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08/22/2017 07:46 AM EDT


By Austin Wright (@abwrig) and Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney)

With assists from Elana Schor and John Bresnahan

SPEAKER PAUL RYAN ratcheted up his public criticism of the Mitch McConnell-led Senate last night, telling a national TV audience that it's the other chamber that's failing to deliver on big-ticket priorities like the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. "Who wasn't disappointed that the Senate failed to pass that bill by one vote the other day? We all are," Ryan lamented at a Racine, Wisc. town hall, broadcast live by CNN.

-The fresh criticism, while Ryan boasted of a productive House, comes as the two chambers are preparing to embark on a perilous series of high-stakes negotiations on government funding, the debt ceiling and tax reform. Rachael has more details from Racine.

DEFENSE HAWKS CHEER TRUMP ON AFGHANISTAN - In going against his instincts on Afghanistan, President Donald Trump ingratiated himself to some of his toughest critics - defense hawks in Congress. Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others issued statements of support for a president whose nationalistic foreign-policy views they've often slammed. Democrats, though, decried Trump's announcement last night as woefully short on details.

For most Republicans, the main talking point was that Trump's decision to increase the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan was a reversal of the Obama administration's timetable-based withdrawal. "It is especially important that the newly announced strategy gives no timeline for withdrawal," said McCain. House Speaker Paul Ryan, speaking at a town hall hosted by CNN, added: "If [the Taliban] believe that we have some end date, some timetable, then they will wait us out and then they will come back and fill that vacuum with terror."

But anti-interventionist Republicans who once saw hope in Trump vented their displeasure late Monday: @repthomasmassie: "I had hoped the Afghanistan war would end soon, but now it's inevitable that babies born during the war will be deploying to the war in 2019." @justinamash: "If your view is that any declaration of a war's end will precipitate victory for some undefined enemy, then the war can never end."

For Democrats, the big issue was Trump's lack of specifics. The White House is touting this as a plus, since Trump has long advocated against telegraphing plans to the enemy. But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Trump's "announcement is low on details but raises serious questions." With no ceiling on the number of U.S. troops and no timeline for withdrawal, Trump "is declaring an open-ended commitment of American lives with no accountability to the American people," Pelosi explained.

-- ADMINISTRATION COULD REQUEST MORE WAR FUNDING: In information sent yesterday to Capitol Hill, the White House left open the possibility of requesting additional war funding for next fiscal year to pay for the new approach in Afghanistan. The White House added that it did not plan to request more funding for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Here's Eliana Johnson on how Trump ultimately arrived at a decision he once campaigned against: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12da8d7ae873f258d5a2fb9837287d052587a0b102fb16f0ee680e494839b29ae79a6752b894cad437ba41365bd5d89001e and here's Weley Morgan and Bryan Bender on why Trump's "new" Afghanistan strategy is really a lot like the old: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d36a033db2cb47d9c5aab9c70c6d8d69e501a2d252a71f59b71a781557874f8527cc7a2ea8c1a5cb3f320f193a3704655 Here's our roundup of the congressional reaction: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12dce242055df960bc01768176db19ca128875b532a9ffbc24c936a0e254ef3cda57efd497e2b66291015eea556664622e6 And here's a transcript of Trump's remarks: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12de0cd4ca4f497024a76922bf4c0924505746d6a547957b1cd94c037cbc9421317c8bce614bbc26a21f009b84803ba5eca

MORE FROM RYAN TOWN HALL: TRUMP 'MESSED UP' CHARLOTTESVILLE RESPONSE - The speaker said Trump "messed up" in failing to provide moral clarity following the violence in Charlottesville, Va. "I think he could have done better," Ryan said. Ryan, though, would not call for Trump to apologize. Rachael has more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d8035d6348d0fb6fc0a970ce6895d5dd8b6e3be809d0bdbd1a7530a6d8ccb12639925b9f5ef3c14390212cd13f71706a5

-Ryan also forcefully rejected Democrats' push to censure Trump for his comments. As of last night, the measure had garnered 110 Democratic co-sponsors.

HAPPENING TODAY: TRUMP HOLDS RALLY IN ARIZONA - The president is heading to Phoenix for a campaign-style rally, where he'll face a decision that has major implications for his relationship with the GOP: whether to attack Sen. Jeff Flake on Flake's home turf.

POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt reports that there's an expectation among party insiders that Trump will go after Flake. "Trump's decision to venture to Flake's home state goes to what senior Republicans say is a much deeper concern: That the president seems more interested in exacting revenge against members of his own party than defeating Democrats," Isenstadt writes. "It is highly unusual for the president to openly campaign against a sitting member of his own party, let alone someone as vulnerable as Flake." More here: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d750412be81140592647f0f2922659d29328ea04a8aea8b6e021650860c3dfc6803806f280d1d9cd8f93b2cfac2d0ba4d

THE SOLAR ECLIPSE HAS COME AND GONE. The next total eclipse for North America is in 2024 (h/t EarthSky). Thank you for reading POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill.

TAX REFORM MAKING PROGRESS -- The eclipse is over, but there's another alignment occurring in Washington: Republicans are beginning to agree on the contours of a tax reform proposal. Nancy Cook has the details: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d80d024c9e9522a2473c23ba3fe64aeb3df1cbde5ee64405ed7e2993ece5fb6892e362b7fb249cfcd88fac17f1e023b9f

DEFENDING MENENDEZ -- Josh Gerstein has a look at Abbe Lowell, the seasoned attorney who faces another tough task: defending Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) against bribery charges: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d07e86338b29f02bd899fdfcb8ee7071c7fc99a0dadedd4233402c6dcabcd8635cf694a7dd923ef7215a64bb1ab154d80

INJURED SCALISE MAKES SURPRISE CALL TO GOP COLLEAGUES - Rachael has the details: "Injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise surprised Republicans on Monday by phoning in to a GOP conference call from the hospital and updating lawmakers on the whip process for an upcoming spending bill. ... Sources close with Scalise say he's eager to rejoin his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill, though he told Republicans on the call that he did not yet have a discharge date from rehab." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12db04f63abd2b7b1d10ace583fa555211142a69eb538c84ca056da6ef424b516fe78a590bd304bf2ed64fabd7c3f6e91fe

FIRST LOOK: ANTI-GORKA, MILLER ADS FOLLOW TRUMP TO ARIZ. - As Trump prepares for his Phoenix rally today, which may touch on a potential pardon of controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is following him there with a fresh airing of TV ads it rolled out late last week. The ads prod the president to fire aides Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller. The liberal PCCC aired its ads in Charlottesville and New Jersey since last week's violent white supremacist rally in Virginia, originally urging Trump to fire chief strategist Steve Bannon but now repackaged to tell the White House that "one firing is not enough."
Check out the ad here: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d73b1b64388548444e844b64ffd0a54dfc050ba84ccb81bdf97830217e591130ed5c15a9da2e4fc79801f1cb5f726f9c9

CONSERVATIVE GROUP DROPS $500K ON CONFIRMATION ADS -- The Judicial Crisis Network yesterday announced a major new campaign aimed at forcing Democrats to abandon their procedural resistance to Trump's judicial nominees. The new ads, designed to stoke grassroots support for Sen. James Lankford's (R-Okla.) proposal to limit debate time on the Senate floor for executive-branch nominees, are accompanied by a grassroots push by Tea Party Patriots, Concerned Veterans for America, Concerned Women for America, and the Susan B. Anthony List.
Watch JCN's ad here: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4697622a271de12d134d605bdb1b3b07e58a3bf5cd61685a4a001ace46c5326d8737b32f0b44f8de9b347af8c8232926f9746c62ecf5de5c

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House and Senate are out.

THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Bale Dalton was first with the full answer to yesterday's questions: Woodrow Wilson was the political science professor who at Johns Hopkins University in 1885 made the observation that "Congress at work is Congress in committee."

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Logan Ferree, who was first yesterday to send a partial answer, has today's question: After narrowly losing his first bid for Congress, this former member of Congress picked up a second language to improve his campaign skills among the district's fishermen before winning a seat in Congress. Name the congressman and the language he learned.

The first person to correctly answer gets a shout out in tomorrow's Huddle. And don't forget, send suggestions for trivia questions my way: awright@politico.com

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