Subject: Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 — High-touch Trump — Bull market turns 8 — Astonishing map: Purple America vanishes — Women vs. John: Crazy stat for happy hour
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2017 06:52:11 -0500 (EST)

Presented by Walmart:

High-touch Trump — Bull market turns 8 — Astonishing map= Purple America vanishes — Women vs. John: Crazy stat for happy ho=r

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Presented By Walmart

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Mar 09, 2017

Axios events launch next week in D.C.:

You're invited to join Axios EVP Tim Berry on Tuesday at 8 a.m.=for The Journey from Route 66: A Disc=ssion on America's Infrastructure, with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuli=fe, House Transportation Chair Bill Shuster and =strong>Emil Frankel of the Eno Center for Transportation. Click here<=em> to RSVP.

On W=dnesday at 8 a.m., I interview Mark Cuban, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-C=lo.) and Mayor Stephen Benjamin of Columbia, S.C., at Get Connected: The Future of Communication. RSV= here.

1 big thing: High-touch Trump

Jim Morin of the Miami Herald drew this editorial cartoon for next week'= 2017 Sunshine Week, a celebration of access to public information that co=ncides each year with the March 16 birthday of James Madison, father of th= U.S. Constitution and a key advocate of the Bill of Rights / Via AP

With wiretapping, WikiLeaks and a rebellion on the righ= over Trumpcare specifics, the president has mostly had a terrible-horribl=-no-good-very-bad in the media. But even Democrats who have visited the Wh=te House tell us that behind the scenes, he's coming into his own with the=art of the schmooze:

Trump played Good Cop i= a meeting yesterday in the Roosevelt Room (which friends say he calls "th= Board Room") with conservative groups that have been skeptical or critica= of the House GOP repeal-and-replace package. Some participants issued mor= positive statements afterward. A White House official said: "There's a big change in tone from a day or two ago. I think we're gett=ng there."

Trump loves building things, and atten=ees at a Cabinet Room lunch on infrastructure yesterday said that while he=s still learning many policy subjects, he talked confidently about airport=, roads and rural broadband as components of the public-private package he=plans to push (probably next year, for reasons of both calendar and politi=s).

The Boston Globe's lead story today is "Former Trump foes get charm treatment: Senators invited to me=ls, flights," by Annie Linskey: Marco "Rubio scored a seat on Air Force On= Friday, [Lindsey] Graham shared a private lunch with the president Tuesda=, and [Ted] Cruz, along with his family, accepted an invitation to dine wi=h Trump at the White House" last night.

This =orning, Trump welcomes the CEOs of community banks from as far as=Missouri, Texas and New Mexico "to discuss how excessive regulation has ad=ersely impacted their businesses."

Vice Presi=ent Pence is holding weekly dinners with senators, and hosted fiv= Republicans last night at his residence at the Naval Observatory.

Chaser: It'll take more than charm ... Lead story on =SJ.com, "Opposition Mounts as GOP's Hea=th Bill Undergoes Review: Groups representing hospitals, doctors and s=niors are urging House GOP leaders to put the brakes on their plan to over=aul Obamacare."

2. Stat of the day

Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

The American workforce is shrinking, e=cept for immigrants, Axios' Chris Matthews writes from New York:

The native-born a new analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Why=it matters: To get a sense of how an economy with a shrinking wor=force performs, look no further than Japan. The size of its workforce peak=d in 1998, and it has suffered through six different recessions since, com=ared to the United States' two. Not only is it harder to produce more weal=h with fewer people, but the incentive for corporations to invest is reduc=d when they know they'll have fewer potential customers tomorrow than they=have today.

3. Bull market turns 8 today

"No matador in sight as bull mar=et in U.S. stocks turns 8," by Reuters' Chuck Mikolajczak and Rodrigo Camp=s in N.Y.:

"The run of gains on Wall Street tu=ns 8 years old on Thursday and ... is expected to rage on, with perhaps a =ew hiccups, based on a combination of stronger company earnings, lower tax=s and a corporate-friendly administration in Washington."

=Strategists ... warn that a correction of as much as 10 percent s=ould be expected as the market is richly valued. The bull case for equitie= relies on analysts seeing little chance of recession in the short=term."

"The current run is nearly three =ears older than the average bull and more than a year shorter than the lon=est one: the rally from Oct. 11, 1990 to March 24, 2000."

Key stat: "The unemployment rate at the start of the =ull market was 8.3 percent, on its way to a high of 10 percent in October =009. The most recent payrolls report showed an unemployment rate of 4.8 pe=cent."

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4. White House, Cabinet war over personnel

Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Multiple government agencies are in a state of staffing=gridlock, with Cabinet secretaries having their chosen employees routinely=returned by the White House, according to Axios' Jonathan Swan:

<=i>Among those who have had choices rejected are Secretari=s Mnuchin at Treasury, Tillerson at State and Mattis at Defense.

<=trong>Why this matters: The failure to fill lower-level staff dir=ctly impacts the ability of government to function. Career people are work=ng away, but senior political appointees lack their own staff. They're les= effective — and operating in a climate of distrust — unti= they've got their team around them.

Interior Secretary Ry=n Zinke, who was only confirmed a week ago, has already taken his=complaints directly to the President. According to a source briefed on the=incident, Zinke went to Trump and demanded his staff be approved. Trump re=lied that Zinke will get his people 'as long as they're our people.'"
=li>"The White House has been irritated that Mnuchin has b=en asking for people viewed as liberals or in one case a Hillary Clinton d=nor."

5. FBI probes WikiLeaks' CIA dump

Wall Street Journal lead story, "Contractors Seen As Focus In CIA Leak," by Shane Harr=s:

"More than a dozen compan=es work for the CIA formulating and testing hacking tools ... [T]he bulk o= that work is done at a facility in Dulles, Va., not at the CIA's headquar=ers in Langley, Va."

"The possibility that a cont=actor may have been to blame for such a potentially damaging leak is sure =o renew scrutiny of the use of outside experts to conduct highly classifie= work."

"The risks from the leak are substantial =or companies such as Apple, Alphabet Inc's Google, Samsung Electronics Co.= and Microsoft."

6. For some uninsured, GOP penalty higher than Obamacare

Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

Axios' Caitlin Owens isolate= a key provision of the Trumpcare plan:

A key part<=strong> of the GOP health care plan is repealing Obamacare's much-hated in=ividual mandate, which requires people to pay a fine if they're uninsured =or longer than three months over the course of a year.

The=GOP plan replaces it with a continuous coverage provision, which =harges a 30 percent premium penalty for a year if an enrollee goes longer =han 63 days without coverage.

Winners and los=rs: Generally, low-income, older people and people who are uninsu=ed for a short period of time will pay bigger penalties under the GOP heal=h plan. The penalty would be lower for young people, some=wealthier people and the long-term uninsured.

=/a>

7. "Purple America Has All But Disappeared"

Counties where Trump or Clinton won two-party popular vote by more than =0 percentage points / Cook Political Report via FiveThirtyEight

"Counties are increasingly su=er red or super blue, with less and less in between," by David Wa=serman of Cook Political Report, on FiveThirtyEight:

"Of the nation's 3,113 counties (or county =quivalents), just 303 were decided by single-digit margins — less =han 10 percent. In contrast, 1,096 counties fit that description in 1992."=/p>

8. 2020 coalition for Rs

Tom Edsall on NYTimes.com, "Trump's=Political Stew: The president's electoral coalition has been 50 years =n the making. It may prove to be enduring":

"Trump's i=pact on voting patterns was not to increase the [GOP] share of th= white vote ... Both Trump and Mitt Romney carried whites by the same 20-p=int margin. The big shift Trump wrought was to change the type of whites w=o voted Republican. ... [N]on-college whites [were] the majority, 55.1 per=ent, with college -educated whites becoming the minority at 44.9 percent."=/li>
"Trump has oriented the party toward heightened a=ger, intensified racial resentment, animosity to immigrants and opposition=to trade. This is an exceptionally volatile mix. Trump is fanning rather t=an quelling the flames — everything he has done so far has=been to raise, not lower, the heat. The next question is whether =he Republican Party will be able to continue to exploit this mix or whethe= it will boil over in ways that cannot be predicted."

9. 2020 coalition for Ds

The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein, "Can Millennials Save the Democratic Party? The 2020 elect=on is projected to mark the first time in more than 40 years that baby boo=ers aren't the largest generation of eligible voters":

=[T]here's no guarantee Democrats can reap big benefits from Mille=nial mistrust of Trump. ... [T]urnout among Millennials remained mediocre =n 2016 — and, based on historic patterns, could decline more subst=ntially in the 2018 midterm election than among older voters.

"[W]hile Trump faces grim numbers among Millennials overall, <=trong>he has displayed strength among them with the same groups that respo=ded to him most in older generations: evangelical, non-urban, and=blue-collar whites."

"But the large minority pres=nce in the Millennial generation ... means those blue-collar whites seem d=stined to shrink as a share of the future electorate."

10. 1 astonishing thing

This surfaced on N.Y. Times' Upshot in 2015, but return=d on the social medias yesterday for International Women's Day ("Be Bold f=r Change"). It's still true, and still eye-opening ...

"Fe=er Women Run Big Companies Than Men Named John," by Justin Wo=fers:

"Among chief executives<=strong> of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named =ohn, Robert, William or James. ... Jims, Bobs, Jacks and Bills — c=mbined — outnumber the total number of women, including every wome='s name, from Abby to Zara."

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