Axios

Don't get too excited about the idea that President Trump is having a last-minute conversion to Jeb Bush-style immigration reform. We've been talking with conservatives in his orbit, and here's what you need to understand about how Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions view the issue:

Trump reportedly wants a bill which could include a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes, per a senior administration official quoted by TV news anchors leaving a luncheon with Trump.

• The White House told CNN there "has to be a softening on both sides. There's got to be a coming together" in order to pass immigration reform. The "far right" and "far left" will both approve of the bill, the official said, but "it has to be a negotiation."
• But... Democrats may be unwilling to work with Trump on immigration after the new deportation guidelines making millions subject to deportation and his controversial travel ban.

Trump's "minister of truth" Stephen Miller is the subject of Bloomberg Businessweek's cover story, profiling his impact on the Trump administration. Some choice quotes...

• What got populist conservatives mad at Fox News, per a WH source close to Bannon: "[Conservative media sources] only aired stories about Benghazi and the IRS scandal."
• Miller on the media and immigration: "The media tends to cover immigration issues through the frame of how it impacts everybody but actual citizens of the United States."
• Joe Scarborough on Miller and Steve Bannon: "[O]pposition party hacks [who] humiliate themselves by being so ignorant of American history and the Constitution that they declare in their big-boy voices that the president's powers are not to be questioned."
• What Miller learned from Jeff Sessions: "His whole approach to politics came from the vantage point of being a prosecutor. It made a profound impression on me and shaped how I approach policy."
• Miller on Trump…in 2014: "Trump gets it. I wish he'd run for President."

From his interview this morning with Matt Lauer of the TODAY Show:

.@MLauer asks @SpeakerRyan if a special prosecutor is necessary in the Russian investigation #TODAYonthehill. https://t.co/Q0doUefgnB— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 28, 2017

Summed up: Ryan says Congress is investigating the issue to "make sure nothing happened that shouldn't have" and that "we need to get answers." He says that will happen through Congress, and wants patience.

What we'll be listening for at 9 p.m. ET:

Forget the theater, the palace intrigue, the stumbles. One thing you should know on Day 40 (and soon the 40th night) of President Trump: This is Bannon-Miller presidency in the making. Think about the dark view of the state of the world, of the state of our nation, of the state of media. This is the worldview of the Stephens — chief strategist Bannon and policy guru Miller — trumpeted by Trump. We see this in ...

In an interview with Fox & Friends that aired early Tuesday morning, Trump said that he would've handled the crackdown on government leaks differently, having "one-on-one sessions with a few people," instead of the way White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer did it: in an "emergency meeting" for White House communications staffers where he asked them to dump their phones on the table for a "phone check" to prove they had nothing to hide.

More from the interview: Trump gives himself an A+ "in terms of effort," so far in his presidency, but for messaging only a C or C+; "My messaging isn't good ... Maybe I change that during the speech."

And he says Obama is "behind" the protests at GOP town halls and "possibly" some of the leaks.

The White House begins attacking President Obama's specific environmental policies today with an executive order that launches the process of killing regulations designed to provide expansive federal water-quality protections.

Why it matters: The Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule is a top target of Republicans and various industry interests, such as agriculture and home building groups, who say Obama's EPA grabbed power to regulate a vast array of minor streams and wetlands in a way that far exceeds what Congress allowed under the Clean Water Act. Politically, Trump's order attacking WOTUS allows the White House to get Republicans all over the Capitol on the same page about at least one thing at a time when they're splintered over tax reform and replacing Obamacare.

Yahoo has provided the Senate commerce committee with new details about its security breaches over the past four years. Here's what you need to know:

The damning tidbit: The accounts involved in Yahoo's series of breaches in 2013 and 2014 were mostly the same ones.

Yahoo hired a risk management executive and is reportedly more engaged with law enforcement than was previously public; it is working with federal, state, and foreign government officials about the breaches. Recall that Yahoo only learned of its 2013 breach in 2016 when user data turned up online.

The specifics on its cyber security updates: Yahoo is growing its Advanced Persistent Threat team to better deal with state-sponsored attacks (which likely caused the 2016 breaches). The company also takes a "kill chain" approach to detect attacks, runs a vulnerability assessment team that attacks its own products (the "red team"), and has a "bug bounty program" that pays those external to Yahoo to inform it of bad code.

Plus, Yahoo will present its briefing to the Senate committee via a committee it formed internally just to investigate the breaches. The briefing is not yet scheduled.

Donald Trump declined to comment directly on AT&T's $85 billion proposed purchase of CNN owner Time Warner during a conversation with Breitbart News, known for its often favorable coverage of Trump and ties to the White House, but had this to say:

"You have to have competition in the marketplace and you have to have competition among the media. And I'm not commenting on any one deal, but you need competition generally and you certainly need it with media."

Key context: Trump threatened to block the deal during the final stretches of the campaign. But his answer in Monday's interview is in line with what he told Axios about his views on media competition shortly before taking office — and don't rule out the government harshly reviewing the proposed sale.

On Wednesday Feb 8, West Virginia's Democratic Senator Joe Manchin welcomed the Breitbart News editorial team to his Capitol Hill office for an hourlong off-the-record "get to know you" session. It was part of a behind-the-scenes process — kicked off post-election and led by Manchin's communications director Jonathan Kott — to establish warmer relations with the right-wing news outlet.

Why this matters: No other Democratic Senator has done a session like this with Breitbart; and most Democrats wouldn't touch the website with a 30-foot pole. But getting on with the controversial populist nationalist site — which has its former chairman Steve Bannon as the President's top adviser — could prove helpful to Manchin, who faces a tough re-election in 2018.

ICYMI, Axios had an exclusive this morning on Sean Spicer's attempts to push back on reports that Trump campaign aides "had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election." And it was a hot topic at Spicer's press briefing today along with the budget and the revised travel ban executive order...

Rep. Devin Nunes is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which has the power to investigate claims of Russian attempts to influence the election, in addition to claims of Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.

He said the only "major crimes" he'd seen had been committed by leakers: "We can't run a government like this. A government can't function with massive leaks at the highest level."

Nunes says he hasn't seen "any evidence of anyone from the Trump campaign or any other campaign, for that matter, that's communicated with the Russian government."

He added:

We just cannot go on a witch hunt.

After a meeting with health insurance companies this morning, a reporter asked Trump about whether he supported a special prosecutor for investigating Russia

The president's response, after a pause: "I haven't called Russia in 10 years."

The reporter was asking about Russia's 2016 election hacking and potential contacts between Trump's campaign team and Russian intelligence officers, per an AP report.

The White House is sending Cabinet officials their first draft of budget numbers on Monday. The big changes you can expect will be severe cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, as Axios reported yesterday. Other targets include the State Dept. and social safety programs, with savings used to bolster military spending by $54 billion.

Negotiable factors: Resistance from federal agencies could lessen the severity of cuts in the original plan before a final budget request is sent to Congress. From there, Capitol Hill will have the final say. In order to pass Trump's defense request, lawmakers in both parties will have to agree to raise the government spending caps on defense and domestic programs imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Precise timing: As the NY Times points out, his plan — which is a product of a collaboration between President Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney; National Economic Council director Gary Cohn; and chief strategist, Steve Bannon — is intended to make a "big splash." The release is carefully timed to come the day before the president's address to Congress.

From Matt Lauer's interview with former president George W. Bush on the TODAY Show:

• On freedom of religion: "I think it's very important for all of us to recognize that one of our great strengths is for people to be able to worship the way they want to or not worship at all. A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely."
• On Russia: "I think we all need answers...if [Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr] were to recommend a special prosecutor, then it'd have a lot more credibility with me."
• On Trump's immigration ban: "I am for an immigration policy that's welcoming and upholds the law."
• On the media: "I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy…Power can be very addictive. It can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to hold people to account."
• On presidential nostalgia: "People ask me, 'Do you miss being president?' The answer's not really, but I miss saluting people who volunteer to wear the uniform."

Buffett says he agrees with Trump on entitlement programs and industries with too many regulations, but disagrees with him on the proposed border adjustment tax, which he said would end up raising prices for the American consumer.

Apple: Buffett has almost doubled his stake in Apple, now holding 133 million shares of the company. He's avoided investments in tech companies in the past, but said that he sees Apple as a maker of consumer products.

Airlines: Buffett also bought $9 billion worth of shares in airlines because he thinks they're operating more efficiently than they used to. Late last year he invested in American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Continental and Southwest.

Warren's words of wisdom: Don't mix up investment decisions with politics.

Today, a progressive "Shadow Cabinet" will start tweeting under @ShadowingTrump to rebut the president and his administration's statements, actions and tweets in real time.

The "cabinet" includes scholars, authors and former Democratic officials assembled by former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green in six weeks of frantic phoning, emailing and fundraising: