Donald Trump campaigned as the master deal-maker, a guy who could come to Washington, knock a few heads and get the government working again.
But on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, America awoke to a government shutdown — a dramatic testament to dysfunction, partisan gridlock and failed leadership.
There was a lot at stake: for the public, for House Republicans who fear losing their majority, for Senate Democrats whose incumbents will now have to defend their votes and the shutdown to constituents, and for Trump, whose approval ratings have languished below 40 percent.
But as federal spending authority expired at midnight Saturday, the nation’s top elected officials sent the election-year message that they’re less concerned with performing the most basic task of governance than catering to the demands of partisans.
Lawmakers appeared a little closer Wednesday to passing yet another short-term spending bill to keep the government open, but as Senate Democrats looked increasingly likely to cave, conservatives in the House looked increasingly likely to fight ― or at least get some concessions. And depending on what demands GOP leaders give in to, those changes could still throw the Senate into chaos and the government into a shutdown.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) emerged from a meeting with Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Wednesday night saying House Republicans don’t yet have the votes to pass another short-term spending fix, called a continuing resolution (CR).
“At this point, if the vote were to happen today, there’s not the votes to fund it with Republican-only votes,” Meadows told reporters Wednesday night.
Still, Meadows said they were making “good progress,” and he expected leadership to have some accommodation for conservatives.
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Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said a short-term spending bill is on shaky ground. “At this point, if the vote were to happen today, there’s not the votes to fund it with Republican-only votes.”
Concerned that the missile defense system designed to protect American cities is insufficient by itself to deter a North Korean attack, the Trump administration is expanding its strategy to also try to stop Pyongyang’s missiles before they get far from Korean airspace.
The new approach, hinted at in an emergency request to Congress last week for $4 billion to deal with North Korea, envisions the stepped-up use of cyberweapons to interfere with the North’s control systems before missiles are launched, as well as drones and fighter jets to shoot them down moments after liftoff. The missile defense network on the West Coast would be expanded for use if everything else fails.
In interviews, defense officials, along with top scientists and senior members of Congress, described the accelerated effort as a response to the unexpected progress that North Korea has made in developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear bomb to the continental United States.
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A long-range ground-based interceptor missile test at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These missiles, designed to strike incoming nuclear weapons, are not foolproof, so the Defense Department is looking to other approaches like cyberattacks and drone strikes.Credit U.S. Missile Defense Agency, via Reuters
President Trump on Thursday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and African countries, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than people from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.
Mr. Trump’s remarks left members of Congress attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. They were there discussing an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss the explosive proceedings of the private meeting.
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President Trump during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday.CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times
The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a yearslong effort by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant new privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications.
The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law that permits the government, without a warrant, to collect communications of foreigners abroad from United States firms like Google and AT&T — even when those targets are talking to Americans. Congress had enacted the law in 2008 to legalize a form of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The legislation approved on Thursday still has to go through the Senate. But fewer lawmakers there appear to favor major changes to spying laws, so the House vote is likely the effective end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance technology and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 following the leaks by the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden.
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President Trump tweeted in support of an amendment to FISA on Thursday. It was the latest example of him contradicting his administration, his party and even himself.Published OnCreditImage by Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
President Trump on Tuesday appeared to endorse a sweeping immigration deal that would eventually grant millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, saying he would be willing to “take the heat” politically for an approach that many of his hard-line supporters have long viewed as unacceptable.
The president made the remarks during an extended meeting with congressional Republicans and Democrats who are weighing a shorter-term agreement that would extend legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Mr. Trump has said such a deal must be accompanied by new money for a border wall and measures to limit immigrants from bringing family members into the country in the future, conditions he repeated during the meeting on Tuesday.
But in backing a broader immigration measure, Mr. Trump was giving a rare public glimpse of an impulse he has expressed privately to advisers and lawmakers — the desire to preside over a more far-reaching solution to the status of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already living and working in the United States. Such action has the potential to alienate the hard-line immigration activists who powered his political rise and helped him win the presidency, many of whom have described it as amnesty for lawbreakers.
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President Trump said legislation around an immigration overhaul should come from love, while also pushing for stronger security measures.Published OnCreditImage by Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday unilaterally released a highly anticipated transcript of the committee’s interview with one of the founders of the firm that produced a salacious and unsubstantiated dossier outlining a Russian effort to aid the Trump campaign.
The interview, with Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS, took place last summer and was expected to shed light on the origins of the firm’s work, its concerns about the Trump campaign’s activities, and what the F.B.I. may have done with the information.
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Senator Dianne Feinstein of California released the transcripts without the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, almost certainly escalating partisan tensions on the committeeCreditPete Marovich for The New York Times
Stephen K. Bannon is stepping down from his post as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the company announced Tuesday.
Mr. Bannon’s departure, which was forced by a onetime financial patron, Rebekah Mercer, comes as Mr. Bannon remained unable to quell the furor over remarks attributed to him in a new book in which he questions President Trump’s mental fitness and disparages his elder son, Donald Trump Jr.
Mr. Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth transition, a statement from the company’s chief executive, Larry Solov, said.
In the statement, Mr. Bannon added that he was “proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.”
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Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, is stepping down from his post as executive chairman at Breitbart News, the right-wing website he used as a mouthpiece.Published OnCreditImage by Lexey Swall for The New York Times
Anticipating that special counsel Robert Mueller will ask to interview President Donald Trump, the president’s legal team is discussing a range of potential options for the format, including written responses to questions in lieu of a formal sit-down, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Lawyers for Trump have been discussing with FBI investigators a possible interview by the special counsel with the president as part of the inquiry into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
A source familiar with a late December meeting between Trump’s legal team and representatives from the special counsel’s office said the timing of a possible interview or written response has not been set but could come in a matter of weeks.
Katie Campos settled into her seat for a short flight from Newark to Buffalo last week. Within minutes, she said, an intoxicated male passenger sitting next to her began groping and harassing both Campos and a second female passenger seated in the same row, grabbing Campos repeatedly despite her demands for him to stop it.
“He grabbed my upper thigh, like in the crotch area, and he grabbed it pretty forcefully,” Campos told CNN, adding that the man only stopped touching her after she got out of her seat and ran to the back of the plane, where she told a flight attendant what was happening.
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Campos is one of four women CNN interviewed who said they’ve been sexually assaulted or harassed during a commercial flight. These women are a small fraction of a typically overlooked group enduring inappropriate behavior during an American reckoning with harassment and misconduct that spans across many industries like entertainment, sports, news media and politics.
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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James' World 2 