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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 hosts and keynotes a Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom event at the United Nations this morning in New York and has bilateral meetings with several world leaders.
U.N. General Assembly: The U.S. plans to make Iran’s "exploratory violence" a theme of the U.N. General Assembly this week following Tehran’s alleged missile strike on Saudi oil facilities. More below.
Climate Protests: World leaders at the United Nations summit will discuss the 2015 Paris climate accord, which the U.S. withdrew from, after climate protests by students world-wide. Protests are expected to continue.
Vaping Deaths: Sen. Dick Durbin, who has long been pivotal in advancing safety issues related to tobacco and nicotine, turns his sights on vaping. Before the administration moved to ban the sale of some vaping products, Mr. Durbin sent a sharply worded letter to the acting FDA commissioner.
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President Trump is likely to face an uphill battle in mobilizing international pressure against Iran at the United Nations over Tehran’s alleged Saudi attack, report Michael R. Gordon, Vivian Salama and Courtney McBride. Mr. Trump isn’t currently scheduled to meet with many of the leaders who would be instrumental.
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Another hurdle: Russia is leading the U.N. Security Council in September, and Russia and China have veto authority in the body.
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President Emmanuel Macron of France, a key figure in the U.N. gathering, has been trying to keep the prospects for diplomacy alive.
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Washington has sanctioned Iran's central bank and plans to send troops to Saudi Arabia in response to the attacks on the kingdom's oil supply.
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Houthi militants in Yemen have warned foreign diplomats that Iran is preparing a follow-up strike to the missile and drone attack that crippled Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, reports Dion Nissenbaum. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Tehran had nothing to do with the strike.
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Ahead of the summit, Iran said a British-flagged tanker it seized in July on alleged maritime violations is free to leave. A spokesman for the Swedish owners of the Stena Impero said Iranian authorities hadn’t notified the company that the tanker was free to leave.
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President Trump spoke with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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President Trump confirmed that he discussed Joe Biden with Ukraine’s new president. He continued to press on with calls for an investigation into the former vice president's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine while his son Hunter Biden was working for a Ukrainian company, as Democrats accused him of wrongfully pressuring a foreign leader to probe a political opponent, report Dustin Volz and Rebecca Ballhaus.
The examination of Mr. Trump’s dealings with his Ukrainian counterpart is likely to escalate this week as Congress continues to probe a whistleblower complaint concerning Mr. Trump, an aspect of which involves the Ukraine call, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky will meet this week in New York.
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Bidens in Ukraine: Joe Biden’s involvement with Ukraine and his son’s work in the country began when the former vice president was serving as the Obama administration’s point man on rooting out corruption.
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Timeline: Events leading up to Mr. Trump’s call with Mr. Zelensky
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Pressure Grows on Democratic Leaders to Impeach Trump Following Whistleblower Complaint
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A growing controversy about President Trump’s request that the Ukranian government investigate Joe Biden and his son could roil House Democrats.
For months, House Democrats have grappled with whether to impeach Mr. Trump as a growing number of members have supported opening an impeachment inquiry. The House Judiciary Committee is now conducting an investigation to decide whether to impeach the president. But even that probe has presented political headaches, as some Democrats quibble about whether it constitutes an impeachment inquiry.
The examination of Mr. Trump's request that a political opponent be investigated by Ukraine will only further complicate the delicate politics of impeaching him. Democrats who support impeachment may only become more frustrated with leadership’s deliberate pace on the issue.
“At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior - it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who boasts a large national progressive following, tweeted on Saturday night.
The Trump administration has also been resisting congressional efforts to review a whistleblower complaint about Mr. Trump’s interactions with a foreign leader that may involve the Ukraine call. The acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share information about the complaint with Congress, further inflaming some Democrats.
In a letter sent to House Democrats Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) hinted that continued stonewalling could bear on whether House Democrats impeach Mr. Trump.
“If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” Mrs. Pelosi wrote.
This week could test whether entering a “whole new stage of investigation” will be enough to placate restive supporters of impeachment.
Write to Andrew Duehren at andrew.duehren@wsj.com
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An Arrowhead employee unpacks products shipped from China. PHOTO: JENN ACKERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Mr. Trump has said China is paying the cost of tariffs, but many U.S. importers see them as threats and are seeking exemptions, report Josh Zumbrun, Anthony DeBarros and Chad Day. Of the more than 16,000 requests from U.S. companies for exemptions from the $200 billion tranche of tariffs on Chinese goods, over 10,000 have come from one company: Arrowhead Engineered Products Inc. of Blaine, Minn.
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"We basically put everything else on the back burner” to appeal the tariffs.
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— John Mosunic, Arrowhead’s chief operating officer
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Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a Trump donor, warned the president in a call last month about the trade war's escalation, report Alex Leary, William Mauldin and Kate O'Keeffe. He focused on the implications on the economy and Mr. Trump's re-election prospects, and not on his own company’s situation, a person familiar with the call said.
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Mr. Adelson is chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp., which derives most of its income in Macau. It couldn’t be determined whether the call influenced Mr. Trump’s decision to postpone a tariff increase.
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Mr. Trump on Friday rejected suggestions that the U.S. would accept a partial trade agreement with China.
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Bianca Keaton, left, chatting with other shift workers at the Gwinnett County Democratic Party’s booth at the Gwinnett County Fair near Lithonia, Ga. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s suburbs is a possible Democratic juggernaut for 2020. The county has been a Republican stronghold since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, but an influx of minorities has fueled Democratic gains there, Cameron McWhirter reports.
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Voters don't want an end to private health insurance, the WSJ/NBC News poll finds—a sign Medicare for All could complicate the Democratic Party’s prospects, reports John McCormick. Several other ideas backed by majorities of Democratic voters and some of the party’s 2020 candidates also draw significant opposition from the electorate overall.
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Some 56% of registered voters oppose Medicare for All, the plan Sen. Bernie Sanders and some other Democratic candidates have proposed.
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Mr. Trump’s job-approval rating is similar to that of two other presidents who won re-election: Presidents Clinton and Obama.
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“Voters aren’t looking to go
too far left or too far right.’’
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— Jeff Horwitt, Democratic pollster
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Elizabeth Warren’s steady rise has prompted primary opponents to search for ways to blunt her momentum. (Full story)
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Cory Booker's campaign suggests he’ll end bid if he misses fundraising goal. (Full story)
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Kamala Harris faults Elizabeth Warren’s transfer of funds from her Senate campaign. (Washington Wire)
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What matters this week in the race (Column)
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WSJ News Exclusive |
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are poised for a big step toward privatization. The mortgage-finance companies are expected to start keeping earnings as early as this week, pausing an arrangement in which they handed profits to the Treasury Department, reports Andrew Ackerman.
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Household saving typically rises after a recession, then declines as they grew more optimistic. But in the current expansion, it just keeps rising, reports Paul Kiernan. The personal saving rate has drifted up to an average 8.2% in the first seven months of 2019—higher than the average for any full year since 2012.
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The Trump campaign has grown grim about winning Michigan in 2020 and is looking to other battlegrounds he lost last time. (Politico)
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It's clear Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team would like to stay as far away from the story over what Mr. Trump said to Mr. Zelensky as possible. (The New Yorker)
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White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said this morning the president made clear that he did absolutely nothing wrong, while. (Fox News)
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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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