| | | |  | | By Zack Stanton | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | Happy Friday morning. This is Zack Stanton, coming to you on the first full day of spring, with March Madness in bloom. My Michigan State Spartans don’t play until 10 p.m., which is oppressively late in the day for a game to start, in my humble opinion. Get in touch. In today’s Playbook … — Elon Musk heads to the Pentagon as administration pushes back on reports he would receive China briefing. — Signs of a Tea Party-style primary revolt against Dem incumbents. — The GOP plots a crackdown on judges. YOUR MORNING LISTEN: If you’ve paid attention to the inner workings of Trump’s White House, you may know the “Ice Maiden” — that’s the president’s nickname for chief of staff Susie Wiles. Today, meet “The Oracle.” For this week’s episode of “Playbook Deep Dive,” POLITICO’s Capitol Bureau Chief Rachael Bade sat down with James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs. Blair was Trump’s political director in 2024, when his buddies coined the nickname — which he jokes was “half-pejorative” because of his know-it-all swagger, but half serious due to his predictions being right. Among the highlights: On the White House’s approach to corralling lawmakers: “Our goal is always to resolve things privately… But I'd put it this way: The president and the vice president, the whole team is pretty aware of the various levers that can be pulled to move the agenda along. And I think we are not bashful — and will not be bashful — about pulling those levers.” On market volatility: “Things will settle out, I think, as we get into April — particularly some of the tariff stuff comes into clear focus for the markets to be able to absorb and price in the volatility. And I'm not an economist, but this is just sort of basic sense. The volatility will settle down a little bit.” Watch the clip On Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “Schumer had guts, did the right thing. … Now they're talking about primarying him and removing him from leadership. And Nancy Pelosi, like stabbed him right in the heart … in a public comment. … [Democrats are] in the wilderness. I think they're looking for the leader of an unpopular agenda.” Watch the clip On the 2026 midterms: “Our voters are satisfied … theirs are very upset. So in certain ways, the vote motivation right now is on the other side, because they're running angry … that can be a challenge politically.” Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify … Watch on YouTube
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We seem to have entered a new stage of Elon Musk’s stature in Washington | Samuel Corum/Sipa USA | STAY TUNED: President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will deliver remarks from the Oval Office today at 11 a.m. HAVE WE REACHED PEAK ELON? Amid the constant white noise of our Elon Musk-saturated media environment, it’s rare for a story to pierce through like the NYT’s big scoop late last night: Today, Musk was due to receive a briefing at the Pentagon that would present him with some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets — including the U.S. military’s war plans in the event of a conflict with China. You may ask yourself: Why does Musk need that information? One plausible answer from the Times: It could be useful if DOGE wants “to trim the Pentagon budget in a responsible way.” You may also wonder about potential conflicts of interest, given Musk’s extensive business interests in China and his lucrative defense contracts with the U.S. government. Or, on a more basic level, you could be curious how this even came about. An answer on that last one: “Musk, according to one person familiar with the arrangements, is receiving the briefing because he asked for one,” the WSJ reported in their own story matching the Times. The denials were quick and forceful: “This is 100% Fake News,” tweeted chief Pentagon spox Sean Parnell. … “[T]he fake news delivers again — this is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans,’” posted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. … “How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies,” said President Trump. “Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!” We don’t know … whether Musk’s China briefing will go forward as originally planned, though he will be going to the Pentagon today. What we do know: The speed and clarity of the denials from the administration can be read as an acknowledgement of the reality that, if true, the story is potentially radioactive — and that they’re not willing to accept that. Thought bubble: Musk is the richest man on the planet — someone accustomed to having virtually unlimited resources at his disposal to spend on whatever he so chooses. That’s all fine and well when it’s yours to spend. But in Washington, the coin of the realm is political capital, which is finite; there are limits to just how much you can burn before you have little left. And there are limits, too, to how much other people are willing to lend you if they aren’t seeing the ROI they want. IS MUSK THE NEW TRUMP? That question may sound glib, but here’s what we’re getting at: For the last decade, opposing Trump has been the single biggest cause uniting the Democratic Party’s disparate factions. They’ve run against Trump in election after election. And yet, with Trump’s approval ratings and popularity significantly higher than Musk’s, Democrats seem to be tweaking their strategy a bit, turning Musk into the boogeyman on the campaign trail, especially in swing states Trump just carried. Case in point: In the final 10 days of the pivotal Wisconsin state supreme court race, Democrats aren’t focusing on Trump; they’re trying to make it a referendum on Musk, POLITICO’s Elena Schneider reports this morning. The test run: “The Musk-centric ad blitz is the latest evidence that Democrats believe the billionaire is a more potent line of attack than tying Republicans to President Donald Trump — and the results out of Wisconsin could affect how Democrats deploy Musk-related messaging in legislative elections in New Jersey and Virginia this year and in the midterms in 2026.”
| | | | A message from Comcast: Comcast invests billions each year in maintaining and expanding our network capabilities to deliver a superior experience each and every day for millions of people. We've invested $80B in our network and infrastructure in the last 10 years. Connecting people now and into the future. Learn more. | | | | WHAT THE DEM BASE CARES ABOUT: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are on a multi-state trip as part of Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour — in which, naturally, the world’s richest man plays a leading role. Yesterday, the pair rallied in Las Vegas and Tempe, Arizona; in the latter, they turned out 15,000 supporters, per Sanders’ comms director. Today, they have two stops in Colorado. Tomorrow, they head to Tucson. The pulse check: Watching the rallies and reading dispatches, we couldn’t help but note that there was a bit of a split between what Sanders and AOC wanted to focus on (i.e. Musk, his influence, and, they allege, Trump’s prioritizing billionaires over working-class Americans), versus what the base was especially angry about (i.e. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to keep the government running by not blocking the House Republican-backed CR last week). A must-read for Dems … Writing for POLITICO Magazine, Lakshya Jain digs into congressional polls and comes away with a conclusion that should unsettle the Democratic establishment: “Democrats are on the verge of a Tea Party-style, intra-party revolt,” Jain writes. It’s not about left or right, but instead, “the fury is at least partly fueled by the Democratic base’s dissatisfaction with congressional leadership’s relatively conciliatory approach to Trump this time around, and their inability to stop him.” You can see it here, too: Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) faced constituents last night, the Concord Monitor’s Charlotte Matherly reports. Said one: “I am doing my part. I feel let down. There is no fight in the Democratic Party anymore.” … Similar sentiments abound in deep-blue California districts, the L.A. Times’ Laura Nelson reports. “You seem like such an affable, kind, nice man,” one constituent told Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.) this week. “But I am so angry. I am so scared. I feel our democracy is in danger. ... I wish you’d be angry.” What it could add up to: “The closest partisan parallel to the level of anger currently gripping Democratic voters would be roughly a decade ago, when Republican political unknown Dave Brat toppled House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a shocking 2014 primary upset,” Jain writes. Speaking of primaries … We couldn’t help but notice this riff from Ocasio-Cortez last night: “One thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have shown that if a U.S. senator isn’t fighting hard enough for you, you’re not afraid to replace her with one who will.” She is, of course, talking about former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) opting not to run for reelection and being succeeded by Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), but she’s not not talking about Schumer, too.
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Connecting Americans – now and into the future. Learn more. | | | | COURT IN THE ACT THE CLASH CONTINUES: Federal judge Jeb Boasberg ripped the Justice Department’s latest filing with information about the Alien Enemies Act deportations as “woefully insufficient.” He’s given the Trump administration until this morning for somebody with “direct involvement” in Cabinet talks about whether to invoke the “state secrets” privilege to give a sworn declaration, per NBC. Boasberg said he’ll demand a final answer on that by Tuesday. The GOP view: DOJ yesterday called Boasberg’s requests for information “inappropriate judicial overreach,” while Trump railed again against nationwide injunctions blocking his administration’s moves and said the Supreme Court must intervene. Oral arguments in the government’s appeal are set for Monday. And though impeachment is extremely unlikely, House Republicans are looking for other ways to sate conservative anger at judges — including with legislation likely coming to the floor next month that would limit nationwide injunctions, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Jordain Carney report. They have such doubts, part I: U.S. intel agencies determined last month that the Tren de Aragua gang is not controlled by the Venezuelan government, NYT’s Charlie Savage and Julian Barnes report. That “calls into question the credibility of Mr. Trump’s basis for invoking” the 1798 law, which he said allowed him to deport the alleged gang members without due process. (Their finding was only at a “moderate” level of confidence, though, and the FBI partially disagreed.) They have such doubts, part II: More questions emerge daily about the designation of some detainees as Tren de Aragua members, for which the government hasn’t provided evidence. Lawyers for several men disappeared into El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison said they were wrongly targeted, per Bloomberg. Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Sarah Hay have the story of Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player and Venezuelan dissident with no criminal record who was seeking asylum in the U.S. and was first detained under Joe Biden. His lawyer says his crown tattoo was just the Real Madrid logo. Another man’s lawyer says his crown tattoo was a tribute to his grandmother, ABC’s Laura Romero reports. Shining a light: CBS’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Annabelle Hanflig revealed the full list of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador. Meanwhile, administration lawyers have concluded the Alien Enemies Act “allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant,” NYT’s Devlin Barrett reports. It’s never been used that way in peacetime before. The bigger picture on immigration: Guantánamo Bay is back in action, as the Trump administration sent roughly 20 people there who they claim might be connected to Tren de Aragua, NYT’s Carol Rosenberg, Charlie Savage and Hamed Aleaziz report. … In another high-profile case, a judge said a Georgetown scholar detained for alleged Hamas ties can’t be deported for now while a legal fight proceeds, per the AP.
| | | | Policy moves fast—stay ahead with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant. Effortlessly search POLITICO's archive of 1M+ news articles, analysis documents, and legislative text. Track legislation, showcase your impact, and generate custom reports in seconds. Designed for POLITICO Pro subscribers, this tool helps you make faster, smarter decisions. Start exploring now. | | | | | SCHOOL’S OUT AN EDUCATION: Trump is already dismantling the Education Department. Can he destroy it outright? Legally, that would require Congress to step in — and his Hill allies will take steps to bring it to fruition. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. Michael Rulli (R-Ohio) announced that they’ll introduce legislation to codify Trump’s executive order, per Fox News’ Liz Elkind. Linda McMahon’s body slam: Trump signed the order taking aim at the department in a big ceremony yesterday, calling it the first step toward abolition that will return more control to state and local governments, per POLITICO’s Megan Messerly and Juan Perez Jr. The details: Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said student loans and Pell Grants are among the offices that will remain at the department for now. Distributing those and other offices to other departments without Congress’ signoff would appear to run afoul of the law. Meanwhile, teachers unions and Democrats warn that major cuts will damage services. Higher education roiled: It’s not just Columbia. “Colleges and universities across the country are capitulating to President Donald Trump with staggering speed, moving to slash progressive policies and crack down on student activism as they face compounding threats,” POLITICO’s Irie Sentner and Bianca Quilantan report.
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Learn more about how Comcast is investing in essential infrastructure powering our lives. | | | | BEST OF THE REST WAR IN UKRAINE: The U.S. will sign the natural resources deal with Ukraine soon, Trump said yesterday, per Reuters. American officials ramped up talk of taking over the operations of the major Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine as part of a ceasefire deal, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright telling Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu and Julie Fine the U.S. would have the expertise to do so if needed. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the idea, saying he’d told Trump that “if it does not remain Ukrainian, it won’t function for anyone,” per WaPo. To Russia, with love: Trump has said repeatedly that Ukrainian troops in Kursk are completely encircled by Russians, in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s messaging. But U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that’s not true and told the White House as much, Reuters’ Erin Banco scooped. Meanwhile, Europe sees the U.S. pulling back from engagement with Russia sanctions enforcement, Bloomberg’s Alberto Nardelli and Ewa Krukowska report. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Top-ed: “The ‘Free World’ Is Gone and There’s No Turning Back,” by James Kirchick in POLITICO Magazine: Two weeks in February “marked the end of an era — the era of the American-led liberal international order” — and an end to idealism and “at least rhetorical support for right over wrong” in U.S. foreign policy. WEAPONIZATION WATCH: Paul Weiss struck a deal to avoid Trump’s executive order retaliating against the law firm, following Brad Karp’s White House meeting, per the WSJ. The firm agreed “to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services to support the administration’s initiatives, such as assisting veterans and fighting antisemitism.” REPLACING DAVE WELDON: Former Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) is in the running to be named as the next CDC director nominee, Reuters’ Michael Erman and Jarrett Renshaw report. CBS’ Alexander Tin adds Joseph Ladapo, the controversial Florida surgeon general, is also in the mix. 2026 WATCH: Rep. John Rose jumped into the Tennessee GOP gubernatorial primary, the first person in the race. He framed himself as — what else? — “the conservative outsider,” The Tennessean’s Vivian Jones reports. But Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn reportedly has plans to run, too. BIG SHAKEUP: Facing financial straits, March for Our Lives is laying off most of its staffers and tapping Parkland survivor Jaclyn Corin as its new executive director, The 19th’s Jennifer Gerson reports. KNIVES OUT FOR JOHN ULLYOT: “Pentagon spokesman sidelined after uproar over Jackie Robinson article,” by WaPo’s Dan Lamothe WAPO TURMOIL: Last month, former top WaPo editors Leonard Downie and Bob Kaiser urged Jeff Bezos to ax Will Lewis as “a crucial first step in saving The Washington Post,” NYT’s Ben Mullin and Katie Robertson report. THE WEEKEND AHEAD TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Eugene Daniels, David Ignatius, Michael Scherer and Nancy Youssef. SUNDAY SO FAR … CNN “State of the Union”: Education Secretary Linda McMahon … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). Panel: Chris Sununu, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Shermichael Singleton and Xochitl Hinojosa. NBC “Meet the Press”: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer … Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, Adrienne Elrod, Stephen Hayes and Hallie Jackson. ABC “This Week”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. Panel: Michael Allen, Francesca Chambers, Penny Nance and Juan Williams. Legal panel: Ilya Shapiro and Tom Dupree. Sunday special: Clint Romesha. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Scott Gottlieb. MSNBC “Inside with Jen Psaki”: Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) … Annie Karni … Luke Broadwater. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman … Robert George. Panel: George Will, Tamara Keith, Tara Palmeri and Jessica Taylor.
| | | | California's tech industry is shaping national politics like never before. We’re launching California Decoded to unpack how the state is defining tech policy and politics within its borders and beyond. Sign up now to get it free for a limited time. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | HOLLYWOODLAND: “The Sudden Weirdness of TV Presidents,” by NYT’s James Poniewozik: “Today’s political dramas have conspiracy, murder and supervolcanoes. But their conventional White House protocols and procedures might be the most disorienting aspects.” OUT AND ABOUT — Evident, a new nonprofit news organization focused on documentary journalism, hosted a founding donors launch party last night at the new Lapis event space, with an initial round of grassroots public fundraising. SPOTTED: Zach Toombs, Kevin Clancy, Eugene Daniels, Jim Acosta, Liz Landers, Justin Peligri, Doug Levinson, Rhana Natour, Sebastian Walker, Dan Ming, Mohamed Mandour and Elise Flick. MEDIA MOVES — Avery Miller is joining CNN as executive producer of “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” She most recently was a senior producer at the “CBS Evening News,” and is an ABC alum. … Sascha Seinfeld is joining The Free Press, The Red Letter’s Tara Palmeri reports. She previously was at The Daily Beast. TRANSITIONS — Thomas Guastaferro is now SVP at the Synapse Group. He is a Canvass America and Targeted Victory alum. … Charlie Cadden is now a growth associate at Clipbook. He previously was an email and SMS strategist for the Harris campaign. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg … CNN’s John Berman … Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s Adam Green … Cenk Uygur … Brian Ellner ... Narrative Strategies DC’s Ken Spain … Dan Wilson of Mercury … Andrew Bleeker of Bully Pulpit Interactive … FocusDC’s Matt Gerson … Ross Kyle of Van Scoyoc Associates … Nicole Smith of Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies … Andres Ramirez of Forbes Tate Partners … Andrew Brown … Fred Fielding ... Sharon Castillo … Taylor St. Germain of Reproductive Equity Now … John Mark Kolb of Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s (R-Fla.) office … Amy Joyce … Eileen Tansill … Lynn Hidalgo … Fox News’ Alex Arbaiza … Scott Raab … POLITICO’s Danny Clasen and Yesi Chappell … Melissa Mattoon … Dana Martin … Aaron Hicks … Siena Duncan … Beatrice Jin 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 misstated which outlet first reported on USAID being reconstituted in the State Department with a national security focus. It was POLITICO. It also misstated where in the White House Trump was scheduled to sign his executive order on the Education Department. It was the East Room.
| | | | A message from Comcast: Comcast invests billions each year in maintaining and expanding our network capabilities to deliver a superior experience each and every day for millions of people. We've invested $80B in our network and infrastructure in the last 10 years. Connecting people now and into the future. Learn more. | | | | | | | | 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 | | | |
