Chicago Tribune - 24.02.2020

12 Chicago Tribune|Section 1|Monday, February 24, 2020

WASHINGTON — Presi- dent Donald Trump said Sunday he’s ready to sign a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan if a tempo- rary truce holds in Ameri- ca’s longest war. “They want to stop. You know, they’ve been fighting a long time. They’re tough people. We’re tough people,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to India. “But after 19 years, that’s a long time.” The two sides earlier this

month announced the truce, which took effect last Friday and set the stage for a broader deal aimed at end- ing 18 years of war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S. troops home. If the truce proves a success, it will be followed by the signing of the peace accord on Saturday, wrap- ping up the United States’ longest-running conflict and fulfilling one of Trump’s chief campaign promises. “We think they want to make a deal. We want to

make a deal. I think it’s going to work out. We’ll see,” Trump said. For the Taliban, the suc- cessful completion of the truce and Afghanistan peace talks would give the militants a shot at interna- tional legitimacy, which they lacked at the time they ran the country and gave Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida associates safe haven. U.S. officials have noted the possibility that “spoil- ers” uninterested in peace talks could disrupt the

truce. Determining who is responsible for potential at- tacks during the seven days will therefore be critical. On Sunday, Trump ex- pressed cautious optimism. “You know we have a certain period of nonvio- lence. It’s been holding up, it’s a day and a half so we’ll see what happens. But people want to make a deal, and I think the Taliban wants to make a deal too, they’re tired of fighting.” There are more than 12,000 U.S. troops in Af- ghanistan.

President Trump, left, and Vice President Pence observe the transfer of remains of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

JIM WATSON/GETTY-AFP

Trump optimistic on US-Taliban peace deal

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Pres- ident Donald Trump said Sunday that he has never been briefed about Russian efforts to help Bernie Sand- ers win the Democratic presidential nomination, and he accused the Demo- cratic chairman of the House Intelligence Com- mittee of leaking election security information from a classified briefing. Sanders acknowledged on Friday that he was briefed last month by U.S. officials about Russian efforts to boost his chances to be the nominee against Trump in November. “I read where Russia is helping Bernie Sanders,” Trump told reporters before leaving on a trip to India. “Nobody said it to me.” He accused Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee chairman who played a lead role in Trump’s impeachment, of leaking information from a classified briefing. “Schiff and his group, they leaked it to the papers and as usual,” Trump said. “They ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information.” Schiff said Trump’s ac- cusation was false. “Nice deflection, Mr. President. But your false claims fool no one,” Schiff tweeted. “You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020.” A nearly two-year inves- tigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was a so- phisticated, Kremlin-led operation to sow division in the U.S. and upend the 2016 election by using cyberat- tacks and social media as weapons. Intelligence officials have warned Russia is doing the same in 2020. Trump, however, has re- mained skeptical about the Russian interference.

Asked why Trump re- cently called Russian interference in the election “an- other misinformation campaign” that is being “launched by Democrats in Congress,” Marc Short, chief of staff for Vice Presi- dent Mike Pence, defended the president. Short told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” that Trump does want to stop foreign interference in the elections. Short also said Trump wants to have a briefing at the White House in the next couple of weeks so “we can tell the American people how we’re making sure that our voting is safer.” Conflicting accounts emerged from the recent closed-door briefing that election security officials gave to the House committee about interference by Russia and other nations in the 2020 campaign. One intelligence official said lawmakers were not told that Russia was work- ing to directly aid Trump. But other people familiar with the meeting said they were told the Kremlin was looking to help Trump’s candidacy. The people spoke on condition of ano- nymity to discussed the classified briefing. It’s unclear whether the committee members were also briefed about Russian efforts to boost Sanders — a move that could be seen as beneficial to Trump’s re-

election bid. “I think what it could be is, you know, the Demo- crats are treating Bernie Sanders very unfairly and it sounds to me like a leak from Adam Schiff because they don’t want Bernie Sanders to represent them,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. Trump’s national security adviser said Russia probably would favor Sanders. “They’d probably like him to be president, under- standably, because he wants to spend money on social programs and probably would have to take it out of the military,” Robert O’Brien told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” O’Brien said he had not seen any intelligence or analyses indicating that Russia was aiding Trump and neither had top leaders in the intelligence agencies. “The national security adviser gets pretty good access to our intelligence,” O’Brien told ABC’s “This Week.” “All I know is that the Republicans on the side of the House hearing were unhappy with the hearing and said that there was no intelligence to back up what was being said,” O’Brien said. “But here’s the deal: I don’t even know if what’s been reported as being said (by the briefers) is true. You know those are leaks coming out of that hearing.”

President says he wasn’t told

Russia was helping Sanders

By Deb Riechmann Associated Press

President Trump gestures toward the press prior to leaving on Sunday for a two-day trip to India.

SAUL LOEB/GETTY-AFP

Latino voters. The latter was a new factor in Nevada after two heavily white opening states, Iowa and New Hampshire, and par- ticularly important as the race expands to big and diverse states on Super Tuesday with large Latino populations, none more significant than California and Texas. Sanders has now won the most votes in each of the first three states. (Buttigieg appears to have edged him in delegates in the still-disputed Iowa results) and has more mo- mentum than all his rivals and more money than ev- eryone besides the two self-funding billionaires, Tom Steyer and Bloomberg. It was no accident that Sanders spent much of the day before the Nevada caucuses in California and had two rallies in Texas on Saturday: The campaign is looking ahead to Super Tuesday, March 3, as the day he breaks away from the rest of the Democratic field.

The field isn’t

shrinking Not long after the first results began rolling in, a super PAC supporting Buttigieg announced it was

buying TV ads in Super Tuesday states. Biden’s campaign manager de- clared that “the Biden comeback” had just begun. Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropped from her New Hampshire showing yet claimed to have “exceeded expectations.” And War- ren’s campaign manager said her performance at last week’s debate would prove more important than the actual election. Translation: No one is about to quit this race.

Biden’s best

finish is second The Biden case for the nomination has been straightforward: He’s the guy to beat President Don- ald Trump. Yet for the third time in three races, Biden did not win. He did im- prove from his bad fourth- place finish in Iowa and his disastrous fifth place in New Hampshire (as of late Saturday both Buttigieg and Biden were claiming second as Nevada sloooowly processed results). But throughout Febru- ary, Biden had said that his fortunes would be reversed now that more diverse states were voting. Except it was Sanders who soundly defeated Biden among Latino voters, ac- cording to entrance polls, while Biden’s lead among African Americans — his strongest base — continued

to shrink to 12 percentage points. “Y’all did it for me. Y’all did it,” Biden nonetheless told his supporters in Las Vegas.

Buttigieg wants

to be anti-Bernie Of all the victory and concession speeches on Saturday, Buttigieg’s was the most revealing. He used the big platform not just to make the case for himself but to slash at Sanders, whom he accused of push- ing an “inflexible, ideolog- ical revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans.” Going forward, the prob- lem is that Buttigieg’s early successes in Iowa, New Hampshire and, to a lesser extent, Nevada, have not yet lifted him nationally.

Warren doesn’t

get Nevada bump If Wednesday’s debate performance was going to turn Warren’s political fortunes, it did not do so fast enough for the Nevada caucuses. The results delivered an- other round of frustration for a candidate who fell below expectations in both Iowa and New Hampshire. “We believe the Nevada debate will have more im- pact on the structure of the race,” campaign manager Roger Lau wrote on Twit- ter.

Joe Biden greets supporters during a presidential primary campaign event at a union local on Saturday, the day of Nevada caucus voting in Las Vegas.

ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nevada

Continued fromPage 1

WASHINGTON — It was the Trumpiest of offers. A rally at one of the world’s largest stadiums. A crowd of millions cheering him on. A love fest during an election year. President Donald Trump’s packed two-day visit to India promises the kind of welcome that has eluded him on many foreign trips, some of which have featured massive pro- tests and icy handshakes from world leaders. He is expected to receive a warm embrace from the ideolog- ically aligned and hug-lov- ing Prime Minister Naren- dra Modi, complete with a massive rally soon after his arrival Monday and then a sunset visit to the Taj Ma- hal. After hosting Modi at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston last year that drew 50,000 people, Modi will return the favor with a “Namaste Trump” rally (it translates to, “Greetings, Trump”) at the world’s largest cricket stadium in the western Indian city of Ah- medabad. Tens of thousands are expected to line the streets.

Modi “told me we’ll have 7 million people between the airport and the event,” Trump said to reporters Tuesday, then raised the anticipated number to 10 million when he mentioned the trip during a Thursday night rally. Indian author- ities expect closer to 100,000. “I’ll never be satisfied with a crowd if we have 10 million people in India,” Trump said. And as he left the White House on Sun- day, the upcoming spectacle was on the president’s mind again: “I hear it’s going to be a big event. Some people say the biggest event they’ve ever had in India. That’s what the prime minister told me — this will be the biggest event they’ve ever had.” Trump’s motorcade will travel amid cheers from carefully picked and screened Modi loyalists and workers from his Bharatiya Janata Party. They will stand for hours alongside the neatly manicured 14- mile stretch of road to accord Trump a grand welcome. Trump generally dislikes foreign travel and prefers being home in his White House bed; in fact, he noted to reporters upon his depar- ture from the White House that it was a long trip to India and that he was only going to be there one night. But he has a particular

affinity for India. He owned a hotel and casino in At- lantic City, New Jersey, named the Trump Taj Ma- hal, and he owns multiple properties in India. “There’s a lot of color. This is a loud and boister- ous country, and that ex- actly in some ways really fits with the Trump style,” said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow and director of The India Project at the Brook- ings Institution. She said Trump is likely to get a king’s welcome from a

country well-rehearsed in the art of adulation. A half- million people gathered to hear President Dwight D. Eisenhower speak in 1959; former President Jimmy Carter had a village named after him — Carterpuri. India has spent weeks making preparations for the visit. At a cost of almost $ million, the government is blanketing the city with ads of Trump and Modi and hastily erected a 1,640-foot brick wall beside the road Trump will take to the

stadium, which officials are rushing to finish in time for Trump’s arrival. Critics say the wall was built to block the view of a slum inhabited by more than 2,000 people. Stray dogs have been caught and exotic trees planted. Presidents have often used trips overseas to bol- ster their electoral prospec- ts. Images of American presidents being feted on the world stage stand in contrast to those of their rivals in the opposing party

slogging through diners in early-voting states and clashing in debate. This trip, in particular, reflects a Trump campaign strategy to showcase him looking presidential during short, carefully managed trips that provide counter- programming to the Demo- crats’ primary contest and produce the kinds of visuals his campaign can use in future ads. His aides also believe the visit could help the president woo tens of thousands of Indian Ameri- can voters before the No- vember election. Beyond the optics, there are serious issues to address as India faces a slumping economy and ongoing pro- tests over a citizenship law that excludes Muslims. Trade tensions between the two countries have es- calated since the Trump administration imposed tariffs on steel and alumi- num from India. India re- sponded with higher penal- ties on agricultural goods and restrictions on U.S. medical devices. The U.S. retaliated by removing In- dia from a decades-old preferential trade program. Though trade will be on the agenda, Trump and administration officials are downplaying expectations. “Well, we can have a trade deal with India, but I’m really saving the big deal for later on,” the president said.

Trump eager to receive warm welcome from India

Like-minded Modi offers orchestrated rally and adulation

By Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire Associated Press

Drivers on Sunday ride on a decorated bridge in Ahmedabad, India, that President Trump is expected to cross during his visit this week.

AIJAZ RAHI/AP

Chicago Tribune - 24.02.2020

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