memeorandum: Donald Trump Threatened North Korea After Completely Imaginary Negotiations (Jeffrey Lewis/Foreign Policy)

10:45 AM ET, October 4, 2017

Top Items:

Tillerson's Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence — WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House, according to multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time.

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Post, RedState, Talking Points Memo, Axios, Reuters, New York Magazine, Shareblue, The Daily Caller, Democrats.com, Splinter, Towleroad, Business Insider, The Week, CNBC, IJR, Raw Story, Mediaite and Washington Times

ProPublica:

Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. Were Close to Being Charged With Felony Fraud — New York prosecutors were preparing a case. Then the D.A. overruled his staff after a visit from a top donor: Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz. — In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump's two eldest children …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Week and Raw Story

Louis Sahagun / Los Angeles Times:

At his local Starbucks, Las Vegas shooter remembered for berating his girlfriend — The workers behind the counter at the Starbucks inside the Virgin River Casino in Mesquite, Nev., winced whenever Stephen Paddock and his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, lined up for their usual beverages.

Discussion: The Week, NBC News, Raw Story and FOX6Now.com

Brian Ross / ABC News:

Portrait emerging of Las Vegas shooter as man ‘descending into madness’ — In the months before his deadly rampage, 64-year old Stephen Paddock was a man “descending into madness,” according to a person briefed on new findings in the investigation. — New details are emerging …

Discussion: AOL and Associated Press

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:

If Only Stephen Paddock Were a Muslim — If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim ... If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas ... If only he had been a member of ISIS ... If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another ...

Discussion: Althouse

Washington Post:
New details emerge about Marilou Danley, girlfriend of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock

Discussion: The Week, NPR, Snopes.com, NBC News, neo-neocon, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller and FiveThirtyEight

CNN:
Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend ‘sent away’ before his massacre

Discussion: Townhall.com, IJR, Guns.com, TheBlaze, Washington Post, FOX6Now.com, WPMT FOX43, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, Mediaite, ThinkProgress, WTVR-TV, Reuters and Daily Wire

David Smith / The Guardian:
Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend returns to US as police reveal details of his planning

Discussion: Daily Wire, NBC News and Power Line

The Daily Beast:
Las Vegas Gunman May Have First Planned to Attack Chance the Rapper and Lorde Concert

Discussion: Mother Jones, CANNONFIRE, The Nevada Independent, Daily Wire, IJR, Los Angeles Times and New York Times

Justin Sink / Bloomberg:

Trump Suggests Puerto Rico's Debt May Need to Be ‘Wiped Out’ — ‘We are going to work something out,’ president says on Fox — Trump visited island earlier Tuesday to survey storm damage — President Donald Trump suggested that the government debt accumulated by bankrupt Puerto Rico …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Toronto Star, Business Insider, twitchy.com and Politico

Associated Press:

AP-NORC Poll: Few approve of Trump's Puerto Rico response — Americans are more likely to approve than disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling hurricane relief in Florida and Texas, but it's a different story when it comes to Puerto Rico. — According to a new poll …

Discussion: Washington Post, Axios, Politico, The Week and Deadline

Mary Williams Walsh / New York Times:

Trump Vows to Wipe Out Puerto Rico's Debt. Can He Do That? — NEW YORK — For more than a year, Puerto Rico has clashed with investors who hold slivers of its $73 billion debt, and who have pushed the United States territory to pay up. — On Tuesday, during his visit to the hurricane-struck island …

Discussion: IJR, The Hill, The Week, miamiherald and ThinkProgress

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
Trump Says US Will Have To ‘Wipe’ Out Puerto Rico's Debt (VIDEO)

Discussion: Raw Story, New York Magazine, Washington Times and Bloomberg

Chris Cillizza / CNN:
Trump's Puerto Rico event was way worse than his tweets

Discussion: Associated Press, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Common Dreams, New York Times, No More Mister Nice Blog, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Caller, Vox, The Week, The Atlantic and Oxfam America

Fox News:
Trump on Puerto Rico's debt: 'We're going to have to wipe that out'

Discussion: Mediaite

Leslie Shaffer / CNBC:
Trump says Puerto Rico's debt will have to be wiped out

Discussion: Splinter and Latino Rebels

CNN:

Exclusive: Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted Michigan and Wisconsin — (CNN)A number of Russian-linked Facebook ads specifically targeted Michigan and Wisconsin, two states crucial to Donald Trump's victory last November, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: The Hill, Talking Points Memo, twitchy.com, The Atlantic, FOX6Now.com, Shareblue, Mashable and Political Wire, more at Mediagazer »

CNN:
Hill investigators to tell public what they've learned about Russia's interference and what happens next

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, Dispatches From the … and Joe.My.God.

Bloomberg: Facebook Fought for Years to Avoid Political Ad Disclosure Rules

Avi Selk / Washington Post:

What a macho, gun-packing Instagram star did when he was caught in the Las Vegas shooting … Guns and women got Dan Bilzerian where he is today — the so-called “King of Instagram,” with nearly 23 million followers, a mansion full of guns and a hot tub full of women.

Discussion: The Week and IJR

Wesley Lowery / Washington Post:

Two strangers bond over country music and beer. Then the gunshots started. — Up-and-coming country star Luke Combs had just started his set on the smaller of the two festival stages when Kody Robertson, an auto parts salesman from Columbus, Ohio, squeezed in at the end of the bar next to Michelle Vo …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and IJR

Washington Post:
Police say Las Vegas gunman planned ‘extensively,’ used cameras to monitor police as they approached

Discussion: The Week, NPR, Daily Breeze, Power Line, CityLab, IJR, Refinery29, ABC News, AOL, Raw Story, Daily Kos, Daily Wire, Talking Points Memo, San Bernardino Sun and Q13 FOX News

Mike Rowe:
Off The Wall — Mike - I live in Las Vegas, and I've seen you here often.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and RedState

Statesman Journal:

Ex-Trump adviser Paul Manafort conspired to mislead bankruptcy court, son-in-law charges — Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued two new subpoena in the investigation into President Trump's campaign ties to Russia. Nathan Rousseau Smith (@FantasticMrNate) reports. Buzz60 — CONNECT

Leah Libresco / Washington Post:

I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise. — Leah Libresco is a statistician and former newswriter at FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism site. She is the author of “Arriving at Amen.” — Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me.

Discussion: Hit & Run, CNN, Cafe Hayek, New York Times, Townhall.com, Daily Wire, FiveThirtyEight, Axios and Washington Free Beacon

Politico:
The gun lobby: See how much your representative gets

Discussion: Daily Kos and twitchy.com

Julia Manchester / The Hill:

Trump told UN head Netanyahu is bigger peace obstacle than Abbas: report — President Trump told U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more of an obstacle to peace efforts in the Middle East than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Haaretz.

Discussion: RedState

Barak Ravid / Haaretz: Trump to UN chief: Netanyahu proving more difficult than Abbas in peace efforts

New York Times:

Equifax Breach Caused by Lone Employee's Error, Former C.E.O. Says — WASHINGTON — The Equifax data breach, which exposed the sensitive personal information of nearly 146 million Americans, happened because of a mistake by a single employee, the credit reporting company's former chief executive told members of Congress on Tuesday.

Discussion: RedState and Associated Press

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
6 Fresh Horrors From the Equifax CEO's Congressional Hearing

Discussion: ABC News, Politico, Krebs on Security, The Hill, FOX6Now.com, ThinkProgress, Engadget, Gizmodo, TheStreet, The Verge, SARAH PALIN, Raw Story and Instapundit, more at Mediagazer »

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

Ginsburg Slaps Gorsuch in Gerrymandering Case — Toward the end of the Supreme Court's argument in Gill v. Whitford, about the future of partisan gerrymandering, there was a revealing moment about the place of the newest Justice in the esteem of at least one of his peers.

Discussion: Althouse, IJR, Hullabaloo, Slate, NPR, Washington Monthly and Instapundit

Nik Steinberg / Politico:

Rex Tillerson Is Running the State Department Into the Ground — On November 10, 2016, my colleagues and I at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations gathered on the top floor of the building, which overlooks the U.N. General Assembly. My boss at the time, Ambassador Samantha Power …

Elias Groll / Foreign Policy:

GOP Congressman Met in Moscow With Kremlin-Linked Lawyer at Center of Russia Investigation — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met in Moscow with Natalia Veselnitskaya two months before she met with Donald Trump Jr. — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met with the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during …

Discussion: The Hill, The Week, Raw Story and Talking Points Memo

Joe Perticone / Business Insider:
John Kelly is blocking a pro-Russia congressman from talking to Trump

Discussion: The Hill and RedState

Jeffrey Lewis / Foreign Policy:

Donald Trump Threatened North Korea After Completely Imaginary Negotiations — Fake news is threatening to produce a very real war. — Over the weekend, a story emerged that the United States was in some sort of talks with North Korea, followed in quick succession by a series of tweets …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, CNBC, War on the Rocks, The Atlantic and Weekly Standard

New York Times:
Mattis Contradicts Trump on Iran Deal Ahead of Crucial Deadline

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post, Just Security, The Guardian, Political Wire and Outside the Beltway

Seung Min Kim / Politico:

More GOP senators willing to tell Trump to take a hike — There's a growing faction inside the Senate Republican Conference, and it looks like bad news for Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump: The devil-may-care caucus. — Unbeholden to Republican orthodoxy and freed from the burdens …