Rand Paul left the Senate trial after John Roberts refused to read his question. Paul wanted Roberts to announce the name of the whistleblower, but the chief justice didn’t fall for Paul’s chicanery.
When Paul left the trial, he stood in front of the news cameras and read his question and the name of the alleged whistleblower. Twitter reacted to Mr. Paul’s attempt to help the president. Mr. Trump wanted to expose the whistleblower’s name immediately after the Ukraine debacle exploded, but his aides and lawyers told him to forget about it.
According to Mitch McConnell, he has enough votes to block witness testimony. Three Republican senators want to hear what John Bolton has to say, but Lamar Alexander, the fourth senator who had doubts about the president’s intentions said he will vote to block witness testimony.
The Feds kept interest rates the same at the January meeting. But the 3-month and 10-year bond yield inverted this week, and that’s a sign recession could be the next hurdle the president faces this year. Investors worry about the ongoing tech war with China, and the spread of the coronavirus, as well as a drop in consumer spending and the weak manufacturing sector.
The tech war with China is a deep-rooted disagreement between Mr. Trump and President Xi. Mr. Trump wants Xi to stop funding companies like Huawei, but Xi won’t change the way China supports its international businesses. Huawei is the second-largest smartphone maker and provider in the world. Huawei plans to take the number one spot away from Samsung within the next four years.
When Mr. Trump banned American tech companies from buying and selling Huawei products, Huawei went on the defensive and expanded its 5G presence around the world. Plus, the company introduced its Mate 30 smartphone series in China, and the phones were an instant hit. Huawei used Google’s Android Operating System in the Mate 30 series, but the new P40 series won’t use the Google Android OS. Huawei put its Harmony OS in the P40 series, and it will replace Google Mobile Services with Huawei Mobile Services.
Huawei sold 240 million smartphones in 2019. That’s 34 million more than it sold in 2018. One Huawei official told the press the company won’t use Google in smartphones going forward. The company thinks using Google gives the president a chance to disrupt its smartphone business while he tries to force China to change the way it treats its international tech companies.
