Good Friday morning and happy Friday. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your Politico Playbook

Audio Briefing, sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association. Here are three big things we've learned

this week. Russia is where Republicans stand up to Donald Trump. Trump smashed Republican

trade orthodoxy. He boosted debts and deficits they once looked to a race, and he tore up

GOP's claim on fiscal

discipline. These were once matters of almost biblical importance to the GOP. But Republicans

have stood up in unprecedented numbers after it seemed like Trump was cozying up to Russia and its strong

man president, Vladimir Putin. John Kelly leaving, who cares? The Washington parlor game about when

Kelly will actually leave the White House

could not be more irrelevant. He's already gone. Whether he has a hard pass or not is irrelevant.

The last week proved the chief of staff has no ability to rein in his boss or effectively manage up.

Trump's own people are using Trump-style tactics to defy the boss. Trump's own aides are mixing it up

publicly, often in

defiance of their boss. D&I, Dan Coates, put out a statement after the Putin summit saying he would

keep analyzing intelligence the way he knew best, thank you very much. During an appearance with NBC's

Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Security Forum, Coates was an open defiance of Trump when he was told

Putin was coming to the White House in the fall. Say that again, he said with the laugh. She repeated the announcement, and he said, OK, that's going to be special. DHS Secretary Kirsten Nielsen said in Aspen yesterday that it would be foolish to think Russia gave up meddling in the U.S. election apparatus. An FBI director Christopher Ray told Lester Holt that he disagreed with Trump

on Russia meddling. He added, special prosecutor Bob Mueller's probe is not a witch hunt. The Washington

Post goes deeper on the Coates fallout, reporting that inside the White House, AIDS were upset over his

interview in Aspen, noting that Coates appeared to be laughing at the president. That does appear to be

what he was doing. Alana Shore scoops that Marco Rubio and Chris Van at the president. That does appear to be what he was doing.

Alana Schor scoops that Marco Rubio and Chris Van Hollen are stepping up their efforts to push a bipartisan proposal to hit Russia with automatic new sanctions for future meddling in the U.S. elections.

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