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Disaster aid bill hits snag after Trump tells GOP Puerto Rico gets too much storm assistance

A massive disaster aid bill is in doubt in the Senate, caught between Senate Democrats pushing for more assistance for Puerto Rico and President Donald Trump’s criticism that the U.S. territory is already receiving too much hurricane aid.

The Senate voted 90-10 on Tuesday to advance multi-billion dollar legislation aimed at providing relief to areas that have been hit hard by hurricanes, wildfires and flooding. But final passage is now uncertain, with Senate Democrats calling for changes to the bill after Trump reportedly told Republicans at a Senate lunch Tuesday that Puerto Rico, which was struck by two hurricanes in 2017, was getting too much money in the disaster aid bill.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/27/disaster-bill-puerto-rico-1240173

Republicans to Trump: Back off economy-wrecking tariffs 2 hours ago

Republicans are trying to head off their next potentially explosive conflict with President Donald Trump.

In a series of private meetings and conversations with Trump over the last few months, Senate Republicans have pleaded with him not to impose a new round of tariffs on foreign automakers — fearing they could debilitate Trump-backed states and cast the economy into a recession ahead of the 2020 election.

But Trump isn’t heeding the warnings so far.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/27/trump-auto-tariff-republicans-1240519

'We need a plan': GOP shaken by Trump's healthcare demands 2 hours ago

President Donald Trump says the GOP is now the “party of health care.” But Republicans have no real plan to deliver on that.

Trump's unexpected demand that Republicans take another crack at replacing Obamacare came on the heels of his Justice Department backing a lawsuit intended to gut the entire law. The last time the party tried to get rid of Obamacare, it cost them control of the House and several state capitols.

Those lessons aren’t lost on Republicans. They know the more they talk about repealing Obamacare, the more likely it is that the battle over the health law and the popular protections for people with pre-existing conditions drags right into the 2020 elections, damaging vulnerable Republicans. They’d rather slow-walk the issue while sticking to health care topics that have appeal on both sides of the aisle.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/27/republicans-trump-health-care-1241142

White House Obamacare reversal made over Cabinet objections 9 minutes ago

The Trump administration’s surprising move to invalidate Obamacare on Monday came despite the opposition of two key cabinet secretaries: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General Bill Barr.

Driving the dramatic action were the administration’s domestic policy chief, Joe Grogan, and the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decision. Both are close allies of White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who helped to engineer the move.

But Monday’s terse, two-sentence letter from the Department of Justice to a federal appeals court, which reversed the administration’s previous partial opposition to a lawsuit challenging the 2010 health care law, took many Republicans aback — in part because they see it as bringing high political risk for a party that has failed to unite behind an Obamacare alternative and which lost House seats in the 2018 midterms when Democrats made health care a focus of their attacks.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/26/trump-obamacare-reversal-cabinet-1238359

The Pentagon is putting $1 billion toward the wall — and House Democrats can’t stop them 6 hours ago

While US military forces have been deployed to the US-Mexico border for months, they’re also expected to use billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget to build segments of President Donald Trump’s “wall” — setting up a fight with Congress in 2020.
The Department of Defense has always asked Congress for permission to move money around. Until now.

The Department of Defense is moving $1 billion out of a military personnel fund to be used to construct 57 miles of border “wall” — provoking strident (but impotent) objections from Democrats in Congress and setting up a big fight over next year’s Pentagon budget.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/26/18282432/wall-emergency-funding-trump-news-congress

Trump’s former business partner accused of trying to launder stolen money through Trump properties 

ThinkProgress

Special counsel Robert Mueller may have finished his investigation into whether President Donald Trump colluded with Russia, but a number of other probes into alleged wrongdoing by the president and his inner circle continue. Now, the president’s former business partner Felix Sater is accused in federal court of trying to launder billions of dollars of stolen money through Trump Tower Moscow. Sater also allegedly laundered millions through down-payments on condo purchases at the Trump SoHo property.

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https://thinkprogress.org/felix-sater-trump-business-partner-accused-laundering-stolen-money-through-trump-properties-6ffd9d4f11b9/

McConnell backs effort to investigate alleged bias against Trump at DOJ 6 hours ago

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he supported Sen. Lindsey Graham’s plans to investigate alleged political bias against President Donald Trump at the Justice Department and the FBI.

“I think it’s not inappropriate for the chairman of the Judiciary with jurisdiction over the Justice Department to investigate possible misbehavior," McConnell said at a press conference. “Certainly the House is not going to miss an opportunity in the coming months to look at what they perceive to be things that require oversight.”

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/26/mcconnell-graham-investigate-doj-bias-1238038

Puerto Rico Stands to Lose the Most Funding from Trump’s Border Wall 5 hours ago

Mother Jones

The Pentagon’s plan to steer $3.6 billion from the military construction budget toward President Donald Trump’s border wall could delay up to 146 projects at home and abroad, including major maintenance efforts in Maine, North Carolina, and Virginia. But no region stands to lose more than Puerto Rico. 

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/puerto-rico-stands-to-lose-the-most-funding-from-trumps-border-wall/