OnPolitics Today: 'Secret Service said NO'

Today's subject line quote: President Donald Trump, blaming the Secret Service for why he didn't visit a cemetery in Paris in the rain Saturday.

Happy Tuesday, OP friends. Drama, drama, drama. That's what every day feels like lately. But before we get to it, the usual batch of thoughts: Get your friends to subscribe. Be our (group) friend on Facebook. Listen to us on Alexa or Google Assistant. Keep up with the latest. And take care of yourself, y'know?

CNN sues Trump administration 

In an extraordinary move, CNN filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration, requesting the White House return the press credentials of its Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. 

You all might remember last week's news conference where the president and Acosta got into a very tense exchange. President Donald Trump ended up calling Acosta a "rude, terrible person" after Acosta repeatedly tried to ask a question about the Russia investigation. 

The White House revoked his credentials after the back and forth, with officials claiming Acosta placed his hands on an intern who attempted to take the microphone from him. 

"The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acosta’s First Amendment rights of freedom of the press, and their Fifth Amendment rights to due process," CNN said in a statement posted to its website.

Tweet o' the day

"If a Democratic House and Republican Senate could come together and solve just one problem during the next two years — spam calls to cell phones — their approval rating would jump double digits on this alone." - The Center for Public Integrity's Dave Levinthal, on a call for bipartisanship in a divided Congress to fix a problem every American hates.

Midterms elections still undecided

It's officially been a week, but the counts go on. Here's where they stand as of Tuesday:

• In Florida, where the races for the governor's office and a U.S. Senate seat were close enough to trigger recounts, incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson has filed a federal lawsuit to extend the unevenly conducted statewide recount of his re-election race against GOP Gov. Rick Scott. The recount is supposed to end on Thursday.
• And in Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams has refused to concede to Republican Brian Kemp, a federal judge has ordered state election officials to review all provisional ballots cast in the midterm elections and prohibited the state from certifying the election before Friday. And another judge ruled that absentee ballots that have been rejected because there were problems with the date of birth must be counted.

Here's the latest on the controversy and the races where a winner hasn't been called. 

Elsewhere in politics

• Melania Trump called for the dismissal of deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel
• President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Neomi Rao to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
• Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is consulting with ethics officials about whether he should remove himself from overseeing the Russia investigation
• The president blamed Secret Service for canceling a visit to a military cemetery in the rain while he was in France
• Remember the migrant caravan? The first group of migrants arrived at the southern U.S. border today. 
• Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kicked off her first day of new-member orientation on Capitol Hill by participating in a climate change protest at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office

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