White House

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

Update: it took about 10 minutes for the White House to deny the WSJ report, with the NYT and Bloomberg reporting that a White House spokesman has denied the WSJ story claiming US might stay in Paris accords, saying "position hasn't changed."  Bloomberg confirms the White House comment, stating that there is "no change" in the US position on the Paris Deal, and that US will withdraw unless presented with "more favorable terms."

Trump's base woke up to a fairly surprising flip-flop this morning from the White House on DACA and the infamous, beautiful border wall which was discussed repeatedly on the campaign trail throughout 2016.  It all started when Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi released the following statement after their White House dinner with the President last night:

For the better part of a year now Americans have speculated over precisely what pressing national security issue may have prompted the Obama administration to take the extreme measure of unmasking the names of Trump officials captured in foreign intelligence reports...you know, because bypassing the typical warrant process and violating an American citizen's fourth amendment protections is kind of a big deal. 

Earlier this morning former White House Strategist Steve Bannon spoke at the CLSA investor forum in Hong Kong.  While the event was originally intended to be open to the press via a live stream, CLSA officials later closed the interview to outsiders...presumably Bannon's flare doesn't quite fit with China's desire to control media narratives. That said, luckily one local NEAsia correspondent, Wei Du, was kind enough to live tweet portions of Bannon's speech for our reading pleasure.