The number two Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, said Sunday on CNN that he’s not expecting a deal to be reached by Thursday — when government funding expires — to protect young immigrants from deportation.
“There is not likely to be a DACA deal, though we’re working every single day on telephone calls and person to person, to try to reach this bipartisan agreement. ... I don’t see a government shutdown coming, but I do see a promise by Senator McConnell to finally bring this critical issue that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in America, finally bringing it to a full debate. That’s what we were looking for when there was a shutdown. We’ve achieve that goal, we’re moving forward.”
"The memo" — which pitted the Justice Department against the White House and brought ugly partisan sniping into stark relief — is only the beginning. Republican sources close to Devin Nunes tell me he's assured them there's much more to come.
The House Intelligence chair and his team have told members and associates they've found other examples of politically motivated "wrongdoing" across various agencies, including the FBI, the broader Justice Department, and the State Department.
What we're hearing: Republicans close to Nunes say there could be as many as five additional memos or reports of "wrongdoing." But a source on the House Intelligence Committee tells me there's no current plan to use the same extraordinary and highly controversial process they just went through, with a vote and ultimately a presidential approval to declassify sensitive information.
Two sources on Sunday told Reuters the U.S. House Intelligence Committee plans to consider a Democratic memo seeking to counterweight a GOP document released last Friday, which alleged bias at the FBI and Justice Department against President Trump.
The backdrop: When Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted to release the memo, written by Chairman Devin Nunes, they didn't approve the release of the Democratic document. Per Reuters, citing a source, Monday's meeting is slated for 5 p.m.
"The federal government is on track to borrow nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year — Trump's first full year in charge of the budget," the Washington Post's Heather Long reports.
Why it matters: It's an 84% jump from the last fiscal year, and the highest level of borrowing in six years. In a report out this week, the Congressional Budget Office attributes the rise to the lower level of tax revenue that the government will collect under the new tax law.
Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on NBC's Meet the Press that he "never felt that the President was going to fire the Special Counsel," but added that Trump did express concern "about the conflicts of interest that he felt that the Special Counsel had."
Priebus was responding to a NY Times report that Trump wanted to get rid of Mueller, but backed off when White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign if Mueller was fired.
"The war between the president and the nation’s law enforcement apparatus is unlike anything America has seen in modern times," the N.Y. Times' Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Benner and Peter Baker write for the front page:
President Trump is going after the FBI again this evening in a series of tweets citing a Wall Street Journal editorial that says the agency influenced the 2016 election:
Why this matters: President Trump's attacks on the FBI are having a profound effect, according to a recent SurveyMonkey poll for Axios. Less than 40% of Republicans now approve of America's main federal law enforcement agency.
Six people were injured in a small Italian town on Saturday, after an Italian man set out with the motive "to shoot African migrants," the Daily Beast reports.
Why it matters: Per the Daily Beast, racial tensions are increasing as Italy nears its election in early March; "fear and anger are being fueled by the country's far-right parties who are all campaigning on anti-immigration platforms." Last week in Macerata, Italy, a Nigerian migrant was arrested for the murder and dismemberment of an 18-year-old woman, which fueled tensions even further.
The shooter, Luca Traini, ran for a political position with the far-right party in Italy, the Northern League, last year, per the Beast.
Local press reported that Traini loved the 18-year-old that was killed last week.
Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau said on Friday that Canada would "walk away" from NAFTA negotiations if it isn't suitable, Politico reports. "We aren't going to take any old deal," he said. "Canada is willing to walk away from NAFTA if the United States proposes a bad deal. We won't be pushed around."
Why it matters: President Trump has spoken frequently about how he believes NAFTA to be unfair to the United States, and that he would be willing to begin the withdraw process from the agreement. Monday marked the end of the sixth round of negotiations, and the three leaders "indicated that they were seeing progress emerging," Politico reports.
