The Daily 202: The most political Super Bowl ever

Martellus Bennett, with his daughter, answers questions after the Super Bowl in Houston last night. He said he will boycott the White House ceremony to recognize the team's championship because he objects to Donald Trump. (Chuck Burton/AP)

THE BIG IDEA: The permanent campaign pervades more deeply into our lives than ever before, so it should come as no surprise that we could not escape politics during last night’s Super Bowl -- before, during or after the game.

Martellus Bennett of the New England Patriots told reporters following his team’s stunning win that he will not travel to the White House for the traditional celebration as long as it’s occupied by Donald Trump. The star tight end has been sharply critical of the president, including his immigration ban last week:

Meanwhile, Trump and his own fans celebrated the victory as if it was one of their own. The president reiterated to Bill O’Reilly during an interview before the game that he is good friends with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Brady has distanced himself to varying degrees from his friend since a “Make America Great Again” hat was spotted in his locker two years ago.

Trump cheered on the Patriots during a watch party in Florida, but heleft a little before 9 p.m., when the Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3. Before the game, POTUS had predicted a Patriots victory by eight points. It’s unclear if he caught the final half hour, but he quickly tweeted congratulations afterward:

So did diehard Patriots fan (and White House press secretary) Sean Spicer:

Tom Brady celebrates with wife Gisele Bundchen and daughter Vivian Brady after the game. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

IF YOU MISSED THE GAME -- Great takes on deadline from four of our sports reporters:

-- In a rally for the ages, quarterback Tom Brady scored the game’s final 31 points to defeat the Atlanta Falcons, 34-28, in overtime. “The Patriots trailed 21-0 in the first half, 28-3 in the third quarter and 28-9 entering the fourth quarter,” Mask Maske files from Houston. “Yet they secured their fifth Super Bowl triumph in seven appearances in the big game with Bill Belichick as their coach and Brady as their quarterback.”

-- “Brady [who is 39] played the greatest game of football the sport has seen,” Adam Kilgore writes. “Not the most perfect, nor the most artistic, nor even the most excellent. Just the greatest. He led the Patriots back from a 28-3 deficit on a stage that had never seen anything better than a 10-point comeback. He passed for 466 yards, a Super Bowl record, and completed 43 of 62 passes. He led a 91-yard drive touchdown in the final four minutes, capped with a two-point conversion.”

-- “Consider it the greatest comeback and the greatest choke in 51 years of this game,” Jerry Brewer says. “Like like most games that shift dramatically, it was a combination of Patriots greatness and Falcons mistakes and perplexing decisions that contributed to the drama. In the end, though, you will most remember the Patriots’ extraordinary resolve. ... You will remember the Patriots, complimented often for their brains and ingenuity and ruthlessness, showcasing another trait: guts.”

-- “Deflategate ended with Super Bowl LI, and Roger Goodell heard the boos to prove it,” adds Cindy Boren. “This championship was, Kraft said, ‘unequivocally the sweetest.’ And Goodell, who has avoided going to New England for two full regular seasons now, was drowned out by boos as he spoke and handed the trophy to Kraft. After taking the Lombardi Trophy, Kraft said: ‘A lot has transpired over the last two years and I don’t think that needs any explanation.’ Goodell will get the chance to have a public moment with Brady and Belichick on Monday morning, when he presents Brady with the MVP trophy.”

THE ADS—

At least eight of the commercials during the Super Bowl, which cost $5 million per 30 seconds to air, had a political message:

Airbnb said last weekend that it will give free housing to refugees and any others not allowed into the United States because of Trump’s travel ban. During the game, the home-sharing site showed faces of people from many different ethnic backgrounds. “We all belong,” the ad said. “The world is more beautiful the more you accept”:

A family-owned company called 84 Lumber produced a commercial that showed a Mexican mother and daughter trying to immigrate into the United States. Their original version showed the pair arriving at an imposing border wall. But Fox rejected that as too controversial, the company said, so the ad was re-cut to show a less imposing barbed-wire fence. It ends with the mother and daughter holding hands, with a link to the company’s website.

“Ignoring the border wall and the conversation around immigration that’s taking place in the media and at every kitchen table in America just didn’t seem right,” Rob Shapiro, who works at the ad agency that helped 84 Lumber come up with the ad, told Marissa Payne. “If everyone else is trying to avoid controversy, isn’t that the time when brands should take a stand for what they believe in?”

See the original, rejected ad here:

Audi highlighted the lack of equal pay for women in a spot with the tagline, “Progress is for everyone.” A male narrator poses the question: “What do I tell my daughter? Do I tell her that her grandpa is worth more than her grandma? That her dad is worth more than her mom?” As his daughter wins a road race, he wonders how he can stop her from “being valued less than every man she ever meets.” Cindy Boren observes, “It’s a smart ad, given that women wield incredible influence in household purchases, and it was directed by a woman.” Watch:

Coca-Cola re-aired an ad just before kickoff with people singing “America the Beautiful” in different languages:

An ad from the hair care brand "It's a 10" advertised men’s products by alluding to Trump: “America, we're in for four years of awful hair,” the narrator said. “So it's up to you to do your part by making up for it with great hair. … Do your part. ... Let's make sure these next four years are ‘It's a 10.’”

Cyprus Air used a bad Donald Trump impersonator to sell gas fireplaces in a spot that ran in the D.C. media market. “Washington is so cold. I thought Russia was cold,” the fake Trump says. He says Cyprus has a yuuuge sale:

Some ads were not intended to be political, but people couldn’t help see them that way in the context of the Trump presidency. An ad promoting “avocados from Mexico” invariably prompted commentary about Trump’s proposed tariff to get our southern neighbor to pay for the wall:

An ad provided by the NFL portrayed football as something that unifies all Americans. “We may have our differences, but recognize there's more that unites us,” Forest Whitaker narrated:

But the social media conversation surrounding many of the commercials underscored just how divided we have become as a nation in 2017. A Budweiser spot about the immigration story of its German founder, Adolphus Busch, opened with Busch being told, “You don’t look like you’re from around here”:

The company claims the ad was in the works for nearly a year, long before the election, but it was unavoidably seen by both supporters and detractors as a critique of Trump’s nativism. A “Boycott Budweiser” movement trended online throughout the game:

Lady Gaga performs during the halftime show. (Matt Slocum/AP)

THE HALFTIME SHOW:

Lady Gaga was not as politically explicit as many expected, but progressives heard the political overtones in her message. When she sang “This land is made for you and me,” for example, Hillary Clinton tweeted:

WaPo pop music critic Chris Richards points out that Gaga’s performance was not as political as last year, when Beyoncé’ came onto the field surrounded by a squadron of dancers dressed in Black Panther garb. But she still went farther out on a limb than many artists have in past years: “She marched into ‘Born This Way,’ a melodic celebration of ‘gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life.’ … Instead of speaking out, Gaga asked a mild question, “How are you doing tonight, Texas? America? World?” She already knew the answer — not great. So she asked another one: ‘You wanna feel good with us?’ For a moment, it felt like she was finally inviting us to her kind of party — one where the doors are open to weirdos, outcasts, freaks and geeks. But as energetic as she appeared up there, it still felt restrained.”

George H.W. Bush flips the coin, with wife Barbara. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

EVEN THE PRE-GAME SHOW HAD SOME POLITICS:

-- Three members from the original cast of “Hamilton,” the women who played the Schuyler sisters, put their own spin on the first verse of “America the Beautiful.” They tweaked the penultimate line of the first verse by singing, “And crown thy good with brotherhood … and sisterhood” before finishing, “from sea to shining sea!”

The creator of “Hamilton” loved it:

A huge smile broke out on Falcons Coach Dan Quinn’s face when he heard the “sisterhood” line:

But Patriots coach Belichick didn’t appear to be as moved by the performance (though, to be fair, he never really smiles at anything):

Bush 41 received a standing ovation from the crowd as he was rolled in for the coin toss at the start of the game.

Meanwhile, this plane circled the stadium as fans went inside:

In an interview that aired ahead of the game on Fox, Trump announced that Mike Pence will be the point man on looking into his unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in the presidential election. “I’m going to set up a commission … headed by … Pence, and we’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” the president told Bill O’Reilly.

The V.P. enjoyed the game from a skybox with former Secretary of State James Baker and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott:

THE INEVITABLE 2016 COMPARISONS:

The statistical odds of a Patriots comeback were less than 1 percent for a chunk of the game. Afterward, it seemed like everyone on Twitter – from Bill Maher to Donald Trump Jr. – compared the result to Election Night. Scott Allen rounds up some fun examples:

-- Trump supporters celebrated the victory as a sign that the new president is making America great again:

-- Boston is one of the country’s most liberal metropolitan areas, so Trump’s outspoken support for the team made some fans uneasy. A campaign caught on in the Bay State in which people pledged to give a certain amount of money to charities and groups that oppose Trump for every touchdown the Patriots scored. The idea was dreamed up by “Last Week Tonight” writer Josh Gondelman. (Marissa Payne looks at how the cause went viral.)

Three people who participated:

-- Regardless of how they feel about Trump, though, everyone in New England is cheering this morning:

-- Do you believe in miracles? A survey conducted on the eve of the game found that one quarter of Americans believe God plays a role in deciding the winner of the game. Meanwhile, nearly 50 percent of Americans said they think God rewards athletes who are more devout on game day.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:

TRUMP VS. THE COURTS, THE TECH INDUSTRY AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX:

-- A federal appeals court on Sunday declined to reinstate Trump’s travel ban, allowing those previously banned from coming to the United States at least another day to get here. Matt Zapotosky and Robert Barnes report: “The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit preserves a lower judge’s order to temporarily halt the ban — and based on a schedule the court outlined, the stop will remain in place at least until sometime on Monday. The Justice Department said it would not elevate the dispute to the Supreme Court before that. What ultimately lies ahead likely is a weeks-long battle that will be waged in various courtrooms across the country."

-- A group of Silicon Valley tech giants – including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber and 93 more firms – will file a legal brief today opposing Trump’s travel ban. Elizabeth Dwoskin reports: “The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban. The filing describes Trump’s ban as a “seismic shift” toward discrimination that departs dramatically from principles that have governed U.S. immigration law for decades: "Long-term, this instability [caused by the executive order] will make it far more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to hire the world’s best talent—and impede them from competing in the global marketplace.”

-- Former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, along with a host of other former top national security officials, including former Secretary of Defense/CIA director Leon Panetta, published a six-page declaration this morning that the White House order “undermines” our national security and will “endanger U.S. troops in the field.”

“We all agree that the United States faces real threats from terrorist networks and that vetting is necessary,” the distinguished elder statesmen say. “We all are nevertheless unaware of any specific threat that would justify the travel ban’ established by the executive order. Rather, they said they viewed it as one that ‘ultimately undermines the national security of the United States rather than making us safer.” It will “disrupt key counterterrorism, foreign policy and national security partnerships,” they declare, and “endanger intelligence sources in the field” by “breaching faith” with them. (Read Fred Barbash’s story. Read the full declaration here.)

-- Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden explains why Trump’s ban hurts American spies in countries affected by the order – damaging critical relationships between case officers and human sources that help keep America safe. “Some will quibble … that this is a temporary ban (maybe) and exceptions can be made (possibly),” he writes in today’s Post. “But … it doesn’t take paranoia to connect the action of the executive order with the hateful, anti-Islamic language of the campaign. In the Middle East, with its honor-based cultures, it’s easier to recruit someone we have been shooting at than it is to recruit someone whose society has been insulted." The simple idea of America didn’t hurt either: “[One] station chief said that one of the fundamentals of his business was selling the dream. The Soviets ‘had a hard time with that. We had it easy. They didn’t necessarily want to go there, but it was a place they kept in their minds where they would be welcome.’”

-- A crush of people stranded in legal limbo are rushing to fly back into the United States while the temporary stay remains in effect, and vulnerable refugee families who had been scheduled to travel to America are living in fear and limbo. Louisa Loveluck and Zakaria Zakaria report: “Last month, the Tawouz family were told a new life in the U.S. was just days away. Last week, they learned they were no longer welcome. And by Saturday, they had no idea what to believe. ‘We’ve been hopeful, we’ve been devastated. Now we just don’t know,’ said Majid Tawouz, a father of five …Their bags had been packed and were nearly bursting on the morning in late January when they learned they would not need them.” Now, an aid official says the U.N. will likely be expected to sort through already-vetted case files to identify the most vulnerable families for referral to another nation’s resettlement program. “For Wajeeha, 11, the suspension meant an indefinite wait for hormone treatment that the family cannot afford in Turkey … For her younger brother, it meant longer until a doctor can explain why his bones have grown curved. Moments later, Wajeeha’s small voice echoed down the phone line. ‘I was so excited, but now I just feel sad,’ she said. ‘Baba told me there aren’t planes for people like us anymore. Why don’t they want us?’”

The Syrian refugee Anas Modamani arrives for court today in his lawsuit against Facebook in Wurzburg, Germany. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

GET SMART FAST:​​

Judge Neil Gorsuch meets with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

POTUS MAKING CONFIRMATION HARDER FOR GORSUCH:

-- Trump continues to show little respect for the rule of law. He spent the weekend directly attacking Judge James L. Robart, who was appointed by George W. Bush to the federal bench and confirmed by the Senate unanimously. He wrote on Twitter: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!” That came a day after he described Robart as a "so called judge."

-- The Twitter assault has motivated Democrats to challenge his Supreme Court nominee on an important but elusive issue: “Is [Neil] Gorsuch independent enough, to stand up to the president who picked him?” Robert Barnes previews: “It is already clear that Trump’s broadsides against Robart, who put the president’s immigration order on hold, have placed Gorsuch in a difficult position. It’s a difficult situation [both] for Gorsuch and those shepherding his nomination. On the one hand, they want to energize the base by portraying Gorsuch as a solid conservative worthy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s place on the court. But at the same time, they must combat the view that he would be a rubber stamp for a president whose hard-charging style shows little patience for the separation of powers. Those who have studied Gorsuch’s record say he has shown a skepticism about government power but warn against weaving a philosophy from a series of unrelated votes."

-- More questions are emerging about Gorsuch’s reported volunteer work with the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and the Harvard Defenders. The Wall Street Journal’s Beth Reinhard and Jess Bravin report: “His affiliation with these volunteer programs … helped give Mr. Gorsuch’s deeply conservative résumé a personal touch, and the groups were highlighted in news reports about his nomination. But roughly three dozen students who participated in the two programs while Mr. Gorsuch was at Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991 said they have no recollection of his involvement. Two people who broadly oversaw the students during this period said they had no memory of Judge Gorsuch’s involvement, a third one declined to say, and a fourth died in 1998. Other Harvard classmates and friends of Mr. Gorsuch say they have no recollection of him discussing either program. ‘If he was active in PLAP I am sure I would remember him,’ said Elizabeth Buckley Lewis, who attended Harvard at the same time as Gorsuch and said PLAP was her 'most meaningful' Harvard experience."

-- A fresh CNN/ORC poll finds Americans’ first impressions of Gorsuch tilting positive, with 49 percent saying he should be confirmed. Meanwhile, 36 percent said he should be rejected, and 15 percent have “no opinion.” And 49 percent of voters said Gorsuch’s ideological position is “about right” – slightly less than the 56 percent who said so about Merrick Garland.

Trump holds up an executive action at the Pentagon. (Mandel Ngan/Getty)

THE WHITE HOUSE IS TRYING TO GET ITS ACT TOGETHER:

-- The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman report how the bungled rollout of the travel ban, as well as a flurry of other miscues, have Trump rethinking the improvisational governing approach that mirrors his chaotic campaign style. “Cloistered in the White House, he now has little access to his fans and supporters — an important source of feedback and validation — and feels increasingly pinched by the pressures of the job. … For a sense of what is happening outside, he watches cable, both at night and during the day — too much in the eyes of some aides — often offering a bitter play-by-play of critics like CNN’s Don Lemon. ... Until the past few days, Mr. Trump was telling his friends and advisers that he believed the opening stages of his presidency were going well. But his opinion has begun to change with a relentless parade of bad headlines.

"By then, the president, for whom chains of command and policy minutiae rarely meant much, was demanding that Mr. Priebus begin to implement a much more conventional White House protocol that had been taken for granted in previous administrations: From now on, Mr. Trump would be looped in on the drafting of executive orders much earlier in the process. Another change will be a new set of checks on the previously unfettered power enjoyed by Mr. Bannon and [Stephen Miller]. Additionally, Priebus has created a 10-point checklist for release of any new initiatives – which include signoff from communications department and the White House staff secretary. ... One former staff member likened the aggressive approach of the first two weeks to D-Day, but said the president’s team had stormed the beaches without any plan for a longer war."

A one-paragraph distillation of Trump's governing style: The Times notes that the president is obsessed with his Oval Office décor, and has asked staff to schedule as many events in the room as possible. “To pass the time between meetings, Mr. Trump gives quick tours to visitors, highlighting little tweaks he has made after initially expecting he would have to pay for them himself. He will linger on the opulence of the newly hung golden drapes … For a man who sometimes has trouble concentrating on policy memos, Mr. Trump was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options."

-- On the campaign trail, Trump vowed, “I alone can fix it.” But as he heads into his third full week in office, he is discovering even the most powerful job in the world has limits. Karen Tumulty and David Nakamura report: “Republican allies in Congress are grumbling about not being consulted. Foreign leaders are refusing to buckle to his bluster. A rebellion is brewing within the emboldened federal bureaucracy. Meanwhile, his own aides are bickering and providing the news media a steady stream of leaks about palace intrigue. The establishment that he vowed to blow up is more potent in practice than it seemed when he was making it his political foil during an election season. Trump’s difficulties come partly from the constraints faced by all presidents in a system in which there are three branches of government … a far different environment from Trump’s previous career running a family-owned real estate and branding empire. The question now is whether Trump will adjust in the face of the institutional and political realities or continue to maintain his imperious posture.”

-- Why so many leaks from the Trump White House? Our Paul Farhi lays out a few different theories: "[Some] reporters say the leaks reflect a certain degree of chaos within the new administration, with factions warily circling one another. ‘I tend to think chaos begets chaos begets chaos, and that’s what we’re seeing here,’ said a reporter familiar with some of the senior players. But others see the leaks as whistleblowing — an effort to expose Trump’s initiatives before they become policy. Of course, the leaks could also be trial balloons launched by the administration … Neither Trump nor his top officials have challenged the veracity of any of the major leaks. But reporters say such information needs to undergo the journalistic equivalent of extreme vetting: 'Reporters want to understand the motives [of the leaker] and the context of what’s leaked so that you’re not just simply becoming the handmaiden to someone’s private agenda,' said veteran White House and national security reporter David Sanger. 'You have to dig into it and ask questions about it, starting with, ‘Why am I seeing this?’"

-- “Goldman Sachs Economists Are Starting to Worry About President Trump,” by Bloomberg's Julie Verhage: In a new note for clients, Goldman analysts cite three key reasons for striking a more cautious tone after weeks of optimism:

Kevin McCarthy talks with Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn before a White House reception with Trump. (Ron Sachs/EPA)

TWO GOOD STORIES FROM THE CAPITOL:

-- “‘There’s my Kevin’: McCarthy emerges as Trump’s trusted link to Capitol Hill,” by Mike DeBonis: The day before his inauguration, Trump scanned the ballroom during a celebratory luncheon at his Washington hotel: “Where’s Kevin?” he asked. “There’s my Kevin!” “It was a brief but telling acknowledgment of a behind-the-scenes political relationship between two GOP power-brokers on opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — Trump and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — that has set the stage for a rapid legislative blitz in the early months of the Trump administration. McCarthy, the No. 2 House Republican, helped forestall an intraparty war during Trump’s campaign, smoothing over tensions between the Republican front-runner and [Paul Ryan]. That has also given McCarthy new relevance in Washington a little more than a year after his steady ascent in House Republican leadership was suddenly halted … Now McCarthy appears to be one of the few on Capitol Hill who has the absolute trust of the one Republican in Washington who matters most.”

-- Chuck “Schumer’s dilemma: Satisfying the base while protecting his minority,” by Ed O’Keefe and Paul Kane: Every two weeks, the Senate Minority Leader has dinner with “the Big Five,” as he calls them: five moderate Democrats representing states that President Trump won who are likely to face the most difficult reelection fights next year. They are Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.). They usually talk strategy over plates of Chinese food. Of the 25 Senate Democrats up for reelection next year, 10 of them are in states that Trump won in November, meaning Democrats could lose even more ground next year.

Key quote: “We have to protect these people,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said of his targeted colleagues. “And sometimes we’re going to have to do things to help them. We all have to watch each others’ backs. … The number one thing that’s going to determine whether we win or lose? If Trump’s at 35 percent we could take back the Senate. If Trump’s at 55 percent, we could lose the whole ball of wax. So part of my job is to make sure that we don’t let Trump get away with stuff.”

TRUMP DEFENDS PUTIN, AGAIN:

-- Trump has done nothing since he became president to suggest that he believes in American Exceptionalism, which every president before him has taken as gospel. The Donald often talks like he thinks the United States is just another country on the U.N. roll call — somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe. Over the weekend, he once again played the dangerous game of moral equivalency.

-- In a Fox News interview, Trump said he respected Vladimir Putin and hopes to get along with Moscow. Host Bill O’Reilly pressed: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.” To which the president replied: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”

-- A hard truth: Every time Trump talks like that, he undercuts America's moral standing in the world.

-- Conservative leaders couldn't look the other way on this one. Ashley Parker and Mike DeBonis report on the blowback:

-- CATCHER IN THE RYE: Mike Pence, on four Sunday shows, tried to pretend that Trump had not actually said what he did. “I simply don’t accept that there was any moral equivalency in the president’s comments,” Pence said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” (Perhaps he didn't watch?) “What you heard there was a determination to attempt to deal with the world as it is — to start afresh with Putin and to start afresh with Russia.” Notably, the vice president would not commit to maintaining sanctions against Russia if it continues to violate a cease-fire agreement in Ukraine, saying only that the White House is “watching, and very troubled,” by the increased hostilities over the past week. Pressed by John Dickerson on whether he believed the United States is morally superior to Russia, Pence repeatedly ducked. Finally, the farthest he would go, was to say: “American ideals are superior to countries all across the world.”

-- Democrats had a field day: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called for an investigation by the FBI into Trump’s financial, personal and political connections to Russia. “I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump,” she said on “Meet the Press.” “We want to see his tax returns so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.”

Daniel John Sobieski, a retiree in Chicago, at his home. He uses pre-programmed "schedulers" to post more than 500 times a day to his Twitter accounts during the election and is credited with an increase in the pro-Trump social media presence. (Alyssa Schukar for The Washington Post)

TWO MORE WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:

-- “As a conservative Twitter user sleeps, his account is hard at work,” by Craig Timberg: “Daniel John Sobieski, 68, climbed the stairs in his modest brick home and settled into a worn leather chair for another busy day of tweeting. But he needn’t have bothered. As one of the nation’s most prolific conservative voices on Twitter, he already had posted hundreds of times this morning — as he ate breakfast, as he chatted with his wife, even as he slept — and would post hundreds of times more before night fell. The key to this frenetic pace was technology allowing Twitter users to post automatically from queues of pre-written tweets that can be delivered at a nearly constant, round-the-clock pace that no human alone could match. In this way, Sobieski … has dramatically amplified his online reach despite lacking the celebrity or the institutional affiliations that long have helped elevate some voices over the crowd. One research team found that ‘highly automated accounts’ supporting [Trump] — a category that includes both bots and cyborgs — out-tweeted those supporting [Clinton] by a ratio of 5 to 1 in the final days before the vote."

-- “What do we do in the time of Trump? The theater community is trying to figure out the answer,” by Peter Marks and Nelson Pressley: “For Adam Immerwahr, artistic director of Washington’s Theater J, it was a no-brainer. He’d [been mulling whether to produce a play] … concerning the SS St. Louis, a German ocean liner filled with hundreds of Jewish refugees, that at the start of World War II was turned away by the United States and other nations. As a result, many of its passengers wound up back in Europe, and ultimately in concentration camps. Then the Trump administration announced its plan for a temporary ban on refugees ... And staging the play went in Immerwahr’s mind from intriguing to imperative. That sense of urgency has begun to take hold at any number of theaters across the Washington region and the country, as artistic directors and theater producers — positioning themselves as first responders in a time of political and humanitarian upheaval — grapple with how to jump-start a current-events conversation with audiences, sparked by the controversies that President Trump’s initial actions have stirred.”

Iran released this photo on Dec. 29 of a long-range S-200 missile being fired during a military drill in the port city of Bushehr. (Amir Kholousi, ISNA via AP, File)

THE WORLD REACTS:

-- Iran held extensive military exercises on Saturday, moving to test missile and radar systems in defiance of the new sanctions from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, a senior Iranian military commander called the U.S. actions “futile” and threatened to “rain” missiles down on the country’s enemies. (Erin Cunningham)

-- Defense Secretary James Mattis said the threat from Iran’s missile program does not currently require the realignment of U.S. forces in the Middle East, striking a note of restraint while on his first official diplomatic trip to South Korea and Japan. (Missy Ryan)

-- Trump's tough talk on Iran has signaled a sharp departure from Obama-era policies -- but it also risks conflict with a U.S. rival now more powerful than ever. Liz Sly and Loveday Morris report: “Many in the region are now predicting a return to the tensions of the [Bush] era, when U.S. and Iranian operatives fought a shadow war in Iraq, Sunni-Shiite tensions soared across the region and America’s ally Israel fought a brutal war with Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran’s alleged quest to produce a nuclear weapon … has been curbed by the nuclear accord signed in 2015. But in the meantime it has developed missiles capable of hitting U.S. bases and allies across the Middle East and a network of alliances that have turned it into the most powerful regional player. For the first time in its history, the Institute for the Study of War noted in a report last week, Iran has developed the capacity to project conventional military force for hundreds of miles beyond its borders."

-- Trump has committed to attending the NATO summit in Brussels this May, despite his loudly-voiced objections to the alliance after a weekend phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. White House officials said the two leaders discussed a number of shared goals, including helping NATO allies to meet defense spending commitment and the role of the organization in defeating terror. (CNN)

-- President Trump is close to tapping longtime critic and neoconservative foreign policy adviser Elliott Abrams to serve as the No. 2 official at the State Department, Politico reports. The move would reassure critics concerned about a lack of foreign policy expertise in Trump’s administration. The two men are slated to meet in person on Tuesday, alongside Rex Tillerson.

-- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will travel to the White House this Friday for his first official summit with President Trump, slated to come armed with proposals on how Japanese companies will create “hundreds of thousands of jobs” and invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States. Anna Fifield reports: “Abe is clearly trying to get on the businessman president’s good side, but he will try to do so while also 'correcting' Trump’s ‘misunderstandings’ about Japan’s trading practices. Abe will take a plan called the ‘Japan-U.S. growth and employment initiative’ with him to Washington, laying out five fields for economic cooperation, including infrastructure; robots and artificial intelligence; and working together in areas such as the Internet and space. With a proposed $450 billion in infrastructure investments in the United States, Japan would generate 700,000 jobs, the paper claims, according to reports in the Japanese media.”

-- “Brazil swings to the right, setting the stage for a Trumplike leader,” by Nick Miroff and Marina Lopes: “In a big, multiethnic country built by immigrants and slaves, a septuagenarian white male leader is riding a right-wing backlash after an era of leftist rule. His much-younger spouse is a former model. His five-letter last name starts with a ‘T’ — but it’s Temer, not Trump. Brazilian President Michel Temer took office five months ago after the impeachment and political humiliation of the country’s first female political leader, Dilma Rousseff, ousting her left-wing Workers’ Party after 14 years in power. Temer named an all-male cabinet and quickly embraced a right-leaning, regulation-slashing agenda. Temer, 76, is not a Brazilian version of Trump. He does not have a populist touch or a showman’s flair. He is a career politician and government insider at a time when both things are deeply unpopular in Brazil. [Now], it may be too late for Temer to recover his credibility … [and] with less than two years left in his term, Brazil seems to be waiting for its Trump to come along."

Trump speaks by phone with Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

PUNDITS WEIGH IN AS TRUMP'S THIRD WEEK BEGINS:

-- “When a president tweets insults at a Hollywood star, the dignity of his office is tarnished,” Joe Scarborough writes in a Post op-ed. “When a commander in chief uses Twitter to attack a loyal military ally, America’s friends across the globe become unsettled. But when a president uses social media to question the legitimacy of a federal judge following an inconvenient (and temporary) outcome, that is simply unacceptable. America’s new president may not care about upholding the traditions of his office. He also may recklessly disregard his predecessors’ tireless work to build vital global alliances. But when the president tries to undermine the legitimacy of the federal judiciary, he must be told in short order that the White House is picking a fight it will not win. For the sake of the country, let us hope the attacks on 'so-called' Judge James Robart were merely reckless and not politically calculated. Because speeding further down that path would end in an ugly constitutional crash.”

-- The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik says that the Trump administration’s special cocktail of “oafish incompetence” and “radical anti-Americanism” has produced a new note in our public life: chaotic cruelty: “The immigration crisis may abate, but it has already shown the power of government to act arbitrarily overnight—sundering families, upending long-set expectations, until all those born as outsiders must imagine themselves here only on sufferance of a senior White House counselor. Some choose to find comfort in the belief that the incompetence will undermine the anti-Americanism. Don’t bet on it. Autocratic regimes with a demagogic bent are nearly always inefficient … The chaos is characteristic. Whether by instinct or by intention, it benefits the regime, whose goal is to create an overwhelming feeling of shared helplessness in the population at large: we will detain you and take away your green card—or, no, now we won’t take away your green card, but we will hold you here, and we may let you go, or we may not.”

IN CASE YOU WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION OVER THE WEEKEND:

-- The White House backed away from its plan to revisit using CIA “black site” prisons to imprison and interrogate terrorism suspects, according to a revised draft executive order. The changes come as an apparent retreat after a draft of the original proposal faced immediate backlash from Congress and some Trump administration officials last month. (Greg Miller)

-- When Eric Trump visited Uruguay on a Trump Organization business trip this January, taxpayers were forced to foot the cost of a whopping $97,830 hotel bill – paying for coastal housing for Secret Service and embassy staffers. The Uruguayan trip is the latest example of how the government remains inextricably entangled with the Trump Organization as a result of the president’s refusal to fully divest from his businesses. (Amy Brittain and Drew Harwell)

-- Newly-released documents show that President Trump remains the sole beneficiary of his sprawling business network, placed in a trust during his time in the White House, and he retains the legal power to revoke the trust at any time. (Rosalind S. Helderman and Drew Harwell)

-- Army Secretary nominee Vincent Viola abruptly withdrew his name from consideration late Friday night, citing trouble disengaging himself from his business ties. (Dan Lamothe)

-- The USDA removed all inspection reports and animal welfare information from its website – taking down records that were used to monitor treatment of animals at thousands of research laboratories, zoos, dog breeding operations and other facilities. The agency said the public records will now be accessible only via FOIA requests – which can take years to be approved. This is a huge blow for animal rights and transparency. (Karin Brulliard)

-- A group of New York commuters used hand sanitizer to clean up a subway car that had been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti and Nazi symbols this weekend, according to a 27-year-old lawyer and passenger. In a Facebook post, he shared images of the graffiti, which included swastikas, messages such as “Jews belong in the oven” and “destroy Israel, Heil Hitler,” as well as the passengers working to scrub off the hateful messages. By late Sunday, his post had been shared more than 354,000 times. (New York Times)

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

POTUS tweeted twice early this morning:

The governor of Utah called these Pakistani refugees "Utah's latest pioneers":

Der Spiegel's latest cover:

More rookie mistakes by the White House communications team:

Here are more responses to Trump deflecting a question about Putin being a thug by saying the U.S. is bad too.

Click to watch the Pence clip:

The founder of RedState:

The National Review writer who considered an independent bid for president:

A freshman congressman from Wisconsin:

The co-host of "Morning Joe":

The deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal:

Mike Huckabee made fun of Chuck Schumer:

Drawing this reaction from Zach Braff:

A few Superbowl-related shots from lawmakers (and one spouse):

Reince’s kids did a stare-off with each other during the president’s Super Bowl watch party:

Flashback:

Spotted at Mar-a-Lago:

GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE:

-- Bloomberg Politics, “Trump’s Former Rival Wynn Takes Over as His New GOP Money Man,” by John McCormick: “Billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn says he voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008, and he didn’t fully embrace the 2016 candidacy of longtime rival Donald Trump until after the real estate developer had already won. Those considerations alone might seem to make Wynn an unlikely choice to lead the Republican Party’s fundraising for the 2018 midterm elections, which will be the first full electoral test of Trump’s presidency. Throw in the fact that when Wynn and Trump competed in the Atlantic City casino market two decades ago -- a period that included a fierce court battle between the two -- Trump called Wynn a ‘scumbag,’ and Wynn suggested Trump was ‘all hat, no cattle.’ But bygones appear to be bygones. As Wynn took a break from the slopes during a weekend ski trip to Idaho’s Sun Valley, he sounded anything but ambivalent about his new assignment -- even if it means that his friends will now always assume he’s dialing for dollars.”

-- New York Times, “Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All: How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots From Afar,” by Rukmini Callimachi: “Terrorism planners in Syria and Iraq are using messaging apps to enable attacks across the world, right down to picking the targets and finding the guns.”

DAYBOOK:

Ronald Reagan would turn 106 today, and Queen Elizabeth II marks 65 years on Britain’s throne.

At the White House: Trump departs Palm Beach, Fla. for Tampa, Fla., where he receives a central command and special operations briefing and has lunch with enlisted personnel. Later, he speaks to coalition representatives and senior U.S. commanders and meets with Gov. Rick Scott. Trump then returns to Washington, D.C.

On Capitol Hill: The Senate meets at noon to resume consideration of Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education. The House meets at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes on seven suspension bills postponed until 6:30 p.m.

This week, Senate action on Trump’s nominees will be less of a frenzy and more a concentration of big developments:

Education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos is scheduled to receive a floor vote Tuesday, and she has no support to spare after Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) said they would oppose her confirmation. Democrats are hoping they can peel off one pro-DeVos vote and sink her nomination, but it’s unclear whom they could turn at this point. The White House says it’s confident DeVos will be confirmed. Next up to receive floor votes — likely also Tuesday — are attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), health and human services secretary nominee Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and treasury secretary nominee Steven T. Mnuchin. Also on the calendar for this week is a Tuesday vote in the Committee on Veterans Affairs for VA secretary nominee David Shulkin. Check out the full schedule here.

NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:

-- Milder-than-normal temps help start the week out on an almost springlike note, the Capital Weather Gang forecasts: “This day looks a lot like yesterday. The morning is a little chilly but, under a mix of clouds and sun, highs should reach the low 50s in most spots. Light winds from the northwest become out of the south during the afternoon.”

-- The 34-year-old man charged in the 2015 quadruple slaying of the Savopoulos family and their housekeeper is not likely to be tried until fall of 2018, court officials said on Friday. The expected trial date comes after public defenders said they needed about a year to conduct DNA testing. (Keith L. Alexander)

-- D.C. police are searching for a suspect involved in a daylight armed robbery carried out in Upper Northwest Washington on Saturday – a rare event to occur at any time in that neighborhood, police said, especially on a weekend afternoon. Officials said the holdup occurred around 1:30 p.m. on the quiet, tree-shaded 3900 block of Garrison Street. (Martin Weil)

-- Republicans in the Virginia State Senate proposed slashing $500,000 from the budget of Attorney General Mark Herring (D) as retaliation for him using a workaround to turn forfeited funds into big raises for some of his staffers. (Laura Vozzella)

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

Alec Baldwin was back as Trump for SNL's cold open:

Melissa McCarthy offered a tour-de-force imitation of Sean Spicer:

The SNL cast poked fun at Customs and Border Protection:

Weekend Update also took aim at the travel ban:

Trump shook hands yesterday with a woman while she was playing the trumpet in a marching band that was performing for him. Trump then joked: “Did I ruin that song for you?”

On Conan, Trump called Obama to talk about his latest moves in office:

Stephen Colbert riffed on Trump's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast:

Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo prayed for Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Lady Gaga gently waded into politics ahead of the Super Bowl:

Here's her halftime show: