Caitlyn Jenner, running for governor in Californias expected recall election, once again took to a national platform to promote her campaign, when she appeared on ABCs The View.
One of the questions she faced came from Joy Behar, who asked her about the unfounded view of a significant share of Republicans that Donald Trump actually won the election, not Joe Biden.
Are you one of those people, one of those Republicans? Behar asked.
Jenner responded, I am not going to get into that. That election is over with. I think that Donald Trump did do some good things. What I liked about Donald Trump was that he was a disrupter.
Then Behar interrupted, But did he win? Did he win the election?
Jenner then continued, I want to go in and be a thoughtful disrupter in Sacramento. We need to change the system, and I want to change the system for the positive.
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Then Whoopi Goldberg ended the segment because time ran out.
During the segment, Jenner criticized Gov. Gavin Newsoms handling of the coronavirus pandemic, among other issues, but Behars question was triggered by polls showing a significant share of Republicans back Trumps claim that the election was stolen from him, even though courts have rejected dozens of election challenges.
Jenner also sidestepped a question about transgender athletes in student sports. Previously, she has said she opposed transgender girls playing on girls teams. When asked on The View, she called it a very small issue in the state of California.
We have so many bigger issues in this state like immigration, she said.
She said that she would be tough on immigrants and finish the border wall and do the best job that we can do in protecting our eastern front. It was unclear what Jenner was referring to, as Californias eastern border is shared with Nevada and Arizona.
Immigration in this state has been such a burden on taxpayers, on homes and businesses, she said.
Jenners campaign was launched in April, and she reportedly got help and advice from Brad Parscale, Trumps former campaign manager. Sunny Hostin asked Jenner about working with Parscale and another figure, GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren. ProPublica reported on Wrens role in helping to plan to Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse in Washington that preceded the siege on the Capitol.
I wanted to put the best group of people, as you would call it, insiders, for a political campaign, Jenner said. I was able to hire some of the best people out there to join campaign. And it is more than just Brad or Caroline. There is a whole host of people that have worked with me over the past few months. I feel like I have a good team around me that can lead me to victory.
Editors note (June 14th 2021): This article has been updated to reflect the start of the NATO summit
OVER THE last four years we had some challenges in the transatlantic relationship, says Jens Stoltenberg, NATOs secretary-general, drily alluding to the diplomatic pandemonium of the Trump years. Now, he says, We have a unique opportunity to open a new chapter in the relationship between North America and Europe. But will NATOs leaders take it?
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On June 14th the leaders of all 30 NATO members convened for a pivotal summit in Brussels, sandwiched between the G7 summit in Britain and an EU-US summit, to discuss the future of the alliance. The mood was expected to be lighter than at past gatherings, when Donald Trump physically jostled one prime minister, threatened to withdraw from the alliance and stormed out early after being mocked by fellow leaders. Yet the challenges facing NATO have not dissipated with the arrival of Joe Biden.
In recent months Russia has massed troops around Ukraine, Belarus has forced down a European airliner to seize a dissident and America has announced the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistana process more than half-completeforcing NATO to follow suit. Yet the point of the summit is to reorient the alliance in more fundamental ways.
NATOs strategic concept, a document spelling out its raison dtre, was last updated over a decade ago, at a time when Russia was assumed to be a potential partner and China an irrelevance. In Brussels leaders will enjoin Mr Stoltenberg to produce a new version, a process that may take a year or so. It will reflect a broadening of NATOs aperture, embracing new challenges such as climate change, technological threats and the rise of China.
Things are already changing. Mr Stoltenberg points to rising European defence spending (see chart) and more exercises. The alliance is also busily rethinking the basics of military power. It is writing a new strategy for artificial intelligence and has finalised its first new cyber-defence policy in seven years. At the summit, leaders will establish a transatlantic technology accelerator to connect suppliers of cutting-edge military technology to investors.
One of NATOs motivations for this technological rejuvenation, says Mr Stoltenberg, is a fear that Chinaa country that doesnt share our valuesis pulling ahead in key areas like artificial intelligence. Its not obvious that we will maintain the technological edgethat was never the case with the Soviet Union during the cold war, he adds. The discussion of China is a pivotal moment, says Tim Sayle, author of Enduring Alliance, a history of NATO, marking a fundamental break with what the alliance has done in its first 70 years.
Yet the biggest question of all is whether the transatlantic rift under Mr Trump was a passing ruction or something more lasting. Mr Biden has made the right noises, speaking warmly of NATO and reversing Mr Trumps troop cuts in Germany. His eight-day trip to Europe will culminate in a summit with Vladimir Putin, Russias president, in Geneva on June 16th. In theory that allows Mr Biden to form a common front with allies before facing Mr Putin, who on June 9th upped the ante by banning groups linked to his main political rival, the jailed Alexei Navalny.
Mr Biden cannot, however, placate all his friends at once. Take the example of Nord Stream 2 (NS2), a nearly finished gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that will bypass Ukraine and increase European dependence on Mr Putin. The Biden administration had opposed the project, but on May 19th said it would nonetheless waive sanctions. That pleased the German government, but alarmed those who favour a tougher approach to Russia. The mood across Central Europe is souring after the NS2 decision, notes Michal Baranowski, an expert at the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund, an American think-tank. The feeling is one of betrayal.
Then there is the fact that the landscape of European defence has shifted irrevocably in recent years. The shock of Mr Trumps election and the departure of Britain from the EU catalysed a surge of activity by the bloc, from joint defence projects to a common fund for the defence industry.
Many European officials, mindful of the radical turn in Americas Republican Party and the prospect of populist successors to Mr Biden, are eager that such schemes should preserve the momentum they acquired in the Trump years. Many are complementary to NATO, such as an EU effort to make it easier for military forces to move across the continent. In practice, an element of competition is inevitable. In response to Mr Stoltenbergs push for an increase in the pool of common funding for NATOunchanged since 2014Florence Parly, Frances defence minister, shot back: All this money is money that wont go towards increasing national budgets and a European defence effort.
What is more, European officials know that all American presidents, Mr Biden included, have lots to worry about. Americas military presence in Europe remains substantial, but its newest weapons are now typically sent to the Pacific first. So are officials. The first overseas trips of Anthony Blinken, Americas secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, its defence secretary, were to Asia. There is considerable scepticism in Washington that a divided, self-interested Europe will ever manage much support for US efforts against China, argues Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations, another think-tank.
Even so, the geopolitics of Europe and Asia are unavoidably entwined, not least because Americas national defence strategy in 2018 explicitly discarded the requirement for the country to be able to fight two wars at the same time. We urgently need European NATO to be able to handle more of the conventional deterrence burden in Europe, says Wess Mitchell, a former American official who co-chaired a panel of experts for Mr Stoltenberg last year, so that in the event of a major crisis the United States can focus on China without calling into question the stability of the European theatre. Having seen off Mr Trump, NATO has no time to rest on its laurels.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Summit season"
Democrats are weighing tucking immigration reform into a large infrastructure package using reconciliation this summer, a step that could significantly expand the scope of a Democratic-only package.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said that Democrats were interested in fully financing Biden's $4 trillion infrastructure plans instead of deficit-spending, meaning the cost of the plan is added onto the national debt.
"Anytime there's been a CBO examination on immigration reform, it produces a significant increase in the GDP without really costing much money," he told Insider, referring to budgetary analyses produced by the Congressional Budget Office.
He went on: "So that may not be a traditional pay-for but if we feel like there's something we could do within a reconciliation vehicle that could produce significant economic growth.. that could be a very legitimate way to look at trying to find a balanced package."
Reconciliation is a legislative tactic that requires only a simple majority for bills related to government spending. It's the same method Democrats used to muscle through the $1.9 trillion stimulus law in March.
Earlier this year, House Democrats passed two measures to set up a legal path to citizenship for farm workers and young immigrants brought to the US as children illegally. Neither has cleared the Democratic-controlled Senate, as it doesn't have the 10 Republican votes needed to cross the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Progressive Democrats in the House, along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, back a party-line approach to immigration reform, Roll Call reported.
Kaine also told reporters that "big picture" immigration ideas were discussed among the Senate Democrats attending a major infrastructure strategy meeting late on Wednesday.
Experts say some immigration provisions could run into trouble with reconciliation's main arbiter because not all would be directly related to the federal budget a key rule of the process.
"Immigration reform, like the 2013 Gang of Eight bill for example, definitely has a CBO score," Zach Moller, a budget expert at the liberal-leaning organization Third Way, told Insider. "But not all provisions will have a budget score and those that have savings or costs may run into issues if the parliamentarian rules the effects are 'merely incidental' to the underlying policy."
Moller pointed to the 2013 immigration reform plan which CBO projected would have saved $175 billion over a decade. Those negotiations ultimately collapsed due to conservative attacks.
For now, Democrats are taking a two-pronged approach to the infrastructure discussions. They are still negotiating with Republicans on a skinny bill while setting the stage to approve a massive package without GOP support in several months.
Sen. Susan Collins reelection victory over Sara Gideon came as a surprise to national pundits. But it wasnt shocking to Mainers.
Many counties that overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, also comfortably backed the Republican Collins. Voters here wanted someone with Maine roots and centrist credentials not a progressive from away like Gideon.
Now shell have the opportunity to burnish those centrist credentials by voting against one of Bidens more progressive agenda items. He recently sent a proposal to Congress thatd grant amnesty and the right to work for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country.
A no vote on amnesty will win her plaudits from voters across Maines political spectrum. Rejecting a move that would decrease wages for the working class dovetails with what Mainers like best about Collins shes a native daughter who can bring good jobs and economic opportunity to her home state.
How Collins will vote is unclear. In 2007, she voted against a similar bill. In 2013, she voted in favor of another one. In 2018, she co-sponsored a bill to give permanent amnesty to Dreamers children of undocumented immigrants. Its likely shes voted for reform only when she felt the bill in question struck a good balance between compassion for undocumented immigrants and protections for American workers.
Bidens bill doesnt strike that balance. It fails to include adequate border security measures or other safeguards to protect Americans. While the bill does allocate funding for supplemental technology to monitor the border, this virtual fence system of cameras and sensors has never been effective at keeping people from entering the country without permission.<
Thats a problem, because undocumented immigrants drive down wages for the working class. They generally do not have college degrees, so they compete directly with citizens without higher education.
Amnesty would flood the market with legal competition for a relatively fixed number of working-class jobs. Corporations could then get away with paying everyone less. According to Harvard economist George Borjas, illegal immigrants already reduce the wages of native-born workers anywhere between $99 billion and $118 billion a year.
Working-class folks power the Maine economy. Around seven in 10 Mainers dont have a college degree. Truck drivers and cashiers dominate the labor force. The state also hosts specialized sectors like shipbuilding, logging and commercial fishing that require a large working-class labor force.
Many of these people are struggling right now. Maines median household income of $59,000 is nearly $7,000 below the national average.By voting against amnesty, Collins can protect her constituents from further wage reductions.
Regardless of party, working-class folks appreciate that Collins has historically had their backs economically its a big reason she beat Gideon. She reminded them that Gideon didnt do anything to alleviate the pain of the coronavirus-fueled recession while Collins passed federal paycheck protection. So while Donald Trump won the vote of folks with some college or less by 8 points, Collins won it by 22, according to exit polls.
Maine voters also value that Collins, like them, has lived here her whole life. She campaigned heavily on her Maine roots. And its true not many Americans move here from out of state. In 2012, two-thirds of the state population was born in Maine.
Voting for amnesty would fly in the face of Collins most important credentials. While undocumented immigrants undoubtedly work hard and by and large come to this country with good intentions, amnesty would invite thousands of immigrants from away to Maine at the expense of families who have made ends meet in this state for generations.
For a senator who consistently champions her constituents, voting against amnesty should be a no-brainer. Theres nothing more centrist than promoting good jobs and wages for working-class folks of all parties whether theyre shipbuilders and union members from the midcoast or North Woods entrepreneurs.
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When many people think about immigration, an image of Ellis Island or maybe even the U.S.-Mexico border might pop into their minds. For me, it stems back to the day that nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Of those who lived through it, we can remember quite vividly where we were on that morning. I was in an office on Dupont Circle in our nations capital reviewing immigration cases during an attorneys meeting before the news hit that New York City and Washington D.C. had been attacked. I watched with rest of America the tumbling of the Twin Towers and worried foremost about getting home in the short term.
In the long-term, these events propelled me out of private practice and into non-profit immigration policy work. Little did I know that the demolishment of the old immigration agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the first of several bipartisan efforts around comprehensive immigration reform, triggered by a handshake between the U.S. and Mexican Presidents days before September 11, coupled with the backlash against communities of color, particularly Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities, would be the centerpiece of my work as a legislative lawyer and organizer.
Over time, I have pored through hundreds of pages of bipartisan bills with a passion for the immigration code and found a love for law teaching. This led me to relocate with my family to central Pennsylvania where I launched an immigrants rights clinic at Penn State University which I continue to direct today.
My experiences overall have taught me that the challenge to enact true immigration reform has rested more on political will than on a sound policy. Thankfully, our nation is on the verge of making real progress on immigration reform.
Bipartisan members in both the House and Senate have come together to move on bills such as the Dream Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act that would establish an earned pathway to citizenship for individuals who came to the United States as children, otherwise known as Dreamers, and certain undocumented agriculture essential workers, some of which have lived in the United States for more than a decade.
I have witnessed first-hand the tremendous contributions made by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients, young immigrants putting themselves through school, providing for their families, and contributing to our economy and society. Ending DACA, and failing to provide permanent protections for these Dreamers, would cost Pennsylvania more than $323 million in annual GDP loss.
I have also been the beneficiary of the physically challenging job agricultural workers in central Pennsylvania perform to ensure that fruit, vegetables, and milk are on our tables, despite the vulnerability many face as undocumented workers during a global pandemic. With immigrants accounting for 22% of our states crop production workforce, we simply cannot afford to lose them because of political gridlock.
Our outdated immigration system has also impacted so called legal immigration, including my family, and employment-based systems have not been updated in decades. My own mother entered the United States as the spouse of a green card holder. Today, she would be banned or face delays if she sought to enter this way. I share with my students the analogy of a college or university where annual slots available remains the same for decades without regard to demand, need, or talent. Such is the reality of our immigration system.
I have consulted or represented individuals and families who are survivors of an immigration system that is sorely in need of an update to align with American values and the 21st century. It is clear that immigration reform is long overdue, signaled by the more than three decades since Congress has passed meaningful reform or change to our immigration laws and the inevitable swelling of individuals inside the United States who are vulnerable and living in the shadows, all while contributing to our communities and economies in profound ways. Today, Pennsylvanias immigrants pay $9.9 billion in taxes annually and add $24.9 billion to the state economy every year. Imagine what we could do if we empower them to fully participate in society.
Congress should listen to the overwhelming majority of voters across all backgrounds who support immigration policies that keep families safe and together while growing our economy. Its time we come together to support the undocumented community that has dedicated themselves to American values of hard work and perseverance, especially in the face of uncertainty.
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is a resident of State College, PA. This op-ed is written in her individual capacity and does not reflect the views of Pennsylvania State University. For informational purposes only, Wadhia is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar at Penn State Law in University Park.