| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade | | | With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | BREAKING — AP: “Israel’s Netanyahu rushed to hospital, his office says he felt dizzy and was likely dehydrated” COUNTDOWN — “The Iowa caucuses are six months away. Some Republicans worry Trump may be unstoppable,” by AP’s Jill Colvin and Steve Peoples OFF THE DEEP END — ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. mused this week that Covid-19 might have been “ethnically targeted” to harm white and Black people while sparing Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese people, the N.Y. Post’s Jon Levine scooped.
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There is a new strain of populism in the GOP that separates leaders into two camps: those who “know what time it is” and those who don’t. | Joe Maiorana/AP Photo | DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS? — This week, Republican leaders — in Washington running the House and in Iowa running for president — were again caught off guard by the strain of right-wing populism animating the grassroots. In Congress, the formerly sacrosanct Pentagon bill became the target of culture-war amendments on abortion, diversity, and gender that could scuttle its passage. House Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY was forced to accept the far-right rebellion against the Defense budget bill and push it through without the usual widespread bipartisan support. Yesterday in Des Moines, the major Republican presidential candidates (minus DONALD TRUMP) attended the Family Leadership Summit, which chose TUCKER CARLSON to act as the event’s host and moderator. Normally, these cattle calls feature a friendly questioner who allows the candidates time to deliver their stump lines and outline some differences with their rivals. That was not Carlson’s approach. Instead, the former Fox News host interrogated the Republicans for being insufficiently Carlsonesque on the war in Ukraine, immigration, Jan. 6, Covid vaccines and transgender rights. The candidates who fared best either wholly embraced the Carlson view of the world (VIVEK RAMASWAMY), dodged and weaved enough to skate by (RON DeSANTIS), or got an easier grilling (TIM SCOTT and NIKKI HALEY). The candidates who left stage humiliated by Carlson were the ones stuck to their beliefs despite probing and sometimes mocking questioning, including MIKE PENCE (Ukraine, Jan. 6) and ASA HUTCHINSON (health care for transgender people, Covid vaccines). The House Republicans’ attack on the NDAA and the Carlson attack on several GOP presidential candidates are animated by a strain of populism in the GOP that separates leaders into two camps: those who “know what time it is” and those who don’t. That’s the catchphrase on the right that has become increasingly important to the most disruptive wing of the party. As KEVIN ROBERTS, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a key institution of this new ideological strain, told RCP’s Philip Wegmann this week, Carlson understands “fissures in the economic consensus, fissures in foreign policy, and most important to me, as some conservatives like to say, ‘what time it is.’” Wegmann added: “that aphorism refers to an emerging sense of urgency and appetite for sweeping action, not dragging and dull academic debates, among more populist-minded conservatives. From his primetime slot, Carlson pioneered much of that effort.”
| | | | A message from The Coalition to Protect America's Regional Airports: DCA is at capacity. The airport already handles 9 million more passengers per year than it was designed to accommodate, and it is more prone to delays and cancellations than other airports. Even so, reckless efforts by a Delta-backed group are pushing to add more flights to DCA, threatening to worsen congestion and safety concerns. Join CPARA and its 130+ members in putting a stop to these efforts. Protect passenger safety and convenience, and oppose changes to DCA’s slot and perimeter rules. | | | There are two things that characterize the what-time-it-is right. — The first is about tactics. The premise of the movement is that the struggle against left-wing cultural power is existential, and extreme tactics that would shock an older generation of conservatives need to be the norm. In fact, if a leader is not shocking in his conduct and proposals, he or she probably doesn’t know what time it is. So, yes, threatening the NDAA — which elicited howls of protest from elites — is embraced. — The second key feature of this us-against-them mentality is that any policy consensus is, by definition, suspicious and an ideal target of attack. When you realize this, what looks at first like a hodgepodge of different ideas seems more unified. Covid health policy, disgust about Jan. 6, the Pentagon budget, immigration, support for Ukraine, promoting racial diversity, trans rights — these are all issues that enjoy a measure of elite bipartisan consensus. But for the Tucker Carlson wing, Republicans who embrace these things don’t know what time it is. The WSJ digs into aspects of this debate this morning with a big feature: “The 2024 Election Is a Fight Over America’s Way of Life: GOP voters see a country corrupted by liberal ideals.” Aaron Zitner and Simon J. Levien write: “The animating force in the Republican presidential primary, many voters and policy leaders say, is a feeling that American society — the government, the media, Hollywood, academia and big business — has been corrupted by liberal ideas about race, gender and other social matters. Democrats, in turn, feel that conservatives have used their political power in red states and in building a Supreme Court majority to undermine abortion rights and threaten decades of work to broaden equal rights for minority groups. That has turned the next race for the White House into an existential election, with voters on both sides fearing not just a loss of political influence but also the destruction of their way of life.” More:
| | | | A message from The Coalition to Protect America's Regional Airports:   Experts agree: DCA is at capacity. The airport cannot safely handle more flights. Protect passenger safety and convenience, and oppose changes to DCA’s slot and perimeter rules. | | | Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
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Illustration by Matt Chinworth for POLITICO | THE MASCULINITY ISSUE — What is “manliness”? That question is at the center of so much discourse in politics — whether we’re talking about the DeSantis camp’s use of a video splicing footage of the Florida governor together with a bodybuilder, RFK Jr.’s shirtless push-up video or ELON MUSK’s deeply … bizarre attacks on MARK ZUCKERBERG. What’s going on here? Our colleagues at POLITICO Mag are out with a new package of stories exploring that topic: — “Democrats and Republicans Agree Men Are in Trouble. They Disagree on What to Do About It,” by Katelyn Fossett: “A new POLITICO Magazine/IPSOS poll shows that people have very different ideas on the solutions to the challenges facing men and boys. And those differences are affecting how they vote.” — “The Crisis Over American Manhood Is Really Code for Something Else,” by Virginia Heffernan: “Male malaise in the United States goes back to the founders, and it is a preoccupation of elites in particular. They might teach us something about this current wave of manliness panic.” — “Portrait of the Modern American Man — In Nurse’s Scrubs,” by Kathy Gilsinan in Cincinnati: “Eric Cromer lost his job on the GM assembly line. The second career he found placed him at the center of a debate about what it means to be a man in today’s economy.”
| | BIDEN’S SATURDAY — The president has nothing on his public schedule.
VP KAMALA HARRIS’ SATURDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule. | | | | | | STOP SCROLLING (for just a minute!). Introducing a revamped California Playbook newsletter with an all-new team and a sharpened mission! Join Lara Korte and Dustin Gardiner as they take you on an extraordinary journey through California's political landscape. From inside the Capitol in Sacramento to the mayor’s office in Los Angeles, and from the tech hub of Silicon Valley to even further beyond, we're your front-row ticket to the action. Subscribe for access to exclusive news, buzzworthy scoops and never-before-revealed behind-the-scenes details straight from the heart of California's political arena. Don't miss out — SUBSCRIBE TODAY and stay in the know! | | | | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
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As a brutal heat wave grips Phoenix and other parts of the U.S., a couple hikes at dusk at Papago Park yesterday, the 15th straight day that the city hit at least 110 degrees. | Matt York/AP Photo | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. CASH DASH: Today is the deadline for campaigns to file their Q2 fundraising totals with the FEC, and the 2024 financial pecking order will soon come into clarity. Beyond simply identifying the top-dollar candidates, the filings will — perhaps more importantly — lay out which campaigns are struggling to find a donor base. The big picture: “What to Watch in the 2024 Money Wars as a Big Deadline Arrives,” by NYT’s Rebecca Davis O’Brien The numbers:
- MIKE PENCE raised less than $1.2 million in the roughly three weeks since he announced his official run, a number that is a “reflection of both the antipathy toward the former vice president among rank-and-file GOP voters and the deep skepticism among donors that he has a path to the Republican nomination,” WaPo’s Maeve Reston and Marianne LeVine write. (Committed to America, the super PAC supporting Pence, has raised more than $2.6 million, per WaPo.)
- Miami Mayor FRANCIS SUAREZ brought in roughly $1 million in the two weeks since his campaign launch, Bloomberg’s Gregory Korte and Bill Allison write, though they note that the campaign would not disclose how close Suarez is to meeting the 40,000-donor threshold to appear at the first RNC debate. (The two super PACs connected to his campaign brought in a combined $12 million.)
- RFK Jr., meanwhile, raked in $6.4 million in the second quarter, a pretty eye-popping number for a candidate widely regarded as being on the fringe with as much negative press and ridicule. Puck’s Teddy Schleifer notes that his campaign has received a number of notable donations from Silicon Valley figures.
2. THE OTHER BIG NEWS IN IOWA: Gov. KIM REYNOLDS yesterday signed into law a six-week abortion ban that will effectively outlaw almost all such procedures in the state, the Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller and Katie Akin report. There are limited exceptions. Reynolds signed it on stage at the Family Leadership Summit, in front of thousands of evangelical supporters, and sharply criticized state supreme court justices who had previously blocked a ban. 3. FALLING OFF THE TIGHTROPE — “Nikki Haley Is Losing Her Culture War Campaign,” by The Daily Beast’s Jake Lahut in Lincoln, N.H.: “When NIKKI HALEY tried to fire up a crowd of New Hampshire voters in late May by slamming DYLAN MULVANEY … the applause never came. … And yet, six weeks later, Haley is still using a similar line, to similar effect, with no sense that the transphobic rhetoric isn’t working. The armor of a culture warrior just doesn’t seem to suit Haley, who boasts actual experience … But Haley has apparently calculated that she can’t win the primary without at least trying that armor on — even when the audience isn’t buying the act, or has any idea what she’s talking about.” 4. ANNALS OF CANVASSING — “Door-knocker complaints show risks of DeSantis super PAC strategy,” by WaPo’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey: “Speaking on his phone while wearing a T-shirt with ‘DESANTIS’ in big letters and a lanyard representing the Never Back Down super PAC, [a paid canvasser] used lewd remarks to describe what he would tell the homeowner to do to him. ‘And I’m a little stoned, so I don’t even care’ … [That] led to the canvasser’s dismissal this week, according to an official from Never Back Down. It highlighted a potential risk of the unprecedented effort by DeSantis donors to flood early primary states with thousands of paid door knockers.” 5. PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION: The General Services Administration released updated criteria for the site selection for a new FBI headquarters yesterday — and the upshot is that Maryland is now looking like a stronger candidate than Virginia, WaPo’s Gregory Schneider, Erin Cox and Paul Kane report. The GSA is putting more emphasis on considerations like social impact and costs, and less emphasis on convenience to Quantico. The change sparked some angry reactions from Virginia’s congressional delegation in the ongoing battle of the Beltway: Rep. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-Va.) said in a statement, “I fear I’ve been proven right” that “Maryland was trying to cook the books.” 6. DEMS’ SURPRISE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ADVANTAGE: “The Electoral College is the big factor in a third-party nightmare for Democrats,” by Steve Shepard: “Democrats are rightly spooked by the prospect of credible third-party candidates this cycle. … But there is one point of solace for Democrats: Voters in battleground states have been less likely to vote third party in recent elections than those in less competitive states.” 7. SWING-STATE COLLAPSE: The Michigan Republican Party’s bank accounts have dwindled to just $93,000, a precipitous decline from its full control of state government five years ago, The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger reports from Lansing. In the wake of the GOP’s big losses in the state last year, and under the stewardship of controversial Chair KRISTINA KARAMO, there are “continued hesitations among longtime funders to open their wallets.” Says one former Michigan GOP executive director, “They’re functionally bankrupt.” 8. STATE OF THE UNIONS: “Julie Su and the summer of strikes,” by Axios’ Emily Peck and Dan Primack: “The White House needs acting Labor Secretary JULIE SU to stick around this summer, as labor strife across the country continues to intensify. … Su was instrumental in averting a West Coast port worker strike in June — both labor and business groups gave her accolades — and will likely play a key role in the coming season of high-stakes union negotiations. She's already in touch with both UPS and the Teamsters union.” 9. DeSANTIS’ FLORIDA: “Veterans quit as training, mission for DeSantis’ State Guard turn militaristic,” by the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times’ Lawrence Mower, Emma Rose Brown and Ana Ceballos in Tallahassee: “When DeSantis announced in 2021 he wanted to revive the long-dormant State Guard, he vowed it would help Floridians during emergencies. But in the year since its launch, key personnel and a defined mission remain elusive. … [A] number of recruits quit after the first training class last month because they feared it was becoming too militaristic. … “‘The program got hijacked and turned into something that we were trying to stay away from: a militia,’ said BRIAN NEWHOUSE, a retired 20-year Navy veteran who was chosen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divisions.”
| | | | A message from The Coalition to Protect America's Regional Airports:   Tell Congress to pass the FAA Reauthorization bill to keep airport travel safe and efficient. Tell Congress not to make travel worse. | | | CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 15 funnies
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Dana Summers | GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “In the Glimmer,” by Rachel Yoder in Harper’s: “The good witches of Pennsylvania.” — “The Last Train Stop Before Heading to Ukraine’s War,” Esquire: “In late spring, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive struggled to progress, Robert Spangle went to Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, to photograph soldiers heading to, and returning from, the front lines.” — “Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ Dream Job,” by Willa Paskin in the NYT Magazine: “Mattel wanted a summer blockbuster to kick off its new wave of brand-extension movies. She wanted it to be a work of art.” — “How to Preserve Priceless Documents at the National Archives,” by NYT’s Charlie Savage, Jared Soares, Marisa Schwartz Taylor and Sean Catangui — “Liberté, Disparité, Fraternité,” by David Andelman in American Purpose: “France’s greatest danger may be its immigrant nation-within-a-nation — and a government out of touch with its population.” — “Is a Glass of Wine Harmless? Wrong Question,” by Emily Oster in The Atlantic: “The latest alcohol advice ignores the value of pleasure.” — “Close to 100,000 Voter Registrations Were Challenged in Georgia — Almost All by Just Six Right-Wing Activists,” by ProPublica’s Doug Bock Clark: “The recent transformation of the state’s election laws explicitly enabled citizens to file unlimited challenges to other voters’ registrations. Experts warn that election officials’ handling of some of those challenges may clash with federal law.” — “29 People Died in One of the Worst Mountaineering Accidents in History. What Happened?” by Anna Callaghan in Outside magazine: “The story of the deadly avalanche in October 2022 on India’s Draupadi Ka Danda II.” — “Summer Vocations,” by Sanity Clause’s Joe Klein: “Who is the Next GOP Flavor of the Month?” — “The Kennedys Were Always Bad,” by Very Serious’ Josh Barro: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., far from being a black sheep, fits well within his family’s long tradition of sucking.”
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO 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 | | Jesse Jackson is stepping down from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Salud Carbajal tried out a skateboard. Janet Yellen has sparked a mushroom craze in Beijing. Ron DeSantis knows what a Blizzard is. SPOTTED: White House chief of staff Jeff Zients stopping by Grazie Nonna. OUT AND ABOUT — The Hispanic Lobbyists Association held its annual membership meeting and celebrated four new Congressional Hispanic Caucus staffers Thursday night at the offices of Barnes & Thornburg. CHC Chair Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.) and Vice Chair Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) gave remarks. Also SPOTTED: Deputy Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Angel Colón-Rivera, Eddie Meyer, Allison Zayas, Brian Garcia, Lucia Alonzo, Ivelisse Porroa-García, Maria Luisa Boyce, Erica Romero, Manuel Bonilla, Omar Franco, Javier Gamboa, Nicolas Quinones and Norberto Salinas. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: MAJOR LAYOFFS AT JUSTICE DEMS — Justice Democrats, the progressive PAC that made waves in recent years by helping new-generation lefty candidates run against more establishment Dems, laid off nine of its 20 employees this week as the organization faces a major financial crunch, Daniel Lippman reports. “It’s no secret that Democratic and progressive organizations like us are in a difficult fundraising environment right now,” Justice Dems executive director Alexandra Rojas said in a statement to Playbook. “We had to make tough decisions to remain one of the most impactful progressive organizations in the country for years to come.” The group also separately lost its top spokesperson, Waleed Shahid, who left after six years and said in a tweet that he was proud to have played a role in building “one of the most impactful Democratic and progressive organizations from scratch.” Shahid is joining the board of the organization as he figures out his next steps. NSC ARRIVAL LOUNGE — Monte Hawkins is now senior director for trans-border at the NSC and a special assistant to the president. He most recently was acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism, threat prevention and law enforcement at DHS’ Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans. CAMPAIGN MOVES — Two top DeSantis campaign aides are moving to an outside nonprofit group supporting him, Alex Isenstadt reports. External affairs head Tucker Obenshain and comms adviser/media director Dave Abrams are departing; Obenshain will lead a group hosting DeSantis events, while Abrams will join Ascent to work with that group. TRANSITIONS — Keosha Varela is launching her own comms consulting firm, Mission & Purpose Communications. She most recently was senior director of strategic and enterprise comms at the Aspen Institute. … Dan Horning is now legislative assistant for Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.). He most recently was a government and public services consultant at Deloitte and is a Pat Toomey and Trump White House alum. WEDDING — Noelle Spencer, director of development at the White House Historical Association and a Trump White House and DOE alum, and Preston Howey, policy adviser for the American Petroleum Institute and a Kevin Brady and August Pfluger alum, got married recently at the Gasparilla Inn & Club on Boca Grande, Fla. (Her parents got engaged on Gasparilla Island 35 years ago.) The couple met at a mutual friend’s birthday party at Mission Navy Yard. Pic by Laura Foote … Another pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Haley Byrd Wilt, an associate editor at The Dispatch and a CNN and Weekly Standard alum, and Evan Wilt, a law student at George Mason University, on Monday welcomed Zoe Joy Wilt, who joins big brother Lewis. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) … Chris LaCivita … WaPo’s Paul Kane … Arianna Huffington … Semafor’s Max Tani … Alex Lasry … JPMorgan Chase’s Heather Higginbottom … Cecile Richards … Chris Krepich of House Energy & Commerce (32) … Bloomberg’s Jodi Schneider … Gareth Rhodes … Svetlana Legetic … Tia Bogeljic of Rep. Joe Neguse’s (D-Colo.) office … National Association of Realtors’ Kathryn Crenshaw … David Miliband … POLITICO’s Eun Kim, Rebecca Moore, Adrian Wyatt and Peter Behr … Aspen Institute’s Elliot Gerson … Naomie Pierre-Louis of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s (D-Fla.) office … Ericka Perryman ... Andrew Usyk … Brunswick Group’s Mark Palmer … Séverine de Lartigue ... Helen Hare ... Erica Fein … Susan McCue … Nate Gaspar … Heath Tarbert … Palladium’s Amanda Fernandez … former Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) … Hayley Arader … Electric Power Research Institute’s Arshad Mansoor … David Lippman … Rob Ellsworth of the Majority Group THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Donald Trump. Panel: Newt Gingrich and Alan Dershowitz. Fox News “MediaBuzz”: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis … Kevin Corke … Rich Lowry … Leslie Marshall. CNN “State of the Union”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) … Chris Christie. Panel: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Sarah Matthews, Karen Finney and Scott Jennings. CBS “Face the Nation”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) … Barry Diller … Mesa, Ariz., Mayor John Giles … Kara Swisher. ABC “This Week”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Chris Christie. 2024 third-party bid debate: Joe Lieberman and Doug Jones. Panel: Donna Brazile, Roy Blunt, Astead Herndon and Susan Page. NBC “Meet the Press”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) … Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) … Christopher Nolan. Panel: Cornell Belcher, Sara Fagen and Carol Lee. MSNBC “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart”: Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) … Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) … Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) … White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein … Ibram X. Kendi … Carol Anderson. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) … John Kirby. Panel: Olivia Beavers, Mary Katharine Ham, Marc Thiessen and Kevin Walling. 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. Correction: Thursday’s Playbook misidentified Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) office. She is a senator.
| | | | A message from The Coalition to Protect America's Regional Airports: DCA was designed to serve regional airports within the perimeter. Yet a Delta-backed group is pushing for changes to DCA’s slot and perimeter rules that could reduce service for these regional airports and the communities they serve. These changes put economic development at risk, and threaten communities’ ability to safely, affordably, and easily connect to and through our nation’s capital. That’s why CPARA, its 120+ members, and leading aviation experts and authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration oppose changes to the DCA slot and perimeter rules. Protect regional airports and regional access. Join the fight at www.protectregionalairports.com. | | | | | | | 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 | | | | |
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