‘A head for an eye’

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Jul 23, 2026 View in browser   By Eli Okun Presented by  THE CATCH-UP President Donald Trump said he’s prepared for — though not yet settled on — attacking Iran on a whole new level. | Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP WAR REPORT: President Donald Trump’s Iran war was dealt fresh setbacks today by the House and oil markets — just as he threatens to escalate it to heretofore unseen levels. For the second time, four House Republicans joined with Democrats to approve a war powers resolution to hem in Trump’s authority and end the war. Though the 214-208 vote is essentially symbolic, it amounts to a public rejection of the president’s approach — albeit one in which the vast majority of Republicans stuck with him. GOP Reps. Tom Barrett (Mich.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) were the dissenters. More from POLITICO’s Connor O’Brien and Mark Satter More than symbolic: Renewed hostilities in the Middle East pushed the price of oil back above $100 a barrel, an eye-popping threshold for global markets. The 6 percent increase will deepen the war’s economic pain around the world and keep gas prices ticking higher, which Republicans are watching anxiously ahead of the midterms. But Trump is full steam ahead. He saber-rattled anew in an interview today with Axios’ Barak Ravid, saying he’s prepared for — though not yet settled on — attacks that would go beyond the war’s initial bombardments. “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before,” Trump said. “I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.” There’s no timeline or final call yet. Trump indicated that such a move would be designed to pressure Iran into movement on negotiations, which have slowed to a trickle. “They haven’t received enough pain yet,” he said. U.S. intelligence suggests the bombing levels over the past couple weeks likely won’t alter Iran’s negotiating position, CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis reports. The president did avoid a second Hill rebuke in the Senate after a vote to advance a separate war powers resolution failed, 47-49. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he had seven more weeks of patience for the administration: “Sept. 10 is the magic day for me to have a very different posture,” he said. “It will have been 60 days since the White House said ‘war’ for the first time.” Getting supplemental war funding through the Senate will be a heavier lift. After the House passed a budget resolution to lay the groundwork for reconciliation 3.0, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise today said senators have “got to figure out a way to get it done,” per POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill and Jordain Carney. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the votes simply aren’t there yet: “I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution,” he said. “The priority is funding the government.” (White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune over the SAVE America Act.) Thune did announce they’re adding Iran sanctions to a forthcoming Russia sanctions package, per Jordain. On the ground, new Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and their threat of a Bab el-Mandeb blockade have raised the stakes even higher. The Iran-backed Yemeni rebels’ involvement could expand the war and further snarl global commerce. Trump warned today that if Houthi attacks continue, “the U.S. will hold Iran responsible.” He also threw a new curveball into the just-announced U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, declaring it will now be conditional on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel — a tall order for the kingdom. But the immediate focus is on whether Trump will pull the trigger on a more intense expansion of the war. “Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned. Secretary of State Marco Rubio batted that comment away today. “The president’s policy,” he said, “is a head for an eye.” Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com. A message from Anthropic: How a small shop finds new ways to create using Claude New ways to create start with new ways to solve problems. Joe Bacus and Leef Armontrout, founders of BLA Studios in St. Louis, are doing both with Claude—from welding machinery, to a steel-saving program, to community improvements. Learn more.   8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW 1. TRAIL MIX: Democrats will love the latest Emerson College national poll, which finds them with a whopping 11-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot. A new AARP survey in Georgia has Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff ahead by 9 points and Keisha Lance Bottoms up by 2 for governor. And the party’s top Senate super PAC is plowing big money into four of its top flip targets: Senate Majority PAC added another $54 million in TV ad reservations across Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina and Alaska, Axios’ Hans Nichols scooped. Battle for the Senate: Abdul El-Sayed today picked up the endorsement of Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) in Michigan’s heated Democratic primary. But Republican Mike Rogers indicated on a call last month that he’d love to face El-Sayed in the general, CNN’s Patrick Svitek reports. “If he wins, I think we’re in good shape,” Rogers said. “He’s so radical.” In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson’s anti-abortion history — which he’s since disavowed — is already public. But CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski dug up questionnaires showing just how conservative Jackson’s views used to be: As recently as 2010, he said abortion should never be legal. Feeling special: Mark Sanford jumped into the South Carolina special Senate election, running in a crowded GOP field to replace Lindsey Graham for a full term that includes the late senator’s sister, Sen. Darline Graham. More from POLITICO’s Samuel Benson 2. BILL OF HEALTH: Senate HELP votes on Erica Schwartz’s nomination as CDC chief and Sean Kaufman’s as head of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response were suddenly yanked this morning, per POLITICO’s Simon Levien and Sophie Gardner. Though Schwartz now has the support of Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), an attendance issue apparently left her short of the votes today. Kaufman might have struggled to advance: His past comments, including that he’d rather die than give his kids the Covid-19 vaccine and that he hates the CDC, had sparked some concerns from Cassidy, though Kaufman retreated on some of them. Meanwhile, an FDA advisory panel is reviewing peptides today and tomorrow, teeing up a crucial vote that pits HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. against FDA scientists. 3. IN THE DOGE HOUSE, PART I: “Congress wants to get more homes built quickly. That might be harder after DOGE,” by POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay and Katherine Hapgood: “Some of the lawmakers who pushed for the [housing affordability] law worry that the Department of Housing and Urban Development — which has shed more than 30 percent of its core policy workforce in just three years following budget cuts — is too understaffed to quickly issue new rules and implement its provisions, aimed at making building and buying homes cheaper and easier.” 4. IN THE DOGE HOUSE, PART II: “Sex work or starve: Aid workers in Nepal left jobless by USAID cuts turn to sex work to survive,” by AP’s Kristen Gelineau in Hetauda: “[A]fter the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year … more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide found themselves out of a job. Much has been written about the devastating impacts the U.S. foreign aid cuts have had on the millions of people the funding once helped. Far less is known about the impacts on the helpers themselves.”   A message from Anthropic: How a small shop finds new ways to create using Claude New ways to create start with new ways to solve problems. Learn more.   5. MULLING MULLIN: There’s some early tension between the White House and new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, two top officials told NBC’s Julia Ainsley and Gabe Gutierrez. Some in the White House were irked by Mullin’s decision, quickly reversed, to pause ICE vehicle stops after multiple deaths this month, and his misstatement that hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians could apply for legal status. DHS responded that officials “are all on the same page. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to sow division and create an illusion of chaos.” 6. FRAUD FILES: Republican-led Ohio and Georgia are pushing back against USDA’s maximalist approach in searching for SNAP fraud, warning of errors that inflated the Trump administration’s estimates by tens of millions of dollars, POLITICO’s Rachel Shin scooped. Though the system is targeted by fraudsters and scammers, former officials warned that the IG’s approach overstates the problem and undermines confidence in the system. But IG John Walk said “the iterative process” between USDA and the states is wrong to frame “as disagreements and disputes.” 7. DEMOCRACY WATCH: Senate Democrats yesterday gathered to war-game potential “doomsday” election scenarios, from Trump sending troops to the polls to purging voter rolls, MS NOW’s Ali Vitali and Lillie Boudreaux report. Meanwhile, election officials from both parties told CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Gabe Cohen they shrugged off Trump’s recent speech and false claims of widespread voter fraud. “We all know elections aren’t rigged, but we have to keep our heads down and do our jobs,” one GOP official said. 8. STICKING TO THEIR GUNS: “How gun dealers with serious past violations got licenses back under Trump,” by CNN’s Bob Ortega and colleagues: “A CNN investigation found nearly a dozen stores that had their licenses revoked under Biden have now been allowed to sell firearms again under Trump, whose administration has adopted a softer approach to gun regulation … Some of the businesses that were granted new licenses under the Trump administration were previously flagged for serious violations.”   Sponsored Survey WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU: Please take a 1-minute survey about one of our advertising partners.   TALK OF THE TOWN PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — Republicans’ Medicaid cuts are starting to be felt in D.C., NOTUS’ Martin Austermuhle and Zara Norman report. MedStar Washington Hospital Center will close one of its postpartum wards this morning, the first time a provider in the city has said Medicaid changes were a contributing factor in limiting services. POOL REPORT — “Crews at Reflecting Pool appear to gather evidence at failure points identified in Post report,” by WaPo’s Meg Kelly and colleagues: “Photos taken at the Lincoln Memorial’s drained Reflecting Pool last week appear to show government employees gathering evidence in at least a dozen places, including three that were identified in a Washington Post analysis as locations where newly applied coating had peeled.” SOUTHERN CHARM — Jennifer Palmieri and Crooked Media are launching a six-part YouTube docuseries, “Long Play,” diving into Southern politics with co-hosts Mitch Landrieu and Errin Haines, per The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik. Early episodes will feature Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Marjorie Taylor Greene, LaTosha Brown and James Talarico. OUT AND ABOUT — Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) hosted a celebration at his home last night for Ken Salazar’s new book, “Borderlands” ($31.95), which traces the long relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. SPOTTED: Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) and Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.). — SPOTTED at a National Association of Realtors reception for the 21st Century Road to Housing Act last night at District Winery: Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Mike Flood (R-Neb.), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Shannon McGahn, Jim Tobin, Bill Killmer, Sarah Brundage, Chris Morton, Lesli Gooch, Mike Kelley, Ryan Rusbuldt, Curt Beaulieu, Joe Harris, Eric Schmitz, Maria Spencer, Noelle Melton, Cindy Chetti, Madeleine Marr, Jared Sutton, Alia Fierro, Ben Johnson, Kris Erickson, Allison Behuniak, Curt Bliamptis, Alex Ndikum, Ed Skala, Tallman Johnson and Carol Wayman. MEDIA MOVES — POLITICO is adding Ashley Ahn and Jalen Beckford as breaking news reporters and Sam Larreal as author of Morning Transportation. Ahn previously worked at the NYT, Beckford at Punchbowl and Larreal at NOTUS. TRANSITIONS — Jim Secreto is now managing director at Narrative Strategies. He previously worked at the Commerce Department and is a Treasury and Biden White House alum. … David Last is now a partner at Barnes & Thornburg. He previously worked at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and is a DOJ alum. 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: Tuesday’s Playbook PM misidentified the emcee at a Hill event marking the 50th anniversary of Viking 1’s landing on Mars. It was Jack Kiraly.   Follow us on X Eli Okun @eliokun Ali Bianco @_alibianco Irie Sentner @iriesentner   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Canada Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook  |  Playbook Paris  |  Berlin Playbook  |  Madrid Playbook  |  Canberra Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters Follow us