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By Adam Wren with Dasha Burns |
Presented by |
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With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco, Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray Happy Saturday — and Derby Day to all who celebrate. It’s Adam Wren. Get in touch. Prediction markets are invading everything, including politics. Counterintuitively, don’t expect them in one place: the Kentucky Derby, POLITICO’s Declan Harty writes in to Playbook. “While the prediction markets have piled into all sorts of sports over the last year — baseball, college basketball, cricket, esports, etc. — Kalshi and Polymarket are staying clear of the Derby.” The reason: “Gambling on horseracing is governed by the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, which handed states and racetracks critical power over who can accept such wagers,” he notes. Former Rep. Thomas Rooney of Florida, who now leads the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, told Declan he wasn’t surprised prediction markets weren’t strong-arming their way into the Derby, given the likely appetite to eventually strike a deal. “The law is very clear,” Rooney said. “Any one of those entities could enter into some kind of an agreement with one of these markets in the future. Until that happens, though, they’re prohibited from playing in our sport.” What is crashing the Derby today? Politics. Scroll on for more.
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DRIVING THE DAY |
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POSITION JOCKEYING: We won’t know who won the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby until this evening, but in the horserace for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — at least for today — we can already declare a winner: Gov. Andy Beshear. Beshear will be in his prime at Churchill Downs today, playing the inside-outside game as he courts both the establishment and Latino portions of the Democratic Party — two critical factions for presidential prospects eyeing the home stretch. On the official side, Beshear is playing host to a cavalcade of governors as chair of the Democratic Governors Association. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will all flank Beshear as guests. The DGA isn’t saying much about their presence, including whether they’ll be fundraising, only confirming the group’s attendance. But the optics are pretty clear: Beshear will win the day. “We’re going to be showing off to governors from other states what we’ve got here, and while they claim to have big sporting events, I don’t think anything rivals the Derby,” he told Spectrum News earlier this week. He’s also making a play among the all-important influencer set at the Run for the Roses, landing a coup of a connection that’ll make many would-be 2028 rivals jealous. Beshear convinced Carlos Eduardo Espina, the Uruguayan-Mexican-American social media sensation from Houston that The Bulwark dubbed “the most sought-after influencer in Democratic politics,” to spend nearly a week with him at the Derby. Espina, who has 22 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, is set to be a decisive force in 2028. And Beshear is just the latest to line up with the social star. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s team invited Espina to Newsom’s book tour in Miami. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg posed for an Instagram photo with him last year. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) rubbed shoulders and shot content with him in Nevada. And he’s also met and appeared with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. The 2028 presidential primaries on both sides of the aisle are shaping up to be a series of heats decided in part by influencers alongside voters. That dynamic is already playing out with the controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. It may no longer be enough just to notch the New Hampshire primary — winning over gatekeepers like Espina, an intermediary for Latino voters, could be in some ways just as critical. Beshear won some high praise from Espina for his efforts. “I like him a lot as a future president,” Espina wrote in Spanish in an Instagram post with Beshear. “He is someone who values our people very much.”
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A message from Anthropic: AI helps most with the hardest work, not the simplest. Anthropic analyzed 2 million conversations and found Claude's biggest impact is on complex tasks. The Economic Index tracks adoption across every state and occupation. See the data |
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Espina told Playbook in an interview Friday he met Beshear this year, seeing him twice at events in recent weeks where the governor persuaded him to visit Kentucky. “There’s a lot of the big buzzwords: we got to meet people where they're at — that's how the Democrats win again,” Espina said. “But my sense is that he's a guy who’s actually, like, literally meeting people where they're at. I mean, we were walking the stables and meeting people. It was raining, and he's in a suit, and he's just getting in the mud and everything like it’s something he does every day.” That image cuts a much different cloth from the traditional optics of the opulent Kentucky Derby, which can be less than ideal for a politician, particularly one who cuts so clean a figure as the Bible-quoting Beshear: its whiteness, its booziness, the gambling, the rarified wealth. As the late Hunter S. Thompson titled his Scanlan’s Monthly dispatch, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” But through Espina’s eyes, Beshear managed to showcase the working class and diverse roots that make the Derby go. “In the Democratic Party, we've become very distant from our roots, from our bases, spending a lot of time talking to D.C. consultants to understand how things work,” Espina told Playbook. “This is the guy who understands rural America. He understands working-class America. And I think for me, that's very valuable.” Espina may shoot more content with Beshear today, he told Playbook. And while he’s not on the verge of making any endorsement, Beshear seems to be winning the Carlos Espina primary — at least for this week. “What really caught my attention is, he’s doing all these things around the Derby and talking to people and the owners and the workers and everyone else,” Espina told Playbook. “I don't know if they're Democrats. I don't know if they're Republican, but he's found a way to unite them all for a common cause, which is to, you know, make sure the event works. Make sure the state works. And hey, you know, maybe if you can make a huge event like this work and make a state like this work, then maybe you can make the country work. Who knows?”
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A message from Anthropic:  
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8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. DISPATCH FROM VEGAS: Both parties are scrambling to woo Latino and working class voters, groups that swung for Trump in 2024, but have since soured amid rising prices. Nowhere is that new dynamic playing out more than Nevada, POLITICO’s Megan Messerly reports from Las Vegas, where Democratic and Republican strategists alike are confronting an uncomfortable reality: These persuadable voters may choose the couch over any candidate. 2. DHS DOWNLOAD: “What the shutdown cost DHS,” by POLITICO’s Myah Ward, Zack Colman and Oriana Pawlyk: “The record-breaking Department of Homeland Security shutdown might be over — but the damage is already done to some of the agency’s critical missions, including disaster response and airport security screening just weeks before the summer travel season begins. The 76-day shutdown added pressure to an agency already in turmoil, stalling key projects and forcing some staff to work without pay for part of it. Some employees, especially at the Transportation Security Administration, simply quit, and replacing them won’t be easy or quick.” 3. THE POLITICO POLL — MAGA wants AI guardrails: Trump has focused his AI agenda on rapid growth with little oversight — but most of his voters aren’t totally on board, according to the latest POLITICO Poll. About three quarters of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 support some form of government oversight on AI, while only 13 percent said the government should completely stay out of AI regulation. More from POLITICO’s Katherine Long 4. CUBANS CALL FOR MORE: Cuban Americans have historically backed Trump in large numbers — but the administration’s posture toward the island nation could cause that to change, POLITICO’s Kimberly Leonard and Nahal Toosi report. The politically influential Cuban American community in Florida is pressuring the administration to oust Cuba’s communist leadership, viewing the president’s military actions in Venezuela and Iran as a sign he’ll dare to do what his predecessors wouldn’t. But that hope is bumping up against the administration’s mixed signals about Trump’s intentions for Cuba. 5. RIP SPIRIT: Spirit Airlines is officially a ghost, announcing this morning it’s shutting down flights after more than three decades. The death rattle came after bailout talks with the White House unraveled earlier this week, and amid rising fuel prices stemming from the war with Iran that added an extra $10 to $15 million to the already-declining airline’s costs. The inside story: “How the Trump Administration’s Spirit Airlines Rescue Unraveled,” by WSJ’s Brian Schwartz and colleagues: “Spirit Airlines’ time ran out Thursday evening. In a 15-minute phone call, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Spirit Chief Executive Officer Dave Davis agreed that the budget carrier had run out of alternatives.” 6. TRUMP SHAKES UP THE WORLD ORDER: Trump made good on his threat to pull U.S. forces out of Germany amid the president’s spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with the Pentagon announcing it will withdraw 5,000 troops from military bases in Germany over the course of the next six to 12 months. “It amounts to a relatively minor drawdown of a buildup that began under President Joe Biden in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There will still be about 33,000 U.S. troops in Germany,” POLITICO’s Aaron Pellish and Paul McLeary report. 7. TRUMP SHAKES UP THE PRIMARY ORDER: Trump put his stamp on the Kentucky Senate race, saying in a pair of posts he’s backing Rep. Andy Barr and asking MAGA businessman Nate Morris to step aside. Trump noted that Barr supports terminating the filibuster, which he said is essential to pass the SAVE Act. “He will help ensure Victory against these Radical Left, Country Destroying, THUGS,” Trump wrote. In a separate post, Trump said Morris would be put up for an unspecified administration role. Daniel Cameron, the former Kentucky AG, is Barr’s only opponent left in the race. More from POLITICO’s Aaron Pellish 8. ABOVE THE LAW?: A new AP review of court records found the Trump administration violated orders in at least 31 lawsuits — about one in every eight cases in which a judge blocked the administration — in an unprecedented display of executive power. The review comes as Trump and top aides rail against “activist judges” and seek to undermine judiciary credibility, while publicly vowing to follow court orders. “President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
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A message from Anthropic:  
Anthropic's Economic Index tracks adoption across every state and occupation. See the data |
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CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 17 funnies
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GREAT WEEKEND READS: — “Disappearing before our eyes: One photographer’s passion project of capturing local newsrooms,” by AP’s David Bauder: “The Brooklyn-based photographer has brought her camera into some 50 newsrooms across the United States, many in smaller towns and cities, to document places and lives endangered by the industry’s collapse over the past few decades.” — “Micah Lasher, Child Magician,” by Joel Stein for The Atlantic: “The race for New York’s Twelfth District keeps getting more interesting.” — “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” by The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins: “What happens when someone throws a message into the sea?” — “The Stanford Freshmen Who Want to Rule the World,” by Theo Baker for The Atlantic: “This is a story about the kids being groomed to rule the world — and what they’re learning from those who already do.” — “Meet the Mayor of a Tiny Texas Town Who Wants to Limit How Cities Can Govern,” by Tanya Eiserer and Jason Trahan for ProPublica, co-published with with WFAA and The Texas Tribune: “He’s mayor of a town that embraced his small-government ideals but struggles to provide basic services and has no sewer system.”
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A message from Anthropic: AI helps most with the hardest work, not the simplest. Anthropic analyzed 2 million conversations and found Claude's biggest impact is on complex tasks. The Economic Index tracks adoption across every state and occupation. See how your state uses AI. |
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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ONCE YEAR SINCE — “After a couple was killed at the Jewish Museum, another was left struggling,” by WaPo’s Michael Laris: “JoJo Drake Kalin and Yoni River Kalin both encountered the alleged gunman on that night a year ago. Since then, she has sought peace, while he has turned to anger.” GARDEN AMBITIONS GROW — Trump’s vision for the Garden of Heroes he hopes to pull off has dramatically increased in scale — and cost — since his initial estimates, according to plans reviewed by NYT’s Luke Broadwater and Zachary Small. The garden now includes plans for reflecting pools, dining facilities and an amphitheater alongside 250 life-size statues — all of which would require a dramatic redevelopment of West Potomac Park. WaPo’s Rick Maese and Dan Diamond scoop that a top fundraiser for Trump is “seeking donations for a new nonprofit that says it will support Trump’s plans to dramatically remake parts of Washington’s waterfront, including East Potomac Golf Course and the proposed National Garden of American Heroes.” DEVELOPER DON — “Trump Will Take Over a Central D.C. Golf Course Starting This Week,” by NOTUS’ Reese Gorman: “On Monday, landscaping, deferred maintenance and tree-clearing work in line with the National Park Service’s pre-approved plans will commence, the sources said. The major renovations at the course will start later, once a design is approved by the NPS and all legal compliance has been met. Golf course architect Tom Fazio is expected to lead the renovations, a source told NOTUS.” HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) … Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) … MS NOW’s Mika Brzezinski and Jesse Rodriguez … WaPo’s Matt Murray … Poppy Harlow … Avoq’s Steve Elmendorf … Karen Doyne … Daniel Kroese … POLITICO’s Andrew Atterbury and Justine Lore … Rick Stengel … Nick Sobczyk … Megan Harrington … Russ Sullivan of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck … Taylor Lioce … Push Digital’s T.W. Arrighi … former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb … Emily Tisch Sussman … Bess Evans … Nate Zimpher … Cogent Strategies’ Will Bohlen … Joel Payne … Chieko Noguchi … Drew Florio … former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker … Katie (Thompson) Sansone … former Rep. Robert Turner (R-N.Y.) … Andrew McGill … Obama Foundation’s Laura Lucas Magnuson … Jeff Butler … Lauren Devoll … Thayer Roberts of Thorn Run Partners THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): CBS “Face the Nation”: National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett … Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) … Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) … Neel Kashkari … Mike Wirth. NBC “Meet the Press”: acting AG Todd Blanche … Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Panel: Julia Ainsley, Val Demings, Amna Nawaz and Marc Short. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin … Justice Neil Gorsuch. Panel: Kellyanne Conway, Susan Page, Karl Rove and Juan Williams. CNN “State of the Union”: U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro … Barney Frank … Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Panel: Jaime Herrera Beutler, Shermichael Singleton, Conor Lamb and Nayyera Haq. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent … British Ambassador Christian Turner … Texas Gov. Greg Abbott … Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas). Panel: Victor Davis Hanson and Lee Smith. MS NOW “The Weekend”: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) ... Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) ... Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) ... Eric Holder… Mark Kennedy Shriver … Tim Shriver. 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. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook misstated the start times for the D.C. delegate and mayoral debates. They are at 2:15 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, May 2. |
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