Politics

Variety reports: The tension between Tom Arnold and Mark Burnett boiled over into a physical altercation at Sunday’s Evening Before Emmy party, a fundraiser for the Motion Picture Television Fund. Details of the incident are still unclear. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Burnett and Arnold arrived at the event held at the Lawn at Century Park …

California college professor Christine Ford has come forward as the author of the letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when both of them were in high school. The Washington Post reports:  Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges …

Politico reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed on Sunday “there was a point in time” when he and President Donald Trump had seriously discussed pulling U.S. military dependents out of South Korea — a move that would have been widely seen as a precursor to military action on the peninsula. The South Carolina Republican said that at the time, “it looked …

USA Today reports: Ken Starr, the man who led the investigation that resulted in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, said he was was not surprised to see former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller. “He was under tremendous pressure,” the former judge said Sunday during an interview on “ABC This Week.” “Given the seriousness of the …

The Hill reports: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that he believes President Trump and his lawyers are “terrified” at the prospect of what former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort could tell prosecutors as part of a new cooperation agreement. “They may think they know what Manafort has to say because he was part of that joint defense agreement, but …

NBC News reports: FEMA administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing President Donald Trump’s criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Long defended the president for his response to Hurricane Maria last …

Axios reports: New York Democratic House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s State of the Union that Medicare for All would act not as “a short-term band-aid,” but as a “generational investment” that would ultimately save the American people money. Ocasio-Cortez and many of the progressive Democratic candidates running in 2018 have made single-payer healthcare, which would cost about $32.6 …

The New York Post reports: Former Vice President Joe Biden Saturday night told the audience at the Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner that he wished he trashed President Trump sooner. “Barack and I agreed we would be quiet for the first year to let the new administration get up and running,” Biden said. “God forgive me,” he said, making the …

The New York Times reports: Back when their relationship was fresh and new, and President Trump still called his defense secretary “Mad Dog” — a nickname Jim Mattis detests — the wiry retired Marine general often took a dinner break to eat burgers with his boss in the White House residence. But the burger dinners have stopped. In the second …

TechCrunch reports: California plans to launch a satellite to monitor pollution in the state and contribute to climate science, Governor Jerry Brown announced today. The state is partnering with satellite imagery purveyor Planet to create a custom craft to “pinpoint – and stop – destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before.” Governor Brown made …

The Huffington Post reports: Former Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a blistering assessment of President Donald Trump’s character on Friday’s broadcast of Real Time with Bill Maher. “He is the first president that I know of who spends more time reading his Twitter ‘likes’ than his briefing books or the constitution of the United States,” Kerry told Maher. “Unfortunately, …

Fortune reports: Get ready to receive a text message from President Donald Trump on Sept. 20. But it won’t be a political message or attack on one of his perceived enemies—or at least, it’s not supposed to be. He plans to message every cell phone in America to test a new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) system that will allow …

The Texas Tribune reports: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, have agreed to three debates before Election Day. Announced Friday by both campaigns, the schedule calls for debates Sept. 21 in Dallas, Sept. 30 in Houston and Oct. 16 in San Antonio. Each event will be an hour long and …

The Raleigh News & Observer reports: President Donald Trump is planning to visit areas affected by Hurricane Florence next week, though his exact plans are not yet finalized. “The President is expected to travel to areas affected by the storm early to middle of next week, once it is determined his travel will not disrupt any rescue or recovery efforts. …

Vanity Fair reports: Manafort is one of a number of members of Trump’s inner circle who have cut deals with the special counsel’s office, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Manafort deputy Rick Gates. In recent weeks, it has also become common knowledge among close friends of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, that Cohen is talking to …

“Once he agrees to cooperate, he has to cooperate about everything. There’s no such thing as partial cooperation. There will be no pardon. It will backfire at this point — if he’s given a pardon then he can’t take the Fifth, he would have to testify anyway. He could be called in front of a grand jury. The pardon is …

From the right-leaning Rasmussen Polls: Democrat Andrew Gillum holds a six-point lead over Republican Ron DeSantis in the race to be Florida’s next governor. The first Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of the race finds that Gillum earns 48% support to DeSantis’ 42% among Likely Florida Voters. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) …

Politico reports: Canadians who work in the marijuana industry — and those who invest in the booming pot sector — risk a lifetime ban on travel to the U.S., according to a senior official overseeing U.S border operations. As Canada prepares to become the world’s only major industrialized nation to legalize retail marijuana sales starting Oct. 17, the Canadian cannabis …

NBC News reports: People born in New York City who don’t identify as male or female will soon be able to select a nonbinary gender category on their birth certificates. The New York City Council and Board of Health voted on Wednesday to include a third gender category, “X,” on birth certificates starting Jan. 1, 2019. Furthermore, the legislation will …

Roll Call reports: Rep. Clay Higgins has an idea for how to get Congress to clean up its act: random drug screenings. “I have observed some behavior that would cause one to wonder,” Higgins, a freshman GOP congressman from Louisiana said, apparently joking. But his legislation to proposal to test senators and House members for drug use once per term …