The White House is planning to send Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter as soon as Friday arguing that President Trump and his team can ignore lawmakers' demands until she holds a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry, 2 sources familiar with the letter tell Axios.
Why it matters: By putting in writing the case that Trump and his supporters have been making verbally for days, the White House is preparing for a court fight and arguing to the public that its resistance to Congress' requests is justified.
Joe Biden's campaign said on Thursday it has raised $15.2 million in Q3, setting the former vice president in 3rd place among the 2020 Democrats who have released their totals thus far.
The state of play: Sen. Bernie Sanders currently leads all 2020 Democrats in Q3 fundraising with $25.3 million, followed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg with $19.1 million. President Trump's re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee recently said they raised a whopping $125 million for Q3, setting a new presidential fundraising record.
For the 3rd time in 4 years, President Trump has asked another country to interfere in U.S. elections.
The big picture: In July 2016, Trump said Russia should "find" and release Hillary Clinton's emails. In July 2019, he told Ukraine to investigate the Biden family. And today, even as he finds himself embroiled in an impeachment inquiry over this very issue, Trump said that China, too, should investigate the Bidens.
Author Marianne Williamson says her presidential campaign raised "about $3 million" in the latest fundraising quarter, doubling its 2nd quarter haul of $1.5 million.
The state of play: Of the candidates who have announced their final numbers for the quarter, Williamson is well behind pack leader Bernie Sanders' $25.3 million and Pete Buttigieg's $19.1 million.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday responded to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) call to suspend the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, dismissing the top Republican's claim that an inquiry must be authorized by a full House vote.
"As you know, our Founders were specifically intent on ensuring that foreign entities did not undermine the integrity of our elections. I received your letter this morning shortly after the world witnessed President Trump on national television asking yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections."
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday that President Trump's call for China to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden is "repugnant" and "ought to be condemned by every member" of Congress.
"A president of the United States encouraging a foreign nation to interfere again to help his campaign by investigating a rival is a fundamental breach of the presidential oath."
In a new editorial for The Atlantic, lawyer George Conway chronicles how President Trump's "erratic behavior," "pathological narcissism," habit of lying and "sociopathic characteristics," render him "unfit" to serve as the president of the United States.
The big picture: Conway has publicly criticized Trump on numerous occasions, and he previously questioned the president's stability — despite his marriage to Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway.
3 Republican senators joined a 2016 push for Ukraine to reform its prosecutor general's office and judiciary, a bipartisan letter uncovered by CNN shows, mirroring the contemporaneous work of then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Why it matters: The letter to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko illuminates bipartisan support in the U.S. to pursue corruption reforms in the prosecutor general's office. It also undermines claims from President Trump and Republicans that Biden demanded Ukraine terminate Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and drop its investigation into the company for which Biden's son, Hunter, sat on the board.
In a crowded 2020 race, Sen. Kamala Harris' consistency in national polls is impressive as a top 5 Democratic candidate, but her placement among voters is still mismatched, Molly Ball writes for the latest TIME magazine cover story.
“People like Harris too; they just can’t quite place her. Like the acquaintance you recognize but can’t recall how you met, she seems both familiar and yet mysterious. Is she a liberal or a moderate, establishment or populist, reformer or radical?”
President Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Thursday that China should launch an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, though he noted that hasn't yet asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to do so.
2020 presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced a sweeping 14-part gun control plan in May.
Why it matters: The plan features some of the most progressive measures to combat gun violence proposed by any 2020 candidate. It's Booker's attempt to stand out in an increasingly crowded field, as he leans on his experience as the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, to boost his credibility on the issue of gun violence.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is out with a new Iowa ad for his presidential campaign that argues the best way to beat President Trump is fighting for a public option to be included in the Affordable Care Act — not Medicare for All.
His team has spent over $1 million on 3 ads about Medicare's public option, arguing that's a winning alternative to Medicare for All.
This latest ad is out on the same day that President Trump will be giving a speech in Florida to reportedly unveil his own Medicare plan.
Why it matters: As Bennet struggles to break 1% in the polls and Democrats' divide over health care grows larger, his campaign hopes he can emerge as a leader on this issue by highlighting his decade-long fight for a public option.
In a quarterly pollof 1,200 likely 2020 Democratic primary voters for Third Way, a center-left think tank, David Binder Research found that there it still a significant chunk of undecided voters up for grabs 4 months before the Iowa caucuses.
Why it matters: Voters said they want a candidate who will focus on "kitchen-table concerns" like reducing health care costs and the economy, but a majority of the polled voters said they were willing to put aside policy preferences to beat President Trump.
LAS VEGAS — Beto O'Rourke's proposal to implement a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons ignited a split among 2020 Democrats at the Giffords/March for Our Lives gun safety forum on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The caution around the issue shows how some in the field are being careful to distance themselves from what they view as a polarizing position and are instead sticking with pushing a voluntary buyback program as a way to appeal to the center.
The House's formal impeachment inquiry is just 10 days old, but has swiftly transcended D.C. inertia and swept in huge swaths of America's government.
Why it matters: We thought nothing could break through Washington gridlock, nothing could stick to Trump, and nothing could command sustained attention in this media environment.
The war over impeachment has hastened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s determination to approve a trade deal with Mexico and Canada, making it the one thing most likely to get done this year, lawmakers and their aides tell Axios.
Why it matters: Democratic lawmakers need something to bring home to their constituents ahead of 2020 — especially those in vulnerable districts. And while Pelosi has said she is committed to passing several different proposals, the USMCA trade deal is the most realistic and urgent, Hill sources say.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said during a speech in Reno, Nevada, Wednesday night that President Trump's remarks about him and his son during a phone call to Ukraine's leader were an "abuse of power."
"Let me make something clear to Mr. Trump and his hatchet men and the special interests funding his attacks against me — I'm not going anywhere. You're not going to destroy me. And you're not going to destroy my family."
224 House Democrats and 1 independent publicly support launching an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, according to an Axios analysis.
Driving the news: Allegations that Trump may have pressured Ukraine's president to investigate Joe Biden have unleashed a new wave of calls to impeach Trump. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees received the whistleblower complaint Wednesday, and House Democrats told reporters they were "disturbed" upon reviewing it.
Rudy Giuliani told the Washington Post Wednesday that he consulted with President Trump's imprisoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on several occasions via the federal prisoner’s lawyer on a theory concerning Ukraine and the 2016 election.
Why it matters: Giuliani's confirmation to WashPost that he contacted Manafort seeking information on his unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine interfered in the election to help Trump's Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton comes after it emerged that the president's personal lawyer is central to the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.
State Department Inspector General Steve Linick provided "assorted news clippings and conspiratorial memos" on alleged Democratic wrongdoing in Ukraine that "he did not assign credibility to" on Wednesday in a private committee hearing that he requested, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: Interview notes involving Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and "Ukrainian officials about the Bidens" appeared to be among the materials, which were addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, per NYT.
The Justice Department asked a federal judge Wednesday to temporarily block a subpoena from New York prosecutors seeking to obtain 8 years of President Trump's personal and corporate tax returns from his longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA.
Details: In a filing, obtained by Talking Points Memo, Justice Department special counsel Joshua Gardner argues such action would raise several "significant constitutional issues that potentially implicate important interests of the United States" and should be decided in a federal, not state, court.
