President Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen reportedly helped evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. destroy "personal" photographs before Falwell Jr. gave Trump a 2016 endorsement, per a taped conversation reviewed by Reuters.
The backdrop: After an unnamed individual obtained the private images and allegedly blackmailed the Falwell family in 2015, Cohen traveled to Florida to meet with an attorney for the person with the photographs. Cohen reportedly threatened that authorities would be called if the demands didn’t stop, the source said.
President Trump's re-election campaign released a statement condemning "any organization that deceptively uses the President's name, likeness, trademarks, or branding and confuses voters."
Context: The statement comes after a report by Axios that Trump's former deputy campaign chairman David Bossie's political organization has raised millions of dollars by saying it's supporting Trump-aligned conservative candidates — but has spent only a tiny fraction of that money supporting candidates. A source familiar with Trump's thinking told Axios' Jonathan Swan: "There’s nothing the president likes less than somebody profiting off him by using his name and likeness."
Asylum officers are being told to be tougher and more skeptical when interviewing migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., the Washington Post's Nick Miroff reports.
Why it matters: According to the new guidelines, officers are expected to thoroughly question any discrepancies in asylum-seekers' stories of persecution and require that they provide detailed reasons before determining if an applicant has a reasonable fear of harm should they be returned to their home country. It is the latest of several attempts by the Trump administration to crack down on asylum-seekers and illegal border crossers.
2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, Beto O'Rourke and Julián Castro, on Tuesday called for the reopening of inquires into Sandra Bland's arrest and death following the release of new footage from her encounter with police during a 2015 traffic stop.
What's new: The main recording of Bland's arrest was dash-cam footage captured in a state trooper's SUV in Prairie View, Texas, but that changed on Monday when a video surfaced for the first time in an investigative report by Dallas TV station WFAA. The recording that Bland filmed on her cellphone shows former Texas state trooper Brian Encinia yelling at her to "get out of the car," before he brandished a taser and said, "I will light you up!"
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told NBC's "Today" on Tuesday that he uses his Christianity to show people that religion is not "a kind of cudgel as if God belonged to a political party, and if he did, I can't imagine it would be the one that sent the current president into the White House."
The big picture: Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, has long used the, "God does not have a political party" line on the campaign trail, but his new insinuation that God would not be a Republican could cause a stir. Trump's approval rating among white Protestant voters is at 69% since March, a dip from 2016.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) concluded her speech on the Senate floor Tuesday by asking for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
FBI director Christopher Wray said he would not describe FBI investigations as "spying" on Tuesday, responding to a question about Attorney General Bill Barr's assertion that law enforcement officials "spied" on the 2016 Trump campaign.
Much more money flows into races that the Cook Political Report rates as a toss-up or moves closer to toss-up territory — especially on the House side, according to exclusive data from Advertising Analytics, a data firm specializing in media ad spending and real time ad detection that specializes in politics.
Why it matters: In addition to traditional gurus like Charlie Cook, new factors in the internet era — virality, digital fundraising operations and activist digital media outlets — are increasingly affecting how money moves in politics.
Traditional political kingmakers like the parties' national committees and powerful insiders have lost their edge for 2020 as buzzy, insurgent campaigns have the ability to seize control of the narrative — and bundles of cash.
Why it matters: The smoke-filled room has burned to the ground, and the advantage now lies fully with the electorate to determine what they want. For Democrats, that means making sense of a massive field of more than 20 candidates — while, for Republicans, that means bending to the originator of this trend: President Trump.
First lady Melania Trump's former adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who worked on the president's inaugural committee, denied to The New York Times Monday suggestions she was was fired for profiting from her role.
Why it matters: Wolkoff, who's speaking to federal prosecutors about donations to President Trump's committee, was for the first time addressing claims her firm, WIS Media Partners, received $26 million for its inaugural work. A House panel has sought to question her about the issue. She's the latest former aide to speakout against the administration.
President Trump presented golfing great Tiger Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony in Washington, D.C. Monday
Details: Trump praised Woods for his "relentless will to win," as he awarded the 43-year-old the highest U.S. civilian honour. "Tiger Woods is a global symbol of American excellence, devotion and drive," Trump said. "These qualities embody the American spirit of pushing boundaries, defying limits and always striving for greatness."
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Monday that she would "get rid of the whole" GOP tax overhaul passed by Republicans in 2017 and replace it with her proposed LIFT the Middle Class Act — an expansion of the earned income tax credit, Bloomberg reports.
Why it matters: Repealing Trump's tax bill — which polls show has become increasingly unpopular, having delivered most of the benefits to the wealthy — would affect almost every tax-paying American, Bloomberg notes. It would cut both the child tax credit in half and standard deduction for a couple filing jointly in half, while also raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 35%, per Bloomberg.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has agreed to meet with the Justice Department on Tuesday — not on Wednesday afternoon, as Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd had proposed — to "negotiate an accommodation" to Democrats' demands for the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's full, unredacted report.
Why it matters: Nadler has scheduled a vote on Wednesday for the committee to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the full report. In a letter sent on Monday, Boyd noted that Nadler has yet to take the Justice Department up on its offer to privately view a less-redacted version of the report and invited him to do so before the proposed meeting.
