LiLSpeedy's Blog

WASHINGTON (AP) — For Donald Trump, the reality of the world's problems may be starting to sink in.

Standing in the sunny White House Rose Garden, the president said Wednesday that the gruesome chemical weapons attack in Syria had changed his views on the quagmire of a conflict that he'd previously indicated he wanted to steer clear of. He mourned the deaths of the youngest victims — "innocent children, innocent babies" — and said brutality had "crossed a lot of lines for me."

"It is now my responsibility," he declared.

The president's words were far from a declaration that he intends to act, and he notably avoided discussing what retaliatory options he would be willing to consider. Ultimately, his rhetoric may well land among the litany of harsh condemnations of Syrian President Bashar Assad by Barack Obama and other world leaders that did little to quell the six-year civil war.

Yet Trump's willingness to accept that he now bears some responsibility for a far-away conflict marked a significant moment for an "America First" president who has vowed to focus narrowly on U.S. interests. His comments also suggested a growing awareness that an American president — even an unconventional one like him — is looked to as defender of human rights and a barometer of when nations have violated international norms.

The bloodshed in Syria is just one of the intractable international problems piling up around Trump. North Korea appears intent on building up its nuclear program, despite vague threats from his administration. The Islamic State group is still wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria, while a Pentagon review of U.S. strategy sits on his desk.

Trump conceded Wednesday that of all the world's problems, the Middle East is one area he would rather avoid. His decision to at least rhetorically take a measure of responsibility was all the more striking given his frequent shoveling of blame for problems big and small onto anyone but himself.

In public, he faults Obama for leaving him "a mess" and says his campaign opponent Hillary Clinton is behind the flood of revelations possibly linking his campaign to Russia. In private, he berates his staff for failing to fix the self-made crises that have battered the White House, including his pair of travel bans blocked by the courts and the failure to pass health care legislation.

Trump initially took the same blame-shifting approach in addressing the deadly attack in Syria. In a short written statement Tuesday, he said the carnage was "a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."

In 2013, Obama pulled back from planned airstrikes against Syria following a chemical weapons attack, despite having declared that the deployment of deadly gases would cross a "red line" for him. Obama's decision was widely criticized in the U.S. and by Middle Eastern allies, and undermined later attempts to compel Assad to leave office.

"The regrettable failure to take military action in 2013 to prevent Assad's use of chemical weapons remains a blight on the Western world," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Still, foreign policy officials within the Trump administration were irritated by the president's eagerness to focus on his predecessor in his first reaction. Some wanted him to focus more on condemning Assad and highlighting U.S. resolve.

Their objections did little to sway the president at the time. But just a day later, Trump appeared more willing to embrace the gravity of the situation and his new role in it.

His posture may well have been impacted by the fact that his remarks in the Rose Garden came after meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, whose country has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis spurred by the Syrian war. Jordan is among Washington's most important partners in the region and is significantly dependent on the United States.

Abdullah, who worked closely with Obama, enthusiastically embraced Trump's condemnation of the chemical weapons attack. During a joint news conference, he said to Trump, "I believe under your leadership we will be able to unravel this very complicated situation."

Eliot Cohen, a Trump critic who served in the State Department under President George W. Bush, said that whether Trump intended to or not, he now has put himself in the same position as Obama, raising the stakes for action in Syria, perhaps without having thought out whether he plans to follow through.

"The deep irony here is you may see a lot of the same failures that the Obama administration had except delivered with a different style," Cohen said.

The Number of People Who Regret Voting for Trump Is Growing

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) discussed the release of the House Republican plank on health-care reform at the American Enterprise Institute on June 22.

IT HAS been more than six years since the Affordable Care Act passed and nearly three years since its major provisions began phasing in. During that time, the rate of uninsured Americans has plummeted to a historic low. Also during that time, Republicans have blamed the law for practically every problem with the health-care system, the economy and more. But they have infamously not united behind a credible alternative.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) seemed to promise better when he announced that he would roll out an ambitious policy agenda this summer. Instead, last week he released an Obamacare alternative that is less detailed in a variety of crucial ways than previous conservative health reform proposals. The outlines that the speaker did provide suggest that it would be hard on the poor, old and sick.

Mr. Ryan’s plan would replace Obamacare with a tax credit available to people buying insurance plans in markets regulated by the states, not the federal government. The proposal does not say how valuable the credit would be, nor the rate at which it would increase. The document also does not predict how many people it would cover, nor how much the plan would cost. The latter is a major question in part because the plan would waste money offering tax credits to everyone, regardless of income. Republican staffers argue that the proposal is just a starting point for discussion. Yet other Obamacare-replacement proposals have included such numbers. The fact that Mr. Ryan’s does not renders the plan difficult to evaluate or take seriously. This many years on, the GOP has no excuse for blank spaces

The proposal hints that the credit would be sufficient to cover the cost of plans that existed before the ACA. This is not reassuring: Pre-ACA, individual-market insurance plans were often thin, with limited benefits, extensive cost-sharing and other elements designed to deter anyone who might actually need care. Without strong coverage requirements, insurers would have limited incentive to offer plans that appealed to people who may be — or may become — sick. States would be hampered in responding to these issues: The proposal would allow insurers to sell plans across state lines, so the state with the skimpiest regulations would likely set the national standard.

People with money to put into health savings accounts (which the proposal would expand), could cover gaps in thin insurance coverage with tax-advantaged out-of-pocket spending — but this would not be a realistic option for low-income people. As for the old, the plan would scale up the tax credits with age, but it would also permit insurers to raise premiums with age much more than the ACA currently allows. The proposal gives no sense that the two will come close to matching up; as in other conservative plans, those in late middle age could face much higher costs. For the sick, meanwhile, Mr. Ryan’s plan would offer an ultimate backstop by funding high-risk insurance pools. But health-care experts caution that this approach would cost a massive amount of federal money — a fact that has caused Republican lawmakers to balk at policies like it when fleshed out.

GOP leadership in the House of Representatives are introducing a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. Here's what the proposal wants to change. GOP leadership in the House of Representatives are introducing a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. Here's what the proposal wants to change. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington PosAt least, Republicans might argue, Mr. Ryan’s proposal would eliminate the hated individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance. Yet it would replace it with an even more coercive system. Protections for those with preexisting conditions would only apply for those who kept continuous health-care coverage. Under the current system, if you fail to obtain health insurance in a year, you might have to pay a penalty of few hundred dollars. Under Mr. Ryan’s plan, the Urban Institute’s Linda Blumberg explains, “If you slip through the cracks, your penalty is you may never be able to get health-insurance coverage again.”

FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly refute President Trump's assertion that his predecessor,

President Obama, ordered a wiretap of Trump's phones prior to the November 2016 election, government sources familiar with Comey's thinking confirm to ABC News.

Comey was concerned the president's tweets -- which he believes are inaccurate -- created the impression that the FBI acted improperly, and he wanted to set the record straight, the sources said.

The FBI and Department of Justice declined to comment.

Trump, who offered no evidence for his claims, tweeted Saturday that Obama was a "bad (or sick) guy," and likened the alleged taps to Watergate.

In a statement Sunday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer called "reports concerning potentially politically-motivated investigations" prior to the election "very troubling.

FBI director James Comey asked Justice Department to refute Trump's wiretapping claims, sources  …

The president has requested that congressional intelligence committees probing Russian involvement in the 2016 election also examine "whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016," Spicer said.

"Neither the White House nor the president will comment further until such oversight is conducted," he added.

An Obama spokesperson yesterday denied the former president's involvement, saying: "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."