Good Wednesday morning. I'm Anna Palmer. And welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing, sponsored by a United Health Group.

And I'm Jake Sherman. The president went off script last night at the Susan B. Anthony Gala. He said he wasn't sure he believed that Republicans vote in 2018 was nearly as important as it was in 2016. He even said,

who the hell wrote that line? Republicans are really hoping this doesn't become part of his schick, like really, really hoping it doesn't,

and hoping the Republican president doesn't downplay how important it is for his base to get out and vote in November.

A new Politico morning consult poll has some bad numbers for Trump.

Stephen Shepard reports that Trump has several roadblocks to winning re-election in 2020.

Pitted against a generic Democratic candidate, just 36% of voters say they would vote for Trump in 2020,

compared with 44% who would pick the Democrat the poll shows.

One in five voters, 20% are undecided.

Meanwhile, our colleagues, Eliana Johnson, Andrew Rastushia,

and Nancy Cook report that Trump is demanding an overhaul in the White House comms team.

In the Department of Giving Credit Where It's due, we said a while back that Congress was done and not to expect much legislative activity before Election Day. As one Republican leadership aide pointed out,

they're having a pretty good week. Last night, the House sent the president the right to try bill

and a long fought bill to rework parts of Dodd-Frank. Today, the Senate is expected to pass a

veteran's reform bill. But do you know who is not having a great week? Paul Ryan. Headlines in the New York

Times, Washington Post, and Politico all had pretty

damning assessments on his weak hold on power. Rachel Bade is out with a story illustrating

Ryan's problems with two members of the House Freedom Caucus sounding off on the Wisconsin

Republican on the immigration debacle. Scott Perry and Dave Bratt told Rachel they want

Ryan to stop the discharge petition,

which is a big change from the group's original charge to adhere to the House rules.

Now, you don't see the HFC is a group coming out and lining up with Brat and Perry. Why? Because

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