Trump and ‘Morning Joe’ trade insults on Twitter

Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), left, and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) participate in a bipartisan news conference to discuss the Senate healthcare bill in Washington.

(Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

In today’s political climate, it’s rare to find bipartisanship. But as President Trump calls on Senate Republicans to pass a bill in the coming weeks that would overhaul the Affordable Care Act, governors from both sides of the aisle are unified in opposition.

The Senate GOP healthcare bill would cut Medicaid spending by $772 billion over the next decade, leaving millions of low-income people uninsured in states where Medicaid was expanded under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

The governors from states that took advantage of the Medicaid expansion have worked together in crafting letters, holding teleconferences with reporters and hosting private meetings with members of Congress. Some have called for no repeal, others a more measured approach. Who are they? Here’s a look:

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President Trump on Sunday circulated a doctored video clip on Twitter that showed him physically attacking a crudely rendered stand-in for CNN, a post that drew rebukes from critics as an incitement to violence, but prompted renewed expressions of support from backers.

In doing so, Trump also ignored pleas to stop tweeting or at least take a more presidential tone -- from lawmakers in his own party -- after he took his war against news media to new heights last week with a coarse post on the appearance and intellect of cable television host Mika Brzezinski. On Saturday he also posted several anti-media messages as Americans began their Fourth of July celebration.

Sunday’s tweet, which used an edited version of a years-old promotional video for professional wrestling, showed Trump, clad in a business suit and tie, administering a choreographed beat-down to a figure whose face was obscured by CNN’s logo.

CNN, which has been a particular target of the president since the network was forced to retract a story relating to an element of the sprawling investigation into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, quickly condemned the tweet.

“It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters,” the network said in statement. It also tweeted a recent assertion by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders that Trump had never engaged in such incitement.

As is often the case, the president’s surrogates were left scrambling to explain or justify an inflammatory Twitter outburst. Homeland security advisor Thomas Bossert, who was shown the clip while appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” watched it stone-faced and then declared: “No one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they don’t.”

The night before, Trump had used a celebration of veterans at Washington’s Kennedy Center to again denounce the news media. The president, who had briefly broken a weekend golf getaway to appear at the rally, pounded away at the theme that he is being treated unfairly.

“The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House,” he told the raucous crowd. “But I’m president, and they’re not.”

(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

A growing number of states have rejected a request for personal information about voters from a presidential commission on vote fraud led by Kansas’ controversial Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Kobach, the vice chairman of the commission, sent letters to each state and Washington, D.C., asking for voters’ personal information. The request asked for names, addresses, voting history and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers.

The commission was set up to look into voter fraud after President Trump alleged that he lost the popular vote in 2016 only because millions of people voted illegally -- a claim that numerous states’ election officials from both parties and outside experts have dismissed as groundless.

As of Friday afternoon, at least 13 states had outright rejected the request from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. Officials in several other states either said they would not supply all the information or needed more information before making a decision.

Some officials did not mince words in their “no’s.”

“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great State to launch from,” Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann wrote in a statement.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement that strongly criticized Kobach that he would “continue to defend the rights of all eligible voters to cast their ballots free from discrimination, intimidation or unnecessary roadblocks.”

As a Kansas official, Kobach has been a leading backer of immigration restrictions and of measures to put new requirements on who is allowed to vote. His opponents note that he was fined last week for misleading a federal court in a voting rights case.

Democratic elected officials in several states criticized the commission, itself, not just the information request.

“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that ‘voter fraud’ is a widespread issue – it is not,” Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Grimes wrote.

In an odd contradiction, Kobach said that Kansas, like some other states, will partially reject at least one aspect of the request.

“In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available. … Every state receives the same letter, but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available,” he told the Kansas City Star.

The states that have fully rejected the request include California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi and Minnesota.

Others, including Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Missouri, Kansas, Utah and Texas will turn over some of the requested information. Vermont has requested an affidavit from the commission. And Wisconsin has suggested that the commission could purchase the publicly available information, just as political campaigns do. Officials in Washington state said they were reviewing the request.

Protesters gather outside a OneWest Bank in Pasadena in 2014.

(Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Two House Democrats want Congress to look into possible conflicts of interest in the Trump administration’s handling of investigations into Pasadena’s OneWest Bank — a bank formerly headed by now-Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.

Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Al Green (D-Texas) said Friday that there was “room for considerable doubt as to the impartiality and the adequacy of this administration’s investigations into OneWest” and a subsidiary, Financial Freedom.

Mnuchin was the bank’s chairman from 2009 to 2015. President Trump has nominated Joseph Otting, the former chief executive of OneWest, to be comptroller of the currency, a key bank regulator who is part of the Treasury Department.

And Brian Brooks, who was OneWest’s vice chairman, reportedly will be tapped to be deputy Treasury secretary.

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Dean Heller is Stephanie Diaz-Gonzalez’s problem now.

She’s never met Nevada’s Republican senator and hadn’t had much time to familiarize herself. How could she? The 25-year-old is holding down a full-time job and ra+ising a 7-year-old son, who keeps her busy with soccer games, math homework and those too-often terrifying moments when he can’t breathe.

When President Trump was elected and congressional Republicans moved on their top priority to dismantle Obamacare, Diaz-Gonzalez got to know Heller a whole lot better.

Given his back-and-forth on the issue, she came to distrust him.

“I don’t know if I could vote for him or support him,” the Democrat said. “He seems very contradictory.”

Which is why Heller is also Karen Steelmon’s problem.

Steelmon, a 48-year-old Republican who grew up in northern Nevada, isn’t happy with the lawmaker, who is considered the most vulnerable GOP senator in the country when he comes up for reelection next year.

Obamacare has always been an abomination to Steelmon, an ardent supporter of repeal. To her, deeply held principles are at stake.

“Heller has never acted in favor of what I would consider conservative, constitutional principles as a general rule,” said Steelmon, who would like to see the incumbent taken out in a GOP primary. “And on the very few times he has, it’s always come as a surprise.”

This is Heller’s dilemma.

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(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program hit back at President Trump after his Twitter attack on them.

In an op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post, co-anchors Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough wrote that they had criticized Trump, but that “our concerns about his unmoored behavior go far beyond the personal.”

“America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president,” they wrote.

“We have out doubts,” they added, “but we are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show.”

Trump soon retaliated with yet another tweet.

To which Scarborough responded.

The president’s Twitter wars have exasperated Republican lawmakers and discouraged even many of his supporters, but he shows no sign of changing his long-set ways.

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(Alexei Nikolsky / Associated Press)

President Trump has governed five months under a cloud of questions about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, yet the two men will meet next week for the first time, on the sidelines of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, Germany.

White House officials on Thursday confirmed plans for the private meeting but said no decisions had been made about the topics Trump will raise. So it’s unclear whether the men will discuss Russia’s election-year cyberattacks that are the focus of criminal and congressional investigations.

“Our relationship with Russia is not different from any other country in terms of us communicating with them, really, what our concerns are, where we see problems in the relationship but also opportunities,” said Trump’s national security advisor, H.R. McMaster.

McMaster said he expected the two men to have “a broad, wide-ranging discussion” about problems in the relationship but also about where the U.S. and Russia have “common interests.”

“There’s no specific agenda,” McMaster said. “It’s really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about,” he added.

The White House has refused to say whether Trump would sign legislation with new sanctions on Russia for meddling in the elections by hacking, including into some states’ voting systems, and by spreading false news stories.

But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicated the existing restrictions against Russia were sufficient. “We’ve got plenty of those as well,” Mnuchin said.

Trump will also meet with the leaders of China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore and other countries during the summit of 20 major world economies.

Trump’s director of the White House National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, said the meeting would fall short of a typical “bilateral” discussion between the American president and the head of another country, but would be more than what’s known in diplomacy-speak as a “pull aside” — a quick, informal get-together on the edge of a conference.

Trump’s scheduled meeting with Putin in Hamburg places added significance on his stop in Poland next Wednesday.

In Warsaw, McMaster said, Trump intends to bolster U.S. relationships with Poland and other central European and Baltic states that were once in Moscow’s orbit under the Soviet Union, but now rely on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. to counter pressure from Russia. Trump’s meetings there seem designed to strengthen his hand with Putin.

McMaster called Poland “a front-line NATO nation with regards to the eastern flank,” noting that it sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq and has exceeded its pledge on NATO defense spending. As a candidate and president, Trump has criticized other NATO countries that have not yet met those pledges for military spending equal to at least 2% of the size of their respective economies.

After it stalled for several months in federal courts, a portion of President Trump’s travel ban is set to take effect Thursday evening and will bar individuals from six majority-Muslim countries. Some in conservative media are viewing it as a much-needed political victory for Trump.

Here are some of Thursday’s headlines:

Two wins for Trump (Washington Times)

Trump has seen setbacks in his fledgling administration – probes into possible collusion with Russia, infighting among his party over a healthcare overhaul, federal courts halting his travel ban. But now, the president gets a W.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to allow portions of President Trump’s travel ban to proceed is a much-needed victory for the administration,” Cal Thompson writes. “In doing so the unanimous court affirmed — at least temporarily, pending a full hearing on the case in the fall — a president’s constitutional authority to determine whether people seeking admittance to the U.S. pose a threat to our safety and security.”

Thompson also highlights the Supreme Court decision this week that churches have the same right as other charitable groups to seek state money for new playground surfaces and other non-religious needs. Thompson called the ruling in the case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc. v. Comer, a victory for religious institutions and Trump, who at times has touched on the issue of religious freedom.

Breitbart prods GOP leaders to pass ‘pro-American’ immigration reforms (Breitbart)

For Trump, Breitbart hasn’t always delivered the most approving headlines for his administration – particularly on immigration. Some right-wing bloggers and pundits don’t think Trump has done enough on immigration, a key pillar of his campaign platform.

This piece turns the attention to members of Congress, where two bills – focused primarily on detaining people in the country illegally – could come up for a vote .

“The GOP-run House is expected to vote for two modest immigration-reform bills as soon as this week, but pro-American reformers are using the two votes to build loud and energetic public pressure for major reform legislation,” notes the right-wing website.

Trump attacks ‘Psycho’ Joe Scarborough, ‘Crazy’ Mika Brzezinski in Twitter tear (Fox News)

At first, they were friends; now, perhaps, enemies?

Trump used Twitter early Thursday to jab “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who the president in past has said he admires.

The tweets have drawn the ire of Republicans. Here’s what the president wrote:

And the response?

President Trump intends to nominate Brendan Carr, a former aide to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, to fill the final open seat at the agency and provide a crucial vote on the future of tough net neutrality rules.

Carr, the FCC’s general counsel, would fill a Republican slot on the commission and would be expected to support Pai’s push to roll back the regulations for online traffic.

Carr’s intended nomination was announced by the White House on Wednesday night. It comes after Trump nominated Jessica Rosenworcel, a former FCC commissioner, on June 14 to fill a Democratic seat.

If the Senate confirms both nominees, as expected, the FCC would have its full complement of five commissioners and a 3-2 Republican majority.

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Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

When Judge Neil M. Gorsuch went before the Senate in March as President Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, he sought to assure senators he would be independent and above the political fray.

“There is no such thing as a Republican judge or Democratic judge,” he said more than once. “We just have judges.”

But in just his first few weeks on the high court, Justice Gorsuch has shown himself to be a confident conservative activist, urging his colleagues to move the law to the right on religion, gun rights, gay rights and campaign funding.

He dissented along with Justice Clarence Thomas when the court rejected a gun-rights challenge to California’s law that strictly regulates who may carry a concealed weapon. “The 2nd Amendment’s core purpose,” they said, shows “the right to bear arms extends to public carry.”

He wrote a dissent, joined by Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., when the court struck down part of an Arkansas law that gave opposite sex-couples, but not same-sex couples, the right to have both spouses listed on a child’s birth certificate. The court said it had already decided that same-sex couples deserve fully equal rights under state law.

And when Trump’s travel ban came before the court this week, Gorsuch dissented from the majority’s middle-ground approach, which allowed the ban to take effect except for foreign travelers who had a relationship with this country, such as a close relative or a student enrolled in a university.

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(Nicholas Kamm / AFP Photo)

President Trump plans to pressure South Korean President Moon Jae-in to make trade concessions when they meet Friday, while at the same time seeking closer cooperation against North Korea’s accelerating nuclear program.

Both aims, outlined Wednesday by a senior administration official, could make for some difficult discussions, especially since the newly elected Moon campaigned for a softer approach to the government in Pyongyang.

Moon, who arrived Wednesday in Washington, began his four-day visit by laying a wreath at a memorial at Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia to the U.S. Marines who died during the Korean War in the battle at Chosin Reservoir.

Trump will host Moon and his wife, Kim Joon-suk, for dinner at the White House on Thursday before the two leaders meet one-on-one in the Oval Office on Friday morning.

Having criticized the two countries’ trade agreement when he was running for president, Trump will argue for a more balanced trade relationship, the administration official said in a background briefing. In particular, Trump will cite the large amount of Chinese steel that is sometimes processed in South Korea before being sold cheaply in the U.S. market.

The two leaders will have a “friendly, frank discussion about the trade imbalance between South Korea and the United States,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Seoul’s trade surplus is “shrinking,” the official added, but “there is still a large gap.”

The visit will mark the first time the two leaders have met since the liberal Moon took office last month after the ouster of President Park Geun-hye, a scandal-tarred conservative who had taken a hard line against North Korea.

Trump and Moon share “precisely the same goal,” the Trump aide said -- “the complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.”

But the approach of the two leaders is starkly different. Trump has called for “maximum pressure” against North Korea, seeking additional economic sanctions and demanding that China, North Korea’s main ally and patron, do more to shut off assistance to Pyongyang.

Moon has risen through the ranks of his country’s politics advocating for closer ties between the Koreas, which technically are still at war. Already he has taken steps to delay the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, an anti-missile system intended to counter any North Korean strikes.

The anti-missile system is a divisive issue in South Korea; it prompted protests last weekend at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. China has objected to installation of the powerful radar defense as well, but the White House believes the U.S. system will ultimately be fully operative.

The delay “should not be equated as a reversal of the decision to deploy THAAD,” the official said, and suggested that the topic would not be central to the two presidents’ discussions.

“As important as anything [will be] building a rapport and getting to know each other,” the official said.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Senate Republicans reconvened behind closed doors Wednesday trying to break the impasse on their healthcare overhaul but emerged with no apparent strategy for resolving differences by an end-of-week deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky vowed to try again for a vote after the Fourth of July recess, despite having abruptly delayed action this week.

Senators were aiming for a revised bill by Friday, the Republican whip, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, told reporters, so it could be assessed by the Congressional Budget Office during the break.

But senators remained skeptical after the lengthy lunchtime huddle that appeared to run long on ideas but short on consensus.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

McConnell surprised senators by delaying this week’s expected votes once it became clear he did not have a majority for passage – or possibly to even open the debate.

As many as 10 Republican senators now publicly oppose the bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, and leaders are scrambling to win them over with an estimated $200 billion in savings from the bill that can be applied to their particular state’s needs.

But even with that fund of resources, it is not clear McConnell will be able to satisfactorily improve the legislation, which now threatens to cut 22 million Americans off health insurance. He can only afford to lose two Republican votes in the face of Democratic opposition.

“It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a yes... have to make us an offer we can’t refuse,” Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said on a telephone town hall late Tuesday, according to journalist Jon Ralston, who monitored the call.

Fresh polling Wednesday showed paltry support for the Republican approach to overhauling the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which has enjoyed a surge in popularity now that Republicans are closer than ever to repealing it. A USA Today poll put approval of the Senate GOP bill at 12%.

Republicans, though, are under enormous pressure from their most conservative supporters – and big dollar donors, including the powerful Koch network – to deliver on their promised to end Obamacare.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, suggested that President Trump convene all 100 senators – much the way then-President Obama did during his first days in office for a session at Blair House – to see how they might be able to work together to improve, rather than repeal, the Affordable Care Act.

“I’d make my friends on the Republican side and President Trump an offer: Let’s turn over a new leaf. Let’s start over,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“President Trump, I challenge you to invite us – all 100 of us, Republican and Democrat – to Blair House to discuss a new bipartisan way forward on healthcare in front of all the American people.”

No such invitation, however, seemed forthcoming. Trump dismissed Schumer’s proposal – “he just doesn’t seem like a serious person,” the president said – and instead promised his own “big surprise” on healthcare.

“Healthcare is working along very well,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We could have a big surprise, with a great healthcare package.”

Asked what he meant by a big surprise, Trump simply repeated: “A great, great surprise.”

The Republican bill, like its counterpart passed by House Republicans, does not fully gut Obamacare, but rescinds the new taxes imposed on high-income individuals and healthcare companies to pay for expanding coverage through Medicaid and subsidies for private insurance on the ACA marketplace.

Senators said the private talks Wednesday focused mainly on changes to the Obamacare marketplace that could bring down the cost of insurance premiums.

One idea from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to allow insurers to offer policies that do not meet the Obamacare benchmarks for what insurance needs to cover met with mixed reaction, senators said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, warned that such changes would alter the risk pool, keeping insurance costs high.

“You end up with policies that, for example, don’t cover maternity,” Cassidy said. “Do you want a policy that doesn’t have maternity, which would be principally appealing to young men, when obviously typically men have had a role in that pregnancy?”

Other senators were floating new ideas, but McConnell gave no indication whether those proposals would be included in the final revised product.

Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report.

Homeland Security officials said Wednesday they will order stricter passenger screening and other new security measures for all flights entering the United States but will not bar laptop computers in carry-on luggage as airlines and passenger groups had feared.

The new order will cover about 2,000 flights a day from 280 airports in 105 countries, a move that could make international flying even more onerous just as the busy summer travel season starts.

Security officials would not detail the new measures but said passengers headed to the United States will face more intensive screening at airports, and probably more security dogs. They gave no date for when the new procedures will start.

If carriers don’t implement the measures effectively, Homeland Security still may ban laptops, e-readers and other electronic devices larger than cell phones from cargo holds as well as passenger cabins.

The decision follows intelligence, reportedly gathered from Islamic State in Syria by Israeli spy services, suggesting a lethal new threat from bombs that could be concealed in digital devices and that could evade detection by airport screening devices.

In March, U.S. and British authorities banned laptops in cabins on flights from eight Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Middle East, saying terrorists were seeking “innovative methods” to bring down commercial jetliners.

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly told a security conference in Washington on Wednesday that the new security measures will be “both seen and unseen” and will be phased in over time.

He said they will include tougher screening, particularly of electronic devices, plus new technology and procedures to protect planes from so--called insider attacks by airline employees.

“It is time that we raise the global baseline of aviation security,” Kelly said. “We cannot play international whack-a-mole with every new threat.”

He said terrorists still see commercial aircraft as “the crown jewel target” for attacks, and that intelligence has shown renewed interest by terrorists to attack airlines.

Kelly told a House committee several weeks ago that the department was considering extending the laptop ban to 71 more airports overseas.

But Kelly ultimately decided to tighten screening across the board, instead of focusing on laptops or “chasing after each item” that might be used to bring down a jetliner, senior Homeland Security officials said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to brief reporters, said Kelly worked with airlines to find ways to improve screening without unduly inconveniencing passengers.

“Intensive doesn’t always mean slower,” said one official. “In some cases, airlines have been doing these things at international airports for some time.”

The officials said more security dogs, which sniff for explosives, may be used. And they said airlines and airports may institute pre-check programs like those approved by the Transportation Security Administration for use in U.S. airports.

The officials said restrictions on the first 10 airports will be lifted once airlines in those countries satisfy the new security protocols, officials said.

Airport authorities in the eight countries affected by that ban – Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates – have been told about the new security measures and will put them in place so the ban is lifted, the officials said.

In recent weeks, Kelly and his aides have huddled with their counterparts overseas, as well as with representatives of major airlines, to discuss whether to expand the ban around the globe.

Airlines protested that a laptop ban would inconvenience passengers and not remove the threat. Aviation experts and European security officials warned that putting laptops in cargo holds would pose other dangers because the lithium batteries could start fires.

In 1988, a bomb hidden in a radio cassette player exploded aboard a Pan Am jet flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew. The plot was blamed on then-Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi.

In 2010, powerful bombs hidden in printer ink cartridges were found aboard two cargo jets headed from Yemen to Chicago. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula later claimed responsibility for the plot.

( (Alex Brandon / Associated Press))

The abrupt decision Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to temporarily shelve a vote on the Republican Obamacare overhaul gives him a few extra weeks to build support for a revised bill before it risks becoming hopelessly stalled by the opposition.

The seasoned GOP leader will be aided by what amounts to a $200-billion piggy bank to push Republican holdouts into line. That’s the bill’s extra cost savings, compared with the House version, that McConnell can tap to provide perks to individual senators, from more opioid assistance to expanded tax-free health savings accounts.

A similar strategy — delay and enticements — worked well in the House, where Republicans last month passed their healthcare bill on the third try.

But prolonging the debate also gives Democrats and other critics time to mobilize, and ensures that senators will be exposed to an onslaught of opposition as they head home for the weeklong holiday break to defend a bill that has estimated would leave tens of millions of Americans without insurance.

After the delay was announced, President Trump hosted a White House gathering of all GOP senators. But rather than rally them around the bill with the power of the presidential bully pulpit, he struck a surprisingly detached tone.

“This will be great if we get it done,” Trump told senators in the East Room. “And if we don’t get it done, it’s just going to be something that we’re not going to like. And that’s OK.”

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press )

The vote – for now – is delayed.

As President Trump has urged Senate Republicans to pass a bill that would overhaul the Affordable Care Act, some, including Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Rob Portman of Ohio, have expressed concerns over cuts to Medicaid. Both represent states that, under Obamacare, expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults. The current Senate healthcare bill would deliver deep cuts to Medicaid, leaving millions uninsured.

While Trump awaits a vote in the coming weeks – originally scheduled for this week, but pushed back until after the July 4 recess – it’s on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to gather enough support from within his GOP caucus to secure the bill’s passage.

Some in the conservative media are questioning the current bill. Here is an overview of today’s headlines on this and other issues:

Republicans have a Medicaid problem (Weekly Standard)

The Republican healthcare bill would cut Medicaid spending by $772 billion over the next decade.

Chris Deaton writes that “Republicans aim to offset the consequences of these Medicaid changes by offering tax credits for private insurance to people under the poverty line.”

In this piece, Deaton raises the question of whether low-income earners would be better off with Medicaid coverage or obtaining insurance through a GOP tax credit? He answers by noting, “It’s long been a contention of conservative thinkers that healthcare outcomes improve with private insurance rather than Medicaid.”

Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, registers as foreign agent (Associated Press)

He’s among those facing scrutiny in an FBI investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election.

Now, Paul Manafort, who at one time served as Trump’s campaign chairman, has registered with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent.

In a filing with the department, Manafort notes that his consulting firm received nearly $17 million between 2012 and 2014 from a Ukrainian political party with links to Russia, according to the Associated Press.

Last spring, former national security advisor Michael T. Flynn, who resigned from his position in February after misleading administration officials about contacts with Russians, also registered as a foreign agent, for consulting work he did for a Turkish businessman.

A Democratic road to recovery (American Spectator)

The party is attempting a reboot.

After Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss and defeats in several special elections this year, Democrats are in search of a new face for the party. Even so, liberals are in lock-step in their opposition to Trump.

This piece offers Democrats some advice – from the right – on how to recover.

“Leftists: You have been lied to and taken advantage of. When you eventually come out of this haze you are in, you will realize that it was done not by the president, but by the snake oil salesmen and charlatans, who took advantage of your sickness and weakness, simply for money and power,” writes Judah Friedman. “Ask yourselves this: What is the Democratic Party, right now, without this rage, and hate, with which it is fueling your addictions? The answer is nothing.”

Former vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is accusing the New York Times of defamation over an editorial that linked one of her political action committee ads to the mass shooting that severely wounded then-Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court Tuesday, Palin’s lawyers say the Times “violated the law and its own policies” when it accused her of inciting the 2011 attack that killed six people.

The lawsuit refers to a June editorial in the Times on the recent shooting of Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise. The editorial later was corrected.

Palin is seeking damages to be determined by a jury.

A spokeswoman for the Times, Danielle Rhoades Ha, says the company hasn’t seen the lawsuit but will defend against any claim vigorously.

Amanda Litman and Ross Morales Rocketto launched the Democratic activist group Run For Something, which encourages people under 35 to seek elected office.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The night Hillary Clinton lost the White House, Amanda Litman cried so hard she threw up.

In Atlanta, as the returns rolled in, Traci Feit Love faced a question from her anguished 8-year-old daughter: “Now what do we do?”

Across the country, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Rita Bosworth wondered the same thing.

The three never met, never spoke, never communicated in any fashion. But in the days and weeks that followed, they became common threads in a sprawling patchwork: the angry and politically aggrieved who — with no help from politicians, political parties or any formal campaign structure — have joined to fight President Trump and his policies.

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(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

President Trump said that if the healthcare bill fails to pass in the Senate, he won’t like it — but “that’s OK.”

Trump spoke Tuesday at a gathering of Senate Republicans after their leaders delayed a vote on their healthcare bill until at least next month.

Trump said, “This will be great if we get it done and if we don’t get it done it’s going to be something that we’re not going to like and that’s OK and I can understand that.”

He added, “I think we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public, very, very important for the people of our country.”

Facing resistance from their own party, Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday they would postpone a vote on their healthcare bill until after the July 4th recess.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to provide more time to make changes to the bill to try to convince reluctant GOP senators to vote for the measure.

“We’re going to press on,’’ McConnell said, adding he remains optimistic. “We’re continuing to talk.”

Since the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would leave 22 million more Americans without insurance after 10 years, several Republicans senators had said they would not even support allowing the bill to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

Meanwhile, President Trump invited all GOP senators to the White House for a meeting Tuesday afternoon.

But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who has expressed serious doubts about the bill, questioned whether revisions would make a difference.

“I have so many fundamental problems with the bill, that have been confirmed by the CBO report, that it’s difficult to see how any tinkering is going to satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the bill,’’ Collins said on CNN.

McConnell is struggling to appease two factions in his party. Centrists like Collins want to lessen the impact of proposed cuts to Medicaid, while conservatives want to go further in repealing benefits provided under Obamacare.

Senate leaders hope to continue talks this week, with an eye toward moving quickly when Congress returns after the holiday. McConnell plans to wait for the CBO to review any changes and reissue a score.

He can only afford to lose two Republicans given the party’s 52-seat majority in the Senate.

“There’s more work that needs to be done, it’s pretty obvious,” said Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho as he was leaving a Senate lunch with Vice President Mike Pence. Pence ignored reporters questions about the decision. “If more work needs to be done, you shouldn’t try to light the fire.”

But the delay in a vote will give Democrats and other opponents of the repeal bill more time to mobilize, particularly as Republicans return to their home districts during the holiday.

“We know the fight is not over,’’ said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York.

The Trump administration Monday night sent the kind of dire warning -- of the Syrian regime’s apparent preparation for another chemical weapons attack, and a threat of U.S. retaliation -- that requires credibility to have a receptive national and foreign audience.

Yet the initial bafflement about the warning among U.S. defense officials, and the simultaneous distraction of President Trump’s unrelated tweets, seemed to undercut the seriousness of the moment. More broadly, the episode is testing the damage Trump has done to his and his administration’s trustworthiness by his assaults on the intelligence community as well as other perceived enemies.

Trump has spent months attacking the credibility of the intelligence community, at one point comparing their tactics to Nazis’ and repeatedly calling its findings of Russian meddling in the election a “hoax” and “witch hunt,” even as foreign policy experts cautioned that he was diminishing the reputation of a community he would need in times of crisis to rally public support.

“At a moment of crisis when U.S. decisions and actions rest upon information coming from the intelligence community, [Trump] may have diminished the credibility of that information in the eyes of the public and the eyes of the international community,” said Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Assn.

Kimball called the White House statement “unusual” and said such messages would normally be sent through private diplomatic channels. He added that the public allegation should be followed by a formal presentation of the evidence to the United Nations Security Council, to build international support against suspected Syrian violations of the chemical weapons ban.

The four-line statement on Syria from the White House Press Secretary came just after 9:44 p.m. EDT Monday.

“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” the statement read. “The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.”

If Syrian President Bashar Assad “conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price,” it concluded, citing a U.S. missile strike after the previous chemical attack to reinforce the new threat.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Tuesday that preparations for a chemical attack were observed at the same base in Syria from which its military launched a sarin nerve gas attack that killed 86 people, including children, in April.

“We have observed activities at Shayrat Air Base that suggest possible intent by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons again,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway said in a statement. “These activities are similar to what we observed prior to the regime chemical weapons attack against Khan Sheikhoun in April.”

But some senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials reached late Monday and early Tuesday were caught off guard by the White House statement. “Some knew, some didn’t,” said a U.S. official who sought anonymity to discuss the intelligence matter.

The official described the release of the nighttime statement as “ungraceful,” but said the assessment that Syria was preparing for an attack is “sound.”

Such official statements are typically distributed widely across an administration for internal vetting before they’re publicly released. The White House said the relevant agencies were informed before the statement was published.

Yet Trump lent further confusion about the urgency of the matter and his own level of concern by sending out a tweet about domestic politics only minutes later. He cited a Fox news report about the FBI’s Russia investigation, writing as he often does about the probe, “Witch Hunt!”

Indeed, Trump continued through the next morning to demonstrate his frustration with the Russia investigation and what he calls the American media’s “fake news” with posts on his Twitter feed.

Many tweets quoted supportive conservative commentators and Fox News reports. Trump was eager to go after CNN, one of his top media targets, after it retracted a Russia-related story and three journalists involved resigned.

Trump’s willingness to mix politics and his administration’s ominous red line to Syria opened him up to criticism that he was trying to divert attention from other unfavorable news Monday. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had found that the Republican plan to replace Obamacare would strip 22 million people of health insurance coverage over the next decade.

The Syria statement also prompted a sharp backlash from the Kremlin, which is Assad’s military ally in his nation’s civil war. Russian officials denied there is evidence of an imminent chemical attack and called the White House threat “unacceptable.”

The tensions have heightened as Trump is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next week at the G20 Summit of industrialized nations in Germany. Monday’s statement may be seen as a warning not just to Syria but to Russia, which is widely seen as enabling Assad’s harsh tactics by bolstering his military as he has tried to retain power.

Mike Lee of Utah has become the fifth Republican senator to oppose starting debate on the GOP healthcare bill. That deals another blow to party leaders hoping to push the top-priority measure through the Senate this week.

Lee was among four conservative senators who announced last week they oppose the bill’s current version. Lee spokesman Conn Carroll said Tuesday that the lawmaker will not vote for a crucial procedural motion allowing the Senate to begin debate on the legislation, unless it’s changed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can lose the votes of only two of the 52 Republican senators to begin debate and ultimately pass the bill. All Democrats oppose it.

Lee has favored a fuller repeal of President Obama’s healthcare law than the current GOP bill.

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The Kremlin is calling “unacceptable” a White House warning to Syria’s government that it would pay a “heavy price” if it carries out another poison gas attack against its own people.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, also declared Tuesday that there is no indication that a chemical weapons strike is in the works.

The White House said late Monday night that activity had been detected similar to that preceding a nerve gas attack on April 4 that killed dozens of civilians, including children, in rebel-held Idlib province.

President Trump responded by launching nearly 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield that U.S. officials said was used for the chemical attack. It was the first U.S. attack on Syrian forces in the six-year civil war.

Russia continues to deny that Assad’s forces carried out the April 4 gas attack and Peskov criticized the White House for saying there were signs of preparation for “another” such strike.

Peskov said the Kremlin does not “think it is possible to lay the blame on the Syrian armed forces” for the April strike on the village of Khan Sheikhoun, which the U.S. and its allies said involved sarin, a banned nerve agent.

“Despite all the demands from the Russian side, an impartial international inquiry into a previous tragedy using chemical agents has not been carried out,” the spokesman told Russian news agencies.

Peskov criticized the White House warning to Assad, saying “such threats to Syria’s legitimate leaders are unacceptable.”

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The Senate Republican healthcare bill ran into serious trouble late Monday when key GOP senators indicated they may block the Obamacare overhaul from proceeding to a vote this week.

Political turmoil has been building over the bill for days. But GOP tension burst open after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that 22 million more Americans would lose insurance coverage under the plan and that out-of-pocket costs for many of those buying policies on the Affordable Care Act marketplace would rise.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hoped to start procedural votes by Wednesday, and President Trump called key senators over the weekend as support splintered.

It’s the same political dynamic that stalled the House Republican bill last month, as conservative and centrist factions wrestle for dominance. Conservatives want a more complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which they hope will lower premium costs, while centrists are trying to avoid leaving millions of Americans without health coverage.

“Senate bill doesn’t fix ACA problems for rural Maine,” tweeted Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “I will vote no on mtp,” she said, referring to the “motion to proceed” to the bill.

Conservative Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is also working to change the bill so that he can vote yes on the procedural motion.

“We are not there yet,” Lee’s spokesman said.

Senators have bristled at what they viewed as McConnell’s secretive and rushed process, and several other senators said they wanted more time before voting.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was among those Republicans who shared concerns in weekend calls with Trump.

“We continue to make progress,” Cruz told reporters Monday, as Democrats, who oppose the bill, planned an almost-all-night protest session.

Cruz is part of the gang of four conservatives -- including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky -- who have said they cannot vote for the bill as is. Among the changes being pursued is one provision that would allow insurers to offer cheaper policies that do not meet ACA’s requirements and another to let consumers sock more money into health savings accounts

“We can get there and I’m hopeful we will get there,” Cruz said. However, he declined to say whether he would agree to Wednesday’s procedural vote.

Also hesitant to proceed was Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who has strongly criticized undoing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion that has enabled about 200,000 people to gain coverage in his state.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for example, wanted changes to help residents in her geographically far-flung state where healthcare costs are particularly high.

Some senators, though, dismissed the budget analysis and said keeping the ACA would be worse.

“It’s clear the CBO cannot predict the purchasing patterns for millions of Americans,” said Georgia Sen. David Perdue, a Trump ally, in a statement. “This bureaucratic analysis will do nothing to prevent Obamacare from failing.”

Others are weighing their votes.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, whose office is receiving thousands of daily calls, spent part of Monday on the phone with health officials in Tennessee as he assesses the fallout in his state of 22 million more people in the country without healthcare.

“I kind of figured it was going to be a pretty big number,” said Corker, who remains undecided. “There’s a lot of incoming.”

((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Amid its flurry of decisions Monday about Trump’s travel ban and cases involving religious liberties and guns, the Supreme Court put off final rulings on three pending cases involving immigration and the U.S. border.

In Hernandez vs. Mesa, the court in an unsigned opinion told the U.S. appeals court in New Orleans to take a second look at a border shooting case. The parents of a 15-year-old Mexican boy sued a U.S. border patrol agent who shot and killed the teenager when he was standing a few feet from the border on the Mexican side. The 5th Circuit had thrown out the parents’ suit.

“The facts alleged in the complaint depict a disturbing incident resulting in a heartbreaking loss of life,” the court said in sending the case back for a further hearing.

The court said it would rehear in the fall a Los Angeles case involving whether immigrants awaiting deportation can be jailed indefinitely, or instead have a right to a bond hearing after six months. The court’s action suggests the eight justices were evenly split in Jennings vs. Rodriguez.

The court also said it will rehear the case of Sessions vs. Dimaya to decide whether non-citizens can be deported for an offense like breaking into an empty home because it may be deemed a “crime of violence.”

Immigration and refugee advocates expressed disappointment Monday with the Supreme Court’s partial reinstatement of President Trump’s travel ban, saying even limited implementation could cause hardship to refugees and others seeking to travel to the United States from six affected Muslim-majority countries.

However, organizations taking part in the months-long legal fight against the revised travel ban expressed hopes that the high court ultimately will reject the restrictions after arguments are heard in October.

And they welcomed what they described as an implicit rebuke of the White House’s assertion that Trump has unfettered powers to exclude arrivals based on purported national security concerns.

The initial rollout of the ban, days after Trump took office in January, caused pandemonium at airports across the United States and overseas as tens of thousands of visa-holders arriving from seven affected countries were turned away without warning or detained.

After courts blocked that order, Trump issued a revised travel ban that took Iraq off the list.

A replay of January’s travel chaos was unlikely Monday because the court’s action will allow visa-holders with “bona fide” ties to people or entities in the U.S. to enter, meaning students, employees and family members can still get in.

But refugee advocates said the court’s limited ruling, which the administration can move to implement on Thursday, could leave many would-be arrivals in limbo pending the finalizing of new vetting procedures.

The administration had originally said a three-month travel ban was needed in part to review the checks to which would-be entrants are subjected.

David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, said the partial reinstatement of the ban particularly threatens “vulnerable people waiting to come to the U.S.,” including those with urgent medical conditions.

“We urge the administration to begin its long-delayed review of the vetting process and restart a program which changes lives for the better,” said Miliband.

The National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups that challenged the ban, said that as of this week, approximately 50,500 refugees from the six affected countries had been approved for travel and resettlement in the United States — all having already undergone intensive checks.

The Middle East Studies Assn., one the groups contesting the ban in the lower courts, said many students and academics were ensnared by the original order.

Even though Monday’s court move should allow entry to those studying or working at American academic institutions, many from the affected countries remained wary of leaving and then attempting to re-enter the United States, the group said.

Iran — along with Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya — is one of the affected countries, and Southern California is home to a large Iranian American community that was hit hard by the original ban.

Some advocates said even with Monday’s limited action, there has already been a chilling effect on movement.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision immediately places the status of many Americans’ families into question again,” said Shayan Modarres, legal counsel for the National Iranian American Council.

The group said that visas issued to Iranian passport-holders had fallen by nearly half since the legal battle over the ban began, and that obtaining a U.S. visa was becoming so onerous that many would not even try to get one.

“The Trump administration’s new idea is to make it so hard on Iranians and Muslims to get a visa that visa officers will have the unrestricted discretion to reject visa applications,” Modarres said.

He added that grounds for rejection could be social media postings critical of Trump or not being able to produce airline boarding passes that could have been issued and used more than a decade ago.

Advocacy groups reiterated their position — which was argued in a number of the lower court cases that propelled the issue to the high court — that the travel restrictions run counter to core American traditions and values.

Mark Hetfield, president of the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, said the group considered the court’s move “an affirmation that the president does not have unfettered, unchecked authority to bar refugees from the U.S. without evidence to justify such action.”

But he added that the executive order’s partial resurrection would “once again cause irreparable damage to refugees, immigrants, and America’s reputation as a welcoming country.”

The initial ban prompted large nationwide protests, and advocates suggested they would again seek to marshal popular opposition to the restrictions.

“When the first order went into effect, tens of thousands of Americans showed the world that this is not who we are and not what we want,” said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, another of the groups involved in the legal challenge. “We will never give up defending the rights of those who are affected by this discriminatory executive order.”

President Trump celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to allow a curtailed version of his travel ban to take effect, calling it a “clear victory for our national security.”

In an official White House statement, the president said he was “particularly gratified” that at least part of the ruling was 9-0; three conservative justices said they would have let the president’s revised executive order take effect completely.

“My number one responsibility as Commander in Chief is to keep the American people safe. Today’s ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting our Nation’s homeland,” he said.

The White House has long maintained that the president was acting within his authority in seeking to temporarily restrict travel to the United States. They most often point to a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that states a president can suspend or limit entry of individuals “whenever the president finds that the entry ... would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Heading into a week of intense jockeying and arm-twisting over the Senate’s polarizing healthcare plan, the rift appeared to widen Sunday between moderates who consider the measure too punitive and conservatives who want to see the sweeping bill toughened up before agreeing to back it.

President Trump, who made the repeal of his predecessor’s signature Affordable Care Act a campaign centerpiece, expressed optimism about chances for Senate passage, but declared again that he wanted to see a plan with “heart” — suggesting he might undercut Republican efforts to bring recalcitrant conservatives on board.

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seeking to push ahead with a vote this week, the bill’s prospects hung in the balance. Five GOP senators have said publicly they oppose the measure as written; the defection of only three Republicans would be enough to sink it.

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When President Trump hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on Monday, the two leaders will share much in common.

Both are political outsiders who champion a muscular, country-first nationalism. They enjoy feverish support from their voter bases while their governments assail critics and ignore — or encourage — hostility toward minority groups.

A senior White House official briefing reporters ahead of the visit on Friday said that Trump has visited Mumbai, India, in his business career and noted that the two men have more social media followers than any other world leaders, making sure to point out that Trump is slightly ahead of Modi.

But beyond the personalities, there are signs that the U.S.-India partnership — which grew closer under the Obama administration on issues such as climate change — could be headed for rougher waters.

When Trump withdrew from the Paris climate change agreement, he lashed out at India directly, accusing it of exploiting the deal to secure “billions and billions of dollars of foreign aid.”

Trump has vowed to curb trade deficits, a direct threat to India’s $150-billion outsourcing industry. And he has railed against the visa program that brings tens of thousands of Indian workers to the U.S. every year, saying companies should hire more Americans.

“On the major priorities on the Trump agenda, the things that he assumes his voters put him in office for, there’s not a lot of overlap with what India considers its tier-one interests,” said Richard Rossow, the Wadhwani chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

All this could make for a tepid first encounter between the two leaders during a visit that includes an afternoon meeting, a cocktail hour and a working dinner at the White House.

Here are some of the issues that could arise, and some more difficult topics that both men might try to skirt.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a case next fall about the rights of people who oppose same-sex marriage — a group that has steadily shrunk in recent years.

Public opinion on same-sex marriage appears to be following the same pattern as views of marriage between people of different races — something that was illegal in many states, controversial when the Supreme Court ruled in its favor in 1967 and now accepted by all but a fairly small minority.

As recently as a decade ago, more than half of Americans said they opposed allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Today, two years after the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution requires states to allow same-sex marriages, opposition has fallen to about one-third of the population, according to a new survey released Monday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Nearly two-thirds now support equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, the survey showed. Other recent surveys have shown similar trends.

Opposition to same-sex marriage remains strongest among white, conservative evangelical Protestants, like the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, who has brought his challenge to his state’s civil rights law to the Supreme Court. He argues that his cakes are an artistic expression protected by the 1st Amendment and that requiring him to produce them for couples he disapproves of violates his rights.

Among white evangelicals, 35% support same-sex marriage rights, and 59% are opposed. Even among that group, however, support for same-sex marriage rights has grown, the survey showed. The numbers suggest that trend likely will continue.

Among white evangelicals born after 1964 — millennials and members of Generation X — 47% support same-sex marriage. By contrast, among white evangelicals in the baby boom generation and older, just over 25% support same-sex marriage.

That’s in keeping with the trend in society as a whole, in which large majorities among the younger generations support equal marriage rights.

With support growing among evangelicals, who make up a large share of Republicans, the party’s followers are now evenly divided on the marriage issue. Democrats, who were closely divided a decade ago, now overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage.

By contrast, the public is almost equally divided on the issue coming before the high court -- pitting equal rights for same-sex couples against the assertion of religious rights by those who oppose them. A Pew survey nine months ago found 49% of Americans felt that people who offer wedding-related services should be required to treat same-sex couple equally, while 48% said that those with religious objections should exempt.

The latest Pew survey was conducted June 8 to 18 among a national sample of 2,504 adults, it has a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points in either direction for the full sample.