President Trump late Sunday said in a Twitter post that he intends to set up a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after the New York Democrat recently toured a detention center and called the conditions there "inhumane." Schumer
joined a dozen Senate Democrats at the border on Friday. He called the
tour “difficult.” He told the media that seeing the children held in
such poor conditions pulls at your heartstrings. He
later tweeted a video from the tour, saying, “This is heart-wrenching.
This is wrong. This is not who we are. This has to end now.” Trump
said on Twitter that while Schumer was touring a facility, a “large
group of illegal immigrants” rushed border agents in an attempt to enter
the U.S. He said some agents were injured. The Pharr-Reynosa
International Bridge, which connects the southern Texas city of Pharr to
Reynosa, Mexico, was temporarily closed on Friday after a group of
about 47 undocumented individuals tried to enter the U.S., KGBT reported, citing a Border Patrol statement. Agents
were forced to use tear gas to stop the group, the report said. Some
agents were assaulted. Border Patrol did not immediately respond to an
email from Fox News. Trump seized on the incident to show the urgency to act. “Based
on the comments made by Senator Schumer, he must have seen how
dangerous & bad for our Country the Border is,” Trump tweeted. “It
is not a “manufactured crisis,” as the Fake News Media & their
Democrat partners tried to portray.” Schumer, along with other
Democrats, criticized Trump in the past for using the issue at the
border as a “manufactured crisis.” During the 35-day partial government
shutdown, Schumer said Trump was manufacturing a crisis to divert
attention from the turmoil in his administration,” according to The Hill. Tom
Homan, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Fox
News the problem at the border is due to Congress’ ineptitude. “Name
one thing that Chuck Schumer has done to solve this crisis or address
this crisis than vilify the men and women at Border Patrol,” he said. He
said Congress ignored earlier pleas from the agency for more funding to
address the surge, but Congress has taken long to act.
Iran
on Monday trumpeted the issuing of death sentences to several members
of what it claims is a CIA spy ring that had been embedded in
"sensitive" departments nationwide, a development that threatened to
further inflame an already precarious staredown between the Islamic
Republic and the United States. The roundup of the alleged
espionage cell ensnared 17 people during the past several months and was
completed by the end of March, an Iranian official said at a news
conference in Tehran. The official was identified only as the director
of the counterespionage department of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry,
which is highly unusual in Iran, as officials usually identify
themselves at press conferences. "The
identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector
centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber
areas...where they collected classified information," said a ministry
statement read on state television. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, while not commenting directly on the spy report, advised caution
and noted Iran has a history of lying. "It's part of their nature
to lie to the world," Pompeo told "Fox & Friends" on Monday
morning. "I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian
assertion about actions they've taken." Pictures of some of the alleged spies were reportedly
shown on state TV, which also broadcast a documentary purporting to
show a CIA officer recruiting an Iranian in the United Arab Emirates. Tehran
also announced in June the takedown of a CIA spy ring, but it was not
immediately clear if those alleged spies were the same as
those referenced Monday. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency was the first organization to report on the matter, according to Reuters. The identities of those arrested were not immediately known. The
U.S. has increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf region in
recent weeks after it alleged provocative moves by Tehran that included
attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the downing of a
U.S. drone and the seizure of a British tanker. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Democrats
are reaping what they have sown. What began as a trickle of cautionary
advice has become a torrent, as Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo,
columnists Thomas Friedman and Frank Bruni, former Iowa Gov. Tom
Vilsack, BET Founder Robert Johnson, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
and so many others warn Democrats that their far-left lunge is likely
to reelect President Trump. A recent piece in the New York Times
analyzing the president’s polling in several important states brings
home the high cost of Democratic extremism. Given Trump’s standing in
the Rust Belt and other states key to his 2016 victory, the piece
concluded that Trump’s "advantage in the Electoral College, relative to
the national popular vote, may be even larger than it was in 2016." The analysis concludes, "Trump
could win while losing the national vote by as much as five percentage
points." Why might this happen? Because "the major Democratic
opportunity – to mobilize nonwhite and young voters on the periphery of
politics – would disproportionately help Democrats in diverse, often
noncompetitive states." Simply
stated, Democrats are playing too much to the progressive wing of their
party, which is concentrated in blue states like New York and
California that Trump lost in 2016 and will likely lose again in 2020.
Meanwhile, in the Rust Belt, where more moderate voters prevail, the
president is in pretty good shape. Further, his popularity in the Sun
Belt battleground states, which Democrats hoped might be fertile ground,
remains strong. That is one big bucket of ice water on Democrats’
smug assurance that the president was day by day self-destructing, and
that their attacks on him would bear fruit. For four years,
starting during the 2016 campaign, liberal politicians and media figures
like those columnists now warning of their party’s likely defeat, have
denounced Donald Trump in the most vulgar and salacious manner, calling
him a bigot, misogynist, criminal and worse. They seem clueless that
those insults also, by inference, targeted those who voted for Donald
Trump. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, recently tweeted, "Trump and
his ultra-right wing base have a symbiotic relationship. They feed his
narcissism and he feeds their hatred of others. A match made in
totalitarian heaven." That kind of attack causes Trump voters to
dig in their heels. Attacks on the president, after all, are attacks on
them, and they don’t like it. That’s one reason why 90 percent of Republicans, according to Gallup, approve of the job Trump is doing. Hirono
comes from a state which Hillary Clinton won by 62.2 percent, her
highest vote percentage of any state. Moreover, it was one of only two
states in which she won every county. Hirono does not have to worry that
her slams against Trump and his supporters might offend some of her
constituents. But others in her party do have to worry. Offensive smears
like that ripple through the nation like a virus; for the embattled
moderates in the Democratic Party, there is no cure. After
Democrats took the House in 2018, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer,
D-N.Y., tweeted: "We have tremendous unity in our caucus. That unity has
been our strength, and it will continue to be as strong as ever in the
116th Congress." Talk about wishful thinking. As I wrote
at the time, numerous important issues divided Democrats, including gun
control, the environment and health care. As it has turned out, the
rift between progressive and moderate Democrats have only widened in the
months since, leading to what is arguably now a split party. President
Trump’s spat with four freshmen progressive women in Congress, Reps.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley,
D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., forced Democratic leaders to
support a group that, like Hirono, has nothing to lose by attacking him,
but that further alienates voters that Democrats need. Trump’s
call for "the squad," as that group is known, to go back to their "home"
countries was widely condemned. But the women, who have in the past
supported Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism, have further roiled party politics
by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "disrespectful" of "newly
elected women of color." Pelosi has tried to ignore and belittle
the controversial group, but that dismissal has done nothing to keep
their attention-seeking antics from sucking all the air out of her
party. Instead of covering moderate campaigners like Sen. Amy Klobuchar,
D-Minn., or former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, liberal media
outlets have devoted enormous ink and airtime to the Squad, making those
four the face of the Democratic Party. That is surely not helpful to moderates trying to win back blue-collar voters in the Rust Belt. It
has now been reported that Pelosi will meet with squad leader
Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman progressive from the Bronx. That proposed
get-together should have taken place months ago, away from the glare of
the cameras. Pelosi should have privately encouraged AOC, as she is
called, to use her celebrity and social media following to boost
Democrats in other parts of the country, and to work for the good of the
party. She should have enlisted her as a valued and valuable colleague. Instead,
the meeting is now a made-for-TV spectacle, following on the heels of
incendiary charges of racism the progressive group has hurled at Pelosi.
We’ll no doubt hear happy talk from both parties about reconciliation
and partnership, none of which will be believable. Democrats
have only themselves to blame for this threatening divide. The constant
thrashing of Trump has fed a years-long frenzy that has exalted the
most extreme personalities and policies. Now, as 2020 approaches,
many ask: do Democrats want to win an election or are they content to
win a popularity contest among liberal elites in California and New
York? We shall see.
As South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg
commands national attention with his media-savvy presidential bid, the
firestorm back home over an officer-involved shooting shows no sign of
settling soon -- with the mayor facing criticism not only from
protesters but police who say his handling has crushed morale and risks a “mass exodus” from the force. “Morale
around here has been terrible. We do nothing,” one police officer, a
20-year veteran of the force, told Fox News. “We call ourselves firemen,
we sit around in parking lots until we’re called and then we go to the
call, because if you say or do something wrong, then you get hung.” “At an all-time low,” another officer said of morale. “It’s been really demoralizing and hard to come to work lately.” Officers
requested not to be identified for this story in fear of retaliation by
the mayor's administration. But they told Fox News that they know of
multiple officers who are considering handing in their badges or taking
retirement if eligible, in response to the mayor’s handling of the
shooting. “That's the big discussion ... is who's staying and
who's going. I think you’re going to see a mass exodus, our
administration is a joke,” one officer said. South Bend Fraternal
Order of Police (FOP) President Harvey Mills told Fox News that he has
spoken to five or six officers who are “seriously” considering retiring
or resigning because of the administration’s handling of the shooting.
One officer told Fox News that he believes as many as 10 people will
quit in the next year, and said he has also considered stepping away. “It’s
very discouraging that something I’ve always wanted to do, that God
called me to do, that I’m questioning that and wondering, thinking about
not being a police officer strictly because of politics and things that
are going on that are completely out of my control,” he said. Buttigieg
has long had a strained relationship with the officers in South Bend,
but that relationship has deteriorated considerably since the shooting death of Eric Logan -- who is black -- by white officer Sgt. Ryan O’ Neill. According to investigators,
O’Neill was called to a report of someone breaking into cars and
encountered Logan O’Neill, who was allegedly carrying a knife. According
to authorities, O'Neill shot Logan after he approached him with the
knife and ignored repeated demands to drop it, the South Bend Tribune reported. But
O’Neill’s body camera was not on to confirm his account, and skeptics
of the department's account have blasted city officials, fueling a
firestorm that repeatedly has pulled Buttigieg off the trail to deal
with the crisis back home. O’Neill resigned last week, with the
FOP saying in a statement that “job related stress, the lawsuit,
national media attention, and hateful things said on social media have
been difficult for O’Neill and his young family.” Buttigieg
has claimed he has not taken sides, but amid angry protests back home,
he has not challenged the narrative that the shooting is connected to
police racism. At an NBC News-hosted presidential primary debate last
month, Buttigieg described the shooting as “a black man ...killed by a
white officer” and said he “could walk through all of the steps we took,
from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn’t save the life of
Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face that
fact and nothing that I say will bring him back.” “Until we move
policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this
particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem
of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust, put up one racist act at a
time, not just what’s happened in the past, but from what’s happening
around the country in the present,” he said. Buttigieg has also
come under fire from black residents who think he has not done enough to
reform the police department and was pelted with criticism from angry residents last month. But
it was the repeated references to the "shadow" of racism in law
enforcement (he said in June that "all police work and all of American
life takes place in the shadow of racism") that particularly upset
officers. “To me, it’s like he kind of convicted Sgt. O’Neill
before anything was even out, making comments like that,” one officer
said. “It wasn’t based on the facts of what happened, because we don’t
even have all the facts of what happened.” “It’s like pouring gas on the fire,” the officer said. "I feel like we're guilty until proven innocent," said another. One
officer warned that it will significantly affect the hiring of good,
new officers to replace them: “When you see the politics and the way
police officers are treated by the media and by politicians, it’s like,
why would anyone want to sign up to do this job right now?” Buttigieg's
campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News. The
South Bend Police Department, in a statement, described officers as
"professionals who regularly go above and beyond to serve the
community." "We do not comment on anonymous speculation and rumor," the statement said. Officers
have also bristled at what they see as the implicit blame by
Buttigieg for O’Neill’s body camera being off, arguing that
O'Neill followed police policy that Buttigieg would have signed off on
as mayor. They say it didn’t turn on automatically because his car
lights weren’t on, and he would have had little time to turn it on
manually if Logan appeared and immediately moved toward him with a
blade. “If you’re put in that terrible situation, he reacted exactly like we’re trained,” one officer said. Buttigieg has been pictured clutching the hand of Logan’s mother, and The Washington Post reported
that he attended a "police accountability" march, but officers say that
Buttigieg has had little interaction with them. Mills said that
Buttigieg does not attend the annual fallen officer memorial
services and called a recent gesture, in which he sent over a dozen
pizzas, "lame." "We have 240 officers that really need that
support when every call we go to is already weighing on our minds and
it’s a lot of stress and they don’t need the additional stress knowing
the city administration doesn’t support them," he said. As for
what Buttigieg could do the fix the crisis with police officers, Mills
urged him to back his officers, be more involved and see the good work
they do: “Police work keeps the community safe, and if our officers are
afraid to do their jobs because they might get fired or criticized and
have media pounding on their door, it’s just, we just need that support
even if it’s a small pat on the back every once in a while.” Others see an unsalvageable situation. “I don't think he could ever fix the damage that he’s done,” one officer said. One
cop said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that some of the officers were
thinking of getting bracelets with "WWPD" on them -- standing for "What
Would Pete Do?" -- so they can consider what the mayor wants them to do
when they answer a call: "Because that's who's ... going to be front
and center outside our police department with a bullhorn on his shoulder
again." Officers
also warned of increasing levels of crime as cops are less motivated.
Mills feared that officers would hesitate in a crucial situation. “They
are less likely to defend themselves, and that scares me because we've
got 15 officers on our memorial wall and I certainly don’t want to add a
16th,” Mills said.
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 2:40 PM PT – Sat. July 20, 2019
A delegation of house lawmakers visits Mexico in order to better comprehend the country’s commitment to the USMCA.
The group met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and
others Mexican officials Friday to discuss the new trade deal. Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer is reportedly leading the
delegation, which also includes GOP Representative George Holding and
California Congressman Jimmy Gomez. Gomez said the group saw a “deep commitment” from Mexico in regard to fulfilling the USMCA. “This trip is to get a better understanding of some of the
provisions, as well as the commitment of the Mexican government to
fulfilling those provisions,” Gomez said. “We learned a lot and we saw
there was a deep, deep commitment to fulfilling the letter and the
spirit of the new USMCA.” Mexico has already ratified the new trade deal, which is still awaiting approval from Congress as well as Canadian lawmakers.
Lara Trump fired back Saturday against critics who’ve asserted that the “Send her back!” chant at President Trump’s recent rally in North Carolina was planned, instead of a spontaneous crowd response. “Anyone
insinuating that there was some premeditated plan to orchestrate the
‘send her back’ chant is obviously desperate to continue pushing a
biased, racially-charged narrative,” the president’s daughter-in-law wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
“Anyone
insinuating that there was some premeditated plan to orchestrate the
‘send her back’ chant is obviously desperate to continue pushing a
biased, racially-charged narrative.” — Lara Trump
She added the hashtag, #FakeNews. Lara
Trump’s message was in response to a Saturday article in the Washington
Examiner that reported CNN’s Anderson Cooper had criticized her on
Friday’s edition of his nightly program, “Anderson Cooper 360.” “She’s
just friggin’ lying,” Cooper said at one point, accusing the wife of
Eric Trump of misrepresenting the North Carolina situation during her
interview earlier Friday on Fox Business, the Examiner reported.
“She’s just friggin’ lying.” — CNN's Anderson Cooper
Lara Trump had said that the “send her back” chant – which the crowd directed at Somali-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. – was not prompted and that President Trump did not join in.
Lara Trump took issue with some remarks that CNN's Anderson Cooper made Friday, according to a report.
“It wasn’t the whole crowd,” she added. “It was just a
couple of people right there in the front, but [the president] didn’t
say it.” But Cooper argued that Lara Trump had “primed” the crowd
during her warm-up speech prior to the president’s appearance Wednesday
in Greenville, N.C., the Examiner reported. “If you don’t love our country, the president said it, ‘You can leave,’ right?” Lara Trump is heard saying in a video clip before the president took the stage. But Lara Trump was not shown coaching the crowd to chant, “Send her back!” -- contrary to what Cooper appeared to be suggesting. Following
Wednesday’s rally, critics of President Trump latched onto the chant to
advance their argument that some Twitter messages from the president
earlier in the week – targeting Omar and other far-left House Democrats
known as “The Squad” – were racist. But
the president pushed back against the racism argument, saying he was
merely opposing what he viewed as the Democrats’ negative attitudes
toward America – and that his tweets had nothing to do with race. “I
was not happy with it, I disagree with it,” President Trump said
Thursday, referring to the rally crowd’s “Send her back!” chant. “But
again, I didn’t say that, they did.”
