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By Ali Bianco |
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With help from Eli Okun and Irie Sentner Good Sunday afternoon. This is Ali Bianco, in the driver’s seat today. Our thoughts and prayers are with the late senator’s family and friends this morning. Let’s dive in — get in touch.
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DRIVING THE DAY |
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) died at 71 last night after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office announced. | David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images |
The abrupt and unforeseen death of Lindsey Graham late Saturday stunned Capitol Hill. Lawmakers reeling at the loss of a friend and colleague will likely see their grief compounded by the crunch of the critical legislative window facing Congress just months out from contentious midterm elections. The paragon of South Carolina politics, hawk among hawks and stalwart on some of the Senate’s most-powerful committees died at 71 last night after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office announced, sending shockwaves from the beltway to the Palmetto State. Graham reportedly experienced “chest pains” and emergency services responded to his house on Capitol Hill at 8:27 p.m. last night. President Donald Trump was among the first to publicly mourn Graham, one of the president’s fiercest allies on the Hill and one of the biggest foreign policy voices influencing the administration. Trump called Graham “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” in a post on Truth Social at 3:21 a.m. “He was able to deal with Democrats,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” honoring Graham on the Sunday circuit where the senator was a regular — and was set to appear this morning. “If I had a problem, a real problem, I wouldn't often ask. But if I had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out. He was a great politician actually.” Trump also dialed into CNN’s “State of the Union” and said he spoke with Graham just yesterday evening, when they talked about the SAVE America Act. POLITICO’s John Harris writes in to Playbook on Graham’s legacy, which he notes is “as a kind of human bridge — between different eras in Washington and, even more starkly, between different worldviews within the Republican Party. Plenty of Republicans of Graham's ideological and partisan instincts have sullenly come to terms with Trump and the power of his movement. But he was almost alone in doing so with such exuberance — and with scant evidence that this accommodation was a personally or morally anguishing endeavor.” “His political calculation was clear: by humoring Trump and deferring to him he would have far more influence on the issues he cares about than people like Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney, who regarded Trump with futile indignation,” Harris writes. TROUBLE FOR THE SENATE: Graham’s death comes at a perilous time for Senate Republicans facing a long list of legislative priorities pushed by the president with just a few weeks before the August recess. GOP leaders will have to contend with even tighter margins, with ailing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still out of commission and no indication of when he’ll return to vote on the Senate floor, POLITICO’s Katherine Tully McManus writes. The majority stands at 52-47. The most immediate impact will be on display Wednesday, when acting AG Todd Blanche heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing. Republicans were banking on Graham, a key member of the panel, casting a crucial vote to push Blanche’s confirmation forward. Now, even one Republican defection could derail the entire process, raising the stakes for Blanche and the White House to get previous defectors like Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on board. Graham’s absence will also have implications for the conflict with Iran, as the fragile ceasefire collapses and fighting in the region reignites. Graham’s hawkishness on the Middle East had few equals in the Senate. “I'm in a state of shock,” Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on “Meet the Press.” “Israel has lost one of the great champions of the American-Israeli alliance.” Senators backing Trump’s authority to wage the campaign without congressional approval will be down both a critical vote and voice to beat back Iran war powers resolutions from Democrats, who told Playbook yesterday that pushing back on the war will be a key priority over the next few weeks.
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The Senate is also set to take up the NDAA, the annual defense policy bill that recently set lawmakers at loggerheads over funding levels, and which some Democrats already indicated they’ll oppose. That’s on top of the Iran war funding supplemental the administration has been pushing for, with support from Graham, that could come to a head over the next few weeks as lawmakers grapple with the diminishing window for a third reconciliation bill. Senate GOP leaders will also need to appoint a new Senate Budget Committee chair, which oversees the party-line reconciliation process. Graham led the committee — and successfully worked through the party’s infighting — for both the GOP’s marquee “Working Families Tax Cuts” and more recent effort to fund immigration enforcement agencies for the next three years. As a member of the Appropriations committee, he was also a key part of discussions to fund the government ahead of the September deadline. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will feel the loss of an ally that forcefully pushed back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Graham was in Kyiv on Friday to advocate for further sanctions against Russia. Zelenskyy said in a statement he’s “deeply saddened” by Graham’s death. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) already called for the chamber to pass stricter Russia sanctions in memory of Graham. IN THE PALMETTO STATE: Graham’s death has already kicked off a frenzy over who will succeed him in the short term and beyond. Graham, who was up for reelection this year, will be replaced on the ballot via a special primary election on Aug. 11, and a runoff if necessary on Aug. 25, POLITICO’s Alec Hernandez writes. The Republican nominee will then face Democrat Annie Andrews in November. Before the primary, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has the power to appoint someone to fill Graham’s seat until January. That could either put a seat-warmer in place, or give one of the interested candidates a boost ahead of the election. Among the top options is Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who Trump previously backed in her failed bid for the governor’s mansion earlier this year. A spokesperson for Evette didn’t respond to a request for comment. Graham’s primary challenger, Mark Lynch, is mulling another bid, per his spokesperson. Republicans are floating Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) as a possible candidate. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) ruled out filling Graham’s seat for the remainder of the term in a post on X. That’s likely to soothe anxiety among some House GOP members, who already are pressing Republicans involved in the conversations to replace Graham to steer clear of House Republicans lest they eat into the chamber’s already razor-thin majority, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who finished fifth in her bid for the governor’s seat, is seriously considering a run and plans to begin polling her exploratory bid this week, Alec scoops. Trump allies believe they’ll be able to again block Mace, per Meredith. Trump said on NBC this morning he has “somebody that I think would be great” to replace Graham. “But I don't want to say it now because, you know, it's too soon with Lindsey. I don't want to even talk about anybody. But I do have somebody that I think is really good.” He also noted he has a good relationship with McMaster. Graham’s successor will be an indication of whether similarly hawkish conservatives or more MAGA-fied, anti-establishment candidates will be better-positioned to join the Senate’s ranks next year. McMaster ordered flags to fly at half-staff in honor of Graham and “his extraordinary legacy and lifetime of dedicated service.” The flag atop the White House is also at half-staff today.
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5 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. THE MAINE LINE: Maine Democrats’ quixotic contest to select a new Senate candidate is off to a quieter start, Alec writes in from the trail in Vacationland. At least eight candidates have announced bids since Graham Platner ended his campaign, but only one held an advertised public campaign event on Saturday: Maine’s former top public health official and former gubernatorial candidate Nirav Shah. His town hall in Freeport — in the southern, vote-rich stretches of the state — looked and felt like a regular campaign event. But his plea to voters was different from a normal campaign before a normal Election Day. “What I am asking you for is for your time in service of our democracy,” Shah told the crowd of about 200 Maine voters. “Sign up, not with us, but with the Maine Democratic Party — which we can facilitate — to either serve as someone who will select the delegates or for yourself to be a delegate.” The Maine Democratic Party requires candidates to gather 500 signatures to qualify for the nominating convention, where 600 delegates will decide which candidate will take Platner’s place on Mainers’ ballots. Late Saturday night, several hours after Shah’s event, party officials released the uniform procedure for how and when county-level Democrats will select their delegates to send to Bangor later this month. Shah has called for an open, transparent and robust process, and he’s satisfied with what he’s seen so far from party officials. “What we are still waiting to see is what the county level selection process will look like. That will actually, I think, be more determinative to the actual eventual outcome,” he told POLITICO in an interview after the event. The campaign collected over 200 signatures at the event, according to Kaiti Lewis, a Shah aide. First in Playbook: The Anti-Defamation League today is running a full-page ad in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Portland Press Herald’s Sunday newspaper and the largest one in the state. The ad calls out Democratic leaders for not paying enough attention to Platner’s Nazi tattoo, and the group is also issuing an open letter to national and state political leaders of both parties, urging them to take action earlier when antisemitism crops up in campaigns. See the ad … The open letter 2. KASH FLOW: The White House ordered FBI Director Kash Patel to oversee the investigation into NYT reporting on security issues around the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One, NYT’s Devlin Barrett and colleagues report. “Patel scuttled a planned trip to Chicago and spent roughly eight hours at the White House on Friday, running the investigation from there rather than F.B.I. headquarters — a major departure from historical practice. Mr. Patel also briefed senior administration officials on the investigation.” What the FBI is saying: FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson told the NYT “Director Patel and White House officials agreed to meet on Friday at the White House to brief an ongoing matter. While we would not comment further, other speculative reporting regarding the nature of the meeting is absolutely false.” Meanwhile: Two FBI analysts in Atlanta were fired after refusing to cooperate with Trump’s probe into Georgia’s 2020 election results, which they told colleagues in the FBI they did not believe was justified, MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian reports. |
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3. TAR HEEL TROUBLE: Republicans are worried about GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley and are urging Washington to send in the cavalry, POLITICO’s Liz Crampton reports. Whatley, the former RNC chair, is lagging far behind Roy Cooper, the prized Dem recruit and popular former governor, in polls and cash. “Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists. A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID.” 4. CARTE BLANCHE: Blanche is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the top lawyers who’ve represented Trump and landed high profile roles in the administration, POLITICO’s Erica Orden reports. Also down the pipe this week will be Jay Clayton’s nomination for DNI, elevating the 20-year career lawyer from Sullivan & Cromwell. He’s one of a slew of Sullivan lawyers that have been elevated to high-profile roles on appeals courts or U.S. attorney offices. 5. 2028 WATCH: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is headed to South Carolina, Georgia and Nevada over the next week and a half as a surrogate for candidates up and down the ballot, Playbook’s Adam Wren scoops. In South Carolina, Moore will be in Charleston, Columbia and Florence for meet and greets, as well as stumping for Rep. Jim Clyburn, the South Carolina Democratic Party and local candidates across the state. In Nevada, Moore will campaign for state AG Aaron Ford and attend the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. 72nd Boule Awards Dinner. In Georgia, Moore will hit the trail for Keisha Lance Bottoms’ gubernatorial campaign, as well as several local leaders in the Atlanta area at a canvas launch hosted by the Georgia Democratic Party and a meet and greet. Moore will also campaign for Sen. Jon Ossoff's reelection campaign. Asked whether that campaign stop could feature a preview of the 2028 presidential ticket, Moore said: “That’s a pretty good ticket.”
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Watch the Season 2 premiere of On the Road Season 2 is here. Jonathan Martin kicks things off in North Dakota with Doug Burgum, Kelly Armstrong and Kevin Cramer for a conversation on Trump, Teddy Roosevelt, the future of the GOP and why state leaders are betting big on a new presidential library during America’s 250th anniversary year.
Watch the first episode now. |
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — “Inside the $7.5 million plan to bring a members-only club to Rock Creek Park,” by WaPo’s Sophia Solano: “In a city with no shortage of new social clubs, this one isn’t meant for networking, its founders said. The goal is to create a hub for Rock Creek Park, with a pool, tennis courts, fitness facilities, co-working spaces and a cafe. It will be open to about 250 members at a cost of $400 or $500 per month, plus a tentative $12,500 initiation fee.” PLAYBOOK ARTS SECTION — “A chill at the Smithsonian after White House alleges ‘political activism,’” by WaPo’s Elahe Izadi and colleagues: “The report, which accused the NMAH of pushing ‘extreme political activism,’ was traded among staff via text threads over the weekend, and Smithsonian leadership, which did not directly receive the report, saw it online … Later that day, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III sent a memo to staff disputing the report, writing ‘there will always be room for improvement’ but it is ‘not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History.’” OUT AND ABOUT — Eli Yokley celebrated his 34th birthday at Garden District last night, co-hosted with Evan Hollander. SPOTTED: Jonathan Martin, Josh Dawsey, Jeff Zeleny, John McCarthy, Kate Sullivan, Liz Johnson, Betsy Klein and Jeff Solnet, Ellie Warner, Matt Leffingwell, Chris Bien and Katherine Sears, Lauren Gillis, Joanna Piacenza and Cameron Easley, Jeff Marootian, Justin Chermol, Will Mascaro and Kevin Norton, Mark McDevitt, Lauren Weber, Michael Kikukawa, Alex Thiessen, Sam Wright, Eli Aguayo and Tyler Lewis. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Francesca Fabiani, an attorney at Tarpine, Heller & Pendergrass, and Christopher Gahan, VP of government relations at Northwestern Mutual, welcomed Siena James Gahan on July 8. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Playbook’s own Adam Wren … Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) … Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) … OMB Deputy Director and acting USAID Administrator Eric Ueland … National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross … CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Eden Getachew … Jabin Botsford … Telos’ Ryan Lizza … former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) … Kate Childs Graham … former FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel … DNC’s McKinley Lettre … Mary Walsh … Bank of America’s Adam Elias … Bloomberg’s Kayla Sharpe … Brendan Daly and Matt Daly … Ryan Bock … Ansley (Schoen) Deatherage of DOD … Teresa Buckley Bill … Fox News’ Bryan Llenas … Brian Schoeneman … former Reps. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) and J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) … Jael Holzman … Jess Vaughn of Rep. Seth Magaziner’s (D-R.I.) office … Erica Jedynak … POLITICO’s Karsyn Lemmons and Mary Riley … Rohini Kosoglu … Seton Motley … Malala Yousafzai … A.H. Levy’s Alex Levy … VoteHub’s Garrett Herrin 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 editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross.
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