| ➔ CAMPAIGNS: ***SHOCK POLL*** A new survey from CNN finds the Democratic advantage in the House generic ballot has all but vanished, reduced from 16 points in February to only 3 now. Democrats aren’t panicking yet. Pollster John Anzalone tells us the party is holding steady at 7 points in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. He said the over performances by Democrats in special elections this cycle are the “bellwether signals about 2018.” But Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told us that there are signs the GOP is closing in, particularly in battleground states, where the president’s supporters are sticking with him and matching liberal energy on the ground. She said a “blue swell” exists but that it will “take a lot of work” to turn that into a blue wave. “Our Achilles heel is that Democrats also have to gain some advantage on the economy. We remain behind and Trump's initiatives on [the North American Free Trade Agreement], trade, infrastructure reinforce that brand. Among independent voters, Democrats are still double digits behind (on those issues).” - Lake. On that front, Democrats got some good news on Wednesday from a Monmouth University survey that found only 12 percent of Americans say their family has benefited a great deal from the economic upturn. “We continually see national economic indicators hitting new marks, such as last week’s news of the lowest unemployment rate in 18 years. And yet very few Americans feel like they are reaping the benefits.” — Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray. The Hill: Senate GOP relieved after primary wins. The Hill (opinion): Sanity prevails for both parties in primaries. The Hill (opinion): Blue wave? Not so fast. The Hill (opinion): Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will drag GOP down in midterm elections. ➔ Investigations: It was a confusing day on the legal front for Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, whose private business deals are under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. There was a flood of stories about large payments Cohen received from corporations eager to get close to Trump, including one investment firm whose biggest client is a company controlled by a Russian oligarch. The Hill’s Niall Stanage has the only story you need to read to tie all of these threads together. Niall talked to Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, who has become an all-purpose legal agitator against the White House. “It’s beyond that it doesn’t look good. This is the right-hand attorney of the president. If that attorney is selling access to the president without the requisite disclosures, that is a serious problem.” — Avenatti. But some legal experts urged caution: “We need to be a little conservative in crying from the rooftops that there is criminal activity here. It seems swampy but I don’t know if I would use the word ‘criminal.’” — Attorney Caroline Polisi. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani told Bloomberg that the president did not know about Cohen’s consulting business. But Avenatti knew about the payments because he somehow obtained Cohen’s bank records, leading to this interesting development: The Washington Post: Treasury Department’s inspector general investigating how Avenatti received Cohen’s bank records. Avenatti, who seems to have a permanent seat reserved for him on cable news sets, has talked about how his ubiquitous media profile has encouraged information-sharing. 
© Twitter The Hill: Russian firm linked to “Putin’s chef” pleads not guilty in Mueller probe. STAT News: Cohen pitched himself as fixer to Novartis and received $1.2 million. Reuters: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) seeks hearing on Cohen’s post-election clients. ➔ NEWS MEDIA: The war between the White House and the media had cooled off since the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner debacle last month, but returned with a vengeance on Wednesday after Trump tweeted a veiled threat about suspending press credentials. 
© Twitter The president is likely to take his complaints no further than Twitter: Since arriving in the Oval Office, his White House communications team has mulled all manner of restrictions, from ending the press briefings altogether to moving the White House press corps some distance from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The result: Occasional restrictions to bar cameras during some briefings. That was when Sean Spicer was press secretary and his daily clashes with journalists were so over the top, he became comedy fodder for “Saturday Night Live.” The WHCA responded to Trump’s Wednesday threat with a blistering retort: “A president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment." — Margaret Talev, WHCA president. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not amused yesterday when asked to explain Trump’s Twitter broadside about credentials. As evidence of a hostile press corps, she skewered two recent stories — a New York Times article suggesting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had gone missing at a key moment when he was actually on his way to North Korea to free U.S. detainees — and Washington Post coverage that said first lady Melania Trump is frequently apart from her husband. Sanders: “There is a responsibility by you guys to provide accurate information.” The New York Times: FX to debut documentary series about New York Times’ news coverage, called “The Weekly.” CNN (analysis): Trump is seen by many as untruthful and also perceived as “authentic.” A study published in the American Sociological Review suggests that some of the most prevalent, elite analysis of that dynamic could be missing the mark. | 
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