Sen. Amy Klobuchar's presidential campaign announced Monday that it raised $4.8 million in the third quarter of 2019, nearly $1 million more than her fundraising haul in Q2.
Context: Klobuchar's third quarter figures put her well behind Democratic fundraising leaders Bernie Sanders at $25.3 million and Elizabeth Warren at $24.6 million. President Trump and the RNC, meanwhile, say they jointly raised an eye-popping $125 million, setting a new presidential fundraising record.
Joe Biden's presidential campaign is launching the "Women for Biden" group today in its latest effort to target specific voters ahead of the primaries next year.
Why it matters: Female voters and candidates helped Democrats win races at all levels across the country in the 2018 midterms. Biden's campaign is hoping to extend that trend into 2020 and highlight how he'd fight against "Trump's war on women," as the campaign put it.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch on Monday that President Trump should not have asked Ukraine or China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and he disputed a key element of Trump's defense for the plea.
Why it matters: In rare criticism of the president, Portman said the Ukrainian prosecutor was not doing enough to battle corruption. The prosecutor's ouster is at the heart of Trump's baseless allegation of wrongdoing against Biden.
A pair of Rudy Giuliani's business associates wrapped up in the Ukraine investigation will not comply with information and deposition requests from the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, their attorney John Dowd told the Miami Herald Monday.
The big picture: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are Trump donors who helped connect Giuliani with former Ukrainian prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yuri Lutsenko, who promoted allegations that Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire Shokin in 2016 because Shokin was investigating a gas company that employed Biden's son, per the Washington Post. President Trump's and Giuliani's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden for this alleged corruption are now at the center of an impeachment inquiry.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, announced by President Trump on Sunday evening, gives Turkey a green light to sweep into the region and threatens the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces who helped combat the Islamic State.
Why it matters: The move could open new fronts of conflict and displace hundreds of thousands of civilians across an area already in the grip of a humanitarian crisis. It also risks ceding more territory to the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker resigned from his position as executive director of the McCain Institute amid scrutiny over his role in President Trump's ongoing controversy of his dealings with Ukraine's government.
The big picture: CNN's Jake Tapper reported that the McCain Institute stood by Volker until his release of text messages to a group of House committees showed that he was much more involved with the Ukraine matter than he had told people.
The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees on Monday subpoenaed the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget for documents related to President Trump's efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
The big picture: The impeachment committees are probing whether Trump froze U.S. military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure its government to investigate Biden and his son over unsubstantiated corruption allegations. The subpoena compels the two agencies to turn over documents by Oct. 15.
The House is likely to impeach President Trump, but the GOP-controlled Senate stands in the way of actual removal. Dan digs in with Axios CEO Jim VandeHei.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals granted President Trump an emergency stay Monday after the president lost a key court ruling over his tax returns, reports Bloomberg.
The state of play: A New York federal judge ruled earlier in the day that Manhattan's district attorney could subpoena 8 years of the president's personal and corporate tax returns from his longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA.
GOP allies blasted President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria, condemning his decision to tacitly allow Turkey to mount an offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in the region.
Why it matters: The split once again highlights how Trump's foreign policy impulses are often at odds with GOP orthodoxy — a trend that manifested just last week when Trump congratulated China on its 70th anniversary.
"The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so. They have been fighting Turkey for decades. I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN.
The U.S. began pulling out its troops from northern Syria near the Turkish border on Monday, reports the Washington Post.
Why it matters: The U.S. had been trying for months to broker a truce between two allies, Turkey and the Kurdish fighters in the region, after the defeat of ISIS, but this decision effectively removes the U.S. from the equation.
