Trump endorses recent GOP foe Mitt Romney for Utah Senate
February 20, 2018 by admin
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Romney willing to work with Trump on areas of common ground
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and former GOP president nominee was keynote speaker at Lincoln Day Dinner; senior correspondent Adam Housley reports from Los Angeles.
President Trump gave his full backing to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday, saying Romney’s bid for a Senate seat from Utah “has my full support and endorsement!”
The president’s tweet suggested he may have buried the hatchet, at least temporarily, with the GOP foe who called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” in 2016. Trump wrote Monday evening that Romney “will make a great Senator and worthy successor” to the retiring Orrin Hatch.
In response, Romney tweeted, “Thank you Mr. President for the support. I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah.”
Thank you Mr. President for the support. I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 20, 2018
Romney, who served as Massachusetts governor from 2003 to 2007, announced his Senate run on Friday. The 70-year-old is a heavy favorite to hold the seat for the Republicans.
Trump’s endorsement of Romney marked another twist in the complex relationship between the two men. Romney was a vocal critic of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, labeling the businessman “a phony [and] a fraud [whose] promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.”
In response, Trump tweeted reminders that Romney had sought his endorsement during Romney’s failed run for the presidency four years earlier. In June of that year, Trump tweeted that Romney had “choked like a dog” in losing to former President Barack Obama.
If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 3, 2016
Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president but he choked like a dog. Now he calls me racist-but I am least racist person there is
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2016
After Trump’s victory, Romney was rumored to be a contender to be secretary of state. In an unusually public interview process, Romney was seen dining with Trump in New York City and visiting the president-elect at his golf club in suburban New Jersey. Ultimately, Trump tapped Rex Tillerson for the post of America’s top diplomat.
Since then, Romney has repeatedly criticized the Trump administration, particularly after Trump’s response to the actions of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last summer. Among the president’s comments: “Especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you know, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also.”
Romney also broke with the White House over Trump’s endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore amid accusations of sexual misconduct against him. In the run-up to the December special election, Romney stated that Moore’s election “would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation.”
Members of both political parties have suggested that Romney, if elected to the Senate, would continue to call out Trump if he believed the president warranted criticism. However, Romney did not mention Trump in his campaign announcement on Friday, focusing instead on how his adopted state of Utah could be a model for better government in Washington.
Asked Friday if he would seek or accept Trump’s endorsement, Romney demurred but said they had talked on the phone two or three times in recent months and had a cordial and respectful relationship.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Trump Adds Cautious Support to Changes to Background Checks for Gun Buyers
February 20, 2018 by admin
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The bill was also backed by the National Rifle Association, which spent tens of millions of dollars on supporting Mr. Trump in the presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.
But the legislation would have done little to stop the shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people. The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, had no criminal record. He bought at least seven guns legally, including an AK-47 he had purchased in the past month, a federal law enforcement official said on Monday.
Mr. Cruz, who has confessed to investigators, appeared on Monday in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom in shackles and a red jumpsuit as lawyers argued over whether a defense motion filed last week should be kept confidential. Mr. Cruz did not look up during the brief hearing.
Several other Republicans have expressed a willingness since the shooting to discuss a change in gun laws, though they have given few specifics. On Monday, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida announced he would hold meetings with state and local leaders, focusing on ways to improve school safety, expand mental health care and keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness.
Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said on Sunday that some “small steps” should be taken on gun control, addressing background checks and mental illness. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont said in a statement that his administration would review its procedures and policies on gun safety.
Neither suggested that change was imminent. Their remarks recalled other murmurings of change that ultimately fizzled. Congress has been marked by intransigence on gun legislation, including a failure last year to ban so-called bump stocks, an accessory that the gunman in the October shooting in Las Vegas used to transform his semiautomatic rifles to mimic automatic weapon fire. That shooting left 58 people dead and wounded hundreds.
Students from Parkland and across the country have organized protests and marches to urge Mr. Trump and lawmakers to act. About 100 people gathered in front of the White House on Monday to rally for stricter gun control. Seventeen students, representing the number of people killed in Florida, lay on the ground in protest. Parents, teachers and friends joined them on the pavement, and high school students stood in clusters in 40-degree temperatures, chanting “Enough is enough!” and waving signs that read “Am I next?”
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“I’ve been afraid to go to school since the shooting in Florida,” said Maya Galanti, a 12-year-old from Bethesda, Md., who attended the rally with her mother and two siblings. “Those students thought they were having a normal day, and we have the same chances of getting shot as they did.”
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Students from the Parkland area have also lashed out at Mr. Trump on Twitter, and some were incensed when he suggested in a tweet that the shooting had occurred because the F.B.I.’s resources had been diverted to the Russia investigation.
“Seventeen innocent people were brutally murdered at my school, a place where they should have felt safe,” one student wrote. “Their lives were gone in an instant. You are the president of the United States, and you have the audacity to put this on Russia as an excuse.”
The legislation last fall was considered a modest step toward a bipartisan compromise on gun safety.
The lead senators behind the bill — Mr. Cornyn and Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut — have seen some of the worst mass shootings in United States history unfold in their states. A shooting that killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 came near the start of Mr. Murphy’s time in office, and gun restrictions became a defining issue for him. The shooting deaths of over two dozen people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in November prompted Mr. Cornyn to be a co-sponsor of the bill.
After the Texas shooting, Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked the F.B.I. to conduct an extensive review of the database because, as he said in a statement at the time, “relevant information may not be getting reported.”
In a tweet on Monday, Mr. Murphy said that the bill alone would do little to stop the what he called an “epidemic” of violence.
The president, who has spoken favorably about gun rights over the years, has held wavering views on gun restrictions. He had a concealed weapon permit in New York when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor, but it is not clear whether he maintained it.
In 2000, as he considered an earlier run for president, Mr. Trump wrote in his book “The America We Deserve” that “I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
He added, “With today’s internet technology we should be able to tell within 72 hours if a potential gun owner has a record.”
In 2016 on CNN, Mr. Trump said guns should not be allowed in classrooms, and then followed up moments later by saying that some teachers should have access to firearms.
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“You look at some of our schools, unbelievable what’s going on, but I’m not advocating guns in the classroom,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “Remember in some cases, a lot of people admit this, trained teachers should be able to have guns in classrooms.”
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