| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard with Dasha Burns | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco On the Playbook Podcast this morning, Jack and Dasha Burns look ahead to Trump’s big rally in Iowa this evening — and pick over what makes his speeches so unique.
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| Good Thursday morning. This is Jack Blanchard. It’s been a very long night in Congress — and we still ain’t there yet … In today’s Playbook … — Trump heads to Iowa for a July 3 rally with his megabill on the verge of passing into law. — Jobs stats are coming this morning as U.S. government races for more trade deals. — And will SCOTUS spring a last-day-of-term surprise?
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Speaker Mike Johnson is on the verge of passing President Donald Trump's megabill — just in time for the July 4 deadline. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | FIREWORKS: Donald Trump will head to Iowa this afternoon for his eve-of-Independence Day rally in a celebratory mood. The flagship legislation that the president wanted on his desk by July 4 is poised to complete its passage through Congress in the next few hours after another long night of will-they-won’t-they shenanigans in the House. Republican hard-liners had spent much of the evening refusing to back Senate-approved spending plans in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” … but after the president started working the phones in the early hours of this morning, the GOP dutifully caved. Where we’re at: Shortly before 6 a.m. this morning, the House was still crawling toward a final vote, which is now expected in the next couple hours. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he has the numbers he needs after successfully flipping up to a dozen holdouts — with Trump’s assistance, natch — over the course of a long and painful night. Voting was delayed further at 3 a.m. when it transpired Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) had driven back to Pennsylvania after casting his vote yesterday morning. The whole of Congress had to sit and wait while he drove back to D.C. No rush, pal. CACO: In the end, it was all very predictable — Congress always chickens out, as someone put it to your Playbook author. But this was a genuinely close-run thing, and Trump spent much of the evening making his displeasure clear: “What are the Republicans waiting for???” the president boomed on Truth Social, shortly after midnight, with more than a dozen Republicans still refusing to back the bill. “What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!” And soon after: “FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” In truth, it was anything but easy for Hill Republicans, given this bill both massively increases America’s already-ballooning deficit while also delivering the biggest cut to Medicaid budgets in ages. That means neither moderates nor hawks are remotely happy, and made the job of GOP negotiators so much harder — with every concession in one direction triggering an explosion of anger in the other. Deja vu: The impasse meant House leadership required hours simply to push through the procedural rule that would allow them to bring the bill to the floor. Four Republicans initially voted against the rule — Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Keith Self (R-Texas), Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) — and were swiftly joined by a fifth, serial rebel Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Famous for 15 minutes: Clyde and Self are both members of the deficit-hating House Freedom Caucus, while Spartz is a famously eccentric member who planned to vote against the rule but then back the bill itself. Fitzpatrick’s “no” vote, however, was a genuine surprise — he’s a moderate and had given little indication he was prepared to block the bill. Observers noted he had been outraged earlier by the Trump administration’s decision this week to halt some weapons exports to Ukraine, although it’s unclear if that was a factor in his decision. The five refuseniks were in turn joined by another group of eight HFC hardliners who simply refused to vote at all, insisting more time was needed for Congress to find a better (and cheaper) solution. “The bottom line is we can’t do it the next few days,” said HFC Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.), partway through the evening. “But I do believe by next week we can come to an agreement.”
| | | | A message from bp: bp supports ~300,000 US jobs. Like the science, engineering & skilled labor jobs that produce energy products Americans rely on. At our refinery in Washington state, we make traditional fuel for jets and vehicles and also produce renewable diesel. See how else bp is investing in America. | | | | But Johnson & co. wanted results faster than that, and the GOP leadership swiftly turned the screws. Trump worked the phones — holding 1 a.m. calls with some of the holdouts, per The Hill’s Mychael Schnel and Mike Lillis — while the White House pumped out aggressive social media content from multiple feeds, including VP JD Vance and comms chief Steven Cheung. Ever-excitable aide Stephen Miller even wrote on X: “This is the kind of opportunity, once lost, where people look back centuries later and ask how the moment to save civilization was allowed to pass by.” Uh huh. How it happened: The band of holdouts “say they’ve secured commitments from the White House on a variety of topics, especially on how the megabill is implemented,” POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill reports for Inside Congress. “But House Republicans described the hours of talks as more of a venting session for the hard-liners.” In the end, of course, the HFC caved. Magic Mike: The bill’s final passage will mark another big win for Johnson, who first backed the impossible-looking strategy of squeezing all Trump’s legislative priorities into a single bill. For the nation, the bill’s consequences will be truly far-reaching — turbo-charging Trump’s mass deportation strategy, slashing taxes, pushing millions of people off Medicaid and sending the budget deficit ballooning even higher. With the bill all but passed, the messaging war over those consequences now begins. Playbook noted yesterday that plenty of aspects of the legislation — including the changes to Medicaid — poll well enough individually when framed in the best-possible way. But Democrats still believe the bill presents a unique opportunity for their party to finally claw back public support. Dem-backing campaign groups have their own polling, which shows that taken together, the bill’s measures are largely unpopular — if the opposition party can sell the message that cuts to Medicaid are bad news. That messaging battle starts this evening, where Trump will kick off America’s July Fourth celebrations with a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Expect plenty of discourse about the size and beauty of this particular piece of legislation from the president. And while we’re doing July Fourth … Let’s end this section on a fun eve-of-Independence Day fact: One in five Americans are now ready to bring back the King. You heard me right: Polling and strategy firm JL Partners asked 1,000 U.S. voters if they support or oppose replacing the current president of the United States with the British monarch. The survey found 19 percent of Americans supported the idea, with 48 percent opposed and the rest on the fence. Whether the unexpectedly high “yes” vote is a reflection of this current U.S. administration, or a growing fondness for the lost monarchical system, you’ll have to decide for yourselves. But check out the demographic trend: “Support [for the monarchy] is even higher among certain groups,” JL Partners’ James Johnson tells Playbook. “Strikingly, more than one in three 18-29-year-olds back the idea.” So altogether now: “You'll be back, soon you'll see, you'll remember you belong to me … ”
| | | | A message from bp: bp added $190+ billion to the US economy over the last three years. Like investing in our Cherry Point refinery, the largest supplier of jet fuel to Seattle, Portland and Vancouver airports. These upgrades increased efficiency and reduced emissions. One more way we're investing in America. | | | | IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID JOBS DAY: The monthly jobs report for June will come out at 8:30 a.m., the latest hard-data test of how Trump’s economic policies are affecting the labor market. In spite of economists’ predictions — the latest average is 110,000 new jobs for today’s report, per Bloomberg — many of these numbers have held up better than anticipated month after month. But one alarm bell came yesterday from private-sector payrolls, which fell in June after two years of growth. We’ll also get new numbers on imports and international trade today. Fed up: If the jobs numbers do soften, you can bet it’ll be another reason for Trump to berate Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who has so far refused to budge on interest rates over inflationary fears from tariffs. Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s Saleha Mohsin and colleagues report that Trump advisers have floated the prospect of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent serving simultaneously as Fed chair, which the White House strongly denies. Not that Trump needs another reason: His near-daily pressure campaign of insulting the central bank continued yesterday evening, when Trump said Powell “should resign immediately!!!” This time, the proximate cause was an intense attack on Powell by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who accused Powell (a Republican) of “political bias” and of lying to Congress about Fed HQ renovations, POLITICO’s Declan Harty and Victoria Guida report. Pulte declared that Powell’s actions were “worthy of ‘for cause’ removal” and should be probed by Congress. Trading places: The U.S. is now one week out from Trump’s self-declared deadline for striking a whole mess of trade deals. Yesterday’s announcement of a preliminary agreement with Vietnam, only the second in two months, was the latest sign of progress — though it lacked plenty of details, and many Vietnamese reacted negatively to the continuation of heavy tariffs. The U.S. and India are also pushing hard to strike a deal, Reuters’ David Lawder and Manoj Kumar report. What’s the hang-up? Amid fresh Trump tensions over rice, Japan talks still look snagged, as PM Shigeru Ishiba said he had to prioritize his national interests, per Reuters. The country’s lead negotiator said Tokyo wouldn’t rush into a deal, July 9 or not. Indeed, Japan holding firm “shows how hard [Trump’s goal] is turning out to be,” WSJ’s Gavin Bade and Brian Schwartz report: Many countries have been baffled by the chaotic back-and-forth in the U.S. on tariffs, “unsure of what the White House wants or when they have to deliver a deal.” The EU is now aiming no higher than a very bare-bones agreement by next week, CNBC’s Silvia Amaro reports. Brace for impact: If “Liberation Day” levels of levies do snap back into place next week sans agreements, Trump’s global trade war will roar back to a greater intensity than it’s had in months, NBC’s Shannon Pettypiece and Steve Kopack write.
| | | | Did you know Playbook goes beyond the newsletter—with powerhouse new co-hosts at the mic? Tune in to The Playbook Podcast every weekday for exclusive intel and sharp analysis on Trump’s Washington, straight from Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns. Start listening now. | | | | | JUDICIARY SQUARE SCOTUS WATCH: The Supreme Court will be back today for one last time before the justices head off on summer break. SCOTUSblog’s John Elwood has a useful rundown of some of the cases that could be on the list of orders the court releases, including major questions about transgender women participating in women’s sports. But of course: The high court’s groaning shadow docket of forthcoming emergency rulings, which could come at any time, means summer ain’t what it used to be for the justices. There are still pending appeals for: two cases about the Trump administration’s authority to fire federal workers, one of them involving tens of thousands of civil servants … a request to clarify the court’s recent green light for third-country deportations … and even some non-Trump questions, like Florida’s enforcement of an immigration law. Any or all of those could land this morning. BIG RULING: A federal judge struck down a centerpiece of Trump’s crackdown on legal immigration, which had effectively shuttered the nation’s asylum system, per CNN. Judge Randolph Moss ruled that Trump had massively overstepped his authority in barring most border-crossers from seeking asylum, given that Congress had set up the protections in law. But Moss stayed his ruling for two weeks, and this is quickly headed for a higher court on appeal. The decision came just as new data shows how effective Trump’s hard-line closure of the border has been, building on progress made by former President Joe Biden and Mexico: Arrests dipped to roughly 6,000 in June, lower than they’ve been in decades, per the NYT. In the darkness: More than 100 days after the Trump administration disappeared hundreds of men into a Salvadoran megaprison notorious for alleged human rights abuses, the world has gotten hardly any information about their status or even proof of life. But a new court filing from Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who’s been returned after the U.S. illegally deported him, alleges torture and intense mistreatment there, POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report. Abrego said he experienced “severe beatings,” sleep deprivation and malnutrition that led him to lose 31 pounds in two weeks. In response, DHS’ Tricia McLaughlin downplayed his “sob story.” More in the courts: LA immigrant advocates filed a federal lawsuit over detention tactics and arrests, per the AP. … A federal judge heard arguments in a suit against the White House for not providing live American Sign Language interpreters at press briefings, per CNN. DOJ SIREN: “Justice Dept. Explores Using Criminal Charges Against Election Officials,” by NYT’s Devlin Barrett and Nick Corasaniti: “Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems … The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority … Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation.”
| | | BEST OF THE REST TODAY IN THE OVAL: The Trumps will host Edan Alexander, an American and Israeli soldier who was recently freed after being held hostage by Hamas, at the White House at 12:45 p.m. More from CBS ON THE GROUND IN GAZA: “US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza,” by AP’s Julia Frankel and Sam Mednick: “American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.” IRAN LATEST: Iran said it would stop working with the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which would suspend inspectors from being able to assess the damage from recent U.S. strikes and understand Iranian progress toward a nuclear bomb, per the WSJ. Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesperson issued the agency’s first remarks on its intelligence assessments, saying the attacks had likely set back Iran’s nuclear program by one to two years, per the Washington Examiner. UKRAINE FALLOUT: The Pentagon’s move to stop supplying Kyiv with some weapons shocked much of Washington, because it was pushed principally by Elbridge Colby without the awareness of many other officials, POLITICO’s Jack Detsch and colleagues report. Republican hawks and Ukraine supporters were angry about the sudden reversal. But the Defense Department said it’s part of a broader review of weapons sent to countries around the world, per NYT’s Eric Schmitt. Now Ukraine intends to try a different tactic, trying to get sign-off for Europe buying U.S. weapons and giving them to Ukraine, Jack and colleagues report. ‘GOLD-STANDARD SCIENCE’ IN ACTION: “Top F.D.A. Official Overrode Scientists on Covid Shots,” by NYT’s Christina Jewett: “The decisions by the official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s new chief medical and scientific officer, stunned agency veterans. … F.D.A. staff members concluded that the vaccines were safe and effective based on clinical trials of the shots tested in thousands of people. But Dr. Prasad wrote that there could still be vaccine-related injuries that have yet to be discovered. … Vaccine and infectious disease experts who reviewed the memos said that Dr. Prasad had failed to weigh the well-documented harmful effects from the coronavirus itself.” ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ OPENS: “Alligator Alcatraz receives first immigrant detainees Wednesday night,” by the Miami Herald’s Ana Ceballos and colleagues: “On Wednesday evening, the gates of the facility were bustling with traffic. Three white vans escorted by sedans drove into the compound. The vans looked like those previously used by immigration authorities to transport migrants, although it’s unclear who was in them. … The site’s name also became official on Wednesday, when two workers slapped a large blue guidepost that said ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ over the old ‘Dade-Collier Transitional Airport’ road sign that led people to the airstrip for years.” KNOWING PAUL INGRASSIA: “Trump pick to run federal watchdog: A 30-year-old who once shared a 9/11 conspiracy video and has ties to a Holocaust denier,” by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and colleagues
| | | | Policy moves fast—stay ahead with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant. Effortlessly search POLITICO's archive of 1M+ news articles, analysis documents, and legislative text. Track legislation, showcase your impact, and generate custom reports in seconds. Designed for POLITICO Pro subscribers, this tool helps you make faster, smarter decisions. Start exploring now. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | IN MEMORIAM — “Intern for Rep. Ron Estes killed in Northwest D.C. shooting,” by Roll Call’s Justin Papp: Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, “21, was a Granby, Mass., resident who joined Estes’ office earlier in June. Metropolitan Police said in a statement Wednesday that detectives believe he was not the intended target of the shooting. ‘I will remember his kind heart and how he always greeted anyone who entered our office with a cheerful smile,’ Estes said in a statement on Wednesday. … Tarpinian-Jachym would have been a senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst this fall.” PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — The National Gallery of Art added Sarah Fullinwider Perot to its board of trustees. She’s a civic leader and philanthropist with prominent GOP ties: Her husband, Ross Perot Jr., is a big Republican donor. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — OpenAI is building out its D.C. team with Joe Larson as VP for government, Chad Tucker on the government affairs team and John McCarrick as head of global energy policy. Tucker previously was at AT&T. McCarrick is a Trump energy policy and GOP campaign alum. TRANSITIONS — Parker Butler and Lauren Kapp have launched Luminary Strategies, a digital and creative agency that includes running social media accounts for prominent political names. They previously were behind the Kamala HQ accounts as director of digital rapid response and head of TikTok, respectively, on the Harris campaign. … Bryn McDonough is joining TechNet as counsel and director of federal policy and government relations. She previously was chief of staff in the office of the deputy DHS secretary in the Biden administration. … … Adam Szubin has joined Covington’s national security practice as of counsel. He previously was of counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell, and is a Treasury Department alum. … Rolando Cantu will be an associate on the paid team at Precision Strategies. He previously was a digital advertising strategist at the DNC. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) (7-0) … Julian Assange … Kristen Morgante of Purple Strategies … Andrew Peek … Peter Sherman of DDC Public Affairs … Nick Baldick of Hilltop Public Solutions … Lally Weymouth … AFP’s Shaun Tandon … POLITICO’s Heidi Vogt and Will McCarthy … Rina Shah … Washington Examiner’s Naomi Lim … former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) … Adam Goldberg … Giffords’ Mary Yatrousis … Gloria Allred … Elise Joshi … Barbara Lee (8-0) … Don “Stew” Stewart … Lindy Royce-Bartlett … Julia Griffin … Rick Powell … Daniel Carlino 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 editor Zack Stanton, deputy editor Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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