| | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade | | | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | BREAKING OVERNIGHT — "Russia's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that some troops deployed from military districts bordering Ukraine were being loaded onto trains and trucks and sent back to their garrisons, a tentative sign that Russia could be stepping away from the threat of an invasion," NYT's Anton Troianovski and Ivan Nechepurenko report from Moscow. "The Defense Ministry's announcement was the most concrete signal yet that Russia might be trying to de-escalate the military standoff near the Ukrainian border, but it was far from clear that the threat of war had passed. It couldn't be determined how many troops were being pulled back, and a Defense Ministry spokesman, IGOR KONASHENKOV , said that some military exercises that have raised fears of an attack against Ukraine — including in Belarus and in the Black Sea — were continuing." POPPING TODAY — All eyes in Washington are turned east, as Russia claims it's open to a diplomatic solution but could still invade Ukraine any day. The Biden administration is preparing for the worst — practicing numerous response scenarios, according to WaPo — and moving its limited Kyiv embassy presence west in case of an invasion. On Capitol Hill, a sanctions bill aimed at deterring the Kremlin remains in limbo — even as Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY warned that an invasion could happen Wednesday (before he walked it back). Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER is still facing down a potential government funding pinch this Friday, when the Treasury runs out of money. Stop us if you've heard this before … (and, no, we're not expecting a shutdown). But first, a few good politics reads from our colleagues around the POLITICO newsroom: 1. PROGRESSIVES FLEX IN PA SENATE RACE — There was a time when he was considered the model for Democrats looking to flip red seats blue: a former Marine who ran on a centrist platform and won a district DONALD TRUMP carried by 20 points. Today, our Philly-based Pennsylvania politics guru Holly Otterbein spotlights Rep. CONOR LAMB's struggle to catch fire with the Democratic base in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, one of the party's best pickup opportunities this fall. Some nuggets: — Lamb is trailing progressive Lt. Gov. JOHN FETTERMAN in polling and fundraising. "Last year, Fetterman also raised nearly $12 million from a massive network of small-dollar donors, compared to $4 million for Lamb," Holly writes. — The party has chosen to stay out of the race, a major blow to Lamb, whose name recognition isn't as high as Fetterman's. Even the DSCC has declined to wade in as they have in the past. — Some voters see Lamb as another establishment-wing white guy when they've already got one in Sen. BOB CASEY (D-Pa.), Holly writes. — The step back, per Holly: "Lamb's predicament offers a window into how much the Democratic Party has changed in recent years: Progressives have gained a major foothold, small-dollar fundraising has upended election dynamics, and moderate white men like Lamb are no longer shoo-ins." — Lamb told Holly in an interview that he's just getting started and not to underestimate him: "Polling is nowhere near as reliable as people like him make it out to be, particularly this early in a race, so many months before so many people have learned much about us or made up their minds. So in my opinion, the score is 0-0 and the entire game is left to be played … If online fundraising was what determined these elections, you'd have either BERNIE SANDERS or Donald Trump as the president." — The takeaway: If Lamb is correct that he's the best candidate to flip this GOP seat blue, his loss in the primary would mean Republicans stand a stronger chance at winning. But not everyone agrees with that prediction, arguing that Republicans' nasty primary will repel voters and that both candidates have a strong shot at victory.
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Hear from Paige on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet's most pressing challenges, including federal privacy legislation. | | | 2. CORPORATE AMERICA'S WORKAROUND FOR JAN. 6 OBJECTORS — They promised they would stop giving campaign money to the 147 Hill Republicans who followed Trump's demands to object to the Electoral College results. Then, major corporate donors — from Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta to Allstate, Toyota, Nike and Dow Chemical Company — found a back channel to keep the cash flowing. This morning, our Emily Birnbaum, Megan Wilson and Hailey Fuchs dissect their workaround: Give through lobbyists. The step back: "The under-the-radar donations meant that even as the companies stuck to their Jan. 6 pledges, their lobbyists ingratiated themselves with the GOP lawmakers, some of whom are expected to take leadership roles in the House if Republicans take back control in the midterm elections." 3. STEFANIK, HOUSE GOP'S TOP MESSENGER, ICES OUT REPORTERS — It's a rather unusual way to try to win over one's conservative critics, at least among GOP congressional leaders. But as Olivia Beavers reports today, House GOP Conference Chair ELISE STEFANIK (R-N.Y.) has started picking and choosing which members of the media her office invites to press briefings and calls, icing out what she slams as the "mainstream media'' in favor of conservative outlets. It's a break from her predecessors and other members of Republican leadership, who treat most members of the press the same. But there's a story behind all this, Olivia reports. Stefanik has critics on the far right who didn't want her in the No. 3 job to begin with and plan to press her to serve only one term, as she suggested she would do last year. Some believe her hard-line approach with the press is a way to make inroads with the far right if she decides to run for conference chair again — or maybe makes a play for House majority whip. Bashing the media is seen as a no-risk strategy to score points with the GOP base. Good Tuesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | |   | | | PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S TUESDAY: — 9:50 a.m.: The president will receive the President's Daily Brief. — 2 p.m.: Biden will address bipartisan county officials at the National Association of Counties 2022 Legislative Conference at the Washington Hilton. Press secretary JEN PSAKI will brief at 3 p.m. THE SENATE is in, with a recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for weekly conference meetings. The Banking Committee will hold a markup at 2:15 p.m. to vote on the Fed nominations of JEROME POWELL, LAEL BRAINARD, SARAH BLOOM RASKIN, LISA COOK and PHILIP JEFFERSON, as well as SANDRA THOMPSON to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency. THE HOUSE is out.
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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks with reporters as she leaves federal court in New York City, on Monday, Feb. 14. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST THE WHITE HOUSE PREPARES FOR THE WORST — WaPo's Ellen Nakashima and Ashley Parker have a behind-the-scenes look into what the White House is doing to prepare for a Russian invasion into Ukraine: A team of experts assembled by the White House — dubbed the "Tiger Team," indicating it's "ready to pounce" — "has staged two multihour tabletop exercises to bring the scenarios to life and assembled a playbook that outlines an array of swift potential responses, starting with Day One and extending through the first two weeks of an envisioned Russian invasion … "The effort has not only helped them anticipate possible complications, but has also prompted them to take actions ahead of time, such as exposing Russian information warfare before it's carried out to blunt its propaganda power. NSC officials readily admit they may be unable to precisely anticipate the moves of Putin and his military leaders. But the exercise and robust planning is still worth it, they said." The team "was officially born in November, when national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN asked ALEX BICK, the NSC director for strategic planning, to lead a planning effort across multiple agencies. Bick has brought in the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Treasury and Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development to look at a possible humanitarian crisis." ON THE GROUND — From the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Kenneth Rosen has a dispatch for POLITICO Magazine on the Russian war that has been waged unofficially for the past eight years. It's an eye-opening look at the world to come — and a mode of warfare that some in the U.S. military worries it may not be ready for. "The Russians have for nearly a decade used Ukraine as a proving ground for a new and highly advanced type of hybrid warfare — a digital-meets-traditional kind of fighting defined by a reliance on software, digital hardware and cognitive control that is highly effective, difficult to counter and can reach far beyond the front lines deep into Ukrainian society," he writes. "It is a type of high-tech conflict that many military experts predict will define the future of war. It has also turned Ukraine, especially its eastern provinces, but also the capital, into a bewildering zone of instability, disinformation and anxiety." CONGRESS DEJA VU SPENDING DRAMA — With the Senate facing a government funding deadline Friday, a band of Senate conservatives led by Sen. MIKE LEE (R-Utah) is once again threatening to block swift passage of a continuing resolution over vaccine mandates. Yes, we've been here before — though this time the group is saying up front that they only need a vote to end mandates on federal employees, contractors, military and medical workers. (Last time, they momentarily threatened to shut down unless the mandates were defunded.) Fox News has more. Schumer gave them a vote last time around to avert a closure. Seems like he would do the same again. Either way, Lee's cause is lost and nobody expects a shutdown. But a roll call would put Democrats on record on an issue that's dividing their party right now. — Marsha, Marsha, Marsha: In related news, Sen. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-Tenn.) is still making demands that are also slowing passage of the stopgap. Her issue? She claims a Biden administration drug harm reduction program is handing out "crack pipes," citing a Washington Free Beacon story that made waves last week. WSJ's Siobhan Hughes has the latest.
| | | |   | | | ALL POLITICS BLACK CANDIDATES RAKE IT IN — The Boston Globe's James Pindell notes that "in 2021, for the first time since the FEC began keeping track, Black candidates topped both Democrat and Republican lists of biggest Senate fund-raisers in a quarter. For the last three quarters, Black candidates have been the top fund-raisers in their respective parties. And four Black candidates ranked among the top five money-raisers for the last three months of 2021." Those four included Sens. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-Ga.) and TIM SCOTT (R- S.C.), Rep. VAL DEMINGS (R-Fla.) and Georgia Republican Senate candidate HERSCHEL WALKER. 2022 WATCH — "A Republican county clerk in Colorado who was stripped of her responsibility of overseeing county elections is joining a growing movement of people throughout the country who spread false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election and want to oversee the next one," NYT's Azi Paybarah writes. " TINA PETERS, the Mesa County clerk, who is facing accusations that she breached the security of voting machines, announced on Monday that she would run to be the top elections official in Colorado." KNOWING JOSH MANDEL — NYT's Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer have a look at JOSH MANDEL : "As he runs for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, the 44-year-old politician has become one of the nation's most strident crusaders for Trumpism, melding conspiracy theories and white grievance politics to amass a following that has made him a leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination in this Republican-leaning state. His political evolution — from a son of suburban Cleveland to warrior for the Make America Great Again movement — isn't unique. Across the country, rising stars of the pre-Trump era have shed the traditional Republicanism of their past to follow Mr. Trump's far-right brand of politics, cementing the former president's influence over the next generation of the party's leaders." TRUMP CARDS ABOUT THOSE DURHAM FINDINGS — "Special counsel JOHN DURHAM accused a lawyer for the Democrats of sharing with the CIA in 2017 internet data purported to show Russian-made phones being used in the vicinity of the White House complex, as part of a broader effort to raise the intelligence community's suspicions of Trump's ties to Russia shortly after he took office," CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Evan Perez report. "The accusation — which Durham couched in vague, technical language in a court filing late Friday — has been seized upon by Trump and his supporters, who claim the former President was subjected to a smear campaign." — Trump released a statement Monday that he had been "proven right about the spying," regarding the latest Durham finding, and that he "will be proven right about 2020." WaPo's Philip Bump fact-checks that. BACKING OUT — "Accounting firm Mazars USA LLP said it would withdraw from its work for Trump's company and can no longer stand by financial statements it has previously prepared," WSJ's Corinne Ramey reports . "The letter [announcing the news] was included in court filings from the New York attorney general's office, which is asking a judge to order Mr. Trump and two of his adult children to comply with its subpoenas as part of a broader civil-fraud investigation into the financial dealings of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization. "Mazars, which has done accounting work for Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization for years, said a limited amount of tax returns still needed to be filed, including those of Mr. Trump and his wife, MELANIA TRUMP." JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH DISCOURSE DESIGNATION — The Republican National Committee's attempt to unwind the controversy over its characterization of Jan. 6, 2021, as "legitimate political discourse" may have given investigators of the Capitol riot an underappreciated piece of the puzzle they're assembling, Kyle Cheney writes. MEDIAWATCH NYT WINS ROUND 1 VS. PALIN — "Judge JED RAKOFF, who is overseeing former Alaska Gov. SARAH PALIN's defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, said Monday he will dismiss the suit, ruling that Palin's team did not prove a key element of its case," CNN's Sonia Moghe and Brian Stelter report . "Rakoff's ruling came while the jury is deliberating over a verdict — and Rakoff said he will allow the jury to continue deliberating and to reach a verdict, and will dismiss the case once it has done so. The judge said Palin did not prove 'actual malice,' which is the standard her legal team had to meet in her defamation case." But it's almost certainly not the end of the story: Rakoff himself said "this is the kind of case that will inevitably go up on appeal." Josh Gerstein reports that "Rakoff gave the Times a mild tongue-lashing," saying as he issued the ruling that "I think this is an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of the Times but, having said that, that's not the issue before this court."
| | | | 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 | | Josh Hawley is selling his Jan. 6 fist-pump moment as a mug. (h/t Shane Goldmacher) Billy Long, Republican congressman and Senate hopeful in Missouri, creatively cast his opponent Vicky Hartzler (and her endorser Hawley) as "America First" hypocrites. A bunny successfully penetrated the Pentagon grounds, following in the chicken's footsteps. Winsome Early-Sears, the new lieutenant governor of Virginia, gaveled the state Senate to order using a patent leather, high-heeled pump. ATF put out a call for an unusual kind of Valentine's Day revenge activity. Whoopi Goldberg returned to "The View" after a two-week suspension for her "wrong and hurtful comments" about the Holocaust. Joe Biden got lovey-dovey on Valentine's Day. SNEAK PEEK — PBS is debuting a new series at 9 p.m. tonight, "The American Diplomat," exploring "the lives and legacies of three African-American ambassadors — Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan — who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations." Watch an exclusive clip here FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Paige Willey, a former Trump White House political affairs adviser, today is launching "This Is Your Country," a new commentary podcast from American Firebrand Super PAC. Listen and subscribe STAFFING UP — The Department of Health and Human Services is announcing a slate of new roles and hires: Kamara Jones is now principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. Kelly Langford is now online comms director, and previously was a senior principal at NGP VAN and is a Biden campaign alum. Ilse Walton is now press secretary for principal engagement, and previously was press secretary for Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). … Wendi Wilkes is now a senior adviser in the EPA's office of water. She most recently was manager of regulatory and legislative affairs at the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. MEDIA MOVE — Adriel Bettelheim is joining Axios as senior health care editor. He previously was a health care editor at POLITICO. Talking Biz News TRANSITIONS — Veronica Martinez is joining the DNC as deputy director of party affairs and delegate selection. She previously was executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. … Nick Magallanes is joining Iovance Biotherapeutics as head of U.S. external affairs, leading the D.C. office. He previously was VP of federal affairs at PhRMA. … Jordan Lieberman is now SVP and chief product officer for the political data platform at FourthWall, a targeting firm specializing in viewership data. He most recently was VP and general manager for politics and public affairs at a4 media. ENGAGED — Elle Ciapciak, chief of staff for Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), and Ian Whitson, legislative director for Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.), got engaged Friday on the National Mall. The couple met in 2015 when they were staff assistants in neighboring offices on the fourth floor of the Cannon House Office Building. Pic … Another pic — Hailey Lernihan, a Trump White House and State Department alum, and Andrew Block, an attorney with America First Legal and a DHS and Mike Bishop alum, got engaged Saturday at the Jefferson Memorial. The couple had their first date at Penn Social in October 2019 and are looking forward to a wedding in Whitefish, Mont. Pic … Another pic — Melissa Schwartz, comms director for the Department of the Interior, and Michael Kasprzyk, a strategic IT consultant, got engaged Saturday. The couple, who met in spring 2020, got engaged at the site of their first date: D.C.'s Southwest Duck Pond.Pic … Another pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Lewis Lowe, VP of comms and government relations at Strategies 360, and Jessica Kahanek, senior director of media relations at the Association of American Railroads, welcomed Charles "Charlie" Isaac Lowe on Feb. 5. He joins big brother Joseph. Pic BIRTHWEEK (was Monday): BGR Group's Fred Turner HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) … retired Adm. Jim Stavridis … White House's Anne Neuberger, Priya Singh and Chad Maisel … Jonathan Salant … State's Francisco Bencosme … Treasury's Sourav Bhowmick … Carrie Sheffield … TPM's Josh Marshall … Bobby Panzenbeck (4-0) … Fox Business' David Asman … Jason Thielman … Linda Kramer Jenning … Republican Jewish Coalition's Alex Siegel … Clare Flannery … Valentina Pereda … CARE's Beth Solomon and Paige Moody Erickson … Kerry Feehery … Brian Wilson … S-3 Group's Sarah Dolan Schneider … Christopher Anderson … Janie Kim … National Association of Realtors' Sydney Barron Gallego (3-0) … George Bamford … Dean Petrone … E&E News' Jonathan Miller … Linda Roth … Allie Davis of Sen. Chris Coons' (D-Del.) office … Art Spiegelman 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.
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