Joe Biden was at a soul food restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday when he blasted President Donald Trump’s “racist” taunts at a rally the night before.

“This is about dividing the country,” the early Democratic front-runner, who has been criticized for his own handling of race , told reporters. “This is about dividing and raising the issue of racism across the country because that’s his base, that’s what he’s pushing.”
Full Coverage: Election 2020

But Michael Fisher, an African American pastor from Compton who attended the event, warned Democrats to ignore Trump.

“They should absolutely not respond to ignorance,” Fischer said. “They should stay focused on the issues.”

That tension previews the uncomfortable balancing act Democrats will face in the nearly 16 months before Election Day. Trump’s escalating exploitation of racism puts the rawest divide in American life squarely on the ballot in 2020. Democrats are united in condemning his words and actions, but the question of how to counter them is much more complicated.

The party’s passionate left wing is pressing for an all-in battle, arguing that candidates’ plans to combat racism are just as important as their proposals to provide health insurance to every American. But others question whether race should be the centerpiece of the campaign to replace Trump. Several presidential candidates, meanwhile, reject the debate as a false choice, arguing they can criticize Trump for racist tactics while still advancing proposals on health care, education, the minimum wage and more.

The emotionally charged developments shook both political parties on Thursday, a day after Trump continued his verbal assault against four minority congresswomen, this time at a raucous rally in North Carolina. The president’s supporters chanted “Send her back!” after Trump criticized Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim who fled to the U.S. as a child from violence-wracked Somalia.
 

While Trump tried to distance himself from the chant on Thursday, it echoed his own comments from earlier in the week when he said the “squad” of four young Democratic congresswomen, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, should “go back” to their “crime-infested places” overseas. They are all American citizens.

After successfully campaigning on health care during last year’s midterm elections, Democrats hoped to adopt a similar “kitchen table” strategy going into 2020 that would focus on issues that appeal to all voters. Yet Trump has forced them into a moment of decision that could send the party in a far less certain direction.

The challenge was clear Thursday when Trump’s remarks consumed the 2020 debate even as Democrats on Capitol Hill voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. The vote was the latest move by Democrats to highlight their work on more traditional issues that helped them seize the House majority last fall. Yet it barely made a ripple in the national debate.

“Trump is forcing the hand of Democratic Party leaders thinking they could thread the needle. They can’t. He’s holding Klan rallies,” said Aimee Allison, who leads She the People, an advocacy group focused on women of color. “We have to be strong in the face of that and unafraid.”

Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher said that to pretend racism and division aren’t top-tier concerns for voters is a fallacy.

“This is just as important an issue for Democrats to engage and win on as health care, education and wages,” he said, pointing out that Democrats got 9 million more votes than Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.

“That wasn’t because voters all of a sudden fell in love with Democrats. That was about the direction of this country and people being uncomfortable and alarmed with what’s happening with the Republican Party under Trump.”

But others question whether to follow Trump into the racial debate at all, concerned about alienating white working-class voters who may have backed Trump in the past and are uncomfortable with allegations of racism or bigotry.

“Calling him racist, which he is, I don’t know if that helps,” said North Carolina-based Democratic strategist Gary Pearce. He called Trump’s message “profoundly disturbing, but I know it works.”

In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler called on his party to take a cautious approach by explaining that Trump is using racism to distract voters from failing policies.

“Trump’s use of racism as a political weapon is his only strategy to distract the public from the No. 1 issue in 2018, which was health care,” Wikler said. “He can’t claim that he stands for working people in 2020.”

Most of the Democratic Party’s crowded 2020 class weighed in on the Trump-race question — some more aggressively than others.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren left no doubt about her position: ”#IStandWithIlhan against attacks from this racist president,” she tweeted.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who is black, condemned Trump’s attacks on the squad but also sought to distance himself from Ocasio-Cortez’s description of immigrant detention centers along the southern border as “concentration camps.”

“I would not choose that, because you start to begin to create historical comparisons that I do not think are constructive,” he said. “But (the spirit is) pointing out the outrageous assault on humanity that’s going on within our own borders . It’s an assault on the humanity of all of us.”

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called Trump “un-American.”

“His constant attacks on women of color in Congress just show what a small, weak president he is,” she said in a brief interview, while trying to pivot to the economy.

“You can talk about both,” she said. “Absolutely. You have to. You have to lead on both issues.”

Juan Rodriguez, the campaign manager for Kamala Harris, said the California senator would call out Trump on the campaign trail for “vile and reprehensible” comments at every opportunity but would also talk about her policy solutions.

Harris will “not be distracted by a person, who, the way she’d characterize, is weak and wants to stoke fear,” Rodriguez said.

Republicans, too, are grappling with the racial debate that could have profound long-term consequences on the GOP’s ability to win elections in an increasingly diverse nation.

Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, who called the chant “offensive,” was among about 10 House GOP leaders who had breakfast Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence in Washington. Walker said he cautioned Pence that attention to the chant could distract voters next year from the economy and other themes Republicans want to emphasize.

Pence concurred and said he would discuss it with Trump, said another participant in the meeting who described the conversation on condition of anonymity.

Publicly, however, the overwhelming majority of Republican elected officials stood behind the president or offered tepid criticism.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Trump’s critics were going too far by accusing him of racism.

“We ought to tone the rhetoric down across the country using — throwing around words like racism, you know, kind of routinely applying it to almost everything,” he told Fox Business Network.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Argentina where he is expected to rally support from Latin American leaders in the U.S. fight against Middle East militant groups.

The top U.S. diplomat will deliver remarks Friday at the second Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, where the challenges of terrorism in the hemisphere will be addressed.

On Monday, Argentina’s Security Ministry officially designated the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group, which is supported by Iran, as a terrorist organization. The designation gives the U.S. another ally in its effort to develop a global coalition to contain Iran’s influence in the Middle East and beyond.

Pompeo’s visit to Argentina coincides with the 25th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. The Argentine government has said Hezbollah was responsible for the attack.

The secretary of state left Thursday to meet face-to-face with Latin American leaders  amid difficult negotiations with Mexico and Central American countries over how to best stem the flow of migrants to the southern U.S. border.

Migration root causes

Pompeo’s three-day visit will also take him to Quito, Mexico City, and San Salvador. He will seek to expand cooperation on security issues, reinforce U.S. commitment to human rights and democracy, and expand economic opportunities for citizens, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said during a Washington press briefing on Tuesday.

Migration will also be addressed when Pompeo meets with Latin American leaders. Some experts say the United States must address the root causes or “push factors” that are compelling people to flee their homes.

“You have to look at the lack of opportunity, the gang activity, the weak institutions in this region, in Central America if you are ever going to stop people from making what is a difficult and dangerous journey to the United States,” Benjamin Gedan of the Wilson Center said. “These people don’t leave taking the decision lightly.”

He said there is broad consensus among most U.S. lawmakers that President Donald Trump should not have cut U.S. foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador while at the same time asking them to reduce the flow of migrants.

Other experts reject criticism of Trump for cutting aid to the so-called Northern Triangle countries.

“How worse can things get?” asked James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation. “People are flooding north. It is obvious that money is not achieving anything.”

“If we’re going to give them money,” he added, “I think we have to come up with programs that are actually going to have impact.”

The ongoing crisis in Venezuela, where millions have fled to neighboring countries, is likely to be an important topic for Pompeo at every stop on his journey. The U.S. and more than 50 other countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s leader.

Guaido contends President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election last year was invalid and wants early presidential elections. Maduro accuses the opposition of fomenting violence.

Pompeo will also stop in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and San Salvador, El Salvador, to deepen the U.S. relationship with those countries, according to the State Department.

Turkey launched airstrikes against Kurdish rebel targets in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, after the killing of a Turkish diplomat there, state-run media quoted Turkey’s defense minister as saying on Friday.

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkish jets on Thursday hit the Qandil mountains region in northern Iraq, where the leadership of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, is reported to be based. A Defense Ministry statement said airstrikes were also conducted Friday against alleged PKK targets in Iraq’s Karajak region.

Akar said the offensive was launched after an employee of the Turkish Consulate in the city of Irbil was killed along with an Iraqi national in a gun attack at a Turkish-owned restaurant in the city on Wednesday. The diplomat has been identified as Osman Kose.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting although suspicion fell on Kurdish militants.
 
In Irbil, a statement issued by security forces said the lead suspect in the investigation was a 27-year-old who hails from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.

The statement did not give further details, but said the suspect was already wanted by security agencies in Iraq’s Kurdish region.
 
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency claimed that two of the suspect’s siblings were alleged PKK militants and that a third was a legislator from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party.

“The terror organization was dealt a major blow following the heinous attack in Irbil through the most extensive aerial operation conducted lately in the Qandil region,” Anadolu Agency quoted Akar as saying.

He said the Turkish jets struck “weapons positions, shelters and caves” belonging to the PKK.

“Our struggle against terror will continue with growing determination until the last terrorist is neutralized and the blood of our martyrs are avenged,” Akar said.

Iraq’s self-governing Kurdish region is politically allied with the Turkish government, but PKK militants, who have fought a decades-long insurgency against Ankara, operate in parts of the territory. Turkey labels the group a terrorist organization.

Turkey has regularly bombed the mountainous areas where the PKK maintains bases. The group has been waging an insurgency for more than three decades.

The Turkish defense ministry announced las week that it had launched a new operation, dubbed “Operation Claw-2” aiming to destroy caves and shelters used by the PKK in the Hakurk region.

 

Mark LaMet and Lynn Davis contributed to this report.

U.S. President Donald Trump has found his latest target for acerbic ridicule — a hijab-wearing Muslim newcomer to Congress named Ilhan Omar. She is a Somali refugee but naturalized U.S. citizen whom Trump views as something less than a patriotic red, white and blue American.

Trump railed against the lawmaker Wednesday night at his 2020 re-election campaign rally in North Carolina. He stoked the packed crowd at a college basketball arena with his claims that she is proud of al-Qaida terrorists, blames the U.S. for the political crisis in Venezuela and launches “vicious anti-Semitic screeds.”

“Send her back! Send her back!” the frenzied crowd of Trump supporters chanted as he paused to listen for 13 seconds but without responding. It was reminiscent of Trump’s 2016 campaign, when supporters regularly shouted, “Lock her up!” in a call to jail his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state.

Back in Washington on Thursday, the president disavowed the chant against Omar, saying, “I was not happy with it. I disagree with it.”

Still, to Trump, Omar has in short order become a suitable proxy for opposition Democrats trying to oust him next year after a single term in the White House. He singled her out last weekend, along with three other Democratic lawmakers who also are women of color, but unlike Omar, all U.S. citizens by birth. The president said they ought to “go back” to their home countries to “fix” things there before criticizing the U.S.

House condemnation

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to condemn Trump’s remarks as “racist,” but Trump dismissed any contention he is a racist. Instead, he praised the almost unanimous support he won from Republican lawmakers who opposed the resolution, only four of whom voted with Democrats against him.

“These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force for evil,” Trump said at the rally, describing them as “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down.”

“They don’t love our country,” he said. “I think, in some cases, they hate our country. You know what? If they don’t love it, tell them to leave it.”

“Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country,” Trump said. “A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream — frankly, the destruction of our country.”

Omar swiftly rebuffed Trump, saying, “We have said this president is racist. We have condemned his racist remarks. I believe he is fascist.”

Now in her late 30s, Omar told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that she, like many refugees, does not have a birth certificate. She is the mother of two daughters and a son, ranging in age from 7 to 15. Since January she has been a congresswoman from Minneapolis, a large city in the U.S. heartland state of Minnesota. Once divorced, she is married to Somali-born Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, the father of her three children and recently an aide to a Minneapolis City Council member.

She has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for about two decades, after fleeing the civil war in Somalia with her family in 1991 when she was a child. She lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years before moving to the U.S. in the mid-1990s. She held several politics-related jobs in Minneapolis in recent years, before winning a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016, becoming the first Somali-American Muslim legislator in U.S. history.

Fierce critic

Last year, she won her congressional seat, overwhelming a Republican candidate to fill the seat of a Democratic congressman — Keith Ellison, also a Muslim American — who left it to win election as the state’s attorney general.

Now Omar has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics, regularly attacking his immigrant detention policies at the southern U.S. border with Mexico as immoral and assailing the country’s long-standing support and alliance with Israel, which she says comes at the expense of Palestinians living alongside the Israelis.

More broadly, she has attacked her adopted country, saying it has “failed to live up to its founding ideals,” a place that had disappointed her and so many immigrants, refugees and minorities like her.

Aside from drawing Trump’s attention and his ire, the outspoken Omar has in six-plus months in Congress often rankled her Democratic colleagues, a number of them Jewish and more broadly, regardless of their religion, longtime supporters of Israel.

Earlier this year, the freshman lawmaker made a statement that played off tropes questioning the influence of Jewish money in American politics. Later, she said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” specifically Israel.

In both instances, the uproar and condemnation from her Democratic colleagues, and many Republican lawmakers as well, was quick and unrelenting. She subsequently apologized to Jewish groups for some of her comments.

Both times, within days, the House of Representatives approved resolutions to indirectly rebuke Omar that condemned anti-Semitism. Neither statement named her, even though some lawmakers wanted to.

‘Go back’ to their countries

Omar, along with three other progressive congresswomen, argued with congressional Democratic leaders over the treatment of migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border. Omar, along with the three others Trump denigrated —  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,  Ayana Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — wanted more compassionate control over government actions, and they voted against most Democrats. 

Asked about their split with party leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed dismissive, saying the group, collectively known as “the squad,” amounted to only four lawmakers who had rallied no one else to their views demanding more controls on the treatment of migrants.

But after Trump vilified the four with his “go back” to their countries demand, Pelosi led the fight to condemn Trump’s language as racist.

Omar’s comity with her Democratic colleagues, however, could be short-lived.

She is proposing a resolution defending the pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

“We are introducing a resolution … to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights [in the U.S. Constitution] in regard to boycotting,” Omar said.

But a competing resolution condemning the BDS movement has wide support in the House and is much more likely to win approval, if any resolution passes.

Even so, Omar remains undaunted, saying, “I am very much driven by the moral clarity that I was sent to govern with, and I’m quite confident that it will withstand pressure.”

Mexico’s president says he will use legal channels to try to get the fortune of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman returned to Mexico.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday the money is Mexican, and would be used for anti-poverty programs.

Lopez Obrador said Mexico has erred in the past by allowing the U.S. to seize money in corruption and criminal cases against Mexican suspects.

U.S. officials have estimated Guzman’s fortune at $14 billion and a judge ordered Guzman to pay $12.6 billion as part of his U.S. life sentence announced Wednesday. That was money his drug-trafficking organization made distributing drugs in the United States.

But in the past, U.S. officials haven’t said how they intend to get their hands on Guzman’s money.

 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that budget and debt negotiators have reached an agreement on the core elements of a deal to increase the government’s borrowing cap and set a $1.3 trillion overall level for the agency budgets that Congress passes each year.

Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday, Mnuchin said negotiations with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have settled on a debt limit increase that would cover two years. He said they’ve agreed on spending levels, too, though he did not disclose them.

Still to be resolved are offsetting spending cuts to help finance the deal and other “structural issues,” Mnuchin said. The Trump administration is pressing for up to $150 billion in such cuts, well above a figure that would be easy to quickly negotiate.

”The good news is we’ve reached an agreement between the administration, the House and the Senate on top line numbers for both year one and year two,” Mnuchin said, speaking from France, where he is attending an economic summit. “We’re now discussing offsets as well as certain structural issues, and we’ve agreed as a part of that deal there would be a long-term two-year debt ceiling increase.”

At issue are two separate but pressing items on Washington’s must-do agenda: increasing the so-called debt limit to avert a first ever default on U.S. payments and acting to set overall spending limits and prevent crunching automatic spending cuts from hitting the Pentagon and domestic agencies in January.

Pelosi and Mnuchin spoke by phone again Thursday, Pelosi told reporters.

”Our conversations are continuing. We’ve been very firm though about a decision. If they want us to have this done by before we leave we have to come to a conclusion pretty soon,” Pelosi said.

Reaching an agreement also eliminates the possibility of a repeat government shutdown when the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30. President Donald Trump ended up on the losing end of a record 35-day partial shutdown last December and January.

”Nobody wants a shutdown in any scenario,” Mnuchin told the network.

Mnuchin is taking the lead for the Trump administration in negotiations. Conservative forces in the White House and House Republicans don’t like the way the deal is shaping up.

Democrats and Senate Republicans form the core of a powerful coalition favoring a deal. But House conservatives that comprise the core of Trump’s base in Congress are wary of the emerging agreement and warn that Trump may reject a deal that doesn’t have their support. The alternative is to run the government on auto-pilot, a prospect that alarms the Pentagon and its allies.

The talks have been going for weeks but took on new urgency as deficit estimates worsened, creating an unacceptable risk of default in early to mid-September. Mnuchin clarified that the risk of a debt default in September is relatively low, limited to Treasury’s “most conservative scenario.”

Former South African President Jacob Zuma has spent three days testifying at a corruption inquiry that looks into numerous allegations of cronyism and undue influence on state organs during his time in office. But observers wonder whether Zuma is bringing answers to light, or just raising more questions.

South Africa has yet to hear many actual answers from Zuma on how private interests allegedly influenced government decisions for years, leading to dubious high-level appointments.

But what Zuma has provided this week during his testimony at the so-called “State Capture” commission holds plenty of drama. In three days of near-constant talking, the former leader, whose party pressured him to resign last year, has alleged that some top politicians are spies, complained the inquiry is unfair, and said his life is now at risk.

“I just thought, for record, this commission must know that my life and my children, my lawyers, are now under threat,” he said Tuesday, on the second day of his testimony in Johannesburg.

The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector has now gone on for more than a year, and seen dozens of witnesses.

At the center of this drama is a wealthy family, the Guptas. The Gupta family is said to have been so close to Zuma that several top politicians testified that the family offered them high-level Cabinet positions in exchange for beneficial commercial decisions.

The highest-profile Gupta family member fled South Africa shortly after Zuma resigned, and this week, Zuma’s lawyer, Thabani Masuku, has argued that the family’s absence is a problem.

“It’s highly unfair. If the Guptas are not going to be here to testify and to corroborate what Mr. Maseko has said here, it’s just unfair to ask the president to recall or to interpret what role he may have played in the removal of Mr. Maseko,” Masuku said.

The lawyer was referring to Themba Maseko, who left his job as a government communications spokesman in 2011 and recently testified on Zuma’s close ties to the Gupta family. Maseko was replaced after refusing to direct government-advertising contracts to the Guptas’ now-defunct media businesses.

Corruption was a central issue during this year’s election, and President Cyril Ramaphosa won re-election on an anti-corruption platform.

Under Zuma, the nation saw numerous fruitless anti-corruption inquiries. But Ronald Chauke of Organization Undoing Tax Abuse, a South African watchdog, says he hopes things will be different this time, because Ramaphosa has said he will allow the commissions to do their work.

Chauke also questions the testimony Zuma has offered this week.

“To be honest with you, he was falling short. Basically, it shows you that it’s like, all of a sudden, he remembers things that happened [in] the 1960s, 40, 50 years ago. But when he has to remember critical things that recently happened in the last three years or four years, he tends to say that he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t recall. So basically, it is convenient amnesia which for me actually is deliberate lying and a deliberate withholding of critical information.”

Zuma is set to testify for one more day, on Friday.