Daily Archives: June 23, 2017

His visit comes at a time of immense uncertainty and unpredictability in Indian-US relations.

Earlier this month, he singled out India during his announcement declaring the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Top of the leaders' agenda will be the H1-B visa rehaul, the fight against terror and expanding on bilateral relations with the new administration.

We spoke to five young Indians about the importance of bilateral ties between the two countries and what they make of Trump.

Harshit Tibrewal, 22, is a software engineer working for a start-up. He believes good relations between the two democracies are vital, especially given India's rise in the global order.

"I think the relationship between the US and India is very strong, because a lot of trade happens between the two, a lot of people from here go to work and study there. Both countries are superpowers and Modi going to meet with Trump shows that the relationship is strong and getting stronger. It's very good to have such a good relationship with a strong country."

His sunny outlook comes despite being in an occupation hardest hit by Trump's visa crackdown.

"I don't think it (H1-B visa reform) will affect Indians. Most of these software companies need us," says Tibrewal.

Indian firms like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro use the H-1B program to send thousands of engineers to the US.

Around 70% of the 85,000 H-1B visas issued annually go to Indian workers.

According to Tibrewal, Trump's America First agenda could actually backfire on him -- and the US.

"Indians have great minds of their own. Quoting Bill Gates, 'If I stopped hiring Indians, another Microsoft would have opened in India'. Donald Trump should know this too."

Twenty-year-old Kanika Sethi is a recent commerce graduate. While she understands the importance of relations between India and the US, she's skeptical about Trump's leadership.

"Donald Trump is a rich leader. I can't say whether he is a good or bad leader. But the first thing that comes to mind is money."

Between Modi's election in 2014 and Obama leaving office at the beginning of 2017, the two leaders met eight times. A record for leaders of the two nations. Obama is also the only sitting US President to have visited India twice while in office.

"There's no comparison with Obama. Obama was the best."

Yakita Somani, 20, also a commerce graduate, is more pragmatic about the upcoming visit especially on the hot button topic of H1-B visa restrictions.

"The first preference is given to American people and that's absolutely right. In India, if we protest for our rights, then that's the same thing. Indians there (the United States) who are facing discrimination and inequality, I feel you need to struggle for something. It's their policy and being the most powerful country, they don't need to think about the entire world."

At the same time, she is aware that forging closer ties with the United States is crucial for India.

"I feel America is the most powerful country, so if India is tied up with a country of this position, it will be beneficial i areas such as defense, security and many other things. Our country will become powerful."

Surya Hooda, 22, wants to become a civil servant and is currently studying for his exams.

"India's relations with America are very important. During Obama's time, they were on the rise. Now, Trump and his administration are going back on a lot of policies that the Obama administration employed."

"Trump has pulled back from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). India was not a part of the TPP so now there's an opportunity where we can directly establish bilateral relations directly with the US so that's a plus point."

Just weeks after coming into office, Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation deal that had been negotiated under Obama.

Twenty-two-year-old Kilang Walling is an engineering graduate.

He describes Trump as a "loudmouth" and "not the kind of person you find in power."

However, like the other young people CNN spoke with, he understands the importance of US-Indian relations, especially in South Asia.

"India is growing in terms of power and the economy. Both India and the US need to cooperate. And because India is surrounded by not so friendly countries like China and Pakistan, India needs the US and the US also needs India because America and China also don't function well."

For Walling, the issue he wants to see most discussed during Modi's visit is the US' withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

"He (Trump) shouldn't have done that. America being a leader and a forward thinking country, he shouldn't have pulled out."

"I feel very strongly about the Paris deal. How the world is going, how climate change is going. It's essential that every human being needs to worry about this because we need sustainability. It's not only about living today, there are generations to come so we have to worry about this."

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What do young Indians think of Donald Trump? - CNN

It was a surreal new twist to a presidency that has often already stretched the limits of credulity, and has challenged conventions on the decorum and gravity expected in the behavior of the person who holds the office itself.

After weeks of speculation, the President delivered a mea culpa, a step that he had little choice to make, in a somewhat resentful manner, in keeping with his reluctance to ever publicly admit error.

"With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea ... whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings," Trump wrote in a pair of tweets.

His statement was followed by a now-typical attempt by the White House to avoid accountability on an embarrassing episode. Trump's choice of Twitter to deliver his message did not expose him to cross-examination or questioning from journalists. The White House, meanwhile, banned live television coverage of its daily briefing, allowing only an audio recording to be broadcast afterward.

There's little doubt that the entire tapes issue represents a serious misstep by the President that put his White House on a perilous political and legal path.

"James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweeted on May 17.

The tweet caused an uproar, immediately raising comparisons with the Watergate-era taping system that caused the downfall of President Richard Nixon, and demands for Trump to immediately hand over any recordings.

If it was an attempt to intimidate Comey, as many have speculated, it backfired spectacularly.

Comey testified to the Senate intelligence committee earlier this month that he saw Trump's tweet and woke up in the middle of the night a few days later, suddenly twigging that any tapes could provide corroboration of his version of conversations with Trump that left him feeling deeply uncomfortable.

The former FBI chief said that as a result of the tweet he asked a friend to share the content of his memos with a reporter, in the hope that it would lead to the appointment of a special counsel.

That special counsel -- Robert Mueller -- who was appointed as a direct result of what now looks like a deeply ill-advised Trump tweet, now poses a serious threat to his entire presidency with an investigation into alleged collusion by campaign officials with Russian interference in the US election, that could branch off in unpredictable directions.

One clear effect of Trump's tweet on Thursday means that the accounting of what happened in conversations between the President and Comey now relies on one man's word against the other. There apparently are no tapes that could confirm what exactly happened in those chats.

But Comey has already handed the special counsel his contemporaneous memos of conversations in which he said Trump asked him to go easy on former national security adviser Michael Flynn, asked him for a pledge of loyalty and wanted him to publicly say that the President himself was not under investigation.

It will now be left to Mueller to decide whether Trump's actions in his interactions with Comey amount to an attempt to obstruct justice.

The original tweet may be considered as evidence as Mueller tries to work out whether the President was trying to intimidate Comey.

Still, the White House stuck to the line that despite the damaging fallout of the tapes episode, the President had no regrets.

"I don't think so," said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked whether Trump now wishes he had not issued the original tweet.

Sanders would not divulge many other details about Trump's motivation in warning of possible tapes of Comey, or why he inflicted a six-week-long mystery on the nation, a period that included him taunting reporters, saying that they were "going to be very disappointed" when the truth was revealed.

"I don't think it was a game," Sanders said, in the off-camera briefing, and appeared to suggest the President's original intent was to press the fired former FBI director to tell the truth.

"I certainly think that the President would hope that the former director would tell the truth, but I think it was more about raising the question of doubt, in general," she said.

But an associate of Trump who spoke to the President this week, told CNN's Jeff Zeleny that "if he doesn't regret this, he should."

The person also said that Trump was amused by all media obsession over the original tweet, raising the possibility that, as so many times before, the President is using conspiracy theories and sparking outrage to dominate the political conversation in Washington -- with himself at the center of the storm.

The manner of Trump's admission that there were no tapes, was consistent with the way in which he has dealt with climb-downs that are personally embarrassing to him during his time in office.

The President is known to be loath to publicly admit that he made a mistake. Last September, for instance, Trump finally repudiated his years-long conspiracy theory that claimed President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

But the admission came only at the end of a rambling event at his new hotel in Washington that included warm public testimony on his character from veterans.

That admission came with a new conspiracy theory.

"Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it, you know what I mean," Trump said, lobbing an unproven allegation against his then Democratic presidential rival.

In the case of his tweet on Thursday, Trump covered his embarrassment by again suggesting something nefarious was underway -- by raising the possibility there was some taping going on in the White House without his knowledge -- that again came without any corroboration.

Trump's critics immediately seized on his admission on the tapes to raise concerns about his suitability for the Presidency.

"There have been a lot of surreal and strange statements by Donald Trump, since he became President. But he seems to have a capacity to outdo himself," Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said on CNN.

Trump, as commander in chief, has the authority to know about any covert actions being performed by intelligence agencies or any electronic surveillance in the White House, Blumenthal said.

"To say he has no idea is absolutely preposterous and really an insult to the intelligence of the American people," Blumenthal said.

But other Democrats suggested that they would not necessarily take Trump's word in a tweet to end the episode.

"I prefer to get something in writing," said Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

The panel had established a deadline of Friday for Trump to hand over any tapes -- a move that may have precipitated his admission on Thursday.

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Trump ends his self-made crisis where it started: Twitter - CNN

But within days, Mr. McCarthys accusation that there was a hidden Communist cabal at the heart of the American government blew up into a bitter national controversy. And before long, Joe McCarthys Wheeling speech had triggered a wave of paranoia and fear mongering that would forever bear his name: McCarthyism.

On June 28, 2016, another Republican politician landed at Stifel, now named Wheeling Ohio County Airport, to campaign here: Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump appeared first that night at a private fund-raiser held just blocks from the McLure Hotel. He went straight from the fund-raiser to a rally 15 minutes away in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

There, the Republican nominee for president spoke to a crowd of roughly 4,000. Theres something going on thats really, really bad, he said. And we better get smart, and we better get tough, or were not going to have much of a country left, O.K.?

It was a dark speech that harkened back to the most fearful tones of Joe McCarthy. Drumming up fears about the Islamic State, which he said was spreading like wildfire, Mr. Trump said that if he was elected, he would bring back the use of torture techniques like waterboarding in the interrogations of terrorism suspects. I dont think its tough enough, he said, of waterboarding, adding, We cant do waterboarding, but they can do chopping off heads, they can do drowning people in steel cages, they can do whatever they want. Mr. Trump also highlighted his other hits from the campaign trail, reminding the crowd about the threats from Nafta, Mexican immigrants and China. There was so much in the world to fear, and Donald Trump was the only one who could protect us.

One year after he walked in Joe McCarthys footsteps in Wheeling, Mr. Trump now practices Mr. McCarthys version of the politics of fear from the White House. The two figures, who bear striking similarities and who shared an adviser, Roy Cohn both mastered the art of fear politics.

Since he took office, Mr. Trump has expressed an apocalyptic vision of the United States and the wider world at nearly every turn, starting with an Inaugural Address in which his most memorable phrase was American carnage.

Over the past few months, he hasnt missed a chance to try to exploit fears over terrorism, using a series of attacks in Europe to argue in favor of his executive order calling for a travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries, which has been blocked by the courts. He has criticized other politicians, both in the United States and overseas, for political correctness on terrorism. He sticks to his scare tactics even when he is proven to be factually wrong and despite public rebukes from other world leaders.

He keeps doing it because it works for him, just like it worked for Joe McCarthy. Mr. Trump knows what people want to hear how terrifying the world can be and how he can protect them. Fearmongering resonates with his political base, particularly white voters without college degrees.

Fear of the other increases when the potential threats Mr. McCarthys Communists, or Mr. Trumps Muslims or Hispanics are poorly understood.

Underlying it all is a broad and unspoken fear of the looming loss of white dominance in American society. Increased diversity, notably the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the United States, is leading to a broader fear of all minority groups and foreigners, analysts believe.

White working-class voters who say they often feel like a stranger in their own land and who believe the U.S. needs protecting against foreign influence were 3.5 times more likely to favor Trump than those who did not share those concerns, concluded a study released in May by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic magazine.

Recent studies by psychologists have found that when they talk to white Americans about a future in which they are in the minority, that drives them to express more conservative views. You see a pretty reliable shift to the right when you emphasize the projected change in the demographics of the United States, says Jennifer Richeson, a professor of psychology at Yale University and one of the researchers involved with the studies. Once you activate the fear of a threat to group status, then anybody who is seen as not part of that group is seen as more of a threat.

Scott Crichlow, a professor of political science at the West Virginia University, sees that phenomenon in West Virginia, where whites without a college degree represent a larger percentage of the population than in any other state and where Mr. Trump saw one of his biggest margins of victory of any state in the 2016 election.

Clearly there is an audience for speeches that rally nationalist causes and against amorphous perceived threats, Mr. Crichlow said. What I think may be driving some of the appeal of the politics of fear is the states low education and demographics.

Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott believes there were several reasons for Mr. Trumps success here but thinks that fear of the other certainly played a big role.

When you have 40 years of economic stagnation, that leads to frustration with the status quo and to zero-sum thinking, the mayor said. And I also think part of his appeal was that he said, Im going to protect you from the Muslims, or Hispanics. There is a fear of that.

Trump supporters want to make America great again, to go back to what they believe were the halcyon days of the 1950s, which, ironically, was the decade of the fearmongering of Joe McCarthy.

I dont think West Virginia is a state full of racists, Mayor Elliott added. He does describe his state, though, as a place where cultural isolation and economic anxiety made it a perfect target for Mr. Trumps speech. There is also a fear of change that a skilled demagogue can tap into by focusing on the fear of the other, he said. Fear resonates.

James Risen is an investigative reporter for The Times and the author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War. Tom Risen is a reporter for Aerospace America Magazine.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

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Donald Trump Does His Best Joe McCarthy Impression - New York Times

Two watchdog groups have sued Donald Trumpover White House records, accusing the president of illegally destroying communications that must be preserved by federal law.

The suit filed Thursday against Trump and the Executive Office of the President by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive focuses on an auto-delete app reportedly being used for messages sent from the White House that erase messages after theyre read.

Such communications could involve correspondence among the president, aides, advisers, contractors, lobbyists and others. Theyre part of a historical record that belongs to the public and must be preserved, as mandated by the Presidential Records Act of 2014, notes the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The law requires the preservation of communications in the White House and vice presidents office.

Yet evidence suggests that President Trump and others within the White House are either ignoring or outright flouting these responsibilities, the suit states.

The American people not only deserve to know how their government is making important decisions, its the law, CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. By deleting these records, the White House is destroying essential historical records.

CREW spokesman Jason Libowitz told HuffPost that the only reason for the Trump administration to delete messages is to keep them secret from the American people. He said its part of a larger, troubling pattern of information suppression in the Trump administration, which also includes deletion of the presidents tweets.

The suit cites a vanishing tweet on Trumps account about meeting with U.S. generals at Mar-a-Lago. Such tweets, involving official government business and policy statements by the president, are also subject to the Presidential Records Act, the suit argues.

Trump repeatedly blasted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, but those emails were still recoverable.

The lawsuit against Trump cites a report in The Washington Post that White House staffers use an app called Confide, which sends encrypted messages that self-destruct once theyre read. The Wall Street Journal also reported similar use of the encryption cloaking app Signalfor White House messages.The use of the apps knowingly prevent the proper preservation of records, the suit charges.

Using encrypted messaging apps that prevent any kind of preservation raise serious concerns that presidential records are at risk, said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive. Presidential records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act while a president is in office. But they are accessible by law five years later provided they have been preserved.

The suit demands the records be preserved against efforts by the president and his staff that seek to evade transparency and government accountability.

The White House hasnt yet commented on the suit.

CREW also sued Trump in January, accusing him of violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitutionby collecting foreign income through his various businesses. The clause forbids a president from receiving payments from foreign governments. In one example, theKuwait Embassy in February booked spaceand services for an event at Trumps hotel in Washington, D.C., that was estimated to cost as much as $60,000.

More than 190 Democratic lawmakers also sued Trump last week over the emoluments clause,saying he had accepted funds from foreign governments through his businesses without congressional consent in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

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Lawsuit Accuses Donald Trump Of Illegally Destroying White House Records - HuffPost