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Presented by Morgan Stanley: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Sep 02, 2018 View in browser
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and Daniel Lippman

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DRIVING THE DAY
HEADS UP ... WE HEAR that congressional leadership is heading to the White House this week for a meeting with PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP about the fall agenda. It's pretty common for the leadership to touch gloves with the president ahead of a busy legislative period. GOVERNMENT FUNDING runs out in 28 days.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK ... THE PRESIDENT'S WEEK ... Tuesday: The president will have lunch with VP Mike Pence, and then meet with the United States Travel Association CEOs. Wednesday: The amir of Kuwait will come to the White House. Thursday: Trump will go to Billings, Montana.

WSJ'S REID EPSTEIN: "GOP's Tough Task in House Races: Reach Beyond Trump's Base Endangered Republicans must find supporters who will vote for them even though they disapprove of the president": "The GOP's endangered incumbents this fall-most of whom represent suburban districts where Mr. Trump has turned off voters-must find supporters who will vote for them even though they disapprove of the president.


Presented by Morgan Stanley:

How will our lives change when electric cars become the new normal? Electric vehicles, the long-anticipated cars of the future, are poised to dominate global markets in the next few decades. What impact will they have on how we live our lives? Hear the podcast.

"'If you look at our battlefield, 55 districts, the president is underwater in every one of those 55 districts across America,' said Ben Ray Luján, the chairman of the [DCCC].

"There is little debate House Democratic candidates are running with the wind at their backs. The president's party has lost House seats in 18 of the last 20 midterm elections, with an average loss of 29 seats. The last time a president's approval rating was as low as Mr. Trump's 40%, Republicans lost 30 seats as George W. Bush's popularity sagged during the Iraq war in 2006." WSJ

KEN VOGEL and MATT ROSENBERG on NYT A1 "Agents Tried to Flip Russian Oligarchs. The Fallout Spread to Trump": "In the estimation of American officials, Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, has faced credible accusations of extortion, bribery and even murder. They also thought he might make a good source. Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and,
later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump's 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska.

"In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump's campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin. The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia's richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said." NYT

Good Sunday morning. WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND ... at 9:28 a.m.: "Tiger Woods showed great class in the way he answered the question about the Office of the Presidency and me. Now they say the so-called 'left' is angry at him. So sad, but the 'center & right' loves Tiger, Kanye, George Foreman, Jim Brown & so many other greats, even more......."

... at 9:37 a.m.: "....The fact is that African/American unemployment is now the lowest in the history of our country. Same with Asian, Hispanic and almost every other group. The Democrats have been all talk and no action. My Administration has already produced like no other, and everyone sees it!"

THE BIG PICTURE ... WAPO'S ROBERT BARNES: "Issues for Brett Kavanaugh: the president who chose him and the Supreme Court he would change": "Two factors animate U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's crucial Supreme Court confirmation hearings that begin Tuesday in the Senate: one is the justice he would succeed, and the other is the president who chose him.

"A host of issues are at stake with the departure of the court's pivotal justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, whose swing-vote jurisprudence did not fit neatly into a conservative or liberal box. Abortion, affirmative action, the interplay of religious beliefs and gay rights, and the government's protection of the environment are among the issues affected by Kennedy's departure, and Kavanaugh is likely to be to the right of Kennedy on all.

"But this confirmation fight also comes as the powers of a special prosecutor to investigate President Trump are part of a national debate, with important constitutional decisions on executive power and prerogative possibly awaiting the high court." WaPo

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR A LOT ABOUT FROM DEMOCRATS ... NYT'S SHERYL STOLBERG: "White House Cites Executive Privilege to Withhold 100,000 Pages of Kavanaugh Records": "The Trump White House, citing executive privilege, is withholding from the Senate more than 100,000 pages of records from Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's time as a lawyer in the administration of former President George W. Bush.

"The decision, disclosed in a letter that a lawyer for Mr. Bush sent on Friday to Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, comes just days before the start of Judge Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings on Tuesday. It drew condemnation from Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader." NYT


SUNDAY BEST ...

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) told CHRIS WALLACE on "FOX NEWS SUNDAY" that if Kavanaugh "does well at the hearing, he will get ... 55 [votes] or higher, if he does well."

-- GRAHAM to Wallace, on McCain: GRAHAM: "He tried to drain the swamp before it was cool, that you can fight hard and still be respected. If you forgive, people appreciate it, and if you admit to mistakes, you look good as a stronger man. That's the formula, John McCain. This was a civics lesson for anybody who wanted to listen. Why do remember this man, because of the way he conducted his public life."

WALLACE: "Do you think there's a lesson there for President Trump?" GRAHAM: "There's a lesson here for everybody, including President Trump. Everybody makes mistakes. Those who admit it are seen by the public as bigger, not smaller. Know what you're talking about, fight hard, forgive, and have passion, strength and kindness are not mutually exclusive."

-- SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MINN.) told CHUCK TODD on NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS" that she would "prefer" to bring back the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees.

-- KLOBUCHAR on campaigning with KEITH ELLISON: TODD: "Are you comfortable campaigning with him? Would you campaign for him?" KLOBUCHAR: "-- Right now, I'm focused on Judge Kavanaugh. He hasn't asked me to campaign with him. I -- that is where we are right now. And we have an incredibly strong ticket in Minnesota. We have two senate races up, a governor's race. Focused on that." TODD: "So if he asked, would you campaign for him?" KLOBUCHAR: "I will campaign with our ticket when the time comes."

-- JOHN KERRY spoke with MARGARET BRENNAN on CBS'S "FACE THE NATION": BRENNAN: "Are you going to run in 2020?" KERRY: "I'm really not thinking about it... talking about 2020 right now is a total distraction and waste of time. What we need to do is focus on 2018."

-- ANDREW GILLUM spoke with DANA BASH on CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": BASH: "Final question. Bernie Sanders was one of your big supporters, particularly towards the end of your primary race there. You endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. Would you support Bernie Sanders for president in 2020?"

GILLUM: "Oh, Dana, I'm trying to get elected governor. We're trying to save this state. But I will tell you, I'm deeply appreciative of the support of Sen. Sanders. And you're right. I did support Secretary Clinton. I spoke to her earlier last week, she and the president, President Clinton. I value their friendships. And I think what is important is that what we showed is that we have got the ability to bring together all the wings of the Democratic Party."

-- SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WIS.) tells MARTHA RADDATZ on ABC'S "THIS WEEK" how Republicans should run in 2018: RADDATZ: "How do Republican candidates overcome the cloud of investigations that hang over the president, especially in a key swing state like yours?"

JOHNSON: "I think we should point out the reality of all the good things this administration has done. We stopped adding to the regulatory burden, we have a more competitive tax system."

MORE ON MCCAIN ...

-- ARIZONA REPUBLIC FRONT PAGE: "NATION'S FAREWELL"

-- Pool report: "After the funeral service, over 100 McCain staff and former staff gathered to have some beer and pizza -- reliving a constant meal from many campaign nights. McCain's long time office manager, Virg Pounds, helped organize and sported a 'Students for McCain' tee shirt while greeting staffers from the past 30 years. McCain's long time scheduler, Ellen Cahill, and long time legislative director, Joe Donoghue, helped host and mingled with staff and former staff they had worked with during the past 20+ years of service to Senator McCain. The Senator often said being a McCain staffer is similar to checking into 'Hotel California,' you check-in and never really leave. [On Sunday]
many of McCain's long time advance team members from the 2008 campaign will advance one last event for the Senator, his journey to Annapolis."

-- TIM ALBERTA, "Washington Mourns John McCain - And Its Own Demise Under Trump: Saturday's memorial service celebrated the most sacred of D.C. ideals: the vanishing bipartisan spirit he represented": "It was a sendoff befitting a titan of the republic: the flag-draped coffin, the bagpipes, the angelic chorus, the stained-glass windows and gothic pillared arches encasing a sanctuary of some 3,000 notables bidding a final farewell. But the Saturday morning service for John McCain at the National Cathedral felt also like a memorial for Washington herself - a capital city that under President Donald Trump no longer seems capable, as the late senator was, of balancing fights with friendships,
of divorcing disagreement from disrespect, of recognizing the basic difference between opponents and enemies.

"With organ notes echoing throughout the cavernous complex before the ceremony, they mingled and shook hands and scanned the room for More Important People as they might at any black-tie affair. Former presidents and vice presidents elicited camera clicks. Senators compared notes with ambassadors. Military officials and government wisemen and media personalities craned their necks.

"Jared and Ivanka held court with perfect strangers. The commotion outside - police escorts, a procession of black Cadillacs, hundreds of congressmen and senators being bussed in, all with onlookers lining the surrounding sidewalks - made it a quintessentially D.C. occasion, a marriage of exclusivity and self-importance. The only thing missing from this meeting of official Washington was the chief executive of official Washington." POLITICO Magazine

-- SUSAN GLASSER on NewYorker.com, "John McCain's Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet": "A little after 9 A.M., President Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, made an entrance in the packed Cathedral, embracing Republican senators, nodding earnestly, dressed in black like everyone else. Trump's national-security adviser, John Bolton, was there, too, along with John Kelly, the former Marine general whom Trump has enlisted as his White House chief of staff. All eyes were on them, and, after the service, that is much of what the buzzing knots of people outside the cathedral talked about:

"What were they thinking as they heard the speeches? Why did they come? Were they embarrassed? Ashamed? Should they be? They should not be under any illusions, and I imagine they weren't: this was a room full of people who hate much of what their boss is doing, and that they are letting him do it. Was a tax cut for the wealthy worth it? A few dozen judicial appointments and two Supreme Court seats?" NewYorker.com

Presented by Morgan Stanley:

A rapid shift in the auto industry is coming. Electric vehicles, the long-anticipated cars of the future, are poised to dominate global markets in the next few decades. How will our lives change when electric cars become the new normal? Hear the full podcast from Morgan Stanley.

DEEP DIVE - BOSTON GLOBE'S ANNIE LINSKEY: "Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren's rise in law": "In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman. ...

"Once Warren was working at the law school in a permanent job, her status as Native American wasn't a secret. Administrators marked her down as a Native American from 1995 to 2004. Her colleagues gave her some guff about it, joking behind her back that her Native American name would have been "Talking Pot," in homage to her oratorical skills. Harvard Law School also used Warren's ethnicity internally in December 1995 to bolster the case that they didn't need to hire more minorities (even though publicly the law school continued to pledge support for diversity). ...

"'This is a made-up issue,' said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus and occasional Trump defender, when asked if her heritage played a role. 'This is not an issue that's worthy of the president or anyone else.'" Globe
PLAYBOOK READS


PHOTO DU JOUR: Navy Lt. Jack McCain, the son of Sen. John McCain, is reflected in the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Saturday as Cindy McCain - accompanied by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, right, and President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly, left - departs after laying a wreath. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

FOR YOUR RADAR -- "Pentagon cancels aid to Pakistan over record on militants," by Reuters' Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali: "The U.S. military said it has made a final decision to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan that had been suspended over Islamabad's perceived failure to take decisive action against militants, in a new blow to deteriorating ties.

"The so-called Coalition Support Funds were part of a broader suspension in aid to Pakistan announced by President Donald Trump at the start of the year, when he accused Pakistan of rewarding past assistance with 'nothing but lies & deceit.' The Trump administration says Islamabad is granting safe haven to insurgents who are waging a 17-year-old war in neighboring Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denies. But U.S. officials had held out the possibility that Pakistan could win back that support if it changed its behavior." Reuters

-- "An Army Director Hired To A Top Immigration Post Spewed Anti-Muslim Comments On Facebook - Then He Lost The Job," by BuzzFeed's Hamed Aleaziz, Adolfo Flores and Jane Lytvynenko: "A U.S. Army director recently offered a job as deputy director of the federal agency that oversees immigration applications made anti-Muslim statements and posts on Facebook in recent years.

"Guy Sands-Pingot, who was at one point a brigadier general, was tapped to be deputy director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and was slated to begin in mid-September. Sands-Pingot would have served under an administration that is seeking to significantly cut back on the number of legal and undocumented immigrants and has, with the travel ban, targeted Muslim-majority countries. He would have also helped oversee an agency that recently created a denaturalization unit. ...

"In a comment from about two years ago, Sands-Pingot compared Islam to the Nazi Party. He said Muslim intellectuals and a 'political axis' continually exonerate terrorist attacks as solitary acts of violence despite a clear connection. ... After BuzzFeed News asked USCIS about some of the material on Facebook, spokesman Michael Bars said Sands-Pingot will no longer fill the role he was recently hired for." BuzzFeed


Presented by Morgan Stanley:

A recent Morgan Stanley report predicted that by 2050, over one billion electric vehicles will be on the road. These long-anticipated cars of the future are poised to dominate global markets in the next few decades. Common questions about these vehicles range from the time required to recharge to the acceleration capabilities they have - and many are asking what an electric-car-powered future will look like. As interest increases, potential setbacks to adoption remain, centralized around power stations and infrastructure. The move from coal power to solar power could have a positive impact on the electric vehicle market, but how that power is accessed could be an issue; consumers may not
buy electric vehicles until there are more charging stations, but more charging stations may not be built until there are more electric vehicles on the road. Hear the full podcast from Morgan Stanley.

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman, filing from Jackson Hole, Wyoming:

-- "American Pie," by Jenny G. Zhang in Eater: "How sharing a Hawaiian pizza from Pizza Hut became a Beijing family tradition." Eater (h/t Longform.org)

-- "The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages," by Judith Thurman in the New Yorker: "What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?" New Yorker

-- "What Drove Sigmund Freud to Write a Scandalous Biography of Woodrow Wilson?" by Ben Yagoda in Smithsonian Magazine: "The founder of psychoanalysis collaborated with a junior American diplomat to lambaste the former president." Smithsonian

-- "Death, Redesigned," by Jon Mooallem in California Sunday in April 2015: "A legendary design firm, a corporate executive, and a Buddhist-hospice director take on the end of life." California Sunday

-- "American Beauties," by Rebecca Altman in Topic: "The first plastic bags were introduced to consumers in the 1950s to collect trash and carry home dry cleaning. By 1988, about 40 percent of U.S. grocery bags were plastic. By 2003 plastic's market share was close to 80 percent. Somewhere between 500 billion and 1.5 trillion plastic bags are consumed globally each year at a rate of more than a million a minute." Topic

-- "Nuance: A Love Story," by Meghan Daum in Medium - per ALDaily.com's description: "As politics has become an exercise in drawing a bright line between those on the right and those in the wrong, Meghan Daum falls back in love with an old flame: nuance." Medium

-- "The New Reading Environment" - n+1: "What must it feel like, we wonder, to carefully slather such oleaginous smarminess over statements that you cannot possibly believe?" n+1

-- "Why Does Violence in Chicago Attract So Much Attention, Even Though It's Not the Murder Capital of The U.S.?" by Breanna Edwards in The Root - per Longreads.com's description: "Homicide rates in Chicago's black communities receive a disproportionate amount of media attention in an ongoing tendency to pathologize and sensationalize." The Root

-- "Diary of a Concussion," by Elizabeth Lopatto in the Verge: "I still felt like myself, but it was kind of like my personality was a set of piano keys and someone had sliced off all the notes you'd ordinarily play with your left hand. I could go on playing with both hands, but only the top half of the keyboard was available. It was apparent, once I was back at work, that my attention span wasn't what it had been. This is actually common in concussion patients. It's related to the problems with vision - which makes sense, since attention and vision have a lot to do with each other." The Verge

-- "The New Old Age," by Sandra Martin in the Walrus - per Longreads.com's description: "When FDR signed the Social Security Act in the 1930s, the average male life expectancy was 61. Today, it's nearly 80. Is society ready for more people living longer than ever?" The Walrus

-- "How to be human: the man who was raised by wolves," by Matthew Bremner in the Guardian: "Abandoned as a child, Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja survived alone in the wild for 15 years. But living with people proved to be even more difficult." Guardian (h/t Longform.org)

-- "Programming My Child," by David Auerbach in an adaptation of "Bitwise: A Life in Code" in Boston Review: "A few years after leaving Google, I had a daughter, and thus began another long-term engineering project. The stimulus-response cycle is out in the open with a child, and the feedback loop created between parent and child is tight, controlled, and frequently comprehensible. In the first months of her life, I kept a spreadsheet of my daughter's milestones. Hardware upgrades to her height and weight were ongoing, but I declared a new 'version' whenever my wife and I deemed her sufficiently different to appear as though a software upgrade had been installed." Boston Review ... $18.27
on Amazon

PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) chatting with Bill Richardson while waiting yesterday for their JetBlue flight from DCA to Boston.

WEEKEND WEDDINGS - "Brittany Brady, Jeffrey Parrillo" - N.Y. Times: "Mrs. Parrillo, 28, is a field producer for CNN's program development team in New York. She interviews guests around the world for documentary series produced by the Atlanta-based cable news network. She graduated from the University of Richmond. ... Mr. Parrillo, 37, is a residential real estate salesman at New York City Property and Residence Management in New York. He is also an actor ... He graduated from Georgetown and received a Master of Fine Arts from the Actors Studio in New York." With a pic

-- OBAMA ALUMNI: "Amy Gershkoff, Brendan Bolles" - N.Y. Times: "Mrs. Bolles, who is 38 and works in San Francisco, consults for and advises companies in the technology sector regarding data and technology solutions. She previously served as the head of media planning for President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. She graduated summa cum laude from Cornell, and received both a master's degree and a Ph.D. in political science from Princeton. ... Mr. Bolles, 43, is the senior technical director for Swordfish, a creative advertising studio in San Francisco. Previously, he served as a visual effects artist for movies including 'Sin City' and 'Hellboy.'" With a pic

BIRTHDAYS: Lisa Barclay, partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner and former FDA chief of staff (hat tip: Autumn VandeHei) ... Emily Porter ... James Rosen, celebrating with Sara on a trip to Savannah next month ... Curtis Jablonka ... former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is 67 ... former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) is 87 ... Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) is 66 ... NPR's Don Gonyea (h/t Dick Keil) ... Yahoo News' Dan Klaidman is 54 ... J.P. Freire, comms director for Joint Economic Committee ... Taylor Hennings, Tim Kaine's Virginia finance director (h/t Ian Sams) ... Jordan Blum ... Joe Shonkwiler ... Seth Zweifler ... Jess Fassler ... Zakiya Thomas ... Coleman Hutchins ... Molly McUsic,
president of the Wyss Foundation ... Fleishman alum Kris Balderston (h/t Patrick Steel) ... Evan Rosenfeld ... Evan Viau, legislative clerk for House Energy and Commerce's Communications and Technology Subcommittee (h/t Kelly Collins) ...

... Tom Manatos, VP of government relations at Spotify and founder of D.C. political job site TomManatosJobs.com ... Elizabeth Birch (h/ts Jon Haber) ... Bryan Watt ... Laurie McCord ... Margot Edelman ... Netflix's Ferial Govashiri ... Ethan Zorfas, VP at Axiom Strategies ... Dylan Vorbach ... comms firm Ditto is 6 ... Shannon Wheeler ... Melissa Joseph ... Christa Robinson of Kentucky ... Andrew Shine ... Scott Petersen, deputy COS for Rep. Jim Costa ... Kim Bowman ... Bill Bode ... former Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) is 64 ... Wayne Washington ... Jennifer Hanley, managing director at Tusk Ventures ... Ian Kremer ... Jordan Blum ... Michael Siroka ... Xuan Thai ... Andy Adkins ... Raney
Aronson-Rath, executive producer at Frontline ... Kai Bird ... Sakib Shaikh ... Amy Goldman ... Trevor Thomas ... Vi Neil ... Connie Cook ... Michael Kolenc (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)


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