Online headline writers furiously mixed beakers, wiped their brows and drew equations on chalkboards as they devised Corey Lewandowski / “Game of Thrones” headlines. GQ published a profile of Hope Hicks, who rose to the top of the GOP communications world without putting the cryptic “GOP comms guru” in her Twitter profile. And Tim Cook will host a fundraiser for Paul Ryan, because nothing is more on-brand for the “I’m a Mac, You’re A PC” company than to associate itself with Republicans from Wisconsin. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, June 20th, 2016:
SENATE PRIMED FOR GUN VOTE - Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick: "A divided Senate hurtled Monday toward an election-year stalemate over curbing guns, eight days after Orlando's mass shooting horror intensified pressure on lawmakers to act but left them gridlocked anyway — even over restricting firearms for terrorists. Each party was offering one plan it said would keep terrorists from obtaining firearms and a second bolstering the existing system of background checks for gun purchases. Democrats said the GOP proposals were unacceptably weak, Republicans faulted the Democrats' plans as overly restrictive and all four proposals faced likely defeat in largely party-line votes." [AP]
PAUL RYAN DONS BACKWARDS BASEBALL CAP, BENCH PRESSES FBI INTO SUBMISSION - Looks like the speaker put two spoonfuls of Get Outta My Whey Protein into this situation. Josh Gerstein: "The FBI reversed itself and publicly issued a complete transcript of a 911 call from the Orlando nightclub shooter Monday afternoon after coming under withering criticism from House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans for deleting references to the Islamic State group as well as the group's leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. A version of the text of the 50-second call between an Orlando 911 dispatcher and shooter Omar Mateen disclosed Monday morning, included his claim of responsibility for the shooting, but was edited to remove Mateen's mention of ISIL and of Al-Baghdadi….'Selectively editing this transcript is preposterous. We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS. We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community,' Ryan said." [Politico]
LEWAN - OUT- SKI - Trump lightly took Lewandowski by the wrist and the now former campaign manager tripped out the door. Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire: "Donald Trump fired his hard-charging campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, in a dramatic shake-up designed to calm panicked Republican leaders and reverse one of the most tumultuous stretches of Trump's unconventional White House bid. Lewandowski, in some ways as brash and unconventional as the candidate himself, had been by Trump's side since the beginning of his unlikely rise to presumptive GOP nominee. But he clashed with longtime operatives brought in to make the seat-of-the-pants campaign more professional. The former conservative activist played a central role in daily operations, fundraising, and Trump's search for a running mate, but Lewandowski's aggressive approach also fueled near-constant campaign infighting that complicated Trump's shift toward the general election. Reached on Monday, Lewandowsky deflected any criticism of his approach, pointing instead to campaign chairman Paul Manafort. 'Paul Manafort has been in operational control of the campaign since April 7. That's a fact,' Lewandowski said, declining to elaborate on his dismissal." [AP]
TRUMP'S KIDS ORCHESTRATED LEWANDOWSKI OUSTER - Gabriel Sherman: "At around 9:30 Monday morning, Donald Trump and his adult children gathered for a regular strategy meeting at Trump Tower. Also present were senior staff, including Corey Lewandowski, the campaign's embattled manager....the candidate's children, who have been involved in strategy from the beginning, saw an opening to achieve a shared goal: Fire Lewandowski. According to two sources briefed on the events, the meeting was a setup. Shortly after it began, the children peppered Lewandowski with questions, asking him to explain the campaign's lack of infrastructure. 'They went through the punch list. 'Where are we with staffing? Where are we with getting the infrastructure built?' one source explained. Their father grew visibly upset as he heard the list of failures. Finally, he turned to Lewandowski and said, 'What's your plan here?' Lewandowski responded that he wanted to leak Trump's vice-president pick. And with that, Lewandowski was out." [NYMag]
Message discipline: "A top adviser to Donald Trump resigned Monday after sending a mocking tweet about just-fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a campaign source tells CNN. Michael Caputo, a Trump adviser and head of the communications for Trump's caucus operations team, tweeted 'Ding Dong the witch is dead' following the news that Lewandowski had been fired." [CNN]
DELANEY DOWNER - AP: "A federal officer says a man arrested at a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas told authorities he tried to grab an officer's gun so he could kill the candidate. A complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nevada charges Michael Steven Sandford with an act of violence on restricted grounds." [AP]
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MEET HOPE HICKS, TRUMP'S PRESS WHISPERER - And by "press whisperer" we mean "press aide who won't email you back." Olivia Nuzzi: "I wanted Hicks to help me understand just how all this had come to pass, how a person who’d never worked in politics had nonetheless become the most improbably important operative in this election. But she declined my request to talk. Instead, she arranged something more surreal: I could talk about her with Donald Trump, in front of her …'[Corey Lewandowski] made her cry a bunch of times,'[adviser Sam] Nunberg said. In Nunberg’s telling, Lewandowski said to Hicks, 'You made a big fucking mistake; you’re fucking dead to me.' Lewandowski declined to either confirm or correct Nunberg’s recollection. 'I don’t recall the specifics of that,' he told me. 'I can say definitively that I don’t recall the specific incident that you’re referring to.'" [GQ]
Benjy Sarlin and Sam petulla break down Trump's primary numbers and provide a deep look at his supporters.
APPLE DOESN'T HATE ALL REPUBLICANS, JUST THAT REPUBLICAN - Tony Romm: "Apple CEO Tim Cook will host a fundraiser with House Speaker Paul Ryan next week as the iPhone maker tries to strengthen its relationships with key Republicans -- despite its decision to pull support for the GOP convention because of its distaste for Donald Trump. Cook will help generate cash for Ryan at a private breakfast on June 28 in Menlo Park, Calif., along with Gary Wipfler, the company’s treasurer, according to an invite obtained by POLITICO on Monday. The money benefits not only the speaker but a joint fundraising committee aimed at helping to elect other House Republicans." [Politico]
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy: "Dennis Hastert's attorney says the former U.S. House speaker will report to a federal prison in southeastern Minnesota this week to begin serving a 15-month sentence in his hush-money case. Washington, D.C.,-based attorney Thomas Green confirmed Monday in an email that the Illinois Republican will report to the Rochester Federal Medical Center. Hastert has a Wednesday afternoon deadline to report." [AP]
HIGH COURT RULES FOR POLICE IN 4TH AMENDMENT CASE, SOTOMAYOR STAYS WOKE - "The case had asked the justices to decide whether evidence uncovered during an unlawful police stop could be used against the person in possession of it — a question that requires an interpretation of the Fourth Amendment‘s prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures…Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday seemed to address the people most affected by unfortunate encounters with the police — black and brown Americans. 'Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong,' Sotomayor wrote in the opening paragraph of her response to Utah v. Strieff, which the court decided in a 5-3 vote." [HuffPost]
Also this: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a sweeping ban on so-called 'assault weapons' enacted in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut." [HuffPost's Cristian Farias]
AMERICA DISAPPOINTING VICTIMS OF CONFLICTS WE HELPED START, PT. 305,111,946 - Willa Frej: "[T]he crisis in Syria, which produced almost 5 million refugees according to UNHCR, has become the subject of particular concern. In September, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the U.S. would go from taking in 70,000 refugees per year to accepting 85,000 in fiscal year 2016 and 100,000 in the year after that… It’s unlikely that the United States will resettle a total of 85,000 refugees in the 2016 fiscal year, let alone 10,000 Syrians, according to experts. Since Oct. 1, 2015, 2,805 Syrians have been resettled across the U.S., according to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration’s latest figures, released after May 31, 2016. That’s almost 30 percent of the 10,000 goal." [HuffPost]
POWERFUL AND WEALTHY MAN GETTING HUGE GOVERNMENT BAILOUT - One percenter security, right here. John Wagner: "Although Hillary Clinton has clinched the party’s nomination, Sanders retains one of the trappings of a top-notch candidate: A team of agents still guards him at his home, where they’ve constructed a small watch station on the property. They travel with him on commercial and charter flights and use a motorcade to whisk him through cities he visits. And they marched alongside him during a gay-pride event here in his hometown after the Orlando shootings. Such round-the-clock protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day. And with the potential for the Secret Service to be watching over Sanders through the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in five weeks, taxpayers may get stuck with a big security bill long after his campaign receded from the daily cable-news cycle." [WaPo]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's a baby who has a love-hate relationship with cranberries.
If you want to despair over the state of journalism, watch tronc's internal video on "content."
COMFORT FOOD
- Really lazy package delivery.
- Painting a portrait of Eminem with spaghetti.
- Pianist performs in the Arctic Ocean.
TWITTERAMA
@fshakir: Did Lewandowski at least get the fancy limo ride after being told he was fired? I hear contestants find that cathartic.
@kramtrak: "THIS is the point at which Trump starts running a real campaign" is the new "THIS is the point at which Trump starts losing primaries"
@BobbyBigWheel: TRUMP: I'm gonna say it
COREY: Please don't
TRUMP: I gotta
COREY: No...
TRUMP: You're fired
COREY: Damn, he said it
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