| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | | | 
“There should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” President Joe Biden said. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo | BIDEN’S ADDRESS — Against a dramatic backdrop in Warsaw, Poland, today, President JOE BIDEN marked the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine with a speech of soaring rhetoric that pledged to hold firm in defense of Ukraine, democracy, freedom and territorial sovereignty. “There should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” Biden said in a distillation of the address’ themes. “President [VLADIMIR] PUTIN’s craven lust for land and power will fail, and the Ukrainian people’s love for their country will prevail.” Biden looked back — praising the Western alliance for rising to the test by supporting Kyiv — and he looked forward, promising more sanctions, accountability and justice for war crimes. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” he said. “Never.” Biden also spoke directly to the Russian people, trying to reassure them that the U.S. didn’t seek to control or attack Russia. But ultimately, Biden had Putin squarely in his sights: “Autocrats only understand one word: no.” More from Jonathan Lemire and Alex Ward in Warsaw PUTIN’S ADDRESS — Biden’s speech came hours after Putin’s own bellicose, bitter address, in which he said plenty of no. Putin doubled down on the war he started, and insisted that the West were the true aggressors. “It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield,” he vowed. But it wasn’t just rhetoric from Putin: In a major move, he announced that Russia would suspend its participation in the New START Treaty, a 2010 agreement that was the only arms control pact left between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty has limited the two countries’ strategic long-range nuclear warheads. Just two years ago, Biden and Putin had extended the treaty to 2026, though the U.S. warned last month that Moscow wasn’t complying with the treaty. And he didn’t stop there: “Putin also said Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on such tests in place since the Cold War era,” per the AP. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN slammed Putin’s move as “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible,” though he added that the U.S. would wait and watch to see how Russia actually acts on Putin’s threat, Matt Berg reports. Notably, Putin didn’t say he was fully pulling out of the treaty. The big picture: Putin’s announcement is “one more indication that the era of formal arms control may be dying,” NYT’s David Sanger writes from Warsaw. “If [his] attitude holds, whoever is sitting in the Oval Office when the treaty expires in a bit more than 1,000 days may face a new world that will look, at first glance, similar to the one of a half-century ago, when arms races were in full swing and nations could field as many nuclear weapons as they wanted.” SCOTUS WATCH — The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in Gonzalez v. Google, the big case challenging the Section 230 protections for tech companies regarding content hosted on their platforms. It wasn’t immediately clear which way the justices would lean in the case, which could transform the internet economy if the court ruled broadly. Justices raised questions about whether paring back Section 230 would invite a deluge of lawsuits, and they also delved into the original intent of the law. Live updates from CNN Good Tuesday afternoon, and thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com. BIG POLITICO NEWS — We’re very excited for our colleagues who won a prestigious George Polk Award this weekend for their work covering the draft Supreme Court Dobbs opinion and its fallout for the court and the country. Read some of the amazing stories investigating the justices and efforts to influence them from Alex Ward, Josh Gerstein, Peter Canellos, Heidi Przybyla and Hailey Fuchs:
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At Amazon there is a way up for anyone, because there is something for everyone. | | | CONGRESS SHOCK RESIGNATION — Spit out your coffee milk: Rep. DAVID CICILLINE (D-R.I.) announced today that he’ll step down from his position June 1 to take a new role as president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation. Cicilline has been a prominent player in the House, championing antitrust work to take on Big Tech and serving as an impeachment manager for Trump’s second impeachment. He was reelected just three months ago, after which he mounted (and dropped) a challenge to Rep. JIM CLYBURN (D-S.C.) for assistant Democratic leader, the No. 4 position in the caucus. He’ll have a $650,000 annual salary in his new position. This is big news in America’s littlest state, where “most political observers believed the 61-year-old Cicilline could have held [the seat] for the rest of his life,” the Boston Globe’s Dan McGowan writes. Now, a special election in the fairly blue district could attract plenty of Rhode Island’s top Democrats. The Providence Journal’s Antonia Noori Farzan and WPRI-TV’s Ted Nesi, Eli Sherman, Tim White and Steph Machado float some of the possibilities who are already expressing interest or being talked about — so many names that we can’t even devote space to listing them all here. MEDIAWATCH TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES — WaPo’s Isaac Stanley-Becker scoops a new piece of the JAMES O’KEEFE story: He reportedly left Project Veritas in part because the board raised concerns that he was jeopardizing the organization’s nonprofit status. “Beyond the alleged violation of the group’s bylaws, the memo did not go into detail about possible violations of the Internal Revenue Code. Instead, it stressed the board’s responsibility to ensure compliance.” But board members indicated that they worried O’Keefe’s behavior could invite IRS scrutiny — and feared that if the group lost the tax deduction it can offer donors, it would collapse. ALL POLITICS BATTLE FOR THE SENATE — Rep. COLIN ALLRED (D-Texas) is considering a run against Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas) next year, The Dallas Morning News’ Gromer Jeffers Jr. reports. Texas is one of Democrats’ only opportunities to go on offense in the Senate next year, and Cruz squeaked by in 2018, but unseating him is still seen as a long shot. “The move would put him in line to make history, or become the next candidate in a long string of Democratic Party disappointments.” IT’S OFFICIAL — Rep. BARBARA LEE (D-Calif.) is running for Senate, she announced in a three-minute launch video this morning. Addressing questions of age and experience head on, the 76-year-old pitched herself as a progressive legend whose political and personal stories qualify her for the upper chamber. (“Barbara Lee speaks for me” is the rallying cry.) “For those who say my time has passed, well, when does making change go out of style?” she said. More from the S.F. Chronicle AFTERNOON READ — “Inside the Dissident Fringe, Where the New Right Meets the Far Left, and Everyone’s Bracing for Apocalypse,” by James Pogue in Vanity Fair: “Wealthy and well-connected preppers and back-to-the-landers have been moving west, many of them at least tangentially involved in the edgy online realm of thought known as the dissident right. Tech executives and crypto investors are creating secretive groups to help people ‘exit’ … from our liberal society, tech-dominated lives, and fraying system. And there are grander plans, for whole secessionist movements using crypto and decentralized autonomous organizations to build whole mini societies.”
| | | | We’re spilling the tea (and drinking tons of it in our newsroom) in U.K. politics with our latest newsletter, London Playbook PM. Get to know all the movers and shakers in Westminster and never miss a beat of British politics with a free subscription. Don’t miss out, we’ve got some exciting moves coming. Sign up today. | | | | | JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH INSIDE THE FULTON COUNTY GRAND JURY — AP’s Kate Brumback has an inside look into the Fulton County, Ga., special grand jury through the eyes of 30-year-old foreperson EMILY KOHRS. Kohrs, who noted she didn’t vote in 2020 and “was only vaguely aware of the controversy” surrounding the election before the trial, described the behavior of witnesses: — Georgia Secretary of State BRAD RAFFENSPERGER was “a really geeky kind of funny.” — Kohrs “was surprised when [Sen. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R-S.C.)] politely answered questions and even joked with jurors.” — “She also enjoyed learning about the inner workings of the White House from CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, who Kohrs said was much more forthcoming than her old boss, former White House chief of staff MARK MEADOWS.” About 12 to 16 of the jurors showed up nearly every day for the eight-month process, watching as prosecutors showed footage of House Jan. 6 committee testimony for recalcitrant witnesses. THE ONGOING REVERBERATIONS — “‘You Should Not Be Allowed to Run the Government You Tried to Overthrow,’” by Nathaniel Herz in Palmer, Alaska, for POLITICO Magazine: “Before Alaska’s 10 a.m. winter sunrise, in a mostly empty courtroom here in December, Republican state Rep. DAVID EASTMAN went on trial accused of betraying his oath of office. The charge: that Eastman, a hard-line conservative and fervent Donald Trump supporter, had violated a ‘disloyalty clause’ embedded deep in the Alaska Constitution — and was thus ineligible to hold office in the state. … Throughout the saga, Eastman has shown no remorse or regret. If anything, the civil suit launched against him has emboldened him.” THE WHITE HOUSE BIDEN’S NEW ECONOMIC APPROACH — “Biden’s investment strategy to juice the economy,” by Axios’ Hans Nichols and Sophia Cai: “The Biden administration is courting a wave of private investments as a multiplier for the nearly $2 trillion in spending and tax incentives Congress approved in the past two years. … Team Biden’s goal is to leverage those massive packages — only about 5% of which have been spent — to scale up projects designed to improve the nation’s power grid, help wean the U.S. off oil and gas, stimulate the chip industry, and more.” FIRST LADY FILES — First lady JILL BIDEN will head to Namibia and Kenya later this week, the White House announced.
| | | | JOIN POLITICO ON 3/1 TO DISCUSS AMERICAN PRIVACY LAWS: Americans have fewer privacy rights than Europeans, and companies continue to face a minefield of competing state and foreign legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for a federal privacy bill, but it has yet to materialize. Join POLITICO on 3/1 to discuss what it will take to get a federal privacy law on the books, potential designs for how this type of legislation could protect consumers and innovators, and more. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | JUDICIARY SQUARE SCOTUS WATCH — In addition to hearing oral arguments in today’s major Big Tech case, the Supreme Court made news this morning: — The court declined to take up a challenge to an Arkansas law that reduces payments to contractors who won’t sign a pledge against boycotting Israel. More from the AP — The court rejected an appeal from a man who spoofed local Ohio police on Facebook, a case in which The Onion had sided with the man in defense of parody. More from Bloomberg — And the court turned down an effort from Wikipedia and the ACLU to challenge the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of online and phone activity. More from Reuters AMERICA AND THE WORLD EVERYBODY’S IN ISRAEL — Several prominent Republicans are attending the Tikvah Fund’s Hertog Forum starting today in Tel Aviv, including Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL, MIKE POMPEO and Sens. TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) and JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports. Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER will arrive later this week to meet with PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU. And two separate House delegations are visiting the country. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS — Chinese President XI JINPING is preparing a summit in Moscow with Putin, WSJ’s Austin Ramzy, Keith Zhai and Laurence Norman scooped. “Beijing says it wants to play a more active role aimed at ending the conflict [in Ukraine], and the people familiar with Mr. Xi’s trip plans said a meeting with Mr. Putin would be part of a push for multiparty peace talks and allow China to reiterate its calls that nuclear weapons not be used.” BEYOND THE BELTWAY HACK ATTACKS — Here’s some good news for your afternoon: The number of ransomware attacks and the amount hackers were paid plunged last year, WSJ’s Robert McMillan, Dustin Volz and Aruna Viswanatha scooped. PLAYBOOKERS MEDIA MOVES — Jen Psaki will host a weekly talk show, “Inside With Jen Psaki,” on MSNBC starting March 19. The show will air Sundays at noon. More from the NYT … Dustin Racioppi is now a New Jersey editor at POLITICO. He previously was Atlantic region politics and government editor for USA TODAY. TRANSITIONS — Bridget Brennan is now VP of corporate development at Capstone LLC. She previously was deputy director for board engagement and strategic planning at the Atlantic Council, and is a Steny Hoyer alum. … Carter Elliott is now press secretary for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. He previously was comms manager for Moore’s gubernatorial campaign. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.
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