| | | | | |  | | By Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer | Presented by |  | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | HAPPY SATURDAY MORNING. President DONALD TRUMP is leaving the White House for a trip to Lake Charles, La., and Orange, Texas, to survey storm damage. He's scheduled back to the White House around 9:15 p.m. -- FRONT PAGES: The Courier (Houma, La.): "Laura victims may go weeks without power" … The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, La.): "FLOODED ROADS, NO ELECTRICITY: Hurricane Laura's impact lingers in south Louisiana" … The News Star (Monroe, La.): "200K without water; storm death toll rises" … The Times (Shreveport, La.): "CLEANING UP" … Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise … Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "No water, power for survivors of Laura" … Houston Chronicle: "Houston just avoided nightmare scenario" THE NYT'S DOUG MILLS captured this amazing photo of a bolt of lightning striking near Joint Base Andrews as TRUMP exited Air Force One on Friday. DEPT OF LEMONADE … MINNESOTA DEMOCRATIC @RepDeanPhillips: "I'm authoring a bill to ban campaign events and political party conventions from ever being held on the grounds of The White House again. Do I have any co-sponsors out there?" WHAT AMERICA IS READING … THE NATION'S FRONT PAGES: Arkansas Democrat Gazette: "Safety urged as state cases climb by 838: Rutledge defends photos without her mask in D.C." … Denver Post: "Obamacare opposition becomes a GOP liability" … Stamford (Conn.) Advocate: "Bannon allowed to travel to CT for work -- but doing what?" … Miami Herald: "Florida governor claims air travel is safe, but is it?" … Boston Globe: "As primary looms, Kennedy, Markey scour the state for working-class voters" … Wisconsin State Journal: "Rural voters key for Trump" MOST NATIONAL PAPERS ran a big image of Friday's march on Washington. Here's one from the STAR TRIBUNE : "REKINDLING SPIRIT OF '63" TRUMP'S FRONTS: WAPO … WSJ … NYT … N.Y. DAILY NEWS … N.Y. POST READING FOR JARED AND AVI BEFORE LIFTOFF FOR BEN GURION -- AP/DUBAI: "UAE formally ends Israel boycott amid U.S.-brokered deal" WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PRESIDENT TRAVELS … WAPO'S CAROL LEONNIG: "Secret Service copes with coronavirus cases in aftermath of Trump appearances": "When President Trump gave a speech to a group of sheriffs in Tampa late last month, his decision to travel forced a large contingent of Secret Service agents to head to a state that was then battling one of the worst coronavirus surges in the nation. "Even before Air Force One touched down on July 31, the fallout was apparent: Five Secret Service agents already on the ground had to be replaced after one tested positive for the coronavirus and the others working in proximity were presumed to be infected, according to people familiar with the situation. "The previously unreported episode is one of a series of examples of how Trump's insistence on traveling and holding campaign-style events amid the pandemic has heightened the risks for the people who safeguard his life, intensifying the strain on the Secret Service." STORY OF THE DAY … NYT, A1: "N.Y.C. Tenants Say They Were Tricked Into Appearing in R.N.C. Video," by Matthew Haag: "It started with an unexpected call last week from Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York. "Ms. Patton told a leader of a tenants' group at the New York City Housing Authority, the nation's largest, that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority's buildings, which have long been in poor repair. "Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. Three of the tenants were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air prominently on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, the three tenants said in interviews on Friday. "'I am not a Trump supporter,' said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. 'I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.'" | | | | A message from Walmart: FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL – Along with an expansion to their debt-free education benefit, Walmart is now making the program available to all part-time and full- time workers on their first day of employment so that associates can earn a degree or certificate and a paycheck, without accumulating lifelong debt. Learn more. | | | WAPO: "Amid fears that Trump might not leave office, two lawmakers press for Pentagon assurances on the election," by Greg Jaffe and Missy Ryan: "In a sign of the growing concern that President Trump might not leave office voluntarily or might attempt to use the military to hold onto power, two moderate Democratic lawmakers posed a series of written questions to the secretary of defense and the military's top general about their obligations to the Constitution and the country. "Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) addressed their questions in writing to Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, setting a deadline of Thursday evening. "Milley responded to the queries, but Esper has not yet provided answers. The questions would have been almost unthinkable at any time in the nation's history outside of the Civil War. The two asked Milley if he was aware that the Uniform Code of Military Justice 'criminalizes mutiny and sedition' and if he understood that he was legally bound to follow the lawful orders only of the legitimately elected president." RULES FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME … WAPO: "As Trump appointees flout the Hatch Act, civil servants who get caught get punished," by Lisa Rein: "A Defense Logistics Agency employee was suspended for 30 days without pay last fall after giving his office colleagues a PowerPoint presentation that displayed the words, 'Vote Republican.' "An Energy Department worker was forced to resign in January after admitting she gave a woman running for Congress a tour of a federal waste treatment plant so the candidate could show her expertise to potential voters. "Another civil servant began a 120-day suspension without pay from the Food and Drug Administration in July after creating a Facebook page with his name and photograph to solicit political donations and then co-hosting a fundraiser. These were some of the recent consequences for federal workers who illegally mixed government employment with partisan politics in violation of the Hatch Act, the anti-corruption law Congress passed in 1939." DEPT. OF I.O.U.'S … NYT: "Bill for Trump's Tax Holiday Will Be Due Next Year, Treasury Dept. Says," by Alan Rappeport: "The Treasury Department released guidance on Friday evening instructing companies that they can stop withholding payroll taxes paid by employees beginning on Sept. 1 but that workers will have to pay the taxes by the end of April." JOSH GERSTEIN: "5 ways Steve Bannon could beat the rap" CHA-CHING!: "Mick Mulvaney's new side gig: A hedge fund betting on D.C.," by Theo Meyer, Victoria Guida and Nahal Toosi: "Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's special envoy to Northern Ireland, has a new side gig: He's starting a hedge fund. Mulvaney is launching the fund with the longtime investor Andrew Wessel. The angle? Buying stock in banks and other financial firms based on his knowledge of financial regulation. "Trump tapped Mulvaney as special envoy in March after replacing him with then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) as White House chief of staff -- a role in which Mulvaney served in an acting capacity for more than a year. Mulvaney is now considered a special government employee and will continue to serve as special envoy while he works to get the hedge fund off the ground, according to someone with knowledge of the matter. "Mulvaney disclosed his decision to start the hedge fund, called Exegis Capital, in an interview on 'Street Talk,' a podcast hosted by S&P Global Market Intelligence. 'Politics is going to be a very turbulent thing for the near future, and I think it creates opportunities for those who understand how Washington works to provide an advantage over everybody else,' he said on the podcast." LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ and HOLLY OTTERBEIN: "A Democratic turf war is raging — even as progressives try to elect Biden": "Despite presenting a mostly united front during the Democratic convention, opposing sides of the party are clashing over health care, climate change, police reform and primary challenges. The disagreements have largely taken place on the sidelines due to the pandemic, but they offer a glimpse at the coming fights between progressives and centrists if Joe Biden wins in November." WAPO'S SEUNG MIN KIM: "Republicans make the courts a feature of their convention, Democrats do not and liberals worry": "At the Republican National Convention this week, an antiabortion activist lauded President Trump for nominating scores of 'pro-life' judges. A California teacher who took her battle against public sector unions to the Supreme Court made the case for Trump's reelection. A Navajo Nation leader thanked the president for tapping Supreme Court picks who upheld the rights of Native Americans. ... "[D]emocrats all but ignored the Supreme Court in their four-day convention earlier this month, even after the party spent Trump's first term reckoning with the consequences of Republicans confirming two justices, including a reliably conservative justice who replaced the court's swing vote. The contrast worries liberal activists who see it as further evidence that the Democratic Party isn't paying enough attention to an area where conservatives have made big inroads in recent years: control of the courts." | | | |   | | | PHILLY INQUIRER'S JESS CALEFATI: "Fact-checking Trump's frequent claim that Joe Biden 'abandoned Scranton'": "Biden's family did move to Delaware when he was a kid. But Trump's retelling is a distortion of Biden's enduring relationship with his hometown. Our research shows that Biden maintained close personal relationships and professional ties to Scranton in the more than six decades since he left. … "Biden spoke at the annual Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County dinner in 1973, a few weeks after losing his first wife and his daughter in a deadly car accident and being sworn into office at his sons' hospital bedside. In 1976, he was the University of Scranton's undergraduate commencement speaker. And in 1978, he held a campaign fund-raiser dubbed a 'Scranton Salute,' where then-Mayor Gene Hickey gave him a key to the city. Two Republicans, former Lackawanna County commissioner Robert Pettinato and former sheriff Joseph Wincovitch, helped host the fund-raiser." WAPO'S CANDACE BUCKNER: "How politics transformed Kelly Loeffler from hoops junkie to WNBA villain" | | | | BEIJING IS WATCHING, ARE YOU? China has long been a nation of involved and cynical election-watchers, at least when it comes to American presidential campaigns. As the United States races toward election day, how do Chinese citizens believe each candidate would impact relations between the two nations? Join the conversation and gain expert insight from informed and influential voices in government, business, law, and tech. China Watcher is as much of a platform as it is a newsletter. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | 
PHOTO DU JOUR: March on Washington attendees surround the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool Friday, calling for racial equality and criminal justice reform. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images | TURNOVER ALERT: "Trump aides interviewing replacement for embattled FTC chair," by Leah Nylen, Betsy Woodruff Swan, John Hendel and Daniel Lippman: "The White House is searching for a replacement for Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, a Republican who has publicly resisted President Donald Trump's efforts to crack down on social media companies, four people with knowledge of the discussions said. "Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, hasn't announced he's leaving the agency. He is serving a term that doesn't end until September 2024, and he cannot legally be removed by the president except in cases of gross negligence. But the White House has already interviewed at least one candidate for the post, the people said — a sign that the administration is preparing for an opening that could give Trump a chair more in line with his agenda. "John McEntee, who heads the White House personnel office, informally interviewed at least one candidate for the job, according to one individual. Two others confirmed that FTC veteran and Fox Corp. executive Gail Slater was among those interviewed. The people spoke anonymously to discuss internal White House deliberations." CLICKER -- "The nation's cartoonists on the week in politics," edited by Matt Wuerker -- 14 funnies | | | |   | | | GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Margy Slattery and the staff of POLITICO Magazine: -- "What Happened in Room 10?" by Katie Engelhart in California Sunday Magazine: "The Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, was the first Covid hot spot in the U.S. Forty-six people associated with the nursing home died, exposing how ill-prepared we were for the pandemic — and how we take care of our elderly. This is their story." Cal Sunday -- "The Inside Story of the $8 Million Heist From the Carnegie Library," by Travis McDade in Smithsonian Magazine's September issue: "Precious maps, books and artworks vanished from the Pittsburgh archive over the course of 25 years." Smithsonian -- "The Wildest Insurance Fraud Scheme Texas Has Ever Seen," by Katy Vine in Texas Monthly's September issue: "Over a decade, Theodore Robert Wright III destroyed cars, yachts, and planes. That was only the half of it." Texas Monthly -- "The Conscience of Silicon Valley," by Zach Baron in GQ's September issue: "Tech oracle Jaron Lanier warned us all about the evils of social media. Too few of us listened. Now, in the most chaotic of moments, his fears—and his bighearted solutions—are more urgent than ever." GQ -- "What Does Boredom Do to Us—and for Us?" by Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker: "Humans have been getting bored for centuries, if not millennia. Now there's a whole field to study the sensation, at a time when it may be more rampant than ever." New Yorker -- "A Cocktail Party In The Street," by Nicola Twilley and Krista Ninivaggi in Edible Geography, from November 2010: "An interview With Alan Stillman," founder of T.G.I. Friday's. Edible Geography | | | | A GAME CHANGER? The FDA gave Abbott Labs emergency approval for its rapid antigen test, which can detect Covid-19 in 15 minutes. Is this new test a game changer? Or does it give Americans a false sense of security? The health care system that emerges from this pandemic will be fundamentally different, and emerging technologies will continue to drive change. Future Pulse spotlights the politics, policies and technologies driving long-term change on voters' most personal issue: their health. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com. MEDIAWATCH -- Yeganeh Torbati is joining WaPo as an economic policy investigations reporter. She most recently has been a reporter for ProPublica, and is a Reuters alum. Talking Biz News TRANSITION -- Francisco Pelayo will be media relations lead for the U.S. public sector at IBM. He previously was deputy comms director for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). WEDDINGS -- NYT: "Karolle Malalatiana Rabarison and David James Rose were married Aug. 16 in the hemlock grove at Woodend Nature Sanctuary in Chevy Chase, Md. … The bride, 32, is the communications manager at the Online News Association … The groom, 32, works in Washington as the director of post-sales for the Asia-Pacific region at IronNet Cybersecurity." -- Linda Kinstler and Isaac Webb, via NYT: "Ms. Kinstler, who is now 29, is a freelance writer and doctoral candidate in rhetoric at Berkeley. … Mr. Webb is to begin later this month at the State Department's office of the legal adviser, where he is to become a lawyer-adviser. … On Aug. 11, at the shore of Panther Pond in Raymond, Maine, the couple were married before a dozen or so guests." BIRTHDAYS: Justice Neil Gorsuch is 53 … WSJ D.C. bureau chief Paul Beckett … former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, chair emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, is 82 … former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is 65 … Clayton Cox, national finance director at the DNC and dad to Cooper and George (h/t wife Rachel Rauscher) … Garrett Arwa, director of campaigns at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee … Sean Elliott … Alison Schwartz, owner and CEO of Grow Strategic Solutions (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … POLITICO's Nancy Scola, Morgan Connolly and Noura Arzaz … Axios' Kyle Daly ... Rachael Cusick … Amy Nathan … Rich Cooper … Sacha Zimmerman … Andrew Adair … Charlie Spies (h/t wife Lisa) … former Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) is 7-0 … former Guam Gov. Eddie Baza Calvo is 59 … Stacey Hughes, president and founding partner of the Nickles Group … IBM's Ryan Hagemann … Sal Albanese is 71 … … Catherine Hill of Twitter corporate comms … Al Lengel … Ed Wyatt, senior comms officer at the Gates Foundation … Tom Wilbur, director of public affairs at PhRMA … Sewell Chan, editorial page editor at the L.A. Times … David F. Levi is 69 … Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is 39 … Uliana Pavlova … Fannie Mae's Anna English … Jerr Rosenbaum, partner at HLP&R Advocacy … Connie Milstein (h/t Tammy Haddad) … FTI Consulting's Brian Kennedy … Duncan Neasham … Roger McShane of The Economist … Maurice Simpson Jr. is 31 … Anna Adams-Sarthou … Tim Warner is 51 … Kendra Marr Chaikind … Sam Hudis … Molly Fogarty, SVP of corporate and government affairs at Nestle … Paul Coussan … Meagan Bond … Suzanne Henkels … USA Today's Cristina Silva … former Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.) is 86 … Ben Martello … Amy Storey … Susan Markham … David Morehouse … Barb Worcester … Paige Ennis … Beau Cribbs THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): | CNN | "State of the Union" (Dana Bash guest-hosts): Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) … Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) … FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor … Nneka Ogwumikel. | ABC | "This Week": acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Panel: Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel, Sarah Isgur and Karen Finney. | NBC | "Meet the Press": White House chief of staff Mark Meadows … Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.). Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, Hallie Jackson, Pat McCrory and Mike Schmidt. | CBS | "Face the Nation": acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf … Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) … Kentucky A.G. Daniel Cameron … Ben Crump … Scott Gottlieb … James Brown. | FOX | "Fox News Sunday": Kate Bedingfield … Lara Trump. Panel: Guy Benson, Gillian Turner and Charles Lane. Power Player: Thomas Peters. | Sinclair | "America This Week with Eric Bolling": White House chief of staff Mark Meadows … Eric Trump … RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel … Patricia and Mark McCloskey … Rudy Giuliani … Joe Walsh … Katelyn Caralle. | Gray TV | "Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren": South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem … Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards. | | | | | | A message from Walmart: HATS OFF – Since June 2018, Walmart has built one of the largest employer- based educational benefits programs in the U.S. with more than 25,000 Walmart and Sam's Club associates participating. Now, associates can enroll in Live Better U on their first day at Walmart:
• Free high school completion and language learning programs.
• Affordable, high-quality associate and bachelor degrees in Business or Supply Chain Management at schools like University of Florida, Brandman University, and Bellevue University.
• Discounts on other degree programs, including master's degrees, and digital certificates in IT, healthcare and digital skills programs.
• Skilled trade certificates and on-the-job training in high-demand fields like Industrial Maintenance and Plumbing.
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