2019 Townhall Cartoons

U.S. foreign relations to be on full display at UN General Assembly in NYC

Nearly 200 leaders from around the world are flocking to New York City this week for the United Nations General Assembly. The annual gathering, referred to as UNGA, takes place Monday through Friday at United Nations headquarters.
While the event is themed around “poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion,” many are expecting U.S. policy to also take center stage.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Afghani President Ashraf Ghani are all expected to attend. Their attendance means everything from rising tension in the Middle East to concern about a so-called whistleblower complaint may be up for discussion.
While speaking ahead of the event Sunday, President Trump said “nothing is ever off the table” when asked whether he will be meeting with Iran.
“Nothing’s ever off the table completely, but I have no intention of meeting with Iran,” he stated. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen…I’m a very flexible person, but we have no intention.”

President Donald Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, as he prepares to board Marine One for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

When asked about the whistleblower leak, President Trump said foreign leaders should have a right to privacy.
“The problem is when you’re speaking to foreign leaders, you don’t want foreign leaders to feel that they shouldn’t be speaking openly and you have to be talking to people, and the same thing for an American president,” he explained. “You want them to be able to express themselves without knowing that not every single word is going to be going out and going out all over the world.”
This comes ahead of planned talks between President Trump and the leader of Ukraine, which are expected to take place sometime on or before Wednesday.
In regard to Afghanistan, President Trump will come face-to-face with President Ashraf Ahani just weeks after the collapse of U.S.-Taliban peace talks. Negotiations fell apart earlier this month due a surge in violence from the insurgent group.
No official meetings between President Trump and Iran or Afghanistan have been scheduled, however, all eyes are expected to remain on the General Assembly as talks may unfold on the sidelines. Moving forward, President Trump is only slated to attend Monday through Wednesday.

President Trump: What Biden did is a disgrace

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the InterContinental Barclay hotel during the United Nations General Assembly, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Trump is calling out former Vice President Joe Biden, while continuing to highlight alleged corruption by the Democrat regarding Ukraine.
While speaking at the United Nations Monday, the president said he had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine and called Democrat speculation over it a “witch hunt.” He also said the one who has the problem is Biden, and noted it’s very important to talk about corruption.

..Breaking News: The Ukrainian Government just said they weren’t pressured at all during the “nice” call. Sleepy Joe Biden, on the other hand, forced a tough prosecutor out from investigating his son’s company by threat of not giving big dollars to Ukraine. That’s the real story!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2019

“Biden did what they would like to have me do except that one problem, I didn’t do it. What Biden did is a disgrace. What his son did is a disgrace. The son took money from Ukraine, the son took money from China. A lot of money from China. China would love to see, they could think of nothing they’d rather see than Biden get in because they will take this great deal that we’re about to make and they would really have themselves a deal.”

— President Trump

The president also said he thinks we’re going to see much more honesty from Ukraine with the new president.

UN opens annual leaders’ meeting encircled by troubled world

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Navigating a troubled era’s choppy waters, world leaders gather for their annual meeting at the United Nations on Tuesday to grapple with climate change, regional conflicts and a dispute in the Middle East that could ripple across the entire planet.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will open the General Assembly proceedings with a “state of the world” speech. He’ll be followed immediately by the traditional first speaker — Brazil, represented by its new president, Jair Bolsonaro — and the United States, represented by President Donald Trump.

The United Nations, designed to promote a multilateral world, has struggled in the face of increasing unilateralism by the United States and other nations that favor going it alone over the brand of collaboration that the global body advocates.

The event unfolds against the backdrop of flaring tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, backed by its longtime supporter, the United States. The Saudis say Iran was responsible for an attack earlier this month on two oil facilities, which Iran denies.

The Trump administration, no fan of the Iranian government, has been engaged in an escalating series of harsh words and threats with Tehran. The U.S. has imposed increasingly crippling sanctions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is in New York, is scheduled to address world leaders on Wednesday.

This year’s General Assembly session, which starts Tuesday and ends Sept. 30, has attracted world leaders from 136 of the 193 U.N. member nations. That large turnout reflects a growing global focus on addressing climate change and the perilous state of peace and security.

Other countries will be represented by ministers and vice presidents — except Afghanistan, whose leaders are in a hotly contested presidential campaign ahead of Sept. 28 elections, and North Korea, which downgraded its representation from a minister to, likely, its U.N. ambassador. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled plans to attend and are sending ministers.

Last week, Guterres repeated warnings that “tensions are boiling over.” The world, he said, “is at a critical moment on several fronts — the climate emergency, rising inequality, an increase in hatred and intolerance as well as an alarming number of peace and security challenges.”

Trump out to square America First with united front on Iran

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump goes before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to try to square his “America First” approach to foreign policy with his administration’s hope for a multi-national response to Iran’s escalating aggression.

While Trump wants allies to join the U.S. in further isolating Iran, he also seems to be holding to his go-it-alone strategy of using economic sanctions to pressure Tehran to give up its nuclear program and stop attacks that are rattling the Middle East.

On Monday, the president praised British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s call for a new deal to replace the 2015 Iran nuclear pact from which Trump walked away.

The president also said he appreciated the efforts of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been trying to get Trump back in the deal and has suggested the American president meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani while both are in New York this week.

But at the same time, Trump declared: “We’re not looking for any mediators.” He said that if Iran wants to talk, “they know who to call.”

Both Trump and Rouhani have said no meeting is on the agenda for this week, although the U.S. leader left some wiggle room, adding, “I never rule anything out.”

Trump was expected to use his speech to blame Iran for recent strikes against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Iran has denied orchestrating the attack, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has deemed “an act of war.”

Britain, France and Germany joined the United States on Monday in blaming Iran for the attacks. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, for his part, pointed to claims of responsibility by Yemeni rebels and insisted: “If Iran were behind this attack, nothing would have been left of this refinery.”

Trump also is expected to use his address to the General Assembly to address the ongoing standoff in Venezuela.

The United States and more than a dozen Latin American countries agreed Monday to investigate and arrest associates and senior officials of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro who are suspected of crimes like drug trafficking, money laundering and financing terrorism.

Trump is expected to have kinder words for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, even though the autocrat continues to hold a tight grip on his nuclear weapons. Trump has met Kim for summits in Singapore and Hanoi and orchestrated a surprise encounter with him in June at the Demilitarized Zone, where he became the first U.S. president to ever set foot in North Korea.

Trump said Monday that another meeting with the North Korean leader “could happen soon.” He provided few details, and it wasn’t clear what officials were doing behind the scenes to set up a meeting to break the diplomatic impasse over the North’s development of nuclear-armed missiles targeting the U.S. mainland.

Trump’s comments, even with few specifics backing them up, are tantalizing because there is extreme interest, especially in Japan and South Korea, in whether Trump and Kim can strike a deal on one of the world’s most pressing standoffs.

This is Trump’s third speech to the world body. Senior administration officials, who briefed reporters about the president’s trip to the U.N. on condition of anonymity, said that he will use his speech to affirm America’s leadership role in the international community. That’s something Trump’s critics claim has been weakened by the president’s solo style and mercurial rhetoric and actions.

The White House said Trump will also talk about the need to work collectively within the global community to address world challenges — although apparently not climate change.

Trump stopped in only briefly Monday at a summit where world leaders talked about doing something to counter climate change. As they met, the globe hit another mark indicating a warming climate. Arctic sea ice shrank to 1.6 million square miles (4.15 million square kilometers) for the annual summer low, which tied the second lowest mark on record.

On Monday night, Trump mocked a teenage activist who gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations urging world leaders to do more to combat climate change.

Swedish 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg scolded the audience at the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Monday, repeatedly asking, “How dare you?” Thunberg said: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and yet all you can talk about is money. You are failing us.”

In a tweet late Monday, Trump says: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last year, Trump expressed disdain for globalism and promoted his “America First” agenda. Like last year, Trump is expected to showcase strong U.S. economic numbers and talk about how he’s strengthened America’s military.

In his 2018 speech to the assembly, his self-adulation prompted chuckles from world leaders. That barely ruffled Trump, who shares a belief with his supporters that the United States has been asked to do too much for other countries and needs to focus on issues it faces at home.

2019 Cartoons

At UN, Trump to face questions about Iran, Ukraine, allies

NEW YORK (AP) — Faced with growing tumult at home and abroad, President Donald Trump heads into his three-day visit to the United Nations this week hoping to lean on strained alliances while fending off questions about whether he sought foreign help to damage a political rival.

Trump’s latest U.N. trip comes after nearly three years of an “America First” foreign policy that has unsettled allies and shredded multinational pacts.

A centerpiece of this year’s U.N. schedule will be a Monday session on climate change that Trump plans to skip.

Instead, he will address a meeting about the persecution of religious minorities, particularly Christians, an issue that resonates with Trump’s evangelical supporters.

The president arrived in New York on Sunday against a backdrop of swirling international tensions, including questions about his relationship with Ukraine , the uncertain future of Brexit, the U.S. trade war with China, stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea and a weakening global economy.

The most immediate challenge may be Iran.

Trump will try to convince skeptical global capitals to help build a coalition to confront Tehran after the United States blamed it for last week’s strike at a Saudi Arabia oil field.

“Well, I always like a coalition,” Trump said Friday, before going on to complain that under the old Iran nuclear deal, “everyone else is making money and we’re not.”

Trump’s fulfillment of a campaign promise to exit the Iran nuclear deal has had wide ripple effects, leading Tehran to bolster its nuclear capabilities and dismaying European capitals who worked to establish the original agreement.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in particular, has been trying to lead Trump back to a deal and has suggested that the U.S. president meet with Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings.

Trump said Sunday that while “nothing is ever off the table completely” he had no intention of meeting with Rouhani.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran spiked after a Saudi Arabia oil field was partially destroyed in an attack that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed on Iran and deemed “an act of war.”

Now Trump will try to enlist wary world leaders in a collective effort to contain Iran.

“He needs to win over traditional allies to do what traditional allies do, to band together against common threats,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The attacks last weekend in Saudi Arabia are precisely the kind of thing that the U.N. was intended to address, to create rules for international behavior and opportunities for collective action.”

Ukraine also looms large on Trump’s schedule. Even one week ago, a one-on-one meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy would have been seen largely as an afterthought.

But Trump’s meeting on Wednesday with Zelenskiy will come just days after revelations that the president urged his Ukrainian counterpart in a July phone call to investigate the activities of the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump said he was concerned about corruption; Democrats frame his actions as an effort to pressure Zelenskiy to dig up damaging material on a potential 2020 rival.

That pressure is the subject of a whistleblower’s complaint that the administration has refused to turn over to members of Congress, setting up a showdown with Democrats.

Trump is defending himself against the intelligence official’s complaint, asserting that it comes from a “partisan whistleblower,” though the president also said he doesn’t know the whistleblower’s identity.

He insisted Sunday his conversation with Zelenskiy was “absolutely perfect.” But Democrats believe it shows that Trump is emboldened to seek foreign help for his reelection effort.

There are plenty of other concerns in the mix during Trump’s U.N. visit, including the U.S. trade war with China.

But China’s Xi Jinping is not expected to attend, nor are several other prominent world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Among the nations whose leaders Trump plans to meet in New York: Iraq, Poland, Egypt, Pakistan, South Korea and Japan. He will also meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, clinging to power after failed attempts to steer his nation out of the European Union.

Trump’s annual address to the General Assembly is scheduled for Tuesday. Two years ago, he used the moment to deride North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as “Little Rocket Man” and threaten to destroy North Korea.

A year ago, he drew laughter when he used his speech to recite his administration’s accomplishments.

His theme this year, according to aides, will be to reassert America’s determination to uphold its sovereignty and independence, especially on issues of national security.

But others may push a different path.

“There’s an attempt to push back against the unilateralism, against the isolationism, against the populism that has affected not only the United States but other countries as well,” said Jeffrey Feltman of the Brookings Institution. “I don’t know how effective this will be, but it’s an example of how some of our traditional allies are organizing themselves in response to the feeling that the United States, the U.K., that other sort of major engines in the U.N. system no longer are pressing the accelerator.”

Biden's campaign likely coming to an end -- thanks to Clinton-linked Ukraine bombshell, Nunes says

California Rep. Devin Nunes predicted on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that Joe Biden's campaign is likely coming to an end -- all because of newly resurfaced reports about his possible misconduct in Ukraine that "first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race."
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee made the claim as The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll showed Sen. Elizabeth Warren surging ahead of Biden as the first choice of 22 percent of the voters surveyed, while Biden was the first choice of 20 percent of the voters. Biden held a 9-point lead over Warren in the poll as recently as June.
Nunes, speaking to anchor Maria Bartiromo, said a whistleblower's allegation that President Trump had acted inappropriately during a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will ultimately backfire, and shine a light on Biden's own possible misconduct. CNN later acknowledged that the whistleblower had no first-hand knowledge of the call, and a top Ukrainian official on Saturday defended Trump's actions.
"These stories first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race," Nunes said. "So now that these have been resurrected, I don’t know who came up with the scheme -- maybe this whistleblower really is not a partisan. We want to hear from that whistleblower, but it sure looks like the scheme has backfired. And, like I said, it looks like this is the end of Biden’s campaign. I really do... his lead is basically down to zero."
Late Sunday, Trump echoed Nunes' comments, and emphasized that Biden recently bragged about pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor when he was vice president. At the time, the prosecutor was probing a company closely linked to Biden's son, Hunter.
"Sleepy Joe Biden ... forced a tough prosecutor out from investigating his son's company by threat of not giving big dollars to Ukraine," Trump wrote on Twitter. "That's the real story!"
Nunes said the ever-deepening schism in the Democratic Party over whether to impeach the president -- highlighted late Saturday when New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it a major "scandal" that Democrats hadn't yet voted to impeach -- would help Trump in 2020.
"The more I think that they’re out there promoting this kind of craziness and silliness, the more that the American people are put off, and the more likely President Trump is reelected,” Nunes added.
There were parallels, Nunes said, with Democrats' ultimately debunked claims that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
"This has all the hallmarks of the Russia hoax," Nunes said. "Something leaks out. ... and then it's the same reporters that report on it, the same reporters that reported on the Russia hoax. Then you move forward, and what happens? Then supposedly they come and testify -- and the night before they testify, the whistleblower who supposedly doesn't want anybody to know who this person is, or what information they have, well, it's spilled all over the pages of the Washington Post" the day before Congress was briefed on the matter.
"Whoever came up with this scheme -- it looks like somebody was trying to deflect what Biden did back in 2015," Nunes said. "This scheme seems to have backfired on Biden. I mean, Biden's already dropping in the polls."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaks during the EU-Ukraine summit press conference in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2019. ( AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump had repeatedly asked Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son who had a key role in a natural gas firm that was being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor as part of a corruption probe.
At a conference two years after he left office, Joe Biden openly boasted about successfully pressuring Ukraine to fire that prosecutor when he was vice president.
Unverified reports circulated on left-leaning media outlets claiming that Trump could have even promised something improper in exchange for Ukraine's compliance, although the Journal reported there was no "quid-pro-quo" involved.
Trump acknowledged Sunday that he had communicated with Zelensky about Biden, and that the conversation concerned "the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son [contributing] to the corruption already in the Ukraine." However, the president and top officials maintained Sunday that nothing inappropriate occurred on the call.
DNI Inspector General Michael Atkinson said in a Sep. 9 letter to the House Intelligence Committee that the whistleblower complaint "appeared credible" and related to an "urgent" matter. But the DNI general counsel said days later that, after consulting with the DOJ, the matter did not meet the legal definition of an “urgent concern," and was not subject to mandatory disclosure to Congress.
“Furthermore, because the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications by persons outside the Intelligence Community, the DNI lacks unilateral authority to transmit such materials to the intelligence committees,”  Jason Klitenic, the DNI general counsel, wrote.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire will testify before the House Intelligence Committee at an open hearing on Thursday.
"At that time, we expect him to obey the law and turn over the whistleblower’s full complaint to the Committee," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Sunday afternoon. "We also expect that he will establish a path for the whistleblower to speak directly to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as required by law."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested Sunday that impeachment may be on the table, if certain demands are not met ahead of Wednesday's whistleblower hearing. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Pelosi also seemingly threatened that she would back impeachment if her demands were not met, in a potentially major shift to her wait-and-see approach thus far: "If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation."
Trump's conversation came as the White House was holding up $250 million in military aid for Ukraine. The president has said he wants European countries to pay more for their own defense, and denied delaying any military aid funding.
The whistleblower's allegation could prompt scrutiny of the Obama administration's Ukraine policy. Joe Biden has explained on camera that in March 2016, he privately threatened then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from Ukraine if its top prosecutor was not fired.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion,'" Biden recounted telling Poroshenko at a Council on Foreign Relations event. "I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.'"
“Well, son of a b-tch, he got fired," Biden continued, after assuring Poroshenko that Obama knew about the arrangement. "And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
It remained unclear if this was directly tied to the prosecutor's probe into the company linked to Hunter Biden, as other countries reportedly wanted the prosecutor out as well.
And earlier this year, The Hill reported that the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, under the Obama administration, took the unusual step of pressuring prosecutors there to drop a probe into a group closely linked to liberal megadonor George Soros.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at an LGBTQ Presidential Forum in the Sinclair Auditorium on the Coe College campus in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday, Sept. 20, 2019. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette via AP)

Then, in April, Ukrainian law enforcement officials said they had a slew of evidence of collusion and wrongdoing by Democrats, and that they have been trying to share this information with U.S. officials in the Justice Department.
A 2017 investigation by Politico found that Ukrainian officials not only publicly sought to undermine Trump by questioning his fitness for office, but also worked behind the scenes to secure a Clinton victory. Trump told Fox News that the allegations of possible Clinton-Ukraine collusion were "big" and vowed they would be reviewed by the DOJ.
Additionally, attention focused anew on President Obama's hot-mic comment to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a nuclear disarmament summit in March 2012, in which Obama was overheard saying he would have more "flexibility" to negotiate with Russia after the November 2012 election.
"The longer we talk about what the Bidens did in Ukraine, the better," said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, who dismissed those who believe Trump will pay a political price for the latest controversy.
Meanwhile, Biden on Saturday denied he has ever spoken to Hunter about his business in Ukraine and called Trump's actions an "overwhelming abuse of power."
“Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum, and he’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me,” Biden told reporters in Iowa.
But Trump, on Sunday, pointed out that Biden's claim was seemingly inaccurate. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker previously that he and his father had spoken “just once” about it.
“And now he made a lie when he said he never spoke to his son,” Trump said. “Of course you spoke to your son!”
Trump added: "No quid pro quo, there was nothing. It was a perfect conversation. ... The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating the corruption already in the Ukraine and Ukraine has got a lot of problems. The new president is saying that he's going to be able to rid the country of corruption, and I said that would be a great thing, we had a great conversation."
Trump went on to say the latest allegations are "just as ridiculous as the others," branding it "the Ukraine Witch Hunt" — a nod to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
"Will fail again!" Trump tweeted.
Fox News' Ronn Blitzer, Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.