usa
Biden says his goal for Xi meeting is to get US-China communications back to 'normal'
President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping swept into San Francisco on Tuesday as the two leaders made their final preparations for their first engagement in a year at a historic estate outside of the city.
Biden expressed hope that the talks would help put a shaky U.S.-China relationship — marked by sharp differences over the last year — in a better place. The two leaders arrived in the city to be greeted by hundreds of demonstrators who lined up along their motorcade routes, waving Chinese, Taiwanese and Tibetan flags as well as signs in support of and opposition to the Chinese leader.
Biden, before leaving Washington to make his way West on Tuesday to attend this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, said his broad goal was to get Washington and Beijing "on a normal course corresponding" once again even as they have sharp differences on no shortage of issues.
“Being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there’s a crisis. Being able to make sure our militaries still have contact with one another,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We’re not trying to decouple from China, but what we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better.”
The two leaders will meet at Filoli Estate, a country house museum about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco, according to three senior administration officials. The officials requested anonymity to discuss the venue, which has not yet been confirmed by the White House and Chinese government.
Read: Biden sees hopeful signs for his reelection in Democrats' 2023 wins
Separately, a U.S. official confirmed that Biden and Xi are expected to announce an agreement that would restore talks under what's known as the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement. The agreement is used by the U.S. and People's Liberation Army navies and air forces to improve safety in the air and sea. Until 2020, they had been meeting regularly since 1998 for the talks. The official requested anonymity to preview the expected leaders' announcement.
Biden arrived at San Francisco International Airport Tuesday afternoon and Xi landed shortly after. The Chinese president was welcomed on the tarmac by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
Hundreds of onlookers gathered on the leaders' motorcade route, some holding signs that read “End CCP,” the initials of Chinese Communist Party. Another sign read “Warmly Welcome President Xi Jinping” and was affixed to concrete bollards.
Pro-China and anti-China demonstrators also gathered near the Moscone Center, the venue where many APEC meetings were being held.
Beijing supporters waved U.S. and Chinese flags as they waited for Xi’s motorcade to arrive at the swanky hotel near the convention center where the Chinese delegation is staying. Several supporters used oversized Chinese national flags to obscure the few Xi critics there and used loudspeakers to play the patriotic “Ode to the Motherland.”
Scuffles broke out between the two groups, but police quickly intervened to maintain order. The crowds were kept out of the road by tall, metal barriers.
Read: Trump's business and political ambitions poised to converge as he testifies in New York civil case
Wei Gong, of Charlottesville, Virginia, brought her 9-year-old daughter, Deanna Wei, to welcome Xi. Her child wore a traditional Chinese, horse-face skirt and held U.S. and Chinese flags.
“I have never seen him,” the mother said of Xi. “We just want to see him.”
Later, protesters gathered just blocks from the Moscone Center to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden, despite his busy diplomatic agenda, took some time Tuesday evening to tend to his 2024 reelection campaign, joining Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris for a fundraiser at San Francisco's iconic Merchant Exchange Club.
The long complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship has come under heavy strain over the last year, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on advanced technology; Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over a stopover in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this year, among other issues. China claims the island as its territory.
The talks at Filoli will give the leaders a chance to try to dial back tensions in a picturesque backdrop.
The sprawling estate along Northern California’s coastal range features a Georgian revival-style mansion and English Renaissance gardens. It was built in 1917 as a private residence but was opened to the public in 1975 as a nonprofit and site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Wealthy San Francisco socialite William Bowers Bourn II named Filoli by taking the first two letters of key words of his personal credo, according to the estate’s website: “Fight for a just cause. Love your Fellow Man. Live a Good Life.” The estate's gardens feature in Jennifer Lopez’s film “The Wedding Planner.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden is coming to Wednesday's meeting in a strong position.
“He’s not going to be afraid to —- to confront where confrontation is needed on issues where we don’t see eye to eye with President Xi and the PRC,” said Kirby, using the initials for the People's Republic of China.
Biden will also be looking to use this week’s summit of Asia-Pacific leaders to demonstrate that the United States has the gumption, attention span and money to focus on the region even as it grapples with a multitude of foreign and domestic policy crises.
Read: Speaker McCarthy ousted in historic House vote, as scramble begins for a Republican leader
The White House wants to demonstrate that Biden can remain focused on the Pacific while also trying to keep the Israel-Hamas war from exploding into a broader regional conflict and to persuade Republican lawmakers to continue to spend billions more on the costly Ukrainian effort to repel Russia’s nearly 21-month old invasion.
White House officials say they are also cognizant that fellow APEC nations want to see better dialogue between the U.S. and China because it reduces the risk of regional conflict. At the same time, they also know that others in the region are concerned that the Pacific is too often seen through a prism in which the dominant power centers in Washington and Beijing make decisions for the region without engagement from less powerful nations.
Biden enters the Xi meeting feeling buoyed by the U.S. economy’s strong performance. While the majority of U.S. adults believe the economy is weak, Biden has managed to prove wrong a large swath of economists who predicted that millions of layoffs and a recession might be needed to bring down inflation. The Labor Department said Tuesday that consumer prices rose at an annual pace of 3.2% annually, down from a June 2022 peak of 9.1%. Meanwhile, employers keep hiring and the unemployment rate has held below 4% for nearly two years.
Beijing released economic data last month that shows prices falling due to slack demand from consumers and businesses. The International Monetary Fund recently cut growth forecasts for China, predicting economic growth of 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024, down slightly from its forecasts in July.
Army Special Operations Command mourns 5 US troops killed in helicopter crash
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command on Monday identified the five Army aviation special operations forces killed when their helicopter crashed in the Eastern Mediterranean over the weekend, calling each a “national treasure” whose loss cut deeply.
The military’s European Command said the UH-60 helicopter went down during an air refueling mission as part of military training.
The five service members who died were Chief Warrant Officer 3 Stephen R. Dwyer, 38, of Clarksville, Tennessee; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shane M. Barnes, 34, of Sacramento, California; Staff Sgt. Tanner W. Grone, 26, of Gorham, New Hampshire; Sgt. Andrew P. Southard, 27, of Apache Junction, Arizona; and Sgt. Cade M. Wolfe, 24, of Mankato, Minnesota. They were all part of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
The commander of the Army Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, said the fallen soldiers “hail from rare patriotic families with deep military service ties that span multiple generations and formations.”
Read: Survivors say trauma from abusive Native American boarding schools stretches across generations
“This is devastating news that reverberates across the entire Special Operations community," Braga said on Monday in a statement. "Every loss is tough, but in this case, service to the Nation is truly a family business and it’s hard to express the amount of sorrow that we all feel right now."
The fallen soldiers were highly decorated, with multiple combat deployments in addition to responding to deployments with no notice, sent overseas to respond quickly to various national security needs.
Dwyer received his commission in 2009 from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. He served as an MH-60M pilot, mission planner and instructor pilot and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was called up multiple times on no-notice deployments to support national security objectives, the Army Special Operations Command said. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Medal with Combat device among many others.
Barnes, also an MH-60M pilot, graduated from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, in 2011. He was assigned to Korea and completed deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor device and the Air Medal with Combat device among other campaign awards.
Grone enlisted in the Army in 2017 as a UH-60 repairer. He served as a flight instructor and and MH-60M crew chief for the 160th. He deployed to Afghanistan and multiple times to Iraq, and he was awarded the Air Medal with Combat device, the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal with combat device among many other awards.
Grone's parents, Steve and Erica Grone, said of their son in a Facebook post that they were "beyond proud of what you became and believed in. Thank you for all these amazing years. Please watch over us. Love you and can’t express how much you will be missed.”
Read: US eases oil, gas and gold sanctions on Venezuela after electoral roadmap signed
Southard enlisted in the Army in 2015 as a UH-60 repairer and served as an MH-60M crew chief. He was first assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas, upon completing advanced individual training, and he completed a 13-month rotation to Task Force Sinai in support of ongoing peacekeeping operations. He deployed to Afghanistan and was awarded two Army Commendation medals and an Army Achievement medal among other citations.
Wolfe enlisted in the Army in 2018 as a UH-60 repairer and served as an MH-60M crew chief. His awards and decorations include two Army Commendation medals and an Army Achievement medal.
This is the second fatal helicopter crash involving a unit based at Fort Campbell this year. In March, two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters assigned to the 101st Airborne Division collided during a nighttime training flight, killing all nine soldiers aboard.
Read: What to do with 1.1 million bullets seized from Iran? US ships them to Ukraine
Fort Campbell is home to multiple Army aviation units. The 160th group has almost 3,000 soldiers and 200 aircraft assigned to it.
The U.S. has built up its force presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the broader Middle East in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. There are two carrier strike groups operating in the region, U.S. Air Force squadrons have received additional crews and warplanes, and U.S. special operations forces have been added to help Israel in efforts to rescue hostages taken into Gaza.
Biden sees hopeful signs for his reelection in Democrats' 2023 wins
Surrounded by dozens of Democratic donors at a glass art gallery space in Chicago last week, President Joe Biden urged them to look beyond negative poll numbers and feel assured their donations were not being wasted.
Then Biden joked to the crowd: “I could still screw up.”
The attendees at his campaign fundraiser laughed. Yet many Democrats are fearful there is a serious disconnect between the popularity of Biden’s agenda and the man himself, as the president’s approval ratings remain stubbornly low and voters continue to register concerns about his age.
Some of those worries were tempered by the results of Tuesday’s election, when Democrats romped to victory in Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Inside the White House, the Democrats’ big night was a bright spot in an otherwise dim week as it grapples with the response to two wars and tries to minimize the president’s flagging poll numbers. Just 38% of adults approve of Biden’s job performance, according to a November Associated Press-NORC poll.
But few outsiders are confident that the off-year wins will necessarily lead to Biden’s reelection or broader Democratic success next year.
Nowhere is that disconnect more apparent than Ohio, where a Democrat-backed measure to establish a constitutional right to abortion prevailed by 13% last Tuesday. While it was once the nation’s premier swing state, Ohio was carried easily by Donald Trump in the last two elections. And Ohio Democrats don't expect Biden to compete in the state next year.
Read: After Biden and Blinken push, Netanyahu says Israel open to 'little pauses' in Gaza, no cease-fire
“This ain’t the yellow brick road to the presidency just because Ohio pushed back against Republican overreach,” said Nina Turner, an Ohio-based progressive leader who served as Sen. Bernie Sanders' national campaign co-chair in 2020.
Turner warned that Biden is losing support among young voters, especially from communities of color. The president’s supporters are “delusional,” she said, if they think he’s in a strong position heading into 2024.
“The people in the bubble — I call them the brunch bunch — can continue to spin this. They do that at their own peril,” she said. “What is happening on the streets is a lot different.”
Former Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said the idea that Tuesday's victories would translate into electoral successes for Biden next year was “wishful thinking.” He said he's worried that Biden is faring far worse than a generic Democrat would against Trump, although major Democrats have so far declined to challenge Biden.
“I think I'd be stupid not to be somewhat concerned,” Yarmuth said. Noting Biden's increasingly aggressive posture against his predecessor, Yarmuth added: “I think that's an indication that he realizes that he's got to knock Trump down, not just tout his own record.”
Still, Biden's team argues that Tuesday’s results only validated the broad popularity of issues that will be core to the president’s reelection campaign, such as abortion rights, democracy and legislative accomplishments including Biden’s nearly two-year-old infrastructure law.
“We’ve heard the press and pundits count Joe Biden out time and time again, but we know that he always proves them wrong,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters last week. “If we want a real window into where voters actually are, we know the best way to measure that is to see how they’re actually voting.”
Read: Federal judge reimposes limited gag order in Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case
Indeed, that has been the mantra from Biden’s broader orbit since Tuesday night: Polls don’t matter, but voters do.
In the Biden campaign’s view, the off-year election results are more analogous than current polling to the resources, investment and direct communication with voters that will go into the elections next year. To Biden aides, the results validated the strategy of sharpening the contrast with “MAGA Republicans” that helped Democrats outperform expectations in 2022. Biden watched Tuesday's returns with interest and wanted to swiftly call the winning Democrats to congratulate them.
In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear defeated Republican Daniel Cameron, overcoming the state’s increasingly conservative bent, by highlighting local issues and hammering Cameron on his support of Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban.
Cameron's campaign tried repeatedly to tie Beshear to Biden, focusing heavily on inflation — a vulnerable point for the White House — and running commercials featuring a photo of both Democrats together. Beshear, meanwhile, often talked about the millions of dollars in federal aid that came to Kentucky for infrastructure and for COVID-19 relief. He also has his own political brand in Kentucky and is the son of a former two-term governor.
At the Chicago fundraiser, Biden noted that Beshear won reelection while “running on all the programs that were Biden initiatives.”
Beshear kept some distance from Biden the day after he won. Asked Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press if he wants Biden to be the Democratic nominee next year, he replied: “I think President Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee in 2024.”
When asked if he is concerned about Biden’s age and poll numbers, Beshear replied: “He’s going to be the nominee. And I’m pretty sure that this is going to be a rematch from before. So it’s just going to be a choice between the two for people.”
In Pennsylvania, Democrat Dan McCaffery won election to the state’s Supreme Court on a campaign centered on abortion and other rights. And Virginia Democrats took full control of the statehouse and dealt Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin a public setback by making abortion access a focus of legislative campaigns.
Read: US vetoes Security Council resolution calling for ‘humanitarian pauses’ in Gaza
Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s successful reelection against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, said the Biden campaign does not need to change its tactics. Obama also struggled with low approval ratings the year before he won a second term.
“They need it to become a choice pretty soon between them and Trump,” Messina said. ”Right now, the Republican primary is kind of allowing people to think, ‘Well, it could be Nikki Haley, it could be someone else.’ Our election got much easier once Romney got the nomination.”
For now, the Biden campaign should continue to reinforce the president's record with voters rather than focusing wholly on Trump, Messina said.
“The easiest way to build the poll numbers would be to go kick the hell out of Trump and make it a two-person race. I think that’s sort of sugar candy. It’s a nice rush,” he said. But “you’re supposed to be on a diet. And your diet is telling the economic narrative. And then you get to Trump in the general and then you whale away on him.”
The Biden campaign has already laid that groundwork, particularly with a 16-week, $25 million advertising blitz that began in September in battleground states that seeks to educate voters on Biden’s accomplishments while reinforcing what the Biden campaign calls the “messaging contrast that will be core to this election.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who co-chaired Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2020 but now supports Biden, said the president needs a stronger economic message focused on domestic issues — not global affairs — heading into 2024. He noted that many voters are dissatisfied with Biden's leadership on the economy. The November AP-NORC poll found Biden's approval on the economy was just 33%.
“I believe that we should rally around the president for reelection, but we should be clear-eyed that it’s going to be a very hard fight,” Khanna said. “People are anxious about the future.”
In Pennsylvania, where Biden was born and spent part of his childhood, former Gov. Ed Rendell said the persistent concerns about Biden’s age from voters in both parties represent a serious challenge.
Rendell is hopeful, however, that Biden will benefit from a matchup against Trump, who faces four criminal indictments and is also unpopular with much of the American public. He suggested that the president would not fare so well against another Republican nominee.
“He is old, he does stumble a little bit,” Rendell said of Biden. “I pray every night for the health of two people: Joe Biden and Donald Trump.”
After Biden and Blinken push, Netanyahu says Israel open to 'little pauses' in Gaza, no cease-fire
After more than a week of public pressure from the U.S. for “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday allowed that his government might be open to only “little pauses” in its assault on Hamas. The Israeli leader sought to play down differences with his country's most vocal backer on the world stage at a time of rising scrutiny of the sharply rising civilian toll of fighting.
Netanyahu spoke after President Joe Biden made a direct appeal to him nearly a month into the war seeking to rally support behind securing even limited relief for civilians in the spiraling conflict. The back-and-forth spotlighted the challenges facing Biden and his administration as they seek to manage what is emerging as one of the defining foreign policy crises of his presidency.
Read: UN Security Council fails to agree on Israel-Hamas war as Gaza death toll passes 10,000
The U.S. thus far remains focused on keeping the fighting from exploding into a wider regional war and pushing for limited steps to alleviate civilian suffering. But it has remained steadfastly behind Israel and Netanyahu's goal of ending Hamas control over Gaza, even as the death toll in Gaza reached 10,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Biden used his first conversation with Netanyahu in eight days to repeat in private his public calls for lulls in the fighting to allow civilians to flee Israel's campaign to crush Hamas and for humanitarian aid to flow to hundreds of thousands in need.
“We consider ourselves at the beginning of this conversation, not at the end of it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said when describing Biden's conversation with Netanyahu, "so you can expect that we’re going to continue to advocate for temporary, localized pauses in the fighting.”
Hours later, Netanyahu, in an interview with ABC News, ruled out any widespread cease-fire, but suggested an openness to “little pauses" — though it was not clear whether some kind of small stoppage had been agreed to or whether the U.S. was satisfied with the scope of the Israeli commitment.
Read: Jordan airdrops medical supplies to Gaza hospital
“Well, there’ll be no cease-fire, general cease-fire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu said when asked about Biden’s call for humanitarian pauses. “As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there. We’ve had them before, I suppose, we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave. But I don’t think there’s going to be a general cease-fire.”
Biden’s engagement with Netanyahu followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken's frantic weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus, Iraq and onto Turkey to build support for the Biden administration’s proposal for the humanitarian initiatives.
“All of this is a work in progress,” Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We don’t obviously agree on everything, but there are common views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we’re working on together.”
CIA Director William Burns also was in the Middle East meeting with intelligence partners and leaders of several countries, a U.S. official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Burns’ typically off-the-record travel plans. The U.S. intends for his discussions to reinforce American commitment to intelligence cooperation, especially on terror and security, the official said.
Read: Israeli warplanes hit refugee camps in Gaza while UN agencies call siege an 'outrage'
The flurry of U.S. diplomacy came as Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City and cut off the northern part of the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Troops were preparing to enter the city, where they were likely to face militants fighting street by street using a vast network of tunnels. Casualties will likely rise on both sides.
Asked whether the toll gave the U.S. pause for its staunch support for Israel, Kirby said, “I think we all need to remember who they’re fighting,” and he referenced Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion into Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and started the war. He insisted no country would tolerate such an attack “without a swift and aggressive response."
Kirby said the U.S. was having “frank” conversations with Israelis about trying to reduce the civilian death toll, but it was not directly involved in Israel's targeting decisions nor was it helping develop the country's operational plans for its invasion of Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
Blinken said pauses in the war would allow for a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of the more than 200 hostages captured by Hamas while also preventing the conflict from spreading regionally.
Read: Blinken shuttles from the West Bank to Iraq trying to contain the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war
“We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimize civilian casualties,” Blinken said before leaving Ankara. “We’re working, as I said, very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”
“We are very focused on the hostages held by Hamas, including the Americans, and we are doing everything possible to bring them home,” he added.
As Blinken's meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan got underway, dozens of protesters from an Islamist group waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and held up anti-U.S. and anti-Israel placards outside the Foreign Ministry. Police earlier in the day dispersed a group of students marching toward the ministry chanting “murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”
Also Monday, about 150 people rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, carrying a large banner that read “No to genocide!”
Blinken did not meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been highly critical of Netanyahu and an outlier among NATO allies in not expressing full support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
Turkish officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said Fidan had urged Blinken to prevent the targeting of civilians in Gaza and their forced displacement, and also press for a “full cease-fire.”
Blinken's mission, his second to the region since the war began, has found only tepid, if any, support for his efforts to contain the fallout from the conflict. Israel had rejected the idea of pauses, while Arab nations were demanding an immediate cease-fire as the casualty toll soared among Palestinian civilians.
Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving the crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll of the Israeli military operations and believing Gaza to be a problem largely of Israel’s own making.
U.S. officials are seeking to convince Israel of the strategic importance of respecting the laws of war by protecting non-combatants and significantly boosting deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s beleaguered civilian population.
It remained unclear, however, if Netanyahu would agree to temporary, rolling pauses in the massive operation to eradicate Hamas — or whether outrage among Palestinians and their supporters could be assuaged if he did.
Already Jordan and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest its tactics, and the tide of international opinion appears to be turning from sympathy toward Israel in the aftermath of Oct. 7 to revulsion as images of death and destruction in Gaza spread around the world.
On Saturday in Amman, Jordan's capital, the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers appeared at a joint news conference with Blinken. The two said Israel’s war had gone beyond self-defense and could no longer be justified as it now amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
That sentiment was echoed by tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched in the streets of world capitals over the weekend to protest Israel and condemn U.S. support for Israel.
Trump's business and political ambitions poised to converge as he testifies in New York civil case
When Donald Trump takes the stand Monday in a Manhattan courtroom to testify in his civil fraud trial, it will be an undeniable spectacle: A former president and the leading Republican presidential candidate defending himself against allegations that he dramatically inflated his net worth.
The charges cut to the very heart of the brand Trump spent decades carefully crafting and put him at risk of losing control of much of his business empire.
But the appearance may also mark the beginning of what will likely be a defining feature of the 2024 election if Trump becomes his party's nominee: a major candidate, on trial, using the witness stand as a campaign platform as he eyes a return to the White House while facing multiple criminal indictments.
“It’s going to be a stunning moment. This is dramatic enough if he was simply an ex-president facing these charges. But the fact that he is the overwhelming favorite to run the GOP, it makes this a staggering Monday,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
The courtroom at 60 Centre Street has already become a familiar destination for Trump. He has spent hours over the last month voluntarily seated at the defense table, observing the proceedings. Trump once took the stand — unexpectedly and briefly — after he was accused of violating a partial gag order. Trump denied violating the rules, but Judge Arthur Engoron disagreed and fined him anyway.
Read: Federal judge reimposes limited gag order in Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case
The vast majority of his speaking has happened outside the courtroom, where he has taken full advantage of the bank of assembled media to voice his outrage and spin the days' proceedings in the most favorable way.
He will also be coming face-to-face again Monday with Engoron, whom he has lambasted on his social media site in recent days as a "wacko” and “RADICAL LEFT, DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE JUDGE” who has already “ruled viciously” against him.
Trump will also be joined by his former fixer and attorney-turned witness, Michal Cohen, who said in an interview he was planning to attend Monday's proceedings.
“My intent is to attend Donald’s appearance as he was gracious enough to attend my court appearances,” he said.
Among the topics likely to be covered: Trump’s role in his company's decision making, in its valuing of his properties, and in preparing his annual financial statements. Trump is likely to be asked about loans and other deals that were made using the statements and what intent, if any, he had in portraying his wealth to banks and insurers the way the documents did.
Trump is also likely to be asked about how he views and values his brand – and the economic impact of his fame and time as president -- and may be asked to explain claims that his financial statements actually undervalued his wealth.
Trump has argued that disclaimers on his financial statements should have alerted people relying on the documents to do their own homework and verify the numbers themselves – an answer that he’s likely to repeat on the witness stand. Trump has said the disclaimer absolved him of wrongdoing.
Read: Donald Trump arrives in court for a New York trial scrutinizing his business practices
Eric Trump, the former president's middle son, who testified in the case last week, said his father was eager for his appearance on the stand.
“I know he’s very fired up to be here. And he thinks that this is one of the most incredible injustices that he’s ever seen. And it truly is,” the younger Trump told reporters Friday, insisting his family was winning even though the judge has already ruled mostly against them.
Unlike most Americans, Trump has ample experience fielding questions from lawyers and has a long history of depositions and courtroom testimony that offer insight into how he might respond. But Cohen, who worked for Trump for more than a decade, said nothing in Trump's past has come close to what he's facing now since they were largely civil matters "where even though the dollar amounts were in the millions of dollars, they were never of any real consequence to him or obviously to his freedom.”
“Right now this New York attorney general case is a threat to the extinction of his eponymous company as well as his financial future," he said. Trump's forthcoming criminal cases — accusing him of misclassifying hush money payments, illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election and hoarding documents at his Mar-a-Lago club "have far more significant consequences, most specifically the termination of his freedom.”
Brinkley, the historian, said there was little precedent for Trump's appearance, but said it won't be the first time a past president has taken the stand in a trial accusing him of wrongdoing. He pointed to one case in 1915, when, after unsuccessfully running for a third term as a third-party candidate, former President Theodore Roosevelt was sued for libel for criticizing New York Republican Party boss William Barnes.
Read: Rape lawsuit trial against Donald Trump set to get underway
The judge eventually ruled in Roosevelt's favor after a five week trial, in which the former president spent eight days on the witness stand.
“They were five weeks of great strain," he wrote in a letter to his son. “But the result was a great triumph, and I am bound that there shall be no more libel suits as far as I am concerned, and for the present at least no further active participation in politics for me.”
Survivors say trauma from abusive Native American boarding schools stretches across generations
Donovan Archambault was 11 years old in 1950 when he was sent from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana to a government-backed Native American boarding school in Pierre, South Dakota, where abusive staff forced him to abandon his community's language and customs.
Archambault emerged bitter from the experience and said he drank alcohol for more than two decades before he finally pulled his life together, earning a master's degree in education and serving as chairman of the Fort Belknap tribes.
“It was probably the most brutal time of my whole life," Archambault recalled Sunday, “and it all stemmed from the trauma we suffered in the Pierre Indian School.”
Decades after the last Native American boarding schools stopped receiving federal money, the traumas inflicted by the abusive institutions are getting belated attention through a series of listening sessions hosted by federal officials across the U.S.
For over 150 years, Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into the boarding schools, which systematically abused students to assimilate them into white society. Religious and private institutions ran many of the schools and received federal funding as partners in government programs to “civilize” Indigenous students.
Sunday's event at Montana State University in Bozeman was the last of 12 stops on the “Road to Healing” tour by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico who has prioritized examining the trauma caused by the schools.
The U.S. enacted laws and policies in 1819 to support the schools and some continued to operate through the 1960s. An investigative report released last year by the Interior Department identified 408 government-backed schools in 37 states or then-territories, including Alaska and Hawaii.
The schools renamed children from Native American to English names, organized them into military drills and compelled them to do manual labor such as farming, brick-making and working on the railroad system, according to federal officials. At least 500 children died at the schools, according to the report — a figure that's expected to increase dramatically as research continues.
One of Haaland’s deputies, Rosebud Sioux member Wizipan Garriott, has described boarding schools as part of a long history of injustices against his people that began with the widespread extermination of their main food source — bison, also known as buffalo.
Tribes also lost their land base and were forced onto reservations sometimes far from their homelands.
Victims and survivors of the schools have shared tearful recollections of their experience during prior listening sessions in Oklahoma, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and other states.
They told stories of being punished for speaking their native language, getting locked in basements and their hair being cut to stamp out their identities. They were sometimes subjected to solitary confinement, beatings and withholding food. Many left the schools with only basic vocational skills that gave them few job prospects, officials said.
Myrna Burgess, a Northern Cheyenne elder, said Sunday that she and her classmates faced escalating punishments for speaking their home language. First time they'd get hit with a stick on the back of the hand. After a second offense they'd have to turn their hand over, to get hit on the palm. A third offense brought a strike to the head, she said.
“That was child abuse right there, but no one ever went to jail,” she said.
Archambeault said many of his classmates did not survive long enough to tell their stories and instead became victims of suicide, alcohol and violence that he traces back to the treatment they received at school.
A second investigative report is expected in coming months. It will focus on burial sites, the schools’ impact on Indigenous communities and also try to account for federal funds spent on the troubled program.
Montana had 16 of the schools — including on or near the Crow, Blackfeet, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. Most shut down early last century. Others were around recently enough that their former students are still alive.
A Native American boarding school school in the town of St. Ignatius on the Flathead Reservation was open until at least 1973. In southeastern Montana the Tongue River Boarding School operated under various names until at least 1970, when the Northern Cheyenne Tribe contracted it as a tribal school, according to government records.
The St. Labre school at the edge of the Northern Cheyenne continues to operate but has not received federal money in more than a century, according to government records.
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has tallied an additional 113 schools not on the government list that were run by churches and with no evidence of federal support. By 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children — some 60,000 children — were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the coalition.
The coalition's executive director, Samuel Torres, said Haaland's tour was a positive first step in addressing the schools' legacy. Next, he said, Congress must approve proposals to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, where survivors could continue airing their stories and the federal government's role in the abuse could be further documented.
“Boarding schools lasted over 150 years. It's going to take more than a couple of years of investigation,” Torres said. “It's going to require generations. But this is where it has to start.”
Federal judge reimposes limited gag order in Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case
The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case in Washington on Sunday reimposed a narrow gag order barring him from making public comments targeting prosecutors, court staff and potential witnesses.
The reinstatement of the gag order was revealed in a brief notation on the online case docket Sunday night, but the order itself was not immediately available, making it impossible to see the judge’s rationale or the precise contours of the restrictions.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, had temporarily lifted the gag order as she considered the former president's request to keep it on hold while he challenges the restrictions on his speech in higher courts.
But Chutkan agreed to reinstate the order after prosecutors cited Trump's recent social media comments about his former chief of staff they said represented an attempt to influence and intimidate a likely witness in the case.
Read: Trump campaign reports raising more than $7 million after Georgia booking
The order is a fresh reminder that Trump's penchant for incendiary and bitter rants about the four criminal cases that he's facing, though politically beneficial in rallying his supporters as he seeks to reclaim the White House, carry practical consequences in court. Two separate judges have now imposed orders mandating that he rein in his speech, with the jurist presiding over a civil fraud trial in New York issuing a monetary fine last week.
A request for comment was sent Sunday to a Trump attorney, Todd Blanche. Trump in a social media post late Sunday acknowledged that the gag order was back in place, calling it “NOT CONSITUTIONAL!”
Trump's lawyers have said they will seek an emergency stay of the order from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The defense has said Trump is entitled to criticize prosecutors and “speak truth to oppression."
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case. He has made a central part of his 2024 campaign for president vilifying special counsel Jack Smith and others involved the criminal cases against him, casting himself as the victim of a politicized justice system.
Read: Trump is set to surrender at a Georgia jail on charges he sought to overturn his 2020 election loss
Prosecutors have said Trump's verbal attacks threaten to undermine the integrity of the case and risk inspiring his supporters to violence.
Smith's team said Trump took advantage of the recent lifting of the gag order to “send an unmistakable and threatening message” to his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who was reported by ABC News to have received immunity to testify before a grand jury.
The former president mused on social media about the possibility that Meadows would give testimony to Smith in exchange for immunity. One part of the post said: “Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them but who really knows?”
In a separate case, Trump was fined last week $10,000 after the judge in his civil fraud trial in New York said the former president had violated a gag order.
Major US Muslim group moves Virginia banquet over bomb and death threats
A national Muslim civil rights group said Thursday it is moving its annual banquet out of a Virginia hotel that received bomb and death threats possibly linked to the group's concern for Palestinians caught in the Israel-Hamas war.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, canceled plans to hold its 29th annual banquet on Saturday at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
“In recent days, according to the Marriott, anonymous callers have threatened to plant bombs in the hotel’s parking garage, kill specific hotel staff in their homes, and storm the hotel in a repeat of the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol if the events moved forward,” CAIR said in a statement.
The group had used the hotel for a decade, the statement said. But it will now move the banquet to an undisclosed location with heightened security.
Arlington police said in an email that the department was investigating a Thursday morning report from the hotel that it received anonymous phone calls, “some referencing threats to bomb,” regarding the CAIR event.
Emails seeking comment from the FBI, which CAIR said also is investigating, and the Marriott hotel chain were not immediately answered late Thursday night.
A separate banquet planned for Oct. 28 in Maryland is being cancelled and will be merged with Saturday's event, CAIR said.
The threats came after CAIR updated banquet programming to focus on human rights issues for Palestinians. The group has started an online campaign urging members of Congress to promote a ceasefire in Gaza.
“We strongly condemn the extreme and disgusting threats against our organization, the Marriott hotel and its staff," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, who is Palestinian American, said in a statement. “We will not allow the threats of anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim bigots who seek to dehumanize the Palestinian people and silence American Muslims to stop us from pursuing justice for all.”
Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip stormed into nearby Israeli towns on Oct. 7, which coincided with a major Jewish holiday. The attack killed hundreds of civilians. Since then, Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza, destroying entire neighborhoods and killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
There have been concerns the war will inspire violence in the U.S. Last week, police in major cities increased patrols, authorities put up fencing around the U.S. Capitol and some schools closed. But law enforcement officials stressed there were no credible threats in the U.S.
Major US Muslim civil rights group cancels Virginia banquet over bomb and death threats
A national Muslim civil rights group said Thursday it is moving its annual banquet out of a Virginia hotel that received bomb and death threats possibly linked to the group's concern for Palestinians caught in the Israel-Hamas war.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, canceled plans to hold its 29th annual banquet on Saturday at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The group, who has used the hotel for a decade, will imove the banquet to an undisclosed location with heightened security, the group's statement said.
"In recent days, according to the Marriott, anonymous callers have threatened to plant bombs in the hotel's parking garage, kill specific hotel staff in their homes, and storm the hotel in a repeat of the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol if the events moved forward," the statement said.
Also read: US military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East
Arlington police said in an email that the department was investigating a Thursday morning report from the hotel that it received anonymous phone calls, "some referencing threats to bomb," regarding the CAIR event.
Emails seeking comment from the FBI, which CAIR said also is investigating, and the Marriott hotel chain were not immediately answered late Thursday night.
A separate banquet planned for Oct. 28 in Maryland also was cancelled and will be merged with Saturday's event, CAIR said.
The threats came after CAIR updated banquet programming to focus on human rights issues for Palestinians. The group has started an online campaign urging members of Congress to promote a ceasefire in Gaza.
"We strongly condemn the extreme and disgusting threats against our organization, the Marriott hotel and its staff," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, who is Palestinian American, said in a statement. "We will not allow the threats of anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim bigots who seek to dehumanize the Palestinian people and silence American Muslims to stop us from pursuing justice for all."
Also read: As Israel readies troops for ground assault, Gaza awaits urgently needed aid from Egypt
Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip stormed into nearby Israeli towns on Oct. 7, which coincided with a major Jewish holiday. The attack killed hundreds of civilians. Since then, Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza, destroying entire neighborhoods and killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
There have been concerns the war will inspire violence in the U.S. Last week, police in major cities increased patrols, authorities put up fencing around the U.S. Capitol and some schools closed. But law enforcement officials stressed there were no credible threats in the U.S.
US eases oil, gas and gold sanctions on Venezuela after electoral roadmap signed
In response to Venezuela’s government and a faction of its opposition formally agreeing to work together to reach a series of basic conditions for the next presidential election, the U.S. agreed Wednesday to temporarily suspend some sanctions on the country's oil, gas and gold sectors.
Tuesday's agreement between President Nicolás Maduro’s administration and the Unitary Platform came just days before the opposition holds a primary to pick its candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
The U.S. Treasury issued a six-month general license that would temporarily authorize transactions involving Venezuela's oil and gas sector, another that authorizes dealings with Minerven — the state-owned gold mining company — and it removed the secondary trading ban on certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds.
Read: Gazans find nowhere is safe during Israel’s relentless bombing
The ban on trading in the primary Venezuelan bond market remains in place, Treasury says.
Brian E. Nelson, Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the U.S. welcomes the signing of the electoral roadmap agreement but “Treasury is prepared to amend or revoke authorizations at any time, should representatives of Maduro fail to follow through on their commitments.”
“All other restrictions imposed by the United States on Venezuela remain in place, and we will continue to hold bad actors accountable. We stand with the Venezuelan people and support Venezuelan democracy,” he said.
Read: Egypt, Jordan fear Israel could force permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. and the international community “will closely follow implementation of the electoral roadmap, and the U.S. government will take action if commitments under the electoral roadmap and with respect to political prisoners are not met.”