NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Avenatti plea: The embattled attorney Michael Avenatti pleaded not guilty Tuesday to defrauding his most famous client, porn star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say Avenatti pocketed money Daniels was supposed to get from a book deal. Avenatti barely spoke during his three appearances before federal judges in New York. In his second appearance of the day, one of Avenatti’s lawyers told Judge Deborah A. Batts that he thought the case should be combined with charges Avenatti faces in California. The judge left the issue for future consideration. In a final court appearance, Avenatti pleaded not guilty to four charges of trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike, the sportswear company.
2 Trump attacks Biden: A senior aide to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says President Trump’s attacks against Biden on foreign soil “are beneath the dignity of the office.” While in Japan on Monday, the Republican president said he agreed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s assessment that Biden “is a low-IQ individual.” Biden’s campaign said it waited until Tuesday to respond out of respect for Memorial Day. In a statement, deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said: “To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former Vice President speaks for itself.”
3 Disaster bill blocked: A second conservative Republican on Tuesday blocked another attempt to pass a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill, delaying again a top priority for some of President Trump’s most loyal allies on Capitol Hill. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said that if Democratic leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought the measure was so important, they should have kept the House in session in Washington late last week to slate an up-or-down roll call vote. Eventual passage of the bill, supported by Trump and top leaders in Congress, is a foregone conclusion.
4 AOC video: A minor league baseball team apologized this week for playing a video showing an image of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez superimposed over audio of a speech given by President Ronald Reagan warning about the “enemies of freedom.” The Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league affiliate of the Washington Nationals, issued an apology for playing the YouTube video during a Memorial Day game. The video was “misleading and offensive” and had not been properly vetted, the team said. For most of the 3½-minute video, Reagan’s 1981 inaugural speech plays over soaring music and images representing the U.S. military: Arlington National Cemetery, a flagdraped casket and fighter jets taking off into the air. But as Reagan admonishes “the enemies of freedom,” the video shows images of anti-fascist protests, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.