SUMMARY:In just the last few weeks, President Trump has made a number of misleading or inaccurate statements on subjects ranging from Russian interference, to farmers and trade, to NATO defense. Judy Woodruff takes a closer look with Peter Wehner who served in the last three Republican administrations, Lara Brown of George Washington University, and Domenico Montanaro of NPR.
President Donald Trump: Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.
SUMMARY:Relations between the U.S. and Europe took another hit Thursday when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration would impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum. European Union Ambassador to the U.S. David O'Sullivan joins John Yang to discuss how the tariffs will affect the global economy and the alliance, plus the fallout from the U.S. withdrawing from the Iran deal.
COMMENT: I have longed believed that our Founding Fathers meant the freedom of religion to be a right of an individual, NOT a right of a group. That it means we cannot have laws that allow, or encourage, a religious belief to be enshrined in law and thereby FORCING everyone to practice the religious belief of others. That would turn our America into a theocracy like Iran, where the religious leaders have veto over any law passed by the legislator.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: President Trump used the annual National Prayer Breakfast to reignite an old campaign promise, to change the tax code to allow churches and other tax-exempt groups to openly campaign for political candidates. John Yang reports on that and more.
JOHN YANG (NewsHour): Today, President Trump revved up his new administration with a visit from Harley-Davidson executives and workers.
DONALD TRUMP: Boy, would you like to see me fall off these things? Would that be a story?
JOHN YANG: And used the annual National Prayer Breakfast to reignite a campaign promise, vowing to change the tax code to allow churches and other tax-exempt groups to openly campaign for political candidates.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that. Remember.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JOHN YANG:The provision wasn't controversial when then-senator Lyndon Johnson introduced it and President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law in 1954. Now some religious leaders, especially conservative Christians, say it violates their freedom of speech.
Speaking at the breakfast, Mr. Trump also defended his immigration order against critics who say it's a ban on Muslims.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In the coming days, we will develop a system to help ensure that those admitted into our country fully embrace our values of religious and personal liberty, and that they reject any form of oppression and discrimination.
We want people to come into our nation, but we want people to love us and to love our values, not to hate us and to hate our values.
JOHN YANG: There were also lighter moments, as when the President suggested divine intervention for the current incarnation of his TV show, “The Apprentice.”
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place. And we know how that turned out. The ratings went right down the tubes. It's been a total disaster. I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings, OK?
(LAUGHTER)
JOHN YANG: Schwarzenegger responded on the President's favorite forum with a Twitter video.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Former California Governor: Hey, Donald, I have a great idea.
Why don't we switch jobs? You take over TV, because you're such an expert in ratings, and I take over your job. And then people can finally sleep comfortably again.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including a defeat for President Obama from his own party on a trade deal vote, the White House announcement that the U.S. will send more military trainers to Iraq, Hillary Clinton gears up for a big rally.
(on Free Trade deal)
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times: I think it’s not dead. I think they’re going to come back to it. Whether he can swing that many votes is sort of a problem. It was sort of a big defeat. And he hasn’t exactly proven himself to be an able salesman, as Peter DeFazio was saying, making it about himself.
And this has been a bit of his mode recently, serious peevishness, personal — making it personal, and then saying they’re not playing straight. That’s probably not the best way to persuade people over. And so he’s not been the best salesman. And the party has moved to the left, and it’s especially moved to the left on trade.
On the substance, my problem is this. You can argue about — we can argue about NAFTA and all the other things. I think they have been amazingly positive goods, but this is not like those other trade agreements.
First, the primary reason we’re going to — we need this, the Pacific one, is political and foreign policy. Asia is going to be the center of the world economy for the next X-number of years and we need to have a global architecture that’s stable and that doesn’t generate economic friction and that China doesn’t write. And this is our shot to do it.
Second, this isn’t about reducing tariffs. Those are gone. This is about a bunch of other things having to do with the intellectual property rights, data flows, making sure other countries can’t use state-owned properties. This is about areas where we have an undisputed advantage in services and pharmaceuticals, getting those protected, so they can sell overseas.
So, it seems to me the opponents are fighting the last war. They’re fighting the war about NAFTA, when this is a very different sort of trade agreement.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, was it the selling job, Mark, or was it the substance?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: It was the substance. It was the substance, Judy.
And this has been the pattern. There are no enforcement provisions in the trade agreement for workers’ rights. You’re competing now with workers in Vietnam, who are making 56 cents an hour. That is a disadvantage to Americans.
There is no enforcement for environmental standards and there’s certainly no enforcement, no even mechanism, as far as currency manipulation, which the Japanese and the Chinese have used to benefit in trade by driving down the price of their own goods, to the disadvantage of our country, as well as our workers.
So, I don’t argue with David that the great future in Asia. But I don’t think this is the way to it. As far as the President’s charm offensive, it was too little, too late. He showed up at the congressional baseball game last night. And he showed up at the caucus today, where he spoke for 40 minutes and didn’t take any questions and basically said, I know unemployed steelworkers on the South Side of Chicago. I care.
It wasn’t unlike George Bush’s reelection campaign in New Hampshire in 1992, when there were questions about his empathy and the message is, I care. That didn’t persuade anybody.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The prospect of reaching new cross-border trade deals was very much on the mind of President Obama during his trip to Mexico this week. But a trade agreement that’s now two decades old and still the subject of strong debate is casting a long shadow over the president’s plans.
Jeffrey Brown has the story.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Canada and Mexico are two of our largest trading partners, with trade that supports millions of American jobs.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): President Obama’s one-day summit with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts marked 20 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: American exports to Canada and Mexico continue to grow faster than our exports to the rest of the world. Together, our countries have strength to give North America a tremendous competitive advantage, the skills of our workers, manufacturing that’s growing, and new sources of energy.
JEFFREY BROWN:NAFTA was originally spearheaded by the first President (H.W.) Bush, in a bid to eliminate cross-border trade duties and other barriers. It got the backing and was eventually signed into law by President Clinton.
Supporters argued it would spur growth. But in a CNN debate with Vice President Gore, billionaire businessman Ross Perot famously argued it would send thousands of jobs to lower-paying, less-regulated Mexico.
In an explosive report tonight, top House Democrats discovered provisions in the controversial Oman Free Trade Agreement that would permit foreign ownership of U.S. ports and other key national security assets. Three Democrats and one Republican held an emergency press conference today to expose the provisions just before the House is scheduled to vote on the Oman pact on Thursday. As Reuters reports, "Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said the pact would allow companies such as Dubai Ports World to acquire U.S. port operations by establishing a shell company in Oman." Those provisions might also allow foreign ownership of other key national security assets, considering just after the recent Dubai Ports controversy, that country went ahead with plans to purchase a major U.S. defense contractor.
Last month, lawmakers from both parties in the U.S. Senate joined hands to pass the Oman Free Trade Agreement - which is being pushed aggressively by the Bush administration and its largest corporate donors. Lawmakers ignored major labor, human rights and environmental objections to the pact put forward by more than 400 union, religious and consumer groups. Among those voting for the pact in the Senate were Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), two Senators facing tough re-election bids who could face renewed criticism in their home states that they have sold out their constituents.
Didn't we go through this just awhile back? Didn't a hew-and-cry go up on allowing foreign governments, and their agencies, access and control in the areas of "Homeland" security?
I am still of the opinion that when it comes to security issues like ports, only fully American owned and operated companies should be authorized.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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