Sep 19, 2018 - Politics & Policy

Trump: "I don’t have an attorney general"

Photo Aaron P. Bernstein via Getty Images

President Trump continued his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an interview with The Hill, claiming that Sessions' rocky confirmation hearing scared him into needlessly recusing himself from the Russia investigation.

"I don’t have an Attorney General. It’s very sad. ... A lot of people have asked me to [fire Sessions]. And I guess I study history, and I say I just want to leave things alone, but it was very unfair what he did."

The backdrop: Trump recently criticized the Justice Department for indicting two Republican congressmen so close to the midterm elections, prompting Sessions to fire back: "While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations."

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Dan Primack
45 mins ago - Economy & Business

There's little consensus on TikTok's specific national security threat

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

TikTok has become a Rorschach test for how U.S. politicians view China, with little consensus on the specifics of its threat to homeland security.

The big picture: Much of what D.C. fears about TikTok is fear itself, and that's reflected in President Trump's executive order to ban the app by Sept. 20 if it's not sold by parent company ByteDance — alongside another focused on Chinese messaging app WeChat and its parent company Tencent.

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Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Ursula Perano
52 mins ago - World

U.S. sanctions Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam

Photo: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

The Treasury Department on Friday placed sanctions on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, following months of tension as she has allowed continued overreach by Beijing to subvert Hong Kong's autonomy.

Why it matters: It's the toughest sanction yet imposed on China for its destruction of Hong Kong’s relatively free political system.

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Ben Geman
1 hour ago - Energy & Environment

GM's high-stakes electric move

The Cadillac Lyriq. Image courtesy of Cadillac

Cadillac on Thursday unveiled the Lyriq, the luxury brand's first all-electric model and GM's first consumer electric vehicle unveil since the Chevy Bolt several years ago.

Why it matters: It's the first reveal by GM of an electric vehicle that will use the company's new modular platform and Ultium battery system — technologies meant to underpin the 20 electric vehicles that GM plans to launch by 2023.

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