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By Irie Sentner |
Presented by |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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The final jobs numbers before Election Day are in. They’re not great for the party in power. The U.S. added 29,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department said today, falling well short of the 84,000 economists projected. The report also revised job growth estimates from the past two months down, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% — a weaker-than-expected showing signaling that the job market isn’t as strong as policymakers had believed. More from POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay The outlook isn’t all gloomy, though. Earlier this week, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose less than expected in August. Taken together with today’s numbers, pressure appears to be easing on the central bank to again hike interest rates before the midterms after doing so last month for the first time in three years. And although job growth was down overall, some sectors — including construction and manufacturing — did rise, likely as a result of data center construction. “There are 112,000 people working building factories right now that weren’t doing that when President Trump took office,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said this morning on Fox Business. But that might not matter to voters, whose views on the economy remain persistently sour despite the relative stability of the market. According to an AP/NORC poll released yesterday, 65% of adult respondents believe President Donald Trump is to blame for their cost-of-living concerns. Earlier this week, a key indicator of consumer confidence fell to its lowest point in a decade. Democrats are already hammering today’s results as yet another example of Trump’s mishandling of the economy — and you can expect plenty more of that in the final sprint to Election Day. “Almost no job growth and higher unemployment this month. Are those Trump tax cuts trickling down yet?” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on X. The Black unemployment rate in particular rose sharply to 7 percent, up a full percentage point from August. Asked at the White House to respond to that figure, Hassett called it “a cause for concern, and it’s something we’re studying very closely.” Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at isentner@politico.com.
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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD: “Top GOP groups scale back North Carolina spending,” by POLITICO’s Erin Doherty and colleagues: “The foremost Senate GOP super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, is pausing its future spending in North Carolina and instead launching a seven-figure ad buy in deep-red Kansas, according to one person familiar with the move. … The dramatic change in strategy — less than four weeks before the midterms — comes after SLF previously spent more than $30 million to boost GOP nominee Michael Whatley.” 2. THAT’S GAS: The G7 agreed today to “immediately” begin releasing 100 million barrels of stocked diesel over the next four months following an emergency meeting and immense pressure from the Trump administration, POLITICO’s Ben Munster reports from Brussels. Trump had threatened to temporarily cease exporting the fuel as its rising cost became an increasing liability for Republicans ahead of the midterms — a major concern for Europe, which relies on the U.S. for more than half of its diesel. That threat is now off the table. 3. GRAND OLD POPULISTS: Corporate America is contending with an unsettling new reality: The right — and not just the far right — is becoming increasingly anti-big-business, POLITICO’s Jasper Goodman and Victoria Guida report. Many corporations used to rely on Republicans as their top allies in Washington, but as Trump has taken hold of the party, it’s adopted a new era of skepticism toward multinational corporations. Big financial services firms, health insurance companies and tech titans, are facing increased peril of a crackdown and of being a high-profile punching bag for Republican presidential hopefuls in 2028.
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4. WHAT THE FLOCK: Three of the Hill’s top progressives — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — rolled out legislation today seeking to bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from them and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use the tech, POLITICO’s Owen Dahlkamp and Alfred Ng report. Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches. 5. BRAVE NEW WORLD: Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.) is a relatively under-the-radar second-term House member, but she’s playing a major behind-the-scenes role in shaping Democrats’ approach to AI, POLITICO’s Riley Rogerson and Owen Dahlkamp report. She’s one of three co-chairs of a commission tasked by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to generate AI policy recommendations, a position that’s given her a significant perch to guide Democrats’ thinking on the rapidly evolving issue. Speaking of the minority leader: “Jeffries calls AI ‘safety crisis,’ backs rigid guardrails,” by USA Today’s Francesca Chambers and Zachary Schermele: “Jeffries, in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, did not offer a detailed vision for what that legislation should look like. But he emphasized that ‘time is of the essence’ and lawmakers would need to take additional steps in the next term.” On the GOP side: Hawley’s call for AI safety legislation this week is revealing a growing rift within the Republican Party, and setting up a showdown with Trump, POLITICO’s John Hendel reports. “Hawley’s approach places an unmistakable marker for anti-tech rhetoric in the 2028 campaign among ambitious Republicans.”
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The outsider Democrat making the case for 2028 Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu joins On The Road with Jonathan Martin at Mosca’s Restaurant for a conversation on Trump, Democrats’ future, 2028 speculation and what he says it will take to rebuild trust in American institutions.
Watch the episode now. |
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6. 2026 WATCH: Senior White House officials, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, have instructed AG Todd Blanche to slow walk any abortion-related matters until after the midterms, The Washington Sun’s Eric Katz and Oriana González report. The officials also told anti-abortion leaders that any action on abortion would be taken after Election Day. The White House denied that meetings took place. “This is completely false. These conversations never occurred between White House officials and DOJ officials,” a spokesperson told The Sun. 7. CORNELL 7 LATEST: “NY governor says Cornell rape accuser was ‘failed’ by people obligated to protect her,” by AP’s Michael R. Sisak: “[New York Gov. Kathy] Hochul said at a news conference that she decided to appoint Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to take over the case after learning ‘troubling details’ about how authorities have handled the woman’s claims thus far, including that the district attorney closed the case without having anyone interview the accuser or anyone else involved in the alleged attack.”
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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SYMPATHETIC AUDIENCE — “Trump’s Kennedy Center Fight Lands Before Judge Raised on Arts,” by Bloomberg Law’s Keith Alexander: “When he was 5 years old, Christopher “Casey” Cooper’s parents got divorced and his mother moved from his hometown of Mobile, Ala., to Orlando. Then his mother received a phone call from his aunt — her former sister-in-law — offering to have her nephew spend summers in Washington so she could refine him and pass along her appreciation for education. And the arts.” OUT AND ABOUT — Seven Letter marked its 20th anniversary at Ned’s Club, bringing together staff, clients and firm alumni. Guests enjoyed seven-letter cocktails, including martinis, negronis and sidecars, as screens showed photos of the team from 2006 to today. SPOTTED: Erik Smith, Edith Gregson, Trevor Francis, Allison Clear, David Di Martino, Eric Fanning and Ben Masri-Cohen, Eric Schultz, Amy Dacey, Juleanna Glover, Sara Fagen, Mat Lapinski, Keenan Austin Reed, Ben Droz, Brendan Buck, Adrienne Elrod, Lauren Paige, Kevin Sheridan, Jeff Davis, Mike Hacker, Stewart Hall, Alex Tureman, Lauren Gillis, Jake Perry, Sara Durr, Peter Mirijanian, Tim Broas, Christin Baker, Steve Elmendorf, Jimmy Ryan, Brandon Shaw and Ziad Ojakli. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Niina Farah, an energy reporter at POLITICO, and her family welcomed a baby girl on Wednesday. BONUS BIRTHDAY: Jack Cocchiarella 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 editors Giuseppe Macri, Garrett Ross and Kyler Alvord. Correction: Wednesday’s Playbook PM misspelled Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-Ohio) name.
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