2017-01-31

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WHAT TRUMP IS WAKING UP TO -- NYT -- 6-column banner headline -- “TRUMP FIRES JUSTICE CHIEF WHO DEFIED HIM” -- 5 of 7 stories about the Trump administration http://nyti.ms/2jy8Dzx … WaPo -- 6-column banner headline -- “Acting attorney general fired over ban” -- 3 of 5 stories about Trump, not including a Supreme Court graphic http://bit.ly/2km1SFK … N.Y. POST: “DON NONSTOP … 10 days in office … 19 executive action … Defiant on immigrant ban … Takes ax to biz regulations … Supreme Court fight begins today … FIRST 100 DAZE” http://nyp.st/2jQq1QY

YOU’RE FIRED -- “Trump fires defiant acting attorney general,” by Josh Gerstein: “President Donald Trump fired the nation’s acting attorney general Monday night after she refused to defend an executive order he issued last week restricting immigration in the name of national security. In an act of high political drama just 10 days after taking office, Trump replaced Obama administration appointee Sally Yates with Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, Va. ‘The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel,’ a White House statement said. ‘Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.’

“Yates could not be reached for comment on Trump’s attack, but a person close to her called the criticism from the White House absurd. ‘That’s preposterous. Everyone knows she's a career prosecutor for nearly three decades, well-respected by serious members of both parties,’ said the Yates associate, who asked not to be named. ‘That dog won’t hunt.’ A Trump aide accused Yates of seeking attention. ‘She knew what she was doing and she knew she’d be fired. She just wanted the publicity,’ said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.” http://politi.co/2kbHJiU

**SUBSCIBRE to Playbook: http://politi.co/1M75UbX

-- BEHIND THE SCENES: “Trump’s Talk About Muslims Led Acting Attorney General to Defy Ban,” by NYT’s Matt Apuzzo: “Repeated comments from President Trump and his advisers about barring Muslims from entering the United States were at the heart of the decision on Monday by the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, to refuse to defend the president’s executive order on immigration, senior officials involved said. … Like many others in the government, Ms. Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, was caught by surprise Friday night by Mr. Trump’s executive order temporarily halting all refugees from entering the country and indefinitely blocking immigration or visits from seven Muslim countries. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had reviewed the order and signed off on its legality. But Ms. Yates and her staff lawyers believed that the department had to consider the intent of the order, which she said appeared designed to single out people based on religion.” http://nyti.ms/2kc4dR7 … Yates’ statement http://politi.co/2jy6NPe

-- SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) called the firing a “Monday massacre.” (A nod to Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre)

-- AGAIN… The scar tissue with Democrats -- and Capitol Hill -- keeps on building up. Fights like these are just going to make it that much more difficult for Trump to make good on his legislative promises. A FUN LINE: When any president gets into a tiff with members of Congress, we hear a popular refrain from lawmakers in D.C.: We were here before this president, and we’ll probably be here after them. Translation: the Hill frequently has the leg up and in the end will get their way.

-- DEPT. OF HILL RELATIONS: @realDonaldTrump at 6:21 a.m.: “Nancy Pelosi and Fake Tears Chuck Schumer held a rally at the steps of The Supreme Court and mic did not work (a mess)-just like Dem party! … When will the Democrats give us our Attorney General and rest of Cabinet! They should be ashamed of themselves! No wonder D.C. doesn’t work!” Note: Actually the microphone did work. It was out temporarily and many of the cabinet officials will be confirmed in the next 10 days.

GET SMART FAST -- “Dana Boente: Who Is the New Acting Attorney General?,” by NYT’s Liam Stack: http://nyti.ms/2jyfoBF

TRUMP'S TUESDAY MORNING STATEMENT: "President Donald J. Trump Will Continue to Enforce Executive Order Protecting the Rights of the LGBTQ Community in the Workplace" http://politi.co/2kPuyDx

Happy Tuesday. President Trump will receive the daily intelligence briefing this morning, meet with PhRMA and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and have lunch with Rudy Giuliani. He will sign an executive order and then announce his Supreme Court nominee at 8 p.m.

WHAT D.C. IS TALKING ABOUT -- BREAKING LAST NIGHT -- “Hill staffers secretly worked on Trump’s immigration order,” by Rachael Bade, Jake Sherman and Josh Dawsey: “Senior staffers on the House Judiciary Committee helped Donald Trump’s top aides draft the executive order curbing immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, but the Republican committee chairman and party leadership were not informed, according to multiple sources involved in the process. The news of their involvement helps unlock the mystery of whether the White House consulted Capitol Hill about the executive order, one of many questions raised in the days after it was unveiled on Friday. It confirms that the small group of staffers were among the only people on Capitol Hill who knew of the looming controversial policy.

“Kathryn Rexrode, the House Judiciary Committee’s communications director, declined to comment about the aides’ work. A Judiciary Committee aide said Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was not ‘consulted by the administration on the executive order.’ ‘Like other congressional committees, some staff of the House Judiciary Committee were permitted to offer their policy expertise to the Trump transition team about immigration law,’ a House Judiciary Committee aide said in a statement. ‘However, the Trump Administration is responsible for the final policy decisions contained in the executive order and its subsequent roll-out and implementation.’ The work of the committee aides began during the transition period after the election and before Donald Trump was sworn in. The staffers signed nondisclosure agreements, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Trump’s transition operation forced its staff to sign these agreements, but it would be unusual to extend that requirement to congressional employees. Rexrode declined to comment on the nondisclosure pacts.” http://politi.co/2klVle0

THE NEXT JUSTICE: “Trump’s Supreme Court pick gets personal,” by Shane Goldmacher and Eliana Johnson: “President Donald Trump’s two finalists for the Supreme Court offer him a choice between a pair of competing personal narratives: an Ivy League pedigree or a blue collar history. With the president lacking any consistent judicial philosophy, those close to Trump are emphasizing their candidate’s life story as they attempt to sway Trump toward either Neil Gorsuch or Thomas Hardiman. Gorsuch has the resume of a man seemingly destined for the high court: the son of a Reagan Cabinet member, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford, and a clerk for two Supreme Court justices who has worked in the Justice Department and spent a decade on the federal bench. ... Hardiman has blue-collar roots that his backers say would make him a quintessential Trump nominee: a native of a working-class industrial town in Massachusetts, the first in his family to graduate from college, and upwardly mobile without passing through the corridors of the Ivy League. He would be the only sitting justice who did not attend Harvard or Yale.” http://politi.co/2kK1mP6

-- WaPo FRONT-PAGE GRAPHIC on who might join the Supreme Court http://wapo.st/2kN449L

CAPITOL HILL BUZZ -- Democrats were giggling with glee last night when they got back into the Capitol. One told us that they are all happy President Trump issued the immigration ban as a broadly worded executive order, because if Trump worked with Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on codifying something like that into law through legislation, it would’ve been an epically difficult vote for many of them.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- A KEY HUDDLE -- The conservative House Freedom Caucus is meeting today with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Cassidy has released an Obamacare replacement bill that is getting some buzz around the Hill. It’s unlikely to be the plan that Republicans adopt, but it's a start.

THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG -- “How Obama will take on Trump,” by Isaac Dovere: “Barack Obama and his aides expected to take on President Donald Trump at some point, but they didn’t think it would happen this quickly. Now they’re trying to find the right balance on issues that demand a response, and how to use Obama deliver the selective pushback. Obama and his team are monitoring what’s happening at the White House, and not ruling out the possibility that Obama will challenge Trump more forcefully in the coming months, according to people who’ve been in contact with the former president. It depends on Trump. It also depends, the people close to the former president said Monday, on whether speaking out would just set him up to have no effect and be dismissed, and result in empowering Trump more, which is a very real worry for them.” http://politi.co/2jy4RX0

1600 PENNSYLVANIA -- “White House aides who wrote Trump’s travel ban see it as just the start,” by L.A. Times’ Brian Bennett and Noah Bierman: “Even as confusion, internal dissent and widespread condemnation greeted President Trump’s travel ban and crackdown on refugees this weekend, senior White House aides say they are only getting started. … Trump’s top advisors on immigration, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country and to block a generation of people who, in their view, won’t assimilate into American society. That project may live or die in the next three months, as the Trump administration reviews whether and how to expand the visa ban and alter vetting procedures. White House aides are considering new, onerous security checks that could effectively limit travel into the U.S. by people from majority-Muslim countries to a trickle.” http://lat.ms/2jpH6oP

KEEP AN EYE ON THIS -- “Rep. Dave Brat: ‘The women are in my grill no matter where I go,’” by the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson: “Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, is feeling some political pressure as Republicans in Congress move to repeal the Affordable Care Act. ‘Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go,’ Brat told an audience Saturday at a meeting of conservative groups at Hanover Tavern. ‘They come up — ‘When is your next town hall?’ And believe me, it’s not to give positive input.’ Brat, R-7th, asked the GOP-friendly audience to get organized. ‘Help us write newspaper articles. We’re getting hammered,’ he said.” http://bit.ly/2kmqayV

-- SO YOU KNOW…. Brat beat former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a deep red Richmond-area district. If he can’t beat back the heat, Republicans have issues.

WHAT BILL NELSON IS READING -- “Trump coaxes Scott to run for prized Florida Senate seat,” by Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo: “Trump and Scott speak about once a week and on several occasions have talked about the race against Sen. Bill Nelson, according to two sources briefed on the talks. The two have known each other for two decades, and Trump likes Scott’s record as governor and as a health care tycoon.

“‘We need you in the Senate. We need business guys like you,’ Trump told Scott in a recent phone call, said one source [adding that] the president had signaled that he would help the Republican governor raise money. Even without Trump’s urging, Scott has been widely expected to run for Senate as he prepares to leave office after 2018, when he is termed out.” http://politi.co/2kmpFF3

HOT TAKE – DAVID BROOKS in the NYT, “The Republican Fausts”: “[T]he Trump administration is not a Republican administration; it is an ethnic nationalist administration. ... [E]ven if Trump’s ideology were not noxious, his incompetence is a threat to all around him. To say that it is amateur hour at the White House is to slander amateurs. ... [I]t’s becoming increasingly clear that the aroma of bigotry infuses the whole operation, and anybody who aligns too closely will end up sharing in the stench. ... With most administrations you can agree sometimes and disagree other times. But this one is a danger to the party and the nation in its existential nature. And so sooner or later all will have to choose what side they are on, and live forever after with the choice.” http://nyti.ms/2kKzQB5

CABINET OFFICIALS OR POTTED PLANTS? -- AP’s Julie Pace and Eric Tucker: “At least three top national security officials — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Rex Tillerson, who is awaiting confirmation to lead the State Department — have told associates they were not aware of details of the directive until around the time Trump signed it. Leading intelligence officials were also left largely in the dark, according to U.S. officials. ... Mattis, who stood next to Trump during Friday’s signing ceremony, is said to be particularly incensed. A senior U.S. official said Mattis, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, was aware of the general concept of Trump’s order but not the details. Tillerson has told the president’s political advisers that he was baffled over not being consulted on the substance of the order.” http://apne.ws/2jptpq0

--“Homeland Security Chief and White House Clash,” by WSJ’s Damian Paletta and Aruna Viswanatha: “Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has clashed with the White House over staffing and other decisions in recent days ... Mr. Kelly hasn’t been able to name the deputy he wants at the agency, people familiar with the matter said, and he fought off attempts by the White House to put Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state known as a hard-liner on immigration, into the position. ... Rather than Mr. Kobach, Mr. Kelly instead suggested that Christian Marrone be named to the deputy secretary job ... Mr. Marrone is former chief of staff to Jeh Johnson, the DHS secretary under President Barack Obama, and also worked for years in the Bush administration, including with Mr. Kelly at the Defense Department.” http://on.wsj.com/2jQh1vf

THE NEW IMMIGRATION POLICY -- “White House Lowballs Impact of Trump Ban,” by The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff: “President Donald Trump and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer spent today saying 109 people were detained over the weekend, and that, therefore, the president’s executive order only had a minimal impact on travelers. But numbers obtained by The Daily Beast indicate that the White House may be significantly understating the number of travelers impacted by that order ... According to [an internal DHS] email, 348 people were blocked from boarding flights into the U.S. before their flights departed. An additional 200 to 250 people were denied entry to the U.S. once their flights landed. That’s part of a larger pool of 735 people at ports of entry who had encounters with CBP and could have been barred from entering the U.S. by the executive order.” http://thebea.st/2jpKrEj

CLICKER – “9 maps and charts that explain the global refugee crisis,” by Vox’s Zack Beauchamp: http://bit.ly/2kblkCl

BEHIND THE SCENES -- “From order to disorder: How Trump’s immigration directive exposed GOP rifts,” by WaPo’s Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Bob Costa: “As it became evident that the rollout of the executive order bordered between clumsy and dysfunctional, people in Trump’s orbit divided over who was at fault, with some blaming Miller. Others said it was Priebus who should have taken charge of better coordinating with the departments and communicating with lawmakers and the public. ‘The problem they’ve got is this is an off-Broadway performance of a show that is now the number one hit on Broadway,’ said former House speaker Newt Gingrich ... The infighting spilled into public view Monday morning on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’ Host Joe Scarborough, who spent part of Sunday visiting Trump at the White House, looked into the camera and directly challenged Miller. ‘This weekend was a disgrace and it’s all on your shoulders,’ Scarborough intoned.” http://wapo.st/2jOJVP3

SEASON 2 PREMIERE OF ‘OFF MESSAGE’ -- “The man who picked the next Supreme Court justice: John Malcolm, a conservative legal scholar who runs the Edwin Meese Center at the Heritage Foundation, feels sure he’s going to be happy with whoever Trump chooses -- because he made the list,” by Isaac Dovere: http://politi.co/2klOjGg

WHAT WORKS -- The new president is turning campaign rhetoric into action, and that’s making urban leaders nervous. In the eighth installment of POLITICO Magazine’s mayors survey, part of the award-winning What Works series, POLITICO asked mayors to forecast how their cities would fare under the incoming Trump administration. http://politi.co/2kP2jEU

-- SCOTUS Chatbot: Follow breaking news alerts and analysis on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee by chatting with POLITICO on Facebook Messenger. Try it out here or message us on our Facebook Page. http://m.me/politico ... https://www.facebook.com/politico/

FIRST LOOK – The Senate Republican Conference has cut a new video that shows how Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of 2017 disagrees with Sen. Schumer of 2016. http://bit.ly/2jQjbv1

CONFIRMATION BATTLES -- DEVOS’S VOTE TODAY -- SEN. PATTY MURRAY’S FLOOR STATEMENT ON ED. SECY. NOMINEE -- “I am deeply disappointed that Chairman Alexander has decided to go ahead with a vote on Betsy DeVos today despite my strong objections…[and] reasonable request for a delay. … I believe that we should be doing everything possible…to make sure these nominees get proper and appropriate scrutiny…there is absolutely no reason to rush them through or cut corners. Our job should be scrutinizing these nominees, not protecting them. Democrats have a number of concerns with this nomination … but we have not been given an appropriate opportunity to get the answers to our questions and to do our jobs here in the Senate to scrutinize nominees and make sure they are truly ready to get to work for the people we represent.”

-- DEM BRAIN DUMP ON DEVOS VOTE: “Betsy DeVos is now the poster child for a Trump Administration billionaire nominee gone horribly wrong,” one senior Democratic aide emailed Playbook. “From being mocked on late night comedy shows and social media for her disastrous hearing (‘we need guns in schools because of grizzly bears!’), to spurring hundreds of thousands of calls and letters to Senate offices—Betsy DeVos has guaranteed that should Republicans succeed in jamming her through the Senate, she will enter the position embattled, wounded, mocked, and unable to accomplish her radical agenda.”

WHAT MATTIS IS READING -- “Iraqi general who works with American military kept from visiting U.S.,” by CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata in Baghdad: “Gen. Talib al Kenani commands the elite American-trained counter terrorist forces that have been leading the fight against ISIS for two years. ‘I’m a four star general, and I’m banned from entering the U.S.?’ he said. His family was relocated to the U.S. for their safety, and he’d had plans to see them next week, until he was told not to bother. ‘I have been fighting terrorism for 13 years and winning,’ he said. ‘Now my kids are now asking if I’m a terrorist?’ CBS News met the general at his heavily fortified compound inside the Green Zone. For the past decade, Kenani has been travelling to U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida for high-level meetings with the U.S. military leadership. ‘There are many American troops here in Iraq,’ he said. ‘After this ban how are we supposed to deal with each other?’” http://cbsn.ws/2kbznIf

-- BY THE NUMBERS: 32 MILLION people generated 151 million likes, posts and comments on Facebook related to the Trump travel ban from Friday to Monday.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- THE LOYAL OPPOSITION -- The U.K.-based group CrowdJustice is launching an U.S.-based online crowdfunding platform in partnership with the Legal Aid Justice to raise money to represent and advise refugees, detainees, immigrants and others impacted by Trump’s recent executive actions. Unlike the ACLU, people can raise money for individual cases. LAJC already represents several people who were held at Dulles Airport over the weekend who were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. http://bit.ly/2jpEKX6

-- ANOTHER PLAYBOOK SCOOP: BOEHNER GETS ANOTHER BOARD -- Former Speaker John Boehner has joined the board of Brazilian-based JBS Foods International, the largest meat processing company on the planet. He already sits on Reynolds America’s board.

MEDIAWATCH -- CNBC’s KAYLA TAUSCHE (@kaylatausche): “Some news: Heading to the @CNBC DC bureau, beginning next week, to join my esteemed colleagues covering the economy under a Trump Admin.”

--OLIVIA NUZZI to N.Y. Mag -- per Peter Sterne: “New York magazine has hired Olivia Nuzzi as its first-ever Washington correspondent, covering the Trump administration and Congress both for the print magazine and New York’s Daily Intel blog starting February 6. Nuzzi has been a Daily Beast reporter for the past several years.” http://politi.co/2kN5IIz

--per Morning Media: “At ABC News, Jonathan Karl, Cecilia Vega and Tom Llamas have been promoted to chief Washington correspondent/chief White House correspondent, senior White House correspondent and chief national correspondent, respectively.” http://politi.co/2kPhbTU

-- “CNN Beefs Up Investigative Reporting,” by NPR’s David Folkenflik: “CNN is embarking on what it characterizes as a major new initiative in investigative reporting as executives pull together accomplished reporters into a single unit and promise to hire at least a dozen more. ... The legendary investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and James Steele, both Pulitzer Prize winners, will serve as contributing editors to advise the team on their work and executives on hiring.” http://n.pr/2kMLEpJ

--The civic engagement app Countable is hiring Andrea Seabrook as its managing editor. She previously was NPR’s long-time congressional correspondent and in 2012 founded DecodeDC. http://politi.co/2km30ZP ... Dr. John Torres has joined NBC News and MSNBC as medical correspondent. “He is a veteran of the United States Air Force where he served for eight years, including a tour of duty in Iraq in 2004 with the Air National Guard.”

--TODAY is Rick Stengel’s debut as the Walter Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School. He’s participating in a panel with Juliette Kayyem and moderated by Nicco Mele on “The Role of Journalism in the Age of President Trump” as part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education at the Kennedy School.

COVER DU JOUR – DAVID FRUM on the March cover of The Atlantic, “How to Build an Autocracy: The preconditions are present in the U.S. today. Here’s the playbook Donald Trump could use to set the country down a path toward illiberalism”: http://theatln.tc/2jxPBJF

SPOTTED yesterday at the Trump hotel: Rudy Giuliani ... Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and a friend enjoying Osteria Morini’s $10 Morini Monday pasta with the bundled up masses of Navy Yard. ... Heather Podesta having lunch at the Lamb’s Club at the Chatwal Hotel in New York Monday ... Former senators Tom Daschle and John Breaux lunching yesterday at RPM Italian.

SEN. JOHN THUNE TALKS TO TMZ OUTSIDE DCA -- “The deals get done in the Senate gym!!!”: http://bit.ly/2jpNQDk

OUT AND ABOUT -- An overflow crowd of more than 75 people attended the RENEWPR second anniversary celebration at Nopa Kitchen + Bar Monday night. SPOTTED in the crowd joining RENEWPR president Ben Finzel and his husband Mark Pimble: Katherine Hamilton, Joe Fuld, Margo Scott Dunn, David Leiter, Arvind Manocha, Gideon Malone, Lisa Jacobson, Kateri Callahan, Sam Adams, Chris Jones, Chris Cimko, Tony Silva, Ron Painter, Yenory Garcia-Pouncil, Tiffany Shackelford, Elena Waskey, Chris McCannell, Jim Owen, Margaret Dunning, Christina and Bradley Saull, Ann Davison, David Olive, Deborah Sauri and Michael Sauri, Joe Sangirardi, Courtney Mott, Matt Thorn, Bill Loveless, Michael Lustig, Louis Labrecque, Taylor Gross, Mike Schmitt, Jayne Brady and Betsy Mullins, Richard Goodstein, Andy Athy.

ENGAGED – NYT media correspondent Emily Steel got engaged to Dan Hoevel, who works in fundraising and investor relations at the investment firm, Silver Lake They “met in December 2014 at a bar in Brooklyn. I was there for one of my best friend’s going away parties and he was there with a friend. This past weekend, we went away to this incredible 1800s farmhouse in Woodstock, which was the first place we had gone away together. He asked me to marry him on Friday, and I said yes! We are beyond thrilled!” Instapic http://bit.ly/2jOGE26

TRANSITIONS -- Josh Drobnyk has been hired as senior vice president for corporate communications at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He was previously Treasury’s principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs and most recently was deputy chief of staff. http://politi.co/2kbA5Fe ... FINRA also named Gregory J. Dean, Jr. as its senior vice president for government affairs. He comes from the Royal Bank of Canada where he is currently senior director, regulatory and government affairs. http://politi.co/2km4bsh ... Salo Zelermyer is joining Valero as VP for federal affairs and counsel, and will head up the D.C. office. He is currently a senior principal at Bracewell LLP and was senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel at DOE under the Bush administration. http://politi.co/2kMTJdX ...

... Andrea Riccio has recently joined Porter Novelli’s public affairs and corporate communications practice in D.C., handling message strategy and execution for a variety of clients including nonprofits, corporations, and trade associations. She was previously the deputy director of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee under Chairman Steve Israel. ... Robert Cogan, Rep. Diane Black’s (R-Tenn.) deputy chief of staff, is moving over to the House Budget Committee where he will be a senior policy adviser on tax, among other issues. ... Rob Hawkins has joined Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP as of counsel in its D.C. office. He most recently was deputy chief of staff and special counsel to Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. http://politi.co/2jQhoGd

OBAMA ALUMNI -- Widmeyer Communications has hired Heather Foster as a VP in Widmeyer Education, the agency’s PK-12 Education Practice based in Washington. Most recently she was a founding partner and director of strategic partnerships of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance and was an adviser in the Obama White House office of public engagement. http://politi.co/2kMRCH1

… The Democracy Alliance has hired Archana Sahgal, former senior associate director for the Obama White House’s office of public engagement. She will work to build out a new hub of information for the alliance, working closely with DA partners and progressive groups. http://politi.co/2jy8OuW … Rory Brosius, who was deputy director of the White House’s Joining Forces Initiative for the last four years, will join ScoutComms, the nation’s leading veteran and military family-focused communications, advocacy and research firm, as a vice president. http://politi.co/2klZb6O

BIRTHWEEK (was Friday): Alicia Tighe, LA for Sen. Bill Nelson (hat tip: Laurence Wildgoose, who was on time)

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Dylan Byers, CNN’s senior reporter for media and politics, celebrating with jazz and mezcal with family and friends in LA -- read his Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2jQndDm

BIRTHDAYS: Dick Gephardt is 76 ... former Interior Secretary James Watt is 79 ... David Plotz, CEO of Atlas Obscura, Slate alum and a St. Albans grad, is 47 ... Heather Riley, VP for comms at ABC News ... Katherine Miller, BuzzFeed political editor ... Chris Marklund, associate L.D. for the National Association of Counties ... Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor (h/t Steve Clemons) ... Kate Hansen, VP of comms at Global Strategy Group and the pride of Marietta, Ga. (h/t Michael Falcone) ... CNN’s Christine Romans ... Ali Zaidi, former OMB Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, and Science at the Obama WH ... Brooke Buchanan, a McCain and Wal-Mart alum, now SVP of comms and gov’t affairs at Whole Foods … food writer David Hagedorn ... Sam Dorn … Tom O’Donnell, inaugural director of the LBJ School Washington Center (h/t Jon Haber) ... Eli Nachmany ... lawyer Nathan Lewin is 81 (h/t Jewish Insider) ... Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) is 48 ... Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) is 45 ... Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) is 71 ... former Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC) is 66 ... former Rep. Gwen Graham (D-Fla.) is 54 ... McClatchy’s Michael Doyle ... Gerri Carr ... Peter Sagal, host of the NPR news quiz “Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!” ...

... Tim Naftali, former head of Nixon library and author ... Karen Petel (h/t Sean Johnson) ... Lindsey Paola, Bush 43 WH alum now at Frontier Communications ... Alexandra Morrison … Michael Waltz, Bush 43 WH alum now CEO of Metis Solutions, is 43 ... Greg Roberts ... Christopher Alan Chambers ... Bobbie Brinegar ... Ray Sullivan, partner at Checkmate Consulting ... Marlene Hall … Rahul Prabhakar … Republican fundraiser Hunter Wallace (h/t roommate Fred Brown) ... Michael Kempner, founder, president and CEO of MWW, is 59 ... Fred Karger ... Bob DeWeese … Tim Sulentic … Anna McMahon ... Christopher Semenas ... Matthew Gottlieb, senior consultant at Verizon and a Benenson alum ... Jack Barbash ... Mike Rabinowitz, managing director at BerlinRosen ... Jarrett Murphy, executive editor and publisher of City Limits ... Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, is 79 ... Minnie Driver is 47 ... actress Kerry Washington is 4-0 ... Justin Timberlake is 36 ... Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) is 3-0 (h/ts AP)

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