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May 19, 2022: Dems’ face election year drag May 19, 2022

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With Memorial Day recess around the corner and much of President Joe Biden's agenda still stuck on Capitol Hill, a sense of helplessness has settled in among some Democrats: The closer they inch toward Election Day, they realize, the more unlikely they are to notch any additional legislative victories. And yet, voters are angry and demanding action now.

Just look at this quote from No. 2 Senate Democrat Dick Durbin in a Burgess Everett story up this morning on the ongoing reconciliation talks between Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.): “I put so much time into immigration on reconciliation. It took a year of my legislative life. I have nothing to show for it.” He continued: “I wish Chuck well on reconciliation. I’m going to focus my legislative efforts in the 60-vote world.”

So what's a vulnerable Democrat to do? Dems in swing districts have been asking this very question for months now. Here are a few strategies Hill Democrats seem to be employing to protect themselves politically...

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 18, 2022: Takeaways from the biggest primary night of the year May 18, 2022

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Sixteen months after Donald Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president, a prominent election denier in Pennsylvania inched closer to becoming the next governor of Pennsylvania. State Sen. Doug Mastriano — who attended and helped organize for the “Stop the Steal” rally, has called for audits of Keystone State votes and has been subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 panel — clinched the GOP gubernatorial nomination. If he wins this fall, he’ll be in a position to nominate the next Pennsylvania secretary of state, a position that oversees elections in the key presidential battleground state.

And, one week after catapulting J.D. Vance to victory in Ohio, Trump had a somewhat decent night, though the verdict on perhaps his biggest gamble — supporting Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s tight Senate primary — is still out.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 17, 2022: 3 big storylines to watch in today's primaries May 17, 2022

Show notes

Today is one of the most consequential primary days of the year, with nominating contests in five states — Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania — that will tell us a great deal about the direction of the two parties.

There are three major storylines that continue to dominate the 2022 primary season:

Donald Trump's grip on the GOP
Progressive challenges to Biden-like Democratic centrists
The rise of anti-democratic and extremist candidates

All three storylines collide in today’s most-watched state: Pennsylvania.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 16, 2022: The West's new fear: What if Ukraine wins? May 16, 2022

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Russia has faced a dizzying series of setbacks in its war with Ukraine over the last week:

Sweden and Finland are being fast-tracked into NATO membership, which means Russia will soon share an 810-mile border with NATO. More from NYT
Ukrainian troops pushed the Russians from the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and are now approaching the Russian border. Latest from Reuters
Russia suffered “catastrophic” losses during a failed river crossing on May 11, according to The Institute for the Study of War, which notes that “the military incompetence displayed in that crossing have shaken the confidence” of influential Russian military bloggers.
The UK Ministry of Defense said that the Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas region, the focus of Russian firepower since its retreat from Kyiv, has “lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule.” The Brits also claimed that Putin has lost one-third of the troops he sent into Ukraine since the start of the February invasion.

On Sunday, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, summed up the implications of these developments: “Ukraine can win this war.”

And that is exactly the problem according to a growing number of western officials and analysts who fear the fallout from what French President Emmanuel Macron called the “humiliation” of Russia.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 13, 2022: SCOOP: Behind the McCarthy subpoena May 13, 2022

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When GOP Rep. Liz Cheney decided to risk everything politically and serve on Nancy Pelosi's newly created Jan. 6 investigative panel in the spring of last year, she made something of a vow to herself, according to people close with the Wyoming Republican: She would follow the facts wherever they went, and privately press for the panel to leave no stone unturned to get to the truth of the siege of the Capitol.

No half-baked probes. No shrinking away from key witnesses, as Democrats had done in their past impeachments of Donald Trump. If she was going to do this, she was going to go all the way — even as some members of the panel, we heard back then, didn’t even want to investigate Trump’s actions that day.

On Thursday, Washington saw the latest fruits of Cheney’s labor, when the Jan. 6 committee shocked This Town and subpoenaed five House GOP lawmakers to testify — including the likely next speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Well-placed sources tell us that Cheney — who was booted from her post as No. 3 Republican in the House one year to the day before the subpoenas were issued — was among those pressing hardest for this move, arguing that these GOP members had relevant information and they couldn’t just let them skirt without questioning.

Listen to Playbook Deep Dive: ‘He absolutely betrayed me’: Steve Schmidt tells all about John McCain

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 12, 2022: Why Democrats don't actually ‘control’ the Senate May 12, 2022

Show notes

This week was another reminder that while Democrats “control” the Senate, they don’t actually control the Senate.

Covid relief was cut from the Ukraine aid bill.
A national law to codify abortion protections — should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade — came nowhere close to the 60 votes needed to advance it. And the 50 votes it would take to nuke the filibuster and pass the abortion rights law are also unavailable to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. More from Alice Miranda Ollstein and Marianne LeVine

If there are serious negotiations underway to pass a Build Back Better 2.0 in advance of the midterms, they are a well-kept secret.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio

May 11, 2022: Inside SCOTUS, and Trump's first 2022 loss May 11, 2022

Show notes

Former President Donald Trump goes 1-for-2 on primary day in Nebraska and West Virginia.

And new reporting from inside the Supreme Court, via Josh Gerstein, Alexander Ward and Ryan, as the nine justices are set to gather Thursday for the first time since POLITICO published the draft opinion overturning Roe:

“Justice Samuel Alito's sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.

Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 10, 2022: Another primary day test for Donald Trump May 10, 2022

Show notes

PRIMARY DAY: WHAT TO WATCH FOR — West Virginia and Nebraska hold primaries today. Like last week’s contests in Ohio, the action is mostly on the Republican side, and the main drama is about former President DONALD TRUMP.

WEST VIRGINIA: Two GOP incumbents, Reps. ALEX MOONEY and DAVID MCKINLEY, are facing each other in a congressional primary because the state lost a seat after redistricting.

NEBRASKA: CHARLES HERBSTER, JIM PILLEN and state Sen. BRETT LINDSTROM are the three top GOP primary candidates running to replace the term-limited governor, PETE RICKETTS. The national implications of the race revolve mostly around Trump’s endorsement of Herbster, who has been accused of sexual assault by eight different women.

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Kara Tabor hosted this episode of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 9, 2022: Democrats go on offense over abortion May 09, 2022

Show notes

Happy Monday. Get ready for yet another week dominated by the debate over abortion rights, as the impending decision expected to overturn Roe v. Wade sucks up all the oxygen in Washington.

Two major storylines to watch this week, as Democrats gear up to go on offense:

1) Senate tees up abortion vote — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to file cloture today on a bill by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that would enshrine a statutory right to abortion nationwide.

2) Democrats seize on McConnell's national abortion ban remarks — Democratic strategists are salivating over comments Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made in a USA Today interview that published Saturday.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

May 6, 2022: Trump’s strange silence May 06, 2022

Show notes

Overturning Roe v. Wade would be the culmination of former president Donald Trump’s bid to remake the judiciary — the very reason that many social conservatives held their noses and voted for him in 2016.

But Trump, “never one to shy away from taking credit for accomplishments, real or imagined, has yet to crow about the majority draft opinion,” our colleagues Meridith McGraw and Jonathan Lemire report. He’s addressed it only “when asked in interviews.”

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.