| | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels and Ryan Lizza | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | HOT JOB: STACEY ABRAMS is advertising for a social media platforms director. CENSUREY OVERLOAD — The fallout from the RNC's weekend censure of Reps. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.) and ADAM KINZINGER (R-Ill.) spread to Capitol Hill on Monday: Hill Republicans returned to town and lit into Chair RONNA MCDANIEL. Senate Republicans went on the record to say that looking back to 2020 is a losing strategy that won't help the party flip both chambers of Congress. And they're furious that the RNC would dub the activities of Jan. 6 "legitimate political discourse." We're not just talking here about an expectedMITT ROMNEY rebuke — though the Utah Republican certainly called his niece's decision "very unfortunate," even "stupid." The pushback extended from rank-and-file lawmakers all the way up to GOP leadership, as our Burgess Everett, Marianne LeVine and Olivia Beavers write: — Senate Minority Whip JOHN THUNE (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican who might replace MITCH MCCONNELL as GOP leader some day: "The focus right now needs to be forward, not backward. If we want to get our majorities in the fall, it's better to turn our fire on Democrats, not each other." — Sen. JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas), another potential McConnell successor: "They did say in their resolution that the job was to win elections. I agree with that, but then they go on to engage in actions that make that more challenging." Even Trump ally Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) was mad enough to call McDaniel and personally express his disappointment that the RNC was moving "in the wrong direction" as the chamber's fate hangs in the balance. "All of us up here want to talk about forward not backward," he said. And NRSC Chair RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with DONALD TRUMP, distanced himself from the "legitimate political discourse" language. "That's a decision that members of the RNC get to make," he told CNN's Manu Raju. "I think what happened on Jan. 6 was wrong." (Late Monday night, Scott defended McDaniel more generally on Twitter.) SO WHAT NOW? Privately, many Hill Republicans hope the RNC will learn a lesson from the episode. The controversy is why House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY didn't want to kick Cheney and Kinzinger out of the House GOP Conference: He worried it would become a major distraction from issues Republicans want to focus on, such as inflation and the border. Indeed, the RNC's discussions about midterm strategy last weekend were drowned out by the censure drama. Defenders of the RNC say the Senate GOP should stop clutching their pearls. Obviously this is Trump's party, they argue. And if the RNC members want to go this way, McDaniel had no choice but to do what her members wanted. McConnell plans to publicly address the censure today. The GOP leader has been something of a broken record in trying to tell his party to focus on the future, not the past — so you can imagine what he'll say. Don't expect similar public rebukes from House GOP members. McCarthy has long instructed his caucus to deflect or not answer reporters' questions about the latest Trump outrage and internal party divisions — and keep the blunt words for private discussions. Good Tuesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Washington is talking about price setting of medicines, but it won't stop insurers from shifting costs to you. And it will risk access to medicines and future cures. Instead, let's cap your out-of-pocket costs, stop middlemen from pocketing your discounts and make insurance work for you. Let's protect patients. It's the right choice. Learn more. | | | LANDER RESIGNS — Well, that was fast. Less than 24 hours after our colleague Alex Thompson reported that an internal White House investigation found that top White House science adviser ERIC LANDER bullied and mistreated his subordinates, Lander resigned. "I am devastated that I caused hurt to past and present colleagues by the way in which I have spoken to them," he wrote in his resignation letter. Lander, whose position is Cabinet-level, is the highest-level official to resign from the Biden administration. The White House investigation of his conduct ended in December. Yet despite President JOE BIDEN's own stated zero-tolerance policy for workplace bullying, the White House initially signaled Lander was going to stick around after the story was published. But the situation was quickly becoming untenable. The American Association for the Advancement of Science disinvited Lander from its annual meeting. He canceled a previously scheduled appearance to testify before a congressional committee today. And press secretary JEN PSAKI was grilled at her briefing about why Lander was allowed to keep his job. Behind the scenes, senior staff at OSTP were struggling with how to move forward after the news of the internal White House investigation and litany of complaints from fellow staffers became public. Alex got his hands on a recording of a Monday morning meeting with senior OSTP officials and the office's chief of staff, MARC AIDINOFF, who kicked off the meeting by addressing the POLITICO article. "I really struggle with what to say here. … There were some things in the article that were surprises to me, and some that, you know, weren't." "I think one of the many, many troubling pieces is, is the way in which … the current work culture at OSTP prevents the work from happening," he added. "I don't want there to be any sense that that the behavior of the staff talking to reporters when things [come] to a boiling point is the problem or that, you know, there's anger from me in any way towards those who sort of felt this got to the point that talking to the press was the appropriate next step." Said another official on the call: "I think it's also going to be an issue … with regard to how does this reconcile with President Biden's commitment to like, not tolerate bad behavior or demeaning behavior?"
| | | | A message from PhRMA:   Government price setting threatens patient access to medicines and innovation. Instead, let's cap out-of-pocket costs and stop middlemen from pocketing discounts. Learn more. | | | BIDEN'S TUESDAY: — 10:15 a.m.: The president and VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive the President's Daily Brief. — Noon: Biden and Harris will have lunch together. — 1:45 p.m.: Biden will deliver remarks on manufacturing, union jobs and energy costs with Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG and Energy Secretary JENNIFER GRANHOLM. — 2:45 p.m.: Biden and Harris will receive the weekly economic briefing. Psaki will brief at 2 p.m. THE SENATE will meet at 10 a.m. to take up DOUGLAS BUSH's nomination to be an assistant Army secretary. At 11:45 a.m., the Senate will vote on JOHN HOWARD's and LOREN ALIKHAN's judicial nominations. The chamber will recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m., and at 2:30 p.m. vote on the nominations of AMY GUTMANN to be U.S. ambassador to Germany and LISA CARTY to be U.S. representative on the U.N. Economic and Social Council. Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY will testify before the Finance Committee on youth mental health at 10 a.m. The Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on several nominations, including DEBORAH LIPSTADT as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, at 10 a.m. THE HOUSE will meet at 10 a.m.
| | | | HAPPENING THURSDAY – A LONG GAME CONVERSATION ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS : Join POLITICO for back-to-back conversations on climate and sustainability action, starting with a panel led by Global Insider author Ryan Heath focused on insights gleaned from our POLITICO/Morning Consult Global Sustainability Poll of citizens from 13 countries on five continents about how their governments should respond to climate change. Following the panel, join a discussion with POLITICO White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López and Gina McCarthy, White House national climate advisor, about the Biden administration's climate and sustainability agenda. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
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President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz shake hands after their joint press conference in Washington on Monday. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | CONGRESS WHAT SUNRISE IS READING — E&E News' Scott Waldman has a thorough look at how Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) has used his political power for decades to protect the interests of his family's waste coal company — from killing Build Back Better on back. "There is no indication that Manchin has broken any laws," Scott writes, and Manchin has indicated support for the $500 billion the administration wants to spend on climate. But "he has pushed measures to promote the coal that Enersystems removes from abandoned mines, nominated officials who helped ensure that the power plant that buys most of that company's coal did not close, and waged political battles against environmental regulations that threatened the same plant." THE THREAT WITHIN — The House inspector general in a December draft report recommended that the chamber roll out a "program aimed at identifying and deterring internal threats, including through 'behavioral monitoring,'" Betsy Woodruff Swan reports. Such an "insider threat" program could prove controversial: "Everything you told me about that report, I will stand at the top of my lungs and fight against," Rep. KELLY ARMSTRONG (R-N.D.) said. But the House sergeant-at-arms said he doesn't plan to start any new surveillance and monitoring. KICKING DOWN THE ROAD … AGAIN — House Appropriations Chair ROSA DELAURO (D-Conn.) "unveiled compromise legislation Monday that would keep the government functioning through March 11 and give lawmakers more time to finish overdue spending bills for this year," AP's Alan Fram reports . "Congressional approval in the coming days, which was expected, would avert a federal shutdown when temporary funding expires the night of Feb. 18. A House vote was planned for Tuesday, while the Senate's schedule was unclear." JUDICIARY SQUARE REDISTRICTING LATEST — The Supreme Court on Monday voted 5-4 to keep the "congressional map drawn by Alabama Republicans in place, freezing a lower court ruling that said the map likely violates the Voting Rights Act," CNN's Ariane de Vogue reports . "The lower court had ordered a new map to be drawn, which could have led to Democrats gaining another seat in the House in the fall. Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS joined the three liberal justices in dissent. … The court's order, the first dealing with the 2022 elections, means that the map will be used for the state's upcoming primary, and likely be in place for the entire election cycle, while the legal challenge plays out."
| | | | A message from PhRMA:   Let's protect patients. It's the right choice. Learn more. | | | ALL POLITICS VANCE IN TROUBLE — A super PAC supporting Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. VANCE said his campaign "needs a course correction ASAP," our Alex Isenstadt reports . "A 98-page PowerPoint presentation produced by TONY FABRIZIO, who has been polling for the pro-Vance Protect Ohio Values super PAC since last year, paints a dire picture of the candidate's prospects. According to the slide deck, Vance has seen a 'precipitous decline' in Ohio's GOP Senate primary since last fall, when a pair of outside groups backing a rival began a multimillion-dollar TV advertising blitz using five-year-old footage of Vance attacking former President Donald Trump." PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN — ERIK PRINCE helped raise money in 2018 for RICHARD SEDDON's effort to place undercover spies among progressives and anti-Trump Republicans, NYT's Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman reveal this morning. The involvement of the military contractor (and BETSY DEVOS' brother) is among their new details about Seddon's operation, including its focus on Wyoming Gov. MARK GORDON and the prospect that it broke federal campaign finance laws by making "straw man donations" to Democrats. THE PANDEMIC A COVID CHANGE-UP — Sources tell our Erin Banco that the Biden administration is looking at changing the country's hospitalization figures so it can get a better sense of the actual impact of the virus. "A task force comprised of scientists and data specialists at HHS and CDC are working with hospitals nationwide to improve Covid-19 reporting. The group is asking hospitals to report numbers of patients who go to the facility because they have Covid-19 and separate those from individuals who go in for other reasons and test positive after being admitted." AMERICA AND THE WORLD RUSSIA LATEST — Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN said "he was prepared to keep negotiating over Russia's security demands in Eastern Europe but offered a stark warning over the possibility of a full-scale war between Russia and the West — using a five-hour meeting with French President EMMANUEL MACRON to keep the world guessing about his intentions," NYT's Anton Troianovski, Roger Cohen and Katie Rogers write . "Mr. Putin said that proposals made by Macron of France in their one-on-one meeting at the Kremlin were 'too early to speak about' but could create 'a foundation for our further steps.' "Mr. Macron, in a joint news conference with Mr. Putin after their hastily scheduled meeting, described the coming days as potentially decisive in heading off what the West fears could be a Russian invasion of Ukraine." PIPELINE POLITICS — Following talks with German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ on Monday, Biden said the U.S. would "'bring an end' to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine," NBC's Lauren Egan writes . "When pressed for details on how he would keep that promise given that the pipeline is not under U.S. control, Biden did not elaborate. Scholz, meanwhile, declined to take a firm stance on the fate of Nord Stream 2, telling reporters that Germany was 'acting together' with its allies and promising 'very, very harsh' steps against Russia if it invades Ukraine." PULLOUT FALLOUT — WaPo's Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton obtained a 2,000-page Army investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including the most thorough accounting yet of the evacuation effort. The top takeaways: "Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban's steady advance on Afghanistan's capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul's fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger."
| | | | 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 | | Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin met Monday at … a humongous white table. Eric Adams called those who question why he eats fish, after saying he eats a plant-based diet, "the food police." Perhaps one police force the mayor might be willing to defund. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade knocked Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election, asking the former president to "stop wasting our time with that." Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire, is stepping down from the board of Facebook parent company Meta in order to focus on electing Trump-supporting candidates in the midterms. Andrew Yang apologized after getting blowback for "wrong-headed" tweets saying Joe Rogan isn't racist because he "works with Black people literally all of the time." Rumble, the Canadian-based video platform, has offered Rogan a four-year, $100 million contract to leave Spotify. Donald Trump is making tens of millions of dollars from his coffee table book, according to CNN. SPOTTED: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao celebrating their anniversary on Sunday night at Capital Grille. MEDIA MOVE — Alex Wagner is returning to MSNBC as a senior political analyst and guest anchor. STAFFING UP — William Pratt is now a policy adviser for the Treasury Department. He previously was a legislative aide for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). TRANSITIONS — Suzi Emmerling has joined Boundary Stone as an SVP, where she will lead a team focused on climate, clean energy, commercial space and transportation sectors. She previously was COO for Eli Broad, and is a CAP, DOT and Eric Garcetti alum. … Michael Mosier is now a senior adviser to Oliver Wyman's anti-financial crime and digital assets practices. He most recently was acting director and permanent deputy director/digital innovation officer) of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. … … Darci Vetter is joining the Nature Conservancy as global lead for policy and government relations. She previously was a diplomat in residence at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and is a USTR and USDA alum. … Jess Meeth is now candidate outreach director for Democrats for Life of America. She previously worked for Let Them Live. … Yie-Hsin Hung will be chair of the Investment Company Institute's board. She currently is CEO of New York Life Investment Management. WEEKEND WEDDING — Caroline Kitchens, government affairs director for the R Street Institute, and Dion Mitchell, national sales manager at Upper Quadrant, got married Saturday at Raspberry Plain Manor in Leesburg, Va. The couple met on a dating app in 2017 and had their first date at Meridian Pint in Columbia Heights. Pic … Another pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Julie Devine, legislative director for Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), and Jack Devine, owner of Tally Ho Productions, welcomed Nancy Violet Devine on Friday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and John Joyce (R-Pa.) … Amos Snead … Vox's Zack Beauchamp … Will Levi … Caitlin Webber … Hudson Institute's John Walters, Michael Pillsbury and Sarah May Stern … Mark Corallo … Heather Zichal … Scott Bennett … Amazon Web Services' Matthew Haskins … Brian Katulis … Stephanie Cherry … Elliott Schwartz … Sarah Anne Voyles … USAID's Adam Kaplan (4-0) … John Kartch … Tony Baker … Hilary Badger … Nicole Dicocco … Marlene Cooper Vasilic … Billy Flanagan … Joe Briggs … Ben Stevens of Summit Strategies … Dy Brown … Julie Gunlock … Mansie Hough … Jenny Thalheimer Rosenberg … Denise Diminuco … Bill Ruch … former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (6-0) … Ted Koppel … POLITICO Europe's Arnau Busquets Guàrdia 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 PhRMA: Washington is talking about price setting of medicines, but it won't stop insurers from shifting costs to you. And it will risk access to medicines and future cures. Instead, let's cap your out-of-pocket costs, stop middlemen from pocketing your discounts and make insurance work for you. Let's protect patients. It's the right choice. 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 | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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