Good Tuesday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, sponsored by BP.

And I'm Anna Palmer. Last night, news broke that Senator John McCain is coming back to Washington to continue working on health care reform, the National Defense Authorization Act, and new sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

The big question right now is whether 51 Republicans will vote for the

motion to proceed, a procedural question that allows the Senate to debate the health care bill.

Burgess Everett, Sungman Kim, and Jen Habercorn have the story on Senate Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell spending the day cajoling senators and meeting with Vice President Mike Pence

to plot strategy.

Here are some open questions.

There are seven undecided senators and two probable knows, Senator Susan Collins and Rand Paul.

If one of those seven undecides breaks no, the game is over.

Another issue to keep in mind, senators don't know exactly what they're voting on.

The order of amendments has been an open and critical question.

Even if this bill does pass, it's unclear what's next.

Will the Senate and House conference their bills, which means will they go into a formal negotiation?

Or will Speaker Paul Ryan try to pass it?

There will be tremendous pressure to do something,

and the August recess begins next week. The AP is out with a story on how Trump is speaking to

advisors about firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the potential consequences of firing him.

While our own Josh Dossie, Eliana Johnson, Nahal Tussie, and Daniel Littman write that there

is continued speculation for not only Attorney General Jeff Sessions' departure, but a wider

shake-up following Sean Spicer's exit.

They write that replacing Sessions might not be easy.

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