The New York Times - USA (2020-08-07)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALFRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020 N A

WASHINGTON — A bill that

Democratic and Republican sena-

tors introduced on Thursday

would ban the sale of advanced

armed drones to any nation that is

not a close ally of the United

States, according to lawmakers

and congressional aides.

The proposed legislation is

aimed at halting an effort by the

Trump administration to bypass

an arms control pact that the

United States helped establish in

1987. The agreement, known as
      the Missile Technology Control
      Regime, is not legally binding, but
      its 35 signatories have generally
      abided by it.
      The Trump administration an-
      nounced in 2018 that it was ex-
      panding drone sales, but officials
      then debated for two years on how
      to circumvent the arms control
      pact. American officials failed to
      persuade counterparts from other
      member nations to agree to
      change the language in the pact
      that bans the sale of large armed
      drones.
      But last month, President
      Trump and the State Department
      announced they would simply ig-
      nore the restrictions set by the
      agreement and begin distributing
      licenses.
      The move set off a wave of criti-
      cism from many Democratic and
      some Republican lawmakers, who
      said the decision undermined the
      pact. By ignoring a part of the
      agreement it finds inconvenient,
      they say, the Trump administra-
      tion is encouraging other nations

to do the same. And the sale of ad-

vanced armed drones could lead

to the proliferation of the technol-

ogy across the globe.

The lawmakers are especially

concerned about sales to Saudi

Arabia and the United Arab Emir-

ates, which have used American-

made weapons to carry out a dev-

astating war in Yemen that has

left thousands of civilians, many

of them children, dead.

“If we allow Trump to start sell-

ing drones, we set a dangerous

precedent that allows and encour-

ages other countries to sell missile

technology and advanced drones

to our adversaries,” Senator

Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat

of Connecticut and a sponsor of

the bill, said in a statement on

Wednesday. “In addition, the pres-

ident’s action will only further en-

able the Saudis to continue killing

more innocent civilians in Yemen

by supplying them with advanced

U.S.-made drones.”

Another sponsor of the bill, Sen-

ator Mike Lee, Republican of

Utah, generally advocates lim-

iting the powers of the federal gov-

ernment and restraining Ameri-

can involvement in wars.

Under the bill, exceptions to the

sales ban would include members

of the North Atlantic Treaty Orga-

nization, as well as Australia, New

Zealand, South Korea, Japan and

Israel.

Mr. Murphy said that by mak-

ing parts of the arms control pact

legally binding, “Congress can

stop Trump in his tracks.” He

noted that “doing so will protect

innocent civilians, stop an arms

race from spiraling out of control

and strengthen U.S. national secu-

rity and our interests abroad.”

The White House and Congress

have long clashed over arms sales

to Saudi Arabia and the United

Arab Emirates. Last year, law-

makers passed a bipartisan reso-

lution that would require the U.S.

government to end its support for

the war in Yemen, but Mr. Trump

vetoed the measure.

The arms control pact bans the

sales of drones that can carry at

least 500 kilograms, or over 1,

pounds, of weapons over 300 kilo-

meters, about 186 miles. That in-

cludes the MQ-9 Reaper made by

General Atomics, based in San

Diego. This year, General Atomics

stepped up efforts to lobby Ameri-

can officials to bypass the arms

control pact and allow sales of ad-

vanced armed drones.

Arms sales to the gulf nations

have strong support in the White

House. Mr. Trump has backed

such sales, as have Peter Navarro,

a trade adviser, and Jared Kush-

ner, the president’s son-in-law and

adviser on the Middle East. Using

WhatsApp, Mr. Kushner stays in

close touch with Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi

Arabia, the de facto ruler of the

country. Congressional opposition

to arms sales to Saudi Arabia

grew after the grisly killing in Oc-

tober 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, a

Saudi columnist for The Washing-

ton Post who lived in Virginia.

U.S. intelligence agencies as-

sessed that Saudi agents killed

Mr. Khashoggi at the orders of the

young crown prince.

Senators Seek to Limit Sale of Armed Drones

By EDWARD WONG

Members of the Commission on
Presidential Debates on Thurs-
day rejected the Trump cam-
paign’s request for changes to the
fall debate schedule, declining to
shift the debates earlier or add a
fourth debate to the calendar.
President Trump and his cam-
paign had argued that the current
debate schedule, which calls for
three debates between Mr. Trump
and Joseph R. Biden Jr. in late
September and October, would
render them all but useless to the
many Americans who will by then
already have voted by mail.
“How can voters be sending in
Ballots starting, in some cases,
one month before the First Presi-
dential Debate. Move the First
Debate up,” Mr. Trump said
Thursday morning in a tweet. “A
debate, to me, is a Public Service.
Joe Biden and I owe it to the
American People!”
The president’s urging came
one day after Rudolph W. Giuliani,
a campaign adviser to Mr. Trump,
wrote to the commission to dis-
cuss the timing of the debates and
sent a list of two dozen journalists
“for consideration as modera-
tors.”
In its response to Mr. Giuliani
on Thursday, the commission said
that people planning to vote by
mail could wait until after viewing
the debates to send in their ballots
if they so choose.
“While more people will likely
vote by mail in 2020, the debate
schedule has been and will be
highly publicized,” the commis-
sion, which is nonpartisan, said in
the letter. “Any voter who wishes
to watch one or more debates be-
fore voting will be well aware of
that opportunity.”
The commission also
sidestepped Mr. Giuliani’s list of
preferred moderators, saying
simply that it would exercise
“great care, as always, to ensure
that the selected moderators are
qualified and fair.” Mr. Giuliani’s
list was heavy on Fox News per-
sonalities and conservative talk-
show hosts.
Campaigns have no formal say
in the debate schedule, which was
set months ago, and at least tech-
nically speaking, the commission
has sole discretion when it comes
to selecting moderators. But offi-
cials have already had to change

the location of two of its four

events, after a pair of universities

that were set to host pulled out be-

cause of concerns about the coro-

navirus.

The first presidential debate is

scheduled to be held on Sept. 29 in

Cleveland; the second on Oct. 15 in

Miami; and the third on Oct. 22 in

Nashville. A vice-presidential de-

bate, scheduled for Oct. 7, will be

held in Salt Lake City.

In his letter to debate officials,

Mr. Giuliani wrote that “as many

as eight million Americans in 16

states will have already started

voting” early by the time the first

debate takes place.

“Simply put, the commission’s

current approach is an outdated

dinosaur and not reflective of vot-

ing realities in 2020,” Mr. Giuliani

wrote. “For a nation already de-

prived of a traditional campaign

schedule because of the Covid-

global pandemic, it makes no

sense to also deprive so many

Americans of the opportunity to

see and hear the two competing

visions for our country’s future

before millions of votes have been

cast.”

Mr. Biden’s campaign had

mostly dismissed his opponent’s

proposals, calling them a “distrac-

tion,” while affirming that Mr. Bi-

den would take part in the events

as planned.

“We’re glad that Donald Trump

is now following Joe Biden’s lead

from June and — at long last —

has accepted the commission’s in-

vitation to debate,” TJ Ducklo, a

spokesman for Mr. Biden, said on

Thursday.

“As we have said for months,

the commission will determine

the dates and times of the debates,

and Joe Biden will be there,” Mr.

Ducklo said. “Now that Donald

Trump’s transparent attempt to

distract from his disastrous re-

sponse to the virus is over, maybe

now he can focus on saving Ameri-

can lives and getting our economy

back on track.”

Michael P. McDonald, a politi-

cal-science professor at the Uni-

versity of Florida who studies

American elections, said he had

discussed the timing of the de-

bates and early voting with the

commission. He said Mr. Giuliani

was correct in asserting that mil-

lions of Americans will have re-

ceived their ballots and have had

the opportunity to vote by mail by

Sept. 29.

But he said that based on his re-

search from previous presidential

elections, far fewer people will

have actually voted by that time.

And those who choose to vote

very early, he added, are likely not

the types of people who would be

swayed by a television debate.

“These are people who are hard

partisans,” Mr. McDonald said of

those who cast early ballots.

“They’ve made up their mind a

long time ago as to who they’re go-

ing to vote for,” he said, adding

that “no debate is really going to

sway them one way or another.”

Mr. McDonald said he thought

there was “very little risk” in-

volved in having early voting start

before a debate has taken place,

and that although his data was in-

complete, his best estimates sug-

gested that only about 10,000 peo-

ple had actually voted by late Sep-

tember during the 2016 election.

Many signs point to increased

turnout this fall, he said, and be-

cause of risks posed by the virus,

more people could chose to vote

very early by mail. But in all likeli-

hood, he added, “it’s not going to

be millions.”

Commission

Won’t Move

Debate Dates

Or Add Fourth

Rudolph W. Giuliani had sent the Commission on Presidential

Debates a list of potential moderators, many from Fox News.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Early voters are not

likely to be swayed,

research indicates.

By MATT STEVENS

Michael Grynbaum and Maggie
Haberman contributed reporting.

President Trump traveled
Thursday to the crucial battle-
ground of Ohio, hoping to high-
light efforts to bolster the econ-
omy after the damage done by the
spread of the coronavirus and to
announce new executive orders to
make drug prices more afford-
able.
But he could not escape the re-
ality of the landscape he is facing:
Before Mr. Trump arrived, the
state’s Republican governor, Mike
DeWine, tested positive for the co-
ronavirus during a routine screen-
ing for people meeting the presi-
dent.
The sudden change in plans —
Mr. DeWine had been expected to
greet Mr. Trump at the airport —
mirrored the president’s shifting

fortunes in a state that coming
into 2020 had seemed unassail-
able on Mr. Trump’s electoral map.
After a second test on Thursday,
Mr. DeWine came up negative.
But the failures in his response
to the pandemic have changed the
forecast for November in Ohio.
Several polls in the state have
shown the presumptive Demo-
cratic presidential nominee, for-
mer Vice President Joseph R. Bi-
den Jr., running close to Mr.
Trump.
Mr. Trump could still win in
Ohio, a state that has been won by
Republicans seven times since
1972 and that has been a strong
predictor of the national winner.
But the cost in “resources, at-
tention and manpower is likely to
cost him another needed state,”
said Nicholas Everhart, the presi-
dent of Content Creative Media, a
Republican national ad-buying
firm based in Ohio. Mr. Trump’s
re-election campaign has laid out

tens of millions of dollars for a fall

advertising blitz there.

“On Jan. 1, there was not a seri-

ous consultant on the Republican

or Democrat side who thought

Ohio was an up-for-grabs presi-

dential swing state,” he said.

Mr. Everhart said that a num-

ber of factors have made the state

more competitive for Democrats,

even though Republicans fared

relatively well there in 2018.

“The economic fallout of the

pandemic, though, seems to have

caught Ohio up with Michigan,

Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, par-

ticularly in the Columbus and

Cleveland suburbs,” Mr. Everhart

said, describing shifts in political

support.

And a local corruption scandal

that has seen federal racketeering

charges filed against the Republi-

can speaker of the House in Ohio

could have a toxic effect for other

Republicans in the state, Mr. Ever-

hart said.

It is also one of a number of

states where Republicans are try-

ing to help Kanye West, the rapper

and occasional Trump ally who

has said he is running for presi-

dent, fulfill requirements to get on

the ballot, a move that many see

as an effort to siphon Black votes

away from Mr. Biden. Mr. West ap-

peared to confirm this week in an

interview with Forbes that he was

trying to harm the former vice

president.

Mr. Biden, who advisers believe

can connect with the working-

class white voters who bolstered

Mr. Trump in 2016, remains an elu-

sive target for the president.

When Mr. Trump arrived in

Ohio and gave a speech to a group

of supporters, he accused Mr. Bi-

den of trying to “hurt” the Bible

and “hurt” God.

“He’s against God,” Mr. Trump

said. “He’s against guns. He’s

against energy, our kind of energy.

I don’t think he’s going to do too

well in Ohio.”

The remark prompted a swift

rebuke from Mr. Biden’s cam-

paign.

“Joe Biden’s faith is at the core

of who he is; he’s lived it with dig-

nity his entire life, and it’s been a

source of strength and comfort in

times of extreme hardship,” said

Andrew Bates, a spokesman for

Mr. Biden. “Donald Trump is the

only president in our history to

have tear-gassed peaceful Ameri-

cans and thrown a priest out of his

church just so he could profane it

— and a Bible — for his own cyni-

cal optics as he sought to tear our

nation apart at a moment of crisis

and pain.”

Mr. Trump maintained that Mr.

Biden frequently is confused

about his whereabouts, during a

speech in which the president

mispronounced Thailand as

“Thighland,” catching himself a

short time later.

The president spoke as his

aides struggled to get a deal for

new legislation to help people suf-

fering economic pain caused by

the coronavirus, something Mark

Meadows, his chief of staff, and

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury

secretary, have been scrambling

to achieve in negotiations with

Democratic leaders. Mr. Trump

has not been a meaningful part of

the talks, preferring to comment

from the sidelines. After a fund-

raiser on Thursday evening in

Ohio, he will head to his private

club in New Jersey and has fund-

raisers scheduled this weekend.

Mr. Trump’s swing through

Ohio took him to Clyde, where he

toured a Whirlpool factory. The

president wore a mask as he

walked through the plant, a nota-

ble move given his longstanding

resistance to the masks until the

past few weeks.

Then, standing at a lectern with

the presidential seal, his face glis-

tening with sweat, Mr. Trump de-

livered a winding series of re-

marks that were ostensibly about

trade and the economy, but that

took several detours into criticiz-

ing Mr. Biden and complaining

about his political lot in life.

“I had such a beautiful life be-

fore I did this,” Mr. Trump said at

one point.

The president’s inability to stick

to his script has infuriated and ex-

asperated his advisers, who be-

lieve he could be in a much strong-

er position in the campaign if only

he would stop creating so much

content for his critics and oppo-

nent.

During the event, Mr. Trump

announced his plan to reimpose

tariffs on Canadian-made alu-

minum. He criticized Mr. Biden

and former President Barack

Obama as purveyors of “broken

promises and brazen sellouts and

lost jobs.”

He insisted the job outlook

would improve soon, despite the

sharp rise in unemployment when

the pandemic began and the con-

tinued elevated levels of new

claims for jobless benefits — de-

velopments that have undercut

his ability to claim he has deliv-

ered on his promises of four years

ago to restore American manufac-

turing might and middle-class op-

portunity.

He praised the economy that

existed before the arrival of the vi-

rus. And he lauded his administra-

tion’s response to the coronavirus

despite polling suggesting that

voters are displeased with his re-

peated playing down of the threat.

He talked up an executive order

requiring the federal government

to buy “essential” drugs from

within the United States, instead

of countries like China, where the

coronavirus originated. And he

maintained there could be a vac-

cine “long before the end of the

year,” despite skepticism from the

health experts in his administra-

tion and concern among regula-

tors about pressure to approve a

vaccine on a political calendar.

And a day after Facebook and

Twitter forced his campaign ac-

counts to remove video of him

falsely saying that children are

“almost immune” to the virus, he

simply cited children as “strong”

in fighting off the illness.

At another point, after fre-

quently criticizing Democratic

governors, he said, “We cannot

defeat the virus by fighting

against each other.”

In Battleground Ohio,

Trump Seeks Optimism

On Economy and Virus

Speaking at a Whirlpool plant in Clyde, Ohio, on Thursday, President Trump veered from the economy to lament his political fortunes.

ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Tough to gloss over the

pandemic after the

governor tests positive.

By MAGGIE HABERMAN

The Tennessee Senate Republi-

can primary may have taken a

competitive turn in its final weeks,

but Bill Hagerty proved that for

red-state candidates in the Trump

era, there are still few things more

valuable than the endorsement of

Donald J. Trump himself.

On Thursday, Mr. Hagerty, 60,

who served as the president’s first

ambassador to Japan, trounced 14

other candidates in the primary to

succeed the retiring Senator

Lamar Alexander.

The race had tightened in its

homestretch, with an upstart can-

didate, Manny Sethi, riding a

wave of grass-roots enthusiasm

as he positioned himself as the

field’s true conservative and most

committed ally of the president,

earning the support of prominent

conservatives like Senator Ted

Cruz of Texas and Senator Rand

Paul of Kentucky. Mr. Sethi, 42, an

orthopedic surgeon, had for

months attacked Mr. Hagerty for

his background in private equity,

longtime friendship with Senator

Mitt Romney of Utah and support

from the Tennessee Republican

establishment.

In the end, it wasn’t enough. Mr.

Trump had endorsed Mr. Hagerty

before he even entered the race.

When skepticism arose about Mr.

Hagerty’s commitment to the ten-

ets of Trumpism, Mr. Hagerty

squelched it simply by promoting

that endorsement even more.

“It’s not as if there was any huge

philosophical difference between

Hagerty and Manny,” said Steph-

anie Chivers, a longtime adviser

to Mr. Alexander. “So I really be-

lieve that Trump’s endorsement

made the difference.”

The race was one of the nastiest

in recent Tennessee history. As

budding enthusiasm for Mr. Sethi

became reflected in the polls, Mr.

Hagerty went intensely negative.

His campaign claimed in televi-

sion ads that Mr. Sethi’s $50 dona-

tion to a Democratic candidate via

ActBlue, a liberal online fund-rais-

ing platform, was evidence that

Mr. Sethi could not be trusted to

defend the American flag. He con-

sistently mispronounced his op-

ponent’s name as “Set-ee,” as if to

remind voters of the physician’s

Indian heritage.

The misleading attacks went

both ways: In a web ad, Mr. Sethi

tried to link Mr. Hagerty to the

Black Lives Matter movement by

highlighting his position on the

board of a firm that had issued

statements in support of it. He re-

ferred to him as “Mitt Romney’s

guy,” even as Mr. Hagerty made

his criticism of Mr. Romney clear.

Mr. Hagerty is unlikely to have

trouble in November, as polling

suggests that Tennessee remains

squarely within Trump country.

But his likely ascension to the Sen-

ate is an endpoint of sorts to the

moderate tenor that has long de-

fined Tennessee Republicanism,

of which Mr. Alexander was

among the last representatives.

“This may well be the end of an

era,” said Keel Hunt, the author of

two books on Tennessee politics.

Trump’s Choice Wins Primary in Tennessee

By ELAINA PLOTT