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Presented by the American Beverage Association: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Feb 21, 2019 View in browser
By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman

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DRIVING THE DAY
DEMOCRATS are anxiously awaiting a decision by the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE on which city will host the 2020 Democratic National Convention. So far, the committee has been mum about whether HOUSTON, MIAMI or MILWAUKEE will get the nod, but we hear part of the delay is because each city has its own downsides.

THE PAIN POINTS ...

MIAMI: Dealing with hot weather and potential hurricanes is a major ding on the city's bid. Plus, there is concern that the city's arena has too small of a floor plan.

HOUSTON: The big question here is money. The oil and gas industry dominates Houston, and given Democrats' posture on environmental issues, it isn't necessarily a good fit for many of the city's companies to cut large checks to host Democrats. And, of course, hot weather is also an issue.

MILWAUKEE: Still seen as the odds-on favorite, the midsize city has some organizers concerned about its ability to house the influx of people during the three-day event.

DESPITE THE CONCERNS, Democrats involved in the bids believe an announcement could come as soon as next week.

A DNC SPOKESWOMAN said "the DNC hasn't made any decisions yet and all cities are in the running."

-- MARC CAPUTO in Miami: "Miami makes last-ditch convention pitch": "Miami fears the fix is in. Local Democrats increasingly believe that the Democratic National Convention in 2020 will be sited in Milwaukee, Wis., a conclusion that's led Florida politicians, donors and insiders to mount a final lobbying blitz to turn the tide.

"The last-ditch effort began in earnest in recent days as speculation mounted that Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez would pick Milwaukee, where he has both family ties and the pressure of the Democratic governors of Wisconsin and Illinois weighing on him to go with a Midwestern location.

"Perez has denied making up his mind or favoring any of the three finalist cities, a shortlist that includes Houston. Still, the state's Democratic congressional delegation has been pressed into service to persuade him. Hotel worker unions are also making a pitch to choose Miami - labor has a greater presence in the hospitality industry here than in Milwaukee." POLITICO

Good Thursday morning. SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI sent a "Dear Colleague" letter Wednesday night, asking members to co-sponsor Rep. Joaquin Castro's (D-Texas) privileged resolution "to terminate this emergency declaration using the termination mechanism within the National Emergencies Act."

-- THE TIMELINE: Introduce the resolution Friday. Report it out of committee within 15 days and put it on the House floor within three days following that. The letter ... Story by Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris

-- PELOSI was honored Wednesday night at the VHI "Trailblazer Honors." More from The Hollywood Reporter's Chris Gardner

YIKES -- "Feds: Coast Guard lieutenant compiled hit list of lawmakers," by AP's Michael Balsamo: "A Coast Guard lieutenant who was arrested last week is a 'domestic terrorist' who drafted an email discussing biological attacks and had what appeared to be a hit list that included prominent Democrats and media figures, prosecutors said in court papers. ...

"[Christopher Paul] Hasson's list of prominent Democrats included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and presidential hopefuls Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. The list ... also included mentions of John Podesta ... along with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, MSNBC's Chris Hayes and Joe Scarborough and CNN's Chris Cuomo and Van Jones." AP

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO will be on NBC's "Today" show in studio this morning.

-- CNN'S KYLIE ATWOOD and JEREMY DIAMOND: "Bolton to visit South Korea ahead of Trump-Kim summit": "U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton will travel to South Korea later this week for a round of consultations ahead of President Donald Trump's upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, two administration officials told CNN.

"Bolton's trip comes as top U.S. officials continue to hammer out the details of Trump's second summit with Kim. From the pageantry of the meeting to the substance of what Trump and Kim might agree to regarding denuclearization there's much to be worked out." CNN

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WHAT THEY'RE UP TO NOW -- "Why Sean Spicer Joined 'Extra' as a TV Correspondent," by The Hollywood Reporter's Jeremy Barr ... His interview with the Pompeos. He asked the secretary of State what's on his music list when he travels.

JOHN JAMES FOR U.N.? ... GABBY ORR and DANIEL LIPPMAN: Conversations between the White House and James "have included frequent phone calls as Trump's team searches for a new top diplomat after State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew herself from consideration for the post over the weekend, citing family concerns. Trump and James have not met in person since Nauert pulled her name, and it's unclear if they have spoken by phone." POLITICO

CNN'S EVAN PEREZ, LAURA JARRETT and KATELYN POLANTZ: "Justice Department preparing for Mueller report as early as next week": "Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller's confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans. The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation. The precise timing of the announcement is subject to change." CNN

-- WAPO'S DEVLIN BARRETT, JOSH DAWSEY and MATT ZAPOTOSKY: "Even before he was confirmed by the Senate, Barr had preliminary discussions about the logistics surrounding the conclusion of Mueller's inquiry, a second person said. At that time, though, Barr had not been briefed on the substance of Mueller's investigation, so the conversations were limited." WaPo

2020 WATCH -- NBC'S MIKE MEMOLI: "Biden gets closer to a White House bid but serious concerns remain": "Joe Biden wants to be president. And each day, he's closer to being ready to run for the office. But even as he weighs a campaign to unseat President Donald Trump, Biden is carefully considering a key question - what happens when the president or his top allies try to make his family an issue?

"Conversations with aides to the former vice president and others who've spoken with him in recent weeks present the idea of a Biden candidacy as not if but when. Since the start of the year it's been like a 'slow boil,' as one aide put it, with Biden's answer on whether to run moving in a steady direction toward yes, incrementally warmer with each passing day." NBC

BIG NEWS IN ISRAEL ... NYT'S DAVID HALBFINGER in Cairo: "Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, Israeli Centrists, Join Forces Against Netanyahu": "Israel's two leading centrist candidates for prime minister, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, have joined forces to try to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing leader who has led the country for a decade, in a move that instantly makes the April 9 elections far more competitive.

"Mr. Gantz, a retired military chief of staff who entered politics only weeks ago, and Mr. Lapid, a former finance minister who founded the Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) party in 2012, agreed to take turns as prime minister if elected, with Mr. Gantz holding the job for the first two and a half years before yielding it to Mr. Lapid. ...

"Polls had shown a Gantz-Lapid merger posing a credible threat to Mr. Netanyahu, who responded with a visceral online campaign aimed at depicting the former general as a liberal. 'Gantz: Weak left,' Mr. Netanyahu's videos warned. 'Netanyahu: Strong right.'" NYT

-- INTERESTING: SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MASS.) spoke to TOMMY VIETOR about what they see as the Netanyahu government's alliance with the Republican Party. 1-min. Pod Save America video clip

WAPO'S J.M. RIEGER: "'That was my idea': How Trump claims credit for nearly everything"

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THE JUICE ...

-- THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO and the Nieman Foundation are hosting the Campaign Journalism Conference April 11-12, 2020, at Google's HQ in Chicago. Panelists will include Ben Smith, Jonathan Martin, Chuck Todd, Amy Walter, Alex Conant and Joel Benenson. Registration

-- KATIE WALDMAN is leaving DHS, where she is deputy press secretary, to work for Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) as communications director.

THE CASH DASH ... THE DCCC got $33,900 from lobbyist Steve Elmendorf. ... The biggest individual donor to the NRSC was Geoffrey H. Palmer, an L.A. real estate developer. He gave $66,100.

TRUMP'S THURSDAY: THE PRESIDENT will have lunch with acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt at 12:15 p.m. He will attend a reception for National African American History Month at 6:15 p.m.
PLAYBOOK READS


PHOTO DU JOUR: Former President Barack Obama stands for the national anthem before the Duke and North Carolina game in Durham, N.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 20. North Carolina won 88-72. | Gerry Broome/AP Photo

JAMES ARKIN: "GOP congressman jumps into critical Alabama Senate race": "Republicans landed a top-tier recruit Wednesday in a race critical to their hopes of holding the Senate in 2020, when GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne jumped into the campaign against the most vulnerable Democrat up for reelection, Alabama's Doug Jones. ...

"After his shocking special election win in 2017 in deeply conservative Alabama, defeating Jones is the GOP's best opportunity to flip a Democratic-held seat - making the contest a vital insurance policy for the party to protect its majority, currently 53-47." POLITICO

FOR YOUR RADAR -- "Candidate's son warned father of N.C. political operative's alleged tactics," by WaPo's Amy Gardner in Raleigh, N.C.: "The son of Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris testified Wednesday that he warned his father repeatedly that he believed a political operative now at the center of an election-fraud investigation had previously used illegal tactics to win votes.

"John Harris, now an assistant U.S. attorney in Raleigh, said he advised his father in conversations and emails that he believed Leslie McCrae Dowless was 'shady' and appeared to have illegally collected absentee ballots in 2016 while working for a different Republican candidate in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District." WaPo

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION -- "Ben Carson's 'signature' HUD initiative has gone nowhere," by NBC's Laura Strickler, Suzy Khimm and Cory Dawson: "Last June, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson traveled to his hometown of Detroit to unveil his 'signature' initiative: one-stop shops for social services known as EnVision Centers in 17 communities nationwide. ...

"But eight months later, not one has opened and the program remains mired in confusion and bureaucratic tangles, according to interviews with HUD officials and staffers for nonprofits and housing authorities that have been designated as EnVision Centers. Some critics say the program appears to be little more than a rebranding of work that was already underway." NBC

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CLIMATE NEWS ...

-- ZACK COLMAN and ALEX GUILLEN: "Exclusive: How a top EPA regulator's law firm profited from the fight to roll back air rules": "The nation's biggest coal-burning power companies paid a top lobbying firm millions of dollars to fight a wide range of Obama-era environmental rules, documents obtained by POLITICO reveal - shortly before one of the firm's partners became President Donald Trump's top air pollution regulator.

"Now that ex-partner, Bill Wehrum, is aggressively working to undo many of those same regulations at the EPA, where he is an assistant administrator in charge of issues including climate change, smog and power plants' mercury pollution." POLITICO

-- NYT'S CORAL DAVENPORT: "White House Panel Will Study Whether Climate Change Is a National Security Threat. It Includes a Climate Denialist": "President Trump is preparing to establish a panel to examine whether climate change affects national security, despite existing reports from his own government showing that global warming is a growing threat.

"According to a White House memo dated Feb. 14, Mr. Trump's staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member committee, which will include a White House adviser, William Happer, whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is dangerous for the planet. The memo casts doubt on multiple scientific and defense reports concluding that climate change poses a significant threat to national security." NYT

TRADE WARS -- "Exclusive: U.S., China sketch outlines of deal to end trade war - sources," by Reuters' Jeff Mason: "The United States and China have started to outline commitments in principle on the stickiest issues in their trade dispute, marking the most significant progress yet toward ending a seven-month trade war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. ... [T]he broad outline of what could make up a deal is beginning to emerge from the talks, the sources said, as the two sides push for an agreement by March 1. ...

"Negotiators are drawing up six memorandums of understanding on structural issues: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, according to two sources familiar with the progress of the talks." Reuters

MEDIAWATCH -- "CBS Mulls Changes to 'CBS Evening News,' Eyes Norah O'Donnell for Anchor Slot," by Variety's Brian Steinberg: "CBS News is considering making significant changes to its flagship 'CBS Evening News,' according to four people with knowledge of the talks, part of a top-down look at the news division by incoming president Susan Zirinsky. Executives are considering putting 'CBS This Morning' anchor Norah O'Donnell in the lead role of its evening-news broadcast, these people said, as well as moving the broadcast to Washington, D.C. instead of its longtime roost in New York City. ...

"The discussions about O'Donnell indicate a dissatisfaction with the 'Evening News' performance under Jeff Glor, who was named 'Evening News' anchor in October 2017. CBS' flagship nightly broadcast has long trailed its rivals on ABC and NBC, but in the past year the telecast's ratings have fallen further behind." Variety
PLAYBOOKERS
TRANSITION -- Katherine Cooksey has joined Cavalry LLC as a director. She most recently was at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and is a former House Ways and Means Committee spokeswoman.

BIRTHWEEK (was Tuesday): VOA journalist Daria Dieguts (hat tip: boyfriend Michael Maitland)

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Rebeccah Propp, director of media affairs for VP Mike Pence. What she's read recently: "I finally got around to reading 'Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House' by Alyssa Mastromonaco and Lauren Oyler. The women in the vice president's office have been passing it around -- we've highlighted parts, underlined and made notes throughout.

"It was reassuring to know that even though you're working in a completely different administration, you go through a lot of the same frustrations, challenges and celebrations as your predecessors -- from meeting world leaders on an international stage to sleeping on the cold, hard floor of a cargo plane for 15+ hours. I'm grateful to the writers for bravely telling the good, bad and ugly of what it's like to be a White House staffer." Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Paul Teller, special assistant to the president for legislative affairs ... Ashley Etienne, comms director and senior adviser for Speaker Nancy Pelosi ... AP alum Mark Smith ... Bob Sherman ... Jeremy Gaines ... Samir Patel (h/ts Ben Chang) ... David Sherzer (h/t Peter Watkins) ... Kevin Sheridan, founder of Sheridan Media Group (h/t Tim Burger) ... Kristie Greco ... Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) is 79 ... Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) is 61 ... Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) is 55 ... Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) is 49 ... former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is 72 ... former Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) is 63 ... former Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) is 7-0 ... Tricia Nixon Cox is 73 ...
David Geffen is 76 ... Stan Collender ... Ryan Rudominer is 41 ... Reuters' Ross Colvin ... Elise Lewis ... Rodney Kazibwe ... Stefan Smith is 32 (h/t Eric Koch) ... LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner is 49 ...

... Retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly is 55 (h/t Katie Peters) ... Scott Kelly ... Yale President Peter Salovey is 61 ... Kilmeny Duchardt ... Jonathan Safran Foer is 42 ... James Callan ... Shawn Reinschmiedt, co-founder and principal at M Street Insight (h/t Blain Rethmeier) ... Tori Bell ... Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, is 51 ... Anna Hubbard (h/t Brandon Shaw) ... Sarah Beisler ... Terry Mulcahy ... NanHee Kim ... Mitchell Delk ... Karl Frisch is 41 ... Lee Powell, WaPo video reporter and AP D.C. bureau alum (h/t Ieva Augstums) ... Beth Viola ... Justin Vollmer is 3-0 (h/t Andrew Bates) ... Paul Raymond is 36 ... Stephen Smith of Purple
Strategies ... Jeong Lee ... Michelle Cordero ... Bob Chlopak, founding partner of CLS Strategies.

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