An attorney at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector General said on Tuesday that the watchdog will open a probe to determine whether the White House interfered with the distribution of millions of dollars in disaster aid for Puerto Rico following 2017's Hurricane Maria, reports the Washington Post.
The backdrop: Trump's response in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria triggered concern among Democrats after he refused to allocate additional funds to the U.S. territory and chose not to visit the island ravaged by the hurricane as quickly as he had when natural disasters struck Florida and Texas. As the Post notes, "Congress has appropriated nearly $20 billion in HUD disaster relief funds for Puerto Rico, only $1.5 billion of which has been approved for spending."
The Green New Deal failed to pass a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, with Democrats denouncing the motion as a "sham" and largely voting "present" as a show of unity.
Between the lines: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the vote in a political effort to get Democrats on the record and highlight intra-party divisions over the ambitious proposal. Democrats have argued McConnell held the vote in order to eliminate any debate, hearings or public testimony about the resolution, which many see as a starting point for addressing the threats posed by climate change.
The House failed on Tuesday, 248-181, to get the two-thirds majority necessary to override the first veto of Donald Trump's presidency, which he had issued in response to Congress voting to terminate his emergency declaration.
Why it matters: Trump's national emergency, which he declared in order to collect $3.6 billion of the $8 billion he has requested for a border wall, will stay in effect as a number of lawsuits challenging its legality work their way through the courts.
Priorities USA, a top Democratic super PAC that emphasizes economic messaging, is pushing back on the belief of many party veterans that Dems risk overreach and backlash if they keep investigating Trump.
What they're saying: The PAC's "Campaign Messaging Post Barr Letter" argues that "Republican opposition to oversight will look progressively worse" as Democrats continue their investigations into Trump's various dealings and finances. The letter argues that it's "likely that findings of those investigations will continue to damage Trump politically."
A new survey by Firehouse Strategies, a Republican firm, and 0ptimus finds President Trump's approval underwater in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — vital states from his 2016 map that form Dems' most likely path to 270.
The state of play: Biden, Beto and Bernie all currently beat Trump head-to-head in Wisconsin, but Trump would defeat all three in Michigan. Pennsylvania offers a split: The polling shows only Biden can beat Trump there.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was with President Trump in Palm Beach this weekend as the president awaited news of Robert Mueller's findings, tells Axios that it was like "waiting on a jury."
What happened: "He was amazingly calm," Graham recalled. "I think it's literally driving people crazy that he's got a little discipline. I told him: If you really want to screw over your enemies, just be quiet for a while and be happy."
2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Kamala Harris has unveiled a teacher pay plan that would give the average teacher a $13,500 raise, after saying at a Houston rally last weekend that she would make the largest-ever federal investment in educators' pay if elected president.
Why it matters: Harris is the first 2020 candidate to release a plan like this. This proposal helps her expand her economic message to address one of the public crises we've seen play out over the last two years through teachers' strikes around the country.
The Pentagon notified Congress Monday it had authorized up to $1 billion in funding to go toward building President Trump's wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
The details: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to plan and build 57 miles of 18-foot-high fencing in Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas, the Associated Press reports.
The Democratic chairmen of the House Judiciary, Oversight, Intelligence, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Foreign Affairs committees have written a letter to Attorney General William Barr requesting that he submit the full Mueller report to Congress by April 2.
What they're saying: "Your four page summary of the Special Counsel's review is not sufficient for Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, to perform [our oversight activities]. The release of the full report and the underlying evidence and documents is urgently needed by our committees to perform their duties under the Constitution ... To the extent that you believe applicable law limits your ability to comply, we urge you to begin the process of consultation with us immediately in order to establish shared parameters for resolving those issues without delay."
Former Texas congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke has hired former Obama top aide Jennifer O’Malley Dillon to serve as his campaign manager, CNN reports.
"I’m so excited to join the [O'Rourke] team and get to work building a campaign that will lift people up and unite them to meet our challenges. .... I firmly believe primaries make our party stronger. Hardest part is having friends I admire deeply on all sides, working for the many *great* candidates in this race. But I’m absolutely confident we’ll all be back together in time, united in our most important goal for 2020."
Details: Per the New York Times, O’Malley Dillon is a data expert who served on former President Obama’s 2012 re-election team as deputy campaign manager.
President Trump asked advisers in February to find a way to limit hurricane relief funds for Puerto Rico because too much money has gone to the territory already, senior administration officials told the Washington Post. "He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island," one official said, and he wants current funds to be used only to help fortify the electric grid.
The big picture: As Axios' Jonathan Swan reported in November, Trump has privately claimed, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt. At least a third of Puerto Ricans rely heavily on food stamps following Hurricane Maria in 2017, but the local government has been cutting the program as it waits for the federal government to hand over billions in hurricane relief, per the Post.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham told CNN on Monday that when Sen. John McCain was presented with the controversial Steele dossier alleging a Trump-Russia campaign conspiracy in December 2016, Graham urged him to hand it off to the FBI.
Why it matters:President Trump last week renewed his attacks on McCain, claiming that the senator was responsible for pushing the dossier’s narrative into the public eye. Graham, now a Trump loyalist, said that he was "very direct" with the president about McCain's involvement while they were golfing this past week: "I understand that, clearly people are in the McCain world that did some things inappropriate but it was not John McCain," Graham said. "John McCain did not give it to anybody in the press."
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) announced Monday that he won't seek re-election in 2020 after two terms in office, saying he hopes to "get so much more done to help reverse the damage done to our planet, end the scourge of war, and to stop [President Trump's] assault on our democracy and our communities."
The state of play: Udall's retirement comes at a "pretty ideal" moment for the Democratic Party, tweets the Washington Post's Dave Weigel, who notes that Democrats' success in the state over the last few election cycles means the race "starts as a likely D hold."
Since May 2017, 533,074 web articles have been published about Russia and Trump/Mueller, generating 245 million interactions — including likes, comments and shares — on Twitter and Facebook, according to data from social-media analytics company NewsWhip.
Quick take: Now, think of how much cable time the coverage consumed.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi looks clairvoyant for urging Democrats to drop the impeachment talk — and start obsessing about a 2020 election verdict.
The state of play: Now, the speaker must stare down members, donors and activists hell-bent on administering some Trump punishment, even after Mueller took a pass. "Our primary focus is on getting the underlying documents," a Pelosi aide said. "We think there's a lot there that helps inform these other investigations."
The number of immigrants arrested or turned away at the southern border has continued to climb to levels not seen for years, according to new Department of Homeland Security data obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: The surge has been driven by an influx of migrant families and unaccompanied children, according to a DHS official. "At the moment, we have the closest thing to an open border that we've had," saidLeon Fresco, an immigration attorney and member of a Homeland Security advisory committee formed by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen several months ago.
