Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Trump executive order earns criticism from some congressional Republicans — The swing bloc: 2018 Democratic senators condemn, too — Early GOP primary test: Boxed-in Gillespie backs Trump in Virginia
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2017 09:01:00 -0600
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By Elena Schneider | 01/30/2017 10:00 AM EDT

With Daniel Strauss, Kevin Robillard and Theodoric Meyer

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro's Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races - and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day's most important campaign news - sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

BORDER DISORDER - "More Republicans chastise Trump over executive order," by POLITICO's Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan: "A growing contingent of Republicans is openly questioning President Donald Trump's ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, as key allies and powerful political players broke their silence Sunday to criticize Trump's executive order. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), whom Trump considered picking to be his running mate and, later, secretary of state, called on the president to immediately retool the order. ... Indeed, while House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have largely given Trump
 a pass, Republicans who had spent days withholding comment about Trump's order began to publicly criticize him. It started among Republicans who strongly opposed Trump's candidacy for president and began swelling as news stories circulated about green card holders being turned away at airports and public protests grew in scope and volume." Full story.

- "Democrats from red states still condemn Trump," by POLITICO's Burgess Everett: "Red-state Democrats must win over thousands of Trump voters to have any hope of being reelected in 2018. But they won't be doing it by defending the president's controversial executive order barring some immigrants and refugees from entering the country. ...Ten Democrats are up for reelection in Trump states, five of them from states he overwhelmingly won. But no senators from those deeply conservative states endorsing Trump's move, depriving the White House of a bipartisan stamp of approval." Full story.

- "Trump ratchets up defense of immigrant ban as outrage mounts," by POLITICO's Nahal Toosi and Seung Min Kim: "President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his executive order barring refugees and some legal immigrants from entering the United States, even as a top Cabinet official walked back part of the measure - signaling confusion and fissures within the 10-day-old administration." Full story. 

- BASE TEA LEAVES - "Gillespie boxed in on Trump order in early primary test," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "In the first major GOP primary test of Donald Trump's presidency, Ed Gillespie is siding with his party's leader. The favorite for the Republican nomination to seek Virginia's governorship in 2017, Gillespie cautiously backed the president Sunday ... Gillespie's statement even echoed the Trump administration's blame of the media for misrepresenting the order's intents and effects. 'When you factor out all the misinformation and media hysteria, it's clear that a temporary pause on refugee resettlement is a rational step to secure our homeland and keep Americans safe, but it
 should accommodate those green card-holders who pose no security threat returning from travel outside the United States,' Gillespie said." Gillespie's Democratic and Republican opponents all criticized him over the weekend. Full story.

- "In conservative media, Trump executive orders are a home run," by The Washington Post's David Weigel: "President Trump's response Sunday afternoon to criticism of his executive orders on refugees and immigration accused the news media of getting the story wrong. There was no 'Muslim ban.' There was, instead, a policy that honest reporters ought to have recognized. 'My policy,' Trump wrote, 'is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.' The seemingly out-of-nowhere argument had come from a viral story on the Federalist, a conservative news and opinion site. Originally published in November 2015, when Trump proposed 'a complete
 and total shutdown of all Muslims' entering the country, it had been repopularized this weekend as the furor built. A viral story at Breitbart News, about the same program, had been shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook by the time the White House issued its statement. ...But in the conservative media that has been most supportive of Trump - and where his chief political adviser Stephen K. Bannon hails from - the executive orders have been received as tough and necessary, and a source of irritation for all of the right people." Full story.

Days until the 2017 election: 281.

Days until the 2018 election: 645.

Thanks for joining us. You can email tips to the whole Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked]. 

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @maggieseverns.

TO RUN OR NOT TO RUN - "Arizona Democrats' question: What will Sinema do?" by Campaign Pro's Theodoric Meyer: "Democrats have few opportunities to play offense in the Senate in 2018, but they have an obvious contender in the forever tantalizing state of Arizona: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. The question is just what Sinema, 40, wants to do. She is widely viewed as Democrats' best shot at knocking off Sen. Jeff Flake, one of only two Republican senators up for reelection in 2018 who look potentially vulnerable. Sinema is one of the party's only high-profile options in a state with a relatively weak Democratic bench. And while the party's other early Senate target, Nevada, is more left-leaning, there
 isn't a potential recruit in that state who can match Sinema's three-term record holding down a battleground district. But Sinema has also watched well-funded Democrats fall short in Arizona's last two Senate races. And while national Democrats are hoping that a backlash against President Donald Trump helps them in 2018, Flake would be among the most difficult congressional Republicans to tie to the president - and there's no guarantee it would even be enough in state that Trump carried over Hillary Clinton by 3.5 percentage points last year." Full story.

PROGRAMMING NOTE - The fantastic and talented Theodoric Meyer, who co-wrote Morning Score for the last two years with me, is switching beats to cover lobbying for POLITICO and write the POLITICO Influence newsletter. If you're a lobbyist or have ties to the lobbying world, please get in touch: [email-masked]. It's hard to see my partner-in-crime go, but I couldn't be more thrilled that he's off to dominate another beat. And he's also promised to not change desks and leave me. So there, now it's in writing. 

PARTY REBOOT? - "DNC race: Low on energy, ideas, imagination," by POLITICO's Edward-Isaac Dovere and Daniel Strauss: "The Democratic Party is in crisis, hollowed out at the state level, and desperate for new ideas, bold leaders and a cutting-edge plan of action against Donald Trump. The race for Democratic National Committee chair is bland and bloodless. The seven candidates are downplaying differences and offering conventional ideas they all agree on. Go local. Pursue a new 50-state strategy. Something about cybersecurity. Organize. The list goes on, but the pitches share one thing in common: they're not very complicated, imaginative or a break from the past. In part that's a reflection of
 the seriousness of the Democratic predicament, both as a political party and in its official institutional apparatus. '[U]ntil you get the basics right, innovation is sort of a luxury,' said Donnie Fowler, who ran for DNC chair in 2005 and has stayed involved, including as a consultant through the last few months of the 2016 cycle. But the nothingness and me-too-ism of the race is also a reflection of a crowded field that's short on star power and heavy on party mechanics." Full story. 

WHAT'S THE NEXT STEP WITH KANSAS? - Sebelius weighs in on Democratic primary: Retiring Rep. Lynn Jenkins' decision to leave Congress and not run for governor scrambles the political calculus in Kansas, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview. Sebelius refrained from naming candidates she expects will run for Jenkins' KS-02, but when asked which Democrats are worth watching in the next election cycle, she mentioned former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and Paul Davis, the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor. Read more here.

- "So, who could run for Kansas governor in 2018?" by the Wichita Eagle's Bryan Lowry and Daniel Salazar: "Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Secretary of State Kris Kobach are both weighing bids. Two of the state's most recognizable Republicans, the men ... represent very different styles of leadership and politics. U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, an Overland Park Republican, is considering his options, including the 2018 governor's race. ... Brewer said he also has been approached about running for the congressional seat left vacant by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but he said he was more focused on Kansas." Full story.

FINANCIAL WATCH - "Koch network to spend $300 million to $400 million on politics, policy in 2018 cycle," by The Washington Post's James Hohmann and Matea Gold: "The Koch network plans to spend between $300 million to $400 million on policy and political campaigns during the 2018 election cycle. Officials revealed the target budget at the start of a three-day donor summit at a resort here, indicating that they intend to continue expanding their reach at a time when Republicans control Congress and the White House. By comparison, the network spent about $250 million during the 2016 cycle on policy and political efforts." Full story.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD - "Court to Wisconsin Republicans: Redraw election maps," by The Journal-Sentinel: "After striking down Wisconsin's legislative maps as unconstitutional two months ago, a federal court Friday ordered Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers to redraw the districts by Nov. 1 to ensure their use in the fall 2018 elections. The three-judge federal panel rejected the state's request to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on the case, which is being watched closely nationwide because it relies on a novel legal argument. But the panel also denied a request by the Democratic plaintiffs that the court draw the maps. The judges said that was a task better left to the
 state's GOP-controlled Legislature and Walker, saying there was no evidence they wouldn't comply with the order." Full story.

ADMINISTRATION SPEED READ - "President Trump's First Defeat," by POLITICO Magazine's Blake Hounshell: "'It's working out very nicely,' President Donald Trump said on Saturday afternoon as he signed his latest batch of executive actions. 'You see it in the airports.' It was the usual confident swagger from a man accustomed to getting his way. But by then, a revolt against the president's immigration order was already brewing, led by refugee rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, Democrats and liberals on social media, who had woken up to reports suggesting it was not working out very nicely at all. By 7:30 in the evening, protests at major airports across the United States had
 swollen, a federal judge was hearing a legal challenge, and cable news networks-with one notable exception-were covering the stunning events live. Passions ran so high that New Yorkers, many joked, were actually volunteering to go to JFK Airport to show solidarity with those detained by bewildered immigration officials. Was this what Trump had in mind?" Full story.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: President Trump tweeted that Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham were "looking to start World War III," POLITICO reported.

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