When President Trump makes more changes in his West Wing (insiders suspect August or September, but who knows?), any new faces are likely to be in the mold of Anthony Scaramucci, age 53, the pugilistic Wall Streeter known as "Mooch" who was named White House communications director, beginning Aug. 15.
The announcement: "Scaramucci, a successful entrepreneur, financier, and founder of SkyBridge Capital, ... will oversee the entire communications operation, including message development and strategy. He will report directly to the President." (Usually would report to the chief of staff.)
The President is building a wartime Cabinet, for political and legal war. One longtime ally who's likely to have a more visible, frequent role: Newt Gingrich, husband of Callista Gingrich, Trump's choice for ambassador to the Vatican.
Trump relishes fights, and creates plenty of them. But now he's in a real one, with special counsel Bob Mueller signaling that he plans an expansive, exhaustive investigation aimed at Trump, his relatives, and current and former political lieutenants.
One West Wing confidant says Trump really might dismiss Mueller. So POTUS needs "a group that can fight through what could end up being something quite amazing."
"We're going to see out-and-out political warfare, and not over ... Medicaid," the confidant said.
Be smart: As Matt Miller, the MSNBC contributor and former Obama Justice Department official, tweeted after the revelation that Trump was digging dirt on Mueller and contemplating pardons:
"Takeaway from the Post & NYT pieces is we are headed for certain crisis. Trump just will not, cannot allow this investigation to go forward."
What the President is tweeting this morning (most recent first):
The day's stunning dominoes ("Abrupt chain reaction for Trump" is the five-column head in the WashPost):
Phew. As Spicer told Fox's Sean Hannity last night (not as a quip, but as part of an argument about working tirelessly to advance Trump's agenda): "We had a very successful Made in America week this week, garnering over millions of impressions."
Some atmospherics from all-terrain Jonathan Swan:
"Russia's ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race," according to a WashPost scoop at top of column 1 ("Kislyak's reports implicate Sessions)," by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller:
Four more headlines from the news day of a lifetime:
HANNITY: Have you been thinking about this for a while?
SPICER: No.
HANNITY: So it was really sudden?
SPICER: Well, I knew what the right thing to do is. I think I have a pretty good compass, and I made a decision that it was in the best interest not of just myself, but ... for the President and for this administration, was to step aside and let Anthony and Sarah lead the team.
Senate and House Dems, after an intensive process spanning seven months, on Monday will unveil a new economic agenda, meant to counter the perception that Democrats are only the anti-Trump party, with no message of their own.
Top Dems see the new message as the key to turning things around after their losses in the presidential race and this year's House special elections.
An opening theme/frame: "excessive corporate power and its impacts."
Pollster Geoff Garin writes in a memo kicking off the project: "[T]he Democratic policies related to curbing excessive corporate power that are being highlighted in the first day of the rollout have real resonance with voters and are strongly supported by a significant majority of Americans."
The agenda's big idea: "Too many families in America today feel that the rules of the economy are rigged against them. Special interests have a strangle-hold on Washington — from the super-rich spending unlimited amounts of secret money to influence our elections, to the huge loopholes in our tax code that help corporations avoid paying taxes."
"If the government goes back to putting working families first, ahead of special interests, we can achieve a better deal for the American people that will raise their pay, lower their expenses, and prepare them for the future."
On this week's episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, Editor David Remnick talks with the N.Y. Times' Maggie Haberman (transcript here):
Cover of tomorrow's WashPost Outlook, a 3,200-word piece by associate editor Carlos Lozada, "Trump's Presidency, Huntington's America: The writings of late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington anticipated our political and intellectual battles — and point to the country we may become":
Huntington, like Trump, wanted America to be great, and came to long for a restoration of values and identity that he believed made the country not just great but a nation apart. However, if that path involves closing ourselves off, demonizing newcomers and demanding cultural fealty, then how different are we, really, from anywhere else? The central agony of the Trump era is that rather than becoming great, America is becoming unexceptional.
Barron's cover story by William D. Cohan, an M&A investment banker for 17 years and author of "Why Wall Street Matters" (free link for Axios readers):
To ease up on regulatory speed limits without causing another economic calamity, Trump should strike a grand bargain with Wall Street. In exchange for the smarter regulation that the banking industry seeks, and seems on the verge of getting, he should insist that Wall Street adhere to several postcrisis rules, including those that require higher bank capital and reduced balance-sheet leverage and that require derivatives to be traded on exchanges where their prices can be determined more easily.
And, as part of the grand bargain, Trump should also insist that Wall Street reform its outdated compensation system, which rewards bankers, traders, and executives for taking big risks with other people's money, but fails to hold them accountable when things go wrong, as happened in 2008.
Tim Berry, Axios EVP and former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, has such cool musical taste that his kids use his Spotify playlists.
Berry emailed me Friday afternoon that picking 1 Lit Jam was "[d]evilishly hard, especially since today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Appetite for Destruction, and my current playlist that I'm listening to has about a thousand songs."
Time passes ... "I'm locked up on picking an actual song, so I'm going to go completely off the wall: If there was one live show I wish I could go back in time and see, it would be Sam and Dave circa 1966. This clip includes You Don't Know Like I Know and Hold On, I'm Comin'.
"My brother, sister and I grew up driving around on summer weekends in a Cadillac convertible with my record-collecting dad, listening to Stax/Volt classics and buying old records at yard-sales. That stays with you for a lifetime. Thanks, Dad."