A federal judge struck down one of President Trump’s heath-care initiatives on Thursday, ruling that a provision allowing small businesses and individuals to band together to create group health plans "is clearly an end-run around" the Affordable Care Act.
Why it matters: This is a victory for a coalition of almost a dozen Democratic state attorneys general seeking to block the association health plan policy the administration rolled out last year. It also comes after the Justice Department said in a court filing Monday that courts should strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, not just its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner told Axios in a statement Thursday that he believes special counsel Robert Mueller has "confirmed" his assertions that there was no collusion with Russia, and hopes his closed-door interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursdaywill help put ”an end to these baseless accusations."
Why it matters: This is the first comment Kushner has made since Attorney General William Barr produced his summary of the Mueller report on Sunday. There had been speculation that Kushner could be indicted as part of Mueller's probe, but that didn't happen.
Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who President Trump recently tapped to serve as the the Justice Department's third-ranking official, has withdrawn her name from consideration, instead planning to serve as chairwoman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, the agency said Thursday in a statement.
Details: The department did not specify why Liu decided not to pursue the opportunity. However, the Washington Post reports that she ran into opposition from Senate Republicans who were infuriated over past involvement with a pro-abortion legal group that opposed the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Liu, who previously worked at the DOJ during George W. Bush's administration, would have overseen the agency's civil litigation, including antitrust and civil rights matters.
The House Oversight Committee said Thursday it asked election officials in Texas and Kansas to turn over communications as part of the panel’s expanding investigation into allegations of voter suppression.
Details: This comes weeks after the panel submitted a similar request to officials in Georgia. Chairman Elijah Cummings and Rep. Jamie Raskin, both of whom are Democrats, are looking to review Texas’ rollout of an inaccurate list of 95,000 people on its voter rolls flagged as possible non-U.S. citizens and the state's plan to purge them. In Kansas, lawmakers are looking into a decision made last year to move the only polling site in a minority-heavy district to a location outside of the city limits — more than a mile away from the nearest bus stop.
The majority (56%) of respondents in a Pew survey conducted this month said they think President Trump has done “too little” to distance himself from white nationalist groups.
The big picture: Trump’s track record on calling out murder and abuse at the hands of white nationalists has long been target of criticism, especially after he said there were "very fine people on both sides" of a violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville that left 1 woman dead. A day after this month's mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, Trump denied that white nationalism is a "rising threat," claiming that it's "a small group of people that have very, very serious problems."
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is requesting a briefing from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Jared Kushner's trip to Saudi Arabia last month over concerns that embassy staff was "sidelined" from meetings between Kushner and members of the Saudi royal family, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Daily Beast reports.
Details: House Foreign Committee Chair Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the briefing should include all emails, receipts, clearance records and any other records on file regarding all trips overseas involving Middle Eastern leaders.
Venezuela's Maduro regime announced on Thursday that it is barring opposition leader and National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó from holding public office for 15 years, AP reports.
The state of play: Per AP, the Venezuelan government cited alleged irregularities in Guaidó's financial records as a reason for his removal from office. Guaidó was reportedly under investigation by the government earlier this month for an alleged attack on Venezuela's power grid.
Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) plans to introduce legislation on Thursday for Puerto Rican statehood that would be the first legislation of its kind to automatically make Puerto Rico a state without conditional requirements, the Washington Post reports.
The big picture: This legislative push, which follows an uptick of proposed bills for Puerto Rico's statehood in the past few years, comes as Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló strengthens his rhetoric against President Trump for threatening to cut federal aid to the island in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Soto's bill, supported by Rosselló, is unlikely to pass through the Republican-controlled Senate or the White House.
The House on Thursday passed a resolution 238-185 opposing President Trump's transgender military ban, which will take effect April 12. The vote was mostly along party lines, with 5 Republicans voting with Democrats.
The big picture: The resolution, which calls the action discriminatory and "rejects the flawed scientific and medical claims upon which it is based," likely has no effect on stopping President Trump's ban. On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request by the government to dissolve one remaining injunction that temporarily blocked the implementation of the policy.
The first Democratic debate of the 2020 presidential primary will take place on June 26 and 27 in Miami, host NBC News announced on Thursday.
Details: Further specifics on the venue and timing are yet-to-be announced, as well as who will moderate. MSNBC, Telemundo and NBC News' digital platforms will also air the event. To qualify, candidates — of which there are already 15 Democrats who have formally announced — will need at least 1% support in 3 qualifying polls or be able to provide proof of at least 65,000 unique donors, with a minimum of 200 unique donors in at least 20 states.
Details: Chief Justice John Roberts refused to hear the first request on Tuesday — the same day the ban became effective — per AP. Bump stocks allow semiautomatic weapons to fire like machine guns, which President Trump promised to ban after bump stocks were used in 2017's Las Vegas shooting.
Following a dramatic opening to a hearing on Russian interference in which the Republican minority called on him to resign, House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff angrily laid out all the evidence that he believes shows the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, even if it didn't amount to a criminal conspiracy.
Wayne Messam, the little-known mayor of Miramar, Fla., officially announced his 2020 Democratic presidential bid on Thursday.
The state of play: Given his low national profile, Messam is banking on a path to victory through appealing to black voters in southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and both of the Carolinas, reported Axios' Alexi McCammond earlier this month. He told Axios then, "Washington is not working for the American people, and these big issues need fresh eyes and bold ideas from someone closer to the people, so our voice can be heard."
Jonathan Karl, ABC News' chief White House correspondent, is packing a quarter of a century with Trump into his first book, "Front Row at the Trump Show," to be published by Dutton in 2020.
The big picture: Karl has covered Trump since 1994, when The Donald gave the New York Post rookie a tour of Trump Tower.
President Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" Wednesday FBI officials investigating possible Russia links to his campaign had "committed treason."
What he's saying: "They wanted an insurance policy against me,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity, referring to former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who upset him previously over anti-Trump campaign texts. “And what we were playing out until just recently was the insurance policy. They wanted to do a subversion. It was treason ... We can never allow these treasonous acts happen to another president."
As a convicted former Trump campaign aide seeks a pardon, the president appears unlikely to do so for now, according to comments he made on Fox News' "Hannity" and remarks by his lawyer Wednesday.
I don’t want to talk about pardons now but I can say it’s so sad on so many levels ... Many many people were hurt, incredibly hurt, by this whole scam."
President Trump is “complicit” in the increase of white supremacist violence, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told a CNN town hall in Orangeburg, South Carolina Wednesday.
What he's saying: "For him to fail even to condemn Nazis or even to talk about white supremacy as a problem in this country, to me," he said of Trump. "That is being complicit in the violence that is happening, and I find that unacceptable and repugnant."
Donald Trump Jr. told Bloomberg Radio's "Sound On" Wednesday he's not ruling out running for office.
I definitely enjoy the fight. I definitely like being out there and I love being able to see the impact and the difference that it makes on these people's lives that I get to see all over the country."
