Tonight's runoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional district is a true tossup between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel, so we've simplified things a bit. Here's how the district's three counties voted in April's first round, and what we're watching for tonight:
Fulton County: Ossoff 47.6%, GOP 51.5%, 45% of district votes in April. The North of Fulton is home to the only eight precincts that went for Handel in April. She'll expect to do well there, but things will be close county-wide.
Cobb County: Ossoff 41.3%, GOP 58.0%, 32% of the vote. Ossoff swept the precincts here in April, but that came amid a GOP split between several candidates. Handel will likely win Cobb tonight, but the margin will be key.
DeKalb County: Ossoff 58.6%, GOP 40.3%, 23% of the vote. Ossoff won every precinct here in April and will want to run up the score tonight.
Several White House officials, including Sean Spicer, stated the Trump administration will continue to put pressure on China in an effort to retaliate against Kim Jong-Un's regime following the death of Otto Warmbier. But the president seemed to dismiss those notions on Twitter Tuesday, writing that their efforts haven't worked out:
Why it matters: The Trump administration has looked to China in recent months to ramp up its aggression toward North Korea. But Trump's latest tweet suggests the WH may be switching gears now, and planning to deal with North Korea more directly.
A word of caution: Axios' Jonathan Swan writes that it's possible, even likely, that rather than abandoning his previous approach, Trump is publicly shaming Xi for his lack of success in changing North Korea's behavior and giving him one last chance to fix the situation.
Timing: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis are set to meet with their Chinese counterparts later this week.
Sean Spicer, who was back at the podium for his first on-camera briefing in 8 days, told reporters Tuesday that he didn't know whether President Trump, or anyone in the White House, has seen a draft of the Senate's health care bill yet — which is set for a vote in the coming weeks — but emphasized that Trump "clearly wants a bill that has heart in it." Spicer also deflected questions on why the Senate has been so secretive in crafting its bill, stating, "It's not our job to go in and dictate how they do it." Other takeaways:
Trump called Ukraine "a place we're all very much involved in" and said it was a great "honor to be with President Poroshenko" in the Oval Office Tuesday as he welcomed the president to the White House.
Context: This comes in advance of Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 meeting next month, and today Poroshenko tweeted he is "grateful" for America's intention to stand by Ukraine.
U.S. role in Ukraine: Trump met with Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin in May, who said Trump and Poroshenko would meet once conversations about the U.S.'s role in Ukraine's stalled peace progress were done, Deutsche Welle reports.
The intrigue: This meeting was actually between Trump and his National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster — Poroshenko and VP Pence just dropped by.
Christopher Wray, President Trump's nominee to replace former FBI Director James Comey, deleted a line from his law firm bio referencing a 2006 case in which Wray represented an American energy executive who was being investigated by the Russian government, per CNN's KFILE.
What we know: Micheline Tang, a spokeswoman for the law firm King and Spalding, told CNN that Wray removed the detail in January 2017, before he was even considered for taking on the role of FBI Director, in an attempt to make the material on his page "more current." Tang also emphasized that the executive Wray was representing is an American citizen who lives in the U.S., and at the time the law firm, Wray, and the client were "adverse to the Russian Government" as Moscow was looking to exert leverage over the client by launching a criminal investigation.
The death of 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier, who was released last week from a North Korean prison, is sparking a greater political debate over how to hold Kim Jong-un's regime responsible. One option of retaliation is for Congress or the Trump administration to issue new restrictions on Americans traveling to North Korea.
Last month, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) proposed a new bill that, if passed in Congress, would require Americans traveling to North Korea to obtain a license, and Americans would be banned from visiting as tourists, per NY Mag.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also hinted to a House committee last week that the administration may introduce such a ban. "We haven't come to a final conclusion, but we are considering it," Tillerson said.
There was a lot of happy talk after the White House kicked off its self-styled "Tech Week" on Monday with a meeting of big name tech CEOs. Here's what to make of the meeting, which featured Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook and Microsoft's Satya Nadella, among others:
Tech companies still want a seat at Trump's table. Even after policy disagreements, nobody wants to risk being left out of discussions about everything from taxes to federal IT. At least on the issue of high-skilled immigration, it seems Trump has moved over to tech's side.
"Tech Week" isn't the same as an actual tech policy push. In the past such listening sessions were accompanied by announcements of new private-sector commitments or administration programs. That wasn't the case Monday, though the week is just beginning.
Less backlash. Remember how Uber's (otherwise embattled) chief executive ended up leaving Trump's councils because of user backlash? That doesn't seem to be happening in this case, maybe because so many prominent CEOs were there — and this isn't a formal advisory council.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Donald Trump on Monday that he hoped the president would put "more heart" into the immigration debate, according to a source familiar with the meeting. His comment came at the end of a meeting with tech CEOs after Trump used the same phrase in reference to the debate over healthcare. The New York Times' Maggie Haberman was the first to report on the conversation, which a source had confirmed to Axios.How it happened: Tech leaders met at the White House on Monday to talk about modernizing government technology, with a meeting with Trump capping off the gathering. Trump told the executives that he had instructed Senate Republicans to put "more heart" into their coming health care bill, the source said. The Associate Press reported last week that Trump had called the House healthcare bill "mean" and told GOP senators to be "more generous" with their bill.Cook echoed his phrasing back to him, saying he hoped that Trump would put "more heart" into the equally-contentious debate over immigration. The executive mentioned the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the fate of which under Trump remains unclear, and said that some employees in the tech industry felt targeted by the administration's actions on immigration, even if that wasn't the White House's intent.Trump's response: Our source says Trump told the executives to talk to their elected representatives and mentioned the need for comprehensive immigration reform. He has previously floated — and then backed off — the idea of an immigration deal. The White House and Apple declined to comment.
Trump met with top tech executives including Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Alphabet's Eric Schmidt at the White House on Monday, and he offered assurances that his immigration policies wouldn't hurt Silicon Valley.
Other highlights:
Trump on cyber hacking: Trump mentioned that he had been discussing "stronger protection against cyber attacks," adding "[i]t's a big problem, no question about it. We're going to be working hard and we're going to solve the problem."
Cook on skills: Cook said coding training should be in every school and there is a "huge deficit in the skills we need today." He also raised immigration.
Bezos on AI: Bezos said it was "impossible to overstate" the importance of artificial intelligence.
High praise for Trump including from Safra Catz of Oracle who said it was "an absolutely wonderful day working together."
The U.S. is on a "collision course" with Iran and Russia in a key territory of Syria once the battle to root ISIS out of its de-facto capital, Raqqa, is complete, per Anne Barnard of the NY Times.
What we're watching: The competition to control Syrian territory post-ISIS. The province in question, Deir al-Zour, boasts oil reserves and could serve as a land bridge to connect Iran to Syria, and eventually neighboring Lebanon, Hezbollah's base. Russia just announced it will treat U.S. planes west of the Euphrates as targets, signaling it's ready to stand with the regime against the U.S. after weeks of encouraging both to avoid clashing.
See Axios' Lazaro Gamio's map of the conflict over time here.
Why it matters: Uprooting ISIS amid the civil war could lead to a power vacuum, and if the U.S. goes on the offensive it risks a full on confrontation with Iran — and maybe Russia and the Syrian regime — and potentially risks sparking tensions with Iraq, Qatar, and Yemen.
President Trump welcomed Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela to the Oval Office Monday.
What Trump said: "The Panama Canal is doing quite well. I think we did a good job building it, right?" Trump added his friendship with Varela is "very good" and that they are "developing new things to do" in their talks today.
What Trump didn't say: Trump did not answer questions shouted at him about whether he is under investigation.
Before President Trump took office, tech CEOs made a pilgrimage to Trump Tower for a high-profile meeting despite their significant political differences.
Today, they're meeting with Trump again — despite the persistent divide between tech and the White House over issues like immigration and climate change.
Why it matters: Silicon Valley's relationship with Trump is complicated. The industry's employees aren't usually happy when their CEOs engage with the president. But a combination of policy realities (tech would love a good deal on tax reform, for example) and a fear of being out of the loop on other discussions (such as modernizing federal IT systems) keeps executives coming back to the table. Tech giants also know a powerful White House contingent has concerns about Silicon Valley's increasing wealth and control over consumers' data, so they need to maintain a dialogue.
As tech royalty converges on the White House today for an American Technology Council meeting, the darlings of Silicon Valley are in danger of becoming the devils of Trumpism's nationalist wing.
This won't happen overnight, but danger signs are everywhere.
The number of foreign-born workers in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — in the U.S. workforce has increased dramatically in the past 25 years, according to the American Immigration Council. In 2015, foreign-born workers comprised nearly a quarter of the total STEM workforce, up from 11.9% in 1990.
