Trump’s message on DACA, Dreamers loses its coherence - MSNBC News

Trump’s message on DACA, Dreamers loses its coherence

09/14/17 08:45 AM—UPDATED 09/14/17 10:31 AM

By Steve Benen

Last week, when Donald Trump’s administration rescinded the DACA policy that extended protections to nearly 1 million Dreamers, the New York Times noted an interesting behind-the-scenes detail: White House officials were reportedly worried that the president didn’t “fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take.”

The piece added that these same officials “privately expressed concern” that when Trump discovered the “full impact” of his policy shift, he might reverse course.

Keep this in mind when trying to make sense of the latest developments on DACA.

Last night, Congress’ top two Democrats – Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi – issued a joint written statement that surprised much of political world, explaining that they’d reached some kind of agreement with the president “to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides.”

The idea that there’s a bipartisan deal to protect Dreamers, not surprisingly, delighted progressives and infuriated conservatives, but this morning, Trump seemed to walk back the news via Twitter:

“No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote.”

It’s not altogether clear what this meant – any deal would obviously be subject to congressional approval – but “no deal was made last night on DACA” seemed pretty unambiguous.

That clarity, however, quickly evaporated. Almost immediately after Trump said there was no DACA deal, he quickly proceeded to lay out a blueprint for a DACA deal – which sounded an awful lot like the Democratic leaders’ position from last night.

In a pair of follow-up tweets, the Republican president added, “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really! They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own – brought in by parents at young age. Plus BIG border security.”

Oh. So we’ve reached the point at which Trump wants to protect the young immigrants who, just last week, he wanted to strip protections from. If the president’s missives relate to his own administration’s position – with this gang, it’s sometimes hard to know for sure – he’s willing to trade a DACA policy for more border security, but no border wall, which is a deal Democrats would gladly take.

Indeed, soon after Trump published those tweets, Pelosi and Schumer issued another joint statement, “President Trump’s tweets are not inconsistent with the agreement reached last night.”

There are still plenty of details that would need to be worked out, but it sounds like the party leaders have laid the groundwork for a deal.

That is, at least for now. Maybe congressional Republicans will balk. Maybe the White House will say Trump didn’t mean what he said and wrote. Maybe the president will change his mind again. Maybe a lot of things.

The only certainty here is that Trump seems lost without a map. During the campaign, he vowed to rescind DACA and subject Dreamers to deportation. After the election, he said Dreamers can “rest easy.” Last week, Trump scrapped the DACA policy, only to suggest soon after he’s prepared to “revisit” the issue if Congress doesn’t act.

The president also told reporters last week that when it comes to Dreamers, there’s been “no mixed signal at all.” Reality paints a different picture.

Update: Before departing for Florida, Trump seemed to confirm suspicions, telling reporters his fight for a border wall will “come later.” He went on to dismiss the idea that Dreamer protections constitute “amnesty,”

Medicare for All or State Control: Health Care Plans Go to Extremes - New York Times

Medicare for All or State Control: Health Care Plans Go to Extremes

By ROBERT PEARSEPT. 13, 2017

WASHINGTON — In one Senate office building, some of the leading lights of the Democratic Party gathered Wednesday to embrace what was once a proposal only of the far left: a huge expansion of Medicare, large enough to open the popular, government-run health program to all Americans.

In another Senate office building, a smaller but equally adamant group of Republican senators stood together to take one last stab at dismantling the Affordable Care Act. They proposed instead to send each state a lump sum of federal money, along with sweeping new discretion over how to use it.

Important elements in both parties are trying to move beyond President Barack Obama’s health care law, which has always been a complicated, politically difficult mix of government and private health insurance. But they are moving in radically different directions.

The proposals appeared to have only one thing in common: Neither is likely to be enacted any time soon.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the onetime candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, proposed what he called “a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system,” and he said 16 Democratic senators supported it. Those included Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California — all names on the list of possible candidates for president in 2020.

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“Instead of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars trying to administer an enormously complicated system of hundreds of separate insurance plans, there would be one insurance plan for the American people with one single payer,” said Mr. Sanders, the ringmaster of an event that felt like a political rally, with banners and placards, consumers and patients, labor union members, nurses in red T-shirts and an audience full of fans who applauded, whooped and hollered.

One-Third of Democratic Senators Support Bernie Sanders’s Single-Payer Plan

The ideological makeup of senators who support the health plan.

Heading in the other direction were several Republican senators, led by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who would take money spent under the Affordable Care Act and give it to states in the form of block grants.

Their proposal was the last gasp of Republican efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act. Those efforts, which seemed sure of success in January, appeared to meet a dead end on the Senate floor in late July, when Republicans could not muster even a simple majority for a repeal bill. Mr. Graham’s gathering had the feel of a health policy discussion at a conservative think tank.

While Mr. Sanders was joined by possible presidential contenders, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cassidy were accompanied by two lower-profile senators, Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

“The only thing stopping us from having this idea debated on the floor of the United States Senate is lack of leadership,” Mr. Graham said, pleading for help from President Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

An hour later Mr. Trump issued a statement saying, “I sincerely hope that Senators Graham and Cassidy have found a way to address the Obamacare crisis.’’

Under the Graham-Cassidy proposal, money would be distributed to states based on a complex formula. The regional cost of living would be one factor, but the sponsors acknowledged that higher-spending states like Massachusetts would receive less than under current law.

The block grant would replace federal money now being spent under the Affordable Care Act for the expansion of Medicaid, for premium tax credits and for subsidies that reimburse insurers for reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income people.

A bill supported by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina would take money spent under the Affordable Care Act and give it to states in the form of block grants. Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times

The Graham-Cassidy bill would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for most Americans to have coverage and for larger employers to offer it. And it would make deep cuts in Medicaid.

But time is running out on the bill. After Sept. 30, the Graham-Cassidy legislation would lose procedural protections that allow passage in the Senate with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes often required for major legislation

Even with those protections, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said he had seen no evidence that the bill had the votes needed to win approval in the Senate in the next two weeks. And he noted that it had not been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office, which could take a week or two to estimate how much the bill would cost and how many people would lose or gain coverage.

Mr. Sanders said he was prepared for a long battle to establish health care as a right. (That was supposedly a goal of the Affordable Care Act.) His bill could serve as a political manifesto and a possible campaign platform for progressive candidates.

That so many Democrats are embracing it is a milestone. About 60 percent of House Democrats have endorsed a “Medicare for all” bill introduced by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan

But Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate are steering clear, saying their immediate concern is to protect coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which still faces attacks from Republicans.

Mr. Sanders’s bill would expand Medicare, one of the nation’s largest, most popular entitlement programs. The federal government would establish an annual budget for covered health care services. Medicare’s benefit package would be expanded to include coverage of dental care, vision services and hearing aids. The bill would also cover “comprehensive reproductive, maternity and newborn care, including abortion,” according to a summary prepared by Mr. Sanders’s office.

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The federal government would establish a standard list of covered drugs, and the secretary of health and human services would negotiate prices with drug companies.

Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill. He issued a list of a dozen financing options, which included higher tax rates for high-income people and “an annual 1 percent federal wealth tax on the net worth of the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. households.’’

The Sanders bill would eliminate deductibles and most other out-of-pocket costs for consumers, but the government “may impose limited co-payments for prescription drugs in order to encourage the use of lower-cost generic drugs.”

Under the bill, Medicare — now available to people 65 and older and to some younger people with disabilities — would be expanded over four years. In the first year, Medicare would be opened to children through age 18 and to adults from 55 to 64. The eligibility age would be reduced to 45 in the second year and to 35 in the third year, with “every resident of the United States” entitled to benefits in the fourth year.

That would bring huge changes to the health care system, affecting many people who are content with the coverage they have. More than 150 million people under the age of 65 have employment-based coverage. The Sanders bill would separate health insurance from employment, shrinking the role of employers and insurance companies.

Employer-sponsored plans could not duplicate benefits provided by Medicare, but could offer extra benefits.

Mr. Sanders predicted that “insurance companies, drug companies and Wall Street won’t like this legislation,” and he was right.

David Merritt, an executive vice president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobby for insurers, said: “Whether it’s called single-payer or Medicare for all, government-controlled health care cannot work. It will eliminate choice, undermine quality, put a chill on medical innovation and place an even heavier burden on hard-working taxpayers.”

When Harry Alford Speaks Up, a Washington Firm’s Clients Gain - Bloomberg

When Harry Alford Speaks Up, a Washington Firm’s Clients Gain

By Zachary R. Mider

September 14, 2017

By Washington standards, the National Black Chamber of Commerce is a shoestring operation, run by a husband-and-wife team out of an office on the edge of the city.

But Harry Alford, the group’s founder and chief executive officer, matters in this town. When he’s not testifying before Congress or appearing on Fox News, lawmakers are citing his research on the Senate floor, or federal judges are pondering his court briefs. He speaks out on an astonishing range of issues, some of which have only the fuzziest connection to his stated goal of promoting African-American entrepreneurship.

Alford has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in recent years challenging Playboy centerfold Anna Nicole Smith’s claim to an oil fortune, backing a finance executive’s quest for a $7 million severance and siding with Samsung Electronics Co. in a patent dispute with Apple In

Outside the courtroom, he has endorsed a phosphate mine, opposed gambling expansion in Maryland and advocated for the owners of Argentine debt. He has weighed in on a rum-tariff dispute involving the U.S. Virgin Islands and favored restrictions on solar power in Florida. He has both invited and opposed a shutdown of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The common thread: Someone with deep pockets stood to gain from Alford’s words. Many of his efforts also coincided with campaigns run by DCI Group LLC, a Washington consulting firm that gets paid to generate just the sort of advocacy Alford provides. While the chamber doesn’t disclose all of its contributors, it has acknowledged taking money from many companies that benefit from its advocacy.

Alford declined to comment for this story, as did Craig Stevens, a DCI vice president.

Collecting Checks

A former University of Wisconsin linebacker, Alford, 69, ran a minority chamber of commerce in Indiana before founding the national group in 1993 and moving to Washington.

At first, he got headlines for accusing businesses of discrimination, as he had in Indiana. He objected to a casino being built over a slave graveyard in Louisiana, urged a bank to increase lending in black neighborhoods and sued a telephone company, U.S. West, claiming bias against minority vendors.

“He was very helpful in the beginning,” said Herman Malone, a Denver businessman who once served as the chamber’s chairman and urged it to pursue the U.S. West suit.

As time went on, Malone said, Alford seemed to grow more interested in collecting checks from corporate executives than cajoling them.

“He kind of lost his way in who he was truly representing,” Malone said. “He used it as a vehicle to get into the corporate world.”

In a book about the U.S. West case, Malone wrote that some plaintiffs grew suspicious of Alford’s motives after he urged them to settle during a meeting in Colorado and then caught a ride back to Washington on the U.S. West company jet.

“They claimed I sold them out,” Alford wrote in a 2014 syndicated column defending his work. “Nothing bad happened on that plane—the NBCC did not receive a nickel.”

Alford testified against the Kyoto Protocol in Congress in 1998, arguing that limits on greenhouse-gas emissions would harm minorities. By the next decade, the chamber was as prominent for its pro-fossil-fuel advocacy as anything else it was doing.

Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council have accused the chamber of shilling for the industry. Exxon Mobil Corp., a DCI client, has said it gave the group more than $1 million since 2002. Alford has said he’s proud to take fossil-fuel money.

“Of course we do and it is only natural,” he wrote in a column in black newspapers in 2015. “The legacy of blacks in this nation has been tied to the miraculous history of fossil fuel.”

Supporting Role

The National Black Chamber of Commerce has backed many causes that benefit big companies and wealthy investors.

White Paper

Alford, who’s also on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, branched out into other issues. In 2011, he campaigned against a proposed Department of Education rule that would cut off student aid at schools that saddle graduates with too much debt relative to earnings.

Alford released a white paper, held media conference calls, started a website and testified before Congress, arguing that the rule would diminish opportunities for minority students. Education Management Corp., one of the schools affected by the rule and a DCI client, was listed as a sponsor of the National Black Chamber’s annual convention in 2014 and 2015.

Another convention sponsor was Penn National Gaming Inc. In 2012, the company hired DCI to torpedo a ballot measure that would expand gambling in Maryland, threatening Penn casinos. The measure passed despite Alford’s syndicated column in black newspapers urging a “no” vote. A spokesman for Penn said the gambling company has been a member of the chamber since 2008.

In recent years, Alford has taken an interest in the rights of investors in securities, an emerging DCI specialty. In 2009, he urged Congress to punish Argentina for refusing to repay bonds whose owners included hedge fund manager Paul Singer. And last year, he wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan asking him to consider the rights of holders of Puerto Rican bonds.

Alford filed legal briefs in two court cases that indirectly helped shareholders of the mortgage company Fannie Mae, another DCI cause. They are among more than a dozen the chamber has filed as a friend of the court in the past decade on issues ranging from retirement advice to labor unions. They include two that supported another DCI client, the family of Texas billionaire J. Howard Marshall II, in feuds with his widow Anna Nicole Smith and the Internal Revenue Service.

Feeding Lines

Sometimes, Alford’s public statements leave clues that someone else is feeding him lines. The Huffington Post pointed out that his 2015 op-ed in the Hill defending Education Management contained a parenthetical note to Alford from the piece’s actual author that hadn’t been removed.

A 2010 chamber press release about the Marshalls’ battle with Smith was written by a junior DCI employee, whose name appears as the electronic document’s author. The same goes for a 2013 Alford letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission defending Samsung in the patent dispute with Apple.

Alford’s campaigns haven’t always meshed with DCI’s. He’s a critic of the Durbin Amendment, which limits debit-card swipe fees. DCI’s retailer clients support it. In 2014, Visa Inc., one of the biggest opponents of Durbin, sponsored a reception at the chamber’s convention in Chicago.

DCI was founded in 1996 by three public relations executives who had worked for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. They’d pioneered the use of smokers’ rights groups to promote the industry’s message. At DCI, their client base expanded to include companies such as AT&T Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The chamber isn’t the only nonprofit that has frequently worked alongside DCI. The public-affairs firm recruited the 60 Plus Association, which bills itself as a conservative answer to the AARP, to lead a campaign in favor of holders of Puerto Rican bonds, according to the New York Times. The Center for Individual Freedom, created by a tobacco operative in 1998, has taken positions on behalf of Fannie Mae shareholders, Puerto Rico bondholders and the Marshall family.

The chamber has just two executives, Alford and his wife, according to a 2014 IRS filing. A man who answered the door one morning in August at the group’s otherwise unoccupied office in Washington’s Friendship Heights neighborhood said Alford wasn’t there and meets by appointment only.

Although the chamber says it has 140 local chapters and “reaches” 100,000 black-owned businesses, revenue from membership dues was just $2,114 that year. “All other contributions,” a category that can include corporate donations, provided $1.3 million, almost all of the chamber’s annual budget. The chamber isn’t required to disclose its donors.

Last year the Checks and Balances Project, a pro-clean-energy watchdog group, complained to the IRS that the chamber’s “primary activity appears to have been direct and grassroots lobbying to advance the agenda of its various corporate sponsors.” The IRS hasn’t acted publicly on the complaint.

What It Would Take to Make Bernie Sanders’ Single Payer Health Care Plan Work - Fortune

What It Would Take to Make Bernie Sanders’ Single Payer Health Care Plan Work

Sy Mukherjee

Senate Democrats, including nearly all of the party's potential 2020 presidential candidates, haven't so much been jumping on Bernie Sanders' single payer, "Medicare for all" health care bandwagon as they have been elbowing past each other to snatch a prominent political seat on it. But the increasingly popular idea, unveiled by Sanders and at least 16 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate Wednesday, is already brushing up against scrutiny from the medical industry and some health care analysts who question how the proposal would be paid for and implemented in practicality.

The Sanders bill makes lofty promises. Under the 2016 presidential hopeful's Medicare for All Act, universal health coverage under a unified government-run plan (the eponymous "single payer") would be guaranteed to all Americans (including undocumented immigrants) at pretty much zero cost. That means no premiums and no out-of-pocket spending for doctors' visits. The current system of employer-sponsored health insurance would essentially be eliminated and even popular existing programs like Medicare and Medicaid would all be rolled into the new entity. (Sanders' latest bill differs from his previous offerings by allowing a four-year transition period for Medicare beneficiaries and a temporary option to either buy into Medicare or purchase some sort of public insurance option.)

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It isn't surprising that those sorts of marquee features are tremendously popular, especially considering Sanders' frequently-made point that the U.S. and its residents spend far more on medical care for worse health outcomes than pretty much any other developed (and even some not-so-developed) nations. A "single payer" system is also a more comprehensible system than the notoriously fragmented and federated American health scheme, which involves complex and often inscrutable interplays between the government, hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers, benefits managers, and all sorts of other middlemen.

But there's no such thing as free health care, particularly given rising medical costs stemming from advances in technology and the United States' high health service and product prices. These would have to be kept in check (and, in that sense, either otherwise compensated for or rationed) to achieve the advantage to consumers. And Sanders originally didn't detail how such a system would be funded—a critical question for such a massive overhaul, as the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation's senior vice president Larry Levitt puts it. Taxes would have to rise significantly, for one thing.

Single payer typically replaces premiums with taxes. You can bet opponents would focus more on the tax increases than the premium savings.

Larry Levitt @larry_levitt

Most people support the idea of single payer, but hearing that it would increase taxes erodes support.

And as Dan Munro, author of Casino Healthcare, pointed out in an interview with Fortune, there are plenty of other factors to consider down the line. For instance, would doctors be transitioned into salaried roles, as they are in some other nations with single payer systems? "We can't really discuss this kind of universal health care reform unless we also talk about medical education reform," he says, noting that becoming even a general practitioner in America is such an expensive undertaking that many might be loathe to settle for the lower reimbursement rates Medicare offers compared to private insurance, or a preset salary.

Sanders put out a white paper suggesting some ways to pay for his program shortly after its unveiling. These include income-based premiums paid by employers, an income-based premium for households, general income and business tax reforms, some form of negotiations or price controls with drug companies, and the ostensible savings from a transition to the new system.

All of this is easier said than done, including for a seemingly slam-dunk issue like drug prices. The U.K.'s National Health Service judges treatments based on whether or not their prices correspond with quality-of-life improvements. There have been recent rumblings in the U.S. of moving toward health outcomes-based pricing models (as opposed to the current system, where pharma companies have carte blanche on list prices); but it's not hard to imagine patient groups balking at a government agency cutting off access to even a modestly-effective treatment because of its price.Still, Munro says the advent of Obamacare makes it likely that universal coverage—whether that be through single payer or a more multi-party system that preserves some private players—will become an inevitable goal. The devil is in the design, the details, and the dinero.

Swamp politics: Why Trump's tax-cut push is tricky, even for Republicans - Fox News

Swamp politics: Why Trump's tax-cut push is tricky, even for Republicans

Howard Kurtz - Sept.13, 2017

By Howard Kurtz Published September 13, 2017 Fox News

Trump to launch a cross country blitz for tax reform

The goal would seem to be right smack in the party’s wheelhouse: Republicans cutting taxes.

But so far, it hasn’t been easy.

Nearly eight months into an administration that hasn’t won a major victory on the Hill, there is plenty of motion but no plan.

President Trump’s initial goal was to achieve tax reform, and he might still be able to slash some deductions and declare victory. But reform involves a royal battle with every lobbying interest on the planet. At this point, the GOP would be thrilled to lower tax rates by Christmas and campaign on that in 2018.

The problem—and this may sound familiar—is that Republicans in Congress are divided.

"The White House and GOP congressional leaders agree with the goal of slashing the corporate income-tax rate and also cutting individual income taxes to benefit the middle class," says the Washington Post. "But they have yet to agree about which existing tax breaks should be eliminated to pay for it all."

For instance, the White House would like to ax the massively popular home mortgage interest deduction, but Hill folks say it’s too popular to kill—and they’re probably right.

The challenge with big tax cuts is paying for them, at least under the assumption, long argued by conservatives, that they shouldn’t blow a further hole in the deficit. You can get into rosy scenarios and dynamic scoring, but you need to find some offsetting dollars somewhere.

And then there is the classic split between Republicans who want to provide more relief for those at the top of the income scale and Democrats who attack such plans as a giveaway to the rich.

Trump’s new friends Chuck and Nancy may not be much help here, although it’s easier to wheel and deal when you’re giving money away. The Wall Street Journal editorial page says “if the president really wants Democratic votes on tax reform, he’ll have to prove first that he has 50 Republican votes to pass it in the Senate.” Only then, says the paper, could he get Heidi Heitkamp or Joe Manchin—two moderate Democrats who were at a bipartisan dinner at the White House last night--to provide the 51st vote. (Of course, he actually needs 60 votes in the Senate unless they use the budget reconciliation process, which failed on ObamaCare.)

National Review Editor Rich Lowry says the “dalliance with Schumer” can “only add another layer of distrust and dysfunction atop an already fraught relationship with the GOP leadership at a time when it is grappling with an enormously complex legislative task."

The president said over the weekend he will "ask for a speedup" in light of the devastation caused by Harvey and Irma. This creates visions of a grand bargain that ties together tax cuts, hurricane aid, the debt ceiling and legalizing the Dreamers program.

Of course, grand bipartisan deals play better with pundits and editorial writers than actual politicians. Just ask John Boehner and Barack Obama.

Tax cuts remain Trump’s best bet for a big legislative win in 2017. But it’s far from a done deal.

Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Congress votes to call on Trump to denounce hate groups - Reuters

Congress votes to call on Trump to denounce hate groups

Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution late on Tuesday calling on President Donald Trump to condemn hate groups after Trump was criticized for his response to the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a month ago.

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously adopted the resolution, U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia, said in a statement. The Senate approved the measure on Monday.

“Tonight, the House of Representatives spoke in one unified voice to unequivocally condemn the shameful and hate-filled acts of violence carried out by the KKK (Ku Klux Klan), white nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville,” Connolly said.

The joint resolution, passed with the support of both Republicans and Democrats, will go to Trump for his signature.

Representatives for the White House did not respond immediately to an email seeking comment.

The Congressional resolution calls on Trump to condemn hate groups and what it describes as the growing prevalence of extremists who support anti-Semitism, xenophobia and white supremacy.

It also urges Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate acts of violence and intimidation by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups.

Trump alienated fellow Republicans, corporate leaders and U.S. allies and rattled markets last month with comments about the violence in Charlottesville, where white nationalists and neo-Nazis clashed with anti-racism activists on Aug. 12.

One woman, Heather Heyer, was killed and several people were wounded when a suspected white nationalist crashed his car into anti-racist demonstrators.

The Congressional resolution calls Heyer’s death a “domestic terrorist attack.” James Alex Fields, a 20-year-old Ohio man who authorities say drove into Heyer and other protesters, has been charged with second-degree murder and other criminal counts.

On Aug. 12, Trump denounced hatred and violence “on many sides,” a comment that drew sharp criticism from across the political spectrum for not condemning white nationalists.

White nationalists had gathered in Charlottesville to protest against the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, who led the pro-slavery Confederacy’s army during the U.S. Civil War. Trump defended Confederate monuments last month.

At a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 22, Trump accused television networks of ignoring his calls for unity in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville.

“I didn’t say I love you because you’re black, or I love you because you’re white,” Trump said at the rally. “I love all the people of our country.”

The resolution also acknowledged the deaths of two Virginia State Police officers whose helicopter crashed as they patrolled the Charlottesville protest.