Donald Trump announced in a tweet on Friday that he will be holding his official 2020 campaign launch at the 20,000 seat Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., on June 18, joined by First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence.
Why it matters: While Trump has held rallies throughout his 2016 campaign and continued into his presidency, this launch signals the beginning of his official dive into 2020. Meanwhile, Democrats are already ramping up for primary debates and swarming early battleground states.
Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan Friday to allow the Department of Justice to indict a sitting president.
Why it matters: The proposal would reverse a policy that Robert Mueller said would have prevented him from bringing charges as part of his investigation of President Trump.
Hundreds of the almost 2,000 unaccompanied migrant minors being held at border patrol facilities have been there longer than the legal time limit of 72 hours — sometimes remaining in CBP custody longer than a week, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: One official told the Washington Post that 250 kids who are 12 years old or younger have been held in border patrol facilities for an average of 6 days. Border patrol officials are overwhelmed by the surge of Central American migrant families and children crossing the border and are unable to process them quickly enough. Border Patrol recently apprehended the largest group of migrants on record.
Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) became the 3rd House Republican on Thursday to block a $19.1 billion natural disaster aid package from landing on President Trump's desk, reports NBC News.
Details: Rose says he blocked the aid package because it doesn't address the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border, per NBC. Rep. Chip Roy (R -Texas) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) previously blocked the aid package for the same reason as Rose.
In an interview with with HuffPost while visiting Iowa, Sen. Cory Booker slammed a decades-old piece of criminal justice legislation that 2020 frontrunner Joe Biden helped to pass, calling it a "shameful ... bad bill."
What's happening: Booker, who's focusing his campaign largely on criminal justice reform, said he disagrees with a 1994 bill that Biden helped author and pass to reduce crime. Opponents of the bill argue that its effects unreasonably increased rates of mass incarceration, particularly among communities of color.
Attorney General Bill Barr told CBS News in an interview that he "personally felt" special counsel Robert Mueller could have reached a decision on whether or not President Trump obstructed justice, despite the Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
"The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office, but he could've reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity. But he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained, and I'm not going to argue about those reasons. But when he didn't make a decision, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I felt it was necessary for us as the heads of the department to reach that decision."
A group of more than 1,000 migrants were apprehended by border patrol Wednesday morning — the largest group Border Patrol has ever encountered, NBC News reports.
Why it matters: The apprehension will be a part of a "big league" statement on the border Trump is expected to make on Thursday or Friday, a DHS official told Axios. Trump was also alluding to a potential new policy that would block migrants from asylum if they travel through a country that is not their own to get to the U.S., Politico reports. If implemented, thousands of Central American migrants waiting near the border could be denied asylum.
A scene from Michael Wolff's "Siege," coming Tuesday from Henry Holt: President Trump performed impressions of national security adviser H.R. McMaster, with "a droning voice and heavy breathing."
What they're saying: "[L]ike the last book, 'Siege' is ultimately crippled by three flaws," Ryan Lizza writes in his WashPost review. "Wolff’s overreliance on a single character [Bannon], and one who is now more distant from the action; factual errors that mar the author's credibility; and sourcing that is so opaque it renders the scoops highly suspicious and unreliable."
Roy Moore pushed back against President Trump's warning to not make another bid for the Senate next year, telling Politico Wednesday that the president "doesn't control who votes for the United States Senate in Alabama."
The backdrop: The former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice fell to Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in a 2017 special election following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. After Moore announced that he is eyeing another run, Trump, despite having previously campaigned on Moore's behalf, tweeted earlier this week that he "cannot win" and that "the consequences will be devastating."
Former Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) died on Thursday morning at age 81, following health concerns that led him to resign from the Senate in 2018, the office of his successor Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has announced.
Context: Cochran represented Mississippi in Congress for more than 45 years, serving as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee during his run.
A 2015 study conducted by now-deceased GOP gerrymandering strategist Thomas Hofeller concluded that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census would "clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats" and "advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites," according to new court documents filed Thursday.
Why it matters: Hofeller, who died last month, went on to help write a draft Justice Department letter that argued the question was essential to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the New York Times reports. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who set off a firestorm last year when he announced the addition of the citizenship question, has defended the decision to Congress for that same reason — suggesting Hofeller's work was more influential to the Trump administration than previously known.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, brushing off new comments by Robert Mueller and 2020 Democratic hopefuls, feels as strongly as ever that impeaching President Trump would be a "fool’s errand," a top ally told Axios.
Why it matters: Pelosi remains defiant, despite growing calls from fellow Democrats to plunge quickly into impeachment.
The Democratic National Committee is upsetting some of its own — including those running for president in 2020.
Driving the news: The DNC's new threshold to qualify for the September debates doubles the requirements to take part. They had always said the rules would change for future debates, but hadn't released the specifics until earlier this week.
Former Colorado Gov. and Democratic presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper unveiled in a Medium blog a new plan to expand access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), such as IUDs, if elected.
Details: Hickenlooper said it'd be a national version of the one he introduced as Colorado governor. He'd subsidize costs for women who can't afford LARC, increasing Title X funding by $700 million, and repeal the Trump administration's federal family planning funding ban on groups like Planned Parenthood that offer abortions and abortion referrals.
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