Rachel Thompson  //  7/23/19  //  Daily Update

Special Counsel Mueller will testify before Congress this Wednesday. The President’s efforts to limit asylum protections faced their first legal challenges in federal court. The President and congressional leaders reached a budget agreement on Monday, lifting the debt limit and dramatically raising federal spending levels. Citing two Miss Universe pageants and his “many Puerto Rican friends”, the President claims to be the best thing that ever happened to the unincorporated territory.

TRUMP: INVESTIGATIONS AND LITIGATION

Anticipating the testimony of Special Investigator Robert Mueller this Wednesday, Hadley Baker and Mikhaila Fogel recap at Lawfare what the report says the President did, say, or know.

Following Mueller’s testimony, Ryan Goodman and Elizabeth Holtzman suggest at Just Security that the House should prepare to a criminal referral for Attorney General Barr for possibly lying to Congress. 

IMMIGRATION

The President’s efforts to limit asylum protections faced the first legal challenges in federal court on Monday, writes Jacqueline Thomsen in The Hill

• She also wrote separately about an additional Appeals court decision to block the indefinite detention of asylum seekers. 

Following the Senate Minority Leader’s visit to border detention facilities last week, the President expressed an interest to meet with Senator Schumer ASAP to discuss immigration, according to David Cohen at Politico. 

CHECKS & BALANCES

The President and congressional leaders reached a budget agreement on Monday, lifting the debt limit and dramatically raising federal spending levels, according to Sarah Ferris, John Bresnahan, and Heather Caygle at Politico.

Responding to criticism, the President has cast a group of freshmen congresswoman as “Racist” and “bad for (the) Country,” writes Alexis Arnold at HuffPost.

• The President’s personal attack on the civic legitimacy of four congresswomen is contextualized in the history of damaging discourse by Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker.

FEDERALISM

Citing two Miss Universe pageants and his “many Puerto Rican friends”, the President claims to be the best thing that ever happened to the unincorporated territory, writes Julian Shen-Berro at HuffPost.

RULE OF LAW

The President met with Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, on Monday to discuss Afghan peace talks, report Michael D. Shear and Salman Masood at the New York Times.

• The President used the occasion to boast an ability to win the Afganistan war in a week, with a tremendous cost to life. (Politico)

A spokesperson for India’s ministry of external affairs refuted the President’s suggestion that the Prime Minster of India, Narendra Modi, requested his aid resolving a long-running conflict in Kashmir with Pakistan. (Financial Times)