President Trump on Tuesday at his Mara-a-Lago estate in Florida lashed out against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats involved in his impeachment after exchanging holiday greetings with soldiers stationed around the globe, the Washington Post reports.
The big picture: Trump said Pelosi "hates the Republican Party," and "all of the people who voted for me and the Republican Party" in the 2016 elections. He said the speaker is "doing a tremendous disservice to the country" for impeaching him.
New voting machines rolled out in six Georgia counties last month were meant to resolve longstanding issues with the state's election security, but experts say vulnerabilities remain, and Georgia isn't the only state facing the issue.
Why it matters: Officials argue not enough has been done to strengthen election system protections across the country ahead of the 2020 elections. Experts persistently warn of foreign interference, as seen in the 2016 presidential election.
Joe Biden made the most favorable impression following last week's debate, but lower-tier 2020 candidates Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer all enjoyed a boost from the spotlight, a Morning Consult poll published Monday shows.
A former Democratic governor of Hawaii told a news conference Monday Rep. Tulsi Gabbard should resign from Congress so a special election can be held in the state.
Details: Former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) cited Gabbard's not running for House re-election and that she's rented a home in New Hampshire as reasons for the call, noting she'd missed congressional votes since launching her 2020 campaign but that she voted "present" in President Trump's impeachment proceedings.
Rudy Giuliani appeared to hold nothing back in a wide-ranging interview with New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi, in which he promoted unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about George Soros and discussed the reported federal investigation into his finances.
The big picture: Giuliani defended his work digging up dirt on Trump's political rivals in Ukraine, which he recently claimed the president continues to support. The former mayor of New York also stressed that he's not worried about his legacy and that he has been besmirched as part of a conspiracy by Democrats, the media and the "deep state" to remove Trump from office.
The Office of Management and Budget is pushing back on suggestions that an email requesting the Pentagon withhold military aid to Ukraine 91 minutes after President Trump's phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky was anything other than procedural.
Why it matters: Allegations that Trump froze nearly $400 million of congressionally approved military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate a potential 2020 rival are central to the impeachment case against the president. But an OMB spokeswoman said, "It’s reckless to tie the hold of funds to the phone call. As has been established and publicly reported, the hold was announced in an interagency meeting on July 18."
The Trump administration laid out its case against a Senate bill that would sanction Turkey for purchasing Russian-made defense systems and help Syrian Kurdish refugees immigrate to the U.S. in a State Department document obtained by The Daily Beast.
Why it matters: The document reveals how Turkey's actions have divided Trump officials and members of Congress, who have criticized the executive branch for not sanctioning Turkey for trading with Russia's defense and intelligence sectors.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the impeachment of President Trump a "charade" and "political exercise" on "Fox and Friends" on Monday, but added that Senate Republicans "haven't ruled out witnesses" for Trump's upcoming trial.
The big picture:Speaker Nancy Pelosi is withholding delivering the House's approved articles of impeachment until McConnell and Senate leadership determine the rules for the trial.
A group of nearly 200 conservative evangelical leaders sent a letter Sunday rebuking a Christianity Today editorial that called for President Trump's removal, the AP reports.
The big picture: The evangelical leaders wrote to the magazine's president, Timothy Dalrymple, saying that the piece from editor-in-chief Mark Galli "offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations."
