THE NARRATIVE -- In the last few days, Donald Trump picked a prolonged fight with the parents of a dead soldier and said they shouldn’t be permitted to criticize him; he called Hillary Clinton “the devil”; said the November election will be “rigged”; he falsely claimed he got a letter from the NFL complaining about the debate schedule; and he said radical Islamic terrorists are coming into the United States “by the thousands and thousands.”
Trump then told a USA Today op-ed writer that he would urge his daughter to quit a job if she were the subject of workplace harassment (http://usat.ly/2asf3im). House Speaker Paul Ryan has been the Republican leader most willing to try put Trump in line, so we asked his office what they thought of Trump’s most recent comment.
“Workplace discrimination can be a living hell for victims, and the speaker believes it should never be tolerated or excused,” spokesman AshLee Strong said in an email. “Questions on Mr. Trump's comment should be directed to the Trump campaign."
Just like John McCain, Roy Blunt and just about every other Republican, Ryan and his aides seem plainly uninterested in talking about -- and defending -- Trump. And it appears Trump has noticed. He tweeted thanks to Paul Nehlan, Ryan’s opponent, just one week before the primary election in Wisconsin.
“Thanks to @pnehlen for your kind words, very much appreciated,” Trump wrote. After Ryan was painstakingly neutral during the Republican presidential primary, this is about as close to open political warfare by Trump as you can get.
Our colleague Rachael Bade got a response from Zack Roday, Ryan’s campaign spokesman. “[R]ather than engage in a back-and-forth, the speaker is going to remain focused entirely on ensuring we deliver strong Republican majorities this fall.” Translation: someone has to worry about the 271 Republicans up for election in November!
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THE BIG PICTURE -- “Trump’s trap: GOP nominee can’t let go of perceived slights,” by AP’s Julie Pace: “Those who have worked with Trump say that in private meetings, he can often appear amenable to putting a controversy aside. But the businessman can quickly be drawn back in by an interview, especially if he believes he’s already answered the question, or if he grows irritated by commentary on cable television.” http://apne.ws/2aJGvci
DONALD’S WAR -- NYT A1, “Donald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet,” by Steve Eder and Dave Philipps(print headline: “Seemingly Fit, Trump Avoided Vietnam Draft”): “Back in 1968, at the age of 22, Donald J. Trump seemed the picture of health. He stood 6 feet 2 inches with an athletic build; had played football, tennis and squash; and was taking up golf. His medical history was unblemished, aside from a routine appendectomy when he was 10. But after he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that would change his path: bone spurs in his heels. ... Mr. Trump’s public statements about his draft experience sometimes conflict with his Selective Service records, and he is often hazy in recalling details.” http://nyti.ms/2aMkco4
FLASHBACK -- Trump tells biographer: “I always felt that I was in the military.” http://politi.co/1VMez6a
--DAVID ROGERS: “Trump’s Vietnam draft past sheds light on ‘sacrifice’ debate”: http://politi.co/2aJL3zJ
BUZZ -- VANDEHEI HIRES ‘STAT’ HEALTH CARE REPORTER -- Jim VandeHei’s new venture -- which he has hailed as the next great media company -- has hired David Nather, a health care reporter, from STAT News, multiple sources tell us. Nather worked at POLITICO Pro before decamping for STAT, a publication covering health care led by Rick Berke, who briefly edited POLITICO under VandeHei. Berke told Playbook, “We’ll miss David but we’re very happy for him and grateful for his efforts to get STAT’s D.C. bureau up and running.”
--READING THE TEA LEAVES: There’s been a lot of buzz that VandeHei’s venture would be a health-care heavy, trade-style pub with a mix of news high-level people can use, political intelligence and other content for a healthy fee. We haven’t been given a heads up on this, despite our close ties to VandeHei and Mike Allen, who will join Jim after the election. VandeHei neither gave us this item nor responded to a request for comment. Nather didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
FUTURE OF NEWS -- “Joshua Topolsky, Former Verge Editor, Raises Funding for Digital Media Venture,” by WSJ’s Mike Shields: “Topolsky, who helped co-launch The Verge and most recently served as the top digital editor at Bloomberg, has rais ed $5 million to found The Outline, a new digital publication set to debut this fall … Mr. Topolsky is touting The Outline as something of the antidote to a rising crop of digital media brands that are reliant on social media distribution and, in his mind, are too focused on reaching massive user totals.” http://on.wsj.com/2agHugh
HAPPENING TODAY -- Donald Trump is in Ashburn, Virginia, at Briar Woods High School for a rally at 11 a.m. Tim Kaine is in Daytona Beach, Florida, at Daytona State College. Mike Pence is in Tucson in the afternoon, and Phoenix in the evening.
SHAKEUP AT TRUMP TOWER -- “Trump fires at least 2 aides,” by Alex Isenstadt and Ken Vogel: “Both aides — Ed Brookover and Jimmy Stracner — had worked for the presidential campaign of former Trump rival Ben Carson, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of the race. Brookover, a longtime GOP strategist, had been working as a political adviser. He played a role in helping to organize last month’s GOP convention. Stracner, had been working as the Trump campaign’s Western regional political director … One source familiar with the move said that Brookover received a phone call from another Trump aide, Jim Murphy, informing him of the news. During the call, Murphy said two senior Trump aides, William McGinley and Mike McSherry, would take on elevated roles.” http://politi.co/2aoAwHI
HOT DOC -- Eric Cantor, the former House majority leader who is now making millions on Wall Street, gave $20,000 from his political action committee to a group called “Republicans United.” Cantor lists the group as being a “non-federal donation,” but it is not registered with Virginia’s State Board of Elections, despite being housed in Alexandria. We have no idea what this group is, and Cantor and his spokesman John Murray did not respond to a request for comment. Cantor only has $208,000 left in the account. But the Virginia Republican is still using his PAC to pay bills. He spent $8,000 on legal fees with Wiley Rein in the second quarter of 2016 and nearly $900 on catering at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond.
YOU’RE INVITED! -- Playbook Breakfast Thursday with Tom Donilon and Stephen Hadley, two of the nation’s top national security minds. Donilon was the National Security Adviser to President Barack Obama, and is now a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the vice chairman at O’Melveny and Myers. Hadley was National Security Adviser to George W. Bush and is now a partner at Rice Hadley Gates LLC. We’ll talk national security, Russia and cybersecurity. Doors open at 8 a.m. at the Mayflower, 1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW (Metro to either Farragut North or West). Suggested questions? Send to anna@politico.com and Jake@politico.com. RSVP http://bit.ly/2apGEUg
ROLL CALL LEAVING CAPITOL HILL -- For the first time in decades — if not ever — Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call is moving its headquarters downtown. The paper, which merged with Congressional Quarterly in 2009 and is now known as CQ Roll Call, declined to officially comment on the move because the deal is still being finalized. A source close to the deal tells Playbook that the new office space near 16th and Eye Street, NW, is similar in size. They will have full access to an event space in the building and rooftop overlooking the White House, the source said. Prior to the merger, CQ’s offices were near DuPont Circle. “Many of their clients are government associations that are on K Street and they are downtown,” the source said. The source noted CQ Roll Call’s most recent office space was in NoMa, behind Union Station.
FOR YOUR RADAR -- NYT A8, “Iran’s Top Leader Distances Himself from Nuclear Pact, Which He Once Supported,” by Rick Gladstone: “Iran’s top leader distanced himself on Monday from the nuclear agreement reached with major powers a year ago, accusing the United States of failing to honor pledges in the accord and citing ‘the futility of negotiations with the Americans.’ ... ‘Today, even the diplomatic officials and those who were present in the negotiations reiterate the fact that the U.S. is breaching its promises, and while speaking softly and sweetly, is busy obstructing and damaging Iran’s economic relations with other countries,’ Ayatollah Khamenei said.” http://nyti.ms/2ard8HP
HOW’S THAT BOOK COMING? - “Roving journalist and VICE columnist” Michael Tracey (@mtracey): “A selection of hard-hitting questions posed to Trump by @MarkHalperin in a recent Showtime interview” http://bit.ly/2aNckPV
--@BuzzFeedNews: “How NOT to interview Donald Trump, featuring Mark Halperin.” 90-second video http://bit.ly/2aou03M
BEING THERE -- “Mother of service member booed over Khan question at Pence rally,” by Matthew Nussbaum in Carson City, Nevada: “The woman, in a quiet voice, stood before the crowd of hundreds at a town hall-style event here with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and announced that her son serves in the Air Force. The crowd applauded. But then the woman said, ‘Time and time again, [Donald] Trump has disrespected our nation’s armed forces and veterans. And his disrespect for Mr. Khan …’ The reaction of the crowd was immediate and fierce, drowning out her words. The crowd began to boo as she tried to get through her question. The woman ... Catherine Byrne of Carson City, continued to speak through the jeers.” http://politi.co/2aowWO6
DAILY DONALD -- Trump on Hannity: “You look at The New York Times, I mean, the fail — I call it ‘The Failing New York Times’ because it won’t be in business for another, probably more than a few years unless somebody goes in and buys it and wants to lose a lot of money … But The New York Times is so unfair. I mean they write three, four articles about me a day. No matter how good I do on something, they’ll never write good … They don’t write good. They have people over there, like Maggie Haberman and others, they don’t — they don’t write good … They don’t know how to write good.” http://politi.co/2ahdz7V
--For the record: Maggie (our former colleague) writes good, and she’s broken a ton of news on Trump and many other subjects in 2016.
--“Donald Trump suggests he may revoke New York Times’ press credentials,” by Kelsey Sutton: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested that his campaign may take away press credentials from The New York Times ... [and] called the Times’ coverage of him ‘very dishonest.’” http://politi.co/2aLNwe9
--“Khan confrontation keys in on human decency — and that could haunt Trump,” by Washington Post’s Phil Rucker: “Trump’s belittling of the Muslim American parents of a dead U.S. soldier may be different, according to political strategists in both parties, who say the ongoing episode could challenge the notion of Trump as a Teflon candidate. So far, they say, Trump’s repeated offenses haven’t doomed his candidacy because many voters see each Trump insult as a dagger at political correctness, every blemish a welcome reminder that the celebrity-mogul candidate is willing to take on the established order. But in the case of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — whose son Humayun Khan, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a suicide bomb — Trump is taking on grieving parents, not elites or the status quo.” http://wapo.st/2ahP4rf
PIC DU JOUR -- Doug Stanglin (@dstanglin): “Capt. Khan’s grave this morning at Arlington cemetery. Among the flowers was a note addressed to his parents.” http://bit.ly/2aF6gcv
PAGING CHAFFETZ -- Is UTAH in play? KUTV: “A new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll shows [Trump and Clinton] are virtually tied with 35 percent for Donald Trump and 36 percent for Hillary Clinton. That is as close as a Democratic candidate has been to victory in more than half a century.” http://bit.ly/2aMCbej
--“How big is Hillary Clinton’s convention bounce?” by Steve Shephard: “An initial set of post-convention polls out this week shows a sudden swing toward the newly minted Democratic presidential nominee ... Five new public surveys, each conducted over the weekend following Democrats’ national party convention, give Clinton a lead ranging from 3 to 9 points.” http://politi.co/2aFlmyT
TOP TWEETS -- @liamstack: “Trump: Khizr Khan ‘has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution.’” ... @derektmead replies: “Unintentionally one of the greatest First Amendment jokes in history” … Matt McDermott (@mattmfm): “Gallup: this GOP convention is first *ever* where more say they are now less likely to vote for the party’s nominee.” http://bit.ly/2awg1YD … Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz): “Trump channels Bernie at his rally just now, says he has raised almost $36 million in small donations, says avg donation is $69” … [Sanders fundraising guru] Tim Tagaris (@ttagaris) replies: “521k individual gifts. Bernie had 3x as many in best month; beat it in Dec. This is Trump’s convention month. Sad!”
HOMETOWN BLOWBACK -- Gary Varvel’s Indy Star cartoon, “Gov. Mike Pence’s new job requires him to put out the political fires started by Donald Trump.” http://indy.st/2aqXDFK
BILLIONAIRE BEAT -- “Woody Johnson throwing pricey Hamptons fundraiser for Trump,” by Page Six’s Bennett Marcus: “Howard Lorber, Peter Kalikow and financier Anthony Scaramucci are among bigwigs co-hosting the Aug. 13 soiree [at Johnson’s East Hampton estate], where tickets will go for $10,000 and $25,000 apiece.” http://pge.sx/2arsHCi
MEANWHILE, IN HILLARYLAND -- “Billionaires for Hillary: The Clinton campaign is lining up mogul after mogul to say, ‘I’m with her’ -- and tweak Trump,” by Daniel Lippman: “It’s all a concerted effort to undercut one of Trump’s main campaign messages: that he’s a successful businessman who can make America’s economy hum again. The hope is to peel off moderate Republicans, independents and others who think the real estate developer and former host of ‘The Apprentice’ is an economic wizard.” With cameos by Hilary Rosen, Howard Wolfson, Lis Smith, Stephanie Cutter, Bob Shrum, Dean Baker, Jonathan Tasini http://politi.co/2areCBB
COMING ATTRACTIONS -- “There’s Going To Be A Clinton Campaign Fundraiser At A Hacker Convention,” by BuzzFeed’s Sheera Frankel: “A fundraiser for the Clinton campaign is being held at Black Hat, a major cybersecurity conference that launches this week in the midst of the fallout of leaked emails from the [DNC’s] hacked servers.” http://bzfd.it/2aF89WC
HILL WATCH -- “GOP civil war comes to Kansas: Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a prominent Freedom Caucus member, is fighting for political survival heading into a Tuesday primary in Kansas farm country,” by Rachael Bade in Dodge City, Kansas: “Residents of the onetime stomping grounds of Wyatt Earp have been bombarded with competing TV ads and mailers, blasting Huelskamp as an ineffective troublemaker who’s lost his sway on critical agricultural issues. They’re urging voters to replace the Freedom Caucus member with Roger Marshall, an obstetrician running for office for the first time.”
“What’s resulted in ‘the Big First,’ as locals in the rural 63-county district call it, is an unlikely, multi-million dollar proxy fight this summer between some of the most powerful interests in the Republican Party. Outside conservative groups, including the Club for Growth and Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, have swooped in to try and save Huelskamp in Tuesday’s primary, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Ricketts family’s ‘Ending Spending’ group are spending big to send the three-term congressman back to Kansas.” http://politi.co/2adBtFT
ACELA READING -- “This Is Your Life, Brought to You by Private Equity,” by NYT’s Jennifer Daniel, Josh Williams, Ben Protess and Danielle Ivory: “Since the financial crisis, the private equity industry has become hugely influential. Here’s how it plays out in your daily life.” http://nyti.ms/2aqWG0g
HOT VIDEO – “3 a.m.”: “Marge and Homer Simpson wrestle with the choice in this election.” 2-min. video http://bit.ly/2aMma85
MEDIAWATCH -- “Gawker founder Nick Denton files for bankruptcy,” by Peter Sterne: “Gawker Media founder Nick Denton filed for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy protection on Monday, in order to prevent former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan from moving to seize his assets. A.J. Daulerio, a former editor of Gawker.com, is also expected to file for bankruptcy. You can read Denton's bankruptcy filing here. Denton alluded to the imminent bankruptcy filing in two tweets on Monday morning. ‘Gawker Media Group’s resilient brands and people will thrive under new ownership, when the sale closes in the next few weeks,’ he wrote. ‘On this bitter day for me, I am consoled by the fact that my colleagues will soon be freed from this tech billionaire’s vendetta.’” http://politi.co/2aqWL44 ... His bankruptcy filing http://politi.co/2awg3Q0
--The New Yorker launched a new Instagram account Monday, where they will post their favorite and funniest cartoons from ninety-one years of The New Yorker’s history. They start with Hillary and Donald. http://bit.ly/2aJFvoJ
FUTURECAST -- “Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People’s Blood,” by Inc’s Jeff Bercocivi: “[I]f there’s one thing that really excites Thiel, it’s the prospect of having younger people’s blood transfused into his own veins. That practice is known as parabiosis, and, according to Thiel, it’s a potential biological Fountain of Youth--the closest thing science has discovered to an anti-aging panacea. ... After decades languishing on the fringes, it’s recently started getting attention from mainstream researchers, with multiple clinical trials underway in humans in the U.S. and even more advanced studies in China and Korea.” http://on.inc.com/2aex8SA
PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: JOHN DICKERSON
John Dickerson, the multi-platform host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” is out with a new book today. “Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History” is being billed as “the stories reporters rehash for themselves and embellish for newcomers.” Connie Schultz reviewed the book in the Washington Post: http://wapo.st/2aIrQhH … $20.26 on Amazon http://amzn.to/2aEb81A
Dickerson called us up to talk about the book, and 2016.
--On the writing process: “The book itself, I started writing less than a year ago…There’s been a lot of long nights and no days off. The challenge was the chapters, even though they started out as podcasts, are a lot different than the podcast version, because there’s a lot of riffing you can do in a podcast that you can’t do in writing. It was a lot more work. I shifted a lot of things around and told stories a bit differently. The podcast was a start, but this is its own animal. You can go back 25 years to when I first started collecting these books, these stories, as I was buying books about presidential campaigns.”
--On comparisons between George Wallace in ‘68 and Trump in ‘16: “Wallace tapped into an angry electorate … the people in Washington were making stupid decisions that ruined their lives. The more specific complaint in 1968, you had bussing policies, housing policies that Wallace was arguing against, and those were more invasive than anything Donald Trump complains about … He doesn’t have a list of particulars like Wallace did. One overlap is trade ... The rhetoric is very similar, the sense of grievance and obviously the law and order is a direct copy from Wallace. People think it’s [Richard] Nixon, but Nixon was trying to keep up with Wallace when talking about law and order. And the idea there is to capture voters that are concerned about law and order, full stop, that’s it, and then others who have a broader fear of the cities and for whom law and order is a way to tap into that fear.”
--Is fact checking more important than ever?: “On the one hand, there are more challenges, more spin, more that’s not so that’s said by politicians. So the fact checking and all of that is more important than ever. The question of whether it’s more important gets into whether people are listening. Because there’s a lot of fact checking that’s been done that has not changed people’s mind. There are even some studies that suggest the more they see contradictory information, the harder they cling to the initial untruth. So it’s been never more necessary; whether it’s beneficial and has the second part of it, which is, you hope help people make a more reasoned decision based on the facts, that we’re not sure about.”
Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier, two longtime White House staffers, two great guys. pic.twitter.com/0om1PT7bKh
— Vice President Biden (@VP) August 1, 2016
WEDDING DETAILS -- per BuzzFeed’s Jim Dalrymple II: “Brian Mosteller is the director of Oval Office operations and in February was the subject of a Washington Post profile that touted his ability to ‘basically read President Obama’s mind.’ According to [Joe] Mahshie’s LinkedIn profile, he is a trip coordinator for Michelle Obama.” http://bzfd.it/2aM74ii ... Brian’s Post profile http://wapo.st/1QifpbN
MEDIA MOVES -- @reidepstein: “Big news! Welcome @MichaelCBender to @WSJPolitics team!”
-- TIM GRIEVE is leaving D.C. to return to Sacramento, California, as vice president of news at McClatchy. Grieve served as managing editor of POLITICO and founding editor of POLITICO Pro. He most recently led McClatchy’s digital readership initiative. http://bit.ly/2aLY38Z
RNC ALUMNI – MATTHEW MAZZONE to POOLHOUSE as director of production: “He previously worked at [RNC] for over four years where he built an in-house ad shop that produced over 400 ads, and won numerous Pollies and Telly's for cinematography, editing and directing. His ad campaign, ‘Where You Lead, Others Will Follow’ ran on national TV and was featured during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.” http://politi.co/2aZfgbK
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- NEW MSNBC FLAK -- SVP of Communications, per a release -- Errol “Cockfield will be responsible for setting the communications and media strategy for MSNBC and partnering with editorial and business leads at the network. Additionally, he will serve as lead spokesperson for MSNBC. He will be based in New York and report directly to Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, and functionally to Mark Kornblau, SVP of News Group Communications … Since 2012, Cockfield has served as a Senior Vice President at Edelman.”
OBAMA ALUMNI -- “Ashley Walker Named Partner at Mercury”: “Walker, who has led the public affairs operation for Mercury in Florida since joining the firm in 2013, is the first woman to be named partner of the global consultancy. ... Prior to joining Mercury, Walker served as the Florida State Director of Obama for America for the 2012 re-election campaign.” http://politi.co/2aqXpP9
--BILL BURTON, managing director of SKDKnickerbocker and ALEX SLATER, managing director of the Clyde Group were both named to PR Week’s 2016 40 Under 40 List. Burton http://bit.ly/2audila ... Slater http://bit.ly/2ahQIcd … Full list http://bit.ly/2aMzyZR
SPOTTED at the season opener of Washington Kastles: Valerie Jarrett, sharing a table with the owner and snapping pics of the hype-man on stilts, Wolf Blitzer, Channel 5’s Tony Perkins, Jane Harman, And obviously the Bryan Brothers and Martina Hingis ... Tom Harkin on yesterday’s 7:30 a.m. DCA to LAX flight sitting in first class.
SEND YOUR SPOTTINGS to daniel@politico.com
FIRST LOOK -- CGCN Group - a Republican lobbying shop - is sending this House race analysis to clients today: http://politi.co/2aJqrrs
WEEKEND WEDDINGS -- “Mary Wright, David Cavicke” – N.Y. Times: “Until June, Mrs. Cavicke, 39, was a prekindergarten teacher at St. Chrysostom’s Day School in Chicago. ... Mr. Cavicke, 54, is the chief legal officer and the chief compliance officer for Wolverine Trading in Chicago. [He was also chief of staff at the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2009-2011. He had been the committee’s general counsel previously.] ... The couple were introduced through eHarmony in November 2014.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2aOpzA7
ENGAGED -- Tom Schaller, professor and chair of poli sci at UMBC, proposed on Friday night in Wellfleet in Cape Cod to Laura Siemer, senior writer for Unisys. Schaller is a former columnist for the Baltimore Sun and author of both “Whistling Past Dixie” and “The Stronghold: How Republicans Captured Congress but Surrendered the White House,” The couple met after a WashCaps hockey game in October 2014 and live in Logan Circle. Pics http://bit.ly/2auiOEB ... http://bit.ly/2ax8KYM ... The ring http://bit.ly/2arkcnQ
--Jessica McCreight, VP at SKDKnickerbocker, got engaged to Scott Brown, co-founder and chief experience officer at XRM – she emails: “A truly modern romance. We matched on OK Cupid, Hinge and the place where every great love story begins, Tinder ... Our first date was at Kramer Books for coffee. He proposed at home on Friday night. He’s just bought a new car and when he got home I was prepared to celebrate that when [he] flipped the script on me.” One more funny cute detail: “In 2014 I worked for Senate Majority PAC in New Hampshire -- writing and producing ads against ... Scott Brown. I’m actually still working in New Hampshire for SMP. Luckily this time I don’t have to write and produce ads against my beloved.” Pics http://bit.ly/2aJo1ta ... The ring http://bit.ly/2ar39s6
--Dean Kontos, deputy director of FP1 Strategies’ war room, got engaged on July 22, to Penelope Spanos, a computer science teacher at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington – he emails: “I proposed to her on a sailboat in Annapolis. We went to the same middle school. She was in the grade above me. I knew who she was back then but she didn’t have a clue who I was. Senior year of college I hung out with her over Christmas break and asked her to be my date to a fraternity formal of mine – now we’re getting married.” Pics http://bit.ly/2aJiLWa ... http://bit.ly/2auii9n
-- Kelsey Rupp, a reporter at Independent Journal Review, and J. Arthur Bloom, opinion editor of the Daily Caller, got engaged on Thursday in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, during a family reunion -- blocks from Taylor Swift’s house. No word on whether the couple’s favorite T-Swift song will be played at the wedding. Rupp and Bloom took a walk on the beach, he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. She said yes. Pic http://bit.ly/2aeCqNX
BIRTHDAYS: AP’s Tom Raum, the pride of Bergenfield, N.J., is 72 … New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright, author of Hugh Hewitt’s favorite book “The Looming Tower” ... Politico’s Benton Ives, a champion golfer (h/t Zapler) ... former Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) is 94 ... Stephen Cox, corporate counsel for int’l business at Apache and a DHS alum, is 39 ... NYT’s Matthew Rosenberg ... Patrick Ruffini, co-founder of Echelon Insights, chairman and founder of digital agency Engage, and the pride of Greenwich, CT, is 38 ... Kevin Walling, director of BizDev at DS Political, is 31 (h/t Anne Schroeder) ... Daniele Baierlein ... Rich Edson of Fox News (h/t Josh, Blair) … Hearst Television’s Eric Meyrowitz, a Tribune alum ... former Treasury Secretary John Snow is 77 … Kate Roberts ... Gigi Kellett, managing campaigns director at Corporate Accountability International ... former Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) is 43 ... former Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kans.) is 61 ... former Rep. Ron De Lugo (R-VI) is 86 ... Peter Mihalick, LD/counsel for Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) ... David Eiselberg, deputy COS for Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex) is 42 ... Robert Oakley Seibert ... Emily Gershon of Senate Ethics ... Sarah Bittleman of Senate Finance ... Colleen Gallagher of Rep. Pat Meehan’s office (h/ts Legistorm) ...
... Caitlin Huey-Burns of Real Clear Politics ... political consultant Dave Mills, alum of Tim Kaine, VA Dems and DNC ... Paul Cheshire ... Vonda Marrow (h/ts Claude Marx) ... Ann Kelly ... David Hunter ... Vicki Seyfert ... Brendan O’Sullivan (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) ... Michael Manganiello, founding partner at HCM Strategies ... Ann Kelly … Gil Duran, SVP for media at Fenton and a Feinstein and Jerry Brown alum … Brian D. Montgomery, vice chairman of the Collingwood Group and Bush WH alum ... Brynn Barnett, principal at HillPoint Strategies and a Brookings, HHS and Ogilvy alum ... Sim Khan, founder of custom-suit maker Brimble & Clark ... Dan Burrows, senior writer at InvestorPlace ... Jeff Ballou ... Jennifer Streaks ... Sean Butler is 51 (h/t Rankin) ... Bryce Dustman ... Melissa Leebaert ... actor Nehemiah Persoff is 97 ... Garth Hudson (The Band) is 79 ... Butch Patrick (“The Munsters”) is 63 ... actress Mary-Louise Parker is 52 ... figure skater Michael Weiss is 4-0 ... singer Charli XCX is 24 ... actress Hallie Eisenberg is 24 (h/ts AP)