workers despite GOP promises during last year’s debate.

“There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers,” Rubio, R-Fla., told The Economist in a story release Monday. “In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”

Rubio’s comments run counter to the cheerleading seen from other Republicans — and Democrats quickly jumped on the remarks.

“We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves,” said Matt House, a spokesman for top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.

The GOP tax cut reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and also lower rates on individuals. Democrats say too much of the cuts went to the wealthy and businesses while hastening the arrival of $1 trillion-plus annual budget deficits.

GOP leaders are making the tax cuts the centerpiece of the fall midterm campaign and credit the tax cuts for boosting the economy. But the tax cuts have been underperforming in opinion polls, such as a Gallup survey earlier this month that found 39 percent of respondents approved of the GOP tax measure, with 52 percent disapproving.

Rubio, a rival contender to Trump for the GOP nomination in 2016, voted for the tax cuts in December after unsuccessfully pressing to make the $2,000 per-child tax credit fully refundable for lower-income workers.

“Sen. Rubio pushed for a better balance in the tax law between tax cuts for big businesses and families, as he’s done for years,” said Rubio spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas, adding that Rubio still believes that “cutting the corporate tax rate will make America a more competitive place to do business.”
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Fired FBI Director James Comey is dismissing a Republican-led House committee report clearing the Trump campaign of collusion with the Russians as a “political document.”

“This is not my understanding of what the facts were before I left the FBI and I think the most important piece of work is the one the special counsel’s doing now,” Comey said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.

Comey called the investigation by the House Intelligence Committee “a wreck” that damaged relations with the intelligence community and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States.

While the committee report acknowledged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, it says investigators found no evidence the Trump campaign worked with the Russians.

Democrats on the committee say the Republicans on the panel did not interview enough witnesses or find enough evidence to back the report’s findings.

Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff called its conclusions “superficial.”

President Donald Trump has consistently denied his campaign colluded with the Russians. He has called himself the subject of a “witch hunt” and calls Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe a “hoax.”

Comey told Meet the Press Sunday something he wrote in his just-published best seller about his career – that he has serious doubts about Trump’s credibility, even if Mueller were to interview the president under oath.

“Sometimes people who have serious credibility problems can tell the truth when they realize that the consequences of not telling the truth in an interview or in the grand jury would be dire. But you’d have to go in with a healthy sense that he might lie to you.”

Comey said like all good prosecutors, Mueller wants to finish his probe as quickly as he can.

 
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If President Donald Trump isn’t comfortable being the target of jokes, comedian Michelle Wolf gave him and others plenty of reasons to squirm Saturday night.

“It’s 2018 and I’m a woman, so you cannot shut me up,” Wolf cracked, “unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000.”

No, Trump’s personal attorney wasn’t there. And, for the second year, Trump himself skipped the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association, preferring to criticize journalists and others during a campaign-style rally near Detroit.

Wolf, the after-dinner entertainment for the White House press corps and their guests, was surprisingly racy for the venue and seemed more at home on HBO than C-SPAN. After one crass joke drew groans in the Washington Hilton ballroom, she laughed and said, “Yeah, shoulda done more research before you got me to do this.”

​Trump in Michigan

As he did last year, Trump flew to a Republican-friendly district to rally supporters on the same night as the dinner. In Washington Township, Michigan, the president assured his audience he’d rather be there than in that other city by that name.

“Is this better than that phony Washington White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Is this more fun?” Trump asked, sparking cheers.

“I could be up there tonight, smiling, like I love where they’re hitting you, shot after shot. These people, they hate your guts … and you’ve got to smile. If you don’t smile, they say, ‘He was terrible, he couldn’t take it.’ And if you do smile, they’ll say, “What was he smiling about?’”

Wolf’s act had some in the audience laughing and left others in stony silence. A blistering critique of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was seated just feet away, mocked everything from her truthfulness to her appearance and Southern roots.

Among Wolf’s less offensive one-liners:

“Just a reminder to everyone, I’m here to make jokes, I have no agenda, I’m not trying to get anything accomplished, so everyone that’s here from Congress you should feel right at home.”
“It is kinda crazy that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia when the Hillary campaign wasn’t even in contact with Michigan.”
“He wants to give teachers guns, and I support that because then they can sell them for things they need like supplies.”

Dimmed star power

The dinner once attracted Oscar winners and other notable performers in film and television as well as celebrities in sports and other high-profile professions. The star power dimmed appreciably last year when the famously thin-skinned Trump, who routinely slammed reporters as dishonest and their work as “fake news,” announced he wasn’t attending. He was the first president to skip the event since Ronald Reagan bowed out in 1981 as he recovered from an assassination attempt.

Unlike last year, when Trump aides also declined to attend, the Trump White House had its contingent, including counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Former administration officials were on hand, such as onetime press secretary Sean Spicer, ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and political aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

At least one Trump antagonist attended — porn star Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti, who tweeted that he and Conway had a “spirited discussion.” And there was comedian Kathy Griffin, who last year posted controversial video of herself holding what appeared to be Trump’s bloody head; she later apologized.
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