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Presented by the National Retail Federation: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day Jan 17, 2019 View in browser
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Daniel Lippman, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

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FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH ... HOUSE DEMOCRATS say Michael Cohen is still scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill at the beginning of February, and they are confident he will go through with it, despite his stated fear for his family's safety.

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI at her weekly press conference said she has not heard from the White House in response to her letter Wednesday requesting a rescheduled SOTU date.

-- PELOSI: "I'm not denying him a platform at all. I'm saying, 'Let's get a date when government is open. Let's pay the employees.' Maybe he thinks it's OK not to pay people who do work. I don't."

-- PELOSI: "The date of the State of the Union is not a sacred date. It's not constitutionally required. It's not the president's birthday. It's not anything. It is a date that we agreed to. It could have been a week later -- and it could be a week later if government is open."

-- ASKED if she's concerned her letter to the president will heighten tensions, PELOSI said: "No, I'm concerned about people not having paychecks in their homes." Full press conference

ANDREW RESTUCCIA: "Trump holding off Pelosi counter-punch": "White House officials, who were caught completely off guard by the letter, have made a strategic decision to ignore it, and neither the president nor senior officials are expected to publicly respond, at least for now, according to two people familiar with the matter. A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

"Trump aides are still weighing next steps and trying to determine whether Pelosi is willing to force the cancellation of the speech. In the meantime, an angry outburst from the president would likely only give the matter more oxygen." POLITICO

AP'S MARC LEVY and MARK SCOLFORO: "Rep. Tom Marino from Pa.'s 12th congressional district to resign"

Good Thursday afternoon. SPOTTED: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) having breakfast this morning at Bistro Bis with George Will.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP delivered a missile defense speech at the Pentagon this morning. Talking about the U.S. troops killed in Syria, he gave his "deepest condolences to the families of the great American heroes who laid down their lives yesterday," per pooler Tarini Parti of BuzzFeed.

-- TRUMP ON IRAN: "I do believe they want to talk."

-- TRUMP HAMMERED NATO members again for not devoting more of their budgets to defense, though he said the U.S. is with NATO "100 percent." More from Rebecca Morin

THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY ... LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ and HEATHER CAYGLE: "Group aligned with Ocasio-Cortez prepares to take out Democrats": "The opening salvo? An eight-minute video released Wednesday starring Ocasio-Cortez and calling for a new crop of activists and community organizers to run against the Democratic machine. 'If you're a one-term Congress member, so what?' Ocasio-Cortez says in the video. 'You can make 10 years worth of change in one term if you're not afraid.'" POLITICO ... The 8-min. video

SOTU UPDATE ... BLOOMBERG'S ERIK WASSON (@elwasson): "Talk of Trump doing SOTU in Senate. Per Senate Historian, Presidents Wilson, Harding, Hoover, Truman, Nixon have given addresses in the chamber."

-- BUT ... The Senate chamber is much smaller.

ON THE BORDER -- DAN DIAMOND: "Trump administration separated thousands more migrants than previously known": "'More children over a longer period of time' were separated at the border than commonly known, an investigator with the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general told reporters Thursday morning. 'How many more children were separated is unknown, by us and HHS.' ...

"The Department of Homeland Security and HHS, which was responsible for the care of the separated children, last summer faced a June 2018 court order to reunify about 2,500 separated children ... However, 'thousands of separated children' entered the care of the HHS refugee office before the court order, the report said. The reunification rate for those children is not known." POLITICO

A message from the National Retail Federation:

Tariffs imposed by Washington are having a negative impact on Main Street retailers in communities across the country. Scroll down to learn more. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5c65a6d2e5310939fce7594e46a094b25c88826a28fd9af273bc768595324de67da2ea137fc30a47c4889b2cfe382e84

USA TODAY'S DONOVAN SLACK: "Former VA secretary violated ethics rules by allowing employee to drive his wife around": "An investigation of former Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin largely cleared him of allegations he misused his security detail for shopping and other errands, but concluded he violated ethics rules by allowing his driver to provide transportation for his wife, the VA inspector general said in a report Thursday." USA Today

WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 9:04 a.m.: "The Left has become totally unhinged. They no longer care what is Right for our Countrty! [sic]"

... at 10:04 a.m.: "So funny to watch Schumer groveling. He called for the firing of bad cop James Comey many times - UNTIL I FIRED HIM!"

-- FLASHBACK: BLOOMBERG'S STEVEN DENNIS on Nov. 2, 2016: "Schumer Says He Lost Confidence in FBI's Comey Over E-Mail Probe"

THE SHUTDOWN IMPACT -- "As the Shutdown Drags On, Federal Workers File for Unemployment," by NYT's Alan Blinder: "The shutdown, the longest on record, is prompting tens of thousands of federal employees to seek jobless benefits. As the impasse meanders through its fourth week and more bills come due, their numbers have been growing.

"On Thursday, two days after the White House doubled its projections and warned that the shutdown was reducing quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points per week, the Labor Department reported 10,454 initial claims by federal workers for the week that ended Jan. 5, doubling the previous week's figure. Thousands more have applied since, state officials said." NYT

-- WSJ'S RUTH SIMON: "Small Businesses' $2 Billion Problem: Government Shutdown Leaves Loans in Limbo": "The Small Business Administration has stopped approving routine small-business loans that the agency backs to ensure entrepreneurs have access to funds, halting their plans for expansion and repairs and forcing some owners to consider costlier sources of cash. ...

"The shutdown has already delayed about $2 billion in SBA lending, estimated Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. Mr. Zandi said the fallout would intensify quickly if the disruption continues into next month, which could undermine small-business confidence and make owners more cautious in their hiring and investment." WSJ

-- WAPO'S SARAH KAPLAN: "The North Pole is moving, and the shutdown means we aren't keeping up": "The place to which a compass needle points is shifting toward Siberia at a pace of 30 miles a year. And thanks to the political storm in Washington, scientists have been unable to post an emergency update of the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to orient themselves.

"Roughly half the employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which hosts the model and publishes related software, are furloughed because of the partial government shutdown, now in its 27th day. ... As long as NOAA staff are absent and the agency's website is dormant, the world must go on navigating by the old model - which grows slightly more inaccurate each day." WaPo

THE INVESTIGATIONS ... "Cohen Hired IT Firm to Rig Early CNBC, Drudge Polls to Favor Trump," by WSJ's Michael Rothfeld, Rob Barry and Joe Palazzolo: "In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump's personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss's favor before the presidential campaign.

"In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash ... Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for-and received-a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch, according to a government document and a person familiar with the matter.

"The reimbursement-made on the sole basis of a handwritten note from Mr. Cohen and paid largely out of Mr. Trump's personal account-demonstrates the level of trust the lawyer once had within the Trump Organization, whose officials arranged the repayment." WSJ

-- MICHAEL COHEN (@MichaelCohen212): "As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn't deserve it."

-- JOSH GERSTEIN: "Judge won't dismiss libel suit against Fusion GPS over dossier"

-- REBECCA MORIN: "Giuliani tries to clean up Russia collusion comments": "'I can speak only to the president, not the campaign,' Giuliani told MSNBC on Thursday morning, according to a tweet from the network. 'I have no knowledge that anyone on the campaign colluded, but obviously I cannot speak for everyone on the campaign.'" POLITICO

WAPO'S JOSH ROGIN, "North Korean spy chief's visit to Washington shrouded in mystery": "On Thursday night, North Korea's spy chief will arrive in Washington for his planned meetings with President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to South Korean news reports and administration sources. But although everyone's talking about it, the Trump administration has been silent. ...

"The National Security Council referred me to the State Department. A State Department spokesman told me, 'We don't have any meetings to announce.' Pompeo abruptly canceled his visit to Kuwait and is returning to Washington earlier than planned. The State Department told reporters Pompeo is cutting short his Middle East tour to attend a family funeral." WaPo

-- NAHAL TOOSI: "Trump may see North Korean official in D.C. about next summit"

2020 WATCH -- ELIANA JOHNSON and ALEX THOMPSON: "Shutdown has dropped grenade onto Trump's 2020 team": "As polling turns increasingly against the president, and White House officials try to find a solution to what some consider a pointless standoff, Trump aides and advisers are worried that the president is doing his 2020 Democratic challengers an early favor.

"'This is a really bad spot for him,' said one person familiar with Trump's campaign, who fretted that Trump is not thinking strategically about how the shutdown might affect his reelection chances. 'He may just be fighting because he doesn't know what the hell else to do.'" POLITICO

MCCLATCHY'S KATE IRBY and WILLIAM DOUGLAS: "Nasty or frugal? Key Democrats out to stop House members from living in offices": "The initial fate of the sleep-ins in the House rests with its administration committee. Chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, said the panel will tackle the issue later this year.

"She has already asked the Architect of the Capitol, a nonpartisan informational source for members, to provide an estimate of the fair market value of living in a congressional office. ... There's no official count of how many members live in their offices, but reports put the bipartisan number somewhere between 50 and 100." McClatchy

COURT WATCH -- NYT'S MAGGIE HABERMAN (@maggieNYT): "The Judicial Crisis Network is launching a $1.5 million ad buy today, which one official says is to 'ready for renominations and new nominations, and in light of uncertainties surrounding SCOTUS.'"

MICHAEL STRATFORD: "DeVos in wheelchair after breaking her pelvis and hip socket in bicycle mishap"

MEDIAWATCH -- Christopher Caldwell is now a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He'll continue to write for other publications, including National Review. He previously was a longtime senior editor at the Weekly Standard.

-- Mackenzie Mays will be an education and budget reporter for POLITICO California Pro. She previously was an investigative reporter at the Fresno Bee.

-- N.Y. POST'S KEITH KELLY: "Storied Jewish publication The Forward ending 121-year print run"

SPOTTED: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leaving the Capitol Hill Club on Wednesday night.

SPOTTED at the Entertainment Software Association's E-Tech Caucus reception at Tortilla Coast on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night: Reps. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Will Hurd (R-Texas), Pete Olson (R-Texas), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.), Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Stan Pierre-Louis, Missy Foxman, Kevin O'Hanlon and Kaya Singleton.

TRANSITIONS -- Danielle Cleveland is now deputy executive director and finance director at the Republican Attorneys General Association. She previously was on the finance team at the Republican Governors Association ... Sydney Paul is now with Facebook's congressional lobbying team. She previously was senior legislative counsel for Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). ...

... Steve Wymer has been named SVP and chief comms officer at eBay. He previously led comms and policy at Nextdoor and is also an alum of Gordon Smith and Mike Johanns. ... Rachel McCleery will be government and policy communications manager at Ford. She previously was chief communications adviser and deputy policy director for the Senate Finance Committee.

ENGAGED -- Heather Foster, VP for marketplace policy at the Association for Community Affiliated Plans and a Diana DeGette alum, got engaged to Adam Ezring, director of policy at the Collaborative for Student Success. Pic ... Another pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Mike Hamilton, COS for Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), and Jessica Hamilton, manager of government relations for Airbus, welcomed Margaret Quentin, who came in at 6 lbs 4.9 oz and 19 inches long. Pic ... Another pic

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