Axios

At the six-month mark of his presidency, America is becoming less impressed with Donald Trump's performance as president. And this is how he compares to his predecessors:

• No other president has received an approval rating as low as Trump in their first six months in office.
• Trump has received a lower approval rating than Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Gerald Ford ever had in office.
• Many former presidents received their highest approval ratings early on, some within the first 6 months.

Jeff Sessions discussed campaign-related matters with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, including policy issues important to the Russian government and the potential relationship between the Russian government and a Trump administration, according to current and former U.S. officials, The Washington Post reports.

The evidence: This report is based on U.S. intelligence intercepts of Kislyak's accounts of two conversations with Sessions, who was a foreign policy advisor to Trump at the time of the alleged conversations.

One big caveat: Russia is known to create false intelligence reports to sow confusion in the U.S., and Kislyak may have exaggerated his meetings.

One U.S. official said that when Sessions testified that he had no recollection of an April encounter with Kislyak, he was giving "misleading" statements "contradicted by other evidence."

• Sessions in March when he recused himself from the Russia probe: "I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign."

Why it matters: Recent reports have shown that Trump is irritated with Sessions for recusing himself from the probe in the first place.

Russian court documents, obtained by Reuters, reveal that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last June, had "successfully represented" Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in a legal battle over ownership of property in Moscow between 2005 and 2013.

• Why it matters: As Reuters points out, the FSB is "the successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, [and] was headed by Vladimir Putin before he became Russian president."
• The discovery of the FSB as a client of Veselnitskaya's doesn't necessarily mean she worked for the Russian government or its intelligence agencies, which Veselnitskaya has repeatedly denied.
• Earlier this week, Veselnitskaya told Russian state media RT that she is "ready to testify" before Congress to help dispel "the mass hysteria."

Per The Economist: "The last pet-less leader in American history was Andrew Johnson, who left office in 1869 and is best-known for being one of only two presidents to be impeached (the other, Bill Clinton, had a dog and a cat). According to the Presidential Pet Museum, the White House has been home to over 300 animals, ranging from dozens of dogs, horses and birds to the occasional bear, tiger and alligator."

"Theodore Roosevelt had by far the most impressive menagerie: while in office, the famed outdoorsman and conservationist cared for some 50 animals, including a badger, a barn owl and a one-legged rooster. Although animals are beloved by Americans of all political stripes, their appeal in the Oval Office has not been quite so bipartisan: Democratic presidents have averaged six pets each compared with nine for Republican ones."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC's Keir Simmons Friday that President Trump and Vladimir Putin may have held additional, undisclosed meetings at the G-20 summit last month.

"They might have met even much more than just three times," said Lavrov. "When you are brought by your parents to a kindergarten, do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?"

Why it matters: Many of Trump's top aides are concerned with how the president is openly embracing Russia, and have said that Trump's extended dinner meeting with Putin raises red flags. But while Washington is wary of the two leaders' close relationship, Lavrov has dismissed it as no big deal: "After the dinner was over … I was not there … President Trump apparently went to pick up his wife and spent some minutes with President Putin…so what?"

Strains of populism continue to rend Europe, as a Polish government move to weaken judicial independence triggered protesting crowds on Thursday night estimated at nearly 100,000 in Warsaw and other Polish cities, per Buzzfeed.

• The protests broke out after the Sejm, the Polish parliament, okayed a bill that would compel all 83 of the country's Supreme Court judges to resign, apart from those appointed by the ruling Law and Justice Party. They would then be replaced by the Minister of Justice. The bill must now be approved by the Senate, which could vote as early as today, and signed by President Andrzej Duda.
• Critics say the move will be fatal stroke against Polish democracy. Duda has disputed that, and attempted to compromise by saying he will veto any bill that excludes a 60% threshold for the approval of any new judge. But some EU officials say that, should the bill become law, Poland could trigger a suspension of its voting rights within the EU.
• Why it matters: Along with Hungary, Poland has been drifting further and further away from the democracy established a quarter century ago with Eastern Europe's break from the Soviet Union. Their shift, along with Brexit, is complicating unity on hard political questions within the already-fractious EU.

The N.Y. Times posted a "Fact Check" by Linda Qiu on its 50-minute interview with Trump, under the headline "Trump made several misleading claims in times interview." Here are the eight headings:

• He misrepresented how health insurance works.
• He falsely said the wife of the Japanese prime minister "doesn't speak English," not even "hello."
• He said news about Russia "wasn't hot" when his son met with a Russian lawyer in June 2016.
• He said he discussed adoptions with Mr. Putin. That's a proxy for sanctions.
• He incorrectly recounted the history of the F.B.I. and falsely said its director "really reports directly to the president of the United States."
• He described savings from health care and tax cuts as a "windfall" for the middle class. The cuts are generally more beneficial to the wealthy.
• He incorrectly said Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, was "from Baltimore."("Rosenstein grew up in Philadelphia ... He was appointed the United States attorney for Maryland, based in Baltimore, in 2005 by President George W. Bush, a Republican. Mr. Rosenstein lives in Bethesda, Md.")
• He offered a distorted history of Paris and Napoleon.

CNN: "Marc Kasowitz, Trump's longtime personal attorney who has been the lead lawyer on the Russia investigation, will see his role recede ... John Dowd, along with Jay Sekulow, will now be the President's primary personal attorneys for the investigation ... Ty Cobb will take the lead from inside the White House ... when he formally starts his job on July 31."

"Mark Corallo has resigned from his position as spokesman and communications strategist for Trump's legal team."

One of the more elusive skills in this White House is the ability to communicate effectively with President Trump. It's no secret he likes things short, simple, graphical.