The Playbook Podcast

This morning at 8:30 a.m., the Labor Department will release its newest consumer price index report, and the White House is bracing itself for the political impact of inflation numbers that are widely expected to be the highest yet faced during the Biden administration. What to expect: Economists polled by Reuters anticipate that the report will show that, year-over-year, “consumer prices rose 8.4...

Rep. Liz Cheney has set another personal fundraising record. The Wyoming Republican is fighting off a serious challenge from Harriet Hageman, a Cheyenne attorney, and the Aug. 16 primary has turned into the most important and closely watched contest between the MAGA and traditional wings of the GOP. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook. J...

In a history-making vote Thursday afternoon, the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, where she will be the first Black woman in history to serve as a justice. Immediately after VP Kamala Harris called the 53-47 vote, Senate Democrats (and, notably, Utah Republican Mitt Romney) gave a standing ovation while most Senate Republicans sulked from the chamber floor. Listen to Pl...

There’s no denying it: Covid is rocking Washington right now. Days after Saturday’s annual Gridiron Club dinner, multiple attendees of the boujee 600-seat confab have come down with it — including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). Throughout the district on Wednesday, the possible superspreader event wa...

Sen. Mitt Romney is having a bipartisan moment. The Utah senator kept everyone in suspense until Monday on how he would vote on Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation. He voted against confirming her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last year, but flipped and will now vote to confirm her to the Supreme Court. Six weeks ago, House Democrats blew up a bipartisan deal on Covid funding...

Democrats are desperately trying to understand what’s roiling the electorate heading into a brutal midterm environment. HIT Strategies has been conducting weekly focus groups to find out in real time how Americans are processing events in 2022. On Monday night we watched discussions with two different subgroups of partisan Democrats assembled by the firm: “Black Base, Always vote for Dems, Ages 25...

The White House and Senate Democrats expect Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to be confirmed by the end of this week. The final two Republicans still in play, Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), could announce how they plan to vote as soon as today. Clinching a new Supreme Court justice is a big moment for any president. But given the historic nature of Jacks...

For President Joe Biden, this was one of those weeks that demonstrated the limits of the powers of the presidency.  Political scientists often like to rib pundits and the public for having a so-called “Green Lantern” view of the presidency, a theory defined by Dartmouth’s Brendan Nyhan as “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or u...

All signs point to a typical midterm election this year in which the president’s party suffers double-digit losses in the House. The GOP has the big structural advantages on its side: a Democratic president with low approval ratings, a sour public mood driven by inflation concerns and an edge in polling on issues like crime, education and immigration that are proving important to voters in the cru...

We’ll have a lot more on the new Biden budget this afternoon and Tuesday. But here are some highlights of the framing from a White House official: — Three big things. “The President’s Budget will reflect three important values: fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and abroad, and a commitment to building a better America.” Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan...

We have long been avid readers of the deep-dive political memos written by Doug Sosnik, a former senior adviser to then-President Bill Clinton.  Sosnik’s latest is a very thorough 14-page dissection of the new politics of America’s suburbs. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the midterms in 2022 and presidential politics in 2024. “The suburbs,” Sosnik writes, “are the last...

The big news at the morning NATO confab, announced Wednesday by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is threefold: (1) NATO is doubling its military footprint in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia to counter the threat from Russia; (2) Biden and NATO leaders will increase pressure on China to condemn the Russian invasion; (3) NATO will take additional steps to aid Ukraine with “cybersecu...

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, President Joe Biden has focused on three policies: (1) sanctioning Russia, (2) bolstering NATO’s defenses and (3) providing security assistance to Ukraine. All three policies have been calibrated to deter Russian President’s Vladimir Putin's aggression without escalating the conflict.  Biden departs for Brussels this morning, and on Thursday, he attends...

The White House has worked hard to project a united front between President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and their respective teams. But the upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future,” by NYT’s Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, reveals some frustrations at the highest echelons of the White House between the Biden and Harris camps, as well as...

As Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-Ala.) Trump-endorsed Senate campaign sputters and the Alabama GOP primary descends into chaos, Sen. Richard Shelby is making his move.  Our Burgess Everett and Natalie Allison scoop that Shelby is “preparing to pour as much as $6 million into the race by transferring his campaign coffers into a super PAC supporting Katie Britt,” his former aide who is running for the Senate s...

No one was surprised by the request: a no-fly zone — and if not that, then access to those Soviet-style fighter jets in Poland that could help them “close the sky.” But if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's  — who has risen to almost folk-legend status in the eyes of Congress, and who clearly did his homework, invoking 9/11, Martin Luther King Jr. and Pearl Harbor in one 16-minute address —...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address Congress virtually at 9 am this morning. The headlines will likely focus on the red lines that President Joe Biden won’t cross: Zelenskyy’s request for a no-fly zone, and the transfer of Polish MiGs. But the debate has shifted.  Betsy Woodruff Swan interviews Daniel Vajdich, a longtime lobbyist for Ukrainian interests, who says “he has consulted...

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy will speak to Congress virtually. According to one person with knowledge of the address, he plans “to name and shame,” meaning excoriating the West for not doing enough to defend his country, though he will balance his remarks with some gratitude for what has been provided.  WSJ’s Andrew Restuccia and Siobhan Hughes report that it was Zelenskyy who asked Congress to speak....

Something unusual has happened in Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine. Congress — which typically takes a back seat on foreign policy matters — has driven the White House beyond its comfort zone with bipartisan demands for more assertive policies.   It started with calls for tougher sanctions, then escalated to an appeal for a larger military and humanitarian assistance package. Members of bot...

At a Thursday lunch in the New York Times Washington bureau, upset reporters pressed executive editor Dean Baquet about a recent sting operation targeting national security reporter Matthew Rosenberg, according to two people present. Project Veritas, a group that has singled out journalists and Democrats in undercover operations, posted a pair of videos this week showing Rosenberg divulging detail...

Just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night, the House passed the $1.5 trillion omnibus bill, the first step toward averting a government shutdown and enacting Democratic spending priorities after more than 400 days operating under Trump-era budgets extended via continuing resolutions. But the party’s joy of the occasion was short-lived, as Democratic infighting quickly gobbled up the headlines and forced...

At 7:30 a.m., VP Kamala Harris departs for Warsaw, Poland, where she will be thrust into the middle of the first major standoff between NATO countries since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  With tough sanctions in place, a Russian oil and gas embargo announced by Biden, and a no-fly zone ruled out, Zelenskyy’s desperate plea for the Polish MiGs is the most significant outstanding request from Ukr...

This morning we have a pair of significant Ukraine-related exclusives. The first is a letter signed by more than two dozen of the nation’s top foreign policy minds calling for a partial no-fly zone over Ukraine. The push runs squarely against conventional wisdom in Washington, but their missive will no doubt stir the conversation.  Second, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows that Biden is en...

“Russia answers resistance with firepower,” notes the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, who is in Kyiv now and covered the conflicts in Chechnya and Syria. “Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.”  He added, “The depressing conclusion I’ve drawn from other wars in which I h...

“Ukrainian firefighters on Friday extinguished a blaze at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant that was ignited by a Russian attack and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said, as Russian forces seized control of the site and pressed their campaign to cripple the country despite global condemnation,” reports the AP. “The head of the United Nations’ atomic agency said that a Russian...