Subject: POLITICO Playbook, presented by Postmates: TRUMP on Russian meddling: It was Russia, and others, but nobody really knows for sure – EXCERPTS from Trump's big Europe speech -- TRUMP aides building little ‘empires in the West Wing’ – B’DAY: George W. Bush
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Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2017 04:45:46 -0600
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Today's POLITICO Playbook presented by Postmates 
    
07/06/2017 06:42 AM EDT
        
By ANNA PALMER ([email-masked]; @apalmerdc), JAKE SHERMAN ([email-masked]; @JakeSherman) and DANIEL LIPPMAN ([email-masked]; @dlippman)
        
Listen to the Playbook Audio Briefing | Subscribe on iTunes | Visit the online home of Playbook
                  Driving the Day         
BREAKING LATE LAST NIGHT -- STATEMENT FROM REP. STEVE SCALISE'S (R-LA.) OFFICE: "Congressman Steve Scalise has been readmitted to the Intensive Care Unit at MedStar Washington Hospital Center due to new concerns for infection. His condition is listed as serious. We will provide another update tomorrow, July 6."

Good Thursday morning. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IS IN POLAND ... WHAT HE SAID AT HIS NEWS CONFERENCE WITH ANDRZEJ DUDA -- TRUMP said Polish Americans came "out in droves" in the 2016 election and he noted he was "very happy" with the result ... He said the U.S. was working with Poland to counter Russia's "destabilizing behavior" in the region ... Trump vowed to confront North Korea "very strongly" and said "there are consequences for their very, very bad behavior."

TRUMP CALLED ON The Daily Mail's David Martosko and NBC's Hallie Jackson at his press conference. 

-- ON CNN: "I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them. ... They have been fake news for a long time ... They have been covering me in a very dishonest way ... NBC is equally as bad despite the fact that I made them a fortunate with 'The Apprentice,' but they forgot that."

-- ON NORTH KOREA: "We'll see what happens. ... I have some pretty severe things that we are thinking about." 

-- ON RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 ELECTIONS: "I think it was Russia, and I think it could've been other people. ... I agree, I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people or countries ... Nobody really knows for sure." 

TRUMP likened his uncertainty about who meddled in the election to the false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

Other items: Trump said the U.S. would "continue to work with Poland" militarily to counter Russia's influence in the region, but the two presidents did not discuss guarantees. There are up to 5,000 U.S. troops in Poland, Trump said. 

STANDING WITH the presidents of Poland and Croatia, Trump said: "This is a beautiful room, I must say. I love beautiful rooms," according to print pooler Abby Phillip of the Washington Post. 

-- AND ... TRUMP SPOKE ABOUT THE U.S. ECONOMY: "We picked up in market value almost $4 trillion dollars ... Personally, I've picked up nothing. Everybody else is getting very rich. That's ok."

NOTE -- @GlennThrush: ".@realDonaldTrump slams fake news, then stands by as Duda describes why he's restricting Polish media outlets from covering parliament."

THE PRESIDENT is speaking at Krasinski Square around 7:15 a.m. D.C. time. He'll then leave for Hamburg for the G20 Summit. He meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at noon. At 1:30 p.m., Trump will attend the Northeast Asia Security Dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Japanese President Shinzo Abe. 

SPOTTED ON THE TRIP: U.S. Ambassador to Poland Paul Jones, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Jared Kushner, national security adviser HR McMaster, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Dina Powell, Sean Spicer, Dan Scavino, Hope Hicks, Rob Porter, Wendy Teramoto, Eli Miller and Stephen Miller, per the pool.

-- @juliehdavis: "Spotted at Trump's Krasinski Square speech in Warsaw: fmr WH national security advisers Gen. Jim Jones (Obama) & Steve Hadley (Bush 43)"

-- WHAT TRUMP WILL SAY IN HIS BIG SPEECH ... Excerpts, per the pool: "The triumph of the Polish spirit over centuries of hardship gives us all hope for a future in which good conquers evil, and peace achieves victory over war. ... I am here today not just to visit an old ally, but to hold it up as an example for others who seek freedom and who wish to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization ... We must stand united against these shared enemies to strip them of their territory, their funding, their networks, and any form of ideological support. While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism
 and extremism. ...

"Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles. The steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies. Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to counter forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of
 culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. ...

"The people have been that foundation here in Poland -- they were right here in Warsaw -- and they were the foundation from the very beginning in America. ... Because as the Polish experience reminds us -- the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail. The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. ... Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield -- it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls."

THE STAKES -- NYT A1, "Talks With Putin Pose Main Risks Of Trump's Trip," by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Glenn Thrush (online headline: "Trump Aides' Biggest Worry About Europe Trip: Meeting With Putin"): "Even his top aides do not know precisely what Mr. Trump will decide to say or do when he and Mr. Putin meet face to face on Friday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit gathering in Hamburg, Germany. And that is what most worries those advisers as well as officials across his administration as Mr. Trump begins his second foreign trip as president, stopping first in Warsaw to give an address on Thursday and then heading to Hamburg. 

"The highly anticipated conversation with Mr. Putin is in many ways a necessity, given the critical disputes separating the United States and Russia. But it also poses risks for Mr. Trump, who faces a web of investigations into his campaign's possible links to Russia, as well as questions about his willingness to take on Moscow for its military aggression and election meddling on his behalf. The air of uncertainty about the meeting is only heightened by the president's propensity for unpredictable utterances and awkward optics." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b91fd2de57069e5f02b2a8388215a21cacd0eb831b3d0759c93dc04da11c794d463c49a3f3f80722e235891aefb6bd8c94 

OTHER MEETING TO WATCH: Trump is slated to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping just as he has ratcheted up his rhetoric over North Korea.

--"The Flashpoints for World Leaders at the Hamburg G-20," by Bloomberg's Alan Crawford and Sam Dodge: "Sparks could really ﬂy over the policy agenda of free trade, climate change and migration put forward by the German host."  http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b968018c4ea30a2e7c59429c7409c96e4ff5488395f44482045e67e7d68fa09c9d1021f96b6ff9d9079edbd200a622f1a0

HAPPENING TONIGHT -- Leaders from Canada, Argentina, Norway and Belgium are gathering with Coldplay, Shakira, Pharrell Williams and Ellie Goulding for the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg ahead of the G20. Their aim is to raise commitments of up to $661 million from governments to support global health, gender equality and education. Trump was not invited. A source in the organization organizing the festival told us they do not believe he has made a meaningful commitment to the world's poor. Livestream at 1 p.m. Eastern  http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b95a41a1aed005194ef8c85680614d9e9a82f5826904c0d823d7552291a1525e629c74517143d3fe9424cc8ea783e1fc8b

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FOR YOUR RADAR -- "S. Korea fires missiles in drills amid standoff with North," by AP's Hyung-Jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea: "South Korean jets and navy ships fired a barrage of guided-missiles into the ocean during drills Thursday, a display of military power two days after North Korea test-launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile. ... The live-fire drills off South Korea's east coast were previously scheduled. In a show of force, South Korea and the United States also staged 'deep strike' precision missile firing drills on Wednesday as a warning to the North." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9fe4df5f4c834979b4f9e500cacfc1b0cf0b802a44724bf2e1fca0c2808fd5a60fea16e5163482e68fe352533101a60e7

-- "U.S. missile shield not yet ready for North Korean nukes: The Pentagon and its contractors still haven't figured out how to reliably shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile like the one recently tested by North Korea," by Jacqueline Klimas and Connor O'Brien: "Tens of billions of dollars spent over three decades have still left the Pentagon with no reliable way to shoot down nuclear-tipped missiles approaching the U.S. homeland - a vulnerability that has taken on sharp new urgency after North Korea's Independence Day test of its first ICBM. Instead, the missile defense system designed to shield the United States from an intercontinental ballistic missile - a diverse network of
 sensors, radars, and interceptor missiles based in Alaska and California - has failed three of its five tests, military leaders acknowledge.

"Even the two successful ones were heavily scripted. 'If the North Koreans fired everything they had at us, and we fired at all of the missiles, we'd probably get most of them,' said Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. 'But is 'probably get most' a good day or a bad day?'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b937898dbed3c6d926415668a1b6b96b02c1f7f88f3a36ee2eb31687b09a8c2acd40043bd85d25830f286b30d228e3c4e6 

-- "U.S. diplomat blasts China and Russia for 'holding the hands' of North Korean leader," by WaPo's David Nakamura and Emily Rauhala: "The top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations blasted Russia and China on Wednesday for 'holding the hands' of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as the Trump administration struggled to respond to Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile test. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley chided Moscow and Beijing over their opposition to a Security Council resolution condemning North Korea and imposing greater economic sanctions for what she called its 'sharp military escalation.'"  http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9b86e8ec2a3a016f8f3679544de666d487cd7c56fbaf09d7aa49b7a6fceca57976931d177f5499a6ac16dc1d9a6fe4408

TARA PALMERI -- FIEFDOM ALERT -- "Trump's aides build their own empires in the West Wing": "President Donald Trump won office on promises to shake up how Washington works, and so far that's been most apparent in his own West Wing, where his top advisers have built up personal staffs to support their own agendas instead of using a traditional White House policy and messaging operation. ... 

"Chief strategist Steve Bannon has two special assistants, a deputy assistant, an executive assistant and a body man working in his 'war room' -- plus his external press hand, something his predecessors under President Barack Obama, David Axelrod and David Plouffe, never had while working in the White House. Senior adviser Jared Kushner has seven staffers below him, including his own communications adviser, a former Hollywood PR exec who previously repped Kushner's real estate work. ...

"Senior counselor Kellyanne Conway ... has a chief of staff, Renee Hudson, who manages one person below her ... Ivanka Trump also has a chief of staff, Julie Radford, who holds the title of special assistant to the president and only manages a single person below her. ... Most noticeable is the proliferation of spokespeople operating parallel to the White House press office. That includes spokesman Josh Raffel, a commissioned officer with a senior title and salary who handles White House-related queries concerning Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's initiatives. He's also worked to promote initiatives from the Office of American Innovation like a tech CEO event in addition to Kushner's work on
 Israel and Ivanka Trump's paid leave initiatives. Raffel previously represented Kushner Companies when he worked at Hiltzik Strategies, a New York firm." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b988a9ce09c1ae63fb5555d14fef4329ea2a3ceb2b6513642a27f1e77b20ca5bd4e5d7847a5c9da38d5c985b443267cb71 

MITCH MCCONNELL'S LATEST HEADACHE -- "Right threatens McConnell's Obamacare repeal," by Burgess Everett: "Conservative groups are aggressively backing Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in their bid to move the Senate Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill further to the right, setting up a major confrontation between the party's warring factions next week. 

"On Wednesday afternoon both FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to adopt an amendment from Sens. Cruz of Texas and Lee of Utah that would largely gut Obamacare's regulatory regime. The move is significant: Without at least a neutral stance from conservative groups, it could be impossible for McConnell to find the 50 votes needed to pass a repeal this month. But what the right is asking for may not be able to pass the Senate either.

"Cruz and Lee's Consumer Freedom Act would allow the sale of non-compliant healthcare plans as long as insurers offered plans that also covered pre-existing conditions and other terms mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Lee and Cruz, who were part of the Senate's health care working group, have been pushing their colleagues privately to adopt the language, arguing they should at least allow consumers to buy cheap plans if they can't repeal the law entirely." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b922809e2f01dcdbf591b309b149285fdf847b3b897df8f7fd48000b35a9dd54758c41fdb5f84a0ae52af46aef2020e5f5

-- "GOP Scrambles to Recruit Senate Candidates," by WSJ's Natalie Andrews: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b97c82d29767217c50d454bb98814eade421fe3d88e8912072668b34e0565abc879f6f31ab757cb1791e47d5b9d75f52ce

THE OPPOSITION -- "Dems' new pitch to voters: A 'Better Deal'," by Elana Schor and Heather Caygle: "Democratic leaders are zeroing in on a new mantra for their long-promised economic agenda: the 'Better Deal.' The re-branding attempt comes as Democrats acknowledge that simply running against President Donald Trump wasn't a winning strategy in 2016 and probably won't work in 2018 either. The slogan, which is still being polled in battleground House districts, aims to convince voters that Democrats have more to offer than the GOP and the self-proclaimed deal-maker in the White House. But even as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi prepare a jobs package
 centered on infrastructure, trade and the minimum wage, some of their most vulnerable members are already making other plans.

"Several moderate Democrats facing reelection next year told POLITICO that no matter what leadership does, they're preparing to craft their own pitch to voters. The ideological and political divides that gripped the party during the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders primary wars are far from healed, and leadership may not find universal support for the left-leaning platform, particularly from those trying to defend seats in Trump-friendly states." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9c32b689b4ea276717e103d906ed4ce27a307ecf7a1349522e32c97ace83c92696cdae4b911992e4831562c74999b46cf

IN FOGGY BOTTOM -- "Tillerson's new deputy quietly wins over State Department staffers," by Nahal Toosi: "John Sullivan, the new deputy secretary of state, is quickly winning over State Department employees by taking otherwise ordinary steps in what seem like extraordinary times. The 57-year-old has repeatedly stated his admiration for the foreign service, even as President Donald Trump has proposed gutting it. He talks to career officers - and says he wants to meet all of them, even as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson grows increasingly isolated from his staff. Sullivan has also pushed the boundaries of the Trump administration's ethos by reaching out to Democrats as well as Republicans to
 help him prepare for his new job. ...

"On Wednesday, Tillerson announced that Sullivan would oversee a steering team focused on ways to restructure the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the most contentious issue facing the agency as Trump pushes to shrink its budget and 75,000-person workforce. Although he's been a Supreme Court law clerk, held a top legal position at the Pentagon, and served as the deputy secretary of commerce, Sullivan had no direct State Department experience when nominated to be deputy to Tillerson, who is widely viewed within his department as isolated from and dismissive of career staff." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b965d0a3b6bf08d1a1daae7399322a5f227f9f8b368b118f41bddf9438737bfa9364617d135f6f9c286233589faf6aa969

-- "Tillerson urges Russia to cooperate on Syria ahead of Trump-Putin meeting," by Nahal Toosi: "Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday called on Russia to do more to bring peace to Syria, and suggested that Moscow and Washington could cooperate on establishing no-fly zones in the war-torn Arab country. In the unusual statement, Tillerson also insisted that America's top priority in Syria remains defeating the Islamic State terrorist network and that the future of the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, who is engaged in a civil war with rebel factions, must be decided through a political settlement." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9e24131558f6f9d207c56a6c25a6c29d6ff2d5ad9e0a5b6e7b1cd637c8585f17a7fa176a0af7c7600b2abeb0dced68896

THE JUICE ... 

-- FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: SHANNON DIBARI, chief operating officer and executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is retiring at the end of the year after 38 years with the trade group. Statement from the Chamber: "Her generous advance notification gives us ample time to plan a smooth transition of her duties and appropriately celebrate her success."

-- PLAYBOOK SCOOP: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is releasing a report and sending a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions detailing what he believes are national security risks posed by leaks. The report from the majority staff says: "Under President Trump, leaks are flowing at the rate of one a day, an examination of open-source material by the majority staff of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs shows. Articles published by a range of national news organizations between January 20 and May 25, 2017 included at least 125 stories with leaked information potentially damaging to national security ... To
 ensure the security of our country's most sensitive information, federal law enforcement officials ought to thoroughly investigate leaks of potentially sensitive information flowing at an alarming rate." The report http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9539396ffffc6c7bdc1f821677d66f30d7fead29b407ae8a90486468eddaa5b2e9a77a1a1adea0832a844cfa7603e6faa 

FOR YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS -- BLUE BOTTLE COFFEE OPENING IN GEORGETOWN THIS WEEK! -- FRIENDS AND FAMILY FRIDAY, OPENING SUNDAY http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b900646e1d59df39ee604ee47a57f00057d20020aa5b0be0ae81d3a90621d72c520ab1fc7ec3d138d069de99eb62579841

          Playbook Reads         

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump shakes hands with Poland's President Andrzej Duda after arriving at the Royal Castle on July 6 in Warsaw. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

AN ADAPTATION from Josh Green's new book on Steve Bannon, which just posted on Bloomberg Businessweek's site at 6 a.m. -- "The Evolution of Donald Trump": "History could have been different. While Trump always displayed populist instincts, his opinions on national affairs tended to reflect the views of a New York Democrat, which was, after all, the world he inhabited. It's almost impossible to imagine now, but in the period just before he entered politics, Trump's appeal to blacks and Hispanics was powerful enough to make him the darling of corporate America. Although he was not a politician, Trump's multicultural appeal was an achievement that a sclerotic Republican Party was increasingly
 desperate to match. One reason this story has never been told is because Trump decided he'd be better served politically by destroying this legacy. He wasn't exactly wrong: His 'birther' attack on President Obama in 2011, when Trump was eyeing a 2012 run, marked a sharp pivot on race and then immigration that enabled his remarkable rise to the presidency." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9f36973f74dfe2a4b201ad0fc90b28efd4309241b6776e37e115f5c8b05ccf8f6ae5a4e8e6808a50170e6416f43c7cc37 ... $21.80 on Amazon http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b93872e2257c024129d74d562503be82eb9f593bae8010415cac2a7ce72675cbe3cf4a304b354e571bcfa4fb280d75e5ed 

BUZZY READ -- NYT BUSINESS DAY COVER -- "A Network vs. the President," by Mike Grynbaum (online headline: "The Network Against the Leader of the Free World): "Jeffrey A. Zucker hasn't been getting a lot of sleep lately. But he says that's nothing new. 'I don't sleep that much anyway,' Mr. Zucker, the president of CNN, said on Wednesday in his fifth-floor office, just off the network's glassy Midtown Manhattan newsroom. A television executive with a reputation for pugilism - a plaque above his desk reads 'Punch Today in the Face' -- Mr. Zucker, 52, has weathered decades of battles in his industry. But he and CNN are in the middle of their most intense bout yet: an unlikely public fight with
 the leader of the free world.

"It is rare that a single news organization attracts the level of ire mustered by President Trump, who over the weekend posted on Twitter a video that portrayed him wrestling a figure with the logo of CNN for a head. ... The onslaught has contributed to a foxhole-like mentality inside CNN's offices, where security measures have been tightened and some hosts have considered abandoning their social media accounts because of abuse. ...

"White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Mr. Trump's Justice Department will decide whether to approve the merger, and while analysts say there is little to stop the deal from moving forward, the president's animus toward CNN remains a wild card." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b90b486d56df7ac4d069ebe2b7a023297f65e795c66308fb917a99b243cbb68957109d7e9167ccf5c77ac69923e6a3ff52

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TRUMP INC. -- "Trump Organization renews rights to TrumpTowerMoscow.com," by Madeline Conway and Tyler Fisher: "The Trump Organization has renewed its claim on more than 1,000 of the web domains registered by its general counsel, including some politically sensitive websites such as TrumpRussia.com and TrumpTowerMoscow.com. The company, which President Donald Trump's two adult sons are managing while he serves in the White House but from which he has not divested, has reserved thousands of web domains associated with the Trump name and its various properties. POLITICO recently published a searchable database of hundreds of those URLs, based on publicly available internet directory records
 on the domain registration database website WhoIs.com." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9b47458be02829022efaa3bba1d19101384b1583250bf64a0d8c8087d278419587e724beab387a3af9d6236213d298d81

MEDIAWATCH - "An inside look at One America News, the insurgent TV network taking 'pro-Trump' to new heights," by WaPo's Marc Fisher: "One America News is an obscure TV channel struggling to emerge from the cellar of the cable ratings, but it is nonetheless one of President Trump's favorite media outlets. It's not hard to see why: On One America newscasts, the Trump administration is a juggernaut of progress, a shining success with a daily drumbeat of achievements. ... [S]ince its inception in 2013, and especially since Trump began his march to the White House, One America's owner, Robert Herring Sr., a millionaire who made his money printing circuit boards, has directed his channel to push
 Trump's candidacy, scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage anti-abortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president's troubles, according to more than a dozen current and former producers, writers and anchors, as well as internal emails from Herring and his top news executives." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b962e31b1befe8fae2151eacd30cc52b8478352b638ad023be00d9a806f87d57b752301d80444b384eaf1c4b16a69020b7 

--"The New York Times will fly you around the world for $135,000. Is that a problem?" by WaPo's Paul Farhi: "It's the trip of a lifetime - around the world in 26 days, with stops in nine countries. Just 50 people will travel on this guided tour next year via a private Boeing 757 to places like Marrakesh, Easter Island and Reykjavik, Iceland.

"The price: $135,000 per person. And that's not all. Those who make the journey will be accompanied on various legs by journalists from the New York Times. ... Among those scheduled to join the traveling party are Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller, op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. The super-luxe journey and other Times-sponsored travel packages are a lucrative source of income for the paper at a time when news organizations are under increasing financial pressure. The round-the-world trip ... could gross as much as $6.7 million." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9da26d05650d2e797badba033737a54892b7e67308210ed8c0490f0e5657daf5c4f03a54ce3977ea7da16a82248a237c1 ... See the trip http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b95038b0bcd62829a52066984891be9eee2209f535efac0b4b1576158d80b04ed10573768ee2a17a4ba2065ec54ca8d6a0

                  Playbookers         
SPOTTED: Former FBI director James Comey at National Airport assisting his daughter as she applied for TSA PreCheck ... Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix and Matthew Swift at dinner last night at Milos in NYC.

DAN BARTLETT, Jay Carney, and Geoff Morrell were all named to PR Week's U.S. Power List 2017: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9033ed0614730c759cab4840f811982915f5bcf5a772cff931b530ce58f57806d51773797653174488504d352147cc77c 

TRANSITIONS -- Ben Harris, former chief economist and economic adviser to Joe Biden, will be joining Results for America as chief economist and senior adviser starting this September. Abeba Taddese, formerly program director of Results for All, has been named executive director of the organization. ... The Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center has named Suzie Squier as its new executive director as the organization prepares to expands its information sharing capabilities. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9239b3e2a4f94c131220cd29018814366aa9bd741572257e680a85c6a33c4cd3d5760f5a31d653e5938f364327f9f22e0 

WEEKEND WEDDING - OBAMA ALUMNI: Jim Gilio, a former Obama White House spokesman now an attorney at Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern in Beverly Hills, got married in Santa Barbara to Ashley Lewis, the head of wellness at Goop.com, Gwyneth Paltrow's company. They met when "she was looking at my apartment 3 weeks before I moved to Chicago to work on Obama for America in 2008! After fits and starts in different cities (me in Chicago and DC, her in LA then Palo Alto for biz school), we finally settled down!" Pics http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9a1dea168c6536d55a8aa638d1edb58b56d14e47032ba1520c73539d39872d2db44e71db8515b00bf51e68c158ada901b ... http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b918ace97b99097fb3638a89310aee35cdb5d84e0e0d438c28688f08171a218460e71c790b1598e39abf1d7efeb09493ef 

ENGAGED -- NYT ALUMNI: Will Storey, research manager at NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers," proposed over the weekend to Isabella Moschen, MFA candidate at Brooklyn College in creative writing, working on her first novel. "Maureen Dowd and Frank Bruni set us up when we were working as the NYT as columnist assistants back in 2011. Will worked for Maureen in DC, and I worked for Frank and Gail Collins in New York. Will proposed last weekend at the site of our first date, on 31st and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, the most romantic corner in all of New York City." Engagement pic  http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9bebc41129efa45cf6ecfa3b8e962d459eb740f49bbdc238a91d848ad87c5be52798f50c750b259c7873cc5f116c13208 ... Pic by Lloyd Bishop http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b964ad657235d3b762284973e83bf78788aff824a403f7d0fcb26f3dc8c6df96fc1b56b9589ff60cd36e3953068d68c218 

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Ron Fournier, publisher and editor of Crain's Detroit Business, is 54. How he's celebrating: "After work, I'm taking my grandson to dinner and the park. He is a big reason why we moved back to Detroit." Read his Playbook Plus Q&A: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9573a64c150479c0e17c9e53387ec1edf4fa284810c05d33a298478c426c7ee3b65935a1a0ba95ae75c77cb8b73d90dfd 

BIRTHDAYS: President George W. Bush is 71 ... Apple's Nick Ammann (hat tip: Joel Johnson) ... John Dickerson is 49 (h/t Caitlin Conant, filing from Utah) ... Josh Elliott is 46 ... 50 Cent is 42 ... former first daughter Susan Ford Bales is 6-0 ... Christyn Lansing of the DHS comms shop ... Jill Zuckman, managing director at SKDKnickerbocker (h/t Hilary Rosen) ... CNN's Athena Jones ... Eleanor Clift ... Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at The Cook Political Report ... Richard Benedetto ... Anita Kumar, White House correspondent at McClatchy Newspapers ... Austin Lavin ... Kimberly Dozier, a Daily Beast and CNN contributor ... Chris Paulitz ... Mark Tomb ... Cloe Axelson ... Virginia state
 Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel ... Tyler Pager (h/t Annie Linskey) ...

... Zachary Karabell, Envestnet head of global strategies, is 5-0 ... Cynthia Keyser, chief of staff at NYC Department of Small Business Services (h/t Jon Haber) ... Charlie Sherwood ... ACLU's Gabriela Mel&eacute;ndez Olivera ... WashPost's Glenn Kessler ... Danny Sepulveda ... Henry Oliver ... Judah Ginsberg is 75 ... Sean Maroney ... Caitlin Helfrich ... Bryan Goettel ... Stephen Carter, senior comms. manager at Microsoft ... Petra Collins ... Thomas Mucha ... Kaylan Lehotsky Schreffler, who worked on the WH website during part of Bush 43 (h/t David Almacy) ... Hilary Bombard ... former Amb. Danny Sepulveda ... Patrick Hanley ... Randall K. Benjamin II ... Ken Opin ... Michelle Riesterer
 ... Jeff Gaumer (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) ... The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is 82 ... Sylvester Stallone is 71 (h/ts AP)

****** A message from Postmates: With its fleet of Postmates earning taxable incomes, the capital generated through the mobile application is being reinvested in the economy to do everything from pay down debt, to start a small business, or even enroll in college classes. As On Demand platforms shape the future of work, Postmates applauds legislation aimed at experimenting with portable benefits models, and calls for new federal and local skill-based investments to account for the impact of automation on the workforce. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=23d5d47b52e988b9c1b2e59df713f28919adfe0068d42d1d6d406a84a20b1687fcb04cb827490a94471cfbfd7669b4f0bc1942f20adce93c ******

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