Subject: POLITICO Playbook: Trump says he’s willing to give ‘amnesty’ in ‘much bigger deal’
From: "Anna Palmer Jake Sherman Daniel Lippman" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2019 10:32:29 -0600
List-Id: <1376319.xt.local>

Presented by the National Retail Federation: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day                Jan 20, 2019 View in browser                   
 By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and Daniel Lippman 
         
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                   DRIVING THE DAY      
TODAY is the second-year anniversary of the Trump presidency.

SHUTDOWN ... DAY 30 ... WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP offered yesterday cannot be rationally viewed as the way to end this standoff. We can't imagine anyone in the White House actually believed temporary immigration protections for a $5.7-billion wall would cut it with Democrats. BUT ... the president has now publicly put immigration policy changes in the mix. 

CHRIS WALLACE had VP MIKE PENCE on "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": WALLACE: "Wait, if I may, sir, when you say work together, does that mean that you are willing to negotiate from what the president said, or is that the final offer?"

PENCE: "Well, of course. The legislative process is a negotiation and up to this point, literally for the last month while the president and I have stayed here in Washington and been engaging continuously with Democrat leadership, and with rank-and-file members in the House and Senate, what we heard again and again is we will not negotiate until the president reopens the government."

JUST THIS MORNING, TRUMP said he would approve an amnesty deal!

-- @realDonaldTrump at 8:23 a.m.: "No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer. It is a 3 year extension of DACA. Amnesty will be used only on a much bigger deal, whether on immigration or something else. Likewise there will be no big push to remove the 11,000,000 plus people who are here illegally-but be careful Nancy!"

DEMOCRATS have been telling us that they are looking at polling that indicates they are hardly getting any blame for the shutdown. That could change soon if it looks like Republicans are making offers and Democrats are sitting pat. 

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH ... IF THE PRESIDENT had traded permanent policy on DACA for $5.7 billion, we'd be having a different conversation today.

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL BOARD ... "Make a deal. Save the dreamers": "We can recite many reasons Democrats should spurn President Trump's Saturday afternoon offer to end the government shutdown. He should not be rewarded for having taken the government hostage. Any piece of a wall would reinforce his hateful, anti-immigrant rhetoric. He's unreliable, having made and withdrawn similar offers in the past. This one isn't good enough; 'dreamers' need a path to citizenship, not merely a three-year reprieve.

"Those are serious objections. But here is something serious on the other side of the equation: Real people. Real people, with real lives that depend utterly on what Congress and the president do now." WaPo

-- NYT'S JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: "In Trump's Immigration Announcement, a Compromise Snubbed All Around": "The tensions and anger over the policy have been quietly playing out in the West Wing as well, as Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, fended off Stephen Miller, the architect of much of Mr. Trump's immigration agenda. Mr. Kushner has long been a proponent of protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, while Mr. Miller has pressed for aggressive measures to crack down on both legal and illegal immigration.

"In recent days, as White House officials had been working out the details of the compromise, Mr. Miller intervened to narrow the universe of immigrants who would receive protection, according to people familiar with the internal discussions who described them on the condition of anonymity. While the original idea had been to include protections for as many as 1.8 million undocumented immigrants eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program known as DACA that protected those illegally brought to the United States as children, Mr. Trump ultimately proposed shielding only the 700,000 who are enrolled." NYT ... Video of Trump's remarks 

BURGESS EVERETT and HEATHER CAYGLE: "'Only with Nancy': How Schumer and Pelosi stuck together on the shutdown": "A few days before Washington staggered into what would become the longest shutdown in U.S. history, Chuck Schumer received a request from Donald Trump.

"The president wanted the Senate minority leader to visit the White House to discuss his demands for the border wall, which would need Democratic votes to pass the GOP-controlled Senate. Previously, Schumer had held one-on-one negotiations with Trump. But this time, the New York Democrat had a new condition: 'Only with Nancy.' 

"'We do it all together, that's an agreement we had from the get-go,' Schumer said of his stance with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on not giving Trump an inch on the wall. 'We realize we're a team,' Schumer added in an interview. 'Sometimes we talk strategy four to five times a day. And there are times we disagree. But we come to the same result.'" POLITICO

-- QUINT FORGEY on SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-Okla.) on ABC'S "THIS WEEK": "GOP senator: Trump's 'straw man proposal' not meant to become law" 

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Hardworking American families should not be forced to pay the price for other countries' unfair trade practices. Tariffs are B-A-D economics that raise prices and destroy U.S. jobs. Scroll down to learn more. www.tariffsarebad.com
         
THE IMPACT - "'We're left in the dark': As many industries get shutdown relief, those without political clout feel left behind," by WaPo's Lisa Rein, Juliet Eilperin and Jeff Stein: "Alaska's cod and pollock fishing fleet headed out on the Bering Sea this month without delay, thanks to federal inspectors brought back from furlough to certify their boats. And alcohol producers have two calls scheduled next week with Treasury Department officials to discuss how to keep new products moving onto liquor store shelves.

"But advocates for survivors of domestic violence have not been able to find an official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help them access their grant money for temporary housing. And some Native American leaders said they are operating with no guidance about what to do about the abrupt cutoff of federal funds. In the chaotic landscape of the partial federal shutdown, some constituencies have gotten speedy relief and attention from federal officials - while others are still trying to get in the door." WaPo

-- BRYAN BENDER and IAN KULLGREN, "Even giant federal contractors feeling shutdown's bite: The historic length of the political impasse is reverberating at the Fortune 500 level, making it one of the most economically damaging in history."

FIRST PERSON ... FUN STORY - WAPO'S DAN BALZ in Paris, "'Would you like to speak to the president?'": "That was about the last question I expected from a stranger on a Friday night in Paris. I was at a brasserie in the Latin Quarter, enjoying dinner with James McAuley, The Washington Post's Paris correspondent. We had finished our meals and were continuing our conversation as we waited for the check to arrive. 

"A man at an adjacent table, whose back was to us, turned around, cellphone in hand, and asked me, 'Would you like to speak to the president?' ... Though my confusion was understandable, I instantly recognized him when he told me his name and was embarrassed that I hadn't picked up on it earlier. ...

"'I'm Joe Kernen of CNBC,' he said. ... He was on his way to Davos, Switzerland, for next week's World Economic Summit. He was supposed to have had an interview with the president there, but Trump had canceled his Davos trip because of the shutdown. Trump was calling Kernen to express his regrets that the interview had been scrubbed." WaPo

INSIDE MUELLER WORLD ... WAPO'S MATT ZAPOTOSKY and DEVLIN BARRETT: "Inside the Mueller team's decision to dispute BuzzFeed's explosive story on Trump and Cohen": "When a BuzzFeed reporter first sought comment on the news outlet's explosive report that President Trump had directed his lawyer to lie to Congress, the spokesman for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III treated the request as he would almost any other story. The reporter informed Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, that he and a colleague had 'a story coming stating that Michael Cohen was directed by President Trump himself to lie to Congress about his negotiations related to the Trump Moscow project,' according to copies of their
 emails provided by a BuzzFeed spokesman.

"Importantly, the reporter made no reference to the special counsel's office specifically or evidence that Mueller's investigators had uncovered. 'We'll decline to comment,' Carr responded, a familiar refrain for those in the media who cover Mueller's work. The innocuous exchange belied the chaos it would produce. When BuzzFeed published the story hours later, it far exceeded Carr's initial impression, people familiar with the matter said." WaPo

SUNDAY BEST ... 

-- CHUCK TODD spoke to RUDY GIULIANI on NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": TODD: "[Y]ou said the president is not sure when talks [on the Trump Tower Moscow] ended. ... I'm guessing you had to answer this question in written form by Mr. Mueller. So right, it's your understanding it ended when? In January, as Michael Cohen incorrectly testified to?" 

GIULIANI: "No. It's our understanding that it, that they went on throughout 2016, not a lot of them, but there were conversations, can't be sure of the exact date, but the president can remember having conversations with him about it. The president also remembers ..." TODD: "Throughout 2016?" GIULIANI: "Yeah. Probably up to, could be up to as far as October, November. Our answers cover until the election."

-- TODD also asked GIULIANI: "Are you 100 percent confident that the president never once asked Michael Cohen to do anything but tell the truth to Congress?" 

GIULIANI: "100 percent certain of that. And also I should add the BuzzFeed story was a story that the president had counseled him or told him to lie and that there were tapes and texts and federal law enforcement sources, two of them, were cited for it. And I spent a great deal of the day on Saturday with that because I knew from the very beginning it wasn't true. But I mean to their credit, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel's Office said that the story was inaccurate. 

"And the inaccuracy is that there's no evidence that the president told him to lie. And then to answer your question, categorically, I can tell you his counsel to Michael Cohen throughout that entire period was, 'Tell the truth.' We thought he was telling the truth. I still believe he may have been telling the truth when he testified before Congress. But in any event, his lawyers thought that, our lawyers thought that and the president thought that at the time."

-- JAKE TAPPER spoke to GIULIANI on CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": TAPPER: "Are you saying it's not possible for the president to have obstructed justice, that that's an impossibility?" GIULIANI: "No, of course not. The president can obstruct justice. He can't obstruct exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, if that's what he is doing. And that's what he did." 

-- MARTHA RADDATZ spoke to SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-N.Y.) on ABC'S "THIS WEEK" on the BuzzFeed story: GILLIBRAND: "The report is highly concerning, Martha. It just shows more evidence that perhaps this president did obstruct justice. It shows that ..."

RADDATZ: "Even though the special counsel disputes it?"

GILLIBRAND: "... This needs to be fully investigated. Martha, it raises a question in my mind that is very serious. And so what we need is Mueller to be able to finish his investigation. 

"And one of the things that I'm most concerned about is that Senator McConnell will not let a bipartisan bill come to the Senate floor to allow us to protect that investigation, to make sure he cannot be fired prematurely and -- and -- and the law says he can only be fired for -- for a cause."

-- MARGARET BRENNAN also spoke to GILLIBRAND on CBS' "FACE THE NATION": "You have said that you are a, 'no' on the president's proposal here to end the shutdown. Why isn't the offer of three years of protection for DACA and TPS recipients enough of a start for you?" 

 GILLIBRAND: "Well, he's the one who got rid of DACA protection in the first place, and to offer a temporary respite, it doesn't -- if you talk to any DACA recipient in America today, they're - they're anxious. They're worried. ... Their lives are being upended and this president has no compassion. So I don't think you should even consider this because it's three years, it's just DACA. ... And I think it's a nonstarter."
           
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2020 WATCH -- ELENA SCHNEIDER in Boone, Iowa: "Gillibrand touts rural origin story in Iowa debut": "Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) starts her presidential run largely unknown in Iowa - 'where's this gal from?' one voter quizzed reporters at a campaign stop. And she is leaning on her experience building a come-from-behind campaign out of nothing in upstate New York a dozen years ago to make an impression in the first caucus state.

"The New York senator drew parallels between Iowa and her home congressional district, where she upset a Republican incumbent in 2006 to launch her political career, throughout the debut events of her 2020 campaign. Gillibrand introduced herself two-dozen people at a deli by saying, 'I grew up in a rural place, and I represented a rural place.'" POLITICO

-- NYT'S MATT FLEGENHEIMER and ALEX BURNS: "As Beto O'Rourke Weighs 2020 Run, Democrats Chafe at His Go-It-Alone Style"

                 PLAYBOOK READS         

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump salutes as a U.S. Navy carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Scott A. Wirtz on Saturday at Dover Air Force Base. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
   
GABBY ORR, "Mark Meadows, Trump whisperer": "Four sources with knowledge of their relationship said Trump talks to Meadows more than he does with many of his senior aides. They sometimes spend an hour-plus on the phone together or speak more than once per day." POLITICO

FOR YOUR RADAR -- "'It was getting ugly': Native American drummer speaks on the MAGA-hat-wearing teens who surrounded him," by WaPo's Antonio Olivo, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Joe Heim: "The images in videos that went viral on social media Saturday showed a tense scene near the Lincoln Memorial. In them, a Native American man steadily beats his drum at the tail end of Friday's Indigenous Peoples March while singing a song of unity urging them to 'be strong' in the face of the ravages of colonialism that now include police brutality, poor access to health care and the ill effects of climate change on reservations.

"Surrounding him are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys, several wearing 'Make America Great Again' caps, with one who stood about a foot from the drummer's face also wearing a relentless smirk. ... Covington Catholic High School ... officials and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington released a joint statement Saturday. 'We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general,' the statement said. 'The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.'" WaPo

A message from the National Retail Federation:

         
BONUS GREAT HOLIDAY WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman, filing from Aspen, Colorado:

-- "Paramount Was Hollywood's 'Mountain.' Now It's a Molehill," by Amy Chozick and Brooks Barnes on the cover of NYT's Sunday Business section: "After decades of nearly slapstick mismanagement - spinning off TV and missing the internet - the studio behind 'The Godfather' is fighting for its life."NYT

-- "Palm Beach used to be a nice town for billionaires. Then Trump came along," by WaPo's Roxanne Roberts: "[F]rom the beginning, Trump rubbed Palm Beach wrong. He was arrogant and pushy, and he didn't care that locals thought he was loud and vulgar. He bought a gaudy oceanfront estate in 2004 for $41 million, then flipped it to a Russian billionaire for $95 million (who tore it down and sparked rumors of money laundering.)" WaPo

-- "Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism," by Nicholas Carr in the LA Review of Books, reviewing "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," by Shoshana Zuboff: "By reengineering the economy and society to their own benefit, Google and Facebook are perverting capitalism in a way that undermines personal freedom and corrodes democracy." LA Review of Books ... $25.83 on Amazon (h/t Longform.org) 

-- "Impeach Donald Trump," by Yoni Appelbaum on the cover of March's Atlantic: "Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals-and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs." The Atlantic

-- "What People Actually Say Before They Die," by Michael Erard in The Atlantic - per TheBrowser.com's description: "Deathbed aphorisms and declarations of love for one's country are exceptions or inventions. According to one doctor, the last words of the dying are often strings of curses; a hospice nurse says that most dying men call for 'Mommy' or 'Mama', if they can call at all." The Atlantic

-- "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is the Darling of the Left, Nightmare of the Right," by Peter Coy and Katia Dmitrieva on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek: "New taxes. Medicare and free tuition for all. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just getting started." Bloomberg

-- "How a Career Criminal Broke the Convict Code and Saved Himself," by Alan Prendergast in Westword - per Longreads.com's description: "In USP Florence, the most violent prison in the U.S. federal prison system, rats don't live long and they don't die peacefully. But Wayne Byerly talked, and lived - and found redemption." Westword

-- "Could Pete Buttigieg Become the First Millennial President?" by Bob Moser in WaPo Magazine: "Meet the mayor of South Bend, Ind., who wants to be the first member of his generation to run the country." WaPo

-- "Millennials: A Lost Generation Without the Booze and Jazz," by Charles McElwee in The American Conservative: "Millennials are voyagers in an economy whose future is unknown. Financial stability is their elusive goal, authenticity their wistful desire, fulfillment their constant endeavor. Insurmountable debt, a digital existence, and a disruptive labor market obstruct their idealistic path." The American Conservative

-- "Redefining Representation: The Women of the 116th Congress" photographs by Elizabeth D. Herman and Celeste Sloman: "Just over a century ago, Jeannette Rankin of Montana won a seat in the House of Representatives, becoming the first woman ever elected to federal office. In 1917, 128 years after the first United States Congress convened, she was sworn into its 65th session. One hundred and two years later, one has become 131 - the number of women serving in both chambers of the 116th Congress as of this month." NYT

-- "The most powerful person in Silicon Valley," by Katrina Brooker in Fast Company: "Billionaire Masayoshi Son-not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg-has the most audacious vision for an AI-powered utopia where machines control how we live. And he's spending hundreds of billions of dollars to realize it. Are you ready to live in Masa World?" Fast Company

                 PLAYBOOKERS      
SPOTTED: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last night at Trattoria Alberto - pic ... Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on a Saturday afternoon American flight to Tampa from DCA.

BIRTHDAYS: Kellyanne Conway is 52 ... Nikki Haley is 47 ... Chip Englander ... Paola Ramos ... Paul Mandelson, special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs ... Jessica Katz ... Robin Roberts of National Media ... Eric Simmons is 46 ... Bill Maher is 63 ... Kirsten White ... Elena Hernandez ... Dan Schneider, associate director for comms at the WH Council on Environmental Quality ... West Honeycutt is 29 ... Ian Sams (hat tip: Rob Flaherty) ... Anna Stolitzka ... POLITICO's Brianna Gurciullo and Megan Erickson ... Bob Michaels ... Richard Kirsch ... Al Kamen (h/ts Jon Haber) ... Zac Goldsmith is 44 ... former Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) is 7-0 ... Soroush
 Shehabi (h/t Kevin Chaffee) ... Adam Radman, director of advocacy at Americans for Tax Reform ... WTOP's Mike McMearty ... former Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) is 68 ... Georgina Bloomberg is 36 ... Diane Ruggiero, CNN supervising producer (h/t Kevin Bohn) ...

... WSJ senior writer James V. Grimaldi ... Natan Sharansky is 71 ... CBS' Maria Gavrilovic ... Adrien Borisavljevic ... Morton Abramowitz is 86 ... Susan Finkelstein ... Jeb Golinkin is 31 ... Sam Dealey, managing principal at Monument Communications (h/t Blain Rethmeier) ... Matthew Sanderson ... Arica VanBoxtel ... Stacie Rumenap ... Chris Schmitter ... Jessica Hanna ... Alec Jacobs of Purple Strategies ... Michelle Rodriguez ... Joan Tilouine ... Ben Edwards ... Tracy Russo ... Merrill Hartson is 76 ... Elena Robertson ... Brent Desiderio is 49 ... Andy Taylor ... James Ryan ... Nicole DeSibour Rodgers ... Michelle Runk ... GE's Alan Gilbert ... Sophie Trainor ... Nick Sedgley ... Jed
 Webb ... Zack Walz ... Chuck Gray ... Pat Souders ... Lane Kasselman (h/t Teresa Vilmain)

A message from the National Retail Federation:
 
Tariffs are B-A-D economics. They don't work. Tariffs aren't paid by foreign countries. They're paid by American businesses and consumers. Washington needs a lesson from Ferris Bueller: Tariffs are B-A-D economics. Watch the video to learn more at www.tariffsarebad.com.
                        
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