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Presented by BP: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day Jan 22, 2019 View in browser
By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, Daniel Lippman, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

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NEW ... HOT DOC ... HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM Republicans -- ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) -- have sent a letter to MICHAEL COHEN'S attorney, expressing concern about what they term the narrow scope of his upcoming congressional testimony.

-- THE PAIR also say Lanny Davis told them it was his idea to have Cohen testify. The five-page letter

FEW BITES OF NEWS ...

-- CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO: "Kamala Harris' presidential campaign raised $1.5 million in its first 24 hours, her campaign aides told POLITICO, a massive haul for the first-term senator from California that tied Bernie Sanders' one-day total from his 2016 presidential campaign." POLITICO

-- LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ (@lbarronlopez): "News: NC Judge Ridgeway rules AGAINST Mark Harris' petition for certification in #NC09 ... Says a 'certification is not appropriate until the investigation into the protest is concluded by final decision.'"

A PEEK INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE ... As the president continues down the warpath for the border wall, White House aides are privately becoming more and more freaked out about the shutdown, fretting about their own personal financial situation and the president's political standing.

-- MANY WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS -- including those in the executive office of the president -- have not been paid since Christmas. They represent just a small sliver of the employees around America who have not gotten a salary during the shutdown. One difference is many of them have been forced to log long hours, and have restrictions on outside income.

-- THESE AIDES are keenly aware that the shutdown could easily go another few weeks, meaning they might not be paid for upward of a month and a half.

-- ALLIES OF THE WHITE HOUSE ARE keen on saying that federal workers are mostly Democrats. But many people who entered the government to work for Trump are, in fact, Republicans and Trump supporters. And many of those people are not getting paid.

-- NEW ... THE ATLANTIC'S NATASHA BERTRAND (@NatashaBertrand): "New: FBI Agents Association just released a 72-page report about the shutdown. 'The shutdown has eliminated any ability to operate,' says 1 agent. 'The US Attorney's Office is unable to issue grand jury subpoenas for financial institutions,' says another." The report

THINGS DO NOT LOOK GOOD ... THINK OF THIS ... The Senate is probably going to vote on Thursday. The vote on the deal that TRUMP proposed will fail, and then the week will be over. This seems almost certain to stretch into next week.

FOX NEWS' JOHN ROBERTS (@johnrobertsFox): "SCOOP: @WhiteHouse has sent a letter to the Sergeant-At-Arms, asking to schedule a walk-through for the SOTU address. SAA cancelled a walk-through last week at the request of @SpeakerPelosi. @realDonaldTrump still plans to be at the Capitol on Jan 29 for the speech."

-- NEWSFLASH: Congress needs to pass a resolution to allow the president to deliver the State of the Union. The House is controlled by Democrats and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The president could just show up -- the Capitol is a public building -- but the speaker has near unilateral control over the House floor.


SCOTUS WATCH -- "Supreme Court allows Trump administration to enforce transgender military ban," by NBC's Pete Williams: "The court, without comment, granted a request from the Justice Department to allow the government to enforce the ban while challenges to the policy play out in the lower courts. The earliest the Supreme Court could act on the issue would be during its next term which begins in October." NBC

-- JOSH GERSTEIN: "Supreme Court appears to rebuff Trump's push for quick DACA hearing"

-- JOSH GERSTEIN: "Supreme Court keeps cloak over mystery Mueller subpoena fight": "The showdown, which centers on the company's refusal to comply with an apparent Mueller subpoena, has emerged as one of the most intriguing aspects of the ongoing probe of the Trump campaign's potential collusion with Russia.

"While Tuesday's decision means that much of the case will remain cloaked, the justices allowed the public release of a partially-redacted legal filing that disclosed a few more facts about the dispute." POLITICO

-- AP: "Supreme Court returns to gun rights for 1st time in 9 years"

BIG MITCH MCCONNELL PROFILE ... MUST READ ... CHARLES HOMANS in NYT MAGAZINE: "Mitch McConnell Got Everything He Wanted. But at What Cost?": "The shutdown distilled the essence of McConnell's position in Trump's Washington: a man of institutions and establishments whose own legacy was now tied to that of a president who seems hellbent on burning both to the ground.

"On Jan. 9, he stood stone-faced alongside Trump in a Senate hallway as the president suggested he would get his wall money by declaring a national emergency. 'I don't think much of that idea,' McConnell told me the following day. 'I hope he doesn't go down that path.' Still, he admitted, "I'm perplexed as to how this ends.'" NYT Magazine

-- ALSO FROM MCCONNELL, in this piece: "'Well, I mean, the ultimate check against any of this is the ballot box,' McConnell replied. 'And one could argue, at least with regard to the House of Representatives last year, that there were plenty of people who wanted a midcourse correction.'

"The results of the election did not seem to surprise him. 'The party has to be bigger than white men who didn't graduate from college,' he told me late last year. 'And you look at what happened to the House of Representatives. Look at the suburbs. It's no secret, it's right there to look at. We were losing women' - a chronic problem for the Republican Party, he acknowledged. 'And that's not a sustainable position, politically, if you want to be a competitive party.'"

Good Tuesday afternoon. BEST WISHES TO BRET BAIER, who was involved in a "major car crash" in Montana with his family. Everyone is OK. Bret's statement

BREAKING THIS MORNING ... WAPO'S CAROL MORELLO: "Top diplomat for European affairs resigns from State Department": "A. Wess Mitchell, the top diplomat in charge of European affairs, will resign from the State Department next month, creating a key vacancy at a time when European leaders are questioning President Trump's commitment to historic alliances.

"Mitchell, 41, cited personal and professional reasons in a Jan. 4 letter of resignation he submitted to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. His last day as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs is Feb. 15.

"'As the administration completes its second year in office, I feel that I have completed what I set out to do in taking this position,' he wrote, citing the development of a Europe strategy and helping Pompeo transition into the job after Rex Tillerson was fired in March. 'As such, I believe that the time has come for me to spend more time with my young family, who have endured many days without me over the past several months.'" WaPo


THE IMPACT ... NYT'S JACK HEALY in Milwaukee: "From Federal Worker to Uber Driver: Odd Jobs to Make Ends Meet in the Shutdown": "Across the country, idled federal workers and contractors are taking up last-resort jobs with ride-hailing services and delivery apps. They are flooding school districts with applications to become substitute teachers. They are taking babysitting gigs, working shifts at local gyms and auditioning for yoga-instructor slots. ...

"Federal workers, many of them highly educated, are limited in the type of work they can take as they wait out the shutdown. Anything connected to an employee's area of expertise is unlikely to be allowed under federal rules, which require approval for jobs that could conflict with government work. And as the Trump administration forces thousands of furloughed employees back to work without pay, some said that job-hunting seemed pointless." NYT

WSJ'S REBECCA BALLHAUS: "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Testify on Census Citizenship Question"

ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and ADAM CANCRYN: "Democrats' plan to neuter Medicare for All irks liberals": "[T]he Democrats, with their eyes on 2020, have introduced at least eight plans for expanding health coverage beyond Obamacare's gains. They range from modest Medicare reforms to more ambitious restructurings that would extend government-run care to millions of new patients - an array of options that fall short of campaign trail promises for full Medicare for All. ...

"The wrangling has been largely obscured by the new House Democratic majority's decision to spend its first months in power focused on efforts to strengthen Obamacare - a position endorsed by the closely aligned outside group Protect Our Care. But members acknowledge it's only a matter of time until the focus shifts to 2020 and questions about how fast and how far to move beyond the Affordable Care Act." POLITICO

2020 WATCH ... NYT'S JONATHAN MARTIN in Columbia, S.C. and ASTEAD HERNDON: "For Democrats, South Carolina Already Looms Large for the 2020 Race": "The primary here may still be 405 days away and only fourth on the calendar of early-nominating states, behind Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. But at a time when President Trump has stoked racial divisions and black voters have become an increasingly crucial Democratic constituency, South Carolina is already looming larger at the outset of this race than in any recent Democratic nominating contest. ...

"This state is poised to play an outsized role in 2020 because of a confluence of demography and timing. South Carolina will be the first contest in which a majority of those casting ballots will be African-American." NYT

ON THE WORLD STAGE -- WAPO'S AMIE FERRIS-ROTMAN in Moscow: "American charged by Russia with espionage was handed classified material, lawyer says": "Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine detained in Moscow on spy charges, was given a flash drive containing a 'state secret,' his lawyer said Tuesday, delivering the first official details in a mysterious case that has been wrapped in silence for weeks. ...

"Speaking in a Moscow court, his lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told reporters, 'How he got [the flash drive], what he was supposed to do with it, and whether Whelan knew that he had secret information is unknown.' ... At the closed-door, pretrial hearing, the Russian court refused to release Whelan on bail, meaning he will remain behind bars through the end of February." WaPo

ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA -- "The U.S. May Have to Rethink Its Approach to North Korea," by WSJ's Jonathan Cheng in Seoul: "[W]hile U.S. government officials involved in the diplomatic efforts haven't yet ruled out Pyongyang's willingness to denuclearize, some North Korea experts in Washington say it is time to face an unpleasant reality: that North Korea, having invested heavily in its nuclear program for decades, isn't going to give up its arsenal now that it is at the finish line.

"These experts recommend de-emphasizing, or even abandoning, the goal of dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal, and instead trying to manage a nuclear North Korea in hopes of preventing a miscalculation that could lead to an unwanted nuclear showdown." WSJ

VALLEY TALK -- "Facebook Scandals Test U.S. Watchdog With Privacy Power at Stake," by Bloomberg's David McLaughlin and Ben Brody

WASHINGTON INC. -- STEVEN OVERLY: "Netflix in advanced talks to join major Hollywood lobbying group": "Netflix is in advanced talks to join the Motion Picture Association of America as the streaming video giant rapidly expands the number of original television series and feature films it is producing around the globe, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. The addition would mark the first time an internet-based service will join the 97-year-old trade association, which represents six legacy Hollywood studios." POLITICO

SPOTTED: George Will flying JetBlue from Fort Myers, Fla., to D.C. on Monday. Pic ... Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) on the suite level at the Saints-Rams game Sunday, joking about having the "keys" to everything now that Democrats have the majority. ...

... CBS' James Brown and Bob Woodward discussing the government shutdown in a first class car on the 7 a.m. Acela to NYC. ... Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) in first class from Chicago to DCA Tuesday. Pic

TRANSITIONS -- Patricio Gonzalez is now a senior investigator in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's office. He previously was an investigator and policy adviser at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. ... Sarah Feldman is now comms director for Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). She previously was comms director for former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). ... Chris Harris is taking over as communications director in Sen. Kamala Harris' (D-Calif.) office. He previously was communications director for Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

REMEMBERING HARRIS WOFFORD -- ELAINE WOO in WAPO: "Wofford, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, university president and lifelong crusader for civil rights who made a crucial contribution to John F. Kennedy's slender victory in the 1960 presidential contest, died Jan. 21 at a hospital in Washington. He was 92." WaPo

WEEKEND WEDDING -- Joe Carruth, a managing director at FP1 Strategies, married Paige Heskamp, account director at VMLY&R. The wedding was at Saint Gabriel's Cathedral and the Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, N.C. Pic (hat tip: Chandler Hudson)

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Kelley Raymond, director of government relations for AHRI and a NAM alum, and Cmdr. James Raymond, a deputy division director with the Joint Chiefs, welcomed Theodore Dean Raymond. Pic

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