Subject: POLITICO Huddle: WH SCOTUS PUSH, TAKE 9 -- Trump gets a little Hill love -- Mainers love their senators -- LEE GOES AFTER BOEHNER
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 05:45:20 -0600

By Burgess Everett | 04/29/2016 07:42 AM EDT

 (@burgessev or [email-masked]) 

THE NEW 9-9-9 PLAN - Without Herman Cain paving the way, it's tough to say whether the White House's allies on the Supreme Court issue would have come up with this recess marketing ploy. That's nine senators under pressure in nine states to confirm Merrick Garland and have nine justices. "To date, the outside allies have focused on the states with the five most vulnerable GOP incumbents (New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley's Iowa. Now they'll be expanding the map to cover three more incumbents up for reelection: Arizona's John McCain, North Carolina's Richard Burr and Missouri's Roy Blunt ...The plans represent an unspoken
 acknowledgment that the Supreme Court fight is less about actually trying to get Garland on the bench before November, and more about turning the Republican resistance into a campaign issue to maximize GOP losses in the Senate." Edward-Isaac Dovere: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b61d6b1ed571b57647ae772e291df3a464cbc6a8b9c05e1a88

Friday news cycle: The White House-aligned Constitutional Responsibility Project will be holding a call today with Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Stephanie Cutter, Geoff Garin and Tiernan Sittenfeld to announce results in a Pennsylvania poll. I wonder what it will say about Sen. Pat Toomey? 

GOP eye roll: Mitch McConnell spokesman Don Stewart emails this morning. "The White House, in coordination with liberal special interest groups, has overseen the spending of millions of dollars in campaign ads but not a single Republican has been moved off of their principal position."

RELUCTANT MOVEMENT TO TRUMP: Two powerful House members, Veterans Chairman Jeff Miller and Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster, endorsed Trump on Thursday, perhaps the most overt movement in Trump's direction yet. And Trump dialed by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker to talk foreign policy, although Corker insists he's not planning to make an endorsement imminently. His media tour praising Trump's foreign policy speech, he told me, represents an "atta boy" for Trump's views. "I think when somebody transitions and gives a serious speech about something, I think giving an 'atta boy' is an appropriate thing to do," Corker explained to me. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6d45cf260ff7492931db1f64ebb0b4a0212406c7e87b387f3

FUN WITH NUMBERS -- Popularity: As we Washingtonians sit in a weather simulation of spring in my homeland of Maine, we find out that New Englanders really like their senators. Per Morning Consult, The five most popular senators by approval rating: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Susan Collins of Maine, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Angus King of Maine and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Most unknown: Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, John Cornyn of Texas (???), Rob Portman of Ohio, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Dean Heller of Nevada. Most unpopular: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Pat Roberts of Kansas, John McCain of Arizona, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Harry Reid of Nevada. McConnell, Cornyn and Roberts all
 just won reelection, so I wouldn't read TOO much into these. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6aaa866ef979e73e3f98e76b553208f876ea646963c14ffea

Conservatism:  The Club for Growth is out with its annual scorecard, and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Reps. John Ratcliffe of Texas and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas all scored perfectly. I like to look at the middle, where Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas is rated more highly than two of his GOP Republican colleagues. On the Senate side there's no such overlap: Collins is rated the least conservative Republican and Joe Manchin of West Virginia the most conservative Democrat. Peep it: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6933f399c6284f3702b0d05df38204d9de16c762f5f949cb6

DEAL SCORECARD -- Confirmations: The Senate did that thing where it passes a ton of stuff before a recess, namely confirming Roberta Jacobson as ambassador to Mexico. As part of a complex deal to satisfy Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, sanctions on Venezuelan officials were extended and the State Department was reauthorized. SMK with the round up: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6e5da6177b8638663aedd1531f759f386ebcdbfd192d1ae0a

CJR: SMK also got the jump on the criminal justice deal on Thursday, but we don't want to inflate her ego TOO much this morning. Here's Reuters: "In a legacy-shaping issue for President Barack Obama, the measure's sponsors announced four new Republican co-sponsor senators and a new version of the bill at a press conference in the Senate. The measure now has 37 co-sponsors, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6c9b207a93613f918b1dde06d8703a96174b1df5786c05c62

Somehow we made it to the end of the week. And we did it together. Welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play guide to everything Capitol Hill, where the sun may never shine again. Please send tips to [email-masked] and follow along on Twitter @burgessev. 

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The Senate is on recess, natch. The House is in at 9 a.m. with votes expected around 10:30 a.m. 

AROUND THE HILL - At 9:15 a.m., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi holds her weekly presser in Studio A. At 11 a.m. Sen. Mike Lee, Michael Mukasey and others will talk sentencing reform. Call-in: 1 (888) 466-9863. Access code: 5695512#

THURSDAY'S MOST CLICKED: SMK's scoopsplainer about Jacobson drew a lot of eyeballs. So much for keeping her humble. 

DRAFT ON TAP FOR WOMEN? A world away from my Senate beat of asking lawmakers annoying questions about the presidential race, WaPo's Karoun Demirjian tells me something I didn't know this morning. "The House Armed Services Committee took a big and unexpected step toward making women register for the draft as a handful of Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday night to back a measure whose own sponsor hoped would fail ... [the] gamble that committee members would shy away from forcing women into the draft backfired when a slim majority - including five Republicans - opted to endorse the measure by a vote of 32 to 30 ... [then] The idea got a boost, however, on Thursday when Senate Armed
 Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he is open to the idea. 'As far as I'm concerned, if we're going to put women into combat roles then that's certainly logical, but I'd like to consult with the committee - all the members of the committee.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6dbed9db53fb564c4281b33b478a69b6204d34e1673f35529

#BOEHNERGATE: Or is it #Lucifergate? Hard to say, but Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was plenty exorcised about John Boehner calling Ted Cruz the devil and a miserable SOB. Lee called into Mark Levin last night and went absolutely ham on Boehner, using a raised voice that I've really never heard him use before even at his most angry: "The fact that he has done this is appalling. And he should be ashamed of himself. And I demand he apologize, " Lee said. "This is a wake up call to people who are supporting Donald Trump, thinking that he's the guy that's going to rail against the establishment. He's not. He is the establishment. He's the golfing buddy, the texting buddy of John Boehner. The same guy
 who praises Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders." My story: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6711f53f6c574f52e0e27d71a96836d3391f9103a7fad799b | Or listen to the whole interview if you need to wake up this morning: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6d3a80d4d2f2b17f920ec7d9253b901d8db1d0b611b607053

COMING ATTRACTIONS: It might not be as controversial as Netanyahu's address, but the news that Indian PM Narendra Modi will address a joint meeting of Congress is a big deal. It's the first joint meeting for House Speaker Paul Ryan and a key moment for relationship maintenance with a close ally. WSJ with the context: "Every full-term prime minister since 1984 has addressed a joint meeting of the House and Senate and Mr. Modi will be the fifth, speaking 11 years after his predecessor, Manmohan Singh. The first-ever Indian premier to make such a speech was Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, followed by P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1994 and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b6831249b0fd043b47a555d9920d2460110fb2209212951199

HOUSE BATTLEGROUNDS COMING INTO FOCUS: The NRCC began placing ad reservations yesterday, per Roll Call, mirroring the Senate committees' reservations in presidential battlegrounds. "According to two sources following House races, the National Republican Congressional Committee recently reserved time for television ads from Sept. 30 through Election Day (Nov. 8) in four media markets: Denver, Miami, Des Moines and Las Vegas ... The ad time isn't earmarked for specific seats, but is likely to help defend some of the GOP's most vulnerable House incumbents including Mike Coffman (Colorado's 6th), Carlos Curbelo (Florida's 26th), David Young (Iowa's 3rd), Rod Blum (Iowa's 1st), Cresent Hardy
 (Nevada's 4th), and Joe Heck's open seat (Nevada's 3rd)." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b650246971b6efd4202b8b9866cfab5dc561c008675ec23e4e

Watch live at noon - White House Correspondents' Association Weekend Playbook Lunch  - Join POLITICO's Mike Allen as he takes Playbook live for a conversation with Funny or Die D.C.'s head writer/producer and President Obama's former speechwriter, David Litt, Host of "Billy on the Street" and from Hulu's "Difficult People," Billy Eichner and President of Production of Funny or Die, Mike Farah. Livestream - http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=1817e156711b17b61d42bbbc9f4a39c1cb23645f0ed4d24a746d893aeb9467de 

THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Marshal Shemtob was the first to answer that former VP Schuyler Colfax was identified as dead in a train. That's his second win in a row. 

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Marshal has today's question: In 2010 this state legislator proposed a bill that would instruct people how to pronounce the lawmaker's home state. Name the state, the lawmaker and send me a video of you saying the state's name correctly (no, don't actually do that). The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at [email-masked]

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