The Playbook Podcast

All eyes will be on a pair of speeches today in Washington, one by the former president and one by the former vice president. Mike Pence, whose scheduled speech yesterday at Heritage was scrapped due to travel issues, speaks at 9 a.m. at Young America's Foundation's National Conservative Student Conference. Stream it via YouTubeDonald Trump speaks at 3:00 p.m. at the America First Agenda Summit. Stream it via C-SPANBecause this is Trump world, not only is there the already much-discussed drama of the Trump/Pence speech-off, but there’s new drama over Trump’s choice of venue.Former key Trump aide Peter Navarro is publicly asking Trump not to go forward with the event because he believes that the America First Policy Institute, which is hosting the summit, is insufficiently devoted to Trumpism — or at least what Navarro believes Trumpism to be in a piece headlined “Trump’s ‘Think Tank’ Prepares to Betray Him” for the MAGA-aligned online outlet American Greatness.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

If there’s one thing the White House, economists and basically everyone who thinks about money can agree on, it’s that this is going to be a big week for economic news. — On Tuesday, we get new consumer confidence numbers, a measure which has fallen for two consecutive months. Last month’s report showed the Consumer Confidence Index at its lowest level since February 2021 and the Expectations Index — “consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions,” per the Conference Board — at its lowest level since 2013.— On Wednesday, the Fed will meet and make a decision on just how much to raise interest rates. After the most recent inflation numbers, most observers expect a hike of .75 percentage points. That would be the fourth rate increase this year.— On Thursday, the GDP numbers for the second quarter will drop, and economists expect they’ll show a decline of 1% to 2%. It would be the second straight quarter of decline — which is often seen as signaling a recession. And Playbook's Eugene Daniels chats with POLITICO White House Bureau Chief Jonathan Lemire about his newest book, "The Big Lie."Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio. 

A year and a half later, and we are still learning new things about January 6 — and almost all of the revelations strengthen the case that the January 6 committee has been building about Donald Trump's (perhaps criminal) culpability that day. Merrick Garland  has a lot to think about after last night.Five moments will be etched in our minds from last night’s gripping primetime presentation...Listen to this week’s Playbook Deep Dive:  He was right about inflation. Biden wasn’t. Larry Summers on what’s coming next,Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

President Joe Biden travels to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., this afternoon to talk about crime, and the White House is announcing a new “Safer America Plan” that details how Biden would spend a previous congressional request for $37 billion to “support law enforcement and crime prevention.” And the eighth public hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, though likely not the last, begins tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. It’s expected to go on for about two hours and will focus on what Donald Trump did — or refused to do — for 187 minutes at the White House after his speech at the Ellipse and before he finally asked rioters to leave the Capitol.“The story we’re going to tell,” a committee aide said, “is that in that time, President Trump refused to act to defend the Capitol as a violent mob stormed” it.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

About Last Night — “Trump wins proxy war with Hogan in Maryland primary — boosted by Democrats,” by Zach MontellaroIn the Republican primary: Dan Cox, a state delegate “who has full-throatedly embraced [Donald] Trump's repeated falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 election, scored the former president a win in his fight with [Gov. Larry] Hogan,” defeating the Hogan-endorsed Kelly Schulz in the gubernatorial primary.In the Democratic primary: With mail ballots yet to be counted (Maryland state law prevents election officials from counting them until Thursday), it’s too early to call. As of this morning, author Wes Moore led the field, with former DNC Chair and Labor Secretary Tom Perez and state Comptroller ​​Peter Pranchot in striking distance. Full results: Maryland statewide and Maryland congressional districtsThe View from Aspen — The place to be this week to really understand where the country is headed is 1,800 miles away from Washington: Aspen, Colorado, where Biden’s top national security officials — including his CIA director, national security adviser, and top officials from DOJ and Treasury — are gathering with a small cohort of journalists over the next four days for rare on-the-record sessions at the Aspen Security Forum. The full agenda can be found here.We asked Alex, author of POLITICO’s “National Security Daily” newsletter, to weigh in with the three big things he’ll be watching for this week.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

The week's top three storylines to watch:1. The Jan. 6 committee’s primetime (possible) finale: The panel will hold its eighth hearing Thursday night, using an 8 p.m. slot to explore what Trump did during the 187 minutes before he told his supporters rioting at the Capitol to go home.Will this actually be the committee’s final hearing? 2. Reconciliation in the Senate: On Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian is expected to have so-called Byrd bath arguments on Democrats’ plan to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.3. The CHIPS/USICA showdown: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is hoping to tee up a floor vote as soon as Tuesday “to begin the process to move forward a limited competition bill that would include — at a minimum — the emergency funding for CHIPS,” per Schumer’s office.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Late Thursday night, Sen. Joe Manchin effectively killed any chance of major climate-related provisions making their way into Democrats’ reconciliation package. The West Virginian told party leaders that “he would not support an economic package that contains new spending on climate change or includes new tax increases targeting wealthy Americans or corporations,” WaPo’s Tony Romm and Jeff Stein were first to report, “marking a massive setback for party lawmakers who had hoped to advance a central element of their agenda before the midterm elections this fall.”What else he said: “Manchin told Democratic leaders he was open to changing federal laws that might lower prescription drugs costs for seniors… And the West Virginia moderate expressed support … for extended subsidies that will help keep health insurance costs down for millions of Americans for the next two years…”Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: LA wants to recall its most progressive prosecutor. Inside the DA’s hostile office.Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Inflation hit a 41-year high on Tuesday, as the consumer price index accelerated to 9.1% in June. More from WSJThat, in turn, affects what might be Biden’s last, best shot at a deal on reconciliation. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said the new numbers make him “more cautious than I’ve ever been” in reconciliation talks, he told reporters. “Everything needs to be scrubbed, anything that can be inflationary.”AP’s Alan Fram: “It was unclear what impact Manchin’s comments would have on his closed-door talks with Schumer, which have shown progress lately. But they suggested he believed the day’s inflation report strengthened his leverage in that bargaining and, beyond that, in winning enough Democratic votes to push any agreement through the tightly divided Congress.” Which brings us to an emerging source of anxiety for Dems in negotiations: Taxes. Democrats have long campaigned on raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations — and Manchin himself wants to use reconciliation to revisit the issue in the context of deficit reduction. But now, Dems are agonizing over the potential political pitfalls that come with raising taxes in an election year, as Burgess Everett and Sarah Ferris write this morning.Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Clip of the day — CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing gave way to one of the more surreal exchanges we’ve seen on cable news, as Jake Tapper and former national security adviser John Bolton discussed some Jan. 6 participants’ attempts to overthrow the government:Tapper: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”Bolton: “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat — not here, but other places — it takes a lot of work.”About that hearing — Tuesday’s hearing was cut into two different parts: Donald Trump's call to action, and his supporters’ response. Pieced together, they amount to this: The members of the Jan. 6 panel “are laying out an unmistakable map to a potential criminal case against the former president,” as Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu write..

Today at 1 p.m. Eastern, the House Jan. 6 committee “plans to make its most complex case yet,” write Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney: “that Donald Trump's words and actions influenced extremists and brought them to the steps of the Capitol.”Central to that case is Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, 2020: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Rep. Stephanie Murphy's (D-Fla.) described that tweet as a “clarion call” to members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. “We’ll show you how they began to organize around that date,” she said in an interview. Doing so, Nick and Kyle write, “will require investigators to delve into the sordid world of internet extremism and specifically lay out how Trump’s words rippled through its corners.” Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletterRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.