President Trump's call ‘improper,’ aide testifies; GOP hits his loyalty
WASHINGTON — A career Army officer testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine was “improper,” as Republicans in the impeachment inquiry tried to undercut the national security official with remarkable exchanges questioning his loyalty to the U.S.Lt.
Democrats invite President Trump to testify in impeachment inquiry
WASHINGTON — Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited President Donald Trump to testify in front of investigators in the House impeachment inquiry ahead of a week that will see several key witnesses appear publicly.Pushing back against accusations from the president that the process has been stacked against him, Pelosi said President Trump is welcome to appear or answer questions in writing if he chooses.“If he has information that is exculpatory, that means ex, taking away, culpable, blame, then we look forward to seeing it,” she said in an interview that aired Sunday, Nov. 17 on CBS’s "Face the Nation.” President Trump “could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants,” she said.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer echoed that suggestion.“If Donald Trump doesn’t agree with what he’s hearing, doesn’t like what he’s hearing, he shouldn’t tweet.
White House urgently ramps up push for drug cost legislation
WASHINGTON — The White House is ramping up its push to get a bill through Congress that curbs prescription drug costs, feeling a new urgency as the impeachment investigation advances amid the 2020 election campaign.The effort has progressed beyond anything seen in years, says President Donald Trump’s top domestic policy adviser. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to confront these issues in a nonideological fashion,” adviser Joe Grogan said in a recent session with reporters.“Unfortunately,” Grogan explained, “there are some current complications.”After months of dialogue, the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have parted ways on Medicare price negotiations that Pelosi advocates and Pres.
Pres. Trump defends an unlikely target: Joe Biden
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is defending an unlikely target: Joe Biden.Pres.
Biden warns about Pres. Trump during campaign event in Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Former Vice President Joe Biden brought an alarmist warning to a diverse crowd of Democrats late Saturday in early-caucus Nevada during a town hall at an elementary school in a historically minority Las Vegas neighborhood.Biden opened the event saying that as long as Donald Trump is president, the security and future of the United States is at risk.“As long as he’s there, everything we care about as a nation, and the issues we care about, are in the balance,” Biden said.Trump state campaign chief Adam Laxalt responded that voters in 2020 will reject Biden and the Democratic “extremist liberal vision for America” and “choose freedom and economic growth instead.”With fewer than 100 days before Nevada Democratic party caucuses, Biden is among the front-runners in crowded field of Democratic candidates for president.His evening appearance drew more than 250 people one day before Biden and most other Democratic presidential candidates are due to attend a campaign event at a Las Vegas Strip resort.
Ahead of 'a very busy 2020,' Pres. Trump takes advantage of 'free weekend' for physical at Walter Reed
BETHESDA, Md. — President Donald Trump spent more than two hours at Walter Reed National Medical Center on Saturday, Nov. 16 for what the White House said were medical tests as part of his annual physical.The appointment wasn’t on President Trump’s weekend public schedule, and his last physical was in February.
Transcripts put Sondland at center of President Trump Ukraine block
WASHINGTON — Transcripts released Saturday in the impeachment inquiry show Ambassador Gordon Sondland playing a central role in President Donald Trump’s effort to push Ukraine to conduct political investigations as a condition for receiving needed military aid.The fresh details come from hundreds of pages of testimony released by House investigators from Tim Morrison, a former top official at the National Security Council.
White House budget official questioned in impeachment probe
WASHINGTON — Impeachment investigators met Saturday with a White House official directly connected to President Donald Trump’s block on military aid to Ukraine, the first budget office witness to testify in the historic inquiry.In a rare weekend session, lawmakers drilled into President Trump’s decision, against the advice of national security advisers, including John Bolton, to withhold funding from the ally, a young democracy bordering hostile Russia.It’s a sign of a deepening of the constitutional showdown, bookended by public hearings this week and next, that is testing the system of checks and balances in the U.S. government.“It seems clear to me from everything that I've seen that the president had no interest in the defense of the Ukraine and the security of the Ukrainian people,” said Rep.
Impeachment testimony comes from White House budget official
WASHINGTON — House impeachment investigators are hearing from a White House budget official in closed-door testimony at the Capitol.Lawmakers convened Saturday to interview Mark Sandy.
Anti-robocall bill likely as House, Senate reach compromise
It’s looking like an anti-robocall bill will get sent to President Donald Trump this year.House and Senate leaders said Friday they’ve reached an agreement in principle on merging their bills.The final bill will require phone companies to verify phone numbers are real and to block calls for free.
Pres. Trump asks justices for temporary block of House subpoena
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants the Supreme Court to keep House Democrats from getting his financial records at least until the justices resolve a broader fight over efforts to subpoena a sitting president’s records.Pres.
Ousted ambassador felt threat; President Trump assails her anew
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch provided chilling detail in Trump impeachment hearings Friday of the threat she felt upon suddenly being ousted from her post and learning President Donald Trump had denounced her in his July phone call with Ukraine’s president.
President Trump says impeachment probe has been ‘very hard’ on family
BOSSIER CITY, La. — President Donald Trump said Thursday that the impeachment probe has been “very hard” on his family, even as he tried to flex his political muscle to flip the governor’s mansion in deep-red Louisiana.Speaking in friendly territory in a state he carried in 2016 by 20 percentage points, President Trump lashed out at Democratic investigators and what he called a “deranged impeachment witch hunt.” While arguing it was a political boon for his reelection, he acknowledged for the first time a personal toll from the impeachment process that stands to cloud his legacy.“I have one problem,” President Trump said. “Impeachment to me is a dirty word, it’s been very unfair, very hard on my family.” The House began public impeachment hearings Wednesday.President Trump repeated his denials of wrongdoing in his dealings with Ukraine, asserting he had no need to ask that nation to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family.“We took down Bush, Clinton, Obama, with no experience, but I had you and we won,” President Trump said of his 2016 victory. “Think about that and then think about me, ‘gee, let’s get some help from Ukraine in order to beat sleepy Joe Biden.’ I don’t think so.”He added, “The people of this country aren't buying it," claiming polls show a benefit to Republicans as Democrats focus on impeachment."We did nothing wrong,” President Trump insisted, “and they're doing nothing."Even in reliably Republican Louisiana, the gubernatorial contest has reached its final days ahead of Saturday’s election as a tossup.
President Trump wants Supreme Court to block subpoena for his taxes
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to block a subpoena for his tax returns, in a test of the president’s ability to defy investigations.The filing Thursday sets the stage for a high court showdown over the tax returns President Trump has refused to release, unlike every other modern president.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says agreement on revamped NAFTA ‘imminent’
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she wants to see Congress pass President Donald Trump’s revamped North American free trade deal this year.In a news conference Thursday, the California Democrat said an agreement on the pact is “imminent.’’The United States, Mexico and Canada last year agreed to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement with a new version designed to encourage more investment in factories and jobs in the U.S.But the so-called U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, needs congressional approval.
US budget deficit surges to $134.5 billion in October
WASHINGTON — The federal government, which ended the 2019 budget year with its largest deficit in seven years, began the new budget year with a deficit in October that was 33.8% bigger than a year ago as spending hit a record.The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the deficit last month totaled $134.5 billion, up from a shortfall in October 2018 of $100.5 billion.The government ran up a deficit of $984.4 billion for the 2019 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 26% larger than in 2018.The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting that the deficit for 2020 will hit $1 trillion and will remain over $1 trillion for the next decade.
President Trump’s vaping ban to be released this week
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says a ban on flavored vaping products will be rolled out this week.The ban was promised about two months ago amid an outbreak of vaping-related lung illnesses across the country.
Impeachment: President Trump overheard demanding ‘investigations’
WASHINGTON — For the first time a top diplomat testified Wednesday that President Donald Trump was overheard asking about “the investigations” that he wanted Ukraine to pursue that are central to the impeachment inquiry.William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, revealed the new information as the House Intelligence Committee opened extraordinary hearings on whether the 45th president of the United States should be removed from office.Taylor said his staff recently told him they overheard President Trump speaking on the phone to another diplomat, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, at a restaurant the day after President Trump’s July 25 phone call with the new leader of Ukraine that sparked the impeachment inquiry.The staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking about “the investigations,” and Sondland told the president the Ukrainians were ready to move forward, Taylor testified.The anonymous whistleblower’s complaint to the intelligence community’s inspector general — including that President Trump had pressed Ukraine’s president to investigate Democratic foe Joe Biden and Biden’s son and was holding up U.S. military aid — ignited the impeachment inquiry.As Wednesday’s hearing opened, Republicans lawmakers immediately pushed Democrats to hear in closed session from the anonymous whistleblower.But Rep.
Lawsuit could deactivate 234,000 voters in Wisconsin
MADISON — More than 234,000 voters in Wisconsin would be made unable to cast their ballot unless they register again before the next election under a lawsuit being filed Wednesday that liberals fear could dampen turnout among Democrats in the 2020 presidential race.The lawsuit could affect how many voters are able to cast ballots in both the April presidential primary and November 2020 general election in Wisconsin, a key swing state that both sides are targeting.
Pact reached to avert government shutdown through Dec. 20
WASHINGTON — A top House lawmaker announced Tuesday that Congress will pass a governmentwide temporary spending bill to keep the government running through Dec. 20, forestalling a government shutdown as the House turns its focus to impeachment hearings.Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., made the announcement after meeting with Senate counterpart Richard Shelby, R-Ala., in hopes of kick-starting long-delayed efforts to find agreement on $1.4 trillion worth of agency spending bills.A fight over President Donald Trump's demands for up to $8 billion in new funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence project is largely responsible for an impasse on the huge spending package, which would implement the details of this summer's hard-won budget accord.The politically explosive impeachment hearing and the possibility of impeachment and a trial aren't making the jobs of dealmakers like Lowey any easier.