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National

With the exception of a small band of true believers like Sean Hannity and Judge Jeanine Pirro, President Trump has grown disillusioned with Fox News and often complains the network doesn't have his back.

Why it matters: Trump still watches Fox religiously, but he views such wobbliness as a particular problem during tough times like impeachment, sources close to him say. Into this breach has stepped more fervently loyal outlets, like Breitbart News. 

The website, often led by its Washington editor Matt Boyle and editor-in-chief Alex Marlow, has gone into 24-7 campaign mode against Trump's impeachment. A representative Breitbart headline: "While Democrats pursue impeachment, President Trump builds impressive record of accomplishments."

The president has been lapping up Breitbart's coverage — to such an extent that "Saturday Night Live" made fun of Trumpworld's Breitbart habit in their cold open last night. In a meeting with Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani pulls out a "Breitbart Office Poll" that "says 121% of people want Biden impeached."

The big picture: The entire Biden-Ukraine narrative began with "Secret Empires," a book by Breitbart's senior contributor Peter Schweizer. Ahead of the last election, Schweizer published "Clinton Cash," which portrayed Bill and Hillary Clinton as corrupt grifters and set the tone of some influential coverage in 2016. (Trump promoted Schweizer's book on Twitter yesterday.)

Trump has promoted Breitbart multiple times as a source of polling. In one of Trump's favored Breitbart polls — which bear no relation to public opinion — 97.83% of respondents say they "stand with President Trump" against impeachment.

Republican lawmakers have been using Breitbart as a key platform in their campaign against impeachment. 

And it's not just ultra-conservative, Freedom Caucus types. Establishment Republicans including members of leadership like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (who has given Breitbart multiple "exclusives") and Minority Whip Steve Scalise have been appearing on Breitbart's radio shows.

Senior White House official Stephen Miller will be appearing on Breitbart's radio show tonight.

Flashback: We're coming up on 2 years since Steve Bannon was forced out of Breitbart and publicly trashed by the president. The ultra-right-wing website spent some time on the outs from the White House as a result of Bannon's exile, but it's now back as one of Trump's go-to outlets.

Trump turns to Breitbart in impeachment war

With the exception of true believers like Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro, Trump has grown disillusioned with Fox News.

Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Politics

Breitbart News

Media

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

In numerous recent conversations with colleagues, including last week's senior staff meeting, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has said he thinks President Trump could win 45 states in 2020 after the impeachment process — a magnitude of landslide that few if any independent pollsters would dare predict.

Between the lines: People who've heard Mulvaney make this remark say he wasn't joking or even exaggerating. He appears to genuinely believe that impeachment will have a profoundly positive effect on Trump's political fortunes, according to 3 sources who have heard Mulvaney make the 45-state prediction. 

Mulvaney also believes that the longer the impeachment process drags on, the better it is, politically, for Trump, these sources added. 

Mulvaney did not stipulate which 5 states he thought Trump would still lose when he made these comments, a source who heard them said.

His view appears to be based more on instinct than polling data. I have seen no polling that supports his prediction, and at this early stage, responsible polling analysts are extremely wary of predicting which party will benefit more from impeachment in 2020. 

But it's possible Mulvaney is echoing the ebullience emanating from the Trump campaign. They are raising breathtaking sums online by telling supporters to give money to help Trump fight the Democrats trying to impeach him.

The big picture: Mulvaney's view is far from a consensus in Trump's orbit — some see considerable peril and downside political risk for the president as the impeachment inquiry moves forward — but his voice is one that the president hears every day and could bolster how Trump views the political dynamics of impeachment.

Scoop: Mulvaney predicts post-impeachment landslide

Mulvaney appears to genuinely believe that impeachment will have a profoundly positive effect on Trump's fortunes.

Mick Mulvaney

Donald Trump

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Macro

Axios Macro

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals

American manufacturers rode a wave of optimism after President Trump took office, clinging to his promises to revive the industry and bring back jobs. 

Yes, but: The politically important sector is being choked by his trade war with China, and business leaders tell Axios that the tariffs threaten to upend the economy if not addressed soon.

Driving the news: The manufacturing sector added 18,000 jobs in September of last year, following a steady rise in employment. 

But just one year later, the pace of gains has slowed: Last month, the sector cut thousands of jobs for the 2nd time this year.

A closely watched index that tracks the health of the industry also showed that manufacturing is in the worst shape since before President Trump took office — contracting for 2 straight months. The last time the sector contracted was in 2016.

And while President Trump has blamed the Federal Reserve for the slump, and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow punted responsibility to Europe, business groups and manufacturers say there's no question Trump's trade war is the real problem.

White House spokesperson Judd Deere told Axios: "The fundamentals of the economy are strong because of this president’s pro-growth policies, and the White House does not see an imminent economic downturn." 

"Talks with China are continuing this week, but there is no doubt that President Trump will continue to use every available tool to level the playing field and reduce barriers to the export of our goods and services."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's chief policy officer Neil Bradley, who has worked closely with the Office of the United States Trade Representative on the Trump administration's pending trade agreements, tells Axios he's been "concerned about the outlook for the manufacturing sector for some time now."

"When businesses begin to decline, one of the first sectors to be impacted by that is manufacturing," Bradley said. "The next few months are critical. Either confidence [in the markets] is going to be restored, or that lack of confidence from the tariffs will continue to spread. And that's when you risk a recession."

Meanwhile, the president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Jay Timmons, said that optimism among their members is declining — and the lack of clarity surrounding USMCA and tariffs has put “a chill on business investment decisions” in the sector.

The bottom line: Counties with local economies that rely on manufacturing overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016 and celebrated the "Trump bump" that accompanied him when he took office. But those votes could be in jeopardy as uncertainty continues to grip the industry.

Business leaders spooked by Trump's manufacturing slump

The politically important sector is being choked by the president's trade war with China.

Business

Manufacturing

Jobs

The Supreme Court is wasting no time diving into the thick of 2020 politics. Starting Tuesday, the court will begin debate on whether employers can fire someone for being gay or transgender.

Why it matters: It's the first in a slew of polarizing issues the court will decide over the next 9 months. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a polarizing figure himself, will be at the center of it all.

The big picture: The court is slated to hear 3 related cases about LGBTQ rights — one of the specific areas where Kavanaugh's replacement of former Justice Anthony Kennedy may make the most difference.

Federal law prohibits workplace discrimination "because of sex." 

The court will consider the cases of 2 men who say they were fired because they were gay, and a trans woman who was fired after she began transitioning.

What they're saying: The employees argue that a person's sexual orientation is inextricably tied to their sex — the employers here didn't have a problem with attraction to men; they had a problem with men being attracted to men. 

In the case of the trans employee, her employer was happy with her when she was identifying and dressing as a man, then fired her as soon as she identified and dressed as a woman.

The other side: The businesses' core argument is that the existing law, first written in 1964, does not ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and that Congress could always spell out such a protection if it wanted to.

Between the lines: More than 200 companies — including Apple, AT&T, Facebook, JPMorgan Chase, Starbucks and Uber — have weighed in on the side of the employees. So have big labor unions. The Trump administration has sided with the businesses.

What we're watching: The logic of the employers' argument seems likely to appeal to the court's conservative majority.

Holding that federal law doesn't bar sexual-orientation-based discrimination would be a fundamentally conservative ruling both in its politics and in its deference to the legislative branch. That's a sweet spot for Chief Justice John Roberts.

The employer who fired the trans woman is relying heavily on his religious beliefs, which also tends to find a sympathetic ear at the high court.

The bottom line: This is just the beginning. The court is diving into these polarizing issues quickly and will keep doing so until next summer.

Just last week, the justices accepted a high-stakes abortion case out of Louisiana.

They've also accepted their first big Second Amendment case in over a decade.

They'll hear oral arguments in November over whether President Trump had the authority to end the Obama-era immigration program known as DACA.

Many of these high-profile rulings will come down next June, and it's hard to think of a set of issues — abortion, guns, immigration and the legacy of the Kavanaugh confirmation — that could more fully rile up both parties' bases ahead of the 2020 elections.

Supreme Court set to weigh in on 2020's most polarizing issues

It's one of the specific areas where Kavanaugh's replacement of Anthony Kennedy may make the most difference.

Illustration of the supreme court intertwined with elements from an American flag 

Supreme Court

The attorney representing the whistleblower whose anonymous complaint about President Trump and Ukraine has sparked an impeachment inquiry confirmed to ABC News on Sunday that he is now representing a second whistleblower with "firsthand knowledge" of some of the allegations.

Why it matters: One of the attacks Trump and his allies have used to try to undermine the credibility of the first whistleblower is that he relied on secondhand information from other White House officials. There is no requirement in the whistleblower statute for firsthand information, but an official with direct knowledge of the allegations could provide even more explosive evidence in the impeachment investigation.

Attorney Mark Zaid confirmed to ABC that the second whistleblower has been interviewed by intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, but said that they have not been in contact with the House committees conducting the inquiry.

One of Zaid's colleagues, Andrew Bakaj, tweeted: "I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. No further comment at this time."

Following a report in the New York Times last week suggesting that there could be a second whistleblower, Trump tweeted on Saturday night:

"The first so-called second hand information 'Whistleblower' got my phone conversation almost completely wrong, so now word is they are going to the bench and another 'Whistleblower' is coming in from the Deep State, also with second hand info. Meet with Shifty. Keep them coming!"

Go deeper: Trump demands to meet whistleblower and accuses Adam Schiff of "treason"

Second Ukraine whistleblower has "firsthand knowledge" of Trump allegations

The second whistleblower has been interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general, their attorney confirmed.

Whistleblower complaint

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Saturday became the 3rd Republican senator to break ranks with GOP leadership and condemn President Trump's public call for China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The big picture: Collins joins Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in publicly criticizing Trump's comments, which he made just days after Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry over revelations that he had made the same request to the president of Ukraine.

What they're saying: Collins said it was "completely inappropriate" for Trump to invite China to investigate Biden.

"I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent."

Between the lines: Should the House vote to impeach Trump, the Senate would host a trial to determine whether the president should be removed from office. 

While none of the senators have said they believe Trump's actions are directly impeachable, Collins said she hopes proceedings "will be done with the seriousness that any impeachment proceeding deserves."

"Should the articles of impeachment come to the Senate — and right now I’m going to guess that they will — I will be acting as a juror as I did in the Clinton impeachment trial," she added.

Go deeper: Trump's trifecta of asking foreign powers to interfere in U.S. elections

Susan Collins condemns Trump's call for China to investigate Bidens

"I thought the president made a big mistake," the Republican senator said.

Susan Collins

Joe Biden

Data: Nixon survey by Gallup, Clinton survey by CNN, Trump survey by Monmouth University. (The Gallup question changed from "Do you think President Nixon should be impeached and compelled to leave the Presidency, or not?" to "Do you think his actions are serious enough to warrant his being removed from the Presidency, or not?" after Feb. 1974.) Chart: Axios Visuals 


Public support for President Trump's impeachment is higher than it was for Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton when the House launched impeachment inquiries against them.

Why it matters: Support for impeachment of Trump is still less than half the country — 44% in the Monmouth University poll shown here; 47% in a CNN poll. And the polling reflects a 50-50 country. But the Ukraine scandal is pushing the numbers up.

Per CNN: "The change since May has largely come among independents and Republicans. ... [S]upport for impeachment and removal has risen 11 points to 46% among independents and 8 points to 14% among Republicans."

Keep in mind: A majority of the public didn't support impeaching Nixon until a few weeks before he resigned.

But as the WashPost's Philip Bump pointed out, "Trump doesn’t look like Nixon"— Trump's approval rating is still in the low 40% range, while Nixon fell to 25% at the height of Watergate.

Trump's impeachment poll warnings

A majority of the public didn't support impeaching Nixon until a few weeks before he resigned.

Donald Trump impeachment

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on ABC's “This Week” on Sunday that he doesn't think President Trump was serious when he said last week that China should launch an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, suggesting that it was an attempt to get the press "all spun up."

Rep. Jim Jordan

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "Threshold question. Do you think it is appropriate for President Trump to ask China and Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?"

JORDAN: "George, you really think he was serious about thinking that China's going to investigate the Biden family?"

Jim Jordan suggests Trump was joking about China investigating Bidens

"George, you really think he was serious about thinking that China's going to investigate the Biden family?"

Axios

Sunday's top stories