| | | |  | | By Zack Stanton | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | Good morning. This is Zack Stanton, wishing a meaningful Good Friday to those who observe. Get in touch. BREAKING THIS MORNING: “Rubio Says U.S. to Decide in Days if End to Ukraine War Is ‘Doable,’” by NYT’s Roger Cohen In today’s Playbook … — Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) stuns Washington with the news he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. — The anti-Trump resistance feels new urgency ahead of planned mass protests on Saturday. — An exclusive look at the latest Doug Sosnik slide deck sure to make the rounds in Washington. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: “The first MAGA world killing from inside the White House.” That’s how one White House official described the firing of Peter Marocco, the Trump administration official in charge of dismantling USAID until his abrupt firing from the State Department last week. The story of his termination hasn’t been fully reported until now: POLITICO’s Dasha Burns and Nahal Toosi have the buzzy readout that’s going to be the talk of Foggy Bottom. Come for the palace intrigue, stay for the very real implications for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s standing within MAGA world — especially as some of his new enemies have President Donald Trump’s ear. YOUR MORNING LISTEN: Trump has given Democrats many reasons to worry — and maybe even panic. But for Doug Sosnik, the savvy political strategist and former guru to President Bill Clinton, the path forward is becoming clear. On this morning’s episode of “Playbook Deep Dive,” he sat with Dasha Burns to give his read on this moment in time, where Trump stands in the eyes of the public, what Democrats need to do to win in 2026 and the key takeaways from his latest slide deck — an exclusive we have this morning for Playbook readers, who are seeing it before it circulates among the power players in This Town. Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts … Spotify … YouTube … and read Sosnik’s new slide deck
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. | Courtesy of Chris Van Hollen via X | THE SALVADOR SAGA: For more than a week, the saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has held Washington’s rapt attention. And last night, two pieces of news broke on that topic that are poised to really matter today: one about the man himself, the other about the broader theme that has given his story such resonance. The man and the meeting: Last night, shortly after 9 p.m., our phones lit up with stunned messages from people across D.C. reacting to something genuinely rare and surprising: A news cycle-altering social media post from an elected official not named Donald Trump. Sen. Chris Van Hollen revealed that he met with Abrego Garcia, the man wrongly deported from Maryland and sent to be warehoused in a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador — where, according to the Trump administration, he is beyond the reach of the American justice system. What Van Hollen said: “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” the Maryland Democrat wrote alongside a photo of the two men. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.” Coming today: When POLITICO asked Van Hollen’s office for more details on the encounter, they pointed to the social post and said more details will be forthcoming today. Watch this space. In MAGA world … a very different view of the same encounter circulated — this one from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who posted three photos of Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia, his trollish tone delighting in the spectacle: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” This is what they wanted: There was more than a little stage-managing apparent in Bukele’s photos. Abrego Garcia was dressed in a plaid button-down shirt and civilian clothes, not in CECOT’s sterile white prisoner uniforms. His shorn head was covered by an immaculate Kansas City Chiefs ballcap. Rather than meeting in front of the hellish backdrop of the brutal prison — which has been made available for photo ops by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, among others — Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia are instead shown sitting at what appears to be a café table, their places set with cherry-rimmed glasses, as if the two were leisurely sipping Shirley Temples. This is how Bukele (and likely the White House) wanted this interaction to appear. Bukele followed up with two additional posts: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” Bukele wrote. And, finally: “I love chess.” (That last one was approvingly retweeted by, among others, Dan Scavino and Steven Cheung, who would presumably rather be talking about this issue than, say, the fact the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by another 500-plus points yesterday.) The spin cycle: White House aides and their allies on Capitol Hill quickly moved to try and paint Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia as a potent example of Democrats’ misplaced sympathies. “We’ve reached a point in American politics where we have one party, led by President Donald Trump, that fights for Americans, and a second party, I guess led by AOC, that fights for illegal aliens,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller crowed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity. That’s how the White House wants this litigated: Not as an issue of due process or constitutional rights or executive power, but instead as an up-or-down, with us-or-against us referendum on illegal immigration and gang violence (even as there are profound doubts about whether Abrego Garcia belonged to a gang). But while they make that case in the court of public opinion, the actual court system continues apace … The legal case: Yesterday, in an opinion for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson — who, as POLITICO’s Erica Orden notes, is Ronald Reagan appointee and “one of the nation’s most prominent conservative appellate judges” — lambasted the administration for “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.” The heart of the matter: Wilkinson’s opinion gets at something big that we think is worth underlining. For foes of Trump and Trumpism, this week has been a wake-up call. You can see it in a new sense of urgency that’s coursing through the resistance this week ahead of planned major protests tomorrow in cities throughout the country. The stakes feel existential: “People understand that if [the administration] can get away with this, it’s the end of due process for everyone,” Leah Greenberg, a cofounder of Indivisible, told Playbook last night. She says her group is “hearing immense energy and alarm about Abrego Garcia and the other men sent to El Salvador,” and that the administration’s actions are seen as “part of a broader escalation in authoritarian tactics including the shakedowns of big law firms and higher education institutions.” That’s not just the sense on the activist left: “The crisis is here now,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted yesterday. “Trump is enacting an insidious coordinated attack on our institutions of democratic accountability, designed to crater democracy before next fall.” And lest there be any doubt about the fact we've veered into uncharted territory, David Brooks, the Times’ longtime center-right columnist, ends his new column by unironically quoting “The Communist Manifesto.” That, after a rousing gallop through Trump’s attacks on law firms, universities, USAID, NATO and global trade. “These are not separate battles,” Brooks writes. “This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.” If the crisis has arrived … are Democratic leaders prepared to meet the moment? The base hungers for shows of resistance, NYT’s Annie Karni reports, even as the party’s leaders tend to be more circumspect. And that’s a dicey situation for the leadership class: “There’s unrealistic expectations on the part of activist Democrats who want a catharsis,” David Axelrod tells Karni. “The truth is the tools are limited. There are consequences to elections, and unless Democrats can take back one or both chambers of Congress, this is largely a rhetorical exercise and a question of where do you focus your rhetoric.” But that timeframe is going to be a tough sell for many Democrats. “When someone is being abducted in defiance of the Supreme Court, we’re arguing about what our strategy is for an election 930 days from now,” Waleed Shahid, former Justice Democrats spox, lamented to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes last night.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Chances are your insurer and PBM are owned by the same big health care company. They also own big chain pharmacies – and are even buying doctors' offices. When middlemen own it all, you lose. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. See how. | | | | TRUMP VS. CIVIL SOCIETY FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: POLITICO Magazine’s Michael Kruse is out with a big look at Trump’s efforts to dominate the mainstream media — with which he maintained a turbulent, symbiotic relationship for decades — with official state power. This quote Michael unearthed from Roger Stone during Trump’s aborted 2000 presidential campaign is striking: “Here is the central question when it comes to Trump’s candidacy,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Is pop culture more influential in this country than the old institutions?” The latest media fight: The Justice Department urged an appeals court to allow the White House to freeze out the AP as punishment for not using the term “Gulf of America,” per Reuters. The administration argued that a lower court’s order should be reversed because Trump is entitled to significant discretion over press access. But AP photographers were allowed back in the pool again today, and the White House said the AP will be in the print pool by Sunday. School ties: This week’s most significant Trump effort to destroy or reshape disfavored pillars of civil society has centered on the Ivy League. House GOP leaders yesterday said they would probe whether Harvard is violating civil rights law, per POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs. Trump dangled the prospect of revoking tax-exempt status for Columbia and Princeton too, per Bloomberg. Even so, WaPo’s Ben Brasch and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel find that Trump’s freeze of $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard has only “vague accusations and no proof of specific legal violations,” in apparent violation of federal procedure. Not just universities: Trump also threatened yesterday to pull tax-exempt status for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Liberal nonprofits — and even nonpartisan good-government groups like CREW — now increasingly fear the federal government’s wrath, as do their donors, NYT’s Teddy Schleifer and Lisa Friedman report. On the flip side at the IRS, a Treasury official has asked the tax agency to investigate an audit of Mike Lindell, NYT’s Andrew Duehren reports. That has raised fears of Trump improperly seeking to protect his allies, though the IRS didn’t act on it and Lindell says it was just a mix-up. But but but: The political trouble for Democrats and the institutions Trump has targeted, of course, is that voters are increasingly skeptical of traditional institutions and disinclined to trust many of them.
| | | | A message from PhRMA:  
Insurers own PBMs, pharmacies – even doctors' offices. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. | | | | JUDICIARY SQUARE IMMIGRATION FILES: Another major immigration policy dispute is heading to the justices soon, as the Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments related to Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship on May 15. Notably, the justices are not yet focusing on the constitutionality of that move — but rather on Trump’s effort to prevent judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. That has “potentially momentous consequences,” POLITICO’s Erica Orden reports. Tipping the hand? “It is rare for the court to schedule arguments on emergency appeals, and the move is a sign that the justices are taking the Trump administration’s position seriously,” Erica notes. Fresh questions: New reporting from WaPo’s John Hudson and Warren Strobel offers a challenge to the administration’s legal rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process. In “the U.S. government’s most comprehensive assessment to date,” the National Intelligence Council found that Venezuela is not orchestrating a Tren de Aragua gang invasion of the U.S. Ramping up: Lawyers for 133 international students who have had their visas revoked asked a court yesterday to block the change, CNN’s Rafael Romo, Nick Valencia and Chris Youd report. In the case of detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, an immigration judge denied her bond, per NBC’s Chloe Atkins. More immigration news: Though tax policy is the biggest focus, congressional Republicans’ massive reconciliation bill is also expected to include major funding for border security and mass deportations. Three House panels will meet the week of April 28 to unveil the details of those and other plans, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Connor O’Brien report. Wild story: “How Corey Lewandowski Became Kristi Noem’s Gatekeeper at DHS,” by WSJ’s Tarini Parti, Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey and Jack Gillum: “Lewandowski told officials at the Department of Homeland Security to give [Palantir] additional work … Weeks after [he orchestrated a] tour, the company co-founded by Peter Thiel would get an additional $29.9 million from the agency … Though Lewandowski had initially wanted to serve as Noem’s chief of staff, President Trump and his top advisers were uncomfortable with Lewandowski in that role, owing to tabloid reports of a romantic relationship [that they’ve denied] … Nearly three months into the administration, Noem’s chief of staff role remains vacant, and Lewandowski has established himself as a constant presence by the secretary’s side. … [S]ome employees refer to him as the de facto chief of staff or even the ‘shadow secretary.’” More from the courts: The DOJ is seeking to step in on Trump’s behalf in his appeal of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation award against him, stemming from her allegation of sexual abuse, per CBS’ Graham Kates and Katrina Kaufman.
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| | | | | BEST OF THE REST BILL OF HEALTH: Trump will swear in Mehmet Oz as CMS administrator at noon today. RACE FOR THE SENATE: Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) will jump into his state’s Senate race next week, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Austin Horn scooped. … Jordan Wood will launch a bid to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick reports. A former chief of staff for Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), Wood would be an early entrant in the Democratic primary, but the big question is whether Gov. Janet Mills might jump in. … One state over, Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) told WMUR’s Adam Sexton that she won’t run for Senate, which could clear the Democratic field for Rep. Chris Pappas. NOW IT’S TURNIN’ BLUE? Democrat Tim Myers, a former OneRepublic bassist, has launched a campaign against Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), AP’s Michael Blood reports. OK, LOOMER: After a series of firings, Trump is working to staff up the NSC again with pure loyalists, CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs scooped. Derek Harvey will be tapped as senior director for intelligence, and retired Lt. Col. Michael Jensen could be senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs. … Meanwhile, Trump announced that South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, Mark Levin, Bo Dietl and Joseph Gruters will serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. CHAOS IN THE FDA: The majority of top negotiators in pharmaceutical user fee talks have been fired, Reuters’ Maggie Fick and Marisa Taylor scooped. So were researchers focused on making powdered infant formula safe, Bloomberg’s Anna Edney reports. And layoffs have forced the FDA to pause “a quality control program for its food testing laboratories,” Reuters’ Leah Douglas reports. The agency also is planning to “end most of its routine food safety inspections work,” CBS’ Alexander Tin reports. Up next? Trump’s HHS budget proposal calls for zeroing out Head Start, which would end the schooling that currently serves half a million children, AP’s Jocelyn Gecker reports. MORE FROM THE PURGE: As mass firings continue across the federal government, Trump reupped the hiring freeze to last another two months, specifically calling out the IRS to be frozen indefinitely, per WaPo. The latest cuts:
- CFPB: The agency moved to fire the vast majority of its staffers yesterday, all but shuttering the consumer protection workforce. WaPo’s Hannah Ziegler reports that the layoffs openly flouted a court order restricting them, while WSJ’s Dylan Tokar and Brian Schwartz report that a partial Trump victory at an appellate court laid the groundwork for the administration’s actions.
UKRAINE LATEST: The U.S. and Ukraine have now agreed to an initial memorandum on the path to a minerals deal, which Trump said could be signed in full next week, per Reuters. TRADING PLACES: Trump indicated yesterday that he may not want to raise tariffs on China any higher, and claimed that Chinese officials wanted to begin talks with the U.S., per Bloomberg. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: Elon Musk’s own SpaceX’s bid with Palantir and Anduril is considered the frontrunner for part of Trump’s “Golden Dome” contract, though it’s still early, Reuters’ Mike Stone and Marisa Taylor scooped. (NBC’s Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold report that the Pentagon will present options for the missile defense shield to Trump soon.) SPEAKING OF THE GSA: The GSA’s latest version of a list of federal buildings for potential sale now again includes the HUD headquarters, as Secretary Scott Turner looks to downsize, Washington Business Journal’s Michael Neibauer and Douglas Fruehling report. EMPIRE STATE OF MIND: “Trump Administration Says It Will Take Over Renovation of Penn Station,” by NYT’s Stefanos Chen and Patrick McGeehan
| | | THE WEEKEND AHEAD TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Peter Baker, Laura Barrón-López, Eugene Daniels and Mark Leibovich. SUNDAY SO FAR … ABC “This Week”: Border czar Tom Homan … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Jonathan Martin and David Hogg. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey … EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin … Austan Goolsbee. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Legal panel: Jonathan Turley and Tom Dupree. Panel: Francesca Chambers, Horace Cooper, Dan Koh and Katie Pavlich. NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Panel: Peter Baker, María Teresa Kumar, Marc Short and Melanie Zanona. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). Panel: Ashley Allison, Mike Dubke, Lance Trover and Adrienne Elrod. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … John Kasich. Panel: George Will and Yoni Appelbaum. MSNBC “The Weekend”: Jared Bernstein … Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka.
| | | | Cut through policy complexity and turn intelligence into action with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant—a new suite of tools designed to save you time and demonstrate your impact more easily than ever—available only to Pro subscribers. Save hours, uncover critical insights instantly, and stay ahead of the next big shift. Power your strategy today—learn more. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Vivek and Mirabel Vance seemed excited to run to Air Force Two, as their father JD heads to Italy and the Vatican. James Bennet took the stand in the long-running defamation suit filed by Sarah Palin. SPOTTED: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at Kaia on the top floor of Ned’s Club. WHITE HOUSE ARRIVAL LOUNGE — Kylie (Nolan) Newbold is now director of strategic comms at the NSC. She previously was comms director for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs GOP. TRANSITIONS — Matthew Tragesser will be chief of the Office of Public Affairs at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He currently is a senior comms manager at the Heritage Foundation, and is an Andy Biggs and Federation for American Immigration alum. … Shaila Manyam is now executive director and COO of WFDSA - the World Federation of Direct Selling Agencies. She previously was EVP/managing director for corporate and public affairs at Burson. … Erica Seifert is now head of polling and analytics at Navigator Research. She most recently was a senior pollster and comms strategist at the National Education Association. … … Matt Hooper will be VP of comms and membership at the Council on Social Work Education. He previously was VP of comms at Freedom House. … Dave Rapallo is now senior adviser and congressional scholar at the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy. He currently is director of the federal legislation clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, and is a Hill veteran. … Mark Dalton is now senior director of technology and innovation policy at the R Street Institute. He previously was head of the strategic planning office at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) … Semafor’s Burgess Everett … POLITICO’s Jonathan Greenberger, Michael Stratford and Mohar Chatterjee … WSJ’s Lara Seligman … John Podhoretz … former Reps. Justin Amash (Libertarian-Mich.) and Karen Handel (R-Ga.) … MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin … CNN’s Eva McKend … Evan Ryan … Kayleigh McEnany … Kelsey Donohue … Darby Grant … Black Rock Group’s Mike Dubke … Bret Manley … John Fogarty … Robert Silvers … USA Today’s Donovan Slack … Sean Maloney … Grant Saunders … Micki Werner … Tracy Spicer … Caleb Crosswhite … Amazon’s Brian Huseman … Rick Kaplan … Zach Zaragoza … Council on Foreign Relations’ Ben Chang … Phil Gordon … Trey Grayson … Brooke Race Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Insurers own PBMs, pharmacies – even doctors' offices. As a result, a few big health care companies decide what medicines you can get and what you pay at the pharmacy counter. Middlemen are taking more control of your health care, driving up costs and making it harder to get the care you need. When middlemen own it all, you lose. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. See how. | | | | | | | | Follow us on X | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | |
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