The Washington Post - 23.08.2019

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Cooler, showers 77/64 • Tomorrow: Mostly sunny 82/65 B8 Democracy Dies in Darkness FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 , 2019. $

2020 fight in the states Democrats aim to

win more secretary of state posts, saying the

GOP uses the office to suppress votes. A

Debt relief Patients undergoing cancer

treatment can request to have their student

loan payments suspended. A

WEEKEND

Magic on the Mall

You know the museums,

galleries and wide-open

expanses. But the lush,

romantic gardens are an

often hidden treasure.

STYLE

Huckster hell

Showtime has a riveting,

delectably weird comedic

drama in “On Becoming

a God in Central Florida,”

Hank Stuever writes. C

In the News

THE NATION

Attorneys for newborns

exposed to opioids in the

womb urged special le-

gal treatment for the in-

fants and their guard-

ians. A

A Yale report revealed

that administrators’ mis-

steps allowed a psychia-

try professor to prey

upon students for dec-

ades after the school first

learned of the sexual as-

sault allegations. A

House Democrats are

increasingly unlikely to

gain access to President

Trump’s tax returns be-

fore the 2020 election,

lawmakers and experts

said. A

THE WORLD

The abduction of chil-

dren by their parents has

become a diplomatic

embarrassment for Ja-

pan ahead of the Group

of Seven summit. A

Two American service

members were killed in

Afghanistan, U.S. offi-

cials said, as negotia-

tions with the Taliban

continued. A

South Korea will no

longer share military in-

telligence with Japan,

escalating tensions be-

tween the two U.S. allies.

A

Syria’s military seized

a strategic town from

rebels as President

Bashar al-Assad nears

his goal of wiping out the

insurgency. A

THE ECONOMY

A recession could wid-

en the gulf between the

retail sector’s winner and

losers, analysts said. A

Dick’s Sporting Goods,

which revamped its gun

purchase policies after

the mass shooting at a

Parkland, Fla., school,

reported an increase in

store sales. A

THE REGION

A private lawyer for

President Trump is an

Arlington-based advo-

cate whose work could

set precedents for the

presidency and Con-

gress. B

A lance corporal

charged in the fatal

shooting of a fellow Ma-

rine failed to properly

unload his pistol before

the incident, a prosecu-

tor said. B

The D.C. area has the

third-worst traffic in the

nation — and it’s become

a lot worse, a new study

found. B

Domestic workers are

mobilizing to be includ-

ed in the District’s Hu-

man Rights Act so they

can get fundamental

protections. B

STYLE

Sarah Sanders, the for-

mer White House press

secretary, was hired by

Fox News as a contribu-

tor. C

Inside

RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUSINESS NEWS ....................... A

COMICS ....................................... C

OPINION PAGES.........................A

LOTTERIES...................................B

OBITUARIES ................................ B

TELEVISION ................................. C

WORLD NEWS............................A

CONTENT © 2019

The Washington Post / Year 142, No. 261

Sanders rolls out climate plan

Proposal would drastically expand

government role in economy. A

‘Very, very disloyal’

Frustrated with U.S. Jews, Trump

drags Israel into culture war. A

BY DAMIAN PALETTA,

ROBERT COSTA,

JOSH DAWSEY

AND PHILIP RUCKER

Top White House advisers noti-

fied President Trump earlier this

month that some internal fore-

casts showed that the economy

could slow markedly over the next

year, stopping short of a recession

but complicating his path to re-

election in 2020.

The private forecast, one of sev-

eral delivered to Trump and de-

scribed by three people familiar

with the briefing, contrasts sharp-

ly with the triumphant rhetoric the

president and his surrogates have

repeatedly used to describe the

economy.

Even as his aides warn of a busi-

ness climate at risk of faltering, the

president has been portraying the

economy to the public as “phe-

nomenal” and “incredible.” He has

told aides that he thinks he can

convince Americans that the econ-

omy is vibrant and unrattled

through a public messaging cam-

paign. But the internal and exter-

nal warnings that the economy

could slip have contributed to a

muddled and often contradictory

message.

Administration officials have

SEE ECONOMY ON A

Shadow

falls over

Trump’s

economy

President’s sudden shifts,

aides’ infighting, message

chaos rattle markets, GOP

BY MATT VISER

prole, iowa — Joe Biden, his
wife and his entire campaign ap-
paratus have put an electability
argument front and center this
week in an attempt to dispel any
lingering concerns among Demo-
crats about his ideology, his age or
his verbal mistakes.
While acknowledging that
many in the party don’t agree
with him — and that he may not
excite them — they are attempt-
ing to make the case that he is the
Democrat best positioned to de-
feat President Trump.
“I think that for the first time in
my career, the person viewed as
who is best capable of defeating
this president rises above the test
of, ‘I have to agree with the person
100 percent,’ ” Biden said Wed-
nesday, a view multiple polls have
confirmed.
Electability is the point of his
first campaign ad, now airing
across Iowa. It includes a graphic
showing four polls in which
Biden handily defeated Trump.
“We have to beat Donald
Trump,” a gravelly voiced narra-
tor says. “And all the polls agree
Joe Biden is the strongest Demo-
crat to do the job.”
It also was the case put forth
this week by Biden’s chief cam-
paign surrogate, Jill Biden.
SEE BIDEN ON A

Biden puts

electability

first, like

him or not

Campaign’s argument:

Even with flaws, he’s the

best bet to beat Trump

BY KAREN DEYOUNG

AND JOSH DAWSEY

Like an annual holiday gather-

ing where the main goal is to get

through the day without a family

explosion, one of France’s main

objectives as host of this week-

end’s Group of Seven summit is to

minimize the chances that Presi-

dent Trump will blow it up.

Subjects on which to tread

lightly include some of the biggest

problems the world’s major econ-

omies are facing — including

trade, the system of international

rules that has ordered the demo-

cratic world for decades and cli-

mate change, according to U.S.

and other G-7 officials.

Already, Trump has shaken up

the schedule, calling at the last

minute for a special meeting Sun-

day morning to discuss the global

economy. Senior administration

officials said he will contrast U.S.

growth with Europe’s economic

doldrums and press his pro-jobs

and “fair” trade messages.

SEE TRUMP ON A

G-7 braces

for its next

encounter

with Trump

BY DOUGLAS MACMILLAN

AND ELIZABETH DWOSKIN

Alex Karp faced a dilemma last
year when employees of the data-
mining company Palantir con-
fronted the chief executive with
their concerns over a partnership
with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, according to three
people familiar with the incident.
Palantir provided digital pro-
filing tools to the federal agency
as it carried out President
Trump’s increasingly controver-
sial policies for apprehending
and deporting undocumented
immigrants, troubling more than
200 employees who signed a let-
ter to Karp, the people said.
Ending the contracts with ICE
would risk a backlash in Wash-
ington, where Palantir was quick-
ly becoming a go-to provider of
data-mining services to a wide
range of federal agencies. Data
mining is a process of compiling
multitudes of information from
disparate sources to show pat-
terns and relationships. Google’s
decision, earlier the same year, to
end a contract with the Pentagon
over pressure from its employees
SEE PALANTIR ON A

Data-mining

firm’s ties to

ICE trouble

employees

industry group to a Trump White

House adviser, Agriculture Sec-

retary Sonny Perdue and senior

USDA officials intervened, ac-

cording to five former employ-

ees. The inspectors and veteri-

narians were blocked from tak-

ing the remaining raccoons and

ordered to return those they had

seized.

In the months that followed,

the Iowa incident was described

by USDA officials at internal

meetings as an example of the

new philosophy of animal wel-

fare protection under the Trump

administration and Perdue.

Leaders of the agency’s Animal

Care division told inspectors to

treat those regulated by the

agency — breeders, zoos, circus-

es, horse shows and research labs

— more as partners than as

SEE USDA ON A

BY KARIN BRULLIARD

AND WILLIAM WAN

For two days running in the

summer of 2017, the temperature

inside a metal barn in Iowa

hovered above 96 degrees. Near-

ly 300 raccoons, bred and sold as

pets and for research, simmered

in stacked cages. Several lay with

legs splayed, panting and drool-

ing, a U.S. Department of Agri-

culture inspector wrote.

On the third day, the ther-

mometer hit 100, and 26 rac-

coons were “in severe heat dis-

tress” and “suffering,” the inspec-

tor reported. Then a USDA team

of veterinarians and specialists

took a rare step: They confiscat-

ed 10 of the animals and made

plans to come back for the oth-

ers.

But after an appeal from an

On animal safety, USDA takes industry-friendly approach

MIKE CLARK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Theodore, a Tennessee walking horse that once performed in

shows, lives in a facility for horses that have suffered abuse.

The USDA in 2016 made it harder for its own inspectors to

disqualify horses from competitions when they suspect abuse.

BY TERRENCE MCCOY

rio de janeiro — The signs of

crisis are everywhere.

Smoke blankets Sao Paulo, the

Western Hemisphere’s biggest

city, turning day to night. The viral

campaign #PrayForTheAmazon

washes across social media. A gov-

ernment research agency warns

that the rate of fires is skyrocket-

ing.

But Brazilian President Jair

Bolsonaro, the man most able to

stanch the crisis unfolding in the

Amazon, isn’t just dismissing the

problem. He’s suggesting it’s being

staged to make him look bad.

Asked about the surging fires in

the world’s most precious forest —

the area scorched has more than

doubled in the past two years — he

accused his critics of setting them,

to “call attention” against his gov-

ernment.

“The fire was started, it seemed,

in strategic locations,” he told re-

porters this week. “There are im-

ages of the entire Amazon. How

can that be? Everything indicates

that people went there to film and

then to set fires. That is my feel-

ing.”

That there’s disagreement over

even the most basic of facts —

what’s causing the infernos and

how they can be stopped — has

further complicated a response to

the environmental crisis unfold-

SEE BRAZIL ON A

As Amazon burns, Bolsonaro takes swipes

Brazil’s right-wing president dismisses the crisis,

accuses foes of setting fires to make him look bad

UESLEI MARCELINO/REUTERS

A deforested plot of the Brazilian Amazon. Deforestation is a key factor in the blazes sweeping the region, which since January has

suffered 75,336 fires, according to the Brazilian agency that monitors the Amazon, an 85 percent jump from the same point last year.

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Aug. 21

Source: NASA Terra/MODIS

TIM MEKO/THE WASHINGTON POST

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