| | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | THE PRICE OF FREEDOM — As the September spending fight looms on the Hill, battle lines are being drawn. The House Freedom Caucus is stepping up its pressure campaign on GOP leaders to back a short-term funding bill into early 2025 — seeking to punt major spending decisions into a potential Trump administration, Jordain Carney reports. The ultra-conservative group’s position — which means that the proposal earned the support of at least 80 percent of its roughly three-dozen members — is a preview of the headaches that Speaker MIKE JOHNSON faces as he tries to unite a disparate conference on the funding bill ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown in a contentious election year. Stay tuned.
|  Donald Trump has returned to a familiar platform. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO | HE’S BACK — DONALD TRUMP is posting again. The former president fired up his @realDonaldTrump account on X for the first time since Aug. 24, 2023 — and only the second time since the platform banned him on Jan. 8, 2021, a move that has since been reversed — blasting out a two-and-a-half minute promo video to his 88 million followers. The video features myriad images and clips of Trump — essentially stitching together the timeline from his 2017 inauguration to his current reelection run — centering mainly on Trump’s fight against the various prosecutions playing out against him. It lacks any policy message or attacks on his opponent, VP KAMALA HARRIS. (It also, interestingly, does not feature any images from the assassination attempt against Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month.) In a subsequent X post shortly after noon, Trump touched briefly on his popular stump issues of the economy and immigration, asking rhetorically: “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” He also posted on his Truth Social account around the same time, though with a notably different tone that sharply critiqued Harris. As of publishing, he has now posted five times on his X account since this morning. Why now? The dramatic return to X comes as Trump aims to amp up his base ahead of his live interview on the platform with ELON MUSK tonight at 8 p.m. Musk has promised that it will be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” They will supposedly be taking live questions and comments. How did we get here? Musk had previously pledged to stay out of the presidential race, but is now throwing his massive checkbook and online following behind the GOP nominee. New reporting today outlines just how long that gambit has been in the works. “Beginning in the spring, Elon Musk quietly blocked out an hour on Fridays for a new pursuit: national politics. In weekly meetings, consultants and vendors for a super political-action committee updated him on their progress toward the discussed goal of turning out 800,000 people to vote for Donald Trump in battleground states,” WSJ’s Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo and Emily Glazer report. “Then, less than three months after launching the effort, Musk signed off on firing most of the vendors, only for the super PAC to rehire one of them after the resulting chaos. He also replaced the Texas-based advisers who helped him get the group off the ground with veterans of Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS’s failed presidential bid. “Musk is tackling the election effort in his signature hands-on, chaos-be-damned style, echoing his 2022 takeover of Twitter and early efforts to meet Tesla’s production goals. Whether he and the team he has assembled succeed could be an important part of the election puzzle, and some Republican political operatives said they fear the early stumbles could be costly for the Trump campaign.” Companion reading: “Musk might be the only person Trump listens to on climate,” by POLITICO’s E&E News’ Corbin Hiar and Chelsea Harvey LEDE OF THE DAY — “The freshest force in American politics wears striped socks, has fire-engine red hair and comes bearing french fries,” WSJ’s Heather Haddon writes. “McDonald’s for decades has exerted outsize influence on Americans’ meals. Now the Golden Arches are playing a growing role in politics, as the company and its franchisees spend millions of dollars on donations to candidates for public office and political action groups, and have engaged in lobbying in at least 10 states, an analysis of filings shows.” VISUALIZER — “How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?” by NYT’s Raymond Zhong and Mira Rojanasakul Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Comcast: Did you know that most of the data on your smartphone travels over WiFi, not cellular? Thanks to WiFi innovation by Comcast, our customers connect over a billion devices to our network each year. Unlicensed spectrum is key to a fast and secure WiFi experience at home and on the go. Comcast leads the way by developing cutting-edge WiFi gateways that maximize our multi-gig broadband network and spectrum made available by the FCC. Learn more. | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | |  Tim Walz's record as Minnesota governor is under new scrutiny. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO | 1. WALZ TO WALZ: While much of the early conversation about TIM WALZ has focused on his military record, there is an ample policy record to sort through during his time as Minnesota governor. WSJ’s John McCormick takes a bite at the apple today. The details: “Walz’s administration in 2021 proposed raising the state’s corporate rate to 11.25%, but the legislature — then still partially under GOP control — didn’t follow the recommendation. His backers point to the 2023 passage of the nation’s highest state child tax credit, which reduced taxes for lower-income Minnesota families. He also pushed through a $2.6 billion infrastructure bill — the largest in state history — that will benefit residents and businesses.” The big picture: “Minnesota’s recent economic and demographic metrics present a mixed picture. The state has experienced stagnant population growth since 2020 and smaller percentage gains in gross domestic product than the national average and some neighboring states during that same period, ranking 45th in 2023 for real GDP growth. The state’s job growth has also been significantly slower than the national average, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.” Breaking through the jargon: “Decoding Military Terms in the Walz-Vance Debate,” by Ben Kesling for POLITICO Magazine: “It can be hard to understand some of the accusations aimed at the vice presidential candidates, so we asked a veteran to decipher them.” 2. ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT FALLOUT: The bipartisan House panel investigating the attempted assassination of Trump and the swirling questions that remain over how it happened took its first official step today by requesting a staff briefing with key agencies, Jordain Carney reports. “Reps. MIKE KELLY (R-Pa.) and JASON CROW (D-Colo.) — the task force chair and top Democrat, respectively — sent a Monday letter to Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS and acting Secret Service Director RONALD ROWE JR., as well as a separate letter to Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND and FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY. They requested any documents or records that have already been handed over to the House and Senate.” 3. THE REAL-WORLD IMPACT, PART I: “I.V.F. Threats in Alabama Drive Clinics to Ship Out Embryos,” by NYT’s Azeen Ghorayshi and Sarah Kliff: “The embryo migration is most striking in Alabama, where the State Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos were ‘unborn children.’ Since then, at least four of Alabama’s seven fertility clinics have hired biotech companies to move the cells elsewhere. A fifth clinic is working with a doctor in New York to discard embryos because of concerns about the legality of doing so in Alabama. Fertility patients outside of Alabama, too, are worried about how their precious embryos — specks of 70 to 200 cells barely visible to the human eye — might one day be affected by lawmakers who believe human life begins at conception.”
| | | | During unprecedented times, POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy. Live briefings, policy trackers, and and people intelligence secures your seat at the table. Learn more. | | | | | 4. THE REAL-WORLD IMPACT, PART II: “Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, being turned away from ERs despite federal law,” by AP’s Amanda Seitz: “More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations has found. … Two women — one in Florida and one in Texas — were left to miscarry in public restrooms. In Arkansas, a woman went into septic shock and her fetus died after an emergency room sent her home. At least four other women with ectopic pregnancies had trouble getting any treatment, including one California woman who needed a blood transfusion after she sat for nine hours in an emergency waiting room. “The White House says hospitals must offer abortions when needed to save a woman’s health, despite state bans. Texas is challenging that guidance and, earlier this summer, the Supreme Court declined to resolve the issue.” 5. IMMIGRATION FILES: “Are New Border Policies Deporting People Facing Genocide? The Biden Administration Won’t Say,” by NOTUS’ Haley Byrd Wilt: “When congressional staff asked the administration who was on a recent deportation flight to China, officials weren’t able to assure them none of the passengers were members of ethnic groups facing genocide in Xinjiang, according to staff familiar with the conversations. “Even if all of the passengers on that particular flight were not at risk of persecution — the Department of Homeland Security isn’t providing details — human rights activists want to make sure the Biden administration is at least checking first. But in conversations, it hasn’t been clear to Hill staff that immigration enforcement officials are checking — or even have the authority to check. New expedited processing rules are deporting migrants so quickly that little is known about them.” 6. FOR YOUR RADAR: “In Syria’s Hinterlands, the U.S. Wages a Hidden Campaign Against a Resurgent Islamic State,” by WSJ’s Michael Phillips: “Militant fighters have doubled their pace of attacks in Syria and Iraq this year. They have targeted security checkpoints, detonated car bombs and plotted to free thousands of comrades jailed since the SDF and a U.S.-headed Western coalition recaptured the last Islamic State-held town. In a little-publicized campaign, American aircraft conduct airstrikes and provide live aerial surveillance to SDF ground forces who conduct raids on suspected Islamic State cells. While they usually stay a safe distance from the fighting, elite U.S. troops sometimes conduct missions on their own to kill or capture senior Islamic State leaders.” 7. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: “U.S. Officials to Visit China for Economic Talks as Trade Tensions Rise,” by NYT’s Alan Rappeport: “A group of senior Biden administration officials is traveling to Shanghai this week for a round of high-level meetings intended to keep the economic relationship between the United States and China on stable footing amid mounting trade tensions between the two countries. The talks will take place on Thursday and Friday and are being convened through the U.S.-China Financial Working Group, which was created last year. Officials are expected to discuss ways to maintain economic and financial stability, capital markets and efforts to curb the flow of fentanyl into the United States.”
| | | | DON’T MISS OUR AI & TECH SUMMIT: Join POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit for exclusive interviews and conversations with senior tech leaders, lawmakers, officials and stakeholders about where the rising energy around global competition — and the sense of potential around AI and restoring American tech knowhow — is driving tech policy and investment. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Bill Pascrell has been hospitalized again. Kamala Harris got the glossy mag treatment in a new Time cover story. JD Vance visited the Alamo. TRANSITION — Aaron Fritschner is joining the Harris-Walz campaign to work on Virginia comms. He previously was deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and is a Jennifer Wexton and Deborah Ross alum. WEDDING — Maura Haydin, director of operations for Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), and Hunter Thompson, professional staff member for the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, got married on August 4 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They met when they were both interns on the Hill in 2018. Pic … Another pic 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 Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath. Corrections: Friday’s Playbook PM incorrectly described the Ronny Jackson nomination opposed by Sen. Jon Tester. It was his nomination as VA secretary. It also misreported a battleground state cited in Gerald Seib's column. It was Michigan. And it included an incorrect figure for the size of the Chips Program Office. It is a $39 billion program.
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