Ivanka's role in Trump's speech

Mike Allen
Mar 1

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Ivanka's role in Trump's speech

Evan Vucci / AP

A senior administration official emails: "The speech was all [Stephen] Miller, but Ivanka worked hard on it with him on many of the parts, especially affirming that the president's desire to have an uplifting and aspirational speech was right. ...

"Notice the focus on women's health. It was Hope [Hicks]'s idea to add the upfront line about how 'we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.'
"Ivanka was working with Miller in his office in the afternoon on the speech, including the paragraph on 'paid family leave ... women's health ... clean air and clean water.' ...
"A week ago, Ivanka and Dina Powell [senior counselor for economic initiatives] met with the president on those parts of the speech with Steve Miller and Hope, and talked about those issues and how they would resonate in an important way."

Kim Hart
2 hrs ago

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Trump plans to halt entrepreneur visas

In the coming days, the Trump administration will take steps to delay and ultimately rescind an Obama administration rule allowing foreign entrepreneurs to come to the U.S. to start companies, sources familiar with the situation tell Axios.

The details: The rule, called the International Entrepreneur Rule, is scheduled to go into effect July 17. U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services will take a procedural step to postpone that implementation date as soon as Monday, according to sources. In addition, the agency is expected to start the formal process to eliminate the rule. A USCIS spokesperson said the rule is "under review." More details on the rule here.

Why it matters: Since the rule hasn't yet taken effect, scrapping it won't change anyone's visa status. Still, it's a setback for tech and venture capital firms that supported the rule — and it's another sign of Trump's resolve to restrict visas, even for high-skilled immigrants.

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My 6 Big Things: Chelsea Handler shares her quirks, life hacks

Once a month, as a Saturday treat, Axios checks in with the world's most interesting and consequential people on their passions, quirks and life hacks.

Today, with the help of my colleagues Evan Ryan and Molly Mitchell, our breakfast conversation is with comedian and activist Chelsea Handler, whose "Chelsea" talk show drops on Netflix on Fridays @ noon PT. See "My 6 Big Things" from Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom.

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What the U.S. trades with other world powers

Today is the last day of the G20 Summit, where President Trump is discussing trade with leaders of the world's economic powers. Trump, who has often claimed the U.S. is getting "ripped off" when it comes to trade with other countries, is seeking an overhaul of the international trade order, but what exactly does that entail?

Below we take a look at the top 3 products that the U.S. imports and exports with 5 key trade partners: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Russia. Here's what we found:

Data: Census Bureau 2016; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

Axios
1 hr ago

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America's "extended period of backlash"

NBC News

Malcolm Gladwell ("The Tipping Point") to NBC's Willie Geist on tomorrow's "Sunday Today," on change in America:

"We take one step forward and then we take two steps back. That doesn't happen in the same way in [Gladwell's native] Canada or in other parts where I'm most familiar with. It's a very American kind of thing. And I wonder whether we aren't at the beginning of an extended period of backlash in this country, which is a very typical American period ...

"[I]n the face of overwhelming amounts of change in a very small time, what people basically do is they say, 'Stop. Enough. Let's process through this.' So there's this angry, vicious backlash. But when change happens in a hurry, ... people ... have to find some way to make sense of it. ... I feel like maybe we are on the cusp of something similar." See the video.

Axios
3 hrs ago

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Trump's international isolation

Evan Vucci / AP

As the G20 Summit wraps up today, one trending term has emerged: "G19" — which signals Trump's international isolation, particularly on the Paris climate agreement.

The big picture:

N.Y. Times front page: "Trump seemed to relish his isolation. ... What recent events have underscored ... is that no nation is today large or powerful enough to impose rules ... Trump has alienated allies and made the United States seem like its own private island."
WashPost front page, "European leaders band together to oppose Trump on trade, climate," by Michael Birnbaum and Damian Paletta: "The growing international isolation of the United States under President Trump was starkly apparent Friday as the leaders of major world economies mounted a nearly united opposition front against Washington on issues ranging from climate to free trade."
"[T]here were tough clashes with the United States and even talk of a possible transatlantic trade war."

Alexi McCammond
4 hrs ago

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Ivanka Trump steps in for POTUS at G20

Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa via AP

Ivanka Trump stepped in for President Trump during a roundtable discussion on "Partnership with Africa, Migration and Health" at the G20 Summit today. She initially joined the session with POTUS, but took his seat at the table (next to British PM Theresa May and just a few down from Russian President Vladimir Putin) when Trump had to step out briefly.

Why it matters: Ivanka is technically an "assistant to the president," but she's also his daughter, which muddles that role and the optics of her involvement in administration matters. Furthermore, this isn't the first time Ivanka has joined high-level meetings with foreign leaders — last Thursday she attended the bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

And Ivanka launched a global women's entrepreneurship program, in partnership with the World Bank, at the G20 Summit today. More on that here.

Alexi McCammond
6 hrs ago

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Rural GOP senators abandon health bill

The July 4 recess hasn't worked out in the Republicans' favor. More GOP senators have come out against the bill, either saying they will vote against it or that they have increasing concerns about how it will affect their constituents, NYT reports.

This is particularly relevant in rural states, where local health care providers and hospitals are typically the largest source of jobs — eliminating things like Medicaid would have a significant impact on these medical institutions and, ultimately, residents' employment options.

Republican senators who have potentially defected over the recess, withholding their explicit support: John Hoeven of North Dakota, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Boozman of Arkansas, and Bob Corker of Tennessee, whose office told Axios, "He will take a position on the bill when the legislative text is finalized and he has a chance to fully review it."

Erica Pandey
9 hrs ago

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The human cost of cyber attacks

Sam Jayne / Axios

As governments, corporations, and hospitals around the world struggle to get back up and running after a string of recent ransomware attacks, scientists in Israel have uncovered another effect of cyber attacks: mass psychological distress.

The Financial Times reported the study's findings, which showed that participants' levels of cortisol — the stress hormone — increased after experiencing simulated cyber attacks.
Why it matters: The goal of hacks is generally to target institutions, not individuals, but this study indicates that cyber attacks can be as potent as terrorism in causing widespread fear.
The researchers wrote: "To accomplish this end, one need not commit horrific acts of murder. In a modern society it is enough attack the foundations of everyday life."

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It's personal: Political scientists at the University of Haifa in Israel tested cortisol levels in participants' saliva after subjecting them to cyber attacks via computers and personal cell phones. "The text message to the participants' cell phones cemented the feeling among participants that they were the target of the cyberattack, not the lab computer," the study said.
The lasting damage: Researchers also found that subjects who had undergone the experiment were more fearful about the prospect of a cyber attack against Israel than those who had participated in the control group. Being exposed to cyber attacks once seemed to significantly increase panic about a repeat attack.
Focus on individuals: The study urged cyber security researchers to focus on the personal impact of attacks in addition to the national impact. The psychological stress of cyber attacks could affect individuals' decision-making, leading to "militant and aggressive attitudes" in the population, researchers said.

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Alayna Treene
9 hrs ago

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Ivanka Trump launches women's program at G20 Summit

Ivanka Trump and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim are launching their joint program, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, at the G20 summit in Germany today.

The program will create an online global mentoring network and provide financing to women around the world who want to start their own business, especially those in developing countries.
A senior White House official described the initiative as "unprecedented," and noted that Ivanka was originally shocked that there wasn't already a program like this in place, given the level of discourse around women's issues.
How it'll work: A senior World Bank official said the initiative will begin as a trust fund in the World Bank, but they hope to eventually open it up to the private sector. In the meantime, the World Bank will serve as the secretariat, but the fund will be governed by those who donate.

Kia Kokalitcheva
18 hrs ago

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Waymo wants to ask its former employee 461 questions

On Friday, Waymo filed a list of 461 questions it intends to ask Anthony Levandowski — a former employee it's accusing of downloading 14,000 proprietary files and bringing those trade secrets to Uber — during trial this fall.

Note: Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car unit, notes in the document that this is a preliminary list as it's still waiting to receive additional documents from Uber to review. It also expects Levandowski to plead the Fifth in response to many of these questions.

Read Waymo's questions ... words

Waymo Uber Docket 835 (Waymo Q's to Levandowski)

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David McCabe
20 hrs ago

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Google, Facebook to join protest supporting net neutrality

Nam Y. Huh / AP

Google and Facebook are set to join a "day of action" next week opposing the proposed rollback of Obama-era net neutrality rules. Their planned activities remain unknown. The list of companies participating in the action includes Netflix and Amazon.

Why it matters: Tech companies were a major force pushing for these rules, which were approved in 2015. This is a sign that the two biggest players on the internet are willing to put their weight behind keeping them in place — at least to some extent.

Jonathan Swan
21 hrs ago

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Trump and Putin get what they came for

Evan Vucci / AP

Trump and Putin perfectly staged their first meeting so that both men could get what they needed out of it, politically.

"The deal": Sources close to Trump told us he went into the meeting believing it was still possible to strike a deal with Russia.

Now we have a better understanding of what that means: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says they spent a good amount of the meeting discussing a solution to the Syrian conflict, and we saw a gift-wrapped victory, with the post-meeting announcement of a ceasefire. Tillerson held out the possibility of larger cooperation — which should be understood as possibly a deal that would encompass fighting ISIS together and resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

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Best of both worlds...

Sources who've spoken to Trump privately over the past few months say he's never fully bought into the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help him win. He believes to his core it's a politically-motivated "fake" attack by Democrats.
Still, Trump's advisers knew that if he didn't "confront" Putin over the election hacking then that would be the headline in every newspaper and on every cable news show after the meeting. It would drown out everything else they discussed and accomplished.
So Trump took a middle course: he raised the issue with Putin but Tillerson made clear in his briefing after the meeting that Trump has no intention of continuing to litigate the issue. They want to move on, Tillerson said.

Putin got what he wanted: he got the respect and recognition he craved. Trump said it was an "honor" to meet him, and Tillerson described the two leaders' chemistry in glowing terms. (They were having such a great chat, Tillerson said, that even when they'd run well over the allotted 30 minutes and Melania Trump came in to try to get her husband to leave, they ignored her and continued talking for another hour.) Putin can also spin the election hacking conversation to his advantage. The Russian spin is that Trump accepted Putin's assurance that he had nothing to do with the election hacking. (A Trump official has already disputed this to NBC News.)

The upshot: Trump, like many presidents before him, still believes he can reshape the U.S-Russia relationship. Today's meeting appears to have reinforced that view.

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Sara Fischer
22 hrs ago

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FUSION relaunching as "Splinter"

Fusion Media Group

Fusion Media Group announced Friday that their digital publication FUSION will relaunch as "Splinter" (splinternews.com) on Monday, July 24. The new site will feature original reporting, including pieces from a newly launched political team, as well as content from other Gizmodo Media Group-owned sites, like Jezebel, The Root, Gizmodo and Deadspin. Fusion.net is moving to serve as the digital hub for FUSION TV, the cable channel.

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The mission: In a statement, Splinter says it will be a news and politics site that aims to reach a "justice-minded, inclusive, and incisive audience." The relaunch of the digital publication will take place Monday July 24 and will focus on "amplifying underrepresented voices, shining a light on systemic inequality, and skewering politicians when necessary."

Why it matters: The rebrand effort is aimed at creating a more distinct identity for the news site as the cable network brings more of Fusion Media Group's digital brands to TV (For example: The A.V. Club launched a show on Fusion TV earlier in March.)