| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard with Dasha Burns | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco On today’s Playbook Podcast, Jack and Dasha discuss Donald Trump’s relationship with God; whether we might see National Guard troops in Chicago this week; and why it is that the president keeps turning up at sporting events. Does he love the big occasion … or just the limelight?
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| Good Monday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, still watching clips of the men’s U.S. Open final to judge if the president got booed or cheered. My verdict: Bit of both, not much of either, kind of meh. Though honestly, if I’d been stuck in the two-hour security queue outside, I’d definitely have booed somebody.
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President Donald Trump attends the U.S. Open men's final in New York City on Sunday, Sept. 7. | Clive Brunskill/Getty Images | SPOTTED in the president’s (Rolex-funded) box at the National Tennis Center: Jared Kushner … Arabella Kushner … Scott Bessent … Pam Bondi … Susie Wiles … Steve Witkoff … Karoline Leavitt (sporting a $2,000-plus Gucci handbag, per the Daily Mail) … Dan Scavino … Erin Elmore … Lindsey Halligan … Margo Martin … Natalie Harp … Chamberlain Harris … plus Trump himself signing people’s hats at the end. THAT’S ENOUGH TENNIS: Start your day with a proper story, via our Capitol bureau chief Rachael Bade’s unmissable new “Corridors” column. She reports on a near-violent blowup between two of the Trump administration’s highest profile figures at an exclusive dinner event last Wednesday night. The buzz: “A private dinner attended by dozens of administration officials and close advisers to President Donald Trump was temporarily marred by a dramatic clash between two of Trump’s top economic officials, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at one point threatening to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte “in the fucking face,” Rachael writes. Woah: The dinner was at the Executive Branch, the ultra-exclusive, MAGA-friendly club in Georgetown, which charges members up to $500,000 each to join. Among those invited to the dinner at a 30-strong table were Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It’s unclear exactly how the fight began — but it seems Bessent took exception to reports that Pulte had been badmouthing him to Trump. “Bessent lashed out at Pulte in an expletive-laden diatribe,” Rachel writes. “He wasn’t about to engage in chit-chat as if nothing was amiss.”
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks in the Oval Office on Sept. 5, 2025. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | Quotes for the ages: “Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you,” Bessent reportedly told Pulte. “I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face.” The conversation continued in the same vein — “We could go outside … I’m going to fucking beat your ass” — until the two men were finally separated. There’s loads more (glorious) detail in the story. Where do you even start with this one? It hardly screams professional government, does it? Bessent is the secretary of the U.S. Treasury. And this is reportedly the second near-punch-up he’s had with a top administration official this year. (Don’t forget it was Bessent who came out swinging for Elon Musk back in April, too.) As for Pulte — the scourge of Lisa Cook, and others — has a Federal Housing Finance Agency boss ever attracted so much attention? In today’s Playbook … — Trump turns to God for Monday morning inspiration. — Decision time on Chicago as ICE prepares its next raids. — Which Democrat is getting plaudits for actually managing to talk human?
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | IN THE BEGINNING … : Just in case this morning’s Playbook didn’t contain enough Biblical language for you, Trump is headed to the Museum of the Bible shortly to make a speech on religious liberty. It’s a hot-button topic for conservatives, which the president likes to return to from time to time — hardly surprising given the voting power of the Christian right — and you can expect plenty of crowd-pleasing moments when he kicks things off at 10:10 a.m. Recap: Trump’s last big religious speech was on May 1, the National Day of Prayer, when he invited (mostly Christian) faith leaders into the White House and announced he was establishing a Religious Liberty Commission. “We're bringing back religion in our country,” he told those present that day. “We must always be one nation under God — a phrase that they would like to get rid of, the radical left.” Grievance politics: It’s this sense of conservative grievance Trump will seek to play into, with the president’s commission due to hear testimony from Christians who say they have not been treated fairly by public schools. Per the Daily Wire, today’s speakers will include a group of elementary school students “who will share stories of challenges to their religious liberty.” We’ll also hear from parents who say their rights to raise their kids religiously were “challenged or abridged in the school system.” It raises an interesting side question — just how religious is Trump? As Dasha notes on today’s Playbook Podcast, as a rule, the president mainly talks about God in the context of his near-death experience in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year. But Dasha did once see Trump quizzed in detail about his religious views on the 2024 campaign trail. “He talked a lot about the beautiful churches that he's been to,” she recalls. “He talked about it from the real estate perspective.” Which sure sounds like Trump. Nevertheless … That doesn’t mean we won’t get some eye-catching policy announcements today. Speaking after the mass school shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis last month, Trump said “religious liberty is so important,” and that “we're going to be having a big announcement in about two weeks on that question.” So maybe that’s what’s coming today.
| | | | A message from McDonald's: Starting this week, Extra Value Meals are back at McDonald's, so you can save when you make it a meal. To mark the moment, they're giving fans even deeper discounts on two of the most popular Extra Value Meals, the $5 Sausage McMuffin® with Egg Meal and $8 Big Mac® Meal, for a limited time. | | | | While we’re waiting on that … We’re still waiting for clarity on which American city is next in line for the D.C. military treatment. Trump has gone back and forth on Chicago so many times now that it’s hard to keep track, but last night he insisted a decision is at least imminent. “We could solve Chicago very quickly,” he said. “But we're going to make a decision as to where we go in the next day or two.” Indeed: Increased ICE activity in Chicago is already a given — the agency has set up a local HQ at a military base, and border czar Tom Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there will “absolutely” be raids like those we saw in Boston over the weekend. Local leaders have postponed or canceled planned events for Mexican Independence Day, per CNN. But whether the operation extends to deploying troops onto Chicago’s streets remains to be seen. Either way … It’s polarizing stuff. A new Gallup poll finds 79 percent of Americans stating that overall immigration is a good thing for the country, vs. just 17 percent who said it is not. The numbers have been slowly shifting in that direction for quite a while, but these are the highest and lowest ever recorded by the pollster. Republicans — perhaps rightly — will shrug and say it’s illegal immigration which has people worried, and upon which Trump is primarily focused. But it’s an interesting straw in the wind.
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Start your morning with a $5 Sausage McMuffin® with Egg meal – which comes with Hash Browns and a small coffee – for a limited time. | | | | AMERICA AND THE WORLD GROUNDHOG DAY: Will we finally see some movement on Ukraine this week? Trump said last night that (unnamed) European leaders are headed to Washington today or tomorrow to discuss the crisis in person. But nothing’s been announced, either here or abroad, and there’s nothing on the president’s schedule. “Certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday, and uh — individually — and I think we’re gonna get that settled,” Trump said. It’s a little unclear. And if that wasn’t confusing enough … Trump continues to blow hot and cold on Russian President Vladimir Putin. As he departed for the U.S. Open yesterday, Trump told reporters he was ready to move to the next phase of Russian sanctions. But by the time he returned to the White House last night, he was saying he plans to speak with Putin “over the next couple of days" and that a peace deal can still be done. “Look, we’re going to get it done,” Trump said. “The Russia-Ukraine situation. We’re going to get it done.” SCOOP: Behind the scenes, a sense of gloom is setting in, Dasha writes in to Playbook. “The optimism post-Alaska and post-European meeting is gone,” a person close to the White House tells her. There is little optimism that the Russians “will go any further than they’ve gone,” the person says, with hopes of a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fading fast. It's “hard to see much forward momentum,” they added. Meanwhile in Ukraine: For his part, Putin launched the biggest airstrike of the war against Ukraine at the weekend, hammering the nation with 13 missiles and more than 800 drones over the course of several hours, WaPo’s Siobhán O'Grady and Serhiy Morgunov report from Kyiv. In response, Zelenskyy urged Trump to act. “Such killings now, when real diplomacy could already have begun, are a deliberate crime and an attempt to prolong the war,” he wrote on Telegram. “It has been said more than once in Washington that sanctions will follow for refusing to talk.” And as for the other war: Trump spent yesterday issuing dire threats to Hamas, writing on Truth Social: “The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” He told the White House press pool last night: “I think we are going to have to deal with Gaza very soon.” The detail: White House special envoy Steve Witkoff sent a new proposal last week to Hamas for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, as the U.S. scrambles to push through a deal before Israel’s planned occupation of Gaza City, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports. According to a senior Israeli official, the “new proposal includes the release of all 48 remaining hostages in exchange for a ceasefire and the end of the Israeli operation to occupy Gaza.” As with Ukraine, it’s hard to avoid the sense that we’ve heard it all — many times — before.
| | | | Introducing Global Security: POLITICO’s weekly briefing on the policies, regulations, and decisions shaping defense and security across North America and Europe. Subscribe today to receive special daily briefings as our team reports live from DSEI. | | | | | MEANWHILE ON THE HILL NOMINATION VIBRATION: Senators return to D.C. today with Majority Leader John Thune preparing to press the “nuclear” button to speed up Trump’s nominations. As POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reported Saturday, Thune is planning to push ahead today with an overhaul of Senate rules to push large numbers of Trump nominees through en masse. “This week the Senate will break the logjam on @POTUS nominees,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wrote on X last night. Tick, tock: Perhaps more pressingly, senators are now staring down a government shutdown deadline just three weeks away — and dueling factions of the chamber are hindering negotiations, POLITICO’s Jennifer Scholtes, Jordain Carney and Katherine Tully-McManus report this morning. On one side, “fiscal hawks are joining with the White House to keep federal agencies running on static funding levels, ideally into January or longer. On the other, Democrats and some top Republicans want to punt no further than November.” POLITICO’s Inside Congress has more on the status of funding talks. And in the House … Hardliners are pushing for a lengthy stopgap bill “rather than a short-term patch meant to facilitate a more comprehensive bipartisan funding measure down the road,” Jennifer and colleagues write. What Dems are reading: Ezra Klein in the NYT on why Dems should probably force a shutdown. “Joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition,” he writes. “It’s complicity.”
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The return of Extra Value Meals ensures everyone can find everyday affordable pricing at McDonald's. | | | | TRAIL MIX HOT ON THE LEFT: Much love on liberal social media circles for this campaign video by Michigan Senate hopeful Mallory McMorrow, in which a politician successfully plugs into the general irritation about the new ads polluting the NFL’s RedZone coverage without sounding like a visitor from outer space. EMPIRE STATE OF MIND: Jack Schlossberg, the social media gadfly and only grandson of President John F. Kennedy, said on X that he’s forming an exploratory committee for a run at the seat of retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). He’s one of many high-profile Democrats giving a look at the deep blue seat; other names in the mix include state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, former Rep. Carolyn Maloney and actress (and former gubernatorial candidate) Cynthia Nixon, among others. CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: Sen. Alex Padilla’s potential gubernatorial run has injected a new variable into the Golden State’s political equation, and has “quickly gained traction with one group in particular: Sacramento insiders who have known Padilla for years and see him as someone they can work with,” POLITICO’s Jeremy White and Melanie Mason report this morning. The contrast: “The 2026 contest is California’s most competitive governor’s race in decades, and many Democrats are still searching for an alternative to former Rep. Katie Porter, who rose to prominence with her sharp questioning of corporate executives and government officials in Washington and is viewed by some as too progressive.” 2028 WATCH: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was repeatedly pushed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about a possible run for president in 2028. “Yeah, I’m not running for president,” Moore told moderator Kristen Welker. As NYT’s Talya Minsberg notes, the word selection is interesting. He “carefully phras[ed] his response in the present tense, as he has other times the question has come up.” But Moore allowed less wiggle room for a future run than in the past, vowing to seek reelection as governor in 2026 and pledging he will serve a full term. THE BIG TREND: “In the Battle for Congress, Working-Class Democrats Try a Hardscrabble Pitch,” by NYT’s Annie Karni: “In a populist moment when voters are angry at a government that many believe has failed them at every turn, a slew of working-class Democratic candidates are entering competitive congressional races across the country with an appeal that appears aimed at being relatable, if not particularly uplifting: Our lives are just as difficult and infuriating as yours.”
| | | | Don’t just keep up with policy shifts — set the pace. POLITICO Pro’s Policy Intelligence Assistant combines unmatched reporting with advanced AI to deliver sharper insights, faster answers, and two powerful report builders that turn intelligence into impact. Try it free for 30 days. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | IN MEMORIAM — “John Burton, political giant who shaped California’s left, dies at 92,” by The Sacramento Bee’s Lia Russell: “Burton, 92, started his public career in 1964 in the Assembly after a stint as a lobbyist for PG&E, forging a reputation as a sharp advocate for foster youth and health care expansion with a plain-spoken style of speaking interspersed with profanities. … He also helped launch the careers of people like House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who in 1987 replaced Sala Burton, who had stepped into her late husband’s congressional seat after he suddenly died in office in 1983.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Lale Morrison will be federal affairs director at GIFFORDS. She previously was a VP at Blue Marble Strategy and is an Alcee Hastings, Stephanie Murphy and Jared Moskowitz alum. — Miguel Rodriguez will be EVP for external relations and program at the Center for American Progress. He previously was director for government relations for North America at the Gates Foundation. TRANSITIONS — Brooke Goren is now director of reputational issues and crisis for the U.S. at L’Oréal Group. She previously was deputy comms director on the Harris campaign, and is a DNC and DCCC alum. … Juliana Heerschap is now chief of staff for policy and strategy at Abundance Institute. She was previously VP of policy at Americans for Prosperity. … … Macaulay Porter is now a civics outreach Manager at Google. She previously was deputy assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. … Tim Sprunt has joined (starting tomorrow AM) the Progressive Policy Institute as a policy analyst. He was previously a program manager at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility. ENGAGED — Sean Holihan, state legislative director at GIFFORDS, and Collyn Heier, consultant at McKinsey, got engaged over the weekend in Glacier National Park. — Megan McKinley, finance director for Byron Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign and a Marco Rubio and NRSC alum, and Malcolm McMillan, a Charleston-based chef, got engaged on Thursday at The Inn at Little Washington. The two met after Megan moved to Charleston to work on Tim Scott’s presidential campaign. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) … CNN’s Alayna Treene … Purple Strategies’ Steve McMahon … Orchestra’s Jonathan Rosen … Richard Cullen … Sharon Páez of Potomac Waves Media, Shatter and Hilltop Public Solutions … Zack Ford … POLITICO’s Jeremy White, Tara Gnewikow and Eva Lee … Alexis Marks Mosher of Apple … Charlotte Ivancic … Elodie Offord of Senate Foreign Relations … Jaime Lennon of Rep. Johnny Olszewski’s (D-Md.) office … Mike Danylak … Ali (Pardo) Black of the Senate GOP Conference … Airlines for America’s Marli Collier … former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis … former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) … Nexstar’s Samantha Osborne Reynolds … former NEC Director Al Hubbard … Brendan Kownacki … Michael Wasser … Jack Petocz of Gen-Z for Change … Lenore Cho … Gabby Deutch … Curtis Ried 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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