Trump is the Biggest Failure in History As His Disapproval Rating Skyrockets to 58%
Apr 25, 2017 13:53:37 #
JFlorio wrote:
You are such a liar. Trump never threatened a gove... (show quote)
everyone knows that is momentum from the Obama economy....it has been that way for 70+ weeks....steadily climbing....don't take credit for someone else's work.....you remind me of these certain people in the south who claimed they created jazz and blues....hilarious........
Apr 25, 2017 14:39:08 #
Trump’s wall hits barrier in Congress
Even conservative Republicans don’t want to pay for it. The standoff raises the risk of a federal shutdown.
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON — It’s an open secret on Capitol Hill: President Trump wants a “big, beautiful” border wall, but few in Congress are willing to pay for it.
The standoff, between the White House and lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — has escalated tension toward a possible government shutdown at midnight Friday as Congress races to meet a deadline to fund federal offices and operations.
Cooler heads will probably prevail. Talks are underway for a stopgap measure to keep the government running for another week or so while negotiations continue.
But the stalemate over Trump’s signature campaign promise — that he would build a wall along the border to deter illegal immigration and that Mexico would pay for it — remains a political divide.
It’s not that Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, who are the majority, don’t support the notions underpinning a border wall. Most of them do.
They just disagree with Trump’s approach for a physical barrier when other deterrents may prove more effective at stopping illegal crossings. And they don’t view the huge expenditure – as much as $70 billion by the latest estimate — a top priority right now.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has called the wall a “metaphor” for border security, saying it’s one tool, among many, to protect the nearly 2,000-mile frontier.
Border state Republican Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) recently asked the Department of Homeland Security for more information about the wall project, saying they have “a number of questions.”
“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” Hurd, a former CIA officer whose district includes 800 miles along the border, more than any other lawmaker, said this year. “There is no question that we must secure our border, but we need an intelligence-led approach.”
And the most conservative Republicans in the House and Senate — namely deficit hawks — oppose any new federal spending, even on national security, which has long been a GOP priority, unless it is offset with budget cuts elsewhere.
“People are pretty clear-eyed,” said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “It’s an all-of-the-above solution, not necessarily a bricks-and-mortar wall from Brownsville [Texas] to San Diego.”
For Democrats, the wall is a non-starter in budget talks, and an expenditure they would largely support in a broader immigration overhaul to provide deportation relief for up to 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
That leaves Trump issuing an ultimatum for the wall that Congress may simply choose to ignore as talks continue toward a deal.
“Instead of risking government shutdown by shoving this wall down Congress’ and American people’s throats, the president ought to just let us come to an agreement,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on a conference call Monday with Democratic leaders.
“We’re happy to debate this wall in regular order down the road once he has a plan,” Schumer said, referring to Trump. “There’s no plan now; [he] just says build it.”
Congress had been heading toward Friday’s deadline hoping to bypass the kind of shutdown drama that has bedeviled Republicans since they took the majority in the House and Senate.
Republicans have been trying to accomplish other priorities — healthcare overhaul, tax reform — and don’t want to get mired in a budget battle.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) believe they have leverage over Republicans in budget talks because of the dissent within the GOP over how much to spend on government operations. Republicans almost always need to rely on Democratic votes to pass funding bills and avert shutdowns, and talks were underway to achieve a deal.
Trump had made a request last month for supplemental spending — $34 billion extra for the military, plus $5 billion for the border wall and officers. But it largely landed with a thud on Capitol Hill.
Democrats panned beefing up defense expenditures without funding for other domestic needs, and the most conservative Republicans largely opposed any extra spending that wasn’t offset by cuts elsewhere.
Instead, bipartisan leaders were aiming for a deal that would give both defense and non-defense accounts a smaller, but equal, boost for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
On a weekend conference call with lawmakers, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) told them the priority would be dispatching with the funding bill, according to someone familiar with the remarks.
Trump, however, apparently sensed his own leverage and started demanding that Congress agree to tack on $5 billion for the border wall.
“The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)!” the president tweeted Monday morning as lawmakers returned to Washington after a two-week break. “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.”
The administration is approaching its 100-day mark on Saturday, and showing progress on the border wall — perhaps Trump’s most heavily repeated campaign promise — would be a notable accomplishment for an otherwise slim record of legislative success.
To sweeten the deal for Democrats, the White House has proposed a $1-for-$1 swap for healthcare funds to ensure lower-income Americans don’t lose their subsidies to help pay for insurance costs through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
But that offer put the president’s Republican allies in the uncomfortable position of fighting for the border wall they only mildly want — and they doubt Mexico will ever pay for — while agreeing to prop up the Affordable Care Act that is a priority for Democrats.
For Democrats, it provides an easy argument that Trump is willing to gamble away Americans’ healthcare for what Pelosi calls the “rhetorical monstrosity” of the wall.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tamped down shutdown fears Monday, insisting that talks would produce a workable solution.
“We feel very confident they understand the president’s priorities and will come to agreement by Friday,” he said.
But asked whether he could guarantee the shutdown threat was off the table, Spicer said he could not.
lisa.mascaro@latimes.com
Twitter: @LisaMascaro
Even conservative Republicans don’t want to pay for it. The standoff raises the risk of a federal shutdown.
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON — It’s an open secret on Capitol Hill: President Trump wants a “big, beautiful” border wall, but few in Congress are willing to pay for it.
The standoff, between the White House and lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — has escalated tension toward a possible government shutdown at midnight Friday as Congress races to meet a deadline to fund federal offices and operations.
Cooler heads will probably prevail. Talks are underway for a stopgap measure to keep the government running for another week or so while negotiations continue.
But the stalemate over Trump’s signature campaign promise — that he would build a wall along the border to deter illegal immigration and that Mexico would pay for it — remains a political divide.
It’s not that Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, who are the majority, don’t support the notions underpinning a border wall. Most of them do.
They just disagree with Trump’s approach for a physical barrier when other deterrents may prove more effective at stopping illegal crossings. And they don’t view the huge expenditure – as much as $70 billion by the latest estimate — a top priority right now.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has called the wall a “metaphor” for border security, saying it’s one tool, among many, to protect the nearly 2,000-mile frontier.
Border state Republican Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) recently asked the Department of Homeland Security for more information about the wall project, saying they have “a number of questions.”
“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” Hurd, a former CIA officer whose district includes 800 miles along the border, more than any other lawmaker, said this year. “There is no question that we must secure our border, but we need an intelligence-led approach.”
And the most conservative Republicans in the House and Senate — namely deficit hawks — oppose any new federal spending, even on national security, which has long been a GOP priority, unless it is offset with budget cuts elsewhere.
“People are pretty clear-eyed,” said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “It’s an all-of-the-above solution, not necessarily a bricks-and-mortar wall from Brownsville [Texas] to San Diego.”
For Democrats, the wall is a non-starter in budget talks, and an expenditure they would largely support in a broader immigration overhaul to provide deportation relief for up to 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
That leaves Trump issuing an ultimatum for the wall that Congress may simply choose to ignore as talks continue toward a deal.
“Instead of risking government shutdown by shoving this wall down Congress’ and American people’s throats, the president ought to just let us come to an agreement,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on a conference call Monday with Democratic leaders.
“We’re happy to debate this wall in regular order down the road once he has a plan,” Schumer said, referring to Trump. “There’s no plan now; [he] just says build it.”
Congress had been heading toward Friday’s deadline hoping to bypass the kind of shutdown drama that has bedeviled Republicans since they took the majority in the House and Senate.
Republicans have been trying to accomplish other priorities — healthcare overhaul, tax reform — and don’t want to get mired in a budget battle.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) believe they have leverage over Republicans in budget talks because of the dissent within the GOP over how much to spend on government operations. Republicans almost always need to rely on Democratic votes to pass funding bills and avert shutdowns, and talks were underway to achieve a deal.
Trump had made a request last month for supplemental spending — $34 billion extra for the military, plus $5 billion for the border wall and officers. But it largely landed with a thud on Capitol Hill.
Democrats panned beefing up defense expenditures without funding for other domestic needs, and the most conservative Republicans largely opposed any extra spending that wasn’t offset by cuts elsewhere.
Instead, bipartisan leaders were aiming for a deal that would give both defense and non-defense accounts a smaller, but equal, boost for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
On a weekend conference call with lawmakers, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) told them the priority would be dispatching with the funding bill, according to someone familiar with the remarks.
Trump, however, apparently sensed his own leverage and started demanding that Congress agree to tack on $5 billion for the border wall.
“The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)!” the president tweeted Monday morning as lawmakers returned to Washington after a two-week break. “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.”
The administration is approaching its 100-day mark on Saturday, and showing progress on the border wall — perhaps Trump’s most heavily repeated campaign promise — would be a notable accomplishment for an otherwise slim record of legislative success.
To sweeten the deal for Democrats, the White House has proposed a $1-for-$1 swap for healthcare funds to ensure lower-income Americans don’t lose their subsidies to help pay for insurance costs through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
But that offer put the president’s Republican allies in the uncomfortable position of fighting for the border wall they only mildly want — and they doubt Mexico will ever pay for — while agreeing to prop up the Affordable Care Act that is a priority for Democrats.
For Democrats, it provides an easy argument that Trump is willing to gamble away Americans’ healthcare for what Pelosi calls the “rhetorical monstrosity” of the wall.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tamped down shutdown fears Monday, insisting that talks would produce a workable solution.
“We feel very confident they understand the president’s priorities and will come to agreement by Friday,” he said.
But asked whether he could guarantee the shutdown threat was off the table, Spicer said he could not.
lisa.mascaro@latimes.com
Twitter: @LisaMascaro
Apr 25, 2017 14:39:43 #
JFlorio wrote:
You are such a liar. Trump never threatened a gove... (show quote)
Trump’s wall hits barrier in Congress
Even conservative Republicans don’t want to pay for it. The standoff raises the risk of a federal shutdown.
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON — It’s an open secret on Capitol Hill: President Trump wants a “big, beautiful” border wall, but few in Congress are willing to pay for it.
The standoff, between the White House and lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — has escalated tension toward a possible government shutdown at midnight Friday as Congress races to meet a deadline to fund federal offices and operations.
Cooler heads will probably prevail. Talks are underway for a stopgap measure to keep the government running for another week or so while negotiations continue.
But the stalemate over Trump’s signature campaign promise — that he would build a wall along the border to deter illegal immigration and that Mexico would pay for it — remains a political divide.
It’s not that Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, who are the majority, don’t support the notions underpinning a border wall. Most of them do.
They just disagree with Trump’s approach for a physical barrier when other deterrents may prove more effective at stopping illegal crossings. And they don’t view the huge expenditure – as much as $70 billion by the latest estimate — a top priority right now.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has called the wall a “metaphor” for border security, saying it’s one tool, among many, to protect the nearly 2,000-mile frontier.
Border state Republican Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) recently asked the Department of Homeland Security for more information about the wall project, saying they have “a number of questions.”
“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” Hurd, a former CIA officer whose district includes 800 miles along the border, more than any other lawmaker, said this year. “There is no question that we must secure our border, but we need an intelligence-led approach.”
And the most conservative Republicans in the House and Senate — namely deficit hawks — oppose any new federal spending, even on national security, which has long been a GOP priority, unless it is offset with budget cuts elsewhere.
“People are pretty clear-eyed,” said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “It’s an all-of-the-above solution, not necessarily a bricks-and-mortar wall from Brownsville [Texas] to San Diego.”
For Democrats, the wall is a non-starter in budget talks, and an expenditure they would largely support in a broader immigration overhaul to provide deportation relief for up to 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
That leaves Trump issuing an ultimatum for the wall that Congress may simply choose to ignore as talks continue toward a deal.
“Instead of risking government shutdown by shoving this wall down Congress’ and American people’s throats, the president ought to just let us come to an agreement,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on a conference call Monday with Democratic leaders.
“We’re happy to debate this wall in regular order down the road once he has a plan,” Schumer said, referring to Trump. “There’s no plan now; [he] just says build it.”
Congress had been heading toward Friday’s deadline hoping to bypass the kind of shutdown drama that has bedeviled Republicans since they took the majority in the House and Senate.
Republicans have been trying to accomplish other priorities — healthcare overhaul, tax reform — and don’t want to get mired in a budget battle.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) believe they have leverage over Republicans in budget talks because of the dissent within the GOP over how much to spend on government operations. Republicans almost always need to rely on Democratic votes to pass funding bills and avert shutdowns, and talks were underway to achieve a deal.
Trump had made a request last month for supplemental spending — $34 billion extra for the military, plus $5 billion for the border wall and officers. But it largely landed with a thud on Capitol Hill.
Democrats panned beefing up defense expenditures without funding for other domestic needs, and the most conservative Republicans largely opposed any extra spending that wasn’t offset by cuts elsewhere.
Instead, bipartisan leaders were aiming for a deal that would give both defense and non-defense accounts a smaller, but equal, boost for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
On a weekend conference call with lawmakers, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) told them the priority would be dispatching with the funding bill, according to someone familiar with the remarks.
Trump, however, apparently sensed his own leverage and started demanding that Congress agree to tack on $5 billion for the border wall.
“The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)!” the president tweeted Monday morning as lawmakers returned to Washington after a two-week break. “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.”
The administration is approaching its 100-day mark on Saturday, and showing progress on the border wall — perhaps Trump’s most heavily repeated campaign promise — would be a notable accomplishment for an otherwise slim record of legislative success.
To sweeten the deal for Democrats, the White House has proposed a $1-for-$1 swap for healthcare funds to ensure lower-income Americans don’t lose their subsidies to help pay for insurance costs through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
But that offer put the president’s Republican allies in the uncomfortable position of fighting for the border wall they only mildly want — and they doubt Mexico will ever pay for — while agreeing to prop up the Affordable Care Act that is a priority for Democrats.
For Democrats, it provides an easy argument that Trump is willing to gamble away Americans’ healthcare for what Pelosi calls the “rhetorical monstrosity” of the wall.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tamped down shutdown fears Monday, insisting that talks would produce a workable solution.
“We feel very confident they understand the president’s priorities and will come to agreement by Friday,” he said.
But asked whether he could guarantee the shutdown threat was off the table, Spicer said he could not.
lisa.mascaro@latimes.com
Twitter: @LisaMascaro
Apr 25, 2017 16:25:56 #
JFlorio
Loc: Seminole Florida
Like I said . Liar. Trump can't shut the government down on his own. If he puts funding in his budget for the wall and Democrat's refuse too pass that budget then One could easily say the Democrats shut down the government. Even P One if he wasn't such a partisan liberal.
Progressive One wrote:
'sigh'......call people liars and look like a damn... (show quote)
Apr 25, 2017 16:59:50 #
JFlorio wrote:
Like I said . Liar. Trump can't shut the government down on his own. If he puts funding in his budget for the wall and Democrat's refuse too pass that budget then One could easily say the Democrats shut down the government. Even P One if he wasn't such a partisan liberal.
Okay...if you read all the articles that say trump was threatening a shutdown, see it on the news and call me a liar because I presented it....then you just want to be ignorant of the facts....and that I cannot help....that is your own self-imposed mental issue. Good luck with that in life. The issue wasn't whether he could do it or not. The issue was that he did threaten a shutdown....but he always says things he cannot do...my point is that he did threaten...try to keep up.
Apr 25, 2017 17:28:11 #
This so sad it is embarrassing.
Federal judge blocks Trump's sanctuary cities executive order
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-judge-blocks-trumps-sanctuary-cities-executive-order/article/2621249
Federal judge blocks Trump's sanctuary cities executive order
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-judge-blocks-trumps-sanctuary-cities-executive-order/article/2621249
Apr 25, 2017 18:44:29 #
House oversight committee: Flynn might have broken the law
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/politics/michael-flynn-house-oversight-committee/index.html
"As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else. And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate. And there are repercussions for the violation of law," Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz and Cummings announced their findings to reporters on the Hill following a classified gathering of the committee in which they reviewed documents that Cummings described as "extremely troubling."
"I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law," Chaffetz said, referring to whether Flynn received permission from the Pentagon or the State Department or that he disclosed the more than $45,000 he was paid for a speech he gave to RT-TV in Russia.
Chaffetz said that the committee will send a letter now requesting information from the inspector general at the Department of Defense and the comptroller of the US Army to determine how they will handle news of Flynn's security clearance. One action, he said, may be seeking repayment of money from Flynn -- possibly in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Cummings noted that the security clearance states that knowingly leaving off payments from foreign governments is a felony punishable with up to five years in prison. But he and Chaffetz both said that it was not for them to decide whether Flynn committed a crime.
"We're not here to make the final determination," Chaffetz said Tuesday.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/politics/michael-flynn-house-oversight-committee/index.html
"As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else. And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate. And there are repercussions for the violation of law," Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz and Cummings announced their findings to reporters on the Hill following a classified gathering of the committee in which they reviewed documents that Cummings described as "extremely troubling."
"I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law," Chaffetz said, referring to whether Flynn received permission from the Pentagon or the State Department or that he disclosed the more than $45,000 he was paid for a speech he gave to RT-TV in Russia.
Chaffetz said that the committee will send a letter now requesting information from the inspector general at the Department of Defense and the comptroller of the US Army to determine how they will handle news of Flynn's security clearance. One action, he said, may be seeking repayment of money from Flynn -- possibly in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Cummings noted that the security clearance states that knowingly leaving off payments from foreign governments is a felony punishable with up to five years in prison. But he and Chaffetz both said that it was not for them to decide whether Flynn committed a crime.
"We're not here to make the final determination," Chaffetz said Tuesday.
Apr 25, 2017 22:19:22 #
Why do liberals side with a Bilderberger billionaire elitist like George "Giorgi" Soros?
Do all liberals believe this is how America should be controlled?
“This system to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. (Bilderberg Group)” - Insider, Professor Carroll Quigley – ‘Tragedy and Hope’,( p. 324)
The Bilderberg Group meets once a year, and is blacked out by the MSM.
10 Things You Didn't Know About "Giorgi" George Soros
https://youtu.be/tfBHYxEojZk
SOROS ROTHSCHILD RACE WAR PROPAGANDA EXPOSED
https://youtu.be/lhqqz3QFQKE
George Soros: Evil Puppet Master Exposed
https://youtu.be/1eRFTHD2CTg
HILLARY FOR PRISON 2016 CAMPAIGN THEME SONG
https://youtu.be/lwl56DeNK0Q
Can't Touch Me The Hillary Song
https://youtu.be/zcTGTFNXJss
Do all liberals believe this is how America should be controlled?
“This system to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. (Bilderberg Group)” - Insider, Professor Carroll Quigley – ‘Tragedy and Hope’,( p. 324)
The Bilderberg Group meets once a year, and is blacked out by the MSM.
10 Things You Didn't Know About "Giorgi" George Soros
https://youtu.be/tfBHYxEojZk
SOROS ROTHSCHILD RACE WAR PROPAGANDA EXPOSED
https://youtu.be/lhqqz3QFQKE
George Soros: Evil Puppet Master Exposed
https://youtu.be/1eRFTHD2CTg
HILLARY FOR PRISON 2016 CAMPAIGN THEME SONG
https://youtu.be/lwl56DeNK0Q
Can't Touch Me The Hillary Song
https://youtu.be/zcTGTFNXJss
Apr 25, 2017 23:18:06 #
eagleye13 wrote:
Why do liberals side with a Bilderberger billionai... (show quote)
Eagle has still yet to land!
Apr 26, 2017 14:06:46 #
Trump’s plan to defund ‘sanctuary’ cities blocked
Order that called for withholding federal funds is rejected.
By Maura Dolan and Joel Rubin
A federal judge placed a nationwide hold Tuesday on President Trump’s order to strip funds from municipal governments that refuse to cooperate fully with immigration agents.
U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick III, a President Obama appointee based in San Francisco, said Trump’s Jan. 25 order, directed at so-called sanctuary cities and counties, was unconstitutional.
“The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the president, so the order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds,” Orrick wrote.
The case was the first legal test of Trump’s order, which has left cities and counties across the nation fearful of losing massive amounts of federal funds.
The Trump administration said it would appeal the decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which already is considering Trump’s revised moratorium on travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, speaking to reporters in his West Wing office, said the decision “will be overturned eventually, and we’ll win at the Supreme Court level.”
“It’s the 9th Circuit going bananas,” Priebus said, though the ruling came at the district court level.
Tuesday’s ruling stemmed from lawsuits by San Francisco and Santa Clara County challenging the order. Among other claims, the suits argued that the directive violated the 10th Amendment, which protects states from federal government interference.
The Trump administration had argued the counties lacked standing or legal authority to challenge the order because they had not yet suffered any harm.
But Orrick said a preliminary injunction to block the order was needed to prevent upheaval in the counties’ budgeting process.
“The order has caused budget uncertainty by threatening to deprive the counties of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants that support core services,” the judge said.
He stressed that his decision will not prevent federal officials from designating local municipalities as sanctuaries or from enforcing existing conditions on grant money.
The ruling flatly rejected a last-minute bid by a lawyer for the Justice Department to downplay the significance and reach of Trump’s order.
The government’s attorney told the judge during an April 14 hearing that the order would affect only limited law enforcement grants handed down by the Justice Department and the Office of Homeland Security — not all of the billions in funding local municipalities receive from the federal government.
That “new interpretation” of the sanctuary order was “not legally plausible,” the judge said.
The wording of the order — and statements made by Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions — make clear it was intended to threaten all federal funds, the judge said.
“If there was doubt about the scope of the order, the president and attorney general have erased it with their public comments,” Orrick wrote. “The president has called it ‘a weapon’ to use against jurisdictions that disagree with his preferred policies of immigration enforcement.”
Orrick also noted that the federal government may not legally compel counties to hold inmates who are in the country illegally in jail beyond their release dates.
Counties that do detain immigrants until federal agents can take them face liability under the 4th Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from seizure.
But Trump’s order can be read as requiring states and municipalities to honor such detainer requests to avoid being designated sanctuary jurisdictions, Orrick said.
The judge said the order ran afoul of the Constitution in various ways, violating the separation of powers doctrine, guarantees of due process and the 10th Amendment right of states and cities to self-govern.
The federal government “cannot use the spending power in a way that compels local jurisdictions to adopt certain policies,” Orrick wrote, citing a Supreme Court ruling against part of Obamacare.
He described Trump’s order as vague. It “has caused substantial confusion and justified fear among states and local jurisdictions that they will lose all federal grant funding at the very least,” he wrote.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said the administration will follow the law “with respect to regulation of sanctuary jurisdictions” and enforce existing grant conditions.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city would continue to be a sanctuary jurisdiction.
If the federal government believes a serious criminal should be detained, it can obtain a criminal warrant, he said. The city has always honored them.
“We know that sanctuary cities are safer, healthier, more productive places to live,” Lee said.
Dave Cortese, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, declared that “the politics of fear has just suffered a major setback.”
“Millions of people across the country can continue to receive essential medical care, go to school and remain active members of their communities without fear that their local governments are being forced to work against them,” Cortese said.
Cities and counties around the nation have reacted differently to Trump’s order.
The mayor of Miami-Dade County immediately directed jail officials to honor all requests by immigration agents because he said he feared the county could lose $355 million a year in federal funding.
Santa Clara County officials had argued that the order threatened $1.7 billion in annual federal funding. San Francisco said it stands to lose at least $1.2 billion a year.
maura.dolan@latimes.com
joel.rubin@latimes.com
Times staff writers Brian Bennett, James Queally and Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.
Order that called for withholding federal funds is rejected.
By Maura Dolan and Joel Rubin
A federal judge placed a nationwide hold Tuesday on President Trump’s order to strip funds from municipal governments that refuse to cooperate fully with immigration agents.
U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick III, a President Obama appointee based in San Francisco, said Trump’s Jan. 25 order, directed at so-called sanctuary cities and counties, was unconstitutional.
“The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the president, so the order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds,” Orrick wrote.
The case was the first legal test of Trump’s order, which has left cities and counties across the nation fearful of losing massive amounts of federal funds.
The Trump administration said it would appeal the decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which already is considering Trump’s revised moratorium on travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, speaking to reporters in his West Wing office, said the decision “will be overturned eventually, and we’ll win at the Supreme Court level.”
“It’s the 9th Circuit going bananas,” Priebus said, though the ruling came at the district court level.
Tuesday’s ruling stemmed from lawsuits by San Francisco and Santa Clara County challenging the order. Among other claims, the suits argued that the directive violated the 10th Amendment, which protects states from federal government interference.
The Trump administration had argued the counties lacked standing or legal authority to challenge the order because they had not yet suffered any harm.
But Orrick said a preliminary injunction to block the order was needed to prevent upheaval in the counties’ budgeting process.
“The order has caused budget uncertainty by threatening to deprive the counties of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants that support core services,” the judge said.
He stressed that his decision will not prevent federal officials from designating local municipalities as sanctuaries or from enforcing existing conditions on grant money.
The ruling flatly rejected a last-minute bid by a lawyer for the Justice Department to downplay the significance and reach of Trump’s order.
The government’s attorney told the judge during an April 14 hearing that the order would affect only limited law enforcement grants handed down by the Justice Department and the Office of Homeland Security — not all of the billions in funding local municipalities receive from the federal government.
That “new interpretation” of the sanctuary order was “not legally plausible,” the judge said.
The wording of the order — and statements made by Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions — make clear it was intended to threaten all federal funds, the judge said.
“If there was doubt about the scope of the order, the president and attorney general have erased it with their public comments,” Orrick wrote. “The president has called it ‘a weapon’ to use against jurisdictions that disagree with his preferred policies of immigration enforcement.”
Orrick also noted that the federal government may not legally compel counties to hold inmates who are in the country illegally in jail beyond their release dates.
Counties that do detain immigrants until federal agents can take them face liability under the 4th Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from seizure.
But Trump’s order can be read as requiring states and municipalities to honor such detainer requests to avoid being designated sanctuary jurisdictions, Orrick said.
The judge said the order ran afoul of the Constitution in various ways, violating the separation of powers doctrine, guarantees of due process and the 10th Amendment right of states and cities to self-govern.
The federal government “cannot use the spending power in a way that compels local jurisdictions to adopt certain policies,” Orrick wrote, citing a Supreme Court ruling against part of Obamacare.
He described Trump’s order as vague. It “has caused substantial confusion and justified fear among states and local jurisdictions that they will lose all federal grant funding at the very least,” he wrote.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said the administration will follow the law “with respect to regulation of sanctuary jurisdictions” and enforce existing grant conditions.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city would continue to be a sanctuary jurisdiction.
If the federal government believes a serious criminal should be detained, it can obtain a criminal warrant, he said. The city has always honored them.
“We know that sanctuary cities are safer, healthier, more productive places to live,” Lee said.
Dave Cortese, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, declared that “the politics of fear has just suffered a major setback.”
“Millions of people across the country can continue to receive essential medical care, go to school and remain active members of their communities without fear that their local governments are being forced to work against them,” Cortese said.
Cities and counties around the nation have reacted differently to Trump’s order.
The mayor of Miami-Dade County immediately directed jail officials to honor all requests by immigration agents because he said he feared the county could lose $355 million a year in federal funding.
Santa Clara County officials had argued that the order threatened $1.7 billion in annual federal funding. San Francisco said it stands to lose at least $1.2 billion a year.
maura.dolan@latimes.com
joel.rubin@latimes.com
Times staff writers Brian Bennett, James Queally and Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.
Apr 26, 2017 14:11:40 #
President’s progress
Trump’s emotional impact on Americans endures despite few concrete victories as he nears 100 days
PRESIDENT TRUMP has made up in executive orders for what he’s lacked in legislative wins — signing more than recent predecessors did at this point in their terms. But only about a dozen have changed policy. (Andrew Harnik Associated Press)
By David Lauter
WASHINGTON — As his first 100 days in office draw to a close Saturday, President Trump cannot claim many solid accomplishments, but does have one big one: He has held on to the support of the voters who put him in the White House.
Trump has dominated the daily news cycle and conversation like few of his predecessors. Questions abound about whether he can manage the White House, sustain focus on a policy debate or set strategy for international relations, but he has amply proved he can grab and hold the spotlight.
Partly because of that, his biggest influence so far may be the emotional effect he has had on the country. With Trump on center stage, Republican confidence in the nation’s future and the state of its economy has increased sharply. On the other side of the partisan divide, he has mobilized and energized Democrats to a level not seen in years.
And in many immigrant communities, Trump’s rhetoric has generated fear and anxiety that probably have contributed to a drop in the number of people trying to illegally cross the border.
Trump’s substantive impact so far looks small by comparison. Divisions within his party and opposition from Democrats have combined with his own errors to limit his effectiveness.
“Trump has focused on winning the short-term news cycle” every day, said UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck. “That’s an unusual strategy for someone governing.”
“Most people who want to be president of the United States have some long-term vision and want to lead to achieve that vision,” but Trump, so far, has not set out that kind of goal, she said.
Despite that, Democrats who believed Trump’s support might crumble quickly have had their hopes dashed by the steadfastness of the president’s backers.
As a result, the opening act of Trump’s presidency has unfolded as a high-decibel stalemate — one that a starkly polarized electorate has watched with rapt fascination.
Few regrets
A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times “Daybreak” poll provides evidence of both the polarization and the stability of Trump’s support.
Well over 90% of people nationwide who voted for Trump in November said they would do so again.
But in the poll, which in the fall consistently forecast that Trump would win the election, just 40% of Americans approved of his job performance; 46% disapproved, and 14% picked neither option.
More than a third, 35%, voiced strong disapproval of Trump, compared with 19% who strongly approved of him.
The survey was taken April 12-25 and questioned 3,039 Americans, of whom 2,584 reported voting in the 2016 election. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction.
The poll’s findings on Trump’s job approval echo surveys by other news organizations and nonpartisan polling groups. All have found approval of the president hovering around 40% — far less than any other elected president at this point in his tenure.
Americans split similarly on whether they liked Trump personally: 37% said they did, and 63% said they didn’t, the poll found. About 1 in 6 of his own voters said they didn’t like Trump personally, but approved of his policies.
In addition to the late April survey, the USC pollsters surveyed people in March. A comparison of the two polls shows something of a paradox: Among Trump’s voters, approval of his job performance has solidified even as doubts about him have begun to creep in.
In the earlier survey, about a third of Trump’s backers offered a wait-and-see answer when asked whether they approved of Trump’s performance in office. By late April, their approval had firmed up, with 85% of those who voted for Trump now saying they approved of his work.
A promise deficit
But when asked whether “keeps his promises” was a phrase that applied to Trump, the results showed increased doubt. Between March and April, the share of Americans who said that Trump does keep his promises fell from 60% to 53%.
Among his own supporters, a significant number shifted from saying that keeping his promises “entirely applies” to the president to a more tentative “mostly applies.”
That decline squares with the evidence, if not with Trump’s rhetoric.
The president, in recent comments, has tried to brush aside many campaign promises. Asked in an interview with the Associated Press about the detailed Contract with the American Voter that he released in the closing weeks of the campaign along with a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., Trump sought to distance himself from the pledges.
“Somebody put out the concept of a hundred-day plan,” he said. “I’m mostly there on most items.
“But things change,” he added. “There has to be flexibility.”
In truth, Trump isn’t mostly there. Of 30 major promises he made during his campaign, a survey by The Times found only five that had been fulfilled so far. Many more have been scaled back and a few abandoned outright.
“There are not the usual accomplishments presidents like to point to,” said Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin who studies the presidency.
The president nominated Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative justice, to the Supreme Court to replace the late Antonin Scalia — a key promise for many of the conservative voters who backed Trump in November. Gorsuch joined the high court this month.
The president formally pulled the U.S. out of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a largely symbolic move since the agreement was already doomed in Congress. And he put in place several promised ethics requirements for his staff, although the White House already has begun giving some people waivers from some of the restrictions.
A sparse record
After that, the record is sparse.
Despite his party’s control of both houses of Congress, and in contrast to the last three presidents, Trump has no big, early legislative accomplishments to point to. He has signed a number of bills, but all are small-scale measures, mostly to overturn regulations adopted in the final months of the Obama administration.
Many pieces of legislation Trump promised to introduce within his first 100 days remain nowhere in sight.
Divisions among Republicans in Congress have stymied his efforts to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law, which was a central promise not only of Trump’s campaign, but of all Republican campaigns since the law was passed in 2010.
He promised a major tax overhaul, but his administration has not fleshed out a tax plan , and on Capitol Hill, House and Senate Republicans disagree sharply on an approach. Trump has ballyhooed a “big announcement” on taxes for this week, probably Wednesday. But administration officials have cautioned that the president will be “outlining principles” for a tax plan, not releasing many specifics.
Trump’s proposal for a $1-trillion plan to increase spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure also has yet to materialize.
White House officials defend the record.
“When you look at the number of pieces of legislation, the executive orders, business confidence, the place — the U.S. role in the world, there’s a lot that we feel — a lot of accomplishments that have occurred, and we feel very good about what we’ve done as we head up to this first hundred days,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.
At the same time, however, Spicer and others have tried to downplay the 100-day measure, calling it an “artificial number that gets thrown out.”
There’s little question that other presidents have achieved more in their early days. In 2001, Congress passed President George W. Bush’s major tax cut in May. Obama won approval of his economic stimulus plan within his first 100 days, as well as a number of substantive smaller-scale measures.
One of the biggest factors limiting Trump’s effectiveness — especially his ability to put forward ambitious legislative plans — has been his failure to staff key positions in his administration. He often blames Democrats for obstructing his nominees, but a much bigger part of the problem has been his own failure to name people.
The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service has been tracking 554 high-level positions that require Senate confirmation. To date, Trump has nominated people for 46 of those, and an additional 35 people have been named but not formally nominated. That’s far behind the pace of Obama, who had nominated nearly 200 by this point, or George W. Bush, who had nominated 85.
Lacking legislative accomplishments, Trump has relied heavily on executive orders, signing more in his first 14 weeks than his recent predecessors.
But many of those orders have provided more show than substance. A review by The Times of the first 39 of Trump’s executive orders and presidential memorandums found that more than half simply ordered departments to study policy options and prepare reports.
Stalled in court
The most consequential of the orders — the proposed ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of several majority-Muslim countries — remains stalled in court. Only about a dozen of Trump’s decrees have, so far, changed policy.
Trump has begun the process of rolling back Obama administration regulations, especially environmental rules, although much of what he has started will face court challenges.
And the administration has started to toughen immigration enforcement. The number of unauthorized immigrants who are in federal detention has increased, although only to about the level hit in 2014 before the Obama administration tightened rules on whom immigration officials should target for arrest.
The administration has backed away from several significant campaign pledges.
Trump has dropped his call to label China a “currency manipulator.” He appears to have dropped his pledge to scrap Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields from deportation about 750,000 young “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. illegally as children. He has taken no steps to undo the Obama administration’s multinational nuclear deal with Iran or its normalization of relations with Cuba.
The administration also appears headed toward a much narrower plan to negotiate changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico than what Trump described on the campaign trail.
Moving away from campaign promises is risky for a president, and Trump is no exception. The USC/L.A. Times poll found that Trump voters who believe he has been accomplishing what he promised were significantly more likely to approve of his job performance than those who said he was accomplishing less.
Despite that, Trump’s voters have mostly remained with him.
That’s in keeping with a broader shift in presidential approval that became apparent during the Obama years, Vavreck and Azari noted. Presidential approval used to be driven heavily by events. Bush’s approval, for example, soared after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then fell after setbacks in the Iraq war.
Obama’s approval, however, barely budged for most of his eight years in office: Democrats backed him, Republicans opposed him, and very few developments changed minds on either side.
A similarly stubborn polarization has clearly taken hold with Trump, dividing opinions along the now-familiar fault lines of American life.
White Americans in the USC/Times poll approved of Trump’s job performance 49% to 36%, with 14% neutral. Among blacks, only 7% approved and 82% disapproved, while among Latinos, 25% approved and 60% disapproved.
Asked whether Trump “speaks for people like you,” 53% of whites said he did. Among blacks, only 8% said so; among Latinos, 26%.
Trump gets solid support from voters polled in rural areas, 54% of whom approve of his job performance compared with 32% who disapprove. Among those who live in urban areas, almost the opposite is true: 28% approve, 58% disapprove.
Among Republicans, 80% said Trump “inspires confidence and optimism.” Among Democrats, only 12% said so.
More than half of Trump voters, 51%, now say they expect their personal financial condition to be better by next year. Before the election, only 29% expressed such optimism. Among Hillary Clinton voters, expectations have not changed significantly: About 4 in 10 think they will see an improvement by next year.
Those opposing groups don’t share the same sources of information or the same beliefs about the world around them. Roughly two-thirds of Trump voters, for example, said they believed the U.S. homicide rate was at the highest point in 50 years, a staple of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. By contrast, about 6 in 10 Clinton voters did not believe that.
In fact, the homicide rate for the last several years has been lower than at any point since the early 1960s.
When the poll asked about 10 potential sources of information, only two won the trust of a majority of Trump voters — Fox News and the administration itself. Majorities of Clinton voters expressed trust in a wider range of sources — national and regional newspapers, other cable outlets, public radio and television — but not the two sources believed by Trump voters.
Perhaps the starkest evidence of division is this: Among those who voted for Clinton, 40% said they knew virtually no one who backed Trump; among those who voted for Trump, 45% said they knew virtually no one who voted for Clinton.
david.lauter@latimes.com
Twitter: @DavidLauter .
Jill Darling, survey director at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, contributed to this report.
Trump’s emotional impact on Americans endures despite few concrete victories as he nears 100 days
PRESIDENT TRUMP has made up in executive orders for what he’s lacked in legislative wins — signing more than recent predecessors did at this point in their terms. But only about a dozen have changed policy. (Andrew Harnik Associated Press)
By David Lauter
WASHINGTON — As his first 100 days in office draw to a close Saturday, President Trump cannot claim many solid accomplishments, but does have one big one: He has held on to the support of the voters who put him in the White House.
Trump has dominated the daily news cycle and conversation like few of his predecessors. Questions abound about whether he can manage the White House, sustain focus on a policy debate or set strategy for international relations, but he has amply proved he can grab and hold the spotlight.
Partly because of that, his biggest influence so far may be the emotional effect he has had on the country. With Trump on center stage, Republican confidence in the nation’s future and the state of its economy has increased sharply. On the other side of the partisan divide, he has mobilized and energized Democrats to a level not seen in years.
And in many immigrant communities, Trump’s rhetoric has generated fear and anxiety that probably have contributed to a drop in the number of people trying to illegally cross the border.
Trump’s substantive impact so far looks small by comparison. Divisions within his party and opposition from Democrats have combined with his own errors to limit his effectiveness.
“Trump has focused on winning the short-term news cycle” every day, said UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck. “That’s an unusual strategy for someone governing.”
“Most people who want to be president of the United States have some long-term vision and want to lead to achieve that vision,” but Trump, so far, has not set out that kind of goal, she said.
Despite that, Democrats who believed Trump’s support might crumble quickly have had their hopes dashed by the steadfastness of the president’s backers.
As a result, the opening act of Trump’s presidency has unfolded as a high-decibel stalemate — one that a starkly polarized electorate has watched with rapt fascination.
Few regrets
A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times “Daybreak” poll provides evidence of both the polarization and the stability of Trump’s support.
Well over 90% of people nationwide who voted for Trump in November said they would do so again.
But in the poll, which in the fall consistently forecast that Trump would win the election, just 40% of Americans approved of his job performance; 46% disapproved, and 14% picked neither option.
More than a third, 35%, voiced strong disapproval of Trump, compared with 19% who strongly approved of him.
The survey was taken April 12-25 and questioned 3,039 Americans, of whom 2,584 reported voting in the 2016 election. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction.
The poll’s findings on Trump’s job approval echo surveys by other news organizations and nonpartisan polling groups. All have found approval of the president hovering around 40% — far less than any other elected president at this point in his tenure.
Americans split similarly on whether they liked Trump personally: 37% said they did, and 63% said they didn’t, the poll found. About 1 in 6 of his own voters said they didn’t like Trump personally, but approved of his policies.
In addition to the late April survey, the USC pollsters surveyed people in March. A comparison of the two polls shows something of a paradox: Among Trump’s voters, approval of his job performance has solidified even as doubts about him have begun to creep in.
In the earlier survey, about a third of Trump’s backers offered a wait-and-see answer when asked whether they approved of Trump’s performance in office. By late April, their approval had firmed up, with 85% of those who voted for Trump now saying they approved of his work.
A promise deficit
But when asked whether “keeps his promises” was a phrase that applied to Trump, the results showed increased doubt. Between March and April, the share of Americans who said that Trump does keep his promises fell from 60% to 53%.
Among his own supporters, a significant number shifted from saying that keeping his promises “entirely applies” to the president to a more tentative “mostly applies.”
That decline squares with the evidence, if not with Trump’s rhetoric.
The president, in recent comments, has tried to brush aside many campaign promises. Asked in an interview with the Associated Press about the detailed Contract with the American Voter that he released in the closing weeks of the campaign along with a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., Trump sought to distance himself from the pledges.
“Somebody put out the concept of a hundred-day plan,” he said. “I’m mostly there on most items.
“But things change,” he added. “There has to be flexibility.”
In truth, Trump isn’t mostly there. Of 30 major promises he made during his campaign, a survey by The Times found only five that had been fulfilled so far. Many more have been scaled back and a few abandoned outright.
“There are not the usual accomplishments presidents like to point to,” said Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin who studies the presidency.
The president nominated Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative justice, to the Supreme Court to replace the late Antonin Scalia — a key promise for many of the conservative voters who backed Trump in November. Gorsuch joined the high court this month.
The president formally pulled the U.S. out of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a largely symbolic move since the agreement was already doomed in Congress. And he put in place several promised ethics requirements for his staff, although the White House already has begun giving some people waivers from some of the restrictions.
A sparse record
After that, the record is sparse.
Despite his party’s control of both houses of Congress, and in contrast to the last three presidents, Trump has no big, early legislative accomplishments to point to. He has signed a number of bills, but all are small-scale measures, mostly to overturn regulations adopted in the final months of the Obama administration.
Many pieces of legislation Trump promised to introduce within his first 100 days remain nowhere in sight.
Divisions among Republicans in Congress have stymied his efforts to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law, which was a central promise not only of Trump’s campaign, but of all Republican campaigns since the law was passed in 2010.
He promised a major tax overhaul, but his administration has not fleshed out a tax plan , and on Capitol Hill, House and Senate Republicans disagree sharply on an approach. Trump has ballyhooed a “big announcement” on taxes for this week, probably Wednesday. But administration officials have cautioned that the president will be “outlining principles” for a tax plan, not releasing many specifics.
Trump’s proposal for a $1-trillion plan to increase spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure also has yet to materialize.
White House officials defend the record.
“When you look at the number of pieces of legislation, the executive orders, business confidence, the place — the U.S. role in the world, there’s a lot that we feel — a lot of accomplishments that have occurred, and we feel very good about what we’ve done as we head up to this first hundred days,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.
At the same time, however, Spicer and others have tried to downplay the 100-day measure, calling it an “artificial number that gets thrown out.”
There’s little question that other presidents have achieved more in their early days. In 2001, Congress passed President George W. Bush’s major tax cut in May. Obama won approval of his economic stimulus plan within his first 100 days, as well as a number of substantive smaller-scale measures.
One of the biggest factors limiting Trump’s effectiveness — especially his ability to put forward ambitious legislative plans — has been his failure to staff key positions in his administration. He often blames Democrats for obstructing his nominees, but a much bigger part of the problem has been his own failure to name people.
The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service has been tracking 554 high-level positions that require Senate confirmation. To date, Trump has nominated people for 46 of those, and an additional 35 people have been named but not formally nominated. That’s far behind the pace of Obama, who had nominated nearly 200 by this point, or George W. Bush, who had nominated 85.
Lacking legislative accomplishments, Trump has relied heavily on executive orders, signing more in his first 14 weeks than his recent predecessors.
But many of those orders have provided more show than substance. A review by The Times of the first 39 of Trump’s executive orders and presidential memorandums found that more than half simply ordered departments to study policy options and prepare reports.
Stalled in court
The most consequential of the orders — the proposed ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of several majority-Muslim countries — remains stalled in court. Only about a dozen of Trump’s decrees have, so far, changed policy.
Trump has begun the process of rolling back Obama administration regulations, especially environmental rules, although much of what he has started will face court challenges.
And the administration has started to toughen immigration enforcement. The number of unauthorized immigrants who are in federal detention has increased, although only to about the level hit in 2014 before the Obama administration tightened rules on whom immigration officials should target for arrest.
The administration has backed away from several significant campaign pledges.
Trump has dropped his call to label China a “currency manipulator.” He appears to have dropped his pledge to scrap Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields from deportation about 750,000 young “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. illegally as children. He has taken no steps to undo the Obama administration’s multinational nuclear deal with Iran or its normalization of relations with Cuba.
The administration also appears headed toward a much narrower plan to negotiate changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico than what Trump described on the campaign trail.
Moving away from campaign promises is risky for a president, and Trump is no exception. The USC/L.A. Times poll found that Trump voters who believe he has been accomplishing what he promised were significantly more likely to approve of his job performance than those who said he was accomplishing less.
Despite that, Trump’s voters have mostly remained with him.
That’s in keeping with a broader shift in presidential approval that became apparent during the Obama years, Vavreck and Azari noted. Presidential approval used to be driven heavily by events. Bush’s approval, for example, soared after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then fell after setbacks in the Iraq war.
Obama’s approval, however, barely budged for most of his eight years in office: Democrats backed him, Republicans opposed him, and very few developments changed minds on either side.
A similarly stubborn polarization has clearly taken hold with Trump, dividing opinions along the now-familiar fault lines of American life.
White Americans in the USC/Times poll approved of Trump’s job performance 49% to 36%, with 14% neutral. Among blacks, only 7% approved and 82% disapproved, while among Latinos, 25% approved and 60% disapproved.
Asked whether Trump “speaks for people like you,” 53% of whites said he did. Among blacks, only 8% said so; among Latinos, 26%.
Trump gets solid support from voters polled in rural areas, 54% of whom approve of his job performance compared with 32% who disapprove. Among those who live in urban areas, almost the opposite is true: 28% approve, 58% disapprove.
Among Republicans, 80% said Trump “inspires confidence and optimism.” Among Democrats, only 12% said so.
More than half of Trump voters, 51%, now say they expect their personal financial condition to be better by next year. Before the election, only 29% expressed such optimism. Among Hillary Clinton voters, expectations have not changed significantly: About 4 in 10 think they will see an improvement by next year.
Those opposing groups don’t share the same sources of information or the same beliefs about the world around them. Roughly two-thirds of Trump voters, for example, said they believed the U.S. homicide rate was at the highest point in 50 years, a staple of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. By contrast, about 6 in 10 Clinton voters did not believe that.
In fact, the homicide rate for the last several years has been lower than at any point since the early 1960s.
When the poll asked about 10 potential sources of information, only two won the trust of a majority of Trump voters — Fox News and the administration itself. Majorities of Clinton voters expressed trust in a wider range of sources — national and regional newspapers, other cable outlets, public radio and television — but not the two sources believed by Trump voters.
Perhaps the starkest evidence of division is this: Among those who voted for Clinton, 40% said they knew virtually no one who backed Trump; among those who voted for Trump, 45% said they knew virtually no one who voted for Clinton.
david.lauter@latimes.com
Twitter: @DavidLauter .
Jill Darling, survey director at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, contributed to this report.
Apr 26, 2017 14:23:26 #
How Trump could turn things around
Clinton White House veterans say it’s possible to recover after a bad start.
DOYLE McMANUS
D onald Trump’s presidency is in a sorry state. His first attempt at legislation, on healthcare, was a failure. His executive order on immigration has been blocked by the courts. His White House is a tangle of chaos and intrigue. His campaign and his businesses are under congressional investigation.
No wonder Trump’s standing in the polls has sunk further than that of any other modern president in his first 100 days, a period once known charmingly as the honeymoon.
And yet, Trump has plenty of time to recover. The first 100 days, an arbitrary checkpoint, are only 7% of a four-year term. It’s not unusual for new presidents to stumble — and it’s not impossible to bounce back. Just look at Bill Clinton.
In 1993, Clinton’s first year in the White House, his presidency nearly went off the rails. His staff was chaotic. His foreign policy was a mess. He passed an economic plan — barely, in August — but his biggest initiative, on healthcare, was headed for disaster. And, of course, he was sinking in the polls.
It took Clinton more than a year, but by the end of 1994 he was on the way back. He named a new chief of staff who brought discipline to the White House. He changed course on policy, adopted a strategy of bipartisan “triangulation,” survived epic battles with a GOP-led Congress — and, in 1996, sailed easily to reelection.
So I asked two veterans of the Clinton White House, now scholars at Washington’s Brookings Institution, what Trump should do if he wants to follow Clinton’s example. They offered, in essence, a three-step recovery plan.
Step 1: Recognize the problem.
“The real question here is: Will something right the ship?” said Elaine Kamarck, who worked on Clinton’s government reform project. “Will there be a moment … when Donald Trump says: This is not working, I have to do something different?”
“Everything depends on what happens when instincts that served you well in the campaign don’t serve you well as president,” said William A. Galston, a former domestic policy advisor. “Trump’s desire to be a winner may in fact overcome all of his other instincts.”
Step 2: Fix the White House staff.
“Presidents get the staff they want,” Kamarck said — in Trump’s case, “people who don’t contradict him,” many without Washington experience, with no single person in charge.
If Trump wants less chaos, he needs to reorganize his operation. An obvious place to start: Name a chief of staff with real authority to reduce the level of palace intrigue. Trump reportedly likes to see his underlings jockey for influence; he hasn’t given Reince Priebus the power to rein them in.
Step 3: Expand your governing coalition.
“Trump’s not expanding his base; he’s shrinking his base,” noted Galston.
Trump ran as a populist, but he has governed mainly as an orthodox Republican. He’s relied on House Republicans to pass his legislative agenda, but that’s left him whipsawed between Speaker Paul D. Ryan and the ultraconservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.
As a result, he has held the allegiance of most Republican voters, but he’s lost support among independents and won almost no backing from Democrats. That limits what he can get done in Congress, including tax reform, the keystone of his program to reinvigorate the economy.
The alternative, based on Clinton’s 1994 playbook, would be a turn toward the bipartisan center.
“If you take the populist parts of the program he ran on, there’s plenty to appeal to labor unions,” Kamarck said. “He could start with infrastructure, which means construction jobs, and ask union leaders to get support from Democrats on the Hill. Add a tougher trade policy and tax changes to keep American jobs from going overseas, and you have a way to build a different kind of coalition.”
But that isn’t how Trump has ordered his priorities. Although he promised an ambitious infrastructure package, aides say he may not pursue it until next year. Meanwhile, he has alienated Democrats in Congress by blaming them for his legislative problems, even when — as on healthcare — Republicans were at fault.
If he decides to change course, Trump won’t find it too wrenching to alter his policies; he’s done that frequently during his 22-month political career. The greater challenge may be changing his management habits — recognizing, at age 71, that what worked in a family-owned real estate firm may not work as well in the White House.
But there’s no sign yet that he’s noticed the problem. He’s not the diligent student of politics and policy that Clinton was, to put it mildly. And he’s got no safety net — no reservoir of trust with most voters or Congress.
He’s still in full Trump mode, declaring every setback a success. Just look at his self-review of the first 100 days. They were, he proclaimed, the most productive of any president in history.
doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
Twitter: @DoyleMcManus
Clinton White House veterans say it’s possible to recover after a bad start.
DOYLE McMANUS
D onald Trump’s presidency is in a sorry state. His first attempt at legislation, on healthcare, was a failure. His executive order on immigration has been blocked by the courts. His White House is a tangle of chaos and intrigue. His campaign and his businesses are under congressional investigation.
No wonder Trump’s standing in the polls has sunk further than that of any other modern president in his first 100 days, a period once known charmingly as the honeymoon.
And yet, Trump has plenty of time to recover. The first 100 days, an arbitrary checkpoint, are only 7% of a four-year term. It’s not unusual for new presidents to stumble — and it’s not impossible to bounce back. Just look at Bill Clinton.
In 1993, Clinton’s first year in the White House, his presidency nearly went off the rails. His staff was chaotic. His foreign policy was a mess. He passed an economic plan — barely, in August — but his biggest initiative, on healthcare, was headed for disaster. And, of course, he was sinking in the polls.
It took Clinton more than a year, but by the end of 1994 he was on the way back. He named a new chief of staff who brought discipline to the White House. He changed course on policy, adopted a strategy of bipartisan “triangulation,” survived epic battles with a GOP-led Congress — and, in 1996, sailed easily to reelection.
So I asked two veterans of the Clinton White House, now scholars at Washington’s Brookings Institution, what Trump should do if he wants to follow Clinton’s example. They offered, in essence, a three-step recovery plan.
Step 1: Recognize the problem.
“The real question here is: Will something right the ship?” said Elaine Kamarck, who worked on Clinton’s government reform project. “Will there be a moment … when Donald Trump says: This is not working, I have to do something different?”
“Everything depends on what happens when instincts that served you well in the campaign don’t serve you well as president,” said William A. Galston, a former domestic policy advisor. “Trump’s desire to be a winner may in fact overcome all of his other instincts.”
Step 2: Fix the White House staff.
“Presidents get the staff they want,” Kamarck said — in Trump’s case, “people who don’t contradict him,” many without Washington experience, with no single person in charge.
If Trump wants less chaos, he needs to reorganize his operation. An obvious place to start: Name a chief of staff with real authority to reduce the level of palace intrigue. Trump reportedly likes to see his underlings jockey for influence; he hasn’t given Reince Priebus the power to rein them in.
Step 3: Expand your governing coalition.
“Trump’s not expanding his base; he’s shrinking his base,” noted Galston.
Trump ran as a populist, but he has governed mainly as an orthodox Republican. He’s relied on House Republicans to pass his legislative agenda, but that’s left him whipsawed between Speaker Paul D. Ryan and the ultraconservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.
As a result, he has held the allegiance of most Republican voters, but he’s lost support among independents and won almost no backing from Democrats. That limits what he can get done in Congress, including tax reform, the keystone of his program to reinvigorate the economy.
The alternative, based on Clinton’s 1994 playbook, would be a turn toward the bipartisan center.
“If you take the populist parts of the program he ran on, there’s plenty to appeal to labor unions,” Kamarck said. “He could start with infrastructure, which means construction jobs, and ask union leaders to get support from Democrats on the Hill. Add a tougher trade policy and tax changes to keep American jobs from going overseas, and you have a way to build a different kind of coalition.”
But that isn’t how Trump has ordered his priorities. Although he promised an ambitious infrastructure package, aides say he may not pursue it until next year. Meanwhile, he has alienated Democrats in Congress by blaming them for his legislative problems, even when — as on healthcare — Republicans were at fault.
If he decides to change course, Trump won’t find it too wrenching to alter his policies; he’s done that frequently during his 22-month political career. The greater challenge may be changing his management habits — recognizing, at age 71, that what worked in a family-owned real estate firm may not work as well in the White House.
But there’s no sign yet that he’s noticed the problem. He’s not the diligent student of politics and policy that Clinton was, to put it mildly. And he’s got no safety net — no reservoir of trust with most voters or Congress.
He’s still in full Trump mode, declaring every setback a success. Just look at his self-review of the first 100 days. They were, he proclaimed, the most productive of any president in history.
doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
Twitter: @DoyleMcManus
Apr 26, 2017 20:42:22 #
So now we know what the press thinks of Donald Trump's first 100 days. Well I challenge all of you with this simple question? Is Donald Trump the only person in America? If not, then what happened to the Democratic Party during the same 100 days?
Apr 27, 2017 19:27:30 #
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Ranger7374 wrote:
So now we know what the press thinks of Donald Trump's first 100 days. Well I challenge all of you with this simple question? Is Donald Trump the only person in America? If not, then what happened to the Democratic Party during the same 100 days?
Apr 27, 2017 19:35:20 #
Ranger7374 wrote:
So now we know what the press thinks of Donald Trump's first 100 days. Well I challenge all of you with this simple question? Is Donald Trump the only person in America? If not, then what happened to the Democratic Party during the same 100 days?
At the end of the first 100 days 65% of Americans approved of how Obama was doing and 29% disapproved.[10] According to Gallup's First quarter survey in April, President Obama received a 63% approval rating. Gallup began tracking presidential approval ratings of the first quarters since Eisenhower in 1953. President Kennedy received the highest in April 1961 with a 74% rating. Obama's 63% is the fourth highest and the highest since President Carter with a 69%. President Reagan's first quarter had 60% approval in 1981, President George.H.W. Bush with 57% in 1989, President Clinton with 55% in 1993, and President George W. Bush with 58% in 2001.[11]
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.