News: Playbook PM: ‘Just about there’

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Playbook PM: ‘Just about there’

Oct 22, 2020

By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP posted a 37-minute video of his interview with LESLEY STAHL of CBS' "60 Minutes." Watch here

-- THIS IS KIND OF INTERESTING TO WATCH. STAHL asks TRUMP at the top if he's ready for tough questions, and TRUMP says, "I'm not looking for that." The back and forth seems relatively calm. He seems to have been set off by STAHL observing the crowds at TRUMP'S rallies have gotten smaller. TRUMP: "No, these are much bigger than I ever had. You're so negative, you're so negative. These are the biggest rallies we've ever had. You just come in here with that negative attitude."

-- TRUMP also reminds viewers he wants the Supreme Court to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. "It'll be so good if they end it," he says. CBS responds, via Paula Reid ... More from Caitlin Oprysko

AND ON DAY 93 … Speaker NANCY PELOSI told reporters in the Capitol this morning that she and Washington's Most Eager Man, Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN, are "just about there" in their quest to strike a nearly $2 trillion Covid relief bill.

BUT, WHEN WE ASKED HER if they have solved the two most difficult issues -- state and local funding and an overhaul of liability laws -- she said no, illustrating the lengths they still have to go before closing out a deal. State and local has long bedeviled the two sides, 3and liability is a priority for Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL, who is not part of the talks.

PELOSI also helpfully reminded everyone that the bill still has to be written (a dayslong task), sent to the Congressional Budget Office to be scored for its budgetary impact and sent to legislative counsel, where the bill is cleaned up.

"IF WE CAN RESOLVE some of these things in the next few days, it will take a while to write the bill … But it's close, it's close," PELOSI said. "And the question is where will the president be at any given moment. He's been all over the map, all over the lot."

JOHN BRESNAHAN asked MCCONNELL about his health -- the majority leader was photographed with bruised hands earlier this week. MCCONNELL: "I've been worried about your health, Bres. How are you feeling?" … BRESNAHAN: "I'm feeling OK." MCCONNELL: "Good for you." BRESNAHAN: "But I'm serious, is there anything going on we should know about?" MCCONNELL: "Of course not."

TRUMP'S CASH CRUNCH … NYT'S SHANE GOLDMACHER and MAGGIE HABERMAN: "President Trump's campaign has far less money than advisers had once anticipated for the final stretch of the presidential election, as rosy revenue projections failed to materialize, leaving aides scrambling to address a severe financial disadvantage against Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the race's most crucial juncture.

"To close the budgetary shortfall, Mr. Trump has slashed millions of dollars in previously reserved television ads and detoured from the battleground states that will decide the election for a stop in California last weekend to refill his campaign coffers. He has also tried to jump-start his online fund-raising with increasingly aggressive tactics, sending out as many as 14 email solicitations in a day. …

"Last week, senior Trump campaign officials huddled with the Republican National Committee leadership in Washington, D.C., to hash out spending plans for the race's final days, a discussion that included the possibility of taking out a loan or delaying payment on some bills past Election Day to fully fund operations, according to a person familiar with the matter."

MARC CAPUTO shot us this note: GEORGE CONWAY is rejoining the LINCOLN PROJECT'S livestreaming channel to discuss TRUMP'S debate performance tonight. It's his first Lincoln Project activity since he stepped down in August.

Good Thursday afternoon. INTRODUCING TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: The first edition of Transition Playbook, POLITICO's can't-miss dive inside the potential changing of the guard in Washington, launches tonight. Sign up here

PRE-DEBATE READING -- "The first debate was a horror. The second was scrapped. Now it's up to Kristen Welker," by WaPo's Jeremy Barr: "Kristen Welker was handed a daunting enough task when she was tapped to moderate Thursday night's debate between President Trump and Joe Biden — the youngest by nearly a generation of the four journalists chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates to oversee this election season's series of nationally-broadcast candidate faceoffs. … The debate will undoubtedly be the biggest moment of Welker's quickly moving career.

"At 44, she is 29 years younger than Chris Wallace, who moderated the massively unpleasant first debate between Trump and Biden, which was hijacked by interruptions and candidate rule-breaking. … In addition to being the youngest debate moderator of the cycle, Welker is also the only moderator of color at a time when racial inequality and systemic racism are significant issues for voters. … She has selected 'Race in America' as one of the five topics she will ask about, along with covid-19, national security, climate change and the less tangible 'leadership' and 'American families.'" WaPo

-- REMINDER: WELKER is not in charge of turning TRUMP'S or BIDEN'S mics on and off. An official from the debate commission will be controlling that.

THIS WEEK - NEW EPISODES OF POLITICO'S GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST : The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, but many of those issues exploded over the past year. Are world leaders and political actors up to the task of solving them? Is the private sector? Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe now for Season Two, launching Oct. 21.

SENATE JUDICIARY'S BUSY MORNING …

-- THE BARRETT NOMINATION … MARIANNE LEVINE: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination to the Senate floor. The vote went forward despite a Democratic boycott of the meeting — part of an effort to denounce Republicans' confirmation drive as illegitimate coming just days before the presidential election. The full Senate is expected to hold a final vote on Barrett's nomination on Monday." POLITICO

-- BIG TECH GETTING KEEL-HAULED: "Senate Judiciary approves subpoenas for Twitter, Facebook CEOs," by Cristiano Lima: "The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to subpoena Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify about allegations of anti-conservative bias, ratcheting up GOP pressure on the social media companies' content policies before the November election.

"The panel has not set a date for the hearing. Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are already scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee. The Judiciary Committee voted 12-0 to authorize the subpoenas, with all Judiciary Republicans voting in favor." POLITICO

THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE -- "U.S. jobless claims drop to 787,000, but layoffs remain high," by AP's Christopher Rugaber: "The number of laid-off Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 787,000, a sign that job losses may have eased slightly but are still running at historically high levels.

"[Last] week's figure was down from 842,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The government also revised down the number of people who sought aid in the two weeks before that. The total for the week that ended Oct. 3 was 767,000, the fewest since the viral pandemic erupted in March, though still more than three times the levels that preceded the pandemic." AP

HUNT FOR A VACCINE -- "Palantir to Help U.S. Track Covid-19 Vaccines," by WSJ's Peter Loftus and Rolfe Winkler: "Data-mining company Palantir Technologies Inc. is helping the federal government set up a system that will track the manufacture, distribution and administration of Covid-19 vaccines, state and local health officials briefed on the effort said.

"Palantir has been developing software that federal health officials would use to manage the various vaccine data and identify any issues that could prevent Americans from getting the shots, according to the health officials and materials reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. ... State and local health officials who are setting up programs for vaccinating residents said the Tiberius system could further their efforts by, for example, identifying high-priority populations and then allocating shots to health-care workers, the elderly and others at highest risk of infection." WSJ

FOR YOUR RADAR -- "Guidelines for approving a coronavirus vaccine will be the focus of FDA advisers meeting Thursday," by WaPo's Laurie McGinley: "The vaccine advisory committee, meeting remotely in an all-day session, will not review a specific vaccine because no company has applied for the FDA's imprimatur. Rather, the group will provide views on the FDA's standards governing whether a vaccine is sufficiently safe and effective to warrant an emergency use authorization.

"It will also weigh in on the conduct of clinical trials once a vaccine is cleared and monitoring safety on an ongoing basis. ... The panel, called the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, is made up mostly of academic experts in infectious diseases, immunology and biostatistics." WaPo

THE PLAY-BY-PLAY GUIDE TO CAPITOL HILL: With the Senate up for grabs, members of Congress are hitting the campaign trail in the final weeks of a historic election. How are the pivotal races playing out? Will control of the Senate flip? Keep up to speed on the people and politics of Capitol Hill with our Huddle newsletter, a play-by-play guide to all things Congress. Subscribe today.

HOW WE VOTE ... VICE INVESTIGATION: "The U.S. Eliminated Nearly 21,000 Election Day Polling Locations for 2020," by Cameron Joseph and Rob Arthur: "Many states made these cuts as they were expanding mail voting — 23 states made it easier to vote by mail this year because of COVID. But the overall trend is clear: Most states are eliminating polling locations, a trend that could disproportionately impact poor, young and non-white voters. …

"The net result of all of these changes: A 20% dip in polling places across the country from 2016, and a 22% drop since 2012. And while the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this trend, it didn't create it: There were more than 3,000 fewer polling locations in 2016 than in 2012."

-- AP: "In Mississippi, Black voters face many hurdles," by Tim Sullivan in Meridian, Miss.: "The opposition to Black voters in Mississippi has changed since the 1960s, but it hasn't ended. There are no poll taxes anymore, no tests on the state constitution. But on the eve of the most divisive presidential election in decades, voters face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws that mostly affect poor and minority communities and the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of former prisoners.

"By at least one measure, it's harder to vote in Mississippi than any other state. And despite Mississippi having the largest percentage of Black people of any state in the nation, a Jim Crow-era election law has ensured a Black person hasn't been elected to statewide office in 130 years. After years of being shut out of state races, Democrats hope mobilizing Black voters and recruiting Black candidates can eventually give them a path back to relevance in one of the reddest of red states." AP

CLICKER … WAPO: "America in Line: Long before Election Day, voters across the country have been lining up to cast their ballots. We sent teams of reporters and photographers to six cities — Houston, Albuquerque, Chattanooga, Sarasota, Atlanta and Columbus — to capture how people feel as they wait for their chance to be heard." WaPo

YE OLDE BLUE-RIBBON PANEL GAMBIT -- "After dodging questions about court packing, Biden floats commission to study judicial reforms," by Caitlin Oprysko: "Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said that if elected he will convene a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to examine judicial reforms, asserting that there are 'a number of alternatives' that go 'well beyond' expanding the Supreme Court.

"'If elected, what I will do is I'll put together a national commission of — bipartisan commission of scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative. And I will ask them to over 180 days come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it's getting out of whack,' Biden told CBS' Norah O'Donnell in an interview set to air this weekend on '60 Minutes.'" POLITICO … 1:06 clip

RACIAL RECKONING -- "Police Rethink Policies as Cities Pay Millions to Settle Misconduct Claims," by WSJ's Scott Calvert and Dan Frosch: "The 20 U.S. cities and counties with the biggest police departments have paid over $2 billion since 2015 for alleged misconduct and civil rights violations, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The payments have settled allegations of excessive force, wrongful detention and other abuses that sometimes stretch back decades and in extreme cases resulted in death or permanent injury.

"New York City, the nation's largest police department, has rung up more than $1.1 billion in payouts since 2015, followed by Chicago at about $253 million, according to data gathered by the Journal through public-records requests. ... Officials in several cities said they now use misconduct claims to guide police reforms, with the goal of reducing incidents that can spur potentially costly lawsuits." WSJ

DEMS' DIGITAL DEFICIT -- "Alloy promised Democrats a data edge over Trump. The DNC didn't buy it. Now what?" by Protocol's Issie Lapowsky: "Over the summer, the Democratic National Committee asked Alloy, a new vendor of political data, for a sample of its work. It was a huge moment: Landing a contract with the committee would be a breakthrough for the company. … In July, the company shared a chunk of that data with the DNC. About a month later, the DNC came back with its answer: No deal.

"According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the party had tested Alloy's sample and found a series of potential errors. Some supposedly unregistered voters in Alloy's database were marked in DNC records as registered voters who had simply moved or were dead. … Some say its tools, which are far more affordable than the competition's, have expanded access to data among progressive groups and that truly transformative tech takes more than a year to develop. Others … argue that Alloy has squandered more time and money than anyone else in the space has ever gotten, only to build yet another voter file that's just as error-prone, if not more so, than the rest." Protocol

DOJ VS. GOOGLE -- "Google's Foes Want Additional Enforcement Actions," by WSJ's Ryan Tracy and John McKinnon: "The antitrust action filed in federal court this week takes aim at Google's online search and search advertising businesses, with less attention paid to targeted search products, advertising technology and other businesses that have long been the source of complaints in Washington.

"Now those critics are pinning their hopes on additional enforcement actions to broaden the government's claims against Google, as state attorneys general and the Justice Department continue probing the tech giant. Whether, and how much, that scope expands will go a long way toward determining the impact of government scrutiny on the many markets where Google operates." WSJ

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