The Trump administration announced a new policy Friday that tightens rules for foreign or exchange students who overstay U.S. visas by counting days overstayed, not from the time the violation is reported, but from the time the visa expires.
Why it matters: The new rules, which are set to go into effect in 90 days, will count significantly more days as time overstayed. Students are banned from re-entering the country based on how long they overstayed their visas. Per the Wall Street Journal, 180-day overstay results in a 3-year ban, and an overstay of over a year prompts a 10-year ban.
Why it matters: A mostly-male staff can lead to other institutional barriers for women, like getting promotions, reporting sexual harassment and changing campaign culture. These stats are a wake-up call to 2020 presidential candidates, which will likely include multiple women.
Firehouse Strategies, a Republican firm, partnered with the data analytics team at Optimus to interview 2,486 likely midterm voters in four swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), and found that "the Mueller investigation is gaining credibility among independent voters."
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly defended Attorney General Jeff Sessions' new "zero tolerance" immigration policy during an interview with NPR, saying they wouldn't "easily assimilate into the United States."
Executives with major automakers are headed to the White House to meet with President Trump at 11:45am ET.
Why it matters: Automakers are in a delicate spot, as we noted earlier this week. They've complained that Obama-era mileage mandates for model years 2022–2025 are unrealistically tough.
President Trump isn't afraid to punch on foreign turf, even after getting the red carpet.
The big picture: As the White House prepares for the summit with North Korea in Singapore on June 12 ("a once unimaginable encounter," the N.Y. Times calls it), we've put together a look at President Trump handles foreign leaders when the doors are closed:
President Trump sees his improvisational and impulsive style as the indispensable key to his leadership. Those around him often see it as infuriating — and reason to quit.
The latest incident: "Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Trump berated her on Wednesday in front of the entire cabinet for what he said was her failure to adequately secure the nation’s borders," the N.Y. Times and others report.
President Trump reportedly "berated" Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Wednesday, which prompted her to draft a resignation letter, reports the New York Times, as he "railed" at his cabinet over immigration and "their lack of progress" in closing the borders to illegal immigrants.
What happened: Trump reportedly called out Nielsen, specifically — who Axios' Jonathan Swan has reported, is Trump's "immigration scapegoat." The Times adds that she said she shouldn't continue as Secretary if Trump saw her as failing to do her job. A Homeland Security official denied the report, telling Axios that Nielsen "did not threaten to resign, did not write a letter, and did not offer to resign."
At least 85 people have attempted to enter the United States under false identities using authentic Hungarian passports obtained via a program designed to grant ethnic Hungarians abroad citizenship, according to a report by The Washington Post.
Why it matters: The security vulnerability could allow criminals — like human traffickers and drug smugglers — to enter the U.S. undetected. It also could be utilized on a larger scale, perhaps by Russia or a terrorist group like ISIS.
Donald Trump Jr. is preparing to dive into the 2018 midterm elections.
What's next: He wants to use his influence within the Republican base to "expand our majority in the Senate and protect our majority in the House," said a source close to the president's son. Expect Don Jr. to be raising money for Republican candidates and staging rallies.
President Trump has already appointed a record-breaking number of federal judges, but his judicial legacy is even bigger than that: More than half of those judges replaced Democratic appointees.
Why it matters: Some of our most contentious political debates are ultimately settled in the courts. If Trump can keep replacing liberal judges with conservatives, he’d be giving conservatives an upper hand that would last for decades.
