GOP leader who wants to build Trump’s wall is raising cash for Maria Elvira Salazar

@alextdaugherty

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy likes Donald Trump so much he once sorted through a bag of Starburst candy to pick out the cherry and strawberry flavored square-shaped fruit chews—Trump’s favorite flavors—to present the president with a personalized gift.

McCarthy, a California congressman who wants to lead Republicans in the House of Representatives after the November election, has voiced explicit support for funding Trump’s proposed Mexico border wall and sponsored a bill called the “Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act of 2018.”

He’s also raising money for Miami congressional candidate Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican running in a majority Hispanic district Trump lost by nearly 20 percentage points.

Salazar is set to host a fundraiser with McCarthy on Wednesday, according to an invitation obtained by the Miami Herald. The lunchtime gathering at the Riviera Country Club in Coral Gables lists a $10,000 in fundraising for “host” status and $5,000 in fundraising for “co-host” status.

Salazar, a former TV journalist, has won over national Republicans after making the race to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen against Democrat Donna Shalala competitive. The prospect of a Salazar victory has led to outside groups investing in the race after previously considering it unwinnable and has drawn the attention of Republicans like McCarthy who can raise money.

It also brings a Republican to South Florida who has pledged to support Trump’s request for Congress to fund a border wall, something the GOP has not done during Trump’s first term despite a unified majority in the House and Senate. As Speaker, McCarthy would have the power to force votes on spending bills that could include Trump’s border wall.

Salazar’s campaign did not respond when asked if McCarthy’s visit means that she will vote for him to lead House Republicans if elected. 

More here.

Miami Republicans running for reelection grapple with Trump’s immigration record

@alextdaugherty

Donald Trump’s first year in office forced Miami Republicans to step on the third rail of GOP politics: immigration.

The president banned foreign nationals from seven majority Muslim countries from entering the country weeks after he took office, setting off protests around the country. He announced the end of an Obama-era program to prevent the deportation of immigrants who came to the U.S. as young children, calling on Congress to act. The Trump administration began separating families and children who crossed the border illegally, and some parents were deported while their kids remained in U.S. custody. And Trump canceled a temporary program that allowed immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras to live and work in the U.S. without the threat of deportation.

The three Miami Republicans in Congress, Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Carlos Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart, were opposed to all of these policy changes. The trio have the largest shares of eligible Latino voters in their districts among all Republicans in Congress and have tried for years to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. They want to prevent their law-abiding constituents from being deported, but they’ve been stymied by their own party.

All three GOP-held seats are being contested by serious Democratic candidates. Former nonprofit fundraiser Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is running against Curbelo, former University of Miami president Donna Shalala is running for Ros-Lehtinen’s seat, and former judge Mary Barzee Flores is running against Diaz-Balart.

“That’s been my biggest disappointment,” Diaz-Balart said about the lack of an immigration compromise in the past two years. “In order to get that issue done, you need to put hyper-partisanship aside. You need to have the trust of everybody around the table.”

Republicans in Congress have been unable to overrule the president’s executive order, find a solution for the young immigrants known as Dreamers and help individuals receiving Temporary Protected Status. Instead, they’ve been reliant on liberal judges to prevent deportations. Last week, a federal judge in California ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS, and Dreamers remain in legal limbo weeks from Election Day.

“Such great news for our South Florida community!” Ros-Lehtinen tweeted last week after the TPS decision. “We have wonderful folks from these countries who have been here legally and their pending deportations would be heartaches for their familias!”

The Democrats seeking to replace the trio largely agree with the South Florida Republicans on immigration policy, though they likely wouldn’t support handing Trump money for his border wall in exchange for protecting existing immigrants from deportation. They’re arguing that a Democratic majority in Congress is the way to get an immigration solution.

There isn’t any evidence that Curbelo and Diaz-Balart, along with Maria Elvira Salazar, the Republican seeking to replace Ros-Lehtinen, could convince the majority of their party to come up with a solution should they all win on Nov. 6. Curbelo and Diaz-Balart were part of a small group of lawmakers who first negotiated with Democrats to find a solution for Dreamers, an effort that fell two votes short. Then, they tried to negotiate with conservatives in their own party, an effort that saw a conservative compromise immigration bill fail badly.

“It’s truly disappointing that after months of broken promises from Speaker [Paul] Ryan for Dreamers, Congressman Curbelo caved so easily to House Republican Leadership and handed over every piece of leverage on DACA to the most anti-immigrant Republicans in Congress,” Curbelo’s Democratic opponent, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, said shortly after Curbelo’s compromise effort failed this summer.

More here.

Miami’s pro-Trump ‘master of selfies’ could upend a competitive congressional race

@alextdaugherty

At a recent Ron DeSantis campaign event at Miami’s Versailles restaurant, a congressional candidate was on hand waving a “Make America Great Again” hat, shouting at conservative Republicans who had come to get a glimpse of the GOP gubernatorial nominee to vote for her.

But the MAGA-clad candidate for congressional District 27 wasn’t the Republican nominee, Maria Elvira Salazar. It was no-party candidate Mayra Joli.

Joli, Miami’s self-described master of selfies, has been campaigning for nearly a year for retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s seat. She bypassed the GOP primary for a shot in the general election against Salazar and Democrat Donna Shalala, and doesn’t have much money in her campaign account. Independent campaigns for congressional seats are usually long-shot propositions.

But Joli’s outspoken pro-Trump message on Spanish-language radio and at other candidates’ campaign events could undercut the effort by Republicans to keep Ros-Lehtinen’s seat. The race is already a difficult one for the GOP — Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the district by more than 19 percentage points in 2016. Republicans are relying on a coalition of conservatives and moderate voters who supported Ros-Lehtinen to stay in their camp come November, and they’re hopeful that Salazar is the right candidate to make the race competitive.

“Basically, the Republicans, the Diaz-Balarts and the Ros-Lehtinens, they are more anti-Trump than even some Democrats and many in the Cuban-American community think they have sold their souls to Washington,” Joli said. “I’m running as an NPA [No Party Affliation] because I understand the only way to help the president is to be with him for America First.”

Nelson Diaz, the head of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, blasted Joli’s candidacy as disingenuous, noting that she donated $500 to Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid and that Republicans who vote for her are essentially giving their vote to Shalala.

“If somebody was looking to derail the GOP nominee in this election you would do exactly what she’s doing; Say you’re a Trump supporter, wiggle your away to the front of the room,” Diaz said. “If she cares so much about this president, why would she do something that’s going to damage or hurt the president?”

Diaz said he thinks Joli’s campaign is a “scam,” though he acknowledged he has no evidence that she’s in the race as a ringer candidate to deliberately sabotage the chances of the GOP nominee.

“I think Maria Elvira will win by a good margin because the Dems have nominated someone who is such a bad candidate for this seat, but she [Joli] could make a difference,” Diaz said. “Of course, we are going to combat it. I’ve been on the radio this week telling people that this woman’s a fraud.”

Read more here.

Trump called Haiti a ‘sh--hole’ campaigning in Miami in 2016, Woodward’s book says

@alextdaugherty

When Donald Trump visited Little Haiti during the 2016 presidential campaign, he told the Haitian-American community: “I really want to be your biggest champion.”

Minutes later, he was calling Haiti a shithole.

In Bob Woodward’s new book released on Tuesday, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” the veteran reporter wrote that Trump used the vulgarity to describe Haiti after a campaign stop in Little Haiti.

“The idea of ‘shithole countries’ was not a new one for Trump,” Woodward wrote. “During the 2016 campaign, Trump had visited Little Haiti in Miami. Former Haitian leaders had come to the microphones and accused the Clintons of corruption and stealing from Haiti.”

“After the event, in private, Trump seemed down. ‘I really felt for these people. They come from such a shithole.’”

The comments in 2016 came after a Trump campaign event where the then-candidate told Haitian-Americans they shared “a lot of common values” and railed against the Clinton Foundation’s spending in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

“Whether you vote for me or not I really want to be your biggest champion,” Trump said in prepared remarks. “Clinton was responsible for doing things a lot of the Haitian people are not happy with. Taxpayer dollars intended for Haiti and the earthquake victims went to a lot of the Clinton cronies.”

Michael Barnett, the vice chairman of the Florida Republican party who helped organized the Little Haiti event, said he will continue to believe the president when he says he didn’t say it. 

"I am still willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I would like to know where these allegations have come from; who are the sources? Until I see any concrete proof, I am willing to believe the president when he says he didn't say it."

 

Barnett was tasked with getting the Little Haiti community to show up to the Trump campaign event. He said he doesn’t recall the president having any private meeting after and that “he got into his vehicle and left the cultural center. I don’t know where he went after that.”

Trump’s use of the vulgarity set off a barrage of criticism earlier this year when the president referred to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries” during a much-publicized January meeting on immigration.

But it wasn’t the first time Trump used the term, according to Woodward.

Read more here.

Maria Elvira Salazar will vote for "any type of tower, any type of guards" at U.S.-Mexico border

@alextdaugherty

Republican Maria Elvira Salazar wants to reform the nation's immigration system, but will vote to spend money on Donald Trump's border priorities if elected to Congress. 

Salazar, running to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in a Miami-based seat that Trump lost by more than 19 percentage points in 2016, did not directly endorse Trump's border wall in a Sunday night interview with MSNBC host Kasie Hunt, but she did endorse specific parts of a border security plan that most Democrats do not support. 

"I would definitely vote in order to secure the border," Salazar said when asked about the wall. 

"Does that mean the wall that the president wants, the big, beautiful wall?" Hunt responded. 

"That means any type of tower, any type of technology, any type of guards for border security that will secure the border because we do not want (imprisoned Mexican drug lord) El Chapo or his friends smuggling drugs," Salazar said. "Listen, the undocumented people do not want to be undocumented. That's why we need to reform our immigration system and we need to give visas to those that are coming to pick up Jalapeno peppers in Southern California or to clean toilets in Orlando or in Manhattan. They need some type of legality so they can stay here, they can pay taxes, they can contribute to the economy and continue working as they are right now without a criminal record." 

Salazar blamed Barack Obama for prioritizing Obamacare over an immigration overhaul while in office and Bill Clinton for passing immigration laws that laid the framework for Trump's family separation policy. 

"This is not a matter of Democrats or Republicans, when it comes to immigration everybody's at fault," Salazar said. 

Hunt also asked Salazar, a broadcast journalist for decades until January, about Trump's comments declaring the press as the enemy of the people. Salazar disagreed with his remarks.

"We have the best press in the world," Salazar said. "The press, the press we need always." 

Salazar faces Democrat Donna Shalala and pro-Trump independent Mayra Joli in the general election. 

Watch the interview here.

A sporty Carlos Curbelo goes up on TV

@alextdaugherty

Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo's first TV spot is an extended metaphor on his two terms in Congress that also serves to let voters know his first occupation: basketball referee. 

Curbelo shows off his post game and launches some mid-range jumpers as he criticizes Democrats for not getting behind his conservative alternative to the Dream Act and Republicans for not doing enough to help the environment or push for certain gun control measures. 

"My first job was refereeing basketball. I called a fair game," Curbelo says, as he spins a whistle around his finger. "But Washington politicians don’t play fair. And I just call ‘em like I see ‘em. The left blocked my Dreamers solution, I called them out and kept working. The right didn’t do enough for our environment or school safety, so I called that one, too. In Washington, many politicians play for their party, but I play for you."

Curbelo, who represents the most Democratic-leaning district in the country held by a Republican running for reelection, is expected to spend millions against likely Democratic opponent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Outside groups on both sides will likely run their own ads ahead of Election Day. 

The 30-second spot doesn't actually show Curbelo hitting any shots, so it's hard to tell how his basketball skills match up with lawmakers like Bernie Sanders (who drained shot after shot via the backboard during the 2016 presidential campaign) or Ted Cruz (who recently bested Jimmy Kimmel in a one-on-one matchup for charity). 

"We didn’t keep a running score, but can say he’s definitely been practicing since the Congressional charity basketball game and I’m predicting more playing time in his future," Curbelo spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said.

Watch the ad below: 

A tale of two primaries: The race to replace Ros-Lehtinen enters the final stretch

@alextdaugherty

The Republican and Democratic primaries to replace Miami icon Ileana Ros-Lehtinen both have front-runners.

That’s where the similarities end.

Democrats are arguing over policy issues that could accelerate the party’s leftward shift and are trying to attack former University of Miami President Donna Shalala. Discussions about abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and implementing Medicare for all are ideas that just recently came to the national party’s attention.

Republicans are arguing that the leading candidate, TV journalist Maria Elvira Salazar, was flirtatious with former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in an television interview 23 years ago, lobbing well-worn accusations of being soft on Cuba that have been a staple of Miami campaigns for decades.

“You would think that in Miami that we’re running campaigns on foreign policy,” said Republican political consultant Jesse Manzano-Plaza, who is not involved in the GOP race. “This is an example on the federal level, but even on the policy it seems like it’s about the perception that someone may have been friendly to Fidel Castro in an interview years ago.”

When Ros-Lehtinen, the GOP’s leading social moderate in Congress and a noted critic of President Donald Trump, announced her retirement nearly a year and a half ago, the seat instantly became the Democrats’ to lose. Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than 19 percentage points in the district that encompasses Miami Beach, most of Miami, Kendall and parts of coastal South Dade.

Republicans and Democrats have gone 0 for 23 in situations like Ros-Lehtinen’s since 1994, when an incumbent representative doesn’t run for reelection in a district carried two years earlier by a president from the opposite party.

Read more here.

Miami lawmakers plan to publicly rebuke Daniel Ortega for violence in Nicaragua

@alextdaugherty

Daniel Ortega’s biggest foes in Washington are trying to draw more attention to Nicaragua’s ongoing human-rights crisis, though they acknowledge that military action by President Donald Trump against the leftist leader is unlikely.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Sen. Marco Rubio of Miami are leading efforts in the House and Senate to publicly rebuke violent attacks by masked gunmen linked to Ortega’s government who have killed 97 people since July 11. This week, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution written by Ros-Lehtinen that condemns the violence and calls on the use of sanctions for individuals that are connected to the killings. Rubio has proposed a similar resolution in the Senate.

The retiring Miami congresswoman said the successful resolution was the first step in a four-part plan to rebuke Ortega.

Additionally, she’s angling for the Senate to pass her bill that limits U.S. loans to Ortega’s government until the longtime president carries out democratic reforms; more sanctions for individuals who can be connected to violent acts against anti-Ortega protestors, and overturning the Trump administration’s decision to end a temporary immigration program that allowed 2,500 Nicaraguans to live and work in the U.S. without the fear of deportation.

“I would not want to compare atrocities, but Nicaragua is a smaller country than Venezuela, smaller population, and they had almost 400 people killed and the international community shrugs,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “If we’re going to say that it’s terrible in Nicaragua, why are we going to deport Nicaraguan Americans to Nicaragua when we are saying that it’s in political chaos?”

The Trump administration decided to end Nicaragua’s Temporary Protected Status in November 2017, a designation that was made in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch killed nearly 4,000 people and uprooted land mines around the country. Nicaraguans who have been living in the U.S. with TPS since 1998 now have until January 2019 to seek another form of legal residency or else return to Nicaragua.

“By next year, they will all be deported,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “These are law-abiding people, they are legal, they have permits to work, they’re being educated, they’ve got driver’s licenses and now we’re going to deport them to the violent hell that is Nicaragua? That’s just not right.”

Ros-Lehtinen’s letter to Trump urging him to change Nicaragua’s TPS designation was signed by four of Miami-Dade County’s five House members, including Republicans Carlos Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart. Miami-Dade is home to about one-third of all Nicaraguan Americans.

Rubio said there is already work being done to sanction individuals and entities in Nicaragua that are responsible for the violence. Ortega’s recent decision not to move up elections that were scheduled for 2021, as requested by the nation’s business community and Catholic clergy, moved him past the point of no return in Rubio’s eyes.

“There is a direct national security interest for the United States in seeing a return to democracy and stability in Nicaragua,” Rubio said in a statement. “The message from the U.S. to the Ortega regime was very clear: Call for early elections and allow legitimate elections. That did not happen. As Nicaragua follows Venezuela’s dangerous path, the U.S. should be prepared to take further action with our regional allies to address the threat of Ortega’s regime.”

Read more here.

Curbelo says 1,313 kids in Homestead shelter are treated with ‘care and compassion’

@alextdaugherty

Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo said one of the country’s largest compounds for immigrant children felt a lot like a high school after touring it for the first time on Friday.

Curbelo was able to visit the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children after initially being denied entry to the facility, which is in his district, by the Department of Health and Human Services.

There are currently 1,313 children from ages 13-17 at the facility, Curbelo said, and 114 of them are children who were separated from their parents at the border because of the Trump administration’s policy of separating families who cross the border illegally together. The rest of the children are unaccompanied minors who crossed the border without their parents.

“The minors in this facility are being treated with great care and compassion,” Curbelo said in an interview after he toured the facility. “From everything I saw these adolescents are being treated with great care and all of their needs are being attended to.”

Curbelo said the facility director told him that 37 children who were once at the facility have been reunited with their parents after being separated at the border, a policy that Curbelo and most lawmakers in Washington want to end.

Inside the facility, Curbelo said he saw classrooms where students were learning English, dormitory-style sleeping quarters and a cafeteria that reminded him of a high school. There are 1,700 employees dedicated to staffing the facility, and the gender split of the children appeared to be 60 percent male and 40 percent female, Curbelo said. Males and females appear to be completely separated from each other, they use the cafeteria at different times and have separate sleeping quarters and classrooms, he said.

Curbelo said he was told not to “interrogate” the children, but he did have “light conversations” with children who indicated they were being treated well.

“We had full access,” Curbelo said. “They asked us not to interrogate the minors but they did encourage light conversation. I greeted a lot of the minors, I asked them how they felt and how they were being treated, and they were positive conversations.”

Read more here.

Trump's HHS says lawmakers visiting immigrant children create 'unnecessary strain'

@alextdaugherty @katieglueck

The Department of Health and Human Services is hitting back at members of Congress and their staffs who are trying to see inside facilities that house children who have been separated from their parents while crossing the border illegally.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Miami Republican, was barred from visiting the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children on Friday even though he tried to set up a visit weeks ago and followed protocols issued by the Trump administration.

When asked why Curbelo was not allowed into the Homestead facility, an HHS spokesperson said requests to visit facilities by members of Congress have created "a significant and unnecessary strain" on staff members working at the facilities.

"More than 50 members of Congress and 60 congressional staffers visited in the month of June alone," HHS spokesperson Evelyn Stauffer said in a statement. "Despite these efforts, there continue to be Members and staff who disregard long-standing policies for visit requests and accommodations, creating significant and unnecessary strain on grantee shelters’ staff, whose first and foremost priority is providing for the safety, security, and care of youth at their facilities. President [Donald] Trump has continually called on Congress to fix our nation’s broken immigration system, and we encourage members of Congress to focus on long-term solutions to policies that are driving tens of thousands of people to our borders, unaccompanied or otherwise."

Curbelo, who is responsible for oversight and helps set funding levels for federal agencies such as HHS, was appalled by the response.

"I don't feel sorry for them at all," Curbelo said. "We fund all of their operations and all of their salaries, so they should make the time and effort to allow us to see the work they're doing, especially if they're confident in the work they're doing."

Curbelo said his visit had been confirmed with local officials for over a week and that he followed protocols laid out by HHS last month for lawmakers who wish to visit facilities housing immigrant children, making sure that his visit wouldn't be intrusive.

"I was extremely upset given that we had worked for weeks to set this up," Curbelo said. "I didn't go over there and just show up unannounced, I said I'll work through all the channels and make sure that the facility is prepared and that I'm not a distraction to any work being done there, so it was very disappointing."

The Homestead facility, which is thought to host about 1,100 children, was recently reopened after the Trump administration decided to start separating parents from their children when they cross the border illegally. About 70 children at the facility were separated from their parents and some of those children have been unable to contact their parents. The rest of the children at the facility are unaccompanied minors.

HHS spokesperson Kenneth Wolfe did not respond when asked for an updated account of how many children were at the Homestead facility.

Read more here.