Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: Sullivan walks the line in Alaska

Sullivan walks the line in Alaska

Oct 17, 2026

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With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner

Good Saturday morning. This is Irie Sentner, en route home to D.C. after spending a week surveying the Alaska Senate race across the Last Frontier. Get in touch.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to score one final point with his MAHA base ahead of the midterms, POLITICO’s Cheyenne Haslett and Marcia Brown report. After talks stalled this summer, the administration is taking another run at defining ultraprocessed foods, a move that could steer American consumers away from the types of food the movement blames on the country’s chronic disease epidemic.

DRIVING THE DAY

GIRDWOOD, Alaska — Dan Sullivan isn’t running away from President Donald Trump like so many other vulnerable Republicans. He’s betting that walking the line instead will help him reap reelection in November.

During a candidate debate, speaking at an economic forum and in an interview with Playbook this week, Sullivan repeatedly denied chances to put distance between himself and Trump’s most unpopular policies and positions.

Has the economic pain from the war with Iran been worth it for Alaskans? “The real economic pain is when Democrats get control,” Sullivan told Playbook, sitting in the shadow of a well-antlered taxidermy moose head, next to a roaring fire, at a ski resort tucked up in the mountains off the Turnagain Arm southeast of Anchorage.

What about Trump’s $5,000 dividends? “I’ve got to look at the legislation. I don't know,” Sullivan said. “That was the first time I heard it from him, and I would just evaluate that if and when it happens.”

Still, Sullivan bristled on some issues that touch closer to home.

In light of Trump’s decision to import Russian diesel, did Sullivan think the Trump administration was being too friendly with Russia? “I thought you were asking me campaign stuff,” Sullivan replied. “Is this like a hit piece or what?”

But Trump, for better or worse, is a centerpiece of races like Sullivan’s. The president has pleaded with voters at rallies to “pretend I'm on the ballot” — just as he did alongside Sullivan on Tuesday.

And Alaska’s tighter-than-expected Senate race is poised to be a linchpin for deciding which party holds control of the chamber. Alaska, Ohio and Iowa are the races that Trump officials view as increasingly critical to keep their majority, three GOP officials familiar with the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc.’s strategy told Playbook this week.

Sullivan only sees Trump’s presence as a boon. “I think the rally certainly helps in terms of energizing the base,” Sullivan said. He’s proud to have the president campaign alongside him, plus VP JD Vance, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

“I’m bringing up my people,” Sullivan said. “I’m not afraid of that.”

There’s still moments of disagreement between Sullivan and Trump. But even in those spaces, he’s touting his close ties to the White House and effectiveness as a Washington operator instead of pushing the president away.

Sullivan was opposed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter, and told Playbook “there’s probably no senator weighing in more with senior White House and directly with the Secretary of War than me, saying this is not a good idea.” Trump called off the livestream on Thursday.

Polls show Sullivan tied with or trailing former Rep. Mary Peltola, one of Democrats’ top hopes to help flip the Senate. On paper, this contest shouldn’t be close: Peltola lost her House seat after just one term, and Alaska hasn’t had a Democratic senator for more than a decade.

“It was Trump plus-13 two years ago, so it is not the position we’d love to be in, but we’re doing what we do to help get him across the finish line,” said Kevin Greene, the state director for Americans for Prosperity-Alaska, which has knocked on tens of thousands of doors for Sullivan.

On one such door-to-door trip with Greene in Anchorage on Thursday morning, voters across approximately a dozen houses were about evenly split between supporting Sullivan or Peltola. Only one agreed to speak on the record to Playbook: John Baker, a 67-year-old retiree who said he used to be a Republican but would be supporting Peltola this year.

What happened? “Donald Trump happened,” Baker said. He added that his support for Peltola was 70% because he wanted to see Democrats take the Senate and 30% because he liked her as a candidate.

Peltola, the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress, has centered her campaign around “fish, family, and freedom” while capitalizing on voters’ frustrations with the high cost of energy and goods, particularly in remote communities. She has focused on outreach to villages in the Alaskan bush and largely shied away from national attention, including from the media.

Peltola declined several interview requests over a week in Alaska, instead sending an emailed statement: “Dan Sullivan has tripled his wealth in the Senate and voted fourteen times for the war in Iran that is raising costs one everything from gas to groceries, Mary has been talking with Alaskans in every corner of the state about her plan to take on the rigged system in DC, lower costs, and put Alaska first,” said Harry Child, a campaign spokesperson.

Even those close to her campaign, though optimistic, acknowledge it’s an uphill battle.

“It’s always been long odds,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a Democratic strategist in Alaska whose firm is supporting Peltola outside of her official campaign. Peltola, he said, would have to do about twice as well as the Democratic Senate challengers in the past four cycles in order to win.

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5 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US

1. WILES WEATHERS THE KNIVES: For days, Susie Wiles’ outside rivals were breathlessly writing her political obituary, pointing to President Donald Trump’s selection of Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary as the clearest sign yet of the “ice maiden’s” melting influence, Playbook’s Will Steakin reports.

“Zacharia is going to be in the White House longer than Susie Wiles and she knows it,” one outside ally of the president told Playbook earlier this week.

Well, that prediction didn’t age well. Just days later, Zachariah is out of a job, on the same day Wiles received a forceful vote of confidence from Trump: “She’s gonna be with me for a long time,” he told reporters at the White House yesterday.

One person close to the president blamed Zacharia’s allies for the turmoil that’s unfolded around her short tenure as press secretary. “The people around her are doing her a disservice and using her as a pawn in their own self-interest,” the person said. “It’s disgusting.”

Behind the scenes: Wiles helped set up Zacharia’s appearance on Fox News on Thursday, during which the embattled new press secretary struggled to answer questions about her rocky first days on the job, according to two people familiar with the internal dynamics, Will reports with POLITICO’s Sophia Cai and Connor Stringer.

One of the people described the appearance as a “sanctioned hit” on Zacharia. White House communications director Steven Cheung in a statement called the reporting on Wiles’ involvement “speculation” and said Zacharia “will continue to support the President as she transitions to a new role,” calling her “an amazing teammate and tremendous talent.”

Quite a scene: How abrupt was Zacharia’s ouster? She was in the middle of an interview with WSJ when it came down. “The new White House press secretary was telling The Wall Street Journal about her plans for the role. Then Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the president, knocked on her door. ‘JD wanted to chat with us real quick,’ Miller said, referring to the vice president,” WSJ’s Philip Wegmann, Kara Voght and Marianne LeVine report. “Zacharia never returned — to the interview, or the job.”

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2. DISPATCH FROM WICHITA: Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall is “playing catch-up as he races to avoid becoming the first person to lose a Senate contest to a Democrat in the state in nearly a century. He faces the most serious challenger for a Kansas senator in over a decade as his party stares down a grim environment,” POLITICO’s Samuel Benson reports on the ground in the Sunflower State. But some Republicans think it’s already too late.

“He took it way too much for granted,” said former Kansas Gov. Mike Hayden, a Republican who supported Marshall’s previous campaigns but is now publicly backing Hamilton. “He’s been almost invisible, except on national television. And there’s not a lot of love in Kansas for Washington D.C.” National Republicans have privately urged Marshall to take his race more seriously on numerous occasions, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

3. ANXIOUS AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT: Even as Trump criss-crosses the country rallying his base to turn out for GOP candidates, Republicans are increasingly avoiding talking about Trump in their campaign ads, POLITICO’s Jessica Piper and colleagues report. “Democratic House and Senate candidates and outside groups have spent $145 million on general election ads mentioning Trump, while Republicans have spent just $8 million, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. That’s in sharp contrast to 2024, when GOP candidates spent $62 million on ads mentioning Trump.”

4. TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE: Trump late last night signed an executive order waiving key sanctions on Russia that Congress had passed and he had signed into law last month. The extraordinary move — reversing legislation named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, which authorized punitive measures against countries that trade with Russia — comes a week after Trump announced he was temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian diesel. Critics saw it as further evidence of Trump siding with Russia, a U.S. adversary. More from POLITICO’s Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing

5. FOR YOUR RADAR: “Appeals court appears skeptical of Trump’s attempt to shield presidential records,” by POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney: “A federal appeals court panel sounded deeply skeptical Friday about President Donald Trump’s effort to invalidate the Watergate-era law that governs presidential records — and played a central role in the criminal charges he faced for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Two judges on the D.C. Circuit panel sharply questioned Justice Department attorney John Bailey about the administration’s assertion that the Presidential Records Act, a federal law intended to ensure that presidential papers are retained by the government, is unconstitutional.”

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CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 18 funnies

political cartoons

GREAT WEEKEND READS AND TOP-EDS:

— Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and AG Ken Paxton waged a legal crusade against a mosque they argued was attempting to “undermine our communities from the inside” — despite a state board determining that they had no case, Texas Monthly’s Nicholas Gutteridge reports.

— East Potomac Park “was meant to be a park for the people,” writes City Cast DC’s Marc Fisher. “That vision is dying — along with a lot of trees.”

— The crypto industry has a surprising ally in Congress: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) who jumped onto the regulatory train early, N.Y. Mag’s Nate Weisberg reports. But now she finds herself at the center of a web of ethical questions about her family and staff’s entanglements with the industry.

— “Lethality and testosterone will get us only so far,” Sen. Angus King (I-Vt.) and Mark Hertling, a retired former Army commander in Europe, write in this NYT op-ed. “The grave danger we now face is that the current administration has undermined both prongs of deterrence strategy in different theaters — a lack of will in Ukraine and a lack of capacity in Iran.”

— NYT’s Eli Tan and Rachel Bujalski followed participants in a universal basic income experiment for one year. Here’s what they found.

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TALK OF THE TOWN

PAINT JOB — The Trump administration acknowledged in a new court filing that its plans to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building the same color as the White House would damage its historical character — but wants to charge ahead with the paint job anyway, WaPo’s Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond report. “The design, materials, workmanship, setting, and feeling that is conveyed through the building’s primary exterior material would be diminished and fundamentally altered,” the White House said in an environmental assessment published yesterday. “Despite the use of reputable products, it would result in a highly visible change to a nationally significant building for which future reversibility is uncertain.”

TONED DOWN ARCH — “Final plans for Trump’s arch appear to abandon his ‘military complex’ idea,” by WaPo’s Dan Diamond: “The National Capital Planning Commission, a federal panel that reviews major construction projects, posted new renderings and accompanying documents provided by the Interior Department, which is overseeing the controversial project. None of the new documents mentions a military purpose for the arch, with officials instead offering information on planned tourist visits and other ceremonial functions.”

OUT AND ABOUT — Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason hosted a reception at her residence last night celebrating Kerry Kennedy and her new book, “Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy” ($28.80), which honors the Kennedy family matriarch. SPOTTED: Chris Dodd, Sally Quinn, Elizabeth Bagley, Bob Costa, Rita Braver, John McCarthy, Meridith McGraw, Maria Theresa Kumar, Tim Shriver, Mark Shriver, Jim Moran, Steve and Amy Ricchetti, Scott Evertz, John McConnell, Julia Manchester, Bill Hinkle, Sabrina Singh, Michael Block, Kathleen Mellody, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Tyler Lewis, Keith Duggan, Xochitl Hinojosa, Meghan Hays, Elizabeth Falcone, Liz Johnson, Katy Balls, Chris Russo and Stephen O’Shea.

— Meridian International Center hosted its 58th Annual Meridian Ball and 15th Annual Meridian Summit on last night, chaired by Sarah and Ross Perot Jr., Sen. Bill Hagerty and Chrissy Hagerty, and Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.) and John Delaney. The “An Evening of Americana” theme featured period reenactors, waiters in powdered wigs and period-inspired storefronts and décor. SPOTTED: Reps. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio); Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, Jarrod Agen, Jim Goyer, Jim Durrett, Michael Waltz, Christopher Landau, Darren Beattie, Todd Blanche, Troy Meink, Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Harry Coker Jr., Ashley E. Davis, Keith Kellogg, Dwight Bush, Ambassadors Jeff Goettman and Ana Irene Delgado, David L. Cohen, Randi Levine, J.D. Crouch, Francisco Sanchez and Michael Desombre; David and Catherine Bohigian, Deborah Lehr and John F.W. Rogers, Fred Hochberg, Stuart and Gwen Holliday, Art and Sela Collins, Robert and Elena Allbritton, AJ Jones, Soledad Hurst, Nick Tzitzon, Tom Monahan, Heather Florance, Roy and Manisha Kapani, Hayley Harrison, Nick Luna, Cate Dillon, David Fogel, Will Cappalletti, Tom Hardy, Dale Marks, Peter Metzger, Victoria Roberts, Zoe Sophos, Shannon Sprenger, Charity Wallace, Jennifer Thornton, Bradford Wilson, Carolyn Quinn, Weijia Jiang and Karan Bhatia.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) … Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) … CNBC’s Angela Greiling Keane … Reuters’ Bo Erickson … POLITICO’s Myah Ward … Kelly Misselwitz of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) office … TikTok’s Michael Beckerman … Commercial Space Federation’s Alicia Brown … Rich Thomas of Monument Advocacy … KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner … Martin Matishak … Ken Baer of Crosscut Strategies … John Monsif … former Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas), Virgil Goode (R-Va.) and Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) … Aspen Institute’s Josh Good … Versant’s Hartley Messer … Tia O’Malley of Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) office … Katie Peterson of Merchant McIntyre Associates … Trident GMG’s Adrienne Petz … former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory … Peter Grauer … CNN’s Caroline Klein … Morgan O’Brien … Andrew Fisher of HB Strategies … Matt Hennessy of Tremont Public Advisors … Charlotte Agniel … Diana Hamilton

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) … Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) … Kellyanne Conway … Celinda Lake … Donna Rotunno … Jonathan Turley. Panel: Mark Bednar, Peggy Collins, Mollie Hemingway and Juan Williams.

NBC “Meet the Press”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy … Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) … Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent … Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … Steve Kornacki. Panel: Lanhee Chen, Hallie Jackson and Steve Ricchetti.

ABC “This Week”: Energy Secretary Chris Wright … Amy Walter. Panel: Mary Bruce, Donna Brazile, Ramesh Ponnuru and Vivian Salama.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) … Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon … Rob Sand.

CNN “State of the Union”: Mike Rogers … Troy Jackson … Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Panel: Brad Todd, Scott Jennings, Xochitl Hinojosa and Bakari Sellers.

MS NOW “PoliticsNation”: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) … Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) … April Verrett.

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