| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels | | | With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
| 
Liz Cheney lost her seat but gained something else: She is now the undisputed leader of the Trump opposition. | Alex Wong/Getty Images | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | SCOOP: CHENEY'S NEXT MOVE — Rep. LIZ CHENEY is wasting no time beginning the next phase of her bid to prevent DONALD TRUMP's return to office. "In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president," Cheney spokesperson JEREMY ADLER tells Playbook exclusively. The new group, which will serve as Cheney's primary political vehicle as she considers whether to run for president in 2024, does not have an official name yet. An informed guess: The Great Task, which was the name of Cheney's final ad of the campaign. The phrase is from the last sentence of the Gettysburg Address, and Cheney also referenced it in her concession speech from Jackson, Wyo., last night. Cheney will be on NBC's "Today Show" at 7 a.m.
| 
| WHAT SHE LOST VS. WHAT SHE GAINED — Cheney lost her seat but gained something else: She is now the undisputed leader of the Trump opposition. The competition wasn't very stiff. Top Democrats, including President JOE BIDEN, are still hesitant to focus exclusively on Trump, despite believing that he represents a unique threat to American democracy. Never Trump Republicans, like former Ohio Gov. JOHN KASICH, have struggled to remain relevant out of office when their main platform is a cable news panel. Trump's potential 2024 challengers, like Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS, are content emulating the former president but are too afraid to directly criticize him. (Only former New Jersey Gov. CHRIS CHRISTIE saw a political opportunity in the fact that his party's presidential frontrunner is in the middle of an Espionage Act criminal investigation.) GOP critics of Trump, like South Dakota Rep. DUSTY JOHNSON, who survived primaries this year did so by downplaying their anti-Trumpism. ("Don't run away from the electorate," Johnson told us in June.) Cheney has stepped into this anti-Trump vacuum. First, with her prominence and aggressiveness on the Jan. 6 committee, where she has reliably taken the most hawkish positions on process debates about the investigation (Subpoena KEVIN MCCARTHY? Yes! ) and how hard to lean into accusations of lawbreaking by Trump (Criminal referrals to DOJ? Hell yes! ). Then, by leveraging the national attention that her Wyoming primary received. She raised nearly $14 million for the race — and didn't spend much of it. When we were reporting in Wyoming earlier this year, there were glimmers of the campaign she might have run, one in which she downplayed Trump (like Johnson did in South Dakota) and emphasized local issues and her popular family name. (The high school stadium in Casper, where her parents DICK and LYNNE grew up, is named Cheney Field.)
| 
Cheney speaks at Mead Ranch in Jackson, Wyo. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo | Early on, Cheney's aides war-gamed a race with a large field of MAGA candidates who divided the anti-Cheney vote. In that scenario, and with the assistance of a surge of Democratic party-switchers voting in the primary, the nearly 30% of the vote that Cheney received on Tuesday might have been enough. But once Trump and McCarthy coalesced around HARRIET HAGEMAN, that path to victory for Cheney was blocked. Even long-serving political consultants abandoned her in the face of the party diktat: Alex Isenstadt reports that Majority Strategies, Cheney's direct mail firm, refused to work for her. "House Republicans and other GOP leaders made it very clear who they were supporting," BRETT BUERCK, the firm's CEO, told Alex. "We've been in business for nearly 30 years and have historically supported candidates backed by leadership. This cycle is no different for us." Cheney believed her only alternative was capitulation. "Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote," she said last night. "I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would've required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would've required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take." Read a transcript of the speech Instead, Cheney went all-in on warning about Trump and defining herself by her work on the Jan. 6 committee — issues Wyoming Republicans didn't want to hear about — turning her reelection into what looked like a kamikaze mission. There are two ways to look at what Cheney has done in sacrificing her House seat to maintain her impeccable anti-Trump credentials. It can be seen as an act that was principled to a fault in which the thing that was lost — elected office — is what was most valuable to her politically. Many candidates before her have run campaigns of convenience and hypocrisy because they believed surviving to serve in office justified it. And many of them are remembered for what they did after Election Day, not before it. If Cheney had found some clever ways to cut a few corners and rein in her antipathy to Trump on her way to defeating his protege, would anyone have condemned her for longer than an afternoon Twitter cycle? But the other way to look at it is that Cheney calculated that a national platform and massive fundraising base built around her fearless and uncompromising opposition to Trump is far more politically valuable than serving in Kevin McCarthy's House majority. It is a more modern way of understanding political power in which attention is the coin of the realm. The market for a compelling foil to Trump is enormous. With Republicans cowed into silence by him, and Democrats guided by strategists who are ambivalent about nationalizing the midterms around him, Cheney has the Trump-hating — and Trump-addicted — slice of the attention economy all to herself. She clearly intends to use it. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, doing hardship duty from Jackson, notes that James Goldston, the former TV news executive who produced the Jan. 6 hearings, was at Cheney's campaign event in Jackson with a film crew. So rather than a kamikaze mission, her primary loss may have been more like parachuting out of a plane that had outlived its usefulness. Her great task now is figuring out where to land. While many analysts scoff at the idea of a Cheney presidential run, David Siders reminds us again of what can happen in a big field. "In a presidential election decided at the margins, that" — Cheney's roughly 30% of the GOP primary vote — "might be enough in some swing states to keep Trump out of the White House," he writes. "Not enough for Cheney to win, but enough to drag him down." "That," Republican strategist MIKE MADRID tells Siders, "is the best way to stop him from becoming president." Related reads: "2024 preview? Cheney telegraphs her next shot at Trump," by Olivia Beavers … "Cheney chides Trump in her defeat, vowing to continue her fight," by Myah Ward and Olivia Beavers … analysis by WaPo's Philip Bump: "Liz Cheney's loss is suddenly an afterthought in the GOP embrace of Trump" Latest results: Alaska statewide and Alaska special election … Wyoming statewide and Wyoming at-large Good Wednesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | A message from Facebook: Facebook is taking action to keep its platform safe
Over 40 million people use Facebook Privacy Checkup each month. That's nearly 60 times the population of Washington, D.C. That's just one example of the work we're doing to create safer connections.
Learn more about our work ahead. | | | SURVEY SAYS — The latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll has some new numbers on Inflation Reduction Act — looking at the popularity of some of its individual components:
| 
| — Placing caps on prescription drug price increases: Somewhat or strongly support: 76%; somewhat or strongly oppose: 13%. Net: +63 — Allowing Medicare to negotiate some prescription drug prices: Support: 73%; oppose: 13%. Net: +60 — Reducing the federal budget deficit by $300 billion: Support: 72%; oppose: 11%. Net: +61 — Limiting annual out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries to $2,000: Support: 72%; oppose: 15%. Net: +57 — Putting a 15% corporate tax minimum on companies that have usually paid little, if any, taxes: Support: 61%; oppose: 24%. Net: +37 — Providing $60 billion in incentives for clean energy manufacturing in the U.S.: Support: 59%; oppose: 28%. Net: +31 — Investing $369 billion in climate and energy programs over the next 10 years: Support: 54%; oppose: 33%. Net support: +21 — Giving $80 billion to the IRS to improve its ability to investigate and recover unpaid taxes: Support: 40%; oppose: 46%. Net: -6 We'll have more in Playbook PM, but in the meantime: Crosstabs … Toplines
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | | | BIDEN'S WEDNESDAY: The president has nothing on his public schedule.
VP KAMALA HARRIS' WEDNESDAY: The VP has nothing on her public schedule.
THE SENATE and THE HOUSE are out. | | | | | | 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. | | | | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
| 
President Joe Biden hands the pen he used to sign the Democrats' climate change and health care bill to Sen. Joe Manchin on Tuesday, Aug. 16. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | MAR-A-LAGO FALLOUT HOW WE GOT HERE — Our colleagues Daniel Lippman, Meridith McGraw and Jonathan Lemire reconstruct Trump's final days in the White House and the frantic exit that led to an FBI search of the former president's Mar-a-Lago compound. "It was part free-for-all, part fire sale. Souvenirs were kept, records were indiscriminately thrown away," they report. "Many staffers seemed more interested in securing copies of "jumbos" — the giant photos that adorned the West Wing's walls — than sorting and packing up their files. Those who stayed focused on juggling the operational demands of running a country with the political whims of a president who, until just days before, was trying to cling to power. There was, simply, not much care for protocol." INSIDE TRUMP WORLD — As he faces a cascade of legal action, Trump and his team are seeking out the best legal aid they can muster. Just one problem: "the answer they keep hearing is 'no,'" WaPo's Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, Carol Leonnig, Jacqueline Alemany and Rosalind Helderman report . "Longtime confidants and advisers of Trump have grown extremely worried about Trump's current stable of lawyers, noting that most of them have little to no experience in cases of this type, according to two people familiar with the internal discussions." What they're signing up for: "One lawyer told a story from early in Trump's presidency of his legal team urging him against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he'd tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway. Several people said Trump was nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear if they would ever get paid." FBI TALKED TO TRUMP LAWYERS — The FBI interviewed Trump lawyers PAT CIPOLLONE and PATRICK PHILBIN regarding the documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago, NYT's Maggie Haberman reports. "Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Philbin are the most senior people who worked for Mr. Trump who are known to have been interviewed by investigators after the National Archives referred the matter to the Justice Department this year," Haberman writes. POLITICAL VIOLENCE WATCH — AP's David Klepper asks a chilling question given the uptick of political-related violence and threats in the wake of just a search at Mar-a-Lago: "What might happen in the event of arrests or indictments?" CONGRESS GATES-KEEPING — Bloomberg's Akshat Rathi and Jennifer Dlouhy have the remarkable story about how BILL GATES covertly influenced and helped shepherd Dems' on-again-off-again reconciliation bill into law — including a detail about a call the multibillionaire shared with Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER in July as negotiations with Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) hit a roadblock. "One of the world's richest men felt he had to give one of the nation's most powerful lawmakers a little pep talk. '[Schumer] said to me on one call that he'd shown infinite patience,' Gates recounted in an interview last week, describing for the first time his personal effort to keep climate legislation alive. 'You're right,' Gates told Schumer. 'And all you need to do is show infinite plus one patience.' "Gates was banking on more than just his trademark optimism about addressing climate change and other seemingly intractable problems that have been his focus since stepping down as Microsoft's chief executive two decades ago. As he revealed to Bloomberg Green, he has quietly lobbied Manchin and other senators, starting before President Joe Biden had won the White House, in anticipation of a rare moment in which heavy federal spending might be secured for the clean-energy transition." FOR YOUR RADAR — "AP, Texas Tribune and other newsrooms ask court to unseal Henry Cuellar search warrant," by the Texas Tribune's Matthew Choi THE WHITE HOUSE ANALYZE THIS — The NYT's White House team has a pair of sharp analysis pieces riffing off Biden's big IRA signing ceremony on Tuesday: — Regarding the meat of the bill, NYT's Jim Tankersley writes that although Biden signed a major piece of his agenda into law on Tuesday, "there is little dispute that Mr. Biden has been unable to persuade lawmakers to go along with one of his biggest economic goals: investing in workers, families, students and other people. Both parts of the equation — modernizing the physical backbone of the economy and empowering its workers — are crucial for Mr. Biden's vision for how a more assertive federal government can speed economic growth and ensure its spoils are widely shared." — And NYT's Peter Baker takes on the backdrop that Biden found this week: "No other sitting president has ever lived with the shadow of his defeated predecessor in quite the way that Mr. Biden has over the last year and a half. Regardless of what the current president does, he often finds himself struggling to break through the all-consuming circus that keeps Mr. Trump in the public eye. Even the bully pulpit of the White House has proved no match for the Trump reality show." SUCCESSION — Our friends over on West Wing Playbook have some reporting on the race to succeed MICHAEL LAROSA as press secretary for first lady JILL BIDEN that caught our eye: "One name we did not previously report that has emerged as a possible contender is RICHARD HUDOCK, who led comms for NBC's Washington outfit for years," Max Tani and Alex Thompson write . "He has since been elevated to a communications vice president for NBC and MSNBC at the networks' headquarters in New York. Multiple people familiar with the search told West Wing Playbook that Hudock is among the candidates the first lady's office is taking seriously for the role." Sign up for WWPB here ALL POLITICS SUPREME IMPORTANCE — Zach Montellaro and Shia Kapos are up this morning with a look at state Supreme Court races , which are taking on new importance this fall as policymakers in D.C. increasingly kick hot-button issues to the state level. "Thirty states have or will hold state Supreme Court elections this year, in a combination of traditional elections or a retention vote — an up-or-down vote to decide if a judge should stay on the bench. And some of the biggest state Supreme Court contests this year map alongside traditional battlegrounds, like Michigan and North Carolina, while others creep into redder or bluer territory." HITTING THE ROAD — "Youngkin headed to Michigan to campaign for GOP governor candidate Tudor Dixon," by WJLA's Nick Minock OOPS — "Video Shows Dr. Oz Saying He Has Two Houses. He Actually Has 10," by The Daily Beast's Ursula Perano FOR THOSE KEEPING TRACK — "Cuomo Can Keep $5.1 Million in Covid Book Money, Judge Says," by NYT's Jay Root
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | ABORTION FALLOUT IN THE STATES — "Florida court says teen isn't mature enough to get an abortion," by Arek Sarkissian HOW IT'S PLAYING — "Poll: Abortion enters top 5 Latino issues," by Marissa Martinez: "A majority of respondents (77 percent) said they would probably vote or certainly vote in the upcoming November elections, and a little over half said they planned to vote for a Democratic House candidate in the midterms, while 22 percent said they would vote for a Republican and 21 percent said they were undecided." WAR IN UKRAINE ON THE GROUND — "Ukraine has telegraphed its big counteroffensive for months. So where is it?" by Christopher Miller and Paul McLeary in Kyiv TRUMP CARDS THE GEORGIA INVESTIGATION GROWS — "Colorado judge says Jenna Ellis must appear before 2020 election scheme grand jury probe," by CNN's Tierney Sneed POLICY CORNER FOR YOUR RADAR — "Amazon Says FTC Is Harassing Jeff Bezos, Top Executives in Prime Probe," by WSJ's John McKinnon and Dave Michaels: "In a petition to the FTC filed earlier this month and recently made public, Amazon says the agency's demands on the company have been 'overly broad and burdensome,' and its legal tactics have been unfair. It specifically requests that the FTC quash civil subpoenas issued to [JEFF] BEZOS and Chief Executive ANDY JASSY, contending that the FTC hasn't identified a reason why their testimony is necessary." AD ASTRA — "NASA's Moon Rocket Heads Back to the Launchpad," NYT VALLEY TALK FACEBOOK STICKS TO TRUMP TIMELINE — Facebook will not be altering its timeline for reviewing Trump's suspension from the platform, "regardless of whether he announces he's running again for president," a top company executive told David Siders and Rebecca Kern . "In sticking to its January timetable, Facebook has decided to keep Trump off the world's largest social media platform even if he becomes a declared presidential candidate before then. The platform's timeline will also be unaffected by the recent FBI search of Trump's residence in Florida."
| | | | INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Al Franken guest-hosted "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Jared Kushner's new memoir got panned in a review by The New York Times . (Sample line: "Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog's eye goo.") T.J. Cox was charged with 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, one count of financial institution fraud, and one count of campaign contribution fraud. Benjamin Netanyahu has a book coming out this November. Amber Escudero-Kontostathis, the lone survivor of the recent lightning strike at Lafayette Square, spoke with WaPo : "I have this guilt of, 'Why did I make it?' … I try to calm myself with gratitude of, 'Well, I did, so I'm not going to waste it.'" MEDIA MOVES — Jessica Piper is now a data and campaign finance reporter at POLITICO. She previously was a reporter at the Bangor Daily News, where she covered the 2020 Maine Senate race and the pandemic. … Madison Fernandez is taking over as author of Morning Score. She previously was a digital producer. TRANSITIONS — Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield is joining Higher Learning Advocates as managing director of policy and research. She previously was senior director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University. … Carl Meacham is joining FTI Consulting as a managing director for strategic comms. He previously led PhRMA's commercial diplomacy and advocacy efforts for Latin America, Canada and Europe. … … Trenton Kennedy is now leading policy comms at Chainalysis. He previously was on the policy comms team at Twitter. … Charles Joughin is now director of executive and corporate comms at The Walt Disney Co. He previously was managing director of public affairs at the First Five Years Fund. ENGAGED — Trevor Naglieri, campaign manager for Jeremy Shaffer's campaign for Pennsylvania's 17th District, and Lea Luckhaus , a project coordinator at Benjamin West in Dallas, got engaged Saturday at Flat Creek Winery in Marble Falls, Texas. The two have been dating for four years and originally met in Sacramento, Calif. While they are currently long-distance, they look forward to being together once the election cycle ends. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Sydney Novak, director of strategic partnerships at the Vandenberg Coalition, and Zachary Novak , paralegal at the Becket Fund, welcomed Sloane Novak on Saturday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) … Louisa Terrell of the White House … former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), now of the American Action Network and Hogan Lovells … ABC's Brittany Shepherd … Ron Bonjean of Rokk Solutions … Sonali Dohale … Jon Lovett of Crooked Media … POLITICO's Ella Creamer … Jamie Smith … Jamie Gillespie of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office … Savannah Holsten of LMI … Carl Sceusa of Revv … Daniel Penchina … Sabrina Schaeffer of the R Street Institute … Mike Buczkiewicz of "Morning Joe" … Caroline Boothe … Philip de Vellis of Beacon Media … HuffPost's Elise Foley … Ben Brody … Fox News' Will Ricciardella … Jessica Gail … Tyler Nickerson … Nick Hawatmeh … Andrea Christianson … Katie McCarthy of Booz Allen Hamilton … Diane Shust … Carlee Griffeth … Alexis Williams … Dave McCormick … Chad Frey … Dave Toomey of the Leadership Conference … Daniel Penchina … David Kusnet 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 DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.
| | A message from Facebook: We spent $16 billion to enhance safety and security in the past 6 years
That's enough to build 7 pro stadiums – all to keep our communities safe and create more meaningful connections.
That's just one example of the work we're doing.
Facebook is taking action to keep its platform safe.
Learn more about our work ahead. | | | | | | | 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 | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment