TRUMP CALLS THE WHITE HOUSE 'A REAL DUMP'
Trump Calls The White House 'A Real Dump': We're in a political era where even Golf Magazine is breaking Trump stories. In a profile of the "First Golfer," Golf reports that Trump said he spent his weekends at his various properties because "That White House is a real dump."
Christopher Wray Confirmed As FBI Director: Christopher Wray has been confirmed as the next FBI Director by The Senate. The vote for James Comey's successor was 92-5. Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley voted against confirming Wray.
State Department Considers Changing Mission To Exclude Promotion Of Democracy: In an email obtained by The Washington Post, a draft revision of The State Department mission appears to be virtually the same as before, except for the omission of the promotion of democracy. Former State Department officials say the omission is not accidental, saying that the mission is meant to signal the Department's priorities to other countries around the world.
Trump Personally Dictated Trump Jr.'s Response To Russian Lawyer Meeting: After the initial reports about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower during the campaign were released, the Trump team issued a statement about the nature of the meeting that was shown to be misleading (at best) by subsequent reporting. According to a new report from the Washington Post, Trump himself personally dictated the statement, which may end up putting him in legal jeopardy.
Update: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday afternoon that "The President weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had." She denied that President Trump had a statement dictated.
White House Officials Fooled By Email Prankster: According to CNN, an email prankster fooled Trump administration officials, including Anthony Scaramucci, into thinking he was a different official. At least one, DHS Adviser Tom Bossert, replied to the prankster with his personal email.
Kushner Tells Interns That Trump Campaign Too Disorganized To Collude With Russia: Foreign Policy reports that Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner told a group of congressional interns in an off-the-record session that the Trump campaign was so disorganized that "we couldn't even collude with our local offices." In the QA, interns were told not to leak any of Kushner's statements, but Foreign Policy obtained a recording of the session.
Wired also received a recording, reporting on Kushner's statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Kushner reportedly told the interns that he doesn't want to look back into the history books to solve the problem, that he believes Benjamin Netanyahu has been treated unfairly by the press and that he doesn't know if the Trump administration offers anything unique to the problem.
Commission Urges Trump To Declare National Emergency For Opioid Crisis: The commission, headed by Chris Christie and tasked with looking into solutions for the epidemic, has urged the President to take drastic measures, including a federal state of emergency, to deal with the crisis.
