President Trump criticized the Department of Justice and FBI for failing to meet a Thursday subpoena deadline from the House Judiciary Committee for documents related to the FBI's actions in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election, including alleged FISA abuses and the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
What's going on: Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that he was doubling the staff working on Judiciary's request, which could require the Bureau to review and redact over a million documents. Judiciary's subpoena gave the DOJ and FBI just two weeks to respond. Per The Hill, DOJ says that it has been in "ongoing communication" with Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) regarding the request.
"Tens of millions of Americans have joined protests and rallies in the past two years, their activism often driven by admiration or outrage toward President Trump, according to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll showing a new activism that could affect November elections."
We can’t overstate the severity of President Trump’s buyer's remorse from signing last month's spending bill. It could even be a turning point in his presidency, on the issue of immigration and his level of cooperation with Republican leaders; Sources who’ve discussed it with Trump say it freaked him out to see the array of usually friendly faces on Fox News’ opinion shows ripping into him for signing a bill that spent a ton of money, but gave lots away to liberal priorities and did little for his signature promise to build a wall.
Why this matters: Truth is that Trump had little clue what was in the largest spending bill ever passed. Conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill has been that nothing will happen on immigration after the early failure to cut a deal this year. Republican leadership sources were telling us that the court decision to keep DACA alive took away Trump’s deadline and removed the pressure on Congress to act. But now some of those sources are nervous, realizing that Trump won’t let the issue fade into the background.
Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold has resigned Friday, months after news broke about an $84,000 settlement he made with his former communications director who claimed he sexually harassed her in 2014.
The big picture: He was already planning not to run for re-election, but said in a statement that he knows "in [his] heart it’s time for me to move along and look for new ways to serve." Farenthold was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee, meanwhile additional allegations surfaced about the "intensely hostile environment" he created in his office.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday that the president doesn't want to enter a trade war with China, but if he does, he'll win.
Key quote: President Trump "absolutely" still believes trade wars are easy to win. "If he is in charge of those negotiations then absolutely. He's the best negotiator at the table."
USCIS has reached the 65,000 visa cap for H-1B high skilled work visa applications as well as the 20,000 visa cap for those with U.S. advanced degrees. They started accepting applications on Monday.
Why it matters: This is the sixth consecutive year that the H-1B cap has been reached within five days of USCIS accepting petitions for the next year, which many tech companies and organizations argue highlights the need for raising the cap.
13 congressional districts have shifted left ahead of November midterm elections, according to the Cook Political Report, with Sean Patrick Maloney's New York district (18) and Dave Loebsack's Iowa district (2) moving from likely Democrat to solid Democrat.
Why it matters: This is yet another sign pointing to a Democratic landslide in the midterm elections, despite the President's popularity rising to 40% since January and Republicans closing in on Democrat's early lead in generic polling, which asks which party voters would support for Congress.
South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, who is retiring from Congress this year, told Vice News' Michael C. Moynihan that he felt being in Congress was largely a waste of time, as it was bogged down by "ineffectiveness." And asked what he makes of the Republican party in 2018, he said "the goal is to win" — that's it.
Why it matters: 37 House Republicans have said they're not running for re-election this year, upping the odds Democrats retake the House.
With his announcement yesterday that he's considering $100 billion more tariffs on Chinese goods, President Trump created confusion within his administration and abroad because of a negotiating style you could call "governing by bluffing."
This is how he has lived his whole life: promising big things, and creating on-the-edge, "Apprentice"-style drama — then changing his mind.
