1/ Trump: “I don’t blame China� for taking “advantage� of the US with its “very one-sided and unfair� trade deal. Trump instead blamed past US administrations “for having allowed it to get so far out of kilter.� The comments were made during a joint appearance with President Xi in Beijing. Trump added: “After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for benefit of their citizens? I give China great credit.� (Washington Post / The Hill / Axios)

I don’t blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!

My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!

Full Quote:

“I don’t blame China. After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit. But, in actuality, I do blame past administrations for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow. We have to fix this because it just doesn’t work for our great American companies, and it doesn’t work for our great American workers.� –Trump

2/ Affordable Care Act signups are outpacing last year’s enrollment with more than 600,000 people selecting a plan through HealthCare.gov in the first four days since enrollment opened. In the first 12 days of last year’s open enrollment, 1,008,218 people selected plans. Enrollment this year lasts 45 days – half as long as in the past – and for most states enrollment will end on December 15th. Several states are allowing residents to sign up for ACA plans into January. (Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

3/ John Kelly pressured the acting Homeland Security secretary, Elaine Duke, to expel tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants after she granted them a six-month extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Kelly and Tom Bossert, White House homeland security adviser, both called Duke, telling her that her decision “prevents our wider strategic goal� on immigration. Underlying the call was Kelly’s concern that his handpicked nominee for DHS secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, would...

1/ Trump told 12 Senate Democrats that he would “get killed� financially by the GOP tax bill in an attempt to increase Democratic support by claiming the bill would hurt wealthy taxpayers like himself. Trump wants Democrats to support repealing the estate tax, because they need to give something to rich people. Repealing the estate tax would provide an additional $300 billion dollar tax break to the wealthy.

The Joint Committee on Taxation found that the tax bill would add $1.574 trillion to the deficit over a decade, which is $74 billion over the maximum amount it can add if Republicans want to take advantage of special Senate rules that would allow them to pass the bill with 50 votes. The Senate plans to release its tax bill this week; it is expected to differ significantly from the House bill. (NBC News / Washington Post)

2/ Trump warned North Korea that developing nuclear weapons was putting the country in “grave danger.� Trump, during a speech to South Korea’s National Assembly, called on all countries to isolate Pyongyang by denying it “any form of support, supply or acceptance,� saying the “world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens it with nuclear devastation.� He warned North Korea to “not underestimate us and do not try us.� Trump’s return to tough talk came a day after he had softened his rhetoric and asked Pyongyang to “come to the table� and “make a deal.� (Reuters)

3/ Corey Lewandowski’s “memory has been refreshed� about Carter Page’s trip to Russia. In March, Trump’s former campaign manager said he “never met Carter Page.� On Tuesday, Lewandowski described Page as a “low-level volunteer� who had “no formal role in the campaign,� and “to the best of my recollection, I don’t know Carter Page.� Page testified last week to the House Oversight Committee that he had asked Lewandowski and Hope Hicks for permission to travel to Moscow. After the trip, Page emailed Lewandowski, Hicks, Sam Clovis, JD Gordon, and then-Senator Jeff Sessions about his trip to Russia, where he met with Russian officials and discussed the presidential campaign. (Politico / Talking Points Memo)

4/ Leadership at the State Department is being “depleted at a dizzying speed,� the president of the Foreign Service officers’ union said. Since January, the State Department has lost 60% of its career ambassadors, 42% of its career ministers, and 15% of its minister counselors – and the numbers “are still falling.� (

1/ Carter Page testified that he received permission from Corey Lewandowski to visit Moscow in July 2016, he told the House Intelligence Committee during his seven-hour testimony yesterday. Page also told senior campaign officials Sam Clovis, Hope Hicks, and JD Gordon, as well as then-Senator Jeff Sessions, about his trip to Russia. When he returned, Page sent an email to campaign officials saying he had received “incredible insights and outreach� from “senior members� of Putin’s administration and suggested that Trump should make a foreign policy speech in Russia and “raise the temperature a little bit.� Page maintains that his trip was made as a private citizen and was unrelated to his role in the Trump campaign. (CNN / NBC News / Washington Post)

2/ Jeff Sessions will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on November 14th about his past statements regarding contacts between Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries. Sessions is also expected appear in a closed session with the House Intelligence Committee on the same day. (Reuters)

Justice Department dropped their case against a woman who laughed at Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing. (HuffPost)

Another protester escorted out of Sessions hearing. Her original offense appeared to be simply laughing. pic.twitter.com/p6lWzBVFRW

3/ Trump told CIA director Mike Pompeo to meet with a former intelligence officer who claimed the DNC emails were “leaked� – not hacked. Pompeo met last month with William Binney, who has challenged a January 2017 intelligence community report from the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA that concludes “Putin ordered an influence campaign … to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.� Trump has called the report “fake news.� (The Intercept)

4/ The White House has prepared an executive order to weaken the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which requires taxpayers to demonstrate proof of insurance or pay a fine. The order would broaden the “hardship exemption� that was established for those facing extraordinary circumstances (e.g., the death of a family member, bankruptcy, or natural disaster). Trump would sign the order if Republicans fail to include suc...

1/ Trump: The Texas church shooting isn’t a guns issue, it’s a mental health issue. “Mental health is your problem here,� Trump said. “This isn’t a guns situation. This is a mental health problem at the highest level.� Devin Patrick Kelley, a young white male, was dressed in all-black “tactical-type gear� and wearing a ballistic vest when he opened fire on the church using a Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic rifle. He killed at least 26 people. Kelley passed a background check despite being discharged from the Air Force for “bad conduct� – assaulting his wife and their child. The discharge did not show up as a prohibited offense on his background check. (CNN / New York Times)

Ted Cruz accused gun control advocates of “politicizing� the Sutherland Springs shooting, pointing out that trucks can kill people, too. He was, of course, referencing the terror attack in New York City where a driver ran over pedestrians and cyclists with a truck. (The Daily Beast)

Cruz says it’s not the time to “politicize� the deadly church shooting in Texas: “Evil is evil is evil" https://t.co/QnJMi14Mt5

2/ Robert Mueller has enough evidence to charge Michael Flynn and his son as part of the Russia probe. Mueller’s team is looking at possible money laundering charges, lying to federal agents, and Flynn’s role in a plan to remove an opponent of the Turkish president from the US in exchange for millions of dollars. (NBC News / Reuters)

3/ A Russian lawyer said Trump Jr. offered to have an anti-Russian law re-examined if Trump won the election. “Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,� Trump Jr. said of the Magnitsky Act, which the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was lobbying against. Trump Jr. met with Veselnitskaya lawyer in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner after being promised “information that would incriminate� Hillary Clinton. (Bloomberg)

4/ Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross retained investments in a shipping company tied to Putin’s inner circle. Ross and his private equity firm are the biggest shareholders in Navigator Holdings. Navigator’s largest client is the Russian energy firm Sibur, which is partly owned by a Russian oligarch and Putin’s son-in-law. The revelation comes after the so-called Paradise Papers were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The trove of more than 13 million documents reveal how some wealthy individuals have used offshore havens to avoid paying taxes. (New York Times /

Current Status: Trump and Jeff Sessions have denied knowing about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. Court documents suggest otherwise. Records show that at a March 31, 2016, meeting between Trump, Sessions, and the campaign’s foreign policy team, George Papadopoulos introduced himself and said “that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin.� (New York Times)

1/ Trump does not “remember much� from the meeting with George Papadopoulos, where Papadopoulos offered to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. Trump called it a “very unimportant meeting [that] took place a long time [ago]. Don’t remember much about it.� According to a person present for the meeting, Trump didn’t dismiss the idea of meeting with Putin, but Jeff Sessions did. Trump has described himself as having “one of the greatest memories of all time.� (Politico / NPR)

"One of the great memories of all time. " pic.twitter.com/OGddw0EEYr

2/ Carter Page testified that he told Jeff Sessions about his 2016 trip to Russia during the presidential campaign. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in June, Sessions testified that he had “no knowledge� of any conversations between “anyone connected to the Trump campaign.� During his confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked if “anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government� during the campaign. Sessions responded: “I’m not aware of any of those activities … I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.� (CNN)

3/ Republicans called on Robert Mueller to resign as special counsel over what they contend to be “obvious conflicts of interest.� Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, and Louie Gohmert introduced a measure to put the House on record describing Mueller as unfit to lead the Russia probe because of his relationship with James Comey, who was Mueller’s successor at the FBI. (Reuters / Politico)

1/ House Republicans unveiled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduces the number of tax brackets from seven to five, maintains the top tax rate at 39.6%, raises the standard deduction from $6,350 to $12,000 for individuals and from $12,700 to $24,000 for married couples. The bill reduces the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, repeals the state and local income tax deductions, limits the property tax deduction to $10,000, and expands the child tax credit from $1,000 to $1,600. The treatment of pre-tax contributions to 401(k) and IRA would be preserved. Homeowners can keep their mortgage interest deduction, but the bill caps the deduction for new mortgages at $500,000, while also repealing the estate tax in 2024. The bill is estimated to cost $1.487 trillion over a decade, but lawmakers must keep the cost of the bill to $1.5 trillion if they want to pass it along party lines and avoid a filibuster by Democrats. (NBC News / New York Times / Wall Street Journal)

2/ Sam Clovis has withdrawn his nomination for the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist role after coming under criticism for his lack of science credentials (he’s not a scientist) and for his role supervising George Papadopoulos. In a letter to Trump, Clovis wrote that he does “not want to be a distraction or a negative influence.� Clovis is a self-described skeptic of climate change. (Politico / Bloomberg)

3/ The White House learned that Sam Clovis testified before the grand jury from media reports. Last week Clovis testified before the investigating grand jury and was questioned by Robert Mueller’s team about his role on Trump’s campaign. Emails between Clovis and George Papadopoulos, whom he supervised, show Clovis encouraging Papadopoulos to engage with his Russian contacts. (ABC News)

4/ Senate Democrats asked Jeff Sessions to clarify his confirmation hearing remarks regarding attempts by the campaign to coordinate a meeting between Trump and Putin. Both the Senate intelligence and judiciary committees asked Sessions to formally clarify his remarks after it was reported that Trump declined to rule out the idea proposed by George Papadopoulos. Sessions weighed in and rejected the proposal to use Papadopoulos’ “Russian contacts� to arrange a meeting. During his confirmation testimony, Sessions testified that he was “not aware� of anyone from the Trump campaign communicating with the Russians. (

1/ Trump did not dismiss the idea of meeting with Putin when it was suggested by George Papadopoulos in March 2016. “He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no,� according to a person in the room at the time. Jeff Sessions shot down the idea. However, in a July 2016 email to his Russian contact, Papadopoulos proposed a meeting in August or September between “my national chairman and maybe one other foreign policy adviser� and members of Putin’s office and Russia’s foreign ministry. “It has been approved by our side,� Papadopoulos wrote. It’s not clear if the meeting ever occurred, but Paul Manafort was the campaign chairman at the time. (CNN / Bloomberg)

Paul Manafort and Rick Gates posed a “serious risk of flight,� Robert Mueller argued in the pair’s bail memo. He requested sizable bail and travel restrictions on the two because of their “substantial overseas ties, including assets held abroad, significant foreign work connections, and significant travel abroad.� Manafort’s bail was set at $10 million, Gates’s at $5 million. Manafort currently has three US passports. Both are on house arrest. (NBC News/ CNN)

Speculation: Jeff Sessions may have perjured himself. During his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions was asked “if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government� during the campaign. Sessions responded: “I’m not aware of any of those activities… I didn’t have – did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.� (New Republic)

2/ Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was the second day in a row the tech companies answered questions on Capitol Hill. The tech firms admitted that they could have done more to prevent Russian meddling in the US election. Yesterday, the firms said that content by a Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency sought “to create discord between Americans� during the election, but after the election, the troll farm sought to undermine Trump’s legitimacy. (Washington Post / Politico)

3/ Twitter offered Russian television network RT 15% of its US election advertising inventory for $3 million dollars. The US intelligence community describes RT as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.� (BuzzFeed News)

1/ Trump spent yesterday “seething� as he watched the Mueller probe unfold on TV. The indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates weren’t a surprise to Trump, but the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos for making false statements to the FBI was not expected. “The walls are closing in,� said a senior Republican in close contact with top Trump staffers. “Everyone is freaking out.� (Washington Post / CNN)

2/ Team Trump dismissed Papadopoulos as a “liar,� their “coffee boy,� and just a “young, low level volunteer� after the former foreign policy adviser cut a plea deal with prosecutors yesterday. In a morning tweet, Trump cast the Manafort charges as a sort of vindication for the campaign, but belittled Papadopoulos as a proven liar, despite having called him “an excellent guy� in March 2016. On CNN’s “New Day,� Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign aide, reduced Papadopoulos to a “coffee boy� that “never did anything� for the campaign. (Politico / Washington Post / New York Times)

The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts lawyer said, there was "no collusion" and events mentioned took place long before he...

....came to the campaign. Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!

Despite audio of Trump praising Papadopoulos, Caputo says "he never did anything" with the campaign https://t.co/uywdZDRDTP

3/ Court documents show that Papadopoulos shared his Russian outreach with several senior Trump campaign officials. Here’s the breakdown:

“The Campaign Supervisor� named in the documents is Sam Clovis, who served as Trump’s n...

1/ In a 12-count indictment, Robert Mueller charged Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates with conspiracy to launder more than $18 million, making false statements to the Justice Department, and other charges stemming from probes into possible Russian influence in US political affairs. The indictment of Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Gates focused on their work advising a pro-Russia party in Ukraine between 2006 to 2015, laundering money through 2016, and continuing the conspiracy against the US in 2017. The charges – the first by Mueller – make no mention of Trump or Russian election meddling. Both Manafort and Gates surrendered to Justice Department and pleaded not guilty on all counts today. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Politico)

Read the unsealed federal grand jury indictment against Manafort and Gates. (CNN)

The 12-count Manafort and Gates indictment, annotated. (Washington Post)

A conservative website funded by a major Republican donor was the first to hire Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. The Washington Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired Fusion GPS in October 2015. (New York Times)

2/ Trump’s former foreign policy adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about an April 2016 conversation with a professor with close ties to the Russian government that said Moscow had “dirt� on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.� George Papadopoulos repeatedly tried to arrange a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials. Papadopoulos was arrested in July 2017 and has been working with Mueller ever since as a “proactive cooperator,� court documents show. The single felony count against Papadopolous directly relates to the 2016 presidential campaign. (New York Times / Bloomberg / NBC News / Politico)

Feds asked to seal Papadopoulos' case b/c disclosure could undermine his ability to serve as "proactive cooperator" https://t.co/4VJjx1bI9H pic.twitter.com/aA9QOFYjbK

1/ Trump hasn’t imposed sanctions on Russia because Rex Tillerson dissolved the office that implements them. After the Coordinator for Sanctions Policy office was eliminated just one mid-level official is now responsible for coordinating the implementation of sanctions across the State Department and other government agencies. The administration missed the October 1st deadline to implement new penalties against Russia, which were adopted by Congress in August. (Foreign Policy / The Hill)

2/ Trump claimed that it’s “commonly agreed� that he didn’t collude with Russia. Instead, he accused Hillary Clinton of working with the Kremlin amid reports that Clinton and the DNC paid for the dossier of accusations about Trump and his ties to Russia. Trump tweeted that “after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!� (Politico / The Hill)

It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!

3/ Republican lawmakers intend to wind down their Trump-Russia investigations even though the issue of collusion remains unresolved. The Senate Intelligence Committee wants the panel’s investigation to end by February – ahead of the first 2018 primary elections – while the House Intelligence Committee hopes to finish before that. (Politico)

4/ The memo Natalia Veselnitskaya brought to the Trump Tower meeting was coordinated with the Kremlin, undercutting the Russian lawyer’s claim that she was an independent actor when she sat down with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manaf...