POLITICO Playbook: Why the GOP retirements are a gut punch for the party Presented by Amazon

Rep. Martha Roby is the second female House Republican to call it quits. There are just 13 House Republican women. | Manuel Balce Ceneta, File/AP Photo

DRIVING THE DAY

WHILE WE WERE ALL watching ROBERT MUELLER and Democrats this week, here’s what happened to House Republicans: Three popular and well-respected members of Congress decided they weren’t going to run for reelection. Michigan Rep. PAUL MITCHELL, Texas Rep. PETE OLSON and Alabama Rep. MARTHA ROBY all said they were calling it quits. Republicans say they lost the House because of too many retirements last cycle, yet they are seeing a steady stream of lawmakers forgo reelection once again.

GUT PUNCHES: Roby is the second female House Republican to call it quits. There are just 13 House Republican women. … The Olson district -- anchored south and southwest of Houston -- is going to become one of the toughest fought seats this cycle.

-- MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER: “The 2nd congressional district is heavily Republican, rated R+16 by the Cook Political Report. But its future is as doubtful as the post-2020 congressional map for Alabama. The state is expected to lose a congressional seat following next year's Census, a development that would necessitate new boundaries. That could force incumbents into fights with each other, if none decide to step aside in the 2022 elections.” Montgomery Advertiser

THE PRESIDENT had dinner Friday night at the Trump Hotel. SPOTTED talking to the president and first lady after dinner: Monica Crowley, Matt Boyle, Jonathan Swan, Sergio Gor, Stephen Cheung, Kash Patel, Kaelan Dorr, Katrina Pierson, Kelly Love and Arthur Schwartz.

Happy Saturday.

DARRELL ISSA is hosting a fundraiser for MITCH MCCONNELL in La Jolla on Aug. 12. The invite

ALL WHILE SOLVING MIDDLE EAST PEACE, CHINA AND REVAMPING GOV’T … WAPO: “Adviser, son-in-law and hidden campaign hand: How Kushner is trying to help Trump win in 2020,” by Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey: “He has asked Bill Stepien, a senior political adviser to the campaign, to provide him with a 10-year plan outlining how Republicans can win inner-city voters. He speaks daily — and often multiple times a day — with Parscale, and has recommended digital and media vendors for the campaign. Campaign aides who want to brief Trump often go through him. And when Kushner suggested that the campaign bring on Kayleigh McEnany as its national press secretary, Parscale made the hire.” WaPo

TRUMP AIMS AT CUMMINGS … 7:14 a.m.: “Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA..........As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place …

… 7:24 a.m.: “Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!”

-- IS SAYING “no human being would want to live there” part of Jared’s effort to win inner cities?

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HEADS UP … VIRGINIA GAZETTE: “At 400th anniversary of representative government, Trump will address General Assembly, others will talk about the future,” by Jack Jacobs: “Just a few miles from where it all began, politicians, civil servants, journalists, academics and citizens will gather at the College of William and Mary to consider the future of representative democracy in the United States and the world.

“On Tuesday, it will be 400 years to the day that men from 11 of Virginia’s major English settlements met at Jamestown in 1619. It was the first meeting of a representative legislature in what would become the United States, paving the way for an experiment in democracy that continues to the present day.

“‘What happened at Jamestown July 30 to Aug. 4 was the foundation of the democratic model in America,’ said Kathy Spangler, 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution executive director. ‘It has had bearing on what our democracy became.’

“A special joint session of the General Assembly is among the events slated to celebrate the anniversary Tuesday. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks during the commemoration, a White House official confirmed. ‘The President will give remarks that celebrate our great American tradition of representative democracy,’ he said.” Virginia Gazette

TRUMP SMILES … WAPO: “Supreme Court says Trump can proceed with plan to spend military funds for border wall construction,” by Robert Barnes: “A split Supreme Court said Friday night that the Trump administration could proceed with its plan to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to build part of the president’s wall project along the southern border.

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“The court’s conservatives set aside a lower-court ruling for the Sierra Club and a coalition of border communities that said reallocating Defense Department money would violate federal law.

“Friday’s unsigned ruling came in response to an emergency filing from the administration during the court’s summer recess. The majority said the government “made a sufficient showing at this stage” that private groups may not be the proper plaintiffs to challenge the transfer of money.

“The court’s action is a stay of the injunction issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on a 2-to-1 vote, and the litigation continues. The administration wants to finalize contracts for the work before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.” WaPo

-- L.A. TIMES: “Migrant traffic on the busiest stretch of border has decreased, but is the shift significant?” by Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Mission, Texas.

2020 WATCH …

-- DAVID SIDERS and CHRIS CADELAGO in Salt Lake City: “Democratic governors sound alarm on Trump reelection”: “Nationally, the focus has been on last week’s hearings and quote-unquote oversight, the question of impeachment, the effectiveness of Trump to make it about … the four [congresswomen who constitute the “squad”],’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday. ‘That’s been the zeitgeist, and so Trump being the master of deflection and distraction … it’s been hard for the Democrats to sort of hold that message.’” POLITICO

SPEAKING OF NEWSOM … JEREMY WHITE and DEBRA KAHN in Sacramento: “California's Newsom wrestles with Trump tax return bill”: “Gavin Newsom has spent the first six months of his governorship positioning himself as the West Coast anti-Trump while taking pains to distinguish himself from his legendary predecessor, Jerry Brown.

“Those two strands intersect in a piece of legislation sitting on Newsom's desk that would compel President Donald Trump and other presidential candidates to release their tax returns if they want to appear on California ballots.

“Although going after Trump is typically political gold for Newsom, the bill — which Brown vetoed in 2017 — poses a tricky balancing act for the rookie governor: Signing it would shore up Newsom’s base and boost his national profile within the Democratic Party, with other Democratic-led states following his lead. But doing so may rile up dormant California Republicans, and fray Sacramento’s relationship with the Trump administration, which Newsom has tried to keep functional despite bitter disputes over everything from immigration to auto emissions policy.” POLITICO

PAGING THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION … “For lease: Three historic public golf courses in the nation’s capital that need millions in repairs,” by WaPo’s Cortlynn Stark.

THE PRESIDENT’S SATURDAY … No public events scheduled.



PLAYBOOK READS

PHOTO DU JOUR: Acting U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan and Interior Minister of Guatemala Enrique Degenhart sign a “safe third country” agreement as President Donald Trump looks on in the Oval Office on Friday. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

CLICKER -- “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker -- 15 keepers

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman (@dlippman):

-- “Content moderators at YouTube, Facebook and Twitter see the worst of the web — and suffer silently,” by WaPo’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, Jeanne Whalen and Regine Cabato in Manila: “Social media giants have tasked a workforce of contractors with reviewing suicides and massacres to decide if such content should remain online — and protect the firms’ reputations.” WaPo

-- “How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic,” by Adam Federman in POLITICO Magazine in partnership with Type Investigations: “This is one of the last untouched environmental treasures in the United States. It also sits on top of an immense reserve of oil.” POLITICO Magazine

-- “Treasure Island: Leak Reveals How Mauritius Siphons Tax From Poor Nations To Benefit Elites,” by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Will Fitzgibbon: “Based on 200,000 files, Mauritius Leaks exposes a sophisticated system that diverts tax revenue from poor nations back to the coffers of Western corporations and African oligarchs.” ICIJ

-- “The Blue Diamond Affair: The Jewel Heist That Became a Diplomatic Nightmare,” by Allison McNearney in The Daily Beast: “A jewel heist carried out by a Thai gardener against his rich Saudi prince boss led to a police investigation, murder, more theft, and a diplomatic rift between the two nations.” Daily Beast

-- “The Assassin Next Door,” by Héctor Tobar in The New Yorker: “My family’s immigrant journey and James Earl Ray’s path to targeting Martin Luther King, Jr., intersected at an unglamorous corner of East Hollywood.” New Yorker

-- “The Water Wars of Arizona,” by Noah Gallagher Shannon in the NYT Magazine: “Attracted by lax regulations, industrial agriculture has descended on a remote valley, depleting its aquifer — leaving many residents with no water at all.” NYT Magazine

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-- “Maybe It’s Lyme,” by Molly Fischer in The Cut -- per TheBrowser.com’s description: “Enthralling investigation into ‘chronic Lyme,’ a newly minted all-American medical complaint with ‘no consistent symptoms, no fixed criteria, and no accurate test.’ Almost by definition, ‘chronic Lyme’ also has no cure. Those who believe themselves to be sufferers will typically find one another on social media, form support groups, and seek out sympathetic doctors who can charge extravagantly for indefinite courses of entirely speculative ‘treatments.’ It is an illness with all the trappings of a cult.” The Cut

-- “The playboy who got away with $242m – using ‘black magic’” -- BBC: “One day in August 1995 a man called Foutanga Babani Sissoko walked into the head office of the Dubai Islamic Bank and asked for a loan to buy a car. The manager agreed, and Sissoko invited him home for dinner. It was the prelude, writes the BBC’s Brigitte Scheffer, to one of the most audacious confidence tricks of all time.” BBC

-- “The rise and fall of French cuisine,” by Wendell Steavenson in The Guardian: “French food was the envy of the world – before it became trapped by its own history. Can a new school of traditionalists revive its glories?” The Guardian (h/t The Sunday Long Read)

-- “A Feint and a Duck,” by James Rosen in Commentary: “[T]he so-called Fight of the Century, in March 1971, when Ali met champion Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden ... was every bit as consuming as the bout in Zaire, with what seemed at the time like astronomically high purses for each fighter, a slugger matched against a dancer, Vietnam- and Cold War–era politics heavy in the air, and Ali practicing his singular psychological warfare, smearing his inarticulate opponent as an ugly Uncle Tom.” Commentary

-- “A Doctor’s Deception,” by Michael Lista in Toronto Life -- per Longreads.com’s description: “‘For 30 years, Paul Shuen was one of the city’s most respected obstetricians. Then his nurses noticed something unusual about the way he delivered babies.’ On one physician who put women and babies ‘in mortal danger’ in a strange bid to solve his financial problems by defrauding the hospital billing system.” Toronto Life

-- “Was the Automotive Era a Terrible Mistake?” by The New Yorker’s Nathan Heller: “For a century, we’ve loved our cars. They haven’t loved us back.” The New Yorker

-- “There’s a global movement of Facebook vigilantes who hunt pedophiles,” by Quartz’s Hanna Kozlowska -- per Longreads.com’s description: “‘Pedophile hunting’ or ‘creep catching’ via Facebook is a contemporary version of a phenomenon as old as time: the humiliating act of public punishment. Criminologists even view it as a new expression of the town-square execution. But it’s also clearly a product of its era, a messy amalgam of influences such as reality TV and tabloid culture, all amplified by the internet.” Quartz



PLAYBOOKERS

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HEADS UP -- Sambonn “Sam” Lek, a bartender and philanthropist who’s been serving drinks to Washington power players for more than four decades, will have his last day at the St. Regis on Monday. Guests will gather to say goodbye, drink his “Sam I Am” cocktail and see his signature magic show from 4 p.m. to midnight. NYT profile from 2018

MEDIAWATCH -- Brooke Lorenz joined CBS News as senior manager of communications in D.C., working on “Face the Nation” and across the Washington bureau. She previously was a publicist at WaPo.

TRANSITION -- Mitch Hailstone will be comms director for Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.). He previously was comms director for Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.).

SPOTTED: Reince Priebus having dinner Friday night with new Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and former PM Antonis Samaras on the rooftop of the King George hotel in Athens. … Tom Perez and Neera Tanden getting drinks at Del Frisco’s on Friday night.

BIRTHWEEK (was Friday): Oscar Goodman, the former mayor of Las Vegas, turned 8-0

BIRTHDAYS: Priscilla Painton, VP and executive editor at Simon & Schuster, is 61 ... Alex Wirth, co-founder and CEO of Quorum … DoD’s Katie Wheelbarger … Neil King ... Andy Spahn … BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod … Allison Moore ... Jeremy Berkowitz is 36 ... Natalie Raabe, director of comms at The New Yorker ... Susan Durrwachter ... former Commerce Secretary Don Evans is 73 … Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) is 63 ... Rep. Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-Pa.) is 6-0 ... Cecilia Muñoz, VP at New America ... Berin Szóka ... Parag Khanna is 42 ... David Spielfogel ... Lauren Durham ... Sarah Feinberg … Amy Tilley ... Aaron Lichtig is 39 ... RNC’s Johanna Persing is 31 … Georgie Whatmore ... Jonathan Strong ... Justin LoFranco is 33 … former Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) is 55 … Lauren Aratani ... Sean Savett … Adam Mohabbat ... Alex Andrew ... Cathy Deeds … Linda Feldmann … Carolyn Petschler … Jason Lindsay … John M. Deutch is 81 … Elliot Schrage is 59 ...

… Jeremy Deutsch, COS for the House Republican Conference … Jeremy Adler, comms director for the House Republican Conference, is 27 … Anna Vetter, comms director for Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas) (h/t Patrick Pfingsten) … Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, is 58 … Denis Horgan, EP of “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC (h/t dad Denis) … Seth Waugh (h/t Jillian Rogers) … Charlie McKell … Andrew Grossman, principal at Grossman Heinz, is 51 … Daniel Tietz … Bobby Saparow ... Salvatore Colleluori … John Connell, COS for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) ... Katie Bond … Morgan Shoaff … PJ Wenzel ... Juan Mejia ... Nicholas Barnabo ... Saumitra Thakur ... Sofia Gerard ... Maya Goines ... Elizabeth Arledge … Sally Adams … Degee Wilhelm … Ed Cohen … Ellen Daniels (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Phong Ngo … Heather Piedmont ... Gaurav Parikh ... Susan Phalen ... Paul Caron is 62 ... Carrie Ann Alford ... Robert Diamond is 68

THE SHOWS, by Matt Mackowiak, filing from Austin:

-- CNN’s “State of the Union”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) ... Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). Panel: Jennifer Granholm, Mia Love, Van Jones and David Urban (live from Detroit).

-- ABC’s “This Week”: Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) ... Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) … New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Panel: Matthew Dowd, Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel, Meghan McCain and Yvette Simpson.

-- NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) … Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Tom Steyer. Panel: Helene Cooper, Rich Lowry, Terry McAuliffe and Amy Walter.

-- CBS’ “Face the Nation”: Mick Mulvaney ... Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) … Julián Castro … Marianne Williamson. Panel: Joel Payne, Eliana Johnson, Ed O’Keefe and Michael Crowley.

-- “Fox News Sunday”: Mick Mulvaney ... Andrew Yang. Panel: Karl Rove, Donna Brazile, Ben Domenech and Juan Williams.

-- CNN’s “Inside Politics”: Michael Shear, Karoun Demirjian, Jackie Kucinich, MJ Lee and Astead Herndon.

-- Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) … Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) … Matt Whitaker … Joe Lieberman.

-- Fox News’ “MediaBuzz”: Emily Jashinsky … Sara Fischer … Capri Cafaro … Sean Spicer … Leslie Marshall.

-- CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Zanny Minton Beddoes, Niall Ferguson and Richard Haass … Afghan Ambassador Roya Rahmani … Eric Topol..

-- CNN’s “Reliable Sources”: Susan Glasser, Caitlin Dickerson and Andrew Marantz … Amanda Carpenter … Carla Minet and Luis Valentin Ortiz.

-- Univision’s “Al Punto”: Alexandra Lugaro and Luis Gutierrez … Manuel Gámez … Alejandro Giammattei … Isabella Gomez and ulissa Arce.

-- C-SPAN: “The Communicators”: Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), questioned by The Information’s Ashley Gold … “Newsmakers”: Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), questioned by National Journal’s Brian Dabbs and CQ Roll Call’s Ben Hulac … “Q&A”: Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.).

-- MSNBC’s “Kasie DC”: Tom Perez … Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) … Amy McGrath … FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra … Sara Fischer … Philip Rucker … Juana Summers … Betsy Woodruff … Ken Dilanian … Natasha Bertrand … Matt Gorman … Jacob Soboroff.

-- Washington Times’ “Mack on Politics” weekly politics podcast with Matt Mackowiak (download on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or Stitcher or listen at MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com ): Tim Alberta.

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