Subject: ?Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 — Republicans' coming 'autumn of discontent' — ???? Trump and entourage at Vatican: gifts he brought Pope Francis — Top 10 CEO pay packages
From: "Mike Allen" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 06:32:09 -0400 (EDT)

Presented by JPMorgan Chase & Co.:

Republicans' coming 'autumn of discontent' — 🇻�=87� Trump and entourage at Vatican: gifts he brought Pope Francis �=94 Top 10 CEO pay packages

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Presented By JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Axios AM

By Mike Allen = ·May 24, 2017

Blockbuster double-heade= this morning for my News Shapers event series: Bob Woodw=rd, followed by Speaker Ryan! (Outside cameras and correspond=nts welcome.) If you're in downtown D.C. this morning, please join us=at 8 a.m. (doors open 7:45) at AJAX, 1011 4th Street NW (near L Street).

1 big thing: "Autumn of discontent"

Pope Francis exchanges gifts with President Trump and First Lady Melania=Trump, on the occasion of their private audience at the Vatican today / AP=s Alessandra Tarantino

Republican leaders are coming to the bleak conclusion=they will end summer and begin the fall with ZERO significant leg=slative accomplishments. Privately, they realize it's political malpractic= to blow at least the the first nine of months of all Republican rule, but=also realize there's little they can do to avoid the dismal outcome.
=div>In fact, they see the next four months as MORE troubl=some than the first four. They're facing terrible budget choices and headl=nes, the painful effort to re-work the healthcare Rubik's Cube in the Hous= (presuming it makes it out of the Senate), a series of special-election s=ares (or losses) — all with scandal-mania as the backdrop.
<=iv>Axios' all-terrain Jonathan Swan tells me that one of =he key insights he picked up at last week's SALT hedge-fund conference in =egas (tough duty) was that nobody thought healthcare reform would happen, =nd most were very skeptical that Trump and Republicans could get their act= together enough to pass tax reform this year.

Asked abou= both onstage, Jeb Bush said a flat "no" to healthcare and a very=unconvincing "maybe" to tax reform. The masters of the universe had more c=lorful words in private — they're deeply pessimistic about healthc=re.

A source close to the Republican congressional =eadership emails Swan a vivid snapshot of the party's feng shui:

We are walking into an autum= of discontent because they won't have any legislative accomplishment when=they come back from the August recess. ... Their biggest problem is that t=e reconciliation instructions will expire at the end of September. ...

They're going to go home =/strong>and get the [stuff] kicked out of them because people think it act=ally was accomplished — and, by the way, people are likely going t= be getting their premium increases that are going to occur regardless of =hether they pass this bill or not. ...

And now the president's threatening that he's no= going to approve the money for the insurance subsidies — it is go=ng to be a catastrophic political problem ...

They are in this terrible bo= on healthcare and they're about to get blamed for it because the= did what I've been calling that Bon Jovi rally at the White House �=94 because they were halfway there.

2. 🇻🇦 Trump meets His Holiness

President Trump and the U.S. delegation pose with Pope Francis on the oc=asion of their private audience at the Vatican today / AP's Alessandra Tar=ntino

Pool report from President Trump at the Vatican today, =y the Wall Street Journal's Carol Lee: "When pool entered the room, ... PO=US had already introduced Ivanka Trump, who ... wore a black lace dress an= veil, and Jared Kushner. ... Other members of the delegation were still i= the back of the room near pool.

"The first person =ool saw POTUS introduce to Pope Francis was Rex Tillerson. 'This is my sec=etary of state,' POTUS explained. H.R. McMaster was next. ... Hope Hicks .=. [t]hen Dan Scavino, Brian Hook, Keith Schiller and others.

a tray of rosaries on a silver tray, which =ere then taken away. He handed out tokens, in white boxes, to each member =f the delegation. He had an exchange with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner w=ere they smiled and laughed ... POTUS was very effusive in expressing his =ratitude. He said 'thank you very much' multiple times as the pope talked =im through his gift offerings. ...

"The pope asked Melania T=ump, referring to POTUS: 'What do you give him to eat, potizza?' =he repeated 'potizza,' which apparently is a Slovenian treat. (Not pizza, =s some thought they heard.) One of the pope's attendants, a clergyman, gav= Mrs. Trump a small object, maybe a rosary, as she was walking away (she s=emed to have forgotten about it), and she turned back and asked the Pope t= bless it, which he did."

Information on the gifts =OTUS gave the Pope, from the White House: "A first-edition set of Dr. King=s writings are presented to Your Holiness on the occasion of President Don=ld J. Trump's first visit to the Holy See. ... Each book is custom-bound a=d accented with gold hand-tooling, and 'The Strength to Love' bears Dr. Ki=g's signature."

"The 'Stone of =ope' statue sits as the centerpiece of the Martin Luther King Jr.=Memorial in Washington ... A piece of the monument's granite —=a stone of hope — is presented."

P.S.<=strong> From Reuters, "Jared Kushner Is Trump's Main Man On M=deast Peace."

3. "Russia contacts alarmed Brennan"

Former CIA Director John Brennan is reflected in a table as he prepares =o testify yesterday before the House Intelligence Committee Russia Investi=ation Task Force / AP's Pablo Martinez Monsivais

N.Y. Times Quote of the Day ... =ohn O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, testifying before the Hous= Intelligence Committee about his concerns regarding Russian interference =n last year's presidential election: "Frequently, people who go along a tr=asonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too lat=."

WashPost front page, by Greg Miller: "Brennan said he became increasingly concerned that T=ump associates were being manipulated by Russian intelligence services as =art of a broader covert influence campaign that sought to disrupt the elec=ion and deliver the presidency to Donald Trump."

President Trum= has retained Marc Kasowitz, his longtime attorney, in the Ru=sia probe. A White House source says Trump feels comfortable with Kasowitz= who will be lead attorney, and that other names could be added to his leg=l team.

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4. Trump week from hell = Facebook gold

Media companies published a record number of Trump-Russ=a stories last week, according to SocialFlow's study on 300+ news publishe=s on Facebook.

The number of people who actually s=w those stories on Facebook was second only to the week BuzzFeed published=an unverified Trump dossier, reports.

5. Britain raises threat level to "critical," ...

A vigil in central Manchester for victims of the concert attack / Reuter=' Jon Super

... its highest level, meaning more attacks may be imminent. <=p>
BBC: "[M]ilitary personnel are now being de=loyed to protect key sites. The Palace of Westminster has been closed=to the public following police advice, and will not re-open until further =otice ... [T]he Changing the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace has been =ancelled on Wednesday to redeploy police officers."

​"The man who carried out a suicide attack in Manchest=r was "likely" to have not acted alone ... Police arrested three men =n south Manchester" today.

6. Trump's stiff budget cuts worry some in GOP

The White House budget released yesterday appears to ha=e double-counted more than $2 trillion in estimated tax revenue, Axios= Dan Primack writes.

Why it matters: That =eans the budget would not balance over 10-years (as promised), even if the=U.S. economy were to hit sustained 3% growth (as projected by the White Ho=se, but by very few others).

The problem: Trump's budget anticipates around $2.06 trillion in extra federal rev=nue over the next decade, based on the aforementioned increase in economic=growth. That new money then would be used to offset Trump's proposed tax c=ts, as the administration previously said that the tax cuts would be reven=e-neutral. Unfortunately, that same $2 trillion also is earmarked for clos=ng budget gap.

The response: Trump budget directo= Mick Mulvaney was asked about the double-count during a press briefing. F=rst he blamed the Obama administration for its own faulty economic project=ons — former Obama Treasury Secretary Larry Summers had just raised the double count on the WashPos='s Wonkblog.

Mulvaney: "We did [the double count]=on purpose... I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and s=y there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our a=counting. We stand by the numbers."

P.S. Hill=ry Clinton, honored in New York =y the Children's Health Fund, said the budget "shows an unimaginable level=of cruelty and lack of imagination and disdain for the struggles of millio=s of Americans, including millions of children. ... None of us can remain =ilent in the face of these attacks."

7. Google now knows when you buy stuff

On the WashPost front page, "Google data mine digs into credit-card privacy: Renewed pr=vacy issue over Google ad program," by Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Tim=erg:

"Google has begun using billions of cred=t-card transaction records to prove that its online ads are prompting peop=e to make purchases — even when they happen offline in brick-and-m=rtar stores."

"The advance allows Go=gle to determine how many sales have been generated by digital ad campaign=, a goal that industry insiders have long described as 'the holy grail' of=online advertising."

"Google already analyzes=users' Web browsing, search history and geographic locations, usi=g data from popular Google-owned apps like YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and=the Google Play store. All that information is tied to the real identities=of users when they log into Google's services."

Why it mat=ers: "Google is yet again treading in territory that consumers ma= consider too intimate and potentially sensitive."

Big read on Wall Street Journal front pag=, "Google vs. Uber: How One Engineer Sp=rked a War — Anthony Levandowski started outside tech companies wh=le working for Google, which alleges he took driverless-car secrets to a c=mpetitor."

8. Entertainment business is lucrative

"The typical CEO at the biggest U.S. companies got an 8=5% raise last year, raking in $11.5 million in salary, stock and other com=ensation last year, acc=rding to a study by executive data firm Equilar for The Associated Pre=s. That's the biggest raise in three years."

"The bump=reflects how well stocks have done under these CEOs' watch. Board= of directors increasingly require that CEOs push their stock price higher=to collect their maximum possible payout, and the Standard & Poor's 50= index returned 12% last year."

"Female CEOs once=again saw bigger pay raises last year than their male counterparts, but th=y continue to account for only a small percentage of the overall ranks."

Here are the 10 highest-paid CEOs for 2016, as =alculated by AP and Eqular, with change from last year:

Charter Communications, $98 million, Up 499%
Les Moonves, CBS Corp., $68.6 million, Up 2=%

Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co., $41 million, Down 6%=/li>
David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, $37.2 mil=ion, Up 15%

Robert Kotick, Activision Blizzard In=., $33.1 million, Up 358%

Brian Roberts, Comcast =orp., $33 million, Down 9%

Jeff Bewkes, Time Warn=r Inc., $32.6 million, Up 3%

Ginni Rometty, IBM, =32.3 million, Up 63%

Leonard Schleifer, Regeneron=Pharmaceuticals, $28.3 million, Down 40%

Stev= Wynn, Wynn Resorts, $28.2 million, Up 36%

9. To watch tonight

PBS "Frontline" just posted "Bannon's War": "The inside story of Trump adviser St=phen Bannon's war — with radical Islam, Washington and White House=rivals."

10. 1 fun thing

Prime=times to Netflix and chill: "[G]lobal Netflix<=a> data released exclusively to USA Today shows that ... [v]iewers are mor= likely ... to watch comedy in the morning, and ... documentaries between =idnight and 6 a.m. than at other times. The habits change around the world=— in Spain and Portugal, for example, horror viewing is up between=2 and 4 p.m., but in the U.S., the genre peaks around 9 p.m."

Bonus: "Trump bits helped make SNL's=ratings great again," per the cover of WashPost Style section: "On Sat=rday, SNL concluded its most-watched season in 23 years."

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