| | | | |  | | By Irie Sentner, Sophia Cai and Ben Johansen | Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the power dynamics, personnel decisions and policy deliberations of Donald Trump’s White House. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben When President DONALD TRUMP’s first term ended at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was standing at a podium in the briefing room, in the midst of a deadly tragedy, blaming enemies and sparring with reporters as aides looked on. The disease and the deaths played backdrop to Trumpian theater. Thursday morning, hours after another deadly tragedy, he was back in the same place. Tragedy. Trump. Repeat. The collision of a military helicopter and passenger jet Wednesday night over the Potomac River — a crash that had no survivors — was the fault of former Presidents BARACK OBAMA and JOE BIDEN, and former Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG, and, mostly, the diversity, equity and inclusion programs the Democrats had let infect the federal government, Trump said in his winding introductory remarks. Buttigieg was “a disaster,” the president said, who “just got a good line of bullshit” and had “run [the department] right into the ground with his diversity.” Trump had “put safety first” — but “Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level.” Asked by reporters why he assumed Democratic diversity hiring had been to blame for the crash despite still being less than 24 hours into the investigation, Trump said it was because he had “common sense.” “It just could have been,” Trump said. It was a return to the style of Trump’s bombastic Covid-era briefings, when the president — flanked by members of his Coronavirus Taskforce — went head to head with a combative press corps, transforming the historically subdued briefing room into reality TV. While Trump dealt with a number of tragedies during his first term in the same way, it was the Covid-19 briefings — amid quarantines, widespread fear and rising death tolls — that left an indelible mark in the nation’s collective memory. In those early days of the pandemic, when the public was hungry for critical public health information, experts like Dr. ANTHONY FAUCI and Dr. DEBORAH BIRX stood by Trump, but sometimes found themselves in the awkward position of having to gently correct or walk back some of his unsubstantiated claims. Flash forward to 2025: Same room, same president, many of the same reporters — and the same truculent energy. “Do you even yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed — and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. military who was flying that Blackhawk helicopter? Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of the investigation right now?” asked CNN’s KAITLAN COLLINS, who rose to stardom at the network sparring with the president during his first term. “No, I don’t think so at all,” Trump countered, adding that he expects that the list of passenger names will be released “very soon.” “I think that’s not a very smart question, I’m surprised [it’s] coming from you.” And Trump’s newest Cabinet members and No. 2 — who dutifully sat along the briefing room wall on Thursday until Trump called them up to the podium — already knew the drill. Vice President JD VANCE, Transportation Secretary SEAN DUFFY and Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH all began their brief remarks by praising Trump. “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department. … Thank you for your leadership and courage on that, sir,” Hegseth told Trump. Still, the deputies remained more restrained than their boss. They named no names, placed no direct blame on Democrats and committed to investigating what had gone wrong. MESSAGE US — Are you National Transportation Safety Board Chair JENNIFER HOMENDY? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
| | | | Power shifts, razor-thin margins, and a high-stakes agenda. We’ve transformed our coverage—more reporters, more timely insights, and unmatched policy scoops. From leadership offices to committee rooms, caucus meetings, and beyond, our expert reporting keeps you ahead of the decisions that matter. Subscribe to our Inside Congress newsletter today. | | | | | | | Which president had a pet bobcat named SMOKY? (Answer at bottom.)
| | MORE ON THE DCA CRASH: During Thursday’s briefing, Trump named CHRIS ROCHELEAU, a top executive for an aviation business association, as acting administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration, our ADAM WREN, MYAH WARD and Sophia report. Senate-confirmed FAA chief MIKE WHITAKER stepped down on Inauguration Day, months after ELON MUSK demanded he leave because of comments he made about one of Musk’s companies. The NY Times reported this afternoon that staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was “not normal” during the crash, according to a preliminary FAA report. The report said the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways, jobs typically done by two different controllers. MAKING IT OFFICIAL: Trump on Thursday afternoon signed two executive actions in the Oval Office related to the crash. One was a formal commission to appoint the deputy administrator of the FAA, and the second was a memorandum ordering an immediate assessment of aviation safety — and an elevation of “competence” over “DEI.” When asked if he plans to visit the crash site, Trump responded: “What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?” before adding that he will meet with some of the victims’ families. MORE FROM THE RESOLUTE DESK: Asked if he thinks he has enough votes on the Supreme Court to side with his administration on ending birthright citizenship, the president said: “I think so, yeah.” He added that the policy — enshrined in the 14th Amendment ratified in 1868 — “was meant for the children of slaves,” which he said was “a very good and noble thing to do.” “But it wasn't meant for the entire world to occupy the United States,” Trump added. AND ON TAIWAN: Asked about potential pressure from Chinese President XI JINPING for Trump to disavow Taiwanese independence, Trump replied: “We never discussed it.”
| | THREE TROUBLED NOMS: Some of Trump’s most controversial nominees – ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., KASH PATEL and TULSI GABBARD — appeared before senators Thursday for more confirmation hearings. Kennedy, Trump’s pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, made a similar case in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Thursday as he did yesterday in front of the Senate Finance Committee, which will have the final say on advancing his nomination to the Senate floor. Sen. BILL CASSIDY (R-La.), a retired gastroenterologist, outspoken vaccine proponent and key swing vote on Kennedy’s nomination, grilled the nominee over his support for the disproven theory that some vaccines cause autism. Cassidy spent almost all of his speaking time pleading with Kennedy to outwardly disavow the widely discredited theory, but Kennedy did not, instead saying “if the data is there, I will absolutely do that.” Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary ranking member DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.) accused Patel, nominee for FBI director, of peddling conspiracy theories around the Capitol insurrection and pointed to the list of alleged “Deep State” officials in the nominee's book that includes a number of Democrats and former Trump administration officials, our HAILEY FUCHS reports. Durbin asked Patel if he was familiar with far-right radio host STEW PETERS, who has promoted Holocaust denial propaganda, pushed debunked Covid-19 conspiracy theories and once shared a photo of himself smiling with a copy of “Mein Kampf” — among other extremist views. “Not off the top of my head,” Patel responded. He has appeared on Peters’ podcast several times, once telling Peters: “You have a great show.” And Gabbard, who likely faces the toughest path to confirmation as director of national intelligence, defended her record against what she called “lies and smears” in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, our JOE GOULD reports. The former Democrat, who represented Hawaii in the House, was asked by lawmakers in both parties about her stance on EDWARD SNOWDEN — the former government contractor who released classified data on American surveillance programs in 2013 — who she, five years ago, praised and vowed to pardon in an appearance on JOE ROGAN’s podcast. Gabbard eventually told Sen. SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine) that she would not recommend pardoning Snowden if confirmed, after getting into a heated back-and-forth with Sen. MICHAEL BENNET (D-Colo.) over the issue.
| | “CHAOS, MISTRUST, CONFUSION”: A federal workforce of some 2 million employees is still reeling after receiving emails offering them a chance to resign ahead of more unspecified Trump efforts to shrink the government, our ELI STOKOLS reports. Upwards of hundreds of thousands of individual employees were struggling with what to do. It prompted “chaos, mistrust, confusion,” said one DOJ employee. “There’s also a deep suspicion, especially among people who think they may be on the chopping block, that this is the last lifeboat in town.” “The blanket approach, which is pure Elon Musk, is going to have unintended consequences down the road,” ELAINE KAMARCK, a government studies fellow at the Brookings Institution said before Wednesday’s air crash. “What if a third of the nation’s air traffic controllers take this buyout? Or all the CDC scientists leave for the private sector and then there’s a tuberculosis epidemic? That’s the risk with the way they’ve done it, sort of using a blowtorch for a very small issue.” YOU GET A SECURITY CLEARANCE! AND YOU GET A SECURITY CLEARANCE! On Thursday, Rep. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-Va.), ranking member on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to DAVID WARRINGTON, counsel to the president, expressing concern over Trump’s decision to allow White House counsel to grant Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances to individuals without appropriate vetting. “This extraordinary and unprecedented action sidesteps law enforcement, the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community without regard to insider threats or other national security threats,” Connolly wrote in the letter. “Inappropriate and unauthorized access to or disclosure of TS/SCI ‘could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security.”
| | Congress’ airport is now home to America’s worst aviation disaster in decades (POLITICO’s Sam Ogozalek, Chris Marquette and Oriana Pawlyk) The Memo That Shocked the White House (The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker) Does Trump’s Cabinet Look Like a Meritocracy to You? (NYT’s David French)
| | President CALVIN COOLIDGE and first lady GRACE COOLIDGE had a wide assortment of pets during their time at the White House, according to the Presidential Pet Museum. A bobcat named Smoky was one of them. Smoky was given to the Coolidges as a gift from the Great Smoky Mountains Association. According to MARGARET TRUMAN in “White House Pets”: “The President wanted no part of that snarling, spitting bundle of dynamite, but he had to take it, for a very good reason. The county in which the dear little fellow had been captured was the tightest Republican stronghold in the United States of America.” A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Jennifer Haberkorn, Noah Bierman and Kaitlyn Locke
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