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HARI SREENIVASAN: Confusion reigns in Washington tonight over an effort to save the subsidies in Obamacare.

Two senators, Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray, had announced an agreement. Then, the president entered the fray.

Lisa Desjardins has the story.

LISA DESJARDINS: From President Trump and the White House, multiple statements in 24 hours left heads spinning on exactly where he stands on a bipartisan health care fix.

First, positive words yesterday afternoon.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And they’re coming up, and they’re fairly close to a short-term solution.

LISA DESJARDINS: Then, last night at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a seeming rebuke.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: While I commend the bipartisan work done by senators Alexander and Murray — and I do commend it — I continue to believe Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess, instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies.

LISA DESJARDINS: He echoed the same concern this morning on Twitter.

Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded on the Senate floor, saying the president is going back on his word and appears confused.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., Minority Leader: The president ought to know what he is talking about when he tweets about bills, because, on this one, he has no understanding of what it’s about.

LISA DESJARDINS: Finally, this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president is opposed to the deal as it stands now.

SARAH SANDERS, White House Press Secretary: The bill is a step, a good step in the right direction, but it is not a full approach, and we need something to go a little bit further to get on board.

LISA DESJARDINS: The job of untangling it all fell to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, trying to craft this deal to stabilize health care markets. He spoke with Mr. Trump this morning.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER, R-Tenn.: You know, some people think the president doesn’t know what he’s doing around here. I don’t think that. He told me that he wanted to encourage me, but that he will review it, as I would expect a president to do.

LISA DESJARDINS: Soon after that, the president stressed his main concern.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If something can happen, that’s fine, but I won’t do anything to enrich the insurance companies.

LISA DESJARDINS: So would the compromise enrich insurers? Let’s look.

The billions in continued subsidies here are to cover co-pays and deductibles for lower-income Americans. Insurance companies are meant to be a kind of middleman. Insurers pay the doctor for those poorer individuals’ costs, and the government sends insurers the subsidies as a kind of repayment.

Without the subsidies, insurers legally still must cover these costs for poor Americans. So, to make up the money, they have made it clear they would raise premiums. And some already are.

Republican Senate sources say the president is worried that insurers could take advantage of that money flow, but Senator Alexander insists the bill has provisions to police them.

So, where do the bill’s chances stand? The president wants some changes. Schumer says all or most Democrats will vote yes. And Alexander, not one to overstate things, says this.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: I would predict that before end of the year that this agreement in one form or another will become law.

LISA DESJARDINS: For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Lisa Desjardins.

HARI SREENIVASAN: As the confusion played out in Washington, 19 state attorneys general filed suit to continue the health care subsidies under Obamacare. The president announced last week that he will cut off the payments to insurance companies.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: Army Corporal Dillon Baldridge was killed in Afghanistan in June. He and two fellow soldiers were gunned down by an Afghan police officer suspected of an insider attack.

Baldridge’s father was disturbed by the details of his son’s death and expressed that to President Trump in a phone call. Mr. Trump then apparently took an unusual step for a commander in chief: He offered money.

Dan Lamothe helped break that story for The Washington Post, joins me now.

Thanks for joining us.

So, how did this phone call go?

DAN LAMOTHE, The Washington Post: Yes, so several weeks after the soldier’s death, the president made a call to North Carolina, where the father lives. They had a conversation that the father describes mostly as respectful.

The father expressed some frustration with the way that the death gratuity, basically a benefit that the family received, was going to his ex-wife, rather than some part to him. And the president’s response caught him by surprise. He said, well, I’m going to make sure we write you a $25,000 check, you know, basically for your troubles.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And did that check ever arrive? The White House said that they sent it late today.

DAN LAMOTHE: Yes, so we reached out this morning and received no response for several hours. As of today, the father had not received a check, so the assumption here would be that the check had not been sent until we reached out to the White House this morning to verify this father’s report.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And you discovered this conversation in — kind of the story has a larger context.

You reached out to several different families, Gold Star families, for what happened after their family member died.

DAN LAMOTHE: Yes.

I mean, we have got this larger conversation this week. It’s a very sensitive, very politically charged conversation. And at the center of it are grieving families. So, we thought it was important to reach out to those grieving families. Some of them, obviously and understandably, did not want to speak to us, but quite a few of them did.

And we found that about half of the ones we reached — we reached 13 different families that had lost loved ones since Trump became president — and half of them had received calls from the president. Half of them had not. The majority of the ones who had not were upset when they heard his comments earlier this week that he had called out — called all of them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And there was even some families or at least one family that had not received anything, no phone call or even a letter.

DAN LAMOTHE: Right.

And you wonder what’s going on there, because that is something that is typically just generated. There are form letters of sorts that the president then signs. There was a time during the height of the Iraq War when we had hundreds of American casualties per month.

We’re now looking at something on the order of several dozen this year, so it’s a much smaller amount. So for this to slip through the cracks at this point is very much a surprise.

HARI SREENIVASAN: How different is this from — when you say logistically, when you think about the number of casualties that were happening in the middle or the height of the Iraq War or the Afghanistan conflict, how different is this time period than what perhaps President Bush or President Obama was dealing with?

DAN LAMOTHE: It’s an order of magnitude smaller.

At the height of the Afghan war, we were talking something on the order of 400 or 500 American fatalities per year in combat. At the height of the Iraq War, we were talking several hundred per month.

So, at this point, we do have casualties. Each one is sad, but it’s a much smaller number. And for the White House to have not kept up was a surprise.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Already, Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post, thanks so much for joining us.

DAN LAMOTHE: Thank you.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to our series of conversations on the future of the Democratic Party.

I sat down with Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego in the studios of Cronkite School of Journalism here at Arizona State University.

He has represented Phoenix in Congress since 2015, and is a Marine Corps veteran who served in the Iraq War.

I began by asking him what’s at stake in the fight over health care.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO, D-Ariz.: Well, what’s at stake is the rising premiums on millions of Americans, and, according to the CBO, one million Americans not having health insurance next year in 2018.

The Lamar Alexander-Patty Murray compromise seems good on paper. It’s going to pay out the subsidies for the insurance market for the next two years. It does give some flexibility to states about what is covered and how the money is used. I’m waiting to see what those details are.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, let’s talk about your party, the Democrats.

It’s been almost a year since the Democrats took a serious drubbing in the 2016 elections. What shape is the Democratic Party in now?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: Well, certainly, I think we’re in better shape, and largely because we have a lot more grassroots activism that has taken the party and really molded us, I think, into a stronger party.

Our fund-raising now is largely based on small-dollar donors. You see, you know, people from all walks of life coming out of the shadows to run for office. We’re winning special elections, and in parts that we shouldn’t be winning, like Oklahoma, different — you know, New Hampshire, and districts that were Trump districts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You said when it came time for a vote for majority — for minority leader in the House last November, that it was time for the party to learn from its mistakes in last year’s election.

You said it needed new leadership. You supported Congressman Ryan of Ohio over Nancy Pelosi to be the House minority leader.

Do you still feel that Nancy Pelosi should be replaced?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: Well, at that point, I did feel like it was time for her and leadership to go in general, because I think we didn’t — we had definitely not learned the lessons of what just occurred.

Right now, I think you know, we are midstream. It would be very chaotic for us to change leadership right now. I think it’s important for Leader Pelosi to do her job and do it well. But, also, I think it’s also important for everyone to recognize that she is accountable.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You also said a year ago that you agreed with the American people the message coming from the election was that people are upset with the status quo in Washington.

Is the status quo still what exists in Washington? Or has President Trump, who has come in and been a disrupter, changed all that?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: The message that people are seeing, are feeling right now, I would say, is that it’s very chaotic right now.

And the presidency is supposed to bring some level of calmness and some level of certainty. And the fact that it’s not happening, not only is it not happening — it’s that he is the prime cause of this unease — has changed the tone.

I still believe the Democrats need to have a strong message. We need to have a strong economic message, one that is not just the everyday status quo, not just your usual punchlines of training people for the futures of tomorrow, the jobs of tomorrow. That doesn’t do anything.

We need to make sure that people know we’re not just talking about them, that we’re actually fighting for them.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You actually raise a subject I wanted to ask you about.

And that is, because a lot of people look at Democrats and say your message right now is all about anti-Donald Trump, that there’s not enough of a positive message. What is the positive message of Democrats right now?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: Look, our positive message is that we are the party that’s going to protect this country.

But, first of all, we’re going to protect you from Donald Trump. Number two, our message is the message that we’re also going to protect your paycheck. We’re going to make sure that you’re going to make better wages, that you’re going to receive all the benefits and dignity you deserve from work.

Number three, we’re going to protect you in terms of your national security.

Donald Trump is a threat. Donald Trump is a threat to our national security. We don’t know how far his collusion went with the Russians, or at least his administration. We know that he is destabilizing our alliances all around the world, and we’re better when it comes to national security than Donald Trump is and the Republican Party.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what the president, though, is saying is the only thing Democrats are doing right now is obstructing his agenda.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: He is talking about his agenda vs. America’s agenda.

And that’s not absolutely true. For example, the Murray-Alexander bill, which is a bipartisan bill that has worked through some very…

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: This is health care.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: The health care bill was stopped midway because the president wanted to do repeal and replace.

Now they have — they’re coming back with this bill. They have again the compromise. And President Trump is again rejecting the compromise.

What Donald Trump means by compromise is that we just are supposed to agree with him. This is not land development. This is not some piece of property in, you know, Manhattan. We work together. We build something together. It’s not like — it’s not going to be the way he wants it, and that’s the way the American public is demanding it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about an issue important all over the country, especially here in the state of Arizona, and that is immigration.

What do you expect Congress is going to do about the so-called dreamers, the young immigrants who came to this country undocumented, brought here by their parents? The president has said he’s going to stop protecting them, but he’s asking Congress to do something about it. What do you think will happen?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: Well, again, this is the president, you know, showing no leadership and just passing the buck.

And we’re going to pick it up. I think at, the end of the day, we’re going to protect our dreamers. We’re going to make sure that they have a pathway to citizenship. I don’t know how that looks. At the same time, we’re not going to say, you know, dreamers are allowed to stay in this country and will not be deported, but the parents, we’re going to put them in the process of deportation or increase the chance of them being deported.

We just have not going to be playing — we are just not going to bargain with human lives.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Congressman Ruben Gallego from the state of Arizona, it’s good to talk with you. Thank you very much.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO: Thank you for having me.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: We move from Congress to the controversies swirling around the White House.

John Yang has more on the day’s politics.

JOHN YANG: Thanks, Hari.

We turn back to the president’s exchange with that family of a soldier killed in action earlier this month and the president’s role in the bipartisan effort to stabilize the health insurance market.

For that, I’m joined by Karine Jean-Pierre. She’s a senior adviser to MoveOn.org, a contributing editor to “Bustle,” an online women’s magazine, and a veteran of the Obama administration. And Matt Schlapp, he’s the chairman of the American Conservative Union and the former White House political director under President George W. Bush.

Matt, Karine, welcome.

MATT SCHLAPP, American Conservative Union: Great to be here.

JOHN YANG: Karine, let me start with you.

We heard the reporting about the journalistic scrutiny into these telephone calls, contacts the president has with Gold Star families, not just the phone call yesterday, but others.

The White House is pushing back, saying it’s disgusting that journalists are looking into things.

But hasn’t the president brought this on himself in some sense by making the comparison between what he does and what previous presidents do?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, MoveOn.org: That’s exactly right.

That’s how he started off the week. He wanted to change, I’m assuming, the press, because, the day before he started turning the story around, we were talking about moron and adult care center.

So here’s the thing. This is a — this is not new. This is a TV episode in a reality world that we have seen before. He kicked off his presidential campaign attacking John McCain and his military service. He also, once, after he got the Republican nomination back in 2016, he attacked another Gold Star family, the Khan family.

So this is a reoccurring kind of position. And then he starts off the week saying, oh, Obama and presidents before him didn’t do the same, didn’t do that, didn’t have a kind of — how to honor soldiers, and so did Bush, which is somebody that you worked for.

So there is a pattern that is quite bizarre and disturbing for a president, a commander in chief, to have.

JOHN YANG: Matt, what’s your take?

MATT SCHLAPP: I think the pattern is actually on his critics, and I think the critics have enjoyed trying to act like there is somehow a disrespect for the commitment of our military and their families.

And I think it’s actually just the opposite. I think if you look at the support that he gets from military families and the military across the country, I think they’re very appreciative of what he’s doing to re-energize them, and the approach he has on these basic issues of our national security.

And I think the people who are making politics about this are the people who oppose him politically. And I just think there are some things that just aren’t political. And I think when we have dead men and women from the battlefield, I just don’t think it’s political.

Maybe one president will handle it one way. Maybe another president will handle it another way. Maybe not all presidents handle every phone call or every interaction perfectly. But they’re trying to do their best to console somebody who’s got a terrible loss.

And I think when we put this in — make it all about politics and what people’s reactions are, what I care about is, I want our commander in chief to console the families of the fallen, and I’m glad he does it.

JOHN YANG: But, Matt, didn’t the president — I mean, the president raised this. He started this discussion on Monday, when he was asked about the public silence, his silence about the four Green Berets killed in Niger.

And he brought up this comparison to President Obama in particular.

MATT SCHLAPP: Look, you can say it’s a question, but you can also say it’s a charge, and the charge was that he is not quickly enough or often enough calling the families of those who have lost a loved one on the battlefield.

And what he was trying to say is that that’s not accurate, and it’s not accurate to say that all presidents do it a certain way, and, quite frankly, it’s not accurate to say that President Obama called all these families, which is what we saw with the example of General Kelly and the loss of his son.

So, look, presidents — I don’t criticize President Obama for the way he handled his contact with these families. I don’t criticize President Trump with the way he’s trying to console people. I don’t criticize President Bush, and I saw him do it. It’s a tough thing to do.

And, sometimes, by the way, those parents give you a piece of their mind, and that’s part of this, too.

And I think there should be a zone of privacy around this, and I think what we’re doing is, we’re sullying the real — the central focus of this, which is the sacrifice of one American to put their body and their lives to protect the rest of us.

JOHN YANG: Matt, let me stay with you and turn to health care.

We heard the president just yesterday talk about how this bipartisan effort by Senators Alexander and Murray to try to figure out sort of an interim step to stabilize the health insurance markets while they work on repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, but then today, he comes out and says that he’s against it.

What’s the president doing here? What’s going on?

(LAUGHTER)

MATT SCHLAPP: Well, he’s driving his head of legislative affairs crazy, I’m sure.

But, no, there is method to his madness, which is what he’s trying to say is, is that we can get a deal on these payments to make sure that premiums are affordable for working-class people, but, in order to do that, you have to compromise. And this is where Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, they have to decide, if they want to get these CSR payments done, he’s going to need to get some things done that Republicans want to see done in health care reform as well, some of the aspects of the previous bills that have failed in the Senate.

This is true on DACA. This is true on all these issues. The president is definitely willing to come up with a compromise, but it’s not just on that issue. It’s going to have to be coupled with some other issues. So I think there’s a real chance to get something done on this.

But at the end of the day, there’s no more important thing for Republicans than to actually do what they said they would do, which is to repeal and replace Obamacare.

JOHN YANG: So, Karine, is this up to the Democrats to get this thing through, or is it up to the Republicans?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Look, I think that this bipartisan deal was amazing.

It’s hard to get Republicans and Democrats to agree that today is Wednesday. So, the fact that this happened is actually a big deal. And I think the only reason you would oppose this is if you want the premiums to go up and if you want to sabotage the health care system.

So, this is what the American people sent them to do on the Hill, which is work together and bring something forth.

And the thing about — the other part about this that’s really bizarre to me is nearly every piece of legislation that Republicans have brought forth on health care since Donald Trump has been president has had a CSR component to it. So, what’s the difference here?

This is something that will help poor and sick people get health care. This is a very simple fix. It really will help the health care — individuals…

(CROSSTALK)

MATT SCHLAPP: He’s willing to fix this question around CSRs, but it has to be coupled with the other reforms. And that’s why it was a component…

(CROSSTALK)

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: But don’t — but then he’s politicizing it, just like he does with Gold Star families.

MATT SCHLAPP: It’s Democrats and Republicans working together.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: And that’s the part that I don’t understand. You finally have that. Why are you pushing it away? Why are you opposing it? This is a great thing.

MATT SCHLAPP: The answer is because it’s not just about a fix of CSRs. That’s one tiny little sliver of health care.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: But it’s important for right now. It’s important to make sure that poor and sick — poor people and sick people get health care.

MATT SCHLAPP: The people I deal with want to see the whole thing repealed and replaced, not just a sliver.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Well, Republicans couldn’t do that. They had about three, four tries, and they couldn’t make that happen.

MATT SCHLAPP: OK, you got me there.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: That’s right.

(CROSSTALK)

MATT SCHLAPP: You got me there.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: You guys got the House. You got the Senate. You got presidency. Come on.

MATT SCHLAPP: You sound like a Tea Party person.

(LAUGHTER)

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Hey, I’m just telling you the facts.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHN YANG: Matt Schlapp, Karine Jean-Pierre, thanks so much.

MATT SCHLAPP: Thank you.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Thanks, John.

The post How did consoling Gold Star families become political? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

This is a draft and not final legislation, but encompasses key ideas and language likely to be in any version that moves forward.

Click on the document below to read the full legislation.

READ MORE: Trump gives more mixed signals in bipartisan health deal

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says President Donald Trump has made as much contact as possible with families of slain military service members.

Sanders said Wednesday that there is a protocol created by the White House Military Office for the president to contact the families.

First, the Department of Defense notifies the next of kin. Then, the Pentagon sends information to the White House, which has to then be re-confirmed. Once done, the president reaches out to the family.

Sanders said Trump has reached out to every family that has been authorized by the military office.

The Associated Press found relatives of four soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received calls from him.

Relatives of two soldiers also confirmed they did not get letters.

The post WATCH: White House says Trump contacts families of slain when authorized appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

File photo of President Donald Trump by Yuri Gripas/Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump sent more perplexing signals Wednesday about whether he backs a bipartisan Senate deal for steadying health insurance markets, saying he backs lawmakers’ efforts to strike that compromise but “can never support” federal bailouts for insurers.

A chief sponsor of the agreement, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Trump called him Wednesday morning and encouraged him to continue his effort, but left himself wiggle room. Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., reached their accord a day earlier for a two-year continuation of federal subsidies to insurers that Trump has halted, coupled with an easing of some coverage requirements under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

“I’m going to review it,” Alexander said in a brief interview with The Associated Press, describing what Trump said about the deal. “I may want to add something to it. And it may have to be part of a larger negotiation.”

Asked if Trump backs his agreement with Murray, Alexander said, “You’ll have to ask him.” Yet the senator also predicted that “some form of the proposal” would become law by year’s end.

Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, “I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co’s who have made a fortune w/ O’Care.”

Trump’s erratic signals have added uncertainty to the proposal’s fate.

READ MORE: Senators take a bipartisan step toward a health care fix

The accord has been hailed by Democrats and some Republicans who say the payments must be continued to avoid roiling health insurance marketplaces. Top congressional Republicans have given the plan a frosty reception and many conservatives oppose it, saying it would prop up Obama’s Affordable Care Act, a law they’ve long vowed to repeal.

Under Obama’s statute, insurers are required to reduce costs like co-payments and deductibles to lower-income customers. The program helped more than 6 million people this year at a cost of $7 billion.

The insurance industry and outside analysts have said halting the federal subsidies would force insurers — who still must provide the cost reductions to consumers — to boost premiums and leave some unprofitable markets. Trump halted the payments last week.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that ending the subsidies would push premiums up by an average 20 percent next year. This would especially hit people buying their own health insurance who earn too much to qualify for tax credits that reduce premiums for millions of others who do qualify for the aid.

Trump’s quickly shifting stances angered Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who took to the Senate floor Wednesday morning to accuse Trump of backing down on this issue and others whenever the hard right objects.

“This president keeps zigging and zagging so it’s impossible to govern,” Schumer said. “Our only hope is that maybe tomorrow he’ll be for this again.”

Doug Andres, spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said Wednesday, “The speaker does not see anything that changes his view that the Senate should keep its focus on repeal and replace of Obamacare.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was noncommittal about the agreement, saying, “We haven’t had a chance to think about the way forward yet.”

Both McConnell and Ryan have been eager to turn national attention away from the GOP push to scuttle Obama’s law, which crashed in the Senate twice, and toward an effort to cut taxes.

WATCH: Senators reach bipartisan deal on resuming payments to health insurers

In remarks Tuesday in the Rose Garden, Trump called the deal “a very good solution” that would calm insurance markets, giving him time to pursue his goal of scrapping the Affordable Care Act.

But in an evening speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, he said that “while I commend” the work by the two senators, “I continue to believe Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies.”

Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House, tweeted: “The GOP should focus on repealing & replacing Obamacare, not trying to save it. This bailout is unacceptable.”

Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, who’s been at work on a proposal of his own, was slightly more positive, calling the Alexander-Murray bill “a good start” but saying much more work needed to be done.

The deal includes provisions allowing states faster and easier access to waivers that would allow them to shape their own marketplace plans under the health law.

It would provide for a new low-cost catastrophic coverage insurance option for all consumers. It would also restore $106 million for outreach and enrollment programs aimed at prodding people to buy policies — efforts that Trump has slashed.

A federal judge ruled in a 2014 lawsuit brought by House Republicans that Congress never legally authorized spending money for the insurers’ subsidies. Obama and Trump, initially, continued making the payments, though Trump declared last week he would pull the plug.

___

Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

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The Trump administration is planning to repeal the Clean Power Plan, but the move, and other steps to roll back regulations, might not be enough to help the struggling coal industry. File photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

The 24-hour news cycle is filled with politics coverage, but not everything gets the attention it deserves. Here are five politics stories you may have missed in the past week.

1. Mortgage bankers open to rewrite of homeowner tax breaks — 10/13. Mortgage bankers express willingness to rewrite homeowner tax breaks as political support for a mortgage tax credit grows. — Politico
2. Black Lawmakers Hold a Particular Grievance With Facebook: Racial Exploitation — 10/14. Black lawmakers grill Facebook over Russian ads, sparking racial unrest throughout the country — New York Times
3. Coal country is finding little relief in Trump’s climate actions — 10/15. As the Trump administration announced the end of the Clean Power Plan, coal country continues to struggle. — Los Angeles Times
4. Angered by gun control, this lawmaker drafted a bill to require licenses for journalists — 10/14. An Indiana lawmaker drafted a measure that requires journalists to get licenses, similar to gun owners. — Washington Post
5. U.S. and Europe may collide on taxing Apple and Amazon — 10/13. Congressional lawmakers interested in collecting taxes on global profits face off with Europe as it looks to do the same. — New York Times

The post 5 overlooked politics stories that are worth your time appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Coffins of U.S. military personnel are prepared to be offloaded at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware in this undated photo by a Reuters stringer.

WASHINGTON — After her Army son died in an armored vehicle rollover in Syria in May, Sheila Murphy says, she got no call or letter from President Donald Trump, even as she waited months for his condolences, wrote to him to say “some days I don’t want to live,” and still heard nothing.

In contrast, Trump called to comfort Eddie and Aldene Lee about 10 days after their Army son was killed in an explosion while on patrol in Iraq in April. “Lovely young man,” Trump said, according to Aldene. She thought that was a beautiful word to hear about her boy, “lovely.”

Like presidents before him, Trump has made personal contact with some families of the fallen, not all. What’s different is that Trump, alone among them, has picked a political fight over who’s done better to honor the war dead and their families.

He placed himself at the top of this pantheon, boasting Tuesday that “I think I’ve called every family of someone who’s died” while past presidents didn’t place such calls.

But The Associated Press found relatives of two soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received a call or a letter from him, as well as relatives of a third who did not get a call. And proof is plentiful that Barack Obama and George W. Bush — saddled with far more combat casualties than the roughly two dozen so far under Trump, took painstaking steps to write, call or meet bereaved military families.

The subject arose because nearly two weeks passed before Trump called the families of four U.S. soldiers who were killed in Niger nearly two weeks ago. He made the calls Tuesday.

READ MORE: Trump ignites furor with claim past presidents didn’t console military families by phone

Meanwhile, Rep. Frederica Wilson said late Tuesday that Trump told the widow of a slain soldier that he “knew what he signed up for.” Early Wednesday, the president called Wilson’s version of the conversation a fabrication.

The Florida Democrat said she was in the car with Myeshia Johnson on the way to Miami International Airport to meet the body of Johnson’s husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, when Trump called. Wilson says she heard part of the conversation on speakerphone.

When asked by Miami station WPLG if she indeed heard Trump say that she answered: “Yeah, he said that. To me, that is something that you can say in a conversation, but you shouldn’t say that to a grieving widow.” She added: “That’s so insensitive.”

Trump took strong issue with that recounting early Wednesday.

“Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!” he said on Twitter.

Sgt. Johnson was among four servicemen killed in the Niger ambush.

Wilson said that she didn’t hear the entire conversation and Myeshia Johnson told her she couldn’t remember everything that was said.

The White House didn’t immediately comment.

READ MORE: Trump’s claim about predecessors, fallen troops disputed

Trump’s delay in publicly discussing the men lost at Niger did not appear to be extraordinary, judging from past examples, but his politicization of the matter is. He went so far Tuesday as to cite the death of chief of staff John Kelly’s son in Afghanistan to question whether Obama had properly honored the war dead.

Kelly was a Marine general under Obama when his Marine son Robert died in 2010. “You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?” Trump said on Fox News radio.

Democrats and some former government officials were livid, accusing Trump of “inane cruelty” and a “sick game.”

Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Iraq veteran who lost both legs when her helicopter was attacked, said: “I just wish that this commander in chief would stop using Gold Star families as pawns in whatever sick game he’s trying to play here.”

For their part, Gold Star families, which have lost members in wartime, told AP of acts of intimate kindness from Obama and Bush when those commanders in chief consoled them.

Trump initially claimed that only he among presidents made sure to call families. Obama may have done so on occasion, he said, but “other presidents did not call.”

He equivocated Tuesday as the record made plain that his characterization was false. “I don’t know,” he said of past calls. But he said his own practice was to call all families of the war dead.

But that hasn’t happened:

No White House protocol demands that presidents speak or meet with the families of Americans killed in action — an impossible task in a war’s bloodiest stages. But they often do.

Altogether some 6,900 Americans have been killed in overseas wars since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the overwhelming majority under Bush and Obama.

Despite the much heavier toll on his watch — more than 800 dead each year from 2004 through 2007 — Bush wrote to all bereaved military families and met or spoke with hundreds if not thousands, said his spokesman, Freddy Ford.

Veterans groups said they had no quarrel with how presidents have recognized the fallen or their families.

“I don’t think there is any president I know of who hasn’t called families,” said Rick Weidman, co-founder and executive director of Vietnam Veterans of America. “President Obama called often and President Bush called often. They also made regular visits to Walter Reed and Bethesda Medical Center, going in the evenings and on Saturdays.”

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, Kristen de Groot in Philadelphia, Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, and Hope Yen and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday strongly defended President Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey, linking the FBI director’s abrupt dismissal to his handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation. But he refused to discuss any private conversations he had with the president leading up to Comey’s firing and would not say if he had discussed with the president an FBI investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Sessions, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it was “the first time I’m aware of” in which an FBI director had performed the traditional role of Justice Department prosecutors by announcing on his own the conclusion of a federal investigation — that no charges would be brought against Clinton.

He said he was further galled when Comey, one week before his firing, insisted to Congress that he would have taken the same actions again.

Sessions’ insistence that Comey’s firing was motivated by displeasure over the Clinton email case is consistent with the initial White House explanation. But Trump himself has at times appeared to undercut that explanation, saying he would have fired Comey even without the recommendation of the Justice Department and that he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he dismissed him on May 9.

Trump has accused Comey of having prematurely exonerated Clinton, even though the Justice Department’s own explanation for the firing cited his decision to effectively reopen the probe days before the November election.

The FBI’s investigation is now being run by the Justice Department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller. After initially balking at the question, Sessions said that he had not been questioned by Mueller’s team of investigators. He has been seen as a possible witness in the case given his involvement in the firing of Comey.

Sessions stressed at the outset that he would not discuss any private conversations with the president and he largely abided by that principle, deflecting questions not only about the Russia investigation but also about the president’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among other topics.

The Russia probe has shadowed much of Sessions’ tenure as attorney general, even though he recused himself in March because of his role as a stanch Trump campaign ally. It was a central focus the oversight hearing, too, as lawmakers repeatedly pressed Sessions about his contacts with the former Russian ambassador to the U.S., his discussions with Trump about the investigation and his involvement in the firing of Comey.

Though he refused to say whether he discussed with Trump Comey’s involvement in the Russia investigation, or his private conversations with Trump, Sessions did say that the president had asked him and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for their recommendations about what to do with Comey.

“He did ask for our written opinion and we submitted that to him,” Sessions said under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat. “It did not represent any change in either one of ours opinions.”

The routine oversight hearing is Sessions’ first before the committee since his January confirmation, and it comes as has worked quickly to reshape the department with an intense focus on immigration, drugs, gangs and violent crime.

He also faced questions from lawmakers about his swift undoing of Obama-era protections for gay and transgender people and his rollback of criminal justice policies that aimed to reduce the federal prison population, among other changes he has made in nine months since taking office.

READ MORE: Trump administration pushes back against Chicago lawsuit over sanctuary city policy

Sessions has tried to pressure so-called sanctuary cities into cooperating with federal immigration authorities by threatening to withhold grant money, and he was the public face of the Trump administration’s decision to end a program benefiting hundreds of thousands of young people who entered the U.S. illegally as children. Congress is seeking a legislative solution to extend the protections before recipients’ work permits expire.

It is standard policy for attorneys general to appear each year before the Justice Department’s congressional overseers on the House and Senate judiciary committees. Yet, in a reflection of the extent to which the Russia investigation and his own role as a Trump campaign ally have dominated public attention, Sessions made his first appearance on Capitol Hill as attorney general before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Democratic senators have already made clear they want Sessions to detail his private conversations with Trump, particularly in the run-up to the Comey’s firing, or announce that Trump is invoking executive privilege to protect those communications. Sessions repeatedly refused to discuss his talks with Trump during his three-hour appearance before the Senate intelligence panel.

He did not say he was using executive privilege, but rather adhering to longstanding tradition of Justice Department leaders to refrain from revealing the contents of private conversations with the president. That explanation left many Democrats unsatisfied and is unlikely to put to an end demands for detailed accounts of those conversations.

READ MORE: Will Trump’s immigration wishlist derail the DACA deal?

The post WATCH: Sessions defends Comey firing, ties it to Clinton email case appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

File photo of Karen Pence (right) by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

WASHINGTON — When Karen Pence found out that an art therapist in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico couldn’t afford the clay her clients needed, she sprang into action.

A trained watercolor artist and advocate of the little-known mental health profession, Vice President Mike Pence’s wife went to the Virginia art supply store she frequented when they lived in the state during his tenure in Congress, bought 120 pounds of self-drying clay and packed it aboard Air Force Two for their flight down to survey the damage.

“She cleaned him out,” the vice president said of the store’s owner.

Mrs. Pence made art therapy her cause ever since she first learned about it more than a decade ago. She has visited numerous art therapy programs, both in the U.S. and abroad, and on Wednesday in Florida, nine months into the administration, she planned to formally announce the goals for her art therapy initiative.

She wants to help people understand the difference between art therapy and arts and crafts, and to grasp that art therapy is a viable option for treating trauma, injury and other life experiences. She also wants to encourage young people to choose art therapy as a career.

“I don’t think that a lot of people understand the difference between therapeutic art and art therapy,” Mrs. Pence, a trained watercolor artist, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the announcement at Florida State University in Tallahassee. The school has an art therapy program she described as “tremendous.”

Blabbing to a girlfriend can be therapeutic, she explained, but it is not the same as art therapy, which has three elements: a client, a trained therapist and art.

READ MORE: VP Pence’s wife aims to raise awareness about art therapy

As passionate as she is about raising art therapy’s profile, other issues help make Karen Pence tick, too.

One of them is helping military families, especially spouses. Her only son, Michael, is in the Marines.

There’s also her interest in honeybees. Mrs. Pence installed a beehive on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, where the vice president’s official residence is located, to help call attention to a decline in managed bee colonies that officials say could negatively affect U.S. agricultural production. She had a beehive at the Indiana governor’s residence for the same reason.

Now 60 and married to the vice president since 1985, Mrs. Pence has long been viewed as one of her husband’s most trusted political advisers. They are often together on trips, at the White House, or at the observatory, almost always holding hands.

Since returning to Washington in January (the family lived in the area when her husband served in Congress), she has accompanied the vice president on goodwill tours of Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as trips to survey recent hurricane damage in Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She tries to visit art therapy programs wherever she goes. Journalists who travel with Pence often keep an eye out for his wife; she often brings them cookies when he ventures back to the press cabin for small talk.

READ MORE: Devastated Puerto Rico needs unprecedented aid, says governor

She’s even done a little campaigning, urging Virginians to vote next month for Ed Gillespie in what’s viewed as a tight gubernatorial race.

“It really makes a difference, I can tell you. Nobody thought that we were going to win,” she said, an apparent reference to the Trump-Pence ticket.

The vice president often refers to his wife as the family’s “prayer captain.” She has led congregations in prayer during their hurricane-damage trips.

“We’re people of faith so we just try and approach everything with prayer,” Mrs. Pence said from her sunny, second-floor office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex, where she and her staff enjoy coveted views of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. Art therapy drawings given as gifts adorn the outer office.

She proudly displayed several of her paintings, including of the Capitol dome, the vice president’s residence, a Ball canning jar-turned-flower vase, a cardinal bird and a pink peony. She turns many of her watercolors into prints and boxed notecards that she gifts to art therapists she meets.

Except for myriad pets, including two cats, a dog and a rabbit named Marlon Bundo, the Pences are empty nesters. Their son and two adult daughters are off on their own.

“I think for us this is a good time in our life for this role because our kids are out of college. They’re living their own lives,” Mrs. Pence said.

She’s also launching a blog in conjunction with Wednesday’s announcement to chronicle her visits to art therapy programs.

The post Karen Pence to outline goals for art therapy initiative appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Two influential U.S. senators have reached across the political divide to try to stabilize the health insurance market under Obamacare. The two-year plan would fund federal subsidies for insurance companies to cover low-income clients. President Trump cut off those payments last week.

Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander and Washington state Democrat Patty Murray said their compromise gives states more flexibility.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER, R-Tenn.: We concluded that the best course would be to take this limited bipartisan first step that would avoid the chaos that could occur during 2018 and 2019 if premiums continue to skyrocket and millions of Americans find themselves without a way to purchase health insurance.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY, D-Wash.: When Republicans and Democrats in Congress take the time to work together under regular order, rather than retreating to partisan corners, we can truly get things done that help the people that we serve.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Our Lisa Desjardins joins us now with more on what’s in this deal and its prospects.

So, first, what’s in it?

LISA DESJARDINS: All right, let’s go through it.

Here’s what this does. It’s a two-year deal to try and stabilize the health care market. First, it would fund those cost-sharing subsidies for two years that the president announced last week he wasn’t going to fund unless Congress acted. It also would allow anyone in America to buy — anyone in the individual market to buy a catastrophic plan.

Judy, right now, that’s limited to people under 30 years of age. Finally, Judy, it would streamline the waiver process for states, so that states who feel like they had an exception or a particular need could get waivers more quickly from the Affordable Care Act.

Judy, President Trump, who himself said he was going to end the CSRs and wanted Congress to act, he said he likes this deal, he supports it. Still wants reform, repeal and replace long-term. But he supports this short-term.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let’s talk about two of these things you mentioned.

Catastrophic plans, what is that? What does that mean? And when you talk about waivers, what does that mean, and how would this change it?

LISA DESJARDINS: The catastrophic plans right now are only available to people under 30 years old.
And what they are essentially is, they keep all the essential benefits that every other plan has, but if a person under this plan gets sick, Judy, they would be on the hook to pay more. They basically have a higher deductible. They pay a higher percentage of their health care costs.

They’re gambling that they won’t get sick when they buy these plans, but they get a much lower premium. Everyone could buy these plans under this deal.

And then, when you’re talking about the waivers, Judy, the examples that they give in Congress here are examples like, say, Iowa wants a waiver to, say, co-pays for opioids would have to be higher because, say, they are having a problem with opioids, or they have a particular emergency.

They have a few counties that don’t have any insurers. This allows a fast-track process, in fact, half the time, they say, for those waivers to go through.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And why do the sponsors think this changes or helps the market?

LISA DESJARDINS: They think that what this will do is, it will individuals who have soaring premiums more options, especially those catastrophic plans, and more importantly I think right now it will fund these subsidies that really are driving the insurance market quite wild.

JUDY WOODRUFF: OK, so the $64,000 question, what are the prospects? What does it look like?

LISA DESJARDINS: Right, the, I don’t know, $1 trillion question.

Unclear. I think the best hope for this is that they will get Democratic and Republican votes. And in the Senate right now, there’s a lot of positive feedback from both sides.

However, we have to watch in the House, where already one conservative, Mark Walker, has come out against this. Waiting to hear from the speaker of the House himself, but this probably has the best chance of anything, Judy.

And it’s worth noting that senators spent five weeks on this. Doesn’t sound much. But that’s more than just the few days they had on the last deal. They had five hearings on this, only one hearing during the rest of the year. They’re saying this shows how the Senate can do things if given time.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It was so interesting. When Murray and Alexander came together some weeks ago, it was said no chance. It’s been resurrected.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

Well, these are two senators who have worked quietly behind the scenes, again, the exact opposite of what we have seen with all the drama previously on health care, where there were big moments and people coming to the microphones.

These two senators have plowed ahead. And it seems they have really been thinking about the dangers to individuals of what was happening.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Working largely quietly behind the scenes.

LISA DESJARDINS: Imagine.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Lisa Desjardins, we thank you.

LISA DESJARDINS: You’re welcome.

The post Senators take a bipartisan step toward a health care fix appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: new questions surrounding the deaths of four Green Berets in the Western African nation of Niger and the role of the president as consoler in chief.

John Yang has the story.

JOHN YANG: Sending young Americans into harm’s way can be the most serious decision a president makes. Consoling the families of the fallen has become the latest controversy to engulf President Trump.

To bolster his claim that he does more than his predecessors, Mr. Trump today invoked the dead son of his chief of staff, retired Marine general John Kelly.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To the best of my knowledge, I think I have called every family of somebody that’s died. Now, as far as other representatives, I don’t know. I mean, you could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?

JOHN YANG: Kelly’s 29-year-old son, Robert, a Marine lieutenant, was killed in 2010 when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan, an episode Kelly rarely talks about publicly. Kelly and his wife did attend a 2011 Memorial Day breakfast President Obama hosted for Gold Star families.

President Trump ignited the furor when he was asked about his public silence on four Green Berets killed two weeks ago in Niger.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.

JOHN YANG: Reporters pressed him to back up the claim.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do — all I can do is ask my generals.

JOHN YANG: The response from former Obama officials was swift and forceful.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted this photo and insisted: “Stop the damn lying. I went to Dover Air Force base with 44 and saw him comfort families,” a reference to one of Mr. Obama’s late-night trips to pay his respects to troops killed in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush often visited wounded warriors at Walter Reed and Bethesda hospitals, a practice Mr. Trump has continued. In February, the president and his daughter Ivanka went to Dover for the return of the remains of a Navy SEAL killed in Yemen, the first casualty of his administration.

So far this year, the Pentagon says 16 Americans have been killed in action. Another 17 sailors died in accidents. In the first year of the Obama presidency, 344 were killed in action.

During last year’s campaign, Mr. Trump publicly feuded with the Khans, the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq, after they criticized him at the Democratic Convention.

Today, the Khans said: “President Trump’s selfish and divisive actions have undermined the dignity of the high office of the presidency.”

The current controversy comes as questions are being raised about how and why the four soldiers died in Niger.

Senator Jack Reed is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

SEN. JACK REED, D-R.I.: I think the administration has to be much more clear about our role in Niger and our role in other areas in Africa and other parts of the globe.

JOHN YANG: The Pentagon is investigating the deaths. Reportedly among the questions, did commanders adequately assess the risk, and was there ready access to medical support?

Today, President Trump called the families of the four dead Green Berets.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m John Yang.

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