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Presented by the American Beverage Association: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Feb 19, 2019 View in browser
By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman

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DRIVING THE DAY
NEW: "Poll: 6-In-10 Disapprove Of Trump National Emergency Declaration," by NPR's Domenico Montanaro: "More than 6-in-10 Americans disapprove of President Trump's decision to declare a national emergency so he can build barriers along the U.S border with Mexico, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.

"Nearly 6-in-10 also don't believe there is an emergency at the southern border and that the president is misusing his presidential authority. They also believe that his decision should be challenged in court." NPR

CHEAT SHEET ... POST AND COURIER'S CAITLIN BYRD: "So you're running for president in 2020 - now what? A guide to campaigning in South Carolina": "Respect the kingmaker: Nothing in Democratic politics happens here without House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn knowing about it. ... 'When Jim Clyburn asks you to do something, you do it. If he asks you to attend an event, you say, 'OK, when is it?' And then, you go and you show up early,' said [Jaime] Harrison, who is mulling a 2020 U.S. Senate race against Republican Lindsey Graham. ...

"Make nice with party officials at every level ... Develop a taste for barbecue: If you're trying to watch your red meat intake while on the trail - or if you're a vegan like U.S. Sen. Cory Booker - good luck. Even the collard greens will likely have some pork in them. ... Get away from the big three: Spend time in South Carolina's three major media markets - Charleston, Columbia and Greenville - but don't count on that alone. ... Pay attention to black voters, especially black women ... If you don't have a Southern accent, don't try one now." Post and Courier

THE BORDER FIGHT MOVES TO THE COURTS -- "California leads 16 states in lawsuit against Trump national emergency declaration," by Jeremy B. White and Gabby Orr: "The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, is the third in a string of legal challenges already launched against Trump's use of emergency powers since he announced the move during a meandering White House news conference on Friday.

"Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group, filed a suit late Friday in the District of Columbia on behalf of three Texas landowners who would be impacted by the construction of a wall along the border. And Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics has filed a motion against the Department of Justice demanding that the agency provide documents pertaining to the legal justification of the president's emergency declaration.

"The states behind Monday's lawsuit argued that Trump engaged in an 'unlawful scheme' when he 'used the pretext of a manufactured 'crisis' of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border,' according to a copy of the complaint obtained by POLITICO. A White House spokesperson declined to comment." POLITICO

Good Tuesday morning. SPOTTED: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on an American Airlines flight from Palm Beach to DCA on Monday afternoon.

BRYCE HARPER WATCH ... PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER'S BOB BROOKOVER in Clearwater, Fla.: "Another false alarm: Neither Bryce Harper nor Manny Machado participated in Phillies' first full-squad workout": "Whoever was on that private jet from Las Vegas that touched down late Sunday afternoon on the runway at tiny St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport did not report to Spectrum Field on Monday morning for the Phillies' first full-squad workout.

"The Washington Post, however, did dispatch Dave Sheinin, its national baseball writer, just to make sure that Bryce Harper, after seven seasons with the Washington Nationals, did not sneak into the Carpenter Complex. And ESPN's Tim Kurkjian was here bright and early wondering why neither Harper nor Manny Machado has signed with the Phillies yet." Inky

WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 10:26 p.m.: "Remember this, Andrew McCabe didn't go to the bathroom without the approval of Leakin' James Comey!"

-- AP'S ZEKE MILLER in West Palm Beach: "Trump the pundit handicaps 2020 Democratic contenders": "Kamala Harris had the best campaign roll-out. Amy Klobuchar's snowy debut showed grit. Elizabeth Warren's opening campaign video was a bit odd. Take it from an unlikely armchair pundit sizing up the 2020 Democratic field: President Donald Trump. In tweets, public remarks and private conversations, Trump is making clear he is closely following the campaign to challenge him on the ballot.

"Facing no serious primary opponent of his own - at least so far - Trump is establishing himself as an in-their-face observer of the Democratic Party's nominating process - and no [one] will be surprised to find that he's not being coy about weighing in. Presidents traditionally ignore their potential opponents as long as possible to maintain their status as an incumbent floating above the contenders who are auditioning for a job they already inhabit.

"Not Trump. He's eager to shape the debate, sow discord and help position himself for the general election. It's just one more norm to shatter, and a risky bet that his acerbic politics will work to his advantage once again." AP

-- CNN'S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR (@camanpour): ".@ChrisRuddyNMX, who says he saw President Trump this weekend, speculates that DNI Dan Coats may be in danger of losing his job. 'There's a feeling that maybe there needs to be a change of leadership in that position,' Ruddy tells me." Video

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BACK AT HOME ... SIOUX CITY JOURNAL: "Steve King urges crowd to pray for Kevin McCarthy to restore committee assignments," by Bret Hayworth in Rock Rapids, Iowa: "In front of another friendly audience Monday, U.S. Rep. Steve King urged his supporters to pray for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to restore King's committee assignments, saying the California Republican needs to 'separate his ego from this issue and look at it objectively.'

"McCarthy stripped King of all his committee assignments for the next two years following a national uproar over King's quote in a New York Times story in which he asked, 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive?'

"At Monday's town hall, King again took issue with the story, saying the reporter 'at best' misquoted him, and 'the sentence construction doesn't support The New York Times.' He spent the beginning of the meeting at the Forster Community Center sharing why the media, in general, hasn't given him a fair shake. 'The language police are out there day after day after day after day ...' King told the crowd. 'They are searching the Internet for something to be offended by.'

"Roger Oliver, of Rock Rapids, asked King what he was doing to get back on committees. The outspoken conservative congressman replied he needs to get a 'critical mass' of the Republican House caucus to support him, adding some Republican lawmakers have privately told him they think he got a raw deal.

"'Kevin McCarthy has been getting a lot of phone calls, and the more phone calls he gets and the more persistent that it is, the more he is gonna realize that it was a bad decision he made, based upon one comment misquoted in The New York Times, reported as fact,' King told the audience." SCJ

THE JUICE ...

-- MATT GORMAN, who was the comms director for the NRCC last cycle, is joining Targeted Victory as VP. Logan Dobson is also joining Targeted Victory as managing director.

-- WAPO'S MATT ZAPOTOSKY: "Rosenstein plans to leave Justice Department next month"

2020 WATCH -- MARC CAPUTO: "'Are you with us?': Bloomberg calls in his chits": "From shuttering coal-fired power plants to fighting the gun lobby, obesity and Big Tobacco, Michael Bloomberg's philanthropy has given away $6.4 billion and earned the love and respect of progressive-minded activists across the country. The question is whether that goodwill is enough to fuel a Democratic presidential primary campaign.

"The network of Bloomberg Philanthropies recipients is vast, and it includes mayors throughout the country as well as grassroots climate-change, gun-control and education advocates and others who could form a ready-made army of campaign supporters, volunteers and paid staffers. Bloomberg's political team is beginning to press the issue. As the former New York mayor nears a decision on whether to run, his advisers - led by right-hand man Kevin Sheekey - are asking beneficiaries of his largesse if they'd be on board for his presidential bid." POLITICO

-- "Klobuchar opts for pragmatic approach in town hall," by Elena Schneider: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar placed herself firmly in the center lane of the Democratic primary on Monday, calling popular progressive policy platforms 'aspirational,' and declining to fully commit to them.

"The Minnesota Democrat called the Green New Deal 'aspirational' and said that Medicare-for-all is 'something we can look to in the future,' during a CNN town hall hosted in Manchester, N.H., on Monday night. On free four-year college, Klobuchar said: 'No, I am not for four-year college for all.'" POLITICO

-- NYT'S ASTEAD HERNDON in Lawrenceville, Ga.: "Elizabeth Warren's Native American Ancestry Draws a Shrug From These Voters": "In interviews over the last month with about three dozen Democratic voters, many in early primary states, almost all of them expressed far more interest in Ms. Warren's policy ideas than her ancestry and said that they were exhausted or uninterested by the story line.

"They described it as overblown, reflecting a disconnect between voters in the party's base and some political elites, media commentators and conservatives who have been preoccupied with the issue." NYT

-- SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT.) is joining John Dickerson for an interview on "CBS This Morning."

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HAPPENING TODAY -- JACQUELINE KLIMAS: "Trump to approve lean Space Force": "President Donald Trump will sign a directive on Tuesday to establish a new branch of the military dedicated to space but instead of being a fully independent department it will remain part of the Air Force to assuage concerns in Congress, a senior administration official told POLITICO.

"The presidential directive, formally called Space Policy Directive 4, will set the groundwork for a subsequent legislative proposal for Congress, which will have the final say over what has been a signature military objective since Trump announced his intentions nearly a year ago." POLITICO

TRUMP'S TUESDAY -- The president will meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at 11:30 a.m. in the Oval Office. At 12:15 p.m., he will meet in the Oval Office with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He will have lunch with VP Mike Pence. At 2 p.m., he will participate in a signing ceremony for Space Policy Directive 4.

CLICKER -- "Veep's" final season trailer
PLAYBOOK READS


PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela during a rally at Florida International University on Feb. 18. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images

WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN PYONGYANG? ... "U.S. Weighs Opening Liaison Office in North Korea," by WSJ's Michael Gordon in Washington and Andrew Jeong in Seoul: "The U.S. is considering opening a liaison office in North Korea, in what would be another potential step toward normalizing relations while the two sides negotiate to curtail Pyongyang's nuclear and missile forces, according to a Trump administration official.

"The proposal comes as President Trump prepares to meet later this month in Hanoi, Vietnam, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The plan would allow North Korea to also open an office in the U.S., the official said, but it wasn't immediately clear how strongly North Korea supported the idea." WSJ

FT's MAX SEDDON in Moscow: "U.S. dealmaker Michael Calvey's arrest in Russia alarms investors": "Michael Calvey, the founder of Moscow-based private equity fund manager Baring Vostok, remained one of the last Russia bulls at a time when most of his contemporaries had left the country.

"Over 25 years, the fluent Russian speaker from Oklahoma gained a reputation as a savvy investor able to navigate the cut-throat Russian regulatory waters - attracting money from pension funds such as California's Calpers and western institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"Now, the 51-year-old former mergers and acquisitions banker has become the most prominent western executive to face jail in Russia - up to 10 years on charges of fraud - casting a pall over an already fraught investment climate." FT

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FOR YOUR RADAR -- "In Central Asia's forbidding highlands, a quiet newcomer: Chinese troops," by WaPo's Gerry Shih near Shaymak, Tajikistan: "Two miles above sea level in the inhospitable highlands of Central Asia, there's a new power watching over an old passage into Afghanistan: China. For at least three years, Chinese troops have quietly monitored this choke point in Tajikistan just beyond China's western frontier, according to interviews, analysis of satellite images and photographs, and firsthand observations by a Washington Post journalist.

"While veiled in secrecy, the outpost of about two dozen buildings and lookout towers illustrates how the footprint of Chinese hard power has been expanding alongside the country's swelling economic reach. Tajikistan - awash in Chinese investment - joins the list of Chinese military sites that includes Djibouti in the strategic Horn of Africa and man-made islands in the South China Sea, in the heart of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic ambitions over the past seven years have brought a wave of major investment projects, from the resource-rich Caspian Sea to Cambodia's coastline." WaPo

-- "Shinzo Abe Won't Say if He Nominated Trump for a Nobel Prize," by NYT's Motoko Rich in Tokyo: "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan moved to put the Nobel genie back in the bottle on Monday when he told the country's Parliament that he would not comment on President Trump's surprise announcement that Mr. Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize." NYT

THE LATEST IN NORTH CAROLINA ... "In North Carolina, Investigators Find Ballot 'Scheme' in House Race," by NYT's Alan Blinder in Raleigh, N.C.: "A political operative working on behalf of a Republican candidate for Congress oversaw an illegal absentee ballot 'scheme' and went to elaborate lengths to conceal it, a North Carolina election official said Monday at a hearing that could settle the final undecided House race of last year's midterms.

"The spare and harsh allegation of a 'coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced' strategy opened the North Carolina State Board of Elections hearing with the first public pronouncement of state investigators' conclusions about a get-out-the-vote effort they came to believe was endemic with fraud and misconduct to benefit Mark Harris, the Republican candidate in the Ninth Congressional District." NYT

TOP-ED -- MEREDITH WATSON in WAPO, "I'm willing to testify in public. Justin Fairfax should, too": "Since I came forward less than two weeks ago, certain politicians offered to support me if I made it a partisan issue. I refused. Likewise, I have refused to make this a financial issue by suing for compensation. I have refused to make it a law-enforcement issue. Despite nearly 100 offers to be interviewed, I have refused to make my rape a media opportunity. My motivation was never for personal gain. ...

"I am frustrated by calls for an investigation rather than a public hearing into these matters. Such 'investigations' are secret proceedings, out of the public eye, leaving victims vulnerable to selective leaks and smears. And we all know how such investigations end: with 'inconclusive results.' My privacy has already been violated, yet I am still willing to testify publicly under oath. Tyson has made the same offer. Our plea to the Virginia General Assembly to require the same of Fairfax has been met with inaction." WaPo

WHAT OBAMA IS READING -- He posted his Black History Month recommended reading list on Facebook: "'The Warmth of Other Suns' by Isabel Wilkerson ... 'Stamped from the Beginning' by Ibram X. Kendi ... 'Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption' by Bryan Stevenson ... 'A Stone of Hope: A Memoir' by Jim St. Germain with Jon Sternfeld ...

"The Upshot from The New York Times: 'Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys' ... 'The Fire Next Time' by James Baldwin ... 'The Letter from Birmingham Jail' by Martin Luther King, Jr. ... 'Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom' by David W. Blight." The post

MEDIAWATCH -- Michael Wilner is joining McClatchy as its White House correspondent. He most recently was D.C. bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post.

-- OVAL OFFICE READING ... LARA LOGAN says the media is liberal, and PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP gets bad coverage. Daily Mail
PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on an American Airlines flight from Miami to DCA ... Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Monday at DCA.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Sarah Stillman, staff writer at The New Yorker, is 35. How she got her start in journalism: "I was a freshman in college when the Iraq war began. After graduating, I knew I wanted to cover the conflict, but I felt under-qualified to pursue the usual war stories. So, I flew to Baghdad and turned my attention to the situation facing thousands of low-wage logistics workers on U.S. bases -- so-called 'third-country nationals' from places like India, Nepal, Fiji and Sierra Leone who did some of the war's most exhausting and dangerous jobs.

"I quickly learned that many of these workers were victims of labor trafficking, starvation and sexual assault with impunity. When I got back from Iraq, I tried pitching the story everywhere. I was roundly rejected. Finally, I had a stroke of incredible luck: Henry Finder, The New Yorker's editorial director, decided to take a chance on me, and on the piece. I've never stopped feeling grateful for that." Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Andrew Ross Sorkin ... Julie Terrell Radford, COS for Ivanka Trump, is 36 (hat tip: sister Chrissy) ... Tamara Hinton ... NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is 6-0 ... Howard Stringer is 77 ... Sean Conner ... Gary Andres, senior EVP of public affairs at BIO ... BuzzFeed alum John Stanton ... Alexis Covey-Brandt ... Andy Abboud (h/t Mike Abboud) ... Chris Faulkner of Majority Strategies ... John Gentzel, VP at DCI Group ... CTA's Rachel Horn (h/ts Kurt Bardella) ... Judy Kurtz of The Hill ... POLITICO's Jen Plesniak and Lane Stickley ... Sandeep Hulsandra ... Melody Miller ... Katharine Zaleski ... John J. Miller ... Peter Van Buren ... Cat Blakely ... Joshua Schank ... Tucker Warren
... Brandon VerVelde, comms director for Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), is 31 ...

... Kevin Bishop, comms director for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), is 48 ... Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) is 73 ... Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is 71 ... Ben Khouri, press secretary for Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is 28 ... Chase Kroll ... Jason Bertsch, EVP at AEI ... Kaitlyn Martin, gov't relations adviser at Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies ... Rebecca Brown ... Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association (h/t Amy Weiss) ... Molly Weaver ... Jim Green ... Evan Feinman ... Olga Ramirez Kornacki, director of the House-Radio TV Gallery ... Ken Shepherd ... Daniel Blum ... Alicia Rose ... Sam van Buren ... Ginny Neel ... Jill Lawrence ... William Thompson ... Fox
News' Louie Tartaglia ... Gidi Mark.

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