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By Adam Wren, Dasha Burns and Will Steakin |
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With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner Happy Friday morning. The late Andrew Breitbart said politics is downstream from culture. Today, we explore how one potential 2028er is working upstream, driven by his love of sports. Get in touch. In today’s Playbook … — Josh Shapiro’s got game heading into 2028. — The DNC does not, and donors are looking elsewhere. — The Boldfaces: LeBron James, Shams Charania, Markwayne Mullin, Todd Blanche, Susie Wiles, Ken Martin, Brendan Carr, Francesca Hong, Mandela Barnes, Doug Sosnik and more.
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DRIVING THE DAY |
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Just three minutes and 46 seconds after NBA insider Shams Charania posted the sports-world-shaking news that LeBron James inked a deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, Josh Shapiro’s X account lit up with an intricately crafted proclamation declaring LeBron James Day in the city. How could the Pennsylvania governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate and sports superfan have gotten the document out so quickly unless he already knew it was happening? He did, well before even the most wired of NBA insiders could get the news out, according to a person briefed on the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it. That’s because Shapiro was far more hands-on in the process than previously known, this person told Playbook. After his much ballyhooed encounter with James at the private club ZZ’s in New York City, where he first lobbied the NBA legend, Shapiro continued the full-court press. After talking with LeBron on July 16, Shapiro and James’ agent, Rich Paul, spoke at Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin’s shareholder lunch on July 17. Paul didn’t respond to a request for comment. Shapiro “was relentless until he finally got word on Friday, July 24th that LeBron was coming to Philadelphia,” the person told Playbook. Like Shams, Shapiro had good sources too, including one described as “someone high up in the Sixers world.” “I don't want to suggest that I'm the reason why LeBron chose the Sixers,” Shapiro told Playbook in a phone interview as he traveled through western Pennsylvania for a jobs announcement yesterday. “But when I saw him at this dinner in New York, I figured I had to shoot my shot.” In landing LeBron, Shapiro told us he “thought that there was a lot of important philanthropic work he could do in Philly.” But James will also be a commuter. “I expect he's going to bring a championship mentality to our team, and if he's doing that in a way that also allows him to be a good father and husband, I think that's great,” Shapiro told us.
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A message from Anthropic: Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant means financial pressure and moving parts. At Shy Bird, owner Eli Feldman uses Claude to help solve problems from kitchen organization to manager coaching, so he can give more to the people who make the restaurant run. Learn more. |
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Another more under-the-radar victory came as a result of an even more unlikely relationship: one with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. During the same week Shapiro was executing his James coup, his office announced DHS would back off efforts to turn two warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill counties into ICE detention centers. Shapiro made inroads with Mullin via an existing relationship with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Playbook has learned. “We have a real good relationship,” Mullin said of Shapiro in an interview. “We talk about everything, really.” “He was responsive,” Shapiro said. “We worked together constructively. We worked together discreetly.” Shapiro’s larger electoral project at the moment as he weighs 2028 involves flipping four congressional seats and notching a governing trifecta in Harrisburg. But the series of soft-power wins — including Philadelphia’s star turn as a World Cup host city — are a window into how Shapiro views power. (Landing LeBron, particularly, can’t hurt Democrats’ basement-level standing among men.) They illustrate the kind of big swings he can afford to pull off with a 25-point lead in his reelection campaign against Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity. (Shapiro isn’t taking his foot off the gas on the project, either: Today, he’s releasing his first negative ad of his reelection campaign, one first shared with Playbook.) “I’m not going to use that term — ‘soft power,’” Shapiro said. “I’ll just say that my approach in government has always been that relationships matter.” Up next for Shapiro: Playing host to UFC 330 next weekend. Asked whether he had considered staging the fight on the front lawn of the governor’s residence in Harrisburg, he laughed and turned to an aide: “I don’t have to answer that, right?” On today’s Playbook Podcast: Adam and Will add up the points for Shapiro ahead of 2028, and look ahead to the narrowing field in the Wisconsin governor’s race.
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A message from Anthropic:  
Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant comes with pressure. At Shy Bird, Claude helps Eli Feldman do more for his team. Learn more. |
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THE DOWNLOAD |
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CARTE BLANCHE: Trump’s never-back-down philosophy is on full display with his decision to yank Todd Blanche’s AG nomination rather than accede to senators’ demand that he modify his IRS settlement, POLITICO’s Chris Marquette and Jordain Carney report. All the same, Blanche met with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) yesterday, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles went to the Hill this week to try to unstick Trump’s Senate agenda, POLITICO’s Ben Johansen and colleagues report. No immediate breakthrough resulted.
IMMIGRATION FILES: Tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors are about to lose legal representation as a contract expires today — leaving these children, many of them non-English speakers, potentially facing immigration court alone, per ABC.
- The crackdown — and the pushback — continues: Another two federal appeals courts rejected ICE’s mass detention policy, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney. And Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Semafor’s Burgess Everett she secured a commitment for ICE to spread body cameras to every agent in the field next month.
BRAVE NEW WORLD: The White House intends to meet its Sunday deadline to release a much-awaited voluntary regulatory framework to scrutinize advanced AI models, POLITICO’s Cheyenne Haslett writes in, citing a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the latest progress. The framework, which companies are not required to comply with but many of the top AI labs were heavily involved in crafting, will determine which models need to go through additional safety testing before they’re released to the public, and who can access.
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Rahm Emanuel makes his 2028 pitch over pizza In the latest episode of On the Road with Jonathan Martin, Rahm Emanuel sits down at a Chicago pizzeria to talk about his political future, why Democrats need to win back the center and what he sees as a turning point for American politics.
Watch now. |
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THE FRONT PAGE |
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KNIVES OUT FOR THE DNC: It’s not just Chair Ken Martin — a number of Democratic donors and bundlers have lost faith in the DNC itself, and they’re worried that it could hamper the party’s 2028 hopes, POLITICO’s Alex Gangitano and colleagues report. Some top donors are putting their money into other Democratic groups instead, and they worry the “sort of floundering” DNC will need a reset or help with fundraising after November. LISTEN TO THIS: Dasha presses FCC Chair Brendan Carr on this week’s episode of “The Conversation” over his aggressive regulatory agenda, his review of ABC licenses and concerns over the agency’s political loyalties. Carr said he’s taken a “blend of two different approaches” in the role. “Yeah, there’s still this very big deregulatory effort. There’s also this more populist approach that’s skeptical of concentrations of power and supports common sense regulations. And what we’ve been trying to do is you take a little bit of dereg, a little bit of reg, you put it together, and we make telecom great again,” Carr said. Listen and subscribe on Apple or Spotify … Catch up on the background with POLITICO’s John Hendel … Read the Q&A THE SWING SET: A Swing Voter Project of Wisconsin survey of swing voters fielded the day after the Democratic gubernatorial debate — and before Mandela Barnes dropped out yesterday — carries a blunt warning for the surging DSA-backed Francesca Hong. Swing voters gave Hong the field’s weakest general-election showing against Rep. Tom Tiffany: She still leads him with 57 percent, but that’s 16 points behind Kelda Roys, who drew 73 percent against Tiffany. Hong’s head-to-head score against her fellow Democrats also dropped 7 points.
WAVE FORECAST: Doug Sosnik in a new memo predicts a blue-wave election for Democrats, citing the party’s overperformance in elections since 2024, Trump’s all-time-low approval numbers, economic dissatisfaction tied to tariffs and the war in Iran, and the GOP’s faltering popularity — especially without Trump on the ballot. But it’s not all good news for Democrats, who face a crippling cash disadvantage. Even so their prospects are looking up, if history is any indication. “In the two biggest wave elections in the past 50 years (1994 and 2010), Republicans lost the White House in the next election,” Sosnik writes. See the deck
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A message from Anthropic:  
How a Boston restaurant owner uses Claude to help support his team |
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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. A BREAKTHROUGH IN GAZA? The Board of Peace struck a deal for Hamas to disarm, Israel to pull out of Gaza and a new Palestinian government to take over, Trump announced. Hamas confirmed the agreement, though Israel hasn’t weighed in publicly. Many of the details have yet to be made clear — contradictions from some participants have already begun — and it would likely take significant time to implement, per POLITICO’s Myah Ward.
- Elsewhere in the region: Saudi Arabia led a coalition of more than a dozen countries committing to a maritime military effort to protect Red Sea shipping. But many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia are staying out for now, unconvinced by Trump’s demands and unwilling to step in until the U.S. and Iran stop attacking, POLITICO’s Phelim Kine and colleagues report.
2. CASH DASH: Massive sums of campaign spending keep rolling in. The League of Conservation Voters’ super PAC will plunk down $50 million for Dems, per NOTUS’ Elena Schneider. The GOP-aligned One Nation is committing $15 million to boost Rep. Mike Collins for Senate in Georgia. Rep. Andy Ogles’ (R-Tenn.) primary challenger is getting a gusher of $700,000 in last-minute, clean-energy money, per Axios’ Andrew Solender and Nate Rau. And NYT’s Teddy Schleifer fleshes out Elon Musk’s plans for America PAC’s $100 million+ in spending for the Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and Ohio Senate races and House contests.
- More campaign trail mix: Texas GOP congressional candidate Mark Teixeira is hitting the trail in swing New York districts, using his star power as a Yankees World Series winner to help other Republicans, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. … UnidosUS, the LULAC Institute, Mi Familia en Acción and Latino Victory Foundation are partnering on joint Latino voter outreach efforts for the first time, CBS’ Fin Daniel Gómez and Shawna Mizelle scooped.
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First in Playbook:
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti is launching a new six-figure ad campaign playing up her support for local law enforcement as she challenges GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s 8th District, one of Dems’ top targets, POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky scoops.
3. UKRAINE LATEST: At the White House this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Trump to get Elon Musk to green-light Starlink-equipped drone attacks inside Russia, The Atlantic’s Simon Shuster and colleagues scooped. Meanwhile, the U.S. is now depending on Ukraine for help with drone warfare, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and colleagues scooped. 4. BLEEDING CUTS: “Uninsured Patients Rise Sharply, Hospitals Report, Citing Obamacare Cuts,” by NYT’s Reed Abelson: “The significant increase in uninsured patients, about 20 percent in some cases, was disclosed in earnings reports in the past week and interviews with nonprofit hospital groups. Major hospital officials expressed growing unease over lost revenues amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.” 5. FOR YOUR RADAR: Rep. Max Miller’s ex-wife’s lawyer asked for a restraining order against him, accusing the congressman of accosting him outside a court proceeding this week, per CNN. It’s the latest twist in their acrimonious litigation, in which Emily Moreno has accused Miller of domestic abuse, which he denies, while he’s said she suffers from mental illness.
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A message from Anthropic: Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant means financial pressure and moving parts. At Shy Bird, owner Eli Feldman uses Claude to help solve problems from kitchen organization to manager coaching, so he can give more to the people who make the restaurant run. Learn more. |
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THE WEEKEND AHEAD FRIDAY PROGRAMS … C-SPAN “Ceasefire”: Evelyn Farkas and Michael Allen … Lanhee Chen and Joel Payne. PBS “Washington Week”: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, Stephen Hayes and Nancy Youssef. SUNDAY SO FAR … NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) … Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Tim Shriver. Panel: Ashley Etienne, Garrett Haake, Stephen Hayes and Amy Walter. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) … Joe Manchin and Heather Manchin. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). Panel: Michael Allen, Marie Harf, Annie Linskey and Marc Thiessen. Ruthless Podcast hosts: Josh Holmes, John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan and Comfortably Smug. Sunday Special: Max Lucado. CNN “State of the Union”: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Panel: Ashley Allison, Brad Todd, Kate Bedingfield and David Urban. PBS “Compass Points”: Mohammed Albasha … Dana Stroul … Alex Vatanka … Kirsten Fontenrose. ABC “This Week”: Panel: Donna Brazile, Chris Christie, Michelle Cottle and Doug Heye. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Panel: Franco Ordoñez, John Tamny and Jessica Taylor.
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Stay ahead of the decisions shaping your work POLITICO Pro gives policy professionals the news, analysis and tools they need to track developments, understand what’s changing and act with confidence. From Congress to state capitals, Pro helps you navigate the business of government with clarity.
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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UP IN THE AIR — Deputy FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau will depart his role after next week, per POLITICO’s Sam Ogozalek, and return to the National Business Aviation Association. It’s another big shakeup atop the agency, whose effort to merge its headquarters into the Transportation Department building hit a stumbling block yesterday, Sam reports. Administrator Bryan Bedford indicated at a town hall that not all FAA employees will be able to move to DOT, so the aviation regulator will remain split between two buildings. HISTORY LESSON — “After Claiming ‘Bias’ at Smithsonian, Trump Officials Stage Patriotic Exhibition,” by NYT’s Zachary Small: “Trump officials have promised to ‘make visual arts great,’ with a museum exhibition that includes artwork by several people with personal connections to the planners.” PASSPORT CONTROL — Trump’s face is coming to more U.S. passports, the State Department announced. The limited-edition version will spread as an option to passport offices around the country, with the administration citing high demand. More from the AP HE’S EATING — HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kicked off a new cooking video series, “The Real Food Show,” working with celebrity chefs to show Americans how to eat in line with new dietary guidelines, USA Today’s Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy scooped. The MAHA agenda is also coming to Army bases: better-tasting, more healthful meals instead of fast food, with positive early reviews, NBC’s Aria Bendix scooped. D.C.’S NEW MEDIA POWER CENTER — After Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) tried to involve Capitol Police to block questions from TMZ’s Charlie Cotton — and the video went viral — Ricketts called Cotton to apologize. TRANSITIONS — Sohan Dasgupta is now a managing director in BRG’s global trade and compliance practice. He previously worked at DHS and is a Millennium Challenge Corporation alum. … Kristen Bengel is joining the Project on Government Oversight as SVP of policy, advocacy and capacity building. She previously worked at the National Parks Conservation Association. WEEKEND WEDDING — CJ Warnke, comms director for House Majority PAC, and Rachel Williams, a law student and DAGA, DCCC and DSCC alum, got married at The Cardinal Hotel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Saturday. The wedding, officiated by Andrew Plotch, featured a polling presentation from Plotch after he secretly polled attendees leading up to the wedding. The couple met in 2020 while working on Sen. Gary Peters’ (D-Mich.) reelect. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) … Mark Cuban … Bill Bennett … POLITICO’s Kayla McCloud … WaPo’s Bill Duryea … Nelson Garcia … Gray Television’s Kevin Latek … Terry Schilling … Todd Novascone of CEMEX … U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Lexi Branson … Carolyn Weems of McUlsky Health Force … Matthew Ballard of Ballard Strategy Group … Micah Spangler … Ben Ostrower … Dan McFaul … James Floyd of Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) office … Denis Dison … former Massachusetts Govs. Bill Weld and Deval Patrick … Jessica Lautz … former Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) … Sean Eldridge of Stand Up America … Dan Schnur … Marjorie Clifton … Ryan Fanning … Alana Peisner of Rep. Mike Levin’s (D-Calif.) office … Joe Novotny of HB Strategies … Brian McNeill … Erica Knight … Cory Bythrow … American Conservation Coalition’s Asa St. Lawrence 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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