Subject: ?Axios AM: MIke's Top 10 — Civil war: Winning the West Wing — Trump: O'Reilly made legal mistake — Taming robots
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2017 06:43:08 -0400 (EDT)

Presented by Bank of America:

Civil war: Winning the West Wing — Trump: O'Reilly made legal mi=take — Taming robots

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Presented By Bank of America

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Apr 06, 2017

1 big thing: Normalizing Trump (or at least Trumpland)

Kushner and Bannon, on Jan. 22 / AP's Andrew Harnik

Operation Normal — the steady, loud accumulatio= of power by Jared Kushner and his allies, at the expense of the more ideo=ogical force hardline ideologues, led by Steve Bannon — keeps win=ing.

Bannon's demotion from the from National S=curity Council was covered as a demotion and therefore cost him juice. Drudge bannered: "BANNON LOSES POWER IN WHITE HOUSE SHAKEUP."=/p>
Bannon associates told Axios' Jonathan Swan that he=was only on the NSC to "babysit" the now-ousted Mike Flynn, and never atte=ded an NSC meeting.

The N.Y. Times reports that Bannon resisted the move, even t=reatening to resign. And Politico's Alex Isenstadt and Andrew Restuccia de=ail an escalating "civil war between Donald Trump loyalists and establis=ment-minded Republicans."

At the same time, the Jar=d/Ivanka/Cohn wing of the White House squirrels away territory in its push=to take over Trumpland:

Jared Kushner seizes c=ntrol over structuring government at home and America's public face aboard=

Ivanka Trump adviser Dina Powell is named Deput= National Security Adviser, and keeps her portfolio as senior counselor fo= economic initiatives.

The NSC is normal(ish) af=er Flynn is dumped and Bannon sidelined. The other Deputy National Securit= Adviser, K.T. McFarland, a former Reagan-administration official and Fox =ews analyst, has been offered ambassador to Singapore, per CNN —=making Dina Powell the clear No. 2.

Economic adviser Gary Cohn's flexes muscle over tax reform, the coming monster on the ag=nda, at the expense of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

What all this means:

For all the talk of radical change, Trump is taking fairly conventional approaches to tr=de, health care, tax reform, China and foreign policy. Score this a big wi= for the Jared wing.

Sound smart: Bannon's frien=s worry he locked arms too tight with White House Chief of Staff Reince Pr=ebus and finds himself more isolated from Jared/Ivanka/Cohn - and therefor= with the boss.

Sound even smarter: Trump himsel= remains very frustrated and not sure who to blame or who can truly help t=rn things around. Jared is filling the void as aggressively as Bannon did =uring the early days.

=/a>

2. Another big thing: Governing from 1 building

Trump and first lady Melania Trump greet Jordan's King Abdullah II and Q=een Rania as they arrive at the West Wing yesterday / AP's Andrew Harnik

The huge number of vacancies throughout the top ranks o= government is concentrating power in the West Wing — to Jared's b=nefit, and with the effect of balls getting dropped.

"Too fe= people are doing too much, and it's keeping the Cabinet weak," s=id one outside adviser to the West Wing. "In a Cabinet of people who are u=ed to being superstars, no one has been able to negotiate to get a high-po=ered team in."

"Bannon will tell you: We're doing t=ings differently — that's the way it used to be," said a veteran o= past Republican White Houses. "But there are some actual functions of gov=rnment that need to be carried out by these buildings."

The =elittlement of the Cabinet is most apparent in the invisibility o= SecState Rex Tillerson, a 65-year-old former corporate titan who's now op=rating in the shadow of 36-year-old Kushner.

"I don't know w=at Rex does every day," a friend said. "[SecDef] James Mattis is =ome alone."

According to the Political Appointee Tracker of the Partnership for Pu=lic Service, of 553 key positions in the Trump administration requiring Se=ate confirmation, 486 have no nominee, 24 are awaiting nomination, 21have =een nominated and 22 confirmed.

The partnership=shared the latest historical equivalents with Axios AM. As of today:

Trump: 21 nominations, 22 confirmed.

72 nominations, 27 confirmed.

B=ll Clinton: 69 nominations, 44 confirmed.

George =. Bush: 65 nominations, 32 confirmed.

Obama: 120 nominations, 54 confirmed.

As Trump might twe=t: Big difference!

3. Superpower summit

The Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa, where China President Xi Jinping will=stay is shown in Manalapan, Florida/ Reuters' Joe Skipper

At noon, President Trump flies to Mar-a-Lago, where and=Melania will have dinner at 6:30 with China President Xi Jinping and his f=rst lady, Madame Peng Liyuan.

Reuters' Steve Holland reports that the setting took some persuasion: "Even after =eeing images of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's back-slapping session= with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February, Chinese officials thought the ocean=ront, Spanish-style club in Palm Beach, Florida, lacked the symbolic signi=icance of the White House itself."

"The entire visit will last less than 24 hours. ... The two le=ders are not expected to make public appearances but there are likely to b= occasions for a pool of the news media to see them. No joint news confere=ce was expected."

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4. Trump: "I do change"

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., shows pictures of Syrian v=ctims of chemical attacks as she addresses the Security Council yesterday = AP's Bebeto Matthews

"For Trump, the weight of world's problems sink in," by=AP's Julie Pace: "Standing =n the sunny White House Rose Garden, the president said Wednesday that the=gruesome chemical weapons attack in Syria had changed his views on the qua=mire ... He mourned the deaths of the youngest victims — 'innocent=children, innocent babies' — and said brutality had 'crossed a lot=of lines for me. ... It is now my responsibility.'"

Trump's willingness to accept that he now=bears some responsibility for a far-away conflict marked a significant mom=nt for an "America First" president who has vowed to focus narrowly on U.S= interests. His comments also suggested a growing awareness that an Americ=n president — even an unconventional one like him — is loo=ed to as defender of human rights and a barometer of when nations have vio=ated international norms.

What Trump said: "I like=to think of myself as a very flexible person. ... I do change and I am fle=ible, and I'm proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that attack =n children yesterday had a big impact on me — big impact. That was=a horrible, horrible thing. And I've been watching it and seeing it, and i= doesn't get any worse than that."

5. "Trump is taking an immense gamble"

The N.Y. Times reported in a front-page article March 18: "Trump's new b=dget proposal ... would inflict the deepest pain on the most vulnerable Am=ricans — a great number of whom voted for him" / Photo by AP's J.=Scott Applewhite

Every news outlet has run stories here and there about =ow health reform and the Trump budget will hurt economically stressed Trum= voters, but it's still an underlooked factor in the D.C. debate. Tom Edsa=l, in an opinion piece the N.Y. Times posted early today, "Trump Bets the House," frames it memorably:

The admin=stration's proposed spending plan ... appeases those who have long been de=ermined to cut means-tested programs. But those same programs are crucial =o keeping 6.2 million white working class voters out of poverty ... The nu=ber of whites dependent on safety net programs is far larger than the numb=r of African Americans, at 2.8 million, or Hispanics, at 2.4 million. ... =/em>

Nate Cohn reported in The Time= that Trump voters "have t=e most to lose in the G.O.P. repeal bill." The first major piece of le=islation to be taken up after the election amounted to a kick in the teeth=to Trump's populist base.

Sound smart: Trump'= voters have given him a very long leash. But when you have a base that's =y definition discontented, you'll always be vulnerable to whipsawing publi= opinion. This is why Trump continues to talk mostly to his followers, whe= smartypants commentators think he should be reaching out.

6. Capitol Hill in one graf

Chris Krueger of Cowen Washington Research Group: "One =f the strangest and most baffling realities about the current legislative =umpster fire on Capitol Hill is that it was created, fostered, and fed ent=rely by Republicans who nominally control the House, Senate, and White Hou=e. We are now on our THIRD health care 'plan' in four months ... All week =Republicans] have been negotiating against themselves ... They are going i= the wrong direction and spending down all their political capital."

7. "Not our finest day"

As Senate Republicans prepare to use the "nuclear optio=" to break a Democratic filibuster and confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the S=preme Court by tomorrow night, Yahoo's Jon Ward pauses to mourn:

Without the filibuster, =/strong>the extreme polarization in American politics that has produced it= demise will only worsen. Constraints that force both parties to work toge=her will be reduced. The spinning top of American democracy, already wobbl=, will be set to gyrate even more wildly.

8. Numbers of the day

47: The number of advertisers boycotting Bill O'Reilly =n "a rapidly growing exodus," per CNN.

1: O'Reilly's debut rank on the N.Y. Times bestseller list of=April 16 for "OLD SCHOOL, by Bill O'Reilly and Bruce Feirstein. (Holt) A d=fense of 'old school' traditional values versus 'snowflakes.'"

Chaser ... President Trump re O'Reilly, in an interview yesterday with the N.Y. Times: "I think he'= a person I know well. He's a good person. I think he may, you know, I thi=k he shouldn't have settled, personally, I think he shouldn't have settled= ... Because you — should have taken it all the way. No, I know Bi=l. Bill's a good person."

9. Facebook exec: Robots won't seek world domination

Axios' Chris Matthews and Kia Kokalitcheva caught up with Yann LeCun, head of Facebook's artificial in=elligence lab, backstage at the Future Labs AI Summit in New York yesterda=. LeCun is a giant in the field, whose contributions to AI have helped dri=e the technology behind self-driving cars.

Q: You said during your talk that we shouldn't worry =bout machines taking over the world, because that assumes that computers w=ll have human failings, like greed or the tendency to become violent when =hreatened.

A: We have=a lot of checks and balances built into society to prevent evil from havin= infinite power. ... It will be the same thing for AI. Learning to build A= systems that are safe — not because they're going to take over th= world, but because you want them to work reliably — is going to t=ke some time, similar to how long it took people to figure out how to buil= airplanes that don't crash. There is a group that I helped found called P=rtnership for AI that's a forum for companies like Google and Facebook, an= other groups like the ACLU, to discuss the best way to deploy AI systems =n such a way that they are safe and unbiased.

10. 1 fun thing

Trevor Noah's "The Daily Show" asks: "Does @SeanSpicer =reat the press like a bunch of kindergarteners?"

Here's the video answer, with White House reporters played by squirmy, sing-songy up-and-comer=.

A message from Bank of America

$200 million to nonprofits helps build stronger nei=hborhoods

Through flexible funding and strategic planning opportunities, Bank of A=erica’s Neighborhood Builders® program is helping nonprofits =ike D.C. Central Kitchen thrive. The bank has invested $200 million in 900=nonprofits across the country and offered leadership training to 2,000 non=rofit leaders. Read more.

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