During a joint press conference with leaders of the Baltic States, President Trump said the U.S. military coalition has "almost completed" the task of getting rid of ISIS in Syria, and that the administration will soon be making a decision on when to pull U.S. troops out of the region.
Quick take: This is along the same line of thinking the president expressed last week when he said "let other people take care of [the ISIS situation in Syria] now."
President Donald Trump said that he wants to send military troops to defend the southern border with Mexico until a wall is built. His comments came during a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the White House on Tuesday.
We are going to be guarding our border with our military. That's a big step ... We cannot have people flowing into our country illegally, disappearing and, by the way, never showing up for court.
A group of 17 blue states and 6 cities filed a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce today, alleging that the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 Census will "significantly [deter] participation in immigrant communities, because of concerns about how the federal government will use citizenship information."
Who they are: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington — along with the District of Columbia; the cities of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, Seattle and San Francisco; and the United States Conference of Mayors. California has already filed a similar lawsuit against the administration.
Aftab Pureval, the Democrat challenging Rep. Steve Chabot for his U.S. House seat in Ohio's 1st congressional district, has raised $660,000 in the eight weeks since announcing his candidacy. Pureval, a first-generation American and lawyer-turned-politician, was elected in 2016 as the Clerk of Courts in Ohio's Hamilton County — the first Democrat elected to that position in 100 years in the district.
Why it matters: Pureval's team said that these fundraising totals are more than any Democratic challenger has raised in a single quarter against Chabot, who has held the seat since it was redistricted in 2010. Most importantly, the numbers show nearly 80% of the money is coming from voters in and around the district, suggesting enthusiasm from Pureval's constituents. Well-funded Democrats, like Paul Ryan challenger Randy Bryce and Georgia's Jon Ossoff, often see the bulk of their cash come from big blue states like New York and California.
President Trump created a new nickname for his predecessor in a Tuesday morning tweet: "Cheatin' Obama."
Flashback: Trump was part of the "birther" movement against Obama, which claimed that the former president was actually born in Kenya and his birth certificate was forged. The New York Times reported that Trump was still raising that conspiracy theory as recently as November.
President Trump and his personal attorney Michael Cohen filed papers in a federal court in Los Angeles Monday asking a federal judge to order that Stormy Daniels' lawsuit, which claims a non-disclosure agreement is invalid, be heard by a private arbitrator instead of in front of a jury.
What they're saying: In the court filing, Cohen argues that Daniels had never brought up any issues with the NDA or settlement agreement before filing her suit last month. But her lawyer, Michael Avenatti wrote on Twitter that they will "vigorously oppose" the motion, which he suggested is an effort to keep the case "hidden from the American public."
Jill McCabe, an emergency room pediatrician and the wife of fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, opened up about how the president's "attacks" on both her and her husband created a nightmare for her family, in a new Washington Post op-ed.
"[My previous decision to enter politics] — plus some twisted reporting and presidential tweets — ended up costing my husband, Andrew, his job and our family a significant portion of his pension my husband had worked hard for over 21 years of federal service ... For the past year and a half of this nightmare, I have not been free to speak out about what happened. Now that Andrew has been fired, I am."
New today: House Speaker Paul Ryan won’t run for re-election, a decision whose timing was first reported by Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
By the time Nov. 6 rolls around, there will be at least 56 vacated House seats up for grabs — more than two-thirds of those are held by Republicans this term. The openings are significant because incumbents have outperformed non-incumbents of the same party in similar districts by about seven points in the last decade or so, per the New York Times.
Notes: The Cook Partisan Voter Index is a measure of how liberal or conservative a district leans based on the two most recent elections. Pennsylvania PVI and vote margins reflect the 2016 district map prior to being redrawn; Data: Daily Kos Elections and Cook Political Reports; Chart: Chris Canipe / Axios
The Justice Department will be implementing a new quota system to federal immigration judges' performance reviews, reports the WSJ, under which judges will be expected to clear 700 cases to receive a "satisfactory" rating.
Why it matters: The new quotas, detailed in a memo sent to immigration judges on Friday, are part of a wider effort to speed up deportation decisions and reduce a hefty backlog of more than 600,000 cases that are pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR).
Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) announced Monday that she is not seeking re-election after facing continued criticism for her handling of harassment allegations against her former chief of staff Tony Baker, reports the Hartford Courant.
Fellow Democratic lawmakers had called on Esty to resign following reports that Baker had remained on her staff for three months after she learned he had threatened to kill a former female colleague he had dated. The victim said she told Esty that Baker "had punched, harassed and berated her in 2014 when they both worked in Esty’s Capitol Hill office," according to the Washington Post.
The White House is working with lawmakers on a new immigration package that would end the practice of "catch and release," make it easier to deport immigrant children from countries outside of Mexico and Canada, and toughen screening for asylum applicants, according to a background briefing with senior administration officials.
Why it matters: The officials did not say whether the package would include protections for DACA recipients, which has come into question following the president's weekend tweets pronouncing DACA "dead."
President Trump called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi today to congratulate him for winning an election last week in which potential challengers were pushed aside, allowing the former general to run essentially unopposed.
The Koch-backed advocacy groups Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity and The LIBRE Initiative are expressed their "disappointment" in President Trump's latest tweets calling DACA "dead." They are demanding a permanent solution for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children in exchange for $25 billion in funding for border security.
Why it matters: The Koch brothers are some of the GOP's biggest financial contributors. These statements clearly put blame on both Republicans and Democrats for not reaching a DACA deal — while Trump attempts to solely blame Democrats. "Pointing fingers, shifting blame and, ultimately, abandoning efforts to reach a consensus would be irresponsible and represent a grave injustice," Freedom Partners Executive Vice President James Davis said in a statement.
Ohio Governor John Kasich said President Trump's Easter Sunday tweets about immigration made him "really upset." "I don't think it's right. That's not what leaders do," Kasich said at an Axios event today at The Ohio State University. He said Trump is taking the "wrong approach" on DACA.
President Trump started off his Monday morning with a tweetstorm about illegal immigration and border control, adding to a trio of Sunday tweets on the same topic:
What spurred his tweets: Trump's tweets closely aligned with a Fox & Friends segment this morning that used the same "caravan" phrasing, according to MMFA's Matthew Gertz. Yesterday's tweets were similarly timed.
The White House confirmed this morning that President Trump will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago from April 17-18 — ahead of a meeting between Korean leaders Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in on April 27 and Trump's planned meeting with Kim in May. While North Korea will be a primary topic of discussion, the White House announcement said the two leaders will "explore ways to expand fair and reciprocal trade and investment ties" — relevant because Japan, a key ally, was not exempted from Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs that were announced last month.
Flashback: The last time that Abe visited Mar-a-Lago was in February 2017 when a North Korean missile launch turned the club's "terrace into an open-air situation room," according to The Washington Post.
Out tomorrow from Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter, "The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game." And one anecdote from the book showcases Melania's power in the Trump household.
The setup: The book features a tale involving Anthony Senecal, Trump’s longtime butler at Mar-a-Lago, who opened the door of the estate one Saturday to find Martha Stewart standing there...
