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LoiLois Beckett in San Francisco (now) and Lauren Gambino in Washington (earlier)

Whistleblower complaint involves 'multiple acts' by Trump, report says – as it happened

Trump on Twitter scoffed at the assertion that he would make such a commitment on a telephone call.
Trump on Twitter scoffed at the assertion that he would make such a commitment on a telephone call. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Updated evening news summary

Wrapping up tonight’s political coverage with an updated summary of today’s political news. There’s a lot going on.

First, the latest on emerging details about a complaint about the president from within the intelligence community:

  • The whistleblower complaint at the heart of a showdown between the intelligence community and Congress involved “multiple acts” involving the president, including one in which Trump made a commitment during a phone call with a foreign leader, according to the New York Times.
  • The complaint involves Ukraine, and was filed weeks after a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, both the Washington Post and the New York Times reported.
  • The president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, faced sharp public criticism earlier this year for his public comments encouraging Ukraine’s government to pursue investigations that would politically benefit Trump, including one involving the son of Vice President Joe Biden, one of the leading Democratic contenders to face off with Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
  • The inspector general of the American intelligence community briefed Congress on Thursday but provided few details about the complaint, according to lawmakers. He is expected to appear before Congress again next week.

Meanwhile:

  • After sustained public outcry and political pressure, the Trump administration backed away from its plan to deport critically ill immigrant children, NBC News reported.
  • Ben Carson, Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, made a transphobic remark targeting trans women while meeting with federal employees in San Francisco, the Washington Post reported.
  • Trump poured cold water on background check legislation even as Speaker Pelosi hammered Mitch McConnell on his reluctance to move ahead with legislation unless and until it has the full support of the president.
  • Trump sued prosecutors in Manhattan to try to block the release of his tax returns after the state passed a law paving the way for their publication.
  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a surprise meeting with Trump in Washington on Thursday. It was “nice,” Trump tweeted.
  • 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, a prominent self-help writer, faced questions over what she said, and didn’t say, during a 2012 interview on on a 9/11 conspiracy theorist’s radio show.

Also:

  • More than 500 Americans have been diagnosed with vaping-related breathing illnesses, and at least eight have died, American health officials said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a meeting with Trump in Washington on Thursday.

The president, who has railed about his perception that social media companies are biased against conservatives, called the meeting “nice.”

The whistleblower complaint at the heart of a showdown between the intelligence community and Congress “centers on Ukraine,” the Washington Post reported, citing “two people familiar with the matter.”

The New York Times also reported that “At least part of the allegation deals with Ukraine,” citing two people familiar with the matter.

Reports that a member of the American intelligence community has made an official complaint about Trump, which in part involves his communications with a foreign leader and a “promise,” have roiled Washington in the past week.

Just two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former television star who once played the president of Ukraine in a popular television show, the Washington Post reported.

In May, the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, faced sharp public criticism for his suggestion that Ukraine should pursue investigations that would politically benefit Trump, including one involving the son of former Vice President Joseph Biden, one of the leading Democratic contenders for the 2020 presidential election.

Ben Carson, Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), made a transphobic comment this week during a meeting with federal employees in San Francisco, the Washington Post reported.

At least one person at the meeting walked out in protest, staffers told the Washington Post.

Carson said he was concerned about “big, hairy men” trying to infiltrate women’s homeless shelters, a remark that multiple people at the meeting interpreted as an attack on trans women, according to the Post.

Fearmongering over the effects of giving trans women access to homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters is a common trope among anti-trans activists. In May, HUD proposed a new rule that would gut protections for homeless trans people at federally funded homeless shelters.

“Rescinding this rule is a shameful decision that will result in trans shelter-seekers being forced on the streets,” Julian Castro, Obama’s HUD secretary, and a current Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted at the time.

“A lack of stable housing fuels the violence and abuse that takes the lives of many transgender people of color across the country,” Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality said in a statement in May.

Multiple academic studies have confirmed that trans inclusive policies do not endanger cis people. At the same time, there is substantial evidence that trans people, particularly women of color, are victimized at disproportionately high rates and face abusive treatment in public places.

During his San Francisco visit, Carson also complained that society no longer seemed to know the difference between men and women, staffers told the Washington Post.

“The Secretary does not use derogatory language to refer to transgendered individuals. Any reporting to the contrary is false,” a HUD spokesperson told the Washington Post.

Carson has a history of making transphobic comments in public, and has “repeatedly mocked transgender people in internal meetings in Washington,” the Post reported, citing a government official.

After widespread pushback from Congress and the public, the Trump administration is officially backing away from its plan to deport critically ill immigrant children, NBC News reported.

Last week, during a Congressional hearing, children suffering from serious illnesses testified to lawmakers that they could die if they were sent back to their home countries, NBC reported.

“It is remarkable that it takes emergency hearings in Congress and a national uproar to protect seriously ill children from facing deportation,” Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of Congress, said in a statement Thursday.

In a 2012 radio interview with a prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said that having “questions” about 9/11 was understandable, and that she herself had questions about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, CNN reported.

Williamson’s comment came during a 2012 radio interview on Truth Jihad, hosted by conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett. The prominent self-help writer was responding to Barrett’s account of being “chased out of the academy” for “questions surrounding what really happened on September 11, 2001.”

During the interview, Barrett, the conspiracy theorist, called the United States “pretty fascist” for its treatment of 9/11 “truthers.”

“If that means that you can’t even come close to telling the truth about the most important event of the century and still have a job as a professor, or at least you’re risking your job -- then we’re pretty fascist,” Barrett said during the interview.

“Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more,” Williamson said. “And I think, listen, to have questions about 9/11, to me, is no different than having questions about the Warren Commission [which investigated Kennedy’s assassination]. And I don’t believe in the single bullet theory of the Kennedy assassination either.”

While Williamson offered “some push back against Barrett’s worldview,” during the interview, she “failed to challenge” his views about 9/11, CNN wrote.

Williamson has done multiple interviews with other 9/11 conspiracy theorists, CNN reported, but did not discuss conspiracy about the 2001 terror attacks in those other interviews.

Williamson’s campaign manager told CNN that the appearances were “not an endorsement of the hosts philosophy or ideas,” adding “she’s talking about her ideas, not theirs.”

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg privately told members of Congress this week that Libra, Facebook’s controversial digital currency, would not launch anywhere until it receives backing from American regulators, the Washington Post reported.

Josh Hawley, a conservative Republican senator from Missouri, also suggested that Facebook sell Instagram and WhatsApp to demonstrate a new commitment to user privacy. Hawley said Zuckerberg “did not think that was a great idea,” the Associated Press reported.

Updated

More than 500 Americans have been diagnosed with vaping-related breathing illnesses, and at least eight have died, U.S. health officials said today. The cause remains unknown, the Associated Press reported.

In a single week, the number of “confirmed and probable” cases of vaping-related illness grew from 380 to 530, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

The eight vaping-related death was a man in his mid-40s who died this week in a St. Louis hospital, health officials said.

No single vaping product or ingredient has been linked to the illnesses, though most patients reported vaping THC, the high-producing ingredient in marijuana.

After weeks of being called “Moscow Mitch” for his refusal to move forward with increased funding for election security, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell endorsed spending $250 million to help states prevent outside meddling in the 2020 elections.

“This bipartisan progress should be celebrated,” McConnell wrote on Twitter.

Afternoon digest

It was a relatively busy morning in Washington. Here is what has happened today.

  • The whistleblower complaint at the heart of a showdown between the intelligence community and Congress involved “multiple acts” involving the president, including one in which Trump made a commitment during a phone call with a foreign leader, according to the New York Times. The inspector general of the American intelligence community briefed Congress on Thursday but provided few details about the complaint, according to lawmakers. He is expected to appear before Congress again next week.
  • Trump poured cold water on background check legislation even as Speaker Pelosi hammered Mitch McConnell on his reluctance to move ahead with legislation unless and until it has the full support of the president.
  • Trump sued prosecutors in Manhattan to try to block the release of his tax returns after the state passed a law paving the way for their publication.
  • The White House withdrew its nomination of Jeffrey Byard to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency after concerns about a personal concerns involving an altercation were raised during the confirmation process.

Before I sign off for the day, I thought we could check in on some of the Democratic presidential candidates and see what they’re up to today.

Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator, joined a picket line with United Auto Workers members who are on strike against General Motors.

Check out this interview where Bernie Sanders gushes over his grandchildren. Yes, that’s correct. *Gushes*

Montana governor Steve Bullock is making his pitch to the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers as part of their endorsement process.

The NRA has sardonically named Beto O’Rourke “AR-15 salesman of the year” after he called for a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons. He pointed out a flaw in their argument – increasingly more companies are banning their sale as public opinion turns.

Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, amplified the push for statehood for the District of Columbia.

Former vice president Joe Biden picks up an endorsement from North Carolina congressman GK Butterfield.

California senator Kamala Harris is increasingly turning her focus to Iowa.

And South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg takes a swipe at Warren, calling her “evasive” on how she’ll pay for a single-payer healthcare plan.

White House withdraws nomination for Fema chief

Just in: Trump has quietly withdrawn his nomination of Jeffrey Byard to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency after concerns about a personal concerns involving an altercation were raised during the confirmation process.

Updated

Bernie Sanders presidential campaign has reached a new milestone with 1 million individual donors.

NYT: whistleblower complaint involves 'multiple acts by Trump'

The whistleblower complaint at the heart of an extraordinary standoff between Congress and the intelligence community is said to involve “multiple acts” by the president, according to the New York Times.

Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, revealed to lawmakers on Thursday that the complaint involved multiple acts, the Times reported, citing two officials familiar with the situation.

Lawmakers said Atkinson declined to discuss specifics during a briefing with the panel and would not say if the complaint involved the president.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the complaint involves a “promise” Trump made during a phone conversation with a foreign leader.

Trump on Twitter scoffed at the assertion that he would make such a commitment on a telephone call that he knew might be listened to by intelligence officers from the US and other countries.

Time Magazine is reporting that one of Trump’s phone calls with a foreign leader involved a commitment related to US foreign policy that the whistleblower found troubling.

Updated

The Washington state attorney general filed a lawsuit on Thursday to stop the Trump Administration from funneling billions of dollars approved for military construction projects to help build his long-promised wall along the US southern border with Mexico.

Presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke will join climate protesters in Denver on Friday.

The global climate strikes are expected to draw millions of people around the world in more than 4,000 locations to the streets as part of a weeklong movement to focus international attention on the climate emergency. It’s the latest of a succession of Friday strikes led by schoolchildren such as Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

The “selfie lines” exist everywhere.

Congressman Tom Reed, a Republican from New York, is “doing well” after collapsing in the Capitol rotunda earlier today, according to his office.

Updated

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders received raucous applause at the MSNBC climate forum in Washington. That could have something to do with his sweeping, $16tn climate plan he proposed earlier this year.

Read more about Sanders plan to combat the climate crisis from my colleague Emily Holden and myself

Amazon and the climate

Online retail giant Amazon, which delivers more than 10 billion items a year on fuel-guzzling planes, vans and trucks, vowed earlier today to cut the amount of damage it does to the environment and report its greenhouse gas emissions regularly.
The company has been facing pressure from its own employees to do more to combat the climate crisis and rely less on fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, more than 80 advocacy, environmental, faith, student, and labor organizations published an open letter to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, slamming what it called the company’s damaging effects on the climate, workers and local communities.

The letter is part of coordinated actions throughout the country to support youth leading global climate strikes tomorrow. Amazon workers are expected to walk out demanding the company do more to combat the climate crisis and implement a policy for zero emissions by 2030.

Earlier today, Bezos committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and 100% renewable energy by 2030. The company ordered 100,000 electric vehicles, which it asserted was the largest order ever for electric delivery vehicles. It also said it would invest $100 million in reforestation projects internationally.

More than 1,500 Amazon employees have pledged to walk off their jobs tomorrow as part of the Global Climate Strike, in which millions of people around the world are expected to protest human-caused global heating and delay and intransigence from many governments.

The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, reported that: Amazon will become the first signatory of the newly formed “Climate Pledge,” a pact announced by company founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement 10 years early. It noted that Amazon employees are walking out tomorrow amid criticism of the company.

Bezos was speaking at an event in Washington with former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

She said: “When it comes to climate change, it is critical that national policy as well as corporate decision-making and planning is science-driven.”

Meanwhile, the Guardian has launched a Covering Climate Now initiative, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate emergency.

United Nations secretary general António Guterres yesterday warned that humans were losing the race to prevent the kind of climate catastrophe by 2030 that the intergovernmental panel on climate change warned about last year and which activist Greta Thunberg has been reiterating to the US Congress all week in hearings and addresses.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Christiana Figueres, the UN’s former climate change chief, at the event in Washington earlier today.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Christiana Figueres, the UN’s former climate change chief, at the event in Washington earlier today. Photograph: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Amazon

Congressman Adam Schiff, the California Democrat and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, spoke to reporters after meeting with the inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, refused to share details of the whistleblower complaint.

Updated

Joe Kennedy plans 2020 Senate run
Joe Kennedy plans 2020 Senate run Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Congressman Joe Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is planing to run for Senate, multiple news outlets have confirmed.

The news is an earthquake in Massachusetts politics, where the Kennedy name still carries significant cachet. Joe Kennedy is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and the grand-nephew of US president John F Kennedy.

Joe Kennedy, according to the Associated Press, is laying the ground work for a run in 2020 to challenge Democratic incumbent senator Ed Markey for the party’s nomination. The Boston Globe reported that the announcement would make a formal announcement on Saturday.

“I don’t think primaries are something that people should shy away from,” Kennedy told reporters at the state Democratic convention last Saturday. “The idea behind it is that every seat, my own included, the one that I currently occupy as a member of the House of Representatives, it’s up every two years. It’s a two-year term. You have to go out and make that case to voters every two years.”

But Markey will be a formidable opponent. While Kennedy, 38, can make the generational change argument against Markey, 73, the Massachusetts senator has worked hard to cement his progressive bona fides. He is a lead sponsor of the Green New Deal and has already earned the endorsement of young, progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also secured the early backing of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a presidential hopeful endorsed by both Kennedy and Markey, and is supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has already racked up some endorsements, notably from moderate Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema and, according to the Washington Post, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who is challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

We are flipping between the multiple interesting and important hearings taking place on Capitol Hill today.

Let’s go for a moment to the hearing on statehood for the District of Columbia, the first of its kind in a generation.

Though the more than 700,000 residents of Washington DC can vote in presidential elections, they have no voting representation in Congress and only limited control over their government.

Democrats and supporters of statehood say their current status equates to “taxation without representation,” which was the rallying cry for American colonists who eventually revolted from Britain and founded the United States. Conservatives are largely opposed to adding a 51st star to the flag, often pointing to concerns about corruption in local DC government.

In her opening testimony, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser told members: “I was born in Washington, DC, and generations of my family — through no choice of our own — have been denied the fundamental right promised to all Americans: the right to full representation in the Congress guaranteed by statehood.”

District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser testifies to Congress about statehood for the district.
District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser testifies to Congress about statehood for the district.
 Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

She tackled the arguments against statehood one by one, noting that despite it’s size, DC has more residents than two US states, which each have members of Congress and senators. As to the argument about poor governance and past corruption scandals, she said the district performed better than many states.

Bowser also directly confronted what is often the subtext of opposition to statehood: the city’s racial and political makeup.

The 68-mile cosmopolitan block that is DC has a diverse population – nearly 50% of residents are African American, a share that has declined in recent decades as the percentage of white, Asian American and Latino residents grows. Politically, it remains one of the bluest bastion’s in the US. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won DC’s 3 electoral votes with more than 90% of the vote.

Yes, it is true that we are more brown and more liberal than some of you, but denying statehood would be unfair no matter who was affected—it would be unfair if we were conservatives from a rural district built around agriculture or an industrial city in the heartland. This is America, and Americans are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that’s why we are demanding statehood.

Making DC a state would no doubt be a tricky undertaking that would touch many aspects of everyday life for residents of the nation’s capital.

Here congressman Thomas Massie, a conservative from Kentucky, raises a point about parking. Could it be the “Irish backstop” of statehood negotiations?

Updated

We’re seeing some newsy bits dribble out of the Congressional briefing with Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday unveiled the Democrats long-awaited plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs. It is a rare priority shared by the Democratic-controlled House and the White House, giving this bill greater-than-zero odds of making its way to the president’s desk.

At a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi called the plan “transformative”.

“We do hope to have White House buy-in,” she added.

The plan is ambitious. It would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for 250 costly drugs. Under the bill, pharmaceutical companies that refuse to negotiate with the US Health and Human Services would face stiff penalties that start at 65% of the total sales from the drug.

The proposal would cap copays for seniors enrolled in Medicare’s Part D prescription drug plan at $2,000. There is currently no limit. And the price negotiated by HHS would be available to individuals on private insurance plans.

Despite Trump’s interest in this, House Republicans have panned the plan as “a socialist proposal to appease her most extreme members.”

Updated

There are so many “initial steps” in House Democrats’ delicate dance around impeachment.

But for those keeping up with this wild two-step, CNN is reporting that the House Judiciary Committee is preparing to possibly hold Corey Lewandowski in contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions in a theatrical performance before the panel earlier this week.

Updated

Trump sues Manhattan DA to block tax return subpoena

Donald Trump does no want his tax returns made public.

Now Trump is asking a federal judge to prevent New York prosecutors from obtaining eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit Thursday in US District Court in New York.

According to the Associated Press, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow says the lawsuit is intended “to address the significant constitutional issues at stake in this case.”

Trump has sued multiple times to block the release of his tax returns. Earlier this year, the president filed a lawsuit against House Democrats and the state of New York over a new law passed that would allow tax officials to turn over the president’s state tax returns.

Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a chokehold by an NYPD officer, is testifying alongside civil rights leader Al Sharpton at a congressional hearing on policing.

In her testimony, Carr said it was “impossible to describe the pain” of losing her son. Carr lost her husband two months ago and her granddaughter, Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, died in 2017.

Of Erica, Carr said: “I say she died of a broken heart. These are the wounds of the seen and unseen from the police brutality. The loss of loved ones and no resources, no accountability. The entire family is traumatized.”

The New York City police officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death in 2014 was fired from the Police Department and stripped of his pension benefits on Monday, ending a bitter battle that had cast a shadow over the nation’s largest police force.

Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer whose chokehold led to Garner’s death in 2014, was fired last month from his job after the Staten Island district attorney and the Justice Department declined to charge him with a crime. He had been allowed to remain on the police force during the bitter, years-long legal battle. Garner’s death and his final words – “I can’t breathe” – became a rallying cry for police reform in New York and around the country.

Donald Trump has denied saying anything “inappropriate” to a foreign leader after a Washington Post report, confirmed by other news outlets, revealed that a whistleblower in the US intelligence community filed a formal complaint alleging that the president made a troubling “promise” to that leader.

In a series of tweets, Trump said he is aware that US intelligence agents and their foreign counterparts listen to these phone conversations and asked if there was “anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially “heavily populated’ call.”

In a separate tweet, Trump insinuated that the Post report was another example of “presidential harassment.”

We’re going to check in briefly on the confirmation hearing of Eugene Scalia taking place this morning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Eugene Scalia
Secretary of Labor nominee Eugene Scalia appears before the Senate Committee on Health, Education Labor and Pensions’ on his nomination on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, is facing sharp questions from Democrats who are uneasy with his career as an attorney for corporate clients.

Scalia, who was introduced to the committee by Transportation secretary, who was the former labor secretary under president George W Bush (and is the wife of the Senate majority leader) Elaine Chao, said in his opening remarks that his previous work as the department’s top lawyer proved that, once there, he “had new clients, new responsibilities and a public trust.”

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, opposes his nomination. They have described Scalia as a “union-busting lawyer seeking new opportunities to ruthlessly advance corporate interests”.

Democrats have accused Republicans of rushing the confirmation hearing, giving them little time to scour his record. Senator Lamar Alexander, chair of the HELP committee, has defended the decision.

Senator Patty Murray, the ranking member of the HELP committee, described Scalia as an “elite corporate lawyer” in her opening statement.

Scalia’s nomination is opposed by the AFL-CIO. The labor federation has described him as a union-busting lawyer who has eroded labor rights and consumer protections.

Emily England Clyburn, wife House majority whip Jim Clyburn, has died at the age of 80. They met in jail after a civil rights protest and were married for nearly 60 years.

“Emily Clyburn was a champion of equality and opportunity who made a difference for countless young people in her beloved South Carolina,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As a librarian, she intimately understood the power of learning to transform lives, and dedicated decades to ensuring that every child, servicemember, veteran and worker could access a good education that would allow him or her to climb the ladders of opportunity in America. Her extraordinary leadership, together with Jim, to increase learning opportunities at their beloved alma mater South Carolina State will stand always as an enduring tribute to her beautiful life and legacy.”

Updated

Trump administration bars California from requiring cleaner cars

As expected, the Trump administration said on Thursday that it would revoke California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards and bar states from establishing their own regulations.

The decision is likely to set off a furious legal battle.

“No state has the authority to opt out of the nation’s rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said at a press conference. “To do otherwise harms consumers and damages the American economy.”

She argued the administration is “standing up” for the American worker and the American consumer.

California, no stranger to taking on the president, said it’s prepared to fight the administration. “We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to save California’s long-standing authority to set vehicle emissions standards,” said Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general.

Governor Gavin Newsom invited Trump to join California in the 21st Century.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/17/trump-california-vehicle-emissions-standards-auto-industry

Trump on Fox: POTUS not ready to make decision on gun control

Donald Trump said the White House is not ready to propose gun control legislation after a series of mass shootings in August that revived efforts to push for action in Congress.

“We’re not moving on anything,” Trump told Fox News’ Ed Henry in an interview at the US-Mexico border. “We’re going very slowly in one way cause we want to make sure it’s right. We’re doing a very careful job.”

In the clip released this morning, Trump singled out presidential hopefulhttps://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1174665740961701892, who has unapologetically called for the mandatory buyback of assault weapons.

After a mass shooting that targeted Latino immigrants in his hometown of El Paso, O’Rourke has made gun violence his campaign’s top priority. On Wednesday, his campaign announced that it was launching a five-state campaign to “activate the country’s next wave of gun safety advocates” in the lead up to the Giffords/March for Our Lives presidential forum on 2 October.

“It will take each and every one of us to meet the challenge of ending gun violence in this country,” said Beto for America Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon. “That is why our campaign will not wait until the election to seek real change - to inspire, engage, and train the next wave of gun safety advocates who can join Beto in fighting for what we know is right: ambitious solutions that meet the courage of the American people and the magnitude of this crisis.”

But O’Rourke’s blunt admission that as president he would require Americans to give up their assault weapons has sparked blowback from Republicans and some Democrats.

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, who is leading a long shot, bipartisan effort to pass background check legislation told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday: “I can tell you one thing: Beto O’Rourke’s not taking my guns away from me. You tell Beto that, OK?”

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of politics. The temperature has finally dropped in Washington but expect a lot of heated exchanges on Capitol Hill where Donald Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, Eugene Scalia, the son of the late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia, appears today for his confirmation hearing. And that’s far from the only thing we’re watching today. Here’s what to expect.

  • Late last night the Washington Post reported that at the center of a showdown between members of Congress and the US intelligence community was a whistleblower complaint asserting that Trump made a “troubling” promise with a foreign leader. The paper citied two former officials familiar with the matter and said it was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump had interacted with. In the weeks prior to the complaint, Trump held a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin and exchanged letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson is due to appear before the House intelligence committee for a closed-door briefing on the handling of the whistleblower complaint at 9am.
  • Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Al Sharpton, former tennis player James Blake and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a police chokehold, will testify to House judiciary committee on policing practices at 10am. At the same time, the House oversight committee will hold a hearing on the District of Columbia’s decades-long quest for statehood to once and for all end the injustice of “taxation without representation” for more than 700,000 people. (Full disclosure: yours truly is a tax-paying resident of the nation’s capital.) Shortly afterward, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference to unveil legislation to negotiate lower drug prices for Americans. She’ll likely be asked about fresh reporting on tensions within leadership over the handling of the “impeachment investigation”.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transport are set to announce that they are revoking California’s waiver to set stricter car mileage standards than the federal government. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler will testify before the House committee on science and tech at the EPA at 10am.
  • As the White House defends its widespread attack on federal efforts to combat climate change, MSNBC hosts a climate forum at Georgetown University with several candidates aspiring to replace Donald Trump. Among those who will speak on day one of the two-day forum are Democratic presidential hopefuls Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Bernie Sanders, John Delaney, Tim Ryan and Julián Castro. In the afternoon, Steve Bullock will hold a town hall with the American Federation of Teachers as part of a process to be considered for the union’s endorsement.

To top it off, Trump has no public events on his schedule. It’s a Washington cliché as old as covfefe, but when the president fades from public view, @realDonaldTrump springs to life.

Updated

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