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Presented by Amazon: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | | |  | | By Tara Palmeri, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun | | | WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE — We don’t love leading Playbook with oppo research, but sometimes, it’s newsworthy enough and hints at a trend with broader political implications. That’s certainly the case with what former Virginia Gov. TERRY MCAULIFFE said about President JOE BIDEN at a virtual campaign rally Tuesday night, when the Macker admitted that POTUS is a liability in his quest for a new term as governor — remarks the RNC was quick to pounce on. — What he said: “We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington,” McAuliffe warned supporters while encouraging them to turn out voters in the off-year election. “As you know, the president is unpopular today, unfortunately, here in Virginia, so we have got to plow through.” In a statement to Playbook , a spokesperson for the McAuliffe campaign said the following: “Terry’s point was clearly that Democrats can't take anything for granted and must turn out to vote this year: Glenn Youngkin is running on a divisive, Trumpian agenda that puts election conspiracy theories and banning abortion first.” — Why it matters: The Virginia gubernatorial race is shaping up as a bellwether for the midterms and will help determine whether Democrats see Biden as an asset or a liability in 2022. McAuliffe has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Biden and the Democratic Congress — for instance, at a recent debate, McAuliffe said that the proposed $3.5 trillion price tag of Dems’ reconciliation package was “too high.” Even so, that’s a tall task, considering that McAuliffe is longtime friends with the president, and, of course, is the former chair of the DNC. (Also, VP KAMALA HARRIS recently headlined a fundraiser for McAuliffe, and second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF campaigned for him in Loudoun County over the weekend.) — Where things stand: One month out from Election Day, polls consistently show McAuliffe and Republican nominee GLENN YOUNGKIN locked in an incredibly tight race. This morning, a new Nexstar/Emerson College survey gave McAuliffe a one-point edge among likely voters, 49% to 48%, and showed Biden with a 45% approval rating statewide. (Biden won Virginia by 10 points last November). Democrats are having nightmares that evoke 2009 , when they last lost the governor’s mansion — a warning sign ahead of a huge wave in the 2010 midterm elections, which wiped out the Democratic majority in the U.S. House. If McAuliffe wins, he will have laid down a blueprint for other vulnerable Democrats in the midterms. But if he loses, it could make passing Biden’s agenda even more difficult and suggest a tough road ahead for Dems in 2022. COUNTDOWN TO DEFAULT — Sen. CHRIS COONS (D-Del.) said this morning that “there very well may be” 50 votes in the Senate to change the filibuster rules to allow for a simple majority vote on the debt ceiling, per CNN’s Manu Raju. Coons spoke of “a lot of passion in the caucus” given the current game of chicken with Senate Republicans on the issue. But whatever passion Coons was referencing is meaningless without Sens. KYRSTEN SINEMA and JOE MANCHIN — and the West Virginia moderate dashed any Dem dreams today. — “I’ve been very, very clear where I stand on the filibuster. Nothing changes,” Manchin told reporters. “I truly implore both leaders … to engage, start working, there should not be a crisis.” — But he projected confidence that a solution would be found on hiking the debt limit: “We are not going to default as a country.” — Manchin also restated his preferred topline number on reconciliation: “My number has been $1.5” trillion. This comes a day after he said that he hadn’t ruled out the $1.9-2.2 trillion range being kicked around. — Right on cue, our colleagues over at Congress Minutes rolled out a new feature today: The Manch-o-Meter, designed to gauge Manchin’s attitudes about his party's agenda at pivotal moments. Today’s mood: “AIRING OF GRIEVANCES.” Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL is continuing his campaign for Dems to use reconciliation: “For the first time, Mitch McConnell publicly suggested his GOP conference would be willing to agree to limit the time spent on lifting the debt ceiling through reconciliation,” Anthony Adragna writes for Congress Minutes. But Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER is adamant that it’s not an option, and Republicans are positioned to block yet another clean vote on the matter this afternoon, Caitlin Emma and Burgess Everett write. — Burgess Everett (@burgessev): “Senate Democrats will have a special caucus at 1 pm this afternoon ahead of [a] debt limit vote.” — CNN has officially put up a “COUNTDOWN TO DEBT LIMIT” clock on its broadcasts. Good Wednesday afternoon. | | A message from Amazon: All Amazon employees earn at least $15 an hour—and more in areas where the cost of living is higher. In fact, our roles in fulfillment and transportation offer an average of more than $18 an hour. We invest in employee career growth and offer full-time employees benefits like health care on day one, and fully paid family leave. Learn more about Amazon’s commitment to their employees. | | | ALL POLITICS 2022 WATCH — Next year, 36 of the 50 states will elect governors, and the campaigns are already taking shape. You’re going to want to spend some time reading Zach Montellaro’s new cheat sheet on those races. — Where Democrats will play defense: Wisconsin Gov. TONY EVERS, Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER and Nevada Gov. STEVE SISOLAK are all up for reelection in tightly contested swing states. Pennsylvania Gov. TOM WOLF is term-limited, and Dems are eager for AG JOSH SHAPIRO to jump in. Another state to watch: Kansas, where “Gov. LAURA KELLY is the only Democrat seeking reelection in a state then-President DONALD TRUMP carried last year,” Zach notes.” — Where the GOP will play defense: In Arizona, Gov. DOUG DUCEY is term-limited and a feisty GOP primary is taking shape (the nominee is likely to face Democratic favorite KATIE HOBBS, the current secretary of state). Georgia incumbent Gov. BRIAN KEMP has thus far endured Trump’s wrath, but is likely to have a difficult campaign if, as expected, 2018 Dem nominee STACEY ABRAMS mounts another campaign. And Maryland, where Gov. LARRY HOGAN is term-limited, presents “Democrats' best pick-up opportunity,” Zach writes. — Related reading: “Why Democrats See 3 Governor’s Races as a Sea Wall for Fair Elections,” by NYT’s Reid Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, reporting on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania: “The prospect that Mr. Trump may run again in 2024 only compounds what Democrats fear: that Republicans could gain full control over the three key Northern states in 2022 and, two years later, interfere with or overturn the outcome of a narrow Democratic presidential victory in 2024.” BUCKEYE BRIEFING — The race to succeed retiring Ohio GOP Sen. ROB PORTMAN features six Republicans. What the race boils down to, then, is a question that has become commonplace across the country, WSJ’s Michael Bender writes in Wellington, Ohio: “Which flavor of Trump is best? Five of the six contenders in next May’s GOP primary offer slightly different variations on the former president’s persona to voters — as well as to Mr. Trump himself.” FOR YOUR RADAR — The American Conservative Union is in hot water over its endorsements for congressional campaigns, The Dispatch’s Andrew Egger reports. “Sources tell The Dispatch that federal investigators are currently looking into possible criminal campaign-finance misdeeds at ACU during [MATT] SCHLAPP’S tenure. As part of the investigation, the FBI has interviewed former and current ACU employees about the financial dealings of the organization and its leaders — and in particular, as one source said, about their ‘knowledge of the events leading up to the endorsement of BRIAN KELSEY’ … a Tennessee state senator who in 2016 was trying to secure the Republican nomination for the open seat in his state’s 8th Congressional District.” THE WHITE HOUSE WHO’S MEETING TODAY — Biden has invited business leaders to the White House today for a confab on the dire debt ceiling situation. Among those expected to attend, per WaPo: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN, Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO, senior adviser CEDRIC RICHMOND, and executives from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, the Nasdaq Composite index, Intel and AARP. | | | | INTRODUCING CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. GET A FIRST LOOK AT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | POLICY CORNER KNOWING BIDEN’S NEW TRUSTBUSTER — As JONATHAN KANTER’s nomination to become DOJ’s top antitrust official comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, he is expected to face questions of how he can reconcile “his history of working for big corporations with his progressive stance today,” NYT’s Steve Lohr and Cecilia Kang write. “So, too, are questions about the degree to which his past work conflicts with investigations and cases at the Justice Department.” THE JUDICIARY SCOTUS WATCH — “The Supreme Court is considering Wednesday whether something that most everyone knows can still be a ‘state secret’ the government cannot be compelled to reveal,” WaPo’s Robert Barnes reports . “The case involves a request by a Guantánamo Bay terrorism suspect — mistakenly thought to be a leader of al-Qaeda — for more information about his CIA-sponsored torture. The government says it would threaten national security to have to confirm widespread reports that he was tortured at a secret detention site in Poland.” BEYOND THE BELTWAY EVICTION LATEST — The AP has a look at the latest data on evictions across the country after the federal moratorium lapsed. “Instead of the expected surge in evictions, many landlords are holding off, waiting for the federal money to come through,” AP’s Anita Snow reports in Tucson, Ariz . “After a slow start, the pace to distribute the first $25 billion installment of $46.5 billion in rental assistance is picking up. Treasury Department officials said the program had served 420,000 households in August — up from 340,000 in July — and distributed $7.7 billion since January.” — And HUD is out with a new rule this week, saying that “tenants in HUD-subsidized public housing cannot be evicted for nonpayment without providing them 30 days’ notice and information about available federal emergency rental assistance,” per the AP. | | | | HAPPENING THURSDAY – POLITICO’S FIRST EVER DEFENSE FORUM : President Joe Biden is making critical shifts in the Pentagon’s priorities, including fully withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, scaling back U.S. military presence across the Middle East and rethinking the positioning of military forces around the world to focus more on China. Join POLITICO on Oct. 7 for our inaugural defense forum to talk to the decision makers in the White House, Congress, military, and defense industry who are reshaping American power abroad and redefining military readiness for the future of warfare. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH WHO’S TALKING — RICHARD DONOGHUE, formerly the No. 2 official at DOJ, “appeared for a closed-door interview on Friday with the select panel investigating Jan. 6,” sources tell Betsy Woodruff Swan and Nicholas Wu. “Donoghue’s tenure at the Justice Department in the final days of the Trump administration has drawn scrutiny from congressional investigators as they explore the former president’s attempts to pressure the department to interfere in the 2020 election.” FIRST PERSON — Rep. ADAM SCHIFF (D-Calif.) shares an excerpt from his forthcoming book, “Midnight in Washington,” for Vanity Fair, detailing his perspective of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack: “‘You can’t let them see you,’ a Republican member said to me. ‘He’s right,’ another Republican member said. ‘I know these people, I can talk to them, I can talk my way through them. You’re in a whole different category.’ In that moment, we were not merely members of different political parties, but on opposite sides of a much more dangerous divide. At first I was oddly touched by these GOP members and their evident concern. But by then, I had been receiving death threats for years, and that feeling soon gave way to another: If these Republican members hadn’t joined the president in falsely attacking me for four years, I wouldn’t need to be worried about my security, none of us would. I kept that thought to myself.” TRUMP CARDS DOMINO EFFECT — WaPo’s Dan Diamond and Carol Leonnig uncover new documents on one of the first Trump administration scandals: HHS’ use of private jets to shuttle then-Secretary TOM PRICE . “The documents — released to The Post four years after Price’s abrupt ouster following Politico reports about his charter-jet spending — offer new insight into an early Trump administration controversy. The episode reshaped the federal health agency, with Price and his allies swiftly replaced by Alex Azar and a new leadership team, who came to believe that rival officials had worked to undermine Price and engineer his ouster. The claims drove a wedge between the department’s leaders and fed long-festering frustrations that exploded last year as coronavirus-related pressures bore down on the health agency, contributing to Trump officials’ fractured response to the pandemic.” The documents … The original POLITICO report MEDIAWATCH ORIGIN STORY — How exactly did One America News become such a fixture of the far-right media landscape? According to records uncovered by Reuters’ John Shiffman, AT&T executives were the ones who pitched the idea for OAN in the first place. “‘They told us they wanted a conservative network,’ [OAN founder ROBERT] HERRING said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. ‘They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.’ Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.” PLAYBOOKERS COMING ATTRACTIONS — The Hoops for Youth Foundation will host the 22nd annual congressional basketball game, matching members up against lobbyists, on Oct. 26 at Gallaudet University. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as well as Reps. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) are among the members expected to participate. TRANSITIONS — April Jones is joining Apple as a senior government affairs and policy counsel. She most recently has been deputy legislative director and counsel for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). … Caitlin Frazer is now legislative director for Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). She previously was deputy chief of staff/legislative director for Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.). … Tracy Moore will be digital director and press secretary for Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). She currently is a press/digital assistant for Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.). | | | | A message from Amazon:   Amazon employees have seen the difference $15/hr can make. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
