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By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Daniel Lippman, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

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THE SENATE is currently voting on a motion to proceed onto the House government funding bill. This motion is being held open for several senators who went home for Christmas, and are trying to get back to town. SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-ARIZ.) voted no.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP met with a group of GOP senators at the White House at 10:30 this morning. Later, he spoke at a pool spray for the signing of the First Step Act and Juvenile Justice Reform Act, where he attempted to shift blame for the looming shutdown to Democrats.

-- TRUMP, per pooler Francesca Chambers of the Daily Mail: "Now it's up to the Democrats as to whether or not we have a shutdown tonight." He added that he hoped there would not be one but would be OK if there were.

-- CNN'S MANU RAJU (@mkraju): "[Mitch] McConnell tells reporters: GOP senators had a 'good conversation' with Trump and 'we are going to continue to be talking about a way forward' [Sen. Richard] Shelby says if there's a shutdown, it will be on Democrats."

NEW -- RBG HEALTH WATCH ... MATTHEW CHOI: "Justice Ginsburg had surgery to remove malignant nodules in her lung": "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery to remove two malignant nodules in her left lung, the Supreme Court announced on Friday, adding that there was no evidence of any remaining disease and that no further treatment is planned.

"Doctors found the nodules in Ginsburg's lung when inspecting potential damage from a fall she sustained on Nov. 7. Ginsburg fractured three ribs during the fall, but was back at work only a few days later." POLITICO

THE PRESIDENT went on an 11-part tweetstorm over several hours this morning about funding a border wall and shutdown negotiations. He reversed course on who he thinks would shoulder blame for a shutdown, warning, "The Democrats now own the shutdown!"

-- TRUMP urged MCCONNELL to "use the Nuclear Option and get it done!" and praised SEN. STEVE DAINES (R-MONT.) "for being willing to go with the so-called nuclear option." NEWSFLASH ... MCCONNELL has said repeatedly he won't nuke the filibuster.

-- IT WOULD TAKE 50 other Republican senators to do this in addition to Mitch McConnell. McConnell can't do this on his own. SENS. ORRIN HATCH (R-UTAH), LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TENN.) and JEFF FLAKE (R-ARIZ.) already tweeted this morning that they won't. Then, McConnell put out a statement saying "there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road." So now that we've exhausted that option, let's move on.

THINK ABOUT THIS ... THE 60-VOTE THRESHOLD protects Trump from things like the Mueller protection bill.

BURGESS EVERETT: "Senate GOP stiffs Trump on filibuster border wall demands": "Both parties are digging in for a brutal political conflict with no clear endgame other than House Democrats taking the majority in January and sending the Senate a clean spending bill." POLITICO

CAITLIN EMMA and JEN SCHOLTES: "5 ways a partial government shutdown would inflict pain"

ALSO EXPIRING TODAY ... The Violence Against Women Act ... Federal flood insurance.

Happy Friday afternoon. PROGRAMMING NOTE -- Thank you for reading Playbook PM. Our afternoon edition will take a break over the holidays and return Jan. 2. Our morning Playbook will publish every day as always. Sign up here

A message from the Stop The HIT Coalition:

Small business employees and their families will pay, on average, nearly $500 more for their health care in 2020 if Congress allows the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) to return early next year. Congress can't let this $16 billion tax hit millions of hardworking Americans. It's time to Stop the HIT. Learn more.

THE LATEST IN SYRIA ... WAPO'S ERIN CUNNINGHAM in Istanbul: "Turkey's Erdogan delays operation against Kurdish forces in Syria": "'Our phone call with President Trump, along with contacts between our diplomats and security officials and statements by the United States, have led us to wait a little longer,' he said, referring to a phone call between the two leaders last Friday.

"Still, he said, Turkey's military is planning to launch the offensive in several months, with the aim of 'eliminating' both the Kurdish YPG, or People's Protection Units, and Islamic State remnants." WaPo

-- WSJ'S JESSICA DONATI and COURTNEY MCBRIDE: "Syria Withdrawal Could Imperil Millions in Need of Aid": "The decision ... caught aid organizations off-guard and left many scrambling to respond. Aid officials fear that a sudden U.S. withdrawal could destabilize the area, endanger their staff and cut off humanitarian access to parts of the country previously secured by American forces.

"A draft statement circulating among a group of 70 international aid groups operating in and around Syria warned that a sudden withdrawal could create a vacuum that might trigger more violence and hamper aid efforts in the northeast." WSJ

HOW IT HAPPENED -- AP'S MATTHEW LEE and SUSANNAH GEORGE: "Trump call with Turkish leader led to U.S. pullout from Syria": "President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was made hastily, without consulting his national security team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone involved in the fight against the Islamic State ...

"Pompeo, Mattis and other members of the national security team prepared a list of talking points for Trump to tell Erdogan to back off ... But the officials said Trump, who had previously accepted such advice and convinced the Turkish leader not to attack the Kurds and put U.S. troops at risk, ignored the script. Instead, the president sided with Erdogan." AP

THE MATTIS TICK-TOCK -- CNN'S JEREMY DIAMOND, BARBARA STARR, KEVIN LIPTAK and RYAN BROWNE: "How the Trump-Mattis alliance crumbled"

THE STEP BACK -- NYT'S DAVID SANGER: "With the Generals Gone, Trump's 'America First' Could Fully Emerge": "Now the president appears determined to assemble a new team of advisers who will not tell him what he cannot do, but rather embrace his vision of a powerful America that will amass a military that will enforce national sovereignty and bolster American deal-making - but not spend time nurturing the alliance relationships that Mr. Mattis, in a remarkable resignation letter, makes clear are at the core of American power." NYT

WHAT ELSE IS ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 9:41 a.m.: "There has never been a president who has been tougher (but fair) on China or Russia -- Never, just look at the facts. The Fake News tries so hard to paint the opposite picture."

... at 10:31 a.m.: "I've done more damage to ISIS than all recent presidents....not even close!"

YIKES ... REUTERS' M.B. PELL and DEBORAH NELSON at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.: "U.S. Air Force's new housing dogged by construction flaws, imperiling tenants": "The U.S. Department of Defense has privatized most of the living quarters on bases around the country, partnering with private companies to manage the vast system. What the Pentagon touts as privatization's signature achievement - the building of new housing for military families - is marred by faulty construction and poor upkeep, Reuters found. ...

"A Reuters review - built from court records, interviews and Defense Department Inspector General documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act - found serious construction problems with new or renovated housing on at least 17 bases." Reuters

STEVEN SHEPARD: "Gallup retreats from political polling again under new leadership": "Only a year after Gallup switched its presidential tracking poll - the ever-present reading of the president's approval rating - from daily to weekly, the company will announce Friday that it plans to measure President Donald Trump's job-approval rating only on a monthly basis. It's all part of what the company calls its new, 'more global perspective,' which de-emphasizes U.S. politics.

"It also includes a leadership change, with Mohamed Younis ... replacing Frank Newport as editor in chief." POLITICO

IMMIGRATION FILES -- "In Immigrant Children's Shelters, Sexual Assault Cases Are Open and Shut," by ProPublica's Michael Grabell, Topher Sanders and Silvina Sterin Pensel: "ProPublica's review of the hundreds of police reports showed something else about the assaults. Something that went beyond background checks. Kids at shelters across the country were, indeed, reporting sexual attacks in the shelters, often by other kids. But again and again, the reports show, the police were quickly - and with little investigation - closing the cases, often within days, or even hours." ProPublica

-- WAPO'S MICHAEL MILLER in Bloomington, Ill.: "A boy separated from his mom at the border faces his first Christmas without her": "Isaac and his mother had made the dangerous two-week journey from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border to ask for asylum. Instead, they were separated. His mother was deported. And Isaac was left behind. ...

"In more than 200 cases, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, deported parents have made the painful decision to leave their separated sons or daughters behind in the hope that they will have a better life in America. For these families, Trump's short-lived separation policy threatens to become permanent." WaPo

ON THE WORLD STAGE -- "U.S. Grants Iraq Sanctions Relief in Bid to Boost Business Deals," by WSJ's Benoit Faucon in London, Timothy Puko in Washington and Isabel Coles in Baghdad: "The Trump administration has given Iraq permission to buy Iranian natural gas without penalty for at least three more months, after pledges from Baghdad to buy American oil and energy technology." WSJ

JOSH GERSTEIN: "Mosque surveillance case languishes amid concerns over court backlog": "A legal case that could have profound consequences for the government's ability to conduct surveillance inside mosques and other houses of worship has been stalled at a federal appeals court for more than three years with no sign of progress.

"The unexplained delay is rekindling questions about the timeliness of decisions from the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, an issue that has drawn President Donald Trump's ire. ... The case also touches on an issue at the center of Trump's campaign - surveilling Muslims." POLITICO

THE LATEST IN NORTH CAROLINA -- "N.C. election officials sounded alarm about alleged election fraud to federal prosecutors in January 2017," by WaPo's Amy Gardner and Beth Reinhard: "The letter raises fresh questions about whether federal investigators took any actions to scrutinize the complaints." WaPo

BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- NYT'S EDUARDO PORTER in Harlan, Ky.: "Where Government Is a Dirty Word, but Its Checks Pay the Bills": "As Americans have grown more reliant on federal programs over the last 50 years, they have increasingly embraced the Republican Party, a trend put in stark relief by President Trump's 2016 victory. Of the 10 states in which government transfers account for the largest share of income, seven voted for Mr. Trump. ...

"Nowhere has the strategy worked better than Kentucky. ... Mitch McConnell was known as a pro-civil rights, union-friendly moderate as a county executive in Louisville in the late 1970s. As federal transfers grew from around 10 percent of the income of the average Kentuckian in 1970 to 24 percent in 2016, seven percentage points more than the national average, the ideology of Mr. McConnell ... moved sharply to the right. And local Democrats - who once thrived in heavily unionized mining towns - gradually lost ground." NYT

-- MARC CAPUTO: "Florida Democrats to grill party chair after huge losses"

-- "Michigan GOP lawmakers pass bills before Dem governor starts," by AP's David Eggert in Lansing: "Michigan Republicans voted early Friday to toughen rules for ballot drives and to give themselves the authority to intervene in court cases, capping a contentious post-election legislative session that critics blasted as diluting the power of voters and incoming Democratic officeholders." AP

POLITICO INVESTIGATION -- BEN LEFEBVRE and NICK JULIANO, "How Zinke lost his way: In journeying from Whitefish to Washington, an outsider from Montana failed to follow the political guardrails."

TV TONIGHT -- Bob Costa sits down with Jake, the Boston Herald's Kimberly Atkins, NYT's Peter Baker and Time's Molly Ball on PBS' "Washington Week" at 8 p.m.

HOLIDAY PARTY CIRCUIT -- SPOTTED at Fox News' holiday party and 10th-anniversary celebration of "Special Report with Bret Baier" at the Dubliner on Thursday night: Rachel Maddow, Australian Ambassador Joe Hockey, Meghan McCain, Bill Sammon, Raul Fernandez, David Tafuri, Katy Ricalde, Lauren Blanchard, Edward Buckley, Amy Baier and Bret Baier, who rapped on stage with the Sugarhill Gang.

MEDIAWATCH -- Lorraine Woellert will be the editor of POLITICO Florida. She is currently a White House reporter at POLITICO.


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