It's Election eve in Alabama and Senate candidates Roy Moore and Doug Jones have brought in big-name guests to headline their final rallies. Former NBA player and current sports analyst, Charles Barkley, an Alabamian, is appearing with Jones. And Steve Bannon is returning to rally for Moore.
Where things stand: Polls out of Alabama are showing wildly different projections for Election Day, with one from Fox News showing Jones leading by 10 points and another from Emerson College showing Moore up by 9.
27-year-old Akayed Ullah is in custody after he intentionally detonated a low-tech pipe bomb in a subway station near Times Square on Monday. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the explosion was "an attempted terrorist attack."
The Department of Homeland Security said Ullah came to the U.S. in 2011 after presenting a passport displaying an F43 family immigrant visa. Ullah "is a Lawful Permanent Resident from Bangladesh who benefited from extended family chain migration," said DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton.
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders got heated Monday while defending President Trump's tweet that the Washington Post's Dave Weigel should be fired for posting a misleading photo on crowd size at a Trump rally. Weigel apologized for the tweet, and said it was an honest mistake.
Key quote: "The president simply is calling out a very direct and false accusation lodged against him. There was nothing more than an individual trying to put their bias into their reporting and something frankly that has gotten a little bit out of control."
Three women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct spoke out again today in an NBC interview with Megyn Kelly and in a press conference hosted by Brave New Films, saying they hoped their allegations would be treated differently given the momentum of the #MeToo movement. The White House, which has disputed the claims before, issued this statement Monday in response:
"These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory. The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes, and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them."
Congress is unlikely to pass a multi-year funding solution for the Children's Health Insurance Program until January, according to House GOP leadership sources. But it will continue to pass temporary measures to make sure states get the funding they need until then.
Between the lines: Federal CHIP funding expired at the end of September. While there's a lot of bipartisan agreement on the general idea of funding CHIP, finding sources of revenue that can get across the finish line — and then actually passing it — just isn't Congress's top priority right now. Most Democrats opposed the House-passed CHIP bill because of its funding sources, and the Senate hasn't identified any.
Sen. Lindsay Graham said Monday in a CNN interview that if Roy Moore — accused of sexual misconduct by nine women — is elected to the U.S. Senate Tuesday, his victory will "define the 2018 elections." Republican candidates will be "asked about a thousand times" about Moore, he said.
“Roy Moore will be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats ... [T]o think you can elect Roy Moore without getting the baggage of Roy Moore is pretty naive. I wish he would have stepped aside ... We'll see what the people of Alabama decide."
Three of 16 women who have publicly accused President Trump of sexual misconduct spoke out together during a joint press conference hosted in New York City on Monday, calling for action amid the growing #MeToo movement.
Robert Greenwald, the president of Brave New Films, a non-profit that hosted the event, said that the accusers share similar stories about Trump, and their allegations deserve action. "We know better, we know a lot better, predators and harassers must be held accountable," said Greenwald, adding that "elected officials, no matter what party affiliation, should act."
President Trump responds to the NYT story on his media consumption:
Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day - Wrong! Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News. I never watch Don Lemon, who I once called the “dumbest man on television!" Bad Reporting.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2017
A NYT spokeswoman responds: "We stand by our reporting, sourced from interviews with 60 advisers, associates, friends and members of Congress, including many who interact with President Trump every day."
"An analysis of [EPA] enforcement data by The New York Times shows that the administration has adopted a more lenient approach than the previous two administrations — Democratic and Republican — toward polluters," Eric Lipton and Danielle Ivory write on the front page:
"The Times built a database of civil cases filed at the E.P.A. during the Trump, Obama and Bush administrations. During the first nine months under [Administrator Scott] Pruitt's leadership, the E.P.A. started about 1,900 cases, about one-third fewer than the number under President Barack Obama's first E.P.A. director and about one-quarter fewer than under President George W. Bush's over the same time period."
Robert Mueller and his team are focusing on the days after White House officials were told Michael Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail, NBC News' Carol Lee and Julia Ainsley report, citing "two people familiar with Mueller's investigation".
Why it matters: This means Mueller's team could be working to determine if Trump obstructed justice and is likely seeking out what President Trump knew about Flynn's conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, and subsequently, when Trump learned Flynn lied about them.
This morning three women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment, Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks, told their stories to Megyn Kelly on NBC. Leeds said that Trump once called her "the worst word."
Why it matters: Trump is having a #MeToo moment. The accusers, whose stories got little attention in the fracas of the campaign, suddenly have more of a platform.
Anyone who sells — an idea, a candidate or a product — will be interested in debating this passage from "Let Trump Be Trump," the new book by campaign insiders Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie:
Sure, Congress wants to go home for the holidays. But it also has to fund the government after Dec. 22. And there are a lot of things that could go wrong.
Here's how plugged-in appropriations experts are ranking the dangers over the next two weeks:
