| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | Good Sunday morning. The sun is shining. Temperatures will climb to nearly 50 degrees today in Washington. Here in the Midwest, we call this Fool’s Spring. But as the poet Mary Oliver wrote, joy is not made to be a crumb. Drop me a line: awren@politico.com. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: “The New Bloomberg? Daniel Lurie Tries to Buff Up San Francisco,” by POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “There’s decades-low crime, but outsiders remain skeptical about the city by the bay.”
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President Donald Trump is mostly romping through his second term largely unscathed. | Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images | FORWARD MARCH: One month into his blitzkrieg of a second term, President Donald Trump has faced little meaningful opposition from any quarter, whether from Democrats, Congress, the courts or voters. This week, some indications of pushback began to emerge. It showed itself in crowded town halls as Republican and Democratic House members returned back home to meet with constituents. Warning lights blinked in some polling, too, even though Trump’s approval has been largely rosy given the polarized climate. All told, Trump is mostly romping through his second term largely unscathed. Even after one White House official signaled to POLITICO that mass firings could slow, Trump yesterday posted to Truth Social that when it comes to Elon Musk, he “WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.” Not long after — in a move that may ultimately prove illegal, and that FBI Director Kash Patel brushed off — Musk posted on X that federal employees would be receiving an email asking that they detail “what they got done last week.” A lack of response, Musk said, “will be taken as a resignation.” The email arrived in inboxes in short order. Can anything slow Trump down? Playbook assembled some of our top reporters on everything from the economy to politics to the courts to shine a light down the path forward, illuminating any obstacles for Trump they saw coming. CONGRESS: Of course, the greatest mid- to long-term threat to Trump is a Democratic takeover of the House and the oversight it would bring. But our Capitol bureau chief and senior Washington columnist Rachael Bade is skeptical members will feel the heat on DOGE anytime soon. “There’s been a lot of media and Dem speculation that the DOGE cuts could be the beginning of the end of the House GOP majority, given the blowback we are seeing at some town halls,” she tells Playbook. “I think this is vastly overstated by our industry, however, and am not yet convinced Americans care about him laying off a bunch of federal workers, even if they don’t love the chaos. Rather, the majority will be won and lost over what happens to Americans’ benefits and prices.” The graver danger for Trump, she says, is on potential steep cuts to Medicaid that Republicans are eyeing, despite the president’s stated opposition: “This is gonna antagonize not just the left but a bunch of voters who pulled the lever for Trump but who are on the program as well.”
| | | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance: More than 34 million Americans choose Medicare Advantage for better care at a lower cost than Fee-For-Service Medicare. But two straight years of Medicare Advantage cuts have left seniors feeling squeezed, with millions experiencing plan closures, higher costs, and reduced benefits. Seniors are already struggling with high prices for everyday necessities; they can't afford to pay more for health coverage and get less.
Protect seniors' affordable health care. Protect Medicare Advantage. Learn more at SupportMedicareAdvantage.com. | | | THE COURTS: Throughout his campaign, Trump faced legal threats that evaporated when he won the presidency in November. With a Supreme Court that appears squarely in his corner, is Trump free to roam? Pretty much, says Ankush Khardori, our senior staff writer and the author of Rules of Law, the reported column on legal affairs. “The courts are not likely to be able to stop Trump’s efforts to defund and neuter various federal agencies anytime soon,” Ankush writes in to Playbook. “The most effective thing to slow him down in the near term would be if a critical mass of Republicans — enough to prevent Cabinet appointments or a key bill from passing — were to join with Democrats in opposition.” THE VOTERS: When even Republican members of Congress faced alarm back in their districts about DOGE and the rollback of federal government, it was the clearest sign yet Trump might be steering into some headwinds. Trump, our politics bureau chief and senior political columnist Jonathan Martin notes, could be indeed in trouble “if the theoretical becomes the tangible on DOGE. On paper, voters like the idea of paring back the federal government. But it has long been axiomatic that Americans are ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. Which is a fancier way of saying they don’t like cutbacks when it’s their asses on the line,” Jonathan tells Playbook. THE ECONOMY: If Trump indeed won the election based on an economic referendum, it’s here where his possible downfall is most apparent. JMart flagged a resurgence of inflation and concurrent downturn in the market as perhaps Trump’s biggest threat. “He could make this worse by pursuing blanket tariffs, which would drive up the cost of goods and finally force the market to take him literally, which hasn’t happened but for a couple of hours before he cut the short-term deal with Canada and Mexico,” JMart tells us. Victoria Guida, our economics correspondent and author of the Capital Letter column, agrees. “Price spikes have cooled considerably since they peaked in 2022, but inflation is still stubbornly hovering above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target — and there are risks that Trump’s tariffs and immigration policies could push prices up faster,” Victoria says. “If the cost of living gets markedly worse, that’s something people will notice, and the president’s popularity could take a hit.” But there are perhaps deeper problems. Among them is the very thing DOGE putatively has its targets set on: debt. “No one knows precisely how high the debt has to get before investors who finance it start to really push up borrowing costs — but it’s something the GOP trifecta is watching as they look at further reducing revenue by extending the 2017 tax cuts,” Victoria says. “On the other hand, brinkmanship tactics around the debt ceiling or debt payments could also hurt the U.S. credit rating if investors fear that the U.S. isn’t being governed responsibly. That, too, could cause turmoil and dent Trump’s favorite yardstick for success: the stock market.” For now, though, Trump is showing no signs of course-correcting as he plows through the opening weeks of his presidency.
| | | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance:  
Millions of seniors are experiencing higher costs and fewer benefits due to Medicare Advantage cuts. Seniors can't afford to be squeezed more. Protect Medicare Advantage. | | | SUNDAY BEST … — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the major firings at the Pentagon, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Nothing about this is unprecedented. The president deserves to pick his key national security and military advisory team. There are lots of presidents who’ve made changes … I have a lot of respect for C.Q. Brown. I got to know him over the course of a month. He’s an honorable man. Not the right man for the moment. And ultimately, the president made that call.” — Hegseth on Trump’s Ukraine pivot: “Does all the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching make peace more likely? That’s the enduring question the president is asking.” … On whether it’s fair to say Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked: “Fair to say it’s a very complicated situation.” — Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) on Ukraine, on ABC’s “This Week”: “I did not agree with the president’s rhetoric about Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What I would say is this: It does not behoove either side to have this public back and forth. I think President Zelenskyy needs to work with the administration, especially with respect to economic cooperation.” — Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) on whether he thinks the U.S. should stay in NATO, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “If it’s in our interest, I absolutely do. But right now, NATO has not always been playing in our best interest. And when it’s not in Americans’ best interest anymore, then we should re-look at things. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results.” TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.
| | | | 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. | | | | | 9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. THE NEXT ONE: In another move to put a Cabinet official in charge of multiple agencies, Trump is planning to tap Patel as acting leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ABC’s Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin scooped. AG Pam Bondi has already taken steps to shift the focus of ATF, which has long rankled Republicans for its focus on guns. 2. BANNED AID: Hundreds of USAID employees in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, who work on critical aid in humanitarian crises, were fired en masse Friday night, NYT’s Edward Wong and Zolan Kanno-Youngs report. Those layoffs “add to doubts raised about whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio is allowing employees … to carry out lifesaving humanitarian assistance, as he had promised to do.” Now, the big question for many of the world’s most vulnerable people who have depended on the U.S. to stay alive is where replacement funding might come from. NYT’s Stephanie Nolen reports that some hope China, the World Bank or philanthropic organizations will step into the breach. But nonprofit groups expect that in many cases, no one will. 3. ON SECOND THOUGHT: The FDA plans to ask around 300 fired civil servants — less than one-third of the recent culling — to come back, Reuters’ Patrick Wingrove, Rachael Levy and Michael Erman report. That number will include employees who oversaw Musk’s Neuralink company. “It is not known who ordered the firings and now the rehirings.” But some fired officials say they aren’t sure whether they’ll return, feeling burned by the Trump administration’s antagonism. 4. HOSTILE TAKEOVER: “Inside RFK Jr.’s health department takeover,” by POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn, Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ruth Reader: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “in his first week began steering the 80,000-person department in a radically new direction — preparing to dismiss key vaccine advisers, vowing to alter longstanding public health priorities and standing by as the Department of Government Efficiency gutted elements of the workforce at health agencies that he’s openly accused of ‘corruption.’ … [It] has shaken much of the HHS workforce … “[M]ore than a dozen current and former HHS officials and outside public health experts described a sense of unraveling at the department that quickly soured hopes the new secretary might set aside his most controversial beliefs in favor of a consensus approach to alleviating chronic disease.”
| | | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance:  
More than 34 million Americans rely on Medicare Advantage for affordable health care. Learn more. | | | 5. UKRAINE LATEST: All European eyes today are on the German election, but then attention will turn to White House visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and British PM Keir Starmer. They’ll pitch Trump on a plan for 30,000 European peacekeepers in Ukraine — and, crucially, an American “backstop” to protect those troops from danger if need be, WSJ’s Alex Ward, Max Colchester and Michael Gordon report. That is, they may want some security guarantees from the U.S. military without going so far as to put American troops on the ground. Zelenskyy said today that he would gladly give up his role as president in exchange for Ukraine being admitted into NATO, per Bloomberg. Ongoing negotiations: In talks for a deal to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earths, Kyiv is hitting a sticking point over American insistence for a $500 billion fund to pay back the U.S., Bloomberg’s Volodymyr Verbianyi reports. Meanwhile, the U.S. has threatened that it may cut off Ukraine’s internet access via Musk’s Starlink if it doesn’t agree to a deal, Reuters’ Andrea Shalal and Joey Roulette scooped. On the sunnier side, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a new FT op-ed touting the benefits of a greater “economic partnership” for both countries. The next negotiations: Russia said yesterday that the U.S. and Russia are in preparations for an in-person summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, per the AP. 6. IN THE DOGE HOUSE: Republican governors are broadly supportive of DOGE and Trump/Musk’s efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy, POLITICO’s Liz Crampton and Lisa Kashinsky report. At the National Governors Association winter meeting, few GOP state leaders were worried about the impacts for their state budgets or local federal employees. Many said the negative effects of early cuts had been overstated and were more like bumps in the road. 7. CLIMATE FILES: “‘Viciousness’ of Trump’s climate attacks stuns even his critics,” by POLITICO’s Benjamin Storrow and Jean Chemnick: “Trump’s promised assault on federal climate policies is sweeping across Washington, state capitals and private industry with a speed that’s surprising even some of his supporters and critics … Taken together, Trump’s actions mark a vast and coordinated attack on U.S. environmental policy by a president who has spent years denying the tenets of climate science and the reality of rising global temperatures. Analysts and advocates say the administration’s moves threaten to reverse decades of painfully slow progress to curb planet-warming pollution.” 8. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: “At CPAC, the World’s Populists Parrot the Leader Who Inspired Them,” by POLITICO’s Ben Jacobs: “[T]he most striking convergence was the fact that increasingly hard-right parties around the world had adopted their own parallel mythologies to Jan. 6.” More from CPAC: Trump delivered a triumphant speech to the conference yesterday afternoon, celebrating the massive changes of his first month, per NBC. “Our movement is thriving, fighting, winning and dominating Washington like never before,” he said. (CNN’s Daniel Dale notes that Trump also continued to lie about the 2020 and 2024 elections, among other topics.) At the conference, MAGA fans were thrilled about all Trump has already accomplished — and they’re urging him to push ahead with a radical remaking of the federal government, regardless of electoral consequences in 2026, WSJ’s Aaron Zitner reports. 9. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: “In Trump’s Alternative Reality, Lies and Distortions Drive Change,” by NYT’s Peter Baker: “The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas. Diversity programs caused a plane crash. China controls the Panama Canal. Ukraine started the war with Russia. Except, no. None of that is true. Not that it stops President Trump. … [W]hat were dubbed ‘alternative facts’ in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world.”
| | | | 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 | | Joy Reid’s MSNBC show is getting canceled, NYT’s Benjamin Mullin reports, to be replaced by one anchored by Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez. Pope Francis is in critical condition, the Vatican said. Mark Cuban said he’s not running for president. Kamala Harris was given the NAACP’s Chairman’s Award, and urged Americans to remember that they write this chapter of history too, not just Donald Trump. Roger Stone said Jeremy Strong deserves the Oscar for portraying his late friend Roy Cohn. IN MEMORIAM — “William R. Lucas, Official Blamed in Challenger Tragedy, Dies at 102,” by NYT’s Trip Gabriel OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the Shakespeare Theatre Company on Thursday night for the U.S. premiere of John Kani’s “Kunene and the King,” directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson: South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, Arun Alexander, Ana Delgado, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson, Arnold Chacon, Kadmiel Van Der Puije and Aly Kaba. — SPOTTED at Isaac Stanley-Becker’s talk at Politics & Prose yesterday afternoon with Ishaan Tharoor for his new book, “Europe Without Borders” ($35): Jeff Goldberg, Adrienne LaFrance, Griff Witte, Matea Gold, Peter Wallsten, Bob Woodward, Isaac Arnsdorf, Lena Sun, Perry Stein, Jose Del Real, Dan Diamond, Lauren Kaori Gurley and Zac Weisz. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Yaakov Roth has been named principal deputy associate AG for the Justice Department’s civil division. He most recently was an appellate partner at Jones Day. WEEKEND WEDDING — Valeria Rivadeneira, press secretary for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Josh Crandell, a policy adviser for Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), got married yesterday in Cartagena, Colombia. They first met on the Obama reelect and then lost touch, only to be reunited on Wendy Davis’ Texas gubernatorial campaign. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) … Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), John Rose (R-Tenn.) (6-0) and Mike Flood (R-Neb.) (5-0) … Jim Manley … Chris Martin … Lois Romano … POLITICO’s Katy Murphy and Andrew Briz … Patrick Svitek … Rebecca Chalif … One Campaign’s Gayle Smith … Marissa Mitrovich … Tommy Mattocks … S.E. Cupp … Arjun Mody … Tom Pino … Gary Karr, celebrating in Lisbon, Portugal … Patrick Velliky … Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Nikki McArthur … AT Johnston … Molly Hooper … Shannon Geison … Leah Clapman … Courtney Matson … Ziya Smallens of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s office … Jill Hudson … Bernie Robinson … former Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas) … Joey Brown of the Senate Republican Communications Center … Richard Lardner … Erenia Michell … Jennifer Epstein … Kate Cox 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-Suddath. Corrections: Yesterday’s Playbook contained an outdated title for Anthony D’Esposito. He is a former member of Congress. It also misspelled Austan Goolsbee’s name.
| | | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance: Medicare Advantage is now the primary form of Medicare coverage in the United States. Over 55% of Medicare beneficiaries — more than 34 million seniors and people with disabilities — choose Medicare Advantage for comprehensive care that delivers better health outcomes at a lower cost than Fee-For-Service Medicare.
But for two years in a row, Medicare Advantage has been cut even as medical costs and utilization have been going up. Now millions of seniors who rely on Medicare Advantage are feeling squeezed, with widespread plan closures, higher costs, and reduced benefits.
President Trump and his Administration can keep their promise to protect Medicare for seniors by ensuring adequate funding for Medicare Advantage moving forward.
Seniors need affordable health care. That means protecting Medicare Advantage.
Learn more at SupportMedicareAdvantage.com. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | |
