Source: Politico



By NAHAL TOOSI and DAN DIAMOND 10/31/2018 04:53 PM EDT

U.S. diplomats may soon be prohibited from using the phrases “sexual and reproductive health” and “comprehensive sexuality education” under a proposal being floated to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, four people familiar with the issue said.

The proposal is being pushed by a handful of conservative political appointees at the State Department and other agencies, including Mari Stull, an adviser at State whose alleged mistreatment of career government staffers has already sparked multiple federal investigations.

It was not immediately clear what sort of direct policy changes, if any, could result from eliminating such terms, which have been used for years in domestic and international communications.

But changing the terms could lead to more contentious negotiations at the United Nations and other forums over language used for resolutions and agreements. It also could complicate matters for some non-governmental groups that receive U.S. funding and opt to stick with the traditional terms.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/31/state-department-ban-terms-sexual-health-907134

By Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker October 31 at 11:52 AM

President Trump is mobilizing the vast powers of the military and other parts of the federal government to help bolster Republican election efforts, using the office of the presidency in an attempt to dictate the campaigns’ closing themes and stoke the fears and anxieties of his supporters ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Trump in recent days has made aggressive moves aimed at pushing policies that could boost Republicans next week — deploying thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in the largest such operation since the Mexican Revolution, floating the idea ending birthright citizenship and warning he intends to halt the caravan of Central American migrants.

The president has also moved to lower Medicare drug prices and suggested the idea of a 10 percent tax cut for the middle class, sending administration and congressional officials scrambling to assemble a new tax policy.

The cumulative acts reflect the extent to which Trump has transformed parts of the federal bureaucracy into a factory of threats, directives and actions — an outgrowth of a campaign strategy which the president and his political advisers settled on as their best chance to hold the Republican congressional majorities.

“This is the most focused and concerted effort to use all of the powers of the presidency to shape a midterm election that I have ever seen,” said William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program and a former domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pushing-every-button-trump-mobilizes-the-government-in-campaigns-final-days/2018/10/30/009067b2-dc52-11e8-b732-3c72cbf131f2_story.html

Source: Reuters




OCTOBER 31, 2018 / 3:55 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Mark Hosenball
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is pursuing a wide-ranging investigation into former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s activities during the 2016 presidential campaign, three sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters.

The committee is looking into what Bannon might know about any contacts during the campaign between Moscow and two advisers to the campaign, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, they said.

Papadopoulos, a consultant, initially advised the presidential campaign of Republican hopeful Ben Carson before joining the Trump campaign. Page is also a consultant, who had business contacts in Russia.

On Sept. 7, Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in prison. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about the timing and significance of his contacts with Russians, including a professor who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Trump’s Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.



Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-bannon/u-s-senate-panel-investigates-former-trump-aide-bannon-sources-idUSKCN1N52RU

‘I’ve never heard these numbers:’ CNN’s Jake Tapper stunned as Trump claims 30 million undocumented immigrants in US

“THERE’S GOING TO BE A LOT OF DEPARTURES”: FEARING A HOUSE WIPEOUT, TRUMP THROWS HAIL MARYS AS AIDES BRACE FOR STAFF CHANGES

White House insiders suggest that Kellyanne Conway and Steve Mnuchin are not long for this West Wing.

BY GABRIEL SHERMAN
OCTOBER 31, 2018 4:16 PM

n the days after the Senate confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a wave of optimism washed over Donald Trump’s West Wing. White House aides were buoyed by internal polling conducted by former Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio indicating that Republicans could conceivably hold both the Senate and the House in the forthcoming midterm elections, according to a person briefed on the data. “Trump’s mood was great,” a former West Wing official who spoke with him told me.

But as next Tuesday’s voting approaches, the mood inside the West Wing has darkened. The arrest of Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc for allegedly sending more than a dozen pipe bombs to the president’s political enemies, in addition to a horrific mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue by an avowed white nationalist, completely upended the dynamic. As The New York Times’s Peter Baker recently noted, Trump has been frustrated by his own inability to control the news cycle. Meanwhile, Fabrizio has leveled with the president’s advisers that Democrats will take the House, the source briefed on the polling told me. Trump has responded to this worsening political environment with extreme frustration. “He was really upset the momentum had been killed by the pipe bombs,” one Republican close to the White House told me. Another former White House official in touch with colleagues said that Trump’s mood has been grim. “The president is self-destructing,” the official said.

To forestall electoral disaster on Tuesday, advisers have been debating strategies for regaining momentum. One idea being discussed, according to a Republican briefed on the conversation, would be for Trump to deliver a prime-time Oval Office address on the topic of “unity.” Trump, however, shot down the notion and instead is lurching in the other direction: turning out his die-hard base with hard-core anti-media and anti-immigration rhetoric. The base messaging strategy is being driven by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine and outside advisers Corey Lewandowski and Dave Bossie, a person familiar with the situation told me. Bossie and Lewandowski did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump has followed their advice by ramping up his “enemy of the people”-style attacks on the media, and whipping up right-wing hysteria about the migrant caravan slowly wending its way through Mexico to the U.S. border. “That’s why he sent [more than] 5,000 troops down there. It’s obviously political,” an outside adviser said. This week, Trump told Axios’s Jonathan Swan that he’s considering ending birthright citizenship by executive order, a dubious maneuver that legal experts from both parties—including Kellyanne Conway’s own husband, George Conway—have reiterated would be rendered unconstitutional. “All of this feels like Hail Mary passes—throw red meat to drive turnout,” a former West Wing official said. “In a way, the Kavanaugh bump peaked too early.”

more
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/trump-aides-brace-for-shake-up-kellyanne-conway-steve-mnuchin-midterms

Source: Politico




By MATTHEW CHOI 10/31/2018 02:11 PM EDT

Former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back Wednesday on claims by President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans that the GOP can protect patients with pre-existing conditions better than Democrats, saying Republicans are either lying or "really stupid."

"They’re either not telling the truth or they’re really stupid," Biden said. "Because there's no way you can afford to cover pre-existing conditions without everybody being in on the deal."

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Republicans would do a better job covering pre-existing conditions, even as his party has worked to dismantle Obamacare, which prioritized those protections as a cornerstone component. The president tweeted Wednesday morning: "Republicans will protect people with pre-existing conditions far better than the Dems!"

Trump has made the claim a rallying cry to vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections, but public health experts have said the president's comments are incorrect, citing the Trump administration's efforts to unwind Obamacare. Democrats have likewise portrayed the election as a battle to protect health care coverage expanded under President Barack Obama.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/31/biden-pre-existing-conditions-951955

By BURGESS EVERETT 10/31/2018 12:55 PM EDT Updated 10/31/2018 04:00 PM EDT

Harry Reid on Wednesday said Donald Trump is "profoundly wrong" after the president quoted his 1993 position on revoking birthright citizenship in perhaps his harshest criticism of the president since leaving office.

The retired Nevada Democratic senator said in a statement that "around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake" by proposing a bill to remove birthright citizenship from immigrants who entered the country illegally. In a speech on the Senate floor 25 years ago, Reid said "no sane country" would offer a "reward for being an illegal immigrant."

Referring to that speech, Trump said Reid was correct "before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings massive Crime) 'stuff.'" And after fighting with Trump all through his election campaign, Reid fired back on Wednesday that Trump "can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong.”

"After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, ‘Harry, what are you doing, don’t you know that my father is an immigrant?’ She set me straight. And in my 36 years in Washington, there is no more valuable lesson I learned than the strength and power of immigrants and no issue I worked harder on than fixing our broken immigration system," said Reid, a former Senate majority and minority leader. "Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation. They are our power and our strength. This president wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify."

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/31/reid-trump-immigration-950927

Source: Politico




By SCOTT BLAND 10/31/2018 01:49 PM EDT

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised more than $100 million online in the 2018 election cycle — a massive haul that has helped fuel Democrats’ drive to retake the House majority.

The DCCC passed the nine-figure mark on Tuesday, one week out from Election Day, with an average donation of $19, according to a committee aide. The committee had raised $67 million online by this point in the 2016 election, its previous record year.

The digital total comprises about 40 percent of the $250 million the DCCC has raised for the 2018 election as of its latest Federal Election Commission report.

“The outpouring of support from grass-roots donors has allowed us to invest in over 80 races, fund an unprecedented $30 million base engagement and turnout campaign, and hold Republicans accountable every step of the way,” Julia Ager, the DCCC’s chief digital officer, said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/31/dccc-fundraising-midterms-951082

Source: Politico




By REBECCA MORIN 10/31/2018 04:05 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned that Americans could "lose a lot of money" if Republicans don't do well in next week's midterm elections.

The president, speaking at an event at the White House, said that the U.S. has the "hottest economy right now in the world," but said that the results of the election could hammer the stock market.

"If the midterms for some reason don't do so well for Republicans, I think you're all going to lose a lot of money," he said. "I hate to say that. I think you're going to lose a lot of money."

National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow and adviser Ivanka Trump moderated the event, which was entitled "Our Pledge to America’s Workers."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/31/trump-economy-gop-midterms-2018-952129