House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) announced Tuesday that he won't run for re-election at the end of his term, per the Dallas Morning News. Hensarling said he "never intended to make it a lifetime commitment" and has already stayed "far longer" than he had originally planned.
Why it matters: Hensarling follows 10 other House Republicans and two Republican senators — Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) — who have announced their plans to retire next year.
Sen. Chris Murphy introduced a bill this afternoon that would bar President Trump from launching a first strike on North Korea, except in situations of imminent threat or authorization from Congress. The co-sponsors include Sens. Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and Cory Booker, along with Brian Schatz, Tammy Duckworth, Jeff Merkley, and Tom Udall.
Why it matters: Democrats have been expressing concerns that Trump's rhetoric and tweeting about using the military option against North Korea could march the U.S. into an unprovoked war. And given some of the high-profile senators backing this bill — and the questions other Democrats raised about North Korea at a hearing yesterday — it's a good bet you'll hear about the issue again, even if the bill itself doesn't advance.
President Trump dodged reporters' questions at a tax policy meeting Tuesday about whether he would issue pardons for his former campaign officials Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos.
However, Trump did offer a timeline for tax reform, stating that he wants the House to pass his tax bill by Thanksgiving so that the Senate can pass it by Christmas. He added that opponents of his tax proposals "are fighting for themselves, not for the country," and said "the Democrats will say our tax bill is for the rich, but they know it's not."
A senior administration official told reporters Tuesday that President Trump will not visit the demilitarized zone on the North Korean border on his upcoming trip to Asia. The official said there isn't enough time, and that they had to choose between going to the DMZ or Camp Humphreys, and the camp prevailed.
Key quote: "There's been a minority of American presidents who have visited the DMZ since the Korean War, less than half," the official said. "[Defense Secretary James] Mattis was just there last week, we've had [Vice President Mike] Pence there... and [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson... it's become a little bit of a cliché really."
Fox News always had Trump's back on Russia. The New York Post usually had it, too. Now, the Wall Street Journal — the jewel of the Murdoch empire — has fully joined the defense. While Journal reporters have done some great work on the Russia story, many cringe at what they see as pro-Trump interference from their editor, Gerry Baker.
But it's the editorial page that has taken the lead in critiquing Mueller and calling for greater emphasis on possible Clinton corruption instead of Trump's.
Sarah Sanders: "[L]ook, today's announcement has nothing to do with the President, has nothing to do with the President's campaign or campaign activity."
Sanders on George Papadopoulos, Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with Mueller (N.Y. Times Quote of the Day): "[L]ook, this individual was the member of a volunteer advisory council that met one time over the course of a year."
In yesterday's historic crush of news, we saw early hints of the coming political and corporate reckoning for Russian interference in the 2016 election:
The takeaway: For the White House, the most worrisome part of the Manafort indictment is that Mueller showed he's willing to delve deeply into personal financial matters as part of his Russia probe.
As President Trump prepares to travel to Asia later this week, he has ordered many of his top officials to stay back and campaign for tax reform around America:
Paul Manafort was the biggest name in the indictments released Monday by Robert Mueller, but the charges announced against George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, dealt more directly with campaign activities.
Papadopoulos, who was arrested in July and cut a deal with Mueller earlier this month, allegedly attempted to contact Russian officials in order to facilitate a meeting between Trump and high-level Russian officials.
Tony Podesta is stepping down as the head of his powerhouse lobbying firm, The Podesta Group, per Politico. The firm got pulled into Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation over public relations work it completed on behalf of Paul Manafort to promote Ukrainian interests in the United States. Podesta's brother John was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.
Why it matters: Podesta is a huge power player in DC lobbying, so his departure will shake up K Street in a big way. It also shows just how far-reaching the consequences of the Mueller probe might be for some big names in Washington who don't have any connection to the Trump administration.
A federal court in Washington has temporarily blocked the implementation of President Trump's order barring transgender individuals from serving in the military, per AP.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled Monday transgender members of the military who had sued over the change were likely to win their case, and that the ban cannot be enforced while the case works it way through the court. However, the judge denied the plaintiff's motion to block the ban on funds for gender reassignment surgery.
Paul Manafort and Rick Gates will appear at 1:30 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson at the D.C. federal courthouse, per the Special Counsel's office. Manafort is reportedly surrendering in Special Counsel Bob Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, facing charges including conspiracy against the U.S. and tax fraud.
Be smart: Manafort's charges don't include Russian collusion — in fact, all of the charges he's facing come from before his Trump campaign days — but it's a legal development that makes Trump's claim of a "witch hunt" harder to believe. Mueller is likely trying to use these charges to leverage Manafort to reveal information about the Trump campaign, which could lead to future indictments.
Rick Gates, along with Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, has been indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Gates has been described by the New York Times as Manafort's "protégé," and retained a central role in Trump's campaign and inaugural committee thanks to his mentor.
Get smart: "[He could] go to jail because his long-term partner decided to go work for Donald Trump," Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, told Axios. "What he did likely would not have seen the light of day...He's my Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer squared character in this drama...the man whose life is ruined by being sucked into the Trump tornado."
Roger Stone — the flamboyant on-again, off-again, Trump adviser — had his Twitter account locked this weekend after savage attacks, by name, on CNN personalities following the network's scoop on Friday that Mueller had his first indictment ready.
"Trump is likely to announce Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell as his nominee to be the next chairman of the U.S. central bank next week," the Wall Street Journal's Kate Davidson and Peter Nicholas report. Trump said last week he had "somebody very specific in mind."
"Powell would take the helm of the central bank in early February, when Chairwoman Janet Yellen's four-year term expires."
"Powell, a Republican who served as a Treasury Department official in the George H.W. Bush administration, joined the Fed board in 2012 and was confirmed for a full term in 2014."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), "whose final term as governor ends in 2018 ... knows he faces a strategic imperative: He must dramatically expand his name recognition in this fallow period before the next race begins," New York magazine's Lisa Miller writes:
Why it matters: "Kasich 2020 is not just a media proposition. Kasich is a sitting governor exploring a run against a president of his own party — a starkly unusual circumstance. He retains a skeletal campaign staff, and they are helping him to think through his options: Should he run as a Republican in the primaries or as an Independent in the general election?"
