Friday's politics & policy stories

Breitbart saying WH and GOP lawmakers talking about replacing Paul Ryan
The failed healthcare bill could be Speaker Paul Ryan's death knell, Breitbart reports:
Republican officials in Congress and the White House are now openly discussing finding a GOP replacement to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as Speaker of the House, after Ryan failed to pass the American Health Care Act…
Some of the complaints against him are that he misled the public and Donald Trump when he promised the bill would pass; and that he is a weak Speaker.
Some alternative names floated: Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Darrell Issa, Marsha Blackburn

Trump is still keeping tabs on the Trump business
President Trump's son Eric Trump said that he will continue to send financial reports regarding the Trump Organization to his father, per Forbes, despite the president's insistence that he would not be involved in the business during his presidency to avoid conflicts of interest. The reports will probably be quarterly.
Bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that, but you know, that's about it.— Eric Trump
Forbes noted that the apparent contradiction is troubling to ethics experts, including George W. Bush's former chief ethics lawyer, Richard Painter: "It just means that a lot of what they say is malarkey because the president isn't distancing himself from the business," he said.

White House: Trump "drew a line" on health care
Spicer said the AHCA vote is scheduled for 3:30p.m. He repeatedly stated that he believes the White House has done everything it can, and that the fate of the bill is now up to members of the House: "They'll be the ones who have to go back and explain to their constituents" why they didn't follow through on their pledge, said Spicer.

Trump orders tougher visa screenings
President Trump is ordering tougher screenings for vsa applicants as part of his "extreme vetting" policy. Last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent four cables to U.S. embassies and consular officials demanding scrutiny be tightened up, as originally reported by Reuters.
The new rules don't apply to 38 countries who can be admitted using the visa waiver program, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and most of Europe.
Profiling and delays: This will include "mandatory social media check" if an applicant has been in a territory controlled by ISIS. Such checks are rarely done at present, former officials told Reuters. Consular officials and immigration experts told the NYT this will make it much more common to be denied a Visa to the U.S. and they fear this might lead to profiling based on nationality. It will likely also extend Visa review times.
Context:
The cables were issued to complement the travel ban that was upended by a court in Hawaii, but some provisions were remedied to abide by the temporary restraining order. Namely, questions specifically aimed at applicants from the six countries listed in the ban were rescinded.

Pelosi calls for commission on Russia: "What are the Republicans afraid of?"
At her presser on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi called for an independent bipartisan commission to investigate Trump-Russia ties. She said House Intel Chair Devin "Nunes is deeply compromised" and was "either duped or a willing stooge" for briefing Trump on how his team may have been caught inadvertently in surveillance of other targets.
What are the Republicans afraid of? The truth? This is very serious because it has an impact on our national security.
Nunes apologized to the committee for briefing Trump and the press before committee members today.

House Intel Chair apologizes behind closed doors
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes apologized to committee members for going to the media and President Trump about his statement regarding the alleged "incidental collection" of surveillance on the Trump transition team before briefing Democrats on the intelligence committee, according to a Democratic member on the committee.
Rep. Jackie Speier said on Thursday that Nunes promised to share his information with the committee, although he declined to give a timeline on that action.
In an interview with NBC News, Nunes also experienced regret on his actions the other day:
It's a judgment call on my part. At the end of the day sometime[s] you make the right decision, and sometimes you don't.

The Trump quotes everyone is reading today
TIME's new cover, "Is Truth Dead?," echoes the typography of TIME's classic "Is God Dead?" cover from April 8, 1966. In a phone interview from the Oval on March 22, Trump told TIME's Michael Scherer:
- "Hey, look, I can't be doing so badly, because I'm President and you're not."
- On accusing President Obama of wiretapping: "I'm a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right. I have articles saying that it happened."
- "When I said 'wire tapping,' it was in quotes."
- On his unsubstantiated claim that 3 million undocumented immigrants voted illegally, Trump said he would be proved right eventually, though he hinted that he no longer stood by all parts of that claim: "When I say that, mostly they register wrong. In other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly, and/ or illegally. I'm forming a committee on it."
- On Sweden: "I was right about that."

Russia erupts: "I'm President and you're not"
In an interview out this morning, President Trump tells TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer, in response to a question about the risk to his reputation caused by false and ever-changing utterances: "Hey, look, I can't be doing so badly, because I'm President and you're not."
That "My Way" approach is part of the reason the Russia story has been festering, and now is erupting.

Manafort's offshore financial transactions come to light
U.S. Treasury officials have unearthed information on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's offshore financial transactions through banks in Cyprus, per the AP:
- Manafort was known to route financial transactions through Cyprus, and used Cypriot shell companies as part of a nearly $19 million deal with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska to purchase Ukrainian cable television provider Black Sea Cable.
- In one case, the AP found that a Manafort-linked company received a $1 million payment in October 2009 from a mysterious firm through the Bank of Cyprus. The $1 million payment left the account the same day — split in two, roughly $500,000 disbursements to accounts with no obvious owner.
- Senate intel committee member Martin Heinrich (D-NM) told the AP revelations about Manafort's work were "serious and disturbing."
- "This is not a drip, drip, drip," Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California, a member of the House intelligence committee, told the AP. "This is now dam-breaking with water flushing out with all kinds of entanglements."







