ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Trump Relished Rally Chant, Ocasio-Cortez tells Constituents in Queens

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday that President Donald Trump relished a chant by the crowd at a campaign rally this week that called for a Democratic congresswoman to be sent back where she came from. 

Trump renewed his criticism of four minority women lawmakers on Friday, saying that they had said horrible things about the United States, and defended himself from criticism over his comment that they should leave the United States if unhappy. 

A day after saying his audience in North Carolina went too far when they chanted “Send her back!” about Somalia-born Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, on Friday he defended the crowd members as “incredible patriots.” 

Appearing before her constituents in New York City for the first time since the latest flare-up between Trump and the four Democratic congresswomen, Ocasio-Cortez rejected the president’s statement that he had tried to quiet the crowd, saying he had egged them on instead. 

“Roll back the tape … He relished it. He took it in and he’s doing this intentionally,” the freshman U.S. lawmaker told about 200 constituents gathered for a town hall meeting on immigration at a school in the Corona section of Queens. 

Video of the crowd in North Carolina shouting “Send her back!” shows Trump pausing his speech and looking around the arena for about ten seconds. 

The president’s attacks on the four congresswomen – known on Capitol Hill as “the squad” – have been condemned by Democrats as racist, while many Republicans have shrugged them off. 

Last weekend Trump ignited a firestorm by tweeting the four should “go back” to where they came from if they do not like the United States. 

All four are American citizens. Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were born in the United States while Omar came as a refugee from Somalia and is a naturalized citizen. 

All four are known as sharp critics of Trump’s policies as well as the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Ocasio-Cortez said the president’s comments had been hurtful, but “men like him” have been telling women like her to go back to their own country for a long time. 

“We’re gonna stay right here,” she said to applause “That’s where we’re gonna go,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.” 

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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Heads to White House

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday in the White House. VOA’s Aman Azhar spoke to experts and Pakistani residents in United States about their expectations for the visit and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.

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Biden Likens Trump to Segregationist George Wallace

LOS ANGELES — Joe Biden, a former U.S. vice president and Democratic presidential candidate, has compared Republican President Donald Trump to the late George Wallace, a prominent supporter of racial segregation. 

Biden, in California for a two-day swing to campaign and raise funds, told a gathering on Friday that Trump is “more George Wallace than George Washington.” 

Wallace, remembered for his white supremacist views, served as Alabama’s governor for 20 years, beginning in 1967, and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination several times. 

His 1972 presidential bid ended when he was shot, but he survived. Wallace died in 1998. 

Biden’s comment came days after Trump said in a tweet that four U.S. congresswomen of color “should go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” 

The tweet kicked off a weeklong furor in Washington, with Democrats, and some Republicans, denouncing the comment as racist. Three of the four congresswomen were born in the United States, and all are U.S. citizens. 

“Our children are listening to this. What the president says matters. It matters, because the president is the face of the nation,” Biden said in California. 

Trump’s re-election campaign responded with a series of tweets highlighting what they said were Biden’s own past links to Wallace. 

Inspired by Charlottesville rally

Biden, 76, says he was inspired to launch his 2020 White House bid after a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman protesting was 
murdered. After the rally, Trump said that there were “good people on both sides.” 

Biden, who served under former Democratic President Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, has found his own record on race in the spotlight since launching his White House bid. 

Presidential rival Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California and a woman of color, challenged Biden on the issue during the first Democratic debate, leading to its most contentious exchange. 

Biden has also tried to tamp down criticism after recent comments that he, as a U.S. senator from Delaware in the 1970s, worked with two Southern segregationist senators to get things done. 

Biden has stressed that he entered politics in the early 1970s to fight for civil rights for minorities and civil liberties. 

Biden and Harris are two of 25 Democratic candidates vying to become the party’s nominee to take on Trump in the November 2020 election. The two Democrats will face off in a second televised debate on July 31. 

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FACT CHECK: Trump and Democrats on an Incendiary Week

President Donald Trump attributed statements to a Democratic congresswoman that she didn’t make as he set off an incendiary week of vilification with accusations that she and three other lawmakers of color hate America.

The episode roiled the capital and excited Trump’s North Carolina rally, overshadowing distortions in rhetoric that came from many quarters and from both parties on a variety of matters over the last week-plus — the Democratic presidential campaign among them.

A sampling:

LOVING AMERICA

TRUMP quotes Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., as saying: “You don’t say ‘America’ with this intensity. You say ‘al-Qaida,’ it makes you proud. Al-Qaida makes you proud. You don’t speak that way about America.” — North Carolina rally on Wednesday.

TRUMP: “I hear the way she talks about al-Qaida. Al-Qaida has killed many Americans. She said, ‘You can hold your chest out, you can — when I think of America — uhh — when I think of al-Qaida, I can hold my chest out.’” — remarks Monday at a manufacturing event at the White House.

THE FACTS: This is a wholly distorted account of what the Omar said. She did not voice pride in the terrorist group.

Trump is referring to an interview Omar gave in 2013. In it, she talked about studying terrorism history or theory under a professor who dramatically pronounced the names of terrorist groups, as if to emphasize their evil nature.

“The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘al-Qaida,’ he sort of like — his shoulders went up” and he used a menacing, intense tone, she said. Her point was that the professor was subtly rousing suspicions of Muslims with his theatrical presentation, while pronouncing “America” without the intensity he afforded the names of terrorist groups.

At no point did she say “al-Qaida” should be uttered with intensity or pride and that “America” shouldn’t.

Trump is continuing to assail Omar and three other liberal Democratic women of color, challenging their loyalty to the U.S. They are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. The House rebuked him Tuesday for his “racist comments” after he said they should “go back” to their countries. All four are Americans; Omar was born in Somalia; the others in the U.S.

Omar said Trump is a “fascist” and she and the other women he’s going after will “continue to be a nightmare to this president because his policies are a nightmare to us.”

TRUMP, on Omar: “When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down, ‘some people.’ You remember the famous ‘some people.’ These are people that, in my opinion, hate our country.” — remarks Monday at a manufacturing event.

THE FACTS: It’s true that plenty of critics thought Omar sounded dismissive about the 2001 terrorist attacks in a comment in a speech in March. Those remarks, though, did not express love “for enemies like al-Qaida,” as Trump put it.

Speaking to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar said the group “was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.” Her phrasing — “some people did something” — struck many people as a tone-deaf way to refer to the catastrophic attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The American-Islamic group actually was founded in 1994, according to its website. Its membership skyrocketed after the 2001 attacks.

TRUMP, on Ocasio-Cortez: “Cortez said that illegal immigrants are more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be. Can you believe that? That’s what she is saying.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: True, except that people who come to the border and ask for refugee status can’t be described as “illegal immigrants.” They commit no crime by applying for that status. Ocasio-Cortez, speaking of women and children who show up seeking refuge or opportunity, said: “They’re acting more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be.” This was from an MSNBC interview in January.

At the rally, Trump refused to call the New York congresswoman by her full hyphenated surname. 

House Votes to Condemn Trump’s ‘Racist’ Comments

By a vote of 240-187, the House of Representatives condemned comments deemed racist and xenophobic the president made against four minority Democratic congresswomen

MIGRANTS

TRUMP: “The Obama Administration built the Cages, not the Trump Administration!” — tweet Monday.

THE FACTS: He is right.

The same facilities that Democrats characterize as cages for migrant children were used by the Obama administration. They are sectioned-off, chain-link indoor pens where children who come to the border without adults or who are separated from adults in detention are temporarily housed. The children are divided by age and sex. When Vice President Mike Pence recently visited detention facilities at the border, journalists accompanying him witnessed migrant men crowded into fetid chain-link quarters.

A year ago, Associated Press photographs showing young people in such enclosures were misrepresented online as depicting child detentions by Trump and denounced by some Democrats and activists as illustrating Trump’s cruelty. In fact, the photos were taken in 2014 during the Obama administration.

Many Democrats in the presidential campaign and Congress continue to exploit the “kids in cages” imagery without acknowledging Obama used the facilities, too. His administration built the McAllen, Texas, facility with chain-link holding areas in 2014.

HEALTH CARE

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS of Vermont, Democratic presidential candidate: ”‘Medicare for All’ would reduce overall health care spending in our country.” — speech Wednesday.

THE FACTS: That remains to be seen. Savings from Medicare for All are not a slam dunk.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report this year that total spending under a single-payer system, such as the one proposed by Sanders, “might be higher or lower than under the current system depending on the key features of the new system.”

Those features involve payment rates for hospitals and doctors, which are not fully spelled out by Sanders, as well as the estimated cost of generous benefits that include long-term care services and no copays and deductibles.

Sanders’ figure of $5 trillion over 10 years in health cost savings comes from a study by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The lead author has been a political supporter of Sanders’.

Sanders also cites a savings estimate of $2 trillion over 10 years taken from a study from the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. But the author of that study says that Medicare for All advocates are mischaracterizing his conclusions.

A report this year by the nonprofit Rand think tank estimated that Medicare for All would do the opposite of what Sanders is promising, modestly raising national health spending.

Part of the reason is the generous benefits. Virtually free comprehensive medical care would lead to big increases in demand.

The Rand study modeled a hypothetical scenario in which a plan similar to Sanders’ legislation had taken effect this year.

TRUMP: “We are offering plans up to 60 percent cheaper than Obamacare.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: The bargain health insurance plans Trump talks about are cheaper because they skimp on benefits such as maternity or prescription drug coverage and do not guarantee coverage of preexisting conditions.

The short-term plans that his administration began offering last year on the federal insurance marketplace provide up to 12 months of coverage and can be renewed for up to 36 months.

Premiums for the plans are about one-third the cost of fuller insurance coverage. The health plan offerings are intended for people who want an individual health insurance policy but make too much money to qualify for subsides under the Affordable Care Act.

The administration introduced the short-term plans, which undermine how the Obama health law is supposed to work, after failing to repeal much of that law.

TRUMP: “Patients with preexisting conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than protected by Democrats, who will never be able to pull it off.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: But Democrats did pull it off. Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act, requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who had medical problems before or when they signed up.

The Trump administration is pressing in court for full repeal of that law.

Trump and other Republicans say they’ll have a plan to preserve protections for people with preexisting conditions. The White House has provided no details.

AUTO INDUSTRY

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS of California, Democratic presidential candidate: “Some estimate that as many as 700,000 autoworkers are going to lose their job before the end of the year.” — remarks in July 12 radio interview.

THE FACTS: This isn’t happening. Harris mischaracterized the findings of a study that is also outdated.

In July 2018 the Center for Automotive Research laid out a variety of scenarios for potential job losses across all U.S. industries touched by the auto business — not just autoworkers — if a number of new tariffs and policies that Trump threatened were enacted. The worst case was 750,000. But those hypothetical losses went well beyond autoworkers, to include workers at restaurants, retail stores and any business that benefits from the auto industry.

In any event, the center revised its study in February 2019, with a worst-case scenario down to 367,000 job losses across all industries. And since then, the administration lifted tariffs on steel and aluminum products coming from Canada and Mexico, further minimizing the impact on the auto industry.

The auto industry has grown under Obama and Trump both. Although it’s facing a leveling off in demand, it still posts strong numbers. It is not at risk of the catastrophe Harris raises as a possibility — the loss of 3 in 4 autoworkers in the remainder of this year.

TRUMP: “They’re coming in at a level that we haven’t seen for decades. Car companies are coming in — Japanese car companies, in particular. … Japan has 12 different companies building plants in Michigan, in Ohio, in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania. One is going to be announced in Florida. We are doing things that nobody thought were possible.” — Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence that car companies are coming to the U.S. at a rate faster than in previous decades. Industry observers know of only a few Japanese automotive companies building or expanding factories in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina or Pennsylvania — nowhere near a dozen.

Federal statistics show that jobs in auto and parts manufacturing grew at a slower rate in the two-plus years since Trump took office than in Obama’s last two years.

Between January 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, and June of this year, the latest figures available, U.S. auto and parts makers added 41,900 jobs, or a 4.4% increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in the two years before Trump took office, the industry added 63,600 manufacturing jobs, a 7.1% increase.

In Ohio, Honda has filed paperwork for a small expansion of its engine plant in Anna, Ohio, near Dayton, but also has announced production cuts without layoffs. A parts supplier announced plans last year to expand in Springfield, Ohio. In North Carolina, transmission maker Aisin in April announced plans to bolster manufacturing operations with 900 jobs by 2021, but gave few details.

The only Japanese automakers building a new U.S. assembly plant are Toyota and Mazda, which are jointly constructing a factory in Alabama that will build SUVs. At least three parts companies have announced plans to build factories in Alabama to serve that facility.

Also, spokesmen for German automakers Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG say they haven’t been told of any coming new factory announcements.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “I think a number that makes me the happiest is that, proportionately, the biggest gainer in this entire stock market — when you hear about how much has gone up — blue-collar workers, the biggest proportionate gainer.” — Cabinet remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Wealthier Americans have largely benefited from the stock market gains, not blue-collar workers.

The problem with the president claiming the stock market has helped working-class Americans is that the richest 10% of the country controls 84% of stock market value, according to a Federal Reserve survey. Because they hold more stocks, wealthier Americans have inherently benefited more from the 19% gain in the Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks so far this year. Only about half of U.S. families hold stocks, so plenty of people are getting little to no benefit from the stock market gains.

TRUMP: “We have the strongest economy in history.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: The economy is not the strongest in the country’s history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.1% in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2% in 1984.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.

The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

TRUMP: “The lowest unemployment numbers ever.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: Not so.

The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not the best in history. It’s near the lowest level in 50 years, when it was 3.5%. The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.

TRUMP: “The best unemployment in our history. And likewise, women, 74 years. … I’m sorry, women, I let you down, it’s not in our history but we’re going to be there very soon.” — North Carolina rally.

THE FACTS: No, the jobless rate for women of 3.1% in April was the lowest in 66 years, not 74, and it has since increased to 3.3% in June. The data only go back 71 years, so 74 years isn’t a possibility.

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Trump’s “Go Back” Remark: In Workplace, it Might be Illegal

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that four activist Democratic congresswomen of color “go back” to countries “from which they came” has excited some in his political base. Yet in many of America’s workplaces and institutions, the same language would be unacceptable and possibly illegal.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces federal laws against workplace bias, explicitly cites comments like “go back to where you came from” as examples of “potentially unlawful conduct.”

In Reversal, Trump Disavows Criticism of Chanting Crowd

President Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on a Somali-born congresswoman while reversing his previous criticisms of a North Carolina crowd who chanted “send her back”

Similar phrases routinely show up in lawsuits that the EEOC files against employers alleging discrimination, harassment or retaliation based on race or national origin.

Apart from its legality in workplaces, Trump’s language has ignited impassioned responses across racial, ethnic and political divides.

“It wasn’t Racist!” tweeted Terrence Williams, a black comedian who supports Trump. “No matter what color you are YOU can go back home or move if you don’t like America.”

By contrast, Rachel Timoner, a senior rabbi at a Reform Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn, said such language would never be tolerated among members of her congregation.

“I’d want to sit down with them and ask them, where that’s coming from?” she said. “If a person persistently degraded other human beings, I would need to say to them they could no longer participate. It’s really important for us to create an environment where people of color and people of all identities feel welcome.”

Facing an uproar from critics accusing him of racism, Trump has insisted that he wasn’t being racist when he tweeted this week that the four Democratic members of Congress — all but one of them born in the United States — “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.” Trump urged them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Rather, his message, the president explained the next day was: “If you hate our country, if you’re not happy here, you can leave.”

Yet Trump’s exhortation for the four minority congresswomen to “go back” to their countries of origin, if uttered by an employee in a workplace, could constitute a firing offense or cause for a costly lawsuit.

Sam P. Israel, a New York lawyer who handles harassment cases, noted that plaintiffs usually must prove that an offensive comment wasn’t made in isolation but as part of a broader hostile environment. If Trump were an employer facing a lawsuit, Israel said, there would arguably be enough examples to suggest a pattern of racially or ethnically disparaging remarks.

“All of those things are actionable if you have enough of them, and it could be illegal,” Israel said. “The EEOC teaches that all of these things are bad and should be avoided, and the president is making a mockery of it.”

In the aftermath of Trump’s “go back” tweet, a suburban Chicago gas station clerk was fired after a video posted on social media appeared to show him telling Hispanic customers to “go back to their country.”

Stephen Kalghorn, general counsel for the parent company of Bucky’s Mobil gas station in Naperville, said the employee’s comments couldn’t be clearly heard on a surveillance video. But he was fired for engaging in a verbal confrontation with the customers.

Elizabeth Tippett, a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, suggested that Trump’s comments could make things worse for anyone who tried to echo him in a workplace. Tippett explained that the president’s rhetoric would make it difficult to argue that a similar comment was made innocuously or out of ignorance of its racist connotations.

“When you have these cultural environments, you might see repeated comments from multiple people,” she said. “The more frequent the comments are, the stronger the harassment claim.”

Most Republican leaders have declined to characterize Trump’s comments as racist. And a few supporters have parroted his remarks, including some at a Trump rally in North Carolina this week who chanted “send her back!” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Trump’s Latest Target for Criticism: A Muslim Congressional Newcomer

At a re-election rally, the US leader assails Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee and naturalized American citizen

Donna Givens, an African-American neighborhood organizer who leads the Eastside Community Network in Detroit, said Trump’s tweets were deeply hurtful.

“It immediately reminded me of being a child and being told to ‘go back to Africa, (n-word)’ — that got said to me repeatedly,” she said. “My grandmother used to tell me to tell them to ‘go back to their caves in Europe.’ ”

In light of the inflammatory rhetoric, “I don’t think that we can pretend like the American workplace is a safe place for immigrants, for people of color or for women,” Givens said. “The president has a bully pulpit. And the president sets the tone. And so there are people who feel justified in their hatreds now.”

Andrew Pappas, a self-described conservative Republican who holds elective office in Anderson Township, Ohio, acknowledged that Trump’s language, taken in a vacuum, was “not appropriate.” Yet he expressed some understanding of it.

“I think that when you see Donald Trump react in a human way, it upsets a lot of people that are expecting maybe your true quintessential politician,” Pappas said. “But it also resonates exponentially with the common American who says, ‘You know what? I’d react that way, too.’ ”

The Rev. Tom Lambrecht, general manager of the conservative United Methodist magazine Good News, cautioned against any rush to declare certain forms of political rhetoric unacceptable

“The difficulty here is, who decides what is unacceptable?” Lambrecht said by email. “And how is that unacceptability enforced? Censorship?”

“At the same time,” he added, “such despicable rhetoric is a teachable moment. It is incumbent upon Christians and others of good will to call out racism when we hear it in public debate or private conversation and to teach our children and grandchildren what is wrong with such attitudes.”

Ominous Turn in Political Divide Over Race and Ideology?

President Trump targets four minority lawmakers amid Democratic charges of racism

Another pastor, E.W. Lucas of Friendship Baptist Church in Appomattox, Virginia, has firmly backed Trump, even posting sign outside the church declaring “America: Love or Leave It,” explicitly echoing the president.

“People that feel hard about our president and want to down the president and down the country … they ought to go over there and live in these other countries for a little while,” Lucas told ABC 13 in Lynchburg.

Some advocates of free speech argued that censorship of political rhetoric should never be the solution, suggesting that there were better ways to combat it.

“Every American has the right to make up his or her own mind about what public officials say and how they say it —and if enough people disagree with a politician, they have the right make those opinions known in peaceful protest, or at the ballot box,” said Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Censorship of political speech only serves to rob citizens of the right to make up their own minds, which is fatal to a democratic society.”

Chris Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, agreed that attempts to ban racist rhetoric “will never solve the problem.”

Instead, Finan said, “It has to be challenged and refuted wherever it occurs.”

Retired college football coach Bill Curry, who grew up in the segregated South, had some advice based on playing in the NFL under legends Vince Lombardi at Green Bay and Don Shula in Baltimore.

“One racist word out of your month and you were gone,” said Curry, 76. “It didn’t matter who you were. Period.”

During college coaching stints at the University of Alabama and elsewhere, Curry followed the same policy.

“When you put down those rules like those great coaches did, it doesn’t become a problem,” he said. “You cannot let that racist thing get started. It will destroy unity, just like is going on in our country now.”

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Sources: Trump Officials Weigh Delay of Abortion Curbs

The Trump administration has told federally funded family planning clinics it is considering a delay in enforcing a controversial rule that bars them from referring women for abortions. That comes after clinics had vowed defiance.

Two people attending meetings this week between the Department of Health and Human Services and clinic representatives told The Associated Press that officials said the clinics should be given more time to comply with the rule’s new requirements. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly before any decision has been announced.

HHS said Friday that its policy has not changed.

Rule announced, to take effect immediately

On Monday, agency officials announced that the government would immediately begin enforcing the rule, catching the clinics off-guard and prompting an outcry. Planned Parenthood said its 400 clinics would defy the requirement. Some states, including Illinois and Maryland, backed the clinics. The family planning program serves about 4 million women a year, and many low-income women get basic health care from the clinics.

The administration’s abortion restrictions, cheered by social and religious conservatives, are being challenged in court by groups representing the clinics, several states, and the American Medical Association. The litigation is still in its early stages. An enforcement pause may allow for a clearer indication of where the court cases are headed.

The people who spoke to AP said that HHS Office of Population Affairs Director Diane Foley told representatives of the clinics the administration is considering rewinding the clock on enforcement. Instead of requiring immediate compliance, the administration would issue a new timetable and start the process at that point.

Some requirements would be effective in 60 days, others in 120 days, and others would take effect next year.

The clinics had complained to HHS that the agency gave them no guidance on how to comply with the new restrictions, while expecting them to do so immediately.

No abortion referrals

The rule bars the family planning clinics from referring women for abortions. Abortion could still be discussed with patients, but only physicians or clinicians with advanced training could have those conversations. All pregnant patients would have to be referred for prenatal care, whether or not they request it. Minors would be encouraged to involve their parents in family planning decisions.

Under the rule, facilities that provide family planning services as well as abortions would have to strictly separate finances and physical space.

Known as Title X, the family-planning program funds a network of clinics, many operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates. The clinics also provide basic health services, including screening for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. The program distributes about $260 million a year in grants to clinics, and those funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

The family planning rule is part of a series of Trump administration efforts to remake government policy on reproductive health to please conservatives who are a key part of its political base.

Other regulations tangled up in court would allow employers to opt out of offering free birth control to women workers on the basis of religious or moral objections, and grant health care professionals wider leeway to opt out of procedures that offend their religious or moral scruples.

Legal procedure

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.

Planned Parenthood is also the nation’s leading abortion provider, and abortion opponents see the family-planning money as a subsidy, even if federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

Planned Parenthood is in the midst of a leadership upheaval, after its board abruptly ousted the organization’s president this week.

Leana Wen, a physician, had sought to reposition Planned Parenthood as a health care provider. In her resignation letter, she said the organization’s board has determined the top priority should be to “double down on abortion rights advocacy.”
 

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In Reversal, Trump Disavows Criticism of Chanting Crowd

President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on a Somali-born congresswoman Friday while reversing his previous criticisms of a North Carolina crowd who chanted “send her back,” defending them as “patriots” while again questioning the loyalty of four Democratic lawmakers of color.

In a week that has been full of hostile exchanges over race and love of country on both sides, Trump returned to a pattern that has become familiar during controversies of his own making: Ignite a firestorm, backtrack from it, but then double down on his original, inflammatory position. 
 
“You know what I’m unhappy with?” Trump answered when reporters at the White House asked if he was unhappy with the Wednesday night crowd. “Those people in North Carolina, that stadium was packed. It was a record crowd. And I could have filled it 10 times, as you know. Those are incredible people. They are incredible patriots. But I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare.'”

It was another dizzying twist in a saga sparked by the president’s tweets about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who moved from Somalia as a child, and her colleagues Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

The moment took an ugly turn at the rally when the crowd’s “send her back” shouts resounded for 13 seconds as Trump made no attempt to interrupt them. He paused in his speech and surveyed the scene, taking in the uproar, though the next day he claimed he did not approve of the chant and tried to stop it.

But on Friday, he made clear he was not disavowing the chant and again laced into Omar, the target of the chant.

“You can’t talk that way about our country. Not when I’m president,” Trump said. “These women have said horrible things about our country and the people of our country.”

He also tweeted that it was “amazing how the Fake News Media became ‘crazed’ over the chant ‘send her back’ by a packed Arena (a record) crowd in the Great State of North Carolina, but is totally calm & accepting of the most vile and disgusting statements made by the three Radical Left Congresswomen.”

Omar response

Omar was defiant Thursday, telling reporters at the Capitol that she believes the president is a “fascist” and casting the confrontation as a fight over “what this country truly should be.”

“We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president because his policies are a nightmare to us. We are not deterred. We are not frightened,” she told a cheering crowd that greeted her like a local hero at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport as she returned from Washington.

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Russia’s Putin Says He ‘Sympathized’ With Trump Before US Election 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had “sympathized” with Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election that swept Trump to power because of his desire to restore normal relations with Russia. 

In an interview with U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone dated June 19 and published on the Kremlin website Friday, Putin also said that any alleged Russian hackers were still not able to influence the vote’s outcome. 

The Russian president reiterated that he had not and would not interfere in U.S. elections. 

The Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement findings, denied by the Kremlin, that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House. 

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies say Russia used disinformation and other tactics to support Trump’s 2016 campaign. Putin has denied it. 

“And whichever our bloggers — I don’t know who works there in the internet — had expressed their point of view on the situation in the USA in this or that way, this had not been able to play a decisive role. This is nonsense,” Putin said. 

“But we had sympathized with him [Trump], because he said that he wanted to restore normal relations with Russia. What’s bad in this? And of course, we couldn’t unwelcome such a position.” 

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2020 Dems Grapple with How To Pay for ‘Medicare for All’

Democratic presidential candidates campaigning on “Medicare for All” are wrestling with how to pay for the dramatic overhaul of the American health care system.

Bernie Sanders, the chief proponent, says “Medicare for All” could cost up to $40 trillion over a decade. He’s been the most direct in discussing how he’d finance it, including higher taxes on the middle class which he argues would ultimately cost less than the current health care system.

But his rivals who also support “Medicare for All” have offered relatively few firm details so far about how they’d pay for it beyond raising taxes on top earners.

As health care dominates the early days of the Democratic primary, some experts say candidates won’t be able to duck the question for long.

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