| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | | GLIMMERS OF OPTIMISM — The Conference Board’s measure of U.S. consumer confidence this month leapt to its highest level since the early days of the Biden administration, per Bloomberg’s Katia Dmitrieva.
|  “It’s self-evident” that Donald Trump supported an insurrection, President Joe Biden argued today. | Reba Saldanha, File/AP Photo | WHAT NIETZSCHE KNEW ABOUT TRUMP — Well before the Colorado Supreme Court booted DONALD TRUMP off the presidential ballot for having engaged in insurrection, it was conventional political wisdom that what doesn’t kill Trump politically makes him stronger, at least within the GOP: Every sling, arrow and piece of legal jeopardy seems to bolster his base. That’s borne out by some striking findings in the latest NYT/Siena College poll, conducted before the Colorado news, which finds Trump steamrolling to the Republican nomination despite the fact that 58% of voters and 66% of independents think he’s committed major federal crimes. Even as the share of Republicans who think he’s committed crimes has nearly doubled, party voters have grown increasingly loyal to Trump, who now commands 64% in the primary nationwide. “Since March, Mr. Trump has perfected a playbook of victimhood,” NYT’s Maggie Haberman writes, “raising campaign funds off each indictment and encouraging Republican officials to defend him.” Trump’s support in Iowa has ticked up to 50%, a new Emerson College survey finds, while NIKKI HALEY has nudged ahead of Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS for second place. His success looks so solid that now the only question is whether he’s setting expectations too high for his margin of victory, Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser reports from Waterloo. President JOE BIDEN’s campaign, having watched Trump overtake him in the polls even as the former president’s legal entanglements have ballooned, might need to hope that voters simply haven’t tuned in to this year’s Trump show yet. Indeed, the NYT poll finds that half the electorate has paid little to no attention to the Trump cases, and a majority of voters don’t expect him to be found guilty. A conviction — or a ballot removal — could change that. “It’s self-evident” that Trump supported an insurrection, Biden told reporters today, per Sam Stein. “You saw it all. Now whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision.” Democrats will also look to emphasize the unprecedented nature of Trump’s plans to bend the government to his will in a second term — a storyline that has begun to accrue significant press coverage but has yet to break through with the public. In a new Q&A, Partnership for Public Service founder MAX STIER tells POLITICO Magazine’s Ian Ward that Trump’s vows to remove job protections for civil servants would create an actual “deep state,” detonating “a very large earthquake” in the federal bureaucracy and making the government less effective. And in one of the first offerings from the forthcoming news outlet NOTUS, Maggie Severns, Oriana González, Kate Nocera and Casey Murray take a look at RUSSELL VOUGHT’s radical plans to remake the government — possibly as White House chief of staff. “Vought, in short, does not lack for proposals,” they write. “And yet he is not just an ideas man: He excels at selling concepts that may seem outrageous at first to his peers.”
| | | | A message from Instagram: New federal legislation will give parents a say in teen app downloads.
According to a new poll by Morning Consult conducted in November 2023, more than 75% of parents believe teens under 16 shouldn’t be able to download apps without parental permission.1
Instagram wants to work with Congress to pass federal legislation that gets it done.
Learn more.
1"US Parents Study on Teen App Downloads" by Morning Consult (Meta-commissioned survey of 2,019 parents), Nov. 2023. | | | IMMIGRATION FILES — As DHS Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS returned to Congress today for ongoing negotiations about immigration policy, the Biden administration is holding firm against at least one of the big priorities Republicans have pushed, Axios’ Stef Kight and Hans Nichols report. Mayorkas and White House chief of staff JEFF ZIENTS told agitated Congressional Hispanic Caucus members that Biden isn’t giving in on curtailing the president’s parole authority. Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) told reporters this afternoon that the negotiators will switch to virtual meetings tomorrow through the holidays. A flurry of new stories today show just how complicated — and consequential — the surge of immigrants to the southern border has become. Organized travel agencies and networks have become a key link for smugglers to facilitate mass crossings, CNN’s Rosa Flores and Sara Weisfeldt report. … To get around the Darién Gap, some migrants are now attempting a dangerous water route through the Caribbean, WSJ’s Juan Forero report. … Growing numbers of middle-class Chinese are joining the flow of migrants to the U.S., Bloomberg’s Shawn Donnan reports. … And with some border crossings closed, economic trade is taking a hit too, per Reuters’ Cheney Orr, Laura Gottesdiener and Ted Hesson. STAT OF THE DAY — U.S. oil production hit yet another record high, at an estimated 13.3 million daily barrels in the fourth quarter. Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
| | | | GLOBAL PLAYBOOK IS TAKING YOU TO DAVOS! Unlock the insider's guide to one of the world's most influential gatherings as POLITICO's Global Playbook takes you behind the scenes of the 2024 World Economic Forum. Author Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground in the Swiss Alps, bringing you the exclusive conversations, shifting power dynamics and groundbreaking ideas shaping the agenda in Davos. Stay in the know with POLITICO's Global Playbook, your VIP pass to the world’s most influential gatherings. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | 8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
|  Businessman Alex Saab is being released from the U.S. in a prisoner exchange deal. | Ariana Cubillos, File/AP Photo | 1. WHAT MIAMI IS READING: The U.S. has reached a major prisoner swap deal with Venezuela, as the Biden administration releases ALEX SAAB, a businessman and ally of Venezuelan President NICOLÁS MADURO who’d been arrested for money laundering, AP’s Joshua Goodman and Eric Tucker report. In exchange, Caracas will set free some detained Americans — Reuters’ Marianna Parraga pegs the number at a dozen U.S. citizens and up to two dozen other people behind bars. The U.S. had threatened to rescind a sanctions-relief deal with Venezuela this fall unless Maduro’s government made progress on prisoner releases. CBS reports that at least eight Americans, some of them wrongfully detained, will go free. 2. BEYOND TOMMY TUBERVILLE: The Senate may have finally broken through the Alabama Republican’s blockade to confirm hundreds of Pentagon nominees, but one remains on ice: Sen. ERIC SCHMITT (R-Mo.) still has a hold on Col. BEN JONSSON, an Air Force officer who’s nominated to become a brigadier general. The opposition stems in part from an op-ed Jonsson wrote in July 2020 saying that white colonels “must address our blind spots around race.” A Pentagon official says Jonsson played a key role in helping to evacuate 124,000 people from Afghanistan and has supported more than 3,400 air refueling missions. “It is long past time to root out divisive DEI policies and their advocates from our apolitical military,” Schmitt said in a statement (more on that from The Daily Signal). “Leaders must emphasize unity of mission and purpose, not our immutable differences.” 3. IMPACT ASSESSMENT: “Biden impatient behind the scenes as projects funded by his legislative accomplishments are slow to materialize,” by CNN’s MJ Lee and Kevin Liptak: He’s “expressing deep frustration that he can’t show off physical construction of many projects that his signature legislative accomplishments will fund. The president is said to have griped that even as he travels the country to tout historic pieces of legislation like the bipartisan infrastructure law, it could be years before the residents of some of the communities receiving federal funds see construction begin.” Nonetheless, Biden is continuing to hit the road to try to make the sales pitch — this afternoon in Wisconsin, he’ll highlight support for Black-owned small businesses, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea previews. 4. WHAT J.D. VANCE IS WATCHING — US Steel is asking the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review its acquisition by Nippon Steel, per Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove and Joe Deaux. Members of Congress critical of the deal have hoped that CFIUS might block it, but US Steel’s move indicates confidence that they’ll make it through the review.
| | | | A message from Instagram:   | | | |  The Michigan GOP is divided under Chair Kristina Karamo. | Emily Elconin/Getty Images | 5. REPUBLICANS IN DISARRAY: “‘Incompetent dumpster fire’: Michigan GOP rocked by financial turmoil and infighting,” by CNN’s Curt Devine, Audrey Ash, Allison Gordon, Daniel Strauss and Jason Carroll: “[S]ome of the pro-Trump party members who voted [Chair KRISTINA] KARAMO into office have soured on her leadership and accuse her administration of working to destroy the party by failing to fundraise and sparking division among the party rank-and-file. Dozens of the party’s state committee members signed a petition calling for a meeting at the end of the month to consider the removal of Karamo and some of her deputies. … [A report] concluded Karamo had pushed the organization to ‘the brink of bankruptcy.’” 6. FUTURE-CASTING: Annual population estimates from the Census Bureau indicate that the South could be due for a significant new boost in political power in post-2030 redistricting, Zach Montellaro reports. Continuing familiar trends, significant domestic migration is driving population to states like North Carolina and Georgia, while the likes of Illinois and Pennsylvania shed residents. With control of congressional district boundaries often in the hands of partisan actors, the implications for the House could be significant: One estimate predicts that, as of now, apportionment would add four seats to Texas and three to Florida while docking four from California and three from New York. 7. HARD TIMES AT CITY HALL: “Mayors got their cities through the pandemic. Now they’re paying the price,” by Zach Montellaro in Tacoma, Washington: “Pissed off constituents. Nonstop work weeks. And deteriorating quality of life.” 8. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: As talks accelerate toward a possible new cease-fire and hostage deal, Hamas’ leader went to Egypt today for negotiations, per AP’s Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy and Josef Federman. “These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere,” JOHN KIRBY told reporters. Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza officially reached the grim milestone of 20,000.
| | | | POLITICO AT CES® 2024: We are going ALL On at CES 2024 with a special edition of the POLITICO Digital Future Daily newsletter. The CES-focused newsletter will take you inside the most powerful tech event in the world, featuring revolutionary products that cut across verticals, and insights from industry leaders that are shaping the future of innovation. The newsletter runs from Jan. 9-12 and will focus on the public policy-related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the show. | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS Narendra Modi said he’d “look into” any questions about the alleged assassination plot on U.S. soil. Mike Johnson’s ancestral links to slavery are in the spotlight. Lloyd Austin stopped by the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. Willow Biden is enjoying the White House holiday decorations. OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at SMI’s holiday party at the Penthouse at Capitol Crossing last night: Barbara Ehimika, Ashley Patterson Beaty, Megan Milam, Sean Duggan, Alex Silbey, Rocky Checca, Katie McIntyre, Chris Gaspar, William Cunningham, Adam Goodwin, Mike Molino, Manica Noziglia, Tom McIntyre and Chad Schumacher. TRANSITIONS — McKenzie Wilson is now a national press secretary at HHS, covering the public health portfolio. She previously was at Building Back Together, and is a Patty Murray alum. … Michael Helmer is now legislative assistant for Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). He most recently was legislative director for Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas). BONUS BIRTHDAY: Walter Swett of Dynamic SRG 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, producer Andrew Howard and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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