The Playbook Podcast

President Joe Biden's conservative critics — from Fox News to Capitol Hill Republicans — have slammed the administration for exempting Russian oil from the raft of financial sanctions aimed at the Kremlin.  They’ve argued two main things: 1. With Russia’s economy so reliant on the energy sector, the U.S. should target that nation’s energy exports in order to be effective. 2. Biden should simultane...

Here were the three key takeaways and revealing moments that stuck with Team Playbook from President Joe Biden's first State of the Union speech. 1. Biden's cost-free confrontation with Russia — On the surface, events in Ukraine clearly upended the State of the Union speech. Biden spent the first 12 minutes of his address focused on the events there... Subscribe to POLITICO Playbook. Raghu Manaval...

At 9 p.m., President Joe Biden will deliver the type of State of the Union address he never wanted to give. Biden and his advisers had hoped to use this moment to reboot his stalled domestic agenda. Instead, the situation in Ukraine has forced the West Wing to rewrite significant partitions of his speech.  Biden is expected to use his address to respond to criticism that he didn’t act quickly enou...

Foreign policy crises have a way of reshuffling the priorities of a president. Joe Biden's standoff with Putin happened to come along just when Biden had lost some urgency in confronting his three big domestic threats. The pandemic is becoming endemic. There’s not much Biden can actually do about inflation. And the key senator standing in the way of Biden’s domestic agenda remains immovable. While...

Just before 6 a.m. Moscow time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a televised speech that his forces were entering Ukraine. Within moments, distant explosions were heard by reporters stationed in Kyiv and cities throughout the country.  President Joe Biden, in a statement, called it “an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.” A U.S. official said “full-scale” san...

The Russian sanctions announced by President Joe Biden on Tuesday made clear the White House is still grappling with the same question he mused about at his Jan. 19 news conference: What is the appropriate Western response to “something significantly short of a significant invasion — or not even significant, just major military forces coming across”?  Tuesday’s sanctions were more of an amuse-bouc...

It happened. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops — er, “peacekeepers,” as Moscow’s propaganda machine is calling them — into separatist regions of Ukraine. The move came less than a day after Putin and President Joe Biden agreed “in principle” to make a last-ditch effort at diplomacy with a face-to-face meeting. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to iron out those detail...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy officially backed Harriet Hageman, the primary challenger to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Olivia Beavers reports. While tensions have simmered between McCarthy and Cheney for over a year, it’s highly unusual for party leadership to back a challenge to a sitting member of their conference. Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: The untold story of the former judge who beat...

Former President Donald Trump met with Alabama GOP Senate candidate Katie Britt at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, two sources familiar told Playbook. The former president has been having buyer’s remorse after endorsing Rep. Mo Brooks for Senate, watching with frustration as Brooks has failed to catch fire with the MAGA base.  And for months, many Republican operatives across the political spectrum — from...

We have some news in our latest POLITICO-Morning Consult poll that we can share with you this morning.  The results get to the heart of two big questions about 2022: 1. Can Democrats overcome the culture war attacks dragging them down? 2. Can Republicans overcome the Trumpian issues dragging them down? Subscribe to POLITICO Playbook. Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook. Jenny Ament...

The first clips of President Joe Biden's sitdown interview with NBC’s Lester Holt were released Thursday night (the full video will air on Sunday’s Super Bowl pregame show). Biden announced that his shortlist of potential nominees to replace Justice Stephen Breyer is down to four. Biden: “I’ve taken about four people and done the deep dive on them — meaning thorough background checks, and to see i...

It’s been one of the greatest sources of tension between House Republicans and Democrats for a year now: a chamber-wide mandate requiring lawmakers to mask up before they vote — and steep fines if they refuse.  But now some House Democrats are following the lead of Democratic governors, calling for an end to mask mandates — even as their party imposes one in the House chamber. Subscribe to POLITIC...

Across the country, top Democratic officials are relaxing mask mandates as Omicron recedes and concern rises about how masking is affecting schoolchildren. Meanwhile, Republicans have seized on the issue to attack Democrats as mask fundamentalists. The shift among Democrats accelerated Monday, when a bipartisan group of governors meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington told him they wanted...

The fallout from the RNC’s weekend censure of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) spread to Capitol Hill on Monday: Hill Republicans returned to town and lit into Chair Ronna McDaniel. Senate Republicans went on the record to say that looking back to 2020 is a losing strategy that won’t help the party flip both chambers of Congress.  And they’re furious that the RNC would dub the...

The most likely November election scenario is that Republicans win the House and Senate. On average since World War II, the president’s party loses 26 House seats and four Senate seats in a midterm election.  The traditional indicators still point toward a typical midterm for Biden: low presidential approval rating (42%), a Republican advantage over Democrats on the generic ballot (44%-42%), and m...

If you work on Capitol Hill, you’ve probably heard about “Dear White Staffers.” It’s an Instagram account that started as a place where aides of color on the Hill — a place dominated by white lawmakers and staff — could express their frustrations. But it’s expanded beyond that to become a go-to hub where anonymous staffers name and shame bad bosses and colleagues, and complain about absurdly long...

Republicans have been all over the map lately in their Supreme Court messaging. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called President Joe Biden's vow to only consider Black women for the vacancy “affirmative action.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Biden doing so during the campaign was “clumsy” and risked further politicizing perceptions of the high court. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) welcomed Biden...

The center of legislative intrigue on Capitol Hill is bipartisan election reform. “That’s on a hot track right now,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday.  But as talks heat up to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, President Joe Biden is out in the cold — a bystander out of sync with both parties in Congress. Administration officials are deeply engaged in a gamut of other bills snaking through Co...

Lawmakers return from recess this week to a massive February to-do list before President Joe Biden's March 1 State of the Union address. And the pressure is on: The White House and vulnerable House Democrats are desperate to quickly pass a $250 billion package aimed at boosting manufacturing and relieving supply-side constraints — a win they’d love the president to be able to trumpet at his big sp...

TV doc turned Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the NRSC headquarters earlier this month to lay out why he thinks he can win in the swing state of Pennsylvania.  In normal times, such a meeting between a candidate and party bosses would be as pro forma as they come. But needless to say, these are not normal times in the GOP. Playbook's Tara Palmeri is here...

For weeks, Joe Biden's presidency has been dragged down by a stalled agenda, spiraling inflation, lousy poll numbers and an angry base accusing him of not delivering on his promises. Wednesday delivered a much-needed jolt with the news that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term. It’s a chance for the White House to pivot from the spate of bad news and rally depre...

Frustration with Chuck Schumer leadership strategy is privately simmering among some Hill Democrats.  We talked to a half-dozen senior Democratic staffers in both chambers Monday night and heard a variation of the same complaint from each of them: that Schumer’s ploy to isolate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on Build Back Better and then voting rights has only set the par...

With Congress out of town and President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda paused, Washington will be dominated by Ukraine-Russia news this week. Some major developments on Ukraine in the past 24 hours: — Early this morning, NATO announced a buildup in Eastern Europe: “NATO Allies are putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in eastern Europe, reinfor...

Former President Donald Trump has floated the idea of doling out dual endorsements in some of the key midterm races as he becomes increasingly suspicious of his advisers who are pushing competing candidates.  The GOP kingmaker-in-chief has grown so distrustful of all the advice he’s getting from various aides — and so wary of being lured into picking the wrong horse — that he’s floated an idea tha...

There’s a lot to unpack from President Joe Biden's marathon press conference in the East Room, but let’s start with this statement deep into the 1-hour-and-51-minute event: “You guys have been trying to convince me that I am Bernie Sanders. I’m not. I like him, but I’m not Bernie Sanders. I’m not a socialist. I’m a mainstream Democrat, and I have been.” Subscribe to POLITICO Playbook. Raghu Manava...