POLITICO Playbook PM: Late-night texts from Rudy Presented by Amazon

Rudy Giuliani attends White House Sports and Fitness Day on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

LATE-NIGHT TEXTS FROM RUDY … President Donald Trump’s lawyer RUDY GIULIANI to our colleague DARREN SAMUELSOHN, 2:54 a.m., on the size of the president’s “countereport” -- which will drop when the special counsel’s findings come out Thursday: “Now at 34 or 35. The more concise the better. 400 pages is a novel.”

CAIN NOT OUT YET … BLOOMBERG’S @JenniferJJacobs: “Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow says @THEHermanCain has Trump’s support. Cain is going through the vetting process and it is up to Cain if he want to continue in the process, Kudlow tells gaggle at WH. per @spettypi”

COUNTERPROGRAMMING NOTE -- CAITLIN OPRYSKO: “President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he will head to Wisconsin for the rally he’ll hold instead of attending the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.

“His reelection campaign rolled out details about the Green Bay, Wis., event that will take place next Saturday as much of Washington’s press corps heads to the annual journalism celebration Trump has scorned since he became president.” POLITICO

Good Tuesday afternoon.

MAYBE HE READ PLAYBOOK THIS MORNING? … THE PRESIDENT TWEETS at 10:11 a.m.: “So weird to watch Crazy Bernie on @FoxNews. Not surprisingly, @BretBaier and the ‘audience’ was so smiley and nice. Very strange, and now we have @donnabrazile?”

-- AHEM: “we”?

FOX NEWS’ @BretBaier: “Thanks for watching Mr. President - we’d love to have you on a town hall soon — or even an interview on @SpecialReport — it’s been awhile. We cover all sides.”

-- NOTE: When the president does interviews on Fox News, it’s almost always with friendly commentators like Sean Hannity or Jeanine Pirro. During the North Korea summit in Vietnam, for instance, it was Hannity who got the sit down with POTUS, even though the news side asked for an interview and sent Baier and his crew all the way to Hanoi.

COMING ATTRACTIONS -- “Trump, first lady to address opioid crisis at Atlanta summit,” via AP: “The White House announced the April 24 appearance at the Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit on Twitter Tuesday, saying the Trumps will speak ‘about their fight to end the opioid crisis in America.’” AP

TRUMP spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron this morning to offer condolences after the fire at Notre Dame on Monday. “France is the oldest ally of the United States, and we remember with grateful hearts the tolling of Notre Dame’s bells on September 12, 2001, in solemn recognition of the tragic September 11th attacks on American soil. Those bells will sound again. We stand with France today and offer our assistance in the rehabilitation of this irreplaceable symbol of Western civilization,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

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2020 WATCH -- NYT’S JONATHAN MARTIN: “‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum”: “How, some Democrats are beginning to ask, do they thwart a 70-something candidate from outside the party structure who is immune to intimidation or incentive and wields support from an unwavering base, without simply reinforcing his ‘the establishment is out to get me’ message — the same grievance Mr. Trump used to great effect?

“The discussion about Mr. Sanders has to date been largely confined to private settings because — like establishment Republicans in 2016 — Democrats are uneasy about elevating him or alienating his supporters. The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz.” NYT

-- N.Y. MAG’S GABE DEBENEDETTI: “A Long Talk With Jay Inslee: The 2020 candidate on nuclear power, constituent Howard Schultz, and the prospect of debating Trump.” N.Y. Mag

-- WAPO’S BOB COSTA (@costareports): “[Pete] Buttigieg will keynote the Human Rights Campaign's ‘HRC Las Vegas Dinner’ on Saturday, May 11, per HRC official.”

-- CLICKER: POLITICO’s interactive tracker on the Democrats’ 2020 money chase. POLITICO

MICK MULVANEY’S RISE … NICK CONFESSORE in NYT MAGAZINE: “Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying the Government From Within”: “When Mulvaney took over, the fledgling C.F.P.B. was perhaps Washington’s most feared financial regulator … What he left behind is an agency whose very mission is now a matter of bitter dispute. …

“Mulvaney’s careful campaign of deconstruction offers a case study in the Trump administration’s approach to transforming Washington, one in which strategic neglect and bureaucratic self-sabotage create versions of agencies that seem to run contrary to their basic premises.

“According to one person who speaks with Mulvaney often, his smooth subdual of the C.F.P.B. was part of his pitch to Trump for his promotion to White House chief of staff … Mulvaney’s slow-rolling attack on the bureau’s enforcement and regulatory powers wasn’t just one of the Trump era’s most emblematic assaults on the so-called administrative state. It was also, in part, an audition.” NYT Magazine

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HOW GINA HASPEL WORKS -- NYT’S JULIAN BARNES and ADAM GOLDMAN: “Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills to Connect With Trump. He Doesn’t Always Listen”: “For all of Ms. Haspel’s ability to stay in Mr. Trump’s good graces, there is little evidence she has changed his mind on major issues, underscoring the limits of her approach. …

“Ms. Haspel has served as a bulwark against politicization at the C.I.A., counseling senior agency leaders to focus on their jobs and ignore presidential comments telling intelligence chiefs to “go back to school,” former intelligence officers said. … The first woman to run the C.I.A., Ms. Haspel has focused instead on shoring up the basics, like rebuilding morale, pushing more officers into overseas positions and emphasizing core spy skills like language expertise. All that has made her popular with the rank and file.” NYT

RICK SCOTT’S PUERTO RICO PROBLEM … MARIANNE LEVINE: “Feud erupts between Rick Scott and Chuck Schumer over Puerto Rico”: “Rick Scott campaigned on standing up for Puerto Rico. But with President Donald Trump warning senators not to provide more aid to the island, the Florida Republican is caught between his party and his promises.

“And Democrats are eager to exploit that tension — blasting Scott for sticking with the president on a critical disaster relief bill and throwing the freshman senator into the middle of a broader fight over stalled assistance for millions of Americans devastated by wildfires, flooding and hurricanes.” POLITICO

REMEMBER THIS GUY? … “Disgraced Former Rep. Todd Akin Donated to Steve King After ‘White Supremacy’ Comments,” by The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay: “Akin’s leadership PAC, Takin Back America PAC, donated $2,000 to King’s campaign on Feb. 2, according to a newly filed financial disclosure statement. That was less than a month after King, in an interview with The New York Times, asked, ‘White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?’” The Daily Beast

THE FRESHMEN -- NEW VIDEO SERIES … POLITICO’s new video series “Red, Fresh & Blue” introduces you to six members of the most diverse freshman class in congressional history during their first 100 days. In today’s profile, Eugene Daniels interviews Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, New Hampshire’s first openly gay congressman, about how running a restaurant with his family shaped his views on how Congress should operate. The video

-- “The advice Ilhan Omar, Abigail Spanberger and other freshmen women in Congress are getting,” by USA Today’s Eliza Collins

ON THE WORLD STAGE -- “The U.S. Wants to Ban Huawei. But in Some Places, AT&T Relies On It,” by WSJ’s Drew FitzGerald: “While AT&T has kept Chinese equipment out of its domestic networks, industry executives say the U.S. company uses Huawei’s gear to run a large part of the wireless network in Mexico, where the electronics giant is as welcome as any other supplier. …

“Huawei’s success in Mexico shows the uphill climb U.S. officials face convincing private-sector leaders that the Shenzhen-based telecom giant poses an imminent threat to their information security. The State Department has stepped up its campaign in recent months to persuade allied countries to avoid doing business with Huawei, with limited success.” WSJ

-- “Donald Trump, China Savior? Some Chinese Say Yes,” by NYT’s Li Yuan: “At dinner tables, in social media chats and in discreet conversations, some of the country’s intellectual and business elite are half-jokingly, half-seriously cheering on the leader who has built a large part of his political career on China-bashing.

“‘Only Trump can save China,’ goes one quip. Others call him the ‘chief pressure officer’ of China’s reform and opening. Their semi-serious praise reflects the deepening despair among those in China who fear their country is on the wrong track. An aggressive outsider like President Trump, according to this thinking, can help China find its way again.” NYT

-- POLL DU JOUR: “Respect among Russians for Josef Stalin has surged to the highest level of President Vladimir Putin’s era, with 70 percent saying his rule had been good for the country, according to a poll tracking attitudes toward the Soviet dictator.” Bloomberg

HMM … via The Daily Beast’s Kate Briquelet: Jeffrey Epstein “continues to quietly distribute his wealth—including to the nonprofits of Deepak Chopra, Elton John and a doctor linked to President Trump—through a shadowy private foundation called ‘Gratitude America, Ltd.,’ The Daily Beast has learned.” The Daily Beast

MEDIAWATCH … Rebecca Morin will be a political reporter at USA Today. She previously was a breaking news reporter at POLITICO. Good luck, Becca!

SPOTTED at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s 2019 gala Monday night: Justice Stephen Breyer and Joanna Breyer, Justice Samuel Alito and Martha Ann Alito, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), German Ambassador Emily Haber, Vinton and Sigrid Cerf, Shelby Coffey III, Tom and Ann Friedman, Joanne and R. David Edelman, Susan Ginsburg, Kathy Kemper, Kevin Chaffee and Michael Witmore.

TRANSITION -- Tom Zigo is now communications director at MPAA. He previously was a principal at Precision Strategies.

WEEKEND WEDDING -- Evan Philipson, Florida regional political director at AIPAC, on Sunday married Gaby Blyumin, a pediatric clinical pharmacist, in front of family and friends on the beach in Miami Beach. “Guests enjoyed gourmet popsicles, hand-rolled cigars, and a caviar station.” Pic

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