Gun rights activists are on a political roll with four recent wins

Second Amendment advocates are on a bit of a political roll recently, with four major victories in just one week.
House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled an anti-gun healthcare proposal from consideration; the governor of North Dakota signed a bill letting residents carry a firearm without a permit; New Mexico lawmakers defeated a gun registry bill and the Supreme Court ruled for a defendant whom a gun rights group had supported.
“It gives us a lot of hope,” Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said to Fox News. “We just spent the past eight years on the defensive. Now we are playing offensive ball.”
In Washington, House Speaker Ryan, under pressure from the Freedom Caucus, withdrew the GOP healthcare bill, often referred to as “ObamaCare Lite.” Many in Congress opposed the plan, including the Gun Owners of America (GAO). The GOA had requested three changes in the bill: that insurance companies be prohibited from discriminating against gun owners; that doctors not create a de facto gun registry by entering patients’ gun information into a federal database; and that agencies not be able to troll Medicaid and federal health databases in order to send names to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) “gun ban” list.
In North Dakota, the governor signed a GOA-backed bill to make the state the 14^th in the country to allow residents to carry a firearm with a permit.
In New Mexico, a committee of the state legislature rejected a Michael Bloomberg-endorsed proposal for universal background checks. New Mexico's sheriffs opposed the bill, which would have registered virtually every gun sale in the state -- and banned virtually every private transfer of weapons that did not first get permission from the government.
The biggest victory came from the Supreme Court, which decided in favor of a man whose lawyers argued that there had been a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. His lawyers argued that the Fourth Amendment protected their client not just during an arrest but after an indictment and arraignment. The Supreme Court, in a 6-2 opinion, agreed with the position of the GOA, which had filed amicus brief with the high court.

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Last month, a GOA-backed bill was signed by North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (left) to make his state the 14th in the country to allow residents carry without a permit.

Gun owners may soon have more reasons to celebrate. The House voted to repeal a gun ban for veterans, and the bill’s prospects in the Senate appear good.
“It’s very encouraging,” Pratt said to Fox News. “People are very optimistic.”
“Certainly gun owners are encouraged by what is coming up.”

ObamaCare Dead In The Water Cartoons

After golf with Trump, Paul says 'very optimistic' about ObamaCare repeal

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a top conservative critic of House Republicans’ failed plan to replace ObamaCare, concluded his golf outing Sunday with President Trump by saying party members are “getting closer” on a compromise repeal plan and that he remains “very optimistic.”
The president’s invitation for Paul to play at Trump National Golf Club is a sign that he is trying again to negotiate with congressional conservatives who failed to back the originial ObamaCare overhaul plan, after weeks of attacking them.
“We had a great day with the president,” Paul said after playing with Trump and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney at the northern Virgina club. “We did talk about some health care reform. I think the sides are getting closer and closer together. And I remain very optimistic that we will get an ObamaCare repeal.”
Paul, an eye doctor and Tea Party favorite, has his own ObamaCare replacement plan, which he argues goes further than the Republican House leadership plan to fully repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, under which consumers are facing rising costs and fewer policy options.
White House official Stephanie Grisham said earlier Sunday that the threesome would discussing several issues at the club but that health care would be “a big topic.”
Mulvaney is a founding member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, which led the opposition to the Republican overhaul plan that failed last month in the GOP-controlled House.
Trump has been critical of the Freedom Caucus and the majority of its roughly 35 members who were influential in stopping a vote on House overhaul plan.
Trump warned caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., in a closed-door Capitol Hill meeting about not supporting the overhaul plan, saying, “Oh Mark, I'm coming after you.”
And in just the past few days, the president and the White House have singled out the Freedom Caucus and specific members for their non-support -- including Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash and South Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Sanford, who is sponsoring the House version of Paul’s overhaul plan.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted: “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”
Also that day, The Post and Courier newspaper in South Carolina reported that Trump dared Sanford to vote against the overhaul bill.
Sanford said that Mulvaney told him: "The president asked me to look you square in the eyes and to say that he hoped that you voted ‘no’ on this bill so he could run (a primary challenger) against you in 2018."
On Saturday, White House social media Director Dan Scavino Jr. tweeted: “Donald Trump is bringing auto plants & jobs back to Michigan. @justinamash is a big liability. #TrumpTrain, defeat him in primary.”
Trump in recent days has also expressed a desire to revisit repealing and replacing ObamaCare, one of his major campaign promises.
“Talks on Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare are, and have been, going on, and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck,” he tweeted Sunday before the golf outing.
Trump invited Meadows and Texas GOP Sen. Mike Lee, another influential Capitol Hill conservative, to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago the weekend before the scrapped House vote in an effort to win their support.

Trump ready to address North Korea nuclear program with or without China

President Trump has said the United States is ready to act alone against North Korea’s nuclear program if China does not take a tougher stance, just days before he hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida.
Trump made the comments in a Financial Times interview posted Sunday on the newspaper’s website.
“We will talk about North Korea," Trump said. "And China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don't it won't be good for anyone."
Trump added that the United States could "totally" handle the situation in North Korea without China's help. While China provides diplomatic and economic support to its neighbor, it claims that its influence over Kim Jong Un's government is limited.
However, Trump also made clear again that he won’t reveal his foreign policy strategy through the news media.
"I'm not going to tell you (my plan). You know, I am not the United States of the past where we tell you where we are going to hit in the Middle East," he said.
Still, Trump attempted to make clear he’s not an isolationist opposed to alliances.
“I do believe in alliances,” he said in the interview. “I believe in relationships. And I believe in partnerships. But alliances have not always worked out very well for us.”
The relationship between the United States and China has been uncertain since Trump's election.
During his campaign he accused China of unfair trade practices and threatened to raise import taxes on Chinese goods and declare Beijing a currency manipulator, though it is unclear whether Trump will follow through with either threat.
Trump told the newspaper that he doesn't "want to talk about tariffs yet, perhaps the next time we meet."
Trump's ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, also offered tough talk on China, saying on ABC's "This Week" that the U.S. is pressing China to take a firmer stand regarding North Korea's nuclear program.
U.N. resolutions have failed so far to deter North Korea from conducting nuclear and missile tests. Last year, the North conducted two nuclear tests and two dozen tests of ballistic missiles.
"They need to show us how concerned they are," Haley said. "They need to put pressure on North Korea. The only country that can stop North Korea is China, and they know that."
Asked what the U.S. would do if China doesn't cooperate, Haley said: "China has to cooperate."
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, however, said he doubted that Beijing will cooperate.
"I've been working on the North Korea problem since 1994," Carter said on ABC. "And we have consistently asked Chinese leaders ... because they uniquely have the historical and the economic relationship with North Korea to make a difference.
"They haven't used that influence, and so it's hard for me to be optimistic with that," he said.

Trump senior adviser Kushner travels to Iraq, White House aide says

President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, is in Iraq and is traveling with the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford, a White House aide confirmed to Fox News Sunday.
Kushner was invited by Dunford to travel with him to the Middle East.
Other details about the trip have not been released. A senior administration official told the Associated Press that Kushner wanted to see the Iraq situation for himself and show support to Baghdad.
Kushner's West Wing portfolio is robust. He has been deeply involved with presidential staffing and has played the role of shadow diplomat, advising on relations with the Middle East, Canada and Mexico.
Last week he launched a task force meant to modernize government using lessons drawn from the private sector.
And though Kushner had no previous diplomatic or government experience, Trump also tasked him with trying to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
"If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can," Trump told Kushner at a gala a few days before his inauguration.
His visit marked an early foray for the Trump administration into the situation in Iraq and came just two weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he was assured by the president the U.S. will accelerate its support for his country's struggle against the Islamic State.
Al-Abadi met with Trump and Kushner in Washington last month and said he had the impression that the Trump administration would take a more aggressive approach, although he did not say what that might entail.

McConnell vows Gorsuch will be confirmed this week, Schumer predicts he won't get 60 votes

The Senate's top Republican and Democrat were split on Sunday over the possibility of Judge Neil Gorsuch being confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of a scheduled Senate vote this week.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed on "Fox News Sunday" that "we’re going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed this week."
Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick to fill the high court seat of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, will almost certainly have enough votes to pass the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, but will struggle to get 60 votes for final confirmation by Friday.
Should Democrats attempt a filibuster, McConnell was expected to seek a change in Senate rules allowing a simple majority to confirm the nomination.
On Sunday, McConnell did not tip his hand over whether he would use the so-called "nuclear option," telling "Fox News Sunday," "We’ll know through the course of the week ... It’s in the hands of Democrats."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Gorsuch would not pass the 60-vote benchmark and argued that Trump should huddle with Democrats and Republicans to "try to come up with a mainstream nominee."
"Look, when a nominee doesn't get 60 votes, you shouldn't change the rules, you should change the nominee," said Schumer.
Later Sunday, two Democratic senators split over whether to support Gorsuch. Joe Donnelly of Indiana said he would vote in favor of Gorsuch's confirmation while Sen. Jon Tester of Montana announced he would not back the federal appeals court judge based in Denver.
Donnelly became the third Democrat to break with the party as Republicans line up behind President Donald Trump's choice for the high court.
With 52 Republican senators, eight votes from Democrats or the Senate's two independents would be needed to advance the nomination and prevent a filibuster. So far, only Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — all representing states Trump won in November and all up for re-election next year — have said they will vote to confirm Gorsuch.
Tester represents a state won by Trump and faces re-election, too, but he said Gorsuch did not directly answer questions when the two met or during the confirmation hearing. Tester said he based his decision on the judge's past cases, noting that he found troubling Gorsuch's record on privacy and that he believes Gorsuch places corporations over people.
Donnelly called Gorsuch, 49, "a qualified jurist who will base his decisions on his understanding of the law and is well-respected among his peers."

LGBTQ Activists Cartoons

LGBTQ activists held "dance party" protest outside Ivanka Trump's D.C. home

Soros

LGBTQ activists held "dance party" protest outside Ivanka Trump's D.C. home

Hundreds of people protested in front of Ivanka Trump’s Washington D.C. home on Saturday for “climate justice.”
LGBTQ activists hosted a “dance party” protest to “send the clear message that our climate and our communities matter,” a detailed Facebook event said.
A crowd of protesters took to the streets with signs to protest President Donald Trump’s administration’s stance on climate change, the Daily Mail reported.
“The entire Trump Administration has shown a blatant disregard for our planet and its inhabitants,” the event page read. “Also, in case you hadn't heard, Trump revoked protections for LGBTQ government employees and removed LGBTQ questions from the census.”
Barricades were put up in front of Trump’s home by police, although it was uncertain if she and her family were home during the protest, WUSA reported.
Police told WUSA that the event had ended peacefully.

New York lawmakers miss deadline to pass state budget

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo a Democrat.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers missed the April 1 deadline for passing the state budget by the start of the new fiscal year and were still far apart on policy issues on Saturday.
Mr. Cuomo issued legislators a new deadline: Pass the budget by midnight on Sunday or he will pass an extender of the current budget instead.
Mr. Cuomo’s extender would last until May 21, when the U.S. Congress is expected to pass its budget resolution.
The governor said this would have the benefit of giving lawmakers more clarity about potential cuts to New York from a new Republican congress and president.
In a statement minutes after midnight on Saturday, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said the basic outlines of the roughly $160 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year were resolved, but policy issues that lawmakers intend to pass with the budget weren't.
Two obstacles were a measure to remove minors from the criminal-justice system and a replacement to 421-a, the expired law that gave real-estate developers tax breaks in exchange for including affordable housing in their real-estate portfolios.

Senate showdown, will GOP use 'nuclear option,' to confirm Gorsuch?

Sen. Mitch McConnell details efforts to replace ObamaCare

 “There were too many shaky hands holding the lighters near too many fuses.” – Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three
It’s always a numbers game on Capitol Hill. Which side possesses the most votes. After all, that’s the essence of democracy.
The Founders feared direct democracy -- and various other forms of republican democracy. So they tempered the power of the majority.
Unlike the House,  the Senate was the deliberative body. There, the minority could often prevail -- entailing a supermajority to shut down filibusters.
Neutralizing a Senate filibuster used to take 67 votes (two-thirds). The Senate dropped that to a three-fifths requirement in 1975. However, a two-thirds vote is still necessary to alter the Senate’s rules.
This is why the numbers game is so important. It’s clear that a majority of senators want to confirm Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. But it’s doubtful that a supermajority of 60 senators are willing to shut off debate on President Trump’s nomination.
This brings us to the so-called “nuclear option,” a fundamental obliteration of the Senate’s structure requiring a supermajority to overcome a threatened Democratic filibuster of Gorsuch.
It’s unprecedented for the Senate to successfully filibuster a Supreme Court pick. Defeat a nominee on the floor? Yes. Look at what happened to President Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork for the high court in 1987. Bork scored a scant 42 yeas when 51 ayes were necessary for confirmation. Require a Supreme Court nominee to secure 60 votes to shut off the filibuster before confirmation? Well, that’s a mixed bag.
Neither of President Obama’s selections for the court -- Justices Sonia Sotomayor nor Elena Kagan -- faced a “cloture” vote to end a filibuster. But the Senate confirmed both picks with supermajorities. Sotomayor secured 68 yeas. Kagan marshaled 63 yeas.
However, when President George W. Bush tapped Justice Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court in 2006, Senate Democrats (then in the minority) demanded a cloture vote to end a filibuster. Alito scored 72 yeas on the procedural vote. The Senate then confirmed Alito, 58-42.
This is what riles Senate Republicans. The GOP sports only 52 members right now. Two Democrats have announced their support for Gorsuch: Sens. Joe Manchin, West Virginia, and Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota.
Both are moderate Democrats in red states who face potentially brutal re-election campaigns next year. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., insists that if someone is going to sit on the High Court for life, they should command 60 votes on the Senate floor.
“It’s going to be a real, uphill climb to 60,” Schumer predicted for Gorsuch.
“It’s the most powerful court in the world,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “If you’re seeking to be an associate justice on the Supreme Court, you ought to be able to rack up 60 votes. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”
Republicans know they face a deficit to defy the Democrats’ filibuster of Gorsuch. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is unwavering.
“We are going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed,” he said. “It will really be up to (Democrats) how the process to confirm goes moving forward.”
Embedded in McConnell’s remark is a gambit to deploy the “nuclear option” to confirm Gorsuch. After all, it’s about the numbers. So if McConnell doesn’t have the numbers, he’s willing to do something drastic to promote Gorsuch.
“If the nominee cannot get 60 votes, you don’t change the rules,” Schumer argued. “You change the nominee.”
The 60-vote threshold is dubious for Supreme Court justices. All recent justices proved they could command 60 votes at some point in the process. But the ceiling for Gorsuch so far is at 54 votes.
So what exactly is the nuclear option?
Schumer is wrong about one thing. The nuclear option is not a rules change. It’s a change in Senate precedent. The chamber currently has 44 rules. But as mentioned before, altering those rules requires 67 votes, seven more votes than necessary to invoke cloture and stop debate on Gorsuch’s nomination.
So with only 52 Republican senators, McConnell can’t switch Senate rules. But he could set a new precedent.
See, the Senate also operates on precedent -- a set of parliamentary criterion based on things that happened before. So, if you can’t change the rules, perhaps establish a new precedent.
Democrats opened Pandora’s Box on the nuclear option in November 2013 when they held the majority in the Senate. Senate Democrats didn’t have 67 votes to change the chamber rules. But then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, enacted a new precedent of how many votes are necessary to extinguish filibusters on executive branch nominees except Supreme Court picks.
As we say, it is a numbers game. Reid had the numbers -- a simple majority -- to form a new precedent for those types of nominees.
It’s a numbers game today, too. McConnell has 52 Republicans on his side. He could conceivably launch the nuclear option to constitute a new precedent to require but a simple majority to end filibusters of Supreme Court nominees -- rather than the old bar of 60 votes. All McConnell needs are 51 Republicans to go along to with his gambit.
McConnell must be sure he has at least 51 of his 52 members willing to do the deed. Fifty yeas would suffice if Vice President Pence comes round to break the tie. It’s unclear whether McConnell has those votes. Some Republican senators are leery of re-opening Pandora’s Box to authorize a new precedent. Senators are generally reluctant to change the chamber’s long-standing traditions for a quick-fix today.
One school of thought is that McConnell could let the issue percolate over the upcoming, two-week Easter and Passover recess. This could gin up support among Republicans or even let the Democrats marinate for a while about the consequences.
But Fox is told by multiple, senior Republican sources that should the Democrats not help Republicans count to 60 on Gorsuch, McConnell has the votes on his side to deploy the nuclear option. It’s likely this will all go down on Thursday with a prospective confirmation vote on Friday.
It likely looks like this:
The Senate Judiciary Committee meets Monday to vote the Gorsuch nomination out of committee and dispatch it to the floor. Actual debate on Gorsuch begins in the Senate on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, McConnell files a “cloture petition” to end debate on Gorsuch.
By rule, cloture petitions require an intervening day before they’re “ripe” for a vote. So a vote to end debate on Gorsuch likely comes Thursday.
Let’s say Gorsuch fails to get 60 votes to end the filibuster Thursday. That’s where McConnell trips the nuclear wire. From a procedural standpoint, the Senate must be in what’s called a “non-debatable” posture.
In other words, a failed cloture vote is just that. There’s no more debate. This parliamentary cul-de-sac is important because it’s practically the only procedural locus in which McConnell could initiate the nuclear option. Any other parliamentary disposition prevents McConnell from going nuclear. But this unique place -- following a failed cloture vote -- is practically throbbing with political isotopes.
McConnell could switch his vote to halt debate so he winds up on the “prevailing side” of the cloture vote. In other words, the Democrats won. The “nay” side prevailed. By briefly siding with the Democrats since they won that round, grants McConnell the right to demand a revote on that same issue.
This is where McConnell lights the fuse.
All McConnell must do is make a point of order that the Senate needs only a simple majority (51 votes) to end debate on a Supreme Court nominee. Naturally, whichever GOP senator is presiding over the chamber would rule against McConnell. After all, that’s not the precedent.
But McConnell would then appeal that ruling, forcing another vote. At that stage, the Senate is voting to sustain the ruling of the presiding officer. But if 51 senators vote no (remember, McConnell wants to establish a new precedent), the Senate has rebuked the chairman’s ruling and set a new precedent. Only 51 yeas are then necessary to break a filibuster on a Supreme Court nominee.
That is the nuclear option.
McConnell could summon Pence to preside over the Senate should he have two defectors on his side. Bizarrely, it’s possible Pence could rule against McConnell’s point of order -- adhering to Senate precedent. But Pence could then vote to break a 50-50 tie to establish a new precedent should it come to that.
The Senate would then re-take the failed cloture vote on Gorsuch. Presumably Gorsuch secures 51 yeas to end debate. And then Democrats, fuming at the GOP’s political artifice, would require the Senate to burn off 30 hours before a final vote to confirm Gorsuch on Friday night.
The Senate usually grants opponents of an issue 30 hours of debate once the chamber votes to end debate.
Prepare for nuclear fallout.
Republicans will claim that Democrats opened Pandora’s Box with their version of the nuclear option in 2013. Democrats will counter they had to because of Republican filibusters back then. Republicans will declare they had no other choice but the nuclear option because Democrats filibustered Gorsuch.
Democrats will contend it never should have come to this. The GOP should have granted President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing.
Regardless, 51 votes will be the new precedent to break filibusters on Supreme Court picks. This is the nuclear option. It may be inevitable. As Stephen King wrote, “there were too many shaky hands holding the lighters near too many fuses.”

Trump vs. Freedom Caucus: President takes names, starting with Amash

Freedom Caucus member talks next efforts to repeal ObamaCare

The list of House Freedom Caucus members being targeted by President Trump for sinking Republicans’ ObamaCare overhaul plan grew Saturday when the White House singled out Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash for a primary defeat.
“Donald Trump is bringing auto plants & jobs back to Michigan,” tweeted White House social media Director Dan Scavino Jr. “@justinamash is a big liability. #TrumpTrain, defeat him in primary.”
Most of the ultra-conservative caucus’ roughly 35 members withheld their support for the Republican House leadership’s overhaul plan, which kept it from even getting a final vote in the GOP-led chamber, despite Trump’s rigorous dealmaking efforts.
The president invited caucus leaders to the White House and met with them and others in the House Republican conference on Capitol Hill in the days before the scheduled final vote.
Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., purportedly agreed to cancel the vote, instead of forcing non-supporters to cast “no” ballots on the record. However, Trump still appears bent on political revenge, with the White House suggesting support for a more moderate conservative against Amash in next year’s midterm elections.
“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”
Also that day, The Post and Courier newspaper in South Carolina reported that Trump dared Freedom Caucus member Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., to vote against the overhaul bill.
Sanford, who with Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul has a competing ObamaCare replacement bill, said White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told him: "The president asked me to look you square in the eyes and to say that he hoped that you voted ‘no’ on this bill so he could run (a primary challenger) against you in 2018," according to the paper.
The Freedom Caucus members who opposed the House leadership plan say it doesn’t go far enough to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and they largely appear entrenched in that position.
“Trump admin & Establishment have merged into #Trumpstablishment,” Amash, a Tea Party favorite seeking a fourth term, tweeted Saturday in response to Scavino’s tweet. “Same old agenda: Attack conservatives, libertarians & independent thinkers.”
Previously, Amash had tweeted that instead of draining the swamp, Trump was being sucked into it.
Amash and Stanford are not the first Freedom Caucus members on Trump’s political hit list. Trump told caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., at the closed-door Capitol Hill meeting: “Oh Mark, I'm coming after you.”
Daniel Jacobson, a former Obama White House lawyer, argued Saturday that Scavino's tweet violates federal law about mixing official business with politics.
"This violates the Hatch Act. WH staff can't use an official or de facto govt Twitter acct (which this is) to call for defeat of a candidate," he tweeted.

Indebted to Ohio, Pence returns to vow ObamaCare fight 'ain't over'

Vice President Pence said Saturday in Ohio that President Trump’s effort to overhaul ObamaCare “ain’t over yet,” trying to assure voters in the battleground state that he and Trump will make good on their winning campaign promise.
Trump suffered a major defeat in late-March when the GOP-led House could not pass an overhaul bill.
However, the president now appears willing to resort to more hardball tactics, including negotiating next time with Democrats and backing 2018 primary challenges against members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who led the opposition to House leadership’s overhaul bill.
Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold later Saturday expressed concerns on Fox News about both tactics, saying that working with Democrats will likely result in a more liberal-leaning bill, which will further alienate more GOP conservatives in Congress.
“If you move further to the left, you’re not just going to lose the Freedom Caucus,” he said. “You’ll lose people like me.”
Farenthold also suggested a recent White House tweet about backing GOP primary challenges and courting congressional Democrats is “the wrong way” to get overhaul legislation passed.
“It ain’t over yet,” Pence said about ObamaCare during a roundtable discuss Saturday at Dynalab, in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, that largely focused on jobs. “You can take that to the bank.”
“I’m really here to ask one simple question,” Pence also told the small group that including Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman, whose support for Trump helped him become the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since 2004.
“With this group right here, you have a car (dealer), a flag maker and a pizza maker,” Portman said. “You have a great group of entrepreneurs here.”
Pence said that the administration has created about 500,000 new jobs in its roughly first 10 weeks and that Trump remains focused on tax reform and improving the country’s infrastructure.

North Korea Cartoons

Trump signs executive orders to crack down on trade abuses, increase enforcement

One week before he hosts a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump on Friday signed a pair of executive orders aimed at cracking down on trade abuses and identifying the causes of America’s massive trade deficit.
“We’re going to get these bad trade deals straightened out,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “The jobs and wealth have been stripped from our country, year after year, decade after decade, trade deficit upon trade deficit reaching more than $700 billion last year alone and lots of jobs.”
The first executive order concentrates on tougher enforcement of anti-dumping laws and increasing the collection of anti-dumping penalties and so-called countervailing duties -- a mechanism used against foreign governments that subsidize their producers and sell goods at below-market prices.
Anti-dumping penalties target exporters that sell goods below the cost of production.
Between 2001 and 2016, about $2.8 billion in import taxes went uncollected from companies in 40 countries, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday. He told reporters that by not using the enforcement mechanism properly, Americans lose out on funds that could be used for other purposes.
The second executive order calls on the Commerce Department and U.S. trade representative to produce a comprehensive report to identify “every possible cause of the U.S. trade deficit.”
Robert Lighthizer, Trump's nominee for post, has yet to be confirmed.
Once completed, the findings of the report will serve as the foundation that will guide the Trump administration’s future trade policy.
Officials will consider the impact on deficits of trade abuses, non-reciprocal trade practices, specific trade obligations, poor or inconsistent enforcement and World Trade Organization rules.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised Friday's step.
"If anyone had any doubt about the president's resolve to fix the trade problems, these two executive orders should end that speculation now and for all time," he said standing next to Trump. "This marks the beginning of the totally new chapter in the American trade relationship with our partners overseas."
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Ross said the first-of-its-kind report demonstrates that the administration will “not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach, both to analyzing the problem and therefore to developing the solutions for it.”
The cautious approach is welcome news to some in the business community.
“They are not just jumping into something. They are going to carefully look at what it is we really want to accomplish and hopefully think about how it will affect us and the other country,” founder of Paul Mitchell and billionaire investor John Paul DeJori told Fox Business Network.
Administration officials have 90 days to finish a country-by-country and product-by-product analysis.
The report will also examine whether bilateral deficits are caused by free trade deals, like NAFTA, and actions taken by previous administrations.
White House Trade Council President Peter Navarro broke slightly from Trump, saying deficits are not always bad for the economy and that bad behavior is not always the cause.
For example, one of the reasons for the trade deficit with Canada is the U.S. is not energy independent and imports a lot of oil.
During the campaign, then-candidate Trump frequently singled out China as a trade abuser and promised to hold China to account for unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation.
Asked Friday why Trump has not fulfilled his pledge to label China a currency manipulator on "Day One," Spicer said a decision would occur after next Thursday's meeting with Xi Jinping.
Navarro argued the executive orders address far broader concerns than just China.
"Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties," he said.
Trump, however, recognizes the potential for an uncomfortable meeting next week in Palm Beach, Fla.
"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits,” Trump said in a Thursday tweet.
He added that "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."
On March 7, the Commerce Department released figures showing the U.S. had amassed its largest trade deficit since March 2012.
In January 2017, the trade deficit for goods and services was 11.8 percent higher as compared to January 2016, increasing from $43.4 billion to $48.5 billion.
“Today’s data shows there is much work to be done,” said Ross in a statement, adding that the administration would in the coming months “renegotiate bad trade deals and bring renewed energy to trade enforcement in defense of all hard-working Americans.”

VA retaliation against whistleblower: doctor kept in empty room

Dr. Dale Klein

Dr. Dale Klein may be the highest-paid U.S. government employee who literally does nothing while he’s on the clock. A highly rated pain management specialist at the Southeast Missouri John J. Pershing V.A., Klein is paid $250,000 a year to work with veterans, but instead of helping those who served their country, he sits in a small office and does nothing. All day. Every day.
“I sit in a chair and I look at the walls,” the doctor said of his typical workday. “It feels like solitary confinement.”
A double board certified physician and Yale University fellow, Klein said the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) took away his patients and privileges almost a year ago after, he alleges, he blew the whistle on secret wait-lists and wait-time manipulation at the V.A. in Poplar Bluff, Mo., as well as his suspicion that some veterans were reselling their prescriptions on the black market.
When his superiors did nothing, Klein went to the inspector general.
“Immediately after the V.A. found out I made these disclosures, I started to get retaliated against,” Klein said.
Klein was initially placed on administrative leave. The Missouri-V.A. closed his pain management clinic and tried to terminate him. According to court documents, the V.A. tried to fire Klein “not based on substandard care or lack of clinical competence” but instead for “consistent acceleration of trivial matters through his chain of command.”
“I do not consider secret wait-lists and manipulations of wait times to be trivial matters,” Klein said.
The Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency in Washington, D.C., made it clear that since the doctor was a whistleblower, he could not be fired. But Klein said the retaliation continued and believes his superiors stripped him of his duties to silence him.
“It could set a bad precedent for other whistleblowers because they're going to say, ‘I don't want to risk my livelihood, my career, my security because I see what happened to Dr. Klein and I don't want that to happen to me or my family’,” said Natalie Khawam, president and founder of the Whistleblower Law Firm, which represents Klein.
The situation grew so dire that Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., chose to step in, writing a letter in January to the acting V.A. secretary requesting the V.A. “cease all retaliatory actions” against Klein.
“I'm concerned about a doctor who could be utilizing his skills to help veterans, but who is not able to utilize those skills,” Johnson said.
Remarkably, Klein isn’t the only V.A. employee who allegedly has been retaliated against. In fact, his story sounds eerily similar to that of Brian Smothers, who worked at the Denver V.A. from 2015 until last November when he says conditions grew so hostile he quit.
Smothers served in the Colorado Army National Guard and Reserves from 1999 to 2007, and later joined the Denver V.A. to help veterans engage with their own healthcare and assisted the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder clinical team.
“I come from a family of veterans who really highly values service to others and helping veterans and that's what I wanted to dedicate my life to doing… helping veterans who may be struggling,” he said.
Smothers was working as a peer support specialist when he alleges he found more than 3,500 veterans on what he believes were “secret” wait-lists at V.A. facilities in Denver, Golden and Colorado Springs.
"It looked like some kind of game they were playing with veteran’s mental healthcare, and I was very upset," Smothers said. “It became clear to me very quickly that many of the veterans that were on the PTSD clinical team’s wait-list had been waiting for care for three, four, five, six months,” Smothers said.
The reason, Smothers alleges, is profit: “People who run the V.A. and the mental health division hid these wait-lists so they could meet performance goals, and as a consequence of meeting these goals, got bonuses. They defrauded the federal government because it benefited them."
Smothers is haunted by one veteran’s death in particular, an Army Ranger in Colorado Springs who told the V.A. that he had been waiting for care and was suicidal. Instead of helping him, the V.A. allegedly placed him on a wait-list and he committed suicide a short time later, Smothers said.
"I wish I could have done more to change the system from within because as far as I understand nothing is being done to change any of this," Smothers said.
After Smothers reported the allegations to the inspector general, he said his superiors retaliated by forcing him to sit in his office, without any work assignments or authority to see patients. Human Resources also tried to get him to destroy the wait-lists, he alleges, and sign a piece of paper saying he had “compromised the integrity of the healthcare system," Smothers said.
The V.A. declined to address the allegations on camera and instead referred us to the inspector general, who confirmed it "identified wait-time and other issues in recent published reports and testimony before Congress regarding Colorado V.A. facilities."
Sen. Johnson intervened on Smothers’ behalf and got the inspector general to launch an investigation.
“It has quite honestly been shocking to somebody like me who comes from the private sector, the pervasiveness of retaliation even though we have 100 years of laws against retaliating against whistleblowers in government,” Johnson said.
Johnson is now trying to pass a whistleblower protection bill to help V.A. employees like Smothers and Klein.
A spokesperson from the V.A. said due to on-going investigations, the V.A. cannot comment on specific cases but added the department recognizes the importance of all employees, to include whistleblowers, who identify problems that impede the optimal delivery of care and services to Veterans.
Klein said he hopes the V.A., under the Trump administration, will make substantial changes so veterans can get quality care they need and so those who uncover problems or wrongdoing – and report it – are protected.
“This is a heart-stopping moment for the V.A. and the transformation can start in Poplar Bluff, Mo.”

North Korea's 'reckless' actions must be stopped, Mattis says

North Korea’s “reckless” actions in regards to its nuclear weapons and missile programs “has got to be stopped,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.
Speaking at a news conference in London, Mattis raised the North Korea issue in response to a reporter’s question about Iran. He suggested that North Korea is a more urgent problem.
“This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability, and we will be working with the international community to address this,” he said. "We are working diplomatically, including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control. But right now it appears to be going in a very reckless manner."
"That's got to be stopped," he concluded.
The reporter noted that Mattis, as head of U.S. Central Command in 2012, had said Iran was the main threat facing the United States. In responding, Mattis quickly pivoted to North Korea, which has rattled Washington with threats to attack the U.S. with nuclear missiles.
North Korea is reportedly preparing for a new nuclear test.
When asked about a U.S. general’s comment on Russia reportedly giving weapons to the Taliban, Mattis said they have seen activities between the two, but would not confirm if weapons exchange was involved.
“What they are up to there, in light of their other activities, gives us concern,” he added. “We look to (engage) with Russia on a political or diplomatic level, but right now Russia is choosing to be a strategic competitor, and we are finding that we can only have very modest expectations in areas that we can cooperate with Russia contrary to how we were just 10 years ago, five years ago.”
During the press conference, Mattis largely sidestepped the issue of Assad’s future in Syria and said no decision has been made on deploying more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
“I have not made (a) recommendation to (the) president,” he said.
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Border wall bidder getting death threats, deemed traitor because he is Hispanic

A U.S. worker builds a section of the border wall opposite the city of Ciudad Juarez, Nov. 9, 2016.

The owner of a Texas construction company interested in the massive border wall project along the U.S.-Mexico border said he is receiving death threats and being called a traitor in part because he is of Mexican descent.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘You’re Latino. How can you build a wall to keep other Latinos out?’” said Penna Group’s CEO Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga to The Washington Post.
The Fort-Worth businessman said it was not an easy decision to bid on the controversial project — not least because 80 percent of his workforce is Latino.
TRUMP'S BORDER WALL FUNDING WILL LIKELY HAVE TO WAIT
“We need to be a productive part of the solution, rather than sit on the sidelines,” Evangelista-Ysasaga said when Penna’s bid was first announced. He explained that one of the reasons he jumped in was that he had heard rumors that other firms might propose inhumane methods like electrified barriers.

Approximately 200 companies have responded to the federal government’s requests for proposals for a solid concrete border wall and, according to the Post, 32 companies are Hispanic-owned.
FOR BIDDERS, TRUMP’S WALL IS PRO-BUSINESS, NOT
ANTI-IMMIGRATION
“The American people have been asking our politicians for 35 years to do something about immigration, and nothing has been done,” he told the Dallas Morning News earlier this month.
“Our hope is that with a secure border ... they will finally have an appetite to pass some real comprehensive immigration reform."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is expected to start awarding contracts by late-April after the deadline for proposals was extended to April 4.

Hillary Cartoons

Hillary Clinton aides had access to State Dept. after she left, says key lawmaker

When Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State in 2013, she negotiated continuing access to classified and top-secret documents for herself and six staffers under the designation "research assistants," according to a powerful senator who notes that Clinton was later deemed "extremely careless" with such information.
The staff apparently retained access even after Clinton announced her run for president in April 2015, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. The access was ostensibly granted to facilitate work on Clinton's memoir, but Grassley said he was only able to verify it after the Obama administration left the White House.

“It is so unimaginatively offensive that Hillary Clinton or her staff would have any access to classified or top secret information."
- Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch

“I have repeatedly asked the State Department whether Secretary Clinton and her associates had their clearances suspended or revoked to which the Obama Administration refused to respond,” Grassley wrote in a March 30 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
“Recently, the State Department informed the Committee that six additional Secretary Clinton staff at State were designated as her research assistants which allowed them to retain their clearances after leaving the Department,” Grassley added.
The State Department has not yet responded it an inquiry from Fox News as to whether Clinton, or her staff, including then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, her traveling chief of staff and former assistant, who went on to become the vice chair of her presidential campaign, and Jake Sullivan, her senior policy advisor, still have access to the classified and top-secret archives and systems.
Clinton could not immediately be reached for comment.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Thursday launched an inquiry into the matter, citing among his concerns FBI director James Comey’s July 5 announcement where he said the FBI found Clinton and her staff were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Grassley also contended there is “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information...”
During the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server and her handling of top secret and classified information, Comey acknowledged there were seven email chains on Clinton’s server that were classified at the “Top Secret/Special Access Program level.” Another 2,000 emails on her private server were also found to have contained information deemed classified now, though not marked classified when sent. The server also contained 22 top-secret emails deemed too damaging to national security to be released.
Grassley wants more answers from the State Department now that Tillerson is in charge, including whether it ever investigated or sanctioned Clinton and her staff for mishandling information.
“It is unclear what steps the State Department has taken to impose administrative sanctions,” Grassley said. “Any other government workers who engaged in such serious offenses would, at a minimum, have their clearances suspended pending an investigation. The failure to do so has given the public the impression that Secretary Clinton and her associates received special treatment.”
Grassley said former Secretary of State John Kerry ignored his queries in 2015 and 2016.
In 2015, Cheryl Mills’ attorney said her client had access as late as Oct. 30 of that year, according to documents reviewed by Fox News. After leaving the State Department, Mills was an advisor to Clinton’s presidential bid. Heather Samuelson, a lawyer who worked under Mills and also was a staffer for Clinton in 2008 during her presidential run, also apparently retained an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance, according to records reviewed by Fox News.
Chris Farrell, of Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington-based government watchdog group that has filed a number of lawsuits related to the Clinton email scandal, said it is “outrageous” that Clinton and her staff would have access after they left the state department, and may still have access, after such egregious behavior.
“It is so unimaginatively offensive that Hillary Clinton or her staff would have any access to classified or top secret information," Farrell said. "It is a mindblower.
“Any other government employee, I don’t care what department or agency they are from, would have had their access to classified and top secret information revoked and their clearance suspended, pending the outcome of an investigation into the mishandling of such information,” Farrell added.

Trump travel ban: Administration appeals Hawaii judge's new ruling blocking ban

President Trump’s administration on Thursday appealed the latest court ruling against his revised travel ban to the same court that refused to reinstate the original version.
A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on Trump’s executive order.
The Department of Justice filed the appeal with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the appeals court had rejected Trump’s previous order. The court upheld the decision in a 3-0 ruling on Feb. 9. The main argument from the Trump administration was that judges do not have the authority to second-guess executive decisions on items like immigration and national security, the report said.
Watson’s decision came after the DOJ argued for a narrower ruling covering only the ban on new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. The department urged the judge to allow a freeze on the U.S. refugee program to go forward.
Government attorney Chad Readler said halting the flow of refugees had no effect on Hawaii and the state has not shown how it is harmed by the ban. Watson disagreed.
The administration says the executive order falls within the president’s power to protect national security and will ultimately succeed, while Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin likened the revised ban to a neon sign flashing “Muslim ban” that the government hasn’t turned off.
The White House believes Trump’s executive order is legal, necessary for national security and will ultimately be allowed to move forward, spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday.
Watson’s indefinite hold is “just the latest step that will allow the administration to appeal,” Spicer said.

Congress OKs Planned Parenthood funding crackdown, as Pence breaks tie

Republican legislation letting states deny federal family planning money to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers squeezed narrowly through the Senate Thursday, rescued by an ailing GOP senator who returned to the Capitol after back surgery and a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.

In Congress' latest clash mixing the politics of abortion, women's health and states' rights, Pence cast the decisive vote in a 51-50 roll call. The tally had been tied after two GOP senators, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins, joined Democrats opposing the measure.

Senate approval sent the legislation to President Donald Trump, who was expected to sign it. The House voted its consent last month.

The bill erases a regulation imposed by former President Barack Obama shortly before he left office that lets states deny family planning funds to organizations only if they are incapable of providing those services. Some states have passed laws in recent years denying the money to groups that provide abortions.

Passage gives Republicans and anti-abortion groups a needed victory just six days after the party's highly touted health care overhaul disintegrated in the House due to GOP divisions. Besides erasing much of Obama's 2010 health care law, the failed House bill would have blocked federal funds for Planned Parenthood for a year.

There is already a ban on using federal funds for abortion except for rare instances.

Democrats assailed the legislation as an attack on women, two months after Trump's inauguration prompted a women's march on Washington that mushroomed into anti-Trump demonstrations around the nation.

"While Trumpcare was dealt a significant blow last week, it is clear that the terrible ideas that underpin it live on with Republicans in Congress," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., using a nickname for the failed House health care bill. Murray, among a stream of Democratic women senators who spoke, called the Senate measure "shameful" and "dangerous."

Republicans said the measure would give states more freedom to decide how to spend family planning funds. States would be free to divert money now going to groups that provide abortion to other organizations that don't, like community health centers.

"It substituted Washington's judgment for the needs of real people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of Obama's rule.

With Republicans holding 52-48 control of the Senate, the Collins and Murkowski defections could have derailed the bill because Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has been absent since Feb. 20, when he had spinal surgery.

He had a second operation March 15 and has been recuperating in Georgia under doctor's orders. But he got permission to return to Washington for one day, his office said, and he did so using a walker.

"We didn't know at the time what it would be but it turned out to be the vice president's tie-breaker," Isakson told reporters after an earlier procedural vote.

The federal family planning program was created 1970 and in 2015 served 4 million clients at nearly 4,000 clinics. Most of the money is for providing services like contraceptives, family planning counseling, breast and cervical cancer screening and sexually transmitted disease prevention. It has a $286 million federal budget this year.

Most recipients are women, and two-thirds have incomes at or below the federal poverty level, around $12,000 for an individual. Six in 10 say the program's services are their only or most frequent source of health care.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, mocked Pence.

"Mike Pence went from yesterday's forum on empowering women to today leading a group of male politicians in a vote to take away access to birth control and cancer screenings," she said.

The Congressional Review Act has lets lawmakers undo regulations enacted in the last months of the Obama administration with a majority vote. Congress has already used the law to eliminate Obama regulations that strengthened protections for streams near coal-mining operations and prevented some people with mental disorders from gun purchases.

Under the Constitution, the vice president casts tie breaking votes. Pence broke his first tie on the nomination of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Ex-Trump adviser Carter Page rips 'false narrative' on Russia collusion

EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump adviser Carter Page, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, decried what he described as “propaganda” driven by a “false narrative” regarding his 2016 contacts with Russian officials, denying that he ever worked with them to help the campaign.
Page is one of several Trump associates being scrutinized amid multiple probes looking at Russia's interference in last year's campaign. As he prepares for interviews with the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, Page gave a categorical denial when asked by Fox News Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge whether he worked with the Russians to help the Trump campaign.
“Absolutely not,” he said, laughing. “I did nothing that could even possibly be viewed as helping them in any way.”
Asked whether he had worked with the Russians to hurt the Clinton campaign, he replied, “Absolutely not. In no way, shape or form.”
Still, Page acknowledged for the first time what he insists was a brief meeting with the Russian ambassador at the Republican National Convention – an admission sure to fuel foes of the Trump administration looking for evidence of Trump-Russia coordination.
Page, who described himself as an oil industry consultant and U.S. Naval Academy midshipman, was a relative unknown when the Trump campaign announced his hiring as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016. He would stay with the Trump team until September 2016, but says he left because “these stories kept coming out based on the dodgy dossier.”
Page appeared in the infamous “Trump Dossier” created by former British Intelligence operative Christopher Steele, working for a U.S. political research group called Fusion GPS on behalf of both Republicans and Democrats. “And so out of respect and out of doing what's best for the campaign, I thought it's best if I step aside and take a leave of absence at that at that point,” Page said.
In his opening statement before testimony by FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers last week, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put Page at the center of an alleged web of collusion to help Russia interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Schiff went through a blow-by-blow of Page’s alleged pro-Russian activities, which Page answered in his exclusive interview.
“In early July,” Schiff said at the hearing, “Carter Page travels to Moscow on a trip approved by the Trump campaign. While in Moscow, he gives a speech critical of the United States and other western countries for what he believes is a hypocritical focus on democratization and efforts to fight corruption.”
While Trump campaign “people were okay with [the trip],” Page said, “the word 'approved' … can be misleading that I was actually authorized to go and represent the campaign. It had nothing to do with the campaign. I was going as a private citizen.” 
The oft-quoted line from the speech that was characterized as anti-American was, "Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.”
But Page told Fox News the line was taken out of context to make him look bad. “It was really about that concept of mutual respect and the way various countries including Russia, China and the United States, can work together for having a more constructive relationship primarily with the states of central Asia, such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan,” he said.
Schiff, at the hearing, pointed to another allegation from the dossier, that “Page also had a secret meeting with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, reported to be a former KGB agent and close friend of Russian President Putin.”
“I have never met Igor Sechin in my life,” Page countered. “Completely false. I've never met him in my entire life. I may have seen him at a conference once at a distance, but I've never shaken his hand.”
After his Moscow speech, Page attended the Republican National Convention last July in Cleveland. Steele and Schiff described how Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak met with Page – acting as a go-between on behalf of then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Then, according to Schiff, “Just prior to the convention, the Republican Party platform is changed, removing a section that supports the provision of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, an action that would be contrary to Russian interests.”
But Page told Herridge in the exclusive interview, “I was always very cautious. The only time, and you're the first person in the media that I'm saying this very directly to -- I said, ‘Hello,’ to him in passing, handed him my business card and never got a business card from him, as I did for many ambassadors in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention.”
Page said the reason he never mentioned the passing encounter before was “out of respect for privacy for Ambassador Kislyak. And there were very direct rules that that was an off-the-record session.”
Still, Page asserted that, “Nothing happened between me and Ambassador Kislyak. That I can assure you.  I had no direct one-on-one material discussions with him in any way, shape or form.”
Page even denied the dossier allegation that Manafort appointed him as a coordinator with the Russians: “Totally false. Just like everything else about those allegations.”
For his part, Page argued that the attacks on the Trump administration by its political foes have harmed the U.S. political system more severely than the allegations that Russia meddled in the U.S. election.
“Liars and leakers in Washington and more broadly the political class in the United States actually had a much more negative impact,” Page said. “All of the discussions about the influence that the Russian government had on the U.S. election would actually pale in comparison to the much heavier influence that the U.S. government actually had in trying to hurt then-candidate Trump. That negative impact based on these complete lies has continued to put a dark shadow over the United States in general.”