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Capital Journal
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Good morning from the WSJ Washington Bureau.
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Trump's Day: The president participates in the announcement of state opioid-response grants in the afternoon. The vice president visits the U.K.
Dorian: Hurricane Dorian began whipping Florida after carving a slow, erratic path across the Atlantic Ocean that left the Bahamas devastated and at least seven dead.
Hong Kong: In a major concession to protesters, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she would withdraw the China extradition bill that sparked months of at times violent street demonstrations.
Mattis Interview: If you missed it, here's Jerry Seib's interview with former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who discusses his time working for President Trump and what he'd like to see more of in politics. Podcast
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President Trump said, ‘[T]hink what happens to China when I win,’ Tuesday on Twitter. ‘Deal would get MUCH TOUGHER!’ PHOTO: TOM BRENNER/GETTY IMAGES
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President Trump said he will redouble his pressure on China if he wins a second term, warning Beijing not to stall trade negotiations until after the 2020 election. The trade fight is becoming a central piece of the election debate, as a measure of both Mr. Trump's economic stewardship and his negotiating skills, report Andrew Restuccia and William Mauldin.
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The administration is weighing continuing a special refugee program for some Iraqis while further reducing the cap on other refugees allowed in, reports Alicia A. Caldwell. About 107,000 Iraqis who have worked with U.S. troops are waiting to be processed as refugees.
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Ahead of a decision about how many refugees to let into the U.S. in the coming year, more than a dozen former U.S. military leaders appealed to the administration to continue to allow refugees into the U.S.
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Mr. Pence defended his two-night stay at Mr. Trump’s golf resort during an official visit to Ireland, as critics questioned whether he was using public dollars to benefit the Trump business. He emphasized that he has family roots in Doonbeg, a small town and home to the resort on the other side of the island from the capital, reports Catherine Lucey.
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PHOTO: ALEX WROBLEWSKI/GETTY IMAGES
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The Iowa caucuses are just five months away and the Democratic race is wide open. Dozens of Democratic voters interviewed by The Wall Street Journal last month and over the weekend said they hadn’t settled on a candidate and instead listed several favorites, report Tarini Parti and John McCormick. The campaign calendar includes a debate next week, an important Sept. 30 fundraising deadline, and a flurry of events in key states.
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“I’ve seen every one of them at least once and some of them three times. But I’m still pretty up in the air.”
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— Sheri Albrecht, 61, a retired customer-service manager from Walford, Iowa.
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Three more Democratic presidential candidates have rolled out ambitious plans to address climate change. All of the Democratic proposals are similar in their ultimate goals, many of which are political nonstarters in the current divided Congress, and the latest sign of the gap between Democrats and Republicans on the subject, Chad Day and Tarini Parti report.
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A panel of state-court judges struck down North Carolina’s legislative districts, ruling that Republicans improperly gerrymandered state voting lines. The case highlights the new legal playbook for critics of gerrymandering after the Supreme Court ruled in June that federal judges have no authority to place limits on the states, Brent Kendall reports.
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Campaign Wire: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said he won't mount a challenge to his state’s Republican governor, all but ensuring the Democrats retain that Senate seat through the 2024 election... More.
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Lawmakers brace for a gun-control debate after a congressional recess marked by multiple high-profile mass shootings. White House officials have been meeting with lawmakers and their staffs for weeks, but Mr. Trump has yet to endorse a specific legislative package, raising doubts that anything will get done, Natalie Andrews and Andrew Restuccia report.
The man who went on a shooting spree across West Texas was barred under federal law from owning or buying firearms. A court had previously determined the gunman was mentally unfit, and authorities were looking into whether he bought the AR-15 style rifle used in the attack through a private sale, Dan Frosch and Sadie Gurman report.
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Hickenlooper's Late Senate Bid Gets a Boost
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Maybe it was not too late for John Hickenlooper to run for Senate after all.
One of the leading candidates in the Colorado Democratic Senate primary, Mike Johnston, dropped out of the race on Tuesday, alluding to Mr. Hickenlooper’s entrance into the race earlier this month. Mr. Hickenlooper, a popular former governor of Colorado, dropped out of the presidential contest and is now running to challenge Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in 2020.
Mr. Johnston, who had raised $3.4 million by June 30, said that continuing in the race could weaken Democrats’ odds of winning the seat. Mr. Gardner is one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for re-election this cycle.
“To win a Democratic primary now is going to require an expensive and negative campaign,” Mr. Johnston said in a video statement. “I think that will strain relationships around the state and could risk us weakening a Democratic nominee who would then go on to lose the general election to Gardner and keep Mitch McConnell in power.”
Mr. Johnston’s exit is a sign that Mr. Hickenlooper may still be able to largely clear the field of other Democrats. Mr. Johnston had more than $2.6 million in cash on hand as of June 30, meaning he could have likely continued to compete with Mr. Hickenlooper for some time if he had wanted to. Mr. Hickenlooper had for months insisted that he would not run for Senate, and the primary swelled to roughly a dozen candidates.
But the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly endorsed Mr. Hickenlooper after he launched his campaign, only adding to the advantage the establishment favorite will enjoy, even if he jumped in on the later side.
“Mike Johnston is a friend, a tremendous public servant and a great Coloradan,” Mr. Hickenlooper wrote in a tweet. “He’s always put the good of the state and indeed country first. I know he will continue to help Colorado do great things going forward.”
Write to Andrew Duehren at andrew.duehren@wsj.com
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Two U.S. senators are probing an energy company that wants to export ethane from Texas to China, part of a broader push by the lawmakers to apply a similar level of regulatory scrutiny to the export of natural-gas liquids as there are on overseas sales of crude oil and liquefied natural gas, report Ryan Dezember and Lily Dobrovolskaia
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Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Debbie Stabenow have asked American Ethane Co. to submit for review by federal regulators its contracts with Chinese buyers.
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The federal indictment against an engineer linked to Google is being viewed as a warning to Silicon Valley, coming as the Trump administration prioritizes the enhanced protection of U.S. intellectual property, reports Heather Somerville. Traditionally, trade-secrets-theft cases have been brought by U.S. companies, not by the Justice Department.
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Democratic strategists increasingly think the Democratic primary race has come down to three candidates--Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders--with only Kamala Harris on the outer periphery. (Politico)
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Texas Republicans are split on whether their state actually is in play in the 2020 presidential race, but they agree the era of easy Republican wins is over. (Dallas Morning News)
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Kelly Craft, the Trump administration's new U.N. envoy, has signaled that she intends to keep a lower profile than did her predecessor, Nikki Haley. (Bloomberg)
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This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Tim Hanrahan, Kate Milani, Troy McCullough and Daniel Nasaw. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.
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