Good Tuesday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook flash briefing

sponsored by the Better Medicare Alliance. And I'm Anna Palmer. If it's possible for Donald Trump

to have a drama free week, this might be it. Congress is gone. He's being widely praised for

tapping H.R. McMaster as national security advisor. there are no obvious pressure points on the horizon.

It's Tuesday. Let's see how far we get. Today, Donald Trump is heading to the Museum of African

American History and Culture with Housing and Urban Development Secretary nominee Ben Carson and his

wife Candy. Senator Tim Scott, Alveda Celeste King, Ivanka Trump, founding director of the museum Lonnie Bunch,

and Secretary of the Smithsonian David Skorkin will also attend.

Here's a dinner party you wish you were a part of.

White House Chief of Staff writes prebis, chief strategist Steve Bannon, and Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy

dined at Buccon in Palm Beach on Sunday night.

The trio, who were joined by two women, chatted for roughly three hours, our sources told us.

Our colleagues, Austin Wright and Jeremy Herb have the skinny on a few things you need to know about

H.R. McMaster, Trump's new warrior scholar. The two right, the McMaster has staked out a

decidedly more hawkish position on Russia than Trump and gone out of his way to assert that the war

against terrorism must not morph into a war against Islam. McMaster, who is the first active duty

military officer to hold the position since Colin Powell is also considered

one of the Army's top intellectuals.

McMaster's appointment was not exactly expected, as Politico's Matt Nussbaum reports,

Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton called Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and Wright's

previous last week to urge them to consider him for the post.

Otto Machita, former director of policy implementation for Trump for America, is returning to the lobbying firm Navigators Global.

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