“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress,” NBC News reports.
“It is unclear when the address will take place. Johnson told reporters Wednesday that he was working with Netanyahu on a date and would be sending the formal invitation this week.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, saying he is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond,” Reuters reports.
“Donald Trump boasted on Thursday he would quickly free the jailed US journalist Evan Gershkovich from Russia if he wins the presidential election, but Moscow denied discussing the case with the Republican candidate,” The Guardian reports.
“In a rambling fundraising pitch to oil executives in Houston on Wednesday, former president Donald Trump promised them that he would immediately approve their projects and expand drilling in a second term — just as he worked to expedite the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines soon after taking office in 2017,” the Washington Post reports.
CNN: Senate Democrats launch investigation into alleged Trump “quid pro quo” with oil executives.
The Senate once again Thursday rejected the bipartisan border security deal that was clinched earlier this year, as Democrats seek to use the issue against Republicans in the upcoming election, The Hill reports.
The vote was 43 to 50.
It was doomed to fail after Republicans slammed the effort as a political stunt intended to boost vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
“The Biden administration is finalizing details of a new executive action that would let the president temporarily shut the southern border to migrants if necessary, and it is in talks with Mexican leaders to get their crucial buy-in before proceeding,” NBC News reports.
“The administration hopes to unveil that and other executive actions in June, and it has been working with Mexico to get its cooperation on some key provisions… No final decisions have been made, and the timing could shift.”
“A critical consideration is the coming presidential election in Mexico. On June 2 Mexican voters will choose a new president to serve a single six-year term.”
“Illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in May are down by more than 50% compared to the record highs reported in December, giving the Biden administration an unexpected reprieve during a time when migration has historically surged,” CBS News reports.
A new CBS News poll finds 56% say Donald Trump is definitely or probably guilty of a crime in his recent trial, in which he has been charged with falsifying business records to hide a “hush money” payment and influence the 2016 election.
The public is more split on what they think the jury will decide, with about half expecting jurors to find Trump guilty and half saying the opposite.
Attorney General Merrick Garland slammed Donald Trump for insinuating President Biden “authorized his potential assassination during the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 for confidential government material, pointing out that a similar Justice Department memo on the use of deadly force was also used in the FBI search of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home in January 2023,” ABC News reports.
“Republicans are using their majority in Congress to reinforce former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens, sowing the seeds of an effort to delegitimize the outcome of the 2024 election if Mr. Trump loses by pushing legislation that purports to crack down on a problem that barely exists,” the New York Times reports. “House Republicans have introduced a series of bills to take aim at voting by noncitizens, which is already a felony in federal elections, where those who study the issue say it almost never occurs.”
Politico: “The crypto industry won several eye-catching victories this month that showcased its growing influence on the levers of power in Washington — something that’s poised to expand as it prepares to spend more than $80 million on the 2024 elections.”
“The sudden burst of support for an industry with a relatively small base of users is the culmination of a yearslong effort to win legitimacy — and lighter-touch regulatory treatment — in Washington.”
New York Times on TikTok becoming TrumpTok: “The increase comes as President Biden signed legislation that would force a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner or would have it banned in the U.S. That law has triggered a backlash from young voters who backed Mr. Biden overwhelmingly in 2020, some of whom are also opposing his administration’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza.”
“An internal analysis within TikTok found nearly twice as many pro-Trump posts as pro-Biden ones on the platform since November: 1.29 million pro-Trump posts versus 651,000 pro-Biden posts.”
“As Donald Trump heads toward a November rematch election against President Joe Biden, his online posts are reinvigorating a key element of his support from years past: the conspiracy theory known as QAnon,” USA Today reports.
“While QAnon largely faded from the spotlight after Trump left office, he has newly amplified the ideas on his social media platform, Truth Social.”
“Peter Navarro, a former top White House adviser to Donald Trump, isn’t interested in a pardon should ‘the boss’ return to power,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Navarro: “I will not give the Supreme Court any excuse to duck what is otherwise a landmark constitutional case regarding the separation of powers and executive privilege.”
“Perhaps no one has demonstrated loyalty to Trump like Navarro, the polarizing, wiry former White House China hawk and pandemic troubleshooter. And no one has quite paid the same price: Navarro is the first White House official in history to be imprisoned for contempt.”
Paul Manafort “has been secretly advising the 2024 re-election effort through his top campaign aides since last summer,” 24sight News reports.
“Manafort has quietly been passing strategic advice back to Trump through co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio… Manafort has been analyzing polling results and advised on the organization of state Republican parties and selecting delegates to the Republican nominating convention — one of his specialties.”
David Bernstein: “It’s not that those forward-looking policy topics are unimportant—see for example Eric Cortellessa’s valuable Trump interview for Time, which I wrote about recently. It’s just that asking Trump about his second-term policies feels a little like asking Charles Manson how he plans to decorate the Tate house when he moves in.”
“Pardon my questionable taste, and the rather dated reference, but hopefully you get my point.”
“Some of that normalization is sadly inevitable at this point; Republicans have chosen him as their nominee, so we’re kind of stuck going through the process now. But the moderators of this first major event of the general election could, and I think should, make a serious effort to ask him about his various assaults on the democratic process, the abuses of his office, and various outrageous acts from sexual assault to stealing classified documents… I daresay Bash and Tapper, following my suggestion, would run out of time before getting to any policy questions at all.”
“President Biden will designate Kenya on Thursday as a ‘major non-NATO ally,’ a move that reflects the president’s determination to deepen relations with the East African nation even as other countries — including Russia and China — are racing to do the same,” the New York Times reports.
CNN: Biden looks to counter China’s influence as he rolls out red carpet for Kenya.
New York Times: “State dinners are best known as bear hugs for overseas allies, and Thursday’s honoree was Kenya. But the sixth state dinner of President Biden’s term was designed to clutch domestic allies — not the least of them Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan — even tighter as the president makes the long slog toward November…”
“Aside from Mr. Obama — the former president was not on the initial guest list published by the White House, and he departed before Mr. Biden’s speech — the list name-checked the people Mr. Biden will want to bring closer into the fold in the months ahead. The lineup included elected officials in several battleground states, influential Black political operatives, and powerful philanthropists, like Melinda French Gates.”
“As Arab Americans hold back their support from President Joe Biden until he changes course on the Israel-Gaza war, Donald Trump’s ‘shadow secretary of state’ — Ric Grenell — met with Arab American leaders Tuesday night to try to convince them that the former president is a viable option for their community come November,” NOTUS reports.
“It didn’t go well.”
“The meeting… featured about 40 Arab American leaders, Grenell, Trump’s son-in-law Michael Boulos, and Boulos’ father, Massad Boulos…. Grenell came off as unsympathetic to the plight of Palestinians while actually angering some participants by reiterating a comment from Trump’s other son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who said in March that Israel should remove Palestinians from the valuable ‘waterfront property’ in Gaza.”
Said one attendee: “He repeated Jared Kushner’s statement about beachfront property, which I think floated like a lead balloon in the room.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced Thursday that he was calling a special legislative session to ensure President Biden will be on the November election ballot in his state, the Washington Post reports.
Said DeWine: “This is simply unacceptable. Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States, on the ballot this fall. Failing to do so is simply not acceptable. This is a ridiculous — this is an absurd — situation.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) jumped into the race for Senate Republican leader on Wednesday night and asked his colleagues for their support, Axios reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Scott has worked to build relationships among Republicans, organizing a regular breakfast for Senate Republicans and hosting dinners at his Capitol Hill home for both House and Senate Republicans to find common ground.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is playing up his feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as he vies to replace him as GOP leader, Politico reports.
Scott blamed McConnell for Senate Republicans’ losses in the 2022 midterms — even though Scott headed up the Senate GOP campaign arm — and accused McConnell of subsequently attempting to hurt his fundraising.
Said Scott: “He told people not to give me money.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was asked by Manu Raju on CNN about his appearance last week at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York:
RAJU: You think it’s very clear much of this danger in the hush money case. But what about the underlying alleged conduct of paying off a porn star to keep this extramarital affair quiet? You’re a deeply religious man, a moral man. Does that alleged conduct cause any concern about the former president?
JOHNSON: Look, I’m not going — I’m not going to comment on that.
“Rudy Giuliani has agreed to no longer accuse two Georgia poll workers of tampering with the 2020 election,” the Washington Post reports. “The agreement bars Giuliani — who has for years amplified election falsehoods as a staunch ally of former president Donald Trump — from publishing or assisting to publish false statements that the two workers “engaged in wrongdoing” related to the 2020 election.”
“After evading and publicly taunting Arizona prosecutors, Rudy Giuliani [appeared] in court in Phoenix on Tuesday to face criminal charges linked to his alleged efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss after the 2020 presidential election results in that state,” the Washington Post reports. “Giuliani — a former federal prosecutor, New York mayor and lawyer for Trump — was served a legal summons at his surprise birthday party in Florida on Friday night, more than three weeks after a grand jury indicted him. It’s the latest setback for Giuliani, who is facing a similar set of charges in Georgia, was ordered to pay $148 million to two election workers he defamed, and had his two radio shows canceled, all stemming from his efforts to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.”
“As you know, he does a lot of podcasting…We found him through his livestreams.”— Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), in a CNN interview, on how her office found Rudy Giuliani to serve him, three weeks after he was indicted.
Politico: “The court’s ruling on Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, a case challenging the power of in-house federal judges, could hobble a whole range of agencies in unpredictable ways, cutting the powers of antitrust enforcers, labor regulators and consumer finance watchdogs.”
“Driven by an alliance of tech billionaires, conservative legal activists and the business lobby, the legal campaign that has arisen around Jarkesy is a little-appreciated but significant version of the ‘war on the administrative state’ that Donald Trump promised but largely failed to deliver.”
“A stage in northern Mexico where a presidential hopeful was campaigning for a local candidate collapsed after a gust of wind blew through on Wednesday night, leaving at least nine people dead and at least 60 others injured,” the New York Times reports.
“The new leader of Taiwan barely had time to unpack his presidential office before China’s military surrounded the island on Thursday, in a large-scale show of force that risks locking the two sides in a fresh cycle of escalation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Growing mistrust of Beijing helped propel Lai Ching-te to the presidency, which he assumed earlier this week. The latest maneuvers only reinforce Beijing’s commitment to using its military might to intimidate the island, even as doing so risks undermining its especially delicate ties to the U.S.”
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his Bharatiya Janata Party has already won a majority of the seats contested in the parliamentary elections due to end next week, putting him in a position to return to office for a third term,” Bloomberg reports.
“Sen. Bob Menendez has spent an awful lot of time sitting down as he attends court for his ongoing bribery trial, so much so that it might have prompted an uncomfortable and embarrassing medical condition,” the Daily Mail reports. “Exclusive images show the embattled New Jersey Democrat exiting his vehicle at home Wednesday holding hemorrhoid creme.”
“The Republican National Committee’s Washington headquarters was briefly evacuated on Wednesday as police investigated two vials of blood that had been addressed to former President Donald Trump following the presumptive presidential nominee’s takeover of the national party apparatus,” the AP reports. “Hazardous-materials teams were called in after the vials were discovered, according to the U.S. Capitol Police, who said they would continue to investigate. It was unclear if anyone came into contact with the blood and to whom it belonged.”
CNN’s prime time programming just had its worst week of ratings since the 1990s, the New York Post reports.
“Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent candidate in the general election, a potentially awkward moment for his old party and Keir Starmer’s campaign to become UK prime minister,” Bloomberg reports.
Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA) said he suffered a “minor stroke” that will keep him out of Congress for six weeks, The Hill reports.
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