The Playbook Podcast

 Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued the new GOP roster for the House Rules Committee Monday, and he made good on his pledges to give his conference’s hard right a foothold on the powerful panel, naming Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) to the powerful gatekeeping panel. Norman and Roy were among the cadre initially opposing McCarthy’s speaker bid, and Massie is —...

The biggest moment yet in the 2024 election cycle happens later this week in Dana Point, Calif., where RNC members will choose their next leader — and incumbent Chair Ronna McDaniel faces an unexpected fight for a fourth two-year term. McDaniel is still the favorite, but the race has turned contentious: Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who backed Donald Trump's attempt to throw out the 2020 election resu...

President Joe Biden was sworn in two years ago today. To mark the occasion, White House Comms Director Kate Bedingfield is sending congressional Dems and other allies this “Cheat Sheet” of the president’s accomplishments to tout.  It’s worth a read to understand the emerging Biden reelection message — note the heavy emphasis on a manufacturing renaissance — which these talking points contend “is i...

Just days after House Democrats announced impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump in 2019, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faced an unwanted pressure campaign from the president’s closest allies. McCarthy refused — centrists, he believed, would have more credibility when they called foul on the Democrats’ impeachment process. Trump allies, meanwhile, would be dismissed by persuadable voters a...

NBC’s Scott Wong and Kyle Stewart did the work on putting together a comprehensive list of where all of the antagonizers who slowed McCarthy’s ascension to the speakership ended up after committee assignments were settled Tuesday. A few of the notables: Reps. Andy Biggs (R- Ariz.), Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) kept their seats on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo....

Today, ambitious Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks launches his bid to replace retiring GOP Sen. Mike Braun. (Watch his announcement video here.) The 42-year-old former chair of the Republican Study Committee is widely seen as the favorite in the race, which has already attracted interest from fellow Rep. Victoria Spartz. But he could face a challenging primary if former Hoosier State Gov. Mitch D...

In a September interview with CBS’ Scott Pelley for “60 Minutes,” President Joe Biden blasted Donald Trump for taking sensitive classified materials with him to Mar-a-Lago. When he learned the news, Biden said he instantly wanted to know “how that could possibly happen.” He worried that the documents contained information “that may compromise sources and methods.” He was flummoxed how “anyone coul...

January is a time of new beginnings in Washington. A new Congress. A new Republican-led House. A new speaker, Kevin McCarthy. New investigations into Biden by GOP-helmed committees. And now, in light of all of the above, there’s a new effort from the White House to go on offense against Republicans like never before. Like so many Washington trends these days, it started with a tweet.  “It’s a gian...

Most listeners to this show or readers of the Playbook newsletter didn’t know Blake Hounshell, but all of you were influenced by him. He nurtured and mentored dozens of young journalists who now populate virtually every significant news organization. He plucked brilliant academics from obscurity and turned them into influential writers. He shaped the world of online political news, newsletters and...

For President Joe Biden, it was an inconvenient discovery — and the potential source of considerable future political, if not legal heartburn. The Justice Department is investigating how and why classified documents from Biden’s time as veep made their way from the White House to a think tank, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, where he used to have an office. CBS’ Adriana...

The rules package that will govern how the House operates this session is scheduled for a vote this evening. It’s shaping up as Speaker Kevin McCarthy's first big test in governing what is shaping up to be an ungovernable Republican majority.  The package is the closest thing to a contract drawn up between McCarthy and his internal critics. Alongside various side deals dealing with committee assig...

Around Christmas, Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams’ wife suffered a medical emergency. This week, as she underwent treatment, her husband was eager to be by her side.  Instead, he has been stuck in Washington taking failed vote after failed vote in Kevin McCarthy's quest to become speaker. “This is killing him,” one of Williams’ GOP lawmaker friends told us late Thursday night. “I’ve never see...

After spending the last 48 hours on life support, Kevin McCarthy's bid for the speakership is seeing a potential revival. Following a rollercoaster of a Wednesday during which the California Republican failed three more times to secure the 218 votes for the gavel, McCarthy and some of his critics finally got in a room and had what both sides are describing as productive conversations. This morning...

So how does this end? And how long will it take to end it? Those are the questions towering over the new House Republican majority, which for the first time in 100 years, found itself unable to choose a speaker on the first ballot — or two others afterward. The House is now paralyzed, unable to swear in its members or form committees or adopt rules — let alone pass legislation. And the scary reali...

Welcome to the 118th Congress, the new Republican House majority, and one of the most unpredictable and potentially chaotic scenarios we’ve seen on Capitol Hill. The House will gavel in at noon, and following a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and a quorum call, the clerk will immediately start the live roll call to elect the next speaker. GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, however, still hasn’t clinched...

The Jan. 6 committee released its final report on Thursday night — an 845-page document drawn from nearly 1,200 witness interviews and reams of hard-won documents that places Donald Trump at the center of the deadly assault. POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Nicolas Wu write “Trump’s incendiary lies about the 2020 election activated an extraordinary coalition of far-right militants and conspiracy theoris...

Sean McElwee is a well-known progressive activist who started the “Abolish ICE” movement and in 2018 founded Data for Progress, a progressive think tank with an emphasis on influencing public policy through polling. DFP quickly embedded itself into the top layers of the Democratic firmament. More recently, McElwee became a close political ally and adviser to FTX founder SAM BANKMAN-FRIED.  McElwee...

It's that time of year: the omnibus has dropped. This time it's a $1.7 trillion dollar whopper, with appropriations filling out more than 4,000 pages. Right after the bill dropped on Tuesday, we looked at some of the most notable big-ticket inclusions and omissions in the text of the omnibus government spending bill released overnight, from Electoral Count Act reform to Ukraine aid to the expanded...

Democrats are scouring the record of Rep.-elect George Santos to determine their next steps following an extraordinary New York Times investigation of the incoming Republican from Long Island that revealed a history of seemingly fraudulent claims. Democrats are pondering how far to go in their condemnation. Should he be referred to the House Ethics Committee? (Almost certainly.) Should they call f...

This looks like it will be the final week of the 117th Congress… and it’s going to be a busy one. The clock is ticking on the Democratic House majority, and they are looking to wrap up some unfinished business before Republicans move in and take control. Number one on that list is to close out the Jan. 6 select committee, the panel created last year to investigate the attack on the Capitol by angr...

The latest news this morning comes via our colleagues Olivia Beavers, Jordain Carney and Sarah Ferris, who note that McCarthy is now “punting conferencewide races for committee leadership slots until after his speaker election on Jan. 3,” which could “incapacitate Republicans during a crucial planning period, virtually guaranteeing a sluggish start for the new House majority.” McCarthy can’t risk...

On Friday, after a group of seven House conservatives issued a public letter outlining the demands that GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy would need to meet to win their support in his bid for speaker, a key McCarthy backer quietly reached out to several moderate Republicans with a request, according to people familiar with the conversations. The Freedom Caucus rabble-rousers had reiterated their demand t...

Congressional negotiators announced late Tuesday they had reached agreement on a “framework” for FY2023 spending, clearing the way for passage of an omnibus appropriations package before Christmas. Appropriators are not expected to reveal detailed top-line spending levels until a bill is written and filed, but negotiators had largely settled on a $858 billion defense budget while haggling over the...

Today’s House Financial Services Committee hearing on the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange will go on as scheduled without its star witness: Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday at the behest of U.S. prosecutors who have secured indictments on a range of fraud charges. National political correspondent Ben Schreckinger stops by to share to what to expec...

Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced Sunday night that Democrats would not proceed as planned with a vote today on their own spending package, citing “sufficient progress in negotiations … over the weekend.” Government funding runs out Friday. Talks have stalled for weeks as the parties wrangle over funding levels, with Republicans thus far refusing to give Democrats the non...