Republicans worry Trump scandals may doom legislative agenda

Scandals enveloping U.S. President Donald Trump have left Republican lawmakers and lobbyists increasingly gloomy about the prospects for passing sweeping tax cuts, a rollback of Obamacare and an ambitious infrastructure program.
With the White House and both chambers of the U.S. Congress under Republican control, party leaders and their allies in the business community had expected to get quick traction on their plans, with corporate tax cuts among the top priorities.
But four months into Trump’s tenure, only limited progress has been made. The House of Representatives passed a measure to rewrite Obamacare, but the Senate is only in the very early stages of considering the issue. Lawmakers are just beginning their push on tax reform.
In addition to congressional probes that are taking place into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia, the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday named former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate the matter.
“It’s the elephant in the room right now,” said Republican Representative Pat Tiberi. “The smartest minds in the White House know that, whether it’s tax reform or anything else on the public policy front. It’s hard enough to get things done in the U.S. Capitol under the best of circumstances.”
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on tax reform on Thursday. Key administration and congressional leaders met Wednesday afternoon to discuss a path forward. But they remain a long way from signing a bill into law.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that “less drama from the White House” was needed to advance legislative priorities.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters on Wednesday that the legislative process had “pretty much ground to a halt” amid the tumult in Washington.
Republican Representative Steve Womack said it was important for committees investigating the Russia matter to move forward expeditiously to both ensure that the public gets answers and to clear the way for Congress to move on to other issues.
“Any time we get bogged down on these kinds of issues unrelated to the governing agenda, it serves to delay and to sometimes complicate the real job that we have to do for the American people,” Womack said.
At a news conference on Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged his colleagues to “seize this moment” to pass tax reform.
But instead of discussing tax rates and structures, Ryan was faced with a series of questions about James Comey, who Trump fired as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week, and the Russia investigation.
Several lobbyists said that in the past week their corporate clients have grown more cautious on the prospects for tax reform but still hope that at least a small package can be approved.
“My worry level has grown considerably,” one lobbyist said.
Some lobbyists suggested that Congress could consider focusing on tax breaks and perhaps leave aside the comprehensive overhaul of the tax code that they had originally hoped for.
“When this all started, the thing we heard from the Hill was ‘transformative tax reform,’” said a strategist who consults with major companies focused on tax reform. “I think as time passes, tax reform is going to look much different, that it may be begin to look more like tax cuts than tax reform.”

Putin offers transcript to prove Trump did not pass Russia secrets

Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not divulged any secrets during a meeting in Washington with Russian officials and offered to prove it by supplying Congress with a transcript.
But a leading U.S. Republican politician said he would have little faith in any notes Putin might supply.
Two U.S. officials said on Monday Trump had disclosed classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when they met last week, plunging the White House into a fresh controversy just four months into Trump’s tenure.
Trump, whose administration has been dogged by allegations that Russia helped him win the White House and that he and his allies are too cozy with Moscow, has defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians after media reports of the meeting alarmed some U.S. and foreign politicians.
President Putin deployed his trademark sarcasm on Wednesday to make clear he thought the accusation that Trump had divulged secrets absurd.
“I spoke to him (Lavrov) today,” a smiling Putin told a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“I’ll be forced to issue him (Lavrov) with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia’s intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”
Putin, who still hopes Moscow can repair battered ties with the United States despite a deepening political scandal in the United States related to Trump’s purported Russia ties, said Moscow had rated Lavrov’s meeting with Trump highly.
If the Trump administration deemed it appropriate, Putin said Russia could hand over a transcript of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers to reassure them that no secrets were revealed.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, later told reporters that Moscow had a written record of the conversation, not an audio recording.
KREMLIN CREDIBILITY
U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio was unimpressed with Putin’s offer and alluded to alleged Russian hacking of Democratic groups during the U.S. presidential election.
“I wouldn’t put much credibility into whatever Putin’s notes are,” Rubio said on Fox News. “And if it comes in an email, I wouldn’t click on the attachment.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, called Putin’s offer “quite amusing.”
“The last person Trump needs to vouch for him right now is Vladimir Putin,” Schiff said in an interview with CBS News. “If they want to send something, you know, hats off. Send it our way… It’s credibility would be less than zero.”
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election.
Trump is also under pressure over accusations he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to end the agency’s investigation into the Russia ties of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The allegation stems from a memo written by Comey and seen by a source familiar with the contents of the memo.
In Washington, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they wanted to see the Comey memo. U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger joined a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers who have said they would back some sort of independent investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
“If in fact what was in the memo is true, it’s very concerning and we need to get to the bottom of that,” Kinzinger said on CNN.
‘EITHER STUPID OR CORRUPT’
Complaining about what he said was “political schizophrenia” in the United States, Putin said Trump was not being allowed to do his job properly.
“It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next,” said Putin, referring to unnamed U.S. politicians.
“What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans. Either they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.”
Russia has repeatedly said that Trump’s opponents are trying to damage him and Moscow by making what it says are false accusations about the billionaire president and the Russian government which initially had high hopes of a rapprochement.
Officials have told Reuters Trump’s alleged disclosure of classified information to Russia’s foreign minister is unlikely to stop allies who share intelligence with Washington from cooperating.
That view was reinforced on Wednesday when British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government had confidence in its relationship with the United States and would continue to share intelligence with Britain’s most important defense and security ally.

GM will cut operations in India, South Africa

General Motors Co plans to quit selling vehicles in India by the end of this year and will sell operations in South Africa, the latest steps in a strategy of focusing cash and engineering effort on fewer, more profitable markets.
The Detroit automaker said on Thursday it will take a $500 million charge in the second quarter to restructure operations in India, Africa and Singapore. It will cancel most of a planned $1 billion investment to build a new line of low-cost vehicles in India.
About $200 million of the charge will be a cash expense, GM said. The moves are expected to save $100 million a year in a sector of GM’s global business that last year lost about $800 million, the company said.
GM President Dan Ammann told Reuters in an interview that the latest restructuring moves – and a series of earlier decisions to quit unprofitable markets – allow GM to focus more money, engineering effort and senior management time on expanding where the company is strong, including China and the North American pickup and SUV business, where GM has a “product onslaught coming.”
GM also has said it is investing about $600 million a year in efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and transportation services.
“What are we spending our time doing?” Ammann said. “Are we spending time pursuing opportunities … or all of our time fixing problems?”
GM, like its Detroit rival Ford Motor Co, has found it increasingly expensive to compete in emerging markets outside of China. GM sold just 49,000 vehicles in India and South Africa combined last year.
Chief Executive Mary Barra traveled to New Delhi in 2015 to announce a plan to invest $1 billion there to build a new line of Chevrolet models developed as part of a Global Emerging Market vehicle program – GEM for short. Since then, auto sales overall in India have slumped, and GM has failed to gain traction against incumbents such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
Now, GM plans to stop selling Chevrolet brand vehicles by the end of the year and will produce vehicles only for export at its remaining factory in Talegaon. The company currently employs about 2,500 workers there.
GM said it would continue work at its design and engineering center near Bangalore.
PULLING BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
The $5 billion GEM program, which GM is developing with its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp, remains on track to account for about 2 million vehicles a year in global sales volume, mainly in Latin America, Mexico and China, Ammann said.
“The market opportunity for GEM has continued to grow,” he said.
In a separate move, GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its South African factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd, along with the 30 percent stake the U.S. automaker owns in a truck venture with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu agreed in February to buy out GM’s 57.7 percent stake in a joint venture in Kenya.
GM also will cut an undisclosed number of staff at its GM International Operations headquarters in Singapore. About 200 people work in that operation, the company said.
Since Barra took over GM in 2014, the one-time largest automaker in the world has taken aggressive steps to narrow its focus to China, the highly-profitable North American light truck and sport utility market, Latin America, vehicle financing and transportation services that ultimately could use autonomous vehicles.
Despite the restructuring moves, including Barra’s decision in March to sell loss-making European operations to French rival Peugeot SA, GM’s share price has been stuck in a range close around $33 where it went public in 2010 following a government-funded bankruptcy. GM shares closed on Wednesday at $32.42.
Barra and GM’s directors are under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which wants GM to split its common stock into two classes, one that pays dividends and a second that would be valued to reflect the company’s potential growth. Greenlight also has put forward a slate of three new directors. GM’s management and incumbent board have rejected Greenlight’s proposals. The hedge fund holds 54.8 million GM shares, or about 3.5 percent of the total.

Fake News Cartoons

Russia’s response to Trump leak reports: don’t read U.S. newspapers

Spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova attends a news briefing in Moscow, Russia, in this file photo dated October 6, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday advised that people don’t read American newspapers, in response to U.S. media reports that President Donald Trump had disclosed classified intelligence at a meeting with Russian officials.
The spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said she had received dozens of messages asking about the reports, which have been denied by the White House.
“Guys, have you been reading American newspapers again?” she wrote on her Facebook page. “You shouldn’t read them. You can put them to various uses, but you shouldn’t read them. Lately it’s become not only harmful, but dangerous too.”

McConnell: Border tax would likely not pass U.S. Senate – Bloomberg TV

Any tax reform plan that includes a border adjustment tax would likely not pass the U.S. Senate, its Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.
McConnell added that any tax plan would also have to be revenue neutral.

Trump trade officials prefer tri-lateral NAFTA deal: U.S. senators

The Trump administration’s top trade officials hope to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral deal in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to revamp the 23-year-old pact, senators said on Tuesday.
Several members of the Senate Finance Committee said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told them in a closed door meeting that they would prefer the current three-nation format but left open the possibility of parallel bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico.
“Their preference is trilateral,” Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow told reporters after the meeting.
Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said from the meeting it sounded to him as if a trilateral deal was more likely “unless there’s problems” with that approach.
“If trilaterally you aren’t getting anyplace, I suppose then you do it bilaterally,” Grassley said.
Ross, who has floated the idea of doing two bilateral trade deals with Canada and Mexico, declined to confirm the administration’s preference for a trilateral approach.
“Right now it is a trilateral deal and we shall see what comes in the future but the important thing is to get to the substance,” Ross told reporters after leaving the meeting, adding that talks would be “long and complicated.”
The meeting was one of several on Capitol Hill this week involving Lighthizer, who was sworn in as U.S. trade representative on Monday, that are required for the Trump administration to trigger the start of the NAFTA negotiating process with a 90-day consultation period.
Farm state senators said they also warned Ross and Lighthizer not to take actions that would damage agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico.
“We made it pretty clear that’s a priority, that we don’t want to see ag hurt,” said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “NAFTA by and large has been good for agriculture, and we’re seeing some disruptions in the ag marketplace today because of uncertainty about where this is headed.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said Ross and Lighthizer assured him they would push to drop NAFTA’s dispute-resolution mechanism. Trump has complained that the mechanism is biased against the United States.

Embroiled in controversies, Trump seeks boost on foreign trip

Besieged by controversy at home, U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to stick to the script and avoid fresh flare-ups when he embarks this week on his first foreign trip, a nine-day trek to the Middle East and Europe.
White House officials and Republicans close to the administration say Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” slogan, wants to demonstrate leadership abroad on his visit with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Israel and the West Bank, the pope at the Vatican, NATO leaders in Brussels and G7 counterparts in Sicily.
Trump faces fierce criticism over his sharing of sensitive national security information with Russian officials and his firing last week of FBI Director James Comey. Allegations that he previously asked Comey to end an investigation into his former national security adviser drew a new round of attacks on Tuesday.
A Republican strategist close to the White House said Trump needed a strong trip to help put the past tumultuous 10 days behind him.
“If the White House is looking for this international trip to turn the page, then it really needs to come off well without any balls dropped or serious mistakes,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity.
“This is their time to shine, to show Americans and the world that the White House isn’t becoming a circus of errors.”
Airing his frustrations on Twitter, Trump has lashed out at leaks to the news media from officials inside his administration. Confidants say a staff shake-up is possible, although major changes are unlikely before Trump’s foreign trip.
His political woes will add to Trump’s challenges as he tries to bolster ties abroad.
“This trip combines so many different things and actors that the question is going to be what’s the message that he wants to communicate when he’s out there,” said Lanhee Chen, who advised Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and Marco Rubio’s in 2016.
‘DON’T THINK HE UNDERSTANDS IT’
Some doubt whether Trump, a businessman-turned politician who never held elective office before becoming president in January, is ready for a smooth presidential debut abroad.
One Republican official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said after meeting Trump recently he did not think the president had a firm enough grasp on the nuances of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I don’t think he understands it,” said the official, adding that Trump needed more detailed briefings before leaving on Friday. “I think it’s a very difficult challenge and I hope he’s going to talk to a lot of smart people.”
White House advisers insisted Trump was up to speed on the Middle East, having already hosted Arab, Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the White House.
“His way of doing diplomacy, which really contrasts with President Obama’s approach, is to … prioritize the personal relationship,” said Michael Singh, a foreign policy adviser to former Republican President George W. Bush.
To prepare for his trip, Trump has been meeting with briefers including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.
He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.
National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.
Trump likes to look at a map of the country involved when he learns about a topic.
“He likes to visualize things,” said a senior administration official. “The guy’s a builder. He has spent his whole life looking at architectural renderings and floor plans.”
PREDECESSORS’ GAFFES
Although Trump has a string of golf resorts around the world that he has visited, the trip could take him out of his comfort zone. He generally prefers his own bed to hotel rooms. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he often flew home after a day of campaigning rather than staying in hotels overnight.
Presidential rhetoric and gaffes abroad have caused problems for some of Trump’s predecessors.
Bush drew fire after his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Slovenia in June 2001, when he said he had looked the former KGB chief in the eye and “I was able to get a sense of his soul.” The comment was seen as naive.
Even body language is watched carefully. Democratic President Barack Obama was criticized for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito in a visit to Japan in November 2009.
One Gulf Arab official said Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, the first stop on his trip would send a message that America did not see Islam as an enemy.
    The trip could be a chance for the president to counter critics who accuse him of being anti-Muslim because of the order he issued, now blocked by U.S. courts, temporarily banning entry into the United States by citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.
    But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump, who is prone to speaking off-the-cuff, ended up undercutting his own message, it could be damaging.
“It can backfire, I mean it can seriously backfire,” the official said.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to Bush, said that since the trip would be Trump’s first overseas, the stakes were higher.
“The meaning and importance of his first trip abroad will be exaggerated, but it gives him a chance to get bipartisan accolades, or a chance to fail badly and have the failure exaggerated,” Fleischer said.