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

sponsored by the Coalition for Affordable Drug Prices. And I'm Anna Palmer. We've got new details

on Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard's trip to Syria. Gabbard filed an amended report to the

House Ethics Committee detailing her week-long jaunt to the Middle East. She met with Syrian strongman

Bashar al-Assad twice for at least two hours. She also met with Asma al-Assad, the British-born

wife of the Syrian president, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, and the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon.

Keep this in mind. Congress approved this itinerary before Gabbard scheduled

her meeting with Assad. Also, it's worth noting that Gabbard is a junior member of the House,

a chamber that has little say in foreign policy. For those counting at home, the Senate will clear

all of these nominees this week. Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary, Alabama Senator Jeff

Sessions for Attorney General, Georgia

Congressman Tom Price for HHS Secretary, and Steve Mnuchin for Treasury. But the Senate is in a

contentious mood and business remains slow. Keeping government functioning this year will be

nearly impossible. That's right. There are a dozen Trump cabinet picks that the Senate still has to vote on.

If Democrats want to, and their base certainly is pressuring them, to slow walk or hold up

some of these nominees, it could be months before Trump's cabinet takes shape.

The New York Times has a story this morning worth paying attention to.

Trump's SCOTUS pick, Neil Gorsuch, told Connecticut Senator Richard

Blumenthal that he found Trump's criticism of the judiciary demoralizing and disheartening.

Probably not exactly the vote of confidence that a president wants from his Supreme Court pick.

Speaking of Trump's pick, our colleague Ileana Johnson has the goods this morning on how

Reince Prebus has been struggling to fill the communications director job. Prebus has gotten the cold shoulder

...