(cache) The Bannon coup - Axios
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The Bannon coup

Greg Ruben / Axios

White House and Hill GOP leaders are astonished by the unambiguous, far-reaching power of Steve Bannon and policy guru Stephen Miller over, well, just about everything.

  • They wrote the Inaugural speech and set in fast motion a series of moves to cement Trump as an America-first Nationalist.
  • They maneuvered to get more key allies inside the White House and positioned for top agency jobs.
  • They wrote many of the executive orders, sometimes with little input from others helping with the transition.
  • They egged on Trump to take a combative approach with the media, China, Mexico and critics.
  • And Bannon punctuated the week with a full-throated, Trump-pleasing bashing of the media.

Bannon, in a phone interview with NYT's Mike Grynbaum, who covers media, TV, and politics (story is on A1): "The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while … I want you to quote this … The media here is the opposition party. They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States. … The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong … The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign … Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: They were outright activists of the Clinton campaign … That's why you have no power … You were humiliated."

Pre-conventional wisdom: A conservative leader told Axios' Jonathan Swan that Reince Priebus' people were feeling like they "won November and December," having filled the White House with so many loyalists. The spin was that Reince was outmaneuvering Bannon and would be the real power source. But now it's dawning on them, as Trump makes his early moves, that maybe they spoke too soon.

For more on Bannon's brand of Nationalism...

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Trump will call Putin tomorrow

Sergei Ilnitsky, Matt Rourke / AP

Trump and Putin are scheduled to speak over the phone tomorrow in a first step towards what Trump has called the normalization of U.S.-Russia relations. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has confirmed that the call will take place.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Russian president intends to congratulate Trump on taking office. He added that the two leaders are also planning to "exchange views about main parameters of current bilateral relations."

"Following the difficult relations we had under Barack Obama, President Putin is ready to meet in the interests of global security and stability," said Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, earlier this week.

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Verizon is kicking Charter's tires

Verizon is considering a merger with Charter Communications, per the WSJ. CNBC poured some cold water on the report earlier this morning, but didn't dismiss it entirely. Shares of both companies fell yesterday on the news, although Charter's market cap remains just shy of $90 billion.

Why it's a BFD: This combination would bring together America's largest wireless company with its second-largest broadband provider (and Verizon isn't too shabby on broadband either). If Trump thinks AT&T and Time Warner is too big, wait until he gets a look at this.

Bottom line: New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai generally favors a hands-off approach to merger reviews if the companies can show how deals serve the public interest. Trump Attorney General pick Jeff Sessions indicated the DOJ should weigh big mergers on antitrust grounds rather than "some other discreet agenda that's not reasonably connected to the merger itself."

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Kochs vs Congress on the border adjustment tax

Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP

A powerful group linked to billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch sent a letter to House Ways and Means chair Kevin Brady, urging Republicans to reverse their support for the border adjustment tax. Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips summarizes the Koch network position:

"Border adjustability is nothing more than a tax on American consumers. We are against this approach because in the end, it is making life more expensive for all Americans, especially low-and middle-income families. Instead of picking winners and losers, Congress should pursue a simple, pro-growth approach that lowers rates, eliminates loopholes, simplifies the tax code, and above all, protects consumers from new tax increases."

Why this matters: The border adjustment plan — which would cut taxes on exports but raise them substantially on imports — is central to Paul Ryan's ambitious plans for tax reform. Republicans believe it could raise more than $1 trillion in revenue, helping to pay for Trump's expensive promises like the wall and his massive infrastructure stimulus.

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Gregg Phillips: the man Trump trusts on voter fraud

Jae C. Hong / AP

From the President of the United States of America this morning:

The Daily Beast has a deep dive on Gregg Phillips, who seems to be the primary source for Trump's voter fraud claims. His tweets have gone viral via Alex Jones' Infowars, and he claims to have collected 184 million voter records with the help of his app, VoteStand, and a band of volunteers.

The problem?: VoteStand has been downloaded less than 5,000 times via Google Play. (And we can assume one of those was likely to Trump's famous Android.)

And don't forget: there is almost no fraudulent voting.

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The highlights from Trump's Hannity interview

Matt Slocum / AP

Trump gave another hour-long interview last night, this time with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Some highlights:
  • On "Saturday Night Live": "It's a failing show; it's not funny. Alec Baldwin's a disaster. He's terrible on the show. And by the way: I don't mind some humor. But it's terrible."
  • Giving a tour of the Oval: "And look at my desk: Papers! You don't see presidents with papers on that desk"
  • On using Reagan's desk: "[Y]ou can pick. They have like seven desks."
  • On the White House phones: "I have great phones, I have phones -- let me tell you. The technology that we have in this country is incredible. Unfortunately perhaps we don't use it.
  • On the president in his lifetime he admires most: "Well, I like Reagan. I didn't like him on trade. But other than trade, I liked him very much and he was OK on trade. But not great."
  • On the letter Obama left him: "What amazed me is that I was vicious to him in statements, he was vicious to me in statements, and here we are getting along, we're riding up Pennsylvania Avenue talk -- we don't even mention it. I guess that's the world of politics."
  • On how this whole experience has changed him: "I don't think I've had the time to be changed because I'm cutting the prices of airplanes, I'm cutting the prices of army tanks."
  • Trump's last words in the interview: "The ratings tonight are going to be through the roof."
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A new way to gut Obama regulations

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

Republicans are going wild over Kim Strassel's "Potomac Watch" column in the WSJ, "A GOP Regulatory Game Changer." The piece discusses how legal experts are arguing that Congress can use the Congressional Review Act to overrule and dismantle Obama regulations going back to 2009.

Why this matters: The accepted understanding in Washington is that the CRA can only used against new regulations, specifically those finalized in the past 60 legislative days.

"This is aggressive, sure, and would take intestinal fortitude. Some Republicans briefed on the plan are already fretting that Democrats will howl. They will," said Strassel.

Reaction: Conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt this morning tweeted that he hopes the Drudge Report "puts a red siren" on Strassel's column, adding that it may be the most significant column he's read in years.

What's next: A Republican source says conservative staff and think tanks throughout D.C. are starting to dig into the legality of this. "It's a novel idea, but would be a game changer if true. I think the procedural hurdles in the Senate might be messier than this piece states, but opens up all kinds of doors if it works," wrote Strassel.

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The coming war: Supreme Court chaos

Democrats will almost certainly block Trump's Supreme Court nominee — regardless of who it is, as payback for Republicans tanking Obama's pick, Merrick Garland — and Republicans will almost certainly will push the nuclear-option button.

This will set a new precedent of 50 votes for Supreme Court confirmation, just like Republicans set precedent that you now can refuse to fill a slot in a presidential election year.

Why this matters: just when you thought it couldn't get more divisive, Supreme Court fights are going to likely get nastier and more partisan.

What's next: Trump says he'll name his nominee on Thursday, and he told Hannity last night that he's almost certain on the person. The current short list, per multiple media reports, is William Pryor, Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman.

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Hot in Silicon Valley: LinkedIn's financial numbers

LInkedIn reveals first financial results as part of Microsoft

And it's not too shabby: It generated $228 million in revenue this quarter, and a net income loss of $100 million.

What it means: Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn closed in December, so the latter didn't even contribute a full quarter's financials. For context, LinkedIn generated $960 million in revenue the previous quarter. Now as part of Microsoft, it won't publish updated member numbers, but it will still have to show it's growing its revenue and getting users to spend more and more time on the service.

Tesla sues a former employee

The electric car company has filed a lawsuit against Sterling Anderson, a former director of Autopilot programs, for allegedly trying to poach employees for his own startup and taking confidential information, according to TechCrunch.

Why now? Self-driving technology is one of the hottest areas in the industry right now, so it's no wonder that that there's fierce competition among companies.

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Surge in Americans eyeing move to Canada

Alex Indigo / Flickr cc

Every election, liberals threaten to move to Canada if a conservative wins the White House, and right-wing talk-show hosts offer to gladly pick up the tab. This past election year was no different, and if anything, social media has made these calls seem even louder. The Economist breaks down this year's surge in interest:

  • The Canadian immigration department's website crashed on election night.
  • Royal LePage, Canada's largest realtor, said the number of Americans looking at homes on its website rose 40% in the last three months of 2016, compared with the same period the previous year.
  • Applications from American students to study at Canadian universities have jumped, at some schools by as much as 80%.

Reality check: It's actually complex, time-consuming and costly to head north — and there's no fast-track for Americans — so few follow through on the threat.

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About that HHS "gag order" ...

Alex Brandon/AP

It's worth a check-in with people who have worked in high-ranking Health and Human Services positions in past administrations, now that House Democrats have released the text of the order that has gotten so much coverage. Here's what I found in talking to some of them:

  • Former Obama administration HHS officials do think it's worse than what other new administrations have done.
  • Former Bush administration HHS officials think it's not — and that other Trump administration actions, especially on climate change, are making this memo seem more ominous than it actually is.

So we just have another unhelpful partisan disagreement, right? Hear them out first. Tevi Troy, a former deputy HHS secretary under President George W. Bush, notes that every new administration tries to take control of communications. When Bush took over, Troy recalls, the order was, "secure the fax machines." Another former Bush HHS official tells me that new administration officials sometimes overreact, but that the HHS order itself "does not seem extreme."

But two former Obama HHS officials were more alarmed. "I've never seen an order this broad-sweeping before," said one, who wondered whether HHS will still be able to do things that need to be done in the next few weeks, like releasing new Medicare Advantage payment rates.

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