On Politics A.M.: Trump Rebuffed Advisers Over Ukraine Aid

2019年10月31日星期四

October 31, 2019

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

According to closed-door testimony in the impeachment hearings this week by Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, President Trump's top three national security advisers sought to persuade him in August to sign a memorandum restarting aid to Ukraine, but he refused.
The deputy secretary of state said on Wednesday that the president's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was involved in a smear campaign to oust the ambassador to Ukraine, publicly confirming a key part of the saga behind the impeachment inquiry.

Robert Livingston, a former Republican congressman turned lobbyist, repeatedly told a Foreign Service officer assigned to the White House that the American ambassador to Ukraine should be fired because of her association with Democrats.

House Democrats, who for weeks resisted a formal floor vote on their impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump, have united decisively behind the idea, a striking shift that reflects their growing confidence in the public's support.
Digressions. Mix-ups. Mistakes. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has a choppy speaking style that could undermine his message at a time when he needs to attract more voters and donors.

Senator Kamala Harris took her most drastic action yet to salvage her once-promising presidential bid: laying off an undisclosed number of staff members at the campaign's headquarters and redeploying others to Iowa, where she hopes to slingshot her campaign.
A coming purge of Georgia's voter rolls has raised alarms among advocacy groups, many of which see the issue of who gets to cast a ballot as re-emerging, particularly in battleground states in next year's election.

In a stark contrast to Facebook, which has faced blowback for taking a hands-off approach to political advertising, Jack Dorsey, Twitter's chief executive, said that the social media service plans to ban political ads on its platform.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Wednesday for the third time in 2019, reversing nearly all of last year's rate increases as uncertainty from Mr. Trump's trade war and slowing global growth continue to influence the central bank's decision-making.

While waves of American troops are pulling out of Syria under Mr. Trump's order earlier this month that paved the way for a Turkish offensive against Kurds there, a separate wave of American troops from the opposite direction is pouring back in.

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

Is there anything you think we're missing? Anything you want to see more of? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.