terrorism

Two metaphorical clouds will hang ominously over President Donald Trump’s second nuclear summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Vietnam — one of the mushroom variety and one a thick brume of political scandal back home.

Among the most-pressing issues when the two leaders meet in Hanoi on  Wednesday and Thursday will be Trump trying to arrive at a “shared understanding of what denuclearization is,” a senior administration official said last week. Back home, Democratic and Republican lawmakers will be haggling over the definitions of a national emergency and collusion with Russians in a series of high-profile votes and hearings that could prove politically damaging to Trump while he is on foreign soil.

Reps. Lee Zeldin and Ilhan Omar renewed their Twitter beef this week — this time, over a Coast Guard lieutenant caught using work computers to plan a sprawling domestic terrorist attack against Democratic lawmakers.

Zeldin, a New York Republican who is Jewish, and Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who is Muslim, accused each other over Twitter in January of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant assigned to the headquarters in Washington “is a domestic terrorist” whose potential victims included numerous Democratic members of Congress, federal prosecutors said in a court filing.

A federal search of Christopher Hasson’s basement apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland, found 15 firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as drugs he illegally possessed, prosecutors told a judge Tuesday in a bid to keep him in custody pending a trial.

ANALYSIS — “Stay tuned” is a common refrain from White House aides when asked about the many cliffhangers created by President Donald Trump. But remarkably, even after three topsy-turvy months that culminated Friday in a wild Rose Garden appearance, that West Wing mantra will apply doubly over the next few weeks.

Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border to unlock Pentagon funds for his proposed border wall came wrapped in an announcement press conference during which he veered from topic to topic, undercut his own legal position, often appeared dispassionate when discussing the emergency declaration, and made more baseless claims. That matter is already embroiled in court fights, putting perhaps his biggest campaign promise in legal limbo, and has appeared to created new distance between him and some Senate Republicans.

A new bill named after the late Rep. Walter B. Jones, who left behind a legacy of dogged opposition to war, would repeal the military force authorization passed in the days after the 9/11 attacks.

Colleagues and constituents have heaped praise on the longtime North Carolina Republican, who died Sunday on his 76th birthday and whose funeral will be held Thursday at his parish church in Greenville.

Even by Donald Trump’s standards, that escalated quickly. His State of the Union call for comity between Republicans and Democrats to end Washington’s era of gridlock and bad blood lasted all of about 16 hours.

This was the president on Tuesday night during his State of the Union address: “This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots. … No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together.”

ANALYSIS | President Donald Trump, slowly but surely, morphed into Candidate Donald Trump Tuesday night during his second State of the Union address. What promises to be a loud and bruising 2020 presidential race is now under way.

His top aides billed the speech as one in which he wanted to set the table for breaking Washington’s era of gridlock and working with Democrats to pass major legislation on immigration, infrastructure and lowering prescription drug prices. But by the time he walked out of the House chamber, the placemats were all set for his 2020 re-election campaign.

Republican lawmakers stood and roared Tuesday night as President Donald Trump described the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border as a hellscape awash in drugs and violent criminals moving freely into the country. Democrats sat statuesque and silent, displaying no sign that his call for cross-party cooperation resonated inside the House chamber.

Trump stood before Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and delivered what has become customary for Republican and Democratic presidents alike, saying that the state of the country is “strong” and that the American people hope “we will govern not as two parties but as one nation.”

“Visionary” and “uplifting” and “bipartisan.” Those are just a few of the adjectives President Donald Trump’s aides are using to describe the State of the Union address he will deliver Tuesday evening.

None are words typically associated with the 45th chief executive, who once stood outside the Capitol and spoke about “American carnage” during his inaugural address. Yet a senior administration official told reporters to expect a “traditional” address from a president who is anything but.

Republican lawmakers are increasingly breaking with Donald Trump — through critical words and high-profile votes — but White House officials contend the president still has a grip on his party mates on Capitol Hill.

The Senate floor in recent weeks has become ground zero for GOP members jumping out of line. With a series of national security and government spending speeches and vote results, the president’s party has issued a string of stinging blows after nearly two years of mostly sticking with and defending him.