White House scrambles for affordability message amid still-high prices

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is scrambling to develop a plan and message on still-high prices after the White House appeared caught off guard by how the affordability issue helped drive Republican losses last Tuesday.

Trump appeared defensive on the matter last week, blaming GOP candidates and lawmakers for talking too little about how to make the cost of everything, from groceries to utility bills to medical care, more affordable. Democratic lawmakers have long contended that the president has done nothing to make things cheaper since he returned to office in January.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Trump suggested “affordability” was a new political buzzword invented by Democrats: “They have this new word called ‘affordability,’ and (Republicans) don’t talk about it enough. The Democrats did.”

After Republicans lost gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well a host of other statewide and local races across the country, the GOP president expressed frustration with his party’s candidates — while also continuing to embellish economic data.

—CQ-Roll Call

High stakes for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s progressive agenda in head tax push

An impassioned Mayor Brandon Johnson was in his element as he tailored his pitch to reinstate Chicago’s corporate head tax during a recent West Englewood town hall.

“There’s a reason why more of our people have left this city than any other group,” Johnson told a mostly Black audience at the Nov. 1 town hall organized by his supporters. “We ought to demand the ultra-rich do more, so that we can get more.”

Standing in the mayor’s way at that event was local Ald. David Moore, 17th, who said he sent out a robocall to his constituents ahead of the budget town hall to counter the pro-Johnson coalition’s presence.

“We don’t want those Black McDonald’s operators to suffer. That’s not what it’s supposed to be about,” Moore told the crowd. “I gotta deal with the little operator that’s on 76th and Vincennes who may be impacted by this negatively, then he’ll fire those kids or close down his place, and then it hurts our community.”

—Chicago Tribune

Halloween terror suspects from Dearborn consent to be jailed in federal court hearings

DETROIT — Three Dearborn men accused of plotting a domestic terror attack on behalf of the Islamic State consented Monday to being detained in county jails while their federal criminal cases are pending.

Ayob Nasser, 19, his 20-year-old brother Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, 20, appeared Monday morning in federal court in Detroit for a detention hearing. All three waived the hearing and consented to being detained.

The hearing followed a week of law enforcement activity related to the largest federal terrorism prosecution in Michigan in more than 20 years and arrests spanning the Continental U.S. ― from the Seattle area to Metro Detroit and New Jersey ― as federal prosecutors have charged eight people in relation to the alleged terror plot. That includes a 16-year-old male and a 17-year-old male, both from Dearborn, who have been charged as juveniles in rare, sealed federal court filings.

The alleged plot surfaced during a series of Halloween raids at two homes in Dearborn and an Inkster storage facility during which investigators recovered firearms.

—The Detroit News

BBC apologizes as chiefs quit over editing of Trump speech

LONDON — The BBC apologized for a misleading edit of remarks by President Donald Trump that featured in a documentary last year, the latest scandal to raise questions about the future of Britain’s national broadcaster.

British Broadcasting Corp. Chairman Samir Shah acknowledged on Monday that the edited footage of Trump’s speech near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aired on the Panorama program wrongly gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.” Shah told the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in a letter that “the BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgment.”

The apology came after the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, and its news chief, Deborah Turness, stepped down over the matter. The twin resignations prompted new calls from right-leaning politicians to overhaul the BBC, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman rejected accusations of institutional bias by the news organization.

The documentary made Trump appear to say that his supporters should “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell” before the riot outside the U.S. legislative building that day. In fact, he said they should “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” The “fight like hell” remark was from a different part of the speech.

—Bloomberg News