memeorandum: Trump says he wants a ‘general’ to replace Priebus: report (Max Greenwood/The Hill)

1:50 PM ET, July 28, 2017

Top Items:

Mike Allen / Axios:

Trump “loved” Scaramucci's quotes — but he hates being upstaged — Top Republicans tell us that yesterday may have been an inflection point in the West Wing meltdown — that if behavior like this continues, apparently sanctioned by the President, people will finally leave.

Discussion: Mediaite, Politico, Daily Kos and Washington Post

Ryan Lizza / New Yorker:

Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon — He started by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. It escalated from there. — On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director.

Max Greenwood / The Hill:

Trump says he wants a ‘general’ to replace Priebus: report — President Trump has said privately that he wants to appoint “a general” to replace White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, The New York Times reports. — The president, the Times reported on Thursday, has so far focused …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, The Gateway Pundit, ABC News and Political Wire

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:

Why Anthony Scaramucci's Rant Probably Ticked Off the FBI … In his immediately infamous phone call to a New Yorker staff writer, Anthony Scaramucci didn't just say the White House chief of staff was a “f-king paranoid schizophrenic” or accuse the president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, of engaging in autofellatio.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, CNBC, Mediaite, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo, IJR, Politico, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Free Beacon, Mother Jones and Balloon Juice

James Hohmann / Washington Post:

The Daily 202: Trump's hardball tactics backfire as ‘skinny repeal’ goes down — THE BIG IDEA: President Trump's attacks on Republican senators are finally catching up with him, and Lisa Murkowski will not be bullied. — A last-ditch effort to keep the Obamacare repeal effort alive went …

Discussion: Conservative News Today, Politico, The Guardian and The Week, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Allen / Axios:
Mooch to lower profile after New Yorker fracas

Discussion: IJR and Political Wire, more at Mediagazer »

Tony Lee / Breitbart:
The Scaramucci Show: New Communications Director Unloads Nasty Attack on White House Colleagues to Opposition Party

Discussion: Washington Post, The Week, JONATHAN TURLEY, Raw Story, New York Times, Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller and The Hill

Hadas Gold / Politico: Scaramucci's tirade — Healthcare's dramatic nightlong coverage — N.Y. Times is failing up

New York Times:
Anthony Scaramucci's Uncensored Rant: Foul Words and Threats to Have Priebus Fired

Discussion: Washington Post, Fox News, Just Security, The Gateway Pundit, CNBC, NBC News, AOL, The Daily Caller, Common Dreams, The Week, IJR, Mediaite and Washington Free Beacon

Ezra Klein / Vox:
I do not know how to convey how appalling the GOP's health care process or policy is

Discussion: Shareblue, CNBC, Hullabaloo and Daily Kos

The Onion:
Onion Fact Checks: Anthony Scaramucci's ‘New Yorker’ Interview

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Daniel Lippman / Politico:
HEALTH CARE BILL GOES UP IN FLAMES …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

mccain.senate.gov:

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON VOTING “NO” ON “SKINNY REPEAL” — Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on voting “no” on the so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare: — “From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare …

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:

How McCain tanked Obamacare repeal — Paul Ryan couldn't persuade him. Neither could Mike Pence. And in the end, President Donald Trump couldn't reel in John McCain either. — The president made a last-ditch effort, calling the Arizona senator and key holdout on the GOP's Obamacare repeal measure …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Common Dreams, New York Times, Political Insider blog, ABC News, Mashable, Associated Press, The Week, Washington Free Beacon and Axios

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

The night John McCain killed the GOP's health-care fight — It was the most dramatic night in the United States Senate in recent history. Just ask the senators who witnessed it. — A seven-year quest to undo the Affordable Care Act collapsed — at least for now — as Sen. John McCain …

Discussion: Vox, CNBC, Shareblue, Talking Points Memo, CNN, ThinkProgress, The Daily Beast, IJR, NPR and New York Times

New York Times:

Senate Rejects Slimmed-Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No — WASHINGTON — The Senate in the early hours of Friday morning rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, derailing the Republicans' seven-year campaign to dismantle President Barack …

Josh Barro / Business Insider:

John McCain saved Republicans from themselves — On Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham made a demand: He would vote for the terrible healthcare bill being offered before the Senate, a bill he thought would cause health-insurance market disaster if enacted, as long as he received clear assurances …

Discussion: Refinery29, bradford-delong.com, Jezebel, AOL, New York Magazine, Pacific Standard and CBS News

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
House Republicans despair after health care collapse

Discussion: Politicus USA and Vox

Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Enough about McCain. It was Collins, Murkowski and red-state Democrats who killed Trumpcare.

Discussion: Fox News, The Guardian, vice, CleanTechnica, Raw Story, Alaska Dispatch News, Vox and The Daily Caller

Bloomberg:
Obamacare Repeal Collapses as Senate GOP Blocks Health Bill

Peter Sullivan / The Hill:
Senate ObamaCare repeal bill falls in shocking vote

Discussion: Politico, IJR, Politicus USA, Vox, Talking Points Memo, Washington Free Beacon and Balloon Juice

Jonathan Cohn / HuffPost:
Obamacare Is Alive Because It Has Made Life Better For Millions

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal: Senate ‘Skinny’ Repeal Vote Was All About John McCain

Ben Terris / Washington Post:
‘Wait for the show’: High drama and low voices in a long, weird night at the Capitol.

Discussion: The Nation and Lawyers, Guns & Money

BuzzFeed:

Part Four: The Secrets Of The Spy In The Bag — Vladimir Putin's former media czar was murdered in Washington, DC on the eve of a planned meeting with the U.S. Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US government's official explanation of his death.

Discussion: Political Wire and The Week

New York Post:

Couple jump to their deaths because they 'can't afford' health care — A couple jumped to their death in Murray Hill early Friday. — Seth Gottfried — Manhattan parents struggling to pay their doctor's bills jumped to their deaths early Friday - leaving double suicide notes pleading …

Discussion: Conservative News Today, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Raw Story and Daily Wire

Neil MacFarquhar / New York Times:

Russia Seizes 2 U.S. Properties and Orders Embassy to Cut Staff — MOSCOW — Russia seized two American diplomatic properties on Friday and ordered the United States Embassy in Moscow to reduce its staff by September, in the Kremlin's first retaliatory steps against proposed new American sanctions.

Discussion: Vox, TASS, New York Magazine, The Resurgent, Shakesville, The Guardian and Mother Jones

Andrew Roth / Washington Post:
Russia demands U.S. reduce diplomatic staff in new round of conflict over election hacking

Discussion: Politico, PEN America and Axios

Sally Q. Yates / New York Times:

Sally Yates: Protect the Justice Department From President Trump — The spectacle of President Trump's now daily efforts to humiliate the attorney general into resigning has transfixed the country. But while we are busy staring at the wreckage of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' relationship …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Justice Department briefing at White House fuels ethics worries

Discussion: Vox and New York Times

US Food and Drug Administration:

FDA announces comprehensive regulatory plan to shift trajectory of tobacco-related disease, death — Agency to pursue lowering nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels and create more predictability in tobacco regulation … For Immediate Release — The U.S. Food and Drug …

Discussion: Vox, Investor's Business Daily and NPR

Anna Edney / Bloomberg:
Tobacco Shares Plunge After FDA Proposes Cut to Cigarette Nicotine

Discussion: NPR

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal:

Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor — Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. — The president's primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It's not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider.

Discussion: The American Conservative

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Trump job approval swings lower — After a brief rebound, President Trump's job approval rating has swung lower in the latest Harvard-Harris Poll survey. — Forty-four percent say they approve of the job Trump is doing, a 4-point drop from June and down near the previous low of 45 percent in May.

Discussion: RedState

Susan Ferrechio / Washington Examiner:

Mark Meadows: New healthcare bill is coming ‘that can get to 51’ — Rep. Mark Meadows, a key negotiator in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, said a new effort is underway to write a bill that can pass the Senate that would include proposals offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy, Ted Cruz, and Rob Portman.

Discussion: Axios

Gillian B. White / The Atlantic:

Emerson Collective Acquires Majority Stake in The Atlantic — David G. Bradley, the chairman and owner of Atlantic Media, is announcing this morning that he is selling a majority stake in The Atlantic to Emerson Collective, an organization led by philanthropist and investor Laurene Powell Jobs.

Discussion: The Next Web, bradford-delong.com, AOL and Gizmodo, more at Mediagazer »

Julian Robinson / Daily Mail:

Machete-wielding man ‘screaming Allahu Akbar’ kills one person and injures several others during rampage in Hamburg supermarket — A machete-wielding man has killed one and injured several others after going on the rampage through a German supermarket this afternoon.

Discussion: RedState and Vox Popoli