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DRIVING THE DAY
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP said Monday that British Ambassador KIM DARROCH was “not liked or well thought of within the U.S.” But many members of the Trump administration socialize with Darroch, as the NYT’s PETER BAKER and MAGGIE HABERMAN separately pointed out. The British ambassador and his mansion on Mass Ave., next to the VP’s residence, are centerpieces of the D.C. political-media axis.
HERE’S JUST A PARTIAL LIST of times Trump administration officials and associates attended parties hosted by Darroch, culled from the pages of Playbook: KELLYANNE CONWAY went to a March 7 reception for women in the 116th Congress. The party list … Former acting A.G. MATT WHITAKER, Pence political aide MARTY OBST and SEAN SPICER attended Darroch’s 2018 New Year’s Eve party at the British Embassy. The party list …
… On NYE 2017, DARROCH hosted KELLYANNE CONWAY and ELLIOTT ABRAMS at the British Embassy party. The full party list … On Nov. 2, 2017, DARROCH hosted a reception to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. SPOTTED: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. The Balfour reception … DARROCH hosted an October 2017 party in honor of the IMF/World Bank meetings. Commerce Secretary WILBUR ROSS was there. The full party list ...
… DARROCH and the British Embassy hosted an engagement party on Sept. 10, 2017 for KATIE WALSH and MIKE SHIELDS, which REINCE PRIEBUS, STEVEN MNUCHIN and SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS all attended. The engagement party list …
… DARROCH hosted a Jan. 18, 2017 party in honor of Trump’s inauguration. RUDY GIULIANI, COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CHRIS CHRISTIE, MARC SHORT, TOM BARRACK and SEB GORKA were among the attendees. The full inauguration party list … KELLYANNE and GEORGE CONWAY attended the Dec. 31, 2016 New Year’s Eve party. The NYE list
WAPO’S BILL BOOTH in London and JOSH DAWSEY: “Trump says U.S. ‘will no longer deal’ with British ambassador who called White House ‘inept’”: “Darroch himself frequently meets with national security adviser John Bolton and had early-morning breakfast meetings with John Kelly, then the former chief of staff, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity. He has been key in working with Trump’s aides behind the scenes to arrange visits to Britain in a way that would avoid angering the president, White House and embassy officials say.” WaPo
-- NYT’S MARK LANDLER on A1: “Leaked British Cables Critical of Trump Lead to Diplomatic Uproar”: “‘I think Sir Kim is done in Washington,’ said Lewis A. Lukens, who served as deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in London from 2016 to 2019. ‘It’s a shame because he has been an extraordinarily effective ambassador for the U.K. in Washington. And he was just doing his job — providing the government in London with his candid, honest assessment of the dynamics in Washington.’ …
“Sir Christopher Meyer, who was ambassador in Washington from 1997 to 2003 … said he doubted [the new ambassador] would be Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party leader, whom Mr. Trump has repeatedly recommended for the job.
“‘Farage? Well, Darth Vader could be appointed, if that was the wish of the British government,’ Mr. Meyer said. ‘But now he’s sitting on top of a burgeoning political party. I think his larger ambition would be there, rather than in Washington.’” NYT
SPOTTED at a dinner Monday night hosted by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Treasury’s Cash Room in honor of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani: President Donald Trump sitting at a table with Bob Kraft, acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Larry Kudlow, Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Dina Powell, Sigal Mandelker, Eli Miller, Tony Sayegh, Brian Moynihan, Michael Corbat, Steve Roth, Tom Barrack, Monica Crowley, Hank Paulson, Christine Lagarde, Randall Stephenson, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), David Rubenstein, C. Allen Parker, John Paulson, Tim Lenderking and Qatari Ambassador Sheikh Meshal Bin Hamad Al-Thani.
-- YES, that Bob Kraft.
Happy Tuesday morning. MEGAN RAPINOE, the star of the World Cup champion U.S. women’s soccer team, will be live in studio with RACHEL MADDOW tonight at 9 p.m.
CONGRESS comes back into session today, the beginning of a three-week stretch until the August recess. HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW …
-- THE ODDS FOR PASSING THE USMCA, the president’s trade deal to replace NAFTA, got higher in recent weeks, with Speaker NANCY PELOSI saying that yes, Democrats want to pass it, but they need some changes on specific sections. It won’t pass before the August recess, but certainly needs to pass before the end of the year. Most insiders believe that it would be next to impossible to clear a trade deal during a presidential year.
-- BUT CRITICAL FISCAL ISSUES LOOM. First, there’s the DEBT LIMIT. The nation’s statutory borrowing cap could come due as early as September, the Bipartisan Policy Center said Monday (WSJ story on that). That’s earlier than the October deadline Congress was anticipating, and could force lawmakers into quicker action. We anticipate Treasury will have to say something soon about how it views the deadline.
-- CHANCES OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ARE SKYROCKETING … There’s been next to no progress on a deal to lift mandatory government spending caps that take effect in January, so aides in both parties have said they believe that a shutdown is becoming more and more likely. Remember: Funding expires at the end of September.
ALEX ACOSTA WATCH …
-- THIS IS NOT A GOOD HEADLINE FOR THE LABOR SECRETARY … BLOOMBERG: “Acosta’s Standing in White House Was Eroding Even Before Epstein,” by Jennifer Jacobs, Saleha Mohsin, Josh Wingrove and Benjamin Penn: “Corporate lobbyists and some White House officials have grown frustrated that Acosta hasn’t moved fast enough on deregulation and other business-friendly initiatives, the people said. No decision has been made on Acosta’s future in the administration, they added, though two people said that his time is short. …
“Were Acosta to resign or be forced out, current deputy secretary Patrick Pizzella would become acting secretary. Pizzella is regarded as more aggressively pro-business than Acosta, which may be one reason the current secretary hasn’t come under broader attack from Democrats and labor unions.” Bloomberg
-- WAPO’S LISA REIN, MICHAEL KRANISH and JOSH DAWSEY: “Officials at the White House … are nervous that Democrats will encourage women allegedly abused by Epstein to testify publicly before Congress, drawing attention to Acosta’s work on the plea deal, according to current and former administration officials.” WaPo
-- “‘The next 72 hours are critical for Acosta,’” by Anita Kumar and Daniel Lippman: “White House officials are closely watching the coverage of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s past involvement as a prosecutor in billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s plea deal in 2008, acutely aware that negative publicity could harm him beyond repair, according to four people familiar with the situation.” POLITICO
-- PELOSI at 11:08 p.m.: “.@SecretaryAcosta must step down. As US Attorney, he engaged in an unconscionable agreement w/ Jeffrey Epstein kept secret from courageous, young victims preventing them from seeking justice. This was known by @POTUS when he appointed him to the cabinet. #AcostaResign.”
-- MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD: “Alex Acosta made an ethically compromised decision 10 years ago. Today, he should resign”
THE AP’S MIKE BALSAMO got an interview with A.G. BILL BARR in Edgefield, S.C. …
-- “Barr sees a legal way to ask about citizenship on census”: “In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Trump administration will take action in the coming days that he believes will allow the government to add the controversial census query. Barr would not detail the plans, though a senior official said President Donald Trump is expected to issue a memorandum to the Commerce Department instructing it to include the question on census forms.” AP
-- “Barr: Mueller’s Hill testimony will be ‘public spectacle’”: “In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Justice Department would support Mueller if he decides he ‘doesn’t want to subject himself’ to congressional testimony. Barr also said the Justice Department would seek to block any attempt by Congress to subpoena members of the special counsel’s team. …
“‘I’m not sure what purpose is served by dragging him up there and trying to grill him,’ Barr said. ‘I don’t think Mueller should be treated that way or subject himself to that, if he doesn’t want to.’ Mueller no longer works for the Justice Department, but the department could attempt to limit his testimony about decisions he made as special counsel.” AP
TED HESSON and JOSH GERSTEIN: “Why Trump will likely lose the census citizenship fight”: “Eleven days after an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling, a new team of Justice Department attorneys must persuade three district court judges that a June 30 printing deadline a previous DOJ legal team insisted had to be met no longer applies — even though, the Commerce Department said last week, the questionnaires are being printed already.
“To pass muster with the Supreme Court, the new DOJ team must find a rationale that the high court will rule consistent with regulatory law and also believable — a tough assignment given that the court said in its ruling that the previous rationale was not.” POLITICO
EYES OPEN WIDE EMOJI … LOOK FAMILIAR? … SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) recently released her plan for “Combatting the Racial Homelessness Gap.” It includes this line: “Today in America, 26 million people are ‘credit invisible’ and 19 million people have ‘unscorable’ credit files, including those who are deemed to have insufficient information or a ‘thin credit file.’” The Harris plan
-- HMM … ON MAY 8, Joseph Nery of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals wrote this in testimony submitted to the House Financial Services Committee: “In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a study finding that 26 million Americans are ‘credit invisible’ and 19 million Americans have ‘unscoreable’ credit files, including those who are deemed to have insufficient information and are deemed to have a ‘thin credit file.’” The testimony
-- WE REACHED OUT TO THE HARRIS CAMPAIGN, which told us they had cited and hyperlinked to the wrong report. They meant to hyperlink to the House testimony. It’s now fixed.
2020 WATCH -- VICE’S DANIEL NEWHAUSER in Columbia, S.C.: “Mayor Pete Faces a Familiar and ‘Vicious’ Enemy in South Carolina: Homophobia”
-- LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ: “North Carolina runoff tests GOP efforts to boost women candidates”: “A Republican runoff in North Carolina on Tuesday represents the only chance left this year for the House GOP to follow through on one of its key promises for the 2020 cycle: Elect more women.
“Pediatrician Joan Perry has powerful allies in her corner to help her capture the GOP nomination for the special election, including all 13 Republican women currently serving in the House. She's been the beneficiary of more than $1 million in support from groups set up to support Republican women.
“But Perry is also running headlong into obstacles — namely, a conservative power structure backing her opponent, fellow physician Greg Murphy, including an influential male member of Congress from the state. The race sets up as a test of whether GOP primary voters see gender diversity as an important value in the way Democrats did in the 2018 midterms, when voters sent a wave of Democratic women to Congress.” POLITICO
-- ALEX THOMPSON: “Elizabeth Warren takes aim at D.C.'s political consultant industrial complex”: “The campaign has gone without an outside polling firm, and says it has no plans to hire one, even though it is standard operating procedure for most serious candidates. Instead of initially stockpiling resources for a home-stretch TV ad blitz, she's amassed a payroll of 300-plus staffers in the early months of the campaign — overhead that could overwhelm her coffers if her fundraising ever falters.
“And now, the campaign told POLITICO that it is shunning the typical model for producing campaign ads, in which outside firms are hired and paid often hefty commissions for their work. Instead, Warren's campaign is producing TV, digital and other media content itself, as well as placing its digital ad buys internally.
“Taken together, Warren’s approach is a rebuke of the consultant-heavy model of campaigns — an often lucrative arrangement in which the people advising campaigns invariably tell candidates that the best political strategy is to buy what they sell, namely TV ads and polling. If carried out for the duration, the moves would create the most robust in-house media production and buying team in recent presidential politics.” POLITICO
THE PRESIDENT’S TUESDAY … THE EMIR of Qatar will arrive at the White House at noon, and will meet with the president after that. At 12:20, the president will participate in “a commercial signing ceremonies viewing” before lunch with the emir. At 1:35 p.m., the emir will leave the White House.
PLAYBOOK READS
DEMOCRACY FTW -- “Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says extradition bill ‘is dead’ after weeks of protests,” by SCMP’s Sum Lok-kei and Tony Cheung in Hong Kong
THE INVESTIGATIONS … “The Mueller report? Haven’t read it,” by Darren Samuelsohn: “More than a dozen members of Congress readily admitted to POLITICO that they too have skipped around rather than studying every one of the special counsel report’s 448 pages.” POLITICO
HAPPENING TODAY -- “Felix Sater to testify after missing previously scheduled appearance,” by Natasha Bertrand: “Felix Sater, a former business associate of President Donald Trump who was the chief negotiator for the defunct Trump Tower Moscow project, will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning, according to a person familiar with the matter. ...
“Sater failed to appear for a voluntary appearance before the committee last month because he was sick and slept through his alarm, he told POLITICO at the time.” POLITICO
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION -- “New Scandals Rock Government’s Foreign Broadcasting Service,” by NYT’s Elizabeth Williamson: “The United States Agency for Global Media, the government’s foreign broadcast service, already struggling to clean house after a series of scandals last year at flagship operations like Voice of America and TV Martí, is now being rocked by two new cases that have raised further questions about its journalistic and financial management.
“In one, Tomás Regalado Jr., a reporter for TV Martí, which broadcasts into Cuba, and a cameraman for the network, Rodolfo Hernandez, were suspended amid allegations that they faked a mortar attack on Mr. Regalado during a broadcast from Managua, Nicaragua, last year.
“That incident surfaced only days after Haroon Ullah, the former chief strategy officer at the global media agency, which operates Martí and foreign-language networks around the world, pleaded guilty on June 27 in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to stealing government property.” NYT
BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- “All Mississippi Beaches Close Due To Toxic Algae Bloom,” by HuffPost’s Nina Golgowski
MEDIAWATCH -- ABOUT THAT ANTI-FOX RANT ... AP’S DAVID BAUDER and JONATHAN LEMIRE: “While it was not clear what Trump was specifically responding to, he was particularly annoyed by Fox correspondent Greg Palkot’s live report from a sports bar in France, where patrons erupted in a ‘F--- Trump’ chant, according to two advisers not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions. ...
“[T]he president’s frustration with the network has grown in recent months. He has angrily told confidants he is confused about why Fox News sometimes ‘goes negative’ in its coverage of his administration when it features an unflattering portrait of his White House, the advisers said.
“Trump was particularly annoyed at Fox’s coverage when he saw his ties to billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein being played up on the other networks.” AP
-- “Breitbart’s White House correspondent joins White House,” by CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Kaitlan Collins: “The White House correspondent for Breitbart, a far-right website supportive of President Trump, has joined the Trump administration, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
“A spokesperson for the White House confirmed the hire after this story was first published. The spokesperson said Michelle Moons, the correspondent, will work in the office of Domestic Policy Council.”
PLAYBOOKERS
WEEKEND WEDDING -- Rachel Hoff, policy director at the Ronald Reagan Institute and a Senate Armed Services and American Action Forum alum, married Kate Meck, who works at the FDA, on Friday at the Line Hotel. They met on OkCupid. Pool report: “At the reception at Franklin Hall, guests enjoyed craft beer and cupcakes as they danced the night away.” Pic
BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Laura Peavey, press secretary for House Financial Services (hat tip: Dave O’Brien)
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Tom Beaumont, AP national political correspondent. How he got his start in journalism: “After little career planning as a poli sci undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, my first job out of school was working in Madison for a longtime state lawmaker who, as it turned out, was also an awful human being. After quitting in disgust and a good bit of panic, I decided journalism could feed my political fix without having to answer to such an ego. I went back to school, earned a master’s in journalism from UW and have been fortunate to stay on this fascinating path since.” Playbook Plus Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is 64 ... Emma Doyle, principal deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president … Brian Blase, WH special assistant to the president for economic policy … Danny Diaz, a founding and managing partner at FP1 Strategies, is 44 ... Donald Rumsfeld is 87 ... Drew Hammill, deputy COS for Speaker Nancy Pelosi … Mike Britt, VP of government relations at Red Rock Resorts Inc. ... Michael Abate ... former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) is 6-0 ... HuffPost’s Amanda Terkel ... POLITICO CEO Patrick Steel … Mohsin Syed, chief counsel for House T&I, is 39 (h/t wife Sehar Siddiqi) … Floyd Abrams is 83 … Jordan Belfort, aka “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is 57 … Fox Business’ Lori Rothman … Megan Ortiz, COO of the Cohen Group (hubby tip: Michael) … Mercury’s Kirill Goncharenko ... Adam Pennington … Sara Durr, comms director for the U.S. Conference of Mayors (h/t Allison Fastow) …
… former Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) is 66 … POLITICO’s Jimmy Bondi ... Donna Imperato, global CEO of BCW (h/t Catherine Sullivan) … Patrick Stevenson, DNC’s chief mobilization officer … Randall Jackson, Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner … Irene Jay Liu ... Stephanie Gaskell ... Spencer R. Schecht ... KP Trueblood, COS at the ACLU ... George-Alexander Attia … Amanda Gonzalez Thompson ... Tom Rossmeissl, partner and managing director of Trippi, Norton, Rossmeissl Campaigns ... Amy Fiscus, NYT national security editor … Ann Lathrop ... Libby Hambleton ... Tim Schlittner … Elisa Bolduc ... Caroline Scullin ... Jerry Russo ... Edna Ruano ... Matthew Yurus ... Jean Medina ... Nick Rathod ... CNN’s Jeff Simon ... Goldman Sachs’ Amy Hunt ... Qorvis’ Jennifer Baskerville ... Mineko Tokito ... Jeff Wexler ... Emily Ethridge ... Elizabeth McMahon ... Doug Badger ... Todd Kliman … Cathy St. Denis
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