Friday, April 28, 2017

President Donald Trump signs an executive order Thursday at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

POTUS Misses Driving: Also Trump admits being President is hard

Countdown to Correspondents' Dinner: What a D.C. paparazzo is saying, and Hasan Minhaj's 2016 comedy test run

100 Days of @realDonaldTrump: His most tweeted word since taking office is "great"

Kate Bennett

What the White House Is Talking About:
President Trump is in Atlanta this afternoon to give a speech at the National Rifle Association's annual leadership forum.

What the White House Press Corps Is Talking About:
Trump's revealing interview with Reuters' Jeff Mason about how difficult it is to be President. Much harder, bigly harder, than he thought it would be.

POTUS Also Misses Driving:
To be fair, driving is a lot of fun. "I like to drive. I can't drive anymore," Trump says in the same interview. He laments the "cocoon" of being President. And not being able to listen to Taylor Swift while behind the wheel of his Rolls is bad too, probably. Please, do yourself a Friday favor and click.

And Bo and Sunny Get Used to Having a Doorbell:
Michelle Obama made her first post-White House appearance Thursday at an architectural conference in Florida. She said (again) that she has no intention of running for office, and that Bo and Sunny are adjusting to their new DC home. "(They) had never heard a doorbell in their life."

Credit: Getty Images

Our Daily Melania:
The first lady today makes her second visit to Children's National Medical Center in Washington. She might make remarks. She's also kicking up her public appearances ahead of Saturday's 100-day marker, it seems.

Bring Your Child To Work Day, Oval Office Edition:
My favorite photo from kids' day Thursday at offices across America comes via my friend Eric Allen Conner, a photojournalist for Fox News who covers the White House. Here's his son, inside the Oval Office for a quick pool spray; his dad is behind him, standing with the baseball cap. Guessing it's a day little Will won't soon forget.

Credit: Official White House photo

Dress Like the First Lady:
To host Argentina's first lady at the White House on Thursday, Melania Trump chose this military-green Altuzarra outfit, which retails for about $4,200 -- pricey. It was kind of a fashion face-off because Juliana Awada, the Argentine first lady, is a best-dressed list sensation. I think FLOTUS held her own. Well played.

Credit: @juliana.awada/Instagram

Hunter Schwarz

What Washington Is Talking About:
A last-minute attempt to pass an Obamacare repeal bill before Trump's 100th day in office did not come to fruition, and the House this morning voted to fund the government through May 5.

What America Is Talking About:
The Cleveland Browns selected Myles Garrett, a 6-foot-4, 272-pound, 21-year-old from Texas A&M in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft.

Countdown:
It's one day to Trump's 100th day in office/the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Rather than be at the dinner, Trump, 70, will spend Saturday night at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that's scheduled to start at 7 p.m. ET, but reminder: He's been to the dinner before. Trump went as a guest of Fox News in 2015 and as a guest of The Washington Post in 2011.

Here he is at the 2015 dinner, shaking hands in the lobby of the Washington Hilton:

Credit: Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images

WHCD is like Washington's Video Music Awards, so WHCD 2017, with its lack of POTUS and celebrities, is like Washington's VMAs if Britney and Miley and Gaga and Beyonce all didn't come. But you know, if Trump comments about the dinner at his rally, it will kind of be like that thing where a pop star isn't at an awards show because she's out on tour so she prerecords a message saying, "Sorry I couldn't be with you," etc., etc. Kind of.

What To Expect from Hasan Minhaj:
For one night in April, the Washington Hilton ballroom becomes the biggest stage in comedy. And the toughest. Axios looked up some old Trump jokes from this year's comedian, "The Daily Show" correspondent Hasan Minhaj, 31, and I feel like maybe those particular ones wouldn't play so well? He does have some practice though. In 2016, Minhaj performed at the Congressional Correspondents' Dinner. (He called it "the correspondents' dinner no one cares about.")

Credit: C-SPAN/YouTube

Where to Celeb Spot This Weekend:
I asked paparazzo Marky Mark (aka @DCCelebrity, one of my fav Washington follows) where the best places this weekend will be for stargazing. He said Café Milano, the Hay Adams and the W, but he also said said he expects it'll be "weak" this year. "Stay home," he said. "Not worth it."

100 Days of @realDonaldTrump:
Twitter crunched the data and found @realDonaldTrump had tweeted nearly 500 times in his first 100 days as President; the accounts he tweets most is @Whitehouse, followed by a tie between the "Failing" @NYTimes and his fav show @foxandfriends, and his most tweeted words were as follows:

Great
America/American
News/Media
Jobs
Today
Fake News
Thank
People
Big
Country

This tweet, from the morning after the Women's March, is his most retweeted since he took office, with more than 82,000 retweets.

Credit: @realDonaldTrump/Twitter

His most retweeted Trump tweet ever, though, was an all caps "TODAY WE MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" from the morning of Election Day 2016, with nearly 342,000 RTs.

House Lawyer Calls Schock Investigation "Improper":
The top lawyer for the House of Representatives wrote in a letter to the Justice Department that federal agents' investigation into former Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Illinois, which included recording conversations he had with staff, raise "serious concern about improper investigation tactics."

The Rock Makes the Cover of ... National Review (Yes, National Review):
David French, the National Review writer who briefly explored an independent presidential candidacy in 2016, penned the latest issue's cover story, on Dwayne Johnson, 44.

Credit: National Review

"Rather than self-seriously viewing his career as secondary to his activism, Johnson clearly aims to entertain," French wrote. "At the same time, Johnson is keenly aware that he's come a long way. He's an unabashed patriot, and his Facebook and Instagram feeds are full of expressions of gratitude to his country and his fans."

Local News Getting Into the Fake News Debunking Game:
Spotted Thursday on the Washington Metro's red line, a WUSA9 ad asking viewers to send in stories they want verified. I feel like people in the future would find this really interesting, and it belongs in a museum to show the panic and paranoia of our times. I reached out to the station to ask about the campaign and what kind of stories they've received but didn't hear back.

Credit: Hunter Schwarz

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COVER/LINE is where politics meets pop culture. From CNN's Hunter Schwarz and Kate Bennett, this daily newsletter is the must-read lunch date in Washington and beyond.