Duterte says he may be too busy to meet Trump

SEAN SPICER: Obviously there’s a human rights component that goes into all of this.

In an interview with Bloomberg News on Monday, Trump said that – in trying to reduce tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program – he’d meet with Kim under certain circumstances.

“I’m tied up. I can not make any definite promise”.

Gary Cohn, chairman of Trump’s economic council, said the overhaul appears to have enough votes to pass. “This is going to be a great week”, Cohn told “CBS This Morning”. Despite the evidence that being “very, very tough” has amounted to Duterte flouting the laws, Trump seemed reassured by the Philippine president’s high approval rating. For instance, Duterte had been tilting to China recently, and the US wants the Philippines to be part of a coalition in Asia that could push back against Chinese expansionism in the region.

Asked to explain Trump’s statements, Spicer said Sunday that under the current version of the measure, people with pre-existing conditions who maintain coverage will not be affected. “His response remains to be seen”, Abella said.

Duterte uttered the insult in a warning to the former president to not bring up his violent war on drugs in a future meeting.

Priebus made clear that North Korea was the top priority.

Trump’s invitation for Duterte to visit the White House is a sign of “openness and understanding” between them, Abella said.

Trump has continued to hold campaign-style rallies in swing states – he counter-programmed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday by holding a rally in Pennsylvania.

President Donald Trump has released a campaign advertisement declaring his first 100 days in the White House a success, and branding news that media have reported otherwise as “Fake News”.

By comparison, Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Bush had each visited at least one country at this point in their presidencies.

Trump on Monday defended his invitation, arguing “the Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily”. The White House meeting will be proof that the Crusher’s strategy has worked, that the US has backed down in its defense of the innocent victims of Duterte’s drug war.

Thousands of suspected drug dealers have been killed by police or vigilante groups, and tens of thousands more have been rounded up and arrested. The government denies that.

Trump will cut a “bad deal” for the American and Filipino people if he fetes Duterte with a White House reception without assessing the implications “of hosting and toasting a foreign leader whose links to possible crimes against humanity for instigating and inciting extrajudicial killings has already prompted warnings from the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court”, Kine said in an email.

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday issued a scathing takedown of Donald Trump’s attacks on “the Constitutional systems we have in place to protect the nation any theoretical, would-be dictator”, noting they come at a time “when President Trump has shown unusual actual outreach to a number of actual dictators”.

Indeed, in his first 102 days in office, Trump has neither delivered substantive remarks nor taken action supporting democracy movements or condemning human rights abuses, other than the missile strike he authorized on Syria after President Bashar Assad allegedly used chemical weapons against his own citizens.

Jonah Blank, Asia analyst at the Rand Corporation, noted that even some White House and State Department staff were caught off guard at news of the Duterte invitation.