“President Trump’s threat to revise our country’s libel laws is, frankly, not credible,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr. Trump’s remarks reflected a broader frustration in his inner circle over critical coverage in recent days that has cast him as an erratic and ill-prepared commander in chief.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News for publishing, last January, a salacious and mostly unsubstantiated intelligence dossier that purported to describe how Russia had aided the Trump campaign. The dossier characterized Mr. Cohen as a central figure in what it described as a globe-spanning conspiracy.
Mr. Cohen also filed a separate suit in federal court against Fusion GPS, the research firm that prepared the dossier. Fusion GPS and BuzzFeed both said they would aggressively defend themselves against the suits.
Last week, a lawyer working on Mr. Trump’s behalf, Charles J. Harder of Harder Mirell Abrams in Beverly Hills, Calif., sent an 11-page cease-and-desist letter to the publisher of Mr. Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
Mr. Harder’s letter demanded that the publisher, Henry Holt and Company, withdraw the book from stores and apologize; the publisher responded by moving up the book’s release date and increasing its first print run to one million copies, from 150,000.
Mr. Trump’s remarks on Wednesday about libel law seemed, at times, to refer obliquely to the book, which debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, and has provided fodder for dozens of news articles, opinion pieces and cable news segments.
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“We want fairness,” the president said. “Can’t say things that are false, knowingly false, and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account. We are going to take a very, very strong look at that, and I think what the American people want to see is fairness.”
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As a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump made sport of the reporters who stood in fenced-off areas during his speeches, often whipping up the crowd against them.
He also said on the campaign trail that he would “open up” the country’s libel laws — although he later backed off that pledge in an interview with editors and writers at The Times, joking that he personally might be in trouble if the laws were loosened.
“Somebody said to me on that, they said, ‘You know, it’s a great idea softening up those laws, but you may get sued a lot more,’” Mr. Trump, who propagated false rumors that Barack Obama was born in Africa and that the father of Senator Ted Cruz had aided the assassination of John F. Kennedy, said at the time.
Mr. Trump is no stranger to defamation claims, having filed several of them himself, without success. In 2009, a New Jersey judge dismissed a $5 billion suit brought by Mr. Trump against a biographer, Timothy L. O’Brien; Mr. Trump had claimed that Mr. O’Brien understated his personal wealth.
The president’s comments about the news media on Wednesday also extended to one of his favorite punching bags: network news. He taunted the television reporters in the room, saying they were dependent on his activities for ratings.
“If Trump doesn’t win in three years, they’re all out of business,” the president said. “You’re all out of business.”
He also claimed that network anchors had sent him “letters of congratulations” on Tuesday about a cabinet meeting that was broadcast on television that day.
“A lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he had received “about two hours” of positive coverage from news networks, “and then they went a little bit south on us.” (White House aides said later that the “letters” in question referred to complimentary tweets from journalists.)
“They probably wish they didn’t send us those letter of congratulations, but it was good,” Mr. Trump added. “I’m sure their ratings were fantastic.”
In a statement, 7-Eleven Inc., which is based in Irving, Tex., distanced itself from its franchisees, saying they were independent business owners who “are solely responsible for their employees, including deciding who to hire and verifying their eligibility to work in the United States.”
“7-Eleven takes compliance with immigration laws seriously and has terminated the franchise agreements of franchisees convicted of violating these laws,” the company said.
If ICE hoped to make a bold statement, it could hardly pick a more iconic target than 7-Eleven, a chain known for its ubiquitous stores that are open all the time and sell the much-loved Slurpees and Big Gulps. Many a franchise has been a steppingstone for new, legal immigrants who want to own and run their own small businesses.
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Not all franchisees have been scrupulous about whom they hire. ICE called its Wednesday sweep a “follow-up” of a 2013 investigation that resulted in the arrests of nine 7-Eleven franchise owners and managers on Long Island and in Virginia on charges of employing undocumented workers. Several have pleaded guilty and forfeited their franchises, and were ordered to pay millions in back wages owed to the workers.
“This definitely sends a message to employers,” said Ira Mehlman, the spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors more limits on immigration and stricter enforcement.
According to ICE, federal agents served inspection notices to 7-Eleven franchises in California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Washington, D.C.
Under President George W. Bush, ICE tended to make deportation arrests at worksites the government had reason to believe hired undocumented workers. The agency under President Barack Obama performed more inspections of the I-9 forms employers are required to fill out and keep to verify their workers’ eligibility.
One of the biggest workplace immigration raids, in July 2008, resulted in the detention of nearly 400 undocumented immigrants, including several children, at an Iowa meatpacking plant. Sholom Rubashkin, the chief executive of the Agriprocessors plant, then the largest kosher meatpacking operation in the country, was eventually convicted of bank fraud in federal court.
President Trump commuted Mr. Rubashkin’s 27-year prison sentence last month, after years of lobbying by a number of prominent lawyers and politicians who considered his term unduly harsh, and perhaps even anti-Semitic.
Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican whose seat was considered vulnerable in the midterm elections, announced Wednesday that he will retire from Congress at the end of this year.
Issa, a member of the House since 2001, called his time in office “the privilege of a lifetime.”
“While my service to California’s 49th district will be coming to an end, I will continue advocating on behalf of the causes that are most important to me, advancing on behalf of the causes that are most important to me, advancing public policy where I believe I can make a true and lasting difference, and continuing the fight to make our incredible nation an even better place to call home,” he said in a statement.
Issa was a national figure and a staple on cable talk shows when he chaired the House Oversight House Oversight and Government Reform Committee from from 2011 to 2015. He was a relentless critic of the Obama administration and led the investigation of the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi until GOP leaders decided to create a special committee to handle that probe.
Generally described as the richest member of Congress, Issa bankrolled the successful 2003 effort to recall California governor Gray Davis, leading to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Issa joins the wave of GOP lawmakers who have announced that they won’t run for re-election this year.
Issa was narrowly re-elected to his seat in 2016, when he won with 50.3% of the votes. The district — a part of Southern California that swung in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016 — has since been listed as a top target by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
So far, four Democrats have announced their intention to run for the seat: Doug Applegate, Sara Jacobs, Paul Kerr and Mike Levin. Applegate was Issa’s 2016 opponent.
The death toll from a massive debris flow that buried homes and cars under a torrent of mud and boulders rose to 15 in Montecito, where local personnel and the U.S. Coast Guard continued rescue operations Wednesday morning.
About 300 people remained stuck in their homes in Montecito’s Romero Canyon neighborhood and throughout the debris field, where authorities launched helicopter rescues at daybreak.
The mudslides began around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, when intense rains dislodged boulders and caused heavy mudflow along hillsides that were scarred by the sprawling Thomas fire late last year. A number of homes were ripped from their foundations, with some pulled more than a half-mile by water and mud before they broke apart.
“It looked like a World War I battlefield,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday.
Sources: Santa Barbara county, Mapzen, OpenStreetMap @latimesgraphics
The death toll rose to 15 overnight, according to Amber Anderson, a public information officer for the multi-agency response to the disaster. At least 28 others had been reported injured, and 24 more are missing, she said. Approximately 100 homes were destroyed and 300 were damaged in the mudslide, according to Anderson. Eight commercial properties were also destroyed, she said.
Officials have yet to publicly identify any of those killed in the mudslides. Mike Eliason, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, said there were juveniles among the deceased.
With much of the area still inaccessible, officials have said they fear the number of people killed in the mudslides could rise.
Sheriffs deputies carry a body from the debris near Hot Springs Road in Montecito after a major storm hit the burn area Tuesday. Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times
Southern California was drenched Tuesday, but nowhere did the rainstorm inflict more pain than in Montecito, just weeks after the coastal community dealt with the devastating Thomas fire.
Some 500 firefighters from across the state rushed to help, with crews struggling through clogged roads, waist-deep mud and downed trees throughout the day in search of victims. Dozens of survivors were hoisted to safety in helicopters.
The rain overwhelmed the south-facing slopes above Montecito, flooding the creek and sending mud and boulders into residential neighborhoods, officials said.
On Wednesday morning, the noise of construction crews using bulldozers to move boulders and fallen trees along Sycamore Canyon Road and Hot Springs road echoed down empty streets. Thick mud and downed power lines filled the streets. As the rescue crews tried to open pathways, some residents walked through the mud hoping to aid in the search for missing relatives and friends.
With a shovel in one hand, a man who asked to be identified only as Mikey smoked a cigarette and then started shoveling mud and debris from the intersection.
He had been out since 5 a.m looking for his girlfriend’s missing sisters: Morgan and Sawyer Corey. He said their house, located roughly a half mile away in Sycamore Canyon Road, had been swept away.
“They are good people,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I’m hoping to find them.”
As he waded through deep mud, Montecito resident Ben Ekler said his friend’s mother and two children were swept away during Tuesday morning’s deluge. The mother and one of the children were found and are recovering at an area hospital, he said.
But the other child is still missing.
At least 7,000 people have been evacuated from the area. As part of ongoing rescue efforts, a “public safety exclusion zone” has been established in Montecito.
Residents in areas west of Sheffield Drive, East Valley Road and Ladera Lane, east of Olive Mill and Hot Springs Road, north of the ocean, and south of the U.S. Forest Service boundary are being asked to shelter in place and not move around the area. The move is designed to ease the task faced by rescue personnel, and those spotted in the area without approval could face arrest, authorities said.
A number of helicopter rescues are planned Wednesday in Romero Canyon, an area where about 300 people remain trapped in their homes. Rescue officials do not believe the people stuck there are injured, but the mudslides have made the area inaccessible by ground.
“So far there isn’t a concern about anybody being in any potential danger in that area,” said Rosie Narez, a spokeswoman for the multi-agency storm response. “There’s no way in or out, so I mean, at some point … you’re going to run out of stuff, so you’re going to need help.”
Wednesday’s rescue efforts will focus on the aerial evacuation of those trapped in Romero Canyon, as well as clearing mud-caked roadways so emergency personnel can access homes that were hit hard by the debris flow, according to Eliason.
Helicopters and rescue workers from the U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard, as well as firefighters and helicopters from fire departments in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties have all descended on Montecito, Eliason said.
An airship with night-vision capabilities hovered over the damaged area through the early morning hours. With the rain stopped, Eliason said rescue crews remain hopeful they can soon reach others who are trapped.
“The weather was favorable. Search and rescue is still very confident that we’re still in that window for rescue mode,” he said. “We’re actively pursuing trying to get in there as quick as we can to get those people to safety.”
Rescuing those trapped in Romero Canyon and reaching other homes that were made inaccessible by the mudslides remains a priority, he said, because many of those people could be without crucial supplies.
“A majority of Montecito and that whole area is in the Stone Age right now,” Eliason said. “There is no water. There is no gas. There is no electricity.”
The storm system that hit Southern California beginning Monday dumped more than 5 inches of rain on some parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and officials had been concerned that sections of the state damaged by last month’s wildfires would be susceptible to heavy mudflows. Soil scorched by fire is less able to absorb water.
Mudflows washed out a nearly 30-mile stretch of the 101 Freeway between Santa Barbara and Ventura, and also prompted evacuations in parts of Burbank and Los Angeles on Tuesday. The heavy weather also caused a surge in motor vehicle accidents across the Southland, according to the California Highway Patrol.
But Santa Barbara County clearly took the brunt of the damage, where mud, boulders, husks of cars and housing frames were common sights. The section of Montecito that was hit hardest was actually south of the Thomas fire’s burn scar, and not subject to mandatory evacuation, according to Eliason.
But a creek that feeds the Pacific Ocean swelled early Tuesday morning, raining boulders and flood waters onto residents as they slept.
The rains were like a starter’s gun for many in Montecito and nearby Carpinteria. Peter Lapidus said the sound of droplets pummeling his home forced him out of bed around 4 a.m. Tuesday.
“It was like a bomb went off,” he said. “It wasn’t raining hard, and then it was like you flipped a switch.”
Maude Feil, who was traversing the mud on Olive Mill Road with a walking stick Wednesday morning, said the area looked “like an apocalypse happened” when she first emerged from her home the day before.
As she walked, she made a grim discovery when she spotted what she thought was a mannequin beneath railroad tricks
“It was a woman’s body,” she said.
Feil had to evacuate during the Thomas fire, and said she was worried survivors who managed to get through the wildfire unscathed may have lost everything they own in Tuesday’s debris flow
“I’ve never been so close to a fire in my whole entire life, then this,” she said. “People who didn’t lose their house in the fire — they just lost huge things in the mud. It’s like a war zone or something.”
Etehad and Mejia reported from Montecito. Queally reported from Los Angeles. Times Staff Writers Joseph Serna, Alene Tchhekmedyian and Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.
1:30 p.m.: This post was updated with additional information about the number of people injured and the number of buildings that were damaged or destroyed in the mudslide.
9:10 a.m.: This post was updated with comments from Montecito residents searching for missing relatives and friends.
8:30 a.m.: This post was updated with the number of people missing and injured and additional details about rescue efforts.
7:55 a.m.: This post was updated with details on the public safety exclusion zone.
This article was originally published at 6:55 a.m.
A federal judge’s decision to block the Trump administration’s plans to phase out protections for undocumented “dreamers” brought sharp backlash Wednesday from the White House, which called the injunction “outrageous.”
The order issued late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge William Alsup says safeguards against deportation must remain in place for the nearly 690,000people in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program while a legal challenge to ending the program proceeds.
It remained unclear Wednesday when the DACA recipients, who were brought to this country illegally as children and are known as “dreamers,” could resume applying for renewals of their work permits as a result of the California ruling, which Alsup said should apply nationwide. Advocates said it would depend on the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the program.
The Trump administration has vowed to challenge Alsup’s ruling.
“They can’t go back and renew today,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “We expect there to be a lot of confusion in communities about what that means.”
DACA recipients and their advocates said the decision added new urgency to negotiations between Congress and the White House on what to do about the dreamers, who are pushing for a path to citizenship. Trump has said any accomodations must be paired with increased border security, including a border wall.
“We can’t keep relying on lawsuits and different presidents to come in and upend our lives,” said Bruna Bouhid, a spokeswoman for United We Dream who came to the United States from Brazil at age 7 and has a work permit through the program.
“I don’t want to go through this anymore. It’s too hard. . . . You don’t know what your future looks like.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Alsup’s ruling “outrageous” and insisted that Congress must decide the fate of the DACA program.
“An issue of this magnitude must go through the normal legislative process,” Sanders said. “President Trump is committed to the rule of law, and will work with members of both parties to reach a permanent solution that corrects the unconstitutional actions taken by the last administration.”
On Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted that a solution to DACA must be part of any federal budget deal, an effort to stoke negotiations in coming days.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), third from left, and other demonstrators protest outside of the U.S. Capitol in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), programs, during a recent rally on Capitol Hil. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)
“Let me be VERY clear: this ruling last night in no way diminishes the urgency of resolving the DACA issue,” Schumer said. “On this, we agree with @WhiteHouse, who says the ruling doesn’t do anything to reduce Congress’ obligation.”
Leaders of both parties said that the ruling is unlikely to upend ongoing talks.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a lead GOP broker on immigration policy, said it was a “bizarre idea that something President Obama created can’t be uncreated by President Trump.”
“My sense, though, is it doesn’t change the need for us to act, and so we’re going forward,” Cornyn said. “We’re plowing ahead.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who joined Cornyn at the White House Tuesday for a highly unusual, televised meeting with Trump, said he remains hopeful that a deal will be struck in the coming days. He recalled that during the meeting, Trump asked lawmakers, “Is there anybody here not for taking care of the DACA recipients?”
“Not one of them said they were against that,” Hoyer said. “Everyone agreed yes, we need to take care of DACA-protected individuals, we need to take care of them now.”
Alsup did not rule on the merits of the case, but he said that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and would suffer irreparable harm — immigrants could lose their jobs, and companies and universities could lose valuable students and workers — if the Trump administration ended DACA before the legal dispute is resolved.
“Plaintiffs have clearly demonstrated that they are likely to suffer serious irreparable harm absent an injunction,” Alsup wrote. “Before DACA, Individual Plaintiffs, brought to America as children, faced a tough set of life and career choices turning on the comparative probabilities of being deported versus remaining here. DACA gave them a more tolerable set of choices, including joining the mainstream workforce.”
Massachusetts, New York, Washington and other states are seeking a similar preliminary injunction in federal court in Brooklyn, part of a separate lawsuit on behalf of DACA recipients.
President Barack Obama thrilled immigrants in 2012 by granting work permits and deportation reprieves to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
Republicans accused him of illegally sidestepping Congress, however, and Trump vowed throughout his campaign to swiftly end the program. Texas and other states threatened to sue the administration if they did not take steps to end the program by Sept. 5.
Once in office, Trump wavered for months, openly expressing sympathy for the dreamers, who have received broad public support in part because they did not knowingly break the law when their parents brought or sent them to this country.
Many have lived in the United States most of their lives and are college graduates. Some were high school valedictorians. They work in a wide range of industries, including tech companies, the health-care field andpublic schools. Many own houses and are the parents of U.S.-born children, who are American citizens.
On Sept. 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration would terminate the program starting in March, when an estimated 1,000 DACA recipients a day would start to lose their status.
Alsup ruled that while the lawsuit is pending, anyone who had DACA status as of Sept. 5 can renew it.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra brought the San Francisco lawsuit, joined by the attorneys general for Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, as well as the University of California, DACA recipients and others. California is home to the largest group of DACA recipients — about 200,000 people.
Alsup’s ruling is “an affirmation of the principle that no one is above the law,” Becerra said in a telephone interview. “We said it from the very beginning: Donald Trump and this administration did not follow the rules in trying to abandon the DACA program.”
Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said the ruling does not change the department’s position that DACA “was an unlawful circumvention of Congress. . . . The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position, and looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation.”
Alsup said his ruling does not apply to dreamers who are in high school and had hoped to apply for DACA protections for the first time this year.
Hincapié, of the National Immigration Law Center, said she expects a tough court battle over DACA, similar to the back-and-forth over Trump’s travel ban and other issues. She called the California ruling “a temporary victory.”
“This is yet another federal court saying to the Trump administration that they have overstepped,” she said.
Brian Murphy, Ed O’Keefe and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday it “seems unlikely” that he’ll have to meet with special counsel Robert Mueller about the investigation into allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, repeatedly insisting there was “no collusion.”
“When they have no collusion … it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,” Trump said during a news conference at the White House in which he called the Russia investigation a “Democratic hoax.”
As far as any potential interview with Mueller, Trump left things vague, saying “certainly, we’ll see what happens,” while suggesting that it might not be necessary.
“There is collusion, but it’s really with the Democrats and the Russians,” Trump said, telling reporters “the witch hunt continues.”
The president’s comments Wednesday were a departure from his previously expressed willingness to meet with the special counsel. In June 2017, Trump said he was “100 percent” willing to testify under oath about his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey. The circumstances around Trump’s unexpected firing of Comey are among the topics being focused on by Mueller’s team, who could be looking into whether Trump obstructed justice in his firing of Comey.
But asked by a reporter Saturday at Camp David if he was still open to speaking with Mueller, Trump demurred, first saying “yeah,” but not committing to an interview.
“There’s been no collusion, there’s been no crime, and in theory everybody tells me I’m not under investigation,” he told reporters. “Maybe Hillary [Clinton] is, I don’t know, but I’m not,” he said. “But we have been very open. We could have done it two ways. We could have been very closed, and it would have taken years. But you know, sort of like when you’ve done nothing wrong, let’s be open and get it over with.”
Later in the news conference, Trump told reporters he thought it was “better to work with Russia” on matters of international importance — like North Korea — but said that his actions on energy development, as well as rebuilding the military, weren’t policies that would earn him any praise from the Kremlin.
“(Russia President Vladimir) Putin can’t love that,” Trump said.
The Russia investigation has hovered over the administration as Trump continues to try to tackle complex domestic issues, specifically immigration reform that both addresses the legal status of those covered by an Obama-era immigration policy allowing people brought to the United States illegally as children to remain in the country (known as Dreamers), as well as funding for his long-promised border wall.
Any deal on immigration “has to include the wall,” Trump said Wednesday, “because without the wall, it all doesn’t work.” The wall, he continued, was necessary for security, safety and stopping drugs from coming into the United States.
One day earlier Trump seemed open to a “clean” deal on Dreamers when it was proposed by Democrats during a bipartisan meeting, but at the time it was unclear whether a clean deal meant the wall in addition to a solution for Dreamers.
SEOUL — North Korea’s representatives assured the South Korean government Tuesday that the country’s “cutting-edge” nuclear weapons are aimed only at the United States, not at its neighbors, as they struck a deal to send athletes to next month’s Winter Olympics and to reopen a military hotline.
The sobering words underscored how, despite the rare agreement with the South, Pyongyang continues to assert its right to fend off the United States with nuclear arms.
Nevertheless, South Korea achieved its immediate goal of bringing North Korean athletes to compete in what Seoul has dubbed the “peace games.” South Korean officials portrayed this agreement as a first step in a significant improvement in bilateral relations. The question, analysts said, is whether the North will pursue this opening with any sincerity.
South Korea signaled that it was willing to suspend some of its direct sanctions on North Korea to facilitate a Northern delegation’s travel to the Olympics, which will open Feb. 9 in the South’s PyeongChang region.
Seoul will have to move carefully to avoid alienating the Trump administration, which has been leading a campaign of “maximum pressure” to force North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.
North Korean delegation leader Ri Son Kwon, center, is greeted by South Korean officials after crossing the border to attend a meeting in the Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday. (AP)
But in Washington, the State Department applauded the talks Tuesday and said South Korea has assured the United States that North Korea’s participation in the Olympics will not violate any U.N. sanctions.
The day-long talks at the Panmunjom truce village on the border between the two Koreas led to the unusual scene of a delegation of smiling North Korean men in black suits walking across the concrete curb that divides North from South — the same line that a North Korean soldier crossed at the end of last year, as other Northern soldiers shot at him.
After the talks, Ri Son Kwon, the North’s previously gregarious chief representative, chastised the South Korean media for reporting that the discussions had included denuclearization as a subject. That was not on the table, he said.
“All our cutting-edge weapons, including our hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles, are not targeting our Korean brothers, China or Russia but the United States,” Ri said, according to pool reports from inside the room.
“If we begin talking about these issues, then today’s good results might be reduced to nothing,” he warned.
Cho Myoung-gyon, South Korea’s unification minister and its chief delegate to the talks, said that despite the quibbles, Tuesday’s discussions were positive and could pave the way for progress on the nuclear issue. “The most important spirit of the inter-Korean talks is mutual respect,” he said.
The talks, the first in more than two years, have the backing of both Korean leaders. In his New Year’s address, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wished his “compatriots of the same blood” success for the Games.
“The talks are important because they are a positive indicator for bilateral relations,” said Alison Evans, a Korea expert at IHS Markit, a consulting firm.
The governments in Beijing and Tokyo both welcomed the agreement as a positive step.
Steve Goldstein, the under secretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, said the United States played no role in the talks beyond a phone call between President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sat in on. He said no topics were ruled off limits, and the United States did not seek to have South Korea discourage North Korea from participating even though the administration has sought through sanctions to have the government further isolated.
“If the Olympics provide an opening for conversations to occur, that’s better for the people of South Korea and also the people of North Korea,” he said. “We want to see their athletes participate and be part of the communitiy of nations.”
Washington will send a delegation representing the administration, but Goldstein said there are “no plans” for them to have any direct contact with the North Koreans attending.
Christopher Green, senior adviser for the Korean Peninsula at the International Crisis Group, said the question now is, what is North Korea’s long-term strategy?
“If they want to drive a wedge into the alliance between the United States and South Korea, this could just be their opening gambit,” he said.
At the talks, the two sides agreed to “actively cooperate” for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The North will send athletes, cheering and performing-arts squads, press and a “high-level delegation” to the Games, according to their joint statement.
North Korea is hardly a Winter Olympics powerhouse, having won only two medals in its history — a silver in 1964 and a bronze in 1992, both for speedskating.
But International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach hailed Tuesday’s agreement as “a great step forward in the Olympic spirit.”
The IOC has been supporting the North Korean athletes with training, equipment and travel costs, and will now work out which North Korean athletes can compete. Although two North Korean figure skaters qualified for the Olympics, they did not register in time. They and others are likely to be included as “wild card” entries.
South Korea’s government, led by progressive President Moon Jae-in, has been eager to secure North Korea’s participation in the “peace Games” next month and to find a way back to engaging with Pyongyang.
The Olympics have provided that opportunity, and Seoul has shown a willingness to move mountains to accommodate the North — even persuading the United States to postpone annual military exercises, which usually take place from early March, until after the Games finish on March 18.
The South Korean government was ready to “take steps in relation to sanctions against North Korea” to facilitate the visit, Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told reporters. However, this would be done in consultation with the United Nations sanctions committee and the United States, he said.
The mention of a “high-level delegation” and sanctions relief fueled speculation that North Korea might send Choe Ryong Hae, one of Kim’s closest aides, to the Olympics.
Choe made a surprise visit to South Korea in 2015 to attend the closing ceremony of the Asian Games, but he was blacklisted by South Korea in 2016 after the North’s fifth nuclear test.
South Korea has also slapped sanctions on Air Koryo, North Korea’s state airline, but the restoration of a military hotline suggested that the Northern delegation would travel overland rather than by air to attend the Games.
The two Koreas agreed to hold military-level meetings to “ease the current military tension and to resolve issues” and to hold further talks “to improve inter-Korean relations.”
A military hotline on the western end of the border, cut in 2016 after the nuclear test, will resume operations Wednesday morning. This is a key step to reducing the chance of an accidental escalation if there is a military incident on the border, analysts said.
Yoonjung Seo in Seoul and Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report.
GOP support is building for an immigration bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob GoodlatteRobert (Bob) William GoodlatteRosenstein to testify before House Judiciary Committee next week Conservative pressure on Sessions grows Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers MORE (R-Va.) as House Republicans seek to avoid getting jammed by the White House and Senate.
The Goodlatte bill would call for more aggressive enforcement measures and would address thousands of young undocumented immigrants whose fate has been in limbo for months.
The stand-alone legislation, which Goodlatte plans to unveil Wednesday, is backed by Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanMcConnell names Senate GOP tax conferees House Republican: ‘I worry about both sides’ of the aisle on DACA Overnight Health Care: 3.6M signed up for ObamaCare in first month | Ryan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ next year | Dems push for more money to fight opioids MORE’s leadership team.
It has attracted support from both the moderate and conservative wings of the 239-member House Republican Conference, including centrist Rep. Martha McSallyMartha Elizabeth McSallyHouse Dems highlight promising new candidates Trump poised for a September fight over border wall GOP rep weighs in on House dress code during floor speech MORE (Ariz.) and the Freedom Caucus’s Rep. Raúl Labrador (Idaho).
There are doubts, however, that it could clear the Senate, senior lawmakers said.
The White House and congressional leaders have been scrambling to figure out a solution for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump is ending in March. Democrats are demanding protections from young immigrants enrolled in the program, but Republicans want to beef up border security and tackle other immigration issues in exchange for any DACA deal.
At a White House meeting with GOP and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, Trump appeared eager to strike a broader immigration deal. He proposed a two-step agreement where Congress would pass a major overhaul of the immigration system after dealing with the DACA recipients and securing the border.
“If you want to take it that further step, I’ll take the heat,” Trump told lawmakers. “You are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform.”
In an interview, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark MeadowsMark Randall MeadowsTrump rips Dems a day ahead of key White House meeting Overnight Health Care: 3.6M signed up for ObamaCare in first month | Ryan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ next year | Dems push for more money to fight opioids Overnight Finance: Trump says shutdown ‘could happen’ | Ryan, conservatives inch closer to spending deal | Senate approves motion to go to tax conference | Ryan promises ‘entitlement reform’ in 2018 MORE (R-N.C.) said Tuesday he’s “inclined” to back the Goodlatte bill based on what he’s heard so far.
“I am very supportive of the work that Chairman Goodlatte has put forth in designing a bill to address the broader immigration issues we are facing,” said Meadows, who has not seen the final text yet. “I am inclined to support it based on the overview I have been briefed on.”
Goodlatte pitched his legislation during a GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning ahead of a bipartisan meeting at the White House aimed at hashing out a DACA solution.
The Judiciary chairman also took part in Tuesday’s White House meeting in which Trump and lawmakers agreed to limit future talks to four issues: shielding the young immigrant “Dreamers” from deportation, border security, chain migration and the visa lottery.
“Addressing these four issues — border security, the visa lottery, chain migration, and then something for DACA recipients — is a great first step,” Goodlatte told reporters as he returned to the Capitol. “I think there are a lot of other things that need to be done on immigration.”
While Goodlatte’s bill is expected to include those four categories, the chairman and others indicated that the House measure is expected to be more expansive by reflecting other conservative priorities. It is likely to include mandatory verification requirements for workers, known as E-Verify, according to CNN.
“That bill has some of those things, but has a lot more. That’s a lot bigger,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-BalartMario Rafael Diaz-BalartLawmakers call on Treasury to take tougher stance on Hamas in Qatar Congress barreling toward explosive immigration fight Future of DACA up in the air as deadline looms MORE (R-Fla.), who also attended the White House meeting.
Supporters of Goodlatte’s bill argue that it could garner 218 Republican votes in the House, which could help them avoid getting jammed with an unpopular immigration deal from the Senate.
“What we don’t want to take place is to get jammed by some Dreamer Act bill from the Senate, which some of us are concerned about,” said Rep. Mark WalkerBradley (Mark) Mark WalkerRight scrambles GOP budget strategy Conservative lawmakers met to discuss GOP chairman’s ouster Overnight Finance: GOP delays work on funding bill amid conservative demands | Senate panel approves Fed nominee Powell | Dodd-Frank rollback advances | WH disputes report Mueller subpoenaed Trump bank records MORE (R-N.C.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “We hope that [Trump] supports what Goodlatte and people come up with.”
Trump did not take a position on Goodlatte’s proposal, though he called it a “good starting point” on Tuesday and insisted any legislation should be a “bill of love.”
But House GOP leadership has not yet committed to bringing the chairman’s bill to the floor.
“For whatever reason, there seems to be a little bit of internal debate over where that gets to the floor,” Walker said. “Leadership, they’re keeping their cards close to the vest.”
He added, however, that no one spoke out against the legislation during the conference meeting.
Other Republicans were far more skeptical that a Goodlatte bill could garner 218 GOP votes in the House — or that such a measure could pass the Senate, where nine Democrats are needed to overcome a filibuster.
“Even if we did have 218 Republican votes for a DACA bill, it’s not going to be close to what the Senate passes. … We need to pass a DACA bill with over 300 votes,” said Rep. Charlie DentCharles(Charlie) Wieder DentJuan Williams: The GOP has divided America Republicans pursue two-week spending bill GOP could punt funding fight to January MORE (R-Pa.), co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group.
“We we can go through this exercise for a while, until we ultimately get jammed by the Senate. We’ll indulge all these folks with this fanciful notion that we’ll somehow pass a DACA bill with 218 Republican votes — and then unicorns fly.”
The last time Joe Arpaio ran for office, he was trounced.
This was 2016, when Arpaio was looking to be reelected as sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., after having served in that position for six four-year terms. During that tenure, he gained national fame for what might charitably be described as his tough stance on immigration. Less charitably, his efforts have been described as abusive and racist. After he was subject to a variety of investigations and lawsuits, voters in the county apparently reached their fill of Arpaio and sent him packing.
This is not the last time he was in the news, of course. After being ordered to curtail his department’s racial-profiling practices and refusing to do so, Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court. That conviction led to a pardon from longtime ally President Trump in August, setting the stage for an unexpected announcement from Arpaio on Tuesday: He’s going to run for Senate.
People run for the U.S. Senate for a lot of reasons. It keeps them in the news, if they’re into that sort of thing, which Arpaio is. It allows them to raise money, which, in turn, allows them to tour the state on someone else’s dime. It also can lead them to serving in the Senate.
Those are listed in the descending order of what Arpaio is likely to get out of his bid.
After all, Arpaio didn’t just lose in 2016, he got walloped. He lost to Democrat Paul Penzone by nearly 13 points in a county that Trump carried by about three points and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won by more than 15 in 2012. In other words, Arpaio did 18 points worse than Trump and 28 points worse than McCain.
In fact, he got a lower percentage of the vote than Hillary Clinton, despite being a 24-year incumbent — and even got fewer actual votes.
Why does that matter in a statewide race? Because Maricopa is home to about 60 percent of the state’s population and, in the presidential and Senate races in 2016, made up about 60 percent of the vote total. If people in Maricopa County are skeptical of Arpaio, that’s an awfully tough starting point.
Sure, you might think, but 2018 is an off year, which historically favors Republicans. That’s generally true (though FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten has some new context for that argument). But in the more Democrat-friendly confines of 2016, he still underperformed other Republicans by a wide margin.
What’s more, 2018 is not shaping up to be a particularly Republican-friendly year. Literally every poll conducted over the past year shows Democrats with an advantage on the generic congressional ballot, extending into the double-digits in recent months. Democrats are poised to see significant gains in the House at this point, and it seems unlikely that Democratic voters would stay home if given the opportunity to again weigh in on the controversial Arpaio.
Especially given how he has managed to become even more closely aligned with Trump after the pardon. One key reason for Democratic enthusiasm is that Trump is so unpopular — even in Arizona. In August, a poll found that his performance in office was approved of by only 42 percent of Arizonans, including a relatively weak 74 percent of Republicans. More than half of the state disapproved, and there’s little reason to think that his numbers have improved.
Arpaio is explicitly tying himself to Trump, telling the Washington Examiner that “I’m a big supporter of President Trump.” At this point, he’s the second Trump supporter to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination; the first, Kelli Ward, received a thumbs up from Trump on Twitter when she announced her plans to challenge Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has since announced that he would not seek a second term.
Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He’s toxic!
To win election to the Senate, Arpaio first needs to win the primary, and splitting the Trump base doesn’t seem like the best strategy to accomplish that.
So this is the plan, then. Run as a Trump supporter in a state where the president is unpopular at a moment when that unpopularity is emboldening members of the other party and do so despite having been crushed during an election in the state’s most populous county only two years ago.
Not likely to take Arpaio to Washington. But likely to take Arpaio where he most immediately wants to go: into the public eye. On that front, he can already declare victory.
Heavy rains make Southern California vulnerable to flooding and debris flows, especially after fires that strip steep hillsides of vegetation.
Mudflows, mudslides and landslides often are used interchangeably when disaster strikes, but the terms have distinctions.
A mudflow is “a river of liquid and flowing mud on the surfaces of normally dry land areas,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Other earth movements, such as landslide, slope failure or a saturated soil mass moving by liquidity down a slope, are not mudflows,” it says.
FEMA sees a mudflow as similar to a milkshake, while the more solid mudslide is comparable to a cake.
The US Geological Survey dismisses mudslide as an “imprecise but popular term … frequently used by laymen and the news media to describe a wide scope of events, ranging from debris-laden floods to landslides.”
