WaPo: Trump’s pick to lead U.S. intelligence claims he arrested 300 illegal immigrants in a single day. He didn’t. That’s the first WaPo headline on the topic. Here’s the next one: Ratcliffe withdraws from consideration for intelligence chief.

+ President Trump moved to calm the nerves of the international community with a series of tweets about North Korea’s latest missile tests. “He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!”

+ “His unlikely path to Sweden is the result of two ultra-famous celebrities having a direct line to Mr. Trump, a commander-in-chief who has been otherwise shunned by the entertainment elite.” NYT: Trump’s Hostage Envoy Takes On an Unlikely Case: A$AP Rocky.

+ NYT: Pentagon Delays Award of $10 Billion Cloud Computing Contract. “The development was evidence of how what began as a technological competition to remake the military’s aging, often incompatible computer systems now seems to have taken on a political and possibly personal element driven by Mr. Trump.” (Editor’s note: Just delete the word possibly and let’s run the story…)

+ Bloomberg: Trump Calls Hong Kong Protests ‘Riots,’ Adopting China Rhetoric.

+ Asked about Mueller’s warning that Russia is continuing to interfere with U.S. elections, Pres. Trump answered, “You don’t really believe this. Do you believe this?” (Believe this: This is a few hours of Trump news, and I had to be very selective to pare it down this much.)