Trump made a statement intended to end the debate of the Khashoggi murder: “We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Here is how the New York Times described the official statement: “In 633 words, punctuated by eight exclamation points and written in an impolitic style that sounded like Mr. Trump’s off-the-cuff observations, the statement was a stark distillation of the Trump worldview: remorselessly transactional, heedless of the facts, determined to put America’s interests first, and founded on a theory of moral equivalence.”
Here is the full text of Trump’s statement, with key excerpts below:
- “After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors.”
- “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
- “Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that.”
- “After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels – so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!”
Just Security blog writes that the Magnitsky act requires the president to determine if the murder took place, and give Congress a formal intention to levy sanctions or not. Trump has not yet publicly done these things, though he may do them in a classified manner.
Instead of visiting troops for Thanksgiving he teleconferenced with them from Mara-Lago. Here is what he talked about.
On Friday the federal government released its congressionally required report of 13 federal agencies assessment on climate change. The report paints a dire future with widespread national impacts that “could slash up to a tenth of gross domestic product by 2100, more than double the losses of the Great Recession a decade ago.” The report is sure to be used in the courts to support laws designed to combat climate change.
Now that most of the midterm votes have been tallied, news outlets are drawing up their conclusions. Turnout was historically high with 49.4% of eligible voters actually voting, and nearly 60 million of those votes went to the Democrats, which is another anomaly because thats about the same number of votes that Trump won in 2016. The Washington Post writes that turnout was high for both sides because Trump successfully made the midterms all about him this energizing his base as well as the Democratic base. But this was and will continue to be a liability because as Nate Silver writes, Trump’s base is much smaller and won’t be enough for him to win reelection unless he expands it.
Immigration News:
A federal judge has struck down Trump’s order to block asylum to people who cross the border between ports of entry.
After Trump criticized the Ninth Circuit judge as an “Obama Judge” the AP sought a comment from John Roberts. Breaking his previous silence about Trump’s attack on the judiciary, Roberts gave a response this time: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
Trump signed an order allowing troops at the border to use lethal force to protect border patrol agents. Kelly and Nielsen were opposed, and a cabinet fight ensued until the two came around to supporting the order. Mattis seemed to be caught off guard by the order and did not immediately embrace it.
In Russia News:
The White House is saying they have submitted their answers to Mueller’s questions.
The Mueller team said in court this week that the Whitaker appointment cannot retroactively affect DOJ actions taken before Whitaker’s appointment; that Muller still has the power of a U.S. attorney. We also learned that any sealed indictments cannot be overturned by Whitaker.
In the Spring of 2018 Trump ordered McGahn to tell DOJ to investigate Hillary Clinton and Comey. McGahn in turn had a memo drafted that explained why the White House could not make such a request.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.9%