POLITICO Playbook: NEW: W.H. says cartoonist is no longer attending social media summit Presented by Amazon

President Donald Trump sits in a Cabinet meeting on Aug. 16, 2018. | Oliver Contreras/Pool via Getty Images

DRIVING THE DAY

NEW … THE WHITE HOUSE told us last night that Ben Garrison, the cartoonist who drew this cartoon that has been widely labeled anti-Semitic, will no longer be attending the administration’s social media summit. As of Tuesday morning, Garrison was invited -- he posted the invite he got on Twitter -- and people in the administration were privately defending the invitation.

OF COURSE, it doesn’t take much to see why the cartoon is considered anti-Semitic. It shows the Rothschilds -- a Jewish family -- controlling George Soros, another Jew, on puppet strings, who, in return, has David Petraeus and H.R. McMaster wearing military garb, attached to puppet strings. Jews controlling the strings of government is a decades old anti-Semitic meme.

BUT IT DID TAKE ALL DAY to get the White House to engage on this subject. At first, they responded to questions about Garrison by offering a boilerplate statement saying that President DONALD TRUMP “wants to engage directly” with people who have experienced social media bias. But they wouldn’t say if and why he was invited, punting on the guest list.

WE THEN started asking questions directly of people who have hailed Trump as a leader quashing anti-Semitism: Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and members of Congress. Greenblatt, Kushner and his spokesman Avi Berkowitz did not respond. It was then that a senior administration official told us that Garrison would no longer be attending the event. Members of the House Republican leadership -- Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and Liz Cheney -- denounced anti-Semitic imagery. (Hat tip to Yashar Ali a.k.a. @yashar, who pointed out Garrison’s attendance to his 400,000 Twitter followers.)

-- MORE ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA SUMMIT: WAPO’S TONY ROMM, MICHAEL SCHERER and AMY WANG: “Trump looks to rally controversial online allies at White House social media summit”: “President Trump has summoned Republican lawmakers, political strategists and social media stars to the White House on Thursday to discuss the “opportunities and challenges” of the Web — but his upcoming summit, critics say, could end up empowering online provocateurs who have adopted controversial political tactics entering the 2020 election campaign.

“The high-profile gathering follows months of attacks from Trump claiming that Facebook, Google and Twitter — all services the president taps to talk to supporters — secretly censor right-leaning users, websites and other content online, a charge of political bias that the tech giants strongly deny. …

“Among the expected attendees are James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, which has released secretly recorded videos of subjects, including a Google executive, in an attempt to paint them as politically biased.” WaPo

Good Wednesday morning. ONE WEEK until the BOB MUELLER hearings on Capitol Hill. BUT …

… BREAKING LAST NIGHT: WSJ’S BYRON TAU and DUSTIN VOLZ: “House Democrats Seek Closed-Door Testimony of Mueller Deputies”: “Two former prosecutors on the special counsel’s team, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley, have been in negotiations to testify behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee on the same day that Mr. Mueller would appear in an open hearing before that panel and the House Intelligence Committee, according to people familiar with the matter. …

“Among the obstacles, the Justice Department doesn’t want either deputy to testify, one of the people said. The department’s stance could spark yet another fight between Democratic lawmakers and the administration that may result in a possible court fight.” WSJ

-- NYT’S NICK FANDOS and KATIE BENNER have this headline: “Justice Dept. Tells Mueller Deputies Not to Testify, Scrambling an Agreement”: “It is unclear what effect the Justice Department’s intervention will have on the men’s eventual appearances, but it raises the prospect that a deal lawmakers thought they had struck last month for testimony from Mr. Mueller, the former special counsel, and the two prosecutors could still unravel.” NYT

FISCAL MESS UPDATE: Speaker NANCY PELOSI spoke to Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN late yesterday afternoon, and the two will speak again today about trying to find a deal to lift budget caps and raise the debt limit.

-- ONE THING TO NOTE: There does seem to be recognition in the Capitol that the debt ceiling should be lifted this month before the August recess. That doesn’t mean that it will be, but that’s what the administration seems to be pushing for behind the scenes. THIS WEEK would have to end with some sort of framework to move forward toward a deal for progress to be made in the remaining two weeks before the August break.

GOOD EYE … MSNBC’S JACK BOHRER (@JRboh) pointed out on Twitter that MICK MULVANEY will pass REINCE PRIEBUS in chief of staff tenure this week. Mulvaney has been serving for 190 days, and Priebus served for 192. Mulvaney is still “acting” COS.

MUST READ … NYT’S ANNIE KARNI and MAGGIE HABERMAN on A17: “Jeffrey Epstein Was a ‘Terrific Guy,’ Donald Trump Once Said. Now He’s ‘Not a Fan’”: “It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. …

“[T]hrough a mutual appreciation of wealth, women and years of occupying adjacent real estate in Palm Beach and on Page Six, the lives of the two men routinely intersected for decades — until the connection turned from a status symbol into a liability, and Mr. Trump made sure to publicize the fact that he had barred his onetime friend from his clubs. …

“But while Mr. Trump has dismissed the relationship, Mr. Epstein, since the election, has played it up, claiming to people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, Melania Trump, though neither of the Trumps has ever mentioned Mr. Epstein playing a role in their meeting. Mrs. Trump has said that her future husband simply asked for her phone number at a party at the Kit Kat Club during Fashion Week in 1998.” NYT

A message from Amazon: Amazon is investing $18 billion in 2020 on tools, services, programs, and people to help small and medium-sized businesses reach more customers worldwide. Learn how we're empowering independent sellers to grow and thrive.

TIM ALBERTA -- “AMERICAN CARNAGE” SNEAK PEEK IN POLITICO MAGAZINE: “Speaking in Ohio just after the Access Hollywood bombshell dropped, Pence had initially dismissed the news as just another media hatchet job. Yet soon after, he called Trump from the road, checking in as he did daily, sounding upset. He advised Trump to offer a sincere apology. That was the last anyone had heard from the VP nominee.

“Pence had gone back to Indiana and bunkered down, cutting himself off from the outside world, praying with his wife about what to do next and telling his advisers that he wasn’t sure he could continue with the campaign.

“To the extent Trump felt regret, it was over disappointing the Pences. ‘Oh boy,’ he said Friday afternoon after hanging up with his running mate. ‘Mother is not going to like this.’” POLITICO Magazine … With video

-- BOFFO NYT REVIEW of ALBERTA’S book: “‘American Carnage’ Shows How War Between Republicans Led to Their Peace With Trump,” by Jennifer Szalai: “‘[A]merican Carnage’ isn’t just another drop in the deluge of Trump books; in fact, it isn’t really a Trump book at all. Instead it’s a fascinating look at a Republican Party that initially scoffed at the incursion of a philandering reality-TV star with zero political experience and now readily accommodates him.

“Alberta, a political correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review before moving to Politico, brings more than a decade of reporting and a real understanding of the conservative movement to ‘American Carnage.’” NYT … $20.22 on Amazon

WSJ IN TEHRAN: “Crushed by U.S. Sanctions, Iran Pins Economic Hopes on Mall Developer,” by Benoit Faucon and Sune Engel Rasmussen: “Faced with a U.S. campaign to choke Iran of capital and investment, Saeed Mohammed is trying to find ways to keep the lifeblood of his country’s economy flowing.

“As the newly installed chief of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Base, the engineering arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s ideologically rooted military unit, Mr. Mohammed is seeking to cushion the impact from an unprecedented array of U.S. sanctions.” WSJ

-- HAPPENING TODAY: “The IAEA will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday, convened at the behest of the U.S., to discuss Iran’s breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear agreement is formally known.” Bloomberg’s Ladane Nasseri

-- WAPO’S LOVEDAY MORRIS with this dateline: “OFF THE COAST OF BAHRAIN”: “Aboard a U.S. patrol ship in the Persian Gulf, where tensions are spiking”

-- REUTERS SCOOP: “Iran's release of Lebanese prisoner was failed overture to U.S.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

ALEX ISENSTADT: “GOP at war over fundraising”: “Tensions over the future of the GOP's grassroots fundraising are reaching a breaking point, with the national party turning to strong-arm tactics to get Republicans behind its new, Donald Trump-endorsed platform for small donors.

“The [RNC] is threatening to withhold support from party candidates who refuse to use WinRed, the party’s newly established online fundraising tool. And the RNC, along with the party's Senate and gubernatorial campaign arms, are threatening legal action against a rival donation vehicle. The moves illustrate how Republican leaders are waging a determined campaign to make WinRed the sole provider of its small donor infrastructure — and to torpedo any competitors.” POLITICO

BRUTAL FOR BIDEN … NYT’S FRANK BRUNI: “Joe Biden, Closet Republican: He’s the liberal Bob Dole, the looser Mitt Romney, the supposedly safe bet who’s owed a shot”: “[B]iden is campaigning on his eight years as vice president. He’s also campaigning on the nostalgia of his surname, the familiarity of his presence and the comfort of his aura. And that’s not just a tactic from Bush’s playbook. It’s a quintessentially Republican move.

“The last two Democrats to win the presidency, Clinton and Obama, didn’t take a tack anything like Biden’s. Clinton was the man from Hope, Ark., who was determined to give liberalism a modern makeover and set the Democratic Party on a more profitable course. Obama was hope and change — not to mention the audacity of hope — and those nouns in aggregate augured a fresh start.

“Both men were under 50 when they attained the presidency, and both were in keeping with the Democratic Party’s flattering (and not quite accurate) image of itself, from John F. Kennedy onward, as youthful, innovative, visionary, trailblazing. But Biden, 76, isn’t about exploring uncharted paths. He’s about following bread crumbs back to where we lost our way. Less Lewis and Clark, more Hansel and Gretel.” NYT

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER: “Greg Murphy defeats candidate backed by GOP women in NC congressional primary runoff,” by Brian Murphy: “State Rep. Greg Murphy won Tuesday’s runoff for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District in a race that exposed a gender rift among U.S. House Republicans and attracted attention from some of the biggest names in Republican politics.

“Murphy will be the favorite to represent the GOP-leaning district in Eastern North Carolina. He joins Democrat Allen Thomas, Libertarian Tim Harris and Constitution Party candidate Greg Holt on the ballot for the Sept. 10 general election.

“Murphy, a urologic surgeon from Greenville, won the nomination over first-time candidate Joan Perry, a Kinston pediatrician, in a bid to replace Walter B. Jones, Jr., in the House. With all precinct reporting, Murphy had 59.7 percent of the vote and topped Perry by nearly 7,000 total votes.” Charlotte Observer

-- STAT DU JOUR: WAPO’S MIKE DEBONIS points out this would be the House GOP’s 182nd male member. There are 198 House Republicans.

THE JUICE …

-- SPOTTED at the Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner at the National Press Club: Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Val Demmings (D-Fla.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), David Morgan, Eun Yang, Yamiche Alcindor, Tom Joyner and Suhail Khan.

THE PRESIDENT’S WEDNESDAY … TRUMP will leave the White House for the Ronald Reagan building at 11 a.m., and will speak at 11:10 about advancing American kidney health. (Dan Diamond and Rachel Roubein scooped this announcement earlier this week.) The president leaves at 11:50 back for the White House, and that’s it for his public schedule today.

PLAYBOOK READS

PHOTO DU JOUR: A cow jumps over people in the crowd following the running of the bulls at the San Fermin Festival, in Pamplona, northern Spain, on Wednesday, July 10. | Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo

JOHN HARRIS: “Ross Perot — the father of Trump”: “A quarter-century before Donald Trump, Perot was a brash, can-do showman who expressed contempt for politics as usual and promised voters who shared his disdain that the path to national greatness was to send an autocratic businessman with a touch of jingo to the White House to kick ass in Washington.”

-- Boston Globe’s @JamesPindell: “In March, as Perot battled leukemia, in the last documented political act of his life, he wrote two checks for the legal maximum amount to Trump’s campaign for president, including for the general election next year.”

WE COULDN’T POSSIBLY COMMENT … WAPO’S DAVID FARENTHOLD: “Strip club to host golf tournament at Trump resort in South Florida”: “President Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Fla., is scheduled to host a golf tournament Saturday put on by a Miami-area strip club, which will allow golfers to pay for a dancer to serve as their ‘caddy girl’ while they play at the president’s club.

“The ‘Shadow All Star Tournament’ is organized by the Shadow Cabaret, a strip club in Hialeah, Fla. Emanuele Mancuso, Shadow Cabaret’s marketing director, said in a telephone interview that this was the first time the club had held a tournament at Trump Doral.

“The Trump name and family crest are displayed prominently in the strip club’s advertising materials, which offer golfers the ‘caddy girl of your choice.’” WaPo

#THISTOWN -- NAHAL TOOSI and DANIEL LIPPMAN: “British ambassador, now target of Trump’s ire, has D.C. wired”: “When British Ambassador Kim Darroch went to the White House days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, the new U.S. president greeted him warmly, noting that he’d watched Darroch being interviewed on Fox News. ‘You’re going to be a TV star!’ Trump told Darroch.

“It was a jovial moment, according to two people Darroch told about the encounter, and it was one reason that the British envoy — in public and private — has described Trump as ‘charming.’ But new reports that Darroch privately dissed Trump’s team as ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘inept’ in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat and soured Trump on the diplomat.” POLITICO

WILD BREITBART STORY … “Exclusive — Swamp Monsters: Angola Robs American Company at Gunpoint, Hires D.C. Lobbyists to Clean Up Mess,” by Matt Boyle

A message from Amazon: Building a single store. Learn how we partnered with independent sellers to build the Amazon store.

IMMIGRATION FILES -- “Migrant kids in overcrowded Arizona border station allege sex assault, retaliation from U.S. agents,” by NBC’s Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley

-- WAPO: “Federal judge rejects Trump administration’s bid to swap out lawyers for census case on citizenship question,” by Matt Zapotosky, Seung Min Kim and Tara Bahrampour: “A federal judge in New York on Tuesday denied a bid from the Justice Department to replace the team of lawyers on the case about the census citizenship question, writing that its request to do so was “patently deficient.”

“The department had earlier this week announced its intention to swap out the legal team on the case, without saying exactly why.

“A person familiar with the matter said the decision was driven in part by frustration among some of the career lawyers who had been assigned to the case about how it was being handled, though the department wanted to replace those in both career and political positions. But U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman denied the formal, legal bid to do so.” WaPo

-- @realDonaldTrump, 9:44 p.m. ET: “So now the Obama appointed judge on the Census case (Are you a Citizen of the United States?) won’t let the Justice Department use the lawyers that it wants to use. Could this be a first?”

-- NOTE: Furman clerked for Mike Mukasey, who later served as George W. Bush’s attorney general … and brought on Furman as counselor. Furman also clerked for (retired) Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a George H.W. Bush appointee.

NEW ON THE TWITTERS -- Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai (@AmbCuiTiankai) joined this week. China has long blocked its citizens from accessing Twitter, although many tech-savvy people in China use VPNs to circumvent the ban.

BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- “Zombie campaign coming back to life? Mark Foley tells FEC he’s ready for comeback,” by FlaPol’s Noah Pransky: “Responding to a May 29 [FEC] inquiry as to why he was still spending 13-year-old campaign contributions, a representative for Foley indicated the West Palm Beach Republican kept his campaign account active because he is plotting another run for office and he ‘anticipates making a final decision sometime following the reapportionment resulting from the upcoming decennial census.’” Florida Politics

-- YES, that Mark Foley.

WORTH THE CLICK … INSIDER.COM: “We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it,” by Mark Bowden

MEDIAWATCH -- “The Jeffrey Epstein Case Was Cold, Until a Miami Herald Reporter Got Accusers to Talk,” by NYT’s Tiffany Hsu: “Julie K. Brown, an investigative journalist for The Miami Herald, expected to spend the week on the same emotionally brutal endeavor she has pursued for more than two years: interviewing women who say that, as girls, they were part of a sex ring run by the wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. … She worked on the award-winning series with Emily Michot, a visual journalist at The Herald. …

“The two reporters tried to keep costs down by renting less-expensive rooms at Airbnbs, booking low-cost flights and occasionally not filing expenses. And they tried not to fall down any rabbit holes.” NYT

-- NYT’S MICHAEL GRYNBAUM: “Houston to Host Third Democratic Debate on ABC”

-- Dave Catanese, a POLITICO alum, is joining McClatchy in Washington as a national political reporter. He was formerly at U.S. News and World Report.

-- Joanie Greve will be a politics breaking news reporter at The Guardian in D.C., writing its daily politics blog. She is currently a researcher for WaPo’s Daily 202 newsletter.

PLAYBOOKERS

REMEMBERING PHIL FREELON -- THE NEWS & OBSERVER’S JOE JOHNSON and MARTHA QUILLIN: “Renowned Durham architect Phil Freelon of Durham has died. … Freelon, 66, was diagnosed with ALS in March 2016, six months ahead of the opening of one of his crowning achievements, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture …

“Freelon founded the architectural firm The Freelon Group in 1990, growing the firm to more than 45 employees and working on notable projects such as the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta and Emancipation Park in Houston.” N&O … Facebook post

SPOTTED: Evan Bayh at Cafe Milano on Tuesday night. … Corey Lewandowski at Matchbox on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Pic … Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) speaking at Politics and Prose on Tuesday night about his new book, “The Land of Flickering Lights,” to a packed house that included his mom, Susanne. Pic.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Shawna Thomas, Vice D.C. bureau chief. A fun fact that people in Washington might not know: “I think most people know this by now, but let me confirm for those of you who don’t believe: I attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston with Beyoncé. Yes. That Beyoncé. No. We weren’t besties.” Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus (h/ts Robert Palladino and Katie Martin) … Sam Stein of The Daily Beast and MSNBC ... Kenny Day, principal at Airsnext Media (h/t Tim Burger) ... Sarah Boxer ... Alex Angelson of the White House ... Ben Napier is 29 … Katie Pavlich is 31 ... POLITICO’s Chris Cadelago, Matt Daily, Catherine Boudreau, John Appezzato, Melanie Seitz and Ashley Afranie-Sakyi ... former NYC Mayor David Dinkins is 92 ... Julianna Smoot, co-founder and partner at the Smoot Tewes Group … Rena Shapiro, head of politics and public affairs at a4 Media ... Emil Caillaux is 35 ... Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos is 69 … Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad is 94 ... Sam Harper, VP of comms at SoundExchange ... Ron Klein, chair of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, is 62 ...

... Karen Hinton … Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is 43 … Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) is 63 ... Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) is 39 ... Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) is 64 ... former Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) is 77 ... former Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) is 61 ... NYT film critic A.O. Scott is 53 … White & Case’s Keir Whitson is 5-0 (h/t wife Susan) … Kayla Maree Sanders … Eli Yokley … Remley Johnson is 28 (hubby tip: Robert Flock) ... WSJ’s Heather Haddon ... Rob Bogart ... Phillip Hedayatnia ... Grant Thomson ... Jamie Lockhart ... Peter Bondi … Barbara Goldberg Goldman is 7-0 … Christine Turner ... Caroline Ciccone ... Bill Thompson, CUNY board chairman ... Ian Rivera ... Amanda Woloshen Glass ... Kevin Call ... Bill Roberts ... Sarah Hodgkins ... Caroline Gransee ... Clay Haynes ... Chris Terris ... Finlay Lewis is 81 ... Elie Jacobs ... Monty Warner ... Elizabeth Bartz ... Chuck Lewis ... Edie Mead Holway ... Jeff Mitchell

A message from Amazon: Retail is a thriving, competitive, and highly-fragmented market where both buyers and small sellers have more choices than ever before. At Amazon, we welcome this competition. It sharpens our focus, feeds our creativity, and fuels our drive to innovate for customers. Learn more.

Follow us on Twitter Anna Palmer @apalmerdc



Jake Sherman @JakeSherman