President Trump sent two strong signals at his joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday: he railed against NATO allies, like Germany, that don't spend the mandatory 2% of GDP on defense, and also touted how successful the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum have been.
Why it matters, perAxios World Editor, Dave Lawler: The E.U.’s exemption from steel and aluminum tariffs expires Tuesday. Merkel's key priority for her D.C. visit is to get a longer-term exemption. She may end up getting it — but Trump is sending some pretty strong messages here.
The backdrop: Meehan, an Ethics Committee member, reportedly "grew hostile" with an aide when she did not reciprocate his romantic interests. It was reported in January that Meehan wouldn't be running for re-election.
Natalya Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with top Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower in 2016, admitted to being an informant for a top Kremlin official, reports the New York Times.
Why it matters: Veselnitskaya previously denied having ties to Russia’s government and insisted she was a private attorney. The revelation now raises questions about who she was working for when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner in 2016. The meeting is a focus of Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation.
Almost 1,500 migrant children are unaccounted for after being placed with sponsors by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a top HHS official's testimony on Thursday the New York Times reports.
The details: Acting assistant secretary of HHS' Administration for Children and Families, Steven Wagner, told the Senate homeland security subcommittee that the department learned of 1,475 missing kids after calling to check in with their sponsors. This comes as the HHS and Department of Homeland Security are working towards an agreement on "joint procedures" for handling unaccompanied children. They're a year past the agreed upon deadline, per the NYT.
The Senate Ethics Committee issued a scathing letter on Thursday, rebuking Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) for repeatedly accepting gifts and advocating for a donor's personal and business interests.
What they’re saying: Menendez, who was embroiled in a bribery and corruption case that ended last fall after a jury deadlocked, has been ordered to repay the market value of all impermissible gifts not already repaid. "This letter, you are hereby severely admonished,” the panel concluded.
The Senate confirmed an entirely new set of members to the five-person Federal Trade Commission on Thursday.
Why it matters: The FTC is the primary agency tasked with policing internet companies when it comes to privacy. It has been operating without a majority of commissioners over the last year, as calls have grown for more government scrutiny of data privacy at giants like Facebook and Google.
In a bipartisan vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to send a bill designed to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller to the full Senate.
The details: The bill passed the committee with a 14-7 vote — with Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Thom Tillis voting in favor along with all of the committee's Democrats. Per The New York Times, the bill would give "any special counsel a 10-day window to seek expedited judicial review of a firing and would put into law existing Justice Department regulations that a special counsel must be fired for good cause." However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said he wouldn't bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote.
In an expansive interview with the hosts of Fox & Friends this morning, President Trump addressed some of the biggest issues of his presidency, publicly using Stormy Daniels' name for the first time and providing additional details on his potential upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Between the lines: Trump was clearly in his element. He held forth so freely that it was the Fox & Friends hosts who had to end the call after half an hour, telling the president, "We could talk to you all day, but it looks like you have a million things to do."
Ronny Jackson has withdrawn his nomination as President Trump's nominee for VA Secretary, calling the allegations against him of alcohol abuse and overprescription of medication "false and fabricated."
Why it matters: While Jackson's withdrawal rids the White House of one looming headache, it resets Trump's search for a new head of the executive branch's second-largest department back to square one. However, it seems that President Trump wasn't surprised by Jackson's decision, telling Fox & Friends during an interview this morning: "I even told him a day or two ago. I saw where this was going."
"As a light rain trickled down Wednesday, Republican members of Congress returned to a baseball field where a gunman critically wounded teammate Rep. Steve Scalise and shattered their sense of security nearly a year ago," USA Today's Deborah Barfield Barry reports.
Today is an emotional day. But it's also a rebirth, a renewal. I'm proud of the team.
— Texas Rep. Joe Barton, manager of the Republican congressional baseball team
White House sources tell Axios that they expect White House physician Ronny Jackson to withdraw as President Trump's nominee to run the Veterans Affairs Department, after Democrats on Capitol Hill circulated harsh new allegations.
What we're hearing,from a senior administration source: “There’s no question about whether the White House will stand by him. There is a question about how much longer he wants to put himself through it.”
Democrats have a real shot at winning two of the three Senate seats where Republicans are most vulnerable in the midterm elections, according to a new Axios/SurveyMonkey poll.
The bottom line: The poll provides new evidence that Republicans' hold on the Senate may not be as solid as it once looked. Democrats could win the open Arizona seat and possibly defeat Republican incumbent Dean Heller in Nevada. The third race, in Tennessee, is a statistical tie.
