Good Friday morning, happy end of the week. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your

political playbook audio briefing sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase. And I'm Anna Palmer. Speaker Paul

Ryan delivered the keynote address at the annual Al Smith dinner in New York last night. He was

actually quite funny. A couple of his best laugh lines. The speaker said, I don't think I've seen

this many New York liberals and Wall Street CEOs in one room since my last visit to the White House.

And he said, quote, thank you to Patricia Heaton, who is such a wonderful MC.

She's a Hollywood Republican, Hollywood Republican. That is an oxymoran, which clearly was the word Rex Tillerson was looking for.

Mitch McConnell secured a major victory

last night with the Senate approving a budget 51-49, the first step toward tax reform. Ryan and

McConnell cut a deal that could allow the House to pick up the Senate budget and pass it. One quick

point. The tweaks that they made to the budget are technical and Republican aides were telling

us last night that this should fly through the House. But the House does have an independent streak, so just keep your eyes open on this

one. There shouldn't be any problems, but you never know. Trump's chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn,

met with Senate Republican Chiefs' staff yesterday to rally the troops on tax reform. The meeting comes,

as Cohn has decided to skip President Trump's Asia trip

to stay back in Washington and focus on passing the legislation. While things went smoothly

last night on the budget, our colleagues report that Trump has blindsided his advisors after

he promised to deliver an emergency declaration next week to combat the nation's opioid crisis.

It is still unclear when it will be announced, how, or if it will be done, and whether the

administration has the permanent leadership to execute it.

Trump's pick to lead the Export-Import Bank, Scott Garrett, the former New Jersey Republican

Congressman, will go before the Senate Banking Committee November 1, CQ roll calls Doug Sward tweeted.

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