Good Wednesday morning. Happy Hump Day. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political

playbook audio briefing sponsored by the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs.

By now you know that Mitch McConnell has pulled the GOP health care bill and will return to it

after recess. A little nugget behind the scenes, minutes before McConnell was going to pull the bill,

Burgess Everett, one of our Senate reporters, turned to me and said, they're not going to get this done before the July recess. Anyway, let's unpack what's going on in D.C. right now. This is supposed to be Donald Trump at his strongest. He became president a few months ago in an election that shocked the political system. Yet most of his legislative goals remain far off. Tax reform undone. Congress has not repealed and

replaced Obamacare. Infrastructure is basically nowhere. They've not funded a massive border wall. Congress

hasn't passed a budget and is squirming to strike a deal to lay out the fiscal blueprint. One White

House insider pointed to Neil Gorsuch's confirmation as Trump's principal legislative achievement.

Here's a message to 1600,

Pennsylvania, about how you could turn it around per several of the top GOP operators in and out

of government. Stop setting artificial legislative deadlines. You spend a lot of time on media

critiquing. Use some of that time to talk about the substance of what you want to get done

and sell it. Yes, your base loves media

bashing and it's fun television for some, but now you have to pass bills and that's what governing

is and your base for that is Washington insiders who need to feel pressure or fear. The president

clearly likes rallies, awesome, who doesn't? Hold a series of theme rallies to make the public case for what you want to do

and have the president try to stick to the script. Convinced Republican leadership on the hill to

pass some small ball legislation you could sign. Use Rahm Emanuel's 6 for 06 as a model. The big read this

morning, Burgess Everett, Jen Habercorn, and Josh Dossy on inside the GOP health care

flop. Some juicy nuggets. Senators had no idea that McConnell would pull the bill, and at this point,

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, said there needs to be a major overhaul of the bill for her to

support it. Here's one of the big problems. The new Politico morning consult poll shows fewer than

...