| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | | Good Tuesday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, necking vitamin pills and keeping well hydrated in advance of the coming storm. YES, IT’S WHCD WEEK: So limber up for Washington’s booziest (and most self-congratulatory) weekend with a stark 2025 reality check for D.C.’s media elite — ‘We’re the Rising Power’: The MAGA Media Stars Taking Over the White House Briefing. New kids on the block: POLITICO’s Ian Ward takes you inside the James S. Brady Briefing Room to meet the young, ultra-conservative faces packing out White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s televised Q&As. Featuring Natalie Winters of the War Room podcast (yes, the Steve Bannon one), Cara Castronuova of Lindell TV (yes, that Mike Lindell), Daniel Baldwin of OAN, Monica Paige Luisi of Turning Point USA and many more. Killer question: How are the new faces getting on with the traditional MSM? Not great, by the sounds of it. “In some ways, the revulsion to the new media people being there [stems from the] fact that we’re like a mirror,” Winters tells POLITICO. “A reflection of the fact that they’re dying.” Oof. MEANWHILE, IN ROME: The funeral of Pope Francis will be held on Saturday, the Vatican announced this morning, offering President Donald Trump a convenient reason to avoid the WHCD festivities — not that he needed one. The president’s confirmed attendance means a procession of world leaders will now seek to use the occasion to grab some precious face time with the man upending global economics and security. Also confirmed so far: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine … President Emmanuel Macron of France … PICS: The Vatican released the first photos of the late Pope Francis in his coffin early this morning. In today’s Playbook … — The global economic outlook darkens as Trump attacks Jerome Powell and major trade deals remain elusive. — Pete Hegseth joins Fox News in the 8 a.m. hour as he faces down a serious threat to his leadership at the Pentagon. — Al Gore explicitly likens the Trump administration to the Third Reich.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on April 17, 2025, in Washington. | Alex Brandon/AP | NUMBERS GAME: The International Monetary Fund will officially downgrade global growth forecasts this morning in response to the swirling trade war and severe market turbulence triggered by Donald Trump’s on-off tariffs. The IMF’s weeklong spring conference in Washington will dominate headlines at 9 a.m. with the unveiling of its first World Economic Outlook since Trump returned to power. It won’t make pretty reading for the White House. A Golden Age for America: Back on January 17 — about a million political years ago — the IMF was merrily forecasting global growth of 3.3 percent for both 2025 and 2026. Per Reuters, it even raised its annual growth forecast for the United States at that time to 2.7 percent, citing “robust labor markets and accelerating investment.” At that stage, the only cloud on this gloriously sunny horizon was an oblique warning to world leaders that any “intensification of protectionist policies” would damage trade and investment and rock global markets. Whatever could they have meant? Fast-forward three months … and here we are. The S&P 500 has tumbled 14 percent since Trump’s inauguration, the stock market's worst start to a presidency in more than a century, according to an analysis released Monday by Bespoke Investment Group (per Investopedia.) The dollar is down 10 percent since Trump’s inauguration, per WaPo. Pretty much all the damage has been done since “Liberation Day” on April 2. Here’s the WSJ with the big-picture headline the White House will hate: “Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal.” Ouch. History buffs (and “Ferris Bueller” fans) will note 1932 was the year the Smoot–Hawley tariffs began to have their most severe impact, with the Great Depression nearing its peak. (Trump believes the real problem was the lifting of tariffs a couple of years later, FWIW.) Regular reminder: It’s not just the stock markets facing upheaval. Yesterday’s horror show extended, once again, to U.S. bond yields, suggesting a deeper underlying shift in the way the world views the U.S. economy. (See also the tumbling price of the dollar vs. the record-high price of gold.) Plenty of commentators believe the global financial system is changing before our eyes — and not in America’s favor. “Two months into Donald Trump’s second term, the pillars of American financial hegemony — erected over the best part of a century — have rarely looked shakier,” Bloomberg’s Saleha Mohsin and Carter Johnson write. Fed up: This latest round of turbulence appears to have been triggered by Trump’s repeated attacks on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, who he (again) accused yesterday of being too slow to cut interest rates. The WSJ’s Nick Timiraos notes this is a long-standing complaint. “Trump’s critique on Monday didn’t come out of the blue,” he writes. “His advisers have been honing this line of attack for months, arguing that Fed decisions for the past four years weren’t the product of difficult data-driven judgments, but politics.” But but but: That is precisely part of the problem, as POLITICO’s own economics guru Victoria Guida noted yesterday: “Tariffs increased expectations for inflation in the short term, but risks to Fed independence are raising investor fears that there will be no one to credibly fight inflation long term.” Experts quoted in the FT make similar points.“The idea that Powell could be on the way out will definitely put real fear into the market. He’s a voice of sanity, a known quantity,” said Steven Grey, chief investment officer at Grey Value Management. “Trump is unreliable, he cannot be trusted.” And just read this … from the WSJ editorial board: “If the White House wanted a test of how firing Jerome Powell would go over in the markets, it succeeded on Monday. U.S. stocks and the dollar plunged while yields on long-term Treasurys climbed … Mr. Trump thinks he can bully everyone into submission, but he can’t bully Adam Smith, who deals in reality. … All of this is tempting economic fate and contributing to a global ‘sell America’ narrative in financial markets. … markets are spooked because they don’t know if Mr. Trump listens to anyone but his own impulses.” Silver lining: The White House can take solace in the fact IMF economists are not going to predict an outright global recession today. But they will be crystal clear the disruption to trade and investment caused by Trump’s tariffs is behind the economic downgrade. "Disruptions entail costs,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said bluntly in her preview of today’s figures, per Reuters. “Our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession.” Part of the problem … is that there’s little sign of movement so far on the dozens of trade deals Trump promised to sign to alleviate the impact of his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs. It’s now been 11 days since White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told us it was perfectly possible to sign 90 different trade deals during the 90-day reciprocal tariff pause — and so far, there has not been a single one. Seeking to calm the markets this morning is Vice President JD Vance, who was due to make a speech in Jaipur, India, in the past half hour setting out the U.S. and India's “shared economic priorities.” Pulling Trump’s first big trade deal out of the bag would be a decent start. Also seeking to calm investors today will be White House adviser Elon Musk, who faces an awkward call with the moneymen as Tesla unveils its much-anticipated Q1 results. Between the costly trade war Musk’s boss has started with China and the fatal damage done to his own reputation among wealthy liberals, Musk is counting the cost of his foray into frontline politics. Tesla has lost roughly a third of its value since the start of the year. Read it and weep: “Tesla shares fell almost 6 percent on Monday …, as analysts fret over ‘ongoing brand erosion,‘” CNBC’s Lora Kolodny reports. She quotes Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a “longtime Tesla bull,” who is hoping for a “turnaround vision” from Musk on Tuesday’s earnings call. “Tesla has now unfortunately become a political symbol globally of the Trump Administration/DOGE,” he writes. Ives estimates Musk has created 15 to 20 percent “permanent demand destruction for future Tesla buyers due to the brand damage Musk has created.”
| | | | A message from The National Association of REALTORS®: A new survey shows Americans overwhelmingly back real estate provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A massive 91% support preserving homeowner tax incentives like the mortgage interest deduction. 83% back the 20% tax break for small businesses and independent contractors, and 61% favor raising SALT limits. Real estate fuels 18% of U.S. GDP, with each home sale creating two jobs. Support for homeownership is a win for the economy and the middle class. Learn more. | | | | FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Speaking of brand damage: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has a new memo out this morning advising Dems on how to talk about Musk and his DOGE project when trying to win over GOP voters, based on months of market research. (Read the full memo.) It’s clear Dems now see Musk as a political opportunity to pick up votes. All of which means … it’s going to be another difficult day for the White House, and officials are — once again — going to be desperate to talk about just about anything other than the economy. “All of last week,” Jonathan Lemire writes in the Atlantic, “the White House had told staffers to hammer home its messaging about deportations, immigration, even Greenland — really, any issue that could distract from an economy left quaking by Trump’s trade war–inducing tariffs.” So did anyone tell the president? You can imagine those very same staffers banging their heads against the wall yesterday morning as Trump launched his latest social media barrage against Powell — triggering wall-to-wall headlines as well as another Wall Street sell-off. The president managed to steer back on track messaging-wise last night, firing off four Truth Social posts in under two hours focused on illegal migration. Plenty more where that came from: In truth, the chief media proponent of Team Trump’s fiery immigration rhetoric is actually now White House policy guru Stephen Miller, who appears to be on Fox News or NewsNation pretty much every night giving the punchiest of quotes. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has one of her regular televised briefings at 1 p.m. and will also be keen to focus on illegal migration and the perils of D.C.’s “liberal” courts.
| | | | A message from The National Association of REALTORS®:  
A new national survey shows overwhelming support for pro-housing policies in TCJA. Learn More. | | | | COURT IN THE ACT SEEING CRIMSON RED: But the big court story this morning is Harvard University’s decision to sue the White House, in an effort to halt Trump’s plan to cut billions in federal funding. Harvard rejected the Trump administration’s accusations of antisemitism and accused the government of acting on ideological grounds. POLITICO’s Bianca Quilantan has the story, which made a splash on every major news site last night. The suit: In a 51-page filing, Harvard’s lawyers argue that the funding freeze violates the First Amendment by amounting to government interference “with private actors’ speech” in order “to advance its own vision of ideological balance.” The suit further claims the Trump administration “has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen.” The judge assigned the case is an appointee of Barack Obama, per POLITICO’s legal ace Josh Gerstein. More from The Harvard Crimson’s Dhruv Patel and Grace Yoon. IN BETTER NEWS FOR TRUMP: Josh also has the latest on the White House’s efforts to block the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees who had been granted provisional approval to come to the U.S. prior to Jan. 20. Judges ruled the Trump administration can proceed with canceling all but the most pressing refugee cases, such as those where individuals had already packed up their belongings and booked their travel to America. JUDICIARY SQUARE: The Supreme Court will hear arguments today over the role of religion in public schools — and, specifically, “whether parents’ rights to the free exercise of their faiths are burdened if public schools do not allow them to withdraw their children from classes on days that books with gay and transgender characters and themes are discussed,” NYT’s Adam Liptak previews. The books at the center of the controversy were added to Montgomery County Public Schools’ curriculum for pre-k through fifth grade in 2022. What to expect: While lower courts have ruled against the parents and in favor of the school, the high court in recent years has taken an expansionist view of the “role of religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of other values like gay rights,” Liptak notes. Many court-watchers expect that to continue here — even as some legal scholars warn of “broad consequences for the ability of public schools to manage their curriculums.”
| | | | POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2025 MILKEN GLOBAL CONFERENCE:
From May 4–7, California Playbook will deliver exclusive, on-the-ground coverage from the 28th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference. Get behind-the-scenes buzz, standout moments, and insights from leaders in AI, finance, health, philanthropy, geopolitics, and more. Subscribe now for your front-row seat to the conversations shaping our world. | | | | | FOR PETE’S SAKE HEGS FOR BREAKFAST: Under-fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will face the music this morning with a tough TV grilling from *checks notes* his old friends and colleagues on Fox News. Hegseth has been teed up in the 8 a.m. hour on “Fox & Friends” for what you have to imagine will be a penetrating conversation about why he really is the right man to lead the U.S. military. Expect plenty of complaints about the mainstream media for revealing his habit of posting top-secret battle plans in unsecure chat groups, and for interviewing his former staff members to get a sense of life inside the DOD. The latest: POLITICO’s Dasha Burns and colleagues repor t that despite Trump’s vocal backing, Hegseth is not out of the woods yet given his propensity to generate negative headlines. One person close to the White House tells them Trump likes Hegseth’s “vitality and youthfulness,” but could grow tired by the endless distraction. (Another predicts the combustible Hegseth may simply “implode on his own.”) The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire hears much the same, citing grumpy White House officials who blame the first Signalgate scandal for Trump’s recent loss of momentum. And there’s more: Reuters’ Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali report that the latest Signalgate controversy — revelations that Hegseth also shared Yemen attack plans in a separate Signal group which included members of his family — has further eroded top brass’ trust in his ability to do his job. Staff upheaval, part 1: Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kasper is the latest senior DOD official to be moved into a new role, CBS News’ Eleanor Watson and Joe Walsh report. Defense officials say Kasper will now be a special government employee handling “special projects.” The confirmation comes after POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman and Jack Detsch scooped Kasper’s potential move last week. Staff upheaval, part 2: Former Hegseth adviser Dan Caldwell, one of several aides fired last week, said in an interview with Tucker Carlson last night that his unorthodox foreign policy views landed him in hot water with “establishment types” at the DoD. Caldwell accused Pentagon officials of orchestrating leaks, but as POLITICO’s Jack Detsch and Gregory Svirnovskiy write, he’s “still eager to find another job in the Trump administration.”
| | | | A message from The National Association of REALTORS®:  
A new national survey shows overwhelming support for pro-housing policies in TCJA. Learn More. | | | | BEST OF THE REST GORE DROPS THE H-BOMB: Speaking in San Francisco last night, former VP Al Gore likened the Trump administration to Nazi Germany in its attack on “the very heart of the distinction between true and false” and “insisting on trying to create their own preferred version of reality,” POLITICO’s Debra Kahn scooped. “I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich to any other movement,” Gore said. “It was uniquely evil, full stop. I get it. But there are important lessons from the history of that emergent evil.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary are expected to announce a plan to remove petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply today at a 4 p.m. presser. Kennedy has repeatedly pushed for the elimination of dyes in food, claiming they are responsible for behavioral problems in children, NBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. reports. The FDA has not established a link between food dyes and behavioral issues. ON THE CALENDAR: Qatari PM Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff later today. Rubio and other U.S. officials have praised Qatar’s mediator role through the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza. THEY’RE RUNNING: A slew of campaign launches are underway as Washington’s attentions turn to the 2026 election cycle. In Michigan: The race to succeed Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) just got a little more crowded. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) launched her bid this morning in an announcement centering her Michigan bona fides, advocacy for the auto industry and criticizing Trump’s tariffs, POLITICO’s Nick Wu writes. She joins state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed in what is shaping up to be one of 2026’s marquee Democratic primaries. Watch Stevens’ two-minute launch video In Kentucky: Today at 6 p.m., Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) is expected to officially unveil his long-gestating bid to succeed Mitch McConnell in the Senate. He’ll face former state AG Daniel Cameron in the Republican primary. Barr’s Senate bid already has Democrats salivating at the chance to flip Kentucky’s sixth congressional district, as Spectrum’s Austin Schick reports. In California: In what is surely the first gubernatorial ad to play up the candidate’s role in electing a UK prime minister, Steve Hilton — a former Fox News contributor and onetime consiglieri to David Cameron who emigrated to America in the 2010s — entered California’s gubernatorial race by emphasizing his intent to "make California Golden Again.” POLITICO’s Blake Jones has the readout on the rollout. Watch Hilton’s launch video
| | | | Cut through policy complexity and turn intelligence into action with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant—a new suite of tools designed to save you time and demonstrate your impact more easily than ever—available only to Pro subscribers. Save hours, uncover critical insights instantly, and stay ahead of the next big shift. Power your strategy today—learn more. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Pete Hegseth’s sartorial choices got an absolute pasting from social media menswear guru Derek Guy. Brutal. BOOK CLUB — Dana Perino, Fox News commentator and former White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, is out with a new career and life advice book today called “I Wish Someone Had Told Me” ($29). FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Dylan Douglas is now the full-time host of “Young American with Dylan Douglas” on SiriusXM Progress. Douglas’ return follows a limited run of the show last year focused on Gen-Z issues ahead of the 2024 election. TRANSITIONS — Drew Maloney will be the next president and CEO of Edison Electric Institute, Axios’ Hans Nichols scooped. He’s currently president and CEO of the American Investment Council. … Tom West is now senior professional staff member leading on Asia and economic statecraft for the Senate Foreign Relations Dems and ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). He previously was special representative for Afghanistan in the Biden State Department. … Jeremy Green is joining McGuireWoods Consulting’s federal public affairs team as a VP. He previously was federal legislative representative for the National Association of Realtors. … … Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs announced senior staff for her reelection campaign: Nicole DeMont as campaign manager, Hannah Fishman as deputy campaign manager, Isaac Lampner as finance director, Juan Hinojos Zapien as senior political adviser, Kayleigh McCormick as operations director, Maddy Pritzl as digital director and Michael Beyer as comms director. … Stephanie Mull has been named executive director of the Tire Recycling Foundation. She most recently was sustainability senior manager at PepsiCo. … India Gupta has been named deputy managing director at KM Strategies Group. She most recently was chief strategy officer at Unlocking Communities. ENGAGED — Andrew Howard, a politics reporter at POLITICO, and Madison Walker, a certified child life specialist at Children's National Hospital, got engaged on Friday at Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park on the coast of Maine. The two met at a high school dance in 2015. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) … Marathon Strategies’ Allie Peck … NYT’s Helene Cooper and Elisabeth Goodridge … CNN’s Arlette Saenz … Don Graham … Alondra Nelson … POLITICO’s Dana Nickel and Lauren DeCarlo … Semafor’s Elana Schor … Axios’ Eugene Scott … WaPo’s Sari Horwitz … Joe Pounder of Bullpen Strategy Group … James Kvaal … Matt Korade … Christopher Jennison ... Sarah Hunt of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy … Patrick Rucker … Wade Henderson … Ted Ellis of the Center for Industrial Progress … Stars and Stripes’ Bob Reid … Allegra Kirkland … Anastasia Dellaccio ... SKDK’s Josh Dorner … former Reps. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) and Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) ... Dahlia Lithwick ... NewsNation’s Rob Yarin … Andrea LaRue ... Chung Seto … Julie Whiston … Yasmina Vinci of the National Head Start Association … MSNBC’s Natalie Munio … Mark Braden … Glenn Simpson ... Brian Forde … Gaurav Agrawal … Mitch Vakerics of Veritas Health Policy … Andrew Taverrite … Rob Hotakainen 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.
| | | | A message from The National Association of REALTORS®: A new survey shows Americans overwhelmingly back key real estate provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—policies that expand homeownership and drive our economy. A whopping 91% support preserving homeowner tax incentives like the mortgage interest deduction. 83% back the 20% tax break for small businesses and independent contractors. And 61% want to see SALT deduction limits increased.
Homeownership is the main way Americans build wealth, with a homeowner's net worth 40 times that of a renter. But with a 4.7 million home shortage, millions of middle-class Americans are locked out of the American Dream.
NAR supports bold, pro-housing policies like fixing the home equity penalty, converting empty commercial spaces into homes, attracting private investment, and cutting red tape.
Real estate powers 18% of U.S. GDP, and every home sale creates two jobs. Let's expand supply, fuel growth, and build a new age of prosperity through homeownership. Learn more. | | | | | | | | Follow us on X | | | | 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 | | | |
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