Month: July 2018

At least two Americans believed to have joined the Islamic State terror group have been brought back to the United States to face charges.

Senior administration officials confirmed Tuesday that Ibraheem Musaibli of Dearborn, Michigan, and Samantha ElHassani of Indiana, arrived on U.S. soil Tuesday after U.S. forces escorted them from Syria.

In a statement, the Justice Department said Musaibli, “a natural-born U.S. citizen,” would be arraigned in federal court in Detroit on Wednesday.

‘Material support to ISIS’

Musaibli is charged with attempting to provide material support to IS, fighting with the terror group from April 2015 until his capture by U.S.-backed Syrian forces in June.

“Musaibli’s alleged provision of material support to ISIS put the United States at risk and may have endangered the lives of countless innocent people,” John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement that used an acronym for the militant group.

“The indictment in this case serves as a reminder of the danger posed by those who travel overseas to join forces with ISIS,” Timothy Slater, FBI special agent in charge, added.

ElHassani has been charged with making false statements to the FBI and will appear in federal court in Hammond, Indiana, at a later date, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

She was accompanied by her four children, two of whom were born in Syria, an official said. Her children are in the care of the Indiana Department of Child Services, a Justice Department statement said.

In media interviews done while in Kurdish custody, ElHassani said her husband, Moussa ElHassani, a Moroccan national, tricked her into accompanying him to Syria while they were vacationing in Turkey in 2015.

“We ended up in Raqqa,” she said in an interview with Frontline and the BBC. “The first thing I say to him is, ‘You’re crazy, and I’m leaving.’ And he said, with a big smile on his face, ‘Go ahead. You can try, but you won’t make it.’ ”

Moussa ElHassani was reportedly killed while fighting for IS. Samantha ElHassani said she and her four children eventually left Raqqa along with two Yazidi slave girls and ended up in a Kurdish detention camp.

In various media interviews, she has described her time in IS-held territory as harrowing, telling of failed escape attempts.

Her eldest son, Matthew, 10, was featured in an IS propaganda video in which he threatened attacks on the West.

According to a report earlier this year by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, about 70 Americans have traveled to Iraq and Syria and have affiliated with IS or other jihadist groups since 2011.

Of those, 24 are believed to be dead, more than 14 have been apprehended, and the fates of a couple dozen others are still unknown.

European nations

U.S. officials have been pushing for European countries to take back nationals who left to fight with IS and prosecute them, but many have refused.

Earlier Tuesday, a French air force general serving with the anti-IS coalition in Iraq said his government’s position had not changed.

“It is quite clear. The government of France has said they don’t want these people back,” said Brigadier General Frederic Parisot, who also serves as the coalition’s director of civil-military operations.

Despite pushing for countries to take back their foreign fighters, U.S. policy on what to do with Americans suspected of fighting for IS has been less than clear.

In June, the U.S. announced it would release an American citizen suspected of being a member of IS in Syria. The Justice Department said it had given the man, who holds dual U.S.-Saudi citizenship, a choice of being released “either in a town or outside an Internally Displaced Persons camp.” But that decision has been put on hold, pending further legal action, according to court filings.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been representing the man, slammed the decision to release him in what it described as a war zone.

Department of Justice correspondent Masood Farivar contributed to this report.
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The heart of Yosemite National Park, where throngs of tourists are awe-struck by cascading waterfalls and towering granite features like El Capitan and Half Dome, will be closed as firefighters try to corral a huge wildfire just to the west that has cast a smoky pall and threatened the park’s forest, officials said Tuesday.

Yosemite Valley will be closed for at least four days beginning at noon Wednesday, along with a winding, mountainous, 20-mile (32-kilometer) stretch of State Route 41, park spokesman Scott Gediman said.

At least a thousand campground and hotel bookings will be canceled — to say nothing of the impact on day visitors, park workers and small businesses along the highway, Gediman said.

“We’re asking people here tonight to leave tomorrow morning,” he said. “And anyone that’s incoming tomorrow will get an email or phone call stating that their reservation is canceled.”

The last time the 7.5-mile-long (12-kilometer-long) valley was closed because of fire was 1990, he said.

Yosemite wasn’t under imminent danger from the Ferguson fire, officials were quick to point out. Authorities decided on the closure to allow crews to perform protective measures like burning away brush along roadways without having to deal with traffic in the park that welcomes 4 million visitors annually.

Yosemite Valley is the centerpiece of the visitor experience, offering views of landmarks such as Half Dome, Sentinel Dome, Bridal Veil Fall, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. The glacial valley’s grand vista of waterfalls and shear granite faces has been obscured by a choking haze of smoke from a nearby fire.

Visitors are advised to “limit activity during the periods of poor air quality,” the park said in a statement. “Some facilities and services are closed or diminished.”

Over nearly two weeks, flames have churned through more than 57 square miles (147.6 square kilometers) of timber in steep terrain of the Sierra Nevada just west of the park. The fire was 25 percent contained Tuesday morning.

Mandatory evacuations are in place in several communities, while others have been told to get ready to leave if necessary.

More than 3,300 firefighters are working the fire, aided by 16 helicopters. One firefighter was killed July 14, and six others have been injured.

Gediman suggested valley visitors divert to Tuolumne Meadows, on Yosemite’s northern edge, or to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks to the south.

“There are wonderful places to visit in the region, so we’re asking people to consider alternative plans,” he said.

In the state’s far north, a nearly 4-square-mile (10.3-square-kilometer) wildfire has forced the evacuation of French Gulch, a small Shasta County community that dates to the Gold Rush.
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The top U.S. official for Ukraine negotiations doubled down on recent assurances from the State Department and White House that President Donald Trump did not reach any agreements on Ukraine during last week’s two-hour private meeting with his Russian counterpart in Helsinki, Finland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week told a gathering of diplomats in Moscow that he and Trump discussed the possibility of an internationally supervised referendum in pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, a claim later reiterated by the Kremlin’s ambassador to the U.S.

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Ukrainian service, Kurt Volker, U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, said that Kremlin remarks about the referendum were not only misleading but also blatantly implausible.

“There was no move toward recognition of Russia’s claimed annexation of Crimea. No support for a referendum. No movement toward Russia’s position on a protection force for [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] monitors that would effectively divide the country,” said Volker, referring to Russia’s controversial September 2017 U.N. proposal.

Because referendums aren’t part of the 2015 Minsk agreement, which aims to end the conflict, secure a cease-fire and pave the way for regional elections, Volker said any direct vote on secession from Kyiv would lack the necessary legal framework.

“So, a lot of things that people were worried about or had predicted might happen [in Helsinki] did not happen. So, I don’t think there’s really any basis to be worried here,” he said, noting that the administration has continued to maintain sanctions on Russia in concert with European allies and approved weapons sales to Kyiv.

The Pentagon, he added, recently unveiled plans for a new military financing package for the occupied Eastern European country.

“Let me just say this — that on all of the issues that Ukrainians would care about, nothing was given away,” he said. “No handing over of gifts to Russia at Ukraine’s expense.”

Volker’s comments supplemented initial reactions by Garrett Marquis, U.S. National Security Council spokesman, who said the White House was “not considering” supporting a referendum in eastern Ukraine, and a statement by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who said an eastern Ukraine referendum “would have no legitimacy.”

The comments by the trio of U.S. officials followed days of speculation about what was discussed at the rare one-on-one meeting between the U.S. and Russian leaders with only their translators present.

Trump has been on the defensive over the summit since returning from Helsinki, especially during a key moment when he was asked about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as Putin stood beside him.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service.
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Checking out a speedboat, a fighter jet and a giant industrial magnet parked on the White House driveway, President Donald Trump showcased an array of “Made in America” products Monday as his administration pushes back aggressively against critics who say his punishing tariffs on imported goods threaten to harm the U.S. economy.

Trump’s event with a smorgasbord of American goods came at the start of a week in which trade discussions are expected to dominate, including talks with European officials and a trip to Illinois in which the president is planning to visit a community helped along by his steel tariffs.

Trump has vowed to force international trading partners to bend to his will as he seeks to renegotiate a series of trade deals he has long argued hurt American workers. But as he deepens the U.S. involvement in trade fights, it raises questions on whether American consumers will feel the pain of retaliatory tariffs — and whether the president will incur a political price for his nationalistic trade policies in the 2018 midterm elections.

“Our leaders in Washington did nothing, they did nothing. They let our factories leave, they let our people lose their jobs,” Trump said at the White House. “That’s not free trade, that’s fool’s trade, that’s stupid trade and we don’t do that kind of trade anymore.”

Trump noted that he would be meeting Wednesday with European officials, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The U.S. and European allies have been at odds over the president’s tariffs on steel imports and are meeting as the dispute threatens to spread to the lucrative automobile business. “Maybe we can work something out,” he said.

On Thursday, the president will visit Granite City, Illinois, the home of a U.S. Steel Corp. mill that has reopened after he imposed tariffs on steel imports.

On the South Lawn, the president walked among a number of products manufactured across the nation, including a Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft from Maryland, a Ford F-150 pickup truck from Michigan, a Newmar recreational vehicle from Indiana and a Ranger speedboat from Arkansas.

National security

Trump has already put taxes on imported steel and aluminum, saying they pose a threat to U.S. national security, an argument that enrages staunch U.S. allies such as the European Union and Canada.

He’s threatening to use the national security justification again to slap tariffs on imported cars, trucks and auto parts, potentially targeting imports that last year totaled $335 billion.

And he’s already imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports in a separate dispute over Beijing’s high-tech industrial policies. He has threatened to ratchet that up past $500 billion.

“He likes tariffs,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S. trade official under President Bill Clinton now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “His preferred remedy is always tariffs, whether it makes any sense or not.”

“It’s a policy of victimization: ‘Other people have been taking advantage of the United States for years. … Now they have to pay,”‘ Reinsch said, echoing the president’s argument.

Trade analysts say the United States has not pursued such aggressive trade policies in decades.

“I can’t think of another time when you had as many battles and, particularly, as many battles with no resolution in sight,” said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Trade war

In 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed a broad 10 percent import tax for four months to pressure Japan and European countries to drive up the value of their currencies. The idea: provide relief to American exporters, who were being put at a price disadvantage by a strong dollar.

In 1930, the U.S. raised tariffs dramatically to protect American industry, encouraging other countries to do the same in a global trade war that made the Great Depression worse.

Economists said the tariffs that Trump has imposed so far — and the resulting retaliation — are unlikely to do much economic damage. But things could escalate rapidly.

“If you look at what’s teed up, particularly with China and with the auto tariffs, pretty soon you are talking about some pretty large numbers. Those will do some real damage,” Alden said.

Oxford Economics has calculated that a full-blown U.S.-China trade war — in which each country taxes all the other’s imports — would shave 1 percent off the U.S. economy and wipe out 700,000 jobs in the United States by 2020.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that a trade war over autos could cost up to 1.2 million American jobs.

Critics said Trump’s aggressive approach makes it tough for other countries to offer concessions, lest they be seen by their own people as caving in to bullying.

“The Trump administration has not left an easy path to walk away from the fights they’ve created,” Alden said.
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An al-Qaida suspect linked to a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist pleaded guilty on Monday in a U.S. court to a terrorism charge.

Ali Charaf Damache was escorted into federal court in Philadelphia for the change of plea hearing wearing a drab green prison jumpsuit and handcuffed behind his back. The Algerian-born Irish citizen had been extradited from Spain last year after authorities said they were able to track his online efforts to recruit American and European citizens to join a jihadist movement.

The 53-year-old, whose online handle was Theblackflag, was accused of being involved in a terror cell that wanted to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilk, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. The plot never materialized, authorities said.

“This is exactly the kind of case that we want to be involved in because we want to be in the business of preventing disasters from happening not dealing with disasters after they happen,” said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain.

Authorities issued an indictment for Damache in 2011 and worked with multiple entities to extradite him to face charges in a civilian court, a move that was counter to President Donald Trump’s promise to send terror suspects to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. McSwain said each case has to be handled individually, but the extradition requests that began years ago were always based on Damache being tried in U.S. federal court.

Damache pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in exchange for prosecutors recommending a 15-year prison sentence including about four years of time served in Ireland and Spain and his agreeing to be deported. An identity theft charge was dropped as part of the deal.

Sentencing is scheduled for the end of October.

Prosecutors said Damache sought to recruit light-skinned women and others who did not fit the traditional terrorist profile to wage jihad. His targets included Colleen LaRose, a Pennsylvania woman who called herself “Jihad Jane,” online; Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a single mother from Colorado; and Mohammad Hassan Khalid, who at the time was a high school honors student from Maryland. They were all eventually arrested.

Damache married Paulin-Ramirez the day she traveled to Ireland to meet him in 2009. Paulin-Ramirez eventually helped the FBI investigate the terror cell.

As part of the plea, Damache admitted to training a child to prepare for jihad. Prosecutors later identified the minor as Paulin-Ramirez’s child, who she brought with her.

Officials said that Damache’s group recruited men online to wage jihad in South Asia and Europe, and sought to recruit women with western passports to travel through Europe in support of the cause.

LaRose is serving a 10-year prison term. Paulin-Ramirez and Khalid have been released after serving their sentences.
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The Coast Guard on Monday raised the Ride the Ducks tour boat that sank on a Missouri lake last week, killing 17 passengers.

Cranes lifted the four-ton boat from 24 meters of water, drained it and lowered it onto a truck. Experts from the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

The Coast Guard said the probe will likely focus on whether the boat should have been operating in the first place with severe thunderstorms rolling in.

Winds close to hurricane strength may have caused the vessel to capsize and sink.

Witnesses said the weather was calm when the boat tour started. However, a Coast Guard official said investigators will want to know if operators were monitoring weather reports and knew a storm was approaching.

Thirty-one people were on the boat when it sank Thursday in Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri.

Seventeen people drowned, including nine members of the same family. One surviving member of the family said the boat’s captain told passengers there was no need to put on life jackets. The captain was one of the survivors.

Duck boats were first used by the military in World War II. They have six wheels and can travel on both land and water.
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On the heels of President Donald Trump’s widely-criticized Helsinki summit performance, Washington is abuzz yet again after the White House announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit the United States later this year. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday cautioned U.S. President Donald Trump about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying “America should know… war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” but he did not rule out peace between the two countries, either.

Iran faces increased U.S. pressure and looming sanctions after Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from a 2015 international deal over Iran’s nuclear program.

Addressing a gathering of Iranian diplomats, Rouhani said: “Mr Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret,” the state new agency IRNA reported.

“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said, leaving open the possibility of peace between the two countries which have been at odds since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“You are not in a position to incite the Iranian nation against Iran’s security and interests,” Rouhani said, in an apparent reference to reported efforts by Washington to destabilize Iran’s Islamic government.

In Washington, U.S. officials familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups.

Current and former U.S. officials said the campaign paints Iranian leaders in a harsh light, at times using information that is exaggerated or contradicts other official pronouncements, including comments by previous administrations.

Rouhani scoffed at Trump’s threat to halt Iranian oil exports and said Iran has a dominant position in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping waterway.

“Anyone who understands the rudiments of politics doesn’t say ‘we will stop Iran’s oil exports’… we have been the guarantor of the regional waterway’s security throughout history,” Rouhani said, cited by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday backed Rouhani’s suggestion that Iran may block Gulf oil exports if its own exports are halted.

Rouhani’s apparent threat earlier this month to disrupt oil shipments from neighboring countries came in reaction to efforts by Washington to force all countries to stop buying Iranian oil.

Iranian officials have in the past threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for any hostile U.S. action.

Separately, a top Iranian military commander warned that the Trump government might be preparing to invade Iran.

“The enemy’s behavior is unpredictable,” military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri said, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
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U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that newly released documents about the origins of an investigation of a former adviser’s links to Russia help vindicate his claim that U.S. government investigators were spying on his 2016 election campaign.

He contended in Twitter remarks that “as usual,” the documents “are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”

It was not immediately clear how Trump felt the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was misled in the government’s four applications in 2016, and last year after Trump took office, to wiretap Carter Page, his one-time aide. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a 2016 opponent of Trump’s, told CNN that he did not think the Federal Bureau of Investigation “did anything wrong” in surveilling Page.

The FBI said in the first application in October 2016 that it “believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.” After a redacted line, the document picked up with the phrase “undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law.”

Page, who has long denied being a Russian agent, has not been charged with any crime.

On Sunday, he acknowledged to CNN that he played a role in advising the Kremlin about energy issues at a 2013 conference in Russia and gave a school graduation address there in 2016. But he described any allegation that he had been conscripted by Moscow as “so ridiculous it’s beyond words. It’s literally a complete joke. I’ve never been an agent of a foreign power.”

The applications for the wiretapping were approved on four occasions by the same FISA Court judges, all appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have contended, however, that the FBI bid for the surveillance relied heavily on a dossier about Trump’s links to Russia that was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, and paid for by the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 challenger.

The documents released late Saturday at the request of several news organizations suggested that the FBI did not rely heavily on information in Steele’s dossier.

The FBI told the FISA court that Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”; that the FBI believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Trump’s campaign and that Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”

Trump, in one of four Twitter comments about the documents, said, “Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon [surveillance] for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton” and the Democratic National Committee. “Ask her how that worked out,” Trump said, adding that “Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!”

In another tweet, the U.S. leader said the “whole FISA scam” led to the “rigged” criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

For the last 14 months, Mueller and his team of investigators have been probing Trump campaign links to Russia and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, a former FBI director, who was heading the agency’s Russia probe at the time Trump ousted him, before Mueller was named to take over the investigation.

Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about their links to Russia and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is set to go on trial this week in connection with lobbying efforts for Ukraine that predated the 2016 campaign. In addition, Mueller has indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officials in connection with cyberattacks on Democratic computers in the U.S. linked to the 2016 Clinton campaign in an effort to help Trump win.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement:  “For the sake of our national security and our democracy, these vital investigations must be allowed to continue unhindered by Republican interference.  The GOP must cease their attacks on our law enforcement and intelligence communities, and finally decide where their loyalty lies.”

 
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A week ago, Maine Democrat Zak Ringelstein wasn’t quite ready to consider himself a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, even if he appreciated the organization’s values and endorsement in his bid to become a U.S. senator.

Three days later, he told The Associated Press it was time to join up. He’s now the only major-party Senate candidate in the nation to be a dues-paying democratic socialist.

Ringelstein’s leap is the latest evidence of a nationwide surge in the strength and popularity of an organization that, until recently, operated on the fringes of the liberal movement’s farthest left flank. As Donald Trump’s presidency stretches into its second year, democratic socialism has become a significant force in Democratic politics. Its rise comes as Democrats debate whether moving too far left will turn off voters.

“I stand with the democratic socialists, and I have decided to become a dues-paying member,” Ringelstein told AP. “It’s time to do what’s right, even if it’s not easy.”

There are 42 people running for offices at the federal, state and local levels this year with the formal endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America, the organization says. They span 20 states, including Florida, Hawaii, Kansas and Michigan.

The most ambitious Democrats in Washington have been reluctant to embrace the label, even as they embrace the policies defining modern-day democratic socialism: Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage, free college tuition and the abolition of the federal department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congress’ only self-identified democratic socialist, campaigned Friday with the movement’s newest star, New York City congressional candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old former bartender who defeated one of the most powerful House Democrats last month.

Her victory fed a flame that was already beginning to burn brighter. The DSA’s paid membership has hovered around 6,000 in the years before Trump’s election, said Allie Cohn, a member of the group’s national political team.

Last week, its paid membership hit 45,000 nationwide.

There is little distinction made between the terms “democratic socialism” and “socialism” in the group’s literature. While Ringelstein and other DSA-backed candidates promote a “big-tent” philosophy, the group’s constitution describes its members as socialists who “reject an economic order based on private profit” and “share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.”

Members during public meetings often refer to each other “comrades,” wear clothing featuring socialist symbols like the rose and promote authors such as Karl Marx.

The common association with the failed Soviet Union has made it difficult for sympathetic liberals to explain their connection.

“I don’t like the term socialist, because people do associate that with bad things in history,” said Kansas congressional candidate James Thompson, who is endorsed by the DSA and campaigned alongside Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, but is not a dues-paying democratic socialist. “There’s definitely a lot of their policies that closely align with mine.”

Thompson, an Army veteran turned civil rights attorney, is running again after narrowly losing a special election last year to fill the seat vacated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Even in deep-red Kansas, he embraces policies like “Medicare for all” and is openly critical of capitalism.

In Hawaii, 29-year-old state Rep. Kaniela Ing isn’t shy about promoting his status as a democratic socialist in his bid for Congress. He said he was encouraged to run for higher office by the same activist who recruited Ocasio-Cortez.

“We figured just lean in hard,” Ing told the AP of the democratic socialist label. He acknowledged some baby boomers may be scared away, but said the policies democratic socialists promote — like free health care and economic equality — aren’t extreme.

Republicans, meanwhile, are encouraged by the rise of democratic socialism — for a far different reason. They have seized on what they view as a leftward lurch by Democrats they predict will alienate voters this fall and in the 2020 presidential race.

The Republican National Committee eagerly notes that Sanders’ plan to provide free government-sponsored health care for all Americans had no co-sponsors in 2013. Today, more than one-third of Senate Democrats and two-thirds of House Democrats have signed onto the proposal, which by one estimate could cost taxpayers as much as $32 trillion.

The co-sponsors include some 2020 presidential prospects, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Those senators aren’t calling themselves democratic socialists but also not disassociating themselves from the movement’s priorities.

Most support the push to abolish ICE, which enforces immigration laws and led the Trump administration’s recent push to separate immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Of the group, only Booker hasn’t called for ICE to be abolished, replaced or rebuilt. Yet Booker’s office notes that he’s among the few senators backing a plan to guarantee government-backed jobs to unemployed adults in high-unemployment communities across America.

“Embracing socialist policies like government-run health care, a guaranteed jobs program and open borders will only make Democrats more out of touch,” RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said.

Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s recent success, most DSA-endorsed candidates have struggled.

Gayle McLaughlin finished eighth in last month’s Democratic primary to become California’s lieutenant governor, earning just 4 percent of the vote. All three endorsed candidates for Maryland’s Montgomery County Council lost last month as well. And Ryan Fenwick was blown out by 58 points in his run to become mayor of Louisville, Kentucky.

Ringelstein, a 32-year-old political neophyte, is expected to struggle in his campaign to unseat Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. He is refusing to accept donations from lobbyists or corporate political action committees, which has made fundraising a grind. At the end of June, King’s campaign reported $2.4 million cash on hand while Ringelstein had just $23,000.

He has tapped into the party’s national progressive movement and the southern Maine chapter of the DSA for the kind of grassroots support that fueled Ocasio-Cortez’s victory. As he has done almost every month this year, Ringelstein attended the group’s monthly meeting at Portland’s city hall last Monday.

More than 60 people packed into the room. The group’s chairman, 25-year-old union organizer Meg Reilly, wore a T-shirt featuring three roses.

She cheered the “comrades” softball team’s recent season before moving to an agenda that touched on climate change legislation, a book share program “to further your socialist education,” and an exchange program that lets community members swap favors such as jewelry repair, pet sitting or cooking.

Near the end of the two-hour gathering, Ringelstein thanked the group for “standing shoulder to shoulder with us throughout this entire campaign.”

“We could win a U.S. Senate seat!” he said. “I want to say that over and over. We could win a U.S. Senate seat! So, let’s do this.”

 
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