JINGLE ALL THE WAY: As the holidays grow closer, President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda is under an increasingly bright spotlight, and a few story threads today could ring some not-so-festive bells for Republicans. The economy, stupid: Despite the White House’s recent scramble to assuage voters’ growing affordability concerns and the president giving himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” on the economy in an interview with POLITICO, Trump’s handling of the economy has hit a new low, according to new AP-NORC polling. Only 31 percent of U.S. adults now approve of how the president is handling the economy — down from 40 percent in March. The latest number marks the lowest economic approval Trump has registered in an AP-NORC poll across both of his terms. And that’s not all: The president’s approval ratings on other key issues are also down. Both Trump’s handling of crime and immigration have dipped around 10 points since March. On health care, Trump’s approval dropped to 29 percent, down from 34 percent last month — a dip mostly driven by Republicans. “In November, 68% of Republicans had a positive view of Trump’s handling of health care. Now, while still a majority, it is down to 59%.” Still, there are some silver linings in the data for the White House. Border security remains the issue that Trump receives the highest mark on, holding at 50 percent approval. And while the president's overall approval remains very low at 36 percent, it hasn’t dropped significantly since the 42 percent approval that he held in March. “That signals that even if some people aren’t happy with elements of his approach, they might not be ready to say he’s doing a bad job as president. And while discontent is increasing among Republicans on certain issues, they’re largely still behind him,” AP’s Linley Sanders and Will Weissert write. And the old guard remains: Ahead of next year’s midterms, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests that Republicans hold a greater advantage with older voters, who “may be less swayed by the kind of cost-of-living issues that have animated recent Democratic campaigns,” Reuters’ Jason Lange and James Oliphant write. The survey found that 46 percent of voters aged 50 and older said they planned to vote for the Republican running in their congressional district, while 38 percent said they would vote Democrat. The history: “The strong Republican lead marks a significant change from past midterm election cycles,” per Reuters. “In December 2021 - ahead of the last midterm elections - older voters favored Republicans by only a single point - 43% to 42%. In the same month ahead of the 2018 election, when Democrats ended up winning the House, they had a small lead among older Americans age 50 and up, 40% to 38%.” ON IMMIGRATION: In a major blow to Trump’s mass deportation agenda, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis today ruled today that the Trump administration must release Kilmar Abrego Garcia, “concluding that the Salvadoran man has been illegally held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for months without the legal authority to deport him,” POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney reports. Xinis noted that ICE repeatedly failed to provide the “final order of removal” required for deportation, and “without it … Abrego cannot be legally detained.” In response to the ruling, assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin characterized Xinis’ decision as “naked judicial activism” by a Democrat-appointed judge, writing on X that the administration will “continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.” Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at birvine@politico.com.
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1. WHAT’S NEXT? The Senate rejected two separate partisan health care bills today, effectively ensuring that nearly 20 million Americans who rely on the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies will see the subsidies lapse in the new year, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports. Neither a Democrat-led bill extending the ACA subsidies or a GOP alternative to expand health savings accounts gained enough support to cross the 60-vote threshold today, and both votes “went largely, but not entirely, along party lines,” Jordain notes. Message, not material: “Senators have widely acknowledged for weeks that the votes were aimed more at messaging than forcing through passable bipartisan compromise,” though a Senate deal was still “likely Congress’ best shot at preventing the subsidies from lapsing,” Jordain reports. So what now? Lawmakers are essentially out of time to do anything before the calendar turns over. Ahead of the doomed votes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) struck a somewhat optimistic tone, though: “I guess we have to demonstrate our failures first before we can apply our successes,” Murkowski told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. Murkowski added that “there could still be a light at the end of the tunnel, citing overlapping ideas in the various plans floating through Congress. She said lawmakers need to just take pieces of each and then ‘cobble [them] together into one package that makes sense.’” And in the House: Though there are two bipartisan proposals for shorter ACA extensions circulating in the chamber, Republican leaders “have no plans at the moment to put a subsidy extension up for a vote before adjourning for the year next week,” Jordain writes. 2. TRADING SPACES: The Commerce Department released new data today revealing that Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda weighed heavily on trade in September, with imports growing just 0.6 percent from August to $342.1 billion, while exports ticked up to 3 percent. The total trade deficit dropped from the $59.3 billion revised total in August “to $52.8 billion in September, as exports increased more than imports,” according to the report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The shrinking deficit may be what the White House is aiming for, but “in 2025 so far, it has still grown by more than 17 percent from the previous year, because of the aggressive buying that businesses did to bring goods into the United States ahead of tariffs coming into effect,” NYT’s Ana Swanson reports. And lest you forget: Sweeping changes could come in the next few weeks when the Supreme Court hands down a ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariff authority. Still, the White House has said “they would use other authorities to impose duties on imports” if existing tariffs are overturned. 3. ON THE JOBS: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits ticked up last week, though the latest figures “remain in the same historically healthy range of the past few years despite growing concern over the health of the labor market,” AP’s Matt Ott reports. The weekly figures previously jumped to 236,000 in the first week of December from the previous week’s 192,000, “more than analysts’ forecast of 213,000 new applications,” per AP. “For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a ‘low-hire, low-fire’ state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low.”
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SIGN OF THE TIMES — Time magazine named “The Architects of AI” as its 2025 Person of the Year, from OpenAI to Nvidia and beyond. “[T]he risk-averse are no longer in the driver’s seat,” Charlie Campbell and colleagues write. “Thanks to [Jensen] Huang, [Masayoshi] Son, [Sam] Altman, and other AI titans, humanity is now flying down the highway, all gas no brakes, toward a highly automated and highly uncertain future.” BOOK CLUBBED — “Journalist Olivia Nuzzi’s new book ‘American Canto’ sold only 1,165 hardcover copies in its first week on the shelves, according to new data compiled by tracker NPDBookScan,” POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman reports. One publishing industry insider granted anonymity to speak candidly called it a “publishing debacle of epic proportions” and said that given Nuzzi’s earlier reputation, the sales expectation would be at least 5,000 hardcover copies in its first week. (BookScan data captures around 70 percent of hardcover sales and does not track e-book and audio uploads.) A person close to Nuzzi said the book “had a respectable first week,” and Nuzzi referred a request for comment to her publisher, Simon and Schuster. A spokesperson for the publisher declined to comment. IN MEMORIAM — Newtown Action Alliance and various partners organized a vigil last night in remembrance of the 13th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Sunday, which was attended by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, David Hogg, Po Murray, Hudson Munoz, Jaclyn Corin, Adzi Vokhiwa, Brenda Joiner, Michele Morgan and Angela Ferrell-Zabala. OUT AND ABOUT — Meridian International Center hosted its annual “Holliday” party yesterday honoring outgoing CEO Stuart Holliday and the leadership of the 57th Annual Meridian Ball. SPOTTED: Ecuadorian Ambassador Pablo Zambrano Albuja, Liechtenstein Ambassador Georg Sparber, Monaco Ambassador Maguy Maccario-Doyle, Spanish Ambassador Ángeles Moreno Bau, Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), Ana Irene Delgado, Gwen Holliday, Deborah Lehr, John Delaney, Dina Powell McCormick, Glenn Nye, Sarah Perot, Paolo Zampolli, Lee Satterfield, John Negroponte, Mary Streett, Susanna Quinn, Heather Nauert, Jim Sciutto, Jim Acosta, Liz Landers and Mark D. Sikes. — The Aspen Strategy Group held its annual Aspen Security Forum: DC Edition at its D.C. offices yesterday. SPOTTED: Radmila Shekerinska, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), Rep. John Moolenaar R-Mich.), Kersti Kaljulaid, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, Stephen Biegun, retired Gen. David Berger, Mike Pillsbury, Anja Manuel, Charlie Dent, Elliot Gerson, Stephen Hadley, David Sanger, Jim Sciutto, Demetri Sevastopulo, Jane Harman, Niamh King, Kori Schake, Kiron Skinner, Nick Schifrin, Peter Spiegel, Matthew Continetti, Susan Glasser, Anne Neuberger, Rob Joyce, Chris Krebs, Leah Bitounis and Ilana Drimmer. — SPOTTED last night at the BGR holiday party at the National Portrait Gallery, featuring White Ford Bronco: Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Reps. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), Chuy García (D-Ill.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), Mark Messmer (R-Ind.), Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), Mark Alford (R-Mo.), John Joyce (R-Pa.), Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.), Matt Van Epps (R-Tenn.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Norma Torres (D-Calif.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), John Mannion (D-N.Y.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.), Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Dave Taylor (R-Ohio). — The Aspen Institute’s Philosophy and Society program hosted a holiday party last night at Reynold’s Bar, including a debate between Osita Nwanevu and Sam Goldman, led by Samuel Kimbriel. SPOTTED: Shadi Hamid, Luis Parrales, Hamid Bendaas, Mustafa and Riada Akyol, Damir Marusic, Christine Emba, Daphne Banks, Kelly Chapman, Emma Collins, Sean Doolan, Hannah Rosenthal, Kristina Saccone, Aaron Sibarium, Michael Wear, Michael Purzycki, Mana Afsari, Melissa Flashman and Alexandra Hudson. — SPOTTED at the Entergy holiday party last night atop 101 Constitution: Drew Marsh, Kimberly Fontan, John Hudson, Kimberly Cook-Nelson, John Dinelli, Haley Fisackerly, Reps. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Mike Ezell (R-Miss.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), Bill Briggs, Willie Phillips, Drew Maloney, Kiel Weaver, Bob Powers, Jeff Strunk, Rachel Miller, Frank Steinberg, Rick Murphy, Rhod Shaw, Jason Schendle, Bruce Evans, Adam Ingols, Amos Snead, Brian Kelly, Jen Olson, Jonathon Jones, Sean Richardson, Jordan Downs, Wayne Williams, Chrissy Harbin, Chris Cox, Shane Waller, Vincent Evans, Rob Hall, Cory Horton, Ben Portis, Monica Didiuk, Alex Washington and Sean Finnerty. — SPOTTED at the VoteVets holiday party/end-of-quarter reception last night at the Duck and the Peach: Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), Herb Conaway (D-N.J.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), Derek Tran (D-Calif.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.). TRANSITIONS — Elise Phillips is now U.S. public policy and government relations manager at Mozilla. She previously worked at Public Knowledge. … Burson has added Bruce Haynes as U.S. head of public affairs and Randy DeCleene and Eric Watnik as EVPs. … Antoine Brunson is now a state policy analyst at the Software & Information Industry Association. He previously worked at the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our deputy editor Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook PM misstated the title of the event that the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition hosted at the Omni Shoreham on Tuesday night. It was the “Tribute to Partnership & Impact.”
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