Playbook: The Great Un-Awokening

Politico

6 hours ago

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With help from Eli Okun and Bethany Irvine
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President Donald Trump attends UFC-316 featuring Merab Dvalishvili vs. Sean O'Malley at 9:30 p.m.
DRIVING THE DAY
Ambitious Democrats with an eye on a presidential run are in the middle of a slow-motion Sister Souljah moment.
Searching for a path out of the political wilderness, potential 2028 candidates, especially those hailing from blue states, are attempting to ratchet back a leftward lurch on social issues some in the party say cost them the November election.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — NOT 2020 ANYMORE: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who is Black, vetoed a bill passed by his Democratic-dominated state legislature that took steps toward reparations. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it 'unfair' to allow transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports. And former Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel — who sat down with our Dasha Burns for the latest episode of her podcast The Conversation, which is dropping tomorrow — has urged his party to veer back to the center.
'Stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom,' said Emanuel, the two-term Chicago mayor who said he is open to a 2028 presidential campaign. 'If one child is trying to figure out their pronoun, I accept that, but the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is and can't even define it.'
Each of these candidates are, either deliberately or tacitly, countering a perceived weakness in their own political record or party writ large — Emanuel, for example, has called the Democratic Party 'weak and woke'; Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) has said the party needs more 'alpha energy'; others like Newsom are perhaps acknowledging that they had a more socially liberal bent in the past.
On diversity, equity, and inclusion, some in the party are also sending a signal they're no longer kowtowing to their left flank. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg removed his pronouns from his social media bio months ago, and questioned how the party has communicated about diversity.
'Is it caring for people's different experiences and making sure no one is mistreated because of them, which I will always fight for?' he said in a forum about the future of the party at the University of Chicago earlier this year. 'Or is it making people sit through a training that looks like something out of 'Portlandia,' which I have also experienced,' Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg added, 'And it is how Trump Republicans are made.'
Moderate Democrats are having a moment and there is a cadre of consultants and strategists ready to support them.
Ground zero for the party's great un-awokening was this week's WelcomeFest, the moderate Democrats' Coachella. There, hundreds of centrist elected officials, candidates and operatives gathered to commiserate over their 2024 losses and their party's penchant for purity tests. Panels on Wednesday featured Slotkin and Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), described as 'legends of the moderate community,' and the day included a presentation by center-left data guru David Shor, who has urged Democrats to shed toxic positions like 'defund the police.'
Adam Frisch, the former congressional candidate and director of electoral programs at Welcome PAC, said his party is 'out of touch culturally with a lot of people.'
'I think a lot of people are realizing, whether you're running for the House, the Senate or the presidential, we better start getting on track with what I call the pro-normal party coalition,' Frisch said. 'You need to focus on normal stuff, and normal stuff is economic opportunity and prosperity, not necessarily micro-social issues.'
Not every Democrat is retreating from defending liberal social stances. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called it 'a mistake' to abandon transgender people. 'We need to tell people your cost of eggs, your health care being denied, your homeowner's insurance, your lack of getting warning on tornadoes coming has nothing to do with someone's gender,' he told The Independent last month. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, too,recently said that it's 'vile and inhumane to go after the smallest minority and attack them.' This spring, Pritzker declared March 31 as Illinois' Transgender Day of Visibility.
'Walz, [Sen. Chris] Murphy, Pritzker, [Kentucky's Andy] Beshear — they're not going around talking about it all the time, but they're also not running away from their values,' said one adviser to a potential 2028 candidate granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. 'They're in the both-and lane.'
But as Emanuel sees it, his party has a long way to go to over-correct for what he paints as the excesses of the last few years.
'The core crux over the years of President [Joe] Biden's tenure is the party on a whole set of cultural issues looked like they were off on a set of tangential issues,' Emanuel told Dasha.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — A new internal poll from Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow's campaign, conducted by Global Strategy Group, of likely Democratic primary voters in Michigan shows the Senate primary as still up in the air. Rep. Haley Stevens leads with 24 percent, followed by McMorrow at 20 percent, and then former director of Wayne County's Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services Abdul El-Sayed at 15 percent, with former House Speaker Joe Tate at 4 percent. Thirty-seven percent are undecided.
McMorrow is known by 31 percent of the primary electorate, 11 points behind Stevens, and EL-Sayed is known by 35 percent.
The poll, conducted of 800 likely 2026 primary voters by telephone and text to web-based survey, was in the field between May 28 and June 2, and had a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. Read the full polling memo.
5 MINUTES WITH
Welcome to '5 Minutes With,' a new Playbook weekend segment featuring a quick chat with a newsmaker.
J.D. Scholten is boarding a bus not long before midnight somewhere in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after pitching in relief for his Sioux City Explorers, a team part of the American Association of Professional Baseball, and losing 15-4 to the Sioux Falls Canaries. He notched one strikeout.
'I threw mop up duty at the end,' Scholten says as he waits for the bus driver to board.
Five days ago, the 45-year-old Democratic Iowa state representative — who got back into baseball after two congressional races in 2018 and 2020 and realizing he could still throw 80 mph at a booth at the Iowa State Fair (and then 87 mph still after) — took on an even more unforgiving task: He launched a challenge to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), after she told a town hall audience, 'We all are going to die.'
Scholten thinks his time on the team has helped him win over swaths of red and rural America — including the men he plays with, and whom his party badly needs to win back.
'Politics isn't on their front of mind with them, like it is with myself,' Scholten says. 'And so I'm curious what they think about things, and how they word things, and different things like that. On the things I'm passionate about, I learned how to frame them in a way that gets them interested, say it in a way that speaks to them. One thing that a lot of these guys are all for is universal health care, because especially when I was their age too, they're in between, in the off season, they're just trying to survive.'
Scholten launched his campaign, he said, to capitalize on the 'level of outrage' he said Ernst generated with her remarks.
'It was trying to just match that moment,' he said.
9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US
1. PRIDE VS. THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Today's WorldPride parade in Washington marks the 50th anniversary of the first pride celebrations in D.C. But the mood surrounding the parade and festivities is somewhat sour this year: The Trump administration's crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion programs broadly and transgender people specifically is rippling across the landscape, leading Pride to feel a bit downcast.
Dupont Circle re-opened: Just hours before the official WorldPride parade kicks off, the National Park Service began removing the anti-scale fencing surrounding Dupont Circle park after the agency's decision to close the area sparked outrage among Washingtonians, Martin Austermuhle reports for The 51st.
Earlier this week, the park service ordered Dupont Circle to be closed in order to 'secure the park, deter potential violence, reduce the risk of destructive acts and decrease the need for extensive law enforcement presences.' But to many Washingtonians, the move smacked of politics, given the Circle's centrality to the gay rights movement in the district. 'Dupont Circle is sacred ground for the LGBTQ+ community — a place with a rich history of protest, pride and joy,' Zachary Parker, an openly gay Democratic member of the city council, told POLITICO's Michael Schaffer. 'Closing it during one of the most significant global celebrations of our community sends the wrong message.'
'Rainbow-washing' meets the Trump era: Years of complaints from voices on the left about so-called 'rainbow-washing' — that is, when major corporations publicly tout their support for LGBTQ+ people during Pride Month without taking more concrete steps to help the community — have given way to a new question as corporate sponsorships dry up under Trump: Is 'rainbow-washing' preferable to the alternative of not supporting Pride events?
Booz Allen Hamilton, the federal contracting giant, pulled out of being a headline sponsor of WorldPride in February. Other companies such as Deloitte, Comcast, Darcars Automotive Group and Nissan have declined to support the event this year despite contributing funding in previous years; some, like Nissan, have cited budgetary concerns as their reason for not participating. Similar stories abound across the country, as corporations roll back support for Pride out of fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, leaving many festivals strapped for cash, as POLITICO Journalism Institute's Rachael Dziaba reports for Playbook.
In Washington, two months after Booz Allen dropped out, Capital Pride Alliance, the nonprofit that manages DC Pride, launched a 'Hate Is No Joke' fundraising campaign with an initial lofty goal of raising $2 million, according to the Washington Blade. The fundraiser's target has since been lowered to $1 million. As of Saturday morning, 'Hate Is No Joke' has amassed roughly $66,000. ('This is an on-going fundraiser with no definitive end to help us continue to raise funds even after WorldPride DC is over,' a spokesperson for Capital Pride told Playbook. 'We are on track for budgeted expectations for individual donations so far.')
But some of those who've railed against 'rainbow-washing' see this all as a vindication. 'As the queer community, we should have never gone to corporations and expected that money to always be there,' said Jen Deerinwater, an organizer who is bisexual, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and participated in protests against corporate involvement in Capital Pride in 2017. 'Pride cannot solely constitute a parade with Deloitte floats and a concert series,' said Jack Petocz, who traveled to D.C. to attend WorldPride on behalf of the advocacy organization Gen-Z for Change. 'We will continue with or without the support of these major corporations, and truly go back to what Pride is all about: being a protest, being a liberatory force, and fighting for ourselves.'
'It's important to note that everyone has opinions on where funding for Pride should come from,' a spokesperson for Capital Pride told Playbook in a statement. 'A question may be, 'have the LGBTQ activists that you've spoken to, and who complain about corporate sponsorship actually donated to Pride themselves?' … [T]he major funders for most events, not just Pride, come from corporations. We did experience loss of support, but also received additional support from other new companies to help bridge that gap.'
2. RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: As the Senate reconvenes next week to continue hashing out the details of Trump's sweeping tax bill, CBO Director Phill Swagel is defending his agency from GOP lawmakers who believe its fiscal scoring of the megabill is 'too pessimistic' and 'tilts against Republicans,' WSJ's Richard Rubin scoops: 'What CBO is doing is what it is supposed to do, said Swagel, in his first direct response to GOP criticisms. … 'The tax cut is a tax cut. Revenue goes down,' Swagel said. 'There's improved growth, but not so much as to lead to the tax cut to pay for itself.''
One thing they agree on: Though the intraparty strife continues over the president's 'one big bill' — GOP lawmakers have united behind at least one thing: 'Amid the messy ongoing divorce between the president and [Elon Musk] … Donald Trump has sole custody of the House GOP,' POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill and others report.
3. THE DOGE DAYS AREN'T OVER: The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Department of Government Efficiency can have 'unimpeded access to sensitive Social Security records for millions of people,' Josh Gerstein reports. In a three-paragraph ruling, the court's conservative majority lifted a lower-court order that had blocked DOGE 'from viewing or obtaining personal information in the agency's systems.' Though the White House claims that they need to access the data to root out fraud, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent that the court's decision creates 'grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.'
Another legal victory: In a second unsigned order yesterday, the high court also ruled that DOGE 'does not have to turn over internal records to a government watchdog group as part of a public records lawsuit' for now, per NYT's Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle.
And despite the president's high-profile fallout with his former DOGE chief this week, the organization is likely here to stay, with staffers 'deeply embedded' across several federal agencies, per NYT: 'Whether DOGE keeps its current Musk-inspired form remains an open question … but the approach that DOGE embodied at the outset — deep cuts in spending, personnel and projects — appears to have taken root.'
4. RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST: The Russian barrage of drone strikes today targeting the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed at least three people and injured 21, officials say. The attacks 'included deadly aerial glide bombs that have become part of fierce Russian attacks in the three-year war,' per the AP. The attacks come mere days after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's phone conversation, where Putin said there would be retaliation for Ukrainian drone strikes.
And back in Washington: As the White House weighs whether to ramp up punitive action against the Kremlin, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is intensifying his calls for the White House to enforce 'bone-crushing' sanctions against Russia, POLITICO's Amy Mackinnon reports.
5. IMMIGRATION FILES: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador whose unlawful deportation under the Trump administration sparked a national uproar, is back in the United States and will be charged with federal human trafficking in Tennessee, ABC News reports. After confirming Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. yesterday, federal officials unsealed the indictment alleging 'he participated in a yearslong conspiracy to haul undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.' Abrego Garica made his first related court appearance last night 'in the Middle District of Tennessee, answering 'Yes, I understand' in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked him if he understood the charges against him.'
Abrego Garcia's lawyers claim the allegations should be ''treated with suspicion' because of the Trump administration's effort to publicly assail Abrego Garcia's character,' POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report. AG Pam Bondi told reporters yesterday the 'intense scrutiny of Abrego Garcia had led to the break-up of the human smuggling ring he was allegedly involved in.'
How we got here: 'Key moments that led to smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego García,' per WaPo's Steve Thompson
6. SCHOOL DAZE: Education Secretary Linda McMahon said she is seeing 'progress' on the administration's demands from Harvard and Columbia University as Trump ramps up his pressure campaign against the nation's academic institutions, NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard and Alexandra Marquez report: 'And you know why I think we're seeing progress? We are putting these measures in place, and we're saying we're putting teeth behind what we're looking at,' McMahon told NBC.
7. BLURRED LINES: 'A Super PAC Is Encroaching on the DCCC's Territory,' by NOTUS' Alex Roarty: 'House Majority PAC is actively recruiting candidates, vetting their backgrounds and even potentially running ads on their behalf in competitive primaries … The belief among some strategists is that House Majority PAC's ramped-up involvement this cycle represents a shift in how the Democratic party approaches House races, one in which the super PAC assumes more responsibilities.'
8. MIND THE GROUP CHAT Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is at the center of an ongoing Pentagon investigation exploring whether his Signal messages, reported earlier this year, contained classified military information 'and if anyone ordered texts to be deleted,' WSJ's Alex Ward and Nancy Youssef report: 'It is unclear whether Acting Pentagon Inspector General Steven Stebbins, who is overseeing the probe, will reach a public conclusion about whether the information was classified' at the time it was shared, but the IG is likely to release his findings ahead of Hegseth's scheduled testimony before the House Armed Services Committee next Thursday.
9. MARK YOUR CALENDARS: U.S. and Chinese trade officials will meet in London on Monday for another round of trade talks amid rising tensions between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, AP's Seung Min Kim reports: 'Speaking to reporters on Air Force One yesterday Trump 'said Xi had agreed to restart exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the U.S. which China had slowed, threatening a range of U.S. manufacturers that relied on the critical materials. … Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the U.S. side in the trade talks.'
CLICKER — 'The nation's cartoonists on the week in politics,' edited by Matt Wuerker — 16 funnies
GREAT WEEKEND READS:
— 'A Bizarre PTSD Therapy 'Seemed Too Good to Be True,'' by The Atlantic's Yasmin Tayag: 'What if overcoming trauma can be painless?'
— 'The War on Trees,' by Foreign Affairs' Justyna Gudzowska and Laura Ferris: 'How illegal logging funds cartels, terrorists, and rogue regimes.'
— 'How Tech Company Recruiters Sidestep Trump's Immigration Crackdown' by ProPublica's Alec MacGillis: 'I had entered one of the most overlooked yet consequential corners of the United States immigration system: the process by which employers sponsor tech workers with temporary H-1B visas as a first step to getting them the green card that entitles them to permanent residency in the U.S.'
— 'How measles tore through a remote West Texas city,' by NBC News' Brandy Zadrozny: 'Anti-vaccine activists seized on a deadly outbreak in Seminole, setting off a battle between fringe doctors and mainstream medicine.'
— 'Musket vs. AR-15: Judges Are Throwing Out Gun Restrictions Because of Antiquated Laws From America's Founding,' by Chip Brownlee for The Trace: 'A 2022 Supreme Court decision that gun laws should align with the nation's 'history and tradition' has sown confusion in courtrooms and weakened longstanding limits on firearms.'
— 'A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia?' by Sarah Viren for NYT Mag: 'Maura Finkelstein is one of many scholars discovering that the traditional protections of academic freedom are no longer holding.'
TALK OF THE TOWN
OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED yesterday morning at the Swiss ambassador's residence in D.C. for a gathering of the intellectual community World.Minds, in which Matt Kaminski moderated a conversation on China, AI and Europe: Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), David Petraeus, Mike Gallagher, Rolf Dobelli, Corinna Hoyer, Ralph Büchi, Anne Neuberger, Julius Genachowski, Paul Nakasone, Heather Podesta, Juleanna Glover, Alan Fleischmann and Dafna Tapiero, Dmitri Alperovitch, Bruce Andrews, Anne Brady Perron, Sheel Tyle, Mark Vlasic, Jonathan Silver, Tomicah Tillemann, Raj Kumar, Ed Luce, Gary Knell, Afsaneh Beschloss, David Bohigian, Doug Rediker and Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Peter Cherukuri, David Feith and Amy Dacey.
— SPOTTED last night at Elephant and Castle at Article III Project's 'Bold and Fearless Judges' event hosted by Mike Davis, who did a hit on Fox News in the middle of the event, and Otto Heck: Todd Blanche, David Warrington, Harmeet Dhillon, Andrew Ferguson, Emil Bove, Michael Thielen, Mia Heck, Ryan Giles, Lanny Davis, Gene Hamilton, Gary Lawkowski, Mark Paoletta, Steve Kenny, Gineen Bresso, Bill McGinley, Tom DeMatteo, Stanley Woodward, Patrick Davis, Lee Holmes, Kat Nikas, Aakash Singh, Sam Adkisson, Gates McGavick, Chad Gilmartin, Don McGahn, Terry and Katie Schilling, Bill and Katie Lane, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves and Ted Groves, Arthur Schwartz, Jessie Jane Duff, Derek and Liz Lyons, Derrick Anderson, Megan Owen, Alida Kass, Graziella Pastor, Stuart McCommas, Brendan Chestnut, Dan Burrows, Kenny Cunningham, Jeff Clark, Lee Holmes, John Bachman, Mike Carter and Alex Swoyer.
— SPOTTED at the Picnic Theatre Company's performance of 'Heaven Can Wait' at Tudor Place last night: Steve Rochlin, Christina Sevilla, Sara Cook, Bruce Kieloch, David White, Kimball Stroud, Michael Isikoff, Mary Ann Akers, David Corn, Amy Argetsinger, Indira Lakshmanan, Raquel Krahenbuhl, Riikka Hietajarvi, Nancy Bagley, Soroush Shehabi, Erica Payne, Gene Haigh, Julia Cohen, Neil Barrett, Puru Trivedi, Nova Daly, Kevin Rooney, Antonio Olivo, Amirah Sequeira, Chris Fowler, Alexa Newlin, Jennifer Grinspoon, Daniela McInerne, Dan Burrows and Hugo Verges.
TRANSITION — Damian Williams is joining Jenner & Block as partner. He previously was at Paul Weiss and is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. More from WaPo
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M) … former VP Mike Pence … Wendy Sherman … Bloomberg's Catherine Lucey … Netflix's Adonna Biel … SKDK's Stephanie Reichin ... Myra Adams … Christina Animashaun … FGS Global's Lars Anderson … Covington & Burling's Dan Erikson … former Reps. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) and Susan Wild (D-Pa.) … Paul Kelly of the Livingston Group … retired Coast Guard Vice Adm. Brian Peterman … Jerry White … Nathasha Lim Symanski … Chrissy Barry of the House Homeland Security counterterrorism subcommittee … Microsoft's Kaitlin Kirshner Haskins … Jessie D'Angelo … Haley Dorgan … Elizabeth Thorp … Chris Ortman … Javier de Diego … KHQ's Bradley Warren … Dave Abrams
THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):
POLITICO 'The Conversation with Dasha Burns': Rahm Emanuel.
ABC 'This Week': Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy … House Speaker Mike Johnson. Panel: Chris Christie, Donna Brazile and Reince Priebus
Fox News 'Sunday Morning Futures': Interior Secretary Doug Burgum … Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) … Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
CNN 'State of the Union': Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) … Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). Panel: Bakari Sellers, Xochitl Hinojosa, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).
MSNBC 'The Weekend: Primetime': Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) … New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani … South Carolina State Rep. Keishan Scott.
NBC 'Meet the Press': Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Olivia Munn. Panel: Leigh Ann Caldwell, Sara Fagen, Symone Sanders Townsend and Melanie Zanona.
CBS 'Face the Nation': Kevin Hassett … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texa) … Janti Soeripto … Anthony Salvanto.
NewsNation 'The Hill Sunday,' guest-anchored by Blake Burman: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) … Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Md.) … Neil Bradley. Panel: Kellie Meyer, Tyler Pager, Jason Willick and John Tamny.
FOX 'Fox News Sunday': Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Panel: Mary Katharine Ham, Josh Kraushaar, Marc Thiessen and Juan Williams.
CNN 'Inside Politics Sunday': Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.). Panel: Astead Herndon, Olivia Beavers and Jeff Mason.
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