| | | | | The Trump administration is sending the National Guard to the southern border, per a presidential memorandum issued on Wednesday. Citing a "drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border" including drug trafficking, illegal border crossings, and gang activity, President Trump authorized the Defense and Homeland Security departments to deploy and use National Guard personnel to stop this activity. The memo also requests a report within 30 days that contains "findings and an action plan" for securing the border. When will this all take place? Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that "we do hope that the deployment begins immediately" but was unable to give details, nor could she say how many guardsman would be deployed and for how long. "It will be strong. It will be as many as is needed to fill the gaps that we have today, is what I can tell you," Nielsen said. In conjunction with the memorandum, a senior administration official said Wednesday that the White House would be "sending Congress a legislative package to close" what it called "loopholes" in border security law. At the top of this list of loopholes is the practice of "catch and release," by which some undocumented people crossing the border (primarily unaccompanied children and asylum seekers) are apprehended and then released in country before receiving an immigration hearing. The senior administration official claimed the White House expected "rapid action" on the legislation in Congress. According to a source familiar with the White House's proposal, members of the House and Senate were briefed on Wednesday about the coming legislation, apparently for the first time. |
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One More Thing—When asked about the likelihood this border security plan pushed by the White House would move rapidly through Congress, AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House speaker Paul Ryan, replied, "House Republican leaders have worked to shore up support for the Goodlatte border security package, and while progress has been made, that work continues." Strong was referring to the House GOP plan that was drafted to reach the immigration policy goals of the Trump White House, which has so far failed to gain enough support in the House.
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| | When will American troops leave Syria, as President Trump has said he wants to see happen soon? The answer from the White House after Tuesday's National Security Council meeting is, well, TBD.
"The military mission to eradicate ISIS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed," said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a statement Wednesday. "The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated. We will continue to consult with our allies and friends regarding future plans. We expect countries in the region and beyond, plus the United Nations, to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never re-emerges." That's hardly a definitive answer to the question of when—something that frustrates the president, who made it clear in remarks in Ohio last week that troops "will be coming out of Syria, like, very soon."
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| The stock market swooned again Wednesday morning after President Trump took to Twitter for another tariff-related tirade in which he indicated he might pursue even more aggressively protectionist policies.
Administration officials rushed to assure skittish investors that no further policy changes were imminent, and markets recovered by the close of the day. Larry Kudlow, Trump's new chief economic adviser, appeared on Fox Business to insist that "there's no trade war here." "What you've got is the early stages of a process that will include tariffs, comments on the tariffs, then ultimate decisions and negotiations," Kudlow said. "We're going to take a couple months. I doubt if there'd be any concrete action for several months. We'll see how that plays out." Read more... |
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Mark It Down—"We're reviewing the situation."—White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on the question of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's below-market-value condo arrangement, April 4, 2018
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| | Scott Pruitt has been a crucial player in President Trump's agenda of economic deregulation. But the former Oklahoma attorney general now faces the prospect of following in the footsteps of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who was canned last week.
In recent weeks, Pruitt has weathered a wave of bad press and document requests from congressional overseers about reports that he rented a condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist, that he gave raises to top aides despite the White House's denial ofdenying his request, and that his agency looked into the possibility of renting a private plane to transport him to functions around the country. The White House on Wednesday declined to give Pruitt a vote of confidence, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters that the administration was "looking into" the allegations. Asked why Trump was OKokay with such "swamp-like" behavior out of Pruitt, Sanders replied that the president wasn't.
"The president thinks that he's done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front," Sanders said. "But again, we take this seriously and we're looking into it and we'll let you know when we finish." Read more... | |
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| Throwback Thursday—Pruitt may be on thin ice with the White House, but the fortunes of aides and Cabinet members fluctuates with this president. Just five months ago, my colleague Fred Barnes wrote a WEEKLY STANDARD cover storyabout Pruitt that praised him as the "man they love to hate"—"they" being environmental activists, professional liberals in Washington, and many in the mainstream media. One big fan of the story, and of Pruitt, was President Trump, who signed a copy of the magazine and sent it to Pruitt. "Scott, great story," the president wrote. "You get it!"
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| | My colleague Matt Labash has a terrific obituary for the great Lefty Kreh, the legendary fly fisherman. Here's an excerpt:
Lefty left us on March 14 at the age of 93. And for non-fisherpersons who never realized he'd been here in the first place, well, you missed out. For it can fairly be said that he was the sport's all-time premier ambassador, the Michael Jordan of fly fishing. Or, putting matters in proper historical context, Michael Jordan was the Lefty Kreh of the NBA. He changed the game, as they say. Lefty caused us to think differently about how we fly fishers cast, abandoning the rigid 10-and-2 clockface instruction that tweedy trout priests drilled into novices since Izaak Walton was in short pants. Lefty favored instead an extended stroke with the body pivoting that allowed him to throw effortlessly tight loops previously unheard-of distances. He also expanded where we fish. Lefty was catching big bad saltwater fish with a fly rod when the rest of the fly-fishing universe still had on its trout training wheels. His Lefty's Deceiver fly, invented to entice Chesapeake Bay stripers, became such a staple that the Postal Service put it on a stamp. Lefty caught 126 species on the fly on every continent but Antarctica. He'd have scored there, too, if it weren't for the fact, as he told Angler's Journal, that there "ain't nothing to catch on Antarctica but penguins." He set scores of world records, from tarpon to blackfin tuna. And yet, being a good Maryland boy, his favorite fish was the comparatively modest smallmouth bass—basically a largemouth with a couple of Red Bulls in him. Fish the world when you can was Lefty's credo, though the world right in front of you has plenty of fine fish, too. Be no discriminator. The greatest fish are the ones you can catch.
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