A2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 26 , 2019
HAPPENING TODAY
For the latest updates all day, visit washingtonpost.com.All day | President Trump and other world leaders hold news
conferences at the close of the Group of Seven industrial nations’ summit
in France. For developments, visit washingtonpost.com/world.
All day | Vice President Pence touts the United States-Mexico-Canada
Agreement in remarks at Sargent Metal Fabricators in South Carolina
before speaking at a fundraiser for Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.). Visit
washingtonpost.com/politics for details.
8:30 a.m. | Durable-goods orders for July are expected to show an
increase of 1.1 percent. For more on the numbers, visit
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Awards. Go to washingtonpost.com/entertainment for details.
CORRECTION
A Best Bets item in the Aug. 23
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Washington Spirit’s game
Saturday against the Orlando
Pride in women’s pro soccer,
misidentified a past Spirit
opponent. It was the Chicago Red
Stars, not the Chicago Fire. The
Fire is an MLS men’s pro soccer
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[email protected].CALIFORNIA
Officer accused of lying
about being shotA Los Angeles County deputy
lied when he said he was shot in
the shoulder while standing in a
sheriff ’s station parking lot last
week and will face a criminal
investigation, authorities said.
“The reported sniper assault
was fabricated” by Deputy Angel
Reinosa, Assistant Sheriff Robin
Limon said at a news conference
late Saturday.
Reinosa, 21, made a frantic
radio call Wednesday claiming
that he’d been shot by someone in
a nearby building as he walked to
his car outside the Lancaster
station, prompting a huge police
response.
At the time, investigators
thought Reinosa’s bulletproof
vest saved his life but that a bullet
grazed him. A department
statement the next day said a
single round hit the top of
Reinosa’s shoulder, damaging his
uniform shirt but not penetrating
his skin.
But no bullets were recovered
from the scene and detectives saw
“no visible injuries,” Capt. Kent
Wegener said.
Reinosa has been relieved of
his duties and could face charges
of filing a false report about a
crime, officials said.
— Associated PressTEXASShooting victim’s dad
runs for legislatureA Texas pastor whose teenage
daughter was among more than
two dozen people killed in a mass
shooting at his church in 2017
said Sunday that he will run as a
Republican next year for a seat in
the state legislature. Frank
Pomeroy — whose 14-year-old
daughter, Annabelle, was killed inthe November 2017 attack at First
Baptist Church in Sutherland
Springs — is beginning his
campaign at a moment when gun
violence is again at the forefront
of Texas politics following a mass
shooting in El Paso this month
that killed 22 people.
First Baptist Church opened a
new sanctuary this year after the
old building was turned into a
memorial, following what
remains the deadliest mass
shooting in Texas history. A
gunman shot and killed 25 people
at the church; authorities put the
official death toll at 26 because
one of the victims was pregnant.
Pomeroy, who has never held
elected office, had not been
outspoken politically in the two
years since a discharged Air Force
airman with a history of violence
opened fire in the church where
the gunman’s wife and mother-in-
law attended.
— Associated PressMan accused of killing parents
arrested in Mexico: A man
wanted on charges of killing his
mother and father, a retired
National Football League player,
in Minnesota was arrested in
Mexico’s beach resort city of
Cancun and handed over to the
FBI, Mexican officials said
Sunday. Dylan John Bennett, 22,
was identified in Cancun after
police received reports of
aggressive behavior, the
prosecutor’s office in the state of
Quintana Roo said in a
statement. Barry and Carol
Bennett were found dead of
gunshot wounds in their home on
Wednesday, according to the
Todd County Sheriff ’s
Department in Minnesota. Barry
Bennett, 63, played 11 seasons
with the Minnesota Vikings, New
York Jets and New Orleans Saints.
The FBI will bring Dylan Bennett
to Minnesota to face murder
charges.
— ReutersDIGEST
BY JOSEPH MARKS
AND FELICIA SONMEZ
Former Illinois congressman
Joe Walsh announced Sunday
that he will challenge President
Trump in the 2020 primary, be-
coming the second Republican to
wage a bid against the president.
Walsh, a talk-radio host, was
elected to Congress in 2010 as
part of the tea party wave and
served one term. He has de-
scribed himself as an immigra-
tion hard-liner and said he would
challenge Trump not from the
center but from the right and on
moral grounds.
Walsh has faced sharp criti-
cism for his history of racist and
sexist comments, as well as for his
2018 appearance on comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Who Is
America?” during which he
voiced support for arming tod-
dlers with guns. Walsh later said
he was duped by Cohen and called
for a boycott of Showtime, which
ran the series.
“I’m going to run for president,”
Walsh said Sunday in an inter-
view on ABC News’s “This Week,”
charging that the president is “in-
competent,” “a bigot” and “a nar-
cissist.”
Former Massachusetts gover-
nor Bill Weld also has declared
that he is running against Trump
in the Republican primary, but he
has struggled to gain traction.
Asked about Walsh’s entry into
the race, Trump campaign
spokesman Tim Murtaugh re-
plied, “Whatever.”
Weld, meanwhile, welcomed
Walsh’s arrival, saying he was
“thrilled” by the news.
“I think that’s terrific,” he said
on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“And it’s going to be a more robust
conversation. Who knows? Thenetworks might even cover Re-
publican primary debates.”
In Sunday’s interview, Walsh
staked his run on harsh criticism
of the president and questioned
Trump’s support among Republi-
cans, despite polls showing that
the president is popular with the
overwhelming majority of GOP
voters.
According to a Monmouth Uni-
versity poll released last week,
84 percent of Republicans ap-
prove of Trump’s job perform-
ance. His highest recent approval
mark among fellow Republicans
was 88 percent in a Fox News poll
of registered voters earlier this
month.
“He’s nuts. He’s erratic. He’s
cruel. He stokes bigotry. He’s in-
competent. He doesn’t know what
he’s doing, George. He’s a narcis-
sist,” Walsh told host George
Stephanopoulos.
Walsh also released an an-
nouncement video in which he
called on Americans to have “the
courage to finally say publicly
what we all know privately: We’re
tired.”
“My name is Joe Walsh. I’m a
former Republican congressman.
I’m a conservative. I’m running
because Donald Trump is not who
we are. In fact, he’s the worst ofwho we are,” Walsh says in the
video.
In the “This Week” interview,
Walsh apologized for his past crit-
icism of former president Barack
Obama during his time in office,
saying he and other tea party
Republicans helped create a par-
tisan political environment that
facilitated Trump’s election.
“I got personal and I got hate-
ful. I said some ugly things about
President Obama that I regret...
that helped create Trump, and I
feel responsible for that,” he said.
Walsh has also made inflam-
matory comments in more recent
years, and Stephanopoulos raised
some of those remarks, describ-
ing them as “textbook racism and
sexism.”
In March 2017, Walsh tweeted
that the country held Obama “to a
lower standard cuz he was black.”
Months later, Walsh made a simi-
lar remark about Sen. Kamala D.
Harris (D-Calif.), stating, “If
you’re black & a woman, you can
say dumb things. Lowered bar.”
Stephanopoulos noted Sunday
that Walsh “called President
Obama a Muslim, an enemy, a
traitor.”
Walsh, who has said he voted
for Trump in 2016, responded by
claiming that the president’s risehad caused him to reconsider his
past remarks.
“Well, again, the beauty of what
President Trump has done is,
George, he’s made me reflect on
some of the things I have said in
the past,” he said. “I had strong
policy disagreements with Barack
Obama, and too often I let those
policy disagreements get person-
al.”
Stephanopoulos pressed him:
“Did you really believe he’s a Mus-
lim?”
“God, no,” Walsh replied. “And I
have apologized for that.”
Last year, Walsh was one of
several current and former politi-
cal figures who appeared in Co-
hen’s satirical “Who Is America?”
series. Walsh enthusiastically
backed the notion of arming
young children, reading from a
teleprompter in support of a fake
“Kinderguardians” course.
“The intensive, three-week
Kinderguardian course introduc-
es specially selected children
from 12 to 4 years old to pistols,
rifles, semiautomatics and a rudi-
mentary knowledge of mortars,”
Walsh said directly into the cam-
era. “In less than a month — less
than a month — a first-grader can
become a first grenade-er.”
“Happy shooting, kids,” he add-
ed.
Walsh also faced a child-
support dispute with his ex-wife
that ended in a settlement in 2012.
Others who are mulling Repub-
lican primary challenges against
Trump include Mark Sanford, a
former South Carolina governor
and congressman, and former
Ohio governor John Kasich.
Jeff Flake, a former senator
from Arizona and a Trump antag-
onist, also has said he has taken a
flurry of recruitment calls from
GOP donors rattled by signs of an
economic slowdown and hungry
for an alternative to Trump.
[email protected]
[email protected]Robert Costa, Travis M. Andrews and
Scott Clement contributed to this
report.GOP challenger launches primary bid
JOEWALSH.ORG/REUTERS
In a video launching his campaign, Joe Walsh says President
Trump “is not who we are. In fact, he’s the worst of who we are.”Former Ill. congressman
Joe Walsh says Trump
is ‘cruel,’ ‘incompetent’BY SIOBHÁN O’GRADY
President Trump might not
get to buy Greenland for the
United States. But on his watch,
the State Department could ex-
pand its diplomatic presence
there, by opening a U.S. consul-
ate on the island for the first time
in decades.
In a letter to the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee ob-
tained by the Associated Press,
the State Department described
a plan to open a consulate in
Greenland by next year. The
department said the United
States has a “strategic interest in
enhancing political, economic,
and commercial relationships
across the Arctic region.”
A consulate “would serve as an
effective platform to advance
U.S. interests in Greenland,” the
State Department wrote, accord-
ing to the AP. It would help the
U.S. “protect essential equities”
in Greenland, an autonomous
country within the Kingdom of
Denmark, “while developing
deeper relationships with Green-
landic officials and society.”
The suggestion followed the
diplomatic roller coaster of re-
cent days that began last week-
end when Trump expressed in-
terest in buying Greenland from
Denmark.
When bemused Danish offi-
cials refused, he lashed out, first
by tweeting on Tuesday that he
had canceled a meeting in Co-
penhagen with Danish Prime
Minister Mette Frederiksen be-
cause she said “she would have
no interest in discussing thepurchase of Greenland.”
Frederiksen had called his
suggestion that the United States
buy Greenland “absurd.” Trump
called the prime minister’s re-
marks “nasty.”
“I thought it was not a nice
statement, the way she blew me
off,” Trump told reporters
Wednesday. “She shouldn’t treat
the United States that way.”
By later in the week, tensions
seemed to have eased. A Trump
administration official speaking
on the condition of anonymity
told The Washington Post on
Friday that Frederiksen and
Trump had a “constructive”
phone call the previous day.
Frederiksen told Denmark’s
TV2 network that she would not
engage in a “war of words” with
Trump over the matter, and
Trump called her a “wonderful
woman.”
Analysts have said Washing-
ton’s interest in Greenland is
likely to be part of a broader
strategy to better compete with
Russia and China in the strategi-
cally important Arctic. The Unit-
ed States already has a presence
in Greenland at Thule, a U.S. Air
Force base on the northwestern
coast built during World War II.
But opening a consulate could
allow for more diplomatic oppor-
tunities.
The United States employs a
Greenlandic affairs officer at the
U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, the
AP reported. Plans include hir-
ing local staff in Greenland to
work at a consulate there.
More than a dozen other coun-
tries maintain consulates or hon-
orary consulates there. Most are
European, but they also includedCanada, Greenland’s closest
neighbor, and South Korea.
The United States opened a
consulate in Greenland after
Denmark was occupied by the
Nazis in 1940. They closed it in
1953.
Malte Humpert is the founder
of the Arctic Institute, a think
tank focused on Arctic policy
issues. Under normal circum-
stances, he said, the suggestion
to reopen a U.S. consulate in
Greenland after so many years
would be seen largely as a posi-
tive step toward engagement in
the region.
But in the wake of the dramat-
ic proposal to purchase Green-
land, he said, there will be more
questions.
“The U.S. should step up its
Arctic game, but of course, as
with so many other things, Presi-
dent Trump using Twitter diplo-
macy and running around like a
bull in the china shop goes about
it all wrong,” Humpert said.
“Buying Greenland is just not
an acceptable proposal. This is
not the 19th century, where you
buy a largely indigenously inhab-
ited region.”
Trump’s comments irked
many people and politicians in
Greenland and Denmark. Estab-
lishing a consulate in Greenland
and appointing a consul general,
Humpert said, could be one way
to try to improve relations with
the Greenlandic people.
But “if they put someone in
there who’s strong-handed and
makes harsh comments and de-
nies climate change,” he warned,
“that might actually cause more
damage.”
[email protected]Report: U.S. plans to open a Greenland consulate
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