memeorandum: The last-ditch Obamacare repeal plan looks dead in the Senate (Dylan Scott/Vox)

1:50 PM ET, July 18, 2017

Top Items:

Rosalind S. Helderman / Washington Post:

Eighth person in Trump Tower meeting is identified — An American-based employee of a Russian real estate company took part in a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr., bringing to eight the number of known participants at the session that has emerged …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Axios, Raw Story, Daily Kos, Mediaite, Political Wire and Shareblue

Wall Street Journal:

The Trumps and the Truth — The best defense against future revelations is radical transparency. — Even Donald Trump might agree that a major reason he won the 2016 election is because voters couldn't abide Hillary Clinton's legacy of scandal, deception and stonewalling.

Discussion: CNNMoney, Talking Points Memo, Business Insider, Raw Story and Washington Free Beacon

Pamela Brown / CNN:

First on CNN: Special Counsel investigators seeking info from ‘eighth man’ at Trump Tower meeting — Washington (CNN)Special counsel investigators are seeking information from the still-publicly unidentified eighth person who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, RedState, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo, TheStreet, Business Insider, IJR, Daily Kos, Joe.My.God. and Little Green Footballs

Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:

The Master of ‘Kompromat’ Believed to Be Behind Trump Jr.'s Meeting — MOSCOW — The salacious video, of a naked man in bed with two women, was one of the most prominent examples of “kompromat,” the Russian art of spreading damaging information to discredit a rival or an enemy, in recent Russian history.

Los Angeles Times:
A California businessman born in the former Soviet Union also attended Trump Jr. meeting

Discussion: Mother Jones and KTLA

Associated Press:
Whose side are you on? Separate lawyers defend Trump, aides

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Malia Zimmerman / Fox News:
Hillary Clinton sided with Russia on sanctions as Bill made $500G on Moscow speech

Discussion: Infowars and The Gateway Pundit

Josh Dawsey / Politico:

Trump blindsided by implosion of GOP health care bill — President Donald Trump convened a strategy session over steak and succotash at the White House with senators Monday night, trying to plot an uphill path to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a GOP alternative.

Discussion: Raw Story, ABC News, Axios, Business Insider and Joe.My.God.

Thomas Kaplan / New York Times:

Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect — WASHINGTON — Two more Republican senators declared on Monday night that they would oppose the Senate Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, killing, for now, a seven-year-old promise to overturn President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.

Molly Ball / The Atlantic:

Republicans Aren't Turning on Trump—They're Turning on Each Other — The House is mad at the Senate. The Senate is mad at the House. Various factions in the House and Senate are mad at each other or mad at their leaders. — Republican lawmakers have yet to turn on President Trump in any meaningful way.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Fox News and Raw Story

Dylan Scott / Vox:

The last-ditch Obamacare repeal plan looks dead in the Senate — “I did not come to Washington to hurt people.” — The last-ditch Senate attempt to repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay to replace the law appears doomed, just 14 hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed it.

Discussion: Cincinnati.com, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, ThinkProgress, Daily Kos and Daily Wire

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:
GOP health care bill collapses

Discussion: Roll Call, ThinkProgress, Mediaite, Washington Post, Vox, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, Business Insider, The Federalist, IJR, Washington Free Beacon and The Hill

Thomas Kaplan / New York Times:
‘Plan C’ on Obamacare, Repeal Now and Replace Later, Has Collapsed

Discussion: The Hill, Refinery29, Mediaite and IJR

Sam Baker / Axios:
The fallout: Admit defeat, move on to bigger defeat?

Discussion: Politico, Shareblue, RedState and CNN

James Hohmann / Washington Post:
The Daily 202: After Senate bill falls apart, Republicans don't have the votes to repeal Obamacare

Discussion: Politico, New York Magazine, Fox News, Wichita Eagle, Media Matters for America, Daily Kos, ABC News, The Federalist, Axios, Washington Free Beacon and Mediaite

Jennifer Steinhauer / New York Times:
Old Truth Trips Up G.O.P. on Health Law: A Benefit Is Hard to Retract

Discussion: Shareblue and NBC News

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
Trump blames Dems, ‘a few Republicans’ for collapse of healthcare bill

Discussion: Mediaite, RedState, CNN, Vox, ABC News, Fox News Insider, The Gateway Pundit, FOX News Radio and Joe.My.God.

Wall Street Journal:
GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell Abandons Health-Care Bill

Discussion: Forbes, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, Talking Points Memo, RedState, ThinkProgress and Washington Monthly

Marina Fang / HuffPost:

Steve Bannon Reportedly Attacked Paul Ryan As ‘A Limp-D**k Motherf**ker’ — What? — Steve Bannon reportedly called House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) “a limp-dick motherf**ker who was born in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation,” referring to the think tank whose fiscal conservative policies the representative espouses.

Discussion: Political Wire

Axios:
Go inside Trumpworld with “Devil's Bargain” book

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, New York Times, Mediaite and Raw Story

Daniel Bates / Daily Mail:
EXCLUSIVE: Trump the foul-mouthed germophobe fired Chris Christie because New Jersey governor arranged …

Discussion: IJR, Business Insider, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, AOL, Washington Free Beacon, Conservative News Today, New York Magazine, Hullabaloo, Mediaite and Axios

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:

House GOP unveils budget plan that attaches major spending cuts to coming tax overhaul bill — House Republicans unveiled a 2018 budget plan Tuesday that would pave the way for ambitious tax reform legislation — but only alongside a package of politically sensitive spending cuts that threaten …

Discussion: Politico, Mother Jones, CNBC, New York Magazine, ABC News, CNN, The Atlantic, Vox and 1A

Niv Elis / The Hill:
Conservative caucus withholding support from Republican budget

Discussion: RedState

BuzzFeed:
Trump Properties Are Already Profiting Off Republican Campaigns

Discussion: Shareblue

Eli Lake / Bloomberg:

Trump Just Came Very Close to Killing the Iran Deal — At the last minute, the president nearly told Tillerson not to certify Iranian compliance. — Under President Barack Obama this kind of thing was routine. Since the Iran nuclear deal was reached in 2015, every few months …

Discussion: The Atlantic, Axios, Washington Post, IJR, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Peter Baker / New York Times:

Trump Recertifies Iran Nuclear Deal, but Only Reluctantly — WASHINGTON — President Trump agreed on Monday to certify again that Iran is complying with an international nuclear agreement that he has strongly criticized, but only after hours of arguing with his top national security advisers …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Politico, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The American Conservative, New York Magazine, The Guardian, National Review, Mother Jones, Power Line, The National Interest, Instapundit and middleeastmonitor.com

John McCormick / Bloomberg:

Finally, a Poll Trump Will Like: Clinton Is Even More Unpopular — Views on Democratic nominee harden since exit from spotlight — Obama now as popular as he was in first year in White House — For a president with historically low poll numbers, Donald Trump can at least find solace in this: Hillary Clinton is doing worse.

Discussion: Politicus USA, Business Insider, IJR, AOL, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Mediaite, TheBlaze, Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Free Beacon and twitchy.com

Lydia Wheeler / The Hill:

Kamala Harris slams Sessions on criminal justice — Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions — for his tough-on-crime policies during an event early Tuesday focused on the rising rate of women in the nation's prisons. — Harris, a key speaker at Women Unshackled …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:
As Party Drifts Left, Pragmatic Democratic Governors Have Eye on White House

Discussion: JustOneMinute

Amie Parnes / The Hill: Dem donors buzzing about Kamala Harris

Ben Strauss / Politico:

Is the President Fit? — Few props have been more indispensable to Donald Trump's presidency than the golf cart. He drives them on his frequent weekend trips to the links (invariably at Trump-owned clubs, where he rolls onto the greens, too—normally a no-no).

Discussion: Althouse, USA Today, The Resurgent and Shakesville

Michael Rothfeld / Wall Street Journal:

New York Seeks Bank Records of Former Trump Associate Paul Manafort — Loans issued by a bank run by former campaign adviser Steve Calk are focus of subpoena — New York prosecutors have demanded records relating to up to $16 million in loans that a bank run by a former campaign adviser …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Shakesville and Political Wire

Cameron Easley / Morning Consult:

America's Most and Least Popular Governors — July 2017 — Never miss the latest political data and news from Morning Consult. Subscribe to Morning Consult's Washington email brief here. — Familiar faces remain affixed the top and bottom of the new Morning Consult Governor Approval Rankings …

Discussion: Axios and WPRI-TV

Morning Consult:
Governor Approval Rankings Q2 2017 Methodology

Discussion: National Review

The Daily Beast:

Trump's Campaign Conceded in a Memo That Comey Was Having Major Impact … Donald Trump's presidential campaign acknowledged in an internal memo that former FBI Director James Comey's 11th hour decision to reopen an inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of private email helped shift the results.

Discussion: Mother Jones