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On the roster: Poll: Warren’s woes in New Hampshire are real - Warmbier’s parents reject Trump’s excuses for Kim - Troubled times for Trump super PAC - House Dems’ fraying coalition - He should have taken the under



POLL: WARREN’S WOES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE ARE REAL

Politico: “Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the leading choice among Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new poll, with more than a quarter of those surveyed expressing support for the progressive candidate in the increasingly growing field of presidential candidates. Twenty-six percent of Democratic primary voters support Sanders, an independent, when provided a list of declared candidates and those who will possibly join the race, according to the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll. Trailing Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden is favored by 22 percent of Democratic voters. Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts followed, with 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Fourteen percent of those surveyed remain undecided. New Hampshire holds the first primary in the presidential election cycle, and is often seen — along with Iowa, which holds the first caucuses — as a determiner of who will go on to become a party’s nominee.”



Inslee, warning of climate crisis, jumps in 2020 race - Fox News: “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced his Democratic presidential bid on Friday, making him the first governor to enter an already-crowded field of senators and other hopefuls battling to challenge President Trump in 2020. Inslee, 68, a former congressman representing the Seattle district, announced his intention to run in a video early Friday morning. He will officially announce his bid—which will be centered around climate change—from Seattle Friday afternoon. ‘We went to the moon and created technologies that have changed the world—our country’s next mission must be to rise up to the most urgent challenge of our time: defeating climate change,’ Inslee said in his video announcement. … Inslee acknowledged that, of the crowded field, he is an underdog, but underscored his stance on climate change saying he expects it to set him apart, arguing that no presidential candidate has launched a campaign as focused on climate change and environmental policy as he will.”



Hickenlooper inches closer to the starting line - Colorado Sun: “John Hickenlooper is close to a decision about a 2020 presidential bid, with the campaign eyeing an announcement in Denver as soon as next week. The former Colorado governor received a permit to hold an event March 7 in the amphitheater at Civic Center park, according to records obtained by The Colorado Sun. The disclosure comes a day after The Sun cited several sources close to Hickenlooper, a Democrat, who said the campaign was planning an event in Denver for the first week of March. The location, in front of city hall and a block from the state Capitol, would allow the former Denver mayor and two-term governor to tell his story as the laid-off geologist turned brewpub owner who became the accidental politician.



Keep an out on the ‘2020 endorsement primary’ - FiveThirtyEight: “Will order emerge from the early chaos of the 2020 Democratic presidential field? Or will the party remain as divided as Republicans were in 2016? One indication will be whether Democratic elected officials and other influential party members seek to winnow the field by endorsing a narrow range of candidates. … So as we did in 2016, FiveThirtyEight will be tracking endorsements for the Democratic presidential nomination. We’ll also add the Republican nomination if it eventually appears that someone will give Trump a real run for his money, but we aren’t doing that just yet. Instead, we’ll be focusing on a universe of more than 900 potential Democratic endorsers, a more comprehensive list than we evaluated in 2016, including at least a few possible endorsers in every U.S. state and territory.”



THE RULEBOOK: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

“Man is very much a creature of habit. A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little influence upon his mind.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 27



TIME OUT: WHO OWNS HISTORY’S DNA?

Atlantic: “Last fall, Gilad Japhet, the founder of a DNA-testing company, got up at an industry conference to talk about his grandmother Rosa’s love letters. Japhet’s company, MyHeritage, sells cheek swabs to people interested in their family history. … But Japhet wasn’t satisfied with only testing the living; he wanted to test the dead. Which brings us to the love letters—or really, the envelopes they came in. The envelopes were sealed by his grandmother, and the stamps on them presumably licked by her. … Then he made the big announcement: MyHeritage would soon begin offering DNA testing on old stamps and envelopes. He didn’t stop there. If you can test the letters of your grandmother, why not that of historical figures? Japhet is a prodigious collector of autographs, and he revealed that he possessed handwritten letters from Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. In an intriguing if provocative PR move, he promised that ‘their DNA is coming to MyHeritage very, very soon.’”



Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.



SCOREBOARD

Trump job performance

Average approval: 41.8 percent

Average disapproval: 54.4 percent

Net Score: -12.6 points

Change from one week ago: no change

[Average includes: Fox News: 46% approve - 52% disapprove; Gallup: 44% approve - 52% unapproved; CNN: 42% approve - 54% disapproval; IBD: 39% approve - 57% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 38% approve - 57% disapprove.]



WARMBIER’S PARENTS REJECT TRUMP’S EXCUSES FOR KIM

WaPo: “The parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died after being detained for 17 months in North Korea, on Friday directly blamed leader Kim Jong Un for their son’s death a day after President Trump said he believed Kim’s account that he was not responsible. ‘We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out,’ Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement. ‘Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuse or lavish praise can change that.’ Trump said at a news conference in Hanoi that Kim felt ‘very badly’ about Otto Warmbier’s death in 2017, several days after being released in a coma from captivity in North Korea.”



Report: Trump cut corners to get son-in-law clearance - NYT: “President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been ‘ordered’ to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance. The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.”



TROUBLED TIMES FOR TRUMP SUPER PAC

Politico: “President Donald Trump wants to raise $1 billion for his reelection. But his top advisers worry that the super PAC at the center of that effort is hurting, lacking a high-wattage leader who can cajole millionaire and billionaire donors to fork over huge sums. Trump political aides, members of the president’s family, and top Republicans have been considering potential candidates to spearhead America First Action’s 2020 fundraising efforts. They want someone with deep ties to the president and the clubby world of major GOP donors. But the nationwide search has so far come up empty. Super PAC organizers at one point came up with a roster of around two-dozen names that included Robert Kraft, who was never seriously considered but was quashed anyway after the New England Patriots owner — a fixture at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort — was charged with soliciting prostitution. Another person floated for the post was GOP benefactor Kelly Craft, but she was ruled out after being nominated for United Nations ambassador.”



HOUSE DEMS’ FRAYING COALITION

Roll Call: “The new House Democratic majority is having its first major family disagreement as the caucus struggles to stay united against Republican messaging votes, which the minority is deploying through a procedural move known as a motion to recommit. Republicans in their first two months in the minority have already won two motions to recommit because of Democratic defections. Not once during the past eight years in which Republicans held the majority did Democrats win a motion to recommit. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, known for her ability to keep her caucus together, is frustrated that her party is allowing Republicans to leverage the procedural tool as a political weapon. … A motion to recommit, or MTR, is one of the few procedural tools the minority party has to get its message across. While the procedure can be used in a way that actually makes substantive changes to legislation, most often the minority’s goal is to send a political message, not improve the bill. That’s why Pelosi has dismissed the MTR votes as inconsequential.”



Moderates clap back on Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘list’ - Fox News: “After more than two dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party's progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment Wednesday, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reportedly sounded the alarm in a closed-door meeting Thursday and said those Democrats were ‘putting themselves on a list.’ … She said she would help progressive activists unseat those moderates in their districts in the 2020 elections, the report said. Her spokesman Corbin Trent told the paper that she made the ‘list’ comment during the meeting. ‘She said that when activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs, they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them,’ Trent said, referring to ICE.”



Pergram: Crazy days - Fox News: “House Republicans are driving Democrats crazy, and driving a major wedge through the majority party. GOPers are using a garden-variety procedural tool to goad Democrats into taking challenging votes on the floor – and risking the defeat or alteration of legislation which is on the verge of passing. The parliamentary gambit is called the ‘Motion to Recommit,’ or MTR as it’s known in congressional shorthand. MTR's must be ‘germane’ and tied directly to the legislation at hand. In short, an MTR can't deal with cats if the bill deals with dogs. At the end of almost every debate, just before the House votes on most major legislation, the majority provides the minority a parliamentary option, which, depending on how it’s drafted, could either change or possibly kill bills. In its purest form, a MTR is just that: an effort to ‘recommit’ legislation to committee, whisking it off the floor.”



PLAY-BY-PLAY

New allegations of anti-Semitic language against Rep. Ilhan Omar - Intelligencer



Pro-abortion rights group, EMILY’s List, names list of 2020 House and Senate targets - Roll Call



Report: Cuomo appeals to Bezos to bring Amazon back to NYC - Fox News



Chief Justice John Roberts nudges the court leftward after Kavanaugh’s arrival - Bloomberg



AUDIBLE: BUELLER? ANYBODY?

“Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with Rolling Stone when asked about the debate on single-payer, Medicare for All.



ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

This weekend Mr. Sunday will sit down with National Security Adviser, John Bolton. Watch “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Check local listings for broadcast times in your area.



#mediabuzz - Host Howard Kurtz has the latest take on the week’s media coverage. Watch #mediabuzz Sundays at 11 a.m. ET.



Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.



HE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE UNDER

WNBC: “State police say a western New York man faked his own abduction and robbery because he was short of cash owed in a Super Bowl pool. Troopers found 60-year-old Robert Brandel of North Tonawanda tied up in his pickup truck Monday in a parking lot in Newfane, 30 miles north of Buffalo. Brandel told troopers two men involved in his Super Bowl squares robbed him of $16,000, drove him around for two days and left him tied up in his pickup. Investigators determined Brandel had entered some fake names in his $50,000 squares pool hoping to take most of the winnings, but instead ended up short for the payouts. Brandel was charged with fraud and falsely reporting an incident. It couldn't be determined if he has a lawyer to comment.”



AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Chicago Tribune on April 27, 2009.



Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.