| | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | 
Hurricane Milton is strengthening as landfall approaches. | Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images | BULLETIN — “Hurricane Milton is a Category 5. Florida orders evacuations and scrambles to clear Helene’s debris,” by AP’s Mike Schneider and Haven Daley THE RIPPLE EFFECT — As the lasting impacts from Hurricane Helene’s deadly damage are still being tallied, John Sakellariadis, Liz Crampton and Jessica Piper have a look at how election officials in Georgia and North Carolina are sorting through the fallout. “Early indications are that key election equipment such as ballots and voting machines were largely unaffected by the storm, avoiding a major last-minute logistical nightmare. But the mounting to-do list is daunting. “Counties affected by the storm are now revisiting some of the most basic elements of their Election Day plans at an especially busy moment in the electoral calendar, with fast-approaching deadlines for voter registration and the printing and delivery of mail ballots, and the onset of early voting.” SCOTUS WATCH — The Supreme Court returned to the bench today, with the most notable action coming as the justices declined to take up a Biden administration appeal and upheld a decision “barring emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans,” AP’s Lindsay Whitehurst reports. Related read: AP: “Supreme Court declines to hear appeal from singer R. Kelly, convicted of child sex crimes” BLOOD LIBEL — DONALD TRUMP escalated his increasingly dire immigration rhetoric in an appearance on HUGH HEWITT’s radio show this morning, deploying a racist trope against immigrants in America. “How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know now a murder, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” Trump said. The necessary context: Trump, who has repeated the 13,000 figure before, pulled it from a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Republican Rep. TONY GONZALES released last month. “That letter showed that 13,099 non-citizens on ICE’s ‘non-detained docket’ were convicted of homicide. However, that data only shows the individuals are not detained by ICE; they are more likely in state or federal prison. And the number of convicted criminals on that docket goes back decades.” More from Emmy Martin PORTRAIT OF A SWING STATE — In Georgia, there is a red warning sign blaring across a key demographic that could sink Harris’ prospects in a swingy state that could tip the balance in the presidential race. “Asian Americans have become a political force as their numbers multiply, and that phenomenon has never been more evident than here in Gwinnett County — a once-conservative stronghold that now votes blue with the help of a massive influx of Korean immigrants,” Catherine Kim reports from Duluth, Georgia. “From 2010 to 2020, the number of Korean Americans in Georgia nearly doubled. During that period, Gwinnett voted for the Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1980 — first in 2016, then again in 2020. But that support for Democrats has since faltered, unraveled by an uncertain economy, inflation and high cost of living.” Another warning sign: While Harris is leading Trump among Latino voters in both Arizona (57% to 38%) and Nevada (56% to 40%), she is lagging in support with Latino men in both states, with Trump holding a 51% to 39% lead in Arizona and a 57% to 37% edge in Nevada, per USA TODAY/Suffolk University polling. PORTRAIT OF AMERICA DIVIDED — “From Bocce to Brawls: How Politics Tore Apart a California Retirement Community,” by WSJ’s Jim Carlton in Walnut Creek, California: “A baby boomer paradise erupts in red-blue political strife, from dueling newspaper columns to a fitness-center fracas. Call in the ‘Civility Task Force.’” SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE — “Blue MAGA: How RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard Became Rockstars in Trump World,” by The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.
| | | | A message from United for Democracy: Banning IVF, abortion, and many types of contraception. Creating a national pregnancy registry. Criminalizing porn. Making you pay more for healthcare and housing. Sound like a nightmare? No - it's Project 2025. And if Trump is elected, it will be the MAGA movement's dream that the corrupt Supreme Court justices made come true. But we can vote to stop them – learn more at Project2025.wtf. | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | | 
Political spending on Elon Musk's X is dominated by Republicans this year. | Alex Brandon/AP | 1. THE RED X: Democrats are vastly outspending Republicans on digital advertising since the VP entered the race this summer — but you wouldn’t know it if you only spend your time on X. “Accounts backing Republican candidates spent three times as much on political ads on X than those backing Democrats from March 6 to Oct. 1 — $3 million to $1 million,” WaPo’s Trisha Thadani and Adriana Navarro report. To no one’s surprise, the biggest buyer is Trump’s campaign, which has been buoyed by the support of X owner ELON MUSK, while the Harris campaign has not bought any ads on the platform. It’s a remarkable reversal on the buzzy social platform, which had seen Democrats dominate the ad space prior to a ban on political ads during the last presidential election. 2. HITTING WHERE IT HURTS: The MAGA wing of the Republican Party is “threatening Deloitte, a consulting firm that is one of the federal government’s largest business partners, with the loss of billions of dollars in contracts because an employee shared messages from 2020 in which JD VANCE, now the GOP vice-presidential nominee, criticized the then-president’s record,” WaPo’s Peter Jamison reports. “Ethics experts said the episode is a potentially ominous preview of how a second Trump administration might use the enormous power the federal government wields over private industry to punish political acts by individual workers. Although federal contracting laws prohibit cutting off a business because of its workers’ private political views, such threats could have a chilling effect, they said.” 3. DOING THE MATH: A pair of new analyses out today offer a stark assessment of the economic plans that Trump has proposed on the campaign trail. Taken together, the reports show that Trump’s proposals “could be both costly and regressive by placing a greater burden on those making the least amount of money,” NYT’s Andrew Duehren and Alan Rappeport write. The breakdown: “The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that seeks lower deficits, found that Mr. Trump’s various plans could add as much as $15 trillion to the nation’s debt over a decade. That is nearly twice as much as the economic plans being proposed by Vice President KAMALA HARRIS. “And an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, found that Mr. Trump’s tax and tariff plans would, on average, amount to a tax increase for every income group except the top 5 percent of highest-earning Americans.”
| | | | A message from United for Democracy: Project 2025 is a policy blueprint created by the far-right Heritage Foundation meant to gut America’s system of checks and balances. Their goal? Take control of the government… and our lives.
If MAGA extremists win this fall, they will pursue Project 2025 policies like banning IVF and setting up a national abortion and pregnancy registry to force states to report abortion data. While raising taxes on middle-class Americans, they’ll also remove many environmental protections so companies can pollute our air, soil, and water with known cancer-causing toxic chemicals.
You think the Courts will save us?! LOL. The six MAGA Supreme Court Justices are already implementing some of Project 2025’s worst ideas.
In fact, they already deemed a president immune from all criminal acts they deem “official,” and stripped women of their reproductive freedom.
Learn more at Project2025.wtf, before it’s too late.
Paid for by United for Democracy. | | | 4. BACK IN BUSINESS: VIKTOR BOUT, who was returned to Russia in a prisoner swap for WNBA star BRITTNEY GRINER, is working with Houthi rebels to outfit them with millions of dollars of weapons, WSJ’s Benoit Faucon, Michael Gordon, Warren Strobel and Alan Cullison report. “The potential arms transfers, which have yet to be delivered, stop well short of the sale of Russian antiship or antiair missiles that could pose a significant threat to the U.S. military’s efforts to protect international shipping from the Houthis’ attacks. The Biden administration has been worried that Russia might provide the Houthis with such advanced weapons to retaliate for Washington’s support of Ukraine, but there is no evidence that those missiles have been sent, or that Bout is involved in such a deal.” Meanwhile: A Russian court today sentenced 72-year-old American STEPHEN HUBBARD to almost seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, per the AP. “Hubbard, from the state of Michigan, is the first American known to have been convicted on charges of fighting as a mercenary in the Ukrainian conflict. The charges carried a potential sentence of 15 years, but prosecutors asked that his age be taken into account along with his admission of guilt, Russian news reports said.” 5. TALES FROM THE CRYPTO: “The ‘Crypto Punks’ Behind Trump’s Murky New Business Venture,” by NYT’s Sharon LaFraniere and David Yaffe-Bellany: “CHASE HERRO is an online salesman who proudly calls himself a ‘dirtbag of the internet,’ able to sell anything to anyone. ZACHARY FOLKMAN ran a company called Date Hotter Girls, offering advice under a pseudonym on how to pick up women at bars. For the past decade or so, the two men have been serial entrepreneurs, leaving behind a trail of lawsuits and unpaid debt and taxes. Now they are former President Donald J. Trump’s business partners. Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman are the forces behind World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture that Mr. Trump and his three sons announced on a livestream last month.” 6. HOW IT’S PLAYING: “Fears of a Global Oil Shock if the Mideast Crisis Intensifies,” by NYT’s Peter Goodman: “Such a result, actively contemplated in world capitals, could yield surging prices for gasoline, fuel and other products made with petroleum like plastics, chemicals and fertilizer. It could discourage investment, hiring, and business expansion, threatening many economies — particularly in Europe — with the risk of recession. The effects would be potent in nations that depend on imported oil, especially poor countries in Africa.” 7. MEGATREND: “Overdose deaths decline sharply after years of fentanyl-fueled surges,” by WaPo’s David Ovalle: “Preliminary data compiled by states and released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 10 percent drop in deaths during the 12-month period ending in April 2024, with about 101,000 people succumbing to overdoses.”
| | PLAYBOOKERS | | Anthony Fauci details his harrowing experience with West Nile virus. IN MEMORIAM — “Peter Jay, Headline-Making British Ambassador to the U.S., Dies at 87,” by NYT’s Adam Nossiter: “Peter Jay, a British journalist, broadcaster and diplomat whose tenure as ambassador to the U.S. began and ended in controversy, died on Sept. 22 at his home in Woodstock, England. He was 87. His death was confirmed by his son Patrick, who did not specify a cause.” TRANSITIONS — Sophie Mirviss is joining DOD as chief of staff to the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East. She previously was Democratic staff director for the House Foreign Affairs Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia Subcommittee. … Debbie Veney is launching Agency, a strategic comms nonprofit with additional outfits Agency Act and Agency PAC, as founder and CEO. She previously was SVP of comms and marketing at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. … Cally Barry is now senior comms adviser to the Task Force Investigating the Assassination Attempts of Donald J. Trump. She is also comms director for Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas). 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. | | | | 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 politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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