Good Tuesday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing. Stay tuned after the show for a message from the American Public Transportation Association. And I'm Anna Palmer. We're kicking off the morning with some big news in Democratic circles. It is the end of an era. Bob Bauer, long-time top Democratic political law expert, is leaving Perkins Cui. The former White House

Council to President Barack Obama plans to do more teaching at the New York University School of

Law and continue his writing and speaking about constitutional law, legal ethics, and political reform.

He will still continue to represent a number of clients as a solo practitioner

and will co-council with Perkins Cooey for some of those clients.

First in Playbook this morning, America First Policies. The political group aligned with Donald Trump

is spending nearly $1 million on TV and digital ads to try to pressure Democratic senators

to vote to confirm Gina Haspel as CIA

director. The senators that are being targeted are Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Heidi Heitkamp in

North Dakota, and Doug Jones in Alabama, all senators from red states. They were going to go up in

Indiana, but Joe Donnelly announced he would vote for Haspel's nomination. There's more spending

in West Virginia. Senate Majority Pack just disclosed nearly

a half a million dollars on a media buy to boost Joe Manchin. They've already spent $2.3 million.

Our colleague Alex Eisenstadt has a must read out of Fenton, Missouri, where he reports that the

GOP Golden Boy, Josh Hawley, who the Republican establishment pushed to run for Senate is mailing it in.

Missouri rep Ann Wagner told Alex that she tries not to tell candidates how to run their races,

but you got to show up, and that many Republicans wonder if he is squandering his shot to be Claire McCaskill.

Meanwhile, our colleague Matt Nussbaum has an interesting look

at how Vice President Mike Pence may be traveling a little too close to the sun lately. Nesbaum

writes that Pence was scheduled to headline the annual National Rifle Association keynote address,

but that changed after President Trump decided to step in. Davos was another case where Pence was originally expected to travel to Switzerland,

but upon seeing that, Trump decided to go himself.

...