| | | | |  | | By Adam Wren | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THE LATEST CALLS — DONALD TRUMP wins Arizona, sweeping all seven battleground states. Reps. MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ (D-Wash.) and ELI CRANE (R-Ariz.) win reelection. Maryland Democrat APRIL McCLAIN DELANEY will succeed retiring Dem Rep. DAVID TRONE. HELP NOT WANTED — For any gestures toward magnanimity or unity President-elect Trump has telegraphed since his resounding victory Tuesday — he suggested yesterday that Republicans do whatever “we can do to help” Democrats retire campaign debt “for the sake of desperately needed UNITY” — there are fresh signs of retribution and a loyalty-at-all-costs approach to his second term. Last night, about half an hour after POLITICO asked the transition team to comment on a story underway about MIKE POMPEO’s bid for a return to the Cabinet being blocked by DONALD TRUMP JR. and TUCKER CARLSON, Trump posted to Truth Social that he “will not being inviting former Ambassador NIKKI HALEY, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration.” In response to Trump’s announcement, Haley posted to X that she was “proud to work with” him, and wished him, “and all who serve, great success in moving us forward to a stronger, safer America over the next four years.” (Despite entreaties to include Haley in his campaign events down the homestretch, Trump never did — and, frankly, it seems to have made little difference in the election results.) Pompeo hasn’t yet posted a response. All of which suggests a Trump team that has been taking careful notes on a naughty and nice list, and is ready to staff its second term accordingly. As MIKE DAVIS, Trump’s self-appointed viceroy, put it on X this week in a note to “Trump Job Seekers”: “Before asking me for help, I am going to ask you to provide me specific and concrete evidence of your łoyalty to Trump.”
|  Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) is among members who feel Democrats’ problems with voters began upstream of politics. | AP | DEMS’ CULTURE COUNTER — Tactical and strategic autopsies of Democrats’ bruising defeat on Election Day are giving way to deeper cultural critiques and questions about what happened and what happens next. A slew of new reporting and analysis is out assessing Democrats’ paths not taken, as well as the possible paths forward. Yes, KAMALA HARRIS faced global inflationary headwinds that buffeted and drove every major governing party from office. But across the ideological breadth of the Democratic Party, a consensus is taking shape: it is a party that is badly out of touch with the median voter; a shrinking tent big enough only for the cultural elite and a few other shards of its past coalition members. — From the progressive left: “The Democratic Party needs to be rebuilt,” Rep. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tells our Holly Otterbein. “We have become a party of elites, whether we abandoned working-class people, whether they abandoned us, whether it’s some combination of all of the above.” — From the center: “If you try to win elections by talking to the elites of this country, you’re going to get your ass kicked,” CHRIS KOFINIS, former chief of staff to Sen. JOE MANCHIN (I-W.Va), tells WaPo’s Ashley Parker, Tyler Pager, Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer. “Trump is not the disease. He is the symptom. The disease is political, cultural, and economic elites who keep telling the public what they should think, feel and believe — and guess what they told them on Tuesday: Go to hell.” — From focus groups: Here’s a scene from CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere : “Pick one word to describe Republicans and Donald Trump, the focus group moderator asked, and one word to describe Democrats and Kamala Harris. ‘Crazy,’ said the White woman in her 40s, who hadn’t gone to college. Then: ‘Preachy.’ … Asked to pick between the two words, the woman said she’d ‘probably go with “crazy,”’ anguish clearly in her voice. ‘Because “crazy” doesn’t look down on me,’ she said. ‘“Preachy” does.’” — From NYT columnists: “Democratic candidates have often been avatars of elitism,” NYT’s Maureen Dowd writes, further arguing that the party has “embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension and cancellation.” — From the Democratic intelligentsia: Among nonwhite working-class voters, BARACK OBAMA had a 67-point margin of victory in 2012, Ruy Teixeira notes in his Liberal Patriot Substack newsletter. By contrast, Harris appears to have had a 33-point margin of victory with the same demographic. “That indicates that Democrats have had their margin among this core constituency more than cut in half over the last 12 years,” he writes. “And it’s time to face the fact that the GOP has become the party of America’s working class.” All of which invites a bigger and in some ways more fundamental question: If politics is downstream of culture, as the late ANDREW BREITBART once observed, did Democrats miss sea changes in a country whose most recent cultural artifacts and decisions seemed to be slowly tacking rightward? That’s the consensus in formation at the moment: That the Democratic Party is adrift, and its problems are beyond anything a visit with JOE ROGAN in Austin or a blitz primary could have fixed. But there were bright spots on the map that flashed blue, Democratic candidates in Trump-curious and downright Trumpy districts who outperformed. What did they know — and do differently — that other Democrats can learn from? Playbook reached out to Reps. PAT RYAN (D-N.Y.) and MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ (D-Wash.), two congressional Democrats who overperformed their peers — and, of course, the top of the ticket — to talk it through. They are on opposite sides of the country, and their districts couldn’t be more different. But their answers sound remarkably similar: Democrats’ problems with voters began upstream of politics and years before anything that happened in recent weeks. Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop me a line as I sit here in a Midwestern diner: awren@politico.com.
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association: Election Day has passed — but one thing never changes: Big Pharma wants to increase their profits at the expense of everyone else.
That’s why Big Pharma’s top priority for Congress is a self-serving agenda called “delinking,” which would hand drug companies a massive $32 billion windfall in higher profits, increase their pricing power and hike health care costs, including for America’s seniors.
Stop Big Pharma’s “delinking” agenda. | | | | RYAN’S ROMP: This week, Ryan held onto his Hudson Valley seat by more than 13 points, defeating Republican ALISON ESPOSITO , a former police officer. Treading water in a D+1 district, Ryan performed the best of any contested races, according to a variety of handicappers. How did he do it?
- He distanced himself from JOE BIDEN early. In his internal polling this summer, Ryan saw Biden losing his district by eight points — a 16-point swing from 2020, when he won it by eight. Ryan took that millstone off his neck.
- He ditched typical partisan framing. “If you’re talking about who’s ‘moderate’ and who’s ‘progressive,’ you’re missing the whole fucking point,” Ryan tells Playbook. “I just think it's not ideological. It's about who fights for the people and who is empowering elites. Trump inherently understands that, by the way.”
- He also leaned into a masculinity that appealed to young, disaffected men in a different kind of way than DONALD TRUMP did. Ryan, who served 27 months in combat across two tours in Iraq as an intelligence officer — winning two Bronze Stars — knew Democrats needed to offer a more compelling version of masculinity. One of his most popular ads showed him wrestling with his sons in the living room and playing with Legos. He put millions of dollars behind it — his best, most authentic attempt to put on display “a healthy, positive, patriotic masculinity where I talk obsessively about my boys,” he said.
Ryan’s case study is interesting for a few reasons. For starters, his path points to how Harris could’ve broken from Biden. One of the first Democrats to call for Biden to step aside, Ryan also ran against Biden on immigration and acknowledged the economic pain his constituents were feeling. “I hammered him from the beginning on securing the border,” Ryan said. “At the same time, though, I campaigned with [New York Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ ] and have been very direct that big corporations and billionaires are screwing us over. And I don't think either of those makes me either a progressive or a moderate; I think it makes me the person that's tired of the system that's harming about 90-plus percent of my constituents.” But thinking that “both parties' brands are pretty toxic right now,” Ryan made what he called a “small-i independent” case. “The elites in the party are totally disconnected from just the reality of everybody, and especially younger people, and particularly young men,” Ryan said. WASHINGTON STATE WORKING CLASS: And then there is Glusenkamp Perez, an autoshop-owning Democrat from a rural, Trumpy district in Washington State. Even as the former president won her district, MGP defeated Republican JOE KENT, a former Green Beret who narrowly lost to her in 2022. How did she outrun her party and win? She hewed to her working-class roots, avoided allowing her race to get nationalized and ran with authenticity that defied the national Democratic Party’s brand. Gluesenkamp Perez says Democrats, on a cultural level, have lost touch with working-class voters. She sees a takeaway from her own win: Democrats need to find ways to pierce their own cultural bubbles. “The political is absolutely secondary to the cultural,” she tells Playbook. “Like, do not make people choose between their faith and their politics. Politics will lose every time.” One thing that especially irked her about Democrats’ approach in the presidential race? Harris’ frequent use of celebrity validators to appeal to voters. Instead, she suggests meeting voters where they are. “You ought to be hanging out with people at a quilting club or the firing range,” she says. In her own race, the closest MGP got to a celebrity endorsement in an ad was appearing with KATHLEEN MONCY, a fifth-generation shellfish grower in the district. “I don’t think that an electrician who lives half an hour from Vancouver cares about an endorsement by a celebrity,” she tells Playbook.
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association:   Stop Big Pharma from undermining competition and increasing costs for employers, patients and taxpayers. | | | CLICKER — Bruce Mehlman explains the election in 47 slides. SUNDAY BEST … — Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) on who or what deserves blame for the Democrats’ loss, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “President Biden, when he came into office, said that he would be the most progressive president since FDR. And I think on domestic issues — not foreign policy, on domestic issues — he has kept his word. … But that agenda has got to be placed within the overall context of American society today. And that American society today is one in which tens of millions of working families and elderly people are struggling, while the people on top have never had it so good.” — VIVEK RAMASWAMY on possibly joining the Trump administration or seeking appointment to succeed JD VANCE (R-Ohio) the U.S. Senate, on ABC’s “This Week”: “There's a couple great options on the table. I want to have the biggest possible impact on this country. We're not going to sort that out in the press, but we're having some — we're having some high-impact discussions.” — Sen. JOHN BARASSO (R-Wyo.) on his read of Republicans’ mandate, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Well, the mandate are the two things that people care the most about, which is the high costs and the open border. … I expect to see the president put back in place the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, stop this catch-and-release policy. And the Senate also wants to work very quickly — actually, before the inauguration — on making sure the president's Cabinet is in place.” On Trump’s plans for mass deportation: “I agree with the president” on “where we need to start. We need to start with the people who are felons … who have been left in this country. People who are on the terrorist watch list, people who have been convicted in other countries of murder and rape. People who are committing crimes in this country. That's the place to start, and that's where President Trump is about to start.” — Rep. DEAN PHILLIPS (D-Minn.) on the Democratic Party’s message, on FOX’s “Fox News Sunday”: “You look around the country, a lot of red states were favoring Democratic policies. So I would argue, yes, our product is not the real problem. Our packaging, our messengers and our distribution is a real problem. And I think it's fair to say, if you ask people what the Democratic brand stands for right now, it's real complicated. And that's a real important problem right now that we have to articulate what we stand for.” — Rep. BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.) on Black men supporting Trump on FOX’s “Fox News Sunday”: “I heard the same thing talking to Black men that I heard, talking to anybody across our country. How are we going to get ahead and make more money, be able to pass something on to our children? How are we going to secure this southern border? It's not fair that you have illegals coming in, getting gas cards, getting hotel stays and all the like. That's not right.” TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.
- “The Democratic Blind Spot That Wrecked 2024,” by Ezra Klein for NYT
- “Can Trump be the New Reagan?” by Mathew Kaminski
- “Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?” by David Brooks for NYT
- “How to Grow Out of America’s Debt Woes,” by Larry Fink for WSJ
- “The voter shift that should alarm Democrats most,” by Youyou Zhou and Heather Long for WaPo
- “The Internet is More Real than Real Life,” by Jeremiah Johnson for Infinite Scroll
- “Donald Trump Broke the GOP — And Put It Back Together,” by Matt Continetti for The Free Press
- “Provisional Initial Election Thoughts,” by Matt Glassman on Substack
- “Trump’s first major decision was a good one,” by Karen Tumulty for WaPo
- “Trump Didn't Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose,” by Josh Barro for Very Serious
- “Why Did Trump Win? These Dems Have Discovered a Very Disturbing Answer,” by Greg Sargent for TNR
- “All Bets Are Off,” by Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake for NYR
| | | | REGISTER NOW: Join POLITICO and Capital One for a deep-dive discussion with Acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and other housing experts on how to fix America’s housing crisis and build a foundation for financial prosperity. Register to attend in-person or virtually here. | | | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | At the White House Biden and first lady JILL BIDEN will return to the White House in the afternoon from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Harris has nothing on her public schedule.
| | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | 7 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR
|  Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor reportedly has no plans to retire from the nation’s highest court. | Jeff Roberson/AP | 1. BENCH PRESS: Though some Democrats have urged Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while the party still has the power to approve her replacement, the justice reportedly has no plans to retire from the nation’s highest court, WSJ’s Jess Bravin scoops. “‘This is no time to lose her important voice on the court. She just turned 70 and takes better care of herself than anyone I know,’ said one person close to the justice, suggesting that progressives turn their attention to other ways of safeguarding the Constitution.” Related read: “Sen. Bernie Sanders says he does not support urging Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down,” by NBC News’ Alexandra Marquez 2. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: As frustration mounts with the lack of a cease-fire deal, Qatari officials announced yesterday they are suspending mediation efforts on Gaza, AP’s Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy and Matthew Lee report. “It wasn’t immediately clear whether the remaining Hamas leadership hosted by Qatar must leave, or where it would go.” An Egyptian official confirmed that Qatar was highly likely to restart negotiation efforts should both sides show “serious political willingness” to reach a deal. Elsewhere in the region … Palestinian leader MAHMOUD ABBAS is trying to make nice with the Trump family, meeting with TIFFANY TRUMP’s father-in-law and writing a letter condemning the July 13 attempt on the former president’s life, NYT’s Adam Rasgon and Charles Homans report. 3. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: “China Courts U.S. Allies as Defense Against Trump’s Protectionism,” by WSJ’s Lingling Wei and Kim Mackrael: “To offset the potential hit to the already wobbly Chinese economy, the XI [JINPING] leadership is considering plans to shower American allies in Europe and Asia with tariff cuts, visa exemptions, Chinese investments and other incentives.” But but but: “European leaders are likely to be wary about offers from China and reluctant to be boxed into any position that deepens the rifts that they already fear will arise with the Trump administration.”
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association:   Savings secured by PBMs are the only real check on Big Pharma’s pricing power. | | | 4. DONORS BEWARE: Some progressive and pro-Harris donors are gearing up for potential investigations from the Trump administration, with at least one large group consulting lawyers in fear of legal threats, Semafor’s Ben Smith and Shelby Talcott report. Even though Trump has vowed retribution against his political enemies in his second term, progressive leaders are split about how seriously to take him: “Some are skeptical that Trump would use the federal apparatus to attack Democratic donors and progressive nonprofits … Others are closer to outright panic.” 5. THE COTTON IS HIGH: Sen. TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) has locked down enough votes from his GOP colleagues to become GOP conference chair, Axios’ Stef Knight reports: “Cotton's expected win on Wednesday would box out Sen. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) from leadership entirely. Sen. SHELLEY CAPITO (R-W.Va.) is running for the No. 4 position currently held by Ernst.” 6. TALES FROM THE CRYPTO: “Treasury probe of cryptocurrency could pose conflict for Trump aide,” by WaPo’s Jeff Stein and Jonathan O'Connell: “Officials at the Treasury Department have spent months weighing sanctions against the cryptocurrency Tether for allegedly facilitating illicit financial activities … [Trump transition team co-chair HOWARD LUTNICK], who is also a candidate to be treasury secretary, has touted Tether in media interviews and has said he manages assets for the cryptocurrency.” 7. ON THE MONEY: The Daily Beast has revised a previous report on the amount of money that the Trump campaign and pro-Trump PACs directed to campaign co-manager CHRIS LaCIVITA in the past two years. Though the Beast’s Michael Isikoff initially reported LaCivita had personally received $22 million from the campaign, on Friday, the outlet revised that number downward to $19.2 million, further noting that “[t]he article has also been updated to make clear that payments were to LaCivita’s LLC not to LaCivita personally.”
| | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | | Anthony Weiner is pondering a new run for office. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is planning to meet with Donald Trump. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Peter Bisbee is resigning as executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association at the end of the year after six years with the committee, our Daniel Lippman has learned. Before joining RAGA, he was executive director of the Rule of Law Defense Fund and is an alum of the Federalist Society. He hasn't announced his next step. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Ashley Pratte Oates, SVP at The Herald Group and Jonathan Oates, partner at Krum, Gergely & Oates, welcomed Jack Joseph Oates on Saturday at 9:34am. He came in at 6 lbs and 13 oz. Pic … Another pic — John Thomas, a political strategist and managing director of Nestpoint, and Taylor Thomas, an attorney at DLA Piper, recently welcomed John Blae Thomas. He came in at 7.3 lbs. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) (7-0) … Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe Doescher … NPR’s Sue Davis ... WaPo’s Mary Jordan and Ben Pauker … Reuters’ Nandita Bose … Amanda Ashley Keating of FGS Global … Geoff Brewer of Gallup … Elizabeth Greener … Kate Gould of State … LaRonda Peterson … Alex Sopko … Florida International University’s Carlos Becerra … POLITICO’s Jeff Daker and Declan Harty … CBS’ Alan He … Jennifer Curley of Curley Company … ABC’s Josh Margolin … Misty Marshall of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) office … Brian Romick … Andy Blomme of NeighborWorks America … Blake Deeley … Miranda Lilla … former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) … Zachary Enos … former Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) (8-0) … Herald Group’s Carla Picasso … Jim Kuhnhenn … Julio Céron of the Transport Workers Union (3-0) … Howard Marks (8-0) 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.
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association: PBMs are working every day on behalf of employers and taxpayers, helping patients and their families access high-quality, cost-effective prescription drug coverage. But Big Pharma is working to undermine PBM savings by removing the only real check on their otherwise limitless pricing power, and boost drug company profits at the expense of patients and employers.
In fact, Big Pharma-backed legislation targeting PBMs would boost drug company profits and increase health care costs for seniors — threatening Medicare Part D beneficiaries with a staggering $13 billion increase in premiums.
A world without PBMs is a world without competition in the drug marketplace — which would increase health care costs for patients, employers and taxpayers.
Stand up for savings and competition. Stop Big Pharma’s “delinking” agenda. | | | | | | | 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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