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By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman

Presented by

7/23 PB AUDIO
DRIVING THE DAY
WE START THIS WEEK VIRTUALLY assured it will be preoccupied by the same subject as last week: the president's dealings with Moscow.

ONE OF THE SIGNATURES OF THE TRUMP ERA, as our colleague Sudeep Reddy notes, is that scandals that at other times would have been all-consuming disappear in days or even hours. Trump has taken advantage of the climate by producing a constant supply of new sensations, distractions, and outrages.

-- NEW TOPIC ALERT: THE PRESIDENT last night at 11:24 p.m.: "To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!" AP: Rouhani warned Trump to stop "'playing with the lion's tail' and threatening Iran, 'or else you will regret it.'" AP

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER WHAT WE were outraged about a week ago? This time we can remember: Serious questions about the president's dealings with a dangerous adversary, whether he or associates is compromised by Moscow, and his honesty about both subjects persist.

TRUMP'S RUSSIA PROBLEMS AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE ... PAUL MANAFORT, the president's former campaign manager, goes on trial this week in Virginia. The proceedings are slated to begin Wednesday and are sure to dredge up more uncomfortable topics. Meanwhile, the president is complaining that he isn't getting enough credit for his meeting with Vladimir Putin and he is preparing for a second summit with the Russian leader.

-- WSJ: "Trump, Aides Diverge Further on Russia" WSJ

MEANWHILE, with the Washington Rottweiler's fangs in his calf, Trump is leaving. He is going to Kansas City, Iowa and Illinois this week. And he'll be cheered for sure. Sixty-six percent of Republicans in a new Washington Post-ABC poll approved of the same Helsinki summit performance with Vladimir Putin that left lawmakers in both parties sputtering. As ever, the ceiling and floor of public support for Trump are only a few points apart.

-- THE PRESIDENT'S CHOICE TOPIC, at 6:23 p.m.: "So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn't he do something about it? Why didn't he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that's why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!"

STILL ROCK SOLID -- "Donald Trump's Approval Rating Inches Higher, Buoyed by Republican Support," by WSJ's Mike Bender: "President Donald Trump's approval rating edged higher during a week in which he faced withering criticism following a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling that he is positioned to weather the latest controversy sparked by his unusual brand of politics. Mr. Trump's job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June.

"The survey was taken over a four-day period that started July 15, a day before Mr. Trump's news conference with Mr. Putin in which he questioned the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. Underpinning Mr. Trump's job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency." WSJ

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ABOUT THAT MANAFORT TRIAL -- DARREN SAMUELSOHN emails us the details: "Monday at 11 a.m. in Alexandria could be the last pretrial hearing before the Manafort trial. Judge TS Ellis III has several motions and arguments he still hasn't ruled on, among them Manafort's request to punt this trial until after the September money laundering one is done in Washington, D.C. There are also questions about whether Mueller can raise a variety of pieces of evidence and information, including Manafort's ties to Trump and his work in the Ukraine."

-- NEXT UP: Jury selection is scheduled to begin Wednesday, barring any last-minute rulings by the judge.

-- DARREN SAMUELSOHN and JOSH GERSTEIN: "Risks pile up for Trump as Manafort heads to trial": "The first trial prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller will offer the clearest public view yet of what his investigators have on President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, with a catalogue of evidence and testimony undercutting the president's repeated claims that the Russia investigation is a 'witch hunt.'

"Trump, his lawyers and some of his closest associates have spent months publicly dismissing the Manafort case, scheduled to begin this week in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court. They argue it's all about the personal legal woes of someone who has lobbied for some of the world's most controversial leaders but has nothing to do with the president or his 2016 campaign. ...

"[T]he Manafort trial will create daily reminders of the Mueller investigation, as commentators pile onto cable networks to discuss what the case could indicate about the president's own exposure - and, potentially, as the president himself offers his own analysis on Twitter. Whether he addresses it publicly or not, Trump will have to pay close attention given the array of legal investigations involving various former associates, said Alan Dershowitz, the retired Harvard law professor who is close to Trump. 'Of course the president has to watch. He has to watch everything Mueller is doing,' he said." POLITICO

THE RACE FOR NO. 4 -- SCOOP: "Barbara Lee to announce bid for Democratic Caucus chair," by California Playbooker Carla Marinucci in Oakland: "Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, one of the party's most outspoken progressive voices, will formally launch her campaign Monday to chair the House Democratic Caucus - a post that would make her the first African-American woman to hold a leadership spot in either major political party." POLITICO


SNEAK PEEK ... HOUSE MINORITY WHIP STENY HOYER (D-Md.) is giving a speech at WeWork Dupont this morning about his "Make It In America" agenda. Here's a bit of what he'll say: "Sitting in Washington, it's easy to point to the latest jobs report and say: 'the unemployment rate is down, so things are going well.' But when you go out to the heartland and talk to workers and employers, to innovators and entrepreneurs, it's clear that many people are underemployed and that our economy continues to face serious long-term challenges. That's why I launched the Make It In America Listening Tour last autumn...

"Throughout the Listening Tour, what we heard from the people we met was essentially the same: Congress needs to be a partner in enabling our people to get ahead. We heard a lot about challenges. But we also came back to Washington with new ideas that come straight from the front lines of our economy. Education; entrepreneurship; and infrastructure. In these three areas, Congress needs to step up and act."

NYT'S JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS in Santa Fe, "Democrats See Openings at State Level, Thanks to Trump Resistance": "'It does feel very much like 2010 reversed to me right now,' said Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, the head of the [RGA]. 'There's a lot more conviction about voting on the Democrat side than our side, which is a concern to us.' ... But beyond Mr. Trump's controversial behavior, the governors said the president's policies on issues like trade had created an opening for Democrats in Republican-leaning farm belt states like Iowa and Kansas, where farmers are facing retaliatory tariffs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who won the governorship on the strength of the 2010 Obama
backlash, bluntly acknowledged he and other Republicans could be facing 'a blue wave,' noting that 'the wind nationally isn't at our back.' ...

"Because state governments control redistricting, new Democratic governors could help cement the House gains, or at least block Republicans from repeating the post-2010 gerrymandering that helped entrench their power in Congress. The November election could have 'decadal significance' because of redistricting, said Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, the chairman of the [DGA]." NYT

THE JUICE ...

-- JILL STEIN, the two-time candidate for president, still has $605,441 in her campaign account and she's spending it. She spent $34,945 in June. She paid for a room at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee ($8,346) and is paying a number of salaries. Her director of compliance made $7,160 in June.

TRUMP'S MONDAY -- In the afternoon, the president will participate and deliver remarks at a "Made in America" product showcase.

PLAYBOOK READS


PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump (back) arrive at the White House on Sunday after spending the weekend in New Jersey. | Michael Reynolds/Pool/Getty Images

BURGESS EVERETT: "Wavering Rand sets off Supreme Court spectacle": "Rand Paul is one of a handful of senators who'll determine whether Brett Kavanaugh lands on the Supreme Court - and the Kentucky Republican has every intention of maximizing his leverage.

'"Paul is again inviting fellow senators to play the will-he-or-won't-he guessing game when it comes to his decision -- expressing grave concerns about Kavanaugh's approach to personal privacy while insisting his vote could go either way, depending on what the judge says in the coming weeks and months.

"'I am honestly undecided. I am very concerned about his position on privacy and the Fourth Amendment. This is not a small deal for me. This is a big deal,' Paul said in an interview last week. 'Kavanaugh's position is basically that national security trumps privacy. And he said it very strongly and explicitly. And that worries me.'" POLITICO

2020 WATCH - ELIZABETH WARREN PROFILE -- "Leader of the Persistence: Elizabeth Warren's full-body fight to defeat Trump," by Rebecca Traister on the cover of New York Magazine (print cover headline "Front Runner?"): "In recent months, she has hopped not just between Washington, D.C., and her home state but also to Reno and Las Vegas to campaign alongside a slate of Nevadan candidates; to Denver and Salt Lake City to fund-raise; to the Texas border to visit family-detention centers; to Iraq with Senator Lindsey Graham.

"Within an hour of Trump's announcing his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring justice Anthony Kennedy, she was striding purposefully toward the Supreme Court steps, where a knot of furious protesters gathered in the dark were bellowing, 'Hell no, Kavanaugh! Hell no, Kavanaugh!'" NYMag ... The cover

-- "Inside the mission to blow up the 2020 Democratic field," by Chris Cadelago: "The spoiler effort [at America Rising], now underway in tandem with the pro-Trump America First super PAC - which helps promote the president's agenda - is geared toward more than muddying-up prospective Trump opponents. The groups are also pursuing a strategy intended to pit Democrats against each other in a battle of progressive bona fides that the PAC is gleefully branding as the '#RaceToTheLeft.' ...

"Together, the team [at AR] has already filed more than 300 [FOIA] requests on potential 2020 candidates and monitored more than 700 livestreamed events. ... The PAC also is scrutinizing several business executives whose names occasionally surface as possible White House aspirants: Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Co., Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Tim Cook of Apple, entrepreneur Mark Cuban and progressive activist and former hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer." POLITICO


THE ADMINISTRATION -- "Lawmakers, Lobbyists and the Administration Join Forces to Overhaul the Endangered Species Act," by NYT's Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman: "The Endangered Species Act, which for 45 years has safeguarded fragile wildlife while blocking ranching, logging and oil drilling on protected habitats, is coming under attack from lawmakers, the White House and industry on a scale not seen in decades, driven partly by fears that the Republicans will lose ground in November's midterm elections. In the past two weeks, more than two dozen pieces of legislation, policy initiatives and amendments designed to weaken the law have been either introduced or voted on in Congress or
proposed by the Trump administration.

"The actions included a bill to strip protections from the gray wolf in Wyoming and along the western Great Lakes; a plan to keep the sage grouse, a chicken-size bird that inhabits millions of oil-rich acres in the West, from being listed as endangered for the next decade; and a measure to remove from the endangered list the American burying beetle, an orange-flecked insect that has long been the bane of oil companies that would like to drill on the land where it lives." NYT

TRUMP INC. -- "Their Father Was a Refugee in India. Now They've Teamed Up With the Trumps," by NYT's Steve Eder and Ben Protess in Cleveland, Miss.: "Dinesh Chawla has long run his family's hotel business from a high-top table at a Hampton Inn on the edge of this out-of-the-way Mississippi Delta town. It used to be the kind of work that usually involved friends and neighbors. But in the year since Mr. Chawla and his brother signed a hotel deal with President Trump's family business, he has been courted by strangers.

"Goldman Sachs dispatched a wealth manager in hopes of signing him as a client. And on a recent afternoon, a businessman from Florida came to discuss hotel developments, including a potential location in the shadow of Universal Studios. ... Mr. Chawla is an immigrant from India and the son of a refugee. He treated his staff to celebratory pizza when President Barack Obama was first inaugurated." NYT

JUST POSTED - KNOWING THERESA MAY: "The Impossible Choice: With Brexit looming, Theresa May battles Trump, Europe, and her own party," by Sam Knight in The New Yorker: "May's best hope has been to contain the damage on all sides. Between 2016 and 2018, the U.K. went from being the fastest-growing major economy in the world to the slowest, as businesses halted investment plans, migration dwindled, and foreboding filled the air.

"The government's own estimates show that every form of Brexit will make people worse off, ranging from a relatively modest impact, if the country ends up somehow entwined in the E.U.-and thereby less free-to a cost of around eight per cent of G.D.P., if it leaves with no formal deal at all.

"May opposed Brexit. Unlike many Conservatives, she never developed a theological conviction, either way, about the European Union. ... Seen from Brussels, Britain since the referendum has often resembled a country on the verge of a nervous breakdown. 'Look through the papers. Look in the government and the politics, it is only about Brexit,' Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit coördinator and a former Prime Minister of Belgium, told me in his office last month. 'Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. Can you imagine a country that, for years, the clock stops?'" New Yorker

VALLEY TALK -- "Tesla Asks Suppliers for Cash Back to Help Turn a Profit," by WSJ's Tim Higgins: "Tesla requested the supplier return what it calls a meaningful amount of money of its payments since 2016, according to the memo. The auto maker's memo, sent by a global supply manager, described the request as essential to Tesla's continued operation and characterized it as an investment in the car company to continue the long-term growth between both players.

"While Tesla said in the memo that all suppliers were being asked to help it become profitable, it is unclear how many were asked for a discount on contracted spending amounts retroactively. Some suppliers contacted about the request said they were unaware of such a demand." WSJ

MEDIAWATCH -- NYT'S MIKE GRYNBAUM, "Chris Wallace on Interviewing Putin, and Why He Isn't Afraid to Visit Russia": NYT
PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Justice Elena Kagan on American Airlines flight 2752 from Dallas to DCA yesterday. Our tipster told us he offered her his upgraded ticket but "she politely declined to remain in economy." ... John Bolton grocery shopping at the Bethesda Giant on Arlington Road Saturday. He had four security people with him.

ENGAGED - Ben Coffey Clark, founding partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, recently proposed to Anna Soellner, communications director for Reddit and an MPAA and CAP alum. The two reconnected in San Francisco after they both had moved from D.C. He proposed in a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, in Hakone, Japan. Pic

-- SPOTTED at the couple's engagement party this weekend featuring champagne and key lime pies and co-hosted by Brian and Anne Bennett and Michael and Diana Allen: Jeremy and Robyn Bash, Mary Kathryn and Michael Steel, Garance Franke-Ruta, Maria-Teresa and Raj Kumar, Josh Dorner, Kate Bedingfield, Rodell and Sheena Mollineau, Ben Sheffner, Michael Silberman, Mark Paustenbach, Jay Newton-Small, Andrea and Jimi Purse, Jon Clark and Arkadi Gerney.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD - Rachael Slobodien, communications director at the Club for Growth and a Ted Cruz and Heritage alum, and Mark Slobodien, government relations counsel at Legal Services Corporation, welcomed Anna Claire Slobodien. Pics -- Anna Claire getting baptized ... Another pic

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Fritz Brogan, co-managing partner of Mission Group (Mission Dupont, Mission Navy Yard and Hawthorne), national co-chair of Maverick Pac and finance chair to Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.). What he's been reading recently: "I recently finished 'Hellfire Boys' by Theo Emert, a fascinating non-fiction book about the history of the military's World War I chemical warfare program in the area that it is now known as Spring Valley, which is where I live. It's a story that hasn't been told much and it's especially interesting as one of my neighbors has the remains of the bunkers on their property." Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Stephanie Grisham, WH deputy assistant to the President and communications director for FLOTUS ... Nancy Hamlin ... David Brock is 56. He celebrated last night with close friends in East Hampton, including James Alefantis, Alex Halpern Levy and Victoria Hopper ... Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 82 ... Monica Lewinsky ... Don Imus is 78 ... CNN senior publicist Liza Pluto (hat tips: Matt Dornic and Lauren Pratapas) ... The Economist's Lane Greene ... Matt Shilling ... John Mihalec, former WH speechwriter for President Ford ... Eric Werwa ... Caleb Zigas ... Robert Parker Jr. is 71 ... Recode's Kat Borgerding ... Politico's Sam Barnes ... Sujata Thomas ... Melinda
Wittstock ... Catherine O'Donnell ... Carolyn Vadino ...

... Melissa Brown, press secretary for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), is 27 ... Alexandra Booze (h/t Laura Whitefield) ... Alex Pareene ... Matt Jeanneret, deputy COO at the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, is 51 ... Edelman's Courtney Gray Haupt ... Georgetown law professor and tax expert Itai Grinberg ... Marshall Schraibman ... WaPo's Perry Stein ... Sarah Obenour ... Stephan Tisher ... Joey Rault ... Aaron Moore ... former Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.) is 7-0 ... Tracie Pough ... Josh Gross, SVP at Glover Park Group ... Melinda Wittstock ... Michael Bruce Hill ... Katherine Boucher ... Cathy Whaley ... David Dewit ... Jeremy D. Goodwin ... Jim Thompson ... Dan Pink ... Brooks
Emanuel ... Zack Bliss (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

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