With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco, Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray
Good Saturday morning. It’s Adam Wren, splashing into the weekend like Artemis II hit the Pacific. Get in touch.
ALTER EGOS: “Thunderstruck: Kennedy Center nixes its lawyer’s hard rock cover band,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman: “Even the Kennedy Center’s top lawyer has rock ‘n’ roll dreams. Elliot Berke, the general counsel for the Kennedy Center, last fall tried to book his own cover band the DePlorables to play at the center’s jazz-themed Speakeasy … Staff responsible for organizing acts at the Speakeasy ultimately rejected Berke’s requests, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, in part because they believed it was a conflict of interest. …
“Berke had no comment, but a Kennedy Center official denied that he ever tried to book his band at the Speakeasy. … POLITICO, however, has viewed evidence that Berke, who plays guitar for his band, did in fact attempt to get his band to play at the venue. Outside of the Kennedy Center, Berke is the outside counsel for a number of top Republican politicians, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), and does legal work for 80s musical acts like Asia and Night Ranger.”
CINCINNATI — Elissa Slotkin keeps a spreadsheet on her computer of no fewer than 29 Democrats who she thinks could run for president in 2028.
“I have really come to believe that a big primary is good,” the 49-year-old first-term senator from Michigan told Playbook here in the Queen City after finishing a lively town hall moderated by Mayor Aftab Pureval and convened by Majority Democrats, the group focused on reshaping and revitalizing the Democratic Party. “And I do want people who have decided to get in to go, and I think it’s actually good to have whoever our final candidate be run the gauntlet of a really big, complicated primary. I think it makes you battle tested.”
But Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who rolled out a “war plan” to “contain and defeat Donald Trump” last April and is talking up a Project 2029. She very plainly sees herself on that list of potential contenders.
“There’s plenty of candidates who have been showing up in South Carolina and New Hampshire and, you know, building their profiles,” she said. “And if I can say it, running a very 1997 presidential campaign, writing a book and doing it a more traditional way for months — I mean, at this point, maybe for years.”
Slotkin acknowledged this week in Iowa that she would consider a campaign of her own. By being so out there already, she is taking her own advice: Last year, she told your author Democrats who want to run for president should get in early and not wait “until 2027.” In recent months, Slotkin has traveled the middle of the country talking with both voters who backed President Donald Trump and who didn’t vote at all. She’s done so under the auspices of groups like Majority Democrats and VoteVets. (Playbook last caught up with her in Kansas City, Missouri, where she was still sorting through her party’s 2024 wreckage.)
“I guess I just feel like the Midwest is a really good barometer for where the entire country will be,” Slotkin says. “And it’s not perfect, but it’s, I think, the best we have.”
Her perch in and focus on the middle of the country raises the question of whether she thinks a candidate from elsewhere should be the nominee.
“I have often felt that our party tends to be a little coast heavy,” Slotkin said. “You know, I’ve been in elected office now eight years, and I’ve only had leaders from California or New York, and I’ve constantly said, ‘I think we need more Midwestern leadership.’” (Subtext: Watch out, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former VP Kamala Harris).
To hear Slotkin tell it, all roads lead back to a candidate with her profile.
Talk to Slotkin long enough about who’s running now, and you get the sense she could Dick Cheney the 2028 primary: In the same way the former GOP vice president ran former President George W. Bush’s selection process for a job he later filled himself.
Slotkin says she’s surveying the field, and trying to meet the prospective candidates.
“We have to prove our value to the voters. And every time people tell me, ‘well, Trump is getting less and less popular, and his approval ratings are so low,’ I say, ‘Yeah, and national Democrats are even lower than Trump,’” Slotkin said. “So when there’s a binary choice, we still don’t come out winning on those comparisons.”
So what exactly does this might-be candidate want to see from the standard bearer?
“I am ready to find that candidate who’s going to shake things up, lead from the front, not the back, and take us into whatever this new chapter is, because what we did in the past doesn’t work,” Slotkin said.
NOW READ THIS — At the National Action Network convention in New York City, conversations “with a dozen people on the sidelines of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s gathering found some lingering concerns that America remains too bigoted — and that as a result, the desire to diversify the highest reaches of government is in tension with the desire to win,” POLITICO’s Erin Doherty and Alec Hernandez report.
On the schedule today: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) round out the list of 2028ers speaking at NAN. Beshear is up at 11 a.m. and Kelly is on at 12:30 p.m. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is also expected to speak.
MOORE’S MOMENT: Wes Moore got a warm reception at NAN — including chants of “run, Wes, run!” after Sharpton asked him about a potential 2028 bid, Erin writes in. But Moore stuck to the script. “I got 278 days left in my first term as governor,” he said. “By the way, I’m going back to the people in Maryland, because I’m going to run this thing back.”
Before they linked up at the convention, Moore and Sharpton crossed paths at the gym, both getting in early workouts. “He got it in early,” Moore told POLITICO of Sharpton. And when asked about the crowd’s chants — and whether they reflected his own ambitions — Moore sidestepped: “I think they were talking about what Rev. said about the gym.”
9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US
1. HOLDING THE CEASEFIRE: Direct talks on a possible end to the war in Iran between the Iranian and U.S. delegations have begun in Islamabad today following meetings with Pakistani intermediaries. Tehran outlined the red lines it says must be agreed to before any face-to-face talks can occur, Reuters’ Ariba Shahid and colleagues report. Both sides are still far apart on the Strait of Hormuz, the state of Iran’s nuclear program and reparations on the war damage — and few details are known about the Trump administration’s position going into the negotiations, WaPo’s Susannah George and Shaiq Hussain report. But in a first for the war so far, two U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers passed through the Strait this morning with no issues, per WSJ.
The talks mark a major moment for VP JD Vance, who’s leading the U.S. delegation. It’s the toughest task yet for the VP, a longtime war skeptic, now unavoidably tied to the conflict, WSJ’s Philip Wegmann and Ken Thomas write.
The view from Israel: The country is switching up its strategy, relying on extensive military pressure, leaning on U.S. diplomacy and possibly going the fight alone if the U.S. moves out, POLITICO’s Felicia Schwartz reports from Tel Aviv. “It means that now, Israel is trying to find a way to degrade Tehran without further antagonizing a U.S. administration already angry that it has continued attacks on Lebanon.”
On the ground: Iran still has access to thousands of ballistic missiles that it could use via launchers currently in underground storage areas, according to U.S. intelligence, per WSJ’s Michael Gordon and colleagues. The reports show Iran able to rebuild its missile force, and could get back up to the stockpile it had before the war. China is also preparing to get Iran new air defense systems in the next few weeks, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand and colleagues scoop.
2. WHAT TRUMP IS TALKING ABOUT: The president has drifted away from talking about affordability in his public comments since the war began, a shift from what the White House signaled would be an aggressive focus on the cost of living this year, according to a new POLITICO analysis from Jessie Blaeser and Megan Messerly. “Since the war began, Trump has talked about war more than twice as often as he has about affordability. Trump talked about the cost of living about 10 percent of the time before the Feb. 28 start of the war; now, it’s less than half that.” Read the full report, complete with charts
3. SWALWELL BOMBSHELL: A bombshell report from SF Chronicle’s Alexei Koseff and Sophia Bollag broke news that an ex-staffer claimed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell of California had sexually assaulted her, with another report from CNN’s Allison Gordon and colleagues confirming the ex-staffer’s story and reporting three other women who alleged sexual misconduct by Swalwell.
What Swalwell is saying: “These allegations of sexual assault are flat false,” he said in a social media video. “They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have.” Swalwell’s attorney said he intends to continue with the campaign, but he’s “taking time with his family right now.” More from POLITICO
The fallout: Multiple top staffers quit in advance of the SF Chronicle’s story publishing, with CNN reporting one staffer left as soon as they saw the detailed list of questions for his team. An independent committee fundraising for him shuttered its operations. Swalwell’s top campaign co-chairs, Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray, called on him to drop out, as did Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, POLITICO’s Melanie Mason and Jeremy White report. So too did Rep. Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, per POLITICO’s Riley Rogerson.
Separately, POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman and Melanie scooped that one of Swalwell’s former employees had signed an NDA when they left his office, contradicting the gubernatorial hopeful’s claims that no one signed any such agreements.
4. PARDON ME: “Trump Promises Mass Pardons to Staff Before Leaving Office,” by WSJ’s Josh Dawsey: “‘I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,’ Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. … Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office … The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.”
5. THE POLITICO POLL: “RFK Jr. has turned corporate America’s name to mud,” by POLITICO’s Amanda Chu: “The POLITICO Poll of 3,851 U.S. adults conducted by Public First last month reveals that when it comes to [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s] Make America Healthy Again agenda, most GOP respondents, and more than Democrats, supported restrictions on ultraprocessed foods, pesticides, seed oils, and junk food advertising, among other things. … For the GOP, the poll results underscore the deepening fractures within the party as its embrace of the MAHA movement and growing populist base clash with its longstanding identity as a defender of business and small government.”
6. DHS DIGEST: Trump gave the green light to plans for a narrow party-line reconciliation bill focused on immigration enforcement funding for his remaining term, a win for Senate GOP leadership, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports. This sets up Senate Republicans to have text for the budget resolution as soon as next week, with a vote possible near the end of the month. DHS’ internal watchdog paused ongoing contract audits and reviews of the conditions of ICE facilities as a result of the department shutdown, NBC’s Laura Strickler and Julia Ainsley scoop. But furloughed workers are being asked to come back on Monday, per Reuters.
Course correction: “DHS advised immigrant children to self-deport until a California judge stepped in,” by LA Times’ Andrea Castillo
7. ALL EYES ON SCOTUS: “As Election Looms, Washington Wonders if Trump Will Get a New Supreme Court Pick,” by NYT’s Ann Marimow: “Justice Clarence Thomas, who at 77 is the court’s oldest current justice, has over the years ruled out retiring, indicating he intends to serve for decades more. … As a result, the spotlight has been trained on the court’s second-oldest member, Justice [Samuel Alito], who turned 76 this month. … Justice Alito’s friends, former colleagues and law clerks said that the justice is well aware of the political calendar and would prefer to have a Republican president choose his successor. But even those in close contact with the justice said they are unsure about his plans.”
8. TRADING PLACES: “Trade court wrestles with Trump’s replacement tariffs,” by POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney: “A federal trade court wrestled Friday with the legality of the 10 percent global tariff [Trump] imposed in February after the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping tariffs he slapped on dozens of countries last year. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade sounded perplexed over whether Trump had properly invoked a 1974 law to justify the new tariffs, which can only remain in effect for 150 days. … The judges gave no indication of how soon they plan to rule on the duties, which are set to expire in July unless Congress acts to extend them.”
9. EPSTEIN FILES LATEST: First lady Melania Trump’s unexpected statement on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein shocked some in the White House. But Trump told NYT’s Shawn McCreesh that he “thought she had a right to talk about it,” adding that he didn’t know exactly what she was going to say. “She didn’t meet me through Jeffrey Epstein. And I could understand her feelings. But I said, ‘If you want to do it, do it,’” Trump said. Heeding the first lady’s call for a public platform for Epstein’s victims, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told Fox News that “we will have hearings” for them, per CNBC.
CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 17 funnies
GREAT WEEKEND READS:
— “Marjorie Taylor Greene Predicts a GOP Bloodbath in the Midterms,” by Playbook’s Dasha Burns: “In a new interview, the conservative hardliner lets loose on Trump and the Republican Party.”
— “Trump’s Favorite European Strongman Is in Trouble. Soccer Explains Why,” by Jamie Dettmer for POLITICO Magazine: “Hungary’s strongman has built his regime on a fusion of football and politics. Can it carry him to another term?”
— “What’s killing Las Vegas? The shrinking middle class is a prime suspect,” by the Nevada Independent’s Mini Racker: “But while visitation was down in 2025, gaming revenue was flat — suggesting that casinos are squeezing more money out of fewer tourists. The ones who can afford it.”
— “Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted?” by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz: “New interviews and closely guarded documents shed light on the persistent doubts about the head of OpenAI.”
— “How the Internet Fringe Infiltrated Republican Politics,” by The New Yorker’s Antonia Hitchens: “Inside the battle for the post-MAGA G.O.P.”
— “The Revenge Plot,” by NY Mag’s Andrew Rice: “Inside the battle at the Justice Department to get Trump what he wants.”
— “My Quest to Solve Bitcoin’s Great Mystery,” by NYT’s John Carreyrou and Dylan Freedman: “Bitcoin’s creator has hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto for 17 years. But a trail of clues buried deep in crypto lore led to a 55-year-old computer scientist named Adam Back.”
— “How Trump’s tax law boosts the wealthy and leaves behind some workers he promised to help,” by NBC’s Shannon Pettypiece: “President Donald Trump pledged ‘no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.’ For some who are filing their taxes this year, the reality is different.”
IN MEMORIAM — “Former US Rep. Eliot Engel, who worked on foreign affairs for decades, dies at 79,” by AP’s Jake Offenhartz: “Former U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat who chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee and played an influential role in matters from the Balkans to the Beltway, including President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, has died. He was 79. … Engel won his first congressional election in 1988, defeating a 10-term incumbent on an insurgent, reformist platform. More than 30 years later, he left office in similar fashion after losing a 2020 primary to now-former Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a race seen as a progressive upset over the party’s pragmatic wing.”
INSIDE MAGA WORLD — “The Queen Bee of MAGA Socialites,” by WSJ’s Eliza Collins: “[Jessica Reed Kraus’] access to the Trump administration isn’t feigned. The former Democrat is in a group chat that includes former attorney general Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — Kraus describes it as a women’s support group. … She parties with the MAGA jet-set inside their homes in Washington, D.C., and at Mar-a-Lago. … Along the way, she chronicles it all like a gossip columnist for her 1.2 million Instagram followers and nearly half a million Substack subscribers under the name House Inhabit.”
PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — D.C.’s top Democratic mayoral candidates want expanded housing across the city — but the proposals are coming as developers and investors are reluctant to kick off new projects, WaPo’s Meagan Flynn and Jenny Gathright report. “In a city of roughly 700,000, where rentals make up more than 60 percent of housing units, the rental market is in significant distress. … Against that backdrop, [Kenyan McDuffie] and [Council member Janeese Lewis George] are confronting tension between what’s ambitious and what’s realistic for new housing — along with political challenges in selling their vision.”
TRANSITION — Gavin Proffitt is now director of federal government affairs for AbbVie. He previously worked for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: SKDK’s Mariel Sáez and Rae Robinson Trotman … Alex Phelps … Don Graves … David Wofford … Cogent Strategies’ Missi Tessier … RIAA’s Michele Ballantyne … MS NOW’s Raelyn Johnson … Marcia Hale … Nina Verghese … Marc Ross of Caracal … Aaron Bennett … Nick O’Boyle of House Committee on Ways & Means … Kate Warren … Amanda Golden … Benjamin Bryant … Purple Strategies’ Jason Bargnes … J.D. Harrison … Linda Lipsen of the American Association of Justice … Julie Tarallo McAlister … Beth Osborne … former Reps. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.) and Kevin Brady (R-Texas) … Holly Geffs … Janae Washington … Meghan McCann … Calla Wickenhauser … Chris Malagisi of Hillsdale College … Natalie Armijo of T-Mobile … Citi’s Ed Skyler … House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Emily Kassner-Marks
THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):
Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: President Donald Trump … Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) … Victoria Coates … Steve Hilton.
NBC “Meet the Press”: Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel … Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) … Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). Panel: Matt Gorman, Amna Nawaz, Steve Ricchetti and Julio Vaqueiro.
FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Glenn Youngkin … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) … Nate Morris … Arthur Brooks … Pascal Confavreux. Panel: Olivia Beavers, Michael Duncan, Doug Heye and Juan Williams.
CBS “Face the Nation”: Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter … Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) … Kristalina Georgieva … Anthony Salvanto.
ABC “This Week”: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) … Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) … retired Gen. Joseph Votel. Iran panel: Susan Glasser and Mary Louise Kelly. Panel: Donna Brazile, Sarah Isgur and Kevin McCarthy.
CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) … Nikki Haley. Panel: Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), David Urban, Jamal Simmons and Kristen Soltis Anderson.
PBS “Compass Points”: Danielle Pletka … Dana Stroul … Ray Takeyh … Alex Vatank.
NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: John Bolton … Wendy Sherman … Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). Panel: Jonathan Rauch, Seth Mandel and Joe Khalil.
MS NOW “The Weekend”: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) … Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) … Chrystia Freeland.
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