Axios

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a key witness in President Trump's impeachment inquiry, told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that he believes Trump is a "useful idiot" and "unwitting agent" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Of note: He doubled down on his comments in an interview with NBC News airing Monday evening, saying Trump's "infatuated" with Putin and that some had described their relationship as "a kind of a love affair."

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said Monday she's fired Police Chief La'Ron Singletary and suspended two others following protests over the police killing of Daniel Prude, a Black man says after being hooded and held down by local police.

Why it matters: The firing of Singletary comes almost a week after he announced his retirement. Activists have called for Singletary's resignation after details of Prude's March death surfaced recently, the Democrat and Chronicle notes. Warren accused Singletary of failing to properly brief her on the killing.

In 50 days, America will either double down on the disruptive force of America First or elect a man vowing to put the international order back together again.

Why it matters: America still has the world's biggest economy, most powerful military and deepest network of alliances. But it is unclear what it intends to do with them.

Joe Biden's mammoth $364 million August fundraising haul is leading to tens of millions worth of ads in battleground states.

The big picture: “It should be an alarm to every Republican donor that they’ve got to dig deep and give more,” Club for Growth head David McIntosh told AP.

We're over COVID even if it isn't over us.

Why it matters: Six months into the pandemic, online engagement around coronavirus stories has dropped off markedly and continues to reach new lows even as the pandemic continues, according to data from NewsWhip provided exclusively to Axios.

Around 37% of America’s public school students are beginning the year in some sort of in-person learning, which means millions of teachers have returned to classrooms.

Axios Re:Cap talks with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten about what's working, what's still needed, and if teachers should be required to take a COVID-19 vaccine (when available).

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) pointedly told President Trump on Monday afternoon that climate change is "exacerbating" the wildfires currently ravaging the West Coast.

Why it matters: Trump has repeatedly insisted that the fires were "about forest management," while dismissing climate change. Newsom acknowledged to Trump that "we have not done justice on our forest management," but emphasized that climate change was making everything much worse. A number of politicians have criticized Trump and his administration for not properly addressing climate change.

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg struck and killed a 55-year-old man who was walking along a road in Hyde County on Saturday night, Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) announced Sunday, according to Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

Why it matters: Ravnsborg, who has a history of speeding and traffic violations, told authorities after the crash he thought he hit a deer, though the South Dakota Highway Patrol did not say how long the attorney general waited to report the crash or if he stopped to confirm that he hit a deer or to inspect his vehicle for damage.

Joe Biden on Monday called President Trump a "climate arsonist" and warned that another four years of Trump's policies would expose suburbs to more deadly wildfires.

Why it matters: Biden's speech addressing the record-setting wildfires in the West sought to cast Trump — who rejects consensus climate science — as a threat to the safety and livelihoods of people nationwide, rather than just an environmental issue.

Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Caputo baselessly accused career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday of gathering a "resistance unit" for "sedition" against President Trump, the New York Times reports.

Driving the news: House Democrats are launching an investigation into allegations that Trump's political appointees — including Caputo, a former member of the Trump campaign with no scientific background — pressured CDC officials "to block the publication of accurate scientific reports" on the coronavirus.

Joe Biden's campaign is beefing up its legal team with the addition of two former solicitors general and other attorneys, ahead of possible battles over voting access and election results, ABC News reports.

Why it matters: The move highlights the potential for a number of high-stakes legal battles as the nation heads to the polls amid the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign said the legal team will combat any instances of voter suppression, while also identifying and countering foreign interference and misinformation.

House Democrats are launching an investigation into how Trump's political appointees pressured officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "to block the publication of accurate scientific reports" on COVID-19, according to a letter first obtained by Politico.

Details: Citing previous reporting that Trump aides "openly complained" that the CDC's reports would undermine the president's positive message, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the other Democratic members of the subcommittee on the coronavirus wrote to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC director Robert Redfield to request "transcribed interviews and documents."

Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee, Florida, came out as bisexual in an interview with Tamron Hall on Monday.

Driving the news: "I don’t identify as gay, but I do identify as bisexual. And that is something that I have never shared publicly before," Gillum, who was once considered a rising star in the Democratic party after his Florida gubernatorial run in 2018, told Hall.

In a new clip from an interview with Bob Woodward, President Trump said that his relationships with world leaders are better "the tougher and meaner they are," naming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an example.

Why it matters: Trump has often faced criticism for his warm relations and praise for authoritarian leaders like Erdoğan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He has had a more confrontational relationship with traditional U.S. allies like Germany and South Korea.

President Trump's decision to restrict travel from China in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus in January was not his idea, journalist Bob Woodward told NBC's "Today."

Why it matters: Trump has frequently cited the restrictions as his go-to defense of the administration's coronavirus response, claiming that it saved "potentially millions of lives." But the assertion that the policy was singularly his idea — and that "almost everybody," including public health experts, was opposed to it — is "very different" from what actually happened, Woodward said.

More than 170 of the world's most esteemed environmental activists signed on to an open letter on Monday urging their supporters to vote for Joe Biden rather than vote for the Green Party or sit out the election, The Daily Beast reports.

The big picture: The group says "progressives who vote for the Green Party candidate, or write in Henry David Thoreau, or refuse to vote at all" will help win the election for Trump, whom they excoriated for his "unprecedented malignancy, fear mongering, pathological lying, and atrocious policymaking."

Senate Republicans last week tried and failed to pass a slimmed down stimulus bill that would have included new money for small businesses, schools and $300 in additional weekly unemployment benefits.

Driving the news: Negotiations are now at "a dead-end street,” Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said following the bill's failure, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said plainly, "Congress is not going to pass another COVID relief bill before the election." In fact, we're about two weeks away from a potential government shutdown.

President Trump released an executive order on Sunday ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to begin the process of limiting what Medicare pays for prescription drugs relative to other countries.

Why it matters: It's September of an election year. That means that this executive order is, at best, a statement of Trump's intention to keep trying to achieve something big on drug prices should he get a second term.

The New Yorker's Evan Osnos will be out Oct. 27 (maybe sooner for preorders) with "Joe Biden," drawing on big profiles Evan wrote in 2014 and last month + shorter online pieces, all in this inviting frame from the prologue:

The circumstances of a life in full and a country in peril conspired to put Joe Biden at the center of an American reckoning ...

At the very moment that his country was lying spread-eagled before the eyes of the world, Biden had arrived at his season of history.

The U.S. ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, is stepping down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Twitter Monday.

Why it matters: Branstad's three-year tenure was marked by a sharp escalation in tensions between the U.S. and China, exacerbated in the past year by the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump's trade war, Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong, its abuses against Uighur Muslims, a military buildup in the South China Sea and more.

President Trump insisted the U.S. was "making the last turn" against the coronavirus as he held his first fully indoor rally since June in Nevada against state regulations and his administration's pandemic health guidelines, AP notes.

The big picture: Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) tweeted that Trump's actions were "shameful, dangerous and irresponsible." Trump told the mostly maskless crowd the U.S. "will very easy defeat" the virus. "We are not shutting the country again," Trump said. "A shutdown would destroy the lives and dreams of millions Americans."

Journalist Bob Woodward opened up to CBS' News' "60 Minutes" in an interview airing Sunday on the moment in August when President Trump told him, "nothing more could have been done" on the coronavirus.

Driving the news: Trump made the remarks, recorded by Woodward and broadcast by CBS, during one of their final interviews, as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 was surging. "Does he remember what he told me, back in February, about it's more deadly than the flu?" Woodward said, in reference to an earlier interview with Trump on the virus' dangers.

On the next episode of "Axios on HBO," Axios Chief Technology Correspondent Ina Fried interviews Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, who calls out the "lack of leadership" and politicization of the coronavirus pandemic.

• Plus, Gates shares the findings from this year's Goalkeepers report — the foundation's annual look at how the world is doing toward meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals around issues including education, poverty, disease and maternal, infant and child mortality.

Catch the full interview on Monday, Sept. 14 at 11 p.m. ET/PT on all HBO platforms.