Cornyn warns Texas Republicans against complacency ahead of 2020

Texas Republicans have their work cut out for them if they hope to maintain the party’s dominance there, according to the state’s senior U.S. senator.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Republican who has been representing Texas in the U.S. Senate since 2002, said last year’s election battle between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke should serve as a wake-up call for the state’s GOP because it revealed that Texas Democrats are determined to defeat President Trump – and take down other Republicans with him.
“I don’t think we can take for granted that Texas will be reliably Republican in the foreseeable future, unless we take care of our business,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News.
TEXAS SAYS IT FOUND 95,000 NON-CITIZENS ON VOTER ROLLS; 58,000 HAVE VOTED

“I don’t think we can take for granted that Texas will be reliably Republican in the foreseeable future, unless we take care of our business.”
— Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn

Democrats’ dislike for Trump was the key factor in why incumbent Cruz defeated O’Rourke by only a narrow margin, Cornyn said.
"President Trump was responsible for 100 percent of the turnout," Cornyn told the Morning News, referring to the November election in Texas. "Fifty percent turned out [for Cruz] because they wanted to support the president. Fifty percent turned out [for O’Rourke] because they wanted to defeat him.
“Effectively,” Cornyn said, “this was a referendum in some sense on [Trump]. That's still going to be a factor in 2020.”

"President Trump was responsible for 100 percent of the turnout. Fifty percent turned out [for Cruz] because they wanted to support the president. Fifty percent turned out [for O’Rourke] because they wanted to defeat [Trump]."
— Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn

By that year, more than a third of the U.S. electorate will be composed of nonwhite voters, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released Wednesday.
The trend tends to favor Democrats, who gained two U.S. House seats, plus 12 state House seats and two state Senate seats in November, the Morning News reported.
Cruz captured less than 51 percent of the vote when he defeated O’Rourke in November. The Democrat, a congressman from El Paso, attracted more than 48 percent of the vote – a strong showing that has fueled speculation that he will seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
Despite his concerns about 2020 and beyond, Cornyn has remained solidly behind President Trump.
Last week, Cornyn joined a group of other Republican senators in urging Trump to send ISIS fighters captured in Syria to the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
Also earlier this month, Cornyn applauded the president for taking his border wall push “directly to the American people” in a speech from the Oval Office.
"There is a train of misery coming into the United States from these transnational criminal organizations that traffic in drugs and people and human misery," Cornyn noted of the border situation.
In October, Cornyn denounced those who were trying to blame President Trump for a series of pipe bomb packages shipped to prominent Democrats.
“These are some of the same people who encourage their own partisans to incivility and to confrontation and to encourage the mob that we saw during the Kavanaugh hearings,” Cornyn told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.

Tucker Carlson and pro-choice advocate have heated debate on Virginia abortion bill

Fox News host Tucker Carlson and pro-choice advocate Monica Klein got into a heated debate Wednesday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” about a proposed Virginia law that would allow women to terminate a pregnancy up until the moment before birth.
The interview began with Carlson asking Klein for her thoughts on comments made by Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, that calls to reduce restrictions on late-term abortions. Klein accused Carlson of wanting to go back to a time when women resorted to back-alley abortions and used "coat hangers." 
“I think that right now, reproductive healthcare is under attack by the Republican Party. Seventy-two percent of Americans support right to choose,” Klein said. “We have [President Donald] Trump and sexual predator [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh trying to repeal Roe v. Wade and trying to take away control over our bodies. This isn’t about babies. This is about you attempting to control women’s bodies.”
Carlson accused Klein of throwing “talking points” at him while Klein said told Carlson that “as a man what you’re focused is on controlling women’s body.” The bill, dubbed The Repeal Act, would remove a number of restrictions currently in place regarding late-term abortions, including doing away with the requirement that two other physicians certify a third-trimester abortion is necessary to prevent the woman's death or impairment of her mental or physical health. The third trimester lasts until 40 weeks.
Carlson called Klein a “robot” and stressed that he just wanted to know what she thought about Northam’s remarks, saying: “Wow. Do you think that you’re making a case that most people agree with? That it’s okay to abort a child in the third trimester.” Klein then accused the Republican Party causing more harm to children by "tearing families apart at the border and allowing children to die in federal custody."
A spokeswoman for Northam told The Washington Post that his words were taken out of context. said his words were being taken out of context by Republicans, called the notion that he would approve of killing infants “disgusting.”
"I have devoted my life to caring for children, and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting," the governor said.

Trump needs intervention on intelligence, Schumer writes in letter to Coats

Not long after President Trump said the nation's intelligence chiefs were "naive" about Iran and perhaps should "go back to school," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested that it was the president who needed tutoring.
Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, to stage an intervention with Trump after the president took the unusual move Wednesday of criticizing Coats, CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray after their Tuesday appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"President Trump's criticism of the testimony you and other intelligence leaders provided to Congress yesterday was extraordinarily inappropriate," Schumer wrote to Coats, adding later that "I believe it is incumbent on you, Director Wray and Director Haspel ... to impress upon him how critically important it is for him to join you and the leadership of our Intelligence Community in speaking with a unified and accurate voice about national security threats."
The intelligence chiefs had told the Senate panel that North Korea was unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and that the Iran nuclear deal was working -- assessments that drew responses from the president via Twitter.
Trump insisted that the U.S. relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been," and pointed to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some U.S. service members’ remains and the release of detained Americans as signs of progress. A second Trump-Kim meeting is expected in February.
The U.S. intelligence agencies also said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other world powers. In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat. In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from that Obama-era accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.
Schumer's letter to Coats essentially echoed what many Democrats said in the aftermath of Trump’s tweets.
Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence panel, said in a tweet that, "The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality. People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter."

Obama State of the Union Cartoons

Kamala Harris maintains position calling for elimination of private health insurance: source

Idiot

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who recently announced a 2020 presidential bid, has not softened her position to eliminate all private health insurance despite a report that claimed that she is opened to moderating her stance.
A source at the Harris campaign told Fox News late Tuesday denied a report on CNN that cited an unnamed adviser who "signaled" that Harris would be open to other, moderate health plans being pitched by other Democrats.
Kamala Harris “supports Medicare for all. Period,” the source told Fox News.
Harris, 54, made the remarks on Monday during a town hall event with CNN’s Jake Tapper. When asked whether people could keep their current health insurance under Harris’ plan, the California senator indicated they could not.
KAMALA HARRIS UNDER FIRE AFTER CALLING FOR ABOLITION OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'THAT'S NOT AMERICAN'
“Who among us has not had that situation?” she said at the town hall. “Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, ‘Well I don’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this.’ Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”
Amid backlash, CNN reported that Harris would be open to reforming rather than eliminating private health insurance, a proposal shared by more-centrist Democrats.

State of the Union 2019: The Trump economy is a success story not even his harshest critics can deny

With the shutdown over (at least for now), the State of the Union address is back “on.” When President Donald Trump takes the House podium on Feb. 5, you can count on him to take the opportunity to celebrate one of his greatest achievements: the economy.
It is booming by nearly every meaningful measure, and the president has every right to take a large measure of credit for it.
In November, unemployment dropped to its lowest rate in a half century. African-Americans, Latinos and women are thriving. Black unemployment was at 5.9 percent in May, the lowest ever recorded. Women’s unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
ANDY PUZDER: PRESIDENT TRUMP DESERVES ALL THE CREDIT FOR OUR SOARING LABOR MARKET
And, no Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it is not because people are working two jobs and a zillion hours a week. Employment statistics don’t work that way. It’s because more people have jobs. And more people are encouraged about their prospects of finding a job.
Labor force participation continues to rise because strong wage growth is causing Americans who were once too hopeless to even look for work to pour back into the job market. In fact, unemployment ticked up slightly to 3.9 percent (still historically very low) in December despite adding 312,000 jobs because nearly 100,000 formerly “discouraged workers” decided to start looking for jobs.
For good reason. America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.
Industries that some said were dead and never coming back – like manufacturing – are booming. Manufacturing added 284,000 jobs in 2018, the most in a year for more than a decade.

America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.

A large part of these successes can be traced to the Trump-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In addition to sparking business investment and expansion by reducing corporate taxes, it also included a big tax cut for middle-class American families.
The average individual saw a tax cut of $1,400 while the average family with two children saw their taxes reduced by $2,917. In fact, Americans in every congressional district got a tax cut. While mega-millionaire House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed a couple thousand extra dollars as mere “crumbs,” those tax-cut tidbits have been a big deal for the average working American and the economy overall.
President Obama – who presided over an average GDP growth of 1.65 percent – proved himself no economic Nostradamus when he said: “Two percent real GDP growth is the new normal for the U.S. economy.” Really? It shouldn’t be and under this administration, it’s not. GDP growth during the Trump administration has been nearly twice the Obama average, and was more than four percent in the second quarter of 2018.
And this is just scratching the surface: With consumer confidence rising, more pro-growth deregulation on the way, new trade deals being negotiated, and an energy boom on our horizon, we may be in for a much better “new normal.”
All this economic success is not just something the administration and the millions of Americans with good new jobs have noticed. The world has noticed. After a long decline beginning during Obama’s tenure, America, in just one year, has moved up six places in the Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of Economic Freedom because of the strong economic and deregulatory policies the Trump administration has enacted.
The president’s political opponents and the media can gaslight and uproot goalposts all they want – and they will. But the success of the Trump economy is plain to the millions and millions of Americans whose lives are measurably better than they were two years ago.
So when President Trump enters the well of the House next week, he can stand confidently before America and the world and say that, when it comes to the economy, “the state of the union is tremendous.”

Meadows to Ocasio-Cortez: Congress isn't 'just sitting around eating bonbons'

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a bit on Tuesday. (AP/Getty)

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Tuesday.
The clash came at the first gathering of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in the 116th Congress, which is led by Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Bloomberg reported.
Meadows and fellow GOP lawmakers were trying to persuade Cummings to provide upward of three days' notice -- ideally, five days -- for Democratic lawyers' questioning of witnesses so members could sit in, the outlet said.
Five days' notice was reportedly seen by some as more ideal, to better accommodate members who don’t reside near the nation’s capital.
Ocasio-Cortez chimed in to say she didn’t “believe we need five days” as long as members were effectively carrying out their jobs, Bloomberg said.
Meadows reportedly addressed Cummings in his reply.
“Mr. Chairman, I can tell you on all of this at this particular point, we’re all wanting to cooperate,” Meadows said. “Sometimes our schedules, you know, we’re not just sitting around eating bonbons, waiting for the call of anybody.”
The freshman lawmaker went on to wonder if Republicans previously allowed for similar notice when they sat at the helm of the committee, to which Cummings replied, “No,” Bloomberg reported.
The committee chairman reportedly said he’d do what he could to give lawmakers the notice Meadows sought, while noting that this might not always be feasible.
On another matter, during a recess of the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Tuesday, Fox News Correspondent Peter Doocy asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she supported the proposal from California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris -- who recently announced her 2020 bid for the White House -- to eliminate private insurance companies. While speaking at a town hall Monday night, Harris vowed to scrap all private health care insurance for approximately 150 million Americans if she was elected president.
"I think that's the direction that we absolutely need to go in," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I think one of the things that we're hearing right here in our, that we're really discovering in our hearings is that we -- the real issue with our health care system is that we're trying to have it both ways. We're trying to have half a free market system, half a more public system. And it is in the half-commitments that our systems are breaking down."

Scalise: Another shutdown inevitable without 'serious, credible' offer from Pelosi

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Tuesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to change her tone and start making "credible" compromises to avert another government shutdown over border wall funding.
Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address on Feb. 5, after refusing to allow him to appear in House chambers during the partial government shutdown. On Friday, both chambers of Congress passed a short-term spending bill to reopen the government through Feb. 15 -- but it includes no funding for a border wall.
"Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn't negotiate during the shutdown. OK, now the shutdown is over for the time being," Scalise told Cavuto. "Will she finally start be willing to put a dollar amount on the table, to say how much is she willing to put together to support securing the border?"
Scalise said that experts have called for more than $5 billion in wall funding, and that Democrats are playing politics. Earlier this month, U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost told "Your World" that "we certainly do need a wall," and the president has touted the support for one from the national border patrol union at White House press briefings.

FILE - In this Jan. 3 photo, a woman at the border fence between San Diego and Tijuana, as seen from Mexico. The top House Republican says a bipartisan border security compromise that Congress hopes to produce doesn't have to include the word "wall." (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza, File)

"It's going to take at least 5 and a half billion dollars -- our experts who risk their lives have said that's what it will take to secure our border," Scalise said. "What's Nancy Pelosi willing to put on the table now that we're out of the shutdown?
Asked by Cavuto what specifically he was looking for from Pelosi, Scalise responded: "Well, it's got to be a serious, credible offer. Let's talk serious. What is your offer? If it's not $5.7 billion -- which is what the experts said -- then what is your number, and how do you back it up?"
Pelosi has rejected the White House's attempts at compromise to secure wall funding, including various immigration-related concessions for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and extensions for emergency refugees.
"I don't think that's a tenable position for most Democrats," Scalise said. "We started seeing over the last few weeks more and more Democrats coming to our side -- even Steny Hoyer, the [Democratic] majority leader -- said physical barriers ought to be part of the solution."
Earlier this month, Hoyer, D-Md., told Fox News that border walls "obviously" work in some instances, and rejected Pelosi's suggestion that walls are necessarily immoral.
And House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told ABC News' "This Week" that he "would not rule out a wall in certain instances," although he cautioned that the White House needed a better "plan" than simply using a wall as a "talking point."
Democratic leaders previously have supported building border walls. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats, including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of some 700 miles of fencing at the border. As of 2015, virtually all of that fencing had been completed, according to government figures.

FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2018, file photo, members of the U.S. military install multiple tiers of concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande near the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge at the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas. Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan says the U.S. will be sending "several thousand" more American troops to the southern border to provide additional support to Homeland Security. He says the troops will mainly be used to install additional wire barriers and provide increased surveillance of the area. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

"The president said: 'I don't need a sea-to-shining-sea wall," Scalise said. "But there's about 550 miles of completely unprotected area where we know bad things -- drugs, human trafficking, even murderers come across the border. Let's start focusing on those areas."
He continued: "And if Nancy Pelosi really doesn't want a wall, President Trump has said, 'Hey, I'll be willing to let you put in language that bans cement wall.' But have some form of physical barriers. The steel slat barriers right now are what the experts say work the best. Let the experts figure that out."
The president's best chance to break the ongoing logjam with Pelosi, Scalise said, is the upcoming State of the Union address.
"They're going to see President Trump laying out the case for securing America's border," Scalise said, referring to the large audience expected to watch the president's speech. "What it's going to take. There are bad things that happen every day that most Americans never hear about. So let's actually lay that case out. And then we'll see where everybody is going to be."