Week in Washington: Approval bump, border wall

Days after a “60 Minutes” interview in which porn star Stormy Daniels alleged an affair with President Donald Trump, the president on Tuesday saw a sevenpoint bump from last month, according to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The trajectory was a welcome shift for a White House that has been battered by chaos, controversies and internal upheaval. The bad news, though, was that the bump only lifted Trump’s approval to 42 percent at this point in his tenure.

Also on Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that the 2020 U.S. census will include a question about citizenship status, a move that brought swift condemnation from Democrats — and a lawsuit from 12 Democratic-leaning states — who said it would intimidate immigrants and discourage them from responding. Some stress that Texas could take a political hit from such a query, though the state is not apart of the lawsuit.

In other immigration news, U.S. Customs and Border Protection declared Friday that “construction of the border wall is underway,” describing replacement fencing in California as part of the Trump administration’s border wall system. Trump tweeted that the project was part of his proposed wall, despite the project being a priority for U.S. officials since 2009. From online and wire

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