The Note: Will Trump be Santa or the Grinch with Christmas tax cut?

The TAKE with Rick Klein

“A giant tax cut for Christmas,” President Donald Trump promised the American people.

What’s not clear yet is whether the public wants this gift as much as Republican representatives.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, hints at the sales job ahead. Sixty percent of Americans think the tax plan will primarily benefit the wealthy, with only 13 percent buying the argument that it mainly helps the middle class; 17 percent say they think the bill would treat everyone equally.

Fifty percent oppose the plan, amid indications that it’s not being helped by associations with Trump. Slightly more than half of independents say they oppose the bill ... and this was before the details were unveiled today.

The tax push was squeezed by a week bookended by investigative bombshells and now a high-profile presidential trip to Asia. In between came a terrorist attack that drove the president to engage in a new wave of policy declarations and Twitter battles.

Meanwhile, the GOP is still divided, with the president’s political goals running squarely up against congressional policy plans. With a distracted salesman-in-chief set to spend a dozen days several time zones away, Republicans will need to focus on finding a constituency for their new bill.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

The giant mea culpa from former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile on Thursday was met with everything from a shrug, to applause, to fury from fellow Democrats.

Brazile admitted that a widely publicized funding agreement between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC went further than previously disclosed and in fact allowed the Clinton team to control messaging and major spending decisions.

The takeaway from Brazile -- that the party actively worked to rig the presidential primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders – was a cathartic but unsurprising revelation for many of the independent lawmaker’s former aides and current backers.

Party loyalists accused Brazile of self-aggrandizing and trying to save face -- the longtime Democratic adviser has a new book out this month too.

One former DNC staffer told ABC News the party should be thanking the Clinton team for funding the organization.

But the fact is few party loyalists remain.

Many on the left are trying to reinvent the Democratic Party in the wake of bruising general election losses. For them, Brazile being honest about the past means more healing going forward.

Writ large, there is also concern among Democrats that re-litigating last year’s election distracts from the opportunity to capitalize on GOP missteps -- Brazile's story landed as Republicans unveiled a new tax plan that is raising eyebrows and days after an indictment against former Trump campaign staffers and their associated.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the moment a test for the new party chairman, Tom Perez.

The TIP with David Caplan

The Twittersphere lit up Thursday night when President Donald Trump's Twitter account was briefly deactivated by a Twitter employee. It was the individual's last day with the company.

"Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review," Twitter said in a statement late Thursday night.

For eleven minutes around 7 p.m. ET Thursday, visitors to the president's @RealDonaldTrump Twitter page were greeted with, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY:

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and paid for by Crooked H....This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering - where is our Justice Department?” - President Donald Trump Tweeted Thursday

NEED TO READ

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back Monday for the latest.

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