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

sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. And I'm Jake Sherman. Some news at the top of

playbook today. Senator Diane Feinstein had dinner with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif

when he was in the United States a few weeks ago. Last week, Playbook reported Feinstein was

walking around the Capitol with Zareef's contact information pulled up on her iPhone. Feinstein's team told us that the dinner was arranged in consultation with the State Department. They told us the office was in touch with state in advance of the meeting to let them know what was happening and to get an update on U.S. Iran activity. A State Department official told us they did not ask Feinstein to go to the dinner

with Sarif, a smooth-talking diplomat who cut the Iran deal with John Kerry. Of course, the United States and

Iran are in the middle of a high wire diplomatic and military staring contest. The United States

has moved additional military resources into the region. Response to what the U.S. says is intelligence that they were readying to attack American

resources in the region.

It's a bit unusual that Feinstein, the former vice chair of the Intel Committee, and a member

of the Senate minority, is dining with the foreign minister of an adversarial nation.

We've reached out to the White House

to see if they had anything to say about this, and they did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is up with a story that Iran is starting to hit back after the Trump

administration has tightened sanctions and increased military pressure. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Donald Trump yesterday.

It was a brutal eight-hour stretch for the president.

First, Democrats cranked up the pressure on Nancy Pelosi to move toward impeachment,

leading the House Speaker to accuse the president of a cover-up.

Then, at a meeting at the White House to hash out a $2 trillion infrastructure package,

Trump ended the meeting in acrimony he stormed out and made an angry, impromptu appearance

in the Rose Garden, where he fired back at Pelosi and blasted Democrats for investigating him.

Next, New York lawmakers voted to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress,

...