| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | Presented by American Advancement | With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco On today’s Playbook Podcast: Adam Wren and POLITICO White House reporter Myah Ward discuss the niche voters who could be key to the midterms, Kamala Harris’ fiery picture of her presidential campaign and the continued fallout from Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
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| Good morning. This is Adam Wren. Get in touch. WEEKEND LISTEN: Sriram Krishnan is a venture capitalist who now serves as the White House’s chief AI adviser. In a live interview for “The Conversation,” with Playbook’s Dasha Burns at POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit this week, Krishnan discussed what it takes for the U.S. to win the AI race, how the White House wants to keep “wokeness” out of government-funded AI and how the tech will be harnessed, regulated and contested in the years ahead. Watch the full episode here … Listen and subscribe In today’s Playbook … — Meet the new group of swing voters who could help decide the midterms. — Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have a high-stakes check-in scheduled this morning. — New details from Kamala Harris’ memoir are setting off another round of 2024 recriminations.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | WEIGHT FOR IT: One of Republicans’ most respected pollsters has identified an emerging group of swing voters who could help decide the 2026 midterms: Call them the weighted vest wearing women. They’re already flooding your social media feeds and neighborhoods — all while donning weighted vests, the latest fitness influencer fad of 2025. You don’t have to look far to find them. They’re covered on the pages of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and can be seen in plenty of TikTok videos. Christine Matthews — the pollster for former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s reelection campaign, Mitch Daniels’ two campaigns and the president of Bellwether Research — first saw women wearing weighted vests all over her upscale neighborhood in Alexandria. Matthews’ wanted answers to two simple questions: How many women were wearing weighted vests? And what were their politics? So she commissioned a poll of 1,000 women across the U.S., the results of which she shared exclusively with Playbook. Matthews found that about one in six women wear this year’s hottest wellness accessory. But more importantly, the weighted vest women broke for President Donald Trump by three points in 2024. Going into 2026, though, this group backs Republicans and Democrats equally at 47 percent in a generic congressional ballot. Among all women surveyed, 48 percent would vote for Democrats compared to 35 percent for Republicans. “The people who swing elections, it always sort of comes down — in particular in midterms — to suburban women,” Matthews told Playbook. “This, to me, is just a particularly interesting cohort that is a subset of that group that could swing these elections because they’re so engaged. They look like they’re definite midterm voters.” These voters are “under age 45, have kids at home, and live in urban/suburban neighborhoods, [are] well-educated, higher-income and highly engaged with politics,” according to Matthews’ poll deck. “While much more likely to ‘do their own research’ on health matters, they generally trust mainstream medicine and media,” according to the poll deck. “They aren’t vaccine skeptics or seed oil opponents. They are likely to be listening to a podcast while walking with a weighted vest. They are politically split.” A caveat: Matthews acknowledges that the weighted vest women comprise a small cohort, which could lead to a higher margin of error. “So we want to track them and get more data going forward,” she said. MAHA moms are real: Democratic women are more confident about vaccine safety than Republican and independent women. Only 24 percent of Republican women strongly agree that vaccines administered in the U.S. are generally safe, while 49 percent of Democratic women strongly agree and 23 percent of independent women strongly agree. Only 20 percent of GOP women and 16 percent of Democratic women say seed oils are unhealthy. It’s not yet clear what the defining issues for the weighted vest wearers in the midterms will be, and Matthews plans to commission more research about them in the coming weeks and months. But they appear to lean more conservative than the median voter. “They have a modern diet of information that is heavily influenced by new media, social streams and podcasts,” Matthews said. “But it doesn't cause them to go down weird fringe rabbit holes. It encourages them to adopt something like a weighted vest, but not, like, oppose vaccines.” SPEAKING OF THE MAHA MOMS: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crusade against vaccines is entering a new phase, with allies intent on rolling back school and health care facility mandates, POLITICO’s Liz Crampton and Gregory Svirnovskiy report this morning. “Anti-vaccines advocates are now targeting Louisiana, Texas and Idaho, where they are pushing red state governors to follow Florida’s lead in removing requirements in schools for students to get certain shots. But those advocates, emboldened by recent victories in state legislatures, face steep political obstacles within their own party that will reveal how far GOP state leaders are willing to go to support the anti-vaccine wing of the Republican Party.” INCOMING TODAY: The CDC’s outside vaccine advisory panel is meeting again today, where Kennedy’s handpicked committee is expected to vote on recommendations for the first hepatitis B vaccine dose and the Covid-19 vaccine for children. If the panel votes to drop those recommendations today — which the majority of members seemed inclined to do yesterday — it “could result in the most significant changes to the childhood vaccine schedule in recent memory,” POLITICO’s Sophie Gardner and Lauren Gardner report from Atlanta. Catching up: The panel yesterday voted not to recommend the MMRV vaccine to children younger than 4, instead advising that the group receive two separate vaccines: the MMR vaccine and the varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine.
| | | | A message from American Advancement: Democrats have a three-part plan for 2026: take back Congress, stop Trump's momentum, and erase his agenda. If Republicans lose the majority, President Trump's historic achievements vanish. Extending premium tax credits helps working families afford health care—and it's how Republicans keep promises that earned their majority. Republicans must protect these credits to protect the majority and the MAGA agenda. The choice is clear: defend our families, defend our future and defend our majority. Learn more. | | | | AMERICA AND THE WORLD DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: Trump is scheduled to speak by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping at 9 a.m., and both Washington and Beijing will be closely watching the readouts for signs of movement on trade and other issues facing both nations. On the agenda: The call marks the first direct contact between Trump and Xi since June, and the two are sure to discuss the framework deal negotiators reached earlier this week to save TikTok in the U.S. “The call is a watershed moment for both sides, and will be watched closely for any indication on whether Trump and Xi agree to hold their first in-person meeting since the US president returned to office,” Bloomberg’s Kate Sullivan previews. Still, the two sides “remain far apart on a number of issues, including on U.S. demands to lower the trade deficit, open up the Chinese market to U.S. imports, curb the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl and block China’s tariff evasion,” POLITICO’s Phelim Kine and colleagues write. Now read this: “Trump’s TikTok Dance Is a Constitutional Farce,” by Ankush Khardori for POLITICO Magazine: “When it comes to Trump’s handling of the TikTok ban, it has, at best, scrambled the constitutional order, and, at worst, seen the administration openly flout a law passed by the American public’s elected representatives in order to advance the political, personal and financial interests of Trump and his allies.” Watch this space: A bipartisan pair of lawmakers and a former U.S. ambassador are leading a pressure campaign for the release of two U.S. citizens from prison in China, which seems to be getting some traction with the Trump administration in time for today’s call, POLITICO’s Phelim Kine reports. The two detainees are Nelson Wells Jr. of New Orleans and Dawn Michelle Hunt of Chicago, who have been serving multi-year sentences for alleged drug trafficking. ON THE HORIZON: The U.N. General Assembly is convening next week in New York as a growing number of nations sidestep the Trump administration to formally recognize a Palestinian state, POLITICO’s Felicia Schwartz and Stefanie Bolzen report. The diplomatic maneuver will do nothing to impact the worsening conditions on the ground in Gaza, though it spotlights “the limited options available to countries that want to break with Washington on Israel. … It also shows the delicate balancing act some are doing to express their displeasure with Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war while staying in the Trump administration’s good graces.”
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| | | | NEWS FROM THE WILDERNESS BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: The embargo has been lifted on Kamala Harris’ new memoir due out next week, and the book is generating some surprisingly buzzy moments from the traditionally cautious communicator. Harris’ “score-settling new memoir throws sharp elbows at a number of likely 2028 presidential contenders,” POLITICO’s Melanie Mason in a must-read breakdown. Harris, Mason writes, “presents a relatively unvarnished look at her losing presidential bid, and her critical assessment of a range of leading Democrats represents one of the highest-profile installments yet in the party’s post-election recriminations.” BUTTIGIEG RESPONDS: Harris writes in the book that she felt she couldn’t pick Pete Buttigieg as her running mate — whom she says was her first choice — because he is gay. But Buttigieg firmly pushed back on that narrative in an exclusive interview with your Playbook author in Indiana yesterday. Buttigieg said he was “surprised” to read that passage from Harris’ book, despite her writing that it was a “mutual sadness.” He said he believes in “giving Americans more credit” than Harris’ assumption. “My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg told me. “You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them. Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.” UP FOR DEBATE: Just before she took the stage for a critical debate with Trump, Harris writes about an unexpected phone call she received: On the other end of the line, Joe Biden was demanding to know why she had bad-mouthed him to donors. The call left her rattled in a key moment of the truncated campaign and was emblematic of the sometimes strained relationship the two shared in the run-up to the election, POLITICO’s Aaron Pellish writes. “My head had to be right. I had to be completely in the game,” Harris writes in the book. “I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself.” THE REACTIONS: Harris wastes no time naming names in the book, ticking through the reactions from fellow Democrats in the immediate moments after Biden dropped out of the campaign. - California Gov. Gavin Newsom: Harris characterizes her longtime friend and sometimes rival as unreachable following Biden’s decision. “Hiking. Will call back,” Harris writes of Newsom’s response to her attempt to connect, though she pointedly notes in parenthesis: “He never did.”
- Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker: Harris says that Pritzker told her since his state was the one hosting the convention, he couldn’t commit to supporting her.
THE VEEPSTAKES: Harris also digs into the decisionmaking that led to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz receiving the VP nomination, detailing why some of the top contenders ultimately fell short in their pursuit. - Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro: Harris praises Shapiro as “poised, polished and personable,” but says she was put off by his ambition. She twice describes Shapiro as “peppering” her and staff with questions, not just about details of the job but also life as VP. She does note, though, that her husband Doug Emhoff preferred Shapiro. A spokesperson for Shapiro pushed back, saying he was only focused on “defeating Donald Trump and protecting Pennsylvania.”
- Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly: Harris describes Kelly as “magnetic,” but she worried he hadn’t yet experienced an “‘oh shit’ moment” during his political career. “I realized I couldn’t afford to test Mark Kelly in that ugly grinder,” Harris writes.
The memoir officially goes on sale next week. But if you’re hoping to pick up a copy and flip to the back to see which other names are mentioned in the pages, you’re out of luck. “The book, bucking the norm of Washington tell-alls, does not have an index,” Melanie notes. PREVIEWING THE 2028 DEBATE BARBS: Shapiro in an appearance on Stephen A. Smith’s new podcast said that Harris is “going to have to answer to how she was in the room [with Biden] and yet never said anything publicly,” per NBC’s Allan Smith and Shaquille Brewster.
| | | | Introducing Global Security: POLITICO’s weekly briefing on the policies and industrial shifts driving transatlantic defense. We track how decisions in Washington, Brussels and beyond ripple across borders — shaping the future of security and industry. Sign up today for the free preview version. | | | | | THE SPEECH DEBATE THE NEW TV PRESIDENCY: Following the shock sidelining of Jimmy Kimmel by Disney this week over comments he made about the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Trump administration is signaling that this is just the beginning. Trump floated targeting his other perceived network foes yesterday, POLITICO’s Irie Sentner and Ben Johansen report. And FCC Chair Brendan Carr underlined that point, saying his agency’s “not done yet.” Later, Carr told The Bulwark’s Scott Jenninksy that he thought it was “worthwhile to have the FCC look into ‘The View,’” another ABC program, and some others. Hitting on the Hill: A half-dozen lawmakers are publicly voicing concerns over the FCC’s outsized role in the episode, POLITICO’s Anthony Andragna and colleagues report. “The conservative position is free speech is free speech, and we better be very careful about any lines we cross,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said. Democrats may have an opening on the issue, but “it’s not clear how Democrats will translate this relatively united front into an electoral strategy,” POLITICO’s Elena Schneider reports. KIRK FALLOUT: The aftermath of Kirk’s killing is still looming over Washington. Speaker Mike Johnson urged members to unanimously support a formal resolution honoring Kirk that is expected to come up for a vote later today. “I can’t imagine that anyone would vote against it,” Johnson told reporters. Meanwhile, Democrats are introducing their own resolution condemning “all forms of political violence … regardless of political party or ideology,” per POLITICO’s Nick Wu. The resolution could effectively allow Democrats to “signal their condemnation of Kirk’s killing without praising his ideas or career.” Security concerns: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been given her own Secret Service detail, CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs and Arden Farhi report. Federal agencies are also ramping up their security with Trump and members of his cabinet slated to attend Kirk’s memorial service in Glendale, Arizona, this Sunday and are “tracking several threats of unknown credibility,” ABC’s Luke Barr and colleagues report. Under a special DHS designation, the service “will have the same level of security as the Super Bowl or the Boston Marathon.”
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: House Republicans are threatening to torpedo today’s expected vote on the short-term funding patch over complaints that the proposal doesn’t put enough money toward member security measures. Speaker Mike Johnson told holdouts in a closed-door meeting that he wasn’t going to reopen the text of the stop-gap measure, instead assuring them there could be additional money for security included in the separate legislative branch spending bill, per POLITICO’s Katherine Tully-McManus and colleagues. Trump urged House Republicans to “UNIFY, and VOTE YES!” Meanwhile: The Senate is slated to vote today on competing plans to temporarily fund the government amid a partisan standoff that is upping the chances for a shutdown. “Senate leaders finalized the plan, first reported by POLITICO, for side-by-side votes on Republican and Democratic stopgaps after Republicans huddled behind closed doors for a second time Thursday to talk about the path forward ahead of the Sept. 30 midnight deadline,” POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Jennifer Scholtes report. More from POLITICO’s Inside Congress FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Cornyn requests AG records on AG: Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn’s campaign has filed an open records request with the Texas AG Ken Paxton’s office for documents related to “Paxton’s travel and activities with Tracy Duhon, Attorney General Ken Paxton's alleged paramour, since March 2024,” according to a copy of the request obtained by Playbook. “These records are not only subject to public information law, but relevant to public interest as made clear in a September 12, 2025, Daily Mail article showing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been traveling ‘across the country and even overseas’ to meet a woman named Tracy Duhon with whom he was having an affair,” the request says. The campaign alleges that the travel was “essential to keeping the entanglement secret” from Paxton’s wife, which would qualify as personal travel. “If Paxton has used official resources to pay for any of these trips, or if the getaways conflicted with responsibilities to the State of Texas, Texans deserve to know,” the campaign said in the filing. A spokesperson for Paxton declined to comment. More details on Paxton's alleged ‘paramour’: A recent DailyMail report describes Duhon as a 57-year-old author and mother of seven who has marketed herself as a Christian influencer. More details from The San Antonio Current FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Eyes on Iowa: Incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Iowa state Democratic Rep. Jennifer Konfrst are tied with 44 percent support in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling shared with Playbook. The survey is the first publicly released general election poll for the district and was conducted from Sept. 17-18 among 717 Iowa voters. See the toplines NUDGING NORTON: The field of challengers taking on longtime Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-Del.) is growing, with at-large Councilmember Robert White jumping into the crowded race to succeed the 88-year-old Norton, despite her previous statements that she would run for reelection, WaPo’s Jenny Gathright and Meagan Flynn report.
| | | | Want to know how policy pros stay ahead? Policy Intelligence Assistant — only with POLITICO Pro — merges trusted reporting with advanced AI to deliver deeper insights, faster answers, and powerful report builders that drive action. Get 30 days free. | | | | | THE WEEKEND AHEAD TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Leigh Ann Caldwell, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Asma Khalid. SUNDAY SO FAR … POLITICO “The Conversation with Dasha Burns”: Sriram Krishnan. CBS “Face the Nation”: French President Emmanuel Macron. NBC “Meet the Press”: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro … Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Mel Robbins. Panel: Brendan Buck, Adrienne Elrod, Amna Nawaz and Tyler Pager. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) … Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas). Panel: Brad Todd, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Andy Levin and Xochitl Hinojosa. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Josh Holmes … Michael Duncan … John Ashbrook … Comfortably Smug. Panel: Francesca Chambers, Hans Nichols, Cal Thomas and Juan Williams. MSNBC “The Weekend”: Stacey Abrams … Zohran Mamdani … Joe Manchin. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Benny Johnson … Andrew Kolvet.
| | TALK OF THE TOWN | | EAST WING INTRIGUE — Melania Trump has told her legal team to take action against anyone publishing “falsehoods” or “defamatory” information about her related to Jeffrey Epstein, NBC’s Monica Alba and Chloe Atkins report. “The campaign has resulted in several recent retractions and apologies.” EYES ON THE SKIES — “Senators call on Congress to roll back flights at National Airport,” by WaPo’s Lori Aratani: “‘While many risk factors must be reevaluated, Congress needs to start by rolling back the additional flight slots it forcibly crammed into last year’s FAA Reauthorization Act,’ Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, said in a statement on Thursday.” OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED last night at the Jefferson Hotel for a reception celebrating the launch of Randi Weingarten’s new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy” ($30), which featured a discussion with the author moderated by Michael Tomasky: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), Leah Daughtry, Sharon Kleinbaum, Alex Vindman, Michelle Ringuette, Steve Clemons, Alix Dejean, Kathryn Greenberg, Marie Smeallie, Celinda Lake and Neera Tanden. — The Congressional Management Foundation hosted its annual Democracy Awards ceremony yesterday in the House Ways and Means Committee hearing room. The annual bipartisan awards recognize nonlegislative achievements across multiple categories. SPOTTED: Reps. Blake Moore (R-Utah), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), and Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), JT Jezierski, Tricia Russell, Chris Crawford, Mitchell Rivard, Natalie Joyce, Army Robinson, Tom Wickham, Michelle Richardson and Lea Sulkala. TRANSITIONS — Lorenza Ramirez is now national organizing director for the DNC. She previously worked for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). Sarah Sterner is now the DNC’s national coordinated campaign director. She previously worked for the Michigan coordinated campaign in 2024. BIRTHWEEK (was Wednesday): SBA’s Bill Briggs HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) (6-0) ... Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) (7-0) … Ariana Mushnick ... RaeAnn Ensworth … Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone ... Toby Chaudhuri … Michaela Johnson of Rep. Debbie Dingell’s (D-Mich.) office ... David Pittman ... Greta Carnes … Jeannie Bunton of the Consumer Bankers Association … Potomac Square Group’s Chris Cooper … Smithsonian Magazine’s Teddy Scheinman … Sonali Desai of House Dems … Hannah Goss … Monica Crowley … Ben Cantrell of BlackRock … John Byers of Rep. August Pfluger’s (R-Texas) office … Will Hackman … Curtis Rhyne ... Frank Konkel … Neal Urwitz ... Michael Horowitz … Kimberly Halkett … Adam Temple … Brian Phillips Jr. of the FCC… Erin Pelton … Meta’s Andrea Saul … Barry Scheck … Sarah Davey Wolman … Mark Stevens … Klas Bergman 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.
| | | | A message from American Advancement: Democrats have a three-part plan for 2026: take back Congress, stop Trump's momentum, and erase his agenda. If Republicans lose the majority, President Trump's historic achievements vanish. Extending premium tax credits helps working families afford health care—and it's how Republicans keep promises that earned their majority. Republicans must protect these credits to protect the majority and the MAGA agenda. The choice is clear: defend our families, defend our future and defend our majority. Learn more. | | | | | | | | 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 | Canada Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | |
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