This week, the rift between the White House and Congress got wider.
Politico reported on Tuesday:
Three dramatic clashes between White House lawyers and congressional Democrats over the past 36 hours have created an atmosphere of total war between the president and Capitol Hill, suggesting that even modest compromise may be impossible and that protracted court fights likely are inevitable.
House Democrats threatened Tuesday to hold in contempt a Trump official who oversaw security clearances after the White House instructed him not to cooperate with Congress. Later in the day, the Trump administration refused to turn over six years’ worth of President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns by a 5 p.m. deadline, instead requesting more time to consult with the Justice Department. And later Tuesday, Trump said he was opposed to his current and former aides — most notably, former White House Counsel Don McGahn — testifying on Capitol Hill, escalating the showdown even further.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton instructed the nation on how to respond to the findings of the Mueller report in an op-ed for The Washington Post. And Democrats are divided about whether to proceed with impeachment.
In 2020 news, former Vice President Joe Biden has officially entered the race for president.
We discussed his viability as a candidate with Reuters’ Ginger Gibson earlier this week. She says the big question about Biden is: “Is this his moment or has he missed his window?”
Plus, new revelations about the Department of Homeland Security have us wondering how safe the 2020 election will be from foreign influence.
We’re also watching the latest at the Federal Reserve Board. This week, businessman and former presidential candidate Herman Cain declined to be nominated for a seat on the Board, citing the salary as his primary concern. Cain was largely seen as a Trump ally and fell further in the president’s favor after promising to keep interest rates low.
The Federal Reserve Board is supposed to be apolitical, but that hasn’t stopped President Trump. “Not only is he criticizing openly his own pick for the Federal Reserve [Jerome Powell], but now with this Cain trial balloon nomination and also that of [additional Fed pick] Stephen Moore, it is a direct politicization of the Federal Reserve, which is unprecedented in recent memory,” Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal told us earlier this week.
We’ll get to all this and more.
Text by Kathryn Fink.
GUESTS
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Washington correspondent, The New York Times; @sherylnyt
Greg Ip, Chief economics commentator, The Wall Street Journal; author of “Foolproof: Why Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe”; @greg_ip
Seung Min Kim, White House reporter, The Washington Post
For more, visit https://the1a.org.
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