President Trump told reporters outside the White House on Monday that he has no plans to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The big picture: Rosenstein was set to join Trump on Air Force One to travel to Orlando. Florida, per NBC News. The New York Times reported last month that Rosenstein had suggested secretly taping Trump in a meeting and discussed using the 25th Amendment to have him removed from office. Shortly afterward, Axios reported Rosenstein had offered his resignation.
While Hollywood mourns the Kavanaugh confirmation, another group of entertainers seems surprisingly enthusiastic about the happenings in Washington. This weekend, two UFC fighters gave shout-outs to the Trump administration after winning mixed martial arts fights.
Here are the looming legal dangers for the Trump White House, foreseen by former White House lawyers interviewed by Evan Ryan and me.
The bottom line: Obama's White House Counsel Bob Bauer, who has thought considerably about these pitfalls and opportunities, told Axios: "An impeachment process is a legal process, and to defend against the inevitable political attacks, it must be carefully structured and well-presented to the public."
Top officials inside the White House have taken their first steps to prepare for an onslaught of investigations if Democrats win the House.
What we're hearing: According to a source with direct knowledge, Chief of Staff John Kelly recently formed a small working group to start preparing for the possibility that Democrats will soon sic Congress' top investigators on Trumpworld. Senior White House staff have an offsite weekend retreat scheduled for late October. The agenda is expected to include a discussion of investigations under a Democratic-controlled House, according to the source.
Melania Trump finished her six-day, four-country tour through Africa with a trip to the Egyptian pyramids and Sphinx in Giza, Egypt, on Saturday. She landed back in the States early Sunday morning.
"It took Melania Trump's first big solo international trip for her to show a different side of herself — a playful, less serious one," AP's Darlene Superville reports from Cairo.
Supreme Court Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan warned about partisanship on the Supreme Court, saying "[p]art of the court’s strength and part of the court’s legitimacy depends on people not seeing the court in the way that people see the rest of the governing structures of this country now," reports the Washington Post.
Why it matters: Newly minted Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was criticized following his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he suggested accusations from Christine Blasey Ford were part of a partisan plot from Senate Democrats to derail his nomination
