| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine, Ali Bianco and Rachel Umansky-Castro Good Saturday morning. I’m Adam Wren. Get in touch.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: In the first news from his trip to Asia, President Donald Trump indicated to reporters overnight that he’s looking to dial down the trade-war temperature with China. “They’ll have to make concessions,” Trump said on Air Force One. “I guess we will, too.” He also said he wants China to help the U.S. in pressuring Russia — and warned it “would be very dangerous” for China if they invade Taiwan. More from POLITICO’s Louise Guillot
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The Vances' is a powerful marriage and partnership that could have a long shelf life on the political stage. | Jacquelyn Martin, Pool/AP | FIRST LADY FILES: Usha Vance has carved out a standard and staid role for herself in her earliest months in the Trump 2.0 Naval Observatory — at least on the surface. In addition to her service as trustee of the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center, the second lady and possible next first lady launched a summer reading challenge and has been at VP JD Vance’s side on trips abroad, including his high-profile Greenland visit. A new account from veteran White House chronicler Jonathan Karl due out Tuesday complicates the narrative of the second lady on the sidelines, according to an exclusive excerpt obtained by Playbook. In “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America” ($32), Karl details a February scene surrounding the rare earths deals with Ukraine days before President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington. As Trump weighed the deal, consulting his former adviser Steve Bannon by phone during a live broadcast of “War Room,” he met with Vance and others who were curious about whether it had undergone a legal vetting. “I can have Usha take a look at it,” Vance said of his Yale Law School- and Cambridge-educated wife, a seasoned litigator who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “And with that, the vice president asked the Second Lady of the United States — who, like Steve Bannon, had no role whatsoever on the National Security Council — to come over to the West Wing and review a bilateral agreement that was supposed to be signed the next day by Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” Karl writes.
| | | | A message from The Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance: In September alone, drugmakers poured nearly $200 million into direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads - a 14% surge since this summer - even as the Trump administration condemned #BigPharma's "misleading" marketing practices. With the majority of voters calling for stricter limits on Big Pharma's ads, it's clear that people AND policymakers have had enough. The bottom line? Americans want affordable prescriptions, not more pharmaceutical commercials. Read more. | | | | Spokespeople for the second lady, Vance and the White House declined Playbook requests for comment. The anecdote as reported is a telling window both into the inner workings of the second Trump White House and a powerful marriage and partnership that could have a long shelf life on the political stage. In what has been a more professionalized, leak-free Trump White House, the episode stands as a reminder of the non-traditional inputs and norm-breaking nature of the president’s decision process. For the Vances, though, it betrays Usha Vance as a co-equal governing partner ahead of what could be their own 2028 presidential bid, revealing her as a full participant in her husband’s political project. It also defies a more simplistic caricature offered by a prominent Democrat this week. MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki questioned Usha Vance’s independence in remarks on the “I’ve Had It” podcast with Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan. “I think the little Manchurian candidate, JD Vance, wants to be president more than anything else,” Psaki said, adding that “I always wonder what’s going on in the mind of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. We’ll come over here. We’ll save you.” When asked about it this week, Vance said: “Oh, I think it’s disgraceful.” He added: “Of course the second lady can speak for herself.” The second lady didn’t put out her own statement — perhaps she was too busy pouring over briefing materials for her husband’s G20 trip next month to Africa.
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| | | | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. RULE OF LAW WATCH: Trump last night called for the criminal prosecutions of prominent political foes Christopher Wray, Jack Smith, Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco, mischaracterizing records and falsely claiming they’d rigged the 2020 election. In fact, Trump was president during that election, and Smith, Garland and Monaco were not in power in D.C. POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney briefly runs down a few of the factual errors in Trump’s post, which continues the president’s pattern of seeking to end the Justice Department’s independence from partisan pressure at the White House. 2. THE LOOMING CLIFF: With SNAP benefits potentially running dry come Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown, the Agriculture Department has decided it won’t (and can’t, at this point) tap emergency money to cover it, Axios’ Marc Caputo scooped. That means some 42 million Americans who depend on the food aid may soon run out of it, though some states will try to cover the shortfall, POLITICO’s Grace Yarrow and Meredith Lee Hill report. Democrats quickly lambasted the move as cruel and deleterious, noting the administration has moved money to pay for other priorities during the shutdown; a lawsuit looks likely. But the White House said Dems are to blame for refusing to reopen the government. Speaking of shutdown stopgaps: In a very unusual move, the Pentagon announced it’s taking $130 million from an anonymous donor to cover some pay for the military during the shutdown, per POLITICO’s Leo Shane III and colleagues. Outstanding questions include how much it will help (it comes out to roughly $100 per service member) and how the government will avoid running afoul of ethics rules and laws. Trump said the donor is a friend of his who wants to help the military out of patriotism. And the layoffs: In an echo of the Department of Government Efficiency clashes earlier this year, HHS pushed back on OMB Director Russ Vought’s plan for mass layoffs during the shutdown, POLITICO’s Erin Schumaker and colleagues scooped. An initial document from right before the shutdown began showed an intention to fire almost 8,000 civil servants; the actual number so far has been under 1,000, after top HHS officials intervened. 3. THE SOUTH AMERICA PRESSURE CAMPAIGN: Trump is dramatically ramping up his saber-rattling in Latin America, on the top of his recent lethal strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the news the Pentagon will send an aircraft carrier near the continent. The U.S. sanctioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro, along with his family members and other officials, for failing to stem drug trafficking — an extremely rare penalty against the leader of a foreign ally, POLITICO’s Eric Bazail-Eimil reports. Trump went a rhetorical step further as he left the White House last night, telling reporters “the president of Colombia is a drug dealer.” The drumbeat of war? An aggressively escalating campaign against Venezuela could yet take another step. Trump is weighing, though has not yet decided on, moves to strike cocaine facilities and routes in the country, CNN’s Alayna Treene and colleagues report. Diplomacy is still on the table too. “Venezuela is not known to be a major source of cocaine,” CNN notes. It remains to be seen how far the U.S. will go, but some officials hope the pressure campaign will ultimately make President Nicolás Maduro leave office, The Atlantic’s Nancy Youssef and colleagues report. Another regional irritant: By tradition, the next U.N. secretary-general would rotate to Latin America and the Caribbean, but the U.S. said yesterday it’s open to candidates from anywhere, solely based on merit, Reuters’ Michelle Nichols reports.
| | | | Join POLITICO and FICO for a policy briefing that delves into the latest obstacles to preventing financial fraud, and the new technologies aimed at protecting consumers. Gain insights from government leaders and industry experts from Aspen Institute, Identity Theft Resource Center, Microsoft Security and more! Register to attend or watch online. | | | | | 4. THE GERONTOCRACY: “Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton scammed at home by group claiming to be cleaning crew,” by NBC Washington’s Mark Segraves and Maggie More: “The suspects charged almost $4,400 to her credit card for work they did not perform … A D.C. police report described [Del. Eleanor Holmes] Norton, 88, as having the ‘early stages of dementia,’ and said Norton has a caretaker with power of attorney. Norton’s office pushed back against that claim. … ‘The medical diagnosis included in the police report was based on an assumption the reporting officer was unqualified to make,’ the statement says.” 5. MAGA MILITARY: A federal appeals court temporarily paused a three-judge panel’s ruling that had allowed Trump’s military deployment in Portland, Oregon, to go forward, per the Oregonian’s Maxine Bernstein. The stay is not a ruling on the merits; it lasts until 5 p.m. Tuesday, until which time the Oregon National Guard still can’t be federally deployed in the city, as the judges consider whether to review the decision. Meanwhile, a federal judge heard arguments over the ongoing presence of thousands of troops in D.C., per WaPo. She sounded somewhat skeptical about reining in the president’s power over the capital. And WSJ’s Keach Hagey and colleagues recount how tech CEOs helped get Trump to back off San Francisco. 6. HEADS UP: “Justice Department Will Monitor Elections in California and New Jersey,” by NYT’s Shawn Hubler and Laurel Rosenhall: “The Trump administration said on Friday the Justice Department will monitor polling sites in California and New Jersey ahead of the Nov. 4 election, amid requests by Republican Party officials in those states. Although election monitoring by the Justice Department is not uncommon, it will likely heighten tensions as voters weigh in on some of the nation’s most closely watched races.” 7. IMMIGRATION FILES: The Trump administration’s latest attempt to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be to send him to Liberia, as soon as Friday, per the AP. This is the fourth African country — along with his native El Salvador — to which the U.S. has tried to deport the Maryland man. Abrego’s attorney said it was “punitive, cruel, and unconstitutional” to choose these options over Costa Rica. Meanwhile, with mass deportation numbers still lower than the White House and DHS want, the Trump administration is now considering ousting a number of ICE field office leaders, NYT’s Hamed Aleaziz and Tyler Pager report. 8. PARDON ME: “White House tightens the clemency process as Trump resumes pardons,” by NBC’s Katherine Doyle and Matt Dixon: “[After May,] the White House paused on Trump issuing pardons in order to get more control over matters. … Another factor has been the president’s crowded agenda … Two senior White House officials said chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has played a central role in reviewing pardons, became more outspoken after reports emerged that lobbyists and consultants were advertising themselves as offering access to Trump’s pardon authority for steep prices.” 9. TALES FROM THE CRYPTO: “Trump to Pick Michael Selig for CFTC Chair Amid Crypto Expansion,” by Bloomberg’s Lydia Beyoud and colleagues: “[Michael] Selig is chief counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto task force and has been working as an aide to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins. In that role, he’s been working to align the approaches of the SEC and CFTC to broad swathes of finance and the crypto industry. Earlier in his career, Selig was a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher’s asset management practice.”
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| | | | CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 16 funnies
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Matt Davies - NY Newsday | GREAT WEEKEND READS: — “My Last Day as an Accomplice of the Republican Party,” by Miles Bruner in The Bulwark: “Why I’m leaving the GOP and why I’m urging my former colleagues to do the same.” — “The Trap at 26 Federal Plaza,” by Stephanie Keith, Andrew Rice and Paula Aceves in N.Y. Mag: “Every day immigrants arriving for routine hearings are targeted by ICE agents and taken from their families.” — “Idaho Banned Vaccine Mandates. Activists Want to Make It a Model for the Country,” by ProPublica’s Audrey Dutton: “The new law sets Idaho apart from even conservative-leaning South Carolina.” — “Can Ken Burns Win the American Revolution?” by NYT’s Jennifer Schuessler: “Burns’s 12-hour documentary about our national origin story is landing in the middle of a culture war. Yes, it’s complicated. No, he does not want to talk about President Trump.” — “The Goon Squad,” by Daniel Kolitz in Harper’s: “Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation.” — “Why I Run,” by The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson: “I took up the sport to be like my father. I kept going because he stopped.” — “The Cocaine Kingpin Living Large in Dubai,” by The New Yorker’s Ed Caesar: “Daniel Kinahan, an Irish drug dealer, commands a billion-dollar empire from the U.A.E. Why isn’t he in prison?” — “Pollsters Have a New Kind of Competitor. They Should Be Worried,” by POLITICO Magazine’s Calder McHugh: “Advocates think political betting can transform — or even replace — political media.”
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➡️ Subscribe to West Wing Playbook | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Chris Christie, movie critic: The former New Jersey governor reviewed “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” for The Free Press. IN MEMORIAM — “J. William Middendorf II, 101, Dies; Navy Secretary and Musical Diplomat,” by NYT’s Robert McFadden: “A G.O.P. fund-raiser, he was the Navy chief under Gerald R. Ford and held ambassadorships in the 1970s and ’80s. He gained notice for his classical music compositions.” PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — Booz Allen Hamilton announced a second batch of layoffs this year is underway, specifically citing the Trump administration’s “continued funding slowdown,” The Washington Business Journal’s Ana Lucía Murillo reports. AT 1600 PENN — Among the casualties of the East Wing demolition (about which questions and controversy are still ongoing) are two historic magnolia trees, per ABC’s Peter Charalambous and colleagues, and the White House movie theater. The White House tells NYT’s Reggie Ugwu the theater will be “modernized and renovated.” OUT AND ABOUT — Jayme Franklin and Camryn Kinsey held a cocktail party last night to celebrate the launch of their new podcast, “Sincerely American,” presented by The Conservateur. Hundreds of attendees, many of them Gen Z women, gathered in a Northwest D.C. mansion, where Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) DJ’d. SPOTTED: Kenny Cunningham, Isabelle Redman, Jeff Freeland, Bryn Jeffers, Sonny Joy Nelson, Brianna D’Apuzzo, Adi Sathi, Kevin Corke, Kara Voght, Antonia Hitchens, Joshua Nelson, Alex Swoyer, Lucy Denyer, Storm Paglia, Ashley DiMella, Colin Rom, Brigid Mary McDonnell, CJ Pearson, Drake Franklin, Clemency Burton-Hill, Carl Schuler, Jessica Lycos and Beni Rae Harmony. — Meridian International Center held its 57th annual Meridian Ball and 14th annual Meridian Summit yesterday chaired by Art and Sela Collins, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) and Dina Powell McCormick, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Lisa Collis. Guests gathered at the center following a series of embassy dinners for desserts and dancing. The glitzy black-tie event featured a 1920s-style jazz band, themed cocktails, acrobatic performers and a dance floor. SPOTTED: Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Alina Habba, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Stuart and Gwen Holliday, Fred Hochberg, Deborah Lehr, John F. W. Rogers, Omar and Ada Vargas, Waldo McMillan and Nicole Isaac, Ross and Sarah Perot, Randi Levine, Lee Satterfield and Patrick Steel, Teresa Carlson, Drew Maloney, Heather Nauert, Bill Nye, Susanna Quinn, Kate Bennett, Julie Sweet, Michael Kratsios, Jarrod Agen, Sean Cairncross, Nick Luna, Bill Grayson, Rosie Rios, Paige Willey, Kellyanne Conway, Robert Allbritton, Nicole Butler, Paolo Zampolli, Roy Blunt, Jim Acosta and Liz Landers, Anna Palmer, Geoff Bennett and the ambassadors from the UAE, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Benin, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, the EU, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kuwait, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, the Philippines, Romania, Serbia, Costa Rica, Portugal and Uruguay. TRANSITIONS — The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has added Evan Slavitt as general counsel, Joel Taubman as director of student programs and staff attorney, Mollie Galchus as staff litigation attorney, Jake Mayerson as civil rights law fellow and Olivia Fisher as development research and database associate. BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Rep. Vince Fong (R-Calif.) HAPPY BIRTHDAY: James Carville … Geoff Burr … Nate Hodson … Phil McNamara … Penta Group’s Bryan DeAngelis … CBS’ Jan Crawford … POLITICO’s Bill Kuchman … U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Nicole Rose … Summit Campaign Strategies’ Charles Chamberlain … Patrick Butler … Elizabeth Crisp … Chuck Conconi … Brigid Ueland of Sen. Pete Ricketts’ (R-Neb.) office … Kendall Heath … Trey Hodgkins … Bobbie Kilberg … Cameron Kilberg … Chuck Baker of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association … GMMB’s Eric Conrad … Emily Prosser of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) office … Victoria Nuland … Gordon Johndroe … Ross van Dongen of Accelerator for America THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): POLITICO “The Conversation”: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Katelyn Jetelina. CBS “Face The Nation”: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries … Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.). NBC “Meet the Press”: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent … Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) … Marcus Samuelsson. Panel: Marc Short, Ashley Etienne, Susan Glasser and Andrew Ross Sorkin. MSNBC “PoliticsNation”: Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) … Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.). CNN “State of the Union”: Arnold Schwarzenegger … Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Abby Phillip. Panel: Brad Todd, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Adam Kinzinger and Xochitl Hinojosa. ABC “This Week”: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) … retired Lt. Gen. Doug Lute. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Sarah Isgur and Charles Lane. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Foreign policy panel: Michael Allen and Michael Pillsbury. Panel: Horace Cooper, Ben Ferguson, Marie Harf and Annmarie Hordern. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) … Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) … Scott Lincicome. Panel: Molly Ball, James Hohmann, Laura Weiss and John Tamny. 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.
| | | | A message from The Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance: Big Pharma prioritizes marketing over medicine, spending more of its budget promoting expensive drugs than researching new, innovative medications. In September, the industry spent nearly $200 million on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising – a 14% increase since this summer. This surge in spending flies in the face of the Food and Drug Administration's sharp criticism of Big Pharma's "misleading ads" and the Trump administration's commitment to ensuring transparency in pharmaceutical advertising. It also ignores the vast majority of Americans who have called to restrict Big Pharma's DTC ads. The takeaway? Americans want lower costs, NOT more pharmaceutical ads. It's time for Big Pharma to listen. | | | | | | | | 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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