The Playbook Podcast

Just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night, the House passed the $1.5 trillion omnibus bill, the first step toward averting a government shutdown and enacting Democratic spending priorities after more than 400 days operating under Trump-era budgets extended via continuing resolutions.

But the party’s joy of the occasion was short-lived, as Democratic infighting quickly gobbled up the headlines and forced a daylong delay of the bill’s consideration.

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

At 7:30 a.m., VP Kamala Harris departs for Warsaw, Poland, where she will be thrust into the middle of the first major standoff between NATO countries since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

With tough sanctions in place, a Russian oil and gas embargo announced by Biden, and a no-fly zone ruled out, Zelenskyy’s desperate plea for the Polish MiGs is the most significant outstanding request from Ukraine. 

And after months and months of negotiating, and three short-term spending patches, congressional leaders released the text of a bipartisan $1.5 trillion government funding deal last night around 1:30 a.m.

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

This morning we have a pair of significant Ukraine-related exclusives.

The first is a letter signed by more than two dozen of the nation’s top foreign policy minds calling for a partial no-fly zone over Ukraine. The push runs squarely against conventional wisdom in Washington, but their missive will no doubt stir the conversation. 

Second, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows that Biden is enjoying at least a slight “Ukraine bump.” The uptick — first documented by an NPR/PBS/Marist survey released Friday — appears to be real, though how long it lasts is anyone’s guess.

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

“Russia answers resistance with firepower,” notes the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, who is in Kyiv now and covered the conflicts in Chechnya and Syria. “Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.” 

He added, “The depressing conclusion I’ve drawn from other wars in which I have seen Russians in action is that it could get much worse.”

On Sunday evening, a senior Pentagon official sent Playbook an update on the Russian military campaign. 

The headline:

 While the Russians try to encircle and choke off major cities in the north and east, such as Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Chernihiv, they “are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance.”

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

“Ukrainian firefighters on Friday extinguished a blaze at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant that was ignited by a Russian attack and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said, as Russian forces seized control of the site and pressed their campaign to cripple the country despite global condemnation,” reports the AP.

“The head of the United Nations’ atomic agency said that a Russian ‘projectile’ hit a training center at the plant. Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator earlier said that no changes in radiation levels have been recorded so far after the Zaporizhzhia plant came under attack.”

President Joe Biden has been adamant that he will protect every inch of NATO territory and that no American troops will step foot in Ukraine. The discipline to prevent escalation that leads to a NATO-Russian war and to remain firm about his no-boots-on-the-ground pledge is being tested every day. The pressure on Biden to intervene is increasing.

Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: An insider’s look into Putin’s long game

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

President Joe Biden's conservative critics — from Fox News to Capitol Hill Republicans — have slammed the administration for exempting Russian oil from the raft of financial sanctions aimed at the Kremlin. 

They’ve argued two main things:

1. With Russia’s economy so reliant on the energy sector, the U.S. should target that nation’s energy exports in order to be effective.

2. Biden should simultaneously green-light domestic energy production to offset any oil shortages — a policy the GOP has been pushing for years and that is, in many ways, antithetical to the administration’s climate goals. 

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

Here were the three key takeaways and revealing moments that stuck with Team Playbook from President Joe Biden's first State of the Union speech.

1. Biden's cost-free confrontation with Russia — On the surface, events in Ukraine clearly upended the State of the Union speech. Biden spent the first 12 minutes of his address focused on the events there...

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

At 9 p.m., President Joe Biden will deliver the type of State of the Union address he never wanted to give. Biden and his advisers had hoped to use this moment to reboot his stalled domestic agenda. Instead, the situation in Ukraine has forced the West Wing to rewrite significant partitions of his speech. 

Biden is expected to use his address to respond to criticism that he didn’t act quickly enough to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’ll emphasize his work to build an international coalition to counter Russia, as well as imposing crippling sanctions. 

It won’t all be a lesson in international relations, however. Administration officials say Biden will spotlight improvements in the economy while sympathizing with the plight of struggling Americans. He’ll highlight GDP growth and historic low unemployment — but also stress that more must be done to bring costs down.

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

Foreign policy crises have a way of reshuffling the priorities of a president. Joe Biden's standoff with Putin happened to come along just when Biden had lost some urgency in confronting his three big domestic threats.

The pandemic is becoming endemic. There’s not much Biden can actually do about inflation. And the key senator standing in the way of Biden’s domestic agenda remains immovable.

While the war in Ukraine is just five days old, administration officials and Biden allies are starting to grapple with the ways in which Biden’s presidency may be fundamentally altered.

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

In a private meeting at Mar-a-Lago a few days ago, Donald Trump made a personal pitch to Senate Republican campaign chief Rick Scott. “You should run for Senate majority leader,” he told the NRSC chairman, according to someone familiar with the exchange.

It wasn’t the first time, either: Trump has repeatedly told Scott he’d be great at the job and should challenge Mitch McConnell, multiple people familiar with the interactions told Playbook. The Florida Republican didn’t tell the former president “no” that day — though he’s told reporters that he supports McConnell for leader. Instead, he quickly pivoted to the reason for his meeting.

“We have to focus on winning” the Senate, Scott told Trump. “My only focus is on winning.”

Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: Putin’s new war, inside and out

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