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. This is a scoop. Congressman Mark Meadows, one of Donald

Trump's top allies, is not seeking re-election. He tells Playbook he could leave the house in the middle

of this term to begin a new yet presently undefined role helping Trump. Here's what Meadows told us. Obviously, I've looked at this as a temporary job. Every year, it's a decision whether you're going to run again. Probably the hardest thing for me was the timing of this because the president has accomplished so much. I'm not only an ally, but we'll continue to be an ally, and we've had discussions on how we could work more closely together in the future,

and I felt like filing and potentially resigning at some point would not serve my constituents

in North Carolina best. The filing deadline in North Carolina is Friday. Meadows has not filed

and will not file for reelection. His state's political picture has been shaken by a court-ordered

redraw of the congressional districts. Meadows' western North Carolina district has grown marginally less conservative, but he said

he's still confident he would win with re-election.

Meadows had an immediate impact in the House after his election in 2012.

He was one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, and in 2015, he filed a motion that eventually

led to John Boehner resigning his House Speaker.

Between 2017 and

2019, the Freedom Caucus was the most powerful block of lawmakers in Washington. Meadows and his

wingman Jim Jordan essentially had veto power over anything that came to the House floor. When

Republicans were in the majority, Trump saw Meadows and Jordan as foils to Paul Ryan and viewed the

Paris keepers of his creed. The president looked to Meadows and Jordan to

discern how certain decisions were playing with his base. And in turn, Meadows and Jordan had Trump's back in the capital. Since Republicans lost the majority, Meadows has remained to close advisor. Meadows said he does not have a specific job with Trump lockdown, but signaled he might try to work for his reelection campaign or in the administration. Asked if he would serve out the remainder of his term,

Meadows said this. At this point, I planned to serve the people of Western North Carolina

until it's decided I could best serve the president and the American people in a different

capacity. Interesting. Jared Kushner even sent along a statement saying Meadows has been a warrior

for the president. We've valued his guidance for the last three years and have no doubt Mark will play an important role going into 2020. The president, as you know,

...