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Presented by UnitedHealth Group: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Sep 18, 2018 View in browser
By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, Daniel Lippman and Eli Okun

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FIRST IN PLAYBOOK ... HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP STEVE SCALISE (R-LA.) will release a statement this afternoon threatening congressional action against CANADA if it doesn't "cooperate in the negotiations" to rewrite NAFTA. This is a significant uptick in tensions between the House Republican majority and our neighbors to the north.
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SCALISE HOSTED A DINNER last week with members of Congress and JARED KUSHNER, where this issue was discussed.

-- THE SCALISE STATEMENT: "Now that the Trump administration has completed a new trade deal with Mexico, and continues negotiations on a better agreement with Canada, there is a growing frustration with many in Congress regarding Canada's negotiating tactics. Members are concerned that Canada does not seem to be ready or willing to make the concessions that are necessary for a fair and high-standard agreement.

"While we would all like to see Canada remain part of this three-country coalition, there is not an unlimited amount of time for it to be part of this new agreement. Congress takes seriously and intends to fully enforce the deadlines established in the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act (TPA).

"We will not short-circuit the open, transparent, and accountable process established under TPA to ensure that the full text is available to the public. Mexico negotiated in good faith and in a timely manner, and if Canada does not cooperate in the negotiations, Congress will have no choice but to consider options about how best to move forward and stand up for American workers."

BIG ... KANSAS CITY STAR: "Nancy Kassebaum, who represented Kansas for three terms in the U.S. Senate, said Tuesday she will support Democratic State Sen. Laura Kelly's [gubernatorial] campaign." K.C. Star

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-MAINE) SPEAKS ... @SenatorCollins: ""I'm writing to the Chairman & RM of Judiciary Cmte respectfully recommending that at Monday's hearing, counsel for Prof. Ford be allocated time to question Judge Kavanaugh & counsel for the Judge be granted equal time to question Prof. Ford, followed by questions from Senators. ... Such an approach would provide more continuity, elicit the most information & allow an in-depth examination of the allegations."

TOP TALKER ... ANITA HILL in the NYT: "Anita Hill: How to Get the Kavanaugh Hearings Right": "With the current heightened awareness of sexual violence comes heightened accountability for our representatives. To do better, the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee must demonstrate a clear understanding that sexual violence is a social reality to which elected representatives must respond.

"A fair, neutral and well-thought-out course is the only way to approach Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh's upcoming testimony. The details of what that process would look like should be guided by experts who have devoted their careers to understanding sexual violence. The job of the Senate Judiciary Committee is to serve as fact-finders, to better serve the American public, and the weight of the government should not be used to destroy the lives of witnesses who are called to testify." NYT

INSIDE THE KAVANAUGH NOMINATION ... ELANA SCHOR, BURGESS EVERETT and ELIANA JOHNSON, "Grassley: Kavanaugh accuser has not yet agreed to attend hearing": "The lack of response so far 'kind of raises the question, do they want to come to the public hearing or not,' Grassley told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday. ...

"While the GOP waits to hear about whether Ford will testify, they also are discussing the use of a third party to question Ford in an effort to make the hearing appear more fair and less political, according to one GOP senator. But Grassley appeared uncertain whether that approach could succeed." POLITICO

-- ISAAC DOVERE: "Hirono: Kavanaugh Is Fudging the Truth": "If Kavanaugh's nomination fizzles and President Donald Trump has to name a replacement, [Sen. Mazie] Hirono says he better find someone whom she considers less of a conservative ideologue, or else prepare for Senate Democrats-especially if they win a majority in November's elections-to keep the court seat vacant until after the 2020 election. ...

"She is quiet. She's not much of a tweeter. She's not running for president. She doesn't have an outsize personality in a chamber bursting with them ... Yet the unassuming senator has become Democrats' firmest pillar of resistance on judicial nominations, refusing to vote for cloture for any Trump nominee, and asking every man who appears before her at a committee hearing if he's engaged in physical or verbal sexual assault as a legal adult." POLITICO Magazine

-- CNN'S MANU RAJU (@mkraju): "Dems are digging in to their demands to have an FBI background check before any hearing with Kavanaugh and Ford, sending a letter to FBI. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told me it would be 'preposterous malpractice' to have a hearing before an FBI background check. Hearing now uncertain."

Good Tuesday afternoon. YOM KIPPUR -- the Jewish day of atonement -- begins tonight at sundown. If you're fasting, have an easy fast.

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NEXT ACT ... CHICAGO MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL -- who recently announced he's not seeking re-election -- is writing a book that will be titled "The Nation City: Why Mayors Run the World" that Knopf is publishing. The book will focus on how to govern during times of political gridlock and how cities are places where governing can actually get done. It is slated to be published in the spring of 2020.

ON THE WORLD STAGE -- "Exclusive Report: Made in America: Shrapnel found in Yemen ties U.S. bombs to string of civilian deaths over course of bloody civil war," by CNN's Nima Elbagir, Salma Abdelaziz and Laura Smith-Spark: "Last month, a CNN investigation found remnants of a U.S.-made bomb at the scene of an airstrike that left dozens of schoolboys dead. Now, an independent Yemen-based human rights group called Mwatana has given CNN exclusive access to a trove of documents that show fragments of U.S.-manufactured bombs at the scene of a string of other incidents since 2015, when the civil war began. In each of those cases, civilians were either killed or put at risk." CNN

-- "North Korea's Kim says summit with Trump stabilized region, sees more progress," by Reuters' Hyonhee Shin and Joyce Lee in Seoul: Reuters

MEDIAWATCH -- Annie Karni will be joining NYT's White House team. She is currently a White House reporter at POLITICO.

FOR YOUR RADAR -- A grand jury indicted Robert Chain, the 68-year-old from Encino, Calif., who was charged with threatening The Boston Globe last month, on "seven counts of use of interstate and foreign commerce to transmit a threat to [injure] another person," per the U.S. Attorney's Office. His Boston court date is Monday.

NBC'S PETER ALEXANDER (@PeterAlexander): "NEW: Trump is expected to visit North Carolina tomorrow to tour areas affected by Hurricane Florence, per Sarah Sanders."

WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 8:42 a.m.: "'What will be disclosed is that there was no basis for these FISA Warrants, that the important information was kept from the court, there's going to be a disproportionate influence of the (Fake) Dossier. Basically you have a counter terrorism tool used to spy on a presidential..." ... at 8:45 a.m.: "....campaign, which is unprecedented in our history.' Congressman Peter King Really bad things were happening, but they are now being exposed. Big stuff!"

... at 8:50 a.m.: "China has openly stated that they are actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me. What China does not understand is that these people are great patriots and fully understand that....." ... at 8:55 a.m.: ".....China has been taking advantage of the United States on Trade for many years. They also know that I am the one that knows how to stop it. There will be great and fast economic retaliation against China if our farmers, ranchers and/or industrial workers are targeted!"

... at 9:26 a.m.: "Happy 71st Birthday to our GREAT United States Air Force!"

... at 11:50 a.m.: "Right now, everybody is saying what a great job we are doing with Hurricane Florence - and they are 100% correct. But don't be fooled, at some point in the near future the Democrats will start ranting..." "...that FEMA, our Military, and our First Responders, who are all unbelievable, are a disaster and not doing a good job. This will be a total lie, but that's what they do, and everybody knows it!"

... at 11:59 a.m.: "Thank you to our great Coast Guard for doing such a tremendous job - thousands of lives being saved!"

TRADE WARS -- SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, "China to retaliate with tariffs on $60B more of U.S. goods": "Beijing will slap tariffs of 5 or 10 percent on a list of about 5,200 U.S. products, such as honey, liquefied natural gas and smoked salmon. The tariffs will go into effect on Sept. 24." POLITICO

-- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST'S ZHOU XIN and WENDY WU: "Beijing likely to cancel trade war talks after Donald Trump ups the ante with tariffs on $200 billion of goods": "China is reviewing its earlier plans to send a delegation, headed by Vice-Premier Liu He, to Washington next week. ...

"One precondition for the talks was that the Americans would show sufficient goodwill but the U.S. president's decision on Monday to escalate the trade war by slapping 10 percent tariffs on almost half of all Chinese exports might have scuppered the talks ... A U.S. business representative in China said Trump's latest threat would be seen in China as 'holding a gun to its head.'" SCMP

-- NYT'S KEITH BRADSHER in BEIJING: "China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling": "China's tit-for-tat responses have so far failed to thwart Mr. Trump's trade offensive, and with the White House amping up the fight again, Chinese leaders aren't sure how to respond, people briefed on economic policymaking discussions say. ... For now, China is punting." NYT

2018 WATCH -- "'I question their competency': Devin Nunes challenger rips DCCC," by David Siders in Fresno, Calif.: "Andrew Janz emerged as one of the Democratic Party's top online fundraisers this year, marshaling an army of small donors in his campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Devin Nunes. But there's one thing he says he can't get: The [DCCC] to return his calls.

"The 34-year-old prosecutor contends that the Democratic Party's House campaign arm has cut him out of promised fundraising money and frozen him out ... Rifts between candidates and party committees such as the DCCC are not uncommon. ... Yet it's rare for those disputes to spill into public view." POLITICO

-- ERIC GELLER: "Court declines to end paperless voting in Georgia before midterms"

-- "McCaskill Battles Charges That She Is a Stranger in Her Own State," by NYT's Stephanie Saul in Portageville, Mo.: "[H]er opponents are seizing on that wealth, pouring millions of dollars into one of the most hotly contested races of the midterms in an effort to paint [Sen. Claire] McCaskill as out of touch with Missourians, co-opted by the liberal Democratic establishment and corrupted by the business arrangements of her husband. Everything from her Washington condo to her use of a private plane is under attack. ...

"But the election is not only a test of Ms. McCaskill's popularity and endurance. It's also a referendum on whether fealty to Mr. Trump will be a winning strategy." NYT

AD WARS -- PLAYBOOK ALUM ZACH MONTELLARO: "Democratic super PACs begin $10M-plus digital campaign to flip the House"

-- DATA DU JOUR: "Shootings Thrust Gun Control Into Midterm Campaign Ads," by WSJ's Julie Bykowicz: "Ads promoting stricter gun regulations have aired 102,636 times across the country this year-a 22-fold increase from four years ago, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data. ...

"Americans are more likely to see political ads promoting gun control than ones opposing stricter regulations, a reversal from four years ago. In Nevada and Florida, the turnabout is striking: Those states went from zero pro-gun control ads in 2014 to more than 45,000 this year." WSJ

HMM ... "Government Can Spy on Journalists in the U.S. Using Invasive Foreign Intelligence Process," by The Intercept's Cora Currier: "The U.S. government can monitor journalists under a foreign intelligence law that allows invasive spying and operates outside the traditional court system, according to newly released documents. ...

"'This is a huge surprise,' said Victoria Baranetsky, general counsel with the Center for Investigative Reporting ... 'It makes me wonder, what other rules are out there, and how have these rules been applied? The next step is figuring out how this has been used.' ... The memos discussing FISA are dated in early 2015, and both are directed at the FBI's National Security Division." The Intercept

COMING ATTRACTIONS -- "Stormy Daniels' tell-all book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating," by The Guardian's Tom McCarthy: "With its intensely intimate portrait of a clownish and insecure Trump, the book lands after weeks in which the White House has struggled to debunk a portrait of an outmatched and incompetent president in a separate book, Bob Woodward's Fear ...

"The crux of the book, however, follows Daniels' decision to go public with her story about Trump just before the election, after years of hiding the affair, she writes, from her then-husband. Going public meant that she and her daughter would be less vulnerable to attack, she reasoned." The Guardian

AT 1600 PENN -- "White House reviews incident involving Epoch Times photographer handing a folder to Trump," by WaPo's David Nakamura: "Trump accepted the folder and appeared to open it briefly as he departed before quickly shutting it, the witnesses said. It was not clear what was inside the folder. ... The Epoch Times was founded in New York in 2000 by a group of Chinese Americans in an effort to counter Chinese government propaganda. ... The outlet has long denied having direct ties to the Falun Gong, but experts said the paper is sympathetic to the movement." WaPo

RUSSIA WATCH ... "Why Russians Keep Visiting Mariia Butina in Prison: Take it from this former spook: It ain't because they're concerned about her well-being," by Alex Finley in POLITICO Magazine: "According to the prosecution's filing, the Russian government has conducted six consular visits to Butina and passed four diplomatic notes to the U.S. Department of State about her case. ... As prosecutors noted, in the days following Butina's arrest, the official Kremlin Twitter account changed its avatar to a picture of her and launched #FreeMariaButina. ... According to prosecutors, 'Russia has issued more diplomatic notes on the defendant's behalf in the past month than for any other Russian
citizen imprisoned in the United States in the past year.'" POLITICO Magazine

AFTERNOON READ -- REBECCA TRAISTER in NEW YORK magazine, "And You Thought Trump Voters Were Mad: American women are furious - and our politics and culture will never be the same": "The seeds sown during the [Anita] Hill hearings have come into full flower in the past two years, as the #MeToo movement erupted following the election of a multiply accused sexual harasser, and angry women jumped into electoral contests around the country. It's those women who've been winning primaries, toppling men who've occupied seats of power since God was a boy. The partisan gender gap has become a chasm, a fault line splitting open under the pressure of so much rage. ...

"[T]he point is not that the anger is always righteous; rather, that it is often potent - the stuff of eruptive social movements and thwarted ones - and yet to this day, it continues to be written off as loudmouthed hysteria, or the dubious ravings of pussy-hatted suburbanites with itchy Etsy trigger fingers." New York

VALLEY TALK -- BLOOMBERG'S TOM SCHOENBERG and MATT ROBINSON: "Tesla Is Facing U.S. Criminal Probe Over Elon Musk Statements"

REMEMBERING ANN MARIE HABERSHAW -- "When she was considering joining [Bully Pulpit Interactive] after the [Obama] re-elect, what surprised us most was that despite all her accomplishments, the thing she was most excited about was the opportunity to work alongside and mentor our young staff. In doing so, she quickly became the core of BPI, the foundation on which everything was based and that we all counted on." Medium

TRANSITIONS -- Jenn Sherman is now senior adviser for communications for HHS' assistant secretary for health. She was previously press secretary for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. ... Charlene MacDonald is joining FTI Consulting as a managing director in strategic communications. She was most recently senior policy adviser to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

WEEKEND WEDDING -- OBAMA ALUMNI: John Bisognano, director of campaigns and state engagement at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and an Obama White House alum, married Heather Reid, chief of staff for mobilization at the DNC and a Hillary 2016 alum, in a wedding in Portsmouth, N.H., officiated by Marlon Marshall, a Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama alum. Pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Nathaniel Lutovsky, a legislative analyst at the RAND Corporation, and Meg Lutovsky, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Agnes Catholic School in Arlington, welcomed Clare Margaret Lutovsky. Pic

BONUS BIRTHDAY: Don Castellucci, assistant director for scheduling and advance at Treasury (h/ts Nathan Bult and David Simons)

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