The Playbook Podcast

On Monday afternoon, the House Jan. 6 committee, which was supposed to be on a hiatus for the next two weeks, abruptly announced it would be holding a hearing today at 1 p.m. “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”  The star witness is expected to be Cassidy Hutchinson, a former executive assistant to ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows who has testified three times behin...

The Biden White House’s plan for this week, as of one week ago: Spend the end of June focusing on foreign policy, making use of a pair of European summits (the G-7 and NATO) to rally support for the hard-fought international coalition that formed in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden White House’s plan for this week, as of now: Scrap that. Yes, the summits will go on but the big...

On Thursday night, the Senate passed a bipartisan gun safety bill in a 65-33 vote that saw 15 Republicans join all 50 Democrats to support the bill. — How it happened: “In a Washington run by Baby Boomers and octogenarians, it took two 40-something Democrats with a yin-and-yang approach to get a gun safety deal done,” Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine write in a behind-the-scenes look at the mak...

Recall that in the first hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said, “Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.” Each day of hearings has been devoted to covering one or two of the seven dramatic episodes of that overall plot: (1) Trump’s misinformation campaign, (2)...

Since we scooped on Tuesday morning that documentarian Alex Holder was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee seeking previously unreported footage he recorded over several months of full access to Donald Trump, his adult kids and VP Mike Pence, more details have emerged about what’s on the tapes.  And, Trump loses bigly in Georgia: “Georgia Republican voters rebuked Donald Trump for the second...

Scoop: The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 sent a subpoena last week to Alex Holder, a documentary filmmaker who was granted extensive access to President Donald Trump and his inner circle, and who shot interviews with the then-president both before and after Jan. 6. The existence of this footage is previously unreported. A source familiar with the project told Playbook on Monday night...

Today’s Jan. 6 committee hearing is going to be one for the history books, so tune in at 1 p.m. On Wednesday night, we caught up with today’s star witness, Michael Luttig. “America is at war with herself,” he will say. “One war is for the cultural heart and soul of America. The other is a war over America’s democracy.” He will say that “both of these wars must end in peace if America is to go forw...

Here’s everything you need to know about Tuesday’s elections, which included primaries in four states (Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina) and a special election in Texas. — Republicans can survive crossing Trump, but rarely can they survive being anti-Trump — Republicans continue to make major inroads with Hispanics, especially in border areas of Texas … — 2020 election deniers are wi...

It’s a Tuesday in 2022, which means it’s time for yet another stop in Donald Trump's post-presidency revenge tour against incumbent Republicans he thinks have wronged him.  Today will see two high-profile GOP primaries in South Carolina, where Reps. Tom Rice and Nancy Mace face Trump-backed opponents.  Though there are similarities between the two — Rice was one of the 10 House Republicans who vot...

Just before 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 4, 2020, then-President Donald Trump went before a group of supporters at the White House and prematurely declared victory over Joe Biden in an election he ultimately lost. Today at 10 a.m., that moment — and the avalanche of lies about the election that followed — will be front and center as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack (1) highlights the origi...

The Jan. 6 investigation can sometimes seem sprawling and complicated. The story of that day is filled with weird groups, conspiracy-minded lawyers, and fringe characters. Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. John Eastman and Sidney Powell. The “QAnon Shaman” and “caveman rioter.” The big message from the first public hearing of the Jan. 6 committee was that it’s a lot simpler than all of that. It’s reall...

At 8 p.m., the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack plans to start unveiling the most complete and visceral dissection to date of the mob of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of a democratic election. Drawing on months of interviews and thousands of documents, the committee has thus far kept most of its findings close to i...

Seven states held elections on Tuesday. We stayed up overnight as the returns from California continued to roll in, and we have the key takeaways for you: — Five of the 35 House Republicans who voted to establish a Jan. 6 Commission faced primaries on Tuesday. Trump vowed to exact revenge on all of them. How’d they fare? — A bad night for progressives in two big California cities facing upticks in...

Today, seven states hold primaries: Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and California. What should you be watching for? The day’s biggest news will likely come from the Golden State, where voters are poised to make major statements about the directions of their respective parties. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's...

The Senate is back today, with all eyes on whether 10 Republican votes materialize for a gun legislation deal. … On Tuesday, it’s primary day in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. … On Wednesday, President Joe Biden heads to L.A. to host the Summit of the Americas. … On Thursday, the House Jan. 6 committee holds a hearing on its investigation of the at...

Three key leaders who are committed to firearms legislation in the wake of a string of horrific massacres spoke Thursday about what they want in a bill.  In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi blessed the “Protecting Our Kids Act,” which passed out of the Judiciary Committee after a raucous markup that included one Republican member, Greg Steube (Fla.), appearing via Zoom while brandishing his Sig Sau...

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported this week that President Joe Biden will sit down with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during a trip to the region later in June.  The White House’s thinking here is pretty straightforward. The president has a gargantuan domestic political liability — high gas prices — that Saudi Arabia is in a position to help with. Combine that with the interna...

Heidi Przybyla has an enormously important and carefully reported article for POLITICO that just went live: “‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections” Przybyla obtained video recordings of GOP operatives assembling a disturbing multipronged network of party loyalists that could cause chaos on Election Day. She documents evidence of four different networks being create...

The Biden White House is rolling out a new monthlong economic campaign today to try to “communicate on our accomplishments to date on the economy,” according to a White House official. President Joe Biden's kicked off the effort with a WSJ op-ed that posted Monday evening, in which he boasted that his “administration’s economic and vaccination plans helped achieve the most robust recovery in moder...

They’re the Senate GOP’s two favorite Democrats: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema. They worked with Republicans to craft a massive bipartisan infrastructure deal and to save the filibuster — and now, “​​Republicans acknowledge that because Manchin and Sinema preserved the filibuster, they need to at least listen to Democrats who are desperate for an agreement to reduce gun...

Speaking from the White House, President Joe Biden reflected on the shooting and called for new gun restrictions without identifying any specific proposals. “While they clearly will not prevent every tragedy, we know certain ones will have significant impact and have no negative impact on the Second Amendment,” Biden said. “The Second Amendment is not absolute.” More from CBS So what, realisticall...

Another Tuesday, another massive set of primaries that will test Trump’s grip on the GOP.  Today’s most-watched state: Georgia. For the former president, the stakes could not be higher. In the gubernatorial primary, Gov. Brian Kemp faces former Sen. David Perdue. Trump — who partly blames Kemp for his loss of the state in 2020 — has bet bigly on Perdue. He recruited him to run and sunk $2.5 millio...

A president’s first midterm election is both an enormous story and completely anticlimactic. It’s major news because there will likely be a dramatic shift away from the president’s party. It’s anticlimactic because it’s one of the most predictable events in American politics. But history is not on Biden’s side. In fact, voters may have already made up their minds.  That, at least, is the argument...

Trump’s endorsement losses are starting to pile up. Most of his endorsements have been in races where his anointed candidate faced little or no competition. Nobody would be impressed by a handicapper who won placing bets at a track featuring races with only one horse.  The only Trump endorsements that matter are in competitive races. And there, the record is mixed. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbo...

With Memorial Day recess around the corner and much of President Joe Biden's agenda still stuck on Capitol Hill, a sense of helplessness has settled in among some Democrats: The closer they inch toward Election Day, they realize, the more unlikely they are to notch any additional legislative victories. And yet, voters are angry and demanding action now. Just look at this quote from No. 2 Senate De...