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By Will Steakin WITH Adam Wren and Dasha Burns |
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With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner Good Monday morning, remember when infomercials were a thing? Simpler times. Get in touch. In today’s Playbook … — Anna Paulina Luna targets a new avenue for getting money into politics. — Scott Bessent opens up a new front in the war with Iran. — The Boldfaces: Mike Johnson, Laura Loomer, Alex Bruesewitz, Mike Cernovich, Scott Bessent, Pete Buttigieg, Jaime Harrison, JD Vance, Linda McMahon, Ron DeSantis, and more.
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DRIVING THE DAY |
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CHANGE MY MIND: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wants to crack down on the murky world of foreign money flowing through America’s booming political influencer economy — an issue increasingly consuming the political brand it helped birth. “Being an influencer right now is kind of like the wild west,” Luna told Playbook. “There’s a lot of things laws haven’t caught up to.” The Florida Republican is rolling out the Foreign Propaganda Registration Act, an amendment to the Foreign Agents Registration Act that would require influencers to disclose when they’re being paid by a foreign government to push political messaging, according to the proposal first shared with Playbook. Luna received briefings on foreign influence efforts, spoke with multiple government agencies about the issue and heard about payments occurring “on the back end” from people inside the influencer world. “I have a number of those people,” Luna said when asked whether she was aware of specific influencers receiving foreign money. “I’m not going to put anyone on blast. That’s not my job.” The practice reaches deep into the influencer ecosystem. “Some of your biggest profile names… a large portion of them, in some way, shape, or form, have been approached at one point to push a certain position that’s probably tied to a foreign country,” Luna said. And the money can be significant. “I’ve seen contracts into the millions,” she said. Luna spoke with Republicans, Democrats and the White House on the proposal, and discussed the issue with lawmakers in a meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson. The bill is also drawing bipartisan backing from Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz (Fla.) and Vicente Gonzalez (Texas) and Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden (Wis.). She’s confident Johnson will support the measure. If not, she’s got a familiar recourse: Luna previously used a discharge petition to try to bypass House leadership and force action on a congressional stock-trading ban, and a person familiar with her thinking said she could turn to the tactic again.
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Her legislation is the culmination of what was once a niche concern about online influence operations that erupted into a larger fight over political commentary becoming a dark money commodity — and who’s writing the checks. The fight ballooned in recent months inside MAGA, where the sprawling influencer ecosystem that fueled Trump’s political rise faces growing accusations within its own ranks that foreign governments and other well-funded interests are trying to manipulate it. Allegations have been leveled against influencers targeting JD Vance, Tucker Carlson and recently that Laura Loomer’s trip to Ukraine was funded by the country — which she vehemently denied. Alex Bruesewitz, the person in Trump’s inner circle closest to the influencer ecosystem, has been at the forefront of stamping out foreign influence. Bruesewitz has begun flagging suspected paid pressure campaigns as high up as Cabinet officials, warning them who may be behind efforts to influence their agencies, according to two people familiar with the effort. “If you get paid to promote a swimsuit, you have to say ‘paid partnership.’ If you get paid to tell the president to pull tariffs off of India, you don’t have to disclose,” Bruesewitz told Playbook. “The American public deserves to know what content that is going out on the accounts of their favorite social media personalities is bought and paid for by foreign interests.” For longtime conservative voice Mike Cernovich the uproar is part of a broader transformation of online politics that’s only been exacerbated under Trump 2.0. The term influencer “didn’t really even exist” when Trump ran in 2015, he said. Back then, “if you supported Trump, you were actually going to lose money,” Cernovich said. But as Trump became culturally ascendant, supporting him attracted people “because it’s another way to build a brand.” People like that are “more likely to take the check because to them this issue is all a job,” Cernovich said.
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THE DOWNLOAD |
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ECONOMIC D-DAY: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at 2 p.m. will unveil new sanctions or penalties to squeeze Iran. It will be, as he put it in a sweeping FT op-ed that name-checks Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Blaise Pascal, “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.” Bessent threatened isolation for countries that continue to engage with Iran and said the U.S. will use levers “many assumed we would never summon.” Not to be outdone, Iranian officials said they’ll consider any country’s alignment with the U.S. approach to be an “act of war.”
- Not giving up: Pakistani officials are back in Tehran today to try to usher the two sides toward negotiations.
THE RUNOFFS: It’s the final full day of campaigning in South Carolina before voters choose between Sen. Darline Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman in the closely watched GOP Senate runoff. (Oklahoma Republicans will also go to the polls to tap Mike Mazzei or Gentner Drummond as their gubernatorial nominee.)
- Elsewhere in South Carolina: Pete Buttigieg capped off his weekend swing by recording an episode of former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison’s podcast “At Our Table,” which is expected to drop Wednesday, Adam reports. He also attended Brookland Baptist Church in Columbia with Bakari Sellers and visited Sellers’ house. After a trip that saw Buttigieg receive two separate standing ovations, Sellers told Playbook: “Brick by brick. Subtle. Appreciated.” AP on Buttigieg’s new appeal for Black voters
JUST VANCE: VP JD Vance will be in Brewer, Maine, today, where he’ll speak at CompoTech, a defense tech company that does federal contracting. GOP Sen. Susan Collins is not expected to be in attendance. She also skipped Vance’s last trip to Bangor in May, when she said her absence was due to the Senate being in session. IN THE ROSE GARDEN: Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon will hold a back-to-school event at 2:30 p.m. to tout Republicans’ school choice efforts, The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell scooped. BREAKING OVERNIGHT: California AG Rob Bonta called off a meeting with Paramount scheduled for today to “begin discussing a settlement of the state’s lawsuit seeking to block Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” NYT’s Laurel Rosenhall reports. He accused Paramount of “leaking details of a meeting the parties held on Friday.”
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Where energy, tech and policy connect POLITICO Surge launches August 31 with reporting and analysis on rising power demand, AI infrastructure, electrification, grid constraints and the politics shaping energy’s next chapter.
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THE FRONT PAGE |
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FLORIDA MAN: Sunshine State Republicans anticipate that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who stayed pretty quiet during his state’s primaries, will now start to campaign harder for the GOP in the general, POLITICO’s Gary Fineout reports from Orlando. It’s also an opportunity for DeSantis to remind voters of his imprint on this reddening state as he leaves office, though 2028 presidential chatter has grown quieter. THE AFFORDABILITY AGENDA: “Manufactured housing’s affordability problem,” by POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay: The new bipartisan housing law “doesn’t fully address interest rates for the loans on those homes, which often reach near double digits. And that price could still lock out many prospective buyers. … Now, some in Washington are hoping to ride the affordability wave to make factory-built home loans cheaper and more widely available by providing more federal government support for them.” AD IT UP: Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) is facing a new round of attacks over food affordability, consumer safety and cuts to the country’s largest food aid program, POLITICO’s Grace Yarrow writes in. Unrig Our Economy, the left-leaning economic advocacy group, is spending $300,000 on digital ads in Wisconsin’s tossup 3rd District, accusing Van Orden of backing policies that have weakened food safety protections and made it harder for families to afford groceries. The ad also taps into broader concerns about chemical use in the food system — a central issue for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement — as recent foodborne illnesses and recalls continue to erode public confidence in the safety of the nation’s food supply. Unrig Our Economy, alongside House Majority Forward, has spent big in other battleground races like Iowa’s 1st, Pennsylvania’s 8th and Arizona’s 6th. Watch the ad
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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. MUST READ: Just before DOJ was set to take Live Nation/Ticketmaster to an antitrust trial, Trump personally stepped in and commanded to settle it instead, WSJ’s Rebecca Ballhaus and colleagues revealed. The move followed Boris Epshteyn’s advocacy for a resolution as well as Trump meetings with Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and future U.S. Attorney James McDonald. Trump’s call to DOJ constituted an extraordinary level of political intervention. 2. CENTER OF ATTENTION: Some in the tech industry, hoping to ride out emergent anti-data center public sentiment through the midterms, think it’ll blow over. Others worry this is a new political alignment here to stay — one that will pose major risk to the AI titans, POLITICO’s Gabby Miller and Owen Dahlkamp report. Meanwhile, Trump is an increasingly rare data center defender, telling Michael Cohen communities that forgo one are “making a mistake.” 3. TRAIL MIX: How did Ohio get competitive again? NYT’s Campbell Robertson and Jessica Contrera have a revealing dispatch from across the state, where they found voters consumed by anger and powerlessness over high prices, war, tariffs and now data centers. The political ramifications could be unpredictable.
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4. O CANADA: The big U.S.-Canada trade rupture could last a while. Ottawa now expects talks won’t restart until after the midterms, Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove scooped. Of course, the situation could always change quickly once again. It’s also a high-stakes test of PM Mark Carney’s belief that middle powers need to stand up to pressure from the U.S. or China — distinguishing him from many governments that have folded to Trump, AP’s Rob Gillies writes. 5. DEMOCRACY WATCH: From local officials to congressional Democrats, many groups are quietly preparing for the possibility that Trump will try to meddle further with the midterms, the L.A. Times’ Kevin Rector and Justine McDaniel report. There are pre-written lawsuits if Republicans try to seize ballots, close studies of legal loopholes for National Guard deployments, and a House road map in case of interference in the swearing in of new members.
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Now live: Canberra Playbook POLITICO's free daily briefing on Australian federal politics: the agenda, the players and the moves that matter, before the working day starts.
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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IN MEMORIAM — “Kansas trailblazer and political legend Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker dead at 94,” by The Wichita Eagle’s Matthew Kelly: “Over the course of her 18 years in office, the moderate Republican senator developed a reputation as an independent thinker with firm convictions and strong bipartisan relationships. She was a supporter of welfare reform and the National Endowment for the Arts. She was passionate about healthcare issues and broke with President Ronald Reagan to champion U.S. sanctions against apartheid South Africa.” — Terry Wright died last week at 67. The Wilmington, Delaware, native “spent his entire 27-year professional career working with [then-Sen. Joe Biden], rising quickly to the trusted position of executive assistant.” Read his full obituary FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Troy Jackson’s Maine Senate campaign is staffing up with a suite of senior and comms hires. Longtime Democratic operative Hilary Barrett is campaign manager, having most recently been executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party. Dan Gottlieb is comms director, David Farmer is senior adviser, Maggie Amjad is deputy comms director, Cheyenne Gallivan is press secretary, and Ella McFarlane is press assistant. STRICTLY BALLROOM — The White House has a secret bunker deep underground that’s built to shelter the president and top officials in case of emergency, even through a nuclear explosion, WaPo’s Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond scooped. Former officials tell the Post the bunker’s existence weakens Trump’s argument in court that he needs to build the White House ballroom for security purposes, though the Trump administration contests this. POTUS ABROAD — Trump is traveling to Ireland on Sept. 12-13, the NY Post’s Emily Goodin scooped. He’ll attend the close of the Irish Open at his Doonbeg golf course/hotel and also stop by the U.S. Embassy for an event. SPORTS BLINK — Trump wrapped up D.C.’s summer of semiquincentennial celebrations with a limousine ride around the IndyCar racetrack. First lady Melania Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Natalie Harp were also on hand to enjoy the race, which Kyle Kirkwood won. The drivers were attuned more to the competition than the surrounding politics: “I honestly have no idea who that was,” one said after meeting Lutnick, per NYT’s Shawn McCreesh. TRANSITION — Peter Berkowitz has been appointed as the next James R. Schlesinger distinguished professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a columnist for RealClearPolitics and a Trump State Department alum. BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Savannah Farrell of J Strategies HAPPY BIRTHDAY: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt … Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) … Reps. Clay Higgins (R-La.) and John McGuire (R-Va.) … U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee … Bureau of Land Management Director Steve Pearce … Ricki Seidman … Reuters’ Jacob Bogage … CBS’ Major Garrett … Justin Roth … Todd Harris of Something Else Strategies … David Molina … Megan Bel Miller of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office … Betsy Wright Hawkings … Seyward Darby of The Atavist Magazine … Matt McDonald of The Spectator … The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik … Natalie Short of Edelman … Brooke Barker … Emily Cherniack of New Politics … Michael Moynihan … Dabney Hegg … former Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) … Abbie McDonough … former Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) … Meagan Shepherd … HB Strategies’ Lynn Jacquez … Smithsonian’s Gabriella Kahn … David Gregory … Pam Coulter … Harry Rhoads of the Washington Speaker Bureau … Geo Saba … Errol Louis 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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