President Trump said Thursday he may read the transcript of his July 25 telephone conversation with Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky aloud to Americans in the style of
the famous fireside chats delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt
during the 1930s and 1940s.
“This is over a phone call that is a good call,” Trump said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call, because people have to hear it. When you read it, it’s a straight call.”
Roosevelt
delivered a series of informal radio addresses, dubbed fireside chats,
meant to garner support for his New Deal policies and update Americans
on the course of World War II, among other issues.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House Sunday. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A public reading of the call transcript would mark the latest effort by Trump to thwart the impeachment inquiry
against him by congressional Democrats. The president has repeatedly
denied Democratic claims that he withheld crucial military aid to Kiev
in order to press Zelensky to investigate former Vice President
Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Several witnesses have raised
concerns over the call. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who serves as a
director on the National Security Council (NSC), testified privately
before Congress this week that he was alarmed by Trump's request to
Zelensky.
“Everybody knows I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the
Examiner. “Bill Clinton did things wrong; Richard Nixon did things
wrong. I won’t go back to [Andrew] Johnson because that was a little
before my time. But they did things wrong. I did nothing wrong.”
During
the interview, Trump said he was being responsible by reviewing aid to
Ukraine, a country with a history of endemic corruption.
“We are giving them money, we are giving them weapons,” he said. “We have an obligation to look at corruption.”
School officials in Austin, Texas, have made changes to the sex-education curriculum for middle school students – and a lot of parents are not happy with the results.
Planned Parenthood, one of the backers of the new plan, called it “LGBTQ inclusive, science-based and much needed,” according to the Austin American-Statesman.
A group called Texas Values led the opposition to the plan – and says it intends to fight its passage, which came in a unanimous vote early Tuesday morning after a large crowd gathered Monday night for the school board’s meeting.
The values group claims to have collected petition signatures from 5,000 people who oppose the curriculum – though Austin's KEYE-TV reported that parents can block their children from taking any or all of the lessons.
David
Walls, a parent and vice president of Texas Values, told the newspaper
that his group believes the plan encourages students to engage in
same-sex relationships.
“It’s not appropriate for school,” Walls
said. “It’s not appropriate for a government body to encourage students
to engage in any kind of sexual activity.”
On Thursday, Texas
Values posted a Twitter message mocking the school board’s preference
for the gender-neutral term “parent” over “mother” and “father.”
“What’s so scary about mom and dad?” the group wrote, using a Halloween theme.
Community member Barbara Bucklin told Austin radio station KUT that “gender identity” didn’t seem an appropriate topic for young children.
“Should you be suggesting to a 5-year-old or an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old that maybe they’re not a girl?” Bucklin asked.
“Should you be suggesting to a 5-year-old or an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old that maybe they’re not a girl?” — Barbara Bucklin, opponent of sex-ed curriculum changes
But
Michelle Rusnak, the district’s health and physical education
supervisor, said the goal of the plan is to represent LGBTQ views
fairly, not to impose them.
“It’s about acceptance,” she told the American-Statesman.
“It’s about acceptance.” — Michelle Rusnak, school district’s health and physical education supervisor
Prior to Tuesday’s vote, school officials had already made changes to the revised curriculum proposal based on parents’ input, according to the newspaper.
For
example, officials agreed to delay discussions of sexual orientation
and HIV until fifth grade, rather than third grade. They also deleted
the term “anal sex” from a lesson about preventing HIV and STDs,
although the term is used in a lesson on abstinence, and they canceled a
video that included depictions of gay and mixed-race couples.
“There’s
no doubt that the topic of sex education in public schools elicits
strong reactions,” board member Kristin Ashy told the crowd Monday
night. “Tonight offers itself as an example of these reactions.”
Students whose parents approve of the plan will begin learning the new lessons in May, reports said.
President Trump, a born-and-bred New Yorker, announced Thursday that he has changed his permanent residence to Palm Beach, Fla., because of the way politicians in New York City and the state of New York have treated him.
“I
cherish New York, and the people of New York, and always will, but
unfortunately, despite the fact that I pay millions of dollars in city,
state and local taxes each year, I have been treated very badly by the
political leaders of both the city and state. Few have been treated
worse,” the president tweeted.
“I hated having to make this
decision, but in the end it will be best for all concerned. As
President, I will always be there to help New York and the great people
of New York. It will always have a special place in my heart!”
The New York Times originally obtained the court documents
for Trump’s change of address from Trump Tower in New York City to the
location of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, where he's built a
residence. First lady Melania Trump also changed her residence to the
same location in an identical document.
“If I maintain another
place or places of abode in some other state or states, I hereby declare
that my above-described residence and abode in the State of Florida
constitutes my predominant and principal home, and I intend to continue
it permanently as such,” the Trump file read.
“I
formerly resided at 721 Fifth Avenue,” the document said. Trump, raised
in the borough of Queens, moved into the skyscraper in midtown
Manhattan in 1983.
The document lists Trump’s “other places of
abode” as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, aka the White House, and his private
golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
Trump has spent 99 days at his
Florida resort since becoming president, while he’s spent only 20 days
at Trump Tower, according to NBC News.
In
response to Trump, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted: "Good riddance.
It's not like @realDonaldTrump paid taxes here anyway... He's all yours,
Florida."
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren
accused the president of making the move so he can shield his tax
information from New York authorities.
"Donald Trump doesn't want
the state of New York to see his taxes—I wonder why," Warren wrote.
"Let's call this out for what it is: Corruption, plain and simple. Under
my anti-corruption plan, all presidential candidates would be required
to release their tax returns."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who ended his own run for the presidency, echoed Cuomo's remarks.
"Don't let the door hit you on the way out or whatever," de Blasio wrote.
Trump
is due to make an appearance in New York City this weekend to attend an
MMA fight at Madison Square Garden. He's scheduled to spend Saturday
night at Trump Tower.
While Trump said his change of residence was
due to poor treatment by New York officials, some have speculated he
could be doing so for tax purposes. Florida does not have a state income
tax or an inheritance tax and has long been a haven for wealthy former
New Yorkers.
In August, Heritage Foundation chief economist Steve Moore appeared on “The Daily Briefing” to say that New Yorkers fleeing to Florida for tax purposes may be the “biggest economic story” in the country.
He
said there are four so-called "states of the apocalypse” – New York,
New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois – from where residents are fleeing
in droves due to high taxes and state budget issues.
Moore said the states benefitting the most from this population movement are Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and North Carolina.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, penned an op-ed on Wednesday expressly refuting claims by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that she is "favorite of the Russians" planning to run as a spoiler candidate to help reelect President Trump.
In
the Wall Street Journal piece, Gabbard writes that she is running for
president “to undo Mrs. Clinton’s failed legacy.” She adds that after
she decided to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over Clinton in 2016,
Clinton never forgave the slight.
“The smears have been nonstop ever since,” Gabbard writes.
Earlier
this month, Clinton said on David Plouffe’s podcast that a Democratic
candidate was being groomed for a third-party run in 2020. Clinton's
team later confirmed the former secretary of state was referring to
Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got
their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton told Plouffe. Market Watch
reported, however, that Clinton was referring to Republicans, not the
Russians, as “grooming” Gabbard for a third-party run, revising some
initial media reports.
Gabbard hit back at Clinton on Twitter,
calling her the “queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so
long.”
She also claimed that from the beginning of her candidacy there has been a concerted effort to destroy her reputation.
“Whether Mrs. Clinton’s name is on the ballot or not, her foreign policy will be,” Gabbard wrote in the op-ed,
writing that many of the Democratic candidates “adhere to her doctrine
of acting as the world’s police, using the tools of war to overthrow
governments we don’t like, wasting taxpayer dollars, costing American
lives, causing suffering and destruction abroad, and undermining
America’s security.”
Meanwhile, Gabbard announced last week that she will not seek re-election to Congress so she can focus on her presidential bid.
Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., is expected to deliver a farewell address to Congress on
Thursday after announcing her resignation last weekend amid a House
Ethics investigation following allegations she had inappropriate sexual
relationships with a female campaign staffer and her male congressional
legislative director.
Reports of money paid to both -- consulting fees for the female staffer and an "election bonus" for the male aide -- have also drawn scrutiny.
The
freshman lawmaker will deliver her final address after Congress votes
to legitimize -- and set parameters for -- the ongoing House impeachment inquiry
into President Trump, USA Today reported. Hill has played a role in
impeachment efforts as the vice chair of the House Oversight and Reform
Committee and a freshman liaison to Democratic leaders. Her last day in
Congress will be Friday, her office said.
Hill said she would “not
allow my experience to scare off other young women or girls from
running for office.” She also slammed “the right-wing media” and her
Republican opponents for carrying out a “coordinated campaign” to smear
her name and perpetuate what she described as her estranged husband’s
abusive behavior toward her.
Hill announced her resignation Sunday
after denying she had an inappropriate relationship with her male
congressional legislative director, which had prompted a House Ethics
investigation. She also admitted she had an "inappropriate" relationship
with a female campaign staffer, after a series of leaks of personal
texts and photos.
The conservative website RedState.com first
reported Oct. 10 that Hill, 32, who is openly bisexual, previously had
been involved in a "throuple," or a three-person relationship, with a
female campaign staffer and her estranged husband Kenny Heslep, who has
since filed for divorce. According to RedState.com, Heslep filed for
divorce after learning of Hill’s alleged affair with her male
legislative director, Graham Kelly.
Hill never directly accused
her estranged husband of leaking the photos. Heslep, who married Hill in
2010, reportedly told his father that he thought his computer had been
hacked around the same time the photos surfaced in media reports,
according to BuzzFeed News.
Heslep’s father told BuzzFeed
on Wednesday that his son denied any role in distributing the photos
but said he did not contact law enforcement when he began experiencing
computer problems before the RedState.com story was published.
RedState.com also published screenshots of a since-deleted Facebook post
written by Heslep in which he publicly accused Hill of having an affair
with her male congressional staff member. That allegation launched the
House Ethics investigation.
Red State and the Daily Mail
published nude photos that purportedly show the freshman congresswoman,
some with an identified female campaign aide, and one which shows Hill
undressed holding a bong. Attorneys representing Hill sent the Daily Mail a cease-and-desist letter,
claiming the photos were published without Hill’s permission and
threatening legal action if the British tabloid did not remove the
images from its website.
Also
Thursday, George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide who has
alleged that he was targeted in FBI’s Russia probe as part of a scheme
to take down his boss, is expected to formally announce his candidacy
for Hill's seat in California's 25th Congressional District north of Los
Angeles. Papadopoulos on Tuesday filed paperwork to run for the seat to
be vacated by Hill. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during former
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the
2016 presidential election.
Hill unseated an incumbent Republican
in 2018 and is one of the few openly bisexual members of Congress.
Since her resignation announcement, three Republicans and one Democrat
have said they plan to run for her seat, USA Today reported. Fox News' Gregg Re, Joseph A. Wulfsohn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Still struggling in the polls nine months after announcing her run for the White House, Sen. Kamala Harris , D-Calif., said Wednesday she still considers herself a top-tier candidate
amid reports that she has restructured her campaign -- laying off staff
in several states and at campaign headquarters -- to focus all her
efforts on winning one of the Democratic Party’s top three spots in February’s Iowa caucus.
The
former California attorney general and San Francisco district
attorney – who gained national attention in 2018 with her
cross-examination of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during
his Senate confirmation hearings -- also admitted she was concerned she
might not spend enough time in Iowa before the Feb. 3 caucus if she's
required to remain in Washington for a possible Senate impeachment trial
of President Trump. KAMALA HARRIS CUTTING STAFF, RENEGOTIATING CONTRACTS AS CAMPAIGN RESTRUCTURES BEFORE IOWA
“We
are still committed to New Hampshire. I am still committed to Nevada. I
am still committed to South Carolina. But we needed to make difficult
decisions. That's what campaigns require at this stage of the game,”
Harris told reporters at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa.
“We
have made those difficult decisions based on what we see to be our path
toward victory,” she continued. “I believe that we are going to do well
in Iowa, and that's why we have put the resources that we are putting
here. And that's why I'm here right now. And we'll continue to be here
through the end of the year and into the caucuses.”
In a memo
obtained by Fox News, Harris campaign manager Juan Rodriguez said
Wednesday that the candidate would dramatically restructure her campaign
— cutting staff, reducing pay and renegotiating contracts – in an
attempt to make to most of limited resources and stay competitive in a
field of 18 candidates within the final 100 days leading up to the Iowa
caucus.
Rodriguez's memo, first reported by Politico, announced
that several dozen people would be laid off at the campaign's Baltimore
headquarters, as would volunteers in New Hampshire, Nevada and
California as part of an effort to go "all-in" in Iowa, then shift to
focus on South Carolina after the caucus. It was not immediately clear
how many staff members would lose their jobs. The campaign, which has
not yet run any television advertising, hopes to spend at least $1
million on a media campaign in the weeks before the caucus, the memo
said.
Meanwhile, the House on Thursday is set to vote to
legitimize and set the parameters for an ongoing Democratic-led
impeachment probe into President Trump. The Washington Post
reported that should the House drag its feet in the impeachment probe —
either due to possible delays from the Trump administration or holiday
scheduling — a Senate trial could be delayed until January or even early
February, interfering with key campaign trail time for U.S. senators
competing in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.
“I will
fulfill my constitutional responsibility -- there’s no question, I take
it very seriously,” Harris said about appearing at the Capitol for
Senate votes. “It’s [also] very important that I am in Iowa as much as I
can possibly be. There is no question about that.”
“I am always
concerned about limited time in Iowa. Are you kidding me?,” Harris told
reporters. “Were I able to be awake for 24 hours, if I could assure
that, people would talk to me for 24 hours a day, I would do it. So I am
always concerned that I have enough time.”
Harris plans to spend
significant time in Iowa again in November, including over Thanksgiving,
her campaign said. She'll be in Iowa through this weekend and has
announced a trip to New Hampshire next week. Her campaign hasn't
released her schedule beyond that.
A Fox News poll of national
Democratic primary voters earlier this month showed Harris polling in
fourth place at 5 percent, 12 percentage points behind third-place Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and 27 percentage points behind former Vice
President Joe Biden.
The
senator had already pledged to go all-in on Iowa, joking she was moving
there, and earlier Wednesday her campaign touted the 15 days she spent
in the state this month as the "October Hustle." It was more than any of
her competitors spent there in October, but she's still polling behind
competitors such as Biden, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Fox News’ Kelly Phares, Sam Dorman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A coalition of conservative groups have filed an ethics complaint against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
D.-Calif., alleging that she has “hypocritically usurped” the authority
of the president and “weaponized” impeachment proceedings.
“In launching her 'official' impeachment inquiry
without benefit of a vote of the full House of Representatives and
without indicating anything remotely qualifying as 'treason, bribery, or
other high crimes and misdemeanors' that is the subject of the inquiry,
Speaker Pelosi has weaponized impeachment,” reads the complaint, led by
Tea Party Patriots Action's Jenny Beth Martin and signed by 40 different groups.
The
complaint adds that Thursday's scheduled vote on a resolution codifying
the impeachment inquiry is “inadequate at this stage" and says Pelosi’s
“one-person decision” is in violation of historical precedent. In
previous cases, the House has launched an official impeachment inquiry
into a president by holding a vote of all the members.
“If
she now understands that before going any further, the full House of
Representatives must make its impeachment inquiry legitimate by the
casting of votes, she is tacitly admitting that what came before is
illegitimate,” the complaint states. “Consequently, all
'evidence' gleaned during this portion of the 'investigation' must be
discarded for the sake of fairness.”
The letter alleged there was
no outcry from Pelosi when former Vice President Joe Biden “bragged that
he had leveraged more than a billion dollars in U.S. assistance to
Ukraine to achieve [a] desired policy end, threatening Ukrainian
government officials that he would deny them U.S. assistance if they did
not remove the prosecutor general within six hours.”
The
letter also emphasized the authority of the executive branch over
foreign and national security policy. “Congress’ ability to influence
the conduct of U.S. foreign and national security policy is wholly
dependent on its power of persuasion,” reads the complaint, which calls
on the Office of Congressional Ethics to launch an inquiry into Speaker
Pelosi’s “misconduct.”
Republicans and some moderate Democrats have expressed concern over impeachment proceedings.
Earlier Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R.-Fla., filed an ethics complaint against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Gaetz accused Schiff of "grossly misrepresenting the content" of President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing last month
A
Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey says he doubts he will vote in
favor of the resolution introduced by his party Tuesday to formalize an
impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., introduced the resolution Tuesday that
sets forth rules for the probe, but Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., said
he hasn’t seen anything “impeachable” yet and doesn't think he will vote
for it.
“I would imagine that I’m not voting for it,” Van Drew told a reporter from NBC News.
Van
Drew, who narrowly defeated his GOP rival in 2018 in New Jersey’s 2nd
Congressional District, has openly criticized impeachment, saying it
would further divide the country and put members of his party at risk in
the 2020 elections.
He
is among a handful of Democrats who continue to lean away from a formal
push for impeachment despite ongoing depositions of witnesses by three
House committees spearheading the probe.
Van Drew's office did not respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Democratic
Reps. Kendra Horn from Oklahoma, Joe Cunningham from South
Carolina and Anthony Brindisi from New York -- who all won GOP districts
last year but remain vulnerable Democrats in the House -- said they are
skeptical of impeachment and hedged about the vote to frame the
impeachment inquiry.
Similarly, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.,
who clinched 52 percent of the votes in two consecutive elections
between 2016 and 2018, is at risk of losing his seat next year in a
district that Trump dominated by 31 percent in 2016.
GOP leaders
introduced a resolution last week pressuring House Democrats to hold a
vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry against Trump that
centers around whether or not the president engaged in a "quid pro quo"
and attempted to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open
an investigation into former vice president and 2020 candidate Joe
Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid to Ukraine.
Democrats
finally caved on Tuesday and introduced the resolution, but several
Republican lawmakers still decried that they are not being given enough
time to review the resolution before the vote and continued to blast
impeachment proceedings as a whole.
A vote on the resolution
-- which will only formalize the procedures of the investigation and not
actual impeachment itself -- is scheduled to take place on Thursday. Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House Sunday. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
