Congress

The resistance comes amid Senate GOP opposition to Trump’s DHS purge and potential auto tariffs.

Herman Cain is in deep trouble. And he hasn’t even been formally nominated to the Federal Reserve yet.

Senate Republicans are warning the White House that the 2012 presidential candidate will face one of the most difficult confirmation fights of Donald Trump’s presidency and are making a behind-the-scenes play to get the president to back off, two GOP senators said.

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“There are concerns that are being voiced to the administrations about qualifications,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the Republican whip. “They’re probably going to hear from a number of our members about concerns that they have. Whether or not that gets them to make a course change or not, I don’t know.”

The GOP has generally waved through Trump’s nominees over the past two years, but are reluctant to do the same for the Fed, amid fears that Trump’s push to install interest-rate slashing allies will politicize the central bank.

The resistance comes as Senate Republicans are also actively pressing Trump to halt his purge at the Department of Homeland Security and reconsider economy-damaging auto tariffs.

Some GOP senators said that Cain’s difficult path may have actually eased Stephen Moore’s confirmation to the Fed, despite Moore’s own problems with unpaid taxes and partisan reputation. After all, Republicans may be hard-pressed to revolt against both of Trump’s nominees.

“I think the chances of getting both through I would say at the moment are pretty steep,” Thune said.

Neither Moore nor Cain have officially been submitted as nominees. A senator familiar with the nominations said that Trump is “full speed” ahead on Cain even though FBI background checks and documentations of sexual harassment allegations have not yet been submitted to the Senate. A person familiar with the process expects the background check to raise more questions about Cain.

With that in mind, Republicans are trying to dissuade Trump from a brutal political fight that would highlight intraparty divisions; the nominations only need a bare majority and no Democratic support can be counted on.

Trump’s intent to nominate Cain marks one of his most brazen moves yet to take on his own party, coming on the heels of his emergency declaration at the border that went directly against the wishes of GOP senators who stood by Trump during the shutdown.

And once again, Republicans are sending clear signals to him: Pick someone with less partisan credentials and less baggage. While Cain did serve on the Kansas City Federal Reserve board, Senate Republicans say he now largely appears to be a Trump surrogate.

“I don’t think Herman Cain will be on the Federal Reserve board, no. I’m reviewing [Moore’s] writings and I’ll make a determination when I have done so,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who ran against Cain in the 2012 race and seems confident Cain will either be derailed or not officially nominated.

“I feel that we can’t turn the Federal Reserve into a more partisan entity,” Romney added. “I think that would be the wrong course:”

Cain later endorsed Romney in 2012, but one of Romney’s colleagues said the Utah senator “is not fond of Herman.” Cain also challenged Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) in a 2004 Senate primary race.

But more troubling to some in the Senate is that Cain founded pro-Trump group America Fighting Back.

“Do you seriously want a guy on the Fed that has a whole organization, the only purpose of it is to encourage Republicans to do whatever the president says he’d like you to do?” said one Republican senator distressed about the nomination. The senator said confirming Cain would be “hard” but his nomination alone “might confirm Stephen Moore.”

“Stephen Moore I know well, worked with him. He does have a lot of experience in the area,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a former Banking Committee chairman. “Mr. Cain … [Trump] hadn’t nominated him yet. That will be the more interesting nomination.”

“I don’t know Mr. Cain, so I’ll withhold judgment there. I know Stephen Moore,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

The rosier reception for Moore comes in part because Republicans will be reluctant to reject two of Trump’s Fed nominees, given their desire to protect their already-shaky relationship with the president. In addition to their opposition to Trump’s tariffs threats and his shakeup at the Homeland Security Department, Republicans also recently forced him to back off his demand for a new health care bill.

Yet it’s not clear at all that the president is keeping in mind the fact that he will need to get 50 of 53 Senate Republicans to vote for these nominees. Asked about Cain, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said only: “I was not aware it was that serious of a consideration.”

Stressing that he was not singling out Cain, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a whip for six years, said that the White House must simply do more to consult with Capitol Hill.

“It’s really important for the White House to work with us as they’re contemplating nominees to make sure that both the White House has reasonable expectations about confirmations. We can also communicate with the White House about what the challenges a confirmation may be,” Cornyn said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the GOP’s unease with the Cain pick.

It’s not clear the president quite realizes the scale of the potential task ahead to confirm his two Fed picks. A half-dozen GOP senators are bracing for competitive races next year and do not want to be seen as Trump’s lackeys. Voting against those nominees could help them assert their independence in their voting record.

Then there are senators like Romney and Isakson who have shown little fear in confronting Trump of late. Romney voted against Trump’s national emergency declaration, while Isakson stepped into a void of Senate Republicans to defend the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) from Trump’s attacks.

They certainly won’t be alone in scrutinizing these nominees.

“Mr. Cain did serve on the regional Federal Reserves, so that is good experience. His wanting to return to the gold standard is something that is very controversial. And I don’t know the details at this point about the sexual harassment allegations against him,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “Stephen Moore appears to have a host of financial and other issues that are going to need to be explored, as well as the fact that he is a very unconventional choice.”

Cain said over the weekend he wasn’t sure he would pass a background check, explaining it could be “cumbersome” given his long career as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and the National Restaurant Association and in his work in the Federal Reserve system. It was a comment that quickly caught Republicans’ attention.

“That’s certainly something for thought,” Isakson remarked.

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

Immigration

He also claims he never said he was ‘cleaning house’ at DOJ despite multiple staffing shakeups.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that he’s not looking to revive his controversial family separation policy and pushed back against the idea that he’s purging the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership.

“We are not looking to do that, no. We are not looking to do that,” he told reporters when asked about multiple reports that he’s looking to restart the practice of separating migrant families at the border. But, he added, “it does — it brings a lot more people to the border. When you don’t do it, it brings a lot more people to the border.”

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Even while he denied that he was interested in reinstating the practice, which he brought to a halt last year after a bipartisan outcry, staffing shuffles at the Department of Homeland Security indicate Trump is moving toward a harsher approach to immigration. And on Tuesday, he appeared to make the case for it once again, asserting that the policy had been successful in deterring families from arriving at the southern border.

After first denying that family separation was taking place last year, the Trump administration argued that it was simply enforcing the law by charging every adult who was caught entering the country illegally, therefore necessitating the separation. The so-called zero tolerance policy was aimed at deterring migrants from attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.

So-called unaccompanied minors separated from their parents were housed in shelters along the border, and images of migrant children behind chain link fences in shelters ill-equipped to handle the sudden influx became symbols of the policy.

The administration was also said to have employed the practice on migrant families who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border to claim asylum, which is a legal form of entry.

Under fire from all sides, Trump signed an executive order last June rescinding the family separation policy — though not the zero-tolerance policy — and a federal judge later ordered the administration to reunite separated minors with their families.

The family separation question has been revived in recent days after a number of staffing shakeups in the upper rungs of DHS. On Sunday, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned from her position, and days before Trump pulled the nomination of his pick to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing the desire to go in a “tougher direction.” The latest shuffle came on Monday when Trump announced the departure of the Secret Service head.

Meanwhile, Trump aide and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller has pushed for further ousters at the agency in order to institute tougher policies on immigration going forward, much to lawmakers’ chagrin.

But Trump on Tuesday denied that he called for a purge. “I never said I’m cleaning house” at DHS, Trump told reporters.

The president also deflected responsibility for the family separation policy, claiming that former President Barack Obama had begun the policy in the first place while taking credit for issuing an executive order to halt the practice.

“Obama separated the children, by the way. Just so you understand,” Trump said. “President Obama separated the children. Those cages that were shown — I think they were very inappropriate. They were built by President Obama’s administration, not by Trump.”

But while previous administrations occasionally detained migrant families, they were generally kept together. While the facilities for housing unaccompanied minors were used when border officials grappled with a surge of unaccompanied minors during Obama’s second term, Trump’s White House was the first to institute a practice of separating families as a deterrent.

“I’m the one that stopped it,” Trump continued. “Now I will tell you something — once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They are coming like it’s a picnic.”

Homeland Security officials in recent weeks have sounded the alarm about a surge of migrants arriving at the southern border, which is likely a factor in the upheaval at DHS.

But according to data from Customs and Border Protection, the administration’s family separation policy had little effect on the number of migrant families apprehended at the border in the two and a half months it was in effect last year, though apprehensions did spike in the month after the policy ended.

2020 Elections

Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar endorse far-reaching legislation to reform workplace rules.

Democratic senators running for president are lining up behind a sweeping bill to combat an issue that’s haunted several of their own offices and campaigns: workplace harassment.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have all signed on to the BE HEARD Act Democrats unveiled Tuesday. The legislation would strengthen discrimination protections for LGBT workers, ban the practice of mandatory forced arbitration and non-disclosure agreements that prevent employees from speaking out about harassment, eliminate the tipped minimum wage, and make it easier for workers of all kinds to report on-the-job harassment and win compensation from their employers.

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While many of the candidates have sponsored narrower bills in the past to address sexual harassment and retaliation on college campuses, in the military, and within the halls of the Capitol itself, this bill is the first legislation in decades to tackle the problem across all industries. Drafted by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), its prospects in the GOP-controlled Senate are slim to none. But a House effort led by Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) has a decent shot at passage.

Now, in the lead up to the first presidential election of the #MeToo era, the candidates hoping for a chance to take on Trump are burnishing their pro-worker and anti-harassment bona fides as they try to turn the page on their own workplace scandals. While Booker and Warren have not had any problems on this front, the other Democratic candidates have in recent months dealt with damaging stories about harassment and retaliation occurring on their watch.

Sanders (I-Vt.), who leads the group of senator-candidates in polling and fundraising, faced a firestorm late last year over accusations that his 2016 presidential campaign was rife with instances of sexual harassment and assault. Former staffers alleged that a top aide from Sanders’ 2016 run forcibly kissed a younger subordinate, said that field staff retaliated against those who rejected their advances, and described a overall culture of sexism and permissiveness in Sanders’ first national campaign.

Sanders has publicly apologized to the women who worked on his campaign, saying their procedures for preventing harassment “were clearly inadequate” and vowing: “We will do better next time.”

Since then, his campaign has worked to make good on that promise, hiring a national leadership team that is about 70 percent women and recognizing the staffers’ labor union – a first for a major presidential campaign and an additional layer of accountability and protection for its workers.

Sanders did not respond to a request for comment on his endorsement of the anti-harassment bill.

For Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), sponsoring the BE HEARD Act is the latest action in her campaign to curb sexual harassment and assault.

“For six years, Senator Gillibrand has relentlessly pursued taking on sexual harassment in the workplace, whether it was the Pentagon, colleges and universities, inside the halls of Congress or legislation she introduced to end forced arbitration in workplaces around the nation,” campaign spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement.

But even Gillibrand’s own Senate office has struggled with the issue.

In March, POLITICO reported that a young female staffer resigned in protest of the office’s handling of her sexual harassment complaint. The woman said a senior aide had made repeated unwanted advances in the workplace and retaliated against her when she refused them. In her resignation letter, the woman said she was disillusioned by how the office investigated her complaint and kept the man accused on staff (he was ultimately dismissed after another investigation months later).

Gillibrand said at the time that the episode was an example of how pervasive sexual harassment is and why stronger policies are needed to ensure transparency and justice for victims.

As in the case with Gillibrand’s aide, sexual harassers frequently target those with less status and power in a workplace.

The Senate bill aims to address this by extending protections beyond traditional full-time employees to independent contractors and interns who generally have little legal recourse. It would also create a fund with tens of millions of dollars to help low-income workers pay for legal assistance to press their harassment and discrimination claims.

Harris (D-Calif.) has also grappled with accusations against a former aide. The Sacramento Bee reported in December that a senior advisor in her Sacramento office was accused of harassing and demeaning his female coworkers when he worked at the California Justice Department during Harris’ tenure as the state’s Attorney General. The behavior included placing the office printer under his desk and ordering the woman to crawl on the floor to replace the paper and ink on a daily basis. The woman sued over the office’s handling of her complaint and under Harris’ successor Xavier Becerra won a $400,000 settlement.

Harris maintains that she was unaware of her aide’s history of harassment and the settlement. After the story surfaced, the aide offered his resignation and she accepted.

In March, however, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that this was just one of several harassment and retaliation complaints settled by the California DOJ under Harris’ leadership – with more than $1 million paid out to employees. Though Harris said she was unaware of the other cases as well, she added, “The buck stopped with me.”

“No office is immune to misconduct, and there is much more work to do to ensure all are protected,” she said.

Klobuchar (D-Minn.), another cosponsor of the BE HEARD Act running for the Democratic nomination, has faced accusations of creating a hostile work environment in her Senate office, with staffers describing a pattern of angry outbursts and humiliating comments from the senator. Klobuchar defended herself as a “tough boss” with high expectations but also apologized and vowed to “do better” by her employees. Her campaign and Senate office did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on her endorsement of the BE HEARD Act.

The new anti-harassment bill builds on proposals previously introduced by Gillibrand, Harris and Warren (D-Mass.) that would have banned companies from including sexual or other forms of harassment in any non-disclosure acts they make employees sign, and required public companies to turn over data about allegations of harassment in the workplace. The practice of using NDAs to silence victims of sexual harassment recently came under scrutiny during investigations into Harvey Weinstein, Fox News, and President Donald Trump.

As the ever-growing field of Democratic candidates jockey for a chance to take on Trump in 2020, they know they are under the microscope when it comes to sexual harassment. Their campaigns have implemented mandatory trainings, set up anonymous hotlines for staff to report misconduct, and rigorously screened new hires for any history of past accusations. The aim is to both practice in their own offices what they’re preaching on the campaign trail, and to create a clear contrast with Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women.