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By Heather Caygle | 08/10/2017 07:56 AM EDT


WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE - The war of words between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is heating up - and threatening to imperil an already thorny legislative agenda come September. Trump resumed his public criticism of McConnell this morning, again attacking the GOP leader for failing to repeal Obamacare. "Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn't get it done. Must Repeal & Replace ObamaCare!" Trump tweeted this morning. Today's tweet follows barbs from Trump and a top aide directed at McConnell Wednesday after the Kentucky Republican said the president had "excessive expectations" about the legislative pace
on Capitol Hill.

Trump called McConnell to express his disappointment before his first critical tweet Wednesday, according to the New York Times. But targeting McConnell publicly is seemingly not a good strategy for Trump. McConnell is a crucial ally for anything the president needs or wants to accomplish this fall, from the must-do items like raising the debt ceiling to shiny objects, like a tax code rewrite.

But at least one Republican senator thinks his conference shares much more of the blame on Obamacare than McConnell is taking. "The bottom line is we didn't fail because we didn't have enough time. We failed because we were not ready to solve the problem, and we didn't have the right idea," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Fox News radio. Nolan McCaskill and Elana Schor report: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bcf380146f48b68f9bf398dcce420ce5083a071916e6b33b787f6f31941f3ff9a5ea650d0d1584287fa3bc087c8283b23e

LET'S MAKE A DEAL - The White House is looking to make a deal to avert a government shutdown this fall. The offer? White House officials would agree to lift the spending caps long opposed by Democrats in exchange for border wall funding. "Marc Short, the White House's director of legislative affairs, met with top staffers from both parties on the Senate Appropriations Committee last week to make a hard sell for the proposal," Seung Min, Rachael and Bres scoop. Trump has insisted he won't back off his request for border wall funding this time around - even if it means shutting down the government. But Democrats show no signs of relenting in their opposition, calling wall funding a "poison
pill." More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc550dceea885454ad4353454e6db43d32159ee60cfb09a1223186cae41d6d522f0212d0f3757ea0b6400cd96b386b818c

WHAT THE HILL IS READING THIS MORNING - "North Korea has announced a detailed plan to launch a salvo of ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to U.S. bombers. If carried out, it would be the North's most provocative missile launch to date," the AP reports from Seoul. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc239081819d0c125d0f2e2508cd85b0438837e8c8920407f686f77f46d355d671d2d082d877d7cea3f4c370f3a4b7bcbe

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ UNDER FIRE - Once a rising star in the Democratic Party, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still struggling to regain her footing one year after resigning from the DNC chairmanship. And she's recently come under fire again for her months-long refusal to fire an IT staffer involved in a criminal fraud investigation. "Fellow Democrats are as confounded and disbelieving as ever by her penchant for making puzzling and stubborn political missteps," Marc Caputo reports this morning. "We wish she would go away and stop being so public by doubling down on negative stories," said Nikki Barnes, a progressive DNC member from Florida. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bcab6b751ada3d99a51383a6dfdc4a0c11b6750571ba38f04999705a374f1ad16fdddc684ef479eacf36c954b5bf9e1524


WELCOME TO ALMOST FRIDAY, AUG. 10. Thanks for tuning into POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill.

WEDNESDAY'S MOST CLICKED: Speaker Paul Ryan's debt ceiling dilemma, reported by HuffPost's Matt Fuller, was the midweek winner.

MERCER FUNDS FLAKE OPPONENT - One of Trump's top donors just wrote a hefty check to a super PAC trying to unseat Sen. Jeff Flake. "Robert Mercer, a reclusive hedge fund billionaire who was intimately involved in Trump's rise and helped to bankroll his 2016 campaign, is contributing $300,000 to a super PAC supporting former state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is challenging Flake in a Republican primary next year," Alex Isenstadt reports. Mercer's check comes a week after Flake roiled some Republicans with a new book that criticizes Trump and blames the party for his rise. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc0c58d6854d2e52cb94781177d82522789e0555a3fe757095e00cadb1f727c11a19e0993b548bebbe23dd67ea4ce8c410

JUDICIARY'S RUSSIA PROBE PROGRESSING - The Senate Judiciary Committee has received 20,000 pages of documents in the last month from the Trump campaign related to the panel's ongoing Russia investigation, CNN's Manu Raju reports. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the panel's leaders, are now combing documents related to Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort's meeting with a Russian lawyer last summer. They've also reviewed the memos written by former FBI Director James Comey before he was fired by the president. Grassley and Feinstein's pursuit has received some pushback from other Republicans, particularly on the Senate Intel Committee, which is conducting its own
probe into Russian meddling.

Related: The FBI conducted an early-morning raid of Manafort's home in late July, "the day Manafort was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a day after he met voluntarily with Senate Intelligence Committee staff members," the Washington Post reports. "The raid, which occurred without warning on July 26, signaled an aggressive new approach by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team." Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman with the scoop: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc6d77b901e8372e9961538e0185fc898c77c589860d3fba7f324950b7865e7421ac660f17c3be74a4e15322a55fc5c235

SPEAKING OF FBI RAIDS... The FBI raided the offices of GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter's campaign treasurer in late February, court documents discovered Wednesday show. The federal raid is part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations Hunter spent tens of thousands of campaign dollars for personal expenses. But details of the raid weren't actually supposed to be made public and were taken down shortly after POLITICO inquired about the case Wednesday afternoon, Rachael reports. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc59a6ad8cb606660da9eb316e14cfcbed263116fd5a50af8ca8a0a8441c89723c8fcff89e336b14d9726a74221939a74a

A SPECIAL NOTE FROM SEN. McCAIN - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) posted a short video Wednesday thanking well-wishers for the outpouring of support he's received since his brain cancer diagnosis. And McCain being who he is, said it in the most McCain way possible: "Even those that want me to die don't want me to die right away. So that's good," he said. "Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for everything you've done." The video: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc582b4a93829270ef6db979bcce36c099cd03af150dc3a8202b26869fb180ee9a809229bb43dff2742b8ed4cf90429fb4

Related: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) walked back his remarks Wednesday after implying that McCain's deciding vote against the GOP's Obamacare repeal plan was affected by his brain cancer. A McCain spokeswoman called Johnson's comments "bizarre and deeply unfortunate." CNN's Andrew Kaczynski: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc8b66cc9f7a2534ba89edadfdaa909ea757bcfac92e0b5f60eeb57fab982ee27ce05253687a1a75c86c9bbb0414385e4c

MENENDEZ TRIAL MOVES AHEAD - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a last-ditch attempt by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to avoid trial on corruption charges, Matt Friedman reports. Menendez's trial begins Sept. 6 with jury selection later this month. Menendez's lawyers argued that the charges against him are based on a flawed theory the Supreme Court rejected when it overturned former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's unrelated corruption conviction. The judge in the Menendez case did not rule on the merits of that argument, saying it should be determined during his trial. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc39d667471829839b39c838bac386461fc4eaf5306b6ae7bdfd5e2716ea198fc0cfe0ca06869128578b7687e6de57f1cd

TSONGAS ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT - Massachusetts Rep. Niki Tsongas will retire at the end of 2018 after serving more than a decade in Congress, she announced Wednesday. Winning a special election in 2007, Tsongas became the first woman to represent the Bay State in Congress in 25 years. The Boston Herald with more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bcca147a4ce87378c9737eac7cb4bcaf3dda0f78e886e0b04471ae9f45913dc82f394fa7808f9eb4055ba0c5863b582ad3

WHOOPS! Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had quite the surprise when she sliced open a loaf of freshly made gluten-free bread Wednesday. Apparently the Miami-area Democrat had baked a measuring spoon into the loaf without realizing. Luckily, it didn't melt. See the pic: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=82989d730bcc38bc3d9fd298c68235ed648088a900d3726a1456985bf90154d4e5dcab96d965ec545e2a54a994e32c77748f836b2a143ab4

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House and Senate are out until September.

AROUND THE HILL - It's all quiet on the Capitol front. Enjoy it while you can.

WEDNESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Joseph Vidulich was first to guess that Sen. Clair Engle (D-Calif.) helped break the filibuster on the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Engle was so ill from a brain tumor, he pointed to his eye to indicate his yes (aye) vote. He died one-and-a-half months later.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Joe with today's question: As president, John F. Kennedy gave a famous commencement address in which he presented a law degree (not honorary) to a then-current senator. Who was that senator? Where and when did this commencement occur?

And for bonus points: The senator in question shares his/her home state with the current university president where the commencement occurred. Who is the current president at this university? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send answers my way: hcaygle@politico.com

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