Axios

CNN has confirmed that Trump's SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch told Sen. Richard Blumenthal that he found Trump's "so-called judge" tweet "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Which president said it?: "Let's stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas. Let's reward companies like Intel that are investing and creating jobs right here in the United States of America."

That was Barack Obama in 2012 touting the opening of an Intel factory in Arizona, per the AP. The project was subsequently delayed due to lower demand for Intel's products, but has now been resurrected following Trump's Oval Office meeting with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. Sean Spicer called the announcement "the latest wave of economic optimism that's sweeping the country following the President's victory."

As Obama knows all too well, a lot can happen in 4 years...

• POTUS' tweet attacking Nordstrom for pulling Ivanka: Spicer called Nordstrom's actions an "attack" on Ivanka and said it's a move to "undermine her name based on particular policies that her father has taken."
• And the timing of that tweet: "He was free when that happened," not in the midst of the presidential daily briefing as his published schedule had implied.
• On the Yemen raid: "Anybody who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and is a disservice to the life of Chief [Ryan] Owens." Spicer says that sentiment applies to anyone, even John McCain, who characterized the raid as a failure. Spicer on the raid last week: "I think it's hard to ever say something was successful when you lose a life."
• Japan PM's trip to Mar-a-Lago: Spicer didn't know who'd be paying for Shinzo Abe to spend the weekend at Trump's club in Florida.
• Obamacare delays: "I think its a mammoth thing to repeal and replace...While the president wants to get this done as soon as possible, he wants to get it done right."

Mitch McConnell told NYT that he sees a "high level of satisfaction" with Trump so far and doesn't "find any decision that he has made surprising." He shrugged off rumors of quarrels between the President and his staffers, saying the progress so far "looks good to me":

Our members are not obsessed with the daily tweets, but are looking at the results.

A handful of House Democrats are criticizing the new FCC Chairman's decision not to defend rate caps for phone calls placed within prison walls. Under the Obama administration, the FCC placed a rate cap on what phone companies are able to charge for inmate calls, which advocates have long argued are excessive. Now Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is declining to defend that order in court.

Reps. Bobby Rush, Elijah Cummings, G.K. Butterfield and Eleanor Holmes Norton said in a letter to the FCC's general counsel that "overpriced phone rates" deter communications with outside support systems that reduce recidivism.

"Chairman Pai's sudden reversal raises serious questions about why the FCC is now choosing to promote the financial interests of private sector telecommunications companies over those of inmates and their families."

Why it matters: It can cost more than you think for an inmate to place a phone call from prison. Depending on the state, per-minute rates and connection fees can add up for prisoners and their families, who petitioned the FCC for relief years ago. (It's a complicated issue, which The Verge lays out in detail.)

The backstory: The FCC in 2015 capped rates for inmate phone calls—an effort led by Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, now the lone Democrat on the panel. Phone companies serving prisons sued, challenging the FCC's authority to set in-state call rates. Pai, who as a commissioner also argued the agency overstepped, said the FCC wouldn't defend them in court. At oral arguments this week, the FCC declined to argue its case.

The FCC declined to comment.

Yemen's foreign minister Abdul-Malik al-Mekhlafi said that the country has asked for a "reassessment" of the U.S. raid last month that killed several women and children, per AP. He also denied reports that his government has demanded a halt on U.S. special operations.

"Yemen continues to cooperate with the U.S. and continues to abide by all the agreements," said al-Mekhlafi. He added that the government "is involved in talks with the U.S. administration on the latest raid."

The Jan. 28 raid against al-Qaida militants killed many Yemeni civilians, as well as a U.S. Navy SEAL. 6 U.S. soldiers were injured.

Spicer's take: Trump's White House Press Secretary said in his briefing yesterday: "The raid that was conducted in Yemen was an intelligence-gathering raid... It was highly successful. It achieved the purpose it was going to get, save the loss of life that we suffered and the injuries that occurred."

While speaking to the National Sheriffs' Association on Wednesday, Trump defended his immigration order, saying it was "written beautifully."

Pres. Trump defends immigration order: "Couldn't have been written any more precisely...It was written beautifully" https://t.co/bUQ4bsdP3q pic.twitter.com/PhKRNXm30u — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 8, 2017

Trump continued: even if you were "a bad student in high school, you could understand this," adding that the courts are "interpreting things differently than probably 100% of the people in this room." He suggested that the court was politically motivated:

"I don't want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased. Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they could read a statement and do what's right."

Yesterday, Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary, John Kelly, said the rollout of the order should have been done differently. He said he should have waited to give Congress time to prepare.

Tuesday night, the Senate voted that Elizabeth Warren had broken Senate rules by impugning U.S. attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions during a speech she gave on the Senate floor.

What she said: "Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts." This came from a letter written by Coretta Scott King in the 80s when Sessions was undergoing confirmation hearings to become a federal judge. (He was not confirmed.)

McConnell's offense: "Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted," he said, according to Politico.

Warren's defense: "I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate," she said before the vote, according to USA Today.

The decision: 43-50 — Senator Warren isn't allowed to speak on the floor for the rest of Sessions' confirmation process.

Her reaction:

#LetLizSpeak: Shortly afterward, the Twitter hashtag #LetLizSpeak started trending, and a FaceBook Live video of Warren reading the letter reached almost 2 million views.

In the wake of President Trump's executive order on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, Chatham House has a new survey showing that significant support for a complete ban on all Muslim immigration — well beyond the scope of Trump's order — extends across Europe.

The question: Respondents were asked the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement: "All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped."

The results:

• A majority agreed with the statement in all but two of the ten countries surveyed — the UK (47%) and Spain (41%).
• In no country did more than 32% of people disagree with the statement.
• Citizens of countries with right-wing populist movements that have specifically pushed an anti-Islam message were most likely to agree — Poland (71%), Austria (65%), Belgium (64%), Hungary (64%), and France (61%).
• People were more likely to agree if they were older, less educated, and lived in a rural environment.

Related: How to launch a populist revolution

In a new report obtained by Axios, the Chamber of Commerce spotlights one of the Trump Administration's under-the-radar challenges: how to protect America's ideas.

Why it matters: Today's report provides fuel for the business community to get the President focused on IP enforcement as part of his "America First" agenda. Stolen intellectual property costs the U.S. at least quarter of a trillion dollars in revenue every year. In his speeches Trump complains about other countries "ripping off" America. But while he understands the IP challenge from his business career, he's not thrust it into politics. Yet.

President Trump has begun reaching out to veterans of earlier White Houses for advice, as he seeks to bring more order and stability to a chaotic internal power structure that relies on competing and sometimes conflicting centers of gravity.

From a West Wing insider: "I just wish he'd done it before he took office."

The conversations suggest West Wing changes could be in the offing, according to people close to the White House.

ACLU donations on demand: A crafty tinkerer, Nathan Pryor, has engineered an Amazon Dash button so that it donates $5 to the ACLU every time he presses it. Pryor has published the code and instructions for anyone who wants to build their own. The ACLU raised $24 million in donations over the course of a single weekend after Trump's executive order on immigration. As Pryor explains in a blog post, his button was inspired by the idea that donating to the organization can be a gratifying response to the recent avalanche of news coming out of Washington.

Apple beefs up its TV unit: The company has hired former Amazon Fire TV chief Timothy D. Twerdahl to head its Apple TV product marketing, according to Bloomberg. Apple was recently rumored to be working on its own "skinny bundles," though the efforts never materialized. This could be a sign that it's getting serious about content again.

Sean Spicer's online troubles: The WH press secretary found himself at the receiving end of money requests and payments via the mobile app Venmo on Tuesday. On the same day, tech news site Mashable reported that Spicer has omitted to hide publicly available information about websites he's previously registered, along with his phone number and home address. As BuzzFeed outlines, Spicer's troubles on Venmo also highlight the online safety holes in the app.