| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | Presented by the National Retail Federation | With help from Eli Okun and Ali Bianco On today’s Playbook Podcast: Adam and Megan Messerly discuss how President Donald Trump’s tariffs could shake up one of the most closely watched midterm battleground states.
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| Happy Friday. This is Adam Wren. As the son of an Ohio autoworker who once traveled to the Detroit Auto Show himself as an employee of Honda of America, I considered it a rite of passage to see the spectacle for myself, bringing back some fresh reporting on the politics of it all. Get in touch. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — 2028 watch: Does Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have the requisite rizz to make waves in a potential 2028 presidential race? POLITICO’s one and only Jonathan Martin asked him about it. “Beshear has heard the chatter. Yes, he’s great on paper. Here’s a mainstream Southern Democrat who has won in deep red America — a white guy, if we want to be unsubtle about it all. It’s the sort of resume that has already prompted legions of liberals from blue America to become ‘Andy Curious,’ as Beshear’s backers describe them.” “But, the rap goes, he’s totally lacking in what the kids call ‘rizz,’” JMart writes from Frankfort, Kentucky. “I wouldn’t underestimate me,” Beshear told him last week. OK, so Beshear thinks he does have some rizz? “Maybe a little aura,” the 48-year-old father of two teenagers replied. Read the full rizz report In today’s Playbook … — Why Trump’s tariffs could muddy the Michigan waters. — Congress plants a flag on Greenland. — Trump makes a major energy play.
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At the Detroit Auto Show this week, Pete Buttigieg connected Trump's tariffs to the midterm issue driving the moment: affordability. | Jose Juarez/AP Photo | DETROIT — Trump’s signature tariffs are still roiling one of the most closely watched midterm states in 2026. Almost nowhere on the map are there more battleground congressional seats than here in Michigan, not to mention a Senate seat on a knife’s edge and a three-way governor’s race featuring a wild-card independent candidate polling in the double digits. And that’s before you dig into any number of down-ballot races. “We’re going to be a billion dollars in spending — easily,” said Jason Roe, the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party. “You’ve got control of the House, control of the Senate — all of them razor thin, and could go either way.” Chris Gustafson, who’s worked on numerous Michigan races and is comms director at Senate Leadership Fund, said Michigan in 2026 would be “extremely fun to watch near the center of the political universe as Republicans have a generational opportunity to save the state.” Pete Buttigieg, the former Transportation secretary who weighed entering two of those races — sidestepping a gubernatorial and Senate bid — put a finer point on it to Playbook from the floor of Detroit Auto Show. “In a lot of ways, Michigan is going to be ground zero” of the midterms, Buttigieg said, just before sizing up a new model Chevrolet Equinox, a Jeep Cherokee and a Ford Mustang Mach-E, assessing each for its attributes as a good family car. Nowhere else in America are tariffs threatening to reshape the contours of the midterms as much as they are here. “I think that a good measure of whether any politician is responding to what Americans are feeling is how well it’s resonating here,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor who now lives in Traverse City told us of his adopted home state’s outsize role in November. So how, exactly, are tariffs resonating here? Inside Huntington Place, amid gleaming just-off-the-factory-floor whips and Bronco and Jeep-themed thrill rides (your Playbook author found himself almost parallel to the ground while hanging on for dear life inside a Ford Bronco on a test drive obstacle course), the Canadian tariffs loomed over the otherwise festive event. Days after Air Force One was wheels up from Michigan on Tuesday, and following his opening midterm-year travel by defending his tariff strategy here, Trump faced a fusillade of criticism over his tariffs from Michigan Democrats. It was as ever present as the new car smell wafting through the convention center. Indeed, in his fireside chat here Wednesday, Buttigieg connected the tariffs to the midterm issue driving the moment: affordability. It has, he said, “led to upward pressure on prices at a time when affordability is the biggest economic problem that most people are living.” He called tariffs a policy “failure.” And in her final auto show swing as governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who has emerged as one of Trump’s favorite Democrats, said the tariffs “have taken a terrible toll.” Playbook asked Bill Ford, the executive chair of Ford Motor Company who accompanied Trump on his Dearborn truck plant visit earlier this week, how he saw Trump’s tariffs affecting the automaker in 2026. Would their cost finally get passed onto the American consumer? His response was telling. “We’ve done a really good job of not passing them on,” he said, before shifting gears. “But you know, the Supreme Court is going to rule at some point on tariffs too.” (POLITICO’s Supreme Court whisperer Josh Gerstein tells us the next likely day the ruling might come on the tariff regime is Tuesday.) But Trump’s love of tariffs is complicating the Republican counter-messaging on affordability, POLITICO international trade reporter Daniel Desrochers writes into Playbook. “While many large businesses spent most of 2025 in wait-and-see mode, absorbing the bulk of new tariff costs, economists expect more of those costs to trickle down to consumers in the early months of 2026,” Daniel tells us. “Already shoppers are seeing higher prices for import-dependent items, like toys and furniture.”
| | | | A message from the National Retail Federation: Every January, the National Retail Federation convenes top retail leaders and industry partners in New York City for its annual conference and expo. This week, NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show brought together more than 40,000 people from 100 countries for three days of learning, collaboration and discovery. Learn more. | | | | That the Trump administration is apparently sensitive to the affordability attack on tariffs will be fully clear as they dispatch three Cabinet officials — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and USTR Jamieson Greer — on a two-day Freedom Means Affordable Cars swing through Cleveland and Toledo factories kicking off today before taking their own tour of the Detroit Auto Show tomorrow. Richard Czuba, the Michigan pollster and founder of the Glengariff Group, told Playbook that while the “policy to Michigan voters is tone deaf,” it isn’t sinking support with Trump voters. “The voters who support Donald Trump are sticking with Donald Trump,” he said. Watching all this play out is Mike Rogers, who is running unopposed in the GOP primary and hoping to become the first Republican to win a Senate seat in Michigan in 32 years. Rogers, who locked up Trump’s endorsement months ago, got some good news this week in a Detroit News poll that shows him up on all three of his Democratic competitors. But Rogers, who has lobbied the White House on tariff issues, also told Playbook last year that he predicted the trade wars would be mostly settled by December, smoothing his path. It’s not worked out quite like Rogers has predicted. “The way you get through all of this is you start putting pressure on prices, which is happening. Lower gas prices is a big, big, big part of that,” Rogers told Playbook this week. “We haven’t paid this gasoline price in — God, I don’t know, I think it was Trump One honestly that we paid anywhere close to this. That has a huge impact on people’s monthly check.” So, will tariffs complicate Republicans’ hopes in Michigan this year? “I don’t believe it will,” Rogers said. “I do see a light at the end of the tunnel: downward pressure on prices, re-shoring and adding middle-class-producing manufacturing jobs,” he said. “I think Michigan’s days are very, very bright.” A senior White House adviser, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, told us Trump went to Michigan because it’s “a campaign year,” because Michigan is “ground zero for America’s auto manufacturing industry, which the President loves and has made stronger with his policies.” They downplayed the prospect that Trump’s tariffs would have any significant impact on the Senate race. Mike Duggan, the former Democratic Detroit mayor who is running as an independent gubernatorial candidate, sees it differently. “There’s no doubt the Canadian tariffs are hurting the Michigan auto industry,” Duggan said. But, it may be too early to tell: “I think people will judge it based on how things are in the fall.”
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| | | | ON THE HILL ANNALS OF DIPLOMACY: Members of the House and Senate from both parties are in Denmark today to try to reassure a rattled NATO ally that Congress will stop Trump from taking any military action to seize Greenland, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports. It “amounts to one of the most profound breaches yet seen between GOP lawmakers and the president,” as Republicans try to scare Trump out of the most extreme actions he’s dangled in Europe. ON THE HOME FRONT: Congress is heading home for the holiday with some of its top priorities resolved — many appropriations bills are on their way to completion — and others struggling to get off the ground. The Senate cleared the Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water and Interior-Environment bills, per POLITICO’s Katherine Tully-McManus and Jennifer Scholtes, and the next minibus will be up after next week’s recess. But the biggest, most difficult funding bills still remain, and a partial government shutdown is not yet out of the question. The House is scrambling to get things done, with the prospect of canceling the upcoming recess on the table. More from POLITICO’s Inside Congress Democrats are still split over whether to demand changes to ICE in the Homeland Security bill or go so far as to shut down part of the government over broad liberal outrage at the agency, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. Even some Republicans are sounding open to at least adding more training or body cameras for ICE agents, POLITICO’s Eric Bazail-Eimil reports. Bill of health: Even as Trump convenes a rural health roundtable at 10 a.m., bipartisan Hill talks over an Affordable Care Act subsidies deal have stalled out and are in danger of falling apart, POLITICO’s Benjamin Guggenheim and Jordain report. Then the question becomes whether Republicans will get behind Trump’s not-so-free-market-oriented health care plan unveiled yesterday, which asks Congress to codify most-favored-nation drug pricing deals, health savings accounts, price transparency requirements and more, as POLITICO’s Amanda Chu and colleagues break down. Two outer-borough guys: Trump had a rare meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer yesterday, which Schumer said came at the president’s request to talk about the Gateway tunnel project, Jordain reports. But Schumer also pressed Trump on an Obamacare subsidy extension and ICE raids. JUDICIARY SQUARE THE ICE FUROR: The state ACLU in Minnesota sued the federal government and accused agencies of racial profiling and illegal stops in the ongoing immigration crackdown, as tensions and protests continue to grip Minneapolis, per the Minnesota Star Tribune. DHS denied the allegations. The next flashpoint? In Texas, the death of an immigrant in ICE custody is likely to be ruled a homicide by the medical examiner, WaPo’s Douglas MacMillan scooped. Some accounts say Geraldo Lunas Campos died this month after struggling with staff, but DHS says it happened while he was attempting to kill himself. A STUNNING IMMIGRATION REBUKE: Federal judge William Young ripped DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio apart for their efforts to deport pro-Palestinian students/academics in court yesterday, accusing them of “an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people,” POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and colleagues report. “These Cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution,” the Reagan appointee said, indicating that he’d limit their ability to deport members of the groups that sued.
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST MAJOR AFFORDABILITY SPLASH: In an unprecedented move, Trump will propose this morning an “emergency wholesale electricity auction” that would essentially seek to make large tech companies pay for 15-year power contracts and fund the AI-fueled surging demand on power centers, Bloomberg’s Jennifer Dlouhy and Naureen Malik scooped. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will be on hand with Trump, Reuters’ Jarrett Renshaw and Tim McLaughlin report. The goal is to compel grid operator PJM Interconnection to sell contracts that could account for $15 billion in additional power plants, as higher electric costs increasingly squeeze Americans. N.B.: A PJM spokesman tells Bloomberg, “We were not invited to the event they are apparently having tomorrow and we will not be there.” 2028 WATCH: Today is the deadline for states to apply to the DNC to be in the first batch to vote in the 2028 presidential primary, POLITICO’s Elena Schneider reports. The 2024 lineup of New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan are all applying, along with erstwhile pace-setter Iowa and Georgia. But there could also be bids from Virginia, North Carolina and other wild cards. CASH DASH: Indiana Gov. Mike Braun will report raising $2.3 million in 2025, his first year in office, according to figures shared exclusively with Playbook. He will report $2.2 million cash on hand, a number that surpasses that of the last three Hoosier Republican governors’ totals at the same time in their tenures. ENDORSEMENT WATCH: Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) are all endorsing Analilia Mejia’s congressional campaign in the New Jersey special election next month to replace Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, Playbook reports. They mark the latest prominent national progressives to back Mejia. MORE FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) pulled in $9.9 million in the fourth quarter and ended the year with a whopping $25 million in the bank, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein. … The Cook Political Report’s Erin Covey shifted ratings of 18 House races in Democrats’ direction. WAR AND PEACE: As Trump appears to hold off for now on a decision about whether to strike Iran, he’s been getting lobbied by Israel, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman to postpone an attack, NYT’s Edward Wong and colleagues report. Nonetheless, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz emphasized yesterday that “all options are on the table to stop the slaughter” of Iranian protesters, per AP’s Farnoush Amiri and Edith Lederer. Venezuela latest: Exiled Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado went so far to give Trump her Nobel Peace Prize — which he accepted — at the White House yesterday (though she remains the laureate). Trump praised the “wonderful gesture of mutual respect,” but Machado didn’t emerge with much else, as Trump continued to emphasize cooperation with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, per the WSJ. As the U.S. seizes control of Venezuelan oil, the first crude sale went to Vitol, which has a Trump campaign megadonor in senior oil trader John Addison, FT’s Malcolm Moore and Jamie Smyth report. What a difference a year makes: VP JD Vance won’t go to this year’s Munich Security Conference, where his speech shocked Europeans last year, Bloomberg’s Kate Sullivan reports. FOR YOUR RADAR: “Watchdog group urges Blanche to step aside as Trump’s records gatekeeper,” by POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney: “American Oversight, a prominent left-leaning government transparency group, is urging [Deputy AG Todd] Blanche to relinquish his role as the gatekeeper to Trump’s presidential records, saying his attorney-client relationship with the president — in addition to his role as deputy attorney general — presents a conflict. Anything less, the group argues, will erode public confidence in the process.” THE LATEST FROM RFK JR.: As HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushes to investigate whether cellphones cause cancer or pose other health dangers, his agency has now taken down webpages saying they don’t, WSJ’s Liz Essley Whyte and Patience Haggin scooped. Meanwhile, HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration unleashed chaos when it axed $2 billion in grants — and then restored them, AP’s Ali Swenson reports. THE WEEKEND AHEAD NEW ON THE AIRWAVES: PBS is launching a new weekend lineup tomorrow and Sunday with a 30-minute roundtable show at 6 p.m. each evening. On Saturdays, “Horizons” will focus on science, health, technology and the environment with host William Brangham and executive producer Talesha Reynolds. On Sundays, “Compass Points” will focus on international affairs, with host Nick Schifrin and executive producer Stephanie Kotuby. Its first guests this weekend will be Victoria Coates, Kori Schake and Jennifer Kavanagh. FRIDAY PROGRAMS … C-SPAN “Ceasefire”: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) … Kevin Walling and Brian Lanza. PBS “Washington Week”: Jonathan Karl, David Sanger, Nick Schifrin and Nancy Youssef. SUNDAY SO FAR … NBC “Meet the Press”: Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Panel: Jeh Johnson, Carol Lee and Peggy Noonan. ABC “This Week”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill. Panel: Donna Brazile, Sarah Isgur, Faiz Shakir and Eliana Johnson. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) … Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). Panel: Matt Gorman, Mary Katharine Ham, Marie Harf and Josh Kraushaar. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) … Mike Pence. Panel: Karen Finney, Bryan Lanza, Xochitl Hinojosa and Kristen Soltis Anderson. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) … Anthony Salvanto with new polling. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer … Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas). Panel: Seth Mandel, Margaret Talev and Elana Schor. MS NOW “The Weekend”: Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) … Ty Cobb … Rev. Al Sharpton … Ameshia Cross … Annalyse Keller.
| | | | A message from the National Retail Federation: This week, NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show attendees learned how iconic brands are staying relevant and meeting consumer demands and expectations. The industry is poised for success, with retailers and brands redefining how to build customer relationships and loyalty with new and evolving technologies and innovations. Learn more. | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | MEDIAWATCH — The Pentagon is set to transform the independent news outlet Stars and Stripes, ending its reprints of AP and Reuters stories and instead turning half its output into content churned out by the Defense Department itself, the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan reports. The overhaul stunned the newspaper, where ombudsman Jacqueline Smith said it “would remove editorial independence and credibility.” OUT AND ABOUT — The McCain Institute hosted the first international expansion of its Sedona Forum at the International House of Japan in Tokyo yesterday, with a focus on the U.S.-Japan alliance. SPOTTED: Satsuki Katayama, Akie Abe, retired Gen. David Petraeus, Josh Rogin, Randy Schriver, James Kondo, Ken Jimbo, Jack McCain, Evelyn Farkas, Rick Davis, Holmes Liao and Kono Taro. — SPOTTED at All In Together’s AI & Innovation Forum at Patterson Mansion yesterday, presented by HP, Interdigital, Microsoft, Omidyar Network and NOTUS: Campbell Brown, Michele Jawando, Arielle Elliott, Brittany Masalosalo, Anita McBride, Shane Tews, Katie Harbath, Ginny Badanes, Daniella Diaz, Riley Rogerson, Camille Stewart Gloster, Sharon Rodriguez, Victoria Meakin, Yemisi Egbewole, Muthoni Wambu, Tonya Williams, Anu Rangappa, Nicole Venable, Alethia Jackson, Blair Watters, Justin Peligri and Lauren Leader. — Geoff Gonella and Fred Graefe hosted a breakfast fundraiser for Andrew Friedson, a candidate for Montgomery County, Maryland, executive, yesterday morning at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase. SPOTTED: Bill Miller, Paul DiNino, Jim Malloy, Michael Smith, John Bohanan, Frank Cantrel and Bernard Marczyk. MEDIA MOVES — Jeff Mason is now a Washington correspondent at Bloomberg. He previously spent 25 years at Reuters and is a former White House Correspondents’ Association president. … David Shipley is returning to the NYT as an editor at large. He most recently worked at WaPo. TRANSITIONS — Jorge Martinez is now EVP and chief of staff at Defend Forgotten America and Defend Forgotten America Action. He most recently worked at the America First Policy Institute. … Gillian Pressman is now head of development at Inclusive Abundance. She previously worked at Yes In My Back Yard and YIMBY Action. … Sarah Knakmuhs will be chief comms and strategy officer at the Financial Services Forum. She currently works at M&T Bank. ENGAGED — Nicole “Nikki” Reeves, comms director for second lady Usha Vance, and Jackson Carter, who works in the White House Office of Administration, got engaged over Christmas at Chattahoochee Country Club on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Georgia. They met in the hallway of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while working together at the White House in the early months of the new Trump administration, and Jackson asked Nikki to go on a midday stroll for lunch. Pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Brian Schwartz, a White House economic policy reporter at the WSJ, and Linda Gaudino, a cross-platform video producer at CNN, welcomed Christopher Francis Schwartz early Wednesday morning. He came in at 6 lbs, 12 oz. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) … Jared Borg of the White House … Dan Hill … Maria Hatzikonstantinou of CRC Advisors … Vincent Frillici … Bracewell’s Frank Maisano … Greg Polk … Matt Herrick of the International Dairy Foods Association … NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez … Debbie Berger Fox … Genevieve Wilkins of Rokk Solutions … Paolo Liebl von Schirach … UPS’ Dontai Smalls ... Jackie Huelbig … Broadview Public Affairs’ Luke Knittig … Edward Cafiero of ExxonMobil … Kelley Williams … former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta … former Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) … Maureen McGrath … former Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen … NYT’s Sheera Frenkel … Iulia Gheorghiu … Kelly Weill … Theresa Elrod … Bob Gibson … Andy Fisher … Cathryn Donaldson 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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