Politics Election category, Page 385
Kirsten Gillibrand to enter presidential race featuring record number of women
WASHINGTON — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a central figure in the Democratic Party’s debate about the #MeToo movement, is preparing to join a 2020 presidential primary contest that features a record number of women in the wake of the midterm election tidal wave of female candidates. Gillibrand, 52, will announce...
IRS recalling 46,000 workers to handle taxes
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is recalling about 46,000 of its employees furloughed by the government shutdown — nearly 60 percent of its workforce — to handle tax returns and pay out refunds. The employees won’t be paid. With the official start of the tax filing season coming Jan....
House rebukes GOP’s Steve King over racist remarks
WASHINGTON — A Democratic measure rebuking Republican Rep. Steve King for his comments about white supremacy won easy approval Tuesday in the House. In a twist, the nine-term Iowa congressman was among those supporting the measure of disapproval, which was adopted, 416-1. King said he agreed with Majority Whip James...
West Virginia: Proposal to give $10M for Trump’s border wall
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some lawmakers in drug-ravaged West Virginia want to pitch in millions of dollars for President Trump’s wall-building effort along the U.S.-Mexico border. The GOP-led House of Delegates issued a statement Monday that a bill planned by three delegates would divert $10 million from West Virginia’s current $186...
William Barr carefully distances himself from Trump on key issues
WASHINGTON — William Barr, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, told a Senate panel Tuesday that he did not believe special counsel Robert Mueller was on a “witch hunt” and said he would not fire Mueller without good cause. “I would not carry out that instruction” if asked to do...
‘Like I said: A puppet’: Hillary Clinton doubles down on Trump and Russia
On Friday, The New York Times published a 1,727-word report revealing the FBI had once opened an investigation into whether President Trump was secretly working on behalf of Russia and thus a “possible threat to national security.” Over the weekend, The Washington Post followed with a bombshell of its own:...
Trump seeks to sell shutdown, trade policies to farmers
NEW ORLEANS — President Trump urged farmers Monday to stick with him even as many grapple with the impact of his trade war with China and the partial government shutdown. “No one understands better than our great farmers that the tough choices we make today reap rewards for centuries to...
Lovin’ it: Trump fetes NCAA champion Clemson with burgers, fries
WASHINGTON — The scent of burgers, fries and victory wafted through the stately White House on Monday as President Trump saluted college football’s Clemson Tigers for winning the national championship. Trump, a fast food lover, said he even paid for their meal himself because of the partial government shutdown. He...
Latest polls show voters blaming Trump for the government shutdown
WASHINGTON — President Trump said a month ago that he’d gladly take the blame for a government shutdown over his proposed border wall. Polls show he’s getting it. Six surveys taken since the partial government closure began last month tell a consistent story — half or more Americans believe Trump...
House GOP leaders move to strip Rep. King of committee assignments over comments
WASHINGTON — A panel of Republican leaders voted unanimously Monday to keep veteran Iowa lawmaker Steve King off of House committees, a firm rebuke to a influential opponent of illegal immigration who sparked outrage last week after openly questioning whether the term “white supremacist” was offensive. House Minority Leader Kevin...
Trump rejects suggested short-term fix for government shutdown
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday rejected the suggestion that he temporarily reopen government while negotiations continue on his proposed border wall, signaling no speedy resolution to the partial government shutdown now into a fourth week. Leaving the White House for a trip to New Orleans, Trump said he...
Fact check: Trump isn’t holed up nonstop at White House
WASHINGTON — Eager to defend a prolonged government shutdown over his border wall, President Donald Trump is pretending that he’s holed up nonstop at the White House waiting for a deal with Democrats. He’s also rewriting history regarding his promise to make Mexico pay for the wall. Trump says he...
Details about Manafort’s interactions show Mueller’s focus on Russian contacts
New revelations about Paul Manafort’s interactions with a Russian associate while he was leading President Trump’s campaign provide a window into how extensively the special counsel has mapped interactions between Trump associates and Russians in his 20-month investigation. When Manafort pleaded guilty in September to federal crimes related to his...
Analysis: Stagecraft won’t win shutdown battle for Trump
WASHINGTON — Military salutes. Heaps of contraband. Oval Office optics. President Trump, who has long put a premium on stagecraft, is discovering he cannot resolve the partial government shutdown simply by putting on a show. With the standoff over paying for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico wall dragging on, the president’s Oval...
Trade war’s wounded: Companies improvise to dodge cost hikes
WASHINGTON — In Rochester, N.Y., a maker of furnaces for semiconductor and solar companies is moving its research and development to China to dodge President Trump’s import taxes — a move that threatens a handful of its 26 U.S. jobs. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the CEO of a company...
Graham says Trump isn’t giving in on southern border wall
WASHINGTON — A leading Senate Republican close to President Donald Trump says Trump isn’t giving in on his demands for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the issue that’s caused the partial government shutdown that’s now in its fourth week. Sen. Lindsey Graham says he encouraged Trump during a telephone...
A brief guide to Rep. Steve King’s ‘long history of racist statements’
With nearly two decades of Steven Arnold King as a national political figure, the American public has become well-acquainted with the Groundhog Day-like parameters of the Steve King news cycle. 1. King, R-Iowa, says or tweets something widely viewed as racist, anti-Semitic, white nationalist, or he insults immigrants, blacks, Latinos,...
Democrats say they will step up investigations after new reports on Trump and Russia
WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats Sunday pledged heightened scrutiny of President Trump’s dealings with Russia, spurred by news reports of extraordinary secrecy surrounding his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the opening in 2017 of an FBI counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump worked on behalf of the Kremlin. Trump’s Republican...
FBI’s investigation of Trump included counterintelligence inquiry
WASHINGTON — The FBI investigation into President Trump that was opened almost immediately after he fired then-director James Comey also included a counterintelligence component to determine if the president was seeking to help Russia and if so, why, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision by then-acting FBI...
GOP rejected Obama’s executive reach, but accepts Trump’s
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama stunned Republicans when he bypassed Congress and — relying on what he called his pen and his phone — used executive powers to enact his agenda, including protecting millions of young immigrants from deportation. Now, with President Donald Trump proposing an even more dramatic end-run...
Former Obama housing chief Julian Castro joins 2020 campaign
SAN ANTONIO — Assailing President Donald Trump for “a crisis of leadership,” former Obama Cabinet member Julian Castro joined the 2020 presidential race Saturday as the rush of Democrats making early moves to challenge the incumbent accelerates, while anticipation grows around bigger names still considering a White House run. Castro,...
Kemp prepares to lead Georgia after rough, partisan campaign
ATLANTA — Georgia’s new governor campaigned as a self-described “politically incorrect conservative” who sealed support among fellow Republicans with an endorsement from President Donald Trump and eked out a close November victory after lobbing a last-minute accusation that the state Democratic Party tried to hack the election. Now the question...
At the border, Trump moves closer to emergency declaration
McALLEN, Texas — Taking the shutdown fight to the Mexican border, President Donald Trump edged closer Thursday to declaring a national emergency in an extraordinary end run around Congress to fund his long-promised border wall. Pressure was mounting to find an escape hatch from the three-week impasse that has closed...
Local Texas GOP rejects outing vice chair over his faith
FORT WORTH, Texas — Republicans in one of the most populous counties in Texas voted Thursday to keep a Muslim doctor as their party vice chairman following infighting over some members’ claims about his beliefs. The executive committee of the Tarrant County Republican Party voted 139-49 to reject the effort...
Democratic lawmakers call for delay in easing sanctions on close ally of Russia’s Putin
WASHINGTON — House Democrats said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin failed to convince them in a closed briefing Thursday that the United States should lift sanctions on a Russian aluminum company controlled by a Vladimir Putin ally, calling for more information and a delay. Treasury notified Congress last month that it...
