House Republicans Rebuff Trump—Twice

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:18)

A ceasefire brings quiet along Israel's front lines with Lebanon. But without Hezbollah at the negotiating table, how realistic is a durable peace?

Plus, Ford cautiously opens the door to partnerships with Chinese car makers.

Stephen Wilmot (0:33)

They're adamant that they don't want imports of Chinese-made cars competing with the production base in the US essentially. At the same time, Jim Farley has been one of the most open in praising Chinese technology and saying that Detroit has something to learn from Shenzhen.

Luke Vargas (0:48)

And House Republicans break with the president on a pair of national security and immigration votes. We'll get the latest. It's Friday, April 17th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM Edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon remains in effect this morning with a number of leaders from Pakistan to the EU and UN commending President Trump for his role in mediating the truce. But Journal Middle East correspondent Dov Lieber says that excitement over a pause in nearly seven weeks of fighting is being tempered by concerns that excluding Hezbollah from the negotiating table will make any lasting agreement hard to achieve.

Dov Lieber (1:37)

Hezbollah has agreed to be a part of the ceasefire, but they strongly oppose peace talks between Israel and Lebanon. Those talks are aimed at disarming the group, and people in Lebanon fear that any serious attempts at disarming Hezbollah could lead to civil strife or potentially civil war inside that country. President Trump asked Hezbollah to act nicely, and perhaps an admission of the fact that the group could be a spoiler for any attempts by President Trump to broker peace between Israel and Lebanon. And yet, this is potentially a serious achievement for President Trump if he can bring the leaders of Lebanon and Israel together at the White House that would bring the two sides closer than they've ever been before.

Luke Vargas (2:16)

House Republicans have broken with President Trump and party leadership on a pair of measures, blocking a longer-term renewal of a powerful national security surveillance program and voting to reinstate temporary legal protections for Haitian immigrants.

Yesterday, 11 Republicans joined Democrats to extend TPS protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians for another three years, with several GOP lawmakers defending migrants in their communities, including Nebraska's Don Bacon, who cited risks to the state's short-staffed health care industry. And hours later, a number of holdout Republicans voted against a five-year renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the collection of info on foreigners overseas who use US communication systems. In a late-night debate, Georgia Republican Austin Scott defended the renewal, while Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said lawmakers had had no time to read through the proposal.

SPEAKER_5 (3:10)

Our purpose here today is to give law enforcement the ability to operate in a timely manner to stop terrorist attacks on United States soil. That's it.

Failing to reauthorize the statutory authority would be a massive setback and one that our adversaries would exploit immediately. Just about everyone agrees that this is serious stuff.

Luke Vargas (3:35)

The kind of debate that Congress ought to have in the open. Instead, Republican leadership just jammed us.

SPEAKER_5 (3:43)

Does anybody actually know what the hell is in this thing? It is 1130 at night.

Luke Vargas (3:50)

With no immediate path forward, the House voted to extend the law for just two more weeks until April 30th.

Ford says it's planning to partner with Chinese manufacturers overseas. And what the carmaker's CEO says is a vital move to maintaining a competitive edge globally. Jim Farley's comments come after he told Fox News earlier this week that Chinese automakers would devastate the US auto industry and should not be allowed in. But instead of entirely blocking Chinese competitors, Journal Auto's reporter Stephen Wilmot says that Farley is hoping to harness their technology.

Stephen Wilmot (4:26)

Farley like Mary Barrett, GM, they're adamant that they don't want imports of Chinese-made cars competing with the production base in the US essentially. He points out, like a lot of people, that China has factories set up to produce far more cars than they can actually consume in the country, and this is putting a lot of pressure on Chinese automakers to export vehicles, and these vehicles are flooding into Europe, into emerging markets, into Mexico, now maybe even into Canada following a deal between Mark Carney and President Xi earlier this year.

At the same time, Jim Farley has been one of the most open in praising Chinese technology and saying that Detroit has something to learn from Shenzhen, and that's where the position becomes a bit more blurred. He would like the technology without the imports.