Top Stories Today – Mar 29, 2019
Top Stories Today – Mar 29, 2019
S Korea’s Moon and Trump to meet
South Korean President Moon Jae-in will travel to the United States in two weeks for a summit with President Donald Trump on the stalemated North Korean nuclear diplomacy. It would be their first meeting since Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi last month collapsed because of disputes on US-led sanctions. The breakdown of that summit put Moon, a liberal who has shuttled between Washington and Pyongyang, in a difficult position on how to further engage North Korea and facilitate the nuclear diplomacy.
Moon’s office said he will visit the United States April 10-11 discuss how to strengthen their countries’ alliance and achieve North Korea’s complete denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula. The Voice of America
DHS asks authority to send migrant kids back
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has asked for immediate action from Congress to address a “dire situation” at the border, including new authority to immediately deport unaccompanied minors back to their home countries. She says she wants the legal authority to detain undocumented migrant families together, including young children, until their asylum claims are processed.
Nielsen’s letter is a bold ask of a Congress that remains unsure whether the humanitarian crisis at the border warrants the national emergency President Donald Trump has claimed is necessary. “DHS seeks authority to return [unaccompanied children] to their families and home countries in a safe and orderly manner if they have no legal right to stay,” Nielsen wrote to Congress. The secretary’s request underscores the unprecedented spike of children and families arriving at the US-Mexico border in recent months. ABC News
Pelosi calls Barr’s Mueller report condescending
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heaping scorn on Attorney General William Barr, saying his letter about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was “condescending.” Barr’s four-page summary of the Russia probe said special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.
Pelosi said she found Barr’s decision to write the letter “arrogant.” Congress, she said, doesn’t need Barr “to be our interpreter of something that he should just show us.” The Democratic chairmen of six House committees have demanded that Barr release the Mueller report to Congress by Tuesday. TIME
Trump promises funding for Special Olympics
President Trump on Thursday said he had “overridden my people” and decided to fund the Special Olympics. The announcement is a reversal of his administration’s previous position: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed slashing the $17.6 million federal appropriation for the Special Olympics this week, drawing a backlash from both sides of the aisle.
Trump’s own re-election campaign spokesman defended the move Thursday, arguing that the Special Olympics is a “private charity” that wouldn’t be significantly impacted by the cut. Though Congress will ultimately authorize the final budget, Trump told reporters he had instructed his administration to reinstate the money, saying “the Special Olympics will be funded.” Per its most recent available financial information, federal grants account for about 10 percent of the Special Olympics’ annual budget of around $150 million. CBS News, The Washington Post via The Week
California county sues Trump Administration
The humanitarian crisis at the US border with Mexico has many forms. Families with children, who by law cannot be held indefinitely in detention, are freed into the US to wait for court dates. But now a California county is overrun with migrant families dumped by ICE who are camping at bus stops and on street corners. San Diego County’s board of supervisors voted to sue the Trump administration for relief. The Voice of America
Trump demands Adam Schiff resign
US President Donald Trump demands on Twitter that Schiff quit after years of “lying and leaking.” He twitted “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!” on Thursday. Trump didn’t specify what lies Schiff is supposed to have told; there is also no proof that Schiff leaked any information to the press. House Republicans picked up on Trump’s insistence that Schiff resign, at least from the intelligence committee.
Schiff is chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee. Despite Attorney General Robert Barr saying the Mueller report clears Trump of collusion, Schiff contends Trump’s actions before and after the election prove his guilt. “I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic, and yes, I think it’s corrupt. And evidence of collusion,” Schiff said at the start of a committee hearing Thursday. The California congressman pointed to contacts between Trump associates and Russians — some of which the associates lied about — and the president’s continued pursuit of a Russian real estate deal after he was elected. The Voice of America