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Trump puts China in charge of the future

Saying that it would “start a new era of production and job creation,” Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday scrapping much of Barack Obama’s climate legacy.

Some analysts have expressed concern this could enable Beijing — the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases — to water down its own commitments, but others say it is more likely China will step into a leading role in the vacuum left by Washington.

“China now finds itself in the unenviable position of being world leader on climate change, thanks to Trump’s willfully blind irresponsibility,” Mark Lynas, a fellow at the Alliance for Science at Cornell University, wrote for CNN Opinion.

Speaking Wednesday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang said the country will “continue to work with relevant parties for enhanced dialog and cooperation, hand-in-hand to manage climate change, to promote efforts to put the global economy on a green and low carbon path, in order to pass on a better future to the generations to come.”

New order

While Trump’s actions may force Beijing into a leadership role, it will not be one for which it is unprepared.

“There has been an embracing of environmental issues generally in China over the last few years,” said Matthew Evans, dean of science at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

“China is increasingly taking its position on the world stage (as) an economic superpower in its own right.”

Speaking in New York last week, China’s ambassador to the UN Liu Jeyi said “whatever the vicissitudes of the international situation… China remains steadfast in its ambition to reinforce actions in responding to climate change.”

Liu said China is committed to “reducing carbon intensity by 40-45% in 2020 compared with 2005 and reaching the peak of carbon emissions by 2030 or even earlier.”

Carbon intensity levels are measured by a country’s emissions relative to economic output. According to the US Environmental Protection Bureau, China and the US were the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in 2011, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

“(China and the US) are moving in opposite directions on this issue,” said Alex Lo, an expert on climate politics at the University of Hong Kong.

“The Chinese government has made a lot of commitment officially … those policies and initiatives are not going to stop.”

Push and pull

The events of the past few days mark a dramatic turnaround from 2014, when, under rare blue skies in Beijing, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping announced plans for a cut in greenhouse emissions by close to a third over the next two decades.

It was a dramatic statement of intent by the world’s largest carbon polluters, and a major win for the Obama administration in bringing China on board as an equal partner in the fight against climate change.

In September 2016, the pair underlined that partnership, ratifying the Paris climate agreement alongside each other in Hangzhou.

Following the election of Donald Trump however, Beijing looks to be standing alone.

Solutions

China is already a world leader is renewable energy.

The country’s National Energy Administration said in January that China will spend more than $360 billion through 2020 on renewable technologies such as solar and wind.

China invested more than $88 billion in clean energy in 2016, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, down from an all time high of almost $120 billion in 2015, but still significantly more than the $58.8 billion invested by the US last year.

Lo also predicted that China will take major action to introduce an emissions trading scheme this year, a means of controlling pollution via economic incentives.

“China might be able to take leadership in terms of motivating other partners, particularly those countries in the Asia Pacific region to follow suit,” he said.

China is highly vulnerable to climate change, with 145 million people living in areas at risk of flooding due to rising sea levels, and rampant desertification already occurring in much of the country’s northwest.

Risks

China will not stand alone in terms of tackling climate change. The EU is another major player, albeit one hampered by political divisions over issues such as Brexit and the refugee crisis.

A report by the NGO Carbon Market Watch this week claimed that only three EU countries were currently pursuing their goals under the Paris agreement: Sweden, Germany and France.

US states such as California are also taking action, with Governor Jerry Brown vowing to forge ahead on climate policies regardless of Washington.

“If China and the EU choose to act together then I think between them they can manage a lot of this,” said HKU’s Evans.

“But if the US tears up as many of their climate policies as it’s suggesting they’re going to, that will be a loss.”

“The atmosphere is a global good. You can’t constrain greenhouse gases released in the US to stay in the US, we’re all going to suffer from them,” he added.

Another major risk posed by the Trump administration’s action, according to Evans, is that it may encourage countries to move forward on their own on matters such as geoengineering.

Efforts to hack the planet in order to slow or reverse climate change have been put forward, but critics warn they could have unforeseen runaway effects that leave the world in a worse position than before.

“At the moment there’s a moratorium on any country doing that unilaterally,” Evans said.

But for nations most at risk from climate change, “you have to wonder how much of their country they’re willing to see go underwater before they take action unilaterally to modify the climate.”

McCain threatens shutdown over defense spending

Story highlights

Sen. John McCain said he won’t support a continuing resolution over defense spending
His comments come as leaders are making a serious effort to negotiate FY 2017’s appropriations

The Arizona Republican told CNN he wouldn’t vote for a continuing resolution, a funding bill that maintains the previous spending levels. When asked how far he would go, McCain said he only had one vote, but that he wouldn’t rule out a shutdown.

“If that’s the only option. I will not vote for a CR no matter what the consequences because passing a CR destroys the ability of the military to defend this nation, and it puts the lives of the men and women in the military at risk,” McCain said. “I can’t do that to them.”

McCain’s comments come as leaders are making a serious effort to negotiate the remaining appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2017 that would likely include some of the new military spending that McCain is pushing for.

Congressional leaders are up against a tight deadline. After last week’s failure to pass the health care bill out of the House, there are questions about how much leaders can get passed even if their goal remains to finish appropriations bills instead of passing a continuing resolution. Congress has to come to an agreement before the government runs out of money April 28.

Raising the stakes? Congress is on recess for two weeks in mid-April.

McCain has long been an advocate for increased military spending and has voted for continuing resolutions in the past, but this time, McCain says he just won’t do it and that the military would be set back by another CR.

“I will not vote for a CR. I don’t care what’s in it,” he said.

McCain’s comments may put pressure on leaders to see that some rank-and-file members are serious. They won’t accept just another, last minute continuing resolution. If that’s the only option, there could be a shutdown ahead.

How paralyzed man regained hand movements

The early stage research has been tested in a lab with just one patient so far, yet someday it may change the lives of many with spinal cord injuries, said lead author Abidemi Bolu Ajiboye, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Even though the system would not become immediately available to patients, Ajiboye believes that all the technical hurdles can be overcome within five to 10 years. “We actually have a handle on everything that we need. There are no significant novel discoveries we need to make for the system,” he said.

Ajiboye said that what makes this achievement unique is not the technology, but the patient. Unlike any previous experiments, a man who is nearly completely paralyzed — or tetraplegic — regained his ability to reach and grasp by virtue of a neuroprosthetic.

Cycling accident

Bill Kochevar, a resident of Cleveland, injured his spinal cord in 2006 prior to enrolling in the study.

“It was a bicycling accident,” said Ajiboye, who explained that Kochevar, 53, was doing a 150-mile bicycle ride on a rainy day. “He was following a mail truck and the mail truck stopped and he ended up running into the back of the truck,” said Ajiboye. As a result, Kochevar has paralysis below the shoulders.

“So he can’t walk, he can’t move his arms, he can’t move his hands,” said Ajiboye.

While the American Spinal Injury Association classifies him at the most disabled level of paralysis, Kochevar is capable of both speaking and moving his head. Prior to enrolling in the study, he often used head tracking software technology that relied on him moving his head to move a cursor on a screen. “But he had no ability to do any sort of functional activities,” said Ajiboye.

Kochevar underwent two surgeries fitting him with the neuroprosthetic. The first operation on December 1, 2014, implanted the brain computer interface, or BCI, in the region of Kochevar brain that is responsible for hand movement, called the motor cortex.

The BCI is an electrode array which penetrates the brain between one to one and a half millimeters, said Ajiboye.

Next, Kochevar underwent a second surgery to implant 36 muscle stimulating electrodes into his upper and lower arm. Known as functional electrical stimulation or FES, these electrodes are key to restoring movement in his finger and thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulders.

The Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center, of which Ajiboye is a part, first developed electrical stimulation technology for reanimating paralyzed function nearly 30 years ago. As Ajiboye explained, the technology is similar to a pacemaker in that it applies electrical stimulation to the muscles in order to stir movement.

After the separate technologies were implanted, the researchers connected Kochevar’s brain-computer interface to the electrical stimulators in his arm. At this point, Kochevar began learning how to use his neuroprosthetic and that process started with a virtual arm.

“We had him watch the virtual arm move, he attempted to move his arm in the same way, and that elicited some patterns of cortical activity — some patterns of electrical neural activity,” said Ajiboye.

This electrical activity was recorded and based on this recording, Ajiboye and his colleagues created a “neural decoder” — an algorithm specific to Kochevar — that could translate the patterns of Kochevar’s recorded brain signals into commands for the electrodes in his arm.

“Then we had him use our algorithm to control the virtual arm on the screen just using his brain signals,” said Ajiboye. “Very early on he could hit the target with 95 to 100% accuracy.” This ‘virtual’ step in the process helped Ajiboye and his colleagues refine the algorithm.

“Then, finally, we basically do the same thing with his actual arm. We manually move his arm, and we have him imagine he’s doing it,” said Ajiboye. Kochevar is then able to move his arm on his own by thinking the command (and so generating once again the same brain pattern when he imagined moving his arm) and this is then actuated through electrical stimulation.

Essentially, the technology circumvents the spinal injury feeding the electrical stimulation of his brain through wires to the electrodes in his arm.

After mastering simple movements, Kochevar was tested on day-to-day tasks, including drinking a cup of coffee and feeding himself. In all of these, Kochevar was successful.

“There were no significant adverse events, the system is safe, so as far as the clinical trial endpoint goes, he has met those,” said Ajiboye.

“Now he has opted voluntarily to continue working as a participant in our study for at least another five years,” said Ajiboye. Kochevar hopes to experience the benefits of the technology for himself while also seeing it advance to the point of becoming available for other people with spinal cord injuries, according to Ajiboye.

CNN attempted to contact Kochevar for comment.

‘Encouraging’ results

A previous unrelated study showed paraplegic people with spinal cord injuries using brain-machine interfaces to gain control of their brain activity and stimulate movement in their legs. A separate study used a brain-spine interface to communicate nerve signals and helped paralyzed monkeys to regain movement.

According to Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh, the new study “shows the potential that [a brain-machine interface] can be used to reanimate a limb.” Schwartz was uninvolved with the current study.

While the “generated movements were somewhat rudimentary” with a rather limited range of action, “the attempt to use multiple degrees of freedom was encouraging,” said Schwartz.

“I liked the idea that movements were decoded first and then transformed to muscle activations,” he added. “For real movements in the real world, this transformation will be very difficult to calculate and that is where real science will be needed.”

In an editorial published alongside the study, Steve I. Perlmutter, an associate professor at University of Washington in Seattle, said the research is “groundbreaking as the first report of a person executing functional, multijoint movements of a paralysed limb with a motor neuroprosthetic. However, this treatment is not nearly ready for use outside the lab.”

Similar to Schwartz, Perlmutter noted that Kochevar’s movements were “rough and slow” and had limited range due to the necessary motorized device.

“Stimulation of nerves or the spinal cord, rather than muscles, and more sophisticated stimulation technology may provide substantial improvements,” wrote Perlmutter.

“The algorithms for this type of brain computer interface are very important, but there are many other factors that are also critical, including the ability to measure brain signals reliably for long periods of time,” Perlmutter said in an email. He added another critical issue is execution of movement.

Hurdles that all motor neuroprostheses must overcome have yet to be addressed, noted Perlmutter, including “development of devices that are small enough, robust enough, and cheap enough to be fully mobile and widely available.”

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Ajiboye acknowledges the need for smaller technologies. Still, he said, his new study differs from previous work done in the field. Although other labs have worked with non-human primates or partially paralyzed participants, his study helped someone who is completely paralyzed.

“This is an exponentially harder problem,” said Ajiboye. “Our study is the first in the world, to my knowledge, to take someone paralyzed and give him the ability to both reach and grasp objects… so that he can regain the ability to perform functional activities of daily living.”

One other way the new study differs from previous research is Ajiboye and his colleagues built their neuroprosthetic from separate technologies, each of which had already been proven viable. This translates to the entire system, when refined, more easily gaining approval and becoming available to patients.

“The goal is to do much more than a cool science experiment,” said Ajiboye.

GOP may be working on health care plan B

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke with several House members over the weekend to discuss a path forward, a senior administration official and Republican official with knowledge of the discussions told CNN. And House Speaker Paul Ryan — despite saying Friday that “Obamacare is the law of the land” — appears ready to keep going as well.

Trump himself isn’t giving up.

“I know we’re going to make a deal on health care, that’s such an easy one,” Trump told a bipartisan group of senators and spouses at a White House reception Tuesday night.

The fact remains, however, that House Republicans aren’t in a different position than they were on Friday. The math is the same. Republican leaders are still struggling to satisfy two diametrically opposed forces: moderates who want to see to government lend more support to middle and low-income people to buy health insurance and conservatives who want to see Obamacare repealed more fully so that even popular regulations like the one requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions disappear.

“At the end of the day, I don’t know that the weekend did much to change anything. I think it was a missed opportunity. I think it was an unforced error,” said Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack.

“We’re mending our wounds right now,” Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican from New York told reporters Tuesday.

But Republicans can’t go back to their voters and say they’ve given up. Moving on from repealing Obamacare would mean Republicans may have to admit defeat and face a sobering new reality, in which, they were not able to deliver on the policy goal that united them and catapulted them to victory in the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016.

“Opposition to government run health care has been a foundation of the Republican party for three or four generations now, so it is difficult to see House Republicans walk away from efforts to protect the American people from this awful law,” said Michael Steel, former spokesman for ex-House Speaker John Boehner. “At the same time, after last week, it’s difficult to see how the entire conference can find a unified position.”

“I think the divisions that have existed for some time look and feel particularly acute now that we have a Republican President,” Steel added.

White House downplaying role

Those divisions came out perhaps most dramatically when Trump got involved in the negotiations. Now, the White House is keeping its role much lower key than it did during the final push last week and insisting it is letting rank-and-file members of Congress drive discussions on health care, which are ongoing between a small group of House Freedom Caucus members and members of the moderate Tuesday Group.

The senior administration official told CNN that the White House believes its threats to move past health care have helped jolt House GOP members into action.

“All last week he was calling them. Now they’re calling him,” the official said.

White House press secretary Sean Spice publicly downplayed Tuesday any suggestion that there was a concerted effort to resurrect health care, only going as far as saying that there were continued conversations and exchanging of ideas.

“Have we had some discussions and listened to ideas? Yes,” Spicer told reporters in the briefing room. “Are we actively planning an Immediate strategy? Not at this time.”

On Tuesday, House GOP leaders also projected more optimism that something could still be done to dismantle the Affordable Care Act even as the political dynamics remained unchanged.

“I think we’re closer today to repealing Obamacare than we’ve ever been before, and are surely even closer than we were Friday,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said Tuesday morning.

Ryan vowed members would continue working although he didn’t offer any specific timeline.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was more frank that it was time to get to other issues.

“It’s pretty obvious we were not able, in the House, to pass a replacement. Our Democratic friends ought to be pretty happy about that because we have the existing law in place, and I think we are just going to have to see how that works out,” McConnell said. “We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. They have an opportunity now to have the status quo, regretfully.”

McConnell complemented Trump’s and Ryan’s efforts and then concluded his remarks on the debacle with four words: “Sorry that didn’t work.”

GOP base doesn’t want to give up

The concept of giving up is hard for many Republican rank-and-file members to swallow. Those who would have voted yes wish they could have gotten their colleagues there too. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, who were opposed to the bill, are grappling now with public admonishment from their new President.

“We’re gonna get a ‘yes,’ we’re gonna get to ‘yes.’ It will be a better bill and I think everybody is going to be very happy in the end,” said Rep. David Brat, a Republican from Virginia and a member of the Freedom Caucus.

“I think we have plenty of time. We can fix this,” said Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador, another House Freedom Caucus member.

Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who opposed the GOP health care bill said Tuesday he thought that the GOP conference could find a way to get a revised Obamacare bill through the House if they all got in a room and put their heads together.

“We need to stay here on the weekend and have an all-day conference,” Weber said, noting that the one-hour weekly meetings weren’t enough time to work through the sticking points.

Weber, who didn’t vote for Ryan for speaker in January, even complimented Ryan and said that he texted the speaker over the weekend when some conservative media figures pushed for him to step down and told him “don’t even think about it. You’re doing a good job. My prayers and my support are with you.”

Still hard to govern

Womack said Republicans need to keep moving and show they can govern with their majorities in the House and Senate and Trump in the White House.

“The people who were ‘yes’ on the health care bill were reminding Paul this is something we promised and we got to push in that direction,” Womack said. “It’s more a reflection of the need to show that we can do something with our governing majority, but again it comes back to numbers. If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes.”

But Trump and Ryan say they want to go to tax reform next, but that’s not going to be any easier.

“How do you move forward?” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida. “If you can’t do this, can you then do tax reform? If you think this is complicated and controversial, wait ’til we get into tax reform.”

Don’t use cotton swabs to clean your ears

Updated clinical guidelines published Tuesday in the journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery say they’re not appropriate for earwax removal. In fact, information for patients in the guidelines say no to putting anything “smaller than your elbow in your ear.”

Regardless, most of us hoard a stash of the soft-tipped paper sticks; they seem so perfectly suited to that dirty job.

So the authors of the guidelines — an advisory panel of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery — have injected a little bit of freshness into the usual advice, giving more explanation as to “Why not?” They even included a consumer representative on the panel.

“We really have come to appreciate that clinicians are not the only users of (the guidelines), that patients are really interested in their own care and people are really taking ownership of their own care,” said Dr. Seth Schwartz, chairman of the guideline update group for the academy.

Here’s why not: Cotton swabs, hair pins, house keys and toothpicks — the many smaller-than-our-elbow-objects we love to put in our ears — can cause cuts in our ear canals, perforate our eardrums and dislocate our hearing bones. And any of these things could lead to hearing loss, dizziness, ringing or other symptoms of ear injury.

Instead, most people can just let nature do its job. Our bodies produce earwax to keep our ears lubricated, clean and protected: Dirt, dust and anything else that might enter our ears gets stuck to the wax, which keeps any such particles from moving farther into the ear canal. Our usual jaw motions from talking and chewing, along with skin growth within the canal, typically helps move old earwax from inside to the outside the ear, where it is washed off during bathing.

The guidelines published in 2008 were overdue for an update. While new randomized trials have been included, “nothing very dramatic” has changed, other than an improvement in the methodology itself, said Schwartz: “The process has become a little more transparent in the way we actually write the guidelines now. We are more clear about why the decisions we made are made and what data there is to support it.”

Patient are apparently interested in the nitty-gritty of ear care: More than 50,000 people downloaded the old guideline, Schwartz said.

“It’s kind of amazing how many people were interested in reading that,” he said.

The do’s and don’ts

To be “a little bit more patient-friendly,” the guidelines now include lists of “Do’s and Don’t’s” for everyone and a list for people who have had problems with cerumen impaction, the official term for earwax buildup, a condition that is more common among the elderly, according to Dr. James Battey, director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Impaction can occur when the ear’s self-cleaning process doesn’t work very well. The resulting waxy buildup blocks the ear canal, causing difficulty hearing.

“For those with impacted ear wax, the use of cotton-tipped swabs may push the earwax deeper into the ear canal and harm the eardrum,” Battey said. He added that “about 2% of adults with impacted earwax may go the doctor with hearing loss as their symptom.”

“Impacted earwax is best addressed by a health care professional,” he said.

In the all-important “Don’t” section, you’ll find warnings against “overcleaning” your ears. Excessive cleaning may increase earwax impaction, according to the authors.

“It’s cultural” to want clear ears, Schwartz said, but “wiping away any excess wax when it comes to the outside of the ear is enough to keep it clean.”

Another warning in the new guidelines: Do not use ear candles. Not only can they cause “serious damage” to your eardrum, “there is no evidence that they remove impacted cerumen,” wrote the authors.

“Home therapies are fairly effective,” Schwartz said, adding that the “whole host” of over-the-counter wax-softening drops as well as home-use irrigators are effective and safe. “Even drops of water in the ear can be effective to soften the wax,” he added.

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Still, among the items on the “Do” list is to ask your health care provider about how to treat earwax impaction at home, since “you may have certain medical or ear conditions that may make some options unsafe.”

“It’s not a bad thing to have wax in your ears. Everybody does and should. It’s more of an issue when it becomes too much,” Schwartz said. The guideline definition of “too much” is an operational one: If you have symptoms — such as pain, drainage, bleeding or hearing loss — then you have a problem.

“If it’s causing symptoms, absolutely go to your doctor,” Schwartz said, repeating what is likely the most important “Do” list recommendation. Still, some people attribute their symptoms to wax buildup when it’s just not the case.

Among older people, “hearing loss becomes very, very common,” said Schwartz.

In fact, aging, along with infections and exposure to loud noise, is one of the most common causes of acquired hearing loss, according to Battey.

Yet many people cannot imagine that they’ve begun to lose their hearing, and as a result of this disbelief, Schwartz said, “a patient has wax cleared, and then their doctor needs to look deeper.”

They want President to stick to leading the country

But there’s one tweet that several assembled Trump voters — who expressed varying degrees of enthusiasm for the President — could agree on.

According to many of his supporters, Trump was wrong about “Saturday Night Live” being unwatchable and Alec Baldwin’s impersonation not being good.

“He has no sense of humor,” one tweeted.

“Humor at its best,” another said.

“Alec Baldwin did a fabulous job!”

Trump has more than 27 million followers on his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump. Another 16 million people follow his official presidential account, @POTUS.

To some, including Trump himself, Twitter offers a chance to bypass media that they see as biased or dishonest — and an opportunity for the country’s leader to engage with the masses in the moment.

“I feel it’s a great way to reach out to your constituents and create a give-and-take, because people obviously respond to his tweets, retweet the tweets,” said Ilene Wood of Emmaus, Pennsylvania. “In general, I’m in favor of it.”

Emma Leach, who became a die-hard fan of then-candidate Trump after attending a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, says Trump’s use of Twitter energizes younger people, such as herself.

A few years ago, Leach said, she could have asked a friend what Obama did in office that day, and she wouldn’t have known.

“But today she’ll know what Trump tweeted or what Trump did or what executive order happened,” Leach said. “She’s involved now.”

Of the Trump voters that CNN spoke with in eastern Pennsylvania, two months into Trump’s term, most didn’t mind that the President uses such an unorthodox method of communication.

“It’s like a modern-day constituent letter,” Leach said. “They’re tweeting at their president, they’re voicing their opinion, and they’re more politically involved.”

But the immediacy is a double-edged sword.

“In some situations, that’s an excellent thing because he’s able to get the word out very quickly and perhaps get reactions and responses back,” said Wood. “But at the same time, it creates a possibility of engaging your mouth before you’ve engaged your brain.”

Scott McCommons of Altoona, is a lifelong Democrat who crossed party lines to vote for Trump and follows Trump on Twitter.

“I think he rants and raves. He doesn’t think about it,” said McCommons, who said his opinion of Trump has changed for the worse, in large part because of his tweeting. “I think he can do a lot better things with his time.”

McCommons said he now regrets his vote, going so far as to tweet at Trump, “Your twitter rants are out of control – I voted for you to make America great again, run the country sir!”

It’s not Twitter, It’s the topic

It’s a common theme among these Trump supporters: they wish the President would stick to the theme of leading the country.

“He needs to tone it down and forget about Snoop Dogg, forget about Arnold Schwarzenegger. We don’t really care about them, do we?” said Ray Starner, who always wanted to see a businessman lead the country. Now, Starner said he would prefer to see Trump focus on jobs, health care and uniting the country.

Also taking a toll on Trump’s base? Baseless accusations.

Several supporters expressed disappointment at Trump for tweeting before he has all the facts, including his tweet, “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during this sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Mark Hanna is a former law enforcement officer who follows the news, but not all of Trump’s tweets. When he saw media reports about the wire tapping accusations, he said: “Even if he felt that way, I don’t think he should have tweeted it.”

Trump’s tweets offer some insight into the President’s thinking and the man himself, and his use of social media can even supplement mainstream media.

Checking Twitter became a regular part of McCommon’s day, he said. “It used to be my favorite thing to do in the morning because I wanted to see what he had to say. I wanted to see if it matched up with what I heard on TV, from the news media, from his press conferences, to see if he was being honest.”

While supporters might not trust everything the President tweets, they generally have faith in Trump himself.

It was just last Thanksgiving that Hanna heard of Twitter for the first time. By the evening’s end, his son had set up a Twitter account for him.

“My first tweet was to Donald Trump, at the dinner table. I said ‘Congratulations on winning the election, and I’m looking forward to you leading our country,'” Hanna said.

It’s a sentiment he still holds.

“The good far outweighs the bad to me,” Hanna said. “I’m thinking Trump 2020.”

Tennessee kidnapping law could work in teacher’s favor

District Attorney Brent Cooper of the 22nd Judicial Circuit wants to change that, and he hopes state lawmakers consider Elizabeth’s case when they convene next year, he told CNN on Tuesday. Through an attorney, Elizabeth’s father, Anthony Thomas, said he wants the law changed immediately.

The way it’s written now, the statute lets children older than 12 decide whether to leave their families, unless their removal or confinement “is accomplished by force, threat or fraud.”

Police say 50-year-old Tad Cummins, who taught Elizabeth in a forensics class at Culleoka Unit School, absconded with the freshman March 13, weeks after a student claimed to see the two kissing in Cummins’ classroom.

The investigation led authorities to Decatur, Alabama, later that day before the two vanished.

As it stands, to prove the kidnapping of a victim who is 12 or older, Cooper said, he’d have to prove that Elizabeth was unlawfully removed or had her freedom restricted.

Further, to prove that Elizabeth was unlawfully removed, he’d need to demonstrate to a jury that Cummins employed “force, coercion, fraud or something to that effect,” the prosecutor said.

“What we run into here, of course, is this child is 15 and, according to reports, at least initially, she left of her own free will,” he said.

The issue was especially concerning at the outset of the investigation, Cooper said. Cummins was charged only with sexual contact with a minor by an authority figure, a misdemeanor. Investigators worried that if police stopped the pair out of state, they’d be released because authorities couldn’t detain them, let alone extradite Cummins, on a misdemeanor warrant.

Cooper ultimately felt comfortable adding the aggravated kidnapping charge after deciding that Cummins allegedly groomed his victim and was armed, the latter being a prerequisite for aggravated kidnapping. (Grooming is the act of establishing a connection with a child with the goal of defusing her or his inhibitions toward sexual abuse.)

The prosecutor says the present law could pose obstacles once he has Cummins in a courtroom.

“Under current law, it’s really going to depend what the testimony of Ms. Thomas is,” Cooper said, explaining that if she claims she left on her own volition, the defense will argue Cummins is not guilty of kidnapping.

Cooper will then have to introduce circumstantial evidence that Elizabeth was coerced. The district attorney is confident the communications between Elizabeth and Cummins show “he was definitely trying to influence her in his favor,” he said.

“This grown man was using his knowledge and life experience to basically attract her and to convince her to be with him,” he said.

In discouraging anyone who might blame Elizabeth for her plight, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn, too, discounted the notion that there was a mutual romance.

“She is 15, a child. He is 50, a grown man. This is and was not a romance. This was manipulation solely to the benefit of Tad Cummins,” Gwyn said.

Attorney Jason Whatley, who is representing Elizabeth’s father, told CNN the kidnapping statute might not matter in Cummins’ case, especially if he crossed state lines with Elizabeth. He predicted the ex-teacher would face “scores of charges once we find him.”

“I think Tad Cummins will have violated so many laws, I think he’s finished,” Whatley said.

Elizabeth Thomas: The 15-year-old has light brown or blond hair and hazel eyes. She is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She was last seen wearing a flannel shirt and black leggings.

Tad Cummins: The 50-year-old has brown hair, brown eyes and a gray goatee. He is 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds. He is believed to be armed.

Vehicle: Silver Nissan Rogue, Tennessee tag 976-ZPT

Reward: $1,000

Who to call: 1-800-TBI-FIND

Source: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

The Tennessee Legislature is already in session, and the deadline for introducing legislation has passed, Cooper said. Before lawmakers convene again in January, the prosecutor intends to meet individually with legislators to convince them the law needs changing, he said.

An ideal law, he said, would presume that if the victim were younger than 18, she or he could not leave on their own accord. It would be similar to statutory rape laws that place the onus on adults not to break the law, he said.

Whatley says he concurs the law needs to be changed, but as a lawyer who also does defense work, he has reservations about the age limit. He’d hate seeing an 18-year-old accused of kidnapping for taking a 17-year-old on a date after the 17-year-old’s parents forbade it, he said.

Perhaps the correct age is 16 and above, he said, suggesting that the amendment be called “Elizabeth’s Law.”

Amending the law makes sense, Cooper said, when you consider that, in Tennessee, children younger than 18 can’t consent to sex, rent cars or enter into legal contracts.

“This is a much bigger life choice than trying to buy a car,” he said of Elizabeth’s case. “I think it would be a simple fix.”

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