With the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) pledged to return 30% of land granted to whites under a 1913 law to its “previous owners” by 2014. But to maintain investor confidence in the country’s property rights, the government has moved slowly to implement this policy.
What to watch: Best estimates are that, 24 years later, just 10% of commercial farmland has been redistributed. Pressure for a dramatic change in policy is on the rise. As he leads the ANC toward elections next year, President Cyril Ramaphosa has his work cut out for him.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced Monday that President Trump's preliminary meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12th will be at 9am local time (June 11th, 9pm EST).
What to watch: Asked whether the administration is continuing their maximum pressure campaign on North Korea ahead of the summit, added “our policy hasn’t changed” toward Pyongyang. Sander was careful not to mention the term, "maximum pressure," after Trump stated last week that he wanted to avoid the language given the U.S. and North Korea are "getting along now."
Big picture: Last month, Trump told the NRA that Kanye West's tweets — which claimed that both West and Trump were "dragon energy"— had helped double his approval rating. He seemed to be referring to a Reuters poll from April that showed the President's approval rating among African-Americans rising from 11% to 22% in a week.
President Trump tweeted that he has the "absolute right" to pardon himself in any investigation on Monday morning after personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani argued he "probably does" have the right to do so.
The big picture: Some legal experts are blasting the president for suggesting that he'd be able to pardon himself and some are saying that there are ways he could pardon himself or be pardoned.
The Supreme Court threw out a case over whether an undocumented immigrant woman could receive an abortion in the United States because the woman — named as "Jane Doe" — already had the abortion following a lower court's ruling.
Why it matters: Before the initial ruling, the Trump administration had kept the woman in detention to prevent her from going to an abortion clinic. The ultimate lack of a Supreme Court decision could allow a presidential administration to attempt to stop an immigrant abortion again in the future.
President Trump tweeted this morning that he has "the absolute right to PARDON" himself, but added "why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" He went even farther than the words of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani over the weekend, who argued that Trump "probably does" have a self-pardon power.
The bottom line: Nobody really knows for sure whether the president has the power to pardon himself. It's never been attempted, so its constitutionality has not been tested in court — but people have plenty of opinions on the issue.
President Trump addressed the question of whether or not his pardoning power extends to himself and the Mueller investigation on Twitter Monday morning.
The backdrop: In a memo written by Trump's legal team and first obtained by the New York Times, the president's lawyers say he has the constitutional right to “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”
"A group of top business economists believes the major tax cuts President Trump pushed through Congress will give a significant boost to economic growth this year and next year. But they worry that by 2020, the country could be entering a new recession," AP economics writer Martin Crutsinger writes.
The big picture: Trump's recent tax cuts are providing a tangible boost to the economy in the short term, but economists fear the long-term effects from the cuts might trigger an economic recession.
On election night 2016, shortly after Donald Trump's team realized he would win the presidency, Michael Cohen, at the Hilton Hotel on Manhattan's 6th Avenue with his daughter and friends, told a group of people about his own dreams for the future — to be mayor of New York.
"This is the beginning of a dynasty," Cohen told the group, according to a source who heard him.
President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the Huffington Post Sunday that the Constitution's broad power would prevent a president from being prosecuted, even in the extreme hypothetical case that President Trump shot former FBI director James Comey instead of firing him.
“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted. I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is ... If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day. Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”
In mid May, senior House Republican officials huddled at the Hyatt on the Chesapeake Bay to discuss their messaging plan to save the House majority.
One of their guest speakers was the well-respected election forecaster Charlie Cook, who founded the non-partisan "Cook Political Report." According to sources in the room, Cook gave the Republican staffers a bleak view of the midterms. He said he was deeply skeptical that simply touting the economic wonders of tax reform would be enough to save the House.
President Donald Trump will host a dinner at the White House on Wednesday to recognize the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a White House official told Politico.
Why it matters: Last year the White House decided not to host the traditional post-sundown meal, known as iftar, to break the fast — a move that sparked backlash given the long-standing practice has been observed by Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, the event may be overshadowed by Trump's strained relationship with America's Muslim community over his inflammatory statements about Muslims and the travel ban.
The Tea Party movement, which swept Washington and the House majority in 2010 amid anger over a political system they claimed was disconnected from American values, is slowly dwindling, the AP's Lisa Mascaro writes.
Why it matters: "Now, with [Republican] control of the House again at stake this fall and just three dozen of them seeking re-election, the tea party revolts shows the limits of riding a campaign wave into the reality of governing," says Mascaro.
Bruce Mehlman of Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas points out that based on Gallup data, President Trump commands the second highest “own party” approval rating of any president at the 500 day mark since World War II, behind only President George W. Bush, after 9/11.
Donald Trump has been President Trump for 500 days as of noon today, and everything has changed, and nothing has changed.
Be smart: In 500 days, Trump’s hijacking of the formerly conservative GOP is complete — an astonishing accomplishment. The majority party in America is fully defined by his policies, his popularity with the base, his facts-be-damned mentality, his ability to control and quiet virtually all Republican elected officials.
There are still around 800,000 DACA recipients in limbo, and Trump's signature promise of "the wall" remains unfulfilled. Next week, Congress will be back from recess to duke it out.
Where things stand: Court injunctions have allowed DACA recipients to continue renewing their legal status, and by the end of this month the Trump administration could be forced to begin accepting new applications as well. But these court decisions are not a permanent solution. After the Senate failed to find a legislative fix, the House is now taking a whack at it.
