Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has declared himself the
interim president of Venezuela, greets supporters as he arrives at a
nationwide demonstration demanding the resignation of President Nicolas
Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. Guaido said
humanitarian assistance will begin flowing into the crisis-wracked
country within the next few days, despite Maduro’s objections. (AP
Photo/Fernando Llano)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 3:05 PM PT – Sat. February 2, 2019
Thousands of Venezuelans take to the streets in Caracas to protest against embattled President Nicolas Maduro.
Saturday citizens rallied in support of self-declared Interim President Juan Guaido, where he delivered a speech to the people.
There, he said humanitarian aid is on the way for citizens, and
called on the military to not intervene in its delivery or distribution.
Further, Guaido said the protests will continue, until all of his supporters achieve freedom from the Maduro regime.
Meantime, supporters of Maduro gathered to hear him deliver remarks,
where he agreed to hold early elections for the National Assembly.
“On the agenda, the Constituent Assembly has a constitutional,
historical and political evaluation to call for early parliamentary
elections this very year,” said Maduro. “I am in agreement. That the
legislative power be re-legitimized by the country and that we go toward
free elections with a guarantee and may the people decide for a new
National Assembly. Do you agree? I agree and I stand by that decision.”
Maduro’s remarks come after the U.S. declared Guaido as the
legitimate leader, while European Union member states are expected to
follow suit next week.
Saturday marked the anniversary of former president Hugo Chavez entering office, who served from 1999 to 2013.
FILE- In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo Health and Human Services
Secretary Alex Azar speaks about proposed reforms to Medicare Part B
drug pricing policies at the Brookings Institute in Washington. The
Trump administration says it is moving ahead with a plan to let patients
directly receive prescription drug discounts negotiated
behind-the-scenes between drugmakers, middlemen, and insurers. Azar said
Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, the proposed regulation would encourage the
major industry players to channel any such discounts to consumers when
they purchase their prescriptions. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 3:20 PM PT – Sat. February 2, 2019
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar takes to social media to tout President Trump’s new drug pricing proposal.
In a video posted to Twitter Saturday Azar said the proposal has the
potential to be the “most significant change in how drugs are priced at
the pharmacy counter ever”.
The proposal calls for banning drug makers from providing rebates to
pharmacy benefit managers in Medicare and Medicaid managed care plans.
Azar referred to these managers as middle-men who get a kickback from the drug companies when patients buy their medications
“How can anyone possibly defend this catastrophically broken status
quo that rewards higher prices, conceals kickbacks to middlemen and
denies seniors tens of billions of dollars in savings at the pharmacy
counter?” said Azar.
According to Azar, if a patient pays $300 for medications the “kickback” could be anywhere between $60 to $100.
.@POTUS's
proposal has the potential to usher in the most significant change in
how your drugs are priced at the pharmacy, ever. It replaces a system of
backdoor deals that drive up your drug prices with a system of
discounts given directly to Americans at the pharmacy counter. pic.twitter.com/akin7uDvyB
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.
(Fox News)
Please don't smile.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore declared U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the
new leader of the Democratic Party, while urging political moderates to
take a position because there “is no middle ground anymore.”
“She
is the leader. Everybody knows it. Everybody feels it,” Moore said of
the freshman congresswoman from New York during a Friday interview on
MSNBC.
Moore said the age requirement to run for president - 35 -
should be constitutionally amended so that Ocasio-Cortez could make a
play for the White House.
Moore
also urged those with moderate views to “take a position,” in response
to a question about whether someone like Ocasio-Cortez, with very
progressive politics, could turn off moderates.
“If
you're being moderate, stop being moderate. Take a position,” Moore
responded. “There's no middle ground anymore. There's no halfway point
to should somebody be paid a living wage. 'Well, I'm a moderate so I
think they could be paid half of that living wage.'
"You know, on
the issue of choice, there is no halfway there. You're either for it or
you're against it. Do you believe in equal rights for women? Do you
believe we should have an Equal Rights Amendment? There's no middle
ground. There's no time for moderation,” he continued.
Of all the Democrats’ arguments against a southern border wall, the shadiest is that it would not work.
According
to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., President Trump is “forcing
American taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and
ineffective wall.” As he joined Pelosi in rebutting the president’s
January 8 Oval Office address, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of
New York decried Trump’s “ineffective, unnecessary border wall.” Schumer added: “We can secure our border without an expensive, ineffective wall.”
In fact, walls work. Love them or hate them, their effectiveness is indisputable. AS TRUMP MAKES BORDER WALL PITCH, OTHER COUNTRIES SAY THEIRS WORK
•
“Part of our area is covered with some fencing on our east side. That
accounts for about 6 percent of our traffic,” Border Patrol chief Raul
Ortiz told journalists during President Trump’s January 10 visit to Rio
Grande Valley, Texas. “Where we have no fencing, over 90 percent of our
traffic occurs in those areas.” A day earlier, Ortiz added, 450 people
were apprehended in the unfenced sector, including 133 from such
non-Latin nations as India, Pakistan, and Romania.
•
Some 560,000 illegals were caught astride San Diego and Tijuana in
Fiscal Year 1992, when a border wall was installed there. By FY 2017,
the Border Patrol says it snared 26,086 — down 95.3 percent.
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia
has been at the center of multiple firestorms this week that may
permanently damage his reputation, Washington Free Beacon
editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti argued Friday.
Earlier in the
day, a page from Northam’s 1984 yearbook at Eastern Virginal Medical
School showed two people -- one in blackface, the other wearing a KKK
hood and robe. Northam, a Democrat, issued multiple apologies -- but
never specified which costume had him underneath.
The timing
couldn't have been worse: Earlier in the week, he faced major backlash
when remarks he made in response to a fellow Virginia Democrat's
late-term abortion bill had critics accusing him of defending ‘infanticide.’
During
Friday's "Special Report" All-Star panel, Continetti -- along with
Democratic strategist Leslie Marshall and national security adviser
Morgan Ortagus -- weighed in on the fallout Northam faces going forward.
“Well
it’s never a good day for a politician when you’re confronted with the
yearbook photo and the Washington, D.C., community in your state is
trying to figure out whether you’re the one in blackface or the one
under the Klan hood," Continetti said. "This is a terrible end of the
week for Northam, a week that didn’t start well either with his comments
... Northam seemed to be defending, in that radio interview, post-birth
abortion, otherwise known as infanticide. This is a political career in
a death spiral.”
While uncertain whether Northam would step down, Marshall called the photo “highly offensive.”
“If
we’re going to have a zero-tolerance policy in politics in today of
2019, that has to be zero tolerance whether you’re a governor in
Virginia, whether you’re a congressman like Steve King, there has to be a
zero tolerance and it can’t just be Republicans asking for him to
resign. It has to be Democrats,” Marshall said.
Meanwhile,
Ortagus called for Northam to resign, telling the panel that there was
“no excuse” for the yearbook photo, stressing that Northam posed for it
in the 1980s while he was a young adult in medical school. She also
suggested that Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax can “gracefully” replace Northam
if he resigns.
That resignation could come soon, as top members of
Northam's own party have been calling loudly for his departure. The
list includes 2020 presidential candidates, such as Sens. Kamala Harris,
Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as former
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and various liberal groups like
MoveOn.org and Planned Parenthood. Bailey comment: " He should have kept his liberal comments to himself ! Doesn't he know that liberals will turn on themselves and eat their own :-)
CNN labeled embattled Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam as a
Republican in a chyron during a segment about his apology after his
1984 medical school yearbook page that showed him dressed either in
blackface or in a KKK robe.
(Twitter)
CNN -- the network that promotes the hashtag #FactsFirst -- mislabeled embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam as a Republican on Friday during a segment about the Democrat's apology for his racist 1984 medical school yearbook photo.
The
photo showed two men holding beers -- one dressed in blackface, the
other in a KKK robe -- but Northam never made clear which one was him.
The
CNN chyron that mistakenly called Northman a Republican aired Friday
during "Anderson Cooper 360," the nightly show hosted by Anderson
Cooper. The segment focused on a video in which Northam apologized for
the nearly 35-year-old photograph.
“My fellow Virginians, earlier
today I released a statement apologizing for behavior in my past that
falls far short of the standard you set for me when you elected me to be
your governor. I believe you deserve to hear directly from me,” Northam
said in a video he posted on Twitter.
“That photo and the racist
and offensive attitudes it represents does not reflect that person I am
today or the way that I have conducted myself as a soldier, a doctor,
and a public servant. I am deeply sorry,” he continued. “I cannot change
the decisions I made nor can I undo the harm my behavior caused then
and today. But I accept responsibility for my past actions, and I am
ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust.”
While
the CNN chyron stated Northam’s party affiliation incorrectly, Cooper
identified the Virginia governor’s political affiliation accurately
prior to the error.
But the error was included without acknowledgement in Cooper's tweet of the segment:
The unearthed photo of Northam, who admitted being one of the men in the picture, sent shockwaves across the country.
Fox
News obtained a copy of the 1984 yearbook page from the Eastern
Virginia Medical School library. Northam graduated from the school that
year. The Virginian-Pilot, the Washington Post and the Richmond
Times-Dispatch also reported they independently confirmed the
authenticity of the page.
The quote on the page says, “There are more old drunks than old doctors in this world so I think I’ll have another beer.”
Fox News obtained a copy of 1984 yearbook page from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library in Norfolk.
Politicians on both sides said Northam should step
down from his position, including presidential hopefuls Sen. Kamala
Harris, D-Calif., and Julian Castro.
“Leaders
are called to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no
place in the halls of government,” Harris tweeted. “The Governor of
Virginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward
together.”
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who launched his 2020
presidential candidacy earlier in the day, said the photo has eroded
confidence in Northam's ability to lead the state.
"These
images arouse centuries of anger, anguish, and racist violence and
they’ve eroded all confidence in Gov. Northam’s ability to lead. We
should expect more from our elected officials. He should resign," Booker
tweeted.
Northam’s statement didn’t indicate whether he will be resigning amid the controversy.
Talk of a possible Republican primary challenge to President Trump
is kicking up once again, as the president grapples with the fallout
from the partial government shutdown and other political turbulence.
Those
who might challenge Trump remain, as they ever were, decided underdogs
who would have to face off against not only a hard-charging president
but the entire Republican Party infrastructure. None would be as
well-known as Trump.
But
from the party’s ideological center, a handful of Republicans are
sending signals that they’re taking a possible primary run seriously.
Former
Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld is headed to New Hampshire in two weeks to
headline “Politics and Eggs,” a must-stop for White House hopefuls.
A source close to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan told Fox News that Hogan, “more than others, is really taking it seriously.”
And
an email this week by former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s political group
reminded supporters that “many have suggested Gov. Kasich should run,
and he is keeping all of his options on the table.”
With Trump coming under attack by some high-profile conservatives for ending the 35-day partial federal government shutdown
without getting funding for a wall along the Mexican border, the
perception in some corners of a weakened president is stoking the flames
of a small but emboldened band of Republicans hoping for a viable
primary challenge.
“I think the shutdown in general hurt Trump
pretty badly,” conservative columnist and notorious never-Trump leader
Bill Kristol said. “It makes the uphill climb [of a primary challenge]
less steep.”
Pointing to the GOP’s loss of the House in the 2018
midterm elections, the departure of Defense Secretary James Mattis, the
fluctuations in the stock market and the government shutdown, Kristol
said “it’s a three-month period which has featured all kinds of events
that have increased doubts and decreased confidence about a second-term
Trump.”
The party, though, remains firmly behind the president.
The Republican National Committee kicked off its annual meeting winter
last Friday by passing an unprecedented pledge giving the president
“undivided support” even before he’s the official 2020 nominee.
"The
members just wanted to underscore, underline, highlight that we are
here to re-elect President Trump and Republicans up and down the
ballot," Cassie Smedile, RNC national press secretary, said after the
vote.
The RNC didn’t consider a stronger resolution that would have endorsed Trump as the party’s 2020 nominee.
“It
was a smart move by the Trump White House to do it and it is true that a
very overwhelming majority of the 168 RNC members support President
Trump’s re-election,” one GOP source explained, but added “it has no
impact realistically on whether someone would challenge the president.”
The RNC’s action doesn’t seem to be stopping potential primary challengers from at least considering it.
Weld,
a vocal Trump critic who ran as the Libertarian Party’s 2016 vice
presidential nominee, appears to be mulling a potential longshot
challenge against the president.
“I’m just not saying anything. If
I have anything to say, I’ll say it on the 15th,” Weld told Fox News on
Wednesday, referring to the upcoming New Hampshire visit.
The state GOP, though, won’t be rolling out the welcome mat.
“He
ran as a Libertarian vice presidential candidate in 2016. As far as
we’re concerned he’s a Libertarian and he can’t flip-flop back and forth
for political expediency,” newly elected state party Chairman Steve
Stepanek told Fox News. “We don’t consider him a Republican. We don’t
want him back as a Republican.”
Stepanek, a businessman and former
state lawmaker who served a co-chair of Trump’s 2016 presidential
campaign in New Hampshire, explained that “if there is a legitimate
national Republican candidate, then under the bylaws I have to remain
neutral. I’m not going to be supporting them by any means, I’m just not
going to be going against them.”
Gov. Larry Hogan delivers his annual State of the State address to
a joint session of the legislature in Annapolis, Md., Wednesday, Jan.
30, 2019. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Hogan, who was re-elected last November to a second
term as governor of the blue state of Maryland, isn’t ruling out a
possible primary challenge either.
“I’m flattered that people are
talking about that as a possibility, but it’s not something that I’m
focused on,” he said Monday during a political panel moderated by PBS
NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff.
“Who knows what’s going to happen two years from now. You never know,” he answered when asked about 2020.
He
explained that he’s heading soon to Iowa – the state that votes first
in the presidential primary and caucus calendar – because he’s a vice
chair of the National Governors Association.
“They have a meeting in Iowa,” he said.
Joining Hogan on the panel was Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary.
“This
is the second time I’ve seen the New Hampshire governor in two days.
That doesn’t mean anything. I’m not sucking up to New Hampshire,” Hogan
joked.
But a source close to Hogan said that when it comes to a
primary challenge, “I think he thinks it’s the right thing to do. We’ll
see if he really does it.”
Kasich, who finished second to Trump in
New Hampshire’s 2016 GOP presidential primary, returned to the Granite
State right after November’s midterm elections, sparking further
speculation about his 2020 intentions.
He told Fox News at the time, “I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”
But he added that when it came to a possible primary challenge, “all the options are on the table.”
Two
weeks ago, after finishing his second and final term as Ohio governor,
Kasich signed with CNN as a senior political commentator.
Former
New Hampshire Attorney General and longtime GOP consultant Tom Rath said
the move gives Kasich “a bully pulpit” he could use in advance of any
primary challenge.
“It’s
a way to remain a part of the discussion, be part of the dialogue and
he has a voice he wants to use to try to drive Americans to a better
place,” added Rath, a senior adviser on Kasich’s 2016 campaign who
remains close with the now-former governor.
Another launching pad
for a possible primary challenge could be the Senate. There’s long been
speculation that Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is mulling a 2020 White
House run. And don’t rule out newly elected Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah –
the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and a vocal Trump critic.
One
person who can be ruled out is former Sen. Jeff Flake. The Arizona
Republican who’s frequently lambasted the president the past two years
announced earlier this week that he would not be launching a 2020
presidential campaign and instead joined CBS News as a contributor.
If
there is a credible challenge against Trump, New Hampshire – which
allows independents to vote in either the GOP or Democratic contests –
could be ground zero.
Rath said “Trump remains the prohibitive favorite up here in New Hampshire.”
But he added that the government shutdown did “open the door” a bit to a challenge.
“There are phone calls being made. There are people being talked to,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saw his
communications director depart last year over "inappropriate encounters"
with staffers, a Schumer spokesman told Fox News. (Associated Press)
The communications director for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was forced out of his role after the November midterm elections over “inappropriate encounters” with staffers, Fox News has learned.
“Upon
learning that he had inappropriate encounters within the office and
that it was making some staff uncomfortable, he was asked to leave,” a
Schumer spokesman told Fox News regarding Matt House, who served as
the senator's communications director for nearly six years.
No specific allegations of improper behavior involving House were disclosed. KAMALA HARRIS AIDE RESIGNS OVER $400G HARASSMENT SETTLEMENT
In a statement to the New York Post,
House said: “I absolutely loved my time working in the Senate and it
was the honor of my life. I deeply regret the mistakes I made on the
number of occasions when I had too much to drink, and I apologize to
anyone who was affected by my behavior.”
“I have always respected
all of my colleagues and I was horrified to learn that I made anyone
feel uncomfortable. In the past three months, I’ve stopped drinking and
I’ve committed to making myself a better colleague and person," he
continued.
According to his LinkedIn page, House previously served
from 2011 to 2012 as Schumer's press secretary. Prior to joining
Schumer’s office, House worked for then-Sen. Joe Biden’s 2008
presidential campaign.
In
the past, Schumer has been quick to comment when powerful figures have
crossed lines with underlings. Along with other Democrats, he pushed for
former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to resign following sexual misconduct accusations and a Senate Ethics Committee investigation.
The Schumer aide's departure was another sign of turmoil among the staffs of top Democrats.
In December a senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., resigned over inquiries about a $400,000 harassment lawsuit against him while working at the California Department of Justice.
In August, reports surfaced that a longtime driver for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was suspected of spying on behalf of the Chinese.
Gov. Larry Hogan delivers his annual State of the State address to
a joint session of the legislature in Annapolis, Md., Wednesday, Jan.
30, 2019. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
