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Presented by the Stop The HIT Coalition: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day Dec 17, 2018 View in browser
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Daniel Lippman, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

Presented by

BREAKING -- SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TENN.) will not seek re-election in 2020, he announced on Twitter. Full statement

-- ALEXANDER has had quite the career: two-term governor of Tennessee, secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush and, by the end of this term, senator for 18 years. More from Burgess Everett ... The Tennessean's story, with 46 photos

THE SHUTDOWN ... LET'S PUT THIS PUZZLE TOGETHER ...

-- THE WHITE HOUSE had Stephen Miller on CBS' "Face the Nation" saying that they would fight for the wall, and seemed OK if the government shut down.

-- THE PRESIDENT is dismissing "border security" funds as being insufficient. He tweeted: "Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good Border Security without a Wall, write them off as just another politician following the party line. Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!" This is the centerpiece of the Democratic offer.

-- THE HOUSE is out of session until Wednesday evening. Government shuts down on Friday.

-- PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP isn't really interested in a one- or two-week stopgap funding bill, Bloomberg is reporting.

BLOOMBERG'S JUSTIN SINK and ERIK WASSON: "Trump isn't inclined to support a one- or two-week stopgap spending measure that would avert a partial government shutdown over the holidays, according to a person familiar with White House planning." Bloomberg

THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE WOULD INDICATE Congress is heading for its third shutdown in two years.

BUT, BUT, BUT ... We keep hearing over and over again on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue that the THE WHITE HOUSE is privately OK with the Senate-negotiated spending bill, which includes money for border security, not a wall. The question is when do they express that publicly? Do they push this until Friday evening, and force Congress in for the weekend? Once a decision is made, Congress can move quickly.

THE INVESTIGATIONS -- CAITLIN OPRYSKO: "Flynn business associates charged with illegally lobbying for Turkish government": "Two former business partners of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn have been charged with failing to register as foreign agents as they covertly lobbied on behalf of Turkey.

"Bijan Kian, a former partner at Flynn's shuttered lobbying firm, the Flynn Intel Group, is being charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy for his work trying to get a Turkish cleric accused of inciting a failed coup in 2016 extradited from the U.S. ... A Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin, who allegedly helped bankroll the lobbying, has also been charged with conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent, as well as with lying to investigators, but he remains abroad in Turkey." POLITICO

-- GARRETT GRAFF in Wired, "A Complete Guide to All 17 (Known) Trump and Russia Investigations"

Good Monday afternoon. THE RALEIGH NEWS AND OBSERVER'S ROB CHRISTENSEN is leaving the paper after 45 years. His farewell

WHAT ELSE IS ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 8:02 a.m.: "The DEDUCTIBLE which comes with ObamaCare is so high that it is practically not even useable! Hurts families badly. We have a chance, working with the Democrats, to deliver great HealthCare! A confirming Supreme Court Decision will lead to GREAT HealthCare results for Americans!"

... at 8:27 a.m.: "It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the Victory!"

TICK TOCK -- USA TODAY'S ELIZA COLLINS and DEBORAH BARFIELD BERRY: "Trump asked, 'Do you think I oughta tweet?': The yearslong journey that got Washington to 'yes' on criminal justice reform"

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.

DEEP DIVE -- ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION'S ALAN JUDD: "How Brian Kemp turned warning of election system vulnerability against Democrats": Kemp and his aides "publicly accused the Democratic Party of Georgia of trying to hack into the voter database in a failed attempt to steal the election. The announcement added last-minute drama to an already contentious campaign. More important, it also pre-empted scrutiny of the secretary of state's own missteps while initiating a highly unusual criminal investigation into his political rivals.

"But no evidence supported the allegations against the Democrats at the time, and none has emerged in the six weeks since, the Journal-Constitution found. It appears unlikely that any crime occurred. ... That examination suggests Kemp and his aides used his elected office to protect his political campaign from a potentially devastating embarrassment." AJC

2020 WATCH -- HOLLY OTTERBEIN in Philly: "Pennsylvania meltdown triggers Republican alarms": "The enfeebled state party - still reeling after a devastating midterm election where Republicans lost three congressional seats and whiffed gubernatorial and Senate races by double digits - is tangled in a power struggle messy enough to capture the attention of the White House. The chaos threatens the president's chances in a state where there's no room for error. ...

"Top Trump allies are eager to have a strong Trump voice atop the state party in 2020. ... But in Pennsylvania, the Trump team sat out the election for state party chairman in 2017 - and some state Republicans now fear that was a mistake." POLITICO

-- WSJ'S REID EPSTEIN: "California Upends 2020 Democratic Primary Calendar": "When Iowa Democrats hold their February 2020 presidential caucuses, millions of Californians will already have their primary ballots. ... The geography for primaries will likely mean the voters critical to winning the presidential nomination will be considerably different from the electorate that carried the party to sweeping victories in the 2018 midterm elections." WSJ

-- THE ATLANTIC'S FRANKLIN FOER: "Cory Booker's Theory of Love"

-- ALEX ISENSTADT (@politicoalex): "Another RNC leadership departure today: Secretary Susie Hudson emails party officials that she's stepping down."

KNOWING PETE BUTTIGIEG -- INDIANAPOLIS MONTHLY'S ADAM WREN: "Pete Buttigieg Has His Eye On The Prize": "These are heady times for the South Bend mayor and possible 2020 Democratic presidential contender. You'll be forgiven if the juxtaposition of those two makes you scoff. ... In Buttigieg, [Lis] Smith and others see an ideas candidate who is everything Donald Trump isn't. Quiet. Substantive. Thoughtful. He's a progressive Democrat who doesn't shy away from talking about issues like universal basic income. ...

"Over coffee in November, Mike Schmuhl, his first campaign manager, and the guy tasked with managing his federal PAC, outlined a platform that would include planks of democracy, security, and freedom, including voting by mail, and statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. ... A Buttigieg campaign would also seek to do more than just be a referendum on Trump by outlining benefits to would-be Democratic voters." Indianapolis Monthly

NO THIRD TERM FOR THE MAYOR ... @PeteButtigieg: "Serving South Bend has been the great honor of my life and I'm looking forward to more good work in the remaining year of my current term. ... I also know this is not a job to hold forever, and it is time to give new leadership a chance to lead our city forward. My time in office here will end at the end of 2019, and I will not seek a third term."

NBC'S BENJY SARLIN: "Democrats eyeing 2020 presidential bids test simple pitch: Have some money": "A suite of big ticket bills by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., would directly transfer upward of trillions of dollars in cash directly to Americans. While low-income workers would be the biggest beneficiaries, the proposals would apply to large chunks of the middle class as well. ...

"Cost estimates of their bills are loosely similar in scale to the $1.9 trillion Trump tax cuts, with some larger and some smaller, and they've all called for at least partially repealing the Republican bill to help finance their ideas." NBC

TRADE WARS -- AP'S JAMEY KEATEN: "US, China spar again over respective trade policies": "Dennis Shea, the U.S. ambassador to the WTO, said criticism from China about the U.S.'s 'unilateralist and protectionist' approach to trade was unwarranted. He also insisted the U.S. wants to reform the global trading system to make it fairer for U.S. citizens and defended America's long role in supporting that system for seven decades, at the World Trade Organization and its predecessors. ...

"Meanwhile, his Chinese counterpart upbraided the U.S. over tariffs and blocking appointments to the World Trade Organization's appeals body. Chinese ambassador Zhang Xiangchen said Trump's tariff increases on steel and aluminum products were 'based on dubious national security concerns' and blasted U.S. efforts to put WTO's appeals body 'in paralysis.'" AP

-- CLICKER ... WSJ: "China: Emergence of a Trade Leviathan: China has demolished its rivals to produce much of what Americans consume. The country's rise, and the Trump Administration's decision to confront it head on, has put the economic powers on a collision course." WSJ

FOR YOUR RADAR -- AP'S MARTIN CRUTSINGER: "After the Fed's likely rate hike this week, all bets are off": "On Wednesday, the Fed is set to announce its fourth rate hike of the year. But after this week, no one is sure what it will do. Neither, most likely, is the Fed itself. ... Many analysts think the Fed will signal Wednesday that it's considering whether to slow or suspend its rate hikes in 2019 to avoid weakening the economy too much. And some predict that the rate increases, which began three years ago, will end altogether next year." AP

TRUMP INC. -- "Trump Organization plots return to Dominican Republic, sparking ethics concerns," by ABC's Matthew Mosk, Kyra Phillips, Alex Hosenball and Kaitlyn Folmer: "[L]ast month, the non-profit group Global Witness sent an undercover investigator to see if they could learn more. ... That included undercover recordings that captured a sales agent at the Cap Cana resort describing a Trump-branded condominium development in the works for a new, beachfront location. ... The Trump Organization calls the Global Witness report 'completely false.' ...

"Global Witness and other critics say any move by the Trump Organization to return to the island nation could represent a departure from the president's promise to avoid undertaking fresh overseas developments during his term in office." ABC

THE DAILY BEAST'S SAM STEIN and LACHLAN MARKAY: "Trump Previously Lined the Pockets of His Democrat Defender Mark Penn": "Nearly three decades before he was elected President of the United States, Donald Trump was looking to build the tallest building in the world. ... So Trump's company turned to a group of Democratic pollsters to conduct a survey.

"The work done by the firm Penn & Schoen Associates didn't help get Trump's project built. But it did provide the first known link between Trump and one of the firm's namesakes, Mark Penn, who has emerged in the last year as one of the president's most outspoken defenders." The Daily Beast

WAR REPORT -- AP'S KATHY GANNON in Islamabad: "Pakistan, Saudis, UAE join U.S.-Taliban talks"

AFTERNOON READ ... THE NEW YORKER'S BEN TAUB: "Iraq's Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge": "The Islamic State has been mostly destroyed on the battlefield, but the war is far from over. Air strikes cannot kill an idea, and so it has fallen to Iraq's fractured security, intelligence, and justice systems to try to finish the task. But, insofar as there is a strategy, it seems almost perfectly crafted to bring about the opposite of its intent.

"American and Iraqi military officials spent years planning the campaign to rid Iraq of ISIS, as if the absence of the jihadis would automatically lead Iraq toward the bright democratic future that George W. Bush's Administration had envisaged when U.S. forces invaded the country, in 2003. But ISIS has always derived much of its dangerous appeal from the corruption and cruelty of the Iraqi state. ... What is at stake, in this post-conflict period, is whether the Iraqi government can win over the segment of the population for whom ISIS seemed a viable alternative." New Yorker

SPOTTED: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in the Jenkins Row Harris Teeter on late Saturday afternoon. He was wearing a yellow University of Oregon baseball hat. ... Rep.-elect Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), Bob Shrum and Marylouise Oates at the Four Seasons on Sunday. Jerry Rafshoon and Don Baer were also there separately. ... Gary Cohn at the Four Seasons this morning. David Rubenstein stopped by his table to say hello.

TRANSITIONS -- Adam Collins is now VP of communications and community affairs at MillerCoors. He was previously communications director for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. ... Sarah O'Brien will be VP of executive communications at Facebook. She previously was VP of communications at Tesla and is an Apple alum.

ENGAGED -- Nick Fineman, a producer for NBC's "Today" show and a CBS News alum, proposed to Summer Delaney, a digital reporter for WPIX-TV. The couple met in high school while at a chorus concert at the National Cathedral. Fineman is the son of Howard Fineman and Amy Nathan, and Delaney is the daughter of Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) and April Delaney. Pic ... Another pic

WEEKEND WEDDINGS -- Tim Noah, labor policy editor at POLITICO, recently married Sarah McNamer, an English professor at Georgetown. SPOTTED: Bill Barol, Tom Ricks, Jack Shafer, Beth Frerking, Paul Glastris, Jim Grady, Holly Brewer, Ruth Marcus and Jon Leibowitz. Pic

-- Zoe Oreck, LD for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), on Saturday married Hayter Whitman, associate with Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz. The couple, who wed in New Orleans, met senior year at the University of Georgia. Pic ... Pic of Team Jeffries including the congressman

-- Grace Stuntz, health policy director at Senate HELP for Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), married Stash Graham, managing director of Graham Capital Wealth Management, at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in D.C. Pic ... Another pic


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