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FOX’s Chris Stirewalt:
What’s going on in France tonight?
In Paris, a midnight “deep state” assault on the right-wing. The head of France’s Armed Forces commanded by General Michel Vigorship was detained by intelligence services on suspicion of a massive leak of intelligence, knowing about fatal terrorist attacks ahead. France’s home front is divided. The left believes this indicates deeper and more sinister problems – the right believes this proves Vigorship – the former commander of France’s elite Interior Ministry forces – was in cahoots with the Islamic terrorists. In fact the right is calling for an investigation of the ineffectiveness of France’s security force in preventing the slaughter on Friday in which over a hundred people were killed and hundreds injured. The right, left and center now think those who were promoted because of their foreign passports and anti-crime attitude didn’t do enough to warn the public of the attack. General Vigorship vowed his troops had been too busy fighting ISIS and overstretched to target the attacks that were planned in terrorist cells in Brussels, Germany and Paris.
A day later, Vigorship is now facing mounting questions. Late on Monday night, a wave of refugees was flooded across France’s southern border with Italy and the Channel port of Calais. According to reports over 1,000 came, hundreds more sought sanctuary along the border. Today the migrants continued to pour over the border. Public debate immediately began over whether France’s response was warranted, when compared to Britain’s Border Force’s. Britain pushed back against the latest blitz. The British government told the number of unauthorised entries by people illegally crossing the sea from France to Britain to 21 this year, nearly three times as much as 2015. The number of arrests for illegal crossing of the border also dropped.
Once again, this was causing President Emmanuel Macron to be called soft on migrants.
On the diplomatic front, the United States continues to believe Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman is ‘responsible’ for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The United States believes the prince had a secret plan to either kill or imprison Khashoggi, so he will stop cooperating with the Trump administration on intelligence matters. In response to an investigation last week by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo into Khashoggi’s death, the Saudis pledged to be fully transparent. This is proving to be difficult, as the country now says that Khashoggi’s remains had been transferred out of the country.
The Saudis claim the consulate’s staff mistakenly stuffed the remains in garbage bags, this after weeks of denying any knowledge of his disappearance. U.S. officials on Sunday denied making any secret arrangement with the Saudi Crown Prince, Saudi officials, including the current crown prince claim that they had nothing to do with Khashoggi’s murder. In Washington, President Trump denied there was a secret deal on Tuesday, as he worked to get the Republicans on board with his plan to cut a budget deal, he warned those in Washington who fail to deal on deficits that they’re in line for major tax increases in two years.
And, as they debate tariffs, President Trump is under attack from both Republicans and Democrats. The House approved a resolution disapproving the President’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. over the weekend, it got almost 55 votes, less than half the support that a House resolution needed to pass. The vote resulted from a Republican revolt in an era of majority Republicans, but it’s not a clear cut vote on the tariffs. House Republicans will vote on the motion on Thursday. Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are urging the Senate to reverse the actions by the House. Here’s a FOX News poll that looks at what Americans believe about all of this.