| | | | | |  | | By Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman | Presented by |  | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | … AND NOW THE RACE IS FROZEN: The Supreme Court fight is over. There are no more debates between President DONALD TRUMP and JOE BIDEN. Covid relief negotiations are all but dead. THERE ARE NOW ROUGHLY 168 HOURS until the end of Election Day 2020, and we appear to have a stunningly static race. NATE SILVER pointed out Tuesday night that there have been 34 post-debate polls, and the average overall change is .1 points toward TRUMP. NEW ... ABC/WAPO POLL: WIS.: BIDEN 57, TRUMP 40 ... MICH.: BIDEN 51, TRUMP 44. TEAM TRUMP is taking solace in the fact that they are gaining in PENNSYLVANIA. If he loses the state, a few others must break TRUMP'S way for him to win a second term. THE ENTHUSIASM around the country is plainly obvious. 71 MILLION PEOPLE have already voted, according to the U.S. Election Project -- roughly half the vote total from the 2016 election. THERE ARE LINES TO VOTE ALL OVER AMERICA. NYC Mayor BILL DE BLASIO waited for more than two hours to vote Tuesday in Brooklyn. Voters have faced long lines in places like Indiana and Pennsylvania, among other states. DOWNTOWNS are being boarded up -- RODEO DRIVE in Beverly Hills is readying for protests, as are some building fronts in downtown D.C. TRUMP has taken to saying some version of this more frequently: "It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that that's by our laws. I don't believe that. So we'll see what happens." OF COURSE, that's because the majority of TRUMP'S voters will vote in person, polls show. A REMINDER: The AP didn't call the race for Trump until the early hours of Wednesday last time. We anticipate that all projections will be made with lots of caution this time around. And some states -- including all-important Pennsylvania -- have indicated it could be days before they count this year's surge of mail-in ballots. BIDEN'S GEORGIA PLAY … JAMES ARKIN and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO: "Biden makes late push to flip the Senate": "Joe Biden hammered throughout the primary that he was Democrats' best bet to not only beat Donald Trump, but flip the Senate and return his party to broader power in Washington. Now, in the final week of the election, Biden is throwing his weight into that pitch. "He campaigned in Georgia on Tuesday with Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the top Democrats running in the rapidly changing state's dual Senate races. Meanwhile, his wife, Jill Biden, was in Maine stumping with Sara Gideon, the party's candidate facing longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins. And on Friday, Biden will make his first stop in Iowa since the state's ill-fated caucuses, where the dead-heat Senate race has become the second most expensive in the country — and Biden and Trump are locked in a tight race themselves." -- NYT'S JONATHAN MARTIN in Warm Springs, Ga., and KATIE GLUECK: "Biden, Invoking F.D.R., Tries to Siphon Off Trump Voters in Georgia": "Joseph R. Biden Jr. reached for political history on Tuesday as he swept into a red-state town with deep Democratic resonance and made a direct pitch to voters who flocked to President Trump in 2016, urging them to give him a chance to 'heal' the country after a year of crippling crises. "One week from Election Day, Mr. Biden chose to expend precious political time and capital on Georgia, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, but where both public and private polling indicate he can win if he assembles a coalition of staunch Democrats, Black voters, white suburban women and enough white voters in rural areas like Warm Springs to put him over the top." -- MAYA KING in Atlanta: "The preacher who might finally turn Georgia blue" Good Wednesday morning. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL did a series of interviews Tuesday, taking a victory lap, of sorts, after orchestrating his third Supreme Court confirmation in the last 1,317 days. -- JOHN BRESNAHAN and BURGESS EVERETT: "No apologies: McConnell says Barrett a 'huge success for the country'": "Mitch McConnell isn't sorry about anything. In fact, he's happy how it all turned out. A day after Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice — after a confirmation process that ended in a bitter, party-line vote just a week before Election Day — McConnell hailed the move as a 'huge success for the country.'" -- WAPO'S PAUL KANE: "McConnell says Barrett nomination helped some vulnerable GOP incumbents, gives even odds on holding the Senate" -- NYT'S CARL HULSE on A20: "How Mitch McConnell Delivered Justice Amy Coney Barrett's Rapid Confirmation": "'I certainly didn't expect to have three Supreme Court justices,' Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Tuesday as he savored an accomplishment he said had placed him in the top tier of Senate leaders in history. 'At the risk of tooting my own horn, look at the majority leaders since L.B.J. and find another one who was able to do something as consequential as this.'" | | A message from the Partnership for America's Health Care Future: During this critical time, let's build on what's working where private coverage, Medicare and Medicaid work together – not start over with a one-size-fits-all government health insurance system like the public option that American families can't afford. Learn more. | | | HAPPENING TODAY -- MARK ZUCKERBERG of Facebook, JACK DORSEY of Twitter and SUNDAR PICHAI of Google will testify in front of Senate Commerce this morning as lawmakers weigh curbing Silicon Valley's liability protections. Cristiano Lima's preview POLITICO/MORNING CONSULT POLL: VOTERS BLAME TRUMP and REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS for not getting a Covid relief deal. 45% of people blame Republicans in Congress and TRUMP, while 40% blame Democrats. 15% don't know. KAYLEIGH MCENANY: W.H. PRESS SEC, OR TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER? … The Daily Beast TIFFANY TRUMP headlined a TRUMP VICTORY fundraiser Tuesday in D.C. -- it raised $75,000. NYT'S 'THE PRESIDENT'S TAXES' SERIES -- "How Trump Maneuvered His Way Out of Trouble in Chicago: When his skyscraper proved a disappointment, Donald Trump defaulted on his loans, sued his bank, got much of the debt forgiven — and largely avoided paying taxes on it," by David Enrich, Russ Buettner, Mike McIntire and Susanne Craig: "He and his family hoped the Trump International Hotel & Tower would cement their company's reputation as one of the world's marquee developers of luxury real estate. "Instead, the skyscraper became another disappointment in a portfolio filled with them. Construction lagged. Condos proved hard to sell. Retail space sat vacant. Yet for Mr. Trump and his company, the Chicago experience also turned out to be something else: the latest example of his ability to strong-arm major financial institutions and exploit the tax code to cushion the blow of his repeated business failures. "The president's federal income tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show for the first time that, since 2010, his lenders have forgiven about $287 million in debt that he failed to repay. The vast majority was related to the Chicago project. … When the project encountered problems, he tried to walk away from his huge debts. For most individuals or businesses, that would have been a recipe for ruin. But tax-return data, other records and interviews show that rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack -- exactly what he seemed to have been counting on. "Big banks and hedge funds gave him years of extra time to repay his debts. Even after Mr. Trump sued his largest lender, accusing it of preying on him, the bank agreed to lend him another $99 million — more than twice as much as was previously known — so that he could pay back what he still owed the bank on the defaulted Chicago loan, records show." TRUMP INC.: "Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump's term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties," by WaPo's David Fahrenthold, Josh Dawsey, Jonathan O'Connell and Anu Narayanswamy: "In the next two days, as Trump and Abe talked about trade and North Korea, Trump's Palm Beach, Fla., [Mar-a-Lago] billed the U.S. government $13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements. Trump's club even charged for the smallest of services. When Trump and Abe met alone, with no food served, the government still got a bill for what they drank. … "Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to direct millions from U.S. taxpayers -- and from his political supporters -- into his own businesses. The Washington Post has sought to compile examples of this spending through open records requests and a lawsuit. In all, he has received at least $8.1 million from these two sources since he took office, those documents and publicly available records show. … Since Trump took office, his company has been paid at least $2.5 million by the U.S. government, according to documents obtained by The Post. In addition, Trump's campaign and fundraising committee paid $5.6 million to his companies since his inauguration in January 2017." THE JUICE … THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS PAC'S independent expenditure arm is announcing a $2 million ad campaign spread across 31 congressional districts aimed at turning out sporadic Black voters, especially young Black men. The multimedia campaign includes digital, social media, radio, mail and print ads in Black newspapers, focused on racism, criminal justice, policing and Covid. The districts include Virginia's 5th (Cameron Webb), Ohio's 10th (Desiree Tims), Florida's 14th (Rep. Kathy Castor), Arkansas' 2nd (Joyce Elliott) and Georgia's 6th (Rep. Lucy McBath). RYAN LIZZA hangs with Beto in El Paso, Texas: "Joe Biden's Texas Temptation": "Beto O'Rourke was on the phone in between stops while canvassing in Bexar county, Texas, and he was trying to walk a fine line between not pissing off his friends in the Biden campaign, perhaps even creating a controversy that harms Biden's chances to win, and making an urgent plea for Joe Biden to come campaign in Texas — now. … "O'Rourke has made the case privately to Biden and to Kamala Harris. 'They have been very responsive in hearing me out, talking it through,' he said. Harris in fact will come here on Friday, making her the highest level campaign figure to hit the state. "O'Rourke has made the case to Jen O'Malley Dillon, his former campaign manager who now manages the Biden campaign. 'Jen has been great,' he insisted, though others close to O'Rourke here in El Paso who make up his brain trust told me they have become deeply frustrated with her." | | | | A message from the Partnership for America's Health Care Future:   The public option could become the third most expensive government program behind Medicare and Social Security. Learn why American families can't afford it. | | | COURT WATCH -- "Judge orders USPS to reverse mail collection limits now," by Colby Bermel: "A federal judge on Tuesday night ordered the U.S. Postal Service to reverse limitations on mail collection imposed by Trump-backed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, giving the agency until Wednesday morning to inform workers of the court's changes as more mail-in ballots continue to flood in. "In a highly detailed order, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia granted an emergency motion by plaintiffs against President Donald Trump to enforce and monitor compliance with Sullivan's previous injunction tied to USPS services. No later than 9 a.m. Wednesday, the judge said, agency workers must be told that a USPS leader's July guidelines limiting late and extra trips to collect mail are rescinded." TRUMP'S WEDNESDAY -- The president will depart Las Vegas at 11:15 a.m. and travel to Bullhead City, Ariz. He will arrive at the Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport at 11:50 a.m. MST and speak at a campaign rally. Afterward, he will travel to Goodyear, Ariz. Trump will arrive at the Phoenix Goodyear Airport at 2:35 p.m. and give a speech at a campaign rally. He will depart at 4:20 p.m. and travel to Doral, Fla. He will spend the night there. -- VP MIKE PENCE will leave Washington at 2 p.m. en route to Mosinee, Wis. He will arrive at 3:05 p.m. CDT and speak at a campaign rally. He will depart at 4:40 p.m. and travel to Flint, Mich. Pence will arrive at 6:45 p.m. EST and speak at a campaign rally. Afterward, he will travel back to Washington. ON THE TRAIL … BIDEN will receive a briefing from public health experts. He will also deliver a speech on health care and the coronavirus. He will attend a virtual fundraiser in the afternoon. -- SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) will travel to Tucson, Ariz., and meet with Latina business owners. She will also participate in a voter mobilization event. Harris will travel to Phoenix in the afternoon and meet with a group of Black leaders. She will also participate in an early vote mobilization event with Alicia Keys. DOUG EMHOFF will travel to Allentown, Pa., where he will kick off a vote canvassing. He will visit State College, where he will encourage people to make a plan to vote. | | | | JOIN TODAY - SPACE, THE FINAL ECONOMIC FRONTIER: The quest for resources and other economic benefits is space exploration's new frontier. Commercialization and public-private partnerships are increasingly common, a trend that will likely continue. What will a future space economy look like, and what role will the U.S. play in achieving it? What policy and regulatory issues must be tackled as space commerce grows? And what obstacles and opportunities lie ahead? Join POLITICO for a virtual, deep-dive conversation exploring the opportunities and challenges of the fast-growing space economy. REGISTER HERE . | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | 
PHOTO DU JOUR: Protesters confront police during a march on Tuesday Oct. 27, in Philadelphia over the death of Walter Wallace, a Black man who was killed by police on Monday. | Matt Slocum/AP Photo | DANIEL LIPPMAN: "Rick Gates, who flipped on Trump in Russia probe, seeks redemption": "As attempted comebacks go, it's an audacious gambit. Rick Gates, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the Robert Mueller probe — and then helped put other Trump associates in jail — hasn't just launched a book tour aimed at clearing his name. He's also started a new strategic consulting firm for companies looking to navigate the federal government. "Gates has already helped one company, a medical services firm, understand how the government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency works and counseled its leaders on how they should pursue a contact tracing contract they were eyeing, he said in an interview. "The new consulting outfit, Tungsten LLC, is part of a broader push by Gates to rehabilitate his public image and get back to work after becoming embroiled in the Trump campaign's post-2016 legal woes. Gates, a longtime business partner of former campaign chief Paul Manafort, turned on his former boss, which bought him a lighter sentence — but also the stigma of being a felon." POLITICO BIG IN VIRGINIA -- "Richmond judge sides with governor on order to take down Lee Monument; plaintiffs will appeal ruling," by the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Frank Green: "Richmond Circuit Court judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of Gov. Ralph Northam's order to take down the Robert E. Lee monument, holding that arguments to keep it in place were contrary to current public policy. "Northam's June 4 order was blocked by a temporary injunction issued by Richmond Circuit Judge W. Reilly Marchant after five residents of the 14-block Monument Avenue Historic District sued. The plaintiffs argued that a restrictive covenant, in 1887 and 1890 deeds, requires that the monument be held 'perpetually sacred.' "Other Confederate statues along Monument Avenue, including those of Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, have come down in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. "But the Lee statue, unveiled in 1890, is on a 200-foot-diameter circle at Monument and North Allen avenues owned by the state and not controlled by the city. The circle, which has been dubbed Marcus-David Peters Circle by racial justice demonstrators, has been covered with graffiti and been the scene of many protests." | | | | A message from the Partnership for America's Health Care Future:   American families can't afford the public option. Learn why. | | | CARLA MARINUCCI in Oakland: "California's most intense campaign: The private pursuit of Harris' Senate seat": "California political icon John Burton emailed Gov. Gavin Newsom soon after Sen. Kamala Harris vaulted to the party's presidential ticket. The colorful former Democratic congressman and state legislative leader nodded toward what looms as the biggest appointment of Newsom's career — replacing Harris for possibly decades in the Senate. 'And I do not want the job,' joked the 87-year-old Burton. 'Well, you're the only one,' Newsom shot back. "A week before the election — and potentially weeks before the outcome is known — California Democrats are elbowing each other for the chance to sway Newsom on how to fill the state's junior senator seat should Joe Biden and Harris (D-Calif.) head to the White House. "At least a dozen California Democrats are seriously in the mix, and their supporters, donors and staffers are jostling behind the scenes to make their case. In this deep-blue state, where no Republican has won statewide in 14 years, a Senate seat could be the closest it gets to a lifetime appointment. "When a Senate seat goes vacant in California, the governor can appoint a replacement without calling a special election, and Newsom's pick would serve the remaining two years on Harris' term before facing the voters with the huge advantage of incumbency. The governor does have the ability to name a caretaker and call a special election, but sources do not expect him to go that route." POLITICO VALLEY TALK -- "The Woman Reshaping Twitter's Free-Speech Policies," by Nancy Scola: "On a late fall day last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sat down on a couch on the company's San Francisco roof deck and dug into a problem. Next to him was the company's general counsel, Vijaya Gadde. The 2020 U.S. election was barely a year out and Twitter executives were worried the company was steering into the exact mess it had helped fuel in 2016, when political campaigns and Russian disinformation artists had pumped so much chaos into the system through precision-targeted social-media ads that the world's democratic institutions could barely keep up. "Twitter had added new transparency rules, making ad buyers disclose who they were. It wasn't enough. What more could it do? Gadde pitched Dorsey on a radical idea for a fix: Maybe Twitter should just, well, stop selling political ads. "It was a bold idea — no other major American platform had simply banned political ads — and Dorsey wasn't immediately sold. For one thing, the company had built itself around a commitment to hosting a free-flowing public conversation. Gadde pressed her case, and she had allies on the idea inside the building, including the head of Twitter's trust and safety team. Within days Dorsey signed off on the idea, announcing a global ban on political ads on October 30, 2019, in an 11-tweet thread detailing the company's reasoning." -- KNOWING JACK DORSEY: "Twitter's Jack Dorsey: A Hands-Off CEO in a Time of Turmoil," by WSJ's Kristen Grind and Georgia Wells MORNING LISTEN -- The second episode of POLITICO's GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS podcast, out today, delves into vaccine supply chains. Once there is a working vaccine, manufacturers across the globe will need to scale up production to produce billions of doses -- that means billions of pharmaceutical-grade glass vials, rubber stoppers, packaging and storage and refrigeration. Plus: ensuring the vaccine is available to people the world over. Hosts Luiza Savage and Ryan Heath question experts on how different countries are handling this overwhelming challenge. Listen HAPPENING TODAY: The USC Cybersecurity Initiative will hold a virtual event culminating their work on cybersecurity in all 50 states. Ari Fleischer, David Axelrod and Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will participate. Watch | | | | SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: We're excited to launch a newsletter written for insiders that will track the appointments, the people, and the power centers of the next administration. Both Team Biden and Team Trump have been working behind the scenes for months vetting potential nominees and drafting policy agendas. Transition Playbook takes you inside those preparations, personnel decisions, and policy deliberations. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com. TRANSITIONS -- Natalie Strom is joining Edelman as a VP on the financial comms and capital markets team. She previously was comms director for SEC Chair Jay Clayton, and is a Trump White House and RNC alum. … James Coltharp has launched James Coltharp Policy Solutions, a policy advising company. He will continue in tandem as president of the KeePressingOn Project. … Oliver Bernstein has launched Steady Hand PR, an Austin-based comms strategy firm. He currently is comms director for the think tank Every Texan, where he'll remain part-time through early 2021, and is a Sierra Club alum. WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Olivia Gazis, intelligence and national security reporter at CBS News, and Kyle Gazis, associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, welcomed Odette Vera Gazis on Oct. 21. She came in at 7 lbs, 13 oz and 20.5 inches. Pic … Another pic BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Steve Hartell, VP of U.S. public policy at Amazon. How he thinks the Trump presidency is going: "It's been tough man, did I mention I work at Amazon?" Playbook Q&A BIRTHDAYS: Bill Gates is 65 … WaPo's David Finkel is 65 … Zach Hunter, VP at American Action Network and Congressional Leadership Fund … Justin Discigil, comms director for Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) … Max Cummings … Bridget Walsh, VP for government affairs and public policy at Boehringer Ingelheim … Ansley Rhyne … CNN senior photojournalist Peter Morris … Susan E. Roberts … Jonny Slemrod, partner at Harbinger Strategies … Helena Andrews … POLITICO's Kara Tabor … Margaret Given, editorial producer for CNN's "New Day" … Rob Shrum, senior director at MultiState Associates, is 4-0 (h/t wife Liz) … Alison Starling … Matt Patton of Google … Jeanie Figg … Chris Caldwell, Delta Regional Authority federal co-chair (h/t Shawna Blair) … … Teresa Vilmain (h/t Jon Haber) … David Ford, Ogilvy's worldwide chief comms officer … Doug Band, co-founder and president of Teneo … Scott Harrington … Nadia Garnett … Sarah Beaulieu (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Louise Dodsworth … Adam Bozzi … Acee Agoyo ... Alex and Brett Harris ... Uber's Alix Anfang … Peter Savodnik ... Sam Weston ... Jason Rodriguez ... CBS' Meghan Zusi … Rokk Solutions' Briana Pittelli … Dylan Brown … Stefanie Christensen … Adam Kwasman is 38 … Lawrence Jackson ... Zach Williams ... Asher Hildebrand ... Simon Pereira ... Griffin Anderson ... former Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) is 63 … Vince Chadwick … Andrew Cooper (h/t Tim Burger) … Darlene Setter … former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is 64 | | A message from the Partnership for America's Health Care Future: We're committed to working together so every American has access to affordable, high-quality coverage and care, but the public option would do the opposite.
A recent study shows that the public option could add more than $800 billion to the federal deficit, meaning politicians could raise taxes on hardworking Americans to pay for it. Instead of creating a new government-controlled health insurance system like the public option that we can't afford, let's work together to lower costs for every American by building on what's working and fixing what isn't. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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