Phoenix Mayor Begs Trump Not to Hold Campaign Rally So Soon After Charlottesville

Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.

After repeatedly fanning the flames of racism and white supremacy this week, Donald Trump is planning on doing what he does best: holding a campaign rally this Tuesday in Phoenix.

But shortly after the event was confirmed, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said that, if Trump is coming to town to announce that he’s pardoning former sheriff and current still-very-racist Joe Arpaio, he should delay the visit, which would come just over a week after the deadly gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville.

“I am disappointed that President Trump has chosen to hold a campaign rally as our nation is still healing from the tragic events in Charlottesville,” Stanton said in a statement on Wednesday night.

If the Steve Bannon wing of the administration prevails (i.e., the one encouraging the president to throw red meat to his voting base by the forklift-full), the president very well could be coming to town to pardon Arpaio, a move he previously told Fox News he’s “seriously considering.”

WHAT ELSE?

• Steve Bannon is casually making foreign policy in calls with journalists now by picking up the phone to an American Prospect writer and contradicting Trump on North Korea. He also hopes liberals never stop tearing down statues and talking about racism: “The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
• Meanwhile: a leaked draft regulation signals the Trump administration is getting ready to rollback an Obama-era protection mandating that employers’ offer health plans to cover contraception.
• Malala Yousafzai is going to study at Oxford.
• Some items the president tweeted this morning:

WHAT’S NEXT?

• This should be good: Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to talk about gang violence today at 11:30 a.m. at a training for federal law enforcement officials, per Politico’s Playbook.