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If you want to get a full sense of why so many Democrats seem to be frustrated with President Joe Biden at the moment, here’s one piece you need to read: “Is Biden a Man Out of Time?” by The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein.

Whether the specific issue is abortion rights, court reform, voting rights, the filibuster, or the DOJ’s investigation into Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, “[m]any Democrats share a sense that … Biden and his team have been following, not leading. And that tendency points to an enduring question about Biden, who was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and was shaped by a clubbier, more cooperative Washington. Can he be the inspirational leader his party needs to counter the aggressive moves by Republicans in Congress and in the states, together with their appointees on the Supreme Court, to reverse long-held civil rights and even threaten democracy itself?” 

Listen to  POLITICO Playbook Deep Dive:  Why haven’t there been more Cassidy Hutchinsons?

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

Some new 2024 twists for both parties: 

First the Dems… VP Kamala Harris did something unusual on Wednesday afternoon: Before taking off from D.C. to California, where she will headline three fundraisers today, she went to the back of the plane to talk to the press.

White House aides told the pool reporter on board that Harris wanted to clarify some comments she made to CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday. "Joe Biden is running for reelection, and I will be his ticket mate," Harris told Bash. "Full stop."

Not quite. 

The Republicans… Meanwhile, the 2024 conversation on the Republican side is being fueled by three recent Trump developments...

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

It’s hard to imagine how Tuesday’s surprise hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee could’ve been more damning for President Donald Trump.

With vivid stories told in measured tones, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to the president and aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows, “stitched together every element of the panel’s case against Donald Trump,” our Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu write. “The Capitol riot committee has painted the former president’s potential criminal culpability for his effort to overturn the election in stark hues: investigators have portrayed Trump fuming atop an increasingly conspiracy-addled West Wing and working to corrupt the peaceful transfer of power at any cost.”

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

On Monday afternoon, the House Jan. 6 committee, which was supposed to be on a hiatus for the next two weeks, abruptly announced it would be holding a hearing today at 1 p.m. “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.” 

The star witness is expected to be Cassidy Hutchinson, a former executive assistant to ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows who has testified three times behind closed doors, in February, March and May.

Hutchinson knows a lot. Before, on, and after Jan. 6, she had close proximity to both Meadows and then-President Donald Trump.

“Almost all, if not all, meetings Mr. Trump had, I had insight on,” she told the committee in March.

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

The Biden White House’s plan for this week, as of one week ago: Spend the end of June focusing on foreign policy, making use of a pair of European summits (the G-7 and NATO) to rally support for the hard-fought international coalition that formed in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden White House’s plan for this week, as of now: Scrap that. Yes, the summits will go on but the big story will be the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade — which eliminated the right to an abortion, and may have dramatically changed American politics in doing so.

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

On Thursday night, the Senate passed a bipartisan gun safety bill in a 65-33 vote that saw 15 Republicans join all 50 Democrats to support the bill.

— How it happened: “In a Washington run by Baby Boomers and octogenarians, it took two 40-something Democrats with a yin-and-yang approach to get a gun safety deal done,” Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine write in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the compromise.

Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: New Jan. 6 witness: Trump had mystery call with Putin

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

Recall that in the first hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said, “Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.”

Each day of hearings has been devoted to covering one or two of the seven dramatic episodes of that overall plot: (1) Trump’s misinformation campaign, (2) his effort to find a pliable A.G., (3) his pressure campaign on then-VP Mike Pence, (4) his pressure campaign on state officials, (5) his legal team’s effort to create fake slates of electors, (6) his assembling and directing the Jan. 6 mob, and (7) his refusal to call off the violent mob as it sacked the Capitol.

Today is devoted to Part 2, a deep dive into how Trump pressured Department of Justice officials to advance what committee members have repeatedly called an attempted coup.

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

Since we scooped on Tuesday morning that documentarian Alex Holder was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee seeking previously unreported footage he recorded over several months of full access to Donald Trump, his adult kids and VP Mike Pence, more details have emerged about what’s on the tapes. 

And, Trump loses bigly in Georgia: “Georgia Republican voters rebuked Donald Trump for the second time in a month Tuesday by rejecting his picks for a pair of open U.S. House seats,” writes AJC’s Greg Bluestein.

Gordon Rhoden, chair of Georgia’s Athens-Clarke County GOP: “At this point in time, the Trump endorsement is neutral. It’s not a plus and it’s not a negative. … People are moving beyond that.”

Scoop: The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 sent a subpoena last week to Alex Holder, a documentary filmmaker who was granted extensive access to President Donald Trump and his inner circle, and who shot interviews with the then-president both before and after Jan. 6. The existence of this footage is previously unreported.

A source familiar with the project told Playbook on Monday night that Holder began filming on the campaign trail in September 2020 for a project on Trump’s reelection campaign. Over the course of several months, Holder had substantial access to Trump, Trump’s adult children and VP Mike Pence, both in the White House and on the campaign trail.

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

President Joe Biden spoke to the AP’s Josh Boak in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon for 30 minutes. There was plenty of old-school Biden filibustering that ate up Boak’s time. He talked about his desire “to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.” He used the word “literally” at a rate of once every 10 minutes, and peppered his answers with assurances that he was “not being a wise guy,” that what he was saying was “not a joke,” and introduced one point with the words “here’s the deal.”

But there were also some intriguing moments …

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