President Trump has repeatedly said the upcoming midterm elections are about him. But it seems that rule only applies if Republicans stack up a bunch of wins.

In private, Trump has reportedly been saying that the midterms are not a referendum on him at all, Politico reports. Though Trump is optimistic about a "red wave," Politico reports that in the case of Republican losses, he thinks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would be to blame. The president has reportedly been saying that "if they screw it up, it's not my fault." Never mind that he recently told supporters that "this [election] is also a referendum about me," per The Washington Post.

One aide told Politico that Trump would likely blame an unfavorable outcome partially on Ryan for sticking around as a lame duck speaker of the House. Another source said Trump would chalk losses up to the fact that candidates didn't adhere closely enough to his message, and so his own supporters didn't turn out.

Either way, it seems Trump has his fall guys picked out if things don't go as planned for the GOP next month. Brendan Morrow

The White House Correspondents' Dinner will be dropping the jokes in favor of a history lesson next year.

The White House Correspondents Association, which puts on the yearly event, announced Monday that the featured speaker for 2019's dinner will be Ron Chernow, a historian who has written a number of popular biographies including the one on Alexander Hamilton that inspired the Broadway musical Hamilton.

Chernow will speak in lieu of a comedian, which is the usual featured guest. "While I have never been mistaken for a stand-up comedian, I promise that my history lesson won't be dry," Chernow said in a statement. Chernow will "make the case for the First Amendment" in his speech, the WHCA says.

This year's featured speaker at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was comedian Michelle Wolf, whose jokes about the Trump administration drew some criticism. Trump had declined to attend the dinner for the second year in a row, making him the first president in decades not to show up. After the event earlier this year, WHCA President Olivier Knox told The New York Times he was looking at ways to improve the dinner, including possibly inviting a serious speaker. Knox told CNN that he's been hoping for changes to the format for a long time, though, saying it should be "focused on journalists and the work of good reporters." In other words, he said, "the dinner should be 'boring.'" Brendan Morrow

When three-year-old Mikaila Bonaparte was found to have an unprecedentedly high level of lead in her blood, a health inspector quickly found the cause: Her mother's and grandmother's public housing units in Brooklyn were covered in lead paint.

The New York City Housing Authority's response? That can't be right.

In a massive investigation published Monday, The New York Times found that the authority re-tested Bonaparte's apartments with its own inspector and insisted there was no lead. But Bonaparte had still still somehow ingested enough lead to perhaps "cause irreversible brain damage," the Times writes. And her story is seemingly one of hundreds.

Because it's been shown to stunt brain development, lead paint was banned in New York City in 1960. Starting in 1989, the city sued lead paint companies and alleged "its public housing buildings were riddled with lead," the Times writes. But by 2004, the Housing Authority's position flipped, claiming only 95 of its 325 developments contained lead, likely because reported instances of lead poisoning had become uncommon.

The authority "was apparently wrong," the Times writes, seeing as the city's health department continued to find lead paint across New York's public housing developments. But from 2010 until this July, the authority challenged the health department on 95 percent of those findings. More often than not, the health department backed down, with a spokesman telling the Times the department was convinced of a false positive in 158 of those 211 cases.

After the Times inquired into the contestations in September, the housing authority's interim chairwoman said the authority was now "accepting whatever the finding of the health department is." New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to respond to the findings Monday. Read more at The New York Times. Kathryn Krawczyk

The man who shouted "Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!" from the balcony of a Baltimore Fiddler on the Roof performance has said he's sorry for his outburst, which he believes "came out wrong." He did not explain how yelling about Hitler during a play about Jewish people could ever not "come out wrong."

"I opened my mouth and it was so wrong. I know that now," said the shouter, identified as one Anthony M. Derlunas. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so ashamed."

Derlunas claims he is actually opposed to President Trump — "The thing that I can't stand is Trump spreading hatred, and what did I do? I spread hatred" — but that the story reminded him of the administration's immigration policies. Fiddler ends with the Jewish community in a Russian town being forced by the tsarist government to abandon their homes and emigrate abroad; several of the main characters decide they will join family who have already moved to the United States. Bonnie Kristian

Houthi rebels in Yemen's civil war indicated Monday they are willing to comply with a key Saudi condition for peace talks: They will stop firing rockets into Saudi Arabia.

This compliance with a long-time demand from Riyadh, which is leading a U.S.-supported coalition intervention against the rebel fighters, could help foster an enduring ceasefire in the tiny Mideast nation suffering the world's most acute humanitarian crisis.

"We are ready to freeze and stop military operations on all fronts in order to achieve peace," said rebel leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi in a Monday statement. He also critiqued the United States' role in Yemen's grueling internal conflict, calling Washington the chief culprit of international aggression against Yemen.

The United Nations sponsored peace talks between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government in September, but fighting has continued in the months since. The U.N. is pushing for a new round of diplomacy by the end of this month. Bonnie Kristian

Americans' opinions on the impact social media is having on the country have shifted quite a bit in the past year.

A SurveyMonkey/Axios poll found that when asked if social media is helping promote democracy and free speech or doing more to hurt it, 57 percent of Americans said it hurts more than it helps, a dramatic spike from last year when only 43 percent said the same thing. In November 2017's survey, 53 percent of Americans said social media helps more than it hurts.

This shift in opinion has affected voters of both parties, although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to call social media harmful. Among Republicans, 69 percent now think social media does more harm than good to democracy and free speech compared to 52 percent in 2017; among Democrats, 48 percent say the same, up from 37 percent in 2017.

Additionally, 55 percent of Americans are concerned that the federal government won't do enough to regulate big technology companies, a 15-point increase from when that question was asked last year. The last version of the survey was conducted before it was reported that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, had accessed users' private Facebook data. Despite all this, 63 percent of Americans still said that social media has a positive impact on their life, with more Democrats saying that than Republicans.

This poll was conducted by speaking to 3,622 adults online from Nov. 9-13. The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points. Read more at Axios. Brendan Morrow

A federal judge in California will hear arguments Monday for blocking President Trump's November executive order restricting asylum applications to migrants who enter the U.S. legally.

Civil rights groups aim to persuade U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar the order violates current immigration law, as the Immigration and Nationality Act says anyone who arrives in the U.S. "whether or not at a designated port of arrival" may apply for asylum. They also argue the administration made a procedural error by failing to provide adequate time for public comment on the new rule.

The Trump administration has claimed via a statement by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that Trump holds "broad authority to suspend or restrict" immigration if he believes it is in U.S. national interest to do so.

Should Tigar, appointed by former President Barack Obama, decide against the Trump administration Monday, it will likely be a temporary ruling restoring the previous guidelines while further litigation proceeds. Bonnie Kristian