| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | The center of legislative intrigue on Capitol Hill is bipartisan election reform. "That's on a hot track right now," Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) said Monday. But as talks heat up to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, President JOE BIDEN is out in the cold — a bystander out of sync with both parties in Congress. Administration officials are deeply engaged in a gamut of other bills snaking through Congress. Russia sanctions? "We are working very closely with Congress," press secretary JEN PSAKI said Monday. Trying to unstick Build Back Better? "There's a lot of discussion among members, their staffs, committees" and "we're engaged in those as well." Ditto for the government funding bill that must be passed by Feb. 18, and the China competitiveness bill under negotiation. There are now nine Republicans ( SUSAN COLLINS, MITT ROMNEY, THOM TILLIS, ROGER WICKER, ROB PORTMAN, LISA MURKOWSKI, TODD YOUNG, BEN SASSE and SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO) and seven Democrats (Manchin, JEANNE SHAHEEN, KYRSTEN SINEMA, CHRIS COONS, MARK WARNER, BEN CARDIN and CHRIS MURPHY ) working to hammer out an electoral reform bill. Many of them worked together successfully on bipartisan Covid relief and the bipartisan infrastructure framework. On Monday evening they met and settled on a list of issue areas they would tackle: the Electoral Count Act, protecting election workers and officials, voting practices and rights, the Election Assistance Commission, presidential transitions and contingent elections. They appointed pairs of bipartisan co-chairs to run subgroups on each issue — Manchin and Collins are in charge of the ECA reforms — and aimed to reunite this weekend to check the group's progress. The gang's meeting to agree to another meeting merited a stakeout and plenty of coverage. "Election reform that might actually pass," read a CNN headline. But at the White House, where bipartisan dealmaking was previously embraced with zeal, it's wait and see. "We've been open to and a part of conversations about the Electoral Count Act," Psaki said. "We've never been opposed to it. We just don't want it to be a replacement for" the voting rights and election reform bills that Republicans filibustered last month. (Other White House officials declined to go further than Psaki's comment.)
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Watch her story here. | | | Republicans involved in the Senate talks tell us Biden and his staff have been AWOL. But they also say that may not be such a bad thing. Their view is that the White House is waiting to see if the negotiations fizzle or if the group can produce a framework that Biden will embrace. With DONALD TRUMP now attacking ECA reform — and Collins — and polarizing the issue, a heavy hand by Biden could alienate potential GOP supporters. One Republican aide involved noted that the White House "didn't come into BIF until after we had a framework" and figures that the administration just wants to "give the group space." Bipartisan gangs fail more often than not. Democrats who view the ECA effort skeptically argue that it isn't worth Biden's time to engage seriously until at least one key goal is reached: The gang includes 10 Republican senators who could then vote with all 50 members of the Democratic Caucus to overcome a filibuster. The Collins-Manchin gang is still one Republican short. But there's also lingering suspicion among CHUCK SCHUMER and Biden officials that the entire enterprise is a trap. In this view, the obsession with bipartisanship that is shared by Biden and Manchin handed Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL his greatest weapon. As long as McConnell keeps breathing life into bipartisan alternatives, Manchin can be separated from the Democrats' most partisan bills and Biden will be tempted to follow along. It worked with BIF, which was supposed to lead to BBB, but may have killed it instead. (When he was asked Monday which policies he "would want to prioritize" in the BBB plan Democrats spent a year on, Manchin basically shrugged: "I haven't gotten there.") And it's working again with voting rights — at least with Manchin, who eschewed his party's plan to change the filibuster and pass partisan legislation while embracing the bipartisan path offered by McConnell and Collins. Pretty soon, Biden will have to decide whether he will follow along.
| | A message from Amazon: At Amazon, health benefits start on day one. Learn more. | | | Good Tuesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. BIDEN'S TUESDAY: — 10:15 a.m.: The president and VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive the President's Daily Brief. — 1:45 p.m.: Biden and Harris will host Senate Judiciary Chair DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.) and CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa) in the Oval Office to talk about the coming Supreme Court opening. Psaki will brief at 1:30 p.m. The HOUSE will meet at 2 p.m. to consider a variety of legislation under suspended rules, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. The SENATE will meet at 10 a.m. and take up multiple judicial nominations, with confirmation and cloture votes before and after the recess for weekly conference meetings from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO will testify before an Appropriations subcommittee at 2:30 p.m. The Homeland Security and Budget committees will hold hearings on the nominations of SHALANDA YOUNG to be OMB director and NANI COLORETTI to be OMB deputy director at 10:15 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., respectively.
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President Joe Biden meets with Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, amir of the State of Qatar, in the Oval Office on Monday, Jan. 31. | Tom Brenner-Pool/New York Times/Getty Images | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | TRUMP CARDS DEMOCRACY WATCH — A four-bylined NYT story reports that Trump "was more directly involved than previously known in exploring proposals to use his national security agencies to seize voting machines as he grasped unsuccessfully for evidence of fraud that would help him reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the episodes." — Jan. 21: "Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines," by Betsy Woodruff Swan RE: TRUMP'S GRIP ON THE GOP — "Trump's political organization announced Monday that it has more than $122 million socked away, a massive sum that reaffirms his grip on the Republican Party — and could well scare away potential challengers for the next GOP presidential nomination," Meridith McGraw, Alex Isenstadt and Scott Bland report. The haul included more than 1.6 million donations. The story has details on how Trump is spending the money, including to pay a "small circle of advisers" on his payroll. JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH RECORDS CONFETTI — Some of the records from the Trump White House, handed over to the House select committee on Jan. 6 by the National Archives and Records Administration, were ripped up and taped back together, WaPo's Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey, Amy Gardner and Tom Hamburger report. While it had been previously reported Trump had a habit of ripping up papers, "the National Archives on Monday took the unusual step of confirming the habit. Some of the documents turned over by the White House had not been reconstructed at all, according to the Archives." Flashback, POLITICO, June 10, 2018: "The president's unofficial 'filing system' involves tearing up documents into pieces, even when they're supposed to be preserved" PENCE'S TEAM BEGINS TO COMPLY — "MARC SHORT, former Vice President MIKE PENCE's chief of staff, testified before the House select committee on Jan. 6 last week, in the most significant sign to date that Pence's team is cooperating with the probe," sources tell CNN's Jamie Gangel, Gloria Borger and Jeremy Herb . "Short testified before the select committee in person last Wednesday in a lengthy session and had previously supplied a limited number of documents that were subpoenaed by the committee, including a memo from Trump aide JOHNNY MCENTEE comparing Trump to THOMAS JEFFERSON." AMERICA AND THE WORLD THE DRUMBEAT OF WAR — Russia officially responded in writing Monday to the latest U.S. proposal on Ukraine, per WaPo's John Hudson and Ashley Parker . U.S. officials haven't yet released details of what Moscow said. A TENSE EXCHANGE — At a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD pushed for an explanation from Russia as to what it is doing with Ukraine. Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. "hopes Russia chooses the path of diplomacy over the path of conflict in Ukraine. But we cannot just 'wait and see.'" To which Russia Ambassador to the U.N. VASSILY NEBENZIA "struck back and said the U.S. was 'whipping up tensions and rhetoric' about the situation and claimed that Russia had no plans to invade Ukraine." NPR's Wynne Davis and Michele Kelemen have more details. IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL COMEBACK — "The U.S. and European allies appear on the cusp of restoring the deal that limited Iran's nuclear program, but cautioned that it is now up to the new government in Tehran to decide whether, after months of negotiations, it is willing to dismantle much of its nuclear production equipment in return for sanctions relief," NYT's David Sanger, Lara Jakes and Farnaz Fassihi report . "Administration officials cautioned that it was not clear whether a final agreement would be struck, and in Iran that decision is bound to go to the supreme leader, AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI."
| | | | A message from Amazon:   Before Amazon, Mary Kate made $10.10 an hour and worked two jobs. | | | CONGRESS BERNIE'S NOT BACKING DOWN — While Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) advocates for liberal primary challengers to run against Manchin and Sinema, other Democrats are focused on maintaining their majority. "With zero margin for error, the party now desperately needs Sinema and Manchin's votes for both a Supreme Court confirmation and a potential revival of Biden's climate and social spending bill," Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine write. "Yet Sanders said on Monday he's not backing down, despite the crucial role Sinema and Manchin will play in [the] near future on Democrats' agenda. He downplayed the possibility that backing primary challenges to the duo would alienate them at crucial moments on the Senate floor: 'They're big boys and big girls.'" THE WHITE HOUSE MIXED MESSAGES — As "Biden met with U.S. governors at the White House on Monday, he was the only one given a glass of water — lest anyone else remove their mask to take a drink. The president was seated more than 10 feet from everyone, including Harris and members of his Cabinet," AP's Zeke Miller notes . "A White House staffer who was wearing a surgical mask when Biden entered the room was quickly handed an N95 version. "It's no surprise that unusual steps are taken to protect any president. But the strict precautions could also threaten to undercut the Biden administration's own efforts to tell Americans that they can get on with something closer to their normal lives in the face of the omicron wave." JUDICIARY SQUARE ILYA SHAPIRO, a newly hired lecturer at Georgetown Law, was put on leave after posting multiple tweets about Biden's promise to select a Black woman for the Supreme Court. In one of the tweets, NYT's Neil Vigdor reports , Shapiro wrote that Biden "would nominate not 'the objectively best pick' but a 'lesser Black woman' to be the next Supreme Court justice," . Georgetown's move came one day before Shapiro "had been scheduled to assume his role as a senior lecturer and the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, which is part of the law school. … In an email to The New York Times on Monday, Mr. Shapiro expressed regret over his tweets, but he maintained that they were not grounds for disciplinary action by the law school." ALL POLITICS CASH DASH — Sinema raised $1.6 million in the fourth quarter, her best since being elected. But dig into the numbers and you find a tale of two donor pools, Hailey Fuchs reports : "Sinema is increasingly leaning on corporate PACs and big donations to fill her campaign coffers. The Democratic grassroots fundraising world has largely abandoned her." Small-dollar donors accounted for 2% of her fundraising. A PAC looking to primary Sinema, on the other hand, got nearly six times as much from small-dollar donors in the same period. POLICY CORNER THAT WAS FAST — The prominent mental health support line Crisis Text Line will no longer share data with its for-profit customer service spinoff Loris.ai, the nonprofit announced late Monday, just three days after POLITICO published a watchdog story outlining data privacy experts' concerns about the arrangement. The turnabout came as the relationship between the two data-crunching entities — both backed by big money from Silicon Valley — was starting to draw the kind of scrutiny that people in Washington have typically aimed at companies like Facebook.
| | | | DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | A chicken tried to cross the road into the Pentagon on Monday. Rachel Maddow is taking a break from her primetime show to focus on movie and podcast projects. Hunter Biden's business relationships continue to draw scrutiny. Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina, said he has a "positive impression" of federal judge Michelle Childs, a fellow Palmetto State resident on Biden's SCOTUS shortlist. (Lindsey Graham has also spoken approvingly of Childs.) Meanwhile, the Baltimore Sun editorial board says outgoing NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherillyn Ifill should get the nom. Lisa Murkowski received a campaign donation from George W. Bush. The NYT paid "in the low seven figures" to acquire Wordle, which had all of 90 players on Nov. 1. The Radio Television Digital News Foundation announced its First Amendment Awards recipients , covering both 2021 and 2022. They'll be recognized at a dinner March 9. The honorees: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, NBCUniversal News Group's Cesar Conde, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, First Draft, ABC's Kim Godwin, Axios' Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei,"Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," NBC's Steve Kornacki, the late Kevin Nishita and WBAL-TV's Jayne Miller. OUT AND ABOUT — The Renew Democracy Initiative convened a gathering of human rights activists and journalists Monday night at Freemans Restaurant in New York City, where they talked about an initiative to help connect dissidents around the world in the fight against authoritarianism. The effort, born partially out of RDI's Frontlines of Freedom project, could lead to a larger gathering later this year. SPOTTED: Garry Kasparov, Leopoldo Lopez, Masih Alinejad, Pastor Evan Mawarire, Lucy Caldwell, Uriel Epshtein, Sochua Mu, Sunny Cheung, Nury Turkel, Berta Valle, Anne Applebaum, Max Boot, Eileen Hershenov, Jared Genser and Jamie Daves. — SPOTTED at a regular Dine 'n Dish gathering Monday night at Cafe Milano, where the conversation included Supreme Court nominees and Ukraine: Barbara Harrison, Anita McBride, Marie Royce, Kathy O'Hearn, Sara Bonjean, Nikki Schwab, Janet Donovan, Amy Nathan, Enid Doggett, Judith Thomas, Virginia Coyne and Francesca Craig. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Mollie Binotto has joined Sena Kozar Strategies as a VP for the 2022 cycle. She's a Democratic operative who most recently was campaign manager for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's reelect. — Ilya Sheyman is joining the Good Food Institute as president. He's most recently been co-director of the Real Recovery Now coalition and a senior strategist with the We Are Home immigration campaign, and is a MoveOn alum. — Breanne Deppisch is now a senior policy reporter covering energy and climate at the Washington Examiner. She most recently was national reporter and producer at Spectrum News and is also a WaPo and Aspen Institute alum. MEDIA MOVES — Alexandra Levine is now a senior tech writer at Forbes. She most recently was a tech reporter at POLITICO covering privacy. … Lucy Bayly will be senior economy editor at CNN Business. She most recently has been business editor at NBC News. STAFFING UP — Udochi Onwubiko is now a senior policy adviser at the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. She previously was labor policy counsel for the House Education and Labor Dems. TRANSITIONS — Mark Patterson is now a senior adviser at Brunswick Group. He most recently was general counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and is a Perkins Coie and Obama Treasury alum. … Anthony Marcum is now counsel to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). He previously was a resident fellow of governance at the R Street Institute. … Ben Dietderich is now press secretary for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). He previously was director of radio at the RNC. … … Maddie McComb is now press secretary for Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). She previously was comms director for Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.). … Geneva Kropper is now comms director for Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). She previously was comms director for Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), and is a Ben Ray Luján campaign alum. … Marissa Shorenstein is joining SKDK as a principal in the New York office. She most recently was director of the executive transition for Gov. Kathy Hochul. Loren Riegelhaupt is also being promoted to principal. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) … Marc Elias of Elias Law Group … Fred Barnes of the Washington Examiner … ABC's Ali Dukakis and Jordyn Phelps … Crossroads Strategies' Mat Lapinski … Rachel Walker … Matt Moon of the NRSC … David Barnhart … Miguel Ayala of Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-Ill.) office … David Redl … Aria Kovalovich of House Oversight … Jake Siewert … Natalie Cucchiara of Lot Sixteen … Michael Frias … State Department's Luke Peterson and Gray Barrett … Ken Klippenstein … Kayla Primes of Sen. Jacky Rosen's (D-Nev.) office … Jason Russell … Abigail O'Brien of Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's (D-Ariz.) office … Tara McGowan … Meaghan Burdick of 14th Street Strategies … CBS' Alana Anyse … Ian Patrick Hines … NBC's Catherine Kim … Carter Bell … Chase Adams of the American Sheep Industry Association … Bill Sweeney … Michael Kives of K5 Global …. Alexa Kissinger … AIPAC's Tara Brown … Bloomberg's Michelle Jamrisko 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 Amazon: "My benefits have allowed me to live better," Mary Kate added. "I've been able to seek treatment for a problem that I have had for a good 15 years but wasn't able to do anything about it because I didn't have the insurance. I also make enough money now to pay for a co-pay—though the insurance is so good that I don't even have one most of the time." Watch Mary Kate's story here. | | | | | | | 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 | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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