Two polls released Sunday show Democrats with a modest but not comfortable lead in voter preference for which party controls Congress. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found a 7-percentage point lead for Democrats, 50 percent to 43 percent, down from a 9-point lead in the previous poll. A Washington Post/ABC News poll recorded an 8-point lead for Democrats, 52 percent to 44 percent, but that's down from a 13-point lead in October. In both cases, Republican base voters have become more engaged and some independents have shifted to backing the Republican.

In the most competitive House races, both polls showed Democrats with a narrower lead — 5 points for Washington Post/ABC News, 3 points for WSJ/NBC News. Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster for the WSJ/NBC News poll, compared the results to a kaleidoscope: "Turn it one way, and the numbers suggest a good Democratic night. Turn it again, and it suggests the GOP might squeak through." The GOP pollster, Bill McInturff, said the race is "more competitive," but "for Republicans, it feels slightly short of where you'd want to be for a national election.''

"Polls aren't always right," FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver said on Sunday's ABC This Week. "If polls are right you would have a split outcome," with Democrats winning the House and Republicans keeping control of the Senate. He then explained why the polls might be wrong.

On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Chuck Todd highlighted the truism that the groups that turn out to vote will determine who wins.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters, including 744 likely voters, Nov. 1-3, and its margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points among registered voters, ±3.53 points among likely voters. The Washington Post/ABC News poll was conducted Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 in English and Spanish by Langer Research Associates. It surveyed 1,041 registered voters and had a margin of sampling error of ±3.5 points. Peter Weber

Researchers have found an undisclosed ballistic missile base in North Korea, and say there could be as many as 20 secret bases across the country.

Beyond Parallel, a project sponsored by the defense think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, released a report on Monday that revealed the existence of the Sino-ri Missile Operating Base, 130 miles north of the DMZ. Satellite photos of the base taken in late December show an entrance to an underground bunker, hardened shelters, and the headquarters of the Korean People's Army Strategic Rocket Forces missile brigade. Beyond Parallel says the base has been crucial in the development of ballistic missiles able to reach Japan, South Korea, and Guam.

In February, the U.S. and North Korea will meet for a second nuclear summit, and one of the report's authors, Victor Cha, told NBC News the North Koreans are "not going to negotiate over things they don't disclose." Even if North Korea agreed to dismantle all nuclear facilities that have been disclosed to the United States, "they're still going to have all this operational capability," Cha added. Catherine Garcia

On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani said talks about a Trump Tower project in Moscow were held as late as October or November 2016. On Monday, he distanced himself from those comments, saying President Trump doesn't recall whether discussions went on through the election.

While on Meet the Press, Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers, said the president remembered the talks "could be up to as far as October, November [2016]." That story shifted on Monday, when he told CNN because no records were kept of the discussions, no one knows when they ended. Trump, he added, saw the project as a "minor matter." Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was in charge of the Moscow project, and in November, he pleaded guilty to lying about how long he was in negotiations over the deal; he originally said discussions ended in January 2016, but later said they went through June 2016.

Giuliani also released a statement on Monday saying when he made his comments on Sunday, he was just speculating based on a hypothetical situation, and his remarks were "not based on conversations I had with the president. My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions. The point is that the proposal was in the earliest stage and did not advance beyond a free non-binding letter of intent." Catherine Garcia

Democrats have rejected President Trump's offer to trade temporary protections for DREAMers and longtime legal immigrants who escaped war and natural disasters in exchange for $5.7 billion to start his proposed border wall. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says he will bring Trump's proposal up for a vote this week anyway. No details have been announced. "When we have (a plan) we will be sure to let everyone know," McConnell spokesman David Popp said Sunday.

"If [Trump] opens the government, we'll discuss whatever he offers, but hostage taking should not work," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday, stating the unified Democratic position. Democrats also say they are unwilling to trade a permanent wall for a temporary fix to a problem Trump himself created. The bill has also been derided as "amnesty" by some on the right, and without Democrats, it has almost no chance to pass in the Senate and it would be dead on arrival in the House.

This week, House Democrats are expected to pass their latest bill to reopen parts of the government closed in the 31-day-long partial shutdown. McConnell has not allowed votes on any of those measures, having "said for weeks that he has no interest in 'show votes' aimed only at forcing members to take sides after Trump rejected the Senate's earlier bipartisan bill to avert the shutdown," The Associated Press notes.

Most Senate Republicans are publicly united in opposing any bill Trump won't say he'll sign, but privately, "White House officials and GOP leaders would accept virtually any offer from Democrats to end the impasse, hoping they sell it to Trump as a 'victory' and move forward," The Washington Post reports, citing one Republican with close ties to both the administration and congressional leaders. "There is extreme consternation about how poorly the shutdown was playing out and how polling shows many Americans heaping blame on Trump." Peter Weber

Fox & Friends is ready for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's eventual death, as they showed prematurely on Monday morning's broadcast.

Ginsburg, 85, is home recovering from surgery to remove two malignant growths in her lungs. Newspapers and other news organizations prepare obituaries of notable people ahead of time, and Fox News blamed the graphic showing Ginsburg and the dates 1933-2019 on "a technical error that emanated from the graphics team." Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy also apologized, blaming a "technical error in the control room" and saying "we don't want to make it seem anything other than — that was a mistake, that was an accident. We believe she is still at home recovering from surgery."

Mondays, right? Peter Weber

If you went on social media over the weekend, you almost certainly saw a video clip of MAGA hat–wearing students from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School in some sort of standoff with a Native American advocate and Marine Corps veteran, Nathan Phillips, after Friday's March for Life antibortion rally in Washington, D.C.

The Catholic diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High did, and they said in a joint statement Saturday that they "condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students toward Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general. ... The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion."

After that clip went viral on Saturday, on Sunday "the nation picked apart footage from dozens of cellphones that recorded the incident," The Associated Press notes, and the student featured in the viral clip, Nick Sandmann, released a statement explaining his side of the story. He said Phillips approached him, and "I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation." He added that he is now "being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family's name." Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said the "honorable and tolerant students of Covington Catholic School" learned "a brutal lesson in the unjust court of public opinion and social media mobs."

Phillips told the Detroit Free Press that he stepped in to defuse a brewing brawl between the crowd of about 100 Covington students and a handful of confrontational men from a religious group called the Black Hebrew Israelites. "I'm a Marine Corps veteran and I know what that mob mentality can be like," he said. "I mean, it was that ugly." He said some Covington students started shouting "Build the Wall" and insulting Native Americans. Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes, told The Associated Press that he and Phillips approached the Covington students in part because one of their school cheers was a haka, or war dance of New Zealand's Maori people, and they thought it was mocking. Some students are seen doing a "tomahawk chop."

When you watch the nearly 2-hour video of the incident and what led up to it, says Jorge L. Ortiz at USA Today, "the fuller video would seem to assign more blame on a small group of Black Hebrew Israelites," who hurled insults first at Phillips and other Indigenous Peoples March participants then called the Covington students "crackers" and disparaged Catholicism and President Trump, among other aspersions. Peter Weber

On Sunday night and early Monday, North and South America witnessed the only total lunar eclipse until 2021, and it had the added bonus of being a so-called supermoon, where the moon appears bigger and brighter than normal due to the Earth's position. If you were asleep or had overcast weather, here's what you missed.

The eclipse was also called a blood moon because of its reddish color and a wolf moon, the Native American term for the first full moon in January, as BBC News explains.

The show, which went on for three hours — totality, or the full eclipse, lasted about one hour — was visible throughout North and South America and parts of Europe, weather permitting. Peter Weber