President Trump on Saturday said he agreed with the Pentagon's decision to relieve Capt. Brett Crozier of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt after the captain sent a letter to officials pleading for help as members of his crew contracted the coronavirus.
What he's saying: "The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place," Trump said at a White House briefing on Saturday. "That's not appropriate. I don't think that's appropriate. And these are tough people. These are tough, strong people. I thought it looked terrible, to be honest with you."
President Trump is seriously considering installing billionaire investor Steve Feinberg in a senior role at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to four sources familiar with the planning.
Why it matters: Feinberg would enter the ODNI at an especially fraught time — during a pandemic, an election year, and during a period where Trump has a deeply frayed relationship with his intelligence community.
Congress’ CARES Act will send one-time relief checks to most Americans. But many adults who are tax dependents won’t get a cut of the more than $300 billion set to be distributed in direct payments.
Yes, but: Adults who can be claimed as dependents on another person's tax return don't qualify either for the $1,200 checks or for the $500 add-on for each child.
Nearly half of the foreign-born population that moved to the U.S. over the 10-year stretch from 2010 to 2019 went to college, a level of education greatly exceeding immigrants from previous decade, AP reports.
Why it matters: The arrival of highly skilled workers supplanted workers in fields like construction that shrunk after the Great Recession.
Sources close to President Trump expect him to fire more inspectors general across his government, after his Friday night removal of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community I.G. who alerted Congress to the complaint that triggered impeachment.
What they're saying: Conservative allies of the president have told him that these I.G.s are members of the “deep state” trying to undermine him. Trump appears to have embraced that view.
Attorney General Bill Barr instructed the Bureau of Prisons on Friday to expand the use of home confinement and accelerate the release of eligible, high-risk inmates at three federal correctional facilities struck by the coronavirus, AP reports.
The state of play: As of Friday evening, 91 inmates and 50 staff had tested positive for COVID-19 at federal prisons across the U.S., per the agency.
Joe Biden said he's spoken to Sen. Bernie Sanders and former President Barack Obama about selecting a running mate — and that he wants to build "a bench of younger, really qualified people" who can lead the nation over the course of the next four presidential cycles.
Driving the news: Biden spoke about the state of the 2020 race during a virtual fundraiser on Friday night that was opened to pooled coverage.
President Trump notified key lawmakers on Friday that he’s firing Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general, who first alerted Congress last September of an "urgent" complaint from an official involving Trump's correspondence with the Ukrainian president.
Why it matters: The move, to take effect in 30 days, comes amid a broader initiative to purge the administration of officials seen as disloyal to the president.
The big picture: Health care workers and the federal government are scrambling to stretch limited inventories of medical equipment to fight the coronavirus crisis, as the U.S. is unlikely to be able to manufacture enough medical masks and ventilators in time for a surge in demand expected to hit in mid-April.
The White House announced that the CDC is recommending Americans wear cloth masks or face coverings in public to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, President Trump said at a press briefing on Friday — emphasizing the guidance is "voluntary."
Why it matters: The use of face coverings could stop people who have the virus, whether they have symptoms or not, from spreading it further when they go out in public.
Websites have crashed, phones are jammed and confusion reigns as businesses rushed at today's kickoff to get their chunk of the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program.
Why it matters: This is a race to save jobs in the present and the future, and to ensure that as many workers as possible keep their benefits and paychecks during the coronavirus lockdown.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is moving to replace in-person voting in his state's primary election, slated for Tuesday, with an all mail-in election.
Details: Evers is calling the state lawmakers into a special session on Saturday to take up legislation on the issue, which would adopt a May 26 deadline to return ballots. The announcement comes after a judge declined to delay the primary, saying he doesn't have the authority to do so.
Businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban revived talk of an improbable 2020 presidential bid during an Axios virtual event on Friday.
"Everything's a reset right now," Cuban told Axios CEO Jim VandeHei from Dallas. "If this would would've been a month ago, I would have said absolutely not. But obviously things are crazy, things are changing. So I'll keep an open mind. But I seriously doubt it."
The language on the federal government's public health emergency website has been edited to match statements made by White House adviser Jared Kushner on Thursday in which he said the national stockpile is "not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”
The state of play: Kushner recently joined the administration's coronavirus task force, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to oversee the distribution of medical supplies to states.At Thursday's White House press briefing, he said local and state officials are requesting medical supplies without understanding what they need, the Washington Post writes. Kushner added, "The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile ... What you have all over the country is a lot of people are asking for things that they don’t necessarily need at the moment."
Former 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is launching a political action committee and an affiliated nonprofit, according to sources cited by the New York Times.
The big picture: The PAC, named Win the Era, is expected to endorse young candidates in down-ballot political races to build a "pipeline" for the Democratic Party. The groups will focus on issues such as climate change and cybersecurity. The ex-mayor of South Bend, Ind. is asking donors to roll over the leftover $2.8 million from his general election funds to the PAC.
Congress passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill to help struggling Americans and businesses hit hard by the coronavirus. Now, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worry the agencies responsible for delivering the aid may not be ready for the task.
Why it matters: People are desperate for federal help to dig them out of the economic hardship brought on by the pandemic.
New data provided to Axios spells out just how outsized a role immigrants play on the high- and low-skilled ends of the economy keeping Americans alive and fed during the coronavirus crisis.
By the numbers: Immigrantsmake up an estimated 17% of the overall U.S. workforce. But the analysis by New American Economy (NAE) shows they're more than one in four doctors, nearly half the nation's taxi drivers and chauffeurs and a clear majority of farm workers.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has privately discussed bringing on Pentagon spokesperson Alyssa Farah or Trump campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany as a new White House press secretary, two sources familiar with the talks tell Axios.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci recommended on Thursday that all states across the U.S. implement stay-at-home orders, at a CNN town hall.
Why it matters: The recommendation stands in contrast to President Trump's calls for "flexibility." Nearly 4o states have issued stay-at-home orders to promote social distancing as a way to combat the novel coronavirus — but the orders vary in strictness and duration.
