On Politics A.M.: Trump Denounces ‘Impeachment Crusade’

In an angry letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Trump asserted that he had done nothing wrong.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story December 18, 2019

Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics, with the House planning to vote on two articles of impeachment today.

In a six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Trump angrily denounced the impeachment inquiry, describing the effort to remove him from office as an “attempted coup” that would come back to haunt Democrats at the ballot box next year. With distinct and opposing views — but far less grandstanding than in Washington — the battle over impeachment is playing out from block to block, house to house and even across shared dinner tables.

Democrats running for Congress have faced a barrage of anti-impeachment attack ads from the Republican National Committee and Republican groups aligned with Mr. Trump. Democratic groups are not fighting back directly, focusing on health care instead.

In a rare public order, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court responded to problems with the monitoring of a former Trump campaign aide uncovered by an inspector general.

The House took the first step to avoiding a government shutdown Tuesday by approving two spending packages allocating $1.4 trillion and carrying dozens of priorities, such as raising the tobacco purchase age nationally to 21. Brewers, distillers, racehorse owners, churches with parking lots and some wind energy producers won federal tax breaks in the congressional agreement on taxes and spending that was unveiled Tuesday morning.

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to pass a bipartisan $738 billion defense policy bill. The enormous defense bill, one of the most expensive in the nation’s history, contains a litany of bipartisan rebukes to Russia, Turkey and China.

Most trade agreements have been known for breaking down economic barriers between nations. Mr. Trump’s trade deals are likely to be remembered for putting them in place. His China and North American trade pacts reverse a trend of opening markets that was decades in the making.

China and Myanmar’s treatment of Muslims has been condemned by the State Department. But American diplomats have offered only muted public criticism of India’s moves against Muslims, wary of alienating even an unpredictable ally as the United States confronts China and Russia in the Indo-Pacific region.

The next Democratic presidential debate will go on as scheduled Thursday, after negotiators reached an agreement in a labor dispute that had threatened to upend the event. It highlights organized labor’s influence with the leading Democratic candidates.

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

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