On Politics: Revisiting the Case for Reparations

2019年6月20日星期四

On Politics: Revisiting the Case for Reparations

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June 20, 2019

Morning Edition

Good Thursday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

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• The House waded into the debate over reparations for African-Americans on Wednesday, convening its first hearing on legislation introduced 30 years ago. The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, testifying before the committee, called out Senator Mitch McConnell for saying he was opposed to compensation “for something that happened 150 years ago.”

• Joe Biden, under attack from fellow Democrats for fondly recalling his working relationships with two segregationist senators in the 1970s, lashed out at his rivals and declined to apologize. The angry exchange shattered the relative peace that had marked the Democratic presidential primary.

• Mayor Pete Buttigieg took a third day off from the campaign trail on Wednesday to confront a crisis over the fatal police shooting of a black resident of South Bend, Ind. Mr. Buttigieg said he was “extremely frustrated” that the white officer’s body camera was switched off at the time.

• President Trump raised $24.8 million dollars in the 24 hours after kicking off his re-election campaign. That’s more than five leading Democrats raised in their first day — combined.

• The president revels in his friendships with the leaders of China and North Korea, but can seem jealous — like an estranged third wheel — when the two spend time with each other and don’t include him.

• The Trump administration is telling Congress about what it says are alarming ties between Iran and Al Qaeda, prompting skeptical reactions and concern on the Hill. Some lawmakers fear that the briefings are an attempt to provide legal cover for a military strike, echoing the Iraq war.

• Pressed at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing whether the Trump administration thinks a nearly 18-year-old law approving a war over the Sept. 11 attacks could be used for military action against Iran, a senior state department official was coy, saying that “we will comply with the law.” The official didn’t specify what “the law” could be.

• The acting director of Immigration and Custom said that agents would begin to target more than 2,000 immigrant families with deportation orders in the coming weeks, as part of the Trump administration’s latest attempt to deter the unprecedented migration of Central Americans.

• The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill to send $4.6 billion in additional aid to the border, where federal agencies warn that they’ll run out of money to house Central American immigrants.

• House Democrats took their first shot on Wednesday at questioning a key figure from Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice: Hope Hicks, one of the president’s former aides. They were not entirely happy with her responses.

• The White House clashed Wednesday with Democratic congressional leaders over the terms of a broad spending agreement to head off deep cuts across the government and a default on the federal debt, plunging the fiscal talks deeper into stalemate with a series of pivotal deadlines looming.

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Today’s On Politics briefing was compiled by Isabella Grullón Paz in New York.

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