Growing waves of street violence between armed groups — combined with evidence of record gun sales — has some experts worried the U.S. could be facing an "incipient insurgency."
Why it matters: Despite its high murder rate compared to other rich countries, organized political violence has been rare in the U.S. in recent decades. But growing clashes in the streets, combined with an election that may remain uncertain for weeks, forecasts a turbulent fall — and beyond.
President Trump unveiled Wednesday his revamped list of potential Supreme Court justices that includes 20 new names, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Why it matters: Top aides and advisers to the president urged him months ago to put together a new list of justices ahead of Election Day to pump up his base and remind them why a Republican needs to remain in the White House.
The House Intelligence Committee received a whistleblower complaint from a former senior Department of Homeland Security official who alleges he was instructed to "cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States" because it "made the president look bad," Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday.
The big picture: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Russia is actively seeking to denigrate Joe Biden to assist President Trump ahead of the election.
Vice President Pence and other prominent Republicans are set to appear at a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who publicly support the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an invitation reviewed by AP.
Why it matters: It's yet another example of how the conspiracy theory has gained a foothold in mainstream Republican politics.
Joe Biden responded Wednesday to reporting in Bob Woodward's new book that shows President Trump intentionally downplayed the threat of the coronavirus in February and March, accusing him of a "life-and-death betrayal of the American people."
Why it matters: It was one of Biden's harshest attacks yet on Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, coming shortly after taped interviews with the president revealed him telling Woodward on March 19, "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."
An aide to former Defense Secretary James Mattis heard President Trump say in a meeting, "my f---ing generals are a bunch of pu--ies," because they prioritized alliances over trade deals, according to Bob Woodward's new book "Rage," which was obtained ahead of its publication by CNN.
Why it matters: Trump and his allies have been on the defensive for the past week after anonymous sources alleged in The Atlantic that the president "has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members" — claims that the White House vehemently denies.
The Trump campaign and its joint fundraising committees with the Republican National Committee raised over $210 million in August, they announced Wednesday.
Why it matters: Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised $364.5 million in the same period, dwarfing Trump's total fundraising haul by over $150 million. It is believed to be the most ever raised by a presidential candidate in a single month.
Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his "deep suspicions" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "had something" on President Trump, seeing "no other explanation" for the president's behavior, according to Bob Woodward's new book "Rage," which was obtained by CNN ahead of its publication next week.
Why it matters: Coats was the president's top intelligence official from March 2017 until August 2019. Woodward reports that Coats and his staff examined the intelligence regarding Trump's ties to Russia "as carefully as possible" and that he "still questions the relationship" between Trump and Putin despite the apparent absence of intelligence proof.
President Trump said in March that his approach to the coronavirus pandemic was to "play it down," according to Bob Woodward's new book "Rage," which was obtained ahead of its publication next week by CNN.
Why it matters: Trump's comments during on-the-record interviews with the veteran journalist in February and March contrast deeply with his public comments about the pandemic, as he argued for weeks that the virus would "disappear" and slow-walked economic lockdowns.
Even before President Trump took office, an effort was underway to sniff out elements within the intelligence community perceived as disloyal, in yet another example of the deep tensions between the administration and its own intelligence agencies.
Driving the news: In 2017, former CIA officials close to the then-incoming Trump administration assembled a "purge list" of agency personnel they deemed ideologically unaligned with the administration or incompetent, two former agency officials told Axios.
College football has become a key political issue as the 2020 election approaches, and the impending NFL season will only ratchet up the intensity around empty stadiums and player protests.
Why it matters: Football is America's most popular sport. And considering 43 of the top 50 most-watched TV broadcasts last year were football games, it's arguably our most popular form of entertainment, period.
An investigation by Senate Democrats published Wednesday found that there were "significant" U.S. Postal Service delays this summer for mail-order prescription drugs, according to information provided by five major pharmacies.
Why it matters: Demand for mailed prescriptions has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, per the report by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
If he were starting Facebook all over again, Mark Zuckerberg says he would spend more time telling the world "what our principles are."
What he's saying: "I really used to believe that the product by itself was everything, right?" Zuckerberg told Axios' Mike Allen in a wide-ranging new interview for "Axios on HBO." "And that if we if we built a good product, it didn't matter how we communicated about what we did and how we explained the principles behind the service — people would love and would use the product...."
It would be easy to feel some whiplash over recent Trump administration moves on oil-and-gas industry access — or lack thereof — to areas currently off-limits.
Driving the news: Trump used a Tuesday stop in Florida — a swing state with a huge electoral vote bounty — to announce an order that keeps the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits through 2032.
The U.S. will withdraw 2,200 troops from Iraq by the end of September, bringing troop levels in the country down to 3,000, confirmed Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command.
The big picture: The move is in line with President Trump's campaign promise to pare back America's involvement in the Middle East. The president has reduced the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that it's "not uncommon at all" for a vaccine maker to pause its trials to review safety concerns, following news that AstraZeneca had done so on its phase 3 coronavirus vaccine trials due to a participant having a severe adverse reaction.
Driving the news: AstraZeneca, one of the frontrunners in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine, said on Tuesday that the patient is expected to recover but did not make clear what the reaction was.
GOP lawyer Ben Ginsburg, who practiced election law for 38 years and co-chaired the bipartisan 2013 Presidential Commission on Election Administration, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday that "after decades of looking for illegal voting, there’s no proof of widespread fraud."
The big picture: Trump has argued with little evidence that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud, claiming that the only way he will lose the 2020 election is if it's "rigged." Ginsburg wrote that the "lack of evidence renders these claims unsustainable."
Michael Cohen — whose "Disloyal," out yesterday, is the No. 1 Amazon bestseller — told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night in a show-long interview:
"If you look at just the books that have come out recently — Mary Trump's book, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book, my book — it's kind of like the trifecta of truth."
"We all seem to be pointing to the same thing: [President Trump] is devoid of empathy."
President Trump's standing with Hispanic voters is stronger now than four years ago, while Joe Biden's support is softer than Hillary Clinton's, polls show — trends that worry some longtime Biden supporters in the Hispanic community.
Why it matters: Hispanic voters make up more than 20 percent of the electorate in Florida and Arizona — two swing states that Trump won in 2016 but could deliver Biden the White House.
The Oscars will undergo sweeping eligibility reforms, with Best Picture category nominees required to meet specific representation standards from the 2024 Academy Awards onwards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday night.
Why it matters: The move is in response to years of criticism that the Academy is too male and too white. "The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience," the Academy said in a statement.
Mark Zuckerberg told "Axios on HBO" that it's "just wrong" to consider Facebook a right-wing echo chamber, even though conservative voices top the platform's most-engaged content.
"It's true that partisan content often has kind of a higher percent of people ... engaging with it, commenting on it, liking it," Zuckerberg told Axios.
Corky Messnerbeat retired Gen. Don Bolduc in New Hampshire's Republican Senate primary Tuesday night after the coronavirus pandemic postponed the original race date, AP reports.
Why it matters: The GOP primary served as a test of the president's influence in the state, with lawyer Messner touting his Trump endorsement. President Trump narrowly lost the state to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Reuters notes.
The Department of Justice filed a motion notifying a New York State court Tuesday that it intends to replace President Trump's private lawyers to defend him in a defamation lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Why it matters: It's highly unusual for the DOJ to intervene in such cases. The department said in its notice that it intervened because Trump was "acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States" when he said last year that Carroll was "totally lying" about claims that he raped her in the mid-1990s.
