| | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine Good Saturday morning. It’s Adam Wren in the driver’s seat. We are 11 days out from President Donald Trump’s 100th day of his second term. Drop me a line: awren@politico.com.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Abdul El-Sayed's entry into Michigan's Senate race proves that the state is where the left makes its big stand, offering the clearest test yet of the direction of the Democratic Party. | Carlos Osorio/AP | FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: A podcaster and former Wayne County official’s entrance into the Michigan Senate race with the backing of Bernie Sanders — the progressive champion’s first candidate endorsement of the year — has all but cemented the state as a frontline battleground for the midterms. Michigan is shaping up to be the state where the left makes its big stand, offering the clearest test yet of the direction of the Democratic Party. THE PLAYERS: Before Abdul El-Sayed announced his campaign, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a rising star in the state, splashed into the race pillorying the “same old crap out of Washington” and declaring in an interview with me that she would not back Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Meanwhile, moderate Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens is widely expected to declare her Senate candidacy as early as next week. She is contacting Democrats urging them to run to succeed her in her swing House seat, according to two Michigan Democrats familiar with the calls and granted anonymity to describe them, per our own Zack Stanton, the pride of Michigan. THE STAKES: It’s touching off a battle between progressives and moderates on everything from economic and foreign policy messaging to who should lead the party. And the winner of the primary in the key battleground will help shape national Democrats’ messaging in 2026 and the presidential election two years later. Already, El-Sayed has swiped at McMorrow — also a liberal Democrat, but generally one who molds herself as more pragmatic than some progressives — saying anyone who “unilaterally oppose[s]” a leadership candidate without knowing the alternatives is “is either unnuanced or unsophisticated.” (The 40-year-old former University of Michigan lacrosse player is also, perplexingly, talking about challenging his potential general election matchup Mike Rogers, 61, to a cage fight.) “If the left does not make its stand, we will not have strength in this seat,” Michigan state Rep. Emily Dievendorf, a progressive, told my colleague Liz Crampton. “It is a litmus test for whether we are going to be willing to have courage in this moment. And I do think the two Democratic candidates that have emerged so far certainly aim to speak to the needs of our more progressive voters and the average American.” There are fault lines even along the party’s left flank, and the Michigan primary could help to define how aggressively Democrats across the ideological spectrum go after aging members of their own party. El-Sayed and Stevens are defending Schumer ("I think Chuck Schumer is a great leader," Stevens said on CNN recently), while McMorrow has said she would cast him aside over his handling of a GOP-backed government funding bill. “There will be this left vs. center thing with Mallory, Haley and Abdul, but there’s also this who can drive [attention]?” said a McMorrow-aligned strategist, granted anonymity to assess the race frankly. “You need to win the attention battle in the college-educated world of MSNBC and POLITICO, and Mallory’s very good at it in the way that I think some of the other normie Dems trying to do that just aren’t as good.”
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Chances are your insurer and PBM are owned by the same big health care company. They also own big chain pharmacies – and are even buying doctors' offices. When middlemen own it all, you lose. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. See how. | | | | HAIL! HAIL!: The state is “at the center of this conversation,” state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, a progressive, told Crampton. “We're going to continue being a focal point when it comes to that debate, and I think that we are also in a position to kind of reach a sort of consensus about what we need right now in terms of moving the Democratic Party forward.” The race is still in its infancy. But the contested primary — and the evident ideological schisms — are raising alarms among some strategists who fear the intra-party fight could damage whichever candidate advances to the general election. The race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is a top target of Republicans in a state that Trump narrowly carried last year. Immediately after Rogers — a former House member who lost an open Senate race last year — launched his campaign this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and NRSC Chair Tim Scott both endorsed him. “The Michigan Senate seat is imminently winnable, but if the primary challengers decide to turn this into a proxy fight among the party’s most online factions, we are cooked,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic campaign veteran. In an interview with my colleague Brakkton Booker, El-Sayed, who has been sharply critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, infuriating some centrist Democrats, played down the national resonance of the race. “I think Bernie's endorsing in this race because he sees the opportunity to empower somebody who wants to join him in the Senate to make sure that we've got a politics that works for working people,” he told POLITICO. Sanders hasn’t had much success with his statewide endorsements in Michigan in the past. After he endorsed El-Sayed for governor in 2018, Gretchen Whitmer, the more moderate Democrat who ran on a slogan of “fix the damn roads,” trounced him in all 83 counties. Stevens’ camp views El-Sayed and McMorrow as occupying the same progressive lane. In response, she is likely to not nationalize the race, but “Michiganize” it, according to an aligned strategist granted anonymity to discuss her strategy. But even in laying out that approach to the campaign, the strategist suggested a rebuke of the progressive left. “It’s a focus on Michigan, Michigan’s auto industry, and manufacturing jobs versus a national conversation about progressive leadership and Democratic punditry,” this person said.
| | | | A message from PhRMA:  
Insurers own PBMs, pharmacies – even doctors' offices. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. | | | | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. COURT IN THE ACT: In the early hours of the morning, the Supreme Court issued an order blocking the Trump administration from deporting a second wave of Venezuelan immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act “after lawyers rushed to the court and alleged that the administration was about to send dozens or hundreds of detainees to El Salvador in defiance of an earlier ruling by the justices,” POLITICO’s Ali Bianco, Hassan Ali Kanu, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report. The details: “In a brief order released at about 1 a.m. Saturday, the court directed the administration to temporarily halt any plan to deport a group of Venezuelan nationals who have been detained in northern Texas and have been designated as ‘alien enemies.’ Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito indicated he would issue a fuller statement later.” Elsewhere: A federal judge in Boston yesterday “ordered the Trump administration to issue passports that reflect the self-identified gender of six transgender people rather than requiring that the passports display the sex on the applicants’ original birth certificates,” per NYT’s Amy Harmon and Maya Shwayder. For your radar: “Detained Tufts student must be transferred to Vermont, judge rules,” by WaPo’s Frances Vinall 2. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Negotiators from the U.S. and Iran were in Rome this morning for a second round of talks over the nuclear weapon program that Iran is building out, which ended “after several hours of talks, Iranian and American officials said. There was no immediate readout on how the talks went at the Omani Embassy in Rome’s Camilluccia neighborhood,” according to the AP. Coming into the meeting, Iranian officials were planning to lay out a “series of proposals for a new nuclear pact, including guarantees from the Trump administration that the U.S. won’t leave a future accord,” WSJ’s Benoit Faucon and Michael Gordon report. The backdrop: Israel has “not ruled out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months despite President Donald Trump telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. was for now unwilling to support such a move,” Reuters’ Erin Banco reports. And the mixed messaging from the U.S. over the talks has “put Israel on edge over what Saturday’s talks will produce — and to what extent it may be newly vulnerable,” NYT’s Lara Jakes writes. 3. WHEREVER I MAY ROME: VP JD Vance is in Rome, where the practicing Catholic will spend Easter weekend meeting with top Vatican officials amid tension with the Catholic Church over the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, POLITICO’s Irie Sentner writes. “Vance’s visit to the seat of Catholicism during the Church’s holiest days of the year comes under the shadow of his public tiff with an ailing Pope Francis and in the wake of his virulently anti-Europe comments. … It also sheds light on a broader rift between conservative American Catholics, a majority of whom voted for Trump in 2024, and Francis, who condemned Trump’s mass deportation agenda and is viewed by some conservative Catholics as liberal.” 4. LETTER OF THE LAW: When the White House issued a scathing letter to Harvard University demanding that the institution capitulate and bring itself more in line with Trump’s agenda on hiring, DEI initiatives and other areas, Harvard quickly signaled its intention to fight back. “Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official. The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was ‘unauthorized,’” NYT’s Michael Schmidt and Michael Bender report. So what gives?: “It is unclear what prompted the letter to be sent last Friday. Its content was authentic, the three people said, but there were differing accounts inside the administration of how it had been mishandled. Some people at the White House believed it had been sent prematurely … Others in the administration thought it had been meant to be circulated among the task force members rather than sent to Harvard.” Knowing Alan Garber: “The Mild-Mannered Harvard President Who Became the Face of Resistance to Trump,” by WSJ’s Sara Randazzo Related read: “Losing International Students Could Devastate Many Colleges,” by NYT’s Stephanie Saul and Troy Closson 5. HOW IT HAPPENED: On April 9, seeing the deep disturbance in the global markets caused by Trump’s tariff rollout, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted to push Trump to pause his trade crackdown — without tariff-trumpeter Peter Navarro in the room. “So that morning, when Navarro was scheduled to meet with economic adviser Kevin Hassett in a different part of the White House, Bessent and Lutnick made their move,” WSJ’s Alexander Saeedy and Josh Dawsey report. Inside the room: “They rushed to the Oval Office to see Trump and propose a pause on some of the tariffs — without Navarro there to argue or push back. They knew they had a tight window. The meeting with Bessent and Lutnick wasn’t on Trump’s schedule. The two men convinced Trump of the strategy to pause some of the tariffs and to announce it immediately to calm the markets. They stayed until Trump tapped out a Truth Social post.” How it’s playing: In Beijing, “as the trade war gathers force, the Chinese leadership is rallying the nation around the flag, a strategy that seeks to blame the U.S. for many of China’s economic problems. The approach could help empower the party and its leader, Xi Jinping. It could also backfire,” WSJ’s Brian Spegele reports.
| | | | POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2025 MILKEN GLOBAL CONFERENCE:
From May 4–7, California Playbook will deliver exclusive, on-the-ground coverage from the 28th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference. Get behind-the-scenes buzz, standout moments, and insights from leaders in AI, finance, health, philanthropy, geopolitics, and more. Subscribe now for your front-row seat to the conversations shaping our world. | | | | | 6. DOD ON ARRIVAL: Adding to the upheaval at the Pentagon in recent months, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman and Jack Detsch report. Joe Kasper’s move comes at the end of a particularly fraught week at DOD. Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to the deputy Defense secretary, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday. The changes will leave Hegseth without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, or senior adviser in his front office. Notable quotable: “There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,” said a senior defense official. “Pete Hegseth has surrounded himself with some people who don’t have his interests at heart.” 7. IMMIGRATION FILES: A new first-of-its-kind POLITICO-UC Berkeley Citrin Center poll shows that a slim majority of California voters support the state’s coverage of undocumented residents’ health care — but not unconditionally — “offering rare insight into public opinion on a program facing fierce scrutiny from Washington and growing calls to cut back amid a budget shortfall,” POLITICO’s Rachel Bluth and Emma Anderson write. Returning to the rolls: “Immigrants prove they are alive, forcing Social Security to undo death label,” by WaPo’s Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Meryl Kornfield: “Immigrants falsely labeled dead by the Social Security Administration are showing up at field offices with documents proving they are alive, leading staff to reinstate nearly three dozen people over the past week, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. The immigrants who have requested a reversal and been reinstated in Social Security databases include a Haitian asylum seeker and a child, the records show.” In the DOGE house: “Labor Department sidelines staffers amid DOGE push for immigrant data,” by POLITICO’s Nick Niedzwiadek Related read: “A 7-Year-Old Grapples With Trump’s Immigration Crackdown,” by Achy Obejas for POLITICO Magazine 8. THE REAL-WORLD IMPACT: “Trump’s Aid Cuts Hit the Hungry in a City of Shellfire and Starvation,” by NYT’s Declan Walsh: “The stark consequences of Mr. Trump’s slashing of U.S. aid are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has set off a staggering humanitarian catastrophe and left 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — acutely hungry. … Last year, the United States gave $830 million in emergency aid, helping 4.4 million Sudanese, the United Nations estimates. That was far more aid than any other country provided.” 9. ANOTHER ONE: Trump’s IRS, already plunged into turmoil by Elon Musk’s DOGE team, is moving on to its fourth leader in three months after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent groused to Trump that he was not consulted on Gary Shapley’s appointment to lead the agency, POLITICO’s Benjamin Guggenheim, Sophia Cai and Megan Messerly report. How it went down: “Shapley was installed largely at the request of billionaire Musk, and Bessent was left completely in the dark about the decision. Bessent expressed his frustration outside the Oval Office on Thursday and made it clear he wanted someone he could trust to lead the IRS, according to the administration official.”
| | | CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 16 funnies
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Matt Davies-Andrews McMeel Syndication | GREAT WEEKEND READS: — “The nurse in the NYC subway,” by WaPo’s Ruby Cramer: “As subway assaults rise and calls for safety increase, a psychiatric nurse must decide who is a risk.” — “What Comes After D.E.I.?” by The New Yorker’s Emma Green: “Colleges around the country, in the face of legal and political backlash to their diversity programs, are pivoting to an alternative framework known as pluralism.” — “It’s Legal to Pay US Workers With Disabilities as Little as 25¢ an Hour,” by Bloomberg’s Josh Eidelson: “Whether it stays that way is up to Trump.” — “The Firefighter With O.C.D. and the Vaccine He Believed Would Kill Him,” by NYT’s Joseph Goldstein: “For years, Timmy Reen tried to hide his compulsions and rituals from everyone at his New York City firehouse — until his secret was forced out in the open.” — “The 40-something single dad shaping liberal media from his laptop,” by WaPo’s Drew Harwell: “Acyn Torabi dominates the internet with fast-cut clips of political mayhem. Are they news, or something else?” — “The Techno-Utopians Who Want to Colonize the Sea,” by Mark Yarm for NYT Magazine: “Libertarians have long looked at ocean living as the next frontier. Some wealthy men are testing the waters.” — “Starved in Jail,” by The New Yorker’s Sarah Stillman: “Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care?” — “What Porn Taught a Generation of Women,” by The Atlantic’s Sophie Gilbert: “It colored our ambitions, our sense of self, our relationships, our bodies, our work, and our art.”
| | | | Cut through policy complexity and turn intelligence into action with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant—a new suite of tools designed to save you time and demonstrate your impact more easily than ever—available only to Pro subscribers. Save hours, uncover critical insights instantly, and stay ahead of the next big shift. Power your strategy today—learn more. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Sewell Chan was dropped as executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review after less than a year “following staff complaints about his behavior,” per the NYT. Bill Clinton will be in Oklahoma City today to observe the 30th anniversary of the deadly truck bombing of a federal building that occurred in 1995. Sophie, a cat, slipped onto the White House grounds and found its way to the press corps. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth ... CNN’s Emily Kuhn … POLITICO’s Kareem Payne and Grecia Rayme ... Mark Rusthoven … Bloomberg’s Felix Gillette ... Sarah Flaim ... Jonathan Battaglia … MPA’s Kathy Grant … Louie Agnello … Katie Delzell of Beacon Consulting … Courtney Sieloff … Ron Kaufman … Laura Lee Burkett … Bob Evans of Del. Stacey Plaskett’s (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) office … Claire Murray … Dustin Brandenburg … Lizzy Demaree … Orde Kittrie … Alleigh Marré of Free to Learn and American Parents Coalition … Prime Transatlantic’s John Schmitz … Ryan Nabil … Samantha Staples … Ally Schmeiser … NBC’s Sheinelle Jones HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth ... CNN’s Emily Kuhn … POLITICO’s Kareem Payne and Grecia Rayme ... Mark Rusthoven … Bloomberg’s Felix Gillette ... Sarah Flaim ... Jonathan Battaglia … MPA’s Kathy Grant … Louie Agnello … Katie Delzell of Beacon Consulting … Courtney Sieloff … Ron Kaufman … Laura Lee Burkett … Bob Evans of Del. Stacey Plaskett’s (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) office … Claire Murray … Dustin Brandenburg … Lizzy Demaree … Orde Kittrie … Alleigh Marré of Free to Learn and American Parents Coalition … Prime Transatlantic’s John Schmitz … Ryan Nabil … Samantha Staples … Ally Schmeiser … NBC’s Sheinelle Jones THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): ABC “This Week”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … border czar Tom Homan … House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Jonathan Martin and David Hogg. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey … EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin … Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) … Austan Goolsbee. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Legal panel: Jonathan Turley and Tom Dupree. Panel: Francesca Chambers, Horace Cooper, Dan Koh and Katie Pavlich. Sunday special: Butch Wilmore. NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). Panel: Peter Baker, María Teresa Kumar, Marc Short and Melanie Zanona. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). Panel: Ashley Allison, Mike Dubke, Lance Trover and Adrienne Elrod. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … John Kasich. Panel: George Will and Yoni Appelbaum. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures,” guest-hosted by Jason Chaffetz: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) … Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) … Tricia McLaughlin … Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) … Jim Bridenstine. MSNBC “Alex Witt Reports”: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) … Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) … Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) … Sabrina Singh. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Insurers own PBMs, pharmacies – even doctors' offices. As a result, a few big health care companies decide what medicines you can get and what you pay at the pharmacy counter. Middlemen are taking more control of your health care, driving up costs and making it harder to get the care you need. When middlemen own it all, you lose. It's time to protect patients and rein in the middlemen. See how. | | | | | | | | Follow us on X | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | |
