The Playbook Podcast

It’s perhaps the most precious campaign resource in all of American politics — a presidential fundraising visit. So why, with less than four weeks till Election Day, is President Joe Biden pointing Air Force One at Oregon this weekend? And, senior campaigns and elections editor Steve Shepard joins the show to talk about the tactical battle over campaign advertising in Ohio, Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina ahead of the midterms. 

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

This morning we have the first scoop from Robert Draper’s latest book, “Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind" ($29), which will be released Oct. 18.

It’s been widely reported that Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy had a fiery exchange on Jan. 6, 2021. But Draper adds a dramatic and newsworthy new detail about the House GOP leader’s side of the conversation, one that makes his later submission to Trump even more undignifying.

And the latest scoop from Playbook’s own Rachael Bade and co-author Karoun Demirjian appears in The Washington Post today, sourced from their new book, “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump” ($28), also on sale Oct. 18.

Two weeks after Trump’s second acquittal, McCarthy yelled so forcefully at Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) for going public about his Jan. 6 call with Trump that he made the Washington Republican burst into tears.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Last night at a fundraiser in New York City, President Joe Biden issued a stark warning about the risks of nuclear war in Ukraine.

“First time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use [of a] nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” Biden told donors at the home of investor James Murdoch. “I’m trying to figure out what is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's off ramp? … Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?”

And it's the most common topic in ads for Democratic congressional candidates and their allies this cycle: abortion rights — and, more specifically, the GOP’s designs on a nationwide abortion ban. 

Inasmuch as there is a unifying Democratic message this cycle, this is it. In districts as disparate as suburban Omaha and heavily Catholic rural Texas, Dems and their allies have spent more than $25 million in broadcast TV ads depicting Republicans as “extremists who would imprison doctors and force women who have been raped to carry pregnancies to term,” our Ally Mutnick reports this morning.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

For months, aides to President Joe Biden have been backchanneling to keep OPEC from cutting oil exports and, in turn, raising oil and gas prices around the world.

So much for all that.

On Wednesday, OPEC+ announced that it will cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting next month — a move that “sharply undercuts President Biden’s effort to avoid an increase in gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, while setting back his push to constrain the oil revenue Russia is using to pay for its war in Ukraine,” write NYT’s David Sanger and Ben Hubbard.

And two days after setting the political world aflame with its report that in 2009, Herschel Walker — who is running for U.S. Senate in Georgia while touting his opposition to abortion rights — paid for his then-girlfriend to obtain an abortion, the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger lit more kindling on Wednesday night: “She Had an Abortion With Herschel Walker. She Also Had a Child With Him.”

Plus, FDA reporter Katherine Foley stops by to dissect the stars for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.). Happy birthday!

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

President Joe Biden will arrive this afternoon in Fort Myers, Fla., where he will survey the damage from Hurricane Ian via helicopter and then receive a briefing on disaster response and recovery efforts from state and local officials, including one of his most bitter political rivals: Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The president and the governor have talked on the phone several times. They’ve complimented each other. Florida Playbook author Gary Fineout calls it “a rare moment of bipartisan calm” in his preview from Tallahassee.

So what explains the detente — especially the mature reaction from DeSantis, who has defined himself by an own-the-libs style of politics?

And it looks as though Elon Musk will go ahead with the $44 billion purchase of Twitter that he first proposed in April. Recall that Musk tried to abandon the deal weeks later and soon found himself in messy litigation with the company. The judge in the case has ruled against Musk at nearly every turn and, with a deposition and trial looming, Musk appears to have reversed course yet again.

Twitter is enormously consequential to American politics and media, and the takeover by Musk will have major implications. He’s such a micromanager that when Tesla was having production issues he famously camped out on a factory floor to help solve assembly problems.

Despite all his tweets, we don’t know the full picture of what Musk plans for the platform. But he has made a few things clear.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker promised Monday night that he would file a lawsuit this morning against The Daily Beast, after the website’s Roger Sollenberger reported that Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.

The woman, who was not identified, provided Sollenberger with a receipt for the procedure, a get-well card signed by Walker and an image of a personal check signed by Walker for $700. The Beast reported also that it corroborated the woman’s claims with a close friend who took care of her after the procedure.

And campaign guru Steve Shepard shifted POLITICO Election Forecast ratings for 23 House and governor races in a column sent to Campaign Pro subscribers Monday night. That so many races are in flux isn’t necessarily surprising with Election Day just five weeks away. What is surprising is how those 23 races are shifting: Twelve went toward Republican candidates, while 11 went toward Democrats.

Plus Playbook's Eugene Daniels chats with Maggie Haberman about her new book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” ($32), released today.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

The Supreme Court returns to the bench today, a return that is marked mostly by tension and is perhaps unlike any other in the history of the institution. “The normally relaxed season for heading to vacation homes and teaching abroad was marked by the most intense security footing ever for the justices, along with uncommonly public internecine strife among the court’s members,” POLITICO's senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein writes. 

Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and Josh Gerstein discuss the cases coming up before the court in this term, the seditious conspiracy case involving Oathkeepers' founder Stewart Rhodes and former president Donald Trump's ongoing showdown with the Justice Department.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

AP’s Meg Kinnard and Adriana Gomez Licon: “A revived Hurricane Ian set its sights on South Carolina’s coast Friday and the historic city of Charleston, with forecasters predicting a storm surge and floods after the megastorm caused catastrophic damage in Florida and left people trapped in their homes.

“With all of South Carolina’s coast under a hurricane warning, a steady stream of vehicles left Charleston on Thursday, many likely heeding officials’ warnings to seek higher ground. Storefronts were sandbagged to ward off high water levels in an area prone to inundation.

And the Senate battlefield is narrowing, and leaders in both parties agree that control of the upper chamber is coming down to two (very different) Sun Belt swing states: Nevada and Georgia.

“Democrats' most straightforward path to keeping the majority still means bringing back their so-called Core Four battleground senators: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada,” Burgess Everett and Natalie Allison report this morning. “And while Hassan and Kelly are breathing a bit easier these days, Cortez Masto and Warnock are sweating it out in extremely tight races.”

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

 A new Gallup poll set for release today shows a drop in approval of and confidence in the Supreme Court. Gallup previewed some of the key findings for Playbook: 

• The topline: “Less than half of Americans say they have ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ of trust in the judicial branch of the federal government, representing a 20-percentage-point drop from two years ago, including seven points since last year.”

And as it made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, Hurricane Ian forced roads to close, rained in torrents, flooded vast coastal areas, spawned tornadoes and forced locals who hadn’t already escaped harm’s way to bunker down.

One thing the hurricane didn’t stop? Negative campaign ads. 

Plus, FDA reporter Katherine Foley stops by to dissect the stars for NASA Administrator and former senator Bill Nelson who turns 80 today. Happy birthday!

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Hurricane Ian is set to reach Florida’s Gulf Coast as early as this afternoon after days of dire warnings about its potential impacts. This morning, the national Hurricane Center said winds had reached 140 mph, strengthening to a Category 4. 

More than 2 million people are under orders to leave their homes. Said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: “That doesn’t mean you need to go all across God’s creation to evacuate — just get to the higher ground and get into a safe structure.”

And he’s been the de facto decision-maker for the Senate Democratic majority, but after a week of holding the line, Sen. Joe Manchin had to admit defeat Tuesday — for now. 

The West Virginia senator was dead-set on passing a permitting overhaul for energy projects this month, by tying the legislation to a must-pass spending stopgap. Manchin world was convinced the time was right for action, with fresh buy-in from Democratic leaders, combined with long-standing support for the notion of permitting reform among Republicans.

Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.