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Presented by AARP: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Aug 19, 2018 View in browser
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and Daniel Lippman

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DRIVING THE DAY
SIREN ... JOHN BRENNAN CONSIDERING LAWSUIT ... CHUCK TODD on NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": TODD: "You indicated that you had lawyers contact you about possible legal action. It's 48 hours later. What would that look like? Is that something you're serious about."

BRENNAN: "Well, I have been contacted by a number of lawyers, and they have already given me their thoughts about the basis for a complaint, an injunction to try to prevent him from doing this in the future.

"If my clearances and my reputation as I'm being pulled through the mud now, if that's the price we're going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it's a small price to pay. So I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future. And if it means going to court, I will do that."


A message from AARP:

POLITICO's series "The Deciders" takes a closer look at voters over 50 this cycle through original polling, cutting-edge data visualization, and POLITICO's award-winning on-the-ground narrative storytelling and photojournalism. This voting bloc will have the largest impact on the 2018 midterms.

THE WEEKLY RUDY ... RUDY GIULIANI to CHUCK: "Truth isn't truth." CHUCK responds: "This is going to become a bad meme."

-- GIULIANI: "Well, because the meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about, about Clinton. The meeting turned into a meeting..." TODD: "Which in itself is attempted collusion. I understand..."

GIULIANI: "No it's not." TODD: "You just said it. The meeting was intended to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a criminal lawyer." GIULIANI: "No, it wasn't." TODD: "That was the intention of the meeting, you just said it."

GIULIANI: "That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all. And, of course, any meeting with regards to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate's staff would take. If someone said, I have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting." The clip

CABINET SECRETARIES ... THEY'RE JUST LIKE YOU! ... SPOTTED: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at Crate and Barrel in Clarendon checking out bar stools on Saturday morning. ... Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in the Turkish Airlines lounge at IAD on Friday night. He later boarded a flight to Istanbul and traveled in business class, according to our tipster. A source told us he's on personal travel.

Good Sunday morning. GET OUTSIDE today. It's going to be beautiful in Washington -- and not too hot.

WHAT AMERICA IS READING ... ARIZONA REPUBLIC: "Are Dems 'meddling' in Senate GOP race?" ... LEXINGTON COURIER JOURNAL: "TARIFFS TAKING A TOLL" ... BALTIMORE SUN: "Tariffs bring uncertainty to the Port of Baltimore" ...

STAR TRIBUNE: "State is swept up in 'pink wave'" ... CHARLOTTE OBSERVER: "Critics find fodder in N.C. candidate's sermons on women" ... HOUSTON CHRONICLE: "Perry lies low in Trump's Cabinet"

THE PRESIDENT'S WEEK ... Monday: THE PRESIDENT will have lunch with VP Mike Pence and will host "the Salute to the Heroes of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection." Tuesday: TRUMP will meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and have lunch with Pompeo and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. He then will travel to Charleston, West Virginia, for a roundtable with supporters and a rally. Wednesday: TRUMP will present a medal of honor.


A message from AARP:


POLITICO Magazine's series "The Deciders" takes a closer look at voters over 50 in key battleground states this election cycle. Learn more at politico.com/thedeciders.

BOMBSHELL ... NYT'S MIKE SCHMIDT and MAGGIE HABERMAN on A1: "McGahn, White House Counsel, Has Cooperated Extensively in Mueller Inquiry": "The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.

"In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president's fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president's most intimate moments with his lawyer.

"Among them were Mr. Trump's comments and actions during the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and Mr. Trump's obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it. Mr. McGahn was also centrally involved in Mr. Trump's attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which investigators might not have discovered without him.

"For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege." NYT ... A1 PDF

-- TRUMP UNLEASHES, on Twitter at 7:01 a.m.: "The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic], he must be a John Dean type 'RAT.' But I allowed him and all others to testify -- I didn't have to. I have nothing to hide......"

-- at 7:15 a.m.: "...and have demanded transparency so that this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt can come to a close. So many lives have been ruined over nothing -- McCarthyism at its WORST! Yet Mueller & his gang of Dems refuse to look at the real crimes on the other side - Media is even worse!"

-- at 8:06 a.m.: "The Failing New York Times wrote a story that made it seem like the White House Councel [sic] had TURNED on the President, when in fact it is just the opposite -- & the two Fake reporters knew this. This is why the Fake News Media has become the Enemy of the People. So bad for America!"

-- at 8:14 a.m.: "Some members of the media are very Angry at the Fake Story in the New York Times. They actually called to complain and apologize -- a big step forward. From the day I announced, the Times has been Fake News, and with their disgusting new Board Member, it will only get worse!"

JUST A QUESTION ... Why would reporters be angry at the New York Times and call the White House? Furthermore, which director is he referring to? There are three new directors: John W. Rogers Jr. of Ariel Investments, A.G. Sulzberger, the new publisher, and Rachel Glaser of Etsy. We assume he's referring to Sulzberger. Or is Trump referring to the editorial board?

-- at 8:24 a.m.: "Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!"

DAVID STERN in KIEV: "Manafort trial has Ukraine freshly nervous about Trump"

WAPO'S ASHLEY PARKER, SEUNG MIN KIM and BOB COSTA: "'I'm not going there': As Trump hurls racial invective, most Republicans stay silent": "The president of the United States had just lobbed another racially charged insult - this time calling his former top African American adviser a 'dog' - but Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) had no interest in talking about it. 'I've got more important things on my mind, so I really don't have a comment on that,' said the Senate's No. 2 Republican, chuckling at the question.

"Has President Trump ever said anything on race that made Cornyn uncomfortable? 'I think the most important thing is to pay attention to what the president does, which I think has been good for the country,' the senator demurred.

"What about his constituents back home - are they concerned? 'I know you have to ask these questions but I'm not going to talk about that,' Cornyn said, politely ending the brief interview in the basement of the U.S. Capitol. 'I just think that's an endless little wild goose chase and I'm not going there.'

"And so it went last week among Republicans: As Trump immersed the nation in a new wave of fraught battles over race, most GOP lawmakers tried to ignore the topic altogether. The studied avoidance is a reflection of the enduring reluctance of Republicans to confront Trump's often divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, in part because the president remains deeply popular within a party dominated by older white voters." WaPo

WAPO'S DAVID NAKAMURA on BEDMINSTER DUTY in BRIDGEWATER, NEW JERSEY ... "After detente with North Korea, Trump increasingly takes aim at a new foe - China": "After 18 months of treating North Korea as the top national security threat, President Trump has increasingly turned his attention to China, taking a more confrontational approach that experts said shows a risky shift in U.S. policy.

"From an escalating trade war to a new defense budget that counters Chinese maritime expansion, the Trump administration has taken aim at the East Asian power in a contest of wills that has led to a growing consensus in Beijing that the United States is seeking to contain China's rise.

"Trump's rhetoric has grown sharper since last year, when he attempted to strike a rapport with his 'good friend' President Xi Jinping. Last week, Trump cited the Chinese military as the rationale for creating a new 'Space Force' at the Pentagon, and in a tweet on Saturday he injected China into the specter of foreign influence of U.S. elections.

"'All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China," the president wrote, without offering evidence of any Chinese conspiracy." WaPo

CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY'S SUSAN FERRISS: "'Shocked and humiliated': Lawsuits accuse Customs, Border officers of invasive searches of minors, women - From New York to San Diego, government pays thousands to settle allegations of stripping, body cavity probing, forced hospital procedures".

A message from AARP:


Will voters over 50 decide 2018? Visit politico.com/thedeciders to learn more.

SUNDAY BEST ... JOHN BOLTON to MARTHA RADDATZ on ABC'S "THIS WEEK": RADDATZ: "President Trump tweeted this weekend that all of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction -- China. Just to be clear, have you seen any credible evidence that the Chinese meddled in our elections in the past or are doing so now? Is this a genuine national security concern?"

BOLTON: "Well I can say definitively that it's a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling and North Korean meddling that we're taking steps to try and prevent it. So -- so all four of those countries, really."

RADDATZ: "But -- but have you seen anything in the past, specifically to China?" BOLTON: "Well I'm not going to get into the -- what I've seen or haven't seen but I'm telling you looking at the 2018 election, those are the four countries that we're most concerned about."

-- ADM. MIKE MULLEN on BRENNAN to CHRIS WALLACE on "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": "I think for John and he -- and John is an extraordinary servant of the country, but I think he has been incredibly critical of the president and I think that has put him in a political place which actually does more damage for the intelligence community, which is apolitical, even as he's retired. So, I really don't support him being as critical of the president as he has been."

-- JAKE TAPPER speaks with MONTANA GOV. STEVE BULLOCK on CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": TAPPER: "You were in Iowa on Thursday. You're going to be in New Hampshire next week. You're a two-term governor of a state that President Trump won by 20 points. Many Democrats think this all means that you could compete in red states as a presidential candidate. Do you think -- and I understand you haven't announced that you're running for anything, but do you think that, if you did run, you could beat President Trump?"

BULLOCK: "Well, what I look at is -- and I -- those hypotheticals are a little bit challenging, certainly. I was the only Democrat, I think, in the country to get reelected statewide in a state where President Trump won. More than that, I have actually been able to bring folks together, from expanding Medicaid, to an earned income tax credit, record investments in education, trying to get dark money out of elections, which is one of the things that I was talking about in Iowa.

"Now, I think anybody that actually assumes that we share the values of folks all across this country fights for those values and tries to bridge some of the divides -- divides both in our country and in the political system, could beat President Trump in 2020."

TAPPER: "That would, theoretically, though, include you, I suppose." BULLOCK: "It would include all kinds of folks."

JAKE KASTAN -- Paul Ryan's political director -- in Real Clear Politics: "GOP's Strong Local Brands Will Block 'Blue Wave'"


PHOTO DU JOUR:Gen Goto, of Tokyo, and his son Motoharu Goto, 9, pause in front of a portrait of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a visit to U.N. headquarters in New York on Aug. 18. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

NANCY COOK and ANDREW RESTUCCIA: "'We owe these people': Trump loyalists find soft landings after getting ousted": "When Carl Higbie's degrading comments about African Americans, women, gays, and Muslims surfaced in January, he resigned from his job in the Trump administration. Yet just two months later, the former Navy SEAL landed at the pro-Trump group America First Policies, earning roughly the same amount as his White House salary, he says.

"Higbie, who worked on advocacy issues and tax events for America First, said he never intended to stay at the group forever. But he acknowledges it gave him a soft landing among sympathetic peers at a low point in his career.

"'Trumpworld is still very small, and people within Trumpworld generally try to stay within it. Because of my profile, I could never go to a company like Deloitte or McKinsey,' Higbie told POLITICO. 'When you are publicly supporting Trump you close a significant number of doors, given how adamantly some people hate the president. Once you're on Trump's bandwagon, 80 percent of companies do not want political baggage when they hire you,' he added." POLITICO


A message from AARP:

POLITICO Magazine's series "The Deciders" takes a closer look at voters over 50 in key battleground states this election cycle through original polling, cutting-edge data visualization, and POLITICO's award-winning on-the-ground narrative storytelling and photojournalism. To date, the series has explored voters over 50 from America's largest retirement community in Florida. This group reflects those Americans who are motivated to vote by a desire to find a bygone era of traditional American values. The series has also explored whether Arizona finally turn blue this cycle? Will it be voter turnout with Hispanic voters over 50 or identity politics that decides the day? These are the questions
at play in two crucial campaigns that will determine whether Democrats actually can win in the Grand Canyon State. Visit politico.com/thedeciders to follow the series and learn more.

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman, filing from Athens, Greece:

-- "The Sarah Huckabee Sanders of the Philippines," by Emily Schultheis in Manila in POLITICO Magazine: "Harry Roque used to be a human rights lawyer. Now he speaks for a president who attacks the free press and is leading a brutal extrajudicial drug war." POLITICO

-- "The Nastiest Feud in Science," by Bianca Bosker in The Atlantic: "A Princeton geologist has endured decades of ridicule for arguing that the fifth extinction was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions. But she's reopened that debate." The Atlantic

-- "What Trauma Docs Know" - interviews by Kim Bellware in Chicago Mag: "Younger patients are ridiculously resilient. They can be shot 20 times, you give them 50 units of blood, and they walk out of the hospital ... We don't take the bullets out. If we find them, great. But they're like splinters, they work their way out eventually ... Nobody gets shot just once anymore. Everybody is shot four or five times." Chicago Mag

-- "After Two Decades of Growth, Philadelphia Still Feels Left Behind," by Charles F. McElwee III in the American Conservative: "For now, the construction boom continues, the Democratic machine endures, and city leaders celebrate favorable trends. It's a city that retains an almost chiaroscuro quality, finding enlightenment through investment and population growth, but also darkness as a one-party system maintains its tribal grip over the city." American Conservative

-- "I Believe I Can Fry: How a mild-mannered database analyst became the undisputed king of the fair park fryers-and the master of a heart stopping new culinary movement," by Katy Vine in Texas Monthly's Sept. 2010 issue: "It was the most majestic breadstuff I'd ever eaten, sweet, then doughy, then warm, with a twist at the end: a tiny pat of butter, just starting to melt, like an opiate at the center of the world's most scandalous doughnut." Texas Monthly

-- "Hume the humane," by Julian Baggini in Aeon Magazine: "The problem for fans of Hume is how we can be enthusiastic advocates of someone so opposed to enthusiasm. If the case for Hume is to be made in Humean terms, it has to be gently but eloquently argued for. Hume modelled a way of life that was gentle, reasonable, amiable: all the things public life now so rarely is." Aeon

-- "How an Obsession With Rare Bird Feathers Turned Criminal" - Wildlife Watch in NatGeo: "In a bizarre heist, a young musician broke into the British Natural History Museum at Tring to steal exotic birds." NatGeo

-- "After the bullets, the brushes: how the First World War transformed art," by Michael Prodger in the New Statesman - per ALDaily.com's description: "The years leading up to World War I were a time of radical artistic experimentation - vorticism, cubism, futurism, 'anti-art.' These new movements turned out to be further casualties of the war". New Statesman

-- "California Burning," by William Finnegan in the N.Y. Review of Books: "Nationally, fire seasons are on average seventy-eight days longer than they were in 1970, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Wildfires burn twice as many acres as they did thirty years ago. 'Of the ten years with the largest amount of acreage burned in the United States,' Edward Struzik notes in 'Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future,' nine have occurred since 2000. ... We have entered the era of the megafire-defined as a wildfire that burns more than 100,000 acres." NYRB (h/t Longform.org)

-- "Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar," by Reuters' Steve Stecklow: "Reuters found more than 1,000 examples of posts, comments and pornographic images attacking the Rohingya and other Muslims on Facebook. A secretive operation set up by the social media giant to combat the hate speech is failing to end the problem." Reuters

-- "The City Born in a Day," by Sam Anderson in NY Mag: "The town [Oklahoma City] had an almost instant population of 10,000 with no organization whatsoever - no government, no law. Within days there were wooden houses, slapped together quickly out of preassembled frames; within months, brick warehouses and shops; within years, grand stone mansions; within decades, skyscrapers, convention centers, sports arenas." NY Mag

-- "Like a day of war 30 years ago, a train explosion ripped through the Soviet city of Arzamas, and locals to this day believe it was part of a plot to destroy the USSR," by Daniil Turovsky in Meduza - per TheBrowser.com's description: "Remembering the day in 1988 when a train loaded with explosives blew up in the Soviet city of Arzamas, levelling 84 apartment blocks. Many thought a nuclear bomb had detonated. No cause for the catastrophe was ever satisfactorily established. Conspiracy theories abound to this day." Meduza

-- "Fighting the vanilla thieves of Madagascar," by Nancy Kacungira in BBC - per Longreads.com's description: "Demand for vanilla from Madagascar has skyrocketed in recent years, but the process of exporting the spice to markets around the world is fraught with risk, unpredictability, and - increasingly - violence." BBC

PLAYBOOKERS
WEEKEND WEDDINGS - "Katharine Glueck, Maor Cohen" - N.Y. Times: "Ms. Glueck, 28, works in New York as a senior political correspondent for the news organization McClatchy D.C. in Washington. She graduated cum laude from Northwestern. ... Mr. Cohen, also 28, is a second-year M.B.A. candidate at Columbia, where his studies focus on health care technology entrepreneurship. He graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan. ... The couple met in Washington in 2012 at a party hosted by a mutual friend." With a pic ... Wedding pic

-- Pool report: "[A]t the Renaissance Arlington Capital View ... the couple danced to a Beyoncé cover of 'At Last' that segued into a raucous Hora. There was a photo booth, an adorable video of their love story and delicious pie."

-- SPOTTED: Katie Zezima, Dave Shaw, Alex Roarty, Libby Nelson, Tarini Parti and Ryan Barber, Alexis Levinson, Matt Flegenheimer, Rosie Gray, Ben Judah, Nicole Hong, Alanna Autler, Dave Boucher, Rebecca Nelson and Stanley Kay, Ashley Fetters, Christie Thompson, Eli Stokols and Elena Schneider.

-- "Sarah Goulet, Daniel Riley" - N.Y. Times: "Ms. Goulet, 32, is the owner of Sarah Goulet Communications, an arts communications company in New York. She graduated from Brown. ... Mr. Riley, also 32, works in New York, where he is the features editor of GQ magazine. His is the author of 'Fly Me' (Little, Brown and Company, 2017). He graduated magna cum laude from Duke." With a pic

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Pat Jones, executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. What he's read recently: "I recently read 'Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change' written by Nathaniel Rich for the New York Times Magazine. It's an extremely well researched and written article about some of the activists and government officials who, in the decade from 1979-1989, tried to shape U.S. and global policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change. The author draws rich profiles of the people involved and creates a very compelling narrative of that period in our history." Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: President Bill Clinton is 72 ... Mary Matalin ... Tipper Gore ... former FCC chair Julius Genachowski, now at the Carlyle Group, is 56 ... Sara Durkin, celebrating in the Catskills at the wedding of a close friend (hubby tip: James Rosen) ... WSJ's Brody Mullins (h/t Tim Burger, filing from Nantucket) ... Tom Rogers, former president and CEO of TiVo and founder of CNBC ... Scott Milburn ... Tabitha Soren ... Politico's Michelle Bloom ... Rebecca McAlexander ... Haley Leonard ... Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz ... Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) is 41 (h/t Steve Clemons) ... Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) is 46 ... Daily Mail's Emily Goodin ... Neil Grace, senior comms
adviser at the FCC, celebrating in LA with his twin bro Danny (h/ts Olivia Petersen) ... NYT tech columnist Farhad Manjoo ... Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is 54 (h/ts Taylor Gage and Blake Waggoner) ... Daily Caller publisher and CEO Neil Patel, also co-founder and managing director of Bluebird Asset Management, is 49 ... Rob Damschen ...

... CBS' Paula Reid ... Rachael Heisler ... Edelman's Alison Armentrout ... Adam Conner (h/t Jon Haber) ... Vox's Madeline Marshall ... Jamie Glick is 32 ... Adam Tomlinson ... Daniel Nassar ... Mark Seibel, BuzzFeed national security editor ... Shannon Campagna, senior policy adviser at Alston & Bird LLP ... Tish Wells ... Steve Owen is 62 ... Elizabeth Bibi, manager of executive and policy comms at Oscar Health ... Rebecca Ayer ... Kari Smith Gibson ... Andrew Vlasaty ... Missy Kurek ... Facebook's Eva Guidarini ... Kate Pomeroy ... Arlene Violet ... Alan Pyke ... Chris Choi ... Reid Rosenberg ... Leon Saffelle ... Colin Kavanaugh ... Trevor Foughty ... Maggie Cleary ... Jack Livingston
... Carol Waller ... Jenna Matthis ... Will Craft ... Will McPherson ... Trevor Daley ... Shelby Knox ... Matthew Beck ... photojournalist Ralph Alswang ... Scott Hogenson ... Jillian Bandes ... Chandreyee Chakraborty ... Shomik Dutta ... Linda Chappetto ... John Sasso ... Lisa Guide.


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