Axios

Spicer and the White House press corps braved the snow for today's briefing. The GOP's proposed healthcare plan and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that 24 million people will lose coverage under Trumpcare dominated the presser. Takeaways:

• CBO coverage estimates: Spicer emphasized (again) that the CBO has been "consistently wrong" when estimating the number of people who would be covered under Obamacare, so we can't fully rely on the score this time either. He added that the CBO says phase 1 of AHCA will bring down costs by 10%, and that's before phase 2 and phase 3 even take effect.
• Why not draft a new healthcare bill that's more favorable? "This is it," said Spicer. "If we don't get this through, the goal of repealing Obamacare is... going to be unbelievably difficult."
• Trump's unsubstantiated claims that Obama wiretapped him: "I think [Trump] is extremely confident" that the DOJ will come up with evidence to support Trump's wiretapping claims, said Spicer.
• Sanctuary cities: "I think the last poll I saw on this said about 80% of Americans don't support sanctuary cities." From a federal point of view, Trump has made it "very clear" he won't use federal funds to support them.

A new study from the University of Michigan and the University of California, San Diego shows that H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers pushed up the economy, but brought down tech industry wages by 5.1% and employment of American workers by 10.8%, per the WSJ.

The caveat: The study focuses on 1994 to 2001 as it was the longest stretch of time when all H-1B visas were claimed. The chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Obama told the WSJ that'd she'd prefer a more recent look, but said the study is "the best work we have by a long way."

The ball is in Trump's court as he campaigned on reigning in H-1B visas, but has notably punted the issue since taking office.

The Environmental Protection Agency isn't fighting the White House's initial budget that proposes to cut the agency's budget by about $2 billion — or roughly 25% — and reduce the agency's workforce by roughly 3,000 employees.

Climate change programs would be gutted under the proposal and the workforce attached to these programs would be cleared out of the agency — in line with the aggressive vision of EPA transition head Myron Ebell.

The Trump Administration, in fact, is now discussing making even deeper cuts to the EPA, according to a source privy to the White House's internal deliberations. Senior Trump officials consider the EPA the leading edge of the administration's plans to deconstruct the administrative state.

Trump has granted drone-striking power to the CIA, breaking from an Obama-era policy that separated the CIA's capabilities from the Pentagon's, according to the WSJ. Previously, the CIA would run the operation to locate terrorists, and the DOD would launch strikes.

The CIA has authority to operate in Syria now, lining up with Trump's desire to stomp out ISIS, but the striking region will expand, U.S. officials said. The CIA has been using this strike capability already, killing a senior al-Quaida leader in Syria, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri.

Why it matters: The CIA doesn't have to report the number of terrorists or civilians it kills during a drone strike. The Pentagon had to report that publicly. Now the numbers of strikes might increase without public disclosures.

Spicer's back after a quiet weekend in the White House. He opened with a strong defense of the AHCA, as he's done for every briefing since the draft of the new GOP healthcare bill was released last Monday. Spicer also confirmed that Trump is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping; nodded to Trump's first Cabinet meeting this afternoon — where 4 seats will be vacant thanks to the Senate delaying their confirmations; and noted that Preet Bharara's firing was "standard procedure."

More updates below:

• Trump's salary: "The president's intention is to donate his salary at the end of the year... and he's asked that you all determine where it goes," said Spicer.
• Obama wiretapping: "If you look at the president's tweet, he said 'wiretapping'" said Spicer, adding that Trump doesn't mean that Obama personally tapped his phones... he used the term broadly, "that's why it was in quotes." He also noted that "from a WH perspective" there's been an abundance of media reports on intelligence abuse during the 2016 election.
• Trump's meeting with Angela Merkel is postponed to Friday March 17 due to the upcoming snow storm.

Bloomberg Businessweek called it "Trump's K Street Office." Avenue Strategies, the lobbying firm started by former campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and Barry Bennett, gets a splash in the president's favorite paper with "Want to Keep the President at Bay? Two Consultants Have an Inside Track," an Editorial Observer column by N.Y. Times editorial-board member Elizabeth Williamson:

• "For a fee, Corey Lewandowski, President Trump's pugilistic former campaign manager, and Barry Bennett, a former Trump senior adviser, will protect you from 'tweet risk' — what happens to the stock price and reputation of your company when the president tells his 26 million Twitter followers that you're killing factory jobs or refusing to sell Ivanka Trump handbags."
• "Lewandowski still reveres Mr. Trump and glides past his rival Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, to visit Mr. Trump in the Oval Office."
• "Bennett says he and Lewandowski "are pressing American companies to 'call Jared Kushner and tell him you're gonna build a new factory,' or invite Mr. Trump to 'fly somewhere, cut a ribbon, and high-five 200 employees.'"
• "Bennett says the two men advised Lockheed Martin, not a current client, on how to recover from a 'horrible' meeting with Mr. Trump."

The N.Y. Times takes a look at Trump's personnel crisis, which has left him months behind pace on his transition. So far 18 members of Trump's Cabinet have been approved, but there are still 500 other critical posts left to be filled, putting him far behind his predecessors.

As of Sunday, Trump has sent 36 nominations to the Senate, compared to the 70 sent by President Obama at the same point in 2009, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service. And the Office of Government Ethics has received only 63 disclosure reports for prospective Trump nominees as of March 5, less than a third of the 228 that Obama's team had submitted by that date in 2009.

President Trump plans to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at the gold-plated Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next month for a lowering-the-temperature summit with vast economic and security implications, Axios has learned.

No golf is planned during the meeting of the globe's two superpowers — this will mostly be a working session, according to officials familiar with the planning. The tentative dates are Thursday afternoon, April 6, through Friday, April 7.

After some delays, the White House plans to issue an executive order this week that will begin the long, hard bureaucratic slog of unwinding EPA's Clean Power Plan—that's the sweeping Obama-era regulation to cut carbon emissions from power plants.