Subject: Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 -- Trump's day of normal * Gorsuch hides in a Starbucks * Apple may go to court over ban?
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 06:58:07 -0500 (EST)

Presented by Walmart:

Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 -- Trump's day of normal * Gorsuch hides in a St=rbucks * Apple may go to court over ban

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Presented By Walmart

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Feb 01, 2017

1 big thing: For a moment, a nod to normalcy

Carolyn Kaster / AP

After 10 days of turmoil, the Trump White House yesterd=y looked and sounded shockingly normal. We hear President Trump was frustr=ted with the rollout of the executive order on migrant travel, and White H=use chief of staff Reince Priebus used it to push for a return to some kin= of normal. You saw this, at least for a day, from afternoon to sundown.
The president appeared in the East Room and actually =ead his speech nominating U.S. District Judge Neil M. Gorsush of Denver to=the Supreme Court: "I only hope that both Democrats and Republicans can co=e together for once for the good of the country."

Gorsuch, 4=, a measured conservative who is a favorite of the Republican est=blishment, then stepped to the microphone and gave a humble speech: "[W]he= we judges don our robes, it doesn't make us any smarter, but it does serv= as a reminder of what's expected of us: Impartiality and independence, co=legiality and courage."

CNN's Dana Bash had earlier posted

"The way one source described=it: Priebus already technically had the authority, but clearly th= staff needed a reminder 'not to color outside their lines.' The same sour=e said the executive order ... was moved too quickly without 'reading in' =eople who could have helped execute it more cleanly."

=n the morning, the White House drew praise on Twitter from establ=shment Republicans for the announcement that Trump would continue to enfor=e an Obama executive order protecting employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace =iscrimination while working for federal contractors.

Ken Me=lman thanking a Republican president for "sound policy" and "smar= politics." It was all so ... normal.

2. What happens now

Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Chuck Todd said on NBC's live coverage of Trump's annou=cement that Gorsuch is so impressive that his confirmation "should be a la=up -- he meets all of the criteria ... made an incredible first impression=" Chuck said that in this environment, confirmation will still be "noisy" =ecause of the pressure on Dems from their base. Nevertheless, "I think it=s going to be much harder for them to unify and be against and force a fil=buster after he spends one-on-one time with them."

Payback p=litics: VandeHei explains why =emocrats are likely to do unto Republicans as they did unto them, and push=this to the brink of a nuclear option standoff.

It's o=: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced his opposition within sec=nds of the pick. Other Democrats quickly followed suit.

O= the NYT mobile site this morning, four opinion pieces were featu=ed, ALL hostile to the pick.

3. Cloak-and-dagger justice

Denver Post

A White House source takes Axios AM readers inside Judg= Gorsuch's stealth trip to D.C., after Trump called him Monday to tell him=he was the pick: "Two members of the White House Counsel's office had alre=dy flown to Denver ... and drove to Boulder, Colorado, to prepare the nomi=ee and to escort him to Washington. The press started camping outside the =omes of the rumored short list, making it harder to get him out of his hom= undetected."

Gorsuch then walked to a neighbor's house: "The neighbor drove him out of his neighborhood in an SUV via farm ro=ds to avoid the press. He then met with the members of the White House cou=sel's office at a Starbucks in a Safeway parking lot off Highway 287 in Bo=lder. [The counsel's office] briefed the nominee on the next steps, then f=ew with the nominee and his wife [Louise] back to D.C.

The =orsuches "spent the night in a private home in the suburbs to avo=d recognition. He then spent the day getting briefings on the logistics of=the nominations process, meeting the President and Vice President, and fin=lizing paperwork for the nomination process."

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Walmart’s commitment to U.S. manufacturing

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4. Pic of the day

Gorsuch (right) with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, w=ose seat he has been nominated to fill, posted on Sean Hannity's Twitter f=ed.

"Meet Neil Gorsuch," from Axios' Shannon Vavra: "George W. Bush appoin=ed Gorsuch to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in May of 200=. Like ... Scalia, Gorsuch is a known originalist and proponent of textual=sm."

5. Ban may grow

"Trump administration signals that some bans on U.S. en=ry could be extended indefinitely," per L.A. Times' Brian Benne=t: "The list of banned countries may expand; Trump's order di=ected [Homeland Security Secretary John] Kelly to submit within 60 days a =ist of additional nations whose citizens should be prohibited from traveli=g to the U.S. as well."

The takeaway: "The mov=s signaled that the White House remained committed to remaking border law =nforcement while trying to combat the widespread condemnation brought on b= Trump's orders."

Worth the click ... "Border fen=es and refugee bans: Hungary did it — fast," by Axios' Shane Savitsky: "Fidesz, the ruling party sin=e 2010, and its leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have used the mi=rant crisis in Europe to stoke fears about refugees fleeing the Middle Eas= and cut the country off from both its neighbors and international institu=ions."

6. More CEO resistance

"Apple Considers Legal Options Against Trump's Immigrat=on Order," per WSJ's Tripp Mickle

7. Bureaucracy bites back

"Resistance from within" ... State, Justice, Defense, =HS, EPA, CDC and National Park Service are seeing Trumpsistance, according=to this WashPost front-pager= "[F]ederal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Oba=a-era political appointees about what they can do to push back ... Some fe=eral employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word =f changes that Trump appointees are trying to make."

Em=assies, too ... "State Dept. Dissent Cable on Trump's Ban Draws 1=000 Signatures," on N.Y. Times =. A1, by Jeffrey Gettleman in Nairobi, Kenya: "Within hours, a State Depar=ment dissent cable, asserting that President Trump's executive order to te=porarily bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries would not make =he nation safer, traveled like a chain letter — or a viral video."=

8. Bannon v. Kushner

David Ignatius' WashPost column offers w=at he calls "a more measured account" of Bannon's worldview than critics t=pically give: "As with many revolutionaries, Bannon's story is that of a w=althy man who came to see himself as a vanguard for the masses. ... By 201=, Bannon saw himself leading what he called a 'global tea party movement' =gainst a financial elite that he described as 'the party of Davos.'"

Keeper quote: "[O]n the day Britain voted to leave t=e European Union, Breitbart thundered: 'There's panic in the skyscrapers. = popular revolution against globalism is underway.' Bannon pressed that th=me after Trump's victory, telling Breitbart's radio show on Dec. 30 it was=only the 'top of the first inning.'"

=rank Bruni column in N.Y. Times, "Where's Jared Kushner?": "Rememb=r the good old days — by which I mean just a few weeks ago �=94 when there was hope and talk that Donald Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law=would play the angel to Steve Bannon's devil ... ?"

The=buzz: "Some observers point to the Sabbath as proof that Kushner =oes indeed exert a taming force in Trump World. They say that the presiden= is most reckless during these periods, because Ivanka and her husband are='t around to babysit. ... Sometimes I study him and see someone drained of=color, even thinner than before, haunted."

=img width="32" height="32" style="border: none" target="_blank" sr=="https://static.axios.com/img-email/twitter-circle.png" alt="Tweet th=s Story">

9. Tops in tech

The Axios trifecta of Kim Hart, Lazaro Gamio and Kia Ko=alitcheva dive into "The ripp=e effects of Trump's H-1B visa reform": "Tech industry insiders expect=Trump will direct DHS, which runs the H-1B visa lottery system, to start a=rule-making to re-prioritize the visa allocation to give preference to hig=er-paying firms. This pits tech firms against the Indian IT-staffing firms="

The catch: "Wage-based hiring means companie= may miss out on mid-level workers they still have trouble filling with qu=lified Americans. ... [S]oftware engineering jobs will be filled quickly, =ut jobs for network engineers or tech support that tend to skew lower on t=e pay scale could be tough to fill without H-1B visas."

Peter Thiel, future Trump adviser, declared in = 2011 application for citizenship: "I am happy to say ca=egorically that I have found no other country that aligns more with my vie= of the future than New Zealand." The N.Y. Times posts the 15-page document.

10. 2 fun things

Jimmy Fallon's Oval Office address, via YouTube: "And now, a special message from ME. ... Th=nk you for tuning in to the brand-new, 24-hour YouTube livestream from the=Oval Office. I'll be livestreaming EVERYTHING for the next four years. ...=Now before I begin, I just want to address the complaints that two or thre= dozen people had over the weekend."

"=ut it's just not the immigration ban that five or six people are =pset about. ... Fake news! ... This is my Golden Nomination Cage, and I sp=n it exactly three times. ... My hands are so large, they don't even make =loves in my size."

"Nextly, two or three people h=ve been criticizing my executive orders. ... Whenever I need to make an ex=cutive decision, I simply give my Huge Wheel of Decisions a big spin -- a =EALLY big spin. ... In conclusionally, I say proudly that literally NO ONE=was upset this week."

"The Man Cave Has a New Neighbo=—the She Shed" -- Wall Street Journal A-=ed: "Tiny houses with mood lighting, flower boxes, bistro tables, throw pi=lows and pink furniture pop up in backyards as overbooked women steal a pa=e from the guy playbook; 'it's just me, all me.'"

A Message From Walmart

A commitment to the future

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“To bring stuff back to the United States is not just for me, it&r=quo;s not just for my son or my daughter, it’s for generations to co=e. We’re doing it every day, and we’re going to be doing it in=the future.” - Dick Gates, retired tooling supervisor at Nuk.

Learn more.

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