POLITICO Playbook: How long can Dems hold back on impeachment? Presented by Amazon

The White House is doing practically everything it can to taunt Speaker Nancy Pelosi. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

BREAKING … LITTLE ROCKET MAN … AP/SEOUL: “South Korea: North Korea fires an unidentified projectile”: “North Korea on Thursday fired at least one unidentified projectile from the country’s western area, South Korea’s military said, the North’s second weapons launch in the last five days and a possible warning that nuclear disarmament talks with Washington could be in danger. …

“The launch comes as U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun visits South Korea, and hours after the North described its firing of rocket artillery and an apparent short-range ballistic missile on Saturday as a regular and defensive military exercise.” AP

A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE TO PUT A PERCENTAGE on the chance of impeachment, but we think that’s silly. HERE’S WHAT WE CAN SAY at this moment: Some extreme action -- like launching impeachment proceedings against President DONALD TRUMP -- is getting likelier by the day. It’s not overwhelmingly likely, but the vibe on Capitol Hill is getting worse: Democrats are angry that they are getting stonewalled. Republicans are angry that Democrats do not seem willing to let this go.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI has handled the politics of impeachment well. She’s kept her foot hovering above the brake pedal, cognizant of the risk of immediate acceleration. She has kept her chairmen in line, kept her members mostly calm and her leadership on the same page. She even went to the White House with Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER to talk infrastructure, which showed Trump she’s not singularly consumed with oversight, but also interested in governing.

BUT THE WHITE HOUSE is doing practically everything it can to taunt Pelosi. Most administrations slow-walk document production; this White House is flat-out saying, ‘No, your oversight is overzealous, and we won’t participate in it.’ This is going to force Democrats to file lawsuits to obtain documents -- lawsuits that even top Republicans privately concede Pelosi will win.

TRUMP SEEMS TO BE DARING DEMOCRATS to take the impeachment road. Talk people in his administration, and you’ll hear that all of this Hill saber-rattling is good for them. Impeachment is unpopular, they believe, and will help Trump in 2020.

IN SOME STRANGE WAY, one person who benefits from this the most is Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL, who can tell GOP donors that it’s his Senate Republicans who stand in the way of chaos and a potential Democratic takeover of Washington in 2020.

PELOSI AND DEMOCRATS have a bunch of options before they get to proceedings to remove Trump from office. Judiciary has already held A.G. BILL BARR in contempt, a vote on which will come to the House floor shortly. They can impeach Barr, Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN and other officials for being uncooperative. They can exact legislative revenge on the White House, making Trump’s government looking hapless using leverage points like the debt limit and funding bills -- unless the White House starts coughing up documents.

EITHER WAY, THE FRUSTRATION is becoming clear. …

… TO WIT: NYT’S SHERYL GAY STOLBERG: “Facing a Trump Stonewall, Democrats Struggle for Options to Compel Cooperation”: “Some who previously urged caution are now saying impeachment may be inevitable ‘If the facts lead us to that objective, so be it,’ Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told reporters on Wednesday.

“He said Democratic leaders and the chairmen of six committees are coordinating on what he hopes will be a ‘holistic’ strategy to paint a picture for the public of ‘perhaps the greatest cover-up of any president in American history.’ …

“But with Mr. Trump trying to keep Congress from gathering the facts, the mood in the caucus has shifted, many Democrats say. ‘We get the narrative from our leadership that we all got elected on health care and the economy and all of that,’ said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, ‘but we also got elected to impose checks and balances on a president who is unchecked and unbalanced.’” NYT

PSST … IT’S NOT JUST DEMOCRATS: AXIOS’ JONATHAN SWAN: “Senate Intel subpoenas Trump Jr. over Russia matters” (cc: Mitch McConnell)

-- MORE on the Trump Jr. subpoena from Mark Mazzetti and Maggie Haberman: NYT

Good Thursday morning.

WITH TRUMP STONEWALLING … A PREVIEW OF THINGS TO COME? -- “Subpoena fight over Fast and Furious documents finally settled,” by Josh Gerstein: “A settlement in a seven-year-long legal battle between the House and the Justice Department over records related to a gun-running investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was publicly announced Tuesday just as similar clashes continue to intensify between the House and the Trump administration.

“The deal ends a civil suit the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee filed in 2012 following the House’s historic vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to release some records the panel demanded about the probe, during which law enforcement officials monitored but did not intervene as up to 2000 weapons were illegally sold.” POLITICO … More from Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia on Trump’s oversight fight shattering precedents

-- “Schiff subpoenas DOJ for unredacted Mueller report and counterintel info,” by Andrew Desiderio

CLICKER: “What we know — and don’t know — about Trump’s taxes,” by Toby Eckert

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ALEX ISENSTADT: “Trump political machine sets massive fundraising target”: “President Donald Trump’s outside political machine is setting a $300 million fundraising goal and is pitching major GOP donors on a plan to target six swing states that are likely to decide the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the group’s blueprint.

“The pressure is high: America First Action super PAC and its allied non-profit, America First Policies, are part of a broader Trump political apparatus that Republican officials say will need to raise roughly $1 billion. Trump successfully raised money from small donors in 2016 but some major GOP givers remain wary of him.

“America First Action President Brian Walsh said in an interview Wednesday that he’s secured more than $40 million in pledges and that an array of major GOP givers have expressed interest. Many of them are deeply turned off by the Democratic field, he said. ‘Folks who wouldn’t even take a meeting with us last cycle are meeting with us,’ said Walsh, whose groups raised about $75 million during the 2018 midterm cycle.” POLITICO

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BIDEN WATCH -- DAVID SIDERS in Los Angeles: “Biden: Democratic field will shrink rapidly early next year”: “Joe Biden predicted Wednesday that the field of Democratic presidential candidates would be ‘winnowed out pretty quickly’ next year, dismissing concerns that a lengthy and contentious primary could weaken the party’s nominee. ‘This field is going to be winnowed out pretty quickly,’ Biden told reporters at a King Taco restaurant in Los Angeles.

“Noting the 15 percent threshold for Democratic candidates in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, and California, which will award its delegates in early March, Biden said, ‘It’s going to work its way through relatively quickly for all of us.’ He said he entered the race so late because ‘the process is already too long.’” POLITICO

CASH DASH -- CARLA MARINUCCI in Los Angeles: “‘Nobody is ceding California to Kamala Harris’: Mayor Pete raids the West Coast”

-- @MarcACaputo: “Biden’s heading to Florida. May 20 Miami fundraiser by developer Michael Adler (got to know Biden @ Miami’s 72 convention; backed his Senate bid that year; their dads were friends) May 21 Orlando fundraiser by John Morgan (FL medical marijuana father & ‘living wage’ financier).”

-- Billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman is hosting a high-dollar fundraiser for Sen. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.), reports Recode’s Teddy Schleifer. And former Google CEO Eric Schmidt co-hosted a fundraiser for BIDEN on Wednesday night in Los Angeles (along with Hollywood types Peter Chernin, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Chris Silbermann), per a pool report.

THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG … “House and Senate GOP ready for battle to woo Liz Cheney,” by Melanie Zanona

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TRUMP’S THURSDAY -- The president will deliver remarks in the Roosevelt Room at 11:45 a.m. on ending surprise medical billing. He will participate in a photo-op with the Boston Red Sox team leadership at 3:30 p.m. in the Oval Office and welcome the Boston Red Sox on the South Lawn at 3:45 p.m.

-- BOSTON GLOBE’S PETER ABRAHAM in Baltimore: “White House visit was always an optional choice for Red Sox”

PLAYBOOK READS

PHOTO DU JOUR: Joe Biden and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti peruse the King Taco menu Wednesday during a Biden fundraising stop in LA. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

BREAKING OVERNIGHT … ??? … AP: “Pompeo cancels stop in Greenland” … Reuters: “‘Secretary Pompeo must postpone his visit to Greenland due to a need for the secretary to be in Washington, D.C., today,’ spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.”

TRUMP TURNING ON BOLTON? -- “A frustrated Trump questions his administration’s Venezuela strategy,” by WaPo’s Anne Gearan, Josh Dawsey, John Hudson and Seung Min Kim: “President Trump is questioning his administration’s aggressive strategy in Venezuela following the failure of a U.S.-backed effort to oust President Nicolás Maduro, complaining he was misled about how easy it would be to replace the socialist strongman with a young opposition figure, according to administration officials and White House advisers.

“The president’s dissatisfaction has crystallized around national security adviser John Bolton and what Trump has groused is an interventionist stance at odds with his view that the United States should stay out of foreign quagmires. Trump has said in recent days that Bolton wants to get him ‘into a war’ — a comment that he has made in jest in the past but that now betrays his more serious concerns, one senior administration official said. ...

“Trump has said that Maduro is a ‘tough cookie’ and that aides should not have led him to believe that the Venezuelan leader could be ousted last week, when Guaidó led mass street protests that turned deadly. ... Bolton publicly revealed the defection plan to apply pressure to Maduro, which U.S. officials said has worked. They claim Maduro is sleeping in a bunker, paranoid that close aides will turn on him.” WaPo

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TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL! -- “McMaster blasts former colleagues as ‘danger to the Constitution,’” by Wes Morgan: “Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster accused some of his former White House colleagues on Wednesday of being ‘a danger to the Constitution’ because they are either trying to manipulate President Donald Trump to push their own agenda or see themselves as rescuing the country from what they view as the commander in chief's bad policy choices. ...

“‘The second group of people, and I think this is true in any administration,’ he explained, are those ‘who are not there to give the president options — they’re there to try to manipulate the situation based on their own agenda, not the president’s agenda.

“The third group of Trump advisers are those who ‘cast themselves in the role of saving the country, even the world, from the president,’ McMaster told an event hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank where he is now a scholar.” POLITICO

-- FLASHBACK, via Dexter Filkins: “McMaster also clashed with Secretary of Defense James Mattis. On numerous occasions, current and former officials say, Mattis tried to block White House initiatives, leaving McMaster caught in the middle.

“In the fall of 2017, McMaster was planning a private session to develop military options for the possibility of conflict with North Korea: a war game, with Trump in attendance, at the Presidential retreat in Camp David. McMaster asked Mattis to send officers and planners. Mattis ignored him. ‘He prevented the thing from happening,’ the former senior Administration official told me.” The New Yorker

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TRADE WARS … BLOOMBERG: “Trump Says China ‘Broke the Deal’ in Trade Talks With U.S”: “U.S. President Donald Trump declared that China’s leaders ‘broke the deal’ he was negotiating with them on trade, ratcheting up his rhetoric ahead of fresh negotiations already clouded by imminent tariff increases and Beijing’s threats of retaliation. ...

“Trump and his trade team discussed the next steps in the dispute and who should meet with [top Chinese trade negotiator Liu He] while he’s in Washington in a heated debate at the White House on Tuesday ... The meeting became contentious when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made his case for putting trust in Liu that China would come back with a satisfactory offer to close the deal.

“The president and his advisers concluded that he should only meet with Liu if the two sides make progress in the talks and that the decision would be made on short notice, the people said.” Bloomberg

-- THE UPSHOT’S NEIL IRWIN: “Why Markets Aren’t Sweating the U.S.-China Trade War Much: The ‘Trump Put’”: “If you’re trying to bet on where markets will be six months or a year from now, there are a few things you know. The president of the United States cares a lot about what happens to the stock market, as his tweets make plain. He will be running for re-election in 18 months. He enjoys making big, bold promises, many of which don’t materialize.

“That adds up to a conviction that nothing really bad will happen — that the administration will strike some kind of deal, even if it does little to address long-term economic tensions between the United States and China.” NYT

MEDIAWATCH -- “Marie Harf Leaving Fox News to Join Seth Moulton Campaign: The liberal on-air personality will serve as Moulton’s deputy campaign manager for policy and communications,” by The Daily Beast’s Hanna Trudo

-- YASHAR ALI: “Scoop: John Heilemann Is in Talks to Host MSNBC Show”: “Journalist John Heilemann, a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and co-author of the presidential campaign books ‘Game Change’ and ‘Double Down,’ is in talks to host his own MSNBC show on Saturday evenings, two sources familiar with the matter tell me. The deal, as I understand it, is not yet finalized.” Yashar Ali

-- Bloomberg has named two new members of its 2020 campaign team: Tyler Pager most recently was at The New York Times, where he covered politics and breaking news on the metro desk. Pager is also a POLITICO alum. Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou previously was part of Bloomberg’s internship and rotation program.

-- Mary Ann Georgantopoulos has been named an editor on the breaking news desk at BuzzFeed. She previously was a reporter for the site.

PLAYBOOKERS

SPOTTED: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Tommy Quinn and Henry Howard having dinner Wednesday night at Cafe Milano.

SPOTTED Wednesday night at a salon dinner on woman leaders hosted by Meridian International Center and German Ambassador Emily Haber: co-hosts Patrick Steel, Tracy Bernstein, Ann Stock, Megan Beyer and Natalie Jones; “first-evers” Kellyanne Conway, Michele Norris, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Lisa Blatt and Kaywin Feldman; Swedish Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter, Luxembourg Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, Kosovar Ambassador Vlora Çitaku, Ethiopian Prince Joel David Makonnen Haile Selassie and Ariana Austin Makonnen, Amy Raskin, Suzan Aramaki, Laura Cox Kaplan, Stuart Bernstein, Gwen Holliday, Bruce Lane and Richard Morrissey.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Andrea Bozek, SVP at Mercury and an NRSC and NRCC alum, and Chris Grant, CEO of Big Dog Strategies and an Axiom Strategies and Chris Collins alum, on Saturday welcomed Audrey June Grant. Pic

TRANSITION … Bank of America’s Larry di Rita has added market president for the greater Washington region to his portfolio.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: David Gergen, a professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and a senior political analyst for CNN, is 77. A fun fact about David: “Well, there have been lots of crazy things in my life, but one of the least expected occurred at the Miss America pageant of 1963. The theme was Joe College, and I was asked to serve as a male escort. Perhaps that was because Miss North Carolina -- my home state -- was 6’3” in heels; I guess they were looking for a tall galoot to accompany her.

“My moment in the spotlight came when a newly crowned Miss America came sweeping down the runway in Atlantic City -- television cameras zooming in -- when her long dress was caught on a nail. I rushed across the stage to release her dress -- we just barely missed a ‘wardrobe malfunction.’ Come to think of it, maybe that’s where I got my start in national life.” Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Virginia White is 95 (hat tip: Robert Allbritton) … Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent at the NYT Magazine and author of “This Town,” is 54 ... Scott Pruitt is 51 ... Laura Capps ... Uber’s Theo LeCompte is 4-0 ... Third Way President Jon Cowan (h/t Ladan Ahmadi) … John Ashcroft is 77 ... Facebook’s Joel Kaplan is 5-0 (h/t Laura Cox Kaplan) … Kent Knutson is 52 ... Steven Richman ... POLITICO’s Victoria Guida, LaToiya O’Brien, Paul Jaworski and Chris ReShore ... Gregg Keller ... Jeremy Kennedy ... Olya Moskalenko ... WSJ’s Eva Dou ... Fabion Seaton ... Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large of Vox, is 35 … Dana Perino, anchor of Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing” and co-host of “The Five” ... Nicholas Jackson, EIC of Pacific Standard ... Fox News’ Jordan Powell ... DOL’s Aaron Krejci … State Department’s Brent Beemer is 5-0 (h/t Teresa Davis) ... Claudia Lenart … Liberal Democrats leader Vince Cable is 76 ...

… David Wysong ... Judith Steinberg Dean is 66 ... Shiza Shahid ... Mother Jones’ Nihal Krishan ... Ashley Schapitl … former Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) is 66 (b/t Blain Rethmeier) ... IFA’s Jenna Weisbord is 31 … Danielle Friedman of Perkins Coie ... Sam Fox is 9-0 ... David Perera ... Chris Ullman, founder and president of Ullman Communications (h/t Kris Ullman) ... Gregory Whitten ... Lauren Decot ... Jason Linde, VP of political affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), is 5-0 (h/t Steve Danon) … Melanie Hastings ... Sally Buikema ... Victoria McCullough of Tumblr ... Edelman’s Erica Noble ... Conor Lynch ... Katherine Casey ... McClatchy alum Greg Gordon is 69 ... Parker Poling, ED of NRCC … Reeve Hamilton ... Kevin Shuvalov … Taylor Andreae … Joe Mohorovic ... Virginia Dent … Jack Peterson ... Daily Beast national editor Justin Miller ... Ian Osborne ... Stu Sandler … Hungarian President János Áder is 6-0 ... Matt Hessburg … Peter Drummond (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

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