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01/11/2019 10:00 AM EDT

By ZACH MONTELLARO (zmontellaro@politico.com; @ZachMontellaro)


Editor's Note: This edition of Morning Score is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Campaign Pro subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro's comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
QUICK FIX
- Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) defended white nationalism in an interview with The New York Times. His comments were condemned by a number of top House Republicans, and The Club for Growth signaled it would consider backing a primary challenger.

- Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) are both preparing trips to Iowa as potential presidential campaigns come into focus.

- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) apologized to female staffers on his 2016 campaign, saying the standards to prevent harassment "were clearly inadequate."

Happy Friday! Email me your thoughts at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the great Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com, and lbarron-lopez@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @lbarronlopez.

Days until the 2019 election: 298

Days until the 2020 election: 662
THE TOPLINES
PRIMARY WATCH - Fresh off receiving a primary challenge, King on Thursday told The New York Times' Trip Gabriel, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive?" The Iowa Republican added: "Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?"

King put out a statement after the story published, saying he does not advocate for white nationalism and white supremacy and rejects those labels. Left unexplained is his long history of racist rhetoric, including but not limited to him alluding to immigrants as "dirt" and saying "you can't rebuild your civilization with somebody else's babies."

The top three House Republicans all condemned King. House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney was first, tweeting that his "comments are abhorrent and racist." Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement of his own that King's language "has no place in our society." And Minority Whip Steve Scalise said he thought it was "offensive" to "legitimize those terms," but added, "I think it's important that he rejected that kind of evil," per the Washington Examiner's Al Weaver. However, none explicitly laid out any action they would take to curb King's repeated pattern of behavior. NRCC chair Tom Emmer also condemned the remarks to POLITICO's Laura Barrón-López and John
Bresnahan, but an NRCC spokesperson noted that the campaign arm does not weigh in during primaries.

Some of King's allies seem to be backpedaling away from him. The Club for Growth tweeted that King's rating on its scorecard has declined over the years. When asked if the group would consider backing Randy Feenstra, King's Republican challenger, a spokesperson told Score that "we're certainly watching this race closely due to King's declining score".
IN THE TRENCHES
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - Brown is planning a trip to Iowa, the biggest step yet toward any potential presidential campaign. Additionally, a top staffer is also laying the foundation for a run, Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss reported. "Brown's longtime aide and current chief of staff, Sarah Benzing, [has been] working backstage to set up a campaign - with a particular focus on Iowa, where Benzing grew up and worked on a series of congressional, Senate and presidential efforts earlier in her career," Daniel writes. Benzing would be in line to be Brown's campaign manager should he run. "I see my responsibility as helping to get an infrastructure ready should he decide that he wants to run. It's
calling people, checking in, making sure the fundraising apparatus is there - those sort of nuts and bolts of things," she told Daniel.

- Gillibrand is also planning a trip to Iowa next weekend and is courting staffers, POLITICO's Natasha Korecki and Elena Schneider scooped. The Times Union's Kenneth C. Crowe II and Diego Mendoza-Moyers reported Gillibrand has leased office space in Trony, N.Y.

- Sanders apologized to female staffers on his 2016 campaign for instances of harassment, following reporting by POLITICO's Alex Thompson that a former senior adviser was accused of forcibly kissing a subordinate. "It appears that as part of our campaign, there were some women who were harassed or mistreated. And I thank them, from the bottom of my heart, for speaking out," Sanders said on Capitol Hill, per POLITICO's Melanie Zanona. "To the women in our campaign who were harassed or mistreated, I apologize. ... Our standards, our procedures, our safeguards, were clearly inadequate."

- People for Bernie Sanders, a group of supporters trying to push Sanders to run, is holding 400 events this weekend.

- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is headed to New Hampshire this weekend. She faces sky-high expectations in the state neighboring her home, POLITICO's Natasha Korecki reported.

- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee will headline an LCV fundraiser and attend two public events in New Hampshire later this month, Daniel reported.

- If Montana Gov. Steve Bullock runs for president, campaign finance reform could be a central theme of his campaign, Newsweek's Nina Burleigh reported.

- Megadonor Haim Saban isn't ready to wade into the primary. Playbook reported that some 2020 hopefuls had reached out to him, but he's not backing a candidate yet. "While there are certainly a number of qualified Democrats running - or thinking about it - Haim strongly believes it's simply too early in the process to support anyone," a spokesman for Saban emailed Score.

THE PRESIDENT'S TEAM - Top allies of President Donald Trump plan to wade into the Democratic primary to try to weaken Democrats perceived as strong. "America First Policies and its affiliated super PAC have made significant investments in the opposition group America Rising, funding their efforts to dig into the top Democratic contenders - along with some second-tier candidates - and prep opposition research books on all of them, according to five sources involved or familiar with the plans," BuzzFeed News' Tarini Parti reported.

- Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he'd chair the president's reelect in the state, via the Wisconsin State Journal's Riley Vetterkind.

KEEPING SCORE - The Chamber of Commerce announced it would revise its scorecard to encourage "members to reach the compromises necessary for effective governing." Eighty percent of the chamber's new score for a given member will function basically like the old scorecard - does a member vote how the Chamber would like on legislation - while the remaining 20 percent will be based on a member's co-sponsorship status on bills and whether a member co-sponsors legislation introduced by the other party.

A TEAM PLAYER? - Some Democrats are trying to get Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be more of a team player with a good cop/bad cop routine."Washington is a political animal where a lot of the work that you want to accomplish depends on relationships within the Democratic Caucus," Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), who is playing a key role, told POLITICO's Rachael Bade and Heather Caygle. "[T]here are signs that she's getting the message, at least when it comes to backing primary challenges against her colleagues. In a brief exchange off the House floor recently, she said she wasn't interested in backing progressive candidates against incumbent Democrats - contradicting her
own words after the midterms."

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ... - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott, DeSantis' predecessor, have been feuding. Tensions "burst into public view Tuesday after Scott abruptly left his successor's inauguration ceremony, leading DeSantis to ad lib the parts of his speech in which he planned to personally thank Scott," POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo and Matt Dixon write. Some "in Tallahassee saw the outline of a coming 2024 clash. The governorship of Florida is a good springboard to the White House, and each man might believe that Florida isn't big enough for the two of them".

UP NEXT - Kansas Republican Wink Hartman Sr., who was the lieutenant governor candidate on Kris Kobach's unsuccessful gubernatorial ticket, said he is "seriously considering" running for Senate in 2020, per The Wichita Eagle's Carrie Rengers.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I personally don't know if there exists little green men other places, I kind of doubt that, but I do believe that the information we have indicates we should do a lot more study," former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Nevada Public Radio regarding military sightings of UFOs.

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