Kari Paul in San Francisco (now) and Tom McCarthy in New York (earlier) 

Planned Parenthood refuses federal funding after abortion referral bans – as it happened

The move is in response to a Trump rule stating that groups receiving Title X funding could no longer provide abortion counseling
  
  

Planned Parenthood has announced it will no longer accept federal funding after a Trump administration rule banned abortion counseling.
Planned Parenthood has announced it will no longer accept federal funding after a Trump administration rule banned abortion counseling. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Kari Paul, logging out for the night! Here’s the top news of the afternoon:

  • Planned Parenthood is no longer accepting Title X funding after the Trump administration banned it from being used at organizations that refer patients for abortion procedures.
  • The Trump administration is considering a payroll tax cut to slow impending economic woes.
  • Jeffrey Epstein signed a will two days before his death from suicide, CNN reports.
  • The US may view aid given by Greece to an Iranian tanker as “material support to a terrorist group,” according to the State Department.
  • Donald Trump chatted with Boris Johnson and is looking forward to meeting him at the G7 summit this week.

That’s all, folks! Have a nice day.

Journalists are dropping out of an upcoming softball game with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his campaign.

CNN and ABC news pulled out of a Sunday night game at Iowa’s Field of Dreams “not wanting to be associated with a campaign fundraising effort,” POLITICO reported. Other media outlets including news site Iowa Starting Line will still participate.

“Unconfirmed rumors from scouts suggest that some on the opposing team — having realized Bernie ‘the Bern’ Sanders was the scheduled pitcher for tonight’s contest — decided to stand down,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir told POLITICO. “Others say that a few media executives got a little squeamish about sharing the field with Bernie. Regardless, fans will not be disappointed. It is game on. Because we have to fulfill the promise of ‘if you build it, they will come!’”

President Donald Trump said he looks forward to meeting with Boris Johnson at the G7 Summit in Biarritz this week after speaking with the UK Prime Minister by phone on Monday.

The two discussed a “wide range of trade and economic issues” and Johnson updated Trump on the status of Brexit, according to a pool report from the White House.

The US may view aid given by Greece to an Iranian tanker as “material support to a terrorist group,” according to the State Department. From Reuters:

The United States has conveyed its “strong position” to the Greek government about an Iranian tanker that sailed for Greece on Monday after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar and Washington says is carrying oil to Syria, a State Department official said.

Any efforts to assist the tanker could be considered as providing material support to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, which has immigration and potential criminal consequences, the official said.

The Grace 1, renamed the Adrian Darya 1, left anchorage off Gibraltar late on Sunday. Refinitiv ship tracking data showed on Monday that the vessel was heading to Kalamata in Greece and was scheduled to arrive next Sunday.

The official said the tanker was assisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, by transporting oil to Syria.

The official said the United States had conveyed its “strong position” to the Greek government, as well as to all ports in the Mediterranean about facilitating the tanker.

Facebook said the Trump campaign violated the platform’s rules with advertisements targeting women, Popular Information reported on Monday.

Facebook advertising guidelines prohibit content that targets “personal attributes,” including ads that make “direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s... gender identity.”

After Popular Information asked Facebook about Trump campaign ads targeting women, the company said it has notified the Trump campaign that the ads violate policy. “They can’t continue to run unless fixed,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

Facebook launched tools for more transparency in political advertising and hired more than 3,000 people in 2018 to manually review ads for violations. But the company said it still relies primarily on automated tools to check ads.

Earlier this month, the campaign launched a number of ‘Latinos for Trump’ ads days after an anti-Latino domestic terror attack in El Paso, Texas, where the shooter’s motive was linked to Trump’s rhetoric regarding immigrants.

Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier with ties to many high-profile politicians including Donald Trump, had signed a will two days before his death, CNN reports.

Epstein had assets of about $577 million and listed his brother Mark Epstein as the only heir. He died from suicide on August 10 while awaiting trial for accusations of running a sex trafficking ring of underage girls. The will was signed August 8.

On Monday, Representative Pete King became the first Republican to back a bill in the House that would ban assault weapons.

King is listed as a co-sponsor of the Assault Weapons Bill of 2019 on Congress’s website, the Hill reported.

“They are weapons of mass slaughter,” King told the New York Daily News on Monday “I don’t see any need for them in everyday society.”

His support for the legislation comes after two recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio left 32 dead and dozens more injured in August.

Republicans and Democrats have been largely divided on the issue of gun legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to not bring such legislation to the upper chamber’s floor and President Trump has also expressed opposition to the bill.

Several Trump Administration officials are considering a payroll tax cut to counter the weakening economy, the Washington Post reports.

From the Post:

Millions of Americans pay a “payroll tax” on their earnings, a 6.2 percent levy that is used to finance Social Security programs. The payroll tax was last cut in 2011 and 2012 during the Obama administration to 4.2 percent, as a way to encourage more consumer spending during the recent economic downturn. But the cut was allowed to reset back up to 6.2 percent in 2013.

Workers pay payroll taxes on income up to $132,900, so cutting the tax has remained a popular idea for many lawmakers, especially Democrats, seeking to deliver savings for middle-income earners and not the wealthiest Americans. But payroll tax cuts can also add dramatically to the deficit and – depending on how they are designed – pull billions of dollars away from Social Security.

The Trump administration has only been looking into the potential tax cuts for a few days. It could potentially create a bigger tax cut than the 2017 tax law.

Planned Parenthood will no longer accept funds from a federal program subsidizing women’s health care after the Trump administration banned participants from referring patients to abortion providers, the organization said Monday.

The Trump administration said organizations that receive Title X health care funding can no longer provide counseling regarding abortion. Planned Parenthood said it will leave the program due to the “gag rule,” which prevents providers from discussing the health procedure.

“Due to an unethical and dangerous gag rule, the Trump administration has forced Planned Parenthood grantees out of Title X,” acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Alexis McGill Johnson told journalists on a conference call.

Providers say this change will result in less funding for the organization, longer wait times, and increased costs for services.

Updated

Hello readers, it’s Kari Paul, heading the blog for the next few hours. More news to come.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the day in politics so far:

  • Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib called a press conference to protest their denial of travel to Israel. “We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us,” Omar said. She called the travel ban “not consistent with democracy.”
  • A survey of economists found an uptick in predictions of a US recession on the horizon. But Donald Trump chalked negative economic news up to a conspiracy against him.
  • Trump launched Twitter attacks on pundits and media outlets who reported the economy might not be as strong as Trump likes to say.
  • Attorney general William Barr removed the acting director of the federal Bureau of Prisons more than a week after millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein took his own life while in federal custody.
  • Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren apologized at a Native American forum for the controversy over her past claims to indigenous heritage: “I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened, and I have learned. A lot.”
  • Trump tamped down expectations for congressional action on gun safety, saying in part “we already have a lot of background checks, OK?”
  • The president got into a Twitter spat with his former communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

Omar constituent says Israel punished her for joining Ferguson protests

Here’s another constituent of Omar, Amber Harris, a Jewish American resident of Minnesota who is married to a Palestinian from the West Bank and who has been denied the right to travel to visit his family.

She says the last time she tried to enter she was held and interrogated for 10 hours by Shin Bet and her marriage documents were almost thrown away, she says that she was yelled at for being a human rights activist and an environmentalist, and she says she was told she was a threat to the state of Israel and banned for 10 years.

She says she has been denied the right to see her husband. She says in her last try to enter the West Bank she was told she was involved in violent protests which she denies.

“The only conclusion I can come up with ... is that they are punishing me for my activities in protests in Ferguson, Missouri. I am being punished for free speech activities in my own country.”

She says Israel is punishing US citizens “for political activity within the US”.

Updated

Constituent thanks Omar for bringing 'the cruel and racist occupation of Palestine by Israel into the national conversation'

Lana Barkawi, a Palestinian American who has not been able to visit her homeland and an Omar constituent, is talking about the pain of being denied the right to travel home.

She describes “our hope that we can someday return”. She said she has been unable to balance her questions about her family with the negative image of Palestinians promulgated in US pop culture.

“We knew the stories about what happens to Palestinians when they attempt to visit Israel,” Barkawi says. She says her parents live “an enduring trauma” from exile and “to have their fate in the hands of an Israeli soldier” at an entry checkpoint was too great a weight to bear.

She thanks Omar for bringing “the cruel and racist occupation of Palestine by Israel into the national conversation.

“For Israel to deny a family visit or to make it conditional is truly inhumane.”

Updated

Tlaib compares denial of travel to apartheid South Africa

Tlaib is up now. She says that their planned trip was “a common occurrence for members of Congress”.

She compares the denial of entry to the inability of members of Congress to visit apartheid South Africa.

Tlaib says: “I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints even though she was a United States citizen and proud American.”

She breaks into tears, stopping momentarily.

Then she tells stories of watching family members navigate checkpoints to receive medical care and being harassed by security forces.

She says Israelis “also desperately want peace for their Palestinian neighbors”.

Tlaib says she is speaking out in tribute to her Palestinian grandmother.

“All I can do as her granddaughter is help humanize her and the Palestinian people’s plight,” she says.

“It is unfortunate that prime minister Netanyahu has taken a page out of Trump’s book and even taken Trump’s direction,” she says.

“All of us Americans should be deeply disturbed.”

Updated

Omar: 'We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation'

Omar:

We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us ... barring members of Congress from seeing it does not make it go away.

Updated

Omar: Trump treating Muslim and Jewish Americans as 'the bogeyman'

Omar says that suppression of expression and association in Israel “is not consistent with democracy”.

She continues:

You know Donald Trump would love nothing more than to use this issue to pit Muslim and Jewish-Americans against each other. The Muslim and Jewish communities are being othered and made into the bogeyman by this administration.

Updated

Omar says Israel denied her ability to carry out work of Congress

The news conference has begun. Omar is speaking.

She says leading up to her anticipated trip, she met with constituents with a “range” of views “on the conflict”. She said the trip she proposed was a usual trip for members of Congress.

“The decision to ban me and my colleague, the first two Muslim American women elected to Congress, is nothing less than an attempt by an ally of the United States to deny our ability to do our job as an elected official,” she says.

“The only way to preserve unjust policy is to suppress people’s freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of movement.”

Updated

Here’s a live video stream of the upcoming Omar-Tlaib news conference. We’re awaiting their arrival now:

Representative Ilhan Omar has promised to post a live stream of her imminent press conference with Representative Rashida Tlaib on the topic of their being banned from travel to Israel and Palestine in her Twitter feed here.

Oh

snap

Can Trump keep up the appeal he demonstrated in 2016 among white women without college degrees?

That new NBC/WSJ poll indicates it could be an uphill battle for him:

That slice of the demographic might be more interesting to look at for elections handicappers than, say, white men without a college degree, because women who voted for Trump in 2016 seem to be more in play, as a group:

A new squad taking shape?

After a 37-month closure for renovation and repairs, the Washington Monument is set to reopen.

A Park Service press release calls it “another example of how the Trump Administration is enhancing visitors’ experiences at national parks and public lands across the nation.”

Enhancing visitor experiences... by mounting a full-out assault on public lands?

A poll out from NBC / WSJ says half of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy – note that that is better than his low-40s approval rating in general – but support for free trade has spiked to 64%, in a rebuke of Trump’s tariffs.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent points out another poll finding: huge support for a generic Democrat over Trump, among those voters who think the economy is the only thing Trump is doing right:

Here’s the lineup for this afternoon’s press conference with Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were denied entry by Israel to the Occupied Territories:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Rosa Druker, IfNotNow Twin Cities Member
Lana Barkawi, Palestinian-American and Minnesota Resident
Amber Harris, Jewish-American and Minnesota Resident

The US has made secret contact with Venezuela’s socialist party boss as close allies of President Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle seek guarantees they won’t face prosecution for alleged abuses and crimes if they cede to growing demands to remove him, according to a senior Trump administration official, the AP reports:

Diosdado Cabello, who is considered the most-powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro, met last month in Caracas with someone who is in close contact with the Trump administration, the official told The Associated Press. A second meeting is in the works but has not yet taken place.

The AP is withholding the intermediary’s name and details of the encounter with Cabello out of concern the person could suffer reprisals. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks, which are still preliminary. It’s not clear whether the talks have Maduro’s approval or not.

Cabello, 56, is a major power broker inside Venezuela, who has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand as Maduro’s grip on power has weakened. But he’s also been accused by US officials of being behind massive corruption, drug trafficking and even death threats against a sitting US senator.

Read further.

Updated

Luján endorses impeachment inquiry

Representative Ben Ray Luján, the assistant House speaker, has endorsed opening an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, Politico reports:

Luján, a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is the highest-ranking House Democrat to support an impeachment investigation.

The New Mexico Democrat, who serves as assistant House speaker, is running for Senate in his home state. He is the 127th House Democrat to back impeachment proceedings.

Read further.

Barr replaces prisons director after Epstein suicide

The acting director of the federal Bureau of Prisons has been removed from his position more than a week after millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein took his own life while in federal custody, the AP reports:

William Barr announced Hugh Hurwitz’s reassignment Monday. Hurwitz had served as the agency’s acting director since May 2018.

The attorney general gave no reason was given for Hurwitz’s reassignment, but the move comes as the bureau faces increased scrutiny after Epstein’s suicide on 10 August at a New York jail.

The FBI and justice Department’s inspector general are investigating.

Barr has named Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to succeed Hurwitz. She was the agency’s director from 1992 until 2003.

Hurwitz also led the agency when Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger was killed in a federal prison in West Virginia in October.

Updated

Newt Gingrich, Michael Jackson, Prince, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Moon

“Newt Gingrich and an eclectic band of NASA skeptics are trying sell President Donald Trump on a reality show-style plan to jump-start the return of humans to the moon — at a fraction of the space agency’s estimated price tag,” Politico reports:

The proposal, whose other proponents range from a three-star Air Force general to the former publicist for pop stars Michael Jackson and Prince, envisions creating a $2 billion sweepstakes pitting
billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other space pioneers to see who can establish and run
the first lunar base, according to a summary of the plan shared with POLITICO.

Sounds like it should work. “Trump has yet to weigh in on the idea, at least publicly,” Politico notes. Also there’s no buy in from the billionaires. Gingrich has been into – visionary? – space travel schemes for a long time.

Trump launched his new baseless attack on the integrity of US elections on Monday just hours after the chair of the Federal Elections Commission took Trump and Republicans to task for recklessly spreading baseless claims of voter fraud:

Thinking aloud here, one seeming benefit, for the would-be despot, not naming names, of destroying faith in the integrity of elections would be, then you wouldn’t have to win them, elections, in order to stay in power? Hang on

King demands apology for something he said

Representative Steve King, the Iowa Republican whose own party has turned on him for his bigoted and controversial speech, has demanded an apology from the media and Republican party leaders after he questioned whether, without the historical persistence of rape and incest, “would there be any population of the world left?”

After the media reported the quote, which as demonstrated by video is accurate, Republican leaders renewed their calls for King to find another line of work.

“And so,” King said Monday, “when we have a national, viral attack that comes out on a misquote, and it’s absolutely proven, all the folks that did that attack, I think they owe me an apology, including my own leadership.”

As for King’s claim to have been misquoted:

Trump appears to be picking up, in his latest attack on the integrity of US elections, on a psychologist’s speculation that big tech companies have the power to shape public perceptions of US politics and candidates, which is not the same as demonstrating that something actually, you know, happened.

Amplifying reckless conspiracy theory, Trump baselessly asserts Google 'manipulated' 2016 election

Wow, Tweet Just Out! The president is claiming that a big tech company manipulated millions of votes in the last presidential election! That would seem to be extraordinarily reckless on the part of the president, in terms of the potential damage it could wreak to the public faith in free and fair elections, ie American democracy itself, if there were any chance that the story was maybe just another wild conspiracy theory advanced by Judicial Watch, the extreme-right propaganda outlet still devoted in August 2019 to a pretty much uninterrupted stream of Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories which the president retweets frequently especially when he seems especially upset.

We can’t locate at the moment the “Report Just Out!” that the president refers to here because we have allowed our subscription to Bananas Politics Conspiracy Theories to lapse. Developing...

Here’s video of the Warren “I’m sorry” moment:

Updated

Warren: government 'needs to get serious' about reporting violence against indigenous women

Warren speaks out forcefully for systemic federal reporting on violence against indigenous women.

“Over and over I’m struck by women who go missing and it doesn’t make a headline... Native women, and it never makes a headline,” Warren says.

“A problem that is not seen is a problem that is not fixed.”

Warren says the federal government “needs to get serious” about collecting data and making sure the problem is known. She is applauded.

Warren is earning applause at the Native American forum with a call for the United States to honor treaty obligations and to respect the sovereignty of tribal nations. Now she’s making a call for steps to prevent violence against indigenous women and children, and for better federal reporting on missing and murdered indigenous women.

Here’s a livestream of Warren at the Native American forum:

Warren at Native American forum: 'I am sorry'

Senator Elizabeth Warren is among the presidential candidates speaking today at a forum on Native American issues.

She has admitted “mistakes” and said: “I am sorry for harm I have caused.”

Trump has just attacked (again) his own handpicked chairman of the federal reserve, and the Democrats, who he says are trying to tank the economy to prevent his reelection. Then he extends some free monetary policy advice. But also asserts that the economy is very strong.

Larry Kudlow, director of the US national economic council, will hold a briefing call tomorrow to rebut reports of a recession on the horizon.

Before joining the Trump administration Kudlow was a cable TV talking head with a crystal ball capable of some real doozies...

John Delaney draws 11 people to 2020 event – does he truly think he can win?

John Delaney has poured a staggering $24m of his own money into running for president. He has been campaigning for the White House for more than two years, and in that time has held more than 200 events in Iowa.

On one recent Thursday morning, these efforts translated into a grand total of 11 people coming out to see Delaney, at a campaign event in the small town of Algona, in the north of the state.

The former Maryland congressman, former businessman and formerly much wealthier candidate is one of a slew of long-shot candidates for the Democratic nomination. In a crowded, historically diverse field, Delaney is part of a group of white, middle-aged men who are forging ahead with their increasingly quixotic presidential campaigns in spite of a collective lack of support.

Delaney strode into Miller’s Sports Bar & Grill, one of a chain of bars across Iowa, just after 10am. One of his team had taped a couple of Delaney 2020 campaign posters to a wall in the back of the bar, and a sign-up list was on a table. The crowd, all silver haired apart from a thirtysomething man who walked in late, were sitting patiently at four different tables.

Read further:

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for president, is using his “state-of-the-art digital infrastructure and grassroots army of volunteers” to help American workers from the campaign trail, Politico reports:

Sanders has tapped his email list to push his fans to join picket lines and labor rallies at Veterans Affairs hospitals, University of California campuses, Ralphs grocery stores, Reagan National Airport, a Kaiser Permanente campus, and McDonald’s restaurants in at least 12 places, including the first-in-the-nation caucus state Iowa and delegate-rich California. His efforts haven’t been limited to labor events: Sanders has also used his campaign apparatus to recruit volunteers to get out the vote for Queens District Attorney candidate Tiffany Cabán in New York and to boost turnout at a protest at a proposed migrant detention center in Oklahoma.

Read further:

Omar, Tlaib to hold press conference on travel restrictions

Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will host a press conference on travel restrictions to Palestine and Israel and potential policy responses, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to deny them entry, their offices have announced.

The event, scheduled to begin at 4pmET, is to include people directly impacted by the travel restrictions. We’ll bring you a live stream and blog coverage.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose claim to Native American ancestry has been the subject of political controversy, is among the 2020 presidential hopefuls participating today in a forum on Native American issues.

Updated

Citing a scheduling conflict, Senator Kamala Harris will not participate in a CNN “climate town hall” for presidential hopefuls next month, the network says.

Candidates to have RSVP’d “yes” include Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.

CNN said it had invited “presidential hopefuls who reach 2% in at least four Democratic National Committee-approved polls conducted between June 28 and Aug. 21”.

The candidates, who will make back-to-back appearances, will take questions directly from a live studio audience in New York and a CNN moderator. The audience will be drawn from Democratic voters interested in the issue. The town hall will air live on CNN platforms around the world.

For future generations of political pros eager for the secret of how to transform a promising gubernatorial career into a presidential campaign job that basically amounted to a humiliating paid internship, except are we sure he was paid?, Chris Christie has announced that he is opening a politics institute named for himself, NJ.com reports:

The former governor, known for his often brash leadership style that propelled him to the national stage as a tell-it-like-it-is politician, is about to unveil The Christie Institute of Public Policy, a non-profit, nonpartisan institute in part with his alma mater, Seton Hall University School of Law.

Read further.

Pence gets the nod for 2020

Donald Trump said on Sunday he would keep vice president Mike Pence as his running mate next year.

“I’m very happy with Mike Pence,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey.

Trump: 'we already have a lot of background checks'

Donald Trump has walked back a previous prediction that the United States could institute universal background checks for gun buyers, as the country’s most recent major mass shootings recede in the public consciousness.

Here’s what Trump said on 7 August, after separate attacks in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 and left dozens injured:

There is a great appetite, and I mean a very strong appetite, for background checks. And I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before. I think both Republican[s] and Democrat[s] are getting close to a bill on, to doing something with background checks.

On Sunday, Trump was asked whether he would support universal background checks “right now.”

He replied:

I’m not saying anything. I’m saying Congress is going to be reporting back to me with ideas. And they’ll come in from Democrats and Republicans. And I’ll look at it very strongly. But just remember, we already have a lot of background checks. OK? Thank you.

In other news:

Updated

Scaramucci and Trump have taken their cable TV – Twitter smackdown entirely to Twitter. Developing...

Just gold for Scaramucci to have been taken up by the president on his dog-days-of-summer cable trolling. But maybe it works for both sides? Apologies if that is obviously the case. In any case we’ll keep you updated.

Trump and Scaramucci at 10 paces

Donald Trump is in a dis-war with his former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci.

As with most of Trump’s insult battles, which scientists estimate take up 87% of his daily attention, this one started with someone saying something bad about Trump on TV, at which Trump has gone on Twitter to say something bad about that person.

Scaramucci, whose famously brief tenure in White House fell short of a fortnight, said on CNN this morning that he was assembling a squad of former administration officials to argue against Trump’s reelection.

“I’m in the process of putting together a team of people that feel the exact same way that I do,” Scaramucci said. “This is not a ‘Never Trump’ situation. This not just screeching rhetoric. This is — OK, the guy is unstable. Everyone inside knows it, everyone outside knows it. Let’s see if we can find a viable alternative.”

Trump replied that it was Scaramucci who was unstable, accused him of gross incompetence and pointed out that Scaramucci used to say nice things about him, in print no less.

Good morning and welcome to our live blog politics coverage. An increasing number of economists see a recession looming in the US, according to a new report, while Donald Trump – whose erratic course on trade and monetary policy has shaken markets, analysts say – sees a conspiracy afoot.

Thirty-four percent of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics, in a report being released Monday, said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2021, the Associated Press reports:

That’s up from 25% in a survey taken in February. Only 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year, while 38% predict that it will occur in 2020. [...] The economists have previously expressed concern that Trump’s tariffs and higher budget deficits could eventually dampen the economy.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on goods from many key US trading partners, from China and Europe to Mexico and Canada. Officials maintain that the tariffs, which are taxes on imports, will help the administration gain more favorable terms of trade. But US trading partners have simply retaliated with tariffs of their own.

Trade between the US and China, the two biggest global economies, has plunged. Trump decided last Wednesday to postpone until 15 December tariffs on about 60% of an additional $300bn of Chinese imports, granting a reprieve from a planned move that would have extended duties to nearly everything the US buys from China.

Beware any commentator who points out the problem, as conservative pundit Juan Williams did on Fox News Sunday, accusing Trump of creating “unpredictability”. The president swiftly replied on Twitter:

Where economist and analysts see an interplay between Trump’s policies and the markets, Trump sees a conspiracy involving his own appointees, foreign lands and the US media, reports Maggie Haberman in the New York Times:

He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession.

“The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election,” Mr Trump tweeted last week. “The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!”

Not all economists think the US is in for a recession. The AP report notes in small print at the bottom:

Still, for now, most economic signs appear solid. Employers are adding jobs at a steady pace, the unemployment rate remains near a 50-year low and consumers are optimistic. US retail sales figures out last Thursday showed that they jumped in July by the most in four months.

Later this morning we’ll look at remarks in which Trump suggested he was walking back support he had earlier voiced for background checks for gun purchases, and we’ll catch up with some of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Thanks for joining us for your politics Monday.

 

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