The Playbook Podcast

After spending the last 48 hours on life support, Kevin McCarthy's bid for the speakership is seeing a potential revival.Following a rollercoaster of a Wednesday during which the California Republican failed three more times to secure the 218 votes for the gavel, McCarthy and some of his critics finally got in a room and had what both sides are describing as productive conversations.This morning, after slamming coffee at midnight and working the phones until the wee hours, we have a readout of new concessions McCarthy has offered his critics and where things stand.Will this be enough to land McCarthy the speakership? That’s TBD. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

So how does this end? And how long will it take to end it?Those are the questions towering over the new House Republican majority, which for the first time in 100 years, found itself unable to choose a speaker on the first ballot — or two others afterward.The House is now paralyzed, unable to swear in its members or form committees or adopt rules — let alone pass legislation. And the scary realization for the GOP rank-and-file is that there’s no easy way out of this mess and no sign that one is going to appear anytime soon.Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and co-author Rachael Bade break it all down, plus West Wing Playbook co-author and White House correspondent Eli Stokols stops by to discuss the view from the Biden administration.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Welcome to the 118th Congress, the new Republican House majority, and one of the most unpredictable and potentially chaotic scenarios we’ve seen on Capitol Hill.The House will gavel in at noon, and following a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and a quorum call, the clerk will immediately start the live roll call to elect the next speaker. GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, however, still hasn’t clinched the votes he needs, and the day could drag late into the night, we’re told, as Republicans grapple with choosing their leader.Be prepared for surprises and a lot of drama. Even veteran lawmakers who emerged from meetings with McCarthy on Monday evening weren’t entirely sure how this will all shake out. We’re told that McCarthy’s plan, however, is to continue voting — over and over again — in a bid to wear down his detractors until he gets the gavel.Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and co-author Rachael Bade discuss the long day ahead for Kevin McCarthy.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

The Jan. 6 committee released its final report on Thursday night — an 845-page document drawn from nearly 1,200 witness interviews and reams of hard-won documents that places Donald Trump at the center of the deadly assault. POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Nicolas Wu write “Trump’s incendiary lies about the 2020 election activated an extraordinary coalition of far-right militants and conspiracy theorists who not only joined the mob but were its vanguard smashing through police lines."Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) — a "Never Kevin" Republican — would likely be dismissed by his colleagues as a gadfly. But given the unexpectedly slim House majority the GOP gained in November, Good and a handful of like-minded conservatives hold McCarthy’s fate in their hands — and stand ready to wield considerable power next year, no matter who ends up as speaker.Playbook co-author Rachael Bade sat down with Good for the Playbook Deep Dive podcast this week to try to understand the rebellion brewing against McCarthy. We learned that Good & Co. are formulating a plan for the Jan. 3 speaker vote. He said Anti-McCarthy members are currently plotting to back Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) on the first ballot to prove McCarthy can’t get the gavel. But once the second ballot is called, they’ll begin coalescing around another, unnamed candidate — a GOP lawmaker most have already agreed upon, Good said, but one that he will not name for fear of hurting this person’s candidacy.While Playbook reported extensively this week on the quiet effort to prepare No. 2 leader Steve Scalise as an alternative, Good stayed mum, explaining that this person, quote “cannot be part of, and they are not part of, the effort to block McCarthy.”

Sean McElwee is a well-known progressive activist who started the “Abolish ICE” movement and in 2018 founded Data for Progress, a progressive think tank with an emphasis on influencing public policy through polling. DFP quickly embedded itself into the top layers of the Democratic firmament. More recently, McElwee became a close political ally and adviser to FTX founder SAM BANKMAN-FRIED. McElwee had easy access to the White House and the press. And he made sure they had access to him. He kept an open Slack channel at DFP that became a rolling conversation between McElwee, Biden administration officials, and some well-known reporters.On Saturday, November 12, the day after FTX filed for bankruptcy and SBF resigned as CEO, McElwee abruptly shuttered the Slack channel. Six days later, he and Data for Progress began negotiating his exit from the firm he had built. At the time, the reported reason for the rupture was that McElwee’s well-known penchant for betting on the outcomes of elections created a conflict of interest for a polling firm. A slew of 2022 DFP polls had a GOP bias, and activists on Twitter— as well as some prominent Democrats pinging reporters— asked whether McElwee was cooking DFP’s polls to affect races and cash in.Sources at DFP insist that this would have been highly unlikely, and that their polls had a GOP bias because of an oversampling of respondents via SMS. In the wake of this, DFP recently adopted a previously unreported “Gambling and Wagering Policy” that prohibits employees from betting on anything related to DFP projects or clients.The McElwee-DFP breakup was ugly, but the two sides were trying to negotiate an amicable separation agreement and a severance. Then on Dec. 13, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an eight-count indictment against SBF. The first seven counts, which were about financial crimes, garnered the most attention. But it was the eighth count that turned heads in Washington, alleging a straw-donor scheme in which SBF funneled corporate money to candidates and committees through third parties. And SDNY alleged that SBF had help: SBF “and others known and unknown,” the indictment says, made contributions “in the names of other persons.”In the race to figure out who might have helped SBF make straw donations, McElwee’s name was at the top of the list. The leadership at DFP suddenly feared they could be in the middle of a much bigger scandal.

It's that time of year: the omnibus has dropped. This time it's a $1.7 trillion dollar whopper, with appropriations filling out more than 4,000 pages. Right after the bill dropped on Tuesday, we looked at some of the most notable big-ticket inclusions and omissions in the text of the omnibus government spending bill released overnight, from Electoral Count Act reform to Ukraine aid to the expanded child tax credit. But in such a behemoth, there are plenty more consequential policy decisions to dig into. Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and Playbook reporter Eli Okun discuss what's inside — and what's not.

Democrats are scouring the record of Rep.-elect George Santos to determine their next steps following an extraordinary New York Times investigation of the incoming Republican from Long Island that revealed a history of seemingly fraudulent claims.Democrats are pondering how far to go in their condemnation. Should he be referred to the House Ethics Committee? (Almost certainly.) Should they call for his resignation before he is sworn in? (Some say yes.) Should they call for his expulsion after he’s sworn in? (Probably, but with the GOP in charge it won’t work.) Or should they try to prevent him from being sworn in at all?

This looks like it will be the final week of the 117th Congress… and it’s going to be a busy one. The clock is ticking on the Democratic House majority, and they are looking to wrap up some unfinished business before Republicans move in and take control. Number one on that list is to close out the Jan. 6 select committee, the panel created last year to investigate the attack on the Capitol by angry Donald Trump supporters. Another unanswered question for House Democrats: what to do with Trump’s taxes? Tomorrow the Ways and Means Committee is set to meet and hash that out. The real must-do on the list however is to pass a bill funding the government. Congress has until Friday to do that, and it appears this morning they are on track to do so. But there is some unresolved intrigue surrounding what might get attached to the big year-end bill. Be sure to subscribe to the Playbook newsletter if you haven’t – www.politico.com/playbook.And follow the POLITICO Playbook team @playbookdc. 

The latest news this morning comes via our colleagues Olivia Beavers, Jordain Carney and Sarah Ferris, who note that McCarthy is now “punting conferencewide races for committee leadership slots until after his speaker election on Jan. 3,” which could “incapacitate Republicans during a crucial planning period, virtually guaranteeing a sluggish start for the new House majority.”McCarthy can’t risk pissing off members who lose these races to run House Committees. The downside of this delay is stark: “days, if not weeks, of uncertainty for GOP committees as they begin their stint in the majority. Some of the most important panels, including those charged with tax-writing and border security, won’t be able to prepare bills, tee up hearings, or even hire staff. While some House committees already have uncontested leaders in place, those chairs won’t be able to choose their member lineup or potentially pay staff. The GOP’s subpoena power, too, will be frozen.”Plus, deputy editor Zack Stanton and co-author Eugene Daniels recap Eugene's trip to the White House Holiday Party. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host and Senior Editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

On Friday, after a group of seven House conservatives issued a public letter outlining the demands that GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy would need to meet to win their support in his bid for speaker, a key McCarthy backer quietly reached out to several moderate Republicans with a request, according to people familiar with the conversations.The Freedom Caucus rabble-rousers had reiterated their demand that McCarthy restore a 200-year-old, now-infamous House rule known as the “motion to vacate,” which allows any one member to force a floor vote to oust the speaker at any moment. McCarthy’s camp wanted the centrists to push back hard on the proposal, which the speaker-hopeful fiercely opposes. If they did, McCarthy would be able to point to their opposition, say his hands are tied and refuse to give in to conservatives’ demands. McCarthy’s office declined to comment to Playbook.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host and Senior Editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.