The United States and China have signed phase one of a trade deal that may help lower tensions between the world’s two largest economies. But as White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, much of the trade disputes between the two countries remain unresolved.
Day: January 15, 2020
The seventh Democratic presidential candidate debates took place Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa. The candidates were peppered with questions on a range of issues, including U.S. military action in Iran, health care and foreign policy.
Here are some comments from each of the seven candidates:
Former Vice President Joe Biden, called his 2002 vote to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Iraq a “mistake” but pivoted to his overall record. “I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to give the president the authority to go to war. … It was a mistake.” However, “I acknowledged that. I think my record overall on everything I’ve ever done, I’m prepared to compare it to anybody on this stage,” he said.
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said if elected, he would seek a three-year expiration date on legislation authorizing the use of U.S. military overseas. “When I am president, anytime, which I hope will never happen, but anytime I am compelled to use force and seek that authorization, we will have a three-year sunset, so that the American people are included, not only in the decision about whether to send troops, but whether to continue.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, responding to a question on foreign policy, said she would leave some U.S. combat troops in Iraq, saying, “I would leave some troops there, but not in the level that Donald Trump is taking us right now.” She added that, if elected, she would keep a small number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, performing counterterrorism and training duties.
Senator Bernie Sanders, in answering a question about making affordable child care a priority if elected president, said, “Hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. Tax breaks for billionaires and then tell moms and dads, we cannot have high-quality affordable child care. That is wrong.”
Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund manager and environmentalist, speaking about U.S. corporations’ affect on the health care system, said, “We’re spending way too much because corporations own the system. And we’re not negotiating against those corporations. And we’ve given tax cuts to the richest Americans and the biggest corporations for decades. That’s all this is. We have corporations who are having their way with the American people and people are suffering.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, in discussing whether Sanders made a comment about the electability of a woman as president, said, “The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy (Klobuchar) and me. And the only person who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me.”
Democratic presidential contenders clashed over a number of issues in their latest debate Tuesday, held less than three weeks before voters in Iowa head to the polls to kick off the 2020 primary season. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the debate held in Des Moines, Iowa, and sponsored by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper.
Iranian students have staged noisy rallies at four Tehran universities in a fourth day of protests against Iran’s Islamist rulers after they admitted to mistakenly shooting down a passenger jet full of Iranians.
Video clips obtained by VOA appeared to show dozens of students chanting anti-government slogans in Tuesday protests at Tehran University, Amirkabir University of Technology, Shahid Beheshti University and Tehran University of Art. VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of the clips.
There were no immediate reports of Iranian police action against any of the student demonstrations, which appeared to be peaceful.
Iranians in Tehran and other cities have been holding daily anti-government protests since officials admitted on Saturday that their forces shot down a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 shortly after it took off from Tehran on a flight to Kyiv on January 8. For three days, Iranian leaders insisted that mechanical problems likely caused the crash that killed all 176 people on board, until acknowledging that Iranian military personnel downed the plane after misidentifying it as an enemy threat.
The dead included 82 Iranians and 57 Canadians, many of them Iranian students with dual citizenship who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada to resume university studies after the winter break.
The pre-dawn crash happened hours after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq and was bracing for a U.S. counterstrike that never came. Iran’s missile attacks, which caused no casualties, were in retaliation for what the U.S. called a self-defensive strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
Western news agencies with journalists in Tehran said more than 200 anti-government protesters took part in Tuesday’s rally at Tehran University.
In one clip, students gathered in a large circle near the campus’ science faculty, chanting: “Resign, resign, incompetent officials,” and, “We cry out against so much injustice.”
In another clip, students assembled near the university’s medical school chanted, “Our state television is our disgrace.”
Iranian state TV network IRIB had broadcasted the government’s initial denials that Iran was responsible for the plane crash. Several presenters for the network have since resigned, in a reflection of public anger toward the erroneous denials.
Student supporters of the government also made their presence felt at Tehran University, holding a joint memorial for the victims of the plane crash and for Soleimani at the campus mosque. Images provided by Western news agencies showed some of the pro-government activists also burning American and British flags outside the mosque and chanting slogans vowing never to give in to Iran’s “enemies.”
A video that appeared to be from Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University showed students denouncing government officials who said they were mourning the plane crash while insisting it was not their fault. “If you are grieving, why have you waited for three days?” the students asked.
At Tehran University of Art, students appeared to be chanting, “Death to the liar”, and, “Our hands are bare, so put away your truncheons.”
Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholhossein Esmaili said authorities had detained 30 protesters since the anti-government demonstrations began late Saturday. Widely-circulated online video of Sunday’s protests in Tehran appeared to show people suffering the effects of tear gas fired by police.
Esmaili said authorities were treating the protesters with leniency.
Other video apparently filmed after nightfall Tuesday showed students at Amirkabir University denouncing Iranian security forces as “shameless”.
Earlier Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed to punish those responsible for the “unforgivable” downing of the Ukrainian plane. In a televised speech, he also called for a special court to be set up to handle prosecutions.
Esmaili, the judiciary spokesman, said some of those suspected of having a role in the plane shoot-down had been arrested, but did not say how many or identify them.
This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. VOA’s Extremism Watch Desk contributed.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday on whether to send the articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump to the Senate.
The measure in the Democratic-controlled House is certain to pass easily, opening the door for an impeachment trial to begin next week.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the announcement Tuesday after meeting with fellow Democrats, nearly a month after the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers — lawmakers who will act as prosecutors in a Senate trial.
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would run through “housekeeping measures” later this week. Those measures will include approving a set of rules, as well as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swearing in senators before opening arguments begin next week.
“We’ll deal with the witness issue at the appropriate time during the trial – both sides will want to call witnesses they want to hear from,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and that the president obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.
Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with Trump, as his administration temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.
Democrats have called for testimony from current and former Trump administration officials, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Republicans have countered by saying they will call their own witnesses including Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden had business dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was serving as vice president.
Democrats said late Tuesday they will include new evidence in the impeachment articles provided by Florida businessman Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
The evidence is expected to include a screenshot of a previously undisclosed letter Giuliani sent in May to the then President-elect, introducing himself as Trump’s “personal counsel” and requesting a meeting with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”
Parnas apparently played a part in the firing U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich who balked at Trump’s demand for an investigation of the Bidens.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and ridiculed Democrats’ impeachment efforts.
This is the third time in the country’s 244-year history a U.S. president has been impeached and targeted for removal from office.
Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were both impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 in the face of certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.
The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.
A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.
Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for the Ukrainian gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid in exchange for the investigations.
Six U.S. Democratic presidential candidates traded barbs with each other in a tense debate late Tuesday, attempting to make the case to voters in the farm state of Iowa that they alone have the political fortitude and skill to take on Republican President Donald Trump in the November national election.
With heightened world tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist, quickly attacked the foreign policy credentials of the party’s national front-runner for the presidential nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Sanders derided Biden’s 2002 vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq on what proved to be erroneous American intelligence that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, while Sanders opposed the the 2003 invasion.
He said Biden voted for the “worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country.”
Biden, who for years has said his Iraq vote was a mistake, countered that while he had erred, as former U.S. President Barack Obama’s second in command, he worked to bring home more than 150,000 U.S. troops once stationed in Iraq and to end the conflict.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said that she, as a candidate early in her political career, also opposed the Iraq invasion, while accusing Trump of “taking us pell-mell toward another war,” in the current conflict over the U.S. leader’s changing rationale for ordering a drone strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
A key challenger to both Biden and Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a one-time Harvard law professor, and others said they would move to bring thousands of U.S. troops home from the Middle East, at odds with Trump’s recent dispatch of more forces to the region. Warren said, “We have to stop this mindset that the answer” to world’s trouble spots is to send U.S. troops overseas. Asked whether she would leave some combat troops in the Middle East, she replied: “No, we have to get them out.”
Sanders said, “The American people are sick and tired of endless wars.”
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the only war-time veteran on the debate stage, said he could best serve as the country’s commander in chief, because “the lessons of the past are personal to me.” Wealthy environmentalist Tom Steyer contended that Trump “obviously has no strategy” in dealing with Iran and agreed with Biden that it would take the efforts of an international coalition to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
Tuesday’s debate stage had the fewest number of candidates since the face-to-face encounters began last June. It was also the first with all white contenders, after black, Latino and Asian candidates have either dropped out of the race for lack of voter support and campaign money or failed to qualify for the debate stage.
It was the seventh debate, but the last before Democrats in rural Iowa in the U.S. heartland cast the first votes in the party’s months-long nomination process, at night-time caucuses less than three weeks from now, on Feb. 3.
Contests in other states are just ahead on the political calendar. But Iowa, even though its predominantly white 3 million population is at odds with the increasingly racially diverse U.S. demographics, draws out-sized national attention because it is first in the once-every-four-years presidential sweepstakes.
Warren and Sanders sparred sharply over a private conversation they had more than a year ago in which Warren claims that Sanders questioned whether a woman can defeat Trump to become the first female U.S. president.
Sanders denied making the remark and said no one believes a woman can’t win, noting that Democrat Hillary Clinton out-polled Trump by nearly 3 million votes in 2016, while losing the vote in the country’s state-by-state electoral college system of electing presidents.
When she was asked what she thought when Sanders told her a woman couldn’t defeat Trump in 2020, Warren responded: “I disagreed.”
Warren said that the male candidates on the debate stage had collectively lost 10 elections during their lifetimes, while the two women, herself and Klobuchar, are undefeated.
Trump’s incumbent status means Republicans are sure to nominate him to seek a second four-year term in the White House. But the Democratic race is highly unsettled.
Biden, now in his third race for the party’s presidential nomination, leads national polls of Democratic voters, but possibly trails his Democratic opponents in Iowa and some other states. Should he falter early in the nominating process, that could dent his key campaign argument that according to national polls he stands the best chance of defeating Trump.
Last weekend’s Iowa Poll indicates Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has surged to a narrow lead, with 20% support of those who say they will attend a caucus in three weeks. Warren, a progressive representing Massachusetts, is second at 17%, ahead of Buttigieg, who has fashioned himself as a political centrist, at 16%, and Biden, a left-of-center politician through nearly five decades in Washington, at 15%. But more than half of those polled said they could still decide to support a candidate other than the one they now prefer or have yet to make up their mind.
A separate Monmouth University poll showed a similar close contest among the four leaders, but with Biden ahead followed by Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren.
Klobuchar and Steyer both trail the four leaders in the pre-election Iowa polling, but qualified for the debate stage by meeting the polling and fundraising standards set by the national Democratic Party. Other Democratic candidates remain in a crowded field of presidential aspirants, but are not campaigning in Iowa, did not make the cut for the debate or have dropped out, including Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey who left the race on Monday.
Trump has taken note of Sanders’s recent ascent in opinion polls, saying in a Twitter comment over the weekend, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!”
Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
For months Trump had focused singularly on Biden, with occasional barbs against Warren and Buttigieg, as his mostly likely 2020 opponent, to the extent that his concern about Biden is at the center of the impeachment case against Trump. The president’s impeachment trial in the Senate trial is likely to start next Tuesday, only the third such impeachment trial in two and a half centuries of American history.
Trump is accused of trying to benefit himself politically by pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a late July phone call to launch an investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to undermine Trump’s campaign. His requests came at the same time he was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Trump eventually released the money in September without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations. That is proof, Republicans say, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal, the military aid in exchange for the Biden investigations.
Three of the leading Democratic challengers — Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar — could be directly affected by Trump’s impeachment trial since they will be among the 100 members of the Senate, effectively sitting as jurors, deciding Trump’s fate. That will keep them in Washington six days a week while the trial is going on, and importantly for them, off the campaign trail in Iowa to meet voters.
With a Republican majority in the Senate, Trump is all but assured of being acquitted and allowed to remain in office to face voters in November. But a full-blown trial, if witnesses are called to testify as Democrats and some Republicans want, could infuse unexpected new information about Trump and perhaps Biden into the last weeks of the Iowa contest.