Senate Dems Hold Out On Spending Deal, Risking Shutdown

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime fixer, described his role at the Trump Organization during testimony Monday at a Manhattan courthouse as essentially “whatever” Trump “wanted,” Axios reports. Said Cohen: “The only thing that was on my mind was to accomplish the task, to make him happy.”

“Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice,” the Washington Post reports.

“Don’t look now, but inflation expectations are picking up — both in the corporate C-suite and at Americans’ kitchen tables,” Axios reports. “When people expect higher inflation, it can be self-fulfilling — and if this reversal of progress in inflationary psychology continues, it will make Federal Reserve leaders warier of cutting interest rates.”

Russell Berman: “Earlier this month, federal prosecutors bestowed on Republicans what seemed like an election-year gift: charging a senior House Democrat in a competitive district with accepting $600,000 in bribes and acting as a foreign agent. For a party clinging to a threadbare majority in the House, the indictment offered an obvious opportunity for an America First attack.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), “running unopposed in the Democratic primary for U. S. Senate in Arizona, placed a reservation on Monday for $19 million in television advertisements for the general election this fall, according to his campaign — the largest any Senate candidate in the country has made so far,” the New York Times reports.

Donald Trump Jr. visited Peter Navarro in Miami federal prison, ABC News reports. Said Trump: “It’s important to show support.”