8A Monday, November 19, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WASHINGTON/POLITICS
Another House win caps
Dems rout in California
BY MICHAEL R. BLOOD
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Democrat Gil Cisne
ros captured a Republican-held U.S. House
seat in Southern California, capping a
Democratic rout in which the party picked
up six congressional seats in the state.
In what had been the last undecided
House contest in California, Cisneros beat
Republican Young Kim for the state’s 39th
District seat.
The Cisneros victory Saturday cements
a stunning political realignment that will
leave a vast stretch of the Los Angeles met
ropolitan area under Democratic control
in the House.
With Kim’s defeat, four Republican-
held House districts all or partly in
Orange County, once a nationally known
GOP stronghold, will have shifted in one
election to the Democratic column. The
change means that the county — Richard
Nixon’s birthplace and site of his presiden
tial library — will only have Democrats
representing its residents in Washington
next year.
The Orange County Democratic Party
said it’s the first time since 1940 that all
seven House seats in the county, home
to 3.2 million people, are in Democratic
control. Three seats ah or partly in the
northwestern end of the county are held
by Democrats who were easily re-elected.
Democrats also recently picked up the
last Republican-held House seat anchored
in Los Angeles County, when Democrat
Katie Hill ousted Republican Rep. Steve
Knight.
Republicans also lost a seat in the agri
cultural Central Valley.
With other gains, Democrats will hold
a 45-8 edge in California U.S. House seats
next year.
The 39th District was one of seven tar
geted by Democrats in California after
Hillary Clinton carried them in the 2016
presidential election.
Cisneros, 47, a $266 million lottery jack
pot winner, had been locked in a close
race with Kim in a district that has grown
increasingly diverse. It’s about equally
divided between Republicans, Democrats
and independents, as it is with Asians, His-
panics and whites.
“In one of the most diverse districts in
the country I learned that for all of our
differences, we all care about the same
CHRIS CARLSON I Associated Press
Gil Cisneros speaks during a campaign
stop in Buena Park, Calif., Nov. 5. Cisneros
captured a Republican-held U.S. House
seat in Southern California on Saturday,
Nov. 17, capping a Democratic rout in
which the party picked up six congressional
seats in the state.
things,” said Cisneros, who will be the first
Hispanic to represent the district.
“Most of ah, we want to live in a world
brought together by hope, not divided by
hate,” he said in a statement.
Kim, 55, a former state legislator,
worked for years for retiring Republican
Rep. Ed Royce, who is vacating the seat
and had endorsed her.
In a state where President Donald
Trump is unpopular, Kim sought to create
distance with the White House on trade and
health care. Her immigrant background
— and gender — made her stand out in a
political party whose leaders in Washing
ton are mostly older white men.
“I’m a different kind of candidate,” she
had said.
It wasn’t enough. Democratic ads
depicted her as a Trump underling, eager
to carry out his agenda.
Cisneros, a first-time candidate,
described his interest in Congress as an
extension of his time in the military, say
ing it was about public service. He runs a
charitable foundation with his wife.
On health care, he talked about his
mother who went without insurance for 16
years. “That should just not happen in this
country,” he had said.
While the election delivered mixed
results around the U.S., it affirmed Califor-
Johns Hopkins receives
$1.8 billion from Bloomberg
BALTIMORE — For
mer New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
announced Sunday he’s
donating $1.8 billion to his
alma mater, Johns Hopkins
University, to boost finan
cial aid for low- and middle-
income students.
The Baltimore university
said the contribution — the
largest ever to any education
institution in the U.S. — will
allow Johns Hopkins to elimi
nate student loans in finan
cial aid packages starting
next fall. The university will
instead offer scholarships
that don’t have to be repaid.
University President Ron
ald Daniels said Bloomberg’s
contribution will also let the
institution permanently com
mit to “need-blind admis
sions,” or the principle of
admitting the highest-achiev
ing students, regardless of
their ability to pay for their
education.
“Hopkins has received a
gift that is unprecedented
and transformative,” he
said in a statement, noting
the prestigious school was
founded in 1876 by a $7 mil
lion gift from Baltimore mer
chant Johns Hopkins that
was, similarly, the largest gift
of its kind at the time.
By way of comparison, the
Bill & Melinda Gates Founda
tion launched the Gates Mil
lennium Scholars program
in 1999 with a $1 billion com
mitment over 20 years. The
Chronicle of Higher Educa
tion listed it as the largest
private donation to a higher-
education institution in the
U.S. earlier this month.
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Trump hints he may not
honor pledge to keep
chief of staff until 2020
EVAN VUCCII Associated Press
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly watches as President
Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for the
“Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act,”
in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Nov. 16, in
Washington.
BY JONATHAN LEMIRE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Presi
dent Donald Trump isn’t
committing to a previous
pledge to keep chief of staff
John Kelly for the remain
der of his term, part of wide
spread speculation about
staffing changes that could
soon sweep through his
administration.
Trump, in a wide-ranging
interview that aired on “Fox
News Sunday,” praised Kel
ly’s work ethic and much of
what he brings to the posi
tion but added, “There are
certain things that I don’t like
that he does.”
“There are a couple of
things where it’s just not his
strength. It’s not his fault.
It’s not his strength,” said
Trump, who added that Kelly
himself might want to depart.
Asked whether he would
keep Kelly in his post through
2020, the president offered
only that “it could happen.”
Trump had earlier pledged
publicly that Kelly would
remain through his first term
in office, though many in the
West Wing were skeptical.
Trump said he was happy
with his Cabinet but was
thinking about changing
“three or four or five posi
tions.” One of them is Home
land Security chief Kirstjen
Nielsen, whose departure is
now considered inevitable.
Trump said in the interview
that he could keep her on,
but he made clear that he
wished she would be tougher
in implementing his hard
line immigration policies and
enforcing border security.
The list of potential
replacements for Nielsen
includes a career lawman,
two military officers and
former acting U.S. Immigra
tion and Customs Enforce
ment head. But her eventual
replacement will find there’s
no getting around the immi
gration laws and court chal
lenges that have thwarted
the president’s hard-line
agenda at every turn — even
if there’s better personal
chemistry.
Trump also discussed the
removal of Mira Ricardel,
a deputy national security
adviser who is being moved
to another position in the
administration after clashes
with the East Wing culmi
nated in an extraordinary
statement from first lady
Melania Trump that called
for her removal. The presi
dent said Ricardel was “not
too diplomatic, but she’s tal
ented” and downplayed the
idea that his wife was calling
the shots in the White House.
“(The first lady’s team)
wanted to go a little bit public
because that’s the way they
felt and I thought it was fine,”
Trump said.
He also dismissed a series
of reports that he had been
fuming in the week after
the Democrats captured the
House, claiming instead that
the mood of the West Wing
was “very light.”
The president also
addressed a series of other
topics:
■ He said he “would not
get involved” if his choice for
acting attorney general, Matt
Whitaker, decided to cur
tail special counsel Robert
Mueller’s investigation into
2016 election interference
and possible ties between
the Trump campaign and
Russia. Whitaker was previ
ously a fierce critic of the
probe, and Democrats have
called for him to recuse
himself from overseeing it.
Trump said that “It’s going
to be up to him” and that “I
really believe he’s going to do
what’s right.”
■ He downplayed a fed
eral judge’s decision to
restore CNN reporter Jim
Acosta’s White House press
pass but derided an alleged
lack of “decorum” among
reporters who cover the
administration. Trump also
reiterated that the White
House was going to write up
rules of conduct for reporters
at news conferences, add
ing, “If he misbehaves, we’ll
throw him out or we’ll stop
the news conference.”
■ He also defended his
incendiary attacks on the
press, which include label
ing reporters the “enemy
of the people,” a phrase
more closely associated
with authoritarian regimes.
Trump suggested that his
interviewer, Chris Wallace,
was no “angel,” and bristled
when the host from Fox
News, which generally gives
him favorable coverage,
said that the media was in
“solidarity.”
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