‘This is a real f---ing problem’

By Rachael Bade

SEE YOU IN JANUARY — NYT: “Democrats’ $2.2 trillion social safety net, climate and tax bill faced new setbacks on Thursday as President [JOE] BIDEN conceded that the measure was stalled for the moment and a top Senate official decided that a section granting legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants must be dropped from the legislation.”

BREAKING THURSDAY NIGHT: DOMINION DEFAMATION SUIT VS. FOX CAN PROCEED — Bloomberg : “Fox News probably had enough information after the 2020 presidential election to know a conspiracy theory claiming Dominion Voting Systems Inc. rigged the contest was false, a judge said in denying the network’s request to dismiss a defamation lawsuit.” Fox “maintains the lawsuit is baseless and an assault on the First Amendment.”

POLITICS READ OF THE DAY: LONG LIVE MITCH — “DONALD TRUMP has hit a wall in his efforts to oust MITCH MCCONNELL as GOP leader,” Natalie Allison and Burgess Everett report. “Despite months of attacks, the Trump-led campaign to depose the Senate minority leader has resulted in firm pledges from just two Republican candidates, no senators and has failed to turn up a formidable challenger to run against McConnell.”

‘THIS IS A REAL F---ING PROBLEM’ — That’s how one vulnerable House Democrat summarized growing discord between members in battleground districts and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That member and five others Playbook spoke with in the past week alleged that the Democratic organization whose purpose is to help the party keep the House next year is instead hurting their chances of reelection.

We granted the members and their staff anonymity to speak freely about their frustrations with the strategy DCCC Chair SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (N.Y.) has adopted in dozens of competitive districts. The complaints fall roughly into three categories.

1) BOTCHED MESSAGING — Universally, we heard that there’s been too much Trump talk, not enough focus on pocketbook issues. TERRY MCAULIFFE banged the anti-Trump drum constantly on his way to losing the race for Virginia governor. But at-risk members we spoke with worry that Maloney is still embracing the Trump-as-boogeyman strategy, blasting Republicans as extreme for seeking his blessing or otherwise supporting him.

“This is crazy to me that the DCCC is rolling out a playbook that they know doesn’t work and that they encouraged people in 2018 not to use,” said the member who dropped the f-bomb to describe the situation. The person argued that in 2018, the committee gave the opposite advice — focus relentlessly on pocketbook issues and let Trump’s antics speak for themselves — and Democrats flipped more than 40 seats to take the chamber.

The messaging issues extend beyond Trump. As cases challenging Roe v. Wade have reached the Supreme Court, the DCCC has sent dozens of press releases attacking Republican candidates and lawmakers for opposing abortion rights. But one front-liner called abortion “a lightning rod” in their district — and said the DCCC should steer clear of it as a campaign issue.

“We should leave it up to Planned Parenthood and all the reproductive organizations to get in there and support candidates that are pro-choice and leave it at that,” the member, who like other vulnerable Democrats supports abortion rights, told us. “I’m not going to go out there and start bashing people for being pro-life. It would be a big mistake in my district.”

2) JAMMING THEM ON POLICY — Previous DCCC Chair CHERI BUSTOS (Ill.), who represented a Trump district, was known for pushing back on leadership in private in order to protect vulnerable members from tough votes. But Maloney has taken the opposite tack: In August, as Speaker NANCY PELOSI was trying to corral moderates to vote for a $3.5 trillion budget, the DCCC infuriated members by threatening to withhold campaign money from them if they opposed the resolution. (The DCCC denied this.)

Then this fall, Maloney routinely sided with leadership over at-risk members who wanted Pelosi to allow a stand-alone vote on the infrastructure bill. He attacked one of the members, JOSH GOTTHEIMER, on Twitter after the New Jersey Democrat criticized Pelosi for “breach[ing] her firm, public commitment” to do so.

One member relayed another anecdote to Playbook: During the fall, liberal outside groups spent millions on TV ads pressuring vulnerable House Democrats to back Build Back Better. The members pleaded with the DCCC to get the groups to back off, but committee officials refused. (The DCCC says it’s illegal for the committee to tell an outside group how to spend money.)

3) FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE DCCC CHIEF — Maloney often says he understands the travails of front-liners firsthand: Trump barely won his district in 2016 — though Biden carried it by 5 points in 2020. But several of the members he’s charged with protecting don’t see it that way, and argue that his more left-leaning views are coloring the work of the committee.

“What’s problematic is not only is he pushing the wrong strategy. … The biggest problem is that he’s attacking front-line members for taking a different perspective,” the first lawmaker said. “If you want to win purple and red seats, you have to distance yourself from other Democrats. He is a part of this ‘party purity’ march that is just going to ensure that we are DEEP in the minority.”

Several of the members suspect Maloney is trying to use his DCCC perch to climb the leadership ladder — essentially raising his own profile at the expense of their political fortunes. Doing the job right, these members say, means sometimes having to back them over progressive members in safer districts.

“I think Sean Patrick’s ‘leadership’ — and please use air quotes on that — at the DCCC is the reason why we should not have elected colleagues running that organization,” said the first member. “Because it’s not about protecting the majority; it’s about Sean Patrick Maloney. … We’ve got a vanity project.”

DCCC PUSHBACK: The committee strongly refutes any suggestion that Maloney is focused on anything but keeping the majority. In response to Playbook, they sent a dozen examples of Maloney saying in interviews that at-risk members will win by highlighting their legislative achievements.

“We agree completely, this election will be won on our record of results, not by talking about Trump,” said DCCC spokesman CHRIS HAYDEN. “That’s why Chairman Maloney has been fighting like hell to pass the president’s transformative agenda, which enjoys supermajority support in swing districts.”

The committee asked vulnerable Democrats to send Playbook positive statements about Maloney. About a half-dozen did, and so did Pelosi. “Sean is an incredible leader who listens to front-line members on our battle-tested strategies for success and encourages us to run the best campaigns for our districts,” said Rep . ELAINE LURIA (D-Va.).

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri.

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BIDEN’S FRIDAY:

— 6:50 a.m.: The president will leave the White House and fly to West Columbia, S.C., arriving in Orangeburg at 9:25 a.m.

— 10 a.m.: Biden will speak at South Carolina State University’s fall commencement ceremony.

— 12:55 p.m.: Biden will leave Orangeburg and head to Wilmington, Del., via West Columbia and Philadelphia, ultimately arriving at 3:25 p.m.

Press secretary JEN PSAKI will gaggle on Air Force One on the way to South Carolina. The White House Covid-19 response team and public health officials will brief at 11 a.m.

THE SENATE is in. THE HOUSE is out.

JOIN TODAY FOR A WOMEN RULE 2021 REWIND AND A LOOK AHEAD AT 2022: Congress is sprinting to get through a lengthy and challenging legislative to-do list before the end of the year that has major implications for women’s rights. Join Women Rule editor Elizabeth Ralph and POLITICO journalists Laura Barrón-López, Eleanor Mueller, Elena Schneider and Elana Schor for a virtual roundtable that will explore the biggest legislative and policy shifts in 2021 affecting women and what lies ahead in 2022. REGISTER HERE.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to Army Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee in the East Room of the White House on Dec. 16. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

THE WHITE HOUSE

HARRIS: NO DISCUSSION OF 2024 WITH BIDEN — VP KAMALA HARRIS told WSJ’s Tarini Parti in an interview Wednesday that she and the president have not talked about reelection in 2024: “I’m not going to talk about our conversations, but I will tell you this without any ambiguity: We do not talk about nor have we talked about reelection, because we haven’t completed our first year and we’re in the middle of a pandemic.” When she was asked about Biden running again in 2024, she said “I’ll be very honest: I don’t think about it, nor have we talked about it.”

ALL POLITICS

MAGA WORLD HAS DOUBTS ABOUT OZ — While MEHMET OZ is pitching himself as a pro-Trump candidate in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, a number of influential supporters of the former president have started to attack the doctor as a MAGA pretender, Daniel Lippman reports. Referring to Oz, STEVE BANNON recently said that Fox News was “non-stop pimping out the single biggest anti-MAGA candidate — the pick of the Australian MURDOCH and McConnell.” JACK POSOBIEC, senior editor of Human Events and an alt-right conspiracy theorist, has called Oz “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” MAGA pundits have also questioned Oz’s views on abortion and gun control, among other issues.

“He’s a squish, at best, with no track record of conservatism and with no discernible conservative views whatsoever. In the off chance he gets elected, he would make MITT ROMNEY seem like LAUREN BOEBERT,” conservative columnist KURT SCHLICHTER wrote in Townhall last week.

An Oz campaign official responded: “Dr. Oz is the only candidate with America First bona fides,” adding that the candidate “has the support of many from within the MAGA movement” as well as two Trump veterans who are working on the campaign or advising him.

— JOHN CATSIMATIDIS, a longtime friend of Trump, and his wife MARGO hosted a private lunch for Oz on Thursday at Smith & Wollensky in NYC, according to an invitation obtained by Playbook.

AD WARS — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched an ad campaign to ratchet up pressure on Sens. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) and KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) to oppose BBB, Caitlin Oprysko writes. The two lawmakers’ resistance to the package has put its fate in doubt.

DEMOCRACY WATCH

THE EPICENTER — The dispute over the 2020 presidential election results has heated up in Wisconsin, but WaPo’s Rosalind Helderman and Josh Dawsey note that “the inquiry makes little pretense of neutrality and is being led by figures who have shown allegiance to Trump or embraced false claims of fraud. … In Wisconsin, a state that is likely to see some of the nation’s most competitive races in 2022 for governor and U.S. Senate, there are now multiple efforts underway to scrutinize how the last election was run, including a recommendation by a county sheriff to prosecute and jail state election officials.”

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DOJ FILES

JOURNALISM OR DIRTY TRICKS? — NYT’s Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt unearth new details on the DOJ’s investigation of how the diary of ASHLEY BIDEN, the president’s daughter, landed in the hands of Trump allies. “Extensive interviews with people involved in or briefed on the investigation and a review of court filings, police records and other material help flesh out elements of a tale that is testing the line between investigative journalism and political dirty tricks.

“The investigation has focused new attention on how Mr. Trump or his allies sought to use the troubles of Mr. Biden’s two surviving children to undercut him. The inquiry has also intensified the scrutiny of Project Veritas. Its founder, JAMES O’KEEFE, was pulled from his apartment in his underwear and handcuffed during a dawn raid last month by the F.B.I., two days after a pair of his former employees had their homes raided. The group — which purchased the diary but ultimately did not publish it and denies any wrongdoing — has assailed the investigation.”

POLICY CORNER

BIG ABORTION NEWS— The FDA on Thursday “ended a long-standing restriction on a medication used to terminate early stage pregnancies … [meaning] abortion pills can be prescribed through telehealth consultations with providers and mailed to patients in states where permitted by law. Previously, the pills could not be mailed, though that regulation had been temporarily suspended by the FDA,” WaPo’s Laurie McGinley and Katie Shepherd write.

The pair notes that while the federal agency did away with the restriction, it could have less of an impact in some states that have their own restrictions on mailing abortion pills. The FDA’s move comes as the Supreme Court considers a Mississippi abortion case that could reverse Roe v. Wade.

MEDIAWATCH

POST-TRUMP SLUMP — WaPo is navigating a steep decline in readership following the spike it saw during the Trump administration. WSJ’s Benjamin Mullin and Alexandra Bruell report that in a newsroom leadership meeting, the Post’s “executive editor SALLY BUZBEE said she was struck by a presentation showing that in one stretch of 2019, nearly all of the 50 most popular articles on the Post’s home page were related to politics, whereas in the same period of 2021, just three of the top 10 were related to politics. … Ms. Buzbee weighed in with her conclusion: When political news falls out of favor with Post readers, the news organization needs to be in position to excel with other types of stories.”

THE PANDEMIC

PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — via NBC Washington’s @TomLynch_: “DC Health tells News4 that the 508 cases reported [Thursday] is the highest positive case count reported throughout the entire pandemic, 21 months to the day since pandemic shutdowns began in the District.”

TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Ashley Parker, Eva McKend, Sabrina Siddiqui and Nicholas Wu.

SUNDAY SO FAR …

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

Jill Biden hosted a virtual tour of the White House’s holiday decor (theme: “Gifts from the Heart”).

Chuck Todd is producing his first scripted TV show, a presidential assassination anthology series called “American Assassin” on Peacock.

Brian Schatz presided over the Senate as the gavel wore a Santa hat.

Bill Clinton is hosting a Masterclass session on “how to inspire diverse teams, manage criticism, and mediate conflict.”

Donald Trump again took credit for people using the phrase “Merry Christmas,” and told Mike Huckabee that “America loves Christmas. Whether you’re Muslim, whether you’re Christian, whether you’re Jewish — everyone loves Christmas.”

TALES OF AN ANTI-VAXXER — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one of the most prominent anti-vaxxers in the country. So it came as a surprise when an invitation to a holiday party at his home in California last week urged attendees to be tested or vaccinated beforehand, two people familiar with the matter told Daniel Lippman.

When we called up Kennedy for comment, he pinned it on his better half, actress Cheryl Hines of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame. Kennedy said the party was for her entertainment industry friends and cast members, and he was unaware of what the e-vite invitation said before the day of the party.

“I guess I’m not always the boss at my own house,” Kennedy told Lippman. There was also no effort to verify vaccination or testing status of the attendees before entering, he said. (Hines didn't respond to a request for comment.)

Just this week, Kennedy was the subject of a major AP profile titled “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19.” The article reported that the revenue of his charity, Children’s Health Defense, more than doubled in 2020 to $6.4 million. Last month, he released his new book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” which continues to be a best-seller on Amazon.

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS — At a wedding last weekend at Mar-A-Lago, Donald Trump told the crowd he changed the start time of his (reportedly sparsely attended) event with Bill O'Reilly to make it to the wedding of Brian Schottenstein and Toria Aronoff, scions of two prominent Ohio families .

“We had a hell of a time, and the crowd was massive and everybody was happy and I said, ‘I have to go,’ ‘no no no, you can’t, you have to stay.’ ‘No no, I have to go, friends of mine are getting married, I’m sorry I have to go,’” he said to applause in a video obtained by POLITICO . “And what nobody knows is that [the O’Reilly event] was supposed to be at 7 o’clock in the evening and because of this wedding, I moved it to 3 o’clock in the afternoon and everyone said, ‘Where did you get the 3 o’clock in the afternoon stuff?’” (h/t Daniel Lippman)

SPOTTED at Cafe Milano on Thursday night: Terry McAuliffe and Norah O’Donnell.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — James Braid is now chief of staff for Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.). He most recently was a government affairs fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and is a Trump OMB, House Freedom Caucus and Ted Budd alum.

MEDIA MOVE — Fox News Radio’s Jared Halpern was elected chair of the Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association on Thursday evening.

TRANSITIONS — Mia Woodard is joining the Hub Project as director of federal and external affairs. She most recently was a legislative affairs and policy counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. … Joe Karwacki is now digital specialist for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He previously was a digital production assistant with Fox News, and is a Trump digital alum. … Hamilton Place Strategies is promoting Andrea Christianson, Bryan DeAngelis and Christina Pearson to partners. They all previously were managing directors. …

… The Center for Security Policy is reshuffling its leadership as president and CEO Fred Fleitz departs for the America First Policy Institute. Don Woodsmall is taking over as interim president and CEO. SCOOPLET: There appears to be other upheaval at the organization. Victoria Coates, who was deputy national security adviser under Trump, has resigned as senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy effective Jan. 1 to pursue other private-sector opportunities. (h/t Daniel Lippman)

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Bridget Bartol-Versteegden, deputy director of public affairs at the Department of Energy, and Keith Versteegden, EVP at OneVision, on Tuesday morning welcomed Madison Catherine Versteegden, who came in at 6 lbs, 14.9 oz. Pic … Another pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Pope Francis … Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.) and Tracey Mann (R-Kan.) … RNC’s Tommy Hicks … Chelsea Manning … Randall Gerard of Cogent Strategies … Kelli Arena of the NSA … Shannon Russell of AARP … POLITICO’s Sabrina Rodríguez, Allan James Vestal, Kam Burns and Samantha Bailey … E&E News’ Claudine Hellmuth … Olivia Shields of the House Energy & Commerce GOP … Adam Finkel of Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s (D-Ariz.) office (4-0) … Noah Rothman of Commentary and MSNBC (4-0) … Taylor Foy … Eli Pariser of New_ Public … Shane Smith of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office … Holly Harris of the Justice Action Network … former Reps. Steve Knight (R-Calif.) and Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) … Cyrus Krohn … Carlson Teboh … Venable’s Tom Quinn … Emma Vaughn … Sheppie and Mike Abramowitz ... Michelle Morgan ... Doug Landry ... Bailey Childers … Joe Ballard of KPM Group (24) … Clare Gannon ... Jessica Lovejoy of 50+1 Strategies … Sara Benabdallah (41) … Carol Thompson O’Connell … Emma Brereton … Jessica Stone … Aryeh Bourkoff

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