Axios

After mentioning a 20% border tax for Mexico and then claiming it wasn't an actual policy proposal, WH press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters the plans to pay for the wall are still in the works. BUT an import tax was the best plan.

He added that any country the U.S. has a deficit with would be taxed, and claimed a 20% tax would bring in $10 billion, which would "easily pay for the wall."

Plus, the wall would keep immigrants out, Spicer said, which would save more tax dollars spent on deportations.

This is something that we've been in close contact with both houses in moving forward and creating a plan. But again as I've said before I mean we are still working together. This is the beginning of this plan to make sure it is done right. But, it clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that ensures that the American taxpayer is wholly respected.

The issue:

Donald Trump has claimed repeatedly that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in the 2016 election, possibly denying him a popular-vote win.

The facts:

Washington Post research into voter fraud during the 2016 election found four confirmed instances.

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Data: electproject.org, Washington Post; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

The 2012 Pew report that Trump has cited found many cases of incorrect voter registrations but no instances of fraud.

A 2010 News21 study concluded that almost all cases of voter fraud allegations turned out to be clerical errors or mistakes, not fraud.

Why this matters:

Trump has said he'll sign an executive order to launch a "major investigation" into voter fraud. He's raised it in interviews and in a meeting with Congressional leaders. His press secretary has faced questions over it during the White House briefing. But even the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, says he doesn't see "any evidence."

On the way back from the GOP retreat in Philadelphia, Sean Spicer told White House pool reporters that Trump has decided how to pay for the border wall: by placing a 20% tax on all imports from Mexico.

Spicer didn't give any more details about the tax, but said that it would be just a part of an overall tax reform and that the president has been "in close contact with both houses moving forward" to create this plan.

Note: This announcement comes just hours after Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled his meeting with Trump, which was scheduled for next week.

Update: Spicer told NBC's Peter Alexander that the 20% tax on Mexican imports is not a policy proposal, but rather an example of how to pay for the wall.

Four senior level officials, including undersecretary for management Patrick Kennedy, unexpectedly resigned from the State Department on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Washington Post. Two other senior officials resigned last week. Rex Tillerson has a lot more work to do.

"It's the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that's incredibly difficult to replicate. Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector." — David Wade, John Kerry's State Department chief of staff

Is this normal? AP's Matt Lee says resignations like this come with every transition.

UPDATE: CNN claims that the State Department officials did not resign, but that the Trump administration fired them.

Republican Congressional leaders yesterday signaled plans to move forward with President Trump's planned border wall, estimated to cost between $12 billion and $15 billion. That's well below many outside estimates of the construction cost (let alone maintenance), but is significantly higher than what Trump himself has said in the past.

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has informed the White House that he won't be coming to Washington after all. After a public back-and-forth with Mexico, then Trump, threatening to cancel the visit, Nieto struck first.

Why it matters: Nieto was supposed to start renegotiations of NAFTA, a key Trump priority. There's also that wall that Republicans have promised to pay for, on the premise that Mexico will pay us back...

A friend of Axios took the time to read Trump's 1987 book "Art of the Deal." Here are the passages that stood out now that Trump is president:

Sean Spicer confirmed today that President Trump will hold a news conference with British PM Theresa May tomorrow.

A stronger Special Relationship?: May's prepared remarks to congressional Republicans today: "So as we rediscover our confidence together — as you renew your nation just as we renew ours — we have the opportunity — indeed, the responsibility — to renew the special relationship for this new age. We have the opportunity to lead, together, again."

A new issue has emerged with President Trump's 90-day hiring freeze: It's going to cause problems at the Food and Drug Administration, where they were supposed to start staffing up under the 21st Century Cures Act. A note from Credit Suisse concludes:

How the hiring authority and hiring freeze will play out together at the FDA is unclear. But it appears the agency won't be moving forward in the next few months with part of the law that allows it to be more competitive with the private sector in recruiting top scientists.

And in a statement Thursday, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, or GPhA, said the FDA will need to fill a lot of positions to speed the review of new generic drugs: "A fully-resourced FDA is critical to reducing the backlog and making sure that patients have timely access to medicines."

Why it matters: Clearing the backlog of unapproved generic drugs is a key to most Republicans' proposals for dealing with rising drug prices — so you can expect to hear more about FDA staffing levels if the agency can't handle the load.

Torture is not legal, we agree with it not being legal.— Speaker Paul Ryan at GOP retreat in Philadelphia

Publishing magnate Steve Forbes penned an open letter to congressional Republicans in today's WSJ (the full-pager was sponsored by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance) pleading with them to reconsider a border adjustment tax.

He calls the border tax a "massive new tax on consumers" via price spikes. Forbes predicts that it may cause the cost of daily goods to rise by 20% and gas prices to shoot up 30 cents.

Still confused on what a border adjustment tax entails? Here's our Facts Matter on it .

President Trump, in two tweets:

"The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers... of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."

Why this matters: Trump is supposed to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto next week to discuss — you guessed it — NAFTA and the border wall. Mexico already threatened to cancel over the question of funding. Now Trump is doing the same.

Roger Stone met President Trump in 1979, when they were introduced by Roy Cohn, one-time counsel to Joseph McCarthy. Stone was a top adviser to Trump in the early months of this presidential campaign, then departed amid personality conflicts in August, 2015, with each side claiming to have fired the other.

Stone stayed in touch with Trump, and has kept notes on the advice he quietly gave Trump Tower throughout the campaign (some solicited, some not). His campaign memoir will be out Jan. 31: "The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution" — the title cheekily echoing the Teddy White classics. A copy of the book was "leaked" to Axios. Among the memorable passages:

• "He looked me squarely in the eyes and, with a hint of a smile, said: 'Roger, I want to take the next step. I want to see if Donald Trump can win the White House. Is this country ready for President Trump? The one thing I do know is that I'm better than any of those assholes who are running.'"
• "Drudge led the charge, posting a top center headline and photograph on June 16, 2015, the day Trump declared his candidacy, proclaiming 'Donald Goes for White House.'"
• "On the Friday before Easter [2016], Trump called me at my south Florida home. 'Can they really steal this thing from me?' ... What should I do?' 'Call my former partner, Paul Manafort.' ... Trump asked for Manafort's cell phone number and I provided it."
• "[I]n the final phase, Trump found Steve Bannon had genius ability to get his messages packed into the powerful mantras the thousands attending rallies planned on chanting, while Kellyanne Conway displayed equal acumen in keeping Trump's temperament level through the long airplane rides."

Read the full ABC News transcript here. Highlights below:

1. Torture: "As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire ... With that being said, I'm going with General Mattis. I'm going with my secretary because I think Pompeo's gonna be phenomenal. I'm gonna go with what they say."
2. "He's groveling again": Trump's response to being told that the author of a Pew Report he cited on voter fraud said there's no evidence for his claims.
3. On why he keeps making unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, even though he won: "No, no. We're looking at it for the next time. No, no, you have to understand, I had a tremendous victory, one of the great victories ever. In terms of counties I think the most ever or just about the most ever. When you look at a map it's all red. Red meaning us, Republicans. One of the greatest victories ever."
4. And claimed zero illegal voters cast ballots his way: "We're gonna launch an investigation to find out, and then the next time — and I will say this: Of those votes cast, none of them come to me. None of them come to me. They would all be for the other side. None of them come to me."
5. "Turn on Fox": POTUS said that only Fox had the right response to his speech before the CIA. It looks like he's a fan again.
6. "No, it's not the Muslim ban": Trump's response to David Muir when pressed on the plan to ban refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iraq and Syria.

At the closed door tax reform meeting with Republican House and Senate members, Ways and Means chair Kevin Brady made a forceful pitch for the border adjustment tax, which boosts taxes on imports and reduces them on exports.

The tax could raise $1 trillion and help pay for Trump's expensive promises, and Republican leadership believes tax reform depends on it. Some members don't like it, and made that clear through their questioning at the GOP retreat in Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon. But, according to one member, a number of advocates are getting wise to the fact that the tax needs to be rebranded.

"Trump is all about the branding," a senior House member told Axios. This member now calls it a border adjustment "fee." Others, he says, are calling it a "mechanism." Brady himself, as a senior House aide notes, declines to call it border adjustment, rather saying this provision will end the "Made in America" tax.

Why this matters: Trump doesn't like the sound of a border adjustment tax. He told the Wall Street Journal it sounded too complicated, and though he walked that back when he spoke to Axios, he's still not comfortable selling the idea. Steve Bannon likes the concept, he believes it's an American nationalist tax. But it might take a rebranding project to get it through.