Subject: ?Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 — Why we saw a new Trump — The two sides of his brain — SNAP starts trading — CNN's war for digital
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2017 06:57:10 -0500 (EST)

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Why we saw a new Trump — The two sides of his brain — SN=P starts trading — CNN's war for digital

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Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Mar 02, 2017

Some exciting news from Axios!

This Monday, Ben Geman launches Generate, our newsletter covering the po=icy and business of energy, with Amy Harder joining him in late March. The=following week our tech newsletter, Login, will launch: Ina Fried will bre=k news from San Francisco, and Kim Hart with David McCabe will cover the i=novation agenda in DC. We hope you'll join them.

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1 big thing: Why we saw a new Trump

Staff greets Trump as he arrives at White House after speech / @seanspic=r

As President Trump's motorcade arrived back at the Whit= House at 10:50 p.m. after his Capitol speech, he invited a dozen gleeful =ides up to the residence for a celebration. Over Diet Cokes, they relished=the reviews that were popping on their iPhones, shouting out the latest po=l or pundit to go their way.

The inner circle knew =hat the accolades would be short-lived — Trump was in a new mode, =ot a new man. A top adviser said: "The question for me is: Is this a harbi=ger, or a one-off?"

Another Trump adviser was hopef=l that this supremely image-conscious man would catch the bug: "For the fi=st time, he saw something that he had never seen: People from the entire s=ectrum saying, 'That's amazing.' That's an experience he's never had befor=."

Several insiders credited the speech's tone to t=e involvement of a wider range of aides. "The Stephens" (Bannon and Miller= remained top wordsmiths, joined this time by a bigger circle that include= Vice President Pence, Ivanka and Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, Dina Powell an= Hope Hicks.

Miller's first draft followed Trump's =nstruction to be uplifting. Later iterations got darker, then the final ve=sion came back to the light. "We got to the point where the grownups in th= room no longer paid attention to command and control, and got involved fo= the sake of the country and the president," one aide said.

drove the decision to put off un=eiling the new executive order on migrant travel, which was penciled in fo= yesterday, but now is expected early next week. There also were some twea=s needed, with the stakes so high for getting it right this time.

=p>"For once, we had the wind at our sails," a top aide sa=d. "We decided not to sh*t on ourselves."

2. Trump 101: the two sides of his brain

Rebecca Zisser / Axios

Axios' Jonathan Swan, on "the bipolar Trump presidency":

"Tuesday night's speech was the=first time Trump's yin and yang was on full display. The core of the speec= was the issues on which Trump built his campaign: trade, immigration and =ational security. On these the Trump-Bannon worldview remains unchanged an= is being pursued almost to the letter. But the speech also had a softer s=de: the environment, childcare, women's health and female entrepreneurship= These are Ivanka's projects."

What this creates: A quiet, constant wrestle for the tone of the presidency, if not its s=bstance. As one source close to the White House explained: "One side belie=es pain is necessary to alleviate the symptoms. The flip side says: 'Hold =n: There are human impacts here.'"

Another split ... W=shPost front-pager, "3 words in Trump's speech expose a =hite House divide": "Trump vowed on Tuesday that his administration is tak=ng strong measures to protect the United States from 'radical Islamic terr=rism,' slowing his cadence to enunciate the words."

3. New kindling for Russia fire

Two juicy stories about Trump and Russia popped last ni=ht, giving new ammo to Dems calling for an independent investigation, and =aking it more likely the topic will continue to distract the White House f=r month — even if, as officials maintain, there's no "there" ther=:

WashPostAttorney General Jeff Sessions spoke twice last year (when h= was still a senator) with Russia's ambassador to the United States, "enco=nters he did not disclose when asked [during confirmation] about possible =ontacts between members of President Trump's campaign and representatives =f Moscow ... Officials said Sessions did not consider the conversations re=evant to the lawmakers' questions."

N.Y.=Times, "Obama Officials Raced to Preserve Russian Trail": "In=the Obama administration's last days, some White House officials scrambled=to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential =lection — and about possible contacts between [Trump] associates .=. and Russians — across the government ... to leave a clear trail =f intelligence for government investigators."

Brian Wi=liams on MSNBC, re the Sessions story: "One of the reasons this i= going to be so important, so germane to the current conversation, is: Can=there be an investigation headquartered inside the Justice Department stru=ture?"

MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "The question that =as raised ... with Michael Flynn [Trump's first national security adviser= who resigned]: Why would he deny having had conversations with the Russia=s? Because that raises the big open question: What was going on?"

And as the machinery of investigation cranks up, White House=Counsel Don McGahan on Tuesday sent a memo to White House staff instructin= "to preserve materials that could be connected to Russian interference in=the 2016 election and other related investigations," AP=reported.

A senior administration official: "It=seems a little coincidental that he has his best 24 hours, then we get the=Russia dump."

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4. "A fine line between optimism and magical realism"

Amid the scrum of pundit love for Trump's speech, Mic=ael Grunwald of Politico rises in dissent, arguing that POTUS "promise= America could have all the cake it wants, and lose weight, too":

=li>"In the real world, policy choices have trade-offs. ..= Trump vowed to kill Obamacare's individual mandate, but he also complaine= that insurers are abandoning the Obamacare exchanges — a problem =hat would only intensify if the mandate went away, and young and healthy c=nsumers weren't required to buy insurance.

"[E]ven though his promises to reduce the debt by slashing taxes=and boosting spending may be mathematically dubious, they're as American a= eight-minute abs. Most Americans aren't policy wonks. And most Americans =ike their politicians sunny."

=/a>

5. Advertising can win elections

"Facebook says it can sway elections after all �=94 for a price," by Adam Pasick:

"On its marketing site, the social network cited=its role in Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey's [R] extremely narrow win in =.. Facebook noted that custom ads ... were able to 'significantly shift vo=er intent and increase favorability' for Toomey, who won by ... 86,000 vot=s out of about 6 million cast.'"

6. Stat du jour

CNBC, via Axios' Chris Matthews= 3 stocks — Apple, Goldman Sachs and Boeing — account for =/3 of the Dow gain between 20,000 (Jan. 25) and 21,000 (yesterday).

=strong>Trump rally persists ... Wall Street Journal lead story, "=a href="http://link.axios.com/click/9016695.36778/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud3NqLm=vbS9hcnRpY2xlcy91LXMtaW5mbGF0aW9uLWNsb3Nlc3QtdG8tZmVkcy0yLXRhcmdldC1zaW5jZ=0yMDEyLTE0ODgzNzUyMTM_dGVzbGE9eSZ1dG1fc291cmNlPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImdXRtX21lZGl1=T1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249bmV3c2xldHRlcl9heGlvc2Ft/5871993924c17c54d77a8b=cBebf39d03" target="_blank">Stocks Surge as Optimism Rises" (online =Stocks Surge as Global Outlook Brightens") ... USA Today lead story, "Trump inspires Dow to 21,000."

7. The talk of tech: SNAP debuts today

Snap Inc. has priced its highly-anticipated IPO at $17 =er share, per Axios' Dan Primack: "This is slightly above its expected p=ice range of $14-$16 per share, and would mean that the Los Angeles-based =camera company' raised $3.4 billion at around a $24 billion valuation. Sna= is expected to begin trading [this] morning under ticker symbol SNAP."

Why this matters: Snap would be =he year's first tech IPO, and the largest such offering since Alibaba went=public in 2014. It also is the biggest so-called "unicorn" to go public si=ce the phrase was coined, having been valued by private market investors a= $17.8 billion. Some view Snap's stock market performance as an indicator =f how future tech startups will fare with their own IPOs, although more te=h investors believe that the company is unique and, therefore, will not ha=e much impact on those that follow.

"Meet Snow, Snapchat's competition in Asia," by Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva: "T=e app was built by Naver, a large Korean internet company whose Japanese a=m operates the popular messaging app Line. ... Snow has been called a 'Sna=chat clone' because its premise it undeniably similar — disappeari=g messages, camera filters, and even a feature for sharing videos called S=ories."

"And like Snapchat, Facebook attempted to acquire Snow."

8. Tops in media trends: CNN's war for digital

Illuminating read from Hollywood Reporter's Marisa Guth=ie on CNN President Jeff Zucker's "Plan to Dominate Digital," including in=reasing Anthony Bourdain's online presence with a mobile-first long form j=urnalism company, Explore Parts Unknown, and a six-episode digital-only se=ies starring Bourdain:

"In terms of the biggest draws,<=strong> digital and TV track closely: CNN's top three digital stories in 2=16 were the Pulse nightclub shooting (37 million page views), the election=night live blog (32 million) and the Brussels terror attack (22 million)."=/li>
"[D]igital profit at CNN was close to $150 millio= in 2016 [TV was near $1 billion]. With global digital ad revenue poised t= surpass television as early as this year, Zucker's mandate is to grow CNN=s digital revenue into a $1 billion business in five years.

Zucker hired 250 new digital staffers in the past year.

THIS is a great anecdote: "The next big iteration of =NN's stand-alone strategy will be unveiled [this month], when it will debu= a live daily 5 p.m. digital show hosted by Casey Neistat, a 35-year-old f=lmmaker and street artist who developed the video-sharing app Beme and ama=sed a rabid fan base on YouTube (6.5 million subscribers) with his video d=ary."

"Zucker, who learned about Neistat through hi= children, approached him two years ago. He took his son Andrew, then 16, =o the meeting. 'Jeff says to me, "You know, we have a huge news operation =ere; it's a global enterprise ... But my son says that you're the only per=on who matters in media."'

"Andrew got a selfie wit= Neistat. Zucker offered Neistat a TV show on CNN."

9. Rob Collins to White House

The White House is bringing in veteran inside-outside p=ayer Rob Collins as a Strategic Advisor to he=p with the final weeks of the Supreme Court confirmation battle for Judge =orsuch, who this week will complete visits with 70 senators. An in=eresting model: Colllins, 42, will be a volunteer, working on hea=ing prep, etc., with the confirmation team in the Eisenhower Executive Off=ce Building.

Who he is: Collins, a Republican =obbyist who's taking a leave from his firm, S-3 Group, is a former executi=e director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and has person=l, cellphone relationships with GOP senators.

The outlook= The White House is unworried about confirmation, with a Senate v=te expected before the Easter recess. A top official tells us: "The Democr=ts are in a tough spot on this" — no tarnishing info has emerged. =rump knows this win alone locks social conservatives in for his full term,=even when he disappoints elsewhere.

10. 1 fun thing

"The Secre= to Selling Manhattan's Biggest Condo Project: Raise Prices,"=by Bloomberg's Oshrat Carmel: "In a market brimming with luxury constructi=n and wealthy buyers holding back amid so many choices, ... Extell is rais=ng prices" at One Manhattan Square, "a true vertical village" being built =n South Street on the Lower East Side.

=strong>"It tells the market that we're confident about our produc= and that we are selling well, selling fast."

A message from Walmart

Walmart's commitment to U.S. manufacturing

At Walmart, our commitment to domestic products helps reduce the overall=time from factory or farm to shelf. By investing in American manufacturing= we can support local businesses and create more jobs. Learn more.

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