| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun and Ali Bianco On today’s Playbook Podcast: Adam and Andrew Howard discuss one of the most defining political stories of 2025: redistricting. (Programming note: This is the last episode for the year, but we’ll be back in your podcast feeds on Monday, Jan. 5.)
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| Good Wednesday morning. Happy Christmas Eve to all who celebrate. This is Adam Wren, checking in one last time before signing off for the year. Thanks for making me and Playbook a part of your reading. Get in touch. WHAT’S ON TRUMP’S MIND THIS CHRISTMAS EVE: Just after the clock ticked past midnight, President Donald Trump issued a string of missives and threats directed at networks and their various on-air talent. At 12:16 a.m.: “Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success. Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings. Stephen is running on hatred and fumes ~ A dead man walking! CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do!” At 12:23 a.m.: “Who has the worst Late Night host, CBS, ABC, or NBC??? They all have three things in common: High Salaries, No Talent, REALLY LOW RATINGS!” At 12:36 a.m.: “If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!” He rounded it all out with a more jolly message, posting at 12:36 a.m.: “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” In today’s Playbook … — Which Democratic 2028ers gained the most from redistricting this year? — The Supreme Court deals Trump a blow on his troop deployments. — The Epstein file rollout appears set to drag on.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom is among the potential presidential candidates who has reaped the political rewards of the redistricting fight. | Ethan Swope/AP | THE REDISTRICTING RANKINGS: In a year when Democrats spoiled for fights and fighters, the redistricting wars boosted a handful of potential 2028 candidates, delivering them tangible victories the party couldn’t match on almost any other issue. Democrats at various points this year were dealt losses by Trump, Republicans in Congress, the courts, culture and business. But, in addition to a string of victories at the ballot box, Democrats managed to rack up wins on redistricting in places like California, Ohio and Indiana, protecting a path — for now, at least — to retake Congress in the midterm elections and provide a real check on Trump. No domestic political story defined the latter half of 2025 more than the redistricting arms race — a frenzy that swept through nearly a dozen states, spreading from Texas to Indiana and beyond, resulting in new congressional maps in six. So we figured it’s a good moment to take stock of where the potential 2028 Democratic field burnished their own reputations amid the redistricting rodeo. The first is no surprise: California Gov. Gavin Newsom redefined the art of the possible with Prop 50, which came in response to Texas Republicans’ redraw at the urging of Trump, who demanded they claw five seats toward their column in the Lone Star State. What started out as a polling clunker in California passed in November by nearly 30 percentage points. The result: Democrats in Texas effectively checked Texas’ efforts, with five more seats on the table for them in the Golden State. For as much as Newsom notched ink for his high concept social media AI slop, Prop 50 was a real-world test run of his political operation before 2028. He scored 100,000 new grassroots contributors and a trove of email addresses and cellphone numbers. “If he decides to run for president — which I believe he will — he’s going to enter with … one of the largest digital fundraising and Democratic databases of anybody else, which is a tremendous asset,” Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist who led Kamala Harris’ digital fundraising operation for her 2020 presidential campaign, told POLITICO’s Melanie Mason at the time. There was enough to go around: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also bagged some residual buzz from California’s efforts. AOC flashed her digital prowess with a direct-to-camera ad for Prop 50 that became the campaign’s most effective, as determined by internal research from Future Forward, the Democratic Party's main super PAC. Not to be outdone: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker made a big splash in August when he welcomed more than 50 Texas House Democratic lawmakers to suburban Chicago and helped them with the logistics for their quorum break intended to stop the gerrymandered map from moving forward, and then turning to a national press and pushback strategy against the White House’s mid-cycle redistricting scheme. “We will not let power go unchecked,” Pritzker said at a campaign-style rally — complete with plugs to his website and campaign logo — the night Texas Democrats arrived under his auspices. Hoosier daddy: In Indiana, Pete Buttigieg got in on the action, too. As Hoosier lawmakers weighed a gerrymander designed to give Democrats two extra seats in Congress and a 9-0 map, Buttigieg traveled to the Indiana Statehouse and drew a crowd of nearly 1,000 on a Thursday afternoon, dwarfing a rally that Turning Point- hosted there later in the year. Buttigieg targeted the proposed Indiana gerrymander for months in social media posts, videos and small-dollar donor requests. The week Indiana Republicans in the state Senate rejected the new map, Buttigieg was on Jimmy Kimmel’s show the night before the vote and did a cable hit with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes the night after. “Political organizing helped,” Buttigieg told Hayes of Indiana Republicans’ rejection of the redistricting push. It’s worth noting that VP JD Vance, another potential 2028er, went to great lengths to pressure Indiana lawmakers on redistricting, only to come up short. Then, there is Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. Though he has been checked by Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson, who opposes mid-cycle redistricting, Moore has impressed some Democrats with his mettle on the issue. He has been urging lawmakers to consider redrawing the state’s map for several months. “Moore is not backing down — he’s still all in,” said one Democratic operative close to the process. Finally, there is Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is something of a question mark on the issue ahead of his Jan. 7 state of the commonwealth address. Beshear has been supportive of national efforts, but his team does not believe a mid-cycle redraw is on the table in the red state, a person close to him told Playbook. SPEAKING OF REDISTRICTING … WATCH THIS SPACE: A court is now set to decide whether Republicans’ redrawn congressional map in Missouri will be used for the midterms in 2026, AP’s David Lieb reports. A lawsuit filed yesterday on behalf of voters says the map “should have been automatically suspended earlier this month when opponents submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures seeking to force a statewide vote.” THE KNOCK-ON EFFECT: On the Hill, members of both parties “have yet to reckon with one inevitable consequence of the redistricting fight that’s rippling across the country — the loss of years of policy expertise on Capitol Hill,” POLITICO’s Benjamin Guggenheim writes. “While many of the lawmakers at risk of losing their seats in the redistricting wars have only a few years under their belt, several senior lawmakers who have spent decades building their legislative portfolios and climbing the ranks of the most powerful House committees are also now seeing their political futures threatened.” The names at risk include Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).
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Visit ms.now for more. | | | | IMMIGRATION FILES SCOTUS DINGS TRUMP ON TROOPS: The Supreme Court yesterday blocked the Trump administration’s request to allow the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois as part of the immigration enforcement crackdown, POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report. In the ruling, months after the DOJ originally appealed to the high court for relief, the justices said federal law generally bars use of the military for law enforcement, and they declared that the law Trump used to activate the Guard is likely to apply only when regular armed forces — the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — are insufficient to maintain order. The dissenters: Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented, while another conservative, Brett Kavanaugh, voted to deny Trump’s request but declined to join the majority’s explanation of the ruling. “The ruling is a rare loss for the president following a string of wins he has racked up on the high court’s emergency docket in the first year of his second term,” Josh and Kyle write. “And while the latest decision is not a final one on the legal issues at stake in the National Guard deployments, it is a significant setback for the president in a battle with Democratic leaders who have taken legal action to resist his efforts to advance his immigration agenda by putting federalized troops on the streets in several major cities.” The next front: Despite the brushback from the Supreme Court, about 350 National Guard troops are set to arrive in New Orleans before the end of the year and remain there through at least February, NYT’s Emily Cochrane reports. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry confirmed the deployments yesterday, minutes before the high court’s ruling, saying the troops will “ensure safety during the busiest season in the city.” They join Border Patrol agents already in the city. THE ASYLUM AGENDA: The Trump administration is pushing a campaign to cancel the asylum cases of thousands of immigrants with active applications, arguing they can be deported to countries that aren’t their own, CBS’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Julia Ingram scoop. The effort has ramped up in major cities including NYC, Miami and LA, and ICE has filed over 8,000 such motions to toss out asylum claims. THE H-1B DEBATE: A federal judge yesterday upheld the Trump administration’s authority to attach a six-figure charge on H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, POLITICO’s Nick Niedzwiadek reports. “D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell said that President Donald Trump’s decision in September conditioning access to an H-1B visa on a $100,000 payment to the government was within the power Congress delegated to the executive branch under immigration law.” And DHS announced yesterday that it’s ending the lottery system for H-1B work visas, replacing it with a weighted selection process that will increase the probability that the visas are allocated to higher-skilled and higher-paid foreign workers, AP’s Joey Cappelletti reports. The new system will take effect in late February and comes after Trump instituted a new $100,000 annual fee on the visa applications. THE D.C. DATA: “A third of D.C. arrests still involve federal agents despite end of takeover,” by WaPo’s Steve Thompson and colleagues: “About a third of arrests in recent weeks examined by The Washington Post involved federal law enforcement, nearly matching the portion of federally assisted arrests during the first four weeks of Trump’s crackdown in D.C. that began in August … Arrest reports show agents with the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security Investigations and other federal agencies riding in unmarked cars alongside D.C. Metropolitan Police officers, often stopping people on minor infractions in an effort to find drugs or guns.” THE REAL-WORLD IMPACT: “For Latino families, Nochebuena looks different this year,” by WaPo’s María Luisa Paúl and colleagues: “This year, increased immigration enforcement across the country has cast a shadow on the holiday for many Latino families. The Washington Post spoke with families across the country about how they’re navigating Nochebuena. Some are trying to find new meaning in Nochebuena or are adopting new traditions. Others … are expecting much smaller celebrations.”
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| | | | WAR AND PEACE RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “told reporters on Tuesday that he was ready to pull his troops back from areas of the eastern Donetsk region still under Kyiv’s control and turn them into a demilitarized zone as part of a possible peace deal with Moscow,” NYT’s Constant Méheut reports. “The offer was the closest Mr. Zelensky has come to addressing the thorny territorial disputes in Donetsk that have repeatedly derailed peace talks, signaling his willingness to compromise after weeks of U.S.-mediated negotiations. But the proposal also hinted at the significant gaps that remain between Ukraine and Russia.” WEIGHT EXPECTATIONS: “The U.S. Offered Putin’s Closest Ally Sanctions Relief — and a Weight-Loss Drug,” by WSJ’s Annie Linskey and colleagues: “The U.S. envoy was deep into a vodka-drenched dinner negotiating sanctions relief with Alexander Lukashenko when the Belarusian strongman — Vladimir Putin’s closest ally—turned to him with a personal question: Have you lost weight? Yes, replied John P. Coale, a veteran litigator who represented Donald Trump in lawsuits against Meta and other social-media platforms. Coale credited his use of Zepbound, an injectable drug proven to help fight obesity, then handed over a brochure from the manufacturer, Eli Lilly.” VENEZUELA LATEST: The U.S. moved more special-operations aircraft, troops and equipment into the Caribbean this week, expanding military options for potential action against Venezuela as Trump continues to saber-rattle in the region, WSJ’s Shelby Holliday and Lara Seligman scoop. And the U.S. Coast Guard is “waiting for additional forces to arrive before potentially attempting to board and seize a Venezuela-linked oil tanker it has been pursuing since Sunday,” Reuters’ Idrees Ali and colleagues report. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the international body that the U.S. will continue with sanctions “to the maximum extent,” per Reuters. Cause and effect: The oil blockade that Trump has instituted against Venezuela appears to be working, NYT’s Anatoly Kurmanaev and Rebecca Elliott report. “Venezuela’s ports are piling up with tankers filled with oil, as officials fear releasing them into international waters … Tankers bound for Venezuela have turned around midway, shipping data shows. And shipowners are canceling contracts to load crude.” MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Israel’s defense minister said yesterday that Israel has no plans to leave Gaza, stating plans to eventually build Jewish settlements in the territory — which could set them on a collision course with Trump’s peace plan that calls for Israel to fully withdraw, WSJ’s Anat Peled reports. Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu are set to meet next week to discuss moving beyond the first phase of the peace plan. COMING ATTRACTIONS: Trump said he’s planning to invite the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as guests to the G20 summit in Miami next year, per Bloomberg’s Hadriana Lowenkron.
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST THE EPSTEIN FILES: Buckle in for more document dumps over the holidays. The Trump administration “estimates it has about one week to go — and as many as 700,000 more pages to review” as it works to release the files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Axios’ Marc Caputo reports. To manage the messaging, The White House has taken over control of the Justice Department’s X account, per Axios. “The account is also taking on a sharper tone that has more of a rapid-response campaign edge and less of the stodgy just-the-facts tone associated with the department.” The latest release: POLITICO’s Erica Orden, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein have a roundup of the top takeaways from yesterday’s batch, which “sheds new light on the Justice Department’s evidence involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, including that prosecutors believed the British royal ‘engaged in sexual conduct’ with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. “The files also disclosed a grab bag of information drawn from prosecutors’ long-running probe of the now-deceased financier, including an apparent letter from Epstein to another sex offender, Larry Nassar; a dustup over a subpoena to Amazon; and the existence of a photograph of Donald Trump and Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell obtained from the phone of the president’s ally Steve Bannon.” FOR YOUR RADAR: A group of 19 states filed a lawsuit seeking to “block the Trump administration’s plan to strip federal funding from hospitals providing gender-related care for minors, a policy that would effectively shut down any health care providers that failed to comply,” NYT’s Orlando Mayorquín and Chris Hippensteel report. “That plan, announced on Thursday by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would cut off all Medicaid and Medicare payments — which make up a major share of hospital revenue — to any facility that provides minors with gender-related treatments in the country.” ON THE HILL: “The internal dispute that could derail the GOP’s 2026 agenda,” by POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill and colleagues: “GOP factions have been divided for months about the prospect of a second reconciliation bill. … Some rank-and-file conservatives in the House and Senate are privately discussing a potential centerpiece for a second reconciliation bill: using tariff revenues to send taxpayers cash to address rising health care costs after enhanced Obamacare subsidies expire Dec. 31 … The pressure from the right is threatening to outweigh skepticism from many senior Republicans who are deeply wary about moving forward.” THE ECONOMY, STUPID: “It’s boom times for Trump’s economy. Especially if you’re rich,” by POLITICO’s Sam Sutton: “The top 10 percent of U.S. earners spent $20.3 trillion through the first half of 2025 — nearly matching the $22.5 trillion shelled out by everyone else, according to the Royal Bank of Canada. That splurge has been primed by a buoyant stock market, elevated real estate prices and solid wage gains for the wealthy. … But the robust numbers mask the extent to which the wealthy are driving growth. … Even as growth and asset prices soar, Trump’s approval ratings are sagging. For some of his allies, that’s baffling.” THE LOAN LURCH: The Trump administration will start to garnish the pay of student loan borrowers in the new year, stepping up their repayment enforcement with notices of default and paycheck deductions starting the week of Jan. 7, NYT’s Emmett Lindner reports. THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT: “VA workers brace for more bad news as job cuts continue days before Christmas,” by CNN’s Brian Todd: “Some staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs are finding little to be merry about after the agency said it would eliminate tens of thousands of open, unfilled positions across the country as it looks to streamline its staffing. … On Monday, multiple facilities held town halls discussing further caps on future jobs, one of the sources said, adding that based on what this person heard, the impression was that ‘more job cuts are coming.’” MEDIAWATCH: CBS News' new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is preparing a masthead overhaul and a revamping of the company’s editorial practices and standards, Axios’ Sara Fischer scoops. The news comes amid the firestorm set off by Weiss’ decision to pull a “60 Minutes” segment that featured reporting on the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. “With the new masthead will come a new structure and set of policies that will require all show teams, not just ‘60 Minutes,’ to provide more visibility to senior editors ahead of sensitive segments and stories.”
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Visit ms.now to learn more. | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | THE HERITAGE EXODUS — The departures from Heritage Foundation continue, with two more announcing yesterday that they were heading for the exits. Cully Stimson and Hans von Spakovsky, who both worked as senior legal fellows at Heritage, said in posts on X that they had “resigned from Heritage.” Though neither disclosed a reason for their exit, they come as a stream of Heritage staffers have departed the conservative think tank since it became engulfed in a scandal involving Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over antisemitism. WHAT’S IN A NAME? — Despite the Kennedy Center board’s vote to change its name to the “Trump Kennedy Center,” CBS’ broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors last night stuck with the old name, WaPo’s Janay Kingsberry and Scott Nover report. “The televised broadcast presented a pared version of Trump’s opening remarks, cutting his introduction from about 12 minutes live to two minutes for viewers at home — and leaving out several of his looser jokes, including a reference to the laughing audience as ‘miserable, horrible people.’ … Behind the scenes … CBS News’s standards department last week instructed staffers to maintain the original Kennedy Center name — not the updated Trump-branded one.” EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER: WH EDITION — “Inside Trump’s Gilded Oval Office,” by NYT’s Ashley Wu and colleagues: “About a third of the walls are now covered in gold — appliqués, frames or other decorations, a Times analysis showed. … A Ronald Reagan portrait hangs here for the first time … Ten flags line the back of the Resolute Desk — five times as many as under most past presidents. … A copy of the Declaration of Independence sits behind museum-quality glass to block out the sun’s rays.” Presidents, they’re just like us: “Some of Mr. Trump’s changes go beyond the decorative — he has installed a red button on his desk that lets him instantly order a Diet Coke.” BIDEN AGAIN — Hunter Biden said in a new interview with the NY Post that he is “in debt to the tune of up to $15 million,” and has “no idea” how to pay it back. ENGAGED — Nirmal Mulaikal, an audio producer and host at POLITICO, and Reena Burt, a project manager at Capital One on its community impact and investment team, got engaged earlier this month at the National Portrait Gallery. They met in college at Northwestern University. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Stephanie Ruhle … Sabrina Singh … Anthony Fauci … Gene Sperling … Dan Pfeiffer … Conexión’s Marsha (Catron) Espinosa … Walter Pincus … Ylan Mui … Emory Cox … Atif Harden … Charlie Liebschutz of SRCPmedia … NewsNation’s Anna Sugg … Samir Kapadia of the Vogel Group … NYT’s Brian Zittel … former AG Jeff Sessions … Corry Schiermeyer … former Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) … Jordan Valdés … Dorinda Moss Verhoff … AJ Sugarman … Brian Marriott of ECU Communications … Philippe Etienne … Sharon Williams 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. | | | | 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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