Good Thursday morning, I'm Anna Palmer, and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, sponsored by Morgan Stanley.

The AP is out with some breaking news this morning, that North Korea and South Korean leaders will meet April 27th in a historic summit.

On the domestic front, there is jockeying happening among House Republican leadership.

Rachel Bade traveled to an oil rig off the Gulf Coast to talk with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise,

who didn't rule out a run for Speaker if Paul Ryan steps down.

His allies, Rachel, report, say he would only run if House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy couldn't win.

But here's what this means.

Sgleese's interest in the speakership is now public.

So whether he meant it or not, there is now an alternative to Kevin McCarthy.

Charlie Matesian has the 30,000-foot look in Politico magazine, where he writes that the

primaries' cycle have shown one thing to be true.

The Bernie wing of the Democratic Party is beating the establishment.

New York Times has a big story reporting that Trump's lawyers raised the prospect of

pardons for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.

John Dowd, who resigned as Trump's lawyer last week, discussed offering pardons to influence their

decisions about whether to plead guilty or cooperate with special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

And there's a series of stories on VA secretary David Shulkin being out and Trump's doctor

rear Admiral Ronnie Jackson in at the VA.

Joanne Keenan reports that Jackson is telegenic, but as a career Navy physician, he has

never run anything like the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy or been caught in the Washington

Crossfire.

Shulkin wrote a piece in the New York Times that his ouster has more to do with a difference

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