memeorandum: Nasdaq turns positive as Wall Street weighs tax reform prospects; health care leads (Fred Imbert/CNBC)

12:40 PM ET, March 27, 2017

Top Items:

Senate Committee to Question Jared Kushner Over Meetings With Russians — Senate investigators plan to question Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and a close adviser, as part of their broad inquiry into ties between Trump associates and Russian officials or others linked to the Kremlin …

Discussion: CNN, ThinkProgress, Washington Post, Politico, Daily Kos, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, NPR, Business Insider, IJR, BillMoyers.com, Shakesville, NBC News, Raw Story, The Root, The Daily Caller, emptywheel, Lawfare, Axios, Towleroad and Political Wire

Ashley Parker / Washington Post:

Trump taps Kushner to lead a SWAT team to fix government with business ideas — President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans …

Nancy Cook / Politico:

Internal White House battles spill into Treasury — The fight for the direction of Donald Trump's presidency between the Goldman Sachs branch of the West Wing and hardcore conservatives is spilling into the Treasury Department, threatening Trump's next agenda item of overhauling the tax code.

Discussion: Towleroad

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
Senate committee to question Kushner over Russian meetings: report

Discussion: RedState, Business Insider and Raw Story

Jake Tapper / CNN:

Nunes says he was on WH grounds day before revealing Trump surveillance info — Washington (CNN)It has been something of a mystery, the whereabouts of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes on the day before his announcement that he saw information suggesting that communications …

Discussion: The Atlantic, ThinkProgress, Political Wire, Business Insider, emptywheel, The Daily Beast, Towleroad, Raw Story and Axios

Eli Lake / Bloomberg:

Devin Nunes Explains His White House Visit — For the last few days, much of Washington has been obsessed with what Representative Devin Nunes did last Tuesday evening. That was the night before Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the explosive allegation …

Discussion: Mediaite, Hot Air and The Guardian

Juan Williams / The Hill:

If Obama had acted like Trump... Right-wing media to President Obama: We are so very sorry. — That's the message I got last week from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page. — The Journal abandoned efforts to make sense of President Trump's outright fiction that Obama wiretapped him.

Discussion: Raw Story

Greg Miller / Washington Post:
Chairman and partisan: The dual roles of Devin Nunes raise questions about House investigation

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and NBC News

Alan Rappeport / New York Times:

Dealt a Defeat, Republicans Set Their Sights on Major Tax Cuts — WASHINGTON — Picking themselves up after the bruising collapse of their health care plan, President Trump and Republicans in Congress will start this week on a legislative obstacle course that will be even more arduous …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Salon, Forbes and The Hill

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:

The King of Crash and Burn — In the movie “Iron Man 2” (yes, superhero films are my guilty pleasure, so just bear with me) the villain, a rogue Russian scientist, informs the hero, Iron Man, of his theory on how easily he could be brought down: — “If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him.

Discussion: Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit, AOL, The FADER, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, BizPac Review and zerohedge.com/fullrss2.xml/*

Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal:

White House Opens Door to Democrats in Wake of Health-Bill Failure — Move signals Trump administration is fed up with many factions in House Republican conference — WASHINGTON—The White House sent a warning shot to congressional Republicans that it may increase its outreach to Democrats …

Discussion: RedState and Axios

Wall Street Journal:
The Tax Reform Damage

Discussion: TheStreet and Reuters

MJ Lee / CNN:

To read Trump's mind, lawmakers read ‘The Art of the Deal’ — (CNN)As members of the House Freedom Caucus plotted to seize control of Donald Trump's health care bill earlier this month, they discovered a key weakness in the President's strategy. — In a memo circulated to members …

Discussion: NPR, Talking Points Memo and The Slot

Adam Cancryn / Politico:
Back home, Freedom Caucus' Meadows hailed as anti-Obamacare hero

Discussion: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, Washington Post and Mediaite

Tara Palmeri / Politico: White House looks to rack up wins after health care calamity

Francis Fukuyama / Politico:
Trump's a Dictator? He Can't Even Repeal Obamacare

Discussion: Associated Press

Veronica Stracqualursi / ABC News:
The Note: The aftermath of the failed health care push

Discussion: Associated Press

Cynthia Kroet / Politico:

Germany didn't receive NATO invoice from Trump: government — There is no ‘debt account at NATO,’ says German government spokesman. — A spokesman for the German government on Monday denied media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump handed a multibillion-euro invoice to Chancellor Angela Merkel …

Discussion: The Slot and The Reality-Based Community

Alberto Nardelli / BuzzFeed:
The German Government Denies Reports That Trump Gave Merkel A NATO “Invoice”

Discussion: TheBlaze, Hot Air, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, The American Conservative, Politico, The Times & The Sunday Times, ThinkProgress, Balloon Juice and Mother Jones

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

60 Minutes Interview Shows How Unprepared The Mainstream Media Is For Pro-Trump Media — You can't confront the pro-Trump Upside Down media without an understanding of its cardinal rule: the New Right media isn't just an opposition force, it's a parallel institution that insists on its own reality.

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Mediaite and The Gateway Pundit

CBS News:
What's “fake news”? 60 Minutes producers investigate

Discussion: Mike Cernovich Presents … and The Gateway Pundit

Maureen Dowd / Vanity Fair:

Elon Musk's Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse — Elon Musk is famous for his futuristic gambles, but Silicon Valley's latest rush to embrace artificial intelligence scares him. And he thinks you should be frightened too. Inside his efforts to influence the rapidly advancing field …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Thomas Groome / New York Times:

To Win Again, Democrats Must Stop Being the Abortion Party — When I came to this country from Ireland some 45 years ago, a cousin, here 15 years before, advised me that Catholics vote Democratic. Having grown up in the Irish Republic, I was well disposed to Republican Party principles like local autonomy and limited government.

Discussion: RedState, Shakesville and Althouse

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

Scott Pelley is pulling no punches on the nightly news — and people are taking notice — With the words “credibility questioned” prominent on the screen, Scott Pelley once again is doing what network evening-news anchors generally don't do: abandoning careful neutrality in favor of pointed truth-telling.

Nathan Rubbelke / The College Fix:

Students instructed to write essay on 9/11 from terrorists' perspective — A recent assignment in an international studies course at Iowa State University asked students to write a historical account of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the perspective of Al-Qaeda.

Discussion: TheBlaze and RedState

Asawin Suebsaeng / The Daily Beast:

Breitbart Denied Capitol Hill Permanent Press Credentials — On Monday morning, the Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery denied Breitbart's request for permanent press credentials for the Hill, stating that they needed “more answers” before considering the right-wing website's request again.

Olivia Beavers / The Hill:

Colorado mosque vandalized with Bible — Colorado police are looking into a Sunday vandalism incident in which a surveillance video caught someone throwing a bible and rocks into a mosque. — Footage captures the man heaving several large rocks and a Bible into the building's glass doors …

Discussion: RedState

Jessica Cole / Topeka Capital-Journal:

Kansas man gives 32 gallons of blood over 64 years — Harold Facklam Jr. credits his father for getting him started — Harold Facklam Jr. doesn't think about how his donations of 32 gallons of life-saving blood have affected others or even saved lives. He remembers the reasons why he began …

Discussion: Associated Press

Fred Imbert / CNBC:

Nasdaq turns positive as Wall Street weighs tax reform prospects; health care leads — U.S. stocks fell on Monday, but traded off their session lows, as investors evaluated the possibility of significant tax reform coming from the White House. — The Nasdaq composite traded just above breakeven after briefly falling 1 percent.

Discussion: Daily Mail and New York Magazine