| | | |  | | 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 discuss what they’ll be watching as Pam Bondi heads to the Hill for the first time as U.S. Attorney General. Plus — the proud American who (unlike Donald Trump) clearly has no idea that it’s Nobel prize week.
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| Good Tuesday morning. This is Jack Blanchard. IT’S OCTOBER 7: And it’s two years to the day since the murderous attacks on Israel by Hamas that left almost 1,200 people dead and thousands more injured. As the world pauses to remember Israel’s darkest day, and all that has followed, a chink of daylight is growing in the Middle East. Praying for peace: Negotiations will continue in Cairo for a second day over the Gaza peace plan which Trump is trying to push through. “The indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, are likely to focus on two aspects of Mr. Trump’s 20-point proposal: exchanging Israeli-held Palestinians for captives, and an Israeli pullback from parts of Gaza,” the NYT’s Ephrat Livni reports. There’s no sign of a breakthrough as yet, but Trump is hopeful we’ll see something concrete this week — most immediately on the release of the last Israeli hostages in Gaza. “We have a really good chance of making a deal, and it’ll be a lasting deal,” Trump said yesterday. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Trump's plan "presents an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end." More than 60,000 people are reported to have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 as a result of Israel’s military campaign. On the president’s schedule: A 3 p.m. meeting in the Oval Office with Edan Alexander, the American-Israeli hostage released by Hamas in May following lengthy negotiations with the White House. In today’s Playbook … — All eyes on the Senate as AG Pam Bondi squares off with angry Dems. — U.S. troops could start arriving in Chicago as soon as today. — And Canadian PM Mark Carney’s in town to talk tariffs with Donald Trump.
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AG Pam Bondi testifies before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on June 25. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | BONDI TV: Expect wall-to-wall cable news coverage this morning as Trump’s ultra-loyalist AG Pam Bondi sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9 a.m. for what should be a fiery session picking through her controversy-packed first eight months as U.S. attorney general. History maker: As POLITICO’s ace “Rules of Law” columnist Ankush Khardori writes this morning, Bondi has overseen nothing short of “a fundamental reshaping of what it means to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.” The traditional, post-Watergate presentation of a DoJ independent from the White House has been torched by Bondi, in favor of devout loyalty to the president. And there may be no going back. Who’d be a journalist? For his sins, Ankush has just re-watched every one of Bondi’s roughly 100 public appearances this year — including 30 interviews on Fox News alone. (That’s almost one Fox interview per week since she became AG, which tells its own story.) Bondi, he concludes, “has emerged as perhaps the most openly political and partisan attorney general in modern American history.” Plenty of experts share that view. The NYT has privately surveyed 50 members of the “Washington legal establishment" — retired AGs, judges and the like; half Republican, half Democratic — for their views on the current DOJ. “The responses captured almost universal fear and anguish over the transformation of the Justice Department into a tool of the White House,” Emily Bazelon writes, and “near consensus that most of the guardrails inside and outside the Justice Department … have all but fallen away.” Such is the context for this morning’s hearing, where Democrats are determined to attack what they perceive to be the weaponization of Bondi’s DOJ. And the evidence can hardly be waved away: Trump told us repeatedly before the election that he’d pursue his political enemies; then a few weeks ago, as president, we saw him publicly venting at Bondi over the lack of DOJ action. And sure enough, former FBI chief James Comey, one of Trump’s bêtes noire from his first term, is now due in court tomorrow. And there’s more to come: Dems will also raise the DOJ’s efforts to prosecute Letitia James, the New York AG who pursued Trump over his financial affairs. As in Comey’s case, career prosecutors seem unconvinced. MSNBC’s Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian report that top Virginia prosecutor Elizabeth Yusi “has confided to co-workers that she sees no probable cause to believe James engaged in mortgage fraud,” and “plans to present her conclusion … in the coming weeks.” Though given the last prosecutor who made such a judgement, Erik Siebert, was swiftly fired by Trump, that likely won’t hold things up for long. Most pressing of all to this committee … will be the DOJ’s pursuit of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led the first impeachment of the president in Feb. 2020. Schiff, after all, just happens to be a serving member of Senate Judiciary, and so will get the chance to quiz Bondi today. Those exchanges alone should be worth tuning in for. Reminder: Schiff, like James, is being investigated over allegations of mortgage fraud, which he denies. Both were named in Trump’s infamous Truth Social message to Bondi on Sept. 20, which looks destined to become a key feature in several future court cases. And there’s no hiding what Trump wrote in that post. So you can expect Bondi to take a different tack this morning; deflecting to what Republicans say was the real weaponization of U.S. law enforcement, under President Joe Biden. With incredibly helpful timing, Fox News and Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley last night both published FBI documents showing how Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2022 inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot had secretly gathered metadata on the contacts of eight Republican senators as it probed political networks around D.C.. Anyone need a talking point? Trump’s allies were straight out of the traps last night to make the document as big a deal as possible. FBI chief Kash Patel said senators’ phone records had been “seized for political purposes” and attacked the Biden FBI’s “abuse of power.” Grassley described the incident as “worse than Watergate.” Expect Bondi — and Republicans on the committee — to pivot back to this incident again and again whenever Democrats raise weaponization. More to discuss: Bondi will face plenty of heat too over an entirely different matter — her (mis-)handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, which has proven to be the most damaging episode of her tenure so far (and for which some MAGA supporters have never forgiven her). Unhelpfully, Trump reopened the whole Pandora’s Box yesterday by suggesting — almost absent-mindedly — that he might consider a pardon for Epstein’s accomplice, Ghisliane Maxwell. And there’s still more: Bondi’s comments on free speech following the killing of Charlie Kirk. The AG attempted to make a (likely unconstitutional) distinction between “free speech and hate speech,” and said her DOJ would “go after" people by “targeting anyone with hate speech”. Free speech absolutists on the right were up in arms. And on top of all that comes the DOJ’s central involvement in so many of the titanic legal struggles of the Trump 2.0 era — from highly controversial immigration enforcement tactics to Trump’s efforts to send the U.S. military to some of America's cities, any of which could be brought up today. There’s also the legality of Trump’s lethal military strikes on Venezuelan boats to consider; CNN reported last night on the classified legal advice offered up by the DoJ to give the White House cover for the attacks.
| | | | A message from The National Retail Federation: Retail supports 55 million jobs and contributes $5.3 trillion to annual GDP. As the nation's largest retail trade organization, NRF advocates, educates and communicates retail's impact on communities and the global economy. That's why we're funding the NRF Business of Retail Initiative at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Learn more. | | | | MAGA MILITARY SENDING IN THE TROOPS: The U.S. military could hit the streets of Chicago as early as today, after a federal judge refused to immediately block Trump’s National Guard deployment, the Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella and colleagues report. Unlike in Portland, Oregon, where a judge instantly barred troop deployments pending further court proceedings, Biden appointee Judge April Perry has merely scheduled a hearing for Thursday. That could well give the troops time to arrive before any court intervenes. Who needs judges anyway? Trump may still have cards to play even if judges stand in his way. The president said yesterday that he’s prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act if he needs to, a controversial set of emergency powers last deployed during the LA. riots of 1992. Top White House aide Stephen Miller has already claimed that unfavorable judicial rulings against Trump constitute a “legal insurrection,” per POLITICO’s Irie Sentner. Plenty of prominent MAGA activists are urging Trump to outright defy the court rulings, Axios’ Tal Axelrod reports. On the ground in Chi-town: The ICE crackdown is now rattling Chicago, provoking occasionally violent clashes and filling immigrant communities with fear, NYT’s Julie Bosman reports. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) warned that Republican senators should be concerned too, per POLITICO’s Jordain Carney. And nobody’s dialing down the rhetoric: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker vowed to use every tool available to “get [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago,” per the Washington Examiner’s Molly Parks. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Pritzker’s words are “directly contributing to domestic terrorists attacking our brave law enforcement.” The view from the White House: Fresh from reading yesterday’s Playbook, press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Trump doesn’t actually want to “take over the American cities with the military” — but is simply looking “to help these local leaders who have been completely ineffective in securing their own cities.” The view from 30,000 feet: Trump’s use of the military for domestic purposes will set up serious tests of “constitutional law, federalism and the separation of powers,” AP’s David Klepper and Konstantin Toropin report — including the question of whether he accepts court rulings. It’s “a slow-motion probing by President Donald Trump to test the resistance of the courts and their willingness to defer to the judgment of the commander-in-chief, even when his claims are ‘untethered’ from reality,” POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney writes.
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| | | | IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID THE GREAT WHITE NORTH: Trump will welcome Canadian PM Mark Carney back to the White House at 11:30 a.m. with an on-camera meeting in the Oval Office followed by a working lunch. Carney got in some pre-meeting flattery with The Economist, calling Trump “very sharp,” “decisive” and “very curious about people’s opinions on a wide range of issues” (read the full story here). “We take a different view” on trade deficits, Carney allowed. The talks: Domestically, the pressure is on Carney to make real progress on a U.S.-Canada trade/security agreement and help get Canadian industry some reprieve from Trump’s tariffs. It’s not clear if a breakthrough is in the offing today. (It probably won’t help that Trump revived his “51st state” idea in that speech to U.S. generals last week.) But but but: The collateral damage from Trump’s tariffs continues to pose an economic and political challenge for the White House too. Officials are weighing a major relief package for farmers: CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs and Olivia Rinaldi report that it could be worth $10 billion, while Reuters tabs the number at $15 billion and reports it could be unveiled as early as today. MORE ECON HAPPENINGS: Stephen Miran, Trump’s favorite Fed governor, will speak at a Managed Funds Association conference at 10:45 a.m. and at a Deutsche Bank conference at 4:05 p.m. — with the central bank’s next interest-rate decision now just three weeks away … And Playbook’s own Dasha Burns spoke with “Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary about the Trump economy. “Mr. Wonderful” lauded foreign investment and soaring stock markets; while raising concerns about tariffs, the Fed’s independence and — especially — the U.S. government stake in Intel. Read and listen to “The Conversation” TRAIL MIX ELECTION DAY: Tennessee Republicans go to the polls today for a special-election primary to determine the likely successor to former Rep. Mark Green — but Trump may have already chosen for them. After his last-minute endorsement of Matt Van Epps, both state Rep. Lee Reeves and Stuart Cooper suspended their bids and urged their supporters to vote for Van Epps, Roll Call’s Mary Ellen McIntire reports. MORE CAMPAIGN BITES: Virginia AG Jason Miyares is going up with a $1.5 million ad flurry highlighting Jay Jones’ text messages about hypothetically shooting a political opponent. … Former FEC Chair Trey Trainor officially launched a GOP bid to succeed Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). … Democrat Audrey Denney kicked off a Democratic campaign in what could be a newly gerrymandered California district. … EMILY’s List got behind Katie Porter in the California Democratic gubernatorial primary. … Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) was revealed to have said this summer that she’ll hold town halls “when hell freezes over.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Ad it up: Next month’s crucial Pennsylvania Supreme Court election has flown under the national radar, but it will determine partisan control of the court and “has Democrats worried,” AP’s Marc Levy reports. Today, Gov. Josh Shapiro is going up with ads to boost the incumbent Democratic justices, Playbook’s Adam Wren reports. In the spot, Shapiro says they’ll protect “a woman’s access to abortion and birth control and stand up for all our freedoms.” Watch it here FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Cash dash: Ryan Crosswell, who is running as a Democrat for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District and has been endorsed by VoteVets and New Politics, raised more than $370,000 this quarter, Adam reports. Crosswell earlier this year resigned as a Justice Department attorney following Trump’s demands that DOJ drop its case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. RED-LIGHT REDISTRICT: Utah’s new court-ordered congressional map is going back before a judge — amid a flurry of legal jockeying and political gamesmanship. Republicans passed the most pro-GOP map of their options, though it will still make at least one seat more competitive. Democrats are hopeful for an opening, and former Rep. Ben McAdams plans to run, POLITICO’s Andrew Howard and Samuel Benson report.
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST SCOTUS WATCH: The Supreme Court will hear arguments at 10 a.m. on whether states can ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors, as half the country has done. One of the court’s highest-profile non-Trump cases this term, Chiles v. Salazar will ask the justices to determine whether such bans violate practitioners’ free speech rights — or are within states’ regulatory purview. In Colorado Springs, plaintiff Kaley Chiles tells ABC’s Devin Dwyer and Patty See that Colorado’s 2019 law infringes on her “faith-informed” counseling. NO DIPLOMACY: “Trump Calls Off Diplomatic Outreach to Venezuela,” by NYT’s Julian Barnes and colleagues: “The move paves the way for a possible military escalation against drug traffickers or the government of Nicolás Maduro.” SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: Surprising no one, the Senate again failed to pass either party’s continuing resolution to reopen the government yesterday, per POLITICO’s Jordain Carney. And a solution may actually be growing more distant: Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), one of three non-Republicans to vote for the GOP’s “clean” CR, said he may stop supporting it because Republicans’ comments on extending Obamacare subsidies are insufficient. Let’s make a deal? Trump yesterday signaled he may be willing to engage with Democrats, saying he’d “like to see a deal made for great health care,” per the WSJ. But Trump’s suggestion that talks are ongoing was a little confusing, given Leavitt, had said earlier that he wasn’t talking with Dems. (Democratic leaders said they hadn’t heard from him either.) Interestingly,, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) broke with her party and backed extending Obamacare credits, delighting Democrats. More from POLITICO’s Inside Congress Rahm weighs in: On POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook podcast, Rahm Emanuel offers Gordon Repinski some shutdown messaging advice for Dems by invoking his administration’s financial support of Argentina. “‘You have found $20 billion of bailout money for Argentina. And yet 20 million Americans are going to lose their health care, and you can’t find a penny for them. … You wrote a hot check to Buenos Aires, and yet the people in Buena Vista, Iowa, get nothing,’” he said. The impact: U.S. air travel is starting to feel the effects due to shortages of air traffic controllers, per the NYT. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: “Trump administration weighs selling parts of $1.6T federal student loan portfolio,” by POLITICO’s Michael Stratford: “The idea reflects an appetite from administration officials to shrink the size of student loan debt on the government’s balance sheet. … Selling federal student loan debt raises significant logistical and legal concerns, adding new uncertainty for borrowers.” HEGSETH BLINKS: After a fight with the Pentagon Press Association, the Defense Department said it would ease up on a planned requirement championed by Secretary Pete Hegseth that journalists get approval to publish any non-official information, NYT’s Erik Wemple reports. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Meet Gavin Newsom’s unlikeliest tormentor … A city leader and moderate Democrat from his home patch. San Jose Mayor “Matt Mahan, a moderate from the heart of Silicon Valley, has pilloried Newsom for his social media strategy trolling Republicans,” POLITICO’s Dustin Gardiner writes. “He’s lit into the governor for his handling of the state’s problems with drug addiction and homelessness.” And he’s “increasingly becoming a thorn in the California governor’s side.” HOW NOBEL: “Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid,” by AFP: “Fred Ramsdell shared Monday’s prestigious prize with Mary Brunkow of Seattle, Washington and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University in Japan for their discoveries related to the functioning of the immune system. … ‘I think he may be backpacking in the backcountry in Idaho,’” a friend of Ramsdell’s told AFP.
| | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Donald Trump and JD Vance are back on TikTok. “I saved TikTok, so you owe me big,” the president told young people. John Kasich has launched a Substack: “I believe we need more spaces where people can come together, slow down, listen to others and think about what really matters.” Paul Finebaum is clashing with ESPN as he considers launching a bid for Senate in Alabama, and the popular host says the network barred him from interviewing Trump in 2019. OUT AND ABOUT — The George H. W. Bush Points of Light Awards took place yesterday evening at the Ritz-Carlton, honoring Marvin Ellison, Dynasty Taylor and Gregg Petersmeyer for their civic engagement and volunteer work. Judy Woodruff emceed. SPOTTED: Jennifer Sirangelo, Neil Bush, Margaret Bush, Lauren Bush Lauren, Joe Crowley, Rosie Rios and Nikki Clifton. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Chris Schmitter, former chief of staff to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is launching a strategic consulting practice. He’ll keep Walz as a client and be a senior adviser to the governor’s reelection campaign. — Democracy Forward is adding Ryan Cooper, Jyoti Jasrasaria and Jennie Kneedler as senior counsels. Cooper previously was at the CFPB. Jasrasaria previously was at the Elias Law Group. Kneedler was previously an immigration judge with the DOJ. Jessica Blakemore is also joining as principal deputy general counsel, after working in the Biden White House. — Katie Barr is taking over as CEO of Glen Echo Group. She previously was the firm’s president, and is succeeding Maura Colleton Corbett, who is now a founder and senior adviser. — The Texas Tribune Festival, taking place next month in Austin, is fleshing out its full lineup with the announcement of several new speakers: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger. — Eve O’Toole, Leslie Pollner, Lisa Barkovic, Joe O’Brien and Adrianna Williams are joining Manatt, Phelps & Phillips’ government advocacy and contracting practice. TRANSITIONS — Sophia Barkoff is joining New Heights Communications as a senior associate. She previously worked at CBS News and is a Center for Strategic and International Studies alum. … Delanie Bomar is joining the RNC as regional comms director. She previously worked for Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and is an NRCC alum. … Hayes Heredia is now a director at Continental Strategies. He previously worked for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.). … … Kyle Kizzier is joining the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations as VP of government affairs. He previously worked for Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.). … Grace Kim is joining Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s (R-Wis.) office as comms director. She previously worked for the NRSC. … Jed Herrmann is now a director in Guidehouse’s state and local government practice. He previously worked at OMB and the Treasury Department. WEDDINGS — Gary Grumbach, a legal affairs reporter at NBC News, and Margaret Hynds, an associate at Latham & Watkins, got married at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on Sept. 27. They were introduced by Julie Morse. Instapics by Angelika Johns — Sam Runyon, chief of staff to the head of ExxonMobil’s D.C. office, and Alex Damato, VP of policy and franchising at Charter Communications, got married at the Riggs Hotel on Sept. 27. Pic, via Ishmael Bruno Photography … Another pic … SPOTTED: Jamie Wall, Annie Clark, Brian Simonsen, Katey McCutcheon, Sarah Venuto, Kate Cassling, Xan Fishman, Bryer Davis, Anne Foley, Wes Kungel, Steffanie Bezruki, Renae Black, Adam Falk, Bryan Tremont and Rachel Petri. — Jane Tilles, senior government relations associate at FDD Action, and Army Reserve 2nd Lt. Matthew Adams, senior government affairs and coalitions manager at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, got married at St. Mary Mother of God on Saturday, followed by a reception at Cedar Knoll in Alexandria, Virginia. They met through Young Americans for Liberty as students at American University. Pic, via Annie Rainwater … Another pic … SPOTTED: Shannon Walsh, Keelyn Graves, Anna Given, Harry Kazenoff, Nick Porritt, Elena Michaels and Francisco Ferrisi. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Boris Vabson, senior adviser to CMS and a former Harvard and AEI economist, and Lucy Ren, an analyst at Invesco, welcomed son Noam on Sept. 20. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) … Kate Berner … NYT’s Charlie Savage … Tom Perez … Herald Group’s Robert Brooks … David Hayes … retired Lt. Col. Oliver North … Katrina vanden Heuvel … Chris Krueger of Cowen … AARP’s Bill Sweeney … Stephen Jackson of the Ripon Society … Roll Call’s Tom Williams … DOJ’s Michael Rosengart … Amanda Fleming of Public Citizen … USTelecom’s Allison Remsen … CNN’s Elizabeth Hartfield … GWU’s Sean Aday … Elena Radding of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-Ga.) office … Brad Williamson of Glen Echo Group … Greg Burns of Thorn Run Partners … POLITICO’s Orlando Navarro 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 deputy editor Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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