| | | | |  | | By Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THE LATEST RACE CALLS — Sen. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-Wis.) hangs on for reelection against GOP challenger ERIC HOVDE. … Rep. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-Mich.) defeats MIKE ROGERS for the open Michigan Senate seat. … Rep. JEN KIGGANS (R-Va.) wins reelection. THE RUN OF HIS LIFE — “Trump Dodged the Law. Here’s Who to Blame,” by Ankush Khardori: “Start with MERRICK GARLAND, MITCH McCONNELL and the Supreme Court.” Related read: “Trump is due to be sentenced in three weeks. It probably won’t happen,” by Erica Orden
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The notoriously pugnacious Corey Lewandowski did something a bit unusual last night. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | LaCIVITA’S REVENGE — Backstage at DONALD TRUMP’s watch party Tuesday night, before the now-president-elect took the stage, the notoriously pugnacious COREY LEWANDOWSKI did something a bit unusual: He extended an olive branch to a foe. After being brought into the campaign fold in late summer, Lewandowski was sidelined by Trump for trying to elbow his way to the top and causing drama with the team. The man who had been Trump’s first campaign manager in the 2016 cycle had been locked in what a GOP official once described to us as a “dick fight for dominance” with CHRIS LaCIVITA, who was running the 2024 show with SUSIE WILES. Before he left this year’s campaign, Trump officials believe Lewandowski planted a slew of negative stories about LaCivita, including one in the Daily Beast that suggested he personally banked $22 million off Trump campaign entities in two years. When Trump saw the story, he reportedly flipped out and confronted LaCivita, who pulled up bank statements and FEC reports to argue that the story was wrong, he wasn’t swindling Trump and that the money sent to his business overwhelmingly went to pay for campaign ads. By Tuesday, as Trump basked in the limelight of his wave election, Lewandowski apparently saw the writing on the wall and realized that he needed to make peace with a man who had won back Trump’s trust and shepherded him to victory. He extended a hand to LaCivita and offered a “congratulations.” Instead of shaking his hand, LaCivita pointed to him square in the chest and tore into him, according to people familiar with the exchange: “Fuck you, fuck you and fuck you. You have fucked with the wrong person. I’m going to fucking destroy you.” LaCivita and the RNC now appear to be teaming up to do just that. Yesterday, a lawyer working on their behalf sent a legal threat to the Daily Beast, demanding the story be corrected and/or retracted, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Playbook. Notably, the RNC hired MARK GERAGOS — a hard-hitting criminal defense lawyer whose roster of former clients include MICHAEL JACKSON and SCOTT PETERSON . In the letter, Geragos asserts that the story is “categorically false and belied by the campaign finance records themselves,” and accuses the publication of “actual malice” — the million-dollar phrase hinting at a potential future libel lawsuit. The Daily Beast isn't commenting. But LaCivita (and the RNC) aren’t stopping there . We’re told that in the days ahead, they plan to send letters to “others” involved in the story. And since the letter clearly points to Lewandowski for providing the publication with “unreliable information … in a blatant act against Mr. LaCivita and the RNC,” we can guess what’s gonna be showing up in Lewandowski’s mailbox soon. Meanwhile, the Daily Beast is reporting that Lewandowski personally says he won’t be joining the administration. (No shocker there.) As for the accusation against him, Lewandowski told Playbook last night he learned of the allegations through the story. “The campaign is over — we’re focused on delivering the promises President Trump made to the tens of millions of Americans who supported MAGA!” he said. “I’d refer to our campaign finance reports.” LaCivita declined to comment. But around the time we reached out about this tip, he tweeted a picture of HBO’s famous mob boss TONY SOPRANO flipping the bird. “If you know why i am posting this … then well … you know,” LaCivita wrote. IN OTHER TRANSITION NEWS — “Trump’s campaign team launched into transition mode barely 12 hours after polls closed — a jarring turn that left exhausted staffers and members of the media scrambling on Wednesday,” our colleagues Natalie Allison, Meridith McGraw and Lisa Kashinsky report from West Palm Beach . “Trump’s advisers by midday were hurriedly ironing out transition plans, particularly how to handle a deluge of questions about the people and policies that will shape the second Trump White House.” Here are the big things we’re watching right now: — Who will be chief, and when? Those are critical questions since Trump can’t do much to staff up his White House and build out a Cabinet without one. (The transition chairs won’t be calling those shots. Trump will, and he’ll need a chief of staff to help create a roster that gels.) When Trump won in 2016, it took less than a week for him to name then-RNC Chair REINCE PRIEBUS as his chief. But we’re told that this time, Trump world is playing catch-up, having expected it to take longer for the results to come in. FWIW: We’re told that SUSIE WILES is still the frontrunner — hardly surprising after Trump’s Election Day romp — if she wants it. — Will the transition team work with the government? We’ve written before about Trump’s orbit opting out of partnering with GSA on the transition, due in part to Trump’s distrust of civil servants as well as funding limits and transparency requirements he wants to avoid. But failing to cooperate with the sitting government would undoubtedly slow the transition process and could complicate the security-clearance process. The NYT scooped a few weeks ago that some Trump advisers were pushing him to bypass the FBI, use a private firm for background checks and just unilaterally give out clearances after he takes the oath. We’ll see if that ends up happening. — Who will manage personnel decisions? That is supposed to be transition co-chair HOWARD LUTNICK. But some folks in Trump’s circle are still peeved with Lutnick for appearing to link up personal business with transition meetings and black-balling some former Trump staffers whose names were connected to Heritage’s now-infamous Project 2025. They’re also unhappy that Lutnick gave an interview on CNN days before the election talking about transition matters they say were premature (i.e., suggesting ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. won’t get a Cabinet post, and suggesting Trump may be okay with banning some vaccines, as The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo wrote). FWIW: We hear people want LINDA McMAHON, the other transition chief, to take the lead, but we’ll see. Good Thursday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels.
| | | | 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 big drug companies a massive $32 billion windfall in higher profits, all while protecting their otherwise limitless pricing power and increasing health care costs for employers, patients and taxpayers.
Stop Big Pharma’s “delinking” agenda. | | | PREPARING FOR THE WORST — MICHAEL FANONE, the former D.C. police officer who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, watched the election results along with WaPo’s Kara Voght at his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he is preparing for the worst. “If Trump wants him imprisoned, he’d rather be killed in a shootout. ‘I’ll die right here on my f---ing house,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to be in some ‘Apprentice’ f---ing military tribunal.’ Fanone insists that he’s not some ‘prepper weirdo,’ that he’s just someone who understands how law enforcement can be weaponized against people — ‘and I fully expect that to happen.’”
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The fissures between Harris world and Biden world are starting to come into focus. | Carlos Osorio/AP Photo | KNIVES OUT — For months, even years, one cause has unified the Democratic Party: keeping Trump from the White House. Now that they’ve utterly failed that goal, the unity has gone kaput. The recriminations have already started. There are ideological fights …
- From the progressive left: "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) said in a scathing statement yesterday.
- From the center-left: “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx,’” tweeted Rep. RITCHIE TORRES (D-N.Y.).
And then, there are personal fights homing in on who, precisely, is to blame. Much of the finger-pointing aims at one man: President JOE BIDEN. As our colleague Adam Cancryn reports , Democrats “say his advancing age, questions over his mental acuity and deep unpopularity put Democrats at a sharp disadvantage. They are livid that they were forced to embrace a candidate who voters had made clear they did not want — and then stayed in the race long after it was clear he couldn’t win.” Here are just some of the on-the-record quotes from senior Dems in Adam’s article:
- “He shouldn’t have run,” said JIM MANLEY, a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID. “This is no time to pull punches or be concerned about anyone’s feelings. He and his staff have done an enormous amount of damage to this country.”
- “There was a Biden weariness,” said JAMES ZOGBY, a three-decade veteran of the DNC. “And he hung on too long.”
- “[Harris] ran an extraordinary campaign with a very tough hand that was handed to her,” said MARK LONGABAUGH, a former Sanders adviser. “The truth of the matter is, Biden should have stepped aside earlier and let the party put together a longer game plan.”
The fissures between Harris world and Biden world are starting to come into focus, as each tribe races to get ahead of the blame before the other side even lifts its finger to point it. Biden loyalists were irate over anonymous quotes from Harris aides in POLITICO suggesting the president was the "singular reason" for Republicans' red wave, and arguing Biden should have exited far sooner — allowing Democrats to hold a primary Harris world believes she would have won. “There is no singular reason why we lost, but a big reason is because the Obama advisers publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didn’t even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then signed up as the saviors of the campaign only to run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn’t Obama,” one former Biden staffer told our colleague Chris Cadelago. The aide snarked that they'd love to have “whatever they’re drinking if 100 extra days of campaigning for Harris instead of Biden would have changed the results of last night!” Related read: “Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign sharply criticized Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman BOB BRADY after he laid blame with them for lower-than-expected turnout in the city,” reports the Philly Inquirer. Said BRENDAN McPHILLIPS, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania: “If there’s any immediate takeaway from Philadelphia’s turnout this cycle, it is that Chairman Brady’s decades-long practice of fleecing campaigns for money to make up for his own lack of fundraising ability or leadership is a worthless endeavor that no future campaign should ever be forced to entertain again.”
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association:   Stop Big Pharma from undermining competition and increasing costs for employers, patients and taxpayers. | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | On the Hill The Senate and the House are out. What we’re watching … The new political order on Capitol Hill begins taking shape in earnest this morning, even with the House majority as yet uncalled. Still, expect a lot of jubilation from House Republicans on a scheduled 11 a.m. member conference call hosted by Speaker MIKE JOHNSON , where there will be a briefing on the many uncalled races and likely some initial chatter about a GOP governing agenda. The House Democratic call at noon stands to be a grimmer affair, with members looking for answers after the party’s presidential drubbing, even if they remain in the hunt for the House. At the White House Biden will deliver remarks to the nation in a Rose Garden speech at 11 a.m. He will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 1:30 p.m. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE will brief at 1:30 p.m. Harris will receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | JUDICIARY SQUARE
|  Special Counsel Jack Smith must now decide what kind of exit to make. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP | THE WIND-DOWN — Top Justice Department officials are now “evaluating how to wind down” the two outstanding federal criminal cases against Trump “to comply with long-standing department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted,” NBC’s Ken Dilanian and Laura Jarrett report. The two cases, on Jan. 6 case and possession of classified documents, are locked up in litigation that delayed their progress. Given the uncertain timelines, DOJ officials “see no room to pursue either criminal case against him — and no point in continuing to litigate them in the weeks before he takes office.” Now, special counsel JACK SMITH, who has been building both cases since November 2022, must now decide what kind of exit to make, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney write. “Legal experts see a few options for the special counsel. Most involve ending with a whimper, rather than a bang.” The options:
- Special counsels typically release reports at the end of their tenures, and Smith could turn his attention to providing the public with a detailed account of his two investigations.
- Smith — with Garland’s blessing — could also keep his foot on the gas in the courts for as long as he can. Some Trump critics say the best course of action is to do just that and make Trump fulfill his promise to fire the special counsel.
- Trump has routinely described Smith’s efforts as criminal and suggested he should face punishment. How acute Smith believes that threat to be may guide his actions over the next two months.
More top reads:
ALL POLITICS
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There are plenty of analytical pieces outlining where and how VP Kamala Harris and Democrats fell short. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO | AFTER-ACTION REPORT — Aside from the blame game that’s unfolding trying to pin Harris’ loss on factions inside the party, there are plenty of analytical pieces outlining where and how Democrats fell short from the top to the bottom of the ticket. On the lagging Latino numbers: “Democrats across the country suggested the problem was obvious, even if the solution isn’t: Trump, they said, has been able to connect with Latinos and speak to their economic frustrations, their concerns about their families and their worries about the future of the country, in a raw, unfiltered way that many of their own candidates haven’t,” Megan Messerly, Kimberly Leonard and Daniella Diaz report from Phoenix. The limit of abortion politics: Despite a handful of states voting to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions, the issue failed to carry Democrats to victories across the ticket, WSJ’s Laura Kusisto and Jennifer Calfas write. In total, six out of 10 states voted to pass abortion rights initiatives to protect the procedure — but that’s just about where the support stopped. “Among those who said they think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, some 30% voted for Trump, according to an AP VoteCast survey.” — Related read: “She hoped her pregnancy story would matter. Then came election night,” by WaPo’s Caroline Kitchener in Smyrna, Georgia Trouble in the tri-state: In New York, Trump made remarkable inroads from cities to suburbs, in blue and red neighborhoods, among whites, Asians and Latinos, Sally Goldenberg, Bill Mahoney, Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta report. “Granted, with 7.9 million of the votes in, Trump lost New York state with 44 percent to Harris’ 56 percent. But that margin marked a 12-point improvement from his losing margin to President Joe Biden four years ago.” Meanwhile, across the Hudson in New Jersey, where Trump lost the state by double digits in 2016 and 2020, he “closed election night down just five points — the closest presidential showing for a Republican since GEORGE H.W. BUSH lost by 2.4 points in 1992,” Matt Friedman and Daniel Han write. More top reads:
- With Harris’ loss, Trump brought his record to 2-0 against female presidential candidates, leaving intact the highest glass ceiling that remains in the U.S. In interviews with POLITICO, nearly a dozen Democratic elected officials and strategists agreed that “sexism and racism, inextricably woven into our culture and politics, played a central role in the 2024 campaign,” Elena Schneider writes . “But they were divided on how much those forces ultimately affected Trump’s landslide victory, where he gained strength across nearly every demographic group.” Related read: “Will a Woman Ever Be President?” by NYT’s Katie Rogers
- Democrats wanted to build on their recent surge in state legislative races on Tuesday. But with many contests still too close to call — and likely to trigger recounts — Republicans appear to have largely staved off big challenges in key states and flipped Democratic seats in others, Paul Demko writes. “Most notably, they partially reversed big Democratic 2022 gains in Michigan and Minnesota that gave that party total control of those state governments and ushered through bold progressive agendas.”
- Despite heavy Democratic losses up and down the ballot, House Democratic Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES isn’t giving up on a return to the majority for his caucus. Jeffries singled out outstanding races in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa and California that could still tip the balance of power in the House back toward Democrats in the coming weeks. But the path is exceedingly narrow. More from Nicholas Wu and Anthony Adragna
| | | | A message from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association:   Savings secured by PBMs are the only real check on Big Pharma’s pricing power. | | | TRANSITION LENSES OFF THE SHORT LIST — “Tom Cotton won't join Trump cabinet,” by Axios’ Stef Kight GEARING UP — Immigrants’ rights groups have “spent the last year preparing for a second Trump term and an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, analyzing Trump’s proposals, drafting legal briefs, coordinating messaging and organizing aid for immigrants and asylum seekers. They responded to Trump’s victory with alarm and vowed to put up a fight, setting the stage for four more years of contentious court battles with his administration,” Betsy Woodruff Swan and Myah Ward report . “Some are already preparing to push current leadership at the Department of Homeland Security to take steps to stymie the incoming Trump team, particularly on immigrant detention and the use of AI in enforcement.” ON THE ISSUES — “Inflation Infused the Vote. But Could Trump Reignite It?” by NYT’s Jeanna Smialek: “Many Americans fretted about inflation as they headed out to vote. But Donald J. Trump’s approach comes with risks of a renewed boost.” AMERICA AND THE WORLD
|  How Donald Trump will approach policies on the global scale remains unclear. | Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo | HOW IT’S PLAYING — How Trump will approach policies on the global scale remains unclear, NYT’s Patricia Cohen writes . “The one certainty about such uncertainty is that it tends to be bad for the economy. Businesses are more wary of investing, expanding and hiring. Consumers are less eager to spend their savings. Lenders may be more worried about extending credit, and as a result will increase the costs of borrowing. And such broad uncertainty almost always foreshadows a decline in output.” In Germany, the country’s three-party ruling coalition collapsed yesterday, a move that paves the way for a snap election within months, our colleagues Hans von der Burchard, Nette Nöstlinger and Rasmus Buchsteiner report from Berlin. As for Mexico, “despite a sharp decline in border crossings this year after Mexico emerged as an enforcer of the Biden administration’s migration restrictions, Mr. Trump’s campaign vows suggest a complex and contentious road ahead,” NYT’s Simon Romero and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega write from Mexico City, ticking through a list of four major points to watch in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Related read: “Trump’s Win Ends a Post-World War II Era of U.S. Leadership,” by David Sanger More top reads:
- Biden wants to rush the last of over $6 billion remaining in Ukraine security assistance out the door by Inauguration Day, as the outgoing team prepares for the weapons flow to end once Trump takes office, Paul McLeary and Jack Detsch report. But, but, but: It typically takes months for munitions and equipment to get to Ukraine after an aid package is announced, so Trump could halt the shipments before they arrive.
- Over the final weeks of Biden’s presidency, “foreign leaders will have to decide whether to acquiesce to his policy prescriptions or dismiss the U.S. leader as a lame duck and hold out for what they anticipate will be better treatment from Trump,” WaPo’s Karen DeYoung, Michael Birnbaum and Missy Ryan report.
| | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook were among the business leaders who congratulated Trump. John Fetterman pulled out of Jon Stewart’s election night show moments before he was supposed to join. Brian Williams’ Amazon show was an “election night fever dream.” TRANSITION — Former POLITICO senior editor Craig Howie was sworn in to the Vermont Bar on Wednesday. He’s hanging out his shingle as an attorney in the state capital of Montpelier. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Sam Graves (R-Mo.) (6-0), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas) and Rick Allen (R-Ga.) … Sheila Nix of the Education Department … Liz Allen ... POLITICO’s Jose Fernandez, Elena Schneider, Alex Remington, Lauren Egan and Sean Reilly … NBC’s Jen Friedman … Caroline Tabler of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) office … Kate O’Connor of House Energy and Commerce … Jose Diaz-Balart … Donald Kohn … Brunswick Group’s Siobhan Gorman … Brad Woodhouse of Protect Our Care … Aanchal Sahay of Planned Parenthood Federation … former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) (94) … Michael Kratsios … former CIA Director David Petraeus … George Thompson of FleishmanHillard … Jeff Bjornstad … Pat Devlin … Allison Rivera of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association … Lawrence O’Donnell 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, helping them provide high-quality, cost-effective prescription drug coverage to employees and their families. 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 undermine the ability of America’s employers to offer quality, affordable health care coverage — threatening the $1,040 average savings per person PBMs deliver for health plan sponsors.
A world without PBMs is a world without competition in the drug marketplace — which would increase health care costs for hardworking employers, patients 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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