memeorandum: UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on TODAY: ‘I will never support a Muslim ban’ (Eun Kyung Kim/TODAY.com)

10:35 AM ET, March 16, 2017

Top Items:

Trump federal budget 2018: Massive cuts to the arts, science and the poor — President Trump on Thursday will unveil a budget plan that calls for a sharp increase in military spending and stark cuts across much of the rest of the government including the elimination of dozens …

Discussion: RedState, Hot Air, Lawyers, Guns & Money, No More Mister Nice Blog, Hullabaloo and Raw Story

Joel Achenbach / Washington Post:

Trump's budget calls for seismic disruption in medical and science research — President Trump's budget calls for a seismic disruption in government-funded medical and scientific research. The cuts are deep and broad. — They also go beyond what many political observers expected.

Discussion: Vox

New York Times:

Donald Trump Budget Slashes Funds for E.P.A. and State Department — WASHINGTON — President Trump's budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year would slash the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent and cut State Department spending by a similar amount in a brash upending …

Discussion: Daily Kos, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, Vox, Talking Points Memo, Reuters, BizPac Review, Politico, Grist and ewg.org

Benjamin Locke / Occupy Democrats:
Trump Just Announced Plan To End ‘Meals On Wheels’ For Seniors

Discussion: New York Times and Daily Kos

Louis Nelson / Politico:
Mulvaney justifies budget: We can't ask a coal miner to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Discussion: The Week

Elaine Lies / Reuters:
Tillerson says State Department spending ‘simply not sustainable’

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Sarah Ferris / Politico:
Trump budget would pay for military buildup with domestic cuts

Discussion: ABC News

Dan Merica / CNN:
Trump to release ‘hard power budget’ with cuts to State Dept, EPA

Discussion: New York Magazine

Jacob Gardenswartz / Vox:
Read President Trump's proposed federal budget

Discussion: Politico and ABC News

Stephanie Simon / STAT:
Trump budget calls for slashing biomedical and science research funding

Discussion: The Atlantic and Washington Post

Bloomberg:
Trump Would Slash Medical Research in 23% Cut to Health Budget

Discussion: Axios

Fox News:

Trump says he will submit evidence of wiretapping to House committee ‘very soon’ — President Trump discussed his tweeted accusation that President Obama ordered “wires” at Trump Tower tapped during last year's presidential campaign in an exclusive interview with Fox News' “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Wednesday.

Discussion: Daily Wire, Raw Story, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Hot Air, The Gateway Pundit, AOL and Joe.My.God.

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:

Obama chief of staff: ‘The president cannot order a wiretap’ … Former President Barack Obama — 's chief of staff on Thursday pushed back against President Trump's wiretapping allegations. — “The president cannot order a wiretap, president does not order a wiretap, the president did not order a wiretap,” Denis McDonough

Discussion: Politico, Occupy Democrats and Joe.My.God.

Madeline Conway / Politico:
Trump defends claim that Obama wiretapped his phones

Discussion: ABC News, Political Wire, The Hill and RedState

Veronica Stracqualursi / ABC News: The Note: Trump's travel ban 0 for 2

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Nervous GOP senators rooting for Ryan to fail — A growing number of GOP senators are hoping the House fails to pass its bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare so they won't be blamed for killing it in the upper chamber. — Support for the House legislation has “disintegrated” …

Discussion: Axios

Rich Lowry / Politico:
How the GOP Crackup Happens

Discussion: Washington Examiner and Balloon Juice

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:
Ryan: Health care plan must change to pass the House

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Vox, Occupy Democrats, Power Line, New York Magazine, The Daily Signal, The Week, Political Wire, Axios, Talking Points Memo, Balloon Juice and NPR

Tarini Parti / BuzzFeed:
Trump Aides Are Privately Blaming The Health Care Bill's Problems On Paul Ryan

Discussion: Hot Air and Washington Examiner

Matt Fuller / The Huffington Post: Conservatives Demand Changes On Health Care Bill As GOP Leaders Sound Shaky

Alexander Burns / New York Times:

2 Federal Judges Rule Against Trump's Latest Travel Ban — A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order Wednesday evening blocking President Trump's ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world, dealing a stinging blow to the White House and signaling that Mr. Trump will have to account …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Religion News Service, National Review, Occupy Democrats, Little Green Footballs, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Snopes.com and Above the Law

Laura Jarrett / CNN:

Federal judge blocks new Trump travel ban — (CNN)A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked President Donald Trump's new travel ban on Wednesday afternoon, hours before the ban was set to go into effect. — This ruling means that travelers from six Muslim-majority countries and refugees will be able to travel to the US.

Discussion: Death and Taxes, Balloon Juice, TheBlaze and CBS Baltimore

Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:
Federal judge in Hawaii freezes President Trump's new entry ban

Discussion: Breitbart, Shakesville, The Week, Raw Story, Engadget, Business Insider, Hot Air, The Verge, Patterico's Pontifications, DCist, RedState and Lawyers, Guns & Money, more at Techmeme »

Associated Press: THE LATEST: JUDGE WHO PUT BAN ON HOLD QUESTIONS EVIDENCE

Ken Dilanian / NBC News:

Clinton Ally Says Smoke, But No Fire: No Russia-Trump Collusion — Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who endorsed Hillary Clinton and called Donald Trump a dupe of Russia, cast doubt Wednesday night on allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Political Wire

Nick Bolger / Washington Free Beacon: FBI Deputy Director Did Not Include Wife's Ties to Clinton Ally in Financial Disclosure Forms

Nivea Serrao / EW.com:

Chelsea Clinton announces new picture book, She Persisted — Count Chelsea Clinton among the many people whom Elizabeth Warren inspired when she refused to be silenced in the Senate. — Clinton, the daughter of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former U.S. President Bill Clinton …

Discussion: Politico

Fox News:

Fox News Poll: Trump approval slips, even as more feel economy improving — Voters think President Trump is ahead of most previous presidents on fulfilling campaign promises, and the most voters in more than a decade see an improving economy. Yet that isn't enough to put the president's job rating …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Daily Caller, The Hill, Business Insider, AOL, Hot Air, Political Wire and Morning Consult

Fox News:
Fox News Poll: 34% of voters favor GOP health care plan

Discussion: Washington Post and The Week

Thomas B. Edsall / New York Times:

The Increasing Significance of the Decline of Men — At one end of the scale, men continue to dominate. — In 2016, 95.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were male and so were 348 of the Forbes 400. Of the 260 people on the Forbes list described as “self-made,” 250 were men.

The Forward:

EXCLUSIVE: Nazi-Allied Group Claims Top Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka As Sworn Member — Sebastian Gorka, President Trump's top counter-terrorism adviser, is a formal member of a Hungarian far-right group that is listed by the U.S. State Department as having been “under the direction …

Discussion: The Times of Israel and Raw Story

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:

Trump Acknowledges Repeal Bill Wouldn't Be Great For His Supporters — During an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, President Donald Trump signaled that the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare is not in its final form, admitting that the current legislation does not favor the voters who elected Trump.

Discussion: ThinkProgress and The Daily Caller

Eun Kyung Kim / TODAY.com:

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on TODAY: ‘I will never support a Muslim ban’ — United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley defended President Trump's attempt to ban travel from majority-Muslim countries, saying his executive orders aren't the same as the Muslim ban he promised during his presidential campaign.

Discussion: Politico and NBC News

Tristan Hallman / Dallas Morning News:

Dallas city leaders, T-Mobile vow to find solutions as 2nd death is publicly connected to 911 ‘ghost calls’ — David Taffet came home last week to find his husband, Brian Cross, a little disoriented. — Cross hadn't eaten yet, so Taffet made him some dinner. But after he ate, Cross lay down, went to sleep and started snoring.

Discussion: CBS Dallas and Engadget

Wall Street Journal:

Three Criteria for Health Reform — The House repeal-and-replace plan doesn't go far enough. — By — Republicans have a historic opportunity to follow through on our promise to repeal ObamaCare. The recent elections that focused on the law's repeal—2010, 2014 and 2016—were massive GOP victories.

Paulina Firozi / The Hill:

McDonald's tweets to Trump: ‘You are actually a disgusting excuse of a President’ — McDonald's' in a tweet on its corporate account called President Trump “a disgusting excuse of a President” on Thursday morning. — The tweet, which was briefly pinned to the top of the account before being deleted …

Discussion: Politico

Sam Knight / The Guardian:

Operation London Bridge: the secret plan for the days after the Queen's death — She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end.