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By Irie Sentner |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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Ken Paxton, Texas senatorial candidate, speaks at the Republican convention in Dallas, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. | AP/Tony Gutierrez |
President Donald Trump has demanded total fealty from his party since taking over as its standardbearer. Republicans in tough races across the map are increasingly breaking with him anyway. Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued GOP Senate nominee in Texas running in a surprisingly tight contest against Democrat James Talarico, told a group of conservative donors last week that Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas wasn’t the boost that some hoped it would be, NYT’s Teddy Schleifer scooped. “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” someone asked Paxton. “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good,” Paxton said during a private fundraiser in Washington, according to audio of the event published by the Times, which Playbook has not independently verified. Paxton is pushing back, insisting he’s still aligned with Trump and injecting even more money into one of the most expensive races on the map. The Paxton campaign this week is launching a new, $20 million ad buy across Texas, Playbook’s Dasha Burns and POLITICO’s Cheyanne Daniels report. The ad — which will begin running Friday in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio before expanding statewide — is one of the largest single media investments in a Texas Senate race. And he’s slamming the NYT report. “The New York Times has been trying to drive wedges between President Trump and Senate candidates across the country with their manipulative and exaggeratory reporting. There is no gap between President Trump and AG Paxton,” said Nick Maddux, a senior strategist for Paxton. “AG Paxton just confirmed he would campaign with the President earlier this week and will be with him tomorrow in Denton, Texas.”
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But Paxton’s apparent admission that Trump’s convention extravaganza undermined GOP candidates is the latest example of Republican Senate candidates publicly and privately putting some distance between their campaigns and Trump as his approval ratings plummet and the party’s midterm outlook darkens. Paxton, in particular, has staked much of his political brand on his close ties to the president. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who Democrats believe could be vulnerable in his race against Adam Hamilton in deep-red Kansas, signaled his displeasure last week with ICE activity in the state and said he had been in direct contact with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Trump roared back to office two years ago on a promise to enact the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history. But today, GOP Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, which Trump won by more than 40 points, called for ICE to scale back its operations and “admit you’re doing something wrong.” (Justice isn’t up for reelection this year, and released a statement indicating his support for Trump’s immigration agenda.) Rep. Ashley Hinson, Sen. John Husted and former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominees in Iowa, Ohio and Michigan, respectively, have each called on Trump to quickly end the war with Iran to bring down prices, though neither Hinson nor Husted have supported war powers resolutions seeking to rein in the president. Trump has said he believes the U.S. and Iran will make a deal after the midterms. And Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu have blasted Trump’s tariff regime and trade war with Canada, which borders both northern states. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, meanwhile, avoids the topic altogether. Still, some battleground Republicans continue to cling to Trump, like Michael Whatley in North Carolina and Mike Collins in Georgia. Both are finding themselves in increasing political peril. Good Wednesday afternoon. This is Irie Sentner. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at isentner@politico.com.
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A message from Anthropic:  
As case loads grow at Arkana Labs, they use Claude to help process paperwork with 97-98% accuracy. Learn more |
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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. INFLATION NATION: Personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, rose by a less-than-expected 0.2% in August, decreasing the odds that the central bank will move to increase interest rates again before Election Day. Overall prices have risen 3.4% over the past year, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers released today — still outpacing the Fed’s 2% target. But the figures released today don’t account for some of the recent market-shaking moves and turbulence from the war with Iran. More from POLITICO’s Victoria Guida Speaking of the Fed: The central bank’s IG released a long-awaited report today finding no grounds for DOJ to reopen its investigation into the Fed’s management of its massive HQ renovation, removing a potential avenue for Trump to oust Jerome Powell, a frequent target of his ire and the former chair, from the Fed board, per Victoria. The report, however, did say the Fed should have done more to rein in the project’s cost, which has ballooned to an estimated $2.38 billion, more than $1 billion over a 2020 projection. 2. ON THE HILL: Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed bill to restrict members of Congress from buying and selling stocks today, arguing it doesn’t go far enough to curb lawmakers’ trading and does not require the sale of stocks they already own, per POLITICO’s Mia McCarthy and Riley Rogerson. The Senate voted 53-47 on advancing the Stop Insider Trading Act, short of the 60 votes needed. Every Democratic and independent senator voted to reject the measure, which would prohibit members and their spouses from purchasing individual stocks and institute new reporting requirements. 3. OUT OF IRAQ: The final U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq today after more than two decades, concluding a Biden administration agreement from 2024 to exit the country by this year, WaPo’s Mustafa Salim and Alex Horton report from Baghdad. “This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”
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The outsider Democrat making the case for 2028 Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu joins On The Road with Jonathan Martin at Mosca’s Restaurant for a conversation on Trump, Democrats’ future, 2028 speculation and what he says it will take to rebuild trust in American institutions.
Watch the episode now. |
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4. BRAVE NEW WORLD: “FTC opens sweeping probe of Anthropic, OpenAI and other ‘super intelligence’ models,” by NY Post’s Marisa Schultz and Josh Christenson: “FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson launched the investigation before one of the AI models went rogue during a test — in what’s since been dubbed the ‘Hugging Face incident’ — but the agency is now drafting civil investigative demands to force testimony from the leading firms’ executives. … The probe is looking into allegations of unfair or deceptive acts or practices that run afoul of the FTC Act and will press for documents from the AI or super intelligence firms, as President Trump has dubbed them.” Convening the council: The Alliance for Critical Infrastructure, a group of CEOs exploring ways to protect the U.S. economy from AI threats chaired by JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, announced today that it had expanded by nearly fivefold since launching in February. The group now has sign-on from big tech heavyweights, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Apple’s John Ternus and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. More from POLITICO’s Sam Sutton 5. THE LAST FRONTIER: Trump today is expected to announce a South Korea-backed $54 billion natural gas project in Alaska, AP’s Thomas Beaumont and Darlene Superville report. It’s the second time this week the president is highlighting major foreign investment in red states where Republicans are in danger of losing their Senate seats, after announcing a massive new steel plant in Iowa on Monday. 6. FLIGHT RISK: “Netanyahu says pilot tried to crash Israel-bound plane,” by POLITICO’s Milena Wälde: “[Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu said in a video statement Wednesday afternoon that a passenger had told him that he and a crew member had helped restrain the pilot, who allegedly also stabbed his copilot. Saudi authorities arrested the pilot and were questioning him, the prime minister added.”
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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KENNEDY CENTER RECEIPTS — “The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over. Then its finances collapsed,” by WaPo’s Federica Cocco and Naema Ahmed: “In the 19 months since President Donald Trump took over the Kennedy Center, the institution has borrowed everything its bank would lend it, dipped into money donors had given on the condition it never be spent and written off pledges from supporters who stopped paying, according to confidential board documents and tax filings reviewed by The Washington Post.” PLAYBOOK REAL ESTATE SECTION — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo bought a $7.4 million mansion in Southampton in June using a limited liability company, POLITICO’s Nick Reisman and colleagues report. It was purchased without any mortgage on file as of early this month, suggesting the deal was made in cash. Cuomo bought four lots with two homes on it that he believes will be an investment property, according to a person close to him. OUT AND ABOUT — The March On! Festival kicked off its weeklong celebration of civil rights and culture last night with an awards gala at Union Market’s Dock 5. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) received the March On! Award from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Marc Morial received the John Robert Lewis Lifetime Legacy Award from Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.). Jonathan Capehart emceed, and March On! founder Robert Raben offered remarks. The evening included dinner, cocktails and a Mardi Gras-inspired dance reception with Crush Funk Brass Band. SPOTTED: Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Dina Powell McCormick, Kendra Brown, Olivia Igbokwe-Curry, Tiffeny Sanchez and Reginald Brown, Vickie Jordan Adams, Joyce Brayboy, Darren Peters, Fred Hochberg, Nick Schmit, Monique Dorsainvil, Steve Hartell, Chanelle Hardy, Tanya Lombard, Michael Collins, Moyer McCoy, Mignon Clyburn, Cam Henderson, Adrienne Elrod, Kemah Morial West, Angie Gates, Judee Ann Williams and John McCarthy. — Widehall’s second annual American Growth Summit drew more than 600 attendees to the Willard yesterday, where Steve Clemons and “Oh God Now What” podcast host Niala Boodhoo moderated conversations about the evolving landscape of the U.S. economy with White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christopher Phelan, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, FERC Chair Laura Swett, White House Energy Dominance Council Director Jarrod Agen, CISA’s Nick Andersen, Ex-Im Chair John Jovanovic, Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Reps. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), and Southern Company CEO Chris Womack, among others. SPOTTED: Chilean Ambassador Andrés Fernando Ergas-Heymann, Slovenian Ambassador Iztoc Morosic, Moroccan Ambassador Youssef Amrani, Georgian Ambassador Tamar Taliashvili, Swedish Ambassador Nicola Clase, Carlos Gutierrez, Steve Case, Edward Skyler, Bruce Andrews, Kara Calvert, Brie Sachse, Kevin McAleenan, Matt Calkins, Marian Salzman, Bill Guidera, Michael Strain, Richard Vague, Steve Glickman, Kristi Rogers and Elaine Dezenski. MEDIA MOVE — Nancy Cook is joining WaPo as a senior White House and national political reporter. She most recently worked at Bloomberg. TRANSITIONS — Corey Broschak is now executive director of the HAATlab. He most recently worked at the Brookings Institution. … Shannon Ricchetti has joined the General Catalyst Institute as our director of external affairs. She is an Aspen Institute, White House, Blair House and Korn Ferry alum. 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 editors Giuseppe Macri, Garrett Ross and Kyler Alvord.
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