Good Monday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing sponsored by Chevron.

And I'm Jake Sherman. First in Playbook this morning. Speaker Paul Ryan raised $11.1 million in the first quarter of 2018,

bringing his fundraising total to more than $54 million for the 2018 election cycle. He has also transferred transferred 40 million to the NRCC, a goal that

Ryan's aid set last spring after a spate of special elections. The speaker has held fundraising

events in 30 states in more than 70 cities. Also, Ryan's reelection campaign will report

$10.5 million on hand. It's important to remember, before Ryan took the

speakership, there was a fear that he would not be as prolific of a fundraiser as John Boehner.

He's actually proven to be far more prolific than Boehner. He is by far the biggest cash cow

for the House GOP, dwarfing Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, who are engaged in a shadow war to become the

next Republican leader. Another little scooplet, Ryan hosted a donor retreat last week in Austin.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly quietly flew to Texas to address the group.

Ryan and Kelly spoke to the group about their shared legislative and policy priorities.

Well, if Ryan does leave, Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy seem awfully ready to replace him.

The two are engaged in a shadow war for speaker.

Our colleagues, John Bresnahan and Rachel Bade report.

They are courting support, although not explicitly.

And there's more escalation in Syria.

The AP is reporting that Syrian monitors say at least 14 were killed in a missile strike.

While the Sana News agency said it was likely in American aggression,

U.S. officials said they had not launched the strikes.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley tweeted that the U.S. with eight other members

have called for an emergency security council meeting on Syria. The New York Times has an A1 story

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