Trump and McConnell Strive for Comity Amid Rising Tensions - New York Times

Trump and McConnell Strive for Comity Amid Rising Tensions

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and SHERYL GAY STOLBERGOCT. 16, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, tried to convey a sense of harmony on Monday after months of bitter, private feuding that threatened to undermine their party’s legislative push in the coming weeks to enact a sweeping tax cut.

In an impromptu, 45-minute Rose Garden news conference after the men met for lunch at the White House, Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell both put on a display of awkward camaraderie, as the president went on volubly, fielding question after question as the senator fidgeted and spoke only occasionally. Through it all, they tried to wave aside reports of a disintegrating relationship that had included the president’s repeated use of tweets to publicly disparage Mr. McConnell’s legislative leadership.

“We have been friends for a long time,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. McConnell as the veteran lawmaker stood awkwardly to his left. “We are probably now, I think, as least as far as I’m concerned, closer than ever before.”

The expressions of friendship came at a time of deepening personal animosity and mistrust that had left Mr. Trump seething about the leader’s legislative failures and Mr. McConnell appalled by the president’s lack of policy understanding. After Mr. McConnell publicly questioned the president’s “excessive expectations,” Mr. Trump berated him during a phone call that devolved into a profane shouting match, according to a person with knowledge of the call.

The feud peaked this weekend when Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, told conservative activists that “up on Capitol Hill, it’s the Ides of March.” He delivered a blunt message to Mr. McConnell: “They’re just looking to find out who is going to be Brutus to your Julius Caesar.”

Michjas

Democrats view McConnell and Trump as their two biggest enemies. But this meeting is not about Democrats. McConnell is a doer. Trump is a...

Michael Tyndall 6 minutes ago

I think it's really important Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell patch up their relationship and make things work like responsible adults....

bkbyers 10 minutes ago

In the midst of all this rancor and discord between the White House and Capitol Hill we can take courage from the words spoken by Senator...

On Monday, Mr. Trump insisted that he has a “fantastic relationship” with Republican members of the Senate, and he praised Mr. McConnell’s ability to shepherd the Republican agenda over what he called the nearly complete obstruction of Democrats in the Senate. The president also said that he will try to talk Mr. Bannon out of at least some plans to field hard-right primary candidates to challenge virtually every Senate Republican seeking re-election next year.

“The relationship is very good. We are fighting for the same thing,” Mr. Trump said during wide-ranging comments to reporters that also touched on immigration, health care, the opioid crisis, Cuba, military deaths and other topics. “We are fighting for lower taxes, big tax cuts, the biggest tax cuts in the history of our nation.”

White House officials described Monday’s lunch with Mr. McConnell as largely focused on efforts to cut taxes, and they said it ended with both men engaged and relaxed — a remarkable feat for two politicians whose personal styles could not be more different.

Mr. Trump has eagerly conducted his insurgent presidency in the glare of the cameras, antagonizing friends and foes alike and boasting of accomplishments large and small. Mr. McConnell, the definition of the Washington establishment, has always been a tight-lipped, back-room negotiator.

“In show-business parlance, Donald Trump is a show runner,” said Al Cross, a longtime Kentucky political journalist who has known Mr. McConnell for more than 30 years. “He’s all about the show — it’s all about getting good ratings for Donald Trump — and McConnell has never been about the show. He’s all about business.”

Mr. Trump mentioned in an aside at the news conference that he would soon outline an economic development plan, though he confessed that he had yet to tell Mr. McConnell about it.

Despite pledges by both men that they share the same agenda, any good will that may have once existed dissolved after the Senate twice failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. After the first defeat in July, Mr. Trump tweeted in August: “Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn’t get it done.”

In another tweet in August, he said, “The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed!”

Privately, Mr. Trump has repeatedly denigrated Mr. McConnell, most recently unloading about the Senate Republican leader during a dinner this month with a group of about a dozen conservative movement leaders in the Blue Room of the White House. According to two people with knowledge of the president’s remarks, he called Mr. McConnell “a weak leader” and said that he remained befuddled at Mr. McConnell’s inability to wrangle the votes needed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

For his part, aides to Mr. McConnell say that he has been deeply frustrated by Mr. Trump’s willingness to lash out, even as the Senate leader successfully guided the chamber to confirm Mr. Trump’s cabinet and judicial nominations, including the president’s choice of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Get the Morning Briefing by Email

What you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday.

Soon after Mr. Trump took office, Mr. McConnell told associates that the new president had no clear sense of where he stood on most core issues, and he predicted that steering Mr. Trump — and taking the lead on policy — would be relatively easy.

The two disagreed early on political strategy: Mr. McConnell wanted the president to nominate a Democratic senator in a conservative state for a cabinet post to help Republicans pick up a seat. Instead, Mr. Trump plucked Ryan Zinke, a Republican representative from Montana, for the Interior Department, ending Mr. McConnell’s hopes that Mr. Zinke, a popular former Navy SEAL, would challenge Montana’s Democratic senator, Jon Tester, in 2018.

In the months since, Mr. McConnell and his aides have watched Mr. Trump buck the Senate, both publicly and privately.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly hectored Mr. McConnell to scrap Senate rules that require most legislation to clear a 60-vote hurdle before final passage, a demand that the leader has resisted, in part, for fear of a return to Democratic control.

Mr. McConnell has also been taken aback by Mr. Bannon’s decision to start a political crusade against establishment Republicans in the Senate by recruiting candidates who could put at risk the party’s control. So far, Mr. Bannon has backed conservative challengers to Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada, and could formally back a challenger to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

Mr. McConnell said he was focused on keeping the Senate in Republican hands.

“The way you do that is not complicated,” Mr. McConnell said. “You have to nominate people who can actually win because winners make policy and losers go home.” He added a few moments later, “Our operating approach will be to support our incumbents.”

Mr. Trump said that Mr. Bannon “has been a friend of mine for a long time” and that his former strategist was doing “what Steve thinks is the right thing.”

But with Mr. McConnell standing next to him, the president hinted that he would not entirely support Mr. Bannon’s efforts to throw out of office Republicans who Mr. Bannon does not think are sufficiently supportive of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

“Some of the people that he may be looking at, I’m going to see if we talk him out of that,” the president said.

One person close to Mr. McConnell said Mr. McConnell has been very careful in his public comments about Mr. Trump in part because he did not want to put his wife, Elaine L. Chao — who serves as Mr. Trump’s secretary of transportation — in an awkward position with her boss.

Other advisers to Mr. McConnell said the two men both recognize that Republicans’ fate in 2018 hinges on whether Congress can pass the tax cuts that Mr. Trump is seeking.

“I feel like they are both under so much pressure to deliver — that’s what causes tension, real or imagined,” said Scott Jennings, a former adviser to Mr. McConnell who remains close to the majority leader. “They need to be able to jointly take something back to the voters next year to sell. I think winning on a major policy initiative like tax reform would allow for a further expansion of their relationship on politics.”

That level of cooperation — which has been so vital to the success of past presidents — was in danger of completely unraveling before Monday’s lunch. Over the objections of some of his advisers, the president had grown increasingly unwilling to set aside his insurgent tendencies to make Washington-style deals with Mr. McConnell.

Mr. Trump’s contempt grew even stronger after he backed Mr. McConnell’s preferred candidate last month in a special election in Alabama. That candidate — Senator Luther Strange — lost the election to Roy S. Moore, a defeat that Mr. Trump took personally.

And Mr. McConnell’s closest allies became increasingly aggrieved at the president’s treatment of the leader, especially because they view Mr. McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings for President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as critical to Mr. Trump’s election.

On Monday, both men sought to minimize the conflict between them in the interest of sending a signal of unity of purpose that could soothe the despair of allies who fear the feud imperils any hopes for the tax and budget legislation before the end of the year.

“We have the same agenda,” Mr. McConnell said.

Republicans 'worried losing House of Representatives could spell impeachment for Trump - Independent

Republicans 'worried losing House of Representatives could spell impeachment for Trump'

One Democratic congressman has already introduced articles of impeachment

Alexandra Wilts Washington DC

Republicans are reportedly concerned that Donald Trump could be impeached if they lose control of the House of Representatives.

While chances were once slim that Democrats would retake the House in 2018, Mr Trump’s feuds with members of his own party and his lack of major legislative wins have made the possibility more likely.

Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats in the 2018 midterm elections to have a majority in the 435-member House.

'At least one' Republican trying to impeach Trump, says Democrat

“If we lose the House, he could get impeached. Do you think he understands that?” one top GOP donor said an exasperated Republican senator declared privately, according to CNN.

“Won't it be ironic that Steve Bannon helped get the President elected and impeached?” another top Republican official told CNN.

Since leaving the White House earlier this year, Mr Trump’s ex-chief strategist has declared war on the Republican establishment and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mr Bannon, in an interview on Fox News, said that he’s putting together a group to challenge every incumbent Republican, except for Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

If Democrats win the House, they could vote on articles of impeachment, which have already been introduced by a Democratic congressman.

Representative Al Green took to the House floor earlier this month to say that Mr Trump’s response to neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, his attack on NFL players who knelt during the national anthem in protest, and his debunked claim that Barack Obama had wire-tapped him, had all undermined the integrity of the Oval Office and “brought disrepute on the presidency”.

If at least one article of impeachment receives support from a majority of members, the president is technically impeached, according to CNN.

The issue then moves to the Senate, which conducts a trial presided over by the Supreme Court's chief justice. If two-thirds of senators find the president guilty, he is removed and the vice president becomes president.

Republicans 'waiting to pass tax bill before impeaching Trump'

Democrats officially unveil articles of impeachment against Trump

Trump probably obstructed justice and could be impeached report claims

No American president has ever been removed from office through the impeachment and conviction process.

A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in August showed that 40 per cent of Americans – including almost 75 per cent of Democrats and seven per cent of Republicans – backed impeaching the President and removing him from office.

This was a big jump from the 30 per cent of Americans who supported the idea in February, according to NBC News.

Putin has 'lots of mechanisms' to sabotage foes following nationwide protests - CNBC News

Putin has 'lots of mechanisms' to sabotage foes following nationwide protests

A high-profile dissident who could challenge Russian president Vladimir Putin in next year's election was imprisoned for the third time this year

Anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny appears to be the latest victim of a system meant to silence and disarm critics

Russian President Vladimir Putin could have good reason to fear Navalny, whose rallies have attracted thousands of supporters

Stacey Yuen A high-profile dissident who could challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin in next year's election was recently imprisoned for the third time this year, following a series of apparent maneuvers by the Kremlin to keep him sidelined.

That sidelining is part of an established pattern. The Russian administration possesses "lots of mechanisms they can use to sabotage candidates that they don't want," according to Gordon Smith, a professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina who specializes in Russian politics.

And many of those tools have been put to use against the recently imprisoned lawyer and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny — who has been the victim of what experts describe as an elaborate system to silence and disarm.

Understanding that suppression apparatus is key to understanding Putin's iron grip on his country.

Red tape and reversed decisions

Navalny, who last year expressed his desire to run for the 2018 election, was detained en route to a rally last month for allegedly holding an unsanctioned public meeting. The arrest rendered the opposition leader unable to attend the recent protests he had organized.

The arrest was widely reported, but less known are the bureaucratic hurdles that hindered his campaign, according to a source in Navalny's office.

One example: The rallies had actually been given the full go-ahead, according to the source. A few days prior to the event, however, authorities "called the local office and they pretty much revoked the approval," the source said.

"They then considered this an unsanctioned event."

Navalny has traditionally ignored location restrictions when holding public meetings, which renders his rallies technically unauthorized, according to Smith.

Russian protestor Alexei Navalny at a mass march on the one-year anniversary of dissident Boris Nemtsov's killing on Feb. 27, 2016 in Moscow, Russia.

But while Russian authorities are legally allowed to prohibit a sanctioned rally, last-minute plan changes often frustrate and weaken potential dissidents.

"In many cities, especially after the first two very successful weekends, people started to just deny our right to gather, [saying] all the squares are busy, or ... 'You can only meet at 9 a.m. on the outskirts,'" the Navalny ally told CNBC.

Russian authorities did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

According to Smith, the permit to hold a rally is highly location dependent, and constitutes a way for the Kremlin to exercise control over public demonstrations.

Organizers are told they "can't hold their demonstrations in the major, most visible squares or streets ... they get pushed to the outskirts of town," he said.

The power of vague laws

This isn't the first time Navalny has been imprisoned, and that pattern is widely perceived as evidence the Kremlin is working to subdue him.

In 2013, Navalny was charged for embezzlement following a hearing deemed unfair by the European Court of Human Rights. He was reportedly not allowed to bring in witnesses or to testify.

And although the Russian court retried the case in February on orders from the ECHR, it "came to the very same conclusions using all the same evidence ... He still didn't have the right to bring witnesses," Smith said.

The evidence for Navalny's embezzlement charge was "extremely flimsy," according to Jeffery Mankoff, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at policy research organization CSIS.

"Both the charges and the conviction, which allowed the Kremlin to prevent Navalny from appearing on the ballot and led to the jailing of his brother, were politically motivated," Mankoff told CNBC, adding that it was "an attempt to prevent Navalny from establishing himself as a political challenger to Putin."

"[Navalny] creates a real dilemma for the Putin administration," Smith concurred.

Google discovers Russia bought ads on platforms Google discovers Russia bought ads on platforms

Authorities claim Navalny is ineligible to run for office because of the conviction.

However, an unusual waiver — likely granted due to the thin evidence against him — allows him to be out on appeal. That complicates matters, according to Smith.

Although Russian election law says a person serving time in prison is not eligible to run for presidency, a negated sentence may technically mean he is eligible to run, Smith said.

"The law is written in such a way that it is vague and is open to interpretation, and the interpretation then rests with the judges," he explained. That said, Russian judges are generally unwilling to make decisions that contradict the will of Putin and the rest of the ruling elite, he added.

'A focal point for discontent'

The president has strong reason to dislike Navalny, a vocal critic of him and of alleged corruption within his inner circles.

The activist's anti-corruption campaign is not only winning over young urban voters, but it's "also potentially popular with rank and file, blue collar workers, or even people out in the countryside," according to Smith.

Navalny's efforts to publicize his rallies on social media are now reaching unprecedented rates of up to 26,000 unique viewers a day, making the authorities "really afraid," the source in his office said.

Thousands attend an anti-Kremlin rally called by opposition leader Alexei Navaln in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on October 7, 2017.

For now, the real danger to Putin is not that Navalny's supporters could immediately vote him out of power, but that they could mobilize and continue to recruit more to their cause, according to Mankoff.

That is, given the Kremlin's domination of the media landscape and Putin's high approval ratings, Navalny is unlikely to pose an electoral threat in the near future, Mankoff said.

However, "by trying to exclude Navalny from the formal political process, the Kremlin risks having him turn into a focal point for discontent across the country and amplifying his message about the corruption and repressiveness of the current regime," he said.

In June, over a thousand were reportedly arrested in anti-corruption protests led by Navalny. A survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center revealed that 38 percent of Russians supported the rallies, Newsweek reported.

Sixty-seven percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption, the report said.

Putin has effectively held the reins of government since 1999.

Earlier this month, hundreds of supporters reportedly turned up for a nation-wide rally demanding that Navalny be allowed to run for president next year. More than 260 people were detained, according to reports.

U.S. Not Ruling Out Direct Talks with North Korea, Officials Say - Reuters

U.S. Not Ruling Out Direct Talks with North Korea, Officials Say

Tim Kelly and Michelle Nichols / Reuters

(TOKYO/UNITED NATIONS) - The United States is not ruling out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said on Tuesday, hours after Pyongyang warned nuclear war might break out at any moment.

Talks between the adversaries have long been urged by China in particular, but Washington and its ally Japan have been reluctant to sit down at the table while Pyongyang while it continues to pursue a goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.

"Eventually, we don’t rule out the possibility of course of direct talks," Sullivan said in Tokyo after talks with his Japanese counterpart.

"Our focus is on diplomacy to solve this problem that is presented by the DPRK. We must, however, with our allies, Japan and South Korea and elsewhere, be prepared for the worst should diplomacy fail," he said.

People take part in a horse riding game at the Mirim Equestrian Riding Club in Pyongyang

NORTH KOREA

North Korea Is So Desperate for Hard Currency That It's Legalized Racetrack Gambling

Tensions have soared following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Leaflets apparently from North Korea calling Trump a "mad dog" and depicting gruesome images of him have turned up across central Seoul in recent days, adding an unusually personal element to North Korean propaganda.

“The situation on the Korean peninsula where the attention of the whole world is focused has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment,” North Korea’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong told a U.N. General Assembly committee on Monday.

"As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country," according to Kim's prepared remarks for the discussion on nuclear weapons. Kim did not read that section out loud.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes since 2006.

The most recent U.N. sanctions banned exports of coal, iron ore and seafood, aimed at cutting off one-third of North Korea's total annual exports of $3 billion.

Experts say North Korea has been scrambling to find alternative sources of hard currency to keep its economy afloat and to advance its weapons programme further.

North Korea's Lazarus hacking group was likely responsible for a recent cyber heist in Taiwan, cyber-security firm BAE Systems Plc said on Monday.

Taiwan's Central News Agency reported last week that while hackers sought to steal some $60 million from the Far Eastern Bank, all but $500,000 had been recovered by the bank.

BAE Systems and other cyber firms have previously linked Lazarus to last year's $81 million cyber heist at Bangladesh's central bank.

North Korea had also recently allowed citizens as young as 12 to bet on local horse races for the first time, state news agency KCNA reported.

Punters had previously risked three years hard labour for gambling in the reclusive and tightly controlled state, but the growing importance of private markets meant more people had money to spend on leisure, experts said.

"You may have ridiculed Kim Jong Un for constructing lavish facilities while struggling to feed the people, but those things are to make foreign currency, not from foreigners but from the well-offs inside North Korea because you have to pay in U.S. dollars or Chinese renminbi there," said Lee Sang-keun, a researcher at the Institute of Unification Studies of Ewha Womans University in Seoul."Many North Koreans make lots of money from the market, dine at hamburger restaurants and go shopping, all of which help fatten regime coffers. That’s part of the reason why the regime still has some financial latitude despite international sanctions."