WASHINGTON: Ivanka Trump’s rabbi is condemning President Donald Trump’s response to a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein told his New York synagogue that he is “deeply troubled by the moral equivalency and equivocation” of Trump’s reaction.
Trump has blamed “both sides” in last week’s march that also drew neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members. A car plowed into a group of counterprotesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 others.
Lookstein is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. He oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism. She and her husband, Jared Kushner, were longtime members of the synagogue. Lookstein only rarely comments on the Trumps.
Lookstein’s message was posted Wednesday night on the Facebook page of the modern Orthodox synagogue and was signed by the congregation’s other rabbis.
A group of Arizona Democrats is urging President Donald Trump not to pardon Joe Arpaio (ahr-PY’-oh).
Congressmen Ruben Gallego, Raul Grijalva (gree-HAHL’-vuh) and Tom O’Halleran say in a letter to Trump that the former Phoenix-area sheriff shouldn’t get any “relief from the penalties he deservedly faces for his illegal conduct and brazen abuse of the public trust.”
Trump told Fox News in an interview earlier this week that he may pardon Arpaio, who was one of his early supporters.
A federal judge ruled in 2013 that Arpaio’s officers had racially profiled Latinos. But Arpaio refused to stop his immigration patrols, which led to his criminal contempt of court case.
The lawmakers tell Trump a pardon would send a “clear message that your allies are immune from prosecution.”
President Donald Trump says it’s “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart” with the removal of Confederate statues and monuments around the country.
Local and state officials have renewed pushes to remove Confederate imagery from public property since the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a white nationalist rally over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.
Baltimore and other cities have already removed or covered up Confederate statues.
Trump in a Thursday tweet called them “our beautiful statues and monuments” and said “you can’t change history, but you can learn from it.”
“Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson — who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!” Trump continued. “The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!“
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Donald Trump’s stance on the Charlottesville, Virginia violence and death is garnering praise from “some of the most racist and hate-filled individuals and groups” and called on him to “please fix this.”
Trump and Graham have been going after each other since the president’s statements on the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a white nationalist rally.
Trump on Thursday called Graham a “publicity seeking” lawmaker and tweeted that Graham’s contention that the president had said there was “moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists and people like Ms. Heyer” was a “disgusting lie.”
Graham replied on Twitter soon thereafter that the president’s statements on Charlottesville have garnered him “praise from some of the most racist and hate-filled individuals and groups in our country.”
“For the sake of our Nation — as our President — please fix this. History is watching us all,” Graham tweeted.
President Donald Trump is touting a primary opponent looking to unseat GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has criticized the president’s response to the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump on Thursday tweeted that Flake “is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He’s toxic!” The president has already pledged to spend money to defeat the first-term senator.
Flake is facing a GOP primary challenge, including from former state Sen. Kelli Ward. “Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake,” Trump tweeted.
Flake had tweeted on Wednesday, “We can’t claim to be the party of Lincoln if we equivocate in condemning white supremacy.”
The first-term senator has also recently released a book criticizing Trump and fellow Republicans for straying from what he called conservative values.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford has strongly endorsed the statements by the leaders of the four major US military services, who spoke out against racism and extremism after last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
During a visit Thursday to Beijing, Dunford said: “I have seen the chiefs’ tweets and I can absolutely and unambiguously tell you that there is no place for racism and bigotry in the US military or in the United States as a whole.”
He said the “chiefs’ statements were important. They were speaking directly to the force and the American people.”
Dunford said the intent was “to the force, to make it clear that that kind of racism and bigotry is not going to stand inside the force. And to the American people, to remind them of the values for which we stand in the US military, which are reflective of what I believe to be the values of the United States.”
President Donald Trump has abruptly disbanded two of his White House business councils in the latest fallout from his combative comments on racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Wednesday’s decision came as the White House tried to manage the repercussions from Trump’s defiant remarks a day earlier, in which he blamed the violence at a white supremacist rally on “both sides.”
Trump himself stayed out of sight Wednesday, but he returned to Twitter early Thursday to chastise Sen. Lindsey Graham for remarks the South Carolinian made about Trump’s take on Charlottesville. He also had harsh words for Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican.
He posted one tweet saying that “publicity-seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency” between the white supremacists and the counter-demonstrators at Saturday’s violent protest.
President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at a fellow Republican, calling Sen. Lindsey Graham a “publicity seeking” lawmaker.
In a daybreak post on his Twitter account Thursday, Trump faulted the GOP senator for statements Graham has made about the president’s stance on the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump said in his tweet: “Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists and people like Ms. Heyer.” He was referring to Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed when she was struck by a car driven into the crowd.
“Such a disgusting lie,” Trump said of Graham’s remarks. “He just can’t forget his election trouncing. The people of South Carolina will remember.”
In a separate tweet, Trump accused “the Fake News” of distorting “what I say about hate, bigotry, etc. Shame!“
Ivanka’s rabbi condemns Trump’s response
Ivanka’s rabbi condemns Trump’s response
War powers resolution fails in Senate as 2 Republicans bow to Trump pressure
WASHINGTON: Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats forced the debate after US troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month
“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.” Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.
Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote had taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.
The legislation, even if it had cleared the Senate, had virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves — especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally — is still running high in Congress.
Two Republicans reconsider
Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said Trump’s message during a phone call was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Monday and was told “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.”
The senator added that he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.
“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.
As senators went to the floor for the vote Wednesday evening, Young also told reporters he was no longer in support. He said that he had extensive conversations with Rubio and received assurances that the secretary of state will appear at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)” if he engaged in “major military operations” in Venezuela.
The senators also said his efforts were also instrumental in pushing the administration to release Wednesday a 22-page Justice Department memo laying out the legal justification for the snatch-and-grab operation against Maduro.
That memo, which was heavily redacted, indicates that the administration, for now, has no plans to ramp up military operations in Venezuela.
“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” according to the memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.
Trump’s shifting rationale for military intervention
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the US that were filed in 2020.
Paul criticized the administration for first describing its military build-up in Caribbean as a counternarcotics operation but now floating Venezuela’s vast oil reserves as a reason for maintaining pressure.
“The bait and switch has already happened,” he said.
Trump’s foreign policy worries Congress
Lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the US will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that ” help is on its way.”
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.
“What happened tonight is a roadmap to another endless war,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference following the vote.
More than half of US adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the US military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.
How Republican leaders dismissed the bill
Last week’s procedural vote on the war powers resolution was supposed to set up hours of debate and a vote on final passage. But Republican leaders began searching for a way to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.
Once Hawley and Young changed their support for the bill, Republicans were able to successfully challenge whether it was appropriate when the Trump administration has said US troops are not currently deployed in Venezuela.
“We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune in a floor speech. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.
“If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate,” he said in a floor speech.
