Ted Cruz accuses CNN of sitting on interview after Chris Cuomo said he's ‘afraid’ to appear on network

Ted Cruz spoke with CNN amid staffers accusing him of being afraid to appear on the network.

Ted Cruz wants CNN to know he's no coward.

The Texas senator on Friday blasted the liberal news network for sitting on an interview he gave it even as “New Day” host Chris Cuomo was accusing him of being “afraid” to appear on the network.

CNN even displayed an on-screen graphic on Thursday morning criticizing Cruz, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio for appearing on Fox News but not CNN with the headline.
“What are they afraid of?” Cuomo, said. "They're all on Fox, the mothership, because they don't want to be asked about [gun control]."
Cruz initially took to Twitter to explain that he has conducted three separate town hall events on CNN in recent months, an indication he isn't afraid of the network. Friday, Cuomo was still tweeting about Cruz, so the Republican lawmaker fired back – claiming CNN never aired an interview that he gave on Thursday afternoon.
“That's funny,” Cruz tweeted. “I spoke to CNN for 15 mins yesterday about proactive solutions to prevent gun violence (like passing the Grassley-Cruz bill—which Dems filibustered—that would add $300 million for school safety) yet CNN has aired NONE of it. Why not air the (entire) interview?”
Cruz even tweeted a picture of a CNN reporter holding a microphone to his face for what he said was a 15-minute exclusive.
CNN is now scheduled to air the interview on Friday afternoon during “The Situation Room” after facing pressure from various media outlets, according to a network source. It is unclear if the interview will air in its entirety.
“Be clear: Cruz and others were invited to come on @NewDay and be tested about how to stop these shootings. They declined. If Cruz or others did an intv [sic] with CNN thereafter fine, but they didn’t when we asked. Period. Offer stands. Anytime. Anywhere,” Cuomo tweeted in response.
The latest embarrassment for CNN began on Thursday when Catherine Frazier, a senior communications adviser to Cruz, tweeted that CNN was making “stupid, pointless accusations."
Meanwhile, critics of CNN were quick to defend Cruz via Twitter when Cuomo initially said he was “afraid” to appear on the network – many pointing to his combative interviews with Republican lawmakers and White House surrogates.
The anti-Trump Cuomo recently told a critic to “get woke” while denouncing the border wall during a lengthy storm of left-leaning tweets. Last year, Cuomo referred to a Trump-supporting viewer as a “lemming” during a nasty Twitter exchange.
Cuomo, 47, who came to CNN from reliably liberal ABC News, is known for his frenetic interviewing style and unusual questions on CNN’s troubled morning program. Cuomo’s older brother Andrew, the Democratic governor of New York, is known to harbor presidential aspirations.

Pelosi’s Doomsday Scenario: Dem leader could face rebellion if House takeover fails

House Democrats see a big opportunity this year to seize control of the chamber after years in the wilderness, but the favorable landscape has emerged as a double-edged sword for Nancy Pelosi – putting high expectations on the House minority leader to deliver or face a resurgent effort to unseat her.

The California Democrat has held onto her leadership post for roughly a dozen years, brushing aside past challenges and touting her political acumen all along, despite her party being relegated to the minority since the 2010 midterms.

This year, Pelosi may face a do-or-die scenario.
And there are no guarantees. While President Trump is thought to be a drag for Republicans in purple districts, GOP strategists see Pelosi as an albatross for Democrats, hammering her most recently for describing tax cut-tied bonuses as "crumbs." And a fresh poll shows Republicans erasing the Democrats' edge in the so-called "generic" ballot, which asks voters which party they'd support for Congress.
If Democrats do fall short in November, a contest to replace Pelosi as the chamber’s top Democrat already has been handicapped as a two-person battle – between Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the chamber’s No.  2 Democrat, and New York Rep. Joe Crowley, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
“This is very political. Nobody wants to kill the queen. Joe’s just going about his work, but he’s on everybody’s short-list,” a Democratic strategist, who asked to speak anonymously for this story, told Fox News.
Other names could emerge in such a post-midterm melee.

Rep. Joe Crowley is seen as a potential candidate for House Democratic leader, if Pelosi is challenged.  (AP)

Beyond Hoyer and Crowley, Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton, of Massachusetts; Kathleen Rice, of New York; and Linda Sanchez, of California, have all been mentioned as possible Pelosi challengers, in large part because they have publicly stated their desire for a change in leadership.
Moulton, a two-term congressman and Harvard-educated Iraq War veteran, has been openly critical of House leaders since at least 2016, when Pelosi couldn’t make good on predictions that Democrats, relying heavily on the anti-Trump message, would retake the House.
As a result, Pelosi, 77, faced a challenge for her post from Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan. Pelosi won two-thirds of the caucus vote, as she accurately predicted. But 63 of the 134 House members voted against her.
In 2012, after failing to significantly cut into the GOP’s majority, Pelosi shot down a reporter’s question about whether the decision by her and others in House leadership to remain in their posts is delaying the rise of younger members. She responded by highlighting her efforts to get younger Democrats elected to Congress and concluded, “The answer is no.”
Ryan -- who argued in 2016 that the Democratic Party, including its elite California and New York leaders, has failed to connect with Middle America voters -- has since made clear he has no desire to mount another challenge. His office did not return a request for comment for this story.
The 39-year-old Moulton, even this week, continued to argue for a “next generation” of leaders. And many House Democrats consider him, not Hoyer, the “bridge” to such a new group, a House Democratic source said.
Moulton press secretary Matt Corridoni told Fox News on Tuesday that the congressman is “not interested in seeking a leadership post.”
Hoyer also has suggested that he could be the bridge to the next generation. But at 78, and as a longtime member of Pelosi’s team, such an argument is difficult to make, several Democrats said this week.
The chairman of the House Democratic Caucus is considered the No. 4 post on Pelosi’s leadership team. But Crowley maintains a high profile in Washington and in congressional districts across the country, having recently visited states like New Hampshire and Michigan and often taking charge of House Democratic leadership’s weekly Capitol Hill press conferences.
He also has contributed at least $2.6 million to candidates and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, from his own committees or from money raised from donors, his office recently told The Washington Post.
While solid numbers, they cannot match Pelosi’s, who is known as a prolific fundraiser. Last year, Pelosi reportedly raised $49.5 million for House Democrats, including $47.6 million for the DCCC.
“She can raise in Hollywood and Silicon Valley like nobody’s business,” the Democratic strategist also said. “Crowley hasn’t matched that, but he does well.”
Crowley's office declined to comment for this report. Hoyer press secretary Mariel Saez said in an email: “Mr. Hoyer – and the entire Democratic Caucus – are focused on taking back the House in November. He will continue working hard in the coming months to ensure we have a Democratic Majority in 2019.”
A Pelosi spokesman brushed off the post-midterm speculation.
“The leader is focused on winning back the House,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told Fox News on Wednesday. “She’s not here to work a shift. She’s on a mission. There will always be people [on Capitol Hill] with ambition. That’s part of the game. But the leader is singularly focused on winning back the House and has the widespread support of the caucus.”
To be sure, Democrats have a good chance this year to win a total of two-dozen seats and take the House.
The party that controls the White House historically loses about 30 seats in the first midterms after the presidential election. In addition, Trump’s relatively low approval rating will be a strain on GOP candidates in moderate districts; more than 30 House Republicans this cycle are not seeking reelection; and recent federal election records show 55 Democratic candidates so far have raised more money this cycle than the Republican incumbents they are challenging.
But while Democrats hold the edge in many races, polling in recent weeks has shown their advantage on the generic ballot narrowing, even before this week's Politico/Morning Consult poll.
Beyond concerns about Pelosi’s tenure hurting her party’s ability to keep the party vibrant with newer members, whose ideas and leadership would presumably attract younger voters, the Democratic Party also must contend with her status as a San Francisco liberal alienating moderate voters and a lightning rod for Republicans during election seasons.
"The fact that Nancy Pelosi is the face and leader of the Democratic Party is the gift that keeps on giving for the NRCC," Matt Gorman, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman, said last week. "As her colleagues openly grumble that she's a liability for 2018 and she continues to be the most unpopular politician in the country, I can only say one thing: go, Nancy, go."

Life In North Korea Cartoons (Not Funny)

Pentagon issues warning for non-deployable personnel: 'Deploy or be removed'

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a new “deploy or be removed” policy that could affect up to nearly 300,000 service members who have been non-deployable for the past 12 months.

“This new policy is a 12-month deploy or be removed policy,” Robert Wilkie, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel and readiness on Wednesday.

The move comes after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ memo last year stressing the need to ensure that “everyone who comes into the service and everyone who stays in the service is world-wide deployable.”
The plan was first revealed by The Military Times.
According to various estimates, between 11 to 14 percent -- or well over 200,000 service members -- of the 2.1 million personnel serving on active duty, in the reserves or National Guard are currently non-deployable on any given day, hindering military readiness.
The new policy will have exceptions such as pregnancy while medical boards will continue to be able to grant exceptions for wounded personnel.
“The situation we face today is really unlike anything we have faced, certainly in the post-World War II era,” Wilkie told the Senate panel. “On any given day, about 13 to 14 percent of the force is medically unable to deploy. That comes out to be about 286,000 [service members].”
The official asked the panel to imagine Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, walking into his company on Christmas week and finding out that 14 percent of his workforce is unable to work. “He would no longer be the largest company in the world,” Wilkie said.
Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell told the Times earlier this month that nearly 100,000 are non-deployable because of administrative reasons like not having all their immunizations or their medical exams.
Another 20,000 are not deployable due to pregnancy while the remaining service members are non-deployable because of short or long-term injuries. But Troxell said that very few of those injuries “are related to combat injuries. Or battle injuries. It’s related to everyday, doing their job, or during physical training that they were injured.”
“If you are going to serve and continue to want to serve, and if you want to make this a career, you’re going to have to learn that path of recovery and get back to being healthy. Because we need healthy, fit warriors to defend this nation,” Troxell added.
Wilkie admitted the military shares responsibility for reaching such high numbers of non-deployable personnel, as unit leaders often did not ensure those under their command received all required medical examinations and care.
“The other thing we’ve seen is that in the down years of recruiting for the military, we offered too many medical waivers,” the official said. “The medical conditions ... have followed them into the service as they progressed through their careers. We have to address that.”

VA Secretary Shulkin to pay back his wife's Europe getaway expenses

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Thursday he would pay back the U.S. government costs related to a trip to Europe for his wife, but will not resign following a critical internal-watchdog report.

Shulkin was the subject of the recent internal investigation that revealed he owed the government more than $4,000 for his wife’s trip to Copenhagen and London.

The investigation claimed to have found Shulkin’s top aide, Vivieca Wright Simpson, doctoring emails to say her boss was getting “special recognition” in Denmark as a way to justify his wife’s taxpayer-funded travel.
"The investigation revealed serious derelictions" by Shulkin and his staff, according to the report, which cited "poor judgment and/or misconduct." The report advised Shulkin to pay back $4,312 to the government.
Shulkin told reporters Thursday that he will follow the advice of the report and pay back any costs associated with his wife’s trip, including making a contribution to U.S. treasure equal to the cost of tickets to the prestigious Wimbledon Tennis tournament, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“Everybody is concerned,” Shulkin said after appearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing. “Everybody knows how much work we have to do in the VA. We have to continue the progress.”
He added that he has spoken to President Donald Trump about the report’s findings and will meet White House officials to discuss the contents of the revelations.
In a testimony in Congress, Shulkin insisted the trip to Europe was necessary but the “optics of this were not good.”
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, a member of the committee, scoffed at the explanation, saying “It’s not the optics that are not good.”
Coffman was among the leading voices calling for Shulkin’s ouster from his position. “It's exactly corruption and abuses like this that doesn't help our veterans,” the lawmaker tweeted earlier this week, adding that Shulkin “must resign now.”
GOP REP CALLS ON VA SECRETARY SHULKIN TO RESIGN OVER EUROPE TRIP EXPENSES
This is not the first time an official in the Trump administration came under fire for unauthorized taxpayer-funded trips. Former health secretary Tom Price was forced to resign in September after questions over his use of private jets for government trips.
The total cost of the 10-day trip in July last year was at least $122,000, the report found. Shulkin reportedly attended meetings in London and Copenhagen concerning veterans’ issues.
But the overseas trip also included “significant personal time for sightseeing and other unofficial activities” at taxpayers’ expense, including a tour of Westminster Abbey, a cruise on the Thames River, and attending the women’s final at Wimbledon tennis tournament with American Venus Williams.
Shulkin defended his wife’s presence on his work trip, telling the committee that he and his staff followed all the processes. “Everything was done properly, but I regret any of this is a distraction from what we should be doing and that’s the reason I’m following the inspector general’s recommendations.”

Mitt Romney announces US Senate run in Utah

Mitt Romney announced Friday he will run for U.S. Senate in Utah to succeed the retiring Orrin Hatch, seeking a political comeback six years after his unsuccessful presidential campaign against then-President Barack Obama.

Romney announced on Twitter: "I am running for United States Senate to serve the people of Utah and bring Utah's values to Washington."

Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, is considered a heavy favorite for the Senate seat. He has emerged as a prominent critic of President Trump and, if he wins, could be poised to cause headaches for the administration from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
While a former Massachusetts governor, Romney has deep ties to Utah. He attended Brigham Young University in Provo and helped turn around the scandal-plagued 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City -- moving to the state after losing the 2012 race.
A video message posted on Twitter Friday features that Olympics background. In the video, Romney gives voters an early look at his platform: fiscal responsibility, jobs and a moderate approach on immigration -- an apparent swipe at Trump policies.
“Utah has a lot to teach the politicians in Washington,” Romney says in the video. “Utah has balanced its budgets, Washington is buried in debt. Utah exports more abroad than it imports. Washington has that backwards. Utah welcomes legal immigrants from around the world. Washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion.”
His Senate run hasn’t been welcomed by all.
Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Anderson told The Salt Lake Tribune earlier this week that Romney was "keeping out candidates that I think would be a better fit for Utah because, let's face it, Mitt Romney doesn't live here, his kids weren't born here, he doesn't shop here." The GOP official went on to call Romney a “carpetbagger.”
Anderson released an apology later saying, “I regret that my comments about potential Senatorial candidate, Mitt Romney, came across as disparaging or unsupportive. That was never my intent.”
He continued, “I’ve no doubt that Mitt Romney satisfies all qualifications to run for Senate, and as Chairman of the Utah Republican Party, I will treat all candidates equally to ensure their path to the Party nomination is honest and fair.”
Anderson also said that Romney reached out to him in regards to his comments and “accepted my apology without hesitation.”

Life in North Korea a horror. Why are we so hesitant to tell the massive Olympic audience about this reality?

Watching the media fawning over the North Korean delegation at the Pyeongchang Olympics, I recalled a picture that my old boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, kept under the glass of a table in his office -- a satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula at night. At the bottom, awash in light, is the free and democratic South. Meanwhile, the North is in complete darkness, save for a tiny pinprick of light in Pyongyang. The two countries, Rumsfeld would often point out, have the same people and the same natural resources. Yet one is glowing with the light of freedom, innovation and enterprise, while the other is enveloped in the total darkness of human misery.

Keep that darkness in mind while watching the North's Olympic charm offensive over these two weeks. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, is not the "North Korean Ivanka." She is the vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, a senior leader of the most brutal repressive totalitarian regime on the face of the Earth. As one defector told The Washington Post last year, "It's like a religion. From birth, you learn about the Kim family, learn that they are gods, that you must be absolutely obedient to the Kim family."

Any perceived disloyalty to the Kim family can result in a visit in the middle of the night from the Bowibu -- the North Korean secret police -- that could send not just the offender, but three generations of his or her relatives, to a forced labor camp for life. North Korea's system of "re-education" camps, which was recently mapped by satellite by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, is the most extensive in the world. Under three generations of Kims, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been imprisoned and killed in these camps. Inmates undergo the most brutal forms of torture imaginable, including being hung on hooks over open fires, while pregnant women are tied to trees while their babies are cut out of their bellies.
Yet the camps are simply prisons within a larger prison. The entire country is one giant gulag. Thanks to widespread malnutrition, North Koreans are between 1.2 and 3.1 inches shorter than South Koreans. And thanks to economic mismanagement, 97 percent of the roads are unpaved. According to my American Enterprise Institute colleague, Nicholas Eberstadt, up to a million North Koreans died of starvation in the famine that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. "It was the only time in history that people have starved en masse in an urbanized, literate society during peacetime," he notes. North Korea's people starve while the regime pours its resources into its messianic quest to deploy nuclear missiles capable of reaching and destroying American cities.
Even among the elites there is no safety. Last year, North Korea's vice premier for education was executed for not keeping his posture upright at a public event. Defense Minister Hyong Yong Chol was pounded to death with artillery fire for the crime of falling asleep at a parade. And if you wonder why those North Korean cheerleaders stay in such perfect sync, maybe it's because they saw 11 North Korean musicians lashed to the barrels of anti-aircraft guns which were fired one by one before a crowd of 10,000 spectators. "The musicians just disappeared each time the guns were fired into them," one witness declared, "Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere. And then, after that, military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay."
This is the brutality that Kim Yo Jong represents. Yet despite this cruel reality, the media could not help fawning over the North Korean delegation. Reuters declared Kim Yo Jong the "winner of diplomatic gold at Olympics." CNN gushed how, "With a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea's presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public." NBC even tweeted a photo of the North Korean cheerleaders with the heading "This is so satisfying to watch." Seriously? NBC failed to mention that in 2005, 21 cheerleaders were sent to a prison camp for speaking about what they saw in South Korea.
Instead of normalizing the regime, this should be an opportunity to educate the massive Olympic audience about the realities of life in North Korea under the murderous Kim crime family that is pursuing the ability to threaten American cities with nuclear destruction.

Gun Control Cartoons

White House Budget Director Grilled Over 2019 Fiscal Budget

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is defending the Trump administration’s $4.4 trillion spending proposal.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney testifies before the Senate Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, on President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal.

During a U.S. budget committee meeting on Tuesday, Mulvaney spoke about the 2019 budget, which seeks to increase military spending, fund the border wall, and slash entitlements.
He said his job as director of the OMB is to fund the president’s priorities, adding that is exactly what the agency did.
Meanwhile, experts say the budget would add nearly one trillion dollars to the national deficit, and will likely be overhauled before it passes congress.
“It’s a lot more fun to spend money than it is to reduce,” said Mulvaney. “It’s a lot harder to reduce spending in the long-term than it is to spend, and I think that it is incumbent upon all of us to start making difficult decisions to decide together as a legislature, as an administration: are these deficits that we are really willing to tolerate.”
When asked by Senators if Mulvaney would vote on the proposed budget, he said he would have found enough short-comings to vote against it.
However, he added it’s his duty to defend the White House’s priorities.

Michael Goodwin: Susan Rice ought to explain her weird email under oath

“Don’t let up,” a friend living abroad wrote a few weeks ago about corruption at the FBI. “Trump has them all on the run.”
The note came to mind when I saw the weird e-mail Susan Rice wrote to herself on Inauguration Day last year.
At first glance, the e-mail, which purports to recount remarks President Obama made two weeks earlier to Rice, FBI head James Comey and others about the Russia probe, makes no sense. But ask yourself why Rice repeated that Obama wanted everything done “by the book,” and it smells as if she’s preparing a last-minute defense for Obama, and maybe herself.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, pit bulls on government misbehavior, wrote to Rice about the e-mail while noting that there were lots of doubts about whether the FBI actually did proceed “by the book.”
Hopefully, she’ll have to give her answer under oath, as should Comey and anybody else in the room.