CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday blasted the “hypocrisy that is eroding trust in” Donald Trump, arguing “the president doesn’t have a credibility gap, he has a credibility chasm.”
Tapper was discussing reports that North Korea has escalated its quest for nuclear weapons capable of reaching the Unites States. According to three separate reports, the rogue nation has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead and nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and, according to U.S. intelligence, loaded anti-ship cruise missiles onto a North Korean patrol boat.
As Tapper noted, Trump on Tuesday tweeted out the report on North Korean anti-ship cruise missles—a story which relies on anonymous sources and leaked information—to his 35 million Twitter followers
“It frankly created quite the awkward situation when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was subsequently asked about the report that her boss had just retweeted,” Tapper explained, referring to Haley’s appearance Tuesday on Fox & Friends.
“It's incredibly dangerous when things get out to the press like that,” Haley said of the report Trump disseminated Tuesday. “You're not only getting the scoop on something, you're playing with people's lives.”
“That poses the question, was the president's retweet of what Ambassador Haley called ‘classified information’ therefore dangerous?” Tapper asked. “Was it playing with people’s lives?”
“We have a president who constantly rails against anonymous sources and has called for the new Justice Department campaign against leaks, and he's now sharing a story that relies upon both on anonymous sources and leaks,” Tapper continued. “Now, the president has the power to declassify materials and perhaps this was all planned and part of a strategy to send a message to North Korea, though Ambassador Haley didn’t seem to think so.”
“And this could feed into the impression of hypocrisy that is eroding trust in this president,” Tapper said, pointing to a new CNN poll that reveals 60 percent of people don’t trust Trump.
“This president doesn't have a credibility gap, he has a credibility chasm,” Tapper said. “And as this international security threat looms, that is quite a dangerous thing for a U.S. president to have.”
In the early morning hours of November 9, 2016, God told Frank Amedia that with Donald Trump having been elected president, Amedia and his fellow Trump-supporting “apostles” and “prophets” had a new mission. Thus was born POTUS Shield, a network of Pentecostal leaders devoted to helping Trump bring about the reign of God in America and the world.Amedia described the divine origins of POTUS Shield during a gathering that spread over three days in March 2017 at the northeastern Ohio church he pastors. Interspersed with Pentecostal worship, liturgical dancing, speaking in tongues, shofar blowing, and Israeli flag waving, Amedia and other POTUS Shield leaders put forth their vision for a Christian America and their plans to bring it to fruition through prayer, political engagement and organizing in all 50 states. Among the many decrees made at the event was that Islam must be “completely broken down.”
POTUS Shield’s leaders view politics as spiritual warfare, part of a great struggle between good and evil that is taking place continuously in “the heavenlies” and here on earth, where the righteous contend with demonic spirits that control people, institutions and geographic regions. They believe that Trump’s election has given the church in America an opportunity to spark a spiritual Great Awakening that will engulf the nation and world. And they believe that a triumphant church establishing the kingdom of God on earth will set the stage for Christ’s return. Amedia says that the “POTUS” in the group’s name does not refer only to the president of the United States, but also to a new “prophetic order of the United States” that God is establishing.
Conservative Christian leaders are nursing a more-than-half-century grudge against the federal courts for rulings on school desegregation, separation of church and state, abortion, equality for LGBT people and more. Amedia has spoken repeatedly about a vision God gave him of a giant broom sweeping up and down the Supreme Court building. God, he said, is going to sweep the entire federal court system of unrighteous judges and “change the laws of the land.”
POTUS Shield members are, like other Religious Right figures, ecstatic about the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and they are sure—because God has told them—that Trump will have at least one more Supreme Court vacancy to fill in the near future. Amedia also insists that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is going to have “an encounter with the living God” that will transform her outlook on the law.
In an appearance on Jim Bakker’s television show the week of July 4, Amedia said that he is telling activists to bring cases into the lower courts now, because by the time they get to the Supreme Court, its membership will have changed and it will be more favorable to their causes. “We are going to re-establish the Judeo-Christian doctrines of this country,” he declared. “It’s coming and can’t be stopped.”
Amedia, along with fellow prophet Lance Wallnau, had declared Trump’s divine anointing in 2015. Amedia served the Trump campaign as a volunteer “liaison for Christian policy,” making him part of the early “amen corner” of prosperity gospel preachers—like Trump’s “spiritual adviser” Paula White—and Christian dominionists who rallied around Trump at a time when most institutional Religious Right figures were still trying to make Ted Cruz the Republican nominee. Amedia, Wallnau and others talked about Trump as a modern-day version of King Cyrus, an ancient Persian king who was not a believer but was used by God to help the Jewish people. While many conservative hearts sank when Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” tape was revealed, Amedia and Wallnau rejoiced that God was humbling Trump to prepare him for the greatness ahead.
You’re gathering us here, in this place, as your leaders, God, to declare your words and to release your power, even more so, God, upon this nation. We’re declaring that America belongs to you. We’re turning it back to you. … God, we’re refusing to allow Satan have his way with this nation. … God, we’re here to shift the nation. God we’re here to put it back on track by your spirit and by your power. … America belongs to you. America belongs to you. America belongs to you. … God, you founded us on a Judeo-Christian ethos, and we’re declaring that yes, America is and will be a Christian nation, like never before.
Mark Gonzales at a POTUS Shield meeting in Ohio.
POTUS Shield has planned an ambitious schedule of gatherings between now and the 2018 midterm elections, with some of the host cities chosen to correspond to a prophecy in which a Gulliver-like figure stretched out on a map of the United States indicates places that will play a role in bringing about the Third Great Awakening that every Religious Right gathering hopes to spark.
Who Are These People?
The prophets and apostles taking part in POTUS Shield are not, for the most part, household names to people outside their spheres of influence. Many of them are part of what religion scholars call the fastest-growing form of Christianity in the U.S. and maybe the world—a nondenominational, network-oriented Pentecostal Christianity, a strain of Protestantism that emphasizes direct supernatural experience through “the gifts of the spirit,” which are manifested in ways such as speaking in tongues, miraculous healing, and prophecy. Pentecostal Christians in the U.S. are more diverse racially and ethnically than evangelicals overall—reflected in POTUS Shield lobbying Trump for a more compassionate immigration policy—but their political profile is about the same, according to Dan Cox, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute.Many of the “prophets” associated with POTUS Shield are part of an “apostolic” movement within Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders (ACPE), meant “to build positive and ongoing personal relationships among nationally recognized prophetic voices,” was birthed at a January 1999 meeting in Colorado Springs called by C. Peter Wagner and attended by 18 people, including Rick Joyner, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce and Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer. The ACPE, which functions as a leadership group within NAR, releases annually its “Word of the Lord,” a sort of consensus document of prophecies for the year ahead. Some NAR leaders are also part of a global network, the by-invitation-only International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders.
I believe [Trump] receives downloads that now he’s beginning to understand come from God.
FRANK AMEDIA, FOUNDER OF POTUS SHIELD
The movement’s theology is grounded in a verse from the biblical book of Ephesians, in which the apostle Paul describes five kinds of leadership callings that Christ granted to people in Christianity’s founding era in order to build up the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. NAR believes that for centuries the church had abandoned the first two. But, they believe, God has moved in our time to re-establish the ancient roles for apostles and prophets who will transform Christianity and bring about the kingdom of God on earth.
Hector Torres, a participant in that founding ACPE meeting, wrote in his 2001 book “The Restoration of the Apostles and Prophets” that God had sent a fresh anointing of teaching to the church in the 1970s, raised up prophets in the 1980s, and restored the apostolic ministry in the 1990s. The ACPE and POTUS Shield are U.S.-focused, but the movement they are part of is global, as are some of the ministries carried out by individual members.
NAR is meant to be disruptive to the rest of the Christian Church. It views “denominationalism” as a sin and views established denominations and leaders as resistant to the reestablishment of the offices of prophet and apostle. Wagner, who died last year, believed that today’s apostles and prophets would bring about the most radical changes to Christianity since the Reformation in the 16th century, changes that were meant to allow the church to fulfill its true mission. A triumphant, dominion-taking church, Wagner’s disciples believe, will establish the kingdom of God on earth and set the stage for the second coming of Jesus Christ.
In July, POTUS Shield promoted a two-day prayer gathering at the Q sports arena in Cleveland hosted by dominionist preacher Lou Engle. Engle believes it is the church’s vocation to “rule history with God.” Here’s an excerpt from his teaching guide, “Keys to Dominion”:
The same authority that has been given to Christ Jesus for overwhelming conquering and dominion has been given to the saints of the most high. … We’re God’s rulers upon the earth. … We will govern over kings and judges will have to submit. … We’re called to rule! To change history! To be co-regents with God!
Engle has made a name for himself with giant prayer rallies in stadiums and sports arenas under the banner of “The Call.” They are designed to mobilize nation-changing spiritual warfare, sometimes specifically targeting elections. A 2008 rally in California focused on the gay-marriage-banning Proposition 8.
At the March POTUS Shield gathering, Engle prayed for God to “sweep away” Supreme Court justices and federal judges who uphold Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for Trump to nominate their replacements. Engle suggested that God could either kill or convert the judges in question, and he had some words for people who might be squeamish about praying for God to “remove” bad judges:
I tell you, the church can’t be humanistic right now. I feel this in my spirit. We’re so concerned about these Hamans [Haman is the evil adviser to the king in the biblical book of Esther] that we’re not concerned about the millions of babies! I say that we believe that Donald Trump, President Trump, is a Jehu as well as a Cyrus. And I’ve been praying, ‘remove the house of Ahab.’
Who’s Jehu? In the Bible, God used Jehu to enact His judgment on the sinful house of Ahab, which Jehu accomplished by overseeing the slaughter of Ahab’s family, supporters and priests. “We need to begin to pray to sweep away the House of Ahab,” Engle said.
Among the other leaders joining Amedia, Wallnau, Engle and Gonzales in POTUS Shield:
Cindy Jacobs, a “prophet” who with her husband Mike runs a ministry called Generals International, is often the person who releases to the public messages from God received by a council of “prophetic elders”; Jacobs has said that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was responsible for a rash of bird deaths, and warned that marriage equality would lead to civil war;
Dutch Sheets, an author and speaker who declares that Christians are “God’s governing force on earth” and says he is trying to “raise up an army” of “kingdom warriors that are ready to do whatever it takes” to bring forth God’s “kingdom rule in the earth.”
Rick Joyner, a South-Carolina-based “prophet” who runs the Oak Initiative and MorningStar Ministries, where last November, he opened the Bob Jones Vision Center, “a place for prayer, praise, and prophecy,” named for the man who spoke the Gulliver, or revival man, prophecy in 2005;
Bishop Harry Jackson, an African-American pastor based in Maryland near Washington, D.C., a longtime anti-gay activist, and co-author with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins of “Personal Faith, Public Policy,” a book that calls the Supreme Court’s church-state rulings an “assault” on Christianity;
Jerry Boykin, a vice president at the Family Research Council who has called Islam a “totalitarian way of life” and said American Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment’s religious liberty guarantees;
Jennifer LeClaire, senior editor at Charisma, part of the Pentecostal media empire run by Steve Strang, wholives in a world of constant spiritual warfare against myriad demons and last summer posed the memorable question, “Is Hillary Clinton the Antichrist or an Illuminati Witch?”;
Alveda King, an anti-choice activist andthe niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., who once dismissed his late widow Coretta Scott King’s support for LGBT equality, saying, “I’ve got his DNA. She doesn’t”;
Herman Martir, a Texas-based pastor who runs the Emerging Leaders Network International and the Asian Action Network.
Trump and the Prophets: Made For The Era of Social Media?
In March, Oxford University Press published “The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders are Changing the Religious Landscape,” by scholars Brad Christerson and Richard Flory. Christerson and Flory use the term Independent Network Charismatic Christianity (INC Christianity) to describe a network of charismatic leaders who are not simply focused on saving individual souls but on transforming whole societies. Many of the people associated with POTUS Shield fit into this category.The product that INC Christianity is promoting, write Christerson and Flory, “is not primarily the ability to access supernatural power to gain converts and build congregations, but, more important, to participate in the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth in the here and now.”Christerson and Flory argue that the network model allows charismatic leaders to broaden their influence while remaining free of the bureaucracies and oversight that would come from trying to build a large organization. An individual places him or herself under the spiritual authority or “covering” of an established prophet—getting a spiritual imprimatur in return for showing up at their conferences and sending money up the chain. INC leaders have expanded their “market share” within American Christianity by offering powerful supernatural experiences and leveraging the power of digital media tools to promote their brands as well as their beliefs and practices. Chuck Pierce, whose Glory of Zion Ministries runs a Global Spheres Center in Texas, has about 60,000 people sending him money, more than even the biggest megachurch congregation.
In some ways, Trump’s relationship to traditional political structures mimics these network leaders’ relationship to traditional church and Religious Right institutions: he relies on his charismatic personality; operates his own media; and believes old structures need to be swept away. Trump speaks to his followers “like a televangelist,” says University of Pennsylvania religion scholar Anthea Butler. And, if Amedia is right, Trump also sees his election victory as the result of divine intervention and his presidency as a mission from God. Butler notes that apostolic leaders defend Trump in the same way that religious leaders often defend themselves against their own critics, citing a scriptural admonition to “touch not God’s anointed.”
Christerson and Flory postulate that while INC leaders have a broad ability to spread their beliefs with followers, their political impact could be limited by the fact that they focus more on spiritual warfare and intercessory prayer than on setting up structures to engage in the nitty-gritty work of political organizing.
But POTUS Shield reflects the fact that during the past decade, the lines separating what we think of as the Religious Right—advocacy groups mobilizing conservative evangelical Christians into political action—and the apostolic crowd have been blurredsignificantly. Opposition to President Barack Obama “united them all,” says Butler.
Overlapping Networks
Both the traditional Religious Right and the apostolic Right are interested in bringing policy, politics and society in line with their “biblical worldview.” And despite what may be significant theological differences—many Religious Right activists may not see their political engagement as necessary to speed Christ’s return—they work together on political goals such as electing Donald Trump. INC leaders get their supporters fired up to see politics as spiritual warfare, and more established Religious Right groups give them a concrete way to get involved that goes beyond prayer and fasting. POTUS Shield is committed to doing all of the above.Christerson says he has seen evidence of this kind of “symbiotic” relationship: “The Religious Right gets followers, support and energy from INC, and INC gets visible examples of ‘kingdom-minded’ believers they can support and pray for in government.” He said he has seen “prophecies” that God is using Trump to transform society by appointing “kingdom-minded” people—like Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson—to top levels of government, even though they may be associated with different strains of Christianity.POTUS Shield councilmember and anti-Muslim activist Jerry Boykin is a vice president at the Family Research Council, one of the largest and most influential Religious Right political groups. At an event that FRC organized in 2009 to mobilize prayer against the passage of the Affordable Care Act, POTUS Shield Council member Lou Engle introduced then-Rep. Michele Bachmann. That same year, traditional Religious Right groups embraced Jacobs’ General International and Joyner’s Morningstar Ministries as well as the Koch brothers’ more material-minded Americans for Prosperity as part of an anti-Obama coalition called the Freedom Federation, whose declaration of principles was a social conservative wish list with an added call for an end to progressive taxation.
In 2012, FRC worked with Cindy Jacobs and Dutch Sheets to rally conservative evangelicals in prayer against Obama’s reelection. At the partnership’s kick-off event in a Washington, D.C., church, Sheets described the church—the ekklesia—as a legislative body, God’s government on earth. He said he wasn’t looking for “little sheepies” who are focused on pastoral work; he was looking to “raise up an army” of “kingdom warriors that are ready to do whatever it takes” to bring forth God’s “kingdom rule in the earth.” At the same event, FRC’s chaplain and national prayer director Pierre Bynum spokewistfully of a time when “you couldn’t hold public office in America unless you believed in Jesus Christ.”
Anti-gay and anti-abortion activists Harry Jackson and Alveda King, both members of the POTUS Shield council, are regulars at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit and other stops on the Religious Right speaking circuit. Boykin, Jacobs and Wallnau are board members of Rick Joyner’s dominionist Oak Initiative, whose purpose is to “unite, mobilize, equip and activate Christians to be the salt and light they are called to be by engaging in the great issues of our time from a sound biblical worldview.”
Alveda King (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
These organizational overlaps are also reflected in the broad adoption of NAR’s “Seven Mountains” rhetorical framework. The term “dominionist” is contested and disavowed by some people to whom it has been applied, but it means what it sounds like: Dominionists believe that the right kind of Christians are meant to take dominion over the earth. Many dominionists use the rhetoric of the Seven Mountains–religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, business and government. These spheres of societal influence have, they believe, been dominated by Satan, but when led instead by Christians with a biblical worldview, will transform society.
Seven Mountains rhetoric has become a lingua franca among Christian conservatives who may or may not be Pentecostal or affiliated with the prophetic networks. Among the traditional Religious Right leaders who use Seven Mountains rhetoric are Republican Party operative and self-proclaimed historian David Barton and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins.
Wallnau, who charges $7.77 per month for access to material on his “7mUnderground” site, told Pentecostal media magnate Steve Strang in the summer of 2016 that Trump would be a wrecking ball against political correctness and thereby help Christians take control of cultural institutions now occupied by Satan.
In the fall, shortly before the election, Wallnau published the book “God’s Chaos Candidate,” in which he warned that the decline of America was being engineered by the “shadow Cabinet”—a cabal of billionaires, politicians, academics and activists—and that if this situation were allowed to continue for one more presidential cycle, “America as we know it will cease to exist.” But, Wallnau said, God had anointed Trump as a Churchillian figure who could lead America through troubled times. He quoted Trump saying at a church campaign stop, “Now, in these hard times for our country, let us turn again to our Christian heritage to lift up the soul of our nation.”
Wallnau’s cheerleading has not slowed down since Trump took office. He declared recently that Trump is fulfilling a contemporary prophecy that one day there would be a burning bush in the White House, saying “I think the burning bush has got golden hair.”
God’s Own Party?
The connections that the spiritual-warfare-minded apostolic crowd have with the more traditionally political arms of the Religious Right make them more than a curiosity; they are a part of the coalition that generated overwhelming support for Trump from conservative white Christians and helped put him in the White House—a coalition that expected, and is getting, political payback from President Trump.Amedia organized a May 2016 meeting between Trump and Hispanic evangelicals at which Trump convinced them that he had a genuine concern for undocumented immigrants, in spite of his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his pro-deportation policies. A few weeks later, Trump met with about 1,000 Religious Right leaders and promised that if he were elected he would push their agenda and make them more politically powerful.As the Republican nominee, Trump attended one of the “Pastors and Pews” events organized by Christian nationalist David Lane. Lane has worked with members of NAR to organize a series of political prayer rallies with Republican governors, branded as “The Response.” The first Response rally, modeled on Engle’s “The Call” events, served as the unofficial launch for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential bid. Subsequent rallies attended by then-Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Pat McCrory of North Carolina were emceed by NAR apostle Doug Stringer, who also hosted one of Lane’s Response rallies in Cleveland last summer on the Saturday before the Republican convention.
As president and vice president, Trump and Mike Pence have continued to court conservative Christians from across the spectrum. Trump invited Religious Right leaders to the White House to celebrate the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. He gathered dozens for dinner in the White House and a Rose Garden signing ceremony—emceed by Paula White—for an executive order on religious liberty; among those in attendance was POTUS Shield member Cindy Jacobs.
The Religious Right’s investment in Trump has already paid off handsomely: Gorsuch sits at the far right end of the Supreme Court, with hundreds of judicial vacancies ahead; Religious Right activists lead multiple Cabinet agencies; Trump has reinstated and dramatically expanded the “global gag rule,” sacrificing poor women’s health to anti-choice ideology; issued an executive order on “religious liberty” that has begun to undermine separation of church and state, with Trump promising more to come; declared via Twitter that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the armed forces in any capacity; and publicly committed himself to working with congressional Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, a goal his Religious Right allies will continue to press in spite of the recent failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
POTUS Trump and the Prophetic Order of the United States
It may seem somewhat counterintuitive that religious leaders would remain unfazed by a stream of obvious lies and evidence of potential law-breaking from Trump and his associates, but that doesn’t particularly bother them because they have already accepted that Trump is, as Sen. David Perdue of Georgia told activists at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference, “nobody’s choir boy.” King David had his flaws too, they say, but he, like Trump, was a man of action, the kind of leader God can use to break down the strongholds of the enemy.Religious Right activists, including POTUS Shield’s leaders, continue to vouch for Trump. Religious Right activist and Texas GOP operative David Barton, appearing on an Intercessors for America broadcast over the Fourth of July weekend, praised the “spiritual atmosphere” in the White House and said that people close to the president assure him that Trump “has a hunger for the word of God.” That same week, Amedia appeared a few days in a row on televangelist Jim Bakker’s broadcast, where he told viewers that God had given Trump “a breaker anointing” that had been “designed from the beginning of time.”At POTUS Shield’s Ohio gathering in March, Amedia twice had the cameras turned off so he could talk off-the-record about what he said were sensitive issues involving the group’s influence in the White House and actions on behalf of the Trump family and administration. Amedia also said that POTUS Shield’s “war prayers” had brought down former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who he said had been giving Trump bad advice on Israel. (POTUS Shield leaders believe the idea of a two-state solution is contrary to the word of God.) POTUS Shield continues to pray about the White House staff, asking God to remove any “Benedict Arnolds” who are standing in the way of Trump carrying out the will of God.
The promotion of Trump to conservative Christians proceeds apace. A new “spiritual biography” of Trump is being written by Christian Broadcasting Network personality David Brody. Brody’s boss, televangelist Pat Robertson, recently conducted his own fawning interview with Trump. Over the years, Brody has acted as a virtual press agent for Christian nationalist David Lane, promoting his activities in return for “exclusive” access to and speaking slots at Lane’s events. Brody’s co-author is Scott Lamb, who in 2015 launched a “Jesus in the Public Square” section for the right-wing Washington Times newspaper, a project that Brody reported at the time was the result of a “seed” that Lane planted with the Washington Times’ management.
David Brody (Screenshot via Christian Broadcasting Network)
Brody and Lamb’s book, “The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography” is scheduled for publication in January 2018, but it won’t be the first. It will face competition from “God and Trump” by Stephen Strang, who heads the Pentecostal media empire Charisma. During the campaign, Strang gave a media megaphone to Trump-boosting prophets like Wallnau. Strang’s book, which promises to explore “what is God doing, now not only in Donald Trump’s life, but also in the life of the nation,” is scheduled for release in November.
Meanwhile, POTUS Shield leaders continue to personally assure Trump that God Himself put Trump in power, something Amedia told attendees at the March POTUS Shield gathering that Trump understands:
I said to the man’s own face, ‘If you didn’t see God got you elected, with all the mistakes you made, and how you should have lost this election 50 times, then you will never see God.’ And he said, ‘I know it was God.’
Amedia, who like other “prophets” seems to get “prophetic words” from God all the time, says Trump is also beginning to receive divine downloads: “I believe he receives downloads that now he’s beginning to understand come from God.”
For many Religious Right leaders, support for Trump is transactional: Trump promised them the Supreme Court, attacks on legal abortion and Planned Parenthood, and legal changes to make conservative Christians more politically powerful. But POTUS Shield members believe that something even greater than the Supreme Court is at stake: the future of the church and the reign of God on earth. They give Trump assurance that he’s on a divine path, and they give their followers a sense of playing an important role on the world stage, warring with the devil to take political and culture power away from liberals and secularists and establish the kingdom of God in the United States and around the world.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday tweeted out a Fox News story that was based on anonymous sources and that contained classified information about North Korean missile movements.
"The latest moves by Pyongyang point to a likely missile test in the days ahead or it could be a defense measure should the U.S. Navy dispatch more warships to the Korean peninsula," the report claimed.
— (@)
However, just hours after Trump retweeted the story, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed the leaking of this information and said it put America's national security at risk.
Per ABC News' Rick Klein, Haley said that the report contained "classified" information and "is putting Americans in danger."
— (@)
Haley also refused to confirm or deny the contents of the Fox report, as she said she would not publicly discuss classified information.
The Washington Post explained that President Donald Trump and new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, are in conflict over Trump's desire to "win" Afghanistan. The three-star general addressed Trump's questions about why the U.S. isn't "winning" in Afghanistan, but didn't want to discuss why we're still there after 16 years.
Trump can't decide on a new strategy because he wants to win but also doesn't want to spend more money. The two are in conflict with promises he made during the 2016 election. McMaster's job is to develop the strategy of doing more with less, a near impossibility. Trump doesn't seem interested in consensus from the generals or key security officials. Instead he's impatient and more interested in shaking up foreign policy, The Post reported.
McMaster seems more interested in the impact the decisions will have on the United States, where Trump's focus has been more on how the plans will fit in with his 2016 promises. Thus, McMaster has yet to earn Trump's trust in running the NSC as he sees fit.
One senior administration official thinks the only reason McMaster is still there is that Trump is constantly being celebrated for having the general on board. “Senators and the people the president talks to say, ‘We love H.R.,’” the official told The Post. “The president is very proud of him.”
Reports revealed that Trump was angry that top aide Steve Bannon slipped his nomination to the National Security Council into an executive order without explaining it to him. Trump proudly signed the order as part of his first several months of what he bragged was "passing legislation."
"Bannon and Gorka have recently become a more regular and outspoken presence at meetings led by McMaster and his team on Afghanistan, the Middle East and the administration’s national security strategy," The Post reported.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) revealed that Bannon and McMaster have "very forceful differences" during NSC meetings.
“H.R. is indispensable in helping the president hear all those viewpoints and have the information he needs," said the senator, who is close to McMaster.
The infighting has resulted in more problems than solutions.
“He had not worked in D.C. before, so this was certainly a new environment for him, but I have always seen him lead,” UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said. “He sets very clear goals. . . . When we’re in those meetings, he’s all about getting options on the table for the president.”
When McMaster took over, he was forced to make friends with the aides like Bannon and Gorka first, before trying to win over Trump. Another major task was in keeping Trump's attention during security briefings.
“We moved very quickly from news to intelligence to policy with very little clarity on which lanes we were in,” one U.S. official present during the briefings explained. “McMaster would act like the tangents didn’t happen and go back to Point 2 on his card.”
A U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution aims to slash by a third North Korea's $3 billion annual export revenue by banning the country's trade of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood, a council diplomat said on Friday.
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a "high confidence" that North Korea ally China and Russia would support the draft resolution, which was circulated to the 15-Security Council members on Friday.
The United States is aiming for a vote on Saturday to impose the stronger sanctions over North Korea's two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in July, though Russia and some other council members are asking for more time, diplomats said.
A resolution needs nine votes in favor, and no vetoes by the United States, China, Russia, France or Britain, to be adopted.
The draft resolution would also prohibit countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working abroad, ban new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures, said the diplomat.
"These are export sectors where this money is viewed as a critical, critical source of hard currency that the North immediately turns around into its fantastically expensive war machine and these just amazingly expensive ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs," the diplomat said.
"These sanctions are not targeted at the people of North Korea," the diplomat said.
The United States and China have been negotiating the draft text for the past month. Typically, they agree sanctions on North Korea before formally involving other council members.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has been frustrated that China has not done more to rein in North Korea and Washington has threatened to impose new sanctions on Chinese firms doing business with Pyongyang.
China has also been upset by possible moves by the Trump administration to exert trade pressure on Beijing.
HARD CURRENCY
The United States had been informally keeping Britain and France in the loop on the bilateral negotiations, while U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said China had been sharing the draft and negotiating with Russia.
It has not been clear if poor relations between Russia and the United States, which imposed new unilateral sanctions on Moscow on Wednesday, would hamper negotiations.
Moscow has disagreed with assessments by Western powers that Pyongyang launched two long-range missiles, saying they were mid-range. Diplomats say China and Russia only view a test of a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon as a trigger for further possible U.N. sanctions.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and two long-range missile launches.
The U.N. diplomat said North Korea has been estimated to earn in 2017 $400 million from coal, $251 million from iron and iron ore, $113 million from lead and lead ore and $295 million from seafood. The diplomat said it was difficult to estimate how much North Korea was earning from sending workers abroad.
A United Nations human rights investigator said in 2015 that North Korea has forced more than 50,000 people to work abroad, mainly in Russia and China, earning the country between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion a year for the government.
"It's been called slave labor ... It's clearly a humanitarian issue but it's also an increasing source of hard currency that the North is using for its illicit programs," the diplomat said.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Toni Reinhold and James Dalgleish)
A U.S. Senate committee approved a bill on Thursday that would cut off $300 million in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops making what lawmakers described as payments that reward violent crimes.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 for the measure, known as the Taylor Force Act, after a 29-year-old American military veteran who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian while visiting Israel last year.
The bill, which must be approved by the full Senate and House of Representatives before becoming law, is intended to stop the Palestinian Authority from paying the stipends, which can reach $3,500 per month.
Force's attacker was killed by Israeli police, but his killer's family receives such a monthly payment.
"What has happened here will hopefully, when passed, prevent other people from having the same fate: an innocent person going about their activities in an innocent way, being murdered by someone who's being incented to do that by their own government," Senator Bob Corker, the committee's Republican chairman and a co-sponsor of the bill, told a news conference.
Separately, 16 Republican and Democratic members of the committee wrote to Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to ask her to lead an international effort for similar action by other countries.
Force was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in Corker's home state, Tennessee, when he was killed.
Force's parents live in South Carolina, the home state of Senator Lindsey Graham, the act's other Republican co-sponsor. Graham, who dubbed the payments "pay to slay," is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid.
Palestinian officials have said they intend to continue the payments, which they see as support for relatives of those imprisoned by Israel for fighting against occupation or who have died in connection with that cause.
To win broader support, the original act was modified to take into account the need for humanitarian aid. It exempts assistance for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, creates an escrow account to hold assistance funds and spells out steps the Palestinian Authority can take for aid to resume.
Corker said he was confident the bill would become law sometime in the coming months. Similar legislation has also been introduced in the House of Representatives.
Opponents of the bill have said they worry that cutting off economic aid to the Palestinians would increase poverty and instability in the West Bank and Gaza, fueling more violence.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Fatima Bhojani; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bernard Orr)
Appearing on Face The Nation, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley washed her hands over the back and forth over between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying there was mutual deception going on.
Speaking with host John Dickerson, the former governor of South Carolina was fairly blase about the meddling conversation between the two leaders despite the fact Trump has continued to assert that countries other than Russia may have attempted to sway the election towards him.
"I think that is what it is," Ambassador Haley said. "President Trump still knows that they meddled, President Putin knows that they meddled, but he is never going to admit to it and that's all that happened."
Dickerson tried to pin down the Trump appointee on what consequences Russia will face.
"Not just Russia, any country needs to know that there are consequences when they get involved in our elections," Haley claimed, without citing interference by any other country or listing consequences.
Again, Dickerson tried to get the UN Ambassador on record as to the nature of the consequences Russia will face.
"I think you're going to have to ask the President," Ambassador Haley deflected.
Russia on Thursday blocked a UN Security Council statement calling for "significant measures" in response to North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The United States had circulated the statement for adoption by the 15-member council after announcing plans for a new sanctions resolution, but Russia raised objections, UN diplomats said.
The draft statement recalled that the council had agreed to take "further significant measures" in the event of another nuclear test or missile launch and that the top UN body would "begin to work immediately on such measures."
Russia blocked the measure, arguing that it had not been verified that the launch involved an intercontinental missile, said a council diplomat.
The United States and the United Nations have said the Hwasong-14 launched on Tuesday was of intercontinental range.
The draft statement included a strong condemnation of the launch, setting the stage for a draft resolution on tougher sanctions that the United States said it planned to present in the coming days.
Addressing an emergency council meeting on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said Moscow opposed the move, arguing that "sanctions will not resolve the issue."
"Any attempts to justify a military solution are inadmissible and will lead to unpredictable consequences for the region," warned Safronkov.
"In the same manner, attempts to economically strangle North Korea are equally unacceptable, as millions of North Koreans remain in need of humanitarian aid," he added.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley called the launch "a clear and sharp military escalation" and warned that Washington was ready to use military force "but we prefer not to have to go in that direction."
The launch, described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a "gift" to Americans as they prepared to celebrate Independence Day, marked a milestone in Pyongyang's decades-long drive for the capability to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear strike.
The United States and South Korea “conducted a combined” ballistic missile drill in response to North Korea’s “destabilizing and unlawful actions on July 4,” CBS News reports.
The U.S. ARMY and military personnel from the Republic of South Korea deployed the Army Tactical Missile System and the Hynmoo Missile II, landing missiles in South Korea waters.
In a statement, the nations said “the ROK-U.S. Alliance remains committed to peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and throughout the Asia-Pacific. The U.S. commitment to the defense of the ROK in the face of threats is ironclad.”
On Tuesday, Ambassador to the United NationsNikki Haley called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the North Korean missile launch.
During his presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "strong leader" with whom he would like to reset tense U.S.-Russian relations.
But as Trump heads to his first face-to-face meeting as president with Putin on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany, he is under pressure at home to take a tough line with the Kremlin.
Allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. election have alarmed both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who are pushing to extend tough sanctions placed on Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea, a peninsula belonging to Ukraine.
Lawmakers including Republican Senator Cory Gardner are also concerned Russia has prolonged the civil war in Syria by backing its President Bashar al-Assad, a strongman whose forces have used chemical weapons against insurgents and civilians. The chaos has fueled instability in the region and a flood of migrants to Europe.
"President (Trump) needs to make it clear that the continued aggression by Russia around the globe ... is unacceptable, and that they will be held accountable," said Gardner, who was among six lawmakers invited by the White House last month to discuss foreign policy with Trump over dinner.
Meanwhile, the appointment of a special counsel who is investigating potential links between the Russian government and members of the Trump campaign has weakened the president’s ability to maneuver with Russia, foreign policy experts say.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded Russia sponsored hacking of Democratic Party groups last year to benefit Trump over his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton. Russia has denied those allegations while Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea of any coordination between his campaign and Russia as a "witch hunt."
Still, just the optics of Trump meeting with Putin, a former KGB agent, are fraught with risk, foreign policy experts say.
"If (Trump) smiles, if he wraps his arm around Putin, if he says, 'I'm honored to meet you, we're going to find a way forward,' ... I think Congress is going to react extremely negatively to that," said Julie Smith, a former national security aide in the Obama administration.
EVOLVING U.S. POLICY
Trump has signaled an interest in cooperating with Russia to defeat Islamic State in Syria and to reduce nuclear stockpiles.
The White House has been mum on what Trump would be willing to give Russia in exchange for that help. But there has been speculation he could ratchet down sanctions, or even return two Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland and Long Island. President Barack Obama seized those facilities and expelled 35 Russian diplomats just before he left office as punishment for the election hacks.
While some administration officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, also support engagement, others, such as Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. ambassador to the United NationsNikki Haley, have taken a hawkish line on Russia.
The lack of a unified strategy has left U.S. allies anxious. And it has lowered expectations for American leadership to help resolve crises in Syria and Ukraine, where Russian cooperation would be critical.
"Trump is like a horse with his front legs tied," said a German diplomat, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "He can’t make any big leaps forward on Russia. If he tried people would immediately suspect it was all part of some big conspiracy."
Trump's administration is still reviewing its Russia policy, a process that may not be wrapped up for a couple of months, a U.S. official said.
Speaking with reporters last week about Trump's upcoming meeting with Putin, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said his boss would like "the United States and the entire West to develop a more constructive relationship with Russia. But he’s also made clear that we will do what is necessary to confront Russia’s destabilizing behavior."
THIRD TRY AT A RESET
Trump is just the latest president to grapple with the complicated U.S.-Russia dynamic.
George W. Bush and Obama sought to improve the U.S. relationship with Russia early in their administrations only to see relations deteriorate later.
Among the concerns for this president is Trump’s apparent lack of interest in policy details and his tendency to wing it with foreign leaders.
McMaster told reporters that Trump has "no specific agenda" for his meeting with Putin and that topics would consist of "whatever the president wants to talk about."
Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama, said he feared Trump might be headed to the meeting without clear objectives.
“I hope that he would think about first: what is our objective in Ukraine? What is our objective in Syria? And secondarily, how do I go about achieving that in my meeting with Putin?" McFaul said.
Other Washington veterans say Trump won't be able to make meaningful progress with Russia on anything until he confronts Putin about the suspected election meddling.
"(Trump) really has to raise the Russian election hacking last year, and has to say something like, 'Vladimir, don't do this again. There will be consequences,'" said Steve Pifer, a long-time State Department official focused on U.S.-Russia relations.
So far Trump has shown little inclination to do so, a situation that has heightened speculation about the potential impact from his coming encounter with the Russian leader.
“The shadow of all these investigations hangs over this,” said Angela Stent, a professor at Georgetown University and former National Intelligence Officer for Russia.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Warren Strobel, Richard Cowan, Jonathan Landay, John Walcott in Washington; John Irish in Paris; Noah Barkin in Berlin; Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by Caren Bohan and Marla Dickerson)
A prominent government watchdog group filed an official complaint Tuesday alleging Ambassador Nikki Haley broke federal law.
"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington respectfully requests that the Office of Special Counsel investigate whether United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley violated the Hatch Act by retweeting a tweet that President Donald J. Trump posted..." Crew wrote to acting Special Counsel Adam Miles.
The Hatch Act is a federal law prohibiting executive branch employees from using their position to influence political elections.
At issue is whether Ambassador Haley was allowed to campaign for Ralph Northam, the Republican Party nominee in a South Carolina congressional special election to fill the seat vacated by Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney.
Ambassador Haley's tweet may have been particularly powerful as she had served as the Governor of South Carolina prior to being confirmed by the US Senate.
“As the recent former Governor of South Carolina, Ambassador Haley may care deeply about her party’s electoral performance in the state, but the rules separating politics from official government work still apply,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder explained. “The Hatch Act is intended to prevent federal employees from using their official position for electoral purposes, which is exactly what Ambassador Haley appeared to be doing.”
"There is a certain irony that Haley could get in trouble for retweeting what the president tweeted," said Kathleen Clark, an ethics law professor at Washington University in St. Louis told NPR. "People retweet for various purposes. Sometimes people say that retweets are not endorsements, but she does not say that or warn people that way. It appears to be partisan political activity in support of this South Carolina candidate."
“The OSC needs to conduct a thorough investigation, as it has before, to show that these violations will continue to be taken seriously," Bookbinder stated. And the White House must take action to make sure these violations stop.”
CREW has had previous success in utilizing the Hatch Act to police the actions of the Trump administration on Twitter.
Earlier this month, Ana Galindo-Marrone, the chief of the Hatch Act Unit in the Office of Special Counsel, reprimanded White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, Jr. for violating the Hatch Act by using Twitter to call for the defeat of a member of Congress in a primary election.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive teamed up and filed a noting, "Presidential statements made on Twitter sent from the President’s personal Twitter account, which are subject to federal record-keeping obligations, have been destroyed."
More than a dozen activists were arrested for disorderly conduct after they blocked the entrances to the United States mission to the United Nations on Monday to protest Washington's decision to boycott negotiations on a nuclear weapons ban treaty.
Chanting "U.S. join the talks, ban the bomb," the protesters sat in front of the doors for about 10 minutes before New York police moved in. Police had repeatedly warned protesters that they would be arrested if they did not disperse.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced in March that the United States, Britain and France were among almost 40 countries that decided not to join talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty at the United Nations.
A second round of negotiations is underway at the United Nations.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in December - 113 in favor to 35 against, with 13 abstentions - that decided to "negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination" and encouraged all member states to participate.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool)
According to an Axios report, the latest Republican "parlor game" focuses on who current Vice President Mike Pence would choose as his own VP should President Donald Trump be impeached.
Played in "the shadows of the Russiainvestigation," this VP speculation game focuses on the desired "effect" each speculative vice president would have on the country.
The choice of Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan or Nikki Haley would result in a "return to normalcy," while Bob Gates or John Boehner would help ease the "anxiety" created by Trump.
Picking Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg, Axios noted, would "calm the country" by assuring them there would be no Trump-era status quo in the White House, whereas someone like Jeff Sessions, Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich would "keep the spirit of America First Trumpism alive."
