Joining the show today are Donald J. Trump, U.S. Department of the TreasurySecretary Jacob Lew, Thomas Friedman and it has been confirmed thatin Taji Japan, a large pod of striped dolphins is currently being driven into#TheCove. TODAY all our voices will be heard for the dolphins of Taiji #DolphinProject #EndTheMadness. Take the Pledge NOT to buy a Ticket to a Dolphin show: https://goo.gl/DMNur7 #DolphinProject #Tweet4Dolphins #DontGoToSeaworld
“Have I started writing my inauguration speech, as opposed to the speech I have to give tomorrow? Look, the answer is yes.” Sanders told The Huffington Post in an interview published Thursday.
Sanders said he thinks about the responsibilities of the office if he should win.
“It is a very sobering thing to be thinking about oneself as president of the United States and the enormous responsibilities that go with that,” he added.
In the interview with The Huffington Post, Sanders also praised President Obama, saying his effort to overcome the “racism still permeating in American society” adds to his “extraordinary” accomplishments as commander in chief.
“And by the way, in that regard, while I have had my disagreements with Barack Obama, I think under extraordinary conditions, with unprecedented obstructionism thrown at his face every day, with the vestiges of racism still permeating in American society, I think his intelligence and his focus have been — and his discipline — have been extraordinary, OK?” Sanders said.
“Now do I have my disagreements with Barack Obama? Absolutely. But I have a lot of respect for the guy,” he added.
Sanders hits 2 million campaign contributions.
Sanders (I-Vt.) has received two million donations, more than any non-incumbent candidate in history, his campaign said Thursday.
The Sanders campaign released a web and television ad on Thursday touting the haul, in which the Vermont senator notes that he accomplished the feat without the help of a super-PAC.
“Over 2 million contributions have been made to the only campaign that rejects a corrupt campaign finance system,” Sanders says in the ad. “You can’t level the playing field with Wall Street banks and billionaires by taking their money.”
In the third quarter, the Sanders campaign took in $26 million, nearly matching Hillary Clinton’s $28 million haul.
The campaign did not say how much it has raised so far in the fourth quarter, but said it has pulled in more than $3 million so far this week amid a push to hit the 2 million donations mark.
More than half of that has come in since Wednesday alone, the campaign said.
Sanders has lost some of the momentum he had earlier in the cycle and appears to have hit a plateau in the polls.
Clinton has a huge lead nationally over Sanders and has maintained a steady double-digit lead over him in Iowa. Sanders has a narrow lead over Clinton in New Hampshire.
But the Sanders campaign argues that it still has considerable grassroots support, pointing to its high percentage of small-dollar donations.
The contributions that came in this week averaged $20 apiece, the campaign said, and overall only 1.7 percent of Sanders’s donors have given the maximum contribution, compared to more than 60 percent for Clinton.
The Sanders campaign released a web and television ad on Thursday touting the haul, in which the Vermont senator notes that he accomplished the feat without the help of a super-PAC.
“Over 2 million contributions have been made to the only campaign that rejects a corrupt campaign finance system,” Sanders says in the ad. “You can’t level the playing field with Wall Street banks and billionaires by taking their money.”
In the third quarter, the Sanders campaign took in $26 million, nearly matching Hillary Clinton’s $28 million haul.
The campaign did not say how much it has raised so far in the fourth quarter, but said it has pulled in more than $3 million so far this week amid a push to hit the 2 million donations mark.
More than half of that has come in since Wednesday alone, the campaign said.
Sanders has lost some of the momentum he had earlier in the cycle and appears to have hit a plateau in the polls.
Clinton has a huge lead nationally over Sanders and has maintained a steady double-digit lead over him in Iowa. Sanders has a narrow lead over Clinton in New Hampshire.
But the Sanders campaign argues that it still has considerable grassroots support, pointing to its high percentage of small-dollar donations.
The contributions that came in this week averaged $20 apiece, the campaign said, and overall only 1.7 percent of Sanders’s donors have given the maximum contribution, compared to more than 60 percent for Clinton.
Sanders picks up two big endorsements.
Sanders’ bid for the Democratic presidential nomination scored two big endorsements Thursday, one from a major labor union and another from a progressive political action committee founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean.
The Vermont independent’s endorsement by the Communications Workers of America union, which represents 700,000 public and private sector workers, is one of his biggest endorsements to date. It follows a series of endorsements for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton by 18 unions and labor alliances representing nearly 12 million people.
The Democracy for America PAC endorsed Sanders even after Dean asked the group’s members to support Clinton.
Both Democracy for America and the Communications Workers of America could tap members for fundraising support and grass-roots organizing. The union, which endorsed Sanders after polling its members, has a super PAC that can make unlimited independent expenditures in support of Sanders or against other candidates.
“We will use whatever we need, with our own members and with working people across this country, to do every single thing we can to get Bernie Sanders elected to the presidency of the United States,” said CWA President Christopher Shelton.
Sanders reiterated that he opposes super PACs. But he drew a distinction between labor unions and wealthy donors contributing unlimited funds.
“This is what grass-roots activism is about,” Sanders said. “Any comparison about working people knocking on doors as opposed to billionaires making a contribution I think would be a false (comparison.)”
Sanders earned Democracy for America’s endorsement after receiving nearly 88% of 271,527 votes cast by members and other progressives nationwide over a nine-day voting period.
Franklin Pierce/Herald poll: Trump still on top, but rivals surge.
A pack of more proven GOP contenders led by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz is surging closer to Donald Trump in New Hampshire, while Democrat Hillary Clinton has clawed back to a virtual tie with Bernie Sanders, a new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald New Hampshire poll reveals.
Favorability Ratings: Potential Republican Presidential Candidates
Trump continues to hold a double-digit lead over the GOP field but Rubio, Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have made big gains while onetime phenom Ben Carson has plummeted to near the back of the pack, the poll shows.
On the Democratic side, Sanders’ double-digit lead has nearly evaporated and he tops Clinton only by a 48-46 percent margin — within the margin of error in the poll of 410 likely Democratic primary voters in the Granite State.
Favorability Ratings: Potential Democratic Presidential Candidates
Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon, who has both electrified and outraged voters with positions like a ban on Muslim immigrants, is still getting 26 percent of likely GOP primary voters — only a 2-point drop from a Franklin Pierce
Herald poll in October.
But Rubio and Cruz have jumped to second place, tied at 12 percent, the poll shows.
Christie has jumped 8 points since October and is now up to 11 percent, while even former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is still hanging in with 10 percent, according to the poll of 430 likely Republican voters in the Granite State. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is getting 8 percent of likely voters.
“Collectively these more mainstream candidates are having a resurgence,” said pollster R. Kelly Myers of RKM Research and Communications, which conducted the poll for Franklin Pierce and the Herald Dec. 13-17.
Carson, the neurosurgeon who had rocketed to near the top of the GOP field nationally and in Iowa, has dropped from 16 percent in October to just 5 percent in the new Franklin Pierce/Herald poll. Carly Fiorina has also lost ground and stands at 6 percent, while Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is at 3 percent.
The results indicate that while outsider Trump still has a solid lead, more voters are turning to established and experienced GOP figures.
“The other two outsiders have completely fallen off the face of the earth,” pollster Myers said. “Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson are gone.”
Rubio’s surge is notable because he has campaigned less in New Hampshire yet still has the best favorability ratings of any GOP candidate.
Two-thirds of likely Republican primary voters say they view the Florida senator “very” or “somewhat” favorably, while just 17 percent have an unfavorable view — another sign of
his potential strength in the Granite State.
Cruz’s gains in New Hampshire coincide with a surge in Iowa, yet one third of GOP voters in the Granite State have an unfavorable view of him.
Fifty-five percent of GOP voters have a favorable view of Trump, while 41 percent give him an unfavorable rating.
But Trump still easily beats his competitors on two key questions — who can better fight terrorism and who will most likely be the GOP nominee.
On the Democratic side, Clinton appears to have benefitted from Vice President Joe Biden leaving the race and overwhelming voter perception that she is going to be the Democratic nominee.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley remains mired at 2 percent support.
“I think there’s a little bit more inevitability,” Myers said.
Both Sanders and Clinton are viewed favorably by well over 80 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. The poll's margin of error is 4.7 percent for the Republicans and 4.8 percent for the Democrats.
Remarks by the President at the National Defense University National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.
2:01 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated.
It is a great honor to return to the National Defense University. Here, at Fort McNair, Americans have served in uniform since 1791 -- standing guard in the earliest days of the Republic, and contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.
For over two centuries, the United States has been bound together by founding documents that defined who we are as Americans, and served as our compass through every type of change. Matters of war and peace are no different. Americans are deeply ambivalent about war, but having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for freedom. From the Civil War to our struggle against fascism, on through the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, battlefields have changed and technology has evolved. But our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war, and every war has come to an end.
With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a new dawn of democracy took hold abroad, and a decade of peace and prosperity arrived here at home. And for a moment, it seemed the 21st century would be a tranquil time. And then, on September 11, 2001, we were shaken out of complacency. Thousands were taken from us, as clouds of fire and metal and ash descended upon a sun-filled morning. This was a different kind of war. No armies came to our shores, and our military was not the principal target. Instead, a group of terrorists came to kill as many civilians as they could.
And so our nation went to war. We have now been at war for well over a decade. I won’t review the full history. What is clear is that we quickly drove al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but then shifted our focus and began a new war in Iraq. And this carried significant consequences for our fight against al Qaeda, our standing in the world, and -- to this day -- our interests in a vital region.
Meanwhile, we strengthened our defenses -- hardening targets, tightening transportation security, giving law enforcement new tools to prevent terror. Most of these changes were sound. Some caused inconvenience. But some, like expanded surveillance, raised difficult questions about the balance that we strike between our interests in security and our values of privacy. And in some cases, I believe we compromised our basic values -- by using torture to interrogate our enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law.
So after I took office, we stepped up the war against al Qaeda but we also sought to change its course. We relentlessly targeted al Qaeda’s leadership. We ended the war in Iraq, and brought nearly 150,000 troops home. We pursued a new strategy in Afghanistan, and increased our training of Afghan forces. We unequivocally banned torture, affirmed our commitment to civilian courts, worked to align our policies with the rule of law, and expanded our consultations with Congress.
Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top lieutenants. There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in harm’s way, and over the next 19 months they will continue to come home. Our alliances are strong, and so is our standing in the world. In sum, we are safer because of our efforts.
Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.
And these questions matter to every American.
For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over a trillion dollars on war, helping to explode our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build here at home. Our servicemembers and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home. From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions that we are making now will define the type of nation -- and world -- that we leave to our children.
So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. That begins with understanding the current threat that we face.
Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us. They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston. They’ve not carried out a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11.
Instead, what we’ve seen is the emergence of various al Qaeda affiliates. From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North Africa, the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula -- AQAP -- the most active in plotting against our homeland. And while none of AQAP’s efforts approach the scale of 9/11, they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.
Unrest in the Arab world has also allowed extremists to gain a foothold in countries like Libya and Syria. But here, too, there are differences from 9/11. In some cases, we continue to confront state-sponsored networks like Hezbollah that engage in acts of terror to achieve political goals. Other of these groups are simply collections of local militias or extremists interested in seizing territory. And while we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a transnational threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and regions where they are based. And that means we'll face more localized threats like what we saw in Benghazi, or the BP oil facility in Algeria, in which local operatives -- perhaps in loose affiliation with regional networks -- launch periodic attacks against Western diplomats, companies, and other soft targets, or resort to kidnapping and other criminal enterprises to fund their operations.
And finally, we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the United States. Whether it’s a shooter at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, a plane flying into a building in Texas, or the extremists who killed 168 people at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, America has confronted many forms of violent extremism in our history. Deranged or alienated individuals -- often U.S. citizens or legal residents -- can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. And that pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.
So that’s the current threat -- lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates; threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad; homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We have to take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.
In the 1980s, we lost Americans to terrorism at our Embassy in Beirut; at our Marine Barracks in Lebanon; on a cruise ship at sea; at a disco in Berlin; and on a Pan Am flight -- Flight 103 -- over Lockerbie. In the 1990s, we lost Americans to terrorism at the World Trade Center; at our military facilities in Saudi Arabia; and at our Embassy in Kenya. These attacks were all brutal; they were all deadly; and we learned that left unchecked, these threats can grow. But if dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.
Moreover, we have to recognize that these threats don’t arise in a vacuum. Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology -- a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam. And this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist attacks.
Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age when ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism can’t depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills, a battle of ideas. So what I want to discuss here today is the components of such a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy.
First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.
In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. And we will work with the Afghan government to train security forces, and sustain a counterterrorism force, which ensures that al Qaeda can never again establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us or our allies.
Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless “global war on terror,” but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America. In many cases, this will involve partnerships with other countries. Already, thousands of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting extremists. In Yemen, we are supporting security forces that have reclaimed territory from AQAP. In Somalia, we helped a coalition of African nations push al-Shabaab out of its strongholds. In Mali, we’re providing military aid to French-led intervention to push back al Qaeda in the Maghreb, and help the people of Mali reclaim their future.
Much of our best counterterrorism cooperation results in the gathering and sharing of intelligence, the arrest and prosecution of terrorists. And that’s how a Somali terrorist apprehended off the coast of Yemen is now in a prison in New York. That’s how we worked with European allies to disrupt plots from Denmark to Germany to the United Kingdom. That’s how intelligence collected with Saudi Arabia helped us stop a cargo plane from being blown up over the Atlantic. These partnerships work.
But despite our strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed. Al Qaeda and its affiliates try to gain foothold in some of the most distant and unforgiving places on Earth. They take refuge in remote tribal regions. They hide in caves and walled compounds. They train in empty deserts and rugged mountains.
In some of these places -- such as parts of Somalia and Yemen -- the state only has the most tenuous reach into the territory. In other cases, the state lacks the capacity or will to take action. And it’s also not possible for America to simply deploy a team of Special Forces to capture every terrorist. Even when such an approach may be possible, there are places where it would pose profound risks to our troops and local civilians -- where a terrorist compound cannot be breached without triggering a firefight with surrounding tribal communities, for example, that pose no threat to us; times when putting U.S. boots on the ground may trigger a major international crisis.
To put it another way, our operation in Pakistan against Osama bin Laden cannot be the norm. The risks in that case were immense. The likelihood of capture, although that was our preference, was remote given the certainty that our folks would confront resistance. The fact that we did not find ourselves confronted with civilian casualties, or embroiled in an extended firefight, was a testament to the meticulous planning and professionalism of our Special Forces, but it also depended on some luck. And it was supported by massive infrastructure in Afghanistan.
And even then, the cost to our relationship with Pakistan -- and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on their territory -- was so severe that we are just now beginning to rebuild this important partnership.
So it is in this context that the United States has taken lethal, targeted action against al Qaeda and its associated forces, including with remotely piloted aircraft commonly referred to as drones.
As was true in previous armed conflicts, this new technology raises profound questions -- about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality. So let me address these questions.
To begin with, our actions are effective. Don’t take my word for it. In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we found that he wrote, “We could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.” Other communications from al Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. Dozens of highly skilled al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, U.S. transit systems, European cities and our troops in Afghanistan. Simply put, these strikes have saved lives.
Moreover, America’s actions are legal. We were attacked on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war -- a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.
And yet, as our fight enters a new phase, America’s legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power -- or risk abusing it. And that’s why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists –- insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.
In the Afghan war theater, we must -- and will -- continue to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. And that means we will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. But by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.
Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.
America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.
Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes -- both here at home and abroad -- understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties -- not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.
Where foreign governments cannot or will not effectively stop terrorism in their territory, the primary alternative to targeted lethal action would be the use of conventional military options. As I’ve already said, even small special operations carry enormous risks. Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage. And invasions of these territories lead us to be viewed as occupying armies, unleash a torrent of unintended consequences, are difficult to contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately empower those who thrive on violent conflict.
So it is false to assert that putting boots on the ground is less likely to result in civilian deaths or less likely to create enemies in the Muslim world. The results would be more U.S. deaths, more Black Hawks down, more confrontations with local populations, and an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily escalate into new wars.
Yes, the conflict with al Qaeda, like all armed conflict, invites tragedy. But by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.
Our efforts must be measured against the history of putting American troops in distant lands among hostile populations. In Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of civilians died in a war where the boundaries of battle were blurred. In Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the extraordinary courage and discipline of our troops, thousands of civilians have been killed. So neither conventional military action nor waiting for attacks to occur offers moral safe harbor, and neither does a sole reliance on law enforcement in territories that have no functioning police or security services -- and indeed, have no functioning law.
Now, this is not to say that the risks are not real. Any U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies and impacts public opinion overseas. Moreover, our laws constrain the power of the President even during wartime, and I have taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. The very precision of drone strikes and the necessary secrecy often involved in such actions can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.
And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted an American citizen -- Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations for AQAP.
This week, I authorized the declassification of this action, and the deaths of three other Americans in drone strikes, to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue and to dismiss some of the more outlandish claims that have been made. For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen -- with a drone, or with a shotgun -- without due process, nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.
But when a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens, and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a SWAT team.
That’s who Anwar Awlaki was -- he was continuously trying to kill people. He helped oversee the 2010 plot to detonate explosive devices on two U.S.-bound cargo planes. He was involved in planning to blow up an airliner in 2009. When Farouk Abdulmutallab -- the Christmas Day bomber -- went to Yemen in 2009, Awlaki hosted him, approved his suicide operation, helped him tape a martyrdom video to be shown after the attack, and his last instructions were to blow up the airplane when it was over American soil. I would have detained and prosecuted Awlaki if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we couldn’t. And as President, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized the strike that took him out.
Of course, the targeting of any American raises constitutional issues that are not present in other strikes -- which is why my administration submitted information about Awlaki to the Department of Justice months before Awlaki was killed, and briefed the Congress before this strike as well. But the high threshold that we’ve set for taking lethal action applies to all potential terrorist targets, regardless of whether or not they are American citizens. This threshold respects the inherent dignity of every human life. Alongside the decision to put our men and women in uniform in harm’s way, the decision to use force against individuals or groups -- even against a sworn enemy of the United States -- is the hardest thing I do as President. But these decisions must be made, given my responsibility to protect the American people.
Going forward, I’ve asked my administration to review proposals to extend oversight of lethal actions outside of warzones that go beyond our reporting to Congress. Each option has virtues in theory, but poses difficulties in practice. For example, the establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorize lethal action has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority. Another idea that’s been suggested -- the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch -- avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public confidence in the process. But despite these challenges, I look forward to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for increased oversight.
I believe, however, that the use of force must be seen as part of a larger discussion we need to have about a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy -- because for all the focus on the use of force, force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war -- through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments -- will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.
So the next element of our strategy involves addressing the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism -- from North Africa to South Asia. As we’ve learned this past decade, this is a vast and complex undertaking. We must be humble in our expectation that we can quickly resolve deep-rooted problems like poverty and sectarian hatred. Moreover, no two countries are alike, and some will undergo chaotic change before things get better. But our security and our values demand that we make the effort.
This means patiently supporting transitions to democracy in places like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya -- because the peaceful realization of individual aspirations will serve as a rebuke to violent extremists. We must strengthen the opposition in Syria, while isolating extremist elements -- because the end of a tyrant must not give way to the tyranny of terrorism. We are actively working to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians -- because it is right and because such a peace could help reshape attitudes in the region. And we must help countries modernize economies, upgrade education, and encourage entrepreneurship -- because American leadership has always been elevated by our ability to connect with people’s hopes, and not simply their fears.
And success on all these fronts requires sustained engagement, but it will also require resources. I know that foreign aid is one of the least popular expenditures that there is. That’s true for Democrats and Republicans -- I’ve seen the polling -- even though it amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget. In fact, a lot of folks think it’s 25 percent, if you ask people on the streets. Less than one percent -- still wildly unpopular. But foreign assistance cannot be viewed as charity. It is fundamental to our national security. And it’s fundamental to any sensible long-term strategy to battle extremism.
Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent. For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists. That has to be part of our strategy.
Moreover, America cannot carry out this work if we don’t have diplomats serving in some very dangerous places. Over the past decade, we have strengthened security at our embassies, and I am implementing every recommendation of the Accountability Review Board, which found unacceptable failures in Benghazi. I’ve called on Congress to fully fund these efforts to bolster security and harden facilities, improve intelligence, and facilitate a quicker response time from our military if a crisis emerges.
But even after we take these steps, some irreducible risks to our diplomats will remain. This is the price of being the world’s most powerful nation, particularly as a wave of change washes over the Arab World. And in balancing the trade4offs between security and active diplomacy, I firmly believe that any retreat from challenging regions will only increase the dangers that we face in the long run. And that's why we should be grateful to those diplomats who are willing to serve.
Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance -- through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the homeland and mitigate threats to Americans overseas. But as we guard against dangers from abroad, we cannot neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders.
As I said earlier, this threat is not new. But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and in some cases its lethality. Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda, and learn how to kill without leaving their home. To address this threat, two years ago my administration did a comprehensive review and engaged with law enforcement.
And the best way to prevent violent extremism inspired by violent jihadists is to work with the Muslim American community -- which has consistently rejected terrorism -- to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence. And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family. In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard against any encroachments on their civil liberties is the ultimate rebuke to those who say that we’re at war with Islam.
Thwarting homegrown plots presents particular challenges in part because of our proud commitment to civil liberties for all who call America home. That’s why, in the years to come, we will have to keep working hard to strike the appropriate balance between our need for security and preserving those freedoms that make us who we are. That means reviewing the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to prevent abuse.
That means that -- even after Boston -- we do not deport someone or throw somebody in prison in the absence of evidence. That means putting careful constraints on the tools the government uses to protect sensitive information, such as the state secrets doctrine. And that means finally having a strong Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review those issues where our counterterrorism efforts and our values may come into tension.
The Justice Department’s investigation of national security leaks offers a recent example of the challenges involved in striking the right balance between our security and our open society. As Commander-in-Chief, I believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy. That’s who we are. And I’m troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.
Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. And that’s why I’ve called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach. And I’ve raised these issues with the Attorney General, who shares my concerns. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and he’ll convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I’ve directed the Attorney General to report back to me by July 12th.
Now, all these issues remind us that the choices we make about war can impact -- in sometimes unintended ways -- the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.
The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old. The Afghan war is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.
So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.
And that brings me to my final topic: the detention of terrorist suspects. I’m going to repeat one more time: As a matter of policy, the preference of the United States is to capture terrorist suspects. When we do detain a suspect, we interrogate them. And if the suspect can be prosecuted, we decide whether to try him in a civilian court or a military commission.
During the past decade, the vast majority of those detained by our military were captured on the battlefield. In Iraq, we turned over thousands of prisoners as we ended the war. In Afghanistan, we have transitioned detention facilities to the Afghans, as part of the process of restoring Afghan sovereignty. So we bring law of war detention to an end, and we are committed to prosecuting terrorists wherever we can.
The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The original premise for opening GTMO -- that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention -- was found unconstitutional five years ago. In the meantime, GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law. Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO.
During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150 million each year to imprison 166 people -- almost $1 million per prisoner. And the Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million to keep GTMO open at a time when we’re cutting investments in education and research here at home, and when the Pentagon is struggling with sequester and budget cuts.
As President, I have tried to close GTMO. I transferred 67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries or imprisoning them here in the United States.
These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing GTMO -- this was a bipartisan issue. No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the United States -- ever. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, including some folks who are more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. They're in our prisons.
And given my administration’s relentless pursuit of al Qaeda’s leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never have been opened. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Excuse me, President Obama --
THE PRESIDENT: So -- let me finish, ma'am. So today, once again --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are 102 people on a hunger strike. These are desperate people.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm about to address it, ma'am, but you've got to let me speak. I'm about to address it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You're our Commander-In-Chief --
THE PRESIDENT: Let me address it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- you an close Guantanamo Bay.
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you let me address it, ma'am.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: There’s still prisoners --
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I'm going to do.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That includes 57 Yemenis.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. (Applause.) Ma'am, thank you. You should let me finish my sentence.
Today, I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. (Applause.)
I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I’m appointing a new senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries.
I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen so we can review them on a case-by-case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- prisoners already. Release them today.
THE PRESIDENT: Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and our military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: It needs to be --
THE PRESIDENT: Now, ma'am, let me finish. Let me finish, ma'am. Part of free speech is you being able to speak, but also, you listening and me being able to speak. (Applause.)
Now, even after we take these steps one issue will remain -- just how to deal with those GTMO detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted, for example, because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing GTMO, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.
I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism and those of us who fail to end it. Imagine a future -- 10 years from now or 20 years from now -- when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not part of our country. Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. I'm willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it's worth being passionate about. Is this who we are? Is that something our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.
We have prosecuted scores of terrorists in our courts. That includes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit; and Faisal Shahzad, who put a car bomb in Times Square. It's in a court of law that we will try Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused of bombing the Boston Marathon. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is, as we speak, serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison here in the United States. In sentencing Reid, Judge William Young told him, “The way we treat you…is the measure of our own liberties.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How about Abdulmutallab -- locking up a 16-year-old -- is that the way we treat a 16-year old? (Inaudible) -- can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA? Can you stop the signature strikes killing people on the basis of suspicious activities?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re addressing that, ma’am.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- thousands of Muslims that got killed -- will you compensate the innocent families -- that will make us safer here at home. I love my country. I love (inaudible) --
THE PRESIDENT: I think that -- and I’m going off script, as you might expect here. (Laughter and applause.) The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. (Applause.) Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn’t listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.
When that judge sentenced Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, he went on to point to the American flag that flew in the courtroom. “That flag,” he said, “will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom.”
So, America, we’ve faced down dangers far greater than al Qaeda. By staying true to the values of our founding, and by using our constitutional compass, we have overcome slavery and Civil War and fascism and communism. In just these last few years as President, I’ve watched the American people bounce back from painful recession, mass shootings, natural disasters like the recent tornados that devastated Oklahoma. These events were heartbreaking; they shook our communities to the core. But because of the resilience of the American people, these events could not come close to breaking us.
I think of Lauren Manning, the 9/11 survivor who had severe burns over 80 percent of her body, who said, “That’s my reality. I put a Band-Aid on it, literally, and I move on.”
I think of the New Yorkers who filled Times Square the day after an attempted car bomb as if nothing had happened.
I think of the proud Pakistani parents who, after their daughter was invited to the White House, wrote to us, “We have raised an American Muslim daughter to dream big and never give up because it does pay off.”
I think of all the wounded warriors rebuilding their lives, and helping other vets to find jobs.
I think of the runner planning to do the 2014 Boston Marathon, who said, “Next year, you’re going to have more people than ever. Determination is not something to be messed with.”
That’s who the American people are -- determined, and not to be messed with. And now we need a strategy and a politics that reflects this resilient spirit.
Our victory against terrorism won’t be measured in a surrender ceremony at a battleship, or a statue being pulled to the ground. Victory will be measured in parents taking their kids to school; immigrants coming to our shores; fans taking in a ballgame; a veteran starting a business; a bustling city street; a citizen shouting her concerns at a President.
The quiet determination; that strength of character and bond of fellowship; that refutation of fear -- that is both our sword and our shield. And long after the current messengers of hate have faded from the world’s memory, alongside the brutal despots, and deranged madmen, and ruthless demagogues who litter history -- the flag of the United States will still wave from small-town cemeteries to national monuments, to distant outposts abroad. And that flag will still stand for freedom.
Thank you very, everybody. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
3:00 P.M. EDT
Close Transcript
Russia, U.S. agree on steps to enhance coordination in fight against ISIS. A number of steps have been agreed upon at negotiations with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to make the fight against ISIS (a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) more coordinated and efficient, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
"The agreements reached between the servicemen of the Russian Federation and the United States and the agreements related to the U.S.-led coalition acting against ISIS have been confirmed and a number of further steps have been coordinated in the practical manner to help make our parallel work more coordinated and more efficient," Lavrov told reporters on Dec. 14 after negotiations between Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups are a common threat to all of us, entire mankind, and today we have confirmed the determination to eradicate this evil," the minister said.
In his turn, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has reaffirmed the opinion of Washington that there is no place for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in the Syria future. Kerry said his negotiations with Putin "did not concentrate on differences over Al-Assad but rather on the political process within which the Syrians would be able to make decisions about the future of their country."
Kerry has again linked the lifting of the sanctions against Russia to the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine.
He said after negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin they were hoping that the sooner the Minsk agreements would be implemented the sooner the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union would be lifted.
Kerry added that the U.S. is not holding a policy aimed to isolate Russia. "The U.S. does not seek to isolate Russia as a matter of policy," Kerry said.
The next meeting between Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry will take place on Dec. 18 in New York.
World Reacts To Donald Trump's Call To Ban Muslims Traveling To U.S. Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah in Dubai, and Joerg Lau, foreign editor for Die Zeit in Berlin, put the reaction to Donald Trump's comments on Muslims into context.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Donald Trump's call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. until American authorities can, quote, "figure out what is going on" is being heard around the world. Zainab Fattah is a reporter for Bloomberg News in the gulf country Dubai where Donald Trump has business interests.
ZAINAB FATTAH: He's definitely sought out a lot of business in the region, and he has also some deals with retailers. One of them today announced that they will be severing ties with him.
CORNISH: Can you recount a specific headline or two that you found really interesting that reflected some of the reaction in the region?
FATTAH: Today, there was an editorial in Gulf News in which the newspaper likened Trump's extremist views to those of DAESH, the way ISIS is called in the Middle East. It seems like a lot of papers here that kind of ignored before a lot of the rhetoric are starting to kind of pay attention to it. There were also calls for the partners of Mr. Trump in the region to sever ties with him.
CORNISH: Can you talk a little bit about the broader region? In the countries around you, are you seeing headlines, editorials or Muslim faith leaders speaking out?
FATTAH: Yes, we are starting to see the reaction filtering across the media, across the Arab world. Since Trump got into the election, people weren't paying a lot of attention to what he says. Now with the latest comment, it got a lot of people's attention, and we saw editorials and papers condemning what he's saying. Al-Azhar University, the oldest Islamic university in the world, issued a statement describing his comments as hateful and saying that they will probably cause a lot of divisiveness in the U.S. and hatred against Muslim-Americans. There were a lot of jokes being made on social media by people who are likening Trump's extremist views on this to that of ISIS.
CORNISH: That was Bloomberg News reporter Zainab Fattah in Dubai. Meanwhile, Germany has received 965,000 asylum seekers so far this year, many of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Joerg Lau is foreign editor of the German national weekly Die Zeit. He says Trump's comments have affected the political debate there in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
JOERG LAU: We have a debate going on about right-wing populism, xenophobic parties sprouting all over the place in Europe. And this is really very unsettling news that comments like his come now also from the U.S.
CORNISH: Talk a little about average German citizens. I don't know if you've been out talking with people or if you've seen things on social media. What are the range of reactions?
LAU: Well, you get some supportive reactions, saying, this guy is completely right; why don't our politicians speak up like he does against this huge wave of immigration? But I would say the majority is really embarrassed, outraged about this issue because, I mean, you have to see that we're taking in about 8,000 to 10,000 migrants per week in Germany. Everybody's trying to do their best to welcome them, to integrate them - refugees from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan - and there is a sense that the U.S. is quite leaving us alone with this problem. And now these xenophobic tones coming out of the campaign, they are certainly not helping, and people are quite irritated by it.
CORNISH: Prior to this point, how did Germans regard Donald Trump?
LAU: Well, he was seen basically as a political clown, but I think this is changing. People were expecting him to play a little role, I mean, in the beginning of the campaigns, but now he's getting stronger and stronger and even more radical. And his supporters seem to like what he does. So this is really hard to understand from a German point of view. I mean, you could face trial in this country for the things that he says because this is considered to be incitement.
CORNISH: Joerg Lau, foreign editor of Die Zeit - we asked him and Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah for international reaction to Donald Trump.
Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks spark outrage in the Gulf.
A string of hostile comments towards Muslims by US Republican hopeful Donald Trump have done little to dent his runaway popularity among his American supporters — but they may yet damage the billionaire’s business interests around the world, particularly in Muslim countries.
“It is unacceptable in my country, the UAE. Our system cannot accept an insult to our religion like this,” said Dubai businessman and columnist Khalaf al-Habtoor, who heads a conglomerate in the emirate.
Mr Trump has two significant partnerships in countries with large Muslim populations. He earns between $1m and $5m a year from licensing his brand to the Trump Towers Istanbul development in Turkey, which is owned by the Ortadogu conglomerate, according to a public filing of his interests that he made to the US Federal Election Commission as part of his presidential campaign.
He also earned $2.5m last year from licensing his brand to the Trump Hotel and Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan, a development owned by the oligarch Anar Mammadov.
Trump Organisation is developing in two golf and property developments in Dubai with Damac, whose chief executive Hussain Sajwani he has described as a “good friend”.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, now executive vice-president of development and acquisitions at his holding company Trump Organization, said the company was looking at “multiple opportunities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia: the four areas where we are seeing the most interest.”
But whether these will now go ahead is unclear. Mr Trump’s remarks, in which he called for a “total shutdown” on Muslims entering the US, have sparked outrage in Dubai, the Gulf’s commercial hub, where he is a frequent visitor.
Mr Habtoor on Tuesday described the comments as “a huge mistake” and urged others to distance themselves from Mr Trump and his business interests. It would be a “huge mistake to associate themselves with Donald Trump”, he said. “His brand is a liability, not an asset.”
Derogatory remarks about Mexicans last summer cost Mr Trump a lucrative deal with Univision, the US’s largest Hispanic television network. A number of other companies also ended their relationships with him.
While Mr Trump has ambitions in the Gulf, it is home to a small proportion of his overall holdings, which are mostly in the US and he says are worth more than $10bn.
In Mr Trump’s filing, made on July 15, DT Dubai Golf Manager, described as a “management company”, was listed with a value of less than $15,000 and an annual income of just over $200. Several companies that were set up at the end of 2014 have names that appear to suggest possible future licensing and hotel deals in Dubai and Qatar. None of them is listed with any current income.
Even so, the billionaire has longstanding links with the region. Before the global financial crisis, he had been planning a development on the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial archipelago in Dubai, but he subsequently cancelled it.
In 1995, under pressure from his lenders, Mr Trump surrendered control of the Plaza Hotel in New York to investors from Singapore and Saudi Arabia, including Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.
In 1991, Prince Alwaleed also took advantage of Mr Trump’s enormous debts to buy his 281-ft yacht, Trump Princess, renaming it Kingdom 5KR (after the initials of his children). The yacht, which once featured in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, was originally built for the Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi.
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways has leased an office in Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue for at least seven years, and Dubai’s Landmark Group began selling products by Trump Home, a lifestyle furniture brand, throughout Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in June.
For now, Damac is standing by its partnership with the Trump Organization, describing it as “one of the premium golf course operators in the world”. “As such we would not comment further on Mr Trump’s personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene,” it said.
Akoya, which is one of Damac’s largest villa community projects under construction in the Dubai desert, is based around a Trump golf club, which includes a par-71 course and a spa.
In March, Damac launched Trump PRVT, a development of exclusive homes set within Trump Estates, “a gated island community amid the lush greens and fairways” of the same club. A Damac salesman said six of the first 50 Trump-branded villas were still available, with a five-bedroom property advertised at Dh6.5m ($1.8m).
When asked whether Mr Trump’s comments would lead to a discount in prices, he said: “You will get better rates.”
Russia, U.S. agree on steps to enhance coordination in fight against ISIS. A number of steps have been agreed upon at negotiations with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to make the fight against ISIS (a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) more coordinated and efficient, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
"The agreements reached between the servicemen of the Russian Federation and the United States and the agreements related to the U.S.-led coalition acting against ISIS have been confirmed and a number of further steps have been coordinated in the practical manner to help make our parallel work more coordinated and more efficient," Lavrov told reporters on Dec. 14 after negotiations between Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups are a common threat to all of us, entire mankind, and today we have confirmed the determination to eradicate this evil," the minister said.
In his turn, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has reaffirmed the opinion of Washington that there is no place for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in the Syria future. Kerry said his negotiations with Putin "did not concentrate on differences over Al-Assad but rather on the political process within which the Syrians would be able to make decisions about the future of their country."
Kerry has again linked the lifting of the sanctions against Russia to the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine.
He said after negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin they were hoping that the sooner the Minsk agreements would be implemented the sooner the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union would be lifted.
Kerry added that the U.S. is not holding a policy aimed to isolate Russia. "The U.S. does not seek to isolate Russia as a matter of policy," Kerry said.
The next meeting between Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry will take place on Dec. 18 in New York.
World Reacts To Donald Trump's Call To Ban Muslims Traveling To U.S. Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah in Dubai, and Joerg Lau, foreign editor for Die Zeit in Berlin, put the reaction to Donald Trump's comments on Muslims into context.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Donald Trump's call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. until American authorities can, quote, "figure out what is going on" is being heard around the world. Zainab Fattah is a reporter for Bloomberg News in the gulf country Dubai where Donald Trump has business interests.
ZAINAB FATTAH: He's definitely sought out a lot of business in the region, and he has also some deals with retailers. One of them today announced that they will be severing ties with him.
CORNISH: Can you recount a specific headline or two that you found really interesting that reflected some of the reaction in the region?
FATTAH: Today, there was an editorial in Gulf News in which the newspaper likened Trump's extremist views to those of DAESH, the way ISIS is called in the Middle East. It seems like a lot of papers here that kind of ignored before a lot of the rhetoric are starting to kind of pay attention to it. There were also calls for the partners of Mr. Trump in the region to sever ties with him.
CORNISH: Can you talk a little bit about the broader region? In the countries around you, are you seeing headlines, editorials or Muslim faith leaders speaking out?
FATTAH: Yes, we are starting to see the reaction filtering across the media, across the Arab world. Since Trump got into the election, people weren't paying a lot of attention to what he says. Now with the latest comment, it got a lot of people's attention, and we saw editorials and papers condemning what he's saying. Al-Azhar University, the oldest Islamic university in the world, issued a statement describing his comments as hateful and saying that they will probably cause a lot of divisiveness in the U.S. and hatred against Muslim-Americans. There were a lot of jokes being made on social media by people who are likening Trump's extremist views on this to that of ISIS.
CORNISH: That was Bloomberg News reporter Zainab Fattah in Dubai. Meanwhile, Germany has received 965,000 asylum seekers so far this year, many of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Joerg Lau is foreign editor of the German national weekly Die Zeit. He says Trump's comments have affected the political debate there in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
JOERG LAU: We have a debate going on about right-wing populism, xenophobic parties sprouting all over the place in Europe. And this is really very unsettling news that comments like his come now also from the U.S.
CORNISH: Talk a little about average German citizens. I don't know if you've been out talking with people or if you've seen things on social media. What are the range of reactions?
LAU: Well, you get some supportive reactions, saying, this guy is completely right; why don't our politicians speak up like he does against this huge wave of immigration? But I would say the majority is really embarrassed, outraged about this issue because, I mean, you have to see that we're taking in about 8,000 to 10,000 migrants per week in Germany. Everybody's trying to do their best to welcome them, to integrate them - refugees from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan - and there is a sense that the U.S. is quite leaving us alone with this problem. And now these xenophobic tones coming out of the campaign, they are certainly not helping, and people are quite irritated by it.
CORNISH: Prior to this point, how did Germans regard Donald Trump?
LAU: Well, he was seen basically as a political clown, but I think this is changing. People were expecting him to play a little role, I mean, in the beginning of the campaigns, but now he's getting stronger and stronger and even more radical. And his supporters seem to like what he does. So this is really hard to understand from a German point of view. I mean, you could face trial in this country for the things that he says because this is considered to be incitement.
CORNISH: Joerg Lau, foreign editor of Die Zeit - we asked him and Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah for international reaction to Donald Trump.
Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks spark outrage in the Gulf.
“It is unacceptable in my country, the UAE. Our system cannot accept an insult to our religion like this,” said Dubai businessman and columnist Khalaf al-Habtoor, who heads a conglomerate in the emirate.
Mr Trump has two significant partnerships in countries with large Muslim populations. He earns between $1m and $5m a year from licensing his brand to the Trump Towers Istanbul development in Turkey, which is owned by the Ortadogu conglomerate, according to a public filing of his interests that he made to the US Federal Election Commission as part of his presidential campaign.
He also earned $2.5m last year from licensing his brand to the Trump Hotel and Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan, a development owned by the oligarch Anar Mammadov.
Trump Organisation is developing in two golf and property developments in Dubai with Damac, whose chief executive Hussain Sajwani he has described as a “good friend”.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, now executive vice-president of development and acquisitions at his holding company Trump Organization, said the company was looking at “multiple opportunities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia: the four areas where we are seeing the most interest.”
But whether these will now go ahead is unclear. Mr Trump’s remarks, in which he called for a “total shutdown” on Muslims entering the US, have sparked outrage in Dubai, the Gulf’s commercial hub, where he is a frequent visitor.
Mr Habtoor on Tuesday described the comments as “a huge mistake” and urged others to distance themselves from Mr Trump and his business interests. It would be a “huge mistake to associate themselves with Donald Trump”, he said. “His brand is a liability, not an asset.”
Derogatory remarks about Mexicans last summer cost Mr Trump a lucrative deal with Univision, the US’s largest Hispanic television network. A number of other companies also ended their relationships with him.
While Mr Trump has ambitions in the Gulf, it is home to a small proportion of his overall holdings, which are mostly in the US and he says are worth more than $10bn.
In Mr Trump’s filing, made on July 15, DT Dubai Golf Manager, described as a “management company”, was listed with a value of less than $15,000 and an annual income of just over $200. Several companies that were set up at the end of 2014 have names that appear to suggest possible future licensing and hotel deals in Dubai and Qatar. None of them is listed with any current income.
In 1995, under pressure from his lenders, Mr Trump surrendered control of the Plaza Hotel in New York to investors from Singapore and Saudi Arabia, including Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.
In 1991, Prince Alwaleed also took advantage of Mr Trump’s enormous debts to buy his 281-ft yacht, Trump Princess, renaming it Kingdom 5KR (after the initials of his children). The yacht, which once featured in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, was originally built for the Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi.
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways has leased an office in Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue for at least seven years, and Dubai’s Landmark Group began selling products by Trump Home, a lifestyle furniture brand, throughout Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in June.
For now, Damac is standing by its partnership with the Trump Organization, describing it as “one of the premium golf course operators in the world”. “As such we would not comment further on Mr Trump’s personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene,” it said.
In March, Damac launched Trump PRVT, a development of exclusive homes set within Trump Estates, “a gated island community amid the lush greens and fairways” of the same club. A Damac salesman said six of the first 50 Trump-branded villas were still available, with a five-bedroom property advertised at Dh6.5m ($1.8m).
When asked whether Mr Trump’s comments would lead to a discount in prices, he said: “You will get better rates.”
Donald Trump 'honoured' by Vladimir Putin's compliments.
The property tycoon hailed Mr Putin as a man "highly respected within his own country and beyond".
It comes after Mr Putin said Mr Trump was a "very colourful, talented person" during his annual news conference.
The two men, both known for their blunt manner of speaking, do not know each other personally.
After hearing President Putin's comments on Thursday, Mr Trump released a statement praising the Russian leader.
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player.
"It is always a great honour to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond," he said.
"`I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect."
'Closer relations'
Mr Trump is currently widely regarded as the frontrunner in the race for the Republican presidential ticket, a race where other candidates have made no secret of their wariness of Mr Putin.
"I suppose [Putin] sympathises with Trump without knowing him well in person but he is following him closely, what he does and says, just because he is not a kind of usual Western politician," Alexander Baunov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told the Associated Press news agency.
President Putin made his remarks during his televised annual news conference at which he used crude language to lash out at Turkey, a Nato member and key US ally in the conflict in Syria.
But he had warm words for Mr Trump, telling viewers: "He says that he wants to move to another, closer level of relations. Can we really not welcome that? Of course we welcome that."
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Media captionMany supporters of Donald Trump are women
In October, Mr Trump told US TV network CBS that he and Mr Putin would "probably get along... very well".
During one presidential debate, he said: "If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS [the Islamic State group], I am all for it, 100%, and I can't understand how anybody would be against it."
One of Mr Trump's rivals for the Republican ticket, Jeb Bush, criticised his response to the Russian leader's remarks on Thursday.
"A true freedom-loving conservative wouldn't be flattered by praise from a despot like Putin," he wrote on Twitter.
The cordiality between two of the world's most visible politicians was mocked in some quarters of the US media.
"The two men share a love for spectacle and an appreciation of its ability to move low-information voters," Christian Whiton wrote on CNN, while the New York Times detected a "long-distance bromance".
On Marco Rubio and the early states. Counter to the POLITICO Caucus, but in agreement with The Washington Post‘s James Hohmann, I think Marco Rubio fared poorly in Tuesday’s GOP presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas, so much so that by week’s end it will be clear that he “lost.”
I certainly don’t buy Mike Allen‘s argument that “Rubio is the Obama of 2008.” Hyperbole like that reminds me of when NBA reporters would compare to Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Like Bryant, Rubio is very, very, very good. But he’s not Jordanesque as Obama was in 2008.
Actually, the pundit probably most right about Rubio is Joe Scarborough, who this week asked, “Where on Earth is Marco Rubio.”
“Can I ask a question about Marco Rubio,” Scarborough asked rhetorically. “They’re mad at him in New Hampshire because he doesn’t go there enough. They’re mad at him in Iowa because he doesn’t go there enough. They’re mad at him in Washington D.C. — in the Senate — because he doesn’t show up for votes, he’s not there enough. I saw a headline: ‘Marco Rubio spotted in the Capitol.'”
POLITICO Florida’s Marc Caputo, who rarely misses an opportunity to defend his Miami brethren, shot back yesterday at Scarborough in his Playbook, writing, “-Where isn’t Marco Rubio? ‘On Morning Joe’ — ever — which explains some of the questioning …”
Caputo might be right about Scarborough’s motives, but Scarborough’s right on the facts.
Consider …
Rubio’s ground game in Iowa — “Rubio weak ground game angers Iowa Republicans” via the National Review:
“In recent conversations with nearly a dozen unaffiliated Iowa GOP veterans, a consensus has emerged across the party’s ideological spectrum: The state’s caucusgoers are interested in Rubio, but his infrequent appearances and paltry field operation leave lingering doubts as to whether he is interested in them.”
Rubio’s ground game in New Hampshire — “Marco Rubio’s N.H. surge is riddled with doubts” via The Washington Post:
“Ten GOP candidates have spent more days in New Hampshire this year than Rubio so far, according to a tally from WMUR-TV. Among the top tier of Republican candidates, only retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has spent less time in the Granite State. … A review by The Boston Globe found that Rubio’s staff remains small compared to other top campaigns. He has seven paid aides in New Hampshire — a size more in line with what struggling candidates have.”
And don’t get me started on Rubio’s voting record in the Senate.
Rubio’s hopes of winning the GOP nomination rest squarely on his ability to “win” events like last night’s debate (while winning the affections of older white billionaires keen on taking Young Marco under their wings). Continued performances like the one he gave in Vegas might keep Rubio to where has spent most of this campaign — the bottom of the top tier/top of the second tier.
The national Review reports that Marco Rubio’s Weak Ground Game Angers Iowa Republicans. Des Moines, Iowa – Everyone here is mad at Marco Rubio. In a place where retail politicking remains paramount, conservative and evangelical leaders are complaining that the Florida senator hasn’t given them enough attention since launching his White House campaign. While he has begun to attend their events and engage with their constituents, they say his team has not followed up to deepen relationships or organize additional meetings with them. Establishment Republicans, meanwhile, have the same concerns about Rubio’s organization, but worry that Rubio is flirting too aggressively with Iowa’s social conservatives. They say that, thanks to Scott Walker’s exit and Jeb Bush’s decline, there exists in Iowa an enormous center-right vacuum that Rubio would be ideally positioned to fill, if only his team beefed up its field operation. In recent conversations with nearly a dozen unaffiliated Iowa GOP veterans, a consensus has emerged across the party’s ideological spectrum: The state’s caucus-goers are interested in Rubio, but his infrequent appearances and paltry field operation leave lingering doubts as to whether he is interested in them.
“It doesn’t seem like he really wants to win Iowa,” says Craig Robinson, the state party’s former executive director, who is now editor of The Iowa Republican. “Of all the campaigns, he’s probably done the least of getting around the state.
There are plenty of people who would love to vote for him. . .
But I hear more excitement on the ground in Iowa about Chris Christie than I do about Marco Rubio. And it shouldn’t be that way.”
ADVERTISING On the campaign trail, Marco Rubio is calling for a “new American century.” He’s also running a different type of campaign, one that eschews spending on policy staffers, field operations, and other traditional aspects of a winning bid in favor of television advertising and digital outreach. The campaign’s light footprint on the ground has increasingly become a source of controversy in Iowa and New Hampshire, where prominent activists and Republican officials believe a robust ground operation is critical to wooing voters who want to interact with their presidential candidates, and who have become accustomed to doing so.
A Better GOP Race Much of the negative attention has focused on New Hampshire, a state whose moderate electorate could be more receptive to the establishment-friendly Rubio. But behind the scenes in Iowa, criticism of Rubio’s operation has deepened. There are whispers here that prominent Republicans have scolded his campaign in recent days for its failure to organize in the Hawkeye State. Stories abound of Rubio and his team missing easy opportunities to connect with voters: The time a line of people waited for him after an event, while his field staffers ate pizza backstage; the appearance he canceled at a major evangelical gathering for no apparent reason; the Saturday he spent here recently watching football with his state chairman, Jack Whitver, rather than holding public events.
Rubio has risen steadily in the latest Iowa polls thanks to a series of strong debate performances and millions of dollars in slick TV advertising. Despite these perceived affronts, Rubio has risen steadily in the latest Iowa polls thanks to a series of strong debate performances and millions of dollars in slick TV advertising. He currently sits in fourth place here at 14 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average — high enough for his campaign to dismiss concerns, but low enough for his potential supporters to argue he would be leading the race if his TV presence were paired with a serious ground game. The frustration is especially palpable among Iowa’s establishment-oriented Republicans, who have watched with concern recently as Rubio courts social conservatives, and who argue that despite the state’s ultra-conservative reputation, some 40 to 50 percent of caucus-goers are looking for an alternative to the likes of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. “He seems to be directing a lot of his time and energy into fighting Cruz and opening up his path on the right with social conservatives. That’s an interesting choice, since that lane seems to be about purity instead of electability,” says John Stineman, who ran Steve Forbes’s 2000 Iowa campaign. “Rubio seems to be the most establishment-friendly candidate with any legs at this point.
Yet he seems to be avoiding that lane. I can’t quite figure it out.” “Not all Iowa Republicans are on the edge of their seats awaiting Bob Vander Plaats’s presidential endorsement,” former Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn says, referencing the influential evangelical leader whose forum Rubio recently attended. “Yet that’s where most of the candidates seem focused, which perhaps explains why Iowa’s significant block of center-right economic conservatives remain up for grabs.”
Iowa’s 2012 entry polls pegged 37 percent of caucus-goers as “somewhat conservative” and 15 percent as “moderate.” Mitt Romney won both of those groups, but was crushed by Rick Santorum among the 47 percent of “very conservative” Republicans, and lost Iowa to Santorum by the slimmest of margins because of it. Rubio officials are wary of running a one-dimensional campaign that narrows their candidate’s appeal to any one segment of voters. They aim instead to emulate Iowa senator Joni Ernst’s successful 2014 campaign, in which she won a competitive four-way primary by appealing simultaneously to different groups — evangelicals, tea partiers, moderates — and securing enough support from each to construct a winning coalition.
“Our campaign is premised on the fact that Marco is a next-generation candidate who is uniquely able to unite conservatives and inspire the country,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant says. “Our challenge is to get him in front of as many Republicans as possible.”
An Immigration Confrontation Iowa Republicans from both wings of the party agree that Rubio is singularly positioned to dominate the right-of-center while winning enough conservative voters to carry Iowa with a winning coalition.
The only problem, they say, is that he hasn’t invested in a ground game that identifies, recruits, and retains supporters. “The Iowa caucuses can only be won by organizational effort. They cannot be won by candidate appeal,” says Jamie Johnson, a longtime Republican national committeeman from Iowa who joined former Texas governor Rick Perry’s ill-fated campaign earlier this year. “There’s an opportunity for Rubio to win Iowa but he has got to pull out all the stops,” Johnson says. “If I were Senator Rubio, I would immediately hire a dozen people full-time in Iowa.” Not lost on establishment Republicans is the fact that Jeb Bush — once thought to be an electoral steamroller, yet stuck in the single digits in Iowa for the past three months — has a booming field operation, with an army of experienced organizers and full-time staffers.
In a display of the exasperation that has taken hold here, three Iowa Republicans offered identical assessments of the Florida senator’s campaign: “If he had Jeb’s organization, he would win Iowa.” Rubio’s team believes that a sprawling operation weighs down a campaign and wastes precious resources that could be spent on TV ads that reach more voters. Rubio’s team believes exactly the opposite — that is, that a sprawling operation weighs down a campaign and wastes precious resources that could be spent on TV ads that reach more voters. The senator’s lieutenants have pointed to Bush and Walker — two candidates with beefy operations whose support nevertheless faded quickly — as proof positive that organizational heft is overrated. (And even so, a Rubio official points out that they have representatives in all of Iowa’s 99 counties, and says the campaign will soon roll out a number of state-specific endorsements.) The nominating process is certainly becoming more nationalized, and Rubio’s team believes television spots, media coverage, and momentum are key. But Eric Woolson, who served as the Iowa state director for Walker’s presidential campaign, says that face time and field work still matter. “There’s certainly more than one way to win Iowa, but for most candidates, the only way is to spend a lot of time here, and I would put Senator Rubio’s campaign squarely in that category.” According to the Des Moines Register’s candidate tracker, Rubio has spent just 27 days this campaign season on the ground in Iowa, hosting a total of 50 events. Terry Sullivan, Rubio’s campaign manager, gave a window into his team’s air-heavy strategy — and emboldened its Iowa critics — when he told the New York Times this week: “More people in Iowa see Marco on ‘Fox and Friends’ than see Marco when he is in Iowa.” “That is idiotic,” Robinson says of Sullivan’s remark. “I had someone from his campaign reach out to me today” to discuss a meeting, Robinson says. “It’s mid-December! This is something they should have done months and months ago. And I think it’s going to catch up with them. He’s always had great potential but he hasn’t been able to spark his candidacy with it. And that’s because not enough time and effort have gone into their relationship-building.” The brouhaha over Rubio’s relative absence in Iowa comes as his rivalry with Cruz is heating up. On Monday, the Texas senator took the lead in Iowa for the first time: The latest Monmouth University poll shows him leading Trump by five points, 24 percent to 19 percent. Rubio is in third place with 17 percent.
The Cruz campaign has made no secret that it is working from a more traditional playbook than that of Team Rubio, counting on retail politics and large-scale voter-mobilization efforts to turn out caucus-goers and tip the state in their favor. In Iowa, Cruz has vowed to visit all 99 counties, and he has held almost twice as many events as Rubio. A spokesman for Cruz, Rick Tyler, wouldn’t disclose the number of paid staffers the campaign has on the ground in Iowa, but says they now count hundreds of committed volunteers. And, while the pro-Rubio Conservative Solutions PAC is blanketing the airwaves with television ads, the outside groups supporting Cruz’s campaign have diversified their investments. According to Jeff King, an adviser to a cluster of pro-Cruz super PACs, they have spent on radio ads and direct mail, and have seven paid field operatives on the ground in Iowa. According to Dan Tripp, a strategist for the Cruz PACs in South Carolina, they have another 14 paid field operatives in the Palmetto State. The Rubio campaign’s attitude is, essentially, that all the outside hand wringing is much ado about nothing — and that massive field operations are no guarantee of success. Bush has an unrivaled ground game in New Hampshire and is still stuck in sixth place in the polls there, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average.
Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2012 and 2008, respectively, without any ground game whatsoever. But critics say those two candidates campaigned tirelessly in the months leading up to the caucuses, often straying into far-flung corners of the state and meeting with small audiences on snowy nights. Rubio, by contrast, has rarely left the Des Moines area for campaign events, and Republicans have taken to joking that he is running for mayor of Ankeny, the Des Moines suburb where his state headquarters is located. With fewer than eight weeks remaining until the caucuses, there is little time for Rubio’s campaign to engineer a dramatic shift in strategy, and doing so would be inconsistent with their theory of the campaign. Which means that in addition to producing a winner, February 1 will validate either Rubio’s strategy or the case his critics are making, with enormous implications for how future presidential campaigns approach Iowa. — Tim Alberta is chief political correspondent for National Review. Eliana Johnson is Washington editor of National Review.
Regardless of it all, please stay in touch.
