Democrats are trying to win the Senate in 2020 by running candidates with a background in national security against Republican incumbents in Trump country.
Why it matters: This is the same strategy that helped Democrats take back the House in 2018. Candidates with foreign policy and national security experience flipped crucial GOP-held seats from Pennsylvania to California.
Customs and Border Patrol officials in McAllen, Texas gave conflicting descriptions of the facility to reporters on Friday, as Vice President Mike Pence took a brief tour.
What's happening: As some of the 384 detained men in McAllen said they hadn't showered in weeks — and expressed that they wanted food and toothbrushes — CBP officials told reporters the men were fed regularly, could brush "daily" and had recently showered, WaPo's Josh Dawsey reports.
With the DNC refusing to set up a climate-focused primary debate, The New Republic and Gizmodo announced Thursday that they've scheduled a "presidential climate summit" in New York City on Sept. 23.
Why it matters: The event, if top-tier candidates attend, will probe the 2020 hopefuls in a way that's vastly more in-depth than what's possible in a multi-topic debate.
President Trump has told confidants he's eager to remove Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, according to five sources who have discussed the matter directly with the president.
The state of play: Trump hasn't told our sources when he plans to make a move, but they say his discussions on the topic have been occurring for months — often unprompted — and the president has mentioned potential replacements since at least February. A source who spoke to Trump about Coats a week ago said the president gave them the impression that the move would happen "sooner rather than later."
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta announced Friday that he will resign next week during an appearance with President Trump at the White House.
The big picture: Acosta has faced scrutiny over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case during his tenure as a federal prosecutor in Florida. Trump said that Acosta had done a "very good job" at the Labor Department.
President Trump blasted former House Speaker Paul Ryan as "a long running lame duck failure" in a series of Thursday tweets.
"He quit Congress because he didn't know how to Win. They gave me standing O's in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. ... Couldn't get him out of Congress fast enough!"
The big picture: It emerged earlier Thursday that Ryan said he viewed his retirement from Congress as an "escape hatch" from working with the president during a series of interviews for Tim Alberta's forthcoming book "American Carnage," which details the Republican Party's reaction to the rise of Trump.
Top figures in the conservative legal community are stunned and depressed by President Trump's cave in his fight for a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.
The state of play: Sources say Leonard Leo and other Federalist Society stalwarts were shocked and floored by how weak the decision was. "What was the dance ... all about if this was going to be the end result?" a conservative leader asked.
