Today’s Agenda: New Pressure On The Tax Return Front

By Kate Riga, John Light and Caitlin MacNeal

May 13, 2019 8:35 a.m.

Happy Monday, May 13. The battle intensifies on the Trump tax return front, as the House Ways and Means Committee parries Steve Mnuchin’s refusal to hand over documents with a subpoena. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re following.

Three Things To Watch Today

New subpoena fight for Trump

The House Ways and Means Committee on Friday issued a subpoena to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig for Trump’s tax returns after the Trump administration denied the committee’s requests. We’ll be watching for a response from the administration and reactions from Trump’s allies now that the committee has escalated its push for the returns.

Ongoing battle for the Mueller report

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) appeared to seek a detente of sorts with the Justice Department on Friday. He offered to re-open negotiations for Congress to see the unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller, offering new accommodations from House Democrats. We’ll see if that gesture moves the ball at all.

Republicans continue to seethe over Don Jr. subpoena

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is nudging Trump Jr. not to respond to the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee’s subpoena, telling him that “you don’t need to go back into this environment.” As many of Graham’s Republican peers have been equally ruffled about the subpoena, we’ll see if the GOP response will bolster Trump Jr.’s resistance to testifying.

Today’s Rundown

The House is out.

12:30 p.m. ET Trump has lunch with Vice President Pence at the White House.

2:00 p.m. ET Trump greets and meets with Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, at the White House.

3:00 p.m. ET Senate gavels in.

8:30 p.m. ET Trump participates in the White House Iftar, the evening meal that ends Ramadan, at the White House.

The Weekend’s Top Story

Ex-Top FBI Lawyer Targeted By Trump Breaks Silence On Russia Probe — Tierney Sneed

Reading List

‘Who’s going to take care of these people?’ As emergencies rise across rural America, a hospital fights for its life — Eli Saslow, The Washington Post

They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia. Now They Say It Was a Fraud. — Campbell Robertson, The New York Times

Trump backers applaud Warren in heart of MAGA country — Alex Thompson, Politico

A reporter declined to reveal his source. Then police showed up at his front door with guns. — Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post

Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) Kate Riga is a news writer for Talking Points Memo based in New York City. Before joining TPM, Kate was the political reporter for The Southampton Press. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and a native of Philadelphia.

John Light (@LightTweeting) John is TPM's editor for Prime & Special Projects. His work has also appeared at The Atlantic, Reuters, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, UN Dispatch, Vox, Worth, City & State and Al Jazeera, and has been broadcast on Public Radio International. Before joining TPM, John was a producer for Bill Moyers and WNYC, and worked as a news writer for Grist. He grew up in New Jersey, studied history and film at Oberlin College, and got his master‘s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Caitlin MacNeal (@caitlinmacneal) Caitlin MacNeal is an assistant editor based in Washington, D.C. Before joining TPM, Caitlin interned and wrote for the Huffington Post, the Sunlight Foundation and Slate. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.

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