Senior U.S. Senator calls Taiwan "a free country," as China condemns visit

Senior U.S. Senator calls Taiwan "a free country," as China condemns visit

Taipei— The head of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday he was determined the United States and Taiwan remain "the best of friends," calling the democratic island claimed by China a "free country," as he visited with another American lawmaker. Republican Senators Roger Wicker and Deb Fischer arrived in Taipei on Friday for a two-day visit, as President Trump seeks to strike a trade deal with China — which insists Taiwan is part of its territory and hasthreatened to use force to annex it. China's Foreign Ministry reiterated its long-time stance in a statement issued Friday as the American senators arrived in Taipei, saying it firmly opposed any official exchanges between the U.S. and Taiwan. "We come here from the United States bringing a message from the Congress of commitment, of long-term friendship and a determination that a free country like Taiwan absolutely has the right to remain free and preserve self-determination," Wicker said during a news conference alongside Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te at the presidential office, as shown in video published by the Reuters news agency. China's Foreign Ministry responded to a CBS News request for reaction to the language used by Wicker to describe Taiwan over the weekend, with a statement saying the senators' visit to Taiwan "and the dissemination of erroneous remarks on Taiwan issues violate the one-China principle and the U.S.-China joint communiqués, undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and send wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces." The ministry statement voiced China's "strong dissatisfaction" with the visit and the comments by Wicker, and said the "future of Taiwan must be decided by the 1.4 billion Chinese people, including the people of Taiwan. China will be reunified, and it must be reunified. This is an irreversible trend that no one or any organization can reverse." Even before Wicker spoke in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the U.S. delegation's visit "a serious violation" of the one-China principle, aU.S. policy adopted decades agothat recognizes Taiwan as part of China. A senior Trump administration official told CBS News on Friday that the White House's stance on the one-China principle "remains the same as the first Trump Administration," while a State Department spokesperson, in a statement sent to CBS News on Monday, noted that the U.S. Congress is a "separate, co-equal branch of government and independent of the Executive Branch." The spokesperson noted the long history of Congressional delegations visiting Taiwan and said the department's policy "has not changed and remains guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, three Joint Communiques, and Six Assurances," which together form the basis of the one-China principle. Wicker, who chairs the powerful Armed Services Committee and is a vocal supporter of Taiwan, said he and Fischer were visiting to better understand Taiwan's needs, and they wanted to reiterate to Taiwan "our determination to remain the best of friends and to defend the freedom of everyone and both of our great countries." "It is our determination and our intention that Taiwan remain free and make its own decisions," Wicker said after their talks with Lai. "Part of maintaining the freedoms that we have is enhanced cooperation militarily, enhanced cooperation with our defense industrial base, making the best use of those funds." Since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January, there have beengrowing jitters in Taipeiover the strength of the Taiwan-U.S. relationship and Washington's willingness to defend the island if China were to attack. Fischer said the U.S. Senate understands "the gravity of the challenges that Taiwan faces" and that a "stronger Taiwan means a stronger United States and vice versa."While the U.S. stopped recognizing Taiwan as an independent state in the late 1970s, in favor of China, Washington has remained Taipei's most important backer and biggest supplier of arms that it would need todefend itself from any theoretical attack by China. That support has become increasingly crucial to Taiwan in recent years, as China's President Xi Jinping has vowed to bring the island under Beijing's control. China has increasedmilitary pressure with large-scale exercisesand routine flights and naval excursions that test the democratic island's air and sea boundaries.Ahead of the meeting with Wicker and Fischer, Lai said he hoped Taiwan and the U.S. would further "enhance cooperation," and insisted the island and China were "not subordinate" to each other.Wicker and Fischer have been travelling in the Asia-Pacific region for the past week, stopping in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and the Philippines.U.S.-Taiwan ties have been strained since Mr. Trump took office and launched a global trade war and pressured governments in Europe and elsewhere to spend more on their own defense.The Trump administration reportedly denied permission for Lai to transit in New York as part of a planned official trip to Latin America this month after Beijing objected. Lai reportedly then cancelled the trip.Taiwan is also struggling to finalize a tariff deal with the U.S. after Washington imposed a temporary 20% levy that has alarmed the export-dependent island's manufacturers.As those negotiations continue, Lai's government has announced plans to increase defense spending to more than 3% of GDP next year and to 5% by 2030. "Portrait of a person who's not there": Documenting the bedrooms of school shooting victims Passage: In memoriam Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the mysteries of chronic pain

byAlpha World

in

September 01, 2025

Senior U.S. Senator calls Taiwan "a free country," as China condemns visit

Senior U.S. Senator calls Taiwan "a free country," as China condemns visit Taipei— The head of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Comm...

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From Jackson to McKinley: What Trump's shift of presidential hero says about his evolving goals

From Jackson to McKinley: What Trump's shift of presidential hero says about his evolving goals

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his first term,Donald Trump'sfavorite president, other than himself, wasAndrew Jackson, the hatchet-faced, self-made populist who relished turning Washington upside down. Now he's partial to the barrel-chested, unfailingly politeWilliam McKinley, a champion of American expansionism as well as oftariffs,Donald Trump's favorite second-term policy. Trump's shift, rather than merely swapping one infatuation for another, demonstrates how his mindset and priorities have evolved. The Republican president's admiration for McKinley fits with his current politics, which are different from when Trump first took office in 2017. A key political target for Trump back then was the elites, which his administration predicted might crumble in the face of a Jackson-like working class uprising. In his secondinaugural address, Trump lauded McKinley as a "natural businessman" who "made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent." Trump used a Day 1 order torestore the name of North America's tallest peakto Mount McKinley and he has repeatedly named-checked the 25th president more recently, while hisweighty tariffshave left the world bracing for the kind of trade war not seen since the days of theMcKinley Tariff Act of 1890. Jackson has hardly warranted a mention. "In the first term, well, McKinley was a fat cat," said H.W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas and author of "Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times." "So, if you're going to be a populist, you're not going to be a McKinley." But Jackson, Brands noted, hated tariffs. "So, if tariffs are your thing, Andrew Jackson's not your guy anymore. You have to look around to find somebody whose name is connected to a tariff." The White House says the shift isn't a departure from Trump's first-term goals, but simply his leaning harder into new tools — in this case, tariffs — to achieve them. "President Trump has never wavered from his commitment to putting working-class Americans above special interests, and his channeling of President McKinley's tariffs agenda is indicative of how he is using every lever of executive power to deliver for the American people," said spokesman Kush Desai. Still, many of Trump's current top advisers are veterans of the financial sector eager to help the president bend the economic system to his will, rather than reshaping it from the bottom up. That's meant Trump focusing political ire on foreign countries and "globalists" who embraced international free trade. He wants to impose anew economic orderthat puts U.S. interests first, and has settled onsteep import taxesto get America's trading partners to negotiate more favorable deals — as the way to most efficiently do that. Trump's shifting economic priorities The president's Jacksonian impulses aren't all dormant. He imposed some first-term tariffs and now is shaking up Washington with his efforts toslash the federal workforceandstock the bureaucracywith loyalists. He's also prioritized antagonizing "elites" at Ivy League universities and top law firms. In his rhetoric, Trump also has mythologized the power of tariffs, despite history telling a different story. Tariffs in the McKinley era, which loosely tracked theGilded Age, led to more income for the federal government, but also a highly stratified society of haves and have-nots. But just as Jackson allowed first-term Trump — a magnate who had little in common with many working-class voters he wooed — to take up the mantle of modern populist, McKinley gives Trump an intellectual justification and historical precedent for his love of tariffs. "It's a vibe shift for sure," said Eric Rauchway, a history professor at the University of California, Davis, and author of "Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America." It's also an example of Trump taking policy actions to move the country in a certain direction — or simply declaring what he wants to be true — then working backward to come up with an argument on why his instincts were correct all along. "Trump's relationship to history, and so many other things, is entirely transactional," said Daniel Feller, a professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee and former longtime editor of "The Papers of Andrew Jackson." From the 'People's President' to the 'Napoleon of Protection' Jackson was the founder of the Democratic Party, though many on the left nowreject himfor being a slaveholder who imposed the "Trail of Tears" on Native Americans. Orphaned at 14, Jackson taught himself the law and eventually became wealthy. Yet he created a political persona around advocating for everyday Americans. Trump, during his first term, referred to Jackson as the "People's President." McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901, six months into his second term, was born in Niles, Ohio, outside Youngstown. He fought with the Union army and preferred throughout his political career to be called "Major," the Civil War honorary title he earned. As a congressman, McKinley was known as the "Napoleon of Protection" for promoting the 1890 Tariff Act, which sharply raised import taxes on thousands of goods in an effort to protect American producers when there was no federal income tax. It ultimately increased prices domestically, hurt U.S. exporters and helped spark the Panic of 1893, the worst economic downturn until the Great Depression. McKinley also represents a burst of American colonial expansion. He annexed Hawaii and oversaw the U.S. taking control of the Philippines. His administration also acquired new territories in Guam and Puerto Rico, established a military government in Cuba and sent troops to China. Today, Trump has talked about the U.S. invadingPanamaandGreenland, makingCanada the 51st stateandturning the Gaza Strip into the "Riviera" of the Middle East. In July, in comments aboutwhich of his predecessors got prime White House wall space, Trump mentioned "the Great Andrew Jackson." But he praised McKinley, saying that the U.S. "was the wealthiest" from 1870 to 1913, when it was "an all-tariff country." "We had a couple of presidents that were very, very strong," Trump told his Cabinet then. "McKinley, I guess, more than anybody." On social media last week, a Trump aide posted a picture of a new, gold-framed portrait in the West Wing featuring Trump alongside McKinley, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Clay, over the title "The Tariff Men." Lincoln used high tariffs for Civil War funding, Jefferson was a free-trade advocate but supported some tariffs to bolster domestic industries. Clay, as House speaker, helped pass a major tariff act in 1824. Tariffs hurt Republicans in McKinley's day What Trump doesn't mention is that McKinley's tariffs helped cost the GOP its House majority in 1890, with McKinley himself among those defeated. He returned to Ohio, was elected governor and, despite going bankrupt over a bad investment in a tin plate company, won the White House in 1896. After that, though, Rauchway said, McKinley actually didn't push tariffs as much following his experience with them in Congress. Just before he was killed, McKinley also talked up the need for international trade. That didn't stop Trump, inannouncing sweeping tariffsaround the globe in April, from saying the U.S. had been "looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far." His championing of tariffs isn't totally new. In his first term, Trump ordered some higherimport taxeson solar panels, washing machines and steel and aluminum imports. He also occasionally praised McKinley, then, as when he said in a 2019 speech that the 25th president "was very strong on protecting our assets, protecting our country." But Trump conceded in that same speech, "I'm totally off script." That's no longer the case. Trump continually promotes McKinley's place in history. "McKinley was a great president," Trump said during last month's Cabinet meeting. "Who never got credit."

byAlpha World

in

September 01, 2025

From Jackson to McKinley: What Trump's shift of presidential hero says about his evolving goals

From Jackson to McKinley: What Trump's shift of presidential hero says about his evolving goals WASHINGTON (AP) — In his first term,Dona...

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FSU freshman linebacker Ethan Pritchard is in intensive care after shooting, school says

FSU freshman linebacker Ethan Pritchard is in intensive care after shooting, school says

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida State linebacker is in critical but stable condition after being shot while visiting family, the Seminoles said Monday. Ethan Pritchard, a 6-foot-2, 224-pound freshman from Sanford, was in intensive care at a Tallahassee-area hospital. He was shot Sunday evening while inside a vehicle outside apartments in Havana, according to the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office. "The Pritchard family is thankful for the support from so many people, as well as the care from first responders and medical professionals, and asks that their privacy be respected at this time," FSU said in a statement. "Further updates will be provided as they are available." Pritchard did not play in Florida State's season opener, a31-17 victory Saturday over No. 8 Alabamain Tallahassee. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign uphere. AP college football:https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-pollandhttps://apnews.com/hub/college-football

byAlpha World

in

September 01, 2025

FSU freshman linebacker Ethan Pritchard is in intensive care after shooting, school says

FSU freshman linebacker Ethan Pritchard is in intensive care after shooting, school says TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida State linebacker...

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RB Jaylen Warren, Steelers agree to 2-year extension

RB Jaylen Warren, Steelers agree to 2-year extension

Running back Jaylen Warren and the Pittsburgh Steelers are in agreement on a two-year contract extension. His agent, David Canter, posted the news on social media Monday. Warren was set to earn $5.3 million in 2025 but now will receive $7 million this year, NFL Network reported. The new deal includes $12 million guaranteed and is worth nearly $17.5 million through the 2027 season, per the report. Warren is tops on the Steelers' depth chart at running back after backing up Najee Harris, who signed a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Chargers in March. The Steelers originally signed Warren as an undrafted free agent in 2022. In 48 games in a reserve role, Warren has totaled 1,674 rushing yards with six touchdowns. He has added 894 yards on 127 receptions. Behind him on the depth chart is rookie Kaleb Johnson, a third-round draft pick from Iowa. The Steelers open the season Sunday at the New York Jets. --Field Level Media

byAlpha World

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September 01, 2025

RB Jaylen Warren, Steelers agree to 2-year extension

RB Jaylen Warren, Steelers agree to 2-year extension Running back Jaylen Warren and the Pittsburgh Steelers are in agreement on a two-year c...

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Trump administration demands state voter data, including partial Social Security numbers

Trump administration demands state voter data, including partial Social Security numbers

The Trump administration has stepped up efforts to obtain personal information about tens of millions of voters across the country, including seeking sensitive data such as partial Social Security numbers. The push, overseen by the Department of Justice, comes as President Donald Trump asserts a larger federal role in elections ahead of next year's midterms, which are set to determine which party controls Congress during his last two years in the White House. In recent weeks, state election officials have received letters from Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, seeking unredacted copies of states' voter registration databases. The information includes voters' names, birthdates, addresses, and driver's license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. The agency has told states that the information is necessary to ensure compliance with a federal law that requires states to maintain accurate voter registration rolls. But some state officials who have received the missives argue that the Justice Department is overstepping its authority, given that states, and not the federal government, run elections and carry out voter-roll maintenance. Election officers in several states are refusing to comply with the demands, citing the need to guard voters' privacy. "We're going to fight as far as we have to against this," Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, told CNN in an interview. "I'm not going to give up the personal identifying information of my voters. It's just not going to happen." State officials such as Fontes say they already have procedures in place to review the accuracy of their voting lists on a rolling basis. Any dataset about voters that states might send to the federal government would offer just a snapshot in time of a state's voting population, and the information quickly becomes out of date, he added. In Pennsylvania, the state's top election official, Al Schmidt, also is declining to share voters' sensitive personal data. In a letter he wrote to Dhillon, Schmidt called the DOJ's request a "concerning attempt to expand the federal government's role in our country's electoral process." In addition to Arizona and Pennsylvania, election chiefs in California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon have also received the recent data requests from the Justice Department, officials in those states have told CNN. Michael Kang, an election law expert at Northwestern University, said it's not clear why the Justice Department needs the information it seeks. "I don't think you need people's Social Security numbers for voter-list maintenance oversight," he said. DOJ officials did not respond to inquiries. But in a previous statement to CNN, Dhillon noted that her division has a "statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws." "Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections," she said at the time. Federal law gives the Justice Department the authority to ensure that states have procedures to maintain their voter rolls and remove those who have died, moved or are otherwise not eligible to vote where are registered. The law does not specifically give the DOJ the power to manage the lists. Dhillon's letters also cite a federal civil rights statute enacted in 1960 that gives the Justice Department broad authority to inspect election records. The new requests have aroused suspicion among some Democratic officials that the administration is seeking data to advance claims of voter fraud in upcoming elections. "They are looking, essentially, to say that, 'Well, we found somebody who died who's still on the rolls, and therefore there's fraud, and therefore these elections are fraudulent and should be overturned,'" Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters recently, according to Capitol News Illinois. Since May, the Justice Department has contacted at least 26 states, seeking a broad array of information ranging from voter rolls to the identities of election officials responsible for maintaining them, according to atrackermaintained by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. Election officials in several states responded to earlier DOJ requests this summer for voter data by providing information generally available to the public or to political committees and removing sensitive personal details about individual voters. The new letters from Dhillon make explicit that the DOJ wants states to provide "all fields" – including personal information – contained in their voter registration datasets to the federal government. The DOJ has told the National Association of Secretaries of State – the umbrella organization for state election chiefs – that it plans outreach to all 50 states, according to the association's spokesperson, Maria Benson. "Americans should be very concerned" about the agency's moves, said David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former lawyer in the Justice Department's voting rights section. "The DOJ is asking states to take this data, which they are charged under federal and state law with protecting, and hand it over for unclear reasons and with no clear indications of how it will be used," Becker said. Justin Riemer, a veteran Republican election lawyer who runs Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, said that the Justice Department "has every right to enforce federal voting laws" and seeking access to the complete voter rolls is one method of doing so. "I'm not 100% sure you can determine whether or not a state is following laws to remove ineligible voters and keep the voter rolls current without actually reviewing the contents of voter registration lists," he said. J. Christian Adams is the president and general counsel of the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation, which has repeatedly challenged the accuracy of states' voter lists. Adams called the resistance to the federal requests a sign of "Trump derangement syndrome." "The Attorney General has the power to say, 'Show me your work,'" he told CNN. "This is not a close call." Trump has moved to insert himself into elections, falsely asserting that states must obey his orders despite the Constitution not giving the president any explicit authority to regulate elections. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do,"he wrotein a recent post on Truth Social. A Trumpexecutive orderearlier this year instructed the Department of Government Efficiency to assist in a review of state voter rolls to identify potential noncitizens. The directive, which also demands proof of citizenship to register to vote, is facing several legal challenges and parts of it have been blocked temporarily by the courts. Over the weekend, Trumpsaidhe would sign an executive order requiring voter identification for elections. He has also tried to give his partyan edgein next year's midterms by urging GOP-controlled states to redraw congressional maps to eke out more US House seats for Republicans. Missouri is holding aspecial legislative session starting Wednesdayto target one of the state's two Democrat-held seats. Texas already passed a new map which will likely give Republicans five more seats. The confrontation over access to voter data is likely to end up in court. The Justice Department opted tosueOrange County, California, as part of a federal probe into alleged non-citizen voting. Orange County officialshave so far declinedto share the individuals' personal information with DOJ without a court order. In Minnesota, Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon is refusing to share voters' personal information. A group of Republican state lawmakers on an elections panelrecently urged Simon to relent, arguing he is setting up the state for "costly" litigation with the federal government. Simon said he's not backing down and was confident Minnesota would win in court. "I don't have a sense at this point what the Justice Department really wants and aims to do with this data," he said. "A reasonable person could conclude that the stated reason they want the information isn't the real reason they want the information." For more CNN news and newsletters create an account atCNN.com

byAlpha World

in

September 01, 2025

Trump administration demands state voter data, including partial Social Security numbers

Trump administration demands state voter data, including partial Social Security numbers The Trump administration has stepped up efforts to ...

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