ICE has placed 5,200 detainees under medical quarantine at 39 separate detention facilities for exposure to mumps and chicken pox, an ICE official tells Axios.
Why it matters: Mumps, a fast-spreading but relatively mild virus that sometimes causes serious complications, is on the rise in ICE facilities. In March, an ICE official told Reuters that 2,287 detainees were medically quarantined in the U.S. There were no confirmed reports of mumps among ICE detainees before 2018, per an ICE official.
The Department of Justice is backing the Department of Treasury's decision to not release President Trump's tax returns to Congress.
Why it matters: The DOJ is asserting the request for Trump's tax returns serves no "legitimate legislative purpose," and therefore it doesn't have to be fulfilled. The opinion also says it's for this very reason that Congress can't subpoena the documents.
President Trump's public critique of his former White House counsel Don McGahn isn't going unanswered.
A source close to McGahn told Axios: “Anyone who believes Trump wasn’t telling Don to get rid of Mueller using these conflicts is just stupid or believes in the tooth fairy.”
Republican Rep. Will Hurd has been removed from a keynote slot at this year's Black Hat cybersecurity conference, one day after being announced, after critics slammed the cyber-focused lawmaker's GOP-line record on women's issues including STEM funding and abortion.
What they're saying: "We misjudged the separation of technology and politics," wrote the conference in a emailed statement.
NBC on Friday set the lineups for the first round of the 2020 Democratic debates that will take place on June 26 and 27 in Miami.
Details: A random drawing, which was closed to the press but attended by campaign officials, took place at NBC's 30 Rock offices in New York and looked to randomly divide the lineup for both debate nights between the candidates polling above and below 2%.
President Trump spent 50 minutes of his 73rd birthday on the phone with the hosts of "Fox & Friends" Thursday — the latest in a series of free-wheeling interviews with one of his favorite TV shows.
Thomas Homan, a Fox News contributor who served as acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director at the start of President Trump's tenure, will work as an administration "border czar," the president announced on "Fox & Friends" Friday.
Why it matters: It's the latest of a string of new appointments to top immigration-linked positions, including Ken Cuccinelli as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Mark Morgan as head of ICE. All have been loud proponents of Trump's tough immigration policies — often defending his moves on network television.
President Trump told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that former White House counsel Don McGahn's testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller "doesn't matter."
Employers will soon be allowed to use pre-tax dollars to subsidize their employees' individual market coverage, the Trump administration announced Thursday.
What it means: This policy is probably good for employers and bad for taxpayers, according to a Brookings analysis of an earlier draft of the proposal.
Expect to hear more about Stephanie Grisham, First Lady Melania Trump's spokeswoman, as discussions heat up about replacing White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
The state of play: A number of influential people close to President Trump want her in the job — and Trump has told people he likes her and trusts her. She is one of a tiny number of campaign originals left in the White House.
For the first time since 2007, Washington lawmakers will have a hearing on reparations for slavery in the U.S.
Why it matters: This is a sign that reparations could no longer be "a fringe issue and occasional punchline" as they have been in the past, writes AP's Errin Whack, who broke the news of this hearing.
Since President Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, his administration has seen 8 officials resign from high-profile positions in the White House Communications Office.
Driving the news: Trump announced on Thursday that Sarah Sanders was leaving her role as press secretary at the end of June.
The chair of the Federal Elections Commission released a statement on Thursday condemning any public official who accepts foreign intelligence on their opponents — just 1 day after President Trump said he'd be open to such an information exchange.
What they're saying: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub wanted to make it "100% clear" that it is illegal for anybody to accept anything from a foreign national relating to a public U.S. election. During an exclusive ABC interview clip, Trump claimed accepting "dirt" on political opponents is commonplace.
