| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade | | | With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
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The plan to contest elections has been discussed for months by prominent Trump loyalists. Steve Bannon has called it the "precinct strategy," and Donald Trump himself recently endorsed it. | Scott Sonner, File/AP Photo | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | INSIDE THE RNC'S ELECTION DAY 'ARMY' — Heidi Przybyla has an enormously important and carefully reported article for POLITICO that just went live: "'It's going to be an army': Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections" Przybyla obtained video recordings of GOP operatives assembling a disturbing multipronged network of party loyalists that could cause chaos on Election Day. She documents evidence of four different networks being created: 1. Poll workers steeped in 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories who are being trained to contest votes, especially in Democrat-heavy areas. 2. GOP lawyers who the poll workers can quickly connect with to document alleged voter fraud. 3. "Party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts." 4. "Installing party loyalists on the Board of Canvassers, which is responsible for certifying the election, also appears to be part of the GOP strategy." You don't have to be an expert on election administration to understand the havoc that this attempted partisan takeover of vote-counting and certifying could create. "This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together," NICK PENNIMAN, founder and CEO of Issue One, an election watchdog group, told Przybyla. "It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself, and that should concern everyone." More: "Both Penniman and RICK HASEN, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said they see a domino effect that could sow doubts about the election even when there was no original infraction: A politically motivated poll worker connecting with a zealous local lawyer to disrupt voting, followed by a challenge to the Board of Canvassers that may have nothing to do with the underlying dispute but merely the level of disruption at the polling place. "'You shouldn't have poll workers who are reporting to political organizations what they see,' Hasen said. 'It creates the potential for mucking things up at polling places and potentially leading to delays or disenfranchisement of voters,' especially 'if [the poll workers] come in with the attitude that something is crooked with how elections are run.'" A version of this plan has been discussed for months by prominent Trump loyalists. STEVE BANNON has called it the "precinct strategy," and DONALD TRUMP himself recently endorsed it. But Przybyla's report is the most detailed inside account we've seen of how the plan is being implemented on the ground.
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Learn more about our work ahead. | | | Combine this reporting with a few other new developments, and a grim picture of an Election Day tainted by lack of confidence in the results begins to emerge: — CNN's Fredreka Schouten reported Tuesday on efforts in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona to discredit the use of voting machines: "These pockets of resistance to voting machines mark another attempt by Republicans sold on former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud to transform how US elections are run. So far, most efforts have been thwarted at the state level. But critics warn that the moves, if successful in just a handful of localities, would result in delays and chaos and potentially open the door to election subversion efforts." — Trump continues to discredit elections of all kinds. On Saturday in Casper, Wyo., he started reading a plea to supporters of congressional candidate HARRIET HAGEMAN to take advantage of absentee voting. He quickly caught himself, and instead delivered an attack on absentee voting in general. "The primary is Tuesday, Aug. 16," he said. "But absentee voting — oh, I hate to use that term. We should have one-day voting with paper." He added, "If we've learned one thing from Trump, it's that our elections are seriously flawed." On Tuesday, Trump elevated a nonsense conspiracy theory that the Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia was tainted by fraud. — On Friday in Pennsylvania, MEHMET OZ , with Trump's prodding, declared himself the presumptive winner of the Senate GOP primary despite the beginning of a statewide recount. The chaos is probably the point of all of this, Penniman tells Przybyla. She writes that Penniman "believes the strategy is designed to create enough disputes to justify intervention by GOP-controlled state legislatures, who declined to take such steps in 2020." "Come Election Day, you create massive failure of certification" in Democratic precincts, he told her. "The real hope is that you can throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures."
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | Good Wednesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels , Ryan Lizza. TOP-ED — Another day, another attention-grabbing op-ed from the president himself in a major news outlet. This time, Biden is in the NYT laying out his approach on the war in Ukraine. In addition to announcing that the U.S. will send advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, as several outlets have been reporting for days, Biden makes a couple of standpoints clear: (1) He says the U.S. won't pressure Ukraine to give up any territory in negotiations. And, (2) perhaps contrary to Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN's public statements this spring, Biden notes that "[w]e do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia," and the U.S. won't seek Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN's ouster. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — As the Biden administration kicks off its new monthlong economic campaign to "communicate on our accomplishments to date on the economy," VP KAMALA HARRIS is headed to Reno, Nev., on Friday to outline the White House's plan to tackle inflation and what the administration has already done on the economy. She'll be addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 90th annual meeting. Harris will also hold an event in Los Angeles next week that also focuses on the economy. The administration is dispatching multiple senior officials across the country for the effort. BIDEN'S WEDNESDAY: — 9:30 a.m.: The president will receive the President's Daily Brief. — 11 a.m.: Biden will go to Coast Guard headquarters for the ceremony where Adm. LINDA FAGAN will take over as the branch's commandant, the first female service chief in U.S. history. — 2:30 p.m.: Biden will meet virtually with officials and baby formula manufacturers to discuss efforts to ameliorate the shortage. HARRIS' WEDNESDAY — The VP will speak at 11:45 a.m. "to announce the White House's plan to elevate water security as a foreign policy priority." Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE will brief at 3:30 p.m. THE HOUSE and THE SENATE are out.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre welcomes members of the South Korean pop group BTS to the daily press briefing on Tuesday, May 31. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | UVALDE FALLOUT LATEST HILL NEGOTIATIONS — Senate negotiators projected some optimism Tuesday about the prospects for a narrow bipartisan deal on new gun legislation, WSJ's Eliza Collins and Natalie Andrews report. "This feels different," Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) said. "The partners we're talking to sound sincere right now." Murphy's Zoom included Sens. JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas), KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) and THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.), and they're not the only bipartisan group meeting this week. Cornyn called the talks "very constructive" and said staffers would continue working together. — Sens. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) and RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-Conn.) are making progress in talks about "red flag" legislation, CBS' Bob Costa reports . "In recent days, the two have been having frequent phone calls and have been working closely together to review a 'red flag' bill they co-sponsored in 2019, making revisions that they believe can enable a similar, tweaked proposal to win wide support in the divided Senate." Related read: "Weary and doubting, gun safety activists try to trust the Senate," by Sarah Ferris — Biden said he'd meet with Congress on guns, amid his bilateral with New Zealand PM JACINDA ARDERN. More from The Hill THE POLITICAL REALITY — "How the gun debate will be won or lost in the suburbs," by Adam Wren THE INVESTIGATIONS — The Uvalde police and school police have stopped cooperating with the state Department of Public Safety's probe into the police response to the school mass shooting, ABC's Josh Margolin and Aaron Katersky report. That move followed shortly after the DPS head criticized the police's decision-making. THE WHITE HOUSE INFLATION NATION — WaPo's Tyler Pager and Jeff Stein have some of the backstory on Biden's WSJ op-ed and new public push on inflation: Biden has "complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain" high prices or "confront the problem directly." — And gas prices are obsessing the White House, with chief of staff RON KLAIN checking where the pain at the pump stands daily, Adam Cancryn reports. While admin officials have cycled through different ideas to reduce gas prices, "each option comes with complicated tradeoffs and drawbacks that could prove politically painful and may not guarantee to make a dent." — The Biden administration is fighting with corporate execs over who gets the blame for inflation, Ben White reports this morning. Some Democrats are ramping up their rhetoric about private sector greed causing high prices and other economic woes, while "some top executives, especially in the banking sector, are now complaining that while Biden pays lip service to caring about their views on how to fix things, he doesn't actually listen to them or solicit their input." — Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she "was wrong [last year] about the path that inflation would take." CONGRESS COVID AID LATEST — Back to the drawing board: The stalled $10 billion Covid aid deal may fall apart even further because many of its pay-fors have now been tapped, Jordain Carney reports in Congress Minutes. And Senate Democrats don't appear willing to take the lead on trying again: "It's up to [ NANCY] PELOSI and [MITCH] MCCONNELL now," one aide says. (Reminder: The administration says the U.S. won't be able to handle future Covid waves without more funding.) DREAMING OF 2023 — The Heritage Foundation, the Conservative Partnership Institute and the American Accountability Foundation held a retreat last month with senior GOP Hill staffers to plan how they'll investigate the Biden administration (and Big Tech companies) if Republicans retake the House this fall, Axios' Lachlan Markay reports.
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | ALL POLITICS SIREN FOR DEMS — Democratic former Rep. FILEMON VELA's South Texas seat could flip to Republicans in a special election this summer, with the national GOP pouring money in to back MAYRA FLORES as the DCCC focuses instead on November, Ally Mutnick reports this morning. Nearby Democratic Rep. VICENTE GONZALEZ is warning of a "self-inflicted tragedy." The choice for Dems, per Ally: "Democrats can either pour money in to protect a battleground seat that will not exist in January, once redistricting goes into effect — or they risk handing the GOP tangible proof of their ascendancy" in the Rio Grande Valley. REDISTRICTING ROUNDUP — New Hampshire became the final state in the nation to nail down its new congressional map (pending litigation elsewhere), as the state Supreme Court went with an expert's boundaries rather than those state politicians had tussled over. The new map changes little from the status quo, leaving both districts as likely swing seats. More from the New Hampshire Union Leader LOOK WHO'S BACK — House Dems' lead counsel in Trump's first impeachment, DAN GOLDMAN, is expected to run for Congress in a competitive NYC primary that already includes Rep. MONDAIRE JONES, former Mayor BILL DE BLASIO and other big names, Axios' Hans Nichols and Jonathan Swan report. POLL OF THE DAY — J.D. VANCE is up by 3 points over Rep. TIM RYAN in the Ohio Senate race, a new USA Today/Suffolk University poll finds, per the Cincinnati Enquirer. Though the 42%-39% lead is within the margin of error, don't expect Democrats to get too excited: WaPo's Paul Kane has a reality check that the DSCC isn't likely to go after "reach" seats like Ohio this year. WAR IN UKRAINE INSIDE THE ADMIN — Biden officials are divided over whether to get on board with some countries' push to seize Russian central bank assets and send the resulting $300 billion or more to Ukraine, NYT's Alan Rappeport and David Sanger report. While U.S. leaders agree it would be "satisfying and warranted" to do so, Yellen and others have worried that "the precedent it would set — and its potential effect on the United States' status as the world's safest place to leave assets — was a deep concern." WORTH YOUR TIME — In Foreign Affairs, Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman write that Putin is caught between a massive mobilization, which he would need to make major advances but is unwilling to commit, and a retreat, which he can't do either. They argue that the Biden administration should refrain from looking like it's meddling with Russian internal politics, instead deploying "a light touch" and "caution" to do no harm, expressing goodwill toward the Russian people, and tapping into the Russian diaspora. JUDICIARY SQUARE BIG TECH VICTORY — The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a controversial Texas law that sought to prevent social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from censoring or eliminating posts based on political views. In a major victory for tech companies, the high court voted 5-4 to put the legislation on hold while lower courts debate whether it's a legal breach of the First Amendment. The ideologically unusual vote aligned Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS and Justices BRETT KAVANAUGH, AMY CONEY BARRETT, SONIA SOTOMAYOR and STEPHEN BREYER, while liberal ELENA KAGAN and conservatives CLARENCE THOMAS, SAMUEL ALITO and NEIL GORSUCH dissented. More from SCOTUSblog YOU BETCHA — A judge on Tuesday dismissed SARAH PALIN's attempt to seek a new libel trial against the NYT after she lost in court earlier this year. More from the AP JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH THE VIEW FROM THE RNC — In Vox, Ben Jacobs scoops that an internal RNC document lays out the party's messaging strategy for handling the House Jan. 6 committee, which centers on calling the (bipartisan) panel "partisan" yet "also taking care not to be seen as explicitly speaking on behalf of Trump or embracing his lies about the 2020 election's legitimacy."
| | | | DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Jesse Ventura is launching a Substack. "No more strings attached, no more corporate sponsors, or anonymous network suits worried about looking good at DC cocktail parties," he writes in his first post today. "Here it will just be me, uncut, unfiltered and unleashed." Doug Emhoff reflected on his experience as a Jewish second gentleman, saying that "I did not expect my Jewish faith to be such a big deal in this role." Kellyanne Conway would love to go back to the White House: "I would definitely serve the country again." Muriel Bowser said she likes "Lemon Drops in the summer and Manhattans in the winter." Herschel Walker said he was "mad" at Donald Trump for never actually asking him to run for Senate. Oprah is raising money for Wes Moore's Maryland gubernatorial campaign. The new season of the "Slow Burn" podcast premieres today, with Susan Matthews telling the stories of the path to Roe v. Wade, and the very different political landscape surrounding abortion in the 1970s. Over a quarter-million people watched Tuesday's White House press briefing with K-pop group BTS. The "Butter" singers visited the White House to discuss anti-Asian prejudice. OUT AND ABOUT — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) headlined a Swing Left fundraiser Tuesday evening at Betsy Morgan's NYC home. The event included remarks from Swing Left co-founder/president Ethan Todras-Whitehill on the ways that grassroots volunteers and donors in blue areas can still have an impact in competitive midterms elections. SPOTTED: Willow Becker, Trigg Brown, Sabrina Gates, Jamie Greenberg, Josh Zizmor and Joie Jager-Hyman, David and Stacy Kramer, Hildy Kuryk, Patrick Martins, Michael Mayer, Maura Minsky, Marilyn Minter, Liv Prestandrea, Sabrina Lucia Rezzy and Adam Blackwell. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Sara Pearl Kenigsberg is joining progressive production company HardPin to be supervising producer-political, leading their political client work. She most recently was content director for Farm Sanctuary, and is a Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders campaign and MoveOn alum. WHITE HOUSE DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Vedant Patel is heading to the State Department as a spokesman, per the L.A. Times' Courtney Subramanian. He currently is an assistant White House press secretary. TREASURY DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Kimberly Clausing, deputy assistant Treasury secretary of tax analysis, is leaving her role, Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs scoops: "She pushed to overhaul corporate taxes in US and abroad; plans that've stalled. … Her likely replacement is" Greg Leiserson from the CEA. STAFFING UP — Josh Cohen has been named speechwriter and senior adviser to Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of State for political affairs. He most recently has been chief of staff to Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.). TRANSITIONS — Rational 360 is adding Rob Van Raaphorst as SVP and Jake Wilkins as senior director. Van Raaphorst most recently was VP of comms at the Mortgage Bankers Association. Wilkins most recently was comms director for Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-Wis.) reelect, and is a Kevin Cramer alum. … Courtney Alexander is now a strategic media adviser at Republican Main Street Partnership. She most recently was VP of public affairs at the Strategy Group Company, and is a Congressional Leadership Fund/American Action Network alum. … Chris Holt is now VP of policy at the Alliance for Health Policy. He previously was director of health care policy at the American Action Forum. … … Patrick Malone is joining Amazon's public relations team, working mainly on global humanitarian relief and disaster response efforts. He previously was deputy chief of staff and comms director for Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), and is an Earl Blumenaeur alum. … Drew Pusateri is joining Cruise, GM's autonomous vehicle subsidiary, as director of trust and safety and strategic comms. He most recently was a policy comms manager on Meta's strategic response comms team, and is a Claire McCaskill and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs alum. … Angela Ryan is now director of operations and scheduling for Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). She previously had that role for Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.). ENGAGED — Delece Smith-Barrow, education editor at POLITICO, and Sean Bland , director of alumni engagement, partnerships and events at Morehouse College, got engaged over the weekend during a walk at the National Arboretum on their one-year anniversary. Sean pretended he had a rock in his shoe so he could bend down and get on one knee and pop the question. Pic … Another pic — Ben Block, a senior adviser at the DCCC, and Dana Sherman, a senior business intelligence analyst at Risk Assistance Network + Exchange, got engaged Monday in Tel Aviv, Israel. The two were introduced by a mutual friend in D.C. Pic … Another pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Joel Bailey, a VP at BGR Group, and Jennifer Pike Bailey, a senior public policy advocate at Human Rights Campaign, on Sunday welcomed Luca Thomas Bailey, who came in at 7 lbs, 14 oz. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) … Addisu Demissie … Alex Stoddard … FT's Ed Luce … CBS' Olivia Gazis … NBC's Alex Seitz-Wald … McCain Institute's Mark Green … Lizzy Peluso … AP's Bill Barrow … Richard Sant of Lockheed Martin … Karen Tramontano … Leslie Harris … Coinbase's Sasha Moss … USCCR's Irena Vidulović … State's Monica Millman … The Spectator's Amber Athey (28) … former Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) … Sean Kennedy of the National Restaurant Association … Advoc8's Jeremy Rose … Matt Winkler … Melissa Hockstad … Jim Innocenzi … Diane Zeleny … Christopher Minakowski … Percipient Strategies' Tyler Ross … Terrance Green … Suzanne Merkelson … DNC's Jose Nunez … Constance Boozer … Dan Bartlett of Walmart … Good Food Institute's Ilya Sheyman … Kay Coles James … Genny Nicholas Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine. Correction: Tuesday's Playbook listed out-of-date job information for Charlie Meisch. He is now director of public affairs for NTIA.
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