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Presented by the Freedom to Vote Alliance: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross and Eli Okun | | | BIG NEWS ON THE HILL — Rep. JOHN KATKO (R-N.Y.) announced today that he will not seek reelection, citing his desire to “enjoy my family and life in a fuller and more present way.” Katko was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President DONALD TRUMP in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and is the third to announce his retirement. Amid his efforts last year to broker a bipartisan committee to investigate Jan. 6, Katko, the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, drew the ire of Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY. In November, Katko was one of 13 House Republicans who spurned GOP leadership by supporting President JOE BIDEN’s bipartisan infrastructure bill — a move that led Trump to call on a “good and smart America First Republican Patriot” to challenge Katko in a primary. (Katko received more criticism than others at the time because he cast his vote before Dems had reached the 218-vote threshold.) Katko’s statement: “My conscience, principles and commitment to do what's right have guided every decision I've made as a member of Congress, and they guide my decision today. It is how I've been able to unite people to solve problems, and how I was rewarded with resounding victories in every single campaign for Congress.” More from The Citizen Looking ahead ... Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict): “Dems now face a big choice in the wake of Rep. John Katko (R) retirement: split the Syracuse region into two Biden +10 districts (23D-3R overall), draw one Biden +20 Syracuse/Utica/Ithaca ultra-safe seat (22D-4R overall) or something in between.” SPEAKING OF TRUMP’S GOP… Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS is stoking the fire of his simmering feud with the former president. This week, Trump said that politicians who refuse to publicly state whether they’ve received a Covid-19 booster shot are “gutless” — a remark widely perceived as a jab at DeSantis. Now, in a new interview with the influential “Ruthless” podcast, DeSantis expressed his regret over not being “much louder” in opposing the Trump administration’s calls for a lockdown early on in the pandemic. The podcast, with DeSantis’ remark around the 32-minute mark RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST — CNN’s Natasha Bertrand scoops that Russia may be preparing to invade soon . “The U.S. has information that indicates Russia has prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine, a U.S. official told CNN on Friday, in an attempt to create a pretext for an invasion. The official said the U.S. has evidence that the operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia's own proxy forces.” — White House press secretary JEN PSAKI acknowledged at today’s briefing that a potential Russian invasion “could begin between mid January and mid February.” — And that’s not all: “Russia began moving tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, rocket launchers and other military equipment westward from their bases in its Far East, according to U.S. officials and social-media reports,” WSJ’s Warren Strobel, Michael Gordon and Nancy Youssef report. — Plus, a number of Ukrainian government websites were the subject of an apparent cyberattack today, with one message “on the site of the Foreign Ministry saying, ‘Be afraid and expect the worst,’” NYT’s Andrew Kramer reports. Happy Friday afternoon. Playbook PM will be off Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but we’ll be back in your inbox Tuesday afternoon. HEADS UP — White House reporters, get ready! Biden will hold a formal news conference on Wednesday at 4 p.m., a day before the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. | | | | A message from the Freedom to Vote Alliance: A strong economy depends on a strong democracy. But the cornerstone of our democratic system – the freedom to vote – is under attack. States nationwide are making it harder to cast ballots and easier for partisan officials to overturn election results.
For businesses to prosper, our basic rights must be protected. The Freedom to Vote Alliance is calling on the Senate to reform its rules and give voting rights legislation a straight up or down vote. | | | CONGRESS TURNING THE PAGE — Congress is turning its attention to the next looming deadline and practice in crisis avoidance. “Congressional lawmakers are beginning to discuss a long-term spending package that could fund the government, prevent a shutdown and potentially even deliver another round of coronavirus relief, including an emerging Democrat-backed plan to provide paid leave to millions of Americans,” WaPo’s Tony Romm reports . “The early talks, including a bipartisan gathering Thursday focused on future federal spending levels, have increased in pace and intensity as Democrats and Republicans race to reach a deal before the current agreement is set to expire on February 18. A failure to find compromise by that date would bring federal agencies to a halt.” THE PANDEMIC THE OMICRON CRUNCH — NYT’s Azi Paybarah breaks down the crushing numbers that hospitals across the country are facing amid surging Covid cases: “At least 80 percent of staffed hospital beds were occupied in 24 states on Thursday. … More troubling, the data showed that in 18 states and Washington, D.C., at least 85 percent of beds in adult intensive care units were full[.]” A SIGN OF HOPE — “The steep rise in new daily Covid-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant is starting to slow in some early U.S. hot spots, including New York and Chicago, sparking some optimism that a record-breaking spike in cases may be plateauing,” WSJ’s Joe Barrett, Jon Kamp and Jimmy Vielkind write. THE TESTING NIGHTMARE — The Biden administration wants to make it easier for people to receive and pay for at-home Covid tests by making insurers cover the cost starting Saturday. But insurers aren’t quite ready for the change, and some “say it will probably take weeks to fully set up the system the White House envisions,” NYT’s Sarah Kliff writes. “The new process will be hard, the insurers say, because over-the-counter coronavirus tests are different from the doctor’s visits and hospital stays they typically cover. The tests do not currently have the type of billing codes that insurers use to process claims.” CHILD CARE CRISIS — There is a certain level of protection and peace of mind that parents have for children over 5 years old, who can be vaccinated against the coronavirus. But parents of younger children are stuck in limbo. “Tests are hard to come by. Day care providers are strained. There are roughly 110,000 fewer people working in child care now compared with February 2020, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley,” NYT’s J. David Goodman and Giulia Heyward write. “With child care interruptions mounting, parents of young children have again found themselves sequestered at home, staring out windows, wondering anew if the world cares about the seemingly impossible balancing acts they are having to perform.” | | | | DON’T MISS 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. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | ALL POLITICS REDISTRICTING REDO — Ohio’s recently redrawn congressional map was struck down by the state Supreme Court today, as it ruled that the Republican gerrymander violated the state constitution, Steven Shepard reports. “Under the map enacted last year, Republicans were expected to continue their dominance of the state's congressional delegation, despite a voter-approved ballot initiative last decade to crack down on partisan gerrymandering. The map would only have been in effect for the 2022 and 2024 elections, because it passed without Democratic support in the state legislature. … The court ordered the Republican-controlled state legislature to draw a new map that ‘is not dictated by partisan considerations.’” JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH THE BLAME GAME — On Thursday, McCarthy said he couldn't remember telling Republicans that Trump took responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack. But CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Melanie Zanona have unearthed a “little-noticed local radio interview done a week after the insurrection, in which McCarthy said he supported a committee to investigate the attack and supported censuring then-President Trump. “While McCarthy made similar comments about supporting censure and a bipartisan commission in other places around the same time, the radio interview — in which McCarthy has harsh words for Trump and strongly condemns the violent attack — provides yet another example of how the California Republican has shifted his tone in the year since the insurrection. ‘I say he has responsibility,’ McCarthy said on KERN, a local radio station in Bakersfield, California, on January 12 of last year. ‘He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do.’” THE ECONOMY THE SHOP DROP — Retails sales in the U.S. dropped by 1.9% in December, WSJ’s Gabriel Rubin reports . “December’s sharp decline followed record-level retail sales that started with a 1.8% gain in October from the prior month. Sales at retail stores, online and restaurants grew 16.9% in December when compared with the same month a year ago, the Commerce Department said Friday.” | | | | 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. | | | | | BEYOND THE BELTWAY WEEDING THEM OUT — Natalie Fertig reports from Cave Junction, Ore. , on the bustling black market for cannabis that has persisted despite legalization in the state. “What is happening in the woods of southern Oregon represents one of the most confounding paradoxes of the legalized marijuana movement: States with some of the largest legal markets are also dealing with rampant illegal production — and the problem is getting worse. … One of the underlying promises for legalizing cannabis was that legalization would make the illegal drug trade, with all its attendant problems of violent crime and money laundering, disappear. But 25 years into the legalization movement, as 36 states have adopted some form of legalized marijuana, the black market is booming across the country.” WARNING SHOT — The Treasury Department this morning issued a clear warning to Arizona GOP Gov. DOUG DUCEY that it could “claw back some of the state’s pandemic aid and withhold future payments if the state did not halt or redesign programs that use the money to undercut mask requirements in schools,” NYT’s Alan Rappeport reports. AMERICA AND THE WORLD U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD TARGETED — WSJ’s Ghassan Adnan and Jared Malsin report in Baghdad on escalating violence in the city: “Rockets targeted the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and men on motorcycles hurled grenades at the offices of political rivals of Iran-backed militias, threatening a new spiral of violence as Iraq moves to form a new government following last year’s parliamentary election. A week after Iraqi militias hit bases hosting U.S. forces, the attacks on Thursday and Friday marked a shift in focus, with civilian targets coming under heavy fire. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks.” FOR YOUR RADAR — “North Korea conducted its third weapons test of the year, the military in Seoul said, shortly after Pyongyang issued a blistering response over new American sanctions on the Kim regime,” WSJ’s Timothy Martin reports in Seoul. “The two suspected short-range ballistic missiles were detected at 2:41 p.m. and 2:52 p.m. on Friday and were launched from the country’s North Pyongan province, which borders China, according to the South Korean military. They flew about 270 miles at an altitude of about 22 miles before splashing into the waters between Korea and Japan, it added.” PLAYBOOKERS Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) tested positive for the coronavirus for a second time. David Ferriero is retiring as Archivist of the United States after 12 years in the post. IN MEMORIAM — A memorial service for David Mercer was held on Thursday at Halcyon in Georgetown with a reception afterward at Cafe Milano. The creation of a scholarship fund — The David Mercer Memorial Fund — at his high school alma mater, Milton Academy, was announced at the service. Guests were treated to David’s favorite foods as well as a signature drink named after him, Mercer’s Martini. On-site Covid testing was mandatory for all guests and KN95 masks were distributed. Bishop Leah Daughtry officiated the service. Attendees included: Tricia Enright, Darren Peters, Amanda Crumley, Bruce Kieloch, Christina Sevilla, Kimball Stroud and David White, Kiki and Joe McLean, Tamera Lazzatto, Ann Walker Marchant, Joyce Brayboy, Peter O’Keefe, Lyndon Boozer, Jackson Dunn and Mary Pat Bonner. TRANSITION — Georgette Furukawa will be director of public engagement for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. She most recently was principal at Aestival Strategies. BIRTHWEEK (was Thursday): California congressional candidate Ajwang Rading (3-0) | | | | A message from the Freedom to Vote Alliance:   | | | | | | | 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 | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
