| | | |  | | By Ben Fox | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun and Ali Bianco Editor’s note: As we prepare to turn the calendar to 2026, we’re turning over the Playbook pen to some of the brilliant journalists across the POLITICO newsroom to bring you dispatches from different corners of the country spanning a range of prominent and under-the-radar political stories. Good Thursday morning, and merry Christmas to those who celebrate! This is Ben Fox, writing from San Diego. Get in touch.
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If it gets on the ballot, a proposed San Diego tax on short-term rentals and vacation properties will become a bruising political fight. | Patrick Semansky, File/AP | DISPATCH FROM SAN DIEGO: Many people are spending the holidays at an Airbnb or short-term rental, but be aware: Your temporary neighbors increasingly do not welcome your presence. For a host of reasons, mostly tied to that so-called “hoax” of affordability, the short-term rental industry has come under fire around the country, and the world, prompting popular destinations to crack down in ways that make platforms such as Airbnb or Vrbo less appealing to travelers and property owners. A major new front in this ongoing battle is sunny San Diego, where a proposed tax on short-term rental and vacation properties is shaping up to be one of the big political battles of 2026. The City Council is expected to decide soon whether to place the tax before voters on the June ballot in what could amount to a powerful referendum on the cost of housing in one of the least affordable American cities. If it gets on the ballot, the proposed tax will become a bruising political fight — with powerful interests lining up on either side of the issue. How voters respond may depend on what’s happening with the larger economy as much as how the opposing sides manage to frame the issue. Voters in Vail, Colorado, recently rejected a tax on short-term rental properties by a narrow margin. If San Diego voters approve the proposal, it will be a setback for Airbnb and similar platforms and could embolden similar efforts elsewhere — a point not lost on San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, the author of the proposed tax. “This is not a San Diego-specific phenomenon,” he said. “Airbnb is a global bad actor that is causing uprisings in cities across the world in attractive tourist destinations like San Diego because what started as an endearing and useful tool to allow folks to share a room in their place, to swap a home when they are going to travel the world has turned into a platform devoid of any morality and completely dismissive of the impacts on the local communities that they rely on in order to be a viable business.” Short-term rentals have long been viewed as unfair competition for hotels and a nuisance when properties turn into part-time party houses. People also complain that popular neighborhoods have been drained of permanent residents. In San Diego, where the median home price is nearly $1 million, houses offered on platforms such Airbnb and Vrbo are an easy target in a place where real estate is out of reach for many long-term residents or people who work in the city. “The cost of living, specifically the cost of housing, is the biggest threat to people’s ability to see a future for themselves here,” Elo-Rivera said. Elo-Rivera, a community organizer before he was elected to the council in 2020, lists the city’s failure to build enough homes over the years as the primary cause of the high cost of housing in San Diego. “But another reason for that is the artificial scarcity that is created by homes being turned into mini hotels and rich people and corporations, largely not based in San Diego, holding on to homes as if they’re stocks and not places that people could otherwise be living in,” he said.
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Visit ms.now for more. | | | | The contours of the proposed tax are expected to be released in January. An initial version, opposed by both Vrbo and Airbnb along with many hosts, proposed an annual tax of $5,000 per bedroom on the nearly 11,000 properties that are being rented out for short-term use as well as vacation homes. The new version is expected to feature a different structure — along with language making it clear that it wouldn’t apply to anyone who rents out a room in their house or occasionally leases out their home. Airbnb says 81 percent of its hosts in the city are San Diego residents, undercutting the portrayal of out-of-town landlords taking local homes off the market. The company, which recently donated $425,000 to local nonprofit organizations, is letting the Chamber of Commerce take the lead in publicly opposing the tax while it offers a conciliatory approach. “We welcome the opportunity to work with the City Council on legislative efforts that would actually help bolster affordability in the city,” the company said in a statement. The changes aren’t likely to appease many opponents, who point to the threat it poses to a short-term rental industry that creates work for cleaners, landscapers, handymen and property-management companies. The new version is also unlikely to satisfy critics like former Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who sees the tax as an effort to squeeze revenue out of citizens to close the city’s budget deficit. Faulconer, who struggled with how to regulate short-term rentals during two terms as mayor that ended in 2020, warns that Elo-Rivera’s proposal would ultimately reduce the occupancy taxes paid by visitors who use short-term rentals and hurt people who rely on rental income to survive. “It’s really going to disproportionately impact local residents and small property owners,” said Faulconer, now president of the Lincoln Club Business League. “They rely on short-term rental to afford a high cost of living in San Diego.” Elo-Rivera, for his part, says less than 1 percent of people in the city would pay the tax. The view from Europe: “EU unveils first-ever plan to combat housing crisis, rein in short-term rentals,” by POLITICO’s Aitor Hernández-Morales 7 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. THE PRESSURE CAMPAIGN: The U.S. Coast Guard is still going after an oil tanker tied to Venezuela after several days of pursuit, but it has to wait for specialists to arrive to try to seize the fleeing ship, Reuters’ Idrees Ali and colleagues scooped. That’s in part because the Coast Guard has significantly fewer resources than other branches of the armed forces. Bloomberg’s Eric Martin and Patricia Garip report that the tanker in question, the sanctioned Bella 1, went into the Atlantic Ocean away from Venezuela. The bigger picture: Although the U.S. isn’t taking military strikes against Venezuela off the table, the White House is instructing the armed forces to focus principally on economic pressure and an oil “quarantine” for the next couple of months, Reuters’ Steve Holland reports. “[T]he belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the U.S.,” one U.S. official says. The U.S. toll: 4,500 sailors are now indefinitely in the Caribbean, now unexpectedly entering their seventh month of deployment on an aircraft carrier — an unusually long assignment during peacetime, NYT’s John Ismay and Eric Schmitt report. The fallout in Caracas: President Nicolás Maduro has used the U.S. saber-rattling as an excuse to crack down even further on human rights, arresting more dissidents, WaPo’s Ana Vanessa Herrero and Matthew Hay Brown report. Meanwhile, Trump’s move to block most international flights from going to and from Venezuela has left thousands of emigrants unable to get back home for the holidays, NYT’s Annie Correal reports.
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| | | | 2. THE EPSTEIN FILES: “DOJ Says It’s Reviewing ‘A Million More’ Potential Epstein Files,” by Bloomberg’s Chris Dolmetsch and Erik Larson: “The US Justice Department said that federal prosecutors in New York have identified and handed over ‘a million more documents’ potentially related to the probe into Jeffrey Epstein, signaling a likely significant expansion of public disclosures … ‘Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.’ … The revelation of new potential documents raises new questions about the government‘s ability to comply with the transparency law.” 3. DEPORTATION DIGEST: Palau announced that it will accept as many as 75 deportees from the U.S. who hail from other countries but can’t go back home, NYT’s Ephrat Livni reports. It’s the latest “safe third country” agreement the U.S. has struck, despite some initial resistance among Palauans, and Palau will get $7.5 million and additional benefits in exchange. 4. SCHOOL DAZE: “In Private Letters, Harvard and Trump Administration Escalate Duel,” by NYT’s Michael Schmidt and colleagues: “The message, from Linda McMahon, President Trump’s education secretary, conveyed an understanding of an emerging deal between Harvard and the White House that flew in the face of the terms the university had been insisting on. … In it, she thanked [school president Alan] Garber for what she portrayed as his commitment to sending $200 million to the government as part of a deal. … It was unclear whether Ms. McMahon’s interpretation of Harvard’s proposal resulted from a miscommunication or from a deliberate effort to force the university into a year-end deal.” 5. BILL OF HEALTH: The looming expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies has not yet translated to state enrollments plummeting, POLITICO’s Robert King reports. But state health officials still cite cause for concern as consumers choose more expensive plans and help centers see way more calls coming in. Two fights to watch: The American Academy of Pediatrics sued HHS yesterday, claiming the administration had cut $12 million across seven grants to the organization as illegal political retaliation for its criticism of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., WaPo’s David Ovalle reports. … Moderate House Republicans are pushing a bill that would reverse the Education Department’s move to exclude nurses from a higher student loan borrowing cap, POLITICO’s Rebecca Carballo reports. 6. KNOWING JAMES BLAIR: “Trump’s Enforcer Is a Little-Known White House Aide With Enormous Influence,” by WSJ’s Josh Dawsey: “Blair, a bald 36-year-old Florida operative who colleagues describe as intense and fiery, has become a critical figure in Trump’s second term — cajoling lawmakers, enforcing loyalty to Trump, shaping the president’s messaging on healthcare and the economy, and orchestrating the White House’s strategy for next year’s midterm elections. His fingerprints are so evident on the GOP’s redistricting plan that some White House aides refer to it as ‘Blairymandering.’” 7. 2026 WATCH: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), two of the most endangered incumbents next year, could both benefit from a legacy of focusing a lot on constituent services, winning over locals with dedicated staff helping solve people’s problems, WaPo’s Dan Merica reports.
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| | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | SEASON’S GREETINGS — In President Donald Trump’s Christmas calls with children yesterday, he told one kid that “we want to make sure … we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa,” he falsely told another that he’d won Pennsylvania three times, and when a third said she worried about getting coal for Christmas, Trump responded, “You mean clean, beautiful coal?” More from CNN PLAYBOOK ARTS SECTION — Chuck Redd canceled a long-standing Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center last night because of the Trump administration’s recent move to rename the venue after Trump, per AP’s Hillel Italie. BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): POLITICO’s Anna Wiederkehr, Chase DiFeliciantonio and Madison Sonzogni HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Michael Blake … Karl Rove … Tim Miller … Mike Donilon … Wintta Woldemariam … Jones Day’s Brian Rabbitt … Bill Bailey of the Walt Disney Co. … Stephanie O’Keefe … Senate Foreign Relations’ Sophia Lalani … U.S. News & World Report’s Hilary Krieger … Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing … CBS’ Natalie Pahz … Daniel Fisher of the Associated Equipment Distributors … Amanda Munger … Miranda Margowsky of the Financial Technology Association … Anne Wall … Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza … Kristen Shatynski … former Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer … Sarah Levin … Consumer Technology Association’s Tiffany Moore … Benjamin Khoshbin … Zachary Hooper … Jason Pye 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. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook misstated the intention of Republicans’ proposed gerrymandered map in Indiana. It was drawn to give Republicans an advantage in two additional districts.
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