The attack took place in the heart of the British capital during a bustling Saturday night. From
Karla Adam and Rick Noack: “It was clear that the incident was meant for all the world to see. At around
10 p.m., a white van mowed down pedestrians as it zigzagged across London Bridge ... [The three assailants] tore through nearby Borough Market leaving a trail of blood in their wake — seven people died and dozens more were injured. …During the day, it’s a food lover’s paradise — vendors from around the world sell dishes with enticing aromas and tourists from around the world buy them. It is perhaps not surprising that a number of nationalities have been reported among those who were wounded, including French and Australian.
”
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| Pop stars perform at One Love Manchester concert |
BRITAIN STRONG:
-- Given the tragic circumstances, Ariana Grande’s Sundaybenefit concert for victims of the Manchester attack took on added significance. Jennifer Hassan and Max Bearak report: “The pop star appeared at Manchester's Old Trafford Cricket Ground, which seats 50,000, alongside Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Usher, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, and many other acts. Proceeds from the show, billed as ‘One Love Manchester,’ will benefit the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, the British Red Cross and the Manchester City Council. More than 14,000 tickets to
Sunday's concert were set aside for those who attended the original May 22 show. …
The crowd at Old Trafford exuded a sense of togetherness. People chanted ‘We love Manchester.’ Almost everyone seemed to be holding someone else's hand…By the time the main acts reached the stage, the grounds were almost at capacity. The musicians played their most upbeat hits, and it seemed as though everyone listening knew all the words.”
-- And the uplifting spirit was not confined to the Manchester show. Peter Holley reports: “
On Sunday, some Londoners started pushing back against the notion that their city — if not their country — was trembling in fear.
They had a simple message: ‘London is not reeling.’ Their resistance was epitomized by an image that has been shared more than 26,000 times showing a British man casually holding a pint as he joins others fleeing the scene of
Saturday night's attack. ...
Steely resilience in the face of unforgiving tragedy is considered a fixture of British patriotism. ... ’Keep Calm and Carry On’ — the popular World War II mantra that came to define the city's resolute character — was resurrected online.”
Here's the picture of the guy with the beer (on right):
ELECTORAL IMPLICATIONS:
-- Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party announced that, in light of Saturday’s attack, it would suspend campaigning for Thursday’s general election. But that did not stop politics from seeping into the fallout. Griff Witte and Karla Adam report: “The latest attack to hit Britain this spring became a campaign issue Sunday, with just four days before an unpredictable national election. … Following the May 22 attack in Manchester,
Saturday night’s van-and-knife rampage was the second mass-casualty attack to intrude on the homestretch of a parliamentary campaign that was once thought certain to end in a landslide for Prime Minister Theresa May and the Conservatives.
The race has tightened in recent weeks, and terrorism has introduced an unexpected variable...
- “With her premiership on the line, May took an aggressive and combative tone Sunday…She blamed the attack on the ‘evil ideology of Islamist extremism,’ called for a thorough review of the nation’s counterterrorism policies and suggested she will take a much tougher line if she wins Thursday’s vote.
- “The speech was criticized by the opposition Labour Party as a thinly veiled jab at their far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn, whom May has often accused of coddling anti-Western militants. May, Corbyn’s backers said, had politicized the attack.
- But by evening, Corbyn had hit back with his own political response to the killing, accusing May and her Conservative allies of weakening security services through years of austerity."
Watch a clip of his speech:
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| Corbyn: ‘Our priority must be public safety’ |
HE WHO LIVES IN A GLASS HOUSE SHOULD NOT THROW STONES:
-- Trump may be undercutting his own administration’s efforts to be “smart, vigilant and tough” on terror through his sluggish hiring process for key national-security posts. Politico reports: “The president's counter-terrorism strategy could be hindered by dozens of vacancies across the government, not least a permanent FBI director. Top ranks at the State Department remain largely unfilled, as are some key ambassadorships. Trump has not named anyone to lead the Transportation Security Administration, which screens people at airports, or to run the Homeland Security office charged with protecting the country's physical and cyber infrastructure.”
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| Trump administration officials says Paris climate deal hampered U.S. economy |
PARIS FALLOUT:
-- Administration officials defended the president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement on the Sunday shows. Paige reports: “Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, ... repeated his refrain that questions about President Trump’s personal views on climate change are beside the point. ‘When we joined Paris, the rest of the world applauded … because it put this country at disadvantage,’ Pruitt told Fox News’s Chris Wallace. ‘It’s a bad deal for this country. We’re going to make sure as we make deals we’re going to put the interests of America first.’"
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| U.N. Ambassador Haley: Trump 'believes the climate is changing' |
-- Out over her skis again: With every other administration surrogate ducking the question, Nikki Haley said on CNN: “President Trump believes the climate is changing. And he believes pollutants are part of that equation. So that is the fact. That is where we are. That's where it stands. He knows that it's changing. He knows that the U.S. has to be responsible with it, and that's what we're going to do. Just because we got out of a club doesn't mean that we don't care about the environment.”
But Haley's comments sound more like her position, and they are at odds with the president's own past statements, Mary Jordan notes: “Trump has made contradictory statements about what exactly he believes amid mounting pressure from other world leaders, the scientific community and even Pope Francis, who has urged urgent action to change human activity causing harm to the environment. The president has said flat out that climate change is ‘nonexistent’ — but at other times has hedged his position and said there could be some connection to human activity.”
John Kerry formally signs the U.S. onto the Paris agreement while holding his granddaughter last April. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
-- Supporters of the Paris agreement had much blunter words. Trump claimed
Thursday night that he's going to negotiate a better deal after pulling out of the last one.
"That's like O.J. Simpson saying he's going to go out and find the real killer," former secretary of state John Kerry said on NBC's "Meet the Press." (Avi Selk)
Paul Ryan speaks at a press conference. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
THE AGENDA:
-- "Trump is finding it easier to tear down old policies than to build his own," by Jenna Johnson, Juliet Eilperin and Ed O'Keefe: “The president and his fellow Republicans have made little progress in building an affirmative agenda of their own, a dynamic that will be on display when Congress returns this week with few major policies ready to advance. Voters are still waiting for progress on the $1 trillion package of infrastructure projects Trump promised, the wall along the Southern border he insisted could be quickly constructed and the massive tax cuts he touted during the campaign. Even debate over health-care reform is largely focused on eliminating key parts of the Affordable Care Act and allowing states to craft policies in their place. After being the ‘party of no’ during the Obama years, Republicans are still trying to figure out what they want to achieve in this unexpected Trump era — beyond just rolling back what Obama did. Even some Republicans have raised questions about what the party now stands for, as opposed to what it is against. “Asked during a recent interview for a Politico podcast what the Republican Party stands for now, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) responded: ‘I don’t know.’”
-- Fears grow about dysfunction in Congress. Politico reports: “Concerns are rising in Washington that Congress may be headed toward the economic and political disaster of a debt default and a government shutdown later this year. And the chamber most likely to get Congress out of the jam — the Senate — is failing to live up to its moniker as the world’s greatest deliberative body.”
Richard Burr rushes to the Senate floor for votes. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
THOSE WHO DON’T LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT THEM:
-- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is trying to retrieve copies of the committee’s 2014 secret report on the CIA’s brutal detention and interrogation program from federal agencies and return them to Congress. From Karen DeYoung: “By late
Friday, most of the copies known to have been distributed had been returned to the committee, including by the CIA and its inspector general’s office, the director of national intelligence, and the State Department. … While a 500-page, redacted summary was eventually released, the bulk of the report remains classified. … Burr’s order to collect copies of the 6,700-page document came weeks after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union for the executive branch to release the full report, ending a two-year legal battle.
Democrats cried foul, charging that Burr intends to bury the document and ensure that it is never released. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chaired the committee when it was written, said Burr’s intent in collecting copies of what she called ‘the torture report’ was to ‘erase history’ and make sure the document would not be read by current and future officials. … Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but distribution of the report to federal agencies provided an opening for FOIA requests for its declassification and release.”
Border Patrol agent Emmanuel Santos searches for undocumented immigrants trying to hide in the undergrowth along the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas, last week. (Matthew Busch/For The Washington Post)
WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:
-- “A tiny Texas border city is leading the charge against the state’s immigration crackdown,” by Maria Sacchetti and Sandhya Somashekhar: “El Cenizo is (working) to block a tough new Texas immigration law that requires police to hold criminal suspects for possible deportation, before the measure takes effect
Sept. 1. The lawsuit filed by the city pits Mayor Raul Reyes and his tiny outpost of Democrats against the state’s powerful Republican Party. Almost everyone in town is an immigrant from Mexico — or is related to one — and many are here illegally…The mayor’s move puts this city of 3,300 residents at the heart of a new war raging in Texas over an old issue: illegal immigration…The divisions underscore how illegal immigration has evolved as an issue in Texas, home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented immigrants.”
SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:
The president’s tweets on Saturday night fit a pattern of responding quickly to acts of terror and more slowly to other attacks. “Critics of the president were quick
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