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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's latest choice to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a former border patrol chief under the Obama administration who has publicly backed the president's border wall. Trump tweeted on Sunday that Mark Morgan "will be joining the Trump Administration as the head of our hard working men and women of ICE." He added: "Mark is a true believer and American Patriot. He will do a great job!" The president tweeted later that Matt Albence will continue to serve as acting director until Morgan's c...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A White House decision to dispatch an aircraft carrier and other military resources to send a message to Iran followed "clear indications" that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region, a defense official told the Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said the Pentagon approved the deployments and that U.S. forces at sea and on land were thought to be the potential targets. The official declined to be more s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — His border shutdown went from imminent to uncertain. A major health care push was declared and then delayed. Funding cuts were inserted in his proposed budget and just as quickly taken out. President Donald Trump has been exploring the art of the climb-down. Trump pivoted on two big policy fronts this week, easing up on his threats to quickly close the southern border and deciding that a fresh effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act should wait until after the 2020 election. The moves came as Republicans, outside...
WASHINGTON (AP) — "Not any longer." And with that, a triumphant Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to close the book on a divisive Republican debate, convincing President Donald Trump to shelve plans to replace the Affordable Care Act until after the 2020 election. "I made it clear to him that we were not going to be doing that in the Senate," McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. It was a rare public disclosure of private counsel from the Republican leader. And it signaled that, after two years in Trump's Washington, Republicans o...
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Threatening drastic action against Mexico, President Donald Trump declared on Friday he is likely to shut down America's southern border next week unless Mexican authorities immediately halt all illegal immigration. Such a severe move could hit the economies of both countries, but the president emphasized, "I am not kidding around." "It could mean all trade" with Mexico, Trump said when questioned by reporters in Florida. "We will close it for a long time." Trump has been promising for more than two years to build a l...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Buoyed by word that the special counsel didn't find collusion with Russia, President Donald Trump is voicing new interest in policymaking, including a fresh effort to repeal and replace "Obamacare." But Trump has few detailed policy proposals to back up his words, suggesting he's as focused on highlighting issues that appeal to his political base as actually enacting legislation. Trump stressed his desire to revive his failed effort to kill the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, a pivot to health care that both broadens and c...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he will nominate Stephen Moore, a conservative economic analyst and frequent critic of the Federal Reserve, to fill a vacancy on the Fed's seven-member board. Moore, a well-known and often polarizing figure in Washington political circles, served as an adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign. In that role, he helped draft Trump's tax cut plan. Trump has been harshly critical of the Fed's rate increases even after the central bank announced this week that it foresees no hikes this y...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has beefed up its legal team. Its political team is ready to distract and disparage. And President Donald Trump is venting against Democratic prying. Trump's plan for responding to the multiplying congressional probes into his campaign, White House and personal affairs is coming into focus as newly empowered Democrats intensify their efforts. Deploying a mix of legal legwork and political posturing, the administration is trying to minimize its exposure while casting the president as the victim of overzealous p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared Tuesday that he would prevail over a multistate lawsuit challenging his emergency declaration to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he expected to do "very well" against the suit, adding that he had an "absolute right" to make the declaration. "I think in the end we're going to be very successful with the lawsuit," Trump said. "I actually think we might do very well, even in the 9th Circuit, because it's an open and closed case." A group of 16...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress lopsidedly approved a border security compromise Thursday that would avert a second painful government shutdown, but a new confrontation was ignited — this time over President Donald Trump's plan to bypass lawmakers and declare a national emergency to siphon billions from other federal coffers for his wall on the Mexican boundary. Money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the 200-plus miles he wanted. The Whi...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump prepares to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un for a second time, he's out to replicate the suspenseful buildup, make-or-break stakes and far-flung rendezvous of their first encounter. The reality star American president will soon learn if the sequel, on this matter and many others, can compete with the original. In his third year in office, Trump is starting to air some reruns. Trump is headed into fresh negotiations with North Korea, is still pushing for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and is...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Face to face with emboldened Democrats, President Donald Trump called on Washington to cast aside "revenge, resistance and retribution" and end "ridiculous partisan investigations" in a State of the Union address delivered at a vulnerable moment for his presidency. Trump appealed Tuesday night for bipartisanship but refused to yield on the hard-line immigration policies that have infuriated Democrats and forced the recent government shutdown. He renewed his call for a border wall and cast illegal immigration as a threat to A...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was feeling the heat. Week after week, Trump had demanded that the government stay partially shuttered until Democrats agreed to pay for his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Surrounded by a shrinking cast of advisers, he watched as federal workers went unpaid and basic services were frozen. His poll numbers were slipping. His arguments were landing with a thud with the public. A pair of Senate votes on Thursday, and a round of telephone calls from frustrated Republicans, made clear he had no way o...
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a bid to break the shutdown stalemate, President Donald Trump on Saturday offered to extend temporary protections for young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children and those fleeing disaster zones in exchange for his long-promised border wall. But while Trump cast the move as a "common-sense compromise," Democrats were quick to dismiss it at a "non-starter." With polls showing a majority of Americans blaming him and Republicans for the impasse, Trump said from the White House that he was there "to break the l...
WASHINGTON (AP) — She imperiled his State of the Union address. He denied her a plane to visit troops abroad. The shutdown battle between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing out as a surreal game of constitutional brinkmanship, with both flexing their political powers from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as the negotiations to end the monthlong partial government shutdown remain stalled. In dramatic fashion, Trump issued a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart o...
MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — Taking the shutdown fight to the Mexican border, President Donald Trump edged closer Thursday to declaring a national emergency in an extraordinary end run around Congress to fund his long-promised border wall. Pressure was mounting to find an escape hatch from the three-week impasse that has closed parts of the government, cutting scattered services and leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without pay. Trump, visiting McAllen, Texas, and the Rio Grande to highlight what he says is a crisis of drugs and crime, said t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is edging closer to declaring a national emergency to fund his long-promised border wall, as pressure mounts to find an escape hatch from the three-week impasse that has closed parts of the government, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without pay. Some 800,000 workers, more than half of them still on the job, were to miss their first paycheck on Friday under the stoppage, and Washington was close to setting a dubious record for the longest government shutdown in the nation's history. Those m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is taking the shutdown battle to the U.S.-Mexico border, seeking to bolster his case for the border wall after negotiations with Democrats blew up over his funding demands. Trump stalked out of his meeting with congressional leaders — "I said bye-bye," he tweeted soon after — as efforts to end the partial government shutdown fell into deeper disarray. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers now face lost paychecks on Friday. During his stop Thursday in McAllen, Texas, Trump will visit a border patrol st...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting for advantage in the government shutdown battle, President Donald Trump aimed to use a prime-time address Tuesday to convince Americans he needs billions of dollars from Congress for his long-promised border wall to resolve security and humanitarian problems he contends have reached a crisis pitch. He was sure to face intense pushback from Democrats. Trump also plans a personal visit to the Mexican border on Thursday as he tries to put pressure on newly empowered Democrats in the shutdown standoff. His Tuesday e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — White House officials and congressional aides emerged from talks to reopen the government without a breakthrough Saturday, though they planned to return to the table the following day. President Donald Trump tweeted: "Not much headway made today." Democrats agreed there had been little movement, saying the White House did not budge on the president's key demand, $5.6 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The White House said funding was not discussed in-depth, but the administration was clear they needed f...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump stood by his demands for funding for a border wall Sunday as another round of shutdown talks failed to break an impasse, while newly empowered House Democrats planned to step up the pressure on Trump and Republican lawmakers to reopen the government. Trump, who spent part of the day at Camp David for staff meetings, showed no signs of budging on his demand for $5.6 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. A meeting with senior congressional aides led by Vice President Mike Pence at the White Hous...
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats prepared Thursday to pass a plan to re-open the government without funding President Donald Trump's promised border wall, after Trump made a surprise appearance pledging to keep up the fight for his signature campaign promise. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump and Senate Republicans should "take yes for an answer" and approve a bill — without funds for the wall — that the Senate approved on a voice vote last month. "We're not doing a wall. Does anyone have any doubt that we're not doing a wall?" Pelos...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Everywhere President Donald Trump looks, he sees a wall. As he lobbies for money for his long-promised border wall, Trump keeps talking up other barricades. He's pointing to walls in Israel, at the Vatican, even at former President Barack Obama's house — though fact checkers have pushed back on the accuracy of some of his claims. With bricks and mortar on his mind, Trump declared at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, "Walls work." He added: "There's a reason why politicians and wealthy people build walls around their houses and...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared Friday he could keep parts of the government shut down for "months or even years" as he and Democratic leaders failed in a second closed-door meeting to resolve his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall with Mexico. They did agree to a new round of weekend talks between staff members and White House officials. Trump met in the White House Situation Room with congressional leaders from both parties as the shutdown hit the two-week mark amid an impasse over his wall demands. D...
WASHINGTON (AP) — No one budged at President Donald Trump's closed-door meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, so the partial government shutdown persisted through Day 12 over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. They'll all try again Friday. In public, Trump renewed his dire warnings of rapists and others at the border. But when pressed in private by Democrats asking why he wouldn't end the shutdown, he responded at one point, "I would look foolish if I did that." A White House o...
