| | | | | |  | | By Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer | Presented by |  | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | HAPPY MONDAY. The House and Senate are both back this week. It's House leadership election week in the Capitol, which means we'll find out who is ascendant in the Democratic and Republican leaderships, and who will spend the next two years grumbling. THE TOPS OF BOTH PARTIES are all but set: Speaker NANCY PELOSI will lead House Democrats, and KEVIN MCCARTHY will lead House Republicans. But there are open questions: how many Dems vote against PELOSI, whether any dope will raise their hand to launch a half-cocked attempt to take PELOSI out and who will take the lower-level leadership slots. THE TWO ELECTIONS are truly a tale of two parties: Democrats are holding their election virtually, and Republicans are holding theirs in person, Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. That's right. Four hours. Mask deniers. THE DEMOCRATS will hold their organizational conference over three days: Tuesday morning they'll have a Zoom conference call, and on Wednesday and Thursday they will hear speeches from candidates and will vote. THE MORE INTERESTING ACTION is on the Democratic side. PELOSI still has a very firm grip on the caucus, but she is 80 and there is positioning for a post-Pelosi world. REPS. KATHERINE CLARK (Mass.) and DAVID CICILLINE (R.I.) are vying to be assistant speaker. CLARK is giving up her post as Democratic Caucus vice chair. Reps. PETE AGUILAR (Calif.), ROBIN KELLY (Ill.) and DEB HAALAND (N.M.) are vying to take over the vice chair post. Democrats will also select members for the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and the caucus leadership representative, which get the winners into the leadership tent. UNCONTESTED DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP posts will be approved Wednesday, with the intra-party fights put off until Thursday. All elections are being held remotely. The battle for the next chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and who gets committee gavels will be held in December. HOUSE REPUBLICANS canceled their Capitol dinner Sunday night -- CNN with the report. Here's a photo of Rep.-elect MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (Ga.) standing beside MCCARTHY in Statuary Hall, both grinning without masks. HERE'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: PELOSI'S majority is going to be thin -- she may have something like 223 or 224 votes. If the BIDEN administration plucks any Democrats from the House for the administration, Democrats would have to sweat out special elections to hold the seats. That's why it doesn't make a ton of sense to put someone like Rep. CHERI BUSTOS (D-Ill.) in the administration. That district could easily flip, further narrowing PELOSI'S majority. -- WSJ ED BOARD: "Why Democrats Nearly Lost the House" GOVERNMENT FUNDING runs out in 25 DAYS. … 45 DAYS until the end of the year. … 65 DAYS until Inauguration Day. | | A message from UnitedHealth Group: For more than 20 years, UnitedHealth Group has advocated for universal coverage. Learn more about three solutions that build on the existing system to cover 28 million more people. We're committed to leading in the development of a next-generation health care system. | | | BARACK OBAMA'S WEEK … 44 has his book out this week, "A Promised Land" … On top of his "60 Minutes" appearance Sunday night, he's doing a bit of a media tour. -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG interviewed OBAMA for The Atlantic: "Why Obama Fears for Our Democracy": "The broadest subject of our conversation was the arc of the moral universe: Does it still bend toward justice? Does it even exist? When Obama was elected 12 years ago, the arc seemed more readily visible, at least to that swath of the country interested in seeing someone other than a white male become president. But he now recognizes that the change he represented triggered an almost instantaneous backlash, one that culminated in the 'birther' conspiracy that catapulted its prime propagandist, Donald Trump, to the White House. "'What I think is indisputable is that I signified a shift in power. Just my mere presence worried folks, in some cases explicitly, in some cases subconsciously,' Obama said. 'And then there were folks around to exploit that and tap into that. If a Fox News talking head asks, when Michelle and I dap, give each other a fist bump, "Is that a terrorist fist bump?," that's not a particularly subtle reference. If there's a sign in opposition to the ACA in which I'm dressed as an African witch doctor with a bone through my nose, that's not a hard thing to interpret.'" -- NPR'S MICHEL MARTIN interviewed OBAMA. Full transcript WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN YOU'RE LOSING … President DONALD TRUMP (@realDonaldTrump) at 11:55 p.m.: "I WON THE ELECTION!" NYT FRONT PAGE: "TENSIONS ON RISE AS TRUMP DENIES ELECTION RESULT" … WSJ has barely anything about the 45th president on its front page. DRIVING THE DAY … President-elect JOE BIDEN and VP-elect KAMALA HARRIS will receive a briefing on the economy in Wilmington, Del. They will also deliver remarks on the economy. THE CORONAVIRUS IS RAGING … 11 MILLION Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. … 246,217 have died. -- "Covid Is Resurging, and This Time It's Everywhere," by WSJ's Betsy McKay and Erin Ailworth: "People are becoming infected not just at big gatherings, but when they let their guard down, such as by not wearing a mask, while going about their daily routines or in smaller social settings that they thought of as safe—often among their own families or trusted friends." SPLIT SCREEN -- AP: "2 states announce new virus restrictions as U.S. cases hit 11M": "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration ordered high schools and colleges to stop in-person classes, closed restaurants to indoor dining and suspended organized sports — including the football playoffs — in an attempt to curb the state's spiking case numbers. The order also restricts indoor and outdoor residential gatherings, closes some entertainment facilities and bans gyms from hosting group exercise classes. … "Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced the state would enforce new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings for the next month as it, too, continued to combat a rising number of cases. Starting Tuesday, gyms and some entertainment centers in Washington will be required to close their indoor services. "Retail stores, including grocery stores , will be ordered to limit indoor capacity and multiple-household, indoor social gatherings will be prohibited unless attendees have quarantined for 14 days or tested negative for COVID-19 and quarantined for a week. By Wednesday, restaurants and bars will again be limited to outdoor dining and to-go service." -- AND THIS: "With pandemic raging, Republicans say election results validate their approach," by WaPo's Griff Witte A CODA TO THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY -- WAPO'S ASHLEY PARKER: "The ending of Trump's presidency echoes the beginning — with a lie": "The Trump administration is ending as it began: with a lie about crowd size. On Saturday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted two overhead photos of President Trump supporters who had gathered for a pro-Trump march in Washington, writing, 'AMAZING! More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support.' "McEnany was off by many orders of magnitude — the crowd of thousands was a notable show of force, perhaps, but a far cry from the million marchers she claimed. Her hyperbolic assertion was reminiscent of another baseless claim made by another Trump press secretary nearly four years ago. Sean Spicer stepped behind the briefing room lectern on his first full day on the job and, at the president's urging, told falsehoods about the size of Trump's inauguration crowds. … "McEnany did not respond to requests for comment about how she arrived at the incorrect 1 million figure. Trump himself tweeted Sunday that 'tens of thousands' had demonstrated. The symmetry does not end with the exaggerations about crowd size. Trump's one-term presidency is poised to come full circle in myriad ways, from a consistent lack of strategic vision to his enduring efforts to delegitimize his political rivals, whoever they might be." | | | | A message from UnitedHealth Group:   Leading in the development of a next-generation health care system that ensures all Americans have access to high-quality health care. | | | MEANWHILE … WHERE TRUMP'S CHALLENGE STANDS -- JOSH GERSTEIN: "Trump campaign pares back federal suit over Pennsylvania election results": "President Donald Trump's campaign has dramatically scaled back its federal lawsuit challenging the election results in Pennsylvania, dropping legal claims stemming from observers who assert they were blocked from viewing vote-counting in counties dominated by Democrats. "The retrenched version of the suit filed late Sunday morning with a federal court in Williamsport, Pa., withdrew the request for relief over the poll-watching allegations and now focuses solely on varying practices by county officials for handling mail-in ballots that lacked an internal secrecy envelope or otherwise ran afoul of the state's election rules. "The Trump campaign argues that Trump's constitutional rights were violated because some counties made efforts to contact voters who botched their mail-in ballots, while other counties made no such outreach. The legal move appears to narrow the number of votes at stake in the federal suit to a few thousand or less. Officials in one suburban Philadelphia county, Montgomery, said at a court hearing earlier this month that they believe about 93 ballots were 'cured.'" KNOWING RON KLAIN -- MICHAEL GRUNWALD: "The Hard-Knock Political Education of Ron Klain" TRUMP'S MONDAY -- The president will have lunch with VP MIKE PENCE at 12:30 p.m. … PENCE will lead a governors video teleconference call at 2 p.m. in the White House Situation Room on Covid-19. The vice president will also travel to Dover, Del., to participate in a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base before returning to Washington. | | | | TRACK THE TRANSITION, SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: As states certify their election results, President-elect Biden is building an administration. The staffing decisions made in the coming days, weeks, and months will send clear-cut signals about his administration's agenda and priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to what could be one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Stay in the know, subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | 
PHOTO DU JOUR: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and attached manned Crew Dragon spacecraft lift off at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Sunday. | Red Huber/Getty Images | JAMES ARKIN in Cummings, Ga.: "Democrats pin Senate hopes on breaking Georgia runoff jinx": "Joe Biden turned Georgia blue. Compared to what they're up against now, that was the easy part for Democrats. "To repeat Biden's feat in a pair of Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, with control of the Senate on the line, the Democratic Party will have to defy a long track record of failure in overtime elections. They'll need to overcome the entire weight of the Republican Party descending on the state — from organizers and operatives to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. One of their Senate candidates, Jon Ossoff, would have to make up the nearly 90,000 votes he ran behind the GOP incumbent on Nov. 3. "And Democrats will have to manage all of that without Donald Trump on the ballot to motivate their voters — while Republicans energize their base with warnings that electing Ossoff and Democrat Raphael Warnock would allow liberalism — or even socialism — to run amok in Washington." POLITICO CHECKING IN ON TRUMP'S 2016 COALITION … NYT'S JOHN ELIGON in Chaska, Minn.: "How a Minneapolis Suburb Turned Blue, Despite Trump's Law-and-Order Pitch": "In all, Mr. Trump lost Chaska by nine percentage points -- a steep fall from 2016, when he beat Hillary Clinton in that city by six percentage points. And although Mr. Trump captured Carver County, which includes Chaska, he did so by just five percentage points, down from a 14-point margin of victory in 2016. "The shift was so drastic that it helped Mr. Biden easily win Minnesota, by more than 233,000 votes. His performance in Chaska, as well as in other outlying Twin Cities communities, mirrored his success in suburbs across the country, where voters turned out in such significant numbers that they helped fuel Mr. Biden's rise to the presidency." FOR YOUR RADAR -- "SpaceX launches 2nd crew, regular station crew flights begin," by AP's Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Fla.: "SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company. The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with three Americans and one Japanese, the second crew to be launched by SpaceX. The Dragon capsule on top — named Resilience by its crew in light of this year's many challenges, most notably COVID-19 — reached orbit nine minutes later. It is due to reach the space station late Monday and remain there until spring." | | | | A message from UnitedHealth Group:   Learn how to achieve universal coverage by strengthening and expanding upon existing coverage options. | | | WELP … WAPO'S JOBY WARRICK and SOUAD MEKHENNET: "Iran's oil exports, uranium stockpile surge as Trump administration's 'maximum pressure' policy hits a wall" MEDIA EQUATION COLUMN … NYT'S BEN SMITH: "The President vs. the American Media": "President Emmanuel Macron of France called me on Thursday afternoon from his gilded office in the Élysée Palace to drive home a complaint. "He argued that the Anglo-American press, as it's often referred to in his country, has blamed France instead of those who committed a spate of murderous terrorist attacks that began with the beheading on Oct. 16 of a teacher, Samuel Paty, who, in a lesson on free speech, had shown his class cartoons from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo mocking the Prophet Muhammad. "'When France was attacked five years ago, every nation in the world supported us,' President Macron said, recalling Nov. 13, 2015, when 130 people were killed in coordinated attacks at a concert hall, outside a soccer stadium and in cafes in and around Paris. 'So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values -- journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution -- when I see them legitimizing this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost.'" MEDIAWATCH -- Russell Contreras is now a justice and race reporter at Axios, covering the policies and agencies involved in the administration of justice and their impacts on people of color. He previously was a reporter on the AP's national race and ethnicity team. | | | | KEEP UP WITH THE GLOBAL HEALTH AGENDA IN 2021: If nothing else, the past year has revealed how critical it is to keep up with the politics, policy, and people driving global health. A new Biden administration comes with the expectation that America will reclaim its leadership on global health. But will it be that easy? What impact could Joe Biden's presidency have on global vaccine access and the international response to the pandemic? Our Global Pulse newsletter connects leaders, policymakers, and advocates to the people, and politics impacting our global health. Join the conversation and subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com. BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Zerlina Maxwell, host of "Zerlina" on Peacock, MSNBC analyst and co-host of "Signal Boost Show" on Sirius XM. What she's been reading: "Since the beginning of lockdown in March, when I picked up my cat and escaped Brooklyn with my duffel bag, I've been rereading a lot of personal development books because I needed to get refocused. 'Maybe It's You' by Lauren Zander is the most helpful book I've ever read in terms of maintaining a positive mindset. I also love the new book 'Think Like a Monk' by Jay Shetty, which I just finished. Since my job is news, I split my reading into nonfiction and personal development. I probably should read more fiction, but right now I'm obsessed with reading things that help me figure out life." Playbook Q&A BIRTHDAYS: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) is 4-0 … Rep.-elect Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) is 57 … Hannah Hankins, comms director for Doug Emhoff … Matt Brooks, Republican Jewish Coalition executive director … Lisa Camooso Miller, partner at Reset Public Affairs … Elizabeth Drew … CNN's Fredreka Schouten … Jillian Rogers of DOL … Michael Levi … Carly Coakley of Seven Letter … Kevin Herzik … Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of CARE USA (h/t Jon Haber) … Adrienne Schweer … Heritage's Ken McIntyre … Oliver-Ash Kleine … Emily Ackerman, deputy COS and legislative director for Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), is 31 … Melissa Winter … Kathy Gilsinan, contributing writer at The Atlantic … … Mike Reynard … DiAnne Owen Graham … Shanti Shoji … Jennifer Giglio … David Pepper … Jason Perkey (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Madalene Milano, partner at GMMB … Tim Keating … Marty Ryan … Michael Smith, executive director of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance … Timothy Lowery … Jay Newton-Small, founder of MemoryWell … James Joyner … Seth Obed … Mike Reuscher … Rachel Cothran … Meg Campbell … Melody Johnson … Samir Paul … Minda Conroe, managing director at J Strategies … Griffith Waller … Raul Damas, partner at Brunswick Group … Christopher Kilian Peace is 44 … Robbi Dickens … American Express' Caroline Emch … Dale Pfeifer … Libby Gerds … Judith Mischke | | A message from UnitedHealth Group: For more than 20 years, UnitedHealth Group has advocated for universal coverage.
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