| | | |  | | By Eli Okun and Rachel Umansky-Castro | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | 
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) answers questions about the ongoing government shutdown outside his office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Nov. 10, 2025. | Alex Kent for POLITICO | THE ART OF THE DEAL: Congress still seems to be barreling toward an end to the government shutdown, perhaps as soon as mid-week, even as a Democratic backlash against moderates who struck the deal keeps growing. The latest: Senate Republicans are meeting now. Though the exact timing is still unclear, senators are working through potential objections — and if they can get unanimous consent, the deal could pass as early as today. But keep an eye on Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who’s demanding a vote on a hemp amendment before the deal can move on from the chamber, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. Then it’s on to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson today said members should begin making their way back to Washington ASAP, per Meredith. A growing number of Dems have declared their opposition, but Johnson said he thinks he’ll have the votes to get the agreement through the House, indicating that President Donald Trump is on board. Johnson told members that he’s eyeing a vote as soon as Wednesday, per Meredith. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) told Fox News’ Liz Elkind he’s a likely yes, pending Paul’s hemp move. Once the House returns, Johnson will finally swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva prior to the vote, per Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman. House Democrats will gather virtually at 3 p.m. today. Democratic recriminations: The fury and debate among Democrats today remained intense, with many training their ire on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, even though he voted no, POLITICO’s Cheyanne Daniels and Nick Wu report. The progressives at Our Revolution called on Schumer to step down as leader. The moderates at Third Way came out against the deal, writing, “This was a battle worth fighting, and it was worth fighting longer.” The Lincoln Project crowed, “Schumer and the Hateful Eight Betray America.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries split the difference, strongly supporting Schumer, per Nick, but telling Aaron Parnas he was confused by “a handful of random senators” backing down from the fight. The defense: Some of the eight Democratic caucus members who took the deal argued that prolonging the shutdown wouldn’t achieve the goals of resisting Trump or extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. “Standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who opposed the shutdown all along, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “It actually gave him more power.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) held out hope that ending the shutdown could yield progress on Obamacare: “We’ve heard from a number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they’re willing to come to the table,” she said on CNN. “So now we’ll see.” Good luck with that: Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Scripps’ Nathaniel Reed that he and Johnson haven’t talked lately about a House vote on an ACA bill. “My commitment was to have that vote here, and they’ll have to figure out what to do in the House,” Thune said. Nonetheless, the Senate Finance GOP is planning to meet today to discuss the issue, per Semafor’s Burgess Everett. Silent support? Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) indicated that the eight senators who folded were taking heat for others: “There were a lot more than eight that were really happy that the eight of us voted … the way we did,” he said, per CNBC’s Emily Wilkins. What’s on the president’s mind: Though a deal is in the offing, a livid Trump threatened on Truth Social today that unpaid air traffic controllers who don’t immediately return to work “will be substantially ‘docked’” — while he’ll recommend a $10,000 bonus for those who stayed on the job, per POLITICO’s Sam Ogozalek. “For those that did nothing but complain … I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU,” Trump wrote. “You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country. You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record.” The number of flight cancellations nationwide ballooned past 1,400 this morning, per Bloomberg. In the courts: Even as the reopening of the government will likely soon make these cases moot, the pitched legal battles over SNAP continued today. A federal judge today temporarily barred USDA from telling states to unwind any efforts they’d made to pay out food aid benefits in full, per Reuters. And the Trump administration is going all the way to the Supreme Court to request an emergency stay of a different ruling that said the Agriculture Department must send recipients all their food stamps this month, POLITICO’s Marcia Brown reports. Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop us a line at eokun@politico.com and rumansky-castro@politico.com.
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Learn more at siemens-energy.com | | | | | | 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. SCOTUS WATCH: The Supreme Court said it will take up a case in which Republicans are seeking to limit states from counting mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, per POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein. The lawsuit, led by the RNC and others, argues that under federal law, Mississippi should not accept such ballots even if they were postmarked before Election Day. Dozens of other states do the same for military or all voters. Trump and Republicans have denigrated the practice and mail voting for years, including as part of false claims about election fraud. This case “is a potential blockbuster” in a Supreme Court term with several election cases, and it “could upend mail-in rules in dozens of states,” NYT’s Abbie VanSickle writes. Not up for review: The justices turned away an effort by Kim Davis to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, Josh writes. There were no noted dissents. Though Davis’ appeal petition was fairly technical, she’d hoped — and LGBTQ advocates had feared — that it could become the means to a broader rollback. 2. PETE HEGSETH’S WAR: “6 killed in U.S. strikes on 2 more alleged drug boats in eastern Pacific,” by NBC’s Patrick Smith: “[T]he two strikes were carried out in international waters and three men were aboard each vessel, Hegseth said. … The defense secretary described all six victims as ‘narco-terrorists.’ In keeping with past boat strikes, the men were not named and no evidence was presented to show their links to organized drug trafficking.” 3. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: China took another step today to execute on the terms of Trump’s recent agreement with President Xi Jinping, slapping North America export controls on 13 different substances that can be precursors to fentanyl, per Bloomberg. Those tighter limits are an effort to clamp down on the flow of such chemicals, which the U.S. blames for its opioid crisis and which contributed to Trump’s earlier imposition of tariffs on China. One to watch: Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who has emerged as a top Asia expert and envoy for Trump from the Hill, will travel to China in the early spring with members of Congress from both parties, he told the Washington Examiner’s David Sivak. 4. HEADS UP: “Trump Threatens to Sue the BBC for $1 Billion After Jan. 6 Documentary,” by NYT’s Michael Shear: “The legal threat came in a letter from Alejandro Brito, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, … [that] demanded a full retraction of the documentary, an apology and what his lawyers said would be payments that ‘appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.’ … The letter said: ‘The BBC is on notice’ and concluded: ‘PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.’ The BBC said on its website that it had received a letter threatening legal action and that it would ‘respond in due course,’ The documentary … had already been removed from the BBC’s online player.” | | | | As the shutdown fight deepens, stay on top of every twist with POLITICO’s essential newsletters.
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➡️ Subscribe to West Wing Playbook | | | | | 5. 2026 WATCH: Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) announced that she’ll retire rather than run for reelection, ending a 12-year career as a top progressive voice and appropriator in the House, the New Jersey Globe’s Joey Fox reports. Her safely Democratic seat in Central Jersey could attract lots of big contenders to replace her. … Christine Pelosi announced a bid for California state Senate in 2028 rather than running next year for the congressional seat being vacated by her mother, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), KQED’s Marisa Lagos scooped. Endorsement roundup: Candidates in a couple of contested Senate primaries are landing some high-profile support today. In New Hampshire, Americans for Prosperity Action endorsed Republican John E. Sununu, giving him a boost over Scott Brown, Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser scooped. And in Minnesota, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) backed Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan against Rep. Angie Craig, in what’s becoming something of a tussle between progressives and establishment Democrats, NYT’s Shane Goldmacher scooped. 2020 never dies: CNN’s Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski dug through thousands of old, deleted social-media posts by Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. They included calls to “defund the police” and funnel money into social services. Policing is “so broken it can’t be fixed,” he wrote. (His campaign now says, “Rather than defund Police, Dr. El-Sayed is challenging government choices that defund food, healthcare, and social services.”) 6. REWRITING HISTORY: “Trump being urged to intervene in Tina Peters case, sources say,” by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Marshall Cohen: “[Tina] Peters, the former Republican clerk of Mesa, Colorado, was found guilty last year on state charges of participating in a scheme that hoped to prove Trump’s false claims of mass voter fraud in 2020. … [B]ecause she was found guilty on state charges, Trump cannot outright pardon her … But that hasn’t stopped her allies from trying to get her out of prison. … [Ed] Martin has worked behind the scenes, over the objections of some of his colleagues, to find a way to grant relief.” 7: SYRIA LATEST: As we wait for more information from Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa this morning, House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) has emerged as an impediment to the bipartisan effort to roll back Caesar Act sanctions on Syria, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller scooped. Though the White House is pushing for the change, Mast’s sign-off is imperative, and he said his “concerns with a clean repeal of Caesar sanctions should be obvious to everybody.” Meanwhile, as al-Sharaa reportedly joins a broad coalition against the Islamic State today, Reuters’ Timour Azhari and Mahmoud Hassano scooped that Syria has successfully prevented two different Islamic State plots to assassinate him in the past few months. 8. TURMOIL AT DOJ: Since Trump took office, an estimated 5,500 staffers have left or been fired from the Justice Department and only a small portion have been replaced, WaPo’s Perry Stein reports. Once highly competitive, these positions are now struggling to get filled as not nearly enough qualified people are applying across all the U.S. attorney’s offices and others — and various “bureaucratic delays and hiring freezes” make the process more difficult. London calling: Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, asked FBI Director Kash Patel for help in keeping a specific, high-tech, London-based FBI position, but with funding cuts, Patel didn’t uphold his promise to do so, NYT’s Adam Goldman reports. The incident has now strained the FBI’s relationship with MI5, and other Five Eyes countries that cooperate with the U.S. on intelligence increasingly worry “that the bureau is adrift.” The FBI declined to comment on Patel’s discussions. 9: BEHIND BILL PULTE’S FIRINGS: “Housing official Bill Pulte fired ethics workers who were looking into his ally,” by WaPo’s Rachel Siegel: “Trump’s firebrand housing finance director, Bill Pulte, fired internal watchdogs at Fannie Mae who were looking into multiple complaints against a high-ranking company officer close to him … Pulte said last month he had fired dozens of Fannie Mae employees in what he said included a bid to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives … The ethics team — including its chief, Suzanne Libby — was fired shortly after Fannie management directed investigators to cease looking into the Pulte ally … On Monday morning, at least 200 additional Fannie employees were fired.”
| | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | PLAYBOOK FOOD SECTION — Elazar Sontag was named WaPo’s next food critic (with his face revealed!), and he’s already compiled a list of D.C. restaurants to taste. TOP TALKER — “D.C. plastic surgeons see surge in ‘Mar‑a‑Lago face’ requests from Trump insiders,” by Axios’ Mimi Montgomery: “While old-school Beltway-ers tend to be hush-hush about their tune-ups, the ‘Palm Beach crowd’ is all-systems-go, says [Troy] Pittman, whose MAGA-verse clients will often chat procedures and trade doctor recs. Fillers are big with this crew — especially lips, says Pittman, as are Botox and Dysport. … Speaking of the men, they’re looking for procedures to appear ‘younger’ and ‘more virile and masculine,’ says Pittman … On the menu: Botox, liposuction and eyelid rejuvenation.” MEDIA MOVES — Tinashe Chingarande is joining the Baltimore Sun as a politics reporter. She previously worked at NOTUS. … Andrew Craft is now an anchor/reporter for Newsmax. He most recently worked at LiveNOW from Fox. … Rebecca Adams is joining WaPo’s WP Intelligence as lead health care analyst. She most recently worked at KFF Health News. TRANSITIONS — Danielle Sassoon, who quit as an interim U.S. attorney in NYC when the Trump administration abandoned the prosecution of Mayor Eric Adams, is now joining Clement & Murphy to head its New York office, NYT’s Jonah Bromwich reports. … Hannah Lindow is now comms director for Mallory McMorrow’s Michigan Senate campaign. She previously worked at General Motors’ Cruise and is an Elissa Slotkin alum. … Glenn Parham is now national security policy and partnerships manager at Meta. He previously worked at the Defense Department. … … Ann Warner will be executive director of the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity. She most recently has worked at the International Center for Research on Women. … The Parkinson’s Foundation is adding Erin O’Quinn as associate VP of federal public policy, Deborah Swerdlow as associate VP of advocacy and state policy and Luisa Ferrari as senior director of public policy. O’Quinn most recently worked at the FDA, Swerdlow at USDA and Ferrari at the CDC. … Rachael (Baitel) Greenberg is now SVP of patient acquisition and retention at HarmonyCares. She most recently worked at the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs and is a Trump White House and Goldman Sachs alum. BIRTHWEEK (was Saturday): Garrett Reilly of Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) office BONUS BIRTHDAY: General Catalyst Institute’s Maryam Mujica 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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