The New York Times may not be so fake anymore.
Shortly after the Times reported Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017 floated the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, many conservatives are now calling for Rosenstein to be fired. The Times also reported that Rosenstein suggested he wear a wire to surreptitiously record the president, though a Justice Department spokeswoman said Rosenstein proposed the idea "sarcastically."
But that hasn't stopped Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who tweeted Friday afternoon that "Rod Rosenstein must be fired today." Ingraham is one of the 47 people Trump follows on Twitter, and Politico reporter Alex Guillén notes that former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned earlier this year not long after Ingraham called for his removal.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a Fox News staple, agreed with Ingraham, tweeting that Rosenstein must be fired if the Times' reporting is accurate, because "Rosenstein doesn't seem to have the integrity to resign." Gregg Jarrett, who also appears as a frequent analyst for the network, tweeted that not only must Rosenstein be fired, but that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference must also end. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any investigations into Russian interference and the Trump campaign in March 2017, leaving Rosenstein to oversee the matter. Rosenstein appointed Mueller that May.
Yet another Fox News analyst weighing in is Jeanine Pirro, who tweeted that Rosenstein should have been fired long ago but that now is the time to act. As The Daily Beast's Asawin Suebsaeng points out, Pirro was once considered for Rosenstein's job. Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman reports that Bill Shine, the ousted Fox News executive who now helps lead Trump's communications team, is "rolling out [a] media plan to build public support for Trump to fire Rosenstein." Brendan Morrow
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had an up-and-down weekend.
Her Democratic presidential campaign received a helpful endorsement, but reports of internal strife led to questions about the future of her White House bid. And while she reportedly received some hearty support during her speech at the California Democratic convention on Saturday, some strategists in her home state think the clock is ticking for the senator, who was once considered a serious contender for the nomination, Politico reports.
"Of course she should get out," said one leading Democratic strategist who declined to speak on the record. "But who's gonna tell her?"
Harris is struggling in the polls, but has reportedly told California insiders that she's not planning on dropping out of the race at least until after the Iowa caucus. But there are fears that even that could be too late and harm her reputation in the long run. "It's not happening," a leading grassroots organizer told Politico on the condition of anonymity. "She has her chance [to leave the race] ... she should take it."
One person who isn't buying the rumors of Harris' demise is California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who felt no need to speak anonymously and said he thinks there's still time and space for the senator to get back in the race. "She's too talented to be dismissed — she's too capable," he said. Read more at Politico. Tim O'Donnell
Former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton told a group of bankers in Miami two weeks ago that his former boss President Trump "believes his personal chemistry with foreign leaders, including authoritarians like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, means that the U.S. relationship with those countries is a positive one," Axios reported last week. If that's the case, America's relationship with North Korea is ... complicated.
Kim has set a year-end deadline for a breakthrough in the U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks, and Trump tweeted Sunday that Kim "should act quickly, get the deal done." U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that the U.S. had indefinitely scrapped joint military exercises with South Korea as an "act of goodwill" toward Pyongyang to create space for diplomacy.
On Monday, North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan poured cold water on the Trump administration's outreach. "The U.S. only seeks to earn time, pretending it has made progress" with North Korea, he said. "We are no longer interested in such talks that bring nothing to us. As we have got nothing in return, we will no longer gift the U.S. president with something he can boast of."
North Korea has been ramping up its missile tests and publicizing its military drills. It's not clear what Kim is willing to put on the table, but along with suspending the joint military exercises with Seoul, Trump has asked Tokyo to pay four times as much to host U.S. troops in Japan and demanded that South Korea pay nearly five times as much, Foreign Policy and Reuters report. Bolton delivered the news in July.
"This kind of demand, not only the exorbitant number, but the way it is being done, could trigger anti-Americanism" in close allies, Bruce Klingner at the Heritage Foundation tells Foreign Policy. "If you weaken alliances, and potentially decrease deterrence and U.S. troop presence, that benefits North Korea, China, and Russia who see the potential for reduced U.S. influence and support for our allies." Peter Weber
Most Americans are closely following the public impeachment hearings and believe the actions by President Trump that spawned them were wrong, a new poll has found.
In an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Monday, 70 percent of Americans said they believe Trump's actions tied to Ukraine were wrong. This comes after the first week of public hearings in the official impeachment inquiry, which is examining Trump's efforts to push Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
Of the 70 percent who say Trump's actions at the center of the inquiry were wrong, 51 percent say he should be impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office by the Senate for them, while 13 percent believe his actions were wrong but don't support impeachment and removal, and another six percent believe they were wrong and support impeachment but not removal. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe Trump's actions weren't wrong.
Asked how closely they've been following the House's impeachment hearings, 37 percent said they've been following them somewhat closely, while 21 percent said they've been following very closely. Forty-two percent said they aren't following them that closely or closely at all. Twenty-one percent of those polled also said they made up their mind about whether Trump should be impeached and removed following this first public week of hearings, although 78 percent of those polled had already decided before the public hearings began, including 32 percent who had their mind made up prior to September, when the news about the whistleblower complaint concerning Trump's Ukraine actions was reported.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by speaking to a random national sample of 506 adults on Nov. 16 and Nov. 17. The margin of error is 4.8 percentage points. Read more at ABC News. Brendan Morrow
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that President Trump was welcome to testify in the House impeachment inquiry. If Trump has information to clear himself "then we look forward to seeing it," she said on CBS' Face the Nation. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said if Trump wants to counter testimony suggesting he abused his power by withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine into investigating Democrats, "He should come to the committee and testify under oath. And he should allow all those around him to come to the committee and testify under oath," The Associated Press reports. The remarks came ahead of the House Intelligence Committee's second week of public impeachment hearings. Trump's ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is one of the people due to appear this week. Harold Maass