Subject: Axios AM: Mike’s Top 10 — Axios Launch Day! Interviewing Trump, Snapchat culture, Megyn’s salary
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 06:28:05 -0500 (EST)

Presented by Bank of America:

Axios Launch Day! Talking to Trump * Donald's cellphone * Megyn v. "60 M=nutes"

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Presented By Bank of America

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Jan 18, 2017

Welcome to Axios

Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to Axios, the next =reat media company. That GIF is me — bartending in the old-fashion=d way, then in the future. After months of quiet work as we built a staff =f 50+, Axios — "worthy," in Greek — is live. Click over he=e to check out our STREAM — a clever, efficient, modern way t= quickly get smart on business, tech, media trends and politics.

Eve=ything in our stream is expressed in one screen, and we'll signal you when=it's worthy of your time to go deeper. We've reinvented content delivery f=r the smartest readers, and we'll keep refining and expanding — CE= Jim VandeHei calls Axios "a rolling R&D lab."

And now each item =n Axios AM can be shared and saved -- see the tools at th= end of each entry. I'd love your thoughts: Just hit "reply" on this newsl=tter, or drop me a note here.= This is the start of something big — thanks for being here on Day=1.

Axios Sneak Peek

Keep reading: choose to dig deeper without leaving your=stream of news

​1 big thing: Interviewing Trump

Jim and I interviewed Trump at the Tower yesterday, talking about everyt=ing from Syria to Facebook to whether it's ever to OK to lie. Click over t= the ST=EAM for our piece, "Reality bites: Trump's wake-up call."
What we learned: On Twitter and in public, Trump r=mains an uncompromising mix of bluster and bombast. Behind the scenes, he'= confronting, and in some cases succumbing (slightly) to, the hard truths =f governing and leading a world that hangs on his every word.

We exp=cted the emphatic showman who was on display through the campaign, and as =ecently as last week's press conference. Instead, we found … =/p>
(At the same link, you'll learn how Trump likes to be briefed =E2�� and we finish with a Funny Moment.)

More Trump ... =/strong>

"You know, I'm not really a divisive figure."

=I'm not asking you guys to admit it, but .. in the history of politics, th=re's nobody that has been treated worse by the press than I have."
"You know, I have always gotten more press than anybody. �=80� I mean, before I ever did this, when I did 'The Apprentice,' when I =as a real estate developer, you know, I've always, for whatever reason, go=ten — not because I worked at it."

"My whole =heme is — and you'll hear that on Friday: America first."

=span>"Right now, Facebook is very powerful. … I have millio=s of followers on Facebook. …. I'll soon have 50 million between F=cebook, Twitter, and--and Instagram and whatever else. … Now, I th=nk that you'll probably have new Facebooks starting up. I'm all for that. =ou'll have people challenging, people coming up with new ideas."

​2. Inside the Tower

Scoop … Numerous sources tell us that Robert Ki=mitt — who was deputy Treasury secretary for George W. Bush, and U=der Secretary of State for Political Affairs for George H.W. Bush �=94 is at the top of the list to be Rex Tillerson's deputy secretary of Sta=e.

Looks like Trump is adding to his Goldman cast, bring=ng the alumni total in the administration to six: Jim Donovan, a=partner, is the front-runner to be Donald Trump's pick for undersecretary =f domestic finance

More "reality bites" ... WSJ lea= story, "Dollar Sin=s As Trump Talks It Down": "The dollar tumbled to its lowest level in = month after Donald Trump suggested to The Wall Street Journal he favored = weaker dollar, breaking with decades of tradition … The president=elect … described the dollar as 'too strong.' … Trump's cr=ticism in the Journal interview of part of the House Republicans' corporat=-tax plan added fuel to the dollar's selloff."

Peter Baker "=hite House Memo" on N.Y. Times front page, "Trump Enters Office Unben= and Disliked: Lowest Rating Ever For a New President": "Two polls out=on Tuesday [CNN, ABC/WP] found … just 40 percent [approval] �=A6 [S]hortly after their inaugurations, Mr. Obama was at 68 percent and Mr= Bush was at 57 percent. ... Trump has shown that he intends to lead more =hrough force of personality than through the breadth of his coalition."

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Bank of America’s Responsible Growth strategy is helping us tackle=some of the world’s most pressing problems by having a str=ng environmental, social and governance (ESG) focus across the compan=.

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Our focus on ESG lets us use our unique position as a global f=nancial institution to create solutions. Read more.

​3. Ryan warms to Trump

Speaker Paul Ryan — a skeptic of Trump throughout the campaign =E2�� now describes them as friends, albeit "very, very different peopl=": "He used to call me a Boy Scout, which I actually personally took that =s a compliment. I'm not sure he meant it that way, but it's something we j=ke about with each other every now and then."

Ryan told me in an=interview this week that his New Year's resolution is "Deliver … I=want to be the mailman. My job is to deliver on the reforms and the promis=s we made in 2016." That means making Trump a winner.

The b=ckstory: Trump insiders tell us the president-elect has developed=a better vibe with Ryan than with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. =I keep explaining to all who listen, the Senate works a little more slowly=than the House," Ryan joked. "They use sun dials as watches over there." <=p>

​4. 800,000 …

… is the number expected in D.C. for the inauguration -- down fr=m the estimated 1.8 million for Obama's 2009 inauguration. (Washington's d=stination marketing group, Destination D.C., is expecting 1 million p=ople, when protesters are included.)

​5. How to reach Trump

A WashPost front-page feature, "Trump waits in his tower, =/a>isolated but seemingly everywhere," by Ashley Parker and Phil Rucker, n=tes that the president-elect "does not use email and rarely surfs the Inte=net, meaning that telephone calls, television appearances or physical prox=mity are the best ways to reach him": "[H]e answers his personal cellphone= something that acquaintances and colleagues speak of in almost reverentia= terms. … Trump is resisting his advisers' efforts to take away hi= cellphone or at least restrict his use of it …

"When Se=. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) needs to reach Trump, the Foreign Relations Committ=e chairman does not have to go through an aide or schedule a meeting. He s=id he simply dials Trump's cellphone directly, and the president-elect ans=ers, even though Corker's number registers as 'No Caller ID.'"

​6. Manning v. Assange

Obama's commutation for Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning — "the Army intelligence analyst convicted of a 2010 leak th=t revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world =E2�� and brought global prominence to WikiLeaks" — was ironic =iven the damage Wikileaks later did to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. At=a briefing last week, Josh Earnest maintained that Manning's crimes were v=ry different, in scale and consequence, than those of Julian Assange, who'= getting no presidential mercy.

Obama now holds the record for =residential commutations. AP's Jo=h Lederman points out that with his last-minute clemency for Manning a=d retired Gen. James Cartwright, "Obama appeared to be softening what has =een a hard-line approach to prosecuting leakers."

​7. Tops in tech

A Bloomberg features asks, "Can Snapchat's Culture of Secr=cy Survive an IPO?": "After Bloomberg News revealed specifics about Sn=p's offering size and target market valuation of at least $25 billion, Sna= executives scolded the IPO's underwriters, assuming the bankers were resp=nsible for the leaks … Snap management threatened to cut some unde=writers' fees if confidential information continued to appear in the news =ithout the company's blessing."

More on Snap's Evan-centric cult=re: "From broad strategy down to the shape of buttons, [CEO Evan] Spiegel =as the final say on Snap's moves and will have the majority of the voting =ontrol, along with co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Bobby Murphy, a=ter the offering. The company doesn't rely heavily on data to make its dec=sions, and Spiegel isn't a fan of hiring product managers who do user test=ng to figure out what will work, said employees."

​8. Davos dope

A WORTHY reality check from AFP, arguing that Davos darling Xi isn't : "Chinese experts say [his speech] was dis=inctly out of tune with an administration that is increasingly closed and =ostile to the outside world. … [T]he Chinese president makes for a= odd idol: far from welcoming the outside world, he has overseen a sprawli=g crackdown aimed at rooting out foreign influence in law, academia, civil=society, and technology."

​9. Trending in business

Sound smart … From WSJ's "5 things to Watch" on=Goldman earnings, out this a.m.: Goldman shares have flirted with an all-t=me high — $247.92 reached in October 2007 — since the pres=dential election as investors anticipate laxer financial regulation, lower=taxes and pro-growth policies. http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2017/01/17/5-things-t...
A rundown from Axios' Christopher Matthews in NYC:
=ul>
The Trump rally loses steam: The Dow closed at the=lowest level of 2017, as investors are starting to lose confidence that th= top priorities of the Trump administration are sure bets to boost corpora=e profits. With the Obamacare repeal taking center stage in Washington, ch=nces of swift action on infrastructure spending and corporate tax reform h=ve come down, along with some of the more optimistic valuations of America=s biggest companies.

The Obama administration's last antit=ust fight: The FEC said that it was suing Qualcomm, alleging that=it unfairly uses its position as a dominant provider of a special type of =rocessor, necessary for cellphone communications, to force its customers t= pay higher licensing fees for technology patented by Qualcomm. The suit =as filed the day before one of two Democratic appointees to the FTC was se= to leave the commission.

10. 1 fun thing

"Is Megyn Kelly the n=xt Matt Lauer?" by Sarah Ellison, on Vanity Fair's The Hive: "NBC is p=ying Kelly between $15 million and $17 million a year, … far less =han the $25 million a year she was offered to stay at Fox News. (She will =e eligible for other mechanisms that could increase her compensation) �=80� [S]he will host a weekday show and a Sunday-night newsmagazine. �=80�

"Kelly is still negotiating the timing of her departure fr=m Fox News, … but she is expected to show up at NBC this spring to=start work on a show that will likely air in the fall … [An indust=y insider] noted that Kelly probably makes more than everyone on CBS News'= '60 Minutes' combined."

WHAT'D I MISS? Please jus= reply to this email with your links, rants and tips.

A Message From Bank of America

Bank of America's Responsible Growth Strategy Is Ma=ing a Difference

At Bank of America, we have a responsibility to grow by improving our cu=tomers’ financial lives and having a positive, lasting impact on our=communities. We call this Responsible Growth and it’s making a diff=rence. From being the leader in clean energy financing to increasing our =mall business loans by 12% year over year, we are driving the economy in r=al and sustainable ways while creating value for our customers and our com=unities. Read more.

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