Presented by Amazon: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | By Garrett Ross | | | White House officials are rethinking ways to provide Americans relief from surging gas prices. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo | HOW BIDEN SEES IT — Ahead of his upcoming Middle East trip next month and amid criticism for his reported plans to meet with Saudi Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN, President JOE BIDEN defended the plan as he left the White House for Delaware this morning. Asked how he would handle meeting with MBS in light of the killing of journalist JAMAL KHASHOGGI, Biden said: “The same way I've been handling it. I’m not going to meet with MBS. I’m going to an international meeting and he’s going to be part of it.” The clip INFLATION NATION — The White House is evaluating a range of levers that it could pull to give Americans some relief from soaring sticker shock at the pump. “Senior White House aides have in recent days explored new ideas for responding to high gas prices and looked again at some that they had previously discarded, desperate to show that the administration is trying to address voter frustration about rising costs at the pump,” WaPo’s Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager report. Some of the ideas:
- “Biden officials are taking a second look at whether the federal government could send rebate cards out to millions of American drivers to help them pay at gas stations — an idea they examined months ago before ruling it out. Aides had found that shortages in the U.S. chip industry would make it hard to produce enough rebate cards, two people familiar with the matter said. White House officials also fear there would be no way to prevent consumers from using them for purchases other than gasoline, according to another person familiar with the discussions. Even if the administration embraces the proposal, it would probably require congressional approval and face long odds among lawmakers wary of spending more money.
- “Biden aides have also looked in recent days at invoking the Defense Production Act to move diesel and other refined products should localized shortages materialize, two people familiar with the matter said.”
- “Officials have also discussed telling governors to lower or waive their gas taxes, another person familiar with internal administration discussions said.”
The suite of ideas is preliminary, the sources warned, but the “revived brainstorming reflects how higher fuel costs have emerged as one of the Biden administration’s chief political threats and a serious hurdle for the economy overall.” — Meanwhile, NYT’s Jeanna Smialek and Ben Casselman have a stepback look at how spiking inflation numbers are impacting the country, with the brutal and simple headline: “This Is Going to Hurt.” NAVARRO PLEADS NOT GUILTY — PETER NAVARRO, the former Trump White House trade adviser, “pleaded not guilty on Friday and will go on trial in mid-November on charges that he defied a subpoena of the Jan. 6 select committee,” Kyle Cheney reports.
| | A message from Amazon: Amazon’s parental leave can be used by all new parents. The company offers six weeks of fully paid leave to adoptive parents and to supporting parents like Victor. “That allowed me to be there for a lot of the memories that I’m grateful I didn’t have to miss,” he said. | | Happy Friday afternoon. You can get in touch with me at gross@politico.com, where you can send your thoughts on Drake’s new album or where Steph Curry now ranks in the NBA all-time debate. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Playbook PM will be off Monday for Juneteenth. We’ll be back Tuesday afternoon, and Playbook will still hit your inbox every morning. FUN AFTERNOON READ — “I slept in the hotel room tied to the Watergate break-in — here’s what it’s like 50 years later,” by The Points Guy’s Christine Gallipeau: “I immediately found myself forgetting about the dreary exterior while checking in with the front desk agent. It surprised me, though, to find no nods at all to the property’s past, as I’d enjoyed listening to a recording of a Vietnam War-era speech by former President RICHARD NIXON while on hold with the hotel during a call a couple of weeks prior to my stay. I had assumed similar details would be evident when I arrived. However, it wasn’t until I looked at my room key after checking in that I discovered my first break-in reference: ‘No need to break in’ was printed on the front side.” TALKER — Michael Schaffer takes on the Brookings Institution’s “Qatar-shaped black eye” involving retired Marine General JOHN ALLEN in his Capital City column: “He Tried to Reform the Way a Top D.C. Think Tank Gets Money. Now the FBI Is Looking into Him.”
| | DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | GUNS IN AMERICA THE INFLUENCE INDUSTRY — After years of struggling to drum up financial support, the gun-safety movement is starting to make a splash. NYT’s Nicholas Kulish, Katie Glueck and Michael Bender have a deep dive look at the struggle between the increased spending on the issue and the incremental progress that has come. “[A]s gun sales and gun deaths have risen in tandem, and the number of mass shootings continues to increase, including the attacks last month in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, big donors have begun to move off the sidelines,” they write. “In addition to moments of crisis, people were trying to make progress where the potential political heat was lower. More and more funders have tried tackling gun violence through the less politically divisive lens of public health, through community intervention and as a matter of racial equity. Big-name philanthropists including STEVE and CONNIE BALLMER of the Ballmer Group and JOHN and LAURA ARNOLD of Arnold Ventures have begun to make tens of millions of dollars in grants on different aspects of gun-violence prevention.” But the spending reality remains the same: “The gun-control movement is better funded than it was a decade ago, but it still is not outspending the N.R.A.” CONGRESS AMAZON'S DELIVERY SERVICE — Top Amazon brass is getting in the trenches in an effort to torpedo a bipartisan antitrust bill that seeks to rein in Big Tech. CEO ANDY JASSY “has called multiple senators in recent weeks to lobby against the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which is co-sponsored by Sens. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) and CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa),” Emily Birnbaum reports. “And Jassy isn’t the only tech executive working to wield his star power against the bill as the tech companies pull out all the stops to crush the legislation, which could go to a vote in the Senate as soon as next month. Google CEO SUNDAR PICHAI is planning to meet in person with senators on Capitol Hill next week to discuss the antitrust bill (among other things).”
| | A message from Amazon: Paid parental leave allowed Victor to spend time with his daughter. | | ABORTION FALLOUT DEMS WANT ANSWERS FROM GOOGLE — A group of Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. MARK WARNER and Rep. ELISSA SLOTKIN, are asking Google to “give accurate results to people seeking abortions rather than sometimes sending them to ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ which steer woman away from the procedures,” Reuters’ Diane Bartz scoops. “The letter was prompted by a study released last week by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study found that 11% of the results for a search for an ‘abortion clinic near me’ or ‘abortion pill’ in some states were for centers that oppose abortion.” MEDIAWATCH WHAT’S UP AT WAPO — NYT’s Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin put the Washington Post newsroom under the microscope after a string of incidents — “one that led to a reporter getting fired, and another that led to accusations that a feature editor’s promotion was unfairly rescinded” — has put newly installed executive editor SALLY BUZBEE “on the defensive” and “facing internal strife that has eclipsed some of her bold plans.” The juicy deets: “Some in the newsroom also feel that Ms. Buzbee has not made a priority of meeting with the rank-and-file to address those frustrations. Other workers have chafed over her return-to-office requirements, and tensions have flared between the national and metro reporting teams.” “In a contentious meeting last week, some staff members told Ms. Buzbee that she had not yet earned their trust, according to several people among dozens in attendance. MARGARET SULLIVAN , the newspaper’s media columnist, told Ms. Buzbee in that meeting that rescinding the feature editor’s promotion would unfairly damage his career. Many others spoke up with a similar sentiment. In another meeting with Ms. Buzbee, on Tuesday, one editor relayed concerns from his staff that being promoted to an editor role seemed an unappetizing prospect at The Post.” But it’s not all at Buzbee’s feet: “Many of the people noted that some of the concerns predate Ms. Buzbee’s arrival. They also said that her arrival during the pandemic, with most people working remotely, has made her job more difficult. Ms. Buzbee has won many friends in The Washington Post newsroom, they said.”
| | 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. | | | WAR IN UKRAINE — “Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN has declared the end of 'the era of the unipolar world' in a combative speech that lambasted Western countries at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday,” writes CNN’s Ivana Kottasová. — Helpful visuals: “The New Geography of the Russian Elite,” by NYT’s Pablo Robles, Anton Troianovski and Agnes Chang: “European cities were playgrounds for Russia’s superwealthy. But sanctions have closed off much of the world.” — “Russians Hunt for Spies at Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant,” by WSJ’s Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson: “Workers are hauled away for questioning about loyalty to Kyiv, and some don’t return; ‘he is still alive, but he won’t survive.’” — “Russian journalist and Nobel Peace laureate DMITRY MURATOV is auctioning his Nobel medal for Ukrainian refugees, distraught at the eradication of independent media in his country, where he says fewer and fewer people support Moscow's military campaign,” per Reuters. AMERICA AND THE WORLD HEADS UP — “One in three senators is urging the Pentagon not to downgrade the post of the official in charge of security coordination with Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” Axios’ Sophia Cai reports. “The bipartisan letter, led by Sens. JON OSSOFF (D-Ga.) and Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) and signed by three dozen senators, warns that downgrading the post would undermine U.S. national security and risk peace and stability in Israel and the West Bank.” FOR YOUR RADAR — “Wikileaks founder JULIAN ASSANGE’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK Home Secretary PRITI PATEL. Mr Assange has 14 days to appeal over the decision, the Home Office said,” BBC’s Charley Adams reports. PLAYBOOKERS OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED on Thursday night at the Georgetown home of C. Boyden Gray for the release of Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta’s new book “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” ($29.99): Justice Clarence Thomas and Virginia Thomas, Gina Pack, Tricia Paoletta, James Swanson, John Malcolm, Ilya Shapiro, James Rosen and Sara Durkin, Chris Plante, John Fund, Tim Goeglein and Cleta Mitchell. — SPOTTED at a dedication ceremony and opening reception for the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History on Thursday night, where first lady Jill Biden spoke and Jose Feliciano sang his 1968 rendition of the Star Spangled Banner: Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.), Eva Longoria, Steve Case, Henry Muñoz, Eduardo Diaz, Mario Molina, David Molina and Mallory Howe Molina, Adrienne Arsht, Suhail Khan, Tammy Haddad, Cristobal Alex, Missy Owens, Kyle Ferari-Munoz and John Molina. MEDIA MOVES — NBC announced two key promotions: Liz Johnstone is now managing editor for politics and Henry Gomez is now senior national political reporter. TRANSITIONS — Paige Ennis and Bailey Childers are joining the German Marshall Fund. Ennis will be chief of strategic engagement and currently is a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council. Childers will be director of government relations and currently is director of federal government affairs for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. ENGAGED — Hillary Halpern, the senior director of public policy for Rocket Companies, and Brad Fowler, the director of client services for FIA Tech, got engaged on June 10. The couple met while they were both getting their MBAs at Georgetown but didn’t start dating until after graduation. He proposed at their home, where he brought her fresh coffee in bed and told her that he wanted to bring her coffee for the rest of her life. Pic BONUS BIRTHDAY: Dan Hanlon of Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) office
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