A very unusual report from Reuters announces the White House has extended an invitation for the entire U.S. Senate to come to the White House for a policy and security briefing on North Korea.  The briefing is scheduled for 3pm Wednesday:

(Via Reuters) Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea, senior Senate aides said on Monday.

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer conducts the White House press briefing for April 24th 2017. Additional briefing material from U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin:

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The collective EU, and every like-minded multi-cultural entity within leftist media together with the Obama globalist operatives, are now laying a path of rose petals for their wunderkind Emmanuel Macron.

If you seek a reference point for the narrative over the next two weeks simply remind yourself how Barack Obama was elected in 2008.  It will be an absolutely identical playbook.

Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old who has never held elected office and is married to his former grade school teacher (24-years his elder), is being heralded as the second coming of the halo-clad unicorn-riding progressive lightbringer Emperor Obama as Macron strides boldly up the gilded staircase toward the purchased French Presidency.

(Via Reuters) The United States on Monday blacklisted 271 employees of a Syrian government agency it said was responsible for developing chemical weapons, weeks after a poison gas attack killed scores of people in a rebel-held province in Syria.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 271 employees of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), an agency that Washington says develops chemical weapons for the government of Bashar al-Assad, the Treasury said in a statement.

Some of the people blacklisted had worked on Syria’s chemical weapons program for more than five years, the Treasury Department said. The sanction orders U.S. banks to freeze the assets of any employees named, and bans American companies from conducting business with them.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sean Spicer Twitter @PressSec

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Funny call readout from Secretary Tillerson’s office today.  The last paragraph is extraordinarily blunt (emphasis mine):

[Dept. of State] Secretary Tillerson phoned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today to discuss his recent trip to Moscow and his message to the Russian leadership that, although the United States is interested in improving relations with Russia, Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine remain an obstacle. The Secretary emphasized the importance of Ukraine’s continued progress on reform and combating corruption.

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AP Provides the full transcript from Friday’s interview with President Donald Trump. It’s a lengthy read, and if you are familiar with President Trump’s interview cadence it’s much more understandable.

(Via AP) A transcript of an Oval Office interview Friday with President Donald Trump by AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace. Where the audio recording of the interview is unclear, ellipses or a notation that the recording was unintelligible are used.

AP: I do want to talk to you about the 100 days.

TRUMP: Good.

AP: I want to ask a few questions on some topics that are happening toward the end of the interview.

TRUMP: Did you see Aya (Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker who had been detained in the country for nearly three years) …

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President Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, appears on Meet the Pus with Chuck Toad to discuss The Swamp.

Swamp topics include the administrations’ first 100 days, the imminent risk of a government shutdown, the budget battle, the southern border wall, health care, Marine Le Pen, and President Trump visits to Mar-a-Lago.

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The Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly sits down for an interview with John King’s ex-wife Dana Bash.  The primary topic was border security;

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