Katie Rogers

“Yesterday, the Democrats voted to potentially nullify the votes of 63 million Americans,” Trump said, referring to the 2016 election, adding that Democratic lawmakers were “disgracing themselves and bringing shame among the House of Representatives.”

A day earlier, a sharply divided House voted to endorse an impeachment inquiry into the president, clearing the way for the public phase of the investigation. With House Republicans voting in lock step behind him, Trump emerged onstage as a one-man war room against accusations of abusing his power and betraying his oath of office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate political rivals.

In Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley and an industrial town in Mississippi’s northeast, Trump disparaged Democratic leaders as “mentally violent people” and mocked the testimonies of government officials who have told House impeachment investigators that he had held up aid to Ukraine for political reasons.

Trump insisted he withheld the money — $391 million — because of “corruption” and because he wanted European allies, including Germany and France, to do more to support Ukraine. His remarks moved him closer to comments made two weeks ago by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, who acknowledged that the aid was tied up over a political investigation and struggled to walk those comments back.

“I didn’t know his name until I looked down at the card,” Trump said of a July phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, that lies at the heart of the impeachment investigation. “He’s a nice guy. and hopefully he’s going to root out corruption.”

Aides who listened to the conversation remember things differently. Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman of the Army, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told investigators this week that he was so concerned that the president’s comments were an affront to U.S. interests that he reported them to a superior.

Still, throughout Friday, Trump raged against impeachment and defended his behavior. On Twitter, he took aim at Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam B. Schiff, who is leading the inquiry. Leaving Washington, Trump lingered by Marine One and offered yet another defense.

“The impeachment thing is a hoax,” he said. “You can’t impeach the president who did nothing wrong.”

On the way to Tupelo, Trump repeated his call for a government whistleblower, whose account of the president’s behavior in the July call forms the basis of the impeachment inquiry, to step forward.

“The Whistleblower must come forward to explain why his account of the phone call with the Ukrainian President was so inaccurate (fraudulent?)” Trump wrote on Twitter aboard Air Force One. “Why did the Whistleblower deal with corrupt politician Shifty Adam Schiff and/or his committee?”

Contrary to the president’s claim, there is an ample and growing amount of evidence to suggest that the whistleblower’s account is factual.

Trump’s visit to Tupelo was ostensibly meant to bolster Tate Reeves, the Republican lieutenant governor. Reeves is locked in a close race with Jim Hood, the Democratic attorney general, for the Mississippi governorship.

But earlier in the day, the particulars of the race — as well as its general location — seemed to escape the president. In a morning Twitter post, he wrote: “Louisiana, I’ll see you tonight. Big Rally for Eddie R. He will be a GREAT GOVERNOR. Early voting starts! @EddieRispone.”

The blooper was quickly deleted, though not before it caught the attention of Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democrat in the Mississippi congressional delegation. “Once again, 46-1 is showing his blatant ignorance. He doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing,” Thompson wrote on Twitter.

The mix-up appeared not to matter much in Mississippi, where local lawmakers primed the crowd on the main talking points of the night hours before the president arrived.

Phil Bryant, the staunchly conservative Republican governor of the state who in the spring signed into law a restrictive rule banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, told the crowd that Mississippi would remain a “ruby red” bastion after next Tuesday’s election.

In September, the president’s approval ratings in Mississippi was 13 points below where it was when he first took office, according to Morning Consult, a polling, media and technology company. Still, Bryant denounced both liberal and moderate political ideals in favor of the base politics that Trump has championed.

“A moderate is that yellow line in the middle of the road,” Bryant said, “where the opossums get run over.”

Other lawmakers at the rally focused on Trump’s recent victories. Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi emphasized the importance of the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.

“He hid behind babies!” Kelly exclaimed, referring to al-Baghdadi, who pulled several children into a tunnel with him before detonating a vest containing explosives. Kelly did not repeat Trump’s unverified tale that the terrorist died whimpering and crying.

“Look, you know, you’ve heard about him for a long time. I kept saying ‘Where is al-Baghdadi? That’s the one I want,’” Trump said, adding that al-Baghdadi “punched out his ticket to hell” and “spent his last miserable moments on earth cowering and trembling” as U.S. forces approached.

The president complained that he had gotten less attention than President Barack Obama had for the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

“Conan, the dog, got more publicity than me,” Trump said, referring to the dog used in the al-Baghdadi raid, before he momentarily brightened. “Conan’s coming to the White House in a few weeks.”

As Trump served his traditional red-meat recipe to the loudly cheering crowd, he returned to a punch list of potential 2020 rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, whom the president referred to repeatedly in his call with Zelenskiy.

“He’s gotten slower and slower,” Trump told the crowd. “I’m afraid if he gets the nomination, he’ll be so slow we’ll have the lowest rated debates in history.” Later, he seized on Biden’s slumping poll numbers: “He’s dropping like a rock, you know.”

Trump also crowed over the decision by former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke to withdraw from the 2020 race.

“Remember he made the statement he was born for this?” Trump said, nodding to O’Rourke’s early announcement. “Anybody who says they were born for this, they’re in trouble.”

This article originally appeared in

Trump Rails Against 'Delusional' Impeachment in First Rally Since House Vote

TUPELO, Miss. — President Donald Trump on Friday began road-testing his administration’s theory that he is his own best defense against quickly unfolding impeachment proceedings, accusing House Democrats of “plotting to overthrow the election since the moment I won” and targeting his usual lineup of lawmakers, journalists and “deep state” officials he said have conspired against him.

The president lashed out at the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, saying that the top Democrat in Congress “hates this country” and ridiculing her decision to begin an impeachment inquiry into his efforts to get foreign countries to dig up damaging information on his rivals.

To the delight of thousands who repeatedly roared their approval, Trump denounced the impeachment inquiry and condemned what he called the “unholy alliance of corrupt Democrat politicians, deep-state bureaucrats and the fake news media.”

“The radical Democrats’ policies are crazy. Their politicians are corrupt. Their candidates are terrible,” Trump said to huge applause. “And they know they can’t win on Election Day, so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid and unconstitutional bullshit impeachment.”

Regarding Pelosi, he said: “She hates the country. Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America, because she wouldn’t be doing this.”

Trump’s latest political rally came only a day after he appeared in front of supporters in Minneapolis to deliver a profanity-laced screed against former Vice President Joe Biden and called his younger son, Hunter, “a loser.” Trump only briefly returned to Washington, where an impeachment inquiry surrounding his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian president to uncover damaging information about the Bidens is rapidly moving forward.

In a head-spinning 24 hours before departing for Louisiana, Trump announced a preliminary deal with China that will forestall a tariff increase, and the Pentagon announced it would send additional troops to Saudi Arabia — a decision, Trump said before departing Washington, was made because the Saudis had “agreed to pay us for everything.”

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the president’s financial team must turn over eight years of Trump’s financial information to a House committee. Separately, judges in three states ruled against the administration’s efforts to withhold green cards from immigrants who receive public assistance.

And in a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill, Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, offered a scathing assessment of the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy, adding that she believed Trump had personally pushed for her removal for months.

Asked about Yovanovitch’s testimony before he left Washington, Trump said that Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, “didn’t speak favorably” about her during the July 25 phone call that has formed the basis of the impeachment inquiry.

Amid it all, Trump left again for the campaign trail, which he has long employed as a useful conduit for his most provocative language, particularly when he feels the confines of Washington closing in.

Upon landing, he announced the departure of Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, who had publicly expressed frustration with the job in recent weeks. Once the president took the stage in this southwestern corner of the state, he defended himself against those pursuing impeachment, singling out Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Schiff’s decision during a committee hearing to liken the president’s remarks in the July 25 call to a mobster issuing a veiled threat drew the president’s ire Friday, as it had for weeks.

“He made it up: It was fiction,” Trump said. “I don’t know, congressman, are you immune from something like that? That should be a crime.”

Throughout the rally, Trump seemed to abruptly switch emotional channels. He toggled between lashing out at Democrats to acting out an imagined back-and-forth between two former FBI officials, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, in order to mock them for exchanging unflattering text messages about Trump during his candidacy. He also paused at one point to interview Little League ballplayers about their pitching speeds.

Eventually, he circled back to his original purpose for the visit: testing his political influence over local races before Saturday’s primary election, largely following the same attack-style playbook he deployed last month in a close North Carolina race.

Earlier Friday, Trump urged his supporters to vote for one of two Republican candidates running to replace John Bel Edwards, the state’s Democratic governor.

At the rally, the president said that Edwards was “100% going to drop the Second Amendment” and sought to cast the centrist governor in the same light as other popular target at his rallies, including Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader.

Trump was joined by Edwards’ Republican challengers — Ralph Abraham, a third-term congressman, and Eddie Rispone, a Baton Rouge businessman — but did not endorse either. The goal Saturday, he said, was to keep Edwards from earning the majority of the vote and avoiding a runoff.

“I need you to send the radical Democrat establishment a loud and clear message,” Trump told the crowd. “You are going to fire your Democratic governor. He’s done a lousy job.”

Edwards remains the leader in the race, with recent polls showing that he is likely to draw about 47% of the vote.

Keeping with a tradition of Louisiana Democrats, Edwards is largely a centrist, and earlier this year pleased conservatives when he signed a restrictive law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

He is also practiced at the art of political survival in deep-red territories: Last year, he was the only Democratic lawmaker to attend the first state dinner of the Trump administration, an event that honored Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.

On Friday, the governor responded to the president on Twitter by defending his track record on the Second Amendment, and saying that he looked forward to working with Trump during his second term.

The particulars of the governor’s record — or any of the other more pressing news matters of the day — did not seem to concern Trump as he spoke for nearly an hour and a half.

As news broke that Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, was under investigation over whether he broke foreign lobbying laws in his work with Ukraine, the president was speaking about the importance of voter identification laws, and telling his supporters how much he loved them.

At Louisiana Rally, Trump Condemns Rivals and Critics as 'Unholy Alliance'

LAKE CHARLES, La. — President Donald Trump left a dizzying trail of developments behind him in Washington on Friday evening, swapping the confines of the capital for a fiery rally where he used foul language, fierce political attacks and personal grievances to light up his supporters for the second day in a row.

The president lashed out at the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, saying that the top Democrat in Congress “hates this country” and lashing out at her decision to begin an impeachment inquiry into his efforts to get foreign countries to dig up damaging information on his rivals.

“The radical Democrats’ policies are crazy. Their politicians are corrupt. Their candidates are terrible,” Trump said to huge applause. “And they know they can’t win on Election Day so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid and unconstitutional bullshit impeachment.”

Regarding Pelosi, he said, “I used to think she loved the country. She hates the country, because she wouldn’t be doing this to the country she did,” Trump said. “She hates the country. Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America, because she wouldn’t be doing this.”

Trump’s latest political rally came only a day after he appeared in front of supporters in Minneapolis to deliver a profanity-laced screed against former Vice President Joe Biden and called his son Hunter a “loser.” Trump only briefly returned to Washington, where an impeachment inquiry surrounding his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian president to uncover damaging information about the Bidens is rapidly moving forward.

In a head-spinning 24 hours before departing for Louisiana, Trump announced a preliminary deal with China that will forestall a tariff increase, and the Pentagon announced it would send additional troops to Saudi Arabia — a decision Trump said was made because the Saudis had “agreed to pay us for everything.” A federal appeals court also ruled Friday that the president’s financial team must turn over eight years of Trump’s financial information to a House committee.

Amid it all, Trump left again for the campaign trail, which he has long employed as a useful conduit for his most provocative language, particularly when he feels the confines of Washington closing in. After deciding to give a Louisiana-based Little League team an impromptu ride back home on Air Force One, he announced the departure of Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security who has publicly grown frustrated in recent weeks, from the road. And the president came to this southwestern corner of the state prepared to defend himself.

For days, he has also been dropping messages on Twitter meant to test his political influence over local races ahead of Saturday’s primary election, largely following the same attack-style playbook he deployed last month in a close North Carolina race.

On Friday, he urged his supporters to vote for one of two Republican candidates running to replace John Bel Edwards, the state’s Democratic governor. The president accused Edwards of a poor track record on cutting taxes and lowering car insurance costs, and said the governor “is suspect on your 2nd Amendment!”

At the rally, the president was not expected to endorse either of the Republican candidates — Ralph Abraham, a third-term congressman, and Eddie Rispone, a Baton Rouge businessman — with the goal of simply keeping Edwards from earning the majority of the vote and avoiding a runoff.

“Both Republicans can gang up on him to do that,” a Trump campaign official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to not describe internal deliberations.

At the rally, Trump directed his supporters to vote.

But Edwards is popular, with recent polls showing that he is likely to draw about 47% of the vote. Keeping with a tradition of Louisiana Democrats, he is largely a centrist and earlier this year pleased conservatives when he signed a restrictive law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

He is also practiced at the art of political survival in other deep-red territories: Last year, he was the only Democratic lawmaker to attend the first state dinner of the Trump administration, an event that honored Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.

On Friday, the governor responded to the president on Twitter by defending his track record on the Second Amendment and saying that he looked forward to working with Trump during his second term.

At Louisiana Rally, Trump Lashes Out at Democratic Opponents

LAKE CHARLES, La. — President Donald Trump used foul language, fierce political attacks and personal grievance to light up his supporters at a rally here Friday night, turning up the volume on his reelection campaign rhetoric for the second day in a row.

Trump said his administration “will never” ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to discourage the sale of conventional weapons to countries that do not protect human rights.

Although the accord was brokered by the United Nations and signed by President Barack Obama, it has never been ratified by the Senate. Experts in arms control note that the accord, even if ratified by the Senate, would not require the United States to alter any existing domestic laws or procedures governing how it sells conventional weapons overseas.

Still, Trump said his decision to sign a letter asking the Senate to send the treaty back to the White House “is a big, big factor,” calling the accord a “badly misguided” arrangement.

To supporters of the decision, making certain that the United States does not ratify the treaty is one more step toward deregulation that Trump has championed. In a call with reporters, a senior administration official said that a major factor in his decision was the lack of compliance with the treaty from other large conventional arms exporters, including China and Russia.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the United States had its own set of controls to ensure the appropriate sale of arms abroad, and added that the Trump administration opposed possible future amendments to the treaty up for consideration in 2020.

Critics see it as a concession to the gun lobby and another effort by the Trump administration to distance itself from multilateral diplomatic initiatives — from the nuclear deal with Iran to the Paris climate agreement — that advocates say are meant to make the world a safer place.

“The president’s action today is yet another mistaken step that threatens to make the world less safe, rather than more secure,” Thomas Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation and lead U.S. negotiator on the Arms Trade Treaty, said in a statement.

“It is sad, but to be expected, that this president opposes efforts to require other countries to meet the high standards of U.S. military export decisions,” Countryman said.

Trump’s move means that the United States would be in the company of countries like North Korea and Iran, which abstained from participation in the treaty, and leaving behind a group of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, including France and Germany, who signed on.

But in Indianapolis, the president’s announcement prompted a standing ovation, as did some of the other red-meat campaign rally topics.

Trump touted gains in the economy and railed against a “corrupt” news media. He also disparaged the special counsel investigation into his campaign that he said had been part of a coup attempt carried out at the highest levels of the government.

“They tried for a coup, didn’t work out so well,” Trump said. “Didn’t need a gun for that one, did I?”

The president’s speech delivered a much-appreciated shot in the arm to an organization besieged by inner turmoil. A group known for deploying steely messaging toward its enemies, the NRA — which billed itself as “freedom’s safest place” during its annual convention this year — fed attendees a steady diet of slogans to suggest that their beliefs, way of life and ability to protect themselves is at stake by Hollywood, politicians and the press.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence helped reinforce that idea in front of a stadium crowd as they took jabs at 2020 Democrats and the party’s most liberal factions.

“Under this president and this vice president,” Pence said, “no one is taking your guns.”

The NRA was hit with a rebuke for its lobbying tactics this month when the Democratic-controlled House approved a revamped Violence Against Women Act that would bar those convicted of abusing, assaulting or stalking a domestic partner from buying guns. Trump disparaged this and other legislative attempts as a move by Democrats to ensure that “bad guys” keep their guns.

The legislative setback played out as the NRA has endured scrutiny over desperate calls for fundraising and a rare dirty-laundry lawsuit. This month, the NRA sued the ad firm Ackerman McQueen, one of its closest contractors and the operator of its media arm and the NRATV channel, of mishandling $40 million that it and its affiliates receive annually from the association.

It has also been named in a lawsuit filed against the Federal Election Commission by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which has accused the group of abusing campaign finance laws to funnel money toward Trump and several other Republicans. (In a statement, the NRA called it a “lawsuit based on a frivolous complaint.”)

“There’s definitely some bad news, and the NRA internally is suffering from some major turmoil,” Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in the Second Amendment, said in an interview. “But there’s been some major success with Donald Trump.”

Members of the NRA’s 5-million-strong gun rights advocates who have supported Trump from his days as a long shot Republican presidential candidate, looked toward his visit as welcome fuel to continue battling well-funded gun control groups and Democrats in the House.

“The president is the most enthusiastic supporter of the Second Amendment that has occupied the White House in recent history,” Jennifer Baker, an NRA spokeswoman, said in an interview. “He has embraced the NRA, and the members, and the hundreds of millions of law-abiding gun owners of this country.”

Baker added that NRA members have been fervently pro-Trump since the beginning because they understood what was at risk. “Our members are pretty politically astute,” Baker said. “The Supreme Court was at stake, and in recent history we haven’t had a presidential nominee that was so unabashed and vocal about their support for the Second Amendment and our organization.”

In his public comments, the president has not always been the most reliable ally, and at times he has — at least momentarily — embraced the types of gun-control proposals favored by Democrats. In the days after a mass shooting at a Florida high school last year, the president encouraged lawmakers to stand up to the NRA, and suggested a policy of “take the guns first, go through due process second” for people thought to be mentally ill.

“They have great power over you people,” Trump told a group of lawmakers who gathered at the White House last February. “They have less power over me.”

Days later, the president retreated from those comments shortly after a private meeting with NRA leaders. He has since pushed for a ban on bump stocks — a modest move considered to be no great loss by the NRA — and suggested that the arming of teachers could make schools safer.

The Trump administration has largely decided to blame gun violence on access to mental health care over curbing access to guns. But according to a recent Reuters poll, the majority of Americans support tougher gun control laws, even if they have little faith that lawmakers will be able to pass them.

“After Parkland, President Trump said he’d support common-sense gun safety laws, but instead, his administration has simply recycled tired gun lobby rhetoric in attempt to juice slumping gun sales,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in a statement.

“The majority of Americans, including the majority of Republicans and gun owners, support common-sense gun laws,” Watts said. “It’s infuriating to watch the president and vice president continue to prioritize the gun lobby’s profits over the safety of the American people.”

Gun rights advocates say Trump has delivered in an area where many of them say it matters most: reordering the judiciary by appointing two Supreme Court justices.

In its next term, in October, the Supreme Court will take up its first Second Amendment case in nearly a decade when it reviews a New York City gun law that limits residents from transporting their guns outside their homes. It will be the first test of a court that has been reoriented with the Trump-era appointments of Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Neil M. Gorsuch.

“There was one moment when it looked like maybe the NRA had bet on the wrong horse” when the president began suggesting minor gun control measures, Winkler said. Under Trump, the group has not gotten its complete wish list accomplished, including congressional passage of a national reciprocity law — the right for concealed-carry permit holders from one state to legally carry their guns in any other state.

But the ideological shift occurring in courts across the country is more than enough, Winkler said.

“It’s not perfect,” Winkler said, “but it’s damn near close.”

On Friday, as he invited people onstage who used their firearms to help prevent mayhem and violence, the president announced that his administration would soon have appointed 145 federal judges — “fair, impartial and mostly conservative judges who will interpret the Constitution as written,” Trump said.

His efforts, Trump said, were second only to George Washington’s.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/politics/trump-national-rifle-association.html" id="e4640ad3-ae0e-3bbb-a8ec-63ee43f400cb">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Pulls Out of Arms Treaty During Speech at NRA Convention

In a speech to National Rifle Association members Friday that was part political rally and part pep talk, President Donald Trump called himself a champion of gun rights. Then he proved it, whipping out a pen onstage to sign a letter that would effectively cease America’s involvement in an arms treaty designed to regulate the international sale of conventional weapons.

A group known for deploying steely and dystopian messaging toward its enemies, the NRA saw its tactics fail this month when the Democratic-controlled House approved a revamped Violence Against Women Act that would bar those convicted of abusing, assaulting or stalking a domestic partner from buying guns.

The group has been subject to scrutiny over desperate calls for fundraising. It is embroiled in a rare dirty-laundry lawsuit, accusing one of its closest contractors, which operates its media arm and the NRATV channel, of financial malfeasance. It has also been named in a lawsuit filed against the Federal Election Commission by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which has accused the group of abusing campaign finance laws to funnel money toward Trump and several other Republicans. (In a statement, the NRA called it a “lawsuit based on a frivolous complaint.”)

Members of the 5-million-strong NRA, gun rights advocates who have supported Trump from his days as a long shot Republican presidential candidate, are looking toward his visit as welcome fuel to continue battling well-funded gun control groups and a Democratic-controlled House — essentially, reassurance that hands in Congress will stay tied as a judiciary remade by the Trump administration moves forward.

Baker added that NRA members have been fervently pro-Trump since the beginning because they understood what was at risk.

“Our members are pretty politically astute,” Baker said. “The Supreme Court was at stake, and in recent history we haven’t had a presidential nominee that was so unabashed and vocal about their support for the Second Amendment and our organization.”

There’s just one complicating factor: Privately, neither White House officials nor NRA organizers say they are completely sure what the president might say when he takes the stage Friday. It remains to be seen whether attendees will get a campaign, firebrand speech or one that focuses on issues important to gun rights advocates.

In his public comments, the president has not always been the most reliable ally, and at times he has — at least momentarily — embraced the types of gun-control proposals favored by Democrats. In the days after a mass shooting at a Florida high school last year, the president encouraged lawmakers to stand up to the NRA and suggested a policy of “take the guns first, go through due process second” for people thought to be mentally ill.

“They have great power over you people,” Trump told a group of lawmakers who gathered at the White House in February 2018. “They have less power over me.”

Days later, the president retreated from those comments shortly after a private meeting with NRA leaders. He has since pushed for a ban on bump stocks — a modest move considered to be no great loss by the NRA — and suggested that the arming of teachers could make schools safer. The Trump administration has largely decided to blame gun violence on access to mental health care over curbing access to guns, and the president has frequently targeted Democrats as the party most willing to rescind Second Amendment rights.

In his speech to the NRA convention last year, the president declared that the Second Amendment would not be “under siege” as long as he is in office. “I think we’ll hear him talk about the importance of that right and that empowerment” of the Second Amendment, Baker predicted about this year’s speech.

Gun control advocates question how far the president’s message will go.

“At the end of the day, what’s clear is that the NRA certainly isn’t thriving in the Trump years,” Igor Volsky, the executive director of Guns Down America, said in an interview. “What I think has become pretty clear is that the organization now has to talk to a smaller and smaller and smaller proportion of Americans.”

According to a recent Reuters poll, there is some truth to that logic. The majority of Americans support tougher gun control laws, even if they have little faith that lawmakers will be able to pass them. And gun rights advocates say Trump has delivered in an area where many of them say it matters most: reordering the judiciary by appointing two Supreme Court justices, in addition to more than 90 judges in lower courts.

INDIANAPOLIS — When President Donald Trump travels to Indiana on Friday to deliver remarks to the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, he will be reaffirming his commitment to an organization that could probably use a bit of a pep talk.

The NRA Has Its Share of Problems. Trump Is Not One of Them.

“Why are we talking about closing the border?” Mulvaney said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “Not to try and undo what’s happening, but simply to say, ‘look we need the people from the ports of entry to go out and patrol in the desert where we don’t have a wall.’”

Trump’s attempt to seal off the border by building a wall, and mulling the closure of ports to tamp down on immigration and drug smuggling, is at odds with a nagging reality: Smuggling activity largely comes through ports of entry, according to government data. And the president’s move to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador ignores a long-standing strategy touted by aid groups and military experts — including the president’s former chief of staff — that supporting those countries actually makes the border safer.

Still, Trump spent the past week emboldened by the results of his attorney general’s summary of a report by special counsel Robert Mueller that said that he and his campaign had not cooperated with the Russian government. The president immediately turned back to immigration.

“I’m not playing games,” he told reporters during a weekend in Florida, which followed a week spent berating the Democratic Party for what he called lax immigration laws, assailing countries he has accused of doing little to stop the flow of migrants traveling north, and disparaging individual travelers seeking asylum.

In the interview, Mulvaney criticized Jeh Johnson, who led the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, for saying in a recent interview that the situation at the border was “truly in a crisis.” In February, 76,000 migrants were apprehended crossing the border — an 11-year high — and the crossings are expected to increase again in March.

“We hate to say we told you so,” Mulvaney said. “We need border security, and we’re going to do the best we can with what we have.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/us/politics/trump-mulvaney-border-close-mexico.html" id="f0f0a5b5-e59b-388d-a289-8bd678ad2181">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Administration Defends Plan to Close the Border, Telling Democrats, 'We Told You So'

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, defended President Donald Trump’s threat to end assistance to three Central American countries and to close parts of the U.S. border with Mexico this week, saying on Sunday that it would take “something dramatic” to prevent Trump from carrying out that plan.

Still, Trump spent the past week emboldened by the results of his attorney general’s summary of a report by special counsel Robert Mueller that said that he and his campaign had not cooperated with the Russian government. The president immediately turned back to immigration as a red-meat issue for supporters before the 2020 election.

“I’m not playing games,” he told reporters during a weekend in Florida, which followed a week spent berating the Democratic Party for what he called lax immigration laws, assailing countries he has accused of doing little to stop the flow of migrants traveling north, and disparaging individual travelers seeking asylum as part of a “big fat con job.”

In the interview, Mulvaney criticized Jeh Johnson, who led the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, for saying in an interview last week that the situation at the border was “truly in a crisis.” In February, 76,000 migrants were apprehended crossing the border — an 11-year high — and the crossings are expected to increase again in March.

In recent weeks, Border Patrol facilities along the southwestern border have been strained to a breaking point by the largest influx of migrants in years. The numbers are growing, in part, because travelers are hoping to make the journey north before summertime. Officials in El Paso, Texas, resorted to creating a makeshift encampment under a bridge last week when the main border processing facility in the area was strained to 400 percent of its capacity.

A full or partial sealing of the border would effectively close off the United States from one of its largest trading partners, and it could leave American citizens who cross back and forth with a sluggish or potentially nonexistent system of returning to the United States. Trump will travel to Calexico, California, to tour the border on Friday.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement on Friday that she had asked volunteers to add more support at the border, and suggested that American citizens may encounter difficulty getting through as a result.

And by directing the State Department to revoke aid from the three Northern Triangle countries, Trump is seeking to punish those countries for what he says is a failure to stop migrant caravans from making their way north.

Leaders of those countries have said they are committed to solving the problem, despite what Trump has said. In 2017, the United States gave $420 million to Central American countries struggling with violence. According to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a nonprofit organization that supports diplomatic efforts of the United States, the Northern Triangle countries committed about 10 times that amount, or $5.4 billion, to improve conditions.

“American aid to Central America is not charity, but an investment in our national security,” Liz Schrayer, president of the coalition, said in a statement. “The idea of suspending the relatively small, but essential foreign assistance to the region will only exacerbate the root causes driving people to flee their homes — brutal violence, hunger and instability.”

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union,” who pointed out to him that experts within the president’s own administration have said aid money has helped curb violence in and migration from El Salvador, Mulvaney shrugged off the data from “career staffers” and said the money had not done enough.

“If we’re going to give these countries hundreds of millions of dollars, we would like them to do more,” he said. “If it’s working so well why are the people still coming?”

Mulvaney’s comments represent a rightward shift for an administration that has already taken a publicly hard-line stance on immigration. In May 2017, John F. Kelly, the president’s former chief of staff and former top officer of the military’s Southern Command, said during an Atlantic Council meeting that his experience showed him that partnering with Northern Triangle countries was key to securing the border.

“If we can improve the conditions — the lot of life of Hondurans, Guatemalans, Central Americans,” said Kelly, then speaking in his capacity as homeland security secretary, “we can do an awful lot to protect the southwest border.”

The threat to close the border is one that Trump has made and not followed through on before — he suggested closing it during the December government shutdown, and also earlier this week in accusing Central American governments of squandering U.S. aid. But he has not yet attached a short time frame to taking such a drastic measure.

“This would be so easy for Mexico to do,” Trump said in a string of Twitter posts. “Besides, we lose so much money with them, especially when you add in drug trafficking etc.), that the Border closing would be a good thing!”

The president has also attached this round of threats to increasingly harsher language about the thousands of people have tried to flee violence and poverty on their way to the United States.

The evening before Trump threatened to close the border, he appeared at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he went on an extensive and angry screed about immigration, calling the problem an “invasion” and referring to the plight of asylum-seekers as a “big fat con job.”

Trump’s comments about the border come just as the White House is shifting its efforts squarely over to winning 2020 voters. The administration has only a nascent plan for health care, a deciding issue for voters, but the issue of undocumented immigration has always been red meat for his base.

It was not clear which parts of the border the president would close if Trump is not satisfied with the actions that Mexico would take to tamp down on illegal border crossings.

Administration officials this week said the situation has become untenable. In a news conference in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of the federal Customs and Border Protection, said that an influx of migrants had reached a “breaking point.”

In February, there were 76,000 crossings at the border, which marked an 11-year high and signaled that the Trump administration’s harsher policies have not stopped the flow of people trying to enter the country.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/trump-mexico-illegal-immigration.html" id="d12dd95e-8d84-31db-ab73-f56f58741ed0">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Threatens to Close Mexican Border Next Week Over Immigration

LAKE OKEECHOBEE, Fla. — President Donald Trump on Friday called on Mexico to stop all illegal immigration, escalating a repeated threat by adding a timeline: Trump said he would close large swaths or all of the southern border as early as “next week” if the Mexican government did "immediately” stop all undocumented migrants.

But the Navy doctor who has been crucial to reinforcing that idea will be missing: Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, who mused about Trump’s “great genes” while delivering the results of last year’s physical, is no longer the White House physician. Taking his place Friday will be Dr. Sean Conley, the Navy officer who is now in the job Jackson vacated when Trump nominated him to be the secretary of Veterans Affairs last year.

That does not mean Jackson has left the president’s orbit.

Jackson returned to the White House medical unit after withdrawing from consideration for the Cabinet position when he became embroiled in a partisan battle over accusations of inappropriate workplace behavior. And last week, Trump promoted him to assistant to the president and chief White House medical adviser. He has also asked the Senate to promote Jackson, a rear admiral, to two-star admiral.

“In his new role as chief medical adviser, Dr. Jackson will transition from providing medical care to using his extensive medical expertise to provide technical policy advice to the executive branch,” said an administration official, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

The official said that Jackson would focus on veterans’ issues, the opioid crisis and operational health issues at the border, and that he would be working closely with the White House policy staff.

The second star may have to wait. Last summer, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General opened an investigation into Jackson’s career. Defense Department officials said this week that the investigation is likely to continue for several months, and according to Senate aides, the promotion is delayed until the inquiry is completed.

Jackson, who also oversaw President Barack Obama’s physicals and was part of the medical team involved in at least one of President George W. Bush’s checkups, will most likely have the support of Trump whatever the outcome of the Pentagon investigation.

In his former role as director of the White House medical unit, Jackson met frequently with Trump, winning the trust of a president who has shown no hesitancy to dispatch aides who have worked for other administrations. The pugilistic Trump has defended him ever since the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee postponed Jackson’s nomination hearing and started an investigation into his workplace behavior.

“I don’t want to put a man through a process like this,” Trump said just before Jackson withdrew his nomination. “The fact is, I wouldn’t do it. What does he need it for?”

Trump continued to plead Jackson’s case well into the midterm season last fall, reserving special ire for Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who had publicly detailed some of the accusations against Jackson.

When Jackson delivered his report on the president’s health last year, the White House was reeling from the publication of “Fire and Fury,” the book by Michael Wolff that described some of Trump’s advisers questioning his fitness for office.

Among the questions raised about the physical was whether the president would be given any tests devised to detect cognitive impairment. Trump did undergo such tests, Jackson said at the time, and received a perfect score.

Where he stood to improve, Jackson said, was in moderating his sedentary lifestyle and love of sweets. The two men discussed diet and exercise, and a goal was set for the president, who the White House said weighed in at 239 pounds, to lose 10 to 15 of them.

“He’s more enthusiastic about the diet part than the exercise part,” Jackson said, “but we’re going to do both.”

In the months after the physical, Trump, a lover of fast food, has made attempts to try lighter fare. Salads, roast chicken and grilled steak have been presented to the president during his lunches and dinners. But Trump, 72, has not demonstrated any changes to his fitness regime — when he plays a round of golf, one of his few hobbies requiring physical activity, he still relies heavily on golf carts.

Last year, cardiologists who did not treat the president said that Jackson’s glowing physical report belied what appeared to be looming health conditions. Several outside physicians noted alarmingly high cholesterol levels, even though Jackson disclosed that Trump was taking Crestor, a powerful drug used to lower cholesterol.

This year’s physical may reveal whether Trump’s cholesterol levels are lower, or whether fitness goals were achieved. But in any case, as with any other medical patient — and other presidents — what Trump ultimately reveals to the public about his health will be up to him.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/us/politics/donald-trump-health-physical.html" id="8c16f560-5ccb-3df7-ab6b-2fca30f9d659">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Will Have His Yearly Physical on Friday, Without Dr. Ronny Jackson

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is scheduled to undergo the second physical of his presidency Friday, an annual checkup for a commander in chief who has maintained that he is the picture of stamina.

Why not throw in a video of himself singing the theme song from the 1960s sitcom “Green Acres”?

The world may never know why, exactly, Trump chose to divert attention from the political chaos — just before turning the fire hose back on himself — by posting a video on Twitter of his performance at the 2005 Emmy Awards. That year, appearing onstage with the (slightly cringing) comedian Megan Mullally, Trump, dressed in overalls, huffed along to the song with some of the lyrics modified to squeeze in a reference to Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Maybe it was the president’s way of bringing some awkward levity to a day that will be remembered for a high-profile Cabinet departure and a looming government shutdown. Maybe it was the work of an overzealous social media producer. But it was most likely meant to boost the president as he celebrated the passage of a sweeping, $867 billion farm bill — a result of rare bipartisan compromise that critics say his administration is already seeking to undermine by using regulatory power to restrict access to food stamps.

Trump, a man of endless contradictions, did not explain why he decided to tweet the video to his 56 million followers as he unveiled the farm bill or to have the audio played as he entered the White House’s South Court Auditorium to sign the bill. When asked who was in charge of the tweet, a senior administration official claimed ignorance — that person said White House aides were trying to focus on the farm bill’s contents, presumably before moving on to the next thing.

Trump, who only a day earlier had tweeted a message declaring victory over the Islamic State and announcing the pullback of troops in Syria — a decision that would prove to have a grave effect on his relationship with Mattis — took the podium and, with the world on his shoulders, provided the background on the theme song performance.

“That was from the Emmys,” Trump said proudly as members of his administration greeted him with a round of applause. “I sang ‘Green Acres’ and received a very nice award that night.”

Actually, he didn’t win an award.

That evening, Trump won “Emmy Idol,” a spoof competition based on “American Idol,” for his performance with Mullally. In a 2016 appearance on “The Late Show,” she recalled the experience as a “dumb thing that they did on the Emmys” that allowed viewers to call in to vote for their favorite segment. She said Trump called her with his congratulations the next day.

“If he felt that way about ‘Emmy Idol,’” she said, “how do you think he felt about the presidential election?”

To be sure, there are other matters of consequence unfolding throughout this administration.

For starters, the farm bill the president mentioned along with his video is a major piece of legislation, one that will bring relief to farmers stung by harsh economic or weather conditions, and continue to allow for access to food stamps — known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — for Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. The fact that it managed to slip through a hyperpartisan Congress currently battling over whether or not to shut down the federal government was hailed as a positive, if slightly dissonant, development.

Before sending the video, the president hit back at both allies and critics over his decision to call back U.S. troops from Syria, a move that has been criticized as too abrupt and possibly destabilizing.

“Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East,” Trump tweeted into the ether, “getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing? Do we want to be there forever?”

It was a thought that Mattis echoed in his resignation letter: “Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world.”

Also present in Mattis’ letter were repeated references to respecting the country’s allies. It was about the only topic that did not show up on the president’s Twitter feed on Thursday.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/trump-megan-mullally-video-green-acres.html" id="efa63f10-6cfa-374e-a21d-ce2188341785">The New York Times</a>.

WASHINGTON — In two hours on Thursday, President Donald Trump publicly unveiled an expansive farm bill, railed against the dangers of illegal immigration, fought with Congress over funding for a border wall and announced the departure of Jim Mattis, his defense secretary, who is resigning over what he regards as the president’s ill-planned decision to pull back U.S. troops from Syria.

On an Eventful Day, Trump Tweets a Video of Himself Singing a Sitcom's Theme Song

During a rambling 45-minute speech that veered into matters of foreign policy and his anger over the special counsel’s report, Trump pushed for a measure that he said would be bipartisan, even as House Democrats — some of whom the president also attacked by name — took up legislation to fortify and improve the Affordable Care Act.

“We are determined to end surprise medical billing,” Trump said of the practice, which occurs when a doctor is unexpectedly not part of an insurance network. “We are going to hold insurance companies and hospitals totally accountable.”

The move to streamline billing costs amounts to a piecemeal effort by the president, who describes the Republican Party as the party of health care even though, in April, he decided to punt on providing a Republican answer to the Affordable Care Act. Trump backed off plans to introduce a Republican replacement for the law after Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, privately warned him that the Senate would not revisit health care in a comprehensive way before the 2020 elections.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was directing a bipartisan group of lawmakers to create legislation that would provide relief for people who are surprised by bills they receive from out-of-network health care providers after both emergency and scheduled medical visits.

Katie Rogers

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