Monday, July 31, 2017
Trump strong-arms ObamaCare back to table; holdout Collins says 'job is not done'
Senate Republicans ended July in humiliating and
seemingly final defeat over repealing and replacing ObamaCare, but
relentless pressure this weekend from President Trump and reports of yet
another potentially winning bill has sparked renewed hope of success
within the party.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
reportedly has a new overhaul plan for the Senate, where senators will
returned Monday because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has revoked the
first two weeks of their traditional August recess.
Trump also met privately with several Senate Republicans on Friday, according to Politico, which also first reported about the Graham proposal.The president then launched into a very public Twitter rant this weekend in which he said Senate Republicans “look like fools” for trying and failing for essentially the entire month to pass an overhaul plan.
“It’s time to move on,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday, after the last repeal attempt failed.
The president -- sounding desperate to fulfill a major campaign promise in ending ObamaCare -- also suggested McConnell lower the vote threshold from 60 to 51 votes and that he might yank the subsidies that members of Congress receive to pay for their ObamaCare policies.
“The world is watching,” Trump said in a final, chiding tweet Sunday morning.
Beyond taking away Congress’ subsidies, Trump also hinted at ending subsidies to insurance companies that offer policies under ObamaCare.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump will make that decision “this week.”
She also called the subsidies received by congressional members and their staffers a “really sweet deal” and argued, “This is exactly what so many Americans hate about Washington, D.C.”
“The president will not accept those who said it is, quote, time to move,” she also said.
Trump said Friday after the failed votes, as he has before, that he aimed to let the 2010 health care law “implode” under its own weight of rising premium costs and few insurance policy options.
However, he and essentially every Washington Republican have been elected on a promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
The GOP-led House passed its overhaul measure this spring, but not without the same kinds of problems faced by the Republican-led Senate, include how to get support from all wings of the party.
They are divided on such key issues as whether Medicaid should be expanded and whether subsidies should continue to be provided to insurance companies, apparently for low-income families to pay for policies.
The Senate has 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats and Independents who vote, or caucus, together.
Democrats say they are willing to work on solutions to ObamaCare but so far have not participated in the process.
The GOP-controlled House and Senate for the past several years have passed dozens of either full- or partial-repeal measures. But they have failed to do so since Trump, a fellow Republican, took office in January.
Several GOP senators have balked at the recent measure and amendments, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
Collins said Sunday that the ObamaCare issue remains unsettled and that the Senate must get back to work.
“Our job is not done,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There are serious problems with (ObamaCare.) ... And I certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse.”
North Korea threat: Japan's Abe says he and Trump agree to take further action
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he
and President Donald Trump agreed to take further action against North
Korea following its latest missile launch.
Abe told reporters after the call
that Trump pledged to “take all necessary measures to protect” Japan and
that Abe praised his commitment to do so.
He also called on China and Russia to do more to stop Pyongyang.“We have made consistent efforts to resolve the North Korean problem in a peaceful manner, but North Korea has ignored that entirely and escalated the situation in a one-sided way,” Abe said, according to Bloomberg. “The international community, starting with China and Russia, must take this obvious fact seriously and increase pressure.”
Abe said Japan would pursue concrete steps to bolster defense system and capabilities under the firm solidarity with the U.S. and do utmost to protect the safety of the Japanese people.
The White House said in a statement after the phone call that the two leaders “agreed that North Korea poses a grave and growing direct threat to the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and other countries near and far,” Reuters reported.
The call between the two world leaders comes hours after the U.S., Japanese and South Korea militaries spent 10 hours conducting bomber-jet drills over the Korean peninsula.
The training mission was a response to North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches and nuclear program, and part of the U.S. regular commitment to defending its allies in the Asia-Pacific region, the general’s statement said.
"The time for talk is over. The danger the North Korean regime poses to international peace is now clear to all," said United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in a statement.
North Korea conducted test launches of ICBMs on July 3 and July 28, and has claimed that its weapons can now reach the U.S. mainland.
On Saturday, two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, under the command of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, joined counterparts from the South Korean and Japanese air forces in sequenced bilateral missions.
Trump Insider Talk White House Shake-up
Washington, D.C.- Emerald Robinson, Political Correspondent
The announcement of a key change-up in White House late Friday came as a surprise, although it clearly isn’t the first time this administration has made big announcements as the weekend begins. Frank Buckley, a speech-writer for President Trump and administration insider, says it was a necessary change to promote the President’s agenda. “He had his mission and his mission was to be a bridge to the congressional Republicans and they weren’t having it, so good-bye Reince!” said Buckley.
Buckley, who also helped assemble a foreign policy team for President Trump, says bringing in General John Kelly as Chief-of-Staff is a smart move and probably signals a change in the tone of the administration. He says it could be a movement in a more aggressive direction after the President’s disappointment with health care and in his dealing with Congress.
“Up to now in respect to dealing with Obamacare, the message has been ‘ok we’ll put it over to Congress and we’ll let the congressional Republicans deal with it.’ And that didn’t work very well, so now something else has to be tried,’ explained Buckley.
And that something else is getting more Trump loyalists into the White House according to the Trump insider. Buckley says there is not enough Trump “loyalists” in the White House. He added that many of those hired were hired on a temporary basis and phased out after a six-month period. He attributes this lack of loyalists to former Chief-of-Staff Reince Preibus.
Buckley also said White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci is a good move, even after his highly publicized rant this week against Reince Preibus to the New Yorker. Buckley added that sometimes “few obscene words are necessary to describe a situation.”
Buckley warned that the White House has to get it’s act together and find its real allies so that the President can press on with his agenda. Buckley said his hope is that under General John Kelly’s guidance, the White House can do just that.
Nikki Haley: Venezuela Vote ‘A Sham’
American Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley condemns Venezuela over its recent vote to create a constituent assembly, calling it a ‘sham’. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) |
She took to Twitter on Sunday, saying America won’t accept Nicolas Maduro’s attempts to rewrite the country’s constitution and create an illegitimate government.
Haley said Maduro’s election for a new constitutional super-body is ‘a step toward dictatorship’, and claimed both democracy and the Venezuelan people will prevail.
The U.S. State Department made a statement Sunday evening, condemning the Venezuelan government for the vote.
It claimed the new body seems designed to undermine Venezuelan people’s right to self-determination.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Conway, other Trump supporters laud decision to replace Priebus with Kelly
Top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and other
President Trump supporters on Saturday backed the president’s decision
to make retired Gen. Mike Kelly his new chief of staff.
“I think General Secretary Kelly
will bring some strength and discipline, and put out, without even
saying to others, that loose lips sink ships,” Conway, counselor to the
president, told Fox News' “Fox & Friends.”
She spoke one day after Trump replaced White House
Chief of Staff Reince Priebus with Kelly, amid widespread leaks from
inside the West Wing and apparently across the administration that have
slowed the president’s agenda.“I think people will think thrice before they try to hurt each other … by using the press,” said Conway, Trump’s campaign manager in the final stretch of his successful 2016 White House bid.
Kelly, a retired Marine general, was the Homeland Security secretary before the announced change Friday.
“I think what the president wants to do is to make a fresh start,” Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, also said Saturday on “Fox & Friends.”
“And I think he and General Kelly are going to make a great combination. It's time -- and I think the general is going to do this -- to make sure that everybody who’s working in the administration is working for the president’s agenda.”
Lewandowski didn’t accuse Priebus of leaking damaging information but suggested there was “no recourse” against those who did under his watch.
Priebus’ departure follows the ousting last week of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who helped Priebus lead the Republican National Committee before they joined the Trump White House.
As part of the larger White House shakeup, Trump has hired fellow New Yorker Antony Scaramucci as his communications director and has publicly suggested Attorney General Jeff Session also could be fired.
Kelly is considered a battle-hardened commander who would bring a background of military discipline and order to the unsettled White House.
Kelly's experience as Homeland Security secretary and a veteran of three tours in Iraq -- along with a sobering family tragedy -- suggests he'll be a loyal manager for Trump when he officially starts the job Monday.
"He has been a true star of my administration," tweeted Trump in announcing the move. The president also called Kelly a "great leader" and "great American." He called Priebus, ousted after a tumultuous six months, a "good man."
As Homeland Security secretary, Kelly has taken the lead on some of Trump's most controversial policies, including his executive orders suspending the admission of refugees and temporarily barring visitors from several Muslim-majority nations. Those orders have been stripped down by courts pending a Supreme Court review this fall.
And he has stood up to Congress.
In April, Kelly bluntly challenged members of Congress critical of the Trump administration's aggressive approach to immigration enforcement to either change the laws or "shut up."
But Kelly has won bipartisan respect from lawmakers as a result of his distinguished military career. He joined the Marine Corps in 1970, carving out a reputation as a highly respected but often outspoken commander who could roil debate and issue unpopular directives on issues ranging from women in combat to the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center.
Kelly also holds a somber distinction. He was the highest-ranking officer to lose a child in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. Kelly's son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in November 2010 in Afghanistan.
The general retired from the military last year, wrapping up a three-year post as head of U.S. Southern Command, which spanned some of the more fractious debate over the Obama administration's ultimately failed attempt to close the detainee facility at Guantanamo.
US, allies prepared to use 'overwhelming force' in North Korea, general says
The U.S. and its allies are
prepared to use “rapid, lethal and overwhelming force,” if necessary,
against North Korea, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces warned
Saturday night.
The statement from Gen. Terrence J.
O’Shaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander, came after the
militaries of the U.S., South Korea and Japan spent 10 hours conducting
bomber-jet drills over the Korean Peninsula.
The training mission was a response to North Korea’s
recent ballistic missile launches and nuclear program, and part of the
U.S. regular commitment to defending its allies in the Asia-Pacific
region, the general’s statement said.“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” O’Shaughnessy said.
“Diplomacy remains the lead,” he said. “However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario.
“If called upon,” he added, “we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.”
North Korea conducted test launches of ICBMs on July 3 and July 28, and has claimed that its weapons can now reach the U.S. mainland.
The country’s recent actions have drawn condemnation from President Trump, and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to confer with counterparts from South Korea and Japan to develop a response, Fox News has reported.
Both Trump and Tillerson have criticized China, saying the Beijing government has failed to use its influence to discourage North Korea from developing its nuclear program, Fox News reported.
On Saturday, two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, under the command of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, joined counterparts from the South Korean and Japanese air forces in sequenced bilateral missions.
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. bombers took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, then flew to Japanese airspace, where they were joined by two Koku Jieitai (Japan Air Self Defense Force) F-2 fighter jets.
The B-1s then flew over the Korean Peninsula, where they were joined by four F-15 fighter jets from the South Korean air force.
The B-1s then performed a low-pass over Osan Air Base, South Korea, before leaving South Korean airspace and returning to Guam.
Throughout the approximately 10-hour mission, the air crews practiced intercept and formation functions, enabling them to improve their combined capabilities and strengthening the long-standing military-to-military relationships in the region, the Pentagon said.
U.S. Pacific Command maintains flexible bomber and fighter capabilities in the Indo-Asia-Pacific theater, retaining the ability to quickly respond to any regional threat in order to defend the U.S. and its allies, the statement said.
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