On Politics A.M.: Turkey’s President Wants Nuclear Weapons

2019年10月21日星期一

October 21, 2019

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

Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants more than control over a wide swath of Syria along his country's border. He says he wants a nuclear bomb, and that he can't accept the West's restrictions that keep him from it.
President Trump is leaning in favor of keeping a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, an apparent attempt to balance competing impulses: bringing troops home while ensuring that efforts to contain ISIS will continue.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan delegation to meet the Jordanian king to discuss the Turkish incursion into Syria and other regional challenges, amid uncertainty about whether an American-brokered cease-fire with Turkey in northern Syria was holding.

The acting White House chief of staff tried again on Sunday to back off assertions he made to reporters last week that the Trump administration had held up an aid package to Ukraine because the president wanted the country to investigate Democrats.

The Justice Department distanced itself from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, on Sunday when a spokesman declared that department officials would not have met with Mr. Giuliani to discuss one of his clients had they known that federal prosecutors in New York were investigating two of his associates.

Mr. Trump shared an update on Sunday from his defense secretary that outlined "minor skirmishes" between Turkish and Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. The problem was that he got his defense secretary's name wrong in a tweet.

After hearing concerns from Democrats, Republicans and even some White House officials about holding next year's Group of 7 gathering of nations at his private club in Miami, the Doral, Mr. Trump said that he was going to reverse course.

The Democratic establishment is anxious about the party's chances in 2020 and is musing about possible late entrants to the race. Michael Bloomberg? Michelle Obama? Who could be lured in?

Senator Elizabeth Warren had been criticized for sidestepping questions about whether she would raise taxes on the middle class to help finance her "Medicare for all" plan. She's finally releasing details.