Subject: Playbook Power Briefing, presented by the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): TRUMP attacks Mika, faces widespread blowback -- Senate Republicans move closer to a deal on health care -- DANIEL’S Aspen Ideas Festival dispatch
From: "Anna Palmer Jake Sherman Daniel Lippman" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2017 11:12:36 -0600
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Today's Playbook Power Briefing presented by the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD) 
            
By JAKE SHERMAN ([email-masked]; @JakeSherman), ANNA PALMER ([email-masked]; @apalmerdc), DANIEL LIPPMAN ([email-masked]; @dlippman), ZACH MONTELLARO ([email-masked]; @ZachMontellaro)

        
MAGGIE HABERMAN SCOOP -- "Pence to Replace His Chief of Staff": "Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff will depart the White House in the coming weeks and will be replaced by a long-serving aide, in the first major staff change of his office, officials said on Thursday. Mr. Pence's chief of staff, Josh Pitcock, will be replaced by Nick Ayers, a veteran political operative from Georgia who has been working with the vice president for three years. Mr. Ayers was the chief political strategist for Mr. Pence, then the governor of Indiana, when President Trump chose the governor as his running mate." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf5f701ae120b44fe81845cd9354134618a936f84d21203ce4ef9493d3bf764341170dbbc5d67d5431b14c2ed78b208ef9 

Good Thursday afternoon. BREAKING NEWS ALERT FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: "President Trump assailed the TV host Mika Brzezinski in vulgar terms, saying he saw her 'bleeding badly from a face-lift.'"

-- THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES at 8:52 a.m.: "I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.." ... at 8:58 a.m.: "...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

-- NYT STORY, by Mike Grynbaum: "The graphic nature of the president's suggestion that Ms. Brzezinski had undergone plastic surgery was met with immediate criticism on social media. A spokesman for NBC News, Mark Kornblau, wrote on Twitter: 'Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, 'It is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.'

"In a statement on Thursday morning, MSNBC said: 'It's a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabfb00c12b293657c009613e733dd6b847bc6c967eab514d491918200b420f9054036b23fed0f35d03cf9eb6b1ed5f998f7 

REMEMBER ... WHEN STEVE SCALISE WAS SHOT, the president said he thought it was a moment that brought the country together. Capitol Hill was essentially unified in its desire to tone down the rhetoric. Now the president has remarked on Mika Brzezinski's looks because he didn't like something said on "Morning Joe." This is a significant uptick in the rhetoric, to say the least. LET'S BE CLEAR: We spend all day around elected officials and none of them say anything approaching this. On, or off the record.

BY THE WAY ... We know there isn't really a strategy behind this, but Trump's presumed goal is getting bills passed. We know we sound like a broken record here, but how many lawmakers -- men or women -- are going to want to side with a president who says stuff like this? Broadly speaking, Republicans were feeling confident. They just won a few special elections despite Trump's low approval ratings. The reaction here in the Capitol today: Ugh, not again.

WHERE ARE JARED AND IVANKA right now?

-- SPEAKER PAUL RYAN criticized the comment, saying "Obviously, I don't see that as an appropriate comment. What we're trying to do around here is improve the tone and civility of the debate and this obviously doesn't help do that."

-- @BenSasse: "Please just stop. This isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office."

-- @LindseyGrahamSC: "Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America."

-- @SenatorCollins: "This has to stop - we all have a job - 3 branches of gov't and media. We don't have to get along, but we must show respect and civility."

-- @jaketapper: "This reminds me: how is @FLOTUS's campaign against cyber-bullying going?" 

-- @ChrisCuomo: "We are competitors, but Joe and Mika deserve respect. Mister President this attack is beneath the dignity of your office."

-- @DavidWright_CNN: "Spox for @FLOTUS: 'As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.'"

-- RETIRING GOP REP. LYNN JENKINS (@RepLynnJenkins): "This is not okay. As a female in politics I am often criticized for my looks. We should be working to empower women."

-- SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS on Fox News: "People on that show have personally attacked me many times. This is a president who fights fire with fire and certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by liberal media and the liberal elites within the media or Hollywood or anywhere else."

THERE WILL BE AN ON-CAMERA BRIEFING today at 2 p.m. with Sanders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and National Economic Director Gary Cohn will give an off-camera briefing at 1:15 p.m.

GOP CLOSING IN ON A DEAL -- "Senate Republicans close to scrapping some tax cuts in Obamacare repeal," by Burgess Everett: "Senate Republicans are engaged in a furious round of deal-making to save their health care bill before skipping town Thursday afternoon, including a potential agreement to scrap some of their Obamacare repeal bill's tax cuts. As he entered the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday morning, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the party is leaning toward maintaining Obamacare's tax on wealthy individuals' investments. 

"The GOP would then reallocate that money to assisting low-income peoples' insurance premiums. No final decision has been made, Republicans said, but the party is leaning strongly toward reshaping the bill to be less of a tax cut for the wealthy and more to supplying health insurance options to the working poor." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf54e6e0fed4197891db833669b9f1db5a187bbf4ff16c404f4dfecb1a8170f9ec107d66cb47a76741857c568445e09429

POWER LUNCH SPOTTED: Dina Powell with U.N. Secretary-General Ant&oacute;nio Guterres and his senior adviser David Vennett eating lunch at the Hay Adams yesterday. Evan Ryan and Natalia Brzezinski were at a separate table. ... 

-- Robert Murray of Murray Energy at the White House yesterday (he was the recent subject of a brutal Jon Oliver bit http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf2a5268d12699c984d254d1c594aa8946713677739bd53137f07f233d7341947e3feb853dc792e298fa748975090b5f9c 

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): A new study projects pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will save Medicare Part D $896 billion over ten years. PBMs drive savings for taxpayers and seniors by negotiating discounts from drug manufacturers; by encouraging the use of lower cost, clinically equivalent drugs; and by providing clinical programs that improve health outcomes. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

TIM ALBERTA'S LATEST in POLITICO MAG -- "The Governor of America": "Her official duties notwithstanding, [Iowa Gov. Kim] Reynolds has experienced perhaps the biggest perk for any Iowa elected official: the conspicuous amount of attention paid by ambitious national Republicans. 'Oh, it's unbelievable,' Reynolds says in an interview inside the Iowa Events Center, which is hosting a daylong education and workforce development summit. She had grown accustomed to the face-time with presidential aspirants-'I've flipped pork chops with most of them,' Reynolds tells me of the 2016 field, 'and my lieutenant governor colleagues were always so jealous'-but this is different. When I ask about her
 sudden popularity, and whether she's been fielding an unusual number of phone calls, Reynolds lets out a knowing laugh. 'Oh yeah,' she says. 'From all of the above. They're all my friends.' But before the next class of Republican contenders can line up to kiss the ring-as they did for Branstad three of the past four decades-Reynolds must secure the throne." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf5498f3271d90f9cae3fca805c973456a93ac3113513831268fe737788b9d79322929ab964dcf438b0e5e5c54cceda6c3 

THE PRESIDENT ALSO SAID THIS at 8:27 a.m.: "New Sugar deal negotiated with Mexico is a very good one for both Mexico and the U.S. Had no deal for many years which hurt U.S. badly." 

DOJ WATCH -- "Sessions vows assault on hate crimes," by Josh Gerstein: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions is vowing to aggressively enforce federal hate crime laws, countering concerns among civil rights groups and some of his former Senate colleagues that he might put such prosecutions on the back burner. 'I know the responsibility that we have and we have a responsibility to protect people's freedom, their religious rights, their integrity, their ability to express themselves, to push back against violence and hate crimes that occur in our country,' Sessions told federal prosecutors gathered for a Justice Department hate crimes summit in Washington on Thursday. 

"'So, we're going to do that, I will assure you, in every way.' In his remarks, Sessions went out of his way to vow vigilant pursuit of violence against transgender victims. 'We have and will continue to enforce hate crime laws aggressively and appropriately where transgendered individuals are victims,' the attorney general said." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf6cb31b645101fc33bf386418fbefc28dd8ecbbaeb3874cfd8d532e0cc49f75f86a7dc150d48917cc9e6dfe7c89c180d2

THE LATEST ON RUSSIA INVESTIGATIONS -- "House Russia probe eyes longtime Trump bodyguard-turned-White House aide Keith Schiller," by ABC News' Cecilia Vega and Benjamin Siegel: "Schiller, the former head of security for the Trump Organization who now serves as the White House director of Oval Office operations, is one of several Trump associates on the House Intelligence Committee's witness list in its ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. ... It's the latest indication that the investigations are touching Trump's inner circle. In late July, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone is expected to appear before congressional investigators for a closed-door interview. The
 growing list of other Trump associates the committee has said they want to meet includes former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf0b2880b18f019a51afa7fef33913c89c46f0afa423dd79a2af3d30b14d11f97c68258ac82d7568cda8c68a29d4eeb3aa 

PIC DU JOUR -- @jasoninthehouse: "Bye Bye" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabfa3c3f18634bded0899df5b6f4008fb3b5ceea9a1385876111f74f9a64a77714023eee30bb4a086989161a40b4403619d 

POSTCARD FROM DANIEL AT THE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL -- Atlantic editor JEFFREY GOLDBERG on a panel yesterday moderated by Katie Couric about the media as part of the "Afternoon of Conversation": "Right now we're all benefiting [from Trump]. ... The problem is and this is what I worry about more than anything else is that there are people in the country who don't understand that this is a cynical reality TV game and are going to hear over and over again from the president that the reporters, journalists are enemies of the state. And someone, God forbid, is going to do something violent against journalists in a large way and then I know where the fault lies and we're heading in this direction
 and it's quite frightening." Video http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf364cd24ca0cb74cd80dd7b331f09d946860274239bafb2bdbda7871ba78d3e91c661d5e2c4a906bb583144bd4baea166 

-- GE CEO JEFF IMMELT in conversation with Walter Isaacson -- why G.E. moved to Boston: "We were in Connecticut for 40 years. We were a New York City company when Edison founded it. We moved to Connecticut because the CEO lived there and got tired of commuting into New York and the taxes were zero back in the day. ... I'm rarely in the office but when I was in the office in Connecticut, and I would look out my window, I would see nothing. I would see a deer running across the field. ... When I look out my window in Boston, I see a dozen startups and Fidelity, one of our biggest owners. You just get a different vibe. ... Particularly when you're an old company, you really need to get
 something new in your brain every day or else you just run the risk of becoming obsolete." FROM JAKE: Rough words about my home state!!! Video http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf8ec836092400edc5a5bfa7d1829b63e3dbc3d29e14373ccfc7a203823df6a52b68f6acbcff7acd6d66cff1de676307c1 

-- SAMANTHA POWER interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on "the Education of an Idealist." Something not many people know about her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.: "I was in a band at the UN called UN rocks and the Korean ambassador was the drummer. The Togolese ambassador played the keyboard. And the Thai, the Serb and the Papua New Guinean also played guitars and the Danish ambassador played electric guitar and bass. And I was the lead singer. ... But in doing that, by being prepared to be vulnerable and occasionally humiliating myself, I think when you show up and want help on, say, LGBT rights ... you had countries that wanted to do what we wanted."

-- Her friendship with the late Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin: "It is surprising to people that given the clashes I had with the Russian Ambassador that were not only very heated, not only very visible, not only very venomous at times, but they were completely heartfelt. ... So it is surprising to people that not only was he my closest colleague, but my closest friend as ambassador to the U.N. He's the only ambassador I brought to my parents' home for Thanksgiving ... He had a depth of character that I was able to see notwithstanding the fact that he was Vladimir Putin's representative at the United Nations. ... What made it possible is after so many of our heated Security
 Council clashes, sometimes I would have to cool off, being Irish for a day or two, but I would reach out to him and we would together try to get named Syrian political prisoners out of Assad's jails." Video http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabf4794c8d0aeac18f4fe10c746ee0a3024e43cf172e3002c22945d4769add8d39bd33c5026c4b29ed92b4684d5248f34b1 

-- CHRIS MATTHEWS' riff on Carter Page during his conversation with SNL's Michael Che and SNL "Weekend Update" co-anchor Colin Jost: "Who is he and did he play any part in this thing? Probably not but he loves it. ... He's the only guy that calls us up and says can I come on to talk about a scandal that he's in!"

THE BEST JOKES FROM ASPEN IDEAS COMEDY NIGHT -- Jeffrey Goldberg returned this year as MC for the annual celebrity stand-up routines last night at a packed Belly Up in downtown Aspen. Among the performers this year: Goldberg himself, John Dickerson, Kurt Andersen, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and wife Robin, Katie Couric, Jon Lovett, Caitlin Flanagan, and Pete Dominick. SPOTTED in the audience: Barbra Streisand, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Michael Eisner and Steve Case. Pics from Leigh Vogel for The Aspen Institute http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabfc91998f6fa674942c92e194a641040d00ac413e17f84a93dd22ad00fb8dc3bd28d35012a2f7dbc5f2abff07c8f58da36 

-- JEFF GOLDBERG: "A couple of exciting things have happened here in the last few days. I don't know if you were all here, but on Monday morning there was a car found in the pond near the Doerr-Hosier facility. I was up early and walking around. I assumed it was an art installation, Jeff Koons' commentary on democracy in America or something. But it turns out that it's a sad story. Someone drove into the pond, and I've told Madeleine Albright a thousand times: don't mix Percocet and tequila. She's okay. She's alright."

-- JOHN DICKERSON: "In the spirit of Aspen and collaborative work for sustainable development my kids are here tonight. So we can do one of two things. You can laugh at the things I say or you can pass the plate, we can gather a collection for their future therapy bills because they saw their father get destroyed on stage. ... If you go to the wrong panels here, it can get very gloomy. The sea level's going to rise, someone is going to delete your genes and you've been using the word disruption wrong for the last five years, it's enough to make you hide under that sustainably-knit throw in your bag."

-- KURT ANDERSEN, who told the crowd he's writing a book with Alec Baldwin about Trump: "Last week we spent several days shooting him as Donald Trump for instance riding a golf cart through a hall that looks exactly like the second floor of the White House. We've got an Oval Office shipped in from Atlanta. That's where you go to get Oval Offices it turns out. And we put it together in a studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. ... We spent a couple days with Alec playing with guns and women who look like Melania and Ivanka and we had a lot of fun."

WAR REPORT -- "Iraq declares end of caliphate after capture of historic Mosul mosque," by Reuters' Maher Chmaytelli: "After eight months of grinding urban warfare, Iraqi government troops on Thursday captured the ruined mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said. Iraqi authorities expect the long battle for Mosul to end in the coming days as the remaining Islamic State fighters are now bottled up in just a handful of neighborhoods of the Old City.

"The seizure of the 850-year-old Grand al-Nuri Mosque is a huge symbolic victory for the Iraqi forces fighting to recapture Mosul, which had served as Islamic State's de facto capital in Iraq. ... The insurgents blew up the medieval mosque and its famed leaning minaret a week ago as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces started a push in its direction. Their black flag had been flying from al-Hadba (The Hunchback) minaret since June 2014." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabfaa19fc56e199213d9edf7fb84b6b814c680806d62841966fa06d97060d10c60873e7d5da50a0ab5e8fe4a3d98b797166 

TRAVEL BAN DETAILS -- "Stepsister, Yes; Grandma, No: U.S. Sets Guidelines for Revised Travel Ban," by NYT's Gardiner Harris and Ron Nixon: "Stepsiblings and half-siblings are allowed, but not nieces or nephews. Sons- and daughters-in-law are in, but brothers- and sisters-in-law are not. Parents, including in-laws, are considered "close family," but grandparents are not. The State Department issued new guidelines Wednesday night to American embassies and consulates on applying a limited travel ban against foreign visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries. Enforcement of the guidelines will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. ...

"The new guidelines make clear that someone who has accepted a job offer from a company in the United States or an invitation to deliver a lecture at an American university may enter, but that a nonprofit group may not seek out citizens of the affected countries and count them as clients for the purpose of getting around the ban. 'Also, a hotel reservation, whether or not paid, would not constitute a bona fide relationship with an entity in the United States,' the guidelines note." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=00fa036f7502fabfbcfd67edaa086ad27543fa522ec4b1c7afde130f1145fa08797dc1d27763c2c08d700fbf2838cff75debd2c295c6ef0c 

TRANSITION -- Lauren Ehrsam is now a spokeswoman at the Department of Justice. She was previously director of credentialing for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and is an alumna of Carly Fiorina's campaign, the DCI group and Javelin. She started on Monday. (h/t Hadas Gold)

OUT AND ABOUT -- Belgian Embassy held a Stella Artois' Buy A Lady A Drink event last night in support of Water.org. SPOTTED: Belgian Ambassador Johan Verbeke, Lacey Clifford, Carolyn Zwiener, Ben Butler, Chris Ternet, Stefanie Webb, Gary Tappana, Julie LaGuardia, Neal Katcef, Patrick Rees, Catie Horst; and Reginald McGahee.

CORRECTION -- An item in this morning's Playbook about Sergio Gor's freelance PR for Eric Bolling's new book misstated the title. It is: "The Swamp: Washington's Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It."

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): A new study estimates that Medicare Part D costs would be 58 percent higher without pharmacy benefit managers' (PBMs') clinical tools and price negotiations with drug manufacturers and pharmacies. The study shows PBMs significantly lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries. In fact, PBMs are projected to save Medicare Part D $896 billion over the next decade. Thanks to PBMs, Medicare Part D continues to drive savings and value for taxpayers and beneficiaries, ensuring that more than 39 million American seniors can access the prescription drugs they need. Learn more at
 affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

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