Changes at helm of U.S. bank agency signal new Trump era

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Wednesday took its first step in replacing Obama-era banking regulators, naming a veteran financial lawyer as interim head of the watchdog for federally chartered banks.
Keith Noreika, a partner at law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, will be first deputy comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and will run the OCC on an interim basis when Comptroller Thomas Curry leaves on May 5, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Former banker Joseph Otting, who worked with Mnuchin at Californian lender OneWest, is considered the lead contender to permanently replace Curry, several people familiar with the matter have said. That appointment requires Senate confirmation and analysts said they expected Noreika to be in charge for much of this year.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to overhaul regulation of the financial services system to make it easier for banks to lend and has asked Mnuchin to review the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law by June 3.
The OCC is one of several regulators that monitors the health of Wall Street banks but has a particularly influential role in scrutinizing lending practices.
Under Curry, OCC bank examiners have clamped down on what they perceive as overly risky loans, particularly the type used to fund private equity buyouts.
Curry used his position to warn banks when he thought they were talking on too much risk in loans to energy firms and property developers.
“Curry did use the bully pulpit to warn banks against risky activity and I think you’re likely to see less of that going forward,” said Ian Katz, financial policy analyst at research firm Capital Alpha.
The appointment of Noreika and the expected nomination of Otting meant limits on how much banks can lend to highly indebted companies may be loosened in the future, said Jaret Seiberg, analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group.
“This is the most bullish sign yet for the biggest banks that the Trump administration will pursue a traditional Republican approach of financial regulation rather than adopt a more populist tone that could include high leverage capital requirements,” Seiberg said.
CONTROVERSIAL CHOICES
Trump’s plans to overhaul regulation are being held up by the government’s current lean crew of regulators.
While the Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm attorney Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, the OCC’s changing of the guard might not be so smooth.
Democrats have criticized practices at OneWest, the lender created by Mnuchin after the 2008 housing crisis that foreclosed on 36,000 California families. Mnuchin hired Otting as chief executive of the bank in 2010 and he held that role until it was bought by CIT Group in 2014.
Noreika’s background as a lawyer who has advised banks on M&A, including Ant Financial’s acquisition of Moneygram, as well as on the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from making speculative bets, is also controversial.
“It is disturbing that the President is rushing to replace Mr. Curry with an acting appointee who has clear conflicts of interest, and lacks any experience in running such an important agency,” Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement.
Noreika’s appointment does not require Senate approval.
Curry, a career regulator, was appointed by the Obama administration for a five-year term that expired last month and has since been serving under an extension.
While Curry took a tough line on risky lending, the agency did come under fire for its failure to tackle a sales practice abuse scandal at Wells Fargo & Co.
The OCC is also trying to establish itself as a regulator of online lenders and financial technology firms. State authorities have argued that is their job and are suing the OCC, arguing it lacks the legal authority to offer a banking charter for technology companies.
There are also three vacant spots on the Federal Reserve Board, including the post of vice chair of supervision, which will play a key role in any overhaul of bank regulation.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mnuchin told a conference of community bankers that Trump had signed off on a nominee to fill the vice chair role but did not name the person. Reuters had previously reported that Randal Quarles, who worked as under secretary for domestic finance at the Treasury under President George W. Bush, was a leading candidate.
Mnuchin said the administration was also close to naming the two other Fed selections.

Trump spends more time than predecessors in White House bubble

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In his first 100 days in office, Donald Trump made fewer appearances outside of the presidential bubble than his three immediate predecessors, venturing less beyond the White House or his private Mar-a-Lago estate, according to a Reuters review.
The U.S. president cast himself during his election campaign last year as a Washington outsider and a populist champion, and often seemed most comfortable at raucous campaign rallies.
Trump still constantly tells Americans what is on his mind through prolific use of Twitter messages, but he has not traveled out into the country often since taking office on Jan. 20.
Trump made comments at official appearances 132 times in the first 100 days, compared with 139 by Barack Obama in the same period, 177 by George W. Bush and 162 by Bill Clinton. (http://tmsnrt.rs/2p8M8EU)
Some 22 of his appearances were in settings other than the White House, Air Force One, a government agency or at Mar-a-Lago, a Florida resort that his administration has called the “winter White House.” That compares to 62 such appearances by Obama in his first 100 days, 80 for Bush and 46 for Clinton.
Reuters reviewed public remarks delivered by the presidents using White House websites, pool reports and documents archived by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Trump made public comments on five separate occasions at Mar-a-Lago. None of the other three presidents spoke to the public from a personal residence during their first 100 days, although Bush spoke twice at Camp David, the rustic presidential retreat in Maryland.
Asked about his travel, Trump’s advisers say he is focused on implementing the promises he made at his campaign rallies.
    “There is obviously a premium on his time,” said White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom. “We proceed with any additional travel very thoughtfully.”
    Bradley Blakeman, who was deputy assistant for scheduling and appointments under Bush, said Trump may be missing out on opportunities to sell his message to the public.
“Deals are made in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue, but they are sold on Main Street, USA,” Blakeman said. “It’s an important part of the bully pulpit.”
    He said Trump should do targeted events focused on specific legislative priorities that will get coverage by local news outlets, where stories on presidential visits tend to be more positive than in the national media.
    During his first 100 days, Bush visited more than half a dozen schools in Washington and at least five different states as he promoted his education initiative, No Child Left Behind.
    Trump’s first major legislative push has focused on reforming the U.S. healthcare system, but he has not yet delivered remarks at a medical facility.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Trump lamented the confining nature of the presidency with its 24-hour Secret Service protection.
“You’re really into your own little cocoon, because you have such massive protection that you really can’t go anywhere,” he said.
Still, he remains a constant focus of public attention, helped by his use of Twitter, a tool that was seldom used or was entirely unavailable to his most recent three predecessors.
“Interaction online does not completely replace the value of in-person appearances, but you can’t ignore the fact that there is no limit on the amount of people the president’s tweets can reach,” Strom said.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said that while Trump’s use of social media had opened a new chapter in presidential communication, his lack of sustained attention on any one issue undercut his message.
    “There’s not a focus there. When a president is all over the map, then he loses his power,” Jacobs said.

Feds decline to charge Louisiana policemen in fatal shooting

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors said on Wednesday they would not charge two Louisiana police officers in the fatal shooting of a black man last summer, prompting family members of the slain man to call for a state investigation.
The death of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, the state capital, was one in a series of racially charged police killings that inflamed a national debate over treatment of minorities, and especially young black men, by law enforcement.
The July 5, 2016 shooting prompted nationwide protests including a demonstration two days later in Dallas at which five law enforcement officers were fatally shot by an African-American former U.S. serviceman.
As of nightfall on Wednesday, the streets of Baton Rouge were quiet, with a few protesters gathering under intermittent rain.
In announcing the decision not to file federal charges against officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake, U.S. Attorney Corey Amundson told reporters in Baton Rouge there was “insufficient” evidence to prove civil rights violations.
Amundson said investigators could not determine whether Sterling was reaching for a gun at the time he was shot.
Members of Sterling’s family, in a simultaneous news conference, called on Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to pursue state criminal charges against the officers.
“Open up your heart, your eyes, and give us the justice that we deserve,” said Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling’s oldest son, fighting back tears.
Lawyers for the family said U.S. officials told them Salamoni was recorded on video threatening to kill Sterling less than 90 seconds before firing the fatal shots.
A lengthy summary of the Justice Department’s findings released on Wednesday did not include that detail.
Landry warned that a state investigation, which was delayed to allow the federal probe to proceed, “could take a considerable amount of time.”
The decision not to charge the two officers by the U.S. Department of Justice came amid scrutiny of how aggressively President Donald Trump’s administration will seek to hold police officers accountable in such situations.
Both Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have criticized the Obama administration, saying it targeted police unfairly in civil rights investigations.
Sessions is still responsible for deciding whether to bring charges in other high-profile police killings, including the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland that same year.
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s state chapter, Marjorie Esman, however, said the decision was consistent with the Obama administration’s approach in similar cases, given the high legal standard in federal civil rights cases.
Wednesday’s events came a day after a white former South Carolina officer pleaded guilty in the 2015 shooting of an unarmed black man and a Texas officer was fired for shooting an unarmed 15-year-old boy on Saturday.
Sterling was shot outside a convenience store after a resident reported he had been threatened by a black man selling CDs. Officers said that Sterling was attempting to pull a loaded gun out of his pocket when Salamoni opened fire, according to the Justice Department summary.
The two officers are on paid administrative leave pending an internal police investigation.
Salamoni’s attorney, John McLindon, said he expects the state will come to the same conclusion as the federal probe.
“There’s not going to be any finding of any criminal conduct,” McLindon said by phone Wednesday evening.
Lake’s lawyer, Fred Crifasi, said the officer was relieved by the Justice Department’s decision but would not comment further.

Asian stocks retreat, dollar holds near six-week high on hawkish Fed

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Asian stocks retreated on Thursday, taking their cues from a subdued session on Wall Street, while the dollar retained gains made after the Federal Reserve’s hawkish policy statement.
European markets looked more positive, with financial spreadbetters expecting Britain’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX to open 0.2 percent higher and France’s CAC 40 to start the day up 0.1 percent.
At the end of its two-day meeting, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate steady, as expected, but downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth and emphasized the strength of the labor market, a sign it was still on track for two more rate increases this year.
Futures traders are now pricing in a 72 percent chance of a June rate hike, from 63 percent before the Fed’s statement, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
The dollar stood at 112.765 yen, slightly higher than Wednesday and at its strongest level since March 20.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of trade-weighted peers, climbed 0.1 percent to 99.309, building on Wednesday’s 0.2 percent jump.
“The key over the coming weeks will be the economic data from the U.S. but, in addition, the (Fed) will be closely watching Washington and negotiations surrounding the new administration’s tax cut plans,” said Lee Ferridge, head of multi-asset strategy for North America at State Street Global Markets.
“Should the data hold up (or better still, improve from here), while the chances of a late summer tax cut agreement remain intact, then the market will likely price in a June move.”
Attention now turns to U.S. non-farm payrolls for March, due on Friday, after separate data showed private employers added 177,000 jobs in April. That was higher than expected but the smallest increase since October.
Economists polled by Reuters expect U.S. private payroll employment likely grew by 185,000 jobs in April, up from 89,000 in March.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 0.4 percent on Thursday, dragged lower by commodities, energy and financials stocks.
Japan is closed for the Golden Week holiday.
Chinese stocks pared earlier losses to trade flat, as gains in small-caps offset a cooling in China’s services sector growth to its slowest in almost a year in April as fears of slower economic growth dented business confidence.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.4 percent.
Australian shares were also 0.4 percent lower.
“May is a notoriously cruel month for Asia with foreign exchange, equities and domestic bonds all losing in historical average returns,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists led by Claudio Piron wrote in a note.
South Korea’s KOSPI bucked the weaker trend, jumping 0.7 percent and hovering just a touch below an all-time high hit earlier in the session on strong corporate earnings.
Rising exports point to continued profit growth in the second quarter, with sentiment supported by hopes for economic stimulus from a new president.
Overnight, Wall Street closed flat to lower.
The Nasdaq fell 0.4 percent as Apple shares slid after reporting lower than expected iPhone sales on Tuesday.
Facebook and Tesla also dropped during the session and after hours despite upbeat quarterly results, also weighed on the index.
Political concerns, which have taken a backseat recently, may re-emerge, with a U.S. House of Representatives vote on a revised bill to repeal Obamacare due later in the session after two failed attempts to corral enough support to pass the legislation.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Republican leadership is confident there is enough backing for the bill to pass, after key moderate leaders met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday. Even if the bill passes the House, it could face an uphill battle in the Senate.
In Europe, Germany ended higher but Britain and France closed lower on Wednesday. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.04 percent to slip from a 20-month high.
The euro ticked up 0.1 percent to $1.08945 on Thursday, after losing 0.4 percent on Wednesday as the dollar strengthened on the Fed’s statement.
Following a debate between French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron, who will face off in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, a poll showed some 63 percent of voters found market favorite Macron to be more convincing.
In commodities, oil prices slipped on Thursday after a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S. inventories last week.
U.S. crude pulled back 0.25 percent to $47.69 a barrel. On Wednesday, it touched its lowest level in over five weeks before closing higher.
Global benchmark Brent fell 0.2 percent to $50.70.
Gold inched up 0.1 percent to $1,239.80 an ounce, making up some of Wednesday’s 1.5 percent loss.

Heritage Foundation Cartoons

Conservative U.S. think tank Heritage Foundation fires leader

The Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank that has gained influence in Republican-controlled Washington, fired its leader Jim DeMint on Tuesday, and sources close to the situation said the organization’s leadership determined he had veered too far from its conservative principals and too close to U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House.
A scathing statement from Thomas A. Saunders III, chairman of The Heritage Foundation’s Board of Trustees, did not go into specifics of any disagreement but did cite problems with internal communications and other “management issues.”
“After a comprehensive and independent review of the entire Heritage organization, the Board determined there were significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation,” Saunders said in a statement.
“While the organization has seen many successes, Jim DeMint and a handful of his closest advisers failed to resolve these problems.”
Two political operatives who work with the organization said DeMint’s opponents argued that he had grown too close to Trump and too far from the conservative principles on which the organization was founded.
Ed Feulner, who previously served as the Heritage president, will return to the role in an interim capacity until a replacement is found, according to a statement from the Heritage board.
DeMint, a former senator from South Carolina, took over the organization in 2013 after he retired from public office. Since then, he has transformed the organization once known for research and white papers into a political behemoth. For instance, he created an arm of the organization devoted entirely to influencing elections and pushing lawmakers to side with the group’s policy positions.
But as DeMint transformed the organization, unease grew within its ranks, according to the sources.
After Trump was elected, more than a dozen staffers from the Heritage Foundation and its political arm Heritage Action were deployed as volunteers to help with the transition process. Heritage staffers worked on teams deployed to set up a Trump government at the EPA, the Office of Management and Budget and the departments of Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, State and Treasury. An additional seven volunteers on the transition team had ties to Heritage, either having worked there before or working as a non-staff expert with the think tank.

Clinton says Comey’s letter, Russian hackers cost her the election

Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday she was on the path to victory in the 2016 presidential election until late interference by Russian hackers and FBI Director James Comey scared off some potential supporters.
In her most extensive public comments on the Nov. 8 election, Clinton told a New York conference she was derailed by Comey’s Oct. 28 letter informing Congress the Federal Bureau of Investigation had reopened a probe of her use of a private email server and by the WikiLeaks release of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, allegedly stolen by Russian hackers.
“If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” she told a women’s conference moderated by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“It wasn’t a perfect campaign, but I was on the way to winning until a combination of Comey’s letter and Russian WikiLeaks,” the Democrat said of the loss to Republican Donald Trump. “The reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.”
Clinton, who said she is going through the “painful process” of writing a book dealing in part with the election, also said misogyny played a role in her defeat. Becoming the first woman U.S. president would have been “a really big deal,” she said.
Clinton took personal responsibility for the campaign’s mistakes, but did not question her strategy or her staff. “I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot. I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had,” Clinton said.
She said she had no doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to influence the election for Trump, and bluntly criticized the new U.S. president for some of his foreign policy views and for tweeting too much.
“I’m back to being an activist citizen – and part of the resistance,” she said.
Clinton said broader negotiations involving China and other countries in the region were critical for convincing North Korea to rein in its nuclear program. She questioned Trump’s recent suggestion he would be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.
“You should not offer that in the absence of a broader strategic framework to try to get China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, to put the kind of pressure on the regime that will finally bring them to the negotiating table,” Clinton said.
She also said she supported the recent missile strikes ordered by Trump in Syria but was unsure if they would make a difference. “There is a lot that we don’t really yet fully know about what was part of that strike,” she said.

Macron and Le Pen to square off in French pre-election TV debate

France’s presidential rivals, centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right’s Marine Le Pen, go head-to-head on Wednesday in a televised debate in which sparks are sure to fly as they fight their corner in a last encounter before Sunday’s runoff vote.
Opinion polls still show Macron, 39, holding a strong lead of 20 points over the National Front’s Le Pen with just four days to go to the final vote, in what is widely seen as France’s most important election in decades.
Voters are choosing between Macron, a strongly Europe-minded ex-banker who wants to cut state regulations in the economy while protecting workers, and Le Pen, a eurosceptic who wants to ditch the euro currency and impose sharp curbs on immigration.
Macron finished only three points ahead of Le Pen in the first round on April 23, but he is widely expected now to pick the bulk of votes from the Socialists and the center-right whose candidates were eliminated.
Though Le Pen has a mountain to climb to catch Macron, the 2017 campaign for the Elysee has been packed with surprises, the exchanges between the two have become noticeably sharper and the 48-year-old National Front veteran has shown she is capable of catching him out with clever public relations maneuvering.
Macron warned he would not pull his punches in Wednesday night’s televised encounter against a rival whose policies he says are dangerous for France.
“I am not going to employ invective. I am not going to use cliches or insults. I’ll use hand-to-hand fighting to demonstrate that her ideas represent false solutions,” he told BFM TV.
Le Pen, who portrays Macron as a candidate of high finance masquerading as a liberal, said: “I shall be defending my ideas. He will be defending the posture that he has adopted.”
“His program seems to be very vague, but in reality it is a simple continuation of (Socialist President) Francois Hollande’s government,” she said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
MUST-WATCH EVENT
In that interview she reaffirmed she wanted to take France out of the euro and said she hoped the French people would have a national currency in their pockets within two years.
An Elabe poll for BFM TV and L’Express published on Tuesday showed Macron winning 59 percent of the votes in the second round versus 41 percent for Le Pen. Other pollsters have consistently shown roughly the same figures.
Commentators said Wednesday’s debate could still have an influence, particularly on potential abstainers, many of whom voted for the candidate of the hard left who came fourth in the April 23 first round.
“What he (Macron) has to do it to convince the people who didn’t vote for him (in the first round) and who do not agree with his program that they will be respected,” said one outgoing government minister, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The final face-to-face debate between rivals in a French presidential election, aired live, is a ‘must-watch’ event across the country, when the candidates take the gloves off to land whatever punches they can.
Some clashes have entered into political legend.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, a center-right candidate, famously bested the Socialist Francois Mitterrand in 1974 when the latter referred to “a matter of heart” when discussing an economic point.
Giscard d’Estaing hit back saying “You don’t have a monopoly on the heart, Monsieur Mitterrand” – a phrase which stuck and which he later said helped his victory over the Socialist in what was an extremely tight contest.
In 2002 conservative Jacques Chirac, then the incumbent in the Elysee, refused to debate with Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen, after the National Front’s founder unexpectedly got through to the second round.
Chirac said no debate was possible “in the face of intolerance and hate”, a reference to Le Pen’s policies and thinking, which were considered to be xenophobic.
Chirac defeated Le Pen senior in a landslide.

Trump struggles to win over moderate Republicans on healthcare overhaul

Time was running short for President Donald Trump to attract enough votes to pass a new bill to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system this week as Republican party moderates held out, fearing a backlash from voters worried about losing insurance benefits.
A senior House of Representatives Republican aide said on Tuesday night no decision had been made on bringing legislation to the floor this week before the House is due to start a week-long break late on Thursday.
A bill would need to be filed by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning to hold the vote before the break.
Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the conservative House Freedom Caucus faction that helped block Trump’s first attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, said earlier on Tuesday Republicans were still “a handful of votes away.”
The lack of movement among Republicans puts Trump in danger of his second major legislative setback, raising questions about his ability to secure passage of other parts of his agenda, including a major tax reform plan.
Most House Freedom Caucus Republicans have gotten on board with the new proposal, but Democrats are vowing to oppose any attempt to unravel Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul.
The latest Republican plan would allow states to opt out of Obamacare provisions that force insurers to charge sick and healthy people the same rates. That is seen as a concession to conservatives to attract their votes.
Trump insisted in an interview with CBS News that aired on Sunday that the protections for those with pre-existing conditions would remain.
“I think it’s time now” for a healthcare vote, the Republican president said at the White House on Tuesday.
Even if a plan passes the House, it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrower majority.
OPPOSITION
Republicans contend that Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law, which allowed some 20 million Americans to gain medical insurance, is too intrusive and expensive.
The White House sent Vice President Mike Pence to the Capitol on Tuesday to meet Republican holdouts on the party’s latest effort to pass a healthcare overhaul.
Republicans remain divided over key aspects of the healthcare bill, with some lawmakers worrying about a potential spike in the number of people without coverage, or sharp increases in insurance premiums.
Representative Daniel Webster, whose central Florida district is home to many retirees, said Pence told him he would try to work out problems caused by proposed Medicaid spending caps that would limit nursing-home beds.
“I just think it’s going to cost us a lot in Florida,” Webster said.
Another Florida Republican, Thomas Rooney, said confusion over the potential loss of coverage for pre-existing conditions had his constituents scared that “they’re going to die because of a vote that we might be taking.”
Conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action started to increase pressure on moderate Republicans who were resisting the bill, such as Representative Billy Long of Missouri.
“Billy is using liberal talking points to distort the truth,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh said, adding that Long “may want to keep Obamacare.”
Left-leaning groups, including the Center for American Progress (CAP), were pushing their members to call lawmakers to urge them to oppose the healthcare bill, including via 7,000 medicine bottles delivered to congressional districts. Emily Tisch Sussman, a CAP organizer, said those efforts had generated “tens of thousands” of phone calls.
Patient advocacy groups, including the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association, also oppose the reworked bill, while the American Medical Association and others have expressed concerns.

Obamacare Crap Cartoons

White House seeks quick vote on healthcare overhaul but hurdles remain

Top aides to President Donald Trump on Monday predicted the House of Representatives would move this week to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, though Republicans remained divided on how to protect sick Americans from insurance price hikes.
The White House is eager to move forward on legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, to make good on a key campaign promise. Republicans tried but failed to pass a replacement bill in March in an embarrassing setback for the Trump Administration.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow states to opt out of Obamacare protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions – provisions that force insurers to charge sick people and healthy people the same rates. It was unclear when or if a vote would be scheduled.
Trump told Fox News Channel that he would not set a deadline for the vote, and indicated he was open to improvements. “We’re either going to have a great plan or I’m not signing it,” he said in the interview.
In a separate interview with Bloomberg News, Trump insisted that the new bill would maintain protections for pre-existing conditions.
“I want it to be good for sick people. It’s not in its final form right now,” he told Bloomberg. “It will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.”
Ten major patient advocacy groups said they opposed the reworked healthcare bill, including the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association.
Other major medical groups such as the American Medical Association have also expressed concerns over coverage losses and unaffordable insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.
HOUSE DIVIDED
Republican lawmakers have struggled to unite around legislation, with moderates and conservatives within the caucus divided over key provisions.
Once a plan passes the Republican-controlled House, it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrower majority and where some party senators have expressed misgivings about the House bill.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn on Monday said in separate interviews with CBS’ “This Morning” that they thought there were enough votes to pass the bill this week.
House Republican leaders were more cautious. As of Monday afternoon, no vote had been scheduled and backers of the healthcare proposal had not released legislative language.
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican conference, said Republican members needed time to understand new tweaks to the bill.
“We are having those member-to-members conversations right now,” McMorris Rodgers told Fox News.
Vice President Mike Pence made his way to Capitol Hill late on Monday to make the case to members who are on the fence, a Republican aide said on condition of anonymity, noting leaders are believed to be within five or six votes of having enough support to pass the bill.
The Freedom Caucus, which brought down the previous effort to pass a healthcare bill, has endorsed the new measure. The Republican aide told Reuters all but one or two members of the group will support the reworked plan.
“This bill doesn’t get all the way there but it’s a good step and is … the best we can get out of the House right now,” Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the group, told CNN.
But several moderate Republicans were either undecided or opposed the bill for fear that it would not protect those with pre-existing conditions and cause millions to lose health insurance.
Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, said he still had problems with the latest plan and suspected there were not enough votes to pass it.
“Too many Americans are going to be without coverage,” Dent told MSNBC, adding that the plan could make things even worse for vulnerable Americans.

Senate votes to proceed with confirmation vote on SEC nominee

The U.S. Senate took a procedural vote on Monday to clear the way for confirming Jay Clayton as the next head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a 60-36 vote, the Republican-led Senate voted to end debate on Clayton, with some Democrats joining Republicans in support.
A final confirmation vote is expected later this week, and the Senate may take up to 30 hours to debate his confirmation prior to the vote.

Maine governor sues state’s attorney general in Trump policy tussle

(Please note: Story contains strong language in final paragraph)
(Reuters) – Republican Maine Governor Paul LePage on Monday sued the state’s Democratic attorney general, contending she had abused her power by joining legal opposition to early moves by President Donald Trump that LePage’s office supported.
LePage, a fiery conservative now in his second term, challenged Attorney General Janet Mills for joining a legal brief opposing Trump’s executive order banning immigration from a half-dozen majority Muslim countries.
The governor said he supported Trump’s order, which has been blocked by courts and which the White House says is necessary to protect national security.
“It is no secret that Attorney General Mills and I have differing political views, but that is not the issue,” LePage said in a statement. “The problem is she has publicly denounced court cases which the executive branch has requested to join and subsequently refuses to provide legal representation for the state.”
He said Mills had refused to represent the state in other cases where she disagreed with LePage’s political position and prevented his office from filing its own brief in support of Trump, a charge that Mills denied.
“Instead of signing onto another party’s brief at no cost to the taxpayers, however, or hiring a lawyer to draft his own brief, the governor has wasted state resources by hiring a lawyer to file a frivolous lawsuit, complaining that he cannot do exactly what we have told him he can do,” Mills said in a statement.
Maine is the only one of the 50 U.S. states where the attorney general is elected by the state legislature, rather than elected by voters or appointed by the governor.
The nation’s 22 Democratic attorneys general emerged in the first months of the Trump administration as a major opposition force to his policies, successfully suing to block his executive orders on travel and also challenging environmental policy moves.
Maine is one of eight U.S. states that have a Republican governor and a Democratic attorney general, setting the stage for the conflict that resulted in Monday’s lawsuit, filed in Kennebec County Superior Court.
LePage was first elected to office in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party support and was re-elected in 2014. Both victories came in three-way races.
He was an early supporter of Trump and came under intense public pressure last year after calling a Democratic lawmaker a “little son-of-a-bitch, socialist cocksucker,” in a voicemail message that was widely circulated.

North Korea says U.S. bomber flights push peninsula to brink of nuclear war

North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic U.S. bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength.
The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea’s dogged pursuit of its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure from the United States.
The flight of the two bombers on Monday came as U.S. President Donald Trump said he was open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the right circumstances, and as his CIA director landed in South Korea for talks.
South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a briefing in Seoul that Monday’s joint drill was conducted to deter provocations by the North and to test readiness against another potential nuclear test.
The U.S. air force said in a statement the bombers had flown from Guam to conduct training exercises with the South Korean and Japanese air forces.
North Korea said the bombers conducted “a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects” in its territory at a time when Trump and “other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike” on the North.
“The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of pressure from the United States and Pyongyang’s sole major ally, China.
China’s Global Times, a state-backed tabloid that does not necessarily reflect national policy, said in an editorial late on Monday the United States should not rely on China alone to pressure Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear ambitions.
April could prove a “turning point”, the paper said, but “Washington … must also continue to exert its own efforts on the issue”.
It was widely feared North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test on or around April 15 to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the North’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, or on April 25 to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army.
The North has conducted such tests or missile launches to mark significant events in the past.
Instead, North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles, on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.
“VIGILANCE, READINESS”
South Korea’s acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn called for stronger vigilance because of continuing provocation by Seoul’s poor and isolated neighbor, and for countries such as China to increase pressure on the North.
“I am asking foreign and security ministries to further strengthen military readiness in order for North Korea not to miscalculate,” Hwang told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Soon after Hwang spoke, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Seoul said the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, was in South Korea for meetings with the embassy and U.S. Forces in Korea.
The Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified government sources, had earlier reported that Pompeo met South Korea’s intelligence chief and a senior presidential. South Korean officials would not confirm the report.
Trump said on Monday he would be “honored” to meet North Korea’s young leader.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News in comments that drew criticism in Washington.
Trump did not say what conditions would be needed for such a meeting to occur or when it could happen. The White House said later North Korea would need to meet many conditions before it could be contemplated.
“Clearly conditions are not there right now,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
“I don’t see this happening anytime soon.”
Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.
In a show of force, the United States has already sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.
The U.S. military’s THAAD anti-missile defense system has reached initial operational capacity in South Korea, U.S. officials told Reuters, although they cautioned that it would not be fully operational for some months.
North Korea test-launched a missile on Saturday that appeared to have failed within minutes, its fourth successive failed launch since March. It has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile-related activities at an unprecedented pace since the beginning of last year.
The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

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ASEAN gives Beijing a pass on South China Sea dispute, cites ‘improving cooperation’

Southeast Asian countries took a softer stance on South China Sea disputes during a weekend summit, according to a statement issued on Sunday, which went easy on China by avoiding tacit references to its building and arming of its manmade islands.
A chairman’s statement of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was released about 12 hours after the summit ended, and dropped references to “land reclamation and militarization” included in the text issued at last year’s meeting, and in an earlier, unpublished version seen by Reuters on Saturday.
The outcome follows what two ASEAN diplomats on Saturday said were efforts by Chinese foreign ministry and embassy officials to pressure ASEAN chair the Philippines to keep Beijing’s contentious activities in the strategic waterway off ASEAN’s official agenda.
It also indicates four ASEAN members who the diplomats said had wanted a firmer position had agreed to the statement’s more conciliatory tone.
China is not a member of the 10-member bloc and did not attend the summit but is extremely sensitive about the content of its statements. It has often been accused of trying to influence the drafts to muzzle what it sees as dissent and challenges to its sweeping sovereignty claim.
China’s embassy in Manila could not be reached and its foreign ministry did not respond to request for comment on Saturday.
The statement also noted “the improving cooperation between ASEAN and China”, and did not include references to “tensions” or “escalation of activities” seen in earlier drafts and in last year’s text. It noted, without elaborating, some leaders’ concerns about “recent developments” in the strategic, resource-rich waterway
A Philippine diplomat said it was an open secret that China tries to lean on ASEAN members to protect its interests, but that was not the reason for the unusual delay in issuing the statement.
“There are one or two member countries which lobbied for some changes in some text in the statement, but not related to the South China Sea,” the source said.
Beijing has reacted angrily to individual members expressing their concern about its rapid reclamation of reefs in the Spratlys and its installation of missile systems on them.
Another ASEAN diplomat said the statement was a genuine representation of the atmosphere of the Manila meetings.
“We respected the Philippines’ views and cooperated,” the diplomat said. “It clearly reflected how the issue was discussed.”
POINTLESS TO PRESSURE
The softened statement comes as the current ASEAN chairman, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, seeks to bury the hatchet with China after years of wrangling over its maritime assertiveness. After lobbying from Duterte, China agreed to let Filipinos back to the rich fishing ground of the Scarborough Shoal following a four-year blockade.
The no-nonsense leader set the tone for the meeting on Thursday when he said it was pointless discussing China’s maritime activities, because no one dared to pressure Beijing anyway.
As a sign of Duterte’s friendship with Beijing, three Chinese navy vessels on Sunday made a rare visit to the Philippines. Duterte will inspect a guided-missile destroyer in his hometown of Davao on Monday.
Duterte’s foreign policy strategy is a stunning reversal of that of the previous administration, which had close ties with the United States and was seen by China as a nuisance.
That Philippines government in 2013 challenged Beijing by lodging a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2013.
Two weeks into Duterte’s presidency last year, the Hague court ruled in favor of the Philippines, angering China. But Duterte has made it clear he would not press Beijing to comply anytime soon, and is more interested in doing business than sparring.
The final chairman’s statement issued made no mention to the arbitration case. However, it did include in a section separate to the South China Sea chapter the need to show “full respect for legal and diplomatic processes” in resolving disputes.
Underlining Beijing’s sensitivity about the arbitration award, the two diplomatic sources on Saturday said Chinese embassy officials had lobbied behind the scenes for that sentence to be dropped, and considered it a veiled reference to the ruling.
One diplomat indicated that ongoing moves between China and ASEAN to draft a framework for negotiating a maritime code of conduct may have been a factor in agreeing the softened statement.
All sides want to complete the framework this year, although there is some scepticism that China’s would agree to a set of rules that could impact its geostrategic interests.

Toned-down White House press dinner carries on without Trump

The White House press corps gathered on Saturday for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair this year after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to bow out in 36 years.
Without Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.
Most of Trump’s administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the president, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.
“I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away,” he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.
In Washington, WHCA President Jeff Mason defended press freedom even as he acknowledged this year’s dinner had a different feel, saying attempts to undermine the media was dangerous for democracy.
“We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people,” said Mason, a Reuters correspondent.
Instead of the typical roasts – presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years – the event returned to its traditional roots of recognizing reporters’ work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein presented awards.
“That’s not Donald Trump’s style,” NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell told MSNBC, referring to the self-deprecating jokes presidents in the past have made despite tensions with the press.
Instead, the humor fell to headline comedian Hasan Minhaj.
“Welcome to the series finale of the White House correspondents’ dinner,” Minhaj, who plays a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” program, told the crowd.
He also joked about Trump, despite organizers’ wishes, saying he did so to honor U.S. constitutional protection of free speech: “Only in America can a first-generation, Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.”
In a video message, actor Alec Baldwin, who has raised Trump’s ire playing him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” program also encouraged attendees.
Few other celebrities graced the red carpet, although some well-known Washingtonians, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, appeared.
Trump attended in 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made jokes at the expense of the New York real estate developer and reality television show host.
In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump said he decided against attending as president because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the media, adding: “I would come next year, absolutely.”
In Pennsylvania, Trump told supporters the media dinner would be boring but was noncommittal on whether he would go in 2018 or hold another rally.
Late night television show host Samantha Bee also hosted a competing event – “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” – that she said would honor journalists, rather than skewer Trump.

South Korea says U.S. reaffirms it will pay THAAD costs; joint drills wrap up

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.
In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South’s presidential office said.
The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.
Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: “You’ll soon find out”, but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.
Trump’s comments in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that he wanted Seoul to pay for the THAAD deployment perplexed South Koreans and raised questions about his commitment to the two countries’ alliance.
South Korean officials responded that the cost was for Washington to bear, under the bilateral agreement.
“National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster explained that the recent statements by President Trump were made in a general context, in line with the U.S. public expectations on defense cost burden-sharing with allies,” South Korea’s Blue House said in a statement, adding that McMaster requested the call.
Major elements of the advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu, in the south of the country, this week.
The deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar which can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from local residents worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.
About 300 residents rallied on Sunday as two U.S. Army lorries tried to enter the THAAD deployment site. Video provided by villagers showed protesters blocking the road with a car and chanting slogans such as “Don’t lie to us! Go back to your country!”
Police said they had sent about 800 officers to the site and two residents were injured during clashes with them.
South Korea and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles.
The United States is seeking more help from China, the North’s major ally, to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a “good man”.
TENSIONS HIGH
The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder’s birth.
In excerpts of an interview with CBS News released on Saturday, Trump said the United States and China would “not be happy” with a nuclear test but gave no other details.
Trump discussed the threat posed by North Korea in a telephone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the White House said.
In an address to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Saturday, Duterte urged the United States to show restraint after North Korea’s latest missile test and to avoid playing into the hands of leader Kim Jong Un, who “wants to end the world”.
Two-month long U.S.-South Korean joint military drills were due to conclude on Sunday, U.S. and South Korean officials said.
The exercise, called Foal Eagle, was repeatedly denounced by North Korea, which saw it as a rehearsal for war.
In a further show of force, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.
The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a “reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war,” the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.
The carrier group has just completed drills with the Japanese navy.
Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in an apparent show of solidarity with Washington, has ordered the Izumo, Japan’s biggest warship, to protect a U.S. navy ship that might be going to help supply the USS Carl Vinson, the Asahi newspaper said.

Trump celebrates first 100 days as president, blasts media

U.S. President Donald Trump hit the road on Saturday to celebrate his first 100 days in the White House with cheering supporters at a campaign-style rally, touting his initial achievements and lashing out at critics.
Trump told a Pennsylvania crowd he was just getting started on meeting his campaign promises. He repeatedly attacked an “incompetent, dishonest” media, saying they were not telling the truth about his administration’s accomplishments.
“My administration has been delivering every single day for the great citizens of our country,” Trump said in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “We are keeping one promise after another, and frankly the people are really happy about it.”
The rally occurred on the same day as a climate march at which thousands of protesters surrounded the White House, and it also coincided with the annual black-tie White House press dinner in Washington.
Trump and his staff chose to skip the press dinner because of what he said was unfair treatment by the press. Trump said he was thrilled to be away from the “Washington swamp”.
“A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now,” Trump said to loud boos from the crowd. “If the media’s job is to be honest and to tell the truth, the media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade.”
Trump listed what he said were some of his key early accomplishments, including the successful confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Justice Neil Gorsuch and clearing away many regulations on the environment and business.
He also listed his approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, killing a pending Asian trade pact, and enhanced security measures that have led to a sharp decline in illegal border crossings at the southern border.
“The world is getting the message: if you try to illegally enter the United States, you will be caught, detained, deported or put in prison,” Trump said.
He shrugged off his failure to score major legislative victories on his core campaign promises, such as repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and construction of a Mexican border wall. Trump’s ban on visitors from some Muslim nations was blocked in court.
He blamed Democrats for the legislative failures so far and said all of his promises would be kept eventually.
“We’ll build the wall, people, don’t even worry about it,” he said.
Some supporters in the crowd said they were willing to give Trump more time.
“I voted for him and I’ll give him a year. That’s enough time to whip Congress into shape and get some deals done,” said Michael Casciaro, 54, a civilian contractor for the military.
Trump said he reversed course on promises to name China a currency manipulator because he wanted its help in trying to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. Trump has said all options are on the table if Pyongyang persists in its nuclear development.
In an excerpt of an interview with “Face the Nation” of CBS, set to air on Sunday and Monday and conducted during the trip to Pennsylvania, Trump said he would “not be happy” if North Korea conducted a nuclear test. Asked if that would mean military action, Trump said “I don’t know, I mean we’ll see.”
Reveling in the cheers in Harrisburg, Trump made reference again to his upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, which he said “carried us to a big, beautiful win on Nov. 8.”
Trump left Washington as another in a series of protests against his administration was winding up. Thousands of marchers made their way through Washington’s streets during the People’s Climate March, a protest against Trump’s moves to roll back environmental regulations.
Asked by reporters accompanying him to Pennsylvania what he had to say to the climate change protesters, Trump said: “Enjoy the day, enjoy the weather.”
After the rally, the White House said the president had signed two trade-related executive orders, one for top U.S. officials to review all U.S. trade pacts for potential abuses and another setting up an office in the White House to advise him on trade-related issues.

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House Freedom Caucus Member Pledges Support For Health Care

Members of the House Freedom Caucus this week have agreed to support a health care plan, after opposing the American Health Care Act (AHCA) proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan and supported by the President. Although the date for a vote on a revised health care package to replace Obamacare is uncertain, it could be brought to the House floor in the next couple weeks. Georgia Congressman Jody Hice is a Freedom Caucus Member who now supports the new version of the health care bill.
“The key issue is to drive down premium costs, which the previous bill –four weeks ago–did not do. And so with what we have now, I’ve come on board because of the changes that have been made which drastically impact premium costs,” explains Hice who represents Georgia’s Tenth District, which extends eastward from the Atlanta suburbs.
“The previous bill had some good things…employer mandate…individual mandate. That’s good, but it left untouched insurance company mandates. So, an insurance company did not have the ability to offer a variety of plans. They had to stick with the Gold, Premium, that type of thing. It was not free market-based. And there’s no way to drive down the cost of premiums if the government is dictating what the plan has to be. The MacArthur Amendment helped in that regard,” says Hice.
Hice noted that some Members are still undecided, but he appeared optimistic about the bill’s chances for approval.
Turning the subject of President Trump’s First 100 Days, Hice offered high praise for the nascent Administration.
“I rate him doing an outstanding job. Again, at the end of the day, no President is ultimately going to be defined by a hundred days. He’ll be defined by the duration of his presidency. But within the First Hundred Days, we’ve got what…eleven Congressional Review Acts–by far the most in the history of our nation, which reviews have done away with multiple regulations from the previous administration.
“And the most in any other administration had been one. So those have gone through the House, through the Senate and signed by the President. We have a new Supreme Court Justice. We have Executive Orders ranging from Keystone to Waters of the US. We have our military presence in the world, seen from Syria and other things that America is back on the front line. We have our immigration declining seventy percent the first Hundred Days…and I give him an A+,” says Hice.

No vote on healthcare bill this week in U.S. House

U.S. House leaders have decided against holding a vote on a reworked healthcare system overhaul this week after failing to find the necessary support, congressional aides said on Thursday.
White House officials had urged a floor vote on the legislation before President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office on Saturday, hoping to follow through on a campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Advocates had hoped to raise enough support for the measure after a group of hard-line Republican conservatives endorsed an amended version on Wednesday.
But by Thursday evening Republican leaders still had not collected enough votes from moderate Republicans whose backing was also needed for passage in the House, given united Democratic opposition.
“We won’t vote this week,” said one House Republican aide, who asked not to be named. Next week was not ruled out, another indicated. “We’ll call a vote when we have the votes.”
Representative Pete Sessions, a senior House Republican, also left the door open to a vote next week.
Possibly referring to Trump, Sessions said that a lot of people had tried to rush the legislation to the floor, but House Republican leaders want to “allow the time to do it right.
“I said it will find its time and I am satisfied we are moving at a pace, keeping people engaged,” he said at a late night session of the House Rules Committee he chairs.
The Republican healthcare bill would replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credit with an age-based credit, roll back an expansion of the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and repeal most Obamacare taxes.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had estimated 24 million fewer people would have insurance than under the original version.
House leaders brought the bill to the floor last month after Trump demanded a vote, but yanked it after a rebellion by Republican moderates and the party’s most conservative lawmakers, in a major setback for Trump.
An amendment drafted by Representative Tom MacArthur won over conservatives in the hardline Freedom Caucus this week, reviving some hopes that the bill could still pass.
The amendment would allow states to seek waivers from some provisions. Among these are one mandating that insurers charge those with pre-existing conditions the same as healthy consumers, and that insurers cover so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity care.
But a number of centrist Republicans still opposed the measure.
“Protections for those with pre-existing conditions without contingency, and affordable access to coverage for every American, remain my priorities for advancing healthcare reform, and this bill does not satisfy those benchmarks for me,” Representative Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania said in a statement posted on social network Twitter on Thursday.
Some outside groups like the American Medical Association weighed in against the legislation, saying it would cost millions their health care coverage. The bill’s future is further clouded in the Senate.

Russia’s Lavrov says ready to cooperate with U.S. on Syria: agencies

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow is ready to cooperate with the United States on settling the Syrian crisis, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported.
Russian authorities reiterate periodically that they stand ready to renew cooperation with Washington on Syria and, more globally, on fighting terrorism.
Relations between the two countries, however, are seen reaching another low after U.S. fired missiles at Syria to punish Moscow’s ally for its suspected use of poison gas earlier in April. Russia condemned the U.S. action.
Lavrov’s deputy Mikhail Bogdanov also said on Saturday that Russian authorities hope that Syrian armed opposition will take part in Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan’s Astana on May 3-4, Interfax reported.

EPA says website undergoing makeover to match Trump, Pruitt views

The website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.gov, is getting a makeover to reflect the views of President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency said on Friday.
“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” it said in a statement.
Trump, a climate change doubter, campaigned on a pledge to boost the U.S. oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries by slashing regulation. He also promised to pull Washington out of a global pact to fight climate change.
The first page to be updated is one that reflects Trump’s executive order on energy independence, which calls for a review of the Clean Power Plan put into place by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, the statement said.
“Language associated with the Clean Power Plan, written by the last administration, is out of date,” it said. “Similarly, content related to climate and regulation is also being reviewed.”
The Clean Power Plan aimed to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation over 25 years, focusing on reductions from coal-burning power plants and increasing the use of renewable energy and energy conservation.
“We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law,” J.P. Freire, associate administrator for public affairs at the agency, said in the statement.
The website changes will comply with agency ethics and legal guidance, including proper archiving, so a snapshot of the Obama administration’s website would remain available from the main page, the statement said.
In January, EPA sources told Reuters that administration officials had asked the agency to take down the climate change page on its website, and that EPA staff had pushed back in an effort to convince the administration to preserve it. [L1N1FF00N]
The page includes links to scientific research, emissions data from industrial plants and a multi-agency report that describes trends related to the causes and effects of climate change.
Pruitt led 14 lawsuits against the agency when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general. Last month he said he was not convinced that carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change, a position widely embraced by scientists.

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