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Presented by Vapor Technology Association: The unofficial guide to official Washington. | | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels | Presented by Vapor Technology Association | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | HALEY’S FIRST PRIMARY WIN? — Primary voting for Republicans started yesterday here in Washington and runs through tomorrow evening. There’s only one polling place: the Madison Hotel on 15th Street NW. The DONALD TRUMP campaign, which seems to believe that all the GOP lobbyists live in the District rather than across the river in Virginia, claims that it will be making a list. Count us skeptical. NIKKI HALEY could win all 19 delegates at stake in the contest. She also continues to rally to her side as much of the anti-Trump faction of the GOP as possible. Last night, Sens. LISA MURKOWSKI and SUSAN COLLINS revealed they are backing Haley. Reminder: Alaska and Maine are two of the 15 states voting on Super Tuesday, three days away, where a combined 865 delegates are at stake. But along with the D.C. primary, as Steven Shepard notes this morning, GOP conventions and caucuses in Michigan, Idaho and North Dakota will select 119 delegates over the next three days — more than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined.
|  With every new data point, the Biden White House's default position of dismissing concerns is being severely tested. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | HOW NATE COHN RUINED DEMS’ WEEKEND — The new NYT-Siena poll showing more dismal numbers for President JOE BIDEN is already causing widespread freakout among Dems. Let’s start with a few of the reactions in our private feeds before we plunge into the toplines. The IDs almost don’t matter; we can assure you you’ve heard of all of these people:
- “This has the feel of a slow motion car crash. Trump is deeply, epically flawed. I don’t believe women are tied. Perhaps Biden yet can rally the base. But it’s getting late. If you’re not a bedwetter now, you’re not paying attention.”
- “Obviously these polls are a snapshot in time and the election is a long ways away, but it’s pretty concerning. Voter sentiment on the economy is stubbornly low. There’s major slippage among voters of color. This should be a wakeup call that things have to improve and change. The reaction can’t be to go all cross-tabs truther on Nate Cohn or tell people to calm down.”
- “3/7 speech” — State of the Union — “is all important.”
Rep. ADAM SMITH (D-Wash.), one of the few Dems who was OK attaching his name to anything, made a more nuanced case, but it’s still packed with concerns: “Level of freak out remains high as near as I can tell. Not sure this latest poll changed that too much. Dems are worried about Biden’s strength as a candidate for a variety of reasons — age, weakness of him and the overall campaign when it comes to delivering a message, the left attacks over Gaza. I am personally less freaked out than most. SIMON ROSENBERG is a good friend going back 28 years and I tend to trust his more optimistic analysis. But I too wish Biden and his team were stronger campaigners.” A close-up observer of Biden world, with deep knowledge of its rhythms and personalities, made the point that the DNA of the Biden White House and campaign is to be dismissive of these kinds of apocalyptic moments driven by bad polls because Biden has a long record of overcoming low expectations. But with every new data point, that default position is being severely tested inside the White House. So what’s all the drama about? Here’s a rundown of the data with some especially alarming bits of data for Dems highlighted …
- The horse race: Trump 48%, Biden 43%
- Direction of the country: Right track 24%, Wrong track 65%
- The economy: Excellent 7%, Good 19%, Only fair 23%, Poor 51%
- Biden job approval: Approve 36%, Disapprove 61% (Strongly disapprove 47%)
- Biden favorability: Favorable 38%, Unfavorable 59%
- Trump favorability: Favorable 43%, Unfavorable 54%
- VP KAMALA HARRIS favorability: Favorable 36%, Unfavorable 55%
- How Democrats feel about Biden: Enthusiastic 23%, Satisfied but not enthusiastic 43%, Dissatisfied but not upset 26%, Angry 6%
- How Republicans feel about Trump: Enthusiastic 48%, Satisfied but not enthusiastic 32%, Dissatisfied but not upset 9%, Angry 9%
- Did Biden’s policies … Help you personally 18%, Hurt you personally 43%, Not make much of a difference 39%
- Did Trump’s policies … Help you personally 40%, Hurt you personally 25%, Not make much of a difference 34%
Cohn’s big takeaways … — The simple reason Biden is losing: “Mr. Biden is very unpopular. He’s so unpopular that he’s now even less popular than Mr. Trump, who remains every bit as unpopular as he was four years ago.” — The “double haters” swing: “Overall, 19 percent of registered voters in the Times/Siena survey have an unfavorable view of both candidates. … [T]hey backed Mr. Biden by a three-to-one margin among those who voted in 2020, but now he holds the support of less than half.” — The minority voter trend is real: “Mr. Biden’s support among nonwhite voters keeps sinking. He held just a 49-39 lead among the group, even though nonwhite respondents who voted in the 2020 election said they backed Mr. Biden, 69-21.” — Why poor impressions of the economy could be good for Biden: “Maybe his standing will improve if or when voters begin to gain confidence that the economy has turned the corner.” — Why the NYT didn’t ask that question: “We didn’t ask whether Mr. Biden should drop out of the race. We considered it — in fact, we discussed it for days — but many respondents may not know the complications involved in a contested convention.” The non-freakout Dem perspective comes, as usual, from JIM MESSINA: “Best predictor of elections = how voters vote. And they’re voting for Dems & Biden.” Biden campaign comms director MICHAEL TYLER told Playbook much the same in a statement: “Whether it’s in special elections or in the presidential primaries, actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped, and deeply divided. Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win — just like we did in 2020.” Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Just how wet is your bed these days? Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from the Vapor Technology Association: President Biden: Your administration is working against you.
The FDA is going rogue, trying to force your hand on menthol cigarettes—and that's just the start.
Unelected bureaucrats have been politicizing public health for years, and are ignoring science by banning flavored vapes which are the most effective tool to stop smoking.
President Biden—it's time to take back control of your Cancer Moonshot and public health equity agenda.
Learn More | | | FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — The White House is responding this morning to the Trump campaign’s comment, to Newsweek, that Biden “has blood on his hands as his Biden Migrant Crisis has led to deaths, assaults, and destruction in communities across America.” Said deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES: “President Biden always puts the American people first, and is willing to work with anyone to bring the country together and make our families safer. That approach led to the toughest bipartisan border security legislation in decades, which is now being delayed by congressional Republicans to the detriment of our national security and the benefit of fentanyl traffickers. We repeat the President’s call to put the American people ahead of politics.” THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: TOM SUOZZI — Until a few months ago, this former mayor, county executive, congressman and two-time candidate for governor was traveling from Big Sur to Yellowstone to Puerto Rico to Oklahoma, making peace with life as a recovering politician. Then GEORGE SANTOS happened, and the lifelong Long Islander decided he wasn’t quite done with politics after all. Now, he’s emerged as an unlikely oracle for the Democratic Party. Ryan sat down with Suozzi this week to discuss his path back to politics and how his comeback campaign offers Democrats a road map in purple suburbs where immigration dominates as the issue and Biden is an anchor. Read the full Q&A Some key excerpts … On confronting tough issues: “The best politician is the politician who says what the people are thinking already. … If the No. 1 thing on people’s minds is the border crisis, you’ve got to talk about the border crisis, and you’ve got to talk about how to solve it.” On his advice for Biden: “Keep on pushing for a bipartisan, moderate compromise. The people will see that he’s being reasonable and trying to get it done. And we can continue to highlight that these hacks are just trying to use this as a political issue.” On joining a No Labels presidential ticket: “No way.” On rejoining the Ways and Means Committee: “I’ve been pretty much told that’s going to happen.” On Santos: “I really didn’t laugh about him. I mean, it’s so upsetting. I was like: ‘This is why we hate politicians to begin with.’ Whenever I hear somebody say, ‘Politicians all lie. He just got caught,’ that kills me. That just kills me.”
| | | | A message from the Vapor Technology Association:   | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | At the White House Biden and Harris have nothing on their public schedules.
| | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | | 
Amid the devastation in Gaza, the U.S. began airdropping food to Palestinians today. | Mahmoud Essa/AP Photo | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: The U.S. today began to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza — roughly 38,000 meals — amid a worsening crisis for Palestinians, per the AP. The food and other supplies will be delivered repeatedly, not just a one-time drop, the White House said yesterday. “We need to do more and the United States will do more,” Biden told reporters, also raising the prospect of a maritime corridor to get aid to Gaza. The drops follow on the heels of a tragic incident this week that left more than 100 dead at an aid distribution site. But the decision to start airdrops also signals just how ineffective the U.S. has become at influencing its ally Israel: As Alex Ward writes, this kind of move is typically reserved for deliveries in hostile territory or behind enemy lines. “We look 100 percent weak,” one former USAID official says. “Administration officials are doing this just to make themselves feel better.” On the other hand, talks toward a cease-fire and hostage release agreement somehow remain on track, despite the chaos and devastation of this week’s events, CNN’s Alex Marquardt, MJ Lee and Mostafa Salem report. U.S. officials say the prospects rest on how Hamas responds to the latest proposals. 2. ANOTHER REDISTRICTING FAIL FOR DEMS: “Wisconsin Supreme Court rejects move to reconsider state’s congressional maps,” by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea: “[It ensures] the current district boundaries will remain in place for 2024. The court’s decision ends a last-minute push from Democrats to change the state’s congressional maps after they successfully signed into law new [state] legislative boundaries last month.” 3. TRIAL TIMELINES: Judge AILEEN CANNON, as expected, sounded skeptical about special counsel JACK SMITH’s for a July start date in Trump’s federal mishandling of classified documents trial, Josh Gerstein, Kyle Cheney and Siena Duncan report from yesterday’s hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida. Though Cannon didn’t rule on — or give many hints about — the timeline she’ll set (or some other contested issues, like witness secrecy), she indicated that a complex set of pre-trial motions will produce plenty of delays. In Georgia, Judge SCOTT McAFEE said yesterday that he expects to rule within the next two weeks on whether Fulton County DA FANI WILLIS should be disqualified from her massive racketeering/2020 election subversion case, NBC’s Charlie Gile and Dareh Gregorian report. In the wake of questions about Willis’ romantic relationship with prosecutor NATHAN WADE, McAfee’s decision could be a crucial determining factor for whether this Trump prosecution will actually go to trial before the election. 4. THE BIDEN POLICY DISCONNECT: “A Biden Subsidy Is Meant to Create Jobs. In This Nevada Town, It Didn’t,” by WSJ’s Andrew Duehren: “The $257 million [solar battery project in Moapa] received roughly $100 million in federal tax credits because of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act … [But it’s] set to fall short of the administration’s vision for job creation and local economic development. Construction of the site and installation of the batteries required roughly 200 workers over a year. Maintaining and operating the batteries will require about five. Moreover, those jobs likely would have been created even without the added tax break.” 5. BATTLE FOR THE BALLOT: A new Brennan Center for Justice study finds that the racial turnout gap has grown significantly in the South since the Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act, flying in the face of Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS’ rationale in the 2013 decision, NYT’s Nick Corasaniti reports. In areas that used to be covered by Section 5 of the act, the turnout disparity between white and Black people has grown at nearly twice the rate of other similar parts of the country — which advocates say could indicate voter suppression, costing the votes of hundreds of thousands of people of color. The study And as North Carolina heads to the polls for Tuesday’s primary, voters will have to navigate a thicket of new voting restrictions that Republicans have imposed, AP’s Ayanna Alexander, Gary Robertson and Christina Cassidy report from Greensboro. Photo ID requirements are in, for instance, and a grace period for mail ballots is out. Election officials have been working to educate voters about the changes, which became among the most extensive in the nation in the wake of Trump’s election fraud lies, but some advocates warn that thousands of votes could go uncounted. 6. KNOWING MARK ROBINSON: “Offensive comments by N.C. Republican stand out even in Trump’s party,” by WaPo’s Hannah Knowles in Ocean Isle Beach: The lieutenant governor and GOP gubernatorial frontrunner “stands out among candidates this year for the volume of his bigoted attacks and vicious diatribes. … To many Republicans, Robinson, 55, is a conservative Christian firebrand with Trump-like appeal — a charismatic, brazen outsider who burst onto the political scene just a few years ago with a viral video. To others, he is a glaring liability in a battleground race.” 7. WHITHER NIKKI HALEY: If and when Haley’s presidential bid imminently comes to an end, will she endorse Trump? That’s the big question hovering over her campaign right now, Natalie Allison reports, with potentially significant implications for both Trump’s general-election fortunes and Haley’s future in the GOP. Haley tells Natalie she hasn’t yet given thought to the question: She’s still trying to win. But other Republicans see two paths for Haley: She could go LIZ CHENEY and become an anti-Trump Republican in the wilderness, hoping Trump loses to Biden and she can reemerge as a future alternative to MAGA. Or she can try to get back in Trump’s good graces.
| | | | A message from the Vapor Technology Association:   | | | 8. MAD LIBS STORY OF THE DAY: “How RFK Jr. hiring a bird smuggler threw his environmental group into turmoil,” by WaPo’s Peter Jamison: “[A] close examination of [ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.’s] early years as a lawyer in the Hudson Valley shows that the same qualities that today inspire his supporters and alarm his critics — obstinacy, an itch to challenge authority, a mastery of scientific minutiae that is paradoxically coupled with a loose allegiance to facts — were causing controversy long before he trained his sights on BILL GATES or ANTHONY S. FAUCI. “No episode was more remarkable than the schism Kennedy precipitated at Riverkeeper, a sprawling melodrama starring a political dynasty’s prodigal son, a secretive circle of master falconers and a network of daring cockatoo egg smugglers whose reach extended from Western Australia to New Paltz, N.Y.” 9. UP IN THE AIR: We may have yet another spy balloon on our hands: Fishermen off the Alaskan coast have found something and are bringing it ashore to the FBI, CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis and Evan Perez report. It isn’t yet clear whether this is actually a surveillance balloon, but photos have raised enough questions for law enforcement that they want to examine it further at Quantico. CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 15 funnies
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R.J. Matson - Cagle Cartoons | GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “Sure, It Won an Oscar. But Is It Criterion?” by Joshua Hunt in the NYT Magazine: “How the Criterion Collection became the film world’s arbiter of taste.” — “The Man Who Now Controls the U.S. Border,” by David Frum in the Atlantic: “Mexico’s president gets to determine whether an immigration crisis dominates headlines in a U.S. election year.” — “How the Pentagon Learned to Use Targeted Ads to Find Its Targets — and Vladimir Putin,” by Byron Tau in Wired, adapted from his new book, “Means of Control”: “Meet the guy who taught US intelligence agencies how to make the most of the ad tech ecosystem, ‘the largest information-gathering enterprise ever conceived by man.’” — “AI Warfare Is Already Here,” by Katrina Manson in Bloomberg Businessweek: “US military operators started out skeptical about AI, but now they are the ones developing and using Project Maven to identify targets on the battlefield.” — “‘Humanity’s remaining timeline? It looks more like five years than 50’: meet the neo-luddites warning of an AI apocalypse,” by the Guardian’s Tom Lamont: “From the academic who warns of a robot uprising to the workers worried for their future — is it time we started paying attention to the tech sceptics?” — “Inside North Korea’s Forced-Labor Program,” by Ian Urbina in The New Yorker: “Workers sent from the country to Chinese factories describe enduring beatings and sexual abuse, having their wages taken by the state, and being told that if they try to escape they will be ‘killed without a trace.’” — “The Theft,” by Sloane Crosley in N.Y. Mag, adapted from her new book, “Grief Is for People”: “First, there was the burglary. Then everything went missing.” — “The Right Way to Cover the Intersection of Religion and Politics,” by Heidi Przybyla in POLITICO Magazine: “The beliefs of activists deserve respect, but their political actions deserve coverage.” — “Tripping on LSD at the Dolphin Research Lab,” by Benjamin Breen in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “How a 1960s interspecies-communication experiment went haywire.” — “An observation of sexual behavior between two male humpback whales,” by Stephanie Stack, Lyle Krannichfeld and Brandi Romano in Marine Mammal Science
| | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Christopher Richardson pleaded guilty to fake super PAC fraud after an investigation by our colleague Zach Montellaro. Jonathan Kott bodied a Joe Manchin climate protester. Donald Trump is “back in love” with David McIntosh. Jonathan Kaplan, U.S. ambassador to Singapore, is coming under scrutiny. PLAYBOOK REAL ESTATE SECTION — “Bob Woodward’s Watergate Dupont Circle Apartment Hits The Market,” UrbanTurf OUT AND ABOUT — Jim and Diane Bankoff, Meredith Kopit Levien, Steve and Jean Case and Tammy Haddad hosted a party last night to celebrate Kara Swisher’s new book, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story” ($30), at the Bankoffs’ D.C. home, where Walt Mossberg interviewed Swisher. SPOTTED: Swati Sharma, Amanda Katz, Andrea Mitchell, Dana Bash, Sheila Johnson, Virginia Shore, Ben Williams, Dmitri Alperovitch, Josh Dawsey, Carol Melton, Patty Stonesifer and Michael Kinsley, Frank Foer, Adrienne LaFrance, David and Katherine Bradley, Jan Bayer, Jim Sciutto, Jen Easterly, Alexandra Veitch and Josh Blumenfeld. — SPOTTED at a party for Carlos Lozada’s new book, “The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians” ($29.99), hosted by Adam Kushner, Michelle Cottle and Amanda Erickson at Kushner and Maria Simon’s Bethesda home Thursday: Molly Ball, Kate Julian and Andrew Weiss, Warren Bass, Sophia Boyd, Jordana Hochman, Carol Leonnig, Mark Leibovich, David Leonhardt, Dave Weigel, Gail Ross, Marcus Brauchli, Mike Madden, Alyssa Rosenberg, Amy Joyce and Steve Ginsberg, Dana Milbank and Anna Greenberg, Elahe Izadi, Jason and Yegi Rezaian, Jim Tankersley, Maura Judkis and Robert Samuels. — SPOTTED yesterday afternoon at RPM Italian for a Something Major power lunch hosted by Randi Braun: Jen O’Shea, Kaitlyn Pritchard, Ryann Hill, Kathleen Coulombe and Sarah Dash. TRANSITIONS — DailyPay has added Claudia Flores as senior manager of public policy and Elyse Hicks as government relations manager of East Coast major markets. Flores previously worked at the Center for American Progress and is a Bob Menendez and Mike Honda alum. Hicks previously was consumer policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) (8-0) and Ami Bera (D-Calif.) … U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar … Kevin Madden … Brookings’ Robin Lewis … Liz Oberg … Laurie Van Hall of Bee Compliance … Erik Hotmire … POLITICO’s Brakkton Booker and Caitlin Floyd … Emily Miller … Javelin’s Dylan Colligan … Yuri Beckelman … Ven Neralla … DaVita’s Javier Martínez … Syd Terry … Caitlin McFall … Aaron Sherinian of Deseret Management Corporation … Ellie Warner … former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) … Joe Garofoli … Ashley Chang of the Rockefeller Foundation THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): NBC “Meet the Press”: Nikki Haley … Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). Panel: Geoff Bennett, María Teresa Kumar, Marc Short and Ali Vitali. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt”: Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) … Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) … Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Panel: Christine Rosen, Bob Cusack, David Drucker and David Swerdlick. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) … Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) … Peter Schweizer … Steve Garvey. ABC “This Week”: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) … José Andrés. Legal panel: Sarah Isgur and Preet Bharara. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Jonathan Martin. CBS “Face the Nation”: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas … Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) … ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) … Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) … Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) … Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). Panel: Stef Kight, Marie Harf, Josh Wingrove and Garrett Ventry. MSNBC “Alex Witt Reports”: Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) … Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) … Katie Rogers. CNN “State of the Union”: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas … Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) … Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). Panel: Scott Walker, Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, Doug Heye and Karen Finney. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
| | | | A message from the Vapor Technology Association: President Biden: Your administration is working against you.
The FDA is going rogue, trying to force your hand on menthol cigarettes—and that's just the start.
Unelected bureaucrats have been politicizing public health for years, and are ignoring science by banning flavored vapes—the most effective tool to stop smoking.
Studies show that e-cigarettes are the most effective tool to help people quit smoking, even when they have no intention to quit.
Dr. Nancy Rigotti (Harvard Medicine) just wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine: “U.S. public health agencies and professional medical societies should reconsider their cautious positions on e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. The evidence has brought e-cigarettes to a tipping point. The burden of tobacco-related disease is too big for potential solutions such as e-cigarettes to be ignored.”
President Biden—it's time to stop the FDA from undermining your Cancer Moonshot and health equity agenda.
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