Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), whose district shares 820 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, told Rolling Stone that the border crisis Trump speaks of is a "myth," and that his wall is the "most expensive and least effective way to do border security."
Details: Hurd said using eminent domain to take land for the border wall would impact 1,000 Texas property owners and that building a wall is “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.” Hurd believes that the $67 billion of drugs coming into the country does amount to a "crisis," but said that the U.S. should do more to combat the root causes of illegal immigration by working closely with Mexico and countries in Central America plagued by "violence and lack of economic opportunities."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has formally requested that the FBI investigate whether Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen lied under oath when she told Congress in December 2018, "We've never had a policy for family separation."
The big picture: A newly released memo reveals that DHS and Justice Department officials floated a proposal in December 2017 to specifically target migrant parents for criminal prosecution in order to deter families from crossing the border. The memo, which also included other possible policy proposals, ultimately became the basis for the "zero-tolerance" policy, which led to thousands of children separated from their parents.
President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani issued a statement Friday denying the BuzzFeed News report that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Why it matters: This is the Trump team's first direct denial of the explosive allegations. It comes after White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley and Kellyanne Conway declined to explicitly deny the report this morning.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office announced today they are postponing her 7-day trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan after learning "the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans," according to a statement.
Why it matters: By leaking even more information about this trip — after Pelosi aides had previously asked news organizations not to publicly report the details due to national security concerns — her office said going ahead with the visit would "further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights."
The cover of The New Yorker next week is "Walled In" by John Cuneo, who last year depicted President Trump enjoying a day of golf in the swamp.
Why it matters: Next week's cover nods to a magazine cover from another era — a drawing from 1962 about the Berlin Wall ("Wall of Shame") by Boris Artzybasheff for Time Magazine. “When it comes to drawing Trump, I’ve kind of hit the wall myself,” Cuneo said. “Half of a face is more than enough."
"Democratic leaders reacted with fury and demanded an investigation [late last night] following a new report that President Trump personally directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the president’s push for a lucrative condo project in Moscow in the lead-up to the 2016 election," per the WashPost.
What they're saying: "If the Buzzfeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached," tweeted Joaquin Castro, a House Democrat whose twin brother Julian is a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
President Trump was frustrated about leaks — specifically leaks attributed to "White House officials" — that were critical of him.
Behind the scenes: Cliff Sims, a young White House communications aide who had bonded with Trump during the campaign, slipped through the private dining room and was ushered into the private study, just off the Oval Office.
Two years ago, the Women's March sparked a movement that propelled a record number of women into politics. But today, it is fractured and so controversial that prominent Democratic women are steering clear of it altogether.
Why it matters: This year's march is scheduled to take place on Saturday in Washington D.C. and 280 other places across the country. But despite its early momentum, the march has become at best an afterthought and at worst politically toxic for elected officials and political organizations that once supported it.
A bipartisan groups of senators introduced a bill Thursday that would prevent President Trump from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without Senate approval. A similar bill in the House is expected to follow, Foreign Policy's Robbie Gramer reports.
Why it matters: The New York Times reported Monday that President Trump told top administration officials in private conversations throughout 2018 that he wanted to pull the U.S. out of NATO. Doing so would have massive security consequences for the U.S.' European allies, and fulfill one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-sought goals of weakening the Western military alliance.
Federal workers struggling financially during the government shutdown have launched more than 1,500 crowdfunding campaigns seeking to pay for rent, mortgages, medical expenses and food, GoFundMe spokeswoman Katherine Cichy told CNN on Thursday.
Details: Cichy told CNN that the campaigns have altogether raised more than $300,000 so far. Many of the campaigns were launched in early January when it became clear workers may begin to miss paychecks.
President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Wednesday night that he "never said there was no collusion" between members of the Trump campaign and Russia, and that "if the collusion happened, it happened a long time ago."
Why it matters: Trump and his team have been moving the goalposts on questions of collusion with Russia — whether it happened, when it happened, whether it's even illegal, who did it — ever since the allegations first emerged.
The big picture: Iraqi politicians and military leaders are divided on the presence of U.S. military forces in the country. Those wanting them out include Shi’a militias under the control of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which wants to gain more power, as well as Muqtada al-Sadr, the maverick cleric whose winning coalition in the May 12 national election gained popular support by running on pledge to secure the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
The cordial exchanges between President Trump and House Speaker Pelosi — from just weeks ago — appear to be over, as the two have moved to strip away privileges traditionally honored across party lines.
Driving the news: On Wednesday, Pelosi sent Trump a letter asking him to delay his State of the Union address until the government shutdown is resolved, citing security concerns. Today, Trump used the same reasoning to inform Pelosi that he will postpone her planned 7-day overseas trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan.
The American Civil Liberties Union and its Northern California branch filed a lawsuit Thursday against 7 government agencies for concerns over social media surveillance.
Details: The ACLU alleges that the agencies are "investing in technology and systems that enable the programmatic and sustained tracking of U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike," raising concerns about privacy and free speech. The agencies named in the lawsuit include the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security.
The House voted 362-53 Thursday on a resolution to oppose the Treasury Department’s decision to ease sanctions on companies tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Why it matters: 136 Republicans voted for the measure, signaling a sharp and rare rebuke of the Trump administration. A Senate measure to block sanctions on Deripaska, who once employed former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, failed to pass on Wednesday, despite earning the support of 11 Republicans.
Thousands of migrant children may have been separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border before the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy was officially announced, according to a new report released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general.
Why it matters: A court order last year forced HHS to reunite the thousands of children in their custody that were determined to have been separated from their parents under "zero-tolerance." However, the children identified in this new report would have been separated much earlier — and not identified under that court order — meaning that the total number of children still separated essentially remains unknown.
U.S. Attorney General nominee Bill Barr was asked repeatedly about antitrust issues as they may relate to big technology companies, during his confirmation hearings this week.
Why it matters: Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions wasn't asked any similar questions during his confirmation hearings just two years ago. In fact, he was only asked two total questions related to antitrust, and there were zero mentions of Amazon, Facebook or Google.
President Trump's then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen hired an IT firm, RedFinch Solutions, LLC, to attempt to rig online polls at CNBC and the Drudge Report in 2014 and 2015 in Trump's favor, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Details: Cohen was supposed to pay John Gauger, RedFinch's owner, $50,000 for his services during a meeting at Trump Tower in early 2015, but instead handed him "a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that [Cohen] said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter"
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said after leaving a White House meeting yesterday that not only is President Trump "following through with his Syria policy, I really think there will be changes in Afghanistan, as well."
Between the lines: Trump at times has vented frustration and regret that he allowed his national security team to talk him into a plan — which ran against his own instincts — to keep, and even boost, American forces in Afghanistan.
Here's what gets lost in the fight: This wouldn't be the first time we ever built border barriers or beefed up security. There's already fencingalong as much as 690 miles of the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and the number of border agents has almost tripled in the past two decades.
Why it matters: That still leaves more than half of the almost 2,000-mile border uncovered, and there are gaps and dilapidated fencing in the barriers that are in place. The fight that has shut down the governmentis basically about 234 miles of new border wall that President Trump wants, according to the Trump administration's latest request.
President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed on CNN Wednesday night that he "never said there was no collusion between the [Trump] campaign" and Russia — and that he has only ever said that Trump himself never colluded. Giuliani later added, "If the collusion happened, it happened a long time ago."
The backdrop: CNN's Chris Cuomo was grilling Giuliani about the allegation that former campaign manager Paul Manafort shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian political operative believed to have ties to Russian intelligence.
After two years of intense pressure — the U.S. trade war with China, its brinkmanship with allies, and finally the government shutdown — the global system is showing signs of cleaving. The U.S. and the rest of the world appear to be tipping into recession, leading nations are taking each other's nationals hostage, and deadly and frequent violence is striking Europe.
The big picture: Last week we took account of our six 2018 geopolitical forecasts. Now we explain our outlook on this year. A core observation for 2019is that the anti-establishment wave has unfolded amid a booming global economy. Now, a key question is how already-furious people will behave when economies almost everywhere begin to go south.
The House has passed six spending bills to fund the government since the shutdown started more than three weeks ago.
The state of play: President Trump has refused to sign anything without border wall funding. Democrats have refused to provide border wall funding. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will not bring anything to the Senate floor that doesn't have Trump's approval. All the while, the longest shutdown in history carries on, leaving federal workers and some military personnel to suffer without paychecks.
