President Trump is slowly moving away from his uncharacteristic docility toward Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, but in private and on Twitter, he continues to hold out hope for a better relationship — a tension that has occasionally escalated into anger, The Washington Post reports. When Trump's aides briefed him in March on the plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats to protest a Russian nerve attack in Britain, he reportedly told them the U.S. will "match" the number of diplomats expelled by America's European allies. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."

When Trump learned that France and Germany were only expelling four Russian officials each, "Trump erupted," the Post reports:

The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia. His briefers tried to reassure him that the sum total of European expulsions was roughly the same as the U.S. number. "I don't care about the total!" the administration official recalled Trump screaming. ... Growing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the expulsions. "There were curse words," the official said, "a lot of curse words." [The Washington Post]

Trump was initially reluctant to believe the intelligence that Russia was responsible for the attack, "a fact that some aides attributed to his contrarian personality and tendency to look for deeper conspiracies," the Post said. "To persuade him, his advisers warned that he would get hammered in the press if he was out of step with U.S. allies," and one senior White House official told the Post that Trump asked British Prime Minister on the phone, "Why are you asking me to do this?"

"The United States essentially has three Russia policies," Angela Stent, a professor at Georgetown University, told the Post: "The president's, the executive branch's, and Congress'." Peter Weber

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) revealed on Tuesday that U.S. fighter jets intercepted six Russian warplanes off the coast of Alaska on Monday.

The four bombers and two fighter planes were intercepted by F-22 jets after they entered an area known as the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, NBC News reports. In a statement, NORAD said the Russian planes "remained in international airspace and at no time did the aircraft enter United States or Canadian sovereign airspace," and the U.S. jets kept an eye on the Russian planes until they left the region.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said the planes were conducting planned exercises, which took place "over the neutral waters of the Chukotka, Bering, and Okhotsk Seas, as well as along the western coast of Alaska and the northern coast of the Aleutian Islands." Catherine Garcia

A confidential draft Internal Revenue Service memo directly contradicts Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's reason for not turning over to Congress President Trump's tax returns, The Washington Post reports.

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) formally requested Trump's tax returns last month; under a 1924 law, he is one of a handful of top lawmakers with the authority to do so. Mnuchin has refused to give Neal the returns, claiming Congress does not have a "legitimate legislative purpose" to request the documents.

The memo, obtained by the Post, states otherwise, asserting that it is "mandatory" the returns are disclosed, as the law "does not allow the Secretary to exercise discretion in disclosing the information provided the statutory conditions are met." The only way the IRS can refuse to comply with a Congressional subpoena "would be the invocation of the doctrine of executive privilege," the memo states, which has not happened.

The IRS told the Post the draft was prepared in the fall by a lawyer in the Office of Chief Counsel, and does not represent the "official position" of the agency. Trump has not released his tax returns on his own, first claiming that he can't do so because he is under audit, and later saying no one could understand his complex filings anyway. Catherine Garcia

A new CBS News poll finds that two-thirds of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade overturned, with 48 percent saying they would be angry if it were reversed.

The poll was conducted via telephone May 17 to 20, after Alabama passed the nation's strictest abortion law; the goal of anti-abortion lawmakers is to get a case to the Supreme Court so the justices can revisit Roe v. Wade. The poll shows that 26 percent of Americans would be satisfied if Roe v. Wade were overturned, while 23 percent don't think it would matter very much. Split by gender, 69 percent of women and 65 percent of men think Roe v. Wade should be kept as is, and 38 percent of women said they would be angry if it were overturned, compared to 24 percent of men.

Among Republicans, 45 percent say Roe v. Wade should be kept as is, while 48 percent want it overturned; 87 percent of Democrats say keep it as is, compared to 11 percent who want to see it overturned. Of the Republicans polled, 48 percent think abortion should be available but limited, while 16 percent think abortion should be generally available and 34 percent think it should be prohibited. On the Democratic side, 66 percent think abortion should be generally available, 20 percent think it should be available but limited, and 12 percent think it should not be permitted.

Pollsters spoke with a random sample of 1,101 adults nationwide. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points. Catherine Garcia

President Trump will nominate Barbara Barrett as Secretary of the Air Force, he announced on Tuesday.

"She will be an outstanding Secretary!" Trump tweeted. Barrett is the former chair of the Aerospace Corporation, and was the first civilian woman pilot to land an F-18 fighter jet on an aircraft carrier, The Arizona Republic reports. She is also a former ambassador to Finland and advised former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. In 1994, she became the first female Republican to run for governor in Arizona, but did not win the nomination.

Heather Wilson resigned as Secretary of the Air Force in March, in order to become the next president of the University of Texas at El Paso. Catherine Garcia

In public, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó remains optimistic about his efforts to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his United Socialist Party from power. But, privately, The New York Times reports, Guaidó and his advisers are beginning to feel the pressure from Maduro's forces after the opposition's failed military uprising in April.

"The persecution has been savage," Guaidó, who is recognized by several countries, including the United States, as Venezuela's legitimate interim president, told the Times.

Nowadays, Guaidó is often stationed inside one of several safe houses, while his deputy chief of staff Rafael Del Rosario remains in exile, after escaping Venezuela with his family by foot, aided by soldiers sympathetic to Guaidó's cause. Several other soldiers and legislators who stood by Guaidó in April are reportedly either in jail or being harbored in foreign embassies.

The situation has the opposition seriously considering negotiating with Maduro, which Guaidó had previously rejected, the Times reports. Last week representatives from the opposition and Maduro's government traveled to Norway for preliminary talks, though Guaidó maintains that the goal is to remove Maduro. Even the United States, Guaidó's most fervent supporter, has taken a step back from the situation, as President Trump has turned his attention more heavily toward Iran in recent weeks, making it even more unlikely that the Venezuelan opposition could secure U.S. military support if the situation intensifies. Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell

More subpoenas are on the way for former White House employees and Hope Hicks, once the Trump administration's communications director, is next in line.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) issued subpoenas on Tuesday to Hicks and Annie Donaldson, the chief of staff to former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who failed to show up to his scheduled hearing before Nadler's committee earlier on Tuesday. The two new subpoenas are part of a sprawling congressional investigation into the actions of the Trump administration, which spun off from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into 2016 Russian election interference. Nadler wants Hicks and Donaldson to answer questions concerning possible obstruction of justice on behalf of President Trump during Mueller's investigation, Bloomberg reports.

Donaldson kept very detailed notes of her meetings with McGahn, which were frequently cited in Mueller's report on his investigation, The Hill writes, while Hicks was considered to have played a "pivotal role," in the White House, serving as one of the president's most trusted advisers.

Hicks' and Donaldson's subpoenas order both of them to turn over documents by June 4 and then testify later that month — Hicks is scheduled for June 19, Donaldson for June 24. Tim O'Donnell