| | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | | | | 
The Treasury Department is taking "extraordinary measures" to avoid defaulting on its debt, Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | The United States has officially hit its debt limit. So what happens now? The Treasury Department is deploying "extraordinary measures" — in this case, suspending investments in government retirement funds — to avoid defaulting, Secretary JANET YELLEN said in a letter to congressional leaders this morning. The "debt issuance suspension period" will last until June 5, Yellen said, though she cautioned that the exact period it may last is "subject to considerable uncertainty." Closing her letter, Yellen urged Congress to act "promptly" to raise the debt limit, just as she did in a similar letter last week warning that this day was approaching. Read Yellen's newest letter Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, "the doomsday clock on the debt limit is ticking," Zachary Warmbrodt and Victoria Guida write. And yet: "Conservative Republicans emboldened by their influence in the House speaker race are demanding steep budget cuts in exchange for letting the government take on more debt. The Biden administration is insisting on a clean increase and refusing to negotiate." FWIW, Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL predicted some congressional movement on the debt ceiling in the first half of the year, adding, "No, I would not be concerned about a financial crisis." (McConnell also had this to say about Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY: "I think Speaker McCarthy is gonna do just fine. It certainly was quite an adventure watching him get there, but I think things will settle down in the House and he'll be just fine.") More on McConnell's comments from Anthony Adragna for Congress Minutes Should lawmakers haggle for too long over a deal to raise the ceiling, "economists warn that the nation risks a financial crisis and other immediate economic pain" once Treasury's ability to forestall the effects runs out, NYT's Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport write. By the way … Victoria tweets: "If you're curious how much cash Treasury has on hand now that we're at the debt limit, the Fed publishes its weekly balance sheet update at 4:30 p.m. today, and we'll find out. (The Fed holds the U.S. government's deposits.)" WHAT 'UNION JOE' IS READING — "Union membership drops to record low in 2022," by Eleanor Mueller: "The percentage of U.S. workers who belong to a union dropped from 10.3 percent to 10.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. That's the lowest since the agency first started tracking comparable data nearly four decades ago." SCOTUS SLOWDOWN — AP's Supreme Court aficionado Mark Sherman has an interesting read on the state of the high court as the justices slog through a dry spell of decisions. "For the first time, the justices have gone more than three months without resolving any cases in which they heard arguments, since their term began in early October. By this point, they always had decided at least one case, and usually a handful, according to ADAM FELDMAN, the creator of the Empirical SCOTUS blog. … "The court has offered no explanation, but several possibilities exist: a change in personnel with Justice KETANJI BROWN JACKSON joining the court, less consensus on a deeply divided bench and the consequences of last term's leak of a draft opinion in the case that overturned a half-century of abortion rights." One to watch: "Supreme Court Poised to Reconsider Key Tenets of Online Speech," by NYT's David McCabe: "On Friday, the Supreme Court is expected to discuss whether to hear two cases that challenge laws in Texas and Florida barring online platforms from taking down certain political content. Next month, the court is scheduled to hear a case that questions Section 230, a 1996 statute that protects the platforms from liability for the content posted by their users. "The cases could eventually alter the hands-off legal position that the United States has largely taken toward online speech, potentially upending the businesses of TikTok, Twitter, Snap and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram." Good Thursday afternoon, and thanks for reading Playbook PM. Send me your predictions for when we might see a debt limit deal: gross@politico.com.
| | | | A message from The American Petroleum Institute (API): The Solution is Here. Over the past year, America has seen in Europe that our energy future is not inevitable or self-sustaining. It must be prioritized and reinforced by policymakers and industry alike. API has a plan in three parts to Make, Move and Improve American energy. | | | CONGRESS POSITIVE NEWS — @SpeakerMcCarthy: "I spoke with @RepGregSteube and his wife, Jen, this morning. He is in good spirits, and our entire conference prays for a swift recovery. I informed him he will serve on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and he is eager to get back to work!"
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in Davos, Switzerland. | Markus Schreiber/AP Photo | MANCHIN ON THE MOVE — Alexander Ward and Suzanne Lynch have a must-read download on Sen. JOE MANCHIN's trip to Davos, Switzerland, where he is "determined to change the minds of men and women who see him as the face of a new American rival, the cause of a great rupture in transatlantic economic relations." Manchin told our colleagues in an interview about an encounter he had with French President EMMANUEL MACRON the eve of a state dinner at the White House, where Macron told the West Virginia Democrat: "You're hurting my country." Now, Manchin has "marched into the den of the European elite" in Davos, where he's "trying to put the pieces back together. He has been in one mode and one mode only here: sell, baby, sell." THE TALENTED MR. SANTOS — Rep. GEORGE SANTOS (R-N.Y.) is tweeting through it. This morning, the embattled congressman flat out denied the reporting that he performed in drag in Brazil in 2008, saying in a tweet that the "most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or 'performed' as a drag Queen is categorically false." He also jumped on the recent reporting that he took money from a GoFundMe set up to help a disabled veteran's dying dog. "The reports that I would let a dog die is shocking & insane," Santos tweeted. "These distractions won't stop me!" BACK ON THE TABLE — "Senators Pursue Deal on Border Security and Path to Citizenship for Dreamers," by WSJ's Eliza Collins and Michelle Hackman in Somerton, Ariz.: "A bipartisan group of senators is pushing ahead in the new Congress with efforts to reach an agreement on border security and immigration policy, after talks ran out of time last year. The lawmakers recently visited the southern border in Arizona and Texas, in the face of sharp political divides over how to handle a record number of illegal crossings that have strained border staff and facilities." CLICKER — "Maxwell Frost Goes to Washington," by Suzy Exposito for Vogue, with photos by Annie Leibovitz ALL POLITICS KEYSTONE RACE ALERT — "Republican Dave McCormick is making moves for a potential run against Sen. Bob Casey in Pa.," by the Philly Inquirer's Jonathan Tamari: "After falling just short against celebrity surgeon MEHMET OZ in last year's GOP Senate primary, [DAVE] McCORMICK was a visible presence at December's Pennsylvania Society gathering of political insiders in New York. He walked through the agricultural extravaganza at the Pennsylvania Farm Show last week, and he has a book coming out in March, Superpower in Peril, featuring the kind of themes that presage a campaign." THOSE WOMEN FROM MICHIGAN — "In Michigan, Democratic women are rising. Now some are weighing a Senate run," by WaPo's Colby Itkowitz: "Five of the seven Democrats serving in the U.S. House are women. A majority of Democrats in both chambers in the state legislature are women, including the majority leader of the state Senate. Along with the governor and secretary of state, the Democratic attorney general is also a woman. So is the chair of the state Democratic Party. "In interviews, Michigan Democrats pointed to a system that recruits and encourages women to run for office. When women rose up in anger during the Trump presidency in 2018, the party embraced them, they noted. And in November, Michigan voters decisively chose to codify abortion protections in the state constitution, another signal of the influence of Democratic women the state." Among the potential Senate candidates considering a run:Secretary of State JOCELYN BENSON, Reps. ELISSA SLOTKIN, HALEY STEVENS and DEBBIE DINGELL, and state Sen. MALLORY McMORROW. 2024 WATCH — "Can Trump Count on Evangelicals in 2024? Some Leaders Are Wavering," by NYT's Maggie Haberman and Michael Bender: "If these leaders break with Mr. Trump — and if evangelical voters follow, which is by no means a certainty — the result will be a tectonic shift in Republican politics." DeSANTIS DOWNLOAD — "Ron DeSantis backers plan $3.3mn spending blitz on White House bid," FT
| | | | 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. | | | | | POLICY CORNER IMMIGRATION FILES — "Biden Administration Invites Ordinary Americans to Help Settle Refugees," by NYT's Miriam Jordan: "A new policy allowing the participation of private citizens in resettling vulnerable families, to be announced on Thursday, marks the most significant reorientation of the U.S. refugee program since its inception more than four decades ago. … Under the new program, called 'Welcome Corps,' private citizens will now also take on logistical and financial responsibility for helping thousands of refugees transition to life in the United States. The initiative is similar to a model used in about 15 countries, including Canada, where it has been in place for many years and deemed widely successful by resettlement experts." ROCKIN' THE SUBURBS — "Biden Revives Housing Rule That Trump Derided as 'Abolishing the Suburbs,'" by Bloomberg's Kriston Capps: "The Biden administration is restoring a rule that will require cities, counties and states that receive federal housing funds to examine patterns of residential segregation within their borders and take steps to uproot them, a mandate that was first established by civil rights-era legislation but has proved almost impossible to enact." THE ECONOMY THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE — "Fewer Americans file for jobless benefits last week," by AP's Matt Ott: "U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending Jan. 14 fell by 15,000 to 190,000, from 205,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week moving average of claims, which can even out the week-to-week volatility, declined by 6,500 to 206,000." BEYOND THE BELTWAY PUTTING OUT FIRES — "Feds send $930 million to curb 'crisis' of U.S. West wildfires," by AP's Matthew Brown GRIM READ — "The federal government is investigating the possible human trafficking of children who cleaned slaughterhouses," by NBC's Laura Strickler and Julia Ainsley MUSK READS THE NEW TWITTER — "Climate misinformation 'rocket boosters' on Musk's Twitter," by AP's David Klepper: "Search for the word 'climate' on Twitter and the first automatic recommendation isn't 'climate crisis' or 'climate jobs' or even 'climate change' but instead 'climate scam.' Clicking on the recommendation yields dozens of posts denying the reality of climate change and making misleading claims about efforts to mitigate it. Such misinformation has flourished on Twitter since it was bought by ELON MUSK last year, but the site isn't the only one promoting content that scientists and environmental advocates say undercuts public support for policies intended to respond to a changing climate."
| | | | POLITICO's exclusive interview with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will take place on Thursday, January 19 at 1:30 PM EST – live from the Davos mountaintop. Register today to join us online. | | | | | AMERICA AND THE WORLD FOR YOUR RADAR — "U.S. Coast Guard tracking suspected Russian spy ship off coast of Hawaii in international waters," by CNN's Mary Kay Mallonee and Michael Callahan WAR IN UKRAINE QUID PRO NO — "No German tanks for Ukraine until America sends its own, Scholz tells U.S. lawmakers," by Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman: "Germany won't send or authorize the transfer of tanks to Ukraine until the U.S. agrees to give its own, German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ told American lawmakers on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. The exchange in Davos, described by four people with knowledge of what was said, including Rep. SETH MOULTON (D-Mass.), was respectful in tone but showed just how far apart Washington and Berlin are on a tank deal." PLAYBOOKERS MEDIA MOVE — Cecilia Vega is joining CBS as a correspondent for "60 Minutes." She currently is chief White House correspondent at ABC. More from WaPo WHITE HOUSE DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Josh Hsu will be a partner with Jenner & Block's government controversies and public policy litigation practice. He previously was counsel for VP Kamala Harris. TRANSITIONS — Michael Holloman is joining BerlinRosen as an account director in the strategic campaigns practice. He most recently was comms director for Stacey Abrams' Georgia gubernatorial campaign. … Mike Hamilton is now senior director on the federal government affairs team at the American Chemistry Council. He previously was chief of staff for Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.). … Lawrence Bell will join Cornerstone Government Affairs. He currently is deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). … … Nick Wyatt is joining the Senate Budget Committee as a professional staff member, working as the budget analyst for transportation, community and regional development, and general government. He previously was an investigator for the Senate Judiciary GOP. … Michael Kennedy will be chief corporate affairs officer at Intuit. He previously was SVP for global government relations and public policy at VMware, and is an Orrin Hatch alum. … Onotse Omoyeni is now press secretary for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont. She previously was press secretary for his campaign. ENGAGED — Dustin Volz, cybersecurity and intelligence reporter at the WSJ, proposed to Caitlin Piper, counsel in the tax group at Hogan Lovells, at the Arctic Circle in Finland recently. The proposal took place while the two were trying (and failing) to see the northern lights after a day of feeding reindeer. The couple met in fall 2020 on a dating app when Caitlin recognized Dustin from frequent complaints her friend and roommate, a government spokesperson, made about him. Pic Correction: Wednesday's Playbook PM misstated the home state of Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).
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