| | | | | |  | | By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun | Presented by Facebook | WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY KAYLEIGH MCENANY tested positive for the coronavirus this morning. She has continued to work the past several days instead of quarantining after exposure, against public health guidelines. CHAD GILMARTIN and KAROLINE LEAVITT of the W.H. press team have also tested positive, per CNN. Kayleigh's tweet, which said she tested negative a number of times before testing positive … CNN: The people close to President Donald Trump who have now contracted the virus THE WHITE HOUSE still anticipates more positive tests among the senior staff, which has been deemed essential personnel throughout the pandemic and forced to come into the office. A SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TELLS US that staffing has been severely curtailed in the White House since this latest outbreak began, and surfaces are being cleaned more frequently. LATEST ON THE PRESIDENT … @johnrobertsFox, as of 7:57 a.m.: "URGENT: From WH COS Mark Meadows to Fox News: 'Spoke to the President this morning. He continued to improve over night and is ready to get back to a normal working schedule. He will meet with his doctors and nurses this morning to make further assessments of his progress. We are still optimistic that he will be able to return to the White House later today.'" JOE BIDEN, as he boarded his plane to Miami, per the BOSTON GLOBE'S LIZ GOODWIN, today's pooler: "Whether it's safe for Trump and him to participate [in] next week's debate. 'I'll do whatever the experts say.' 'I think we should be very cautious.' If they say it's safe 'that's fine.' He declined to comment on Trump's ride outside Walter Reed yesterday. Or anything relating to his health. 'I'll leave that to the doctors.' … Dr. Jill Biden at one point physically pulled Biden back when he was getting too close to the press. Everyone was wearing masks." Video SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-Pa.) ON CALLING IT QUITS: "My plan is to go back to the private sector. … I always thought that I would probably serve just two terms. … I'm looking forward to more time back at home. I have no specific plans and I'm not going to spend time or energy thinking about what I'll do later until two years from now." -- TOOMEY said he will serve out his term, and still supports TRUMP. More from Burgess Everett NEW … THE DCCC'S I.E. is going in against New York Rep. LEE ZELDIN, a top ally of TRUMP. He represents the eastern part of Long Island, including the Hamptons. THE $648,000 BUY is spread across New York cable ($530,000), WLNY broadcast and satellite. -- ZELDIN was elected in 2014, when he beat Tim Bishop. WOW … TEXAS TRIBUNE'S @PatrickSvitek: "New: @DanCrenshawTX raised $5.5M in Q3, his campaign says #TX02" Good Monday afternoon. HAPPENING TUESDAY: ANNA and JAKE will interview House Democratic Whip JIM CLYBURN of South Carolina and former A.G. ERIC HOLDER in the latest virtual Playbook Interview. Watch LUNCHTIME READ … WASHINGTONIAN: "Super-Concierge Doctors, High-Design Home Classrooms, and Catered Backyard Dinners: Lifestyles of the Rich And Quarantined," by Mimi Montgomery and Jessica Sidman | | | | A message from Facebook: We support updated internet regulations.
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Read why we support updated internet regulations | | | COMING ATTRACTIONS -- "With President in the Hospital, a V.P. Debate Takes On Outsize Import," by NYT's Adam Nagourney and Shane Goldmacher: "For Mr. Pence, Wednesday's debate will most likely compel him to account for the administration's record on a virus that has now infected 7.4 million Americans -- including the most protected man in the country, Mr. Trump -- and answer for his own stewardship as chairman of the federal coronavirus task force. "For Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, the debate is a chance to show that she is capable of being president in a national emergency, as well as to demonstrate that she can challenge the Trump record on Covid-19 without seeming overly aggressive against an ailing president." NYT -- PENCE and KAREN PENCE again tested negative for the coronavirus today. SOME POSITIVE NEWS! -- "Trio wins Nobel Prize in medicine for discovery of hepatitis C virus," by Stat's Elizabeth Cooney: "Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Michael Houghton the University of Alberta in Canada, and Charles Rice of Rockefeller University in New York City share the prize." -- WUSA: "It's a boy! Smithsonian National Zoo says giant panda cub is a male," by Matt Pusatory THE NEW SCOTUS TERM -- "Supreme Court will not hear Kim Davis same-sex marriage case," by WaPo's Robert Barnes: "The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not hear a case from a Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, but two conservative dissenters in the court's landmark 2015 decision repeated their criticism of the 'ruinous consequences for religious liberty.' "The court turned aside a case from Kim Davis, the former county clerk who was sued after she said her religious convictions kept her from recognizing same-sex marriages, even after the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to those unions in Obergefell v. Hodges. She was briefly jailed over the matter, and her case had attracted national attention. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they agreed with the court's decision not to hear Davis's petition, but used the occasion to renew their objections." WaPo -- AP: "Justices reject South Dakota's only death row inmate's case" … "Supreme Court allows minor leaguers' class action over pay" FOR YOUR RADAR -- "Court Fight Over Census Tied to Plan for Excluding Illegal Immigrants," by WSJ's Paul Overberg: "A series of court decisions in coming weeks will determine whether state population totals, which shape how many electoral votes each state receives, will be delivered during President Trump's current term or will stretch into the spring, when a new administration could be in place. … "Documents released through one lawsuit suggest that the administration's effort to exclude illegal immigrants from the population totals is one reason it wants to finish the count this year." WSJ MUCK READ -- "Sonny Perdue fuels ethics scrutiny as Trump's rural envoy," by Ryan McCrimmon: "Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue offered a spirited pitch for voters to reelect President Donald Trump at an official USDA event with North Carolina food producers in August, sending the audience into a chant of 'Four more years!' The pep talk landed Perdue in the crosshairs of ethics watchdogs, who filed a formal complaint … "Trump administration officials have often blurred the lines between public duties and political promotion. … But even by those standards, Perdue's use of the levers of government to help Trump's reelection stand out. On top of his overt appeal to reelect the president, Perdue has kept many farmers in Trump's corner by doling out unprecedented sums of taxpayer aid to offset the industry's losses after years of trade turmoil and painful biofuel policies. … Now, Perdue is facing a fresh round of criticism for requiring federal contractors to stuff promotional letters from Trump into millions of USDA food boxes distributed to needy families." POLITICO | | | | JOIN TUESDAY - A PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW WITH REP. JAMES CLYBURN & ERIC HOLDER : The way that Americans are voting in this year's presidential election is changing. What ballot access problems are Black and minority voters facing? Join Playbook authors Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 9 a.m. ET for an interview with House Majority Whip James Clyburn and former Attorney General Eric Holder on mail-in voting, the Black Lives Matter movement, and what Democratic priorities should be in the next Congress. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- "States Overpaid Virus Unemployment Claims, and They Want the Money Back," by WSJ's Lauren Weber: "Even though the funds have long since been spent and many of those workers continue to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic's economic fallout, people across multiple states are being asked to repay thousands of dollars or are having their current benefits cut to make up the difference. Individuals themselves often have no idea they are being overpaid, in part because formulas for unemployment checks can be hard to decipher. "Many also waited weeks to start receiving benefits, and say they believed that large checks were simply the back payments they were owed because of delays. ... For many people, the repayment obligations hinge on a fine-print detail in the March Cares Act, which authorized the new programs. States can waive recovery of overpayments for most unemployment insurance when there is no fraud involved, but the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program follows a different set of rules. It is administered as a form of disaster relief, and the statute that guides it blocks states from forgiving the debts." WSJ DEEP DIVE … THE NEW YORKER'S PAIGE WILLIAMS: "Inside the Lincoln Project's War Against Trump" (print headline: "Right Hook"): "The Project, which was founded by eight people, now employs about thirty-five paid staffers. For the first months, everybody worked remotely—in Tallahassee, Denver, East Hampton, Sacramento. Once the war room was ready, more than a dozen employees began arriving at their assigned housing with luggage and pets, prepared to stay until November. The selection of a [secret] temporary headquarters had been complicated by the pandemic, but security was also a factor. … "The Project was on track to take in some seventy million dollars by Election Day—not as much as many established pacs, but far more than the founders anticipated." BATTLE FOR THE SENATE -- "How Kelly Loeffler Went From Atlanta Elite to Trump Loyalist," by NYT's Richard Fausset in Dalton, Ga.: "It is a long way from hosting soirees at Descante to joining forces with a right-wing conspiracy theorist at a beer hall. But it is a journey that Ms. Loeffler has undertaken in earnest as she seeks to conform to the tastes of Donald Trump's Republican Party … "In and around Buckhead, a version of the same question has been discreetly raised among some members of the senator's social circle: What happened to Kelly Loeffler? … The change in Ms. Loeffler's public persona has been striking. … [Rep. Doug] Collins, 54, may prove difficult to out-conservative. … [But] Ms. Loeffler's run-to-the-right strategy appears to be working so far." NYT -- @JamesArkin: "News: Dems are going back on air in Kansas Senate race. Duty and Country (an affiliate of Senate Majority PAC) spending $7.5 million in final four weeks of election. $5.5m on TV, $2m digital." -- "Ad spending on Georgia's two U.S. Senate races to top $150M," by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein CLIMATE SIREN -- "Exxon's Plan for Surging Carbon Emissions Revealed in Leaked Documents," by Bloomberg's Kevin Crowley and Akshat Rathi: "Exxon Mobil Corp. has been planning to increase annual carbon-dioxide emissions by as much as the output of the entire nation of Greece, an analysis of internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg shows, setting one of the largest corporate emitters against international efforts to slow the pace of warming. "The drive to expand both fossil-fuel production and planet-warming pollution comes at a time when some of Exxon's rivals, such as BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are moving to curb oil and zero-out emissions. Exxon's own assessment of its $210 billion investment strategy shows yearly emissions rising 17% by 2025, according to the internal documents." Bloomberg | | | | NEW EPISODES: LISTEN TO POLITICO'S GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST : The world has always been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, but in 2020 many of those issues have exploded. Are world leaders and political actors up to the task of solving them? Is the private sector? Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe now for Season Two, launching Oct. 21. | | | | | THE VIRUS SPREAD -- "WHO: 10% of world's people may have been infected with virus," by AP's Jamey Keaten in Geneva: "The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Monday its 'best estimates' indicate that roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead." AP HEADS UP -- House Foreign Affairs Chair ELIOT ENGEL (D-N.Y.) and Rep. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-Texas) today sent a letter to the State Department demanding documents related to Secretary MIKE POMPEO'S recent domestic speeches. The letter WSJ: "U.S. Boosts Crude Sales to China, Forcing Saudis to Find Other Markets," by Benoit Faucon in London and Collin Eaton in Houston: "The U.S. accounted for 7% of Chinese crude imports through mid-September, according to London-based market intelligence firm Vortexa Ltd — up from 0.4% in January. Meanwhile, market share for Saudi Arabia, China's biggest traditional supplier, fell to 15% from 19% in the same period. Based on recent tanker data, U.S. exports to China are expected to reach as much as 700,000 barrels a day at the end of October, forecasts Virginie Bahnik, a senior analyst at Geneva-based Petro-Logistics SA. … "China's buying so far is a long way from fulfilling commitments made in that deal, and to some extent it is simply restoring crude flows that were cut off amid the earlier U.S.-China trade tensions. As part of a deal, Beijing agreed in January to buy $52.4 billion worth of oil and liquefied-natural-gas from the U.S. by the end of 2021. The buying was delayed by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, but has ratcheted up more recently." WSJ AFTERNOON READ … DAVID BROOKS in THE ATLANTIC: "America Is Having a Moral Convulsion: Levels of trust in this country—in our institutions, in our politics, and in one another—are in precipitous decline. And when social trust collapses, nations fail. Can we get it back before it's too late?" KNOWING DOUG EMHOFF -- "The Good Husband," by Jessica Goldstein in Marie Claire: "This is how the campaign is presenting Emhoff to the country and the world: a modern, progressive man for our modern, progressive era; a guy's guy, with a fantasy football team, whose masculinity is enhanced and not diminished by his happy-to-be-here husbandry and devoted dad-dom. … "He's represented lowbrow American icons (a Real Housewives husband; the ad agency behind the Taco Bell chihuahua) and suspect American enterprises (Merck, the multinational pharmaceutical company; Dolarian Capital, the arms dealer). … Being with Harris has helped Emhoff, who is white and Jewish, recognize his privilege—his carefree attitude at airport customs; breezy exchanges with security guards—and see into his blind spots. Harris calls out these incidents in real time, Emhoff says." MEDIAWATCH -- "NBC News Sets Launch of Morning Show on 24-Hour Streaming Service, After Six-Month COVID Delay," by Variety;s Todd Spangler: "[T]he four-hour weekday 'Morning News Now' is now ready to roll, starting Oct. 12 — and not a minute too soon, as the already-clamorous news cycle hits a new crescendo. The show will be anchored by Savannah Sellers, co-host of NBC's 'Stay Tuned' series on Snapchat, and NBC News correspondent Joe Fryer. It's set to air 7-11 a.m. ET Monday-Friday." Variety -- Paul Butler, Kate Cohen and Edward B. Foley are joining WaPo as contributing opinion columnists. Announcement TRANSITIONS -- Paul Jones is now VP of international government relations at Raytheon Technologies. He most recently was U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and has had a long career at the State Department, including as ambassador to Malaysia and Poland. … Mike Bloomquist is now a partner in Venable's legislative and government affairs practice. He previously was staff director for the House Energy & Commerce GOP. … … Paul Ansah and Michael Masserman are joining the Albright Stonebridge Group as an SVP and senior adviser, respectively. Ansah previously was founder and CEO of Answer Group. Masserman previously was head of global policy and social impact at Lyft. BONUS BIRTHDAY: Robin Graziano, director for Morning Consult (h/t Olivia Petersen) | | | |   | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
