Politics

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to outline this week the spending cuts Republicans want in exchange for votes to raise the government’s debt ceiling.

Biden urged the top congressional Republican to spell out his proposals before lawmakers leave Washington for a two-week recess set to start on Thursday.

That followed a missive from McCarthy proposing scaling back domestic spending, clawing back unspent COVID-19 relief funds and other changes that he said would save trillions of dollars.

“My hope is that House Republicans can present the American public with your budget plan before the Congress leaves for Easter recess so that we can have an in-depth conversation when you return,” Biden wrote in a letter posted on Twitter.

McCarthy told CNBC earlier that he was prepared to lay out $4 trillion in spending cuts for Biden, if he would agree to meet. Republicans have not yet produced a budget plan of their own and could be weeks or months away from doing so.

McCarthy’s proposals, though lacking detail, paralleled the demands of hard-right House Republicans far more closely than ideas put forward by moderate Republicans.

Democrats said Republicans need to first unite behind a proposal.

Biden, a Democrat, has insisted that Republicans who control the House instead raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling without conditions and produce a fiscal 2024 spending plan before he will engage in talks about spending.

“Your position – if maintained – could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation,” McCarthy had said earlier on Tuesday.

The political standoff, which has taken hold since Biden and McCarthy held an initial meeting in early February, has raised concerns in the financial markets about a possible U.S. debt default that could cripple the economy.

Republicans have sought to blame Biden, but only Congress has the authority to raise the debt ceiling.

“The only thing missing is a real plan,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech.

Members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus said McCarthy’s letter paralleled their own spending proposals and claimed it showed adherence to a closed-door agreement with conservatives that allowed him to become speaker in January.

“Today’s letter from the speaker to the president represents Speaker McCarthy’s fidelity to that agreement,” said Representative Matt Gaetz, one of 20 hardliners who forced McCarthy to endure 15 floor votes before being elected speaker.

The House Freedom Caucus has called for cutting nondefense discretionary spending to pre-pandemic levels and allowing it to return only to fiscal 2022 levels after a decade. McCarthy said he wanted to reduce “excessive” nondefense spending to “pre-inflation” levels with limited growth in future years.

Both also called for reclaiming unspent COVID-19 funds, imposing work requirements on social programs for the poor, and deregulating the energy sector.

The approach is a far cry from proposals offered by moderate Republicans, who have called for holding government spending in line with inflation, tying the debt ceiling to national output or raising it without conditions.

(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey; editing by Andy Sullivan, Jonathan Oatis and Chris Reese)

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of senior Democratic lawmakers will introduce legislation on Wednesday to more closely ensure that U.S. weapons sales to foreign customers do not end up contributing to or facilitating human rights abuses.

The Safeguard Act seeks to codify into law a new Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy introduced last month by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration to increase the emphasis on human rights concerns, according to information about the legislation seen by Reuters.

The bill is led by Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. It has four other sponsors in the Senate and five in the House, all Democrats.

“Much like we should be requiring universal background checks before selling weapons of war domestically, we should be prioritizing a government’s human rights record before providing them access to our arms and defense services,” Menendez said in a statement.

The CAT policy covers review of security assistance, government-to-government weapons transfers and licensed commercial sales of U.S.-origin military equipment and services overseen by the State Department as well as the Defense Department and Department of Commerce, including firearms commonly available in the United States.

Defense companies and activists scrutinize such policies for insight into the administration’s posture as it balances commercial interests of exporters like Lockheed Martin Co and Raytheon Technologies against the country’s stated commitment to human rights.

Under U.S. law, the chair and ranking member of the Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs committees review major weapons transfers. They often take human rights into account and at times seek to delay or block planned sales.

For example, Menendez opposes the sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft to Turkey for reasons including its record on human rights.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge has ruled that former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with former President Donald Trump leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a source familiar with the ruling said on Tuesday.

In a ruling that remains under seal, the judge also said that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to Jan. 6, the source said, adding that Pence can still appeal the ruling. The appeal option is being evaluated, the source said.

The source, confirming reports by CNN and NBC, said the judge’s decision compels Trump’s former vice president, and potential challenger for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, to appear before the federal grand jury but shields him from testifying about Jan. 6, 2021, itself.

Asked during an interview on Newsmax on Tuesday as to whether he would appeal the order, Pence said there was a limited amount he could say on the proceedings.

“I’m pleased that the court accepted our argument and recognized that the Constitution’s provision about speech and debate does apply to the vice president,” he said.

“But the way they sorted that out and the requirements of my testimony going forward are a subject of our review right now and I’ll have more to say about that in the days ahead.”

In February, a source told Reuters Pence was preparing to resist a grand jury subpoena to secure his testimony.

Ahead of the Jan. 6 events, Trump had repeatedly lambasted Pence, publicly and privately, for refusing to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s win in the 2020 election, sources told Reuters at the time.

Representatives for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who is leading the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into Trump and his allies’ alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Steve Holland, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey in Washington, and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Stephen Coates)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged President Joe Biden on Tuesday to begin budget talks to raise the U.S. government’s borrowing limit, as Democrats pressed him to provide specific spending-cut proposals.

In a letter to Biden, McCarthy proposed scaling back domestic spending, clawing back unspent COVID-19 relief funds and other changes that he said would save trillions of dollars. But his Republicans have not yet produced a budget plan of their own and could be weeks or months away from doing so.

The top Republican in the House of Representatives told CNBC that he was prepared to lay out $4 trillion in spending cuts for Biden, if he would agree to meet.

McCarthy’s proposals, though lacking detail, paralleled the demands of hard-right House Republicans far more closely than ideas put forward by moderate Republicans.

Democrats said Republicans need to first unite behind a proposal.

“It’s time for them to put out a budget,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Biden, a Democrat, has insisted that Republicans who control the House instead raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling without conditions and produce a fiscal 2024 spending plan before he will engage in talks about spending.

“Your position – if maintained – could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation,” McCarthy said in the letter.

The political standoff, which has taken hold since Biden and McCarthy held an initial meeting in early February, has raised concerns in the financial markets about a possible U.S. debt default that could cripple the economy.

Republicans have sought to blame Biden, but only Congress has the authority to raise the debt ceiling.

“The only thing missing is a real plan,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech.

Members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus said McCarthy’s letter paralleled their own spending proposals and claimed it showed adherence to a closed-door agreement with conservatives that allowed him to become speaker in January.

“Today’s letter from the speaker to the president represents Speaker McCarthy’s fidelity to that agreement,” said Representative Matt Gaetz, one of 20 hardliners who forced McCarthy to endure 15 floor votes before being elected speaker.

The House Freedom Caucus has called for cutting nondefense discretionary spending to pre-pandemic levels and allowing it to return only to fiscal 2022 levels after a decade. McCarthy said he wanted to reduce “excessive” nondefense spending to “pre-inflation” levels with limited “out-year” growth.

Both also called for reclaiming unspent COVID-19 funds, imposing work requirements on social programs for the poor, and deregulating the energy sector.

The approach is a far cry from proposals offered by moderate Republicans, who have called for holding government spending in line with inflation, tying the debt ceiling to national output or raising it without conditions.

(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Heavey; editing by Andy Sullivan and Jonathan Oatis)

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By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, expected to be a top contender for the 2024 U.S. Republican presidential nomination, will travel to Israel next month as the country is being riven by a crisis that has led to widespread protests.

The trip, which is being billed by DeSantis’ office as a trade mission, follows a longstanding tradition for Republicans seeking the White House but comes at a particularly volatile moment.

Israel has been beset by unprecedented protests and worker strikes against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to overhaul the judiciary. Netanyahu on Monday said he would delay the overhaul in order to open talks with the plan’s opponents.

DeSantis, who likely will announce a presidential run in the coming weeks, will speak on April 27 to a crowd of about 400 attendees, including about 120 U.S. Jewish philanthropists, according to a release from the Jerusalem Post and the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, which are sponsoring the event.

“At a time of unnecessarily strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Florida serves as a bridge between the American and Israeli people,” DeSantis said in the release.

As Florida’s governor, DeSantis has vowed to be a staunch ally of Israel and led a trade delegation there in 2019. But his recent sojourn into foreign policy as a potential presidential hopeful has been problematic.

Earlier this month, he dismissed the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” earning criticism from some fellow Republicans. He subsequently took a tougher stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, labeling him a “war criminal” in an interview.

The wobble concerned some prominent donors in the party who were hopeful DeSantis can derail former President Donald Trump’s bid for another term. [L1N36005H]

The White House said it had no comment on DeSantis’ plans, while maintaining administration officials have been regularly in touch with the Israeli government during the crisis.

DeSantis has said he supported the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 and has been a strong supporter of Netanyahu. In a speech to Jewish conservatives last November, he referred to Israel-held territories in the West Bank as “disputed” not “occupied” in contravention of official U.S. policy.

DeSantis is widely expected to enter the 2024 race once the Florida Legislature concludes its current session in early May.

(Reporting by James Oliphant, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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By Karen Freifeld

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York grand jury hearing evidence about former President Donald Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to a porn star is not expected to meet on Wednesday and is unlikely to consider the case again this week, a law enforcement source said.

It is unclear when the grand jury would take up the matter again, said the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss secret grand jury proceedings.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has been presenting evidence since January to the grand jury about possible crimes related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The payment was made in exchange for Daniels’ silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump she said she had a decade earlier.

If indicted, Trump would become the first U.S. president to face a criminal charge in court.

A former National Enquirer publisher testified for the second time before the panel on Monday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The publisher, David Pecker, had offered to help Trump in the run-up to the November 2016 election by buying rights to unflattering stories and not publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

In the case of Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, her agent told the editor in October 2016 that she was willing to go public about the alleged sexual encounter she said she had with Trump.

Pecker and the editor contacted then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen and connected him with an attorney for Daniels. Cohen then negotiated the $130,000 agreement.

    Federal prosecutors have said Cohen made the payment at Trump’s direction.

Trump has denied an affair took place, and lawyer Robert Costello, who met with Cohen in 2018, has said Cohen told him he acted alone. 

Costello testified before the grand jury last week. Cohen, who testified the previous week, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges stemming from the payoff and went to prison for the campaign finance violation, among other crimes.

    Trump falsely claimed on March 18 that he would be arrested in the case last Tuesday, has repeatedly attacked Bragg, and warned of potential “death and destruction” if he faces criminal charges.

    Trump faces several other criminal investigations, including one tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He continues to claim falsely that his 2020 defeat was the result of fraud.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)

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By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday denied Donald Trump’s bid to throw out E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claim from next month’s high-profile trial over whether Trump raped the former Elle magazine columnist in the mid-1990s.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan rejected Trump’s claim that “absolute litigation privilege” immunized the former president for allegedly defaming Carroll last Oct. 12 on his Truth Social media platform by denying the rape occurred.

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The scheduled April 25 trial relates to Trump’s alleged rape of Carroll in late 1995 or early 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.

Carroll is also pursuing a battery claim under a New York law that lets sexual abuse survivors sue their alleged attackers long after statutes of limitations have run out.

In his Oct. 12 post, Trump said he did not know Carroll, that she made up the rape claim to promote her memoir, and that the claim was a “hoax,” “lie,” “con job” and “complete scam.”

The post substantively repeated many comments Trump made in June 2019 at the White House, which prompted a still-pending lawsuit by Carroll five months later.

Trump said his post amounted to commentary about Carroll’s earlier lawsuit and his defenses, and therefore was protected.

But the judge said Trump’s post was neither a “report of any judicial proceeding” nor a “fair and true report” of such a proceeding that would justify immunity.

“Instead,” Kaplan wrote, “it is an amalgamation of Mr. Trump’s personal views and comments on a wide range of subjects, including the legal system of the United States and of New York, this court, Ms. Carroll and her rape accusation against him, CNN and its journalist Anderson Cooper, and Ms. Carroll’s counsel.

“The way it is stylized … belies the notion that Mr. Trump was even attempting to provide a fair and true report of a judicial proceeding,” Kaplan added.

Trump is awaiting a decision by a grand jury empanelled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over whether to indict him over his alleged role in a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Security has been ramped up outside the Manhattan Criminal Court where Trump, now making his third White House run, would have to defend against any charges.

Last week, Kaplan said Trump will get an anonymous jury in Carroll’s case, reflecting the “extensive pretrial publicity and a very strong risk that jurors will fear harassment, unwanted invasions of their privacy, and retaliation.”

The case is Carroll v Trump, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No 22-10016.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

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(Reuters) -The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said on Monday he signed a subpoena to be delivered to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for documents related to the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Michael McCaul has launched an investigation into the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan under Democratic President Joe Biden and events in the country since.

Republicans – and some Democrats – say there has never been a full accounting of the chaotic operation, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed at Kabul’s airport.

McCaul had given the State Department until Monday to produce the documents.

“Unfortunately, Secretary Blinken has refused to provide the Dissent Cable and his response to the cable, forcing me to issue my first subpoena as chairman of this committee,” McCaul said in a statement. He said the subpoena would be delivered on Tuesday morning.

About two dozen U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan sent a confidential cable through a so-called dissent channel warning Blinken in July 2021 of the potential fall of Kabul to the Taliban as U.S. troops withdrew from the country, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021.

Blinken said during a hearing last week that the department had already shared information and was working to provide more, but that some specific details could only be shared with senior officials, a move intended to protect the identity of those who had expressed dissent.

Asked by Reuters for comment on the subpoena, the State Department referred to remarks by spokesperson Vedant Patel at Monday’s press briefing. Patel said it was “vital to us that we preserve the integrity” of the dissent channel. He said the department was “prepared to make the relevant information in the cable available through briefings or some other mechanisms.”

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday to advance legislation to repeal two decades-old authorizations for past wars in Iraq, as Congress pushed to reassert its role over deciding whether to send troops into combat.

The vote was 65 to 28 to limit debate on the measure, more than the 60 votes required in the 100-member Senate, paving the way for a vote on passage later this week. All 28 “no” votes were from Republicans.

Members of Congress have been arguing for years that Congress has ceded too much authority to both Republican and Democratic presidents over whether troops should be sent into combat, by passing and then failing to repeal broad, open-ended war authorizations that presidents have used for years to justify military action around the globe.

Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the right to declare war.

Proponents of the current bill call the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, against Iraq “zombie” authorizations. They say they are outdated and inappropriate, given that the wars are long over and Iraq is now a U.S. partner.

This month marked the 20th anniversary of the start of the 2003 Iraq war.

“Repealing these authorizations will demonstrate to the region, and to the world, that the United States is not an occupying force, that the war in Iraq has come to an end, that we are moving forward, working with Iraq as a strategic partner,” said Senator Bob Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said before the vote, urging support for the legislation.

(Reporting by Patricia ZengerleEditing by Chris Reese and David Gregorio)

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By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) -A former National Enquirer publisher testified on Monday before a Manhattan grand jury hearing evidence about former President Donald Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, said a person familiar with the matter.

David Pecker, who testified in January, came back for about 45 minutes on Monday, the person said. Pecker could not immediately be reached for comment.

The grand jury’s proceedings are shrouded in secrecy and the timing of a grand jury vote is unclear. If indicted, Trump would become the first U.S. president to face a criminal charge in court.

Pecker had offered to help Trump in the run-up to the November 2016 presidential election by buying rights to unflattering stories and never publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

The grand jury could indict Trump over a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star, which she said was to buy her silence about their sexual encounter in 2006 while he was married to his current wife Melania. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has said he made that payment at Trump’s direction.

    Trump has denied an affair took place, and lawyer Robert Costello, who met with Cohen in 2018, has said Cohen told him he acted alone. 

    Costello testified before the grand jury last week. Cohen, who testified the previous week, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges stemming from the payoff and went to prison for campaign finance violations, among other crimes.

In 2018, American Media Inc (AMI), then publisher of the National Enquirer, acknowledged paying $150,000 to a former Playboy magazine model to prevent her from going public ahead of the 2016 election.

Federal prosecutors said, as part of a deal to cooperate and avoid charges, AMI admitted the payment to Karen McDougal was made “in concert” with Trump’s presidential campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty for his role in that transaction, too.

    Trump falsely claimed on March 18 that he would be arrested last Tuesday in the New York case. Since then Trump has warned of potential “death and destruction” if he faces criminal charges, repeatedly attacked Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and posted an online picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of the New York prosecutor.

    Trump faces several other criminal investigations, including one tied to the Jan. 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol. He is mounting a comeback bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Howard Goller)

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