Sen. Cardin says Trump’s tough talk on Panama Canal could push allies to China, Russia
ABC News
The outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on ABC’s “This Week” that President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to seize the Panama Canal could drive allies of the United States toward Russia and China.
In an interview Sunday with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, said Trump’s recent statements about taking over the Panama Canal, buying Greenland and making Canada the 51st U.S. state, are affecting “America’s credibility globally.”
“Our allies don’t know whether we are reliable partners or not,” said Cardin, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of this term.
Cardin’s comments came after Trump recently criticized as “ridiculous” and “highly unfair” the fees Panama charges American shipping companies to use the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He said the shipping fees were a “complete ripoff of our country” and vowed to put an end to them once he takes office, or he will demand that Panama cede control of the canal to the United States.
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question,” Trump said during his Dec. 22 speech to supporters at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Arizona. “The United States has a big invested interest in the secure, efficient and reliable operation of the Panama Canal.”
Panama President José Raúl Mulino, who was elected in May, called Trump’s statements an affront to his country’s sovereignty and said the fees for ships crossing the canal are set by experts who take into account operational costs, and supply and demand factors.
“The tariffs are not set on a whim,” Mulino said.
Cardin noted on “This Week” that the obligations of the U.S. and Panama were established by the Panama Canal and Neutrality Treaty of 1977 and ratified by Congress.
“I don’t know what the president-elect is saying in regards to how sincere he is, but I can tell you, it does raise questions globally as to whether we’re a reliable partner,” Cardin said. “And it really feeds into Russia and China appeal to other countries as to whether they need to make alliances with — with Russia and China, whether America will be there for them globally.”
Pressed by Karl on other statements Trump has recently made, including buying Greenland from the Danish government and making Canada the 51st U.S. state — even mocking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor” — Cardin said such talk is not helpful.
“Globally, we saw the same type of statements made during his previous administration, when he threatened to pull out of NATO,” Cardin said of Trump. “These are treaty obligations which our allies rely upon, and it raises serious concerns about whether America will be there for them.”
Asked by Karl about Ukraine’s future during a second Trump administration, Cardin said that while there continues to be bipartisan support in Congress, he described Trump’s comments on Ukraine as “very disturbing.”
Trump recently suggested that he may reverse President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory, calling the decision “stupid.”
Cardin said Ukraine is the “front line of defense for democracy.”
“We know that Russia will not stop with Ukraine. We know many other countries feel at risk if Ukraine is not able to defend its sovereignty… I know some of the president-elect’s comments are very disturbing. I’ve talked to the Ukrainians. I’ve talked to the Europeans several times, I think they question whether America’s resolve will be there,” he said. “I can tell you we have bipartisan support in the United States Congress to stand with Ukraine because we recognize the importance to our national security.”
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump and his allies have vowed to radically shift American policy from Day 1.
From mass deportations to eliminating the Department of Education, Trump’s policies could impact millions of people and communities across the country. However, experts say there is a big obstacle that will make it harder — if not impossible — for the incoming administration to implement these plans: States and municipalities.
Alison LaCroix, professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, told ABC News that the power to regulate and implement key laws lies strictly within the states and many local leaders have already been working to prepare for a possible future Trump administration.
“The states have a lot of levers in the constitutional system, legal system and other systems,” she said. “This usually comes as a lot of shock to people who don’t know how much power they wield but we’re going to soon find out how valuable they are.”
Other experts who have focused on some of the biggest sectors targeted by Trump, such as public health and immigration, agreed but said they are likely gearing up for a legal and policy fight that could last a long time.
Trump has said he aims to remove at least 1 million immigrants living in the country illegally from the U.S. as soon as possible.
Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School’s immigration clinic, told ABC News that states can’t outright act as immigration enforcement for the federal government without an agreement.
“It is the principle that the federal government cannot order local law enforcement to enact federal priorities,” she said.
Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois have vowed not to assist Trump with any mass deportation plan, and Mukherjee said their claims are not empty words.
She said states already showed their power during the first Trump administration by blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering courthouses for potential raids and denying the agency detainers that would have kept jailed immigrants in custody longer without an arraignment.
She added that any attempts by the Republican-controlled Congress to change immigration and deportation laws to take away rights from the states will take some time and likely be met with resistance even among Republican members who think it is too extreme.
“The Trump administration will issue many executive orders, but a large number that will be illegal and unconstitutional,” Mukherjee added.
At the same time, Mukherjee said that conservative states and municipalities may bolster anti-immigrant policies and make it harder for migrants and asylum seekers to gain a path to citizenship.
Sixty counties and police districts, many of them in Florida, have entered into 287(g) agreements with ICE, in which local law enforcement can conduct immigration policies on behalf of the federal government such as executing warrants and detaining undocumented immigrants, according to Mukherjee.
Florida also passed SB 1718 last year which cracks down on undocumented immigration with several provisions, including making it illegal to transport undocumented immigrants and requiring hospitals to ask patients for their immigration status.
Mukherjee stressed that states cannot try to enforce their own laws in other jurisdictions due to the 1842 Supreme Court case Prigg vs. Pennsylvania. That case, which overturned the conviction of a man convicted under a state law that prevented slave-catching, held that while federal law supersedes state law, states are not required to use their resources to uphold federal laws.
“It’s extremely difficult and illegal for one state to impose their laws onto another,” Mukherjee said.
Even when it comes to executive orders, Mukherjee said the laws are mostly on the side of states and municipalities.
Trump’s “border czar” choice Tom Homan has already threatened to go after states and cities that refuse to comply with the president-elect’s deportation plans, including arresting mayors.
Mukherjee said there is no legal mechanism or modern legal precedent that allows the federal government to incarcerate local leaders for not adhering to an administration’s policy.
“Sanctuary city laws are entirely allowed within the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “The 10th Amendment is extremely clear. The powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people. This is a bedrock principle of U.S. constitutional law.”
Public education State education officials are in the same boat when it comes to federal oversight, experts said.
Although Trump and other allies have made it clear that they want to eliminate or weaken the federal Department of Education, funding for schools and education programs lies mostly in the hands of state legislatures and local school boards, according to Alice O’Brien, the general counsel for the National Education Association.
“Those campaign promises in reality are much harder to achieve,” O’Brien told ABC News. “They would require federal legislation to accomplish.”
Federal oversight has little control over local school curriculum policies, she added.
O’Brien noted that much of the federal oversight on public schools lies outside of the jurisdiction of the Department of Education. For example, state school districts must adhere to laws set forth at the federal level such as non-discrimination against race and religion and disabilities.
“States and school systems can not run in any way that conflicts with the federal Constitution,” O’Brien said.
When it comes to funding, although the federal DOE does provide funding as a floor to many school districts, it is a small fraction compared to the funding that comes from city and state coffers, O’Brien explained.
Public health “It really comes down to a state-by-state basis in terms of how much dollars are allocated to the schools,” she said. “Ultimately it really comes down to how much money the state budgets have.”
Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association and former Maryland health secretary, told ABC News that state public health offices operate under the same localized jurisdiction and thus would have more autonomy on health policies.
Trump’s pick for the head of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been a staunch promoter of anti-vaccination policies and has pushed for the end of fluoride in water supplies.
Benjamin said he is worried about the effects of having someone with no professional health experience and public dismissiveness of proven health policies, however, he remarked that states and municipalities still hold immense power in implementing policies.
Georges noted that fluoride levels in the water supply are dictated at a local level, and many counties have chosen not to implement them. Federal health agencies can make recommendations but cannot block a municipality from implementing fluoridation, he said.
“There is no fiscal penalty for not following it,” Benjamin said of federal recommendations.
The same rules govern local vaccination requirements, he added.
“[The federal government does] control vaccine mandates at the federal level, with the federal workforce, but they don’t control the bulk of childhood mandates,” Benjamin said.
He noted that the country saw the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of state-run public health systems during the two years that COVID-19 hit the nation and the rollout of the vaccines. Republican and Democratic states all instituted shelter-in-place and social distancing rules during the peak of cases, Benjamin said.
“I do think we have a wait-and-see attitude,” he said.
In the meantime, several states have taken measures to bolster their state health policies, particularly when it comes to reproductive rights, through legislative action and ballot measures.
Power in state prosecutors One of the biggest ways that states will be able to “Trump-proof” their laws and policies is through state prosecutors and the courts, LaCroix said.
“We will see a lot of arguments in local government and what they can do,” she said.
Mukherjee said several state attorneys general were able to take Trump to court during his first administration and push back against immigration proposals such as his ban on residents from Muslim countries and deportation plans.
Mukherjee said despite the increase in Trump-backed judges in the federal courts, there is still the rule of law when it comes to immigration. For example, earlier this year, a federal judge struck down the provision in Florida’s SB 1718 that threatens felony charges for people who transport an undocumented immigrant.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, a Trump-appointed judge, issued an injunction against that provision stating that immigration-related enforcement was not in the state’s power.
“It will be harder this time around to win sweeping victories for immigrants and non-citizens … but federal judges across party lines reined in the worst abuses of the Trump administration the first time around,” she said.
LaCroix echoed that statement and said that partisanship can only go so far, especially when it comes to laws enshrined in the state and federal constitutions.
“Judges still have to give reasons for what they do and ‘because our party is in charge’ doesn’t hold weight,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House Administration’s subcommittee on Oversight, in a new report suggests former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney should be investigated for alleged criminal witness tampering, claiming she played an “integral role” shaping key witness testimony before the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
President-elect Donald Trump posted early Wednesday morning on his social media platform that “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.”
Earlier this month, Trump, speaking about Jan. 6 committee members, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that, “for what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”
The House GOP report released Tuesday marks not only the latest effort by House Republicans to discredit the Jan. 6 committee, but also a possible preview of its oversight efforts in the next session of Congress beginning in January.
Cheney’s name appears in the report more than 120 times, excluding the table of contents, going line-by-line to blast her participation as vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee.
“Without authority and against House Rules — the role of ranking member, Congress itself must right its former wrongs and declare this appointment of Representative Cheney invalid now,” the report states.
The report alleges that as Cheney participated in the investigation, she colluded with Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide, about her testimony describing then-President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The report contends that Cheney not only “backchannelled” with Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide and a host of ABC’s “The View,” to get Hutchinson to change her narrative but also communicated with her “directly for days.” After that, the report alleges that Cheney also convinced Hutchinson to fire her attorney, Stefan Passantino.
“According to text messages, that appear to be from the encrypted messaging app “Signal,” between Hutchinson and Farah Griffin obtained by the Subcommittee, Cheney agreed to communicate with Hutchinson through Farah Griffin,” the subcommittee said.
“It is unusual — and potentially unethical — for a Member of Congress conducting an investigation to contact a witness if the Member knows that the individual is represented by legal counsel,” the report states. “This appears to be precisely what Representative Cheney did at this time, and within a matter of days of these secret conversations, Hutchinson would go on to recant her previous testimony and introduce her most outlandish claims.”
“What other information was communicated during these phone calls may never be known, but what is known is that Representative Cheney consciously attempted to minimize her contact with Hutchinson in her book, and the most likely reason to try to bury that information would be if Representative Cheney knew that it was improper and unethical to communicate with Hutchinson without her counsel present,” the report states.
“It must be emphasized that Representative Cheney would likely have known her communications without the knowledge of Hutchinson’s attorney were illicit and unethical at that time,” the report said. Farah Griffin indicated as much … in her … message to Hutchinson … when she wrote that Representative Cheney’s “one concern” was that as long as Hutchinson was represented by counsel, “she [Cheney] can’t really ethically talk to you [Hutchinson] without him [Passantino].”
Despite Representative Cheney’s initial hesitation, the Subcommittee uncovered evidence of frequent, direct conversations between Hutchinson and Representative Cheney without Passantino’s knowledge, and also through their intermediary Farah Griffin.”Cheney responded in a statement stressing the testimony “was painstakingly” presented in thousands of pages of transcripts, made public along with a “highly detailed and meticulously sourced 800-page report.”
“Chairman Loudermilk’s ‘Interim Report’ intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weigh of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney wrote. “Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth.”
Cheney also did not back off her role and the committee’s findings.
“January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is – a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave,” she noted. “The January 6th Committee’s hearings and report featured scores of Republican witnesses, including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration.”
Farah Griffin also disputed the GOP report’s conclusions.
“This report is full of inaccuracies and innuendo,” she said in a statement. “The report wrongly states – and without any evidence – that I acted as an intermediary between Cassidy Hutchinson and Liz Cheney for “a month.” That is not true, and these messages demonstrate the full extent of my involvement. Further, these messages weren’t ‘obtained’ by the Committee – they were requested by the Committee and voluntarily handed over to the Committee. I believe in Congressional oversight, whether it be the January 6th investigation or this inquiry.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Jan. 6.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and his senior aides are discussing possible preemptive pardons for people who might be targeted by the incoming Trump administration, according to a source close to the president.
Possible names include current and former officials such as retired Gen. Mark Milley, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen.-elect Adam Schiff and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Politico was first to report the news.
The consideration comes after Biden issued a full pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, on Dec. 1. The move sparked backlash from Republicans and criticism from many Democrats.
The White House said Biden did so, despite his past pledges not to pardon his son, because “it didn’t seem his political opponents would let go of it.”
Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to exact “retribution” on his political enemies.
Milley, who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year, has long been a target of Republican attacks over the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
He also stoked Trump’s ire over a report that Milley secretly called his Chinese counterpart before and after the 2020 election to dispel China’s fears Trump was not planning an attack. Trump accused Milley of “treason” after the report.
Cheney and Schiff have also long been criticized by Trump over their investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. The two were part of the House Jan. 6 committee’s yearlong probe, which concluded with the recommendation of criminal charges against Trump. Schiff also was the lead House prosecutor in Trump’s first Senate impeachment trial.
Cheney lost her reelection bid in 2022 to a Trump-backed Republican challenger. Cheney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump, and appeared with Harris several times on the campaign trail.
Schiff is now the senator-elect from California after winning the seat held by late Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November.
Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, faced intense scrutiny over the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He’s been called to Capitol Hill to testify on school shutdowns, the virus’ origins and more by House Republicans since retiring in 2022.
