Week In The News: Mass Shootings, ICE Raids, China And Hong Kong

With David Folkenflik

Two mass shootings rock the country. Lawmakers weigh gun legislation. Protests break out in Hong Kong, and trade war breaks out with China. The weekly roundtable is here.

Suzanne Gamboa, national reporter for NBC Latino and NBC News.com. (@SuzGamboa)

Anita Kumar, White House correspondent and associate editor at Politico. (@anitakumar01)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst. (@JackBeattyNPR)

Politico: "Trump quietly used regulations to expand gun access" — "The president said he has taken tough action on guns. His administration has mostly focused on expanding gun access through little-noticed regulatory moves.

"President Donald Trump this week said his administration has done 'much more than most' to curb mass shootings in the United States.

"While Trump boasts of action on firearms, his administration has eased gun restrictions over the past 2½ years.

"Federal agencies have implemented more than half a dozen policy changes — primarily through little-noticed regulatory moves — that expand access to guns by lifting firearms bans in certain locations and limiting the names in the national database designed to keep firearms away from dangerous people. The administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn New York City restrictions on transporting handguns outside homes. And it pushed to allow U.S. gunmakers to more easily sell firearms overseas, including the types used in mass shootings."

NBC News: "Some El Paso residents outraged by Trump's speech that 'failed to mention Latinos' " — "President Donald Trump condemned white supremacy from the White House Monday, but left Hispanics and Latinos out of his speech.

"It’s a significant omission and a stark difference from the document that has been linked to the 21-year-old man accused of opening fire on weekend shoppers Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The document mentions a Hispanic invasion, the increasing Hispanic population and a decision by its writer to target Hispanics after reading a right-wing conspiracy theory asserting Europe’s white population is being replaced with non-Europeans.

"The death toll in the El Paso attack, which is being investigated as domestic terrorism, rose to 22 on Monday.

"'We’ve got dead bodies. The majority are Hispanic. Some are foreign nationals from Mexico and we got a manifesto describing what he intends to do and why,' said state Rep. Cesar Blanco, a Democrat who represents El Paso."

NPR: "Mississippi Immigration Raids Lead To Arrests Of Hundreds Of Workers" — "Federal immigration officials raided several food-processing plants in Mississippi on Wednesday and arrested approximately 680 people believed to be working in the U.S. without authorization.

"The coordinated raids were conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations 'at seven agricultural processing plants across Mississippi,' according to an ICE statement. In addition to the arrests, agents seized company business records.

"More than 600 ICE agents were involved in the raids, surrounding the perimeters of the targeted plants to prevent workers, mainly Latino immigrants, from escaping. The actions were centered on plants near Jackson owned by five companies, according to The Associated Press.

"One of the plants is owned by Koch Foods Inc., which bills itself as one of the largest poultry processors in the U.S. with more than 13,000 employees. Forbes ranks it as the 135th largest privately held company in the country, with an estimated $3.2 billion in annual revenue, according to Fortune."

New York Times: "Trump Uses a Day of Healing to Deepen the Nation’s Divisions" — "President Trump visited Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso on Wednesday on a day intended as a show of compassion to cities scarred by a weekend of violence, but which quickly devolved into an occasion for anger-fueled broadsides against Democrats and the news media.

"Mr. Trump’s schedule was meant to follow the traditional model of apolitical presidential visits with victims, law enforcement officials and hospital workers after calamities like the mass shootings that resulted in 31 deaths in Dayton and El Paso and that created a new sense of national crisis over assault weapons and the rise of white supremacist ideology.

"That plan went awry even before Mr. Trump, who has acknowledged his discomfort with showing empathy in public, departed Washington. On Tuesday night, he tweeted that Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic congressman from El Paso, should 'be quiet.' As he prepared to leave the White House on Wednesday morning, he went after former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who said in a speech that day that Mr. Trump had 'fanned the flames of white supremacy.' "

New York Times: "China Signals It Will Continue to Weaken Its Currency as Trade War Rages" — "China signaled on Thursday that it might continue to weaken its currency, a move that threatens to again escalate the trade war with the United States.

"China’s central bank set the midpoint of the renminbi’s daily trading range above 7 to the American dollar for the first time in more than a decade. Thursday’s move in effect tells financial markets that Beijing expects the renminbi to continue to weaken versus the dollar, perhaps well past the 7-to-the-dollar level.

"That is likely to provoke more ire from the Trump administration. A weaker currency helps Chinese factories offset the higher costs of Mr. Trump’s tariffs when selling their goods to the United States.

"The move by the People’s Bank of China in itself will not change the economics of the Chinese-American trade relationship. China on Thursday set the currency’s midpoint at 7.0039 to the dollar, compared with the 6.9996 point it set on Wednesday. China tightly controls trading of its currency, with that midpoint determining the center of a narrow range in which the renminbi can strengthen or weaken during the day."

Anna Bauman produced this hour for broadcast.