Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Trump tries to move past
controversies, toward legislating
By JULIE PACE
AP White House
Correspondent
WASHINGTON — As
President Donald Trump
begins his second month in
office, his team is trying to
move past the crush of contro-
versies that overtook his first
month and make progress on
health care and tax overhauls
long sought by Republicans.
Both issues thrust Trump,
a real estate executive who
has never held elected office,
into the unfamiliar world of
legislating. The president has
thus far relied exclusively on
executive powers to muscle
through policy priorities and
has offered few details about
what he’ll require in any final
legislative packages, like
how the proposals should be
paid for. The White House
also sent conflicting signals
about whether the president
will send Congress his own
legislative blueprints or let
lawmakers drive the process.
White House chief of staff
Reince Priebus told The Asso-
ciated Press that he expects a
health care plan to emerge in
“the first few days of March.”
Pressed on whether the plan
would be coming from the
White House, Priebus said,
“We don’t work in a vacuum.”
On Sunday, White House
advisers held a three-hour
meeting on health care at
Trump’s South Florida club,
their third lengthy discussion
on the topic in four days. Gary
Cohn, the former Goldman
Sachs banker now serving
as Trump’s top economic
adviser, and newly sworn
in Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin have been leading
talks
with
Republican
lawmakers and business
leaders on taxes. Neither
man has prior government
experience.
Republicans long blamed
Democrats for blocking
efforts to overhaul the nation’s
complicated tax code and
make changes to the sweeping
2010 health care law signed by
President Barack Obama. But
with the GOP now in control
of both the White House and
Congress, making good on
those promises rests almost
entirely with the president and
his party.
To some Republicans’
chagrin, both issues were
overshadowed
during
Trump’s first month. The
president spent more time
publicly fighting the media
than selling Americans on
his vision for a new health
care law. Fresh questions
emerged about Trump’s ties
to Russia, particularly after
national security adviser
Michael Flynn was fired for
misleading the White House
about his conversations with
a Russian envoy. The White
House botched the rollout of
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump,
her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner, their two
children Arabella Kushner and Joseph Kushner, Chief
White House Strategist Steve Bannon, second from
right, and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, right, walk to
Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Md., Friday.
Trump tweets further criticism of Sweden
WEST PALM BEACH,
Fla. (AP) — President
Donald Trump is tweeting
further criticism of Sweden’s
immigration policies.
The president tweeted
Monday that: “The FAKE
NEWS media is trying
to say that large scale
immigration in Sweden is
working out just beautifully.
NOT!”
People in Sweden have
been scratching their heads
since Trump suggested
during a rally Saturday that
some sort of incident had
occurred in their country.
Trump tweeted Sunday
he was referring to some-
thing he saw on television.
The president might
be referring to a segment
aired Friday night on the
Fox News Channel show
“Tucker Carlson Tonight”
that reported Sweden
had accepted more than
160,000
asylum-seekers
last year but that only 500
of the migrants had found
jobs in Sweden. The report
went on to say that a surge
in violence had followed.
a refugee and immigration
executive order, Trump’s most
substantive policy initiative to
date, and the directive was
quickly blocked by the courts.
Priebus said the distrac-
tions did not slow down work
happening behind the scenes
on the president’s legislative
priorities.
Priebus said he expects
Congress to pass both a
tax package and legislation
repealing and replacing
Obama’s health care law by
the end of the year. But the
White House’s outward confi-
dence belies major roadblocks
on both matters.
After spending years criti-
cizing “Obamacare,” Repub-
licans are grappling with how
to replace it and pay for a new
law. While some lawmakers
worry about getting blamed
for taking health insurance
away from millions of people,
others worry the party won’t
go far enough in upending the
current system.
“My worry now is that
many people are talking
about a partial repeal of
Obamacare,” Rep. Rand Paul,
R-Ky., said. “If you only
repeal part of it and you leave
it some sort of Obamacare
light, which some are talking
about, my fear is the situation
actually gets worse.”
Trump has said he wants
to keep popular provisions
like guaranteeing coverage
for people with pre-existing
medical conditions and
allowing young people to stay
on their parents’ insurance
plans until age 26. He’s
also raised the prospect of
allowing people to buy insur-
ance across states lines, which
is not part of the law.
On taxes, Republicans
have a potentially more
vexing impasse. House
Republicans want to scrap the
35 percent tax on corporate
profits, which is riddled with
exemptions, deductions and
credits, and replace it with
a “border adjustment tax.”
The system would tax all
imports coming into the U.S.,
but exclude exports from
taxation.
House Speaker Paul
Ryan’s office has been vigor-
ously promoting the idea to
Trump, who has called the
system “too complicated.”
Some House aides have
privately voiced optimism that
the White House is coming
around, though Priebus would
only say that border adjust-
ment was “an option we’re all
discussing and debating.”
The president has said he
plans to release a “phenom-
enal” tax plan in the coming
weeks.
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Tyler White/The San Antonio Express-News via AP
A CPS Energy transmission tower is bent in half Monday in San Antonio. Se-
vere storms pushed at least two tornadoes through parts of San Antonio over-
night, ripping the roofs off homes and damaging dozens of other houses and
apartments yet causing only minor injuries, authorities said Monday.
Russia’s ambassador to U.N. dies at 64
NEW YORK (AP) —
Russia’s ambassador to the
United Nations, a veteran
diplomat known as a potent,
savvy yet personable voice
for his country’s interests
who could both spar and
get along with his Western
counterparts, died suddenly
Monday after falling ill in
his office at Russia’s U.N.
mission.
Vitaly Churkin was
taken to a hospital, where
he died a day before his
65th birthday, said Russia’s
deputy U.N. ambassador,
Vladimir Safronkov. The
cause of his death was
unknown.
As Russia’s envoy at the
United Nations since 2006
and a diplomat for decades,
Churkin was considered
Moscow’s great champion
at the U.N., where he was
the longest-serving ambas-
sador on the powerful
Security Council.
U.N. Secre-
tary-General
Antonio Guterres
called
Churkin
“an outstanding
diplomat.”
“Ambassador
Churkin served
the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs Churkin
of the Russian
Federation with distinction
through some of the most
challenging and momen-
tous periods of recent
history,” Guterres said in a
statement.
Russian
President
Vladimir Putin esteemed
Churkin’s “professionalism
and diplomatic talents,”
spokesman Dmitry Peskov
said, according to the state
news agency TASS. Diplo-
matic colleagues from
around the world mourned
Churkin as a master in their
field: a passionate
and
effective
advocate
for
his country; an
intellectual with
a doctorate in
history who was
also a onetime
child actor with
an acute wit; a
formidable adver-
sary who could
remain a friend.
“We did not always see
things the same way, but he
unquestionably advocated
his country’s positions with
great skill,” U.S. Ambas-
sador Nikki Haley said in a
statement.
Her
predecessor,
Samantha Power, described
him on Twitter as a “diplo-
matic maestro and deeply
caring man” who had
done all he could to bridge
differences between the
U.S. and Russia.
North Korea calls for joint investigation
KUALA
LUMPUR,
Malaysia (AP) — North
Korea’s ambassador to
Malaysia denounced the
country’s investigation into
the death of the exiled half
brother of North Korea’s
ruler, calling it politically
motivated and demanding
a joint probe amid increas-
ingly bitter exchanges
between the once-friendly
nations.
Malaysia responded with
its own accusations, with a
foreign ministry statement
saying the ambassador’s
comments were “culled
from
delusions,
lies
and half-truths.” Earlier
Monday, Malaysia said it
was recalling its ambassador
to Pyongyang.
The diplomatic spat
comes in the wake of the
death last week of Kim Jong
Nam, who died after appar-
ently being poisoned in the
Kuala Lumpur airport.
The attack spiraled
into diplomatic fury when
Malaysia refused to hand
over Kim’s corpse to North
Korean diplomats and
proceeded with at least one
autopsy over the diplomats’
objections.
“The investigation by the
Malaysian police is not for
the clarification of the cause
of the death and search for
the suspect, but it is out of the
political aim,” North Korean
Ambassador Kang Chol told
reporters Monday, saying
Malaysia was in collusion
with South Korea, as Seoul
tries to deflect attention
from its own months-long
political crisis.
Police “pinned the suspi-
cion on us, and targeted
the investigation against
us,” Kang said, calling
on Malaysia to work with
North Korea in a joint inves-
tigation. Kang referred to the
dead man as “Kim Chol,”
the name on the passport
found with Kim Jong Nam.
Malaysia Prime Minister
Najib Razak told reporters
later Monday that he had
confidence in the objectivity
of his country’s police and
doctors.
Malaysia had no reason
to “paint the North Koreans
in a bad light,” he said,
adding, “We expect them to
understand that we apply the
rule of law in Malaysia.”