Tamara Keith

Updated at 5:01 p.m. ET

President Trump, responding Monday to the deadly weekend shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 people, condemned white supremacy and called for the death penalty for mass murderers and domestic terrorists.

Speaking at the White House, Trump said the nation is "overcome with shock, horror and sorrow."

Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET

The White House announced Tuesday that it has quietly drafted a 620-page immigration bill and has lined up 10 Republican senators to co-sponsor the measure should it be introduced, according to a senior administration official involved in the process.

Years before she would become President Trump's third press secretary, Stephanie Grisham had a photo of the White House hanging on her office wall in Arizona, to remember where she wanted to go.

"She made no secret of the fact that she wanted to be the White House press secretary," said Hank Stephenson, the editor of the Yellow Sheet Report, a daily political tip sheet in Arizona. "She told reporters that. She told friends that."

It was her "dream job."

Facing a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats who are issuing document demands and subpoenas, President Trump's White House counsel's office grew its payroll by nearly a third, newly released records reveal.

From 2018 to 2019, the counsel's office added 10 people.

President Trump has a history of treating nonpolitical events like they're campaign rallies, especially if there is a large crowd on hand. His Fourth of July speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial will be just such a setting.

A White House official who declined to be named said the speech will be about celebrating America, the flag and members of the military — not political. But all assurances about what Trump will say or do need to be taken with a grain of salt.

The Trump rally soundtrack still includes "Tiny Dancer" and "Memory," the theme from Cats. There are still chants of "lock her up" and "build that wall." But four years later, this isn't the same shoestring Trump campaign that stumbled its way to victory in 2016.

Updated at 7:19 pm. ET

If you pull up YouTube for squirrels on water skis, the latest Taylor Swift music video or the Democratic debate Wednesday night, you'll notice something prominently displayed at the top of the page — a banner ad paid for by the Trump campaign.

President Trump's campaign is counterprogramming the debate and making a point — he is the president, running for reelection while Democrats are running against each other.

Updated 4:03 p.m.

President Trump signed an executive order Monday on price transparency in health care that aims to lower rising health care costs by showing prices to patients. The idea is that if people can shop around, market forces may drive down costs.

"Hospitals will be required to publish prices that reflect what people pay for services," said President Trump at a White House event. "You will get great pricing. Prices will come down by numbers that you wouldn't believe. The cost of healthcare will go way, way down."

President Trump officially launched his 2020 reelection bid on Tuesday at a massive rally in Orlando, though much of the event picked up where his 2016 campaign left off.

Trump relished in reliving his unlikely victory 2 1/2 years ago over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. As the crowd broke into chants of "lock her up," he teased about still trying to search for missing emails on her private server and the possibility his Justice Department could look into prosecuting the former secretary of state.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team didn't make a traditional prosecutorial judgement on whether President Trump committed obstruction of justice. But bestselling author Michael Wolff insists an indictment of the sitting president was contemplated, with legal arguments discussed at length in a 56-page "memorandum of law" Wolff claims to have in his possession.

Pete Buttigieg isn't giving President Trump much credit for saying the South Bend, Ind., mayor's marriage to a man is "absolutely fine" and "good."

"That's nice," Buttigieg said dismissively in an interview on Friday with the NPR Politics Podcast and Iowa Public Radio. "I'm more interested in policies that affect LGBTQ people."

Updated at 5:25 p.m. ET

President Trump has announced an immigration proposal that would dramatically reshape the legal immigration system in the United States.

The plan "puts jobs, wages and safety of American workers first," Trump said in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday.

"We must implement an immigration system that will allow our citizens to prosper for generations to come," he said.

It sounds a lot like how Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton ran their campaigns.

Lapel pins, exclusive retreats, private conference calls with party leaders, special invitations to leadership dinners. Those are just a few of the perks that President Trump's re-election campaign is offering to supporters who help gather donations from others, a practice known as bundling.

In the midst of a presidential budget proposal destined to generate controversy for its expected drastic spending cuts, White House senior adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump wants to have a conversation about increasing the availability and affordability of child care.

NPR has learned that the 2020 White House budget set to be released Monday will call for increased spending on child care and propose an initiative to address shortages.

Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, the president can declare an emergency for just about anything. As President Trump has considered using that authority to circumvent Congress and build a wall along the Southern border, that near-unlimited presidential power has gotten a lot of attention. But it isn't the whole story.

President Trump's second State of the Union address will be delivered Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress with all the usual pomp and circumstance. But the political backdrop is unusual, coming in the aftermath of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history and on the eve of what could be another vicious fight or even another shutdown.

The fight at the heart of the shutdown — the fight over the president's border wall — remains unresolved with the clock ticking to make a deal.

Updated at 5:11 p.m. ET

Roger Stone, the longtime Republican political operator and confidant of President Trump, was arrested on Friday after being indicted on seven counts including obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements in connection with the Russian attack on the 2016 election.

Stone appeared at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He did not enter a plea. He was released on $250,000 bond and with travel restrictions that confine him to South Florida, New York City and the Washington, D.C., area.

After a week of tit for tat with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, amid a monthlong government shutdown, the White House is now moving ahead with plans for the president's State of the Union address, proceeding as if it were happening as originally planned next week.

White House officials are aiming for the speech to occur before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Jan. 29. But it is far from guaranteed. The House must pass a resolution to call a joint session with the Senate before the president can come speak.

Politicians often have to change course when their campaign promises run up against reality. But when President Trump ran for office, and throughout his presidency, an explicit part of his pitch was that he wasn't like all the other politicians. Trump's "great wall" was a big concrete symbol of that.

Except that now it isn't even concrete. In recent weeks, he has been saying it will be made of "beautiful" steel slats. The way Trump has described the wall has changed a lot over time, to the point of contradiction. That includes how the wall will be paid for.

The call came Sunday afternoon.

"Can you come to the White House?"

I was still wearing running pants and had my hair up in a plastic scrunchy, but figured there wasn't time to change.

I was called to the office of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who had me leave my purse and cellphone outside before sitting down. This was sensitive.

Updated at 5:20 a.m. ET on Thursday

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Iraq to visit U.S. troops on the day after Christmas, an unannounced trip about which the president nonetheless had been hinting for some time.

The Trumps' arrival at Al Asad Air Base followed the president's recent orders to pull back on U.S. troop deployments elsewhere — orders that have come under intense scrutiny.

On the second full day of the Trump presidency, all of the top White House aides gathered in the East Room to be sworn in by Vice President Pence. They raised their right hands and swore to defend the Constitution.

Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET

In a testy Oval Office exchange with the two top congressional Democrats, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, President Trump made clear he would be "proud" to shut down the government in less than two weeks if he doesn't get funding for his border wall.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET

Just moments after Air Force One lifted off for Buenos Aires, Argentina — where President Trump was to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin — Trump canceled the meeting via tweet. He cited intensifying Russian aggression toward Ukraine.

Richard Nixon was born and raised in Orange County, Calif. Ronald Reagan got his political fuel from there. In a state increasingly dominated by coastal liberals, Orange County was a conservative bastion with an ocean view.

Even as Democrats came to dominate California politics, Orange County clung on as a Republican stronghold.

"Orange County was different," said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant based in Sacramento. "It was, as we called it, 'the orange curtain' and it has now fallen."

Updated Nov. 18 at 3:40 p.m. ET

President Trump often employs the power of positive thinking when it comes to his own shortcomings, choosing to promote the wins rather than wallow or search for lessons in the losses. And so it was with his claim of a "very close to complete victory" in Tuesday's election, even though Democrats took control of the House.

Updated at 11:48 a.m. ET

The list of prominent people, eight and counting, who were sent suspicious packages reads like a Trump enemies list, politicians and Trump critics who are often targeted in his rally speeches and tweets.

As President Trump came to the big finish at a recent rally, his supporters crowded into the Kansas Expocentre shouted along with his 2016 catchphrase. Voices bounced off the walls saying "we will make America great again" as the Rolling Stones swelled through the sound system.

First lady Melania Trump stood at the top of the airplane stairs in Accra, Ghana, smiled broadly and waving. Thus began the first stop of a multiday trip through the African continent that will take Trump to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt, "four beautiful and very different countries in Africa," she said in recent remarks. It is her first solo foreign trip as first lady.