| | | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri and Eugene Daniels | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | BREAKING OVERNIGHT: TRUMP GIVES LEWANDOWSKI THE BOOT — "COREY LEWANDOWSKI, one of DONALD TRUMP's longest-serving, highest-profile advisers, has been exiled from the former president's orbit following allegations, reported earlier Wednesday by POLITICO, that he made unwanted sexual advances toward a major Trump donor," Alex Isenstadt reports. Here's Isenstadt's scoop from earlier in the day that prompted the move. GO BIF OR GO HOME — It's died a million deaths before. Today might be the latest — albeit, perhaps not the last. Sen. JOE MANCHIN pretty much ensured defeat of the bipartisan infrastructure deal known as BIF, if the House votes on it at all today. The West Virginia Democrat said in a lengthy statement Wednesday night that he "made clear to the President and Democratic leaders … that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can't even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity." Well then! While Manchin signaled he'd support a more modest reconciliation package to roll back the GOP's 2017 tax cut, that does nothing for Democrats demanding a vote today — or for those vowing to tank it absent a deal. Asked Wednesday night if she intends to pull the vote, Speaker NANCY PELOSI reiterated that "the plan is to bring the bill to the floor." Is she worried she doesn't have the votes? "One hour at a time," she said. | | A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association: The racial health disparity crisis in the U.S. is unconscionable and unacceptable. That's why Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies are working to reduce disparities in maternal health by 50% in 5 years – part of our multi-year commitment to promote health equity. | | | Here are the scenarios we could see play out today, from most to least likely: 1) THE VOTE GETS DELAYED — Moderates have expressed confidence that this won't happen. Mod Squad leader Rep. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-N.J.) predicted in a Playbook Live interview Wednesday that he'd be "drinking a nice glass of champagne" by the end of the day, celebrating passage of BIF. But other moderate sources told us Wednesday night they're starting to expect a delay. Implications: Several House Dems have vowed to walk away from reconciliation if this happens. Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) has told this to President JOE BIDEN at least twice. Other moderates are bound to be livid if it goes this way, after Pelosi promised them a vote. "There would be a significant breach of trust that would slow the momentum in moving forward in delivering the Biden agenda," Blue Dog leader Rep. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-Fla.) told reporters Wednesday. 2) THE VOTE MOVES FORWARD — AND GOES DOWN. Some leaders are OK taking votes to the floor and losing to prove a point. Pelosi has never been one of them. She said publicly and in private this week that she won't bring up a bill if it doesn't have the votes. Interestingly, we've heard that some House mods are asking leadership to do this anyway. Better that than no vote at all, they figure. Implications: It would be an embarrassment for party leaders. But BIF looked dead several times in the Senate before it suddenly passed with bipartisan support. A losing vote in the House similarly wouldn't necessarily spell the end. 3.) A LAST-MINUTE DEAL — AND PASSAGE. As unlikely as this sounds, there's still some hope on the Hill and in the White House that Sinema and Biden will reach a last-minute deal. And if it happens, maybe even Manchin would come around. But even if this transpires, it's far from a sure thing that House progressives would swallow it whole without any negotiation. BOTTOM LINE: A failed or delayed vote would deal a serious blow to BIF and reconciliation, potentially slowing the process by days or weeks until tempers cool. But we'd be surprised if it's fatal: If Biden and Democratic leaders ask for some more time to figure this out, it's hard to imagine moderates walking away for good. | | | | A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association:   Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies are committed to creating a more equitable health care system. See how we're promoting health equity. | | | Good Thursday morning, where it may or may not be infrastructure day. … Keep the gossip coming to Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri. BIDEN'S THURSDAY: The president and VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive the President's Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Press secretary JEN PSAKI will brief at 1 p.m. THE HOUSE will meet at 10 a.m. and at noon to take up the bill to avert a shutdown and (as of now!) the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN and Fed Chair JEROME POWELL will testify before the Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference at 10:45 a.m. House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY will hold his at 11:30 a.m. THE SENATE is in. HHS Secretary XAVIER BECERRA and Education Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA will testify before the HELP Committee at 10 a.m. | | | | TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: Do you listen to POLITICO podcasts? We want to hear from you! Tell us what you like, what you could do without, and what you want to see in the future from the POLITICO Audio team! 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PHOTO OF THE DAY: Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Pa.), the Democrats' team coach for the annual congressional baseball game, talks with Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) after the game at Nationals Park on Wednesday, Sept. 29. | Win McNamee/Getty Images | CONGRESS TWO INTERESTING DYNAMICS DEVELOPING THIS WEEK: — Pelosi-Schumer-Biden finger-pointing: It's not just House mods who will get rolled today if BIF goes down or the vote is delayed. Biden and Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER have left Pelosi out on her own. Schumer told his members that he wasn't consulted on Pelosi's plan to decouple the reconciliation and infrastructure bills and did not agree with the strategy. The White House, meanwhile, hasn't lifted a finger to help whip the stand-alone BIF vote in the House. Asked if the president wanted the infrastructure vote today, Pelosi dodged Wednesday night: "You have to ask the president," she said. Heather Caygle and Burgess Everett have a must-read on the widening rift between Schumer and Pelosi — as well as their respective chambers — as this week has unfolded. They note that it's not just disagreements over process on moving the Biden agenda, but also a division on how to handle the debt limit. Some House Democrats are privately griping that Schumer is squandering time and political capital to engage in a staring contest with Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL when they have an agenda to pass. — Dem moderates fracture: Sinema has been running herself ragged trying to get to some sort of understanding with the White House. And on Wednesday Gottheimer told us in our interview that he expected a framework could be announced by the vote today. Then Manchin Manchined. Other moderates saw his lengthy statement — which essentially dismissed this week's scramble as a waste of time — as a gratuitous thumb in the eye to Democrats across the spectrum. And quite possibly harmful to the cause of passing the core infrastructure bill. IS BIDEN UP TO THE TASK? — WaPo's Seung Min Kim details Biden's strategy the past week of hearing out lawmakers in an effort to develop a compromise. But the lack of movement on all sides is "testing the legislative acumen of a president who prides himself as a consummate creature of Capitol Hill. "Particularly in the House, there are growing calls from Democrats for Biden to be more forcefully and personally involved with the domestic policy plans, largely viewed as the party's one and only shot to enact their top priorities ahead of the 2022 midterms," she writes. REPUBLICANS FOR BIF — Business groups and some GOP senators are mounting an "all-out drive" to secure Republican votes for BIF and might be the "measure's last hope," NYT's Jonathan Weisman reports. TOP-ED — Rich Lowry writes for POLITICO Magazine that the Democratic line about the reconciliation bill costing nothing because it would be paid for with tax increases is "among the most shameless, patently absurd attempts to change reality through a talking point ever attempted." AMERICA AND THE WORLD WATCH: How did Biden end up with a Haitian migrant problem in Texas? Over the last few weeks, nearly 15,000 Haitian migrants traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, with hopes of entry into the U.S. From photos of the makeshift Haitian camps in Del Rio, Texas, to the reports of U.S. Border Patrol agents wielding horse reins and grabbing Haitians, everyone is mad at the situation — and at Biden. This week, Sabrina Rodríguez joins Ryan to break down how Biden ended up with a Haitian migrant problem in the first place and how this could influence future border policy. | 
| | | | | A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association:   | | | ALL POLITICS SMART STORY FROM OUR POLLING GURU — Although "more Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling his role as president than approve," a solid number "of those disapprovers say their opinion of Biden is soft, meaning they only rate his performance only 'somewhat' negatively — not 'strongly,'" Steven Shepard writes. That indifference "could decide the 2022 midterm elections." WITHOUT MENTIONING TRUMP'S NAME — Virginia's Republican gubernatorial nominee GLENN YOUNGKIN is hanging onto Trump's voter base in the state, while continuing to sidestep comparisons between him and the former president, as evidenced by Tuesday's debate. AP's Steve Peoples and Sarah Rankin report that despite the distance, Youngkin's team keeps in contact with Trump's team "behind the scenes," and "at least a dozen" Youngkin staffers are former Trump campaign staffers. — Meanwhile, Dems are getting anxious that Biden's slumping approval rating and trouble delivering infrastructure legislation will cost TERRY MCAULIFFE the race, according to WaPo's Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan: "White House officials are watching the race closely, cognizant of the major problems a defeat could pose heading into 2022." NOEM MAN'S LAND — Republican South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM denied rumors of an extramarital affair with former Trump aide Lewandowski on Wednesday, writing in a tweet that the claims are "total garbage and a disgusting lie." "These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can't achieve anything without a man's help. I love BRYON. I'm proud of the God-fearing family we've raised together. Now I'm getting back to work," she wrote. WaPo's Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey have more. POLICY CORNER INFLATION WATCH — WSJ headline: "Dollar Tree to Sell More Items Above $1 as Costs Rise" BETTER KNOW EZRA — EZRA COHEN, who used to work under Trump's national security adviser MICHAEL FLYNN, now chairs the bipartisan Public Interest Declassification Board, an entity that advises the president on national classification and declassification policy. Nominated by Trump in January, Cohen has so far received bipartisan praise for his leadership, Bryan Bender reports. One major thing on his agenda? "Overhauling the government classification system that Democrats and Republicans alike contend shields too many secrets from the public." | | | | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we've got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don't miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Woody Harrelson met with Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, because, you know, she had so much time to blow. Joe Manchin stopped Arthur Delaney from getting hit by a car. Cori Bush, Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal opened up to NBC's Ali Vitali about their experiences having abortions , as House Oversight prepares to hold a hearing today on state abortion bans. Dan Crenshaw was fined $5,000 for refusing to go through House metal detectors. Dick Cheney complained in 1975 about Donald Rumsfeld spending $100 on coffee. Doug Emhoff, man about town, went to Dacha Navy Yard. | .gif "Hnet.com-image (2).gif")
| PLAY BALL! — Republicans won the Congressional Baseball Game for the first time in five years Wednesday night, defeating the Democrats 13-12. Some notable moments from the evening: | | |
ANOTHER SPORTS BLINK — At the annual ACLI Capital Challenge race Wednesday, the winners included Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Justice Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. International Trade Commission Chair Jason Kearns, acting Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn, Shawn Zeller, Sarah Babbage, Adam Longo and Sandra Smith. Full list of winners, including team awards
SPOTTED at the office opening for former VP Mike Pence's new organization, Advancing American Freedom, on Wednesday night, with an interview with the "Ruthless" podcast in front of a live audience: Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Reps. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) and French Hill (R-Ark.), Marc Short, Mark Calabria, Seema Verma, Linda McMahon, Mary Vought, Haley Barbour, Laura Schlapp, Devin O'Malley, Katie and Stephen Miller, Matt Lloyd, Amanda Henneberg, Josh Holmes, John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Greg Jacob, Matt Morgan and Matt Sheehan. Pence apparently broke out an impression of Mitch McConnell SPOTTED at a party at Meena and Liaquat Ahamed's home Tuesday night celebrating Peter Bergen's new book, "The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden" ($30): Iraqi Ambassador Fareed Yasseen, Roya Rahmani, Greg Barker, Vali Nasr, Sam Feist, Jane Mayer and Bill Hamilton, Liza Mundy, Toby Harnden, Joel Rayburn, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Mike Isikoff, Kim Dozier, Mike Doran, Sidney Blumenthal, Josh Geltzer, Luke Hartig, Gloria Riviera and Jim Sciutto. Gina Bennett, the CIA official who first warned in a classified document about bin Laden and the threat he posed in 1993, also attended, as well as other former CIA officials including Bob Grenier, Reuel Gerecht, Sam Wyman and Lisa Maddox. IN MEMORIAM — Retired Nevada Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Robert Hebert, a longtime senior policy adviser to Harry Reid, died at 64 in a car crash in California last week. A ceremony to honor him will be held at the Las Vegas Readiness Center at 3 p.m. Saturday. More from the Las Vegas Review-Journal FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Kate Karnes is joining FlexPoint Media as VP. She previously was acting chief digital officer at the White House and special assistant to the president in the Trump administration. TRUMP ALUMNI — Noah Evans is joining Sen. Cynthia Lummis' (R-Wyo.) comms staff. He most recently was at Plus Communications and worked on the 2020 Trump campaign. TRANSITIONS — Adrienne Watson will be deputy spokesperson at the NSC, Alex Thompson reports . She most recently has been comms director at the DNC. … The Smith-Free Group is adding Mike Gaffin and Sarah Dumont Merchak as partners. Gaffin most recently was chief political strategist for the Marwood Group, and Merchak most recently was director of legislative affairs for the Federal Housing Finance Agency; both are Hill alums. … Daniel Kahn will rejoin Davis Polk as a partner in the white-collar defense and iInvestigations practice. He most recently was at DOJ as acting deputy assistant A.G. of the criminal division. ENGAGED — Scott Binkley, VP of federal affairs at McGuireWoods, proposed to Taylor Cheek, regional finance director at the NRSC, while on a walk with their dog, Thomas, at the Congressional Cemetery's dog park on Monday night. They met working on a gubernatorial race in 2018. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) … NPR's Ari Shapiro … Nate Tibbits of Qualcomm … WaPo's Perry Bacon Jr. … Greg Mecher … Conor Maguire … POLITICO's Sally Goldenberg and Brendan MacArthur … Edelman's Emily Lippard … Lin Whitehouse of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn's office … Mike Henry of Sen. Tim Kaine's (D-Va.) office … Harrison Fields of Rep. Byron Donalds' (R-Fla.) office (26) … Bobby Donachie … Maggie Rousseau of the Hub Project … former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) … Craig Minassian of the Clinton Foundation and Minassian Media … Victor Melara of Leidos … Courtney Sanders Felts of the U.S. Chamber … Kodiak Hill-Davis (31) … Slingshot Strategies' Alyssa Cass … Rachel Trello of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation … Felix Schein … Eli Lilly's Michael O'Connor … Hildy Kuryk of Artemis Strategies … Sue Andres … Caroline Cirillo … Cynthia McCabe … Mike Milligan … Ben Voelkel … AP's Curt Anderson … Bradley Akubuiro of Bully Pulpit Interactive … Kaylee Mead … Tom Johnson Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross. | | A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association: Premium assistance that makes health care coverage more affordable will end in 2022. Congress: Take action today to expand access and reduce costs by permanently enhancing premium assistance. | | | | | | | 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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