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

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Business Roundtable.

The case for tuning out the White House.

Here are a few data points to ponder when considering how much to pay attention to this White House.

The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago the president was looking to buy Greenland.

The White House brushed it aside saying it was

just idle chatter. And then President Trump said it's not number one on the burner, I can tell you that.

Then Tuesday night, the president pulled out of a trip to Denmark because the prime minister

said Greenland was not for sale. The Washington Post reported Monday evening the White House was

considering pushing for a payroll tax cut to juice the economy. Shortly after that, the White

House said to ignore the chatter because there were many ideas floating around, and this one was no more

serious than any of the other. Then the president said payroll taxes, I've been thinking about

payroll taxes for a long time. The president said for a week or two that he was serious about bucking

his party and pushing Congress to create a new background check system for gun purchases. Then on Tuesday, he called the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and told him he would not be pushing for new background checks.

When the president reverses everything he says, does he say anything at all? We did a round of phone calls

to people on the hill and at the White House to find out how seriously we should be taking the payroll tax idea. The answers range from not seriously to no one has any information on it.

Consider this. Barack Obama signed a payroll tax holiday into law in 2012 after a frantic

December trying to squeeze it through a divided Congress. What has President Trump gotten through

divided Congress, the one that's on the brink of impeaching him, that gives you the inclination he can get this through?

A little bit more on the White House postponing the president's Denmark trip.

This from the Washington Post.

Senior administration officials had discussed the possibility of offering Denmark a deal in which the United States would take over its $600 million subsidy each year to Greenland.

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