Good Thursday morning, I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing sponsored by ExxonMobil.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like you might want to cancel your Christmas plans.

Over the last few days, we've seen a massive ramp up of the build-the-wall rhetoric from Key Hill Republicans,

signaling that the December 7th funding deadline will be a major

funding clash over the physical border with Mexico. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said

at an AP event yesterday that we are committed to helping the president get wall funding and

signaled he would fight to get Trump the amount he's seeking, which is far more

than what the Senate offered. House Speaker Paul Ryan said earlier this week, there would be a

big fight for wall funding, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in waiting,

went as far as introducing a bill that would allocate $23 billion to build Trump's border wall. Of course, most of the

government is funded through next year, but a slice of the government runs out of money on December 7th,

and the insiders we talk to expect a clash could last weeks. The only backstop is Christmas and New

years. Democrats won't be any help, especially if they win the House majority.

Remember, it's usually hill leaders that have been skeptical of a fight over wall funding.

Now they're lining up, ready to go to war.

Things are ramping up regarding the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.

The Washington Post is reporting that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia sought to lure Khashoggi back to

Saudi Arabia and detain him. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed is reporting that top tech execs are distancing

themselves from a Saudi government-backed megacity project. President Trump said he is reluctant to cut off

arms sales to the Saudis in response to Khashoggi's disappearance because it could

be detrimental to the U.S. economy. New York Times as Peter Baker tweeted that Jared Kushner and

Josh Bolton spoke with Saudi's MBS and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up with a call.

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