Tag: Richard Shelby

The Story: Former President Donald Trump told the Washington Examiner last week that he has it under consideration to withdraw his endorsement of Mo Brooks,...

Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, who grumbled in private about Mr. Trump’s decision, managed a laugh. He had spent much of that week urging Mr. Trump, unsuccessfully, to abandon his plan to declare a national emergency at the border with Mexico to secure wall funds that Congress had denied him. Mr. McConnell, speaking in his office last week, promoted his collaboration with the White House on nominations and tax reform but pushed back when asked if Mr. Trump’s unpredictable behavior had hijacked his legacy. “Anyone that deals with the president is part of the Trump message,” said former Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who was majority leader, when asked about Mr. McConnell during a phone interview on Saturday. Soon after, Mr. McConnell told one fellow Republican senator that Mr. Pence, while well intentioned, could not be entirely relied upon as a negotiator who spoke for the president. Other times, Mr. McConnell sends his message more by what he does not do than what he does. “When Democrats were in the majority, we had a positive legislative agenda that would help the middle class in this country,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “The Senate Republican agenda for the last two years has been to do whatever Donald Trump tweeted that morning.” Mr. McConnell’s approach is rooted in his personal political realities: He cannot afford to have the president, whose support with the party’s base remains solid, turn on him. While Mr. McConnell does not interact with Mr. Mulvaney much, he did reach out to him last year, when Mr. Mulvaney was running the White House budget office, to ask that the president request $400 million for a new Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Louisville, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. Mr. Mulvaney said yes.

Democratic and Republican negotiators last week seemed to be on course for a deal to fund the government and boost border security short of paying for a wall, and it seemed possible that Trump might grudgingly sign on. Sudden pessimism over the conference talks between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate reflected the uncertainty and raw political nerves on Capitol Hill at the dawn of a new era of divided government. But on Sunday, he was more downbeat when asked if hopes of an agreement on Monday were realistic. Shelby also indicated that there was no agreement yet on how much money Democrats will allow to be spent for barriers on the US-Mexico border. House Democratic Majority leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said on CNN on Saturday that he would be prepared to live with a deal that offered up to $2 billion for a border barrier. Such uncertainty is why it is unclear whether Trump would sign on to a deal that emerges from the Capitol Hill talks, especially since he has balked about a solution that could get him into hot water on his right flank before. It's also why a shutdown, once seen as highly unlikely given the political damage it wrought upon the White House last time around, cannot be ruled out. "Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. Such a move would open the possibility that a future Democratic President could use the precedent to declare a national emergency to bypass Congress to exert executive power on another issue — combating global warming for instance. That path would provoke another dilemma since it would presumably force Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to consider whether to take up a bill that the President might be unlikely to sign if it lacked wall funding.

Congressional negotiators revealed Monday evening that they've reached "an agreement in principle" on border security funding that includes more than $1.3 billion for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. When asked if they had an agreement that President Trump would approve, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters: "We think so. We hope so." Sources tell Fox News the $1.3 billion can be used only for new construction that would cover approximately 55 miles of border territory in the Rio Grande Valley. The White House had requested $5.7 billion for the border wall and the administration had dangled the possibility that Trump would declare a national emergency and divert money from the federal budget for wall construction, but that move almost certainly would be challenged in Congress as well as in the courts. Talks nearly collapsed over the weekend after Democrats pushed to reduce funding for detention beds to curb what they've called unnecessarily harsh enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Shelby told reporters Monday night that the bed issue had been worked out, but declined to give details. With that in mind, sources tell Fox News the total number of beds could go as high as 52,000, though there is no technical limit on the amount. At a campaign-style rally Monday night in El Paso, Texas, Trump said he was told lawmakers were making progress in their bid to avert another shutdown. However, the president told his staff that he didn't want to hear about it and that it was important to speak "to my people from Texas" first.

President Donald Trump lashed out at the Federal Reserve on Monday after administration officials spent the weekend trying to assure the public and financial markets that Jerome Powell’s job as Fed chairman was safe. “The only problem our economy has is the Fed,” the president tweeted Monday. “They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch — he can’t putt!” On Wall Street, stocks had already been down but intensified their fall after Trump’s tweet. Markets are facing their worst month in a decade over fears about a U.S. trade war with China, a slowing global economy and chaos in the Trump White House. By the close of a holiday-shortened trading session Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had sunk 653 points for the day — 2.9 percent. It ensures that central bankers can make politically unpopular decisions, such as fighting high inflation in the 1980s or rescuing banks after the 2008 financial crisis. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, a senior Republican on the Banking Committee, has cautioned against removing Powell. Fed officials voted unanimously to increase rates last week. The president expressed his displeasure Monday with the Fed after Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had tweeted on Saturday that Powell’s job was safe.

A delegation of US lawmakers has met top Russian officials and lawmakers to discuss ushering in a “new day” in relations ahead of a key summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin later this month. US Senator Richard Shelby spoke first for the eight-person delegation, including seven senators and a congresswoman, during meetings on Tuesday at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia’s Federation Council and the Duma. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to hold summit in July Read more It was the first time US lawmakers had visited Moscow as a delegation since 2013, before the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war – and meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections. Participants in the talks at the Duma confirmed they discussed interference in the US elections and the annexation of Crimea, but declined to go into details of the talks. The US Congress last year passed new Russia sanctions that also severely limited Trump’s authority to lift them, effectively putting the legislature in the driver’s seat for new sanctions policy. “It looked like full attendance,” Shelby said of the Duma, which has been accused of being a rubber stamp parliament. Sometimes we need more of that in the US Senate and the US House.” UK nervous over unpredictable Trump's summit with Putin Read more Also in the delegation were senators John Hoevan, John Thune, Jerry Moran, Steve Daines, and Kay Granger from the House of Representatives. All are Republicans. The meetings came several weeks before Putin and Trump are set to meet in Helsinki for their first official summit. “I’ll talk to him about everything,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.