| ➜ SAUDI ARABIA & KHASHOGGI: The United States on Tuesday continued weighing its options against those who originated and carried out an alleged plot to kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Trump administration says it is still trying to corroborate available evidence about Khashoggi’s fate obtained from intelligence sources. Pence, speaking at an event at The Washington Post, where Khashoggi’s commentary had been published, said the U.S. would take action (The Hill): “I want to assure the American people: We're going to get to the bottom of it. This brutal murder of a journalist, of an innocent man, of a dissident, will not go without an American response and, I expect, without an international response.” Trump has vacillated about those he believes are behind the alleged killing, and about whether the United States will punish Saudi Arabia, a strategic ally in the Middle East, in response. Trump spoke to reporters hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey delivered a vivid speech repudiating the Saudi explanation that Khashoggi died during a fistfight inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (The Hill). “They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly, and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups. Very simple. Bad deal. Should have never been thought of,” Trump said on Tuesday (Reuters) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the United States would revoke visas of Saudi operatives who are accused of killing Khashoggi, stressing that the United States was still learning “the facts.” He did not specify how many visas would be withdrawn (CBS News). Reaction elsewhere in the world took on more force after Erdoğan’s speech. Foreign ministers representing countries in the Group of Seven most industrialized nations condemned Khashoggi’s killing on Tuesday and called for the protection of journalists (The Hill). In Riyadh, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose involvement in the death has been denied by spokesmen for the kingdom, is expected to speak to attendees at an international investment conference today (The Associated Press). On Tuesday, he was filmed offering condolences to and shaking hands with two members of Khashoggi’s family, including the journalist’s son (Reuters). 
© Twitter Josh Rogin: Here’s how Crown Prince Mohammed could face international justice. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III: “Partner or not, if it is established that the Saudi government arranged a murder, the Trump administration should provide a swift, firm and substantial response that makes it clear that the United States condemns behavior of this sort.” *** ➜ WHITE HOUSE & ADMINISTRATION: Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris just days after the U.S. midterm elections, on the sidelines of a planned ceremony in France marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. White House national security adviser John Bolton, conferring with Russian officials in Moscow, announced the Trump-Putin meeting, which will be the two leaders’ second extended sit-down since July (The Washington Post). Separately, Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade on the sidelines of the Group of 20 nations summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, scheduled Nov. 30-Dec. 1, White House national economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Tuesday.
Kudlow said he did not expect a major breakthrough with China while the two presidents are in Argentina (Bloomberg).
More tax cuts?: Trump stirred confusion on Tuesday with his pre-elections cheerleading for a second round of GOP tax cuts. Kudlow told reporters the president is serious about reducing taxes but cautioned it would not happen for “a while.” Congress is not in session until mid-November, and a post-elections legislative session in December is already jammed with unfinished business and political suspense about 2019. Trump this week said he wants Republican lawmakers to send him new legislation to trim middle-income families’ taxes by 10 percent. The pitch from the president is widely perceived as a tacit acknowledgement that the 2017 tax overhaul was less popular among middle-class families than Republicans had hoped during this election season (Bloomberg). On Tuesday, the president said he’d sign a nonbinding “resolution” promising that Congress would deliver another 10 percent cut to families after the elections, a pledge that sent the White House scrambling to devise a way to fulfill Trump’s improvised remark (The Washington Post). Immigration: The president’s threat to cut off U.S. assistance to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador because migrants from those countries are fleeing north through Mexico toward the United States earned a chilly rebuke from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday. The senator said U.S. foreign aid to Central American countries is not charity. "I understand [the] instinct to cut U.S. aid to punish countries for failing to stop illegal migration. But our aid to #Honduras & #Guatemala isn’t cash," Rubio wrote on Twitter. "It’s primarily equipment & training to stop drugs headed to U.S. & to deal with the gangs causing people to leave those countries" (The Hill). The 7,000-member migrant caravan slowly moving through Mexico has agitated Trump, who tells U.S. audiences that the United States is under assault from law-breakers, MS-13 gang members and what he asserts without evidence are Middle Eastern terrorists trying to slip into the United States. The caravan remains more than 1,000 miles from America’s southern border. 
© Twitter The administration would like Central American migrant families to be stripped of the right to remain in the United States while they pursue asylum claims, a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday. Under current law, however, only nationals from contiguous countries, such as Mexico, are sent back across the border without appearing before an immigration judge (NBC News). Trump is frustrated that his policies designed to deter illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border have had less impact than he’d like among migrants who continue to seek entry into the United States. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended nearly 400,000 people crossing the southern border in fiscal 2018, up roughly 100,000 from the prior year. But following a significant dip after Trump took office last year, border crossings largely returned to their seasonal patterns measured during the previous five years (The Hill). 
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