| | | |  | | By Ali Bianco | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray
|  | THE CATCH-UP | | BULLETIN: “TikTok settles as social media giants face landmark trial over youth addiction claims,” by AP: “TikTok agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial kicked off, the plaintiff’s attorneys confirmed. … A lawyer for the plaintiff said in a statement Tuesday that TikTok remains a defendant in the other personal injury cases, and that the trial will proceed as scheduled against Meta and YouTube.”
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President Donald Trump’s speech in Iowa will no doubt home in on affordability. | Evan Vucci/AP | THE POTUS ROADSHOW: President Donald Trump is en route to Iowa, his latest pit stop on what the White House has signaled will be a yearlong effort to bring Trump back into his element, rallying voters ahead of the midterm elections. But now on his fourth round of hitting crucial states for the GOP map, the stakes for Trump’s visits are only rising. Trump’s speech will no doubt home in on affordability — the word he once chastised but has begun to embrace after Democrats made it something of a cause célèbre last year. Whether he embarks on an 80-plus minute tangent or sticks to a more polished script, his affordability tour is coming as all eyes have increasingly turned toward the fallout from another fatal shooting in Minnesota. Trump, visiting a local business and meeting with lawmakers outside of Des Moines, will take on the difficult task of redirection in his speech at 4 p.m. And crucially for Des Moines, Trump is flying in as his economic policies are straining the state’s farming industry, especially from the back-and-forth on tariffs. Few policies have been so consequential for Iowa as the trade spat with China — which is Iowa’s top soybean importer. For farmers in the state, there’s a lot of unknowns that they’ll be looking to Trump to deliver assurances on. “America’s corn farmers are struggling and being forced to often sell corn well below the cost of production,” Iowa’s Corn Growers Association and Renewable Fuels Association wrote in a letter to Trump today. “We are at a breaking point. Without immediate policy intervention to create new demand, we are looking at an avoidable decline in lowa’s rural economy,” they write, calling for him to help push E-15 renewable fuel access through Congress. The issue is tentatively slated for a vote by the end of February. Trump’s turn through Iowa does differ in a crucial way from his previous spins through a trio of swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Trump continues to enjoy popularity across Iowa, which helped kickstart his campaign in 2016. But with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) headed for retirement, and with some Iowa districts increasingly cropping up as Democratic targets, holding the state will prove crucial for the GOP’s razor-thin majority. The bigger picture: After a year in control of all of the major branches of power, Republicans are playing defense and betting that they can use the economy to do it. The major push for the “Working Families Tax Cuts” — as the GOP calls it — will be the cudgel for GOP messaging for much of this year, and it’s one that we’ll no doubt hear Trump tout later today. “Voters are filing their taxes this spring, and they're going to see big differences, and then it's our job to go out and sell people as to, ‘Hey, you should keep us around, because we did this for you,’” one GOP operative told Playbook earlier this week. “The economy is going to keep getting better for folks … I think we have the right momentum going.” The combination of those tax cuts kicking in and Trump hitting the road have become central to the GOP’s campaign strategy. There is no bigger turnout driver than Trump, but he’s not on the ballot. The GOP is betting that incumbency and fundraising advantages combined with Trump’s presence on the trail, can help them hold seats, as another GOP source told your author earlier this week. “Injecting a little energy there, focusing the message … it’s a net benefit to have the president in town in a year when we know there are going to be some headwinds, just based on political history,” GOP strategist David Kochel told our colleagues Megan Messerly and Lisa Kashinsky. The latest readings: The economy may be seeing a sustained pickup, after showing unexpected resilience amid last year’s chaos, and a higher growth rate could mean the economy could grow rapidly without the Federal Reserve having to raise interest rates, WSJ’s Paul Hannon reports. But even as the economy grows, there’s three main factors that are causing it, which have some economist worried: health care jobs are driving the labor market, the nation’s wealthiest few are driving spending and AI investments are driving business spending, WaPo’s Abha Bhattarai and Alyssa Fowers report. And speaking of trade: “Facing U.S. turmoil, Europe and India announce blockbuster trade deal,” by WaPo’s Ellen Francis and Karishma Mehrotra: “The agreement, driven by a search for new partnerships to shield their markets from a volatile America, will deepen ties between the 27-nation E.U. — a trading power that is traditionally Washington’s closest partner — and India, among the world’s fastest-growing major economies.” Good Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Are you a GOP strategist gaming out the party’s economic pitch? Let me know at abianco@politico.com.
| | | | A message from AHIP: Medicare Advantage saves seniors $3,400 a year. Medicare Advantage provides better health care at lower overall costs than fee-for-service Medicare, along with important extra benefits and a cap on expenses. More than 35 million seniors and people with disabilities choose Medicare Advantage. They are counting on policymakers to keep the bipartisan commitment to protect and strengthen it. Learn more. | | | | | | 8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. INTO THE LYONS DEN: Minnesota’s chief federal judge in an overnight order requested ICE head Todd Lyons appear in court on Friday, threatening to hold him in contempt of previous defiances of court orders, POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney reports. “The court’s patience is at an end,” U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said in the order. It comes as the courts in Minnesota have been overwhelmed with cases over “Operation Metro Surge,” where judges have repeatedly ruled that immigrants have been illegally arrested or detained. Lyons heading into Minneapolis will be the latest shakeup of administration officials as border czar Tom Homan arrived today as some immigration enforcement officers depart the city. Gov. Tim Walz met with Homan this morning, and the pair “agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue,” Walz’s office shared with POLITICO’s Elena Schneider. Walz said his priorities are “impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota.” Trump told reporters today that “I hear that’s all going very well,” and that Homan will meet with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey later today. Meanwhile, the backlash continues to stack up from the GOP. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, called for the federal agents involved in Alex Pretti’s death to be put on administrative leave. And Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) is out with a blistering NYT op-ed urging his party to “wake up” after the shooting. But there’s also rare rebuke coming from multiple national gun rights advocates, who’ve denounced the administration’s rhetoric in the wake of the shooting, POLITICO’s Andrew Howard writes. “The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown told Andrew. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self defense than a protest.” On the Hill: Senators are scrambling to avoid another government shutdown, but there’s still no deal in sight as Senate Republicans eye a Thursday vote on the government funding package. 2. ANOTHER DHS PROBLEM: “Extra Scrutiny of FEMA Aid to States Has Created a $17 Billion Bottleneck,” by NYT’s Scott Dance: “About $17 billion in federal disaster funds for states is getting an extra layer of review by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, causing unusual delays in payments … The bottleneck includes money that had already been approved by regional FEMA offices for things like debris removal and repairs to roads, bridges and water and sewer systems. … Some of the outstanding aid owed to states dates as far back as Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017.” 3. WAR AND PEACE: The CIA is quietly working to establish a permanent U.S. foothold in Venezuela, and the spy agency is expected to hold major influence over the U.S. ground presence there over the long and short term, CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood report. Although the State Department will be the primary diplomatic presence in the country, the CIA is expected to set the stage for those efforts — including establishing an annex out of which U.S. officials will operate before an official embassy opens. Boat strike lawsuit: The families of two Trinidadian men killed in boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela are suing the U.S., WSJ’s Lara Seligman and Shelby Holliday report. The suit — filed in Massachusetts today by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights — is the first legal challenge to the U.S. military campaign against alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Read the complaint The complaint argues that Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo were returning to Las Cuevas, a fishing village in Trinidad about 20 nautical miles from the coast of Venezuela, when they were killed alongside four other men in the highly publicized strike. “These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the complaint says. “Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.” Middle East latest: Hamas is pushing to fold its 10,000-person-strong police force into the planned Palestinian government of Gaza, Reuters’ Nidal Al-Mughrabi reports. The demand — which Israel will likely strongly oppose — comes as the militant group considers whether to give up its weapons, a requirement for Israeli troops to further withdraw from the territory under the U.S-brokered peace plan. 4. MONEY MONEY MONEY: Construction of the nation’s largest public works project will halt next month unless the Trump administration releases funds it froze last fall, POLITICO’s Ry Rivard reports. The Hudson River tunnel project — a $16 billion pair of train tubes to connect New York and New Jersey — is facing an impending Feb. 6 pause that would force 1,000 layoffs as it runs out of funding, which the administration froze at the onset of last year’s government shutdown as part of a slew of attacks on infrastructure projects in blue states. Follow the cash: After receiving nearly $5 million in PAC donations from the nursing home industry and meeting with its top executives at his Virginia golf club, Trump revoked a rule requiring the facilities to bolster their staffing in an effort to reduce resident neglect, NYT’s Ken Vogel and Christina Jewett report. HHS announced the repeal in a statement that echoed industry talking points and enraged groups representing patients. One estimate found that the rule, which was initiated by the Biden administration but never enacted, could have saved 13,000 lives every year.
| | | | New from POLITICO Introducing POLITICO Forecast: A forward-looking global briefing on the forces reshaping politics, policy and power worldwide. Drawing on POLITICO’s global reporting, Forecast connects developments across regions and sectors — including insight from major global moments and convenings, from Davos and beyond — to help readers anticipate what comes next.
➡️ Sign up for POLITICO Forecast. | | | | | 5. MORE MEMBERS CALL IT QUITS: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) announced today that he will be retiring from Congress after 20 years in office, POLITICO’s Finya Swai reports. He’s the 29th House Republican planning to leave the chamber amid a challenging midterm environment for the party, according to the House Press Gallery’s “Casualty List.” 6. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Endorsement watch: New Politics is endorsing Alexander Vindman for U.S. Senate in Florida today, just hours after he announced his entry into the race, Playbook’s Adam Wren writes in. New Politics founder Emily Cherniack told Playbook in a statement that “When duty called, [Vindman] stood up to power and exposed corruption, demonstrating extraordinary moral courage by choosing principle over politics,” referencing his role as a whistleblower that set off the first Trump impeachment. 7. THE MAHA MIDTERM MESSAGE: “Republicans think RFK Jr. can help them in the midterms. Democrats worry that’s true,” by POLITICO’s Cheyenne Haslett and Erin Doherty: “Republicans have embraced HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s healthy food crusade, hoping it will boost their prospects in the midterms. Some Democrats fear it might work. … The White House, GOP state lawmakers and Republican pollsters believe that Kennedy’s focus on reforming America’s food has broad bipartisan appeal that can help the party hold its razor-thin majorities in Congress.” 8. CUTTING DEEP: “‘The Biggest Act of Union-Busting in U.S. History’: Trump’s War on Federal Workers,” by NYT’s Dan Kaufman: “But for a growing rank-and-file movement of mostly younger union members, which works across agencies and is known as the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), the [government] shutdown presented an unusual opportunity. Like the progressive upstarts challenging the old-guard leadership of the Democratic Party, FUN is pushing the national unions to fight the Trump administration more vigorously.”
| | | | A message from AHIP:  
| | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | NORTON MAKES IT OFFICIAL — Eleanor Holmes Norton has confirmed her retirement as D.C.’s nonvoting delegate in the House. The 88-year-old said in a statement she would complete her term. DCA CRASH AFTERMATH — The National Transportation Safety Board is releasing findings pointing to the potential causes behind the nation’s worst midair collision in more than two decades, almost a year after the crash near Reagan National that killed 67 people over the Potomac River. “Today, you will hear how deep, underlying, systemic failures — system flaws — aligned to create the conditions that led to this devastating tragedy,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in remarks at the meeting today, per POLITICO’s Sam Ogozalek. RETURN OF THE STORM — “Odds Are Rising That Another Winter Storm Will Pummel US East Next Week,” by Bloomberg’s Brian Sullivan: “The odds that another winter storm will pummel the US East Coast early next week are rising, putting power grids to the test again as the region recovers from a larger system that upended travel and triggered widespread blackouts.” MEDIAWATCH — “After rocky start, Bari Weiss to cut staff, add commentators at CBS News,” by NPR’s David Folkenflik: “Weiss is planning to tell her newsroom Tuesday that she intends to hire approximately 18 paid commentators and that she only wants top-flight performers committed to her approach to stick around. Weiss is also expected to make significant cuts to the newsroom.” TRANSITIONS — Sebastian Mahal and Nikki Iyer are now co-chairs of Design It For Us. Mahal is a youth organizer and recent American University graduate. Iyer is currently a student at UC Berkeley. … Andrew Ting is now deputy general counsel and EVP at the American Bankers Association. He previously worked at Panorama Education. … Taylor Kiessig is now a partner in the tax practice group at Eversheds Sutherland. He previously was at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel. … Doug Bush has joined SMI as a senior advisor. He previously worked in the Army. 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.
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