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Trump Uses Rally to Defend Iran Policy as Democrats Decry It

As President Donald Trump rallied supporters Tuesday night by defending his decision to kill a top Iranian general, the Democrats vying to replace him used their final debate before primary voting begins to argue that doing so made the country less safe.With Trump firing up thousands in the battleground state of Wisconsin and the Democratic candidates squaring off in Iowa ahead of its Feb. 3 caucuses, the political events were expected to offer very different visions for the country’s future. But the contrast on Iran in nearly real time was especially stark.Trump spent much of his speech defending his decision to order the strike that killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, whom he labeled the “world’s No. 1 terrorist.” That move came under intense criticism from Democrats who said the president should have consulted Congress and raised questions about whether it really prevented an imminent attack, as some Trump administration officials have claimed.”The Democrats are outraged that we killed this terrorist monster, even though this monster was behind hundreds and hundreds of deaths,” Trump told the crowd in downtown Milwaukee – not far from where Democrats will hold their convention this summer. He added that Soleimani was “the king of the roadside bomb. Great percentages of people don’t have legs right now and arms because of this son of a bitch.”The president also said Democrats “are doing everything possible to disparage what we did with the hit on this monster” and that the other party “should be outraged by Soleimani’s evil crimes, not the decision to end his wretched life.”Women walk past a banner of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone attack Friday, in Tajrish square in northern Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2020.Moments later in neighboring Iowa, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said he feared that Trump’s actions in Iran could lead the United States into a foreign policy quagmire of the highest level.Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said Trump had campaigned on stopping endless wars'' only to bring the country closer to them. And former Vice President Joe Biden said Soleimani's killing was dangerous and would not have been necessary if Trump hadn't pulled the U.S. out of a successful nuclear deal that the Obama administration had reached with Iran.Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pledged to bring U.S. combat troops back from the Middle East entirely, saying,We should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.”Trump also took on the leading Democratic candidates directly, saying of Sanders: “Bernie and the radical left cannot protect your family, nor can they protect our country.”Yet the president also defended Sanders in the ongoing he-said, she-said spat between Sanders and Warren, who has said Sanders told her during a private meeting in 2018 that he didn’t believe a woman could win the White House _ a charge the Vermont senator vehemently denied.”I don’t believe that Bernie said that. I really don’t … It’s not the kind of thing he’d say,” said Trump, who routinely insults Warren with the slur “Pocahontas” and did so again during Tuesday’s rally.Trump also criticized Biden’s tendency to mix up locations, including recently confusing Iran with Iraq.”When you do that you can’t really recover,” Trump said.Winning back Wisconsin is a key part of Democrats’ 2020 strategy – and one of the reasons the party chose Milwaukee to host its national convention in July. Trump won the state by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016 and he is expected to make frequent visits in the coming months as he works to maintain his edge.President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Milwaukee. Vice President Mike Pence warmed up the rally crowd by himself panning the Democratic candidates as too far left for the state.”You know, I heard they’ve got another debate tonight. If it’s anything like the other ones, those people are going to be standing so far on the left I think that stage is going to tip over,” Pence quipped.Trump supporters began lining up Monday evening outside the arena to make sure they would be able to get inside.”I think the Wisconsin vote is very important, very important,” said Brenda Stoetzer, 60, from Hickory Hills, Illinois. “And we need to just spread the message here that, you know, Trump is helping the people, the ordinary people. He’s not making the rich richer. He’s making everyone richer.””I think he’s done right by the whole country,” agreed Nancy Freye, 65, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. “He’s fighting for all of us every day. I don’t know how you can even get anything done, but he does. So good for him and for us.”Democrats, he said, “should be angry about his crimes, not the decision to end his wretched life.”Trump also went on an extended riff about his efforts to roll back energy- and water-saving regulations, panning energy-efficient light bulbs and low water flow dishwashers, showers and toilets, which he promised to replace.”Your dishes are going to be beautiful,” he promised.Highlighting the politics of the city, Trump’s rally was interrupted several times by protesters, who also demonstrated outside the arena where he spoke.While Democratic voters try to decide who is their best candidate to take on Trump, the president has been contending with the House vote to impeach him. After weeks of delay, the House will vote Wednesday to send its articles of impeachment to the Senate. Republicans hold the majority in the Senate and there is nowhere near the 67 votes needed for Trump’s removal.Trump accused Democrats of wasting America’s time with “demented hoaxes” and “witch hunts” while “we’re creating jobs and killing terrorists.”Wisconsin’s primary is April 7.
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House to Vote on Sending Impeachment Articles to Senate

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday on whether to send the articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump to the Senate.The measure in the Democratic-controlled House is certain to pass easily, opening the door for an impeachment trial to begin next week.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the announcement Tuesday after meeting with fellow Democrats, nearly a month after the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers — lawmakers who will act as prosecutors in a Senate trial.Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would run through “housekeeping measures” later this week. Those measures will include approving a set of rules, as well as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swearing in senators before opening arguments begin next week. “We’ll deal with the witness issue at the appropriate time during the trial – both sides will want to call witnesses they want to hear from,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and that the president obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with Trump, as his administration temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks in Kyiv, Dec. 4, 2019.Democrats have called for testimony from current and former Trump administration officials, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Republicans have countered by saying they will call their own witnesses including Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden had business dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was serving as vice president.Democrats said late Tuesday they will include new evidence in the impeachment articles provided by Florida businessman Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.The evidence is expected to include a screenshot of a previously undisclosed letter Giuliani sent in May to the then President-elect, introducing himself as Trump’s “personal counsel” and requesting a meeting with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”Parnas apparently played a part in the firing U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich who balked at Trump’s demand for an investigation of the Bidens.Trump has denied any wrongdoing and ridiculed Democrats’ impeachment efforts.This is the third time in the country’s 244-year history a U.S. president has been impeached and targeted for removal from office.Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were both impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 in the face of certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for the Ukrainian gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid in exchange for the investigations.
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Democratic Presidential Contenders Clash Over Foreign Policy in Iowa Debate

Democratic presidential contenders clashed over a number of issues in their latest debate Tuesday, held less than three weeks before voters in Iowa head to the polls to kick off the 2020 primary season. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the debate held in Des Moines, Iowa, and sponsored by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper.
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Trump Impeachment Trial in Senate to Begin Next Week

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday the Senate will formally begin the impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump early next week.The beginning of the second phase of impeachment will follow the transmission of articles of impeachment from the Democratic-controlled U.S House of Representatives to the Republican-majority Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will vote Wednesday to send official impeachment charges to the Senate.  Pelosi made the announcement Tuesday, shortly after discussing impeachment proceedings at a private meeting with House Democrats, nearly a month after the House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., right, leaves a lengthy closed-door meeting with the Democratic Caucus at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 14, 2020.”The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up,” the House speaker said in a statement. ‘(Senate Majority) Leader (Mitch) McConnell and the president are afraid of more facts coming to light. The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial.”McConnell said the Senate would run through “housekeeping measures” later this week following acceptance of the articles of impeachment from the House. Those measures will include approving a set of rules, as well as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swearing in senators before opening arguments begin next week.“We’ll deal with the witness issue at the appropriate time during the trial — both sides will want to call witnesses they want to hear from,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.Democrats have called for testimony from current and former Trump administration officials, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Republicans have countered by saying they will call their own witnesses including Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden had business dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was serving as vice president.  McConnell stands his groundThe impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and that the president obstructed Congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with Trump, as his administration temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.Trump has denied any wrongdoing and ridiculed Democrats’ impeachment efforts. This is the fourth time in the country’s 244-year history that a U.S. president has been targeted for removal from office.Two other U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson in the 19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago, were also impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials. A third, Richard Nixon, resigned the presidency in 1974 while facing a certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.Republicans stand togetherThe Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for the Ukrainian gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid in exchange for the investigations.   
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US House Set to Vote Wednesday to Send Impeachment Charges to Senate

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives will vote Wednesday to send official impeachment charges to the Senate, bringing the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s historical impeachment trial one step closer to reality.Pelosi made the announcement in a statement that was released shortly after discussing the impeachment proceedings at a private meeting with House Democrats nearly a month after the Democrat-led House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.“The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up,” the statement said. ‘(Senate Majority) Leader (Mitch) McConnell and the President are afraid of more facts coming to light. The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial.”Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers.The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into one of his main 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.Choosing managers
Democrats at Tuesday’s closed-door meeting said Pelosi is expected to name House managers for the impeachment case on Wednesday.Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with the president as he temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.A Wednesday vote would enable the Senate to start the trial as soon as this week. But opening arguments probably won’t be heard until next week at the earliest, as the Senate will likely take several days to complete formalities such as swearing in Chief Justice John Roberts and approving a set of rules.Trump, only the fourth U.S. president to be targeted with a serious impeachment effort in the country’s 244-year history, has denied any wrongdoing. He has also ridiculed the Democrats’ impeachment effort.Two other U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson in the 19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago, were also impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials, while a third U.S. leader, Richard Nixon, resigned in 1974 while facing a certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.Acquittal likely
The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid for the Biden investigations.
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Report: Russia Hacked Ukrainian Energy Firm Tied to Impeachment Inquiry

Hackers from Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, have allegedly targeted a Ukrainian energy firm tied to the impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump.Cybersecurity experts at California-based Area 1 Security released a report on Monday that found Burisma Holdings, where the son of presidential front-runner Joe Biden sat on the board, was successfully penetrated in a wide-ranging phishing campaign that stole e-mail credentials of employees.It isn’t clear if anything was stolen from the company or its subsidiaries, which were initially targeted, if any information was gleaned, and what the ultimate goal of the hackers was.FILE – Hunter Biden waits for the start of the his father’s debate at Centre College in Danville, Ky., Oct. 11, 2012.Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, was a board member of Burisma from 2014 until last year.Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to “look into” allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens and the energy firm in a July 25 phone call. Their conversation was the subject of an ensuing whistle-blower’s complaint that triggered the impeachment investigation, which began in September.The U.S. president has since been charged with abuse of office and obstruction of Congress by the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which is scheduled on January 14 to vote on the timing of when to send the articles of impeachment to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial on whether to remove him from office.No evidence of corruption by either of the Bidens has surfaced in light of allegations by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that the former vice president sought to protect his son by pressuring Ukrainian officials.Evidence has yet to emerge of allegations that Joe Biden pushed for the ouster of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor when he served as vice president and was seen as then-President Barack Obama’s point man on Ukraine.U.S. allies in Europe and Ukraine’s international lenders supported Joe Biden because successive chief prosecutors were believed to have been either obstructing or stalling investigations into high-profile corruption cases, including probes into Burisma.A screenshot of the Fancy Bears website fancybear.net is seen on a computer screen in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 14, 2016. Confidential medical data of several U.S. Olympians hacked from a World Anti-Doping Agency database was posted online Sept. 13, 2016The alleged hacker group used a similar phishing pattern and is directly connected to Fancy Bear, the same Russian cyber-infiltrators of the Democratic National Committee in the months leading up the 2016 presidential election that Trump, a Republican, won.The GRU featured prominently in the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, which concluded that Russia hacked the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to help Trump.Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and election.Area 1’s eight-page report said the cyberattacks on Burisma began in November, when Ukraine and impeachment, as well as talk of the Bidens, were dominating news headlines in the United States.Zelenskiy Firm Targeted”Area 1 Security has also further connected this GRU phishing campaign to another phishing campaign targeting a media organization founded” by Zelensky, the report said.The New York Times, which first wrote about the anti-phishing company’s report, said the attack “appears to have been aimed at digging up e-mail correspondence” of Studio Kvartal 95, which then was headed by Ivan Bakanov, whom Zelenskiy appointed as head of Ukraine’s Security Service in June.
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Black Mayor of Racially Diverse Iowa City Backs Buttigieg

Quentin Hart, the black mayor of Iowa’s most racially diverse city, is backing Pete Buttigieg for president, giving the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor a rare boost from a minority leader as he struggles to attract voters of color.
    
Hart told The Associated Press he was supporting Buttigieg in part for what he called the Democrat’s effort to address racial economic disparity in South Bend. Like Waterloo, which Hart represents, South Bend is a once-thriving Midwestern city with a higher-than-average unemployment rate and a history of racial discord.
    
The Buttigieg campaign hopes Hart’s endorsement will help not only inoculate the 37-year-old Buttigieg from the stubborn notion that he cannot win black support but also potentially resonate beyond majority-white Iowa, as Buttigieg winds his way through the Democratic primary campaign.
    
He’s taken an industrial place like South Bend, Indiana, which is kind of similar to the story of Waterloo, Iowa, where a lot of people had given up on that community, and made great strides to turning it around,” Hart said of Buttigieg.
    
The endorsement, revealed on Tuesday, comes three weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. Polls show Buttigieg, who served two terms as mayor from 2012 to early this year, in a tightly grouped pack at the top, along with former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
    
In recent days, Buttigieg has been hounded by Black Lives Matter activists, including during a rally in Des Moines on Sunday. Black activists have long argued that Buttigieg did too little to mend police relations with the black community, notably in firing the city’s first black police chief early in his career and in the shooting death of an armed black man by police in June.
    
Maryland Rep. Anthony Brown endorsed Buttigieg last week, becoming the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to do so. Ten members have endorsed Biden, who has the most support from the group.
    
A recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll found Buttigieg had support from 2% of black voters nationally.
    
Waterloo, a city of about 68,000 residents, has a black population of 16%, less than South Bend’s roughly 27%.
    
“Just like in South Bend and Waterloo, we’re placed in situations where it seems like we’re responsible to fix generations of decline, to fix generational and systemic racism or problems that we’ve had,” said Hart, who is the first black mayor of Waterloo and is in his third term.
    
The campaign hopes that Hart, who has also dealt with racial unrest involving policing in his city, can inspire others to follow him, especially in subsequent nominating contests with greater racial diversity, such as the Feb. 29 South Carolina primary.
    
“I think I can play a role moving forward with the campaign” said Hart, who plans to publicly endorse on Wednesday. “That’s the hope of Mayor Pete as well.”
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In Dealing with Impeachment, Trump Looks to History

This week the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, setting up a trial to determine whether U.S  President Donald Trump should be removed from office. So far Trump has borrowed from the playbooks of two of his predecessors who faced threats of being removed from office. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
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Warren: Sanders Told Her He Didn’t Think a Woman Could Be Elected President

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says Bernie Sanders “disagreed” with her that a woman could be elected president when they met in 2018.Warren issued a statement late Monday after Sanders said it is “ludicrous” to think he could have ever made such a remark.”It is sad that three weeks before the Iowa Caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened,” Sanders said in a statement to CNN who reported on his alleged comment to Warren.”Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course. After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016,” Sanders said.Warren said later Monday Sanders simply “disagreed” when she told him a woman could win.But she said she has no interest in talking about it because “Bernie and I have far more in common…we have been friends and allies in this fight for a long time and I have no doubt we will continue to work together to defeat Donald Trump and put our government on the side of the people.”The latest poll in Iowa by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper puts Sanders in the lead among likely caucus participants with 20%, followed by Warren with 19%. Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden trail.Sanders and Warren did share common ground Monday — both thanked Democratic Senator Cory Booker for running a campaign both said was based on love, justice, and equality.Booker announced Monday he was dropping out of the 2020 presidential race.
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Six US Democratic Presidential Challengers Staging Last Debate Before First State Votes 

Six Democratic challengers to Republican President Donald Trump are squaring off in a high-stakes debate late Tuesday, their last face-to-face encounter before voters in the Midwestern farm state of Iowa start to pick a Democratic nominee to oppose Trump in the November national election.Iowa, with its mostly rural landscape and a predominantly white population of about 3 million, is hardly reflective of the United States as a whole. But once every four years it has an out-sized importance in the U.S. presidential race as the first state to vote in the months-long nominating process for both Republicans and Democrats. This time caucus voting takes place on the night of Feb. 3.Trump is a shoo in for renomination to a second four-year term in the White House. But the Democratic race is highly unsettled.FILE PHOTO: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a town hall in Independence, Iowa, U.S. Jan. 3, 2020.Former Vice President Joe Biden, now in his third race for the party’s presidential nomination, leads national polls of Democratic voters, but possibly trails his Democratic opponents in Iowa and some other states.Should he falter early in the nominating process, that could dent his key campaign argument that according to national polls he stands the best chance of defeating Trump.Last weekend’s Iowa Poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist, surging to a narrow lead, with 20% support in the state. Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is second at 17%, ahead of former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has fashioned himself as a political centrist, at 16% and Biden, a left-of-center politician through nearly five decades in Washington, at 15%.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., smiles as he listens to a question from the audience during a campaign stop, Nov. 24, 2019, in Hillsboro, N.H.“There’s no denying that this is a good poll for Bernie Sanders,”  pollster Ann Selzer, told the Des Moines Register, which is sponsoring the debate along with television network CNN. “He leads, but it’s not an uncontested lead. He’s got a firmer grip on his supporters than the rest of his compatriots.”But more than half of those polled said they could still decide to support a candidate other than the one they now prefer or have yet to make up their mind, a fluid state of political sentiment that likely increases the importance of Tuesday’s six-way debate.A Monmouth University poll on Monday showed different results, with Biden ahead, in order, over Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren.Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and wealthy entrepreneur Tom Steyer, both trail the four leaders in the pre-election Iowa polling, but qualified for the debate stage by meeting the polling and fundraising standards set by the national Democratic Party. Other Democratic candidates remain in a crowded field of presidential aspirants, but did not make the cut for the debate or have dropped out, including Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey who left the race on MondaySanders and Warren are longtime friends who hold similar liberal viewpoints, such as their call, with some variations, for adoption of a government-run national health care system and an end to the country’s private insurance company system to pay health care bills. As such, they have mostly adhered to a non-aggression pact with each other in earlier debates leading up to Tuesday’s showdown ahead of the Iowa vote.FILE PHOTO: Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren delivers a speech, on the one year anniversary of announcing her campaign, at Old South Meeting House in Boston, Dec. 31, 2019.But over the weekend, Warren accused Sanders of sending his supporters in Iowa out to meet voters with specific talking points “to trash me.” The talking points claimed that Warren could not attract more Democratic voters in a race against Trump because she is elitist, “supported only by highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what.”Sanders brushed off the criticism, saying, “We have over 500 people on our campaign. People do certain things. I’m sure that on Elizabeth’s campaign people do certain things as well.””But you’ve heard me for months,” Sanders added, “I have never said a negative word about Elizabeth Warren, who is a friend of mine. We have differences on issues. That’s what a campaign is about.”Meanwhile, news reports Monday claim that in a private meeting in 2018,  Sanders reportedy told Warren that he did not think a woman could win the presidency.Warren subsequently told associates about Sanders’s comment, The New York Times reported,  citing people with knowledge of her remarks.In a statement, Sanders denied the report saying it was “ludicrous” to think he would have made such a comment. “Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by three million votes in 2016.”Trump has also taken note of Sanders’s recent ascent in opinion polls, saying in a Twitter comment over the weekend, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!” Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Senator Amy Klobuchar speaks during the U.S. Democratic presidential candidates debate at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Nov. 20, 2019.Three of the leading Democratic challengers – Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar – could be directly affected by Trump’s impeachment trial since they will be among the 100 members of the Senate deciding Trump’s fate, keeping them in Washington six days a week while the trial is going on, and importantly for them, off the campaign trail in Iowa to meet voters.With a Republican majority in the Senate, Trump is all assured of being acquitted and allowed to remain in office to face voters in November. But a full-blown trial, if witnesses are called to testify as Democrats and some Republicans want, could infuse unexpected new information about Trump and perhaps Biden into the last weeks of the Iowa contest.In some states there are party primary elections, but in Iowa, Democrats will have caucuses throughout the state, with the candidates pushing their supporters to rally at firehouses, schools, churches and other voting places on the night of Feb. 3. Many of the state’s voters are likely to closely watch Tuesday as the candidates tangle over health care policies, national security, Trump’s drone strike killing a top Iranian general and an array of other issues.Other state nominating contests follow quickly after and the importance of the Iowa vote will soon be eclipsed. But until then, its quadrennial centrality to the American presidential political scene cannot be denied.  
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Sanders: Report He Said a Woman Can’t Be Elected President ‘Ludicrous’

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders calls a report that he told fellow Democrat Elizabeth Warren that a woman cannot be elected president “ludicrous.”CNN reported Monday that Sanders allegedly made the remark during a meeting with Warren in 2018 when they were talking about their plans to run for president.According to CNN, Warren told Sanders she will “make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters.”Sanders allegedly replied that he did not think a woman could be elected.”It is sad that three weeks before the Iowa Caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened,” Sanders responded in a statement to CNN.”Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course. After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016,” Sanders said.CNN said its sources for the report were two people who talked with Warren right after the meeting with Sanders and two others CNN said “were familiar with the meeting.”Warren herself has not commented on the story.The latest poll in Iowa by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper puts Sanders in the lead among likely caucus participants with 20%, followed by Warren with 19%. Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden trail.Sanders and Warren did share common ground Monday — both thanked Democratic Senator Cory Booker for running a campaign both said was based on love, justice, and equality.Booker announced Monday he was dropping out of the 2020 presidential race.
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Democrats Debate Tuesday Just Weeks Ahead of Iowa Vote

Democratic presidential candidates meet for a critical debate Tuesday in Iowa, less than three weeks before Iowa voters kick off the presidential nomination process on February 3rd.  A total of six Democratic contenders will be on stage with signs of growing tensions among some of the candidates.  The debate also comes amid military tensions with Iran and the impending Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.  VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Booker Ends Presidential Bid After Polling, Money Struggles

Democrat Cory Booker dropped out of the presidential race Monday, ending a campaign whose message of unity and love failed to resonate in a political era marked by chaos and anxiety.His departure now leaves a field that was once the most diverse in history with just one remaining African American candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.Since launching his campaign last February, Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, struggled to raise the type of money required to support a White House bid. He was at the back of the pack in most surveys and failed to meet the polling requirements needed to participate in Tuesday’s debate. Booker also missed last month’s debate and exits the race polling in low single digits in the early primary states and nationwide.In an email to supporters, Booker said that he “got into this race to win” and that his failure to make the debates prevented him from raising raise the money required for victory.“Our campaign has reached the point where we need more money to scale up and continue building a campaign that can win — money we don’t have, and money that is harder to raise because I won’t be on the next debate stage and because the urgent business of impeachment will rightly be keeping me in Washington,” he said.Booker had warned that the looming impeachment trial of President Donald Trump would deal a “big, big blow” to his campaign by pulling him away from Iowa in the final weeks before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. He hinted at the challenges facing his campaign last week in an interview on The Associated Press’ “Ground Game” podcast.
 
“If we can’t raise more money in this final stretch, we won’t be able to do the things that other campaigns with more money can do to show presence,” he said.In his email to supporters, Booker pledged to do “everything in my power to elect the eventual Democratic nominee for president,” though his campaign says he has no immediate plans to endorse a candidate in the primary.It’s a humbling finish for someone who was once lauded by Oprah Winfrey as the “rock star mayor” who helped lead the renewal of Newark, New Jersey. During his seven years in City Hall, Booker was known for his headline-grabbing feats of local do-goodery, including running into a burning building to save a woman, and his early fluency with social media, which brought him 1.4 million followers on Twitter when the platform was little used in politics. His rhetorical skills and Ivy League background often brought comparisons to President Barack Obama, and he’d been discussed as a potential presidential contender since his arrival in the Senate in 2013.Now, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has mastered the art of the selfie on social media. Another former mayor, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, is seen as the freshest face in the field. And Booker’s message of hope and love seemed to fall flat during an era characterized perhaps most strongly by Democratic fury over the actions of the Trump administration.An early focus on building out a strong and seasoned campaign operation in Iowa and South Carolina may have hampered his campaign in the long run, as the resources he spent early on staff there left him working with a tight budget in the later stages of the primary, when many of his opponents were going on air with television ads. That meant that even later in the campaign, after he had collected some of the top endorsements in Iowa and visited South Carolina almost more than any other candidate, a significant portion of the electorate in both states either said they were unfamiliar with his campaign or viewed him unfavorably.On the stump, Booker emphasized his Midwestern connections — often referencing the nearly 80 family members he has still living in Iowa when he campaigned there — and delivered an exhortation to voters to use “radical love” to overcome what he considered Trump’s hate. But he rarely drew a contrast with his opponents on the trail, even when asked directly, and even some of Booker’s supporters worried his message on Trump wasn’t sharp enough to go up against a Republican president known for dragging his opponents into the mud.
 
Booker struggled to land on a message that would resonate with voters. He’s long been seen as a progressive Democrat in the Senate, pushing for criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization. And on the campaign trail, he proposed establishing a $1,000 savings account for every child born in the U.S. to help close the racial wealth gap.He was among the first candidates to release a gun control plan, and at the time it was the most ambitious in the field, as it included a gun licensing program that would have been seen as political suicide just a decade before. He also released an early criminal justice reform plan that focused heavily on addressing sentencing disparities for drug crimes.But he also sought to frame himself as an uplifting, unifying figure who emphasized his bipartisan work record. That didn’t land in a Democratic primary that has often rewarded candidates who promised voters they were tough-minded fighters who could take on Trump.Booker’s seat is up for a vote this year, and he will run for reelection to the Senate. A handful of candidates has launched campaigns for the seat, but Booker is expected to have an easy path to reelection.Booker’s exit from the presidential race further narrows the once two dozen-strong field, which now stands at 12 candidates. 
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2020 Watch: Will the Debate Provide Any Clarity?

 Presidential politics move fast. What we’re watching heading into a new week on the 2020 campaign:         Days to Iowa caucuses: 21
       Days to general election: 295
   THE NARRATIVE
This week features the final debate before voting begins in Iowa, making Tuesday night the most important night of the 2020 primary season so far. It comes as the political world grapples with the fallout of the Trump administration’s military clash with Iran, the looming Senate impeachment trial and deep uncertainty about the direction of the Democratic primary. At this point, any one of the four top-tier candidates — Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren — has a legitimate chance to win the Iowa caucus.THE BIG QUESTIONS
Will the debate provide any clarity?
Six Democrats will share the stage in the final prime-time clash before primary voting begins. Four of them are clustered near the top, while even the often-overlooked billionaire Tom Steyer flashed in the polls recently and Mike Bloomberg looms as a Super Tuesday force. The tremendous uncertainty means that any one of the candidates on stage Tuesday has the opportunity to change the direction of the race.
Is the political world underestimating Bernie (again)?FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign stop, Nov. 24, 2019, in Hillsboro, N.H.In case you missed it, a certain 78-year-old white-haired democratic socialist was listed as the leading candidate in The Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll released late last week. That should be a wake-up call for anybody who doesn’t think Sanders can win the Democratic nomination — and we know you’re out there. Remember this: Every Democrat in history who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has eventually become the nominee. And if the Vermont senator wins Iowa, he opens New Hampshire with a massive advantage. He won the state easily four years ago. A lot can happen in the next month, but don’t sleep on Sanders.
Can Biden exorcise the ghosts of Iraq?
It’s hard to believe, but almost two decades later Biden is still struggling to explain his vote to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. And last week’s military clash with Iran is only making it harder. Sanders, the only candidate in the field who was in Congress for the 2002 vote, attacked Biden’s vote on the issue over the weekend.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg greets attendees during a campaign event at a high school in Indianola, Iowa, Dec. 22, 2019.Buttigieg, who was a 20-year-old college student during the congressional vote in question, has also hit Biden on Iraq in recent weeks. Foreign policy should be an asset for Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Policy Relations Committee and a two-term vice president, but it will likely hurt as much as it helps unless he can figure out how to move past criticism from both major political parties on the sensitive issue. The debate moderators, and his Democratic rivals, won’t let him off easy Tuesday night.
Will Democrats pay a price for their first all-white debate?
The debate will also be the first that features an all-white slate of candidates. Asian-American Andrew Yang was the only minority to qualify for the last meeting with all the black and Latino candidates having already been pushed out for failing to meet the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising and polling thresholds. The all-white debate comes less than a week before Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in an election cycle in which Democrats desperately need to energize minority voters — not a good look for the party.
Are things about to get nasty on the left?
Left-wing favorites Sanders and Warren have played nice with each other for virtually the entire 2020 campaign. Until now. Warren over the weekend said she was disappointed after news emerged that Sanders’ campaign volunteers were encouraged to question Warren’s ability to expand the party’s coalition beyond highly educated voters. Warren suggested that the Sanders campaign was trying to “trash” her. While Sanders downplayed the dispute, there are signs for the first time that all is not well on the party’s far-left flank. Given that only one of the two New England senators may get a ticket out of New Hampshire, this is a dynamic to keep a close eye on.
Will the other billionaire in this race be a factor?FILE – In this Dec. 19, 2019, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate businessman Tom Steyer waves before a Democratic presidential primary debate in Los Angeles, Calif.Here at 2020 Watch we don’t put too much stock in single polls, but it was hard to ignore Steyer’s recent surge in South Carolina and Iowa. Sure, the bumps are likely the result of his massive advertising campaign, but that doesn’t make them insignificant. The political world has treated Steyer as an afterthought since the much wealthier Bloomberg entered the race, but Steyer is the only one of the two who will appear on the debate stage this week. If there’s one thing we all learned in the Trump era it’s this: Don’t count out the billionaires.THE FINAL THOUGHT
President Donald Trump is keeping his eye on the prize. As Democrats gather in Iowa, the Republican president will spend Tuesday night rallying supporters in what may be the nation’s most important general election battleground: Wisconsin. He opens the year with no serious primary challenge and more than $100 million in his campaign account. As their primary fight intensifies, remember that the real work has barely begun for Democrats in 2020.   
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Trump’s Iran Actions Remain Under Congressional Scrutiny

The White House is voicing strong support for Iranian protesters who took to the streets to decry the shoot down of a Ukrainian commercial jetliner outside Tehran last week. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the Trump administration faces continued bipartisan pressure from Congress to provide more details on the intelligence that prompted the U.S.’s targeted killing of an Iranian general, as Democrats seek to rein in the president’s ability to unilaterally order military action against Iran.
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Trump, Pelosi Taunt Each Other as Impeachment Trial Looms

U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taunted each other Sunday as Trump’s Senate impeachment trial looms in the days ahead.The U.S. leader called Pelosi, his chief impeachment antagonist in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, “Crazy Nancy,” even before she told ABC News’ This Sunday show that Trump is “impeached for life” no matter how his Senate trial plays out.The House last month approved two articles of impeachment against Trump linked to his efforts to get Ukraine to launch investigations to benefit himself politically — that he abused the office of the presidency and then obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.But Pelosi for three weeks has balked at sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch Trump ally supporting his acquittal, to agree to hear key Trump aides testify at the Senate trial about the president’s actions and subpoena White House documents.The House leader is consulting with her Democratic colleagues Tuesday about the timing of sending the impeachment articles to the Senate, but is planning on naming a handful of lawmakers to press the case against Trump. If that happens, the Senate trial could start later in the week.Pelosi warned the majority Senate Republicans, some of whom have sought to quickly acquit Trump without hearing new witnesses, that history would judge them harshly if they do not conduct an extensive impeachment trial, only the third such time in the country’s 244-year history that a president has faced an impeachment trial and possible removal from office.FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2019.”It’s about a fair trial,” Pelosi said. “They take an oath to have a fair trial and we think that should be with witnesses and documents.””Do that or pay a price,” she said.”We have confidence in our case,” Pelosi said. “This president is impeached for life regardless of any gamesmanship on the part of Mitch McConnell.” She said Democrats believe there is already enough evidence to remove Trump from office, “However, we want the American public to see the truth and why are they afraid of the truth?”Democrats are seeking to hear the testimony of at least four Trump aides, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, neither of whom testified in the lead-up to the House impeaching Trump. The president ordered both to not participate in the House impeachment investigation, but Bolton last week said he would testify at the Senate trial if he is subpoenaed.The minority bloc of 47 Senate Democrats would need four Republican lawmakers to join them to override McConnell’s opposition to new witnesses and vote to hear new testimony. Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Friday she is working with a “small number” of Republicans to ensure that new testimony would be heard. McConnell says he has enough Republican votes to ensure that no vote on new witnesses would occur until after House managers present their case against Trump and the president’s lawyers state their defense.  Trump is all but certain to win acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate and remain in office, but the uncertainty of the moment has left him to fume almost daily on Twitter about what he sees as the unfairness of the case against him.”Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong?” he said Sunday. “Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!”Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020The central allegation against Trump is that he abused his office by pressing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation of one of Trump’s chief 2020 Democratic presidential rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to undermine Trump’s campaign.Trump made the request to Zelenskiy in a late July phone call that came as Trump was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid that Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.But Trump released the money in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigations of the Bidens, proof, Republicans say, that Trump did not engage in a reciprocal, quid pro quo deal with Ukraine –the investigations in exchange for the military assistance. 
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Iran Standoff Shines Spotlight on New Trump Security Adviser

In a defining week for President Donald Trump on the world stage, national security adviser Robert O’Brien was a constant presence at the president’s side as the U.S. edged to the brink of war with Iran and back again.The contrasts with O’Brien’s predecessor along the way — in secret consultations at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, in the Oval Office and in basement deliberations in the White House Situation Room — could not have been more stark.While former national security adviser John Bolton spent decades as a conservative iconoclast in the public arena, O’Brien is far from a household name. While Bolton had strong opinions he shared loudly in the Oval Office, O’Brien has worked to establish an amiable relationship with Trump.And while Bolton’s trademark mustache was a target of Trump’s mockery, the president is drawn to O’Brien’s low-key California vibe and style.“Right out of central casting,” Trump says of O’Brien.FILE – President Donald Trump and Robert O’Brien, the new national security adviser, board Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport, Sept. 18, 2019, in Los Angeles.Rapport with TrumpFor all the differences between the two men, though, O’Brien ended up signing off on the same course of action that Bolton had long endorsed: a strike to take out Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani. The decision drew retaliatory missile strikes from Tehran.The way that O’Brien steered the Trump White House through the process endeared himself to the president and widened his rapidly growing influence in the West Wing.“He’s a deal guy and the president’s a deal guy,” said Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser. “A lot of people inside the foreign policy establishment are good at explaining why things are wrong but are petrified to put things in play and take calculated risks.”The Iran drama was set in motion when Trump summoned O’Brien from Los Angeles to the president’s Palm Beach spread, where Trump was spending a two-week winter holiday. While other top aides, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, consulted with the president from afar, Trump wanted O’Brien at his side.“Robert was calm, cool and collected, constantly keeping the president updated,” Kushner said.More than a half-dozen current and former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House contributed to this account. Many spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.Rise of a new voiceTrump has long been known for tuning out old voices in favor of new ones, but O’Brien’s rise in the president’s inner circle has been rapid. The 53-year-old O’Brien, who has handled scores of complex international litigation, has a corner office on the first floor of the White House, a few steps from the Oval Office.A sharp-dressing Republican lawyer who worked in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, O’Brien was appointed by Trump in May 2018 to be the nation’s top hostage negotiator. He successfully worked for the release of several Americans, including pastor Andrew Brunson, who spent two years in a Turkish prison. O’Brien also traveled to Sweden to lobby for the release of rapper A$AP Rocky, imprisoned on an assault charge.Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, fell out of favor with the president after a series of sharp disagreements, including over North Korea and Iran policies. He was forced out in September. Trump’s previous national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, never developed a personal rapport with the president, who tuned out on McMaster’s long-winded briefing style.Bolton had frequently tussled with Pompeo and Defense Department officials and, at times, frustrated the president with his sharp clashes and bureaucratic knife-fighting.FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, back left, and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien head to the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Nov. 25, 2019.Honest, collaborativeO’Brien, in contrast, makes it a point to collaborate with the State Department and the Pentagon. People familiar with his work style describe an honest broker who is diplomatic but direct. He is known to present the views of Pompeo and top defense and intelligence officials to the president as he would brief a legal client.Colleagues say he doesn’t try to push his own foreign policy ideas on the president and is more deferential to the views from other agencies than was Bolton. He has a plaque on his desk that says, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” It’s a replica of the one President Ronald Reagan kept on his desk in the Oval Office.Administration officials, at least for now, point to a new camaraderie in the latest incarnation of Trump’s national security team: Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper were West Point classmates; Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has grown close to Trump; and O’Brien, unlike Bolton, has not tried to pull an end run around others in the decision-making process.“I think he’s very comfortable with the idea of the job as a staff job, which I think is the model,” said former Sen. Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican who met O’Brien more than a decade ago when they were advising Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Obviously when the president asks for his advice, he gives his personal opinion.”FILE – Then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis speaks beside President Donald Trump during a briefing in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, Oct. 23, 2018.Critics see ‘yes’ men without gravitasWhere Republicans see as collegial team, some Democratic critics worry that Trump is surrounding himself with advisers too eager to accede to his views.New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration’s national security team seems to lack “discerning voices.”Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., lamented this past week that Trump’s current team lacked the gravitas of earlier advisers, including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and McMaster, both retired generals.“People like Mattis and McMaster, who disagree with the president because he’s so erratic, leave — leaving a bunch of ‘yes’ people, who seem to want to do whatever the president wants,” Schumer said recently on the Senate floor.After the drone strike on Soleimani, there was a deliberate effort to give the Iranians some space to react without committing the U.S. to a military response. Even as Trump delivered fire and brimstone warnings, the rest of his national security team gave indications that not every Iranian response would send American missiles flying. When Tehran’s rockets left no casualties in attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, the crisis abated, at least for the moment.While former advisers such as Mattis and McMaster, attempted to check some of the president’s impulses, O’Brien has been regarded as enabling some of Trump’s high-risk inclinations.O’Brien’s style has been to offer pros and cons before ultimately agreeing with Trump’s decisions, including the moves to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Kurdish-held territory in Syria and the military raid that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.O’Brien has established good relationships at the White House and on Capitol Hill, said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.“Every time I talk to the president about him — and his name comes up a fair amount when the president and I are talking — the president just always speaks glowingly about him,” said the Utah senator. He added that O’Brien “has a client. He doesn’t have his own agenda that he’s pursuing.”
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Spiritual Guru Marianne Williamson Ends 2020 White House Bid

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, the spiritual guru and bestselling author, ended her campaign on Friday, weeks before voting begins, saying she did not want to make it tougher for a progressive to win.She also said she did not believe she would be able to gain enough support in the upcoming contests to make a difference in the race to challenge President Donald Trump.In a post on her website, Williamson said “we will not be able to garner enough votes in the election to elevate our conversation any more than it is now.” Williamson has barely registered in the polls and struggled in fundraising since launching her bid for president last January.She laid off her entire staff from her campaign at the end of last year, but continued to appear at campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire in recent weeks. Her decision leaves 13 candidates remaining in the primary. 
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Pompeo Defends Killing of Top Iranian General, Says He Recommended It to Trump

The United States is hitting Iranian companies and eight senior officials with new sanctions, in response to Iranian missile attacks against bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq. Pressed for the rationale behind killing a top Iranian general last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted General Qassem Soleimani was plotting attacks on U.S. facilities. Pompeo is front and center in the current Middle East crisis, as President Donald Trump’s most powerful and influential national security adviser. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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Will Puerto Ricans New to Florida Swing State to Democrats?

When Martha Santiago moved to Polk County, Florida, from Puerto Rico in 1979 to teach in one of the county’s first bilingual schools, there were two certainties.One was that oranges were an economic engine in the county that is wedged between Tampa and Orlando. The other was that orange picking and other agricultural labor was done mostly by undocumented workers from Mexico. Forty years later, Santiago is now Polk’s first Hispanic county commissioner. The fragrant citrus blossoms have been replaced by sprawling stucco subdivisions, and the Hispanic registered voter population in Polk County has boomed, with Puerto Ricans — who are U.S. citizens — driving the increase.That transformation is a clear measure of the change in number, and the change in character of Florida’s Hispanic vote. One of the most important issues in the 2020 election will be whether those changes will ratify Florida’s status as a swing state and show the power of the Hispanic vote in Democratic politics or affirm the presidency of Donald Trump. “In Puerto Rico, politics are very important for the people. It’s the number one thing people talk about,” said Santiago, a Republican who supports Trump.In Polk County, the Hispanic registered voter population has grown from 19,000 in 2006 to 65,000 in 2018 — 15% of the total and of up from only 3% in 1980. By 2018, Hispanics made up 23% of the county’s 700,000 residents — which means the number of potential voters is likely to increase in 2020. FILE – In this Dec. 10, 2019 photo, members of the Hispanic Federation celebrate after officially opening their first field office in Davenport, Fla. The group is helping register Hispanic residents to vote in upcoming elections.Traditionally, Puerto Ricans on the mainland have been considered stalwart Democrats. But as Santiago proves — and as shown by the unexpected Puerto Rican support of Rick Scott in the 2016 U.S. Senate race — such generalizations may not hold in 2020. “That’s one of the big questions that everyone wonders about Florida: what impact will the Hispanic vote have?” said Jens Manuel Krogstad, an analyst at the  Pew Research Center  who studies the political engagement of Latinos in the U.S. “What is the Hispanic vote and is there a Hispanic vote? I say that because Hispanics are diverse in a lot of ways, including in their political views. Especially in Florida.”The Trump campaign is aggressively courting the Hispanic vote, especially religious conservatives, in Florida. Vice President Mike Pence will visit central Florida next week, and Trump held a rally January 3 at a Latino megachurch in the state.  Democratic candidates have been focused on early voting states and have not campaigned heavily yet in Florida. But Democratic-aligned voter registration group have been blanketing Polk County, and the I-4 corridor, hoping to sign up tens of thousands of new voters. On a recent December day, Maria Jose Chapa of the Hispanic Federation stood inside an old arcade mall in downtown Haines City, holding one end of a red ribbon. Her team of a half-dozen people clustered around the ribbon, with another organizer from the group holding the opposite end of the ribbon.”Cortalo,” she said, to applause. It’s Spanish for cut it, and a woman snipped the ribbon with scissors. It was the opening of the Hispanic Federation’s Polk County voter outreach office, but they’d already been on the ground prior to the ribbon-cutting. Between Nov. 18 and Dec. 10, the group had registered 915 voters at bodegas, libraries and outside of government offices. Their goal: 1,500 by the end of the year.Chapa, who is Mexican, commutes west to Polk from Orlando. She’s taken note of Puerto Ricans who have registered recently — many have moved to Florida since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. Some first moved to the Orlando area, but are headed to Polk to settle down. An estimated 400,000 Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island.”It makes sense because housing’s cheaper,” she said, grabbing an orange clipboard and a stack of voter registration forms. An hour later, she stood outside the Polk County Tax Collector’s office. With a big smile, she asked those walking out of the office if they were registered to vote in both English and Spanish.More often than not, people responded in Spanish. Many said they’d already registered to vote, while others paused and reached for the clipboard, saying they needed to update their address.Chapa signed up another Puerto Rican on the day she opened the federation’s field office. David Serrano, a 49-year-old laborer, grinned when asked about Trump while filling out his change of address form.”I hate people who hate people,” he said. “He’s not my type of person.”He said he will be voting in the 2020 election, and Chapa pointed out that he was registered as NPA — no party affiliation, which means that because Florida’s a closed primary state, he won’t be able to vote in the primary unless he changes his party affiliation. NPA voters can cast ballots in the general election. Serrano said he’d deal with it later and walked off. According to the Florida Secretary of State, there were about 107,600 newly registered Hispanic voters in 2019. A majority — 46 percent — were registered as NPA. Thirty-three percent registered as Democrats, and 18% as Republicans. Chapa is concerned about those voters; she said she sees lots of Puerto Ricans registering as NPAs, which means predicting which way those voters will lean in a hotly contested year is virtually impossible.”They can’t fully participate in the process,” she said, shaking her head. “That affects the election.”FILE – In this Dec. 10, 2019 photo, Maria Jose Chapa gestures during an interview after officially opening the first Hispanic Federation field office in Davenport, Fla.Maria Morales, a 56-year-old teacher, was one of those who changed her address with Chapa. Morales recently moved from Orlando to the small Polk County community of Davenport. She’s Puerto Rican, and came to the mainland four years ago. When she speaks of the hurricane and what her grown son went through in the aftermath, her voice cracks.”He said, Mom, get me out of here,” she recounted. Many settled in Florida, including Morales’ son.When asked about Trump’s handling of the hurricane — he was highly critical of Puerto Rico’s government, saying it was corrupt — and whether it would affect her vote in 2020, Morales shrugged.”I really don’t know yet,” she said.Morales voted for Trump in 2016, and thinks he’s done a good job with the economy. She also “kind of agrees with him” on the issue of Puerto Rican corruption. However, she’s open to voting for a Democratic candidate. Trouble is, she can’t quite identify who’s who in the crowded field.”Biden?” she mused. “Is that the old man with the gray hair?”Florida Democrats have vowed to register 200,000 voters before the 2020 primary, and said in March that they would spend $2 million on the effort. Former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, a Democrat, created a new group called Bring It Home Florida, and aims to register a million voters. It’s unclear how much Republicans will spend on vote-getting efforts. But according to the Florida Division of Elections, between January and September 2019 (the latest month data is available), Republicans registered a net 23,084 new voters in the state, compared to 10,731 Democrats. Daniel Smith, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Florida, said there have been some key differences in Puerto Rican voting patterns compared to other Hispanic groups.Compared with other Hispanic groups in Florida, Puerto Ricans have weaker voter turnout. He analyzed Florida precincts that had at least 100 Puerto Rican-born registered voters who voted in the 2016 general election.Of the more than 180,000 Puerto Rican-born voters in his database, only 112,000 of them, or 62%, voted in 2016 — a far lower rate than Cuban born voters, he said. That same year, 242,000 of the 325,000 Cuban-born naturalized citizens in his database turned out to vote — a roughly 75% turnout.In 2018, Puerto Ricans voter turnout was soft, which distressed Democrats. Former Gov. Rick Scott ran for Senate in that year. He visited the island multiple times after Maria, and his careful attention to the island seemed to pay off. Analysis of some heavily Puerto Rican precincts in Osceola County showed that Scott secured hundreds more votes than fellow GOP candidate Ron DeSantis, who was running for governor the same year.Said Chapa: “Hispanic voters are not a monolith. We’re not all Democrats.”
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Pelosi: House Moving to Send Impeachment to Senate Next Week

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House will take steps next week to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for President Donald Trump’s Senate trial.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said she has asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further,” Pelosi wrote.
Pelosi has held on to the articles in a standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The protracted showdown has scrambled the politics of impeachment and the congressional calendar three weeks after the House Democrats impeached Trump on charges of abuse and obstruction over his actions toward Ukraine.
Transmittal of the documents and naming of House impeachment managers are the next steps needed to start the Senate trial. Pelosi indicated she may be communicating to her colleagues, as she often does with a letter on her thinking.
McConnell wants to launch a speedy trial without new witnesses but Pelosi is warning against a rush to acquit the president.
Trump mocked Pelosi with his tweets Friday and derided her and other Democrats late Thursday in Toledo, his first rally of 2020.
Pelosi, D-Calif., faces mounting pressure to act. Republicans say Democrats are embarrassed by their vote. But Pelosi countered that Democrats are “proud” of upholding the Constitution and said she doubted that Senate Republicans will do the same.
Many on Capitol Hill expect the Senate impeachment trial to begin next week.
“I’ll send them over when I’m ready. That will probably be soon,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol Thursday, noting she is not postponing it “indefinitely.”
The House impeached Trump in December on the charge that he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine’s new leader to investigate Democrats, using as leverage $400 million in military assistance for the U.S. ally as it counters Russia at its border. Trump insists he did nothing wrong, but his defiance of the House Democrats’ investigation led to an additional charge of obstruction of Congress.
Pelosi’s delay in sending the articles of impeachment over for a Senate trial has led to a standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., over what would be the third impeachment trial in the nation’s history.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., heads to a briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other national security officials.McConnell said that if Pelosi and House Democrats are “too embarrassed” to send the articles of impeachment, the Senate will simply move on next week to other business.
“They do not get to trap our entire country into an unending groundhog day of impeachment without resolution,” McConnell said.
McConnell told GOP senators at a lunchtime meeting to expect the trial next week, according to two people familiar with his remarks. The people requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
At the same time, McConnell signed on to a resolution from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to allow for the dismissal of articles of impeachment if the House doesn’t transmit them in 25 days. That change to Senate rules appears unlikely to happen before Pelosi transmits the articles.
In the weeks since Trump was impeached, Democrats have focused on new evidence about Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and they pushed the Senate to consider new testimony, including from former White House national security adviser John Bolton. Republicans are just as focused on a speedy trial with acquittal.
Republicans have the leverage, with a slim 53-47 Senate majority, as McConnell rebuffs the Democratic demands for testimony and documents. But Democrats are using the delay to sow public doubt about the fairness of the process as they try to peel off wavering GOP senators for the upcoming votes. It takes just 51 senators to set the rules.
“When we say fair trial, we mean facts, we mean witnesses, we mean documents,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., promising votes ahead. “Every single one of us, in this Senate, will have to have to take a stand. How do my Republican friends want the American people, their constituents, and history to remember them?”
Trump weighed in from the White House suggesting that he, too, would like more witnesses at trial. They include former Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination now, and his son Hunter, as well as the government whistleblower whose complaint about the president’s pressure on Ukraine sparked the impeachment investigation.
On a July telephone call with Ukraine’s new president, Trump asked his counterpart to open an investigation into the Bidens while holding up military aid for Ukraine. A Ukrainian gas company had hired Hunter Biden when his father was vice president and the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.
Trump suggested that his administration would continue to block Bolton or others from the administration from appearing before senators. Many of those officials have defied congressional subpoenas for their testimony.
       When we start allowing national security advisers to just go up and say whatever they want to say, we can't do that,'' Trump said during an event with building contractors. "So we have to protect presidential privilege for me, but for future presidents. That's very important."
Bolton, one of four witnesses that Democrats have requested, said this week that he would testify if subpoenaed.
McConnell has said from the start he is looking to model Trump's trial on the last time the Senate convened as the court of impeachment, for President Bill Clinton in 1999. McConnell has said there will be "no haggling" with House Democrats over Senate procedures.
"There will be no unfair, new rule rule-book written solely for President Trump," McConnell said Thursday.
McConnell, who met with Trump late Wednesday at the White House, suggested last month it would be "fine with me" if the House never sent the articles. More recently, he has drawn on the Constitution's intent for the Senate to have the ultimate say on matters of impeachment. He scoffed that Pelosi has `'managed to do the impossible by uniting Democrats and Republicans who want the trial to begin.
Some Democrats have been showing increased anxiety over the delay as Americans remain divided over Trump’s impeachment.
The delay on impeachment has also upended the political calendar, with the weekslong trial now expected to bump into presidential nominating contests, which begin in early February. Several Democratic senators are running for the party’s nomination.
One 2020 hopeful, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told The Associated Press’s Ground Game podcast that a looming impeachment trial and other pressing issues in Washington could deal a “big, big blow” to his presidential campaign by keeping him away from Iowa in the final weeks before the Feb. 3 caucuses.
As Pelosi dashed into a morning meeting at the Capitol, she was asked if she had any concerns about losing support from Democrats for her strategy. She told reporters: “No.”
“I know exactly when” to send the impeachment articles over, Pelosi said. “I won’t be telling you right now.”
Pelosi is seeking what she says she wanted from the start – “to see the arena” and “terms of the engagement” that McConnell will use for the trial – before sending her House managers to present the articles of impeachment in the Senate. She has yet to choose the managers, a source of political intrigue as many lawmakers want the high-profile job. 
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Steyer Wants Climate Change Refugees to Enter US Legally

Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer on Friday unveiled an immigration proposal seeking to make immigrants fleeing the effects of climate change eligible for legal entry into the United States.
    
Like a lot of his White House rivals, Steyer is promising to use executive action to reinstate Obama administration protections for people brought to the country illegally as children. He’d do the same to nullify President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and end the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
    
The billionaire environmental activist from California also would seek to decriminalize illegal border crossings and work with Congress to approve a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the U.S. illegally.
    
And Steyer wants to adequately fund agencies that foster legal immigration, which he argues have seen their budgets shrink as previous administrations poured more federal money into border enforcement.
    
As part of his plan, Steyer says he will help countries cope with the effects of climate change by offering “funding, equipment and expertise” designed to bolster disaster response. But he also wants to establish new categories of legal U.S. immigration to ensure that refugees fleeing the effects of rising seas and climate-related disasters abroad can enter the U.S. legally.
    
“We need to see what we can do to help people in place,” Steyer said in an interview. “At the same time, we understand this is going to put massive pressure on our immigration systems.”
    
Steyer, who launched his 2020 campaign in July, qualified Thursday for next week’s Democratic presidential debate, putting him on stage in Iowa alongside five other candidates. Steyer qualified by hitting polling and donor thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee.
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AP FACT CHECK: Trump Minimizes IS Risk, Distorts Iran Payout

President Donald Trump wrongly dismissed the continuing threat of the Islamic State group and spread a false tale of the U.S. paying out billions of dollars to Iran as part of the multinational deal freezing its nuclear program in an address Wednesday that fell short on facts.He also made an assertion that is as dubious as it was provocative: that the Iranian missiles fired by Tehran at two military bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were paid for by money “made available” to Iran by the Obama administration.A look at some of the president’s claims in his remarks on Iran’s missile strike on the two Iraqi bases:TRUMP: “Three months ago, after destroying 100% of ISIS and its territorial caliphate …”THE FACTS: His claim of a 100% defeat is misleading as the Islamic State still poses a threat.IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March, marking the end of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate.Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.As recently as this week, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the fight against ISIS in Syria was continuing.IS controlled large swaths of northern and eastern Syria, where it declared a caliphate in 2014, along with large parts of neighboring Iraq.U.N. experts warned in August that IS leaders are aiming to consolidate and create conditions for an “eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands.”
___TRUMP: “Iran’s hostility substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013. And they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash.”THE FACTS: There was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury or other countries.When Iran signed the multinational deal to restrain its nuclear development in return for being freed from sanctions, it regained access to its own assets, which had been frozen abroad. Iran was allowed to get its money back. The deal actually was signed in 2015, after a 2013 preliminary agreement. Trump has taken the U.S. out of it.The $1.8 billion is a separate matter. A payout of roughly that amount did come from the U.S. treasury. It was to pay an old IOU.In the 1970s, Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured. After the nuclear deal, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the matter, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest.The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s previous dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.___TRUMP: “The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.”THE FACTS: That accusation comes without corroboration. The administration has offered no information supporting the contention that in regaining access to $150 billion of its assets that had been frozen abroad, Iran steered a chunk of that money to the missiles that hit the bases in Iraq.“I doubt anyone has the insight into Iran’s budgetary mechanisms to say that this money was used for this purpose,” said Gerald Feierstein, a career U.S. diplomat who retired in 2016 as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.“It’s a funds-are-fungible kind of argument,” he said. “I mean, if they have money, can you say that dollar went directly to buy a missile, as opposed to freeing up another dollar that went to buy a missile?”Gen. Joseph Votel, who retired from the U.S. Army in March as the top military commander for the Middle East, said he was not aware of any specific intelligence on this question. “I don’t have anything that would particularly support that,” he said. “I’m not saying it did or it didn’t, but I don’t have details to demonstrate it one way or the other.”As President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry said it was possible Iran would use some of the money being returned to it for malign activities. Whether it did in this case has not been established.Iran has many sources of revenue, despite the severe pinch of sanctions. Oil sales to China and other countries dominate its exports. It also sells chemicals, plastics, fruits and more abroad.___TRUMP: “We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.”THE FACTS: Trump’s declaration of energy independence is premature. The U.S. still needs plenty of oil from the Mideast.The volume of U.S. oil imports from the Persian Gulf alone — 23 million barrels in October – would not be easy to make up elsewhere, at least not without major changes in U.S. demand or production.Technological advances like fracking and horizontal drilling have allowed the U.S. to greatly increase production, but demand remains brisk and the country still imports millions of barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq and other countries. Moreover, much of what the U.S. produces is hard for domestic refiners to convert to practical use. So the U.S. exports that production and imports oil that is more suitable for American refineries to handle.On energy more broadly, the U.S. is indeed close to parity on how much energy it produces and how much it consumes. In some months, it produces more than it consumes. But it has not achieved self-sufficiency. In the first nine months of last year, it imported about as much energy as it exported.___TRUMP: “The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion.”THE FACTS: That’s an exaggeration.It’s true that his administration has accelerated a sharp buildup in defense spending, including a respite from what the U.S. military considered to be crippling spending limits under budget sequestration.But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet, were started years before the Trump administration. And it will take years for freshly ordered tanks, planes and other weapons to be built, delivered and put to use.The Air Force’s Minuteman 3 missiles, a key part of the U.S. nuclear force, for instance, have been operating since the early 1970s and the modernization was begun under the Obama administration. They are due to be replaced with a new version, but not until later this decade.
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Buttigieg Nets First Black Congressional Backer

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has netted an endorsement from Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland, the first black member of Congress to throw his support to the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.The endorsement is significant for Buttigieg, who has been criticized within the party for his scant support among African Americans.
Brown, 58, belongs to the Congressional Black Caucus, whose membership is courted aggressively by Democratic presidential candidates, and includes a total of 54 lawmakers in the U.S House and Senate.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has the most endorsements from members of the Congressional Black Caucus among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates — a total of nine.
Brown, also a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, is an Iraq War veteran and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The former combat veteran has been named a co-chairman of Buttigieg’s national campaign.  
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McConnell, Pelosi Stand Firm as Impeachment Remains Frozen

The standoff over President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial deepened as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said there will be “no haggling” with Democrats as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demands for more details and witnesses.McConnell’s Senate majority has the leverage Republicans need to launch Trump’s trial toward swift acquittal of the charges, but Pelosi’s reluctance to transmit the articles of impeachment leaves the proceedings at a standstill.
What started as a seemingly minor delay over process and procedures is now a high-stakes showdown between two skilled leaders facing off over the rare impeachment trial, only the third in the nation’s history.
“There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday before meeting with Trump at the White House. “We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. The House Democrats’ turn is over.”
Trump tweeted Thursday that “Pelosi doesn’t want to hand over The Articles of Impeachment, which were fraudulently produced by corrupt politicians like Shifty Schiff in the first place, because after all of these years of investigations and persecution, they show no crimes and are a joke and a scam!” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., led the House impeachment inquiry.
Three weeks have passed since the House impeached Trump on the charge that he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine’s new leader to investigate Democrats, using as leverage $400 million in military assistance for the U.S. ally as it counters Russia at its border. Trump insists he did nothing wrong, but his defiance of the House Democrats’ investigation led to an additional charge of obstruction of Congress.
Senators from both sides are eager to serve as jurors for Trump’s day in court. The trial will be conducted in the Senate, where Republicans have a thin majority.U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi answers questions from reporters after leaving a House Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 8, 2020. REUTERS/Leah MillisBut even as McConnell spoke from the Senate floor, Pelosi, D-Calif., was giving no indication of her willingness to agree to his terms. In a closed-door meeting with the House Democratic caucus, she spoke instead about the crisis in the Middle East, with Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, according to several Democrats in the room.
The impeachment timeline is complicating the political calendar, with the weekslong trial now expected to bump into presidential primaries. Several Democratic senators are running for the party nomination.
Returning to Washington from the campaign trail, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told reporters she was confident in Pelosi’s plan.
“I have no doubt that she will get this right,” Warren said. “Some things are more important than politics, and the impeachment of a president is certainly one of those. No one is above the law, not even the president.”
Another 2020 hopeful, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said: “Those articles will come over here for a vote in due time.”
The showdown is expected to be resolved this week, lawmakers said.
Pelosi wants McConnell to “immediately” make public the details of his trial proposal, according to a letter to colleagues. She wants to know how much time will be devoted to the trial and other details about the “arena” before announcing her choice of House managers to try the case in the Senate, according to Democrats familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Sadly, Leader McConnell has made clear that his loyalty is to the President and not the Constitution,” Pelosi wrote to colleagues late Tuesday. She said the process he is outlining is “unfair.”
The confrontation over a Senate trial had been building for weeks. But McConnell gained ground when he announced Tuesday that he has support from the majority of senators to start a trial structured like the last one, against President Bill Clinton in 1999. Those proceedings also began without an agreement on witnesses.
“We have the votes,” McConnell told reporters.
It takes 51 votes for agreement on the trial proceedings, and with Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority McConnell has a slight advantage if he can hold GOP senators together. Democrats are trying to peel off support from a few Republicans to support their demands.
McConnell, who has resisted calling new witnesses, expects a speedy trial that will end with Trump acquitted of the charges. He complained about Pelosi’s “endless appetite for these cynical games” and said it will be up to senators to decide if they want more testimony.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer promised he would force votes on witnesses, requiring senators to choose whether they want to hear from Trump former national security adviser John Bolton and others.
“When the Senate has votes on witnesses and documents, my Republican colleagues will have to answer to not just the president,” Schumer said. “The American people do not want a cover-up.”
Some Senate Democrats have said the time has come for Pelosi to send the articles so the trial can begin. Pelosi has yet to choose House impeachment managers for the trial, a politically sensitive next step with many lawmakers vying to be candidates. But aides downplayed any riff between the leaders, saying senators are simply eager to have their say on Trump’s impeachment.
Schumer, who talks daily with Pelosi, said the speaker is doing “a very good job and she is seeking to maximize our ability to get facts and evidence.”
Pelosi told House leaders in a private meeting Tuesday that she believed the decision to delay the articles was working as a strategy to apply pressure on the Senate for a more fulsome trial, according to those in that meeting.
“People are united,” said Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California about the mood in the House caucus.
Republicans countered that Democrats rushed to impeach and then delayed the process. At their own lunch Wednesday, Republican senators were privately split on next steps, with some seeking ways to compel Pelosi to act while others were content to let impeachment slip.   
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Facebook Again Declines to Limit Political Ad Targeting

Facebook has decided not to limit how political ads can be targeted to specific groups of people, as its main digital-ad rival Google did in November to fight misinformation. Neither will it ban political ads outright, as Twitter did last October. And Facebook still won’t fact check them, as it’s faced pressure to do.Instead, it is announcing much more limited “transparency features” that aim to give users slightly more control over how many political ads they see and to make its online library of political ads easier to use.Facebook Ads Show Russian Effort to Stoke Political Division

        Democrats on the House intelligence committee have released more than 3,500 Facebook ads that were created or promoted by a Russian internet agency, providing the fullest picture yet of Russia's attempt to sow racial and political division in the United States before and after the 2016 election.

Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and gun rights, among other issues. A large number of them attempt to stoke racial divisions by mentioning police…
These steps appear unlikely to assuage critics — including some of the company’s rank and file employees — who say Facebook has too much power and not enough limits when it comes to its effects on elections and democracy itself.Since last fall, Facebook has insisted that it won’t fact-check political ads, a move that critics say gives politicians license to lie in ads that can’t be easily monitored by outsiders. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly argued that “political speech is important” and that Facebook doesn’t want to interfere with it.Google, the digital ads leader, is limiting political-ad targeting to broad categories such as sex, age and postal code.Facebook said in a blog post Thursday that it considered limiting custom audience targeting, known as microtargeting, for political ads. But the social network said it learned about their importance for “reaching key audiences” after conducting outreach with political campaigns from both major parties in the U.S., political groups and nonprofits.US House Panel to Publicly Release Russia Facebook Ads

        The leaders of the U.S. 

The company said it was guided by the principle that “people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”Facebook does plan to let users choose to see “fewer” political and social-issue ads, although it won’t let people exclude them entirely. It’s also going to let people choose whether or not to see ads, political or otherwise, from advertisers targeting them using their contact details such as email address or phone number.The company is also tweaking its ad library so people can search for exact phrases and limit results using filters such as ad-audience size, dates and regions reached.Facebook’s ad library currently lets anyone find out how much was spent on an ad, how many times it was seen, and the age, gender and location of the people who saw it.Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, an advocacy group researching political advertising, said Facebook was wise to permit microtargeting for political ads, despite some calls for a ban.He said it was better to provide more information on ads because it would give more insight into the actors behind them and their strategies. Facebook has made a start in that direction by adding information on an ad’s audience size, but it should give much more explanation about targeted ads, which he said are based on databases cross-referencing people’s emails with, for example, their voting history and credit scores.“By making it easier for you to understand what data’s in there, you can also understand what the advertiser’s intent was,” Jeffers said.Facebook says 85% of targeted advertising campaigns by U.S. presidential candidates are aimed at audiences of more than 250,000 people. But given that the 2016 election was effectively decided by roughly 100,000 voters in three or four states, Jeffers said, Facebook should do more to let people monitor political campaigns and their advertising in real time.Jeffers also said he welcomed the improvements to the ad library, “assuming that people actually bother to use it.”The changes related to ad disclosures will go into effect over the next three months in the U.S. and other countries where Facebook puts the “paid for by” disclaimers on political ads. The political-ad controls won’t roll out in the U.S. until early summer; the company will “eventually” expand them to other regions.
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