Trump news: President vows to be 'unborn' children's strongest defender at abortion rally as impeachment trial gets back underway
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has bemoaned the Senate impeachment trial rules set by Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell after realising the first day of his defence team’s opening argument will take place on Saturday, “which is called Death Valley in TV”, he noted, because viewer ratings are likely to be lower than they would be on a week night.
On Friday afternoon Mr Trump made history by becoming the first sitting president to attend the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington, DC, as he seeks to shore up conservative support ahead of November’s election.
Just before that speech, his administration announced that it would cut federal funding streams to California unless the liberal state revokes rules that require abortion coverage by health insurers.
During Mr Trump's speech to the anti-abortion group, he drew attention for claiming that unborn babies had never had a "stronger defender" in history, and pledged to maintain his support for religious liberties.
The Democratic impeachment managers have meanwhile continued to make the case against the president in the upper chamber on Thursday, focusing on abuse of power and accusing the administration and Fox News of pursuing “completely bogus, Kremlin-pushed” conspiracy theories as a pretext to cheat in 2020 by leaning on Ukraine for a political favour to damage possible rival Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that dozens of US service members who were present when Iran attacked an Iraqi base suffered from brain injuries, contradicting Mr Trump's previous comments that they simply had headaches after the blast.
Many of those soldiers were transported to the United States for treatment, while others were taken to Germany.
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Trump to make history at March for Life despite declaring in 1999: 'I am very pro-choice'
It was just four years ago that a political committee supporting one of Trump's Republican rivals unveiled an ad slamming his views on abortion, complete with footage from an October 1999 Meet the Press interview in which he declared, "I am pro-choice in every respect."
Now, as he heads into the 2020 election, Trump will become the first sitting president to address the March for Life, taking the stage Friday at the annual anti-abortion gathering that is one of the movement's highest profile and most symbolic events.
It is Trump's latest nod to the white evangelical voters who have proven to be among his most loyal backers. And it makes clear that, as he tries to stitch together a winning coalition for reelection, Trump is counting on the support of his base of conservative activists to help bring him across the finish line.
"I think it's a brilliant move," said Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and one of Trump's most prominent evangelical supporters. Reed said the president's appearance would "energise and remind pro-life voters what a great friend this president and administration has been."
Past presidents who opposed abortion, including Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, steered clear of personally attending the march to avoid being too closely associated with demonstrators eager to outlaw the procedure. They sent remarks for others to deliver, spoke via telephone hookup or invited organisers to visit the White House.
Over the last 10 years, however, the Republican Party has undergone a "revolution," displaying a new willingness to "embrace the issue as not only being morally right but politically smart," said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B Anthony List and Women Speak Out PAC. The group is planning to spend $52m (£40m) this cycle to help elect candidates opposed to abortion rights. Its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, will serve as national co-chair of a new campaign coalition, "Pro-life Voices for Trump."
Over time, both Republican and Democrat parties have taken harder-line positions for and against abortion rights.
"There used to be a middle in this country and candidates would not want to alienate the middle," said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under President George W Bush. "And it just seems that that is over and that both parties play to their bases to get maximum turnout from their base."
In addition, Flesicher said, Trump is far less tethered to tradition than past presidents and "happy to go where his predecessors haven't."
During his first three years in office, Trump has embraced socially conservative policies, particularly on the issue of abortion. He's appointing judges who oppose abortion, cutting taxpayer funding for abortion services and painting Democrats who support abortion rights as extreme in their views.
"President Trump has done more for the pro-life community than any other president, so it is fitting that he would be the first president in history to attend the March for Life on the National Mall," said White House spokesman Judd Deere.
This is not the first time Trump has given serious consideration to an appearance. Last year, he reportedly wanted to go and came close to attending. But the trip never came together because of concerns about security so Trump joined the event via video satellite from the White House Rose Garden instead.
Trump's thinking on the matter was simple: If he supported the cause, "why wouldn't he show up to their big event?" said Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union and a close ally of the White House. He said the appearance would be deeply significant for those in participants.
"I've had people be moved to tears over the fact that he's going," said Schlapp. "It's a big deal."
While Schlapp said he didn't think Trump's decision to attend was driven by election-year politics, he said it was nonetheless a "smart move politically" as well as "the right move morally."
"It will cement even tighter the relationship that he has with conservative activists across the country," Schlapp said.
During his video address last year, Trump sent a clear message to the thousands of people braving the cold on the National Mall. "As president, I will always defend the first right in our Declaration of Independence, the right to life," he said.
The rhetoric underscored Trump's dramatic evolution on the issue from his days as a freewheeling New York deal-maker.
During his 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination, Trump said his views had changed and that he was now opposed to abortion, but for three exceptions: In the case of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk.
Yet Trump's unfamiliarity with the language of abortion activism was clear, including when he offered a bungled response during a televised town hall and was forced to clarify his position on abortion three times in a single day. Asked, hypothetically, what would happen if abortion were outlawed, Trump said there would have to "be some form of punishment" for women who have them, prompting a backlash that managed to unite abortion rights activists and opponents, including organisers of the March for Life.
Asked to clarify his position, Trump's campaign initially issued a statement saying he believed the issue should rest with state governments. He later issued a second statement that said doctors, not women, should be punished for illegal abortions.
Since that time, however, Trump has - to the shock of many - become a darling of the anti-abortion movement.
Critics, for their part, accuse Trump of using the march to try to distract from his impeachment trial in the Senate.
AP
Trump blames it on Obama
In amongst the president's ongoing deluge of Greg Jarrett retweets, he singled out his least favourite Dems for further criticism and blamed their "derangement" on his predecessor in the Oval Office.
Trump to unveil long-awaited Middle East peace plan next week
As Trump prepares to host Israeli leaders in Washington to reveal details of his long-delayed Middle East peace plan, Palestinians warned on Friday that no deal could work without them on board.
Trump invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival centrist former general Benny Gantz to the White House next week, saying he would unveil the plan before his Tuesday meeting with Netanyahu.But Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said there had been no communication with the Trump administration, and that no peace deal could be implemented without "the approval of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership".
"This is the only way if they are serious, if they are looking for stability in the whole region," Rudeinah said.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014 and Palestinians have called Trump's proposal dead in the water, even before its publication, citing what they see as his pro-Israel policies. The Palestinians have boycotted political dealings with the Trump administration since it reversed decades of US policy on the conflict, splintering the international consensus.
It has refused to endorse the two-state solution - the longtime international peace formula that envisages a Palestinian state established in territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. The Trump administration also recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved its embassy there, and announced that Washington no longer views Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land as "inconsistent with international law".
(Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)
Palestinians and most of the international community see the settlements as illegal under the 1949 Geneva Conventions that bar populating land captured in war. Israel disputes this, citing historical, Biblical and political connections to the land, as well as security needs. Palestinians obtained limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank under mid-1990s interim peace accords. They now seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew from tiny Gaza in 2005.
Trump, speaking to reporters on his flight home from the World Economic Forum in Davos, acknowledged Palestinians might react negatively to his plan at first but that "it's actually very positive for them": "It's a great plan. It's a plan that really would work."
By contrast Netanyahu immediately accepted Trump's invite. "I think the president is seeking to give Israel the peace and security that it deserves," he said on Thursday,
The political aspects of Trump's peace initiative have been kept under wraps. Only the economic proposals have been unveiled, anchored by a $50bn (£38bn) regional development plan - which Palestinians spurned as it did not address an end to Israeli occupation.
Israeli headlines on Friday referred to the "Trump Summit" and "Trump Deal". Nahum Barnea, a political analyst in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, expected "an American green light" for Israel to annex West Bank settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley, which forms the border with Jordan to the east.
Palestinian newspapers highlighted warnings that such moves would end peace chances and pitch the region into a "new phase".
In Tel Aviv, Israelis appeared generally supportive of their leaders going to Washington, even without Palestinians.
In explaining the US change of stance on settlements this month, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the new approach would actually advance peace with the Palestinians "by (speaking) the truth when the facts lead to it".
Trump administration attacks California over abortion plans and threatens to pull federal funding
The Trump administration has told California that it will lose federal money unless it stops requiring health insurance plans to provide abortion coverage, marking the latest attack on abortion access amid an ongoing and heated national debate.
Clark Mindock has the latest on this.
'Get rid of her!' Trump reportedly caught on tape calling for Marie Yovanovitch firing
Wow. ABC News says it has a tape on which the president is heard ordering the sacking of the then-US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, which would go a long way to back up Giuliani associate Lev Parnas's version of events if it's authenticated.
The recording was reportedly made on 30 April 2018 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, with Parnas and his business partner Igor Fruman in attendance.
"The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," Parnas can be heard telling Trump in the audio in question, according to ABC. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait'."
"Get rid of her!" is the apparent response from the president. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it."
Yovanovitch was duly fired last May, with communications recently released by Parnas to House investigators heavily suggesting she was being spied on in Kiev by Trump operative named Rob Hyde, who appeared to have access to her phone and laptop.
The ambassador appeared before congressional investigators in November to accuse Giuliani of orchestrating a smear campaign against, saying she felt "intimidated" by Trump's tweeting about her while she gave her deposition.
Trump has repeatedly and emphatically denied knowing Parnas, meanwhile, which is very clearly untrue.
Republican complicity with Trump 'a permanent stain' on GOP
This chap on Morning Joe today says Republican complicity in the Trumpian cover-up that is the Senate impeachment trial will be a "permanent stain" on the GOP that will be remembered by "an entire generation of voters".
While that would be entirely deserved given the antics of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Doug Collins, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz et all, I'm just not sure it's true.
Meanwhile, Citizens for Ethics has this stinging take on Trump's appointment of Alan Dershowitz as legal counsel...
...as Stephanie Grisham appears on Fox to gaslight the world on Mick Mulvaney's notorious quid pro quo confession.
Trump called them 'headaches', the Pentagon calls 'em 'traumatic brain injuries'
Read our latest in the unfolding story of what happened to troops in Iraq when Iran attacked.
Trump promises winning on abortion
From The Independent's Washington DC bureau chief John T Bennett: Mr Trump told an anti-abortion rally in Washington that House Democrats impeached him and are arguing for the Senate to remove him because he is pushing a conservative agenda.
"They are coming after me because I am fighting for you. … We will win because we know how to win," he said at the March for Life on the National Mall.
Warren responds to dad who confronted her on student loans
Elizabeth Warren was confronted by a dad who suggested her plan to relieve people of student loans is an affront to people who "did the right thing" by saving money for their children so they would not have to take on college loan debt.
The man suggested he had done so for his child, and chosen to not take things like vacations or buy somewhat luxurious items so he could do so. It's a criticism that has been leveled at Ms Warren for her plan, even as the student debt crisis has ballooned in the United States.
Ms Warren has responded to the issue during an interview with CBS News, saying she is not simply leaving those who planned out to dry — but noted that past legislation like Social Security has resulted in similar disadvantages for some.
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