| | | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Tara Palmeri and Ryan Lizza | Presented by |  | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | A special dispatch today from our legal ace Josh Gerstein … 'BREYER, RETIRE': Justice STEPHEN BREYER'S speech Tuesday skewering calls by liberal activists to increase the size of the Supreme Court seems to have provoked those reformers to step up their calls that Breyer should help reinvigorate the court right now the way only he can — by resigning. Advocates are launching a petition drive to urge Breyer to make way for a new justice, appointed by President JOE BIDEN. They're also dispatching a mobile billboard truck to Capitol Hill starting this morning to nudge Breyer out and are explicitly noting Biden's promise to nominate the first Black woman to the high court. The new pressure on Breyer comes on the 11th anniversary of Justice JOHN PAUL STEVENS announcing his plans to step down from the court — giving President BARACK OBAMA a chance to name Justice ELENA KAGAN to replace the left-leaning GERALD FORD appointee. (Breyer, who has declined to discuss the timing of when he might leave the court, would likely want us to note that he's a sprightly 82, while Stevens was 90 when he quit.) Advocates eager to see Biden have maximal impact on the federal judiciary want Breyer to follow Stevens' example and announce now that he will leave the court at the end of this term. Some justices have unfurled those announcements in June when the court "rises" for its summer recess, but some Democrats say that's not soon enough — particularly with control of the Senate hanging by the narrowest thread. "This can't wait much longer. We can't assume Democrats will have control of the Senate for the next two years," said BRIAN FALLON of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group. "At this point, we're firmly in the territory where, historically, you would expect an announcement to happen," Fallon added. He pointed to Stevens and to Justice DAVID SOUTER, who also announced in April that he was heading back to his native New Hampshire. | | A message from Google: Google is helping American small businesses adapt and grow. In 2020, more than 17 million American businesses received phone calls, requests for directions, messages, bookings, reviews, and other direct connections to their customers from Google. Read more in the 2020 Economic Impact Report. | | | Legal insiders say Breyer's former clerks argue it's presumptuous to tell any justice to step down, and that such a politically inspired drumbeat is unlikely to sway a justice who is publicly warning against viewing the justices as partisan figures. Some court watchers have even argued that the pressure tactics could backfire and encourage Breyer to stick it out longer. The calls for Breyer to step down come as memories are still fresh at the court of the passing of iconic liberal Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG in September at age 87. Ginsburg's death j ust weeks before the presidential election allowed President DONALD TRUMP to place a third nominee on the court, cementing a conservative majority that could control the court for a generation. The cult of personality that turned RBG into a multimedia sensation sidelined questions about her health woes and muffled debate, while she was alive, about whether she should have left the court sooner to give Obama the chance to replace her. Worth noting: This isn't the first time prominent people have tried to prod Breyer to resign. A decade or so ago, when prominent law professors RANDALL KENNEDY of Harvard and ERWIN CHEMERINSKY of the University of California issued calls for Ginsburg to step down, both also urged another justice to hang it up: Stephen Breyer. TGIF. Thanks for reading Playbook, your unofficial guide to official Washington. If you've got a news tip or some good Hill or White House gossip, we're all ears. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri. | | | | A message from Google:   When the pandemic hit, Havana Carolina updated their Business Profile on Google to feature online ordering, curbside pickup, and contactless delivery options. 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PHOTO OF THE DAY: Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) attends an event on gun control in the Rose Garden at the White House on Thursday, April 8. | Alex Wong/Getty Images | CONGRESS IN WHICH THE BOSS DOES HIS OWN POLLING — "The Tragic Mediocrity of the U.S. Congress," by John Harris: "At a time when a lot of recent coverage of lawmakers revolves around allegations, or documented evidence, of unacceptable behavior, it seemed in a peculiar way an apt moment to look at Congress through the prism of a different noun: Mediocrity. "As an informal poll, I recently asked a bunch of people I thought would have well-informed views a question: What percentage of members of Congress would you say qualify as impressive? What do you mean by impressive? I let people define it however they wished … There was nothing scientific about this poll. It included a dozen or so current or former members of Congress, or longtime operatives, or journalists who have covered Capitol Hill … "The results were striking. The first-blush answers ranged from a low estimate of one percent (!), to a high estimate of 55 percent (!!) of lawmakers who merit the adjective impressive. On further discussion, though, a fairly solid consensus emerged that about 20 percent of Congress is occupied by people who qualify. Which leaves 80 percent who fall a bit short, or a lot short, of the Athenian ideal of the enlightened citizen servant. "At the extreme, this group includes Rep. Matt Gaetz, currently under investigation for sex trafficking. But in this crowd you'll mostly find the uninspiring middle: Perfectly bright and well-intentioned politicians whose efforts are largely ineffectual; people whose competitive streaks earned them a prestigious job but who don't display great interest in leaving a deep mark on American civic life; people who prove that still waters don't always run deep; and a few people whose below-the-median traits stimulate genuine wonder: 'How is he even here?' "Representative democracy, it turns out, means representation for everyone." GAETZ-GATE LATEST — "Gaetz Paid Accused Sex Trafficker, Who Then Venmo'd Teen," The Daily Beast: "In two late-night Venmo transactions in May 2018, Rep. Matt Gaetz sent his friend, the accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg, $900. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women varying sums of money. In total, the transactions amounted to $900. … "When Greenberg then made his Venmo payments to these three young women, he described the money as being for 'Tuition,' 'School,' and 'School.' … "Gaetz's congressional office declined to comment directly for this story. Instead, a representative from an outside public relations firm, the Logan Circle Group, responded with this statement from Gaetz: 'The rumors, gossip and self-serving misstatements of others will be addressed in due course by my legal team.' "Logan Circle's Erin Elmore — a pro-Trump pundit and former contestant on The Apprentice — added that a lawyer would be 'closely monitoring your coverage.' Also cc'd on the email was another Logan Circle Group employee: Harlan Hill, who was banned from Fox News after calling now-Vice President Kamala Harris 'an insufferable lying bitch.'" — RELATED: "Gaetz-tied group threatens to sue reporters writing on his Trump relationship," by Gabby Orr and Meridith McGraw — AND A NEW DETAIL from the NYT: "Investigators have also been told of a conversation where Mr. Gaetz and a prominent Florida lobbyist discussed arranging a sham candidate in a State Senate race last year to siphon votes from an ally's opponent, according to two people familiar with the investigation. They cautioned that that aspect of the inquiry, which could broaden it beyond sex trafficking, was in its early stages." "Mr. Gaetz's legislative director in Washington, Devin Murphy, abruptly quit last week, three people familiar with the decision said on Thursday, becoming the second senior aide to resign since the Justice Department inquiry came to light." — @AdamKinzinger becomes the first GOP member to go there: "Matt Gaetz needs to resign." HOUSE REPUBLICANS ROLLING IN THE DOUGH — Kimberley Strassel has a saucy piece up in the WSJ today, headlined "The Best Tonic for Restoring the GOP: Overreaching Democrats." Republicans, she notes, are shattering fundraising records this quarter despite Democrats and many in the media penning what she dubs the party's "obituaries" following Jan. 6 and the loss of the White House. She's not wrong about one thing: The numbers don't lie. And most of the GOP's cash isn't even coming from corporate PACs. Here's Strassel: "The obits are hard to square with a surprising new number from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's political team: $27.1 million. That's the amount they tell me Mr. McCarthy single-handedly raked in during the first quarter of 2021. It's the most money any Republican representative has ever raised in a quarter … Mr. McCarthy raised about $100 million over the entire previous two-year cycle, or an average of $12.5 million a quarter." This comes after the NRCC announced Thursday that it ended Q1 with nearly $30 million cash on hand, an increase of 57% over the same period last election cycle. — USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page will be releasing excerpts of her biography on Speaker NANCY PELOSI today, with the book published by Twelve Books hitting shelves on April 20. Her newspaper is out with some excerpts this morning: How Donald Trump upended Nancy Pelosi's plans, then she unraveled his … How Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi pushed Barack Obama to go big on health care THE WHITE HOUSE LEGACY MOVES — "Biden moves ahead on civil rights without Congress. But his legacy depends on them," by Laura Barrón-López and Eugene Daniels: "Joe Biden's ambitious civil rights agenda might face insurmountable hurdles in the Senate. But he isn't waiting on members of Congress to try and build a legacy. Three months into his presidency, Biden is adopting a more aggressive strategy, using blunt rhetoric, executive actions, and federal agencies to advance a civil rights agenda around the margins." "This past week, Biden voiced support for Major League Baseball moving its All-Star Game out of Georgia after decrying the state's new voting law as restrictive and 'Jim Crow in the 21st Century.' A day later, the Transportation Department invoked the Civil Rights Act to halt a Texas highway that officials argued would have a disparate impact on Black and Latino residents. And on the anniversary of 'Bloody Sunday,' he signed an executive order to direct federal resources toward voting accessibility." — Related: WaPo with the reconstruct: "How Biden's support for the All-Star Game boycott divided Democrats in Georgia" THE BUDGET REQUEST — "Biden to request $715B for the Pentagon, slight increase from last year," by Connor O'Brien and Andrew Desiderio: "[That] planned fiscal 2022 budget topline is up from the more than $704 billion allocated by lawmakers for this fiscal year. But it's unlikely to satisfy factions of Republican defense hawks seeking to continue major increases in military spending, and progressive Democrats who want to enact steep cuts to the defense budget. TOUGH ROAD FOR THE ATF PICK — "Biden has a new point man on guns. He faces a steep hurdle in the Senate," by Anita Kumar: "David Chipman, whom Biden nominated Thursday as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has also pushed for a litany of firearms restrictions. And that's likely to spark a brutal nomination fight, making it an early test of the president's commitment to pushing his gun policy agenda." INFRASTRUCTURE YEAR THE JOBS CABINET — "Biden's Infrastructure Sales Force Knows Its Potholes and Bridges," NYT: "[T]hey are also former mayors or governors who have tackled the challenges at the local level that Mr. Biden now faces nationwide. In fact, they all tried — and sometimes failed — to sell their own infrastructure plans, either to a recalcitrant legislature or to resistant members of their own party." IMMIGRATION FILES A STAGGERING SUM — "Biden administration spending $60 million per week to shelter unaccompanied minors," WaPo: "The cost of these emergency sites is more than 2½ times higher than the more-permanent shelters 'due to the need to develop facilities quickly and hire significant staff over a short period of time,' said Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for HHS's Administration for Children and Families. He said the average daily cost per child is 'approximately $775 per day based on past experience.' "Teens and children are spending an average of 31 days in HHS custody before they are released to a vetted family member already in the United States or to an eligible sponsor, according to the most recent HHS data, so the government is spending about $24,000 for each minor held at the temporary facilities. That doesn't include time spent in a Border Patrol facility." | | | | A message from Google:   Google is helping create opportunities for American businesses. Read the 2020 Economic Impact Report. | | | AMERICA AND THE WORLD AN INTERVIEW WITH BLINKEN — "Antony Blinken offers a window on how Biden's foreign policy decisions will be made," by WaPo's David Ignatius: "Asked how Biden could at once call Russian President Vladimir Putin a 'killer' and also work with him, Blinken described a realpolitik approach. 'The president is very clear-eyed about two things,' he said. He needs 'to hold Russia to account for any reckless or adversarial actions it takes' while being open to 'areas in which it may be in our mutual interest to work with Russia.' "Biden's approach to China is a similar mix of stressing U.S. interests and exploring areas of cooperation. Blinken said the message Biden told him to deliver to the Chinese leaders in Anchorage last month was that Chinese actions in Xinjiang, or Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or the South China Sea aren't simply internal matters, but threaten the rules-based international order. 'Our goal is not to contain China, hold China back, keep it down,' Blinken underlined." WAR REPORT — "Frustrated military officials want Biden to make a decision on Afghanistan," NBC: "'There needs to be a decision,' a senior military officer said. A former senior official described Biden as 'dithering' and said the view among military leaders is increasingly 'just tell us what we're doing here.' … "His apparent indecisiveness on Afghanistan has raised questions about what it portends for future foreign policy decisions, officials said, particularly given his extensive knowledge of this [issue's] dynamics and its key players." — "U.S. considering sending warships to Black Sea amid Russia-Ukraine tensions," CNN. BEYOND THE BELTWAY ARKANSAS GOV DEFENDS HIS VETO — "Asa Hutchinson on Arkansas's Anti-Trans Law and the G.O.P. Culture Wars," NYT — "Opinion: Why I vetoed my party's bill restricting health care for transgender youth," WaPo VALLEY TALK DESANTIS DISINFORMATION? — "YouTube Purges Florida Governor Video Over Claims Children Don't Need to Wear Masks," TheWrap: "The video, which was removed on Wednesday, was of a recent roundtable discussion [Ron] DeSantis moderated on the global response to the pandemic. … "A YouTube rep confirmed to TheWrap on Thursday the video was removed due to multiple instances where the doctors said children didn't need to wear masks. This position, a YouTube rep said, violated the Google-owned video site's 'COVID-19 medical misinformation' policies." ADVANTAGE GOLIATH — "Amazon takes early lead as union vote count gets underway," AP: "By Thursday evening, the count was tilting heavily against the union, with 1,100 workers rejecting it and 463 voting in favor. The count will resume Friday morning." MEDIAWATCH ROUGH NYT REVIEW of the BOEHNER BOOK by JULIAN ZELIZER: "The Divided Mind and Politics of John Boehner": "Written in his folksy manner, "On the House" is certainly more entertaining than the standard 'halls of power' narratives, as Boehner calls them. … But as a work of history, the book falls short. … "[U]ntil senior Republicans acknowledge how they helped radicalize the party, there is little hope that it will transform itself. Boehner's memoirs are an X-ray into the mind of Reagan-era Republicans who did whatever was necessary to win and who today are seeing the high costs of their decisions." YIKES — "Tucker Carlson gives passionate defense of 'white replacement theory,'" Media Matters for America with the clip. HISTORY LESSON — "The Deceit and Conflict Behind the Leak of the Pentagon Papers," by Ben Bradlee Jr. in The New Yorker: "Fifty years on, Daniel Ellsberg praises the Times journalist who misled him." TRUMP CARDS THE INVESTIGATIONS — "Mueller fraud investigator brought in to help Vance's probe of Trump Org.," CNN: "Morgan Magionos, who was a lynchpin to the prosecution of former President Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is a member of the team of outside experts from FTI Consulting aiding New York prosecutors." PANDEMIC NOT POLITICS, JUST AMAZING — "Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus," NYT: "She grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher. She decided she wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She moved to the United States in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, instead clinging to the fringes of academia. "Now Katalin Kariko, 66, known to colleagues as Kati, has emerged as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development. Her work, with her close collaborator, Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania, laid the foundation for the stunningly successful vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. … But for many years her career at the University of Pennsylvania was fragile. She migrated from lab to lab, relying on one senior scientist after another to take her in. She never made more than $60,000 a year." TV TONIGHT — PBS' "Washington Week," guest-moderated by Amy Walter: Errin Haines, Eamon Javers and Jane Mayer. SUNDAY SO FAR … | CBS | "Face the Nation": Speaker Nancy Pelosi … Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) … Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer … Scott Gottlieb. | FOX | "Fox News Sunday": Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) … Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Panel: Karl Rove, Gillian Turner and Mo Elleithee. Power Player: Senate sergeant-at-arms Karen Gibson. | Gray TV | "Full Court Press": Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) … Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Boushey. | CNN | "Inside Politics": Amy Walter … Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist … acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey … Josh Green. | MSNBC | "The Sunday Show": Soledad O'Brien … Donna Edwards … Rebecca Carroll … A'shanti Gholar … Linh Nguyen … Tim Alexander … Perry Bacon Jr. … Kurt Bardella. | ABC | "This Week": Panel: Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel, Rachel Scott and Maggie Haberman. | NBC | "Meet the Press": Panel: Peter Alexander, Helene Cooper, Amna Nawaz and Ashley Parker. | | | | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: It actually is infrastructure week ... and it will be for a while. What is the administration's plan to get its top legislative priority through Congress? Add Transition Playbook to your daily reads for details you won't find anywhere else about the state of play of the administration's top priorities and biggest challenges. Track the people, policies and power centers of the Biden administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | SPOTTED: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at Atlas Brewery on Thursday night. Pic SPOTTED: Jamie Fleet, staff director for the House Administration Committee and senior adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Shuwanza Goff, deputy director of White House legislative affairs dining at Osteria Morini in Navy Yard on Thursday night. SPOTTED at the Liberty Club party Wednesday night at The Ben Hotel in West Palm Beach: Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), Andrea Catsimatidis, Andrew Giuliani, and George Santos. SPOTTED at a Zoom gathering Thursday night at which the Committee for the Republic presented its Defender of Liberty Award to reporters who challenged the Bush administration's Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction claims: honorees Joseph Galloway, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and John Walcott; Rob Reiner and John B. Henry. TRUMP ALUMNI — Greg Jacob will rejoin O'Melveny as a partner. He previously was counsel to VP Mike Pence and deputy assistant to the president. … Former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus is now a senior adviser for the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey … Jeff Zucker … Joe Scarborough … MSNBC's Alex Witt and Jeff Kepnes … Katie Dowd … David MacKay … Mike Berman … POLITICO's Ali Manzano, Olivia Reingold, Molly Dunphy and Andreia Pantoja Leão … Dennis Lennox … Neal Kemkar … GMMB's Brad Perseke … Joanne Zurcher of Zurcher and Associates … Natalie Adams of Sen. Bob Casey's (D-Pa.) office … Cynthia Nixon … Miranda Green … Samantha Cotten … Alex Anderson … Caroline Boulton … Global Strategy Group's Jon Silvan … Roy Ramthun … Todd Foley of the American Council on Renewable Energy … Elizabeth Santorum Marcolini … Christopher Turman of National Strategies … Stephanie Dreyer ... NBC Washington's Brett Holton … The Guardian's Lucia Graves ... Andean Group's Frank Gargon … Facebook's Brittany Uter ... Ali Aslan ... Emma Allen … Jill Gershenson-Cohen … Allen Jamerson … David Mork … Eric Norrby Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Mike Zapler and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross. | | A message from Google: Havana Carolina is using Google tools to adapt. Havana Carolina has been serving up a taste of Cuba to Concord, North Carolina locals since 2015. When the pandemic hit, however, they had to adapt. They shifted their business to focus on takeout and delivery, updating their Business Profile on Google to help spread the word. Their loyal customers showed up, helping Havana Carolina adapt. 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