Subject: POLITICO Playbook: Will the House be decided on Election Day?
From: "Anna Palmer Jake Sherman Daniel Lippman" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 04:32:19 -0600
List-Id: <1376319.xt.local>

Presented by Salesforce: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington                Oct 15, 2018 View in browser                   
 By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman 
             
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              DRIVING THE DAY      
BREAKING ... THE DUCHESS OF SUSSEX -- Meghan Markle -- is pregnant, and due in the spring, according to Kensington Palace. ... WSJ: Sears has filed for bankruptcy.

THE TRUMP DOCTRINE: SHOULDER SHRUG. Last night on "60 Minutes," Lesley Stahl asked PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP if Vladimir Putin "is involved in assassinations" and poisonings. Trump said, "Probably he is, yeah. Probably. ... But I rely on them, it's not in our country."

-- ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE, the president seems to essentially dismiss things that he believes to be out of his control, instead of altering U.S. policy to try to change behavior. He's been asked about canceling Saudi Arabia's weapons orders in the wake of the apparent killing of a journalist. He says he won't -- it will hurt jobs. Stahl said Kim Jong Un "presides over a cruel kingdom of repression, gulags, starvation ... slave labor, public executions. This is a guy you love?" Trump responded by saying, "I know all these things ... I get along with him, OK? ... Let it be whatever it is to get the job done."

KEEP AN EYE ON ... REPUBLICANS INCREASINGLY BELIEVE it is more likely than not that they are going to lose the House. But members of both parties are becoming more and more concerned that control of the House will not be decided for a few weeks after the election, as recounts in key states like California drag on. If that's the case, that could not only complicate plans for both parties to organize their internal leadership teams but also throw a wrench in legislative items like keeping the government open and funded.

-- IT'S NOT JUST THE HOUSE ANYMORE ... WAPO'S MICHAEL SCHERER and BOB COSTA in Erie, Pa., "In Trump country, Republican candidates this year fall flat": "A number of Republicans running for governor or senator in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, including several who hitched their wagon to Trump's political movement, are behind in polls by double digits, a remarkable turnabout in swing states that were key to the president's 2016 victory.

"If current polling averages hold, Democrats will maintain all their Senate seats in those states, pick up a handful of House seats and, in some cases, retake the governors' mansions. In nearby Iowa, a state Trump won by nearly 10 points, the Democratic candidate for governor was running about even with the Republican governor in a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. Polling this week found Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) trailing his Democratic opponent, Tony Evers." WaPo

-- AND THE BLAME GAME BEGINS ... AP'S STEVE PEOPLES: "GOP plays blame game while fighting to save House majority": "Republicans have begun to concede defeat in the evolving fight to preserve the House majority. The party's candidates may not go quietly, but from the Arizona mountains to suburban Denver to the cornfields of Iowa, the GOP's most powerful players this midterm season are actively shifting resources away from vulnerable Republican House candidates deemed too far gone and toward those thought to have a better chance of political survival. 

"And as they initiate a painful and strategic triage, the early Republican-on-Republican blame game has begun as well. GOP operatives connected to several vulnerable candidates complain that the committee responsible for electing House Republicans has failed to deliver on its promise to invest $62 million in political advertising across 11 states this fall, a promise detailed in a September memo that declared, 'The cavalry is coming.'" AP

BOSTON GLOBE'S ANNIE LINSKEY, "Warren releases results of DNA test": "Senator Elizabeth Warren has released a DNA test that provides 'strong evidence' she had a Native American in her family tree dating back 6 to 10 generations, an unprecedented move by one of the top possible contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.

"Warren, whose claims to Native American blood have been mocked by President Trump and other Republicans, provided the test results to the Globe on Sunday in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years. She planned an elaborate rollout Monday of the results as she aimed for widespread attention." Globe

-- AN EMAIL FROM WARREN'S CAMPAIGN: "Today we're releasing a new video about Elizabeth Warren and her family: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHzbdZuVyAM) and launching a Fact Squad website for anyone who wants to see the facts for themselves: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c76716dca6d6eeaf31fdeaec0ac3ab325dea8df70070fe8987c97acb25ce80168b3ed14da3c6bc403cbb7ae94ca86bdf It includes the report from Dr. Bustamante: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c76716dca6d6eeaf33fe262696ff9bbb275aff7af4b35cd745c40bba1f365706cccd345d8bcd24813c830dade93f153d

-- "Elizabeth Warren builds expansive Democratic campaign effort ahead of likely 2020 bid," by WaPo's Matt Viser in Boston. 

-- JAMES ARKIN: "Cruz plays the inside game to beat O'Rourke"

Good Monday morning. SPOTTED: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Bryan Sanders, Nick Ayers and his family, Avi Berkowitz, Cassidy Dumbauld and kids from Jared and Ivanka's son Joseph's class at the Chuck E. Cheese's in Takoma Park, Md., on Sunday to celebrate Joseph's birthday. Pic
       
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HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI (D-CALIF.) and ILHAN OMAR, who is running to replace Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and is one of two Muslim women who will likely be elected to Congress in November, are featured in NEW YORK magazine's "Women and Power" special issue on newsstands today. The cover 

LATEST ON MBS -- WAPO'S PHIL RUCKER, CAROL LEONNIG and ANNE GEARAN: "Two princes: Kushner now faces a reckoning for Trump's bet on the heir to the Saudi throne": "When President Trump chose Riyadh to make his debut on the world stage last year, he was placing a bet on Saudi Arabia, which serenaded him with military bands, dazzled him with a flyover of fighter jets and regaled him with a traditional sword dance.

"The mastermind behind that wager - the White House adviser who convinced Trump to visit Saudi Arabia for his maiden foreign trip and who choreographed a veritable lovefest between the new president and the desert kingdom's white-robed ruler, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz - was Jared Kushner.

"The president's son-in-law has carefully cultivated a close partnership with the heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Kushner has championed as a reformer poised to usher the ultraconservative, oil-rich monarchy into modernity.

"But the U.S.-Saudi alliance - and the relationship between Kushner, 37, and Mohammed, 33 - is now imperiled by the unexplained disappearance and alleged gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who had been living in the United States and wrote columns for The Washington Post. The suspected killing has sparked international outcry and calls for tough punishment of Riyadh." WaPo

-- REUTERS: "JP Morgan and Ford cancel plans for Saudi investor event," by Jarrett Renshaw: "JP Morgan & Chase Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and Ford Motor Co Chairman Bill Ford canceled plans to attend a Saudi investor conference, the companies said on Sunday, the latest such high-profile announcements after the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The cancellations could add pressure on other U.S. firms like Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Mastercard Inc and Bank of America Corp to reconsider their plans to attend the investor event." Reuters

ABC'S TARA PALMERI: "Trump called for plan to remove all U.S. diplomats from Turkey in frustration over detention of American pastor": "Incensed by the detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson, President Donald Trump called for a plan to be drawn up in late August for the complete withdrawal of U.S. diplomatic personnel from Turkey, senior administration and State Department officials tell ABC News.

"The unprecedented plan to essentially shutter an American embassy and all diplomatic missions of a NATO ally would have occurred over a 60-day period, starting with the removal of chief diplomats and ending with the eventual drawdown of all diplomatic personnel, according to one senior U.S. official with knowledge of the plan. The plan to remove the diplomats over the two month period was designed to put incremental pressure on the Turkish government." ABC

NYT'S MAGGIE HABERMAN in Johnson City, Tenn.: "He's 'One of Us': The Undying Bond Between the Bible Belt and Trump"

ON TRUMP'S "60 MINUTES" INTERVIEW ... 

-- DANIEL DALE (@ddale8): "Asked if there's anything he wishes he hasn't said or done, or anything he otherwise regrets, Trump says, 'I regret that the press treats me so badly.' ... When Stahl asked Trump if it's true Mattis said the reason for NATO and western alliances is to prevent WWIII and keep the peace, Trump said, 'It's not true.' Asked what's not true, he said, 'I like General Mattis. I think I know more about it than he does.'"

-- @EdwardGLuce: "Best line from the Trump 60 minutes interview: 'Washington DC is a vicious, vicious place. The attacks, the bad mouthing, the speaking behind your back, but you know, and in my way, I feel very comfortable here.'"

-- @mitchellreports: "And there's this: @realDonaldTrump to @LesleyRStahl when she challenges him: 'In the meantime I'm the President and you're not' #60Minutes" Video of the whole interview 

         
THE INVESTIGATIONS -- "Mueller is everywhere, except the midterms," by Darren Samuelsohn: "Special counsel Robert Mueller can't escape the headlines, or President Donald Trump's obsessive Twitter feed. But there's one place the lead Russia investigator has been noticeably absent: the 2018 campaign trail.

"Mueller and his inquiry are missing from the campaign advertising airwaves during the final sprint to November. Debates have all but ignored the story, focusing instead on kitchen-table topics like the economy, health care and taxes. Vulnerable Democrats in red states are actually emphasizing the times they've reached across the aisle.

"That's on purpose, candidates and operatives from both parties told POLITICO. Most Americans are barely following the Mueller investigation's intricate legal movements, which have already ensnared a few top former Trump aides, alleged Kremlin-backed hackers and a cast of characters scattered across both sides of the Atlantic. Most important, voters don't want to talk about it either." POLITICO

TRUMP'S MONDAY -- The president and first lady Melania Trump will leave the White House at 9 a.m. en route to Andrews Air Force Base. They will fly to Okaloosa County, Fla. The two are expected to see parts of the Florida Panhandle following Hurricane Michael. No details have been released yet about where they will visit. Later, they will fly back to Andrews Air Force Base and return to the White House at 8:25 p.m.

THE PLAYBOOK ELECTION CHALLENGE -- There are 22 days until the election -- now is the time to make your picks for who will win the most hotly contested House, Senate and gubernatorial races across the country. The challenge

JOIN US! ANNA and JAKE are heading out to Philadelphia for our last Playbook Elections event Oct. 29 at the Ritz Carlton. We'll be talking with REPS. BRENDAN BOYLE (D-PA.) and RYAN COSTELLO (R-PA.) about what's happening on the ground in Pennsylvania and across the country in the lead-up to the election. Doors open at 8 a.m. RSVP
                 PLAYBOOK READS         

PHOTO DU JOUR: A resident of Mexico Beach, Fla., sifts through what was her third-floor bedroom while surveying damage from Hurricane Michael on Sunday. | David Goldman/AP Photo
   
NEW JERSEY WATCH -- "A Sexual-Assault Accusation in New Jersey Spotlights a National Dilemma," by WSJ's Kate King in Jersey City, N.J.: "Katie Brennan spent more than a year trying to get authorities to take action against the man she accuses of sexually assaulting her. Finally, she emailed New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. 

"Ms. Brennan, chief of staff at the state's housing agency and a former volunteer for the governor's campaign, first called the police in April 2017, one day, she said, after a campaign staffer allegedly forced himself on her. After months of investigation, the county prosecutor's office declined to file charges against her alleged attacker, saying it didn't think a jury would convict him. She turned to state law enforcement and high-ranking members of the Murphy administration. Nothing changed.

"Finally, the 31-year-old Jersey City resident, who said she turned down a $15,000 settlement offer from her alleged assailant if she signed a nondisclosure agreement, emailed Mr. Murphy and first lady Tammy Murphy directly. She didn't explicitly mention the alleged assault in her June 2018 email, but asked to speak with the governor or his wife about a 'sensitive matter' that had happened during the campaign. The governor responded within the hour and said he was looping in staff to arrange a time.

"'Hang in,' the governor wrote to Ms. Brennan in the email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. 'We are on it.' A meeting with the governor was never scheduled. And months later, the man, Albert J. Alvarez, was still working for the state, as chief of staff at the New Jersey Schools Development Authority. Mr. Alvarez resigned his position Oct. 2, the same day the Journal emailed him for comment." WSJ

         
HMM -- "A senator snatched a student's phone while being asked about Georgia voter registration uproar," by WaPo's Amy Wang: "An attempted conversation between a Georgia Tech student and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) ended abruptly with the lawmaker snatching the student's cellphone away while he was being asked about possible voter suppression in the state. The senator's office has said the exchange, part of which was captured on video, was a misunderstanding.

"On Saturday, a student member of the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Georgia Tech approached Perdue, who was visiting the Atlanta campus to campaign for Brian Kemp. Kemp, a Republican and Georgia's secretary of state, is locked in a tight gubernatorial race with Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker. The race attracted additional scrutiny this week after the Associated Press reported that more than 53,000 voter registration applications were in limbo with Kemp's office; the overwhelming majority of those applications are for African American and other minority voters, according to an AP analysis." With the video: WaPo
                 PLAYBOOKERS      
SPOTTED: Ronan and Mia Farrow and Annette Bening all in first class on a Delta JFK-to-LAX flight Sunday. 

TRANSITION -- Nick Dhimitri, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) economic development director, is going to the building contractor Suffolk as its national VP of external affairs. 

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- BUSH ALUMNI: Matt Latimer, a founding partner of Javelin and a Bush WH and DoD alum, and Anna Sproul-Latimer welcomed William Theodore Erskine Latimer, who joins Jack and Lucy. Pic ... Another pic

WEEKEND WEDDING -- MCCONNELL ALUMNI: Amanda Faulkner, a McConnell cloakroom veteran and member of Google D.C.'s government affairs team, married Ben Khouri, another McConnell alum now serving as Sen. Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) press secretary, on Saturday night at Christ Church United Methodist of Louisville. The reception was held at the Oxmoor Estate, a farm east of downtown Louisville. Pic 

SPOTTED: Christina Henderson, Nu Wexler, Caroline Strom, Andrew Carroll, Lauren Culbertson, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Oliver Mittelstaedt, Becca Glover, Masie Bilotti, Andrew Ladner, Stephanie Penn, Katelyn Conner Bunning, Eric Bunning, Chase Hieneman, Tony Hanagan and Chris Tuck.

ENGAGED -- Dale Bishop, director and chief of staff to the chief revenue officer at POLITICO, got engaged to Mike Stockert, manager of customer insights and strategy at 2U. The couple met while both were working at POLITICO in 2013 and started dating in early 2014. Instapic ... Instapic

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Jacqui Gifford (hubby tip: Rob) ... (was Saturday): Tiffany Trump turned 26 ... (was Friday): Lara Trump turned 36.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Rick Berke, founding executive editor of Stat. How he got his start in journalism: "It was in the third grade. I took the logo of 'Life' magazine, added 'Berke' to the 'L' and, voila, 'Berke Life,' my family newspaper, was born. The printing press was a copy machine at the Tenley-Friendship public library on Wisconsin Avenue. My career triumph came several years later when my classmate Mike Gill and I broke a story in Bethesda's Walt Whitman High School 'Black & White' that Richard Nixon had been exposed to microwave radiation when he was Vice President during the kitchen debates in Moscow. 

"It was shortly after 'All the President's Men' had come out, and Mike and I were splashed in newspapers and on magazine covers around the world as 'the young Woodstein.' They called us 'Gilberke.' So my career highlight came at the age of 17." Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Stu Loeser ... POLITICO's Heather Caygle ... NBC's Jon Allen (hat tip: Lis Smith) ... Jenni Lim ... Lynn Cutler ... Lis Smith (h/t Pete Buttigieg) ... Christy Setzer, president of New Heights Communications (h/t Jaime Horn) ... Darby Bukowski ... Joao Costa ... Alexis Krieg, digital press secretary for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), is 29 (h/ts Ben Chang and Emily Schlichting) ... John Doty, Washington director for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) ... POLITICO Europe's Gilhean Slater ... Bonnie Nieuwstraten ... Josie Martin ... Tyler Fields, JD candidate at UCLA and a Trump WH alum, is 25 ... Brian Walsh, president of America First Policies, is 42 ...

... Liz Kenigsberg, SVP at SKDKnickerbocker, is 3-0 (h/t Clare Doody) ... Christian Moreau is 75 ... Stephen Bindman ... former Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) is 7-0 ... former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) is 76 ... Lionel Levine ... Holly Arthur ... Takaaki Abe ... Bill Hoagland ... Amaya Tune ... Doug Poretz ... Vincent Morris ... Kye Ross ... Gigi Stone Woods ... Joanne Cronrath Bamberger ... Edelman's Geren Raywood ... Jan Yves Remy ... Erica Loewe ... Kathleen Strand, U.S. director of strategic engagement and outreach, government relations at McDonald's ... Eric Roe ... John Hanlon ... Anna Farias ... Chris Godbey ... Jon Shure ... Susan Ralston ... Bob Balkin ... Matt Gannon ... Jim St. George
 (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)
       
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