When it comes to holiday music, there’s always that one song you and your family can’t help but gravitate towards, no matter how weird or terrible it may be.

Songs like “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” and “Dominick the Donkey” get stuck in the holiday music rotation, and there’s just no getting rid of them. They’re strange, but you love them anyway — and that’s totally cool.

We put together a list of the 15 weirdest holiday songs that our families are oddly obsessed with, so that you, too may enjoy them this season.

1. “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Destiny’s Child

The weirdest thing about Destiny’s Child’s rendition of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” isn’t the song itself, but the song’s music video — which happens to be very important aspect of experiencing this Christmas magic.

2. “(It must’ve been ‘ol) Santa Claus” by Harry Connick Jr.

Harry Connick Jr.’s velvety smooth voice isn’t just for Starbucks patrons — it’s for everyone, especially around the holiday season. 

There’s nothing super unconventional about this song, but Connick Jr.’s holiday album has slowly become a cult favorite, worthy of a mention on our list.

3. “The Chipmunk Song” by The Chipmunks

Nothing quite compares to high-pitched and somewhat synth-y sounds of three chipmunk brothers singing about their favorite time of year: Christmas time! 

4. “Dominick the Donkey”

An Italian-American favorite, “Dominick the Donkey” tells the tale of a donkey whose best buds with Santa Claus. How they came to be friends? Who knows, who cares. All you need to know is this song slaps. 

5. “Mistletoe and Wine” by Cliff Richard

An emotional Christmas ballad? A very bizarre music video in which Cliff Richard holds a tea candle for far too long? Check and check. 

6. “Fairytale Of New York” by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl

If you’re interested in listening to a heart-wrenching Christmas song that begins in the drunk tank of a police precinct, oh baby, you’re in luck, “Fairytale of New York” is just the song for you. 

7. “Cherry Cherry Christmas” by Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond is his most Neil Diamond-y self as he sings his somber “Cherry Cherry Christmas,” complete with a saxophone interlude. My advice to you: enjoy and rewatch this music video laden with special effects all holiday season.

8. “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer” by Elmo & Patsy

A darkly funny holiday classic, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” describes in detail the story of how a grandmother was literally run over by a reindeer.

Sort of sad, but mostly great!

9. “Last Christmas” by Wham!

“Last Christmas” has become one of the holiday season’s go-to songs — as any mall-goer can tell you. Catchy ’80s pop music combined with a somber holiday message, what’s not to love?

10. “How Do You Spell Channukkahh” by The Leevees

This song perfectly encapsulates the frustration felt when posed with the same question nearly every holiday season: What is the right way to spell Hanukkah?

11. “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano

This adorable version of “Feliz Navidad” features some high-pitched vocals from a precocious youngster, sure to brighten your holidays.

12. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Mr. Hankey

This interpretation of the Christmas classic “Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas” sung by Mr. Hankey is South Park‘s contribution to the holiday season. 

And if we’re being honest, it’s not half bad.

13. “Oi! To The World” by The Vandals

If you’re interested in having a particularly punk Christmas this year, you’re going to want to blast this song by The Vandals. A great song for any time of year, truthfully.

14. The theme music from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse’s Christmas Special

Leave it to Pee-Wee to craft a holiday theme song so enjoyable that it’s worthy of being put in the Christmas music rotation. 

Most of the theme song includes introductions to Pee-Wee’s numerous special guests, but about two minutes in, that’s when the real magic happens.

15. “Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley

While “Blue Christmas” is historically among one of the saddest holiday songs, but Elvis suavely updated this classic, so that you don’t immediately feel depressed upon listening to it.

Note: Watch the landing live here.

And you thought finding a parking place could be difficult.

To reach its reserved spot on Mars, NASA’s InSight lander on Monday must hit a precise spot in the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, survive a searing plunge to the surface involving a supersonic parachute and touch down softly on a tripod of legs.

Mission managers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are feeling a mix of excitement and nerves about the process formally called Entry, Descent and Landing, or EDL, but informally known as “seven minutes of terror.”

“Everything that we’ve done to date makes us feel comfortable and confident we’re going to land on Mars,” said Tom Hoffman, the mission’s project manager at JPL. “But everything has to go perfectly, and Mars could always throw us a curveball.”

Less than half of the missions ever launched to Mars have made it to their destination.

NASA’s $814 million InSight mission, which plans to study Mars’ deep interior, will take its turn six years after the Curiosity rover and nearly seven months after a May 5 blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on an Atlas V rocket.

Around 2:40 p.m. EST Monday, the probe will pivot its heat shield to face Mars and separate from a cruise stage that on Sunday briefly fired an engine one last time — equivalent to a “breath of air,” Hoffman said — to line up the landing zone.

The target: Elysium Planitia, or a “heavenly plain” near Mars’ equator that Hoffman hopes offers “a really flat-looking area, much like a giant Walmart parking lot.”

Minutes later, the spacecraft will hit the upper atmosphere at 12,300 mph, needing to slow down to 5 mph, or else risk creating a new crater on the Martian surface.

Landing on Mars is a particularly difficult challenge, NASA says, because its gravitational pull combined with a very thin atmosphere, about 1 percent of Earth’s, makes slowing down hard.

InSight’s heat shield will feel temperatures approaching 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt steel — during its descent.

If all goes well, after slowing to about 850 mph, at roughly seven miles above the surface, the spacecraft will pop out a supersonic parachute for more braking power, then drop its heat shield, deploy three landing legs and begin scanning the surface with radar pulses.

After shedding a backshell and a brief free-fall, InSight will fire a dozen retro-rockets to soften the 789-pound lander’s touchdown in a cloud of red dust around 2:47 p.m.

Back on Earth, white-knuckled engineers at JPL will await word of the lander’s fate.

Within about eight minutes, the time radio signals will take to traverse the 91 million miles to Earth, they hope to hear a beep signifying that the lander is safe.

“I’m going to be very excited once we get that first signal back that shows we’ve successfully landed on Mars,” said Hoffman.

Teams may get more information from a pair of tiny “stalkers” that launched with the lander.

Two experimental NASA spacecraft known as CubeSats, each about the size of a briefcase, are the first of their kind to travel in deep space. Engineers hope they’ll be able to relay news about the lander’s descent and health as they fly by the Red Planet roughly 3,000 miles behind InSight.

Otherwise, mission teams will have to be patient. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will fly overhead and transmit the data about three hours after landing. Confirmation that power-generating solar arrays have unfurled will take closer to six hours.

InSight — short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — then will begin a months-long process of robotically placing several science instruments on the surface of Mars, chief among them a seismometer provided by France.

That will begin a minimum two-year study of the layers making up the planet’s crust, mantle and core, measuring “marsquakes” to create a 3-D picture of Mars’ interior.

Scientists expect that knowledge to advance understanding about the evolution of planets, including Earth and planets orbiting other stars.

“There’s a lot of things that can go wrong,” Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s lead scientist from JPL, said Sunday. “I’m actually really confident, personally, that we’re going to land safely (Monday). Doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.”

Contact Dean at 321-917-4534 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://ift.tt/2D4ogtU.

Support local journalism: Subscribe at floridatoday.com/subscribe

Mars Landing Monday

Visit floridatoday.com starting at 2 p.m. Monday to watch NASA TV’s broadcast of the InSight mission’s attempt to land on Mars. 

Read or Share this story: https://ift.tt/2Kxi7ds

Back in March, T-Mobile and their partner Ashoka set out on a nationwide search with one mission in mind: find and support trailblazing young adults who are thinking outside the box to enact lasting change in their communities. Fast-forward six months and over 330 submissions, and a handful of unbelievable changemakers have been chosen as the winners of this year’s T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge. 

Each of the 6 selected Changemaker teams have exceeded expectations and created organizations that will not only make a difference in their own communities, but also have the potential to reach and help millions around the globe. Their unbridled determination to make the world a better place and offer assistance to those in need is beyond admirable, made even more impressive by the fact that most of them are still teenagers. 

Earlier this month, the 6 winning Changemaker teams returned to T-Mobile’s HQ to meet with mentors and business teams to super-charge their projects! From legal and marketing support to a hackathon to build a new app, the Changemakers and T-Mobile are stepping up to change the world for good.

Below, we’ll introduce you to each remarkable winning team and take a look at their norm-shattering ideas. 

Art with a heart

Every year, millions of children across the world are diagnosed with deadly but treatable diseases and then forced to face their greatest fear…the hospital. Malcolm sought to change this. To shift the negative perception kids have of hospitals and transition fear to fun. With this goal in mind he founded ArtPass, a nonprofit solely focused on changing how kids perceive and experience the hospital through the power of art. To date, ArtPass has 63 registered chapters, spanning from Malcolm’s hometown of Portland, Oregon all the way to Uganda. 

Aware to care

Prior to babysitting her friend’s autistic sister Samantha, Sarah’s understanding of people with special needs was elementary at best. But after months of spending time with and getting to know Samantha, Sarah realized just how much she’d misunderstood the autistic community. With Aware, Sarah is encouraging interactions between special education and general education children as a way of breaking down the walls put up around children with special needs. 

Power of the sol 

After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last year, millions were left without power for months causing a full-on energy crisis. This caused Jose to question the entire antiquated electrical system in P.R. and develop Dios del Sol, a community-led initiative that will strategically partner with churches, volunteers and Puerto Rican solar energy associations to help churches finance, transition to, and manage solar microgrids.

Selfies with a purpose 

The Bills brothers know that their generation take a lot of selfies. And while selfies are quite literally all about one’s self, they thought of way to change “likes” into action. Enter, Echo Effect — their platform designed to encourage people to post selfless selfies via pictures of themselves doing good deeds and challenging their friends to do the same. 

Students helping students

A freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Sravya knew full well the struggles of making college possible as a low-income, first generation immigrant coming from a public school. She wanted others in similar situations to have access to the information and resources she didn’t so that they’d be able to better navigate the obstacles that come with transitioning from high school to college. This is why she founded PeerLift, a student-run nonprofit organization and online platform that connects high schoolers to six different categories of opportunities: scholarships, summer programs, internships, study abroad programs, awards, and college fly-in programs. 

Mental health awareness in bloom

Mental health and depression are major issues for the teenage community, something Julia knows better than anyone as she tragically lost two of her best friends to suicide in a span of just four months in high school. She couldn’t sit still and let the culture of silence around mental health problems continue which is why she created The Yellow Tulip Project, a platform that addresses mental illness in a hopeful way, letting adolescents know that it’s okay to not be okay and that others share the same struggles. 

As a result of their hard work, T-Mobile is helping this new generation of innovators receive the funding and exposure they need to continue making meaningful change on an even greater scale. 

To learn more about the challenge and watch videos of each of the 6 winning teams click here. 

Bart Jansen and Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Published 1:39 p.m. ET Nov. 26, 2018 | Updated 1:54 p.m. ET Nov. 26, 2018

President Donald Trump continued his attacks against a caravan of Central American migrants on Monday by describing some of them as “stone cold criminals.” But on the same day, his administration continued its practice of providing scant details to back up the president’s assertion.

Trump’s attempts to portray members of the caravan as criminals capped off a chaotic weekend that saw migrants trying to rush the San Ysidro Port of Entry and U.S. agents responding by firing tear gas into the crowd, leaving a tense standoff that could escalate in the days to come.

Customs and Border Protection said four officers were struck with rocks before they fired tear gas at the migrants. Photos posted on social media showed migrants – some of them women with small children – running from the scene.

But CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said there were no reported serious injuries during clashes when more than 1,000 migrants tried to cross first in vehicle lanes and then through gaps in the fence or along the Tijuana River channel. He said 69 migrants were detained Sunday during the clashes for crossing illegally.

CBP has deployed 500 officers from other field offices, 250 members of the special-operations group and 300 Border Patrol agents from other sectors, including the northern border, to help in the San Diego area.

Are criminals traveling with the caravan?

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last week while visiting San Diego, and McAleenan repeated on Monday, that 500 criminals are suspected of traveling with the caravan.

“We have information of participation of over 500 individuals with criminal records as part of the caravan,” McAleenan said. “That is gathered through direct engagement as well as information sharing with our government of Mexico partners.”

McAleenan also pointed to the fact that the government of Mexico has arrested more than 100 members of the caravan for what it described as “criminal activity” during their time in Mexico.

But the administration has not provided any details on caravan members it considers criminals or how it’s gotten that information. That is similar to what happened in October, when Trump first started claiming that members of the caravan were “criminals” and “Middle Easterners.”

At the time, the Department of Homeland Security could not provide any evidence to back up his claims, instead circulating data about annual arrest numbers in an attempt to show that criminals were likely to be part of the caravan.

The agency pointed out that in fiscal year 2018, Customs and Border Protections working along the southwest border apprehended 17,256 criminals, 1,019 gang members, and 3,028 “special interest aliens,” defined by the Government Accountability Office as “aliens from countries of special interest to the United States such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.”

But those represented only a small fraction of all people caught trying to enter the country illegally. In 2018, CBP apprehended a total of 396,579 illegal border-crossers, meaning 4.4 percent were criminals, 0.26 percent were gang members, and 0.8 percent were “special interest aliens.”

Vice President Mike Pence relied on those kinds of percentages during an October speech when he said “it’s inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people.”

What caused the clash Sunday?

Thousands of migrants from Central America are waiting in makeshift shelters in Tijuana for a chance to apply for asylum in the U.S. But U.S. officials at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the nation’s largest land entry point, can process only up to 100 asylum requests per day, creating an enormous line that means monthslong waits for some migrants.

That’s why some migrants have organized protests to pressure the U.S. to devote more resources to the process. One of the protests turned chaotic when several hundred migrants broke away and rushed a border fence.

CBP officers said they were pelted with projectiles before they fired tear gas at the migrants. CBP shut down north- and southbound traffic at San Ysidro for nearly six hours.

McAleenan said the use of non-lethal force, such as tear gas, is only allowed by trained personnel and will be thoroughly reviewed. The goal was to use the gas immediately at the border, but that wind could carry it farther.

“That is going to be well documented and thoroughly reviewed,” he said.

The chaos Sunday began when migrants overwhelmed Mexican authorities and tried to rush through traffic lanes at the San Ysidro crossing, McAleenan said.

When blocked there, the migrants moved east and tried to enter through holes in the fence, he said. There were multiple assaults, and debris was thrown at CBP officers, he said.

Then migrants went west of the port to the Tijuana River channel, where there were more assaults and rock-throwing, he said.

Can illegal immigrants apply for asylum?

While Trump has repeatedly told caravan members to return to their home countries, U.S. law clearly states that foreigners are allowed to enter the U.S. and request asylum. And so far, at least one federal judge has ruled that the president can’t just make that law go away.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar this month suspended the administration’s new policy of cutting off asylum to immigrants who enter the country illegally. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act states that any foreigner who arrives in the USA, “whether or not at a designated port of arrival,” may apply for asylum.

On Nov. 9, Trump tried to address that issue through a proclamation that would end the ability of immigrants to request asylum if they enter the country illegally.

More: US border agents fire tear gas as some migrants protesting slow asylum process try to breach fence

More: Caravan of exaggeration: Trump makes dubious claims about Central American migrants

More: Federal judge blocks Trump’s new asylum rules: ‘He may not rewrite the immigration laws’

 

Read or Share this story: https://ift.tt/2ApnB5z

Aquaman will visit land just long enough to host Saturday Night Live in December. Actor Jason Momoa was announced Monday as one of the show’s forthcoming hosts, along with Claire Foy and Matt Damon.

This is the first time hosting for both Foy and Momoa, and Damon’s first hosting gig since 2002 (though he did appear earlier this season as Brett Kavanaugh). The first-time hosts have a lot in common, including fall movies (First Man, Aquaman) and popular TV shows (The Queen, Game of Thrones). 

Anderson .Paak will also play SNL for the first time, while Mumford & Sons will return for a third appearance on the heels of a new album. Veteran guest Miley Cyrus will team up with Mark Ronson this time around.

SNL returns Dec. 1

General Motors is killing multiple passenger cars, including the Chevrolet Volt and Chevrolet Cruze, two vehicles that were held up as examples of the automaker’s post-bankruptcy revival.

The move — part of a sweeping cost-cutting plan unveiled Monday — comes as Americans are abandoning passenger cars in favor of crossovers, SUVs and pickups.

The automaker will no longer make the Volt semi-electric car and the Cruze compact sedan for sale in North America beginning in March, Chevy spokesman Kevin Kelly confirmed. 

GM will also discontinue the Chevrolet Impala full-size car, the company confirmed. It will end U.S. production in March and Canadian production in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Kelly declined to say whether the company would sell any of those products in markets outside North America.

The company will also end U.S. sales of the Cadillac XTS and Buick LaCrosse after production ends in March. And the Cadillac CT6 will be killed off in the U.S. after mid-2019, though it will continue to be sold in China.

More: GM poised to close plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, will cut 15% of salaried workers

More: America’s love affair with pickups gets new midsize dimension: Here comes Gladiator, Ranger

The moves are part of a sweeping $6 billion cost-cutting plan announced Monday. GM is poised to close plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Canada, and cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce.

The Volt’s demise comes about 10 years after the semi-electric vehicle’s production model debuted. The automaker trumpeted the Volt for years as a symbol of its alternative propulsion expertise, but the company has since pivoted toward building fully battery-powered cars. The Volt still had a small gas engine paired with its battery pack.

The Cruze was also described for years as an illustration of GM’s recovery after its federal bailout and bankruptcy.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

Read or Share this story: https://ift.tt/2PV19LX

Image: bose

Truly wireless earbuds are the “it” thing to have right now and we feel that on a thousand levels. The issue? The chances of losing them are too high for comfort. If an AirPod falls out while you’re rushing through a crowd or on the subway, you’re kind of screwed.

That’s where the Bose SoundSport Free earbuds come in: Not only do they fit so snugly in your ears that they probably won’t fall out in the first place, but if they do, there’s a “Find my buds” feature on the Bose app to help you get ’em back. 

Oh yeah, and they’re $80 off at Walmart today for Cyber Monday, putting them at a freakishly low $169. You’re welcome.

Image: brian wong/mashable

Not having to choose between sound and fit is finally possible: Bose creators focused on the tiniest technical aspects that make the biggest difference, from circuits for improved sound to antenna position for maximum Bluetooth signal, plus Volume-optimized EQ to make music three-dimensional and balanced at any volume. Even in a crowded gym or on public transportation with screaming children, all you’ll hear is your music. Battery life is a “meh” five hours, but for this quality of sound, it’s worth it.

Regularly $249, you can save $80 this Cyber Monday and get your pair for just $169.

General Motors is poised to close factories in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Canada, kill off several passenger cars and slash 15 percent of its salaried workforce in a sweeping cost-cutting plan designed to boost its profits.

The Detroit-based automaker said it would end production by the end of 2019 at its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio; its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in southeast Michigan; its Oshawa Assembly plant in Ontario; its Baltimore Operations parts plant; and its Warren Transmission Operations plant in southeast Michigan.

Assembly plants are job juggernauts. GM has about 1,500 employees at the Detroit plant, 1,600 at the Lordstown factory and 2,500 in Oshawa.

The announcement comes ahead of next year’s contract talks with the United Auto Workers union, which could potentially lead to decisions to devote vehicles to those facilities.

GM’s biggest employee union, the United Auto Workers, vowed to fight the plan.

But there’s a serious chance that the plants close for good.

More: GM to kill Chevrolet Volt, Cruze, Impala as Americans ditch passenger cars

More: GM offers buyouts to 18,000 salaried workers, says layoffs possible

The company will also discontinue the Chevrolet Cruze, Volt and Impala cars in North America as Americans flock to larger vehicles in the form of crossovers, SUVs and pickups.

CEO Mary Barra is seeking to reposition GM for a future defined by self-driving cars, ride-sharing networks and electric vehicles.

The cuts will make GM “lean and agile” as the company aims to “lead in autonomous and lead in electric vehicles,” Barra said.

Taken together, the moves will deliver more than $6 billion in additional annual cash flow by the end of 2020, GM said. That includes $4 billion in cost cuts and $1.5 billion in reduced capital expenditures.

The UAW said it would “confront this decision by GM through every legal, contractual and collective bargaining avenue open to our membership.”

It’s a  “callous decision” to cut American operations about 10 years after the automaker first accepted federal bailout money, UAW GM official Terry Dittes said in a statement.

“GM’s production decisions, in light of employee concessions during the economic downturn and a taxpayer bailout from bankruptcy, puts profits before the working families of this country whose personal sacrifices stood with GM during those dark days,” Dittes said. “These decisions are a slap in the face to the memory and recall of that historical American made bailout.”

GM said it would also close two additional plants outside of North America by the end of 2019. It will also continue with plans to close its plant in Gunsan, South Korea.

The workforce reduction will affect 15 percent of the company’s salaried and salaried contract workforce. It’s not clear how many of those cuts will be voluntary and how many will take the form of layoffs. GM offered buyouts to 18,000 workers several weeks ago.

The company said it would also have 25 percent fewer executives.

Contributing: Detroit Free Press reporter Jamie Lareau

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

Read or Share this story: https://ift.tt/2r5TNqr

Image: Pexels

We don’t get the appeal of waiting in line for deals on Black Friday. You know what is appealing though? Being snuggled in a blanket in bed with a fresh cup of coffee skimming through deals from the comfort of your couch. 

But if your online shopping hit a snag this weekend because your device couldn’t handle the pressure, it’s time to upgrade. Lucky for you, there are plenty of great deals on Cyber Monday so you can save big on a new tablet or laptop. 

SEE ALSO: Best Cyber Monday deals on iPad, Instant Pot, Bose headphones

For the Apple diehards out there, you can get a 512GB Apple iPad Pro with cellular for $999 or a 12-inch MacBook for $1,099, both at Amazon. Shopping for a gamer? The Razer Blade 15 is going for $1999.99 and is ideal for gaming on the go.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Shop sales on Amazon Fire tablets and laptops from Lenovo, Dell, HP, and more. Check out some of the best deals below:

Tablets:

Laptops $499 and below:

Laptops $500 to $999:

Laptops $1000 and beyond:

 

• Best Cyber Monday deals on iPad, Instant Pot, Bose headphones

• Best travel deals: Save on flights and hotels with these coupon codes

• Best TV deals: Samsung, LG, Sony, Toshiba

• Best laptop and tablet deals: iPads, MacBooks, Dell laptops, Amazon Fire tablets

• Best Instant Pot deals: Shop models that rarely go on sale

• Amazon deals: Xbox One X, Echo Show, Dyson, and more

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump may not see Congress as a threat to his foreign policy agenda, even as Democrats prepare to take control of the House after the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

But Rep. Eliot Engel, a mild-mannered Democrat from the Bronx, is drawing up an aggressive oversight plan for January, when he is expected to seize the gavel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

First on his priority list: getting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at his witness table after Trump’s chief diplomat “snubbed” the panel earlier this year. Next up: A wide-ranging examination of Trump’s ties to Russia and a probe into how the president’s business interests have intersected with his foreign policy decisions, among other matters.

The Trump administration has shown it will “do the minimum possible to interact with Congress” and that it sees the State Department “as the enemy,” Engel told USA TODAY in an interview previewing his plans for next year. “I’m not going to accept that.”

The president’s warm embrace of Saudi Arabia may come under particularly quick and close scrutiny in the wake the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The CIA has reportedly concluded that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, ordered Khashoggi’s killing. But Trump has emphasized Salman’s denials, questioned the CIA’s assessment, and made it clear he does not want to punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the journalist’s death. 

Engel blasted Trump for casting doubt on the CIA’s assessment in the Khashoggi case and said it was reminiscent of his friendly stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that the Kremlin orchestrated a campaign to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

“We saw him do it with Putin, and now he wants to downplay a horrific murder,” Engel said in a statement last week after Trump said he would work to preserve the U.S.-Saudi alliance. “We need answers about why the administration has behaved the way it has in the wake of this incident.”

The Trump administration has made Saudi Arabia a linchpin of its foreign policy – relying on the kingdom to keep oil prices low as the U.S. ratchets up sanctions on Iran and hoping to win Saudi support for its highly anticipated Middle East peace plan. Engel is a staunch supporter of Israel, and he shares the administration’s views that Iran presents a dangerous threat to Middle East stability. 

But the New York Democrat also says he wants to make sure the Saudis realize they don’t have a “blank check” from the U.S. to commit human-rights abuses.

It’s not yet clear how cooperative the Trump administration will be as it faces the new Democratic House majority. Robert Palladino, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, said Pompeo has “great respect” for Congress’ oversight role, notingthat he served in the House as a three-term representative from Kansas. 

“As a former member, Secretary Pompeo has always made sure that he provides the information Congress deserves,” Palladino said. “Since assuming his responsibilities as Secretary of State, we have been transparent and have met our obligations. We will continue to do so.”  

A week after Democrats’ election victory, Pompeo paid Engel a visit on Capitol Hill, a move the congressman took as a positive sign. Trump and Engel have not had many interactions, despite their shared connection to New York. 

The president has wide latitude to execute U.S. foreign policy. But Congress can play a powerful role by convening high-profile hearings and conducting investigations. Perhaps more importantly, lawmakers can use their funding powers to force policy changes — whether that means pumping up U.S. foreign assistance for key allies or defunding U.S. military support to Saudi Arabia in its deadly Yemen bombing campaign. 

Aside from enacting a new Russia sanctions law, the current Republican-controlled Congress has not significantly challenged Trump’s disruptive approach to U.S. foreign policy – offering only limited pushback as the president launched a trade war with China, threatened to unravel long-time U.S. alliances, and embraced dictators from North Korea to Russia.

But, come January, that could change in dramatic fashion under the Democrats.

“For the first time, we’re likely to see robust hearings, briefings, requests for information and, if necessary, even subpoenas on a wide variety of issues,” said Michael H. Fuchs, a former State Department official in the Obama administration and now a foreign policy expert at the liberal Center for American Progress. 

“At the very least,” Fuchs said, “that will mean more information is being pushed out into public.”

One prime example: Congress has requested briefings on the Trump administration’s negotiations with North Korea, but received little to no information on what, if any, progress has been made in persuading its leaderKim Jong Un to relinquish his nuclear arsenal.

Senior lawmakers have also demanded details of what Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed during their controversial closed-door meeting in July in Helsinki. And they want an assessment of Saudi Arabia’s role in the murder of Khashoggi.

“I’m going to ask for briefings on lots of things,” Engel said.

“My goal is not to embarrass the president,” the Bronx Democrat said. Rather, he said, it’s to make sure that Congress is treated as a co-equal branch of government and is given a voice on the foreign policy.

But many of the issues Engel wants to probe could put the president on the spot. The prospective committee chairman said, for example, that he would like to examine whether Trump’s business income from his marquee hotels and his other holdings violates anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution. Those emoluments provisions bar the president and other U.S. government officials from accepting payments from foreign governments.

“That’s natural for us to look into,” Engel said.

He promised to be evenhanded in his oversight, as long as the State Department and the White House cooperate with the committee’s requests for testimony and documents. But he said he’s ready to use all his leverage if not.

“I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure we’re part of the process, we’re respected, and that our input is taken seriously,” he said.

More: ‘Stop starving people as instrument of war.’ One Republican’s blunt message to Saudis — and Trump

More: North Korea running at least 13 secret operating bases for ballistic missile program, new study shows

More: ACLU goes to court to challenge Trump’s new asylum ban

More: Democrats seize control of House, power to investigate President Trump

Read or Share this story: https://ift.tt/2PSwWgA