Republicans Rise against Trump Changes in US Policy

In the latest blow to Trump’s plan to make changes in US policies that he has called “idiotic” in some instances, Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said that any attempt to “reset” relations with Russia is unacceptable.
 
“With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States,” McCain said in a statement released by his office.
 
Accusing Putin of dishonesty in his pledge for better relations with the US, the republican senator also accused Russia of attempting to “undermine America’s elections”.
 
The letter come a day after Trump and Russian president, Vladimir Putin, talked on the phone about mending ties with the Russian government and fighting the “common enemy of global terrorism” in Syrian.
 
In their conversation, the Kremlin said, Putin and Trump agreed that U.S.-Russia relations are “unsatisfactory” and vowed to work together to improve them. Trump’s office later said that they had discussed shared threats and challenges, and the long-term relationship between them.
 
During his presidential campaign, Trump urged for diverting US policies away from backing militants in Syria to topple President Bashar Assad toward fighting the ISIS terrorists in the country.
 
McCain gave tepid support to Trump after the Republican nominating convention, then withdrew it in October after the leak of a 2005 recording revealing Trump making demeaning remarks about women, and then declined to speak about him as he headed toward his own reelection last week.
 
McCain said efforts by President Obama’s administration to reset relations with Moscow failed and a similar move by Trump would be “an unacceptable price” for the US to pay.
 
Yet in another blow to the Trump agenda, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said his forces will not help the policies of the incoming president on migration.
 
“We’re going to maintain the same posture we always have,” Beck told KNX 1070 Monday. “We don’t make detentions or arrests based solely on status, whether that’s immigration status or any other status.”
 
“If the federal government takes a more aggressive role on deportation, then they’ll have to do that on their own,” he continued.
 
Since the earliest days of his presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration enforcement a central pillar of his controversial message to voters. He has promised to build a massive wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, labeled undocumented immigrants “rapists” and pledged to aggressively deport millions of people.
 
In an interview that aired Sunday, the president-elect told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl that he would deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants who “have criminal records.”