Politics
News Analysis: Ukraine crisis gives Kamala Harris a new role
It was partly coincidence that Vice President Kamala Harris was in Poland, assembly with leaders and talking with refugees on Thursday, the identical day that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had roughly the identical itinerary right here.
Nevertheless it’s additionally a sign that she had arrived close to the middle of a disaster that’s absorbing the world’s consideration.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned Harris, a relative rookie in international affairs, into one of many administration’s main diplomatic faces throughout its most harmful international disaster.
Final month, as Russian troops menacingly surrounded Ukraine’s borders, Harris met with European allies and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a safety convention in Germany. This week, she grew to become the highest-ranking American official to go to Jap Europe since Moscow launched its assault on Feb. 24. Her three-day journey was geared toward exhibiting solidarity with Poland and Romania, susceptible allies dealing with a Ukrainian refugee disaster as they search to bolster defenses towards a possible Russian assault.
It’s a standard function for vice presidents, making pressing journeys overseas within the president’s stead. Joe Biden, the oldest president in historical past at 79, has traveled overseas lower than his predecessors. Sending him close to the border with Ukraine could possibly be seen as provocative and logistically disruptive for nations coping with an inflow of refugees.
It’s a comparatively new function for Harris, who final yr traveled abroad occasionally due to issues about COVID-19 and the administration’s deal with its home agenda. The disaster in Europe may additionally shift scrutiny away from Harris’ different predominant international coverage portfolio — the troublesome job of curbing migration from Central America.
Her job in Europe appeared largely symbolic — reinforcing American help for NATO and warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. will deploy troops if he assaults a member of the 30-country alliance.
Along with assembly with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday, she visited Polish and American troops and spoke with Ukrainian embassy staffers who are actually working from Warsaw and met with a small group of displaced Ukrainians. On Friday, she flew to Bucharest and held conferences with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
At every cease, she delivered a constant message: “An assault towards one is an assault towards all,” she informed about 40 Polish and American troops inside an airport hangar in Warsaw on Friday. Later, in Bucharest, she repeated that mantra. “We’re agency in our dedication,” she mentioned.
Rick Stengel, an undersecretary of State within the Obama administration, mentioned there was “nothing magical” about Harris’ function, together with the repetition.
“Diplomacy may be very conventional, and once you ship the second-highest-ranking official within the U.S. authorities someplace, you’re telling them, ‘Hey, we care about you,’” he mentioned. “Plenty of diplomacy is symbolism, and that is essential symbolism.”
Polish and Romanian leaders are looking forward to such consideration. The nations, comparatively latest additions to the North Atlantic Treaty Group and former Soviet satellites, would most likely be on the entrance traces of any assaults by Russia.
“Romania has roughly 650 kilometers [400 miles] of land border with Ukraine. It’s the longest land border of all allies neighboring with Ukraine,” Iohannis mentioned by way of an interpreter throughout a Friday information convention with Harris, through which he requested for extra army and humanitarian assist. “So, sure, we’re involved.”
Biden administration officers have sought to move off thorny diplomatic conditions for Harris, who likes to have interaction in near-obsessive preparation earlier than conferences and customarily stays on script.
For instance, officers made a sequence of definitive public statements within the hours earlier than Harris landed in Warsaw on Wednesday evening to defuse a dispute with Poland over how and whether or not to provide Polish fighter jets to Ukraine. Duda needed the U.S. to ship the planes, however the White Home balked. U.S. officers have been anxious that getting the planes into Ukraine may escalate the battle with Putin.
A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on situation of anonymity, mentioned the fighter jet dispute got here up when Harris met with Duda privately. However making the U.S. place clear beforehand allowed the 2 leaders to shortly transfer on to different topics, the official mentioned.
Harris, nonetheless, appeared unprepared for Duda’s greatest request: permitting Ukrainians with American family members to remain within the U.S. till the battle ends. In a information convention with Duda, Harris emphasised different measures the administration was taking to assist Ukrainians, together with permitting these already within the U.S. to remain on expired visas. However she didn’t say what, if something, the administration would do to deal with Duda’s attraction.
The administration official mentioned Harris’ diplomatic function on Ukraine dates to November, when she traveled to Paris to fulfill with French President Emmanuel Macron. The 2 mentioned a joint response to early indicators of Russian troop motion. The official mentioned Harris spoke with 5 prime ministers from Jap Europe final week and expects to proceed to have interaction with allies.
Daniel Fried, a veteran U.S. diplomat and former ambassador to Poland, mentioned Harris appeared to have efficiently executed the journey’s goal: “calming down the state of affairs.”
On the fighter jet subject, her presence despatched the message that the U.S. and its allies, although working below wartime stress, have to “take a deep breath” and bear in mind that they’re going to misspeak at instances, Fried mentioned.
He mentioned the journey would additionally present Harris wanted expertise and a real-world really feel of a possible scorching spot. Vice President George H.W. Bush realized these classes throughout a go to to Poland in 1987, simply earlier than the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Fried mentioned, including that such journeys are “a superb funding.”
As she has traveled overseas extra steadily in latest months, Harris has appeared extra snug on the world stage however is clearly cautious of constructing errors. Throughout the information convention with Duda, she laughed nervously when the 2 leaders volleyed over who ought to reply questions first. And in answering questions, she seldom ventured past speaking factors and platitudes.
“I need to be very clear,” she mentioned when requested in regards to the pressure over the fighter jets. “The USA and Poland are united in what we have now accomplished and are ready to do to assist Ukraine and the individuals of Ukraine. Full cease.”
Occasions employees author Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.
Politics
Appeals court rules Texas has right to build razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration: 'Huge win'
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas has the right to build a razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration into the Lone Star State.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the ruling on X, saying President Biden was “wrong to cut our razor wire.”
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” the Republican leader wrote.
Wednesday’s 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for Texas to pursue a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of trespassing without having to remove the fencing.
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It also reversed a federal judge’s November 2023 refusal to grant a preliminary injunction to Texas as the state resisted federal efforts to remove fencing along the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee during the president-elect’s first term, wrote for Wednesday’s majority that Texas was trying only to safeguard its own property, not “regulate” U.S. Border Patrol, and was likely to succeed in its trespass claims.
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Duncan said the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected its concerns that a ruling by Texas would impede the enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.
He said the public interest “supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control” and ensuring that federal immigration law enforcement does not “unnecessarily intrude into the rights of countless property owners.”
Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “huge win for Texas.”
“The Biden Administration has been enjoined from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s border fencing,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We sued immediately when the federal government was observed destroying fences to let illegal aliens enter, and we’ve fought every step of the way for Texas sovereignty and security.”
The White House has been locked in legal battles with Texas and other states that have tried to deter illegal immigration.
In May, the full 5th Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can keep a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people in the country illegally.
Politics
Rep. Katie Porter obtains temporary restraining order against ex-boyfriend on harassment allegations
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against a former boyfriend, saying in dozens of pages of court filings that he had bombarded her, as well as her family and colleagues, with hundreds of messages that she described as “persistent abuse and harassment.”
Porter, 50, alleged in a filing with Orange County Superior Court that her ex-boyfriend Julian Willis, 55, was contacting her and her family with such frequency that she had a “significant fear” for her “personal safety and emotional well-being.”
Judge Stephen T. Hicklin signed a restraining order Tuesday barring Willis from communicating with Porter and her children until a mid-December court hearing. He also barred Willis from communicating about Porter with her current and former colleagues.
In the court filing, Porter said that Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.
She said in a statement to The Times that Willis’ mental health and struggles with addiction seemed to have gotten worse since she asked him in August to move out of her Irvine home. She said she sought the court order after his threats to her family and colleagues “escalated in both their frequency and intensity.”
“I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs,” Porter said.
Willis declined to comment. He will have an opportunity to file a legal response to the temporary restraining order and challenge Porter’s allegations.
Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is termed out, but has not said whether she will launch a campaign.
The 53-page court filing, first reported by Politico, included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis, as well as messages that Willis sent to Porter’s attorney and to her political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The filing also included messages between herself and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.
Porter said that since she ordered Willis to move out, he had sent her more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number.
Porter said in the filing that her ex-boyfriend had “already contacted at least three reporters to disseminate false and damaging information” about her and her children, which she said “poses a serious risk to [her] career and personal reputation.”
The filing includes an email that Porter said Willis sent to her attorney late Monday, in which Willis said he had visited Porter’s son at college in Iowa and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Another screenshot shows Willis telling Porter’s attorney that he would file a complaint about Porter, who has children ages 12 and 16, with child protective services.
One of Porter’s congressional staff members received a text message from Willis saying he would “punish the f—” out of him if he did not agree to “cooperate” with a New York Times reporter and Willis’ attorneys, according to a screenshot included in the court document.
Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out at a Porter town hall at a park in Irvine.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
Politics
Homan taking death threats against him ‘more seriously’ after Trump officials targeted with violent threats
Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan reacted to news of death threats against Trump nominees on Wednesday and said he now takes the death threats he has previously received seriously.
“I have not taken this serious up to this point,” Homan told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner on “The Story” on Wednesday, referring to previous death threats made against him and his family.
“Now that I know what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I will take it a little more serious. But look, I’ve been dealing with this. When I was the ICE director in the first administration, I had numerous death threats. I had a security detail with me all the time. Even after I retired, death threats continued and even after I retired as the ICE Director. I had U.S. Marshals protection for a long time to protect me and my family.”
Homan explained that what “doesn’t help” the situation is the “negative press” around Trump.
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“I’m not in the cabinet, but, you know, I’ve read numerous hit pieces. I mean, you know, I’m a racist and, you know, I’m the father of family separation, all this other stuff. So the hate media doesn’t help at all because there are some nuts out there. They’ll take advantage. So that doesn’t help.”
Homan’s comments come shortly after Fox News Digital first reported that nearly a dozen of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and other appointees tapped for the incoming administration were targeted Tuesday night with “violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” prompting a “swift” law enforcement response.
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The “attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,’” according to Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”
Sources told Fox News Digital that John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for UN ambassador, were among those targeted. Brooke Rollins, who Trump has tapped to be secretary of agriculture, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, separately revealed they were also targeted.
Threats were also made against Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee, GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s family.
Homan told Fox News that he is “not going to be intimidated by these people” and “I’m not going to let them silence me.”
“What I’ve learned today I’ll start taking a little more serious.”
Homan added that he believes “we need to have a strong response once we find out is behind all this.”
“It’s illegal to threaten someone’s life. And we need to follow through with that.”
The threats on Tuesday night came mere months after Trump survived two assassination attempts.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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