Playbook PM: Manchin pops Schumer’s bubble

Jan 04, 2022

By Rachael Bade, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

Presented by

Mere hours after Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER laid out his most forceful argument yet to change Senate rules and create a filibuster carveout for voting rights, Sen. JOE MANCHIN doused him with cold water. The West Virginia Democrat told reporters minutes ago that a carveout would be a "heavy lift." Basically, if you do that, he said, "you eat the whole turkey." He wants any rule changes to be bipartisan.

Womp, womp.

"For us to go it alone … it comes back at you pretty hard," Manchin said, specifically mentioning Democrats' move years ago to circumvent the filibuster and confirm lower-level judges — then seeing Senate GOP Leader MITCH MCCONNELL come back and do the same to jam SCOTUS nominees through several years later.

THAT'S NOT ALL, FOLKS — Manchin also told reporters that BBB talks have pretty much stalled. "There is no negotiation going on at this time," Manchin said. Senate Majority Whip DICK DURBIN said as much this morning, noting that Democrats probably won't return to BBB work until after addressing voting rights, a debate that's likely to extend through Martin Luther King Jr. Day. More from Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine

NIGHTMARE ON I-95 — The winter weather in the D.C. area caused a hellstorm for travelers on I-95 in the last 24 hours. Among those stuck:

— Sen. TIM KAINE (D-Va.), who tweeted around 8:30 a.m. that he had begun his normal 2-hour commute to D.C. at 1 p.m. Monday and was still stuck in traffic on the interstate 19 hours later. He later told WTOP that he's been in the car for 21 hours and counting. "It was really, really cold last night," Kaine said.

— NBC's JOSH LEDERMAN had a similar experience and did live hits for "Morning Joe" and "TODAY" from his car.

— CLETA MITCHELL, the pro-Trump attorney who took part in then-president DONALD TRUMP's now-infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, was also stuck overnight and was tweeting replies to various Virginia DOT-affiliated accounts.

According to AP, the gridlock came after "a tractor-trailer jackknifed in the ice and snow, causing a chain reaction of other commercial vehicles losing control and becoming disabled in the traffic lanes."

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THE PANDEMIC

1+ MILLION NEW COVID CASES IN U.S. — The Omicron surge of cases has passed another milestone. "The U.S. reported a record 1.08 million Covid-19 infections on Monday as most states worked to clear backlogs after pausing during the New Year's holiday," WSJ's Anthony DeBarros, Rhiannon Hoyle and Matthew Dalton write. "The reports pushed the seven-day average of daily reported infections to 480,273, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That level is nearly double the peak reached at the height of last winter's case surge."

— CNN reports that 95.4% of new Covid-19 cases in the U.S. in the last week were from the Omicron variant.

NAVAL BLOCKADE ON VAX REQUIREMENT — A federal judge in Texas "granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against Covid-19," AP's Robert Burns reports. "The injunction is a new challenge to Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN'S decision to make vaccinations mandatory for all members of the military. … There was no indication that the order would affect service members beyond the 35 sailors who sued Austin and the Navy."

FOR YOUR RADAR — In Israel, a fourth shot of the Pfizer vaccine produced a "fivefold boost in antibodies a week after the jab, according to preliminary results of a study made public by the Israeli government Tuesday," WaPo's Steve Hendrix reports.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

GRILLING GARLAND — Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.) had harsh words for A.G. MERRICK GARLAND over his handling of cases against Jan. 6 rioters. "I think Merrick Garland has been extremely weak, and I think there should be a lot more of the organizers of Jan. 6 that should be arrested by now," Gallego told CNN.

SCARS IN THE THIN BLUE LINE — NYT's Susan Dominus and Luke Broadwater have a moving account of the harrowing day that left the "bodies, minds and lives" of the Capitol Police altered forever. "Interviews over many months with more than two dozen officers and their families (some of whom requested not to use their full names to speak frankly without permission from the department or to protect future employment prospects in the federal government), as well as a review of internal documents, congressional testimony and medical records, reveal a department that is still hobbled and in many ways dysfunctional.

"Among those still on the force and those who have left, many significant injuries and psychological disorders remain, including serious traumatic brain injuries and neurological impairment, orthopedic injuries requiring surgery and rehabilitation, post-traumatic stress disorder and heightened anxiety."

HOW IT HAPPENED — In the days leading up to Jan. 6, Facebook groups saw "at least 650,000 posts attacking the legitimacy of Joe Biden's victory … with many calling for executions or other political violence," according to an investigation by WaPo and ProPublica . "The barrage — averaging at least 10,000 posts a day, a scale not reported previously — turned the groups into incubators for the baseless claims supporters of President Donald Trump voiced as they stormed the Capitol, demanding he get a second term." Despite Facebook executives' claims that the platform didn't play a significant role in the events, the report "provides the clearest evidence yet that Facebook played a critical role in the spread of false narratives that fomented the violence of Jan. 6."

JAN. 6 COMES TO CLASSROOMS — How should public schools teach about the Jan. 6 insurrection? This Thursday in Boston, one classroom of students will spend the day journaling about the events and democracy. In Des Moines, teachers have been warned to be careful with their framing of the day. "Teachers now are left to decide how — or whether — to instruct their students about the events that sit at the heart of the country's division. And the lessons sometimes vary based on whether they are in a red state or a blue state," AP's Heather Hollingsworth reports in Mission, Kan.

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THE ECONOMY

RECORD JOB RESIGNATIONS — The so-called Great Resignation is continuing in historic numbers as the economy steadily comes back. "A record 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs in November, a sign of confidence and more evidence that the U.S. job market is bouncing back strongly from last year's coronavirus recession," AP's Paul Wiseman writes. "The Labor Department also reported Tuesday that employers posted 10.6 million job openings in November, down from 11.1 million in October but still high by historical standards."

— Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturing growth slowed to an 11-month low in December, per AP's Martin Crutsinger.

ALL POLITICS

TRUMPED UP — Trumpworld is oiling up the MAGA machine for this year's midterms in an effort to "reinforce the former president's grip on the Republican Party and its donors," NYT's Ken Vogel and Shane Goldmacher report . "Mr. Trump's team also has continued fund-raising voraciously online for various PACs that he directly controls, which had compiled a war chest of more than $100 million last summer. … He is planning more rallies in 2022 at locations chosen to help the candidates he has endorsed, according to people familiar with the plans. Groups allied with him have stepped up their fund-raising in recent months, indicating they intend to spend funds to promote his causes and endorsements."

BAD BLOOD — TAYLOR SWIFT first dipped her toe into politics in 2018, coming out sharply against Sen. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-Tenn.) and endorsing her challenger. "But apparently, the megastar's own record label and publisher, Universal Music Group, feels differently — so differently, in fact, that UMG's political action committee isn't just maxing out the allowable contribution to Blackburn; it's exceeding the limits," The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger reports . "On Sunday, federal regulators put UMG's PAC on notice, flagging the group for giving Blackburn more than the legal limit … for the 2024 primary election cycle. And while the Blackburn campaign appears to have already reallocated the funds to comply with regulations, the PAC has so far failed to do so in its reports."

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

ALBANY D.A. PASSES ON CHARGING CUOMO — Former New York Gov. ANDREW CUOMO appears to have dodged his most serious legal concern. "The Albany County District Attorney's office has said it wouldn't move forward with a misdemeanor sex crime charge against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, people familiar with the matter said," WSJ's Jimmy Vielkind reports. "The criminal charge represented the most pressing legal concern for Mr. Cuomo, who is also being investigated for the potential misuse of state resources in the production of his pandemic memoir as well as the state's Covid-19 policies in nursing homes. He has denied wrongdoing on both fronts."

MEDIAWATCH

MR. AND MR. SMITH — NYT media columnist BEN SMITH is leaving the paper to start a new media company with JUSTIN SMITH, who is stepping down as CEO of Bloomberg.

WSJ's Benjamin Mullin scooped the news of Justin Smith's departure from Bloomberg, and reports that "MICHAEL BLOOMBERG … said in a statement that SCOTT HAVENS, Bloomberg Media's chief growth officer and global head of strategic partnerships, would become the division's new CEO."

Ben Smith, a POLITICO alum who has been the Times' media columnist since 2020, spoke to NYT's David Gelles about his ambitions for the new outlet: "There are 200 million people who are college educated, who read in English, but who no one is really treating like an audience, but who talk to each other and talk to us. That's who we see as our audience," Smith said.

— It seems they've got their talking points down. We can't help but notice how similar (Ben) Smith's quote in the NYT was to (Justin) Smith's pitch, as relayed by Atlantic Media chairman emeritus DAVID BRADLEY in the WSJ: "He's always talked about a market of 200 million college-educated, English-speaking professionals throughout the world. … And the big bet he's making is that they're more like each other than their individual countrymen."

NPR EXODUS CONTINUES — AUDIE CORNISH is leaving NPR, where she was co-host of "All Things Considered." In a Twitter thread, fellow co-host ARI SHAPIRO lamented Cornish's departure in addition to a handful of recent others: "If NPR doesn't see this as a crisis, I don't know what it'll take."

— Meanwhile, Axios' Sara Fischer reports that NPR is doubling down on "a slew of new shows and subscriber-only bonus content to its new podcast platform NPR+."

PLAYBOOKERS

#THISTOWN — Kara Voght goes inside the progressive party scene in D.C. for The New Republic — "a younger, rowdier crowd of White House aides, congressional staff, and activists who likely voted for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, gathering on rooftops over cheap beer. Their candidate didn't win — Washington belongs to Biden. But the left is taken seriously these days. And they're having a lot more fun along the way."

— A fun snapshot of the crowd: "People were excited to spot Matthew Yglesias , the Vox co-founder who took his vexatious brand of liberalism to Substack — if only because they seemed eager to dunk on his tweets in person."

MEDIA MOVES — Scott MacFarlane is joining CBS as a congressional correspondent. He previously was a reporter for NBC Washington.

TREASURY ARRIVAL LOUNGE — David Wertime is joining the Treasury Department later this month as a senior adviser in the office of International Financial Markets with a focus on U.S. policy toward China. He is an incoming International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and is a Protocol and POLITICO alum.

TRANSITIONS — Matt Mulder is now U.S. federal policy director at Stripe. He most recently was deputy GOP staff director/policy director for the House Financial Services Committee. … Sara Mogulescu has been appointed president of the Volcker Alliance. She previously has been EVP. … Sophie Vaughan is now campaign manager for Ajwang Rading's California congressional campaign. Vaughan most recently worked as a speechwriter for Ady Barkan's Be a Hero PAC and is an Amy McGrath alum. …

… Jonathan Miller is joining Cornerstone Government Affairs' federal government relations team. He previously was chief of staff for the Defense Health Agency Research and Development Directorate. … Sharon Phares is now chief scientific officer at the National Pharmaceutical Council. She previously was SVP of research at Pharmaceutical Strategies Group.