New NAFTA overshadowed
Deal lost in court chaos
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump delivered on a key 2016 campaign promise last week when he announced that he had brokered a trade deal with Mexico and Canada to replace the 24-year-old NAFTA, which he called the “worst trade deal ever.”
The Rose Garden news conference on Oct. 1 presented a moment that encapsulated the Trump presidency: a policy triumph amid insistent press questions about a political hot potato, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump had prodded Canada to
TRUMP
America” in not considering a Supreme Court nominee right before a presidential election.
But the bitterness of the nomination fight — which ended with a 50-48 roll call vote Saturday, the closest vote to confirm a justice since 1881 — remained apparent.
In the wake of his vote to confirm Kavanaugh, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-colo., revealed to Fox News on Sunday that his wife had received a graphic text message with a video depicting a beheading and that someone has publicly posted the names and addresses of his family members.
Gardner announced his support for Kavanaugh in July and reaffirmed it after reviewing the supplemental FBI report into uncorroborated sexual misconduct allegations against him. Kavanaugh strongly denied all allegations against him.
Last week, a Houston Democratic congresswoman fired an unpaid intern after he was arrested by the U.S. Capitol police, accused of posting online the home addresses of Republican senators backing Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee fired 27-year-old Jackson Cosko after he was charged with making public restricted personal information, identity theft and other federal offenses.
Cosko had worked in Jackson Lee’s office for about a month.
Cosko worked for Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire from January 2017 to May 2018 as a legislative correspondent and systems administrator.
According to Fox News, Cosko is accused of “doxxing” Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Mike Lee, R-utah, and Orrin Hatch, R-utah on Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.VA., defended his vote for Kavanaugh in a Sunday interview as being based on fact, not emotion.
The only Democrat to back the confirmation praised women who shared with him their stories of sexual trauma but said he “could not find any type of link or connection” to Kavanaugh.
One West Virginia Trump supporter, 74-year-old Linda Ferguson, explained the politics.
“If he didn’t vote for Kavanaugh he could have kissed his seat goodbye,” Ferguson said.
The voters in the state gave
Trump a victory in 2016 by 42 percentage points.
Manchin has held a lead in public and private polls over his Republican opponent, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. But Republican operatives report a definite tightening over the past week.
In an interview, Morrisey called Democrats’ fight against Kavanaugh a “three-ring circus” that “energized a lot of people in West Virginia.”