President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico is facing a major problem: A wall of resistance from his own party.
A growing number of congressional Republicans are objecting to the cost and viability of a proposal that was a rallying cry for the billionaire businessman during his insurgent campaign. Interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers across the ideological spectrum suggest Trump could have a difficult time getting funding for his plan approved by Congress.
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Many bluntly told CNN they’d likely vote against any Trump plan that is not fully offset with spending cuts, while others questioned whether Trump’s vision would adequately resolve the problems at the border.
“If you’re going to spend that kind of money, you’re going to have to show me where you’re going to get that money,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a key swing vote who has already broken with Trump over his nominee for secretary of education.
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump’s inauguration, and the new President’s work so far hasn’t impressed the American people.
A majority, 53%, disapprove of the way the President is handling his job, according to a new CNN/ORC poll, marking the highest disapproval for a new elected president since polls began tracking those results. Trump is the only President to hold a net-negative rating this early in his tenure.
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Overall, 44% approve of the way he’s handling the job, seven points below the previous low-point of 51%. Further, the share who disapprove “strongly” of Trump’s work as president is nearly as large as the total block who approve, 43% feel intensely negative about Trump. Partisanship is the sharpest divider in opinions on Trump (90% of Republicans approve vs. 10% of Democrats).
A federal appeals court early Sunday morning denied the US government’s emergency request to resume President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has asked for both sides to file legal briefs before the court makes its final decision after a federal judge halted the program on Friday.
What this means is that the ruling by US District Court Judge James Robart, who suspended the ban, will remain in place — for now.
The US Justice Department filed an appeal just after midnight Sunday, asking to pause Robart’s sweeping decision that temporarily halted enforcement of several key provisions of Trump’s executive order.
President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday night, hours after she said the Justice Department would not defend Trump’s executive order on immigration.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Yates had been relieved of her duties. Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was named as acting attorney general.
Spicer’s statement said Yates had “betrayed the Department of Justice” by refusing to defend Trump’s order. The statement added that Yates, a career prosecutor whom Trump named as acting attorney general, is “weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”
Boente will serve until Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is confirmed as attorney general.
The stunning move was reminiscent of President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973, when his attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned in protest after he ordered them to dismiss Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that bans Syrians from taking refuge in the United States, halts the U.S. refugee resettlement program for four months and temporarily blocks people from a handful of unnamed countries from entering the U.S. at all.
“I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don’t want them here,” he said at a swearing-in ceremony at the Pentagon for Secretary of Defense James Mattis. “We don’t want to admit into our country the very threats we are fighting overseas.”
Trump approved the refugee ban amid the biggest refugee crisis in history and on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which honors the millions of people killed during World War II, many of whom tried to flee to the U.S. but were turned away.
It’s not the blanket ban on Muslims that Trump advocated for during his campaign, and it does not single out any country by name other than Syria for its refugees.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the White House had put forth “alternative facts” to ones reported by the news media about the size of Mr. Trump’s inauguration crowd.
She made this assertion — which quickly went viral on social media — a day after Mr. Trump and Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, had accused the news media of reporting falsehoods about the inauguration and Mr. Trump’s relationship with the intelligence agencies.
In leveling this attack, the president and Mr. Spicer made a series of false statements.
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Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, before speaking live on TV outside the White House on Sunday.Credit Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
Brandishing signs reading “The future is female” and “Make America kind again,” tens of thousands of women in a sea of pink hats marched on the nation’s capital Saturday, raising their voices in direct opposition to Donald Trump.
As Trump attended a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral on his first full day as president, protesters from across the country descended on D.C., arriving in buses, caravans and packing public transportation to gather near the National Mall and hear from prominent women’s rights activists, lawmakers and celebrities. A slow-moving procession began Saturday afternoon along Constitution Avenue toward the Washington Monument, and planned to end near the White House.
Organizers say the Women’s March on Washington was intentionally scheduled for the day after the presidential inauguration with the aim of sending a powerful message to the newly minted administration: Women’s rights are human rights.
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Demonstrators arrive at Union Station for the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017, in Washington, DC. Jessica Kourkounis / Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day was marred by noisy demonstrations, shoving matches and sporadic clashes with cops that resulted in more than 200 arrests.
Three-thousand members of local, state and federal law enforcement — backed by 5,000 National Guard members and police officers from as far away as New Jersey — patrolled the streets as the evening’s festivities got under way and the legions of protesters still seething over the Manhattan mogul’s unexpected victory threatened more disruptions.
Acting Police Chief Peter Newsham said that by around 6:30 p.m. ET things had calmed down, but authorities were still monitoring several groups.
At the same time, police are preparing for the Women’s March on Washington set for Saturday that is expected to draw 200,000 protesters — a number that inaugural historian Jim Bendat said could break records.
Donald Trump will become president Friday with an approval rating of just 40%, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, the lowest of any recent president and 44 points below that of President Barack Obama, the 44th president.
Following a tumultuous transition period, approval ratings for Trump’s handling of the transition are more than 20 points below those for any of his three most recent predecessors. Obama took the oath in 2009 with an 84% approval rating, 67% approved of Clinton’s transition as of late December 1992 and 61% approved of George W. Bush’s transition just before he took office in January 2001.
Trump’s wobbly handling of the presidential transition has left most Americans with growing doubts that the President-elect will be able to handle the job. About 53% say Trump’s statements and actions since Election Day have made them less confident in his ability to handle the presidency, and the public is split evenly on whether Trump will be a good or poor president (48% on each side).
The President-elect dismissed the poll findings on Twitter: “The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has signaled to congressional Republican leaders that his preference is to fund the border wall through the appropriations process as soon as April, according to House Republican officials.
The move would break a key campaign promise when Trump repeatedly said he would force Mexico to pay for the construction of the wall along the border, though in October, Trump suggested for the first time that Mexico would reimburse the US for the cost of the wall.
Trump defended that proposal Friday morning in a tweet, saying the move to use congressional appropriations was because of speed.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Trump Targets Muslims
D.C. Protests on Inauguration Day
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Mexican wall
James' World 2 