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While speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated that former Vice President Joe Biden’s behavior “may haveRead More
Following last year’s disaster of a speaking tour, former president Bill Clinton and failed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton are againRead More
It’s Wednesday, April 3.
‣The House Judiciary Committee approved the authorization of a subpoena for the full Mueller report. Chairman Jerry Nadler said that the committee would not immediately issue the subpoena, but would instead give Attorney General William Barr “time to change his mind.”
‣Lori Lightfoot was elected as the first African American woman and openly gay mayor of Chicago.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
NATO’s 70th Anniversary: Addressing a joint session of Congress, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg outlined arguments over spending and a list of other issues, but assured the audience that “open discussions and different views is not a sign of weakness.” The visit demonstrated that Donald Trump, who has been critical of NATO, is now learning to live with it. One country, though, still wants in: Georgia, a neighbor to Russia, has been pushing to be part of the alliance since at least 2003.
The Never-Ending Campaign: Normally, a president enters the White House ready to govern and eager to unite the country. Not Donald Trump. Instead, the 45th president’s rallies have gotten angrier—and more unhinged from reality, writes Peter Nicholas.
via Twitter
Does Pete Buttigieg Have Staying Power?: The South Bend, Indiana, mayor has captivated the internet and raised an impressive amount of money. But is his momentum sustainable, or is it merely a blip, like the boomlets (think Herman Cain’s, in 2012) of past elections? David Graham explores how Buttigieg compares.
+ Meanwhile, another potential 2020 candidate has emerged: the Michigan Republican Justin Amash, who says he’s considering being the Libertarian Party’s standard-bearer.
‘Social Norms Are Changing’: In response to recent accusations from women who say he has made them uncomfortable with unwanted contact, former Vice President Joe Biden promised to “be more mindful about respecting personal space.” More than anything else, writes Alex Wagner, Biden’s inclination toward physical contact “is his radiocarbon date: the thing that fixes his age most precisely, that tags him as a creature from another era.”
Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot smiles during a press conference at the Rainbow PUSH organization in Chicago. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / AP)
A Predictable Coda to the Waco Biker Gunfight (Conor Friedersdorf)
“Roughly 200 bikers were arrested on May 17, 2015, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald; 155 were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity; many were held on $1 million bond. But prosecutors announced yesterday that they were dismissing all remaining cases. In the end, just one biker was brought to trial.” → Read on.
Nothing Trump Said Was True (David Dayen)
“Trump’s prepresidential game-playing, then, should be properly understood as on the spectrum of normal in a financial netherworld that the U.S. government does too little to regulate.” → Read on.
The Democratic Party Is Radicalizing (Peter Wehner)
“If you want to understand just how radicalized the Democratic Party has become in recent years, look at the ascent of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A self-proclaimed socialist, Sanders served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and was then elected to the House in 1990 and the Senate in 2006. It’s hard to overstate just how left-wing Sanders’s views have been, at least by the standards of American politics.” → Read on.
‣She Survived a Slave Ship, the Civil War, and the Depression. Her Name Was Redoshi. (Sandra E. Garcia, The New York Times) (? Paywall)
‣How the Pentagon Budget Is a Threat to the Middle Class (Jonathan Askonas, The American Conservative)
‣Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Countercultural Approach to Christianity Is What America Needs Now (Kirsten Powers, USA Today)
‣Pork Industry Soon Will Have More Power Over Meat Inspections (Kimberly Kindy, The Washington Post) (? Paywall)
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Shortly before 2 p.m., a tanker truck overturned as part of a multi-vehicle crash just prior the American Legion Bridge. The cleanup from th
Two-plus years into the Trump presidency, NATO is learning to live with the United States president, and vice versa. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been praised for his deft touch with Donald Trump—for making him feel that his concerns are heard while still defending NATO’s value. For his part, Trump has long been skeptical of military alliances, contending that well-heeled nations shouldn’t rely on the U.S. defense umbrella without picking up more of the cost.
“In an ideal world, we would not need to spend any more on defense,” Stoltenberg told a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, displaying his dexterousness. “But we do not live in an ideal world. Freedom has enemies, and they need to be deterred.”
The Norwegian had come at the invitation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to address a legislative body that has expressed overwhelming support for NATO —even as President Trump has criticized its members over defense spending and shaken long-held assumptions about America’s commitment to the alliance. Stoltenberg, having praised the alliance for safeguarding peace in Europe, and having thanked America in particular for its contributions to the cause, echoed the president’s message: “NATO allies must spend more on defense. This has been the clear message from President Trump, and this message is having a real impact.”
[Read: The West takes NATO for granted. One country still wants in.]
Meanwhile, the alliance faces an expansionist Russia determined to divide it. The more points of tension develop, the more opportunities Russia could have to exploit them.
Stoltenberg, twice Norway’s prime minister and the head of NATO since 2014, ticked off a list of those disagreements in his speech: over trade, energy, the Iran deal, climate change. He could have added Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw most U.S. troops from Syria; European energy purchases from Russia; creeping authoritarianism in NATO members such as Hungary and Turkey; or Turkish weapons purchases from Russia. Still, Stoltenberg noted that disputes have erupted among NATO members in the past—the French withdrawal from military cooperation in 1966, the divisive Iraq War debates in 2003. And still the alliance is poised to celebrate its 70th year on Thursday. “Open discussions and different views is not a sign of weakness,” he said. “It is a sign of strength.”
Previous presidents have raised the spending issue, though Trump has stood out for the harshness of his rhetoric, including a reported threat at a NATO conference in Brussels last summer to “go it alone” if the allies didn’t pay up. But there’s been a difference between his rhetoric and his administration’s policy. In practice, Trump’s administration has been hard on Russia and supportive of Europe, notwithstanding his stated desire to get along with Russia and his belittling of some European leaders.
[Richard Fontaine: Trump gets NATO backwards]
“There’s this argument within the policy community about policies versus words,” says Rachel Rizzo, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security who works in its transatlantic-security program. “Trump uses harsh words all the time. It’s something that we’ve gotten used to.” At the same time, she noted the administration has increased spending on the European Deterrence Initiative, which is aimed at preventing regional aggression. The U.S. has put more troops into the Baltics and eastern Europe. “Our commitment to NATO is strong,” Rizzo says.
The disconnect does, however, fuel anxiety over the U.S. commitment, especially after Trump sparked deep concern in Washington, D.C., and Brussels by initially declining to publicly endorse NATO’s Article 5 commitment to collective defense (he did so halfway through his first year in office). At times Trump has seemed at odds with the pro-alliance wing of his own government. In the summer of 2017, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Montenegro, a NATO ally, where he reassured Balkan leaders that the U.S. would be a bulwark against Russian aggression. A year later, Trump said in an interview with Fox News that Montenegro is home to “very aggressive people” whose actions could touch off “World War III.”
Another source of tension has been Trump’s decision to withdraw most U.S. troops from Syria, which took European officials by surprise. This was followed up with a Trump-administration demand that the Europeans stay to deal with the aftermath. One European official told The Atlantic that when Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made this expectation clear at a conference in Munich in February, the Europeans pushed back, saying: We’re in together, and we’re out together. Trump ultimately opted to leave some 400 U.S. troops in the theater.
Trump has been particularly focused on the idea that the U.S. bears an unfair share of the burden to protect Europe—an argument that resonated with his core voters in the 2016 presidential campaign and is part of his broader complaint that the U.S. had been exploited in trade pacts and in a host of dealings with other nations. Europeans have actually been stepping up spending since the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2015, although Trump has taken credit for some of the increases, with Stoltenberg’s encouragement. Still, Trump has continued to insist that the allies meet a defense-spending target they all said they’d aim for back in 2014—when each country committed to move toward spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, without specifying a timeline.
Germany has recently been a flash point in this debate, and it shows why it’s difficult even for a wealthy country to simply raise defense spending. Vice President Mike Pence met privately with German officials in Munich in February, and pressed them to boost their country’s financial contribution to NATO. Germany is wealthy enough to comply with the 2 percent goal, administration officials believe.
When Pence made his case, his German counterparts balked, citing their own domestic politics, according to a White House official familiar with the matter. And they made clear it could be years before they were able to raise military-spending levels.
The German position was very much, “Thank you for what you’re doing. We need you to do more because our own domestic politics makes it impossible for us to get there,” the White House official said.
In an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday with Stoltenberg, the president returned to the same sore point: Germany. The country, he told reporters, is “not paying what they should be paying.”
Appearing at a NATO summit meeting in Brussels last year, Trump upbraided Germany for its natural-gas-pipeline deal with Russia. He tweeted: “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy. Why are there only 5 out of 29 countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade.”
One Western diplomat told The Atlantic that Trump should avoid the appearance of bullying Germany on military spending. Such aggressive messages can boomerang. The diplomat said that “it can actually be harder for Germany to spend more if it looks as though they are bowing to U.S. pressure.”
Apart from that, Trump’s tight focus on the 2 percent goal minimizes other contributions that aren’t measured in financial terms.
“As an example,” the diplomat said, “Greece has met the 2 percent threshold, Denmark has not. However, Denmark has sacrificed a significant amount and has been an invaluable member of the alliance.”
Strains were evident during Vice President Mike Pence’s afternoon speech at an international conference marking the 70-year anniversary. Echoing the president, Pence again took aim at Germany and cautioned that NATO is not a “unilateral security guarantee.”
He received polite applause throughout the 25-minute address from the European and NATO diplomats in attendance. But when Pence sought to celebrate Trump—crediting the president with “resolute leadership” that had strengthened NATO—no one clapped.
Yara Bayoumy contributed reporting.
CHICAGO (CBS) — Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday he plans to have the city’s Law Department bill “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett for the costs of the Chicago Police Department investigation that determined he was lying about being the victim of a hate crime in January.
The mayor said CPD is still calculating the total cost of the investigation, and when it’s done, the mayor will have the city’s Corporation Counsel send a bill to Smollett and his attorneys to try to recoup those costs.
“Given that he doesn’t feel any sense of contrition and remorse, my recommendation is when he writes the check, in the memo section, he can put the word ‘I’m accountable for the hoax,’” Emanuel said at an unrelated event on Thursday.
“My recommendation is when he writes the check, in the memo section he can put the word, I’m ‘accountable’ for the hoax.” @ChicagosMayor Rahm Emanuel says Jussie Smollett “doesn’t feel any sense of contrition and remorse” after charges against him dropped. pic.twitter.com/Bv1ttslmUO
— CBS Chicago (@cbschicago) March 28, 2019
Emanuel also responded to President Donald Trump’s claim on Twitter that the FBI and Justice Department will review the Smollett case, after Cook County prosecutors dropped the charges against Smollett this week.
Although Emanuel himself has criticized that decision, saying police had solid evidence Smollett was guilty, the mayor said Trump should butt out.
“My recommendation is the president go to Opening Day baseball, sit on the sideline, stay out of this. You created a toxic environment,” Emanuel said.
The mayor pointed to President Trump’s comments about a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a counter protester was killed. The president said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the protests.
“The only reason Jussie Smollett thought he could take advantage of a hoax about a hate crime is from the environment, the toxic environment that Donald Trump created. This is a president who drew a moral equivalency between people who are trying to perpetuate bigotry and those who are trying to fight bigotry,” Emanuel said. “President Trump should literally take his politics, move it aside. He’s created a toxic environment, now he’s created a toxic, vicious cycle.”
The unusual move by prosecutors to drop the charges without a plea deal allowed Smollett’s attorneys to get the case sealed. If he wants to get his case formally expunged, his lawyers would have to file a motion with Presiding Cook County Criminal Court Judge LeRoy Martin. If and when that happens, the records in the case would be briefly unsealed, and anyone could file an objection to expunging the records.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office volunteered to notify the media if and when Smollett’s attorneys file a motion to expunge the case, so they would have an opportunity to object. Martin said it typically takes 70 days to close out an expungement request, and the law allows a 60-day period for objections to be filed.
STATEMENT FROM JUSSIE SMOLLETT’S ATTORNEY, PATRICIA BROWN HOLMES
“We support the court files being preserved. We have not and will not file a motion for destruction of any records in this case.”
— Charlie De Mar (@CharlieDeMar) March 28, 2019
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Smollett’s attorneys said they “have not and will not file a motion for destruction of any records in this case.”
“We support the court files being preserved,” attorney Patricia Brown Holmes stated in an email.
Smollett has maintained his innocence.
The actor, who is black and openly gay, had told police he was attacked as he was walking home around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29. He claimed two masked men – one of them also wearing a red hat – shouted racist and homophobic slurs as they beat him, put a noose around his neck, and poured a chemical on him.
Police said, in reality, Smollett had paid the two brothers $3,500 to stage the attack, because he was upset with his salary on “Empire.”
Emanuel said Smollett owes the city an apology, not just for the financial costs of the case, but for the damage to the city’s reputation.
“I think we’ve got to be clear about this, that there was an action here, in my view, that is a hoax,” Emanuel said. “The grand jury believed that. They were shown a sliver of evidence, and they came to a conclusion.”
“He has cost not only the city financially, that’s just one,” he added. “Also, a sense of the wrong he’s done by taking advantage of our values as a welcoming city that welcomes people of all walks of life and all backgrounds to feel comfortable in the city. So when he does pay the city back, on just purely what the taxpayers have fronted, in that memo section he can write ‘I’m sorry, and I’m accountable for what I’ve done.’”
Prosecutors have said, although they agreed to drop charges, they do not believe Smollett is innocent. They have said they dropped the case because Smollett had no previous violent criminal record, agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bail, and performed 16 hours of community service.
“It looks like the only non-sort of heavy socialist, he’s being taken care of pretty well by the socialists. TheyRead More
The New York Times has taken a critical look at what it calls former vice president Joe Biden’s “tactile style ofRead More
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden has a reputation for being a good retail politician who likes shaking hands, kissing babies and giving hugs. But his overly familiar style is getting new scrutiny in the #MeToo era.
It started with former Nevada State Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who accused Biden of awkwardly smelling her hair and kissing the back of her head as he was standing behind her in preparation to go on stage for a 2014 campaign event. That was followed by a smattering of other accusations of inappropriate touching by three more women.
While these stories are news because Biden is contemplating a 2020 run for president, these stories are not new. It’s not hard to find photos and videos of the former vice president cheekily stroking someone’s hair or putting his hands on a woman’s shoulders. In D.C., people have been joking about this for years.
But his old-school political style is now being re-examined in a modern era where respecting a woman’s personal space is a recognized issue. That’s somewhat in conflict with the political reality that Biden is topping the early 2020 polls, even before he’s technically announced.
Other 2020 Democratic hopefuls and the party don’t want to damage the person who might have the best chance of beating Donald Trump, so Democrats who are being asked about Biden are choosing their words carefully.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who is the de facto leader of the party until there’s an official Democratic candidate for president, told Politico Tuesday that she doesn’t believe Biden’s actions are “disqualifying.”
“He has to understand in the world that we’re in now that people’s space is important to them, and what’s important is how they receive it and not necessarily how you intended it,” she said.
For some progressive voters, Biden’s actions will turn them off from him. Especially when you couple it with his support of the 1994 crime bill and his treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. But in trying to figure out where the disqualification line is, it’s unlikely that the other 2020-ers or Pelosi or the party is going to make his touchiness a litmus test, especially if Biden is the best guy to beat the current president.
This segment originally aired April 2, 2019, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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