Jun 30, 2017

Jared Kushner pulled into Trump-Morning Joe fallout

Danny Moloshok / AP

More news has emerged from the Donald Trump-Morning Joe spat this afternoon regarding the White House's alleged pressuring of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to soften their Trump coverage or face a scathing gossip piece in the National Enquirer about their relationship.

"Tapes" part 2? Per CNN, an NBC spokesman confirmed that Scarborough kept NBC executives in the loop regarding the Trump administration's alleged threats, suggesting that his tweet about texts and phone records from his contacts with the White House might be corroborated.

New York Magazine reports that Scarborough's point of contact in the White House about the Enquirer story was Jared Kushner, although a source familiar with the interactions strongly disputed to Axios that there was any 'quid pro quo' offered and said Kushner told Scarborough that he wasn't the person to deal with it and he should take it up with the President.

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Axios

Bernie Sanders wins Nevada caucus

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders waves to supporters at a campaign rally on Friday in Las Vegas. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to handily win the Nevada Democratic primary caucus, becoming the clear frontrunner among 2020 Democratic presidential primary election candidates.

Why it matters: Nevada is the first state with a diverse population to hold a nominating contest, highlighting candidates' abilities to connect with voters of color — particularly Latino voters.

Go deeperUpdated 55 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Axios

South Korea and Italy see spikes in coronavirus cases

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and China's Health Ministry. Note: China numbers are for the mainland only and U.S. numbers include repatriated citizens.

The novel coronavirus has spread to more nations, and the U.S. reports a doubling of its confirmed cases to 34 — while noting these are mostly due to repatriated citizens, emphasizing there's no "community spread" yet in the United States.

The big picture: COVID-19 has now killed at least 2,362 people and infected more than 77,000 others, mostly in mainland China. New countries to announce infections recently include Israel and Lebanon, while Iran reported its sixth death from the virus. South Korea's confirmed cases jumped from 204 Friday to 433 on Saturday and Italy's case count rose from 3 to 62 by Saturday.

Go deeperUpdated 2 hours ago - Health

Rashaan Ayesh

America's rundown roads add to farmers' struggles

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

American farmers are struggling to safely use the roads that cut through their fields; decades of neglect and lack of funding have made the routes dangerous.

The big picture: President Trump has long promised to invest billions in rural infrastructure, and his latest proposal would allocate $1 trillion for such projects. Rural America, where many of Trump's supporters live, would see a large chunk of that money.

Go deeper7 hours ago - Economy & Business