| | | |  | | By Bethany Irvine | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | 
The White House is enveloped in both a public and political crisis over the Epstein affair, which is overshadowing almost everything else in Washington. | AP | As the Jeffrey Epstein drama continues to drive the news cycle in Washington, the mood inside the White House is quickly souring, Playbook’s own Dasha Burns reports in a must-read. “POTUS is clearly furious,” a person close to the White House told Dasha. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.” What they’d like to be talking about: “Trump and his closest allies thought they’d spend the summer taking a well-earned victory lap, having coaxed Congress into passing the megabill, bullied foreign governments into a slew of new trade arrangements, convinced NATO allies to spend billions more on collective defense and pressed world leaders to bow to various other demands from Doha to The Hague.” Instead, they’re enveloped in both a public and political crisis over the Epstein affair, which is overshadowing almost everything else in Washington. Trump is “frustrated with his staff’s inability to tamp down conspiracy theories they once spread and by the wall of media coverage that started when Attorney General Pam Bondi released information from the Epstein case that was already in the public domain,” Dasha writes, citing a senior White House official. One White House ally noted that Trump’s anger likely stems from his view that the issue is “a vulnerability” for both Trump and the GOP as a whole. Deepening the pain: “They’re the ones that opened the can of worms on the Epstein conversation,” the ally said. “No one made them do this, which makes it sting even worse.” Another big factor: The president has upended the traditional dividing lines between the White House and the DOJ. Now, that closeness is “making it difficult for Trump to distance himself from the furor over the Justice Department’s abrupt about-face” that they don’t have evidence to continue an Epstein investigation, WaPo’s Perry Stein writes. And on Capitol Hill: House lawmakers are smelling the jet fumes as they wrap up their final votes this afternoon before their five-week summer recess. But House Dems are “hoping to jam Republicans with Jeffrey Epstein-related amendments ahead of a Thursday Appropriations subpanel markup,” Nicholas Wu and Katherine Tully-McManus report. Forcing committee debate on the amendments would “would put Republicans on record” on the issue — something most have been trying to avoid. Still, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters this morning he isn't planning to change the scheduled workday. “I want to see how things go today,” he said. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told Axios’ Stef Kight this morning that the Trump administration should “release the damn files” and to put the matter to bed. “It makes no sense to me," Tillis said. “Either it’s a nothing burger ... or it’s something really disturbing, and that’s actually even a more compelling reason to release it.” Even attempts to change the news cycle offer fodder: This morning, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released new documents that, as the Times reports, “she said undermined the conclusion of intelligence agencies during the Obama administration that Russia favored” Trump in the 2016 election. Following the release, Senate Intel Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) had this to say: “It seems as though the Trump administration is willing to declassify anything and everything except the Epstein files.” Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at birvine@politico.com.
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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin noted earlier this year that the agency would reconsider the decades-old finding. | AP | 1. CLIMATE CORNER: The EPA is considering reversing its scientific determination that greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous to public health — a move that threatens to upend decades of major climate regulations, WaPo’s Jake Spring reports. By reversing the "endangerment finding,” the agency would be able to easily change or undo federal standards on emissions, including regulations on vehicles and various industries. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin noted earlier this year that the agency would reconsider the decades-old finding as a part of the Trump administration's push for deregulation. While the policy change has not been finalized, the latest draft proposal argues the reversal is a matter of legality and the EPA “does not have the basis to act on climate change under a certain section of the Clean Air Act.” 2. ANYBODY GOT A MAP?: As Texas leads a group of Republican-held states pushing to redraw their congressional maps and pad the GOP’s national House majority ahead of 2026, the the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is urging its own party to rethink its “failed federal-first strategy,” POLITICO’s Natalie Fertig reports.“To have a shot at winning and maintaining a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives moving forward, Democrats must … get serious about winning state legislatures ahead of redistricting,” reads a DLCC memo sent to donors and strategists. “Not just in the final months of 2030, but starting now.” Where they see opportunity: The DLCC lays out a year-by-year plan for the party to garner more U.S. House seats. The plan begins by picking up state legislative districts in “Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2026,” Natalie writes. “Four-year state senate terms beginning in 2027 are key, the memo points out, as are state house and assembly races in 2028, 2029 and 2030.” Says Paul Begala: “I’ve watched this party pour $110 million into Jaime Harrison’s campaign against [South Carolina Republican Sen.] Lindsey Graham. That was a fool’s errand. How many Michigan Senate seats could we have picked up for that?” 3. A GOOD DAY AT THE NRCC, PART I: Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) will seek reelection to the House rather than run for governor, NYT’s Nicholas Fandos and Maggie Haberman report. The Trump factor: “Many Republicans viewed the congressman, who has consistently won in a Democratic-leaning district, as their most viable candidate in a left-leaning state,” Fandos and Haberman write. “But with Republicans preparing to defend a minuscule House majority, he was under intense pressure from President Trump and congressional allies to run for re-election. The president made his views clear in a private meeting at the White House last week, according to a person familiar with the conversation.” Now what? Lawler’s decision to stay in the House has effectively cleared a path for his GOP colleague Rep. Elise Stefanik to secure the GOP nomination to take on Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul. Stefanik has said she won’t formally decide on a bid until after November, POLITICO’s Nick Reisman and Emily Ngo 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. | | | | | 4. A GOOD DAY AT THE NRCC, PART II: Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) will seek reelection to the House instead of seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, the Detroit News’ Melissa Nann Burke scooped. Many Republicans feared that in a wave election, his west Michigan district could flip to Democrats. It’s also welcome news for the NRSC, as top Senate Republicans including Majority Leader John Thune and NRSC Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) had already lined up to support the Senate bid of former Rep. Mike Rogers. Rogers, who ran for Senate against Elissa Slotkin in 2024, has already made substantial inroads with Trump world, including bringing aboard Chris LaCivita as a senior adviser. 5. UNDER PRESSURE: As the White House and Harvard are locked in a legal battle with billions in federal funding on the line, the Trump administration has opened yet another investigation into the university whether it is in “compliance with a government-run visa program for international students and professors,” NYT’s Michael Bender and Alan Blinder report. Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber giving the school a “one-week deadline to produce a lengthy list of university records related to the student visa program,” per the Times. 6. THE FIRE THIS TIME: Nearly $10 million in U.S.-funded contraceptives that have been stuck in a Belgian warehouse since the White House froze U.S. aid to foreign countries earlier this year will be burned rather than distributed to poor nations, Reuters’ Ammu Kannampilly, Jennifer Rigby and Jonathan Landay report. In doing so, the Trump administration rejected offers from the UN and family planning groups to buy or ship the supplies — which include “dozens of truckloads” of contraceptive implants, pills and IUDs — to nations in need. 7. RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST: Major protests have erupted in Ukraine following President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signing of a new law limiting his nation’s top two anti-corruption organizations, NBC News’ Daryna Mayer and Alexander Smith report from Kyiv. The measure gives Zelenskyy’s prosecutor general “sweeping powers over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office,” per NBC. Critics fear it will “further enhance the power of his divisive inner circle.” The international angle: The protests are the first major demonstrations in the country since Russia’s invasion in 2022, and concerns are ripening among pro-democracy activists that the “sudden crisis could offer the Kremlin a powerful propaganda tool and threaten not just Ukraine’s unity, but also its support from the West at a crucial moment in the war.”
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