Story 1: President Trumps Declares A National Emergency — Unleashes Full Power of United States Government — $50 Billion in New Funding To Deal With COVID-19 Pandemic — Videos
BREAKING: Donald Trump declares a national emergency
Trump declares National Emergency over coronavirus
Trump declares national emergency over coronavirus pandemic
Tucker: Regular life is all but suspended
Hannity: Major businesses working with Trump on coronavirus
Trump declares virus emergency; Pelosi announces aid deal
By LISA MASCARO, ZEKE MILLER, ANDREW TAYLOR and JILL COLVIN
President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources. But he denied any responsibility for delays in making testing available for the new virus, whose spread has roiled markets and disrupted the lives of everyday Americans.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, Trump said, “I am officially declaring a national emergency,” unleashing as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak.
Trump also announced a range of executive actions, including a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities with drive-through locations, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available.
Trump said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the slow rollout of testing.
Late Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with the Trump administration for an aid package from Congress that aims at direct relief to Americans — free testing, two weeks of sick pay for workers, enhanced unemployment benefits and bolstered food programs.
“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” Pelosi announced in a letter to colleagues. The House was poised to vote.
The crush of late-day activity capped a tumultuous week in Washington as the fast-moving virus shuttered the capital’s power centers, roiled financial markets and left ordinary Americans suddenly navigating through self-quarantines, school closures and a changed way of life.
The White House was under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
Trump has been known to flout public health advice — eagerly shaking hands during the more than hour-long afternoon event — but acknowledged he “most likely” will be tested now after having been in contact with several officials who have tested positive for the virus. “Fairly soon,” he said.
Still, Trump said officials don’t want people taking the test unless they have certain symptoms. “We don’t want people without symptoms to go and do that test,” Trump said, adding, “It’s totally unnecessary.”
Additionally, Trump took a number of other actions to bolster energy markets, ease the financial burden for Americans with student loans and give medical professionals additional “flexibility” in treating patients during the public health crisis.
“Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said.
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free testing and sick pay provisions.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s healthcare system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people who stay home as a preventative measure or because they’re feeling ill or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
Hopes for swiftly passing the package seemed to be fading throughout the day as talks dragged on and Trump dismissed it during as “not doing enough.”
Ahead of Trump’s new conference, Pelosi delivered a statement from the speaker’s balcony at the Capitol imploring the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to “put families first” by backing the effort to provide Americans with relief.
“Our great nation has faced crisis before,” Pelosi said. “And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail.”
Pelosi and Mnuchin engaged in days of around-the-clock negotiations with cross-town phone calls that continued even as Trump was speaking, both indicating earlier they were close to a deal.
They both promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, with more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has already slipped into recession.
The financial markets closed on an upswing after one of the worst nosedives since the 1987 downturn.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to be over it.
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive.
Trump’s daugher, Ivanka Trump, worked from home Friday after meeting with Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus. White House spokesman Judd Deere said she was evaluated by the White House Medical Unit and it was determined that because she was exhibiting no symptoms she does not need to self-quarantine.
Attorney General William Barr, who also met with the Australian official, was staying home Friday, though he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
Several lawmakers, including some close to Trump, have also been exposed to people who tested positive for the virus, and are self-isolating.
Among them are Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott, who were at Trump’s club on the weekend. Graham announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive. And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Hospitals welcomed Trump’s emergency declaration, which they and lawmakers in Congress had been requesting. It allows the Health and Human Services Department to temporarily waive certain federal rules that can make it harder for hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to an emergency.
The American Medical Association said the emergency declaration would help ensure America’s health care system has sufficient resources to properly respond to the ongoing outbreak.
Trump has struggled to show he’s on top of the crisis, after giving conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus. On Wednesday he announced he would ban travel to the U.S. from Europe, and on Friday he suggested extending that to the U.K. because of a recent rise in cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said more tests would be available over the next week, but warned, “We still have a long way to go.”
Fauci said Friday, “There will be many more cases. But we’ll take care of that, and ultimately, as the president said, this will end.”
___
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Alan Fram, Lauran Neergaard, Martin Crutsinger, Laurie Kellman, Michael Balsamo and Kevin Freking in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Story 1: Return of Near Zero Interest Rates and Quantitative Easing Monetary Policy To Prevent Another Recession — Financial Repression By Big Government and Big Banks — Destructive Debt Debacle — Inverted Yield Curve — Recession? Videos ––
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Negative Rates Coming – More Repo Largess , MORE QE.
Fed Will Cut Rates Three Times and May Restart QE, Sri-Kumar Says
Federal Reserve’s rate cut was a ‘disaster’: Expert
Bond King’ Gundlach says Fed panicked and short-term rates are ‘headed toward zero’
“Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach says he believes the Fed panicked in cutting interest rates earlier this week and that short-term U.S. rates are headed for zero.
“I’m in the camp that the Fed is going to cut rates again,” Gundlach said. “When I say panicked, it doesn’t mean it’s not justified. Sometimes panic is justified.”
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield hit an all-time low under 0.9% just after the longtime bond investor made his comments around 12:40 p.m. ET.
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VIDEO00:01
Gundlach: I expect Fed to cut rates again, maybe in two weeks
“Bond King” and DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said Thursday that he believes the Federal Reserve panicked in cutting interest rates earlier this week and that short-term U.S. rates are headed for zero.
“If we look at history, once the Fed does a panic, intermeeting rate cut, particularly when it’s 50 basis points … they typically cut pretty quickly again,” Gundlach said. “I’m in the camp that the Fed is going to cut rates again, perhaps even in two weeks” during its regularly scheduled meeting.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield hit an all-time low under 0.9% just after the longtime bond investor made his comments on CNBC’s “Halftime Report” around 12:40 p.m. ET. The 2-year U.S. rate hit also hit a record low of 0.554% earlier in the session.
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“We will see short rates headed toward zero,” Gundlach added. And “when I say panicked, it doesn’t mean it’s not justified. Sometimes panic is justified.”
“Business activity is likely to contract,” he said. “I received multiple emails today of clients that were planning on visits to DoubleLine saying they’re canceling them.”
Although President Donald Trump has spoken fondly of negative interest rates, Gundlach said he doesn’t think the Fed is likely to follow the route taken by Japan and some countries in Europe.
On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate unexpectedly by 50 basis points, saying that the spread of the coronavirus “poses evolving risks to economic activity.” The move marked the first time since the financial crisis that the U.S. central bank was forced to impose an emergency rate cut.
The action failed to ease stock market concern about the potential economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, however, but sparked a sharp drop in short-term U.S. rates. Markets remain fearful that the disease will prevent major exporters, like China, from sending components to American manufacturers and have a rippling effect on global growth.
Risk assets continued their slide Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 900 points, or 3.4%, in midafternoon trading. The Dow fell more than 1,000 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3%, led lower by rate-sensitive regional and consumer-facing banks that generate profits through loans.
Federal Reserve Retools Capital Rules for Largest U.S. Banks
New Fed rule creates capital buffer tied to annual stress tests
The overhaul reflects the latest moves by the Federal Reserve to recalibrate oversight of big U.S. lenders.
PHOTO: LIU JIE/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS
By Andrew Ackerman
WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve retooled capital rules for the largest U.S. banks, completing one of the biggest changes to the postcrisis rulebook for Wall Street during the Trump administration.
Fed officials on Wednesday said the changes would simplify rules for big banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. without posing risks to the stability of the financial system.
The overhaul “simplifies the post-crisis capital framework for banks, while maintaining the strong capital requirements that are the hallmark of the framework,” Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles said in a statement.
The overhaul reflects the latest moves by the Fed to recalibrate oversight of big U.S. lenders. Already, officials have completed separate changes aimed at easing liquidity and capital rules for regional U.S. banks and retooled speculative trading limits for large firms.
Fed governor Lael Brainard, an Obama-era appointee, cast the sole dissenting vote against the plan, saying she believed it would reduce banks’ required capital levels and the amount they set aside as a buffer above their regulatory requirements.
In a statement, she said the plan “gives a green light for large banks to reduce their capital buffers materially, at a time when payouts have already exceeded earnings for several years on average.”
Ms. Brainard said she expects a reduction in capital largely because the overhaul requires banks to set aside funds for dividend payments for four quarters, down from the current nine.
But Mr. Quarles said the changes would maintain the overall level of capital in the system and modestly increase required capital levels for the largest firms. His estimates were based on stress-test data from 2013 to 2019, he said.
Parts of the overhaul are likely to be welcomed by big banks, including changes that streamline aspects of stress tests, which require 34 large banks to show how they would weather simulated market and economic shocks.
Wednesday’s plan reduces the total number of big-bank capital requirements to eight from 13, the Fed said. For large Wall Street firms, those changes could be offset by a new “stress capital buffer.”
Banks’ annual stress-test results would be used to calculate the size of the new buffer, which the firms would have to meet during the ensuing year. If a firm’s capital fell below this level, it would face limits on its capital distributions and bonus payments.
Under the Trump administration, regulators have sought to soften the impact of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which was intended to prevent another financial crisis, saying its requirements were too stringent and inflexible.
A law signed by President Trump in 2018 rolled back restrictions for banks with less than $250 billion in assets and served as the impetus for further regulatory changes.
Some of Wednesday’s changes incorporate adjustments sought by banks. The Fed’s stress tests would assume lenders restrain growth in their balance sheets during stressful periods, which doesn’t happen under current rules. That would likely have the effect of boosting banks’ capital levels in the stress tests.
The Fed held off on making some changes to the stress tests envisioned by Mr. Quarles, such as incorporating a dormant policy tool to combat credit crunches in a downturn known as the countercyclical capital buffer. The Fed would have to separately propose such changes.
Story 2: Stocks Prices Up and Down — COVID-19 100,000 Plus Confirmed Cases and 3,300 Plus Deaths Rising — Still Way Behind Estimated 18,000-46,000 Influenza Flu Deaths and 14 Million to 21 Million of Influenza Flu Cases in United States Alone! — Test Early and Often — Videos
Dow tanks more than 950 points as Wall Street’s roller-coaster week continues
Stocks plunged on Thursday, erasing most of the steep gains in the previous session, as markets remained highly volatile in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 969.58 points, or 3.5%, lower at 26,121.28 after tanking nearly 1,150 at its session low. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3%, or 106.18, to 3,023.94 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.1%, or 279.49, to 8,738.60. All 11 S&P sectors finished the day in the red. Stocks turned sharply lower as the 10-year Treasury yield fell to an all-time low below 0.9%.
Fears about the coronavirus disrupting the global economy continued to grip Wall Street as countries around the world extended quarantines and travel restrictions. California declared a state of emergency after a coronavirus-related death and 53 confirmed cases in the state. The number of infections in New York also doubled overnight to 22 as the state ramps up its testing.
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VIDEO04:40
Stocks dropped sharply again because of the fast-spreading coronavirus
“The majority of this is just growing concern about the fallout from the virus because it’s spreading,” said Tom Essaye, founder of the Sevens Report. “For every hour, another group of people have it and it’s in another state. People are getting a bit nervous about this constant barrage of headlines.”
That angst fueled investor demand for safer assets like U.S. Treasurys and gold. The tumbling yields kept pressure on bank stocks, which led the major indexes lower. JPMorgan and Bank of America both dropped about 5%.
Airline stocks also took a huge beating, leading the declines in the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which dipped into bear market territory Thursday. United Airlines cratered 13.4%, while American Airlines tanked 13.2%, suffering its worst day since 2016.
The market moves came amid a roller-coaster week on Wall Street, which saw the 30-stock Dow swinging 1,000 points or higher twice in the past three days.
The Dow posted its second-biggest point gain on Wednesday as major wins from former Vice President Joe Biden during Super Tuesday sparked a relief rally, especially in the health-care sector. Investors also cheered signs of a global response to the outbreak, including a more than $8 billion in emergency funding from Congress.
“The optimism coming off Super Tuesday has come and gone and we reverted to being driven by fear over the containment of the virus and the impact it’s going to have on the global economy down the road,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E-Trade.
The move failed to assuage stock market concerns about the potential economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak and triggered sharp movements in the markets.
“Despite the rally in stocks [Wednesday], Treasury yields and gold prices did not respond in-kind,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. “None of the other markets saw the kinds of moves yesterday that would indicate that we’re out of the woods on the negative impact of the coronavirus. In other words, many other markets are still sending up warning signals.”
Investors will monitor a key jobs report on Friday for signs of any negative impact on the labor market from the coronavirus. The U.S. economy is expected to have added 175,000 jobs in February, down from 225,000 in January.
The weekly jobless claims data on Thursday underscored the labor market strength despite the outbreak. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 3,000 to 216,000 for the week ended Feb. 29. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would fall to 215,000 in the latest week.
—CNBC’s Thomas Franck and Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
Cruise Ship Held Off California Becomes New Focus of Concern
A cruise liner bound for San Francisco from Hawaii is believed to be linked to two coronavirus cases, one of them fatal. More cases were found in a number of states, including Texas and New Jersey.
Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke last month at the California Department of Public Health. He announced a state of emergency in the state on Wednesday.Credit…Max Whittaker for The New York Times
A cruise ship bound for California is believed linked to the first U.S. death outside Washington State.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that a cruise ship returning to California from Hawaii that had suspected links to two coronavirus cases, one of them fatal, was being held off the coast of San Francisco, as public health officials prepared to screen everyone on the ship.
Eleven passengers and 10 crew members on the boat were showing symptoms on Wednesday, the governor said. “That number may significantly understate” the scope of infection, he said, or “it may indeed be abundance of caution.”
“The ship will not come on shore until we appropriately assess the passengers,” Mr. Newsom added.
The governor also announced that the state was declaring a state of emergency to help mobilize its response to the coronavirus outbreak. The number of cases in the state shot up to 54 on Wednesday, the most in the nation.
Governor Newsom said that about 2,500 people, more than half of them Californians, had been aboard the ship, identified by its owners as the Grand Princess, during a recent voyage from San Francisco to Mexico. One of those passengers died Wednesday in Placer County, Calif., the first U.S. coronavirus death outside Washington State and the 11th overall. Another passenger was being treated for the illness in Sonoma County. State and federal officials were racing to contact others who had been on board.
Mr. Newsom said the ship had gone on to Hawaii after its stop in Mexico, and then had sailed back toward California with some of the passengers from the original San Francisco-to-Mexico leg of the voyage still on board.
The person who died in Placer County had underlying health conditions and had been in isolation at a hospital after falling ill. Officials believe the patient was probably exposed to the virus on the San Francisco-to-Mexico leg of the voyage last month.
The New York Times would like to hear from health care providers who are struggling to get patients tested for coronavirus or are having difficulty getting sufficient medical supplies. Please email us at coronavirus@nytimes.com. A reporter may contact you to follow up. Thank you.
Health officials in Los Angeles County announced six new cases on Wednesday, and Santa Clara County announced three more cases. The virus has been detected across the United States, but so far has been concentrated on the West Coast.
A person who conducted medical screenings at Los Angeles International Airport tested positive for the virus, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday. The person last worked at the airport on Feb. 21, eight days before showing symptoms of infection, the agency said.
Each of the six new cases reported by Los Angeles County was linked to a known exposure, a history of international travel or contact with someone who had traveled or been diagnosed with the virus, officials said.
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak
The virus has infected more than 97,800 people in at least 81 countries.
A Facebook contractor in Seattle has tested positive for the virus.
Facebook on Wednesday said that a worker in the company’s Seattle offices tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, making it the second major tech company in the city to be affected by the outbreak.
The tech industry is vital to the economy of Washington State, where a cluster of infections has taken root and 10 people have died, leading companies there to take extra measures to halt the spread of the virus.
“A contractor based in our Stadium East office has been diagnosed with Covid-19,” said Andy Stone, a company spokesman. “We’ve notified our employees and are following the advice of public health officials to prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”
The Seattle area is Facebook’s largest engineering outpost outside of its Bay Area headquarters. It had 5,000 employees in the region as of last September, when it announced plans to expand even more.
2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates
CDC estimates* that, from October 1, 2019, through February 22, 2020, there have been:
32,000,000 – 45,000,000
flu illnesses
14,000,000 – 21,000,000
flu medical visits
310,000 – 560,000
flu hospitalizations
18,000 – 46,000
flu deaths
*Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza. These estimates are calculated based on CDC’s weekly influenza surveillance data and are preliminary.
This web page provides weekly, preliminary estimates of the cumulative in-season numbers of flu illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States. CDC does not know the exact number of people who have been sick and affected by influenza because influenza is not a reportable disease in most areas of the U.S. However, CDC has estimated the burden of flu since 2010 using a mathematical model that is based on data collected through the U.S. Influenza Surveillance System, a network that covers approximately 8.5% of the U.S. population (~27 million people).
Limitations
The estimates of the cumulative burden of seasonal influenza are subject to several limitations.
First, the cumulative rate of laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations reported during the season may be an under-estimate of the rate at the end of the season because of identification and reporting delays.
Second, rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations were adjusted for the frequency of influenza testing and the sensitivity of influenza diagnostic assays. However, data on testing practices during the 2019-2020 season are not available in real-time. CDC used data on testing practices from the past influenza seasons as a proxy. Burden estimates will be updated at a later date when data on contemporary testing practices become available.
Third, estimates of influenza-associated illness and medical visits are based on data from prior seasons, which may not be accurate if the seriousness of illness or patterns of care-seeking have changed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the cumulative burden of influenza for the 2019-2020 season mean?
The cumulative burden of influenza is an estimate of the number of people who have been sick, seen a healthcare provider, been hospitalized, or died as a result of influenza since October 01, 2018. CDC does not know the exact number of people who have been sick and affected by influenza because influenza is not a reportable disease in most areas of the United States. However, these numbers are estimated using a mathematical model, based on observed rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations.
How does CDC estimate the cumulative burden of seasonal influenza?
Preliminary estimates of the cumulative burden of seasonal influenza during the 2019-2020 season in the United States are based on crude rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations, reported through the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET), which were adjusted for the frequency of influenza testing during recent prior seasons and the sensitivity of influenza diagnostic assays. Rates of hospitalization were then multiplied by previously estimated ratio of hospitalizations to symptomatic illnesses, and frequency of seeking medical care to calculate symptomatic illnesses, medical visits, and deaths associated with seasonal influenza, respectively.
Why does the estimate of cumulative burden change each week?
The estimates of cumulative burden of seasonal influenza are considered preliminary and may change each week as new laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations are reported to CDC. New reports include both new admissions that have occurred during the reporting week and also patients admitted in previous weeks that have been newly reported to CDC.
How does the number of flu hospitalizations estimated so far this season compare with previous end-of-season hospitalization estimates?
The number of hospitalizations estimated so far this season is lower than end-of-season total hospitalization estimates for any season since CDC began making these estimates. This table also summarizes all estimated influenza disease burden, by season, in U.S. from 2010-11 through 2017-18.
Preliminary Cumulative Estimates of Hospitalizations in the U.S. 2019-2020 Flu Season
*These estimates are preliminary and based on data from CDC’s weekly influenza surveillance reports summarizing key influenza activity indicators.
Estimated number of influenza-associated hospitalizations
The y-axis extends from 0 to 1 million.
The x-axis is a timeline starting October 5, 2019 and extending to May 30, 2020.
There is a single blue-shaded curve labeled with “2019/20”.
There are several other lines on the right side of the graph under Total hospitalizations at end of past seasons. The lines are labeled, from top to bottom, as 2018/19, 2017/18, 2014/15, 2016/17, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2015/16, 2010/11, and 2011/12 and represent the estimated burden for these seasons. This allows for the comparison of the current season to past seasons.
(Bloomberg) — Highly contagious and manifesting in some with little or no symptoms, the coronavirus has the world struggling to keep up. But when it comes to containing the epidemic, one country may be cracking the code — by doubling down on testing.
South Korea is experiencing the largest virus epidemic outside of China, where the pneumonia-causing pathogen first took root late last year. But unlike China, which locked down a province of more than 60 million people to try and stop the illness spreading, Korea hasn’t put any curbs on internal movement in place, instead testing hundreds of thousands of people everywhere from clinics to drive-through stations.
It appears to be paying off in a lower-than-average mortality rate. The outbreak is also showing signs of being largely contained in Daegu, the city about 150 miles south of Seoul where most of the country’s more than 5,700 infections have emerged. South Korea reported the rate of new cases dropped three days in a row.
It’s an approach born out of bitter experience.
An outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in 2015 killed 38 people in South Korea, with a lack of kits to test for the MERS pathogen meaning infected patients went from hospital to hospital seeking help, spreading the virus widely. Afterward, the country created a system to allow rapid approval of testing kits for viruses which have the potential to cause pandemics.
When the novel coronavirus emerged, that system allowed regulators to collaborate quickly with local biotech companies and researchers to develop testing kits based on a genetic sequence of the virus released by China in mid-January. Firms were then granted accreditation to make and sell the kits within weeks –a process that usually takes a year.
In a short space of time, South Korea has managed to test more than 140,000 people for the novel coronavirus, using kits with sensitivity rates of over 95%, according to the director of the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine.
That’s in stark contrast to countries like its neighbor Japan and the U.S., where the issues China experienced early on — with unreliable and inadequate testing resulting in thousands of infected patients not being quarantined until it was too late — are now threatening to play out.
Read more: Limited Virus Testing in Japan Masks True Scale of Infection
Testing widely has meant South Korea knows where its infections are centered, and so far they’ve been able to keep them largely contained with outbreaks beyond Daegu in the minority. In the capital Seoul, home to 10 million people, there have only been 103 infections.
President Moon Jae-in has cast the virus fight as a battle, saying the country is “at war,” with a pathogen that’s killed 3,200 people globally and sickened more than 94,000. With parliamentary elections due in April, his government is under pressure to curb the outbreak and has faced criticism for not closing the border fully to travelers from China. Moon’s administration is seizing on the country’s testing apparatus as a solution.
The emphasis on diagnosis is also being credited with helping patients get treatment early, bringing the mortality rate from the virus to under 1% — below every other affected country save Singapore, where the outbreak is on a much smaller scale.
How One Patient Turned Korea’s Virus Outbreak Into an Epidemic
“The coronavirus is highly contagious and even those without symptoms can transmit the virus, which makes it hard to stop infection among communities,” said Lee Hyukmin, director at the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine and a professor at Yonsei Severance Hospital. “Without enough testing capabilities, the death rate will be high as the delay worsens the damage in the lungs.”
By late February, when South Korea’s outbreak began to accelerate, four local companies had approval to sell kits to test for the virus. The country is now able to test more than 10,000 people a day. In neighboring Japan, only 2,684 people in total have been tested as of March 3.
The tests can deliver results within hours, with sensitivity rates of over 90% and are relatively easy to administer. Officials in Seoul have started operating “drive-through” testing stations in three districts where people can get tested without leaving their cars.
The country is also exporting its testing kits elsewhere, including to China, Europe and Pakistan, according to the manufacturers.
Seegene Inc., a diagnostics company based in Seoul, started developing its coronavirus testing kit during the Lunar New Year holiday in late January.
“It was an adventurous investment for the company to start developing the test kit, as we weren’t sure how contagious the virus would be at the time,” said Park Yo-han, an investor-relations manager at Seegene. “We thought we needed to contribute to society.”
The company’s stock fell slightly Thursday after soaring 21% this year on expectations its sales will grow.
While pharmaceutical giants like Roche Holding AG have also developed reliable coronavirus testing kits, Seegene can churn out tests more quickly using a production system automated with artificial intelligence, said Shin Jae-hoon, an analyst at Hanwha Investment & Securities Co.
The country’s inroads in test kit production also reflect South Korea’s position as a powerhouse for complex manufacturing, with electronic parts like memory chips and OLED displays that go into smartphones and laptops made there. The country spends more of its economic output on scientific and technological research than its most advanced rivals like Japan and Germany.
In Hubei province, the region of China which has been devastated by the virus and is still under mass quarantine, the shortage of tests and their tendency to throw up false negatives meant that thousands of infected patients were not hospitalized before they spread the virus widely to other people.
“China used massive social distancing to respond to the outbreak, but that would be difficult to replicate in most countries and might have adverse economic consequences,” said Ben Cowling, associate professor at the School of Public Health of University of Hong Kong.
Similar issues are now cropping up elsewhere. Japan is facing criticism for a failure to test widely and well: two passengers let off a cruise ship the country locked down for weeks in Yokohama harbor to contain the virus tested positive after they returned home. Local officials from Tokyo to further-flung prefectures like Wakayama say they don’t have enough test kits.
The U.S. case tally — at 126 infections and 11 deaths — has some speculating the country just isn’t testing enough. New York and Florida have complained of faulty tests and a shortage of supply, and fewer than 2,000 people have been been checked for the virus nationally as of last week.
Similar scenarios are playing out other virus hot spots like Iran and Italy. Expanded testing will likely show that transmission within communities has been taking place for longer than realized, said Raina MacIntyre, professor of infectious diseases at the University of New South Wales. “In the US, the emergence of cases with no risk factors suggests that community transmission is a serious concern,” she said.
For South Korea, widespread testing has helped it get a handle on the scale of the epidemic, but once diagnosed with the virus patients need to be isolated and treated. In Daegu, hospital beds are running out and public anger is rising over a shortage of masks and other supplies.
“We are testing people on the biggest scale, at the fastest pace in the world, and disclosing the results transparently and instantly to public,” Moon said in a speech on Tuesday. “We believe this is the best thing we can do for now in order to prevent further spread in local communities.”
(Updates with latest coronavirus data throughout)
–With assistance from Jihye Lee.
To contact the reporters on this story: Heejin Kim in Seoul at hkim579@bloomberg.net;Sohee Kim in Seoul at skim847@bloomberg.net;Claire Che in Beijing at yche16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Emma O’Brien
The Senate passed by a vote of 96-1 the spending bill for the outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), which will be on President Donald Trump’s desk by week’s end. The bill provides $7.8 billion in new funds to tackle the outbreak and another $490 million in existing funds for telehealth, all with the aim of speeding the response to the pathogen.
The sole nay vote was posted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had floated an amendment to provide an offset for the new appropriations with a rescind of monies for unobligated balances for international programs. That amendment faltered, although the amendment drew 16 aye votes against the 80 nay votes. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) urged his colleagues to vote yes on the spending bill (H.R. 6074), citing the urgency of containing the pathogen, a sentiment seconded by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, who emphasized the bipartisan nature of the support.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) noted that many businesses and school districts in the state of Washington are shutting down due to the large volume of diagnoses in the Evergreen State. Cantwell said authorities in King County, Washington, are recommending that some residents, including those aged 60 or older, avoid public places, adding that airlines urgently need guidance on how to avoid spreading the virus.
“We need these funds, we need them now, and we need other states to observe the early testing,” Cantwell said, adding, “let’s get as aggressive about early testing as possible.”
Convention cancellations piling up
The impact of the virus on meetings was already being felt before the Senate vote, with the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) announcing that its annual meeting was cancelled. Karen Groppe, senior director of communications at Chicago-based HIMSS, said in a March 5 statement that the potential reach of the virus had expanded in the 24 hours prior to the decision, likely a reference to the three confirmed cases in the state of Florida (the meeting was to be held March 9-13 in Orlando, Fla.). At the time of the vote, the U.S. CDC was working to confirm a fourth diagnosis in Florida.
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) said in a March 3 statement that its annual meeting, scheduled for March 28-30 in Chicago, will take place as scheduled, although ACC leadership is monitoring developments.
CMS had created a new health care common procedure coding system (HCPCS) code for coronavirus testing in February (U0001), and has sent an email to Medicare beneficiaries stating that tests are covered via the Part B benefit, assuming a health care professional orders the test. Tests were covered by Medicare as of Feb. 4, but Medicare administrative contractors will not process claims until April 1. The Department of Health and Human Services said it plans to purchase 500 million N95 masks to add to the federal government’s stockpile, which would in turn prompt manufacturers to turn out more production.
Two members of Congress, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), penned a March 4 letter to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America inquiring into the prospects for drug shortages stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak. The letter asks for information pertaining to the availability of active pharmaceutical ingredients manufactured in China, and copied the executives with several pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, of New Brunswick, N.J., and Gilead Sciences Inc., of Foster City, Calif.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on a March 4 coronavirus task force briefing that in addition to the FDA’s emergency use authorization, major diagnostic companies have decided to offer diagnostics for the pathogen. Quest Diagnostics Inc. of Secaucus, N.J., said it will begin screening for the virus March 9, although the company did not indicate how many tests it would be able to conduct.
The American Telehealth Association, of Arlington, Va., said in a March 5 statement that the inclusion of funds for telehealth in the COVID-19 legislation and a concomitant waiver of telehealth restrictions will allow timely diagnoses and treatment while cutting down on the spread of the virus. Ann Mond Johnson, the association’s CEO, said, “we are heartened by the swift actions being taken by Congress” to address the crisis, adding that the situation highlights the benefits of telehealth in both routine care and during public health crises.
Johnson said also that the CMS should implement the waiver authority as quickly as possible to ensure that health care professionals understand the requirements and to “help speed the deployment of virtual services.”
Mike Pence admits America does NOT have enough testing kits to meet coronavirus demand as senators are told pledge for one million this week will NOT happen
Mike Pence said the White House would not be able to follow through on its promise to deliver 1 million coronavirus testing kits by the end of this week
‘We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,’ the vice president admitted
He made the remarks while visiting a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday
Earlier this week, Pence and other administration officials vowed the new kits would be available for doctors and local health officials
But Thursday, senators revealed that the testing kits would not be delivered in the capacity promised
‘There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week. It’s way smaller than that,’ Republican senator Rick Scott said
Senator James Lankford said. ‘It’s going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.’
In Washington state medical staff report anger when among people told they could not be tested for the coronavirus due to limited capacity
Clinics in the Seattle area reported an increase in patients seeking tests after the state reported 39 cases of coronavirus and 10 deaths – but cannot meet demand
Mike Pence admitted Thursday that the administration will not be able to follow meet its promise to deliver one million coronavirus testing kits by the end of the week.
‘We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,’ Pence said during a visit to a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday afternoon.
‘We’re focused very much on a cruise ship just off the California coast today. The Coast Guard delivered a sufficient number of tests for the passengers on that ship,’ the vice president said.
Pence spoke after Trump boasted in a tweet that there were only 129 cases of the virus in the U.S. – but that number is a result of the tiny number of tests which have so far taken place.
The unfolding test fiasco started in January.
The initial test developed to check individuals for if they had contracted coronavirus was flawed and led to several weeks of delays for local health officials and doctors who could not independently check patients for the fast-spreading respiratory virus.
Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the White House would not be able to follow through on its promise to deliver 1 million coronavirus testing kits by the end of this week
On way to crisis zone: Mike Pence went first to Maplewood, Minnesota, for talks with manufacturer 3M, then was headed to Washington state where 10 of the 12 American deaths occurred
‘We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,’ Pence admitted during a visit to a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday afternoon
Boast: Pence spoke after Trump boasted in a tweet that there were only 129 cases of the virus in the U.S. – but that number is a result of the tiny number of tests which have so far taken place.
The CDC says six states are not currently testing for coronavirus but are ‘in progress’: Alabama, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming. But MaineHealth said it has begun testing and is sending samples to the CDC
Instead, doctors had to send samples off to the Centers for Disease Control for confirmation.
‘As more Americans take an interest in this or have concerns about this, we want to make sure they have access to the coronavirus test as well and we’ve made real progress on that in the last several days,’ Pence continued in remarks at the manufacturing plant in Minnesota.
In Washington D.C. the surgeon general, Jerome Adams, refused to answer questions from reporters but did appear on Fox News where he was not asked about testing kits.
So far 12 Americans have died after contracting coronavirus – 11 in Washington state and one in California.
There are more than 150 confirmed cases in the U.S. as of Wednesday as the president continues to downplay the outbreak.
The nation’s top immunologist at National Institute of Health, Anthony Fauci, said the virus has reached ‘pandemic proportions.’
Promises of accurate testing results come after changes have been made to the kits – but the news is accompanied by confusion over the messaging of when they will become available for use.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephan Hahn earlier this week told senators during a hearing that the U.S. would be able to perform 1 million tests by the end of this week, which Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar backed up during a White House briefing Wednesday.
Pence also said at the Wednesday briefing that 1.5 million tests would be going out this week.
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS?
Like other coronaviruses, including those that cause the common cold and that triggered SARS, COVID-19 is a respiratory illness.
The most common symptoms are:
Fever
Dry cough
Shortness of breath
Difficulty breathing
Fatigue
Although having a runny nose doesn’t rule out coronavirus, it doesn’t thus far appear to be a primary symptom.
Most people only become mildly ill, but the infection can turn serious and even deadly, especially for those who are older or have underlying health conditions.
In these cases, patients develop pneumonia, which can cause:
Potentially with yellow, green or bloody mucus
Fever, sweating and shaking chills
Shortness of breath
Rapid or shallow breathing
Pain when breathing, especially when breathing deeply or coughing
Low appetite, energy and fatigue
Nausea and vomiting (more common in children)
Confusion (more common in elderly people)
Some patients have also reported diarrhea and kidney failure has occassionally been a complication.
Avoid people with these symtpoms. If you develop them, call your health care provider before going to the hospital or doctor, so they and you can prepare to minimize possivle exposure if they suspect you have coronavirus.
But that claim fell apart Thursday as senators revealed that the testing kits would not be delivered in the capacity promised.
‘There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,’ Republican Senator Rick Scott said Thursday, according to Bloomberg News.
‘It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public health departments.’
While the government is ‘in the process’ of sending kits out, lawmakers said the process could take days to weeks as people are trained on how to use them.
‘By the end of the week they’re getting them out to the mail,’ Republican Senator James Lankford said. ‘It’s going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.’
The issue is affecting people around the country, with the CDC saying six states are currently not testing for coronavirus.
The federal health agency published a map of all states and territories with at least one laboratory using diagnostic tests for the disease.
Almost every states is listed as currently testing for coronavirus, except Alabama, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Those six states are currently listed as being ‘in progress,’ according to the map key.
However, MaineHealth announced that it has begun testing and is sending samples to the CDC.
Maine say it has begun testing and is sending swabs from test kits to the CDC.
Oklahoma’s Department of Health announced on Tuesday that it plans to do its own coronavirus testing.
The Ohio Department of Health says it will be conducted its own testing later this week and Alabama and Wyoming say they’re in the process of setting up their laboratories.
Meanwhile, Washington state officials are urging patience as medical staff report fear and anger among people told they could not be tested for the coronavirus due to limited capacity.
Clinics in the Seattle area reported an increase in patients seeking tests after the state reported 39 cases of coronavirus and 10 deaths.
Health officials and front-line medical staff in Seattle’s King County, the location of most cases, asked mildly sick people to stay home rather than inundate clinics and hospitals for tests and risk infecting others.
Thousands of passengers are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship that was banned on Wednesday from returning to its home port of San Francisco from a voyage to Hawaii amid the suspected coronavirus outbreak (file image)
‘We know there is huge demand out there for testing, we know there are a lot of people in our state who are sick and they want to know if they have [coronavirus],’ state health officer Kathy Lofy said at a news conference.
‘I want to tell you we are doing everything possible to expand testing capacity here in our state.’
Nurse practitioner Paula Ruedebusch, who works at an urgent care clinic in the Seattle suburb of Monroe, asked patients not to take out frustrations on front-line medical staff.
‘We have had patients presenting here, angry that they cannot be tested for COVID-19, yelling, cussing, throwing their dirty mask at us and even spitting their secretions on the floor and walls on their way out,’ Ruedebusch wrote on Facebook.
‘Please don’t do that. We are not the ones making the decisions here, we are just the ones trying to triage, manage and treat those who are sick and injured…and, that is just gross.
Map showing the numbers of cases of the coronavirus per country
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING TESTED FOR CORONAVIRUS
On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that any American can be tested for coronavirus as long as a doctor approves it.
The move appears to expand upon previous criteria needed for testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But how do you determine if you have symptoms of COVID-19 and when you should see a doctor?
We break down everything you need to know about being tested for the virus that has infected more than 120 Americans and killed at least nine.
WHAT ARE THE LATEST GUIDELINES FOR BEING TESTED?
There are three groups of people that the CDC recommends get tested.
1. People with symptoms such as fever, cough or shortness of breath who have been in ‘close contact’ with someone confirmed to have coronavirus
2. Patients with symptoms who have traveled to areas affected by the virus within the last 14 days
3. Those with symptoms who need to be hospitalized and no other cause for their illness is found. They don’t need to have a travel history or exposure to another patient
HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM THE PREVIOUS CRITERIA?
When the CDC first began testing, only those with a travel history to China – where the outbreak emerged – or those who had been exposed to a confirmed coronavirus patient were tested.
However, the agency says its criteria for testing is always ‘subject to change as additional information becomes available.’
WHAT TO DO IF YOU NEED A TEST?
Health officials strongly advise that anyone who believes they may be infected not show up unannounced at their doctor’s office in case they expose others to the highly-contagious disease.
Instead, the CDC suggests immediately calling your physician or healthcare provider.
‘Your healthcare professional will work with your state’s public health department and CDC to determine if you need to be tested for COVID-19,’ the CDC’s website states.
If you are suspected of having the virus, you will most likely get tested at a hospital.
The test involves getting a swab of the patient’s nostril and throat. If the patient has a wet cough, a sample of sputum (a mixture of saliva and mucus) will also be collected.
WHY HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO GET TESTED?
There have been multiple reports of people not having accessing to get tested.
The first batch of test kits that the CDC sent to state and local health departments were faulty, which led to a delay.
Secondly, the CDC had strict criteria for testing, which led to missed diagnoses of people who caught the virus from so-called ‘community spread,’ meaning it’s unknown how they were infected.
A third reason is that some health departments did not leave the decision to test up to doctors as the CDC suggested.
For instance, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health initially required doctors to call a hotline to determine if their patients met CDC criteria for testing.
Then, before the test could be administered, it had to be authorized at the State Public Health Lab.
WILL IT BE EASIER TO GET TESTED NOW?
Since the CDC’s testing fiasco, several health departments have either received new kits from the federal agency or made their own.
Additionally, the US Food and Drug Administration expanded its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) policy so allow more labs can apply for approval to test for the virus.
The CDC that 75,000 test kits are currently available and more are being manufactured.
FDA Commissioner Dr Stephen Han told reporters on Monday that close to one million people would be tested by the end of the week.
But figures from the Association of Public Health Laboratories show that likely no more than 100,000 people would be tested by week’s end.
Story 4: World Health Organization Appeals To Governments to Pull Out The Stops To Contain COVID-19 — Videos
WHO Urges the Globe to ‘Pull Out the Stops’ Against Coronavirus Outbreak
How to protect yourself against COVID-19
This is not a drill’: WHO urges the world to fight virus
By MATT SEDENSKY and JOHN LEICESTER34 minutes ago
The global march of the new virus triggered a vigorous appeal Thursday from the World Health Organization for governments to pull out “all the stops” to slow the epidemic, as it drained color from India’s spring festivities, closed Bethlehem’s Nativity Church and blocked Italians from visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes.
As China, after many arduous weeks, appeared to be winning its epic, costly battle against the new virus, the fight was revving up in newly affected areas of the globe, unleashing disruptions that profoundly impacted billions of people.
The U.N. health agency urged all countries to “push this virus back,” a call to action reinforced by figures showing about 17 times as many new infections outside China as in it. The virus has infected nearly 98,000 people and killed over 3,300.
“This is not a drill. This is not the time for giving up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans.”
In Italy, the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak, workers in latex gloves pinned “closed” notices on school gates, enforcing a 10-day shutdown of the education system. Italy’s sports-mad fans are also barred from stadiums until April 3.
A government decree that took effect Thursday urged the country’s famously demonstrative citizens to stay at least 1 meter (3 feet) apart from each other, placed restrictions on visiting nursing homes and urged the elderly not to go outside unless absolutely necessary.
That directive appeared to be widely ignored, as school closures nationwide left many Italian children in the care of their grandparents. Parks in Rome overflowed with young and old, undercutting government efforts to shield older Italians from the virus that hits the elderly harder than others. Italy has the world’s oldest population after Japan.
“It’s an absolute paradox!” said Mauro Benedetti, a 73-year-old retiree called upon to watch his grandson. “They tell us to stay home. How can we help our kids and grandkids at the same time?”
“Grandparents are now at risk,” he said.
Italy’s death toll climbed Thursday to 148, and its confirmed cases to 3,858.
Iran, which has registered 107 virus deaths, also closed schools and universities and introduced checkpoints to limit travel between major cities. Iranians were urged to reduce their use of paper money. Iranian state TV also reported that Hossein Sheikholeslam, a 68-year-old diplomat who was an adviser to Iran’s foreign minister, had died of the virus.
Amid the string of bad news, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged state television to offer “happier” programs to entertain those stuck at home.
Brian Hook, the U..S. special representative for Iran, said the United States offered humanitarian assistance to help Iran deal with its outbreak but “the regime rejected the offer.” He said the offer would stand.
Virus fears also affected the joyful Indian celebration of Holi, in which Hindu revelers celebrate the arrival of spring with bursts of color, including bright powders smeared on faces. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders said they wouldn’t attend Holi events and the Holi Moo Festival in New Delhi was canceled.
In the United States, where 12 have died from the virus, hundreds were placed in self-quarantines due to cases in a New York suburb. A suburban Seattle school district with 22,000 students announced it would close for up to two weeks because of coronavirus concerns and Seattle’s normally clogged highways were nearly vacant for Thursday’s morning commute as large tech employers like Amazon encouraged employees to work from home.
In Seattle, health officials recommended that the elderly and people with weak immune systems not attend games after an employee at the 72,000-seat football stadium tested positive for the coronavirus.
Off the coast of California, a cruise ship carrying about 3,500 people was ordered to stay put until passengers and crew could be tested because a traveler from its previous voyage died and another three were infected. A helicopter delivered test kits to the ship, which has people aboard with flu-like symptoms — lowering the kits by rope to the 951-foot (290-meter) Grand Princess
Financial markets remained volatile, as investors continued to weigh the size of the epidemic’s dent on the global economy. Outbreak fears led to a sharp U.S. stock selloff, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 969 points, or 3.6 percent, nearly wiping out gains from a day earlier. Analysts said more yo-yo moves on global markets are likely while new infections accelerate.
The OPEC oil cartel called for a deep production cut to keep crude prices from falling further as disruption to global business from the coronavirus slashes demand from air travel and industry — deciding Thursday to push for a cut of 1.5 million barrels a day, or about 1.5% of total world supply.
Across the globe, travelers faced ever-greater disruptions, as countries sought to keep the virus out. But South Africa confirmed its first case Thursday, becoming the seventh African nation to report infections. Britain and Switzerland reported their first coronavirus deaths.
“The virus doesn’t care about race and belief or color. It is attacking us all, equally,” said Ian MacKay, who studies viruses at the University of Queensland in Australia.
The outlook for the travel industry was increasingly grim. The International Air Transport Association said the outbreak could cost airlines as much as $113 billion in lost revenue. The struggling British airline Flybe collapsed Thursday amid sinking demand.
Australia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates were among the countries banning entry from people coming from countries that had outbreaks.
Germany’s Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Austrian Airlines and Swiss said they will cancel all flights to and from Israel for three weeks starting Sunday after Israeli authorities announced tough restrictions on travelers from several countries because of the new virus.
Palestinian officials closed the storied Church of the Nativity in the biblical city of Bethlehem indefinitely, weeks ahead of the busy Easter holiday.
Japan said visitors from China and South Korea would face a two-week quarantine at a government facility and be barred from public transit. Sri Lankans arriving from Italy, South Korea and Iran will be quarantined at a hospital once used for leprosy patients.
In China, where hospitals were releasing hundreds of recovered patients, officials reported 139 new infection cases and 31 more deaths. Overall, China has reported 80,409 cases and 3,012 deaths, and authorities say about 6,000 people remained hospitalized in serious condition.
A state visit to Japan by Chinese President Xi Jinping was postponed. It was to have been the first for a Chinese leader since 2008.
___
Sedensky is an AP National Writer. Leicester reported from Paris. Contributing to this report were Kim Tong-Hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo; Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka; Ken Moritsugu in Beijing; Aniruddha Ghosal and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Nicole Winfield in Rome, Geir Moulson in Berlin; Stan Choe in New York; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Elaine Ganley in Paris, and Danica Kirka in London.
___
The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Story 5: Senator Warren Withdraws From Race Blames Sexism — Nonsense — American People Have Their Own Plans That Do Not Include Warren — Will She Endorse Male Progressive Bernie Sanders — Too Little — Too Late — Videos
Elizabeth Warren drops out of U.S. presidential race, offers no endorsement | FULL
‘Not today’: Elizabeth Warren declines to endorse Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders after she finally quits presidential race but says she WILL have more to say about ‘sexism’
Massachusetts senator pulls the plug on her campaign
But she did not immediately endorse either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders
‘Not today. I need some space around this, and I want to take a little time to think a little more,’ she said outsider her home in Massachusetts
Warren had been in talks with both campaigns since her dismal Super Tuesday showing when she even failed to win Massachusetts
Warren led the field early on but saw her star slowly fade as Pete Buttigieg won Iowa, Sanders took New Hampshire and Biden won South Carolina
Her biggest prize was effectively driving Mike Bloomberg out of the race by tearing into him at the two debates he took part in
Trump mocked her throughout her campaign as Pocahontas over her claims to have Native American heritage
Elizabeth Warren ended her presidential campaign on Thursday but is not endorsing either of the two remaining candidates – Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders – at least not yet.
‘Not today. I need some space around this, and I want to take a little time to think a little more. I’ve been spending a lot of time right now on the question of suspending and also making sure that this works as best we can for our staff, for our team, for our volunteers,’ she told reporters outside her home in Cambridge, Mass.
‘We don’t have to decide that this minute,’ she noted, saying she would advise her supporters to ‘take a deep breath’ and think about who they would want to give their blessing.
Warren bowed out after failing to win any states in the Democratic primary process – even losing her home state of Massachusetts.
+10
Elizabeth Warren declined to endorse either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders after she dropped out of the Democratic presidential race
Elizabeth Warren also said she’d have more to say about the role gender and sexism played in the Democratic primary process
She acknowledged the role gender played in the race.
‘Gender in this race, you know that is the big question for everyone. If you say, yeah, there was sexism in this race, everyone says, whiner. And if you say, no, there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, what planet do you live on? I promise you this, I’ll have a lot more to say on that subject later on,’ she said.
She also referenced the ‘pinkie’ promises she made with little girls on the campaign trail about a woman being in the contest.
‘I take those pinkie promises seriously,’ she said.
Her decision means there will be a female will not win the presidential nomination after women expressed their fury at President Trump’s election.
‘The hardest part of this is all those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years. That’s going to be hard,’ she said.
She choked up a few times when she talked to the press about her decision with her husband Bruce and dog Bailey at her side.
‘I stood in that voting booth and I looked down and saw my name on the ballot. And I thought, wow, kiddo, you’re not in Oklahoma anymore. That it really was a moment of thinking about how my mother and dad, if they were still here, would feel about this,’ she said.
‘It was a long time standing in that booth. I miss my mommy and my daddy,’ she added.
Elizabeth Warren choked up a few times when she talked about her decision to exit the race
Elizabeth Warren exits her Massachusetts home with her husband Bruce to face a crowd of reporters and discuss the end of her presidential campaign
Warren announced her decision Thursday morning in a call with her staff, thanking them for their work.
‘I know that when we set out, this was not the call you ever wanted to hear. It is not the call I ever wanted to make. But I refuse to let disappointment blind me – or you – to what we’ve accomplished. We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together – what you have done – has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters – and the changes will have ripples for years to come,’ she said.
She also vowed that ‘our place in this fight has not ended.’
‘The fight may take a new form, but I will be in that fight, and I want you in this fight with me. We will persist,’ she said.
Her decision means that the contest is a simple two horse race between Biden, 77, and Sanders, 78, with Biden currently ahead thanks to his dramatic Super Tuesday come back.
President Trump, who called her ‘very selfish,’ for staying the race, claiming she was doing so to keep Sanders from winning the nomination, slammed her exiting the contest ‘THREE DAYS TOO LATE.’
‘Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary…THREE DAYS TOO LATE. She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas. Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass,’ he wrote on Twitter.
Warren, who led the field early on, saw her star slowly fade as Pete Buttigieg won Iowa, Sanders took New Hampshire and Biden won South Carolina.
Out at last: Elizabeth Warren took 36 hours to bow to the inevitable, finally quitting the presidential race Thursday morning after a disastrous Super Tuesday
Boost? Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are now clear to go against each other – and both were in talks with Elizabeth Warren for her endorsement
She has reportedly been in talks with both Biden and Sanders about her endorsement, a value that will could make her the kingmaker in the Democratic primary, particularly if she bestows it on the former vice president.
Biden has already sealed endorsements from Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Mike Bloomberg.
Warren, a favorite of the progressives, was never able to capture the liberal left like Sanders did.
Her blessing to him would rally the left flank of the party to his side and boost his battle against Biden.
Sanders said on Wednesday he had spoken to Warren that day and she was assessing her campaign.
‘It is important, I think, for all of us… to respect the time and the space that she needs to make her decision,’ he said.
She and Sanders saw their friendship suffer during the campaign when she claimed he told her in a December 2018 meeting that a woman could not be president. He denied the charge.
Warren also spoke with Biden on Wednesday.
President Trump had attacked Warren as ‘selfish’ for not dropping out of the race, claiming her presence was a move by the party to keep Sanders from becoming the nominee since they both appeal to the same voting block.
He accused her of playing a spoiler role in the primary process.
‘So Elizabeth Warren was the single biggest factor in that election last night and it would have been a very different thing and not in a positive way for her,’ Trump said at the White House Wednesday.
Trump had made her the subject of attacks as ‘Pocahontas’ after her botched defense of claims she had Native American heritage, which ended in a DNA test showing that she was likely to be 1,064th Indian.
Tulsi Gabbard remains the lone female candidate in the primary race but her campaign has faltered. She has not appeared on the debate stage in months, barely makes the polls, and only netted a single delegate on Super Tuesday – from American Samoa where she was born.
Warren was the last surviving woman among the major candidates however, staying in long past Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Klobuchar.
Last woman running: Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii congresswoman, remains in the race but has garnered just one delegate – from American Samoa
President Trump repeatedly attacked Elizabeth Warren as ‘Pocahontas,’ based on her claim of Native American DNA, which a test proved false
Her departure will likely raise questions about how Democrats – who brag about their diversity – came down to having two white males as their final contenders for the nomination.
Warren did, in effect, drive Mike Bloomberg from the race.
She decimated him on the debate stage, demanding to know why he wouldn’t release women from the disclosures they signed after complaints about a hostile work environment.
She demanded to know how many women and why he wouldn’t release them, leaving Bloomberg fumbling for an answer and damaging his campaign prospects.
Bloomberg exited the race on Wednesday after pouring nearly a billion dollars in trying to sweep the Super Tuesday contests – only to win American Samoa. He also endorsed Biden.
Warren was known for her policy proposals – ‘I have a plan for that’ was practically her campaign slogan – and her long lines of supporters wanting selfies.
But her many proposals also became part of her down fall. Her rivals pummeled her on her Medicare for All universal health care plan, demanding to how she would pay for it and why people who liked their insurance should give it up.
WHO ARE THE 3 DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020?
JOE BIDEN
Age on Inauguration Day 2021: 78
Entered race: April 25, 2019
Career: No current role. A University of Delaware and Syracuse Law graduate, he was first elected to Newcastle City Council in 1969, then won upset election to Senate in 1972, aged 29. Was talked out of quitting before being sworn in when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and served total of six terms. Chaired Judiciary Committee’s notorious Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Ran for president in 1988, pulled out after plagiarism scandal, ran again in 2008, withdrew after placing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses. Tapped by Obama as his running mate and served two terms as vice president. Contemplated third run in 2016 but decided against it after his son died of brain cancer.
Family: Eldest of four siblings born to Joe Biden Sr. and Catherine Finnegan. First wife Neilia Hunter and their one-year-old daughter Naomi died in car crash which their two sons, Joseph ‘Beau’ and Robert Hunter survived. Married Jill Jacobs in 1976, with whom he has daughter Ashley. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter’s marriage to Kathleen Buhle, with whom he has three children, ended in 2016 when it emerged Hunter was in a relationship with Beau’s widow Hallie, mother of their two children. Hunter admitted cocaine use; his estranged wife accused him of blowing their savings on drugs and prostitutes
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Ultra-moderate who will emphasize bipartisan record. Will come under fire over record, having voted: to stop desegregation bussing in 1975; to overturn Roe v Wade in 1981; for now controversial 1994 Violent Crime Act; for 2003 Iraq War; and for banking deregulation. Says he is ‘most progressive’ Democrat. New positions include free college, tax reform, $15 minimum wage. No public position yet on Green New Deal and healthcare. Pro-gun control. Has already apologized to women who say he touched them inappropriately
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president
Slogan: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead
TULSI GABBARD
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Still to formally file any papers but said she would run on January 11 2019
Career: Currently Hawaii congresswoman. Born on American Samoa, a territory. Raised largely in Hawaii, she co-founded an environmental non-profit with her father as a teenager and was elected to the State Legislature aged 21, its youngest member in history. Enlisted in the National Guard and served two tours, one in Iraq 2004-2006, then as an officer in Kuwait in 2009. Ran for Honolulu City Council in 2011, and House of Representatives in 2012
Family: Married to her second husband, Abraham Williams, a cinematographer since 2015. First marriage to childhood sweetheart Eduardo Tamayo in 2002 ended in 2006. Father Mike Gabbard is a Democratic Hawaii state senator, mother Carol Porter runs a non-profit.
Religion: Hindu
Views on key issues: Has apologized for anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage views; wants marijuana federally legalized; opposed to most U.S. foreign interventions; backs $15 minimum wage and universal health care; was the second elected Democrat to meet Trump after his 2016 victory
Would make history as: First female, Hindu and Samoan-American president; youngest president ever
Slogan: Lead with Love
BERNIE SANDERS
Age on Inauguration Day: 79
Entered race: Sources said on January 25, 2019, that he would form exploratory committee. Officially announced February 19
Career: Currently Vermont senator. Student civil rights and anti-Vietnam activist who moved to Vermont and worked as a carpenter and radical film-maker. Serial failed political candidate in the 1970s, he ran as a socialist for mayor of Burlington in 1980 and served two terms ending in 1989, and win a seat in Congress as an independent in 1990. Ran for Senate in 2006 elections as an independent with Democratic endorsement and won third term in 2018. Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 but lost. Campaign has since been hit by allegations of sexual harassment – for which he has apologized – and criticized for its ‘Bernie bro’ culture
Family: Born to a Jewish immigrant father and the daughter of Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. First marriage to college sweetheart Deborah Shiling Messing in 1964 ended in divorce in 1966; had son Levi in 1969 with then girlfriend Susan Cambell Mott. Married Jone O’Meara in 1988 and considers her three children, all adults, his own. The couple have seven grandchildren. His older brother Larry is a former Green Party councilor in Oxfordshire, England.
Religion: Secular Jewish
Views on key issues: Openly socialist and standard bearer for the Democratic party’s left-turn. Wants federal $15 minimum wage; banks broken up; union membership encouraged; free college tuition; universal health care; re-distributive taxation; he opposed Iraq War and also U.S. leading the fight against ISIS and wants troops largely out of Afghanistan and the Middle East
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president; first Jewish president
Slogan: Not me. Us.
AND THE 26 WHO HAVE WITHDRAWN
MICHAEL BENNET, Colorado senator
Entered race: May 2, 2019
Quit: February 12, 2019, evening of New Hampshire primary
MIKE BLOOMBERG
Entered race: November 24, 2019
Quit: March 4, 2020, day after Super Tuesday primaries
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey Senator
Entered race: February 1, 2019
Quit: January 13, 2020
STEVE BULLOCK, Montana governor
Entered race: May 14, 2019
Quit: December 2, 2019
PETE BUTTIGIEG, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana
Entered race: January 23, 2019
Quit: March 1, 2020, day after South Carolina primary
JULIÁN CASTRO, former Housing Secretary
Entered race: January 18, 2019
Quit: January 2, 2020
BILL DE BLASIO, New York City mayor
Entered race: May 16, 2019
Quit: September 20, 2020
JOHN DELANEY, former Maryland Congressman
Entered race: July 8, 2017
Quit: January 31, 2019
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York senator
Entered race: January 16, 2019
Quit: August 28, 2019
MIKE GRAVEL, Former Alaska governor
Entered race: April 2,2019
Quit: August 2, 2019
KAMALA HARRIS,California senator
Entered race: January 21, 2019
Quit: December 3, 2019
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Former Colorado governor
Entered race: March 4, 2019
Quit: August 15, 2019
JAY INSLEE, Washington governor
Entered race: March 1, 2019
Quit: August 21, 2019
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota senator
Entered race: February 19, 2019
Quit: March 2, 2020
WAYNE MESSAM, mayor of Miramar, Florida
Entered race: March 28, 2019
Quit: November 20, 2019
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts congressman
Entered race: April 22,2019
Quit: August 23, 2019
RICHARD OJEDA, former West Virginia state senator
Entered race: November 12, 2018
Quit: January 25, 2019
BETO O’ROURKE, former Texas congressman
Entered race: March 14, 2019
Quit: November 1, 2019
DEVAL PATRICK, former Massachusetts governor
Entered race: November 13, 2019
Quit: February 13, 2019, morning after New Hampshire primary
TIM RYAN, Ohio congressman
Entered race: April 4, 2019
Quit: October 24, 2019
JOE SESTAK, former Pennsylvania congressman
Entered race: June 23, 2019
Quit: December 1, 2019
TOM STEYER, billionaire activist
Entered race: July 9, 2019
Quit: February 29, 2020
ERIC SWALWELL, California congressman
Entered race: April 8, 2019
Quit: July 8, 2019
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts senator
Entered race: December 31, 2018
Quit: March 5, 2020, two days after Super Tuesday
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, author
Entered race: November 15, 2018
Quit: January 10, 2020
ANDREW YANG, entrepreneur
Entered race: November 6, 2018
Quit: February 12, 2019, evening of New Hampshire primary
Story 1: Department of Justice Will Not Prosecute Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe — When are U.S. Attorney John Durham Indictments Coming Down for Illegally Syping on Trump Campaign? — Summer or 12th of Never — Will Justice Be Done — Videos
FBI Director Confirms to Ratcliffe that FBI Illegally Surveilled Trump Campaign Associate
Feb 10, 2020
Gohmert in Judiciary Hearing on FBI Oversight: “This is Serious”
Hannity: Democrats’ unequal standard of justice exposed
Trish Regan: Andrew McCabe walking free is ‘a total injustice’
Gaetz: An old FBI business card isn’t a ‘get out of jail free card’
Feb 14, 2020
Trump notably quiet on DOJ decision not to prosecute Andrew McCabe
Bannon: GOP has to subpoena John Brennan, Adam Schiff
Feb 8, 2020
DOJ Declines To Prosecute Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC
‘General Flynn was set up’: KT McFarland
IG report hearing part 4: Lindsey Graham questions Michael Horowitz
Dec 11, 2019
Cruz on spying: This wasn’t Jason Bourne, this was ‘Beavis and Butt-head’
Dec 11, 2019
Tom Fitton: Why is the DOJ Editing “302” Interviews They Had With General Flynn?
Sebastian Gorka Radio: Trust Bill Barr and John Durham. Matt Whitaker with Sebastian Gorka
Hans von Spakovsky: CIA Director Haspel is Obligated to Comply with the Durham Investigation
Spygate Indictments Coming, Says Former Intelligence Operative Tony Shaffer
Aug 10, 2019
Fitton: Ohr 302s show ‘disturbing’ desperation to oust Trump
Aug 9, 2019
Tucker Carlson – Trump’s Claims of Spying
May 13, 2019
Did the Obama administration spy on the Trump campaign?
May 22, 2018
FBI Trump campaign spying allegations: How much did Obama know?
May 21, 2018
Roger Stone reacts to reports FBI spied on Trump campaign
May 17, 2018
DiGenova: Comey, Clapper and Brennan will have to pay the ‘Barr bill’
May 14, 2019
Watch Barr double down on Trump spying claims in heated exchange
FBI chief: No evidence of spying on Trump campaign
Barr: ‘I think spying did occur’ on Trump campaign
Apr 10, 2019
Former US attorney: FBI officials will likely face charges
Feb 7, 2018
Should Obama be investigated over Trump wiretapping claims?
Mar 31, 2017
Former FBI agent says his privacy was violated by Justice Dept.
AG Barr appoints outside prosecutor to review Michael Flynn case
Should officials who started the Russia probe be worrying?
Russia origins probe now a criminal investigation
Former US attorney: FBI officials will likely face charges
The proof that he willfully deceived investigators appears strong, but the Justice Department likely felt there were too many obstacles to convicting him.
The Justice Department announced Friday that it is closing its investigation of Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s former deputy director, over his false statements to investigators probing an unauthorized leak that McCabe had orchestrated. McCabe was fired in March 2018, shortly after a blistering Justice Department inspector general (IG) report concluded that he repeatedly and blatantly lied — or, as the Bureau lexicon puts it, “lacked candor” — when questioned, including under oath.
I emphasize Flynn’s intent because purported lack of intent is McCabe’s principal defense, too. Even McCabe himself, to say nothing of his lawyers and his apologists in the anti-Trump network of bureaucrats-turned-pundits, cannot deny that he made false statements to FBI agents and the IG. Rather, they argue that the 21-year senior law-enforcement official did not mean to lie, that he was too distracted by his high-level responsibilities to focus on anything as mundane as a leak — even though he seemed pretty damned focused on the leak while he was orchestrating it.
It will be a while before we learn the whole story of why the Justice Department walked away from the McCabe case, if we ever do. I have some supposition to offer on that score. First, however, it is worth revisiting the case against McCabe as outlined by the meticulous and highly regarded IG, Michael Horowitz. If you want to know why people are so angry, and why they are increasingly convinced that, for all President Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric, a two-tiered justice system that rewards the well-connected is alive and well, consider the following.
In fact, the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey, had tried to keep the Clinton Foundation probe under wraps, refusing to confirm or deny its existence even to the House Judiciary Committee. Comey had been right to stay mum: Public revelation would have harmed the probe and thrust the FBI deeper into the politics of the then-imminent 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton was the Democratic candidate and her investigation by the Bureau was an explosive campaign issue.
Notwithstanding these concerns, according to Horowitz’s report, McCabe orchestrated the leak “to advance his personal interests” — to paint himself in a favorable light in comparison to Justice Department officials amid an internal dispute about the Clinton Foundation probe (specifically, about the Obama Justice Department’s pressure on the Bureau to drop it). As the IG put it: “McCabe’s disclosure was an attempt to make himself look good by making senior department leadership . . . look bad.”
McCabe’s account has been contradicted by Comey, a witness who is otherwise sympathetic to him and hostile to the Trump Justice Department, and whose actions — like his — are being examined in prosecutor John Durham’s probe of the Trump-Russia investigation. Comey’s testimony is directly at odds with McCabe’s version of events, and the IG painstakingly explained why the former director’s version was credible while his deputy’s was not. (Comey was, nevertheless, exceedingly complimentary of McCabe after the IG report was published.)
Page is regarded by McCabe backers as key to his defense. She reportedly told the grand jury that, because McCabe had authority to approve media disclosures, he had no motive to lie about the leak. That’s laughable. McCabe did serially mislead investigators, so plainly he had some reason for doing so. But even putting that aside, the IG’s conclusion was not that McCabe lacked authority to leak; it was that he lacked a public-interest justification for exercising that authority. He leaked for self-promotion purposes, and then he lied about it because it was humiliating to be caught putting his personal interests ahead of the Bureau’s investigative integrity. That said, Page’s account does illuminate a problem for prosecutors: It’s tough to win a case when your witnesses are spinning for the defendant. (Oh, and have you seen Page’s tweet toasting McCabe in the aftermath of the news that the DOJ had closed the investigation?)
McCabe’s Multiple False Statements
Barrett’s Journal article appeared on October 30, 2016. The very next day, McCabe deceived Comey about it, indicating that he had not authorized the leak and had no idea who its source was. In Comey’s telling, credited by the IG, McCabe “definitely” did not acknowledge that he had approved the leak.
Thereafter, the FBI’s Inspection Division (INSD) opened an investigation of the leak. On May 9, 2017, McCabe denied to two INSD investigators that he knew the source of the leak. This was not a fleeting conversation. McCabe was placed under oath, and the INSD agents provided him with a copy of Barrett’s article. He read it and initialed it to acknowledge that he had done so. He was questioned about it by the agents, who took contemporaneous notes. McCabe told the agents that he had “no idea where [the leaked information] came from” or “who the source was.”
On July 28, 2017, McCabe was interviewed by the IG’s office — under oath and recorded on tape. In that session, he preposterously claimed to be unaware that Page, his FBI counsel, was directed to speak to reporters around the time of the October 30 Journal report. McCabe added that he was out of town then, and thus unaware of what Page had been up to. In point of fact, McCabe had consulted closely with Page about the leak. A paper trail of their texts and phone contacts evinced his keen interest in Page’s communications with Barrett. Consequently, the IG concluded that McCabe’s denials were “demonstrably false.”
Clearly concerned about the hole he had dug for himself, McCabe called the IG’s office four days later, on August 1, 2017, to say that, shucks, come to think of it, he just might have kinda, sorta told Page to speak with Barrett after all. He might even have told her to coordinate with Mike Kortan, then the Bureau’s top media liaison, and follow-up with the Journal about some of its prior reporting.
As the IG observed, this “attempt to correct his prior false testimony” was the “appropriate” thing for McCabe to do. Alas, when he was given an opportunity to come in and explain himself, he compounded his misconduct by making more false statements while under oath: In an interview with investigators on November 29, 2017, McCabe purported to recall informing Comey that he, McCabe, had authorized the leak, and that Comey had responded that the leak was a good idea.
These were quite stunning recollections, given that the deputy director had previously disclaimed any knowledge about the source of the leak. But McCabe took care of that little hiccup by simply denying his prior denial. That is, he insisted that he had not feigned ignorance about the leak when INSD interviewed him on May 9. Indeed, McCabe even denied that the May 9 interview had been a real interview. To the contrary, he claimed that agents had casually pulled him aside at the conclusion of a meeting on an unrelated topic, and peppered him out of the blue with a question or two about the Journal leak. As General Flynn could tell you, that sort of thing can be tough on a busy top U.S. government official . . . although Flynn did not get much sympathy for it when McCabe was running the FBI.
Again, the IG concluded that McCabe’s version of events was “demonstrably false.”
McCabe Covers His Tracks
As an old trial lawyer, I’d be remiss if I failed to rehearse my favorite part of the IG’s report — the part that would tell a jury everything they needed to know about good ol’ Andy McCabe.
Again, the Journal story generated by McCabe’s leak was published on October 30, a Sunday. Late that afternoon, McCabe called the head of the FBI’s Manhattan office. Why? Well . . . to ream him out over media leaks, that’s why. McCabe railed that New York agents must be the culprits. He also made a similar call to the Bureau’s Washington field office, warning its chief to “get his house in order” and stop these terribly damaging leaks.
It is worth remembering McCabe’s October 30 scolding of subordinates when you think about how he later claimed that, on the very next day, he’d freely admitted to his superior, Comey, that he himself was the source of the leak. Quite the piece of work, this guy: To throw the scent off himself after carefully arranging the leak, McCabe dressed down the FBI’s two premier field offices, knowing they were completely innocent, and then pretended for months that he knew nothing about the leak.
This is the second-highest-ranking officer of the nation’s top law-enforcement agency we’re talking about, here.
The Non-Prosecution Decision
We may never get a satisfying explanation for the Justice Department’s decision to drop the McCabe probe. That’s the way it is when such complicated reasons and motives are at play.
The aforementioned challenge of hostile witnesses is not to be underestimated. In addition, there are growing indications that the Justice Department had lost confidence in the U.S. attorney who was overseeing the probe, Jesse Liu. As I noted this week, while Liu was once seen as a rising Trump administration star, she was quietly edged out of her post last month, and the White House just pulled her nomination to fill an important Treasury Department post.
There have been rumblings that the McCabe investigation was botched. Kamil Shields, a prosecutor who reportedly grew frustrated by her supervisors’ inordinate delays in making decisions about the McCabe probe, ultimately left the Justice Department to take a private-practice job. Another prosecutor, David Kent, quit last summer as DOJ dithered over the decision on whether to prosecute. Things became so drawn out that the investigating grand jury’s term lapsed. Meanwhile, the Justice Department endorsed Liu’s aggressive decision to bring a thin, politically fraught false-statements case against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, in connection with lobbying for a foreign country — the sort of crime that is rarely prosecuted. Craig was swiftly acquitted. Reportedly, Liu advocated charging McCabe, but the DOJ may have harbored doubts about her judgment.
No matter the outcome, the Justice Department stood to take some hits if McCabe had been charged. Focus on McCabe’s leak would have drawn attention to pressure DOJ officials had put on the Bureau over the Clinton Foundation investigation (which, reportedly, is likely to be closed without charges). It would also renew interest in the question of whether the FBI improperly allowed McCabe to play a role in Clinton-related investigations when his wife, as a political candidate, got major funding from Clinton-tied sources.
Moreover, new Freedom of Information Act disclosures — made to meet a deadline set by District Judge Reggie Walton, which may explain the timing of the non-prosecution announcement — indicate that the Justice Department and FBI did not comply with regulations in what appears to be the rushed termination of McCabe, adding heft to the former deputy director’s claim that he was being singled out for abusive treatment, potentially including prosecution, because of vengeful politics.
On that score, Judge Walton took pains to decry the fusillade of tweets directed at McCabe by President Trump. I must note here that if a district U.S. attorney publicly labeled as a liar a suspect the Justice Department had indicted for false statements, that U.S. attorney would be sanctioned by the court. The U.S. attorneys, like the rest of the Justice Department, work for Trump. The president is correct when he insists, as he did this week, that he has the constitutional power to intervene in Justice Department matters. But that means he is subject to the same legal obligations that inhibit his Justice Department subordinates. Those obligations include protecting McCabe’s right to a fair trial — a duty the president may chafe at, but which is part of the deal when you take an oath to preserve the Constitution and execute the laws faithfully.
If you envision Judge Walton as part of the Obama-appointed robed resistance, check your premises. He is a no-nonsense jurist originally named to the D.C. Superior Court by President Reagan, and then to the federal district court by President George W. Bush. As Politico reports, he had this to say about President Trump’s commentary on the McCabe investigation:
The public is listening to what’s going on, and I don’t think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. . . . I just think it’s a banana republic when we go down that road. . . . I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undo inappropriate pressure being brought to bear. . . . It’s just, it’s very disturbing that we’re in the mess that we’re in in that regard. . . . I just think the integrity of the process is being unduly undermined by inappropriate comments and actions on the part of people at the top of our government. . . . I think it’s very unfortunate. And I think as a government and as a society we’re going to pay a price at some point for this.
If you want to know why Attorney General Barr was warning this week that the president’s tweets are undermining the Justice Department’s pursuit of its law-enforcement mission, Judge Walton’s words are worth heeding. I have been making this point since the start of the Trump presidency. If you want people held accountable for their crimes, you have to ensure their fundamental right to due process. When the government poisons the well, the bad guys reap the benefits.
Finally, we must note that when the District of Columbia is the venue for any prosecution with political overtones, Justice Department charging decisions must factor in the jury pool, which is solidly anti-Trump.
The proof that McCabe willfully deceived investigators appears strong — it is noteworthy that IG Horowitz, who has strained to give the FBI the benefit of the doubt in many dubious contexts, was unequivocal in slamming McCabe. Nevertheless, a D.C. jury would be weighing that evidence, as discounted by whatever pro-McCabe slant reluctant prosecution witnesses put on it. And the jury would be weighing against that evidence (a) whatever problems caused prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office to beg off, and more significantly, (b) defense arguments that McCabe would not have been fired or prosecuted if not for the fact that he had gotten crosswise with a president of the United States whom at least some of the jurors are apt to dislike.
McCabe is not out of the woods yet, of course: The Durham investigation is a separate matter, and it is continuing. But it is unclear whether he will face any criminal charges arising from that inquiry, whereas the now-dead-and-buried false-statements case against him looked cut-and-dried.
The FBI’s former deputy director, though he undeniably misled investigators, remains a commentator at CNN. In the meantime, Papadopoulos is a felon convicted and briefly imprisoned for misleading investigators, while Flynn and Stone are awaiting sentencing on their false-statements charges. That covers both tiers of our justice system.
US won’t charge ex-FBI official McCabe, a Trump target
By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL BALSAMOan hour ago
In this June 7, 2017, file photo, then FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have declined to charge former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, closing an investigation into whether the longtime target of President Donald Trump’s ire lied to federal officials about his involvement in a news media disclosure, McCabe’s legal team said Friday.
The decision, coming at the end of a tumultuous week between the Justice Department and the White House, is likely to further agitate a president who has loudly complained that federal prosecutors have pursued cases against his allies but not against his perceived political enemies.
The action resolves a criminal investigation that began nearly two years ago with a referral from the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, which concluded that McCabe had repeatedly lied about having authorized a subordinate to share information with a newspaper reporter for a 2016 article about an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
The case was handled by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, which was at the center of a public rift with Justice Department leadership this week over the recommended sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone. Senior Justice Department officials overruled a decision on a recommended prison sentence that they felt was too harsh, prompting the trial team to quit the case. Attorney General William Barr also took a rare public swipe at Trump by saying in a television interview that the president’s tweets about the Stone case and other matters were making his job “impossible.”
Separately, the Justice Department has begun reviewing the handling of the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
On Friday, prosecutors notified McCabe’s attorneys in a phone call and a letter that they were closing the case. The letter, signed by the chief of the office’s public corruption unit, did not give a precise reason but said the decision was reached after “careful consideration” and “based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the government at this time.”
McCabe’s lawyers, Michael Bromwich and David Schertler, said they were gratified by the decision.
“At long last, justice has been done in this matter,” the lawyers said in a statement. “We said at the outset of the criminal investigation, almost two years ago, that if the facts and the law determined the result, no charges would be brought.”
Speaking Friday on CNN, where he works as a contributor, McCabe said it was an “absolute disgrace” that the investigation had taken so long and that he was relieved to be done with a process that he described as “so unbelievably tense.”
Though federal prosecutors wrote that they consider the matter closed, Justice Department actions in the last few months have proven unpredictable, with a willingness to scrutinize or revisit decisions that had appeared resolved.
McCabe, a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, has denied that he intentionally misled anyone. He has said his 2018 firing — for what the Justice Department called “lack of candor” — was politically motivated. He sued the Justice Department in August, saying officials had used the inspector general’s conclusions as a pretext to rid the FBI of leaders Trump perceived as biased against him.
The decision is likely to further exacerbate tensions between Trump and Barr, who before speaking out in the television interview had privately complained to aides and the president himself that Trump’s comments about the Justice Department were undercutting his political agenda and raising questions about the department’s credibility. The White House was not given a heads-up about the decision beforehand, a person familiar with the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The moment came against a backdrop of growing anger from Trump at the Justice Department. The president has seethed that more of his political enemies have not been charged, included former FBI Director James Comey and his associates.
The president was particularly incensed no charges were filed over Comey’s handling of memos about his interactions with Trump, a matter that was referred to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, according to a White House official and Republican close to the White House who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about private discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The president angrily denounced the decision and berated Barr over it, according to the officials. Aides expected that the decision not to charge McCabe could produce a similar eruption of rage. Trump did not address the matter during a media appearance Friday.
Trump has also repeatedly complained about FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months, saying he has not done enough to rid the bureau of people who are disloyal to Trump.
It was not immediately clear what had prompted a review of the Flynn case, though the person familiar with the matter said U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen of St. Louis was working on it. The New York Times first reported Jensen’s involvement.
The decision to spare McCabe criminal charges eliminates the prospect of a sensational trial that would have refocused public attention on the chaotic months of 2016, when the FBI was entangled in presidential politics through investigations touching both main contenders — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump, her Republican opponent.
The criminal investigation arose from an October 2016 story in The Wall Street Journal that described internal debates roiling the FBI and the Justice Department weeks before the presidential election about how aggressively the Clinton Foundation should be investigated. The article recounted a particularly tense phone call between McCabe and a senior Justice Department official.
The inspector general’s report said McCabe told internal investigators that he had not authorized anyone at the FBI to speak with the reporter and that he did not know who did. The report said McCabe ultimately corrected that account and confirmed that he had encouraged the conversation with the reporter to counter a narrative that he thought was false.
McCabe has denied any wrongdoing and has said he was distracted by the tumult surrounding the FBI and the White House during the times he was questioned. One of the interviews took place the same day that Comey was fired.
“During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me,” McCabe has said in a statement. “And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them.”
McCabe has been a target of Trump’s attacks since even before he was elected, after news emerged in the fall of 2016 that McCabe’s wife had accepted campaign contributions from a political action committee associated with ex-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during an unsuccessful run for the state Senate there.
DOJ drops leak case vs. McCabe, judge said White House involvement like a ‘banana republic’
The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said “the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted” was like a “banana republic.”
Andrew McCabe, acting director of the FBI, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington on May 11, 2017.Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
By Tom Winter and Dareh Gregorian
The Department of Justice has told lawyers for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that he will not face criminal charges for allegedly lying to investigators about a leak to the media, the ex-official’s attorneys said Friday.
The decision was released on the same day it was revealed that a federal judge had expressed concerns months ago that McCabe’s case was looking like a “banana republic” prosecution.
“We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client,” J.P. Cooney of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., told McCabe’s attorneys in a letter Friday. “Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the government at this time, we consider the matter closed.”
McCabe’s lawyers Michael R. Bromwich and David Schertler responded in a statement, saying, “At long last, justice has been done in this matter.”
President Donald Trump had publicly urged that action be taken against McCabe, the former deputy FBI director who briefly became acting head of the agency after Trump fired James Comey in 2017.
“He LIED! LIED! LIED!” Trump wrote in one 2018 tweet about McCabe after the Justice Department’s inspector general found McCabe “lacked candor” when being interviewed about whether he was a source for two news articles pertaining to the FBI in 2016.
The Justice Department’s announcement came one day after Attorney General William Barr pushed back against criticism he’s using the department to do Trump’s bidding, and said Trump’s tweeting about his agency’s work was undercutting his authority.
“Public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the department that we’re doing our work with integrity,” Barr, who was sworn in a year ago Friday, told ABC News.
McCabe told CNN on Friday that “the timing is curious” but he was relieved that the Justice Department “did the right thing today.”
“To have this horrific black cloud that’s been hanging over me and my family for almost the last two years, to have that finally lifted is just unbelievable,” he said. “It’s a relief that I’m not sure I can really explain to you adequately. It’s just a very emotional moment for my whole family.”
McCabe has denied intentionally misleading investigators. He told CNN that he has maintained from the day the inspector general’s report came out that if investigators “followed the law and they followed the facts, that I would have nothing to worry about. But as the president’s interest in pursuing his perceived political enemies continued over the last two years, we were getting more and more concerned about where this would end up.”
Those worries had increased in recent days, he told the network.
“I’ve been greatly concerned by what I’ve seen take place in the White House and in the Department of Justice, quite frankly, in the last week,” McCabe said. “And certainly the president’s kind of revenge tirade following his acquittal in the impeachment proceeding has only kind of amplified my concerns about what would happen in my own case.”
The Justice Department’s decision came the same day it was required by a judge to make details about the McCabe investigation public in a case stemming from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The court transcripts, released after the Justice Department’s letter to McCabe’s lawyers, show prosecutors struggling with how to proceed in his case, and the judge in the matter expressing concerns about political pressure
DOJ hits Huawei with NEW charges for ‘plotting to steal trade secrets’ from SIX US companies including Cisco and T-Mobile by ‘offering employees cash bounties and sending spy with farcical ‘Weihua’ badge to trade shows’
DoJ brought new charges against Huawei in indictment unsealed on Thursday
Accuses Chinese tech giant of a deliberate ‘campaign’ to steal US trade secrets
Details bounties Huawei allegedly offered to staff to steal proprietary data
Describes brazen spy with ‘Weihua’ badge breaking into trade show booth
Though not named in indictment, Cisco and T-Mobile are among alleged victims
Feds also claim Huawei covered up secret subsidiary operating in Iran
CFO Meng Wanzhoua is still fighting extradition from Canada on Iran charges
The Department of Justice has announced new criminal charges against Huawei, accusing the Chinese tech giant of being engaged in a ‘decades-long’ effort to steal trade secrets from a slew of US companies.
The 16-count superseding indictment unsealed on Thursday adds RICO charges to the criminal case against Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhoua, who is currently fighting extradition in Canada.
The charges come in addition to previous criminal charges accusing Huawei and Wanzhoua of operating a secret subsidiary in Iran and lying to U.S. financial institutions about the violation of sanctions on that country.
The new charges detail a brazen decades-long scheme to steal trade secrets from at least six U.S. companies. Cisco and T-Mobile are among the alleged victims in the case, though the companies are not actually named in the new indictment.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei is seen with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015. US officials accuse the company of building a secret back door into its mobile network hardware
The new indictment alleges Huawei and two of its US subsidiaries – Huawei USA and Futurewei – ‘conspired to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)’ by stealing trade secrets.
Prosecutors say that in 2013, Huawei instituted a cash bounty program ‘to reward employees who obtained confidential information from competitors’ and that the more valuable the secrets were, the more the company paid out.
The indictment details a shocking incident from 2004, at a trade show in Chicago, where prosecutors say a Huawei employee was busted in the middle of the night while breaking into a competitor’s booth.
The employee was wearing a bogus badge identifying him as an employee of ‘Weihua’, which is the syllables of Huawei reversed, and was caught taking pictures of the interior circuit boards of a competitor’s product, according to the indictment.
A Huawei spokesman denied the allegations, saying that the indictment was ‘part of an attempt to irrevocably damage Huawei’s reputation and its business for reasons related to competition rather than law enforcement.’
The company called the racketeering accusation ‘nothing more than a contrived repackaging of a handful of civil allegations that are almost 20 years old.’
Huawei pleaded not guilty to the earlier indictment unsealed against the company in January 2019, which charged it with bank and wire fraud, violating sanctions against Iran, and obstructing justice.
Wanzhoua, the CFO, was arrested in December 2018 in Canada on charges in the prior indictment, but she has protesting her innocence and fighting extradition to the US. She is the daughter of Huawei’s founder and CEO, 75-year-old Ren Zengfei.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhoua was arrested in December 2018 in Canada on charges in the initial Department of Justice indictment against the Chinese tech company. She is protesting her innocence and fighting extradition to the US. She is pictured wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor last month
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou arrives at extradition hearing
The new indictment also includes ‘new allegations about Huawei and its subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries subject to sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea’.
The DoJ asserts that the Chinese company even tired to cover up the fact they were doing business with such countries, by using code names. ‘A2’ reportedly referred to Iran, and ‘A9’ is alleged to have referred to North Korea.
The new indictment is the latest effort in a global campaign by the United States against the company, which Washington has warned could spy on customers for Beijing. The United States also placed Huawei on a trade blacklist last year, citing national security concerns.
‘The indictment paints a damning portrait of an illegitimate organization that lacks any regard for the law,’ U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr and vice chairman Mark Warner said in a joint statement.
The Republican and Democratic Senators called it ‘an important step in combating Huawei’s state-directed and criminal enterprise.’
In a statement on Tuesday, the DoJ alleges that Huawei’s ‘campaign’ to steal trade secrets from US competitors formed part of their global growth strategy.
The DoJ statement alleges that Huawei even launched a policy ‘instituting a bonus program to reward employees who misappropriated intellectual property from competitors.’
Prosecutors allege some Huawei employees entered into confidential agreements with the six US companies, before violating such agreements by then handing over the information to the Chinese tech giant.
Thus, the DoJ statements alleges that ‘Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated US technology were successful.’
Trump administration officials, increasingly intent on preventing China from global technological domination, have urged allies not to use Huawei hardware
‘As a consequence of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage,’ the statement goes on to say.
The case was unsealed as the Trump administration is raising national security and surveillance concerns about Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer.
Huawei, one of the largest tech firms and a major telecom equipment maker, has been blacklisted by Washington amid concerns of its ties to the Chinese government and intelligence services.
New charges have been filed in the US against Huawei (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Earlier this week, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien alleged that Huawei builds secret back doors into its hardware that allow it to covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world.
‘We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world,’ O’Brien told the Wall Street Journal.
US officials say that Huawei’s back door allows the company to access network data without the carrier’s knowledge, potentially giving the Chinese government a potent spy tool.
Huawei denied the allegations, telling the Journal that it ‘has never and will never do anything that would compromise or endanger the security of networks and data of its clients.’
The U.S. has long tried to convince its allies, such as the U.K. and Germany, to ban the use of Huawei telecom equipment in the building of 5G networks.
Germany’s legislature is set to vote in the coming weeks on a bill that would allow Huawei full access to its 5G market if the company provides security guarantees.
WHO IS MENG WANZHOU?
Meng Wanzhou, 46, is widely assumed to be the heiress of her billionaire father Ren Zhengfei who founded Huawei in 1987
Meng Wanzhou, also known as Sabrina Meng and Cathy Meng, is the daughter and eldest child of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, 74, by his first wife Meng Jun.
Billed as a ‘Red Princess’, the 47-year-old is widely assumed to be the heiress of her former Communist soldier father, who founded the world’s current second largest smartphone seller at the age of 43 with just 21,000 yuan (£2,388).
Ms Meng, who is also the Vice-Chairman of Huawei, was ranked No. 12 by Frobes on the list of China’s most outstanding businesswomen in 2018.
She graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in central China’s Wuhan city.
She worked in a bank for a year upon graduation before taking up a position at Huawei’s front desk in 1993 to answer phone calls.
Over the years, Ms Meng worked as the director of the international accounting department, CFO of Huawei’s Hong Kong branch office, president of the accounts management department and brought Huawei to its current success.
Ms Meng has a brother and a 20-year-old half-sister Annabel Yao who is a ballerina and debutante.
Annabel is said to be extremely international and have lived in Britain, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
She was one of the 19 young women to be presented at the 25th annual Bal des Débutantes held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris in 2018.
Tension between Brown and the rest of the band soon began to surface. When “Walk Away Renee” belatedly became a hit, the original band had become inactive. Brown decided to capitalize on the single’s success by assembling a new version of The Left Banke for touring purposes, with Bert Sommer on lead vocals, original drummer Warren David, and (future member of Spinal Tap) Michael McKean on guitar. Brown also recorded a single, “Ivy, Ivy” b/w “And Suddenly” as The Left Banke, with Sommer and a group of session musicians.[6][7] The remaining members of the band hired attorneys to issue a cease and desist order and urged their fan club to boycott the record,[8] which led to confusion among radio stations over which “Left Banke” to support. Radio and Smash Records ultimately removed their support from the single, which subsequently failed to make the Billboard Hot 100. The “New” Left Banke never performed live. “And Suddenly” was eventually recorded by a group called The Cherry People and became a minor hit.[9] McKean would later find fame as an actor (Laverne & Shirley, This Is Spinal Tap, Better Call Saul).
In late 1967, the original group reunited and recorded more material, including the single “Desiree.” Brown left the group permanently shortly thereafter and was replaced for touring purposes by Emmett Lake. Cameron, Finn and Martin continued to record and tour, with Tom Feher replacing Lake on keyboards and writing half of the band’s new material. The songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler (who later became the lead singer of Aerosmith) on “Nice To See You”, “My Friend Today” and “Dark Is The Bark”. The band continued playing live in 1969, without Martin, but soon disbanded due to lack of success and financial problems. Later that same year, Brown and Martin reunited in the studio to record another single as The Left Banke, “Myrah” b/w “Pedestal”, which was their final single for Smash Records.
1971–present: various reunions
In 1971, Brown, Cameron, Finn and Martin reunited briefly to record two songs for the movie Hot Parts. The songs, “Love Songs in the Night” and “Two by Two”, were released as a Steve Martin solo single on Buddah Records, despite featuring contributions from four founding members of The Left Banke. In 1972, producer Les Fradkin offered to produce the group for a project on Bell Records. Although these sessions were not released at the time, one of the songs, “I Could Make It Last Forever”, composed by Fradkin and Diane Ellis, was released on Fradkin’s Goin’ Back solo CD in 2006. It was a rare recording since it featured Caro, Finn, Cameron and Brown, along with Brown’s father, violinist Harry Lookofsky. Fradkin sang and played 12-string guitar on the sessions. In 1978, Martin, Cameron and Finn reunited as The Left Banke to record an album’s worth of material which unfortunately was not released at the time. However, a single from these 1978 sessions, “Queen of Paradise” (b/w “And One Day”), was released in late 1978 with modest success. The album was eventually issued by Relix Records in 1986 under the title Strangers on a Train (Voices Calling in Europe). However, the album did little to restore the popularity of the group.
After leaving The Left Banke in 1967, Michael Brown helped form the band, Montage. Although Brown was never an official member of Montage, his presence is unmistakable in its music.[10] The band released one self-titled album in 1969, which included a re-recording of The Left Banke song “Desiree”, before Brown left. Brown’s next project was the band Stories, featuring singer Ian Lloyd. The band had a hit in 1973 with “Brother Louie“, which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.[5] However, Brown had left the group after their 2nd album “About Us”, but before the success of “Brother Louie”. Brown’s next project was with The Beckies, although the band achieved only modest success and Brown soon left.
In 1994, Michael Brown and his wife Yvonne Vitale produced and released an album titled On This Moment. Between 2001 and 2006, Brown hosted a series of recording sessions at his home studio with Ian Lloyd (vocals), Tom Finn (bass guitar/vocals), Jim McAllister (guitar), and Jon Ihle (drums).[11]
Former guitarist Jeff Winfield died of complications from pneumonia on June 13, 2009, at age 60.[3]
2011–12
The previous touring version of The Left Banke featured one original member, George Cameron. Initially, Tom Finn and George Cameron reformed The Left Banke in March 2011, tapping New York City’s Mike Fornatale (already a veteran of numerous other 60s band reunions, including The Monks and Moby Grape) to sing lead vocals in Steve Martin Caro’s stead. The reunited group also featured new players: Paul Alves (lead guitar, backing vocals), Charly Cazalet (bass), Mickey Finn (keyboards), Rick Reil (drums, percussion, backing vocals) and second keyboardist/synth player Joe McGinty (replaced by John Spurney in 2012). They appeared live at Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 5, 2011, and March 6, 2011, to sold-out audiences. In April 2011, Tom Finn revealed in a Facebook posting that he had reformed the group,[13] with two shows planned for July in New York City.[14][15] Tom Finn only performed with the re-formed group in 2011, after which he left due to disagreements with Cameron and due to back trouble.
In early 2011, Sundazed released reissues of the two Smash vinyl albums on CD and LP, utilizing the original running order and artwork.
In February 2012, Tom Finn notified the YouTube community that the Left Banke was in the process of creating a new record featuring contributions from co-founder Michael Brown.
George Cameron (3rd from left) and Tom Finn (Center, 4th from left) with band during their 2012 reunion tour.
On April 29, 2012, Brown joined the reunited Left Banke on stage at B.B. King’s in New York City for a version of his “Pretty Ballerina.” His performance was greeted with a standing ovation. Rick Brand, guitarist with the band in 1966-67 was also in attendance. Tom Finn sang a newly written song called “City Life” which showed a heavier rock version of the Left Banke with baroque string section intact. No new recordings begun in 2012 were ever released, and Brown died in 2015.
At the beginning of their reunion dates, the group was joined onstage by a two or three-piece string section and even a guest oboe player for one or two shows. Both Michael Brown and George Cameron were in touch with Steve Martin Caro, who wanted to rejoin the group, but was unable to tour in 2012 due to previous commitments.
Unrealized reunions
On March 18, 2015, the day before Mike Brown’s death, it was announced that original vocalist Steve Martin Caro officially rejoined the current touring version of The Left Banke. Photos on The Left Banke official Facebook and Twitter pages displayed Steve signing a contract. Two 2015 shows featured co-headliner Ian Lloyd of Stories and Sam Kogon as vocalist. The re-formed Cameron band played for the last time twice in 2015; once in Sellersville, PA and once in Natick, MA. No shows under any Left Banke configuration have been performed since 2015, and by 2020 the major players of 1966 were all deceased except for the disabled Tom Finn.
In January, 2018, it was announced on the official Facebook page operated by Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron that they were planning a tour. Several photos of Steve Martin Caro rehearsing with George Cameron and guitarist Sam Kogon were posted with a message which stated “it was Steve’s first time behind the microphone in over 15 years. We went through and workshopped much of the Left Banke catalog.” However, Cameron passed away five months later, before any performances could take place under this collaboration.
Deaths
Michael Brown died from heart disease on March 19, 2015, at age 65. Brown had been writing new material and planned to participate in the 2015 reunion of The Left Banke with Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron. Brown’s funeral and memorial service was held on March 25, 2015 at Fort Lee Gospel Church in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[16]
Justo George Cameron (born October 16, 1947 in New York City) died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on June 24, 2018, at age 70.[17] Thomas Leo Feher died from heart failure on August 5, 2018.[18] Steve Martin Caro died from heart disease on January 14, 2020. He was 71.[19] This left Tom Finn (later a renowned disc jockey) as the only surviving member from the original “Walk Away Renée” lineup.
Story 3: $19 Billion of 30-Year Bonds Sold At Record Low Yield of 2.06% — Inverted Yield Curve Flashes Recession Warning — Videos
Dow Flatlines While Fed’s Recession Alarm Screams
Treasury Sells 30-Year Bonds at Record Low Yield
Fear that the coronavirus will slow global growth has helped push down Treasury yields in recent weeks
The Treasury sold $19 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday afternoon.
PHOTO: CHRIS WATTIE/REUTERS
By Sam Goldfarb
The U.S. Treasury Department sold 30-year bonds at a record low yield on Thursday, highlighting investors’ demand for longer-term debt and its benefits to the government.
The Treasury sold $19 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday afternoon at a 2.061% yield. That beat the previous record of 2.170% set last October, according to data from BMO Capital Markets.
The auction came as Treasury yields generally moved lower after Chinese officials changed the way they counted coronavirus infections, leading to a big jump in the number of confirmed cases in the country’s Hubei province. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note settled at 1.616%, compared with 1.629% Wednesday.
Yields fall when bond prices rise.
Fear that the coronavirus will slow global growth has helped push down Treasury yields in recent weeks. Other factors include persistently soft inflation, which has limited one of the main threats to the value of longer-term Treasurys, analysts said.
Investors have also grown more comfortable buying 30-year bonds because they view them as insurance against losses in riskier assets, said Jon Hill, a U.S. interest-rates strategist at BMO. Prices of 30-year bonds increase more for every one-percentage point decline in yields than those of shorter-term bonds. That means on days like Thursday, when investors are selling stocks and buying bonds, the holders of 30-year bonds are well-hedged, Mr. Hill said.
Thursday’s level doesn’t represent the lowest point that the 30-year bond yield has ever reached. Last August, it settled as low as 1.941%, but yields rose again before the next 30-year auction in September.
In recent years, low Treasury yields have, at times, caused U.S. officials to flirt with issuing bonds with maturities beyond 30 years to lock in low interest rates for a longer period.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last September that the Treasury Department was “very seriously considering” issuing a 50-year bond. The department, however, dropped that idea due to a lack of interest from bond dealers. Instead, it recently announced plans to issue 20-year bonds, which haven’t been issued regularly since the 1980s.
Tension between Brown and the rest of the band soon began to surface. When “Walk Away Renee” belatedly became a hit, the original band had become inactive. Brown decided to capitalize on the single’s success by assembling a new version of The Left Banke for touring purposes, with Bert Sommer on lead vocals, original drummer Warren David, and (future member of Spinal Tap) Michael McKean on guitar. Brown also recorded a single, “Ivy, Ivy” b/w “And Suddenly” as The Left Banke, with Sommer and a group of session musicians.[6][7] The remaining members of the band hired attorneys to issue a cease and desist order and urged their fan club to boycott the record,[8] which led to confusion among radio stations over which “Left Banke” to support. Radio and Smash Records ultimately removed their support from the single, which subsequently failed to make the Billboard Hot 100. The “New” Left Banke never performed live. “And Suddenly” was eventually recorded by a group called The Cherry People and became a minor hit.[9] McKean would later find fame as an actor (Laverne & Shirley, This Is Spinal Tap, Better Call Saul).
In late 1967, the original group reunited and recorded more material, including the single “Desiree.” Brown left the group permanently shortly thereafter and was replaced for touring purposes by Emmett Lake. Cameron, Finn and Martin continued to record and tour, with Tom Feher replacing Lake on keyboards and writing half of the band’s new material. The songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler (who later became the lead singer of Aerosmith) on “Nice To See You”, “My Friend Today” and “Dark Is The Bark”. The band continued playing live in 1969, without Martin, but soon disbanded due to lack of success and financial problems. Later that same year, Brown and Martin reunited in the studio to record another single as The Left Banke, “Myrah” b/w “Pedestal”, which was their final single for Smash Records.
1971–present: various reunions
In 1971, Brown, Cameron, Finn and Martin reunited briefly to record two songs for the movie Hot Parts. The songs, “Love Songs in the Night” and “Two by Two”, were released as a Steve Martin solo single on Buddah Records, despite featuring contributions from four founding members of The Left Banke. In 1972, producer Les Fradkin offered to produce the group for a project on Bell Records. Although these sessions were not released at the time, one of the songs, “I Could Make It Last Forever”, composed by Fradkin and Diane Ellis, was released on Fradkin’s Goin’ Back solo CD in 2006. It was a rare recording since it featured Caro, Finn, Cameron and Brown, along with Brown’s father, violinist Harry Lookofsky. Fradkin sang and played 12-string guitar on the sessions. In 1978, Martin, Cameron and Finn reunited as The Left Banke to record an album’s worth of material which unfortunately was not released at the time. However, a single from these 1978 sessions, “Queen of Paradise” (b/w “And One Day”), was released in late 1978 with modest success. The album was eventually issued by Relix Records in 1986 under the title Strangers on a Train (Voices Calling in Europe). However, the album did little to restore the popularity of the group.
After leaving The Left Banke in 1967, Michael Brown helped form the band, Montage. Although Brown was never an official member of Montage, his presence is unmistakable in its music.[10] The band released one self-titled album in 1969, which included a re-recording of The Left Banke song “Desiree”, before Brown left. Brown’s next project was the band Stories, featuring singer Ian Lloyd. The band had a hit in 1973 with “Brother Louie“, which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.[5] However, Brown had left the group after their 2nd album “About Us”, but before the success of “Brother Louie”. Brown’s next project was with The Beckies, although the band achieved only modest success and Brown soon left.
In 1994, Michael Brown and his wife Yvonne Vitale produced and released an album titled On This Moment. Between 2001 and 2006, Brown hosted a series of recording sessions at his home studio with Ian Lloyd (vocals), Tom Finn (bass guitar/vocals), Jim McAllister (guitar), and Jon Ihle (drums).[11]
Former guitarist Jeff Winfield died of complications from pneumonia on June 13, 2009, at age 60.[3]
2011–12
The previous touring version of The Left Banke featured one original member, George Cameron. Initially, Tom Finn and George Cameron reformed The Left Banke in March 2011, tapping New York City’s Mike Fornatale (already a veteran of numerous other 60s band reunions, including The Monks and Moby Grape) to sing lead vocals in Steve Martin Caro’s stead. The reunited group also featured new players: Paul Alves (lead guitar, backing vocals), Charly Cazalet (bass), Mickey Finn (keyboards), Rick Reil (drums, percussion, backing vocals) and second keyboardist/synth player Joe McGinty (replaced by John Spurney in 2012). They appeared live at Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 5, 2011, and March 6, 2011, to sold-out audiences. In April 2011, Tom Finn revealed in a Facebook posting that he had reformed the group,[13] with two shows planned for July in New York City.[14][15] Tom Finn only performed with the re-formed group in 2011, after which he left due to disagreements with Cameron and due to back trouble.
In early 2011, Sundazed released reissues of the two Smash vinyl albums on CD and LP, utilizing the original running order and artwork.
In February 2012, Tom Finn notified the YouTube community that the Left Banke was in the process of creating a new record featuring contributions from co-founder Michael Brown.
George Cameron (3rd from left) and Tom Finn (Center, 4th from left) with band during their 2012 reunion tour.
On April 29, 2012, Brown joined the reunited Left Banke on stage at B.B. King’s in New York City for a version of his “Pretty Ballerina.” His performance was greeted with a standing ovation. Rick Brand, guitarist with the band in 1966-67 was also in attendance. Tom Finn sang a newly written song called “City Life” which showed a heavier rock version of the Left Banke with baroque string section intact. No new recordings begun in 2012 were ever released, and Brown died in 2015.
At the beginning of their reunion dates, the group was joined onstage by a two or three-piece string section and even a guest oboe player for one or two shows. Both Michael Brown and George Cameron were in touch with Steve Martin Caro, who wanted to rejoin the group, but was unable to tour in 2012 due to previous commitments.
Unrealized reunions
On March 18, 2015, the day before Mike Brown’s death, it was announced that original vocalist Steve Martin Caro officially rejoined the current touring version of The Left Banke. Photos on The Left Banke official Facebook and Twitter pages displayed Steve signing a contract. Two 2015 shows featured co-headliner Ian Lloyd of Stories and Sam Kogon as vocalist. The re-formed Cameron band played for the last time twice in 2015; once in Sellersville, PA and once in Natick, MA. No shows under any Left Banke configuration have been performed since 2015, and by 2020 the major players of 1966 were all deceased except for the disabled Tom Finn.
In January, 2018, it was announced on the official Facebook page operated by Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron that they were planning a tour. Several photos of Steve Martin Caro rehearsing with George Cameron and guitarist Sam Kogon were posted with a message which stated “it was Steve’s first time behind the microphone in over 15 years. We went through and workshopped much of the Left Banke catalog.” However, Cameron passed away five months later, before any performances could take place under this collaboration.
Deaths
Michael Brown died from heart disease on March 19, 2015, at age 65. Brown had been writing new material and planned to participate in the 2015 reunion of The Left Banke with Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron. Brown’s funeral and memorial service was held on March 25, 2015 at Fort Lee Gospel Church in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[16]
Justo George Cameron (born October 16, 1947 in New York City) died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on June 24, 2018, at age 70.[17] Thomas Leo Feher died from heart failure on August 5, 2018.[18] Steve Martin Caro died from heart disease on January 14, 2020. He was 71.[19] This left Tom Finn (later a renowned disc jockey) as the only surviving member from the original “Walk Away Renée” lineup.
Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders lead the delegate race after the first two contests of the primary season, according to the Associated Press. The vast majority of delegates are awarded after February. Super Tuesday, when a third of all delegates are allocated in a single day, looms large with 16 contests at the beginning of March. Here is a look at when every state goes to the polls and where the largest troves of delegates are at stake.
Another key early state with a high-turnout caucus, and the first one with a significant Hispanic population.
36
Clinton
29Sat.
South Carolina primary
This state will offer the first real indication of the candidates’ strengths with black voters.
54
Clinton
March 2020
DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
2016 PRIMARY WINNER
3Tue.
Alabama primary
Alabama is one of 16 contests on Super Tuesday, when a third of delegates are allocated.
52
Clinton
American Samoa caucus
6
Clinton
Arkansas primary
31
Clinton
California primary
Because it has the largest delegate trove in the country, California is key to Super Tuesday.
415
Clinton
Colorado primary
67
Sanders
Democrats abroad primary
13
Sanders
Maine primary
24
Sanders
Massachusetts primary
91
Clinton
Minnesota primary
75
Sanders
North Carolina primary
110
Clinton
Oklahoma primary
37
Sanders
Tennessee primary
64
Clinton
Texas primary
The second-largest delegate trove of Super Tuesday.
228
Clinton
Utah primary
29
Sanders
Vermont primary
16
Sanders
Virginia primary
99
Clinton
10Tue.
Idaho primary
20
Sanders
Michigan primary
Midwestern powerhouses like Michigan will test the candidates’ appeal among suburbanites, African-Americans and working-class white voters. If the race is not decided on Super Tuesday, this could be a line of demarcation.
125
Sanders
Mississippi primary
36
Clinton
Missouri primary
68
Clinton
North Dakota primary
14
Sanders
Washington primary
89
Sanders
14Sat.
Northern Marianas convention
6
Clinton
17Tue.
Arizona primary
67
Clinton
Florida primary
219
Clinton
Illinois primary
155
Clinton
Ohio primary
136
Clinton
24Tue.
Georgia primary
105
Clinton
29Sun.
Puerto Rico primary
51
Clinton
April 2020
DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
2016 PRIMARY WINNER
4Sat.
Alaska primary
15
Sanders
Hawaii primary
24
Sanders
Louisiana primary
54
Clinton
Wyoming caucus
14
Sanders
7Tue.
Wisconsin primary
84
Sanders
28Tue.
Connecticut primary
60
Clinton
Delaware primary
21
Clinton
Maryland primary
96
Clinton
New York primary
This may be the last big delegate day of the race. If one candidate dominates every state this late in the primary, party leaders will most likely move to get behind that person and seek to bring the race to an end.
2020 United States presidential primary election results
Live
Updated at 2:53 PM CST
DEMOCRATIC
Delegates · 64 delegates declared
1,990 delegates needed to win the nomination
Candidate
Delegates
Pete Buttigieg
22
Bernie Sanders
21
Elizabeth Warren
8
Amy Klobuchar
7
Joe Biden
6
Andrew Yang
0
Deval Patrick
0
John Delaney
0
Michael Bennet
0
Michael Bloomberg
0
Tom Steyer
0
Tulsi Gabbard
0
Uncommitted
0
Other candidates
0
Sanders edges Buttigieg in NH, giving Dems 2 front-runners
By STEVE PEOPLES, KATHLEEN RONAYNE and HUNTER WOODALL
Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s presidential primary, edging moderate rival Pete Buttigieg and scoring the first clear victory in the Democratic Party’s chaotic 2020 nomination fight.
In his Tuesday night win, the 78-year-old Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, beat back a strong challenge from the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The dueling Democrats represent different generations, see divergent paths to the nomination and embrace conflicting visions of America’s future.
As Sanders and Buttigieg celebrated, Amy Klobuchar scored an unexpected third-place finish that gives her a road out of New Hampshire as the primary season moves on to the string of state-by-state contests that lie ahead.
Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden posted disappointing fourth and fifth place finishes respectively and were on track to finish with zero delegates from the state.
The New Hampshire vote gives new clarity to a Democratic contest shaping up to be a battle between two men separated by four decades in age and clashing political ideologies. Sanders is a leading progressive voice, having spent decades demanding substantial government intervention in health care and other sectors of the economy. Buttigieg has pressed for more incremental change, preferring to give Americans the option of retaining their private health insurance while appealing to Republicans and independents who may be dissatisfied with Trump.
Their disparate temperaments were on display Tuesday as they spoke before cheering supporters.
“We are gonna win because we have the agenda that speaks to the needs of working people across this country,” Sanders declared. “This victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.”
Buttigieg struck an optimistic tone: “Thanks to you, a campaign that some said shouldn’t be here at all has shown that we are here to stay.”
Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg addresses supporters at a rally at Nashua Community College Tuesday in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Both men have strength heading into the next phase of the campaign, yet they face very different political challenges.
While Warren made clear she will remain in the race, Sanders, well-financed and with an ardent army of supporters, has cemented his status as the clear leader of the progressive wing of the party.
Meanwhile, Buttigieg must prove he can attract support from voters of color who are critical to winning the nomination. And unlike Sanders, he still has multiple rivals in his own ideological wing of the party to contend with. They include Klobuchar, whose standout debate performance led to a late surge in New Hampshire and a growing national following. While deeply wounded, Biden promises strength in upcoming South Carolina. And though former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg was not on Tuesday’s ballot, he looms next month when the contest reaches states offering hundreds of delegates.
After a chaotic beginning to primary voting last week in Iowa, Democrats hoped New Hampshire would help give shape to their urgent quest to pick someone to take on Trump in November. At least two candidates dropped out in the wake of weak finishes Tuesday night: moderate Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and political newcomer Andrew Yang, who attracted a small but loyal following over the past year and was one of just three candidates of color left in the race.
The struggling candidates still in the race sought to minimize the latest results.
Warren, who spent months as a Democratic front-runner, offered an optimistic outlook as she faced cheering supporters: “Our campaign is built for the long haul, and we are just getting started.”
Having already predicted he would “take a hit” in New Hampshire after a distant fourth-place finish in Iowa, Biden essentially ceded the state. He traveled to South Carolina Tuesday as he bet his candidacy on a strong showing there later this month boosted by support from black voters.
Still, history suggests that the first-in-the-nation primary will have enormous influence shaping the 2020 race. In the modern era, no Democrat has ever become the party’s general election nominee without finishing first or second in New Hampshire.
Sanders and Buttigieg were on track to win the same number of New Hampshire delegates with most of the vote tallied, with Klobuchar a few behind. Warren, Biden and the rest of the field were shut out, failing to reach the 15% threshold needed for delegates.
Results from New Hampshire’s Democratic primary. (AP Graphic)
The AP allocated nine delegates each to Sanders and Buttigieg and six to Klobuchar.
The action was on the Democratic side, but Trump easily won New Hampshire’s Republican primary. He was facing token opposition from former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld.
With most of the vote in, Trump already had amassed more votes in the New Hampshire primary than any incumbent president in history. His vote share was approaching the modern historical high for an incumbent president, 86.43% set by Ronald Reagan in 1984. Weld received about 9% of the vote of New Hampshire Republicans.
The political spotlight quickly shifts to Nevada, where Democrats will hold caucuses on Feb. 22. But several candidates, including Warren and Sanders, plan to visit other states in the coming days that vote on Super Tuesday, signaling they are in the race for the long haul.
___
Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein and Zeke Miller in Washington, Will Weissert, Holly Ramer and Thomas Beaumont contributed from New Hampshire.
Country Joe McDonald, whose rock band Country Joe and the Fish appeared at the Woodstock festival, remembers how strained his life was growing up in a communist family.
Joan Sokoloff, a 48-year-old therapist, grew up in Boston in the 1950s. But she might as well have spent her childhood on another planet. While other children were watching ″Father Knows Best,″ Sokoloff, the daughter of communists, was contemplating world change.
″I couldn’t care less if they were investigated as communists or not,″ said McDonald, who grew up in Southern California. ″All I cared about was when I went to a Cub Scout meeting or went to play baseball. … I didn’t feel comfortable anymore.″
Said Sokoloff: ″They (my parents) always used to say that the revolution is just around the corner. So there was always a sense that we were working toward something imminent.″
McDonald and Sokoloff are two of five so-called ″red diaper babies,″ the children of communists, who appear in ″Children of the Left,″ a new documentary by filmmaker Eric Stange. The 60-minute film traces the evolution of children raised as communists who are now adults in a conservative America.
The topic is a hot one. ″Loyalties – a Son’s Memoir,″ a new book by former Washington Post investigative reporter Carl Bernstein, is the story of Bernstein’s childhood in a communist family.
Bernstein writes about the conflicting legacy left by communist parents. His story is woven out of what he says are the torn loyalties and lasting repercussions of a communist childhood.
Stange found that communist parents left a mixed legacy. Some of their children remained communists. One became a Reagan conservative. But almost all remain political and most vote.
Stange, 35, a former reporter and editor for the Boston Herald, had made one previous documentary, ″The Pitch of Grief,″ when he decided to make a film about the children of communists. He knew several as friends and found out about others through them. A network exists among them as adults, he said, formed from childhood when communist families often sent their children to the same progressive summer camps and schools.
But Stange said that even now, many who grew up in communist households were still hesitant going public about the experience.
″The penalties were too great in the ’50s,″ he said.
Stange spoke to 50 former ″red diaper babies,″ interviewed 15 on tape and culled five for his film. The term ″red diaper babies″ has several rumored origins. One is that communist parents in the ’20s were so poor that they used the red flags they received in return for their party dues to diaper their babies.
″I found an incredible mixture of pride and anger,″ he said. ″It was a way of looking at the world that was much more open and diverse and worldly than what most American kids were getting.″
The film, which premiered last month in Cambridge and was co-produced with the Newton Television Foundation, also will be shown at New York’s Public Theater this month and in Los Angeles in June.
The stories that unfold on camera are generally happy ones. Though they participated in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history, Stange’s subjects recall their childhoods with more pleasure than pain.
Eugene Dennis Jr., son of the former general secretary in the American Communist Party, was a longshoreman for many years and is now a historian. In the film, tears come to his eyes as he recalls how ″safe″ he felt, held in the arms of singer-actor-writer Paul Robeson at one point during the worst of the communist witch hunts in the ’50s.
David Horowitz, the son of public schoolteachers in New York, edited the leftist magazine Ramparts in the ’60s. He has since become a best-selling author of biographies with David Collier and a conservative Republican. Richard Healey, whose mother was a high-ranking communist leader in Southern California, edits an anti-nuclear magazine.
The film uses archival footage to trace the relatively swift downfall of the Communist Party in the United States, which had formed in 1919 and enjoyed peak years in the ’30s and early ’40s.
″Children of the Left″ also outlines the turmoil that marked the party’s rapid decline, beginning with the Red Scare initiated in the ’50s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, chaired by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 and revelations in 1956 that Soviet leader Josef Stalin was a murderous dictator.
Several subjects of the film recall their parents were jailed regularly. Joan Sokoloff remembers the day one of her mother’s arrests made the front page of The Boston Globe, her struggle to overcome her own embarrassment and her eventual pride in her parents’ work.
Healey recalls his childhood years at Communist Party meetings and picnics as ″the happiest moments of my life.″
″Growing up with ideals like that, with a world view of wanting a better life for people, it was still a very rich way of life,″ said Sokoloff.
Story 2: The Political Elitist Establishment (PEEs) Hunt Down Deplorables — Socialist Satire — Coming To A Theater Nearest You March 13, 2020 — Friday The 13th –Lying Lunatic Leftist Losers vs. American Winners — Videos
The Wreck called Hillary Clinton
How voters are responding to Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ remark
Clinton: Trump supporters in ‘basket of deplorables…
Deplorables: Trump, Brexit and the Demonised Masses
Tucker: American elites more comfortable with attacking US
1. America’s Ruling Class
Angelo Codevilla – Does America Have a Ruling Class?
Universal cancels release of film where elites hunt ‘deplorables’
The Hunt – Official Trailer [HD]
Why The Hunt Is Finally Being Released with a New Marketing Campaign
The Hunt – Trailer Reaction – New Release Date of March 13th
The film was originally scheduled for release on September 27, 2019. However, following the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings in early August 2019, Universal Pictures decided to shelve the release of the film.[2] The decision came a day after criticism regarding the film came from United States President Donald Trump.[3] It has since been rescheduled for a theatrical release on March 13, 2020.[4][5]
Premise
Loosely based on the 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell,[6] the film follows 12 strangers who mysteriously wake up in a clearing.[2][7][8] They do not know where they are or how they got there. They discover that they have been chosen to be hunted in a game devised by a group of people from the rich elite.[2][9] The hunters gather in a remote facility called the Manor House, but their sport gets derailed when one of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin), fights back and starts killing them one by one.[10]
Though some reports indicated the original title of the film was Red State vs. Blue State (after the U.S. political term red states and blue states), Universal issued a statement denying that the film had ever had that as its working title.[13]
Casting
In March 2019, Emma Roberts, Justin Hartley, Glenn Howerton, Ike Barinholtz and Betty Gilpin were announced as being cast in the film.[14][15][16] In April 2019, Amy Madigan, Jim Klock, Charli Slaughter, Steve Mokate and Dean West joined the cast of the film.[17][18]Hilary Swank was announced as being cast in July.[19]
Filming
Filming began on February 20, 2019, in New Orleans and was due to finish on April 5.[20]
Release
The film was scheduled for release on September 27, 2019. It was, for a time, moved back to October 18 before shifting back to its original release date of September 27.[21]
On August 7, 2019, Universal announced that in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings, they would be suspending the film’s promotional campaign.[22][23] Several days later, the film was pulled from the studio’s release schedule.[24][25] An international release is still a possibility.[26]
On February 11, 2020, it was announced the film would receive a theatrical release on March 13, 2020.[4]
Reception
The Hollywood Reporter wrote that there were a pair of test screenings for the film which had “negative reactions”. The second screening was held on August 6, 2019, in Los Angeles, in which “audience members were again expressing discomfort with the politics” of it, an issue Universal had not foreseen (although other studios had initially passed on the script for that very reason). In a statement to Variety, Universal pushed back on a report that test audiences had been uncomfortable with the film’s political slant, and also countered claims that the script had originally had a politically explosive title.[26] “While some outlets have indicated that test screenings for The Hunt resulted in negative audience feedback; in fact, the film was very well-received and tallied one of the highest test scores for an original Blumhouse film,” a Universal spokesperson said. “Additionally, no audience members in attendance at the test screening expressed discomfort with any political discussion in the film. While reports also say The Hunt was formerly titled Red State vs. Blue State, that was never the working title for the film at any point throughout the development process, nor appeared on any status reports under that name.”[26]
Prior to the film’s shelving, the film attracted criticism from some of the media as an alleged portrayal of liberal elitists hunting supporters of Donald Trump.[23][27] Trump issued a tweet on August 9, 2019, calling “Liberal Hollywood” “[r]acist at the highest level” and writing: “The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos”, adding “They create their own violence, and then try to blame others”. Although Trump did not specify the name of the film, news vehicles believed that was most likely a reference to The Hunt.[27][28][29]
“The Most Dangerous Game“, also published as “The Hounds of Zaroff“, is a short story by Richard Connell,[1] first published in Collier’s on January 19, 1924.[2] The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.[3] The story is inspired by the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were particularly fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.[4]
Sanger Rainsford and his friend, Whitney, are traveling to the Amazon rainforest to hunt the region’s big cat: the jaguar. After a discussion about how they are “the hunters” instead of “the hunted”, Whitney goes to bed and Rainsford hears gunshots. He climbs onto the yacht’s rail and accidentally falls overboard, swimming to Ship-Trap Island, which is notorious for shipwrecks. On the island, he finds a palatial chateau inhabited by two Cossacks: the owner, General Zaroff, and his gigantic deaf-mute servant, Ivan.
Zaroff, another big-game hunter, knows of Rainsford from his published account of hunting snow leopards in Tibet. After inviting him to dinner, General Zaroff tells Rainsford he is bored of hunting because it no longer challenges him; he has moved to Ship-Trap in order to capture shipwrecked sailors. Any captives who can elude Zaroff, Ivan, and a pack of hunting dogs for three days are set free. Zaroff reveals that no one has lasted that long, although a couple of sailors had come close. Zaroff also says that he offers sailors a “choice”; should they decline to be hunted they will be handed over to Ivan, who had once been official knouter for The Great White Czar. Rainsford denounces this as barbarism. Zaroff reacts in a cosmopolitan manner that “life is for the strong“. Realizing he has no way out, Rainsford reluctantly agrees to be hunted.
During his three-hour head start, Rainsford lays an intricate trail in the forest and then climbs a tree. Zaroff finds him easily, but decides to play with him like a cat would a mouse, standing underneath the tree Rainsford is hiding in, smoking a cigarette, and then abruptly departing. After the failed attempt at eluding Zaroff, Rainsford builds a Malay man-catcher, a weighted log attached to a trigger. This contraption injures Zaroff’s shoulder, causing him to return home for the night, but before doing so shouts that if Rainsford is within earshot, his trap was commendable as few could pull it off. The next day Rainsford creates a Burmese tiger pit, which kills one of Zaroff’s hounds. He sacrifices his knife and ties it to a sapling to make a Ugandan knife trap; Ivan is killed when he stumbles into this trap and the knife plunges into his heart. To escape Zaroff and his approaching hounds, Rainsford dives off a cliff into the sea; Zaroff, disappointed at Rainsford’s apparent suicide, returns home. Zaroff smokes a pipe by his fireplace, but two issues keep him from peace of mind: first, the difficulty of replacing Ivan; and second, the uncertainty of whether Rainsford did indeed perish.
Zaroff locks himself in his bedroom and turns on the lights, only to find Rainsford waiting for him; he had swum around the island in order to sneak into the chateau without the dogs finding him. Zaroff congratulates him on winning the “game”, but Rainsford decides to fight him, saying he is still a beast-at-bay and that the original hunt is not over. Accepting the challenge, Zaroff says that the loser will be fed to the dogs, while the winner will sleep in his bed. The story ends with Rainsford enjoying the comfort of Zaroff’s bed.
Analysis
“The Most Dangerous Game” is a popular read within middle and high school curricula due to the strength of the themes within the story. The first and foremost question that the story bears is that of justifiable murder. Rainsford justifies his hunting of animals because he believes that man is superior to animals because animals do not feel. To contradict, General Zaroff believes that men are superior because they are able to reason. Zaroff uses his reasoning to explain why men are the most interesting game to hunt; men can reason, and thus provide a challenge that no animal can contend with. The story simultaneously highlights through the experience of Rainsford, as he is hunted, the fears that animals must experience while being hunted.
Zaroff himself is a contradiction because his exquisite manners are juxtaposed with his heartless brutality in killing men. The idea of a man who is proper in all aspects, but still contains a desire to kill, is a suggestion by Connell that men possess murderous instincts that can only be subdued by the presence of society and law. Zaroff is only able to partake in his “hobby” because he does not live within a civilization.
The ending of the story bears questions about the true nature of Rainsford, who is implied to have killed Zaroff in order to secure his own safety. By killing Zaroff, he thus took part in the “game” that Zaroff wanted him to play.[8]
The first major film adaption was RKO Pictures‘ film released in 1932, The Most Dangerous Game. Joel McCrea stars as Rainsford; Leslie Banks portrays Zaroff. The adaptation by James Ashmore Creelman adds two other principal characters, brother-and-sister pair Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and Martin Trowbridge (Robert Armstrong), who are castaways from a shipwreck. The Most Dangerous Game was co-directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel; also with a score by Max Steiner, the film was a favorite project of producer Merian C. Cooper. The production shared several sets with King Kong (1933), a simultaneous RKO project that also involved Schoedsack, Cooper, Wray, Armstrong, Creelman, and Steiner. The Most Dangerous Game was a modest success.[9][10][11]:51
RKO produced a remake titled A Game of Death (1945), directed by Robert Wise, from a screenplay Norman Houston wrote. This film stars John Loder and Audrey Long, with Edgar Barrier as the mad hunter.[11]:206 In order to keep with events of that time, A Game of Death changed Zaroff into “Erich Kreiger”, a Nazi, and was set in the aftermath of the Second World War.[12]
Also in 1972, The Suckers, tells a sexploitation version of the story, with the hunter using models as his prey.[16] In 1973, The Perverse Countess was released.[17] The 1982 Australian film Turkey Shoot has similar elements.[18]
The 1987 film, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, transports the story to an alien world using scantily clad women as the hunted and a mad scientist, Zed as the Zaroff character.[17][19]
John Woo‘s first Hollywood directorial effort, the Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller Hard Target (1993), was loosely based on the same story. The locale was shifted to 1990s New Orleans, with homeless Vietnam war veterans voluntarily serving (in return for potential payment from a shady businessman) as human prey. It was followed by Hard Target 2, a direct-to-video sequel released in 2016.
In Surviving the Game (1994), a homeless man is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains. He is unaware that they are killers who hunt humans for sport, and that he is their new prey. Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, the film stars Rutger Hauer, Ice-T, and Charles S. Dutton.
The Pest (1997) is a comedic parody of the story, with German huntsman Gustav Shank accidentally bringing Puerto Rican teenage hustler Pestario “Pest” Vargas to his island instead of the skilled man he had intended to hunt, only to decide to hunt the Pest anyway due to his sheer obnoxiousness. Shank’s ambition is to have a head of a warrior of every ethnicity in his Trophy Room. He also rigs the “game” by having his prey unknowingly drink a slow-acting poison before the hunt, making sure that they die even if they escape him.
In The Eliminator (2004), seven captured people are hunted at night for sport on an island as a betting game for the wealthy.
The 2019-produced film The Hunt follows a similar premise. It will release in March 13, 2020 and was originally going to be released in September 27, 2019. It was originally cancelled due to Daytona and El Paso mass shootings in early August 2019.
Radio
“The Most Dangerous Game” was presented four times as a radio play.
On February 1, 1945, it was presented with J. Carrol Naish as Zaroff and Joseph Cotten as Rainsford.[20] Both Suspense productions presented an adaptation by Jack Finke in which Rainsford narrates the story in retrospect as he waits in Zaroff’s bedroom for the final confrontation.[6][17]
On October 1, 1947, another adaption was used for the CBS radio program, Escape.[21]
In Have Gun Will Travel episode “The Black Bull” Paladin is forced to play the part of a black bull against an insane matador (Ned Romero)
In The Wild Wild West episode, 1/4 “The Night of Sudden Death”, Jim West and a circus girl are trapped inside an Africa Reserve wild animal Park in Colorado and are hunted by an insane big-game hunter Warren (Robert Loggia).
In the Get Smart episode, “Island of the Darned”, Agents 86 and 99 are trapped on an island with a mad KAOS killer, Hans Hunter (Harold Gould).
This trope was used in the season 3 (1968), episode 22 of I Spy, “The Name of the Game”.
In the Gilligan’s Island episode “The Hunter”, big-game hunter Jonathan Kincaid (Rory Calhoun) turned his sights on Gilligan when he realized there were no wild animals on the island.
In the series finale of Bonanza, entitled “The Hunter”, a deranged killer, Corporal Bill Tanner (Tom Skerritt), who was formerly a tracker for the United States Army, hunts Little Joe (Michael Landon).
In the 1974 TV movie “Savages” after a young man accidentally witnesses a murder, he must survive both the desert and being hunted by the killer (Andy Griffith).[23]
In the 1977 pilot episode of Fantasy Island, a big-game hunter comes to the island to be hunted by a man, an interesting twist on the usual version in which the hunted participates against his will.
The Canadian series Relic Hunter had an episode called “Run Sydney Run” that was very closely based on “The Most Dangerous Game”, with Peter Stebbings acting as General Tsarlov.[citation needed]
The Simpsons Halloween special “Treehouse of Horror XVI” contained a segment titled “Survival of the Fattest” which parodied the story closely. In this segment Mr. Burns invited much of the cast to his hunting lodge on a private island, only to reveal that he intended to hunt them all for sport. Another episode makes a reference to “The Most Dangerous Game” when Rainier Wolfcastle says that he bought a YMCA to demolish it and install a hunting ground dedicated to “hunt the most dangerous animal of all… Man”.
In an episode of the animated sitcom American Dad!, the Smith family and a young woman become stranded on an island after Francine jumps off a cruise. Stan goes up to the mansion on this island to ask for help, but the inhabitants say that they are going to hunt the family. The Smiths and the young woman become trapped in a cave, where the young woman dies and they eat her to survive. The hunters then break into the cave and shoot the family. Stan sits up, realizing it is paint. At a party later, the hunters reveal that nobody really dies on The Most Dangerous Game Island.
The Incredible Hulk episode “The Snare” has Banner trapped on a private island owned by an insane hunter who not only craves the challenge of hunting humans, but considers the discovery of Banner’s powerful Hulk form as a sign of a particularly appealing quarry.
In Season 2, Episode 21 of Criminal Minds, “Open Season”, two brothers capture people stranded in a remote region of the wilderness outside Challis, Idaho, release them into the hills, and hunt them with compound bows for sport, referring the men as “bucks” and the women as “does”.
In Season 13, Episode 15 of Law and Order: SVU, “Hunting Ground”, a serial rapist and killer lures female escorts after their date to a remote area where he sets them free while he hunts them down to recapture them again.
In the Disney animated series The Mighty Ducks “The Most Dangerous Duck Hunt” episode, the heroes are trapped on an island and hunted.
In a “Dial M for Monkey” segment of the animated series Dexter’s Laboratory, the hero Monkey is trapped by an alien big-game hunter named “Huntor”, who also makes a cameo among a league of Hunters of “Sumarai Jack” in the Cartoon Network cartoon series Samurai Jack.
In Season 1, Episode 15 of Supernatural, “The Benders”, a family has been behind disappearances in a city. The family snatches victims to hunt and kill. Sam and a police officer are taken, but Dean finds them and helps them subdue the family before it can cause them any harm.
In Season 7, Episode 12 of Futurama, “31st Century Fox“, Bender becomes the target of a fox hunting club and is referred to as ‘the most dangerous game.’
In Season 2 Episode 6 of The Blacklist, Elizabeth Keen and her FBI task force encounter a family in Idaho who trained the mother’s youngest son to hunt and kill humans kidnapped by the eldest son.
The Outer Limits 1998 episode “The Hunt” is a story in which the hunting of animals has been banned by environmentalists, and black market hunting of obsolete androids takes its place.
In the Season 3, Episode 5 episode of Archer, “El Contador”, Lana and Archer are hunted by a drug lord.
In Season 3, Episode 22 episode of Riverdale, “Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive the Night”
In Season 4, Episode 2 of Game of Thrones, there is a scene in which Ramsay Bolton hunts a woman (one of his former lovers). She is cornered by the hunting party and eaten alive by Ramsay’s dogs. It is implied that this was not the only time Ramsay indulged in human hunting “for sport.”
In Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano and Chewbacca are hunted on an island.
An episode of the animated series Johnny Bravo entitled “Hunted!” is an obvious parody of the story. The titular Johnny is forced to go through the same ordeal, but his stupidity and foolishness greatly frustrates the hunter, who eventually allows him to leave.
Season 6 episode 11 of Xena: Warrior Princess, “Dangerous Prey”, is also inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. In this episode, Prince Morloch is a hunter who has grown bored of hunting animals, saying he’s “killed one of every creature that walks this earth”. He started hunting Amazons which grabbed the attention of Xena.
In season 3 of Wrecked, the plane crash survivors land on another island, where four wealthy men make them hunt each other, then hunting the survivor.
In the anime series Psycho-Pass, episodes 10 and 11 feature a wealthy cyborg tycoon who dons gentleman’s hunting gear and hunts people in an underground maze with his robotic hounds.
In the video game Hitman: Contracts, the mission “Beldingford Manor” takes inspiration from this story.
In the video game Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the character Razoff takes inspiration from General Zaroff, even sharing similar names.
In the comic-book story “The Second Most Dangerous Game” (serialized in Martian Comics #8–10), Martians possess humans to continue their tradition of hunting other humans, after the practice has been outlawed. Richard Connell is a character.
In the comic book issue Daredevil #4 Daredevil fights a mad manhunter on a remote island.
In Clive Cussler’s book DRAGON Dirk Pitt is chased by “Kamatori” on Soseki Island.
In the online game Poptropica, the five-part Survival Island features the player in a situation much like the one in the original story. At the end of the third episode, the player is rescued by a hunter known as Myron van Buren. The fourth episode revolves around the player in van Buren’s cabin, finding out that van Buren plans to hunt them. In the fifth episode, the player teams up with another victim of van Buren to defeat him by trapping him in a waterwheel.
In the video game Psychonauts, Vernon, one of the campers, references to hunting the most dangerous game while playing hide and seek.
In 2006, The Onion parodied the premise, positing that humans would actually make rather pitiful prey.[24]
In Don Pendleton’s The Executioner series, book #441, called Murder Island has a similar plot to the book. The protagonist, Mack “The Executioner” Bolan (a vigilante/government agent) encounters a rich businessman hunter on an island while on a mission and ends up in a similar position as the Rainsford character, while the rich hunter takes a similar role as Zaroff.
In a song called “Fly on the Wall” by Joey Pecoraro, the opening interaction between Rainsford and General Zaroff is used as a prelude to the actual song.
In 1987, American Metal band Laaz Rockit retold the story in their song “Most Dangerous Game” on their album Know Your Enemy. [25]
The Rooster Teeth series “Let’s Play Minecraft” featured an adaptation of the story into a game played by the show’s cast members in the video game Minecraft, where one player was given a map and hunted by the other five in and around the in-game world created by the Achievement Hunter cast members.
A translated version was published in Malayalam as an audio book by Kathacafe in 2017.[26]
In the video game West of Loathing a hunter’s ghost challenges the player to play “the most dangerous game”. After the player character shows disgust at hunting people the ghost says that wasn’t what he meant.
Real-life parallels
Robert Hansen, a serial killer who was active in the early 1980s, would kidnap women and release them in Alaska’s Knik River Valley. He would then hunt them, armed with a knife and a Ruger Mini-14 rifle.[27][28] A 2003 American crime drama film The Frozen Ground starring John Cusack and Nicolas Cage is based on this case.[29] Hanson was arrested and imprisoned for life where he died of an undisclosed illness.
In 1976, Hayes Noel, Bob Gurnsey, and Charles Gaines discussed Gaines’s recent trip to Africa and his experiences hunting African buffalo. Inspired in part by “The Most Dangerous Game”, they created paintball in 1981—a game where they would stalk and hunt each other—to recreate the same adrenaline rush from hunting animals.[30]
There is a reference to “The Most Dangerous Game” in letters the Zodiac Killer wrote to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in his three-part cipher: “Man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill”.[31]The Most Dangerous Game film is also mentioned a number of times in the context of the Zodiac Killer in the 2007 film, Zodiac.[32]
Story 3: U.S. Houshold Debt Rising To Over $14,000,000,000 While Federal Reserve Continues To Expand Liquidity By Over $1,000,000,000 in Repo Market — Videos
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U.S. Household Debt Exceeds $14 Trillion for the First Time
(Bloomberg) — Americans increased their borrowing for the 22nd straight quarter as more households took out loans to buy homes or refinance existing mortgages, according to a report released today from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Total U.S. household debt rose by $601 billion in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, or 1.4%, surpassing $14 trillion for the first time, the New York Fed’s quarterly household credit and debt report showed. That’s $1.5 trillion above the previous peak in the third quarter of 2008. Overall household debt is now 26.8% above the second-quarter 2013 trough.
Mortgage borrowing rose by $120 billion to $9.56 trillion. The rate for a 30-year mortgage has fallen by about 100 basis points over the past year, adding to home purchasers’ buying power. For example, a $500,000, 30-year loan costs about $300 less per month.
“Mortgage originations, including refinances, increased significantly in the final quarter of 2019,” Wilbert Van Der Klaauw, vice president at the New York Fed, said in a statement.
Mortgage loans for young adults age 18 to 29 rose to a the highest level since the third quarter of 2007. Originations for 30-year-olds rose to $210.1 billion last quarter — the highest level since the end of 2005.
Total debt for people ages 18 to 29 rose to a record $1.04 trillion.
Student debt increased to $1.51 trillion from $1.46 trillion at the end of 2018. More than $100 billion in student debt is held by those age 60 and over. Auto loans rose to $1.33 trillion, while credit card debt rose to a record $930 billion.
Auto debt, which has risen for 35 consecutive quarters, increased $16 billion from the previous quarter. Almost 5% of auto loans are 90 days of more delinquent. This is the highest percentage since the third quarter of 2011.
Credit card delinquencies rose to 8.36% an 18-month high.
Among student debt, one in nine borrowers were 90+ days delinquent or in default in 2019, and this figure may be understated. About half of student loans are currently in deferment, in grace periods or in forbearance and therefore temporarily not in the repayment cycle. Once these loans enter that cycle, delinquency rates are projected to be roughly twice as high, according to the Fed report.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McGregor at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net, Anita Sharpe
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
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Story 1: President Trump Speaks At National Prayer Breakfast — Trump Slams Pelosi and Romney For Using Their Faith To Justify Their Actions — Faith Based Adoption — Videos
President Trump’s FULL National Prayer Breakfast speech ripping ROMNEY, PELOSI
“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that that’s not so. So many people have been hurt and we can’t let that go on.”
NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST: President Trump FULL SPEECH
The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., usually on the first Thursday in February. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide.[1] The event—which is actually a series of meetings, luncheons, and dinners—has taken place since 1953 and has been held at least since the 1980s at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue NW. The National Prayer Breakfast, held in the Hilton’s International Ballroom, is typically attended by some 3,500 guests, including international invitees from over 100 countries. It is hosted by members of the United States Congress and is organized on their behalf by The Fellowship Foundation, a Christian organization. Initially called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, the name was changed in 1970 to the National Prayer Breakfast. It is designed to be a forum for the political, social, and business elite to assemble and build relationships. Since the inception of the National Prayer Breakfast, several U.S. states and cities and other countries have established their own annual prayer breakfast events. Every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in the annual event.
Trump: Financial Threat Against Faith ‘Is Over’
May 9, 2017
WATCH LIVE: Trump delivers remarks at National Prayer Breakfast, hours after impeachment acquittal
President Trump Courts Evangelicals By Taking Credit For Johnson Amendment | Velshi & Ruhle | MSNBC
TRUMP Cancels Johnson Amendment Says Free Speech is Back
May 2, 2019
Repeal of Johnson Amendment in new tax bill blocked
Dec 15, 2017
WATCH: President Trump Signs Executive Order For Religious Freedom In Rose Garden
May 4, 2017
The Johnson Amendment, explained
Feb 2, 2017
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification.’ Donald Trump tears into Mitt Romney and stone-faced Nancy Pelosi who is five seats away after triumphantly holding up headlines proclaiming his acquittal at the National Prayer breakfast
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment trial and inquiry
Pelosi started impeachment inquiry and Romney voted to convict Trump
President did not mention the two by name but his meaning was clear
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,’ he said
‘Nor do I like people who say I pray for you when they know that’s not so’
Trump and Pelosi met for the first time since the impeachment verdict at the National Prayer Breakfast
Trump triumphantly held up newspaper headlines announcing his acquittal
Pelosi stood and applauded when he entered the breakfast
But the two did not interact and sat on opposite sides of the head table
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment process during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
He did not mention the two by name but his meaning was clear.
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say I pray for you when they know that’s not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. I will be discussing that a little bit later at the White House,’ he said.
Romney was the lone Republican to find Trump guilty on one article of impeachment: abuse of power. He said in his remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday that it was his faith – Romney is a devout Mormon – that led him to that decision.
Pelosi, a devout Catholic, has repeatedly said she prays for the president. She was seated at the head table during Trump’s remarks and shook her head at one point during them. She pursed her lips a few times as he spoke. The speaker launched the impeachment inquiry into the president in September.
The president admitted he was having trouble liking his political enemies now that his impeachment trial is over.
”We are grateful to the people of this room for the lovely show to religion, not one religion, but many religions. They are brave, they are brilliant, they are fighters, they like people and sometimes they hate people. I’m sorry. I apologize. I am trying to learn. Not easy. It’s not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks. I do my best,’ he said.
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment trial and inquiry
Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the opposite of the head table from President Trump
Speaker Pelosi sat grimed during President Trump’s remarks
President Trump addressed impeachment at the top of his remarks
Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate on Wednesday, bringing to a close the fourth month, contentious process that led to a new level of bitter relations between the White House and congressional Democrats.
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, in his key note address at the breakfast, urged those present not to hold political enemies in contempt, but to do as Jesus preached and ‘love your enemies.’
‘I don’t know if I agree with you,’ Trump said to Brooks when it was his turn to speak. And then he proceeded to launch his attacks on Pelosi and Romney.
The president addressed the impeachment inquiry at the top of his remarks and, earlier, had triumphantly held up newspaper headlines announcing his acquittal. The audience cheered his move.
‘My family, our great country and your president has been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation,’ Trump said.
‘They know what they are doing is wrong but they put themselves far ahead of our great country. Weeks ago and again yesterday, courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude, and strength to do what everyone knows was right,’ he added.
The president and the speaker were meetingfor the first time since the impeachment verdict at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
Trump walked to the head table to applause and held up the front pages of USA Today and The Washington Post with their oversized headlines proclaiming his acquittal by the Senate.
‘Acquitted’ read USA Today. ‘Trump Acquitted’ was the Washington Post’s headline.
Pelosi stood and clapped as President Trump entered the room. She simply looked on as he displayed the newspapers declaring him acquitted.
President Trump waved around a USA Today headline proclaiming his acquittal on impeachment
He also waved the Washington Post front page
Speaker Pelosi spoke before President Trump at the breakfast
Speaker Pelosi led a prayer for the poor
Both the president and the speaker were seated at the head table but on opposite sides of the podium.
They did not interact.
Trump shook hands with his side of the head table when he entered the 68th Annual National Prayer Breakfast and did not walk over to the other side of the podium, where the vice president and the speaker were seated.
Pelosi spoke first, leading a prayer for the poor. The president head bowed during her prayer. He did not applaud when she was done.
Vice President Mike Pence, when he arrived ahead of the president, shook hands with the speaker and sat a few chairs down from her.
Several members of Congress and members of the president’s Cabinet attended the annual breakfast.
‘The lord works in mysterious ways. I do not think he could have picked a better day to bring us all together,’ House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his prayer.
The president thanked McCarthy and the breakfast hosts in his opening remarks.
Mitt Romney cited his faith as the reason for his guilty vote on Trump
Trump went after Romney in the wake of the Wednesday’s impeachment vote. He tweeted a video accusing the Utah senator of being a ‘Democrat secret asset’ and criticized him for his failed 2008 presidential campaign.
‘Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,’ the president tweeted.
Romney cited his faith as one of the reasons for his guilty vote. He voted to acquit the president on the second charge: obstruction of Congress.
‘The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a senator juror, I swore an oath before god to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before god as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced,’ Romney said.
And the Republican senator from Utah acknowledged he expected to feel the president’s wrath for his decision.
‘I’m aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced. I’m sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before god demanded it of me?,’ he said.
It was also the first time Trump and Pelosi met since Tuesday’s State of the Union address when Trump refused to shake her hand at its beginning and she ripped up the text of his remarks at its conclusion.
Pelosi says Trump ‘knows little’ about prayer, defends ripping speech
“I’ve gotten rid of the Johnson Amendment … I signed an executive order so that now … ministers and and preachers and rabbis and whoever it may be, they can speak. You know, you couldn’t speak politically before, now you can.”
The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit organization in the United States, ranging from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who introduced it in a preliminary draft of the law in July 1954.
In the early 21st century, many politicians, including President Donald Trump, have sought to repeal the provision, arguing that it restricts the free speech rights of churches and other religious groups. These efforts have been criticized because churches have fewer reporting requirements than other non-profit organizations, and because it would effectively make political contributions tax-deductible.[1]On May 4, 2017, Trump signed an executive order “to defend the freedom of religion and speech” for the purpose of easing the Johnson Amendment’s restrictions.[2][3]
Provisions
Page from the Congressional Record containing a transcript of the passage of the amendment
Paragraph (3) of subsection (c) within section 501 of Title 26 (Internal Revenue Code) of the U.S. Code (U.S.C.) describes organizations which may be exempt from U.S. Federal income tax. 501(c)(3) is written as follows:[4]
(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.[bolding added]
The Johnson Amendment is the emboldened portion of this provision beginning with the words “and which does not participate in, or intervene in ….”[5] The amendment affects nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax exemptions,[6]which are subject to absolute prohibitions on engaging in political activities and risk loss of tax-exempt status if violated.[7] Specifically, they are prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office.[8][9] The Johnson Amendment applies to any 501(c)(3) organization, not just religious 501(c)(3) organizations.
The benefit of 501(c)(3) status is that, in addition to the organization itself being exempt from taxes, donors who itemize may also take a tax deduction for their contributions to the organization.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, contributions to political campaign funds, or public statements of position in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office, are disallowed. However, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides), voter registration, and get-out-the-vote drives, if conducted in a non-partisan manner, are not prohibited.[8]
History
Lyndon B. Johnson during his tenure as Senator from Texas and before becoming Vice President
The amendment was to a bill in the 83rd Congress, H.R. 8300, which was enacted into law as the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. The amendment was proposed by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas on July 2, 1954. The amendment was agreed to without any discussion or debate and was included in Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736).[10] The provision was considered uncontroversial at the time, and continued to be included when the 1954 Code was renamed as the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 during the Ronald Reagan administration.[11][unreliable source?]
Repeal efforts
In the 2010s, the Alliance Defending Freedom made attempts to challenge the Johnson Amendment through the Pulpit Freedom Initiative, which urges Protestant ministers to violate the statute in protest. The ADF contends that the amendment violates First Amendment rights.[12]
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for the repeal of the amendment.[13] On February 2, 2017, after becoming President, Trump vowed at the National Prayer Breakfast to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment,[14] White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced to the press that Trump “committed to get rid of the Johnson Amendment”, “allowing our representatives of faith to speak freely and without retribution”,[15] and Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would allow all 501(c)(3) organizations to support political candidates, as long as any associated spending was minimal.[16][17]
On May 4, 2017, Trump signed the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.”[18] The executive order does not (nor can it[19]) repeal the Johnson Amendment, nor does it allow ministers to endorse from the pulpit, but it does direct the Department of Treasury that “churches should not be found guilty of implied endorsements where secular organizations would not be.” Douglas Laycock, speaking to The Washington Post, indicated that he was not aware of any cases where such implied endorsements have caused problems in the past.[20]Walter B. Jones Jr. had been the principal congressional advocate for repealing the speech restriction altogether and had support from the Family Research Council in modifying religious speech language in the Kevin Brady sponsored tax re-write legislation styled, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.[21]
Efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment have been criticized for a number of reasons. One concern is that political campaign contributions funneled through 501(c)(3) organizations would be tax-deductible for donors, and that such contributions would not be disclosed, since churches are exempt from reporting requirements required of other 501(c)(3) organizations. Under this critique, repeal would have the potential of creating a mechanism where political contributions could be made without regard to other campaign financing laws.[25][26][27] This concern was validated by Congressional testimony from Thomas Barthold, Chief of Staff of Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, saying of a repeal provision later removed from the tax bill passed in late 2017 “it’s a diversion of some of the substantial growth in political contributions into a deductible form that is not deductible today.”[28]
Other concerns include the potential damage to public trust in nonprofit and religious organizations if they were to begin endorsing candidates. Polls have shown that majorities of both the general public and of clergy oppose churches endorsing political candidates[29][30]The National Council of Nonprofits, a network of more than 25,000 nonprofit organizations, released a statement opposing the proposed repeal legislation.[31]Independent Sector, a coalition of nonprofits, foundations, and corporations has also stated their opposition to the proposal to repeal the Johnson Amendment.[32] Numerous efforts to preserve the protections of the Johnson Amendment include a letter in support of nonprofit nonpartisanship signed by more than 5,500 organizations,[33] a Faith Voices letter signed by more than 4,300 religious leaders,[34] a letter that more than 100 denominations and major religious organizations signed,[35] and a letter from the National Association of State Charity Officials[36]
There has also been concerns from clergy and lay Christians about the potential that a total repeal would cause churches to transform into partisan super PACs.[citation needed]
The Catholic Church does not allow church funds to be spent on behalf of political candidates nor endorsements from the pulpit regardless of the legal permissibility.[37]
Caron, Wilfred R.; Dessingue, Deirdre (1985). “I.R.C. §501(c)(3): Practical and Constitutional Implications of Political Activity Restrictions”. Journal of Law & Politics. 2 (1): 169–200.
Story 2: President Trump Acquitted Forever By Senate Takes A Well Deserved Victory Lap Over Failed Coup Attempts By Clinton Obama Democratic Criminal Conspiracy — Nobody Including Democrats Are Above The Law — American People Demanding The Indictments of The Conspirators — The Trump Way — Videos —
President Trump Delivers Remarks
President Trump delivers remarks at White House | USA TODAY
‘The Five’ on Trump taking marathon victory lap after his acquittal
This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.
Keiser Report: Canceling Debt to Avoid Economic Crisis (E1320)
Ep. 1548 David Stockman on Impeachment, the Democrats, the Fed, and More
Triumphant Trump lashes out ‘horrible person’ Pelosi and attacks ‘dirty cops’ in wild post-acquittal speech as he slams ‘Mueller top scum’ Russia probe and ‘evil’ impeachment as ‘all bulls**t’
President Trump gathered his political allies in the White House’s East Room Thursday to celebrate being acquitted on impeachment charges
Trump held up a copy of the Washington Post that said ‘Trump Acquitted’ in large font, saying it’s the ‘only good headline I’ve ever had in the Washington Post’
At the top of his speech, Trump called out the ‘leakers and liars’ and then name-dropped former FBI Director James Comey
He bad-mouthed a number of individuals including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, GOP Sen. Mitt Romney and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff
He again went after FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, while also slamming Hunter Biden and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe
Then Trump went around the room and complimented the Republicans who supported him, giving brief remarks about each one
Trump spoke for more than an hour and didn’t use a teleprompter, though used swear words more than once
‘This is a day of celebration because we went through hell,’ Trump told the crowd, who gave him a standing ovation
President Trump celebrated his Senate acquittal on Thursday with a freewheeling speech at the White House where he blasted the ‘vicious and mean’ Democrats, attacked ‘evil and dirty’ cops, thanked his ‘very good friends’ for their support and apologized to his family for what he put them through.
‘This is a day of celebration because we went through hell,’ he told a packed room of about 200 supporters in the East Room of the White House.
The president spoke – without the use of a teleprompter – for a little more than hour that veered back and forth between thanking his allies and blasting his enemies.
He began his remarks with his favorite hit term on the investigations into him and his presidency: ‘witch hunt.’
‘We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops. It was a leakers and lawyers. This should never happen to another president, ever. I don’t know that other presidents would have been able to take it,’ he said.
And he ended with an apology to his family, including young son Barron.
‘I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people,’ he said. ‘And Ivanka is here, my sons, my whole family. And that includes Barron. He’s up there, he’s a young boy.’
Ivanka left her seat in the audience to come up to the podium and hug her father after his apology. First lady Melania Trump did the same.
‘I just want to thank my family for sticking through it. This was not part of the deal,’ the president said.
Trump also name-dropped those he blamed for impeaching him, re-upping his litany of attacks against the same people he has blamed since the first investigation of his presidency started.
Former FBI Director James Comey was the first opponent who came up.
‘Had I not fired James Comey – who was a disaster, by the way – it’s possible I may not have even been standing here right now,’ Trump said. ‘When I fired that sleazebag, all hell broke out,’ he later added.
He blamed the top FBI officials for his problems. ‘It was the top scum, and the FBI people don’t like the top scum,’ he said.
The president also had choice words for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, Sen. Mitt Romney, Hunter Biden, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe – and the FBI lovers, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ TRUMP’S FREEWHEELING SPEECH IN FULL
President Trump hoisted up a copy of the Washington Post in the East Room Thursday, marveling at the paper’s good headline
President Trump hugs his daughter Ivanka Trump at his victory speech in the White House’s East Room Thursday
First lady Melania Trump (left) kisses President Trump (right) at the end of his speech Thursday in the East Room
The president, showing off the ‘Trump acquitted’ headline, said he might even frame this copy of the Washington Post
President Trump addressed a crowd of allies at the White House Thursday after being acquitted by the U.S. Senate
President Trump was surrounded by his political allies at the White House Thursday as he took a victory lap on being acquitted on impeachment charges by the GOP-led Senate
President Trump went around the room and complimented his political allies, while describing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as ‘vicious’ and ‘horrible’
President Trump (left) had first lady Melania Trump (right) come onstage at the conclusion of his hour-long, free-wheeling speech where he talked about impeachment
Ivanka Trump (right) listens to her father President Trump (left) speak a day after the conclusion of the Senate’s impeachment trial
Comey’s May 2017 firing led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller who took over the Russian interference probe.
The president referred to the Russia probe as ‘all bulls***’ to the East Room crowd.
That investigation wasn’t directly related to why Trump was impeached – over a scheme to hold up around $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the president to announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Trump attacked the former vice president’s son for his work on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and for a Chinese hedge fund. He also reiterated his argument his July 25 phone call with newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was perfect.
‘He’s a new president, seems like a very nice person, by the way. His whole thing was corruption. He’s going to stop corruption. We have a treaty, a signed treaty that we will work together to root out corruption in Ukraine. I probably have a legal obligation … to report corruption. They don’t even think a corrupt way son who made no money, that got thrown out of the military, that had no money at all, is working for $3 million upfront, $83,000 a month. And that’s only Ukraine. Then goes to China, picks up $1.5 billion. Then goes to Romania, I hear, and many other countries. They think that’s okay. Because, if it is, Ivanka in the audience? Boy, my kids could make a fortune,’ he said.
The East Room was filled with the president’s Republican Congressional and political allies. Lawmakers like Doug Collins, Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik and Matt Gaetz, who all vocally defended the president during the House impeachment investigation. GOP senators who voted to acquit him were there too, including Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump had personalized shout outs for many of them:
Mitch McConnell: ‘Great guy. Great guy. He’s a tough guy to read. I’m good at reading people. A tough guy to read.’
Jim Jordan: ‘When I first got to know Jim I said, “Huh, never wears a jacket. What the hell is going on?” He’s obviously very proud of his body. And they say where he works out with the congressmen, senators, they say when Jim works out, even though he’s not as young as he was, when he works out, the machine starts burning.’
Steve Scalise: ‘He got whacked, my Steve. Right? I went to the hospital with our great first lady that night. Right, honey? We saw a man who was not going to make it. He was not going to make it. The doctor — I told him, his wife, I said, “She loves you.” “Why did you say that?” Because she was devastated. A lot of wives wouldn’t give a damn.’
Elise Stefanik: ‘I didn’t realize, when she opens that mouth, you were killing them, Elise! You were killing them!’
John Ratcliffe: ‘If we were doing a remake of “Perry Mason,” the man I get — there is nobody in Hollywood like this.’
Matt Gaetz: ‘Sometimes controversial, but actually he’s not controversial. He’s solid as a rock and a friend of mine.’
The president’s impeachment legal team came in the room before Trump and was greeted with a standing ovation from the audience and shouts of ‘Bravo!’
Trump, too, was greeted by a crowd on its feet.
He held up a copy of the Washington Post in triumph as his supporters cheered him on.
‘It was the only good headline I’ve ever had in the Washington Post,’ Trump said, showing off a newspaper with the words ‘Trump acquitted’ in large typeface across the front. Trump said he might even frame it.
President Trump and Melania Trump leaving after his remarks
IN THE AUDIENCE: Reps. Doug Collins (center) and Elise Stefanik (right) were invited to attend Thursday’s White House address by President Trump. Both lawmakers defended him during the impeachement saga
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell arrives at President Trump’s East Room address Thursday
During the speech, the president praised certain Republican lawmakers who defended him, including Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York
Rep. Matt Gaetz is seen entering the Whtie House’s East Room Thursday prior to President Trump addressing the nation on his impeachment acquittal
Rep. Matt Gaetz stands as he is acknowledged by President Trump during a speech that lasted longer than an hour
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham (center) greets Rep. Matt Gaetz (left) in the White House’s East Room on Thursday
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who loudly defended President Trump during the impeachment hearings, wore a ‘Quit, Mitt’ button to the White House Thursday
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway chats with White House guests before President Trump appeared in the East Room Thursday
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is photographed in the East Room before the president delivered remarks
Republican political allies filed the White House’s audience Thursday including (from left) Rep. Mark Meadows, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Devin Nunes. Nunes is Rep. Adam Schiff’s GOP counterpart in the House Intelligence Committee
First daughter and White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump reacts to her father’s speech in the White House’s East Room Thursday
Attendees of President Trump’s East Room speech included (from left) second lady Karen Pence, Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General Bill Barr
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham previewed the president’s remarks on Fox News Channel Thursday morning
He had nicer things to say about those in the room.
TRUMP SHOUT OUTS
The president offered his thanks to many people during his remarks:
Melania Trump
Ivanka Trump
His sons and specifically Barron
Attorneys Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow
Sen. Tim Scott
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
Rep. Jim Jordan
Rep. Elise Stefanik
Rep. Mark Meadows
Rep. Doug Collins
Sen. Kelly Loeffler
Sen. Josh Hawley
Sen. Chuck Grassley
Rep. Louie Gohmert
Sen. Mike Braun
Sen. Bill Cassidy
Sen. John Barasso
Sen. Mike Lee
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy
Sen. Kelly Armstrong
Rep. Jim Banks
Rep. Andy Biggs
Abraham Lincoln
Rep. Matt Gaetz
Rep. Debbie Lesko
Gov. Ron DeSantis
Rep. Mike Johnson
Rep. Devin Nunes
Rep. John Ratliffe
Rep. Steve Scalise
Matt Schlapp
Rep. Bradley Byrne
Rep. Scott Perry
Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, got some attention from the president, in part because Lee’s counterpart, Sen. Mitt Romney, had voted alongside Democrats on voting in support of one article of impeachment.
Trump told Lee to deliver a message to the people of Utah: ‘Tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney.’
‘We can say, by far, Mike Lee is the most popular senator in the state,’ Trump said.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who also loudly backed the president during impeachment hearings, was spotted wearing a ‘quit Mitt’ button to the White House event.
Trump complimented another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. John Ratcliffe, for being straight out of Central Casting.
‘If we’re doing a remake of Perry Mason,’ he said, nodding at Ratcliffe. ‘There’s nobody in Hollywood like this.’
The president also suggested that Rep. Steve Scalise became more attractive after recovering from a gun shot wound.
‘You weren’t that good looking,’ Trump said. ‘You look good now.’
The president also talked of Scalise’s wife’s devotion to the Louisiana Republican, as Trump had met her when her husband was in the emergency room.
‘A lot of wives wouldn’t give a damn,’ Trump remarked.
Trump also made colorful comments about Rep. Jim Jordan, another prominent defender.
‘When I first got to know Jim I said, heh, he never wears a jacket, he’s obviously very proud of his body,’ the president said.
Jordan was a collegiate wrestling champion and later a college-level coach.
The Ohio Republican did wear a jacket to Trump’s speech Thursday.
Trump also asked lawmakers to stand up if they had something to say.
That prompted retiring Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, to briefly stand and say, ‘This reflection today is a small reflection of the support you have.’
‘We got your back,’ Meadows said.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told a Fox News Channel audience Thursday what to expect from his remarks – that the president had previewed himself when he slammed Pelosi and Romney at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
‘He is going to be honest,’ Grisham told Fox News, ‘going to speak with honesty and with humility and he and the family went through a lot. I think he’s also going to talk about just how horribly he was treated and, you know, that maybe people should pay for that.’
PEOPLE DONALD TRUMP CRITICIZED
The president also criticized many people in his speech:
Sen. Mitt Romney
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Rep. Adam Schiff
Rep. Jerry Nadler
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
Former FBI director James Comey
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill
Hunter Biden
Lisa Page
Peter Strzok
Andrew McCabe
Christopher Steele
Bob Mueller
Sen. Chuck Schumer
Hillary Clinton
‘People should be held accountable,’ she added.
The president went after Pelosi and Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment process during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.
And, in his remarks later that day in the East Wing, he stood by what he said at the breakfast.
‘I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant everything. I meant every word of it,’ he said.
At the breakfast, the president did not mention the two by name but his meaning was clear.
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say I pray for you when they know that’s not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. I will be discussing that a little bit later at the White House,’ he said.
Romney was the lone Republican to find Trump guilty on one article of impeachment: abuse of power. He said in his remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday that it was his faith – Romney is a devout Mormon – that led him to that decision.
Pelosi, a devout Catholic, has repeatedly said she prays for the president. She was seated at the head table during Trump’s remarks and shook her head at one point during them. She pursed her lips a few times as he spoke. The speaker launched the impeachment inquiry into the president in September.
Back at the White House, Trump had no problem uttering Pelosi’s name. He called her a ‘vicious horrible person’ and said that Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and one of the Democrats’ House impeachment managers, was a ‘horrible person.’
‘She may pray, but she prays for the opposite,’ Trump said of the speaker.
At the prayer breakfast, the president admitted he was having trouble liking his political enemies now that his impeachment trial is over.
‘We are grateful to the people of this room for the lovely show to religion, not one religion, but many religions. They are brave, they are brilliant, they are fighters, they like people and sometimes they hate people. I’m sorry. I apologize. I am trying to learn. Not easy. It’s not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks. I do my best,’ he said.
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment trial and inquiry
Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the opposite of the head table from President Trump
Speaker Pelosi sat grimed during President Trump’s remarks
President Trump addressed impeachment at the top of his remarks
Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate on Wednesday, bringing to a close the fourth month, contentious process that led to a new level of bitter relations between the White House and congressional Democrats.
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, in his key note address at the breakfast, urged those present not to hold political enemies in contempt, but to do as Jesus preached and ‘love your enemies.‘
‘I don’t know if I agree with you,’ Trump said to Brooks when it was his turn to speak. And then he proceeded to launch his attacks on Pelosi and Romney.
The president addressed the impeachment inquiry at the top of his remarks and, earlier, had triumphantly held up newspaper headlines announcing his acquittal. The audience cheered his move.
‘My family, our great country and your president has been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation,’ Trump said.
‘They know what they are doing is wrong but they put themselves far ahead of our great country. Weeks ago and again yesterday, courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude, and strength to do what everyone knows was right,’ he added.
The president and the speaker were meetingfor the first time since the impeachment verdict at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
Trump walked to the head table to applause and held up the front pages of USA Today and The Washington Post with their oversized headlines proclaiming his acquittal by the Senate.
‘Acquitted’ read USA Today. ‘Trump Acquitted’ was the Washington Post’s headline.
Pelosi stood and clapped as President Trump entered the room. She simply looked on as he displayed the newspapers declaring him acquitted.
President Trump waved around a USA Today headline proclaiming his acquittal on impeachment
He also waved the Washington Post front page
Speaker Pelosi spoke before President Trump at the breakfast
Speaker Pelosi led a prayer for the poor
Both the president and the speaker were seated at the head table but on opposite sides of the podium.
They did not interact.
Trump shook hands with his side of the head table when he entered the 68th Annual National Prayer Breakfast and did not walk over to the other side of the podium, where the vice president and the speaker were seated.
Pelosi spoke first, leading a prayer for the poor. The president head bowed during her prayer. He did not applaud when she was done.
Vice President Mike Pence, when he arrived ahead of the president, shook hands with the speaker and sat a few chairs down from her.
Several members of Congress and members of the president’s Cabinet attended the annual breakfast.
‘The lord works in mysterious ways. I do not think he could have picked a better day to bring us all together,’ House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his prayer.
The president thanked McCarthy and the breakfast hosts in his opening remarks.
Mitt Romney cited his faith as the reason for his guilty vote on Trump
Trump went after Romney in the wake of the Wednesday’s impeachment vote. He tweeted a video accusing the Utah senator of being a ‘Democrat secret asset’ and criticized him for his failed 2008 presidential campaign.
‘Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,’ the president tweeted.
Romney cited his faith as one of the reasons for his guilty vote. He voted to acquit the president on the second charge: obstruction of Congress.
‘The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a senator juror, I swore an oath before god to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before god as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced,’ Romney said.
And the Republican senator from Utah acknowledged he expected to feel the president’s wrath for his decision.
‘I’m aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced. I’m sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before god demanded it of me?,’ he said.
It was also the first time Trump and Pelosi met since Tuesday’s State of the Union address when Trump refused to shake her hand at its beginning and she ripped up the text of his remarks at its conclusion.
After the president finished giving his annual address Tuesday night, Pelosi stood up and ripped the pages in half, dropping them on her desk.
She defended her actions Tuesday night after the speech: ‘It was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives. It was such a dirty speech.’
The extraordinary clash between the two started when with Trump snubbed Pelosi’s outstretched hand after he came into the House chamber.
Trump handed Pelosi a copy of his speech when he reached the speaker’s dais – the same place she presided over his impeachment vote two months ago – but simply turned away as the Speaker took her copy of his speech, then stood in front of a chamber which echoed with cries of ‘four more years’ from Republicans – and where Democrats sat stone-faced.
Pelosi was visibly taken aback after Trump turned away from her offer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped apart her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address after he finished speaking on Tuesday night
Earlier, Trump delivered an astonishing snub to Nancy Pelosi as he started his State of the Union speech Tuesday, ignoring her as she offered him a handshake
After the Senate acquitted the president on Wednesday, Pelosi said after the vote that the president remains a ‘threat’ that the House will continue to combat through its lawsuits against the administration and with the public.
‘Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to. The House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that safeguard our Republic, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion,’ she said in a statement.
DONALD TRUMP REMARKS ON IMPEACHMENT ACQUITTAL
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
Wow.
Well, thank you very much, everybody. Wow. We’ve all been through a lot together. And we probably deserved that hand for all of us, because it’s been a very unfair situation. I invited some of our very good friends, and we have limited room, but everybody wanted to come. Kept it down to a minimum. Believe it or not, this is a minimum. But a tremendous thing was done over the last number of months. Really, if you go back to it, over the last number of years. We had the witch hunt, it started from the day we came down the elevator. Myself and our future first lady, who is with us right now.
Thank you, Melania.
And it never really stopped. We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops. It was a leakers and lawyers. This should never happen to another president, ever. I don’t know that other presidents would have been able to take it. Some people said no, they wouldn’t have. But I can tell you, at a minimum, you have to focus on this because it can get away very quickly, no matter who you have with you. It can get away very quickly. It was a disgrace. Had I not fired James Comey, who was a disaster, by the way, it’s possible I wouldn’t even be standing here right now. We caught him in the act. Dirty cops. Bad people. If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would have been in jail for a long time already. Many, many years. I want to start by thanking some of — I call them friends because, you know, you develop friendships and relationships when you are in battle and in war, much more so than, “Gee, let’s have a normal situation.” With all we’ve gone through, I think we’ve done more than any president in any administration. Really, I say, for the most part, Republican congressmen and congresswomen and Republican senators — we’ve done more than any administration in the first few years. You look at all the things we’ve done. I watched this morning as they tried to take credit for the stock market.
Think of that. Let me tell you, if we didn’t win, the stock market would have crashed. The market was going up a lot before the election because it was looking like we had a good chance to win. It went up tremendously from the time we won the election to the time we took office, which was November 8th until January 20th. That’s our credit, that’s all our credit. Leading up to that point was our credit, because there was hope. One of the reasons the stock market has gone up so much in the last few days is people think we are doing so well. They liked the state of the union speech.
It really is, it’s a true honor. Making the state of the union speech, I was with some people who have been around. They’ve been all over the world. One of them is a highly sophisticated person. They said, “You know, no matter where you go in the world, it doesn’t make any difference. There is nothing like what I witnessed tonight. The beauty, the majesty of the chamber. The power of the United States. The power of the people in this room.” Really, amazing. I don’t think there’s anything like that anywhere in the world. You can go to any other country, any other location, any other place. It’s the beauty of everything. It’s what it represents, and how it represents our country. I want to start by introducing some of the people that are here. I know some are going to be left out, but they work so hard. And this is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech. It’s not anything, it’s just — we are sort of — it’s a celebration. Because we have something that just worked out. I mean, it worked out. We went through hell unfairly, did nothing wrong.
Did nothing wrong. I’ve done things wrong in my life, I will admit.
Not purposely, but I’ve done things wrong. This is what the end result is.
So… [holds up front page of The Washington Post] You can take that home. Honey, maybe we’ll frame it. The only good headline I’ve ever had on “The Washington post.”
But every paper is the same. Does anybody have those papers does anybody have them? They are like that. So I appreciate that. But some of the people here have been incredible warriors. They are warriors. There’s nothing from a legal standpoint — this is a political thing. Every time I say, “This is unfair, let’s go to court,” they say, “Sir, you can’t go to court, this is politics.” We were treated unbelievably unfairly. You have to understand, we first went through “Russia, Russia, Russia.” It was all bullshit.
We then went through the Mueller report. And they should have come back one day later. They didn’t, they came back two years later after lives were ruined. After people went bankrupt. After people lost all their money. People went to Washington to help other people. Bright eyed and bushy tail, they say they came, one or two or three people in particular. But many people, we had a rough campaign.
It was nasty. One of the nastiest, they say. They say Andrew Jackson was always the nastiest campaign. They actually said we topped it. It was nasty both in the primaries and in the election. But you see, we thought after the election it would stop. But it didn’t stop, it just started. Tremendous corruption. Tremendous corruption. So, we had a campaign — little did we know we were running against some very, very bad and evil people with fake dossiers, with all of these horrible, dirty cops that took these dossiers and did bad things. They knew all about it. The FISA courts, should be ashamed of themselves. It’s a very tough thing. And we ended up winning on the “Russia, Russia, Russia.” It should have taken the one day, it took years. Then Bob Mueller testified. That didn’t work out so well for the oversight.
But they should have said that first week, because it came out. Is that right, Jim Jordan? They knew the first two days, actually. Is that right? They knew we were totally innocent. But they kept it going, mark. The kept it going forever. Because they wanted to inflict political pain on somebody that — I had just won an election, a lot of people were surprised. We had polls that said we were going to win. We have the “Los Angeles times” were going to win. But it was going to be close. We did win. It was one of the greatest wins of all time. And they said, “Okay, he won.” I wrote this down because that was where a thing called an insurance policy — to me, when I saw the insurance policy, and that was done long before the election.
It was done when we thought Hillary Clinton was going to win. By the way, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for millions. Millions of dollars, the fake dossier. Now Christopher Steele admits that it’s a fake. Because he got sued by rich people. I should have sued him, too. But when you are president, people don’t like suing. I want to thank my legal team, by the way.
Not for that advice, but for other.
Pat, Jay, you guys, stand up.
Great job. Right at the beginning, they said, “Sir, you have nothing to worry about. All of the facts on your side.” I said, “You don’t understand, that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter.” And that was really true. They made up facts. A corrupt politician named Adam Schiff made up my statement to the Ukrainian president. He brought it out of thin air, just made it up. They say he’s a screenwriter, a failed screenwriter. Unfortunately he went into politics after that.
Remember, he said the statement? “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” I didn’t say that. Fortunately for all of us here today and for our country, we had transcripts. We had transcribers, professional transcribers. Then they said, “Oh, well, maybe the transcription is not correct.” But Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his twin brother, right? We had some people, really amazing. But we did everything. We said, “What’s wrong with that,” they didn’t at this word or that word. It didn’t matter. “At it.
They’re probably wrong, but added ” now everybody agrees they were perfectly accurate. Tim Scott — I don’t know if Tim is here, but he said, “Are –” he was the first want to call me. “Sir, I read the transcript. You did nothing wrong.” And, Mitch, he stayed there right from the beginning. He never changed. Mitch Mcconnell, I want to tell you. You did a fantastic job.
Somebody said, “You know, Mitch is quiet.” I said, “He’s not quiet. He’s not quite.”
He doesn’t want people to know him. And they said, “Is Mitch smart?” And I said, “Well, let’s put it this way. For many, many years, a lot of very smart — bad, in many cases, sometimes good — people have been trying to take his place. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even heard the subject come up, because they’ve been wiped out so fast.”
This guy is great and I appreciate Mitch. He has also given us 191, now. 191 federal judges. Two supreme court judges. Up to 191. Great guy. Great guy. He’s a tough guy to read. I’m good at reading people. A tough guy to read. I told him – my wife would say, “How do you do with Mitch?” And I’d say, “Uh, I don’t know.”
That’s what makes them good, when you can read somebody. Fantastic job. He understood right from the beginning this was crooked politics. This was crooked politics. How about all these people? They are running for office. They are saying the worst things about me, like eight senators on the democratic side. Most of them got wiped out. They got 1% or less. Most of them got less. They decided to go home. “Let’s go back to California. Let’s go back to –” wherever they came from. “Go back to New York.” How about that? Our New York Senator, Gillibrand. “Let’s go back to New York.” After they get nothing. Then they take an oath that they will be fair, that they will be reasonable come all the different things. They are not fair. But here’s the beauty, we have four left. They are saying the most horrendous things about me. It’s okay, it’s politics. And then they are supposed to vote! On me! They are trying to replace me, and then they are supposed to be voting. So I think — I mean, I think it’s incredible. So, Mitch, I want to thank you very much. Incredible. We have some of your folks here, they are incredible people. They’ve been great from the beginning. Again, you are out of session, unfortunately. I only told these folks, “Let’s do this today.” We did a prayer breakfast this morning. I thought that was really good. In fact, it was so good, it wiped us out. By the time we finished, this will wipe that one outcome of those statements.
I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant everything.
I meant every word of it. We have some of the folks that are going to be leaving right after this. They work hard, and they did work hard. Though Bill Cassidy, senator, stand up, Bill. What a guy.
Great man. When I need to know about health insurance and pre-existing conditions and individual mandates, I called Bill.
Or I call Barrasso. Those two guys, they know more than anybody. A man who just became a senator. He’s a little bit like me. We have a couple of them. Very successful guy in business, and he said, “What the hell? I’ll run for the senate,” from Indiana. And he ran. I saw him on television, destroying his opponent in a debate. I said, “This guy could win.” I got behind him, and Mike Braun, you have done some great job. Thank you very much.
Tough! A man who got James Comey to choke. And he was just talking in his regular voice. He’s the roughest man — she’s actually an unbelievable — and I appreciate the letter you sent me today. I just got it. He’s got this voice that scares people.
You know, people from Iowa can be very tough. We are doing very well in Iowa, but I tell you, Chuck Grassley. “You tell me, what did you say,” he wasn’t being rough, that’s just the way he talked.
That’s when — I think that’s when Comey announced he was leaking, lying and everything else. He choked! Because he never heard anybody talk like that. I wish you got angry, you could have gotten the whole ball game. He would have said, “I give up!” Chuck Grassley is an incredible guy.
And a man who — you know, he was running against a tough, smart campaigner. We learned how good she was, right? She was a great campaigner. In fact, by the end of the campaign, I thought she was more for me than you were, Josh.
I was worried. She was saying the greatest things about me. You know I’m talking about I went to a great place, Missouri. And I said, “Who do you have to beat her?” And they said, “Well, we have four people.” I said, “Let me see them.” Can you imagine can make I’m interviewing people for the United States senate, this is what I do. Where have I gone? But I love it. We get great people. The first when I met with Josh Hawley. After about 10 minutes and said to the people, “Don’t show me anybody else, this is the guy.” He was the attorney general, ditto phenomenal job in the state. Highly respected. And Claire Mccaskill. The theory was you couldn’t beat her. Great campaign-the art. Remember last campaign, she was always going be taken up. People say, “How did that happen chemicals go it didn’t happen with him. I’m putting this in the archives is 1 of the best ads I’ve ever made. She tried to convince people we are best friends, but Josh ended up winning by five or six points. You are unbelievable, you were tough, and you are something. One of the greatest supporters of the impeachment hoax with Josh Hawley. He was incensed, actually. He was incensed at what they were doing and what they were doing. I had some who said, “I wish you didn’t make a call,” and that’s okay. If they need that. It’s incorrect. It’s totally incorrect. And you have some who used religion as a crutch. They never used it before… An article written today, “Never heard him use it before.” But today, it’s one of those things. It’s a failed presidential candidate, so things can happen when you fail so badly running for president.
But Josh Hawley, I want to thank you. You were right from the beginning. Man, did I make a good choice. Thank you, Josh. Tremendous future. A man who is brilliant, and who actually was deceived, to an extent. Comes from a great state, Utah, where my poll numbers have gone through the roof. And one of the senators’ poll numbers — not this one — went down big.
You saw that, Mike? Mike Lee is a brilliant guy. He’s difficult.
Whenever — we do sign a lot of legislation, it’s big and it’s powerful, but it sort of — everybody has to approve it. I see 99 to one. 99 to one. I say, “Don’t tell me who’s the one.”
“Is it Mike?” “Yes.”
And he always has a good reason for it, too come by the way but he is, he’s incredible. Right at the beginning, he knew we were right, Mike. I appreciate it very much. Fantastic. Say hello to the people of Utah, and tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney. I’m sorry. Okay?
We can say that Mike Lee is by far the most popular senator from the state. But you’ve done a fantastic job, Mike. In many ways. In many ways. A young woman who I didn’t know at all, but she has been so supportive. And I’ve had great support from other people in that state. She has been so supportive, and she has been downright nasty and mean about the unfairness to the president. Kelly Loeffler, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
She started very early on. We have — I don’t know if we have other senators here, but we’ve got a hell of a lot of congressmen. I will go over them quickly. They’ve also been — it helped when we won, 197 to nothing. That’s got to be a first, Kevin, right? Is that, like, a first? Republicans have this image. I say Democrats are lousy politicians because they have lousy policy. Open borders, sanctuary cities. They have horrible policy. Who the hell can — oh, the new policy is raise taxes. They want to raise taxes. All my life, I wasn’t in politics, but I would say if you are a politician you say you want to lower taxes. They want to raise taxes. They have open borders, sanctuary cities, Reeser and Brady’s taxes, get rid of everybody’s health care, 180 million people in the United States — and they are really happy. And we are going to give you health care the cost more money if the country could make in 30 years if it does really well. That’s one year. I always said, they are. They do two things. They are vicious and mean. Vicious. These people are vicious. Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person. And she wanted to impeach a long time ago. When she said, “I pray for the president, I prefer the president.” She doesn’t pray. She may pray, but pray for the opposite.
They don’t pray at all. They do vicious — they stick to give it prehistorically. I’m not talking about now. They stick together like glue. That’s how they impeached, because they had whatever the numbers — 220 people. So they don’t lose anybody. They will be able to impeach anybody. You could be George Washington, you could have just won the war, and they would say, “Let’s get him out of office.
“They stuck together and they are vicious as hell. And they will probably come back for more, but they may not, because the Republican party’s poll numbers, Mitch, have now gone up more than any time, I think, since 2004 or 2005. You know what happened then. But in normal times, decades, you would call it — that was an unusual time. It was for a very short period. The Republican party’s poll numbers — and Donald Trump’s poll numbers of the highest I’ve ever had.
It’s no way to get your poll numbers up. Because from my family’s standpoint, it’s been very unfair for my family. It’s been very unfair to the country. Think of it. A phone call. A very good phone call. I know bad phone calls. This is a phone call where Merritt don’t like many people
— I think Mike Pompeo was probably on the call. Many people were on the call. They even have “Apprenti come” bring up a favorite word of my current apprentice. They have apprenti on this call. There many people. In the case of Ukraine, he’s a new president, seems like a very nice person, by the way. His whole thing was corruption. He’s going to stop corruption. We have a treaty, a signed treaty that we will work together to root out corruption in Ukraine. I probably have a legal obligation, Mr. Attorney, to report corruption. They don’t even think a corrupt way son who made no money, that got thrown out of the military, that had no money at all, is working for $3 million upfront, $83,000 a month. And that’s only Ukraine.
Then goes to China, picks up $1.5 billion. Then goes to Romania, I hear, and many other countries. They think that’s okay. Because, if it is, Ivanka in the audience? Boy, my kids could make a fortune.
It’s corrupt. But it’s not even that, it’s just general corruption. The other thing is mentioned in the call. Something I’ve told Mike Pence, our great vice president. I would tell him all the time, and I told him when he went on the trip. Because he was over there. He never mentioned anything about this, when you hide your meeting. It’s a terrible thing. I told Mike, I said, “Mike, we are giving them money, and you are always torn about that because we have our country to build. We have our cities to build and our roads to fix. But we are giving the money. Tell me, why isn’t Germany paying money? Why isn’t Frantz? Why isn’t the United Kingdom paying money? What aren’t they paying money? Why are we paying money? Is that the correct statement to find out what the hell is going on.” I told that all my people come on B. Asked that question. Why isn’t Germany paying? Why is the United States always the sucker?” Because we are a bunch of suckers. But that’s turning around fast. But it makes it harder when stuff like this happens. Because you want to focus, and you want to focus perfectly. Think we could have done, if the same energy was put into infrastructure, prescription drug prices. Think of what we could have done. And I’m now talking both sides. Think of what we could have done if we had the same genus. Because it’s genius. I will say, it’s genius on the other side. Maybe even more so, because they took nothing and brought me to a final vote of impeachment.
That’s a very ugly word to me. It’s a very dark word, very ugly. They took nothing. They took that phone call that was a totally appropriate call — I call it a perfect call, because it was — and they brought me to the final stages of impeachment. But now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought a word would sound so good. It’s called, “Total acquittal.” Total acquittal.
So, I want to come if I could real fast , just introduce a few of the people. I have to start with Kevin. Man, did you do a job. Lucky you are there. It wouldn’t have worked out. If you don’t have the right people, I tell you, Kevin McCarthy has done an incredible job. He loves his job, he loves his country. I’ll tell you what, Mitch and Kevin, they love what they do. Mitch wouldn’t even tell you he liked it.
Mitch, do you like it? “I don’t know.”
He’s the greatest poker player, right? And Kevin would say, “I love it.” Right? And I will say, you are going to be Speake of the house because of this impeachment hoax. And I’m going to work hard on it.
I’m going to try to get out to those trump areas that we won by a lot. You know, in ’18, we didn’t win back. We just won two seats in North Carolina. Two wonderful seats in North Carolina that were not supposed to be won. But I went and I made speeches, and we had rallies, and we did a great job and we won. We took two seats, nobody writes about that.
If we had lost them they would have been the biggest stories of the year. We are going to go, we are going to do a job, and we are going to enact a lot of seats. People are very angry that Nancy Pelosi and all of these guys — Nadler, I’ve known and much of my life. He has fought me in New York for 25 years. I always beat him. I had to beat him another time, and I will probably have to beat him again. If they find I happened to walk across the street and maybe go against the light or something, “Let’s impeach him!”
So I’ll probably have to do it again, because these people have gone stone cold crazy. But I’ve beaten him all my life and I will beat him again if I have to.
But what they are doing is very unfair. Very unfair. So, Kevin McCarthy has been great. So, a few names, right? If you want, you can raise and I will say, “Great, love to have you, wonderful.” But we will do the best we can. I have Mike evident but my cabin is different, I appoint them. I didn’t see all of them helping so much. They were running there, various bureaucracies. My cabinet is great and they are all here, but today is the day to celebrate these great warriors. They are great warriors, they really fought hard with us. Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota. Kelly, thank you, great job.
Jim Banks of Indiana. Jim, thank you, great job.
Andy Biggs. Where is Andy? Boy, oh, boy, Andy.
There’s a guy. He’s tough. I hear we are doing well in Arizona, huh? Going good, yeah? I saw a poll that was very good. For me. I think Martha is going to do — we have some states that are going to be not easy, but Arizona has been great and we are stopping illegal aliens from coming in.
We are putting up walls. New Mexico, too, the state that’s never been in play for Republicans, is totally in play. Nevada is really looking good. We are doing well. We are going to have a great — there is more spirit. I will say this, there is more spirit now for the Republican Party, by far, than the Democrats. Mike pence just got back from a place, a beautiful place that Chuck Grassley knows well. Iowa. And he was talking about this fiasco, the Democrats — they can’t count some simple votes, and yet they want to take over your health care system. Think of that. We also had an election out there, we got 98% of the vote. Have two people running, you know. I guess to consider them nonpeople, but they are running. One of them was the governor. One was a congressman. They are running. We’ve got 98% of the vote, and everybody from the media was saying, “Who are those crowds over there?” They expected to be competitive for everybody’s running because they want to enact. And it was Trump. Right, Mark Meadows? It was Trump. This was the trump crowd. Actually, a lot of my guys went there. They went to Iowa, and a lot of friends went there. They say the spirit for the Republican party right now is stronger, I think, than it’s ever been in the history of our country.
I think it’s stronger than it’s ever been. And that includes honest Abe Lincoln. A lot of people forget, Abe Lincoln — I wish you were here, I give him one hell of an introduction.
But he was a Republican. Abe Lincoln, honest Abe. Bradley Byrne, Alabama. What a great place.
Thank you, Bradley. A man who has been an unbelievable friend of mine and spokesman, and somebody who I really like.
And I know, Kelly, you are going to end up liking him a lot. Something’s going to happen that’s very good, I don’t know. I haven’t figured out yet. But Doug Collins. Where is he?
You have been so great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Really, an amazing job. A young man who is born with a great gene, because I know his father and how great a politician he was. He’s from Florida. Sometimes controversial, but actually he’s not controversial. He’s solid as a rock and a friend of mine, Matt Gaetz. Thank you, Matt.
Great job. All right. This guy. So, he is the NCAA wrestling champion when he was in college a couple years ago. That’s a big deal. That means in all of college, you are a champ. You the best. His record was ridiculous, nobody could beat him. I see it, every time I see it. When I first get to know him, Jim Jordan, when I first got to know Jim I said, “Huh, never wears a jacket. What the hell is going on?”
He’s obviously very proud of his body.
And they say where he works out with the congressmen, senators, they say when Jim works out, even though he’s not as young as he was, when he works out, the machine starts burning. It’s a different form of a workout event us, right, sonny? There he is, look at that guy. One day and looking, he looks tough. I’m looking at those years. And I say, “Those years have something going on there.” I said, “Did you ever wrestle?” “I did.” He doesn’t talk, but I checked. This guy was a champion top wrestler.
When I had the top — I had all of the teams. By the way, your super bowl champions are coming. I think next week, or soon. Very soon. Every one of them want to be here. The coach loves us. The coach is great. Andy Reid.
Every one of them want to be here. People love it. But we had all of the NCAA championship teams here. They had the golf, the basketball, they had every team here. And one of the teams was wrestling. The wrestling team. Was that Penn state? And Penn state won the title, they have a great team. I walked up with Jim, and it’s like I didn’t exist.
Those wrestlers, they grabbed him, they love Jim Jordan, and we love you, too. Because you are some warrior.
A woman who became — we have a couple of women that became stars. You two. I always like the name, Lesko.” I so that face, I had the cards, seven opponents. You have no idea how much the public appreciates how smart, how sharp you are. This, I can’t tell. They just said, “You know, she’s really good, she’s really talented.” I said, “Let’s go.” We worked with her, she won her race. Tough race. It’s no longer tough. What she does out there is incredible. Arizona loves her. But you are so incredible, representing — I don’t see me, representing our country and getting us out of this impeachment hoax. We did was incredible. So, Debbie, please stand up. Debbie Lesko.
A man who I became very friendly with. I don’t know why. You ever have it where — I’ll ask the media. Certain people call, you take the calls. Other people call, if they don’t have information, they won’t take anybody’s call. Both are people call, and this is a guy who — he’s just a very special guy. His wife, I actually like better than him, to be honest.
Because he doesn’t know that I know that he didn’t actually support me right from the beginning, but she did.
And on my worst day — right? On my worst day, my worst, I won’t tell you why it’s my worst day, she got a bus, got many of the buses, and women all over well, Mark was sort of semi-supporting another candidate. Which he ended up leaving very quickly. I don’t think he had a choice, because of your wife. So thank her. Mark Meadows is an extra ordinary guy. The only problem is I guess he’s announcing that she would only win by 40 points, but he is announcing that he is not running this time. You have somebody good to run? Is somebody going to win your district by at least 20 points, please? Okay. But he’s a tremendously talented man. Not just as a politician, as a human being is incredible. And during these horrible times
— the way he worked, and Jim, and all of you guys, the way they worked was so — it was like their life was at stake. So many. Ron DeSantis is another one. He worked so hard. He called me, he said, “Sir, I would like to run for governor.” I said, “Governor? I don’t want you to run. I like you –” “No, I want to run for governor.” I said, “Well, if I have to. How can I support you, you are at three.” He had no money. Somebody else had $22 million in cash. I said, “If it’s important, I’ll do it.” These and great warrior. By the way, he ran, I endorsed him, his numbers went through the roof. The men who he beat, who was expected to win back easily, called me after the race. He said, “You endorsed him and it was like a nuclear bomb went off. There was nothing I could do.” He never even spent his money, he saved it. But Ron DeSantis is another one. And now he’s the governor of Florida. By the way, he’s a great governor. He is a very popular governor. His numbers are in the 70s, and he’s done a great job. But, mark, I want to thank you very much.
Fantastic job, thank you very much. Mark Meadows.
And Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Where’s Mike? Central casting, what a job. You can represent me any time. You can represent me anytime. Thank you. What a job you’ve done. Thank you, Mike. And a man nobody’s ever heard of except the other side. He’s the other side’s worst nightmare. This guy goes down into dungeons and basements, he will find a document no matter what. He’s the most legitimate human being, he’s the hardest worker. He’s unbelievable. He took tremendous abuse. The media, and the other side, the bad ones, the leakers, the liars, the dirty cops they, they want to destroy him. They tried, but he wouldn’t let it happen. In a certain way, he was the first one. Wouldn’t you say? This was the first guide. Came out of nowhere. He’s saying, “These people are corrupt.” He is still saying it. He was unbelievable. Devin Nunes. Unbelievable.
That’s so true, Devin. He would come in and say — I didn’t even know them. I just heard there was this congressman who just kept going into a basement come into files. He knew something was wrong. You felt it, right? Now we know a lot more than we knew then, right? You never thought it was as bad as it is, and hopefully we are going to take care of things, because we can never, ever allow this to happen again.
Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Scott, thank you. Thank you, Scott. Really great. I’m doing very well over there, by the way. Just so you — a man who is — central casting, if I’m going to pick Perry mason, I’m going to do a remake of “Perry mason.” Other than Bill Barr, I would pick the sky. But I would pick Barr first. John Ratcliffe. If we were doing a remake of “Perry mason,” the man I get — there is nobody in Hollywood like this. John Ratcliff.
Such a great lawyer. Incredible guy, incredible talent. Just a great lawyer. We appreciate it. He gets on that screen and everybody says, “I agree.” The other side folds up so fast, we’ll probably be using a lot of you in the next year. We’ve been fantastic, John. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. I meant it was braver than me and braver than all of us in this room. He got whacked. He got whacked, my Steve. Right? I went to the hospital with our great first lady that night. Right, honey? We saw a man who was not going to make it. He was not going to make it. The doctor — I told him, his wife, I said, “She loves you.” “Why did you say that?” Because she was devastated. A lot of wives wouldn’t give a damn.
I would say, “How is he doing?” ?” She couldn’t even talk, she was inconsolable. “Not good.” “I’m going home now.”
She was a total mess. She was really devastated. It really looked like he had a 20, 25% chance — I think you set a record for blood loss. And Steve Scalise, actually — honestly, I think you’re a better looking, more handsome now. You weren’t that good looking, you look good now
He looks better now, can you believe it? I don’t know what the hell that is.
Better now.
What a guy. And he was practicing for the baseball game against the Democrats, right? And this whack job started shooting. Hurt Roger. I don’t know if Roger is here. Heard a heard a number of people. Steve was the second baseman. He went down, and it was terrible. I mean, I saw the whole thing, and it was terrible. Fortunately, you had to cope brave policeman with you because of your high position in congress. You had to policeman and they were amazing. A man and woman. They came in, they didn’t have rifles. They were supposedly against a pretty good sharpshooter with rifles, good equipment. All they had was a gun. They started coming in from the outfield, shooting. They are so far away, that a handgun is not preferred. This guy has a rifle, he’s hitting people, and he was going to move up, and there was no out. If he had been able to move up, there was no way to get out. The entrance was a single entrance way on the other side where he was. So everyone went into the dugout, ran into the dugout. But Steve was really hit badly in the stomach. With a bullet that rips you apart. It was supposed to do that, it rips you apart. These two people came, charging forward. Boom, boom, boom. And one of them — you know who? One of them, him, got the shooter. Hit him. And then got him.
Killed him. From long distance. It was amazing. If you didn’t have those two people, you could imagine. Right? You could imagine what would happen. Melania and I went to the hospital that night, and he was in such bad shape. He’s been working ever since, so hard. Six months ago, they had a baseball game at the national — I’m watching. It’s on television. It’s just. It’s a game, you want to win it. Right? Steve is second base. The poor guy can’t even walk. Do you remember Bobby Richardson for the New York Yankees? He was known for range, Louis. He had the greatest range. If the ball at the shortstop, Bobby Richardson is the second baseman. Bobby Richardson would feel the ball. If it went to first base, he was sure which first base and paint had unbelievable range. This was not Steve Scalise.
Steve had no range.
1 foot, and he has to fall down. Right? He was trying to get better. I don’t know who the hell put you on the field.
And this is a true story. The game starts, and the first pitch, Steve is standing there at second base and the guy is really in bad shape. And I said, “This is terrible.” A ground ball, shot, is hit to second. And Steve, I didn’t have time to think through much, but I said, “This is not good. That ball is going toward him.” And this guy stopped that ball, caught the ball. He’s now laying down. He throws the ball to first base, he gets them out. I said — it’s the most incredible thing. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Right? And he gets him out, and they then took him out of the game. Which was a very wise thing.
Because you could ever do that again in a million years.
But you aren’t going to let that all go through — I don’t care if it was hit by the greatest of all time. Right? That ball is not going through you, because you are a warrior. Steve is fantastic. You are fantastic. You and Liz, Kevin, what a group. I mean, what a group. I got lucky. Because you need the right people. I fired the wrong people, it may be a different story. Maybe we’d be celebrating something else. But I really want to thank you. Steve Scalise. And Elise, you — I just read this story. Most incredible, what’s going on with you, Elise. I even said — I was up campaigning, helping. I thought, “She looks good, she looks like good talent.” But I didn’t realize, when she opens that mouth, you were killing them, Elise! You were killing them!
Elise, and there’s a big story in “The New York Post.” I love “The New York Post.” They treat me well. There aren’t many of you do, but today they are treating you well. I even had a great headline. “New York Times,” “Washington post.” I had all these great headlines. Maybe we should just send it right there. We had a great story yesterday in the post that people from all over the country are contributing to her campaign. They were so enthralled with the way you handled yourself. What you said, the way you said it. I’ll always be your friend. It’s really an amazing story. What a great future you have. What a great future, thank you.
The first lady agrees, by the way. The first lady agrees. And Michael turner, you can represent me any time. Where is Michael? Where is he? You can represent me. How good were you?
There’s another “Perry mason” type, I think.
What do you think, John? Michael, you are fantastic, and we appreciate it. Brad Wenstrup. Where is Brad?
Brad. Great, great job. It’s a big day. All the lawyers stayed behind. Lee Zeldin, how good are you?
How good are you? Man. And Louis, your name — they didn’t give me your name. If I didn’t announce Louie — whoever the hill made this list, I’ve got to get rid of them. If I wouldn’t have announced Louie, it might have been the end of the presidency. Louie, you have been so great. So tough and so smart. I got it. But Louie has been amazing. He’s a tough guy, a smart guy. He’s streetwise like crazy. We love Texas. We are with you all the way, Louie. We are with you all the way. Thank you very much.
So that’s the story. We have a great group of warriors, and there are others left. I guess, probably — I’m sure I didn’t mention a few. I apologize if that’s the case. How is CPAC doing, good? Stand up, will you? He’s the one who said, “You should run.”
Right? Matt said — it’s like five years ago, six years ago. I made a speech, and then they do some kind of a straw poll. Who made the best speech? And he said I made the best speech, out of all these professionals — I hate to say this, with all these professional politicians, they voted that by far the best speech was trump. He calls me and said, “We should run for politics.” I said, what do I know about politics,” we learned quickly at our country has ever done better than it’s doing right now.
But thank you, Matt.
So that’s the story. Even treated very unfairly. Fortunately we have great men and women that came to our defense. If we didn’t, this would have been a horrific incident for our country. When you have Lisa and Peter, the lovers, the FBI lovers.
I want to believe the path you threw out for deputy director Andrew McCabe. That’s the office. There’s no way he gets elected, meaning me. “There’s no way he gets elected.” This is Peter to Lisa. He’s probably trying to impress her, for obvious reasons.
“There’s no way he gets elected. But I’m afraid we can’t take the risk.” Think of this. In other words, if I get elected, they can’t — they, two lowlifes, they can’t take the risk. Think of it. That’s where it came up. The greatest word of all, “Insurance policy.” But he says, “I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. She may lose.” “It’s like an insurance policy, in the unlikely event you die before your 40. In other words, if I won, they were going to do exactly what they did to us. They were going to try and overthrow the government of the United States. A duly elected president. If I didn’t fire James Comey, we would have never found this stuff. Because when I fired that sleazebag, all hell broke out. They were ratting on each other, they were running for the hills. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see what happens. It’s in the hands of some very talented people. We are going to have to see what happens.
But I can tell you, in my opinion, these are the crooked-est, most dishonest, dirtiest people, I’ve seen. They said — this is Strzok — “God, who were he should win, 100 million to one.” This is about me. This is an agent from the FBI. Look how they let her off. 33,000 emails, deleted. Nothing happens to her. Nothing happens. It’s unbelievable. But think of that read “God, Hillary should win.” These guys are investigating Hillary. They go to work for Mueller, the two of them. And when Mueller found out that everybody knew that they were 100% this way, he let them go. But they deleted all of their emails and text messages. So when we got the phone, they were all deleted. Could you imagine the treasure trove? Of the illegally deleted so they left, Bob Mueller, he had to look but he didn’t have a lot of other things. Always had to look. Mr. G-man. I love the FBI and the FBI loves me, 100%. It was the top scum, and the FBI people don’t like the top scum. So think of that, 100 million, he’s investigating me. And then, “God, trump is a loathsome human being, isn’t he?” These are the people looking at me. I’m really not a bad person. And Page said , “Yes, he’s awful.” How would you like to have that? This is the good stuff. This stuff, there’s stuff 100 times worse than that. These are all dirty people. And now I just heard that they are suing the United States of America. Because they were interfered with.
Just not going to let it happen “We cannot let this happen to our country.
So, I’m going to leave now. I don’t know if any of you have anything to say. You could say it, but this is sort of a day of celebration, because we went through hell. I’m sure that Pelosi and Crying Chuck — the only time I ever saw him cry was when it was appropriate. I’ve known them for a long time. Crying Chuck. I’m sure they will try and cook up other things that go through the state of New York. Other places. They will do whatever they can. Instead of wanting to heal our country and fix our country, all they want to do, in my opinion, it’s almost like they want to destroy our country. We can’t let it happen. Jim Jordan, did you want to say something cannot go ahead. Mark Meadows? Huh? My?
[Mark Meadows comment: I just want to say that this reflection today is a small reflection of the kind of support you have all across the country.]
This was a highly partisan situation. Pelosi said — I copied it down exactly. Before the impeachment. She wanted to impeach from day one, by the way. Don’t let it fool you. “No, impeachment is a very serious thing.” I said, “She wants to impeach, watch.” “The impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan.” Bipartisan? It was 170 to nothing. The one failed presidential candidate, and I call that half of the vote because he actually voted for us on the other one.
But we had one failed presidential candidate. That’s the only half of what we lost. So, we had almost 53 to nothing. We had 197 to nothing. And the only one that voted against was a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency. But she said, “It has to be something so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan.” “I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.” She was right about that. “And it’s just not worth it.” That was Nancy Pelosi a year ago. I think it’s a shame. I think it’s a shame. As I said, if we can put this genius to work on roads and highways and bridges and all of the things we can do, prescription drugs. You know, we had — secretary Azar is here, and I want to thank you for this — we had the first time in 51 years where drug prices actually came down last year. First time in 51 years. We can do working with both parties in congress would be unbelievable. It would be unbelievable. All we can do. I know Chuck Grassley is working very hard on it, and Mitch is working very hard on it. We can do is incredible. What we can do just generally. We’ve done so much without it. We rebuilt our military, we’ve cut regulations at a level that nobody thought possible. We will always protect our second amendment, we all know that. I just want to tell you that it’s an honor to be with you all.
I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people. And Ivanka is here, my sons, my whole family. And that includes Barron. He’s up there, he’s a young boy. Stand up, honey. Ivanka, thank you, honey.
I just want to thank my family for sticking through it. This was not part of the deal. I was going to run for president, and if I won, I was going to do a great job. I didn’t know I was going to run and then when I got in I was going to have to run again and again and again. Every week, I had to run again. That wasn’t the deal, but they stuck with me. I’m so glad I did it, because we are making progress and doing things for our great people that everybody said couldn’t be done. Our country is thriving, our country is just respected again. And it’s an honor to be with the people in this room. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Story 3: DNC Chair Demands Iowa Recheck The Vote Count and Bernie Sanders Won By More Than 8,000 — Videos
DNC chair calls for Iowa to recanvass caucus vote, says ‘enough is enough’
The results of Monday’s Iowa caucuses were delayed after there were problems with a smartphone app.
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks on stage ahead of the fourth Democratic primary debate at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, on Oct. 15, 2019. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images file.Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images file
By Phil Helsel
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez is calling on Iowa Democratic officials to immediately recanvass Monday’s caucus vote after days of uncertainty and growing concerns about “inconsistencies” found in the data.
“Enough is enough,” Perez said in a tweet. “In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”
A recanvass is essentially a double-checking of the vote. Iowa officials would have to hand -audit the caucus worksheets and reporting forms to ensure that they were correctly calculated and reported.
In a statement released later Thursday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price did not address the request from Perez and instead said that the party would take on a recanvass if any of the presidential campaigns request it.
“We owe it to the thousands of Iowa Democratic volunteers and caucusgoers to remain focused on collecting and reviewing incoming results,” Price said, noting that officials “identified inconsistencies in the data and used our redundant paper records to promptly correct those errors. This is an ongoing process in close coordination with precinct chairs, and we are working diligently to report the final 54 precincts to get as close to final reporting as possible.”
As of Thursday morning, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was clinging to the narrowest of leads in Iowa over Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with 97 percent of the caucus vote released.
Buttigieg was at 26.2 percent and Sanders had 26 percent, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., running behind the pair of leaders at 18.2 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden had 15.8 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., at 12.2 percent and other candidates were in low single digits.
Sanders told reporters Thursday that he is not concerned about the DNC’s call for a recanvassing.
“We won an 8-person election by some 6,000 votes,” Sanders said. “That is not going to change.”
Klobuchar told NBC News on Thursday that she supported the process.
“You have to make sure that every single vote was counted,” she said. “Sometimes in caucuses things can be close.”
Iowa Democratic caucus results are not actual votes cast. The percentages, based on partial returns of the estimated number of state convention delegates won by each candidate through the caucus process, are known as state delegate equivalents, or SDEs.
The totals were put out by the Iowa Democratic Party over the past two days after chaos over the caucuses Monday night. More data may be released Thursday.
NBC News has not called a winner in the first-in-the-nation contest.
In addition to the estimates of convention delegates, the Iowa Democratic Party also released two other numbers:
In voters’ initial candidate preference at the caucuses, Sanders had 24.7 percent, or 42,672 votes, and Buttigieg took 21.3 percent, or 36,718 votes.
In voters’ reallocated preference, Sanders had 26.5 percent, or 44,753 votes, and Buttigieg had 25 percent, or 42,235 votes. The reallocated preference is the raw tally taken after the caucus process known as realignment. If a caucusgoer’s initial candidate preference did not receive enough support to meet the precinct location’s viability threshold (15 percent in most caucus locations), the caucusgoer is allowed to shift his or her support — or realign — to another candidate who did attain viability.
Results from the contest were delayed by what organizers said was a problem with a smartphone app. Final tallies had been expected that evening, but instead, partial results were released Tuesday and the remainder Wednesday.
Nevada’s Democratic Party, which had planned to use the app for its Feb. 22 caucus, said a day after the fiasco in Iowa that it would not use the app after all. The state’s Democratic Party said Tuesday that it had previously developed backup plans for its reporting systems and was in the process of “evaluating the best path forward.”
Cybersecurity experts who examined a public version of the smartphone app told NBC News it contained technical and design flaws and appeared to have been rushed into use.
The state has 41 pledged delegates up for grabs, and the high-stakes contest traditionally plays a major role in determining who is a legitimate contender in the race.
Even with only a little more than 90 percent reporting in Iowa, Buttigieg on Wednesday night continued to tout the caucus as a win, telling a New York fundraiser that “we remain in the lead.”
“There is just no question that Monday in Iowa represents an astonishing victory for our vision, for our candidacy and for this country,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor said according to a pool report.
Americans’ satisfaction with personal life highest in four-decade trend
Two in three Americans say they are very satisfied, also a new high
High-income households, Republicans, married adults the most satisfied
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup’s four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003.
These results are from Gallup’s Mood of the Nation poll, conducted Jan. 2-15, which also recorded a 20-year high in Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy. The percentage of Americans who report being satisfied with their personal life is similar to the 86% who said in December that they were very or fairly happy — though the happiness figure, while high, is on the low end of what Gallup has measured historically for that question.
Despite some variation, solid majorities of Americans have reported being satisfied with their personal life over the past few decades, with an average of 83% satisfied since 1979. The historical low of 73% was recorded in July 1979, as the effects of that year’s oil crisis took a toll on U.S. motorists. During that poll’s fielding dates, then-President Jimmy Carter delivered his “malaise speech,” which was interpreted by some as placing blame on Americans themselves for the rough economic spot the country was in.
A 2019 survey on 10 aspects of Americans’ lives found that they are most satisfied with their family life, their education and the way they spend their leisure time — and least satisfied with the amount of leisure time they have, their household income and their job.
Two in Three ‘Very’ Satisfied With Direction of Personal Life
Gallup has asked a follow-up question since 2001 to measure the extent to which Americans are satisfied or dissatisfied with their personal life. The 65% of U.S. adults who are currently “very satisfied” marks a new high in the two-decade trend.
The more nuanced satisfaction ratings reveal that the relatively small four-percentage-point drop in personal satisfaction from 2007 to 2008 — as the global economic crisis unfolded — obscured greater movement (12 points) in the percentage “very” versus “somewhat” satisfied.
Income, Political Party, Marital Status the Biggest Factors in Satisfaction
Household income, political party affiliation and marital status are associated with the largest subgroup differences in Americans’ satisfaction with their personal life.
Roughly 95% of Americans who live in high-income households, who identify as Republicans and who are married say they are satisfied with their personal life — and about three in four among each of these groups are very satisfied.
Meanwhile, adults in low-income households are the least likely to say they are satisfied with their life, followed by Democrats and unmarried adults. Among each of these groups, small majorities report being very satisfied. Low-income Americans hold the distinction of having the lowest percentage very satisfied.
Smaller differences in personal satisfaction are seen by race and gender. Whites are a bit more likely than nonwhites to say they are satisfied (92% vs. 86%, respectively) or very satisfied (67% vs. 59%) with their personal life. And men report slightly higher levels of satisfaction than do women.
U.S. Satisfaction With Personal Life, by Subgroup
Ranked by % Satisfied
Satisfied
Very satisfied
%
%
$100,000+
96
76
Republicans
93
80
Married
93
74
College graduate only
93
71
Men
92
67
Postgraduate
92
66
Age 18-34
92
62
$40,000-<$100,000
92
66
Whites
92
67
Age 55+
90
67
Have children under 18
90
68
Have no children under 18
89
64
Some college
89
63
Independents
89
60
Age 35-54
87
63
High school or less
87
62
Women
87
63
Nonwhites
86
59
Unmarried
86
56
Democrats
86
56
<$40,000
80
54
GALLUP, JAN. 2-15, 2020
Bottom Line
It’s likely no coincidence that Americans’ heightened satisfaction with their personal life comes as confidence in the U.S. economy and their personal finances are also at long-term or record highs. That two in three Americans are very satisfied is reflective of this upbeat moment in time, and whether these sentiments carry through the coming decade will be something to watch.
The vast majority of Americans in all major demographic and political subgroups are content with the way their lives are going, but the additional question on how satisfied they are provides more insight. Some groups — wealthier households, Republicans, married people — report especially high levels of satisfaction, while lower-income Americans, Democrats and those who are unmarried report more tepid satisfaction.
Story 1: President Trump Delivers 2020 State of The Union Address — Videos
President Trump Departs From the White House to the US Capitol for the State of the Union Address
State of the Union 2020: Highlights from Donald Trump’s speech
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Read the full text of Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union as he makes his case for re-election, lashing out at ‘socialists’ and saying: ‘The best is yet to come!’
Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow citizens: Three years ago, we launched the great American comeback.
Tonight, I stand before you to share the incredible results.
Jobs are booming, incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting, crime is falling, confidence is surging, and our country is thriving and highly respected again!
America’s enemies are on the run, America’s fortunes are on the rise, and America’s future is blazing bright. The years of economic decay are over.
The days of our country being used, taken advantage of, and even scorned by other nations are long behind us. Gone too are the broken promises, jobless recoveries, tired platitudes, and constant excuses for the depletion of American wealth, power, and prestige.
In just 3 short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline, and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny.
We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never going back! I am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been.
Our military is completely rebuilt, with its power being unmatched anywhere in the world – and it is not even close.
Our borders are secure. Our families are flourishing. Our values are renewed. Our pride is restored. And for all these reasons, I say to the people of our great country, and to the Members of Congress before me: The State of our Union is stronger than ever before!
The vision I will lay out this evening demonstrates how we are building the world’s most prosperous and inclusive society — one where every citizen can join in America’s unparalleled success, and where every community can take part in America’s extraordinary rise.
From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the United States economy — slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.
Our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and, most of all, pro-American. We are advancing with unbridled optimism and lifting high our citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.
Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs — 5 million more than Government experts projected during the previous administration.
The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century. Incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my Administration is lower than any administration in the history of our country.
If we had not reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration, the world would not now be witness to America’s great economic success.
The unemployment rates for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans have reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low.
African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded. The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years — and last year, women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added. The veterans’ unemployment rate dropped to a record low.
The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low. Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in United States history.
A record number of young Americans are now employed. Under the last administration, more than 10 million people were added to the food stamp rolls.
Under my Administration, 7 million Americans have come off of food stamps, and 10 million people have been lifted off of welfare.
In 8 years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce. In just 3 years of my Administration, 3.5 million working-age people have joined the workforce. Since my election, the net worth of the bottom half of wage-earners has increased by 47 percent — 3 times faster than the increase for the top 1 percent.
After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast — and, wonderfully, they are rising fastest for low-income workers, who have seen a 16 percent pay-increase since my election.
This is a blue collar boom. Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded!
Since my election, United States stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our Nation’s wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible — this, as other countries are not doing well. Consumer confidence has reached amazing new heights.
All of those millions of people with 401(k)s and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90, and even 100 percent.
Jobs and investment are pouring into 9,000 previously-neglected neighborhoods thanks to Opportunity Zones, a plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott as part of our great Republican tax cuts. In other words, wealthy people and companies are pouring money into poor neighborhoods or areas that have not seen investment in many decades, creating jobs, energy, and excitement.
This is the first time that these deserving communities have seen anything like this. It is all working! Opportunity Zones are helping Americans like Army Veteran Tony Rankins from Cincinnati, Ohio. After struggling with drug addiction, Tony lost his job, his house, and his family — he was homeless. But then Tony found a construction company that invests in Opportunity Zones.
He is now a top tradesman, drug-free, reunited with his family, and he is here tonight. Tony: Keep up the great work.
Our roaring economy has, for the first time ever, given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start.
This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark Criminal Justice Reform into law. Everybody said that Criminal Justice Reform could not be done, but I got it done, and the people in this room got it done.
Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far.
With the tremendous progress we have made over the past 3 years, America is now energy independent, and energy jobs, like so many elements of our country, are at a record high. We are doing numbers that no one would have thought possible just 3 years ago.
Likewise, we are restoring our Nation’s manufacturing might, even though predictions were that this could never be done.
After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my Administration with thousands upon thousands of plants and factories being planned or built.
We have created over half a million new manufacturing jobs. Companies are not leaving; they are coming back. Everybody wants to be where the action is, and the United States of America is, indeed, where the action is.
One of the single biggest promises I made to the American people was to replace the disastrous NAFTA trade deal. In fact, unfair trade is perhaps the single biggest reason that I decided to run for President.
Following NAFTA’s adoption, our Nation lost one in four manufacturing jobs. Many politicians came and went, pledging to change or replace NAFTA — only to do absolutely nothing. But unlike so many who came before me, I keep my promises.
Six days ago, I replaced NAFTA and signed the brand new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) into law.
The USMCA will create nearly 100,000 new high-paying American auto jobs, and massively boost exports for our farmers, ranchers, and factory workers.
It will also bring trade with Mexico and Canada to a much higher degree, but also to a much greater level of fairness and reciprocity.
This is the first major trade deal in many years to earn the strong backing of America’s labor unions. I also promised our citizens that I would impose tariffs to confront China’s massive theft of American jobs.
Our strategy worked. Days ago, we signed the groundbreaking new agreement with China that will defend our workers, protect our intellectual property, bring billions of dollars into our treasury, and open vast new markets for products made and grown right here in the United States of America.
For decades, China has taken advantage of the United States, now we have changed that but, at the same time, we have perhaps the best relationship we have ever had with China, including with President Xi.
They respect what we have done because, quite frankly, they could never believe what they were able to get away with year after year, decade after decade, without someone in our country stepping up and saying: Enough.
Now, we want to rebuild our country, and that is what we are doing. As we restore American leadership throughout the world, we are once again standing up for freedom in our hemisphere.
That is why my Administration reversed the failing policies of the previous administration on Cuba. We are supporting the hopes of Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to restore democracy.
The United States is leading a 59-nation diplomatic coalition against the socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people.
But Maduro’s grip of tyranny will be smashed and broken. Here this evening is a man who carries with him the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of all Venezuelans. Joining us in the gallery is the true and legitimate President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó.
Mr. President, please take this message back to your homeland. All Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom!
Socialism destroys nations. But always remember, freedom unifies the soul.
To safeguard American Liberty, we have invested a record-breaking $2.2 trillion in the United States Military. We have purchased the finest planes, missiles, rockets, ships, and every other form of military equipment — all made in the United States of America.
We are also finally getting our allies to help pay their fair share. I have raised contributions from the other NATO members by more than $400 billion, and the number of allies meeting their minimum obligations has more than doubled.
And just weeks ago, for the first time since President Truman established the Air Force more than 70 years earlier, we created a new branch of the United States Armed Forces, the Space Force.
In the gallery tonight, we have one of the Space Force’s youngest potential recruits: 13-year-old Iain Lanphier, an eighth grader from Arizona. Iain has always dreamed of going to space.
He was first in his class and among the youngest at an aviation academy. He aspires to go to the Air Force Academy, and then, he has his eye on the Space Force.
As Iain says, ‘most people look up at space, I want to look down on the world.’ Sitting beside Iain tonight is his great hero. Charles McGee was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one century ago. Charles is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen — the first black fighter pilots — and he also happens to be Iain’s great-grandfather.
After more than 130 combat missions in World War II, he came back to a country still struggling for Civil Rights and went on to serve America in Korea and Vietnam.
On December 7th, Charles celebrated his 100th birthday. A few weeks ago, I signed a bill promoting Charles McGee to Brigadier General.
And earlier today, I pinned the stars on his shoulders in the Oval Office. General McGee: Our Nation salutes you. From the pilgrims to our Founders, from the soldiers at Valley Forge to the marchers at Selma, and from President Lincoln to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans have always rejected limits on our children’s future.
Members of Congress, we must never forget that the only victories that matter in Washington are victories that deliver for the American people.
The people are the heart of our country, their dreams are the soul of our country, and their love is what powers and sustains our country.
We must always remember that our job is to put America first! The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
Yet, for too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools. To rescue these students, 18 States have created school choice in the form of Opportunity Scholarships.
The programs are so popular, that tens of thousands of students remain on waiting lists. One of those students is Janiyah Davis, a fourth grader from Philadelphia. Janiyah’s mom Stephanie is a single parent.
She would do anything to give her daughter a better future. But last year, that future was put further out of reach when Pennsylvania’s Governor vetoed legislation to expand school choice for 50,000 children. Janiyah and Stephanie are in the gallery this evening.
But there is more to their story. Janiyah, I am pleased to inform you that your long wait is over. I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, it is going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice!
Now, I call on the Congress to give 1 million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received. Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act — because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.
Every young person should have a safe and secure environment in which to learn and grow. For this reason, our magnificent First Lady has launched the ‘Be Best’ initiative — to advance a safe, healthy, supportive, and drug-free life for the next generation, online, in school, and in our communities.
Thank you, Melania, for your extraordinary love and profound care for America’s children.
My Administration is determined to give our citizens the opportunities they need regardless of age or background. Through our Pledge to American Workers, over 400 companies will also provide new jobs and education opportunities to almost 15 million Americans.
My Budget also contains an exciting vision for our Nation’s high schools. Tonight, I ask the Congress to support our students and back my plan to offer vocational and technical education in every single high school in America.
To expand equal opportunity, I am also proud that we achieved record and permanent funding for our Nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
A good life for American families also requires the most affordable, innovative, and high-quality healthcare system on Earth. Before I took office, health insurance premiums had more than doubled in just 5 years. I moved quickly to provide affordable alternatives.
Our new plans are up to 60 percent less expensive. I have also made an ironclad pledge to American families: We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions — that is a guarantee. And we will always protect your Medicare and your Social Security.
The American patient should never be blindsided by medical bills. That is why I signed an Executive Order requiring price transparency. Many experts believe that transparency, which will go into full effect at the beginning of next year, will be even bigger than healthcare reform.
It will save families massive amounts of money for substantially better care. But as we work to improve Americans’ healthcare, there are those who want to take away your healthcare, take away your doctor, and abolish private insurance entirely.
One hundred thirty-two lawmakers in this room have endorsed legislation to impose a socialist takeover of our healthcare system, wiping out the private health insurance plans of 180 million Americans. To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know: We will never let socialism destroy American healthcare!
Over 130 legislators in this chamber have endorsed legislation that would bankrupt our Nation by providing free taxpayer-funded healthcare to millions of illegal aliens, forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our borders.
These proposals would raid the Medicare benefits our seniors depend on, while acting as a powerful lure for illegal immigration. This is what is happening in California and other States — their systems are totally out of control, costing taxpayers vast and unaffordable amounts of money.
If forcing American taxpayers to provide unlimited free healthcare to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left.
But if you believe that we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free Government healthcare for illegal aliens!
This will be a tremendous boon to our already very-strongly guarded southern border where, as we speak, a long, tall, and very powerful wall is being built. We have now completed over 100 miles and will have over 500 miles fully completed by early next year.
My Administration is also taking on the big pharmaceutical companies. We have approved a record number of affordable generic drugs, and medicines are being approved by the FDA at a faster clip than ever before.
I was pleased to announce last year that, for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down. And working together, the Congress can reduce drug prices substantially from current levels.
I have been speaking to Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and others in the Congress in order to get something on drug pricing done, and done properly.
I am calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices. Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it into law without delay.
With unyielding commitment, we are curbing the opioid epidemic — drug overdose deaths declined for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Democratic women shout down Trump over healthcare at SOTU address
Among the States hardest hit, Ohio is down 22 percent, Pennsylvania is down 18 percent, Wisconsin is down 10 percent — and we will not quit until we have beaten the opioid epidemic once and for all.
Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the Coronavirus outbreak in China. My Administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.
We have launched ambitious new initiatives to substantially improve care for Americans with kidney disease, Alzheimer’s, and those struggling with mental health challenges.
And because the Congress funded my request, we are pursuing new cures for childhood cancer, and we will eradicate the AIDS epidemic in America by the end of the decade.
Almost every American family knows the pain when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious illness. Here tonight is a special man, someone beloved by millions of Americans who just received a Stage 4 advanced cancer diagnosis.
This is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.
Rush Limbaugh: Thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country. Rush, in recognition of all that you have done for our Nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity, I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I will now ask the First Lady of the United States to please stand and present you with the honor. Rush, Kathryn, congratulations!
As we pray for all who are sick, we know that America is constantly achieving new medical breakthroughs. In 2017, doctors at St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas City delivered one of the earliest premature babies ever to survive. Born at just 21 weeks and 6 days, and weighing less than a pound, Ellie Schneider was born a fighter.
Through the skill of her doctors — and the prayers of her parents — little Ellie kept on winning the battle for life. Today, Ellie is a strong, healthy 2-year-old girl sitting with her amazing mother Robin in the gallery.
Ellie and Robin: We are so glad you are here. Ellie reminds us that every child is a miracle of life.
Thanks to modern medical wonders, 50 percent of very premature babies delivered at the hospital where Ellie was born now survive.
Our goal should be to ensure that every baby has the best chance to thrive and grow just like Ellie. That is why I am asking the Congress to provide an additional $50 million to fund neo-natal research for America’s youngest patients.
That is also why I am calling upon the Members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.
Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, surely we must all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God!
As we support America’s moms and dads, I was recently proud to sign the law providing new parents in the Federal workforce paid family leave, serving as a model for the rest of the country.
Now, I call on the Congress to pass the bipartisan Advancing Support for Working Families Act, extending family leave to mothers and fathers all across the Nation.
Forty million American families have an average $2,200 extra thanks to our child tax credit. I have also overseen historic funding increases for high-quality child care, enabling 17 States to serve more children, many of which have reduced or eliminated their waitlists altogether.
And I sent the Congress a plan with a vision to further expand access to high-quality childcare and urge you to act immediately.
To protect the environment, days ago, I announced that the United States will join the One Trillion Trees Initiative, an ambitious effort to bring together Government and the private sector to plant new trees in America and around the world. We must also rebuild America’s infrastructure.
I ask you to pass Senator Barrasso’s highway bill — to invest in new roads, bridges, and tunnels across our land. I am also committed to ensuring that every citizen can have access to high-speed internet, including rural America.
A better tomorrow for all Americans also requires us to keep America safe. That means supporting the men and women of law enforcement at every level, including our Nation’s heroic ICE officers.
Last year, our brave ICE officers arrested more than 120,000 criminal aliens charged with nearly 10,000 burglaries, 5,000 sexual assaults, 45,000 violent assaults, and 2,000 murders.
Tragically, there are many cities in America where radical politicians have chosen to provide sanctuary for these criminal illegal aliens.
In Sanctuary Cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public, instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed.
Just 29 days ago, a criminal alien freed by the Sanctuary City of New York was charged with the brutal rape and murder of a 92-year-old woman.
The killer had been previously arrested for assault, but under New York’s sanctuary policies, he was set free.
If the city had honored ICE’s detainer request, his victim would be alive today. The State of California passed an outrageous law declaring their whole State to be a sanctuary for criminal illegal immigrants — with catastrophic results. Here is just one tragic example.
In December 2018, California police detained an illegal alien with five prior arrests, including convictions for robbery and assault. But as required by California’s Sanctuary Law, local authorities released him.
Days later, the criminal alien went on a gruesome spree of deadly violence. He viciously shot one man going about his daily work; he approached a woman sitting in her car and shot her in the arm and the chest. He walked into a convenience store and wildly fired his weapon.
He hijacked a truck and smashed into vehicles, critically injuring innocent victims. One of the victims of his bloody rampage was a 51-year-old American named Rocky Jones.
Rocky was at a gas station when this vile criminal fired eight bullets at him from close range, murdering him in cold blood.
Rocky left behind a devoted family, including his brothers who loved him more than anything.
One of his grieving brothers is here with us tonight. Jody, would you please stand? Jody, our hearts weep for your loss — and we will not rest until you have justice. Senator Thom Tillis has introduced legislation to allow Americans like Jody to sue Sanctuary Cities and States when a loved one is hurt or killed as a result of these deadly policies.
I ask the Congress to pass the Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act immediately.
The United States of America should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans — not criminal aliens! In the last 3 years, ICE has arrested over 5,000 wicked human traffickers — and I have signed 9 pieces of legislation to stamp out the menace of human trafficking, domestically and around the globe.
My Administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to secure the southern border of the United States.
Before I came into office, if you showed up illegally on our southern border and were arrested, you were simply released and allowed into our country, never to be seen again.
My Administration has ended Catch-and-Release.
If you come illegally, you will now be promptly removed. We entered into historic cooperation agreements with the Governments of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
As a result of our unprecedented efforts, illegal crossings are down 75 percent since May — dropping 8 straight months in a row.
And as the wall goes up, drug seizures rise, and border crossings go down. Last year, I traveled to the border in Texas and met Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz.
Over the last 24 months, Agent Ortiz and his team have seized more than 200,000 pounds of poisonous narcotics, arrested more than 3,000 human smugglers, and rescued more than 2,000 migrants. Days ago, Agent Ortiz was promoted to Deputy Chief of Border Patrol — and he joins us tonight.
Chief Ortiz: Please stand — a grateful Nation thanks you and all the heroes of Border Patrol.
To build on these historic gains, we are working on legislation to replace our outdated and randomized immigration system with one based on merit, welcoming those who follow the rules, contribute to our economy, support themselves financially, and uphold our values.
With every action, my Administration is restoring the rule of law and re-asserting the culture of American freedom.
Working with Senate Majority Leader McConnell and his colleagues in the Senate, we have confirmed a record number of 187 new Federal judges to uphold our Constitution as written.
This includes two brilliant new Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. My Administration is also defending religious liberty, and that includes the Constitutional right to pray in public schools. In America, we do not punish prayer.
We do not tear down crosses. We do not ban symbols of faith. We do not muzzle preachers and pastors.
In America, we celebrate faith. We cherish religion. We lift our voices in prayer, and we raise our sights to the Glory of God!
Just as we believe in the First Amendment, we also believe in another Constitutional right that is under siege all across our country.
So long as I am President I will always protect your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In reaffirming our heritage as a free Nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation.
Now we must embrace the next frontier, America’s manifest destiny in the stars.
I am asking the Congress to fully fund the Artemis program to ensure that the next man and the first woman on the moon will be American astronauts — using this as a launching pad to ensure that America is the first nation to plant its flag on Mars. My Administration is also strongly defending our national security and combating radical Islamic terrorism.
Last week, I announced a groundbreaking plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Recognizing that all past attempts have failed, we must be determined and creative in order to stabilize the region and give millions of young people the change to realize a better future.
Three years ago, the barbarians of ISIS held over 20,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria. Today, the ISIS territorial caliphate has been 100 percent destroyed, and the founder and leader of ISIS — the bloodthirsty killer Al Baghdadi — is dead!
We are joined this evening by Carl and Marsha Mueller. After graduating from college, their beautiful daughter Kayla became a humanitarian aid worker.
Kayla once wrote, ‘Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.’
In 2013, while caring for suffering civilians in Syria, Kayla was kidnapped, tortured, and enslaved by ISIS, and kept as a prisoner of Al-Baghdadi himself.
After more than 500 horrifying days of captivity, Al-Baghdadi murdered young Kayla. She was just 26 years old.
On the night that United States Special Forces Operators ended Al Baghdadi’s miserable life, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, received a call in the Situation Room.
He was told that the brave men of the elite Special Forces team, that so perfectly carried out the operation, had given their mission a name — ‘Task Force 8-14.’
It was a reference to a special day: August 14th — Kayla’s birthday.
Carl and Marsha, America’s warriors never forgot Kayla — and neither will we. Every day, America’s men and women in uniform demonstrate the infinite depths of love that dwells in the human heart.
One of these American heroes was Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Hake. On his second deployment to Iraq in 2008, Sergeant Hake wrote a letter to his 1-year-old son, Gage: ‘I will be with you again,’ he wrote to Gage.
‘I will teach you to ride your first bike, build your first sand box, watch you play sports and see you have kids also. I love you son, take care of your mother. I am always with you. Dad.’
On Easter Sunday of 2008, Chris was out on patrol in Baghdad when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.
That night, he made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Sergeant Hake now rests in eternal glory in Arlington, and his wife Kelli is in the gallery tonight, joined by their son, who is now 13 years old. To Kelli and Gage: Chris will live in our hearts forever.
The terrorist responsible for killing Sergeant Hake was Qasem Soleimani, who provided the deadly roadside bomb that took Chris’s life. Soleimani was the Iranian Regime’s most ruthless butcher, a monster who murdered or wounded thousands of American service members in Iraq.
As the world’s top terrorist, Soleimani orchestrated the deaths of countless men, women, and children. He directed the December assault on United States Forces in Iraq, and was actively planning new attacks.
That is why, last month, at my direction, the United States Military executed a flawless precision strike that killed Soleimani and terminated his evil reign of terror forever.
Our message to the terrorists is clear: You will never escape American justice. If you attack our citizens, you forfeit your life!
In recent months, we have seen proud Iranians raise their voices against their oppressive rulers. The Iranian regime must abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop spreading terror, death, and destruction, and start working for the good of its own people.
Because of our powerful sanctions, the Iranian economy is doing very poorly. We can help them make it very good in a short period of time, but perhaps they are too proud or too foolish to ask for that help. We are here. Let’s see which road they choose. It is totally up to them.
As we defend American lives, we are working to end America’s wars in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, the determination and valor of our warfighters has allowed us to make tremendous progress, and peace talks are underway.
I am not looking to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, many of them innocent. It is also not our function to serve other nations as a law enforcement agency.
These are warfighters, the best in the world, and they either want to fight to win or not fight at all. We are working to finally end America’s longest war and bring our troops back home!
War places a heavy burden on our Nation’s extraordinary military families, especially spouses like Amy Williams from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and her 2 children — 6-year-old Elliana and 3-year-old Rowan.
Amy works full time, and volunteers countless hours helping other military families. For the past 7 months, she has done it all while her husband, Sergeant First Class Townsend Williams, is in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment to the Middle East. Amy’s kids have not seen their father’s face in many months.
Amy, your family’s sacrifice makes it possible for all of our families to live in safety and peace — we thank you. As the world bears witness tonight, America is a land of heroes.
This is the place where greatness is born, where destinies are forged, and where legends come to life.
This is the home of Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt, of many great Generals, including Washington, Pershing, Patton, and MacArthur.
This is the home of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, and so many more.
This is the country where children learn names like Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, and Annie Oakley. This is the place where the pilgrims landed at Plymouth and where Texas patriots made their last stand at the Alamo.
The American Nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest, and most determined men and women ever to walk the face of the Earth.
Our ancestors braved the unknown; tamed the wilderness; settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine; laid down the railroads, dug out canals, raised up the skyscrapers — and, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional Republic ever to exist in all of human history.
And we are making it greater than ever before! This is our glorious and magnificent inheritance. We are Americans. We are the pioneers. We are the pathfinders.
We settled the new world, we built the modern world, and we changed history forever by embracing the eternal truth that everyone is made equal by the hand of Almighty God.
America is the place where anything can happen! America is the place where anyone can rise. And here, on this land, on this soil, on this continent, the most incredible dreams come true!
This Nation is our canvas, and this country is our masterpiece. We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored.
Our brightest discoveries are not yet known. Our most thrilling stories are not yet told. Our grandest journeys are not yet made.
The American Age, the American Epic, the American Adventure, has only just begun!
Our spirit is still young; the sun is still rising; God’s grace is still shining; and my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come!
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Pence reacts to Pelosi’s ‘new low’ at the State of the Union
USA: Trump slams “crazy” Nancy Pelosi and Democrats for “violating Constitution”
Story 3: Senate Acquits President Trump of Both Articles of Impeachment: Articles 1 Abuse of Power: 52 Votes Not Guilty and 48 Votes Guilty and Articles 2 Obstruction of Congress: Not Guilty 53 Votes and 47 Votes Guilty — Videos
Trump acquitted by Senate on both articles of impeachment
Watch Live: Senate now voting on two articles of impeachment
Senators Find Trump ‘Not Guilty’ Of Abuse Of Power Impeachment Article | NBC News
Senators Find Trump ‘Not Guilty’ Of Obstruction Of Congress Impeachment Article | NBC News
WATCH: Sen. Romney’s full statement on Trump’s impeachment trial | Trump impeachment trial
Republican Romney Says He’ll Vote to Convict Trump
Ted Cruz: The Democratic party is defined by Trump hatred
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Story 1: United States Declares Public Health Emergency for Novel Coronavirus (2019 n Cov) — The Real Threat in Influenza Type B Epidemic Becomes Pandemic — Videos —
100 years ago, celebrations marking the end of the First World War were cut short by the onslaught of a devastating disease – the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Its early origins and initial geographical starting point still remain a mystery but in the Summer of 1918, there was a second wave of a far more virulent form of the influenza virus than anyone could have anticipated. Soon dubbed ‘Spanish Flu’ after its effects were reported in the country’s newspapers, the virus rapidly spread across much of the globe to become one of the worst natural disasters in human history.To mark the centenary and to highlight vital scientific research, the University of Cambridge has made a new film exploring what we have learnt about Spanish Flu, the urgent threat posed by influenza today, and how scientists are preparing for future pandemics.
PrepTalks: John M. Barry “The Next Pandemic: Lessons from History”
US bars foreigners coming from China for now over virus fear
By KEN MORITSUGU and ZEKE MILLER
The United States on Friday declared a public health emergency and took drastic steps to significantly restrict entry into the country because of a new virus that hit China and has spread to other nations.
President Donald Trump has signed an order that will temporarily bar foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days. The new restrictions, which take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday, were announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who is coordinating the U.S. response.
“It is likely that we will continue to see more cases in the United States in the coming days and weeks, including some limited person-to-person transmissions,” Azar said. “The American public can be assured the full weight of the U.S. government is working to safeguard the health and safety of the American people.”
Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening at select ports of entry and required to undertake 14 days of self-screening to ensure they don’t pose a health risk. Those returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
Beginning Sunday, the U.S. will also begin funneling all flights to the U.S. from China to seven major airports where passengers can be screened for illness.
The virus has infected almost 10,000 people globally in just two months, a troublesome sign that prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a global emergency. The death toll stood at 213, including 43 new fatalities, all in China.
A public health emergency in the U.S. allows the government to tap additional resources to send to states, such as emergency funding and if necessary drugs or equipment from the national stockpile, and to suspend certain legal requirements.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that while the risk in the U.S. is low, “I want to emphasize that this is a significant global situation and it continues to evolve.”
There are seven cases of this virus in the U.S. and all were travelers except for a Chicago man who caught it from his wife, who had been in China.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health, said one reason the U.S. stepped up its quarantine measures was an alarming report from Germany that a traveler from China had spread the virus despite showing no symptoms. Fauci contrasted it with the response to recent outbreaks of Ebola, which can’t be spread unless someone is very ill.
At the same time, federal health authorities were recognizing that the test they’re using to detect the virus isn’t always dependable. Redfield said when it was used on some of the people currently in isolation, they’d test positive one day and negative another.
Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University expert on public health law, said putting a large number of people under quarantine “is virtually unprecedented in modern American history.”
Declaring a public health emergency “gives HHS added powers, and is warranted. Quarantine of those returning from Hubei is also reasonable given the high risk of exposure to coronavirus in that province,” he said.
He did note that travelers from other parts of China don’t pose as high a risk. “We need to use the least restrictive measure necessary to safeguard the population,” Gostin said.
Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun offered America’s “deepest compassion” to the Chinese, noting that the deadly outbreak came during the peak of their holiday season, when everyone would ordinarily be celebrating and not living in fear of contracting the virus.
Biegun said the U.S. is working hard to find donors of supplies and making arrangements for a “robust effort to help the Chinese people get their arms around this outbreak.”
The announcement came hours after the State Department issued a level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory, the highest grade of warning, and told Americans in China to consider departing using commercial means. “Travelers should be prepared for travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice,” the advisory said.
Hours later, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines announced they were suspending all flights between the U.S. and China, joining several international carriers that have stopped flying to China as the virus outbreak continues to spread.
Meanwhile, U.S. health officials issued a two-week quarantine order for the 195 Americans evacuated earlier this week from the Chinese city of Wuhan, provincial capital of Hubei province. It was the first time a federal quarantine has been ordered since the 1960s, when one was enacted over concern about the potential spread of smallpox, the CDC said.
None of the Americans being housed at a Southern California military base has shown signs of illness, but infected people don’t show symptoms immediately and may be able to pass on the virus before they appear sick.
One of the evacuees, Matthew L. McCoy, a theme park designer who lives in China, said the group was very relieved by the quarantine order.
“All of us really want to stay here and make sure we’re all medically clear and the public safe,” he said from the military base.
China counted 9,692 confirmed cases Friday, the vast majority in Hubei province.
The National Health Commission reported 171 cases of people who have been “cured and discharged from hospital.” WHO has said most people who got the illness had milder cases, though 20% experienced severe symptoms. Symptoms include fever and cough, and in severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.
China has placed more than 50 million people in the region under virtual quarantine.
American Airlines said it was halting all flights starting Friday and running through March 27. Delta plans to wait until Feb. 6 to suspend China operations to help travelers in China leave the country. It said the stoppage will continue through April 30. United Airlines announced that it will suspend flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu but continue flights to Hong Kong.
The U.S. screening airports are John F. Kennedy International in New York, San Francisco International in California, Seattle-Tacoma International in Washington, O’Hare International in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International in Georgia, and Daniel K. Inouye International in Hawaii.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded more than 600 points Friday as the outbreak continued to widen, stoking fears that the travel restrictions and other uncertainties caused by the health emergency in the world’s second-largest economy could dent global growth.
Since China informed WHO about the new virus in late December, at least 23 countries have reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.
Experts say there is significant evidence the virus is spreading among people in China, and WHO noted with its emergency declaration Thursday it was especially concerned that some cases abroad also involved human-to-human transmission. It defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that poses a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.
“The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva. “Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it.”
A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. The announcement also imposes more disease reporting requirements on countries.
The last time the U.S. government ordered a quarantine was in 1963 when a woman named Ellen Siegel was held in quarantine for up to 14 days because she did not present a valid certificate of vaccination against small pox. Siegel had visited Sweden when it still had a case of smallpox and although she had been revaccinated about two months earlier, the vaccination was said to be unsuccessful.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it was authorizing the departure of family members and all non-emergency U.S. government employees from Beijing and the consulates in the cities of Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang. Staff from the Wuhan consulate departed earlier this week.
The decision was made “out of an abundance of caution related to logistical disruptions stemming from restricted transportation and availability of appropriate health care,” the embassy said.
Mike Wester, a businessman in Beijing who has lived in China for 19 years, said he has no plans to leave.
“I feel safer self-quarantining myself here at home than I do risking travel,” Wester said.
He pointed to potential risks from crowds at airports and being required to remove a mask for passport and security checks.
Japan and Germany also advised against non-essential travel and Britain did as well, except for Hong Kong and Macao. Popular holiday and shopping destination Singapore barred Chinese from traveling there, becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to do so.
Tedros said WHO was not recommending limiting travel or trade to China.
“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” he said. He added that Chinese President Xi Jinping had committed to help stop the spread of the virus beyond its borders.
Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with close contact, like within families, the instances of spread to people who may have had less exposure to the virus is worrying.
In Japan, a tour guide and bus driver became infected after escorting two tour groups from Wuhan. In Germany, five employees of a German auto parts supplier became ill after a Chinese colleague visited, including two who had no direct contact with the woman, who showed no symptoms of the virus until her flight back to China. On Friday, Germany confirmed a sixth case, a child of one of the people already infected.
“That’s the kind of transmission chain that we don’t want to see,” said Marion Koopmans, an infectious diseases specialist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and a member of WHO’s emergency committee.
This article was last updated on Jan. 31, 2020.Jan. 24, 2020 — News about the coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, is changing rapidly. The respiratory infection, which is closely related to SARS and MERS, has been spreading across China, and cases have been diagnosed in several other countries, including the United States. We’ll provide the latest updates on cases, deaths, travel restrictions, and more here.
What is the latest news?
Foreigners who have traveled to China in the past two weeks will be barred from entering the United States, the government said Friday, as the White House declared a national public health emergency over the new coronavirus.
As part of that proclamation, any citizen returning to the U.S. who have been to Hubei province in China in the past 14 days will be under mandatory quarantine for 14 days, which is thought to be the incubation period for the virus. Any citizen who’s been to the rest of China within the past 2 weeks will get a health screening when they get back to the U.S. They’ll then be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days. Their movements will be monitored.
These restrictions take effect beginning at 5 p.m. Sunday.
“The actions we have taken and continue to take compliment the work of China and the World Health Organization to contain the outbreak within China,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.
“This is a significant global situation, but I want to emphasize at this time that the risk to the American public is low,” said CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the strict precautions are warranted because of “the issue now with this is that there are a lot of unknowns.”
He pointed out that the number of cases “has steeply inclined each and every day.”
We now know for certain that a person without symptoms can transmit the disease, Fauci said.
A new case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describes how a woman from China infected 4 co-workers at a German company before she showed any symptoms of the disease herself.
The U.S. measures follows the WHO’s declaration on Thursday that the 2019-nCoV outbreak is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC and come the same day the CDC issued federal quarantine orders for all 195 U.S. citizens who recently returned to the U.S. after living in China. The quarantine will last 14 days from the date the plane left Wuhan.These are the first federal quarantine orders issued in 50 years, the last coming in the 1960s for smallpox evaluations, CDC officials said.The CDC’s move follows a quarantine issued by Riverside County, CA, after one of the passengers tried to leave March Air Reserve Base Wednesday morning without being cleared by health officials.“This legal order is part of an aggressive public health response, the goal of which is to prevent, as much as possible, community spread of this novel virus in the United States,” said Nancy Messonnier, MD, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.”If we take strong measures now, we may be able to blunt the impact of the virus on the United States,” she said.Better to over-prepare, she said.”We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic. But we are hopeful still that this is not, and will not be the case.”Health officials also clarified the distinctions between isolation and quarantine. Isolation is used to keep a person who’s already sick from infecting others. Quarantines restrict the movement of someone who is exposed, but not yet sick.
How many people have been diagnosed with the virus, and how many have died?
According to European CDC, the majority of the confirmed cases – 9,723 – are in China. Another 11 cases are confirmed outside of China in 20 countries. Countries with the most confirmed cases include Thailand and Japan with 14 each. All reported deaths have been in China, and include 17 healthcare workers. Several media outlets are reporting the first two confirmed cases in the U.K. in members of the same family. These cases are not yet reflected in the CDC numbers.
What do we know about cases in the United States?
The six U.S. cases are in Illinois, Washington, California and Arizona. The CDC in total has 241 persons under investigation for coronavirus from 36 states. In addition to the 6 confirmed positive, 114 have tested negative.
On Thursday, a man in Illinois became the first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the U.S, the CDC said. He is the sixth confirmed case in the country overall. The man in the most recent case in Illinois is the husband of a Chicago woman diagnosed with the virus after returning from Wuhan. He is hospitalized in isolation and is stable. His wife, who is in her 60s, is also in isolation and in good condition. The Chicago Department of Public Health reported that she had visited China in December and returned to Chicago earlier this month.
In all other U.S. cases so far, patients had recently traveled to Wuhan.
Worldwide there are now more than 9,900 cases and 222 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. While the majority of cases center in China, it has been found in the U.S. and these countries: Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Macau, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, France, Canada, Vietnam, Nepal, Cambodia, Germany, India, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Finland, Sri Lanka, Italy, and Great Britain. There have been no deaths outside China.
California has two patients, one in Los Angeles County and one in Orange County. The patient from Orange County is a man in his 50s. He is in a local hospital in isolation and is in good condition, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. Los Angeles County officials did not provide additional details about the patient there.
Arizona’s Department of Health Services said its patient is a Maricopa County resident and member of the Arizona State University community who did not live in student housing. The patient is not severely ill and is being kept in isolation.
The first U.S. patient is a man in his 30s from Washington state. He had traveled from Wuhan and entered the country before the screening was in place. He started having symptoms and contacted his doctor. He is in good condition and is in isolation at Providence Regional Medical Center.
The CDC is prioritizing the testing based on a person’s risk.
Nancy Messonnier, MD, Director of the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said they had posted the blueprints for their diagnostic test on a public server and were working “as fast as we can” to get test kits out to states.
Right now, all the testing for the new coronavirus is taking place at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta.
What are public officials doing to contain the virus?
Fears about the virus’ spread led the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare the outbreak a global public health emergency. Soon after, the U.S. State Department issued a level 4 travel advisorytelling people not to travel to China because of the outbreak.
The CDC and State Department have issued strong warnings about travel to and from China, and several airlines, including Delta, United and American, have announced they are ending service to China until the outbreak wanes.
But, commercial flights continue to come and go between the U.S. and China, and the CDC said it was currently evaluating whether or not to restrict the movement of passengers coming in on those flights.
“At this point we’re evaluating the appropriate strategy in light of the new information. There’s really nothing new to share at this point,” said Martin Cetron, MD, Director for the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at CDC.
Chinese officials have shut down all public transportation to 10 cities, affecting 35 million people. The first was Wuhan, which has a population of about 11 million. In Wuhan, that includes buses, subways, trains, and the airport.
On Wednesday, CDC medical officers and others met a group of about 210 U.S. citizens evacuated from China. Their plane landed at March Air Reserve Base in California, where the evacuees will be monitored for coronavirus symptoms for several days. Anyone showing signs of the disease will be taken to the hospital. The passengers are not officials quarantined for up to two weeks.
In the U.S., the number of airports that will screen passengers from China for symptoms has expanded to 20.
When did the outbreak start?
China first reported the outbreak in Wuhan on Dec. 30, 2019.
Is travel to China safe?
The U.S. State Department issued a level 4 travel advisory telling people not to travel to China because of the outbreak. Some cities in China, such as Wuhan, are closed to travelers.
Travelers who do go should:
Avoid contact with sick people.
Avoid animals, animal markets, and products that come from animals.
Wash their hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based sanitizer if that’s not available.
Seek medical care right away for a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing. Tell a health care professional about any travel.
What are the symptoms, and how is the virus diagnosed?
China created a test for the virus and shared that information with other countries. The CDC has developed its own test.
Symptoms include a fever, coughing, and shortness of breath. They may appear 2 to 14 days after you’re exposed to the virus.
What is the source of the virus, and how is it spread?
Health officials are not sure of the source of the virus yet or how easily it can spread. Coronaviruses are found in many different animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. One research paper also suggested snakes as a possible source. The new virus may be linked to a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan that has since been closed
The virus can spread from person to person. Health officials are seeing this happen most often where people are close together and in health care settings. To date, 16 health care workers have been infected.
The CDC believes that severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), two other types of coronavirus, are spread through droplets when someone coughs or sneezes.
Is there a vaccine?
There is no vaccine, but the National Institutes of Health is working on one and hopes to begin testing in several months. That testing would be for safety. If it’s safe, there would be testing to see how well it works.
How is it treated?
There is no specific treatment for the virus. Patients are generally given supportive care for their symptoms, such a fluids and pain relievers. Hospitalized patients may need support with breathing.
A coronavirus is a kind of common virus that causes an infection in your nose, sinuses, or upper throat. Most coronaviruses are not dangerous. Some types of coronaviruses are serious, though. About 858 people have died from Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which first appeared in 2012 in Saudi Arabia and then in other countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In April 2014, the first American was hospitalized for MERS in Indiana and another case was reported in Florida. Both had just returned from Saudi Arabia. In May 2015, there was an outbreak of MERS in Korea, which was the largest outbreak outside of the Arabian Peninsula. In 2003, 774 people died from a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. As of 2015, there were no further reports of cases of SARS.But In early 2020, following a December 2019 outbreak in China, the World Health Organization identified a new type, 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).Often a coronavirus causes upper respiratory infection symptoms like a stuffy nose, cough, and sore throat. You can treat them with rest and over-the-counter medication. The coronavirus can also cause middle ear infections in children.
What Is a Coronavirus?
Coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s, but we don’t know where they come from. They get their name from their crown-like shape. Sometimes, but not often, a coronavirus can infect both animals and humans.
Most coronaviruses spread the same way other cold-causing viruses do: through infected people coughing and sneezing, by touching an infected person’s hands or face, or by touching things such as doorknobs that infected people have touched.
Almost everyone gets a coronavirus infection at least once in their life, most likely as a young child. In the United States, coronaviruses are more common in the fall and winter, but anyone can come down with a coronavirus infection at any time.
Common Symptoms of Coronavirus
The symptoms of most coronaviruses are similar to any other upper respiratory infection, including runny nose, coughing, sore throat, and sometimes a fever. In most cases, you won’t know whether you have a coronavirus or a different cold-causing virus, such as rhinovirus.
The Dow dropped 603.41 points, or 2.1%, to 28,256.03 in the 30-stock average’s worst day since August. The S&P 500 had its worst day since October, falling 1.8% to 3,225.52. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.6% to 9,150.94.
On Friday, the U.S. declared the coronavirus a public health emergency within the country. Delta, American and United suspended all flights between China and the U.S.
The virus, which was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has now spread to at least 18 other countries and has dampened sentiment over global economic growth. China’s National Health Commission confirmed on Friday that there have been 9,692 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 213 deaths.
“There’s fear going into the weekend,” said Ilya Feygin, senior strategist at WallachBeth Capital. “The theme coming into this year was the Fed and Trump are going to bail us out of any problems, but the virus is something neither one can do anything about. That’s a reason to become more fearful.”
Las Vegas Sands, a proxy stock for the coronavirus given the company’s exposure to the Chinese market, fell more than 1%. Airline stocks such as American and United dropped more than 3% each while Delta slid 2.4%. Travel stocks also got hit as the Trump administration imposed tighter travel restrictions to China.
The WHO recognized the deadly pneumonia-like virus as a global health emergency on Thursday, citing concern that the outbreak continues to spread to other countries with weaker health systems. WHO’s designation was made to help the United Nations health agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
“The outbreak of the coronavirus has added another headwind to the near-term outlook for stocks,” said Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research, said in a note. “Viruses often become less lethal as they mutate because a virus that kills its host is also a virus that kills itself. Unfortunately, in a world of mass travel, a virus can spread across the globe before it has time to lose potency.”
Members of the Thai Airways crew prepare themselves before disinfecting the cabin of an aircraft of the national carrier during a procedure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand, January 28, 2020.
Athit Perawongmetha | Reuters
Caterpillar shares fell 3% after the industrial giant’s CEO warned about “global economic uncertainty” in the company’s latest quarterly earnings report, in part a reference to the virus. Caterpillar also issued disappointing earnings guidance for 2020.
On the positive side, Amazon shares surged 7.4% after the company posted a quarterly profit and revenue that easily beat analyst expectations. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud business, saw stronger-than-expected revenues.
Investors are nearly halfway through the corporate earnings season. More than 70% of the 226 S&P 500 companies that have reported have beaten analyst earnings expectations, FactSet data shows.
Volatile January
The major averages saw an uptick in volatility this month as investors grappled with rising tensions between Iran and the U.S., trade worries with China and the recent coronavirus scare.
The S&P 500 closed marginally lower for January, snapping a four-month winning streak. The Dow also had its first monthly loss since August. The Nasdaq posted a 2% gain in January, its fifth-straight monthly advance.
The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered to be the best fear gauge in the market, rose to just around 19 this month from 13.78, a gain of more than 37%.
Stocks could face some seasonal headwinds next month. February has not been the market’s best month historically. Data from The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows the S&P 500 averages a gain of just 0.1%. Investors will also face a number of obstacles in the new month, including worries over how the U.S. presidential election shakes out. Coronavirus fears could also persist in February.
“That’s going to hurt China,” said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT. “For an economy that is increasingly trying to transition to the consumer, it’s definitely a headwind.”
“When you start seeing real actions on the part of multinational companies, as well as people trying to put a number on it, it’s no longer something that is not going to have an impact at all,” Martin said.
Each year CDC estimates the burden of influenza in the U.S. CDC uses modeling to estimate the number of influenza illnesses, medical visits, flu-associated hospitalizations, and flu-associated deaths that occur in the U.S. in a given season. The methods used to calculate these estimates are described on CDC’s webpage, How CDC Estimates the Burden of Seasonal Influenza in the U.S.
CDC uses the estimates of the burden of influenza in the population and the impact of influenza vaccination to inform policy and communications related to influenza.
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How CDC Estimates the Burden of Flu
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Why CDC Estimates the Burden of Flu
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Past Season Estimates
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Frequently Asked Questions about Estimated Flu Burden
Preliminary In-season Disease Burden Estimates
Weekly preliminary cumulative in-season estimates of flu cases, medical visits, hospitalizations for the 2019-2020 season.
Flu Burden Averted from Vaccination
CDC estimates the burden of flu and the impact of annual flu vaccination in the U.S using a model that estimates the numbers of flu illnesses, medical visits and hospitalization prevented by vaccination.
Figure 1: Estimated Range of Annual Burden of Flu in the U.S. since 2010
The burden of influenza disease in the United States can vary widely and is determined by a number of factors including the characteristics of circulating viruses, the timing of the season, how well the vaccine is working to protect against illness, and how many people got vaccinated. While the impact of flu varies, it places a substantial burden on the health of people in the United States each year.
CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.
Table 1: Estimated Influenza Disease Burden, by Season — United States, 2010-11 through 2018-19 Influenza Seasons
Three of the four types of influenza viruses affect humans: Type A, Type B, and Type C.[2][7] Type D has not been known to infect humans, but is believed to have the potential to do so.[7][8] Usually, the virus is spread through the air from coughs or sneezes.[1] This is believed to occur mostly over relatively short distances.[9] It can also be spread by touching surfaces contaminated by the virus and then touching the mouth or eyes.[5][9] A person may be infectious to others both before and during the time they are showing symptoms.[5] The infection may be confirmed by testing the throat, sputum, or nose for the virus.[2] A number of rapid tests are available; however, people may still have the infection even if the results are negative.[2] A type of polymerase chain reaction that detects the virus’s RNA is more accurate.[2]
Frequent hand washing reduces the risk of viral spread.[3] Wearing a surgical mask is also useful.[3] Yearly vaccinations against influenza are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for those at high risk,[1] and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for those six months of age and older.[10] The vaccine is usually effective against three or four types of influenza.[1] It is usually well-tolerated.[11] A vaccine made for one year may not be useful in the following year, since the virus evolves rapidly.[1]Antiviral drugs such as the neuraminidase inhibitoroseltamivir, among others, have been used to treat influenza.[1]The benefit of antiviral drugs in those who are otherwise healthy do not appear to be greater than their risks.[12] No benefit has been found in those with other health problems.[12][13]
Influenza spreads around the world in yearly outbreaks, resulting in about three to five million cases of severe illness and about 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.[4][1] About 20% of unvaccinated children and 10% of unvaccinated adults are infected each year.[14] In the northern and southern parts of the world, outbreaks occur mainly in the winter, while around the equator, outbreaks may occur at any time of the year.[11] Death occurs mostly in high risk groups—the young, the old, and those with other health problems.[1] Larger outbreaks known as pandemics are less frequent.[2] In the 20th century, three influenza pandemics occurred: Spanish influenza in 1918 (40–50million deaths), Asian influenza in 1957 (two million deaths), and Hong Kong influenza in 1968 (one million deaths).[15] The World Health Organization declared an outbreak of a new type of influenza A/H1N1 to be a pandemic in June 2009.[16] Influenza may also affect other animals, including pigs, horses, and birds.[17]
All three findings, especially fever, were less sensitive in people over 60 years of age.
Symptoms of influenza,[19][20] with fever and cough the most common symptoms.[18]
Approximately 33% of people with influenza are asymptomatic.[21][22]
Symptoms of influenza can start quite suddenly one to two days after infection. Usually the first symptoms are chills and body aches, but fever is also common early in the infection, with body temperatures ranging from 38 to 39°C (approximately 100 to 103°F).[23] Many people are so ill that they are confined to bed for several days, with aches and pains throughout their bodies, which are worse in their backs and legs.[24]
It can be difficult to distinguish between the common cold and influenza in the early stages of these infections.[29] Influenza symptoms are a mixture of symptoms of common cold and pneumonia, body ache, headache, and fatigue. Diarrhea is not usually a symptom of influenza in adults,[18] although it has been seen in some human cases of the H5N1 “bird flu”[30] and can be a symptom in children.[26] The symptoms most reliably seen in influenza are shown in the adjacent table.[18]
The specific combination of fever and cough has been found to be the best predictor; diagnostic accuracy increases with a body temperature above 38 °C (100.4 °F).[31] Two decision analysis studies[32][33] suggest that during local outbreaks of influenza, the prevalence will be over 70%.[33] Even in the absence of a local outbreak, diagnosis may be justified in the elderly during the influenza season as long as the prevalence is over 15%.[33]
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains an up-to-date summary of available laboratory tests.[34] According to the CDC, rapid diagnostic tests have a sensitivity of 50–75% and specificity of 90–95% when compared with viral culture.[35]
Occasionally, influenza can cause severe illness including primary viral pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia.[36][37] The obvious symptom is trouble breathing. In addition, if a child (or presumably an adult) seems to be getting better and then relapses with a high fever, that is a danger sign since this relapse can be bacterial pneumonia.[38]
Sometimes, influenza may have abnormal presentations, like confusion in the elderly and a sepsis-like syndrome in the young.[39]
Structure of the influenza virion. The hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) proteins are shown on the surface of the particle. The viral RNAs that make up the genome are shown as red coils inside the particle and bound to ribonuclearproteins (RNP).
These viruses are only distantly related to the human parainfluenza viruses, which are RNA viruses belonging to the paramyxovirus family that are a common cause of respiratory infections in children such as croup,[42] but can also cause a disease similar to influenza in adults.[43]
A fourth family of influenza viruses was identified in 2016 – Influenza D.[44][45][46][47][48][49][50] The type species for this family is Influenza D virus, which was first isolated in 2011.[8]
Influenzavirus A
This genus has one species, influenza A virus. Wild aquatic birds are the natural hosts for a large variety of influenza A.[51] Occasionally, viruses are transmitted to other species and may then cause devastating outbreaks in domestic poultry or give rise to human influenza pandemics.[51] The influenza A virus can be subdivided into different serotypes based on the antibody response to these viruses.[52] The serotypes that have been confirmed in humans are:
This genus has one species, influenza B virus. Influenza B almost exclusively infects humans[52] and is less common than influenza A. The only other animals known to be susceptible to influenza B infection are the seal[58] and the ferret.[59] This type of influenza mutates at a rate 2–3 times slower than type A[60] and consequently is less genetically diverse, with only one influenza B serotype.[52] As a result of this lack of antigenic diversity, a degree of immunity to influenza B is usually acquired at an early age. However, influenza B mutates enough that lasting immunity is not possible.[61] This reduced rate of antigenic change, combined with its limited host range (inhibiting cross species antigenic shift), ensures that pandemics of influenza B do not occur.[62]
Influenzavirus C
This genus has one species, influenza C virus, which infects humans, dogs and pigs, sometimes causing both severe illness and local epidemics.[63][64] However, influenza C is less common than the other types and usually only causes mild disease in children.[65][66]
Influenzavirus D
This genus has only one species, influenza D virus, which infects pigs and cattle. The virus has the potential to infect humans, although no such cases have been observed yet.[8]
Structure, properties, and subtype nomenclature
Influenzaviruses A, B, C, and D are very similar in overall structure.[8][67][68] The virus particle (also called the virion) is 80–120 nanometers in diameter such that the smallest virions adopt an elliptical shape.[69] The length of each particle varies considerably, owing to the fact that influenza is pleomorphic, and can be in excess of many tens of micrometers, producing filamentous virions.[70] However, despite these varied shapes, the viral particles of all influenza viruses are similar in composition.[71] These are made of a viral envelopecontaining two main types of glycoproteins, wrapped around a central core. The central core contains the viral RNAgenome and other viral proteins that package and protect this RNA. RNA tends to be single stranded but in special cases it is double.[72] Unusually for a virus, its genome is not a single piece of nucleic acid; instead, it contains seven or eight pieces of segmented negative-sense RNA, each piece of RNA containing either one or two genes, which code for a gene product (protein).[71] For example, the influenza A genome contains 11 genes on eight pieces of RNA, encoding for 11 proteins: hemagglutinin (HA), neuraminidase (NA), nucleoprotein (NP), M1 (matrix 1 protein), M2, NS1 (non-structural protein 1), NS2 (other name is NEP, nuclear export protein), PA, PB1 (polymerase basic 1), PB1-F2 and PB2.[73]
Hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) are the two large glycoproteins on the outside of the viral particles. HA is a lectin that mediates binding of the virus to target cells and entry of the viral genome into the target cell, while NA is involved in the release of progeny virus from infected cells, by cleaving sugars that bind the mature viral particles.[74] Thus, these proteins are targets for antiviral drugs.[75] Furthermore, they are antigens to which antibodies can be raised. Influenza A viruses are classified into subtypes based on antibody responses to HA and NA. These different types of HA and NA form the basis of the H and N distinctions in, for example, H5N1.[76] There are 18 H and 11 N subtypes known, but only H 1, 2 and 3, and N 1 and 2 are commonly found in humans.[77][78]
Replication
Host cell invasion and replication by the influenza virus. The steps in this process are discussed in the text.
Viruses can replicate only in living cells.[79] Influenza infection and replication is a multi-step process: First, the virus has to bind to and enter the cell, then deliver its genome to a site where it can produce new copies of viral proteins and RNA, assemble these components into new viral particles, and, last, exit the host cell.[71]
The intracellular details are still being elucidated. It is known that virions converge to the microtubule organizing center, interact with acidic endosomes and finally enter the target endosomes for genome release.[82]
Once inside the cell, the acidic conditions in the endosome cause two events to happen: First, part of the hemagglutinin protein fuses the viral envelope with the vacuole’s membrane, then the M2 ion channel allows protons to move through the viral envelope and acidify the core of the virus, which causes the core to disassemble and release the viral RNA and core proteins.[71] The viral RNA (vRNA) molecules, accessory proteins and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase are then released into the cytoplasm (Stage 2).[83] The M2 ion channel is blocked by amantadine drugs, preventing infection.[84]
These core proteins and vRNA form a complex that is transported into the cell nucleus, where the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase begins transcribing complementary positive-sense vRNA (Steps 3a and b).[85] The vRNA either is exported into the cytoplasm and translated (step 4) or remains in the nucleus. Newly synthesized viral proteins are either secreted through the Golgi apparatus onto the cell surface (in the case of neuraminidase and hemagglutinin, step 5b) or transported back into the nucleus to bind vRNA and form new viral genome particles (step 5a). Other viral proteins have multiple actions in the host cell, including degrading cellular mRNA and using the released nucleotides for vRNA synthesis and also inhibiting translation of host-cell mRNAs.[86]
Negative-sense vRNAs that form the genomes of future viruses, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and other viral proteins are assembled into a virion. Hemagglutinin and neuraminidase molecules cluster into a bulge in the cell membrane. The vRNA and viral coreproteins leave the nucleus and enter this membrane protrusion (step 6). The mature virus buds off from the cell in a sphere of host phospholipid membrane, acquiring hemagglutinin and neuraminidase with this membrane coat (step 7).[87] As before, the viruses adhere to the cell through hemagglutinin; the mature viruses detach once their neuraminidase has cleaved sialic acid residues from the host cell.[80] After the release of new influenza viruses, the host cell dies.
Because of the absence of RNA proofreading enzymes, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that copies the viral genome makes an error roughly every 10 thousand nucleotides, which is the approximate length of the influenza vRNA. Hence, the majority of newly manufactured influenza viruses are mutants; this causes antigenic drift, which is a slow change in the antigens on the viral surface over time.[88] The separation of the genome into eight separate segments of vRNA allows mixing or reassortment of vRNAs if more than one type of influenza virus infects a single cell. The resulting rapid change in viral genetics produces antigenic shifts, which are sudden changes from one antigen to another. These sudden large changes allow the virus to infect new host species and quickly overcome protective immunity.[76] This is important in the emergence of pandemics, as discussed below in the section on epidemiology.
Mechanism
Transmission
When an infected person sneezes or coughs more than half a million virus particles can be spread to those close by.[89] In otherwise healthy adults, influenza virus shedding (the time during which a person might be infectious to another person) increases sharply one-half to one day after infection, peaks on day 2 and persists for an average total duration of 5 days—but can persist as long as 9 days.[21] In those who develop symptoms from experimental infection (only 67% of healthy experimentally infected individuals), symptoms and viral shedding show a similar pattern, but with viral shedding preceding illness by one day.[21] Children are much more infectious than adults and shed virus from just before they develop symptoms until two weeks after infection.[90] In immunocompromised people, viral shedding can continue for longer than two weeks.[91]
Influenza can be spread in three main ways:[92][93] by direct transmission (when an infected person sneezes mucus directly into the eyes, nose or mouth of another person); the airborne route (when someone inhales the aerosols produced by an infected person coughing, sneezing or spitting) and through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose, or hand-to-mouth transmission, either from contaminated surfaces or from direct personal contact such as a handshake. The relative importance of these three modes of transmission is unclear, and they may all contribute to the spread of the virus.[9] In the airborne route, the droplets that are small enough for people to inhale are 0.5 to 5μm in diameter and inhaling just one droplet might be enough to cause an infection.[92] Although a single sneeze releases up to 40,000 droplets,[94] most of these droplets are quite large and will quickly settle out of the air.[92] How long influenza survives in airborne droplets seems to be influenced by the levels of humidity and UV radiation, with low humidity and a lack of sunlight in winter aiding its survival.[92]
As the influenza virus can persist outside of the body, it can also be transmitted by contaminated surfaces such as banknotes,[95] doorknobs, light switches and other household items.[24] The length of time the virus will persist on a surface varies, with the virus surviving for one to two days on hard, non-porous surfaces such as plastic or metal, for about fifteen minutes on dry paper tissues, and only five minutes on skin.[96] However, if the virus is present in mucus, this can protect it for longer periods (up to 17days on banknotes).[92][95]Avian influenza viruses can survive indefinitely when frozen.[97] They are inactivated by heating to 56°C (133°F) for a minimum of 60 minutes, as well as by acids (at pH <2).[97]
Pathophysiology
The different sites of infection (shown in red) of seasonal H1N1 versus avian H5N1. This influences their lethality and ability to spread.
The mechanisms by which influenza infection causes symptoms in humans have been studied intensively. One of the mechanisms is believed to be the inhibition of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) resulting in lowered cortisol levels.[98] Knowing which genes are carried by a particular strain can help predict how well it will infect humans and how severe this infection will be (that is, predict the strain’s pathophysiology).[64][99]
For instance, part of the process that allows influenza viruses to invade cells is the cleavage of the viral hemagglutinin protein by any one of several human proteases.[81] In mild and avirulent viruses, the structure of the hemagglutinin means that it can only be cleaved by proteases found in the throat and lungs, so these viruses cannot infect other tissues. However, in highly virulent strains, such as H5N1, the hemagglutinin can be cleaved by a wide variety of proteases, allowing the virus to spread throughout the body.[99]
The viral hemagglutinin protein is responsible for determining both which species a strain can infect and where in the human respiratory tract a strain of influenza will bind.[100] Strains that are easily transmitted between people have hemagglutinin proteins that bind to receptors in the upper part of the respiratory tract, such as in the nose, throat and mouth. In contrast, the highly lethal H5N1 strain binds to receptors that are mostly found deep in the lungs.[101] This difference in the site of infection may be part of the reason why the H5N1 strain causes severe viral pneumonia in the lungs, but is not easily transmitted by people coughing and sneezing.[102][103]
Common symptoms of the flu such as fever, headaches, and fatigue are the result of the huge amounts of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (such as interferon or tumor necrosis factor) produced from influenza-infected cells.[29][104] In contrast to the rhinovirus that causes the common cold, influenza does cause tissue damage, so symptoms are not entirely due to the inflammatory response.[105] This massive immune response might produce a life-threatening cytokine storm. This effect has been proposed to be the cause of the unusual lethality of both the H5N1 avian influenza,[106] and the 1918 pandemic strain.[107][108] However, another possibility is that these large amounts of cytokines are just a result of the massive levels of viral replication produced by these strains, and the immune response does not itself contribute to the disease.[109] Influenza appear to trigger programmed cell death (apoptosis).[110]
The influenza vaccine is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for high-risk groups, such as pregnant women, children aged less than five years, the elderly, health care workers, and people who have chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, or are immunocompromised among others.[111][112] The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the influenza vaccine for those aged six months or older who do not have contraindications.[113][10] In healthy adults it is modestly effective in decreasing the amount of influenza-like symptoms in a population.[114] In healthy children over the age of two years, the vaccine reduces the chances of getting influenza by around two-thirds, while it has not been well studied in children under two years.[115] In those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease vaccination reduces exacerbations,[116] it is not clear if it reduces asthma exacerbations.[117] Evidence supports a lower rate of influenza-like illness in many groups who are immunocompromised such as those with: HIV/AIDS, cancer, and post organ transplant.[118] In those at high risk immunization may reduce the risk of heart disease.[119] Whether immunizing health care workers affects patient outcomes is controversial with some reviews finding insufficient evidence[120][121] and others finding tentative evidence.[122][123]
Due to the high mutation rate of the virus, a particular influenza vaccine usually confers protection for no more than a few years. Each year, the World Health Organization predicts which strains of the virus are most likely to be circulating in the next year (see Historical annual reformulations of the influenza vaccine), allowing pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines that will provide the best immunity against these strains.[124] The vaccine is reformulated each season for a few specific flu strains but does not include all the strains active in the world during that season. It takes about six months for the manufacturers to formulate and produce the millions of doses required to deal with the seasonal epidemics; occasionally, a new or overlooked strain becomes prominent during that time.[125] It is also possible to get infected just before vaccination and get sick with the strain that the vaccine is supposed to prevent, as the vaccine takes about two weeks to become effective.[126]Vaccines can cause the immune system to react as if the body were actually being infected, and general infection symptoms (many cold and flu symptoms are just general infection symptoms) can appear, though these symptoms are usually not as severe or long-lasting as influenza. The most dangerous adverse effect is a severe allergic reaction to either the virus material itself or residues from the hen eggs used to grow the influenza; however, these reactions are extremely rare.[127]
A 2018 Cochrane review of children in good general health found that the live immunization seemed to lower the risk of getting influenza for the season from 18% to 4%. The inactivated vaccine seemed to lower the risk of getting flu for the season from 30% to 11%. Not enough data was available to draw definite conclusions about serious complications such as pneumonia or hospitalization.[115]
For healthy adults, a 2018 Cochrane review showed that vaccines reduced the incidence of lab-confirmed influenza from 2.3% to 0.9%, which constitutes a reduction of risk of approximately 60%. However, for influenza-like illness which is defined as the same symptoms of cough, fever, headache, runny nose, and bodily aches and pains, vaccine reduced the risk from 21.5% to 18.1%. This constitutes a much more modest reduction of risk of approximately 16%. The difference is most probably explained by the fact that over 200 viruses cause the same or similar symptoms as the flu virus.[114] Another review looked at the effect of short and long term exercise before the vaccine, however, no benefits or harms were recorded.[128]
The cost-effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccination has been widely evaluated for different groups and in different settings.[129] It has generally been found to be a cost-effective intervention, especially in children[130] and the elderly,[131] however the results of economic evaluations of influenza vaccination have often been found to be dependent on key assumptions.[132][133]
by direct transmission (when an infected person sneezes mucus directly into the eyes, nose or mouth of another person);
the airborne route (when someone inhales the aerosols produced by an infected person coughing, sneezing or spitting);
through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose, or hand-to-mouth transmission, either from contaminated surfaces or from direct personal contact such as a hand-shake.
Reasonably effective ways to reduce the transmission of influenza include good personal health and hygiene habits such as: not touching your eyes, nose or mouth;[134] frequent hand washing (with soap and water, or with alcohol-based hand rubs);[135] covering coughs and sneezes; avoiding close contact with sick people; and staying home yourself if you are sick. Avoiding spitting is also recommended.[136] Although face masks might help prevent transmission when caring for the sick,[137][138] there is mixed evidence on beneficial effects in the community.[136][139] Smoking raises the risk of contracting influenza, as well as producing more severe disease symptoms.[140][141]
Since influenza spreads through both aerosols and contact with contaminated surfaces, surface sanitizing may help prevent some infections.[142]Alcohol is an effective sanitizer against influenza viruses, while quaternary ammonium compounds can be used with alcohol so that the sanitizing effect lasts for longer.[143] In hospitals, quaternary ammonium compounds and bleach are used to sanitize rooms or equipment that have been occupied by people with influenza symptoms.[143] At home, this can be done effectively with a diluted chlorine bleach.[144]
Social distancing strategies used during past pandemics, such as closing schools, churches and theaters, slowed the spread of the virus but did not have a large effect on the overall death rate.[145][146] It is uncertain if reducing public gatherings, by for example closing schools and workplaces, will reduce transmission since people with influenza may just be moved from one area to another; such measures would also be difficult to enforce and might be unpopular.[136] When small numbers of people are infected, isolating the sick might reduce the risk of transmission.[136]
Diagnosis
29 yr old with H1N1 confirmed
There are a number of rapid tests for the flu. One is called a Rapid Molecular Assay, when an upper respiratory tract specimen (mucus) is taken using a nasal swab or a nasopharyngeal swab.[147] It should be done within 3–4 days of symptom onset, as upper respiratory viral shedding takes a downward spiral after that.[39]
People with the flu are advised to get plenty of rest, drink plenty of liquids, avoid using alcohol and tobacco and, if necessary, take medications such as acetaminophen (paracetamol) to relieve the fever and muscle aches associated with the flu.[148][149] In contrast, there is not enough evidence to support corticosteroids as add on therapy for influenza.[150] It is advised to avoid close contact with others to prevent spread of infection.[148][149] Children and teenagers with flu symptoms (particularly fever) should avoid taking aspirin during an influenza infection (especially influenza type B), because doing so can lead to Reye’s syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal disease of the liver.[151] Since influenza is caused by a virus, antibiotics have no effect on the infection; unless prescribed for secondary infections such as bacterial pneumonia. Antiviral medication may be effective, if given early (within 48 hours to first symptoms), but some strains of influenza can show resistance to the standard antiviral drugs and there is concern about the quality of the research.[152] High-risk individuals such as young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems should visit the doctor for antiviral drugs. Those with the emergency warning signs should visit the emergency room at once.[40]
Overall the benefits of neuraminidase inhibitors in those who are otherwise healthy do not appear to be greater than the risks.[12] There does not appear to be any benefit in those with other health problems.[12] In those believed to have the flu, they decreased the length of time symptoms were present by slightly less than a day but did not appear to affect the risk of complications such as needing hospitalization or pneumonia.[13] Increasingly prevalent resistance to neuraminidase inhibitors has led to researchers to seek alternative antiviral drugs with different mechanisms of action.[156]
M2 inhibitors
The antiviral drugsamantadine and rimantadine inhibit a viral ion channel (M2 protein), thus inhibiting replication of the influenza A virus.[84] These drugs are sometimes effective against influenza A if given early in the infection but are ineffective against influenza B viruses, which lack the M2 drug target.[157] Measured resistance to amantadine and rimantadine in American isolates of H3N2 has increased to 91% in 2005.[158] This high level of resistance may be due to the easy availability of amantadines as part of over-the-counter cold remedies in countries such as China and Russia,[159] and their use to prevent outbreaks of influenza in farmed poultry.[160][161] The CDC recommended against using M2 inhibitors during the 2005–06 influenza season due to high levels of drug resistance.[162]
Prognosis
Influenza’s effects are much more severe and last longer than those of the common cold. Most people will recover completely in about one to two weeks, but others will develop life-threatening complications (such as pneumonia). Thus, influenza can be deadly, especially for the weak, young and old, those with compromised immune systems, or the chronically ill.[76] People with a weak immune system, such as people with advanced HIV infection or transplant recipients (whose immune systems are medically suppressed to prevent transplant organ rejection), suffer from particularly severe disease.[163] Pregnant women and young children are also at a high risk for complications.[164]
According to the World Health Organization: “Every winter, tens of millions of people get the flu. Most are only ill and out of work for a week, yet the elderly are at a higher risk of death from the illness. We know the worldwide death toll exceeds a few hundred thousand people a year, but even in developed countries the numbers are uncertain, because medical authorities don’t usually verify who actually died of influenza and who died of a flu-like illness.”[166] Even healthy people can be affected, and serious problems from influenza can happen at any age. People over 65 years old, pregnant women, very young children and people of any age with chronic medical conditions are more likely to get complications from influenza, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, sinus, and ear infections.[167]
In some cases, an autoimmune response to an influenza infection may contribute to the development of Guillain–Barré syndrome.[168] However, as many other infections can increase the risk of this disease, influenza may only be an important cause during epidemics.[168][169] This syndrome has been believed to also be a rare side effect of influenza vaccines. One review gives an incidence of about one case per million vaccinations.[170] Getting infected by influenza itself increases both the risk of death (up to 1 in 10,000) and increases the risk of developing GBS to a much higher level than the highest level of suspected vaccine involvement (approx. 10 times higher by recent estimates).[171][168]
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Children of any age with neurologic conditions are more likely than other children to become very sick if they get the flu. Flu complications may vary and for some children, can include pneumonia and even death.”[172]
Influenza encephalitis MRI
Neurological conditions can include:
Disorders of the brain and spinal cord
Cerebral palsy
Epilepsy (seizure disorders)
Stroke
Intellectual disability
Moderate to severe developmental delay
Muscular dystrophy
Spinal cord injury
These conditions can impair coughing, swallowing, clearing the airways, and in the worst cases, breathing. Therefore, they worsen the flu symptoms.[172]
Seasonal risk areas for influenza: November–April (blue), April–November (red), and year-round (yellow).
Influenza reaches peak prevalence in winter, and because the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have winter at different times of the year, there are actually two different flu seasons each year. This is why the World Health Organization (assisted by the National Influenza Centers) makes recommendations for two different vaccine formulations every year; one for the Northern, and one for the Southern Hemisphere.[124]
A long-standing puzzle has been why outbreaks of the flu occur seasonally rather than uniformly throughout the year. One possible explanation is that, because people are indoors more often during the winter, they are in close contact more often, and this promotes transmission from person to person. Increased travel due to the Northern Hemisphere winter holiday season may also play a role.[173] Another factor is that cold temperatures lead to drier air, which may dehydrate mucus particles. Dry particles are lighter and can thus remain airborne for a longer period. The virus also survives longer on surfaces at colder temperatures and aerosol transmission of the virus is highest in cold environments (less than 5°C) with low relative humidity.[174] The lower air humidity in winter seems to be the main cause of seasonal influenza transmission in temperate regions.[175][176]
However, seasonal changes in infection rates also occur in tropical regions, and in some countries these peaks of infection are seen mainly during the rainy season.[177] Seasonal changes in contact rates from school terms, which are a major factor in other childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis, may also play a role in the flu. A combination of these small seasonal effects may be amplified by dynamical resonance with the endogenous disease cycles.[178]H5N1 exhibits seasonality in both humans and birds.[179][180]
An alternative hypothesis to explain seasonality in influenza infections is an effect of vitamin D levels on immunity to the virus.[181] This idea was first proposed by Robert Edgar Hope-Simpson in 1965.[182] He proposed that the cause of influenza epidemics during winter may be connected to seasonal fluctuations of vitamin D, which is produced in the skin under the influence of solar (or artificial) UV radiation. This could explain why influenza occurs mostly in winter and during the tropical rainy season, when people stay indoors, away from the sun, and their vitamin D levels fall.
As influenza is caused by a variety of species and strains of viruses, in any given year some strains can die out while others create epidemics, while yet another strain can cause a pandemic. Typically, in a year’s normal two flu seasons (one per hemisphere), there are between three and five million cases of severe illness and around 650,000 deaths worldwide,[4][1][183] which by some definitions is a yearly influenza epidemic.[1] Although the incidence of influenza can vary widely between years, approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations are directly associated with influenza every year in the United States.[184][185] One method of calculating influenza mortality produced an estimate of 41,400 average deaths per year in the United States between 1979 and 2001.[186] Different methods in 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a range from a low of about 3,300 deaths to a high of 49,000 per year.[187]
Roughly three times per century, a pandemic occurs, which infects a large proportion of the world’s population and can kill tens of millions of people (see pandemics section). One study estimated that if a strain with similar virulence to the 1918 influenza emerged today, it could kill between 50 and 80million people.[188]
Antigenic shift, or reassortment, can result in novel and highly pathogenic strains of human influenza
New influenza viruses are constantly evolving by mutation or by reassortment.[52] Mutations can cause small changes in the hemagglutinin and neuraminidaseantigens on the surface of the virus. This is called antigenic drift, which slowly creates an increasing variety of strains until one evolves that can infect people who are immune to the pre-existing strains. This new variant then replaces the older strains as it rapidly sweeps through the human population, often causing an epidemic.[189] However, since the strains produced by drift will still be reasonably similar to the older strains, some people will still be immune to them. In contrast, when influenza viruses reassort, they acquire completely new antigens—for example by reassortment between avian strains and human strains; this is called antigenic shift. If a human influenza virus is produced that has entirely new antigens, everybody will be susceptible, and the novel influenza will spread uncontrollably, causing a pandemic.[190] In contrast to this model of pandemics based on antigenic drift and shift, an alternative approach has been proposed where the periodic pandemics are produced by interactions of a fixed set of viral strains with a human population with a constantly changing set of immunities to different viral strains.[191]
The generation time for influenza (the time from one infection to the next) is very short (only 2 days). This explains why influenza epidemics start and finish in a short time scale of only a few months.[192]
From a public health point of view, flu epidemics spread rapidly and are very difficult to control. Most influenza virus strains are not very infectious and each infected individual will only go on to infect one or two other individuals (the basic reproduction number for influenza is generally around 1.4). However, the generation time for influenza is extremely short: the time from a person becoming infected to when he infects the next person is only two days. The short generation time means that influenza epidemics generally peak at around 2 months and burn out after 3 months: the decision to intervene in an influenza epidemic therefore has to be taken early, and the decision is therefore often made on the back of incomplete data. Another problem is that individuals become infectious before they become symptomatic, which means that putting people in quarantine after they become ill is not an effective public health intervention.[192] For the average person, viral shedding tends to peak on day two, whereas symptoms peak on day three.[21]
The word Influenza comes from the Italian language meaning “influence” and refers to the cause of the disease; initially, this ascribed illness to unfavorable astrological influences. It was introduced into English in the mid-eighteenth century during a pan-European epidemic.[193] Archaic terms for influenza include epidemic catarrh, la grippe (from the French, first used by Molyneaux in 1694),[194]sweating sickness, and Spanish fever (particularly for the 1918 flu pandemic strain).[195]
The difference between the influenza mortality age distributions of the 1918 epidemic and normal epidemics. Deaths per 100,000 persons in each age group, United States, for the interpandemic years 1911–1917 (dashed line) and the pandemic year 1918 (solid line).[196]
Thermal imaging camera and screen, photographed in an airport terminal in Greece during the 2009 flu pandemic. Thermal imaging can detect elevated body temperature, one of the signs of swine flu.
The symptoms of human influenza were clearly described by Hippocrates roughly 2,400 years ago.[197][198] Although the virus seems to have caused epidemics throughout human history, historical data on influenza are difficult to interpret, because the symptoms can be similar to those of other respiratory diseases.[199][194] The disease may have spread from Europe to the Americas as early as the European colonization of the Americas, since almost the entire indigenous population of the Antilles was killed by an epidemic resembling influenza that broke out in 1493, after the arrival of Christopher Columbus.[200][201]
The first convincing record of an influenza pandemic was of an outbreak in 1580, which began in Russia and spread to Europe via Africa. In Rome, over 8,000 people were killed, and several Spanish cities were almost wiped out. Pandemics continued sporadically throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, with the pandemic of 1830–1833 being particularly widespread; it infected approximately a quarter of the people exposed.[194]
The most famous and lethal outbreak was the 1918 flu pandemic (Spanish flu pandemic) (type A influenza, H1N1 subtype), which lasted from 1918 to 1919. It is not known exactly how many it killed, but estimates range from 50 to 100million people.[196][202][203] This pandemic has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed as many people as the Black Death.[194] This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.[203] Symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.”[202] The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.[204]
The 1918 flu pandemic was truly global, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. The unusually severe disease killed between two and twenty percent of those infected, as opposed to the more usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%.[196][202] Another unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old.[205] This is unusual since influenza is normally most deadly to the very young (under age 2) and the very old (over age 70). The total mortality of the 1918–1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 2.5% to 5% of the world’s population was killed. As many as 25million may have been killed in the first 25 weeks; in contrast, HIV/AIDS has killed 25million in its first 25 years.[202]
Later flu pandemics were not so devastating. They included the 1957 Asian Flu (type A, H2N2 strain) and the 1968 Hong Kong Flu (type A, H3N2 strain), but even these smaller outbreaks killed millions of people. In later pandemics antibiotics were available to control secondary infections and this may have helped reduce mortality compared to the Spanish flu of 1918.[196]
The main types of influenza viruses in humans. Solid squares show the appearance of a new strain, causing recurring influenza pandemics. Broken lines indicate uncertain strain identifications.[228]
The first significant step towards preventing influenza was the development in 1944 of a killed-virus vaccine for influenza by Thomas Francis, Jr. This built on work by Australian Frank Macfarlane Burnet, who showed that the virus lost virulence when it was cultured in fertilized hen’s eggs.[229] Application of this observation by Francis allowed his group of researchers at the University of Michigan to develop the first influenza vaccine, with support from the U.S. Army.[230] The Army was deeply involved in this research due to its experience of influenza in World War I, when thousands of troops were killed by the virus in a matter of months.[202] In comparison to vaccines, the development of anti-influenza drugs has been slower, with amantadine being licensed in 1966 and, almost thirty years later, the next class of drugs (the neuraminidase inhibitors) being developed.[231]
Influenza produces direct costs due to lost productivity and associated medical treatment, as well as indirect costs of preventative measures. In the United States, seasonal influenza is estimated to result in a total average annual economic cost of over $11 billion, with direct medical costs estimated to be over $3billion annually.[232] It has been estimated that a future pandemic could cause hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs.[233] However, the economic impacts of past pandemics have not been intensively studied, and some authors have suggested that the Spanish influenza actually had a positive long-term effect on per-capita income growth, despite a large reduction in the working population and severe short-term depressive effects.[234] Other studies have attempted to predict the costs of a pandemic as serious as the 1918 Spanish flu on the U.S. economy, where 30% of all workers became ill, and 2.5% were killed. A 30% sickness rate and a three-week length of illness would decrease the gross domestic product by 5%. Additional costs would come from medical treatment of 18million to 45million people, and total economic costs would be approximately $700billion.[235]
Preventative costs are also high. Governments worldwide have spent billions of U.S. dollars preparing and planning for a potential H5N1 avian influenza pandemic, with costs associated with purchasing drugs and vaccines as well as developing disaster drills and strategies for improved border controls.[236] On 1 November 2005, United States PresidentGeorge W. Bush unveiled the National Strategy to Safeguard Against the Danger of Pandemic Influenza[233] backed by a request to Congress for $7.1billion to begin implementing the plan.[237] Internationally, on 18 January 2006, donor nations pledged US$2billion to combat bird flu at the two-day International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Influenza held in China.[238][239]
In an assessment of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic on selected countries in the Southern Hemisphere, data suggest that all countries experienced some time-limited and/or geographically isolated socio/economic effects and a temporary decrease in tourism most likely due to fear of 2009 H1N1 disease. It is still too early to determine whether the H1N1 pandemic has caused any long-term economic impacts.[240]
Dr. Terrence Tumpey examining a laboratory-grown reconstruction of the 1918 Spanish flu virus in a biosafety level 3 environment.
Research on influenza includes studies on molecular virology, how the virus produces disease (pathogenesis), host immune responses, viral genomics, and how the virus spreads (epidemiology). These studies help in developing influenza countermeasures; for example, a better understanding of the body’s immune system response helps vaccine development, and a detailed picture of how influenza invades cells aids the development of antiviral drugs. One important basic research program is the Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, which was initiated in 2004 to create a library of influenza sequences and help clarify which factors make one strain more lethal than another, which genes most affect immunogenicity, and how the virus evolves over time.[241]
The sequencing of the influenza genome and recombinant DNA technology may accelerate the generation of new vaccine strains by allowing scientists to substitute new antigens into a previously developed vaccine strain.[242] Growing viruses in cell culture also promises higher yields, less cost, better quality and surge capacity.[243] Research on a universal influenza A vaccine, targeted against the external domain of the transmembrane viral M2 protein (M2e), is being done at the University of Ghent by Walter Fiers, Xavier Saelens and their team[244][245][246] and has now successfully concluded Phase I clinical trials. There has been some research success towards a “universal flu vaccine” that produces antibodies against proteins on the viral coat which mutate less rapidly, and thus a single shot could potentially provide longer-lasting protection.[247][248][249]
A number of biologics, therapeutic vaccines and immunobiologics are also being investigated for treatment of infection caused by viruses. Therapeutic biologics are designed to activate the immune response to virus or antigens. Typically, biologics do not target metabolic pathways like anti-viral drugs, but stimulate immune cells such as lymphocytes, macrophages, and/or antigen-presenting cells, in an effort to drive an immune response towards a cytotoxic effect against the virus. Influenza models, such as murine influenza, are convenient models to test the effects of prophylactic and therapeutic biologics. For example, lymphocyte T-cell immunomodulator inhibits viral growth in the murine model of influenza.[250]
Influenza infects many animal species, and transfer of viral strains between species can occur. Birds are thought to be the main animal reservoirs of influenza viruses.[251] Most influenza strains are believed to have originated after humans began their intensive domestication of animals about 10,000 years ago.[252] Sixteen forms of hemagglutinin and nine forms of neuraminidase have been identified. All known subtypes (HxNy) are found in birds, but many subtypes are endemic in humans, dogs, horses, and pigs; populations of camels, ferrets, cats, seals, mink, and whales also show evidence of prior infection or exposure to influenza.[61] Variants of flu virus are sometimes named according to the species the strain is endemic in or adapted to. The main variants named using this convention are: bird flu, human flu, swine flu, horse flu and dog flu. (Cat flu generally refers to feline viral rhinotracheitis or feline calicivirus and not infection from an influenza virus.) In pigs, horses and dogs, influenza symptoms are similar to humans, with cough, fever and loss of appetite.[61] The frequency of animal diseases are not as well-studied as human infection, but an outbreak of influenza in harbor seals caused approximately 500 seal deaths off the New England coast in 1979–1980.[253] However, outbreaks in pigs are common and do not cause severe mortality.[61]Vaccines have also been developed to protect poultry from avian influenza. These vaccines can be effective against multiple strains and are used either as part of a preventative strategy, or combined with culling in attempts to eradicate outbreaks.[254]
Bird flu
Flu symptoms in birds are variable and can be unspecific.[255] The symptoms following infection with low-pathogenicity avian influenza may be as mild as ruffled feathers, a small reduction in egg production, or weight loss combined with minor respiratory disease.[256] Since these mild symptoms can make diagnosis in the field difficult, tracking the spread of avian influenza requires laboratory testing of samples from infected birds. Some strains such as Asian H9N2 are highly virulent to poultry and may cause more extreme symptoms and significant mortality.[257] In its most highly pathogenic form, influenza in chickens and turkeys produces a sudden appearance of severe symptoms and almost 100% mortality within two days.[258] As the virus spreads rapidly in the crowded conditions seen in the intensive farming of chickens and turkeys, these outbreaks can cause large economic losses to poultry farmers.
An avian-adapted, highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 (called HPAI A(H5N1), for “highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1”) causes H5N1 flu, commonly known as “avian influenza” or simply “bird flu”, and is endemic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia. This Asian lineage strain of HPAI A(H5N1) is spreading globally. It is epizootic (an epidemic in non-humans) and panzootic (a disease affecting animals of many species, especially over a wide area), killing tens of millions of birds and spurring the culling of hundreds of millions of other birds in an attempt to control its spread. Most references in the media to “bird flu” and most references to H5N1 are about this specific strain.[259][260]
HPAI A(H5N1) is an avian disease and there is no evidence suggesting efficient human-to-human transmission of HPAI A(H5N1). In almost all cases, those infected have had extensive physical contact with infected birds.[261] H5N1 may mutate or reassort into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission. The exact changes that are required for this to happen are not well understood.[262] Due to the high lethality and virulence of H5N1, its endemic presence, and its large and increasing biological host reservoir, the H5N1 virus was the world’s pandemic threat in the 2006–07 flu season, and billions of dollars are being raised and spent researching H5N1 and preparing for a potential influenza pandemic.[236]
Chinese inspectors on an airplane, checking passengers for fevers, a common symptom of swine flu
In March 2013, the Chinese government reported three cases of H7N9 influenza infections in humans. Two of whom had died and the third was critically ill. Although the strain of the virus is not thought to spread efficiently between humans,[263][264] by mid-April, at least 82 persons had become ill from H7N9, of which 17 had died. These cases include three small family clusters in Shanghai and one cluster between a neighboring girl and boy in Beijing, raising at least the possibility of human-to-human transmission. WHO points out that one cluster did not have two of the cases lab confirmed and further points out, as a matter of baseline information, that some viruses are able to cause limited human-to-human transmission under conditions of close contact but are not transmissible enough to cause large community outbreaks.[265][266][267]
Swine flu
In pigs swine influenza produces fever, lethargy, sneezing, coughing, difficulty breathing and decreased appetite.[268] In some cases the infection can cause abortion. Although mortality is usually low, the virus can produce weight loss and poor growth, causing economic loss to farmers.[268] Infected pigs can lose up to 12 pounds of body weight over a 3- to 4-week period.[268] Direct transmission of an influenza virus from pigs to humans is occasionally possible (this is called zoonotic swine flu). In all, 50 human cases are known to have occurred since the virus was identified in the mid-20th century, which have resulted in six deaths.[269]
In 2009, a swine-origin H1N1 virus strain commonly referred to as “swine flu” caused the 2009 flu pandemic, but there is no evidence that it is endemic to pigs (i.e. actually a swine flu) or of transmission from pigs to people; instead, the virus spreads from person to person.[270][271] This strain is a reassortment of several strains of H1N1 that are usually found separately, in humans, birds, and pigs.[272]
References…
Further reading
General
Beigel JH, Farrar J, Han AM, Hayden FG, Hyer R, de Jong MD, et al. (September 2005). “Avian influenza A (H5N1) infection in humans”. The New England Journal of Medicine. 353 (13): 1374–85. CiteSeerX10.1.1.730.7890. doi:10.1056/NEJMra052211. PMID16192482.
Kamps BS, Hoffmann C, Preiser W (2006). “Influenza Report”. Flying Publisher. p. 225.
Levine AJ (1992). Viruses. New York: Scientific American Library. ISBN978-0-7167-5031-4.
World Health Organization (September 2006). Influenza research at the human and animal interface : report of a WHO working group, Geneva, Switzerland 21-22 September 2006 (Report). World Health Organization (WHO). hdl:10665/69391. WHO/CDS/EPR/GIP/2006.3.
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Story 4: Senate Votes 51 to 49 to Reject Calls For New Witnesses and Documents in Trump Impeachment Trial — Senate Expected To Vote For Trump Acquittal Wednesday, 5 February — Videos
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Senators Reject Witnesses in Trump Impeachment Trial
Republican majority, by a 51-49 vote, keeps new evidence from being introduced
By Andrew Duehren
Senate Republicans rejected Democrats’ demands to call new witnesses and documents in President Trump’s impeachment trial, clearing the way for an acquittal on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges next week.
The 51-49 vote late Friday afternoon represented a major victory for Republican leadership, which has sought to complete the trial as quickly as possible and avoid testimony that could be politically damaging. Democrats had spent weeks calling for the Senate to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton and other officials, seeking testimony about Mr. Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine to launch investigations that could benefit him politically.
Two Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, joined every Democrat to vote for the Senate to call in new witnesses. The GOP controls 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats.
Under a separate resolution that Republicans approved along party lines, the impeachment trial will break for the weekend and resume Monday at 11 a.m. EST for four hours of arguments. After those arguments, the trial will adjourn again, giving senators the opportunity to speak on the floor about the charges before returning for a vote on the articles of impeachment at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
Democrats shortly after the vote on witnesses suggested that any acquittal of Mr. Trump would be tainted.
“America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to the responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) told reporters. Democrats also offered a series of amendments to the rules again calling for evidence and each failed.
Democratic hopes to extend the trial were dashed in the final 24 hours before the vote, when two Republicans who were on the fence about new evidence said they would oppose the motion. Late Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) said he believed the president acted improperly but that his actions didn’t rise to impeachable conduct. And on Friday, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she didn’t “believe the continuation of this process will change anything.”
The delay until next week will place Mr. Trump’s fate in an unusual procedural purgatory. While he is all but certain to be cleared of impeachable offenses in the Republican-controlled Senate, he may have to wait days before an official acquittal, during a hectic time in U.S. politics.
Voters in Iowa will caucus on Monday in the first contest of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, in which several members of the Senate are competing, and Mr. Trump is set to give his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Republicans said holding the vote on Wednesday was the easiest way to reach the preordained conclusion without a time-consuming procedural battle with Democrats.
“The outcome is certain but the pain and suffering are optional. We decided to eliminate as much of the optional pain and suffering as possible,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.)
“It’s a fait accompli,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said. “We know how it’s going to turn out.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) called the president before he introduced the resolution setting the vote for Wednesday, said a person familiar with the matter, and Mr. Trump signed off on it.
One idea floated at a closed-door GOP meeting late Friday was that if the final impeachment vote is delayed until Wednesday, Mr. Trump could request to move the date of his State of the Union until after that vote, two people familiar with the matter said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) would need to formally extend an invitation for a new date.
While a simple majority was necessary to consider more evidence, two-thirds of the Senate would be needed to vote to convict Mr. Trump for him to be removed from office.
The question of bringing in new evidence was at the heart of the nine days of arguments and questioning, pitting Democrats—who want to acquire additional material to bolster their case—against Republicans who have sought to quickly vote to acquit Mr. Trump.
In their final arguments on Friday, Democrats warned that moving forward with the trial without considering additional evidence could set a dangerous precedent for future attempts at Congressional investigations into the executive branch.
“This will set a new precedent, this will be cited in impeachment trials from this point until the end of history,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who served as the lead impeachment manager. “If the Senate allows President Trump’s obstruction to stand, it effectively nullifies the impeachment power. It will allow future presidents to decide whether they want their misconduct to be investigated or not.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with his chief of staff after Friday’s Senate vote.PHOTO:JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republicans and White House lawyers sharply criticized Democratic demands for evidence in the Senate trial, arguing that House Democrats should have collected material when they were conducting the investigation in their chamber. Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin warned that the Senate should not “prolong matters further by trying to redo work that the House failed to do.”
Democrats pointed out that House committees issued 71 categories of document requests or subpoenas last year to the White House and other parts of the executive branch but that the White House blocked all of the requests.
Revelations last Sunday about Mr. Bolton’s unpublished book fueled efforts to open the trial to additional evidence. In leaked manuscript,
Mr. Bolton wrote that Mr. Trump told him he was freezing security aid to Ukraine until it opened investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, and other matters. Mr. Bolton had said he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate.
The charge that Mr. Trump linked the hold on roughly $400 million in security aid this summer to opening investigations was at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. Mr. Trump has denied that the two were related, saying he held the aid to both investigate corruption in Ukraine and ensure other countries were contributing to its defense; he has called the impeachment case against him a partisan attack. The aid was released in September amid bipartisan complaints from Congress.
Mr. Trump and his allies have argued that it was corrupt for Mr. Biden during the Obama administration to seek the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had once investigated a Ukrainian gas company where Mr. Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board. Mr. Biden sought the prosecutor’s removal as part of a broad international effort to combat corruption in Ukraine. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing. Hunter Biden has said it was poor judgment on his part to serve on the Burisma board, which paid him $50,000 a month, while his father was involved with Ukraine policy as vice president.
Testimony from Mr. Bolton is one piece of evidence Democrats have demanded in the Senate trial. They have also sought a trove of documents from the administration and the testimony of several other top administration officials, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
While the first article of impeachment accuses Mr. Trump of abusing his power when he requested the investigations, the second charges him of obstructing Congress when the administration didn’t turn over material to the House impeachment inquiry.
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Trump defense presents arguments in Senate impeachment trial Day 5
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TIME TO END THIS: Jay Sekulow TEARS Into Democrats Case On President Trump Impeachment
President Donald Trump’s legal team argued before the U.S. Senate on Jan. 25 that the notes released from the Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president shows he “did nothing wrong.” Michael Purpura, a member of Trump’s defense team in the Senate impeachment trial, said the president did not link U.S. military aid for Ukraine to an investigation into the Bidens. “The truth is simple, and it’s right before our eyes. The president was at all times acting in our national interesting and pursuant to his oath of office,” Purpura said, arguing that Trump was concerned about combating corruption and about the lack of aid from other European nations. Trump’s legal team began its defense on Saturday, after House managers were given 24 hours over three days to make their case for why the president should be removed from office. The defense will be given the same amount of time to make its arguments. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December on two articles of impeachment–abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate trial will determine whether Trump is acquitted of those charges or convicted and removed from office.
WATCH: Trump lawyer: White House justified in not complying with House | Trump impeachment trial
The White House was justified in not complying with House requests for documents and witness testimony during the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, the president’s legal team argued on Jan. 25 before the U.S. Senate. Patrick Philbin, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, argued the House did not take the proper steps to issue valid subpoenas as part of the impeachment probe. He also worked to argue that the House did not allow Trump enough opportunity to defend himself during the House inquiry. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December on two articles of impeachment–abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate trial will determine whether Trump is acquitted of those charges or convicted and removed from office.
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READ: Trump Legal Filing Accuses Democrats Of ‘Dangerous Perversion’ Of Constitution
January 20, 202011:39 AM ET
Updated at 12:58 p.m. ET
The White House is offering a fiery legal response to the articles of impeachment, in an executive summary of a legal brief obtained by NPR.
Decrying a “rigged process” that is “brazenly political,” President Trump’s legal team accuses House Democrats of “focus-group testing various charges for weeks” and says that “all that House Democrats have succeeded in proving is that the President did absolutely nothing wrong.”
They sum up the impeachment as “a dangerous perversion of the Constitution that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn.”
The full brief, totaling 110 pages, was sent in response to a Senate summons ahead of the trial, set to begin Tuesday.
“It’s been a substantial project,” said a source working with the president’s legal team who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s a Supreme Court caliber brief.”
The brief expands upon arguments made in a document released over the weekend answering the articles of impeachment, dealing with both process and substance. They argue that the president cannot be impeached for an abuse of power short of a crime and that the president didn’t abuse his power anyhow.
“Abuse of power isn’t a crime,” said the source.
Democrats argue abuse of power is the very thing the Framers had in mind and that “high crimes and misdemeanors” spelled out in the Constitution isn’t meant literally, but is a term of art. Over time, federal officials have been impeached without criminal accusations. But Trump’s legal team says no president has been impeached without a criminal offense and charging abuse of power is simply too subjective. “It would alter the separation of powers to allow this sort of vague standard to be used, to impeach the president,” the source said.
The brief also argues that the article of impeachment for obstructing Congress is invalid because of standing executive branch protections and because the House didn’t pursue judicial recourse to force cooperation.
House Democratic impeachment managers responded to the Trump legal team’s arguments on Monday. “The Framers deliberately drafted a Constitution that allows the Senate to remove Presidents who, like President Trump, abuse their power to cheat in elections, betray our national security, and ignore checks and balances,” they wrote. “That President Trump believes otherwise, and insists he is free to engage in such conduct again, only highlights the continuing threat he poses to the Nation if allowed to remain in office.”
Donald Trump’s defense lawyers accuse the Democrats of ‘massive’ election interference, call Adam Schiff a liar, demand to know where the whistleblower is but only mention the Bidens ONCE in their opening – after the president blamed ‘dumb’ AOC
Trump’s defense team began their case for his acquittal on Saturday
They follow three days of Democratic arguments for impeachment
Trump’s team argued he did nothing wrong and broke no law
‘The president has done absolutely nothing wrong,’ White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Senators in his opening remarks
Saturday’s session was a short one – around three hours
Donald Trump‘s defense team began their case for the president’s acquittal on Saturday after Democrats spent three days outlining their arguments for impeachment – rolling out his greatest hits but surprisingly barely mentioning Joe and Hunter Biden by name.
Instead they sought to undercut the Democrats legal arguments and portrayed the president as a victim of political enemies who wanted to undercut his election and denied him due process during the House investigation.
‘The president has done absolutely nothing wrong,’ White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said.
‘They’re here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history,’ Cipollone noted. ‘And we can’t allow that to happen.’
Trump’s team isn’t showing its hand as to whether the Bidens will make an appearance when the trial resumes on Monday.
‘I’m not going to get into what we are presenting in court,’ said a source working on the president’s legal team in a call with reporters when asked about the Bidens.
President Trump weighed in on the trial a few hours after it concluded, arguing he’s been ‘unfairly’ treated and the victim of a ‘totally partisan Impeachment Hoax.’
‘Any fair minded person watching the Senate trial today would be able to see how unfairly I have been treated and that this is indeed the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax that EVERYBODY, including the Democrats, truly knows it is. This should never be allowed to happen again!,’ he wrote.
The president also laid out his lawyers’ attack line in a tweet ahead of the trial – saying his lawyers will go after prominent Democrats Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had no formal role in the making the impeachment case before the Senate.
‘Our case against lyin’, cheatin’, liddle’ Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, their leader, dumb as a rock AOC, & the entire Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrat Party, starts today at 10:00 A.M. on @FoxNews, @OANN or Fake News @CNN or Fake News MSDNC!,’ Trump tweeted Saturday morning about 20 minutes before the trial began.
Ocasio-Cortez joined the majority of Democrats in voting for the two articles of impeachment – abuse of power and obstruction of justice – against the president. But she was not a member of either House committee that led the inquiry or questioned witnesses.
It was Schiff who bore the brunt of hits from Team Trump.
Deputy White House counsel Michael Purpura opened his part of the defense by playing the video of Schiff’s parody of Zelensky call at one of the House impeachment hearing – a move that infuriated the president and one Trump has repeatedly criticized.
‘That’s fake,’ Purpura noted.
President Trump’s defense team began their case for his acquittal on Saturday
‘The president has done absolutely nothing wrong,’ White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said
Trump attacked Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who had no formal role in the making the impeachment case before the Senate
Adam Schiff leads the House impeachment managers to the Senate to hear Trump’s defense team
And Deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin accused Schiff of lying about his contact with the whistleblower, whose revelations of the details of President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sparked the formal impeachment inquiry in the House.
Schiff’s staff on the Intelligence committee had contact with the whistleblower and referred him to a lawyer. Schiff says he’s never met the whistleblower.
The Democratic congressman from California, who served as House Democrats’ led impeachment manager, accused the president’s lawyers of ‘trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.’
‘After listening to the President’s lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations: They don’t contest the facts of Trump’s scheme. They’re trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth. And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses,’ Schiff tweeted after the trial ended for the day.
He also charged the president’s lawyers with going after the House impeachment managers because they don’t have a case.
‘They just want to attack the House managers. Look, that’s what you do. And, you know, as a prosecutor I’ve seen it time and time again, when your client is guilty when your client is dead to rights. You don’t want to talk about your clients, guilt, you want to attack the prosecution. It is a fairly elemental strategy,’ Schiff said at a press conference after the trial.
‘I don’t even know who the whistleblower is,’ he noted.
Schiff was observed by a DailyMail.com reporter spending the sitting at the Democrats’ desk in the well of the Senate, taking notes on a white legal pad and listening intently to the president’s case.
Trump’s private attorney Jay Sekulow also attacked the managers
‘This entire impeachment process is about the House managers’ insistence that they are able to read everybody’s thoughts,’ Sekulow said. ‘They can read everybody’s intention. Even when the principal speakers, the witnesses themselves, insist that those interpretations are wrong.’
Philbin did not name the whistleblower when he made the president’s case to the 100 senators but he did say suggest the person had political bias against the president.
‘We don’t know exactly what the political bias was because the inspector general testified in the House committees in executive session and that transcript is still secret,’ he said. The inspector general met with the whistleblower and revealed the person’s complaint about Trump’s call.
‘You think you’d want to find out something about the complainant that started all of it,’ Philbin said. ‘Because motivations, bias, reason to bring the complainant could be relevant.’
He noted public reports on the person suggested it was an intelligence staffer who worked with Joe Biden when he was vice president on Ukraine matters.
Trump’s attorney: Overwhelming evidence of the president’s innocence
Adam Schiff said Trump’s lawyers attacked the House impeachment managers because they have no case
President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, center, stands with his son, Jordan Sekulow, left, and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone when they arrive at the Capitol on Saturday morning
Public reports on the whistleblower indicate the person is male and a CIA staffer who was detailed to the Trump White House but is now back at the agency. The person also could have been detailed to the Obama White House when Biden was vice president but it’s unclear if that is the case. DailyMail.com has not independently verified the whistleblower’s identity.
Trump’s Republican allies came out of the president’s first day of defense praising his legal team’s work at undercutting the Democrats’ case.
Democrats countered that the lawyers had shown the need to call more witnesses.
Schiff pointed out that the president’s team – who talked about several staffers who testified in the House impeachment inquiry – didn’t mention acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney or former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Democrats want to hear from both men.
But there was relief on both sides of the aisle that it was a short day – a little more than three hours – after 12-plus hours the first three days of Trump’s trial.
And senators showed relief the president’s legal team took a professional respectful tone in their opening arguments. There was fear of an aggressive attack.
‘Definitely a palpable nervousness as the POTUS lawyers began. Many Dem Senators were worried that their tone would be abrasive and over-the-top. It wasn’t. That’s a good thing. But will it continue?,’ Democratic Senator Chris Murphy tweeted after the trial.
Deputy White House counsels Michael Purpura and Pat Philbin countered the Democrats’ case
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow will take the lead on the president’s defense
House impeachment managers filed a 28,578-page trial record with the Senate
There was barely any mention of Hunter and Joe Biden by Trump’s defense
Sen. Lindsey Graham – carrying a cup of coffee – heads toward the Senate for Saturday’s hearing
There was also barely mention of Joe and Hunter Biden, who the president attacks frequently on his Twitter account and at campaign rallies.
Joe Biden was popular among his fellow senators and many of them sitting as jurors to Trump served with Biden in the Senate.
The majority of the president’s defense focused on process and procedure.
Cipollone began by using Trump’s favorite argument – that senators should read the call of the president’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky.
‘They didn’t talk a lot about the transcript of the call which I would submit is the best evidence,’ Cipollone said of the Democrats.
He charged Democrats with not presenting all the evidence, including items that would act in the president’s defense that he said the defense team would show.
‘Ask yourself why didn’t I see this in the first three days,’ Cipollone told senators. ‘As House managers really their goal should be to show you all of the facts.’
Trump’s defense team also are portraying Trump as the victim of Democrats trying to undo the 2016 election.
‘They’re asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but – as I’ve said – before they’re asking you to remove president trump from the ballot of an election occurring in nine months,’ Cipollone said, adding Democrats are trying to ‘take that decision away from the American people.’
‘They’re asking you to tear up all the ballots across this country on their own initiative,’ he noted.
Deputy White House counsel Michael Purpura also painted the leaking of details about the Zelensky-Trump call – and national security staff reports of their concerns to the White House legal team – as merely policy differences between the president and staff instead of an abuse of power.
He argued there was no evidence Trump made security assistance to the Ukraine contingent upon that country launching an investigation into the Bidens and noted the Ukraine didn’t even know the money was ‘paused’ until shortly before it was released.
‘Most of the Democratic witnesses have never spoken to the president at all, let alone about Ukraine security assistance,’ he said of the House impeachment hearings.
Democrats argue Trump deliberately held up the aid to pressure the Ukraine and released it once details of his phone call with Zelensky were leaked.
Saturday’s short day is expected to give way to a longer day on Monday when the presidents’ lawyers return to make their case for acquittal.
Trump’s lawyers are expected to try and flip it back on Democrats, arguing it is them who accepted foreign help in 2016 via the infamous – and unproven – Steele dossier.
Based upon research from former British spy Christopher Steele, and paid for by lawyers who also did work for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the dossier claimed the Russians had blackmail material on Trump.
Trump has denied this.
Trump’s lawyers will also point to a recent report criticizing the FBI for the way it obtained a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Democrats wrapped their case Friday evening and warned President Trump will continue to abuse his executive power unless Congress intervenes.
‘Give America a fair trial,’ said Adam Schiff, the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, in his closing argument. ‘She’s worth it.’
THE TRUMP DREAM TEAM: WHO’S DEFENDING PRESIDENT IN SENATE
Lead counsel: Pat Cipollone, White House Counsel
Millionaire conservative Catholic father-of-10 who has little courtroom experience. ‘Strong, silent,’ type who has earned praise from Trump’s camp for resisting Congress’ investigations of the Ukraine scandal. Critics accused him of failing in his duty as a lawyer by writing ‘nonsense letters’ to reject Congressional oversight. His background is commercial litigation and as White House counsel is the leader of the Trump administration’s drive to put conservative judges in federal courts. Trump has already asked aides behind the scenes if he will perform well on television.
Jay Sekulow, president’s personal attorney
Millionaire one-time IRS prosecutor with his own talk radio show. Self-described Messianic Jew who was counsel to Jews for Jesus. Longtime legal adviser to Trump, but he is himself mentioned in the Ukraine affair, with Lev Parnas saying that he knew about Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to dig dirt on the Bidens but did not approve. Michael Cohen claimed that Sekulow and other members of Trump’s legal team put falsehoods in his statement to the House intel committee; Sekulow denies it. The New York Times reported that he voted for Hillary Clinton.
Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor
Shot to worldwide fame for his part in the ‘dream team’s’ successful defense of OJ Simpson but was already famous for his defense of Claus von Bulow, the British socialite accused of murdering his wife in Rhode Island. Ron Silver played Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune. In 2008 he was a member of Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team which secured the lenient plea deal from federal prosecutors. But Dershowitz was a longtime friend of Epstein and was accused of having sex with two of Esptein’s victims. He denies it and is suing one of them, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, for libel, saying his sex life is ‘perfect.’ He admits he received a massage at Epstein’s home – but ‘kept my underwear on.’ Registered Democrat who spoke out against Trump’s election and again after the Charlottesville violence. Has become an outspoken defender of Trump against the Robert Mueller probe and the Ukraine investigation.
Ken Starr, former Whitewater independent counsel
Famous and reviled in equal measure for his Whitewater investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s finances in Arkansas which eventually led him to evidence of Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. He was a federal appeals judge and George H.W. Bush’s solicitor general before that role. He later became president and chancellor of Baylor University in Waco but was removed as president in May 2016 for mishandling the investigation into allegations of multiple sexual assaults by football players and other students, then quit voluntarily as chancellor. Is the second Jeffrey Epstein defender on the team; he was present in 2008 when the plea deal with prosecutor Alex Acosta was made which let Epstein off with just 13 months of work release prison.
Pam Bondi, White House attorney
Florida’s first female attorney general and also a long-time TV attorney who has been a Fox News guest host – including co-hosting The Five for three days in a row while still attorney general. Began her career as a prosecutor before moving into elected politics. Has been hit by a series of controversies, among them persuading then Florida governor Rick Scott to change the date of an execution because it clashed with her re-election launch, and has come under fire for her association with Scientology. She has defended it saying the group were helping her efforts against human trafficking; at the time the FBI was investigating it over human trafficking. Went all-in on Trump in 2016, leading ‘lock her up’ chants at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Joined the White House last November to aid the anti-impeachment effort.
Robert Ray, Ken Starr’s successor
Headed the Office of the Independent Counsel from 1999 until it closed for business in 2002, meaning it was he, not Ken Starr, who wrote the final words on the scandals of the Clinton years. Those included the report on Monica Lewinsky, the report on the savings and loan misconduct claims which came to be known as Whitewater, and the report on Travelgate, the White House travel office’s firing and file-gate, claims of improper access to the FBI’s background reports. Struck deal with Clinton to give up his law license. Went into private practice. Was charged with stalking a former lover in New York in 2006 four months after she ended their relationship. Now a frequent presence on Fox News.
Jane Raskin, private attorney
Part of a husband-and-wife Florida law team, she is a former prosecutor who specializes in defending in white collar crime cases. Their connection to Trump appears to have been through Ty Cobb, the former White House attorney. She and husband Martin advised Trump on his response to Mueller and appear to have been focused on avoiding an obstruction of justice accusation. That may be the reason to bring her in to the impeachment team; Democrats raised the specter of reviving Mueller’s report in their evidence to the impeachment trial.
Patrick Philbin and Michael Purpura, Deputy White House Counsels
Lowest-profile of the team, they work full-time for Cipollone in the White House. Philbin (left) was a George W. Bush appointee at the Department of Justice who helped come up with the system of trying Guantanamo Bay detainees in front of military commissions instead of in U.S. courts. He was one a group of officials, led by James Comey, who rushed to seriously-ill John Ashcroft’s bedside to stop the renewal of the warrant-less wiretap program. Unknown if Trump is aware of his links to Comey. Purpura (right) is also a Bush White House veteran who shaped its response to Congressional investigations at a time when there were calls for him to be impeached over going to war in Iraq. His name is on letters telling State Department employees not to testify. Has been named as a possible Trump nominee for federal court in Hawaii.
Senators baffled by half-empty spectator gallery during week one of impeachment trial
The Senate spectator gallery was unexpectedly half-empty throughout the first week of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, baffling senators who are shocked people who pass on the historic hearings.
The Senate trial began on January 16 after Trump was impeached on two articles stemming from accusations that he withheld military aid money from US ally Ukraine until they conducted an investigation into presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma told New York Post: ‘I’m really surprised at that because this is kind of historic and I would think this would be an opportunity for people to get in there regardless of whose side you are on.’
The Senate spectator gallery gives interested individuals a bird’s eye view of the senators debating whether Trump should become the third president to be formally removed from office.
Journalists are not allowed to bring cameras or cell phones into the gallery, so the low audience turnout is only known by people who have direct access to the chamber.
Senators are shocked that the gallery inside the chamber was at least half-empty during the first week of the impeachment trial
Republican Sen. James Inhofe (center) said he’s shocked that people are missing this ‘historic’ impeachment trial and ‘he would think this would be an opportunity for people to get in there regardless of whose side you are on’
A handful of Republicans blame the lackluster turn out on the tedious opening remarks from their Democratic colleagues.
‘Well, if I had a choice I’d probably be home watching Chicago PD,’ said Sen. Pat Roberts, who underwent back surgery in August.
He added: ‘No, don’t put that in there or that would make me sound terrible.’
Sen. Rand Paul, who’s taken up crossword puzzles to entertain himself, said: ‘You know, 28 hours of hearing the same thing over and over again isn’t all that exciting. ‘
On Wednesday, Paul tweeted a photo of a gallery ticket and invited Trump to be his guest.
Republican Sen. Paul Rand (pictured): ‘You know, 28 hours of hearing the same thing over and over again isn’t all that exciting’
Some Democrats say televising the proceedings and accessibility are playing a role in the empty gallery seats.
Sen. Jack Reed said: ‘Because it’s on television, it’s a convenient alternative to coming in.’
‘I don’t think the average person thinks that it would be easy to come and watch,’ Sen. Chris Coons said.
Pictured: The US Senate chamber room with a view of the spectator gallery overhead
Most Senate gallery tickets are distributed through individual Senate Offices that get between three to five tickets that allows audiences to watch in half-hour seating blocks.
The tickets can be used by multiple people, including constituents and staff, who use shifts. Some Senate offices say they have a strong interest and offer shifts up to one hour.
Sen. Patrick Leahy revealed his tickets ‘have all been used.’
Democrats warn that Trump will abuse his office again if not removed
The Senate Sergeant at Arms determines rules for Senate chamber, but did not say how gallery seating is managed.
Some seats have had very little guests this week, including both corners in the east side of the chamber.
According to a Senate aid, a section that seats around 100 people and is known as the family gallery is usually reserved for relatives of senators. It’s possible Senate offices have varying policies for those tickets.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds points towards a ban on not-taking outside a press section was unappealing to to Senate staff.
‘They can do more work in the office where they have an ability to take notes,’ Rounds said.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware wishes the Senate gallery would be more accessible to the public and says experiencing the trial in person is different than watching on TV
Brown said: ‘I’ve gotta think, a lot of student groups are here, a lot of individuals are here, tourists are here. People would love to be part of this.’
Coons added that while the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police ‘have a job to keep us safe’, ‘the gallery should be accessible.’
‘I have four tickets and we’re happy to rotate them out. I’ve had a whole bunch of Delawareans come down and watch in the gallery,’ Coons said.
‘And that’s encouraging because it is a different experience watching it in the chamber than watching it on TV.’
Although the impeachment trial will continue into into the following weeks, it is widely speculated that Trump will be acquitted.
Republicans hold the majority of seats, with many of them having already announced their intentions to acquit the president.
Trump Team, Opening Defense, Accuses Democrats of Plot to Subvert Election
President Trump’s lawyers argued against his removal in the Senate impeachment trial, saying Democrats are “asking you to tear up all of the ballots” by convicting him of high crimes and misdemeanors.
President Trump’s legal defense team mounted an aggressive offense on Saturday as it opened its side in the Senate impeachment trial by attacking his Democratic accusers as partisan witch-hunters trying to remove him from office because they could not beat him at the ballot box.
After three days of arguments by the House managers prosecuting Mr. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors, the president’s lawyers presented the senators a radically different view of the facts and the Constitution, seeking to turn the Democrats’ charges back on them while denouncing the whole process as illegitimate.
“They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots all across the country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people,” Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, said of the House managers. “They’re here,” he added moments later, “to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history, and we can’t allow that to happen.”
The president’s team spent only two of the 24 hours allotted to them so that senators could leave town for the weekend before the defense presentation resumes on Monday, but it was the first time his lawyers have formally made a case for him since the House opened its inquiry in September. The goal was to poke holes in the House managers’
While less combative than their famously combustible client, the lawyers relentlessly assailed the prosecution’s interpretation of events, accusing House Democrats of cherry-picking the facts and leaving out contrary information to construct a skewed narrative. They maintained that none of what the Democrats presented the Senate justified the first eviction of a president from the White House in American history.
“They have the burden of proof,” Mr. Cipollone said, “and they have not come close to meeting it.”
After the session, Democrats contended that the White House arguments actually bolstered their demand to call witnesses like John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser, and Mick Mulvaney, his acting White House chief of staff, as well as require documents be turned over, all of which the Republican majority so far has rejected.
“They kept saying there are no eyewitness accounts,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters. “But there are people that have eyewitness accounts. The very four witnesses, and the very four sets of documents that we have asked for.”
The abbreviated weekend session wrapped up five days of presentations and arguments on the Senate floor in the country’s third presidential impeachment trial. With Mr. Trump’s fate on the line, the trial, unfolding less than 10 months before he faces re-election, has come to encapsulate the pitched three-year struggle that has consumed Washington since he took office determined to disrupt the existing order, at times in ways that crossed longstanding lines.
While he did not attend Saturday’s opening of his defense, as he had previously suggested he might, Mr. Trump watched from the White House and weighed in on Twitter with attacks on prominent Democrats including Mr. Schumer, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead prosecutor for Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, portraying the day as a chance to put them on trial instead.
“Our case against lyin’, cheatin’, liddle’ Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, their leader, dumb as a rock AOC, & the entire Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrat Party, starts today at 10:00 A.M.,” he wrote.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Our case against lyin’, cheatin’, liddle’ Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, their leader, dumb as a rock AOC, & the entire Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrat Party, starts today at 10:00 A.M. on @FoxNews, @OANN or Fake News @CNN or Fake News MSDNC!
With the odds stacked against him in the Democratic-run House, Mr. Trump refused to send lawyers to participate in Judiciary Committee hearings last month, complaining that he was not given due process. But he faced a more receptive audience in the Senate, where the White House has been working in tandem with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader.
President Trump’s defense team will draw a more receptive audience in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the White House has been working in tandem with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.Credit…Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
Even after the prosecution’s presentation, Mr. Trump appeared certain to win acquittal in a trial that requires the support of two-thirds of senators for conviction. So the main priority for the president’s legal team as it opened its arguments was not to undermine its own advantage or give wavering moderate Republican senators reasons to support Democratic requests for witnesses and documents.
A vote on that question will not come until next week, and it remained the central question of the impeachment trial, with the potential to either prolong the process and yield new revelations that could further damage Mr. Trump, or bring the proceeding to a swift conclusion. But after long days of exhaustive arguments by the House managers, there was little indication that there would be enough Republican support to consider new evidence, even as a 2018 recording was made public later Saturday in which Mr. Trump appeared to order the firing of the United States ambassador to Ukraine.
Republican senators seemed relieved to finally have the president’s side of the debate presented on the floor.
“They completely undermined the case of the Democrats and truly undermined the credibility of Adam Schiff,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming told reporters afterward.
Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, who joined Mr. Trump onstage to address abortion opponents at the March for Life on Friday, said the president’s lawyers showed that the managers were selective in their presentation of the facts.
“It happened over and over again for three days where they really cherry-pick one part of a sentence and then would not read the full part of the sentence,” he said. “Today we got a chance to see the whole sentence.”
Mr. Trump faces two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemming from his effort to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into his Democratic rivals while withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved security aid, a decision that a government agency called a violation of law.
The House managers have argued the president’s actions amounted to a corrupt scheme to invite foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election, and part of a dangerous pattern of behavior by Mr. Trump of using the machinery of government for his own benefit.
But Mr. Cipollone belittled the weight of the allegations, suggesting the Constitution’s framers had in mind something more consequential when they created the impeachment clause than what the House managers had presented.
“They’ve come here today and they’ve basically said, ‘Let’s cancel an election over a meeting with the Ukraine,’ ” he said.
The president’s lawyers maintained that he had every right to set foreign policy as he saw fit and that he had valid concerns about corruption in Ukraine and burden-sharing with Europe that prompted him to suspend the aid temporarily. They also argued that he was protecting presidential prerogatives when he refused to allow aides to testify or provide documents in the House proceedings.
Michael Purpura, a deputy White House counsel, noted that Mr. Trump did not explicitly link American aid to his demand for investigations during his July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and pointed to Mr. Zelensky’s public statements that he did not feel pressured. Mr. Purpura added that there could not have been an illicit quid pro quo, because the Ukrainians did not know about the aid freeze until a month later. But American and Ukrainian officials have said in fact they did know as early as the day of the presidents’ call.
Michael Purpura, a deputy White House counsel, leaving the Capitol on Saturday.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Mr. Purpura dismissed much of the prosecution evidence as hearsay, and played video clips of former officials saying they knew of no quid pro quo. He also played a succession of clips of Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, testifying that he “presumed” there was a link between the suspended aid and the demand for investigations but did not actually know it for a fact.
Yet in parts of Mr. Sondland’s testimony that the president’s lawyers did not show, the ambassador said he had been involved in a pressure campaign on Ukraine aimed at getting the country to announce investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals, directed by the president himself. Mr. Sondland also said there had been a clear “quid pro quo,” conditioning a White House meeting for the Ukrainian president to his willingness to announce the investigations Mr. Trump wanted, and that “everyone was in the loop” about the arrangement.
Following the president’s lead, his lawyers targeted Mr. Schiff, replaying video from a hearing last year in which he embellished Mr. Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s leader for dramatic effect and said he was describing the “sum and character” of what the president had tried to communicate.
“That’s fake,” Mr. Purpura said after the clip ended. “That’s not the real call. That’s not the evidence here.”
Under the trial rules, the House managers had no speaking opportunity on the floor on Saturday, but they delivered a 28,578-page trial record to the secretary of the Senate that served as the foundation of their case.
Image
Representative Adam B. Schiff leads the House managers and aides on Saturday in delivering a trial record to the secretary of the Senate.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times
At a news conference following the arguments by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Mr. Schiff offered a point-by-point rebuttal and said the attacks on him and his colleagues were just an attempt to distract from the evidence.
“When your client is guilty or your client is dead to rights, you don’t want to talk about your client’s guilt,” said Mr. Schiff, a former prosecutor. “You want to attack the prosecution.”
Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, another manager, dismissed as “nonsense” the allegation that Democrats were trying to improperly steal an election.
“The point of the impeachment provision in the Constitution is to deal with dangerous presidents who cheat on elections and try to cheat in stealing the election as this president did, and is trying for the next time,” Mr. Nadler said.
The White House arguments on Saturday were meant to be what Jay Sekulow, another of the president’s lawyers, called a “sneak preview” before being resumed on Monday.
Like the managers before them, the White House lawyers have 24 hours over as many as three days to present their side, but said they will not use all of that, playing to the exhaustion of senators who grew weary as the House team used nearly all of its time, going late into the evening night after night, often repeating many of the same arguments.
After the president’s defense is complete, the senators themselves will enter the trial for the first time, although even then without speaking. They will have up to 16 hours over a couple of days to submit questions in writing that will be read by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is presiding over the trial.
The Senate will then consider any motions to dismiss the case or to call witnesses and demand documents. The House managers need at least four Republican senators to join the Democrats to call witnesses. If no witnesses are called and no motion to dismiss the case is passed, the Senate would then move to final deliberations on conviction or acquittal, with a verdict possible as early as next week.
Michael D. Shear and Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
Intercept Co-Founder Shreds Adam Schiff As A ‘Sociopath’ After These Remarks About Carter Page
If there is one thing that is never in short supply with the Democratic Party, it’s arrogance. And Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the starting quarterback for the Donald Trump impeachment game, is full of it. As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiffy decided to set up the big top to this circus that’s engulfed the Hill by holding secret impeachment hearings. There were scores of witnesses who testified behind closed doors and he released selective transcripts that only bolstered the Democratic cause for impeachment. It was crap. And when the House vote made the inquiry official and this whole thing came out of the basement—the reasons to impeach collapsed. Much like the Russian collusion myth, once the public saw the evidence, they balked. It’s just too evident that the Democrats have been planning this for years. They cannot hide their hatred. Meanwhile, in normal America, economic opportunities have been growing, paychecks have been getting bigger, and things are overall just not apocalyptic. Impeachment is not popular in the swing states and this whole fiasco has only increased President Trump’s approval ratings and pushed these key states further out of reach for Democrats.
Yet, while conservative media has torched Schiff, his minions, and this whole charade, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey, formerly of The Young Turks, have also ripped the liberal media for their peddling of Russian collusion hysteria. They were skeptical of this myth from the get-go. They’re appalled at how the Trump dossier, which was proven to be totally false, was weaponized to secure spy warrants on Trump officials based on fairy tale evidence. If you want to know why some people fear a large federal government, this is why. And like most arrogant government workers, they’ll never admit when they’re wrong. If you’re the chair of the House Intel. Committee, you bet you’re not apologizing. In a recent interview with Margaret Hooper on PBS Firing Line, Schiff pretty much said he doesn’t feel bad that Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign who was targeted by the FBI, had his life destroyed.
Schiff had written a memo pretty much absolving the FBI of any wrongdoing, adding that FISA process was not abused. Yeah, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report by Michael Horowitz trashed all of Schiff’s points in his fake memo rebutting his colleague Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who was chair of the House Intelligence Committee before Democrats retook the House in 2018 (via Fox News):
Firing Line with Margaret Hoover
✔@FiringLineShow
.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not expressing any remorse for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was swept up in the yearslong Russia investigation.
In an interview clip released on Friday, “Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover read quotes from Page about how the Russia probe had such a negative impact, including how the FBI spying into his life “ruined his good name” and that he will “never completely have his name restored.”
“Do you have any sympathy for Carter Page?” Hoover asked.
“I have to say, you know, Carter Page came before our committee and for hours of his testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony,” Schiff responded. “It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone who isn’t honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath. It’s also hard to be sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin.”
Yea, Page worked with the CIA, something that was omitted in the FISA process when securing the spy warrant against him. Greenwald said this response was sociopathic.
“If you don’t feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then you’re not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath,” wrote Greenwald. “In other words: Adam Schiff.”
Glenn Greenwald
✔@ggreenwald
If you don’t feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then you’re not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath.
.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”
Tracey mocked Schiff for speaking about the KGB in the present tense. And people wonder why the Trump-Kremlin collusion myth was never taken seriously. I mean besides the fact that there is zero evidence proving such a tall tale.
.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”
Page is somewhat lucky in the sense that he had a vehicle to push back and allies that we’re willing to challenge this absurd theory about him being a foreign agent in a Russian collusion scheme. At the same time, Schiff’s remarks should also serve as a reminder to Republicans. This is war. Democrats are willing to destroy innocent lives in order to remove Trump. Not saying we should do the same, but our defense should be just as brutal, methodical, and devastating as what Democrats have doled out for the past three years. It is a take no prisoners election cycle. We have to get mean. Never apologize—that’s an action reserved for honorable people, respectable people. We’re fighting the slime of the earth. The most abhorrent sub-human creatures in politics. And every single one of them has “Democrat” next to their name. don’t trust them. Don’t be friends with them. Let them wallow in their own filth, that appalling aura of self-righteousness that buoys their confidence that they’ll beat Trump in 2020. And when Trump is re-elected, enjoy the meltdown…again. It’s going to get nasty. Schiff’s actions are a reminder of that. Act accordingly.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, or sanity. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs.[1][2]
Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorientating the victim. The term originated from the 1938 Patrick Hamilton play Gas Light and its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations (both titled Gaslight), in which a character tries to make his wife believe that she has gone insane to cover his criminal activities. When he turns up the gas-fueled lights in the upstairs apartment in order to search for a murdered woman’s jewels, the gaslights in his own apartment grow dimmer but he convinces his wife that she is imagining the change. The term has been used in clinical and research literature, as well as in political commentary.[3]:31–46[4][5][6]
The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in the 1938 stage play Gas Light,[7] and known as Angel Street in the United States, and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944.[8] In the story, a husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. He also uses the lights in the sealed-off attic to secretly search for jewels belonging to a woman whom he has murdered. He makes loud noises as he searches, including talking to himself. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, noises and voices, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane.[9] He intends on having her assessed and committed to a mental institution, after which he will be able to gain power of attorney over her and search more effectively.
The term “gaslighting” has been used colloquially since the 1960s[10] to describe efforts to manipulate someone’s perception of reality. The term has been used to describe such behaviour in psychoanalytic literature since the 1970s.[11] In a 1980 book on child sexual abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor‘s Gaslight (1944) based on the play and wrote, “even today the word [gaslighting] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another’s perception of reality.”[12]
Nature
Psychiatrist Theodore Dorpat described two characteristics of gaslighting: that the abuser wants full control of feelings, thoughts, or actions of the victim, and that the abuser emotionally abuses the victim, discreetly, but in hostile, abusive, or coercive ways.[13] He described this as an example of projective identification.[2]
Psychoanalysts Victor Calef and Edward Weinshel argued that gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim: “this imposition is based on a very special kind of ‘transfer’ … of potentially painful mental conflicts”.[14] The authors explored a variety of reasons why the victims may have “a tendency to incorporate and assimilate what others externalize and project onto them”, and concluded that gaslighting may be “a very complex highly structured configuration which encompasses contributions from many elements of the psychic apparatus.”
Signs and methods
As described by Patricia Evans, seven “warning signs” of gaslighting are the observed abuser’s:[15]
Withholding information from the victim;
Countering information to fit the abuser’s perspective;
Blocking and diverting the victim’s attention from outside sources;
Trivializing (“minimising”) the victim’s worth; and,
Undermining the victim by gradually weakening them and their thought processes.
Evans considers it necessary to understand the warning signs in order to begin the process of healing from it.[15]
In a popular treatment, psychologist Elinor Greenberg has described three common methods of gaslighting:[16]
Hiding. The abuser may hide things from the victim and cover up what they have done. Instead of feeling ashamed, the abuser may convince the victim to doubt their own beliefs about the situation and turn the blame on themselves.
Changing. The abuser feels the need to change something about the victim. Whether it be the way the victim dresses or acts, they want the victim to mold into their fantasy. If the victim does not comply, the abuser may convince the victim that he or she is in fact not good enough.
Control. The abuser may want to fully control and have power over the victim. In doing so, the abuser will try to seclude them from other friends and family so only they can influence the victim’s thoughts and actions. The abuser gets pleasure from knowing the victim is being fully controlled by them.
An abuser’s ultimate goal, as described by the divorce process coach Lindsey Ellison, is to make their victim second-guess their choices and to question their sanity, making them more dependent on the abuser.[17] One tactic used to degrade a victim’s self-esteem is the abuser alternating between ignoring and attending to the victim, so that the victim lowers their expectation of what constitutes affection, and perceives themselves as less worthy of affection.[17][verification needed]
Where gaslighting is used
Personality disorders
Sociopaths[18] and narcissists[16] frequently use gaslighting tactics to abuse and undermine their victims. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws and exploit others, but typically also are convincing liars, sometimes charming ones, who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their own perceptions.[18] Some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners by flatly denying that they have been violent.[4] Gaslighting may occur in parent–child relationships, with either parent, child, or both lying to the other and attempting to undermine perceptions.[19]
Gender
According to philosophy professor Kate Abramson, the act of gaslighting is not specifically tied to being sexist, although women tend to be frequent targets of gaslighting compared to men who more often engage in gaslighting.[20] Abramson explained this as a result of social conditioning, and said “it’s part of the structure of sexism that women are supposed to be less confident, to doubt our views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions, more than men. And gaslighting is aimed at undermining someone’s views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions. The sexist norm of self-doubt, in all its forms, prepares us for just that.”[20] Abramson said that the final “stage” of gaslighting is severe, major, clinical depression.[20]
With respect to women in particular, philosophy professor Hilde Lindemann said that in such cases, the victim’s ability to resist the manipulation depends on “her ability to trust her own judgements”. Establishment of “counterstories” may help the victim reacquire “ordinary levels of free agency”.[21]
In psychiatry
Gaslighting has been observed between patients and staff in inpatient psychiatric facilities.[22]
In a 1996 book, Dorpat claimed that “gaslighting and other methods of interpersonal control are widely used by mental health professionals as well as other people” because they are effective methods for shaping the behavior of other individuals.[3]:45 Gaslighting depends on “first convincing the victim that his thinking is distorted and secondly persuading him that the victimizer’s ideas are the correct and true ones.”[3]:45
In politics
Columnist Maureen Dowd was one of the first to use the term in the political context.[5][23] She described the Bill Clinton administration’s use of the technique in subjecting Newt Gingrich to small indignities intended to provoke him to make public complaints that “came across as hysterical”.[23][24]
In his 2008 book State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind, psychologist Bryant Welch described the prevalence of the technique in American politics beginning in the age of modern communications, stating:
To say gaslighting was started by the Bushes, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Fox News, or any other extant group is not simply wrong, it also misses an important point. Gaslighting comes directly from blending modern communications, marketing, and advertising techniques with long-standing methods of propaganda. They were simply waiting to be discovered by those with sufficient ambition and psychological makeup to use them.[6]
Journalist Frida Ghitis used the term “gaslighting” to describe Russia’s global relations. While Russian operatives were active in Crimea, Russian officials continually denied their presence and manipulated the distrust of political groups in their favor.[25]
Journalists at the The New York Times Magazine, BBC and Teen Vogue, as well as psychologists Bryant Welch, Robert Feldman and Leah McElrath, have described some of the actions of Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential election and his term as president as examples of gaslighting.[23][26][27][28][29] Journalism professor Ben Yagoda wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January 2017 that the term gaslighting had become topical again as the result of Trump’s behavior, saying that Trump’s “habitual tendency to say ‘X’, and then, at some later date, indignantly declare, ‘I did not say “X”. In fact, I would never dream of saying “X”‘” had brought new notability to the term.[5]
In romantic relationships
Gaslighting can be experienced in romantic relationships. The psychological manipulation may include making the victim question their own memory, perception, and sanity. The abuser may invalidate the victim’s experiences using dismissive language: “You’re crazy. Don’t be so sensitive. Don’t be paranoid. I was just joking! … I’m worried; I think you’re not well.”[20]
Psychologists Jill Rogers and Diane Follingstad said that such dismissals can be detrimental to mental health outcomes. They described psychological abuse as “a range of aversive behaviors that are intended to harm an individual through coercion, control, verbal abuse, monitoring, isolation, threatening, jealousy, humiliation, manipulation, treating one as an inferior, creating a hostile environment, wounding a person regarding their sexuality and/or fidelity, withholding from a partner emotionally and/or physically”.[30]
Gaslighting has been observed in some cases of marital infidelity: “Therapists may contribute to the victim’s distress through mislabeling the [victim’s] reactions. […] The gaslighting behaviors of the spouse provide a recipe for the so-called ‘nervous breakdown‘ for some [victims] [and] suicide in some of the worst situations.”[19][31]
In their 1988 article “Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome”, psychologists Gertrude Zemon Gass and William Nichols studied extramarital affairs and their consequences on men’s spouses. They described how a man may try to convince his wife that she is imagining things rather than admitting to an affair: “a wife picks up a telephone extension in her own home and accidentally overhears her husband and his girlfriend planning a tryst while he is on a business trip.” His denial challenges the evidence of her senses: “I wasn’t on the telephone with any girlfriend. You must have been dreaming.”[31]
Rogers and Follingstand examined women’s experiences with psychological abuse as a predictor of symptoms and clinical levels of depression, anxiety, and somatization, as well as suicidal ideation and life functioning. They concluded that psychological abuse affects women’s mental health outcomes, but the perceived negative changes in one’s traits, problematic relationship schemas, and response styles were stronger indicators of mental health outcomes than the actual abuse.[30]
Gaslighting in the workplace is when people do things that cause colleagues to question themselves and their actions in a way that is detrimental to their careers.[32] The victim may be excluded, made the subject of gossip, persistently discredited or questioned to destroy their confidence. The perpetrator may divert conversations to perceived faults or wrongs.[33] Gaslighting can be committed by anyone and can be especially detrimental when the perpetrator has a position of power.[34]
In popular culture
In the 2008 article “Falsifying Reality, Spawning Evil”,[35] writer David Shasha attempted to discover how one becomes a victim of gaslighting as he dissected the 1944 film Gaslight. Shasha compared gaslighting to the less extreme “rhetorical slight-of-hand” called pilpul in Hebrew. According to Shasha’s literary analysis, the gaslighters first choose a target that is vulnerable, mentally weak, easily defeated and manipulated. The victim’s ability to defend themselves is usually minimal. In relationships, the victim’s honesty and love is manipulated and exploited in the process of gaslighting.
The 2016 American mystery film and psychological thriller The Girl on the Train explored the direct effects that gaslighting had on Rachel, the protagonist of the story.[23] The perpetrator in the film was in fact Rachel’s ex-husband Tom who was the violent abuser. Rachel suffered from severe depression and alcoholism. When Rachel would black out drunk, he consistently told her that she had done terrible things that she was incapable of remembering.[36]
Gaslighting was the main theme of a 2016 plotline in BBC‘s radio soap opera, The Archers. The story concerned the emotional abuse of Helen Archer by her partner and later husband, Rob Titchener, over the course of two years, and caused much public discussion about the phenomenon.[37]
For several months during 2018, gaslighting was a main plotline in NBC‘s soap opera Days of Our Lives, as character Gabi Hernandez was caught gaslighting her best friend Abigail Deveroux after Gabi was framed for a murder Abigail had committed in the series.[38]
Portnow, Kathryn (1996). Dialogues of Doubt: The Psychology of Self-Doubt and Emotional Gaslighting in Adult Women and Men. Harvard Graduate School of Education. OCLC36674740. (thesis/dissertation) (offline resource)
Santoro, Victor (1994-06-30). Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy. Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN978-1-55950-113-2. OCLC35172282. (offline resource)
Sarkis, Stephanie (2018-10-01). Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People and Break Free. Da Capo Press. ISBN978-0738284668. OCLC5214974857. (offline resource)
Illusory Truth, Lies, and Political Propaganda: Part 1
Repeat a lie often enough and people will come to believe it.
Posted Jan 22, 2020
his is part 1 of a 2-part series on the illusory truth effect and its use in political propaganda.
“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
—Hannah Arendt
“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”
—Susan Sontag, The Benefactor
Source: Pixabay
The Illusory Truth Effect
Many of us are familiar with the quotation, “Repeat a lie often enough and people will eventually come to believe it.”
Not ironically, the adage — often attributed to the infamous Nazi Joseph Goebbels — is true and has been validated by decades of research on what psychology calls the “illusory truth effect.” First described in a 1977 study by Temple University psychologist Dr. Lynn Hasher and her colleagues, the illusory truth effect occurs when repeating a statement increases the belief that it’s true even when the statement is actually false.1
Subsequent research has expanded what we know about the illusory truth effect. For example, the effect doesn’t only occur through repetition but can happen through any process that increases familiarity with a statement or the ease by which it’s processed by the brain (what psychologists in this context refer to as a statement’s “fluency”). For example, the perceived truth of written statements can be increased by presenting them in bold, high-contrast fonts2 or when aphorisms are expressed as a rhyme.3
According to a 2010 meta-analytic review of the truth effect (which applies to both true and false statements),4 while the perceived credibility of a statement’s source increases perceptions of truth as we might expect, the truth effect persists even when sources are thought to be unreliable and especially when the source of the statement is unclear. In other words, while we typically evaluate a statement’s truth based on the trustworthiness of the source, repeated exposure to both information and misinformation increases the sense that it’s true, regardless of the source’s credibility.
The illusory truth effect tends to be strongest when statements are related to a subject about which we believe ourselves to be knowledgeable,5 and when statements are ambiguous such that they aren’t obviously true or false at first glance.4 It can also occur with statements (and newspaper headlines) that are framed as questions (e.g. “Is President Obama a Muslim?”), something called the “innuendo effect.”6
But one of the most striking features of the illusory truth effect is that it can occur despite prior knowledge that a statement is false7 as well as in the presence of real “fake news” headlines that are “entirely fabricated…stories that, given some reflection, people probably know are untrue.”8 It can even occur despite exposure to “fake news” headlines that run against one’s party affiliation. For example, repeated exposure to a headline like “Obama Was Going to Castro’s Funeral—Until Trump Told Him This” increases perceptions of truth not only for Republicans but Democrats as well.8 And so, the illusory truth effect occurs even when we know, or want to know, better.
In summary, psychology research has shown that any process that increases familiarity with false information — through repeated exposure or otherwise — can increase our perception that the information is true. This illusory truth effect can occur despite being aware that the source of a statement is unreliable, despite previously knowing that the information is false, and despite it contradicting our own political affiliation’s “party line.”
Big Brother is Watching
Source: The Thought Police, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
That said, the use of repetition and familiarity to increase popular belief and to influence behavior is hardly a new phenomenon. The use of catchy slogans or songs, regardless of their veracity, has always been a standard and effective component of advertising. For example, “puffing” is an advertising term that refers to baseless claims about a product that, despite leaving a company liable to false advertising litigation, no doubt often remains profitable in the long run.
In politics, repeating misinformation and outright lies have been powerful tools to sway public opinion long before the illusory truth effect was ever demonstrated in a psychology experiment. In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler famously wrote about the ability to use the “big lie” — a lie so outlandish that it would be believed on the grounds that no one would think anyone would lie so boldly — as a tool of political propaganda. Goebbels, the head of Nazi propaganda quoted earlier, is said to have likewise favored the repetition of lies in order to sell the public on Hitler and the Nazi party’s greatness.
Consequently, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt characterized the effectiveness of lying as a political tool in her seminal post-war classic The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed. In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong. Hitler, who knew the modern chaos of opinions from first-hand experience, discovered that the helpless seesawing between various opinions and ‘the conviction that everything is balderdash’ could best be avoided by adhering to one of the many current opinions with ‘unbendable consistency.’
…the propaganda of totalitarian movements which precede and accompany totalitarian regimes is invariably as frank as it is mendacious, and would-be totalitarian rules usually start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones.”
In the novel 1984, George Orwell likewise portrayed a fictitious dystopia inspired by the Soviet Union under Stalin in which a totalitarian political party oppresses the public through “doublethink” propaganda epitomized in the slogan, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” “Doublethink,” Orwell wrote, consists of “the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction to plain facts…it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.” In 1984, this is achieved through a constant contradiction of facts and revision of history to the point that people are left with little choice but to resign themselves to accept party propaganda:
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Needless to say, “doublethink,” along with Orwell’s description of “newspeak,” gave rise to the modern term “doublespeak” defined by Merriam-Webster as “language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth.”
1. Hasher L, Goldstein D, Topping T. Frequency and the conference of referential validity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 1977; 16:107-112.
2. Reber R, Schwarz N. Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 1999; 8:338-342.
3. McGlone MS, Tofighbakhsh J. Birds of a feather flock conjointly (?): Rhyme as reason in aphorisms. Psychological Science 2000; 11:424-428.
The Justice Department concluded there was insufficient evidence to authorize the extended electronic surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
In a letter delivered to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in December, the agency said it found “there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power” in justifying the two final FISA warrant renewals.
FISA court presiding Judge James Boasberg acknowledged the lack of evidence in a court order, made public on Thursday, writing that the government concluded, “in view of the material misstatements and omissions, that the court’s authorizations … were not valid.”
The revelations come after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report that lambasted the agency and the FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to its wiretapping of Page, stretching from October 2016 to summer 2017, and relying on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier. The watchdog also determined that the opening of the Trump-Russia investigation was justified, which was disputed by the Justice Department.
The FISA court order does not reveal whether the Justice Department found the first two orders were flawed in the same way.
Representatives for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this report.
Page was one of a handful of Trump campaign aides under FBI scrutiny as part of the broader counterintelligence investigation dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. In making their case to the FISA court, the bureau said they believed Page, a U.S. citizen, had been “the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government” to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Page was never charged with any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the counterintelligence investigation in May 2017. He released a statement on Thursday, saying, “Today’s unprecedented court filing represents another step on the road to recovery for America’s deeply damaged judicial system. I hope that this latest admission of guilt for these civil rights abuses by the Justice Department marks continued progress towards restoring justice and remedying these reputationally ruinous injuries.”
Following Horowitz’s investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray ordered more than 40 “corrective steps” to address the watchdog’s report, including 12 reforms related to the FISA process.
In a rare public order, the FISA court criticized the FBI’s handling of the Page applications as “antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above” and demanded an evaluation from the bureau. The FISA court also ordered a review of all FISA filings handled by Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who altered a key document about Page in the third renewal process. He is now under criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham, a prosecutor from Connecticut who was tasked by Attorney General William Barr with investigating the origins of the Russia inquiry.
In a Jan. 10 response to the court, Wray said he “deeply regrets” the FBI’s failures in the Page FISA process and offered a timetable of reforms and training the bureau is undertaking. But the FISA court’s pick to advise it on the reform process, Obama administration lawyer David Kris, submitted a brief last week that pushed for improved communications between FBI and DOJ attorneys on FISA matters beyond what the bureau has proposed.
In the order revealed on Thursday, the FISA court demanded feedback from the government, including a “detailed description of the steps taken or to be taken to restrict access to such information in unminimized form,” plus the completion of a declassification review by the end of the month.
Republicans have raised concerns about Kris, citing how he talked up Mueller’s Russia investigation, criticized the House Intelligence Committee’s 2018 memo on alleged FISA abuses, and heralded Horowitz’s report for how it “repudiates the claims of a coup and related deep-state conspiracies in the FBI as advanced by President Trump and his supporters.” With three FISA provisionsexpected to sunset in March, GOP lawmakers threatened to make a stand against Kris, as some talk about begrudgingly abolishing the FISA court if their concerns about it being used to target political opponents are not addressed.
On the Democratic side, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler requested the Justice Department and the FBI share FISA-related documents with the panel as it considers potential reforms.
A number of high-ranking officials at the Justice Department and the FBI signed off on the Page FISA warrant applications, including FBI Director James Comey. Horowitz criticized the FBI’s “entire chain of command” in the Page FISA process and said, “The activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this.”
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Comey took responsibility for the “sloppiness” revealed in Horowitz’s report.
Story 1: Pro Life President Trump Speech To March of Life in Washington, D.C. — “Voice for The Voiceless” — President “Defends The Right of Every Child, Born and Unborn, To Fulfill Their God Given Potential” — Videos
President Trump March for Life 2020 full speech
President Donald Trump addressed the annual March for Life Friday, telling pro-life demonstrators that he is an advocate for the right to life of unborn children, and calling for a federal prohibition on late-term abortion. The president spoke about his administration’s record on abortion policy and criticized Democrats at the state and federal level for their positions on human life. He is the first president to attend in person the March for Life, which began in 1974 and has become one of the largest annual political events in the country.
Trump speaks to Fox News on being first US president to attend March for Life
When President Trump addressed the 47th annual March for Life on Friday afternoon, he presented himself as a “voice for the voiceless.”
“Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” he announced.
Before the president spoke, Vice President Mike Pence greeted the crowd in a recorded video, saying, “I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to the most pro-life president in American history.”
The line that Trump is the “most pro-life president in history” has been oft-repeated, particularly after he announced that he would be the first president ever to attend the march. But is he the most pro-life president ever? Does it matter?
Either way, Trump hopes to turn the pro-life cause into a winning issue with evangelicals. In Trump’s speech, he relied heavily on religious language about the sanctity of life.
“All of us here today understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God,” he said. “When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.”
Trump has been fishing for evangelical support, which helped send him to the White House in 2016. His words, as well as his actions, on pro-life issues will help.
During his time as president, Trump has expanded the Mexico City Policy, which prevents foreign aid from funding abortions, and has allowed Title X funds to be directed away from Planned Parenthood.
“From the first day in office,” Trump said during his speech, “I’ve taken historic action to support America’s families and protect the unborn.”
While the assertion that “mothers are heroes” may ring hollow coming out of the mouth of a serial philanderer, Trump’s pro-life record places him in stark contrast with the other 2020 candidates. Moments after Trump began speaking, Bernie Sanders tweeted, “Abortion is health care.”
Anticipating backlash like this, Trump said during his speech, “Sadly, the far-Left is actively working to erase our God-given rights … and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life.”
“They are coming after me,” he claimed, “because I’m fighting for you.”
Not every pro-life advocate is a fan of Trump, but when he addresses the issues of pro-life speech being squelched on campuses, late-term abortion — “What is going on in Virginia?” — and the sidelining of the pro-life cause in the public sphere, he strikes a nerve.
Trump may not be the pro-life champion that the movement needs. But when youlook at the alternatives, he may be the most powerful ally it has. He’ll continue to use that.
President Donald Trump vowed to stand with anti-abortion activists Friday as he became the first sitting president to speak at the March for Life, an annual gathering that is one of the movement’s highest profile and most symbolic events.
“Today as President of the United States, I am truly proud to stand with you,” he told a crowd of thousands braving the cold on the National Mall. “Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.”
It was just four years ago when a political committee supporting one of Trump’s Republican rivals unveiled an ad slamming his views on abortion, complete with footage from a 1999 interview in which he declared, “I am pro-choice in every respect.”
But on Friday, Trump was hailed in speeches and on signs as “the most pro-life” American president ever.
The reception was yet another sign of his remarkable political transformation and the fact that white evangelical and conservative Christians remain among Trump’s most loyal backers. And the appearance made clear that, as he heads into the 2020 election, Trump is counting on those voters to help bring him across the finish line.
“I think it´s a brilliant move,” said Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and one of Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporters, of Trump’s decision to become the first president to take the event’s stage. Reed said the president’s appearance would “energize and remind pro-life voters what a great friend this president and administration has been.”
President Donald Trump speaks at a March for Life rally, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
It also shows how much times have changed.
Past presidents who opposed abortion, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, steered clear of personally attending the march to avoid being too closely associated with demonstrators eager to outlaw the procedure. They sent remarks for others to deliver, spoke via telephone hookup or invited organizers to the White House – but never appeared at the march.
Over the last 10 years, however, the Republican Party has undergone a “revolution,” displaying a new willingness to “embrace the issue as not only being morally right but politically smart,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List and Women Speak Out PAC, which is planning to spend $52 million this cycle to help elect candidates opposed to abortion rights.
While views of abortion have remained relatively stable over two decades of polling – with roughly 6 in 10 Americans saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research Center – both the Republican and Democratic parties have taken harder-line positions for and against abortion rights.
“There used to be a middle in this country and candidates would not want to alienate the middle,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. “And it just seems that that is over and that both parties play to their bases.”
During his first three years in office, Trump has embraced socially conservative policies, particularly on abortion. He’s appointed judges who oppose it, cut taxpayer funding and painted Democrats who support abortion rights as extreme in their views.
“President Trump has done more for the pro-life community than any other president, so it is fitting that he would be the first president in history to attend the March for Life on the National Mall,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere.
On Friday, his administration took another step, threatening California with the potential loss of federal health care funding over the state’s requirement that insurance plans cover abortions. Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign announced the creation of a new campaign coalition, “Pro-life Voices for Trump.”
Trump’s thinking on the matter has been simple: If he supports the cause, “why wouldn´t he show up to their big event?” said Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union and a close ally of the White House. He said the appearance would be deeply significant for participants and “cement even tighter the relationship” Trump has with conservative activists across the country.
“I’ve had people be moved to tears over the fact that he´s going,” said Schlapp. “It’s a big deal,”
March attendees began streaming onto the Mall early Friday morning, many holding signs with slogans like “MAKE UNBORN BABIES GREAT AGAIN!” and I VOTE PRO-LIFE FIRST.” In some ways, it had the feel of a Trump campaign rally, with vendors selling pro-Trump buttons and hats.
“I am very impressed with him. It takes a lot of guts to do something that nobody else has done before,” said Janet Peterson, who traveled from South Carolina for the event, and credited Trump’s decision to appear on his New York roots.
“If you tell them, `This isn´t the status quo´ or `We don´t do it this way,´ they´re more likely to give you a double middle finger and do it,” she said.
Trump used his speech, in part, to attack Democrats for embracing what he labeled “radical and extreme positions” on abortion, and praised attendees, saying they were motivated by “pure, unselfish love.” Vice President Mike Pence, who was traveling in Italy Friday, also appeared via video recorded at the Vatican following a meeting with Pope Francis.
The full embrace underscored Trump’s dramatic evolution on the issue of abortion from his days as a freewheeling New York deal-maker, when he described himself as “very pro-choice” in a 1999 interview on NBC´s “Meet the Press.”
By 2016, however, Trump said his views had changed and that he was now opposed to abortion except in the case of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk.
And to the surprise of many, he has been embrace by the movement.
“These voters who are pro-life love Donald Trump and they will crawl across broken glass to get him re-elected,” said Reed, who credited Trump with having “masterfully capitalized on his pro-life position in a way I think no one could have envisioned four years ago,”
Critics, meanwhile, accused Trump of using the march to try to distract from his impeachment trial in the Senate, with Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, calling it “an act of desperation, plain and simple.”
___
Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks at a March for Life rally, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
President Donald Trump speaks at a March for Life rally, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
President Donald Trump speaks at a March for Life rally, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
FILE – In this Jan. 3, 2020, file photo, faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami. As he heads into the 2020 election, Donald Trump will become the first sitting president to address the March for Life when he takes the stage Friday at the annual anti-abortion gathering. The move is Trump’s latest nod to the white Evangelical, conservative Christian voters who have proven to be among his most loyal backers. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
Twitter attaches ‘sensitive material’ warning to Trump campaign post about anti-abortion March for Life rally – then removes it, saying it was an ‘error’
Team Trump’s anti-abortion post had a warning attached to it on Twitter reading: ‘This media may contain sensitive material’
The president’s reelection campaign account posted the anti-abortion video on Thursday in the run-up to the March for Life rally on Friday
The video shows couples with newborn babies and the president saying ‘life is the greatest miracle of all’
An anti-abortion post from Republican Matt Gaetz also received a similar warning tag on social media
According to Twitter’s policy, sensitive media includes content containing graphic violence, adult content, gratuitous gore or hateful imagery
The Trump campaign accused Twitter of ‘censorship’ and ‘the left stomping on any idea they don’t like’
Twitter later claimed the warning had been put on the post ‘in error’ and had been removed
Donald Trump became the first president to attend the annual March for Life in Washington on Friday
Twitter attached the same ‘sensitive material’ warning to the Trump campaign’s anti-abortion post as violent and adult online content ahead of the president’s March for Life rally on Friday.
‘This media may contain sensitive material’ appeared on the pro-life post from Team Trump on Thursday, as the president prepared to become the first commander-in-chief to attend the annual March for Life in Washington.
The anti-abortion video showed couples with newborn babies and a pregnant woman viewing an ultrasound.
‘Life is the greatest miracle of all. We see it in the eyes of every new mother who cradles that wonderful, innocent, and glorious newborn child in her loving arms,’ Trump says in the video.
Twitter attached the same ‘sensitive content’ warning (above) to the Trump Campaign’s pro-life post as violent and sexual online content ahead of the president’s March for Life rally on Friday
The video shows couples with newborn babies and a pregnant woman viewing an ultrasound. ‘Life is the greatest miracle of all. We see it in the eyes of every new mother who cradles that wonderful, innocent, and glorious newborn child in her loving arms,’ Trump says in the video
‘Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.’
According to Twitter’s policy, sensitive media includes content that contains graphic violence, adult content, gratuitous gore or hateful imagery.
Twitter later claimed the warning had been put on the post ‘in error’ and had been removed.
But this was not before the social media platform was accused of ‘censorship’ by the Trump campaign.
Spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said this is ‘a perfect example of the left stomping on any idea they don’t like.’
An anti-abortion post from Florida Republican Matt Gaetz (above) was also tagged with the Twitter warning
In the post, Gaetz spoke of his ‘sincere hope’ that the U.S. law allowing women the right to choose to have an abortion will be overturned. The congressman posted the video on the 47th anniversary of the law on Wednesday
The ‘error’ came as an anti-abortion post from Florida Republican Matt Gaetz was also tagged with a Twitter warning saying: ‘The following media includes potentially sensitive content’.
In the post, Gaetz spoke of his ‘sincere hope’ that the U.S. law allowing women the right to choose to have an abortion will be overturned.
The congressman posted the video on Wednesday – the 47th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and legalized the procedure nationwide.
Gaetz blasted Twitter for attaching the warning to his post.
‘First twitter ‘accidentally’ shadow-bans me along w @Jim_Jordan @RepMarkMeadows & @DebinNunes… Today they “erroneously” block my #ProLife video. Weird,’ he wrote.
Donald Trump became the first president to attend the annual March for Life in Washington on Friday and used the event to unleash a fierce attack on his Democratic rivals in an election-year show of support for opponents of reproductive rights.
‘Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,’ the Republican president told thousands of cheering people at the rally, touting his anti-abortion policies and his appointments of conservatives to the federal judiciary including Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
Among his most loyal political supporters are evangelical Christians, who strongly oppose abortion rights. The event took on aspects of a campaign rally, with Trump lashing out at his political opponents and some in the crowd chanting ‘Four More Years!’
‘Sadly, the far left is actively working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious believers from the public square and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life,’ Trump said.
‘They are coming after me because I am fighting for you. And we are fighting for those who have no voice, and we will win.’
Demonstrators from around the country converged on a cool, overcast day in the U.S. capital for the event held annually around the anniversary of the abortion law change. Many high school and college students joined in the rally.
Historic move: Donald Trump is the first U.S. president ever to address the March for Life, using it as a rallying cry as Democrats put him on trial in the Senate
Election year: Donald Trump went to the March for Life in a year when his effort to court evangelical and religious voters is kicking into high gear
Annual show: The March for Life is a key date in the pro-life campaign’s annual efforts to lobby politicians and see thousands march on the Capitol
Battle ground? The march went past the Supreme Court, whose justices are expected to take up some form of abortion case in coming years which would provide pro-life activists with a chance to achieve their goal over overturning Roe v Wade
MAGA country: Pro-life groups – many of them bussed in from across the nation – mixed anti-abortion messages with Trump political
Reception: Donald Trump basked in applause as he addressed the March for Life close to the White House, just before his trial began again at the other end of the National Mall
Show of strength: Anti-abortion activists carry a banner during the the 47th annual March for Life on the National Mall
Trump RV: One vehicle parked near the March for Life left little doubt how the owner plans to vote in 2020
Trump, seeking re-election on Nov. 3, addressed the event in the midst of his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate on charges passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives. While not mentioning impeachment, he assailed congressional Democrats on abortion policy. Trump drew loud applause from the crowd.
‘Democrats have embraced the most radical and extreme positions taken and seen in this country for years and decades and you could even say for centuries. Nearly every top Democrat in Congress now supports taxpayer-funded abortion all the way up until the moment of birth,’ Trump said, eliciting boos and jeers from the crowd.
Trump, who years earlier had supported abortion rights, cast himself as a committed abortion opponent on religious grounds.
‘We know that every human soul is divine and ever human life, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of almighty God,’ Trump said.
Trump vowed during the 2016 presidential campaign to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in the United States. About 58% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll last year.
Past U.S. presidents have opted to stay away from the march, though Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both previously delivered remarks to the rally remotely.
The Supreme Court on March 4 will hear arguments in a major case concerning the legality of abortion clinic regulations in Louisiana that could lead to new curbs on access to the procedure. The case will test the willingness of the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority that includes Trump’s two appointees, to uphold Republican-backed abortion restrictions being pursued in numerous conservative states.
Some at the rally held signs with slogans including ‘Baby Holocaust,’ ‘Most Pro-Life President Ever,’ ‘Stop Killing Babies’ and ‘I Am The Pro-Life Generation.’ Many were from religious groups and conservative nonprofit organizations.
Near the Capitol: One group brought a Vatican flag to the March for Life. At the Vatican Mike Pence met Pope Francis
On their way: Marches on Constitution Avenue, on the north side of the National Mall
On their way to court: Marchers near the Supreme Court – two of whose justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Trump praised as he spoke to the March for Life. Neither has been involved in a significant abortion ruling since their confirmation
47th iteration: The March for Life began in 1974 after the US Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision
Religious message: Donald Trump is hoping to maintain his strong support among evangelicals, and is also courting Catholic voters who are heavily represented in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan which won him the presidency
Not just evangelicals: The March for Life features a large number of Catholics taking part including some with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, and others from St Martin of Tours in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just outside Washiungton D.C.
Counter-protest: A small number of pro-choice activists launched their own demonstration against the March for Life
Among them was Anne Fitzgerald, 44, who said that at age 21 she gave up her daughter for adoption so she could finish college. She now runs Days of Tears, a Virginia nonprofit that advocates against abortion, and said she was marching to help women recognize ‘that in the moment of a decision between raising or aborting a child, adoption is a viable option.’
Fitzgerald said she was at first skeptical of Trump’s stance on abortion, but is proud he turned out to be ‘strong ally’.
Outside the Supreme Court, anti-abortion demonstrators in the march were met by abortion rights activists, some of whom held signs saying ‘Keep abortion safe and legal’ and ‘Safe abortion is a human right.’ There were also some activists backing Trump’s removal from office.
Emily Goodman, 33, who stood with several fellow supporters of abortion rights during the march, said the event ‘reeks of a form of religious fundamentalism.’
‘What the pro-life advocates seem to be focused on is bussing in young people with signs to declare that their side of the argument is right and no other opinion matters,’ said Goodman, who volunteers for a Washington-based nonprofit organization. ‘I wish there was a conversation today, involving two sides, focused on a woman’s ability to both hold her view on abortion yet not impose that view onto another.’
Trump delivered remarks by video at the 2019 march. Vice President Mike Pence attended the event in person last year.
The March for Life is an annual rally and march protesting both the practice and legality of abortion, held in Washington, D.C. on or around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision issued in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court legalizing abortion nationwide. The march, whose stated mission is to “End abortion by uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square”, advocates for overturning Roe v. Wade.[1][2] It is organized by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund.
Demonstrators of the first March for Life in Washington, D.C. on January 22, 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade was passed
The first March for Life, which was founded by Nellie Gray, was held on January 22, 1974, on the West Steps of the Capitol, with an estimated 20,000[3] supporters in attendance. The march was originally intended to be a one-time event, in hopes that the United States Supreme Court would reverse Roe v. Wade immediately a year after its ruling. However, after the first march in 1974, Gray took steps to institute the rally as a yearly event until Roe v. Wade was overturned by incorporating more grassroots pro-life activists into the march, which would be officially recognized as a nonprofit organization the same year.[4]
During the 33rd annual March for Life in 2006, the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court caused a major shift for the movement, because of the expectation that Alito would “win Senate approval and join a majority in overturning Roe.”[5] Around the time of the 35th annual March for Life in 2008, a Guttmacher Institute report was released, which revealed that the number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005. This was the lowest level of abortions since 1976.
During the 2009 March for Life, the potential passage of the 110th United States Congress of the Freedom of Choice Act—a bill that would “codify Roe v. Wade” by declaring a fundamental right to abortion and lifting many restrictions on abortion—served as a key rallying point.[6]
Itinerary
The March for Life proceedings begin around noon.[6] They typically consist of a rally at the National Mall near Fourth Street (in 2018, this will be near 12th St. NW).[7] It is followed by a march which travels down Constitution Avenue NW, turns right at First Street NE, and then ends on the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States, where another rally is held. Many protesters start the day by delivering roses and lobbying members of Congress.[8]
In 1987, it is estimated that 10,000 participated.[9]
It is estimated the 35,000 participated in 1994.
In 1995, which is the last year that the National Park Service made an official estimate of attendance, 45,000 attended.[10]
Between 2003 and 2012 the marches drew crowds estimated in the tens of thousands, while organizers claimed hundreds of thousands.[11][12][13] According to organizers, the 2011 event was attended by 400,000.[14][13][15][16] In 2013, Life advocates estimated the march drew 650,000.[17] As with all large crowd estimates, the generated number of attendees reported differ, with some sources indicating a figure in the tens of thousands to low six figures.[18][17][19]
In 2016, the march proceeded despite a blizzard that dropped 24 inches (610 mm) of snow in D.C., with thousands of attendees.[20][21]
Many teenagers and college students attend the march each year, typically traveling with church/youth groups. A columnist for The Washington Post estimated that about half of the marchers were under age 30 in 2010.[22]
Notable speakers
1987
In 1987, Ronald Reagan spoke remotely via telephone, and vowed to help “end this national tragedy”. Jesse Helms, then Senator of North Carolina, attended and spoke. He called abortion an “American holocaust”.[8]
2003–2009
In 2003, George W. Bush spoke remotely via telephone and thanked participants for their “devotion to such a noble cause”. During his telephone addresses, he tended to speak broadly of opposing abortion as opposed to offering any specific efforts being made to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision.[23]
In 2003, speakers included Representative Chris Smith, Republican of New Jersey, and Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue. In his speech, Terry encouraged the youth in the audience, calling them to “fight for all you’re worth.”[24]
In 2004, 15 lawmakers, all Republican, spoke. Among the lawmakers who spoke were Representatives Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania. Tiahrt, who also spoke at the 30th annual march, urged marchers to “help pro-lifers in your state”; Toomey supported these remarks, saying to vote for pro-life candidates in order to reclaim the Senate and, in turn, the courts.[23]
In 2016, Republican Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina took part in the march.[27]
In 2017, the march included Vice President Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conway, the Counselor to President Donald Trump, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, pro-life activist Abby Johnson, and NFL player Benjamin Watson. Vice President Pence attended and spoke at the march, becoming the first vice president and the highest-ranking official to do so.[28][29] Pence was also one of the speakers at the 2010 march while serving as representative of Indiana‘s 6th congressional district.[30]
In 2018, President Donald Trump addressed the 45th march via satellite from the White House Rose Garden, becoming the first US President to address the rally using this technology.[31] The march, on the other hand, was attended by US House Speaker Paul Ryan, Democratic Illinois Representative Dan Lipinski, former NFL center Matt Birk,[32] and former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow‘s mother Pam.[33]
In 2019, Trump addressed the crowd via satellite and Pence spoke at the event in person. The President said, “I will always defend the first right in our Declaration of Independence: the right to life.”[34] Political commentator Ben Shapiro also spoke at the event.[35] After the March, a widely discussed incident happened, when a group of March for Life participants and participants of the Indigenous Peoples March confronted each other.
2020
On January 24, 2020, President Trump was the first American president to attend and speak at the March for Life.[36][37]
Associated events
Various pro-life organizations hold events before and after the March. Such events include a Luau for Life at Georgetown University and a candlelight vigil at the Supreme Court.[38] Additionally, independent films with a pro-life message have premiered or have been promoted in association with the March, including the Vatican endorsed film Doonby, which was shown at Landmark E Street Cinema during the 2013 march, and 22 Weeks, which premiered at Union Station’s Phoenix Theatre on the eve of the 2009 march.[39]Students for Life of America typically holds its national conference the day after the March.[40] The National Memorial for the Pre-Born and their Mother and Fathers (NationalPrayerService.com) is a Christian, interdenominational prayer service that takes place every year on the morning of the March at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.. 2017 will be the 24th year for this prayer service which features inspirational speakers and musicians. Clergy from many Christian denominations participate each year and a pro-life recognition award is also given out. This prayer service is sponsored by The National Pro-Life Religious Council, Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries. The event is free and open to the public.[41]
Anglican events
Anglicans for Life, the pro-life apostolate of the Anglican Church in North America, launched the “Mobilizing the Church for Life” conference on the day before the 2016 March for Life.[42] On the following day, the primate of the Anglican Church in North America, Foley Beach, led Anglicans in the March for Life.[42]
Youth Rally and Mass at Verizon Center (2006) now called the Capital One Arena.
Preceding the March for Life, there are several Masses; two of which are celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception as well as the Capital One Arena in Chinatown. The Basilica also hosts an all night prayer vigil, the night before the March. The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington hosts a Youth Rally and Mass every year at the Verizon Center, attended by approximately 20,000 young people,[43] where a message from the Pope is relayed.
In 2009, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Pietro Sambri, read Pope Benedict XVI‘s message, which told attendants that he was “deeply grateful” for the youths’ “outstanding annual witness for the gospel of life”.[6] In 2008, the Pope’s message thanked attendants for “promoting respect for the dignity and inalienable rights of every human being.”[38] In 2011, an event parallel to the Verizon Center event was held at the D.C. Armory; a total of over 27,000 young people attended the events.[44]
In response to a growing number of pilgrims traveling to the area for the March for Life, in 2009 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington began to host the “Life is VERY Good” Evening of Prayer, the night before the March.[45] In 2013, a Morning Mass and Rally (preceding the March for Life) was added and held at the Patriot Center on the campus of George Mason University, including Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde, Richmond Bishop Francis DiLorenzo and more than 100 other bishops and priests from across the nation.[46] Life is VERY Good, which began with 350 participants in 2009, gathered in excess of 12,000 between its two events, held before and after the March, in 2013.[47]
Since 2000, Catholic students at Georgetown University have hosted the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life the day after the march. It is the largest of the student-run pro-life conferences in the U.S., and it regularly hosts prominent pro-life speakers such as Cardinal O’Malley and feminist Helen Alvaré. Hundreds of laypeople and clergy attend each year to hear the speakers and to participate in break-out sessions on pro-life issues.[48]
Eastern Orthodox events
Orthodox clergy and laity at the March for Life in 2012
The Orthodox presence at the March for Life is a long one with representation from many jurisdictions every year. The evening before the March, there is often at least one Vespers service at a local D.C. church. During the March there is a Panakhida for the Unborn performed along the way. Seminarians from Christ the Saviour Seminary, Holy Cross Seminary, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary, and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary (represented by the St. Ambrose Society[49]) are invariably in attendance along with their families, hierarchs, clergy, and monastics from all over the country. Metropolitan Jonah of Washington (Orthodox Church in America) has been a speaker at the pre-March invocations in recent years. The Carpatho-Russian Diocese and Greek Archdiocese also have a strong connection to the March for Life and have been at the forefront of the pro-life movement. Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos (American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese) was a constant presence during his episcopate dating back to 1987.
Several Lutheran denominations, including the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, North American Lutheran Church and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, have held conferences in Washington, D.C. surrounding the March of Life and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) is planning the 2017 LCMS Life Conference to be held on January 27, 2017, on the day of the March for Life.[52] Students from schools affiliated with the Lutheran church bodies mentioned above have made pilgrimages to the capitol of the United States in order to march in the event.[53][54] Before the 2016 March for Life, a Divine Service was celebrated at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Virginia.[42]
Virtual March for Life
In 2010, Americans United for Life launched an online virtual March. Pro-lifers unable to attend the event in person could create avatars of themselves and take part in a virtual demonstration on a Google Maps version of the National Mall.[55] The online event attracted approximately 75,000 participants.[16]
Story 2: Senate Impeachment Trump Trial — The Progressive Propaganda Stunt of The Radical Extremist Democrat Socialists and Big Lie Media Mob Fails To Convince The Majority of American People — President Should Be Found Not Guilty and Acquitted By A 55 to 45 Vote in Senate — Videos
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Closing Arguments in Senate Impeachment Trial
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You can take your pick for the most famous liars in history — people who are willing to say anything for the sake of gaining and keeping power — but surely Rep. Adam Schiff has earned a place on that list.
I won’t call Schiff a “congenital liar” — as Fox News personality Sean Hannity does nightly — but only because the term excuses Schiff of personal responsibility for his behavior. I don’t think it was his genes that made Schiff into a consummate liar but rather his narcissistic personality.
Watching Schiff spin his yarns as chief House manager for the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump reminds me of the great dissemblers of Shakespeare, such as “Honest Iago,” who is only comfortable in his own skin when he is making the skin of others crawl. The “motiveless malignity” that poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge ascribed to Iago is writ large in the perfunctory perfidy that Schiff practices with unassuming ease. He would destroy a king, but he assures us he takes no pleasure in it, wink-wink, nod-nod.
Perhaps I am giving Schiff too much credit. He might be more akin to Monsieur Parolles of “All’s Well That Ends Well,” the arrogant know-it-all whose own words come back to haunt him: “He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool.”
That, of course, is the problem, because the senators hearing the impeachment trial might also be giving Schiff too much credit. If they are not familiar with the facts of the case, then they might lend credibility to the pompous utterances emanating from the well of the Senate by Schiff and the other House managers. Since the rules of the Senate allowed Schiff to make his argument for 24 uninterrupted hours, it gave him the opportunity to frame the case against President Trump in fully partisan and factually deficient terms. The only word that accurately describes what Schiff did to Trump in his presentation of the case is to say that he “framed” him. To use a legal term of art, Schiff argued “facts not in evidence,” and without anyone to object, the senators were left to assume that these facts were true when time and again they were false and misleading.
Start with Schiff opening his argument by quoting Alexander Hamilton on the dangers to the republic of unprincipled men, and you will begin to appreciate the Shakespearean scope of the irony at play last week. Schiff meant to castigate Trump, but the words are better directed at Schiff himself — for it is he who is “seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity.” It is he who has joined in the “cry of danger to liberty.” It is he who has taken “every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion.” It is he who has fallen in with “all the non sense of the zealots of the day.”
It is appropriate therefore to apply Hamilton’s warning against unprincipled men of bold temper to the chief House manager himself: “It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
We got plenty of sturm und drang as Schiff began to lay out the case against the president to an audience of virginal senators who were hearing only one side of the story for three straight days. The danger was laid out accurately by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, although as usual he missed the point:
“It may have been the first time that many of my Republican colleagues heard the full story, the complete narrative from start to finish, uninterrupted and not filtered through the kaleidoscope lens of Fox News where at best things are left out and at worst things are terribly distorted. It may have planted the first seed in their minds that, yes, perhaps the president did something very wrong here.”
Do you spot the logical fallacy in this statement? It is the key to the entire impeachment hoax. Schumer believes that Schiff delivered “the full story, the complete narrative” when, in fact, he just delivered the same argument we have heard since September. It cannot be the “full story” because at that time last week we had still not heard “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say. Namely, we had not heard the president’s defense team make any rebuttal of the unchallenged assumptions of Schiff and the Democratic coup crew. It was in the House managers’ presentation, not Fox News, that we saw how “at best things [were] left out and at worst things [were] terribly distorted.”
I cringed as I listened to Rep. Schiff make repeated assertions of fact that were nothing but opinion and wondered how the senators could possibly not recognize the trick. Forget about the Senate being the greatest deliberative body in the world — hadn’t any of them at least been debaters in high school? How hard is it to spot a red herring when you are shooting fish in a barrel?
I started trying to catalog Schiff’s lies as soon as he played the Hamilton card. As the House Intelligence Committee chairman explained, the Hamilton quote was from 1792 when George Washington was finishing up his first term of office. The quote comes from a document in which Hamilton was defending himself against politically motivated charges that he was operating against the public interest as secretary of the Treasury. It should thus be seen as a parallel of President Trump defending himself against the petty and scurrilous attacks of his political opponents, not as an indictment of Trump.
When Hamilton wrote elsewhere in the same document that, to his opponents, “every man of a different opinion from your own [seems] an ambitious despot or a corrupt knave,” he might well have been talking of the hubristic approach of Monsieur Schiff as he defames the duly elected president of the United States. Consider for instance how Schiff conflates Hamilton’s fear of “a man unprincipled in private life” with the framers’ impeachment mechanism as a means to remove a president who has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” They, of course, have nothing in common. Hamilton was confronting a movement of agitators who, as he notes, were taking “every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion.” Schiff is himself that enemy whom Hamilton confronted, yet to the innocent ears of the Senate, perhaps unfamiliar with Hamilton’s text on “Objections and Answers Respecting the Administration,” it may seem entirely reasonable to apply Hamilton’s warning to Trump. Such is the devious nature of these distortions. We can only hope that the president’s lawyers were taking careful notes and can remind the senators of the casual disregard for truth that Schiff exhibits almost every time he opens his mouth in public.
After months of dry runs, Schiff started to lay out his case in earnest on Wednesday last week — except he didn’t. The facts that he presented (while damnable) were not impeachable; and the opinions that he presented (while impeachable) were not factual. For those of us who have been watching the Schiff Show since September, the legerdemain was easily spotted within the first five minutes.
According to Schiff, “President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the power of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his reelection prospects at home.”
This is the central argument of the first article of impeachment, and yet it is entirely without substantiation. Trump did ask President Zelensky of the Ukraine to look into allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. He also did ask for Zelensky’s help in investigating whether or not a computer server was located in the Ukraine that contained evidence of election interference in 2016. In other words he did not solicit interference in an election, but rather sought a commitment to assist in finding out whether interference had already illicitly taken place.
Neither Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president, nor Rudy Giuliani’s prior or subsequent investigations, were ever founded on a premise of soliciting foreign interference in an election. That is strictly the surmise of Democrats who do not like the idea of President Trump investigating corruption involving Joe Biden, the potential future standard-bearer for their party. Any claim that Trump’s motive is known to be corrupt is strictly a guess, no matter how loudly Schiff and his colleagues proclaim it to be so. Same thing goes for the CrowdStrike server. Schiff opines that Trump was promoting the idea that Ukraine, to the exclusion of Russia, interfered in the 2016 election. That conjecture by Schiff in entirely without evidence. The reason why the missing server is important is because it might explain what really happened in 2016 and how Democratic emails were purloined to the detriment of Hillary Clinton. Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election had nothing to do with the server, but was an entirely separate issue related to official government opposition to Trump’s election.
The second article of impeachment was neatly summed up in Schiff’s next sentence about the president’s response after the whistleblower’s complaint was made public: “When he was caught, he used the powers of that office to obstruct the investigation into his own misconduct.”
Not exactly. He wasn’t “caught” doing anything other than being president, but since the whistleblower law was actively abused by both the intelligence community’s inspector general and Schiff himself in his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, it wasn’t surprising that Trump used the powers of his office to push back against a coup attempt by members of Congress, intelligence agents and disgruntled bureaucrats who despise the outsider presidency foisted upon them by a rebellious electorate. Only in the minds of spurned “masters of the universe” does the lawful exercise of presidential power look like “obstruction of Congress.”
I could go on, point by point, to demonstrate how Schiff’s rhetoric masks his empty arsenal of facts, but why bother? If we learned anything last week from the wall-to-wall coverage of the impeachment trial, it is this — facts do not matter, nor does the truth. Adam Schiff has driven the country into a dark place where dissent is not allowed, where investigation of wrongdoing is abuse of power, and where self-defense is obstruction. I wish I could say that Alexander Hamilton would not recognize such a country, but in his genius he anticipated petty, deceitful minds such as that of Adam Schiff, who thought to hang his case against Trump on a quote by Hamilton, but instead is hung by him with this eloquent indictment:
“You bring everything to the standard of your narrow and depraved ideas, and you condemn without mercy or decency whatever does not accord with it. Every man who is too long or too short for your political couch must be stretched or lopped to suit it. … As to the love of liberty and Country you have given no stronger proofs of being actuated by it than I have done. Cease then to arrogate to yourself and to your party all the patriotism and virtue of the Country. Renounce if you can the intolerant spirit by which you are governed — and begin to reform yourself instead of reprobating others, by beginning to doubt of your own infallibility.”
Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His books — including “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake?” — are available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com to read his daily commentary or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter @HeartlandDiary.
Story 1: President Trump Among The Globalist Elitists At World Economic Forum — Boom vs. Doom — A Conflict of Visions — Claim: The United States Is Back and Booming — Reality: Big Government Spending Parties Budget Busters on Verge of Bubble Busting and Global Recession — The Party Is Over — Big Spender — Videos
The party’s over
It’s time to call it a day
They’ve burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It’s time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid
The party’s over
The candles flicker and dim
You danced and dreamed through the night
It seemed to be right just being with him
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party’s over
It’s all over, my friend
The party’s over
It’s time to call it a day
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party’s over
It’s all over, my friend
The minute you walked in the joint
I could see you were a man of distinction
A real big spender
Good lookin’ so refined
Say, wouldn’t you like to know what’s goin’ on in my mind?
So let me get right to the point
I don’t pop my cork for every man I see
Hey big spender,
Spend a little time with me
Wouldn’t you like to have fun, fun, fun
How’s about a few laughs, laughs
I could show you a good time
Let me show you a good time!
The minute you walked in the joint
I could see you were a man of distinction
A real big spender
Good lookin’ so refined
Say, wouldn’t you like to know what’s goin’ on in my mind?
So let me get right to the point,
I don’t pop my cork for every guy I see
Hey big spender
Hey big spender
Hey big spender
Spend, a little time with me
Yes
Donald Trump tells Davos audience he rejects environmental ‘prophets of doom’ as grim-faced Greta Thunberg looks on before she tells delegates ‘our house is still on fire’ and ‘to act as if you loved your children’
Donald Trump gave first keynote address to leaders at the World Economic forum in Davos on Tuesday
He called on countries to ‘reject the prophets of doom’ on the environment, calling them ‘foolish’
Remark was a swipe at teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who was sitting in the audience as he spoke
Thunberg gave a speech insisting ‘our house is still on fire’, before adding: ‘What will you tell your children?’
Donald Trump urged world leaders at Davos to ‘reject the environmental prophets of doom’ during his keynote address to the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.
The US President branded climate activists ‘the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers’ while rattling off a list of projections that he said failed to come true, including overpopulation in the 1960s and the ‘end of oil’ in the 1990s.
Trump’s remarks were a clear swipe at 17-year-old Greta Thunberg who was sitting in the audience for his speech and had earlier chastised world and business leaders for ‘doing nothing’ to stop climate change.
He then touted America’s fossil fuel revolution in the form of shale gas and oil, inviting European leaders to invest.
In her own speech just a few minutes afterwards, Greta urged leaders to immediately stop investing in fossil fuels, and to pull subsidies for companies making energy from them.
Trump rejects environmental ‘prophets of doom’ in Davos speech
Donald Trump gave the first keynote address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Sunday, telling world leaders to reject ‘prophets of doom’ on the environment and calling them ‘foolish’
Trump insisted that ‘now is a time for optimism’ as he touted the American shale oil and gas revolution, while encouraging European leaders to invest
The remark was swipe at teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, who sat in the audience during his speech (pictured)
Greta had earlier in the day accused world leaders of failing to do anything to protect the climate, ahead of a second address due to take place this afternoon
Greta, who was due to give her own address shortly after Trump, was pictured leaving the auditorium while the US President was still on stage behind her
Donald Trump speaks to waiting members of the media following his keynote address at Davos on Tuesday morning
Also in the auditorium listening to the speech was Trump’s daughter Ivanka (left) and her husband Jared Kushner (centre)
Trump used his speech to tout the US shale gas and oil revolution which has made America the largest producer of oil and gas in the world, before inviting European leaders to buy it
Greta had walked out while Trump was still stood on stage in order to deliver her address to a smaller audience, in which she insisted on the need for greater action on the climate.
(Scroll down for her full speech)
In a swipe at the President’s pledge to join the ‘trillion trees’ initiative, she said that it is no good planting trees across Africa ‘while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate’.
‘I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing a climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them?’ she asked.
Parroting her remarks from when she addressed the conference last year, she added: ‘Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fuelling the flames by the hour.
‘We are still telling you to panic, and to act as if you loved your children above all else.’
Meanwhile Trump insisted that technical innovation, not restricting economic growth, is the way forward. ‘Fear and doubt is not a good thought process,’ he said. ‘This is not a time for pessimism but a time for optimism.’
Greta then gave her own speech to a smaller audience in which she urged world and business leaders to immediately stop investing in and subsidising fossil fuels
Parroting her remarks from Davos a year ago, Thunberg said ‘our house is still on fire, and your inaction is fuelling the flames’, before adding: ‘What will you tell your children was the reason to fail?’
Donald Trump gave a thumbs up to reporters as he arrived at Davos, wearing special anti-slip covers on his shoes as he walked across the snowy ground
Donald Trump arrives at the World Economic Forum in Davos
Trump was flown to Davos from Zurich on board Marine One (pictured close to the camera) ahead of his address on Tuesday
Trump waves to the media as he is surrounded by security at Davos on Tuesday
Trump arrived in Zurich on board the presidential jet, Air Force One, on Tuesday morning
Trump gave an insight into his thoughts as he headed to the conference, saying he aims to bring ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ back to the US
‘Without treating this as a real crisis we cannot solve it,’ she said. ‘It will require much more than this, this is just the very beginning.’
Thunberg is due to speak again around 1pm local time.
The forum’s own Global Risks report published last week warned that ‘climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected’ with global temperatures on track to increase by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) towards the end of the century.
There are no expectations that Trump and Thunberg, who have exchanged barbs through Twitter, will actually meet, but the crowded venue and intense schedule mean a chance encounter cannot be ruled out.
When Trump and his entourage walked through UN headquarters last year at the annual General Assembly, a photo of the teenager staring in apparent fury at the president from the sidelines went viral.
Sustainability is the buzzword at the forum, which began in 1971, with heel crampons handed out to participants to encourage them to walk on the icy streets rather than use cars, and the signage paint made out of seaweed.
Trump’s opposition to renewable energy, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, and the free hand extended to the fossil fuel industry puts him at odds with the entire thrust of the event.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech next to World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab at the conference
President Donald Trump talks with reporters falling his speech at the World Economic Forum
Greta Thunberg (pictured today) has told the World Economic Forum in Davos that leaders have ‘done nothing’ to fight climate change, despite increased awareness
The 17-year-old climate activist spoke on the opening morning of the conference ahead of a keynote address by climate change sceptic Donald Trump (pictured arriving in Switzerland)
Security is high around Davos as 3,000 world and business leaders are expected in the Alpine town during the three-day meeting
‘Climate change is a hot topic at Davos,’ said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, adding there had been a ‘change in the atmosphere’ and realisation that climate change represented a downside risk for the economy.
EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said at a welcome ceremony in Davos that ‘for too long, humanity took away resources from the environment and in exchange produced waste and pollution’.
Business leaders attending the forum will be keen to tout their awareness on climate change but are likely also to be concerned by the state of the global economy whose prospects, according to the IMF, have improved but remain brittle.
The IMF cut its global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 percent, saying that a recent truce in the trade war between China and the US had brought some stability but that risks remained.
‘We are already seeing some tentative signs of stabilisation but we have not reached a turning point yet,’ said IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva.
Activists meanwhile will be pressing for much more concrete action to fight inequality, after Oxfam issued a report outlining how the number of billionaires has doubled in the past decade and the world’s 22 richest men now have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner arrive at World Economic Forum event
Also expected at the conference are 1,200 environmental protesters who have spent three days walking there from the nearby town of Landquart
Ahead of the World Economic Forum, Greta gave a speech in the Swiss city of Lausanne in which she promised world leaders ‘you haven’t seen anything yet’
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, pictured during his welcoming address to leaders on Monday night
Other key priorities will be exploring how to battle biodiversity loss, narrow the digital divide between the internet haves and have nots and step up the fight against pandemics in the face of vaccine hesitancy and drug resistance.
‘I am angry about the state of the world but I am also determined to engage and provide solutions and deliver,’ WWF director general Marco Lambertini told AFP. ‘There needs to be healthy balance between these two sentiments.’
The risk of global conflict will also loom large after the spike in tensions between the United States and Iran, following the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike.
But a planned appearance by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – which could have paved the way for a showdown or even meeting with Trump – has been cancelled.
Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido – who declared himself acting president last year – will be attending the forum in defiance of a travel ban imposed by the regime of President Nicolas Maduro.
‘OUR HOUSE IS STILL ON FIRE’: GRETA’S FULL SPEECH
One year ago I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire. I said I wanted you to panic.
I’ve been warned that telling people to panic about the climate crisis is a very dangerous thing to do. But don’t worry. It’s fine. Trust me, I’ve done this before and I assure you it doesn’t lead to anything.
And for the record, when we children tell you to panic we’re not telling you to go on like before.
We’re not telling you to rely on technologies that don’t even exist today at scale and that science says perhaps never will.
We are not telling you to keep talking about reaching ‘net zero emissions’ or ‘carbon neutrality’ by cheating and fiddling around with numbers.
We are not telling you to ‘offset your emissions’ by just paying someone else to plant trees in places like Africa while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate.
Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what needs to be done, and it cannot replace real mitigation or rewilding nature.
Let’s be clear. We don’t need a ‘low carbon economy.’ We don’t need to ‘lower emissions.’ Our emissions have to stop. And until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus then we must forget about net zero — we need real zero.
Because distant net zero emission targets will mean absolutely nothing if we just continue to ignore the carbon dioxide budget — which applies for today, not distant future dates. If high emissions continue like now even for a few years, that remaining budget will soon be completely used up.
The fact that the USA is leaving the Paris accord seems to outrage and worry everyone, and it should. But the fact that we’re all about to fail the commitments you signed up for in the Paris Agreement doesn’t seem to bother the people in power even the least.
Any plan or policy of yours that doesn’t include radical emission cuts at the source starting today is completely insufficient for meeting the 1.5-degree or well-below-2-degrees commitments of the Paris Agreement.
And again — this is not about right or left. We couldn’t care less about your party politics.
From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left as well as the centre have all failed. No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, that world is currently on fire.
You say children shouldn’t worry. You say: ‘Just leave this to us. We will fix this, we promise we won’t let you down.’
And then — nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence. Empty words and promises which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken.
All the solutions are obviously not available within today’s societies. Nor do we have the time to wait for new technological solutions to become available to start drastically reducing our emissions.
So of course the transition isn’t going to be easy. It will be hard. And unless we start facing this now together, with all cards on the table, we won’t be able to solve this in time.
In the days running up to the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum, I joined a group of climate activists who are demanding that you, the world’s most influential business and political leaders, begin to take the action needed. We demand that at this year’s World Economic Forum participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments:
We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now.
It may seem like we’re asking for a lot. And you will of course say that we are naïve. But this is just the very minimum amount of effort that is needed to start the rapid sustainable transition.
So either you do this or you’re going to have to explain to your children why you are giving up on the 1.5-degree target.
Giving up without even trying.
Well I’m here to tell you that unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight.
The facts are clear, but they’re still too uncomfortable for you to address. You just leave it because you think it’s too depressing and people will give up. But people will not give up. You’re the ones who are giving up.
Last week I met with coal miners in Poland who lost their jobs because their mine was closed. And even they had not given up. On the contrary, they seem to understand the fact that we need to change more than you do.
I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing a climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them? The 1.5-degree target? That it seemed so bad for the economy that we decided to resign the idea of securing future living conditions without even trying?
Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fuelling the flames by the hour. We are still telling you to panic, and to act as if you loved your children above all else.
Starting in November, the ECB will make 20 billion euros ($21.9 billion) of net asset purchases per month for as long as it takes for the euro zone’s inflation and growth outlooks to return to satisfactory levels.
The smaller increments but open-ended timescale of this second package (QE-II) surprised many, and was well below the 60 billion euro per month implemented at the beginning of QE-I in 2015.
The shape and size of the European Central Bank’s new bond-buying programcaught market participants off guard, with some now predicting it’ll be years until the euro zone is back to anything approaching normality.
Starting in November, the ECB will make 20 billion euros ($21.9 billion) of net asset purchases per month for as long as it takes for the euro zone’s inflation and growth outlooks to return to satisfactory levels. The purchasing will only end “shortly before” the next rate hike.
ECB President Mario Draghi pointed out Thursday that a major reason for the re-launch of net asset purchases was that inflation expectations remained consistently below the ECB’s target of just below 2%, but implored governments to deploy fiscal policy to supplement his actions.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO02:53
Here are the new measures the ECB is taking to stimulate the euro zone economy
This will be the second round of quantitative easing (QE) from the ECB, the first coming four years ago in response to the calamitous euro zone debt crisis.
Shweta Singh, managing director of global macro at TS Lombard, said the second round of asset purchases would likely have a “milder impact than QE-I, when borrowing costs were higher, fragmentation across the euro area was severe and domestic risks were far greater.”
“Crucially, there may be much less scope this time for the euro to edge lower and thus boost inflation expectations, while the pool of eligible assets that the ECB can buy has shrunk since QE-I was launched.”
QE infinity?
The smaller increments but open-ended timescale of this second package (QE-II) surprised many, and was well below the 60 billion euro per month implemented at the beginning of QE-I in 2015. The open-ended commitment to continue until the inflation outlook improves carries several implications.
“The sequencing reference also signals that there would only be a short gap between the end of QE and the onset of rate hikes,” Ken Wattret, chief European economist at IHS Markit, said in a note Thursday.
“As we believe rate hikes are well down the line — we have the first DFR (deposit facility rate) hike only in late 2022, with an even later start increasingly likely — this implies a very long period of net asset purchases.”
The ECB forecasts inflation at 1.5% in 2021 which is still below what the ECB regards as “sufficiently close to, but below, 2%,” Berenberg senior European economist Florian Hense pointed out in a note.
“Thus, the ECB seems highly unlikely to raise rates before 2022 — unless inflation were to surprise a lot on the upside,” Hense projected.
“The asset purchase program could therefore last for at least 24 months with a total volume of 480 billion euros. More likely it will last longer.”
WATCH NOW
VIDEO02:36
ECB rate cut a disappointment, strategist says
Barclays head of economic research Christian Keller anticipates that the asset purchase program will continue at least until the end of 2020.
“We expect the ECB will remain accommodative for a very prolonged period of time. We continue to think that risks to the EA (euro area) growth outlook are skewed to the downside and we do not expect core inflation will re-accelerate in the near term,” Keller said in a research note Thursday.
“As the euro area has arguably entered the mature stage of its economic cycle, we expect interest rates to stay low for a prolonged period and firms’ pricing strategies to remain conservative, and we believe fiscal policy is unlikely to reflate the euro area economy.”
Against this backdrop, Barclays economists do not expect businesses to feel immediate pressure to increase final output prices, and therefore project that core consumer prices are unlikely to catch up to levels consistent with the ECB’s medium-term price stability target. Keller thus expects underlying prices to remain on a “slow recovery trend.”
‘Strong signal for governments’
ECB policymakers unanimously agreed that fiscal policy rather than monetary policy should be the main tool to combat the economic downturn. The duration of the QE program may hinge on the willingness of national governments to take action.
Draghi on Thursday urged “governments with fiscal space” to act in “an effective and timely manner.”
Ana Andrade, Europe analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a statement that the open-ended nature of the asset purchase program will be a “strong signal for governments, as it will increase their fiscal space.”
“It could potentially lead them to engage on more fiscal stimulus,” she added.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO01:51
Stronger European growth will ultimately come from fiscal policy, economist says
Hense agreed that by lowering funding costs further, governments may find it easier to finance a “modest fiscal expansion” and the policy might nudge countries with some extra fiscal space, such as Germany, to use it.
“On their own, purchases of 240 billion (euros) in one year will raise the balance sheet of the eurosystem by circa 2 percentage points of GDP (gross domestic product) in a year from its current level of close to 40%.”
Story 2: Radical Extremist Democrat Socialists (REDS) and Big Lie Media Failed Coup with Unconstitutional Impeachment of Trump Based On Big Lie Propaganda Smear Campaign — American People Will Find Trump Not Guilty and Vote Democrats Out of Office — Videos
Jay Sekulow on Senate trial: I’m confident with where this is going
Graham sounds off on Dems: They’re on a crusade to destroy Trump
WATCH: Cipollone says obstruction of Congress charge is ‘ridiculous’ | Trump impeachment trial
WATCH: Trump attorney slams House Democrats’ handling of impeachment | Trump impeachment trial
WATCH: Trump attorney says there’s no ‘there there’ in Democrats’ case | Trump impeachment trial
U.S. Senate: Impeachment Trial (Day 2)
Impeachment trial of President Trump | Jan. 21, 2020 (FULL LIVE STREAM)
Schiff slammed for ‘parody’ of Trump call transcript
WATCH: Rep. Adam Schiff’s full opening statement on whistleblower complaint | DNI hearing
Trump accuses Adam Schiff of ‘making up’ conversation with Ukraine
Hannity: Impeachment will have real consequences for the presidency and America
Impeachment, Democrats, and those 90,000 documents
For weeks, Democrats have been demanding to see new witnesses and documents for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Mostly they have emphasized witnesses. But on Tuesday, the first full day of the trial, the Democratic House managers seemed to turn up the call for documents, claiming that President Bill Clinton provided tens of thousands of pages of documents for his impeachment trial in 1999.
“In the Clinton case, the president provided all of the documents — more than 90,000 pages of them — before the trial took place,” the managers said in a statement released Tuesday morning. “[Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s resolution rejects that basic necessity.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed up the managers. “For the Clinton trial, witnesses were deposed and the president provided more than 90,000 documents,” she said Tuesday.
“All of the documents in the Clinton trial were turned over prior to the trial,” said lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff when arguments before the Senate began. “All 90,000 pages of them, so they could be used in the House’s case.”
So a question: Where did the figure of 90,000 pages, or documents, come from? Did Clinton helpfully cooperate with the House Republicans who were trying to remove him from office 20 years ago?
It turns out Schiff, Pelosi, and their colleagues were not telling the whole story. They got the 90,000 figure, apparently, from Clinton’s rebuttal to the Starr report — the report independent counsel Kenneth Starr turned over to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998, after seven months of investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair. In that rebuttal, given to Congress on Sept. 11, Clinton’s lawyers wrote: “During the past four and a half years, the President has … produced more than 90,000 pages of documents and other items” to investigators.
But not to Congress. The Clinton situation was entirely different from the one Schiff and his fellow Democrats face today. Starr was an independent counsel with full law enforcement powers, and his office issued many grand jury subpoenas pushing Clinton, who often resisted fiercely, to turn over the 90,000 documents over the course of four and a half years, covering the Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, and Lewinsky investigations.
“If memory serves me correctly, I don’t think he voluntarily gave us anything,” said Sol Weisenberg, a former Starr prosecutor, in a conversation Tuesday.
With Trump, the House has been involved in a different process. Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose not to seek the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump-Ukraine matter. (The old independent counsel law under which Starr was appointed expired years ago; a Trump-Ukraine special counsel investigation might have operated along the lines of the Robert Mueller Trump-Russia investigation.) Instead, House Democrats conducted a hurried investigation that did not involve a grand jury or engage in the type of fighting for documents that Starr did.
The House did issue a subpoena for documents directed at White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Oct. 4, 2019. The subpoena seemed almost certain to stir conflict, calling “for documents and communications that are highly delicate and would typically be subject in almost any White House to claims of executive privilege,” according to the New York Times.
The White House declined to provide the documents, arguing that the House impeachment process did not formally exist because the House had not at that point taken a formal vote beginning the process.
And when the White House did not turn over documents, the House did … nothing.
“Did the House take any steps to remedy that?” asked Trump lawyer Patrick Philbin on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Did they try to dispute that? Did they go to court? Did they try to resolve that problem? No. Because as we know, all they wanted to do was issue a subpoena and move on.”
Now, Democrats say they really, really want documents. After all, they claim, Bill Clinton turned over those 90,000 documents for his impeachment trial. How could Trump do less? It sounds persuasive — until one finds out what really happened way back in 1998
n a newly released impeachment brief, Democratic House managers argue that President Trump must be removed “immediately” to protect the integrity of the current presidential race. “The Senate must use that remedy now to safeguard the 2020 U.S. election,” the managers write.
“The Senate should immediately remove President Trump from office to prevent further abuses,” they continue. “He is an immediate threat to the nation and the rule of law. It is imperative that the Senate convict and remove him from office now.”
Democrats insist on Trump’s immediate removal because, they argue, he was the knowing beneficiary of Russian help in the 2016 election, and if he is not thrown out of office right now, he will do it again. But in making their argument, Democrats put forward two critical mischaracterizations about Trump, Republicans, and 2016. One is flat-out wrong, while the other is misleading.
The one that is flat wrong is the Democrats’ assertion that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate “a debunked conspiracy theory that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election to aid President Trump, but instead that Ukraine interfered in that election to aid President Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.”
The problem is, the theory does not hold that Russia “did not interfere” in the 2016 election. There is a mountain of evidence that Russia interfered, and that has been the conclusion of every investigation into the matter, beginning with the first congressional inquiry, by the House Intelligence Committee under then-chairman Devin Nunes. The theory is that in addition to Russian interference, some people in Ukraine, including some government officials, also tried to influence the U.S. election. It was not a government-run effort, and it was on a far smaller scale than the Russian project, but it happened.
Trump and his supporters have long pointed to the example of Ukraine’s interior minister, former prime minister, and ambassador to the U.S. taking to social media to condemn Trump during the campaign. They also point to a Ukrainian Parliament member’s attacks on Paul Manafort and efforts to publicize a “black ledger” that contained an unverified allegation about Manafort being paid in cash for work in Ukraine. They also point to connections between anti-Trump figures in Ukraine and Fusion GPS, the American opposition research firm behind the sensational and false Steele dossier. Finally, they point to the mysterious actions of a Democratic National Committee employee who kept in touch with anti-Trump elements in Ukraine.
None of that is definitive, but it is also not debunked. And it is not a denial of Russian interference but a recognition that in addition to that interference, some in Ukraine also tried to influence the election.
Nevertheless, in the brief, Democrats make repeated reference to their own supposition — that Trump and Republicans embraced “the theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.” They even suggest that Trump and Republicans, in embracing a theory that they did not, in fact, embrace, were parroting Russian propaganda.
The other mischaracterization in the Democratic brief is the assertion that, in 2016, Trump “welcomed Russia’s election interference.” The brief quotes special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian help because it “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
That’s not wrong — Trump did, in fact, welcome Russia-based leaks — but grossly out of context. The context is this: Trump welcomed Russia-based leaks about the Clinton campaign because the media were enthusiastically embracing and repeating Russia-based leaks about the Clinton campaign. Print, internet, TV, everyone, was accepting, repeating, and amplifying the material released by WikiLeaks from the Russian hack of top Clinton campaign official John Podesta.
Perhaps people have forgotten how prominently media organizations featured the Russia-based material. If they have, here are a dozen examples of headlines, just from the New York Times and just from the few weeks immediately before the 2016 election:
“CNN Cuts Ties to Analyst as Emails Show She Tipped Off Clinton Allies” (11/1/16)
“Leaks Lay Bare a Longtime Clinton Adviser’s Unflinching Straight Talk” (10/29/16)
“Chelsea Clinton’s Frustrations and Devotion Shown in Hacked Emails” (10/28/16)
“Donations to Foundation Vexed Hillary Clinton’s Aides, Emails Show” (10/26/16)
“‘We Need to Clean This Up,’ Clinton Aide Frets in Newly Public Email” (10/26/16)
“A Constellation of Influencers; Behind the Curtain at Teneo” (10/23/16)
“Genial Clinton Emerges in Hacked Transcripts of Goldman Sachs Talks” (10/15/16)
“Leaked Emails About Clinton Hearten Rival” (10/12/16)
“Emails Disclose Clinton’s Strain to Hone Message” (10/11/16)
“Clinton Aides Were Wary of de Blasio, Emails Show” (10/10/16)
“Leaked Speech Excerpts Show Clinton at East With Wall Street and Free Trade” (10/7/16)
(The headlines are from the paper’s print edition, as preserved in the Nexis database; slightly different headlines might exist in web editions.)
The New York Times editorial board even argued that the WikiLeaks disclosures showed Clinton should have been more open with the public in the months before the election. “Fuller disclosure would clearly have helped her when it came to her lucrative speeches to Wall Street,” the paper wrote in an editorial headlined, “A WikiLeaks Lesson for Mrs. Clinton.” “Imagine if months ago, Mrs. Clinton had done her own giant information release.”
Of course, the New York Times was not the only media organization to trumpet the Russia-based leaks. They all trumpeted the Russia-based leaks. Everyone was complicit. And that is what makes the Democratic charge against Trump so misleading. He wasn’t welcoming something that everyone else was condemning. He was welcoming something that everyone else was welcoming, too. And now, in retrospect, that is a terrible offense, part of the foundation for removing the president from office?
Neither mischaracterization in the Democratic brief is a mistake; Democratic prosecutors know full well what actually happened. But the mischaracterizations are necessary to build the case against the president, to show that he had corrupt motives in the Ukraine matter. They are, of course, not the entire case, but they are important. And they are wrong.
Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution.[1] However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its own area of Constitutional activity.[2]
The Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of this doctrine in United States v. Nixon in the context of a subpoena emanating from the judiciary, instead of emanating from Congress.[3]The Court held that there is a qualified privilege, which once invoked, creates a presumption of privilege, and the party seeking the documents must then make a “sufficient showing” that the “presidential material” is “essential to the justice of the case”. Chief JusticeWarren Burger further stated that executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch’s national security concerns.[3] Regarding requests from Congress (instead of from the courts) for executive branch information, as of a 2014 study by the Congressional Research Service,[4] only two federal court cases had addressed the merits of executive privilege in such a context, and neither of those cases reached the Supreme Court.[5]
In addition to which branch of government is requesting the information, another characteristic of executive privilege is whether it involves a “presidential communications privilege” or instead a “deliberative process privilege” or some other type of privilege.[4] The deliberative process privilege is often considered to be rooted in common law, whereas the presidential communications privilege is often considered to be rooted in separation of powers, thus making the deliberative process privilege less difficult to overcome.[4][6] Generally speaking, presidents, congresses and courts have historically tended to sidestep open confrontations through compromise and mutual deference in view of previous practice and precedents regarding the exercise of executive privilege.[4]
Deliberative process privilege is a specific instance of the more general principle of executive privilege. It is usually considered to be based upon common law rather than separation of powers, and its history traces back to the English crown privilege (now known as public-interest immunity).[6] In contrast, the presidential communications privilege is another specific instance of executive privilege, usually considered as being based upon separation of powers, and for that reason it is more difficult to overcome than deliberative process privilege.[4] A significant requirement of the presidential communications privilege is that it can only protect communications sent or received by the president or his immediate advisors, whereas the deliberative process privilege may extend further down the chain of command.[4]
In the context of privilege assertions by United States presidents, law professor Michael Dorf has written: “In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents related to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House.”[7]
President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1809. Burr asked the court to issue a subpoena duces tecum to compel Jefferson to testify or provide his private letters concerning Burr. Chief Justice John Marshall, a strong proponent of the powers of the federal government but also a political opponent of Jefferson, ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for these sorts of court orders for criminal defendants, did not provide any exception for the president. As for Jefferson’s claim that disclosure of the document would imperil public safety, Marshall held that the court, not the president, would be the judge of that. Jefferson refused to personally testify but provided selected letters.
In 1833, President Andrew Jackson cited executive privilege when Senator Henry Clay demanded he produce documents concerning statements the president made to his cabinet about the removal of federal deposits from the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War.[8]
During the period of 1947–49, several major security cases became known to presidents. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss–Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems.[citation needed] Security files were moved to the White House and Administration officials were banned from testifying before Congress on security related matters. Investigation of the State Department and other cases was stymied and the matter left unresolved.
During the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the “provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people.” Department of Defense employees were also instructed not to testify on any such conversations or produce any such documents or reproductions.[9] This was done to refuse the McCarthy Committee subpoenas of transcripts of monitored telephone calls from Army officials, as well as information on meetings between Eisenhower officials relating to the hearings. This was done in the form of a letter from Eisenhower to the Department of Defense and an accompanying memo from Eisenhower Justice. The reasoning behind the order was that there was a need for “candid” exchanges among executive employees in giving “advice” to one another. In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.
The Supreme Court addressed executive privilege in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergatespecial prosecutorArchibald Cox that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration for breaking into the Watergate complex. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records.
The Supreme Court did not reject the claim of privilege out of hand; it noted, in fact, “the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties” and that “[h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process.” This is very similar to the logic that the Court had used in establishing an “executive immunity” defense for high office-holders charged with violating citizens’ constitutional rights in the course of performing their duties. The Supreme Court stated: “To read the Article II powers of the president as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of ‘a workable government’ and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III.” Because Nixon had asserted only a generalized need for confidentiality, the Court held that the larger public interest in obtaining the truth in the context of a criminal prosecution took precedence.
Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These ‘occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches’ are likely to be avoided whenever possible. United States v. Nixon, supra, at 692.[10]
In November 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed a directive regarding congressional requests for information. Reagan wrote that if Congress seeks information potentially subject to executive privilege, then executive branch officials should “request the congressional body to hold its request in abeyance” until the president decides whether to invoke the privilege.[11][12]
Prior to becoming attorney general in 1991, Deputy Attorney GeneralWilliam P. Barr issued guidance in 1989 about responding to congressional requests for confidential executive branch information. He wrote: “Only when the accommodation process fails to resolve a dispute and a subpoena is issued does it become necessary for the president to consider asserting executive privilege”.[13][11]
The Clinton administration invoked executive privilege on fourteen occasions.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first president since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal.[14]
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent CounselKenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that “absolutely no one is above the law”, Starr said such a privilege “must give way” and evidence “must be turned over” to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation.
The Bush administration invoked executive privilege on six occasions.
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege in December 2001 to deny disclosure of details regarding former attorney general Janet Reno,[15] the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton’s fundraising tactics.[16]
Bush invoked executive privilege “in substance” in refusing to disclose the details of Vice PresidentDick Cheney‘s meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. In a separate Supreme Court decision in 2004, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted “Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power ‘not to be lightly invoked.'” United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7 (1953).
Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[17] citing that:
The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers. Furthermore, White House CounselFred F. Fielding refused to comply with a deadline set by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it, and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. On July 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee voted to cite Miers and White House Chief of StaffJoshua Bolten for contempt of Congress.[18][19]
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers and Taylor, Fielding effectively claimed the privilege again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army RangerPat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee.[20]
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required Rove to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that “Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity.”[21]
Leahy claimed that President Bush was not involved with the decision to terminate the service of U.S. attorneys. Furthermore, he asserted that the president’s executive privilege claims protecting both Bolten and Rove were illegal. The senator demanded that Bolten, Rove, Sara Taylor, and J. Scott Jennings comply “immediately” with their subpoenas. This development paved the way for a Senate panel vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. “It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover-up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort”, Leahy concluded.[22][23][24][25]
As of 17 July 2008, Rove still claimed executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove’s lawyer wrote that his client is “constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony.”[26]
While investigating claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey to testify. Comey was fired several weeks before being subpoenaed but had appeared before the committee once before in March while still serving as director. Less than a week before the scheduled hearing, it was reported that President Trump was considering invoking executive privilege to prevent Comey’s testimony.[33][34] According to attorney Page Pate, it seemed unlikely that executive privilege would be applicable, as Trump had publicly spoken about the encounters in question multiple times.[35]
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokesman, released a statement on June 5: “The president’s power to assert executive privilege is very well-established. However, in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey’s scheduled testimony.”[36]
On May 8, 2019, Trump asserted executive privilege regarding the full Mueller Report at the request of the attorney general. According to The New York Times, this was Trump’s “first use of the secrecy powers as president”.[37]
On June 12, 2019, Trump asserted executive privilege over documents related to the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. This was in response to a subpoena from the House of Representatives leading up to their impending vote over whether to hold Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over the census question.[38]
Rozell, Mark J. (2010). Executive Privilege : Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (3rd, rev. and updated ed.). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN978-0-7006-1712-8.
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Story 1: President Trumps Declares A National Emergency — Unleashes Full Power of United States Government — $50 Billion in New Funding To Deal With COVID-19 Pandemic — Videos
BREAKING: Donald Trump declares a national emergency
Trump declares National Emergency over coronavirus
Trump declares national emergency over coronavirus pandemic
Tucker: Regular life is all but suspended
Hannity: Major businesses working with Trump on coronavirus
Trump declares virus emergency; Pelosi announces aid deal
President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources. But he denied any responsibility for delays in making testing available for the new virus, whose spread has roiled markets and disrupted the lives of everyday Americans.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, Trump said, “I am officially declaring a national emergency,” unleashing as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak.
Trump also announced a range of executive actions, including a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities with drive-through locations, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available.
Trump said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the slow rollout of testing.
Late Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with the Trump administration for an aid package from Congress that aims at direct relief to Americans — free testing, two weeks of sick pay for workers, enhanced unemployment benefits and bolstered food programs.
“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” Pelosi announced in a letter to colleagues. The House was poised to vote.
The crush of late-day activity capped a tumultuous week in Washington as the fast-moving virus shuttered the capital’s power centers, roiled financial markets and left ordinary Americans suddenly navigating through self-quarantines, school closures and a changed way of life.
The White House was under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
Trump has been known to flout public health advice — eagerly shaking hands during the more than hour-long afternoon event — but acknowledged he “most likely” will be tested now after having been in contact with several officials who have tested positive for the virus. “Fairly soon,” he said.
Still, Trump said officials don’t want people taking the test unless they have certain symptoms. “We don’t want people without symptoms to go and do that test,” Trump said, adding, “It’s totally unnecessary.”
Additionally, Trump took a number of other actions to bolster energy markets, ease the financial burden for Americans with student loans and give medical professionals additional “flexibility” in treating patients during the public health crisis.
“Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said.
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free testing and sick pay provisions.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s healthcare system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people who stay home as a preventative measure or because they’re feeling ill or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
Hopes for swiftly passing the package seemed to be fading throughout the day as talks dragged on and Trump dismissed it during as “not doing enough.”
Ahead of Trump’s new conference, Pelosi delivered a statement from the speaker’s balcony at the Capitol imploring the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to “put families first” by backing the effort to provide Americans with relief.
“Our great nation has faced crisis before,” Pelosi said. “And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail.”
Pelosi and Mnuchin engaged in days of around-the-clock negotiations with cross-town phone calls that continued even as Trump was speaking, both indicating earlier they were close to a deal.
They both promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, with more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has already slipped into recession.
The financial markets closed on an upswing after one of the worst nosedives since the 1987 downturn.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to be over it.
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive.
Trump’s daugher, Ivanka Trump, worked from home Friday after meeting with Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus. White House spokesman Judd Deere said she was evaluated by the White House Medical Unit and it was determined that because she was exhibiting no symptoms she does not need to self-quarantine.
Attorney General William Barr, who also met with the Australian official, was staying home Friday, though he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
Several lawmakers, including some close to Trump, have also been exposed to people who tested positive for the virus, and are self-isolating.
Among them are Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott, who were at Trump’s club on the weekend. Graham announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive. And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Hospitals welcomed Trump’s emergency declaration, which they and lawmakers in Congress had been requesting. It allows the Health and Human Services Department to temporarily waive certain federal rules that can make it harder for hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to an emergency.
The American Medical Association said the emergency declaration would help ensure America’s health care system has sufficient resources to properly respond to the ongoing outbreak.
Trump has struggled to show he’s on top of the crisis, after giving conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus. On Wednesday he announced he would ban travel to the U.S. from Europe, and on Friday he suggested extending that to the U.K. because of a recent rise in cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said more tests would be available over the next week, but warned, “We still have a long way to go.”
Fauci said Friday, “There will be many more cases. But we’ll take care of that, and ultimately, as the president said, this will end.”
___
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Alan Fram, Lauran Neergaard, Martin Crutsinger, Laurie Kellman, Michael Balsamo and Kevin Freking in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/83b0c8e168548fd453b0c177dd1f203a
Story 2: House Expected Passes Family First Coronavirus Response Bill Supported By President Trump — Videos
House Passes Coronavirus Relief Bill
House approves coronavirus response bill supported by Trump
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House will pass coronavirus legislation
Mnuchin: Trump is very interested in putting money into the economy
PBS NewsHour West live episode, March 13, 2020
Story 3: United State Stock Market Rallies — Best Day Since 2008 — Consumer Sentiment Beating Expectations At 95.9 — Videos
The Dow Is Soaring – Here’s Why the Stock Market Is Cheering Trump
Barry Sternlicht: Stock market will make a comeback from coronavirus
El-Erian on markets: ‘It’s getting less scary than it has been for a while’
Cramer’s game plan for the trading week of March 16
Jim Cramer: Not sure this stock market sell-off can be stopped
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