Space Force will start small but let President Trump claim a big win
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump celebrated on Friday the launch of Space Force, the first new military service in more than 70 years.In signing the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes Space Force, President Trump claimed a victory for one of his top national security priorities just two days after being impeached by the House.It is part of a $1.4 trillion government spending package — including the Pentagon's budget — that provides a steady stream of financing for President Trump's U.S.-Mexico border fence and reverses unpopular and unworkable automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs.“Space is the world's new war-fighting domain,” President Trump said Friday during a signing ceremony at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington. “Among grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital.
USMCA could bring 500,000 more U.S. jobs, Secretary of Labor says
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nexstar) — Right before jetting home for the holidays, the House of Representatives passed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement 385 to 41.Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia says getting the USMCA through the house was the biggest hurdle.House Democrats held up the agreement and negotiated changes on workers’ rights, the environment, and prescription drug prices.Scalia says the Labor Department expects the USMCA trade deal to bring as many as 500,000 more jobs to the U.S.“What this does is frees up American businesses to engage in more trade, invest in more workers,” says Scalia.But Senate approval won’t come until the new year.Mitch McConnell says passing the USMCA is one of the Senate’s top priorities when it kicks off the second session — and President Trump says he’s ready to sign it.
Pelosi invites President Trump to deliver State of the Union
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will deliver the State of the Union to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 4.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the president on Dec. 20 formally inviting him to deliver the address at the U.S. Capitol.“In the spirit of respecting our Constitution, I invite you to deliver your State of the Union address before a Joint Session of Congress,” Pelosi wrote.President Trump has accepted the invitation, said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.Pelosi extended the invitation to President Trump to make the annual address just two days after the House adopted two articles of impeachment against President Trump.A date for the Senate impeachment trial has not yet been set.
Impeachment trial plans in disarray as Congress heads home for holidays
WASHINGTON — Congress has headed home for the holidays leaving plans and a possible timeline for President Donald Trump's impeachment trial in disarray.Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Thursday that Senate Republicans must provide details on witnesses and testimony before she would send over the charges for President Trump's trial.
After impeachment, House bestows big trade victory on President Trump
WASHINGTON — One day after its historic impeachment votes, the Democratic-led House gave President Donald Trump an overwhelming bipartisan victory Thursday on a renegotiated trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.By a 385-41 vote, the House approved a bill that puts in place terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.The legislation passed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her colleagues won key concessions from an administration anxious to pass the trade deal before next year’s election season makes that task more difficult.The deal is projected to have only a modest impact on the economy.
Sen. Mitch McConnell blasts House impeachment, pledges Senate stability
WASHINGTON — The top Senate Republican on Thursday denounced the "unfair" House impeachment of President Donald Trump and reassured President Trump and his supporters that "moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.”Sen.
President Trump impeached by US House on charges of abuse of power, obstruction of Congress
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday night, becoming only the third American chief executive to be formally charged under the Constitution’s ultimate remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors.The historic vote split along party lines, much the way it has divided the nation, over the charges that the 45th president abused the power of his office by enlisting a foreign government to investigate a political rival ahead of the 2020 election.
Wisconsin lawmakers weigh-in on House impeachment vote of President Trump
WASHINGTON -- Official votes are still coming in, but most were expected to vote along party lines -- except for one, who wasn't making his stance known initially -- on a night that will be remembered.Wisconsin lawmakers weighed-in on a historic vote.
Reaction pours in on the House impeachment vote of President Trump
WASHINGTON -- Reaction to the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives was fast and furious on Wednesday evening, Dec. 18.
Chinese national arrested for illegally entering Mar-a-Lago
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Chinese national trespassed at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club Wednesday and was arrested when she refused to leave, police said, the second time this year a woman from that country has been charged with illicitly entering the Florida resort.Jing Lu, 56, was confronted by the private club's security officers and told to leave, but she returned to take photos, Palm Beach police spokesman Michael Ogrodnick said in an email.
Wisconsin appeals court delays ruling on voter purge case
MADISON — A Wisconsin appeals court on Wednesday denied a request from the state Justice Department to immediately put on hold a judge's ruling purging more than 200,000 voter registrations in the swing state vital to President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.The state appeals court instead is giving the conservative law firm that brought the lawsuit until Monday to respond to the request to put Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy's decision on hold.The Justice Department on Tuesday filed the request that the ruling be immediately put on hold, without any time for the other side to respond.
Democrat Ron Kind won't reveal President Trump impeachment vote
MADISON — Democrat Ron Kind was the only member of Wisconsin's U.S. House delegation who refused to say whether he would vote Wednesday to impeach Republican President Donald Trump.Kind, from La Crosse, represents a western Wisconsin district that President Trump won in 2016 by 4 points.
House passes $1.4 trillion federal spending bill
WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House voted Tuesday to pass a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package, handing President Donald Trump a victory on his U.S.-Mexico border fence while giving Democrats spending increases across a swath of domestic programs.The hard-fought legislation also funds a record Pentagon budget and is serving as a must-pass legislative locomotive to tow an unusually large haul of unrelated provisions into law, including an expensive repeal of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans, help for retired coal miners, and an increase from 18 to 21 in nationwide legal age to buy tobacco products.The two-bill package, some 2,371 pages long after additional tax provisions were folded in on Tuesday morning, was unveiled Monday afternoon and adopted less than 24 hours later as lawmakers prepared to wrap up reams of unfinished work against a backdrop of Wednesday's vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.The House first passed a measure funding domestic programs on a 297-120 vote.
Wisconsin appeals order to purge voter registrations
MADISON — The Wisconsin Department of Justice on Tuesday appealed a judge's order to immediately purge voter registrations of more than 200,000 people in the narrowly divided swing state that's key to President Donald Trump's re-election efforts.A judge on Friday sided with conservatives in saying the state elections commission needed to deactivate voters who didn't respond within 30 days to a mailing indicating if they have moved.
Wisconsin Democrats vow to register voters who may be purged
MADISON — Democrats in the key swing state of Wisconsin vowed Monday to redouble efforts to ensure that any voters whose registrations have been nullified by a judge's recent ruling will be able to register again before the 2020 presidential election.Legal appeals could delay for months enforcement of the judge's order to purge more than 200,000 voters who didn't respond within 30 days to letters seeking confirmation of their addresses.
President Trump threatens to bypass Commission on Presidential Debates
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump made clear Monday that he intends to participate in at least three general election debates, but is threatening to sidestep the nonprofit group charged with running them.“I look very much forward to debating whoever the lucky person is who stumbles across the finish line in the little watched Do Nothing Democrat Debates," President Trump tweeted Monday morning after The New York Times reported that he was considering skipping them entirely.President Trump said his record “is so good" that “perhaps I would consider more than 3 debates," but also complained, without evidence, that the Commission on Presidential Debates is “stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers" and threatened to bypass them.“As President, the debates are up.......to me, and there are many options, including doing them directly & avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission," President Trump wrote, adding that he would “make a decision at an appropriate time."In a statement, the commission said, “The televised general election debates are an important part of our democratic process.” It said the commission has conducted 30 general election presidential and vice-presidential debates since 1988.“Our record is one of fairness, balance and non-partisanship,” the statement said.
Former FBI Director James Comey: 'Real sloppiness' in Russia probe but no misconduct
WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Sunday that a Justice Department inspector general report identified “real sloppiness" in the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide and said he was wrong to have been “overconfident" about how the Russia investigation was handled.But Comey also insisted he was right to feel some measure of vindication because the report did not find evidence for the most sensational of President Donald Trump's claims, including that he had been wiretapped and illegally spied on and that the FBI had committed treason in investigating ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign.“Remember how we got here," Comey said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “The FBI was accused of criminal misconduct.
SCOTUS Justices to take up dispute over subpoenas for President Trump records
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Friday it will hear President Donald Trump's pleas to keep his tax, bank and financial records private, a major confrontation between the president and Congress that also could affect the 2020 presidential campaign.Arguments will take place in late March, and the justices are poised to issue decisions in June as President Trump is campaigning for a second term.
President Trump says US, China have reached trade deal; Sunday tariffs off
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. has canceled plans to impose new tariffs on $160 billion worth of Chinese imports Sunday as part of a modest interim agreement that de-escalates a 17-month trade war between the world's two biggest economies.The United States is also reducing existing import taxes on about $112 billion in Chinese goods from 15% to 7.5%In return, President Trump said on Twitter, the Chinese have agreed to "massive'' purchases of American farm and manufactured products as part of a so-called Phase 1 deal.
President Trump calls impeachment vote 'embarrassment' to nation
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared Friday's House committee vote to impeach him ”an embarrassment to our country" and refused to back away from the charge that first ensnared him in the scandal.