Alice Johnson speaks at the White House in April 2019. Photo: Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
President Trump on Friday signed a full pardon for Alice Johnson, who had her life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense commuted by the president in 2018.
The backdrop: Johnson spoke at the Republican National Convention on Thursday to celebrate the First Step Act, the Trump-backed bipartisan criminal justice bill that passed six months after her commutation.
President Trump in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo: Brian Blanco/Getty Images
President Trump outlined his ambitions for health care policy in a North Carolina speech Thursday, promising "the highest standard of care anywhere in the world," before signing an executive order guaranteeing protections for pre-existing conditions and then pledging to ban surprise medical bills.
Reality check: The only reason that pre-existing conditions protections, which are guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act, are at risk is because a Trump-backed lawsuit against the law is pending before the Supreme Court. Trump's executive order offers few details, and executive orders in and of themselves don't change policy. The order "simply declares it's national policy to protect coverage of people with preexisting conditions," Politico writes.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
A fresh Joe Biden ad, "New Start," signals an effort by his campaign to make unity a central theme, underscoring a new passage in his stump speech that says he won't be a president just for Democrats but for all Americans.
What he's saying: The ad — which began Friday night, and is a follow-up to "Fresh Start" — draws from a Biden speech earlier in the week in Manitowoc, Wisconsin: