Wednesday, December 25 | By Emily Brooks & Sarah Fortinsky |
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| ▪ Roadblocks for Trump's immigration crackdown ▪ Trump brings Silicon Valley to Washington ▪ Trump zeroes in on Panama Canal and Greenland ▪ U.S. militia strategy in Afghanistan backfired |
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©️ The Associated Press | Julia Demaree Nikhinson |
Roadblocks for Trump's immigration crackdown |
President-elect Trump's ambitious immigration agenda faces significant roadblocks. |
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Trump wants to close the southern border, carry out the largest deportation effort in history and end birthright citizenship. But his first term shows the kind of challenges that lie ahead for executing those plans, The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch and Rafael Bernal report. Legal battles tied up his immigration policies in his first term, with some rejected by the courts based on technicalities or procedural grounds. Democrats are vowing to do everything they can to counter Trump's actions. "The once and future president is talking about abolishing birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the first sentence of the 14th Amendment. So if that is indeed their first executive order, which is what they're talking about, we will have to fight them on that. If they are proposing to do it the right way by amending the Constitution, we will oppose it," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the incoming ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. The size of the federal workforce and resources allocated for immigration enforcement also pose a challenge to executing Trump's plans. Incoming border czar Tom Homan has said that he will need at least 100,000 detention beds and a significant increase in border agents to fulfill Trump's mass deportation goals, which he has said would require at least $86 billion. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) led a bicameral GOP letter that called for funding to hire "thousands" more border and immigration agents and to ensure a "substantial increase" in detention facilities. More challenges in Congress: The result of last week's funding saga could further hinder Republican goals of quickly sending border legislation and funding to Trump's desk in his 100 days. Republicans have been planning to use a special process called reconciliation to push an ambitious legislative agenda, including measures to address the border, through both GOP-controlled chambers of Congress next year. That reconciliation process bypasses the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. But the reconciliation plan got a new wrinkle last week because of Trump's demands to raise the debt ceiling as part of a short-term government funding bill. The thought from Trump was that addressing the debt ceiling now, months earlier than Congress was expecting to take action on the matter, would prevent Democrats from using it as a leverage point next year. But GOP fiscal hawks balked at raising the nation's borrowing limit without slashing federal spending. Republicans reached a handshake compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling in the reconciliation bill — addressing Trump's concern by nullifying the threat of Democrats using it to extract concessions — while pairing it with trillions in spending cuts. Executing that deal, though, means severely complicating the reconciliation legislation and the border measures they hoped to quickly pass through a razor-thin majority in the House. While Republicans largely agree on border issues, battles over spending cuts and which measures are sufficient — issues that repeatedly threw the House into chaos over the last two years — are poised to complicate and delay major border or immigration funding and legislation. |
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Programming note: Morning Report won't publish tomorrow but will be back in your inboxes on Friday. Merry Christmas! |
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©️ Brandon Bell | Pool via AP |
President-elect Trump is bringing Silicon Valley to Washington in full force, with tech leaders slated to take on prominent roles in his forthcoming administration — both officially and unofficially. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has become the most prominent tech figure in Trump's inner circle, but numerous Silicon Valley executives are expected to fill out the ranks of the president-elect's administration, reports The Hill's Julia Shapero. Trump tapped venture capitalist David Sacks earlier this month to serve as the White House czar of artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency, a new role dedicated to steering the administration's policy on the two technologies. "I feel like this is a turning point, and David Sacks here may be just a small part of it, but he represents a connection between the tech community and President-elect Trump," said Matt Calkins, co-founder and CEO of Appian, a cloud computing and enterprise software firm. Jacob Helberg, a senior adviser to the CEO of Palantir Technologies, was named undersecretary of State for economic growth, energy and the environment. And Jim O'Neill, a biotech investor and close associate of venture capitalist Peter Thiel, will join the administration as deputy secretary of Health and Human Services. Politico: Musk's "move fast and break things" approach is a culture clash with Washington, as shown by how he helped killed a 1,500-page government funding bill. BILLS SIGNED: President Biden signed 50 bills into law on Tuesday as his time in the White House draws to a close (CBS).Those include: The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, a bill pushed by Paris Hilton to protect at-risk youth in residential behavioral programs The Stop Campus Hazing Act, a bill to require colleges and universities to disclose hazing incidents in their annual security reports and establish hazing education and prevention programs The No CORRUPTION Act, a bill to prevent any members of Congress convicted on public corruption charges from receiving retirement payments, which comes in wake of former Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) being found guilty on bribery charges this year. Previous law prevented those payments only after the exhaustion of all appeals. A bill officially designating the bald eagle as the national bird. FIRST 2025 TEST: Democrats see two state special elections in northern Virginia as their first test ahead of state election races later in the year. While the districts are considered safe for Democrats, the party is hoping to demonstrate that it is making up the ground that Vice President Harris lost in the 2024 election (The Hill). JUDGES: Leaders in the federal judiciary and some lawmakers are criticizing President Biden for vetoing the JUDGES Act, a bipartisan bill that would have added 66 new federal judges to address growing caseloads (The Hill). STARBUCKS STRIKE: Starbucks baristas walked off the job in stores across dozens of cities in what its union called "the strike before Christmas" (NPR). |
- The president will receive the President's Daily Brief at 10 a.m. EST.
- The Senate will meet on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. for a pro forma session. The House will meet on Friday at noon for a pro forma session.
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©️ The Associated Press | Matias Delacroix |
Panama: President-elect Trump has sparked a new feud with Panama over the vital maritime canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, reports The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch. Trump is proposing a massive shift in the operation of the canal, which has been under Panamanian control since the turn of the millennium after a deal struck decades earlier. But he is also taking issue with what he described as its "exorbitant prices." In a speech at Turning Point USA and multiple times on his social media site, Trump said the U.S. is "being ripped off" before floating a demand to regain control of the passageway from the Central American nation. Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said that Trump's comments are part of a negotiating tactic to get rates down. (The Hill) "I don't envision American troops going in to retake the canal, but you got to think that someone is out there scratching their head going, 'Is Donald Trump crazy enough to do something like that?'" Mulvaney said on "The Hill" on NewsNation. "And it's that viable threat that sort of gives him negotiating leverage that not a lot of other folks could ever come up with." Trump's comment about Panama is the latest in a string of attacks he has launched against allies, pushing to negotiate treaties, raise tariffs or even claim new territory. Greenland: As Trump reignites his interest in gaining control of Greenland, Denmark on Tuesday announced a major new package to boost the security of the Arctic island, with plans to spend the equivalent of approximately $1.5 billion in its new defense package (The Hill). Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was planned in advance but noted it was "ironic" that it coincided with President-elect Trump's call for the U.S. to retake control of the Arctic island. "For many years we have not invested enough in the Arctic, now we are planning a stronger presence," Poulsen told a local outlet, adding that Denmark is willing to "work with the U.S." to secure Greenland. This is not the first time a U.S. president has taken an interest in buying Greenland, The Washington Post reports. In the 1860s, President Andrew Johnson commissioned a report that found Greenland to be a strategic investment because of its natural resources. President Harry Truman, shortly after World War II, made a $100 million offer for Greenland, according to the Post. Axios: Trump is dreaming to expand the American empire, floating acquiring Greenland, annexing Canada, and potentially invading Mexico. |
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©️ The Associated Press | Naim Rahimi |
REVISITING AFGHANISTAN: The U.S. strategy to support militias in northern Afghanistan backfired when those groups laid the groundwork for the Taliban's victory during the chaotic American withdrawal in 2021, a New York Times investigation found. The strategy was intended to help secure the region from a Taliban takeover — but instead, the groups became seen by locals as a source of torment by the local population. The north became the first region to fall to the Taliban. "The U.S. empowered bandits and murderers in the name of counterinsurgency," said Matiullah Rohani, a former Taliban commander who is now minister of information and culture in Kunduz, Afghanistan. "But it only pushed more people into the hands of the Taliban." NORTH KOREAN CASUALTIES: More than 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed or wounded as they fight in support of Russia in the Kursk region of Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday (ABC). "There are risks of sending additional soldiers and military equipment to the Russian army from North Korea," Zelensky said in a statement posted on the social platform X. "According to preliminary data, the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people." SYRIA: Syria's Islamist rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda fighter, has sought to cast himself as a more moderate figure. But he is not yet making commitments on women's rights or free elections (Wall Street Journal). Washington Post: What to know about camps in Syria holding families of ISIS fighters, amid concerns that sleeper cells could seize on vulnerabilities in Syria |
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- How mass migration is being weaponized — a lesson from Poland, by Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), The Hill.
- With Syria's upheaval, a pivotal moment of danger and opportunity for Israel, by Naftali Bennett, former Israeli prime minister, The Washington Post.
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©️ The Associated Press | Sergei Kharpukhin |
And finally … On this day in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced that he was resigning as president of the USSR, cementing the demise of the Soviet Union. Four days earlier, 11 former Soviet republics had already established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In his resignation speech, Gorbachev said because of the formation of the CIS, "I cease my activities in the post of the USSR president." "I am making this decision out of considerations based on principle," Gorbachev said in his speech. "I have firmly stood for independence, self-rule of nations, for the sovereignty of the republics, but at the same time for preservation of the union state, the unity of the country." |
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