memeorandum: Trump's latest moves demand a tougher response. A leading Democrat shows how. (Greg Sargent/Washington Post)

11:15 AM ET, April 29, 2019

Top Items:

Benjamin Wittes / The Atlantic:

Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report — I spent the week after the release of the Mueller report going through it section by section and writing a kind of diary of the endeavor. My goal was less to summarize the report than to force myself to think about each factual, legal …

Discussion: Raw Story

Ryan Goodman / Just Security:

Guide to the Mueller Report's Findings on “Collusion” — Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report focuses only on whether crimes were committed. It addresses two Russian conspiracies to interfere in the 2016 election—one involving a social media influence campaign and the other involving …

Discussion: Political Wire

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Trump's latest moves demand a tougher response. A leading Democrat shows how.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Daily Caller and Splinter

Gabriel Debenedetti / New York Magazine:

Wall Street Democrats Are Absolutely Freaking Out About Their 2020 Candidates — One night in early April, roughly 20 of the Democratic Party's highest-profile donors from the financial industry sat down over dinner to discuss how exactly they were feeling about the 2020 presidential race.

Christopher Cadelago / Politico:

Democrats dismiss Biden as front-runner in name only — In another election, at another time, the late entrance of a well-funded candidate leading in the polls might send convulsions through the primary field. — But Joe Biden's arrival into the 2020 race has not had that effect.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, NBC News, Splinter, Washington Post, Vox and Breitbart

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:
The Fickle Over the Faithful — Loyal supporters of the Democratic Party deserve answers.

Discussion: National Review and TheStreet

Jazz Shaw / Hot Air:
That Time Joe Biden Voted To Restore Robert E. Lee's Citizenship

Discussion: The American Spectator

Rick Klein / ABC News:
The Note: Democrats' path to 2020 victory paved with questions

Discussion: Washington Post

Rachel Stoltzfoos / The Daily Caller:

Combat Vet Who Stopped The Synagogue Shooter: ‘I Scared The Hell Out Of Him’ — The man who fired a semi-automatic weapon inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego on Saturday froze, dropped his gun and sprinted to his car when he saw Oscar Stewart come barreling toward him …

Discussion: RedState, USA Today, PJ Media Home, New York Post, Instapundit and Associated Press

Debra Kamin / The Times of Israel:

Poway Chabad rabbi had asked border patrol agent to pray armed - just in case — Agent Jonathan Morales had been driving 3.5 hours to attend services after recently discovering his Jewish roots — POWAY, California — Jonathan Morales, an armed off-duty US Customs and Border Patrol agent …

Discussion: Daily Wire, PJ Media Home, ABC News and Breitbart

Kristin Lam / USA Today:
Injured California rabbi gets a call from President Donald Trump: ‘He was just so comforting’

Discussion: PJ Media Home, CNN and Washington Free Beacon

Garrett Haake / NBC News:

Beto O'Rourke releases $5 trillion plan to combat climate crisis — The Democratic presidential candidate Monday released his first major policy proposal of the campaign, a four-pillar plan to battle climate change. — MODESTO, Calif. — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke …

Beto For America:

Climate Change — A FOUR-PART FRAMEWORK TO MOBILIZE A HISTORIC $5 TRILLION OVER TEN YEARS, REQUIRE NET-ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2050, AND ADDRESS THE GREATEST THREAT WE FACE — Climate change is the greatest threat we face — one which will test our country, our democracy, and every single one of us.

Discussion: Axios and Daily Caller News Foundation

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

Michael Cohen's Last Days of Freedom — These days, the President's former lawyer, and the fall guy in his web of misconduct, looks like a victim as well as a perpetrator. — It takes some time for Michael Cohen to work his way to a table at the grillroom of the Loews Regency Hotel, on Park Avenue.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Raw Story and Mediaite

Julie Pace / Associated Press:

New group launches to harness political power of women — WASHINGTON (AP) — Three of the nation's most influential activists are launching an organization that aims to harness the political power of women to influence elections and shape local and national policy priorities.

Discussion: Daily Caller News Foundation and Axios

Jacqueline Alemany / Washington Post:
Power Up: Trump's handling of illegal immigration is a weakness headed into 2020

Discussion: New York Times

Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
Here's what's next for Cecile Richards

Discussion: WTOP

Washington Post:

President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims — It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker's database, an average of eight claims a day. — But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark …

Discussion: CNN, Axios, Daily Kos, Rolling Stone, Outside the Beltway and Mediaite

David Freedlander / Politico:

‘I Want Him on Everything’: Meet the Woman Behind the Buttigieg Media Frenzy — If you read through the many, many profiles written of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in the past several months, it's hard not to notice just how many reporters happen to have had intimate personal encounters …

Discussion: The Guardian

David M. Drucker / Washington Examiner:

Trump campaign moving early to keep Arizona from switching to blue in 2020 — The Republican Party is moving early to build a political firewall around Arizona's critical Electoral College votes, a recognition that the perennial red state is threatening to turn against President Trump in 2020.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Ken Meyer / Mediaite:

Napolitano Denies Trump's Allegations in On-Air Response: This is How You Treat a Friend!? — Andrew Napolitano accused Donald Trump of mischaracterizing their conversations together when the president swiped at him over the weekend. — On Saturday, Trump insulted Napolitano's intelligence …

Associated Press:

The Men Who'll Ask First Iran-Contra Questions Aren't Members of Congress — WASHINGTON (AP) _ Neither Arthur L. Liman nor John W. Nields Jr. is a familiar name yet, but in the tradition of Senate Watergate counsel Sam Dash, both may become media stars. — Liman, hired by the Senate …

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:

‘I am proud to be a gay son of God’: Mormon valedictorian comes out in graduation speech — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints considers same-sex marriage to be a “serious transgression” — and, until this spring, treated Mormons involved in these unions as apostates …

Discussion: New York Post

Dexter Filkins / New Yorker:

John Bolton on the Warpath — Can Trump's national-security adviser sell the isolationist President on military force? — Earlier this year, as Donald Trump prepared to meet the North Korean Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un, in Vietnam, he took a moment in the State of the Union address …

Discussion: The American Conservative and Raw Story

Matt Bruenig / New York Times:

Universal Health Care Might Cost You Less Than You Think — We don't think of the premiums we already pay as taxes, but maybe we should. — Matt Bruenig is the founder of People's Policy Project. — As the national debate about health care kicks off ahead of the 2020 presidential election …

Stef W. Kight / Axios:

America's majority minority future — By 2045, the U.S. as a whole is projected to become majority minority. And the changes are already underway: non-white Americans are now the majority of the population in four states, as well as in the most prosperous and powerful U.S. cities.

Discussion: Political Wire

Chuck Grassley / Wall Street Journal:

Trump's Tariffs End or His Trade Deal Dies — Congress won't approve USMCA while constituents pay the price for Mexican and Canadian retaliation. — Donald Trump bucked decades of Republican orthodoxy by railing against free-trade agreements. To say I was skeptical of his plans to rip …

Discussion: Washington Times and Political Wire

Charles Sykes / The Bulwark:

The NRA Civil War: Pitting Grifter Against Grifter — Everything you need to know about the implosion of the NRA. — Even though the adage has been nearly worn out in the Age of Trump, it is probably obligatory to once again quote Eric Hoffer's observation that “Every great cause begins as a movement …

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Shareblue Media, National Review and Talking Points Memo

Natasha Bertrand / Politico:

Mueller report reveals Kushner's contacts with a ‘pro-Kremlin’ campaign adviser — Jared Kushner needed help. — It was March 2016 and Kushner's father-in-law, Donald Trump, was steamrolling to the Republican presidential nomination. But the businessman-candidate was taking heat …

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA and Raw Story

George Skelton / Los Angeles Times:

Kamala Harris can't afford to be cagey about where she stands on the issues … Clarity, courage and candor. That's what voters want from political candidates. Not circular claptrap. — That's especially true of candidates running in a crowded field of 20 for the Democratic nomination to take on President Trump next year.

Alan Fram / Associated Press:

GOP warnings about Democratic socialism tap voter unease — ALAMOSA, Colo. (AP) — In this scruffy, high-desert town encircled by prairies and potato farms, Sen. Cory Gardner drew shouts of approval last week for his message that Democrats are shoving the country toward socialism.