On Politics A.M.: Ukraine Envoy Links Aid to Investigations

2019年10月23日星期三

October 23, 2019

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

In closed-door testimony, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, implicated President Trump personally in an effort to withhold security aid until Ukraine's leader agreed to investigate the president's political rivals. Here's more on the testimony and here are six takeaways.
Mr. Taylor not only provided House investigators the most damning account so far of Mr. Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to help incriminate his political rivals, he also laid out in stark terms the stakes involved for Ukraine, America and the world.

The House impeachment inquiry has revealed a freewheeling foreign policy led by a cadre of Mr. Trump's confidants. David Cornstein, the ambassador to Hungary, embodies that effort, spending $320,000 on parties and taking positions at odds with American policy.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday called the impeachment inquiry a "lynching," using a term associated with the murders of black people to describe a process enshrined in the Constitution — and igniting a furious backlash in turn.

The top echelon of Washington and Wall Street will return to an investment conference in Saudi Arabia next week, a year after American officials and prominent business leaders shunned the gathering amid the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist.

Party leaders who are fatalistic about Democrats' chances in 2020 are musing about possible late entrants to the race. Sherrod Brown? Michelle Obama?

More insurers will offer Obamacare plans next year and prices will fall, a sign of resiliency despite Mr. Trump's efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request from more than two dozen multinational energy companies to block a state court lawsuit brought by the city of Baltimore seeking to hold the companies accountable for their role in changing the earth's climate.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, joined picketing teachers in Chicago on Tuesday, as classes in the city school system, the country's third-largest, were canceled for a fourth day.
Representative Katie Hill, a first-term Democrat, denied reports that she had an affair with an aide. But she acknowledged that a nude photo of her was published on the internet without her consent.

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.