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By Eli Okun |
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With help from Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner Good Sunday morning. This is Eli Okun at the wheel. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com. And start your day with this big POLITICO Magazine read from Sophia Cai and Cheyenne Haslett, who detail the complicated rise of Anthropic and how its new Mythos model this year challenged the White House’s laissez-faire approach to artificial intelligence. “Over a premonitory 85-day period, two of the most powerful forces in American life each confronted the limits of their might,” they write. It was a season of “a presidency discovering the fearsome computing power being assembled by private companies on its watch, and learning that no policymaking process will ever be able to keep up with the rate of technological change.”
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DRIVING THE DAY |
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High gas prices have helped make the economy and cost of living voters' No. 1 issue. | Nam Y. Huh/AP |
Two months out from the election, congressional leaders are staking out very different strategies for how to win over voters on their No. 1 issue, the economy and cost of living. Senate Democrats have laid out detailed menus of policy plans for how they’d tackle several affordability issue areas if they retake the majority. House Democratic leaders, by contrast, are targeting their messaging to just a few high-level ideas. Republicans in both chambers have focused more on touting their record over the past year and a half (and closing out this Congress) to argue they’ve earned a repeat performance, despite President Donald Trump labeling the affordability crisis a “hoax.” For voters trying to determine who will make their lives more affordable — and which ideas could plausibly become law — it may be difficult to know where to look. But this is the incipient policy conversation that will heat up after November and dominate D.C. into the new year. Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer published policy agendas, legislation or “visions” across housing, groceries, energy, health care and child care. Behind the scenes, Senate Dems are thinking through both their dream bills and the pieces that could feasibly attract GOP support if the party retakes Congress but still has to navigate the filibuster and Trump’s pen. “We are ready to hit the ground running because of the legwork we put in to get these concepts built,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss planning, told Playbook. Among the lower-hanging fruit they’re eyeing for bipartisan cooperation, according to the aide: funding many of the authorizations included in the landmark 21st Century Road to Housing Act; forcing data center companies to pony up for their energy consumption and finally getting permitting reform across the finish line (if those don’t happen this year); restoring the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies; reversing Trump’s tariffs; and picking up pieces of the child care agenda that the first Trump administration made some noise about. The strategy will be to get Republicans on record — and if the GOP won’t play ball, Dems will frame these as the terms of the debate for 2028. With the Iran war looming large as a key driver of inflation, the Senate Dem aide said they’ll do more than just symbolic war powers resolution votes, using the powers of the purse and oversight to rein Trump in. The messaging from House Dem leaders has been much more high-level. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, always on message and planning a to-be-determined affordability-focused H.R. 1, has repeatedly said their plan is to end the war, end the tariffs, bring back the ACA credits and repeal Medicaid cuts, while avoiding further specifics. House Democrats have convened five working groups on roughly the same issue areas as their Senate counterparts. They’ve said little in public, though the health care group sent its report to Jeffries last week, and significant Medicare expansions are reportedly in the mix. Health care affordability is top of mind for many Dems. In the meantime, various factions of House Democrats have laid out their own competing priorities on affordability, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the New Democrat Coalition and, last week, the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. Those differing visions also reflect the difficult coalitional wrangling that could face Jeffries if he ends up with a narrow majority: Some House Democrats aren’t even sold on making affordability their top priority.
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A message from bp: How bp is helping build America's next wave of energy
bp is targeting 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the US. In 2025, the company produced 812,000 barrels per day. The path to 1 million runs through enhancements to existing platforms, new developments and continued exploration.
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Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have taken a different tack. Their midterms pitch on the cost of living centers on big-ticket legislation like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s plethora of tax breaks and cuts and Road to Housing. GOP leaders are urging the American public to allow them to keep going with efforts to lower taxes, prescription drug prices and barriers to home-building, a House GOP leadership aide said. GOP leaders in Congress haven’t gotten very detailed about next year — loath to get ahead of the legislating still to do this term, and putting the onus on Democrats to offer an alternative — but their hope is to turn the election from a referendum into a choice. Inflation is way down from its peak under Joe Biden, they note, while Republicans have moved to turbocharge domestic oil production. They’re touting the fact that Senate Democrats just blocked the Ratepayer Protection Act. “If Democrats are serious about lowering costs, they should work with Republicans on solutions instead of standing in the way,” said a Senate GOP leadership aide. In the absence of specific plans presented publicly by GOP congressional leaders, individual members and outside groups like the America First Policy Institute and Advancing American Freedom are floating their own affordability ideas. “The larger the majorities are, and the more that the people that get in feel like they’ve been sent with a mandate from the people to do something, you can move mountains. You can have magic happen,” said Richard Stern, VP of economic policy at AAF. “It’s always good to give people a vision of what you would do.” SUNDAY BEST … — U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz on whether the U.S. could strike an AI safety deal with China, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “With President Trump, I always see the opportunity for an agreement or an opportunity for a deal. … We’ve never been so intertwined economically with a competitor or potential adversary like we are with the People’s Republic of China. So it is a much more complex situation. … [But] whether it is rules of the road or guidelines on diffusion, on AI in a nuclear enterprise and weapons, humans in the loop, I do see space for guardrails there. However, what we cannot do is put a throttle on our innovators.” — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on regulating AI, on ABC’s “This Week”: “It’s dangerous on the level of nuclear weapons. So that’s why it needs to be an international endeavor. But let’s also recognize that Republicans don’t want to do anything about it. They think it should just run out of control.” — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on Trump banning POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW from the White House, on “This Week”: “I don’t think we’ve had a president that’s been more open to the press. … You go to a bill signing with President Trump, and the first thing he does before he even signs the bill is he brings in the press, and everybody gets to not only take pictures but ask questions. … I don’t know why he did it. I don’t know what the background is.”
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7 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. BRAVE NEW WORLD: After bucking the growing alarm over AI safety, Trump yesterday declared that he’ll create an AI task force and tap a new czar to lead on the issue. That may amount to an acknowledgment of the public outcry, but details are scarce, and Trump made clear he’s not backing off his optimistic, light-touch approach to the technology. In the tech industry, the Truth Social announcement landed as a surprise, and a somewhat confusing one at that, POLITICO’s Owen Dahlkamp and Brendan Bordelon report. How it’s playing: Trump’s dismissive approach to existential AI fears hasn’t sat well with some Republican donors, who fear he’s missing the moment on a big issue worrying voters, POLITICO’s Alex Gangitano reports. (It feels like affordability “hoax” redux, some say.) 2. HEADS UP: “Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control,” by POLITICO’s Sophia Cai and Tim Röhn: “Trump is moving to put political appointees in charge of billions of dollars in federal health research grants in another attempt to cut Harvard’s funding. In an Oval Office meeting on Friday, Trump directed his budget director, Russ Vought, to draft an executive order to create a board that would decide which grants the National Institutes of Health should fund … “Cutting funding for Harvard University is a major priority for Trump … prompting him to seek a workaround [after Congress blocked him]. … Trump on Friday asked NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to cut Harvard’s funding but Bhattacharya refused.” 3. THE BOAT STRIKES: The U.S. jumped back into its lethal attacks in the Caribbean yesterday, striking an alleged drug-trafficking boat and killing four people. The military didn’t share evidence to back up its assertion. The death toll from this campaign of boat strikes over the past year now stands at a minimum of 231. More from the AP 4. READING THE FINE PRINT: “Secret contracts reveal undisclosed terms in Trump’s drug-pricing deals,” by WaPo’s Dan Diamond and Riley Beggin: “The Trump administration’s confidential deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower U.S. drug prices include inducements to raise drug prices overseas and promise protection from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.” 5. WHAT’S WORRYING DEMS: Democrats are banking on a motivated base and high vote turnout to flip Congress. But many progressive groups that focus on voting and racial justice are struggling with significantly lower funding levels than in previous cycles, with some turning more to digital strategies than in-person work as big donors closed their wallets after 2024, AP’s Matt Brown reports. That could dampen voter registration, engagement and turnout efforts. 6. INFLATION NATION: The bipartisan Road to Housing law is meant to make a real dent in housing affordability. But Republicans hoping for a political boost could see its impact blunted by rising inflation and interest rates, which raise mortgage rates and make home loans more expensive, POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay reports. The White House says the Biden administration is to blame. 7. GREENLAND FALLOUT: Trump’s announcement of a new Greenland deal left some locals feeling concerned or uncertain, NYT’s Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli report. But leaders in both Denmark and Greenland indicated that they felt the agreement would finally put an end to Trump’s threats while preserving Greenlandic sovereignty, Reuters’ Stine Jacobsen and colleagues report.
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A message from bp:  
bp's retail network spans more than 8,500 sites across 46 states.
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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ARCH SUPPORT — President Donald Trump said today that his massive triumphal arch will also be a military complex with the ability to include many drones, snipers and ammunition storage. CENTER OF ATTENTION — NYT’s Elizabeth Williamson and Julia Jacobs are out today with a sweeping look at how Trump politicized and ultimately “broke” the Kennedy Center, with Trump threatening to demolish the building, which he contends is desperately in need of repair, if he can’t put his name on it. When a piece of plaster fell down, Trump’s allies mapped the “debris field” to argue that the building was falling apart, rather than repair the damage. Richard Grenell last year tried to send back artwork gifts from foreign countries and replace them with choices by Trump patrons. And donors and artists have fled from the institution due to Trump’s involvement, CNN’s Jeremy Herb and colleagues report. WHAT MELANIA TRUMP IS UP TO — The first lady will be more visible this week in NYC, where she’ll meet with her counterparts from many nations around the U.N. General Assembly for her Fostering the Future Together initiative, USA Today’s Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports. And on Wednesday, she’ll launch Imperia, a new effort bringing together female CEOs, which her team calls “Davos for women.” PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — “A peek inside the newest and most fortified bar in Washington,” by WaPo’s Ted Muldoon: “On Thursday night, the British Embassy officially opened its new on-site pub, called ‘The Two Georges,’ a reference to George Washington and King George III — two men who famously never shared a pint.” OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the Naval Observatory on Friday night for VP JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance’s Shabbat dinner: Adam Beren, Norm Coleman, Paul Singer, Arthur Schwartz, Will Scharf, Michael Goldfarb, Jacob Reses, Nick Luna, Dana Gibber, Jonathan Baron, Wayne Berman, Joe Lonsdale, Cliff Sims, Cassidy Luna and Arie Lipnick. — SPOTTED at “The Kickback,” an invite-only CBC weekend gathering at Barbouzard on Friday night, hosted by Invariant’s Maia Hunt Estes: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Montgomery, Alabama, Mayor Steven Reed, Ashley Etienne, Alexis McGill Johnson, Joyce Brayboy, Brandon Todd, Jonathan Barry-Blocker, Bryan Miller, Alyssa Betz, Heather Foster, Tiffany Moore, Shuwanza Goff and Amanda Finney. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The Washington Sun’s Stephen Neukam … NYT’s Caroline Kitchener … Colbert King … POLITICO’s Kate Hapgood and Liz Cramer … The Atlantic’s Sophia Nguyen … Francesca Craig … CNN’s Van Jones, Kristen Holmes and Cathy Straight … Brent Perrin … Climate Imperative Foundation’s Stephanie Epner … Michael Kikukawa … Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt … Scott Kozar … Jennifer Sosa … MS NOW’s Trymaine Lee … Deborah Roberts … Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough … Shaun Waterman … Neda Ulaby … NPR’s Lauren Hodges … Drew Singer … Dan Henning of Sirius XM Radio … Adam Howard … Joe Mansour … Sophie Buzzell of Spring Health … TikTok’s Maureen Shanahan Atchison … Graham Vyse … Henry Samueli … Google’s Brian Wanglin … Cassie Mills of Small Business Majority … Valerie Lapinski … Mark Vlasic 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 editors Garrett Ross and Kyler Alvord.
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A message from bp: How bp helps keep Americans moving
Behind every fill-up at a bp retail site in the US is a connected downstream system: two major refineries, a network of pipelines and terminals, a trading operation, and more than 8,500 gas stations and travel centers across 46 states.
The Whiting refinery in Indiana can process around 440,000 barrels of crude oil per day, helping supply fuel to the Midwest. The Cherry Point refinery in Washington can process around 250,000 barrels per day, serving the Pacific Northwest and West Coast. Together, they account for more than 40% of bp's global refining capacity.
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