| | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS WATCH: Federal judge James Boasberg said today there was probable cause to find Trump administration officials in criminal contempt of court for flouting his order to stop sending deportees to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg said the government had shown “willful disregard” for the court. The judge also warned that if the Justice Department refused to prosecute people for contempt here, he would tap a prosecutor to do so. The latest from POLITICO’s Hassan Ali Kanu, Erica Orden and Josh Gerstein
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President Donald Trump is ramping up trade negotiations, as California becomes the first state to sue over tariffs. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images | TRADING PLACES: Trade negotiations and legal fights over President Donald Trump’s major protectionist policy regime are ramping up, from Washington to Sacramento to Beijing. Let’s make a deal: In a surprise, Trump announced that he’ll join talks with Japanese negotiators today, along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Notably, though Tokyo wanted to confine negotiations to trade and investments, Trump also highlighted “the cost of military support” as an issue on the table. The president’s personal involvement reflects the White House’s intense focus on striking deals. The big-picture strategy: The White House wants to strike agreements with Asian countries to isolate China — and thereby force it to come to the negotiating table with the U.S., POLITICO’s Megan Messerly, Ari Hawkins, Phelim Kine and Felicia Schwartz report. Trump’s hope is that tariffs and a wave of manufacturing investment announcements in the U.S. will pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping to call. But even Trump allies aren’t sure whether this strategy will work. Bloomberg has new reporting on the thinking inside Beijing: China likely won’t agree to talks until several conditions are met. Those include the U.S. tapping a point person, becoming more consistent in its position, hemming in “disrespectful” Cabinet members and discussing American sanctions and Taiwan. More talks coming: With Europe struggling to break through to Trump, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Washington tomorrow will test whether she can make progress for both her country and the EU writ large, NYT’s Emma Bubola and Jeanna Smialek preview. Mexico, meanwhile, faces a conundrum: It’s so dependent on the U.S. for natural gas that some Mexicans worry Trump could use that to pressure President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, NYT’s Simon Romero reports from Mexico City. In the courts: California today became the first state to sue over Trump’s tariffs, POLITICO’s Tyler Katzenberger reports from Sacramento. The legal argument from Gov. Gavin Newsom and AG Rob Bonta — their “most direct legal challenge” to Trump yet, and one filed without other states — is that Trump doesn’t have the authority to use the International Economic Emergency Powers Act for tariffs without Congress’ approval. Economic fallout: The World Trade Organization said today that the world’s outlook for commerce this year is crumbling, with North American exports expected to plunge 12.6 percent, per CNBC. And as NYT’s Patricia Cohen reports, Trump’s remaining 10 percent universal tariffs are still an extreme level of protectionism relative to recent history. 2026 WATCH: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is considering a campaign for New York governor, NBC’s Melanie Zanona and Alexandra Marquez scooped. That would be a new path to higher office after her nomination as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. was pulled, and she’s since returned to House leadership. It could be an uphill bid in fairly blue New York, and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) has also been weighing a gubernatorial run. But incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has middling approval ratings. Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Chances are your insurer and PBM are owned by the same big health care company. They also own big chain pharmacies – and are even buying doctors' offices. When middlemen own it all, you lose. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. See how. | | | | | | 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. PAGING JEREMY LEWIN: “A ship full of lifesaving wheat is sailing towards Yemen. When it arrives next month, it may rot or be pillaged,” by CNN’s MJ Lee: “[T]here will be no one authorized to receive the wheat, store it and ensure that it gets distributed to the people of southern Yemen, many of whom are in desperate need for food. Barring an intervention by the Trump administration, the wheat will likely rot at the port or be pillaged. … [It’s] the direct result of the stunning decimation of the US Agency for International Development … Unless those contracts were to be reinstated, the [U.N. World Food Programme] does not have authority – let alone the funding – to do anything with the wheat that is set to arrive in Yemen next month.” 2. FOR YOUR RADAR: The Justice Department announced that it will sue the Maine Education Department for not barring transgender girls from girls’ sports, per the Portland Press Herald’s Randy Billings. AG Pam Bondi accused the state of violating anti-discrimination law protecting women, and the administration is seeking to choke off some federal funding to the state. Maine argues that the administration is misinterpreting Title IX. Gov. Janet Mills called the lawsuit “an unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.” Both Bondi and Mills warned that more states will be targeted next. 3. BLUE SLIPS: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is refusing to sign off on two New York U.S. attorney nominations of Jay Clayton and Joseph Nocella Jr., NYT’s Carl Hulse reports. Schumer said he couldn’t abide Trump’s weaponization of law enforcement and attacks on the rule of law. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says he plans to stick with the chamber’s blue-slip tradition, under which home-state senators have to OK many judicial and prosecutorial nominations. That means these two could be in trouble. 4. SPEAKING OF FEDERAL PROSECUTORS: “Trump’s D.C. U.S. attorney pick appeared on Russian state media over 150 times,” by WaPo’s Spencer Hsu and Aaron Schaffer: “[A]s a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, [Ed Martin] appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024 … Martin did not disclose the appearances last month on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, which asks nominees to list all media interviews.” 5. KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA FALLOUT: As Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) landed in El Salvador today to check on the wrongly deported Salvadoran from Maryland, Bondi insisted Abrego Garcia is “not coming back to our country” and would be quickly deported — legally this time — if he returns, per CNN. Meanwhile, experts tell NYT’s Annie Correal what was obvious to many observers: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s claim that he lacks the power to return Abrego Garcia from his legal black hole holds no water. More immigration news: Despite the Trump administration claiming that it’s sending only the worst criminals to Guantánamo Bay, CBS’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez scooped that a DHS-Pentagon agreement actually allows non-criminal migrants to be sent there.
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| | | | | 6. UKRAINE LATEST: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff are heading to Paris today for meetings with French leaders about the war in Ukraine, along with Iran and trade questions, POLITICO’s Clea Caulcutt reports. Russia is expected today to end its monthlong energy infrastructure ceasefire with Ukraine, which back in March Trump had hoped would be a prelude to ending the war, per WaPo’s Robyn Dixon. 7. THE ART OF THE DEAL: “Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them,” by NYT’s Michael Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Ben Protess and William Rashbaum: “[N]ow that nine firms have agreed to deals and committed to nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal work, some Trump advisers have started having discussions about a range of options for what the firms’ lawyers can be deployed to work on … White House officials believe that some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations … “It is also not clear how hard and how far Mr. Trump will push the notion that those deals now leave many of the nation’s biggest, most prestigious and best-resourced firms at his beck and call. … But the emerging gap between what the firms initially thought they agreed to and what Mr. Trump says they can be used for shows how the deals did little to insulate them from his whims.” 8. MUSK READ: Trump himself was the one who blocked Elon Musk from attending a top-secret Pentagon briefing about China last month, Axios’ Marc Caputo reports. Potentially concerned about Musk’s conflicts of interest, the president reportedly said, “What the fuck is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go.” 9. A WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL: “Trump Admin Plans Overhaul of Endangered Species Act,” by RealClearPolitics’ Philip Wegmann: “Sweeping change would follow from redefining a single word: harm. While the plain text of the Nixon-era law prohibits the harming of endangered species, regulatory agencies have taken an expansive view that also prohibits modifying or degrading habitats where wildlife resides. … [N]ow the administration intends to define ‘harm’ as an attempt to ‘take’ an endangered species, that is, ‘to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect’ the animal itself.”
| | | | A message from PhRMA:  
Insurers own PBMs, pharmacies – even doctors' offices. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | CLICKER — Time put out its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Among the notable inclusions: President Donald Trump, VP JD Vance, Elon Musk, OMB Director Russ Vought, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Muir, Anthony Romero, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg, Jonathan Greenblatt and Skye Perryman. THE GILDED AGE — “How Trump and His ‘Gold Guy’ Are Redecorating the White House,” by WSJ’s Meridith McGraw, Josh Dawsey and Julie Wernau: “The White House asked that Trump’s portrait, along with Vice President’s JD Vance’s, be printed with a golden border that would catch the light … A cabinetmaker from south Florida who has worked on projects at Mar-a-Lago, John Icart helped add custom-made gold finishes to the Oval Office.” OUT AND ABOUT — National Geographic hosted a screening of the new series “Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America” last night at the National Press Club, marking the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attack. Martha Raddatz moderated a panel with director Ceri Isfryn and contributor Robin Marsh. Also SPOTTED: Alex Isenstadt, Brittany Gibson, Hugo Lowell, John Yang, Kristen Eskow, Sumi Somaskanda, Laurie Collins, Gianluca Nigro and Perrin Brown. TRANSITIONS — Alex Monié is now senior adviser for legislative affairs at the Treasury Department. He previously was senior director of tax policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, and is an Akin Gump and Senate Finance alum. … Matt Schuck is joining Firehouse Strategies as an SVP, working in strategic comms and targeted persuasion campaigns. He most recently was director of comms and senior governmental affairs officer at the Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. … Cody Sargent has rejoined the Heritage Foundation as director of media and public relations. He previously was at Govini. … … Ben Watson has joined The Southern Group’s federal arm, TSG Advocates. He previously was a state director for the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential campaign. … Katie Wright is joining the Herald Group as VP, leading its energy practice. She previously was at DDC. … Sourav Bhowmick is now director and head of U.S. and North America in Global Counsel’s global investor services practice. He most recently was a senior adviser at the Treasury Department. 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.
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