Politics

NBC News reports: U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis is resigning from Congress as he mounts his bid to become Florida’s next governor. DeSantis sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Monday announcing his immediate resignation. The northeast Florida Republican said in his letter that he will be spending time campaigning and it would be “inappropriate” to accept a salary …

Arizona’s US Senate race between Rep. Martha McSally and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema [photo] is now a dead heat: A Gravis Marketing poll found McSally ahead of Sinema 49 to 48 percent, a lead within the survey’s 3.3 point margin of error. Three percent of voters are still undecided. Monday’s survey is the first one this year where McSally, who recently …

Politico reports: He hasn’t decided yet if he’s running for president, but Michael Avenatti has already made a strategic 2020 decision. The attorney will base his national presidential campaign headquarters in St. Louis, Mo. should he launch a White House bid, he told POLITICO on Sunday. Avenatti also boldly predicted that the red state of Missouri would be “in play” …

The Huffington Post reports: On Sunday night, former Cruz campaign strategist Rick Tyler said his old boss may be in trouble deep in the heart of Texas as O’Rourke may pull off an upset win. “It’s possible,” Tyler said on MSNBC. Although Texas is such a red state, that doesn’t seem to be helping Cruz right now. “It should be …

Raw Story reports: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told a rally crowd in Humble, Texas that his opponent would turn Texas into California by bringing “tofu, silicon and dyed hair,” according to a Reuters reporter. James Oliphant of Reuters was at the rally, where Cruz was asked repeatedly about a White House aide’s comments suggesting that he could lose to Democratic …

The New York Times reports: A pair of top Republicans acknowledged in a private meeting on Saturday that the party was battling serious vulnerabilities in the midterm elections, including what one described as widespread “hate” for President Trump, and raised the prospect that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas could lose his bid for re-election because he is not seen as …

The Billings Gazette reports: Billings West High School senior Tyler Linfesty learned Thursday morning during first period that he had been selected for VIP treatment at President Donald J. Trump’s rally at MetraPark. Not long after Trump took the podium Thursday night at MetraPark, social media cued into Linfesty’s puzzled facial expressions, visible just over Trump’s right shoulder. Early on …

Bloomberg reports: Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy lost his fight to prevent the public from learning about allegations in a lawsuit by former Playboy model Shera Bechard that he coerced her into having an abortion after getting her pregnant. Among Bechard’s allegations are that Broidy refused to wear condoms and didn’t disclose to her that he had genital herpes until years …

CNN reports: Former President Barack Obama said President Donald Trump is “capitalizing on resentment that politicians have been fanning for years” and questioned “What happened to the Republican Party?” a preview of Obama’s message for the fall’s midterms and his most pointed rebuke to date of his successor in the White House. Obama stepped back into the political fray Friday, …

The Hill reports: The Senate’s top two Republican lawmakers say Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) might be subject to an official review by the Senate Ethics Committee for releasing documents labeled “confidential” related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past work at the White House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Hugh Hewitt on Friday that Booker’s decision — which the …

Mediaite reports: At Donald Trump‘s rally in Billings, Montana, one audience member placed just behind the president was not buying it. Twitter users noticed that the rallygoer — known only as the man with the plaid shirt — kept responding to some of the more Trumpian claims made by the president at his rally with expressions of shock, doubt and …

Reuters reports: A Miss America contestant won her preliminary round in the competition after she was asked what advice she would give NFL players on whether to kneel or stand for the national anthem. Miss Virginia, Emili McPhail, said that kneeling during the national anthem is “a right you have” but also emphasized in her answer that national anthem protests …

NBC News reports: In November, Americans could elect more than 100 women to the House for the first time in history — and put more new women in the House than in any prior election, a new race-by-race analysis shows. But the impending surge is being driven entirely by Democrats: The number of Republican women in the House is actually …

The Washington Post reports: More than 12 hours after the questioning began Thursday morning, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) adjourned the confirmation hearing for the day. Grassley closed the session by praising Kavanaugh for his “compelling and credible” answers, highlighted his history on the bench and said that “unquestionably, you’re qualified to serve on the Supreme Court …

The Hill reports: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said today that President Trump should use lie-detector tests to find out which senior administration official authored an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times this week blasting the president. “We use the lie-detector test routinely for CIA agents and FBI agents,” he argued. “If you have a security clearance in the White …

Politico reports: Melania Trump on Thursday said the anonymous author of an explosive New York Times op-ed alleging her husband is unfit for office is “sabotaging” the country. “To the writer of the op-ed — you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions,” she told CNN. “People with no names are writing our nation’s …

CNN reports: “If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren today told CNN. “The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can’t do his job. It does not provide that senior officials …

The Hill reports: President Trump’s removal from office, either by impeachment or electoral means, would not endanger America’s economy or trend of economic growth, financial analysts at Barclays said Thursday. In a post on LinkedIn published Wednesday, the firm’s head of investment strategy in London wrote that economic growth has “little” to do with actions taken by or affecting the …

The New York Times reports: Voters in Texas received a mysterious text message on Wednesday, one that purported to be from a campaign volunteer for Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat who is running against Ted Cruz for Senate this fall. “We are in search of volunteers to help transport undocumented immigrants to polling booths so that they will be able to …

NBC News reports: President Trump’s policy that has resulted in the separation of parents and children along the southern border may have accomplished something Latino activist groups haven’t before: Prompting a long-term voter registration drive uniting progressive and traditional Democratic groups. On Thursday, a new coalition led by the nonprofit advocacy group Voto Latino will launch a three-year, multi-million dollar …