Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Google.

Breaking overnight and now there were 23.

Natasha Karecki reports that John Hickenlooper is expected to drop out of the presidential race.

He'll make the announcement by video and will not discuss whether he's launching a bid for the U.S. Senate in Colorado.

The police shooting standoff ended in Philadelphia late last night after six police officers

were shot. Let's dig into the gun politics. After we wrote Wednesday about the secret gun talks

between the Hill and the White House, we got a pretty good download from all sides involved

about what's at stake and the political dynamics going into the fall when a gun overhaul seems to be on the table, even on the edge of it, teetering for the first time in a decade. Here's what we heard. What could the Senate do to Manchin Toomey to make Republicans vote for it? Four Republicans voted for it last time, John McCain, Mark Kirk, Pat Toomey, and Susan Collins. McCain is dead, and Kirk is no longer in the Senate.

The rest of the GOP voted again. Republicans voted for it last time, John McCain, Mark Kirk, Pat Toomey, and Susan Collins.

McCain is dead, and Kirk is no longer in the Senate. The rest of the GOP voted against it.

So what do Republicans plan to add to this bill to turn the entire party around?

We keep hearing this. The equation to getting a gun law overhaul is not that hard.

Easy to say, right? Imagine this. Something that looks like Mansion Toomey, which is short of the Democrats' background bill, coupled with some Second Amendment protections to sweeten the pot for conservatives. Throw in some red flag laws, mental health provisions, and you might have a deal. There's no way it'll be that easy. We're still skeptical. This is just what we've been told by multiple corners of these negotiations for the last 24 hours. There's no chance an assault weapons ban is going to be in this bill.

But one of the challenges going forward is there will be Democrats who consider this a half

measure, because if there is something, it won't have an assault weapons ban or a ban on

high-capacity magazines. At least at this point, that's a bridge too far for many Republicans.

Another question is, where do 2020 Democrats land? In our conversations around the hill, one question

kept coming up. How does the 7% of the Senate that's in the presidential field view a proposal

like this? Could they vote for something that Donald Trump will have to sign and will also

not include some of the strong provisions the party has been advocating for, numbers can be a problem if they all vote no. The circle has to stay small.

As we mentioned yesterday, White House-ledged Affairs is taking the lead here. If other hangers on

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