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In the space of a few hours, Mr. Trump reluctantly agreed to preserve President Barack Obamas nuclear deal with Iran and failed in his effort to repeal Mr. Obamas health care program.

But Mr. Trump hasnt given up. He announced new sanctions on Iran and he called on Congress to simply repeal Mr. Obamas health care program without passing a replacement.

Well let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us, the president said at the White House.

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The Obama administration ordered Russian diplomats to leave two waterfront compounds in New York and Maryland. Now, Russia wants them back.

3. The White House acknowledged that President Trump and Vladimir Putin had an undisclosed private talk at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, but there is no U.S. government record of it. The unreported meeting raises new questions about their relationship.

Meanwhile, the eighth person who attended a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. was identified as an emissary of a Russian oligarch.

Russia said its patience is wearing thin over two waterfront compounds that the Obama administration seized from Russian diplomats as punishment for Moscows meddling in last years presidential election. The video above explains it.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had called the seizure robbery in broad daylight, and the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said that Russia reserved the right to retaliate against the United States.

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4. China partly blocked WhatsApp in its ever-tightening grip over internet content.

The messaging app was the last of Facebooks major products that still worked in China. It appears to have fallen victim to an online crackdown fed by a perfect storm of politically sensitive news, important events and a new cybersecurity law that went into effect last month.

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5. It took global outcry, two rejections and President Trumps intervention for six teenage girls on an Afghan robotics team to get the U.S. visas to take part in a competition in Washington.

Theyre like superheroes, a competitor from Myanmar said.

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6. Texas lawmakers are gearing up for a special legislative session, where they are likely to decide the fate of a bill regulating the access of transgender people in public restrooms.

But theres more on the line the political future of Joe Straus, the speaker of the Texas House, who has put himself at odds with his fellow Republicans over his resistance to the bill. Mr. Straus is one of the states last moderate Republicans.

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7. My will to survive kicked in.

James Church was fishing off a jetty when he was struck by lightning in Florida, a state that has more lightning strikes and fatalities than any other state.

Here are four tales of survivors with disparate stories that all began with a bolt from the blue.

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8. Mountain roads provide an optimal vantage point to see a bicycle race in person, but theyre difficult to reach. The Tour de France has a longtime tradition of cycling fans camping out in the mountains for days, or even weeks, to claim a coveted place along the course.

The New York Times went up the mountainside of Mont du Chat to join them.

On the soccer field, the second-highest-ranking soccer official with FIFA was arrested and charged with corruption and embezzlement.

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9. Hello Kitty once represented the height of consumer culture, with everything from lunchboxes to hand-held mirrors adorned with the little girl character.

But the Japanese consumer goods brand Sanrio, which debuted the catlike cartoon with a hair bow in 1974, has introduced new characters that have a much more anticapitalist vibe.

One character, Aggretsuko (pronounced ah-GRET-su-KO), chugs beers and performs death metal karaoke as flames spark around her face.

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10. We wrap up the day in Norway with a new food movement: neo-Fjordic cuisine. Why would an ambitious chef open a restaurant in western Norway, where only 3 percent of the land is arable and the growing season is a blip?

The fjords are what make Norway different, the chef, Christopher Haatuft, said. Thats what I want my food to be.

Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

And dont miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a.m. Sundays.

Want to look back? Heres last nights briefing.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Excerpt from:
Republican Party, Texas, Donald Trump: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - New York Times

In announcing his opposition to the bill, Mr. Moran said it fails to repeal the Affordable Care Act or address health cares rising costs.

Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, discuss the next steps.

There are serious problems with Obamacare, and my goal remains what it has been for a long time: to repeal and replace it, he said in a statement.

In his own statement, Mr. Lee said of the bill, In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesnt go far enough in lowering premiums for middle-class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.

By defecting together, Mr. Moran and Mr. Lee ensured that no one senator would be the definitive no vote.

House Republicans, after their own fits and starts, passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act in May, a difficult vote that was supposed to set the stage for Senate action. But with conservative and moderate Republicans so far apart in the Senate, the gulf proved impossible to bridge. Conservatives wanted the Affordable Care Act eradicated, but moderates worried intensely about the effects that would have on their most vulnerable citizens.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, responded to the announcement on Monday by urging his Republican colleagues to begin anew and, this time, undertake a bipartisan effort.

This second failure of Trumpcare is proof positive that the core of this bill is unworkable, Mr. Schumer said. Rather than repeating the same failed, partisan process yet again, Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.

A comparison of public meetings on Obamacare and the Republican bills to repeal it.

Roughly 20 million people have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the law was a top priority for Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress, who say it has driven up premiums and forced consumers to buy insurance they do not want and cannot afford.

The opposition from Mr. Paul and Ms. Collins to the latest version of the Senate bill was expected, so Mr. McConnell had no margin for error as he unveiled it. But he managed to survive through the weekend and until Monday night without losing another of his members though some expressed misgivings or, at the very least, uncertainty.

Mr. McConnell had wanted to hold a vote this week, but he was forced to abandon that plan after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, had surgery last week to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. That unexpected setback gave the forces that opposed the bill more time to pressure undecided senators.

Already, Mr. McConnell was trying to sell legislation that was being assailed from many directions. On Friday, the health insurance lobby, which had been largely silent during the fight, came off the sidelines to blast as unworkable a key provision allowing the sale of low-cost, stripped-down health plans, saying it would increase premiums and undermine protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Mr. McConnell has now failed twice in recent weeks to roll out a repeal bill and keep his conference together for it. He first wanted to hold a vote in late June, only to reverse course after running into opposition.

House Republicans in competitive districts who supported their version of the bill will now have to explain themselves and Democrats are eager to pounce.

Make no mistake, Paul Ryan cant turn back time and undo the damaging vote he imposed on his conference, said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. House Republicans all own a bill that would strip health care from 23 million Americans and raise costs for millions more, and it will haunt them in 2018.

Mr. Lee, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, was part of a group of four conservative senators who came out against the initial version of Mr. McConnells bill after it was unveiled last month. He then championed the proposal to allow insurers to offer cheap, bare-bones plans, which was pushed by another of those opponents, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But the language ultimately added was not quite what Mr. Lee had been advocating, a spokesman said last week.

Mr. Moran, a reliable Republican vote and a past chairman of the Senate Republicans campaign arm, had announced his opposition to the bill as drafted after Mr. McConnell scrapped plans to hold a vote in late June. He expressed concerns about how it would affect Kansas, including whether it would limit access to health care in rural communities and effectively penalize states, like his, that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The pressure on Mr. Moran at home showed no sign of relenting. The Kansas Hospital Association said last week that the revised Senate bill comes up short, particularly for our most vulnerable patients.

Robert Pear contributed reporting.

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on July 18, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: 2 More Defections Lead To Collapse of Health Effort.

Read more here:
Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect - New York Times

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE / the national interest July 18, 2017 07/18/2017 10:11 am By Jonathan Chait Share Republicans celebrating the House health-care vote in May. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In 2009, David Frum, the former Bush administration speechwriter whose ideological apostasy was in its formative stages, met with conservative intellectuals to discuss the policy response to the great recession. Faced with evidence that only massive government action a financial rescue coupled with fiscal stimulus could have prevented a complete economic meltdown, one conservative made a startling confession: Maybe it was a good thing we werent in power then because our principles dont allow us to respond to a crisis like this.

The financial crisis is hardly the only issue for which conservative principles turn out to be incompatible with the practical demands of governance. (Climate change leaps to mind.) The collapse of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is an especially vivid demonstration of the broader problem. The cohesion Republicans possessed in opposition disintegrated once they had power, because their ideology left them unable to pass legislation that was not cruel, horrific, and repugnant to their own constituents.

Donald Trump promised during the campaign that he would quickly and easily replace Obamacare with an alternative everybody would love. Youre going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost, he said. Its going to be so easy.

One might dismiss this kind of rhetoric as a typical Trumpian boast. But the candidate was merely translating into the vernacular the somewhat more carefully hedged promises his party had made for years into terms in which they were meant to be understood. Paul Ryans A Better Way road map offered what it called a step-by-step plan to give every American access to quality, affordable health care. more choices and lower costs. And why wouldnt Republicans believe this? After all, Obamacare was, supposedly, a train wreck, a complete failure of design. It therefore followed that they could easily replace it without significant harm to anybody.

In truth, it was never possible to reconcile public standards for a humane health-care system with conservative ideology. In a pure market system, access to medical care will be unaffordable for a huge share of the public. Giving them access to quality care means mobilizing government power to redistribute resources, either through direct tax and transfers or through regulations that raise costs for the healthy and lower them for the sick. Obamacare uses both methods, and both are utterly repugnant and unacceptable to movement conservatives. That commitment to abstract anti-government dogma, without any concern for the practical impact, is the quality that makes the Republican Party unlike right-of-center governing parties in any other democracy. In no other country would a conservative party develop a plan for health care that every major industry stakeholder calls completely unworkable.

Every attempt to resolve the contradiction between public demands and conservative ideology has led the party to finesse it instead. That is why Republicans spent years promising their own health-care plan would come out very soon. It is why their first and best option was repeal and delay. And it is why they are returning to that option now.

The Trump administration might lash out at Obamacare by continuing to sabotage its functioning markets. They will find, however, that sabotaging the insurance exchanges will create millions of victims right away, as opposed to the luxury of delaying the pain until after the elections. The power to destroy remains within the Republican Partys capacity. The power to translate its ideological principles into practical government is utterly beyond its reach.

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Ike Kaveladze is an American businessman who represents the Russian real-estate development company associated with the Agalarov family.

Its been quite a ride, hasnt it?

He makes deals. Thats what he does.

If there really is nothing to the Russia collusion allegations, the editorial posits, transparency will prove it. But, uh, what if not?

If you tell students over and over and over again that certain types of speech are harming them, dont be surprised when they feel harmed.

Now that Trumpcare is all but dead, McConnell will give conservatives their straight repeal vote, and then move on to tax and budget legislation.

Were not laughing, youre laughing.

The House GOP wants the president to break his promise not to cut Medicare, for the sake of funding regressive tax cuts.

Thats 13 years to get a little less than 250,000 women on the ballot.

It was never possible to reconcile public standards for a humane health-care system with conservative ideology.

Sometimes government is complicated because life is complicated, and sometimes compromise requires policies that just arent so simple.

A new book claims Trump didnt want to use the governors phone for his congratulatory call from Obama.

He had to be talked into it, and warned them that he wont keep the deal indefinitely.

After two more GOP defections, McConnell said his bill will not be successful but Obamacare is still in danger.

Obamacare repeal is in big, big trouble.

This is why he wanted a really fast vote.

Watch out Jeb!

Riiiight.

Someone broke into Dean Hellers Las Vegas office and left the threatening message.

The press secretary took the presidents picture in a big-boy fire truck.

Visit link:
Trumpcare Collapsed Because Republicans Cannot Govern - NYMag - New York Magazine

The donations were a kind of unintentional gift to the de Blasio campaign: It has made tying Ms. Malliotakis, who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn in the Assembly, to the national Republican Party and specifically to Mr. Trump a centerpiece of its strategy since she became the Republican front-runner last month.

Their pockets have no bottoms, Mr. de Blasios campaign said of the Mercers in an email sent to supporters on Monday. The email linked the Mercers to Mr. Trumps chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and the right-wing website Breitbart News. The email also referred to Ms. Malliotakis as a Trump acolyte.

Ms. Malliotakis, speaking at a news conference in Queens to attack the mayors handling of crime and police issues, dismissed concerns about the donations as irrelevant and said she believed the mayor had also accepted money from people whom he does not see eye-to-eye with all the time. She added, It has nothing to do with Trump.

Sal Albanese, a lawyer and former city councilman who is the most prominent Democratic challenger to Mr. de Blasio, brought in more money than in previous two-month periods, with $41,000 this time around, but he spent it just as fast. He remains far from his goal of qualifying for the citys matching program; a candidate for mayor must raise $250,000 to receive matching funds.

Mr. Albanese could still qualify for the Democratic primary debate with Mr. de Blasio next month. With his current contributions, he would have to collect roughly another $50,000 by Aug. 11 to meet the threshold for the debate.

Bo Dietl, who is running for mayor as an independent, raised $245,266 during the two-month reporting period. Notably, he raised only $38,020 after Mr. Massey dropped out a development that might have been seen as a boost to his bid as well. Mr. Dietl spent more than he raised over the last two months, including more than $150,000 on television advertising.

Mr. Dietl, a former police detective who runs a private investigation company, had hoped to challenge the mayor in a Democratic primary but made a mistake filling out his voter registration form and wound up without a party affiliation. He then lost a court case in which he sought to run as a Republican. (Filings show he paid $10,000 to a lawyer, Martin Connor, who assisted in that effort.)

Another independent candidate, Roque De La Fuente, a millionaire real estate developer and California transplant, continued to put his own money into a campaign that has raised little from outside donors. Mr. De La Fuente lent his campaign $350,000 and raised a little over $8,400 in contributions.

One of the City Council candidates who raised the most money over the two-month reporting period was Mark Gjonaj, a Democratic assemblyman who is running for a seat in the Bronx. He raised $180,040 during the period, the majority of it from outside New York City. Mr. Gjonaj, one of several state lawmakers who are running for the City Council a job that would result in a considerable increase in pay is seeking a seat in a district in which no incumbent is running because of term limits.

A version of this article appears in print on July 18, 2017, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: De Blasio Keeps His Fund-Raising Lead, but a Republican Makes Some Gains.

Link:
De Blasio Keeps Fund-Raising Lead, but a Republican Makes Some Gains - New York Times

The Republican health-care bill drama actually boosts, not hurts, the chances of tax cuts occurring before the end of the year, two-time GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes told CNBC on Monday.

Facing opposition within the party, Republican leaders have been trying to round up enough votes to pass their overhaul of the U.S. health-care system. Then, on Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the Senate would delay consideration of the bill after Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had surgery to remove a blood clot above his eye.

"Certainly this soap opera has not helped the Republican party," Forbes told "Closing Bell."

"They are going to be eager to pass a big tax cut, ignore the Congressional Budget Office and figure if we don't get something big to help spur this economy, get out of its 1.5, 2 percent rut, they know they're going to get shellacked next year," he added, referring to the mid-term elections.

In fact, he thinks that not only will Republicans get "something" on tax cuts before the end of the year, they can even make them retroactive.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC that "massive tax reform" will get finished this year. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence have also said that the GOP aims to have tax reform passed by the end of the year.

When it comes to health care, Forbes advised his fellow Republicans to look at it as a step-by-step process. In fact, he doesn't like the current bill, "but something is better than nothing."

"This is a long journey. This is the beginning of a journey, not the end," Forbes said.

And he's not concerned about any implications to the U.S. deficit.

"The only way to cure the deficit long term is with a vibrant economy. Weak economy always begets financial problems."

CNBC's Jacob Pramuk and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

Excerpt from:
GOP health-care 'soap opera' will spur tax cuts before year-end, Republican Steve Forbes says - CNBC