“President Trump pulled back from his plan to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports, saying on Friday night on Twitter that the United States and Mexico had reached an agreement to reduce the number of migrants entering the United States over the southwestern border,” the New York Times reports.
“The tariffs, which could have been potentially crippling for Mexico, were to go into effect on Monday. Mr. Trump’s announcement came after several days of intense negotiations between the two countries in Washington.”
But….
“The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months,” the New York Times reports.
“Friday’s joint declaration says Mexico agreed to the ‘deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.’ But the Mexican government had already pledged to do that in March during secret talks in Miami.”
“The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s deal was an expansion of a program to allow asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal cases proceed. But that arrangement was first reached in December in a pair of painstakingly negotiated diplomatic notes that the two countries exchanged.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) jabbed President Trump on Friday night after Trump said he would drop plans to impose tariffs on Mexico because his administration had reached a deal to stem the flow of migrants to the U.S., The Hill reports.
Said Schumer: “This is an historic night! Donald Trump has announced that he has cut a deal to ‘greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States.”
He added: “Now that that problem is solved, I’m sure we won’t be hearing any more about it in the future.”
When President Trump’s sons Eric and Donald, Jr. went on their Irish pub crawl last week and offered free rounds for the house, they failed to pay the tab, the Irish Post reports.
Since the last DMR poll in March, Sanders has collapsed by 9 points. Warren and Buttigieg have surged, by plus 6 and 13 points respectively. Harris has stayed even, and Biden is down 5 points. But the story of the poll is Warren:
Washington Post: “They sat for the white-tie dinner with Queen Elizabeth, toured the Churchill War Rooms, attended the 75th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day invasion in Normandy and, for the Trump sons, checked in on the family business at Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg.”
“The question of who is paying for the family members’ participation — and whether American taxpayers will be on the hook — has emerged as an unresolved subplot, with newspapers in Scotland and London scouring State Department databases and reporting on the fancy hotels and expensive limousines contracted by the U.S. government.”
Neil Irwin: “To President Trump, tariff ‘is a beautiful word indeed.’ Just in the last few weeks, he increased tariffs on billions of Chinese imports and threatened Mexico with big new tariffs.”
“His enthusiasm as trade-warrior-in-chief, though, has not been mirrored by the public. At least that is the conclusion to draw from opinion polling, which shows a rise in enthusiasm for trade deals — and suggests an opening that the Democratic presidential nominee could have in the 2020 election.”
“That nominee could, strange as it may seem, have a pathway to take on Mr. Trump on a signature issue by simultaneously attacking him from the right, as being anti-business, and from the left, as being bad for workers.”
“The Trump administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassy flagpoles during June, LGBTQ Pride Month,” three American diplomats told NBC News.
“The U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those that have requested permission from Trump’s State Department to fly the pride flag on their flagpoles and have been denied.”
“A group of 17 U.S. and foreign automakers wrote to President Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week, urging them to ‘resurrect’ talks in hopes of finding consensus on how fuel efficient cars and trucks must be in coming years,” the Washington Post reports.
“But White House officials have rebuffed the automakers’ request, saying there was no prospect of further negotiation with California regulator.”
“California has vowed to push ahead with its own, stricter fuel standards.”
“A raft of legislation intended to better secure United States election systems after what the special counsel, Robert Mueller, called a ‘sweeping and systematic’ Russian attack in 2016 is running into a one-man roadblock in the form of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,” the New York Times reports.
Josh Marshall: “The 2020 presidential election is an election with everything on the line for the United States. Four years of Trump is a national disaster. Eight years is a confirmation that it was no fluke. It embeds his degenerate style of government in the fabric of the Republic for the future. For those of us who believe in civic republicanism and a liberal future, no stone can be left unturned to ensure his defeat. It’s not just that the stakes are so high. He has big advantages in the electoral college. Incumbents usually get reelected. And let’s be frank: he already did once what many of us thought was all but impossible.”
“But we’d be lying to ourselves if we didn’t recognize another possible scenario, one which a lot of the factual evidence suggests is not at all unlikely. That is that Trump is a historically unpopular president; he routinely polls over 50 percent of the voting population saying they will definitely vote against his reelection; and he is likely to be crushed in his bid for reelection in 18 months.”
White House officials barred a State Department intelligence staffer from submitting written testimony this week to the House Intelligence Committee warning that human-caused climate change could be “possibly catastrophic” after State officials refused to excise the document’s references to the scientific consensus on climate change, the Washington Post reports.
Los Angeles Times: “Black voters, and black women in particular, are the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Given their large numbers in early-voting states such as South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana, they will have tremendous sway in choosing the party’s nominee. Some believe that tilts the race away from Biden, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke or other relatively centrist white males in favor of a more progressive candidate or person of color.”
“But nationwide polling, focus group interviews and conversations with campaign strategists, voters and political activists across Alabama suggest many African Americans aren’t focused on policy or making history by, say, putting Harris or another woman in the White House.”
President Trump “faces a growing Republican rebellion on one of his judicial nominees, throwing his confirmation into doubt,” Politico reports.
“Michael Bogren, who Trump nominated to serve on a federal district court, is already opposed by three Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — and others could emerge, according to multiple GOP sources. It’s an unusual conflict for a GOP-controlled Senate, which has breezed through nominees.”
” Their complaint centers on a belief that Bogren is no friend to religious liberty after he signed a brief while defending the City of East Lansing against a Catholic couple that opposed same-sex marriage.”
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