Subject: ?Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 — Operation Normal: Trump goes ??al — Bezos' startup secret — What reporters say when they call Spicer
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 06:40:08 -0400 (EDT)

Presented by The Boeing Company:

Operation Normal: Trump goes 🌎al — Bezos' startup sec=et — What reporters say when they call Spicer

View in browser

Presented By The Boeing Company

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·Apr 13, 2017

1 big thing: Operation Normal

Trump during East Room presser yesterday with NATO Secretary General Jen= Stoltenberg / AP's Evan Vucci

Operation Normal achieved supremacy yesterday — an= a new phase of Trump's presidency begins:

Centrist forces=/strong> led by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were ascendant, now are dom=nant.

Trump's salvo in the N.Y. Post was an invit=tion for Steve Bannon to change his approach, or resign.

T=ump changed his stances on NATO, Chinese currency and the Ex-Im B=nk. (White House officials say he's not reversing himself — these =argets are hearing his concerns and coming his way.)

SecSt=te Rex Tillerson was finally in the spotlight.

Al= this follows the successful Xi meeting at Mar-a-Lago, and the Sy=ian intervention over Bannon's objection.

Sound smart:=/strong> Conservatives should have seen this coming. Trump goes where the =pplause is loudest. If that means being a full-throated birther, fine! If =hat means inciting hysterics about Mexicans, game on! If that means huggin= NATO or smiling at corporate cronyism, Trump's your man! It would be a ho=t if he came full circle and morphed into Michael Bloomberg.

former Under Secret=ry of State, to Brian Williams on MSNBC: "If you think back, Brian, to Hen=y Kissinger's famous triangulation in 1972, the opening to China: It was s=rengthening our relationship with China in order to leverage the ... Sovie=s, in many ways."

"Time after t=me in the last few days, we've seen very tough rhetoric =y Rex Tillerson against the Russians ... So, a very tough line against Rus=ia. A very soft, friendly, conciliatory line against China. ...

"I think Trump feels he's got an=opening with China and really not much business to do with Putin at this t=me."

The coverage: , "Wall Street Wing Seems to Be Edging Populists"=... Wa=hPost front page, "Trump backs off fiscal pledges and adopts centrist =olicies that he once fought" ... Wall Street Journal p. A6, "Trum= Voices NATO Commitment ... President makes sharp break in rhetoric from h=s campaign."

2. Trump's 🌎ist reinvention

Lazaro Gamio / Axios

How we got here ... Trump campaigned as an ardent and u=apologetic nationalist, but in less than a week Trump has morphed into a g=y who could almost be mistaken for a conventional Republican president, Axios's Jonathan=Swan points out.

Trump appeared in the East room yesterd=y and gave remarks that could've come from the mouth of George H.=. Bush. In the past six days, President Trump has:

Fired 59 To=ahawk missiles at a Syrian government airbase to respond to Bashar Assad's=chemical weapons attack on his own citizens.

Belittled Steve Banno= in an interview with the New York Post.

Stood in the White House =ext to the Secretary General of NATO and declared the alliance is "no long=r obsolete."

Hosted China's President Xi at Mar-a-Lago and said th=y had great "chemistry" and "bonding."

Told the Wall Street Journa= he no longer plans to label China a currency manipulator, despite repeate= campaign promises to do so "on day one." ("They're not currency manipulat=rs," Trump said.)

Promised to repair the world during his presiden=y, not just America: "The world is a mess," Trump said in the East Room pr=ss conference Wednesday. "By the time I'm finished, it's going to be a lot=better place to live in because, right now, it's nasty."

Talked wi=h deep feeling about a foreign humanitarian crisis.

Jettisoned Vla=imir Putin, whom he'd resisted criticizing until now. "We might be at an a=l time low with Russia," Trump said on Wednesday.

Caut=onary note: Trump has been all over the policy map when it comes =o issues he hasn't given much thought to (social issues, healthcare, Ex-Im=Bank). But nationalism has been consistent in his speeches since the late =980s. He's talked about foreign countries ripping America off, and even in=his NATO appearance he gently ribbed the Secretary General about getting t=e other nations to pay up. Nationalism is one of the few things Trump's be=n consistent about for 30 years, those instincts are as hard-wired as anyt=ing in his make up; let's see how long this version of Trump lasts.

3. Jeff Bezos' annual letter: Be Day 1

Making quick decisions and obsessing on customer outcom=s are keys to keeping companies in a psychic start-up mode, CNBC's Anita B=lakrishnan says in her writeup of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' annual s=areholder letter:

Bezos compares "D=y 1" companies — companies that are at the beginning of their pote=tial — with "Day 2" companies. "Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrel=vance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And t=at is why it is always Day 1."

.

And to hammer his point<=strong> about Day 1, Bezos attached a copy of his original,=1997 shareholder letter, which Business Insider founder Henry Blodget =alls "still a playbook for building a great company.

A message from The Boeing Company

Serving those who serve

Boeing is proud to support our armed forces. Not only do we build produc=s that protect our troops and nation, we’ve also hired and trained=more than 7,800 military veterans since 2011.
Learn more about veteran opp=rtunities at Boeing.

4. If you read only one thing

Vital sentence for anyone who heads a team or organizat=on: I'd read this to your leaders, then have a conversation for h=w your brand is perceived, and how you can avoid this ...

L.A. Times consume= columnist David Lazarus: "I've received many, many recollections of indignities large and small suffered by United passengers. The unif=ing thread to all of them is a seeming disregard on the airline's part to =ow its customers are treated and whether the passengers would ever use the=carrier again."

5. Beyond the Beltway: Early warnings

"Suburban G.O.P= Voters Sour on Party, Raising Republican Fears for 2018," th= N.Y. Times' Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin write atop column 1, with date=ine of Alpharetta, Ga.: "Early missteps by President Trump and congressio=al leaders have weighed heavily on voters from the party's more affluent w=ng, anchored in right-of-center suburbs around major cities in the South a=d Midwest. Never beloved in these precincts, Mr. Trump appears to be strug=ling to maintain support from certain voters who backed him last year main=y as a way of defeating Hillary Clinton."

The takeaway:="Interviews with Republican-leaning voters in four suburban distr=cts — in Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota and New Jersey — revea=ed a sour outlook on the party. These voters, mainly white professionals, =ay they expected far more in the way of results by now."

=hot fired: "[A]lready, Republicans have strained to prop up their=candidates in a pair of special House elections in the areas around Atlant= and Wichita, Kan., both in districts that have voted overwhelmingly Repub=ican in past congressional races."

Why it matters:

6. What the West Wing is saying

Sean Spicer to Greta Van Susteren at yesterday's Newseu= extravaganza, "The President and the Pr=ss: The First Amendment in the First 100 Days":

"Sometimes we'll have an event in the Oval Of=ice or in a particular room, and there will be four or five people there, =nd I'll get a call from a reporter that said: 'We have six sources who sai= ... .'"

Kellyanne Conway to Michael Wolff: "There =s this quest to make interviews go viral now, where one has to wonder is t=e interview being conducted to inform the viewers or the larger population=or an electorate more broadly, or is the interview being done in a way tha='s meant to entertain other journalists or impress advertisers or executiv=s?"

"Some in the media

7. Massive issue in media: Who can I trust?

From left: Bret Baier, Savannah Guthrie, George Stephanopoulos, Gayle Ki=g, Jake Tapper / The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter is out today with its New York I=sue, including an "Anchor Roundtable" by Marisa Guthrie, who asked= "What is the biggest crisis facing journalism in the 21st century=

ABC's George Stephano=oulos: The fact that so few people believe us. That they're looki=g for narratives that reinforce their beliefs rather than challenge them.<=p>
Fox's Bret Baier: Trust=

NBC's Savannah Guthrie: Credibility.

Baier: =eople want to turn to someplace they feel they can get the straight scoop.=There's so much online that is bombarding people every day.

CNN's Jake Tapper: There are news so=rces that are just out-and-out lies coming from Europe, coming from other =arts of the world …

CBS=s Gayle King: … coming from people's basements. [They] ar= putting things out that have no resemblance to reality.

8. Hot spots to watch this weekend

"Turkey is sliding into dictatorship: [President] R=cep Tayyip Erdogan is carrying out the harshest crackdown in decades. The =est must not abandon Turkey," The Economist writes in its cover leader (ed=torial):

Why it matters: "Turkey matters not =ust for its size, but also as a bellwether of the political forces shaping=the world. ... [I]t is a test case of whether democracy can be reconciled =ith political Islam."

What's happening: On Sunday= "Turks will vote in a referendum over whether to abandon their parliament=ry system for an executive presidency."

What'= likely to happen: "A Yes is likely, but far from certain. ... A =es would condemn Turkey to the elected dictatorship of President Erdogan. = No might just let Turks constrain him."

9. The talk of Wall Street

USA Today front page

The s=ulptor who created the iconic "Charging Bull" statue in New Y=rk's financial district says the city and an investment company violated h=s rights by installing the newly popular "Fearless Girl" statue near his c=eation without permission for what amounts to a commercial ad campaign, US= Today's Mary Bowerman and Kevin McCoy report:

"Fearless Girl," with hands confidently place= on hips, was installed in front of the bull on the eve of last month's an=ual commemorations of International Women's Day. Boston-based State Street=Global Advisors has said it commissioned the new artwork as part of its ca=l ... to ensure that corporate governing boards feature diversity.

10. 1 fun thing

Mary Beth Nerone, a former middle-school teacher from Rochester, N.Y., s=ows materials from her online store. After losing her job as a language-ar=s teacher to budget cuts, Nerone began stocking the store with writing, po=try and other curricula exercises / AP's Bebeto Matthews

Teachers selling lessons to other teachers online has b=come a booming business. It's a trend driven by higher standards and teach=rs willing to pay out of their own pockets for classroom-tested material, =P's Buffalo-based Carolyn Thompson reports in "Million Dollars Lessons":

Teachers Pay Teachers contends th=t it hit a milestone last year, when its 80,000 contributors earned more t=an $100 million, and that at least a dozen have become millionaires since =he site launched a decade ago. Other major sites including Teachwise and T=acher's Notebook, and recently such corporate players as Houghton Mifflin =arcourt and Amazon, have launched sites of their own. ...

[S]ome educators worryFor teachers buying the materials, however, it's a major time saver, allo=ing them to reclaim the nights and weekends otherwise spent starting lesso=s from scratch.

A message from The Boeing Company

Invested in veterans

20,000 veteran employees. 800 events and organizations devoted to former=service members each year. At Boeing, our veteran support begins with the =elief that veterans make us better.
Learn more about our commitment to v=terans.

Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 200, Arlington VA 22201

You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios.
Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.=/a>

Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.

Follow Axios=on social media:

=                     &nb=p;