On Politics: Trump’s Economic Conspiracy

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/politics/trump-economic-conspiracy.html

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Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

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• President Trump, confronting perhaps the most ominous economic signs of his time in office, is fuming over what he sees as a conspiracy working against him, pushed by outside forces including the news media and his own handpicked Federal Reserve chairman. The claims provide a ready target to help Mr. Trump deflect blame if the economy does tip into recession.

• After Julián Castro’s speech at the 2012 Democratic convention burst him onto the national scene, party leaders waited for him to seize on his “Obama Moment.” And waited. And waited. And waited.

• American Jews have found themselves enmeshed in an uncomfortable debate over the growing distance between traditional liberal American Jewish values and the political realities of an Israeli government that’s embraced a deep alliance with Mr. Trump.

• Ahead of a scheduled appearance Monday at a presidential forum dedicated to Native American issues, Senator Elizabeth Warren laid out a collection of policy proposals intended to help Native Americans, pledging to protect tribal lands and to bolster funding for programs that serve Native people.

• Several high-profile Democrats would rather hold on to their low-polling presidential campaigns instead of running for the Senate. How did America’s most elite legislative body lose its appeal?

• Mr. Trump met with top national security officials to review near-final plans for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. The talks have kicked off an argument in Washington about whether an exit would amount to a premature retreat or a crucial step toward long-overdue peace.

• The Trump administration is moving forward with an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a move certain to further anger China at a time when a long-running trade war between Washington and Beijing has upended relations between the world’s two largest economies.

• The House Judiciary Committee, prompted by recent massacres in Ohio and Texas, announced that lawmakers would cut their summer recess short and return to Washington in early September to vote on three gun safety bills.

• Thousands of union workers at a plant being built outside Pittsburgh were given the choice of attending a speech by Mr. Trump on Tuesday or staying away — and losing some of their pay for the week.

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