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Deportation fears grip immigrants after Trump’s election

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An Immigration activist holds a sign rallying against raids on undocumented immigrants in New York January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton - RTX21KO1

An immigration activist holds a sign rallying against raids on undocumented immigrants in New York on Jan. 8, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton – RTX21KO1

PHOENIX — President-elect Donald Trump launched his candidacy on an anti-immigrant sentiment and has vowed to repeal a key Obama administration program that shields hundreds of thousands of people from deportation.

Now, many immigrants in the country illegally, or with relatives who are, fear deportation and separation from their families.

In immigrant-heavy areas like Los Angeles and Phoenix, activists are scrambling to provide informational meetings for immigrants to help them protect themselves from deportation. Others want legal immigrants to apply for citizenship so they can eventually obtain legal status for relatives.

“The more we can naturalize people and stabilize our families and root our communities the better,” said Julio Perez, executive director of California’s Orange County Labor Federation, which is sponsoring naturalization events in response to the election.

Here are stories from some immigrants who fear what a Trump presidency could bring:

WORKING NOW BUT FEARING DEPORTATION

Karina Ruiz, 32, is one of 741,000 immigrants benefiting from the program launched by President Barack Obama called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

It allows young adults to get work permits, Social Security numbers and protects them from deportation.

The Phoenix mother of three says deferred action allowed her to work and graduate with a biochemistry degree from Arizona State University in 2015. She hopes to be a pharmacist one day.

But Trump has promised to end deferred action, and Ruiz fears she could be sent to Mexico and separated from her U.S.-born children.

“I’m not giving up DACA so easily, not going down without a fight,” Ruiz said.

WORRIED PARENTS WILL BE SENT TO MEXICO

Michael Nazario, a 27-year-old community activist from Phoenix, is shielded by deferred action and married to an American citizen, which should allow him to get permanent residency soon.

He came to the U.S. with his parents illegally when he was 3 and didn’t find out about his legal status until he tried to enlist in the Marine Corps and could not do so without a Social Security card.

All four of Nazario’s siblings were born in the U.S., and his parents would probably have been eligible to stay under an expansion of Obama’s program called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. But the program was challenged in court and never went into effect. Trump also opposes it.

Nazario said a grass-roots effort to make sure the program stays in place is now necessary to ensure his parents can stay in Phoenix.

“I feel bothered by this election but it only inspires me to just keep going forward because what’s at stake is not only my deferred action but my family as well, my father, my mother and the 11 million immigrants all across the country,” Nazario said.

ASPIRING LAWYER FEARS DEPORTATION TO SOUTH KOREA

Matt Lee’s parents brought him on a tourist visa to Southern California from South Korea when he was 13. Now 25, he has a college biology degree and wants to attend law school so he can become a patent lawyer.

He was among the first to apply for the deferred-action program and now works legally, helping other South Koreans fill out immigration forms.

But his dreams of becoming a lawyer are clouded by Trump’s vow to get rid of the program.

Other young immigrants have told him they fear they will be tracked down for deportation because the federal government has their names and addresses, courtesy of their deferred-action applications. One mother said she is pulling her daughter out of a study abroad program in China to get the daughter back into the U.S. before Trump takes office, Lee said.

“People are not sure if Trump will definitely carry out what he said because it is a crazy idea,” he said. “Now the crazy idea of him being elected — that happened. Nothing is certain.”

NO GREEN CARD WITHOUT A RETURN TO MEXICO

Dora Rodriguez has lived in the U.S. illegally for 27 years but has still managed to raise her two U.S.-born children and work at a money transfer business in Santa Ana, California. More than 75 percent of the city’s residents are Latino, and nearly half of them were born abroad.

Rodriguez said her daughter is now an adult, and could sponsor Rodriguez for permanent residency.

But Rodriguez, in her 40s, would have to return to Mexico to apply and risk staying there for years to get her papers, leaving behind her teenage son in the U.S.

She remembers anti-immigration sentiment in the 1990s in California but that didn’t get her deported. She said she doubted much would end up changing under a Trump presidency.

“When (former California Gov.) Pete Wilson was here, I heard the same … and nothing happened,” she said.

AVOIDING POLICE TO AVOID DEPORTATION

Alicia Ramirez, in the U.S. for three decades, doesn’t think Trump will be able to target immigrants like her but says she’s going to start taking extra precautions soon just to make sure she can stay in Santa Ana.

Ramirez, who is in the country illegally and hands out restaurant fliers on a street lined with money transfer businesses and tamale vendors, said avoiding run-ins with law enforcement officers will be key.

That’s more challenging for her and others handing out fliers on the streets than the immigrants working inside offices lining the strip.

“We’re afraid,” Ramirez said of Trump. “We’ve got to be careful because the smallest mistake, he’s going to kick us out.”

Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California.

The post Deportation fears grip immigrants after Trump’s election appeared first on PBS NewsHour.


Sister’s worry over another deployment inspires this Veterans Day poem

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Gretchen Marquette's debut collection of poetry is called "May Day" by Graywolf Press.

Gretchen Marquette’s debut collection of poetry is called “May Day” by Graywolf Press.

Gretchen Marquette says she remembers very clearly when she wrote the poem. Her younger brother had called the night before to tell her he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan, just months after he had returned from Iraq. She said news of a new deployment devastated her.

“It was very difficult for me to think of him being in peril — his body and his mind being in peril. But also to think that he would be asked to do things that were contrary to his nature.”

“People say nice things like ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ But you don’t know he’ll be fine. That’s the rub. To sit with that kind of worry for so long is really damaging.”

Marquette says her brother has always been a gentle, generous soul. When he gave her his old iPod, she was surprised to see that he repeatedly listened to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and some love songs while he was deployed.

“My brother is six years younger than I am and was 12 when I left home. So he is still a boy to me. Yet now he’s in these foreign countries with a gun across his back. That’s just not who my brother is.”

Poet Gretchen Marquette with her brother. Photo courtesy the author.

Poet Gretchen Marquette with her brother. Photo courtesy the author.

Marquette comes from a family who has long served in the military. Her grandmother was in the women’s Marine Corps during World War II and her father was in the Army during the Vietnam War. She says people who don’t have family members in the military don’t really understand the anxiety that is experienced by the loved ones at home.

“There’s this weight on you and nothing you can do. There’s no guarantee they’ll be safe. People say nice things like ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ But you don’t know he’ll be fine. That’s the rub. To sit with that kind of worry for so long is really damaging.”

Read next: How a WWII pilot explained the quiet moments after an enemy attack

“Boy” is one of several poems that Marquette wrote about her brother’s deployment in her debut collection, “May Day,” which was just published by Graywolf Press. When she goes to poetry readings, she says those are the poems that most people respond to.

“There’s no real resolution in the book so many people come up to me and ask, ‘Did your brother make it home?’ It’s as if they need to know before they can go home. I’m happy to report that my brother did make it home safely, but I still have anxiety that he could be deployed again.”

Boy

Last night the phone rang.
My brother said, Afghanistan. December.
He hadn’t begun to tell us about Iraq yet.
Let’s not dwell on it, he said,
meaning Afghanistan.

My brother sent pictures last year,
from Iraq–mostly of himself
petting stray dogs, though in one photo
his eye looks bruised.

I had to accept: a weapon moves
through another country
on the back of my brother,
whose head is full of glum
love songs.

It wasn’t just the heat, it was
the aridity. I’m trying to plant some grass,
he said. Something green. We sent it
across the ocean as seeds. It’s so
dry here,
he said. I can’t explain.

As kids we spent summers
in lakes, in rivers, in pools.
My brother was first to dive,
no matter how cold the water.
No one flinched if it took time
for him to surface. We trusted
his body’s ascension,
that before long, we’d see
his ecstatic face.

“Boy” © 2016 by Gretchen Marquette. Reprinted from May Day: Poems with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.


Gretchen Marquette has published poems in Harper’s and Paris Review. She has served as the assistant poetry editor for Water Stone Review, and as a first reader for the National Poetry Series. Marquette was a 2014 recipient of a Minnesota Emerging Writer Grant from the Loft Literary Center. “May Day” is her first collection of poetry. She lives and teaches in Minneapolis.

The post Sister’s worry over another deployment inspires this Veterans Day poem appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Obama urges nation to ‘forge unity’ after bitter election

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ARLINGTON, Va. — Three days after Election Day, President Barack Obama used his last Veterans Day speech to urge Americans to learn from the example of veterans as a divided nation seeks to “forge unity” after the bitter 2016 campaign.

Obama, in remarks at Arlington National Cemetery, noted that Veterans Day often comes on the heels of hard-fought campaigns that “lay bare disagreements across our nation.”

“But the American instinct has never been to find isolation in opposite corners,” Obama said. “It is to find strength in our common creed, to forge unity from our great diversity, to maintain that strength and unity even when it is hard.”

He added that now that the election is over, “as we search for ways to come together, to reconnect with one another and with the principles that are more enduring than transitory politics, some of our best examples are the men and women we salute on Veterans Day.”

Tuesday’s election of Republican Donald Trump led to protests across the country.

Obama noted that the U.S. military is the country’s most diverse institution, comprised of immigrants and native-born service members representing all religions and no religion. He says they are all “forged into common service.”

Obama, with just two months left in his term, also took note of how he’s aged in office over the past eight years.

He read excerpts from an essay by a middle-schooler who wrote that veterans are special because they will defend people regardless of their race, gender, hair color or other differences.

“After eight years in office, I particularly appreciate that he included hair color,” Obama quipped.

Before speaking, Obama paid tribute to veterans by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He bowed his head in silent tribute before a bugler played taps.

Obama also held a breakfast reception at the White House with veterans and their families on his final Veterans Day as commander in chief.

The post Obama urges nation to ‘forge unity’ after bitter election appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Column: An old idea that could have helped pollsters

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Voters cast their votes during the U.S. presidential election in Elyria, Ohio, U.S. November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk - RTX2SM7I

Americans cast their votes during the U.S. presidential election in Elyria, Ohio. Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters

The failure of almost all the public opinion polls to correctly predict the winner in the 2016 presidential election is disturbing and perplexing. But it provides an opportunity to look at an alternative method of polling that has worked in the past, and that I took part in as a graduate student in Columbia University half a century ago.

This time around, the pre-election Monday morning quarterbacking regarding the almost universal predictions that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency by anywhere from 3 to 6 percent points the finger at the usual suspects: people using cell phones, their refusal to talk to pollsters, the difficulty of making contact with young people or people without phones, the inability to predict who is a likely voter and who is not.

READ MORE: How the mainstream media missed Trump’s momentum

Pollsters – and there are now many of them – have been talking about these difficulties for several years, and they are real. Some argue they missed this election by just three points – an acceptable margin of error. But they missed it, and almost all in the same direction. They didn’t pick up what was a very angry, very fed-up, mostly white electorate. They had a hard time quantifying the willingness of some voters, including women, to ignore statements or behavior that could be outrageous and vote for him anyway.

In the primaries, the polls completely missed the Donald Trump phenomenon; nobody took him seriously or gave him a chance to beat the big Republican field. In a speech a few months ago, Stanford University political scientist Bruce Cain said that it was baffling and disturbing how ignorant the polls were of Trump’s appeal. Somehow it slipped by them, didn’t register in their samples. Even if the general public and the media didn’t take Trump seriously, you might have thought some opinion polls would have picked up his growing popularity or potential.

Perhaps the real problem is that polling these days is done in a pseudo-scientific way, by modeling the electorate and trying to get a sample that matches the voters. Then the people working for the pollsters make their phone calls and read a script and a series of questions that can be tallied mathematically and then projected by technological whiz-kids into a picture of how the electorate will react. Do any of those phone jockeys or those highly touted polling experts ever get out in the country and meet the voters?

I did. And so did my boss, the esteemed Samuel Lubell, a writer and public opinion analyst who analyzed Harry Truman’s surprising defeat of Thomas Dewey in 1948 for the Saturday Evening Post. Lubell, who taught public opinion reporting at Columbia, pioneered a technique that started by looking closely at election results in individual neighborhoods, and looking at the demographics of that area. But then – with a solid statistical base –he would select towns and streets to do his on-the-ground research. He would go to those areas and talk to the voters in person, and he had me do the same thing.

I would take weekends off from my studies and trek through the streets of carefully chosen towns on Long Island or in Queens or New Jersey, ringing doorbells at random, or striking up conversations with people out watering the lawn or washing their cars. I wouldn’t take notes; that, Lubell said, interfered with the conversation. We would just talk, with me asking a few key questions including how they voted the last couple of presidential elections. The conversation might go on for half an hour.

Then, I’d go down the block and lean against a telephone poll or sit on the curb, and write my notes: How old was the person? How did he vote in the past few elections? (We had a simple code for that.) What troubled him? What did he think about the issues of the day? What religion was he or she? (Did it bother him or her that John Kennedy was a Catholic?) Anything I could remember from the conversation, including quotes that would illustrate his opinions. On a good day, I might talk to as few as eight voters. But they were serious, in depth conversations.

Then I’d give my notes to Lubell, who would use them, not just to form a profile of the neighborhood or the precinct and fit it into a statewide or national pattern, but to get a pulse on the public. He would use the quotes we gathered to illustrate his conclusions and observations, in writing his syndicated column about the coming election.

In his highly praised book “The Future of American Politics” (Harper & Bros, 1951), he wrote “I have used election returns as tracer material, akin to radioactive isotopes, through which the major voting streams and trends in the country could be isolated and followed…from election to election.” He gobbled up census data and economic, religious, cultural and political characteristics, and then he did what few pollsters do today: “I spent many months traveling through the country, visiting strategic voting areas and talking firsthand to voters in every walk of life. “

His predictions for elections were invariably accurate, and his analysis of elections were insightful and on target.

When Lubell died in 1987, The New York Times quoted Richard Scammon, director of the Election Research Center: “He was a political pollster in a personal way in that he stopped pontificating and went door to door. He had a real feel for people and made a great contribution.”

I have a feeling that Sam Lubell would not have missed the Trump ascendancy in the primary season, and that he would have discerned the groundswell for him as he battled Clinton. What went on in the election was subtle and perhaps hidden; did people want to trust a telephone-based pollster whom they couldn’t see with their hopes and fears? How can a questionnaire recited from a phone bank penetrate a troubled potential voter?

Maybe today’s head-scratching pollsters should look at the work of Sam Lubell, get out of their offices and hit the neighborhoods.

The post Column: An old idea that could have helped pollsters appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Departing Senate Minority Leader Reid lashes out at Trump

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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced he will not seek re-election in 2016. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Trump “fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.” Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Departing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lashed out at Donald Trump on Friday as “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.”

The Nevada Democrat said in a statement that “If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.”

Reid said white nationalists, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Islamic State extremist group are celebrating Trump’s election, “while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear.” That “does not feel like America,” Reid said.

[Watch Video]

Absent from the statement was any note of conciliation or a congratulatory olive branch.

The 76-year-old Reid is retiring at the end of this year after five terms, so unlike other congressional Democrats he has no imperative to try to make nice with Trump. That position allows him to give voice to bolder sentiments than other Democratic leaders who may need to try to work with Trump.

Reid’s replacement, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, has had little to say about Trump so far, but he did congratulate him in a phone call and a brief statement. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also offered congratulations and the prospect of working together on an infrastructure and jobs bill.

For Democratic leaders who have spent months campaigning for Democrat Hillary Clinton and against Trump, his election now presents a challenge on several levels, including whether or how to try to reach out to him. Reid doesn’t have to deal with such considerations and instead on Friday aimed harsh parting shots at Trump, whom he’d spent months denouncing on the Senate floor.

“Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans,” Reid said. “Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.”

The post Departing Senate Minority Leader Reid lashes out at Trump appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A historian’s take on Trump’s economic plan for blue-collar, manufacturing jobs

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A man walks his dog past a mural depicting factory workers in the historic Pullman neighborhood in Chicago November 20, 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce the designation of the Pullman neighborhood as a national park on February 19, according to park advocates. The neighborhood's brick homes and ornate public buildings were built in the 1800s by industrialist George Pullman as a blue-collar utopia to house workers from his sleeper car factory. Picture taken November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Nelles (UNITED STATES - Tags: SOCIETY ENVIRONMENT POLITICS) - RTR4P1OF

Photo by Andrew Nelles/Reuters

Editor’s Note: What is President-elect Donald Trump’s plan for the economy? Economics correspondent Paul Solman sat down with Columbia University’s Adam Tooze to discuss. An economic historian, Tooze gives much needed historical perspective to Trump’s economic plan as put forward by his economic adviser Peter Navarro on Real Clear Policy.


PAUL SOLMAN: You’ve read Donald Trump’s so-called Gettysburg address, his economic program. [In late October, Trump spoke to supporters in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address over 150 years ago.] Historically, what does it remind you of?

ADAM TOOZE: I think as a historian, what strikes one the most about this program is simply its nationalism. Thinking about the record of American economic programs, it strikes me as perhaps the most nationalist in tone and in spirit that we’ve seen in the U.S. since the so-called isolationism of the Republicans in the 1920s.

READ MORE: What is the Trump trade doctrine? His economic adviser explains

PAUL SOLMAN: The Roaring Twenties was a period of enormous economic growth in the United States.

ADAM TOOZE: Absolutely, it was also a period of a rebound from an enormous war, so the growth is not altogether surprising, but it was growth that was also unstable and that came crashing down in 1929 in the Great Depression. And it was a period in which America’s economic policy was, from the point of view of the wider world, unhelpful, some would even say irresponsible, in failing to figure out the implications of America’s policy on trade, its policy on migration and its policy on foreign investment as well as the implications of those policies for Europe and Asia in the 1920s. And so in that respect, too, one is worried, perhaps, about the historical parallels.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the historical parallels specifically with regards to, say, immigration and trade?

“What’s striking about the Trump program in its current form is that it’s unspecific about how it will be funded. It has about it the feel of financial engineering almost.”

ADAM TOOZE: Two of the key elements in the program that Trump outlined at Gettysburg are an aggressive assertion of American national interests with regards to trade policy.  The renegotiation of NAFTA and the renegotiation of a recent deal with South Korea, for instance, are mentioned as hot button topics that the new administration will address. And the other nationalist plank of the program is obviously the policy toward immigration and the promise to dramatically change the regime of migration to the U.S.

PAUL SOLMAN: But the program also has a huge investment in infrastructure?

READ MORE: Column: How cities and states are leading the fight for more beneficial trade

ADAM TOOZE: So the investment program is there for infrastructure. Clearly, the United States economy is in desperate need of investment in its infrastructure to repair deterioration, to provide America with a 21st century backbone for economic growth. What’s striking about the Trump program in its current form is that it’s unspecific about how it will be funded. It has about it the feel of financial engineering almost. There’s an element of hand-waving about how government money will be multiplied by means of public-private partnership, which is a common feature in thinking about government spending in an age of high debt, when any incoming administration is looking to provide stimulus without ramping up enormous deficits and adding to America’s existing debt burden.

PAUL SOLMAN: But President-elect Trump seems to be committed to a major infrastructure program. If he doesn’t get the private investment, I would think, or at least people think, he will use government money to do it and provide the jobs and re-build America.

ADAM TOOZE: Yes, I mean the need for investment is evident, and it was also a major part of his stump speeches while he was touring America. It’s also part of the piece with his commitment to the redevelopment of American manufacturing and industrial jobs, providing jobs for the constituency which was so important in electing him last night.

“There’s no question at all that over the last 20 years blue-collar America, middle America, has been in the firing line of the pressures of globalization.”

There’s no question at all that over the last 20 years blue-collar America, middle America, has been in the firing line of the pressures of globalization, which is also being felt everywhere else in the world — in Europe, even in the rust-belt in China. In the 1980s and 1990s, major industrial concentrations that were built up in the heyday of heavy industry in the middle of the 20th century — 1930s, 1940s, 1950s — came under massive competitive pressure from new suppliers in the Asian tigers, in Japan and South Korea, and all of them saw huge job losses. And these have continued if one thinks, for instance, of the troubles of the American auto sector all the way through to 2008, 2009. There is a constituency there which is clearly facing existential questions about its employment prospects in the 21st century.

PAUL SOLMAN: But he’s addressing that constituency.

ADAM TOOZE: That is certainly the promise of his campaign, and the promise of his economic program. This economic program is really the pick-up truck of economic programs, it’s the Ford F-150 of economic programs, it’s macho, it’s heavy industrial, it’s about blue-collar jobs, it’s about the jobs of the 20th century, it’s about manufacturing, it’s about oil and fossil fuels. It’s a deliberate, forceful reassertion of an image of American industrialism that we have inherited from the 20th century.

READ MORE: Yes, trade with China took away blue-collar jobs. And there’s no getting them back.

PAUL SOLMAN: As a historian do you find that anachronistic?

ADAM TOOZE: In some senses I think it’s almost deliberately anachronistic. There’s a retro feel to the Trump program, and one can understand the politics of that at this moment: It speaks to a constituency that’s underserved. I think if one wanted to make sense of this program, it’s a kind of holding action, it’s an effort to bide time for a constituency of workers who have really been suffering in the last 20 years and who need to be prepared and be given time to prepare for a transition to a very different type of employment that we may be moving into in the coming decades.

PAUL SOLMAN: So it’s buying time for the children of these people while they continue to have jobs that are essentially going to disappear anyway?

“[Trump’s economic program is] a deliberate, forceful reassertion of an image of American industrialism that we have inherited from the 20th century.”

ADAM TOOZE: For the last 20 years, all the way back to the Clinton administration of the 1990s, the question of how we reskill the American workforce for future employment is one of the key issues of economic policy. What will be interesting to see is whether or not we see from the administration initiatives on higher education for this workforce. Because if those kinds of training opportunities are not provided, then I do think this program begins to look like a defensive, holding acting, a rearguard action, buying time for workers who might not otherwise find positions in the 21st century.

As you say, perhaps with their children, this is a launching pad. Without a stable, domestic platform, without a stable home, it’s difficult for kids to make their way into college education. We know that social mobility in the United States over the last generation has slowed down. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the bottom has fallen out of working-class families, which previously might have provided a springboard to higher education in the glory days of American public universities in the ’50s and ’60s. Those kinds of routes out of blue-collar family backgrounds –by way of college education into white collar work — were quite common. And they’ve become increasingly less so in part because of the crisis in manufacturing and in industrial work.

PAUL SOLMAN: But this was the rationale for saving the auto industry, wasn’t it? The Democratic Party’s rationale was, we’ll preserve jobs at least for a while to keep the people who have had them employed.

ADAM TOOZE: I think there’s a real common ground here, in fact. That was an exception within the Obama administration’s economic policy, a crisis that he inherited from the previous administration, and felt it was essential to carry through on. It went hand in hand with really deep restructuring with both GM and Chrysler, but in a sense I think one can see the Trump program as if it were that element of the bailout of 2009, writ very large, and now extended out towards fossil fuels.

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Former U.S. ambassador banned from traveling to Russia

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U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul walks outside as he leaves the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow, May 15, 2013. The Kremlin said on Wednesday a spy dispute could impede efforts to improve ties with the United States, but did not threaten any more action after the expulsion of a diplomat accused of trying to recruit a Russian agent. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov made his first comments on the case as U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul discussed it with the Russian Foreign Ministry. McFaul, who was summoned on Tuesday, made no comment as he left the meeting. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov (RUSSIA - Tags: POLITICS CRIME LAW) - RTXZMYC

U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul walks outside as he leaves the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow, May 15, 2013. Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

WASHINGTON — The former U.S. ambassador to Russia said Friday that he has been banned from traveling there in a tit-for-tat response to U.S. visa bans for senior Russian officials.

Michael McFaul told The Associated Press that he had applied for a Russian visa in order to travel to Moscow in December for possible work on ensuring a smooth transition to a Hillary Clinton presidency, had she been elected. Clinton lost the race to Donald Trump on Tuesday.

McFaul, who served in Moscow from 2012 to 2014 and now works at Stanford University, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the decision. He added that he has traveled to Russia hundreds of times, has many friends there and has spent most of his career studying Russia. “It’s a jarring, very disappointing thing to confirm,” McFaul said.

The U.S. put a group of senior Russian officials on a sanctions list in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. McFaul said he was told by Russian officials that his entry ban was in response to that decision.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the ban, Russian news agencies reported, citing unidentified sources.

U.S.-Russia ties have sunk to Cold War-lows due to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Syria. President-elect Trump, who has spoken favorably of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has vowed to improve the relationship.

The post Former U.S. ambassador banned from traveling to Russia appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Will Trump try to renegotiate the Iran deal?

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Jan. 16, 2016 in Vienna to go over details of a nuclear deal. Recent diplomatic measures show relations are warming between the longtime foes, even as critics in the U.S. say the move may hurt security. Photo KevinLamarque/Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Jan. 16, 2016, in Vienna to go over details of a nuclear deal. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump isn’t going to rip up the Iran nuclear deal on day one as president, but his vows to renegotiate the terms and increase enforcement could imperil an agreement that has put off the threat of Tehran developing atomic weapons. Emboldened Republican lawmakers are already considering ways to test Iran’s resolve to live up to the deal.

As a candidate, Trump issued a variety of statements about last year’s pact. He called it “stupid,” a “lopsided disgrace” and the “worst deal ever negotiated,” railing against its time-limited restrictions on Iran’s enrichment of uranium and other nuclear activity, and exaggerating the scale of U.S. concessions.

Trump said that he doesn’t want to simply tear up the agreement. Instead, he spoke of reopening the diplomacy and declared that unlike President Barack Obama’s diplomats, he would have been prepared to walk away from talks.

Trump’s exact plans are vague, however, and a renegotiation would be difficult. Iran has little incentive to open talks over a deal it is satisfied with. And none of the other countries in the seven-nation accord has expressed interest in picking apart an understanding that took more than a decade of stop-and-go diplomacy and almost two full years of negotiation to complete.

As Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said: If the U.S. tears up the agreement, “we will light it on fire.” President Hassan Rouhani said this week no country could simply change what was agreed, pointing to a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the package.

The deal, which went into effect in January, forced Iran to pull back from the brink of nuclear weapons capacity in exchange for an end to many of the U.S. and European sanctions that devastated Iran’s economy. It has been largely respected despite undiminished U.S.-Iranian tensions throughout the Middle East, including their support for rival sides in Syria and Yemen’s civil wars.

Each side has leverage: Iran doesn’t want a new onslaught of U.S.-led economic pressure and America would be alarmed by any Iranian escalation of its nuclear program. But the accord rests on fragile ground, with powerful constituencies in Washington and Tehran vehemently opposed and looking for any excuse to break it apart. In such a climate, it’s unclear what Trump’s demands for a renegotiation might mean.

“The agreement is valid only as long as all parties uphold it,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner acknowledged Wednesday in the agency’s first briefing since Trump’s stunning election victory over Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president.

Last summer, Walid Phares, a Trump adviser on the Middle East, said Trump wouldn’t pull out of an agreement with America’s “institutional signature,” but rather revise elements through one-on-one negotiations with Iran or with a larger grouping of allies.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the pro-deal Arms Control Association, said that re-litigating the deal would unsettle American allies, with no clear picture of what Trump would be trying to accomplish.

Trump could also send the deal to Congress, whose Republican majority has opposed it.

GOP lawmakers are examining a slew of possible actions. Among the likeliest pieces of legislation is one targeting sectors of Iran’s economy supporting ballistic missile work, including those specifically exempted from sanctions under the nuclear deal. Another goes after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for its military activity in Syria and support of terrorism.

Iran could use either as an excuse to push past the limits of the nuclear deal, which may partly explain Republican motivations.

Trump has largely avoided talk of killing the agreement, but has said he would police the deal “so tough they don’t have a chance.”

The U.N. nuclear agency has confirmed minor Iranian violations, specifically on its stockpiling of heavy water that can be used in plutonium production. It has faced no punishment. Iran also has repeatedly breached a ballistic missile ban that was extended for eight years under the nuclear deal, prompting some limited sanctions from Washington.

The Obama administration has been hamstrung. Determined to protect the president’s foreign policy legacy, it has gone above and beyond the agreement’s stipulation that no new nuclear-related sanctions be introduced.

When Yemen’s Iran-backed Shiite rebels fired missiles at U.S. Navy vessels, the retaliatory action didn’t extend to Tehran. Nor has Iran faced repercussions for joining Syria and Russia’s offensive in Aleppo, which has drawn U.S. charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And whenever top Iranian officials have complained about the speed and scope of their post-deal economic recovery, top Obama officials like Secretary of State John Kerry have served as pitchmen to international banks and companies hesitant about investing in Iran.

“It is a whole new reality,” said Mark Dubowitz, an Iran sanctions proponent at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies. What does he expect from Trump? “No more free lunches for the Iranians, no more unilateral concessions, no more excuses.”

The post Will Trump try to renegotiate the Iran deal? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.


Science and technology under a Trump presidency

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Photo by Alex_Traksel/via Adobe

Apprehension has brewed among science- and health-minded communities since Trump’s presidential victory. But, do his policies boost or end these fields? Photo by Alex_Traksel/via Adobe

Donald Trump was elected 45th president of the United States on Tuesday, in a political season marked by stark divides. The popular vote reveals a narrow division, with Hillary Clinton leading the tally by 330,000 ballots, though the margin may eventually expand to 2 million.

But a much larger portion of the populace will be affected by the Trump administration’s stances on science, health, climate change and technology. Since Tuesday’s election, this fact has brewed distrust bordering on fear among science- and health-minded communities. The editors of Nature, one of the world’s biggest publishers covering these fields, wrote, “He [Donald Trump] should leave behind his damaging and unpopular attitudes and embrace reality, rationality and evidence.”

Strong words. Are they fair? NewsHour spoke with experts about what a Trump presidency might mean for science, climate change, technology and health policy. Some arenas are dark — like throw-away-the-light-switch dark — but others may be less dire than his opponents might think.

Trump and the climate policy train

Donald Trump has said he would “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, the United Nations deal to curb greenhouse gases and fund adaptations to climate change, which some scientists view as a possible death rattle for global climate policy. Michael Mann, an atmospheric scientist at Pennsylvania State University, summarized as much for Scientific American:

Not only would this agenda be disastrous for climate, it would actually undermine Trump’s ability to achieve his own primary goals. First, climate change is not like other issues that can be postponed from one year to the next. The U.S. and world are already behind; speed is of the essence, because climate change and its impacts are coming sooner and with greater ferocity than anticipated. This year, 2016, will be the hottest on record by a large margin, and 2015 and 2014 had set the previous records. Extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy downpours are becoming more frequent and severe, as are related fires, droughts and floods.

A firefighter battles the Trinity Ridge Fire in the Boise National Forest in Idaho in 2012. A recent study found anthropogenic climate change had expanded forest fires across the western U.S. over the last 30 years. Photo by Kari Greer/REUTERS/US Forest Service/Handout

A firefighter battles the Trinity Ridge Fire in the Boise National Forest in Idaho in 2012. A recent study found anthropogenic climate change had expanded forest fires across the western U.S. over the last 30 years. Photo by Kari Greer/REUTERS/US Forest Service/Handout

But elements of Trump’s climate policy, as laid out, are beyond his control.

For one, the Senate hasn’t ratified America’s involvement, which seems unlikely to happen now given the congressional election results. No congressional support, and the Obama administration’s executive commitments to the Paris deal — an $800 million pledge of annual contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — doesn’t happen. To pad the dissent, Trump could also issue an executive declaration to recant from the deal. Collectively, these moves would violate international law, though doing so doesn’t carry any legal penalties.

But the Paris agreement was always meant represent more than a legal contract for the 197 participating nations, said Rutgers University climate scientist Robert Kopp.

“It’s a framework for countries to report on their climate change goals,” he said, and the motivation behind those greenhouse gas limits for nations like China don’t necessarily hinge on the U.S. “China, which is responsible for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, has a strong incentive to continue based on public health co-benefits.”

Estimates suggest China’s pollution leads to 1.2 million premature deaths per year, causing damages equivalent to 10-13 percent of their GDP. This cost outmatches the ultimate price of cutting greenhouse gases in the nation.

Still, every minute counts in the global battle to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Kopp said: Basically every ton of CO2 to enter the atmosphere warms the planet and that warming lasts for many centuries. He continued if recent trends continue with Antarctic ice melting, then the globe lockf into six feet of sea-level rise or worse. These rising waters would elevate coastal flooding during hurricanes, and might eventually cover land that currently harbors 20 million Americans.

A building and street signs are reflected in flood waters as the Tar River rises to dangerous levels in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, in Tarboro, North Carolina on October 13, 2016. Photo by Jonathan Drake/REUTERS

A building and street signs are reflected in flood waters as the Tar River rises to dangerous levels in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, in Tarboro, North Carolina on October 13, 2016. Photo by Jonathan Drake/REUTERS

The conundrum arises if the U.S. makes zero attempt long-term to its Paris commitment of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, though America was already off-pace to meet this target. But these countries could also establish bilateral agreements without the U.S. to reinforce climate efforts. Indeed, early signs from this week’s United Nations climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco suggest other nations remain united in their commitment to battling climate change.

Closer to home, President Obama’s Clean Power Plan appears in jeopardy, especially now that Trump has appointed climate skeptic Myron Ebell as leader of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency transition team. In his first 100 days, Trump wants to “lift roadblocks” to “vital energy infrastructure projects”, such as the Keystone pipeline, and its developer has said he wants to “engage” with the incoming administration.

America has seen such moves in the past. When Ronald Regan appointed Anne Gorsuch Burford as EPA head, she famously cut the agency’s “enforcement budget by more than 45 percent and promoted voluntary compliance by industry,” Aleszu Bajak wrote for Undark. But the consequent dissent from the public, journalists and legislators caused Burford to pullback on those changes. If another crisis on par with the Flint water crisis occurs, then wholesale changes to the EPA’s enforcement powers may become politically unfavorable. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Yet even if the incoming administration shifts federal funds from renewable energy to fossil fuel production, they cannot easily prevent state and city governments from picking up the slack, Kopp said. Many of these local schemes are already in motion, such as carbon cutting among power plants in New England and California.

Kopp also noted the fundamental answer to how the Trump Administration will act on clean power is unclear because they haven’t released many details (more on that later). But potential cabinet appointee Chris Christie blocked cap-and-trade measures as well as a coal power plant while New Jersey governor. Plus, the dropping prices of natural gas and solar energy should continue, impeding a return to coal, unless Trump’s policy deliberately disrupts them, Kopp said.

Tech boost with Trump

The logo of Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, is seen on top of the company's headquarters in New Taipei City, Taiwan March 29, 2016. Photo by Tyrone Siu/REUTERS

Companies like Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufactures Apple products may expand production in the U.S. thanks to Trump’s future trade policies. Photo by Tyrone Siu/REUTERS

Despite the recent dip in tech stocks, Donald Trump’s plans for a manufacturing revival may spill benefits into Silicon Valley. Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, described this week’s market slip as a temporary reaction.

“I don’t think the picture is as one-sided as [when] people say, ‘Oh, Obama was the tech-friendly president and Trump has said bad things about Jeff Bezos and Scott Cook’,” Atkinson said. “There are several things that a Trump administration could do that would be beneficial to tech.”

Greg Autry, an entrepreneur researcher, agrees. He predicts a shift away from the traditional start up model, where young engineers develop a new product, get it financed and move the manufacturing overseas. He argued the Trump administration would create a regulatory and tax-friendly environment conducive to the tech sector.

“They’ll see an environment where exports are supported over imports, versus the current environment which supports ‘overshoreing’ and importation,” said Autry, who works at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Another perk would be the decline of so-called “high-tech harassment” — wherein overseas competition infringes on U.S. company patents, Atkinson added, a major problem in places like China. Meanwhile, foreign companies may view America as a new ground for development.

“Companies like Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufactures Apple products will be able to expand production here [in the U.S.] through automation,” Autry said. He added that more automation – the boogie man often described as robots stealing human jobs – would actually be a boon for U.S. manufacturing.

“We’ve dealt with automation since the 19th century,” Autry said. “What automation does is create a lot more products for us to enjoy at a lower cost, and we get more people working more efficiently creating more products.”

Autry argued when China’s manufacturing boom took 15-20 years to manifest, but a U.S. turnaround would be faster due to a “better head start” with infrastructure.

Green tech may also get a bump under Trump policies, though not as immediate as petroleum-based industries. “In the long run, manufacturing those solar panels or batteries in the United States is going to be more cost effective than it is today under adjusted tax and trade policy,” Autry said.

Atkinson, however, doesn’t see the same green future. While Department of Defense-related alternative energies — like developing new nuclear power — will likely continue, other green areas could falter.

An iPhone 6S Plus is seen at the Apple retail store in Palo Alto, California. Photo by Robert Galbraith/Reuters

Where does Trump stand on tech privacy? Photo by Robert Galbraith/Reuters

“When they come up with their next budget and they list what they’re investing in renewables, that number is going to be really small,” Atkinson said. With a Republican-held House and Senate, Trump will have little resistance to get his tech-impacting policies in place as quickly as possible.

“I think we’ll see an objective that benefits both Stanford engineering graduates and for blue-collar workers with high school degrees here in the United States,” Autry said. Though the elimination of temporary visas for high-skill workers, higher education funding and federal research spheres will hurt alternative avenues fueling the tech industry.

Another percolating concern is Trump’s stance on digital privacy, given he called for a boycott of Apple during their standoff with the FBI in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting.

But Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believes any intrusion on consumer privacy would be met by strong rebukes from tech companies.

“People will stop using services that are revealed to use backdoors with the government, and plenty of independent cybersecurity firms do constant audits of these platforms,” Cohn said. “Companies have already taken a pretty strong stance that it’s wrong to dumb down their security. They’ll lose in the marketplace.”

Obamacare, World Health Organization to take hits

The $1.1 billion to battle the Zika virus is long overdue and has been held up by a series of battles and setbacks. Photo by Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor/Handout via REUTERS

Zika virus became a partisan issue in 2016, as Congress debated over emergency funding.Photo by Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor/Handout via REUTERS

The Affordable Care Act in its current incarnation won’t survive if Trump makes good on his campaign promises, given Republicans will control the House and Senate. By this logic, federal funds for birth control and Planned Parenthood would most likely evaporate, though not immediately. Though a filibuster by Senate Democrats may block an official ACA repeal, Republicans could still defund Obamacare and items like grants for state Medicaid over the next two years through budget reconciliation.

But aspects of Obamacare may not bite the dust, according to Kaiser Health News:

Topping the list of ACA provisions likely to survive under Trump is the requirement that employers cover workers’ children up to the age of 26, analysts said. The measure is widely popular and not especially expensive.

A health law crafted by Republicans might also retain the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting illness seeking coverage, said Glenn Melnick, a health economist at the University of Southern California.

That could include relaxing the ACA’s limit on how much insurers can charge and allowing them to adjust premiums based on an individual’s health, he said. However, that might put the price of insurance out of reach for many.

The health law’s payment reforms might also survive in some form. The ACA prompted hundreds of experiments to control costs by rewarding doctors for efficiency and fixing payments for episodes of care or treating entire populations.

But a Trumpian shift to benefits like tax-free Health Savings Accounts, insurance premium deductions and insurance plans sales across state lines may not remedy the ultimate problem with health care: high costs.

“The theory is the consumers will be smart consumers, and they’ll look for value to put down costs,” said Lawrence Gostin, O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “But the data don’t suggest anything of the sort.”

Many folks avoid buying health insurance until after they’re ill, and the prices for hospitalizations, surgeries and medicines are still very high. Trump’s health care plan doesn’t remedy those underlying costs, Gostin said. Certain aspects of Trump’s policies, however, may reduce the expensive portions of health care.

“Many trade deals that he’s against erect a system of intellectual property and patent protection,” Gostin said. “And it’s because of the patent protection that we have the high cost of drugs.”

Professor David L. Heymann (L), Chair of the Emergency Committee, and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan hold a news conference after the first meeting of the International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee concerning the Zika virus and observed increase in neurological disorders and neonatal malformations in Geneva, Switzerland, February 1, 2016. Photo by Pierre Albouy/REUTERS

The U.S. holds major cards in deciding the head of the World Health Organization. Photo by Pierre Albouy/REUTERS

Another Trump proposal may expand oversight on medical practice. ACA payment reforms drove doctors to increase efficiency when it came to ordering medical tests, and those moves are likely to stay, if not expand. Trump also promised to crack down on the opioid crisis by reeling in doctors who push the medications, Gostin said Trump hasn’t explained how.

The CommonWealth Fund estimated swapping Obamacare for Trump’s health care plan could add $41 billion to the deficit, while 20 million could lose health care coverage. This number matches how many people have gained health benefits over the six years of Obamacare’s existence, but the net effect for insurance coverage without Obamacare remains unclear.

The President-Elect will also select the next heads of the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services, Gostin said, which may influence future research on topics like gun violence, emergency for outbreak like Zika and pollution-related illness. Plus, research funding for these agencies and the National Science Foundation, which has stagnated or declined since the George W. Bush administration, is largely decided by Congress.

But Trump’s health agenda will extend overseas too.

“Basically, no one can be elected to the head of the World Health Organization without U.S. support,” Gostin said. The WHO will soon appoint its next leader, but the global health agency’s recent positions have run contrary to those of Republicans. In recent years, the WHO and its governing body — The United Nations — have pushed for policies like taxes on sugary drinks and universal health coverage, including for refugees.

Gostin expects U.S. funding for these items to be clear sticking points for Trump and a Congress, which recently capped all payments to the United Nations.

The post Science and technology under a Trump presidency appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Trump shakes up transition team, elevating Pence’s role

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures as Vice President-elect Mike Pence applauds (L) at their election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar - RTX2SVO0

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at their election night rally in New York. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

WASHINGTON —

President-elect Donald Trump is shaking up his transition team as he plunges into the work of setting up his administration, elevating Vice President-elect Mike Pence to head the operations. It amounts to a demotion for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who had been running Trump’s transition planning for months.

On the heels of Trump’s upset victory this week, the Republican’s team has been scrambling to identify people for top White House jobs and Cabinet posts. It’s an enormous undertaking that must be well in hand by the time Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

In a statement Friday, Trump said Pence would “build on the initial work” done by Christie.

“Together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding this nation — specifically jobs, security and opportunity,” Trump said.

Christie was a loyal adviser to Trump for much of the campaign and came close to being the businessman’s pick for running mate. But Trump ultimately went with Indiana Gov. Pence, a former congressman with Washington experience and deep ties to conservatives.

Christie will still be involved in the transition, joining a cluster of other steadfast Trump supporters serving as vice chairs: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

For Trump, who ran on a pledge to “drain the swamp” of Washington insiders, the team is strikingly heavy on those with long political resumes.

In addition, three of Trump’s adult children — Don. Jr., Eric and Ivanka — are on the transition executive committee, along with Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband. Kushner played a significant role in Trump’s campaign and was spotted at the White House Thursday meeting with President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

Pence said the transition staff is made up of the right people to “bring about fundamental change in Washington.”

After ending his own failed campaign for president, Christie emerged as one of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters. He nearly became Trump’s running mate but was edged out by Pence.

Trump and Christie grew apart through the last stretch of the campaign. The governor became increasingly frustrated that Trump wouldn’t listen to his advice, particularly over the response to the release of a 1995 video in which the businessman is heard making predatory comments about women.

Christie is also facing calls for impeachment in New Jersey following the conviction of two former aides in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing trial. Christie has denied any knowledge of the lane closures until weeks or months after they occurred in September 2013.

The governor was notably absent from the steady stream of advisers entering Trump’s eponymous skyscraper in New York for meetings Friday. Among the first decisions facing the president-elect is whom to choose as chief of staff, a key post that will set the tone for Trump’s White House and be a key conduit to Capitol Hill and Cabinet agencies.

Trump is said to be considering Steve Bannon, his campaign chairman and a conservative media executive, and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus for the role. Neither has significant policy experience, though Priebus is well-liked in Washington and has deep ties with key lawmakers.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, is also said to be in the mix for a senior job. Conway is a veteran Republican pollster who formed a strong rapport with the candidate after taking the helm of his campaign in the general election.

While Trump has long led a large business, the scope of the federal government exceeds any of his previous endeavors. Those around Trump, who is known as a hands-on executive, say he’ll likely have to make adjustments in his leadership style and decision-making, including more delegating.

Trump has chafed at that a bit, but he has signaled willingness to relinquish some but not all, personal control. He also seems reluctant to expand his core group of aides beyond the inner circle with whom he feels comfortable.

AP writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

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What veterans are expecting from President Trump

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Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars speak as they wait for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to speak at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. July 26, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane - RTSJQG5

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JUDY WOODRUFF: On this Veterans Day, we turn to what a Trump administration might mean for those who have served our country.

On Election Day, 61 percent of veterans voted for Mr. Trump, 34 percent for Secretary Clinton. Of non-veterans, 45 percent voted Trump, while half voted for Clinton.

So, what do vets expect a President Trump to do?

William Brangham has more.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Candidate Trump repeatedly expressed support for those who served in the U.S. armed forces, and it showed in the results on Election Day. But he also angered many with his denigration of Senator John McCain and of the Khan family, whose son died fighting in Iraq.

For more on what veterans might want from a Trump administration, I’m joined by Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Paul Rieckhoff, as you saw, Trump was chosen by veterans 2-1 over Clinton. Why do you think that is?

PAUL RIECKHOFF, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: Well, I think we have got to start by being careful about overgeneralizing veterans.

There are 22 million in America, and they represent a very large group, but they’re really not a bloc. If you look at the older veterans, about 18 million or so that haven’t served since 9/11, they tend to be mostly male. They tend to be more white than the general population.

So, really, what some of that is just a reflection of the demographics that supported Trump vs. Clinton. And the younger generation, they’re about 20 percent female. They’re much more ethnically diverse. So I think we see some more political diversity there.

But I think what you do see is a frustration with the status quo. You see some frustration with the bureaucracy in Washington. You see a certain group of folks who just don’t like Hillary Clinton. I think that’s a very real problem, just not in the veterans community, but more broadly. And you see folks that respond to rhetoric.

Donald Trump talked a big game on veterans. He said it over and over again: I’m going to take care of the vets, I’m going to take care of the vets.

Their policies at times were not that different, but his rhetoric was much more aggressive. And it’s a populist issue. People responded to that and many people believe that’s what he’s going to do.

It’s been a campaign platform that he’s really focused on. Now we’re going to try to hold him accountable as he becomes president. If it’s going to be a capstone of his presidency, it is going to be a very hard series of things to accomplish.

Every president says he is going to fix the VA, and most of them leave without it getting done.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, let’s say you’re pulled into the room and you’re asked to counsel him on policy with regards to veterans. What’s priority one for you?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: I think priority one is to establish a real strong leadership group within Washington that is going to make veterans at the hub, and not just the VA at the hub.

Our conversation over the last two years, especially after the VA scandal, has been only really framed around the VA. I think there is an epic opportunity to be able to open this conversation to involve philanthropy, involve the private sector, the medical community, universities.

Government can’t be the only solution here. We see it in some of the members who come to us in most urgent need; 70 percent are not enrolled in the VA. Now, we do need to improve the VA, but we have got to have a true veteran strategy that expands beyond government.

President Obama has never really laid that out. We attacked the VA problem after the scandal and we heard a lot of good talk from Congress, but there was never comprehensive strategy, after we engaged in multiple wars, to actually care for people coming home.

So we have got to clear goals. We have got to have a strategy. And we need to have the right team in place. This is an opportunity to bring together a bipartisan coalition. It might be the only political issue we can get Republicans and Democrats behind together. And I think, for any president, it would be a smart issue to come out in the first year in such a divisive time.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Another issue that’s obviously very, very troubling is the rate of suicide among veterans, something like 20 a day, I believe.

What can a president, what can a presidential administration do to address that horrendous issue?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Well, I think we have seen President Obama make tremendous progress on this in simply talking about it.

Veterans advocacy groups like IAVA and others have been really screaming for years for help to try to explain that we’re losing our brothers and sisters to our left and right tragically to suicide on a daily basis.

We had a day last year we had seven suicide calls to IAVA in one day alone. So, I think it does start with prioritizing it. It also starts with understanding that it’s not just a veterans issue or a government issue. It’s a national health priority.

And we have got to rally resources around that. But when veterans do come forward and they overcome the stigma and they respond to that rhetoric, the help has got to be there. And we have seen wait times. We have seen bureaucracies. Even the Veterans Crisis Line, which has been great, struggled at times to keep up with the demand.

So, if those veterans are brave and are courageous and are encouraged to come forward, the resources have got to be there. And we have got a critical shortage of quality mental health care workers.

One thing IAVA has called on President Obama to do and will call on President Trump to do is to issue a national call to service for people who are qualified mental health to serve, to serve in the VA, at the DOD, in private nonprofits. We need an army of mental health care workers to support this flood of need that is coming home, not just after our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but after decades and decades of veterans who have underserved.

Many are the veterans that we’re losing to suicide are Vietnam veterans who were never properly cared for.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Paul Rieckhoff, thank you.

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Thank you, sir.

The post What veterans are expecting from President Trump appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

How schools are dealing with post-election fallout

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High school students gather in front of the Arizona Capitol in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. November 9, 2016.  REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo - RTX2SWZK

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And next: schoolchildren and how the combative political season has affected them.

And to Hari Sreenivasan in New York.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Teachers and parents across the country report heightened anxiety and disappointment among some students, even a number of school walkouts in recent days.

In other cases, incidents of intimidation and bullying have been reported, including graffiti with swastikas, calls for white power in a Pennsylvania high school, and Michigan middle school students chanting “Build that wall” during lunch period.

The “NewsHour”‘s Student Reporting Labs gathered these reactions from across the country.

ALLICIA DEAN, Etiwanda High School, California: When I found out that Donald Trump had won the presidential election, I was scared. I was just staring at my phone in shock, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.

JULIAN MASTERS, Fort Mill High School, South Carolina: I’m not devastated that Trump is president. I think it sends a pretty strong message to the American people that something needs to change. A vote for Trump doesn’t mean you are a bigot, a racist or anti-woman. Maybe the country does need to be run more like a business, so we can actually get things done.

JESSICA BRUNT, Brighton High School, Utah: I just didn’t understand how such a hateful man could rise to power so quickly. And I have been really angry, but now I’m just tired. I’m tired that he is now state-sponsored.

SKY ISLAND THOMAS, West Ranch, California: I feel like a lot of students, people in general, educated themselves through social media and what was on television, rather than informing themselves.

MARTA KIROS, Etiwanda High School, California: I feel like, as minorities, as people of color, at LGBT community, as Muslims, as everyone who has ever been prejudiced again and anyone who’s ever expressed inequality, we all need to make sure that we stay in school, we handle our business, we are good in everything that we do, so that we can one day — in the next election, we can make sure that we make our voices heard, that we are the ones running for Senate, we are the ones running for president, we are the ones representing us in the communities.

TIMMY JOSTEN, West Ranch, California: My concerns are that Donald is kind of going to lose his temper a little bit sometimes and say some not-so-smart things and get some people angry. But I don’t think he’s going to make too many bad decisions. I think he knows where he’s going. I think he knows what he’s doing.

MARY OLIVER, Judge Memorial Catholic High School, Utah: The fact that someone like Trump is able to be elected, the things that he says for women, about people in different races, the fact that it’s OK for him to say those things now makes it seem more OK for other people to say those things. So, I think that’s my biggest fear.

ZACK BRADLEY, Smoky Mountain Youth Media, Tennessee: My concern is war. But that’s a concern with any candidate. With Hillary, it was going to be war with Russia. With Trump, it’s going to be a civil war. And the question is, who is going to win either of those?

KATIE ONTIVEROS, Brighton High School, Utah: Seeing that my generation doesn’t want to take action or take responsibility for their future and my future, our future, I just don’t want to stay in a country like this, if that’s what it’s going to be like.

KEALA NAIPO, Etiwanda High School, California: There is no doubt that the president election was a huge shock to me. But I call our citizens to have some respect and faith in our country.

We have made it through a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, and terrorist attacks. But this is no fight. We elected someone new as president. That shouldn’t be tearing us apart. It should be bringing us together.

HARI SREENIVASAN: For a closer look now, we turn to Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week, who has been talking to teachers across the country, and Mariama Richards, an administrator at Friends Central School just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Kavitha, let me start with you. What have you found in your reporting in the past couple days?

KAVITHA CARDOZA, Education Week: Well, this is something that teachers are used to.

They have been dealing with these emotions through the campaign season. The election results just made it more concrete. Children in schools are just a microcosm of society. And so they’re not surprised at all that some of these emotions are spilling into the classroom.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, are these the students’ own opinions, or are they parroting what their parents say at home?

KAVITHA CARDOZA: I think a bit of both.

With the teenagers we just saw, some of it is their own, because they are reading newspapers and watching the television themselves. But I spoke to a teacher in California, and she teaches pre-K, and she says children just absorb the stress of their parents.

And so she teaches in a very diverse community, a lot of Muslims, a lot of immigrants. And she said she has noticed that the children are more aggressive, they’re more prone to crying, very emotional. So she and other teachers have actually put the learning, the academic goals on hold with these children and they have said, you know what? Let’s create our own curriculum, how to be a good friend, how to listen, how to be calm when you feel upset.

She said a lot of the parents are stressed about maybe their families being split up, maybe losing health care if Obamacare goes away.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Mariama Richards, what kind of things are you grappling with at your school or the teachers have been coming to you with?

MARIAMA RICHARDS, Friends’ Central School: One of the biggest issues that is in front of us right now is a community that wants to see change happen, that felt really connected to the election season, regardless of which side that particular student or family was on.

And now they’re grappling with kind of how do they push through some of the values that they really do love and appreciate about the community that they’re building and finding that there’s a split in perspective on how to move forward.

For example, there are students who feel so angry and upset now, that it’s hard for them to think about engaging those who may have voted for our current president-elect, because they see that engagement as people who think less of them, who don’t think that they’re full human beings, while there are other students who may not necessarily be on the side of the president-elect as well, but they’re in a position where they feel like this is an opportunity for us to learn what the other side of the world is thinking.

And so even in places where you have commonalities in terms of goals, we’re still seeing students really struggle with kind of, what’s our best case forward moving forward?

With the little ones, they are struggling with very similar things that we just heard, fear. They are hearing lots of information and not understanding the context for it. And we see it play out definitely in the classroom setting in how they’re connecting with others, whether or not they feel reserved, whether or not they feel fear.

And we are, as teachers, trying to support them in the process of getting through that.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Kavitha Cardoza, are the teachers saying, in essence, what the children are feeling? I mean, is there a collective sense of anxiety or tension, whether — regardless- of which side of the election they came down on?

KAVITHA CARDOZA: I think the teachers are really, really making a concerted effort to, no matter what their personal beliefs, to be that oasis of calm for the children and to kind of bring everyone together.

There are students who, for example, supported climate change, and they are devastated, we have heard reports. There are students — I spoke to a teacher in Ohio, and she said her students came with Trump T-shirts and the “Make America Great Again” caps, and they were thrilled.

And so within these schools and within all the children, they teach how do you make it safe and calm and respectful, really?

HARI SREENIVASAN: Mariama Richards, you took steps to prepare parents before the election. What are you hearing from them now?

MARIAMA RICHARDS: After the election, we have been in constant communication, which I think is really key to that partnership with families.

And the letters we have sent home have included additional links for support. And in some cases, we have parents who really want us to move away and say, OK, it’s over. Let’s now move on with the practice of going to school and doing the work.

And there are other families that are so ultimately grateful that we’re taking that time to be able to help their children through this process. And I think what we have learned, as a Quaker school that’s embedded in the value-centered curriculum, is that we know, if students do not feel affirmed, they actually won’t learn.

We won’t be able to teach math if they feel scared and if they feel like they are at risk. And so we have to be able to find a wonderful balance of incorporating both of those in the classroom setting.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Kavitha Cardoza, we have been seeing such an increase on every educational level, from middle schools to high school to colleges, of acts of intimidation, bullying, swastikas spray-painted here and there.

What are you seeing in your reporting?

KAVITHA CARDOZA: A lot more, Hari.

One is that these kids share, tape everything and share everything on social media, so it’s much more accessible. I think just today on my Twitter feed, I saw someone say: My daughter came home from school and said she heard that she no longer has to be politically correct.

And so you’re seeing a lot of things which kids, some of them don’t even know what the implications are and what it means. But because it’s being shared so widely, kids, you know, just copy sometimes.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes.

Kavitha Cardoza, Mariama Richards, thank you both.

KAVITHA CARDOZA: Thank you, Hari.

MARIAMA RICHARDS: Thank you.

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Former Trump campaign manager who became commentator leaves CNN

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Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski waits for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to arrive for a rally at a car dealership in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S. October 15, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RTX2OZFU

Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski waits for Donald Trump to arrive for a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters 

NEW YORK — CNN says Corey Lewandowski, who served a brief, stormy stint as CNN commentator after being fired as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, has resigned from the network.

CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin says the resignation Friday afternoon is effective immediately.

Lewandowski’s stay at CNN began days after he left the Trump campaign in June. It stirred debate over whether political insiders hired as network on-air contributors are more loyal to the politicians they once worked for than the network and its viewers.

Lewandowski had stayed in close touch with Trump while at CNN, leading to speculation since Trump’s victory this week that he might take a role in the new administration. Earlier on Friday, he was seen arriving at Trump Tower, where the president-elect was holding transition meetings.

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In Virginia, voters reflect on their presidential choice

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now more on the aftermath of Tuesday’s election.

We take two looks at ways that the rhetoric and emotion of the highly charged presidential campaign continue to reverberate.

First, we go to Manassas, Virginia, about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C., near the site of the first major battle of the Civil War. After decades of supporting Republicans, Virginia voted Democratic on Tuesday for the third consecutive presidential election.

The state’s demographics are shifting rapidly, and like much of America, the division between red and blue is stark.

We spoke with people from across of the political spectrum caught up in the wake of one of the biggest political upsets in our nation’s history.

Here are some of their voices.

BRETT TUCKER: A lot of division has occurred in this great country over the last decade, and a lot of them is almost reflective to the time period of when the guns blazed on this battlefield and men fought for what they believed in.

And I think America is kind of in the same scenario where we’re divided on our beliefs in politics. To me, as I travel the country, I just feel the sense of urgency to repair it.

I’m Brett Tucker, 46, from Washington state. And I voted for Mr. Trump.

DON CLEMONS: My name is Don Clemons. I am 80 years old. I live at St. Joseph, Illinois, and I voted for Donald Trump for president.

I have seen John Kennedy, and I didn’t vote for him. I wished I would have. I have seen Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, you know, during my lifetime. See, I have voted in every presidential election since 1958. I think that’s about right. And these are the two weakest candidates that I have ever seen that I had to vote for.

SUSAN ARTZ: I’m Susan Artz. I’m from Aldie, Virginia. I’m 67 years old. And I voted for Donald Trump for president of the United States of America.

I think these other countries should do more of their share. They pay so much less for NATO than we do. I traveled around the world by the time I was 21. And I looked at all they have, like he says, with our infrastructure, with the railroads and all, and they have so much better than we do.

VANESSA ALLEN: I’m Vanessa Allen. I’m retired, and life is not easy, and I am a Democrat.

I think we have got a lot of dummies. I really do. I mean, if you truly listen to what he says, I don’t even see how you can push that button on that computer voting for him. It’s just — it’s crazy. I worked all my life, never took, never got, unless I made it. And now what, you know? So, I don’t think he will do anything great. I really don’t.

SALIM AMIN: My name is Salim Amin. I’m 23 years old, and I voted Bernie Sanders as a write-in.

I was born in Germany. And my parents are from Afghanistan. I’m not primarily concerned about the president himself. I’m more concerned about the people he’s riled up, the actual racist people, the misogynistic people that are feeling like they were — fueled the fire to be able to make sure — whatever they want to do.

LAMYAA MOWERY: We can’t succumb to what they want, and we need to be much stronger than we ever were before.

NATHAN MOWERY: I’m Nathan Mowery, and I’m a five-year Army combat veteran. This is my wife.

LAMYAA MOWERY: And I’m Lamyaa Mowery. I’m a nursing student.

NATHAN MOWERY: And we just got married in October. And we are here in our house in Virginia.

LAMYAA MOWERY: Already, after we found out that president-elect Trump won, people have gotten bolder. There have been cases where women are pumping gas and they have been yelled at to take off their scarf, or walking in a grocery store and telling them that this is going to be the end of you and it’s time for you to leave.

And it’s only the beginning, and I’m sure that everyone is going to see a rise in it.

ALICE BUTLER-SHORT: When Mr. Trump says make America great again, he means let’s bring it back to where it was and move forward and make it even greater.

And I am absolutely convinced that he will do that. My name is Alice Butler-Short. I am the founder and director for Virginia Women for Trump.

Immigrants will always be welcome in this country, but the right immigrants. We have got to keep this country safe, and we have had experiences of terrorism and terrorist attacks. And we know it’s not going to end. So, we have to take precautions.

THOMAS VLADIMIR MENDOZA: My name is Thomas Vladimir Mendoza. And I am a U.S. citizen. I live in the United States, so I’m American. But I was born in El Salvador.

My fears is that I won’t have a job, that I won’t be able to feed my child. Don’t fear a loudmouth. You know what I mean? That’s what this person is. He’s just — I have a lot of friends that are loudmouths, and you hear and you dismiss it because they’re friends.

But because this guy is going to be the president, it’s really hard to dismiss it. You cannot just say, he’s just talking, man, it’s just locker room talk. No, it’s true. He has that in him, but, you know, the good in people is not going to let him do that.

I have hope. I have faith. That’s what everybody wakes up and should have, faith that things will be better.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Some powerful voices.

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News Wrap: On transition team, Trump replaces Christie with Pence

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar - RTX2SVO1

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JUDY WOODRUFF: President-elect Donald Trump announced a shakeup today at the top of his incoming transition team. Vice president-elect Mike Pence will take over as chair, replacing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who becomes a vice chair.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be among the other vice chairs on the executive committee. Members of the committee also include Mr. Trump’s three older children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka, as well as Ivanka’s husband, son-in-law Jared Kushner.

In a statement, the president-elect said — quote — “Together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding this nation, specifically jobs, security and opportunity.”

And in his first news interview since the election, Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal he is open to keeping some parts of the Affordable Care Act.

We will have more on Mr. Trump’s post-election moves later in the program.

Protesters nationwide spent another night rallying against the president-elect. Demonstrations came to a head in Portland, Oregon, where thousands squared off with police, throwing bottles and rocks. Officers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. They made 26 arrests.

For his part, Mr. Trump tweeted that the protesters were — quote — “very unfair,” but later said he “loved their passion for our great country.”

The United Nations says the Islamic State has carried out a new wave of public killings and atrocities in the Iraqi city of Mosul. It reports that, in the last week, militants executed at least 70 civilians. Some were hung from telephone poles.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, a spokeswoman for the UN said the group could be gearing up to use chemical weapons.

RAVINA SHAMSADANI, UN Spokeswoman: We don’t know when and for what purposes they are stockpiling these, but given what they have done in the past, we are worried about the reasons for their stockpiling of these chemicals in Mosul right now. But we can only speculate how they — they intend to use this.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The announcement comes as Iraqi security forces inched their way into Mosul. They have been slowed by heavy resistance and ISIS fighters using human shields.

Back in this country, President Obama used Veterans Day to call for unity in the wake of a bitter election. Mr. Obama laid a wreath at The Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery. He said Americans should learn from the military in finding ways to come together.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The American instinct has never been to find isolation in opposite corners. It is to find strength in our common creed, to forge unity from our great diversity, to sustain that strength and unity even when it is hard.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, Britain and France commemorated Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I. Prince Harry led a service at the Armed Forces Memorial in England, while French President Francois Hollande laid a wreath at his country’s Tomb of the Unknown.

Stocks were mixed on Wall Street today, but the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high, extending its post-election rally for another day. The Dow gained more than 39 points to close at 18847. The Nasdaq rose 28, while the S&P 500 slipped three. For the week, the Dow gained more than 5 percent, its best week since December 2011. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 rose nearly 4 percent.

And Secretary of State John Kerry has become the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Antarctica. He’s spending two days there, meeting with scientists and getting a firsthand look at the impact that climate change has had on the southernmost continent. Kerry is gathering information before he attends a global climate change summit in Morocco on Tuesday.

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Obama administration acknowledges Pacific trade deal is dead

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (L) walks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts - RTX2T3FH

President-elect Donald Trump walks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The Obama administration has given up on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 11 nations in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Wall Street Journal.

President-elect Donald Trump has fervently denounced the trade deal, labeling it a “disaster.”

“It’s a deal that’s designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone,” Trump said in November last year. China is not one of the 11 countries who signed on to the pact.

President Obama had tried to push the legislation forward for months, but both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Chuck Schumer, who will become the minority leader in January, have said the legislation will not be voted on during the lame-duck session. Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan said that it wouldn’t receive enough votes to pass in the House, according to CNN.

Once an issue both Democrats and Republicans backed, free trade has become increasingly controversial on both sides of the aisle.

A wave of anti-trade sentiment has overcome the two parties in the past year. Sen. Bernie Sanders had made it a key issue of his presidential campaign, as had Donald Trump. Midway through her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton reversed course and said she did not support the 12-nation deal.

Labor unions, like the AFL-CIO, oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as do many blue-collar workers who have seen their manufacturing jobs disappear to trade and globalization in the wake of North American Trade Agreement. Technological advances and automation also contributed to these jobs losses.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was supposed to assert American dominance in the region, where China has increasing military and economic influence and is pursuing its own regional trade deal. The partnership would have accounted for nearly 40 percent of global output.

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Shields and Brooks on a ‘political earthquake’ and how America can move forward

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And we come back to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

And let me just kick this off by saying there’s nobody I would rather spend more than nine hours with on Election Night than the two of you.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you so much, Judy.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, having said that, political earthquake. The earth moved under our feet, David.

How big an earthquake was it?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, it’s certainly the political shock of our lives, at least my lifetime.

It feels like almost the ’60s, sort of like political revolution, cultural revolution, aesthetic revolution, the things that now you can say and get elected president. And so it was all those things.

I’m sort of finding myself in a strange emotional territory, if I could lie on the couch here. On the one hand, Trump appalls me. I won’t be shy about that.

But having — with the elective democratic process having taken its turn, I sort of feel we have to owe some respect to the process and owe some respect to the electorate and the people who voted him, on the assumption that they have something to teach us.

And so all these people are marching in the street. There is all this hostility. I find myself — and I think this was the president’s attitude and frankly Hillary Clinton’s attitude — of respectful pause. Maybe I will be as upset at Trump as I was in another week, but what do they try to teach us? Just try to understand what the situation we’re in is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Respectful pause, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

I, Judy, believe devoutly that the national election is the closest thing we have to a civic sacrament of democracy. And I really do think that heed must be paid, and when people make a decision, those who are on the other side, including me, accept it, for that reason.

I think that probably the best analysis, of the millions of words that were written, other than David’s — David’s were really perceptive and wise.

But there’s a woman named — I don’t know her name — Salena Zito at “Atlantic.” And she said something. She said, to understand this election, critics of Donald Trump take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

In other words, so while his critics were very upset with what he said, the — his supporters really were the mood and the positions he took, rather than precise phrases or words.

I say that because now, as of Tuesday, everyone has to take him seriously, and I think that’s what we’re seeing. I think the anxiety in schools that we hear, in minority communities, those with the archbishop of Los Angeles at Our Lady of the Saints Cathedral yesterday at an interfaith service with Jewish and Muslim, and was very open and said, our children are fearful that their parents — the government is going to come and take their parents away.

And I think that’s a consequence of the election. I mean, in addition, the fact that he won, but his positions appear to prevail, and I think there have left fear in a lot of places.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, David, I was going to ask the two of you what you think, with reflection, the voters were saying. But I also — I was struck by what we just heard a few minutes ago by voters in Manassas, Virginia.

One young woman said, I guess — she said, I guess hate is now state-sponsored.

And we heard a man say — another woman say, I’m for immigrants, just the right immigrants.

What were voters saying, do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, they certainly want change. We know that. They’re fed up with a lot of talk and no change.

On the issues, they preferred her. She got better marks on the economy and foreign policy. But they just didn’t get the sense she was a reformer. So they want some unnamed change.

I think they also wanted some sense of dignity, some sense of being heard. I mean, in some sense, there is something noble, in that people that was people who felt marginalized, working-class voters, A, taking over their party from basically what had been a corporate party, and then asserting their will on the country, against groups of people who were more privileged than they are, both on the left and the right.

And so there is something nice about that. I think Trump is the wrong vehicle for that. But, you know, you’re living in a town, there are no jobs in the town, you know your friends are dying of O.D.-ing on opiates or something, you’re having trouble paying your bills, you’re playing by the rules, and other people are getting benefits without playing by the rules.

Maybe you’re willing to tolerate a lot of bigotry from Donald Trump if you say, just change things, just change things.

And so I don’t — I think the voters who voted for him certainly are willing to tolerate a lot of ugliness, but maybe, if you’re in desperate circumstances, or you think the country is deeply in trouble, you’re willing to tolerate that without necessarily liking it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What did you hear? What do you think the voters were saying?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the first thing that bothers me are my liberal friends, or too many of them, I think who immediately run to the race card.

The fact is that it’s the most dangerous place to be on the political scale is to brand those on the other side as racist. That’s the atomic bomb. That’s the nuclear weapon of an American. Once I accuse you of racist, I have demonized you, and it means any future collaboration, cooperation between us is a sign of my moral deficiency, if I would deal with someone like that. It’s just — it’s a terrible thing to do.

I say that for a factual reason. Barack Obama carried Iowa, carried Wisconsin, carried Michigan. He not only carried Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan twice. He carried the white — a majority of the white vote in those states.

And so Hillary Clinton lost them, Donald Trump won them, and it’s a little, I think, transparent, false to say that the people are racist. These are the same voters who would vote for an African-American man and didn’t vote for the white woman Democrat. So, I think that’s dangerous.

I think, Judy, it was a revolt of working-class Americans. I think it was a revolt against us in the press. I think it was a revolt against the ruling class who were indifferent to their plight, to the fact that, for a generation, their standard of living has declined or that their children’s futures are blighted.

I thought Peter Hart and Dan McGinn, when they wrote that the people who led this revolution are foreign to Washington and New York, they don’t go to Starbucks and they don’t take their children on tours, they care about high school sports more than about pro sports, they go to Walmart, McDonald’s, and they have declining incomes, and they think their grandparents and parents built this country. They scream that they want their country back.

And I think that — I think they saw indifference from the ruling elites, both public and private, particularly private.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You said it wasn’t race.

And, yet, David, people — many people of color are saying they feel the message is directed at them.

DAVID BROOKS: Right. So, there is a racial element here. There is clearly a racial element.

And so I think that I don’t have a machine to peer into the souls of the voters. So I don’t know how much of the racial element was dominant, how much was there, something they tolerated, something they endorsed.

Clearly, for some people, it was a large element. I do not believe, having spent these last many months interviewing Trump voters, that it’s a dominant element in at least a lot of the people I spoke to. They had good reason, as Mark just elucidated, for why they were really upset with the course of the country.

Their culture, their life economically, socially, families breaking apart, drug use, it’s going downhill. And I think the two things — one, we don’t want to turn this into a children of light, children of darkness, where us college-enlightened people, educated, enlightened people are looking down at those primitive hordes. We do not want that.

That’s what — that condescension is what fueled this thing in the first place. And so I don’t think we want that.

Second, through American history, we have had populist movements that often, often, often have this ugly racial element. But, often, there are warning signs of some deeper social and economic problem. And we have rapidly increasing technology, which is making life very good for people who are good at using words, and not so good for people who are not good at using words.

And so the ugliness can sometimes be super ugly, but also a warning sign of something down below.

MARK SHIELDS: No, I agree with what David said.

I would just add, Judy, that the problem is that what Donald Trump said, if you take it literally now, is cause for anxiety and nervousness.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean during the campaign.

MARK SHIELDS: What he said during the campaign, I mean, is — it’s legitimate, the anxiety and the nervousness that you feel and that children feel right now, because — if you do take him literally.

He has to do something to reassure, and beyond tweeting that he either likes or doesn’t like protests. I just — the protests, the breaking of windows at this point, I mean, I just want anybody in the protest to have an “I voted” sticker on their jacket lapel before they get out there.

And I understand the concern, but please accept this democracy. And he is the president. He’s going to be the president in 75 days, or whatever. And, you know, he now has a responsibility, I think, to calm those waters and to reassure people that there isn’t going to be — there aren’t going to be Storm Troopers coming down to take their grandparents in a patrol wagon.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quickly, in the last couple of minutes, David, we are seeing some signals from Donald Trump or the people he has put on his transition committee, putting in the vice president-elect, instead of Chris Christie. He’s putting his children, his son-in-law on that committee.

He said today that he’s — in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he’s thinking about keeping part of the health care reform law after talking to President Obama about it.

So, what are we to think? Maybe this is not going to be all the big moves that were hinted at during the campaign?

DAVID BROOKS: I’m obviously outraged Tiffany didn’t get a job. Maybe she will get Fed chairman or something.

I think when — the nomination of Mike Pence is more of a sign that he’s going for conventional Republicans. Until last summer, Pence was a very conventional. He was in the House, well connected with the conventional movement Republicans.

And I assume he will tap, he may be more conventional. I think Donald Trump is going to find it very hard to do the kind of massive change he wants. Obamacare is woven into the fabric of health care. It’s very hard to just rip it out, as he sort of acknowledged with The Wall Street Journal.

The Iran deal, maybe we can withdraw from the deal, but our other partners are not going to withdraw from the deal. When you get down to each of these individual things, deporting people, when you get down to each of the individual things, the barriers to change are massive.

And the simple promises he makes just don’t apply to reality. So he’s got to do some big changes, because what he was voted on. But when you think about how to do it, it would take massive expertise, which his people, believe me, do not have.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Just 20 seconds, Mark. What do you think he…

MARK SHIELDS: Well, 213 times to vote to repeal Obamacare, it’s a very easy, grandstand act.

Doing it and taking 20 million people and taking them off insurance, those with preexisting conditions, those who don’t have any other coverage, you know, that’s a reality. And it is going to be difficult, make no mistake about it. And this is where you confront reality from the rhetoric of the campaign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The transition begins.

Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you both.

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On last foreign tour, Obama must find a way to explain Trump

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U.S.  President Barack Obama (R) meets with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque  - RTX2T2TS

President Barack Obama, right, meets with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 10, 2016. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

WASHINGTON — It was supposed to be his grand valedictory tour. Now President Barack Obama must use his last major trip abroad to try to calm shocked world leaders about the outcome of the U.S. election, and what comes next when Donald Trump is president.

Trump’s unforeseen victory has triggered pangs of uncertainty at home and grave concerns around the world. Though Obama has urged unity and said the U.S. must root for Trump’s success, his trip to Greece, Germany and Peru forces him to confront global concerns about the future of America’s leadership.

“In some ways, there’s nothing to say,” said Heather Conley, a Europe scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Conley said Obama’s trip, planned when it seemed certain Hillary Clinton would win, had been designed to reassure the world that the U.S. had regained its footing after a toxic campaign that unnerved foreign capitals. “Now the president has the unenviable task of telling his counterparts and explaining what Europeans are now coining ‘the Trump effect,'” Conley said.

For months, Obama lent credence to those concerns as he urged Americans to reject Trump. Standing alongside Singapore’s prime minister in August, Obama said Trump was “woefully unprepared” because he lacked “basic knowledge” about critical issues in Europe, Asia and the Mideast. And during a visit to Japan, Obama said he wasn’t the only world leader worried about Trump.

“They’re rattled by him, and for good reason,” Obama said in May. “Because a lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs, or a cavalier attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous, and what’s required to keep the world on an even keel.”

Now, Obama must pivot and reassure the U.S. and other countries that somehow, it will all be OK.

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Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the president fully expects Trump’s election to be a dominant theme of the trip, but would emphasize his plans to keep carrying out his approach until Trump takes over. He said Obama would argue that basic U.S. principles like honoring treaty commitments have historically survived even the most dramatic changes of administrations.

“He’ll want to use these conversations with leaders to express that view that given all the important issues that we face, no matter what our preferred choice may have been in the election, right now we as Americans have a stake in seeing this next administration succeed,” Rhodes said.

Obama departs Monday on the six-day trip, stopping first in Athens, where he’ll tour the Parthenon, meet with the prime minister, and give a speech about democracy and globalization that will take on new relevance in light of Trump’s election. He’ll use his visit to Berlin to show gratitude to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his closest foreign partner, and to meet with key European leaders.

In Peru, he’ll attend a major Asian economic summit in Lima, and also meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull.

For the most part, foreign leaders have politely if cautiously congratulated Trump on his victory, in public statements and phone calls.

A few have been more effusive, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose perceived sympathies for Trump became an election issue and who now says he wants to fully restore U.S. relations under President Trump.

In Europe, where Obama has sought unity with allies to counter Russia’s growing influence, NATO members are alarmed by Trump’s suggestions that the U.S. might pull out of the alliance if other countries don’t pay more. Many of the same nations are wrestling with whether last year’s historic climate change deal can be salvaged after Trump’s threats to pull the U.S. out.

Conversely, Trump’s “America first” motto has resonated deeply with nationalists and skeptics of globalization who see Trump as a kindred spirit. After all, it was Trump who dubbed himself “Mr. Brexit” after the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union.

America’s Mideast allies are unsure what Trump’s victory means for the nuclear deal with Iran, a foe of U.S. partners Saudi Arabia and Israel, considering Trump’s repeated but vague pledges to renegotiate that deal. And misgivings about Trump will certainly follow Obama to Latin America, where Trump has turned off many with his hard-line immigration stance and description of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.

Asian leaders who painstakingly negotiated a landmark free trade deal with the U.S. are swallowing the reality that Congress will not approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership any time soon. Obama planned to meet with TPP country leaders Peru, but the White House acknowledged the deal is all but dead because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has ruled out a vote on it before Trump takes office.

Trump is vehemently opposed to TPP and similar deals. That could benefit China, which is eager to fill any void in regional leadership left by a U.S. and has its own competing free trade scheme. Yet Beijing has reason to be wary, too: Trump has threatened a trade war with China and vowed to go after the Asian powerhouse for what he deems currency manipulation.

The post On last foreign tour, Obama must find a way to explain Trump appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Sting to reopen Bataclan hall one year after Paris attacks

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People walk past the Bataclan Cafe and the new facade of the Bataclan concert hall almost one year after a series of attacks at several sites in Paris, France, November 8, 2016.    REUTERS/Charles Platiau - RTX2SIZA

People walk past the Bataclan Cafe and the new facade of the Bataclan concert hall almost one year after a series of attacks at several sites in Paris, France, on Nov. 8, 2016. Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters

PARIS — A concert by British pop legend Sting is marking the reopening of the Paris’ Bataclan concert hall one year after suicidal jihadis turned it into a bloodbath and killed 90 revelers with automatic weapons and explosive belts.

The coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 last year that also targeted bars, restaurants and the sports stadium, leaving 130 people dead and hundreds more injured , were the worst extremist violence ever to hit France. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath.

The Bataclan said all 1,000 Sting tickets sold out in “less than 30 minutes” — for the concert hall that has a 1,500-person capacity.

Sting, 65, is no stranger to the Paris venue. He played there decades ago in 1979 as lead singer of The Police. The singer’s new album “57th & 9th” was released Friday.

Sting said the proceeds from the Saturday night concert would go to two charities helping survivors. More than 1,700 people have been officially recognized as victims of the horror that unfolded at the Bataclan, Paris cafes and France’s national stadium.

The families of those who perished in the Bataclan were given tickets by organizers, contradicting earlier reports that all survivors and their families would be invited.

Bataclan survivor and “Life for Paris” victims’ association Alexis Lebrun said he understood the Bataclan’s choice — saying there was not enough space to invite everyone.

“We have no problem whatsoever with the Bataclan’s practical decision to invite only the families of those who died. The proceeds will go to the associations, and if we’d all been invited there’d have been less money raised,” Lebrun told the AP.

Some who were invited decided against attending the emotionally charged event.

“I don’t want to put a foot in the Bataclan. Even if Sting is a legend. I’m staying with my family tonight,” said Jean Marie de Peretti, father of Aurelie de Peretti who died in the concert hall massacre.

The concert hall — which has been refurbished to its original state — will remain closed on Sunday’s actual anniversary of the attacks, when President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo will unveil plaques in memory of victims at the half-dozen sites where revelers died.

In addition to those killed, nine people remain hospitalized from the attacks and others are paralyzed or otherwise irreparably injured. The government says more than 600 people are still receiving psychological treatment related to the attacks.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, in a commentary given to a half-dozen European newspapers, warned that “Yes, terrorism will strike us again.” But, he contended that “we have all the resources to resist and all the strength to win.”

The post Sting to reopen Bataclan hall one year after Paris attacks appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Americans don safety pins in solidarity with minorities after election

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In the wave of reactions to Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the U.S., safety pins have taken on a new meaning in the country.

Some Americans are wearing safety pins as a symbol of solidarity with victims of racism, homophobia and religious discrimination. People have spoken out on Twitter to say that their safety pins show that they are an ally to marginalized groups.

“My #SafetyPin shows I will protect those who feel in danger bc of gender, sexuality, race, disability, religion, etc. You are safe with me,” actor Bex Taylor-Klaus tweeted.

The trend began in the UK, where people started wearing safety pins after the country’s vote to leave the European Union in June.

Some Brexit supporters favored the move in hopes it would stem the flow of migrants to the UK. After the referendum passed, the country saw a spike in xenophobic attacks.

Americans are starting to report a similar rise in hostilities, with the Southern Poverty Law Center recording more than 200 incidents of “election-related harassment and intimidation” as of Friday evening. Its report noted that “every incident could not be immediately independently verified.”

In the days following the election, students have reported incidents of intimidation and bullying, including in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s hometown. In one Michigan middle school, students chanted “build that wall” during their lunch period. A swastika appeared on a storefront in South Philadelphia.

Video has also surfaced that appears to show an attack on a student who voiced support for Donald Trump. The Los Angeles Times also reported that one principal was suspended after making a profane comment about the president-elect.

The post Americans don safety pins in solidarity with minorities after election appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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