Trump's grip tightens, economic mood brightens

Jan 19, 2024

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Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is getting into the endorsement game. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

BULLETIN — Sen. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) is expected to endorse DONALD TRUMP for president at a rally tonight in Concord, New Hampshire, NYT’s Jonathan Swan and Shane Goldmacher report. “His endorsement of Mr. Trump is likely to spur additional discussion of Mr. Scott as a potential running mate for the former president.”

ELSEWHERE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE — Via our colleague Jonathan Martin: NIKKI HALEY “just told a table of voters at a diner in Amherst, NH - ‘I don’t want to be anybody’s vice-president, that’s off the table.’”

The latest Boston Globe/Suffolk University/NBC-10 Boston tracking poll: Trump 51.8% … Haley 35.4% … RON DeSANTIS 6.4% … Undecided 4.2%.

THE NEWLY ENCOURAGING ECONOMY — The end of 2023 saw a lot of prognostication about the economic outlook for the U.S. looking rosier.

Now, that tide may actually be turning — and voters are starting to notice.

Here’s WSJ’s Amara Omeokwe and Gwynn Guilford: “Americans are rapidly becoming much more upbeat about the economy.

“Consumer sentiment leapt 13% in the first half of January from December, the University of Michigan said Friday. That came on the heels of a sharp rise in December, causing the index to surge a combined 29% from November, the biggest two-month increase since 1991. The pickup in sentiment was broad-based, spanning consumers of different age, income, education and geography.”

Notably, NYT’s Nate Cohn points out that it is the highest level of optimism since July 2021, which was also the last time that Biden’s approval rating breached the 50% mark.

This isn’t necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card for Biden. His approval rating still sits at 38.8%, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average. Plus, Trump and other Republican candidates are still sure to hammer the president and his party over the economy and inflation as November approaches. But it could set the playing field a little more evenly, giving Democrats a leg to stand on with hard data that voters see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Related read: “Home Sales Were the Lowest in Almost 30 Years in 2023,” by WSJ’s Nicole Friedman

THE BEST DEFENSE — Over at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Biden officials attending the glitzy conference are finding themselves on unfamiliar footing: playing defense amid a global sense of unsettlement.

“Day after day, the officials faced questions about the political tussle over providing more aid to Ukraine, congressional polarization, the optics of supporting Israel despite the suffering of Palestinians and a growing bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen,” our colleague Alexander Ward reports from Davos. “And day after day, they had to reassure foreign counterparts that the U.S. had everything under control, that these were complicated times but nothing America and its allies couldn’t handle.”

HAWKEYE HINDSIGHT — Iowa GOP Chair JEFF KAUFMANN had some eyebrow-raising comments on his state’s caucuses in light of the early call for Trump on Monday, which raised a host of concerns and complaints. Kaufmann told the Columbia Journalism Review’s Cameron Joseph that the incident was “disappointing,” adding that “the party would likely have to reconsider its decision to release precinct results in real time as they’re tallied up in the future, or find another way to keep media organizations from making a call until everyone has voted.”

Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.

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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Nikki Haley speaks to Donald Trump while both are seated in the Oval Office.

The up-and-down relationship between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump has culminated in a primary contest as Haley tries to derail her former boss. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

1. HOW WE GOT HERE: When Trump was president, NIKKI HALEY was often right there by his side as his ambassador to the U.N. Now, they’re sniping at each other on the campaign trail, with Haley hoping to knock Trump off his glide path to the GOP presidential nomination. So how exactly did the relationship wind up here?

WaPo’s Michael Kranish tracks the arc: “An examination of her time as U.N. ambassador shows that, even as she clashed with Trump on some key foreign policy views, she resisted publicly criticizing him, instead pushing for meetings and phone conversations — access that alienated her from some other White House officials. She announced abruptly in October 2018 that she would leave the job, but unlike many others in Trump’s administration, she waited years before forcefully speaking out against his presidential record.”

2. BALLOT BUSINESS: Maine Secretary of State SHENNA BELLOWS wants the state’s high court to weigh in on her decision to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot while a related decision out of Colorado awaits action before the U.S. Supreme Court, Kyle Cheney and Zach Montellaro report. “I know both the constitutional and state authority questions are of grave concern to many,” Bellows said in a statement today. “This appeal ensures that Maine’s highest court has the opportunity to weigh in now, before ballots are counted, promoting trust in our free, safe and secure elections.”

3. LIFE AFTER ROE: WaPo’s Caroline Kitchener and Dan Diamond are up with a look at how the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — a law that the Biden administration pointed to as a crutch after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — is faring. “In the 18 months since Roe fell — a period during which dozens of women have come forward with harrowing stories of medical care denied because of abortion bans — the Biden administration has only publicly announced one case, involving a patient who had sought care in Missouri and Kansas, where it determined that hospitals had violated the law in denying an abortion.”

But it is the administration’s rejection of a complaint in Oklahoma back in October that has “shocked abortion rights advocates and left them frustrated that the Biden administration was not following through on its promise to strongly enforce the law when it came to abortions.”

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4. GAMING OUT THE GARDEN STATE: As Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) stands firm in his refusal to vacate his seat, two Democratic powers are taking aim at his post, regardless of whether he’s involved in the primary. Rep. ANDY KIM (D-N.J.) and New Jersey first lady TAMMY MURPHY are going head to head over who can pull enough levers to get the edge for the seat, which is likely to stay in Democrats’ hands this fall. Murphy has the insider track, with the influence of her husband, Gov. PHIL MURPHY, and the power of county Democratic organizations behind her. But Kim is betting on “turning that strength against her, and harnessing a grassroots revolt against the state’s vaunted Democratic power structure,” Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tamari writes.

5. ON BLAST: A bipartisan group of senators — ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.), JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) and THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.) — sent a letter yesterday requesting information from the Defense Department about “what steps the military is taking to protect troops from brain injuries caused by the blasts from firing their own weapons,” NYT’s Dave Philipps reports. “The senators’ letter lists two pages of concerns about the long-term effects of blasts on brain health. It orders the Defense Department to report back by the end of February on efforts to address the problem.” Read the letter

6. FED UP: Big banks, naturally, are denouncing the Fed’s proposed “Basel III Endgame” plan to increase how much capital they have to hold — but they’re getting backup from an unexpected source: Democratic lawmakers and affordable-housing advocates, WSJ’s Andrew Ackerman writes. “The unusually widespread pushback could complicate regulators’ stated goal of boosting the resilience of the system after a spate of midsize bank failures in 2023, say analysts and banking officials. It also comes as regulators are pushing to act on other priorities, such as ensuring that banks can better meet rapid deposit outflows.”

7. MEDIAWATCH: “The Hill’s online show, ‘Rising,’ falls prey to host’s anti-Israel conspiracy theories,” by Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel: “Since the Oct. 7 attacks, the show’s most high-profile host, BRIAHNA JOY GRAY, a far-left pundit who served as the national press secretary on BERNIE SANDERS’ 2020 presidential campaign, has repeatedly used her platform to downplay the violence, sharing commentary that some viewers have interpreted as defending Hamas’ actions.”

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PLAYBOOKERS

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED last night at a reception hosted by Destination Cleveland at Charlie Palmer Steak, featuring remarks by Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and President and CEO of Destination Cleveland David Gilbert: Ryan Puente, Benjamin Haas, Morgan Dwyer, Chirag Parikh, Greg Schultz, Cameron Trimble, Camille Stewart Gloster, Mike Gwin, Imani Edwards, Patrick Byrne, Marti Flacks, Austin Tyree, Ken Harbaugh, Ryan Uyehara and Lianna Havel.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Reese Gorman starts Monday as a politics reporter covering Trump and Congress for The Daily Beast. He most recently was a congressional reporter at the Washington Examiner.

MEDIA MOVE — Karl Wells is joining WaPo as chief growth officer. He most recently was chief commercial officer at The Information and is a Dow Jones alum. The announcement

TRANSITIONS — Paul Johnson is now senior policy adviser for the House Budget Committee. He most recently was legislative director for Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah). … Beth Connolly is joining Winning Strategies Washington as a senior principal. She previously was assistant director of the Office of Public Health within the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. … Christian Hollowell is now member services senior associate for the House Natural Resources Committee. He previously was director of operations for Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).

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