| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco, Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray On today’s Playbook Podcast: Adam and Dasha discuss what interviews with two Democrats who are having a moment right now reveal about the state of the party.
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| Happy Friday. It’s Adam Wren, writing to you from the greatest place in the world to watch college basketball: Indianapolis, the host for this year’s Final Four, just 15 days — and tens of millions of busted brackets — away. This is a Braden Smith fan zine from here on out. Get in touch. FRIDAY LISTEN: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) sat down with Playbook’s Dasha Burns for this week’s episode of “The Conversation,” where he discussed his perspective on the Iran war as a veteran, the SAVE Act, 2028, whether Democrats can become the fun party again and much more. On how PTSD and grief impacts his life: “This year I’m going to my best friend’s son’s graduation. He died in Iraq, and his son was barely, I think at that point he was barely like eight months old. He never got to know his dad growing up. So it’s there for me every day. And that’s why I get frustrated when I see potential mistakes again, and the very cavalier attitude that I think our government has toward our men and women and potentially putting them in harm’s way.” On whether Democrats can be the “fun” party in 2028: “The part that we really messed up is that, you know, for too long we went from being a party that was kind of forward-leaning, futuristic, adventurous, and for a while we kind of became scolds and mad at everybody, at everything. In some weird way, now that the Republicans have taken over and they’ve, you know, won at least temporarily some of the culture wars, they’re the ones that actually look like the scolds, right? So we get to be the party of Bad Bunny. That’s cool. That’s fun.” Watch the full episode … Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify In today’s Playbook … — What Pete Buttigieg’s 2026 travels mean for 2028. — Trump is holding his 2024 coalition together on Iran — for now. — A new Texas Senate poll spells trouble for Republicans.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | MIDLAND, Michigan — Pete Buttigieg is known for going everywhere to get his message out in the media. In 2026, he’s taking that strategy offline, too, traveling virtually everywhere. A source close to Buttigieg tells Playbook he’s spent half of 2026 on the road, hitting 10 states so far — including battleground states Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and his adopted home state Michigan, plus a multiday swing across for-now-first-in-the-nation New Hampshire. And he’s not yet hawking books like some of his would-be 2028 rivals. He’s stumping for candidates up and down the ballot. While potential 2028ers like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro focus on flexing midterm-year dominance in their own backyards, Buttigieg is embarking on a more national project to position himself as a super surrogate not confined to specific geography or demographics. It’s a strategy that could help him counter the base of power that comes from holding elected office. Buttigieg laid out his midterm strategy to Playbook in an exclusive interview after gripping and grinning and taking selfies along a ropeline: “The basic idea is to make myself useful to candidates and causes that I care about and that we all need to succeed,” he said at Mi Element Grains & Grounds, a combination microbrewery, bakery and coffeehouse, after launching a canvassing effort backing Chedrick Greene in a special election to determine control of the Michigan state Senate. “Every kind of state, red, blue and purple, there are races going on and fights going on that I want to make sure I'm part of,” Buttigieg told Playbook. “And they are all often very different from each other, but what they have in common is leaders who are very rooted in a sense of place. They're very much of where they're from, and I think represent a big part of what the future for Democrats is going to look like.” Buttigieg has increased his engagement with Black candidates like Greene and the community more broadly, addressing a perceived weakness. A source familiar with Buttigieg’s past outreach to the Black community described his efforts as a “natural extension” of his work on his 2020 presidential campaign and in the Biden administration. “It’s a recognition that engagement in those spaces and showing up in 2026 is going to be a huge indicator of who's going to be the leader of this party,” this person, granted anonymity to candidly appraise Buttigieg’s approach, told Playbook. “I think it's really smart to think along those lines, and to show, right? Not just talk about it, but to actually show and demonstrate it.”
| | | | A message from BlackRock: As infrastructure investment grows, so does the need for skilled trades. BlackRock's Future Builders initiative will expand economic opportunity and power the next generation of America's skilled trades workers. Meet Pete and Elijah, a father and son carrying on the craft of American welding. Watch their story. | | | | Buttigieg’s travels and how he’s talking reveal something about his potential trajectory: For starters, he’s laser-focused on building a majority Democratic governing coalition. He used the word no fewer than 10 times. Buttigieg insisted that Democrats “should be able to build a supermajority coalition” based on the party’s platform. He has noted in the past most Americans support paid family leave, raising the federal minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, universal background checks, and a public health insurance option. “If we can't get those two-thirds supported positions over 50 percent that means we're missing something in terms of the coalition we built.” There is also, of course, the fact that Buttigieg has a newly crafted stump speech that walks an average voter through their day and overlays his policy hopes for them, something reminiscent of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” “I don’t want to overdo that, but yes, as you know, my whole thing is the politics of everyday life,” Buttigieg said. “And one way to get that across is to just literally walk through everyday life and all of the hundreds of moments in that day that are shaped by political choices.” As potential presidential candidates like Newsom seek to emulate Trump’s smashmouth social media style, Buttigieg is more focused on creating a Democratic version of MAGA’s sweeping coalition. “It is really important that we understand what it means that this president stitched together this very unlikely crew that includes traditional Republicans, Libertarians, authoritarians and white nationalists,” Buttigieg said. “We have to have a bigger, better, different coalition.” In the next few weeks, Buttigieg is expected to cross another battleground off his list, with a stop in North Carolina where he’ll campaign for Democrats, as well as two redder states: a town hall in Oklahoma and a stop in Montana, where he’s planning to boost “The Montana Plan,” a ballot initiative to curtail corporations from spending money on political candidates or ballot issues. “We’re trying to get everywhere we can,” Buttigieg said. “Including places in the same way that — you know, I think Fox News is this kind of place — places where people don’t hear enough from us, because I think there are potential members of our coalition to be found.” Read the full story
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Skilled trades are critical to the future of infrastructure investment. Learn more. | | | | THE WAGES OF WAR HOW IT’S PLAYING: Despite all the Republican hand-wringing about GOP fractures over the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, new results from The POLITICO Poll out today show that Trump’s 2024 voters are largely on board — whether they identify as MAGA or not. Erin Doherty reports that 70 percent of his voters support the strikes on Iran, including 61 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters. They generally trust Trump and find the argument about stopping Iran’s nuclear development persuasive. But that’s far from everyone in the Trump camp, and prominent dissenters like Joe Kent are finding powerful megaphones despite being dismissed by most top Republicans, POLITICO’s Megan Messerly reports. And significant political risk still looms: In the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, just 7 percent of Americans support Trump putting boots on the ground with a large-scale invasion of Iran — but nearly two-thirds think Trump will do it. In the works? Trump denied yesterday that he’ll deploy ground forces, while hedging that he wouldn’t announce it publicly in advance. But Newsmax’s Carla Babb reports that thousands more Marines and sailors are being sent to the Middle East as reinforcements. WAR REPORT: Apparent new Iranian attacks were reported overnight in Israel and Saudi Arabia, while Lebanon said yesterday that the death toll there has surged past 1,000, on top of more than 1,300 deaths in Iran. A U.S. F-35 fighter jet had to make an emergency landing, but did so safely, after coming under what may have been an Iranian attack — the first such incident of the war, per CNN. And much like in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the injuries to U.S. troops so far have been traumatic brain injury-related, ABC’s Steve Beynon reports. THE BIG BIBI QUESTION: After some conflicting reports about whether Trump knew in advance about Israel’s market-rattling strikes on Iranian energy sites, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “acted alone.” He also agreed to Trump’s request not to repeat such energy attacks. And Netanyahu said the U.S. and Israel had successfully ended Iran’s uranium-enrichment abilities. But the Israeli attack on energy infrastructure constituted a new escalation of the war that freaked out the energy industry and Gulf states, POLITICO’s Scott Waldman, Eli Stokols, Dasha Burns and Sophia Cai report. As recession fears rise, “Israelis have been very reckless,” one person familiar with the White House’s thinking said. “Lots of frustration with them.” ON THE HILL: The White House’s staggering potential price tag of $200 billion for a supplemental war funding request has some Hill Republicans worried that it’s too high to be feasibly accomplished through a party-line reconciliation bill, POLITICO’s Mia McCarthy and colleagues report. Others hope that it could help jumpstart the reconciliation effort. But Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Semafor’s Nick Wu she’d want it to be bipartisan. MUST LISTEN: “If there are attacks either on Iran or from Iran on energy infrastructure, I think that there are reasonable grounds to think that they might constitute a war crime,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy on a visit before the EU Council meeting. Listen to the full interview on EU Confidential
| | | | POLITICO's Economy Summit Join POLITICO’s Economy Summit on March 25 for discussions with government and industry leaders about the policy decisions that will determine tomorrow’s market risks and opportunities. Hear from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), Gary Cohn, and more. RSVP to attend in person or virtually. | | | | | BEST OF THE REST FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Poll position: James Talarico narrowly beats both Texas Sen. John Cornyn and AG Ken Paxton in a general election, according to an internal Talarico campaign poll shared first with Playbook. In a hypothetical general election matchup, Talarico leads Cornyn by two points — 43 percent to 41 percent — and leads Paxton by just one point, 44 percent to 43 percent. The poll of 900 likely voters, conducted by Impact Research, validates what some in the MAGA movement have argued is not a significant difference when it comes to electability between Cornyn and Paxton, with the results indicating Paxton holds a slight edge. In an additional state of the race memo, Talarico campaign manager Seth Krasne highlighted the campaign’s coalition as one that “decides general elections,” including young voters, Latino voters and Republicans “with more than 120,000 voters switching party preference after most recently participating in a Republican primary.” See the polling memo … Read the state of the race memo WEAPONIZATION WATCH: U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones’ big investigation keeps expanding. As he tries to build a case that there was a criminal “grand conspiracy” to prosecute Trump, Reding Quiñones’ probe has now issued more than 130 subpoenas — and James Comey is among the latest, Axios’ Marc Caputo scooped. Fed up: The administration’s effort to go after Fed Chair Jerome Powell also continues apace. Trump indicated yesterday that the criminal probe of Powell should keep going, POLITICO’s Victoria Guida reports. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro’s plan to appeal an unfavorable court ruling now has the backing of top Justice Department officials as Trump sours on seeking an off-ramp, Bloomberg’s Saleha Mohsin and colleagues report. BRAVE NEW WORLD: The White House’s proposed national regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, heading for a difficult path through Congress, is expected today, Axios’ Maria Curi and Ashley Gold report. The package will cover online safety for children and preemption of state-level laws regulating AI, among other highly contentious policy areas. The former has more bipartisan support but has been subject to big divides between the House and Senate. SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: Border czar Tom Homan met in person with Hill Democrats and Republicans yesterday, trying to step up talks to find a way out of the DHS shutdown, NBC’s Scott Wong and colleagues report. No sign of a breakthrough yet, but the TSA pain is on the verge of getting much worse, snarling air traffic and making more airports sites of chaos and delays, POLITICO’s Oriana Pawlyk and Myah Ward report. “World Cup and America250 could be crippled if this isn’t resolved asap,” one administration official warned. WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND: The Senate is gearing up for a rare working weekend to continue debating the all-but-doomed SAVE Act and advance nominees, but DHS negotiations could crop up, POLITICO’s Inside Congress notes. Senators will take a DHS funding vote today, an amendment vote on the SAVE Act tomorrow and the first vote to move forward with Markwayne Mullin’s nomination as DHS secretary on Sunday. ANTITRUST THE PROCESS: “FCC Approves Nexstar-Tegna Deal Creating Local TV Giant,” by Bloomberg’s Kelcee Griffis: “The Federal Communications Commission has granted approval for Nexstar Media Group Inc. to complete its $3.5 billion acquisition of TV station operator Tegna Inc., waiving an anti-consolidation rule that would’ve prevented the combination.” HOLLYWOODLAND: “Hollywood workers pin hopes on AG to stop Paramount deal,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Miller and Nicole Norman: “[California AG Rob] Bonta … is coordinating his antitrust review of the sale with at least one other state attorney general: Letitia James of New York. His probe represents a major test of a Democratic-run state’s ability to exert regulatory power over a high-profile business deal the president appears interested in seeing closed.” CRISIS IN CUBA: “Trade with Cuba collapses as Trump escalates pressure on Communist Party leadership,” by AP’s Joshua Goodman: “The stranglehold is disrupting the lives of Cuba’s 11 million residents, who are enduring massive blackouts and a breakdown in medical care due to a lack of fuel.”
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"Capital alone is not enough—people are central to building our nation's future." — Larry Fink, BlackRock Chairman and CEO. Learn more. | | | | THE WEEKEND AHEAD FRIDAY PROGRAMS … POLITICO “The Conversation”: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). C-SPAN “Ceasefire”: Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) … Marc Short and Brendan Daly. PBS “Washington Week”: Idrees Ali, Stephen Hayes, Vivian Salama and David Sanger. SUNDAY SO FAR … CNN “State of the Union”: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries … Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. Panel: Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), Ashley Allison and David Urban. NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío. Panel: Mike Dubke, Ashley Etienne, Courtney Kube and Jonathan Martin. ABC “This Week”: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Panel: Donna Brazile, Chris Christie and Marianna Sotomayor. CBS “Face the Nation”: Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) … International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Panel: Emily Brooks and David Swerdlick. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: retired Lt. Gen. Charles Moore … Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Panel: Guy Benson, Dasha Burns, Juan Williams and Roger Zakheim. CNN “Inside Politics Sunday”: Graham Platner. Panel: Aaron Blake, Jeff Mason and Margaret Talev. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) … Wahid Nawabi … Adam Bry … Timothy Dolan. MS NOW “The Weekend”: Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) … Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey … Chrystia Freeland. PBS “Compass Points”: Vali Nasr … Mike Doran … Dana Stroul … Miad Maleki.
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➡️ Get on the Invite List | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | SPOTTED: Kamala Harris having dinner last night with Minyon Moore at Centrolina. Jonathan Capehart and Nick Schmit also stopped by for a bit. Pic PLAYBOOK DESIGN SECTION — “Trump’s Planned White House Screening Center Is Too Big, Arts Panel Says,” by NYT’s Luke Broadwater: “Members of the Commission of Fine Arts — which President Trump has packed with allies and supporters — had been scheduled to give preliminary approval to the project on Thursday. Instead, they delayed the vote and asked for substantial changes that would emulate the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman structures.” Coin of the realm: The commission did sign off on the look for a new commemorative gold coin honoring Trump, allowing the U.S. Mint to take next steps, though the final decision is still up to the Treasury Department, per the Washington Examiner. OUT AND ABOUT — The Motion Picture Association, Netflix and America250 hosted a screening of “Miracle: The Boys of ’80” last night at the MPA, as part of its “Americans United at the Movies” screening series. SPOTTED: Charlie Rivkin, Elissa Alben, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Rep. George Whitesides (D-Calif.), James Lloyd, Tim Kurth, J.T. Jezierski, Catherine Collins, Ted Lehman, Diana Oo and Kira Alvarez. — SPOTTED at a BGR Group welcome reception last night for Sean Cooksey, a new managing director who recently left VP JD Vance’s office: Deputy AG Todd Blanche, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda, Andy Baker, Jim O’Neill, Ben Moss, Clark Milner, Saurabh Sharma, Daniel Wasserman, Vetan Kapoor, Wells King, Taylor Van Kirk, Luke Schroeder, James Hitchcock, Sean Day, Daniel Bell, Diego Pestana, Aakash Singh, Paul Perkins, Colin McDonald, Sara Matar, Stephen Kenny, Sam Adkisson, Josh Hoyt, Joshua Ha, Thomas Vaseliou, Eric Ettorre, Rachel Miller, Tyler Badgley, West Cuthbert, Bob Wood, Dan Murphy, Erskine Wells, Will Levi and Rachel Bissex. ADMINISTRATION DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Eric Bledsoe, West Cuthbert and Rachel Oglesby are all joining August Strategy Group as directors. Bledsoe previously was senior adviser to the president for domestic policy. Cuthbert previously worked at HHS. Oglesby previously was chief of staff at the Education Department. MEDIA MOVE — Eva Pound is joining Punchbowl as an associate booking producer. She most recently worked for CBS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) … Ronna McDaniel … Jenner & Block’s Lily Hopwood … CNN’s Phil Rucker and Jim Bittermann … Washingtonian’s Cathy Merrill Williams … National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett … Gloria Story Dittus of Story Partners … Mark Putnam of Putnam Partners … Arthur Scott … Jon Thompson … Michael Whouley of Dewey Square Group … Jay Heimbach … Benjy Sarlin … POLITICO’s David Ferris and Laila Pirnazar … Naomi Zeigler Nagle of Sen. Angus King’s (I-Maine) office … Sally Aman … Jackson Hurley of Voters of Tomorrow … Results for America’s Zac Coile … Jessica Carter … Abbey Welborn ... Susan McGinnis ... Matt Finkelstein ... Gloria Totten ... Cory Gattie … Ruth Osinski of BGR Group … Logan Booth of Trident GMG … The 60 Plus Association’s Jim Martin 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 editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross.
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