With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner
Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to July. This is Jack Blanchard, delighted to see this thrilling Mexico team join Canada in the last 16 of the FIFA World Cup last night. Only one more host nation to go! The USMNT plays Bosnia & Herzegovina at 8 p.m. this evening … Best of luck. Get in touch.
In today’s Playbook …
— What the newest member of Squad 2.0 thinks of Hakeem Jeffries & Co.
— Donald Trump prepares to debut his shiny new Air Force One.
— The Boldfaces: Melat Kiros, Phil Weiser, Manny Rutinel, Hasan Piker, Kevin Warsh, Nina Totenberg, Riley Gaines, Tom Kean Jr., Ron DeSantis, Gavin Newsom and more.
AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH: So it wasn’t just New York. The anti-establishment wave that swept through Democratic primaries in NYC last week has reached the Mountain West — and it may not end there.
A dramatic night of results in Colorado reached its climax shortly after midnight when 15-term Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette was ousted by her 29-year-old challenger, the democratic socialist Melat Kiros. The result marks one of the biggest upsets of the primary season, and puts Kiros on course to become (at least) the seventh DSA member of Congress next year.
A changing of the guard: “For decades Democrats have failed to meaningfully deliver for working families,” Kiros told POLITICO’s Will Steakin late last night following her stunning victory in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. “We have to root out the corruption and get money out of our politics … It’s about political will — and that means we have to vote out any of the incumbents that are standing in our way by taking that kind of corporate PAC money.”
So will she support Hakeem Jeffries as leader? “I’m not supporting anyone for leadership who takes corporate PAC money,” Kiros told Will. “I’m dead serious about this issue. We have to start setting a standard now.” Twitch streamer Hasan Piker was at the Kiros victory party and warned: “We’re not done yet.”
And there’s more: Veteran Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet saw his expected glide path to the Colorado governor’s mansion blocked last night by the insurgent candidacy of state AG Phil Weiser, who successfully cast Bennet as a D.C. insider doing too little to stand up to Donald Trump.
And there’s still more: Progressive candidate Manny Rutinel was overwhelmingly picked by Colorado Dems over his more moderate opponent Shannon Bird to run in one of the most purple swing districts in America — Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, currently held by Republican Rep. Gabe Evans.
Make no mistake: These are stunning results. Kiros was a PhD student and part-time barista with no political experience taking on a 30-year member of Congress who outraised her 2 to 1. Weiser was battling a three-term senator and former presidential hopeful who once chaired the DSCC. His victory leaves Bennet as the first sitting U.S. senator to lose a primary for governor in an open seat race in the entire post-World War II era (h/t pollster Adam Carlson.)
Even Sen. John Hickenlooper, a former governor and Denver city mayor, saw his margin of victory over progressive challenger Julie Gonzales cut to single digits — despite outspending her almost 9 to 1, Will and POLITICO colleagues write in their must-read wrap of the night.
So what’s happening? “Folks right now are upset with the establishment, and they’re looking for fighters who are going to stand up to Donald Trump,” Rutinel told Playbook’s Ali Bianco following his win in the battleground 8th District. “This is a deeply personal fight for me, as the son of a single mom. I know the struggles of working people, because that is my background. I will always fight every single day to make life easier for the working people of this district.”
Next stop, the Midwest: Last night’s results put to bed any suggestion that the insurgent wave that swept through New York last week was purely a metropolitan phenomenon. Attention will now turn to the left’s next big targets this summer — the Michigan Senate primary on Aug. 4, and the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary the following week. Leftists also hope to see former Rep. Cori Bush — another prominent DSA member — back on the Democratic ticket in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District this fall. (Missouri’s primaries are also held on Aug. 4.)
While the left is thrilled by its succession of victories, Republicans are rubbing their hands together. These results ensure the Democratic Party’s supposed leftward shift — whether real or perceived — will be cemented as the central GOP talking point in the four-month sprint to the midterms.
Rutinel was the immediate target for the GOP machine last night, given the tight district he’s vying for. “The socialism train that started in New York City stormed through Colorado last night, and its newest passenger is radical far-left vegan activist Manny Rutinel,” NRCC spokesperson Zach Bannon said. “In November Coloradans will reject his radical agenda.”
Online, however, MAGA influencers are chiefly targeting Kiros, sharing an interview clip in which she said the 9/11 terrorist attacks were “inevitable, in the sense that [America] destabilized a lot of the Middle East, and that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.”
Expect Trump and other senior Republicans to weigh in later today, seeking to tar the entire party with the “Communist” tag that he’s deployed in recent weeks. How effectively Democrats rebut these attacks will go a long way to influencing the outcomes of November’s most marginal races, given the success Trump had in 2024 in framing his opponents as the “radical left.”
The progressive pushback: “There’s nothing radical about making sure that folks have affordable health care, that they have food, that they don’t have gas prices that are going through the roof,” Rutinel told Ali last night. “That is the focus of this campaign — making sure that working families across this district are able to make ends meet.”
This is the Zohran Mamdani playbook writ-large — focus relentlessly on the cost of living and ignore the Republican jeers. Expect to hear this reaction again and again from these new leftist Dems. “Voters just want to live dignified, secure lives,” Kiros told Will. “If we can deliver for that, any attacks that come from the Republicans are just going to ring hollow to them.”
But moderates are less sure. Jeffries said last week that he and Mamdani “agree to strongly disagree” about the candidates the NYC mayor has endorsed. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has said any effort to “nationalize” what happened in New York “is going to fail.” This struggle between left and center, between establishment old guard and insurgent new, is fast becoming the Democratic storyline of the summer.
LOOKING AHEAD: As Jeffries spearheads Dems’ mid-decade redistricting drive, the left’s string of wins in last week’s NYC primaries raise a question about how the establishment could strike back, POLITICO’s Joe Anuta reports. “Come 2028, when New York officials hope to redraw those three seats along with the rest of the state’s congressional boundaries, Jeffries would be one of the people influencing the process. Any changes to districts won by an insurgent wing of the party — making them more moderate or shoring them up as progressive strongholds — will be closely watched by both establishment officials alarmed by the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and young voters wary of Jeffries and the party machinery.”
On today’s Playbook Podcast: Jack and Myah Ward unpick last night’s primary results, and consider where the White House goes next following the Supreme Court’s seismic rulings.
BACK TO THE DISTRICTS: The House is gone for the July Fourth recess after GOP leaders canceled votes on multiple major bills after a persistent rebellion over the stalled SAVE America Act kept the House floor frozen, POLITICO’s Mia McCarthy and colleagues write. Yet another rule failed with little off-ramp — despite Trump’s plea for GOP hard-liners to knock it off. Also left on the House floor is a ceremonial resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of the GOP’s “Working Families Tax Cuts.” More from POLITICO’s Inside Congress
RIDING HIGH: Trump is headed to North Dakota this morning, where he’ll continue a week of all things America 250 and attend the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. His trip will mark the maiden voyage for the new, Qatari-gifted luxury Air Force One.
- Keeping to the America at 250 celebrations, VP JD Vance will be delivering remarks on “250 years of American military excellence” at the Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach today.
FED UP: Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will speak at the European Central Bank forum in Portugal this morning, alongside ECB President Christine Lagarde and the heads of England and Canada’s central banks. Warsh’s big speech comes as the latest jobs numbers are due to drop tomorrow, following a string of iffy inflation figures that have Wall Street betting on a fall rate hike.
TRADING SPACES: The Trump administration is expected to formally announce today that it’s not going to extend the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, pushing to end a 32-year-old North American free trade zone as negotiations remain ongoing between the three countries, per Reuters. Today will kick off six years of review sessions, with USTR Jamieson Greer having already scheduled another round of negotiations with Mexico on possible changes for late July.
THE SCOTUS SCUTTLE: An apparent mistake from NPR set off a frenzy yesterday after the outlet posted an article indicating that Justice Samuel Alito was announcing his retirement from the bench — only for NPR to immediately retract it. Veteran reporter Nina Totenberg profusely apologized for the error, saying she had misheard something and erroneously made an assumption. “There’s no getting me off the hook,” she said in her explanation.
In light of the frantic moment, Demand Justice is doubling down on its war room plans to message against a potential Trump Supreme Court nominee, should one of the justices retire, according to a memo obtained by Playbook. The group has already pledged to invest $3 million, partnering with grassroots group Indivisible, if a retirement announcement comes. Demand Justice is now preparing to expand its campaign and spend millions more to pressure Sens. Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn to reject a potential Trump pick, who they expect will be a deep loyalist to the president.
- “We’re essentially sending up the flare in those states that the incumbent senator, the outgoing senator, is going to have to make a choice between the Constitution and Donald Trump,” Demand Justice’s Josh Orton told Playbook. “We have a microsite with a whip count ready to go. We have more than one ad in production already ready to go. We’ve got beam signs and the rally signs printed already.”
MORE SCOTUS FALLOUT: With the Supreme Court justices wrapped for this term, they’re leaving behind a GOP fundraising apparatus that is a lot more powerful than they found it. Yesterday’s decision loosening campaign finance law opens the door for Republicans to deepen their already-stark cash advantage, and close any fundraising gaps in battlegrounds, POLITICO’s Andrew Howard and colleagues report.
- But but but: The win for the GOP doesn’t eclipse a rough season for Trump’s pet issues, as POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write. His most personal priorities have hit a wall: tariffs, the ability to deploy the military, the push to change election laws and the crusade against birthright citizenship.
- Seizing on a win: Conservatives are hopeful the trans athletes decision, the latest in a series of anti-transgender rulings from the court, could lead to more state-level bans. “I think we’re going to continue to see movement and allow the people’s voice to be heard, especially in some of those purple states,” activist Riley Gaines, host of “The Riley Gaines Show,” told Playbook’s Eli Okun. “Each major decision gives your ordinary person more cover to say something that … was the standard, like the default position to take, really not that long ago.”
SPEAKING OF CAMPAIGN SPENDING: Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke’s congressional campaign is reserving $3 million in broadcast ads for the fall, Playbook’s Eli Okun scoops. The spots will go up in the La Crosse and Wausau media markets between August and November.
1. WAR REPORT: Trump has received Pentagon briefings in recent days on the possibility of a return to all-out war with Iran, WSJ’s Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman scoop. “Trump also has told aides that he is fine if negotiations with Tehran blow past an Aug. 18 deadline for a nuclear deal, the officials said, a decision that gives the talks more time to work.” And he’s content with ordering one-off strikes as he deems necessary.
2. RAISING KEAN: Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s (R-N.J.) monthslong absence from the House, which he revealed was due to a severe depression diagnosis, is raising a delicate question on the Hill: Just how much privacy are elected officials entitled to? Some of his colleagues are hedging their sympathies, saying that Kean should have explained his absence sooner, after missing more than 100 votes, POLITICO’s Mia McCarthy and Simon Levien report.
3. TRAIL MIX: The latest Fox News poll has Graham Platner in a dead heat with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), with Collins’ 3-point advantage falling within the poll’s margin of error. Among voters who say they’re extremely motivated to vote, Platner leads by 9 points. … Trump officially announced the GOP’s first-ever midterms convention will take place Sept. 9-10 in Dallas, per POLITICO’s Alex Gangitano.
- What Dems are reading: A White House task force is gathering thousands of pages of U.S. intelligence, which it will partly declassify, to fuel new accusations for Trump about the 2020 election, NBC’s Katherine Doyle and colleagues scoop. The team has been gathering documents for months, and Trump has discussed with staffers how to highlight the task force’s findings publicly.
4. BRAVE NEW WORLD: “Trump lifts limits on Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models,” by POLITICO’s Sophia Cai and colleagues: “The Trump administration removed export restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models Tuesday evening, a move aimed at defusing weeks of drama surrounding controls on cutting-edge AI. … Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Anthropic no longer required an export license for its products after agreeing to ‘proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models’ … [Anthropic] said it would restore access to customers beginning Wednesday.”
5. TALES FROM THE CRYPTO: “Trump’s second-term windfall: $1.4B in crypto earnings,” by POLITICO’s Declan Harty: Financial disclosures reveal that Trump “made more than $636 million through CIC Digital — a Trump Organization affiliate that is behind his eponymous memecoin, $TRUMP. … Another Trump family-backed crypto company, World Liberty Financial, generated nearly $600 million in income … The disclosures offer a new lens into how crypto is reshaping the president’s business empire — a vast portfolio of companies rooted in hotels, golf courses and licensing deals.”
THE BOOK OF RON — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is back to selling books — but only for a short time, POLITICO’s Gary Fineout writes in. DeSantis, who wrote and promoted a memoir on the eve of his unsuccessful run for president, announced on a video call with supporters yesterday that he was selling a revamped version of “Dreams from our Founding Fathers,” the first book he wrote shortly before he ran for Congress in 2012.
DeSantis is selling 1,776 signed and numbered copies of the book for $250 a copy from a new website dubbed DeSantis1776.com. DeSantis said the book will come with a new introduction but he contended his criticisms of Barack Obama and “the left” still have resonance. On that same video call with supporters, DeSantis sidestepped audience questions about his political future after he leaves office in January. He did talk about several of his initiatives while in office and he said that he would be joining Fox News’ Sean Hannity at Mount Rushmore this Friday.
THE HABER-SWAN SONG — Simon & Schuster announced that Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s “Regime Change” ($23.78) sold over 300,000 copies in its first week, “making it the best week one sales of any hardcover nonfiction book published so far this year.” The book has gone into its third printing, with the door open to more reprints in future weeks.
BOOK CLUB — The Ankler rounded up the top summer book reads from several politicos: California Gov. Gavin Newsom recommended “What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative” by Jim Collins; Maryland Gov. Wes Moore recommended “My American Journey” by Colin Powell; and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani recommended “The Gods of New York” by Jonathan Mahler. Read the full list
OUT AND ABOUT — The Capitol Hill Radio Television Correspondents Association held its biennial dinner and awards show last night at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington. The sold-out crowd was entertained by the Congressional Karaoke Competition, won by the Press team, led by MS NOW’s Shawna Thomas. SPOTTED: Reps. Mark Alford (R-Mo.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), David Min (D-Calif.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Michael Rulli (R-Ohio), Ryan Nobles, Allison Pecorin, Nathaniel Reed, Dana Bash, Richard Engel, Wolf Blitzer, Rebecca Blumenstein, Hallie Jackson, Jon Karl, Manu Raju, Julie Tsirkin, Chloe Arensburg, Kelly O’Donnell, Sahil Kapur, Gabe Guiterrez, Lauren Fox, Annie Grayer , Kevin Frey, Ali Vitali, Mychael Schnell, Shawna Thomas, Sam Feist, Phil Rucker, David Chalian, Arlette Saenz, Bill Melugin, Caitlin Huey Burns, Nikole Killion, Jay O’Brien, Rick Klein, Christine Bloom, Melanie Bloom, Sudeep Ruddy, Frank Thorp, Rachel Knapp, Adolfo Ibarra, John McArdle, Casey Seymon. Laurie Knight, Patrice Webb, Peter Nonis and Robb Hartleson.
TRANSITIONS — Peter Rechter is joining Wiley Rein as a partner in the firm’s white collar defense & government investigations practice. He previously worked in the office of the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. … Maddie Kirkland is joining The Herald Group as an account manager. She previously worked in Rep. Russell Fry’s (R-S.C.) office. Gabe Eason is also joining The Herald Group as an associate on the digital team.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Clara Bradbury, federal relations coordinator for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Thomas Bradbury, special assistant to the president and deputy director of White House Cabinet Affairs for Policy, welcomed Grace Marianna Bradbury on June 29. Pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) … Reps. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) and Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) … Dan Bishop … NBC’s Kristen Welker … Sally Quinn … Neal Patel … Guy Cecil … Brett Zongker of the Library of Congress … Bob Dinneen … Washingtonian’s Susan Farkas … Mike Czin of SKDK … Greta Lundeberg … North American Millers’ Association’s Jane DeMarchi … Grace Koh … POLITICO’s Timothy Cama, Vali Mansouri, Jason Plautz and Helen Dubas … AJ Roshfeld … Bloomberg’s Olivia Alafriz … Molly Simpson of Stand Together … John Giesser … National Journal’s Kirk Bado … Abby Laver of Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) office … Matt Hickam … Lida Masoudpour
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Correction: An earlier version of Playbook misspelled Josh Orton and Lida Masoudpour’s names.
