Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ben Jacobs in Washington

Nancy Pelosi calls public clash with Trump a 'tickle contest with a skunk' – as it happened

Summary

  • Donald Trump preemptively took the blame for a potential government shutdown, saying “I am proud to shut down the government for border security” in an Oval Office meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that that chamber would vote a criminal justice reform measure before the end of year, yielding to pressure from Trump.
  • The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
  • A federal judge ruled Stormy Daniels liable for nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees in litigation with Donald Trump.

The Senate just passed the farm bill by an overwhelming margin. It still has to go to the House but the $867 billion legislation which also legalizes hemp in addition to providing subsidies for farmers and funding food stamps is expected to pass easily.

Sarah Sanders has defended her decision to scale back White House press briefings at an event in Washington today.

Michael Avenatti is brushing off the verdict on Twitter and insisting that Stormy Daniels will inevitably come out on top.

Trump apparently is still saying that Mexico will pay for the wall.

Jeff Sessions quoted Kanye West to praise Donald Trump at an event today.

A federal judge has ordered Stormy Daniels to pay Donald Trump nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees in a ruling just issued.

Trump’s attorney celebrated the ruling in a statement.

Per pool, Trump said in the Oval Office at a bill signing just now. “If we have to close down the county in border security I actually like that in terms of an issue.””

Mike Pence cast his 12th tiebreaking vote in the Senate today since being elected Vice President and it was a first.

There will be a hearing next year on Paul Manafort’s alleged lies to prosecutors ahead of his sentencing.

A federal judge scheduled a hearing today for January 25, 2019.

San Diego Democrat Scott Peters is contemplating leaving Congress to run for mayor of his hometown. Peters was first elected in 2012.

Pelosi also apparently used an interesting analogy today.

Updated

Nancy Pelosi is apparently taking shots at Trump to the Democratic caucus after their meeting.

John Kelly is now staying on as chief of staff into 2019. In an interview with Fox News, Kellyanne Conway said: “He will stay on the job through January 2 at least, and I think there will be a very peaceful and pragmatic transition to the next chief of staff.”

Updated

Potential 2020 Democratic candidates are starting an internal debate about whether they should use superPACs in the presidential primary.

The New York Times reports:

But as three dozen Democrats ponder presidential runs in 2020 and begin to design their campaign infrastructures, some leading names beyond Senator Bernie Sanders are expected to forgo or disavow super PACs — and with it the ability for allies to raise unlimited sums from wealthy backers — in hopes that grass-roots donors and progressive activists would reward them more handsomely in the primary for rejecting such funds.

Pelosi and Schumer have put out a brief joint statement on the meeting.

In House leadership news, Democrats are apparently postponing the fight over term limits for committee chairs until next year.

One Senate Democrat is already reacting to the White House meeting.

Schumer is already characterizing Trump as throwing a “temper tantrum” in the Oval Office.

In other news, Trump now says there is no rush to find a new White House chief of staff.

Trump: 'I will be the one to shut it down'

Trump threatens a shutdown if he doesn’t get his way on the wall.

“If we don’t get what we want one way or the other, whether it’s through you, it’s through military, I will shut down the government. I am proud to shutdown the government for border security . . . I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down.”

Updated

As this continues, it’s worth noting Mike Pence has sat silently the entire time as Trump bickers with Schumer and Pelosi.

They are now bickering about the 2018 election and Schumer turns to the cameras; “When the president brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in trouble.” Trump responds: “But I did!”

Updated

Pelosi looks at the cameras and says “this is spiraling downwards” as the bickering continues in the Oval Office.

Schumer is now urging Trump not to shut down the government.

Trump responds: “If it’s not good border security, I won’t take it.”

Updated

Trump is repeatedly interrupting Pelosi and calling her “Nancy” as she insists he doesn’t have the votes in the House for the wall.

Pelosi seems uncomfortable with the cameras there.

Trump makes a false claim about wall construction in the Oval Office.

There are some highlights from the pool report of the Oval Office meeting with Pelosi and Schumer which is being played back on cable news right now.

“I am proud to shut down the government over border security,” Trump said. “I will take the mantle.”

Pelosi and Schumer also delivered remarks, with Pelosi calling a government shutdown a “Trump shutdown”.

Updated

Trump starts off the Oval Office meeting by insisting that criminal justice reform “looks like it is going to be passing” and in a “very bipartisan way.”

McConnell said he would bring up for a vote later this week.

Trump preemptively takes blame for government shutdown

The Oval Office meeting with Pelosi and Schumer seems to be getting tense.

Updated

In non-Google news, Trump, Pelosi and Schumer are having a heated argument about a border wall in the Oval Office.

Pichai says “right now we have no plans to launch a search engine in China” when asked about Dragonfly.

The hearing was just briefly interrupted by a protestor holding a sign.

The first truly interesting question of the day is from Sheila Jackson Lee, who asks about Project Dragonfly, a reported plan for Google to build a censored search engine in China. Unfortunately, Pichai sticks to Google’s talking point – “Right now there are no plans to launch search in China” – and Jackson Lee does not follow up.

The back-and-forth between Lamar Smith and Sundar Pichai is indicative of the unreasonableness of certain Republicans on the largely specious question of partisan bias in search results.

Smith raised some questionable studies; Pichai pointed out that Google disagrees with their methodology.

Smith: “What does methodology have to do with the fact that 96% of the references to Trump are from liberal media?”

Pichai doesn’t respond, but methodology has a lot to do with that “fact”.

Smith: “You never sanctioned any employee for manipulating the search results.”

Pichai: “It’s not possible for an individual or groups of employees to manipulate our search results…”

Smith: “I disagree.”

Pichai has been asked about steps he will take to counter right wing extremism on You Tube.

Pichai’s prepared testimony, which he is reading now, is focused on parrying the allegations of political bias:

“I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way. To do otherwise would go against our core principles and our business interests. We are a company that provides platforms for diverse perspectives and opinions—and we have no shortage of them among our own employees. Some of our Googlers are former servicemen and women who have risked much in defense of our country. Some are civil libertarians who fiercely defend freedom of expression. Some are parents who worry about the role technology plays in our households. Some—like me—are immigrants to this country, profoundly grateful for the freedoms and opportunities it offers. Some of us are many of these things.”

The opening statements from Kevin McCarthy, Bob Goodlatte and Jerry Nadler give a preview of the major issues that we’ll hear about today.

McCarthy, who spoke as a witness, focused on Google’s Project Dragonfly, a plan to produce a censored search engine for China. “Are America’s tech companies serving as instruments of freedom or instruments of control?” McCarthy asked.

Goodlatte, who appears well versed in how Google’s products work, noted, “Google is able to collect an amount of information about its users that would even make the NSA blush.”

He also spent several minutes discussing the troubling nature of “allegations Google manipulates its algorithms to favor the political party its likes, the ideas it likes or the products it likes” – allegations that he offered no evidence for.

Nadler points out that “no credible evidence supports this rightwing conspiracy theory”, but that will not stop Republican representatives from spending a considerable amount of time on it today.

Sunder Pichai is now reading his prepared testimony which is available here.

Both Bob Goodlatte, the outgoing chair of the Judiciary Committee and Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat who will take over in January, have given opening statements and Pichai will now begin his prepared remarks

Google CEO Sunder Pichai has taken his seat in the House Judiciary hearing room and opening statements have begun before his testimony.

Several Democratic senators sent a letter to the White House yesterday asking questions about Fox News’s bonus payments to top communications aide Bill Shine.

Shine left Fox News last year after facing allegations that he helped cover up serial sexual harassment by Roger Ailes.

As CNBC reports:

The senators’ letter is addressed to acting White House counsel Emmet Flood. In it, the lawmakers argue that the payments Shine received when he departed the network and the millions he continues to rake in may be in breach of ethic laws.

“21st Century’s Fox’s previous and ongoing payments to Mr. Shine of millions of dollars in severance payments raise questions about his compliance with federal conflict of interest statutes and regulations,” they wrote.

Senate To Consider Criminal Justice Reform Legislation

Mitch McConnell has just announced that Senate will take up criminal justice reform legislation.

The First Step Act had been pushed by President Donald Trump but had divided the Senate Republican caucus. However, a majority of Senate Republicans eventually have embraced the deal, which is expected to be supported by most Democrats.

Tablet Magazine has an impressive investigation inside the Women’s March with some shocking revelations about the umbrella group that sponsored anti-Trump protests the day after the inauguration in 2017.

The group’s co-chairs have repeatedly made anti-semitic remarks and it has contracted with Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam to provide security. Anti-semitism first raised its head in the group’s initial meeting

It was there that, as the women were opening up about their backgrounds and personal investments in creating a resistance movement to Trump, Perez and Mallory allegedly first asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people—and even, according to a close secondhand source, claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade. These are canards popularized by The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam—“the bible of the new anti-Semitism,” according to Henry Louis Gates Jr., who noted in 1992: “Among significant sectors of the black community, this brief has become a credo of a new philosophy of black self-affirmation.”

Things seem very calm and normal outside the House Judiciary Committee before Sunder Pichai’s testimony

Nancy Pelosi is reportedly discussing a deal to limit her tenure as Speaker to four years with Democratic rebels.

The septuagenarian Pelosi who needs the support of 218 Democrats on the floor in January had previously refused to back any term limits.

Google CEO to testify

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai will testify before Congress this morning as my colleague Julia Carrie Wong reports:

Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, is set to testify before the House judiciary committee on Tuesday morning, three months after his company thumbed its nose at Congress by failing to appear alongside Facebook and Twitter at a Senate hearing on election interference.

Pichai will probably face questions on data and privacy issues, Google’s controversial plan to build a censored search engine for China, and allegations of partisan political bias – a subject of outsized fixation for Republican lawmakers.

In written testimony released on Monday, Pichai appeared intent on countering the narrative, which has been baselessly promoted by Donald Trump and other Republican politicians, that Google is suppressing conservative viewpoints on its platforms.

Updated

Mark Meadows tells reporters that he has yet to talk about the position of White House chief of staff that he has been floated for.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who has been mooted as a potential primary challenger to Trump, has struck some unsubtle never-Trump notes while speaking at a conference of conservative Trump skeptics this morning.

Trump supporters in New Hampshire are contemplating an effort to change state party rules and allow the New Hampshire GOP to formally endorse Trump’s re-election.

The change would be a major break in tradition in the first-in-the-nation primary state and further stack the deck against any 2020 primary challenger to Trump.

A former Trump campaign staffer who accused the campaign of sexual harassment has been ordered to pay almost $25,000 for violating a nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Jessica Denson had previously sued to void that agreement claiming that she suffered “pervasive slander, aggravated harassment, attempted theft, cyberbullying and sexual discrimination and harassment” from her supervisor.

The campaign took her to an arbitration proceeding where Denson did not participate where it was awarded $24,808 . The former staffer is now suing Trump’s campaign over the arbitrator’s award

Opening summary

Good morning.

Donald Trump is meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi at the White House today about a looming government shutdown, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is testifying on Capitol Hill and Paul Manafort’s lawyers will appear in court in Washington this afternoon.

It’s Tuesday in American politics.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
If You Find Joy In Learning Interesting And Fun Facts, Here Are 63 That Might Surprise You
This collection dives into some of the most interesting facts shared online, from surprising truths about animals to little-known details about the human body. Each one is quick, curious, and just intriguing enough to keep you scrolling.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Blake Lively sees most of her claims dismissed in a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni dismissed
After a federal judge ruled that only a narrowed portion of the case will proceed to trial, Blake Lively has seen most of her claims dismissed in a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni.
BANG Premier
BANG Premier
Check Your Medicine Cabinet: 5 Cough Drops Recalled Over Safety Concerns
It’s easy to overlook the small items in your medicine cabinet, especially something as routine as cough drops. Most of us grab them without a second thought, trusting they’re safe and effective. However, recent recalls have raised concerns about certain products that may pose unexpected health risks. From contamination issues…
Budget and the Bees
Budget and the Bees
Louis CK to headline Hollywood Bowl for Netflix festival
Headlining set for Netflix Is a Joke festival marks first outing with major streamer since misconduct allegations in 2017
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
“Who the F are the Cockroaches?”: Just the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world… perhaps
The Stones have used the guise before, and could be doing so again?
MusicRadar
MusicRadar
“Screams Disappointment”: Mom’s M&M Washing Hack Sparks Debate After Daughter’s Reaction Goes Viral
“What is the purpose here? If it's unhealthy, it's completely unhealthy,” one comment read.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play