A new OnSight poll in Colorado finds Sen. Cory Gardner’s (R-CO) efforts to keep President Trump at arm’s length may be hurting his support among Republicans. His approval among GOP voters was 63% — a far cry from the 83% of Colorado Republicans who approved of Trump.
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A Terrible Week for Donald Trump
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Nazi Group Claims Top Trump Aide as Member
Sebastian Gorka, President Trump’s top counter-terrorism adviser, is a formal member of a Hungarian far-right group that is listed by the U.S. State Department as having been “under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany” during World War II, leaders of the organization have told the Forward.
King Says GOP Colleagues Are Supporting Him
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says he hasn’t been getting much pushback from fellow House Republicans about his controversial tweet over the weekend saying that “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” The Hill reports.
Said King: “My colleagues have generally been coming by and patting me on the back. And a surprising number have said that they pray for me. And, meaning they support me and they agree with me, a surprising number.”
He added: “I don’t often have members come up and say at the end of the day, ‘I prayed for you this morning.’ So they must think I’ve got a lot of arrows in my back.”
Quote of the Day
“There’s not a person in Washington who thinks that there actually was a wiretap, that this is true… It makes you question the credibility of the president on anything.”
— Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News.
Trump Says He Never Forgets Who Didn’t Endorse Him
President Trump hasn’t forgotten Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) decision not to endorse him and wasn’t timid in bringing it up during his visit to the state, Politico reports.
Said Trump as he posed for a photo op: “Come on governor, even though you didn’t endorse me.”
He added: “I never forget.”
Collins Won’t Support House GOP Health Care Plan
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said that she opposes the House Republican health care bill being debated in Congress, the Portland Press Herald reports.
“Though the moderate Republican previously has raised concerns about the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, she had not previously said she was against it.”
Said Collins: “This is not a bill I could support in its current form. It really misses the mark.”
Tillerson Rejects Talks with North Korea
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ruled out opening any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and said for the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action “if they elevate the threat of their weapons program” to an unacceptable level, the New York Times reports.
“The secretary of state’s comments were the Trump administration’s first public hint at the options being considered, and they made clear that none involved a negotiated settlement or waiting for the North Korean government to collapse.”
Said Tillserson: “The policy of strategic patience has ended.”
U.S. Apologizes to Britain for Accusations
The United States has made a formal apology to Britain after the White House accused GCHQ of helping Barack Obama spy on Donald Trump in the White House, the Telegraph reports.
“Sean Spicer, Mr Trump’s press secretary, repeated a claim on Thursday evening – initially made by an analyst on Fox News – that GCHQ was used by Mr Obama to spy on Trump Tower in the lead-up to last November’s election.”
Trump Voters Lose In His Proposed Budget
“Some of the biggest losers in President Trump’s proposed budget are the rural communities that fueled his stunning White House victory,” the Boston Globe reports.
“Funding that keeps rural airports open, grants that help build rural water and sewer projects, and money for long-distance Amtrak lines that serve rural communities would all disappear under Trump’s budget blueprint released Thursday.”
“Trump also wants to kill the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps people, including seniors on fixed incomes and the working poor, to pay their heating bills. It’s a particularly prized resource in New England, with its brutal winters. Also on the chopping block: funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission, which seeks to boost economic development in a region that strongly supported Trump. Into the dustbin, too, would go the US Chemical Safety Board, an agency that has open investigations in Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Kansas, and last September wrapped up a probe of a West Virginia chemical spill that left more than 300,000 people without usable water for a time.”
Campaign Pledges Haunt Trump In Court
“In quick succession on Wednesday night, federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland blocked President Trump’s revised travel ban. They said statements Mr. Trump had made as a presidential candidate, including his call for ‘a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,’ helped doom the executive order,” the New York Times reports.
“The judges said Mr. Trump’s promises to impose a “Muslim ban” were too telling and categorical to be ignored.”
“Outside the context of Mr. Trump’s two travel bans, few judicial rulings have addressed how much weight courts may put on statements from political candidates… But decisions about religious discrimination allow courts to consider government officials’ real purposes, even if their stated ones are neutral.”
GOP Leaders Want Details Before Funding Border Wall
“Republican leaders in Congress want more details from President Trump about his proposed border wall before appropriating significant funding for the project,” The Hill reports.
“They have questions about the design and how the administration would handle the rights of property owners whose land would be used to build the structure.”
Tillerson Hopes Avoiding Conflict Will Lead to Influence
“While he has swallowed a big budget cut, had his chosen deputy vetoed, and been dismissed as invisible in his own building, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is playing a patient game to gain influence by avoiding public conflicts with the White House,” Reuters reports.
“The former Exxon Mobil Corp CEO faces multiple challenges in his unfamiliar role as chief U.S. diplomat, including a boss in U.S. President Donald Trump who makes unpredictable policy pronouncements and does not take kindly to criticism or contradiction.”
Oklahoma Lawmaker Arrested for Soliciting Sex from Boy
Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey (R) was arrested after he was caught in a motel with an underage male, the Advocate reports.
“Police in Moore, Okla., are now recommending three charges: soliciting prostitution of a minor, prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church, and transporting for the purpose of prostitution. A redacted police report indicates the child’s father watched him enter a Super8 motel with Shortey and then called police, who smelled marijuana wafting from the room. When confronted by police, Shortey — married to a woman and the father of two children — said he was just hanging out with a friend. But messages on a digital device showed the politician was asking for ‘sexual stuff’ in exchange for money.”
Trump Will Appeal Ruling Blocking Travel Ban
The Trump administration “will appeal the court rulings that blocked his second attempt at restricting travel to the U.S. for people from six predominately Muslim countries,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said White House spokesman Sean Spicer: “We intend to appeal the flawed rulings. We expect action to be taken soon.”
Flynn Was Paid by Russian Firms
“President Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, was paid tens of thousands of dollars by Russian companies shortly before he became a formal adviser to the then-candidate, according to documents obtained by a congressional oversight committee that revealed business interests that hadn’t been previously known,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Trump ‘Stands By’ Allegations About Obama
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that President Trump “stands by” his allegation that former President Obama “ordered wiretapping surveillance of Trump Tower last fall,” the Washington Post reports.
“Earlier Thursday, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said their investigation into the matter so far has turned up no evidence that the U.S. government had conducted surveillance on Trump Tower in New York, either before or after the election on Nov. 8.”
GOP Lawmakers Push Back on Trump Budget
Washington Post: “Defense hawks, rural conservatives and even some of Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in Congress sharply criticized the president’s first budget proposal on Thursday, pushing back on the huge potential hike in defense spending as insufficient and decrying some other cuts to federal agencies and programs.”
“Capitol Hill Republicans, however, did not seem terribly worried about the prospect of such a budget being enacted, stating matter-of-factly that it is Congress, after all, that controls the purse strings.”
