Before Robert Mueller was tapped to lead an independent investigation into President Trump's ties to Russian election meddling, the Trump team was seriously considering him for the job of FBI director. Citing "two sources familiar with the process," NPR reported Friday that Mueller was a "top candidate to lead the FBI" and that he'd gotten far enough along in the process that he'd met with officials at the White House and the Justice Department about the job.

Instead, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped Mueller to head up the independent Russia probe, which was launched shortly after Trump abruptly fired former FBI Director James Comey on May 9. The fact that Rosenstein was willing to reach into the White House's pool of FBI director candidates "underscores the heavy pressure Rosenstein was under to find an independent law enforcement leader to take charge of the Russia probe," NPR noted.

Congress and the Justice Department have largely approved of Rosenstein's pick. Mueller previously served as FBI director under former President George W. Bush and former President Barack Obama. Becca Stanek

As the longest government shutdown in history nears its one-month anniversary, a new poll shows President Trump taking a significant hit among his base.

A survey from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist published Thursday found that Trump's approval rating is down among suburban men, white evangelicals, Republicans, and white men without a college degree. The most drastic change was among suburban men, 42 percent of whom approve of Trump while 48 percent disapprove, compared to 51 percent approval and 39 percent disapproval last month.

Additionally, among white evangelicals, Trump is down to 66-to-23 approval from 73-to-17 approval last month. Among Republicans, he's down to 83-to-10 percent approval from 90-to-7 percent last month. Finally, among white men without a college degree, he's down to 50-to-35 percent approval from 56-to-34 last month.

These are all demographics that brought Trump to victory in 2016. A CNN exit poll at the time, for example, suggested 71 percent of white men without a college degree voted for Trump. "For the first time, we saw a fairly consistent pattern of having his base showing evidence of a cracking," Lee Miringoff, the director of Marist Institute for Public Opinion, told NPR about this new poll.

A previous poll by Morning Consult found that Trump's net approval rating is below zero in key states that he carried in 2016, including Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist's poll was conducted by speaking to 1,023 adults from Jan. 10-13. The margin of error is 3.8 percentage points. See more results at NPR. Brendan Morrow

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) floating the idea of disinviting President Trump from delivering the State of the Union, the president is apparently looking for another way in.

Officials in the White House are "discussing" whether it's possible for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to invite Trump to deliver the address, CBS reports. Pelosi on Wednesday wrote a letter to Trump suggesting they delay the State of the Union, which had previously been scheduled for Jan. 29. She said there are "security concerns" because of the ongoing partial government shutdown, although Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen subsequently said the department is actually "fully prepared" for the event.

It's the House speaker's role to invite the president to the State of the Union, and Pelosi did not actually say Wednesday the event was off or that she wouldn't bring a Jan. 29 resolution up for approval. But either way, White House officials reportedly see Pelosi's move as "a sign of weakness" in the shutdown fight, believing she's afraid Trump will use the address to rally the nation to his side.

Trump himself has not yet officially responded to Pelosi's State of the Union suggestion. Brendan Morrow

When Michael Cohen infamously questioned the legitimacy of presidential polls in 2016, it seems he knew a thing or two about trying to rig them.

President Trump's former attorney hired an IT firm to manipulate online polls for Trump before he entered the 2016 race, The Wall Street Journal reports. John Gauger, owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC, says Cohen promised him $50,000 for work that included trying to manipulate a Drudge Report poll of possible Republican presidential candidates in 2015. Cohen also reportedly asked Gauger to tinker with a CNBC poll of America's top business leaders in 2014.

Gauger says Cohen paid him around $12,500 in a Walmart bag full of cash (and "a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter") but never gave him the rest of the money, even though Trump reimbursed Cohen for $50,000 in "tech services." Cohen denied paying with a bag of cash, telling the Journal he used a check.

Gauger says Cohen did end up paying him more money later for additional services, though. This apparently included having Gauger make a Cohen fan account during the 2016 election called @WomenForCohen, which labeled Cohen a "sex symbol."

Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws, saying he paid off women who alleged they had affairs with Trump before he ran for president, which Trump denies. Cohen will testify before Congress next month and reportedly plans to detail his personal experience working for the president, with one source saying he's "going to say things that will give you chills."

As for the poll-rigging efforts, Journal notes Gauger was unsuccessful. In the Drudge poll, Trump ended up in fifth place with five percent of the vote, and in the CNBC poll, he didn't even make it into the top 100. Brendan Morrow

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has a new book out that "chronicles his time in [President] Trump's inner circle, and it's called Let Me Finish," Stephen Colbert noted on Wednesday's Late Show. "And how dare you suggest that the original title was Are You Gonna Finish That?" In the book, he adds, Christie calls Trump's team "a 'revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconnected felons' — yeah, and that's just Don Jr."

Christie recalls that when he first met Trump, at a 2002 dinner, Trump ordered his food, picking items he was allergic to or detested, leading Christie to wonder if "Trump took him to be 'one of his chicks.' Well, check your bank account," Colbert said. "Is there $130,000 in there?" Trump also reportedly told Christie to lose weight and exhorted him to wear a longer tie, saying it would make him look thinner. "Aha! My God, he does it on purpose!" Colbert said, elaborating in his Trump voice and ending with Christie's thoughts on Jared Kushner.

The Late Show also briefly touched on the Brexit mess, imagining how Britain's most famous nanny might react to the potential zombie-filled anarchy in the U.K. in a trailer for Mary Poppins Post-Brexit.

On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon tackled a different Hollywood film, the new Spider-Man, and a different government in chaos, crafting a TSA-themed trailer for Spider-Man: Staying Home. Fallon also touched on other aspects of the shutdown, including Trump's apparent boredom from being cooped up in the White House. He even turned that into a Dr. Seussian story. Watch below. Peter Weber

"This wasn't the argument that I set out to make," that Congress must impeach President Trump, Yoni Appelbaum says at The Atlantic. But after researching the previous three impeachments in U.S. history, it became clear pundits and Democratic leaders "have overlearned the lessons of Bill Clinton's impeachment, which backfired on his accusers" in 1998, "and entirely forgotten the real significance of Andrew Johnson's" in 1868.

By Appelbaum's estimation, Trump's multi-pronged "attack on the very foundations of America's constitutional democracy" already more than qualifies him for impeachment and removal from office, but even if the Senate disagrees and fails to convict, the process is its own remedy "in five distinct forms," he explains in The Atlantic's March cover story, posted online late Wednesday:

In these five ways — shifting the public's attention to the president's debilities, tipping the balance of power away from him, skimming off the froth of conspiratorial thinking, moving the fight to a rule-bound forum, and dealing lasting damage to his political prospects — the impeachment process has succeeded in the past. In fact, it's the very efficacy of these past efforts that should give Congress pause; it's a process that should be triggered only when a president's betrayal of his basic duties requires it. But Trump's conduct clearly meets that threshold. The only question is whether Congress will act. [Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic]

"It is absurd to suggest that the Constitution would delineate a mechanism too potent to ever actually be employed," Appelbaum writes. "With a newly seated Democratic majority, the House of Representatives can no longer dodge its constitutional duty. It must immediately open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and bring the debate out of the court of public opinion and into Congress, where it belongs." Read the entire history lesson and argument for impeachment, including where Bill Clinton's accusers went wrong and Hillary Clinton's earlier cameo in impeachment law, at The Atlantic.

On Day 26 of the government shutdown, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made the very "reasonable" request that President Trump reschedule or cancel his State of the Union address, Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "I mean, what's he gonna do? 'The state of our union is ... all the Democrats' fault.'" Also, Pelosi is doing this "because she can," Colbert said. "Trump acts like the Big Dog, but she won't let the dog into her House because she knows he's going to poop everywhere." Pelosi knows what she's doing, he added. "Nothing hurts Trump more than when you deny him a TV appearance — they already won't let him host the Oscars."

Pelosi's SOTU move is "such a great burn," Seth Meyers agreed at Late Night, but it's just one of the ways Trump is losing the shutdown fight. Yes, "Trump actually thinks he's winning the argument," mostly because "he watches more Fox News than all the residents of a Texas senior center combined," Meyers said. But "what we're witnessing right now are the desperate gasps of the Trump agenda," not just his wall.

But America and its economy are paying the cost, Trevor Noah said on The Daily Show. "You'd think Trump would pay attention to that, because he loves Wall Street. He thinks that's where you get the wall." Still, America's chaos is "nothing compared to what's happening in the U.K.," he said, running through the Brexit mess. "Right now, America's government is shut down and there's trash on the streets. The U.K.'s government is in turmoil and soon they may not have food. And Africa's watching all of this, like, 'Ha-ha, who's laughing now?'"

Jimmy Kimmel tried to reason with Trump in a language he understands: Golf. "With one crazy zig-zag stroke of your executive Sharpie, you could be back on the greens at Mar-a-Lago faster than you could say Pocahontas," he reasoned. "It's a win-win, for us and for you. The federal employees can go back to work and you can get back to doing what you do best: cheating at golf." Watch below. Peter Weber