| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard with Dasha Burns | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco, Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray On today’s Playbook Podcast: Jack and Dasha break down the latest fallout from the U.S. military operations in Iran.
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| Good Monday morning. This is Jack Blanchard. Drop me a line. START YOUR DAY WITH THIS — “Trump Buries the 20th Century,” by POLITICO’s Alexander Burns. “With a roar of rockets and bombs, a gasp of international outcry and the death of Iran’s supreme leader, President Donald Trump’s legacy became clearer than ever,” Alex writes in a must-read analysis this morning. “He is burying the 20th Century: Its villains, its alliances, its political norms and ceasefires. And he is unleashing a future of uncertainty and disruption with no new equilibrium in sight.” Trump's long list of signature achievements are “acts of demolition,” Alex notes, from the striking down (via the Supreme Court) of Roe v. Wade, through the end of the postwar consensus on free trade, to the rapid relegation of NATO’s security charter. And now “in the first few hours of war in Iran,” Alex writes, “Trump’s attack killed the enduring leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Ali Khamenei, a dictator as cruel as he was ancient.” And here’s the crux: “In every instance, Trump’s allies and admirers say he is completing the unfinished business of a generation: doing the work that other American leaders have been too weak or too conventional or too unpatriotic to do themselves. In each case, too, Trump is tearing down old structures and systems without a vision for replacing them.” In today’s Playbook … — Trump and Pete Hegseth face the media after 48 hours of war. — U.S. jets come down in flames as military threat intensifies. — One day to go in Texas — and we’ve got the latest Dem vs Dem action.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Trump and his top military advisers will finally face the media this morning as the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran enters its third day. This will be the first time any member of the Trump administration has faced on-camera questions since the military strikes began more than 48 hours ago — and boy are there questions for them. Because what we’re now seeing unfold in the Middle East is a rapidly escalating regional conflict, with major risks for America and its allies. The staggering first 48 hours saw America and Israel take out Iran’s leadership while hitting more than 1,000 military targets, officials say. But the days ahead could now seriously test what is already paper-thin support from the American public. Because the conflict is broadening: The militant group Hezbollah has now entered the fray, exchanging multiple rocket attacks with Israel overnight from its base in neighboring Lebanon. U.S. losses are mounting: Overnight, extraordinary footage showed a flaming American F-15 crashing over Kuwait, though thankfully it seems its U.S. crew survived. A Kuwait Army statement said that “several U.S. military aircraft crashed,” while “confirming the complete safety of their crews.” This follows news yesterday that three U.S. military personnel have been killed since the attacks began on Saturday morning. Trump said last night the Pentagon’s own projections suggest that figure will get “quite a bit higher” in the days ahead. And Iran is not backing down. The regime’s top national security official Ali Larijani said on X that Iran “will not negotiate with the United States,” despite Trump’s claims to the contrary yesterday. Overnight, the regime launched another barrage of missile and drone attacks on the surrounding region, with explosions reported in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Doha and Bahrain. AFP reported smoke rising from the U.S. embassy in Kuwait City. A Saudi oil refinery is in flames. A British RAF base in Cyprus has also been hit. What the Pentagon is worrying about: “The vast number of retaliatory attacks — and the array of sites being targeted, including nonmilitary sites in Arab nations across the Middle East — is concerning after so much of the regime’s top leadership was killed,” WaPo’s Alex Horton, Tara Copp and Dan Lamothe report, citing a person familiar. “Officials are worried about the command and control of those weapons, the person added.” Out of control: “Inside the Pentagon, and among some members of the Trump administration, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control, said people familiar with the situation. ‘The mood here is intense and paranoid,’ one person said. There is anxiety among senior leaders that the fighting will extend for weeks, further stressing limited U.S. air defense stockpiles, people familiar with the situation said.” Yet Trump himself has now made clear that he expects four to five weeks of military action, which poses the question — does America have the stomach for a long and painful campaign? Among the concerns being raised is the challenge posed by Iran’s mass-produced Shahed drones, which are cheap for the regime to keep building and flying — and upon which the U.S. and its allies are already expending large numbers of expensive (and rapidly depleting) interceptors.
| | A message from Anthropic: Qualified Health used Claude, built by Anthropic, to screen 1M+ heart failure patients in Texas. It surfaced life-saving interventions that were buried in fragmented data. See how | | | | There’s also the domestic impact for Trump to consider, with oil prices soaring when markets opened overnight, and with U.S. authorities around the world on heightened terror watch amid fears of reprisals. Authorities were investigating whether the man who killed two people and injured more than a dozen at a shooting outside a bar in Austin, Texas, over the weekend “was motivated by the U.S. military campaign in Iran,” WaPo’s Jeremy Roebuck and Molly Hennessy-Fiske report. No determination of motive has yet been made. So there’s plenty to ask Trump about … and yet the president’s normally relentless media schedule has been largely suspended since the first missile strikes hit early Saturday morning. He has released two scripted video messages, but there’s been no wartime press conference, no Q&A on Air Force One. Trump ignored all shouted questions when he landed back at the White House last night … though did find time to show reporters the new statues he’s installed in the Rose Garden. And that’s not all: No administration officials were put up for interviews on the Sunday shows. And the Pentagon “has held no briefings nearly 36 hours after the U.S. military strikes,” POLITICO’s Jack Detsch and colleagues report, “bucking a practice of doing so after attacks that goes back to the Vietnam War.” This is all highly unusual for an administration that generally puts enormous stock in trying to shape a narrative from the earliest stage. (Witness, by contrast, Trump’s triumphant formal news conference in the hours immediately after the extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, followed up by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s tour of the Sunday shows the following day.) The relative silence this time around raises questions for those wondering whether there’s a coherent long-term strategy underpinning the military action. What Trump has done is pick up the phone to speak with at least 10 different reporters while ensconced at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, taking calls that ranged from a single question to a six-minute back-and-forth. (For those keeping track, the callers included Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, NBC’s Kristen Welker, ABC’s Jonathan Karl (twice), NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs, the Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab, MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell, Axios’ Barak Ravid, Libby Alon of Israel’s Channel 14 News and — as she reveals on today’s Playbook Podcast — Playbook’s very own Dasha Burns.) Offering such an astonishing level of personal access is unprecedented for a wartime president. But it’s hard to hold an administration to account via a rapid-fire question or two. Many of Trump’s answers this weekend have been vague or contradictory, but few callers are granted time for proper follow-ups. And remember — this is all Trump freelancing, not an official war comms strategy. That all likely changes today. First up, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine will host a rare joint news conference at 8 a.m. — though the likelihood is that only the new, MAGA-friendly Pentagon press corps will be allowed in. Trump himself will then host a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House at 11 a.m. Now read this: “There Is No Legal Argument for Trump’s War With Iran,” by POLITICO Magazine's Ankush Khardori in his latest Rules of Law column: “This is new territory for Trump. In fact, the U.S. attack on Iran crosses multiple legal lines, both domestically and internationally. The political and policy implications of the war are another thing — perhaps you love it, or perhaps you remember the last time that the U.S. began a war of choice in order to bring about regime change in the Middle East — but those are nominally distinct questions from the law.”
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| | | | WAR ON THE HILL COMING TO CONGRESS: Trump’s stunning attack on Iran will trigger a flurry of action on the Hill this week as members return from their districts — providing a major test of his support among Republicans. The votes: Bipartisan Iran war powers votes to rebuke the president’s actions are likely to fail in the Senate on Tuesday and in the House on Thursday, POLITICO’s Calen Razor and Mia McCarthy write this morning. Most Republicans and even some Democrats — including Sen. John Fetterman and Rep. Greg Landsman — are signaling support for what could be a multi-week military operation. The bottom line: Few Republicans seem prepared to actually break with the White House amid the ongoing campaign. It will also be a tough vote for front-line Republicans in competitive seats. GOP leaders are telling members that the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was a win and the strikes were justified after Iran failed to abandon its nuclear ambitions through diplomacy. Majority Whip Tom Emmer pressed Republicans in a private conference call Sunday to show up for votes this week to oppose the war powers resolution. Democratic leaders, meanwhile, are arguing the administration hasn’t presented enough evidence to warrant the strikes. Top House Democrats and key committee ranking members urged their caucus in a call Sunday night to support the resolution. And Dems are eager to highlight what could turn into real cost-of-living concerns as oil prices spike. Intel incoming: Congressional leaders are due to receive a briefing from administration officials at 4 p.m. today, followed by full House and Senate briefings on Tuesday from Rubio, Hegseth, Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The ripple effect: With the DHS shutdown now into its third week, the politics of the Iran strikes are spilling over into the negotiations. Republicans are “citing the potential for retaliatory terror attacks in a new push to pressure Democrats to back down on their funding demands,” POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports, as House Republicans plan to hold another DHS funding vote Thursday. Democrats don’t appear to be budging. Much more from POLITICO’s Inside Congress
| | | | POLITICO Forecast The forces reshaping politics, policy and power are accelerating across regions and sectors. Drawing on POLITICO’s global reporting, Forecast connects the dots — from major global moments to behind-the-scenes developments — to help readers anticipate what comes next. Sign up for POLITICO Forecast. | | | | | ALL EYES ON TEXAS ONE DAY TO GO: For all the online acrimony and bad vibes engendered by the Texas Senate Democratic primary, it's ending in something of a quiet truce between the campaigns. Ahead of voting day tomorrow, both candidates have agreed to back the other in November, Playbook’s Adam Wren writes in. “If Jasmine is the nominee, I’m going to be supporting her. And I’ve said this before: that I think Jasmine is electable,” Talarico told Adam in a recent interview. Crockett declined an interview, but her spokesperson told Adam: “The congresswoman has made it very clear that she will continue supporting all Democrats up and down the ballot and make sure Texas turns blue.” The hard-fought primary has “ignited a fierce intraparty debate — with racial overtones — about what type of candidate Democrats need to nominate to win in tough places as they look to rebuild the racially diverse coalition that Trump shattered with his 2024 victory,” Adam and Liz Crampton write in a must-read report from Dallas. And it’s a race that has been fought much more over candidate style than any ideological or policy differences, they note. Second choice: Asked whether he’s successfully building a multiracial, multicultural coalition, Talarico was surprisingly frank: “I completely understand if I’m not Black Texans’ first choice in this race, but I would love to be their close second choice,” he told Adam. “And what we’ve seen in our polling is that my approval rating among Black Texans has continued to rise: It’s at the highest point it’s ever been. They may not vote for me in this race, and that’s quite alright. I’m competing for their votes.” THE OTHER BUZZY TEXAS PRIMARY: When the Texas results start rolling in tomorrow night, House Republicans will be watching GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales’ 23rd District closely. The third-term lawmaker has been accused of having an affair with his staffer who later died by suicide. Though Gonzales has denied the allegations, the scandal has not subsided. Now, a “growing number of House Republicans are hoping he simply loses his race and rides off into the Texas sunset,” POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. But the wafer-thin majority looms large. “What most don’t want, however,” Meredith notes, “is for Gonzales to resign from Congress in the 10 months before a successor would be sworn in.”
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST UP NEXT? After a series of aggressive moves targeting regimes in Venezuela and Iran, Trump may already be eyeing up the next incursion in Cuba. “The president is feeling like, ‘I’m on a roll’; like, ‘This is working,’” an administration official told The Atlantic’s Vivian Salama. Trump has repeatedly called attention to Cuba’s declining economic situation and “has been open about what he would like to see in Cuba, floating the possibility while speaking with reporters at the White House on Friday of a ‘friendly takeover’ of the island of 11 million people.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — It’s all affordability: Americans for Prosperity, the LIBRE Initiative and Concerned Veterans for America are launching a seven-figure nationwide ad campaign aimed at rallying lawmakers to address the cost of living. The AFP’s “Affordability Agenda” pushes for reforms in energy, housing, health care and regulatory policy. The organizations are touting new polling conducted for the campaign that shows “broad appeal across Republicans, Independents, and Democrats.” Watch the ad … View the agenda 2028 WATCH: Nevada Democrats are circulating a four-page memo to DNC members that addresses questions about Nevada’s ability to lead the presidential nominating contest, which were raised at the committee’s most recent meeting, POLITICO's Elena Schneider scoops. Nevada, which is aggressively pursuing a first-place slot on the primary calendar, emphasized its general-election competitiveness and its electorate’s diversity. Read the full memo THE EPSTEIN SAGA: The Epstein files released by DOJ reveal that multiple women told prosecutors they were sexually assaulted by associates of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — and yet no charges were brought against any of the men, WSJ’s Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky and Khadeeja Safdar report. THE LEAD PART: The beleaguered CDC could be in line for new leadership soon. Despite NIH chief Jay Bhattacharya’s arrival as acting director, Trump intends to nominate a new leader for the CDC “in the coming weeks,” WSJ’s Sabrina Siddiqui reports. It would be the first time the post has been filled on a permanent basis since last summer — a “power vacuum” that has sunk morale and sowed chaos within the agency. SCOTUS WATCH — The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this morning “in a Second Amendment dispute over a federal law that bars unlawful drug users from possessing firearms,” CBS’ Melissa Quinn writes.
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➡️ Learn More about POLITICO Pro | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | TRAGIC NEWS — Danise Baird, who was married to Rep. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) for 59 years, has died from injuries resulting from the couple’s bad car crash in D.C. in January, per the Indianapolis Star’s Bradley Hohulin. “A devoted wife and loving mother of three, she was the foundation of their family and will be deeply missed,” his office said in a statement. SPRING FORWARD? “After three straight colder-than-normal months, March is likely to tilt milder overall,” Capital Weather Gang’s Jason Samenow writes. “The month will start on the chilly side, but temperatures are poised to surge by the middle of next week, with highs reaching at least the 70s on several days.” Don’t put away your whole winter wardrobe, though: “A return to cooler weather is possible by midmonth.” MEDIA MOVES — NOTUS is adding Paige Winfield Cunningham to cover health care policy and health agencies, Sam Fortier to cover people and power in Washington and Al Weaver to cover the Senate. Cunningham and Fortier previously worked at WaPo. Weaver previously worked at The Hill. … Alyssa Rosenberg is joining the Allbritton Journalism Institute as education director. TRANSITIONS — Owen Loftus is launching More Than November, a new nonpartisan nonprofit that aims to bolster participation in party primaries through voter engagement and education. He previously worked at Unite America, and is a Gill Foundation and Colorado GOP alum. … Kevin Gallagher has rejoined WilmerHale as a partner. He previously was Virginia solicitor general. BIRTHWEEK (was Saturday): Laurens Group’s Christiana Purves Lance HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Ami Bera (D-Calif.) … Ken Salazar … Kevin Madden … Brookings’ Robin Lewis … Liz Oberg … Laurie Van Hall of Bee Compliance … Erik Hotmire … POLITICO’s Brakkton Booker, Caitlin Floyd and Eli Zimmerman … Emily Miller … Javelin’s Dylan Colligan … Yuri Beckelman … Ven Neralla … DaVita’s Javier Martínez … BGR Group’s Syd Terry … Caitlin McFall … Ellie Warner … former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) … Joe Garofoli … Ashley Chang of the Rockefeller Foundation … Savannah Newhouse of the Education Department … Mastercard’s Adam Chelseth 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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