Subject: Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 -- White House "borderline chaos ... survival mode ... scared to death" * Russians "in constant touch" with Trump aides * Best chef in America
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 06:39:08 -0500 (EST)

Presented by JPMorgan Chase & Co.:

White House "borderline chaos ... survival mode ... scared to death" * R=ssians "in constant touch" with Trump aides * Best chef in America

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Presented By JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Feb 15, 2017

1 big thing: "Constant touch"

Pence and Flynn shake warmly on Friday / AP's Carolyn Kaster

Here's a twist that has top GOP sources buzzing: On Jan= 26, Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general, tells the White House =hat national security adviser Mike Flynn -- who has just been grilled by F=I agents -- had, in fact, discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador =uring the transition, despite denying it, and therefore is vulnerable to R=ssian blackmail.

Four days later, on Jan. 30, Trump=fires Yates, citing her unwillingness to enforce his border order.

<=trong>Two weeks after her heads-up to the White House, the Flynn =ecret explodes.

"They had to know she was radioacti=e, and that there would be consequences," said a West Wing confidant. "It =as either reckless, or totally incompetence. It leads back to the fact tha= nobody is in charge."

A top source described "=orderline chaos" in the White House.

"Some staff is in surv=val mode ... scared to death," the source said.

In=ernal leaks distract a White House. What we're seeing now is some=hing much more consequential: leaks from throughout the government, plus a=host of Obama alumni emptying their clips.

The news eruption= are gaining a Watergate aura -- constant, complicated revelation= from intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement; White House denia=s; frenzied competition among the great news organizations.

said at 5 p.m. on MSNBC (as quoted by Brian Stelter=/a>): "Welcome to Day 1 of what is arguably the biggest presidential scand=l involving a foreign government since Iran-Contra. ... [H]unker down, bec=use this is a Class 5 political hurricane that's hitting =ashington."

Hours later, first from The New York Times, and then from CNN
And Trump has known that since the tran=ition, per CNN's Pamela Brown, Jim Sciutto and Evan Pere=: "President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both bri=fed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian o=eratives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump busin=ss."

The Russia connection now becomes a consequen=ial, ongoing story -- with not just threads for Dems to pull, bu= a whole new big ball of yarn.

Axios's Jonathan Swanreports that Pence's spokesman, =arc Lotter, said the V.P. only learned of Flynn's misleading statements fr=m the Washington Post's story Thursday night.

And Swan r=minds us of an overarching unanswered question: "Why did it take =o long for the President to request Flynn's resignation?"

In=a twist, Bloomberg's well-wired Eli Lake takes up for Flynn (and gets a "POLITICAL ASSASSINATION" Drudge ba=ner): "[F]or a White House that has such a casual ... relationship with th= truth, it's strange that Flynn's 'lie' to Pence would get him fired. It d=esn't add up. It's not even clear that Flynn lied."

So does =his change now? An AP overnighter ... "For GOP, a dimmed zeal for=investigations in Trump era," by =rica Werner: "Rather than go along with Democrats' call for an indepen=ent outside investigation [of Flynn resignation -- what Trump knew, and wh=n], Senate Republicans insisted ... that the Intelligence Committee could =ook at the circumstances as part of an existing probe into Russia's interf=rence in the presidential election."

2. Freeze frame

A stop-action New York Times front-pager by Michael Shear= "'Unbelievable Turmoil': Trump's First Month Leaves Washington Reeling," =ewinds the past three weeks: "In record time, the 45th president has set o=f global outrage with a ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries, f=red his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban and watched=as federal courts swiftly moved to block the policy, calling it an unconst=tutional use of executive power."

"The president angrily provoked the cancellation of a summit me=ting with the Mexican president, hung up on Australia's prime minister, au=horized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL member, =epeatedly lied about the existence of millions of fraudulent votes cast in=the 2016 election and engaged in Twitter wars with senators, a sports team=owner, a Hollywood actor and a major department store chain. His words and=actions have generated almost daily protests around the country."'

=strong>And all that was before firing h=s national security adviser on Day 25.

Leon Panetta, a Democrat who served as chief of staff, secretary of defense and C.I.A.=director during a 50-year career that spanned nine presidents from both pa=ties, to Shear: "I've never been so nervous in my lifetime about wha= may or may not happen in Washington."

"I don't know whether this White House is capable=of responding in a thoughtful or careful way should a crisis erupt .... Yo= can do hit-and-miss stuff over a period of time. But at some point, I don=t give a damn what your particular sense of change is all about, y=u cannot afford to have change become chaos."

3. Another shoe (store) drops

ABC's Jonathan Karl tweets that at yesterday's briefing when he asked about co=tacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, Sean Spicer "stood by earlier=denials. Or I think he did."

S=icer said: " I don't have any -- there's nothing that would concl=de me -- that anything different has changed with respect to that time per=od."

Well, now he does. The N.Y. Times drops combustible new information under a two-column lead =eadline, "Trump Aides Had Contact With Russian Intelligence: U.S. Official= Tell of a Flurry of Phone Calls Intercepted Before the Election," by Mike=Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo: "

"Phone record= and intercepted calls show that members of ... Trump's ... campa=gn and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian in=elligence officials in the year before the election."

"Ame=ican law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the co=munications around the same time they were discovering" that Russia was" h=cking the DNC.

"[T]he intercepts ala=med American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of=the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glow=ngly about the Russian president."

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4. Something else to fix

USA Today White House correspondent Greg Korte, who foc=ses on executive power as part of his portfolio, reports in the paper's le=d story today, "White House posts wrong orders": "The White House has posted in=ccurate texts of President Trump's own executive orders on the White House=website, raising further questions about how thorough the Trump administra=ion has been in drafting some of his most controversial actions."

=li>The paper's findings: "at least five cases where the v=rsion posted on the White House website doesn't match the official version=sent to the Federal Register. The differences include minor grammatical ch=nges, missing words and paragraph renumbering — but also two cases=where the original text referred to inaccurate or non-existent provisions =f law."

Why it matters: The discrepancies look mi=or, but are a new symptom of a process that has looked hasty. Republicans =n the Hill, and even West Wing officials, have complained that some orders=were signed with too little vetting, consultation or explanation.

5. Why Obamacare repeal is suddenly a huge mess

Axios' Caitlin Owe=s, who's constantly on the Hill (ran into her yesterday when I was boa=ding the Senate subway), paints the GOP's trouble ahead in the starkest te=ms we have seen: "Despite Republican leaders' insistence that the Obamacar= repeal effort is making steady progress, deep rifts have split the caucus= Hardliners in both the House and the Senate have threatened to oppose any=repeal that isn't aggressive enough, which could kill the effort in both c=ambers if a bill loses either conservatives or moderates."

Hurdle 1: "Perhaps the most irreconcilable issue among differe=t factions is, of all things, Medicaid expansion."

Hurdle=2: "While the [hardline] House Freedom Caucus won't say it collec=ively opposes including pieces of a replacement in the repeal bill, it pre=ers a straight repeal — even though the leadership is already plan=ing to include replacement."

The bottom line:=/strong> "Put it all together and it's a tenuous path forward, at best. At=worst, the repeal effort is falling apart."

6. GOP lawmakers "a bit unnerved"

And now, the backstory on how we got here ... Robert Draper's cover story of the upcoming N.Y. Times Maga=ine, "Will Obamacare Really Go Under the Knife?," adds to evidence that Tr=mp's base is headed for disappointment, with the GOP unlikely to end up wi=h "a single gargantuan replacement bill."

Get smart fast:

The Affordable Care Act's approval rati=g has rarely exceeded 50%. "And over time, ... it has proved itself worthy=of several of the criticisms aimed at it."

"In spite of al= this, Obamacare has done far more good than its critics predicte= it would."

This is key: "[D]uring each month tha= Obamacare has been in existence, the private sector has grown."

<=trong>Phrase that pays: 3 million Americans under 26 have been al=owed to stay on their parents' health care plans, thanks to the provision =he conservative group Heritage Action refers to as the "slacker mandate." =/li>
The raw politics: "[I]t took more than the conser=ative base to elect Donald Trump, and it will take more than them to re-el=ct many Republican senators and representatives in 2018 and 2020. The rest=of the public has begun a decided turn against" full repeal.

7. Trending in business: Bank boom

Big banks, after nearly a decade of defensiveness, have roared back sinc= the election. A Wall Street Journal front-pager, "Bo=m Time for Bank Stocks As Goldman Regains Peak," by Liz Hoffman and Christ=na Rexrode, captures the post-crisis milestones:

The w=nners: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and =ank of America Corp. hit fresh trading milestones yesterday that seemed un=eachable during the crucible of the financial crisis.

The =ecords: "Goldman hit a record high, passing a bar first set in 20=7 before the financial crisis. J.P. Morgan also hit an all-time closing hi=h. ... Bank of America's market value is on the cusp of retaking it's all-=ime high."

The reason: "Investor expectations of =igher interest rates, lower taxes, lighter regulation and faster economic =rowth under the Trump administration."

The result:

8. Tops in tech: Behind the screen

When Jim VandeHei, Roy Schwartz and I were doing our li=tening tour as we refined the big idea for Axios, one of the most frequent=y recommended sources of tech news was the Stratechery newslet=er by Taiwan-based Ben Thompson, who focuses on tech companies' business s=rategy.

Recode's Peter Kakfa interviewed Ben at yes=erday's Code Conference in California, with highlights in "How B=n Thompson built Stratechery into a one-man publishing empire":
The genesis: "Thompson was working at Microsoft when =e started the publication in 2013, and launched his subscription business =E2�� currently $10 per month, or $100 per year — in 2014." He =ow has subscribers in 30 countries.

Ben's big quote: "People underestimate the scale of the internet ... Certainly I work h=rd, but the amount of work I'm doing today is the exact same amount of wor= I was doing three years ago. The only difference is my income is 100 time= higher. And it's because that $10 scales, and it scales very, very well."=/li>

9. White House tours back

With requests and complaints from the Hill piling up as=the customary post-inaugural suspension stretched on, First Lady Melania T=ump announced that White House =ours will return March 7:

Tours of public areas are self-guided= and requests for a ticket must be submitted through a member of Congress.=/li>
The route includes the Blue, Red and Green Rooms, the State Dining=Room and the East Room.

Tours are offered 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Tues=ay through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

=ore info here.
<=ul>

10. 1 fun thing

Esquire says Daniel Humm, a Swiss 40-year-old, is the greates= chef in America -- and that his Eleven Madison Park (11 Madison Ave., in =he Flatiron District/Midtown South, at East 24th Street) is the best resta=rant in America and may soon be #1 in the world. Jeff Gordinier, the magaz=ne's Food and Drinks Editor, in the March issue:

"Eleven Madison Park ... is celebrated around t=e world for a casual clockwork opulence ... a vein of white-tablecloth gra=deur that supposedly went out of style a long time ago. When people talk a=out the food there, they talk about a delirium of pleasure, a rush of extr=vagance that's usually associated with the Old World. ...

"Eat at Eleven Madison Park and a bart=nder will wheel a cocktail cart alongside your table to make you a manhatt=n as deftly balanced as Philippe Petit on a tightrope; a snowy globe of ce=ery root will come hot and tender out of an inflated pig's bladder before =eing bathed in a truffled sauce; a sommelier will open a bottle of wine by=firing up a pair of tongs with what looks like a Bunsen burner and then sq=eezing the hot tongs right below the cork to melt the glass; for dessert, = torrent of blue flame will pour down the white slopes of your Baked Alask=."

=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">

A message from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Can high schools help fill 5M U.S. jobs?

Citing a critical need to prepare more young people for successful caree=s, JPMorgan Chase invested $75M in New Skills for Youth, a global ini=iative to spur economic growth and opportunity through skills development.=

Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon notes: “The number of people w=o graduate from high school without the necessary skills to compete is one=of the greatest moral and economic inequities of our time.”
Learn=more about the program.

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