The move is in response to a Trump rule stating that groups receiving Title X funding could no longer provide abortion counseling
Kari Paul, logging out for the night! Here’s the top news of the afternoon:
Journalists are dropping out of an upcoming softball game with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his campaign.
CNN and ABC news pulled out of a Sunday night game at Iowa’s Field of Dreams “not wanting to be associated with a campaign fundraising effort,” POLITICO reported. Other media outlets including news site Iowa Starting Line will still participate.
President Donald Trump said he looks forward to meeting with Boris Johnson at the G7 Summit in Biarritz this week after speaking with the UK Prime Minister by phone on Monday.
The two discussed a “wide range of trade and economic issues” and Johnson updated Trump on the status of Brexit, according to a pool report from the White House.
The US may view aid given by Greece to an Iranian tanker as “material support to a terrorist group,” according to the State Department. From Reuters:
The United States has conveyed its “strong position” to the Greek government about an Iranian tanker that sailed for Greece on Monday after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar and Washington says is carrying oil to Syria, a State Department official said.
Any efforts to assist the tanker could be considered as providing material support to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, which has immigration and potential criminal consequences, the official said.
Facebook said the Trump campaign violated the platform’s rules with advertisements targeting women, Popular Information reported on Monday.
Facebook advertising guidelines prohibit content that targets “personal attributes,” including ads that make “direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s… gender identity.”
Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier with ties to many high-profile politicians including Donald Trump, had signed a will two days before his death, CNN reports.
Epstein had assets of about $577 million and listed his brother Mark Epstein as the only heir. He died from suicide on August 10 while awaiting trial for accusations of running a sex trafficking ring of underage girls. The will was signed August 8.
On Monday, Representative Pete King became the first Republican to back a bill in the House that would ban assault weapons.
King is listed as a co-sponsor of the Assault Weapons Bill of 2019 on Congress’s website, the Hill reported.
Several Trump Administration officials are considering a payroll tax cut to counter the weakening economy, the Washington Post reports.
From the Post:
Millions of Americans pay a “payroll tax” on their earnings, a 6.2 percent levy that is used to finance Social Security programs. The payroll tax was last cut in 2011 and 2012 during the Obama administration to 4.2 percent, as a way to encourage more consumer spending during the recent economic downturn. But the cut was allowed to reset back up to 6.2 percent in 2013.
Workers pay payroll taxes on income up to $132,900, so cutting the tax has remained a popular idea for many lawmakers, especially Democrats, seeking to deliver savings for middle-income earners and not the wealthiest Americans. But payroll tax cuts can also add dramatically to the deficit and – depending on how they are designed – pull billions of dollars away from Social Security.
Planned Parenthood will no longer accept funds from a federal program subsidizing women’s health care after the Trump administration banned participants from referring patients to abortion providers, the organization said Monday.
The Trump administration said organizations that receive Title X health care funding can no longer provide counseling regarding abortion. Planned Parenthood said it will leave the program due to the “gag rule,” which prevents providers from discussing the health procedure.
Hello readers, it’s Kari Paul, heading the blog for the next few hours. More news to come.
Here’s a summary of the day in politics so far:
Here’s another constituent of Omar, Amber Harris, a Jewish American resident of Minnesota who is married to a Palestinian from the West Bank and who has been denied the right to travel to visit his family.
She says the last time she tried to enter she was held and interrogated for 10 hours by Shin Bet and her marriage documents were almost thrown away, she says that she was yelled at for being a human rights activist and an environmentalist, and she says she was told she was a threat to the state of Israel and banned for 10 years.
Lana Barkawi, a Palestinian American who has not been able to visit her homeland and an Omar constituent, is talking about the pain of being denied the right to travel home.
She describes “our hope that we can someday return”. She said she has been unable to balance her questions about her family with the negative image of Palestinians promulgated in US pop culture.
Tlaib is up now. She says that their planned trip was “a common occurrence for members of Congress”.
She compares the denial of entry to the inability of members of Congress to visit apartheid South Africa.
Omar:
We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us … barring members of Congress from seeing it does not make it go away.
Omar says that suppression of expression and association in Israel “is not consistent with democracy”.
She continues:
You know Donald Trump would love nothing more than to use this issue to pit Muslim and Jewish-Americans against each other. The Muslim and Jewish communities are being othered and made into the bogeyman by this administration.
The news conference has begun. Omar is speaking.
She says leading up to her anticipated trip, she met with constituents with a “range” of views “on the conflict”. She said the trip she proposed was a usual trip for members of Congress.
Here’s a live video stream of the upcoming Omar-Tlaib news conference. We’re awaiting their arrival now:
Representative Ilhan Omar has promised to post a live stream of her imminent press conference with Representative Rashida Tlaib on the topic of their being banned from travel to Israel and Palestine in her Twitter feed here.
snap
The debunked study you’re referring to was based on 21 undecided voters. For context that’s about half the number of people associated with your campaign who have been indicted. https://t.co/0zHnWvGjSv
Can Trump keep up the appeal he demonstrated in 2016 among white women without college degrees?
That new NBC/WSJ poll indicates it could be an uphill battle for him:
huge danger sign for Trump in new NBC/WSJ poll:
among white women without college degrees, Trump trails generic 2020 Democrat by 6 percentage points
in 2016, exit polls showed him beating Hillary among those voters by 27 percentage points
NBC/WSJ poll on Trump’s performance as president:
white men w/no college degree
70% approve, 25% disapprove
Hispanics
31% approve, 68% disapprove
white women w/college degree
26% approve, 72% disapprove
A new squad taking shape?
Thank you @Liz_Cheney for the warm welcome to #Wyoming and for your leadership in the House. pic.twitter.com/3dq61bd381
After a 37-month closure for renovation and repairs, the Washington Monument is set to reopen.
A Park Service press release calls it “another example of how the Trump Administration is enhancing visitors’ experiences at national parks and public lands across the nation.”
Hold onto your hats – the Washington Monument will reopen on September 19!! Additional information, including how to get tickets to visit, is at https://t.co/zRb1xZQ8pa. pic.twitter.com/IvKgtvgPc4
A poll out from NBC / WSJ says half of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy – note that that is better than his low-40s approval rating in general – but support for free trade has spiked to 64%, in a rebuke of Trump’s tariffs.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent points out another poll finding: huge support for a generic Democrat over Trump, among those voters who think the economy is the only thing Trump is doing right:
Key NBC poll finding: Voters who approve of Trump on economy — but disapprove overall — favor a generic Dem to Trump by 73-5.
Candidates like Biden will conclude the safe approach is to tell voters they can keep current economy w/o Trump’s lunacy.
Here’s the lineup for this afternoon’s press conference with Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were denied entry by Israel to the Occupied Territories:
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Rosa Druker, IfNotNow Twin Cities Member
Lana Barkawi, Palestinian-American and Minnesota Resident
Amber Harris, Jewish-American and Minnesota Resident
The US has made secret contact with Venezuela’s socialist party boss as close allies of President Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle seek guarantees they won’t face prosecution for alleged abuses and crimes if they cede to growing demands to remove him, according to a senior Trump administration official, the AP reports:
Diosdado Cabello, who is considered the most-powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro, met last month in Caracas with someone who is in close contact with the Trump administration, the official told The Associated Press. A second meeting is in the works but has not yet taken place.
Representative Ben Ray Luján, the assistant House speaker, has endorsed opening an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, Politico reports:
Luján, a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is the highest-ranking House Democrat to support an impeachment investigation.
The New Mexico Democrat, who serves as assistant House speaker, is running for Senate in his home state. He is the 127th House Democrat to back impeachment proceedings.
The acting director of the federal Bureau of Prisons has been removed from his position more than a week after millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein took his own life while in federal custody, the AP reports:
William Barr announced Hugh Hurwitz’s reassignment Monday. Hurwitz had served as the agency’s acting director since May 2018.
“Newt Gingrich and an eclectic band of NASA skeptics are trying sell President Donald Trump on a reality show-style plan to jump-start the return of humans to the moon — at a fraction of the space agency’s estimated price tag,” Politico reports:
The proposal, whose other proponents range from a three-star Air Force general to the former publicist for pop stars Michael Jackson and Prince, envisions creating a $2 billion sweepstakes pitting
billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other space pioneers to see who can establish and run
the first lunar base, according to a summary of the plan shared with POLITICO.
Trump launched his new baseless attack on the integrity of US elections on Monday just hours after the chair of the Federal Elections Commission took Trump and Republicans to task for recklessly spreading baseless claims of voter fraud:
The FEC chair clobbered Trump for claiming Dems cheated the 2016 election:
“Academics have studied this.
Lawyers have studied this.
The government has studied this.
Democrats have studied this.
Republicans have studied this.
No one can find any evidence of rampant voter fraud” pic.twitter.com/5MoiREBX8R
Representative Steve King, the Iowa Republican whose own party has turned on him for his bigoted and controversial speech, has demanded an apology from the media and Republican party leaders after he questioned whether, without the historical persistence of rape and incest, “would there be any population of the world left?”
After the media reported the quote, which as demonstrated by video is accurate, Republican leaders renewed their calls for King to find another line of work.
Trump appears to be picking up, in his latest attack on the integrity of US elections, on a psychologist’s speculation that big tech companies have the power to shape public perceptions of US politics and candidates, which is not the same as demonstrating that something actually, you know, happened.
Wow, Tweet Just Out! The president is claiming that a big tech company manipulated millions of votes in the last presidential election! That would seem to be extraordinarily reckless on the part of the president, in terms of the potential damage it could wreak to the public faith in free and fair elections, ie American democracy itself, if there were any chance that the story was maybe just another wild conspiracy theory advanced by Judicial Watch, the extreme-right propaganda outlet still devoted in August 2019 to a pretty much uninterrupted stream of Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories which the president retweets frequently especially when he seems especially upset.
Wow, Report Just Out! Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election! This was put out by a Clinton supporter, not a Trump Supporter! Google should be sued. My victory was even bigger than thought! @JudicialWatch
Here’s video of the Warren “I’m sorry” moment:
Warren speaks out forcefully for systemic federal reporting on violence against indigenous women.
“Over and over I’m struck by women who go missing and it doesn’t make a headline… Native women, and it never makes a headline,” Warren says.
Warren is earning applause at the Native American forum with a call for the United States to honor treaty obligations and to respect the sovereignty of tribal nations. Now she’s making a call for steps to prevent violence against indigenous women and children, and for better federal reporting on missing and murdered indigenous women.
Here’s a livestream of Warren at the Native American forum:
LIVE: 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren attends Native American forum in Sioux City, Iowa. https://t.co/OVySAohKun
Senator Elizabeth Warren is among the presidential candidates speaking today at a forum on Native American issues.
She has admitted “mistakes” and said: “I am sorry for harm I have caused.”
“Like anyone who’s been honest with themselves, I know I have made mistakes,” Elizabeth Warren tells a Native American forum in Iowa. “I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened, and I have learned. A lot.”
Trump has just attacked (again) his own handpicked chairman of the federal reserve, and the Democrats, who he says are trying to tank the economy to prevent his reelection. Then he extends some free monetary policy advice. But also asserts that the economy is very strong.
…..The Fed Rate, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well. If that happened, our Economy would be even better, and the World Economy would be greatly and quickly enhanced-good for everyone!
Larry Kudlow, director of the US national economic council, will hold a briefing call tomorrow to rebut reports of a recession on the horizon.
The White House, which is insisting reporters are overplaying a potential recession, has scheduled a briefing call for Kudlow with business leaders tomorrow on the topic of the president and the economy.
John Delaney has poured a staggering $24m of his own money into running for president. He has been campaigning for the White House for more than two years, and in that time has held more than 200 events in Iowa.
On one recent Thursday morning, these efforts translated into a grand total of 11 people coming out to see Delaney, at a campaign event in the small town of Algona, in the north of the state.
Related: John Delaney draws 11 people to 2020 event – does he truly think he can win?
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for president, is using his “state-of-the-art digital infrastructure and grassroots army of volunteers” to help American workers from the campaign trail, Politico reports:
Sanders has tapped his email list to push his fans to join picket lines and labor rallies at Veterans Affairs hospitals, University of California campuses, Ralphs grocery stores, Reagan National Airport, a Kaiser Permanente campus, and McDonald’s restaurants in at least 12 places, including the first-in-the-nation caucus state Iowa and delegate-rich California. His efforts haven’t been limited to labor events: Sanders has also used his campaign apparatus to recruit volunteers to get out the vote for Queens District Attorney candidate Tiffany Cabán in New York and to boost turnout at a protest at a proposed migrant detention center in Oklahoma.
Sanders has tapped his email list to push his fans to join picket lines and labor rallies at:
• VA hospitals
• University of California campuses
• Ralphs grocery stores
• Reagan National Airport
• A Kaiser Permanente campus
• McDonald’s restaurants https://t.co/18jBgD3z5q
Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will host a press conference on travel restrictions to Palestine and Israel and potential policy responses, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to deny them entry, their offices have announced.
The event, scheduled to begin at 4pmET, is to include people directly impacted by the travel restrictions. We’ll bring you a live stream and blog coverage.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose claim to Native American ancestry has been the subject of political controversy, is among the 2020 presidential hopefuls participating today in a forum on Native American issues.
Marianne WIlliamson is the first candidate up.
Applause when she says this: “If and when I’m president, we will begin by taking that picture of Andrew Jackson off the wall of the Oval Office.”
Citing a scheduling conflict, Senator Kamala Harris will not participate in a CNN “climate town hall” for presidential hopefuls next month, the network says.
Candidates to have RSVP’d “yes” include Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.
The candidates, who will make back-to-back appearances, will take questions directly from a live studio audience in New York and a CNN moderator. The audience will be drawn from Democratic voters interested in the issue. The town hall will air live on CNN platforms around the world.
For future generations of political pros eager for the secret of how to transform a promising gubernatorial career into a presidential campaign job that basically amounted to a humiliating paid internship, except are we sure he was paid?, Chris Christie has announced that he is opening a politics institute named for himself, NJ.com reports:
The former governor, known for his often brash leadership style that propelled him to the national stage as a tell-it-like-it-is politician, is about to unveil The Christie Institute of Public Policy, a non-profit, nonpartisan institute in part with his alma mater, Seton Hall University School of Law.
Donald Trump said on Sunday he would keep vice president Mike Pence as his running mate next year.
“I’m very happy with Mike Pence,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey.
Donald Trump has walked back a previous prediction that the United States could institute universal background checks for gun buyers, as the country’s most recent major mass shootings recede in the public consciousness.
Here’s what Trump said on 7 August, after separate attacks in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 and left dozens injured:
There is a great appetite, and I mean a very strong appetite, for background checks. And I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before. I think both Republican[s] and Democrat[s] are getting close to a bill on, to doing something with background checks.
I’m not saying anything. I’m saying Congress is going to be reporting back to me with ideas. And they’ll come in from Democrats and Republicans. And I’ll look at it very strongly. But just remember, we already have a lot of background checks. OK? Thank you.
Authorities this weekend announced they had foiled three potential mass shootings after arresting three men in different states who expressed interest in or threatened to carry them out. Here’s what we know about them. https://t.co/IaAW3EtQxV
Scaramucci and Trump have taken their cable TV – Twitter smackdown entirely to Twitter. Developing…
My wife @DeidreScaramuc2 response: “I don’t really like being tweeted at by @potus on a Monday morning but at least I had my coffee!” More to follow . . . @moochandthemrs https://t.co/XKEoAlc4s5
Donald Trump is in a dis-war with his former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci.
As with most of Trump’s insult battles, which scientists estimate take up 87% of his daily attention, this one started with someone saying something bad about Trump on TV, at which Trump has gone on Twitter to say something bad about that person.
….got fired. Wrote a very nice book about me just recently. Now the book is a lie? Said his wife was driving him crazy, “something big” was happening with her. Getting divorced. He was a mental wreck. We didn’t want him around. Now Fake News puts him on like he was my buddy!
He was a disloyal incompetent idiot who I knew nothing about so I hired him to be in charge of all White House communications. https://t.co/TwExzglOSy
Good morning and welcome to our live blog politics coverage. An increasing number of economists see a recession looming in the US, according to a new report, while Donald Trump – whose erratic course on trade and monetary policy has shaken markets, analysts say – sees a conspiracy afoot.
Thirty-four percent of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics, in a report being released Monday, said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2021, the Associated Press reports:
That’s up from 25% in a survey taken in February. Only 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year, while 38% predict that it will occur in 2020. […] The economists have previously expressed concern that Trump’s tariffs and higher budget deficits could eventually dampen the economy.
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on goods from many key US trading partners, from China and Europe to Mexico and Canada. Officials maintain that the tariffs, which are taxes on imports, will help the administration gain more favorable terms of trade. But US trading partners have simply retaliated with tariffs of their own.
Juan Williams at @FoxNews is so pathetic, and yet when he met me in the Fox Building lobby, he couldn’t have been nicer as he asked me to take a picture of him and me for his family. Yet he is always nasty and wrong!
He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession.
“The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election,” Mr Trump tweeted last week. “The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!”
Still, for now, most economic signs appear solid. Employers are adding jobs at a steady pace, the unemployment rate remains near a 50-year low and consumers are optimistic. US retail sales figures out last Thursday showed that they jumped in July by the most in four months.