Good Monday morning and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing sponsored by Business Roundtable.

If you are someone who is looking forward to Congress coming back into session and passing gun control,

take a look at what President Donald Trump said yesterday before leaving New Jersey.

He was asked if he's willing to support universal background checks.

Trump said this.

I'm not saying anything.

I'm saying Congress is going

to be reporting back to me with ideas, and they'll come in from Democrats and Republicans,

and I'll look at it very strongly. But just remember, we already have a lot of background checks,

okay? Thank you. Earlier in the gaggle, Trump said this. They have bipartisan committees

working on background checks and various other things.

And we'll see, I don't want people to forget this is a mental health problem.

I don't want them to forget that because it is. It's a mental health problem.

Just like we said, the president has trouble holding a position for more than a few days.

This certainly seems like the president is backing away from background checks and is settling

into the old GOP position of bolstering mental health protections. Inside the president's mind, Maggie Haberman

has a White House memo in the New York Times on A14, and economic warning signals Trump sees

signs of conspiracy. The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, who they

say is entering the

most perilous stage of his tenure as Federal Reserve Chairman.

The Daily Beast catalogs the fallout from a playbook scoop yesterday on Mark Halpern's new book.

His accusers call the book deal a slap in the face.

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