TRUMP AGENDA: Let’s make a deal
From Kasie Hunt, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Frank Thorp: “A deal has been reached on a $1 trillion-plus bill to fund the government for the final five months of this fiscal year, an agreement that is likely to avert a government shutdown, aides to senior members of Congress told NBC News on Sunday. Congressional negotiators had been working through the weekend to hash out the last remaining complications in a bill to fund the government. After President Donald Trump backed down on funding for the construction of a border wall, some additional sticking points remained, including health benefits for coal miners, funding for Puerto Rico and an additional $30 billion for defense, delaying congressional negotiators and causing them to miss their deadline of Friday.”
More, from the Washington Post: “The bipartisan agreement includes policy victories for Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass the measure in the Senate, as well as $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security requested by Republican leaders in Congress.”
ICYMI: Vice President Mike Pence told one of us(!) that the Trump tax plan could increase the deficit “maybe in the short term.”
The Wall Street Journal has the latest on whether a GOP health care bill can actually pass.
Trump said Sunday that his health care bill would guarantee coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, which doesn’t match up with the language currently circulating in Congress.
The White House is bracing for backlash after Trump invited President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House, the New York Times. More: “Two senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally… It is not even clear, given the accusations of human rights abuses against him, that Mr. Duterte would be granted a visa to the United States were he not a head of state, according to human rights advocates.”
From POLITICO: “The White House is quietly starting to pull the plug on its shadow Cabinet of Trump loyalists who had been dispatched to federal agencies to serve as the president’s eyes and ears. These White House-installed chaperones have often clashed with the Cabinet secretaries they were assigned to monitor, according to sources across the agencies, with the secretaries expressing frustration that the so-called “senior White House advisers” are mostly young Trump campaign aides with little experience in government.”
The Washington Post offers a lengthy look at how the right found allies in Russia. “Top officials from the National Rifle Association, whose annual meeting Friday featured an address by Trump for the third time in three years, traveled to Moscow to visit a Russian gun manufacturer and meet government officials.”
Everytown for Gun Safety released this statement about the story: "It’s no surprise that the NRA is refusing to answer questions on their deliberate outreach to Russia. While NRA leaders like to talk about carrying the mantle of freedom, it appears they have been quietly cozying up to Moscow’s authoritarian regime.”
Trump, in an op-ed in the Washington Post: “One hundred days ago, I took the oath of office and made a pledge: We are not merely going to transfer political power from one party to another, but instead are going to transfer that power from Washington, D.C., and give it back to the people. In the past 100 days, I have kept that promise — and more.”
OFF TO THE RACES: Ros-Lehtinen retirement gives Dems major pickup opportunity
FL-27: The big news over the weekend: GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen won’t run again. From the Miami Herald: “U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the dean of the Florida legislative delegation and the first Cuban American elected to Congress, is retiring at the end of her term next year, saying it’s time to move on after more than 35 years in elected office. ‘It's been such a delight and a high honor to serve our community for so many years and help constituents every day of the week,’ the Miami Republican told the Miami Herald in an exclusive telephone interview Sunday. ‘We just said, it's time to take a new step.’”
Here’s more from the Miami Herald on who might be in line to replace her.
GA-06: Karen Handel is now embracing Donald Trump, notes the Washington Post. “That’s a big difference from the early phases of the contest, when Handel aligned herself with some parts of the president’s agenda but didn’t say much about Trump himself. There were other Republicans in the race who openly embraced Trump, and it didn’t help their candidacies.”
SC-05: Voters in South Carolina will go to the polls for round one of the special election primary on Tuesday. The State has a briefer on everything you need to know about the race on both sides.
MT-AL: “The leading candidates for Montana’s only congressional seat tangled Saturday over money, including taxes, campaign financing and $240,000 in investments by the Republican candidate that financial disclosures link to index funds with substantial holdings in Russian firms that are under sanctions by the U.S. government,” writes the AP. “The investments gave Democrat Rob Quist fresh ammunition to lob at Greg Gianforte during their only televised debate before the May 25 special congressional election. Libertarian Mark Wicks also took part in the debate.”
VA-GOV: One of us(!) reports on Ed Gillespie’s efforts to overcome national headwinds in Virginia.
The Washington Post, on the first gubernatorial primary debate for the Democrats: “Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former congressman Tom Perriello, locked in a neck-and-neck battle for the Democratic nomination to be Virginia’s governor, saved their harshest words for President Trump over the weekend, making their first primary debate a largely positive, gentlemanly affair.”
Perriello released a detailed tax reform plan on Friday that calls for higher taxes on the rich and corporations.