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Capital Journal
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Good morning from the WSJ Washington Bureau.
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Trump's Day: President Trump is back in Washington and has a scheduled intelligence briefing.
Markets: A prolonged dollar rally is pressuring U.S. corporate earnings, hitting commodity prices and threatening to deepen a selloff in emerging markets.
Greenland: President Trump on Sunday confirmed his interest in potentially purchasing the island, but said it wasn’t a priority. More below.
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Fed chairman Jerome Powell arrives to testify at hearing on the U.S. economy last month held by the House Financial Services Committee. PHOTO: SHAWN THEW/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Jerome Powell is entering the most perilous stage yet of his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman, fighting to keep the U.S. from recession while taking the blame from President Trump for skittish markets and a slowing economy. The debate among his Fed colleagues is how much to move rates and when, as well as how to best frame the decision, which will be scrutinized by markets and the White House, reports Nick Timiraos.
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Mr. Powell is scheduled to speak Friday at the annual central bank conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., a gathering that many hope will surface clues to the Fed’s next move.
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Who should shoulder the blame for a slowing U.S. economy: President Trump or Fed chief Jerome Powell? Join the conversation.
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President Trump warned Chinese President Xi Jinping against reacting violently to protests in Hong Kong, saying that could threaten a trade deal. His comments came as top advisers sought to put to rest fears that the two countries are on the brink of a prolonged trade war, report David Harrison, Katy Stech Ferek and Andrew Restuccia.
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Over the weekend, administration officials said the White House was laying the groundwork for more trade talks with Chinese officials.
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Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators held the largest rally in Hong Kong in weeks on Sunday.
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President Trump and first lady Melania Trump speak to first responders after meeting with people affected by the El Paso shooting. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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About half of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s response to the deadly mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, and broad majorities support Congress moving to expand background checks for all firearm sales, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Sixty-eight percent of respondents expressed worry the U.S. will experience another mass shooting or attack by white nationalists targeting people based on their color or country of origin, reports Ken Thomas.
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Seventy-five percent of poll respondents strongly support expanding background checks, and an additional 14% somewhat support the changes. The poll also found 57% strongly support “red flag” legislation.
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Forty-three percent of registered voters said they approved of Mr. Trump’s performance, while 55% disapproved. The president’s job-approval rating has ranged between 43% and 46% in the poll this year.
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2020 Democrats See Favorability Ratings Slide
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By Jesse Naranjo
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Three of the leading Democratic presidential candidates are viewed more negatively by Americans than they are positively, and their standing among independents has weakened, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
While the same poll shows President Trump trailing a generic Democratic candidate by double digits in the 2020 race, the survey also highlights that the Democrats have challenges of their own.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have all seen their standing decline since the last time the poll asked about them.
The proportion of people who regard Mr. Biden positively is 34%, down 20 points from January 2018, while the people who viewed him negatively increased to 38%. The independents who regard him positively decreased by about one-third, to 26%, since 2018. Americans’ opinions of Mr. Biden are at their lowest since 2014.
Mr. Sanders has seen a drop from August 2017 in the WSJ poll, when 44% of Americans regarded him positively and 30% viewed him negatively. Now, those figures are 37% and 40%, respectively. Among independents, Mr. Sanders saw about one-third of his positive rating evaporate. For Ms. Warren in the new poll, 32% of Americans see her negatively, and 31% see her positively.
Still, registered voters in the new survey picked a generic Democratic candidate over President Trump, by a margin of 52% to 40%. Among suburban voters, there has been an 8-point decrease in support for Mr. Trump from 2016 exit polling.
The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted between Aug. 10 and Aug. 14. The margin of error for the 1,000 adults was plus or minus 3.10 percentage points. Among the 834 registered voters, the margin of error was plus or minus 3.39 percentage points.
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Daniel Thorleifsen, president of Nuuk Golf Club, suggests Mr. Trump play golf in Greenland before putting in a bid for the island. PHOTO: Christian Klindt Sølbeck for The Wall Street Journal
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President Trump's interest in Greenland has drawn mixed reactions in Nuuk, the country’s capital, a sparse city just 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle. For some, the idea is a highhanded reminder of a painful and unresolved colonial legacy, reports Jason Douglas. Others discern in the president’s apparent fascination a sign of the geostrategic importance of the self-governing territory. Many simply see it as a joke.
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“We are still trying to recover from a colonization period of almost 300 years. Then there is this white dude in the States who’s talking about purchasing us.”
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— Maya Sialuk, tattoo artist in Greenland
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Russian monitoring stations designed to detect nuclear radiation went silent soon after the explosion at a missile test site this month, spurring concerns among observers that the Russian government is trying to restrict evidence of the accident, reports Michael R. Gordon.
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The Iranian tanker released Sunday by Gibraltar was sailing to Greece, according to ship-tracking data, as Tehran warned the U.S. against targeting the vessel after a last-minute attempt to seize it in the British overseas territory, reports Benoit Faucon.
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Authorities are at odds over what can be done to stop robocalls, report Ryan Tracy and Sarah Krouse. The billions of illegal robocalls are being facilitated largely by small telecom carriers that transmit calls over the internet. U.S. regulators have conflicting interpretations of their ability to take the carriers to court, and carriers aren’t explicitly required to try to differentiate between legal and illegal robocalls, clouding enforcement.
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Companies are preparing to give U.S. regulators detailed information about how they compensate workers of all genders, races and ethnicities. Around 70,000 private employers operating in the U.S. are subject to the new requirement, which will detail the earnings of more than 54 million American workers, reports Kelsey Gee.
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The U.S. has opened secret conversations with the head of Venezuela's socialist party as Venezuelan leaders seek assurances they won't face retributions if President Nicolas Maduro is pushed out. (Associated Press)
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Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat of New Mexico, describes his proposal for a constitutional amendment giving states and the federal government the power to regulate and limit campaign spending. (Time)
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Despite discussion of the potential elimination of the filibuster in the Senate, talk of its demise appears premature. (Washington Post)
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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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