Former Vice President Joe Biden expanded his lead over more than a dozen other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination this month as US House Democrats looked into allegations that President Donald Trump tried to pressure a foreign leader to investigate him, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.

The Oct. 17-18 opinion poll found that 21% of Democrats and independents said they would vote for Biden in statewide nominating contests that begin next year, up 3 percentage points from a similar poll that was conducted at the end of September.

Democrats in the House of Representatives are holding hearings to investigate whether Trump improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

The House could vote to impeach Trump later this year, which would trigger a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate where a conviction and ouster seem unlikely.

Trump denies he did anything wrong.

So far, the inquiry does not appear to have shaken up public support for Biden or the other candidates for the Democratic nomination.

According to the poll, 16% of Democrats and independents said they would support US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and 15% said they would back US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, received about 5% support in the poll, and US Senator Kamala Harris and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke both received 3%.

With less than four months to go before Iowa holds the first nomination contest, the race for the Democratic nomination remains wide open. About 1 in 5 said they remain undecided, and nearly two-thirds of Democrats and independents said they could still change their minds.

Many of the candidates, including Buttigieg, O’Rourke and Harris, are still relatively unknown to a majority of Americans, and only about 1 in 10 said they watched this week’s Democratic debate in Ohio.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,116 adults in all, including 703 Democrats and independents. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.

(Source: Reuters)

US President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders cut short a meeting over Turkey’s war after the commander in chief experiences a “meltdown.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Wednesday that Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “third-rate politician” and as the result, the meeting in the White House deteriorated into a “diatribe.”

“What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown. Sad to say,” said Pelosi, who has launched an impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine scandal.

Drew Hammill✔@Drew_Hammill

Thanks for the new cover photo @realDonaldTrump!

Hoyer blasted the president’s treatment of Pelosi, suggesting that his behavior was unprecedented.

“I’ve been in many, many, many meetings like this,” he said. “Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States.”

Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham rejected the Democrats’ allegations.

US acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan is resigning and a new acting chief of the agency would be named next week, President Donald Trump says.

McAleenan, the fourth person to serve in the post since the Trump presidency began, submitted his resignation to the White House on Friday, the president announced on Twitter.

Trump said McAleenan, 48, who has served since April, “wants to spend more time with his family and go to the private sector.”

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

Kevin McAleenan has done an outstanding job as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. We have worked well together with Border Crossings being way down. Kevin now, after many years in Government, wants to spend more time with his family and go to the private sector..

McAleenan also on Twitter addressed his departure in a statement, saying “we have made tremendous progress mitigating the border security.”

Acting Sec. Kevin McAleenan✔@DHSMcAleenan

I want to thank the President for the opportunity to serve alongside the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security. With his support, over the last 6 months, we have made tremendous progress mitigating the border security and humanitarian crisis we faced this year…

This comes a few days after McAleenan was forced to abandon a debate stage in the US capital after protesters drowned him out, condemning the crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers.

On Monday, just as McAleenan wanted to begin speaking at the event at Georgetown University in Washington, several demonstrators were standing and holding banners that read, “Stand with Immigrants.”

“When our immigrants are under attack what do we do? Stand up fight back,” the protesters chanted for several minutes.

Caravans of migrants from Central American countries have been traveling for months through various routes ending up in Mexico to reach the country’s border with the US, where they seek to apply for asylum and settle down.

However, the Trump administration has been blocking them at the border with Mexico. The Trump administration has even separated migrant children from their parents or deported those who have successfully crossed back to their home countries, where they face violence or economic difficulties

Source: Presstv

Russian and the United States have used their veto power at the United Nations Security Council to vote down a European statement against Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria.

The council held a closed meeting on Thursday to discuss Ankara’s military incursion, which began on Wednesday despite widespread warnings by world leaders.

Moscow and Washington had their own reasons to veto the statement by five European members — France, Germany, Belgium, Britain and Poland — who had called the meeting to end the bilateral military action.

In a joint statement after the discussions, the European called on Ankara “to cease the unilateral military action,” warning that the offensive threatens progress.

Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said his country would only support UNSC motions that address broader issues, including the presence of foreign forces in Syria.

US Ambassador Kelly Craft, on the other hand, told reporters that as US President Donald Trump “has made it clear” Washington does not “in any way” endorse Turkey’s actions.

Later in the day, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar spoke with his French counterpart Florence Parly, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace over phone to fill them in on the latest developments.

The UNSC meeting came a day after Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, its third in a series of cross-border operations in northern Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims that the offensive only targeted militants affiliated with Daesh as well as the Kurdish militia called People’s Protection Units (YPG) in order to establish a Turkish safe-region there.

Ankara says the YPG is effectively the military of wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The YPG also forms the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has much of northern Syria under control.

Turkey, according of Erdogan, is trying to establish a safe zone in order to resettle millions of refugees in there.  

More civilians fall victim, Kurds push back

Meanwhile, human rights groups have been warning that a war of this scale would be deadly for civilians living in crowded cities on both sides of the border. There are also no exact data available on the real extent of the casualties.

Syrian sources reported late Thursday that at least four more Syrians were killed and four more were injured due to Turkish shelling in the border town of Ras al-Ayn.

Earlier, the SDF announced that nine more civilians had been killed in Turkish airstrikes.

Erdogan said Thursday that his country’s forces had already killed, injured or captured a total of 109 Kurdish forces. However, the SDF said the number was exaggerated.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which is based in London, said at least 16 SDF militants had been killed and dozens more injured.

The SDF announced on one of its Twitter accounts that the group had deterred Turkish forces east of the Jalab river, destroying three military vehicles and killing 22 soldiers.

In retaliation for the Turkish attacks against civilian targets, Kurdish militants fired at least three rounds into the Turkish city of Akcakale, killing two civilians.

The International Rescue Committee aid organization said at least 64,000 people had reportedly fled their homes and the number could surpass 300,000 if the offensive continued.

Turkey shells Daesh prison

Kurdish authorities have accused Turkey of attacking one of the several prisons Daesh militants are held in Qamishli in the east of the border region, in what they denounced as a “clear attempt” to help the terrorists escape.

More than 12,000 suspected Daesh militants, including many foreign nationals, are being kept in several SDF-run prisons across northern Syria. More than 58,000 of their family members live across SDF-controlled areas.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has “betrayed” the nation and “should be impeached,” says the top Democratic hopeful for the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, whose ties with Ukraine are at the heart of impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives.

“Donald Trump has violated his oath of office, betrayed this nation and committed impeachable acts,” Biden told a crowd of supporters in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday. “He should be impeached.”

He made the comments as the Trump administration was struggling with how to defend itself in the wake of the president’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he tied the US aid to an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter.

“The Do Nothing Democrats are Con Artists, only looking to hurt the Republican Party and President. Their total focus is 2020, nothing more, and nothing less. The good news is that WE WILL WIN,” Trump said on Twitter.

The House of Representatives has set off a spiraling impeachment inquiry in the wake of a whistleblower complaint into the phone call.

“The so-called Whistleblower, before knowing I was going to release the exact Transcript, stated that my call with the Ukrainian President was “crazy, frightening, and completely lacking in substance related to national security.” This is a very big Lie. Read the Transcript,” Trump alleged.

In an appearance on Fox News Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he was going to ask other Senate Republicans to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that they “do not believe the transcript of the phone call between the president and the Ukraine is an impeachable offense.”

“They’re about to destroy the nation for no good reason,” Graham said. “And I want Nancy Pelosi to know that Republican senators are not going to impeach this president based on this transcript, so she can stop now before she destroys the country.”

Trump himself stressed the transcript on Twitter, asserting that Democrats should apologize.

“No Pressure at all said Ukraine! Very congenial, a perfect call. The Whistleblower and others spoke BEFORE seeing the Transcript. Now they must apologize to me and stop this ridiculous impeachment,” said the president.

The White House has also announced that it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the executive branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to Pelosi (and the three House committee chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry.

Source: Presstv

American former General Colin Powell says the Republican Party “needs to get a grip on itself” amid the Ukraine scandal engulfing the administration of US President Donald Trump.

“The Republican party has got to get a grip on itself,” Powell told a crowd at The Jefferson Series, an event in New Albany, Ohio, on Monday. “Republican leaders and members of the Congress, both Senate and the House, are holding back because they’re terrified of what will happen to any one of them if they speak out.” 

The former secretary of state, who calls himself a “moderate Republican,” added that the US foreign policy is “in shambles right now.”

“I see things happening that are hard to understand,” he said.

Trump has apparently pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Jo Biden, his potential opponent for the 2020 presidential election, warning that he would not give Ukraine the promised military aid in case he refused.

Republicans have shown “blind partisan loyalty” to Trump, according to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

“This entire country should be scared that at a moment when we need patriots, what we are getting is blind partisan loyalty,” Murphy said in an interview on “Meet the Press.”

Democrats controlling the House have launched an impeachment inquiry based on whistleblower complaints that accuse Trump of “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”

“I feel like this is a moment where patriots need to step up and try to save this country,” Murphy said. “And I think there are a lot of regular citizens out there that are going to demand that their members of Congress look at the facts, make a decision on the facts, not make a decision based on their loyalty to the cult of Donald Trump.”

Trump has dismissed the impeachment probe as an attempted “coup” and a “witch hunt,” and has even asked China to investigate Biden as well.

“You really think he was serious about thinking that China’s going to investigate the Biden family?” Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said on ABC. “I think he’s getting the press all spun up about this. Remember, this is the president who’s been tougher on China than any other president… You would think after … a few years of following this president, you would understand sort of how this guy communicates. I think that is what he’s doing.”

Biden has accused Trump of asking Ukraine to “manufacture lies” about him.

“In my experience, asking a foreign government to manufacture lies about your domestic political opponent is not ‘done all the time,’” said the former vice president.

He was responding to a Trump tweet that alleged: “As President I have an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries. It is done all the time. This has NOTHING to do with politics or a political campaign against the Bidens. This does have to do with their corruption!”

Source: Presstv

The rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump is the latest and perhaps most serious threat to his presidency, and the White House is failing to contain the crisis, accoding to US media reports.

US Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, has become the public face of the impeachment investigation about the Republican president, which has has produced an intense partisan fight in Washington.

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry in September after an unidentified whistleblower alleged Trump had sought to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former US Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump has branded the impeachment probe a “hoax” and has attacked Schiff as a “lowlife” and a “liar.”

“Schiff is a lowlife who should resign (at least!),” Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday. Hours later at a White House news conference, he described Schiff as a “stone-cold liar.”

Trump’s aggressive new strategy to thwart the Democrats’ impeachment offensive is already sinking under the weight of new revelations, CNN reported.

Text messages released on Thursday between US diplomats and a senior Ukrainian aide reveal that Zelensky was told he should open an investigation against Biden if he wanted an invitation to visit Washington.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Schiff accused Trump with “incitement of violence” in his combative response to the whistleblower complaint and inquiry.

“It’s hard to imagine a more corrupt course of conduct,” Schiff said of the phone call and the alleged efforts to keep private its contents.

“We’re not fooling around here,” Schiff said. “We don’t want this to drag on for months and months and months, which appears to be the administration’s strategy.”

Schiff also warned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently admitted to having participated in the call with Zelensky, that “any effort” to keep State Department officials from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee would be “evidence of obstruction.”

During a July 25 call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to speak with the Republican president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani about whether Ukrainian officials improperly dropped an investigation of a company that hired Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

Schiff, who represents a district in Los Angeles, California, was also  defender of the investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

A two-year investigation by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller that ended in March concluded that Moscow sought to influence the election in Trump’s favor and that his campaign worked to benefit from those efforts, but did not find evidence to establish a conspiracy.

US Representative Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia, said Schiff was a good choice to lead the impeachment probe because he could withstand the president’s attacks and is “not going to be deterred from doing his job.”

Source: Presstv

US presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders was treated for a blocked artery after experiencing chest discomfort and has canceled campaign events until further notice, an adviser said on Wednesday.

Sanders, 78, was in Las Vegas to campaign when he was taken to a hospital on Tuesday night for evaluation.

“He was found to have a blockage in one artery, and two stents were successfully inserted,” Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in a statement.

“Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days. We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates,” Weaver said.

Sanders, the oldest of 19 contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, had visited a community healing garden in Las Vegas on Tuesday night and had been scheduled to hold a town hall and appear at a gun safety forum on Wednesday.

Aides did not offer any guidance on how long Sanders might be off the campaign trail. The first nominating contest is not until Feb. 3 in Iowa, but Sanders is one of 12 candidates scheduled to participate in the fourth Democratic debate in Ohio on Oct. 15.

Sanders thanked supporters for offering their well wishes and said on Twitter that he was “feeling good.” He then shifted to a plug for his signature Medicare for All healthcare insurance plan.

“I’m fortunate to have good health care and great doctors and nurses helping me to recover,” Sanders said. “None of us know when a medical emergency might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare for All!”

A democratic socialist, Sanders galvanized progressives during a 2016 run for president when he lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton, pushing the party to the left and popularizing ideas such as Medicare for All, a proposal for a government-run healthcare plan based on the system for Americans over the age of 65.

The U.S. senator from Vermont has been among the top contenders in the crowded field seeking the 2020 nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump.

His campaign canceled at least $136,000 in cable and $600,000 in broadcast television spending following the news, according to Medium Buying, a company that tracks political ad spending.

The incident could renew questions about Sanders’ age in a Democratic race featuring a generational divide between older candidates such as Sanders and front-runner Joe Biden, 76, and younger contenders.

In a letter made public during the 2016 campaign, Sanders’ doctor said he was in “overall good health” and had no history of cardiovascular disease.

The insertion of stents to open blocked heart arteries is a relatively common procedure, with as many as 1 million Americans a year undergoing it. After a balloon-tipped catheter is used to clear the blockage, stents – tiny, wire-mesh tubes – are used to prop open the artery.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both underwent the stent procedure after they left the White House.

In general, recovery takes a few days, but how quickly Sanders will bounce back depends on his symptoms before he got the stents, said Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic.

“People recover quickly, and assuming no complications, there is no reason why he could not get back on the campaign trail in a timely fashion,” Nissen said.

Sanders had been running in second place in the Democratic race behind Biden, the former vice president, until the last month, when a surge by fellow progressive and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts moved her ahead of Sanders in many opinion polls.

The campaign halt comes the day after Sanders reported a big $25.3 million fundraising haul for the third quarter, putting him in the early lead in the closely watched campaign money race.

Sanders’ Democratic rivals in the presidential race rushed to send him wishes for a speedy recovery.

“I hope to see my friend back on the campaign trail very soon,” Warren wrote on Twitter.

A former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders won a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 1990, making him the first independent elected to the House in 40 years.

In 2006, he won a U.S. Senate seat and in 2018 was voted in for a third six-year term. He remains an independent but caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

(Source: Reuters)

US President Donald Trump has ripped Democratic lawmakers for engaging in an impeachment inquiry, which he likened to “bulls—.”

The president unleashed an avalanche of tweets Wednesday against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as well as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Trump made it look like the Ukraine scandal is just about toppling him at the 2020 presidential election, misstating the 232 electoral votes his opponent, Hillary Clinton, got in 2016.

“The Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on BULLS—, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306,” Trump tweeted. “Get a better candidate this time, you’ll need it!”

Trump has apparently pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, his potential opponent for the 2020 presidential election, and his son, Hunter, before Kiev can receive the US military aid.

Pelosi said in a presser earlier in the day that House Democrats want to work with Trump on reducing drug prices despite the impeachment inquiry underway.

“The American people want us to do that. If the president is saying ‘if you question my actions I can’t agree on any subject,’ then the ball is in his court,” she said.

Trump, however, shattered prospects that the White House might opt to cooperate with the House over any issues.

“Nancy Pelosi just said that she is interested in lowering prescription drug prices & working on the desperately needed USMCA. She is incapable of working on either,” Trump tweeted. “It is just camouflage for trying to win an election through impeachment. The Do Nothing Democrats are stuck in mud!”

Schiff, for his part, called out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was on a July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, yet rejected the Democrats’ subpoena over the case.

“We are deeply concerned about Secretary Pompeo’s effort now to potentially interfere with witnesses whose testimony is needed before our committee,” he said, adding that any attempts to interfere with witness testimony “will be considered as evidence of obstruction.”

Trump also attacked Schiff and defended the former spymaster at the helm of his state department.

“Adam Schiff should only be so lucky to have the brains, honor and strength of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “For a lowlife like Schiff, who completely fabricated my words and read them to Congress as though they were said by me, to demean a First in Class at West Point, is SAD!”

The House speaker has vowed to look into Trump’s case impartially.

“We will treat the president with fairness as we go forward,” Pelosi said. “We will have investigations and questioning that are worthy of the Constitution of the United States. It is unworthy of the Constitution what the president did in that call.”

Source: Presstv

In New York, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran refused to engage in a phone conversation with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, which had been secretly arranged by French President Emmanuel Macron, leaving Trump waiting on the line, US media reports say.

The New Yorker magazine reported on Monday that Macron had tried to engineer a three-way conversation by having technicians set up a secure line in a meeting room on Rouhani’s floor at the Millennium Hilton Hotel across the road from the UN General Assembly (UNGA), on September 24 evening.

The French leader, it added, hoped that the telephone conversation would lay the groundwork for the first meeting between an American president and an Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Sources familiar with last Tuesday’s events said, “The call to Trump’s line came through at 9:30. Macron took the call. But Rouhani never emerged from his room.”

“As we have been doing for several months, we worked in New York to get Iran to make new commitments and for the US, in exchange, to ease sanctions,” a French diplomat told The New Yorker. “We made technical arrangements in the event that a telephone call could take place. That call did not take place.” 

Later on Monday, The New York Times confirmed the report, saying that Rouhani had left Trump hanging and Macron waiting outside his hotel suite.

“The telephone line had been secretly set up. President Trump waited on the other end. All President Hassan Rouhani of Iran had to do was come out of his hotel suite and walk into a secure room where Mr. Trump’s voice would be piped in via speaker,” it said.

According to three people with knowledge of the developments, Macron, accompanied by a small team of advisers, “awaited an answer” outside Rouhani’s suite.

“Messages were passed between them via Mr. Rouhani’s aides,” they said. “In the end, Mr. Rouhani refused even to come out of his room. Mr. Macron left empty-handed and Mr. Trump was left hanging.”

Macron has been seeking to play a mediatory role aimed at easing Washington-Tehran tensions, which have been on the rise since the US withdrawal from a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal in May 2018.

The French leader has also been leading European efforts to save the accord, whose fate remains in doubt since Washington’s exit.

Iran has repeatedly rejected Trump’s offer of talks, saying it would not engage in such negotiations unless the US returns to the deal and lifts its unilateral sanctions.

Tehran says negotiations with Washington would be possible within the framework of the P5+1, comprising the US, France, Britain, Russia, China plus Germany, which successfully negotiated the deal with Iran, if Washington meets those conditions.

In a speech at the General Assembly on Wednesday, Rouhani reaffirmed Iran’s position and said he was not interested in a “memento photo” with Trump on the sidelines of the UN meetings, while the US was piling economic pressure on Iran.

“Memento photos are the final stage of negotiations, not the first one,” Rouhani told the world body.

In 2013, Rouhani and then US president Barack Obama held a telephone conversation as the Iranian president was wrapping up his visit to New York for the 68th annual session of the UNGA, as diplomatic efforts were underway between the two sides within the P5+1 format in the run-up to the nuclear deal.

The New York Times cited Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political-risk consulting firm in Washington, as saying that Trump’s desire for negotiations with Iran was meant to “flip the news cycle” from the Ukraine scandal.

“Trump really wants a foreign policy win and can’t find one,” he said. “He thinks talks with Iran now may be his best shot.”

Trump “was especially desperate at the UNGA — he wanted to flip the news cycle from Ukraine and Biden to a dramatic meeting with Rouhani,” he added.

The US president is facing an impeachment inquiry related to allegations that he pressured Ukraine to smear his top Democratic political rival Joe Biden.

Source: Presstv