President Trump rebuked Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Twitter Monday, for reportedly joking 100 dinner guests last Friday that he and Special Counsel Robert Mueller have damaging information that could create a rocky few months for the administration.
Warner's remark, made during a dinner at his house on Martha’s Vineyard Friday as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s annual Majority Trust retreat, per Politico: “If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know. If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months.”
Editor's note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly claimed that the president, without evidence, accused Warner of drunkenness. It has been updated to reflect that Trump had only claimed he was "perhaps in a near drunken state."
Put aside the policy fights for a moment: The debate over whether Trump administration officials deserve to peacefully eat a meal in public tells us a lot about Democratic politics in 2018.
Why it matters: Public shaming and incivility isn't just a nasty expression of outrage. It's targeted at making life difficult, and even serving as a deterrent, for public servants who carry out controversial agendas, writes Brian Beutler, the editor of The Pod Save America website.
President Trump would like to see more expedited removals of undocumented immigrants — a way to legally circumvent immigration courts before deportation for certain undocumented immigrants, Sarah Sanders said in Monday's press briefing.
The bottom line: "Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process," Sanders said. She added that ultimately, Trump wants a wall and better border security to avoid “all of these problems to begin with.”
In the past few weeks, several top Trump officials have faced public confrontations. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled at Mexican restaurant MXDC. And senior advisor Stephen Miller was called a "fascist" while dining at Espita Mezcaleria.
Why it matters: Outrage fans the social media flames as critics wreak havoc on politicians and the businesses that serve them. In fact, it has gone so far in the wake of the Sarah Sanders controversy that Red Hen in DC, which isn't related to the one in Lexington, has been defending themselves online since the incident.
President Trump often brings up the violent gang activity of MS-13 in defense of his hardline immigration policies, saying of Democrats on Saturday, "our issue is strong borders, no crime. Their issue is open borders; let MS-13 all over our country."
Bottom line: MS-13 is an extraordinarily violent gang made up of around 10,000 members, mostly from Central America. But they're not growing, they're likely not involved in an extensive drug trade and most immigrants crossing the border are not trying to join them, according to ProPublica's Hannah Dreier, who has followed the gang for over a year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection will temporarily stop referring parents of undocumented immigrants caught crossing the border to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said on Monday, the AP reports.
Why it matters: Attorney General Jeff Sessions can insist that the administration's zero-tolerance policy is still in place, but without the cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security, it's toothless. McAleenan said that he plans to find a way to resume the 100% prosecution strategy, but he currently cannot given President Trump's executive order to keep families together.
President Trump singled out Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters on Monday for telling her supporters to confront members of the Trump administration in public, calling her "an extraordinarily low IQ person."
The big picture: Kanye's discussion of the fallout from his support is indicative of the phenomenon illustrated by Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen: As today's political climate grows more tribal, casual viewers of politics feel drawn to Trump's straight-talking style, remaining disconnected from or dismissive of handwringing over his policies and destruction of norms.
Stormy Daniels was scheduled to meet with prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office as part of an investigation into Michael Cohen, but the meeting was cancelled shortly after media reports surfaced explaining the details behind the meeting, CBS News reports.
The big picture: Daniels alleges she was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen to remain silent after having an affair with Trump in 2006.
A majority of Americans approve of President Trump's handling of the economy for the first time, according to CNBC's All-America Economic Survey, which has tracked the number since he first took office.
Why it matters: Confidence in Trump's handling of the economy seems to be tied to his overall approval ratings, which could be good news for Republicans ahead of the 2018 midterms.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a partisan gerrymandering challenge over North Carolina's congressional map, which a lower court said earlier this year was drawn by the GOP-controlled state legislature with " invidious partisan intent” and perfectly achieved its "partisan objectives."
The details: This comes exactly a week after the high court sidestepped a partisan case in Wisconsin, saying that voters who sued over the state’s GOP-drawn legislative districts lacked legal standing because they failed to prove their voting power had been directly injured. The justices ordered the lower court in North Carolina to examine the same issue with this case.
The most important voter in the 2018 election, the new Soccer Moms, will be #NeverHillary Independents — and they're key to Democrats for taking back the House.
Who they are: The #NeverHillary Independents supported Barack Obama and Donald Trump for a similar reason: They wanted change. They saw their worldview reflected not on cable news, but in sitcoms like Roseanne.
Officials in the Trump administration had a rough weekend going out in public, starting with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who was refused service at a Virginia restaurant.
The big picture: "Anger and division in American politics are creating a rising phenomenon: the public shaming and shunning of political figures while they are going about their private lives," the Washington Post's Mary Jordan writes.
President Trump went after The Red Hen — a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia — in a Monday morning tweet, following the controversy after Sarah Sanders was asked to leave by the restaurant's owner due to her role in the Trump administration.
"The most popular American, whose legacy is the primary target of Donald Trump, has, for now, virtually disappeared from public life," New York Magazine's Gabe Debenedetti writes.
The big picture: "Obama ... has mostly opted out of liberal America’s collective Trump-outrage cycle. Though he reads the Times and other newspapers, he doesn’t [obsess over] daily Trump developments ... He is upset by the administration’s actions, and he’s confided to friends that what worries him most is the international order, the standing of the office of the presidency, the erosion of democratic norms."
An odd paradox in defining this moment in politics: The more President Trump does, says and tweets outrageous things, the more his critics go bananas and the better he does in the polls.
The big picture: Our parallel universes are spinning farther apart. The coverage (and much of the reality) is a White House in chaos, and an erratic president improvising as his own policy adviser, chief of staff, comms director and tweeter-in-chief.
