| | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | With help from Makayla Gray
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AG Pam Bondi touted declines in violent crime across the country and frequently turned Democrats' attacks right back against them. | Tom Brenner/AP | BONDI BEACH: At House Judiciary, anger — from Democrats toward AG Pam Bondi, and from Bondi right back at them — dominated a hearing today that ranged from Justice Department weaponization to the Jeffrey Epstein files to the immigration crackdown. “You don’t tell me anything, washed-up loser lawyer,” Bondi shouted at ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). “Not even a lawyer.” “You do a Jekyll and Hyde kind of routine around here,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said to Bondi. “This guy has Trump derangement syndrome,” Bondi said of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) “He’s a failed politician.” “Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors” of Epstein, Massie said, “you did.” Amid the insults and screaming matches, there were also tense and substantive exchanges. Raskin accused Bondi, who has taken steps to erode the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House, of turning the agency into President Donald Trump’s “instrument of revenge.” Bondi and Massie clashed over redactions in the Epstein files, per POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs. And she told Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) that a top DOJ official focused on fraud would scrutinize Minnesota and California. The hearing will resume later this afternoon. More on the files: Bondi said DOJ is doing its best to comply with the law forcing the release of the Epstein files, and said she was “deeply sorry for what any victim — any victim — has been through.” When Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked Bondi to turn and apologize to survivors who were seated behind her, Bondi sharply replied, “I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.” More from Hailey Bondi’s exchanges with Republicans not named Massie were much more congenial. She touted declines in violent crime across the country, which was also a prime focus for Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and said the administration was working to protect Christians, conservatives and “everyone who wants to freely protest.” There was rare bipartisan agreement on the importance of tackling violent threats against lawmakers. Bondi also hailed the stock market, immigration changes and — above all — Trump, while repeatedly attacking Democratic leaders and federal judges who ruled against the administration. POLITICO’s Inside Congress has live updates “Weaponization has ended,” Bondi announced. Weaponization watch: Heavy criticism of DOJ’s effort to criminally prosecute six Democratic members of Congress turned bipartisan today, as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) accused the administration of “political lawfare” to try to lock up its perceived enemies. “Thankfully in this instance, a jury saw the attempted indictments for what they really were.” Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also weighed in, per Semafor’s Burgess Everett: “I think our law enforcement people ought to be spending their time on making our community safe and going after real law breakers.” “That’s the judicial system at work, I guess,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Punchbowl’s Anthony Adragna of the failure to secure indictments. A lawyer for Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), one of the lawmakers whom Trump branded seditious for reminding troops that they can refuse illegal orders, warned U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro that if she makes a second go at indicting him, he’ll respond with legal action, per CNN’s Kara Scannell. Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), also members of the group labeled the “Seditious Six” by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, held a press conference to declare that they wouldn’t be intimidated. Bloomberg Law’s Ben Penn scooped that one of the lawyers Pirro used in the case, Steven Vandervelden, is also an active dance photographer who has “no prior federal prosecution experience.” On the trail: J.P. Cooney, one of special counsel Jack Smith’s top prosecutors on the Trump indictments (plus the Bob Menendez prosecution), is running for Congress as a Democrat in a newly gerrymandered Virginia district, NYT’s Annie Karni reports. Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
| | | | A message from AHIP: 35 Million Seniors Could See Reduced Benefits and Higher Costs. Health plans welcome reforms to strengthen Medicare Advantage. However, a proposal for flat program funding at a time of sharply rising medical costs and high utilization of care will directly impact seniors' coverage. If finalized, this proposal could result in benefit reductions and higher costs for 35 million seniors and people with disabilities when they renew their Medicare Advantage coverage in October 2026. Learn more. | | | | | | 6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. ANOTHER JOBS SURPRISE: The latest (delayed) jobs data provided an unexpectedly strong signal about the state of the labor market — even as new revisions showed a much weaker status quo in 2024 and 2025 than was previously understood. January saw the economy add 130,000 jobs, more than double predictions and the best mark since Trump returned to office. And unemployment ticked down to 4.3 percent. Yet again, health care was the principal engine of growth, though construction and manufacturing (finally) also had positive marks. Stock markets jumped after the data came out, and it’s a burst of positive economic news for the Trump administration after top officials had tried to soften expectations in advance. But but but: The revisions slashed 2024’s job creation from 2 million to 1.2 million and 2025’s from 584,000 to just 181,000, revealing a labor market slowing down far more than we knew. The upshot is that with the January labor market still holding stronger than anticipated, the Fed may remain incentivized to hold off on cutting interest rates further, POLITICO’s Victoria Guida and Sam Sutton report. Trading places: More shocks could still be coming for the U.S. economy. Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove scooped that Trump is considering pulling out of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the very trade pact he joined in his first term as an alternative to NAFTA. It’s not decided yet, but Trump’s musing could add more pressure to the USMCA renegotiation this year. On the flip side, the U.S. and Indonesia are due to sign a trade deal to lower tariffs next week when President Prabowo Subianto comes to D.C. for the Board of Peace meeting, per Bloomberg’s Grace Sihombing and Norman Harsono. From 30,000 feet: The latest CBO outlook, released today, shows the U.S. fiscal trajectory over the next decade looking somewhat worse than it did a year ago, per the AP. Spending, debt and deficits have kept rising, fueled recently by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act and immigration crackdown. This year’s deficit projection has ballooned by another $100 billion. More economy reading: “Trump Decries a ‘Nation of Renters’ but His New Policy Promotes One,” by NYT’s Matthew Goldstein … “Trump Wants to Revive Shipping. Investors Are Slow to Back Him,” by NYT’s Peter Eavis 2. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN EL PASO? In an extraordinarily rare move, the FAA announced it would halt all flights to/from/over El Paso, Texas, for 10 days — but then lifted the restriction shortly thereafter, the El Paso Times’ Natassia Paloma reports. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said both the FAA and the Defense Department had “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized.” An administration official said Mexican cartel drones had crossed into U.S. airspace. Wait a minute: Other officials provided contradictory explanations. CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs and colleagues scooped that the real reason was a dispute between the FAA and the Pentagon, the latter of which was testing a counter-drone laser near Fort Bliss. The agencies clashed over timing and safety impacts, and earlier this week, the government used the technology to shoot down what seemed to be a drone but was actually just a party balloon. Then, “FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford on Tuesday night decided to close the airspace — without alerting White House, Pentagon or Homeland Security officials,” per CBS. That was reversed after a meeting in White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ office this morning. Some local leaders slammed the Trump administration’s handling of the situation, which interfered with medical evacuation flights, among others, in a city roughly the size of D.C. “This unnecessary decision has caused chaos and confusion in the El Paso community,” Mayor Renard Johnson said. 3. SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: Two days away from a shutdown of DHS, Washington looks scarcely closer to striking a deal. Thune told Punchbowl’s Laura Weiss that he anticipates the White House sending over its proposed legislative text today. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer doubled down on his insistence that Democrats are unwilling to vote through a continuing resolution without significant reforms to immigration enforcement. “Republicans have not gotten serious about negotiating a solution that reins in ICE and stops the violence,” he wrote on social media. House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee Chair Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said a shutdown is now likely. But the crackdown continues: The IRS erroneously gave thousands of people’s confidential taxpayer data to DHS despite federal law protecting their identities, WaPo’s Jacob Bogage and colleagues scooped. “The affected individuals could be entitled to financial compensation for each time their information was improperly shared.” … Labor Department staffer Peyton Rollins has now joined DHS to work on its social media, “despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging,” NYT’s Evan Gorelick reports.
| | | | POLITICO Governors Summit Join POLITICO's annual Governors Summit, held alongside the National Governors Association’s Winter Meeting, for a series of forward-looking conversations with governors from across the country about how state leaders are setting the agenda for America’s next chapter. Hear from Gov. Wes Moore (D), Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), and more. Register Now. | | | | | 4. UNDER THE RADAR: “National Guard troops were quietly withdrawn from some U.S. cities,” by WaPo’s Tara Copp and Alex Horton: “The pullout [from Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon] was quietly finalized late last month, occurring with no public acknowledgment from the White House or the Pentagon.” 5. TRAIL MIX: Democrats closely watching the Michigan Senate primary for signs of where the party is headed mostly got a rehash of where the candidates land on the ideological spectrum — but not many direct contrasts were drawn during the United Auto Workers’ candidate forum at the Washington Hilton this morning, POLITICO’s Elena Schneider writes in. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow took an unnamed shot at Rep. Haley Stevens for dodging a question on corporate PAC contributions, but otherwise, the candidates largely stuck to their own talking points. Abdul El-Sayed said he was “the only one up here” who backs Medicare for All, an issue the three candidates’ campaign teams have squabbled over on social media. It’s the first forum to feature all three candidates in the three-way race — Stevens did not attend the first with McMorrow and El-Sayed. But there’s still plenty of time for contrast-drawing ahead of their August primary. The UAW left an empty chair for GOP candidate Mike Rogers, who did not attend. (A Rogers spokesperson said UAW never had any conversations about the event with his campaign. UAW replied with a copy of the invite the group sent Rogers.) Show me the money: The DNC pulled in $7.4 million from small-dollar donors last month, in part thanks to Kelly, CBS’ Hunter Woodall scooped. Across both ActBlue and WinRed, it’s clear that Trump remains the central driver of donations to Democrats and Republicans, POLITICO’s Jessica Piper finds in a new analysis of the top moments that triggered voters to open their wallets. Among big establishment GOP donors, meanwhile, frustration that Trump hasn’t endorsed Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) yet is top of mind, POLITICO’s Alex Gangitano reports. Top talker: “The Democrats Aren’t Built for This,” by The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich: “Democrats can’t help but keep playing to a stubborn stereotype — a soft and pampered bunch, unwilling to make the gritty sacrifices … necessary to prevail in their ‘existential’ campaign to save democracy. … No matter how eager they were to resist Trump, they kept living up to their worst image as an overly sensitive, out-of-touch, and terminally online band of myopic and overindulged factions.” 6. WAR AND PEACE: More Ukraine war talks are coming on Tuesday or Wednesday, this time focused on the very tricky topic of territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Bloomberg’s Daryna Krasnolutska and Aliaksandr Kudrytski. Zelenskyy accepted the U.S. proposal for the next round of negotiations; Russia’s response isn’t clear yet. Despite talk of a transatlantic rupture, the U.S. is now telling Europe not to worry about a significant withdrawal of American troops from the continent in the near future, POLITICO’s Paul McLeary and colleagues scooped.
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| | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | ON THE MEND — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was discharged from the hospital yesterday after checking himself in last week due to flu-like symptoms, per POLITICO’s Jordain Carney. A spokesperson for McConnell said he will work from home for the rest of the week. PLAYBOOK ARTS SECTION — “Inside the Kennedy Center’s scorched-earth Washington National Opera split,” by WaPo’s Geoff Edgers and colleagues: “Back in November, Washington National Opera artistic director Francesca Zambello figured out exactly how she would blow up the opera company’s 44-year relationship with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She just did it, without asking. Between rehearsals one day, Zambello gave a candid interview to the Guardian … Now, with Trump’s plan to shut down the Kennedy Center for two years of renovations, Zambello’s decision to go off-script with the Guardian seems prescient.” ON THE LIST — Time released its list of the 100 most influential figures in health, which includes HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the second year, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, top RFK Jr. aide Calley Means, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. See the list here TRANSITIONS — Caleb Moore is now administrative director for Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.). He previously worked for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C). … Charles Adams Jr. is joining Five Diamonds Arbitration Chambers. He previously worked at Orrick. … … Charlie Ladd is now senior manager for federal business development and workforce at Workday. He previously worked at Invariant. … Bob Emmett is now VP at Madison Services Group. He previously worked at Leidos. 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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