President Trump told reporters Thursday that he does not know Lev Parnas or Igor Fruman, two of Rudy Giuliani's business associates who were indicted for allegedly funneling foreign money into Republican political campaigns.
White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien is elevating Victoria Coates, his senior director for the Middle East and North Africa, to serve as deputy national security adviser, officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The move — on the same day O'Brien is holding an all-hands meeting with his staff to lay out his approach — formalizes his prioritization of the region just weeks into his tenure as John Bolton's replacement.
GitHub employees sent a letter to their CEO on Wednesday demanding the tech company drop its recently renewed, $200,000 contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing human rights concerns, the Washington Post reports.
What's new: Employees from Microsoft are circulating a letter endorsing their Github subsidiary to cancel the contract after GitHub CEO Nat Friedman stood by the platform's renewal with the government agency, Bloomberg reports.
President Trump told reporters on the White House lawn Thursday that former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy can't join his legal team until January because of federal lobbying rules.
Why it matters: Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow confirmed on Wednesday that Gowdy had agreed to operate as Trump's outside counsel as the president faces an impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats. However, the House committees conducting the investigation are already moving full steam ahead with subpoenas and witness depositions and are likely to vote on articles of impeachment before the end of the year.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) dismissed President Trump's latest tweets attacking the lawmaker on Thursday, stating he does not follow the president on Twitter and that he's unconcerned about the president's criticisms, per The Hill.
Reality check: A search shows that Romney's personal account, @MittRomney, does, in fact, follow @realDonaldTrump on Twitter — the account from which the president has authored the attacks, but his @SenatorRomney account does not.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) told St. Louis radio station KMOX on Thursday that he no longer supports President Trump in light of his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.
The big picture: Shimkus, who is not running for re-election in 2020, joins a number of Republican congressional leaders who have rebuked the president for the decision, which has left U.S.-allied Kurdish forces vulnerable to a military offensive by Turkey. No other Republican has gone as far as Shimkus in saying the decision would cause them to drop their support of Trump, however.
Billionaire and 2020 Democratic candidate Tom Steyer's campaign said Thursday that it raised more than $2 million in the 3rd quarter.
The big picture: Steyer vowed upon launch to spend $100 million of his own money, largely accumulated during his time as a hedge fund manager. Thus far, he's focused his campaign's spending in the early states, running ads that have helped boost his polling numbers just high enough to qualify for the October and November debates.
Amy McGrath, the Democrat challenging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for his Kentucky Senate seat in 2020, raked in $10.7 million in the third quarter of fundraising, her campaign said Thursday.
Context: McGrath's campaign raised more last quarter than several Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. Cory Booker, who raised $6 million, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who raised $4.8 million. McGrath would be the 6th highest earner in the presidential field.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Thursday that she will not seek re-election in 2020.
Why it matters: The 82-year-old Lowey, who has served in Congress for 31 years, is responsible for all spending negotiations as chair of the House Appropriations Committee. The 17th district of New York that she represents is a Democratic stronghold that Hillary Clinton won by 20 points in 2016, according to Roll Call.
President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton has decided to write a book about his time in the Trump administration, according to 2 people familiar with the matter. Bolton has agreed to be represented by Javelin's Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn.
Why it matters: Given the fact that he wrote a book about his tenure in the George W. Bush administration, from the moment he left the White House, senior officials privately expressed concerns about what Bolton might say and reveal about his time serving Trump.
President Trump tweeted Thursday that he'll sanction Turkey — and "hit [it] very hard financially" — if the country doesn't "play by the rules" in northern Syria.
Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time. They have been fighting forever. We have no soldiers or Military anywhere near the attack area. I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS. Talking to both sides. Some want us to send tens of thousands of soldiers to the area and start a new war all over again. Turkey is a member of NATO. Others say STAY OUT, let the Kurds fight their own battles (even with our financial help). I say hit Turkey very hard financially & with sanctions if they don’t play by the rules! I am watching closely.
It’s looking more likely by the day that President Trump will be impeached by the House for his dealings with Ukraine. But if he is acquitted by the Senate — and then goes on to win a second term — Democrats will face a predicament neither party has confronted in U.S. history.
Why it matters: If Trump survives politically and is re-elected to serve another four years, Congress likely would have nowhere left to go in the event of another scandal, legal and political experts say — not because the House couldn’t impeach him again, but because it might be politically impossible to do so.
Most Americans would move toward the center on policies including health care, immigration and the minimum wage if Republican and Democratic voters spent more time together face-to-face — or at least that's the takeaway from "America in One Room," a social experiment conducted over a single weekend last month in Dallas.
Why it matters: As Congress considers impeachment and voters brace for another divisive election, the experiment suggests there could be another way for the politics of the future.
The House committees investigating President Trump and Ukraine have requested that Trump's former Russia adviser Fiona Hill appear for a deposition on Oct. 14, as well as turn over several documents dating back to January 2017.
Context: Hill left her role as Trump's top Russia aide in August, although she had wrapped up most of her work by mid-July. It's unclear how much she knew about the controversial July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is at the center of Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
President Trump pressed former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to "help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader" in 2017, which Tillerson reportedly refused and described as illegal, Bloomberg reports.
The big picture: Trump is currently facing an impeachment inquiry that grew from a whistleblower report on his interactions with another foreign leader, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
