Axios

In a statement, Sen. Lindsey Graham criticized President Trump's press conference on Charlottesville, urging Trump to bring the country together and telling him that his "words are dividing Americans."

On Charlottesville: Graham rejected Trump's "moral equivalency" between white nationalist groups and protesters like Heather Heyer, saying that he is committed to fighting back against the notion that the GOP "has a welcome mat out for the David Dukes of the world."

At the same time: Trump tweeted about Heyer's memorial service, calling her "a truly special young woman" who will be "long remembered by all."

Vice President Mike Pence announced that he will cut short his trip to Central and South America — originally scheduled to run through Friday — and head back to Washington tomorrow for a national security meeting.

What he's missing: Nothing seemed amiss as Pence tweeted a photo of the Andes from Air Force Two earlier this morning on his way to meet with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, but it looks like he'll be cutting short the Panama portion of his trip.

The reason: It's not Charlottesville. On that front, Pence told reporters in Chile today that he "[stands] with the president." Instead, Trump and Pence are holding a meeting with their national security team at Camp David on Friday "to discuss the South Asia strategy."

U.S. cities are becoming less livable due to civil unrest linked to Trump's proposed policies and police officers' shootings of black people, according to the Global Liveability Index report from The Economist Intelligence Unit. The index also shows this unrest in the U.S. is due to terrorism-related violence and an increase in mass shootings.

• Cities from the U.S. didn't make it into the top 10 globally
• Melbourne, Australia, is the most livable city (for the seventh consecutive year)
• Honolulu is the most livable city in the U.S., (17th most livable globally), followed by Washington, D.C., Boston, and Chicago.

What makes a top city: "Mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with a relatively low population density" with recreational activities, low crime levels, and infrastructure that is not overburdened.The study compared 140 cities based on several metrics that can present challenges to a resident's lifestyle — stability (crime), healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure — which is important to note, since it's not just about crime and civil unrest.Top 10 most livable U.S. cities

1. Honolulu
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Boston
4. Chicago
5. Miami
6. Pittsburgh
7. Minneapolis
8. Seattle
9. Atlanta
10. Los Angeles

Top 10 most livable cities worldwide

1. Melbourne, Australia
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Vancouver, Canada
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
6. Adelaide, Australia
7. Perth, Australia
8. Auckland, New Zealand
9. Helsinki, Finland
10. Hamburg, Germany

Hundreds of people came together Wednesday to honor Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed Saturday when a 20-year-old man rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

During the emotional service, Heyer's friends and family used the opportunity to speak out against the violence and hate that took place over the weekend. Her mother, Susan Bro, made a powerful statement:

They tried to kill my child to shut her up. But guess what? You just magnified her.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement this morning condemning white nationalist groups after news of a planned far-right rally in his home state of Kentucky, saying that their ideologies "should not be welcome anywhere in America."

Trump's muted criticism of the far-right's violence in Charlottesville and his declaration that there were "very fine people on both sides" seemed to influence McConnell's statement as he declared "there are no good neo-Nazis."

More context: Just before the statement was issued, CNN reported that McConnell was "upset" with Trump.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says fraught tensions with the U.S. over sanctions related to Iran's ballistic missile program might lead him to quickly restart the country's nuclear program and tear up its 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers, per the WSJ.

Rouhani's quote to his Parliament: "Iran will certainly return to conditions much more advanced than before the negotiations started in a short period, not on a weekly or monthly scale, but on a daily and hourly scale."

Why it matters: It's another potential nuclear threat for President Trump to address — and he hasn't exactly shown restraint when faced with strong rhetoric from North Korea. This one is also a serious threat to Western businesses, who poured billions in investment into Iran's economy after the nuclear deal.

Crews using heavy machinery went around Baltimore's parks and public squares last night and removed a series of statues dedicated to Confederate heroes, per the NY Times.

Baynard Woods, the editor at large of The Baltimore City Paper who documented the night's events on Twitter, described the atmosphere as "celebratory." The workers were also accompanied by a group of police officers, who Woods said were "being cheerful and encouraging people to take photos and selfies."

Timing: The statues were removed under the order of Mayor Catherine Pugh following the City Council's Monday vote to move them. The vote came just two days after a driver ran over protestors at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville Saturday.

Sen. Marco Rubio issued a statement via Twitter on Tuesday denouncing President Trump's repeated statements that "many sides" were responsible for this weekend's violence in Charlottesville during his press conference this afternoon, telling Trump that spreading the blame for the events would allow white supremacists to count it "as a win."

President Trump equivocated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson due to the former presidents' slave ownership.

Worth noting: Right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham appeared on Fox & Friends — one of the staples of Trump's media diet — this morning, making a similar point by wondering when "the Communist Party of the United States" might march on Washington and Jefferson's homes at Mount Vernon and Monticello.

When asked about whether Trump agrees with Doug McMillon, Wal-Mart's CEO, that he "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together," after the "Unite the Right" rally violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump deflected and answered with statistics about the economy.

Why it matters: This is a time when most people — Trump-base or not — look to the president for reassurance and leadership in some form, but Trump just shed his presidential responsibility to unite America. And keep in mind, the whole reason reporters are asking the question about unity in the first place is due to white supremacist rallies and counter protests showing very clearly there is a lack of unity in America right now.

McMillon's statement comes amid a series of CEO departures from Trump's special councils, one of which McMillon is a member of, and Trump hit back today saying they're leaving due to "embarrassment."

Trump told reporters after he announced an infrastructure executive order that he thinks the CEO's are "not taking their jobs seriously as it pertains to this country," noting, "they're leaving out of embarrassment." Trump's referring to all the CEOs who have departed his manufacturing council.

He jabbed at where their jobs are located: "Take a look at where their product is made it's outside of the country…they're leaving out of embarrassment…I've been lecturing them, about 'you have to bring it back to this country.'"

The UK signaled in government policy papers published Tuesday that it wishes to continue its close customs union with the European Union during the estimated three-year transition period following Britain's planned exit in March 2019, per the Financial Times. The EU response:

• Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament's lead coordinator on Brexit, tweeted: "To be in & out of the Customs Union & 'invisible borders' is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement."
• A spokesman for the European commission: "We take note of the UK's request... but we will only address them once we have made sufficient progress on the terms of the orderly withdrawal... We see the UK's publication of a series of position papers as a positive step towards now really starting phase one of the negotiations."
• Michel Barnier, the European Chief Negotiator for Brexit, on Twitter: "The quicker #UK & EU27 agree on citizens, settling accounts and #Ireland, the quicker we can discuss customs & future relationship."

Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs, introduces a cover package, "Trump and the Allies":

• "The United States has dominated the world for generations now. Like a Carnegie or a Rockefeller or a Gates, it has legitimized its extraordinary position by making clear to all that it sees life as a positive-sum game — one in which American power is used to benefit not just Americans but also all those around the world willing to play by the rules, living and trading peacefully with one another."
• "U.S. allies know that better than anybody, which is why they signed on to the [postwar liberal international] order in the first place. Unfortunately,Washington itself seems to have forgotten."
• See reports from leading experts on France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico.

"Bannon in Limbo as President Is Urged to Oust Lightning Rod," from the N.Y. Times' Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush:

• "Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Trump to fire him."
• "Bannon, 63, has told people in his orbit that he never expected to last in his current position longer than eight months to a year."
• "At a recent dinner at the White House with [Jared] Kushner and [chief of staff John] Kelly... the president listened while... Murdoch... said Mr. Bannon had to go."
• "Trump offered little pushback... and vented his frustrations about Mr. Bannon."

Sound smart: Trump is rightly worried Bannon would instantly start the kind of alt-right media machine the president himself dreamed of building if he had lost. Bannon sees himself as the de facto leader of America First, something he believes in far more powerfully than Trump does. Bannon + media empire could = trouble for Trump White House and GOP.

Intel said Monday that CEO Brian Krzanich was leaving President Trump's American Manufacturing Council, the latest executive to distance himself from the president following the weekend's events in Virginia.

• In a blog post, Krzanich said that the decline in American manufacturing remains a serious issue, but said that "politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."
• "I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing," Krzanich said in a blog post. "Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."
• Go deeper: A number of CEOs have dropped out of Trump's presidential councils, including Elon Musk and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

North Korean state media reports that Kim Jong Un is backing off from his threat to launch missiles at Guam, a U.S. territory, per the WSJ. He decided to call it off after he visited a military command post and looked over a military plan his senior officers presented him.

Get smart: Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, a visiting clinical assistant professor of Global Affairs within the NYU SPS Center for Global Affairs who's an expert on North Korea, told Axios earlier today that he didn't expect North Korea to follow through on Guam because North Koreans are the "masters of evoking threats. They're trying to match Trump word for word."

This comes after a tension-filled week in which Trump said he would rain down "fire and fury" on North Korea if it threatened the U.S. again and in which the North threatened to launch missiles at Guam.

What to watch: Kim could change his mind "if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions,” North Korean state media warned.

Between March and September of last year, George Papadopoulous, a member of the Trump campaign's foreign policy team, sent at least half a dozen requests on behalf of Trump or his team to meet with Russian officials, The Washington Post's Tom Hamburger, Carol D. Leonnig, and Rosalind S. Helderman report. The report is based on campaign emails read to the Post and confirmed by two others with access to them.

In one email Papadopoulos wrote to seven campaign officials with the subject line "Meeting with Russian Leadership – Including Putin" in order "to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump." An April 27 email allegedly reads, "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right."

An important note: "it is unclear whether [Papadopoulos] was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government, although he told campaign officials he was," the Post reports.

Papadopoulos reportedly pressed on with his goals despite protests from his colleagues on the campaign.