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Presented by Facebook: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | | THE INVESTIGATIONS — If an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago wasn’t enough for one week, another DONALD TRUMP investigation is heating up: The former president sat for a deposition today by New York A.G. TISH JAMES, who’s been conducting a civil probe of the Trump Organization, AP’s Michael Balsamo and Michael Sisak report . But Trump pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions, claiming he’d done nothing wrong. “I have absolutely no choice because the current Administration and many prosecutors in this Country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency,” Trump announced.
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“Zero,” trumpeted President Joe Biden at the White House this morning, underlining the June-to-July inflation number. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo | DEFLATION NATION — Democrats’ run of good news — or, uh, not-quite-as-bad news — continued this morning with fresh signs that the worst of inflation may be behind us. The key takeaways:
- Prices did not rise from June to July, beating economists’ expectations, per new government data released today, as year-over-year inflation slowed from 9.1% to 8.5%.
- Technically, if you don’t round the numbers, prices actually ticked slightly lower overall — the first time in quite a while that anyone could claim deflation.
- Gas prices, airfares, clothing costs and more tumbled downward last month, granting Americans some relief after many months of increases.
- Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, stood at just 0.3% month over month.
“Zero,” trumpeted President JOE BIDEN at the White House this morning, underlining the June-to-July inflation number. The caveats: It’s only one month of data. More importantly, inflation is running way hotter than the Fed’s ideal 2%: Prices remain extremely elevated, squeezing pocketbooks across large swathes of the country. Among the categories that continued to see price increases in July were rent, groceries and electricity — in short, plenty of everyday essentials. “All told, the July figures raised hope that inflation may have peaked after more than a year of relentless increases that have strained household finances, soured Americans on the economy, led the Federal Reserve to raise borrowing rates aggressively and diminished President Joe Biden’s public approval ratings,” writes AP’s Christopher Rugaber .
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Cristina Rivero/POLITICO | More on Dems’ cruel summer getting a bit kinder … — With almost all of the vote in from Minnesota’s special congressional election Tuesday, Republican BRAD FINSTAD beat Democrat JEFF ETTINGER by 4 points — in a district Trump won by 10 points two years ago. More from the Star Tribune Special elections can be wonky, but the result constituted another data point showing Democrats’ fortunes improving this summer. Though Republicans are still favored to flip the House, election forecasters have begun reducing the size of the red wave they see coming. “The signs of a Democratic rebound post-Dobbs are starting to pile up,” tweeted NYT’s Nate Cohn . — Biden landed another victory this morning as he signed the PACT Act into law today to help veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits. In an East Room ceremony, the president touted the law’s passage as evidence that he was right to call for bipartisanship. “When I ran, I said one of the reasons I was running, one of the three reasons, was to unite the country, and I was roundly criticized for being naive: ‘That was the old days, Joe, you used to be able to do that.’ Well, guess what, I don’t believe it. We never have failed to,” Biden said. “This law is long overdue, but we finally got it done together. Together.” Good Wednesday afternoon. Sorry for the delay in this afternoon’s Playbook PM — we had some technical issues.
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Learn more about our work ahead. | | | TRUMP CARDS MAR-A-LAGO LATEST — ERIC TRUMP told the Daily Mail’s Katelyn Caralle that the FBI did not leave a warrant or manifest when they searched Mar-a-Lago this week — seemingly contradicting Trump lawyer CHRISTINA BOBB, who said she got a copy of the warrant . — Death threats against A.G. MERRICK GARLAND, FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY and FBI agents on social media have risen this week since the Mar-a-Lago search, Fox News’ David Spunt and Danielle Wallace report . “Fox News is told there are discussions to potentially increase their security.” ALL POLITICS SPECIAL MEASURES — A new ad from the DCCC and Democrat PAT RYAN in this month’s New York special congressional election goes all in on abortion, per Axios’ Andrew Solender and Josh Kraushaar : “The sad truth? MARC MOLINARO and the Republicans oppose a woman’s right to choose.” It’s a swing district that could provide more clues to November, and Democrats are stepping up their play on the airwaves after being significantly outspent by the GOP so far. AD WARS — AdImpact estimates that political ad buys will hit nearly $9.7 billion this year — a staggering sum that’s higher than even the 2020 cycle, which included a presidential campaign, WSJ’s John McCormick scooped . That would more than double the $4 billion spent in 2018, the last midterm cycle. The report KARI ON — Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee KARI LAKE has embraced far-right positions and election denialism, but the former TV anchor retains an advantage that many other MAGA insurgent candidates lack: camera-ready polish and longtime familiarity with voters, NYT’s Michael Bender reports from Phoenix. She has no campaign manager — and unlike some other Republicans these days, she is engaging with the press. “I am beloved by people, and I’m not saying that to be boastful,” Lake tells Bender. “I was in their homes for the good times and the bad times.” On the trail, Lake “blurs the line between seriousness and showmanship” with finesse, he writes, drawing big crowds and even stirring 2024 VP chatter if she wins. Former Gov. JAN BREWER, no shrinking violet herself, “described Ms. Lake’s primary campaign as mean, untruthful and untethered to public policy. ‘She went so far to the right that I don’t know if she can recover,’ Ms. Brewer said in an interview. ‘And if she can’t, we’ll have a Democratic governor.’ Ms. Brewer said she’d support Ms. Lake only if she promised to prioritize policy and tell the truth about elections.” PIVOT TIME — Having just landed the GOP nomination for governor in Wisconsin, TIM MICHELS’ campaign website quickly removed “Endorsed by President Trump” from his bio, NYT’s Reid Epstein spotted . BETO SPEAKS — Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee BETO O’ROURKE told Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser that his own party bears much of the blame for its declining recent numbers among Hispanics: “taking for granted voters that have reliably voted for Democrats in the past and assuming they will do in the future, and literally phoning in the work.”
| | | | 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 . | | | | | CONGRESS SURVEY SAYS — A plurality of registered voters think the reconciliation bill’s climate and energy provisions hit the sweet spot in addressing climate change, according to our new POLITICO/Morning Consult polling. Here’s the breakdown of different high-profile provisions:
- Investing about $369 billion in climate and energy programs over the next 10 years: Goes too far: 30%. Just right: 37%. Doesn’t go far enough: 16%.
- Offering tax credits for individuals to use to buy electric vehicles: Goes too far: 29%. Just right: 34%. Doesn’t go far enough: 18%.
- Providing $60 billion in incentives for clean energy manufacturing in the U.S.: Goes too far: 26%. Just right: 41%. Doesn’t go far enough: 16%.
- Offering tax credits to consumers who put certain renewable energy items in their households, such as rooftop solar and electric water heaters: Goes too far: 19%. Just right: 48%. Doesn’t go far enough: 16%. Toplines … Crosstabs
MORE ON HOW IT’S PLAYING — The reconciliation bill’s drug pricing reforms could have a significant impact on older Americans, some of whom are expected to save up to thousands of dollars a year, NYT’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland report . “To hear the voices of older Americans who confront high drug costs month in and month out is to hear fear and worry, anger and stress,” they write. “Many say they are figuring out how to get by, skipping vacations and other niceties for which they saved.” And some envision relief from the Inflation Reduction Act — even as opponents suggest the bill will damage pharmaceutical innovation. THE BASED GOD OF THE SENATE — Sen. MIKE LEE’s (R-Utah) office confirmed to HuffPost’s Amanda Terkel that the senator himself is behind the @BasedMikeLee Twitter account , which The Salt Lake Tribune’s Bryan Schott first reported Tuesday, citing a source close to Lee. Among many serious and political tweets, Lee’s missives have also included comments like “I’m taller than @RandPaul,” “The haters can’t handle this frickin’ smoke,” and “This account is no cap — bussin, forreal forreal.”
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | AMERICA AND THE WORLD WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT — The Justice Department has charged Iranian operative SHAHRAM POURSAFI in a plot to murder former national security adviser JOHN BOLTON. According a statement from DOJ , Poursafi attempted to pay individuals $300,000 in the U.S. to murder Bolton beginning in October 2021, likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iranian military commander QASEM SOLEIMANI. Bolton tweeted a statement thanking the FBI and Secret Service for their work: “While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s leaders are liars, terrorists and enemies of the United States.” More from the AP DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS — The U.S. increasingly sees China’s exercises around Taiwan as “not just a reaction to the speaker’s brief visit, but a turning point in China’s strategy” — and Biden officials are pledging not to pull back from their operations in the Taiwan Strait, report NYT’s David Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Ben Dooley . AUSTIN TICE LATEST — A decade into the American journalist’s abduction in Syria, Biden said in a statement this morning that the U.S. “know[s] with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime,” the most explicit the government has yet been in accusing BASHAR ASSAD’s regime of holding Tice. More from CNN POLICY CORNER ALARM BELL RINGING — “‘People will die waiting’: America’s system for the disabled is nearing collapse,” by Dan Goldberg: “Providers for intellectually and developmentally disabled struggle to recruit and retain staff amid soaring inflation, pandemic burnout.” WAR IN UKRAINE LATEST ON THE GROUND — Ukrainian officials are indicating responsibility for a set of explosions that rocked Russian-occupied Crimea — which presages “a critical new phase of the war,” Christopher Miller reports from Kyiv. Though Russia claimed the explosions were simply an accident, Ukraine said they marked the start of the counteroffensive. A strike in Crimea, which Russia invaded in 2014, “would be deeply embarrassing for President VLADIMIR PUTIN who would likely view it as a dramatic escalation and a blow to his troops’ morale.” — In the Donbas, Ukraine is still holding the line after more than a month of preventing major Russian advances, though Moscow’s strikes are destroying Ukrainian towns nonetheless, WSJ’s Yaroslav Trofimov reports from a Bakhmut under fire.
| | | | INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY . | | | | | VALLEY TALK FACEBOOK UNDER FIRE — A new report finds that despite Facebook’s ban on white nationalism, more than a hundred pages and groups with ties to white supremacist/hate groups remain on the platform, WaPo’s Naomi Nix scooped . And the Tech Transparency Project found that “Facebook continues to serve ads against searches for white-supremacist content, such as the phrases Ku Klux Klan and American Defense Skinheads, a longtime criticism of civil rights groups.” The company said it’s working to fix its systems. PLAYBOOKERS MEDIA MOVE — WaPo media columnist Margaret Sullivan is leaving the paper. She’ll become a visiting professor at Duke and work on book projects. “It’s been quite a ride and a great privilege,” Sullivan tweeted . NEW APPOINTMENT — Biden announced he’ll tap Monica Bertagnolli as the next director of the National Cancer Institute. She currently is a Harvard Medical School professor in surgical oncology, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer and Sarcoma Disease Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. TRANSITIONS — Georgeanne Usova is now national director of legislative affairs for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She most recently was senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. … Peter Hoffman is now comms director for the Senate Environment and Public Works GOP. He previously was press secretary for Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).
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