A lone gunman shot dead at least two people and wounded 11 others near a Christmas market in the city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening before fleeing, police said.
The motive was not immediately clear. The counterterrorism prosecutor opened an investigation.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the gunman was known to security services, and the local prefecture said he had previously been identified as a danger to security.
People in the city’s Neudorf area and Etoile park were told to stay where they were as officers hunted the shooter on the ground and from the air.
The European Parliament, which is sitting in Strasbourg this week, was put into lockdown.
“There were gunshots and people running everywhere,” one local shopkeeper told BFM TV. “It lasted about 10 minutes.”
The Christmas market was being held amid tight security this year, with unauthorised vehicles excluded from surrounding streets during opening hours and checkpoints set up on bridges and access points to search pedestrians’ bags.
A Reuters reporter was among 30 to 40 people being held in the basement of a supermarket for their own safety in central Strasbourg, waiting for police to clear the area. Lights were switched off and bottles of water handed out.
Security forces stand guard after a shooting near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France [Frederick Florin/AFP]
President Emmanuel Macron was informed of the shooting and was being updated as events unfurled, an Elysee Palace official said. Castaner was on his way to Strasbourg, which lies on the border with Germany.
A spokesman for the European Parliament said the building had been shut down and staff ordered to stay inside.
“My thoughts are with the victims of the Strasbourg shooting, which I condemn with the utmost firmness,” tweeted Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, the EU executive. “Strasbourg is an excellent symbol of peace and European Democracy. Values that we will always defend.”
France has been put on alert in recent years after attacks targeted large, crowded spaces.
In 2016, a truck ploughed into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, killing more than 80 people, while in November 2015, coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall and other sites in Paris claimed about 130 lives. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
There have also been attacks in Paris on a policeman on the Champs-Elysees avenue, the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher store.
Andrew Gillum hashit the Democratic speaking circuit across the nation, urging the party to stay the course on social justice. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The Florida Democrat got a standing ovation at a closed-door DNC meeting.
Even in defeat, Democrat Andrew Gillum is proving to be one of the winners of 2018. The former Tallahassee mayor is parlaying his razor-thin loss in the Florida governor’s race into a role in the 2020 presidential primary — as a kingmaker or perhaps even a candidate himself.
With his stature enhanced by an exceedingly narrow loss in the nation’s largest swing state, Gillum hashit the Democratic speaking circuit across the nation, urging the party to stay the course on social justice and taking private meetings with top party officials — among them, former President Barack Obama.
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Last week, Gillum spoke at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington and later met with Obama. Days later, he spoke by phone to potential 2020 rival Beto O’Rourke and to former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a one-time presidential prospect who praised Gillum.
“He was a rock star yesterday, he’s a rock star today, and he will be a rock star in the future,” Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Tuesday when he introduced the former mayor at a closed-door Democratic National Committee finance gathering in Washington, where Gillum got a standing ovation, according to two attendees.
New York Democrat Alex Kirk said he was impressed with Gillum after hearing him for the first time. “Very charismatic, speaks from the heart,” Kirk said.
Asked if Gillum seemed down about his loss in the Florida race for governor, Kirk said it was the opposite. “He’s very energized. It was an upbeat speech about the progress made.”
Another New York Democrat, Jenny Joslin, called Gillum “a star, you can just tell. He really cares about his constituents not as numbers, but as people.”
Gillum came closer to victory than any Florida Democrat running for governor in the past two decades — losing by just 0.39 percentage points, or 32,463 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast — on the strength of a dynamic speaking style and progressive platform that was more liberal than any in the state’s modern history. Gillum would have been Florida’s first African-American governor if elected.
At his closed-door speech Tuesday, attendees said, Gillum stuck to what was his standard 2018 campaign speech. He spoke about his biography (son of a bus driver and construction worker), the gains of Democrats in the last midterm (they won the U.S. House and flipped two Florida congressional seats blue) and voter disenfranchisement, a trenchant issue in Florida after 65 percent of voters opted to automatically restore the voting rights of non-violent former felons.
One topic he avoided: the 2020 presidential election.
For the first time since graduating from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, after which he was elected Tallahassee city commissioner and then mayor, the 39-year-old Gillum won’t hold public office.
But in the spring, he’ll head back to school to teach a weekly class at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.
Aides and supporters say Gillum is not completely sure about his next steps, but he may head up a political group or movement that focuses on voting rights. His spokeswoman, Kirsten Allen, said he wants to stay true to his campaign and to Florida, the nation’s largest swing state.
“Democrats are realizing the door to Florida is wide open,” Allen said. “Andrew is standing at the doorway and saying, ‘hey, while I didn’t win, I have the blueprint to win. If you’re willing to do the work with me, that door will stay open for us in 2019, 2020, 2022.’”
Another Democrat familiar with Gillum’s plans said, “at this point, he’s more likely to play the role of kingmaker [in the presidential race] but he 100 percent hasn’t ruled out a run for president, either.”
Another possible role Democrats are whispering about: vice presidential candidate.
Fueling the speculation is his busy travel schedule since the end of the gubernatorial campaign.
Two weeks ago, Gillum was honored at the Ebony 100 gala in Los Angeles and taped the Van Jones show there.
On Monday, Gillum gave a “thank you” address to 200 campaign volunteers in Miami and plans to meet with more Tuesday in Tampa and Wednesday in Jacksonville.
NASA wants Steph Curry to know that yes, the moon landing was real, and they’re even inviting him to check out some space rocks to prove it.
During an interview on the podcast “Winging It,” the Golden State Warriors star revealed that he doesn’t believe the United States has been to the moon.
About 46 minutes into the episode, he abruptly changed the conversation topic from what sounds dinosaurs made to space exploration.
The group, including Atlanta Hawks players Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore, and Curry’s teammate Andre Iguodala, concluded with a unanimous “Nope.”
“They’re going to come get us,” Curry added. “Sorry, I don’t want to start conspiracies.”
“Winging It” co-host Annie Finberg was skeptical, which led to a group discussion on conspiracy theories. They floated the belief that director Stanley Kubrick staged the entire moon landing.
People took to Twitter to tell Curry that the moon landing did in fact happen, and some compared it to Kyrie Irving’s statements believing the Earth is flat.
Hey Steph – i love watching you play – you’re amazing. But kids are joking about your grip on reality with bizarre belief the NASA moon missions never happened. Kids look up to you – and it’s not cool what you’re doing. It’s great to see you back on the court ! #StephCurry
@StephenCurry30 Please don’t be stupid. I have great admiration for you, but that goes away if you really start spewing this shit. People died in our efforts to get us to the moon. When you proliferate this stupid idea, you are, in the very least, disrespecting their memories. pic.twitter.com/zfddsj2OXp
NASA, meanwhile, took a different approach. They invited Curry to see the evidence himself.
“We’d love for Mr. Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets,” NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told the New York Times. “We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks stored there, and the Apollo mission control. During his visit, he can see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we’re doing now to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay.”
In an email to Mashable, Beutel added that there is “lots of evidence NASA landed 12 American astronauts on the Moon from 1969 – 1972” and pointed to an article by NASA debunking the conspiracy theories.
Citing the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which photographed the Apollo landing sites, the article says “well characterized, high resolution images” makes it “much harder to remain a doubter today.”
Curry hasn’t made any announcements about visiting the lab yet, but did tweet a cheeky response to the invitation.
According to a study by Creative Arts Agency and shift7, films with women in leading roles earn more than their male counterparts at the box office, a finding which should lead to a major paradigm shift in show business.
“The perception that it’s not good business to have female leads is not true,” CAA agent Christy Haubegger told The New York Times. “They’re a marketing asset.”
CAA and shift7 examined 350 top box office films from 2014 to 2017, defining “lead actor” as the first performer credited in official press materials (also of note: most of these films passed the Bechdel test). 105 of these were women. In every category broken down by budget, films with women in the lead outperformed those starring men.
Image: shift7
Haubegger attributed this to the movie audience’s desire to see something new, rather than say, yet another superhero origin story about a white guy. That’s why stories about women perform better, as well as stories starring people of color (the subject of a previous study).
The study was part of an active effort by CAA to diversify Hollywood with regard to women and people of color. But even in light of new research, Haubegger notes that change may be distant.
“A lot of times in our business there is a lot of bias disguising itself as knowledge,” Haubegger said. Translation: Finding could still be touch for women and minorities simply because those in power won’t act.
But hopefully, with a study like this gaining traction and the obvious incentives of performance and revenue, Hollywood uses this momentum to improve.
The city of Oakland is seeking monetary damages in a lawsuit filed against the Raiders for the upcoming move to Las Vegas.
Per Kimberly Veklerov of the San Francisco Chronicle, the city said in its lawsuit all 32 NFL teams colluded in an “illegal cartel” that demands cities publicly finance new stadiums or be at risk of losing a franchise to relocation.
“The Raiders’ illegal move lines the pockets of NFL owners and sticks Oakland, its residents, taxpayers and dedicated fans with the bill,” Oakland city attorney Barbara Parker said in a statement. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold the defendants accountable and help to compensate Oakland for the damages the defendants’ unlawful actions have caused and will cause to the people of Oakland.”
Phil Matier and Andy Rossof the San Francisco Chroniclereported in September the Raiders were considering leaving Oakland early following the 2018 season after the city council voted to approve the antitrust lawsuit.
The Raidersannouncedin March 2017 they were relocating to Las Vegas in 2020. Their lease with Oakland Alameda Coliseum expires after this season.
Owner Mark Davis told ESPN’sPaul Gutierrezlast month he would prefer to play next season in Oakland, but “why would I give them $3 (million), $4 (million), $5 million in rent that they’re going to turn around and use to sue me?” Gutierrez laid out some additional options for the team in 2019:
Paul Gutierrez @PGutierrezESPN
While the #Raiders don’t have a home for 2019, they would like to stay in Oakland. But if the lawsuit makes that impossible, expect San Diego and Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium to become clubhouse leaders but don’t discount an early move to Las Vegas or even…Reno. Yes, Reno.
The Raiders began their second stint in Oakland in 1995. The franchise began playing in the city in 1960 before a 13-year run in Los Angeles from 1982-94.
The earlier allegations of election fraud that originally shook the race revolve around McCrae Dowless, an independent contractor working for Mark Harris’ campaign. | AP Photo/Chuck Burton
The North Carolina Republican Party said Tuesday that a new election should be held in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District if a new allegation regarding the leak of early-voting results before Election Day is proven.
The results of the race between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready have already been held up over allegations of election fraud against a contractor for one of Harris’ campaign consultants. But the state Democratic Party has highlighted another incident in the inquiry into the House race, releasing a signed affidavit from a Bladen County poll worker alleging that the results of early votes were shared improperly before the election.
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“On Saturday, 11/3/18, the last day of early voting, the ‘tape’ showing election results at the one-stop polling site was run after the polls closed, and was viewed by officials at the one-stop site who were not judges. It is my understanding that this was improper,” wrote Agnes Willis, a precinct worker in the state, in an affidavit dated Nov. 29, according to The Charlotte Observer.
North Carolina Republican Party chair Robin Hayes released a statement on Tuesday saying that if these allegations were true, they alone would be cause to hold a new election.
“This action by election officials would be a fundamental violation of the sense of fair play, honesty, and integrity that the Republican Party stands for,” he said in a statement. “We can never tolerate the state putting its thumb on the scale. The people involved in this must be held accountable and should it be true, this fact alone would likely require a new election.”
Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the state Republican party, said it was likely early votes were leaked.
“We’re almost sure those early vote totals were leaked out,” Woodhouse told POLITICO. “That’s where we are. The [state elections] board’s got to do whatever it does.”
The North Carolina Republican Party will hold a press conference at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the race.
The earlier allegations of election fraud that originally shook the race revolve around McCrae Dowless, an independent contractor working for Harris’ campaign.
Dowless reportedly oversaw an operation that collected absentee ballots from voters before submitting them, which is against the law in the state. The activity also allegedly took place in Bladen County.
On Tuesday, the state Democratic Party called on Harris to answer questions regarding this scandal.
“Mark Harris is hiding behind his lawyers,” North Carolina Democratic Party chair Wayne Goodwin said in a press conference. “Mark Harris must answer to the voters about what he knew and when he knew it.”
On Monday, McCready said his campaign team was getting ready for a potential special election.
“Like its hero, it’s the kind of film that surveys the strangeness in front of it, flashes a smile, and dives right in. And if it stays in the water a bit too long—well, I’d still come back for a sequel.”
Critics like Mashable’s Angie Han concede that Aquaman isn’t without its barnacles, but contend the flick is at least worth the price of admission. Others are denouncing the DC Comics’ tentpole as an irrefutable, outright flop.
The Jason Momoa and Amber Heard-starring adventure tackles the origin story of the Justice League’s trident-wielding hero, taking viewers into the seven kingdoms of Atlantis and entrenching them in ocean-dwelling politics.
Plot-wise, the result is a hot, foamy mess, my friends, but a mess that washed over me like a tidal wave, a mess so wild and candy-colored and eager to have a bitchin’ time that it’s some of the most fun I’ve had at a theater this year, anchored by a Momoa who is having the time of his goddamn life and director James Wan‘s genuinely gorgeous vision of an entire universe under the ocean waves.
A lot of “Aquaman” suffers from logic gaps, even on its own slippery terms: How come Mera can breathe oxygen, but other Atlanteans can’t? Why does a normal flare work underwater? How on earth does a gun transform water into beams of “energized plasma”? Audiences keen on pure escapism won’t bother with such distracting quandaries, but they reflect the lack of care for developing a fully realized world. As with much about the DC universe, the whole thing is hobbled by carelessness, which might not hurt box office receipts but certainly doesn’t ensure the long-term appeal of the brand.
A “Baywatch” alum who bulked up considerably before “Game of Thrones” re-launched his career, Momoa is now a swollen muscle builder with a pro-wrestler physique that reflects the body-worship appeal of vintage comicbooks, in which these brightly colored characters were essentially hyper-idealized figure studies, bordering on indecent in their skintight uniforms. Whereas previous DC stars have relied on well-padded costumes to supply their abs and pecs, Aquaman puts the cod in codpiece, so to speak, and the movie isn’t shy about ogling his bulges at every opportunity.
If you hadn’t already been taken with Momoa’s Aquaman in Justice League, you will be after Aquaman. Momoa delivers the kind of hammy performance that shows a supreme self-confidence — or just suggests that he is having a ball. His jovial attitude is infectious, spilling out through the screen and daring you not to crack a smile when he cheekily delivers lines like, “Permission to come aboard?” Sadly his infectious attitude doesn’t extend to the majority of the cast, who are given the task of playing straight men to Momoa’s hotheaded fighter.
Director James Wan’s success here is up for debate
Hiring James Wan is the key to Aquaman‘s success. The Conjuring director fearlessly embraces everything that comes with the hero, figuring out how to effectively stage underwater action, and choreographing impressively fluid fight sequences both on the land and in the sea. Water is integral to Aquaman’s story, and I’m certain there came a point when Wan got sick of everything having to be so wet on this set. But this movie plunges us into Aquaman’s realm, and it’s supremely effective.
There was never a question that at this stage in Hollywood’s comic-book economy that every superhero would eventually get his or her own standalone blockbuster. Even Aquaman. But Wan, a director who’s proven himself to be a can’t-miss ace regardless of genre (from the horror formulas of The Conjuring and Insidious to the big-budget tentpole mayhem of Furious 7) seems to finally be out of his depth. He’s conjured an intriguing world, but populated that world with dramatic cotton candy and silly characters, including a hero who’s unsure if he wants to make us laugh or feel — and winds up doing neither.
At two and a half hours, Aquaman is long and detailed
There are almost innumerable action sequences in Aquaman, as if pulled out of a hat on cue to sate the appetites of the gathered masses. The majority of the time the action set pieces seem quite arbitrary, no doubt because they are, dictated by the requirements of the format rather than by some organic, intrinsic narrative need. This saddles the overlong film with a ponderous, grinding feel, one driven by a sense of obligation more than the glee of inspiration. Rarely in the world of superheroes has the thought occurred that less can be more.
It feels like four or five different movies happening at once, not to mention that it playfully winks at legendary films like Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (via Arthur’s hunt for the trident), the Lord of the Rings trilogy (the trident), The Sword in the Stone (also the trident), and perhaps unintentionally Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (at one point, Arthur and Mera find themselves in a coastal Mediterranean town, and can’t stop love from happening).
To be sure, there are brilliant, joyous little moments in each of the mini-movies that make up Aquaman, but there’s also a lot of boredom and muddling along, thanks to all the exposition they require. Instead of five just-okay movies, I wish that Aquaman was one great one.
That epic underwater fight to the finish is full throttle fun
The film’s finale, the undersea war that was promised, is the first time I can ever remember looking forward to a giant CGI battle, and I can’t wait until someone recuts it to the B-52s “Rock Lobster,” Fred Schneider announcing each new fighting sea creature as it zooms through the deep. Aquaman’s as formulaic, excessively thrashy, and mommy-obsessed as any other entry in the DCEU, but its visual imagination is genuinely exciting and transportive, and dare I say, fun.
Melting trends in the Arctic today are increasingly stark. The 2018 Arctic Report Card, produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), depicts a thawing world that is continuing to warm and melt at an unprecedented pace.
“I think that the report demonstrated everything we’ve been seeing for the last decade,” Jeremy Mathis, a NOAA Arctic scientist who was not involved with this report, said in an interview.
“The changes in the Arctic are happening faster than they’re happening anywhere else on the rest of the planet.”
The driver of the Arctic’s vanishing sea ice is warming air. Here, the trends are clear. Air temperatures in the Arctic over the last five years have been the five highest on record, since 1900, the report emphasizes.
But in the Arctic, this warming is especially magnified.
The vast Arctic Ocean is subject to an unstoppable “albedo effect,” in which vanishing sea ice sets the stage for more melting of ice to occur, in a vicious cycle.
Specifically, bright white sea ice has a high albedo, or ability to reflect sunlight. But when the ice melts, it leaves the dark ocean to absorb heat, which then warms both the oceans and surrounding air. In turn, this melts more ice.
The consequences are clear. Sea ice is covering less and less area, commonly called “low ice extents.”
“The 12 lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last 12 years,” the report underscores.
The red line shows the declining sea ice minimum, which occurs in September.
Image: noaa
There isn’t just less Arctic sea ice — the nature of the ice has changed profoundly too. The older, strongest ice — which is more resilient to warming temperatures — is vanishing.
In 1985, the oldest ice (which is ice greater than four years old) comprised 16 percent of Arctic’s total sea ice, the report concludes. But by March 2018, the old ice made up just 0.9 percent of the Arctic’s ice, the report said.
That’s a 95 percent reduction.
“That older, thicker ice showed very clear signs of melting this year,” said Mathis.
He noted the melting of the some of the most ancient, formidable ice in the Arctic — an area of ice north of Greenland that’s about the size of Indiana.
That melting is no easy feat. This ice is, on average, 16 feet thick, and can grow to as much as 65 feet thick.
All signs point towards the reality that this trend will continue, which means an Arctic dominated by young, thin ice — ice that is all the more susceptible to today’s accelerating climate change.
Soon enough, this means an ice-free, or nearly ice-free Arctic.
“We’re headed towards an ice-free summer in the not-too-distant future,” said Mathis. “We’re on the order of a decade or two away.”
Stopping this trend, in the short term or coming decade, will be nearly impossible. This is because humanity has loaded the atmosphere with the highest concentrations of carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — in some 15 million years. It won’t simply fade away in so short a time.
What’s more, climate and economics researchers expect modern civilization to increase our carbon output over the coming decade.
But in the longer term — to stave off even more dire warming in the Arctic — the solution is simple and promoted by scientists everywhere: We must reduce our global carbon emissions in an extreme way.
An increasingly ice-free Arctic will certainly open up economic opportunities, including those for commercial shipping.
But this comes with a big cost. The Arctic, a dominant region of Earth, has sway over the greater globe.
“We know climate change in the Arctic can have a destabilizing effect on weather and climate patterns around the Northern Hemisphere,” said Mathis. “We’re going to have to pay attention to those trade-offs.”
Of note, the Arctic report card details a growing understanding of how Arctic warming has a significant effect on the jet stream, high atmospheric winds that cut directly across the United States.
A warm Arctic reduces the temperature difference between the middle-latitudes, where the lower 48 states lie, and the Arctic. This tends to dampen these winds and allows the jet stream to bend, in big waves.
“The Arctic meltdown may also be contributing to summer heatwaves, drought, wildfires, and flooding over Northern Hemisphere continents,” Jennifer Francis, a marine scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, wrote in the report.
This weaker jet stream, pushed up higher into California, is already making for an extended, damaging fire season in California, scientists say.
A wavier jet stream over North America.
Image: noaa
“…it’s becoming ice-crystal-clear that change in the far north will increasingly affect us all,” Francis writes.
Elsewhere in the Arctic Report Card, NOAA outlines more examples of widespread change — some of it beneficial, but mostly not.
With depleted sea ice comes a boom in ocean plankton, which means more ocean creatures sucking historically high carbon dioxide out of the air. Some of these blooms of ocean life, however, are toxic.
Elsewhere, the iconic grazing animals of the high north, like reindeer, have seen their populations plummet by half. Microscopic plastic contamination is climbing in the Arctic, in some places increasing 20 times over the last decade.
Some of these changes are easier to see than others. But dramatically vanished sea ice, stoked by climate change, is an easily-visible, growing reality.
“The Arctic is a great indicator of where the global climate is headed,” said Mathis.
“It’s like a manhood thing with him — as if manhood can be associated with him,” Presumptive Speaker, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a private meeting with House Democrats. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
The House minority leader told Democrats that Trump’s push for the border wall is ‘a manhood thing.’
Nancy Pelosi was on fire with her fellow Democrats.
Minutes after a very public showdown with Donald Trump over his border wall with Mexico, the California Democrat returned to the Capitol and railed against the president in a private meeting with House Democrats.
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Trump “must have said the word ‘wall’ 30 times,” the House minority leader said, according to multiple sources in the room.
“I was trying to be the mom,” she added, but “it goes to show you: you get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you.”
And then, Pelosi went for the most sensitive part of Trump’s ego.
“It’s like a manhood thing with him — as if manhood can be associated with him,” she deadpanned. “This wall thing.”
Congressional Democrats are feeling smug — and actually a little excited — for the looming shutdown fight with the president after Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting.
The president may have opened up the entire negotiation session to the public to throw Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer off their game. But in the end, Democrats feel confident that their leaders came out ahead.
Trump, Democrats argue, fell into a trap the minute he took ownership of what Pelosi has dubbed “the Trump shutdown.” Absent a bipartisan agreement on Trump’s border wall, about a quarter of the government will run out of money on Dec. 21.
“If we don’t get what we want … I will shut down the government,” Trump said in the Oval Office before a room full of reporters and TV cameras. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security. … I will take the mantle … for shutting down the government.”
Democrats say their leaders looks like the only reasonable adults at the table: they were the only side arguing that a government shutdown is a bad thing.
“The Trump shutdown is something that can be avoided and that the American people do not need at this time of economic uncertainty, and people losing jobs and the market in a mood and the rest,” Pelosi said after the meeting. “It is a luxury — the Trump shutdown is a luxury that the American people cannot afford.”
The public sniping between both sides is a sign of just how ugly the next two years will be once Democrats take the House.
And if House Democrats wanted to see how the next potential speaker would match up against Trump, they got a pretty good glimpse of the future Tuesday.
Indeed, the episode is likely to help Pelosi in her bid to round up the votes to be speaker. The women who’s led the caucus for 15 years is still working behind the scenes to secure the 218 votes needed to retake the gavel.
It was in that vein that Pelosi harped on Trump as she returned to the Hill to join her colleagues at a Democratic Steering Committee meeting. She told the room the party was well positioned to fight in this shutdown showdown — particularly after Trump’s comments.
“The press is all there! Chuck is really shouting out. I was trying to be the mom. I can’t explain it to you. It was so wild,” she said, later adding: “But the fact is we did get him to say, to fully own that the shutdown was his. That was an accomplishment.”
At one point, after reporters and TV cameras left the Oval Office, Trump told Pelosi and Schumer that the new trade agreement he recently struck with Canada and Mexico was going to pay for the wall, Pelosi told lawmakers.
On the campaign trail, the president had vowed that Mexico would pay for any southern barrier — not the United States. Pelosi and Schumer reminded him several times during the rare public meeting Tuesday that he failed to keep this vow.
In private, however, Trump suggested both U.S. neighbors would pay for the construction with the new NAFTA agreement.
The entire thing baffled Pelosi. It’s a “cultural phenomenon,” Pelosi told her colleagues, that “the fate of our country [is] in the hands of this person.”
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