Mass shootings

• Two shootings in the past 24 hours left dozens of people in Texas and Ohio dead or injured. A 21-year-old white man was arrested in connection with the Saturday morning shooting at a Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso, which left at least 20 people dead and 26 others wounded, and authorities said they are investigating whether the suspect posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online before the massacre. The suspect who left at least 9 dead and 26 injured during an early Sunday morning shooting in popular downtown Dayton area was killed by police less than a minute after the attack began.

The White House

• President Donald Trump signed into law a two-year spending deal, which allocates more than $2.7 trillion in discretionary spending and suspends the debt ceiling until July 2021, despite opposition from some conservatives. The law raises domestic and military spending by more than $320 billion over the next two fiscal years and is projected to add $2 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

• Trump signed a bill into law that extends the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund through 2090. The fund — which ensures compensation for people injured during the 2001 terrorist attacks and while rescuing people and removing debris — was slated to expire in 2020.

• Trump withdrew plans to nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, saying a new nominee for the director position would be named shortly. The news came just days after Coats’ resignation and after a New York Times report that alleges Ratcliffe overstated his resume.

• One day after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer finished trade talks with Chinese officials in Shanghai, Trump said the United States will impose new tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, starting Sept. 1. Trump said the new 10 percent tariff will be in conjunction with the 25 percent tariff already placed on $250 billion of Chinese goods — essentially taxing all products that the United States buys from China.

• Attorney General William Barr issued an opinion that will restrict the ability of migrants to be eligible for asylum in the United States based on their family relations. The immigration courts fall under the purview of the Justice Department, so Barr’s ruling sets a precedent for future immigration court opinions.

• The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate for the first time since December 2008, reducing the rate by a quarter-point to a range of 2 percent to 2.25 percent. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell — who has faced a series of public attacks by Trump over the Fed’s rate policy — expressed concern about Trump’s trade conflicts and undesirably low inflation.

• The United States imposed sanctions on Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a move that could escalate tensions between the two countries. The Treasury Department said the sanctions were a consequence of Zarif’s connections to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was sanctioned in June, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that Zarif was “complicit” with Iran’s support of terrorism around the globe.

• Trump intensified his attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), labeling the leading black congressman a racist after Cummings criticized the president for calling Cummings’ majority-black Baltimore district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

2020

• Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Mike Conaway (R-Texas) each announced that they will not seek re-election year, joining Rep. Pete Olson as Texas Republicans who plan to retire after the current Congress.

• Republican Rep. Rob Bishop, the longest-serving member of Utah’s congressional delegation, also confirmed he will not seek a ninth term, keeping a self-imposed retirement pledge he made in 2012. Bishop, who has said he is considering running for governor of Utah next year, said he was undecided about his future campaign.

• Several top staffers at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee left their jobs amid lawmakers’ dissatisfaction with the lack of diversity in the party’s House campaign apparatus, which is headed by Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.). Jacqui Newman, the DCCC’s chief operating officer, will serve as interim executive director after the exit of several officials, including the DCCC’s executive director, communications director, political director and director of diversity.

• During Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate, several challengers attacked the record of the race’s front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, including his past positions on criminal justice reform, women’s rights and his support for Obama-era deportation levels. The stage’s second leading contender for the nomination, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, also faced criticism of her own history as a prosecutor and her proposal to overhaul the U.S. health care system.

• Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) faced pointed criticism from several moderate Democratic presidential contenders during Tuesday’s debate, most notably on the issues of health care and climate change.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be eligible for the state’s primary ballots. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow indicated a suit challenging the law was likely forthcoming, saying “the State of California’s attempt to circumvent the Constitution will be answered in court.”

Congress

• The share of House Democrats publicly backing impeachment proceedings against Trump reached a majority of the caucus after Florida Rep. Ted Deutch announced his support. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he supports House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s current resistance to opening a formal impeachment inquiry, after two prominent Democrats — Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the third-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, and Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) — voiced their support for starting proceedings.

• Two top staffers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who have ties to Justice Democrats are leaving the progressive New Yorker’s congressional office. Chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti — who has rankled a number of House Democrats with critical remarks on Twitter — is set to join a nonprofit focused on climate issues and elevating the Green New Deal, and communications director Corbin Trent will return to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign.

• The Senate voted 56-34 to confirm Kelly Craft, who currently serves as U.S. ambassador to Canada, to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, replacing former Ambassador Nikki Haley, who left at the end of 2018. Craft, a wealthy Republican donor from Kentucky, was criticized by Democratic lawmakers for her inexperience, as well as previous remarks questioning the severity of climate change and possible conflicts of interests in the fossil fuel industry.

• The Senate failed to override Trump’s vetoes of resolutions that would have blocked arms sales to Saudi Arabia, with only a handful of GOP senators voting with the Democrats. Lawmakers had sought to punish the kingdom for the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who lived in the United States.

The investigations

• State prosecutors subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents as they reportedly seek more information involving alleged hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to two women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump. After federal prosecutors ended their investigation of the same matter last week, a person familiar with the situation said the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is examining whether anyone at the company filed false business reports in connection with alleged payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

• The Justice Department will not prosecute former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey for his May 2017 release of memos, which detailed his interactions with President Donald Trump and contained classified information, said a person familiar with the matter. Comey said he gave the memos, which he considered as personal documents rather than FBI records, to a lawyer in the hopes that they would become public and prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

• The House and Senate are not in session.

• Puerto Rico’s Senate will vote Wednesday whether to ratify or reject the incumbency of Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, who was sworn in last week after Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned amid scandal. Pierluisi has said he will resign if the Senate chooses not to approve his governorship, and in that event, Secretary of Justice Wanda Vázquez would assume the role.

• Legal arguments between attorneys for the Justice Department and House Judiciary Committee are set to take place in September as Democrats work to gain access to the grand jury material from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

1) Detroit Debates Deliver Meager Returns for Biden’s Challengers
Joanna Piacenza, Morning Consult

2) DCCC faces mass staff upheaval after uproar over diversity
Heather Caygle et al., Politico

3) DOJ restricts asylum claims based on family relations
Ted Hesson and Josh Gerstein, Politico

4) Dan Coats to Step Down as Intelligence Chief; Trump Picks Loyalist for Job
Maggie Haberman et al., The New York Times

5) Alan Dershowitz, Devil’s Advocate
Connie Bruck, The New Yorker

6) Senate kicks budget vote to Thursday amid questions over GOP support
Jordain Carney, The Hill

7) ‘Bigoted and racist’: Al Sharpton joins chorus of outrage at Trump’s attacks on Baltimore
Rachel Chason and Ovetta Wiggins, The Washington Post

8) In contentious Democratic debate, deep divisions on health care separate liberals and moderates
Toluse Olorunnipa et al., The Washington Post

9) Accused of racism, Trump blasts black congressman as racist
Zeke Miller and Hope Yen, The Associated Press

10) Trump Sweats Fox News Loyalty, Grills Network Pals: ‘What the Hell Is Going On?’
Asawin Suebsaeng and Maxwell Tani, The Daily Beast