WND EXCLUSIVE

DRUDGE VISITS SAVAGE: 'WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE THIS VERY YOUNG TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'

'I do think there's a crisis, on many fronts'

Matt Drudge, the editor of the highly influential Drudge Report, visited Michael Savage’s San Francisco-based national radio show in-studio Friday to celebrate the talk host’s 75th birthday.

After sharing Chinese food with Savage, Drudge got behind “The Savage Nation” mic and took a couple of calls, declaring, “We’re trying to save this young Trump administration.”

“I do think there is a crisis, on many fronts,” Drudge said. “Is some of it of his own making?”

President Trump and Michael Savage at the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida Feb. 18.

Drudge said he suspects Congress is deliberately sabotaging Trump.

Noting Obama had a stimulus bill on his desk on Day One, he asked: “What did this Congress give this great man? Nothing.”

“Trump’s War is available — autographed by Michael Savage — at the WND Superstore!

Drudge and Savage talked about their more than two decades in media, with Drudge launching his website 22 years ago and Savage one year earlier.

“It’s been a heckuva a ride. It just feels like yesterday. It just feels like a blink of an eye,” Drudge said.

Drudge noted Savage began his radio career at the age of 52.

“For everybody out there who is in midlife, look at what this man did with his 50s and 60s,” Drudge said.

“Michael, do you realize you are at the top of your craft? No. 1 book in the country. A radio show — you roll down your windows and hear you. I don’t even have to tune you in. I just roll down the window and I hear you.”

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After enduring an assault at a restaurant on the day of the release last month of his new book, Savage’s “Trump’s War: His Battle for America” is debuting as the No. 1 nonfiction book on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of April 2.

‘People are nervous’

Noting he heard people listening to “The Savage Nation” as he drove down the Embarcadero in San Francisco, Drudge said: “Do you know what’s happening here? People are nervous. It could go back to Hillary. You know, she looks like she’s running again.”

All she needs, he said, is a million more votes next time.

“Have there been a million more illegals that will come in and sneak the vote since the election?” he asked.

Drudge wondered whether or not Melania Trump and their son Barron moving into the White House will “soften Trump’s edges,” noting Nancy Reagan was regarded as the “secret” behind Ronald Reagan.

Listen to the segment with Drudge here

Drudge: ‘I like Donald, the man’

Drudge said the establishment media was “going under,” ratings-wise, before Trump began his run for the White House.

“Trump has saved the media,” he said.

Drudge said he liked “Donald, the man,” even before he ran.

“He is one of the most fascinating Americans that has ever lived, in the modern era,” Drudge said of Trump.

“He is a throwback. You talk about old school. He’s old school.”

Drudge said Trump’s personality is not being fully used.

“The charm. The guy who ran the hotel. The guy who had a number one TV show with ‘The Apprentice,” he explained.

“Charisma is needed in this job. This isn’t just getting a bill through Congress. This is charisma. So, I wish they would let him return to Donald Trump, the full Donald Trump.”

What about the tweeting every day? Savage asked.

“I think he thinks it’s fun,” Drudge said.

Savage pressed: “What do you think?”

Drudge paused.

“Twitter to me — I don’t do much of it, because I don’t think the audience is that large. It’s feeding the junkies. So, to me it’s a broader thing,” he said.

“I would sit down and give an interview with Oprah,” Drudge offered.

In the ’80s, Drudge recalled, Trump did an interview with Oprah, and she and the audience of women “melted in his presence.”

“That doesn’t mean he changes his policies. That doesn’t mean less taxes … but why not reach out a little bit more to the other half?” he asked.

“Now, maybe I’m wrong,” he added.

‘Danger’ for Trump

Savage noted Drudge’s remarkable influence on media and politics.

Drudge recalled that when he was in Washington, D.C., recently, “he couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

“Nonstop sirens, nonstop bomb threats. Very strange feeling in the air. I grew up in D.C. It was never like that,” he said. “A sense of, ‘Something is not right.'”

He noted that the pollster Rasmussen, who “got it right” in the November election, “is showing danger for Trump.”

“I don’t think that’s fake. I think he is showing danger,” Drudge said.

‘Dealt a bad hand’

Referring to the failed Republican health-care bill, Drudge said, “I think attacking the Freedom Caucus was calculated to get something through the House.

“That still doesn’t mean he can get it through the Senate. You’ve got McCain, who is going to block. You’ve got Lindsey Graham, who is going to block,” he said.

“So, Donald Trump has been dealt a very bad hand here,” Drudge said.

Drudge said he thought Trump should disappear for a while.

“Since when did a president become someone who was in your face daily?” he asked.

“I wish he would just go to work, behind the scenes.”

Since Bill Clinton, he said, a president has had to be in the public eye every day, part of the pop culture, and Obama “took it to new heights.”

“I don’t think President Trump needs to be out front, every day, saying something,” Drudge said.

“I think we would respect him if he got serious things done, and the end result, you judge the tree by the fruit.”

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Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/drudge-visits-savage-were-trying-to-save-this-very-young-trump-administration/#Ti7ArsUGCgbeq4v5.99

WND

OBAMA SPYING LOOKS EVEN WORSE THAN TRUMP CLAIMED

Intel source bombshell: Months of surveillance for purely 'political purposes'

Garth Kant

WASHINGTON – The spying by the Obama administration on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump reportedly was even worse than what he has alleged.

And it had nothing to do with Russia but everything to do with politics.

Sources in the intelligence community claim the potentially illegal revealing of names, or unmasking, of people in the Trump camp who were under surveillance was done purely “for political purposes” to “hurt and embarrass (candidate) Trump and his team.”

The bombshell revelations come from rank and file members of the intelligence community who are fighting back against a stonewall by the leaders at the nation’s spy agencies, according to Fox News.

Reporter Adam Housley said the sources are “not Trump” people but are “frustrated with the politics that is taking place in these (intelligence) agencies.”

And what they have revealed is amazing. Here is what they told Fox:

1) Surveillance targeting the Trump team during the Obama administration began months ago, even before the president had become the GOP nominee in July.

2) The spying on the Trump team had nothing to do with the collection of foreign intelligence or an investigation into Russia election interference.

3) The spying was done purely “for political purposes” that “have nothing to do with national security and everything to do with hurting and embarrassing Trump and his team.”

4) The person who did the unmasking was someone “very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world, and is not in the FBI.”

5) Congressional investigators know the name of at least one person who was unmasking names.

6) The initial surveillance on the Trump team led to “a number of names” being unmasked.

7) House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has known about the unmasking since January.

8) Two sources in the intelligence community told Nunes who did the unmasking and told him at least one of the names of someone in the Trump team who was unmasked. The sources also gave Nunes the serial numbers of the classified reports that documented the unmasking.

9) It took Nunes a number of weeks to figure out how to see those intelligence reports because the intelligence agencies were stonewalling him, and not allowing the chairman or other people to see them.

10) There were only two places Nunes could have seen the information: where the sources work, which would have blown their cover; and the Eisenhower Executive Office building on the White House grounds, which houses the National Security Council and has computers linked to the secure system containing the reports he sought.

11) Nunes got access to that system on March 21 with the help of two Trump administration officials.

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel reported that the documents Nunes saw confirming the Obama administration spied on the Trump team for months “aren’t easily obtainable, since they aren’t the ‘finished’ intelligence products that Congress gets to see.”

She said there were “dozens of documents with information about Trump officials.”

Strassel also reported there was a stonewall against the Intelligence committee chairman because, “for weeks Mr. Nunes has been demanding intelligence agencies turn over said documents—with no luck, so far.”

House Intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

She also learned that, along with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, one other Trump official was unmasked.

(Flynn resigned after his unmasking was leaked to the press as part of reports that he spoke on the phone with the Russian ambassador before the new administration took office. President Trump said the two discussed nothing inappropriate and Flynn was just doing his job, but the president asked for the aide’s resignation because he was not completely honest in his initial account of the conversation.)

But even the reports that did not unmask identities “were written in ways that made clear which Trump officials were being discussed.”

And, importantly, the documents were “circulated at the highest levels of government.”

Strassel concluded, “To sum up, Team Obama was spying broadly on the incoming administration.”

What do YOU think? Is Obama spying scandal worse than Watergate? Sound off in today’s WND poll.

Fox also reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into whether leaks of information targeting the Trump team could have come from the FBI, because it requested Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, warrants that led to the acquisition of some of the foreign surveillance.

Nunes has said the FBI has not responded to his requests for information, and a source told Fox the agency is refusing to cooperate with the House investigation.

FBI Director James Comey testifies before a House committee Sept. 28, 2016.

Fox also reported the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into “whether the FBI wrongly included political opposition research from Trump’s opponents in its probe.”

And whether the FBI paid a former British spy who wrote a sensational and discredited report alleging wild improprieties by Trump and his aides.

On Friday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer noted the day before the president tweeted his accusation that Obama had spied on him, comments were made by “a senior administration official, foreign policy expert, Dr. Evelyn Farkas, (which) together with previous reports that have been out, raised serious concerns on whether or not there was an organized and widespread effort by the Obama administration to use and leak highly sensitive intelligence information for political purposes.”

As WND reported in depth, Farkas appeared to have inadvertently confirmed the former president’s administration spied on then President-elect Trump’s transition team for political purposes.

Speaking on MSNBC March 2, she confirmed that not only was the previous administration collecting intelligence on the Trump team, it was attempting to share it as far and wide as possible.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas

Farkas claimed the information was about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, but just days later, intelligence chiefs who had seen the classified information in question, including Obama’s own former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as well as former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, said they have seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump team and the Russian government.

That would appear to indicate the real reason the Obama administration was feverishly collecting and sharing the classified information was not for national security purposes, but for political reasons.

On Friday, Spicer said, “Dr. Farkas’s admissions alone are devastating.”

And that, “[I]n the ordinary course of their work, NSC – National Security Council – staff discovered information that may support the questions raised by the President and Dr. Farkas’s claim. These are serious issues. They raise serious concerns. And if true, the issues would be devastating.”

Spicer then lectured reporters for ignoring the Farkas story and growing evidence that Obama did indeed spy on the Trump team, scolding them, “[I]f everyone was treating the President and the administration fairly, you’d ask a series of much different questions.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/obama-spying-looks-even-worse-than-trump-claimed/#qfjl5hzgCKzWHkwL.99

MERKEL: MIGRANTS AND GERMANS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Apr 1, 8:42 AM EDT

MERKEL: MIGRANTS AND GERMANS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

BERLIN (AP) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel says newcomers to Germany must learn the country's values and customs, but that Germans can also learn from them.

More than 1 million asylum seekers have arrived in the past two years, and Germany's been working hard on integration.

Speaking in her weekly podcast this Saturday, in a question-and-answer form with a Syrian journalist who arrived as a refugee in 2015, Merkel emphasized migrants need to respect Germany's values of "tolerance, openness, freedom of religion and freedom of expression" and also "be a little curious about our way of life."

On the flipside, Merkel says Germans should be open, and "seize upon it as a possibility to learn and experience more."

Merkel meets with three organizations next week to thank them for their help with migrants.

My comments: Merkel's Ignorance of Islam is Stupefying. Islam's Objective is to Bury Germany and all of Europe in obedience to the Koran.

POLICE ARRESTS ARE PLUMMETING ACROSS CALIFORNIA

Police arrests are plummeting across California, fueling alarm and questions

In 2013, something changed on the streets of Los Angeles.

Police officers began making fewer arrests. The following year, the Los Angeles Police Department’s arrest numbers dipped even lower and continued to fall, dropping by 25% from 2013 to 2015.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Police Department also saw significant drops in arrests during that period.

The statewide numbers are just as striking: Police recorded the lowest number of arrests in nearly 50 years, according to the California attorney general’s office, with about 1.1 million arrests in 2015 compared with 1.5 million in 2006.

It is unclear why officers are making fewer arrests. Some in law enforcement cite diminished manpower and changes in deployment strategies. Others say officers have lost motivation in the face of increased scrutiny — from the public as well as their supervisors.

The picture is further complicated by Proposition 47, a November 2014 ballot measure that downgraded some drug and property felonies to misdemeanors. Many police officers say an arrest isn’t worth the time it takes to process when the suspect will spend at most a few months in jail.

In Los Angeles, the drop in arrests comes amid a persistent increase in crime, which began in 2014. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck noted that arrests for the most serious crimes have risen along with the numbers of those offenses, while the decrease comes largely from narcotics arrests.

The arrest data include both felonies and misdemeanors — crimes ranging from homicide to disorderly conduct. From 2010 to 2015, felony arrests made by Los Angeles police officers were down 29% and misdemeanor arrests were down 32%.

Two other measures of police productivity, citations and field interviews, have also declined significantly.

The LAPD could not provide final tallies for arrests in 2016. But based on numbers that include arrests by other agencies within city limits, the downward trend continued last year, Assistant Chief Michel Moore said.

A direct link between the crime pattern and the drop in arrests is difficult to draw, in part because the arrest data include minor offenses not counted in the tally the city uses to measure crime. Still, some city officials are concerned.

“Those are dramatic numbers that definitely demand scrutiny and explanation."

— L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-police-slowdown-20170401-story.html

NEW TERRORIST LAPTOP BOMBS MAY EVADE AIRPORT SECURITY

First on CNN: New terrorist laptop bombs may evade airport security, intel sources say

By Evan Perez, Jodi Enda and Barbara Starr, CNN

Updated 3:50 AM ET, Sat April 1, 2017

(CNN)US intelligence and law enforcement agencies believe that ISIS and other terrorist organizations have developed innovative ways to plant explosives in electronic devices that FBI testing shows can evade some commonly used airport security screening methods, CNN has learned.

Heightening the concern is US intelligence suggesting that terrorists have obtained sophisticated airport security equipment to test how to effectively conceal explosives in laptops and other electronic devices.

The intelligence, gathered in the last several months, played a significant role in the Trump administration's decision to prohibit travelers flying out of 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa from carrying laptops and other large electronic devices aboard planes.

The findings may raise questions about whether the ban is broad enough. CNN has learned that, through a series of tests conducted late last year, the FBI determined the laptop bombs would be far more difficult for airport screeners to detect than previous versions terrorist groups have produced. The FBI testing focused on specific models of screening machines that are approved by the Transportation Security Administration and are used in the US and around the world.

"As a matter of policy, we do not publicly discuss specific intelligence information. However, evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in electronics," the Department of Homeland Security told CNN in a statement. "The U.S. government continually re-assesses existing intelligence and collects new intelligence. This allows DHS and TSA to constantly evaluate our aviation security processes and policies and make enhancements when they are deemed necessary to keep passengers safe. As always, all air travelers are subject to a robust security system that employs multiple layers of security, both seen and unseen."

US authorities have said the electronics ban is focused on the eight countries in part because of intelligence indicating a greater threat there. Intelligence and law enforcement assessments done in recent months also indicate that, though the broader vulnerabilities exist, the US has more confidence in detection machines and security screeners at airports in the US and Europe. Advanced technology and training helps mitigate the risk.

The US and European countries use a layered approach to security screening that goes beyond X-ray equipment, including the use of bomb-sniffing dogs and explosive-trace detection, according to US officials.

Aviation security expert Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, said limiting the ban to eight countries makes sense based on the capability and locations of terrorist groups.

Not only are US and European airports better protected, he said, but developed countries have a "better policy regime" that allows them to set standards and ensure uniform compliance.

"We don't have the same level of confidence in other areas of the world because we don't have the government bodies and stature to assure compliance," said Liscouski, president of Secure Point Technologies.

When the electronics ban was announced, US officials told CNN they were concerned that terrorists had developed ways to hide explosives in battery compartments. But the new intelligence makes clear that the bomb-makers working for ISIS and other groups have become sophisticated enough to hide the explosives while ensuring a laptop would function long enough to get past screeners. Though advanced in design, FBI testing found that the laptops could be modified using common household tools.

FBI experts have tested variants of the laptop bombs using different battery and explosive configurations to assess how difficult it would be for airport screeners to detect them.

The intelligence that contributed to the ban on electronic devices was specific, credible and reliable, according to three officials who used the same words to describe it. One official called the intelligence "hair-raising."

At the same time, they also said there was no single, overwhelming piece of intelligence that led to the ban, rather it was an accumulation of intercepted material and "human intelligence."

The airline restriction, which took effect March 21, bans many electronics from the cabins of planes flying directly to the United States from airports in eight countries. Passengers on those flights must place electronic devices larger than cellphones in their checked luggage. Intelligence officials say it is more difficult for terrorists to detonate explosives remotely -- though it has been done -- and that placing devices in the cargo bay might reduce damage even if a bomb were to explode.

The United Kingdom, which possesses the same intelligence, implemented a similar rule this month for airplanes flying from six countries, including two that are not on the US list.

The ban was instigated after intelligence and law enforcement agencies determined that terrorists were working to place explosives inside laptop battery compartments in a way that would enable the devices to still power on in order to pass airport screenings, according to information shared with CNN.

Intelligence officials received a wake-up call in February 2016, when an operative from al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate in Somali, detonated a laptop bomb on a Daallo Airlines flight from Mogadishu to Djibouti. The explosives were hidden in a part of the laptop where bomb-makers had removed a DVD drive, according to investigators. Airport workers helped smuggle the bomb on the plane after it passed through an X-ray machine. In that case, the bomber was blown out of the airplane but the aircraft was able to make an emergency landing. However, experts have said the bomb would have been more devastating had the plane reached cruising altitude.

The military and intelligence community has grown increasingly concerned in the last few months about the potential ability of terror groups to get bombs on board airplanes, according to several US officials. The US has been tracking specific intelligence from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al Qaeda in Syria and ISIS, officials said.

The group with the greatest level of bomb-making expertise is al Qaeda in Yemen. Its master bomb-maker, Ibrahim al Asiri, has worked for years on designing explosive devices that can be hidden on bodies or in items such as printer cartridges. Since 2014, US officials have been concerned that Asiri's expertise had migrated to other groups.

To some degree, the fact that terrorist groups have been trying to install bombs in electronic devices is a testament to the success of advanced security techniques. Screening equipment and procedures have improved significantly since the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, making it more difficult to bring explosives onto airplanes. Bomb-makers continue to modify devices to get around enhanced screening.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/31/politics/terrorist-laptop-bombs-may-evade-security/index.html

DEMOCRATS HAVE SURPRISING POWER ON CAPITOL HILL

Democrats have a new and surprising weapon on Capitol Hill: Power

(Washington Post) Democrats in Congress have a new and somewhat surprising tool at their disposal in the era of one-party Republican rule in President Trump’s Washington: power.

It turns out that Republicans need the minority party to help them avoid a government shutdown at the end of April, when the current spending deal to fund the government expires. And Democrats have decided, for now at least, that they will use their leverage to reassert themselves and ensure the continued funding of their top priorities — by negotiating with Republicans.

“I think we have a lot of leverage here,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Republicans “are going to need our help putting together the budget, and that help means we can avoid some of the outrageous Trump proposals and advance some of our own proposals.”

The fact that Republicans need Democrats to vote for a temporary spending measure to avoid a shutdown gives Democrats leverage to force the GOP to abandon plans to attack funding for environmental programs and Planned Parenthood. And it also allows Democrats to block Trump’s top priority — the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — which the president seeks to factor in to this latest round of budget negotiations.

[Hill Republicans trying to avert a shutdown need Democrats — and Trump]

It comes at a time when Republicans on Capitol Hill are badly divided and President Trump’s ambitious agenda — a health-care overhaul, his 2018 budget blueprint, a tax proposal and an infrastructure program — has yet to get off the ground.

Since the failure of the House GOP’s health-care plan, Trump has signaled he may work with Democrats to achieve major goals. Coupled with the negotiations over the spending measure, such a statement could foreshadow a major and unexpected power shift in Washington in which the minority party has far more influence in upcoming legislative fights than was initially expected.

“I think most of our caucus wants to work with them,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a recent interview, referring to the GOP. “But it requires working in a compromise way.”

But cooperation with their GOP counterparts — and possibly even with Trump — is a risky move for congressional Democrats, who are being pressured by the more liberal wing of their party to obstruct the GOP and Trump at all costs. Part of that energy is playing out in the Senate over the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, as Democrats have vowed to block his confirmation, potentially leading to an explosive fight next week to change Senate rules.

Hill Democrats are betting voters will view any attempt to compromise on spending as further evidence that the fractured GOP is unable to govern. If the talks fail and a shutdown approaches, voters might then blame Republicans for failing to keep the government open despite their control of the House, Senate and White House, several Democratic aides reasoned.

There is a sense among many Democrats that bipartisanship isn’t necessarily toxic, even in an environment in which ardent liberals continue to protest at town hall meetings. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats think voters see Democrats taking steps to defend existing policies — such as battling the American Health Care Act or blocking funding for a border wall — and understand the big picture.

“It’s an interesting time,” Pelosi said “Let’s understand and let the public understand what the debate is.”

Without Democratic help, Republicans are unlikely to be able to unite behind a temporary spending plan to keep the government open past April 28.

Democrats have already flexed their muscle by refusing to support the funding of Trump’s border wall as part of the measure. They also rejected a proposal by the Trump administration to include a $30 billion spike in defense spending and $18 billion in cuts to domestic programs.

“I think it’s clear that putting border money into this without a plan for how it’s spent is unacceptable,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

[Trump wants to add wall spending to stopgap budget bill, potentially forcing shutdown showdown]

But that doesn’t mean Democrats won’t support some minor compromise on defense spending and border security. Some Democrats have privately floated the idea that they might be willing to tap an off-budget war fund to help pay for some increases in defense and border spending, an idea neither Pelosi nor Schumer would rule out.

“We would not be opposed to any border security measures that are not the wall — increasing technology,” Pelosi said at a Thursday news conference. “There are better things that we can be doing.”

Schumer was similarly supportive.

“If they asked for $200 million for more electronic surveillance and drones on the border, I don’t think that would cause many hackles in our caucus,” he said.

Republican leaders appeared in recent days to be open to that kind of compromise. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said leaving defense spending increases and money for the border wall out of the short-term spending negotiations wouldn’t be a dealbreaking problem.

“It doesn’t mean that you can’t come back to that smaller package and see if there’s not some future way to do it,” Blunt said.

But any appetite for compromise could end next week, when the two sides are expected to clash over Gorsuch’s nomination.

Democrats are planning to exploit Republicans’ narrow 52-48 advantage in the Senate to slow a vote on Gorsuch. Schumer said he will abandon the custom of waiving a procedural vote and force Republicans to get 60 votes to approve the nomination.

Fallout from the very public battle over Gorsuch could play a critical role in whether spending talks stay on track. Democrats privately fear Trump will grow angry over the spectacle and demand funding for the wall, aides said.

There is also a chance GOP members and Trump will cool off during a two-week Easter recess just before a final spending deal is expected. Members of the Appropriations Committee hope to spend that time negotiating roughly 200 remaining issues, including Republican attempts to roll back some Obama-era financial regulations.

Clashes over similarly tacked-on provisions, typically known as “riders,” have for years prevented Congress from completing the regular appropriations process. Democrats have uniformly rejected Republican attempts to attach to spending bills riders that attack Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulation legislation.

“We want legislation that meets the needs of the American people and does not have the poisonous riders in it,” Pelosi said Thursday. “We have to see the substance of what is in the bill.”

Those fights have been somewhat muted this year as Republicans have used other means to begin chipping away at regulations implemented under President Obama. Congress has already taken steps to roll back Obama’s Clean Power Plan and regulation of streams, two issues Republicans previously tried to address through riders.

“A good handful of the measures . . . have been addressed,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “It doesn’t mean that there are not still issues that present themselves in the subcommittee budget, but I think it’s going to be a little bit easier.”

Republicans have also hinted that they will not attempt a fight on Planned Parenthood. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters last week he did not think a spending bill was the right place for the abortion fight and suggested conservatives take up the fight under special budget rules known as “reconciliation.”

“We think reconciliation is the tool, because that gets it into law,” Ryan said. “Reconciliation is the way to go.”

It is unclear whether Republicans who oppose abortion rights will be satisfied with that path. A group of 77 antiabortion organizations wrote to lawmakers Friday demanding that they continue to try to end federal support for Planned Parenthood. But they, too, focused on using reconciliation.

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Democrats bet Republicans will be willing to ignore demands from their most conservative members, many of whom routinely vote against spending bills over objections to all government spending. They also are convinced Republicans are quickly growing tired of being bullied by Trump.

Schumer said Trump’s idea of compromise is to propose something and give Congress no chance for input. That approach may work for now, but Democrats hope Republicans will eventually grow tired of Trump’s dictating their path and instead turn to Democrats to begin legislating.

“Our Republican colleagues are going along with that right now,” Schumer said. “But that’s not how many of them feel. I think many of them want to work in a bipartisan way.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-have-a-new-and-surprising-weapon-on-capitol-hill-power/2017/04/01/e2ba46c0-16e3-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html