With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
SANTOS’ SWAN SONG — The end of Rep. GEORGE SANTOS’ political career is right around the corner — and last night, for the first time, the New York Republican seemed to acknowledge it.
In a three-hour rant on X Spaces, Santos lashed out at lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee and admitted that he would probably be expelled from the House after the Thanksgiving recess. Why? Because “I can do math” and count votes, he said, per Reese Gorman at the Washington Examiner.
Santos is probably right. After the ethics panel found in mid-November that he’d used campaign money for personal expenses like Botox, spending splurges in the Hamptons and Atlantic City and even on OnlyFans, a website known for selling porn, several Republicans who opposed previous efforts to oust him have come around. And Ethics Chair MICHAEL GUEST (R-Miss.) has now introduced another resolution to expel Santos based on the findings of his probe — though he has yet to begin the process of forcing a vote on the matter.
But that doesn’t mean Santos is going to go quietly. In fact, we should all probably think of last night as a prelude to how Congress’ own FRANK ABAGNALE JR. will spend his final weeks in the spotlight. His X Spaces performance included accusing lawmakers of voting while drunk (we can confirm this does often happen …) and daring Guest to file his expulsion resolution and “be a man and stop being a pussy.”
Here’s a taste: “Within the ranks of the United States Congress, there’s felons galore, there’s people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds … I have colleagues who are more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyists that they’re going to screw and pretend like none of us know what’s going on and sell off the American people. … Not show up to vote because they’re too hungover or whatever the reason is, or not show up to vote at all and just give their card out like fucking candy for someone else to vote for them. This shit happens every single week. Where are the ethics investigations?”
DAY TWO OF THE ‘PAUSE’ — More than a dozen additional Israeli hostages are set to be released by Hamas today, a second group that’s part of the four-day pause in fighting for a prisoner/hostage exchange. Under the agreement struck by the Jewish nation and the militant group, Hamas will release one Israeli hostage for every three Palestinians who’d been held prisoner, for a total of 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinians. Yesterday, Hamas freed 13 while Israel released 33. Today, Israel says it will release an additional 42 Palestinian prisoners while Hamas is looking at freeing 14. For the latest, follow WaPo’s liveblog
HOW IT’S PLAYING BACK HOME — So what does this all mean for President JOE BIDEN, who’s been taking heat from progressives and young voters urging him to call for a full cease-fire? So far, Biden has refused, and his administration has argued that a long-term pause in fighting will only help Hamas regroup.
But could the temporary pause and prisoner/hostage exchange provide a reprieve for Biden? As WSJ’s Ken Thomas and Annie Linskey report, “only a temporary one.”
Yes, Biden — who they report was “heavily involved” in piecing together the agreement — will get some political props for landing the deal. That it even came together at all, they write, “shows that Biden is having some influence over the Israelis, who have resisted halts in fighting.” More importantly, Biden will be able to show progress on one huge concern in the U.S.: the releasing of American hostages. Three are expected to be freed this weekend sometime as part of the four-day pause, per WSJ.
But when violence resumes and drags on, with images of displaced and deceased Palestinians all over social media, Biden will once again come under pressure to do more. And if he refuses, he’ll continue to face “strained enthusiasm among parts of the coalition that helped him defeat former President DONALD TRUMP in 2020,” as the WSJ notes. Chiefly, young voters and progressives.
Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
ICYMI: PHILLIPS OUT IN CONGRESS — Rep. DEAN PHILLIPS announced yesterday that he won’t run for reelection in his Minnesota seat. “After three terms it is time to pass the torch,” he said in a statement.
It’s hard to tell if this is good news or bad news for Biden. On the one hand, it underscores the extent of the blowback on Phillips for launching a longshot challenge to the president for the Democratic nomination. In addition to losing friends in Congress for undercutting their party leader, he’d drawn not one but two primary challenges and was facing an increasingly difficult reelection after becoming a pariah in his own party.
But now Phillips has more than his millions to boost his campaign against Biden: He has time. He doesn’t have to worry about his own reelection or pressure to show up at every House vote — he can focus all his energy into trying to unseat Biden.
Regardless, the Biden White House is having some fun with this news this morning. In a statement to Playbook, spokesman ANDREW BATES praised Phillips for voting for “nearly 100% of President Biden’s policies.”
“The President will miss his support for the Biden-Harris legislative agenda,” Bates said.
VEEPSTAKES — “Who Would Donald Trump Choose as His Running Mate?” NYT’s Michael Bender and Rebecca Lieberman run down the pros and cons for a wide range of possibilities, from 2024 rivals like Sen. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) to loyalists like Arkansas Gov. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS to out-of-the box picks like TUDOR DIXON or TUCKER CARLSON.
A DATA POINT TRUMP WILL LOVE — “The polls keep getting worse for Biden,” by Steve Shepard: “[W]hile polls suggest most of the movement comes from voters abandoning Biden — who might become undecided but not swing to supporting Trump — the Republican has also started to gain steam. Trump’s vote share in the national polling average is higher now than at any point in the past year.”
At the White House
Biden and VP KAMALA HARRIS have nothing on their public schedules.
On the trail
Trump will be in Columbia, S.C., for the college football Palmetto Bowl between South Carolina and Clemson — an opportunity to upstage NIKKI HALEY at home, AP’s Bill Barrow and Meg Kinnard preview.
9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US
1. DAILY RUDY: The new Georgia defense attorney for RUDY GIULIANI is L. ALLYN STOCKTON JR., who largely “has a country lawyer’s resume,” WSJ’s Mariah Timms reports from Atlanta. Giuliani has gone without legal representation in the state for two months amid financial troubles, but Stockton tells the Journal he’s being paid satisfactorily. He also says a plea deal in the election subversion/racketeering case is not on the table. “I kind of feel like when JOHN ADAMS defended the British soldiers,” Stockton frames it.
2. WARNING SIGN FOR DEMS: The liberal grassroots organizing groups that helped flip Georgia blue in recent years are struggling with funding, voter apathy and strategic changes that have worried some Democrats about their ability to deliver the state for Biden, NYT’s Maya King and Nick Corasaniti report. Fundraising and spending have dipped this year, and donors may focus elsewhere without a Senate or gubernatorial race on the ballot in Georgia. Crucial Black voters have soured somewhat on Biden. And there are concerns about “small but potentially pivotal shifts in strategy — cost-conscious measures like delaying large-scale voter engagement programs to later in the cycle or relying more on volunteers than paid canvassers.”
3. FOLLOWING THE MONEY: “The Secret Megadonor Behind the MAGA Movement’s ‘Nerve Center,’” by The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger: “[T]he Conservative Partnership Institute has become … an outsized power player in Congress and a hotbed of election denialism. What hasn’t been known, however, is who exactly has underwritten the group’s rise and rapid expansion … It turns out there’s one relatively unknown conservative megadonor behind much of the group’s expansion. And that donor is not on the familiar shortlist of major Republican backers. … His name is MIKE RYDIN, a retired Houston software developer.”
4. THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF DEMOCRACY: “Voting machine trouble in Pennsylvania county triggers alarm ahead of 2024,” by John Sakellariadis: “[W]hen a [touchscreen glitch] cropped up earlier this month, it triggered a backlash within the county — one that has left state and local election officials in this key swing state racing to restore voter confidence … Northampton’s case also underscores the delicate balance politicians and election officials say they must strike when investigating legitimate problems, without providing fodder to conspiracy theorists.”
5. IMMIGRATION FILES: The number of Chinese immigrants coming over the U.S.-Mexico border has skyrocketed, with the total over the past year topping the previous decade combined, NYT’s Eileen Sullivan reports. Usually traveling from Ecuador up through Central America, these migrants are often frustrated with President XI JINPING’s political repression or pandemic policies. They have better odds in the U.S. than other immigrants: Their asylum claims are accepted at a higher rate, and China is one of the few countries that refuses to take its citizens back from the U.S.
6. KNOWING AARON SIBARIUM: “This Gen Z Investigative Reporter Is Rocking Conservative Media,” by Marc Novicoff in POLITICO Magazine: “Sibarium, a staff writer at the Washington Free Beacon, is 27, diminutive, nasally and ‘formerly autistic.’ … He’s become a force on the right who’s drawn praise from conservatives as far apart as TUCKER CARLSON and DAVID FRENCH … This opportunity to do work that few others are doing, coupled with a contrarian impulse and a ‘visceral’ opposition to wokeness, is what led Sibarium to a career in conservative journalism. Even though he’s not much of a conservative himself.”
7. CRUISE CONTROL: Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS has a big choice to make about whether to lift restrictions on cruise ships in Key West, NYT’s Frances Robles reports. The issue pits several key interests against each other: environmental concerns, the tourism industry and advocacy from MARK WALSH, the pier operator who’s a major campaign donor to DeSantis. The governor’s decision is expected next month.
8. PARSON’S PARDONS: “The Missouri governor is granting pardons at a pace not seen since the World War II era,” by AP’s David Lieb: “For a dozen years as a rural sheriff, MIKE PARSON was the face of justice, the man ultimately responsible for catching and locking up local lawbreakers. Now governor, Parson also has become the face of mercy by pardoning more than 600 people in the past three years … [It] coincides with a national movement to restore citizens’ rights and reputations after they have served criminal sentences.”
9. X MARKS THE SPOT: The backlash to ELON MUSK’s recent backing for an antisemitic conspiracy theory is graver than previously known: Up to $75 million in advertising is at risk for X, NYT’s Ryan Mac and Kate Conger report. Internal documents they obtained “list more than 200 ad units of companies from the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, many of which have halted or are considering pausing their ads on the social network.”
CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 16 funnies
GREAT WEEKEND READS, guest-curated this week by Olivia Nuzzi, who wrote “The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign” for the latest issue of N.Y. Mag:
— “Quasar’s Patagonia Puma Tracking Is a Safari Unlike Any Other,” by William O’Connor for The Messenger: “A pricey adventure to the bottom of the world bringing you face to face with an apex predator that is worth every penny.”
— “The Secrets of the JFK Assassination Archive,” by Scott Sayare for N.Y. Mag: “How a dogged journalist proved that the CIA lied about Oswald and Cuba — and spent decades covering it up.”
— “Lana Del Rey Leads With Her Heart,” by Chloé Cooper Jones for Harper’s Bazaar: “If you’re trying to understand her through some stiff binary of persona versus authenticity, you’ve already failed the assignment.”
— “‘Is This Hell?’ The Pilot Accused of Trying to Crash a Plane Tells His Story,” by NYT’s Mike Baker: “Mr. Emerson, who has pleaded not guilty, said he had no intention of hurting anyone that day. Instead, he said, he was desperate to awaken from a hallucinogenic state that had consumed him since taking psychedelic mushrooms two days earlier, during a weekend getaway with friends to commemorate the death of his best friend.”
— “It’s Too Easy to Buy Stuff You Don’t Want,” by Amanda Mull for The Atlantic: “Online shopping is too fast for good decisions.”
— “Marianne Williamson Is Polling As Competitively Against Biden as Nikki Haley Is Against Trump,” by John Nichols for The Nation: “But the media’s obsessed with Haley and paying almost no attention to Williamson.”
— “Dead Ringers,” by Andrew Zucker for The Free Press: “A new wave of AI technology — and the music industry’s push to double down on nostalgia — means that long-gone singers might never be put to rest.”
— “Meet the Lawyer Leading the Human Resistance Against AI,” by Kate Knibbs for Wired: “Matthew Butterick is leading a wave of lawsuits against major AI firms, from OpenAI to Meta. Win or lose, his work will shape the future of human creativity.”
— “In Defense of Taking Offense,” by Matt Labash for Slack Tide: “Finding common cause with Billie Eilish, Adam Driver, and Johnny Rotten.”
— “Free Speech Advocates Are Often Hypocrites. This Doesn’t Make the Cause Less Important,” by Musa Al-Gharbi for Reason: “When people from historically privileged groups are facing censorship, that doesn’t mean people in historically marginalized groups are actually being empowered.”
— “Off-Road Rescues in Colorado Are Getting Out of Hand,” by Jonathan Romeo for Outside: “Why do so many cars and trucks get stuck on sketchy passes in the Rockies? We asked state officials, tow truck drivers, and even college professors to weigh in.”
— “Everyone Is Microdosing Fame,” by Caroline Cianci for Byline: “We watch Instagram stories every night like it’s a Broadway play with no intermissions. We throw roses onto the stage with a simple heart emoji. Are we all celebrities in our own right? And if all of us are, are any of us?”
— “No Fap: A Cultural History of Anti-Masturbation,” by Aya Labanieh for the Los Angeles Review of Books
Andrew Cuomo was hit with a lawsuit from a former aide who alleges sexual misconduct.
Joe Biden is reading Heather Cox Richardson and looking at jewelry on Nantucket.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter had tough decisions to make about hospice.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) … CNN’s Abby Phillip … Jenna Bush Hager … Barbara Pierce Bush … White House’s Shilpa Phadke … EEOC’s Keith Sonderling … Mark Bloomfield of the American Council for Capital Formation … Robert Steurer … Bill Dauster … Lee Dunn … Insider’s Brent Griffiths … Doug Troutman … The Guardian’s Kira Lerner … Reuters’ Sarah Lynch … Loully Saney of Day One Project … Eric Oginsky … former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich … Jason Rae … former New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch … Colin Crowell … Isabella Victorio of Rep. Cory Mills’ (R-Fla.) office … Alexandra Givens … Social Driver’s Anthony Shop … Far Post Media’s David Almacy … Kevin Knoth of Rep. Guy Reschenthaler’s (R-Pa.) office
THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):
CNN “State of the Union”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Chris Christie … Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog. Panel: Karen Finney, David Urban, Faiz Shakir and Sarah Chamberlain.
FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein … Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) … Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.). Panel: Horace Cooper, Marie Harf, Susan Page and Kevin Roberts.
ABC “This Week”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) … Chris Christie … Joshua Dobbs. Panel: Donna Brazile, Rick Klein, Sarah Isgur and Susan Glasser.
CBS “Face the Nation”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) … Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) … Philippe Lazzarini … Cindy McCain.
NBC “Meet the Press”: National security adviser Jake Sullivan … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) … Selma Blair. Panel: Brendan Buck, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Symone Sanders-Townsend.
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