David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss President Trump’s executive orders that scrutinize the amount of land designated as national monuments and Obama-era restrictions on offshore drilling. They also groan as it looks like the update health care bill is also struggling to find the votes to pass. And they take aim at the ACLU for suing a Catholic hospital for refusing surgery for a transgender patient.
President Trump is making greater strides to enforce immigration laws than any recent predecessor but his apparent willingness to back down in two key areas has allies concerned at the 100 day mark of the Trump presidency.
Trump made immigration enforcement, cracking down on illegal immigration, and the construction of a border wall one of the focal points of his 2016 campaign. Those promises, plus active enforcement seem to already be having a major impact. Depending upon whom you ask, illegal border crossings are down 40 percent, 61 percent, or even 93 percent since Trump took office.
Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian credits the Trump administration for choosing excellent people for key positions at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS.
“The personnel that he’s appointing in a lot of the immigration positions within DHS, not at the top of Homeland Security but the people who actually matter where the rubber meets the road really are outstanding,” said Krikorian.
He also credits the Trump administration for greater scrutiny of guest worker visas, which Krikorian says makes it tougher for American workers to get jobs.
But it’s another kind of visa, where Krikorian finds his greatest disappointment with Trump, namely the administration’s continuation of the Obama policy of extending work permits to so-called dreamers, people who came to the U.S. illegally before they turned 16 years old. Obama granted a number of freedoms to that group in an executive order that Krikorian and others believe is tantamount to amnesty.
“He’s kept that going. He hasn’t done anything to change it. He hasn’t even stopped issuing new work permits to illegal immigrants who didn’t have them before, and that’s very disturbing,” said Krikorian.
“I can see the point of wanting to trade a proper amnesty for these people that Obama basically already amnestied, in exchange for something that he needs from Congress. So I get it as a bargaining chip, but there’s no excuse for expanding the program to more people who were not part of it,” said Krikorian.
Krikorian also thinks Trump is making a major mistake by dodging a showdown over border wall funding until later in the year.
“It strikes me as a pre-emptive surrender and it’s going to embolden both the Democrats and those Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who are anti-immigration enforcement as well. I think it’s a mistake. I hope I’m proven wrong and it turns out OK in the fall, but I’m not hopeful that’s the way it’s going to turn out,” said Krikorian.
Not only does he expect Senate Democrats to threaten another government shutdown whenever Trump makes a push for funding, but he says Trump is wasting time an political capital by waiting until the fall.
“It does need to be a top priority for the president politically in order to get other things done. I actually am really disturbed by this because it suggests a weakening of the White House’s commitment, despite whatever tweets may come out, and potentially a strengthening of the Chuck Schumer Democrats who are increasingly dominant inside the White House,” said Krikorian, alluding to Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner as an example of that influence.
However, Krikorian is highly supportive of Trump’s efforts to root out sanctuary cities and get localities to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration law. Right now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is threatening to withhold some Justice Department grants for cities that refuse to comply, although a federal judge has blocked that effort for the moment.
Krikorian says the administration has even tougher tactics is could employ to get the city leaders in line.
“Ultimately, they’re going to have to sue these jurisdictions in federal court to get an injunction to get them to stop,” said Krikorian.
“And the administration does have the nuclear option, which nobody’s really talked about yet but is still there, which is criminal prosecution of the city council for instance in San Francisco, for knowingly harboring illegal aliens,” said Krikorian.
He admits that option is one the Trump administration should try to avoid, especially given the uncertainty of obtaining convictions. However, Krikorian believes Trump may will win the public relations war over how criminal illegal immigrants ought to be treated.
“Part of that plan is this thing that they had started and they’re going to restart, which is reporting weekly all of the criminal aliens that sanctuary cities let go,” said Krikorian, who says the reports would also include any offenses for which those people were then arrested after local officials refused to cooperate with the federal government.
“That’s an important part of building the case to weaken the Democrats’ support for sanctuary cities. If they play their cards right, that can be more powerful even than filing lawsuits against them, because ultimately it will undermine the political support in these hard left-wing cities among the voters to keep the sanctuary city policy going,” said Krikorian.
Ian Tuttle of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are cautiously optimistic as an amendment to the GOP health care bill gives more power to the states and brings more conservatives on board. They also discuss President Trump’s willingness to renegotiate NAFTA, and Ian explains why he’s concerned about Trump’s approach. And they dive into the effort by Democrats in California to bar businesses from future state contracts if they help to build a border wall.
President Trump received wide acclaim from his supporters for the selection and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but legal experts are urging Trump to make good selections soon for scores of vacancies on lower federal courts.
More than three months into his administration, Trump has sent just one nominee for a federal appeals court opening. There are 18 others to fill. He also has the opportunity to nominate more than 100 federal district court judges, but has yet to act.
Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel and Policy Director Carrie Severino says it is vital to get strong defenders of the Constitution on these courts as soon as possible.
“They’re incredibly important,” she said. “All of these are lifetime seats on the federal courts. Remember, the Supreme Court takes less than one percent of the cases appealed to it every year. That means well upward of 99 percent of cases are decided at the lower courts.”
“Many of those district court cases don’t even get up to the appellate level. They might end there. So it’s a huge, huge impact on American law,” said Severino.
Severino says we can just look to the Obama years to see how much impact a president can have on the judiciary.
“Normally, a two-term president can turn over two-thirds of the judiciary. Barack Obama certainly did that. When he came into office, one out of the thirteen courts of appeal had a Democratically nominated majority of judges. When he left, nine of thirteen did,” said Severino.
During the campaign, Trump rolled out a list of 21 possible choices for the Supreme Court vacancy. The list included Gorsuch. While Trump may not have a formal list for all these other vacancies, Severino fully expects the same careful vetting to pick quality judges.
“[Gorsuch] has been one of the signature accomplishments of his first hundred days in office. I can’t imagine why the president would want to diverge from an incredibly successful strategy so far and frankly, some of the people on that list could be candidates,” said Severino, noting that District Judge Amul R. Thapar, who was on Trump’s list, is now nominated to serve on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A big reason for Severino’s confidence in the Trump administration to get these picks right stems from what she observed in the Gorsuch process.
“Candidate Trump always said, ‘I’m going to ask the smartest people and get all the experts.’ When it came to judges, boy, he really did. He didn’t come up with a list for the Supreme Court by himself. He knew the right people to ask and I think they know the right people to ask for these spots as well,” said Severino.
She says what they should be looking for is simple and should be familiar to Trump by now.
“You want someone who is going to be faithful to the text of the law, faithful to the original understanding of the Constitution, putting the law before one’s political instinct on where they want the case to come out. We want people who are going to be judges first. I think that’s what we got with Gorsuch. I think it’s going to be the same type of vetting process,” said Severino.
With so many politically charged cases now coming before courts, Severino says it is vital to get judges whose character can withstand the firestorm.
“You don’t know what the next issue is going to be. We couldn’t have seen all these issues coming when the people currently on the bench were nominated. That’s why it’s so important to have a vetting process that doesn’t just say, ‘Here’s some topics. How do you feel about free speech? How do you feel about immigration or this and that?'” said Severino.
“We don’t need to know what their politics or policy preferences are in these things. You need someone who actually understands the judicial philosophy here, because that’s what’s going to help them get the next question down the road – that we haven’t even seen yet – correct,” said Severino.
But while Obama, succeeded in steering the federal judiciary to the left, Severino says Trump can have a huge impact in the opposite direction.
“A two-term president gets to replace two-thirds of the judges. Currently, our president is Donald Trump and it looks like he’s going to make some great picks for those slots,” she said.
Severino says Trump’s influence on the bench may actually be bigger.
“He may have more front-loaded opportunities than most presidents do, because this does seem like a very large number of vacancies. There are a lot more, I think upwards of half the federal appellate judges who are either retired or eligible to take senior status. So there could be many more coming,” said Severino.
Ian Tuttle of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America shake their heads as Ann Coulter cancels her Berkeley speech after officials there make it clear they will not maintain order. They also vent after a liberal judge rules that the federal government cannot withhold funds from localities that flagrantly refuse to obey federal immigration law. And they throw up their hands as CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin is more worried about why senators have to go to the White House to discuss North Korea – than she is about the North Korea threat itself.
Despite U.S. government conclusions to the contrary, Iran is cheating on the 2015 nuclear deal and is actively weaponizing nuclear weapons, according to the group who uncovered Iran’s most recent nuclear ambitions in the first place.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, unveiled intelligence and satellite imagery in recent days that is says it proof of Iranian actions that violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. It also alleges that the activity is taking place in areas and facilities that are off limits to regular inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The NCRI is very confident in the validity of its reports.
“These are the very same sources that have been proven accurate in the past. The network of the movement inside Iran, the MEK, was responsible for exposing the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the Arak heavy water facility back in August of 2002,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office.
Those revelations triggered the international response that has played out for the past 15 years. He says the group’s sources inside Iran have also made many other discoveries that have panned out over the years. And Jafarzadeh says outside experts back up those conclusions.
“Those that have seen the satellite imagery that we disclosed during our press conference have confirmed that the satellite imagery shows the construction, the way the buildings are configured, basically corroborates what we’re saying, that this facility is being used for nuclear weaponization,” said Jafarzadeh.
He says further proof that the intelligence is right can seen in the official Iranian response.
“None of them denied our claim outright. Instead, they started attacking us, saying how bad we are and why the United States should not listen to us, without addressing the particular revelation we made. They made no reference to it, nor did they invite the IAEA to come and visit,” said Jafarzadeh.
Jafarzadeh says the specific facility shown in the satellite photos depicts a location specializing in detonators. Much of the secret activity is believed to be going on at Iran’s Parchin facility, a spot that Jafarzadeh says Iran blocked inspectors from for years until finally relenting two years ago. He says it makes sense for Iran to do clandestine work there.
“They thought they closed the chapter on Parchin. Now with this new information and new evidence, there is a renewed call among nuclear experts that the IAEA should be able to go back to this place among other locations that the IAEA has never inspected,” said Jafarzadeh.
He also outlined what the process ought to include.
“The IAEA now has to have access to all of those buildings, to be able to interview their top nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has been the top person behind the whole program over the past 15-20 years,” said Jafarzadeh.
So why hasn’t Parchin been part of regular inspections since the JCPOA was enacted in 2015? Jafarzadeh says the Iranians successfully limited inspections to “declared sites.”
“I’m not very comfortable with the term “declared site” because these are not really sites declared by Iran. It was exposed by us and then Tehran said, ‘Oh yes, we have those sites,'” said Jafarzadeh.
“[The IAEA] basically keeps track of how many centrifuges they have, how much uranium hexafluoride was produced. They have a checklist they go through, and of course Tehran is very shrewd and they know this is not the place they need to cheat,” said Jafarzadeh, noting the violations happen at facilities the IAEA cannot access or does not know about.
Jafarzadeh says the actions of the West over the past 4-5 years have clearly emboldened the likes of Iran and he notes there are close ties between the two nuclear programs.
“There is a very, very close relationship between North Korea that is helping Iran, not just on their missile program but specifically on their nuclear weapons program,” said Jafarzadeh. “It’s a very scary situation.”
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged to see President Trump taking steps to make it easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire bad employees. They’re also furious, but not surprised, to learn that President Obama actually did release prisoners connected to terrorism against U.S. forces despite insisting he hadn’t done so. And they react to the breaking news that former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn accepted money from Russia in 2015 but allegedly failed to report it.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez says all Democrats should support line up in favor of abortion and calls the position “not negotiable,” a clarification for which pro-life groups are exceedingly grateful.
The issue arose after Perez publicly backed the pro-life Democratic nominee in the race for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. After criticism from pro-choice forces, Perez released a statement insisting he and the party were not straying from their stance on abortion.
“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” stated Perez. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”
“At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country, we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice,” added Perez.
Democrats supporting abortion is nothing new but even pro-life groups are a bit surprised that Perez would publicly such a blanket position for the party.
“I think it’s a clarifying statement but I think these are always good to really hammer home to the grassroots that there’s a huge disconnect here. There’s such an extreme disconnect about what Perez said and the way that rank and file Democrats act in their state legislatures and in the way that they vote,” said Susan B. Anthony List Communications Director Mallory Quigley.
But she appreciates Perez offering the real position of Democrats on abortion.
“He is the perfect chairman for a party whose platform says, ‘We support abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, paid for by tax dollars,'” said Quigley.
Quigley also says Democrats are stifling candidates at the state and local levels because of abortion.
“At the state level, there are still a decent number of pro-life Democrats but we see that they’re not moving up. There’s only less than a handful of pro-life Democrats in the House,” said Quigley.
She says the pro-life Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., are buckling under the pressure to conform.
“Joe Manchin, who for a long time now has been the only reliable pro-life vote in the Senate, took a picture with Planned Parenthood supporters and said that he’s all in for Planned Parenthood,” said Quigley.
Some Democrats tried to soften the party line, at least semantically.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed the Democrats had room for pro-life lawmakers. But the number two Democrat in the upper chamber told CNN that room did not extend to actual policy.
“We need to be understanding of those who take a different position because of personal conscience, but as long as they are prepared to back the law, Roe v. Wade, back women’s rights as we’ved defined them under the law, then I think they can be part of the party,” said Durbin.
Quigley says that explanation and similar efforts by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are really no different than what Perez said.
“That’s not a pro-life position. It is not enough for the pro-life movement for you to say, ‘I personally wouldn’t have an abortion or encourage an abortion, but I’m not going to do a single thing to help a baby at 20 weeks or beyond, capable of living outside the womb, and I’m not going to protect that child from abortion.’ That is not a pro-life position,” said Quigley.
She adds that the mild rebukes from Pelosi and Durbin are most likely just for public relations.
“What seems to be a disagreement is actually just a show to try to continue to obfuscate their abortion extremism because some people, like Pelosi and Durbin, know that it sounds better to allude to some sort of right to conscience in the Democratic Party, which of course is non-existent,” said Quigley.
With Republicans in charge of Congress and in the White House, Quigley is hopeful that this will be the year to move federal dollars away from Planned Parenthood and into community health centers that provide health care to women without performing more than 300,000 abortions per year. She also wants to see passage of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban most abortions after weeks of pregnancy.
She says the shifting of money away from Planned Parenthood should happen through reconciliation on the health care bill. However, with the 20-week ban needing 60 votes to advance in the Senate, Quigley suspects the GOP will need to pick up several seats in 2018 to push that bill over the finish line.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America get a kick out of the disunity on full display during the Democrats’ “Unity Tour,” as Bernie Sanders focuses on big government economic policies and the party leadership is still about identity politics. They also hammer Howard Dean for incorrectly citing three Supreme Court cases in arguing Ann Coulter’s speeches are not protected by the Constitution. And Jim pays tribute to his late National Review colleague, Kate O’Beirne.
Democrats are banding together in refusing to support any short-term spending measure that includes funding for a border wall, a move that could lead to a government shutdown in the near term and the implosion of the legislative filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
In December, the lame duck Congress and President Obama agreed on a spending bill to keep the federal government funded through April. That means lawmakers must pass another continuing resolution next week to keep the government running.
And while fiscal conservatives like FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon expects Republicans to get tough on spending heading into Fiscal 2018, he says this legislation ought to be moved in order to make way for President Trump’s big ticket items.
“I don’t think any Republican is that interested in a shutdown, they’d rather kick the can and move some of these larger priorities,” said Brandon, referring specifically to health care and tax reform.
“You’re going to see the repeal of Obamacare coming back to a vote this week,” said Brandon. “And then next week, I expect we’ll start hearing about fundamental tax reform,” he said.
But there’s a showdown already forming over this short term spending bill over whether to approve funding for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney says “elections have consequences” and the administration wants that funding in this bill.
Democrats claim Trump’s demand for that funding is a non-starter and is scuttling what they claim was excellent progress on a spending bill. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, R-N.Y., also feigned confusion over the request, noting that Trump repeatedly promised Mexico would pay for the wall.
Brandon says Democrats are refusing to deal, even when Republicans are offering to boost spending on their priorities in exchange for the border security funds.
“Republicans will come to the Democrats with an offer saying, ‘We’ll do this continuing resolution. We’ll even give you some more money for some of your welfare stuff if you give us more money to build the border wall,” said Brandon.
He says if Democrats won’t play ball with an offer like that, this relatively minor spending debate could have major repercussions.
“This little CR debate could end up being one of the most important political debates for the next few years, if not decade, if not longer,” said Brandon. “If Democrats balk at that deal and you start heading toward a shutdown, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be an overhaul of Senate rules and a change in the parliamentary procedures.”
Yes, Brandon believes the intransigence of Democrats could lead to the obliteration of the legislative filibuster in the Senate. And he says we should know within the next few days whether that option needs to be explored.
“Over this weekend is the test to see whether Democrats will mildly work with the Republicans or if they decide to shut the government down because you have eight or nine Democrats who can’t vote for a short, short continuing resolution. That sends the signal that politics has changed. If Republicans are going to move their legislative agenda, you might see a change in Senate rules,” said Brandon.
While Democrats and some in the media might paint Trump and Republicans at fault for an impasse on the spending bill, Brandon says the GOP approach to this standoff proves which party really refuses to budge.
“I’m the one who’s been told, as a conservative Republican I’m the one who won’t deal. What I think is going to come out here is that Democrats decide, ‘We’re not going to deal.’ That means either that you’re going to have government that is absolutely paralyzed or you’re going to have to change some things so you can start moving some legislation,” said Brandon.
Brandon appears to welcome the idea, noting that if Democrats want to obstruct on a relatively minor issue, forcing the GOP to kill the filibuster would grease the skids for aggressive action on health care and tax reform. He says drawing the line over one of Trump’s top campaign promises makes sense and could trigger wins for conservatives on major issues.
“Republicans need to do something on immigration and the border. They’ve been screaming about it for so long, it has to get done. They’ve been saying we’re going to do something on fundamental tax reform. It has to get done. You’ve got to grow the economy. Finally, we been promising the American people for seven years we’re going to repeal Obamacare,” said Brandon.
“If you get all of those things done, this Trump presidency has been a success in the early part,” he added
Brandon says getting those things done is also key to the GOP having midterm success next year.
“Democrats will try to make the 2018 election based on a referendum on Trump. I’d like to make the 2018 election a referendum on three or four percent economic growth,” said Brandon.
But while Brandon says the big ticket items are more important than fights over short-term spending provisions, he expects a robust Republican effort to rein in spending when it comes time to fund the government for Fiscal Year 2018.
“We’re $20 trillion debt. It;s time to get that under control. The way to do that is to hold the line. You don’t add new spending and at the same time you grow the economy. If you have two or three years of three and four percent growth, almost every one of our problems gets better,” said Brandon.
