SACRAMENTO,
Calif. (AP) — In eliminating California’s authority to set its own
emission standards for cars and trucks, the Trump administration would
take away leverage the state needs to convince the world’s largest
automakers to make more environmentally friendly vehicles.
But
one California lawmaker is already working on a way to preserve at
least some of the state’s environmental muscle: rebates for electric
cars.
California residents who buy or lease a
zero-emission vehicle can get up to $7,000 from the state. A bill by
Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting would mean people could only get that
money if they buy a car from a company that has agreed to follow
California’s emission standards.
The
proposal comes as the Trump administration on Wednesday announced it
was revoking California’s authority to set its own auto emission
standards — authority it has had for decades under a waiver from the
federal Clean Air Act.
California has 35
million registered vehicles, giving it outsized influence with the auto
industry. That heft was on display in July, when Democratic Gov. Gavin
Newsom announced four automakers — Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen —
agreed to follow California’s standards, bypassing the Trump
administration, which had been working on new rules.
California
officials have been negotiating with other automakers to follow suit,
but those talks stalled Wednesday when Trump announced, via Twitter,
that he was revoking California’s authority to set its own emission
standards.
But Ting’s proposal, first
reported by CalMatters, shows California has other ways it could entice
automakers to follow its environmental lead. David Vogel, a professor
emeritus of business ethics at the Haas School of Business of the
University of California-Berkeley, noted California could accomplish its
goals through various tax changes, which the federal government could
not stop.
“Even if the Trump administration
would win on this, California could use taxes to accomplish much of the
same goals,” Vogel said. “The federal government would have less of an
ability to challenge, because states can pretty much tax who they want.”
The
California Legislature adjourned for the year last week. But before
they left, they amended Assembly Bill 40 to include the new language so
they could debate it when they return to work in January.
State
officials could use the tactic to aid negotiations with Toyota and
General Motors, two manufacturers that make electric cars but have so
far not agreed to California’s emission standards. It’s unclear how
effective the law would be as California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project
has a waiting list.
A Toyota spokesman declined to comment.
Ting, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment. But he is scheduled to speak with reporters about the issue on Thursday.
Asked
about the proposal on Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he
would make an announcement by Friday, but he did not elaborate.
In
a tweet, Trump said his action to revoke California’s authority to set
its own emission standards would result in less expensive, safer cars.
He also predicted Americans would purchase more new cars, which would
result in cleaner air as older models are taken off the roads.
“Many
more cars will be produced under the new and uniform standard, meaning
significantly more JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! Automakers should seize this
opportunity because without this alternative to California, you will be
out of business,” Trump tweeted.
U.S.
automakers contend that without year-over-year increases in fuel
efficiency that align with global market realities their vehicles could
be less competitive, potentially resulting in job losses. However, most
of the industry favors increases in standards that are less than the
Obama-era requirements, saying their consumers are gravitating to SUVs
and trucks rather than buying more efficient cars.
Top
California officials and environmental groups pledged legal action on
Wednesday to stop the rollback, potentially tying up the issue for years
in federal courts. The U.S. transportation sector is the nation’s
biggest single source of greenhouse gasses.
Trump’s
claim that his proposal would result in a cleaner environment is
contrary to his own administration’s estimate that by freezing economy
standards, U.S. fuel consumption would increase by about 500,000 barrels
per day, a 2% to 3% increase. Environmental groups predict even more
fuel consumed, resulting in higher pollution.
The
administration argues that lower-cost vehicles would allow more people
to buy new ones that are safer, cutting roadway deaths by 12,700 lives
through the 2029 model year. But The Associated Press reported last year
that internal EPA emails show senior career officials privately
questioned the administration’s calculations, saying the proposed freeze
would actually modestly increase highway fatalities, by about 17 deaths
annually.
JERUSALEM
(AP) — Israelis were contending with the prospect of a third election
on Thursday, two days after an unprecedented repeat election left the
country’s two main political parties deadlocked, with neither Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rivals holding a clear path to a
coalition government.
While weeks of
negotiations to form a coalition government lay ahead, conditions set by
the parties could hobble the task within the allotted time, prompting a
never-before held third election.
With
nearly all votes counted Thursday, the centrist Blue and White party
stood at 33 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu’s
conservative Likud stood at 31 seats.
“Everyone
will need to get off their high horse to prevent elections for the
third time,” Likud lawmaker David Bitan told Israeli Army Radio. “Blue
and White’s desire for a unity government under their terms will not
work.”
Neither party can form a government
without the support of the election’s apparent kingmaker, Avigdor
Lieberman of the Yisrael Beitenu party. His insistence on a secular
government would force out Netanyahu’s traditional allies, the country’s
two ultra-Orthodox parties and another nationalist-religious party.
Benny
Gantz’s Blue and White has pledged not to sit in the same government as
Netanyahu, as the long-serving Israeli leader is expected to face
indictment in a slew of corruption scandals. The fiercely loyal Likud is
unlikely to oust Netanyahu.
After meeting with his traditional allies Wednesday, Netanyahu on Thursday called on Gantz to join him in a unity government.
“Throughout
the campaign I called for a right-wing government, but unfortunately
the election results show that’s not possible,” Netanyahu said in a
video statement. “Therefore there is no choice but to form a broad unity
government.”
“We cannot and there is no reason to go to third elections,” he added.
Both
parties were meeting with allies in the vote’s aftermath and the focus
will soon shift to President Reuven Rivlin, who will consult with all
parties in the coming days and select the candidate who he believes has
the best chance of putting together a stable coalition.
The
candidate has 42 days to do so and, if he fails, the president can give
another candidate 28 days to form a coalition. If that fails, the
president can assign another parliament member the task of building a
government, or he can call new elections, something that has never
happened. Rivlin has promised he will do everything in his power to
prevent a third election.
The
deadlock follows the second Israeli elections this year, which were
called because Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition following
the April vote. Israelis endured a caustic campaign that saw a
combative Netanyahu fighting for his political survival amid the
recommendation by Israel’s attorney general to indict him on charges of
bribery, breach of trust and fraud pending a hearing in early October.
Netanyahu
had sought an outright majority with his allies in hopes of passing
legislation to give him immunity from the expected indictment, which
would otherwise increase the pressure on Netanyahu to step aside.
The
vote was largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who this summer
surpassed Israel’s founding prime minister to become the country’s
longest-serving leader. During the campaign Netanyahu cast himself as a
seasoned statesman who was the only candidate able to steer Israel
through a sea of challenges.
His challenger,
Blue and White’s Benny Gantz, a former army chief, tried to paint
Netanyahu as divisive and scandal-plagued, offering himself as a calming
influence and honest alternative.
Despite
the scorched earth campaign that saw Netanyahu thrash institutions like
the media, the police and the electoral committee — and which was tinged
with anti-Arab rhetoric — the longtime leader failed to secure the
resounding victory he needed to guarantee his political survival and
perhaps save himself from a formal indictment.
Elizabeth
Warren drew an impressive 20,000 people for an anti-corruption speech
the other night in the liberal enclave surrounding Manhattan’s
Washington Square Park. Cue the media swoon.
In fact, as
Warren has been drawing big crowds, delivering sharp debate performances
and inching up in the polls, she has drawn almost no negative press—in
marked contrast to Joe Biden.
And the toughest interviewer she’s faced has been liberal comedian Stephen Colbert.
One
might even get the impression that most of the media would prefer that
an ultra-progressive woman win the nomination as opposed to an old,
occasionally stumbling, more moderate white guy who’s been a Washington
figure for well over four decades.
There’s no question the Massachusetts senator is the hot candidate right now. The WP has a piece saying she’s demonstrated she can “match the spectacle of Trump, right down to the large, cheering throngs.”
The
president, known for bragging about his crowd size since his
inauguration, took a swipe at Warren, telling reporters that that
“anybody” can attract crowds “standing in the middle of Manhattan in the
most densely populated area of the country.”
Big crowds used to
be written off as just the party faithful turning out, but now not so
much. They can signify excitement and enthusiasm.
To me, what’s
more important than her crowds is the way Warren lingers and poses for
selfies with anyone who wants one—for an exhausting four hours after
the New York speech. That’s a personal touch that makes her
approachable, and it’s hard to imagine Bernie Sanders doing something
similar.
But the fact remains that Warren, whose embrace of
Medicare for All means she would abolish private insurance for 150
million Americans, may be too liberal to win a general election. With a
few exceptions, media outlets rarely focus on her potential
vulnerabilities or such controversies as her past work for the kind of
big corporations she now bashes.
An MSNBC interview with Rachel
Maddow on Tuesday night was a lovefest. Maddow praised Warren’s crowds
and selfies and asked such questions as, “How do you map that model of
social change, of big structural change?”
By contrast, Colbert
pressed Warren about her health insurance plan on the “Late Show.” She
has successfully deflected these questions at the last two debates, with
moderators simply giving up and moving on.
Colbert, a liberal who
detests Donald Trump, has turned out to be adept at questioning
Democratic candidates, sometimes with humorous barbs. He challenged
Biden on his constant gaffes as well.
He told the candidate that
she keeps being challenged in debates about how she’ll pay for her
health plan, paused for effect, and said: “How are you going to pay for
it? Are you going to raise the middle-class taxes?”
Warren
reframed the question, as she always does: “Costs are going to go up for
the wealthiest Americans, for big corporations--”
He asked again: Will middle-class taxes go up?
“Well, here’s the thing,” Warren began.
“No,
here’s the thing. I’ve listened to these answers a few times before,”
Colbert said, before suggesting she simply defend the tax hike.
Nancy
Pelosi, meanwhile, explicitly came out yesterday against Medicare for
All, telling CNBC’s Jim Cramer that the more feasible path for Democrats
is expanding ObamaCare. The speaker knows a land mine when she sees
one.
The chatter among pundits now is that Warren could overtake
Biden, especially if she wins Iowa and then her neighboring state of New
Hampshire. In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, she trails Biden by
just 6 points and is statistically tied among white voters, 28 percent
to Biden’s 27 percent.
Her problem is that Biden crushes her, 49
to 13 percent, among black voters, who are crucial in South Carolina and
then in the big industrial states. She just doesn’t have the same kind
of connection as Barack Obama’s vice president.
If Warren keeps
surging toward the nomination, the press at some point will be forced to
give her tougher scrutiny. But for now, they’re largely content to
chronicle her rise and marvel at the size of her crowds.
Just days after a shakeup in the New Hampshire leadership of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign comes word that the candidate’s Iowa political director has departed as well.
According
to reports, a Sanders aide on Wednesday confirmed that Jess Mazour, who
was named Sanders’ Iowa director in March, was let go from the campaign
in recent weeks.
The aide confirmed the departure on condition of
anonymity because the aide wasn’t authorized to discuss personnel
matters, The Associated Press reported.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,
speaks at George Washington University in Washington, July 17, 2019.
(Associated Press)
Prior to joining the sanders campaign, Mazour was an
organizer for the progressive group Iowa Citizens for Community
Improvement. The Washington Post was first to report that she had left the campaign.
On
Sunday, the Sanders campaign announced changes to its New Hampshire
leadership after backers of the campaign expressed concern that the
independent U.S. senator from neighboring Vermont could lose the
first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary early next year.
The
campaign announced that Shannon Jackson, who ran Sanders’ Senate
reelection campaign in Vermont in 2018, would take over New Hampshire
leadersip duties from Joe Caiazzo, who was transferred to Sanders’
operation in Massachusetts, according to the Washington Times.
The Caiazzo-Jackson switch came one day after the Sanders campaign parted ways with senior New Hampshire adviser Kurt Ehrenberg.
The
changes in the Sanders campaign coincide with the loss of a key
endorsement for Sanders to rival 2020 progressive candidate Sen.
Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who this week attracted the backing of the Working Families Party -- a group that had supported Sanders in 2016.
“Seeing
the campaign not be able to outshine Warren with WFP progressives
doesn’t have me questioning WFP’s process,” Rafael Shimunov, a 2016
Sanders volunteer and past national creative director for WFP told Politico.
“It has me questioning where the Bernie campaign could have done
better, because I want to make sure the strongest candidate unmasks
Biden and unseats Trump.”
A Fox News Poll released Wednesday
shows that Warren has pulled virtually even with Sanders in second
place behind former Vice President Joe Biden, with Sanders attracting
support from 18 percent of respondents, Warren 16 percent, and Biden
leading with 29 percent. Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia said Wednesday it joined a
U.S.-led coalition to secure the Mideast’s waterways amid threats from
Iran after an attack targeting its crucial oil industry, while Iran’s
president told the kingdom it should see the attack as a warning to end
its yearslong war in Yemen.
The kingdom’s
decision to enter the International Maritime Security Construct came
ahead of a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Saudi
officials separately planned to share information about the weapons used
to attack a Saudi oil field and the world’s largest crude oil
processing plant Saturday.
Yemen’s
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have claimed the attack. The U.S. accuses
Iran of being behind the assault, while Saudi Arabia already has said
“Iranian weaponry” was used. Iran denies that, though it comes amid a
summer of heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over its
unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
“Almost
certainly it’s Iranian-backed,” Prince Khalid bin Bandar, Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, told the BBC. “We are trying
not to react too quickly because the last thing we need is more conflict
in the region.”
The state-run Saudi Press
Agency carried a statement Wednesday morning quoting an unnamed official
saying the kingdom had joined the International Maritime Security
Construct.
Australia, Bahrain and the United Kingdom already have joined the mission.
“The
kingdom’s accession to this international alliance comes in support of
regional and international efforts to deter and counter threats to
maritime navigation and global trade,” the news agency said.
Cmdr.
Joshua Frey, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, declined to
comment on the Saudi announcement, saying it “would be inappropriate to
comment on the status of individual nations and the nature of any
potential support.”
The coalition aims to
secure the broader Persian Gulf region. It includes surveillance of the
Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a
fifth of the world’s oil travels, and the Bab el-Mandeb, another narrow
strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden off Yemen and East
Africa. Smaller patrol boats and other craft will be available for
rapid response. The plan also allows for nations to escort their own
ships through the region.
The U.S. blames
Iran for the apparent limpet mine explosions on four vessels in May and
another two in June sailing in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of
Hormuz, something Iran denies being behind. Iran also seized a
British-flagged oil tanker and another based in the United Arab
Emirates.
It’s
unclear what role the kingdom will play in the coalition. Bahrain
already serves at the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
In
Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his Cabinet that Saudi
Arabia should see the attack as a warning to end its war in Yemen, where
it has fought the Houthi rebels since 2015 and sought to restore the
internationally recognized government.
Rouhani
said Yemenis “did not hit hospitals, they did not hit schools or the
Sanaa bazaar,” mentioning the Saudi-led coalition’s widely criticized
airstrikes.
He added that Iran does not want
conflict in the region, but it was the Saudi-led coalition that “waged
the war in the region and ruined Yemen.”
“They
attacked an industrial center to warn you. Learn the lesson from the
warning,” he said, portraying the Houthis as responsible for the drone
strikes.
He did not address accusations Iran was behind the attacks in the video shown on state television.
Wednesday’s
announcements comes after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said late
Tuesday that more than half of the country’s daily crude oil production
that was knocked out by an attack had been recovered and that production
capacity at its targeted plants would be fully restored by the end of
the month.
“Where would you find a company
in this whole world that went through such a devastating attack and came
out like a phoenix?” Energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said
about state-owned Saudi Aramco, which was the target of the attacks. His
question to reporters, many of them Saudi, drew applause.
Prince
Abdulaziz said Aramco will honor its commitments to its customers this
month by drawing from its reserves of crude oil and offering additional
crude production from other oil fields. He said production capacity
would reach up to 11 million barrels a day by the end of September and
12 million barrels in November.
He said production at the Abqaiq processing facility is currently at 2 million barrels per day.
Oil
prices spiked Monday, with benchmark Brent crude having the biggest
percentage gain since the 1991 Gulf War. Prices dropped Tuesday around
the Saudi announcement. Brent traded Wednesday morning around the same
prices as the day before, with a barrel costing over $64.
Pompeo
was due to land in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, where he was scheduled
to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo later will
travel to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday to meet with Abu Dhabi’s
powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Both nations
are U.S. allies and have been fighting against the Houthis in Yemen
since March 2015.
The Saudi military planned
to speak to journalists Wednesday in Riyadh to discuss the
investigation into Saturday’s attack “and present material evidence and
Iranian weapons proving the Iranian regime’s involvement.” It did not
elaborate.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that U.S. military
experts were in Saudi Arabia working with their counterparts to “do the
forensics on the attack” — gleaning evidence that could help build a
convincing case for where the weapons originated.
On
Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced experts
from his nation would be traveling to Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom
shed light ” on the origin and methods” of the attacks. France has been
trying to find a diplomatic solution to the tensions between Iran and
the U.S., so any conclusion they draw could be used to show what a
third-party assessed happened.
___
Associated
Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nasser Karimi
in Tehran, Iran, Robert Burns in Washington and Angela Charlton in
Paris contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s two main political
parties were deadlocked Wednesday after an unprecedented repeat
election, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing an uphill battle
to hold on to his job.
The election’s
seeming political kingmaker, Avigdor Lieberman, said he’ll insist upon a
secular unity government between Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s
Blue and White parties, who based on partial results are currently tied
at 32 seats each out of the 120 in parliament.
Without
Lieberman’s endorsement, both parties appear to have fallen well short
of securing a parliamentary majority with their prospective ideological
allies.
With
results still pouring in, Lieberman insisted the overall picture was
unlikely to change. He also demanded a secular “liberal” government
shorn of the religious and ultra-Orthodox allies the prime minister has
long relied upon.
“The conclusion is clear,
everything we said throughout the campaign is coming true,” he said
outside his home in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim. “There is one
and only option: a national unity government that is broad and liberal
and we will not join any other option.”
That could spell serious trouble for the continuation of Netanyahu’s lengthy rule.
Gantz,
a former military chief, has ruled out sitting with a Netanyahu-led
Likud at a time when the prime minister is expected to be indicted on
corruption charges in the coming weeks. It raised the specter of an
alternate Likud candidate rising to challenge Netanyahu, though most of
its senior officials have thus far pledged to stand solidly behind their
leader.
Netanyahu, the longest serving leader is
Israeli history, had desperately sought an outright majority with his
hard-line and ultra-Orthodox allies in hopes of passing legislation to
give him immunity from his expected indictment.
Israel’s
attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, fraud
and breach of trust in three scandals, pending a long-awaited hearing
scheduled in the coming weeks. A formal indictment would increase the
pressure on Netanyahu to step aside if he does not have immunity.
The
partial results released Wednesday by the Central Election Commission
were based on a tally of 56% of the potential electorate. Overall
turnout was 69.4%.
According to the partial
results, Likud with its natural allies of religious and
ultra-nationalist parties mustered just 56 seats — or five short of the
needed majority.
Gantz’s
Blue and White and its center-left allies garnered 55 seats, placing
Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu and its nine seats in the middle as the
deciding factor.
The only precedent for a
unity government in Israel came after the 1984 election and saw a
rotating premiership between the heads of the two largest parties.
The
joint list of Arab parties, who have never sat in an Israeli
government, also finished strong, with results indicating they had
earned 12 seats to become the third-largest party in parliament. Should a
unity government be formed, its leader Ayman Odeh, would become the
country’s next opposition leader, an official state position that would
grant him an audience with visiting dignitaries, a state-funded
bodyguard, monthly consultations with the prime minister and a platform
to rebut his speeches in parliament.
Addressing
his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu refused to concede defeat and
vowed to form a new government that excludes Arab parties, continuing
his campaign rhetoric of questioning the loyalty of the country’s Arab
minority — a strategy that drew accusations of racism and incitement.
“There
neither will be nor can there be a government that relies on
anti-Zionist Arab parties. Parties that reject the very existence of
Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Parties that vaunt and praise
bloodthirsty terrorists who murder our soldiers, citizens and children,”
he said.
In his first comments Wednesday
morning outside his home, Gantz said he had already begun working toward
forming a “unity government” but urged patience until the final results
were announced, likely on Thursday.
Focus
will then shift toward Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, who is tasked
with selecting the candidate he believes has the best chance of forming a
stable coalition. Rivlin is to consult with all parties in the coming
days before making his decision. Lieberman’s recommendation will carry a
lot of weight regarding who will be tapped as the prime minister
designate.
The candidate would then have up
to six weeks to form a coalition. If that fails, Rivlin could give
another candidate for prime minister 28 days to form a coalition. And if
that doesn’t work, new elections would be triggered yet again. Rivlin
has said he will do everything possible to avoid such a scenario and
Lieberman has ruled it out as well.
Lieberman’s
primary stated goal is to push out what he sees as the excessive power
of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and have wide a coalition that can
effectively tackle Israel’s most pressing security and economic
challenges. But Netanyahu accused his former ally of plotting to oust
him from office out of personal spite.
Behind
the two is decades of a roller-coaster relationship. Lieberman, once
Netanyahu’s chief of staff, has held a series of senior Cabinet posts
and was often a staunch partner. But he’s has also been a rival, critic
and thorn in Netanyahu’s side.
The
Moldovan-born Lieberman started as a top Netanyahu aide in the 1990s
before embarking on a political career of his own as a nationalist
hard-liner and champion of immigrants like the former Soviet Union like
himself. But he resigned last year as defense minister because Netanyahu
kept blocking his plans to strike hard against Gaza militants.
Lieberman
passed up the chance to return to the post following April’s election,
refused to join Netanyahu’s emerging coalition and forcing the do-over
vote. Assuming he sticks to his guns this time as well, Netanyahu could
be done as Israel’s prime minister.
Liberman is now “the linchpin,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
“I
don’t think that anyone is prepared to risk a third election, not even
for Netanyahu,” Barnea added. “Maybe the time has come to say goodbye.”
President Trump said Tuesday he cannot let California cities continue to “destroy themselves” by failing to adequately address homelessness, as state and local officials look reluctantly to the federal government for help in combating the ongoing housing crisis within the nation’s most populated state.
Talking
to reporters aboard Air Force One en route in San Francisco, Trump
addressed the state's problem with homelessness, saying, "We can't let
Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves
by allowing what's happening."
“We
have people living in our … best highways, our best streets, our best
entrances to buildings ... where people in those buildings pay
tremendous taxes, where they went to those locations because of the
prestige,” Trump continued. “In many cases, they came from other
countries and they moved to Los Angeles or they moved to San Francisco
because of the prestige of the city, and all of a sudden they have
tents. Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance
to their office building. And they want to leave. And the people of San
Francisco are fed up, and the people of Los Angeles are fed up.”
"The people of San Francisco are fed up, and the people of Los Angeles are fed up." — President Trump
Earlier
this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and several California mayors
and county and state officials asked the Trump administration for
50,000 additional vouchers for those most affected by the housing
crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported. In the letter signed Monday,
they also requested the federal government provide incentives for
landlords to accept the housing vouchers.
“That’s a pretty remarkable opportunity, if they’re sincere in their
desires,” Newsom said at a news conference. “If they’re insincere and
this is, God forbid, about something else — politics, not good policy —
then they’ll reject it outright. I hope that’s not the case.”
The
president’s two-day fundraising trip to California has been met with
protests and swift criticism from celebrities aiming to prevent him from
awakening Republican support in the Democrat stronghold state ahead of
2020. Meanwhile, officials spoke of putting political differences aside
briefly enough to welcome the president in a partnership in addressing
homeless in the state together.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, said in a Facebook video
post ahead of Trump's arrival that he hoped the president would work
with the city to end homelessness, but added he has not been invited to
meet with the president during his stay on Los Angeles.
Trump
said he would discuss possible solutions to California’s homelessness
crisis with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary
Ben Carson when he comes to join the president in the San Francisco Bay
Area and then Los Angeles. Carson requested to meet with Los Angeles
Police Department Chief Michel Moore to discuss housing issues,
including homelessness. They are expected to meet Wednesday.
As
Trump fails to announce possible policy proposals to address
homelessness on the West Coast during his California trip, local
officials are speculating that Trump plans to clear homeless encampments
he referenced to reporters on Air Force One and move people to
government operated shelters on federal land, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The
Department of Justice and Los Angeles law enforcement union officials
deliberated possible “workarounds” to circumvent court settlements,
rulings and lawsuits that hinder the Los Angeles Police Department’s
ability to clear homeless encampments from public property, according to
the newspaper. On Monday, the White House also considered the option of
deregulating the housing market to increase the supply of apartments,
condominiums and homes in California.
Trump
kicked off his two-day California fundraising trip Tuesday with a $3
million Bay Area luncheon at the home of Sun Microsystems co-founder
Scott McNealy, to be followed by a $5 million Beverly Hills dinner at
the home of real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer. He's expected to
bring in an additional $7 million on Wednesday with a breakfast in Los
Angeles and luncheon in San Diego. Trump’s tour is to raise money for
Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee composed of the Trump
campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to the Los
Angeles Times. Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.
While testy exchanges between Chairman Jerrod Nadler and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski
got most of the attention at Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee
hearing on impeachment, one Republican on the panel thought the
proceedings should have taken an entirely different direction.
Rep. Jim Jordan,
R-Ohio, said Tuesday that if House Democrats wanted to explore whether
President Trump deserved impeachment, “a great place to start” would be
with testimony from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector
general tasked with investigating alleged abuses of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
“A great place to start
would be the inspector general's report that was issued just three weeks
ago, the scathing report about Jim Comey," Jordan told Nadler during
Tuesday’s hearing.
In
his report, Horowitz claimed that Comey, the former FBI director who
was fired by President Trump, violated bureau policies by drafting,
leaking and retaining his memos documenting private discussions with the
president.
Republicans have maintained that Comey’s actions were
part of an anti-Trump agenda within the FBI prior to the 2016
presidential election, with other alleged participants including former
FBI acting director Andrew McCabe and former FBI staffers Peter Strzok
and Lisa Page.
Jordan noted Tuesday that he had previously
requested that Horowitz appear before the Judiciary Committee, only to
be rebuffed by Nadler.
"When I asked the chairman when we might
have an opportunity to question Mr. Horowitz, he said, 'I don't know. I
haven't thought about that’,” Jordan said.
“Of
course you haven't thought about that," Jordan added. "Too busy trying
to impeach the president. Too busy slapping subpoenas on Corey
Lewandowski."
Jordan had said Monday that potential prosecutions of former FBI personnel could come from U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was tapped by Attorney General Bill Barr in May to probe the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
But it will be "a while" before Durham's probe is concluded, Jordan said. Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Joshua Nelson contributed to this report.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,
speaks at George Washington University in Washington, July 17, 2019.
(Associated Press)
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