| | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | BREAKING: “Senate strikes deal to vote on defense bill, breaking impasse,” by POLITICO’s Connor O’Brien: Now the National Defense Authorization Act could pass as soon as today, despite the government shutdown.
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President Donald Trump said Hamas will release remaining hostages Monday or Tuesday. | Evan Vucci/AP | MIDDLE EAST LATEST: President Donald Trump today touted the tentative Israel-Hamas peace deal and indicated that substantive movement could come in a matter of days, as hopes grow around the world for an end to two years of war. Trump hailed it as a “momentous breakthrough” to halt violence that has killed more than 68,000 people. The next steps for Trump: At a Cabinet meeting, Trump said he “will try to make a trip” to be there for a ceremonial signing in Egypt, he said. CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs scooped that Trump will likely go to Israel and Egypt on Sunday/Monday but not to Gaza, though that was initially under consideration. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met today with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, per NBC’s Jamie Gray and Charlene Gubash. The next steps on the ground: Trump said Hamas will release remaining hostages Monday or Tuesday. Both Israel and Hamas today signed onto the first phase. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with his security cabinet currently, and the Israeli government said that once they sign off, the shelling will end — a full ceasefire — 24 hours later, as Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar laid out to Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin. (Attacks apparently continued today.) Then Hamas will have three days to return hostages, and Israeli troops will partially retreat from Gaza. A flood of humanitarian aid into Gaza and prisoner releases by Israel are also expected. Hamas said the U.S. should make sure Israel sticks to its commitments and doesn’t delay. Note of caution: There will be plenty of potential sticking points and fraught, sequenced actions to come, and some of the trickiest long-term issues remain to be hammered out in future negotiations. But Trump projected confidence that they can get to peace. Live updates from WaPo How we got here: Part of the trick was Trump swatting away objections from both Arab allies and Israel that might have hampered progress at different points, CNN’s Kevin Liptak reports in a new tick-tock. “Trump brushed aside concerns he believed could derail progress toward ending a war he’s grown tired of dealing with. By moving swiftly forward — even amid his allies’ misgivings — Trump hoped to generate the type of momentum that had mostly eluded him.” Witkoff and Kushner also held lengthy discussions with Netanyahu to get him on board. Quieting the skeptics: The Economist applauded the breakthrough, writing that it’s “a triumph for Mr Trump’s transactional, bullying style of diplomacy.” Prize position? Trump’s open desire to win tomorrow’s Nobel Peace Prize got a boost from Netanyahu, who posted a doctored image of Trump receiving it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he’d nominate Trump for the prize himself if Trump sends Kyiv Tomahawk missiles and gets that war to a ceasefire too, per POLITICO’s Ketrin Jochecová and Veronika Melkozerova. But in reality, a Nobel for Trump looks highly unlikely. For one thing, the committee’s leader said they made their decision Monday — before news of the Gaza deal — and it’s focused on work that happened in 2024, Bloomberg’s Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth reports. (That hasn’t stopped Norway’s government from worrying about fallout from a Trump loss.) Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
| | | | A message from the National Retail Federation: The NRF Business of Retail Initiative at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business will provide faculty, staff and students with access to insights and expertise from the retail industry's top leaders. Learn more. | | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: The Senate today again rejected Democrats’ continuing resolution to reopen the government and is now voting on Republicans’ CR, which will almost certainly fail too. The troop pay question: Pressure is growing on congressional Republican leaders to take action for troops to get paid during the government shutdown, as Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) quietly signed onto Rep. Jen Kiggans’ (R-Va.) legislation, POLITICO’s Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill report. It’s a rare move by a top appropriator to apparently defy GOP leaders, who have indicated they won’t hold such a vote because it would reduce Democrats’ incentive to give in on the shutdown. On C-SPAN this morning, Speaker Mike Johnson also heard from a Republican military mom who pleaded with him to allow the vote: “My kids could die,” she warned in a “remarkable” exchange, Meredith recaps. No one budging: House GOP leaders today held firm that they don’t need a separate bill to pay troops because their “clean” CR would do it, per Meredith and Mia McCarthy. … Senate Majority Leader John Thune again told CNN’s Ted Barrett he won’t get rid of the filibuster, as some Republicans have advocated. … Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), one of the Democrats whom Republicans hope to flip, said she won’t back down. … If the shutdown keeps going, “we’re only going to cut Democrat programs,” Trump threatened today. But but but: Thune told Semafor’s Burgess Everett he’s weighing an offer to Democrats of a vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies after the government reopens. In the driver’s seat? Democrats are continuing to surprise many observers by not folding or losing steam yet in the shutdown standoff. “Every day gets better for us,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman and colleagues. (That line quickly rocketed to the fore of GOP messaging: Thune shot back on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Dem leadership clearly “has no interest in a solution.”) For now, the party is broadly unified and prepared to stand firm “for several more weeks,” even if troops miss paychecks, CNN’s Sarah Ferris and Annie Grayer report. And some furloughed federal workers say they support Dems’ position despite the personal ramifications, HuffPost’s Igor Bobic and Dave Jamieson report. First in Playbook: Rep. Emily Randall (D-Wash.) and almost 150 more Democrats sent Johnson a new letter calling on him to bring the House back and start negotiating on ACA subsidies. Read it here Just one problem: Raising the salience of health care is typically a political winner for Democrats, and this fight could help them put it back front and center for the midterms. But they’re operating in an information ecosystem, attention economy and political moment that have shifted away from debating the social safety net in a global era of conservative populism, NYT’s Nate Cohn writes. Survey says: The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Americans broadly blame everyone — both parties in Congress and the White House — for the shutdown. The impact: Already, states are starting to run out of WIC nutrition aid money for mothers and babies. Some benefits are getting paused while programs wait for Trump to make good on his plan to use tariff revenue to cover the shortfall, POLITICO’s Marcia Brown reports. 2. DEMOCRACY WATCH: “Trump’s war on the left: Inside the plan to investigate liberal groups,” by Reuters’ Nandita Bose and colleagues: “The Trump administration plans to deploy America’s counter-terrorism apparatus - including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department - as well as the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department against certain left-wing groups it accuses of funding and organizing political violence … [Stephen] Miller is deeply involved in reviewing government agencies’ investigations into the financial networks behind what the administration labels ‘domestic terror networks,’ which include nonprofits and even educational institutions.” The administration “has provided little evidence of a coordinated effort,” nor has it focused on right-wing terrorist attacks that have outpaced left-wing ones for three decades until the dynamic reversed this year. But it is naming groups that planned or funded protests at which it says violence ended up occurring, including Open Society Foundations, ActBlue, Indivisible, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. Many of these groups say they’ve never supported violence. One White House official says those groups “were not necessarily potential targets” for investigation, though.
| | | | Global Security is POLITICO’s new weekly briefing on the policies and industrial forces reshaping transatlantic defense. From Washington to Brussels and beyond, we track how decisions ripple across borders — redefining the future of security and industry. Sign up for the free preview edition. | | | | | 3. SCHOOL DAZE: Harvard’s negotiations with the Trump administration are starting up again today. But the administration’s move last week to ask nine peer universities to sign a “compact” aligning with its values, in exchange for preferential access to funding, has Harvard concerned that even if it strikes a deal with Trump, the admin could then come back seeking more, NYT’s Michael Bender and colleagues report. None of the nine schools have yet signed on to the compact. In the states: Democratic governors may face tricky decisions on whether to opt in or out of Trump’s major new school choice program, which will come online in 2027, Bloomberg’s Erin Hudson reports. 4. MUCK READ: “How Ken Paxton, a Rising MAGA Star, Got Rich as a Texas Politician,” by WSJ’s Elizabeth Findell and Mark Maremont: “[Texas AG Ken] Paxton, who entered state government in 2003 with a modest income and few assets, by 2018 told a lender he had amassed a net worth of about $5.5 million, not including millions in assets he and his wife had previously moved into a blind trust. The following year, Paxton reaped an additional $2.2 million gain — never previously disclosed — from his investment in a local company with a lucrative Texas state contract. … Although he said in public filings that he would no longer know what assets were in his trust, the text messages show a closer involvement.” Paxton’s spokesperson responded that the article is a “bogus hit piece.” 5. HAPPENING TODAY: Trump and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are due to ink an icebreaker deal, which would see the Coast Guard purchase several new big ships, some of them from Finnish shipyards, per Reuters. 6. THE BRAVE NEW WORLD: “The Army’s Race to Catch Up in a World of Deadly Drones,” by NYT’s Greg Jaffe at Fort Polk, Louisiana: “Until recently, defense experts had expected that new unmanned technology would allow U.S. troops to detect and kill the enemy from a distance, shortening wars and making them less risky. In places like Ukraine, the opposite was proving to be true. … This was the future of war. The big question … was whether the U.S. Army, burdened by peacetime rules, politics and bureaucracy, could keep up.” 7. TRAIL MIX: Though Maine Gov. Janet Mills is reportedly close to launching a Senate bid, populist progressive primary competitor Graham Platner is picking up more and more fans in the Senate, POLITICO’s Calen Razor and Jordain Carney report. Keys to the Keystone State: A new Franklin & Marshall poll shows the three Democratic state Supreme Court justices holding sizable leads among likely voters for next month’s retention votes — but tons of voters still undecided/unaware. Meanwhile, NBC’s Dylan Ebs and Melanie Jackson dive into the crowded Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s tossup 7th District, where candidates as varied as Bob Brooks, Ryan Crosswell and Carol Obando-Derstine will prompt the party to choose which direction to turn out of the wilderness.
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| | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Mike Johnson said he’s willing to go on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” with Hakeem Jeffries. THE FOREVER CULTURE WAR: Turning Point USA is counterprogramming Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show with its own event (performers TBA). OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a fundraiser for Foreign Policy for America last night in Georgetown: Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Tod Sedgwick, Christy Brown, Andrew Albertson, Nelson Cunningham, Elisa Massimino, Kristina Biyad, Regina Montoya, Joe Cirincione, Anne Witkowsky, Jane Rhee, Kellie Meiman Hock, Maryland state Sen. Jim Rosapepe and Julia Massimino. — The Center for European Policy Analysis hosted its leadership awards dinner last night at the Conrad Washington, where Howard Buffett, Brian Moynihan, Sevgil Musaieva, Olga Rudenko and retired Gen. Christopher Cavoli were honored. Alina Polyakova, George Casey, retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Boris Johnson delivered remarks. Also SPOTTED: Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Reps. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), A. Wess Mitchell, Celeste Wallander, Kathleen Hicks, Carlos Del Toro, retired Lt. Gen. Steph Twitty, Ukrainian Ambassador Olha Stefanishyna, Oksana Markarova, Karan Bhatia, Stephen Biegun, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Slovak Ambassador Radovan Javorčík, Estonian Ambassador Kristjan Prikk, Austrian Ambassador Petra Schneebauer, Lithuanian Ambassador Gediminas Varvuolis, Bogdan Klich and Christopher Walker. — SPOTTED at a Mozilla Meetups forum at the Eaton Hotel yesterday: Jenn Taylor Hodges, Chris Hilton, Kush Amlani, Leah Nylen, Alissa Cooper, Luke Hogg and Amba Kak. TRANSITION — Anne Dreazen will be VP and director of the American Jewish Committee’s Center for a New Middle East. She previously worked at the Defense Department. ENGAGED — Justin Herman, VP for global public sector at ServiceNow, proposed to Maggie Dougherty, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights and a Trump NSC alum, recently in French Polynesia, where he canoed out to the lagoon beneath Mount Otemanu in Bora Bora. It was a full-circle moment from their first date, after they met on Bumble last September, when he hired a boat out of the Wharf. Pics 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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