Axios

Former Vice President Joe Biden lit into President Trump at a virtual fundraiser Monday night for his statement in an interview with Axios that he's open to meeting with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

• “He doesn’t think that Maduro is that bad of a guy?” Biden mused to donors on a Zoom call. “He’s not really a dictator, or something to that effect. Good Lord.”

House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote to the Trump administration Monday requesting information on British politician Nigel Farage's trip to the U.S. for President Trump's Oklahoma rally over the weekend.

Why it matters: The administration imposed a ban on most people traveling to the U.S. from countries including the U.K. during the coronavirus pandemic. Thompson said in his letter to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf that the U.K. Brexit Party leader's visit "raises numerous troubling questions." He wants to know why the Department of Homeland Security deemed his trip in the "national interest."

Go deeper: Nigel Farage attends Trump rally after "national interest" exemption from U.S. travel ban

• Axios has contacted the Trump administration and Farage's representatives for comment.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Monday that President Trump's expansion of legal immigration restrictions — including a temporary ban on high-skilled H-1B visas — will have a "chilling effect" on the country's economic recovery.

Why it matters: Graham is one of Trump's closest allies in the Senate. He and many pro-business groups, including major tech companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have expressed disapproval at the decision to restrict legal immigration during the pandemic.

U.S. Army soldier Ethan Melzer has been charged with terrorism offenses after allegedly sending information on his unit to the neo-Nazi group O9A in the hopes of facilitating a "mass casualty" attack on his fellow soldiers, the Justice Department announced Monday.

What they're saying: "Melzer allegedly attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his own unit by unlawfully revealing its location, strength, and armaments to a neo-Nazi, anarchist, white supremacist group," said acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss

There are five black men running for U.S. Senate in the South as Democrats who could not only make history, but are using this unique moment to have difficult, intimate conversations about being black in America.

Why it matters: There have only been 10 black senators in U.S. history, and it wasn't until 2013 that two African Americans simultaneously served in the Senate.

Two new studies show that the federal stimulus slowed, or even reversed, projected increases in U.S. poverty this year.

On today's episode of Axios Re:Cap, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang joins to discuss if the stimulus can be seen as a test run for universal basic income and his conversations with Joe Biden about the idea.

Two members of the Trump campaign staff who attended the president's rally in Tulsa on Saturday have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the campaign's communications director Tim Murtaugh.

The big picture: The campaign says the two staffers wore face masks during the entire event, which drew thousands of supporters. Health officials, including several in Tulsa, had urged the campaign to delay the rally, warning of the risk of spreading the virus. Six campaign staffers for the president were quarantined after testing positive before the rally last week,.

The Trump administration will ban entry into the U.S. for foreigners on certain temporary work visas — including high-skilled H-1B visas— through the end of the year, senior administration officials told reporters Monday afternoon.

Why it matters: The highly-anticipated immigration restrictions expand on President Trump's earlier coronavirus-related immigration ban introduced in late April — which was also extended through the end of the year.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) announced on Monday that Brian Bulatao, a top State Department official and close confidante of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will testify before the committee on July 2 as part of a probe into President Trump's firing of former Inspector General Steve Linick.

Why it matters: Linick testified to lawmakers that he was conducting two investigations that personally involved Pompeo — one concerning allegations of staff misuse and another probing the administration's efforts to circumvent Congress to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia — when Pompeo recommended that President Trump fire him.

In a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates Monday, Joe Biden's campaign manager said that Biden will agree to the commission's proposal of three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate with independent moderators, adding, "Donald Trump and Mike Pence should do the same."

The big picture: Trump's campaign has been calling for four debates and for them to be held sooner because of early voting. Trump has also accused the bipartisan nonprofit organization of being "very biased."

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a press briefing Monday that President Trump's description of the coronavirus as "kung flu" at a rally Saturday was "linking it to its place of origin."

Why it matters: People have described the term as racist and offensive to Asian Americans, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has previously called it "highly offensive."

In an interview with Scripps' Joe St. George on Monday, President Trump declined to confirm that he was joking when he said at a campaign rally Saturday that he asked officials to slow down coronavirus testing because a higher case total makes the U.S. look bad.

Why it matters: Joe Biden pounced on the line, calling it"an outrageous moment that will be remembered long after tonight’s debacle." White House officials told reporters after the rally that Trump was joking, and economic adviser Peter Navarro insisted on Sunday that the president's comments were "tongue-in-cheek."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday condemned President Trump for undermining the United States' moral authority after he told Axios in an interview that he delayed imposing sanctions against Chinese officials to facilitate a trade deal with Beijing.

Driving the news: Asked why he held off on imposing Treasury sanctions against Chinese officials involved with mass detention camps for Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, Trump told Axios: "Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal."

President Trump tweeted Monday that he would only meet with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro "to discuss one thing: a peaceful exit from power."

Why it matters: The president's comments represent a backtrack from his interview with Axios' Jonathan Swan last week, where he set no such precondition for a Maduro meeting and suggested he's had second thoughts about his decision to recognize Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate leader.

The White House announced Monday it was "scaling back" coronavirus temperature checks for visitors upon entering the complex.

The state of play: While people who will find themselves in close proximity to President Trump or Vice President Pence will still get temperature checks and coronavirus tests, it reflects a continued loosening of restrictions around the executive mansion, as the administration moved to make face masks optional last week.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC Monday that "there is no second wave coming" for the coronavirus pandemic, despite record daily case increases in multiple states around the country.

Why it matters: The U.S. reported more than 33,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday — the highest total since May 1 — while the surge of infections in several states is outpacing growth in coronavirus testing.

One former top West Wing official tells Axios that national security adviser John Bolton was unpopular even before the leaks from his tell-all, "The Room Where It Happened," which is out Tuesday.

Axios has a first look for you at a fiery passage from a book that's coming this fall from former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, "Speaking for Myself." She writes that, during President Trump's state visit to London last year, "Bolton was a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything."

White House adviser Kevin Hassett will leave the administration this summer, after returning in March to help the president respond to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, according to two administration officials.

Why it matters: Hassett has shown an ability to translate economic numbers into tangible terms for the president, steering Trump to support more stimulus and relief. His departure could cede power to administration officials who oppose a $2 trillion package and worry about the deficit.

Some swing voters in Erie, Pa., tell us they're gravitating to Joe Biden — less as a change agent than as a path back to stability, and to restoring the national respect they feel has been lost under President Trump.

The big picture: This was the first time in 16 of our monthly Engagious/Schlesinger swing-voter focus groups that more participants opposed Trump than supported him.

The Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns are beginning to look familiar. Even as he slides in the polls, President Trump's presidential campaign is doubling down on 2016 messaging and focusing on his base. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has shifted his focus to health care and will bring on former President Barack Obama to help raise money.

California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Nanette Barragán on Sunday urged state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to investigate the death of an 18-year-old Latino man fatally shot by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. The deputy was not wearing a body camera at the time.

Driving the news: Authorities said Andres Guardado was armed and fleeing the deputies when he was shot in Gardena on Thursday, per the Los Angeles Times, which notes it's not been disclosed "what prompted the shooting." L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said it would be "premature" for Becerra to probe the case as detectives were "still in the early stages" of investigating what happened, ABC News reports. Protesters rallied on Sunday to demand answers over the case.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York announced on Sunday that it has asked for the removal from its front entrance of a bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, noting the "racial hierarchy it depicts."

Why it matters: Monuments of historical figures with ties to slavery and the dispossession of indigenous peoples have become flashpoints during anti-racism protests in recent weeks.

Former national security adviser John Bolton defended in an interview with ABC News on Sunday his decision not to testify at President Trump's impeachment inquiry, claiming it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Why it matters: Bolton told ABC News that Trump "directly linked the provision of that [security] assistance with the investigation" into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine — the central allegation that saw him impeached in the House and later acquitted in the Senate. No official that testified was a direct witness to Trump explicitly tying aid to the investigations.

Former national security advisor John Bolton told ABC News he hopes history will remember President Trump "as a one-term president who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from."

Details: In an interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz, broadcast Sunday night, Bolton said, "We can get over one term — I have absolute confidence, even if it's not the miracle of a conservative Republican being elected in November. Two terms, I'm more troubled about." But he made clear he would not vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.