| | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | IF YOU READ ONE THING — "CHRIS WALLACE Says Life at Fox News Became 'Unsustainable,'" by NYT's Michael Grynbaum, who sat down with the former Fox News anchor, who left the network after 18 years to join CNN+. Some choice quotes from Wallace: — "I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox." — "I'm fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion … But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable." — "I spent a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job." 'A GAFFE FROM THE HEART' — President JOE BIDEN landed on the South Lawn of the White House just after 1 a.m. this morning following what could go down in history as one of the most significant speeches of his presidency. Capping off his four-day swing in Europe, Biden issued a sharp and forceful repudiation of Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN during a 27-minute speech in Warsaw Saturday afternoon — one that some foreign policy experts are already comparing to RONALD REAGAN's famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" address. Yet nine words in particular have stolen the spotlight — an ad-libbed sentence that the White House later clarified was not part of the prepared remarks: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." The remark, which came at the very end of the speech, sent a jolt through European allies as well as viewers at home: Was the president announcing a major change in foreign policy, calling for regime change in Russia? Biden is, after all, a foreign policy wonk himself who would clearly understand the weight of such words … Turns out, no. And asthe AP noted , "before Biden could even board Air Force One to begin the flight back to Washington," aides were playing cleanup duty, clarifying that no such policy change occurred. "The President's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region," an administration official said. "He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change." THIS IS, IN MANY WAYS, TYPICAL 'JOE FROM SCRANTON.' Over the years, the president's passion — and tendency to overspeak or speak out of turn during emotional moments — has helped him along the way, but also caused him, and especially his staff, some headaches. This morning,WaPo's Tyler Pager and Matt Viser lead their story on the fallout by pointing out that on the campaign trail, "Biden often reminded his audience about the heavy weight that the words of a president can carry. 'The words of a president matter,' he said more than once. 'They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace.'" "I guess you can call this a gaffe from the heart," AARON DAVID MILLER, a longtime foreign policy hand and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Pager and Viser. "If Biden could close his eyes tomorrow and have 10 wishes, one would be there's a leadership change in Russia." Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho) was less forgiving on CNN's "State of the Union" this morning: "He gave a good speech at the end. But, as you pointed out already, there was a horrendous gaffe right at the end of it. I just — I wish he would stay on script. Whoever wrote that speech did a good job for him. But, my gosh, I wish they would keep him on script." Meanwhile, as the AP notes, Russia did not take kindly to the statement: "Kremlin spokesman DMITRY PESKOV told The Associated Press that 'it's not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia.'" BACK ON THE HOME FRONT … BREAKING THIS MORNING — "Biden's job approval falls to lowest level of his presidency amid war and inflation fears," per NBC. "Seven in 10 Americans have low confidence in the president's ability to deal with Russia's invasion of Ukraine as Biden's approval falls to 40 percent in new NBC News poll." — The takeaway: So much for any post-SOTU bump or "rally around the flag" effect from Ukraine. Cook Political Report's Amy Walter asks why in a tweet — and gives an explanation: "New NBC poll gives us some insights. When asked if they prefer Biden focus most on inflation/Econ or end war in Ukraine, 68% pick inflation/Econ. Biden job approve on the economy: 33/63 (-30). All about the Econ." BIDEN BUDGET TO PROPOSE MINIMUM TAX ON WEALTHY — Typically, an administration's budget day elicits shrugs from Capitol Hill. The document is often viewed as a laundry list of wishes that will never meet reality. But Biden's budget, which comes out on Monday, is generating news: It proposes a new tax of, at minimum, 20 percent on households worth more than $100 million — which the White House says will reduce federal deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. — More from the AP: "The introduction of the minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans would represent a significant reorienting of the tax code. It would apply to the top 0.01% of households with half of the expected revenue coming from households worth $1 billion or more. The minimum tax would effectively prevent the wealthiest sliver of America from paying lower rates than families who think of themselves as middle class, while helping to generate revenues to fuel Biden's domestic ambitions and keep the deficit in check relative to the U.S. economy." — The trillion-dollar question: WaPo's Jeff Stein puts all this in perspective for us, noting that "the plan comes amid signs that the administration's negotiations with Sen. JOE MANCHIN III (D-W.Va.) over [the] stalled White House economic proposal may be reviving. But all previous efforts to tax billionaires have failed amid major political head winds, and it is unclear if Manchin and Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) will go along with the plan." Tax experts also have questions, including whether the proposal is even constitutional. "Can the IRS collect taxes if nothing has been sold based on the wealth, the property, of the taxpayers?" STEVE ROSENTHAL of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center asked Jeff. "In my view, Biden's minimum tax adds more complexity to [Democratic Oregon Sen. RON] WYDEN's original billionaire income tax, which already was complicated."
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See how we're working to help you connect safely. | | | Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. The Oscars are tonight at 8, though we haven't seen most of the nominees. What's your pick? Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. SUNDAY BEST … — NATO Ambassador JULIANNE SMITH on Biden's gaffe, on CNN's "State of the Union": "The president had spent the day visiting with Ukrainian refugees. … In the moment, I think that was a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day. But, no, as you have heard from Secretary Blinken and others, the U.S. does not have a policy of regime change in Russia, full stop." On what type of military support NATO will provide to Ukraine: "If you're asking about the Soviet-era jets, the United States has decided that the particular proposal put forward by Poland is untenable. But, honestly, if any NATO ally wanted to provide those types of pieces of equipment, the fighter jets, the MiGs, that is a sovereign decision. They can take that sovereign decision. But, right now, the United States is very much focused on their air defense needs." — Ukrainian Ambassador OKSANA MARKAROVA on NBC's "Meet the Press," on Biden's speech: "We heard President Biden loud and clear, that the U.S. will aid and will be with Ukraine in this fight. We clearly understand in Ukraine that anyone who's a war criminal, who attacks a neighboring country, who's doing all these atrocities together with all the Russians that are involved definitely cannot stay in power in a civilized world." — Risch on what more he wants Congress to do vis-a-vis Russia, on "State of the Union": "I think that, with what's going on there, we really can't be too tough on sanctions. We just really need to bring the hammer down. So, I'd like to see more. The administration, of course, they have control of Congress, and they have been very active in persuading their party not to pass sanctions. … Obviously, I think Congress plays a role in this. I'd like to see some language passed through Congress. We have struggled with it. We have made a good-faith effort, but came very close, but didn't quite get it done." — Sen. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.) on Judge KETANJI BROWN JACKSON's confirmation hearings, on "Meet the Press": "What we saw though this week was to me outrageous and beyond the pale, and very different than what I've witnessed in my short time in the Senate seeing three different confirmation hearings. And I think that what some of my colleagues did was just sad, frankly." On whether Justice CLARENCE THOMAS should have recused himself from Jan. 6-related cases: "Clearly, Justice Thomas should have recused himself. That's not even at question here." — Sen. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) on Thomas' situation: "Not only should he recuse himself, but this Supreme Court badly needs ethics rules. [Sen.] CHRIS MURPHY'S leading a bill I've long been supportive of, that says basically get your act together. Get ethics rules in place. And I would hope [Chief] Justice [ JOHN] ROBERTS, who I respect, will stand up and get those ethics rules in place. They've got to do that. They should do it themselves."
| | | |   | | | BIDEN'S SUNDAY — The president has nothing on his public schedule. VP KAMALA HARRIS' SUNDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule.
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President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian refugees during a visit to PGE Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw, on Saturday, March 26. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | ALL POLITICS HEADLINES FROM THE LATEST TRUMP RALLY — Former President DONALD TRUMP descended on Georgia on Saturday night to boost his slate of preferred candidates and continue his campaign against Gov. BRIAN KEMP's reelection. "Before a crowd of a few thousand supporters, Trump's rambling speech invoked familiar, false claims that he and former U.S. Sen. DAVID PERDUE got 'screwed' in 2020 and warned that his backers won't vote in a general election against Democratic gubernatorial candidate STACEY ABRAMS if Kemp is the nominee," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein reports. — He had harsh words for Judge KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, who he said was "unbelievably disrespectful" to GOP senators during her confirmation hearings. — And he continued his nice words for Putin: "The smartest one gets to the top. That didn't work so well recently in our country," Trump said, per Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert . "But they ask me, 'Is Putin smart?' Yes, Putin was smart. And I actually thought he was going to be negotiating. I said, 'That's a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 soldiers on the border.' … I think [Putin] made a big mistake, what he's done to so many people, but that was a big mistake. But it looked like a great negotiation." — Paging 'My Kevin': Another top headline from this rally? Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) said he plans to nominate Trump for speaker of the House. "Well that was interesting…" Trump said after Gaetz's remarks. — Also at the rally, Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) deployed a homophobic scare tactic about Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG: "He and his husband can stay out of our girls' bathrooms," she told the crowd. The Advocate, an LGTBQ magazine, has more on why this made no sense whatsoever. The remark is jaw-dropping not just because of how ugly it is, but because it signals that the fringe of the GOP is moving beyond singling out transgender people to embracing a more anti-gay platform. It comes as Florida is poised to enact its "don't say gay" bill, which would ban teachers from talking about sexual orientation in certain grades. There's also a serious question about what the GOP is doing from a political standpoint: At what point does revving up parts of the conservative base alienate Republican voters who are gay — or moderate voters who object to homophobia? ANOTHER TRUMP ENDORSEE IN TROUBLE — Perdue's campaign to unseat Kemp has struggled to gain much traction, NYT's Maya King reports in Atlanta . "Mr. Perdue's sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump's plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results: Mr. Trump's grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump." — Here was Trump on Saturday night, per the AJC: "I hope, David, you're going to be the governor, or I just wasted a helluva lot a time tonight." INFLATION NATION — The hot-button issue of inflation has become central to the midterms. How prevalent is it? "Overall, about one in eight television ads in congressional races aired between Jan. 1 and March 20 has featured inflation as a topic," write WSJ's John McCormick and Chad Day . "About 69% of those more than 15,800 airings were sponsored by Republicans or conservative-leaning groups." AS SEEN ON TIKTOK — Ian Ward writes for POLITICO Magazine about Gen-Z for Change, the group of TikTok influencers with ambitions to make inroads in Democratic politics. "Yet in making inroads into the political mainstream, do Gen Z's digital warriors risk sacrificing the transgressiveness that makes them a distinctive voice of their generation?" THE WHITE HOUSE BIDEN'S MIXED BAG ON RUSSIA — Despite Saturday's speech slip-up, Biden's Russia policy is going better than planned. But its ultimate success remains elusive, Jonathan Lemire writes . "The war has posed an unexpected test on one of the central premises of Biden's presidencies: that the globe's democracies had to prove they could not just effectively govern but also serve as a bulwark to rising autocracies. Biden has steadied allies rocked by four tumultuous years of Donald Trump, even as many European capitals quietly wonder if his foreign policy is simply an aberration before Trump or someone like him reclaims power. "Though Biden had reinvigorated alliances and delivered a stern warning to Putin, the war's end seemed no closer as Air Force One lifted off Saturday evening from Warsaw back to Washington. A short time later, the air raid sirens went off again in Lviv."
| | | |   | | | WAR IN UKRAINE — The war has been "extraordinarily lethal for Russian generals," who are being "killed at a rate not seen since World War II," WaPo's William Booth, Robyn Dixon and David Stern write. — The unity between the U.S. and Europe is "beginning to show its limits, with differences emerging over how far to press their campaign of economic sanctions," write WSJ's Ian Talley, Laurence Norman and Daniel Michaels . "Points of particular contention center on targeting Russian energy exports and whether new sanctions would inflict job losses and other pain on some European countries, whose trade with Russia dwarfs the U.S.'s, and could incite voter anger at a time of high inflation." — As officials warn about potential Russia cyberattacks, experts are coming around to a hard truth: The U.S. may simply have too many targets to defend them all, Maggie Miller reports. "Inevitably, some attack will break through if an adversary like Russia puts enough resources behind it." — "Seven days in Chernihiv, a Ukrainian city under siege," by WaPo's Kostiantyn Khudov, Mary Ilyushina and Siobhán O'Grady CONGRESS FORTENBERRY RESIGNS — Rep. JEFF FORTENBERRY (R-Neb.) said on Saturday that he will resign his seat in Congress after being convicted of three felonies related to a federal probe of illegal campaign contributions, Olivia Beavers reports . "His decision, which he announced after he returned to his home state, caps a remarkable political fall and came after top House leaders prodded him to end his nine-term career in the lower chamber following the guilty findings Thursday night by a jury in Los Angeles. 'Due to the difficulties of my current circumstances, I can no longer serve you effectively,' Fortenbrry said in a statement." JUDICIARY SQUARE WHAT COMES NEXT? — Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) played into the partisan proceedings that took place at Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearings this week, but he also wonders what the end result will be. And he's not alone: "senior Republicans and Democrats agree with Graham that a judicial confirmation process that is already painfully partisan … could turn even more toxic," writes WaPo's Paul Kane. JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH A NEW ANGLE FOR INVESTIGATORS — GINNI THOMAS' contact with Trump officials on Jan. 6 and the 2020 Election "raises new questions about another figure at the center of Trump's gambit to subvert the 2020 election: attorney JOHN EASTMAN," Kyle Cheney reports. "The revelation that [Justice CLARENCE] THOMAS' wife kept in contact with Trump's chief of staff MARK MEADOWS in the weeks after Trump's defeat — pressing him to keep trying to overturn the election — adds a new wrinkle to the timeline. Rep. JAMIE RASKIN (D-Md.) told POLITICO that the new details raise important questions about whether Eastman had a specific reason to believe Justice Thomas would support his radical gambit, or if he was simply voicing a hunch." THE PANDEMIC COVID IN THE DISTRICT — Despite the D.C. area relaxing many Covid restrictions, "BA.2, the more contagious cousin of the omicron variant that has spread through Europe and other parts of the world, now represents about 30 percent of new infections in the Mid-Atlantic region that includes the District, Maryland and Virginia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's tracker for variants," WaPo's Antonio Olivo, Erin Cox and Rebecca Tan report. AMERICA AND THE WORLD SHIFTING POWERS — "Israel's meeting with top diplomats from four Arab countries and the United States, set to start on Sunday, is one of the strongest signs yet that the country is beginning to reap the dividends of normalization deals reached two years ago, a profound realignment of Middle Eastern powers that has been accelerated by the war in Ukraine," NYT's Patrick Kingsley writes in Jerusalem. PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION LIFE IN THE BIKE LANE — "Meet the Bike Man who brought the trucker convoy to a crawl," by WaPo's Ellie Silverman
| | | | DON'T MISS POLITICO'S INAUGURAL HEALTH CARE SUMMIT ON 3/31: Join POLITICO for a discussion with health care providers, policymakers, federal regulators, patient representatives, and industry leaders to better understand the latest policy and industry solutions in place as we enter year three of the pandemic. Panelists will discuss the latest proposals to overcome long-standing health care challenges in the U.S., such as expanding access to care, affordability, and prescription drug prices. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Sean Penn said he would publicly melt down his Oscar if Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn't invited to speak at the Academy Awards tonight. Herschel Walker, at the Trump rally, said he's sick of school's teaching"CTR" — he meant CRT… QUOTE OF THE DAY — Rep. Madison Cawthorn on his mentorshipwith Newt Gingrich : "I have a lot of zeal. I have a lot of charisma. I've got a lot of aggression .. but I realize at 26 years old, I don't have a lot of wisdom." (h/t Ron Filipkowski) WHITE HOUSE DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Reggie Greer is leaving the White House, where he was a senior adviser on LGBTQ+ engagement, to join the State Department as senior adviser to U.S. LGBTQI+ Special Envoy Jessica Stern. TRANSITIONS — Cassie Chechile is now an associate director for Finsbury Glover Hering's strategic comms team. She most recently was a public affairs director at Vrge Strategies. … Elisabeth Fox is joining the Biotechnology Innovation Organization as director of federal government relations. She previously was a legislative assistant for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). BIRTHWEEK (was Saturday): Nancy Peele of Rep. Sam Graves' (R-Mo.) office HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly … Steve Atkiss … Rob Nabors of the Gates Foundation … Natalie (Buchanan) Joyce of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office … Niki Christoff … Rachel Semmel of the Center for Renewing America … Walt Mossberg … NBC/MSNBC's Jacob Soboroff … Lisa Zhang … CNN's Meredith Artley … Liz Johnson of Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-Utah) office … Billy Moore … The 19th's Shefali Luthra … Alberto Martinez of Targeted Victory … David Mitrani … Whitney Smith of the Aerospace Industries Association … Devex's Stephanie Beasley … Lauren Dikis … Katie Johnson of Jenner & Block … Lane Bailey of the Advocom Group … Laura Driscoll … Edelman's Erin Schwille … Roll Call's John Donnelly … Sally Kohn … Iain Hart of Rep. John Garamendi's (D-Calif.) office … Mara Vandlik … James Park of House Judiciary … Jonathan Beam … POLITICO's Kameryn Stanhouse and Toni DeWitt … Frank Sadler … former Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) … Alex Aragon of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office … Steven Newman (8-0) 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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