| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard | Presented by the Coalition for Medicare Choices | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | Good Monday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, absolutely ready for temperatures to hit a heady 55F today. THE LATEST JAW-DROPPER: President Donald Trump announced last night that MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino will be deputy director of the FBI — another intensely political appointee to oversee the bureau alongside newly installed chief Kash Patel. Bongino is a former cop and Secret Service agent who dived headlong into MAGA world in the 2010s and now hosts one of the world’s most popular podcasts, pulling in more than 16 million listeners each month. By NPR’s count, Bongino becomes the 20th ex-Fox News host, journalist or commentator to bag a senior job in the new Trump administration. Needless to say … Bongino’s appointment alongside Patel is being met with unrestrained glee by Trump supporters — “the WWE never constructed a tag-team better,” tweeted Matt Gaetz — and with utter despair by liberals, who had already grown fearful of a highly politicized FBI. Bongino can at least point to significant law-and-order experience in his previous roles, though critics accuse him of propagating falsehoods and conspiracy theories during his broadcast career. (NBC’s Ken Dilanian reckons current and former FBI types are “appalled.”) Whichever side of the political fence you’re on, this is truly unchartered territory for the feds. And it’s not just the libs who are wailing: “Kash Patel should have been a redline,” wrote Marco Rubio’s former general counsel, Gregg Nunziata, on X. “Bongino is what you get when R Senators fail to do their jobs and say no to Patel. The Trump Admin is turning federal law enforcement over to unqualified, unprincipled, partisan henchmen. It's unacceptable and conservatives need to say so.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Trump’s election helped turbocharge an already surging bull market, sending stocks and cryptocurrencies to record highs. But now, some on Wall Street are beginning to fear the good times can’t last, POLITICO’s Declan Harty reports. “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and others have warned that investors are plowing cash into stocks with inflated prices,” Declan reports. “Hedge fund giant Elliott Management said the blistering rise in crypto over the last year, with bitcoin up 89 percent, is the stuff of bubbles.” Even so-called memestocks have returned. Taken together, it’s one flashing red light for a president who puts more faith in the state of the stock market than any other economic indicator.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is under pressure to accept a soon-to-be-brokered U.S.-Russian peace agreement. | Evgeniy Maloletka/AP | THREE LONG YEARS: Today marks the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine, the trigger for Europe’s worst military conflict since World War II. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Russian invaders have since died in a war which sent economic, social and geopolitical reverberations throughout the world. With Trump now back in the White House and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy under pressure to accept a soon-to-be-brokered U.S.-Russian peace agreement, the conflict suddenly looks close to its end. But the shockwaves of the past three years will be felt for decades to come. While you were sleeping: Zelenskyy and other Western allies held a show of unity early this morning with a 30-strong leaders’ conference focused on Ukraine. Canada’s Justin Trudeau and the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen were among those who travelled to Kyiv in person, while approximately two dozen more joined for a virtual call. “Russia may have gained an open ear in the White House, but they have not gained an inch of legitimacy,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a virtual address to the summit, per the BBC. Meanwhile, Putin held a call this morning with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to Chinese state media. More from Reuters. Trump dials in: President Trump is expected to join a separate call of G7 leaders at 8 a.m. to discuss the anniversary (and possibly the end) of the war. The NYT reported last week the allies have been squabbling over the wording of a G7 statement due to be released after the call, with the U.S. pushing to remove all language which could be seen as supportive of Ukraine. The Times says the U.S. draft makes “no references to Russia as the aggressor in the conflict, nor to Ukraine as the victim of the invasion.” There is uncertainty about whether Zelenskyy will be invited to address the meeting, as he did on last year’s anniversary. It’s hard to see the call going well.
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Learn more at https://medicarechoices.org/ | | | Today in Washington: Once the G7 talks are finished, Trump will host his old frenemy Emmanuel Macron for face-to-face talks at the White House, in what is the first visit by a European leader since his inauguration. The French president’s visit also marks the start of a diplomatic blitz by America’s NATO allies to try and convince Trump to maintain at least some military involvement in Ukraine — and indeed across Europe — in the months and years to come. It’s a real European one-two this week, with British PM Keir Starmer due at the White House on Thursday to serve up more of the same. How the day pans out: Per the White House schedule, Macron is due to arrive at 12:15 p.m. The two leaders will then hold bilateral talks and a working lunch ahead of a joint press conference at 2 p.m. in the East Room — the main public-facing event of the day. First important question: Who’ll win this week’s round of the Trump/Macron handshake wars? Seasoned observers will know this tradition dates back to 2017, when the G7’s two biggest egos first shared a series of completely OTT handshakes, each trying to out-muscle the other in a blizzard of sweaty palms and rictus grins. After a four-year pause, Trump renewed the tradition in Paris in December — much to the breathless delight of his online fans — and presumably, this show of Franco-American faux-machismo will continue today. Beyond the arm-wrestling: Macron will make the case for Europe to be permitted a seat at the negotiating table as he floats proposals for a 30,000-strong European peacekeeping force in Ukraine once the fighting ends. But he and Starmer — who spoke with the French president by phone yesterday to coordinate tactics — hope to convince Trump that some sort of U.S. military backup will still be required. Trump has resisted offering any postwar security guarantees to Ukraine thus far. Gimme gimme gimme: Indeed, Trump’s main focus seems to be extracting concessions from Ukraine via a deal allowing U.S. exploitation of the nation’s sizable mineral wealth. Zelenskyy angrily rejected Trump’s initial proposal a fortnight ago, but negotiations are ongoing and White House aides insist a deal is now imminent. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who delivered the original proposal to Zelenskyy — told Fox News yesterday he was “quite hopeful” an agreement will be struck this week. Art of the deal: It’s hard to tell amid the noise quite how much this is wishful thinking. In his televised press conference yesterday, Zelenskyy said he would never sign up to the terms initially proposed by Trump and Bessent. “I don’t want something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back,” he said. (The NYT has plenty more detail of the proposed deal.) But later, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak struck a more positive note on social media, stating, “We are making progress.” More here from the AP. Snub to Europe: Bessent sounded pretty clear there will be no U.S. security element to any financial agreement. “What it does not include is a military guarantee,” he said on Fox News. “But what it does include is an implicit guarantee … The more assets U.S. companies have on the ground, the bigger interest the U.S. has in the future of the Ukraine economy doing well.” Zelenskyy pushed back on this theory yesterday, insisting the presence of U.S. companies has not deterred Russia in the past. Treading carefully: The other big challenge for Macron today is to avoid any sort of blowup with the combustible U.S. president — given Europe will not be in a position to protect itself without American troops for some time to come. “We need to internalize that [Trump] can take radically hostile decisions if he’s offended,” one European diplomat tells POLITICO’s Clea Caulcutt, Nicholas Vinocur and Eli Stokols, in our big walkup to today’s summit. “We need … to build a security plan for Europe at a time when public opinion isn’t ready. And you can’t do that and manage the withdrawal of some 100,000 American soldiers out of Europe. That is why we can’t break [with Trump].” Didn’t get the memo: But while France and Britain play nice and try to keep Trump on side, Germany’s new leader-elect said bluntly last night that Europe must prepare for a future without U.S. military support ASAP. “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” said Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, whose center-right alliance came first in yesterday’s German election. “This [U.S.] administration are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.” Essential reading: POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi interviews Gordon Repinski, executive editor of POLITICO Germany, on the fallout from yesterday’s dramatic election, which saw the far-right AfD party surge into second place and the ruling social democrats slump to third. Gordon explains what it all means for German politics and what we can expect from Merz, who arrives at Europe's top table at the most challenging moment imaginable. Wrong horse: VP JD Vance and top White House aide Elon Musk had both been supportive of the AfD, of course, but last night, Trump was busy celebrating the success of Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union alliance instead. “The people of Germany got tired of the no-common-sense agenda,” Trump posted (in all caps, natch), as if his team had been backing the center-right all along. “This is a great day for Germany.” And then on to New York: The next forum for the ongoing transatlantic struggle will be the United Nations, where rival resolutions marking the third anniversary of the Ukraine war will be voted on by diplomats this afternoon. The U.S. is pressuring Ukraine to withdraw its European-backed U.N. resolution — which demands an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine — in favor of an American proposal which doesn't mention Moscow’s invasion at all, AP reports. Both resolutions will now be voted on in turn, further exposing the splits in the once-mighty Western alliance. Putin must be thrilled.
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| | | THE MAGA REVOLUTION ARE WE PAST PEAK ELON? Elon Musk is today facing the first serious pushback to his work at the Department of Government Efficiency, with multiple departmental and agency heads instructing staff to ignore his latest missive. Every federal employee has been given until 11:59 p.m. tonight to detail their previous week’s work activities, following Musk’s tweet on Saturday which said those who do not comply will be shown the door. But a number of Trump’s Cabinet officials — including Kash Patel — have publicly undercut the directive, POLITICO’s Irie Sentner reports, with leadership at the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department, FBI, NIH, Energy Department, DHS, HHS, Office of the DNI, NOAA and NSA all telling employees they shouldn’t or didn’t need to respond to the email as yet. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called Musk’s demands “absurd.” More questions than answers: Democratic opponents say hundreds of thousands of federal employees are now in limbo, unclear whether they’re supposed to respond by this evening’s deadline or not. Federal labor unions say the Office of Personnel Management email (which followed Musk’s X post) was illegal, and have demanded its retraction. National security agencies raised concerns about sensitive government information about employee activity becoming accidentally disclosed. More here from the WSJ. Nope: Musk has swatted away criticism of the order, insisting it’s hardly a stretching demand for employees to send a brief memo setting out what they’ve recently achieved at work. “This email is a basic pulse check,” he wrote on X. And Trump once again seems to be on Musk’s side, posting a “SpongeBob SquarePants” meme that made fun of upset federal workers. It’s not entirely clear how all this plays out today. But there’s more: Another MAGA world favorite, Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell, has pushed back hard on a different Musk post — one accusing USAID of funding terrorist-linked groups. Grenell responded that in fact “some of these groups are our partners in fighting terrorism.” How long before someone accuses him of being “woke”? No pressing pause here: Regardless, the final guillotine is now descending upon USAID, with the Trump administration barreling ahead with the near-total destruction of the agency. Almost the entire workforce has been placed on leave as of the start of today, and between 1,600 and 2,000 jobs are being cut outright, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports. Pete Marocco is expected to slash the agency down to just several hundred employees for essential functions — though critics have said the Trump administration can’t legally do away with USAID completely without the backing of Congress. More fallout: Several senior retirements at the Federal Bureau of Prisons “could gut veteran leadership” at the agency, WaPo’s Derek Hawkins reports. … VA layoffs have worried veterans’ advocates in terms of the impact for benefits or medical care, the Washington Examiner’s Samantha-Jo Roth reports. … Deep impending cuts at HUD have sparked questions about “whether HUD can carry out its core functions” and concerns that home prices will rise, WaPo’s Rachel Siegel reports. … Across the board, several agencies could see “an erosion of scientific and technical expertise,” Axios’ Alison Snyder and Andrew Freedman report.
| | | | As demands on the U.S. energy grid continue to rise, join POLITICO on Tuesday, February 25 at Hotel Washington for a discussion on the future of energy policy with Sen. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Bob Latta, and Rep. Randy Weber. RSVP today to attend in-person or virtually. | | | | | MEANWHILE ON THE HILL MIKE’S MOMENT OF TRUTH: The House Rules Committee will take up the House GOP’s budget blueprint at 4 p.m. today, kicking off a pivotal week for Republican efforts to deliver a single reconciliation bill encompassing tax cuts, border spending, defense dollars and more. The all-important floor vote is expected tomorrow and will be a huge moment for Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s attempting to keep every single member of his conference in line in order to deliver the signature piece of legislation Trump has demanded. POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Meredith Lee Hill have all the latest. The driving force … is Trump, of course. House GOP leaders hope the president’s renewed support for “one big, beautiful bill” as the party’s Plan A for the budget will convince Republican holdouts to fall in line, even as the Senate waits in the wings with its own dual-bill blueprint. But Johnson has little or no room for error — and his conference is a broader church than many realize. Can he really push every single Republican member into line? The sticking points: Moderates and front-line Republicans have opposed major cuts to Medicaid and the social safety net — $2 trillion over a decade — which the party wants to partially offset its other priorities’ deficit impact. Town halls with angry members of the public back home during last week’s recess may have amped up those concerns. Undecided Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) and other “concerned Republicans” are due to meet with leadership and House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) today, per our colleagues. Reps. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) said they would oppose steep cuts, WSJ’s Olivia Beavers and Liz Essley Whyte report. (Still, longtime observers of the House GOP know that the moderates often fold in the end.) Whom to watch: As the GOP has made inroads with working-class voters, POLITICO’s Kelly Hooper runs down the 11 vulnerable House Republicans whose districts have high numbers of Medicaid recipients. At the other end of the spectrum, fiscal hawk Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) is already a no vote, and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) is undecided — though he’s never voted for a debt ceiling increase in the past. NOM WATCH: The Senate will take up Daniel Driscoll’s nomination as Army secretary this afternoon. NOW READ THIS: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has emerged as one of Democrats’ most prominent and urgent anti-Trump voices, as NYT’s Annie Karni reports. From rapid-response social media videos to Substack essays, Murphy “is not exactly charismatic; he is cerebral and serious,” she writes. But he could “position himself as a future national leader for Democrats” with his intellectual arguments and five-alarm-fire messaging that billionaires are seizing democracy. Murphy’s Instagram subscribers have doubled since the start of the year, and he’s spent more on Meta ads than he did during his whole re-election campaign.
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| | | BEST OF THE REST 2026 WATCH: Vivek Ramaswamy will launch his Ohio gubernatorial bid today, NBC’s Henry Gomez scooped. He’ll center his campaign on plans for big cuts to spending, taxes and regulations, and big changes to K-12 education, including merit pay for teachers. Just don’t call it DOGE-y. IMMIGRATION FILES: The Trump administration is to deepen its immigration crackdown by restoring the pandemic-era Title 42, a public health measure designed to deny asylum-seekers’ rights and kick them out of the country. CBS’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports the CDC will shortly issue the order, citing the risk of tuberculosis and other diseases … Separately, ICE has launched “an unprecedented push” to find and deport potentially hundreds of thousands of children who arrived in the U.S. as unaccompanied minors, Reuters’ Marisa Taylor, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke scooped. Sign of the times: Trump’s anti-immigration barrage has been so effective that now some Venezuelans and Colombians are re-crossing the treacherous Darién Gap to return to South America, AP’s Matias Delacroix and Juan Zamorano report from Puerto Cartí, Panama. The would-have-been asylum-seekers, some of whom spent more than a year waiting for legal immigration appointments and exhausted their money, gave up after Trump effectively ended asylum. More immigration reads: “This Christian Convert Fled Iran, and Ran Into Trump’s Deportation Policy,” by NYT’s Farnaz Fassihi and Hamed Aleaziz … “Trump’s policies on gender identity and immigration have trans immigrants worried about their future,” by CNN’s Taylor Romine … “States threaten fines and jail time for local officials who resist Trump’s immigration crackdown,” by AP’s Charlotte Kramon and David Lieb KNOWING EMIL BOVE: “Before he became Trump’s bulldog at DOJ, Emil Bove was nearly demoted for bellicose management style,” by POLITICO’s Erica Orden: As a federal prosecutor, Bove “developed a reputation as a quiet, diligent worker — but one with a temper. He belittled the work of his subordinates. He was unusually tough on law-enforcement agents. After one blow-up with a fellow prosecutor, he refused to speak with that person for years … His management style was so harsh that leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office conducted an internal inquiry … They initially concluded that Bove should be demoted from his position as co-chief of the unit, though they never followed through.” Bove didn’t respond for comment. UNDER THE RADAR: “Americans with disabilities warn protections are vanishing in Trump’s DEI rollback,” by Axios’ April Rubin and Maya Goldman: “People with disabilities say President Trump's DEI purge is eroding health care, education and legal protections they’ve only won in recent decades. … The Trump administration has taken actions that undermine accessibility measures — critical for leveling the playing field for people with disabilities — as part of its efforts targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.”
| | | | Donald Trump's unprecedented effort to reshape the federal government is consuming Washington. To track this seismic shift, we're relaunching one of our signature newsletters. Sign up to get West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government in your inbox. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Melania Trump’s appearance in D.C. this weekend was her first time here in a month. PLAYBOOK FASHION SECTION: Elon Musk is helping popularize black “Dark MAGA” hats among Trump supporters, AP’s Adriana Gomez Licon reports from the Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump’s political operation and the NRCC have quickly made bank from those caps and other merch linked to his early second-term tenure, including T-shirts with “Gulf of America,” DOGE and “Make Greenland Great Again,” per Axios’ Alex Isenstadt. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Chris Hayden is now director of legal, risk and regulatory comms at Nasdaq. He previously was senior spokesperson for domestic finance at the Treasury Department, and is a DCCC and Senate Majority PAC alum. TRANSITIONS — Elisabeth Pearson is joining Three Point Media as a partner. She previously was a founder at Magnus Pearson Media, and is a former Democratic Governors Association executive director. … Annie (Barletta) Brody is now director of business coalitions for House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). She previously was deputy chief of staff and legislative director for Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), and is an RNC alum. … Ian Mariani is now national press secretary for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). He most recently was comms director and senior adviser for Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.). … … Sohil Khurana is now senior banking counsel for Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), handling financial services, housing, tax and trade. He most recently was associate counsel for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and is a Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Latham & Watkins alum. … Aliza Silver will be senior director of health policy and government affairs at Oracle. She previously was deputy health policy director for the Senate HELP Committee. … Tyler Dever is now a principal at the National Federation of Independent Business. He previously was a senior legislative assistant for Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas). WEEKEND WEDDING — Aaron Groce, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), and Bryce Williamson (now Groce), associate at Latham & Watkins, got married Saturday at the George Peabody Library in Baltimore. They met at Walters Sports Bar in Navy Yard. Pic … SPOTTED: Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), James Floyd, Yusuf Nekzad, Brian Duckworth, Matt Hill, Evan Keller, Jonas Murphy, Chloe Hunt, Sean Sibley, John Lee, Lorna Gilmore, Hannah Rehm, Joe Zanoni, Meryl Robinson, Emily Trifone, Rodney Kazibwe, Jacob Vurpillat, Matt Marks, Claudia Cabezas, Alex Przybelski, Isa Martinez, Max Fillion and Lilly Quiroz. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Rudy Yakym (R-Ind.) … WaPo’s Jacqueline Alemany … Bruce Andrews … SKDK’s Karen Olick … Devin Lynch … Jacqueline Hackett … Cliff May … NYT’s Kate Kelly and Sabrina Tavernise … Mark Salter … Juliet K. Choi … Julie Adams of the Senate sergeant-at-arms office … McLaurine Pinover … POLITICO’s Connor O’Brien, Mark Matthews and Molly Rufus … Abram Olmstead … former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft … Kate Kelly … Paula Zahn … former Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Ind.) … Andrew Giacini … former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift … Josh Gardner … Karen Persichilli Keogh of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office … Amazon’s Lindsay Hamilton … BGR Group’s Chelsea Mincheff … Allison Branca … Rebecca Bernbach Graves … Doug Ritter of General Dynamics … Emily Feldman … Christina Cameron … Blake Waggoner … Kevin Lewis … Aidan Lizza 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 deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Sudd
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