memeorandum: Trump says he ‘never meant Mexico would write a check’ for the wall (Kevin Breuninger/CNBC)

1:15 PM ET, January 10, 2019

Top Items:

Test of steel prototype for border wall showed it could be sawed through — NBC News obtained a photo showing results of a test on a steel wall prototype. — President Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as …

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:

Trump says he ‘never meant Mexico would write a check’ for the wall — President Donald Trump says Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall through the revenue bump Trump hopes will come from a new trade deal pending in Congress. — “During the campaign, I said Mexico would pay for it …

Discussion: Roll Call, Bloomberg, Washington Post and The Daily Caller

Kathryn Watson / CBS News:

Trump will “probably” declare national emergency absent a deal in Congress — President Trump indicated Thursday he will likely declare a national emergency if Congress doesn't reach an agreement to fund his border wall — a move that is sure to set off challenges in the courts if he goes ahead with it.

Bloomberg:

For Trump, Storming Out of a Meeting Is a Signature Ploy — He has long used dramatic exits as a negotiating tactic — Trump once walked out on a judge during a divorce proceeding — President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly storm out of a meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday shocked some on Capitol Hill.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, BloombergQuint, Raw Story and New York Times

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: Trump's one way out — DRIVING THE DAY — SHUTDOWN ... DAY 20 ... TRUMP'S ONLY WAY OUT ... THERE IS AN INCREASING RECOGNITION in the White House and among his most important allies on Capitol Hill that the only way for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP to get movement …

Discussion: Washington Press, Fortune, Political Wire and POLITICUSUSA

Shannon Vavra / Axios:
Trump calls China “far more honorable” than Pelosi, Schumer

Discussion: Politico, Townhall, Talking Points Memo and Vox

Manu Raju / CNN:
Facing gridlock, GOP senators seek big immigration deal to end shutdown

Discussion: Conservative Review, Hot Air, KTLA, Daily Kos and The Right Scoop

Wall Street Journal:
White House Meeting Started With Sweets, but Quickly Turned Sour

Discussion: Washington Post and CCN

Gail Collins / New York Times:
Trump Hits the Wall

Discussion: CNN, Axios and TheBlaze

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Graham launches last-ditch push to end shutdown

Discussion: Conservative News Today, ABC News, No More Mister Nice Blog, CNN, Talking Points Memo, Townhall, Joe.My.God. and The Daily Caller

Washington Post:
'He's a gut politician': Trump's go-to negotiating tactics not working in shutdown standoff

Discussion: CNN, Lawyers, Guns & Money, FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV, The Week, illegal immigration …, ThinkProgress, Shareblue Media, KTLA and Jamie Dupree - AJC

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:

Before Trump, Steve King Set the Agenda for the Wall and Anti-Immigrant Politics — Years before President Trump forced a government shutdown over a border wall, triggering a momentous test of wills in Washington, Representative Steve King of Iowa took to the House floor to show off a model of a 12-foot border wall he had designed.

Discussion: Des Moines Register, Vox, RedState, Talking Points Memo, Booman Tribune, Hit & Run, Raw Story, Daily Kos, twitchy.com, Joe.My.God., Law & Crime, The Week and The Daily Caller

Christopher Mathias / HuffPost:
White Supremacist Rep. Steve King Gets A Primary Challenger

Discussion: Splinter

Dave Price / WHOTV:
Governor Reynolds Won't Back Congressman Steve King in 2020 Primary Fight

Discussion: Roll Call

CNN:

Exclusive: Robert Mueller met with Trump's pollster — Washington (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller sought information directly last year from one of Donald Trump's campaign pollsters who is also a former business associate of Paul Manafort's. — Mueller's team met with pollster Tony Fabrizio …

Discussion: Observer

Christal Hayes / USA Today:

Trump's team had over 100 contacts with Russian-linked operatives, report shows — WASHINGTON - Members of President Donald Trump's campaign and transition team had more than 100 contacts with Russian-linked operatives, according to a new report. — The milestone illustrates …

Discussion: Washington Post

John Wagner / Washington Post:

Trump says he knew nothing about Manafort sharing polling data with Russian associate — President Trump said Thursday that he knew nothing about his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, allegedly sharing 2016 presidential campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik …

Discussion: Politico

Matthew Lee / Associated Press:

Pompeo repudiates Obama Mideast policy, takes aim at Iran — CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a scathing rebuke of the Obama administration's Mideast policies on Thursday as he denounced the former president for “misguided” and “wishful” thinking that diminished America's role …

Discussion: Axios

Borzou Daragahi / The Independent: Mike Pompeo lays out Trump's vision for Middle East, blaming Iran and Obama for region's ills

Caitlin Oprysko / Politico: Pompeo rips Obama's Middle East ‘mistakes’ in Cairo speech

National Enquirer:

Married Amazon Boss Jeff Bezos Getting Divorce Over Fling With Movie Mogul's Wife — The ENQUIRER's blockbuster exclusive of world's richest couple's break-up! — The marriage of the world's richest couple is set to explode in all-out war — after billionaire Jeff Bezos was caught cheating …

Discussion: The Atlantic, The Guardian and Daily Mail, more at Techmeme »

TMZ.com:
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos Did NOT Have a Prenup so $137 Billion on the Line in Divorce

Discussion: The Atlantic, CNBC, Page Six, TheStreet, The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller, BloombergQuint and New York Times

Doug Sovern / KCBS 740AM:

Kamala Harris Ready To Enter Race For President, Sources Say — She's Finalizing Plans For Bay Area Rally To Announce Candidacy — Sen. Kamala Harris has decided to run for president in 2020 and will announce her candidacy on or around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, probably at a campaign rally in Oakland …

Discussion: CBS News, Roll Call, Shakesville, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, twitchy.com, The Week, CNN and Mediaite

C.J. Ciaramella / Hit & Run: Kamala Harris' New Book Tries to Massage Her Record as a Prosecutor, But the Facts Aren't Pretty

Nomaan Merchant / Associated Press:

Texas landowners prepare wall fight; Trump to visit border — HIDALGO, Texas (AP) — As President Donald Trump travels to the border in Texas to make the case for his $5.7 billion wall, landowner Eloisa Cavazos says she knows firsthand how the project will play out if the White House gets its way.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Hot Air and Boing Boing

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Trump's Emergency Powers Threat Could End Shutdown Crisis, but at What Cost? — WASHINGTON — President Trump's repeated threat to declare a national emergency so he can build his border wall without congressional approval has been denounced by Democrats as extreme and an overreach.

Discussion: Joe.My.God., Common Dreams, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Washington Post

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Raging, weakened Trump is running out of options

Discussion: Vox, Washington Examiner, Joe.My.God. and Talking Points Memo

Owen Daugherty / The Hill:

Texas county GOP set to vote this week to remove leader because he is Muslim — The Tarrant County Republicans in Texas will vote this week to remove their vice chairman because he is Muslim. — Republican Dorrie O'Brien is leading a group of colleagues in an attempt to unseat Shahid Shafi …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Texas Tribune and Raw Story

Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:

The ‘doomsday’ scenario: Here's what happens if the shutdown drags on — Economists warn that a catastrophe is in the making if the partial government closure continues for weeks or months. — The country would face an economic hellscape if the government shutdown lasts “months or even years …

Tarini Parti / BuzzFeed News:

Here's Trump Allies' Plan To Meddle In The 2020 Democratic Primary — The pair of outside groups tied closely to President Donald Trump has retained the top Republican opposition group in an effort to smother Democrats seeking to challenge him — and perhaps even help pick his 2020 challenger.

Discussion: Raw Story

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

How an Experimental Billion-Dollar Privacy Lawsuit Could Clobber Facebook — What if law enforcement was outsourced to class action attorneys? Don't imagine. It's happening as the Cambridge Analytica scandal becomes Mark Zuckerberg's legal nightmare. — Less than one week.

Cameron Joseph / Talking Points Memo:

Polls: Voters Oppose Trump On Shutdown By Wide Margins In Key 2020 Senate States — Voters disagree with President Trump's demand for border wall funding by double-digit margins in seven key Senate swing states, according to new polling conducted for a coalition of liberal groups.

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Political Wire, Raw Story, Politico and The Daily Caller

Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:

Trump's Wall Could Cost Him in 2020 — President Donald Trump may now be talking more about steel than cement, but his proposed border wall remains the Rosetta Stone for understanding both his conception of the presidency and his political strategy. — Nothing better illustrates Trump's …

Discussion: CNN

John Stanton / BuzzFeed News:

The 8-Year-Old Boy Who Died In Border Patrol Custody Was Healthy When He Left Mexico, Shelter Says — JUAREZ, Mexico — An 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died last month in Customs and Border Protection custody wasn't sick when he and his father left an immigrant shelter here shortly …

Alex Thompson / Politico:

Top Bernie Sanders 2016 adviser accused of forcibly kissing subordinate — On the final night of the Democratic National Convention in July of 2016, Bernie Sanders' staffers went out to a Mediterranean restaurant and hookah bar in Center City Philadelphia to celebrate and mourn the end of the campaign.

Discussion: Townhall, VICE News, Splinter, NTK Network, Washington Free Beacon, Talking Points Memo, LifeNews.com, The Daily Caller, Washington Post and CNN

Alan Cross / The Bulwark:

Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Trumpian Theology — Do Christians have a moral duty to support Trump, no matter what? — Like many Christians, I read Jerry Falwell, Jr's New Year's Day interview with the Washington Post with both my mouth open and my heart racing. “He can't be saying what I'm reading!”

Discussion: Raw Story and New Yorker

Heidi Przybyla / NBC News:

House Democrats now asking questions about Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — Mnuchin will give the House a classified briefing Thursday, after a request from the Democratic chairs of the main House investigative panels. — WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has agreed …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Raw Story

Tom Elliott / Grabien News:

Things Democrats Have Funded that Cost More than the Border Wall — Lawmakers have put less thought into other, more expensive projects over the years — After President Trump requested $5.7 billion to fund the border wall he campaigned on in 2016, Democrats have dug in …

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

The 5 Key Constituencies Of The 2020 Democratic Primary — Over the long course of the Republican presidential nomination process in 2015 and 2016, we frequently featured a diagram called “The Republicans' Five-Ring Circus.” The chart was based on the idea that the GOP essentially consisted …

Matt Dixon / Politico:

Rick Scott blindsides DeSantis on his way out — Scores of 11th-hour appointments by outgoing Gov. Rick Scott. Roadblocks for the new transition team. A rival inaugural ball. — The contentious handoff of the Florida governor's office from Scott to fellow Republican Ron DeSantis …

Washington Post:

‘This is ridiculous’: Small-business owners can't get loans as shutdown enters Day 20. — Brooks Troxler is a small-business owner in North Carolina who's known as “Trox the tech” for his ability to fix any computer problem. Business is growing and he had big plans to start 2019 by cutting …

Melissa Langsam Braunstein / The Federalist:

Only Two Democrat Senators Will Publicly Oppose The Anti-Israel BDS Movement — On Monday and Tuesday, we offered every Democrat senator an opportunity to clarify his or her position on boycott, divestment, sanctions policies. Only two offices responded.

Discussion: Daily Wire, RedState, Vox, Al Jazeera and Breitbart