Politics

Talking Points Memo reports: The White House on Wednesday listed 12 organizations to which President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump had pledged to donate a total of $1 million as part of their Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Two organizations, Red Cross and Salvation Army, together received a majority of the sum, at $300,000 each. Reach Out America and …

The Washington Post reports: Representatives of Facebook told congressional investigators Wednesday that it has discovered it sold ads during the U.S. presidential election to a shadowy Russian company seeking to target voters, according to several people familiar with the company’s findings. Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000, to a Russian “troll farm” with a history …

The Associated Press reports: The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed $7.9 billion in Hurricane Harvey disaster relief as warring Republicans and Democrats united behind help for victims of that storm as an ever more powerful new hurricane bore down on Florida. The 419-3 vote sent the aid package — likely the first of several — to the Senate in hopes …

The Charlotte Observer reports: The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party Tuesday condemned a Facebook post from a Charlotte Republican candidate who listed one of her qualifications as being “white.” “VOTE FOR ME!” mayoral candidate Kimberley Paige Barnette had posted. “REPUBLICAN & SMART, WHITE, TRADITIONAL.” “Any suggestion that a candidate is more or less qualified for political office based …

NBC News reports: Former President Barack Obama criticized his successor Tuesday for rescinding an immigration program that protects some undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation, calling President Donald Trump’s decision “cruel.” Preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, is “about basic decency,” Obama said, defending his signature immigration action in one of his few …

CNBC reports: Republican Sen. John McCain denounced President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced it. McCain, R-Ariz., called Trump’s decision “the wrong approach” to immigration policy. “I strongly believe that children who were illegally brought into this country through no fault of their own should not be …

The New York Daily News reports: Feel the burned. Hillary Clinton torches her Democratic primary rival Bernie Sanders and blames him in part for her defeat in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir about the 2016 race. In a passage from “What Happened,” Clinton accuses Sanders and the so-called “Bernie Bros” sect of his supporters for slinging mud on her …

The Hill reports: Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pledging that Democrats will fight the Trump administration’s decision to phase out an Obama-era program allowing undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children to remain legally. “The human and economic toll of rescinding DACA will be far reaching and Democrats will do everything we can to prevent President Trump’s …

Via press release from House Speaker Paul Ryan: However well-intentioned, President Obama’s DACA program was a clear abuse of executive authority, an attempt to create law out of thin air. Just as the courts have already struck down similar Obama policy, this was never a viable long-term solution to this challenge. Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this …

The New York Times reports: “The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded,” Mr. Sessions told reporters, adding that “The policy was implemented unilaterally, to great controversy and legal concern.” Mr. Sessions called the Obama-era policy an “open-ended circumvention of immigration laws” and an unconstitutional use of executive authority. “The executive branch through …

USA Today reports: Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to announce the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA, Tuesday. The Trump administration will reportedly end the Obama-era program, but kick it to lawmakers to attempt a legislative fix first, rather than immediately end it. DACA shields roughly 800,000 young immigrants from deportation. Critics quickly …

Oh brother. Politico reports: Sean Spicer is cashing in on “candor.” President Donald Trump’s first press secretary – who ceded his high-profile post to Sarah Huckabee Sanders in July but celebrated his official last day in the West Wing on Aug. 31 – has signed with Worldwide Speakers Group, the company confirmed to POLITICO. “Audiences around the world will benefit …

The New York Times reports: President Vladimir V. Putin seemed to be in top form during a news conference in China on Tuesday, answering a question about President Trump by saying the American leader is “not my bride, and I am not his groom.” While the comment could be interpreted as a subtle jab by a macho Mr. Putin against …

The Hill reports: President Trump told Congress to “get ready to do your job” on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in a tweet on Tuesday just before an expected announcement that he is eliminating DACA. The Justice Department said late Monday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will make an announcement on Tuesday about the Obama-era program, which temporarily …

Newsweek reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara is expected to face criminal charges over fraud amounting to the equivalent of over $110,000 after, among other accusations, she is alleged to have used public funds to throw lavish dinner parties and hire private chefs. The indictment against Sara Netanyahu, anticipated in a matter of weeks, sees the noose begin …

The Daily Beast reports: Defense Secretary James Mattis threatened military action against North Korea on Sunday, hours after the regime claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb that can be attached to an intercontinental ballistic missile. “Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response—a response both …

“The president and first lady felt compelled to donate $1 million of their own money. They felt compelled to visit [Texas] twice, to really spend the time yesterday, engage people, look them in the eye. This is the Donald Trump that so many of us know and are privileged to work with and to know very close and personal. People …

Mediaite reports: President Trump recently returned from his visit to flood-ravaged Texas and Louisiana, so he decided to get back on his phone and retweet another random Twitter supporter. This one provided him with a new way to make fun of Hillary Clinton. In a few days, Clinton will release What Happened, a collection of memoirs which is expected to …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump has joked that his hands are “too big” while helping to serve food to victims of storm Harvey at a shelter in Houston. Video broadcast by US networks of President Trump’s visit to the NRG Center shows him putting on gloves to help with the hand-out at a food serving line before turning to where …

The Associated Press reports: Mysterious incidents affecting the health of American diplomats in Cuba continued as recently as August, the United States said Friday, despite earlier U.S. assessments that the attacks had long stopped. The U.S. increased its tally of government personnel affected to 19. The new U.S. disclosures came the same day that the union representing American diplomats said …