News Alert: Saudi mystery drives wedge between Trump, GOP

View in your browser     Saudi mystery drives wedge between Trump, GOP The mysterious disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey is driving a wedge between President Trump and Republican members of Congress, who are pressing for an aggressive U.S. response if Saudi Arabia is found responsible for the suspected killing. Read the full story here           Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for News Alerts     Forward News Alerts     You Might Like       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

On The Money: McConnell says deficits 'not a Republican problem' | Trump calls Fed his 'biggest threat' | US to open trade talks with Japan, EU, UK

View in your browser     Happy Tuesday and welcome back to On The Money. I'm Sylvan Lane, and here's your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. See something I missed? Let me know at slane@thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N. Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@thehill.com, vneedham@thehill.com, njagoda@thehill.com and nelis@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane, @VickofTheHill, @NJagoda and @NivElis.   THE BIG DEAL--McConnell says deficits 'not a Republican problem' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said the nation's rising debts were something for both parties to address. Treasury data released Monday showed that the federal deficit increased some 17 percent in 2018 to $779 billion, President Trump's first full fiscal year in office. Republicans, traditionally a party that advocated fiscal conservatism, hold control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. "It's disappointing but it's not a Republican problem," McConnell told Bloomberg News. "It's a bipartisan problem." McConnell said the true culprit behind the rising deficits was mandatory spending. "The three big entitlement programs that are very popular, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, that's 70 percent of what we spend every year," he said in a separate interview with Bloomberg TV. "There's been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those programs." The Hill's Niv Elis has more here.   What's going on?  Mandatory spending, which does not require new approval by Congress each year, is most of annual federal spending and has been projected to drive deficits higher well into the future. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the 2018 deficit soared above projections because of recent legislation, specifically the GOP tax bill, which cut revenues, and a bipartisan spending deal, which increased discretionary spending, the portion of federal expenditures approved each year by Congress. Legislation passed by Congress during fiscal 2018 increased the deficit nearly 50 percent in 2018, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog.   LEADING THE DAY Trump says Fed is his 'biggest threat,' blasting own appointees: President Trump on Tuesday called the Federal Reserve his "biggest threat" and said he was unhappy with several of his additions to the independent central bank.  Trump kept up his criticism of the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, in a Fox Business Network (FBN) interview scheduled to air Tuesday evening. The president said the Fed was raising interest rates too quickly and he saw no reason to break from stimulative monetary policy. "The Fed is raising rates too fast and it's independent so I don't speak to them but I'm not happy with what he's doing because it's going too fast because you looked at the last inflation numbers they are very low," Trump told FBN's Trish Regan, according to excerpts shared by the network. Trump also said that he might have made a mistake in elevating Powell to chair the Fed in 2017. "Can I be honest? I'm not blaming anybody. I put him there and maybe it's right maybe it's wrong, but I put him there," Trump said. I've got more on the latest presidential swipe at the Fed here. Who's under the gun? We know Trump is peeved at Powell, who the president thought would keep interest rates low despite the overwhelming consensus at the Fed leaning toward hiking rates. But Trump said Tuesday that he's also irritated with "a couple of other" people he added to the Fed. So far, Trump has only made two additions to the Fed board: Vice Chairman Richard Clarida and Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles. Both are closely aligned with Powell, which raises questions about what Trump thought he was getting out of his nominees.   US to open trade talks with Japan, EU, UK: The Trump administration on Tuesday kicked off a fast-track process for three separate trade deals with Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom. In three letters, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress of the intent to open the trade talks. Trade in goods and services with the three tops $1.5 trillion. "Under President Trump's leadership, we will continue to expand U.S. trade and investment by negotiating trade agreements with Japan, the EU and the United Kingdom," Lighthizer said. The announcement allows talks to formally open after a 90-day period, but Lighthizer said the UK negotiations would only begin after Britain finalizes its extrication from the EU. The deadline for the so-called "Brexit" is March 29. Niv tells us more here.  GOOD TO KNOW Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the updated North American trade pact won't get consideration in Congress this year. U.S. employers had over seven million unfilled jobs on the last business day in August for the first time on record, according to numbers the Labor Department released Tuesday. Businesses and trade groups on Tuesday urged the IRS to make clarifications and changes to its proposed rules on a new deduction created by President Trump's tax law, so that more taxpayers can have certainty they can use the tax break. A federal judge on Tuesday approved a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk. Uber received valuations from Wall Street banks that could put the value of the company at up to $120 billion for an initial public offering that could happen as soon as early next year, according to The Wall Street Journal.  A senior Treasury department official warned that a hard Brexit could hurt global financial stability and said the U.S. is working with officials in the U.K. and EU to limit risks of Britain's withdrawal from the bloc. ODDS AND ENDS House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash), on Tuesday, blasted President Trump's proposal to use military bases to export coal from the West Coast to Asia, saying it could hurt military readiness.  The Washington Post explains how Sears' mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.           Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Finance Newsletters     Forward Finance Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2018 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Hillicon Valley: Agencies show progress on email security | DHS pushes back on report claiming spike in election attacks | Judge approves SEC-Elon Musk settlement | Uber IPO proposal valued at $120B

View in Browser     Welcome to Hillicon Valley, The Hill's newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Welcome! Follow the cyber team, Olivia Beavers (@olivia_beavers) and Jacqueline Thomsen (@jacq_thomsen), and the tech team, Harper Neidig (@hneidig) and Ali Breland (@alibreland). And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our newsletter.   SUCCESS? Agari, a cyber firm, said the Department of Homeland Security's order requiring federal agencies to implement stronger cyber standards has been a huge success. The firm said 85 percent of federal domains have adopted HTTPS and DMARC -- an email authentication standard that protects against domain spoofing. That's compared to 18 percent a year ago and before the Binding Operational Directive (BOD) was issued. Seventy-four percent of federal executive branch domains have implemented a reject policy for DMARC compared to less than 10 percent a year ago. "BOD 18-01 has clearly made a positive impact on the cybersecurity posture of the United States government. It's really great to see such a dramatic increase in adoption in such a short time frame. This is the fastest and most complete adoption of the DMARC standard for any industry in history," according to an Agari press release. "Private enterprise is definitely lagging behind the public sector now, but we will explore those concerns in some future research." The firm noted that still 278 domains are out of compliance with the BOD, including 28 that are not "actively sending email." The numbers vary on just how many of the domains adopted the DMARC process: Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint found that 60.5 percent of the federal domains were compliant with the order, and that 74 percent had published DMARC records. That means 26 percent of government domains failed to meet the deadline. Robert Holmes, vice president of email security at Proofpoint, wrote in a blog post that the percentage of compliant sites "is a significant achievement as many agencies did not have this initiative in their plans/budgets when the mandate was announced and DMARC implementation can be complex." The firm last year found that about 12.4 percent of emails sent from government domains were unauthorized. At that time, about 20 percent of domains had implemented the authentication process.  Read more here.   NOT SO FAST: The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) top cyber official said Tuesday that a report on an increased number of cyberattacks on election infrastructure points to a rise in reports of attempted hacks and not necessarily a spike in the attacks themselves. Christoper Krebs, the head of the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), said at an event on election security hosted by The Bridge that the report on a DHS assessment "seems to indicate that there's been an uptick in activity" when it comes to cyberattacks on the election systems. "It's not an uptick in activity," he continued, saying state and local election officials have gotten better at sharing information about cyber activities targeting election systems like voter registration databases since the 2016 election, when that kind of information sharing largely wasn't happening. "Are we seeing an uptick? I don't know if we are," Krebs said. "I think we're seeing a consistent and persistent level of activity." NBC News reported Monday that the DHS intelligence assessment stated that there has been a "growing volume of cyber activity targeting election infrastructure in 2018." The assessment, issued by DHS's Cyber Mission Center and obtained by the network, stated that all of the attempted cyberattacks were prevented. It also said federal officials do not know the sources of the targeted cyber acts.  Read more here.   JUDGE APPROVES SEC-MUSK SETTLEMENT: A federal judge on Tuesday approved a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk. The settlement follows an SEC investigation last month into a Musk tweet from August in which he said he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The settlement requires Musk to step down as chairman and pay a $20 million civil penalty. Tesla will also have to pay a separate $20 million fee. The company will not be charged with fraud. Musk appeared to mock the SEC on Twitter after being ordered by the court on Oct. 4 to explain the settlement, calling the agency the "Shortseller Enrichment Commission." Read more here.   AMAZON WORKERS SPEAK UP AGAIN:  An Amazon employee is seeking to put new pressure on the company to stop selling its facial recognition technology to law enforcement. An anonymous worker, whose employment at Amazon was verified by Medium, published an op-ed on that platform on Tuesday criticizing the company's facial recognition work and urging the company to respond to an open letter delivered by a group of employees. The employee wrote that the government has used surveillance tools in a way that disproportionately hurts "communities of color, immigrants, and people exercising their First Amendment rights." This isn't the first time: A group of over 400 employees signed a letter in June urging Amazon to stop selling its facial recognition software to law enforcement and working with Palantir, which provides digital services to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Amazon at the time defended its products by saying that there is always risk in new technology and potential misuse should not hinder the development of products. The worker in the op-ed referenced that letter, urging Amazon to take action "right now." It's happening at other companies too: Microsoft employees did the same thing on Friday. Read more here.   UBER VALUED AT $120 BILLION IN IPO PROPOSALS: Uber received valuations from Wall Street banks that could put the value of the company at up to $120 billion for an initial public offering. That IPO could happen as soon as early next year, according to the Wall Street Journal. That value would be almost double what Uber was valued at in a fundraising round earlier this year. Uber has been eyeing a potential IPO in 2019 for some time now, saying in May that they were "on track" for the move. "I do think that we're on track in 2019 for an IPO. Lots of things can happen in the world but we have a reasonable buffer as well, so I think we're in a pretty good spot," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on CNBC. Read more here.   COMPANIES SUBPOENAED IN NET NEUTRALITY PROBE: New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) has subpoenaed more than a dozen companies and organizations as part of the state's investigation into widespread fake public comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over net neutrality, according to The New York Times. "The F.C.C.'s public comment process was corrupted by millions of fake comments," Underwood said in a statement to the Times. "The law protects New Yorkers from deception and the misuse of their identities. My office will get to the bottom of what happened and hold accountable those responsible for using stolen identities to distort public opinion on net neutrality." Read more here.   NO SUCH THING AS A FREE APP STORE: Google is set to start charging phone makers to use its Google Play app store and it will also allow use of rivals to its Android mobile operating system. The changes are part of steps the company is taking to comply with a European Union antitrust order. The company is still appealing the EU's original antitrust order from July, which ruled that Google must stop forcing phone makers it works with to bundle its apps. The EU also fined Google $5 billion in the ruling. Despite the appeal, Google is changing some of its practices to comply with the ruling in the meantime. In a blog post on Tuesday, Google senior vice president of platforms and ecosystems Hiroshi Lockheimer explained that in addition to charging a licensing fee for its app store and not blocking competing operating systems, it would also not bundle its Chrome browser and search in the same download. here.   A LIGHTER CLICK: When your doppelganger is also involved in cyber/tech going-ons.   AN OP-ED TO CHEW ON: Ignoring the EMP threat is a death sentence for Americans.   NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB: Fusion GPS co-founder pleads the Fifth following House GOP subpoena. (The Hill) The implications of social media hegemony. (Verso) Wired magazine turns 25 with a brainy party. (The New York Times) Facebook reverses position on no ad targeting with data from its new Portal device. (Recode) Facebook's 'spam purge' is silencing genuine debate, political page creators say (The Guardian) Security seals used to protect voting machines can be easily opened with shim crafted from a soda can (Motherboard)         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Technology Newsletters     Forward Technology Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2018 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Overnight Energy: Political appointee taking over as Interior IG | Change comes amid Zinke probe | White Houses shelves coal, nuke bailout plan | Top Dem warns coal export proposal hurts military

View in Browser     TRUMP POLITICAL APPOINTEE TO REPLACE INTERIOR INSPECTOR GENERAL: A Trump political appointee previously working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will soon take over as the head inspector general (IG) overseeing investigations at the Interior Department, according to an internal email obtained by The Hill. Suzanne Israel Tufts will take over as acting inspector general for the Interior Department, according to an email sent from HUD Secretary Ben Carson to staff last Friday. Tufts was confirmed by the Senate last December to serve as an assistant HUD secretary. In the role, she reportedly also took over the job of chief administrative officer -- a role previously held by career HUD employee Helen Foster. Foster told outlets in February that she was demoted from the role when she refused to sign off on Carson's extravagant office redecorations after noting the congressional limit was $5,000. Carson in March faced criticism over reports that he ordered a $31,000 dining set, which he later canceled. "It is with mixed emotions that I announce that Suzanne Israel Tufts, our Assistant Secretary for Administration, has decided to leave HUD to become the Acting Inspector General at the Department of Interior," Carson wrote in his email with the subject line "Fond Farewell." "Suzanne is an extremely enthusiastic and energetic leader who re-established HUD's Office of Administration, implementing improvements to the agency's governance and internal controls. During her time with us, Suzanne also commenced the most focused and strategic collective bargaining process in the Agency's history." HUD spokesman Jereon Brown confirmed the move to The Hill Tuesday. He said Tufts is being detailed to the IG's office, which he said is a temporary move and that Tufts will remain a HUD employee. Brown said the move "happens" all the time. Read more here.   Why the move is alarming: The move is notable as Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke faces a number of inspector general investigations, including over a contentious business deal he made with a Halliburton chairman. Past probes included a speech he gave to the Las Vegas Golden Knights professional hockey team and the questionable use of charter planes. The inspector general makes the final determination whether to open up an IG investigation and has the power to end ongoing investigations.   How people are responding: Former Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Bromwich: "This is a very big deal. Politicizing the oversight function is dangerous, especially in the absence of any Congressional oversight. Changing IGs in the midst of multiple serious investigations of the agency's head should raise alarm bells everywhere," he tweeted Tuesday. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), ranking member on the House committee that oversees the Interior Department: "Secretary Zinke and the Interior Department are awash in wave after wave of scandal and corruption, and they decide now is the perfect time to get rid of the current IG. After looking around, the best person they could find is a Trump political operative at HUD who turned a blind eye to Secretary Carson's $31,000 dining set."   Happy Tuesday! Welcome to Overnight Energy, The Hill's roundup of the latest energy and environment news. Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@thehill.com, and Miranda Green, mgreen@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @mirandacgreen, @thehill. CLICK HERE to subscribe to our newsletter.   TOP DEM SAYS TRUMP COAL PLAN COULD HURT MILITARY: House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash), on Tuesday, blasted President Trump's proposal to use military bases to export coal from the West Coast to Asia, saying it could hurt military readiness. "This is a clear attempt to circumvent environmental oversight and protection,' Smith said in a statement. "The Trump Administration is once again using national security as an excuse to drive their short-sighted agenda." Turning U.S. military bases into export terminals "could be an encroachment risk and potentially harm military training, operations, and readiness," while doing "nothing to help address the impacts of climate change or benefit the energy resiliency of Department of Defense installations," Smith added. U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday told the Associated Press that the Trump administration is considering using military bases in Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska to ship coal and natural gas to Asia. Zinke said that may involve using "some of our naval facilities, some of our federal facilities on the West Coast." Read more here.   And more pushback to Trump coal plans…   WHITE HOUSE SHELVES RESCUE PLAN FOR COAL AND NUCLEAR: The White House has shelved a proposed effort to prop up coal and nuclear power plants at risk of closure, Politico reported. Some of President Trump's advisers in the White House National Security Council and National Economic Council oppose Energy Secretary Rick Perry's plan, due largely to the likelihood that it would raise energy prices, Politico said, citing four people familiar with the matter. The rescue plan was a key piece of the Trump administration's energy agenda, and Trump's promise to save the coal industry. Perry first pursued the policy last year, asking that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) write a rule to require higher electricity payments to coal and nuclear plants, in a bid to preserve the "resiliency" of the electric grid. But FERC, an independent agency, rejected the proposal unanimously. Earlier this year, Trump formally asked his administration to find a way to save uneconomic coal and nuclear plants from closing. Read more here.   OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: Former UN chief raps Trump for idling on global warming prep Bill Gates launches effort to help the world adapt to climate change NASA photo shows where Hurricane Michael turned out the lights   IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Check out stories from Tuesday... -Top House Armed Services Dem says Trump coal export plan could hurt military -HUD political appointee to replace Interior Department inspector general -White House shelves rescue plan for coal, nuclear: report -Washington governor blasts plan to export coal, gas from military bases         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Energy Newsletters     Forward Energy Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.