| | | | Spicer: Trump is 'evaluating the situation' with Flynn | | President Donald Trump is "evaluating the situation" around embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is in hot water after possibly misleading Vice President Mike Pence by claiming he had not discussed sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office, CNN's Jim Acosta, Sara Murray and Dan Merica report.
What White House press secretary Sean Spicer said today: "The President is evaluating the situation. He's speaking to the vice president relative to the conversation the vice president had with Gen. Flynn, and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is: our national security."
That statement came as a surprise, because just a little earlier, Kellyanne Conway had taken a very different tone. Read on... | | "Gen. Flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the President." -- Top White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on MSNBC, 64 minutes before Spicer's statement was released. What changed? "New information came to light in real time," a source told CNN's Gloria Borger. | | | | A normal handshake: We're guessing someone on President Donald Trump's staff must have talked to him about his handshakes -- considering last Friday, the President shared an awkward 19 second handshake with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. This time, however, Trump kept it short and sweet in the Oval Office with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. | | Did Trump just give ground on foreign policy again? | | CNN's Stephen Collinson emails: Donald Trump wants a wall between the United States and Mexico but he's building bridges with Canada.
The President appeared to water down another campaign vow when meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House. Trump once called NAFTA "disastrous," but now -- as far as Canada is concerned, he's just going to be "tweaking" the vast trade deal, he said at a joint news conference today. Mexico is not getting a pass, though -- Trump said that US trading relations with the third NAFTA partner were "extremely unfair."
It was the third time in five days that Trump has appeared to give ground on a foreign policy issue without any obvious payback. On Thursday, he reaffirmed the "One China" policy despite earlier warning Beijing the US stance toward Taiwan could be on the table. Then, he spent two days wooing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan at the White House, on Air Force One and on the golf course in Florida, with his demands for Tokyo to pay more for US protection just a memory.
Just another sign that in foreign policy at least, even Trump has come to see the price for breaking with conventional US behavior is just too great.
What the press corps was talking about: For the second time in a joint news conference with a world leader, Trump only called on conservative outlets that asked softball questions. Sinclair Broadcast Group and the Daily Caller got the questions today -- and Mike Flynn did not come up. CNN's Dylan Byers has more. | | Republican lawmakers grow wary of 'town hall' events | | CNN's MJ Lee points out that congressional Republicans are looking to avoid the raucous crowds of liberals and Obamacare supporters who have turned up at town halls across the nation. Two examples she found:
-- Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York canceled an appearance at an event in April hosted by the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. His spokeswoman, Jennifer DiSiena, told CNN the event was "co-opted, renamed and rebranded by a group of liberal obstructionists."
-- Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is scheduled to appear at an event labeled a "town hall" at the Fairview City Hall on February 21. But local activists noticed that details of the event recently disappeared from the Fairview website -- a change that Fairview Mayor Patti Carroll confirmed to CNN in an email Monday morning. Carroll said the event will still take place but that she requested the announcement be removed from the Fairview website because she "felt the wording placed too much emphasis on town hall."
The right fights back: Per The Hill's Scott Wong: "FreedomWorks, the tea party-aligned outside group, beginning next month will be organizing rallies and urging its nearly 6 million activists to turn out at town hall events to ensure members of Congress are also getting an earful from Obamacare detractors. 'There will be more grassroots hand-to-hand combat than we've seen in Washington for a long time,' FreedomWorks President and CEO Adam Brandon said." | | | What would President Donald Trump say on Valentine's Day? Get some presidential suggestions from CNN's Presidential Valentine's Card Generator by Brenna Williams, AJ Willingham and Max Pepper. | | 3 things you might have missed today | | Trump didn't tweet this morning: For the first time since taking office, President Donald Trump today didn't tweet before 8:15 a.m. ET on a weekday. To be honest, reporters got used to expecting the morning tweets. More from CNN's Dan Merica.
Expanding Guantanamo Bay: Republican senators, led by Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, are calling on Trump to expand the use of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The group is also urging the new administration to suspend the review board set up by the Obama administration to approve prisoner transfers out of the facility. More from CNN's Phil Mattingly and Kevin Liptak. ICE raids net nearly 700 arrests: A series of immigration enforcement operations around the country netted more than 680 arrests, mostly criminals, the Department of Homeland Security said today. More from CNN's Tal Kopan. | | | President Donald Trump is returning to Mar-a-Lago, or the "winter White House," for the third straight weekend. ... Ashley Biden, daughter of former Vice President Joe Biden, launched a clothing brand that's made in the USA. ... Trump's National Security Council staff is being told to keep papers to a single page, with lots of graphics and maps. | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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