| | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | INSIDE THE RETURN OF THE GRIDIRON — New Hampshire Republican Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU stole the show Saturday night at the annual Gridiron Club dinner by saying out loud what most Republicans in Washington *privately* whisper about DONALD TRUMP. "You know, he's probably going to be the next president," Sununu said of Trump, musing about his "experience," "passion," "sense of integrity" and the "rationale" he brought to his tweets. As the room quieted to see where he was going with this, he paused, then yelled: "Nah, I'm just kidding! He's FUCKING CRAZY! " The ballroom roared with laughter. "ARE YOU KIDDING?! Come on. You guys are buying that? I love it … He just stresses me out so much! ... I'm going to deny I ever said it." It didn't stop there: "The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I'll say it this way: I don't think he's so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain't getting out!" It was just the beginning of an evening full of laughs — and, at times, cringes — that had the more than 600 journalists and VIPs in attendance reaching for more wine. For several hours, it was like the pandemic never happened, as D.C.'s high society descended on the Renaissance Hotel downtown for the first Gridiron gathering in three years. If you weren't there, don't worry, we pulled out the choicest tidbits … SUNUNU HITS REPUBLICANS: — On VIRGINIA THOMAS' now-infamous text messages to MARK MEADOWS: "We know she may be extreme, but let's face it: when it comes to texting, she's no ANTHONY WEINER. And you guys thought we forgot about that freakshow." — And TED CRUZ hanging out with the People's Convoy: "Nobody really knows why [the Convoy protesters are] in Washington in the first place — which pretty much describes Ted himself, right? … What is with Ted? You see that beard? … He looks like MEL GIBSON after a DUI or something." — On Trump ally and MyPillow CEO MIKE LINDELL: "This guy's head is stuffed with more crap than his pillows. And by the way, I was told not to say this, but I will: His stuff is crap. I mean, it's absolute crap. You only find that kind of stuff in the Trump Hotel." Sununu also told a story about a time Trump visited him in New Hampshire and invited him to ride inside the presidential limo, The Beast. The then-president suddenly stopped talking and pointed out the window at people lining the road holding American flags, saying, "They LOVE me!" Only problem, said Sununu, was that the man he pointed to held a sign that read, "FUCK TRUMP." JAMIE RASKIN GOES FOR CRAZYTOWN: — On CawthornGate: "I was especially stunned that MADISON CAWTHORN and MATT GAETZ weren't here, because nobody loves a good party more than those guys do. And so, I called Madison up to say, 'What's up, dude?' And it turns out, it was a simple scheduling conflict: The Republicans have their own formal black-tie and white-powder orgy taking place tonight in the Capitol. "But then I thought, well, why was Sen. ROY BLUNT, who's seated at table seven … not invited to this late-night meeting of the Sexual Freedom Caucus? I contacted the GOP Cocaine and Marijuana Study Group, and they explained it was all a BIG misunderstanding: They thought that 'Roy Blunt' was an alias for a local marijuana dealer, and they're having a cocaine-themed event." — Nodding at the allegations against Matt Gaetz: "For those of us who are in Congress … we rent our tuxedos for the very infrequent parties and occasional orgies we get invited to. Look, it's really tough to find a rental tuxedo this time of year: It's high school prom season, and Matt Gaetz keeps getting the tuxedos that I want." — On AMY KLOBUCHAR, who was in attendance, and her reported staffing issues : "Speaking of silverware, tonight, I do have a tiny complaint: No one ever brought me a fork for my pasta. But it worked out OK, because the great Sen. Klobuchar was kind enough to let me use her comb, which she has taken out of the dishwasher earlier today." President JOE BIDEN didn't attend the event, but did send a video, which was played at the top of the night, in which he jokingly thanked Sununu for "helping Democrats keep the Senate." — Explaining why he couldn't make it: "I really wanted to be with you tonight, but the truth is I just couldn't find a 7-hour-and-37-minutes gap in my schedule." Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO got the short end of the stick by having the very last performance slot when the program was already running an hour behind. Though — let's be real — she didn't do herself any favors by speaking slowly and turning to G-rated jokes that had the already-tired crowd snoozing. She did have some good quips about no one knowing who she is or what the heck a Commerce secretary does, as well as Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIEGEG trying to steal her spot as "designated survivor" at the State of the Union so he could finally — maybe, just maybe — get a shot at being president. Her best joke, however, came at the end of the night, when she was one of the last people to leave the after-party. "How is the Commerce secretary the last to leave?!" For more, be sure to check out the "SPOTTED" in Playbookers. Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from The American Beverage Association: At America's beverage companies our plastic bottles are made to be remade. We're carefully designing them to be 100% recyclable — so every bottle can become a new one. That means less plastic waste in our environment. Please help us get Every Bottle Back. EveryBottleBack.org | | | BIDEN WANTED (WANTS?) TRUMP PROSECUTED — The NYT landed a bombshell on Saturday: "As recently as late last year, Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments." That comes from Katie Benner, Katie Rogers and Michael Schmidt's look at the growing frustration among Democrats over A.G. MERRICK GARLAND's "deliberative approach" in the Justice Department's handling of the Jan. 6 investigation. Another key quote from the article: "And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6." The entire situation is a test for both Biden and Garland . "Both men came into office promising to restore the independence and reputation of a Justice Department that Mr. Trump had tried to weaponize for political gain." And it's one with considerable stakes — which makes the situation's thread-the-needle quality all the more daunting.
- If Biden does press for more aggressive treatment of Trump, he risks undermining (1) his own credibility as the president who promised to return the DOJ to its norm of political independence; (2) the credibility of the investigation, which could understandably be seen as politically driven (not unlike how Trump sought to use the department); (3) the apparent sanctity of two unrelated active federal inquiries that involve his children, ASHLEY and HUNTER BIDEN.
- If Biden doesn't press for more aggressive treatment of Trump, he risks further frustrating Democratic voters already upset by a perceived lack of accountability on the part of Trump's inner orbit.
- If Garland gets more aggressive in his treatment of Trump, it might placate Democrats, but it would carry a heavy cost for any possible prosecution. ("The best way to undermine an investigation is to say things out of court," Garland has said.)
- If Garland continues on his current path, he risks cratering Democratic support for his continuing on as A.G. True, this path seems essential if the DOJ wants to win a conviction if any high-profile prosecution results from the investigation, but…
- Consider this: What if the DOJ doesn't prosecute Trump? When JAMES COMEY announced in 2016 that the FBI would not recommend prosecuting HILLARY CLINTON , he held a splashy press conference effectively laying out the case against her before declining to pursue charges. Democrats were apoplectic, calling it a departure from norms to publicly tarnish someone not being prosecuted. But if the DOJ doesn't prosecute Trump, would Dems want Garland to still abide by that norm? Or would they want him to lay out the case against Trump even if he declined to prosecute? What would Garland do? How would the White House handle the reaction? The implications are enormous and complex.
FWIW, here's White House chief of staff RON KLAIN on ABC's "This Week," when asked about the NYT report: "I've never heard the president say that — advocate the prosecution of any person. Look, one reason why Joe Biden got elected was he promised that we'd take the decision over who got prosecuted … away from the White House and put it in the Justice Department. … The president has confidence in the attorney general to make those decisions, and that's where those decisions should be made."
| | | | A message from The American Beverage Association:   America's beverage companies are working together to reduce our industry's plastic footprint by investing in efforts to get our plastic bottles back. Our goal is for every bottle to become a new one, so they don't end up in our oceans, rivers and landfills. EveryBottleback.org | | | SUNDAY BEST … — Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY on CBS' "Face the Nation": "This is genocide. The elimination of the whole nation and the people, we are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities." On considering a meeting with Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN: "I can't even have a meeting when the shelling is going on. So first, the ceasefire. Then we can have a meeting with the Russian president." — White House COS Ron Klain on what Russia is doing, on ABC's "This Week": "I think there's a lot of evidence that Putin is simply taking his troops out of the northern part of the country to redeploy them to the eastern part of the country to relaunch a battle there." — Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN on the post-war future for Ukraine, on CNN's "State of the Union": "When it comes to the future, we and allies and partners are going to want to make sure that we do everything we can to ensure that this can't happen again and that Ukraine has the means to defend itself, to deter for the Russian aggression. So, we will look at anything that we can do to back up that kind of outcome." — Rep. SUSAN DELBENE (D-Wash.) on Biden's executive actions, on "Fox News Sunday": "The president's a legislator, and I think it's important that we legislate if we want long-term, durable policy. First of all, the executive actions are in place for a period of time, and another president can change those. It's Congress' job to put our laws in place." — Sen. ROY BLUNT (R-Mo.) on Judge KETANJI BROWN JACKSON's nomination to the Supreme Court, on "This Week": "I think she's certainly going to be confirmed. I think it'll be a high point for the country to see her go on the court. But I don't think she's the kind of judge that will really do the kind of work that I think needs to be done by the court. And I won't be supporting her, but I'll be joining others and understanding the importance of this moment." More from David Cohen — Hillary Clinton on the state of the Democratic Party, on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I do think hand-wringing is part of the Democratic DNA. That seems to be in style, whether we're in or out of power. We're in power, and there still is hand-wringing going on. … But we've got a great story to tell. And we need to get out there and do a better job of telling it." BIDEN'S SUNDAY — The president has nothing on his public schedule.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL SECURITY DAILY : Keep up with the latest critical developments from Ukraine and across Europe in our daily newsletter, National Security Daily. The Russian invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the established world order and result in a refugee crisis, increased cyberattacks, rising energy costs and additional disruption to global supply chains. Go inside the top national security and foreign-policymaking shops for insight on the global threats faced by the U.S. and its allies and what actions world leaders are taking to address them. Subscribe today. | | | | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
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President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pose for photographs Navy personnel after a commissioning ceremony for USS Delaware in Wilmington, Del., on Saturday, April 2. In remarks, the president said it would bolster national security, while the first lady applauded the families in the crowd. | AP | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | JUDICIARY SQUARE TEEING UP THE VOTE — As the Senate prepares to bring Jackson's Supreme Court nomination up for a final vote this week, it represents "a historic vote that will elevate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court but also highlight just how partisan high-court nominations have become in recent years," WSJ's Lindsay Wise writes. "The Senate may have entered an era 'where the only way to confirm a Supreme Court nominee is the party of the president has to be in control of the Senate,' [North Dakota GOP Sen. KEVIN] CRAMER said. 'And I'm pretty certain that the founders didn't have that in mind.' "In an interview, [Maine GOP Sen. SUSAN] COLLINS said recent confirmations show the process is broken. She said the reason, in part, is that senators of both parties have moved away from their constitutional assignment to evaluate a nominee's experience and qualifications. Instead, they want the nominee's ideology to mirror their own beliefs." — But hopes for more bipartisan support aren't totally dead. Dems already have Collins' backing, and are watching Sen. MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah) closely, WaPo's Seung Min Kim writes. "In deliberating on Jackson's nomination, Romney has made it clear he is unpersuaded by arguments that have swayed his fellow Republicans. Many GOP senators have coalesced behind the view that Jackson, as a trial court judge, was too lenient in sentencing child pornography offenders, although experts have said Jackson's record was in line with the norm. Romney has said GOP senators' aggressive questions on that subject were 'off course' and that there was 'no "there" there.'" ALL POLITICS ON WISCONSIN — Wisconsin Democrats built their state party up from wreckage into a formidable machine during former GOP Gov. SCOTT WALKER's years. Now, Dems are test-driving their strength in the state's spring elections ahead of their tough midterm assignment: Keeping the state blue. "[ TONY] EVERS, a Democratic governor whose authority includes certifying elections, is up for another term in 2022. GOP Sen. RON JOHNSON , who has amplified disinformation around the 2020 election and the coronavirus pandemic, will be on the ballot, too. … But while public polling shows Evers remains marginally popular and Johnson's personal numbers aren't great, it's all playing out against Biden's sagging approval ratings, sky-high gas prices and historical data that strikes against Democrats, as the party in power," Elena Schneider reports from Milwaukee. PALIN PULLS A FAST ONE — SARAH PALIN's decision to get into a race for the late Alaska Rep. DON YOUNG's House seat "caught Republicans off guard — including in Palin's home state," David Siders reports . "Palin's campaign announcement came together so quickly she is still assembling a team, according to a Republican strategist familiar with the effort. But she is being advised by MICHAEL GLASSNER, a longtime political strategist who was a top aide to Palin on then-Sen. JOHN MCCAIN'S presidential campaign in 2008, according to two Republicans familiar with the campaign."
| | | | A message from The American Beverage Association:   Our plastic bottles are made to be remade. Help us get Every Bottle Back. EveryBottleBack.org | | | WAR IN UKRAINE LATEST ON THE GROUND … — "The Russian forces that were intent on overwhelming Kyiv at the war's start with tanks and artillery retreated under fire across a broad front on Saturday, leaving behind them dead soldiers and burned vehicles, according to witnesses, Ukrainian officials, satellite images and military analysts," NYT's Andrew Kramer and Neil MacFarquhar report from Bucha, Ukraine . "The withdrawal suggested the possibility of a major turn in the six-week war — the collapse, at least for now, of Russia's initial attempt to seize Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and the end of its hopes for the quick subjugation of the nation." — "A Lithuanian documentary filmmaker has been killed in the besieged southern city of Mariupol, according to his colleagues and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's information agency. The agency said on Sunday that the award-winning filmmaker, MANTAS KVEDARAVICIUS, had been killed in an attack by Russia "while trying to leave Mariupol,'" NYT's Cora Engelbrecht reports. — "Ukrainians Count Dead, Dig Mass Graves, Clear Land Mines After Russian Pullback," by WSJ's Brett Forrest and Isabel Coles in Bucha Meanwhile, WaPo's Kevin Sieff reports that Ukrainian refugees are already gathering on the U.S.-Mexico border. REACTION IN THE WEST … — Despite thoughts that Russia's war in Ukraine would reach its conclusion sooner, Biden officials are preparing for the long haul. "The stunning stalemate has led to an inflection point in the conflict. Though officials are not giving out hope for a possible negotiated effort to end the war, President Joe Biden's administration has expressed deep skepticism that Russian President Vladimir Putin harbors any intent of reducing the violence. Instead, there is a growing belief among U.S. officials that it may need to hold together its Western alliance — and prepare its citizens — for a war that could last for the foreseeable future," Jonathan Lemire and Alexander Ward report. "The growing concern is that Putin has something the Western alliance lacks: time. The Russian president has the political leeway to tolerate setbacks and absorb a prolonged, bloody engagement." FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — American Federation of Teachers President RANDI WEINGARTEN touched down at Poland's border with Ukraine this morning as the first U.S. union official to visit the conflict-torn region, our colleague Eleanor Mueller reports. Weingarten, who coordinated the trip with Polish teachers union ZNP, plans to visit schools and meet with teachers in Warsaw and Berdyszcze. AFT has raised $100,000 for ZNP, the Ukrainian teachers union VPONU and other union-allied groups in the area; Weingarten will distribute the funds, along with books and other educational materials, on Monday. Weingarten told Eleanor that the purpose of this trip is to "lift up that humanitarian and the education work that's being done, teacher to teacher, union to union and across the Ukrainian Polish border." ZNP is housing more than 100 Ukrainian refugee orphans and unaccompanied minors in its conference center and has converted offices into temporary homes for women and children. Weingarten said she hopes her visit can also serve as "a fact-finding mission to help understand how we continue to support and assist kids and teachers and communities whose lives have been completely torn apart." She will brief the Biden administration, as well as AFL-CIO and others, when she returns to D.C. THE WHITE HOUSE PSAKI BOMB — Following reports that JEN PSAKI is planning to decamp from the White House for MSNBC, Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich reported on "The Fox News Rundown" podcast that MSNBC and CNN had a bidding war to land Psaki. She said the press secretary will leave sometime this spring. CONGRESS COMING THIS WEEK — "Senators are looking to close a deal this coming week to reappropriate roughly $10 billion to pay for Covid-19 treatments and vaccines, with lawmakers saying they need to act quickly ahead of a possible resurgence of the pandemic," WSJ's Natalie Andrews and Sabrina Siddiqui write . "Negotiators are looking at pandemic-related funds that Congress has previously passed that remain unspent, after Republicans resisted new outlays and many Democrats rejected a previous deal involving $15.6 billion in repurposed funding. In the current round of talks, instead of looking at money originally allocated to states and localities, lawmakers are looking at other Covid relief dollars."
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the Gridiron Club dinner at the Renaissance Hotel on Saturday night: A.G. Merrick Garland, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman, John Kerry, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Anthony Fauci, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel , Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse and White House press secretary Jen Psaki, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse, White House staff secretary Neera Tanden, Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Jamie Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Michigan Democrats Debbie Dingell, Dan Kildee and Brenda Lawrence, Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Elaine Luria (D-Va.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Emmitt Smith, Garry Trudeau and Jane Pauley, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Ron Chernow, Michael Beschloss, Liz Shuler, James Farley, Dave Calhoun, Susan Fox, Charles Rivkin, former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Fred Ryan Jr., Donald Graham, Kevin Merida, Cesar Conde, Chris Licht, Jeff Dufour and Kevin Turpin. — SPOTTED II: John Kerry driving an electric scooter through Georgetown on Saturday. (Kerry confirmed this to Eugene at the Gridiron Dinner, enthusing that the mode of transit is "the only way to get anywhere.") … New York City Mayor Eric Adams at the White House on Saturday. He later tweeted that he met with White House COS Ron Klain. — SPOTTED III: At New Democracy's conference bringing together what they billed as the next generation of the center-left Friday at the Long View Gallery: Reps. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) appearing virtually, Oregon state Treasurer Tobias Read, Virginia state Sen. Chap Petersen, New Mexico state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill, Arizona state Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, Will Marshall, Elaine Kamarck and William Galston. TRANSITIONS — Paul S. Ryan is now deputy executive director of the Funders' Committee for Civic Participation. He previously was VP for policy and litigation at Common Cause. … Josie Gibbens will be a trade and political compliance manager at PwC. She previously was a senior public policy specialist at Akin Gump. WEEKEND WEDDING — Brent DelMonte, co-head of BGR's health and life sciences practice, and Aiken Hackett, a senior director at BIO, got married on Saturday in Florence, S.C., at Aiken's family's home. SPOTTED: Jordan Layson, Maya Seiden, Robb Walton, Remy Brim, Bob Wood, Dan Farmer, Alice Perry, Ashlee Moorhouse, Aaron and Kerry Cohen, Michael Calvo, Adam Buckalew, Molly Harper, Anne Esposito, John Stone, Mike Mattoon, Billy O'Brien, Stephen Mason, John Martin, Taylor Gross, Ryan and Erika Long, Pete Stehauwer, Colleen Maloney, Natalie Burkhalter and Tricia Brooks. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NYT's Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns … Susannah Wellford of Running Start … Jeff Forbes … Chanse Jones … Russ Newell of UnitedHealth Group … Hope Goins of the House Homeland Security Democrats … Fox News' Lacey Christ … NBC's Greg Martin … Ed Cash of Frontier Security Strategies … Greg Honan … Savannah Lane … Troy McCurry of the Pew Charitable Trusts … Keith Norman … POLITICO's Goli Sheikholeslami and Katherine Landergan … Eliot Cohen … Mario Ruiz … Brian Zuzenak 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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