Trump’s verbal shots against McConnell complicate his agenda
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell come at the worst possible time, if the president’s goal is to advance his agenda on health care, infrastructure and taxes that he’s goading his GOP ally to pass.
Congress, now on summer break, will return next month to confront a brutal workload that includes two absolute must-do items: funding the government to head off a shutdown, and raising the federal borrowing limit to avert a potentially catastrophic first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
Both will require bipartisan cooperation, something in short supply on Capitol Hill this year.
That’s in addition to Mr. Trump’s demand for a tax rewrite to lower rates, a public works bill, and renewed efforts to repeal the Obama-era health law. Mr. McConnell, R-Ky., tried but failed last month to replace the Affordable Care Act — an outcome that Mr. Trump called “a disgrace.”
So the president’s rhetoric this past week has widened divisions at a moment when his party should try to work together on shared goals. His agenda only can pass if Mr. McConnell navigates it through the Senate. The veteran lawmaker may not feel more motivated to do that with his president working against him.
“Virtually any substantial goals that the president intends to achieve, whether it’s tax reform or more infrastructure, requires the active assistance of the Senate majority leader,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for John Boehner when the Ohio Republican was House speaker.
Mr.McConnell’s allies say that Mr. Trump’s frustration over the failure on health care is shared by the majority leader. Campaign operatives on the political side say it’s crucial that the next item on the agenda — taxes — not collapse in a similar fashion. Otherwise, Republicans will have a tough time making the case to voters during next year’s that they should continue to control both chambers of Congress and theWhite House.
Mueller to interview more
In a sign that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election will remain a continuingdistraction for the White House, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is in talks with the West Wing about interviewing current and formersenior administration officials, including the recently ousted White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, according to three people briefed on thediscussions.
Mr. Mueller has asked the White House about specific meetings, who attended them and whether there are any notes, transcripts or documents about them, two of the people said. Among the matters Mr. Mueller wants to ask the officials about is Mr. Trump’s decision in May to fire the FBI director, James Comey, the two people said.
That line of questioning will be important as Mr. Mueller continues to investigate whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in the dismissal of Mr. Comey.
No interviews have been scheduled, but in recent weeks Mr. Mueller’s investigation has appeared to intensify. Late last month, he took the aggressive step of executing a search warrant at the Alexandria, Va., home of Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman. Legal experts say Mr. Mueller may be trying to put pressure on Mr. Manafort to cooperate with the investigation.
Although it has been clear for months that Mr. Mueller would interview Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, the recent inquiries come as the president is heading into the fall pushing his priorities in Congress, including a tax overhaul, with the constant distraction of a federalinvestigation.
Ty Cobb, a special counsel to the president, declined to comment, saying only that the White House would “continue to fully cooperate” with Mr. Mueller’s inquiry. He has frequently said that the White House would cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s investigation and that he hoped it would be completed quickly. Mr. Priebus did not return messages seeking comment.
Few ‘bad hombres’ to deport
Mr. Trump vowed to immediately deport “bad hombres” from the United States, but the latest statistics from federal immigration officials show that he is unlikely to meet his goal of expelling 2 million to 3 million criminals anytime soon.
In January, the United States deported 9,913 criminals. After a slight uptick under Mr. Trump, expulsions sank to 9,600 criminals in June, according to statistics requested by The Washington Post.
Mostly, deportations under the Trump administration have remained lower than in past years under the Obama administration. In the first six months of the year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 61,370 immigrants with criminal records, down from 70,603 in the same period last year.
Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate said they think that the Trump administration’s effort is still gathering steam and that ICE plans to expand deportations in the months ahead. Immigration arrests rose to 13,945 in June, 45 percent above January’s total.
During the election campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to target criminals for deportation and warned that they would be “going out fast.” Later, he suggested he would try to find a solution for the “terrific people,” such as those with clean records, but thathas not materialized.
While people with criminal records account for three-fourths of the 75,000 immigration arrests this year, the fastest-growing target under Mr. Trump are immigrants without criminal records.
About 19,700 immigrants with no criminal records were arrested in the first half of the year, more than double the number in the same period last year. ICE has said that anyone in the United States illegally is subject to deportation, unlike under President Barack Obama, who had said immigrants with longstanding ties to the United States and clean records were not a priority for deportation.
DeVos tackles assault law
After barely surviving her confirmation battle and facing sporadic protests during visits to schools, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could hardly have teed up a more fraught, emotional and divisive issue to launch her tenure: campus sexual assault.
Although almost no one is happy with the Obama administration’s efforts to prod colleges and universities to more aggressively combat and investigate sexual assault on campus, there is little agreement on how to make things better.
Alleged survivors, accused perpetrators and even school officials all complain that the current system isn’t working.
Ms. DeVos raised eyebrows with her outreach last month to students who say they have been falsely accused of assault. These students, mostly men, say the Obama rules have pushed schools to create a process that is stacked against them.
Campus administrators say the guidelines created unrealisticexpectations, forcing them to effectively take sides even in cases where the facts are unclear, and to perform a prosecutorialrole, often withoutproper training.